Chapter XV: Part III: I (2)

The deposit in the wine after being impelled towards the neck of the bottle is got rid of by following the same system as is pursued in the Champagne, but no liqueur whatever is subsequently added to the wine. On the other hand, it is a common practice to reduce the over-sweetness of sparkling Saint-Péray in years when the grapes are more than usually ripe by mixing with it some old dry white wine.

At Saint-Péray we visited the cellars of M. de Saint-Prix, one of the principal wine-growers of the district. The samples of effervescing wine which he produced for us to taste were of a pale golden colour, of a slightly nutty flavour, and with a decided suggestion of the spirituous essence known to be concentrated in the wine, one glass of which will go quite as far towards elevating a person as three glasses of Champagne. Keeping the wine for a few years is said materially to improve its quality, to the sacrifice, however, of its effervescing properties. M. de Saint-Prix informed us that he manufactured every year a certain quantity of sparkling Côte-Rotie, Château-Grillé, and Hermitage. The principal markets for the Saint-Péray sparkling wines--the production of which falls considerably short of a million bottles per annum--are England, Germany, Russia, Holland, and Belgium.

The other side of the Rhone is fruitful in minor sparkling wines, chief among which is the so-called Clairette de Die, made at the town of that name, a place of some splendour, as existing antiquities show, in the days of the Roman dominion in Gaul. Later on, Die was the scene of constant struggles for supremacy between its counts and bishops, one of the latter being massacred by the populace in front of the cathedral doorway--ever since known by the sinister appellation of the Porte Rouge--and Catholics and Huguenots alike devastated the town in the troublesome times of the Reformation. Clairette de Die is made principally from the blanquette or malvoisie variety of grape, which, after the stalks have been removed, is both trodden with the feet and pressed. The must is run off immediately into casks, and four-and-twenty hours later it is racked into other casks, a similar operation being performed every two or three days for the period of a couple of months, when, the fermentation having subsided, the wine is fined and usually bottled in the following March. Newly-made Clairette de Die is a sweet sparkling wine, but it loses its natural effervescence after a couple of years, unless it has been treated in the same manner as Champagne, which is rarely the case. The wine enjoys a reputation altogether beyond its merits.

In addition to the well-known Clairette, some of the wine-growers of Die make sparkling white and rose-coloured muscatels of superior quality, which retain their effervescing properties for several years. A sparkling wine is also made some ten miles from Die, on the road to Saillans, in a district bounded on the one side by the waters of the Drôme, and on the other by strange mountains with helmet-shaped crests. The centre of production is a locality called Vercheny, composed of several hamlets, one of which, named Le Temple, was the original home of the family of Barnave. The impressionable young deputy to the National Assembly formed one of the trio sent to bring back the French royal family from Varennes after their flight from Paris. It will be remembered how, under the influence of Marie Antoinette and Madame Elizabeth, Barnave became transformed during the journey into a faithful partisan of their unhappy cause, and that he eventually paid the penalty of his devotion with his life.

In the extreme south of France, and almost under the shadow of the Pyrenees, a sparkling wine of some repute is made at a place called Lagrasse, about five-and-twenty miles westward of Narbonne, the once-famous Mediterranean city, the maritime rival of Marseilles, and in its palmy days, prior to the Christian era, a miniature Rome, with its capitol, its curia, its decemvirs, its consuls, its prætors, its questors, its censors, and its ediles, and which boasted of being the birthplace of three Roman Emperors. To-day Narbonne has to content itself with the humble renown derived from its delicious honey and its characterless full-bodied wines. Limoux, so celebrated for its Blanquette, lies a long way farther to the west, behind the Corbières range of mountains that join on to the Pyrenees, and the jagged peaks, deep barren gorges, and scarred sides of which have been witness of many a desperate struggle during the century and a half when they formed the boundary between France and Spain.

We arrived at Limoux just too late for the famous _fête_ of the Black Virgin, which lasts three weeks, and attracts crowds of southern pilgrims to the chapel of Our Lady of Marseilles, perched on a little hill some short distance from the town, with a fountain half-way up, whose water issues drop by drop, and has the credit of possessing unheard-of virtues. The majority of pilgrims, however, exhibit a decided preference for the new-made wine over the miraculous water, and for one-and-twenty days something like a carnival of inebriety prevails at Limoux.

Blanquette de Limoux derives its name from the species of grape it is produced from, and which we believe to be identical with the malvoisie, or malmsey. Its long-shaped berries grow in huge bunches, and dry readily on the stalks. The fruit is gathered as tenderly as possible, care being taken that it shall not be in the slightest degree bruised, and is then spread out upon a floor to admit of whatever sugar it contains becoming perfect. The bad grapes having been carefully picked out, and the seeds extracted from the remaining fruit, the latter is now trodden, and the must, after being filtered through a strainer, is placed in casks, where it remains fermenting for about a week, during which time any overflow is daily replenished by other must reserved for the purpose. The wine is again clarified, and placed in fresh casks with the bungholes only lightly closed until all sensible fermentation has ceased, when they are securely fastened up. The bottling takes place in the month of March, and the wine is subsequently treated much after the same fashion as sparkling Saint-Péray, excepting that it is generally found necessary to repeat the operation of _dégorgement_ three, if not as many as four, times.

Blanquette de Limoux is a pale white wine, the saccharine properties of which have become completely transformed into carbonic acid gas and alcohol. It is consequently both dry and spirituous, deficient in delicacy, and altogether proves a great disappointment. At its best it may, perhaps, rank with sparkling Saint-Péray, but unquestionably not with an average Champagne.

III.

/Facts and Notes respecting Sparkling Wines./

Dry and sweet Champagnes--Their sparkling properties--Form
of Champagne glasses--Style of sparkling wines consumed in
different countries--The colour and alcoholic strength of
Champagne--Champagne approved of by the faculty--Its use in
nervous derangements--The icing of Champagne--Scarcity of grand
vintages in the Champagne--The quality of the wine has little
influence on the price--Prices realised by the Ay and Verzenay
crus in grand years--Suggestions for laying down Champagnes of
grand vintages--The improvement they develop after a few years--The
wine of 1874--The proper kind of cellar in which to lay down
Champagne--Advantages of Burrow's patent slider wine-bins--Increase
in the consumption of Champagne--Tabular statement of stocks,
exports, and home consumption from 1844-5 to 1877-8--When to serve
Champagne at a dinner-party--Charles Dickens's dictum that its
proper place is at a ball--Advantageous effect of Champagne at an
ordinary British dinner-party.

In selecting a sparkling wine, one fact should be borne in mind--that just as, according to Sam Weller, it is the seasoning which makes the pie mutton, beef, or veal, so it is the liqueur which renders the wine dry or sweet, light or strong. A really palatable dry Champagne, emitting the fragrant bouquet which distinguishes all wines of fine quality, free from added spirit, is obliged to be made of the very best _vin brut_, to which necessarily an exceedingly small percentage of liqueur will be added. On the other hand, a sweet Champagne can be produced from the most ordinary raw wine--the Yankees even claim to have evolved it from petroleum--as the amount of liqueur it receives completely masks its original character and flavour. This excess of syrup, it should be remarked, contributes materially to the wine's explosive force and temporary effervescence; but shortly after the bottle has been uncorked the wine becomes disagreeably flat. A fine dry wine, indebted as it is for its sparkling properties to the natural sweetness of the grape, does not exhibit the same sudden turbulent effervescence. It continues to sparkle, however, for a long time after being poured into the glass, owing to the carbonic acid having been absorbed by the wine itself instead of being accumulated in the vacant space between the liquid and the cork, as is the case with wines that have been highly liqueured. Even when its carbonic acid gas is exhausted, a good Champagne will preserve its fine flavour, which the effervescence will have assisted to conceal. Champagne, it should be noted, sparkles best in tall tapering glasses; still these have their disadvantages, promoting, as they do, an excess of froth when the wine is poured into them, and almost preventing any bouquet which the wine possesses from being recognised.

Manufacturers of Champagne and other sparkling wines prepare them dry or sweet, light or strong, according to the markets for which they are designed. The sweet wines go to Russia and Germany--the sweet-toothed Muscovite regarding M. Louis Roederer's syrupy product as the _beau-idéal_ of Champagne, and the Germans demanding wines with twenty or more per cent of liqueur, or nearly quadruple the quantity that is contained in the average Champagnes shipped to England. France consumes light and moderately sweet wines; the United States gives a preference to the intermediate qualities; China, India, and other hot countries stipulate for light dry wines; while the very strong ones go to Australia, the Cape, and other places where gold and diamonds and suchlike trifles are from time to time 'prospected.' Not merely the driest, but the very best, wines of the best manufacturers, and commanding of course the highest prices, are invariably reserved for the English market. Foreigners cannot understand the marked preference shown in England for exceedingly dry sparkling wines. They do not consider that as a rule they are drunk during dinner with the _plats_, and not at dessert, with all kinds of sweets, fruits, and ices, as is almost invariably the case abroad.

Good Champagne is usually of a pale straw colour, but with nothing of a yellow tinge about it. When its tint is pinkish, this is owing to a portion of the colouring matter having been extracted from the skins of the grapes--a contingency which every pains are taken to avoid, although, since the success achieved by the wine of 1874, slightly pink wines are likely to be the fashion. The positive pink or rose-coloured Champagnes, such as were in fashion some thirty years ago, are simply tinted with a small quantity of deep-red wine. The alcoholic strength of the drier wines ranges from eighteen degrees of proof spirit upwards, or slightly above the ordinary Bordeaux, and under all the better-class Rhine wines. Champagnes, when loaded with a highly alcoholised liqueur, will, however, at times mark as many as thirty degrees of proof spirit. The lighter and drier the sparkling wine, the more wholesome it is, the saccharine element in conjunction with alcohol being not only difficult of digestion, but generally detrimental to health.

The faculty are agreed that fine dry Champagnes, consumed in moderation, are among the safest wines that can be partaken of. Any intoxicating effects are rapid but exceedingly transient, and arise from the alcohol suspended in the carbonic acid being applied rapidly and extensively to the surface of the stomach. 'Champagne,' said Curran, 'simply gives a runaway rap at a man's head.' Dr. Druitt, equally distinguished by his studies upon wine and his standing as a physician, pronounces good Champagne to be 'a true stimulant to body and mind alike--rapid, volatile, transitory, and harmless. Amongst the maladies that are benefited by it,' remarks he, 'is the true neuralgia--intermitting fits of excruciating pain running along certain nerves, without inflammation of the affected part, often a consequence of malaria, or of some other low and exhausting causes. To enumerate the cases in which Champagne is of service would be to give a whole nosology. Who does not know the misery, the helplessness of that abominable ailment influenza, whether a severe cold or the genuine epidemic? Let the faculty dispute about the best remedy if they please; but a sensible man with a bottle of Champagne will beat them all. Moreover, whenever there is pain, with exhaustion and lowness, then Dr. Champagne should be had up. There is something excitant in the wine--doubly so in the sparkling wine, which, the moment it touches the lips, sends an electric telegram of comfort to every remote nerve. Nothing comforts and rests the stomach better, or is a greater antidote to nausea.'

Champagne of fine quality should never be mixed with ice or iced water; neither should it be iced to the extent Champagnes ordinarily are; for, in the first place, the natural lightness of the wine is such as not to admit of its being diluted without utterly spoiling it, and in the next, excessive cold destroys alike the fragrant bouquet of the wine and its delicate vinous flavour. Really good Champagne should not be iced below a temperature of fifty degrees Fahr.; whereas exceedingly sweet wines will bear icing down almost to freezing point, and be rendered more palatable by the process. The above remarks apply to all sorts of sparkling wine.

In the Champagne, what may be termed a really grand vintage commonly occurs only once, and never more than twice, in ten years. During the same period, however, there will generally be one or two other tolerably good vintages. In grand years the crop, besides being of superior quality, is usually abundant, and as a consequence the price of the raw wine is scarcely higher than usual. Apparently from this circumstance the sparkling wine of grand vintages does not command an enhanced value, as is the case with other fine wines. It is only when speculators recklessly outbid each other for the grapes or the _vin brut_, or when stocks are low and the _vin brut_ is really scarce, that the price of Champagne appears to rise.

That superior quality does not involve enhanced price is proved by the amounts paid for the Ay and Verzenay crus in years of grand vintages. During the present century these appear to have been 1802, '06, '11, '18, '22, '25, '34, '42, '46, '57, '65, '68, and '74--that is, thirteen grand vintages in eighty years. Other good vintages, although not equal to the foregoing, occurred in the years 1815, '32, '39, '52, '54, '58, '62, '64, and '70. Confining ourselves to the grand years, we find that the Ay wine of 1834, owing to the crop being plentiful as well as good, only realised from 110 to 140 francs the pièce of 44 gallons, although for two years previously this had fetched them 150 to 200 francs. In 1842 the price ranged from 120 to 150 francs, whereas the vastly inferior wine of the year before had commanded from 210 to 275 francs. In 1846, the crop being a small one, the price of the wine rose, and in 1857 the pièce fetched as much as from 480 to 500 francs; still this was merely a trifle higher than it had realised the two preceding years. In 1865 the price was 380 to 400 francs, and in 1868 about the same, whereas the indifferent vintages of 1871, '72, and '73--the latter eventually proved to be of execrable quality--realised from 500 to 1000 francs the pièce. It was very similar with the wine of Verzenay. In 1834 the price of the pièce ranged from 280 to 325 francs, or about the average of the three preceding years. In 1846, the crop being scarce, the price rose considerably; while in 1857, when the crop was plentiful, it fell to 500 francs, or from 5 to 20 per cent below that of the two previous years, when the yield was both inferior and less abundant. In 1865 the price rose 33 per cent above that of the year before; still, although Verzenay wine of 1865 and 1868 fetched from 420 to 450 francs the pièce, and that of 1874 as much as 900 francs, the greatly inferior vintages of 1872-73 commanded 900 and 1030 francs the pièce. Subsequently the price of the wine fell to 350 and 450 francs the pièce, to rise again, however, in 1878 to 900 francs, which was followed by a fall the following year to 250 francs. In 1880, when the yield was no more than the quarter of an average one, and the quality was as yet undetermined, the Ay and Verzenay wines commanded the high price of 1500 francs and upwards the pièce. Exceptionally high prices were also realised for the wines of the neighbouring localities.

Consumers of Champagne, if wise, would profit by the circumstance that quality has not the effect of causing a rise in prices, and if they were bent upon drinking their favourite wine in perfection, as one meets with it at the dinner-tables of the principal manufacturers, who only put old wine of grand vintages before their guests, they would lay down Champagnes of good years in the same way as the choicer vintages of port, burgundy, and bordeaux are laid down. The Champagne of 1874 was a wine of this description, with all its finer vinous qualities well developed, and consequently needing age to attain not merely the roundness, but the refinement, of flavour pertaining to a high-class sparkling wine. Instead of being drunk a few months after it was shipped in the spring and summer of 1877, as was the fate of much of the wine in question, it needed being kept for three years at the very least to become even moderately round and perfect. In the Champagne one had many opportunities of tasting the grander vintages that had arrived at ten, twelve, or fifteen years of age, and had thereby attained supreme excellence. It is true their effervescence had moderated materially, but their bouquet and flavour were perfect, and their softness and delicacy something marvellous.

A great wine like that of 1874 will go on improving for ten years, providing it is only laid down under proper conditions. These are, first, an exceedingly cool but perfectly dry cellar, the temperature of which should be as low as from 50° to 55° Fahr., or even lower if this is practicable. The cellar, too, should be neither over dark nor light, scrupulously clean, and sufficiently well ventilated for the air to be continuously pure. It is requisite that the bottles should rest on their sides, to prevent the corks shrinking, and thus allowing both the carbonic acid and the wine itself to escape. For laying down Champagne or any kind of sparkling wine, an iron wine-bin is by far the best; and the patent 'slider' bins made by Messrs. W. & J. Burrow, of Malvern, are better adapted to the purpose than any other. In these the bottles rest on horizontal parallel bars of wrought-iron, securely riveted into strong wrought-iron uprights, both at the back and in front. They are especially adapted for laying down Champagne, as they admit of the air circulating freely around the bottles, thus conducing to the preservation of the metal foil round their necks, and keeping the temperature of the wine both cool and equable.

From the subjoined table it will be seen that the consumption of Champagne has more than quadrupled since the year 1844-5, a period of six-and-thirty years. A curious fact to note is the immense increase in the exports of the wine during the three years following the Franco-German war, during which contest both the exports and home consumption of Champagne naturally fell off very considerably. No reliable information is available as to the actual quantity of Champagne consumed yearly in England, but this may be taken in round numbers at about four millions of bottles. The consumption of the wine in the United States varies from rather more than a million and a half to nearly two million bottles annually.

OFFICIAL RETURN BY THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE AT REIMS OF THE TRADE IN CHAMPAGNE WINES FROM APRIL 1844 TO APRIL 1881.

+-----------+--------------+------------+-------------+-------------+
|Years--from| | Number of | Number of | Total |
| April |Manufacturers'| Bottles |Bottles sold | Number of |
| to April. | Stocks. | exported. | in France. |Bottles sold.|
+-----------+--------------+------------+-------------+-------------+
| 1844-45 | 23,285,218 | 4,380,214 | 2,255,438 | 6,635,652 |
| 1845-46 | 22,847,971 | 4,505,308 | 2,510,605 | 7,015,913 |
| 1846-47 | 18,815,367 | 4,711,915 | 2,355,366 | 7,067,281 |
| 1847-48 | 23,122,994 | 4,859,625 | 2,092,571 | 6,952,196 |
| 1848-49 | 21,290,185 | 5,686,484 | 1,473,966 | 7,160,450 |
| 1849-50 | 20,499,192 | 5,001,044 | 1,705,735 | 6,706,779 |
| 1850-51 | 20,444,915 | 5,866,971 | 2,122,569 | 7,989,540 |
| 1851-52 | 21,905,479 | 5,957,552 | 2,162,880 | 8,120,432 |
| 1852-53 | 19,376,967 | 6,355,574 | 2,385,217 | 8,740,790 |
| 1853-54 | 17,757,769 | 7,878,320 | 2,528,719 | 10,407,039 |
| 1854-55 | 20,922,959 | 5,895,773 | 2,452,743 | 9,348,516 |
| 1855-56 | 15,957,141 | 7,137,001 | 2,562,039 | 9,699,040 |
| 1856-57 | 15,228,294 | 8,490,198 | 2,468,818 | 10,959,016 |
| 1857-58 | 21,628,778 | 7,368,310 | 2,421,454 | 9,789,764 |
| 1858-59 | 28,328,251 | 7,666,633 | 2,805,416 | 10,472,049 |
| 1859-60 | 35,648,124 | 8,265,395 | 3,039,621 | 11,305,016 |
| 1860-61 | 30,235,260 | 8,488,223 | 2,697,508 | 11,185,731 |
| 1861-62 | 30,254,291 | 6,904,915 | 2,592,875 | 9,497,790 |
| 1862-63 | 28,013,189 | 7,937,836 | 2,767,371 | 10,705,207 |
| 1863-64 | 28,466,975 | 9,851,138 | 2,934,996 | 12,786,134 |
| 1864-65 | 33,298,672 | 9,101,441 | 2,801,626 | 11,903,067 |
| 1865-66 | 34,175,429 | 10,413,455 | 2,782,777 | 13,196,132 |
| 1866-67 | 37,608,716 | 10,283,886 | 3,218,343 | 13,502,229 |
| 1867-68 | 37,969,219 | 10,876,585 | 2,924,268 | 13,800,853 |
| 1868-69 | 32,490,881 | 12,810,194 | 3,104,496 | 15,914,690 |
| 1869-70 | 39,272,562 | 13,858,839 | 3,628,461 | 17,487,300 |
| 1870-71 | 39,984,003 | 7,544,323 | 1,633,941 | 9,178,264 |
| 1871-72 | 40,099,243 | 17,001,124 | 3,367,537 | 20,368,661 |
| 1872-73 | 45,329,490 | 18,917,779 | 3,464,059 | 22,381,838 |
| 1873-74 | 46,573,974 | 18,106,310 | 2,491,759 | 20,598,069 |
| 1874-75 | 52,733,674 | 15,318,345 | 3,517,182 | 18,835,527 |
| 1875-76 | 64,658,767 | 16,705,719 | 2,439,762 | 19,145,481 |
| 1876-77 | 71,398,726 | 15,882,964 | 3,127,991 | 19,010,955 |
| 1877-78 | 70,183,863 | 15,711,651 | 2,450,983 | 18,162,634 |
| 1878-79 | 65,813,194 | 14,844,181 | 2,596,356 | 17,440,537 |
| 1879-80 | 68,540,668 | 16,524,593 | 2,665,561 | 19,190,154 |
| 1880-81 | 54,505,964 | 18,220,980 | 2,330,924 | 20,551,904 |
+-----------+--------------+------------+-------------+-------------+

Distinguished gourmets are scarcely agreed as to the proper moment when Champagne should be introduced at the dinner-table. Dyspeptic Mr. Walker, of 'The Original,' laid it down that Champagne ought to be introduced very early at the banquet, without any regard whatever to the viands it may chance to accompany. 'Give Champagne,' he says, 'at the beginning of dinner, as its exhilarating qualities serve to start the guests, after which they will seldom flag. No other wine produces an equal effect in increasing the success of a party--it invariably turns the balance to the favourable side. When Champagne goes rightly, nothing can well go wrong.' These precepts are sound enough; still all dinner-parties are not necessarily glacial, and the guests are not invariably mutes. Before Champagne can be properly introduced at a formal dinner, the conventional glass of sherry or madeira should supplement the soup, a white French or a Rhine wine accompany the fish, and a single glass of bordeaux prepare the way with the first _entrée_ for the sparkling wine, which, for the first round or two, should be served briskly and liberally. A wine introduced thus early at the repast should of course be dry, or, at any rate, moderately so.

We certainly do not approve of Mr. Charles Dickens's dictum that Champagne's proper place is not at the dinner-table, but solely at a ball. 'A cavalier,' he said, 'may appropriately offer at propitious intervals a glass now and then to his danceress. There it takes its fitting rank and position amongst feathers, gauzes, lace, embroidery, ribbons, white-satin shoes, and eau-de-Cologne, for Champagne is simply one of the elegant extras of life.' This is all very well; still the advantageous effect of sparkling wine at an ordinary British dinner-party, composed as it frequently is of people brought indiscriminately together in accordance with the exigencies of the hostess's visiting-list, cannot be gainsaid. After the preliminary glowering at each other, _more Britannico_, in the drawing-room, everybody regards it as a relief to be summoned to the repast, which, however, commences as chillily as the soup and as stolidly as the salmon. The soul of the hostess is heavy with the anxiety of prospective dishes, the brow of the host is clouded with the reflection that our rulers are bent upon adding an extra penny to the income-tax. Placed between a young lady just out and a dowager of grimly Gorgonesque aspect, you hesitate how to open a conversation. Your first attempts are singularly ineffectual, only eliciting a dropping fire of monosyllables. You envy the placidly languid young gentleman opposite, limp as his fast-fading camellia, and seated next to Belle Breloques, who is certain, in racing parlance, to make the running for him. But even that damsel seems preoccupied with her fan, and, despite her _aplomb_, hesitates to break the icy silence. The two City friends of the host are lost in mute speculation as to the future price of indigo or Ionian Bank shares, while their wives seem to be mentally summarising the exact cost of each other's toilettes. Their daughters, or somebody else's daughters, are desperately jerking out monosyllabic responses to feeble remarks concerning the weather, the theatres, operatic _débutantes_, the people in the Row, æstheticism, and kindred topics from a couple of F.O. men. Little Snapshot, the wit, on the other side of the Gorgon, has tried to lead up to a story, but has found himself, as it were, frozen in the bud. When lo! the butler softly sibillates in your ear the magic word 'Champagne,' and as it flows, creaming and frothing, into your glass, a change comes over the spirit of your vision.

The hostess brightens, the host coruscates. The young lady on your right suddenly develops into a charming girl, with becoming appreciation of your pet topics and an astounding aptness for repartee. The Gorgon thaws, and implores Mr. Snapshot, whose jests are popping as briskly as the corks, not to be so dreadfully funny, or he will positively kill her. Belle Breloques can always talk, and now her tongue rattles faster then ever, till the languid one arouses himself like a giant refreshed, and gives her as good as he gets. The City men expatiate in cabalistic language on the merits of some mysterious speculation, the prospective returns from which increase with each fresh bottle. One of their wives is discussing church decoration with a hitherto silent curate, and the other is jabbering botany to a red-faced warrior. The juniors are in full swing, and ripples of silvery laughter rise in accompaniment to the beaded bubbles all round the table.

Gradually, as people drift off from generalities to their own particular line--gastronomy, politics, art, sport, fashion, literature, church matters, theatricals, speculation, scandal, dress, and the like--the scraps of sentences that the ear catches flying about the table present a mosaic somewhat resembling the following: 'Forster should have sent him to Kilmainham--to see that dear delightful Mr. Irving in--ten-inch armour-plating, but could not steer in a sea-way, so--sat down in the saddle and rammed his spurs into--Petsy Prettitoes and half a dozen girls from the Cruralia, who were--ordained last week by the Bishop of London, when his lordship--said there was no doubt who best deserved the vacant Garter, and declared--a dividend of seven per cent for the--comet year with a bouquet--of sunflowers and lilies on satin, which you should--cover with a light crust--of stiff clay, with a rasper on the further side as--the third story of the hotel overlooking--the Euphrates Valley Railway, which would lead to--the loveliest bit of landscape in the Academy--with the finest hair in the world, and eyes like--a boiled cod's head and shoulders--cut low at the neck, with a gold shoulder-strap, and--nothing else to speak of before the House except the Bill for--her photographs, which are in all the shop-windows, beside Mrs. Langtry's--who never ought to have allowed Bismarck to--assist at the consecration of--the Henley course--so the Duke started at once for Aldershot, and reviewed--the two best novels of the season--cut up with tomatoes and a dash of garlic--and was positive he saw them dining together at Richmond on--fourteen brace of birds and five hares in--the loveliest set of embroidered vestments and an altar-cloth worked for--a Conservative majority, which will drive the Government to--take a couple of stalls at Her Majesty's to hear _Carmen_--who gave him the last galop, but he--blundered at his first fence and fell--to seventy-two and a half, whilst the preference shares were--all ordered on foreign service and--heard nothing from the Irish members but--Oscar Wilde's poems bound in red morocco--with a white-satin train and--plenty of body and a good colour--all through riding every morning in--a private box on the upper tier--and that is why Gladstone at once gave orders--for them to be actually shut up together--in the strong room of the Bank of England, with a reserve fund of bullion--from the music in the first act of _Patience_--equal to that of Job when he said--well, only half a glass, then, since you are so pressing.' And all this is due to Champagne, that great unloosener not merely of tongues, but, better still, of purse-strings, as is well known to the secretaries of those charitable institutions which set the exhilarating wine flowing earliest at their anniversary dinners.