“I would sooner take to poison Than a single cup set eyes on Of that bitter and guilty stuff ye Talk of by the name of coffee;” and the _Times_ everywhere inculcates the idea that, without wine, poetry and eloquence and wit were dumb and dead. Was Sidney Smith witty, was Shelley a poet, or was he who in old times drew away the Hebrew multitude from the crowded streets of Jerusalem out into the desert, whose food was locusts and wild honey, whose raiment was a leathern girdle—was he not eloquent, as he warned the terror-stricken mob that hung upon his lips of the wrath to come? Facts are not in favour of the wine-drinkers. Of Waller Dr Johnson writes, “In a time when fancy and gaiety were the most powerful recommendations to regard, it is not likely that Waller was forgotten. He passed his time in the company that was highest both in rank and wit, from which even his obstinate sobriety did not exclude him. Though he drank water, he was enabled by his fertility of mind to heighten the mirth of Bacchanalian assemblies; and Mr Saville said that ‘no man in England should keep him company without drinking, but Ned Waller.’” “In Parliament,” says Burnet, “he was the delight of the House, and, though old, said the liveliest things of any of them.” The truth is, men have often reserved the outpourings of their mind for the social glass, and have fallen into the natural mistake of believing that it was the glass, and not the opportunity and the action of mind upon mind, that elicited a certain amount of joyous fun. I must quote an anecdote from Sir Walter Scott’s Life to illustrate my meaning. He tells us one of his school-fellows was always at the top of the class. Young Scott found that when asked a question the lad alluded to was in the habit of fumbling one peculiar button. Scott cut off that button. The next time the poor fellow was asked a question, as usual he put his hand to fumble the friendly button—alas! it was gone, and with it his power, and he speedily lost his place. The writers I have quoted, to be consistent, should argue it was the button that made that lad sharp and clever.