The conduct of Lavengro with respect to drink may, upon the whole, serve as a model.  He is no drunkard, nor is he fond of intoxicating other people; yet when the horrors are upon him he has no objection to go to a public-house and call for a pint of ale, nor does he shrink from recommending ale to others when they are faint and downcast.  In one instance, it is true, he does what cannot be exactly justified; he encourages the Priest in the dingle, in more instances than one, in drinking more hollands and water than is consistent with decorum.  He has a motive indeed in doing so; a desire to learn from the knave in his cups the plans and hopes of the Propaganda of Rome.  Such conduct, however, was inconsistent with strict fair dealing and openness; and the author advises all those whose consciences never reproach them for a single unfair or covert act committed by them, to abuse him heartily for administering hollands and water to the Priest of Rome.  In that instance the hero is certainly wrong; yet in all other cases with regard to drink, he is manifestly right.  To tell people that they are never to drink a glass of ale or wine themselves, or to give one to others, is cant; and the writer has no toleration for cant of any description.  Some cants are not dangerous; but the writer believes that a more dangerous cant than the temperance cant, or as it is generally called, teetotalism, is scarcely to be found.  The writer is willing to believe that it originated with well meaning, though weak people; but there can be no doubt that it was quickly turned to account by people who were neither well meaning nor weak.  Let the reader note particularly the purpose to which this cry has been turned in America; the land, indeed, par excellence, of humbug and humbug cries.  It is there continually in the mouth of the most violent political party, and is made an instrument of almost unexampled persecution.  The writer would say more on the temperance cant, both in England and America, but want of space prevents him.  There is one point on which he cannot avoid making a few brief remarks—­that is, the inconsistent conduct of its apostles in general.  The teetotal apostle says, it is a dreadful thing to be drunk.  So it is, teetotaller; but if so, why do you get drunk?  I get drunk?  Yes, unhappy man, why do you get drunk on smoke and passion?  Why are your garments impregnated with the odour of the Indian weed?  Why is there a pipe or a cigar always in your mouth?  Why is your language more dreadful than that of a Poissarde?  Tobacco-smoke is more deleterious than ale, teetotaller; bile more potent than brandy.  You are fond of telling your hearers what an awful thing it is to die drunken.  So it is, teetotaller.  Then take good care that you do not die with smoke and passion, drunken, and with temperance language on your lips; that is, abuse and calumny against all those who differ from you.  One word of sense you have been heard to say, which is, that spirits