Having received the following letter from a merry friend, wherein are some (not unpleasant) remarks on the foregoing treatise, I thought fit to send it to the press, which the reader, as he is at liberty either to read, or let alone, so it is the same thing to me, whether he does read it, or let it alone.
To the renowned Boniface Oinophilus de Monte Fiascone, A. B. C. author of the most inimitable (and non-pareil) treatise, Ebrietatis Encomium, to be left with that mirror of privative perspicuity, Signor Edemondo Curluccio, at the Bible and Dial, over against Catherine-Street, in the Strand.
Right trusty, and well-beloved, I greet you well,
Having perused (at the bookseller's, who shewed me the sheets) your Ebrietatis Encomium all through, even unto Finis, or the End, I own I was not a little diverted thereat. But as I never flatter any body, so my friends may least of all expect I should begin with them. I must, therefore, be frank and free with you, most renowned and never-to-be-forgotten Boniface, _post nullos memorande sodales_, and tell you, that you have omitted several things very material, and highly conducible to the elucidation, or illustration, (choose you whether) of your agreeable subject. But perhaps they either did not occur to your memory; or, which is the same thing, (_quoad lectorem_) you were entirely ignorant of them, but which take as follow.
First and foremost, amongst your philosophers, you have taken no notice of the stupendous Des Cartes, with his wonderful system of whirlpools (vortices) and particles, cubic, conic, striate, oblong, globular, hooked, crooked, spiral and angular: for who the devil but a mere tipsy, giddy brains, could have dished up such a confounded hotch-potch and gallimatias of whimsical rotations, or fancied that the whole earth whirled round like a town-top, had not _Vinorum materia subtilis_, the circling effluvia of _Liber Pater_, abundantly invaded his capital regions.
So have I seen in days of yore a dame, At Winchester, who seventy winters knew, Not more nor less, my mistress then yclept, Hight Margaret, deceas'd long since I trow, Whose fate I thus bemoan'd in song sublime. She's gone, alas! the beauteous nymph is dead, Dead to my hopes, and all my eager wishes: Such is the state of poor unhappy man, All things soon pass away, nought permanent, That rolls beneath the vortex of the moon. So when we've screw'd up to the highest Peg[1] Our ample lines of future happiness, Some disappointments dire, or chance disastrous, Snaps the extended chords. Oh! then farewell, No more shall visual ray of form acute Affect her wondrous mien. Farewell those lips Of sapphire tincture, gums of crocus die Freed from th'ungrateful load of cumbrous teeth. Mantle farewell, of grograin brown compos'd, Studded with silver clasp in number plural: With jacket short, so famous, tory red, Not hemm'd, but bound about with good galloon Of deepest mazarine (delightful hue!) Farewell (I sighing speak) those non-such shoes Of obfusc colour (heel of form cylindrous) Worn only upon days non-ferial. In love's true knot of verdant ferrit tied.