1880 Facts about Port and Madeira by Henry Vizetelly

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The Vineyards and Wines of Madeira.

was a point of curiosity with, me as to how so magnificent a wine,once famous throughout Europe,should have gone out of fashion to the extent that Madeira appears to have done. It has escaped the persistent and often ignorant attacks directed against sheriy and port, for no one pretends the wine to be either plastered or unduly alcoholised; neither has any medical oracle published his ignorance of the details of its vinification. At the end of the fifteenth century Madeira was abeady ex ported to Europe,and by the middle of the sixteenth was in high favour atthe court of Francis I.of France. Thatit was well known in England no long time afterwards is evidenced by the reference Shakspeare makesto itin HenryIV.,where Poins twits Falstaff respecting the compact he had made with Satan for his soul, which he accuses droughty Jack of having"sold him on Oood Friday last for a cup of Madeira and a cold capon's leg." We made the voyage out on board the African, belonging to the Union Steamship Company,which runs some of the fastest vessels to the Gape of Good Hope,Natal,and other ports on the south-eastern coast of Africa. A sharp drive to Waterloo,and a swiftjourney through smiling Surrey and Hampshire,whose golden harvests, waiting the reaper's sickle, stretched among pleasant English homesteads nestled under wooded hills, brought us to Southampton,where greetings and partings suc ceed each other every day throughout the changing year. As usual a crowd of visitors, friends or relations of departing pas sengers or ship's officers, boai-ded the steamer previous to her departure,and unlimited limcheon for all on board followed asa matter of course. There was a tall gentleman with a black beard who seemed as if he would like to say something very tender to a pretty girl,leaving under the captain's protection for Madeira,but some kind friend or another always contrived to be in the way. There was a first-class passenger of the feminine sex, wife of a Cape diamond digger, who arrived on board in a woeful state of inebriation, much to the scandal of lookers-on. She at once dived down the companion,and was conveyed to her berth, not to appear again until we had safely