DIGITISED MANUSCRIPTS

ee eT ~~ ammo i (a4 unable to restrain his passion for drink, he entered a low public-house at Dover; and though disguised, was recognised by one of his former victims, captured, and taken to the Tower, where, after three months, he killed himself by drinking large quantities of brandy. During the whole of the eighteenth cen- tury, intemperance, and, consequently, grossness of habits, were universally prevalent. In 1719 Lord Wharton gave a dinner to celebrate the coming of age of his son, the future famous Duke of Wharton, owner of the estates of Waddesdon and Upper Win- chenden. After the party had freely partaken of liquor, the youthful lord rose to propose the health of his father in the following terms :— ‘TI pray God to shorten The days of Lord Wharton, And set up his son in his stead. He’ll drink and he’ll roar, And a thousand things more, And never go sober to bed.’ The comical point of the incident is that old Lord Wharton, being stone-deaf, responded ‘ Amen.’ Sir Robert Walpole, the Prime Minister, the possessor of one of the finest mansions and choicest galleries of pictures in the country, was a model of intemperance and coarseness. He must have had a lurking suspicion, however, of the degradation of intemperance, for he often sent for one of his sons