424 FORMER EBRIETY ANECDOTE. 



wines would pass among us, minus all but their own 

 native alcohol, Port and Madeira are those ; but it must 

 be acknowledged, that we have nationally a strong 

 predilection for spirit in our potations, even though 

 ebriosity be not the order of our day, comparatively 

 with former days, when our bons vivans drank with 

 closed doors, and few departed until they were 

 carried out and to speak of the canaille, the com- 

 mon address to them, in London, flashed upon the 

 front of the gin-shops, was, " a good drunk for a 

 penny, and clean straw for nothing." Mr. Redding 

 observes that the price of Port was two shillings and 

 half a crown the bottle in 1730, but it was two shillings 

 years after I became a Port drinker, and when the 

 taverns raised it sixpence, much and general complaint 

 was the consequence. The force of national habit 

 has been strongly exemplified in the case of Port 

 wine, which, previous to the Methuen treaty, in the 

 third of Anne, had so little favour from British 

 palates, that the import of a few hundred butts would 

 have overstocked the market. I have an individual 

 example to exhibit in my maternal grandfather, who 

 living at the period of the Methuen treaty, became so 

 enamoured of Port, and drank of it so plentifully, that 

 he died of gout twenty years afterwards, with literally 

 and actually a glass of Port in his hand, which my 

 mother witnessed. Inflammatory matter, the parent of 

 gouty obstruction, is also essentially promoted by va- 

 riety of luxurious high-seasoned viands. Mr. Methuen 

 and his son were, in the first instance, agents of go- 

 vernment, sent with the grand fleet to Cadiz, and it is 

 probable they were subsequently settled at Oporto. 



