years of man—it could be trusted to acquire merit. After that period, it began—like man—to deteriorate. When its owner was compelled by circumstance to house it in the cellar, it was suffered to rest and revive for a day or two in a warm room on its way to the dining-table; and the bottles were carried with infinite tenderness lest the wine be bruised in the transit. A crust of bread was placed by every glass to "clean the palate" before drinking. Elizabeth Robins Pennell tells us that, in her grandfather's old-fashioned household, Madeira was the wine of ceremony, dedicated to the rites of hospitality, sacred to the stranger, to whom it was offered like the bread and salt of the Arab, and with whom it established (if the stranger knew anything about wine) a bond of sympathy and understanding.
When in the winter of 1799 the directors of the Mutual or "Green Tree" Assurance Company were holding their annual dinner, word was brought them of Washington's death. They charged their glasses, rose to their feet, and gravely drank to his memory. In the century and a quarter which have intervened since then, the rite has been yearly repeated. Even to-day, though the toast may no longer be drunk, the diners rise, the words are spoken, and the dead leader is honoured by the living.
How cordial, how dignified, how intelligent was this hospitality practised by men who were pursuing happiness along tranquil and rational lines! How immaculately free from the grossness of Georgian
