I would you had but the wit

I would you had but the wit; ’twere better
than your dukedom. Good faith, this same young
sober-blooded boy doth not love me, nor a man
cannot make him laugh. But that’s no marvel; he
drinks no wine. There’s never none of these demure
boys come to any proof, for thin drink doth so
overcool their blood, and making many fish meals,
that they fall into a kind of male green-sickness, and
then, when they marry, they get wenches.

If I had a thousand sons, the first human principle
I would teach them should be to forswear thin
potations and to addict themselves to sack.

They are generally fools and cowards, which some of us
should be too, but for inflammation. A good sherris
sack hath a two-fold operation in it. It ascends me
into the brain, dries me there all the foolish and
dull and crudy vapors which environ it, makes it
apprehensive, quick, forgetive, full of nimble, fiery,
and delectable shapes, which, delivered o’er to the
voice, the tongue, which is the birth, becomes
excellent wit. The second property of your excellent
sherris is the warming of the blood, which,
before cold and settled, left the liver white and pale,
which is the badge of pusillanimity and cowardice.
But the sherris warms it and makes it course from
the inwards to the parts’ extremes. It illumineth the
face, which as a beacon gives warning to all the rest
of this little kingdom, man, to arm; and then the
vital commoners and inland petty spirits muster me
all to their captain, the heart, who, great and puffed
up with this retinue, doth any deed of courage, and
this valor comes of sherris. So that skill in the
weapon is nothing without sack, for that sets it
a-work; and learning a mere hoard of gold kept
by a devil till sack commences it and sets it in
act and use. Hereof comes it that Prince Harry is
valiant, for the cold blood he did naturally inherit
of his father he hath, like lean, sterile, and bare
land, manured, husbanded, and tilled with excellent
endeavor of drinking good and good store
of fertile sherris, that he is become very hot and valiant.
If I had a thousand sons, the first human principle
I would teach them should be to forswear
thin potations and to addict themselves to sack.