severe onset of gout, or the illness leading up to it, would cause the retirement of the most prominent statesmen. Many of them died young. Few indeed of them reached a healthy and vigorous old age. For heavy drinking was not confined to the idlers and

spendthrifts, the courtiers and country gentlemen; it was a custom with the ablest and most brilliant men in England. Pitt and Fox, the two "Great Commoners," were noted topers. The old couplet is still remembered that refers to a scene in the House of