and wines of known vintages. He was happy at that hour in dispensing wisdom or nuga to his hearers, like the western sun, whose habit it is, when he is fairly treated, to break out in quiet splendours, which by no means exhaust his treasury. Blest indeed above his fellows, by the height of the cross-bow-winged bird in a fair-weather sunset sky above the pecking sparrow, is he that ever in the recurrent evening of his day sees the best of it ahead and soon to come. He has the rich reward of a youth and manhood of virtuous living. Dr. Middleton misdoubted the future as well as the past of the man who did not, in becoming gravity, exult to dine. That man he deemed unfit for this world and the next.

An example of the good fruit of temperance, he had a comfortable pride in his digestion, and his political sentiments were attuned by his veneration of the Powers rewarding virtue. We must have a stable world where this is to be done.

The Rev. Doctor was a fine old picture; a specimen of art peculiarly English; combining in himself piety and epicurism, learning and gentlemanliness, with good room for each and a seat at one another's table: for the rest, a strong man, an athlete in his youth, a keen reader of facts and no reader of persons, genial, a giant at a task, a steady worker besides, but easily discomposed.

Sir Willoughby advanced, appearing in a cordial mood.

"I need not ask you whether you are better," he said to Clara, sparkled to Lætitia, and raised a key to the level of Dr. Middleton's breast, remarking, “I am going down to my inner cellar."

"An inner cellar !" exclaimed the doctor.

"Sacred from the butler. It is interdicted to Stoneman. Shall I offer myself as a guide to you? My cellars are worth a visit."

"Cellars are not catacombs. They are, if rightly constructed, rightly considered, cloisters, where the bottle meditates on joys to bestow, not on dust misused! Have you anything great?"

"A great wine aged ninety."

"Is it associated with your pedigree, that you pronounce the age with such assurance?" "My grandfather inherited it."

"Your grandfather, Sir Willoughby, had meritorious offspring, not to speak of generous progenitors. What would have happened had it fallen into the female line! I shall be glad to accompany you. Port? Hermitage?"

"Port."

"Ah! we are in England!

"There will just be time," said Sir Willoughby, inducing Dr. Middleton to step out.

A chirrup was in the Rev. Doctor's tone: 'Hocks, too, have compassed age. I have tasted senior Hocks. Their flavours are as a brook of many voices; they have depth also. Senatorial Port! we say. We cannot say that of any other wine. Port is deep-sea

deep. It is in its flavour deep-mark the difference. It is like a classic tragedy, organic in conception. An ancient Hermitage has the light of the antique ; the merit that it can grow to an extreme old age; a merit. Neither of Hermitage nor of Hock can you say that it is the blood of those long years, retaining the strength of youth with the wisdom of age. To Port for that! Port is our noblest legacy! Observe, I do not compare the wines; I distinguish the qualities. Let them live together for our enrichment ; they are not rivals like the Idæan Three. Were they rivals, a fourth would challenge them. Burgundy has great genius. It does wonders within its period; it does all except to keep up in the race; it is shortlived. An aged Burgundy runs with a beardless Port. I cherish the fancy that Port speaks the sentences of wisdom, Burgundy sings in inspired Ode. Or put it, that Port is the Homeric hexameter, Burgundy the Pindaric dithyramb. What do you say?"

George Meredith. ("The Egoist.")

Another Invitation

I

BEG you come to-night and dine.

A welcome waits you, and sound wine,—

The Roederer chilly to a charm,

As Juno's breath the claret warm,

The sherry of an ancient brand.

No Persian pomp, you understand,-
A soup, a fish, two meats, and then
A salad fit for aldermen

(When aldermen, alas the days!
Were really worth their mayonnaise);
A dish of grapes whose clusters won
Their bronze in Carolinian sun;
Next, cheese-for you the Neufchâtel,
A bit of Cheshire likes me well;
Café au lait or coffee black,

With Kirsch or Kümmel or cognac
(The German band in Irving Place
By this time purple in the face);
Cigars and pipes. These being through,
Friends shall drop in, a very few-
Shakespeare and Milton, and no more.
When these are guests I bolt the door,
With "Not at home" to anyone

Excepting Alfred Tennyson.

Anon.

Sir Peter

N his last binn Sir Peter lies,

IN

Who knew not what it was to frown:
Death took him mellow, by surprise,
And in his cellar stopp'd him down.

Through all our land we could not. boast

A knight more gay, more prompt than he,
To rise and fill a bumper toast,

And

pass it round with THREE TIMES THREE.

None better knew the feast to sway,

Or keep Mirth's boat in better trim ;
For Nature had but little clay

Like that of which she moulded him.
The meanest guest that grac'd his board
Was there the freest of the free,

His bumper toast when Peter pour'd,

And pass'd it round with THREE TIMES THREE.

He kept at true good humour's mark
The social flow of pleasure's tide:

He never made a brow look dark,

Nor caused a tear, but when he died.
No sorrow round his tomb should dwell:

More pleased his gay old ghost would be,

For funeral song, and passing bell,

To hear no sound but THREE TIMES THREE.
Thomas Love Peacock.

The Pope

'HE Pope, he leads a happy life,

THE

He fears not married care nor strife,
He drinks the best of Rhenish wine,—
I would the Pope's gay lot were mine.