1903 The Flowing Bowl by Edward Spencer

THE DRINKS OF DICKENS 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 Crummies, 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, inhis 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 ifthey had many magnums of that famed "Double Diamond." SirMulberry 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 offluid—in his cupboard.