Drinking and play were more universally indulged in then [about 1814] than at the present time, and many men still living must remember the couple of bottles of port at least which accompanied his dinner in those days.... The dinner-party, commencing at seven or eight, frequently did not break up before one in the morning. There were then four and even five-bottle men; and the only thing that saved them was drinking very slowly, and out of very small glasses. The learned head of the law, Lord Eldon, and his brother Lord Stowell, used to say that they had drunk more bad port than any two men in England; indeed, the former was rather apt to be overtaken, and to speak occasionally somewhat thicker than natural after long and heavy potations. The late Lords Panmure, Dufferin, and Blayney, wonderful to relate, were six-bottle men at this time; and I really think that if the good society of 1815 could appear before their more moderate descendants, in the state they were generally reduced to after dinner, the moderns would pronounce their ancestors fit for nothing but bed. Sheridan’s success in life, as well as his attachment to party, was mainly owing to his connection with one of whom we shall next speak, viz. Charles James Fox. A few months after his first appointment to office, Walpole went to the House to hear the young orator, and he tells us-- Fox’s abilities are amazing at so very early a period, especially under the circumstances of such a dissolute life. He was just arrived from Newmarket, had sat up drinking all night, and had not been in bed. More than once is he said to have taken his place in the House of Commons in a state of absolute intoxication. Mr. George Otto Trevelyan, M.P., gives in his _Early History of Charles James Fox_ a very bad picture of the drinking habits of great men in England at that period.