The Sly-Boots 315 Caught Tripping.

One vice naturally begets another; and drunkenness may be compared to a traitor in a garrison, who unlocks / the door of the citadel, and admits the enemy while the commanders and soldiers are asleep; or to a miner who makes a breach in a Dutch dyke, and lets in the incumbent torrent, to sweep away in a moment, a century’s improvements of nature and art. Or it may be compared to a madman on a courser, throwing the reins on the neck of the headlong steed, and driving him heedlessly along the side of a precipice. This, we lament to say, was the case with the lieutenant’s party, who, after their copious libations to Bacchus, proposed to sacrifice also to the Cyprian goddess; ³¹⁶ and (what we blush to say) deacon Liptrap and Mr. Mawworm were the most forward in promoting this expedition; whether the fumes of the wine had laid reason asleep, and given their dormant passions a fillip; ³¹⁷ or whether the curtain being drawn, discovered only what their hypocrisy and art concealed from the public eye. ‘What, my old boy,’ said Aaron, ‘you are then for a / wench too! I thought you was as chaste as an icicle, and demure as the figure of Joseph on an old tapestry. O, you’re a sly one!’