That the Champenois were themselves aware of the appreciation in which their wine was held in England is shown by a passage in Coffin's _Campania vindicata_. Writing in 1712, the year before the ratification of the Treaty of Utrecht, he calls on the Britons in presence of returning peace to cross the seas, and instead of lavishing their wealth to pleasure blood-stained Mars, to fill their ships with the treasures of the Remois Bacchus, and bear home these precious spoils instead of fatal trophies.[303] Addison, referring to one source whence French wines were derived, remarks: 'There is in this City a certain fraternity of Chymical Operators who work underground, in holes, caverns, and dark retirements, to conceal their mysteries from the eyes and observation of mankind. These subterraneous Philosophers are daily employed in the Transmigration of Liquors, and, by the power of Magical Drugs and Incantations, raise under the streets of _London_ the choicest products of the hills and valleys of _France_. They can squeeze _Bourdeaux_ out of a _Sloe_, and draw _Champagne_ from an _Apple_.'[304] He tells us that 'the person who appeared against them was a Merchant, who had by him a great magazine of wines, that he had laid in before the war: but these Gentlemen (as he said) had so vitiated the nation's palate, that no man could believe his to be _French_, because it did not taste like what they sold for such.' For the defence it was urged that 'they were under a necessity of making Claret if they would keep open their doors, it being the nature of Mankind to love everything that is Prohibited.'[305] The enquiry, 'And where would your beaux have Champaign to toast their mistresses were it not for the merchant?'[306] is from a panegyrist of the more legitimate school of trade. Altogether it is tolerably certain that Champagne--genuine or fictitious, from grape or gooseberry--played a more important part in the conviviality of the early portion of the eighteenth century than might be supposed from the imports of the epoch, whilst there is little doubt but that it helped to inspire some of the finest productions of the Augustan age of English literature. Gay places it first amongst the wines offered to a party of guests entering a tavern, making the drawer exclaim: 'Name, sirs, the wine that most invites your taste, Champaign or Burgundy, or Florence pure, Or Hock antique, or Lisbon new or old, Bourdeaux, or neat French wine, or Alicant.'[307] This reference to Champagne most likely relates to the still wine; but it is probably the sparkling variety which is alluded to in the verses which Gay addressed to Pope on the completion of the _Iliad_ in 1720, and wherein he represents General Wilkinson thus apostrophising as the ship conveying the poet passes Greenwich: