THE LATE DISCOURSE UPON HEALTHS

John Floyer Believed Fervently In The Benefits Of Cold Baths

Back in England, right around the time of Cotton Mather's death, the issue of drinking healths was being addressed as well. On July 24, 1728, influential physician John Floyer (who popularized the practice of taking pulses as well as being an early advocate for the merits of cold baths) published an open letter on the subject entitled, "A Letter to a Reverend Gentleman in Oxford, on the Subject of drinking Healths." From the introduction of that letter:

The late discourse upon Healths, which you are pleased to mention with so much approbation, being in the hands of few persons about you; and some of those not having leisure or inclination to afford it a ferious and attentive perusal: and because, as you farther intimate, there is no end of disputing upon this subject in common conversation; I have therefore contracted the substance of a longer reasoning into two short questions, with some remarks upon them. These you may make use of upon occasion, and communicate to such of your acquaintance as are in any disposition to be convinced of how great consequence it is to sink a pernicious custom; which is not only evil in the nature of the thing, but hath been subservient to the vileft purposes, no less than the safe and ready venting and encouraging a great variety of abominable wickedness under colour and disguise.

So John Floyer has given the matter a "ferious" and "attentive" perusal and has very much come to the conclusion that it is a destructive custom that encourages "abominable wickedness", despite the ongoing debate about the matter in common discourse. Further, he intends to present his arguments as to why he believes this in two separate questions along with remarks upon them which can then be used as arguments against those that would dispute the ill nature of the practice. We will consider these arguments in separate future posts.

COTTON MATHER

Cotton Mather's Encounter With Tibuta in the Salem Woods

In the previous post, we cited Cotton Mather's eminent work, Magnalia Christi Americana, in English usually given as The Ecclesiastical History of New England. It may be interesting too, to get a glimpse of what the man himself, who has been called the "keeper of the Puritan conscience", thought of the matter of drinking healths and more generally tavern culture at large. We won't get a full answer yet, but what small glimpse into his life we may will help set the stage for future exploration.

Barrett Wendell, in his biography of the aforementioned Puritan, published in 1891, Cotton Mather, the Puritan Priest, gives as an example of his good humor, the following anecdote in Mather's own words:

"a company of vain, wicked men, having inflamed their blood in a tavern at Boston, & seeing that reverend, meek, & holy minister of Christ... coming along the street, one of them tells his companion, `I'll go', saith he, `& put a trick on old Cotton.' Down he goes, & crossing his way, whispers these words into his ear: `Cotton,' said he, `thou art an old fool.' Mr. Cotton replied, `I confess I am so: the Lord make both me & thee wiser than we are, even wise unto salvation.'"

It's worth noting, perhaps, that when Cotton uses the word vain to describe these men, he likely does not mean they were having or showing undue or excessive pride in their appearance or achievements like some kind of colonial metrosexuals, but rather that they were irreverent and blasphemous and that they were living meaningless lives and that they likely were doomed to suffer in hell for all of eternity.

So these drunk troublemakers go a play a "trick" on old Cotton which culminates in telling him he is an "old fool". It's not clear if there was more to the trick than that. But as thoroughly humorous as the manner in which Cotton dealt with these men may have been, citing the Lord in the way that he did, it provides more a testament to Cotton's faith in his Calvinist way of living than it does illuminate his views on drinking culture. He may have found these men "wicked" and "vain", but that is well short of a complete denunciation of taverns or the tavern goers of the day.

We'll have to come back to Cotton Mather, perhaps after sketching in a little more detail some of the relevant contours of the time in which he lived.

DRINKING HEALTHS

John Winthrop

Here at Drinking Healths, we'll explore the spirit of our namesake custom, from cutting edge grog culture here in the New World to England's traditions of yore.

We begin with our Massachusetts Bay Colony founder John Winthrop's view on the matter. From Cotton Mather's Magnalia Christi Americana, on the subject of Governor Winthrop's view on drinking healths:

There was one civil custom used in (and in few but) the English nation, which this gentleman did endeavor to abolish in this country, and that was the usage of drinking to one another. For although by drinking to one another, no more is meant than an act of courtesy, when one going to drink does invite another to do so too, for the same ends with himself; nevertheless the Governor (not altogether unlike to CLEOMENES, of whom it is reported by PLUTARCH he never urged the unwilling to drink,) considered the impertinency and insignificancy of this usage as to any of those ends that are usually pretended for it; and that it indeed ordinarily served for no ends at all, but only to provoke persons unto unseasonable and perhaps unreasonable drinking, and at last produce that abominable health drinking which the fathers of old so severely rebuked in the Pagans. Wherefore, in his own most hospitable house he left it off; not out of any silly or stingy fancy, but merely by his example a greater temperance, with liberty of drinking, might be recommended, and sundry inconveniences of drinking avoided. And his example began to be much followed by the sober people in this country until an order of Court came to be made against that ceremony in drinking, and then the old wont violently returned with a Niti mur in Vetitum.