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.
Among the legends of the Rhine connected with my present subject of
wine, there is one which is worth mentioning. The great Karloman, who
loved good liquor, bequeathed to the brotherhood of Monks at Rheinfeld
a marvellous and covetable butt of wine, which had not only the merit
of being of first-rate quality, but which never decreased, though it
was continually running at the spigot! This wine was for the use of
the brethren; but the good Emperor also left a sum of money which he
desired should be spent in treating visitors to the monastery with good
Rhenish wine. When a weary traveller claimed the hospitality of the
Monks, he was immediately conducted to an inner apartment. Here he was
invested with the collar of Karloman, and gravely informed that, it
being necessary that he should be baptized, he had only to say whether
he preferred that the ceremony should be performed with wine or with
water. If, like an honest fellow, he selected wine, he was gently
constrained to swallow three monster bumpers of Muscatel. He was then
crowned with a parcel-gilt coronet, and so became installed one of
the jolly Knaves of St. Goar. There were some privileges attached to
this dignity; among others, was the right to fish on the summit of the
Lurley Berg, where there is no water; and of hunting on the sand-banks
of the Rhine, where there is not safe footing for a sparrow. The poor
temperate wight, on the other hand, who preferred the modest medium of
water for the ceremony of his baptism, was proclaimed a blind Heathen,
and was immediately drenched to the skin, from outpouring buckets of
water that were showered upon him in all directions. Such was the
solemnity of the Hänsel, as instituted by Karloman. This Emperor’s
affection for the Rhine and its vicinity was as strong as that of an
old gastronomic English Bishop for his native island. The episcopal
attachment is exemplified in the story of the Prelate’s last moments,
when his faithful servant John endeavoured to encourage him. “Be
comforted, my Lord,” said John: “your Lordship is going to a better
place.” “Ah, John!” said the Bishop, “there is no place like old
England!”
There was a practice among the Romans with regard to wine, which
should win the respect of all our Inns of Court. All law business was
suspended during vintage time. “_Sanè_,” says Minucius Felix, “_et
ad vindemiam feriæ judiciorum curam relaxaverunt_;” and this was no
poor holiday: it was the Long Vacation of the Roman bar, extending,
as the Rev. Hubert Ashton Holden remarks, in his admirable edition of
the “_Octavius_,” from August 22nd to October 15th. And here let me
remark, parenthetically, how much preferable it would be to make a
school-book of the “_Octavius_” of Minucius Felix, so rich in early
Christian information, and so pure in its Latinity, rather than pursue
the old course of letting boys read Ovid and similar authors. The Abbé
Gaume, in his “_Ver Rongeur_,” traces all the evils by which society
is afflicted, to the study of erotic Latin and Greek authors. The
Abbé rushes from one extreme into its opposite, and wishes to confine
our sons to the mawkish Latinity of the Lives of the Saints, and the
Pastorals (so unlike the Eclogues) of Bishops. The work of Minucius
Felix just occupies the safe medium of the two remote points,--erotic
Heathenism, and Monkish mendacity, told with much violation of grammar.
It is a book that ought to be on the list of works to be studied in
every locality devoted to the education of “ingenuous youth.”
It is hardly necessary to write of the effects of wine on the bodily
economy. They are too familiarly known. There was an old adage that--
“He who goes to bed, and goes to bed sober,
Falls as the leaves do, and dies in October;
But he who goes to bed, and goes to bed mellow,
Lives as he ought to do, and dies a good fellow.”
This is poor poetry, worse sentiment, and deadly counsel. Half the
evils that torture men arise from intemperance; and, next to excess
in alcohol, immoderation in wine is the most fatal practice to which
humanity can bind itself slave. An Arab says of his horse, that the
horse’s belly is the measure of its corn. Men are too apt to allow a
similar metage with respect to themselves in the matter of wine. It
were safer to remember that we cannot drink too little, and that we
soon may be drinking too much. Panard very justly says,--
“_Se piquer d’être grand buveur,
Est un abus qui je déplore.
Fuyons ce titre peu flatteur;
C’est un honneur qui déshonore.
Quand on boît trop, on s’assoupit,
Et l’on tombe en délire:
Buvons pour avoir de l’esprit,
Et non pour le détruire._”
As good advice, more eloquently delivered, is given by our own Herbert,
a poet next to Shakespeare for felicity of expression. Our reverend
minstrel and monitor says,--
“Drink not the third glass, which thou canst not tame
When once it is within thee, but before
May’st rule it as thou list; and pour the shame,
Which it would pour on thee, upon the floor.
It is most just to throw that on the ground,
Which would throw _me_ there, if I keep the round.”
And again:--
“If reason move not, gallants, quit the room;
(All in a shipwreck shift their several way;)
Let not a common ruin thee entomb;
Be not a beast in courtesy, but stay,
Stay at the third cup, or forego the place:
Wine, above all things, does God’s stamp deface.”
This is admirable counsel, logic, and theology. The people who least
stood in need of such a triad of excellent aids to good living were the
Egyptians, at that particular period of their career when they confined
themselves to drinking
“Beer small as comfort, dead as charity.”