or assorted wines. The lighter wines are improved by an admixture with the stronger ramo, a purpose for which the latter is commonly purchased. Oeiras, Carcavellos, and Lavradio produce wines of a high reputation, while the growth of Alenquer, Torres Vedras, Lamego, and Monçaon, possess a high character. The wine of Barraa-Barra, near Lavadrio, is one of the best of Portugal. The vineyards of Coimbra are said to produce inferior grapes of a tart flavour. The Colares Port, a red wine of Colares near Cintra, the white wine of Termo on the Douro, with the wines of Bucellas in the vicinity of Lisbon, and of Setuval in Estremadura, are all in great estimation : the sweet wines of Carcavellos, and the muscadine of Setuval are too familiar to require description or panegyric. The great exports of wine are from Oporto, or Porto, on the Douro, from the name of which city is derived our term port. The vicinity of Oporto is said to yield annually 80,000 pipes of wine, 20,000 of which are exported, and the whole quantity sent out of the kingdom during the same period is computed at 780,000.* The exports to Great Britain alone, are detailed in a Table of the Addenda. The bad quality of the native brandy has, hitherto, made it of little commercial importance, but the late introduction of the sirup of the fig will, no doubt, if judiciously managed, improve its flavour and retrieve its character. No spirits are made from corn in Portugal, but some are occasionally made from damaged figs and raisins unfit for other purposes. In Algarve, the project was once instituted for making spirits from the carob, or locust pod, but it was not successful. Many of the stills used in Portugal, particularly those in the neighbourhood of Lisbon, are made in London. The size is arbitrary, varying generally from 140 to 4 or 500 gallons. The body and head are of copper, but the worms are mostly of pewter. The farmers use small stills of a bad construction; a tube of copper, or a musket barrel thrust through a cask, frequently performs the office of the worm and cooler, and the spirits, of course, are bad. In charging the still, the Portuguese fill it to within 8 or 9 inches of the top with wine, which is slowly worked off, and, unless intended for exportation, it is rarely distilled. In the second distillation, it is made of such a strength, that oil will sink in it. White wine yields more spirit than red wine, and on the purity of both depends the goodness of the brandy. In no country with which we are acquainted, has brandy been manufactured to such extent or perfection as in France. The distillation of it commenced there, according to Le Grand, in 1313, but as in the instance of Spain, little more was manufactured at first than what served the purpose of the vineyard. Its superior quality, however, soon recommended it to general notice, and at an early period, large quantities of it are mentioned among other articles of European commerce. It is strange, that although the Phocæans are said to have cultivated the vine in Gaul, 600 years before Christ, we should have no authentic notice of distillation earlier than 1313. The first attempt at the distillation of wine is attributed to Arnaud de Villeneuve, professor of medicine at Montpellier in the thirteenth century. According to Macrobius, the Gauls had no knowledge of the cultivation of the vine till Rome had arrived at a high state of prosperity. Some Roman wine given by a Helvetian to the Gauls so delighted them, that they were induced to attack the Roman capital with a view to obtain this beverage; but they were repelled by Camillus, and obliged to retire. About 270 years afterwards, Fabius Maximus introduced the use of the vine into Gaul, though some think it was introduced by the Greeks when they were in possession of Marseilles, nearly 500 years before Christ; but, however this may have been, there were no advances in its culture till after the arrival and conquests of the Romans. Beer was the common drink at Paris till the time of the Governor Julian, who, in a Greek epigram, ridiculed the people, because Bacchus did not smell of nectar, but like a goat; and was only a god of oats and barley. He disliked beer, which no doubt led to the introduction of wine in its stead, and, of course, to the more extensive cultivation His epigram has been thus translated :— of the grape "Whence art thou, thou false Bacchus, fierce and hot? He smells of nectar ;-thy brain-burning smell Is not of flowers of heav'n, but weeds of hell. The lack-vine Celts, impoverish'd, breech'd, and rude, But the thin ichor of old Ceres' veins Express'd by flames from hungry barley grains, Child-born of Vulcan's fire to burn up human brains." The liquors used at the ancient feasts of the Gauls were wine and beer, the latter being the more common of the two. The beer was termed zythus, highly valued, and given at their feasts to the warriors with the best portion of their meats. In the time of the Romans, there were merchants resident in Gaul for the purpose of carrying wine from the southern provinces up the Rhine, and bartering it for slaves. Diodorus Siculus says, that they became so fond of wine, particularly that manufactured in Italy, before it began to abound in their own country, that they have been known to give a slave for a gallon.* Their love of this liquor hurried them into great excesses, and whole armies are said to have fallen victims to their enemies through its direful effects. It appears that Charles the Great was forced to make some severe laws against it, one of which obliged the judges on the bench and the pleaders at the bar to continue fasting. Others forbade that any one should be forced to drink more than he wished, or that the soldiers in the field should invite any man whatsoever to drink upon pain of excommunication, or being condemned to drink enormous draughts of water by way of punishment. When Winceslaus, king of Bohemia, came to treat with Charles VI., at Rheims, in 1397, he got intoxicated every day with the wine of the country, and chose rather to forego every thing than not indulge in this excess. In ancient times, according to Strabo, a whole vintage has been exhausted at one feast among the Lusitanians. The coryphoeus, or chief guest at an entertainment, who conducted the eating as well as the drinking, always began first, and then presented to his neighbour the cup, rather pitcher, which thus went round the circle, for it seems that all drank out of the same vessel, and no man could drink before it came to his turn, or refuse it when it did come: hence, in all probability, is derived the custom of drinking to one another, which was, it appears, common to the Scythians, Persians, Greeks, and Romans, as well as to the Gauls and most of the northern nations. At their feasts, the Gauls, like the Persians, talked upon affairs of state as the cup went round; and, as they generally sat till morning, the liquor was sometimes productive of much disorder, frequently terminating in desperate conflicts. These assemblies were usually accompanied with music, songs, and dancing, and the dancers, who were commonly armed cap-a-piè, beat time with their swords upon their shields. On some occasions, the company dressed themselves in the skins of beasts, and in masquerading habits, many of which were very indecent; but soon after the introduction of Christianity, these practices were abolished. The liquors used on those occasions were beer and wine, the beer being the more common of the two, Diodorus Siculus, Lib. v. because the grape was not then in a flourishing state of cultivation in France. Pliny and Columella speak of the vintages of Gaul, and of particular varieties of the grape, for which reason the Italian merchants at that time carried on an uninterrupted lucrative traffic with the Gauls. Posidonius, much about the same period, says that the territory of Marseilles afforded abundance of the wines used in the loftier grades of society. Strabo says that the whole of Gallia Narbonnensis afforded every sort of fruit to be found in Italy; but beyond the Cevennes, grapes seldom came to any maturity. The banks of the Cher, Marne, and Moselle, formerly abounded with vines; but from the uncongenial nature of the soil and climate, vineyards have now given place to crops of wheat, rye, oats, potatoes, and other vegetable productions more appropiate to the soil and valuable to the inhabitants. The greater portion of France, however, may be said to be one continued vineyard, since in the culture of the grape, upwards of 4,265,000 English acres are under cultivation; producing annually 893,000,000 wine gallons or 3,563,000 tuns English measure, nearly one-seventh of which is consumed in distillation, averaging in value about 29 millions sterling. In the cultivation of the vine in France, it is generally kept low, the plants being three or four feet apart, and the rows so separated as to admit of a horse passing between them without injury to them. Plantations are made by dibbling in cuttings of the vines of two feet in length, the earth being pressed firmly to the lower end, an indispensable part of the culture, as observed by Xenophon. In pruning, the branches are cut away till within a foot of the ground, and afterwards the young shoots are tied to short stakes with wheat, or ryestraw, or whatever is least expensive. In the southern provinces, the vine is occasionally supported by the elm or maple, or it is grown without bearers, and the intervals between the rows employed in rearing some other vegetable crop. In some places, the vine is conducted along trellises or bound upon low rails in a horizontal manner: the quincunx order of planting is, however, a favourite. Formerly the wines of Orleans and the Isle of France were more estimable than those of Burgundy and Champagne; but they have never yet equalled the wines of Côte d'Or or the Bordelais. The vinum theologicum, or that raised on church lands, was always superior to other wines, the clergy being more solicitous for the quality than the quantity; and from their retired habits and learning, they had greater skill in directing the fermentation of the grape, better methods of improving its produce, greater assiduity and experience in the culture of vines, and the treatment of the vintage. At present, the Champagne, Burgundy, Dauphiny, and Bordelais wines, are the best in France; those of Languedoc, Roussillon, and other southern districts, rank high as sweet wines well adapted for distillation, but are more characterized by strength than flavour. The Champagne wines are principally produced in the department of Marne, and, following a distinction that originated in the ninth century, are divided into River wines (vins de la Riviere de Marne) and Mountain wines (vins de la Montagne de Reims), the former, a white, the latter, a red wine. The red champagne is brisk and sparkling, and distinguished by an agreeable flavour and aroma; but in the opinion of the first judges, the very effervescent wines are not always the best, much of the strength evaporating with the froth, carried off by the escape of the carbonic acid gas. On this account the less sprightly frothing wines are by some connoisseurs preferred. The white Sillery Champagne wines bear the character of superiority, and the Ay wines are the most celebrated of the river wines; of the latter it is related that Charles V., Francis I., Henry VIII., and Leo X., had each of them a commissioner, who resided at Ay to procure intelligence of the best growth, while those of Verzy, Verzenay, Mailly, Bouzy, and St. Basle, are the most esteemed of the Reims mountain wines. The Clos St. Thiérry furnishes the only red wine that has the rich colour and agreeable aroma of Burgundy, combined with the delicate lightness of Champagne. Those wines are placed in cool cellars, and when well manufactured, will be in prime order from ten to twenty years. The vaults in which they are stored are excavated in a rock to the depth of 30 or 40 feet. The white wines of Arbois and Papillon resemble those of Champagne; and if we believe the anecdotes related by Sully of Henry IV, the Arbois wine was a great favourite with that monarch. Whether Champagne, or Burgundy, were the better wine, was long a matter of disputation among the faculty of medicine, till, in 1778, a decision was pronounced in favour of Champagne. The reputation in which Burgundy was so long held, arose not only from its intrinsic value, but from its being the favourite of the Dukes of Burgundy, who were, on that account, styled “ Princes des bons vins." The vineyards of Romanee Conti, containing little more than six English acres, are said to yield some of the nicest quality :-— that of Chambertin, which is said to rival it, was the wine preferred both by Louis XIV. and Napoleon Buonaparte. Next to these in excellence was the wine of the Clos-Vougeot; but since it has ceased to be church property, it has considerably degenerated, and is now |