... His appearance of great strictness in
religion, to which he was bred under his father, who was a very popular
minister of the Tolbooth Church, not acting in restraint of his
convivial humour, he was held to be excellent company even by those of
dissolute manners; while, being a five-bottle man, he could lay them all
under the table. This had brought on him the nickname of Dr. Bonum
Magnum in the time of faction. But never being indecently the worse of
liquor, and a love of claret, to any degree, not being reckoned in those
days a sin in Scotland, all his excesses were pardoned."
Dr. Patrick Cumming, also a clergyman and a contemporary, he describes
in the following terms:--"Dr. Patrick Cumming was, at this time (1751),
at the head of the moderate interest, and had his temper been equal to
his talents, might have kept it long, for he had both learning and
sagacity, and very agreeable conversation, _with a constitution able to
bear the conviviality of the times._"
Now, of all the anecdotes and facts which I have collected, or of all
which I have ever heard to illustrate the state of Scottish society in
the past times, as regards its habits of intemperance, this assuredly
surpasses them all.--Of two well-known, distinguished, and leading
clergymen in the middle of the eighteenth century, one who had "obtained
much respect," and "had the appearance of great strictness in religion,"
is described as an enormous drinker of claret; the other, an able leader
of a powerful section in the church, is described as _owing_ his
influence to his power of meeting the conviviality of the times.
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