Chapter 11

A sort of men of whom we are sufficiently ashamed, who spend their time in taverns, tippling-houses, and debauches, giving no other evidence of their affection to us but in drinking our health, and inveighing against all others who are not of their own dissolute temper; and who in truth have more discredited our cause by the license of their manners and lives, than they could ever advance it by their affection or courage. We hope all persons of honour, or in place and authority, will so far assist us in discountenancing such men, that their discretion and shame will persuade them to reform what their conscience would not; and that the displeasure of good men towards them may supply what the laws have not, and, it may be, cannot well provide against; there being by the license and corruption of the times, and the depraved nature of man, many enormities, scandals, and impieties, which laws cannot well provide against, which may,by the example and severity of virtuous men, be easily discountenanced and by degrees suppressed.

Blackstone, speaking of the king’s ordinary revenue, observes that a seventh branch might also be computed to have arisen from wine licences, or the rents payable to the Crown by such persons as are licensed to sell wine by retail throughout England, except in a few privileged places. These werefirst settled on the Crownby the statute 12 Car. II. c. 25, and, together with the hereditary excise, made up the equivalent in value for the loss sustained by the prerogative in the abolition of the military tenures, and the right of pre-emption and purveyance; but this revenue was abolished by 30 Geo. II. c. 19, and an annual sum of upwards of 7,000l.per annum, issuing out of the new stamp duties imposed on wine licences, was settled on the Crown in its stead.[164]

The prices of wines were fixed anew. By 12 Car. II. it was provided that no canary, muskadel, or aligant, or other Spanish or sweet wines, should be sold by retail for over 1s.6d.the quart; Gascoigne and French wines limited to 8d.the quart, Rhenish wines to 12d.

From the reign of the Norman kings here, to 1660, the wines of Guienne, Poitou, and Gascony came in, subject to moderate dues, until the reign of Charles II. The amount of duties by 12 Charles II. c. 4, was 13l.10s.per tun in London, and 16l.10s.in the out-ports. This was at the rate of 13¼d.the gallon. The trade with France after the Revolution seems to have been carried on upon an equitable footing until 1675, when one of those popular alarms that often disgrace this country was raised, that France was ruining us, for there was a balance of trade against us of 965,128l.Land happened at the time to have fallen in price. The landed interest was shipwrecked; all, it was averred, in consequence of the money of England going over to France for the purchase of her productions. Cries were uttered like those when the calendar was rectified, ‘Give us back our ten days,’ or the old ‘No Popery,’ ‘the Church in danger,’ or more recently the cry of ‘French invasion,’ echoed from all sides, amid the shouts of the ignorant or interested. England was on the brink of ruin, if they were to be credited. The treaty of commerce concluded was soon hooted down, and in 1678, Parliament, the wisdom of which used sometimes to be very problematical, came to a vote declaring that the ‘trade with France was detrimental to the kingdom!’ An Act of absolute wisdom in the legislative sense of that time followed, the preamble of which ran, ‘Forasmuch as it hath been by long experience found that the importing French wines, brandy, silks, linen, salts, and paper, and other commodities of the growth, product, or manufactures of the territories and dominions of the French king, hath much exhausted the treasure of this nation, lessened the value of the native commodities and manufactures thereof, and caused great detriment to this kingdom, &c.’It was also averred that, in consequence, rents fell. French wine was therefore prohibited from 1679 to 1685.[165]

It was also averred that, in consequence, rents fell. French wine was therefore prohibited from 1679 to 1685.[165]

We form an idea of theIngredients put into winesfrom the order of 12 Car. II. c. 25:—

That no merchant, vintner, wine-cooper or other person, selling or retailing any wine, shall mingle or utter any Spanish wine mingled with any French wine, or Rhenish wine, cyder, perry, stummed wine, honey, sugar, syrups of sugar, molasses, or any other syrups whatsoever: nor put in any isinglass, brimstone, lime, raisins, juice of raisins, water, nor any other liquor nor ingredients,nor any clary or other herbs, nor any sort of flesh whatsoever.

The excise duties on superior beer was 1s.3d.; on inferior, 3d.; on a hogshead of cider or perry, 1s.3d.; on a gallon of mead, ½d.; on a gallon of aqua-vitæ, 1d.; on a gallon of coffee, 4d.; on a gallon of chocolate or tea, 8d.In 1670, brandy had a duty imposed on it of 8d.a gallon when imported.

Upon the accession of

James II.

after the dinner at Guildhall, their Majesties were beset with numerous crowds whose shouts declared their joy. When they reached Ludgate, a rank of loyal gentlemen stood in a balcony, charged with full glasses, which they discharged in such excellent order, that caused all the guards to answer them with a huzza![166]

John Evelyn was ordered by the sheriff to assist in proclaiming the king. He thus describes the event:—

I met the Sheriff and commander of the Kentish Troop, with an appearance, I suppose, of above 500 horse and innumerable people, two of his Majesty’s trumpets, and a Sergeant with other officers, who, having drawn up the horse in a large field neere the towne, march’d thence with swords drawne, to the Market Place, where, making a ring after sound of trumpets and silence made, the High Sheriff read the proclaiming titles to his Bailiffe, who repeated them aloud, and then, after many shouts of the people, his Majesty’s health being drunk in a flint glass of a yard long by the Sheriff, commander, officers, and chief gentlemen, they all dispersed and I returned.

Here is an answer to the question, ‘What is ayard of ale?’ Before the standard measures were in general use, ale was measured out in thisale-yard, which was aflint-glass a yard long, of sufficient capacity to admit a saccharometer which was a test of its strength and quality.

Many of the old ceremonies observed at the coronation banquets of the early kings were revived by James. Amongst these, the following usage may be noted. After thrice flinging down the gauntlet, the champion made his obeisance to the king, who drank to him from a gilt bowl, which he then returned with the cover. The champion then pledged his Majesty, and rode out of the hall, taking bowl and cover as his fee.

But such ceremonies are not to be taken as any indication of a proneness of the king to high living. Hard drinking he hated. A contemporary writes that:—

The king, going to Mass, told his attendants he had been informed that since his declaring against the disorder of the household, some had the impudence to appear drunk in the queen’s presence ... but he advised them at their peril to observe his order, which he would see obeyed.[167]

Much light has been thrown upon the general habits of the period by Lord Macaulay, who, in describing the English country gentleman of 1688, remarks:—

His chief serious employment was the care of his property. He examined samples of grain, handled pigs, and on market days made bargains over a tankard with drovers and hop merchants. His chief pleasures were commonly derived from field sports, and from an unrefined sensuality.... His table was loaded with coarse plenty, and guests were cordially welcome to it. But as the habit of drinking was general in the class to which he belonged, and as his fortune did not enable him to intoxicate large assemblies daily with claret or canary, strong beer was the ordinary beverage. The quantity of beer consumed in those days was indeed enormous, for beer then was to the middle and lower classes not only all that beer now is, but all that wine, tea, and ardent spirits now are; it was only at great houses, or on great occasions, that foreign drink wasplaced on the board. The ladies of the house, whose business it had commonly been to cook the repast, retired as soon as the dishes had been devoured, and left the gentlemen to their ale and tobacco. The coarse jollity of the afternoon was often prolonged till the revellers were laid under the table.

Mr. Lecky observes:—

Among the poor ... the popular beverage was still ale or beer,the use of which—especially before the art of noxious adulteration was brought to its present perfection—has always been more common than the abuse. The consumption appears to have been amazing. It was computed in 1688 that no less than 12,400,000 barrels were brewed in England in a single year, though the entire population probably little exceeded 5,000,000. In 1695, with a somewhat heavier excise, it sank to 11,350,000 barrels, but even then almost a third part of the arable land of the kingdom was devoted to barley.

More bluntly, of course, than Macaulay, did that scourge of iniquity, Jeremy Collier, express himself. Satirising dinner invitations, he writes:—

If the invitation was sent in a letter, and the truth spoken out, it must run in the tenor following: ‘Sir, if you please to do me the favour to dine with me, I shall do my best to drink you out of your limbs and senses, to make you say a hundred silly things, and play the fool to purpose, if ever you did it in your life. And before we part you shall be well prepared to tumble off your horse, to disoblige your coach, and make your family sick at the sight of you. And all this for an opportunity of showing with how much friendship and respect I amyour humble servant.’

That the delights of the table were the one thing needful is well illustrated by a cross-examination recorded by Mr. Jeaffreson[168]:—

‘You know Lord Barrymore?’ Dr. Beaufort was asked by the lords of the Privy Council. ‘Intimately, most intimately,’ replied the Doctor. ‘You are continually with him?’ urged the questioner. ‘We dine together almost daily when his lordshipis in town.’ ‘What do you talk about?’ ‘Eating and drinking.’ ‘Andwhat else?’ ‘Oh, my lord, we never talk of anything except eating and drinking, drinking and eating.’

The habit oftoastinghad much to do with the excesses then so common. At the birth of the male heir to the throne, claret was drunk at the expense of the Crown, and endless glasses broken in drinking the health of their Majesties and the Prince Stuart at the Edinburgh town cross. Even the malcontent city of York drank deep potations.

Rhyming toasts were then in fashion. A Court gossip writes to Lady Rachel Russell:—‘I know not whether you have heard a health that goes about, which is new to me just now, so I send it you:—

The King God bless,And each princess,The Church no less,Which we profess,As did Queen Bess.’

No doubt great abuses attended this habit of health-drinking, or we should not find Dekker, Thomas Hall, and, indeed, the moralists almost to a man, inveighing against the custom. It was only a few years before this reign that the Lord Chief Justice, Sir Matthew Hale, left the injunction to his grandchildren:—

I will not have you begin or pledge any health, for it is become one of the greatest artifices of drinking and occasions of quarrelling in the kingdom. If you pledge one health you oblige yourself to pledge another, and a third, and so onward, and if you pledge as many as will be drank, you must be debauched and drunk. If they will needs know the reason of your refusal, it is a fair answer—that your grandfather who brought you up, from whom under God you have the estate you enjoy or expect, left this in command with you that you should never begin or pledge a health.

What a contrast does Justice Hale present to the merciless Judge Jeffries, whose habitual intemperance may account for his actions. Nor should it be forgotten that Sir Henry Bellasyse, whose widow the king was so anxious to marry, was killed in a duel whilst in a state of intoxication.

A very important reminder is to be found in an Act of 1685, to the effect that—

The ancient true and principal use of ale-houses was for the lodging of wayfaring people, and for the supply of the wants of such as were not able by greater quantities to make their provisions of victuals, and not for entertainment and harbouring of lewd and idle people, to spend their time and money in a lewd and drunken manner.

An event which occurred in this short reign immortalised a roadside inn.The Revolution House, at Whittington, obtained its name from the accidental meeting of the Earl of Danby, the Earl of Devonshire, Lord Delamere, and Mr. John D’Arcy, one morning in 1688, on Whittington Moor, near Chatsworth, to consult about the Revolution, then in agitation. A shower of rain happening to fall, they removed to the village for shelter, and finished their conversation at a public-house calledThe Cock and Pynot.[169]

A fashionable spirit in this and the following reign was JamaicaRum. When the Duke of Monmouth was being brought to London as a prisoner, in 1685, he took for a bad cold, at Romsey, while staying on his saddle, a hot glass of rum and eggs. Hot coffee would probably have done him more good. We have already noticed that it came into use in Charles II.’s time. Sir AnthonyShirley described it as made of a seed which, though nothing toothsome, was wholesome. Pope went further, writing in hisRape of the Lock—

Coffee, which makes the politician wise,And see through all things with his half-shut eyes.

Upon the accession of

William III.

the usual pageant was observed in London. The conduits ran with wine. The same reception greeted the king shortly after at Oxford. The drinking habits of the monarch are well known, though Evelyn speaks of him as naturally averse to drink. After the death of the queen, he became more addicted to his favourite drink, Hollands gin. The banqueting-house at Hampton Court, which was used by him as a drinking and smoking room, has been described as a royal gin-temple. Enemies he had in abundance, and so intense was their hatred, that, in their hours of debauch, they drank to the health of Sorrel, meaning the horse that fell with the king, and, under the appellation of the ‘little gentleman in velvet,’toastedthe mole that raised the hill over which the horse had stumbled.[170]Let us hope that it was the same hostility that accused the queen of fondness for drink. However this may be, it is certain that her physicians warned her most plainly against a strong spirituous cordial to which she resorted in large doses when ill.

From highest to lowest intemperance raged in the reign of William and Mary. De Foe remarks:—

If the history of this well-bred vice was to be written, it would plainly appear that it began among the gentry, and from them was handed down to the poorer sort, who still love to be like their betters. After the Restoration, when the king’s health became the distinction between a Cavalier and Roundhead, drunkenness began to reign. The gentry caressed the beastly vice at such a rate that no servant was thought proper unless he could bear a quantity of wine; and to this day, when you speak well of a man, you say he is an honest, drunken fellow—as if his drunkenness was a recommendation to his honesty. Nay, so far has this custom prevailed, that the top of a gentlemanly entertainment has been to make his friend drunk, and the friend is so much reconciled to it that he takes it as the effect of his kindness. The further perfection of this vice among the gentry appears in the way of their expressing their joy for any public blessing. ‘Jack,’ said a gentleman of very high quality, when, after the debate in the House of Lords, King William was voted into the vacant throne, ‘Jack, go home to your lady, and tell her we have got a Protestant king and queen, and go make a bonfire as big as a house, and bid the butler make ye all drunk, ye dog.’[171]

From highest to lowest, we repeat, intemperance raged. Andrew Fletcher, of Saltoun, writing upon the curse and terrorism of mendicancy, complains that many thousands of beggars ‘meet together in the mountains, where they feast and riot for many days; and at country weddings, markets, burials, and the like public occasions, they are to be seen, both men and women, perpetually drunk, cursing, blaspheming, and fighting together.’[172]

The dissoluteness of the time found its expression, not only upon the stage, but among the actors themselves. Terribly significant is the following note by Derrick on a play written by Higden, to whom Dryden wrote a poetical epistle:—

This gentleman (Henry Higden, Esq.) brought a comedy on thestage in 1693, calledThe Wary Widow, or Sir Noisy Parrot, which was damned, and he complains hardly of the ill-usage; for the bear-garden critics treated it with cat-calls. It is printed and dedicated to the courtly Earl of Dorset; Sir Charles Sedley wrote the prologue, and it was ushered into the world with several copies of verses. The audience were dismissed at the end of the third act, the author having contrived so much drinking of punch in the play, that the actors all got drunk, and were unable to finish it.[173]

Even the offices of religion enjoyed no immunity. Apart from the annual item of ‘communion wine,’ a by no means uncommon charge upon the parish was ‘wine for the vestry.’ A dignitary of the Church, evidently of theMapesandStillspecies, thought it not beneath the dignity of his office to compose the bibulous epigram:—

Si bene commemini, causæ sunt quinque bibendi;Hospitis adventus; præsens sitis; atque futura;Et vini bonitas; et quælibet altera causa.[174]

which has been rendered into English:—

If all be true that I do think,There are five reasons we should drink:Good wine, a friend, or being dry,Or lest we should be by-and-by,Or any other reason why.

Plenty of voices were raised against the current vice. By far the most powerful warning was uttered by the Rev. Dr. William Assheton, Fellow of Brasenose,[175]who opens his discourse thus fearlessly:—

Their Majesties, being sensible that as Righteousness exalteth a nation, so sin is a reproach to any people; and being desirous to reform the lives and manners of all their subjects, have commanded the clergy to Preach frequently against those particular sins and vices which are most prevailing in this realm—viz. against Blasphemy,Swearing, Cursing, Perjury, Drunkenness, and Prophanation of the Lord’s day.

He reminds that the Act of Parliament calls the sin of drunkenness ‘odious and loathsom.’ He urges:—

The known ends of drink are these: the digestion of our meat, chearfulness and refreshment of our spirits, and the preserving of health. And whilst it contributes to those ends, so far Drinking is regular and moderate; but when it destroys them, ‘tis irregular and sinful. When therefore wine or any other drink is taken in such excess that by overloading nature it hinders digestion, drowns and suffocates the spirits, disorders the faculties, hinders the free use of reason, and thereby makes men unfit for business, and indisposeth them either for civil or religious duties, then its use is irregular and immoderate, and consequently sinful.

He refers to Isaiah v. 11, 22, Prov. xxiii. 29, Luke xxi. 34, Rom. xiii. 13. He dilates on the sad consequence of excess to soul, body, estate, and good name. He asks:—

What sin is so heinous which a man intoxicated may not commit? The reason is plainly this:Erranti terminus nullus. An intemperate man is under no conduct: he is neither under God’s keeping, nor his own. He hath quenched God’s Spirit, whilst he inflamed his own.

And again:—

When fancy is rampant, and sensual inclinations are let loose, you little know what advantage the devil can make of such a juncture.... Wine, if immoderately taken, is very Poyson, which, though it destroys not immediately, yet kills as sure as the rankest dose that was ever presented by Italian hand.

A medical writer, Dr. Richard Carr, inveighed, not only against strong drink, but against tobacco, milk, and nurses![176]And something may even be learnt from the once famous Tom Brown, classed by Thackeray with Thomas D’Urfey and Ned Ward, a writer of libels andribaldry, but a man of humour and learning, from whoseLaconicsmany a useful maxim may be culled. The following extract is not unworthy of Joseph Hall:—

If your friend is in want, don’t carry him to the tavern, where you treat yourself as well as him, and entail a thirst and headache upon him next morning. To treat a poor wretch with a bottle of Burgundy, or fill his snuff-box, is like giving a pair of lace ruffles to a man that has never a shirt on his back.Put something into his pocket.

Before estimating the causes of the prevalent declension of morals, it will be necessary to examine the legislation at the close of this seventeenth century, with which it was intimately associated.

Partly through hostility to France, and partly to encourage the home distilleries, the Government of the Revolution, in 1689, prohibited the importation of spirits from all foreign countries, and threw open the distillery trade, on payment of certain duties, to all its subjects. These measures laid the foundation of the great extension of the English manufacture of spirits.[177]Any person was permitted to set up a distillery, on giving ten days’ notice to the excise. The consequence of this was a general thriving of the distillery business, with a corresponding deterioration of the people. Indeed, legislative modification was soon found to be absolutely necessary to counteract the influence of these baneful measures upon health, sobriety, and public order.

We scarcely wonder that the king enthusiastically encouraged the new distilleries, although the measure was a reversal of all previous policy. From the Norman period downwards, the laws of the land had prohibitedthe conversion of malt into spirit, except a trifling quantity for medicinal uses. Elizabeth had so strictly enforced this statute as to treat an infringement of it as a moral offence.

A change so disastrous could not escape condemnation. The discursive Whiston, in his autobiographical Memoirs, laments:—

An Act of Parliament has abrogated a very good law for discouraging the poor from drinking gin; nay, they have in reality encouraged men to drunkenness, and to the murder of themselves by such drinking. Judge Hale earnestly supported the restrictive law, and opposed its abrogation, declaring that millions of persons would kill themselves by these fatal liquors.[178]

By the 5th & 6th of William and Mary, the duties were raised in 1694 to 4s.9d.on strong, and 1s.3d.on table beer. In 1695, the Commons resolved that a sum not exceeding 515,000l.should be granted for the support of the civil list for the ensuing year, to be raised by a malt tax, and additional duties upon mum, sweets, cyder, and perry. In 1691, owing to the tension with France, further supplies were raised by impositions which included in their number a duty of sixpence a bushel on malt, and a further duty on mum, cyder, and perry.

The price of claret rose rapidly when war with France broke out. Soon the clarets were exhausted. A substitute had to be found, and was discovered in the red wine of Portugal, then imported for the first time.

‘Some claret, boy!’—‘Indeed, sir, we have none.Claret, sir.—Lord! there’s not a drop in town.But we have the best red port.’—‘What’s that you callRed port?’—‘A wine, sir, comes from Portugal;I’ll fetch a pint, sir.’

The next quotation throws light upon its composition:—

Mark how it smells. Methinks, a real painIs by its odour thrown upon my brain.I’ve tasted it—‘tis spiritless and flat,And has as many different tastesAs can be found in compound pastes.[179]

We are now in a position to determine the causes of the prevalent intemperance at the close of the seventeenth century:—

1. The Act to encourage distillation.

2. The exhaustion of light wines.

3. The influence of the Court.

4. The development oftoasting.

5. Club life.

It remains only to notice the last two of the causes.

Toastingwas carried to an utter absurdity. Chamberlayne thus accounts for the fashion:—

As the English, returning from the wars in the Holy Land, brought home the foul disease of leprosy, ... so, in our fathers’ days, the English, returning from service in the Netherlands, brought with them the foul vice of drunkenness.... This vice at present prevails so much that some persons, and those of quality, may not safely be visited in an afternoon without running the hazard of excessive drinking of healths (whereby, in a short time, twice as much liquor is consumed as by the Dutch, who sip and prate); and in some places it is esteemed a piece of wit to make a man drunk, for which purpose some swilling insipid buffoon is always at hand.[180]

An observant Frenchman, M. Misson, who in 1698 published his observations on England and the English, referred particularly to the custom oftoasting—a custom(as he declared) almost abolished amongst French people of any distinction. He noticed that, with ourselves, to have drunk at table without making it the occasion of a toast would have been considered an act of gross discourtesy. The mode of observing the ceremony was that the person whose health was drunk remained perfectly motionless from the moment his name was uttered until the conclusion of the health. Or, as Misson sarcastically describes it:—

If he is in the act of taking something from a dish, he must suddenly stop, return his fork or spoon to its place, and wait, without stirring more than a stone, until the other has drunk ...; after which aninclinabo, at the risk of dipping his periwig in the gravy in his plate. I confess that when a foreigner first sees these manners he thinks them laughable. Nothing appears so droll as to see a man who is in the act of chewing a morsel which he has in his mouth, or doing anything else, who suddenly takes a serious air, when a person of some respectability drinks to his health, looks fixedly at his person, and becomes as motionless as if a universal paralysis had seized him.[181]

It is questionable if Misson was strictly correct in stating that health-drinking had gone out in good French society. Not long before this, Pepys had made this entry in hisDiary:—

To the Rhenish wine-house, where Mr. Moore showed me the French manner when a health is drunk to bow to him that drunk to you, and then apply yourself to him whose lady’s health is drunk, and then the person that you drink to—which I never knew before; but it seems it is now the fashion.

On a sort of progress through the country that William III. made in 1695, he was entertained, among other places, at Warwick Castle, by Lord Brook. ‘Guy’s Tower was illuminated. A cistern containing a hundredand twenty gallons of punch was emptied to his Majesty’s health.’[182]

A good specimen of the convivial songs of the Jacobites at this time is to be found in Sir Walter Scott’s collection. It is entitled:—

Three Healths.

To ane king and no king, aneuncleand father,To him that’s all these, yet allowed to be neither;Come, rank round about, and hurrah to our standard;If you’ll know what I mean, here’s a health to our landlord!To ane queen and no queen, aneauntand no mother,Come, boys, let us cheerfully drink off another;And now, to be honest, we’ll stick by our faith,And stand by our landlord as long as we’ve breath.To ane prince and no prince, ane son and no bastard,Beshrew them that say it! a lie that is fostered!God bless them all three; we’ll conclude with this one,It’s a health to our landlord, his wife, and his son.To our monarch’s return one more we’ll advance,We’ve a king that’s in Flanders, another in France;Then about with the health, let him come, let him come, then,Send the one into England, and both are at home then.[183]

And, lastly, theClubs. Such was their influence that Doran even wrote:—‘The Clubs ... were the chief causes that manners were as depraved as they were.’[184]But it must be remembered that they were effect as well as cause. The Calves’ Head Club was probably as bad as any. Out of a calf’s skull filled with wine, the company drank ‘to the pious memory of those worthy patriots who killed the tyrant.’ An anniversary anthem was sung. That for the year 1697 concludes thus:—

Advance the emblem of the action,Fill the calf’s skull full of wine;Drinking ne’er was counted faction,Men and gods adore the wine.To the heroes gone before us,Let’s renew the flowing bowl;While the lustre of their gloriesShines like stars from pole to pole.[185]

Another famous club was supposed to obtain its name from the custom of pledging favourites after dinner. Thus, Arbuthnot writes:—

Whence deathless Kit-kat took his name,Few critics can unriddle;Some say from pastry-cook it came,And some from Cat and Fiddle.From no trim beaus its name it boasts,Grey statesmen or green wits,But from this pell-mell pack of toastsOf old Cats and young Kits.

In the year 1703, which was the second year of

Queen Anne,

the famous Methuen treaty was formed; war between England and France again driving us to Portuguese vintages. And thus was cancelled one of the effects of the Peace of Ryswick, which allowed the reopening of trade with France. It was during this short open-trade period that Farquhar produced his aptly named tragedy,Love and a Bottle. In this comedy we are for the first time introduced to champagne as avin mousseux, or sparkling wine. In act ii. scene 2, the lodgings of Mockmode, a country squire, are represented; he is conversing with his landlady, Widow Bullfinch:—

Mock.But what’s most modish for beverage now? For I suppose the fashion of that always alters with the clothes.Bullf.The tailors are the best judges of that; but Champaign, I suppose.Mock.Is Champaign a tailor? Methinks it were a fitter name for a wig-maker. I think they call my wig a campaign.Bullf.You’re clear out, sir—clear out. Champaign is a fine liquor, which all great beaux drink to make ‘em witty.Mock.Witty! Oh, by the universe, I must be witty! I’ll drink nothing else; I never was witty in my life. Here, Club, bring us a bottle of what d’ye call it—the witty liquor.

Mock.But what’s most modish for beverage now? For I suppose the fashion of that always alters with the clothes.

Bullf.The tailors are the best judges of that; but Champaign, I suppose.

Mock.Is Champaign a tailor? Methinks it were a fitter name for a wig-maker. I think they call my wig a campaign.

Bullf.You’re clear out, sir—clear out. Champaign is a fine liquor, which all great beaux drink to make ‘em witty.

Mock.Witty! Oh, by the universe, I must be witty! I’ll drink nothing else; I never was witty in my life. Here, Club, bring us a bottle of what d’ye call it—the witty liquor.

The widow having retired, Club, Mockmode’s servant, re-enters with a bottle and glasses.

Mock.Is that the witty liquor? Come, fill the glasses.... But where’s the wit now, Club? Have you found it?Club.Egad, master, I think ‘tis a very good jest.Mock.What?Club.Why, drinking, you’ll find, master, that this same gentleman in thestraw doublet, the same will o’ the wisp, is a wit at the bottom. Here, here, master, how itpuns and quibbles in the glass!Mock.By the universe, now I have it; the wit lies in the jingling. Hear how the glasses rhyme to one another.[186]

Mock.Is that the witty liquor? Come, fill the glasses.... But where’s the wit now, Club? Have you found it?

Club.Egad, master, I think ‘tis a very good jest.

Mock.What?

Club.Why, drinking, you’ll find, master, that this same gentleman in thestraw doublet, the same will o’ the wisp, is a wit at the bottom. Here, here, master, how itpuns and quibbles in the glass!

Mock.By the universe, now I have it; the wit lies in the jingling. Hear how the glasses rhyme to one another.[186]

Evident allusion is here to the effervescence of champagne.

In hisConstant Couple, we have:—

Malice ne’er spoke in generous Champaign.

But champagne, we have said, suffered like other French wines from the War of Succession and the Methuen treaty. By this treaty we were bound to receive Portuguese wines in exchange for our woollengoods, and to deduct from the duty on importation one-third of the rate levied on French wines. The new demand led to an extension of Portuguese vineyards. The demand continued to increase; the supply was forthcoming, but too often with an article grossly mixed and adulterated. Counterfeits poured into this country, especially from Guernsey, and home manufactures of spurious wine abounded. Mr. Cyrus Redding, an acknowledged authority, in his treatise on French wines, inveighs against what he considers the short-sighted policy of our ministers in this reign. He says:—

We have only done now what wiser heads offered us nearly 150 years ago. M. de Torcy, in vain, proposed an open trade, the advantages of which (now obvious enough to every man of common sense) were scouted by the Government here, and the proposition opposed, not only by the Parliament, but by that suffrage satirically denominated, if not profanely, thevox populi, vox Dei. It was almost an axiom in the last century, in relation to trade, that the success or ruin of our commerce continually inclined for or against us, as the trade of France with England was shut or open. Well and justly did the late Lord Liverpool remark that the trade of England had flourished in spite of our legislation. When France proposed, in 1713-14, that a tariff should be made in England similar to that of France and England in 1664, Lord Bolingbroke treated the proposal with disdain. This tariff was simply that the duties and prohibitions in both countries should be reciprocal. The duty to be paid on both sides was five per cent. After so much of two centuries has elapsed since, we can hardly do otherwise than admit that our ideas of the true principles of trade continued to be erroneous too long, that the offer of de Torcy was a just offer, and that any can still be found obtuse enough to deny this fact shows that there must be exceptions even to the common run of vulgar intellect.

Of the manners of the time we have abundant sources of information. An interesting description is given by Grose of the little country squire of about 300l.a year in Queen Anne’s days:—

He never played at cards but at Christmas, when a family pack was produced from the mantel-piece. His chief drink, the year round, was generally ale, except at this season, the fifth of November, or some other gala days, when he would make a bowl of strong brandy-punch, garnished with a toast and nutmeg.... In the corner of his hall, by the fireside, stood a large wooden two-armed chair with a cushion, and within the chimney corner were a couple of seats. Here at Christmas he entertained his tenants, assembled round a glowing fire.... In the meantime the jorum of ale was in continual circulation.[187]

But Christmas was not what it had been. It struggled, almost in vain, to overcome the check it had sustained during the Commonwealth. Private hospitality and festivities were recovering, but the pageants and masks in the royal household and at the Inns of Court had received a death-blow. At the close of the century, a revel, which would once have been regarded as routine, was thought worthy to be recorded in a diary. Evelyn notes a riotous Christmas at the Inner Temple as late as 1697.

Such a falling off formed a common lament of the poets:—

Gone are those golden days of yore,When Christmas was a high day;Whose sports we now shall see no more,‘Tis turn’d into Good Friday.[188]

To the same effect:—

Black jacks to every manWere filled with wine and beer;No pewter pot nor canIn those days did appear.Good cheer in a nobleman’s houseWas counted a seemly show;We wanted no brawn nor souse,When this old cap was new.[189]

Perhaps the most sensible festivities of this period were certain annual feasts in London for natives of the several counties. TheLondon Gazette, for May 30 to June 3, 1700, advertises ‘the annual feast for gentlemen of the county of Huntingdon.’ Another number announces ‘the anniversary feast for the gentlemen, natives of the county of Kent.’ On such occasions, bygone times would be recounted, mutual friends discussed, and the absent not forgotten in atoast.

Burton ale was celebrated at least as early as 1712. So remarks a writer who had probably found in theSpectator, No. 383, the remark:—‘We concluded our walk with a glass of Burton ale, and a slice of hung beef.’ Had he forgotten that the author ofIvanhoecarries back the fame of Burton ale to a date before the time of Richard I.? And the accuracy of Sir Walter is remarkable, for, in 1295, Matilda, daughter of Nicholas de Shobenhale, ‘released to the Abbot and Convent of Burton-on-Trent that service and custody of their abbey gate, together with the custody and annual rent thereto belonging, and all the tenements within and without the town of Burton which came to her by inheritance from Walter de Scobenhale.... For which release they granted her daily for life two white loaves from the monastery, two gallons of conventual beer, or cider, if they drank it, and one penny; also seven gallons of beer for the men,’ &c. These ales were brewed on the abbey premises, where probably the abbots had their own maltings: as it was a common covenant in leases of mills, where were abbey property, for the malt of the lords of the manor to be ground free.[190]

It is truly sad to contemplate the stream of talentwhich was polluted at this time by unrestrained indulgence in strong drink. The infernal compounds which were substituted for the light wines of a previous age played infinite havoc, not only with the Mohocks of aristocracy, but with the giants of intellect. Of the Court itself, Macaulay writes:—

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