being supported by incessant brandy, are sent
to this country.

Awake, middle class! Arise, or be for ever
poisoned. Drink the Szamoroduy of Hungary,
or the Greek wines, or even that produce of the
Sicilian vintage——Marsala. Allow that the last is
brandied, that it is earthy, or that there is an
odious sub-acid that lingers in the palate after
the wine has gone down. These trifles got
over, it is a comparatively pure wine, and will
improve by keeping. The national wine taste
has gone wrong, is going worse, and must be
redirected. Red and white are ghosts of their
former selves, and must be laid in the Red or
White Seas as soon as possible, or there will
be no middle-class digestions left in England.

Alas, for the days of beeswing and tawny
colour! Alas, for the days when wine left a
colourless oil on the side of the glass to trickle
proudly down and prove its ancient descent!
Alas, for the time when we were brought in
after dessert with a frill round our harmless
necks, and were given a glass of old port on
condition of drinking " Church and King!"
Alas, for the day when our rich uncle, after
much ceremony and flourish, went down into
his cellar himself, and returned cobwebby,
white about the arms, but triumphant, with a
botile of 'thirty-two, held as carefully as a
tender infant! There are fine traditions about
port, but we must surrender them, and start
again. We must cast the dust off our feet against
that den of thieves, Oporto, and hie (as they
say in songs) to the merry vineyards of
Johannisberg and Rudesheimer. We must
shake hands with the Magyar and propitiate
the Greek.

At present, it is not port we are drinking,
but potato spirit, elderberry juice and syrup.
It is not sherry, but potato spirit, methylated
spirit, syrup and dregs. It is making fools of
us; we give our birthright for these detestable
messes of pottage. We are drinking bad and
injurious medicine at the rate of three shillings
a bottle, when we had better be taking quinine,
tincture of cardamoms, or an honest glass of
spirit and water, that is what it pretends to be.

It has often occurred to us that the convivial
stories of the Georgian era prove a great falling off
in the quality of modern wine. How else can we
explain the number of bottles that those gouty
old champions of the British Constitution used
to put under their girdle? Could William Pitt
have gone to the House of Commons after a
bottle of our " very curious" port, and there
have warmed his chilly heart with the best part
of another?

The men then were not stauncher——they could
not work harder, or think longer, or ride faster,
or walk farther. There was nothing better
about the average of them, and yet we find a
German traveller describing the sturdy Duke
of York as finishing off six bottles of claret
at a sitting. This was their special gift, and
we wonder at it with an endless wonderment.
What a providence that man is so elastic and
expandible! The reason why these ancestors of
ours drank so much was perhaps this:——First
and foremost, the wine was less brandied, it
was older and better fermented. Their claret
was comparatively good and pure. Their sherry
was many degrees sounder, purer, older, and
less spirituous than ours. They dined earlier,
and sat for many hours over their wine. Let
Hogarth's "Midnight Conversation," said to
be the caricature of a Fenchurch-street Club,
testify how they drank. Look at the piles of
empty Florence flasks (the shape of oil flasks)
that are heaped on Ihe mantelpiece under the
tell-tale clock! And now the wretches, headed
by that reprobate clergyman whose thirst
nothing can quench, are beginning with crown
bowls of punch.

The worst of it is, that the old red and white
conventionality gains ground daily in spite of the
increased use of the wholesome French and
German wines. Luxury has spread, is spreading,
and probably will continue to spread, as
our national wealth increases, and as our middle
class grows more imitative and aspiring in its
social habits. A class of people now call
for sherry at railway buffets, roadside inns, and
country town hotels, who a few years ago
would not have thought of anything better
than ale, or more recherché than brown
brandy. If you call on a country farmer now,
he is sure to offer you port and sherry. Twenty
years ago he would have drawn a jug of ale.
All these new quaffers of sherry are being educated
by the honest Hamburgh makers, and, unable
from inexperience and blunted senses to appreciate
bouquet or aroma, they want the most
brandied and the brownest wine they can get.
Inflamed by their satanic brewage, they raise
their voices to chorus the old ridiculous invective
against cold claret and light Burgundy,
ignorant that it is the sweet wines and not the
sour wines that produce acid, and gout. The
power of intoxicating is the test to which these
misguided people submit all wine.

The old superstition of white and red has
held us long enough. We want once more,
pure wholesome Gascon and Lyonnais wine,
such as our ancestors, in the red hoods,
welcomed from the stalely carracks, laden with
French purple-stained casks, at Dover or at
Southampton. In a word, we want no more
B. B., either from Germany or Portugal.

But, to conclude, we should explain what
we mean by B. B. Once on a time an epicurean
friend of ours used frequently to dine at the
house of a certain gourmet of the county——
very wealthy, very fond of good eating, very
mean and selfish. Our friend (a shrewd man)
had often noticed that when the ladies left and
the run on the wine became sharper (people drank
harder then), the butler came in and whispered
to the host: upon which he generally replied, in
the most earnest and emphatic way, "Yes, and
mind the B.B ." This so stirred his curiosity,
that on one occasion, being on a visit, and meeting
the butler out of doors before breakfast,
he got him into conversation, and slipped a
guinea into his hand.