pence to two-pence a gallon. When wines can be procured at so cheap a rate, it might be for the general interest of the country were the duties reduced so low as to permit a free intercourse between the British and French nations. Many of our manufactures would naturally be received in exchange, and, as it would relieve the winegrowers of their superabundant produce, it would give an impetus to our home-trade, and prove of mutual advantage to both countries. Habit has rendered our palates familiar with Portuguese and Spanish wines, particularly with the former, to which it may, in a great measure, be said we have been slaves, to the almost total exclusion of the superior wines of other nations. The Methuen treaty has been for some time abrogated; but although the duties on French wines have since become the same as on other imported wines, yet the duty is still too high. Were some further reduction made in this respect, it would ultimately tend to the increase of the national revenue, and prove beneficial in its consequences to the moral state of the people of this empire, by diminishing the use of many of those deleterious beverages, to which the great mass of the lower classes are so strongly addicted. A table of the exports will be found in the Addenda. Few countries, from the nature of the soil and climate, should afford better wine than Italy; and although rakia is imported, an excellent brandy is manufactured in different states. The classical reader is so familiar with the virtues and excellence of the produce of its ancient vineyards, as to make a description and encomium almost unnecessary; its history, therefore, would afford little interest while it is so imperfectly known, that it cannot be clearly shewn to whom the country is indebted for its introduction. To Janus, stripped of his fabulous clothing, the Italians are said to have been indebted for a knowledge of agriculture and the use of wine, to the effects of which he fell a victim by a body of drunkards, who, while labouring under its influence, imagined they had been poisoned by him. The face of the country is so diversified with hill and dale, wood and water, as to render the prospect always delightful. The plantations, which are picturesque and numerous, are intermingled with fruit trees of every description, while the oak and the poplar serve as supporters to the vine, the branches of which, spreading in every direction, train the clusters of fruit, as they fall, into festoons, and cover them with a luxuriant canopy. The walls of the cottages are often found covered with vines, while the approaches to the doors are under an umbrage of fragrant fruits and flowers. In other situations the vines are supported by trellises of reeds or poles, presenting the appearance of innumerable ranges of espaliers extending as far as the eye can reach. Every vine plantation contains a handsome cottage for the vine-dresser, and all has the appearance of active and animated industry. In so diversified and luxuriant a land as Italy, the wines must be in proportion to the nature of the soil and the management of the vineyards. At one period, particularly in the time of Theodoric, wine was so cheap, that a gallon of it was sold for less than three-farthings, and a modern traveller says, that a goblet of the best sort can be purchased for the same money. For many years, however, the Italians have paid little attention to the cultivation of the vine, no ground, generally speaking, being exclusively appropriated to that purpose. The vines are commonly planted without distinction of species, on the edges of corn fields, trained upon trees, or found spontaneously clambering on hedge rows, and shooting up trees to the height of fourteen or fifteen feet, affording the peasant without toil, a sufficient supply of wine for his own consumption. The vine being but an object of minor consideration, no pains are taken in the tillage of the vineyards, in gathering the grapes, in selecting the good grapes from the bad, nor in cleanliness during the operations of treading, fermentation, or in casking and preserving the wine when manufactured. The calcareous hills in the centre of Tuscany are said to produce the best wines in Italy, and they are distinguished by different appellations from the names of various kinds of grapes from which they are produced, as Aleatico, Columbano, Tribbiano, Vernaccia, &c. all red wines. Among the white wines formerly made in Tuscany, was the Verdea, a greenish coloured liquor, the favourite of Frederick II. of Prussia, and much celebrated by travellers. The white muscadel wines of Albano and Monte-Fiascone, and the red and white wines of Orvieto, are of an inferior description, though the produce of the Church territory. In Naples, wines are abundant, both red and white: many of them rank high; the best kind, termed Lacryma Christi, is produced from the vineyards near Vesuvius. A notion prevails that this wine ought not to be drunk by any but those long accustomed to the climate. This, however, seems to be an erroneous opinion, for, if not taken to excess, there is no more danger to be apprehended from it than from any of the other wines of Europe, the proximity to Vesuvius having no influence whatever on its valuable properties. The city of Pompeii, so long buried under the eruptions of Vesuvius, is mantled with vineyards planted on the lava by which it was overwhelmed; and until 1748, the wine-growers were ignorant that they were trampling of a once populous and magnificent city, within whose walls the Falernian, the Cocuban, and the Rhætican once flowed to the inspi on the ruins ration of some of the best bards that ever struck the lyre. The value of the wine and the extent to which it was consumed may be inferred from the number of public taverns discovered within the ruins of Herculaneum being no less than 900, while in Pompeii the counters and flaggons that were chained to the posts, indicated the estimation in which that beverage was held. It is remarkable, that in the villas discovered at Pompeii, the wine cellars are placed, as Columella directs, at a distance from the bath and bake-house. In Calabria, vines produce after being two years planted, and bear during sixty and sometimes one hundred years. The wines are various in quality, owing to the goodness of the fruit and the process in the making. The Palina and Nicostra are said to be good for eight years, while others, particularly the red wines of Monte Leone, do not keep above three years, and the white wines not much beyond six months. In the vicinity of Gierace is made the vino Greco, a rich, sweet, white wine, the produce of vines brought originally from Greece. Around Reggio, vineyards are numerous and the wine is of good quality. Were proper encouragement given to the rearing of vines, Calabria might be made to yield a superior class of wines, but unfortunately the poor peasantry have little interest in this, or any other improvement of the soil, beyond what supports existence, as they have been greatly oppressed by the heavy exactions of their rulers. No country should be supplied with a better wine than Italy, as there is scarcely any other intoxicating beverage used, and as the grapes form a great portion of the culture of the country; yet travellers complain that very little good wine is to be found in the whole peninsula. One great cause of the Italian wine being of so inferior a character, is, as already stated, owing to the negligent mode of its cultivation, and the want of cleanliness and attention to the process in the different stages of the manufacture. Grapes are often gathered before being ripe, and the good and bad promiscuously trodden in the same trough; hence the produce cannot be expected equal to that arising from fruit perfectly ripe, freed from stem, and of prime character. To the bad mode of fermentation may be added another cause, that of constantly putting fresh must into the vat until the whole ceases to ferment under an exhaustion of strength, and this is done from ignorance of the real nature of fermentation; besides, leaving the vats open and exposed to the influence of the atmosphere, which must greatly tend to injure the aroma and body of the liquor. In short, to the ignorance, obstinacy, and carelessness of the Italians, the inferiority of Elmhirst's Calabria, 8vo. their wines is wholly chargeable. Even in the days of Pliny, nearly 2,000 years ago, the Italians were reproached with indifference in the cultivation of the vine, their avarice inducing them to sacrifice the quality to the quantity. It may be observed in general, that notwithstanding the complaint lodged against the Italian wines, excellent descriptions of native produce are occasionally to be met with in almost every town of Italy. The common wine at Florence and Rome has little flavour. The better kinds are the Monte Pulciano, the Orvieto, and the Aleatico, the first of which has not any peculiarity and is comparable to weak claret. The Tuscan wines neither bear carriage nor keep long, and are usually kept in chestnut casks: when sent to England, they are generally put up in thin glass flasks packed in chests, secured by a plaiting of straw ingeniously worked round them; and, before the wine is corked, a little oil is poured in, perhaps to prevent the air from escaping. In some of the large palaces, wine is sold by retail, that the proprietor may thus turn into money the produce of his estate. For this purpose, a little window or wicket is opened in some convenient part of the wall, just large enough to admit the flask which the purchaser intends to be filled. The nobility of Great Britain would consider such a practice as highly derogatory to their rank and character. Near the town of Como, the birth-place of Pliny the younger, and lately celebrated as the residence of the consort of George the Fourth, vineyards are pretty numerous, particularly on the hills adjoining; and at various places in the rocks, which become steep at the edge of the lake, there are wine-cellars in which the innkeepers and dealers of the place keep their wines: from these a supply is forwarded in boats to Como as occasion requires. No distillation from grain is carried on, although Indian corn is cultivated in Carniola, Styria, and Italy, to considerable extent; this grain was introduced at Verona upwards of 200 years ago. Here it is called fermentone; at Milan, melgone; in Piedmont, granane; in Tuscany, granturco; in South America, maize; and by Linnæus, zea mays. It is remarkable that this grain does not thrive in a latitude farther north than that which is congenial to the growth of the vine, say, 50 degrees from the equator. It forms one of the chief articles of food in those countries; with the stalks cattle are fed, and the fogolia, or chaff, is used for mattresses. In a country so particularly gifted by nature, and abounding in flowers, plants, and trees of every sort, honey must be plentiful. The bees, however, are not left to their own instinctive operations, but are reared in cylindrical hives, hollowed from the trunks of trees commonly a foot in diameter and two feet in height. These hives are placed on shelves at a considerable elevation on the outside of the houses,* so that the owner may watch the industry of the insects and avail himself of their labours. The island of Sicily has been celebrated from the earliest ages for its extraordinary fertility; corn is said to have grown there spontaneously, hence the poets made it the residence of Ceres, the goddess of plenty. When the Greeks were at war with Xerxes, such were the resources of Sicily, that Gelon, who had made himself absolute at Syracuse, offered to furnish the whole Grecian army with a supply of corn during the entire period of the war, provided they would make him commander of their forces. In this island, the vine is said to have been cultivated earlier than in any other part of Europe, and this opinion seems to be borne out by the testimony of Homer, who, speaking of this fertile place, says,— "The soil untilled a ready harvest yields; With wheat and barley wave the golden fields: Diodorus Siculus extolled the fertility of the Sicilian vineyards, and the excellence of their produce. Agrigentum and Palermo, the most noted cities in Sicily, were famed amongst ancient records as the watchwords for luxury and dissipation; and the inhabitants were celebrated for their hospitality and the liberal distribution of their generous wines. Plato, speaking of the Agrigentines, says, they built as if they were always to live, and supped as if they were never to sup again. The modern wines of Sicily are said to be of an inferior character, the body of which is rendered too ardent by the quantities of brandy with which they are adulterated. The Sicilians do not take that care in the manufacture of their wines which the quality and abundance of their grapes demand; and they are equally inattentive to the distillation of their brandies, which are disliked from their harshness and pungency; and to this, perhaps, may be attributed the disrepute into which the Sicilian wines have fallen. What is called the Faro red wine is in great repute on account of its strength and resemblance to port, which it rivals in quality when kept three or four years. In addition to the quantity consumed in the island, about 10,000 pipes are annually exported. Fifty different sorts of wine are still produced in the district of Syracuse, and the once celebrated Calabresian wine was the produce |