“Death’s Doings,” with twenty-four plates, designed and etched by Mr. Dagley, as dedicated to his friend Mr. Douce, and composed of several original productions of his own, and contributions from various writers. The etching I endeavoured to illustrate, represented, the Skeleton, as a butler, or waiter, drawing a magnum for four convivial fellows boozing at a table, whose appearances are alluded to in the text—as follows:—
“An’ if it be the last bottle, Death is quite welcome; for then Life hath run to very dregs and lees, and there is nothing more in it which can be called enjoyment. Ah, whither have ye sped, ye jovial Hours, which on bright-winged glasses, far different from yon sandy remembrancer, floated away so blissfully; as the bird poised high in air, the trouble of the ascent over, glides without effort or motion, through the brilliant pleasures of yielding space. How ye sparkled and ran on, like gay creatures of the element gifted with more than magic powers. Beautiful and slight ephemera, fragile as you seemed, what mighty loads of cares did you easily bear off in your aerial flight! Ponderous debts which might weigh nations down; the griefs of many loves, enow to drown a world; the falsehoods of friends, the malice of enemies; anxieties, fears, troubles, sorrows—all vanished as drinking ye proceeded in your mystic dance! I picture ye in my fancy, now, ye Hours, as sparkling, joyous, and exquisite insects, flitting past with each a burden of man’s miseries on his shoulders sufficient to break the back of a camel, and borne from the lightened hearts of your true worshippers. But, alas! alas! for all things mortal—we must come to the last at last.
“Yet let the grim tyrant approach at any time,
sith it must be so, and at what time can he approach when we should
less regard his frown. Like the unconscious lamb, which ‘licks
the hand just raised to shed its blood,’ we play with his
bony fingers as he presents the latest draught; and let his dart be
dipped in the rosy flood, we die feeling that wine gives to Death
| THE LAST BOTTLE. | 397 |
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Behold that breathless corpse;
You’ll be like it when you die:
Therefore drink without remorse,
And be merry, merrily.
Ai-lun, Ai-lun, Ai-lun,* quo’ he!
Our only night, no sky light, drink about,
quo’ we.
|
“Time they tell us, waits for no man;—
Time and Tide, For no man bide; |
While here we meet, a jovial band, No Son of Discord’s impious hand Dare fling the apple, fire the brand, To mar our social joy: |
Free, as our glorious country free, Prospering in her prosperity, With wine, and jest, and harmony, We Pleasure’s hours employ. |
But lo, he whose face is half concealed by that arm uplifted with the sparkling glass, he has drunk till the tender mood of philosophy steals over his melting soul. His maudlin eye would moisten with a tear at a tale of sorrow or a plaintive
* Literally in the Greek, “Behold that corpse; you will resemble it after your death: drink now, therefore, and be merry.”—(See Herodotus and Plutarch, on the Egyption Maneros, passim). The fine chorus of Ai-lun, “He is dwelling with the night,” is, we trust, pathetically rendered. |
| 398 | APPENDIX. |
Death comes but once, the philosophers say, And ’tis true, my brave boys, but that
once is a clencher: It takes us from drinking and loving away, And spoils at a blow the best tippler and
wencher. Sine Ai-lun, though to me very odd it is, Yet, I sing it, too, as my friend quotes
Herodotus. |
And Death comes to all, so they tell us again, Which also I fear, my brave boys, is no fable; Yet the moral it teaches, to me is quite plain: ’Tis to love all we can and to drink all
we’re able. Sing, again, Ai-lun, though to me odd it is; But ’tis Greek, very good I hope, and
comes from Herodotus. |
Let the sparkling glass go round, The sparkling glass where care is drowned; For while we drink, we live, we live! Let the joyous roof ring with the measure, The sweetest of the muses’ treasure That Music’s voice can give. Thus crowned, the present beams with pleasure, The memory of the past is lighter, The prospect of the future brighter— And while we drink, we live, we live. Chorus.—We live, we live, we live,
we live, For while we drink, we live, we live. |
“Another cork is drawn. At the smacking sound cares,
fears, pains, fly from the unruffled soul of man, as wild fowl fly from the
placid lake at the report of the fowler’s gun. The undulating
agitation of the instant,—the centric, concentric, elliptic, parabolic, and
every imaginary shape into which its glancing bosom is broken, ripples and
sparkles with light, and all then gently subsides into smoothness and
serenity.—The calm is delicious, and the bowl becomes more and more brimmed
with
| THE LAST BOTTLE. | 399 |
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The brave, and the learned, and the good, and the wise,
All come to the same simple close of “Here lies.”
Then let us employ
Our moments in joy—
And before the sure end make the best use of Time.
’Twere folly to pine
O’er generous wine,
Since sadness is madness, and gloom is life’s crime,
‘Trinc, trinc, trinc,’*—I speak,
French words and French wines are far better than Greek.
|
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Look, along the bright board, like a river it flows
With a liquid whose sparkling no water e’er knows;
While’the banks are with friends in good fellowship crowned,
Who bathe deep in the stream and ne’er fear being drowned,
’Tis Bacchus’ hour,
So let him out-pour
All his treasures, while we make the best use of Time;
Friendship and wine
Are union divine,
And when drunk, mortal drunk, mortal man is sublime!
‘Trinc, trinc, trinc,’—I speak,
French words and French wines are far better than
Greek.
|
“Encore, encore—no more, no more: the last measure is full, the last verse is sung, the last cork has left the neck of the last bottle open. The gloomy assassin strikes—He who has been so often dead drunk, what is he now? At the next meeting there was one chair empty, one jolly dog absent—Ai-lun. And what
* When the oracle of the Holy Bottle was pronounced by the trinkling of the drops which fell from it, quoth Panurge, “Is this all that the Trismegistian Bottle’s words mean? In truth I like it extremely, it went down like mother’s milk.”—“Nothing more,” returned Bacbuc (the high priest), “for trinc is a Panomphean word, that is, a word understood, used, and celebrated by all nations, and signifies Drink.”—See Rabelais for this adventure of Pantagruel and Panurge. |
| 400 | APPENDIX. |
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Here lies William Wassail, cut
down by the Mower;
None ever drank faster or paid their debts slower—
Now quiet he lies as he sleeps with the Just.
He has drank his Last Bottle, and fast, fast
he sped it o’er,
And paid his great debt to his principal Creditor;
And compounded with all the
rest, even with Dust.”
|
