John Trapp on Proverbs 31:4

Verſ. 4. It is not for Kings to drink wine] i. e. To bee drunk with Wine, wherein is exceſs, Epheſ. 5.18. where the Apoſtle determines exceſſive drinking to bee down-right drunkenneſs, viz. when as Swine do their bellies, ſo men break their heads with filthy quaffing. This, as no man may lawfully doe, ſo leaſt of all Princes: for in maxima libertate minima eſt licentia. Men are therefore the worſe, becauſe they are bound to be better.

Nor for Princes ſtrong drink] Or as ſome read it, where is the ſtrong drink? It is not for Princes to ask ſuch a queſtion. All heady and intoxicating drinks are by ſtatute here forbidden them. Of Bonoſus the Emperour it was ſaid, that he was born, non ut vivat, ſed ut bibat, not to live, but to drink; and when, being overcome by Probus, he afterwards hanged himſelf, it was commonly jeſted, that a tankard hung there, and not a man. But what a Beaſt was Marcus Antonius, [non-Latin text not transcribed]. Strabo. Camd. Eliſ. that wrote (or rather ſpued out) a book concerning his own ſtrength, to bear ſtrong drink? And what another was Darius King of Perſia, who commanded this inſcription to bee ſet upon his Sepulcher, I was able to hunt luſtily, to drink wine ſoundly, and to bear it bravely? That Iriſh Rebel Tiroen, Anno 1567. was ſuch a Drunkard, that to cool his body when hee was immoderately inflamed with Wine and Uskabagh, hee would many times bee buried in the earth up to the chin. Theſe were unfit men to bear rule.