They drank rather copiously, too, though wisely; for I observed that they seldom took Hock, and let the Champagne bubble slowly away out of the goblet, solacing themselves with Sherry, but tasting it warily before bestowing their final confidence.  Their taste in wines, however, did not seem so exquisite, and certainly was not so various, as that to which many Americans pretend.  This foppery of an intimate acquaintance with rare vintage:  does not suit a sensible Englishman, as he is very much in earnest about his wines, and adopts one or two as his life-long friends, seldom exchanging them for any Delilahs of a moment, and reaping the reward of his constancy in an unimpaired stomach, and only so much gout as he deems wholesome and desirable.  Knowing well the measure of his powers, he is not apt to fill his glass too often.  Society, indeed, would hardly tolerate habitual imprudences of that kind, though, in my opinion, the Englishmen now upon the stage could carry off their three bottles, at need, with as steady a gait as any of their forefathers.  It is not so very long since the three-bottle heroes sank finally under the table.  It may be (at least, I should be glad if it were true) that there was an occult sympathy between our temperance-reform, now somewhat in abeyance, and the almost simultaneous disappearance of hard-drinking among the respectable classes in England.  I remember a middle-aged gentleman telling me (in illustration of the very slight importance attached to breaches of temperance within the memory of men not yet old) that he had seen a certain magistrate, Sir John Linkwater, or Drinkwater,—­but I think the jolly old knight could hardly have staggered under so perverse a misnomer as this last,—­while sitting on the magisterial bench, pull out a crown-piece and hand it to the clerk.  “Mr. Clerk,” said Sir John, as if it were the most indifferent fact in the world, “I was drunk last night.  There are my five shillings.”

During the dinner, I had a good deal of pleasant conversation with the gentlemen on either side of me.  One of them, a lawyer, expatiated with great unction on the social standing of the judges.  Representing the dignity and authority of the Crown, they take precedence, during assize-time, of the highest military men in the kingdom, of the Lord-Lieutenant of the county, of the Archbishops, of the royal Dukes, and even of the Prince of Wales.  For the nonce, they are the greatest men in England.  With a glow of professional complacency that amounted to enthusiasm, my friend assured me, that, in case of a royal dinner, a judge, if actually holding an assize, would be expected to offer his arm and take the Queen herself to the table.  Happening to be in company with some of these elevated personages, on subsequent occasions, it appeared to me that the judges are fully conscious of their paramount claims to respect, and take rather more pains to impress them on their ceremonial inferiors than men of high hereditary rank are apt to do.  Bishops, if it be not irreverent to say so, are sometimes marked by a similar characteristic.  Dignified position is so sweet to an Englishman, that he needs to be born in it, and to feel it thoroughly incorporated with his nature from its original germ, in order to keep him from flaunting it obtrusively in the faces of innocent by-standers.