Later, it suffered, as did so many things, under the censure of Dr Johnson. Boswell reports that Burke, who had heard of Johnson's "scale of liquors" in which claret is allocated only to boys, exclaimed: "Then let me have claret: I love to be a boy; to have the careless gaiety of boyish days." To which Johnson replied: "I should drink claret too, if it would give me that; but it does not: it neither makes boys men, nor men boys.  You'll be drowned by it, before it has any effect upon you."

So it is likely that Mr Weston's good wine was port (or just possibly Madeira). Since the late seventeenth century, and particularly following the Methuen Treaty of 1703, the English had developed a taste for the wines of Portugal, which could withstand the fatigues of transport much better than their French counterparts. Stories of Burgundy, and even Hermitage, going sour before they reach their English purchasers are commonplace in the 18th century. But port is rendered stronger, sweeter and more stable by the addition of brandy, which halts the fermentation of the natural sugars. Problems of adulteration during the mid-18th century, when it was not uncommon for the wine to be "dressed" with elderberry juice, had been resolved by the formation in 1756 of the Douro Wine Company, which guaranteed quality. Austen had the opportunity to know something of all this. In a letter to her sister Cassandra in October 1798 she reports that she has been entrusted with "the keys of the Wine & Closet".

Perhaps more remarkable than what Mr Elton had been drinking is the way he has been drinking. We are told that he "had only drunk wine enough to elevate his spirits, not at all to confuse his intellects", and that he was therefore in a "half and half state". Port is a drink which is falling out of fashion, as people increasingly prefer wines which are lighter in alcohol and drier in finish (or at least say they do — some Australian Shiraz wines can be almost as strong and taste almost as sweet as port). But Mr Elton's precision of drinking is perhaps the most arresting detail in this episode. Mr Elton is not always a very attractive character, and a   certain instrumentality in respect of his own emotions is at the centre of the reader's suspicion of him. He is a creature of surface charm and inward calculation. Although outwardly convivial, he does not surrender to the sociability at Randalls, being "one of the first" to rejoin the ladies in the drawing room. Those who somehow remain self-possessed when drink is circulating are traditional and proper objects of resentment. They observe and merely pretend to participate. Who knows what they may remember, and even repeat?

Notwithstanding the moral coldness which on this occasion dictates it, Mr Elton's skill at hitting and sustaining the point of balance he manages to achieve at the Westons' dinner party, of elevation without confusion, is a technique well worth cultivating in this age of binge-drinking.