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 258 [Illustration] [Illustration: A HISTORY OF CHAMPAGNE] WITH NOTES ON OTHER SPARKLING WINES. PART I. I. /Early Renown of the Champagne Wines./ The vine in Gaul--Domitian's edict to uproot it--Plantation of vineyards under Probus--Early vineyards of the Champagne--Ravages by the Northern tribes repulsed for a time by the Consul Jovinus--St. Remi and the baptism of Clovis--St. Remi's vineyards--Simultaneous progress of Christianity and the cultivation of the vine--The vine a favourite subject of ornament in the churches of the Champagne--The culture of the vine interrupted, only to be renewed with increased ardour--Early distinction between 'Vins de la Rivière' and 'Vins de la Montagne'--A prelate's counsel respecting the proper wine to drink--The Champagne desolated by war--Pope Urban II., a former Canon of Reims Cathedral--His partiality for the wine of Ay--Bequests of vineyards to religious establishments--Critical ecclesiastical topers--The wine of the Champagne causes poets to sing and rejoice--'La Bataille des Vins'--Wines of Auviller and Espernai le Bacheler. [Illustration]