9.  But here comes an insect of figure! don’t you take notice of a little white straw that he carries in his mouth?  That straw, you must understand, he would not part with for the longest tract about the mole-hill:  did you but know what he has undergone to purchase it!  See how the ants of all qualities and conditions swarm about him!  Should this straw drop out of his mouth, you would see all this numerous circle of attendants follow the next that took it up, and leave the discarded insect, or run over his back to come at his successor.

10.  If now you have a mind to see all the ladies of the mole-hill, observe first the pismire that listens to the emmet on her left hand, at the same time that she seems to turn away her head from him.  He tells this poor insect that she is a goddess, that her eyes are brighter than the sun, that life and death are at her disposal.  She believes him, and gives herself a thousand little airs upon it.

11.  Mark the vanity of the pismire on your left hand.  She can scarce crawl with age; but you must know she values herself upon her birth; and if you mind, spurns at every one that comes within her reach.  The little nimble coquette that is running along by the side of her, is a wit.  She has broke many a pismire’s heart.  Do but observe what a drove of lovers are running after her.

12.  We will here finish this imaginary scene; but first of all, to draw the parallel closer, will suppose, if you please, that death comes down upon the mole-hill in the shape of a cock-sparrow, who picks up without distinction, the pismire of quality and his flatterers, the pismire of substance and his day labourers, the white straw officer and his sycophants, with all the goddesses, wits, and beauties of the mole-hill.

13.  May we not imagine that beings of superior natures and perfections regard all the instances of pride and vanity, among our own species, in the same kind of view, when they take a survey of those who inhabit the earth; or, in the language of an ingenious French poet, of those pismires that people this heap of dirt, which human vanity has divided into climates and regions.

GUARDIAN, Vol.  II.  No. 153.

Drunkenness.

1.  No vices are so incurable as those which men are apt to glory in.  One would wonder how drunkenness should have the good luck to be of this number. Anarcharsis, being invited to a match of drinking at Corinth, demanded the prize very humourously, because he was drunk before any of the rest of the company, for, says he, when we run a race, he who arrives at the goal first, is entitled to the reward: 

2.  On the contrary, in this thirsty generation, the honour falls upon him who carries off the greatest quantity of liquor, and knocks down the rest of the company.  I was the other day with honest Will Funnell, the West Saxon, who was reckoning up how much liquor had passed through him in the last twenty years of his life, which, according to his computation, amounted to twenty-three hogsheads of October, four ton of port, half a kilderkin of small-beer, nineteen barrels of cyder, and three glasses of champaigne; besides which he had assisted at four hundred bowls of punch, not to mention sips, drams, and whets without number.