Some sack, boy.
Good sherry-sack, sir?
I meant Canary, sir; what, hast no brains?[131]
The following is the explanation of the confusion in terms:—
Your best sacks are of Xeres in Spain; your smaller, of Gallicia and Portugall; your strong sacks are of the islands of the Canaries and of Malligo, and your Muskadine and Malmseys are of many parts, of Italy, Greece, and some special islands;[132]
and renders intelligible the following:—
Two kinsmen near allied to sherry sack,
Sweet Malligo and delicate Canary.[133]
It is extolled in Beaumont and Fletcher:—
Give me a cup of sack
An ocean of sweet sack.
Canary was in great esteem. John Howell praises it as ‘accounted the richest, the most firm, the best bodied, and lastingest wine: while French wine pickles meat in the stomach, this is the wine that digests, and doth not only breed good bloud, but it nutrifieth also, being a glutinous substantial liquor. Of this wine, if of any other, may be verified that merry induction, that good wine makes good blood, good blood causeth good humours, good humours causeth good thoughts, good thoughts bring forth good works, good works carry a man to heaven; ergo good wine carrieth a man to heaven. If this be true, surely more English go to heaven this way than any other, for I think there is more Canary brought to England than to all the world besides.’[134]
But probably no kind of drink came amiss.