"Their banquet is the mighty chine Exhaustless, the stupendous boar; Virgins of immortal line Present the goblet foaming o'er: Of heroes' skulls the goblet made, With figur'd deaths and snakes of gold inlaid." Boar's flesh was considered by these tribes as the highest delicacy; the celestial boar was supposed to be daily renewed, and to afford an ample repast for the most numerous party: a quantity of mead also, sufficient for the intoxication of this paradisiacal community, was imagined to be daily supplied by a goat called Heidruna, "Whose spacious horn would fill the bowl That rais'd to rapture Odin's soul; And ever drinking, ever dry-- Still the copious stream supply." +Cottle+ I could not refrain from adducing these short historical and poetical evidences of the high estimation in which mead was held by our northern ancestors. I trust that I shall also stand excused for still further lengthening my preamble by entering upon _the general principles of wine-making_. _The grand desiderata in wine are strength, flavour, and pleasantness:_--to accomplish the first, sugar must be converted by fermentation into alcohol; the second depends upon the article to be vinified, and upon the management of the process of vinification; flavour may likewise be produced artificially by different adjuncts: pleasantness will principally result from the same causes, but more especially from the liquor holding in solution a certain quantity of unconverted sugar. _The elements necessary to a due fermentation_ and to bring the process to a satisfactory issue, _are sugar, extractive matter, acid of tartar_, and _water_. These exist in the highest perfection and in the best relative proportions in _the grape_: hence the superiority of foreign wines. Whoever therefore expects to imitate, with much effect, those generous liquors, must supply in the process those ingredients in which the article sought to be converted into wine is deficient. If the native juices of fruits be deficient in sugar, it will be impossible to convert them into a strong wine without a proper supply of that ingredient; and without a sufficiency of extractive matter, which is the natural ferment, a due fermentation could not be established; the wine would be sweet, but not potent; _sweet wines being the produce of an incomplete fermentation_. If the extractive matter were in excess, the liquor would have a tendency to the acetous fermentation, which might also be induced by a superabundant proportion of water. _The result of a complete fermentation is a dry wine;_ to produce which, the elements must all be nicely balanced, and the process conducted under favourable circumstances, with respect to temperature, tunning, stopping down, &c.