“Water,” he would say, with a sort of hydrophobic shudder, “is only a fit beverage for asses!”—­“To say a man could drink like a fish, was once the greatest encomium that a bon-vivant could bestow upon a brother Bacchanalian—­but, alas! in this matter-of-fact and degenerate age, men do so literally—­washing their gills with unadulterated water!—­Dropsy and water on the chest must be the infallible result!  If such an order of things continue, all the puppies in the kingdom, who would perhaps have become jolly dogs in their time, will be drowned!  Yes, they’ll inevitably founder, like a water-logged vessel, in sight of port.  These water-drinkers will not have a long reign.  They would feign persuade us that ’Truth lies at the bottom of a well,’—­lies, indeed!  I tell you Horace knew better, and that his assertion of ‘There is truth in wine,’ was founded on experience—­his draughts had no water-mark in ’em, depend on it.”

He was a great buyer of choice “Pieces,” and his cellar contained one of the best stocks in the kingdom, both in the wood and bottle.  Poor Uncle!—­he has now been some years “in the wood” himself, and snugly stowed in the family vault!

Having been attacked with a severe cold, he was compelled to call in the Doctor, who sent him a sudorific in three Lilliputian bottles; but although he received the advice of his medical friend, he followed Shakspeare’s,

“Throw physic to the dogs,”

and prescribed for himself a bowl of wine-whey as a febrifuge.  His housekeeper remonstrated, but he would have his ‘whey,’ and he died! leaving a handsome fortune, and two good-looking nephews to follow him to the grave.

Myself and Cousin (the two nephews aforesaid) were vast favourites with the old gentleman, and strenuously did he endeavour to initiate us in the art of drinking, recounting the feats of his youth, and his drinking-bouts with my father, adding, with a smile, “But you’ll never be a par with, your Uncle, Ned, till you can carry the six bottles under your waistcoat.”

My head was certainly stronger than my Cousin’s; he went as far as the third bottle—­the next drop was on the floor!  Now I did once manage the fourth bottle—­but then—­I must confess I was obliged to give it up!

“Young men,” would my Uncle say, “should practice ‘sans intermission,’ until they can drink four bottles without being flustered, then they will be sober people; for it won’t be easy to make them tipsy—­a drunken man I abominate!”

EXAMPLE.

“You see I make no splash!”

There are some individuals so inflated with self-sufficiency, and entertain such an overweaning opinion of their skill in all matters, that they must needs have a finger in every pie.