On Wine* 
External air to the bubble of air included at the upper side of the 
bottle ; the wine is thus decantered without the sediment being 
disturbed by the conflict of the wine going out, and the air com- 
ing in. The wine is strained into a decanter through a silver 
strainer to which fine muslin is fitted, and is drawn off no nearer 
than to leave a glassful at least in the bottle. 
The wine in winter time, is then set before the fire, and in sum* 
mer time it is never cooled. Cooling Port or Claret, makes it mud* 
dy, and totally destroys the flavour. A good judge of wine, and 
who knows how to enjoy it, will never cool fine, high flavoured 
wine of any kind below 50° of Fahrenheit : in summer time in this 
country, the sensation of coolness, is pleasanter than the sensation 
produced upon the palate by middling wine. But it is a vile and 
a vulgar practice, to destroy the flavour of fine wine by cooling it 
down to 33 or 34° by means of ice, even should the thermometer be 
at 96°. Destroy the taste of bad wine, by ice, if you please ; but a 
man who does so by fine Madeira , does not deserve it. 
At an English table even of fashion, the every-day wines, are 
either Sherry or Madeira at dinner, and Port or Claret afterward. 
In summer, both. Lachryma Christi, Cota-roti, Hermitage, Bur- 
gundy, Champain are the wines of ceremony only. 
But the English seldom prefer Claret to Port : the Irish sel- 
dom prefer Port to Claret. The English drink no liqueurs: Mus* 
cadel and Frontiniac, are sometimes produced to the ladies as 
sweet-meat wines ; but not generally. 
The precautions in keeping wine that I have enumerated, are 
not exclusively confined to high fashion or great wealth : every 
English gentleman of tolerable fortune attends to them as indis* 
pensible. Our different practice in this country, has arisen from, 
necessity. Our immediate ancestors could not afford the trouble 
or the expense, nor had they the taste to require, the careful bot- 
tling, corking, and keeping of wine: but with respect to Madeira, 
their accidental practice has been in all respects an improvement* 
An Englishman does not understand Madeira ; which after all is 
the wine, the Falernum of the moderns. Nor does an English- 
> 
man understand the practice of smoking, except in the lowest 
beer-houses. I acknowledge a segar is frequently a luxury : so 
to a sailor is a quid of tobacco ; but the one indulgence and the 
other, are so inconsistent with neatness and cleanliness, that in 
decent society they ought to be renounced. I hope the time will 
never again arrive, when it shall be necessary to admonish the 
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