On the decline and fall of port wine volumes might be written. At the same time I am not the man who is going to write them. According to early recollections, the conversation of my elders was limited to hunting, racing, and the wines of Oporto. The man who had “ ’20,” or “Comet,” port in his cellars was a man to be cultivated, and dined with; whilst “ ’34” and “ ’47” men were next in demand. And this was after the era of the three-and-four-bottle heroes, of whose deeds I have heard my father speak, almost with bated breath; how, after the retirement of the ladies, to discuss tea and scandal by themselves, the dining-room door would be locked by the host himself, who would {138} pocket the key thereof. Many of the guests slept where they fell, “repugnant to command,” like the sword of Pyrrhus, whilst others would be fastened in the interior of their chariots at a later hour. Even in the late fifties, the estimable divine with whom I was studying the beauties of the classics, would on the frequent occasion of a dinner-party provide one bottle of port per head, for his guests, in addition to hock, champagne, and sherry; and the writer, then a boy of fifteen, was included amongst the “heads.” But as the stone age succeeded the ice age, as the iron age succeeded the stone age, and as the gold age, and the railway age, and the rotten company age succeeded the iron age, so have the whisky age, and the “small bottle” age, and the gin-and-bitters age almost wiped out the age when man drank, talked, and thought port. Our ancestors were immoderate in their potations but, as far as wine went, these were but rarely indulged in until after sundown, although the Briton would frequently wash his breakfast down with ale of the strongest. And it is difficult to believe that the evil habit of “nipping,” at all hours of the day, which now prevails in some circles—a habit which is mainly due to the break-neck pace at which life is pursued—is either more conducive to health or intellectuality, or morality than the after-dinner debauch of a century ago. The “hot and heady” wine is (or, rather, was) produced chiefly in a mountainous district of Portugal called Cima de Douro. The wine is largely mixed with spirit even during {139} fermentation, the proper colour being given by a mixture known as _jeropiga_, which is a preparation of elder-berries, molasses, raisin juice, and spirit. The wine which is made within the Metropolitan Police District, for the special benefit of landladies, infirmaries, and she-choristers, is also treated with a similar mixture, with the addition of a little logwood-extract; but in fashionable quarters the mixture is not known as _jeropiga_, a name which would probably affect the sale.