'Let wealthy merchants, when they dine, Run o'er their witty names of wine: Their chests of Florence and their Mont Alchine, Their Mants, Champaigns, Chablees, Frontiniacks tell; Their aums of Hock, of Backrag [Bacharach] and Mosell.'[280]
He gives the wines of our 'sweet enemy' a high position, too, in his _Dithyrambick, spoken by a Drunkard_, who is made to exclaim,
'Were France the next, this round Bordeau shall swallow, Champaign, Langou [L'Anjou], and Burgundy shall follow.'[281]
Butler makes the hero of his immortal satire prepared to follow the old Roman fashion with regard to his lady's name, and to
'Drink ev'ry letter on't in stum, And make it brisk Champaign become;'[282]
'Recovered many a desperate campaign 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 In sparkling fancy while we drain the bowl; The mellow-tasted Burgundy, and, quick As is the wit it gives, the gay Champagne.'[285]
But, Port wine and prohibitions notwithstanding, men of fashion of that epoch were not entirely obliged to abandon their favourite potations, since five thousand hogsheads of French wine were surreptitiously landed on the south-west coast of England in a single year.[286] Fortunately, too, for them, the Government came to the conclusion that it was for the time being futile to fight against popular tastes, and in 1685 the obnoxious prohibition was removed, with the result that, two years later, the imports of French wine were registered as fifteen thousand tuns--that is, sixty thousand hogsheads.[287]