_The Rev. Mr. Portpipe._ Whisky is hepatic, phlogistic, and exanthematous. Wine is the hierarchical and archiepiscopal fluid. Bacchus is said to have conquered the East, and to have returned loaded with its spoils. ‘Marry how? tropically.’ The conquests of Bacchus are the victories of imagination, which, sublimated by wine, puts to rout care, fear, and poverty, and revels in the treasures of Utopia. _Mr. Feathernest._ The juice of the grape is the liquid quintessence of concentrated sunbeams. Man is an exotic, in this northern climate, and must be nourished like a hot-house plant, by the perpetual adhibition of artificial heat. _Lord Anophel Achthar._ You were not always so fond of wine, Feathernest? _Mr. Feathernest._ Oh, my lord! no allusion, I beseech you, to my youthful errors. Demosthenes, being asked what wine he liked best, answered, that which he drank at the expense of others. _The Rev. Mr. Portpipe._ Demosthenes was right. His circumstance, or qualification, is an accompaniment of better relish than a devilled biscuit or an anchovy toast. _Mr. Feathernest._ In former days, my lord, I had no experience that way; therefore I drank water against my will. _Lord Anophel Achthar._ And wrote Odes upon it, to Truth and Liberty. _Mr. Feathernest._ ‘Ah, no more of that, an’ thou lovest me.’ Now that I can get it for a song, I take my pipe of wine a year: and what is the effect? Not cold phlegmatic lamentations over the sufferings of the poor, but high-flown, jovial, reeling dithyrambics ‘to all the crowned heads in Europe.’ I had then a vague notion that all was wrong. Persuasion has since appeared to me in a tangible shape, and convinced me that all is right, especially at court. Then I saw darkly through a glass—of water. Now I see clearly through a glass of wine. [Illustration: _Mr. Feathernest._] _The Rev. Mr. Portpipe_ (_looking through his glass at the light_). An infallible telescope! _Mr. Forester._ I am unfortunately one of those, sir, who very much admired your Odes to Truth and Liberty, and read your royal lyrics with very different sensations. _Mr. Feathernest._ I presume, sir, every man has a right to change his opinions.