“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.
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.