498 
On Wine . 
best society. I do not find that water drinkers live longer, or are 
more free from maladies, than those who enjoy their wine in mo- 
deration ; and I am well persuaded, that the latter class do not, in 
general, exceed so much in the article of eating.* For a labour-' 
ing man, beer may be better than ardent spirits ; but bishop War- 
burton was right when he said, “ they who drink beer will think 
beer.”. For my own part, I confess, I entertain something of the 
common prejudices against obstinate sobriety, and I fully accord 
with Sheridan’s song. 
Truth they say lies in a well : 
This I vow I ne’er could sec i 
Let the water drinkers tell, 
There it always lay for me. 
But when sparkling wine went round, 
Never saw I falsehood’s mask, 
But still honest truth I found, 
At the bottom of each flask. 
The Fox Gra/ie. The pure juice of the ripe fox grape to my 
own certain knowledge, makes a full bodied, strong, well flavour- 
ed Madeira-coloured wine, which in my opinion, if these grapes 
were cultivated, would fully equal the best Madeira. Some juice 
Was expressed out of the fox grape, by part of my own family ; 
it was strained ; it was put by in a decanter : it was left with 
the stopper out, exposed to the frost out of doors through the 
winter. It was put by with the stopper out, in a sideboard till 
July 2 ; of the year 1802. There was a mother on top of the 
wine in the decanter. It w r as somewhat hard, but well flavoured, 
full bodied, strong, and equal to good Madeira. I drank some 
wine of the fox grape afterwards made at Havre de Grace. I 
suspect it was not the pure juice ; it was a tolerable wine but 
thin. The fox grape, is in its growth, in the pulpiness of its fruit, 
and in many of its habits much like the Constantia grown in Penn- 
sylvania. I am well satisfied it is worth careful cultivation 
for wine. No imported grape is to be compared with it for this 
purpose. 
The small round white and red wild grape. I know nothing of 
the wine from these. If treated as apples are for cyder, I make no 
* Dr. Darwin, who left off wine when the gout compelled him, used to 
indulge afterward in eating, and would swallow, without remorse, his bowls of 
rich cream, while he would inveigh against the smallest portion of ferment- 
ed liquor. 
