FAMOUS TOPERS AND TIPPLERS

My masters, are you mad? or what are you?
Have you no wit, manners, nor honesty, but
to gabble like tinkers at this time of night?
Do ye make an alehouse out of my lady's
house, that ye squeak out your cozier's catches
without any mitigation or remorse of voice?
Is there no respect of place, persons or time
with you?

-TWELFTH NIGHT.

As a confirmed toper and roisterer, Sir Toby Belch, in "Twelfth Night," ranks next to Falstaff. Some critics trace a resemblance between the two, and intimate that they were drawn from a common prototype. They are both inordinately fond of sack, and each has a ductile conscience when it comes to refilling his purse. Sir John avails himself of the senility of Justice Shallow to restore his fortunes; Sir Toby plays upon the folly of Sir Andrew Aguecheek to the tune of two thousand dollars.

But here the likeness seems to stop. Belch has several good points in spite of his besetting vice. He is not a coward like Falstaff, and, while rough and boisterous, his humor is cleaner than Sir John's. There is a great deal of the practical joker in his make-up. He enters heartily into the frolics of Maria, the witty serving maid, and he is always ready to back the fool and prodigal, Aguecheek, so long as that congenital weakling is prone to riot and provoke mirth.

Sir Toby displays his true colors from the start. He does not mask his love of sack and late hours. Beyond the sport derived from this predilection, and the fun in bleeding Sir Andrew, he has no marked viciousness. He is proud of his bibulous capacity. He has little use for persons who do not drink, and he has an intense hatred of

hypocrisy. It is with magnificent scorn that he demands of the mincing Malvolio: "Because thou art virtuous, shall there be no more cakes and ale?" He has no axes to grind like Falstaff; his sole aim is to have a good time in the fullest meaning of the term. In short, he is an idle, fairly good-natured drunkard, intent upon getting through life easily and securing all the pleasure possible by the way.

While enlivening the action of the play, the conduct of Belch accentuates many of the odious features of intemperance. He is a thorn in the side of his melancholy niece, whose house he turns into a tavern, and whom he almost distracts with his drunken pranks. Like other veteran topers, he is indifferent to dress and personal appearance. Maria was displeased with him in this particular. She objected to a prospective husband being slovenly and dirty, or wasting too much time over the flowing bowl. She pleads with him to confine himself within the modest limits of order.

Criticism of this kind invariably ruffles the temper of the toper, and Sir Toby's plume was up in a jiffy. "Confine!" he exclaims; "confine! I'll confine myself no finer than I am. These clothes are good enough to drink in; and so be these boots, too; an they be not, let them hang themselves in their own straps."'

But Maria is persistent. She fears for his reputation. She tells him plainly that this quaffing and ricting will undo him, and she warns him against Sir Andrew, who got drunk nightly in his company.

Sir Toby is irritated by this scolding. He is not going to be dictated to by anybody. He is perfectly able to regulate his own conduct, and be the judge of what is correct and proper in his deportment. He can see nothing wrong in burning sack after midnight, when it is too late to go to bed, for it is done in a worthy cause. "It's

with drinking healths to my niece. I'll drink to her as long as there is a passage in my throat and liquor in Illyria. He's a coward and a coystril who will not drink to my niece till his brains turn o' the toe like a parish top."

There is a familiar sound in this declaration. Topers and tipplers are always ready with an excuse for drinking, in season and out. Liquor cools them in hot weather and warms them in winter; they drink to drown sorrow and to inspire mirth, to banish the blues or nourish dull care. Whether there be weddings, christenings or funerals, any occasion serves; the readiness to drink is all.

Further on we get another insight of the nature that makes all drunkards kin. When Sir Toby gets his head broken, he calls for Dick, the surgeon. "Oh, he's drunk an hour agone, says the Clown; "his eyes were set at eight i' the morning." Then Belch straightens himself into an attitude of exalted virtue and scornfully exclaims: "I hate a drunken rogue !"

This is a shrewd touch of the master hand. While drinking men foregather in the barroom or club, they find

A sweet fellowship in shame;

One drunkard loves another of the name.

They sympathize with one another's ills as they gulp the morning bracer. They exchange views on liquid panaceas and devise plans for future bouts. But mark the difference. When they lack the support and countenance of mutual conviviality, and listen to the story of some other drunkard's woe, they shrug their shoulders in utter contempt, and exclaim with Sir Toby: "I hate a drunken rogue!"

The observant Clown, who has much of the workingday wisdom of his profession, gives a shrewd analysis of the several degrees of drunkenness. When Belch excuses

his hiccoughs with "A plague o' these pickled herring," Olivia asks what a drunken man is like.

"Like a drowned man, a fool and a madman,” answers the Clown. "One draught above heat makes him a fool; the second mads him, and a third drowns him." "Then," responds the Countess, "go thou and seek the crowner, and bid him sit o' my coz; for he's in the third degree of drink, he's drowned."

Here is a valuable hint to the prohibitionists. If the coroner were called every time a man is found drowned in liquor, the ranks of our lusty topers would soon thin out. The verdict would doubtless be suicide in each case, and the victim would be buried at the crossroads of public scorn and censure, for the world is beginning to have scant patience with men who have not the grace or the skill to avoid or conceal such grave offenses against decency and social order.

Sir Andrew Aguecheek shows how easy it is to gull a drinking man. He is a pitiable lack-wit, but when sober he has a modicum of common sense. He realizes then that the Countess is far removed from him, and that his lovesuit is futile; but, under the skillful handling of the master toper, he decides to send for more money and try conclusions for another month.

He is as easily led by the nose as other asses are, and Sir Toby leads him into all sorts of scrapes, persuading the poor drunkard that he has gifts that should not be hid, and native valor that needs but exercise and opportunity to achieve honor and win the Countess. Belch gravely assures him: "There is no love-broker in the world can more prevail in man's commendation with woman than report of valor."

And when he has Sir Andrew in this mood, the cunning old joker derides the silly gentleman behind his back. He chuckles to Fabian: "For Andrew, if he were

opened, and you find as much blood in his liver as would clog the foot of a flea, I'll eat the rest of the anatomy."

In one respect, Belch resembles Iago; he makes his fool his purse, and while he does not kill Aguecheek in the end, he casts him off with epithets burning with disdain and contempt.

Sir Toby himself leaves the scene in a woeful plight, the consequence of a drunken scrimmage. He took Cesario for a coward and starts to inflict punishment on the "dishonest paltry boy," but he encounters Sebastian, who proved a "very devil incardinate." The last we see of him he is crying for the doctor and on his way to bed with a bloody coxcomb, after being roundly berated by his niece. "Will it ever be thus," Olivia exclaimed, when she found him with sword drawn again Sebastian:

Ungracious wretch,

Fit for the mountains and the barbarous caves,
Where manners ne'er were preached. Out of my sight!

While the game lasted, Sir Toby made the most of his opportunities. He kept the house in an uproar and made everybody minister to his drunken caprices. His mad rule was broken with the advent of Sebastian, for while the Countess, in her new-found happiness, directs that his hurt be attended to, she doubtless permitted her husband to turn him adrift after relating "how many fruitless pranks this ruffian hath botched up."

Topers and tipplers of every age and every country display certain peculiarities from which normal persons are generally free. Most of them, for instance, are inclined to "swear off" when conscience begins to prick and sting, or when mind and body register bitter protest against their devastating habit.

Master Slender, in "The Merry Wives of Windsor," formed a good resolution after a drunken experience. He had been out all night with Falstaff's triumvirate of