Leaving aside this knotty question, which we do not feel ourselves called upon to resolve, let us state that these different drinks were prepared in a very simple manner. Two handfuls of one of the above-named plants were put into a butt of wort; a pint of sapa and half a pint of sea-water were added.[XXVIII_151] This wine was drunk by the Greek and Roman ladies at breakfast,[XXVIII_152] and was an excellent substitute for the silatum, a drink prepared with ochre, and which we can hardly believe to have been introduced by sensuality alone.[XXVIII_153]
It frequently happened, after a banquet, that the wearied and palled stomach refused with loathing the least nourishment. An intelligent slave failed not, under such circumstances, to present his languishing mistress with a cup of wormwood wine, before she quitted her couch. Anon, the livid paleness of her complexion brightened into the rosy hue of health, the dimmed eye resumed its wonted lustre, and that very evening the brilliant matron could seat herself fearlessly at a fresh banquet. That precious wine, that fashionable tonic, which modern sobriety—be it said to our praise—has rendered almost useless, sold well in Rome under the reigns of the Emperors. It was composed by boiling a pound of wormwood in 240 pints of wort until it was diminished one-third. There was also a more simple method of making it, which was to throw a few handfuls of wormwood into a butt of wine.[XXVIII_154]
The live wood, or the leaves of the cedar, the cypress, the laurel, the juniper-tree, or the turpentine-tree, boiled a long time in wort, produced different bitter liqueurs, to which intemperance complacently attributed benign qualities and numerous medical virtues.[XXVIII_155] Equal praise may be accorded to hyssop wine, that famous mixture of three ounces of the plant in twelve pints of wort.[XXVIII_156] Its effects were surprising, and the most popular physicians would not have failed to prescribe it for their languishing patients, whose strength and gaiety it restored.
But, thank Heaven! our Roman beauties were not always obliged to have recourse to the gloomy experience of the disciples of Æsculapius; and when they were in good health, more exhilarating liqueurs lent their aid to toast their return to health and pleasure. They were then seen sipping myrtle wine, a mild beverage, the light vapours of which brought down calm and profound sleep. It was wisdom to drink it; for, alas! not all that would, can sleep! If the reader be troubled with wakefulness, he will hail with joy the recipe for this beneficent narcotic. Let him take young myrtle branches with the leaves, pound them, and boil one pound in eighteen pints of white wine, until it is reduced to two-thirds.[XXVIII_157] Let him drink this liqueur of the Roman ladies, and, without doubt, he will sleep as they did.
The petites maîtresses, those delicate women, whose life seemed to be a tissue of vapours mingled with tears—Rome abounded with them—would have fainted even at the smell of the wines made up in the manner indicated above. Their frail, nervous organization, required a different kind of drink, and one was invented for them,—the Adynamon. This adynamon, or wine without strength, was the most inoffensive of liqueurs. It was obtained by boiling ten pints of water in twenty pints of white wort.[XXVIII_158] A small cup of this salutary beverage restored a debile Cynthia, a sickly Julia, when, negligently seated at her toilet, a Bœotian slave brought a nosegay of lilies instead of a crown of roses. These charming creatures would soon have lost the use of their senses, if the adynamon had not been promptly applied to their lips. But hardly had they tasted the marvellous liqueur when animation resumed its calm and peaceful course; nay, after the lapse of a few seconds, they were enabled, without any inconvenience whatever, to witness the chastisement of the slave, whose naked shoulders and breasts were lacerated by their orders with a thong studded with sharp points.[XXVIII_159] Who, after that, would dare doubt the properties of the adynamon wine?
The Œnanthinum wine was destined for more vigorous constitutions, for natures of less exquisite delicacy. The Roman ladies, somewhat fond of rusticating, who passed a part of the year in their villas, prepared it by putting two pounds of wild vine flowers into a butt of wort. They were left there thirty days, and then the liquor was drawn off into other vessels.[XXVIII_160]
Such were the vinous drinks which fashion formerly brought into repute in the capital of the world. The women set no bounds to their taste for these concocted wines; but went on from one excess to another as long as the empire lasted. These strange habits, now buried under the Roman colossus, have been replaced by a new order of civilisation. Woman, that graceful being of whom antiquity was not worthy, now appears such as Christianity has made her, to reveal to us virtues which ancient Greece and Italy never knew. Daughter, wife, and mother, she consoles, encourages, and supports man amid the trials of life. Her sweet smile welcomes him at the cradle; her prayer accompanies him to the tomb. It was she who softened the ferocious instincts of the barbarous hordes that the forests of the north vomited over Europe; and still exercising her empire over modern society, she is hailed as a queen, whose virtues and chaste attractions render her the living embodiment of the flower and the angel, those sweet symbols of love and beauty, between which a modern poet has gracefully placed her throne.
The primitive inhabitants of Great Britain learned from the Romans to plant the vine, under the reign of the Emperor Probus. The conquerors taught them also the art of cutting it, and how to make wine. But, as Strutt observes, the vine could never be of any great utility in this country. It was more ornamental than useful, with the exception that it afforded the means of procuring a cool retreat and shade. [XXVIII_161] However, some provinces of England became celebrated for their wines. “The county of Gloucester is renowned for its vines,” says William of Malmesbury; “and the wines it produces are scarcely inferior to those of France.”[XXVIII_162]
Saint-Louis was the first who established statutes for the dealers in wine.[XXVIII_163] New ones were framed in 1585,[XXVIII_164] and the dealers were then divided into four classes, each of which was designated by a particular name, viz., the inn-keepers, the publicans, the tavern-keepers, and the wine-dealers by measure. The inn-keepers had accommodation for man and horse; the publicans served drink with table-cloth and plates—that is to say, they might serve food and drink at the same time; the tavern-keepers served drink alone; and the retail dealers could only sell it in considerable quantities at one time.[XXVIII_165] In 1680 these four classes were reduced to two—wine-merchants and retail wine-dealers.