Although it is the fashion of the day to belittle, if not sneer at, the works of “Boz,” he has still sufficient admirers to justify a chapter on what is, I hope, a congenial subject to my readers. The characters may be unduly elaborated, and the incidents too much spun-out for these slap-dash, go-ahead times; but it is to the simple, homely, hospitality so often referred to in the novels of Charles Dickens that most of them owed that popularity which may, or may {212} not, be on the wane. The close student of these novels will discover that all which is good, and honest, and upright, and charitable is honoured in their pages, whilst meanness, deceit, hypocrisy, and cant are lashed with no uncertain hand. “The greatest of all gifts is Charity,” is the lesson taught by Charles Dickens, who shewed at the same time that it is quite possible to enjoy the good things of life without making a beast of oneself. And he it was who clothed Christmas in that warm, sumptuous robe of joviality and hospitality which makes all who keep that festival in the proper spirit forget for the time that a quarter’s rent falls due on the same day.

Dickens’s drunkards are few and far between—and in this category I do not include such as Sydney Carton, the members of the Pickwick Club, and David Copperfield, on the occasion of his first dinner-party. Nobody has a right to call the man who makes merry with his friends, now and then, a sot; and a careful study of Dickens shows that the real inebriates, the “habituals” described in his works, had all more or less rascality in their composition—not even excepting Dick Swiveller, who, however, became a reformed character towards the close of the book.

As for the drinks themselves, it is especially worthy of note that there is no mention whatever made of whisky in these works; a fact which justifies everything which I have written in a former chapter as to the neglect with which this undoubtedly estimable and wholesome fortifier was treated by society, until within the last few {213} decades. A brandy-and-soda was an unknown fact during the Dickens period; simply because, although there was plenty of brandy, the true virtues of soda-water had not been discovered. Moreover, nobody was known to call for a gin-and-bitters, or a sherry-and-angostura; whilst cocktails and cobblers are mentioned only in the American chapters of Martin Chuzzlewit. Ales and beers were known by various fantastic names during the first half of the present century, when men knew not “four-’alf” nor “bitter-six”; thus we have little David Copperfield gravely asking for a glass of the “Genuine Stunning,” whilst Mrs. Gamp was unable to fulfil her arduous duties sat­is­fac­tor­i­ly without a generous allowance of “the Brighton old Tipper.”

But to the books themselves. And commencing with David Copperfield—who is provided with the heart, feelings, and understanding of the great novelist himself—I make my first pause at the waiter at the Yarmouth hotel. I don’t like that waiter, either as a man or a waiter; and his portrait by “Phiz” suggests a Cheap Jack at a fair, or a barber, rather than a coffee-room attendant. As a boy, I always looked up to a waiter as a benefactor—a species of Santa Claus, and not as a marauding varlet who would probably despoil me of my lawful share of the banquet and then lie about the incident to the landlady. And when this rascal pleads that he “lives on broken wittles, and sleeps on the coals,” I lose patience with him. A waiter who could rob a poor boy of his beer {214} would not need to sleep on the coals. He might have been a tax-gatherer, or a bailiff.

Mr. Creakle, the schoolmaster, appears to have been a bit of an imbiber, whilst the boys themselves partook, sub rosa, of cowslip wine, occasionally fortified by Steerforth with orange juice, ginger, or a peppermint drop; and it was probably due to this decoction, rather than to “Crab,” that poor Traddles became ill in the night—his sufferings being unduly prolonged by black draughts and blue pills, not to mention six chapters of Greek Testament and a special-extra caning. Poor little David partook of assorted drinks during his boyhood, including the aforesaid “Genuine Stunning,” and occasional wine-glasses of punch whilst lodging with the Micawber family; and, his good aunt once found, “her first proceeding was to unlock a tall press, bring out several bottles, and pour some of the contents of each into my mouth. I think they must have been taken out at random, for I am sure I tasted aniseed water, anchovy sauce, and salad dressing.”

“My aunt” partook of hot white wine and water, with strips of toast soaked therein, by way of a night-cap; and whenever Micawber turns up, we may be sure that the ingredients for a bowl of punch (presumably rum punch) are not far off. Not much drinking was done in the Peggotty family, but Mrs. Crupp, David’s landlady, seems to have had the proverbial passion of her race for brandy; and, naturally enough, the “handy young man” hired to wait, on the occasion of the dinner to Steerforth, got more {215} than his fair share of the wines. Mr. Wickfield—silly old dotard to be deceived by such a shallow, transparent ruffian as Uriah Heep—drank assorted wines to drown his cares; whilst one of the servants engaged by Dora, during her brief experience of matrimonial joys, used to chalk up an account, in her mistress’ name, at the public house, the items appearing as “half-quartern gin and cloves (Mrs. C.);” “glass rum and peppermint (Mrs. C.)”—the parenthesis always referring to Dora, who was supposed to have consumed the whole of these refreshments.

There is a fair amount of assorted drinking in Martin Chuzzlewit. Revelry at Pecksniff Hall took, we learn, the form of red and white currant wine, of acid char­ac­ter­is­tics, the remains of the two bottles being sub­se­quent­ly blended, for the special malefit of Tom Pinch and young Martin. But the artful Pecksniff himself did not stir without the brandy bottle when going on a journey, and the family seem to have done themselves particularly well at “Todgers’s.” Whenever I feel more than ordinarily depressed in spirits, I overhaul my Martin Chuzzlewit and read, once again, the report of the dinner at Todgers’s, which led to Mr. Pecksniff’s fall into the fireplace. John Westlock—about the most admirable young man in all Dickens’s novels—did not forget to do his friends well at Salisbury. “As to wines,” we are told, “the man who can dream such iced champagne, such claret, port, or sherry, had better go to bed and stop there.”

The blackmailing of the captain of the Screw by the proprietor of the New York Rowdy Journal {216} took the form of champagne; and the merits of a sherry cobbler are fully recognized by Martin, who sub­se­quent­ly, however, fared badly in the way of wines and spirits whilst in the States. Eden, that alleged “prosperous city,” appears to have possessed neither pawn-shop, place of worship, nor drinking-bar; and the comparative delights of the “Dragon” on the return of Mark and Martin to Wiltshire are made delightfully apparent. As for the bad characters, Chevy Slyme loafed in a chronic state of eleemosynary drink, until he joined the police force, whilst Montague Tigg fared sumptuously on the best of liquor—including old Maderia—until knocked on the head by the villain Jonas, who also appears to have been a bit of a soaker, when he could get his drink for nothing.

Mrs. Gamp’s wants were few and simple, but she insisted upon a regular supply, and got it. Leaving solid sustenance out, she stipulated for “a pint of mild porter at lunch, a pint at dinner, half a pint as a species of stay or holdfast between dinner and tea, and a pint of the celebrated staggering ale, or Real Old Brighton Tipper, at supper; besides the bottle on the chimney-piece, and such casual invitations to refresh herself with wine as the good breeding of her employers might prompt them to offer.” And she never exceeded the allowance of a shillingsworth of gin-and-water warm when she rang the bell a second time after supper. She must have cost as much to keep as a steam-yacht. The contents of Mrs. G.’s teapot, on the occasion of her historic quarrel with Betsy Prig, are alluded to, {217} vaguely, by the novelist as “spirits,” and were, I shall ever maintain, gin, and not rum, as stated by other reviewers. The idea of putting rum on the top of “Newcastle salmon, intensely pickled,” and such a monstrous (to a connoisseur in these things) salad as that furnished by Mrs. Prig, is barbaric.

After an experience of the modern roadside inn, or of the “reserved lounges” of the alcohol-palaces of to-day, what can be more delightful reading than the description of the interior of the “Maypole,” in Barnaby Rudge?

“The very snuggest, cosiest, and completest bar that ever the wit of man devised. Such amazing bottles in old oaken pigeon-holes; such gleaming tankards hanging from pegs at about the same inclination as thirsty men would hold them to their lips; such sturdy little Dutch kegs ranged in rows on shelves; so many lemons hanging in separate nets, suggestive, with goodly loaves of sugar stowed away hard by, of punch, idealized beyond all mortal knowledge, etc. etc.”

Hardly an ideal landlord of the past, though, was old John Willet. A far better stamp of host was Gabriel Varden, the locksmith, who took deep draughts of sparkling home-brewed ale, from a goodly jug of well-browned clay, for breakfast, and who was one of the “Maypole’s” best customers. Mr. Chester—whose interview with his son will remind the student of Monsieur le Marquis’s interview with his nephew, in A Tale of Two Cities—was a judge of wine, though not given to over-indulgence in the bowl, like his bastard, Maypole Hugh; and Lord George {218} Gordon’s favourite brew appears to have been hot mulled wine. As for the rest of the rioters, they drank, after the manner of rioters, anything they could get.

The first mention of wine in A Tale of Two Cities is the fall and breakage, pro bono publico, of a large cask of inferior claret in the district of St. Antoine—emblematic of the blood to be spilt in Paris later on—which called forth the delightful, philosophic remark of Defarge, the master of the wine-shop to which the cask had been consigned: “It is not my affair. The people from the market did it. Let them bring another.” But the chief imbibers in the book are Sydney Carton and Serjeant Stryver, the pushing and successful advocate for whom the other “devilled.” Stryver, we gather from Edmund Yates’s Reminiscences, was modelled by Dickens, from Mr. Edwin James, Q.C., who at one time “stood high in popular favour,” and who “liked talking.” There is plenty of sub­se­quent moderate drinking—in Defarge’s wine-shop principally—but with the exception of these two advocates, Stryver and Carton—“what the two drank together, between Hilary Term and Michaelmas might have floated a king’s ship”—nobody appears to swallow an undue amount of alcohol, in this the most powerful, and the saddest, of all Dickens’s books.

I could never wade through Our Mutual Friend, and Little Dorrit is not one of my favourite books. It was ruthlessly mauled by the Saturday Review soon after its appearance, and Thackeray’s openly expressed opinion of the work was “Little D. is Deed stupid.” I have {219} heard another great man express the same opinion of it, in more elegant language. There is not much revelry in Little D. until we get to the second volume; and with the exception of Blandois the strangler and the romantic Flora nobody appears to have a really good thirst. In the Marshalsea the “collegians” were evidently worse provided with alcoholic comfort than in the Fleet; and this is all which can be written in this chapter about Little Dorrit.

Nicholas Nickleby, on the other hand, is full of allusions to the flowing bowl. Most of the characters—Smike being a notable exception—moisten their clay in some way or other, from dear old Crummles, who is introduced to our notice with a rummer of hot brandy-and-water in one hand, to the ruffian Squeers. Newman Noggs owed his fall in life to the bold, bad, bottle, and Mantalini presumably took to gin together with the washer-woman, in his declining years. The Brothers Cheeryble were evidently the right sort of people to dine with—although their dinner-hour would hardly suit the present generation—especially if they had many magnums of that famed “Double Diamond.” Sir Mulberry Hawk and his lordly victim drank deep, after the fashion of the day; whilst the keeper of the “rooge-a-nore from Paris” booth on Hampton race-course stimulates the energies of his patrons with excellent champagne, port, sherry, and (most likely) British brandy. Old Gride keeps a bottle of “golden water”—presumably the Dantzic liqueur, “Acqua d’Oro,” mentioned in my chapter on that form of fluid—in his cupboard, {220} and doles out on one occasion a minute glass thereof to Newman Noggs, who would evidently, like the farmer at the audit dinner, prefer it “in a moog.” Mr. Lillyvick, the collector of water-rates, was especially partial to punch—which was “cut off” so unexpectedly for the benefit of Nicholas, after his walk from Yorkshire to the metropolis; and the whole of Mr. Crummles’s company, ladies included, liked a taste of the same beverage. Finally, John Browdie, the good genius of the book, was a fellow of infinite swallow, always ready for his meals, and never behindhand when there was a full jug or bottle handy. And it is recorded that upon being knocked up by Nicholas, on the visit of the last-named to Yorkshire, with the news of Squeers’s trial and sentence, “forced him down upon a huge settle beside a blazing fire, poured out from an enormous bottle about a quarter of a pint of spirits, thrust it into his hand, opened his mouth, and threw back his head as a sign to him to drink it.” And before breakfast, too!

Bill Sikes, on occasion, drank brandy “at a furious rate”; but more often poverty prevented his slaking his thirst on anything more deadly than Spitalfields ale, or eleemosynary gin. The whole of Mr. Fagin’s pupils drank whenever opportunity offered, either malt liquor or gin-and-water out of pewter pots; but the Jew himself, with the innate caution of his race, avoided the wiles of the bowl. Nancy was an “habitual,” in her youth, most probably, or she would not have chummed up with such a criminal crew; and as for Monks, the disorder known as {221} delirium tremens was no stranger to him. Bumble and his wife were not averse to a social glass; and even the charity-boy, Noah Claypole, indulged, during the absence of his master, the undertaker, in oysters, porter, and some sort of wine, name not mentioned. As far as we are told, the decent members of society in Oliver Twist were very moderate in their potations; although it is in my mind that Mr. Fang, the stipendiary, was a port-wine man.

In The Old Curiosity Shop we get allusions to liquids of all kinds, from orange-peel and water, the favourite beverage of the Marchioness, to the truly-awful “wanities” of Quilp, which took the form of over-proof rum, boiled, burnt brandy, or raw Schiedam out of a keg. Quilp, by the way, if amusing enough, is the most exaggerated character ever invented by the great novelist, and has no business out of the realms of pantomime. But he was very, very funny, as impersonated by “Johnny” Clarke in the long ago. Dick Swiveller was a swindler by profession, although like many of these a boon companion, speechifier, and framer of jovial sentiments. The “rosy wine” was represented at his humble home by geneva-and-water, and his astonishment when Mr. Brass’ lodger made a brew of “extra­or­di­nary” rum-and-water in “a kind of temple, shining as of polished silver,” at the same time cooking a steak, an egg, and a cup of coffee, in the same temple, can only have been exceeded by his joy at getting something really decent to drink.

The strolling performers with whom Nell and Grandfather travelled did themselves {222} particularly well, especially dear old Mrs. Jarley, whose consideration for her own comforts was fully equalled by her desire for the worldly welfare of others.

In Bleak House allusions to the bowl are infrequent. The rag-shop “Lord Chancellor” cremated himself with the aid of gin, and Mr. Tul­king­horn had a weak­ness for old port. Mr. Bucket favoured brown sherry, and Harold Skimpole would nibble a peach and sip claret, with an execution in his house. This is one of the best characters drawn by Dickens; and although the type is not a familiar one, I have met him in the flesh.

Dombey and Son is by no means a “thirsty” work; though Joey Bagstock was a votary of the bowl, like old Mrs. Brown. The rest of the company put together (I except “the Chicken”) would not have enabled a publican to pay his rent, and one of the most mel­an­choly parts of the book is the mention made therein of only one bottle of the old Madeira remaining in the cellar of Sol Gills, at a time when most of the other characters in the book—male and female—are making use of his house.

Next to my Pickwick I love my Great Expectations. Brandy-and-tar-water, imbibed by Pumblechook, in mistake, at the Christmas dinner, should properly come under the heading of “Strange Swallows”; but the capacity of those two bottles of port and sherry, which he brought as a present on that occasion, has always been a puzzle to me. Joe, probably, would not be allowed more than a glass, and, naturally, {223} little Pip would be out of it; but there remained Wopsle, Mr. and Mrs. Hubble, and Pumblechook himself; whilst afterwards the sergeant joined in the treat, and had two glasses. And all these people were served from one bottle; for we are distinctly told that the second cork was not drawn until the first bottle had been emptied.

Miss Havisham’s relations having been brewers, beer was naturally the refreshment offered to little Pip, whilst in service there, although there seems to have been a bottle or two of wine in the cellars, for the benefit of Mr. Jaggers and others. That worthy, like most successful lawyers of the present day, was a light luncher—a sandwich, and the contents of a flask of sherry serving him for the purpose; but we are told that at his dinners both meat and drink were unexceptionable. His great hand always savoured of scented soap, and at luncheon the odour of superior sherry pervaded his office.

The convict’s emissary, himself a released felon, stirred his rum-and-water with a file; and this appears to have been the favoured drink of the “returned transport,” Magwitch. There was a large consumption of port and sherry—chiefly by Pumblechook—after the remains of Mrs. Gargery had been consigned to the earth; and what with frequent visits, on the part of the inhabitants of those parts, to “The Jolly Bargemen” and “The Boar,” the landlords of those establishments must have done a thriving trade indeed.

I wonder if Sir Wilfrid Lawson, or any other eminent abstainer, ever picked up a volume of {224} the Pickwick Papers for the purpose of perusal? If so, and it was an illustrated edition, the frontispiece must have made his heart quail; for it represents Pickwick himself standing on a chair addressing a more or less excited audience, all seated at a long table, and each with a cigar or pipe in his mouth, and a large tumbler in front of him. And if the eminent abstainer cared to carry his researches farther, he would discover that ere the Pickwickian deputation had started on their first journey they had taken part in a street fight, eventually quelled by the arrival of a perfect stranger, who celebrates the occasion by calling for glasses round of brandy-and-water, hot and strong!

The Pickwick Paper absolutely reek with alcohol, from title-page to name and address of printer. Everybody drinks with everybody else, both in and out of the Fleet Prison. The hospitality of the good people is unbounded, and good and bad alike do it full justice. The very instant the belated travellers have crossed the threshold of Dingley Dell they are fed with cherry brandy. The entire deputation has “Katzenjammer,” on the morning after their arrival at Rochester, and a duel, or an attempted one, is the consequence. In coffee-room, bar-parlour, or smoking-room, an introduction, a story, or a song is an excuse for a bowl of punch. Wherever the Pickwickians go they carry trouble, more or less amusing to the reader, and the trouble is invariably followed by revelry.

That two medical students should wash down their oysters with neat brandy—and before {225} breakfast—seems at the first glance an impos­si­bil­ity; but many of those who know for certain the effects of undue indul­gence are the most careless in indulging, and Bob Sawyer and his still more rascally friend and fellow-student Ben Allen are reckless types of a reckless profession. The same meal—oysters cum brandy—is partaken of, later on, by Solomon Pell and the coachman; and Dickens probably knew that lawyers and stage-drivers, like sailors, can digest anything.

The most drunken man in the book, “the Shepherd,” is an alleged tee­totaller; and the ab­stain­ing divi­sion will as­suredly never forgive Dickens for his word-painting of Stiggins, whose “vanity” was pine-apple rum with hot water and plenty of sugar. The Wellers, pÈre et fils, were not con­ser­va­tive in their po­ta­tions; and whether “the inwariable” is Wellerese for brandy hot, or rum hot, I am still uncertain, although many cor­re­spon­dents have sought to enlighten me on the subject; said cor­re­spon­dents being anything but unanimous. One of the most favoured beverages men­tioned in the work is “cold punch,” by which I under­stand milk-punch, a very “more-ish” draught indeed.

I have prolonged this chapter perhaps unduly. But the subject of the Drinks of Dickens is too important a one to slur over. The man who cannot appreciate Pickwick has never yet come my way. There is a peculiar charm about the book, a broad hospitality, an unbounded love of the good things of this life which must endear it to the hearts of true sons of Britannia, who will revel, on occasion, no matter what obstacles may {226} be placed in their way. And this is the method of procedure, the potation being occasionally varied, which succeeded all the troubles of the friends:—

“So to keep up their good humour they stopped at the first roadside tavern they came to”—this was after the punch and pound incident—“and ordered a glass of brandy-and-water all round, with a magnum of extra strength for Mr. Samuel Weller.”