[19] Who would believe this from the specimens tasted in England? Yet we are assured the statement is perfectly true. [20] Patterson’s _Travels in Caffraria_, p. 92. [21] One of these inspired Longfellow, who thinks (poetically) the richest wine is that of the West, which grows by the beautiful river, whose sweet perfume fills the apartment, with a benison on the giver:— “Very good in its way is the Verzenay, Or the Sillery, soft and creamy; But Catawba wine has a taste more divine, More dulcet, delicious, and dreamy.” A dreamy taste is something startling even in poetical description. [22] Chili has lately taken Paris medals for its wines; it also produces a light and wholesome beer. [23] The _rébêche_ is principally sold to people manufacturing cheap Champagnes; by mixing with other wines of very light complexion, they give them body, and make a stuff which can be produced at a very low price. [24] _De Proprietatibus Rerum._ Argent. 1485, lib. xix. cap. 56. [25] Blount’s _Fragmenta Antiquitatis_. Sec. “Grand Serjeantry,” No. IV. [26] _The Wines of the World, Characterized and Classed_, 1875, pp. 16, 17. [27] This wine is said to profit much by a quiescent state of the air afforded by the town wall. [28] A wine at Homburg, called _Erlacher_, at about one mark a bottle, is, says Dr. Charnock, frequently superior to the ordinary _Niersteiner_. [29] “Hock,” says one of those wine circulars, which weary alike the postman and the public, “is the English name for the noble vintages of the Rhine, which afford models of what wine ought to be. Their purity is attested by their durability. They are almost imperishable. They increase appetite, they exhilarate without producing languor, and they purify the blood. The Germans say good Hock keeps off the doctor. Southey says it deserves to be called the Liquor of Life. And so Pindar would have called it, if he had ever tasted it.” Nothing surely can be added to this description of its virtues. [30] Thus unfortunately translated, “Rhine wine is good, Neckar pleasant, Frankfort bad, Moselle innocent.” But Moselle, we have been told, is very far from “innocent.” _Unnosel_ is without bouquet. _Tranken_ means not bad but drinkable, and _lecker_ is rather lickerish than good. A sample of the same carelessness occurs on the next page, where _ein weinfask von anderhalb ahm ein pipe_ is intended to express _ein Weinfass von anderthalb Ohm, eine Pipe_. It is a pity that an excellent work, to which we, as many writers on wine like ourselves, have been deeply indebted, should be marred by these irregularities.