With Bordeaux, Burgundy, and Champaign.’[283]
And Sir Charles Sedley, in an apologue written towards the close of the century, tells how a doctor of his day was sorely troubled by the unreasonable lives led by his patients, until
‘One day he called ’em all together,
And, one by one, he asked ’em whether
It were not better by good diet
To keep the blood and humours quiet,
With toast and ale to cool their brains
Than nightly fire ’em with Champains.’[284]
In 1679 the peculiar ideas of political economy then prevailing led to a formal prohibition of the importation of French wines, and the consequent substitution in their place of those of Portugal. One can imagine the consternation of the ‘beaux’ and ‘sparks’ at this fatal decree, and the satisfaction of the few vintners whose cellars chanced to be well stored with the forbidden vintages of France—with
‘The Claret smooth, red as the lips we press