Indian wheat-flour, with honey, or sweet juice of the agava. To this was
added annotto, an astringent tinctorial juice, of a rosy hue, obtained
from the seeds of the _Bixa Orleana_. The chieftains, or lords and
warriors only, enjoyed the right of feeding on chocolate, as the most
restoring aliment, and the most capable, in their opinion, of repairing
worn-out strength and producing vigour. The addition of the perfume of
vanilla, again, augments this quality, according to the testimony of
physicians and travellers. Dias of Castilho relates that Montezuma drank
vanilla chocolate, and the Maréchal de Bellisle says, in his
“_Testament Politique_,” that the regent, Louis Philippe d’Orléans
regaled himself every morning with chocolate at his _petit lever_.
The ladies of Chiapa, in Mexico, are so fond of these perfumed
chocolates that they even have them carried to eat in church. The
Spanish Creole nuns have also brought to great perfection the art of
preparing fine chocolate, perfumed with amber.
The use of chocolate was soon brought from Mexico, after its conquest by
Fernando Cortes, into Spain, and this food has there become quite
habitual. First, it easily deceives hunger by reason of its oily
qualities and slow digestion; then it is softening and cooling, which
renders it particularly desirable in warm climates, especially such as
the Iberian peninsula. Thus the Spaniards but slightly roast their
cocoa-nuts; they prefer preserving but a very slight bitterness, and
mixing with it more aromatics. Besides, chocolate, so useful to dry and
nervous temperaments, is an agreeable analeptic, recommended against
hypochondria and melancholy, two affections so common to the Spaniards.
The beggars, even, could not live without it, and they accost each other
in the morning with inquiring if their lordships have taken their
chocolate.
This aliment is favourable to idleness, augments the calm of the body
and mind, and plunges one in a sweet quietude of _far niente_ at a small
expense.
From Spain the fashion of taking chocolate was introduced into Italy,
especially by the Florentine, Antonio Carletti. The Italians extract
from cocoa more exalted qualities by torrefication: they burn it till it
becomes bitter. The grave question arose among them, whether chocolate
taken in the morning by the monks broke the fast principally in Lent.
The Cardinal Brancaccio, and other learned casuists, battled long in
order to prove that chocolate, being evidently a beverage made of water,
could not be in the least considered as an aliment, nor break the fast.
We see, indeed, in the correspondence of the Princess des Ursins--all
powerful at the court of Philip V. of Spain--and Madame de Maintenon,
that the consciences of pious persons had been placed in full
tranquillity by this decision, and that any one might fast during the
whole Lent as perfectly by drinking chocolate as if he had only partaken
of a glass of cold water.
“Chocolate became pretty common in France from the time of Anne of
Austria, mother of Louis XIV.; however, it does not appear to have ever
excited the same enthusiasm as coffee; it is not favourable to good
cheer, nor is it exhilarating. To this may be traced, perhaps, the
indifference of the English for this beverage.”--VIREY.
In trade, as we have said, are distinguished a great variety of cocoas,
and they are called by the name of the country whence they come. Thus we
have the Caracas cocoa, the Surinam cocoa, &c. That which comes from the
French possessions is called also “cocoa of the isles.” The Caracas is
the most esteemed of all: it is more oily than the other kinds, and has
no sharpness of flavour. It is known by being larger, rough, of an
ovoid, oblong shape, not flattened, covered with a greyish dust, and by
the kernel being easily divided into several irregular fragments. “The
name of _cacao_, of which in French has been made the word _cacaoyer_,
is that given by the inhabitants of Guiana to this grain. As to the
scientific name, _theobroma_, Linnæus formed it from two Greek words,
signifying ‘food of the gods.’ ”--DEMEZIL.
XXVII.
DRINKING CUPS.
If men were wiser, the 19th century would probably not have seen a
beneficent apostle preaching temperance everywhere, and making his name
cherished and celebrated by a series of successes which could hardly
have been expected; numerous societies of _Hydropotes_, or
“teetotallers,” would not alarm, in our days, those joyful disciples of
Bacchus’s temple, hydrophobes by profession, by taste, and interest, who
sincerely bewail the desertion of newly made abstemious members; and no
person would promise, by a solemn and formidable pledge, to forego the
drinking of anything but water! The abuse must have been very great,
since it was necessary to have recourse to such a remedy.
It is true that the evil had taken deep root, and that the most ancient
people, the gods, and the heroes, have left us examples of this
dangerous seduction. The Scythians, the Celts, Iberians, and
Thracians,[XXVII-1] were confirmed drunkards. The wise Nestor himself,
who was so good a match for Agamemnon, often felt some difficulty in
finding his tent.[XXVII-2] Alexander the Great slept sometimes two days
and two nights, after having paid too much devotion to the god of good
cheer;[XXVII-3] and Philip, his father, very frequently left the table
with a very heavy head and staggering legs.[XXVII-4]
It is reported that Dionysius the Younger, tyrant of Sicily, lost his
sight through drinking too much, which will not be wondered at, if
DESCRIPTION OF PLATE No. XVIII.
No. 1. Drinking-cup, of terra cotta, in the form of a pig’s head,
found at Herculaneum.--HAMILTON, I., IIe.
No. 2. Also that of a dog’s head.--CAYLUS, I., Plan 35.
[Illustration: _Pl. 18._]
[Illustration: _Pl. 18A_]
what is supposed, be true, that this miserable man was drunk every day,
without fail, for three months together![XXVII-5] Shall we mention
Tiberius--surnamed by the army, _Biberius_ (Tippler)--who, after he
became Emperor, passed the days and nights drinking with Flaccus and
Piso, at the very time they were working at the reformation of the
Romans?[XXVII-6]
This pagan Solomon, having to choose from among several very
distinguished candidates who offered themselves for the quæstorship,
preferred the least known, because he had drunk a whole pitcher of wine,
which the prince himself had condescended to fill.[XXVII-7]
Intoxication, with the Greeks, was noted as belonging to low company, if
we are to judge by certain personages whom Æschylus and Sophocles did
not fear to bring on the stage, and who struck each other with vases--a
thing which the modern theatre has judiciously banished.[XXVII-8] Homer
is more reserved; for Achilles, after copious libations, only threw a
neat’s foot at Ulysses’ head,[XXVII-9] which probably was not of much
consequence.
The fact is, that the ancients did not at all profess the same
principles that we do respecting intemperance. Hippocrates himself,
advised men to seek mirth now and then in wine;[XXVII-10] Seneca
recommends us to drown cares and fatigue in it;[XXVII-11] and Musæus
decorates with crowns of flowers the foreheads of the sages who, sitting
by the side of Plato at all new banquets, should find in continual
drunkenness the sweetest reward for their virtues.[XXVII-12] A singular
bliss, which only reason in delirium could have imagined.
We have spoken of the delicious beverage which was so costly a seduction
to choice epicureans, who took merit to themselves for not resisting it;
for this reason, it was necessary to invent vessels worthy of containing
it; and art, encouraged by luxury, produced those magnificent vases of
which ostentatious antiquity has only left us a faint idea.
The cups of the Homeric times were all of equal capacity; one of them
was offered to each guest, but several were offered to persons of high
distinction.[XXVII-13]
The Greeks thought much of their cups; for them they were sacred relics
from father to son, and were only used on certain solemnities. Thus
Œdipus delivers the most frightful imprecation against his son
Polynices, who had presented, at a common repast, the cup of his
ancestors.[XXVII-14] That of Nestor was so large that a young man could
hardly carry it; as to him, he lifted it up without the slightest
difficulty.[XXVII-15]
The Athenians drank from cups in the shape of horns.[XXVII-16] Wax vases
were sufficient for the Spaniards.[XXVII-17] The Gaul who had thrown
down an Urus (wild ox) took its horns, decorated them with silver and
gold rings, and made his guests drink out of them.[XXVII-18] Often the
skull of an enemy, killed in single combat, was transformed into a cup
of honour, and reminded a Gallic family of the memorable action of a
valiant ancestor.[XXVII-19]
The first cups of the Romans were made of horns, or of the earthenware
of Samos.[XXVII-20] Those conquerors of the world had not yet enervated
their manly courage with the luxurious spoils of conquered nations.
Afterwards, some very simple ones were made of beech-wood[XXVII-21] or
elder;[XXVII-22] these possessed a marvellous property which they ought
to have always preserved--the wine only escaped from them, and they
retained the water which had been mixed with it.[XXVII-23]
But Rome, already tired of its austere simplicity, and its disdain for
the Greek cups of glass and crystal, soon began to desire something
finer. Those magnificent chalices, master-pieces of patience and skill,
in which gold and silver were amalgamated with a more brittle
material,[XXVII-24] were soon in much request, and appeared worthy of
their renown.
But it is to be observed, that the crystal of which the most precious
cups were made, had not the slightest similarity to that which we make
use of now, and which the least shock will break; it was flexible and
malleable;[XXVII-25] it might be thrown on the pavement with impunity,
and remained unhurt.[XXVII-26]
Here is, on this subject, a curious anecdote, which has been left to us
by Petronius:--
A certain skilful workman used to make crystal vases as strong as vases
of gold and silver. He produced an incomparable masterpiece; it was a
chalice of astonishing beauty, which he thought worthy of Cæsar only,
and which he felt a pride in offering to him. Tiberius highly praised
the skill and the rich present of the artist. This man, wishing to
increase still more the admiration of the prince, and secure his favours
to a greater degree, begged of him to give back the vase. He then threw
it with all his might on the marble pavement of the
DESCRIPTION OF PLATE No. XIX.
Nos. 1. and 2. Drinking horns; these give us an idea how the
ancient Greeks and Romans made use of the horns: taken from two
paintings at Herculaneum.
No. 3. A horn, with a chimerical head, in Grecian terra
cotta.--“_Herculan. Bronsi_,” II., 2, 3.
[Illustration: _Pl. 19._]
[Illustration: _Pl. 20_]
apartment: the hardest metal could never have resisted this terrible
shock. Cæsar appeared moved, and was silent. The artist, with a
triumphant smile, picked up the vase, which had only a slight dent, and
which, by striking it with the hammer, was soon brought to its original
state. This being done, no doubt remained on his mind that he had
conquered the good graces of the Emperor, and the esteem of an
astonished court. Tiberius asked him if he was the only one who knew how
to work crystal in so remarkable a manner? The workman immediately
answered that no one possessed his secret. “Very well,” said Cæsar, “let
his head be struck off without loss of time; for if this strange
invention were known, gold and silver would very soon have not the least
value.”[XXVII-27] Thus did the Emperor Tiberius encourage artists and
the arts.
There were, besides, cups made of the most pure crystal, “the
brittleness of which seems to have added to their price,”[XXVII-28] and
which were paid for dearer than gold and precious stones;[XXVII-29] but
much less, however, than those famous Murrhine vases, which have so long
exercised the useless sagacity of ancient commentators.
Among the rich spoils that Pompey, conqueror of Mithridates and master
of a part of Asia, ostentatiously displayed in his triumph,[XXVII-30]
the Romans, for the first time, admired vases and cups, the material and
workmanship of which surpassed all that the imagination could fancy the
most graceful and delicate.[XXVII-31] They were much in request; the
price was exorbitant, and thenceforth they were indispensable. One of
the ancient consuls thought himself too happy to give only a little more
than £6,000 for one of those Murrhines. Such was the name given to this
brittle and rare novelty. Petronius paid for a large basin £28,800;
DESCRIPTION OF PLATE No. XX.
This vase, made of one single piece of crystal, is in its original
size; the delicacy of the work gives a great value to it. The body
of the vase, and all other parts in relief, are of glass. It was
discovered in 1725, and is preserved in the cabinet of the Marquis
of Trivulsi, at Milan. The fillet round the body, and those forming
the ordinary motto of the feasts--“BIBE VIVAS MULTIS ANNIS”--are
isolated from the body of the cup about one quarter of an inch, and
are attached to it by threads or fillets of glass, very fine. They
are not soldered to the cup, but the whole of the labour is worked
on a turning lathe, being seen more or less angular as the
instrument may have been led to penetrate in the most difficult
parts. The inscription is green; the fillet is blue: these two
colours are very bright. The cup is an opaque or changing colour,
without being able to distinguish whether that hue was intended to
be so, as it happens to glass which has remained a long while
buried, exposed to the vapours of a dunghill, or a sewer, &c., &c.
A second antique vase is known to exist, whose workmanship is
similar.--“_Histoire de l’Art_,” Liv. I., Chap. I., page
45.--Paris: Janson.
and Nero spent the like sum for a vase with two handles, which he forgot
two days afterwards.[XXVII-32]
The Murrhine cups appeared on the table with the wine of the “hundred
leaves,” and the Falernian was poured into them, so as to preserve all
the generous delicacy of its odour.[XXVII-33]
The Murrhines were much sought after, on account of their form and
brilliant transparency: they were made of mother of pearl, according to
Belon, but others say of agate. Their dimensions, however, would incline
one to doubt it. Scaliger,[XXVII-34] Cardan,[XXVII-35] and Madame
Dacier,[XXVII-36] thought that the ancients gave unheard-of prices for
simple porcelain vases, which were precious on account of their rarity.
This opinion, which several modern _literati_[XXVII-37] have adopted,
rests plausibly enough, it appears, on one verse of Propertius, in which
this poet speaks of “Murrhine cups, baked in the furnace of the
Parthians.”[XXVII-38] It has been said that, perhaps the Parthians
learnt from the Chinese how to make porcelain; but this supposition,
entirely void of proof, has been contradicted in a most peremptory
manner by the author of a very curious book, who demonstrates
irrefragably that the Murrhines were not of porcelain, but of stones of
the species of onyx.[XXVII-39] The following fact will leave but very
little doubt on that subject:--
In 1791, the Constituent National Assembly, appointed a commission to
make an inventory and valuation of all objects in the Garde-Meuble of
the crown. They found, among other very beautiful sardonyx, two very
antique vases: one made in the form of an ewer, ten inches in height and
four inches in diameter, having its handle cut out of the same piece,
and the second, hollowed out as a bowl, ten inches in diameter, which
were recognised as real Murrhines--beautiful white and blue veins and
other shades, circulated about the bowl without interfering with its
semi-transparency; the bottom was of the same colour as the ewer. The
jewellers estimated these vases at £6,000 each, although there was
nothing engraved in the hollow nor in relief, but merely on
consideration of the beauty of the material, the fineness of the polish,
and the difficulty that must have attended the hollowing out of the
ewer.[XXVII-40]
These valuations would appear exaggerated, if it were not known that the
antique vase of the Duke of Brunswick, which formerly belonged to the
Dukes of Mantua, in 1631, and made of sardonyx, in the cruet shape, was
valued at 150,000 German crowns--or dollars of 4_s._ 3_d._ The relief
[Illustration: _Pl. 21_
MURRHIN CUP.]
engraving represented the mysteries of Ceres and Bacchus; but it had no
primitive handle, and the diameter was only two inches and
a-half.[XXVII-41]
By the side of these inestimable Murrhines were standing very graceful
chalices of amber, the prodigious workmanship of which absolutely gave
to them a most arbitrary value,[XXVII-42] but which Roman prodigality
never found too high.
Silver cups engraved were also nearly as much esteemed, when they came
from the hands of some well-known workman--such as Myos, Mentor, or
Myron.[XXVII-43] They were even preferred to gold cups,[XXVII-44] unless
these latter were enriched with precious stones.[XXVII-45]
All these vases presented still greater varieties in their forms than in
the materials employed. There were very large ones, some narrow, some
oblong; many ornamented with two handles, others had only one.[XXVII-46]
Some were much like a tympanon--or zoph, a musical instrument of the
ancient Hebrews--a small boat or ewer.[XXVII-47] In one word, the Greek
or Roman artist never listened to anything but his own fancy, and was
then far from supposing that he was preparing very long and wakeful
hours of study to many antiquarians, zealous to explain seriously the
strange wanderings of a fantastical imagination.
DESCRIPTION OF PLATE No. XXI.
MURRHINE VASE.--This vase is the most precious of all those which
have come down to us. It is drawn here half the original size, and
belongs to Prince de Biscari, in Sicily, which has been described
by him in the dissertation entitled, “_De Vasi Murrini
Ragionamenti_.” Three pieces of opal in the first place form the
cup; the second, the stem; and the last, the base of the foot. If
this vase is an antique, as it is said by the Prince de Biscari; if
true that several pieces of opal have often been found as large and
as fine (which appears doubtful, in the actual state of mineralogic
knowledge), the question upon the Murrhine vases would be decided.
They would have been of opal, and not porcelain; neither of
sardonyx--_Pierre de lard_--as many have believed, nor of
_cacholong_ (a species of chalcedony, opaque, and of a yellowish
white), as I have described it.
XXVIII.
WINE.
Bacchus, son of Ammon, was born in Egypt, and was the first who taught
his countrymen the art of cultivating the vine, and of making wine. He
is the same as Osiris, the famous conqueror of India.[XXVIII-1] Should
this assertion be contradicted, we shall only entreat any and every
disputant to make his own choice of the god of vineyards, from among the
five heroes bearing the name of Bacchus, as we are too impartial to
prefer any one in particular.[XXVIII-2]
Œnopion, worthy son of one of these heroes, enriched the inhabitants
of Chios with the first rosy wine that ever yet obscured their
reason.[XXVIII-3] Greece, Italy, and Sicily owed this wonderful liquor
to the Egyptians. The Gauls received this sweet present from a Tuscan,
who had been banished from Clusium, his country;[XXVIII-4] and the
cultivation of the grape spread rapidly till the reign of the sanguinary
Domitian, who completed the catalogue of his crimes by tearing up the
vines.[XXVIII-5] The Emperor Probus restored them to the disconsolate
Gauls.[XXVIII-6] That prince was certainly worthy of his name!
Modern science, agreeing with holy writ,[XXVIII-7] looks upon the east
as the common cradle of the vine and the human race.
Palestine was renowned for its vines. Pliny speaks in praise of
them.[XXVIII-8] The vineyards constituted a part of the riches of the
country, and they were preserved with the greatest care; so much so that
Moses, with an especial view to vines, forbade the sowing of different
seeds in the same field, on pain of confiscation:[XXVIII-9] and it was
done to encourage their cultivation, that that wise legislator exempted
every person who had planted one from military service, and from all
public duties, until the first vintage.[XXVIII-10]
The growths of Lebanon,[XXVIII-11] of Helbon,[XXVIII-12] and of
Sorec,[XXVIII-13] enjoyed an extraordinary reputation, and the delicious
wine they produced was capable of inspiring the lyric David with that
celebrated praise[XXVIII-14] by which intemperance has often dared to
authorize reprehensible excesses.
However, the Hebrews, a sober people, like all eastern nations, rarely
made use of pure wine; they generally mixed it with a quantity of water,
and only drank a little at some ceremonial feasts, and at the end of
their repasts.[XXVIII-15] They sometimes mixed with it perfumes and
odoriferous drugs.[XXVIII-16]
Some nations seem to have had a great horror of wine. The Persians drank
nothing but water;[XXVIII-17] and the inhabitants of Pontus, the
Scythians, and the Cappadocians, partook of this strange
taste.[XXVIII-18] The Arcadians, who lived on chesnuts and acorns, were
not worthy of the favours of Bacchus; neither were the troglodytes, the
ichthyophagists, and other swarms of hydropotes who were as yet too
little civilized to ask of drunkenness its illusions and its
enchantments.[XXVIII-19]
The Egyptians would have thought it a profanation of their temples to
carry in a flagon of the rosy liquid; but Psammetichus came (670 B.C.),
and that wise prince made them understand that a pot of beer is not
worth a cup of good wine.[XXVIII-20]
The Romans asserted that their old king, Janus, planted the first vine
in Italy,[XXVIII-21] and that, later, Numa taught them how to trim
it.[XXVIII-22] That noble people knew how to appreciate such blessings,
and in order to demonstrate that wisdom is always to be found in wine,
they never failed to place on their altars the statue of Minerva beside
that of Bacchus.[XXVIII-23]
The inflexible muse of history has preserved to us the name of the
individual who doomed himself to a sorry sort of immortality by
inventing the custom of mixing water with wine; it was Cranaüs, King of
Athens, 1532 B.C.[XXVIII-24] The gods, doubtless to punish him, caused a
great part of Greece to be inundated, and it was not long before he was
dethroned.[XXVIII-25] Pliny accuses the obscure Staphil, sou of
Sithen,[XXVIII-26] of this depravation of taste, which gained upon
imitators to such an extent that, in the time of Diodorus of Sicily (45
B.C.), the guests still mixed water with their wine at the end of the
repast.[XXVIII-27] It is true that they were then all intoxicated.
Lycurgus was, no doubt, ignorant of this practice, when he had the
barbarity to destroy the vines of the Lacedæmonians, under pretext of
putting an end to the disorders caused by intemperance. It would have
been preferable, says Plutarch, to have united the nymphs with
Bacchus.[XXVIII-28] The ingenious philosopher insists on the mixture
being made by a fourth, a fifth, or an octave, in the same manner as the
chords in music, which charm our ears. The fifth was obtained by pouring
three measures of water on two of wine; one part water and two parts
wine made the octave; a quarter of wine and three quarters of water
produced the fourth,[XXVIII-29] a most inharmonious chord, struck only
by inexperienced and unskilful hands.
Hippocrates, great physician as he was, had already somewhere
advised[XXVIII-30] this deplorable dereliction from all wise doctrines,
so true is it, that science sometimes goes astray; but, happily for his
glory, that learned man, further on,[XXVIII-31] recommends us to drink
pure wine, and to drink enough for joy to dissipate our griefs, and rock
us in the sweet errors of hope.