according to its lightness, or its strength, the quality of the grapes,
according to the fermentation they have undergone, and the portion of
brandy that has been added to it. Also one cellar will forward wine
much sooner than another. Sound good port is generally in perfection
when it has been from three to five years in the wood, and from one to
three in bottle.
“Ordinary port is a very uncleansed fretful wine; and we have been
assured by wine-merchants of good taste, accurate observation, and
extensive experience, that the _best_ port is rather impoverished
than improved by being kept in bottle longer than two years; that is,
supposing it to have been previously from two to four years in the cask
in this country; observing that all that the outrageous advocates for
_vin passé_ really know about it is that sherry is _yellow_, and port
is _black_; and that if they drink (more than) enough of either of
them, according to the colours, it will make them drunk.
“White wines, especially sherry and Madeira, being more perfectly
fermented and thoroughly fined before they are bottled, if kept in a
cellar of uniform temperature, are not so rapidly deteriorated by age.
“The temperature of a good cellar is nearly the same throughout the
year. Double doors help to preserve this. It must be dry, and be kept
as clean as possible.
“The art of preserving wines is to prevent them from fretting, which is
done by keeping them in the same degree of heat and careful working,
in a cellar where they will not be agitated by the motion of carriages
passing. If persons wish to preserve the fine flavour of their wines,
they ought on no account to permit any bacon, cheese, onions, potatoes,
or cider, in the wine-cellars; for if there be any disagreeable stench
in the cellar, the wine will indubitably imbibe it; consequently,
instead of being fragrant, and charming to the nose and palate, it will
be extremely disagreeable.
“It must be well known that almost all our home-made wines, for public
sale, are made, and suffered to cool, in leaden vats. Nothing can be
more injurious or detrimental to health. Every chymist is aware that
any vegetable acid that comes in contact with lead, and is suffered
to remain only a few hours, produces what we call ‘sugar of lead,’--a
most deadly poison. How many there are that complain that cider will
not agree with them! and several who cannot take even a wine-glass full
without vomiting almost immediately. They know not the reason; and
thus many are prevented from taking a most delightful beverage in warm
weather; while others are labouring under its baneful influence. Often
do we see servants run for vinegar in a pewter or publican’s pot; and
the answer we receive when correcting them for the same is,--they have
often done the same without any serious consequence. May be so; but if
vinegar, or any other vegetable acid, as before said, be suffered to
remain in such vessels only a short time, the health and constitution
must suffer from the acid so taken; and we will venture to say that
almost all paralytic affections are caused by persons, predisposed to
such attacks, drinking water impregnated with lead. For if there be
any carbonic acid in the water, which there most assuredly is in every
kind, a carbonate is thus formed, just as injurious as the acetate
(sugar of lead); and where shall we find a cistern in London that is
not made of this pernicious, yet highly useful, material?”
The consideration of these subjects, when drinking home-made wines,
(if, indeed, there _be_ people bold enough to venture on such an
experiment,) or the other beverages mentioned above, might serve the
purpose of the custom observed among the ancient Egyptians. It was one
less barbarous than singular. A skeleton of beautiful workmanship, in
ivory, and enclosed in a small coffin, was carried round at a feast,
by a slave, who, holding it up to each guest, remarked, “After death
you will resemble this figure; drink, then, and be happy!” It must have
encouraged the mirth “consumedly.” But there was a grave wisdom in the
custom, notwithstanding.
IMPERIAL DRINKERS AND INCIDENTS IN GERMANY.
The stories of the gigantic drinkers of antiquity are startling; but I
think they may be accounted for. Natural philosophers inform us, that
objects seen through a mist are magnified to the senses; and so it is
with the feats which we are asked to contemplate through the mist of
ages: they are probably not so astounding as they appear. One may say
of each story, so venerable and enlarged by age, as the good Dominican
did to the congregation whom he had affected to tears by the warmth of
one of his legendary sermons. “Do not cry so, my brethren,” said the
Preacher; “for, after all, perhaps it’s not true.”
It must be allowed, however, that the stories of wine-bibbers of
later times than those when the son of Aristides gained his living by
singing ballads in the streets of Athens, or the heir of Cicero drank
draughts longer than his sire’s orations, lack nothing whatever of the
marvellous. And this reminds me of an incident, _quod alibi narravi_,
and which I will narrate here, by way of illustration of this portion
of my subject.
AN INCIDENT OF TRAVEL.
It is now some twelve years ago that I was, in company with two
Norwegians, in Prague, loitering beneath the tower of that sacred
edifice dedicated to the fearful dancer, St. Vitus. The tower was the
same which the drunken Emperor Wenceslaus had caused to be shortened,
by some thirty or forty feet, because he took it into his head that
it would one day fall, and crush him as he lay on his uneasy couch in
the Hradschin. I remarked to my companions, that the empire, in its
palmy days, had often been well-nigh lost through the mad caprices of
tippling Kaisers.
“There was not a Kaiser of them all,” said Löwenskiold, “who
permanently injured either himself or his country by his devotion to
drinking.”
“What!” said I; “not even Maximilian?”
“Not even Maximilian,” remarked Knudtzen. “The people, indeed, were
occasionally a trifle startled at seeing their ruler proceed, either
to the camp or council, with as much white wine in him as might serve
the universe for sauces. They slightly objected, on hearing that he
walked rosy and reeling to confession; and they were not edified at
understanding that his private Almoner stirred up his punch with a
silver crucifix. They even remonstrated with Maximilian when he had
been once within an ace of destroying Ulm in a drunken frolic. And what
was his reply? He kept the deputation of remonstrants the whole night
in his palace, and invited the citizens to assemble, at day-break, on
whatever spots commanded a view of the towers of the cathedral. The
Emperor and the Committee of Moderates finished two hundred and ten
bottles of Rhine wine while they waited for sunrise. This, among a
temperate party of one score and one, was a tolerable allowance for
each individual. At dawn, all Ulm was up, and every eye directed to
the cathedral. The towers had scarcely flung back the first rays from
heaven, when a joyous procession issued from the imperial residence.
The whole party, the Emperor excepted, were as drunk as Æschylus. With
difficulty did they follow their Lord, who, at the very top of his
speed, and carrying a heavy waggon-wheel on his shoulder, ran to the
cathedral, ascended the stairs leading to the summit of one of the
towers, and appeared on the rampart, before his straggling followers
had reached the low-arched door beneath. With a light bound, he sprang
on one of the highest parts of the castellated portion, where there
was scarcely footing for him. In that position, however, he poised
the wheel aloft with his right hand, let it gently descend on to the
foot which he extended above the heads of the multitude, and, holding
it there for a moment or two, ended by hurling it into the air, and
catching it again, ere it fell on the astounded and admiring crowd
below.
“‘There, you calves!’ cried the Emperor, as he gazed tranquilly down
on the sea of heads below; ‘do you dare complain that Niedersteiner
touches your master’s nerves?’
“‘Never again!’ exclaimed the delighted mass. ‘What can we do to
testify our affection for Your Majesty?’
“‘Toss those gentlemen into a tub of Selzer-water,’ said Maximilian,
‘and send me half-a-dozen of Hochheimer, and half-a-dozen
blood-puddings, for breakfast.’”
I could _almost_ believe this tradition; for I had seen a nearly
similar feat once performed by a woman on a projecting mass of rock
in the Ahr Thal. The rock is, doubtless, well known to all who have
ascended that lovely Rhine-valley, at eve, to eat _Forellen_, and drink
Wallportzheimer. They who do so, generally return the next morning with
an inclination for nothing but the cooling mineral waters to be had at
Hippingen.
“Besides,” said Knudtzen, “_à-propos_ to cathedrals, sober principles
have done them more injury than jolly Emperors. Do you forget that
Caroline Bonaparte razed a cathedral in Italy to the ground?”
“I remember hearing of the deed as connected with a church,” said I;
“but I have forgotten the reason alleged for it.”
“It was a very sufficient reason for a Bonaparte. Her Highness lived
next door to the church; and she had it destroyed, because the noise of
the organ kept her awake, and the smell of the incense made her head
ache.”
“Royal minds,” I remarked, “cannot condescend to the weaknesses of
common people. According to our ‘Philosophical Transactions,’ the
pigeons at Pisa were as destructive as Caroline Bonaparte. Pigeons,
for many ages, built under the roof of the great church there. Their
dung spontaneously took fire at last; and the church was consumed.
But, to return to the old, defunct King of Saxony. He was afflicted
with a super-delicate attack of virtue; and, during the prevalence
of the disorder, he issued a decree for the expulsion, from his
picture-gallery, of all those master-pieces, the merit of which lay
in the glory of their flesh-colouring. He had grown as modest as the
Monk who declared that he had never seen any portion of his body save
his face and hands. He is worthy of going down to posterity arm in arm
with that old Polish King, who was a cleaner, but not a less delicate,
man than the Monk, and who boasted to his Confessor that his purity of
mind was so excessive, that he had never touched his own skin with an
ungloved hand. In short, the old King of Saxony admirably illustrated
the saying of Dean Swift, that ‘a nice man was a man of nasty ideas.’
He had not been a sparer of the wine-flask. Indeed, he had rather
sinned that way; and, in expiation thereof, he undertook to perform
a pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulchre on foot. A fever of expectation
shook Dresden, all the china in it, and the whole line of road, at
the idea of again beholding a Christian King turning to the neglected
shrine. The expectation was not altogether fulfilled; but the Monarch,
nevertheless, performed the pilgrimage.”
“We never heard of it,” exclaimed the travellers, looking at each other
with some manifestation of surprise.
“That is to say,” I resumed, “that his Majesty performed it after
a fashion. He inquired the distance from his own country-house at
Pilnitz, to the Armenian Convent at the Holy City; and, in spite of
his education, he was nothing less than astonished, to find that it
was something more serious than a promenade to Töplitz. I do not know
if he had a vision of boiling his peas, as an English pilgrim did, of
whom I could tell you something; but he certainly experienced some
unpleasant sensations at the idea that, the way being so long, he might
chance to find himself without peas to boil. He wept at the reflection
that he might not only be a devout, but a hungry, King, while one-half
of Dresden were solacing their appetites on the terrace of Bruhl, and
the other, at the Baths of Link, or at the Bastei. He thought of the
dangers; but he _would_ be devout. The attendant pains were great; but
the resulting pleasures were not to be denied. In short, he would _not_
go to Jerusalem; but he _would_ perform the pilgrimage. Accordingly,
the exact distance having been ascertained, he started from his room,
and walked the entire number of leagues by pacing up and down a long
gallery, deducting from the distance the amount of water passage,
which was but fair. If admiration had been great at the commencement,
surprising fun was excited during the performance. Every evening the
citizens of Dresden knew how far their religious Ruler had proceeded
on his way, or how far he would have proceeded, if he had but set out.
_Now_, he was breakfasting, in imagination, at Breslau; sleeping (in
fancy) at Olmutz; and passing, by a pleasant fiction, through Buda.
During two days that his Majesty suffered from a real bilious attack,
the result, perhaps, of a Barmecidal repast at Essek on the Drave, the
King rested at Belgrade, while confined to his bed in Dresden. But his
zeal soon re-invigorated his liver; and, as he glided to and fro by his
palace windows, the mystified multitude below learned that the Monarch
was lodging in the house of the Saxon Legation at Istamboul. The
pilgrim-traveller suffered a little from the heat (of the room) as he
descended from the western coast of Asia Minor; but the inconveniencies
of the route were things beneath the thoughts of him who--whether at
Bursa, Smyrna, or any other locality on his way--could ring his bell
in the Desert, and order Champagne out of his own cellar. The King was
puzzled one mid-day, (he had by calculation just reached Beyrout,)
his progress being checked by the unexpected arrival of a portion of
the imperial family from Vienna. Visitors of such condition must be
attended to; nevertheless, his pilgrimage must be continued; and he,
like the clever and facetious palmer that he was, did both. He attended
his guests with much politeness, during their stay of two days; and he
put down the time thus spent, as consumed in a sea voyage from Beyrout
to Acre. The moment they left, the royal pilgrim went ashore again,
and happily accomplished the remaining distance to Jerusalem, through
Nassara and Nablous, without any other hinderance or obstruction than
his going one night to see a French _vaudeville_, while supposed to
be enjoying his well-earned repose at Rama or Muddin. And thus was
accomplished that royal pilgrimage that was never performed. The King
reached Jerusalem without going there; and the people saw _him_ return
who had never departed.”
“Well,” said Harold Knudtzen, “the Kings of Saxony are no longer such
simpletons. The present Monarch loves, indeed, good wine, ‘craftily
qualified;’ but he also, like Uzziah, King of Judah, loves husbandry.
Josephine herself had not half so frantic a passion for flowers as he;
and not for flowers alone in their beauty,--not for botany, either,
merely for amusement’s sake, but for phytology and pharmacy, as
connected with it.”
“He lisped Linnæus,” said Löwenskiold, “before he could speak plainly.”
“And, by reputation, he knew Tournefort better than he did Knecht
Rupert,” added Harold.
“He himself told us, when we met him in Dalmatia,” continued the
latter, “that he could spell _Dodecandria_ and _Trigynia_ before
he could read Grimm’s Story-Book; and that he knew the meanings of
_monopetalous_ and _campaniform_ before he was acquainted with the
languages from which the terms were derived. I never saw a man so
eager in pursuit of _apetalous amentaceous_ flowers; and as for
_carryophylous_”----
“Leave off your abominable phrases!” said I, “and begin by telling
me how you two very modest fellows introduced yourselves to the
acquaintance of the Sovereign of Saxony.”
“The introduction was effected through a very light-hearted and
intelligent fellow-botanizer, whom we met on our way from Zara up to
the mountains. We had all three lost our way while endeavouring to find
an _infundibuliform_”----
“Nay,” interrupted I, “I care not what you found, if you choose to tell
it in pentameters.”
“Well,” resumed Knudtzen, “we were in a wild part of the
country,--weary, hungry, cold, and in the dark. Wanderers could not
well be in a worse plight. We were as _flûté_ as Juno’s columns near
the church of St. Helia; and the skeleton doing duty there for that of
St. Simeon of Judæa, the pride and palladium of the people of Zara,
looked in far better condition, and in, especially, better raiment,
than could be boasted of by us humble pedestrians. We had walked many
leagues, when we reached a sorry inn kept by a Gipsy, where we hoped
to find rest and refreshment, but were permitted to enjoy neither. Our
swarthy host stood in his door-way, like Horatius Cocles at the head of
the bridge. Beds he did not even profess to find for travellers. He had
not slept in one himself for years, and was none the worse, he said,
for the privation. Leopold asked for wine.
“‘We have three sorts of wine,’ said the Gipsy, ‘which travellers like
yourselves once tasted and paid for. I have the very wines which the
seven Schwaben asked for in the Goldenes Kreutz at Ueberlingen.’
“‘What! old Sauerampfer?’ cried Löwenskiold.
“‘The same,’ said our singular host. ‘It is not quite so sour as
vinegar, but it will pierce the marrow of your bones like a sword;
and it will so twist your mouth, that you shall never get it straight
again.’
“‘We will try something better than this acid water,’ said I: ‘we
will’----
“‘Try the Dreimännerswein? I am sorry there are only women in the
house!’
“‘What, in the name of all your saints in Zara, have your women to do
with the refreshment we need?’
“‘Do! nothing in the world! that is precisely it! You will want three
men each of you. For Dreimännerswein is three times as rough and ten
times as sour as vinegar; and he who drinks it must be held fast by two
men, while a third pours the liquid down his throat!’
“‘And what of the third of these Olympic beverages?’ said I.
“‘It is called _Rachenputzer_, and has peculiar qualities too. He who
lies down to sleep with a flask of it in his body, must be aroused
every half-hour, and turned over. Otherwise a pint of Rachenputzer
would eat a hole right through his side!’
“The Gipsy laughed aloud as he uttered these words. We ourselves
laughed in despite of our vexation; and, somewhat startlingly, a fourth
voice took up the cachinnatory affection, and laughed even louder
than the original three. As the new-comer stood in the light of the
door-way, the landlord touched his cap, withdrew hastily into the
passage, and slammed the door in our faces, leaving us in Cimmerian
darkness, summer trousers, and a drizzling rain. The matter was no
longer risible, and we were beginning to be seriously annoyed, when the
mysterious stranger, whom we could but indistinctly see, invited us to
accompany him we knew not whither, and hospitably to partake of we knew
not what. We accepted the invitation most gratefully; and after a full
half-hour’s walk, we found ourselves on the skirts of a wood. In less
than half that time, we subsequently reached a neat little house within
the wood itself; and I do not think ten minutes had elapsed, ere we had
made such toilette as travellers may, and, with some doubts as to the
reality of the circumstance, detected ourselves in the act of eating
vermicelli soup, and wondering how it had reached us.
“Before our repast was entirely dispatched, our host, in whom we saw a
young, well-made, and exceedingly amiable personage, informed us that
he was on a botanizing expedition for the benefit of an establishment
in Northern Germany; that he had been two months settled in the house
in which we then were, and that he had already given temporary shelter
to three plant-explorers, who had resorted, in their need, to the house
of Djewitzki, the Gipsy, and who had found to their sorrow, that it had
nothing of the quality of an inn about it, except the sign.
“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.