Chapter VI: Part I: I (5)

Champagne suffered like other French wines from the War of Succession and the Methuen Treaty, by which the Government strove to pour Port wine down the throats of the people. The poets and satirists, supported by Dean Aldrich, 'the Apostle of Bacchus;' the miserly Dr. Ratcliffe, who ascribed all diseases to the lack of French wines, and imputed the badness of the vintages he was wont to place upon his table to the difficulty he experienced in obtaining them; the jovial Portman Seymour; the rich 'smell-feast' Pereira and General Churchill, Marlborough's brother, together with a host of 'bottle companions,' lawyers, and physicians, united to fight against this attempt.[301] They would drink their old favourites, in spite of treaties, and would praise them as they deserved; and means were found to gratify their wishes. According to official returns, the nominal importation of French wines fell in 1701 to a trifle over two thousand tons; and though this quantity was only once exceeded up to 1786, the influence of a steady demand, a short sea-passage, an extensive coast-line, and a ridiculously inefficient preventive service in aid of the high duty need to be taken into consideration. The contraband traders of the beginning of the century smuggled French wine into England, just as they continued to do at a later period into Scotland and Ireland, when the taste for ardent spirits which sprang up in the Georgian era rendered the surreptitious import of 'Nantz' and 'Geneva' the more profitable transaction as regarded England. Farquhar throws light on one method pursued when Colonel Standard hands Alderman Smuggler his pocket-book, which he had dropped, with the remark:

'It contains an account of some secret practices in your
merchandising, amongst the rest, the counterpart of an agreement
with a correspondent at Bordeaux about transporting French wine in
Spanish casks.'[302]

That the Champenois were themselves aware of the appreciation in which their wine was held in England is shown by a passage in Coffin's _Campania vindicata_. Writing in 1712, the year before the ratification of the Treaty of Utrecht, he calls on the Britons in presence of returning peace to cross the seas, and instead of lavishing their wealth to pleasure blood-stained Mars, to fill their ships with the treasures of the Remois Bacchus, and bear home these precious spoils instead of fatal trophies.[303]

Addison, referring to one source whence French wines were derived, remarks:

'There is in this City a certain fraternity of Chymical Operators
who work underground, in holes, caverns, and dark retirements,
to conceal their mysteries from the eyes and observation of
mankind. These subterraneous Philosophers are daily employed
in the Transmigration of Liquors, and, by the power of Magical
Drugs and Incantations, raise under the streets of _London_ the
choicest products of the hills and valleys of _France_. They can
squeeze _Bourdeaux_ out of a _Sloe_, and draw _Champagne_ from an
_Apple_.'[304]

He tells us that

'the person who appeared against them was a Merchant, who had by
him a great magazine of wines, that he had laid in before the war:
but these Gentlemen (as he said) had so vitiated the nation's
palate, that no man could believe his to be _French_, because it
did not taste like what they sold for such.'

For the defence it was urged that

'they were under a necessity of making Claret if they would keep
open their doors, it being the nature of Mankind to love everything
that is Prohibited.'[305]

The enquiry,

'And where would your beaux have Champaign to toast their
mistresses were it not for the merchant?'[306]

is from a panegyrist of the more legitimate school of trade.

Altogether it is tolerably certain that Champagne--genuine or fictitious, from grape or gooseberry--played a more important part in the conviviality of the early portion of the eighteenth century than might be supposed from the imports of the epoch, whilst there is little doubt but that it helped to inspire some of the finest productions of the Augustan age of English literature.

Gay places it first amongst the wines offered to a party of guests entering a tavern, making the drawer exclaim:

'Name, sirs, the wine that most invites your taste,
Champaign or Burgundy, or Florence pure,
Or Hock antique, or Lisbon new or old,
Bourdeaux, or neat French wine, or Alicant.'[307]

This reference to Champagne most likely relates to the still wine; but it is probably the sparkling variety which is alluded to in the verses which Gay addressed to Pope on the completion of the _Iliad_ in 1720, and wherein he represents General Wilkinson thus apostrophising as the ship conveying the poet passes Greenwich:

'Come in, my friends, here shall ye dine and lie;
And here shall breakfast and shall dine again,
And sup and breakfast on (if ye comply),
For I have still some dozens of Champaign.'[308]

Witty Mat Prior, poet and diplomatist, was always ready to manifest his contempt for the heavy fluid with which the Methuen treaty deluged our island in place of the light fresh-tasting wines of France that had cheered and inspired his earlier sallies. Writing whilst in custody on a charge of treason between 1715 and 1717, and referring to the mind under the name of Alma, he tells us how

'By nerves about our palate placed,
She likewise judges of the taste,
Else (dismal thought!) our warlike men
Might drink thick Port for fine Champagne.'[309]

He likewise inculcates a lesson of philosophy, especially suited to his own situation at that moment, when he remarks of fortune:

'I know we must both fortunes try,
And bear our evils, wet or dry.

Yet, let the goddess smile or frown,
Bread we shall eat, or white or brown;
And in a cottage or a court
Drink fine Champagne or muddled Port.'[310]

There were many, no doubt, ready to emulate the hero of one of his minor pieces, and

'from this world to retreat
As full of Champagne as an egg's full of meat.'[311]

Shenstone gives expression to much the same sentiment as Prior when he found 'his warmest welcome at an inn,' and wrote on the window-pane at Henley:

''Tis here with boundless power I reign,
And every health which I begin
Converts dull Port to bright Champagne;
Such freedom crowns it at an inn.'[312]

Vanbrugh, whose writings were of a decidedly lighter character than the edifices he erected, probably had recourse to Champagne to assist him in the composition of the former, and neglected it when planning the designs for the latter. These, indeed, would seem to have been conceived under the influence of some such 'heavy muddy stuff' as the 'Norfolk nog,' which Lady Headpiece reproaches her husband for allowing their son and heir to indulge in, saying:

'Well, I wonder, Sir Francis, you will encourage that lad to swill
such beastly lubberly liquor. If it were Burgundy or Champaign,
something might be said for't; they'd perhaps give him some art and
spirit.'[313]

Swift has given in his _Journal to Stella_ extensive information as to the wines in vogue in London in 1710-13. He seems for his own part to have been, as far as nature permitted him, an accommodating toper, indulging, in addition to Champagne, in Tokay, Portugal, Florence, Burgundy, Hermitage, 'Irish wine,' _i.e._ Claret, 'right French wine,' Congreve's 'nasty white wine' that gave him the heartburn, and Sir William Read's 'admirable punch.' He acknowledges that the more fashionable beverages of the day were not to his taste. 'I love,' writes he, 'white Portugal wine better than Claret, Champaign, or Burgundy. I have a sad vulgar appetite.'[314] Still, while observing due moderation, he did not entirely shun the lighter potations with which the table of the luxurious and licentious St. John was so freely supplied. On one occasion he writes:

'I dined to-day by appointment with Lord Bolingbroke; but they fell
to drinking so many Spanish healths in Champaign, that I stole away
to the ladies and drank tea till eight.'[315]

And on another we find him refusing to allow his host to

'drink one drop of Champaign or Burgundy without water.'[316]

Our countrymen do not appear to have taken heed of the controversy regarding the respective merits of Champagne and Burgundy, but thankfully accepted the goods that the gods and the sunny soil of France provided them. The accusation, however, banded about by the partisans of these rival vintages, of their tendency to produce gout, had apparently been accepted as gospel truth over here in the first decade of the century. Thus the Dean notes that he

'dined with Mr. Secretary St. John, and staid till seven, but would
not drink his Champaign and Burgundy, for fear of the gout.'[317]

When suffering from a rheumatic pain he displays commendable caution at dinner with Mr. Domville, only drinking

'three or four glasses of Champaign by perfect teasing,'[318]

for fear of aggravating his suffering. He is prompt, however, to acknowledge himself mistaken:

'I find myself disordered with a pain all round the small of my
back, which I imputed to Champaign I had drunk, but find it to have
been only my new cold.'[319]

The Dean does not appear to have been the only sufferer, for we find him writing:

'I called this evening to see Mr. Secretary, who had been very ill
with the gravel and pains in his back, by Burgundy and Champaign,
added to the sitting up all night at business; I found him drinking
tea, while the rest were at Champaign, and was very glad of
it.'[320]

Even Pope, the perforcedly abstemious, was lured into similar excesses by the young Earl of Warwick and Colley Cibber, during his visits to London, whilst engaged on his translation of the _Iliad_, and writes to Congreve,

'I sit up till two o'clock over Burgundy and Champagne.'[321]

A proof of the popularity of French wines at this period is found in the fact that in 1713, the year of the Peace of Utrecht, the registered imports, despite high duties, reached 2551 tuns, an amount not exceeded till 1786. The Treaty of Commerce, with which Bolingbroke (whose partiality to Champagne we have seen) and M. de Torcy sought to supplement that of Peace, having fallen through, the tavern-keepers put such a price on these wines that it was only members of the fashionable world who could afford to have what was termed 'a good Champagne stomach.'[322] Their vogue is confirmed by the order given to her servant by a lady aspiring to take a leading position in the _beau monde_ to

'go to Mr. Mixture, the wine-merchant, and order him to send in
twelve dozen of his best Champaign, twelve dozen of Burgundy, and
twelve dozen of Hermitage,'[323]

as the entire stock for her cellar. 'Good wine' was indeed, in those days, 'a gentleman.'

The unvarying rule that the fashions set by the most select are inevitably aped by the most degraded, so far as lies in their power, is exemplified in the Tavern Scene of Hogarth's _Rake's Progress_, where the table at which the hero and his _inamoratas_ are seated is set out with the tall wine-glasses wherein

'Champaign goes briskly round.'[324]

The Jacobites, faithful to their traditional ally, continued to toast 'the King over the water' by passing glasses charged with the sparkling wine of France across a bowl filled to the brim with the pure element. The middle classes clung to their beer, or at most indulged in Port and punch; whilst the lower orders seem to have become seized with that insane passion for ardent spirits which Hogarth satirised in his 'Gin Lane,' and hailed with glee Sir Robert Walpole's

'attempt,
Superior to Canary or Champagne,
Geneva salutiferous to enhance.'[325]

The registered imports of the wines of France--though figures in this respect are, we admit, exceedingly deceptive--show a continuous falling off, which reached its lowest ebb in 1746, during war time; and we may be certain that when, after supper,

'Champagne was the word for two whole hours by Shrewsbury
clock,'[326]

it was at the cost of a pretty penny. Although the recorded imports of French wines show but little improvement with the return of peace in 1748, we gather from other sources that the Champagne of 1749 met with a ready market over here, and find Bertin du Rocheret writing exultingly to his friend, the Marquis de Calvières, that the Champenois were making the English pay the cost of the war.

The voluminous correspondence of Bertin du Rocheret gives some curious information as to the manner in which the Champagne trade was carried on with England during the second quarter of the eighteenth century. From 1725 to 1754 he was in constant communication with Mr. James Chabane, who seems to have been the Court wine-merchant, and to whom he despatched at first ten, but during the latter portion of their transactions seldom more than four, pièces of wine annually during the winter months.[327] As regards the particular vintage consumed in England, a preference evidently existed for that of Ay, though it really appears as if Bertin was wont to introduce under this name the then far cheaper growths of Avize. Such, at any rate, seems to have been the case with the parcel of wine divided, in 1754, between King George in London and King Stanislas at Nancy. Referring to the wines of Hautvillers and Sillery, Bertin writes to Chabane in 1731, that a year's notice must be given in advance to obtain them. A _liquoreux_ wine was then preferred, as in 1732 he remarks, respecting the yield of the preceding year, that the English are as mad after _liqueur_ as the French; and it is evident that the taste continued, as in 1744 he announces the departure for London of eleven poinçons _liquoreux_.

Not only was Chabane accustomed to bottle these wines, but while doing so was able to insure to them a semi-sparkling character. With this view Bertin tells him, in 1731, that he must not keep them in cask after the three _sèves_, or motions of the sap of April, June, or August, except in the case of a pièce from 'the _clos_' reserved 'for the supply of the Court,' and intended to be drunk as still wine. Some wine despatched in 1754 is recommended to be bottled during the first quarter of the moon.[328] In addition to the wine thus sent in casks, Bertin was also accustomed to send his correspondent a certain quantity in bottles. In 1725 he quotes for him 'flacons blancs mousseux liqueur,' at from 30 to 50 sols, and 'ambrés non-mousseux sablant,' at 25 sols. These flasks were all despatched to Dunkirk or into Holland, whence they were smuggled to their ultimate destination, for the introduction of wine in bottles into England was rigidly prohibited until the close of 1745, when it was legalised by Act of Parliament.[329]

Horace Walpole, who deals with men rather than manners, with sayings rather than doings, and whose forte is epigram and not description, has little to tell us about the drinking customs of his day. The strictly temperate regimen that marked his later years, and rendered him unfit for mere convivial gatherings, extended to his writings, and he seldom permits his pen to expatiate on those pleasures in which he sought no share. Even in his letters from Reims, written in 1739, when he was doing the grand tour, he omits all mention of the wine for which that city is famed. Still he incidentally furnishes a few instances of the esteem in which Champagne was held by the upper classes in the middle of the eighteenth century. In a letter to George Montague, dated June 23, 1750, he describes how Lord Granby joined his party at Vauxhall whilst suffering considerably under the influence of the Champagne he had consumed at 'Jenny's Whim,' a noted tavern at Chelsea; and writing to Sir Horace Mann, a year later, he says that the then chief subjects of conversation in London were the two Miss Gunnings and an extravagant dinner at White's.

(From an engraving after a drawing by Gravelot).]

'The dinner was a frolic of seven young men, who bespoke it to
the utmost extent of expense; one article was a tart made of duke
cherries, from a hothouse; and another, that they tasted but one
glass out of each bottle of Champagne. The bill of fare has got
into print, and with good people has produced the apprehension of
another earthquake.'[330]

The Earl of March, afterwards 'Old Q,' in a letter to Walpole's friend, George Selwyn, in November 1766, writes: 'I have not yet received some Champaign that Monsieur de Prissieux has sent me.'[331] And we find Horace Walpole's fair foe, that eighteenth-century exemplar of strong-minded womanhood, Lady Mary Wortley Montague, whose letters indicate a _penchant_ for Burgundy, acknowledging in verse the exhilarating effects of Champagne. Of the _beaux_ of 1721 she says that

'They sigh, not from the heart but from the brain,
Vapours of vanity and strong Champagne.'[332]

Better known by far are her oft-quoted lines,

'But when the long hours of the public are past,
And we meet with Champagne and a chicken at last,
May every fond pleasure that moment endear,
Be banished afar both discretion and fear,'[333]

which drew from Byron the terror-stricken comment, 'What say you to such a supper with such a woman?'[334]

During the third quarter of the eighteenth century a cloud dims the lustre of Champagne. It was then looked upon by a vast majority as only a fit accompaniment to masquerades, ridottos, ultra-fashionable dinners, and Bacchanalian suppers. 'The Champaign made some eyes sparkle that nothing else could brighten,'[335] says the contemporary account of one of those scenes of shameless revelry held under the title of masquerades at the Pantheon, and the orgies that, under the auspices of Mrs. Cornelys, disgraced Carlisle House were mainly inspired by the consumption of the same wine. The citizens of the Georgian era, who had lost the tastes of their fathers, hated French wines simply because they were French; and the hundred thousand gallons imported on an average annually from 1750 to 1786 were entirely consumed amongst the upper or the dissipated classes. Though smuggling was still looked upon as patriotic, if not loyal, those engaged in it had discovered that, thanks to the combined effects of duty and demand, Nantes brandy and Hollands gin paid better. What, indeed, is to be thought of the taste of an era that produced poets whose muse sought inspiration in punch, and who had the sublime audacity to extol the rum of the West Indies above the produce of 'Marne's flowery banks'?[336] Only a few of the higher-class men, however, engaged in literature and art seem to have retained a preference for French wine. The accounts of the Literary Club established by Sir Joshua Reynolds show the average consumption at each sitting to have been half a bottle of Port and a bottle of Claret per head. Johnson drank Port mixed with sugar from about 1752 to 1764; became a total abstainer until 1781, and then seems to have given the preference to Madeira.

In contemporaneous comedy we are pretty sure to find the mirror held up to fashion, if not to Nature; and turning to the playwrights of that day, it is easy to cull a few confirmatory excerpts. Thus we have Sterling, the ambitious British merchant, in order to do honour to his noble guests, preparing to

'give them such a glass of Champaign as they never drank in their
lives; no, not at a duke's table.'[337]

While Lord Minikin, the peer of fashion, makes his entrance on the stage, exclaiming:

'O my head! I must absolutely change my wine-merchant; I cannot
taste his Champaigne without disordering myself for a week.'[338]

On Miss Tittup inquiring if his depression is due to losses at cards, he replies,

'No, faith, our Champaigne was not good yesterday.'[339]

Jessamy, his lordship's valet, profits of course by so aristocratic an example; and when speaking of his exploits at the masquerade, says,

'I was in tip-top spirits, and had drunk a little too freely of the
Champaigne, I believe.'[340]

With Philip the butler, 'Burgundy is the word,' and from the choicest vintages of his master's cellar he places on the table 'Claret, Burgundy, and Champaign; and a bottle of Tokay for the ladies;'[341] while Port is characterised by the Duke's servant as 'only fit for a dram.'[342] Mrs. Circuit presses the guests at a clandestinely-given repast to 'taste the Champagne;' and her husband, the Sergeant, is surprised on his return home to find that they have been so indulging:

'Delicate eating, in truth; and the wine [_Drinks_] Champagne, as
I live! Must have t'other glass ... delicate white wine, indeed! I
like it better every glass.'[343]

Such is his comment.

The effects of the wine are characterised in the following fashion by Garrick, when Sparkish, entering, according to the stage directions, 'fuddled,' declares that

'when a man has wit, and a great deal of it, Champaign gives it a
double edge, and nothing can withstand it; 'tis a lighted match to
gunpowder; the mine is sprung, and the poor devils are tossed heels
uppermost in an instant.'[344]

We greet, too, what was perhaps the first appearance of a joke now grown venerable in its antiquity in a farce of Foote's, the scene of which is laid at Bath. He introduces us to a party of pseudo-invalids devoting their whole time and attention to conviviality, recruiting their debilitated stomachs with turtle and venison, and alternating Bath waters with the choicest vintages, so that the hero Racket is fain to observe to one of them,

'My dear Sir Kit, how often has Dr. Carawitchet told you that your
rich food and Champaigne would produce nothing but poor health and
real pain?'[345]

And how many gentlemen in difficulties have not since followed the example set by Harry Dornton in the spunging-house, and ordered, as a consolation,

'a bottle of Champagne and two rummers'![346]

Turning from fancy to fact, we find Sir Edward Barry furnishing some particulars respecting the Champagne wines consumed in England during the latter half of the last century.[347] He informs us at the outset that

'the wines of Champaign and Burgundy are made with more care than
any other French wines; and the vaults in which the former are
preserved are better than any other in France. These wines, from
their finer texture and peculiar flavour, cannot be adulterated
without the fraud being easily discovered, and are therefore
generally imported pure, or by proper care may be certainly
procured in that state.'

His remarks evidently refer to the still wines, as he proceeds to explain that 'the Champaign River Wines are more delicate and pale than those which are distinguished from them by the name of Mountain gray Wines,' the latter being more durable and better suited for exportation, whilst the former, if allowed to remain too long in the cask, acquire a taste from the wood, although keeping in flasks from four to six years without harm. Referring to the taste of the day, he explains that

'among the River Wines the Auvillers and Epernay are most esteemed,
and among the Mountain Wines the Selery and St. Thyery, and in
general such as are of the colour of a partridge's eye. These are
likewise distinguished for their peculiar grateful pungency and
balsamic softness, which is owing to the refined saline principle
which prevails more in them than in the Burgundy Wines, on which
account they are less apt to affect the head, communicate a milder
heat, and more freely pervade and pass through the vessels of the
body.... To drink Champaign Wines in the greatest perfection, the
flask should be taken from the vault a quarter of an hour before it
is drunk, and immersed in ice-water, with the cork so loose in it
as is sufficient to give a free passage to the air, and yet prevent
too great an evaporation of its spirituous parts.'

(After Rowlandson, in the _New Bath Guide_).]

The foregoing practice still obtains with Sillery, classed by Barry as the first of the Mountain growths, and in the highest favour in England throughout the remainder of the century. Regarding sparkling wine, of which he was evidently no admirer, he adds:

'For some years the French and English have been particularly fond
of the sparkling frothy Champaigns. The former have almost entirely
quitted that depraved taste, nor does it now so much prevail here.
They used to mix some ingredients to give them that quality; but
this is unnecessary, as they are too apt spontaneously to run into
that state; but whoever chooses to have such Wines may be assured
that they will acquire it by bottling them any time after the
vintage before the month of the next May; and the most sure rule to
prevent that disposition is not to bottle them before the November
following. This rule has been confirmed by repeated experiments.'

On the signature of the Treaty of Peace with France in 1783, it had been stipulated that a Treaty of Commerce should likewise be concluded; and in 1786, under the auspices of Pitt, a treaty of this character was made, the first article providing that 'The wines of France imported directly from France into Great Britain shall in no case pay any higher duties than those which the wines of Portugal now pay.' Pitt, spite of his well known _penchant_ for Port, had yet a sneaking liking for Champagne, arising no doubt from his early familiarity with the wine when he went to Reims to study, after leaving the University of Cambridge. It was with Champagne that he was primed on the memorable occasion when he, Lord Chancellor Thurlow, and Mr. Secretary Dundas galloped after dusk through an open turnpike-gate without paying toll, and only just missed receiving the contents of a loaded blunderbuss, which the turnpike man, fancying they were highwaymen, fired after them. The party had been dining with the President of the Board of Trade at Addiscombe, and a rhymester of the epoch commemorated the incident in the following lines:

'How as Pitt wandered darkling o'er the plain,
His reason drowned in Jenkinson's Champagne,
A rustic's hand, but righteous fate withstood,
Had shed a premier's for a robber's blood.'

(After Gilray).]

(After Gilray).]

Tickell has noted the appreciation of Brooks' Champagne shown by Pitt's great rival in the lines addressed to Sheridan, and purporting to be an invitation to supper from Fox. The illustrious member for Westminster promises his guest that

'Derby shall send, if not his plate, his cooks,
And know I've bought the best Champaign from Brooks.'[348]

Brooks' Club enjoyed a high reputation for its Champagne, and we find Fighting Fitzgerald emptying three bottles there without assistance, the same evening on which he bullied the members into electing him.[349]

The year after the Treaty of Commerce was signed, we have an anonymous writer remarking[350] that in time of peace the English drew large quantities of wine from Bordeaux and Nantes, and that the other French wines they were in the habit of consuming were those of Mantes, Burgundy, and Champagne, shipped respectively from Rouen, Dunkirk, and Calais. Arthur Young, writing at the same time, remarks, _apropos_ of Champagne, that the trade with England 'used to be directly from Epernay; but now the wine is sent to Calais, Boulogne, Montreuil, and Guernsey, in order to be passed into England they suppose here by smuggling. This may explain our Champagne not being so good as formerly.'[351] It is to be hoped that neither Arthur Young nor other connoisseurs of Champagne had been enticed into drinking as the genuine article any of the produce of the vineyard which the Hon. Charles Hamilton had planted with the Auvernat grape near Cobham, in Surrey, and which was said to yield a wine 'resembling Champagne.'[352]

The reduction of duty consequent upon the treaty as a matter of course largely increased the importation of French wine. Respecting the taste for Champagne then prevailing in England, and the price the wine commanded, a few interesting particulars are afforded by the early correspondence and account-books of Messrs. Moët & Chandon of Epernay, which we have courteously been permitted to inspect. From these we find that in October 1788 the Chevalier Colebrook, writing in French to the firm from Bath, asks that seventy-two bottles of Champagne may be sent to his friend, the Hon. John Butler of Molesworth-street, Dublin, 'who, if content with the wine, will become a very good customer, being rich, keeping a good house, and receiving many amateurs of _vin de Champagne_.' The writer is no doubt the 'M. Collebrock' to whom the firm shortly afterwards forward fifty bottles of '_vin non mousseux_, 1783,' on his own account. Messrs. Carbonnell, Moody, & Walker, predecessors of the well-known existing firm of Carbonnell & Co., London, in a letter dated November 1788, and also written in French, say: 'If you can supply us with some Champagne of a very good body, not too much charged with liqueur, but with an excellent flavour, and not at all _moussu_, we beg you to send two ten dozen baskets. Also, if you have any dry Champagne of very good flavour, solidity, and excellent body, send two baskets of the same size.'

The taste of the day was evidently for a full-bodied non-sparkling wine; and this is confirmed by Jeanson, Messrs. Moët's traveller in England, who writes from London in May 1790: 'How the taste of this country has altered within the last ten years! Almost everywhere they ask for a dry wine; but they want a wine so vinous and so strong, that there is hardly anything but Sillery that will satisfy them.' Additional confirmation is found in a letter, written from London in May 1799 to Messrs. Moët, by a Mr. John Motteux, complaining of delay in the delivery of a parcel of wine said to have been sent off by way of Havre, and very likely destined to be surreptitiously introduced into England _viâ_ Guernsey. He asks for a further supply of Sillery, if its safe arrival can be guaranteed, and remarks, 'There is nothing to be compared to Sillery when it is genuine; it must not have the least sweetness nor _mousse_.'[353]

During the great French war, patriotism and increased duties might have been expected to check the import of French wines; yet, if statistics are worth anything, the reverse would appear to have been the case. The registered imports, which from 1770 to 1786 had fluctuated between 80,000 and 125,000 gallons, rose during the last fourteen years of the century to an average of 550,000 gallons per annum. In those fighting, rollicking, hard-drinking times, when it was a sacred social duty to toast 'great George our King' on every possible occasion, Champagne continued to be 'the wine of fashion.' The sparkling variety was terribly costly, no doubt, and was often doled out, as Mr. Walker relates, 'like drops of blood.'[354] But whilst the stanch admirers of Port might profess to despise Champagne as effeminate, and the 'loyal volunteers' condemn it as the produce of a foeman's soil, there were plenty to sing in honour of 'The Fair of Britain's Isle:'

'Fill, fill the glass, to beauty charge,
And banish care from every breast;
In brisk Champaign we'll quick discharge,
A toast shall give the wine a zest.'[355]

Indeed, the greatest of England's naval heroes was not insensible to the attractions of this gift from 'our sweet enemy France.' In October 1800 Nelson, together with Sir William and Lady Hamilton, was a guest of Mr. Elliot, the British Resident at Dresden. At dinner Lady Hamilton drank more Champagne than the narrator of this little incident imagined it was possible for a woman to consume, and inspired thereby, insisted on favouring the company with her imitations of classical statuary. Nelson thereupon got uproarious, and went on emptying bumper after bumper of the same fluid in honour of the fair Emma, and swearing that she was superior to Siddons. The host kept striving 'to prevent the further effusion of Champagne,' but did not succeed till Sir William in his turn had astonished all present with a display of his social talents. The grave diplomatist lay down on his back, with his arms and legs in the air, and in this position bounded all round the room like a ball, with his stars and ribbons flying around him.[356]

If we may give credit to Tom Moore, 'the best wigged prince in Christendom,' who was subsequently to 'd---- Madeira as gouty,' and bring Sherry into fashion, preferred stronger potations than those produced on the banks of the Marne. In one of the poet's political skits the Prince is introduced soliloquising _à la_ Jemmy Thompson--

'O Roman Punch! O potent Curaçoa!
O Maraschino! Maraschino O!
Delicious drams'[357]--

and describing his favourite luncheon as 'good mutton cutlets and strong curaçoa.'[358] Nevertheless, the First Gentleman in Europe did consume Champagne; but it was concentrated in the form of punch, especially devised for him, and indulged in by him in company with Barrymore, Hanger, and their fellows.[359]

His sometime model and subsequent victim, poor Brummell, is said to have put the wine to a still more ignoble use. One day a youthful beau approached the great master in the arts of dress and deportment, and said, 'Permit me to ask you where you get your blacking?' 'Ah,' replied Brummell, gazing complacently at his boots, 'my blacking positively ruins me. I will tell you in confidence it is made with the finest Champagne.'[360] Probably the great dandy was merely quizzing his interlocutor, though such an act of extravagance would have been a pull on even the longest purse in those days, 'your bottle of Champagne in the year 1814 costing you a guinea.'[361]

(After Gilray).]

As to the Prince Regent's brothers, we know that the Duke of York was such a powerful toper, that 'six bottles of Claret after dinner scarce made a perceptible change in his countenance,'[362] and remember the Duke of Clarence making his appearance at the table of the Royal household at Windsor, and getting so helplessly drunk on Champagne as to be utterly incapable of keeping his promise to open the ball that evening with his sister Mary.[363] Two prominent orators of that day are credited with _mots_ upon Champagne. Curran said, _apropos_ of the rapid but transient intoxication produced by this wine, that 'Champagne made a runaway rap at a man's head;' while Canning maintained that any man who said he really liked dry Champagne simply lied.

After Waterloo, although a few _gourmets_ continued to prefer the still wine, sparkling Champagne became the almost universally accepted variety. Nevertheless, Henderson, while noting that 'by Champagne wine is usually understood a sparkling or frothy liquor,' gives the foremost place to the wine of Sillery, which, he remarks, 'has always been in much request in England, probably on account of its superior strength and durable quality.' He extols the Ay wine as 'an exquisite liquor, lighter and sweeter than the Sillery, and accompanied by a delicate flavour and aroma somewhat analogous to that of the pine-apple.'[364]

The poets of the first half of the present century have hardly done justice to Champagne. Tom Moore, the most Anacreontic of them all, although ready, like his Grecian prototype, to 'pledge the universe in wine,' the merits of which he was continually chanting in the abstract, has seldom been so invidious as to particularise any especial vintage. Champagne, the wine of all others best fitted to inspire his bright and sparkling lyrics, has received but scant attention in his earlier productions. Bob Fudge, writing from Paris in 1818, is made to speak approvingly of Beaune and Chambertin, but only mentions Champagne as a vehicle in which to _sauter_ kidneys;[365] and in the _Sceptic_ it is simply brought in to point a moral respecting the senses:

'Habit so mars them, that the Russian swain
Will sigh for train-oil while he sips Champagne.'[366]

In two instances only the poet who sang in such lively numbers of woman and wine pointedly refers to the vintage of the Champagne. One is when he says:

'If ever you've seen a party
Relieved from the presence of Ned,
How instantly joyous and hearty
They've grown when the damper was fled.
You may guess what a gay piece of work,
What delight to Champagne it must be,
To get rid of its bore of a cork,
And come sparkling to you, love, and me.'[367]

And his description of a summer _fête_ is indeed

'a mere terrestrial strain
Inspired by naught but pink Champagne;'[368]

such as might be penned

'While as the sparkling juice of France
High in the crystal brimmers flowed,
Each sunset ray, that mixed by chance
With the wine's diamond, showed
How sunbeams may be taught to dance;'[369]

with the final result that

'Thus did Fancy and Champagne
Work on the sight their dazzling spells,
Till nymphs that looked at noonday plain
Now brightened in the gloom to belles.'[370]

Moore's Diary, however, proves that if he did not care to praise the wine in verse, it was not for want of opportunities of becoming acquainted with it. Witness his 'odd dinner in a borrowed room' at Horace Twiss's in Chancery-lane, with the strangely incongruous accompaniments of 'Champagne, pewter spoons, and old Lady Cork.'[371]

As to that most convivial of songsters, Captain Charles Morris, poet-laureate of the Ancient Society of Beefsteaks, he labours under a similar reproach. Though he has filled several hundred octavo pages of his _Lyra Urbanica_ with verses in praise of wine, the liquor with which he crowns 'the mantling goblet,' 'the fancy-stirring bowl,' or 'the soul-subliming cup,' usually figures under some such fanciful designation as 'the inspiring juice,' 'the cordial of life,' or 'Bacchus' balm.' Champagne he evidently ignores as a beverage of Gallic origin, utterly unfitted for the praise of so true a Briton as himself; and the only vintage which he does condescend to mention with approbation is the favourite one of our beef-eating, hard-drinking, frog-hating forefathers, 'old Oporto' from 'the stout Lusitanian vine.'

Strange as it may seem, the manlier Muse of Scott used at times to dip her wing into the Champagne cup, although she has failed to express any verbal gratitude to this source of inspiration. 'In truth,' says his biographer, 'he liked no wines except sparkling Champaign and Claret; but even as to this last he was no connoisseur, and sincerely preferred a tumbler of whisky-toddy to the most precious liquid ruby that ever flowed in the cup of a prince. He rarely took any other potation when alone with his family; but at the Sunday board he circulated the Champaign briskly during dinner, and considered a pint of Claret each man's fair share afterwards.'[372] Scott himself, wearied with a round of London festivities, is impelled to write, 'I begin to tire of my gaieties. I wish for a sheep's head and whisky-toddy against all the French cookery and Champaign in the world.'[373] Lockhart, in his _Life of Scott_, notes the excellent flavour of some Champagne sent to Abbotsford by a French admirer of the Northern Wizard in return for a set of his works, and more than once incidentally refers to the presence of the wine at Scott's table on festive gatherings.

Byron, who furnished in the course of his career a practical exemplification of the maxim that

'Comus all allows
Champaign, dice, music, or your neighbour's spouse,'[374]

did the vintage of the Marne justice in his verses. In _Don Juan_ he shows himself not insensible to the charms of

'Champagne with foaming whirls
As white as Cleopatra's melted pearls.'[375]

The wine, moreover, furnishes two striking comparisons in that poem--one when he observes that

'The evaporation of a joyous day
Is like the last glass of Champagne, without
The foam which made its virgin bumper gay;'[376]

and the other, where, in his sketch of Lady Adeline Amundeville, he rejects the trite metaphor of the snow-covered volcano in favour of

'a bottle of Champagne
Frozen into a very vinous ice,
Which leaves few drops of that immortal rain;
Yet in the very centre, past all price,
About a liquid glassful will remain;
And this is stronger than the strongest grape
Could e'er express in its expanded shape:

'Tis the whole spirit brought to a quintessence;
And thus the chilliest aspects may concentre
A hidden nectar under a cold presence.'[377]

Although we find Henderson remarking, in 1822, that

'the pink Champagne is less in request than the colourless, and has
in fact nothing to entitle it to the preference,'

yet wine of this tint continued to reappear from time to time, securing a transitory popularity from its attractive appearance, which caused it to be likened to the dying reflection of the setting sun on a clear stream. An interesting incident in connection with its advent on one of these occasions at the table of Rogers, the banker-poet, has been recorded by Mr. R. A. Tracy Gould of the American Bar. He was dining, it seems, in company with Tom Moore and John Kenyon, with Rogers at St. James's-place, when their host, who had recently received through the French Ambassador a present of a case of pink Champagne from Louis Philippe, had the first bottle of it produced at the end of the dinner. The saucer-shaped Champagne glasses were then just coming into use, and pink Champagne, which was a revived novelty in England at that moment, looked singularly beautiful in them, crowned with its snow-white foam. Kenyon, who, as Gould remarks, was nothing if not declamatory, held up his glass, and apostrophised it as follows:

'Lily on liquid roses floating!
So floats yon foam o'er pink Champagne!
Fain would I join such pleasant boating,
And prove that ruby main,
And float away on wine!'

This being vociferously applauded, after a few minutes' pause he added the second verse:

'Those seas are dangerous, graybeards swear,
Whose sea-beach is the goblet's brim;
And here it is they drown dull Care--
But what care we for him?
So we but float on wine!'

On being desired to continue, Kenyon declared that he had done his part, and that it was now the turn of some one else. Moore and Rogers both claimed exemption, as being on the 'retired list' of the Parnassian army, and peremptorily demanded a contribution from the Transatlantic guest, Tracy Gould, who thereupon, with 'great diffidence,' as he tells us, delivered himself of the third and fourth stanzas:

'Gray Time shall pause and smooth his wrinkles,
Bright garlands round his scythe shall twine;
While sands from out his glass he sprinkles,
To fill it up with wine--
With rosy sparkling wine!

Thus hours shall pass which no man reckons,
'Mongst us, who, glad with mirth divine,
Heed not the shadowy hand that beckons
Across the sea of wine--
Of billowy gushing wine!'

Kenyon then added another stanza, which suggested a final verse to the American:

'And though 'tis true they cross in pain,
Who sober cross the Stygian ferry,
Yet only make our Styx Champagne,
And we shall cross right merry,
Floating away on wine!'

'Old Charon's self shall make him mellow,
Then gaily row his bark from shore;
While we and every jolly fellow
Hear unconcerned the oar
That dips itself in wine!'

By this time the inspiration and the Champagne were alike exhausted.

The history of Champagne in England during the latter half of the present century may be briefly summed up in the assertion of the ever-growing popularity of the wine, and the high repute attained by certain brands, which it would be invidious to particularise. Its success in oiling the wheels of social life is so great and so universally acknowledged that its eclipse would almost threaten a collapse of our social system. We cannot open a railway, launch a vessel, inaugurate a public edifice, start a newspaper, entertain a distinguished foreigner, invite a leading politician to favour us with his views on things in general, celebrate an anniversary, or specially appeal on behalf of a benevolent institution without a banquet, and hence without the aid of Champagne, which, at the present day, is the obligatory adjunct of all such repasts.

When the Municipality of London welcome the Khan of Kamschatka to our shores and to the Guildhall, Champagne flows in the proverbial buckets full. When the Master and Wardens of the Coalscuttle-Makers' Company bid the Livery to one of their periodical feasts, scandal says that even this measure is exceeded. When Sir Fusby Guttleton gives one of his noted 'little spreads' at Greenwich, are not torrents of iced 'dry' needed to quench the thirst excited by the devilled bait? Aware, too, of the unloosening effect the wine exercises upon the strings of both heart and purse, Pomposo, as chairman at the annual festival of the Decayed Muffinmongers' Asylum, is careful to see that the glasses of the guests have been well charged with it before he commences his stirring appeal on behalf of that deserving institution.

Does Ingenioso wish to introduce to the notice of the British public a new heating-power or lighting-apparatus or ice-making machinery, he straightway issues cards for a private view to critics and cognoscenti, and is careful that these shall observe the merits of his invention through the medium of a glass--bubbling over with Champagne. So it is at the openings of the latest extension of the Mugby Junction Railway and of the Palatial Hotel, at the private view of the Amicable Afghans, or Tinto's new picture, or any one of Crotchet's manifold inventions. If the bidding, too, flags at a sale of shorthorns or thoroughbreds, at a wink from the auctioneer the Champagne-corks are set a-popping, and advance promptly follows advance in responsive echoes.

Not less important is the part that Champagne plays in the City. Capel Crash, the great financier, literally _floats_ the concerns he deigns to 'promote' by its agency. When Consol, the millionaire, makes one of a set for rigging the market, and the 'ring' thus formed has reaped the reward of their ingenuity, does he not entertain his intimate friends with the story and with the choicest Champagne? The amount of business, moreover, transacted by the aid of the wine is incalculable. Bargains in stocks and shares, tea and sugar, cotton and corn, hemp and iron, hides and tallow, broadcloth and shoddy, are clinched by its agency. On the other hand, many a bit of sharp practice has been forgiven, many a hard bargain has been forgotten, many a smouldering resentment has been quenched for ever, and many an enmity healed and a friendship cemented, over a bottle of Champagne.

'O, the old way--hamper-and-four.'

(From a drawing by John Leech in 'Punch.')]

(From a drawing by John Leech in 'Punch.')]

The Turf is said to be our national pastime, and no one will deny the close connection existing between sport and Champagne. From the highest to the lowest of that wonderful agglomeration of individuals interested in equine matters, it is recognised as the only standard 'tipple.' Champagne goes down to the Derby in its hamper-and-four, like other pertinacious patrons of the race, and its all but ubiquitous presence on the course is warmly welcomed by thousands of thirsty visitors of very various grades. At Ascot, does H. R. H. the Prince of Wales seek to congratulate the Marquis of Hartington on his success, it is by wishing him further success in a glass of sparkling wine. Does Mr. William Kurr, welsher, desire to make the acquaintance of Mr. Druscovitch, detective, he seeks an introduction from Mr. Meiklejohn over a bottle of 'fiz.' Does the favourite horse win--quick, fill high the bowl with sparkling wine, to celebrate his triumph; does he lose, the same vintage will serve to drown our sorrows and obliterate the recollection of our losses. How many cunning _coups_, how many clever combinations, have there not been worked out in all their details over a bottle of 'Cham.' in quiet hotel-parlours at Doncaster or Newmarket! How many bets have been laid and paid in the same medium! How many a jockey has been bought, and how many a race has been sold, owing to the moral as well as physical obliquity of vision which the ingurgitation of the wine has induced! Nor should the existence of Champagne Stakes be forgotten. There are now several races of this name at different meetings; but the oldest is that established at Doncaster in 1828, and taking its title from the fact of the owner of the winner having to present six dozen of Champagne to the Doncaster Club.

_Brown_: 'Then I'm deuced glad I'm at Epsom.'

(From a drawing by John Leech in 'Punch.')]

Look, too, at the influence exercised by the wine on the British drama, or rather on what to-day passes as such. Plagioso the playwright freely opens a bottle of Champagne with the object of stimulating the wit of his friend and collaborateur in the task of adapting Messrs. Meilhac & Halévy's latest production to the London stage. Adverse critics, moreover, are said to be mollified by the subjugating influence of the wine; while authors, enraged at the way in which their pieces have been 'cut,' are similarly soothed; squabbles too between rival _artistes_ as to parts and lengths are satisfactorily arranged in the managerial sanctum over a bottle of fiz. Does Lord Nortiboy wish to smooth over a tiff with the tow-haired young lady who is making ducks and drakes of his money at the Gynarchic Theatre, and whose partiality for sparkling wine is notorious, a dinner at Richmond and floods of 'Cham' for herself and friends is the plan that naturally suggests itself. Should the enterprising lessees of the Chansonnette Theatre determine to celebrate the thousand and first night of the run of _Their Girls_, a Champagne supper is recognised as the fit and proper method of doing so. Supper is the favourite meal of the profession, and Champagne is of course the best of all wine to take at that repast. On the stage itself it has often proved of very serious service. Robust tragedians and prima donnas in good training may indulge in stout, as more 'mellering to the organ;' but by the judicious administration of Champagne many a nervous _débutant_ has been encouraged to conquer 'stage fright' and to face the footlights, many a jaded _tragédienne_ enabled to rally her fainting energies in the last act, and to carry her audience with her in a final outburst of pathos or passion.

Statesmen no longer prime themselves with Port before strolling down to the House, till they get into the condition of the two members, one of whom averred that he could not see any Speaker in the chair, whilst the other gravely accounted for the phenomenon of this disappearance by asserting that, for his part, he saw a couple. Perhaps it is to be regretted that the records of the 'tea-room' do not vouch for a larger consumption of Champagne, as then perhaps the reporters overnight and their readers the nest morning might escape the wearisome reiteration of purposeless recrimination and threadbare platitudes. Such should certainly be the case, since the power of the wine as an incentive to brisk and sparkling conversation has been universally acknowledged in social life.

'H'm! Awfully sweet. Very good sort for ladies. But I've arrived at a time of life when I confess I like my wine dry.'

(From a drawing by John Leech in 'Punch.')]

To the dinners of Bloomsbury and Belgravia, as well as the suppers of Bohemia, Champagne imparts a charm peculiarly its own by placing all there present _en rapport_. The modern mind may well look back with shuddering horror to that dreary period when Champagne, if given at all, was doled out at dinner-parties 'like drops of blood.' No wonder the ladies used to fly from the table and the gentlemen to slide underneath it. And, speaking of the ladies, is not Champagne their wine _par excellence_? How would the fragile products of modern civilisation be able to outdo the most robust of their ancestresses--whose highest saltatory feats were the execution of the slow and stately minuet, the formal quadrille with its frequent rests, or at most the romping country dance--by whirling almost uninterruptedly in the mazes of the giddy waltz from nine in the evening until five in the morning, without the sustaining power the sparkling fluid affords them? Has it not on their tongues an influence equal to that which it exercises on their swiftly-flying feet, inspiring pretty prattle, sparkling repartee, enchanting smiles, and silvery laughter? Old Bertin du Rocheret was quite right when he invited his fair friends to continue drinking

'De ce nectar délicieux,
Qui pétille dans vos beaux yeux
Mieux qu'il ne brille dans mon verre.'

Since these lines were penned, many thousands of bright eyes have so borrowed an additional lustre.