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138
THE FLOWING BOWL
pocket the key thereof. Many of the guests
slept where they fell, "repugnant to command,"
like the sword of Pyrrhus ; whilst others would
be fastened in the interior of their chariots at a
later hour. Even in the late fifties, the estimable
divine with whom I was studying the beauties
of the classics, would on the frequent occasion of
a dinner-party provide one bottle of port per
head, for his guests, in addition to hock, cham
pagne, and sherry ; and the writer, then a boy of
fifteen, was included amongst the " heads."
But as the stone age succeeded the ice age, as
the iron age succeeded the stone age, and as the
gold age, and the railway age, and the rotten
company age succeeded the iron age, so have the
whisky age, and the " small bottle " age, and the
gin-and-bitters age almost wiped out the age
when man drank, talked, and thought port. Our
ancestors were immoderate in their potations but,
as far as wine went, these were but rarely indulged
in until after sundown, although the Briton
would frequently wash his breakfast down with
ale of the strongest.
And it is difficult to
believe that the evil habit of "nipping," at all
hours of the day, which now prevails in some
circles—a habit which is mainly due to the
break-neck pace at which life is pursued—is
either more conducive to health or intellectuality,
or morality than the after-dinner debauch of a
century ago.
The "hot and heady" wine is (or, rather,
was) produced chiefly in a mountainous district
of Portugal called Cima de Douro. The wine
is largely mixed with spirit even during fermen-