If on my theme I rightly think,There are five reasons why men drink,—Good wine, a friend, because I'm dry,Or lest I should be by and by,Or any other reason why.
Causæ Bibendi, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). These lines are a poetic translation of a Latin epigram (erroneously ascribed to Henry Aldrich in the Biographia Britannica, second edition, vol. i. p. 131), which Menage and De la Monnoye attribute to Père Sirmond:Si bene commemini, causæ sunt quinque bibendi:Hospitis adventus; præsens sitis atque futura;Et vini bonitas, et quælibet altera causa.Menagiana, vol. i. p. 172.
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