With sauce so pregnant, that you need
Not stay till hunger bids you feed.
The sweat of learned Jonson's brain,
And gentle Shakespeare's eas'er strain,
A hackney coach conveys you to,
In spite of all that rain can do:
And for your eighteenpence you sit
The lord and judge of all fresh wit."

Nor was it in verse alone that Suckling celebrated the praises of
wine. Among the scanty remains of his prose there is that lively
sally, written at the Bear, and entitled: "The Wine-drinkers to the
Water-drinkers." After mockingly commiserating with the teetotalers
over the sad plight into which their habits had brought them, the
address continues: "We have had divers meetings at the Bear at the
Bridge-foot, and now at length have resolved to despatch to you one
of our cabinet council, Colonel Young, with some slight forces of
canary, and some few of sherry, which no doubt will stand you in
good stead, if they do not mutiny and grow too headstrong for their
commander. Him Captain Puff of Barton shall follow with all
expedition, with two or three regiments of claret; Monsieur de
Granville, commonly called Lieutenant Strutt, shall lead up the rear
of Rhenish and white. These succours, thus timely sent, we are
confident will be sufficient to hold the enemy in play, and, till we
hear from you again, we shall not think of a fresh supply.... Given
under our hand at the Bear, this fourth of July."

Somewhere about the date when this drollery was penned there
happened at the Bear an incident which might have furnished the
water-drinkers with an effective retort on their satirist. The Earl