French and Rhine wines--deeming them unfit for the palate of a true-born
Englishman. Port, Sherry, and Madeira were his only tipple--the rest, he
would assert, were only fit for finger-glasses!

--He was of a bulky figure, indeed a perfect Magnum among men, with a
very apoplectic brevity of neck, and a logwood complexion,--and though a
staunch Church-of-England-man, he might have been mistaken, from his
predilection for the Port, to be a true Mussulman. To hear him discourse
upon the age of his wines--the 'pinhole,' the 'crust,' the 'bees'-wing,'
etc., was perfectly edifying--and every man who could not imbibe the
prescribed quantum, became his butt. To temperance and tea-total
societies he attributed the rapid growth of radicalism and dissent.

"Water," he would say, with a sort of hydrophobic shudder, "is only a fit
beverage for asses!"--"To say a man could drink like a fish, was once the
greatest encomium that a bon-vivant could bestow upon a brother
Bacchanalian--but, alas! in this matter-of-fact and degenerate age, men
do so literally--washing their gills with unadulterated water!--Dropsy
and water on the chest must be the infallible result! If such an order
of things continue, all the puppies in the kingdom, who would perhaps
have become jolly dogs in their time, will be drowned! Yes, they'll
inevitably founder, like a water-logged vessel, in sight of port. These
water-drinkers will not have a long reign. They would feign persuade us
that 'Truth lies at the bottom of a well,'--lies, indeed! I tell you
Horace knew better, and that his assertion of 'There is truth in wine,'
was founded on experience--his draughts had no water-mark in 'em, depend
on it."

He was a great buyer of choice "Pieces," and his cellar contained one of
the best stocks in the kingdom, both in the wood and bottle. Poor