"Not long youth lasteth,
And old age hasteth.
"All things invite us
Now to delight us,"
is the Elizabethan rendering of Father William's counsel; and the hospitable ghost in Fletcher's "Lovers' Progress," who, being dead, must know whereof he speaks, conjures his guests to
"Drink apace, while breath you have,
You'll find but cold drink in the grave."
Apart from life's brevity and inconstancy, there is always the incentive of patriotism and national pride summoning the reveler to deep and ever deeper potations. It is thus he proves himself a true son of the soil, a loyal and law-abiding Englishman.
"We'll drink off our liquor while we can stand,
And hey for the honour of Old England!"
sang the Devonshire harvesters two hundred years ago, connecting in some beery fashion the glory of their native isle with the gallons of home-brewed ale they consumed so cheerfully in her name; and the same sentiment is more intelligibly embodied in that graceless
