Part 26

“We talked of flowers that night,” continued Knudtzen, “as though they were the foremost as well as the fairest things in all the world. But we were sciolists in the science, and, contrasted with us, our host was a sage. He knew that agrimony was under Jupiter, and angelica under the Sun in Leo; that milfoil was under the influence of Venus, and that garden basil was a herb of Mars. If every new idea be worth the knowing, why, we gained knowledge by the information, that all the dodders are under Saturn. We heard, for the first time, the virtues of the plant enchusa.”

“But,” interrupted Löwenskiold, “we were enabled to remind our host of what Dioscorides says about it,--that if any who have newly eaten of it do but spit in the mouth of a serpent, the reptile instantly dies.”

“True,” said Knudtzen, “we have not been at Upsal for nothing.”

“We may all aid each other by turns,” I remarked to my two friends, as we arrived, after descending from the cathedral, on the old bridge over the Moldau. A large herd of cattle was crossing it at the time; and some of the foremost black oxen of this herd had bunches of _amara dulcis_ (or, “woody nightshade”) hung round their necks; a common custom in Germany, as I told the young travellers, and employed as a remedy against dizziness in the head.

“Of the owner or the ox?” said Harold, with a laugh.

“Of him who wears it,” I rejoined. “But I want to see the entry of your King of Saxony,” I continued, “and not to listen to the description, uses, and property of herbs, plants, and flowers; maiden-hair, moon-wort, and _ornithogalum spicatum_.”

“So much the worse!” answered Knudtzen, “or Leopold and I had told you what we learned from our entertainer of celandine; and what he told us, from Pliny, of the anemone: how he recommended us, should we ever visit Naples, never to retire to rest without strewing about our bed-chamber some chopped leaves of arse-smart, a herb most murderous to the numerous light troops cantoned in Neapolitan sleeping-rooms; how balm was good for the bite of scorpions; how Pliny recommends endweed for the quinsy;--and a thousand other matters touching leaves, herbs, trees, flowers, roots, and barks. But I _will_ tell you that our Amphitryon was light as well as learned, and loved fun as he did flowers. He would discourse upon _ballets_ as well as battles; knew all about logarithms and the new opera; told anecdotes; remembered sermons; and, finally, lighted us to bed, with a Latin quotation, and a brass candlestick. By day-break we were all out in the vicinity of the house, looking for rare plants, with as much avidity as though they equalled diamonds in value. We returned together to a breakfast exactly adapted to our tastes and capacities; after which, our knapsacks were once more on our shoulders, and, having made due acknowledgment for the hospitality received, we begged to be permitted to know the name of our entertainer.

“‘You might call me,’ said he, ‘the Dalmatian botanist, if I particularly cared about maintaining my _incognito_. But I hope we shall meet again; and, if you ever visit Dresden, come to me, and you shall have better fare than I have been able to afford you here. Ask for the King of Saxony,’ he added, observing our inquiring looks; ‘and in the mean time write your names on these tablets, and you shall find that in Dresden I have not forgotten the night in Dalmatia.’”

“And did you and the good Frederick Augustus ever meet again?”

“Twice,” said Harold. “We saw one another for a moment, a month afterwards, in Zara. He was accompanying the Emperor of Austria, followed by a brilliant staff, to a review, and he gave us a smile of recognition as he passed.”

“The second time we met him,” added Leopold, “was in the gardens of the Nymphenberg, near Munich. He was alone, amusing himself with feeding the beavers. We spent a very agreeable hour with him in exploring that pleasant retreat of the Kings of Bavaria; and, on parting, he repeated his wish that we might meet again in Dresden,--a circumstance not very unlikely, as we are now on our way to the Sächsische Schweitz.”

A FEW ODD GLASSES OF WINE.

The ancient people who loved the juice of the grape, kept in grateful remembrance the names of the first planters of vines. Bacchus came from India, through Egypt, into Europe; and he and his joyous company made vineyards bloom amid many a desert. But the introduction of the vine was not unopposed. The Chians accepted gratefully the rosy gift from Œnopia; and the branch was hailed on its passage through Greece, Sicily, and Italy. But in Greece the vines were destroyed wherever the order of Lycurgus had force; and it was in Athens that, under King Cranaus, men first diluted the potent draught with water. The gods visited Greece with an inundation in consequence; but the Sicilians, nothing daunted, adopted the temperance that was not sanctioned in Olympus. Domitian did for the vines carried into Gaul, from Tuscany, what Lycurgus did for those of Lacedæmonia; but Probus restored them to the thirsty Gauls. Numa had taught his people to train the vine which Janus had given them; and, by placing the statue of Minerva by the side of that of Bacchus, he taught them a lesson which Domitian could not comprehend. _He_ did _not_ know how to be merry and wise.

It was long before the Egyptians acknowledged, by grateful use, the excellence of the vine. The Scythians, some of the Persians, and the Cappadocians would not drink the delusive draught upon any account; but then these were barbarians. The Cappadocians especially not only refused wine, but liberty. When the latter was offered them by the Romans, the reply of the water-drinkers was, “that they would neither accept liberty nor tolerate it!” It is to be remarked, however, that all these people tardily attained to a better taste, like the great Hippocrates himself, who, after touching on the advisability of mixing wine with water, finally decides, like the enthusiastic Athenians, that it is much better to take the beverage neat. He thinks that, when grief is at the heart, pure wine is a specific; and no doubt Ariadne thought so too, or she would not have turned to Bacchus after Theseus had abandoned her to a short-lived inconsolability. Rome long honoured Bacchus even as Ariadne did; and he who stole a bunch of grapes from a vineyard incurred the penalty of death. Italy was, indeed, proud of her vines and their produce. Of the two hundred varieties of wine then known in the world, only fourscore were declared to be “excellent;” and of these fourscore, nearly thirty were said to be natives of Italy. The Chian wines, however, maintained for ages a marked pre-eminence. It was a vase filled with wine of Chios that the poet Ion gave to every Athenian who was present at the representation of a tragedy, for which the poet was publicly crowned. “_Pauper es, ut solent poetæ_,” was therefore, evidently, a line that could not be universally applied to the poets of Greece.

They loved old wine, too, did those old people. Wine, as old as the years to which ravens are reported to attain,--a century, or even two,--was served up at Rome. It was in consistency something like the clotted cream of Devonshire. But there was wine of a more solid consistency than this. I have elsewhere spoken of wine chopped in pieces by an axe, before it could be used. This was because of an accident which had happened to the wine; but the Romans had vinous preparations which were served up in lumps; and we hear of wines being kept in the chimney like modern bacon, and presented to the guests “as hard as salt.” The ancients are also reported to have been able to change red wine into white, by means of white of egg and bean-flour, shaken together with the red wine in a flagon. It would require much shaking before a degenerate modern could effect the mutation in question. But if Cato could imitate the best Chian by means of his own gooseberries, the other feat may hardly be disputed. It is certain that the ancients could boldly swallow some questionable mixtures. Thus they drank their wine with sea-water, in order to stimulate and whip up energies exhausted by being over-driven the night before. Myrtle wine, on the other hand, was copiously drunk at dawn by those who could not sleep, but who could afford to remain in bed, and try to court Nature’s soft nurse.

There were Roman ladies who were not born before nerves were in fashion. These had their especial drinks, sovereign in their effects, to calm a nervous system too sorely excited. The most efficacious of these was the “_Adynamon_,” or “powerless wine;” that is, powerless to intoxicate, but excellent as an invigorator. It consisted simply of a mixture of water and white-wort; and when Julia or Lalage had tremblingly sipped thereof, her nerves were so braced, that she could stand by and look on while Geta was flogged for an hour.

On the point of secret drinking, the early Romans were quite as particular and more merciless regarding their wives. When Micennius detected his wife in the act of “sucking the monkey,” that is, feloniously imbibing his wine through a straw at the bung-hole, he then and there slew her. Complaint was made by her friends to Romulus; but that chief and sole magistrate confined himself to the remark, that she had been justly served. The wine-casks at home were for years afterwards accounted sacred by the wives in the absence of their lords. It would appear, too, by this incident, that wine was commonly produced long before Numa introduced the improvement of training the vine. There _were_ ladies who were rendered more cautious, but not less bold, by the judgment pronounced by Romulus. We hear of one caught in the fact by some members of her own family, who were so disgusted with her immorality, that to preserve the respectability of their house, they starved her to death. As years wore on, Judges grew more good-natured, and only deprived tippling married women of all right in their marriage portions. The Empire could hardly have been inaugurated, before thirsty ladies adopted a custom that had been denied them under the Commonwealth. Livia, the consort of Augustus, was eighty-two when she died; and it was her boast that wine alone had made her an octogenarian. What wine she drank is not stated. She may have had a head that could bear old Falernian undiluted; but that was not the case with many of her sex. The Roman ladies’ wine was, generally speaking, little more than a sweet _tisane_, distilled from asparagus or marjoram; from parsley, mint, rue, wild thyme, or pennyroyal. These were sipped at breakfast-time; and the hour and the ingredient would seem rather to point to Æsculapius than to Bacchus. They were, in fact, medicinal drinks. The strong wines were drunk at other hours, and these more innocent draughts were swallowed in the morning, with reflections as bitter as the beverage. Wormwood wine, too, was a favourite morning stimulant with intoxication; and it cannot be denied, that if modern guests were condemned to a “pint of salt and water” with their wine, the hilarity after dinner would not be of a very joyous aspect. Some of the “sea-wines” of the Greeks, however, owed their name and reputation chiefly to being immersed, in casks, in the ocean. Our Madeira may thus be called a “sea-wine,” when it has been to the East Indies and back for the benefit of its health.

“Chambertin” was the favourite wine of Napoleon. The “_vinum dulce_” obtained after drying the grapes in the sun, during three days, and crushing them beneath the feet, in the hottest hours of the fourth day, was the drink for which Commodus had a predilection. It was after draughts of this beverage that he used to fight in the Circus as the “Roman Hercules,” as proud of his performance as Mr. Ducrow, when he used to ride round it in the same character. Commodus, too, like the great equestrian, was an artist in his way; but he ruined the managers by the exorbitant salaries which he wrung from them, whenever he condescended to appear in the arena!

For the games of the Circus, and for bread after the sport was over, the Romans have been reproachfully pointed at as alone caring. Considering the plight into which they had been plunged by their Rulers and Priests, they seem to me to have been wise in their sentiment. One circumstance is clear,--that they might dip their pennyworth of bread into a deep cup of “sack” at the same price. Wine cost but sixpence a gallon,--a sufficient quantity for half-a-dozen gentlemen just returned from the Circus; or for half-a-dozen ladies, who had learned to break through the total-abstinence principle of the women of the Republic. There was much wine to be had for a trifling outlay of money. In Greece, it was cheaper still. In Athens, wine was dear at fourpence per gallon; and ordinarily, Davus, out on a holiday, might get drunk upon four quarts of it, at a halfpenny per quart; but Chremes would nearly flay him alive, if he caught him before he was sober.

I may add, that this was the price of wine, that is, of French wine, in England, under John. A tun of Rochelle wine cost twenty shillings, and it was retailed at fourpence per gallon. But taking the value of money into consideration, this was rather a high price.

When Probus restored the vine to the Gauls, he sent cuttings of the precious plant into Britain; and many localities in the south part of the island produced a very respectable beverage, of which the parent stock had no reason to be ashamed. “As sure as God is in Gloucestershire!” was a common phrase when that picturesque county was covered with monasteries; and many of the monastic gardens were famous for their grapes and the liquor distilled from them. The little village of Durweston, near Blandford, in Dorsetshire, was once as remarkable for its peculiar grape and its product, as that restricted Rhenish locality, whose grapes produce the Lieb Frauenmilch. Of the respective merits of the English grapes, I will say nothing. The merits of French wines have, however, occupied the attention of rival medical colleges, whose professors have shed much ink, and cracked whole legions of bottles, in order to discuss, rather than settle, the divers deserts of Burgundy and Champagne. The question is yet an undecided one, as is also that respecting the devotion of the Gauls to the grapes. Arnaud de Villeneuve praises the mediæval people of France, who intoxicated themselves monthly upon hygienic principles. While other writers assert, that “in the middle ages, and in the sixteenth century, intoxication was severely punished in France.” I am the more inclined to believe in the latter assertion, as the laws against drinking and drinkers, from Charlemagne to Francis I., have often been cited; and they are marked by a severity--which Rabelais did not care for, a button!

Our own wine-trade with France began after the Norman Conquest, and was very considerable when our English Kings were proprietors of the French wine districts. About the middle of the sixteenth century, the _maximum_ price of wine was fixed at twelve-pence per gallon; but at this time no one was allowed to have in his house a measure that would contain above ten gallons, unless, indeed, he were of noble birth, or could expend a hundred marks annually.

Of all French wines, that of Burgundy is the most difficult of carriage. Some Burgundies cannot bear it at all; others are transported in bottles covered with a cottony paper, or bedded in salt. Pure Burgundy exhilarates without intoxicating; and there is not a liver complaint in a hogshead of it. It is the alcoholic wines that massacre the _jecur_.

The Burgundy vineyards were originally in connexion with the Burgundian monasteries, and there were no better _vignerons_ than the monks. The modern quality of the wine is inferior to its ancient reputation, simply because modern proprietors are not artistical monks, but mere money-makers. Napoleon adhered to the wine as long as he could; but at St. Helena he took to Bordeaux,--Chambertin would have lost its best qualities in the voyage thither.

The Emperor was, perhaps, the best judge of his favourite Chambertin that France ever could boast of, except, probably, in the case of the good Lindsay, of Balcarras, Bishop of Kildare. This Prelate long resided at Tours, and was an excellent connoisseur in wine, though he modestly used to say, “_If_ I know any thing, it is the management of turnip crops and mangel-wurzel.” It is no disparagement of the episcopal bench to say, that many of its members could not justifiably make a similar boast. Lord Brougham, I believe, used to say, that “if _he_ knew any thing, it was, that claret should always be drunk after game.” There is an imperial authority in favour of Champagne. When the Emperor Wenceslaus visited France in the fourteenth century, to negotiate with Charles VI., it was impossible ever to get him sober to a conference. “It was no matter,” he said; “they might decide as they liked, and he would drink as _he_ liked; and thus both parties would be on an equality.” There is something curious in the caprices of Champagne; particularly of the _vin mousseux_, or effervescing wine. In the same cellar, the same wine, all similarly placed, will _mousser_ in some bottles, and not in others. It will even, when poured from the same bottle, _mousser_ in some glasses into which it is poured, while in others it will fall as heavily placid as oil. In warm weather, however, a great Champagne cellar is a very lively place; so lively, that it is unsafe to walk through the serried hosts of bottles, without a wire mask over the face.

There are one or two sorts of French wine which are considered to be improved by letting a small portion of the stalk be trodden in with the grape. But, probably, in the selection of the grape, there is no where such care taken, as in the matter of imperial Tokay. The grapes are selected with the greatest care; sometimes a second selection is made from the first selected lot. No grape is chosen that is not perfectly sound. The resulting wine is of a highly delicious flavour; but I need not add, that the general public know but very little about it. To them is vouchsafed the brewage from the damaged grape, or the distillation of the refuse of the first grape. The product is an acid one, resembling moderately good Rhine wine; but it is _not_ Tokay.

“Old Wortley Montague” was a great drinker of Tokay. He lived to the patriarchal age of eighty-three. Gray, writing of him, says, that it was not mere avarice, and its companion, abstinence, that kept him alive so long. He imported his own wine from Hungary, in greater quantity than he could use, and he sold the overplus,--drinking himself a half-pint every day,--for any price he chose to set upon it. It was a fashionable wine with the drinkers of the last century. Walpole records its being offered at a supper given by Miss Chudleigh to the Duke of Kingston, her then “protector.” “At supper she offered him Tokay, and told him she believed he would find it good.” The entertainment was splendid, and untidy. “The supper was in two rooms, and very fine; and on all the sideboards, and _even on the chairs_, were pyramids and troughs of strawberries and cherries; you would have thought she was kept by Vertumnus!”

Our ancient acquaintance, “mustard,” was originally raised to the character of “wine,” in common with some other of the seeds used at ancient tables. Our warm friend mustard was the _mustum ardens_, or “hot wine.” It was held as good for persons of bilious temperament, and as being more beneficial in summer than in winter. Coriander was used in the same season. It was mixed with vinegar, and poured over meat to preserve its freshness. There are some men who faint at the smell of linseed. A bread made therefrom was once, however, readily eaten by various European and Asiatic people. Cakes made of it were placed before the altars of gods,--men making willing sacrifice of what they accounted as of small value. Similar sacrifices are made daily even now; only they are not in the form of aniseed cakes.

It is said of the Arabs, that they manufactured an intoxicating wine from linseed. This beverage was worthy of being served with that strange dish at dessert,--fried hempseed,--a dish that would have been appropriate enough at a highwayman’s last supper, the night before he rode to Tyburn.

It used to be said of old, that wine was a sympathetic liquor; and this is alluded to by more than one writer. Sir Kenelm Digby, in his “Dissertation on the Cure of Wounds,” makes a singular remark with respect to wine. “The wine-merchants observe every where, (where there is wine,) that during the season the vines are in the flower, the wines in the cellar make a kind of fermentation, and percolate forth a little white lee (which I think they call ‘the mother of the wine’) upon the surface of the wine, which continues in a kind of disorder till the flower of the vines be fallen; and then, this agitation being ceased, all the wine returns to the same state as it was in before.”

It was a custom with the ancients to swallow, to the health of their mistresses, as many cups or glasses as there were letters in her name. To this custom Martial refers:--

“_Nævia sex cyathis, septem Justina bibatur, Quinque Lycas, Lyde quatuor, Ida tribus: Omnis ab infuso numeretur amica Falerno._”

It became us, as a more mechanical people, to drink upon pegs rather than letters: the peg-tankards were said to be the invention of King Edgar. The two-gallon measure had eight pegs; and the half-pint, from peg to peg, was deemed a fitting draught for an honest man; but as the statute, or custom, did not define how often the toper might be permitted to indulge in this measure, people of thirsty propensities got rather more inebriated than they had dared to be previously. As the half-pint was roughly set down as the _maximum_ of their draught, it was a point of honour with them never to drink less,--and to drink to that extent as often as opportunity offered. The Council of London (Archbishop Anselm’s “Canons,” A.D. 1102) expressly warned the Clergy against the perils of peg-drinking; but the same Council looked upon perukes as being quite as perilous as these pegged half-pints, and denounced wigs with as much intensity as tankards,--and to about as much purpose. Karloman understood the Ecclesiastics better; at least, if traditionary history be worthy of any respect.