Table traits, with something on them

by Dr. Doran

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.

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.”

And this may naturally lead us to look in, for a moment, on both the ancient and the modern Egyptians, when seated at table. But, previous to doing so, there is a little philological matter I would fain settle, as far as so indifferent an authority may presume to do so, and which may interest, not merely wine-bibbers, but etymologists, and zealous correspondents to “Notes and Queries.” It may be very briefly discussed.

I have noticed, in another page, the fact that nearly all our old-fashioned drinking phrases are but corruptions of foreign terms. A “carouse,” for instance, is derived from “gar aus,” “altogether empty,” sufficiently indicative of what a reveller was to do with his full glass. There is one—a rather vulgar term—of the origin of which, however, I have never heard any account. But I think I may have discovered it in a little German poem, by Pfarrius, called “Der Trunk aus dem Stiefel,” and which, thus roughly done into English, may serve to show

THE ORIGIN OF “BOOSEY.”

In the Rheingraf’s hall were of Knights a score,

And they drained their goblets o’er and o’er,

And the torches they flung a lurid glow

On the Knights who were drinking there below.

“Ho, ho!” said the Rheingraf, “Sir Knights, I find,

Our courier has left a boot behind;

He who can empty it off at a breath,—

The Hufflesheim village is his till death.”

Then laughing, he filled the boot to the rim,

Till the bright red wine flowed over the brim;

And said, as he mark’d their sparkling eyes,—

“Good luck to you, Knights—you know the prize!”

Then Johann von Sponheim sat silent by,

But pushed his neighbour to rise and try;

And Meinhart, his neighbour, could nothing do

But scowl at the boot, and sit silent too.

Old Florsheim, he nervously stroked his beard;

And Kunz von Stromberg spoke never a word;

And even the giant Chaplain stared

At the monster boot, as though he were scared.

Then Boos von Waldeck did loudly call,—

“Here, hand me that thimble!” and “Health to all!”

And then, in one breath, to the very last drain,

He drank, and fell back on his seat again,

And said, “O, Sir Rheingraf, it were my mind,

Had the fellow his other boot left behind,

To empty that, too, at a breath; and take

For my prize Norheim village, near the lake.”

Then loud laughed they all at Waldeck’s good jest,—

Of all landless tipplers, till then, the best;

But the Rheingraf, he kept his knightly word,—

And Boos of the Boot was Hufflesheim’s lord!

If therein be not the origin of “boosey,” why, let the lexicographers look to it. But my readers will have had enough of these uncouth names. I have now to introduce them to hosts with names equally unmusical; but, luckily, we have now to do more with acts than appellations, and therewith pass we to golden Egypt, and her well-spread boards. I will only first add another word respecting spirits, as a beverage. All authorities are agreed, that reason has no more deadly foe than alcohol. The effects of the latter are well described by Dr. Winslow, whom we have previously quoted in the matter of mental dietetics,—a gentleman who might, with justice, have given a plump denial to the remark of Macbeth, had it been addressed to Dr. Winslow, when the royal patient uncivilly told his medical adviser, “Thou canst not minister to a mind diseased.” Dr. Winslow says: “The alcoholic elements introduced into the blood, and brought into immediate contact with the tissues of different organs, will derange the functions which they are severally destined to perform; and the amount and character of the mischief so produced will correspond with, and be modified by, the peculiarities of their individual organic structure. With these facts before us, when we consider the delicate structure of the brain, as revealed to us by the progress of microscopic anatomy, we must be prepared for the physical and mental derangement which must arise, either from the alcohol itself, or its elements, being brought into direct contact with the vesicular neurine or granular matter entering into the composition of its white and grey substance. According to our most recent physiological views, the vesicular matter is the source of nervous power, and associated, as the material instrument of the mind, with all its manifestations, whether in the simple exercise of perception, or the more complicated operations of the thinking principle. We are then to conceive the simple or organic structure dedicated to this high function brought into contact with irritating and noxious elements. The result must obviously be a disturbance in the manifestations of the mind proportioned to the organic derangements so produced; and without, therefore, taking a materialistic view of the changes which take place, the obliteration of some, and the derangement of other of the intellectual faculties, are hereby satisfactorily accounted for. It is certain, that when the circulation in the grey matter of the convolutions is retarded by congestion, or accelerated by unwonted stimulation, there is a corresponding state of stupor or mental activity, amounting even to delirium, produced; and, indeed, it has been suggested, by some of our most eminent physiologists, that every idea of the mind is associated with a corresponding change in some part, or parts, of the vesicular surface.” And if they who sit “amid bumpers brightening,” could only hold this truth in sober memory, there would be less imbibed at night, and more sunshine in their souls on the morrow. And now let us pass to the cradle of wisdom, the ancient Misraim, where, despite the national boast, folly was, perhaps, as much deified as in any locality upon earth.

Yes, let us now to ancient Egypt, where, as good old Herbert so finely expresses it,—

“Men did sow

Gardens of gods, which every year did grow

Fresh and fine deities. They were at great cost

Who for a god clearly a sallet lost!

O, what a thing is man devoid of grace,

Adoring garlic with a humble face!

Begging his food of that which he may eat,

Starving the while he worshippeth his meat!

Who makes a root a god, how low is he,

If God and man be severed infinitely!

What wretchedness can give him any room,

Whose house is foul, while he adores his broom?”