This being certain, if you will but anatomize love a little, and look narrowly into it, it will appear that no passion in the world is attended with more violent grief, more excessive joy, or greater ecstasies and fury; a lover's soul looks like Sophocles's city:-- At once 'tis full of sacrifice, Of joyful songs, of groans and cries.' (Sophocles, "Oedipus Tyrannus," 4.) And therefore it is no wonder, that since love contains all the causes of music,--grief, pleasure, and enthusiasm,--and is besides industrious and talkative, it should incline us more than any other passion to poetry and songs.
QUESTION VI.

WHETHER ALEXANDER WAS A GREAT DRINKER.
PHILINUS, PLUTARCH, AND OTHERS.
Some said that Alexander did not drink much, but sat long in company, discoursing with his friends; but Philinus showed this to be an error from the king's diary, where it was very often registered that such a day, and sometimes two days together, the king slept after a debauch; and this course of life made him cold in love, but passionate and angry, which argues a hot constitution.

And some report his sweat was fragrant and perfumed his clothes; which is another argument of heat, as we see the hottest and driest climates bear frankincense and cassia; for a fragrant smell, as Theophrastus thinks, proceeds from a due concoction of the humors, when the noxious moisture is conquered by the heat.

And it is thought probable, that he took a pique at Calisthenes for avoiding his table because of the hard drinking, and refusing the great bowl called Alexander's in his turn, adding, I will not drink of Alexander's bowl, to stand in need of Aesculapius's.

And thus much of Alexander's drinking.
Story tells us, that Mithridates, the famous enemy of the Romans, among other trials of skill that he instituted, proposed a reward to the greatest eater and the stoutest drinker in his kingdom.