Page:Through a Glass Lightly (1897, Greg).djvu/24

 some mighty drinking in Gough Square. Yet it is recorded of him that he would drink twelve cups of tea at a sitting, and barter the wealth of Oporto for the tailings of Bohea! Of such differences are our best and worthiest compact.

He is a true aristocrat, this Port of ours. He disappears into the mists of antiquity, but even thus you see the round and top of his royalty dim shining through the haze which is years. The living generationrepublican in fibre, revolutionary in spirit, redolent of fusel and of fizzrecalls not the vintages coeval with Nelson, contemporary with the Duke. Waterloo Port is a tradition, indeed; for itself we know it not, nor are worthy to know. The “crowning mercy” of ’32 (the Reform Bill) was followed by the blessed vintage of '34post hoc sed