OF VINOUS MERIT. their beverages cooled and iced in various ways. 43 None of the more generous sorts were reckoned fit for use Or taste or flavour of the Lesbian grape. The Psythian grape we dry: Legæan juice Will stammering tongues and staggering feet produce; And longer than the Lydian vintage lives."-Georgics, b. ii. The Cecuban, grown in the poplar marshes of Amycla, is described by Galen as a generous, durable wine, but apt to affect the head, and ripening only after a long term of years. It appears to have been a favourite wine with Horace, who speaks of it as being often reserved for important festivals: when new, it belonged to the rough sweet class. Among modern wines, Madeira has been conjectured to offer the nearest resemblance to Falernian. SECTION III. Ambrosial Nectar of the Antients: their gorgeous Cups and Festal Customs. N the palmy days of Greece and Rome the art of distillation was unknown, and though practised by chemists so early as the twelfth century, it was not until the commencement of the eighteenth that its application became general. We are indebted to the Arabs for the invention, and it is supposed to have been brought into Spain by the Moors; yet that the antients knew how to manufacture and appreciate good wine, is clearly proved by the accounts left by Galen, Pliny, and others. Poets, philosophers, and historians, indeed, have all joined in celebrating the virtues of wine, and must therefore have been perfectly cognizant of it in its best and most refined state,- a notion faintly echoed, perhaps, in the well-worn legendary distich, "Zeno, Plato, Aristotle, All were lovers of the bottle." It is, moreover, highly improbable that Homer should have lauded the wine of his time as a ' divine beverage,' or that the Lesbian grape should have been praised for its delicious fragrancy, or Saprian wine extolled as emitting the odour of violets, hyacinths, and roses, and as filling the house with the perfume of nectar and ambrosia when first broached,* unless these liquors had possessed qualities which rendered them as * There is a striking coincidence between this description of the Saprian, and the account given of old Tokay wine by a learned German author, who writes, "I have drunk some that was forty years old, and which, on being poured into the glass, immediately filled the whole room with an aromatic ethereal odour." QUALITIES OF ANCIENT WINES. 45 agreeable and fascinating to the senses as such panegyrics would imply. As in all the more southern climates the grape attains its full maturity, and its juice abounds in the saccharine principle, a large proportion of the Greek and Asiatic wines may be fairly assumed to have been of the sweet and strong kind. Homer seldom speaks of wine without using some phrase to denote its richness or its honeyed sweetness, and he frequently adopts significant compound words to give fuller effect to his description. This dulcet quality, however, was by no means their sole criterion of excellence, for wines tempered by a certain degree of sharpness or astringency were held in the highest estimation. Indeed, several of the Greek dry kinds possessed extraordinary rough and acrid properties, only becoming drinkable when kept a number of years; and that sweetness was not deemed the sole requisite for a good wine may be inferred from the remark of Pliny, that the luscious sorts are usually deficient in flavour; but this censure must be understood as applying chiefly to the syrupy class, which had undergone imperfect or no fermentation at all. When this process was effected in the natural manner, when the excess of sugar was tempered by a certain amount of sharpness or astringency, and when the saccharine element was still further decomposed by long keeping, wines of this character were found to be no longer cloying to the palate, and accordingly ranked high in favour as possessing the most exquisite combination of tastes that liquors can acquire. When wine was found deficient in saccharine quality, it was mixed with honey, and then called mulsum,—the origin, it is thought, of the many processes subsequently adopted for preserving and enhancing the sweetness of wine. The most ancient receptacles for wine were probably the skins of animals, rendered impervious by oil or resinous gums. When Ulysses proceeded to the cave of Polyphemus, he is described as carrying with him a goat-skin filled with the rich black wine which he received from Maron, the priest of Apollo. In the celebrated festal procession of Ptolemy Philadelphus, there is said to have been a car, twenty-five cubits in length and fourteen in breadth, in which was borne a uter made of panthers' hides, and containing 3000 amphora of wine, which was allowed to flow from it slowly as it was dragged along,-protected, probably, by some outer casing, or it could not have resisted the lateral pressure of so large a bulk of fluid. As the arts improved, vessels of clay were introduced, and the method of glazing them being as yet unknown, a coating of pitch was applied in order to prevent the exudation of the liquor. In some places where wood abounded, winecasks were made of that material; but the vessels commonly in use among the Greeks and Romans were of earthenware, and great nicety was displayed in choosing for their construction such clay as was least porous, and best bore the action of the furnace. They had, for the most part, a bulging shape, with a wide mouth; and the lips were turned out in such a way, as to prevent the ashes or pitch with which they were smeared from falling in when the cover was removed. When new, these vessels received their coating immediately on their removal from the kiln. As such of them as were of any considerable size were liable to rents and other accidents, it was customary to bind SKILL OF GREEK ARTISTS. 47 them with leaden or oaken hoops, in order to preserve them entire. The urna, equal to half an amphora, was generally of an elegant form, with a narrow neck, to which two handles were attached, the body tapering towards the bottom. For the more precious wines the antients occasionally employed vessels of glass. The bottles, vases, cups, and other articles of that material, which may be seen in every antiquarian museum, prove that they had brought the fictile art to a high degree of perfection. Of the Greek artists, indeed, it may be truly affirmed that they embellished every thing which they touched. To the commonest utensils they gave, not only the most convenient forms, but a high degree of beauty, and it is from their pateræ, cups, and vases that the moderns have borrowed the happiest models for the service of their dinner-tables. Their inventive talents appear to have been constantly exercised in gratifying the taste for variety in drinking-vessels that prevailed among all ranks of the people, and who all sought to indulge according to their means, the rich by forming large collections of cups on which the sculptor, lapidary, and jeweller had displayed the perfection of their skill; the poor by having their ivy and beechen bowls so curiously carved, that the beauty of the workmanship compensated for the meanness of the materials. Athens claimed the invention, and took the lead in the manufacture of porcelain vases; but the potteries of Samos soon rose into equal repute, and with those of Saguntum, in Spain, and two or three other towns in Italy, furnished the chief supply. Formed of the purest clay, they were celebrated for their extraordinary lightness, and were sometimes imbued with aromatic substances that im |