The person who had to put the interrogatory varied the words, but strictly preserved the sense. He said, "Is this young lady your daughter ?"

To which Bransley very pompously replied, "I am!""

CHARACTERS OF A DRINKING CLUB.-BY A MEMBER.

Colonel Culverin is a brave old experienced officer though but a lieutenant-colonel of foot. Between you and me he has had a great injustice done him, and is now commanded by many who were not born when he came first into the army. He has served in Ireland, Minorca, and Gibraltar; and would have been in all the late battles in Flanders, had the regiment been ordered there. It is a pleasure to hear him talk of war. He is the best-natured man alive, but a little too jealous of his honour, and too apt to be in a passion; but that is soon over, and then he is sorry for it. I fear he is dropsical, which I impute to his drinking your Champaigns and Burgundies. He got that ill habit abroad.

You must know then that our club consists of at least forty members when complete. Of these, many are now in the country; and besides, we have some vacancies which cannot be filled up till next winter. Palsies and apoplexies have of late, I don't know why, been pretty rife among us, and carried off a good many. It is not above a week ago, that Sir George Pliant is well born, has a genteel forpoor Tom Toastwell fell on a sudden under the tune, keeps the very best company, and is to be sure table, as we thought only a little in drink, but he was one of the best-bred men alive; he is so good-natured, carried home and never spoke more. Those whoin that he seems to have no will of his own. He will you will probably meet with to-day are, first of all, drink as little or as much as you please, and no matLord Feeble, a nobleman of admirable sense, a true ter of what. He has been a mighty man with the fine gentleman, and, for a man of quality, a pretty ladies formerly, and loves the crack of the whip still. classic. He has lived rather fast formerly, and im- He is our newsmonger, for being a gentleman of the paired his constitution by sitting up late and drinking privy chamber, he goes to court every day, and conyour thin sharp wines. He is still what you call sequently knows pretty well what is going forward nervous, which makes him a little low-spirited and there. Poor gentleman! I fear we shall not keep reserved at first; but he grows very affable and him long; for he seems far gone in a consumption, cheerful as soon as he has warmed his stomach with though the doctors say it is only a nervous atrophy. about a bottle of good claret. Will Sitfast is the best-natured fellow living, and

very pretty Latin verses. I doubt he is in a declining way; for a paralytic stroke has lately twitched up one side of his mouth so, that he is now obliged to take his wine diagonally. However he keeps up his spirits bravely, and never shams his glass.

Sir Tunbelly Guzzle is a very worthy north-country an excellent companion, though he seldom speaks; baronet, of a good estate, and one who was before-but he is no flincher, and sits every man's hand out hand in the world, till being twice chosen knight at the club. He is a very good scholar, and can write of the shire, and having in consequence got a pretty employment at court, he ran out considerably. He has left off house-keeping, and is now upon a retrieving scheme. He is the heartiest, honestest fellow living; and though he is a man of few words, I can assure you he does not want sense. He had a university education, and has a good notion of the classics. The poor man is confined half the year at least with the gout, and has besides an inveterate scurvy, which I cannot account for: no man can live more regularly; he eats nothing but plain meat, and very little of that: he drinks no thin wines, and never sits up late: for he has his full dose by eleven.

Dr. Carbuncle is an honest, jolly, merry, parson, well affected to the government, and much of a gentleman. He is the life of our club, instead of being the least restraint upon it. He is an admirable scholar, and I really believe has all Horace by heart I know he has him always in his pocket. His red face, inflamed nose, and swelled legs, make him generally thought a hard drinker by those who do not know

him; but I must do him the justice to say, that I never saw him disguised with liquor in my life. It is true, he is a very large man, and can hold a great deal, which makes the colonel call him pleasantly enough, a vessel of election.

AN AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION TO THE Club.

supposed they were intended as ballast. But even this precaution did not protect the nose of doctor Carbuncle from a severe shock, in his attempt to hit his mouth. The colonel, who observed this accident, cried out pleasantly, "Why, doctor, I find you are but a bad engineer. While you aim at your mouth, you will never hit it, take my word for it. A floating My friend presented me to the company, in what battery to hit the mark, must be pointed something he thought the most obliging manuer; but which, I above or below it. If you would hit your mouth, confess, put me a little out of countenance. "Give direct your four-pounder at your forehead or your Je leave, gentlemen," said he, " to present to you chin." The doctor good-humouredly thanked the my old friend, the ingenious author of the World." colonel for the hint, and promised him to communicate The word author instantly excited the attention of the it to his friends at Oxford, where, he owned, that he whole company, and drew all their eyes upon me: had seen many a good glass of Port spilt for want of for people who are not apt to write themselves, have it. Sir Tunbelly almost smiled, Sir George laughed, a strange curiosity to see a live author. The gentle- and the whole company, somehow or other, applauded en received me in common, with those gestures that this elegant piece of raillery. But alas, things soon intimate welcome; and I, on any part, respectfully took a less pleasant turn; for an enormous buttock of mattered some of those nothings which stand instead boiled salt beef, which had succeeded the soup, proved of the something one should say, and perhaps do full not to be sufficiently corned for Sir Tunbelly, who had bespoke it; and at the same time Lord Feeble as well. The weather being hot, the gentlemen were re-took a dislike to the claret, which he affirmed not to freshing themselves before dinner, with what they be the same which they drank the day before; it had called a cool tankard, in which they successively no silkiness, went rough off the tongue, and his lordWhen it came to my turn, I thought I ship shrewdly suspected that it was mixed with could not decently decline drinking the gentlemen's Benecarlo, or some of those black wines. This was healths, which I did aggregately: but how was I a common cause, and excited universal attention. surprised, when upon the first taste I discovered that The whole company tasted it seriously, and every this cooling and refreshing draught was composed of one found a different fault with it. The master of the strongest mountain wine, lowered indeed with the house was immediately sent for up, examined, a very little lemon and water, but then heightened and treated as a criminal. Sir Tunbelly reproached again, by a quantity of those comfortable aromatics, him with the freshness of the beef, while at the same Butineg and ginger! Dinner, which had been called time all the others fell upon him for the badness of for more than once with some impatience, was at his wine, telling him that it was not fit usage for last brought up, upon the colonel's threatening per- such good customers as they were, and in fine dition to the master and all the waiters of the house, threatening him with the migration of the club to if it was delayed two minutes longer.-We sat down some other house. The criminal laid the blame of without ceremony, and we were no sooner sat down, the beef's not being corned enough upon his cook, than every body, except myself, drank every body's whom he promised to turn away; and attested heahealth, which made a tumultuous kind of noise. Iven and earth that the wine was the very same which observed with surprise, that the common quantity of they had all approved of the day before; and as he wine was put into glasses of an immense size and had a soul to be saved, was true Chateau Margoux. weight; but my surprise ceased when I saw the" Chateau devil!" said the colonel with warmth: tremulous hands that took them, and for which I" it is your dd rough Chaos wine." Will Sitfast,

drank to me.

424

THE LAUGHING PHILOSOPHER.

"To

be sure," said the colonel. "What a d-d rout they made about the repeal of the Jew-bill, for which nobody cared one farthing.-But by the way," continued he, "I think, every body has done eating, and therefore had we not better have the dinner taken away, and the wine set upon the table ?"-To this the company gave an unanimous Ay. While this was doing, I asked my friend, with seeming seriousness, whether no part of the dinner was to be served up again, when the wine should be set upon the table? He seemed surprised at my question, and asked me if 1 was hungry? To which I answered, no; but asked him in my turn if he was dry? To which he also answered, no. "Then pray," replied I, "why not as well eat without being hungry, as drink with out being dry?"-My friend was so stunned with this, that he attempted no reply, but stared at me with as much astonishment as he would have done at my great ancestor Adam in his primitive state of

who thought himself obliged to articulate upon this Bristol and the bottle act. "It was a shame," he occasion, said he was not sure it was a mixed wine, said, " that gentlemen could have no good Burgun but that indeed it drank down. If that is all," dies and Champaigns for the sake of some increase interrupted the doctor, "let us e'en drink it up then. of the revenue, the manufacture of glass bottles, and Or, if that won't do, since we cannot have the true such sort of stuff." Sir George confirmed the same, Falernum, let us take up for once with the vile Sa- adding, that it was scandalous; and the whole combinum. What say you, gentlemen, to good honest pany agreed, that the new parliament would certainly Port, which I am convinced is a much wholesomer repeal so absurd an act the very first session; but if stomach wine?" My friend, who in his heart loves they did not, they hoped they would receive instrucPort better than any other wine in the world, wil-tions for that purpose from their constituents. lingly seconded the doctor's motion, and spoke very favourably of your Portugal wines in general, if neat. Upon this some was immediately brought up, which I observed my friend and the doctor stuck to the whole evening. I could not help asking the doctor if he really preferred Port to lighter wines? To which he answered, "You know, Mr. Fitz-Adam, that use is second nature, and Port is in a manner mother's milk to me; for it is what my Alma Mater suckles all her numerous progeny with." I silently assented to the doctor's account, which I was convinced was a true one, and then attended to the judicious animadversions of the other gentlemen upon the claret, which were still continued, though at the same time they continued to drink it. I hinted my surprise at this to Sir Tunbelly, who gravely answered me, and in a moving way, "Why, what can we do?" "Not drink it," replied I, "since it is not good." "But what will you have us do? and how shall we pass the evening?" rejoined the baronet. "One cannot go home at five o'clock." "That depends The cloth was now taken away, and the bottles, a great deal upon use,' said I. "It may be so, glasses, and dish-clouts, put upon the table, when to a certain degree," said the doctor. But give Will Sitfast, who I found was a perpetual toastme leave to ask you, Mr. Fitz-Adam, you who drink master, took the chair of course, as the man of applinothing but water, and live much at home, how do cation to business. He began the king's health in a you keep up your spirits?" "Why, doctor," said I, bumper, which circulated in the same manner, not as I never lowered my spirits by strong liquors, I without some nice examinations of the chairman, as do not want to raise them." Here we were inter-to day-light. The bottle standing by me, I was rupted by the colonel's raising his voice and in-called upon by the chairman, who added, that dignation against the Burgundy and Champaign, though a water-drinker, he hoped I would not refuse swearing that the former was ropy, and the latter upon the fret, and not without some suspicion of cider and sugar-candy; notwithstanding which, he drank, in a bumper of it, Confusion to the town of

nature.

that health in wine? I begged to be excused, and told him that I never drank his majesty's health at all, though no one of his subjects wished it more heartily than I did. That hitherto it had not ap

peared to me that there could be the least relation between the wine I drank, and the king's state of health; and that till I was convinced that impairing my own health would improve his majesty's, I was resolved to preserve the use of my faculties and my limbs to employ both in his service, if he should ever have occasion for them. I had foreseen the consequences of this refusal; and though my friend had answered for my principles, I easily discovered an air of suspicion in the countenances of the company; and I overheard the colonel whisper to Lord Feeble, This author is a very odd dog."