wine, are on a little hill consisting of about eight acres, and so situated, that they seem to court the influence of the sun, and are protected by the town from the northen blasts. Every one contains about four thousand vine-plants, valued at a ducat each, and this little spot produces in a good year, upwards of twelve large casks of wine, bringing, as soon as made, nearly £150 a cask. This place has been rendered remarkable by Buonaparte making a present of it to General Kellerman.

Frankfort is the great mart for the sale of Rhenish wine, which consists of two sorts, red and white; the former the stronger of the two. The white wines are distinguished by their particular properties, or by the places where they grow. According to the former classification, those of Nierstein, Markobrunner, Steinberg, Rüdesheim, Bingen, and Bacharach, are the strongest, and have more body. Those of Schlossberg, (Johannisberger,) Steinberg, Geissenheim, Rothenberger, and Hochheim, are the most endowed with aroma and perfume, and of moderate strength. Lastly, those of Laubenheim, Asmannshausen, (red) Bischteim, are the most agreeable, possess a most delightful flavour, with a requisite degree of perfume, and are the most wholesome of all the Rhenish wines.

The wine Bacharach has been celebrated from the earliest period. The Romans called that place Bacchi ara, (the altar of Bacchus); and Pope Æneas Sylvius used to import a tun of it to Rome every year, and the Emperor Vinceslus was so fond of it that he sold the citizens of Nuremberg their freedom, for four casks annually. Near Worms, on the road towards Mayence, stands the gothic monastery of Leibe Frau, (the Dear Virgin,) noted for the excellence of its wine, denominated by way of eminence, Liebfraun-Milch, (the Virgin's Milk,) the produce of the Tokay grape being of a peculiar and delicate flavour, and almost as colourless as water.

The several sorts of wines in the Rhinegau and other districts along the Rhine, take their names from the respective places from which they are produced, being as follows:

Hinterhauser, or Stinterhauser, signifies behind the houses, so called from the vines standing on lower land from the hill, behind the village.

Hauptberg,

at

Rauenthal.

North of Mayence, on the left bank of the Rhine,
Scharlachberger, (red) near
Rhein-Dieboch, (red.)

Bingen.

West of the Rhinegau, on the right bank of the Rhine.

Most of the vineyards enumerated are of small dimensions, and the quantity of wine they afford is trifling in proportion to the immense quantity sold under the denomination of Rhenish wine. To procure a genuine article, it is necessary to have recourse to the proprietor of a vineyard, or to some respectable merchant, from whom alone may be expected wine of the best quality. Dr. Granville, who was in that country in 1827, gives the following rates at which wines were disposed of, which will convey an idea of the imposition practised in the wine trade :

Rüdesheim wine of 1825, was sold at Frankfort in 1827, for 1,100 rix-dollars the ohm, or 15 dozen bottles, at 17 shillings the bottle. The Schlossenberger, (Johannisberg,) for 700 rix-dollars; the Steinberger, for 900 rix-dollars; while in 1822, the same three kinds of wine brought respectively 1400, 750, and 980 rix-dollars. The same growth in 1818 produced:

Johannisberg, 3,000 rix-dollars, for 15 dozen.

Rüdesheim, Bergwein, 910 rix-dollars.

The Tavern wines of Germany are, according to Cooper, of a superior quality to those of the same class in France.

Wine of a great age is frequently offered for sale. Markobrunner, said to be of the vintage of 1719, and Johannisberg of that of 1726, were disposed of; the former at £590 sterling for 15 dozen, or 48 guineas for one dozen, while the latter was sold at £664 the 15 dozen, or 55 guineas for one dozen.* The passion for old wines has

Granville's Journey to St. Petersburgh, 2 vols. 8vo. vol. i. p. 189, et passim.

sometimes been carried to great excess. At Bremen, there is a winecellar, in which five hogsheads of Rhenish wine have been kept since 1625, which cost £50; and it has been calulated, that had this sum been put out at compound interest, a bottle of this wine would be worth £908,311, and a single wine glass of it would cost £113,492.

In the days of Riesbeck, Austria exported to the adjacent German States upwards of two millions of guilders' worth of wine, equal to £175,000.

Along the banks of the Rhine, vineyards are to be found every where, and the vines growing on places the most inaccessible, even among fragments of slate rock. The towns and villages are surrounded with vineyards. On every spot of ground, against every wall, against every house every garden in a little arcade is formed by vines-every stick, every piece of wood, is a prop for a vine, or contributes to form a trellis." Lend me your walking-stick to support my vine," is, according to a recent traveller, a familiar expression :—“ The vine will support you when the stick cannot: lend me your umbrella to prop my vine; the vine will some day shelter you from wet, much better than frail silk."* Such are the sayings which the value and estimation of the vine have occasioned.

Among the Germans, the vine is of such high agricultural interest, and wine of such commercial importance, that the establishments connected with them are, in many cases, on a most extensive scale. The immense wine-vaults in Bremen, particularly those called the Rosenkeller, are a specimen. These subterraneous stores are so capacious as to be able to contain 2,000 hogsheads, besides enormous vessels for holding wine, one of which alone is said to hold 120 hogsheads; and that the wine it contains has remained in it upwards of two centuries. Twelve of those casks occupy one apartment, and by way of distinction have been denominated the Twelve Apostles: one of them is termed Judas, being said to contain the best wine, as if from its age and strength it is better qualified to betray. These vaults are finely arched in the Gothic style, and are remarkable for an echo little inferior to the whispering gallery in St. Paul's, as a person speaking softly at one end may be distinctly heard at the most remote extremities by placing the ear against the wall. In travelling along the banks of the Moldau not far from Prague, from time to time the doors of spacious wine-caves meet the stranger's eye in places quite remote from human dwellings. Speaking of the monastery at Erbach, Dr. Render says, the wine-cellars excited the utmost astonishment, being so capacious that a coach and four might easily drive round and

Two Hundred and Nine Days on the Continent, vol. i. p. 107.

turn in it with the greatest facility, and the number of large casks it contained was really amazing, each being seventeen or eighteen feet in height. The monks were hospitable to an extreme, each of them had four bottles of the best wine for his daily allowance, and when they entertain strangers they were allowed an ad libitum.

At the Green Man Inn, St. Goar, are preserved two large silver goblets of great antiquity and curious workmanship, the sides of which are embossed with various figures and inscriptions. One of them was presented to the city of St. Goar by Christiana, Queen of Sweden, and the other by one of the Princes of Hesse. Before drinking out of one of these cups, strangers have to undergo a singular ceremony: the visiter is seated in a chair, in the middle of a large room, having a heavy silver collar put round his neck, a gilded crown on his head; and he is then asked whether he will choose to be baptized with wine or with water; if he say water, a large quantity is poured on his head; but if he prefer wine, which is generally the case, he is obliged to drink a certain number of toasts out of the two silver goblets. The newly baptized stranger then writes his name in a record-book kept for the purpose, after which the wine is passed about freely amidst singing and jocularity. The cellar used on this occasion, which is called coronation, is said to have belonged to the two sons of Charlemagne, and much conviviality and cheerful enjoyment are the common attendants.*

The time of the vintage in Germany is always a period of great rejoicing, and that festival is annually celebrated with great eclat and hilarity. On such occasions, beneath an umbrageous bower, a table is ornamented with flowers, and a kind of throne is erected in the centre, on which is laid the first bunch of ripe grapes in imitation of an altar to Bacchus. After the master of the ceremony has made a speech suitable to the occasion, the persons assembled, young and old, dance round the altar, and regale themselves with the comforts of the

season.

Plutarch mentions a feast of this kind celebrated by the Greeks and Romans in the time of the vintage, at which their tables were loaded with all kinds of fruits, placed under tents made of vinebranches and ivy, intermingled with aromatics; and from the strong similarity between this and the Jewish feast of the Tabernacle, described in Leviticus, chapter xxiii., Plutarch considered that people worshippers of Bacchus.

Whether owing to climate, to custom, or to whatever cause, it has been observed that the inhabitants of wine countries are in general

Tour in Germany.

more cheerful, tranquil, and regular in their dispositions, than those who are drinkers of beer, ale, and spirits; and those characteristics are not less remarkable at the time of vintage than in any other season of the year. This is exemplified by the inhabitants of the Rhinegau, who are a strong, handsome, healthy, and cheerful class of men, capable of bearing a great deal of labour; and hence the inhabitants of the south are said to be stouter than those of the north; for the blood of the wine-drinker is considered purer than that of the beerdrinker; and as life is said to be in the blood, the remark on this assumption may be justifiable. On the contrary, it may be urged that men who never tasted any description of fermented liquor, and who are accustomed to the lowest diet, are found capable of undergoing fatigue equal to that of any other race of people ;-a circumstance known to every observer. It is a practice amongst the peasants in the north of Italy, never to go out in the morning without eating bread and drinking some wine; and they look remarkably stout and healthy. Grapes are said to be particularly wholesome when eaten with the morning dew on them; hence they are regularly served up at breakfast, not only as a zest but as a luxury. At Vevay, in Switerzland, the physicians of Geneva order patients to subsist during the vintage, altogether on grape diet, the period of which is usually three weeks. The common daily allowance is about 71bs. of grapes, without tasting any other sort of sustenance, not even drink any description. In cases of insanity, the same regimen is said to be very efficacious in restoring the patient to a sound state of mind,* which is a further proof of the renovating power of the grape worthy of investigation and inquiry, and to which it might not be beneath the faculty in this country to direct their attention.

of

Were the properties of the grape sufficiently known, the vine would become an object of cultivation in every part of Europe, where the climate would permit its growth. The vine does not shew a preference for any particular soil, but a dry is much better than a moist situation. Limits, however, for its cultivation seem to have been prescribed by nature, which no ingenuity of man can surmount. In some of the northern provinces of France, as Brittany and Normandy, the vine is not cultivated at present, though it was formerly reared there to considerable extent; it has given place to the apple and the crab, cider being the chief beverage. The regions of culture for this plant do not lie parallel to the equator, but in an oblique direction from north-east to south-west, from about 35 to 52 north latitude. the inland parts of France and Germany, the utmost limits of it are

* Bakewell's Travels in Switzerland and Auvergne, vol. ii. p. 20.

In