Ebrietatis Encomium or, the Praise of Drunkenness   By: Albert-Henri de Sallengre (1694-1723)

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This book was originally published in 1714 as "Eloge de l'Yvresse" by Albert Henri de Sallengre, and translated in 1723 by Robert Samber with the present title. The 1812 edition updates the spelling and punctuation, and omits part of the title page (see Errata), but is otherwise the same text.

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[Illustration: VIVIMUS DUM BIBIMUS]

EBRIETATIS ENCOMIUM :

or, the PRAISE of DRUNKENNESS:

Wherein Is Authentically, and Most Evidently Proved,

THE NECESSITY of FREQUENTLY GETTING DRUNK;

And, That the Practice Is Most Ancient, Primitive, and Catholic.

By BONIFACE OINOPHILUS, De Monte Fiascone, A. B. C.

Vinum lætificans cor hominis. Narratur et prisci Catonis, Sæpe mero caluisse virtus. HOR.

LONDON: Printed For C. Chapple, Pall Mall.

1812.

Harding & Wright, Printers, St. John's Square, London.

EBRIETATIS ENCOMIUM:

OR, THE

PRAISE OF DRUNKENNESS

THE

PREFACE.

If ever preface might serve for an apology, certainly this ought to do so. The bare title of the book is enough to have it universally cried down, and to give the world an ill opinion of its author; for people will not be backward to say, that he who writes the Praise of Drunkenness, must be a drunkard by profession; and who, by discoursing on such a subject, did nothing but what was in his own trade, and resolved not to move out of his own sphere, not unlike Baldwin, a shoe maker's son, (and a shoe maker), in the days of yore, who published a treatise on the shoes of the ancients, having a firm resolution strictly to observe this precept, Ne sutor ultra crepidam .

To this I answer, I am very well contented, that the world should believe me as much a drunkard, as Erasmus, who wrote The Praise of Folly, was a fool, and weigh me in the same balance.

But some will say, what good can a man propose to himself in being a panegyrist for drunkenness? To solve this difficulty I shall make use of a comparison.

M. Pelisson, in his History of the French Academy, says, that Menage did not compose that famous Requete des Dictionaires, in which he ridicules all the academics, on account of any aversion he had to them, but purely to divert himself, and not to lose the witty turns that came into his head upon that subject. In the same manner, I declare that I did not undertake this work on account of any zeal I have for wine, you must think, but only to divert myself, and not to lose a great many curious remarks I have made upon this most catholic liquid.