The sloop which conveyed me from Holy Island to Kingstown, on my way to Dublin, had on board a merry Irishman, to whom I found myself attracted, because he had been in America. He was further acquainted with the family into which my mother’s brother had intermarried—the O’Mearas of Dundalk, of whom one, who was an officer in the garrison, was the object of my present visit.

Dennis was full of odd stories about Irish schoolmasters, fit successors of Swift’s Tom Sheridan; and he informed me that Captain O’Meara had once been a classical tutor, and was still rather conceited in regard to his attainments. He was a companion of Doctor Barrett, of Trinity College, and, as Dennis affirmed, carried more book-learning under a red-coat than many a bishop under a black one. But the half had not been told me.

After seeing the sights of a very beautiful city, driving round Phoenix Park, surveying the Four Courts, and Cathedral, and the palaces, and lawns of Trinity College, I sat down to make myself at home at Captain O’Meara’s. This was the less difficult, as the captain had four daughters, near enough in kindred and age to relieve me from my mauvaise honte, and Irish enough in complexion, mirth, and wit, to set my inexperienced brain in a very pleasurable whirl.

But the captain absorbed every thing to himself. When he discovered that I could comprehend a Latin saying, he gave up all other pursuits for that of riddling me with a fusilade of citations. I am sure such a character is unknown out of Ireland. Miss Mitford has given, in happy detail, the picture of one species in this genus, in her late work. We often meet with this sanguineous, overflowing, half-subtle, half-blundering, off-hand, good fellow, among unlettered Irishmen; but, in good truth, my Cousin O’Meara was a bit of a scholar, had taken prizes at college, was a correspondent of divers learned guilds, and had talked Latin, by the fortnight, with Sulpicians, who came over from France on church errands.

Imagine my gallant captain at his mahogany field of manoeuvre, with forces of claret moving over the polished plane. Imagine him well-spread, rubicund, moist with the gentle drops of Bacchic dew, breathing heavily, gesturing vehemently, with fat, dimpled hand, and smiling as none but Hibernian lips and teeth can smile. Behold me in the costume of 1796, slender and brown, as becomes an American, unused to long potations, trembling lest I miss a meaning or violate a quantity, and anxiously waiting for the summons to follow the ladies to coffee.

“Cousin Henry,” said my host, with all the rotundity of a dean, “you say you have not read Aulus Gellius. Ah! we shall turn him over to-morrow. Not to have read the Attic Nights is, mon cher, the next thing to being a child of darkness. Aulus, my dear fellow—let the bottle tend hitherward—was an Athenian by domiciliation; in this, like Pomponius, who, you know, was denominated Atticus. Aulus came to Athens, my very respected and regarded kinsman—fill your glass—for the purpose of hearing those great expounders, Taurus and Phavorinus; much as you, mon cher, have come to classic Dublin, to hear—to hear—a-hem—to confabulate with your poor old kinsman.” And here he looked down on the amplitude of his well-stretched waistcoat, and the unwrinkled surface of a plump, feminine hand. “Barrett and I have often kept it up—pray let me see the claret—hour after hour, as to the question whether Phavorinus was a Roman or a Greek. You remember what Aulus says—ah! no, you have yet to peruse him—you shall hear my excursus on the later schools of Athens. Their dissertatiuncles—allow the phrase—were conversational; noctes coenaeque deorum.”

Here my fidgets became marked, especially as the clear ringing of a girlish trio was heard above stairs.

“Don’t move—you know I am off duty—you don’t weary me—the claret is good. Did I ever tell you what happened on a Twelfth night at Lord Mountstewart’s? My lord threw the key out of the window, and swore the party should not rise till a certain hogshead of claret was exhausted.” Fidgets more alarming. “On that night I delivered the speech which is so like Ammianus.”

In hopes of angering him, and so getting off, I ventured here on a citation of Gibbon, charging Ammian with bombast. But the smile only bespread his full-blown visage more benignly, as he continued—

“Nay, mon cher, Gibbon was incapable of measuring such dimensions of style as those of Ammianus Marcellinus. O, that we had his opening books! They are lost—unless Mai should turn them up in some Ambrosian palimpsest. Out of Dublin—the claret—there are not ten men who can taste the richness of Ammian. I will pronounce to you his description of one of Julian’s battles.”

Here a fit of irrepressible coughing took me to the window, and my diaphragm was so agitated, that the rehearsal was interrupted. Making my recovery as protracted as might be, I found my captain—still holding his glass, and still smiling—sunk into a sweet slumber, under cover of which, I slipped into the ladies’ apartment.

“Ha!” cried Grace O’Meara, “papa has let you off well. You have scarcely heard him pronounce the second Philippic.”

“No, no—that must still await me. But when did Irish officers become so enamoured of the ancients?”

“You must know, Cousin Harry,” said Miss Barbara, “papa dreams of little else. He has tried to teach us all Latin; but we made game of the accidence so effectually, that he is willing now to compound for French and Italian.”

Captain O’Meara, when claret was out of the question, was placid, sensible, and even dull. With a strong antipathy to the Saxon, he united an overweening regard for America, and drank Jefferson’s health with religious veneration. On his horse, in the Park, he looked every inch the hero, like those handsome, pursy, red-coats one sees in gilt frames around the hall in Free-Mason’s Tavern. His color was of the red, red rose, his teeth were ivory, and his voice was full and dulcet. Notwithstanding his pedantry, he communicated to me some most valuable hints concerning my Greek and Latin reading, and explained to me many a hard place in Plautus and Lucretius; reading from tall octavos of the Bipont edition, in crimson uniform. But he suffered no man to dispute the preËminence of Trinity College, or the authenticity of the Celtic annals. Remembering my father as a doctor, he would not hear me explain that I was not intending to walk in his steps.

“You will,” said he, “complete a course at Trinity—then, ho! for Leyden. There is the spot for the healing art. I know two Americans there; one of them fought O’Shaughnessy, our adjutant. Leyden, mon cher, is the modern Salerno. Never name Edinburgh—where the prelections—horresco referens—are in English. Leyden is your place. Don’t touch their gin—we call it Geneva, a corruption of the Dutch gedever, or juniper—stick to claret. You will find a compotator, that is, a bottle-companion, in Professor Van Valkenburg, in the street by the old Roman castle. Their anatomical preparations are alone worth a visit. And then the library”—

But I weary my readers with gossip of fifty odd years ago. My eyes grow dim. I must bid adieu to Dublin and the O’Meara’s.

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BY E. ANNA LEWIS.

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FROM THE JOURNAL OF A VOLUNTEER OFFICER.

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BY W. W. H. DAVIS.

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I had reached the goal of my hopes and my ambition, and was comfortably quartered in the city of the Montezumas. There, in that proud and ancient capital, and surrounded with so many of the comforts and luxuries of life, I almost forgot the toils and sufferings of the march and the bivouac, and here, for awhile in comparative ease, “the pomp, pride and circumstance of glorious war,” which is so fascinating to the untried soldier, seemed almost realized. The American army had occupied the city long enough to establish order, by a well-regulated and efficient military police, and the enemy having retired some distance, the officers and men began to extend their sphere of observation beyond the limits of the capital, when off duty, to the beautiful suburban towns and villages near by.

I spent my first Sunday in sight-seeing, in a visit to the somewhat celebrated city of GuadalupÉdee Hidalgo, about four miles to the north of Mexico. It is situated at the foot of a rocky mount, called Tapeyac, in the midst of a romantic but not very fertile country, and is approached by one of the six causeways which lead out from the city. They are broad, straight, finely McAdamized, and planted on each side with shade-trees, and have been constructed through the waters of the lake at great expense. In point of size this place is not of much importance, and does not contain more than a thousand inhabitants all told. Besides the church erected there, dedicated to the patron saint of the country, and a few religious establishments, the buildings are of mud and reeds, inhabited by a miserable and filthy population. Here it was the “Virgin of GuadalupÉ” is said to have made her miraculous appearance, and here, once every year, a great festival and celebration is held in honor of her, which is looked upon as one of the most important days in the church. The manner in which the “Virgin” made her first appearance is very remarkable, and the story, as related by one of the early bishops, seems quite as incomprehensible to us, who are without the pale of the church, as the myths which come down to us from pagan antiquity. But since the priesthood appear to put full faith in the modus operandi of her advent, the people of the country, as a matter of course, believe it.

The legend runs as follows: In the year 1531, an Indian, named Juan Diego, was passing by this mountain of Tapeyac, on his return home from the city, when the Most Holy Virgin appeared to him, and directed him to go back to the city and tell the bishop to come out there and worship her. The bishop refused to admit him into his presence, having no faith in the miracle. In passing by the same spot a few days afterward she appeared to him a second time, and told him to return to the bishop and say that, “I, Mary, the Mother of God, have sent you.” Again the bishop refused to admit the Indian to his presence, being still incredulous, but required some token of the annunciation. The Virgin appeared to the Indian the third and last time, two days afterward, and ordered him to ascend the mountain and pluck roses therefrom and present them to the bishop as his credentials. Now, this mountain is a barren rock, without a particle of vegetation upon it. The Indian, however, went as he was directed, and there found flowers, which he threw into his tilma, a sort of apron worn by the inhabitants of the country. He returned to the city and was admitted into the presence of the bishop, but when he opened his tilma, instead of the roses which he had gathered and put into it, there appeared an image of the Holy Virgin, which is said to be preserved to this day in the church which bears her name. From the name of the town she was called the Virgin of GuadalupÉ, and has been made the patron saint of the country. This is the history they give of her appearance, and it is as bad as rank heresy for Catholics to disbelieve it. With them she is all important, and appears to have a powerful influence over all the affairs of life. With the great mass of the population she is the only identity in religious reverence, the alpha and omega, the beginning and the end of all their faith and worship. She is appealed to on every occasion, and her name is given to nearly half the females in the country; her image is hung up in every house, and even in the butcher-stalls and drinking-shops she occupies a conspicuous place, where her presence is supposed to preserve the meat sweet in the one, and to bring customers to the other.

On Sunday, the 12th of December, 1847, I rode out to GuadalupÉ, to witness the ceremonies in honor of this saint. I mounted my horse at an early hour, and set out alone, but by the time I had reached the Garita and turned upon the causeway, I found myself in the midst of a crowd tending the same way. It was as pleasant and beautiful a morning as ever broke over that lovely valley, and every thing reminded me of spring time or early summer. The air had that balmy softness peculiar to the season of opening flowers, and the gentle zephyrs which came from the shining bosom of lake Tescoco, were loaded with a delightful odor. The trees and bushes and grass were dressed in their garb of living green, and the merry-hearted songsters were singing their sweetest melodies in honor of the opening day. Such a delightful season in winter seemed like reversing the order of nature. The crowd which came pouring out of the city was immense, and as checkered in appearance as ever made pilgrimage to the shrine of a saint. From their appearance there were all sorts and conditions of persons, and every class of the proud capital was fully represented, ranging from the caballero to the lepero. Here might be seen an elegant carriage, drawn by sleek-looking mules, whose smiling inmates looked the very personification of luxury and ease—there came a rude, country cart, lined with raw hide and filled with the family of some poor ranchero, drawn by a raw-boned ox made fast by thongs around his horns—here ambled by a crowd of donkey cavalry, whose riders, with feet trailing on the ground, urged the animals forward in hot haste toward the scene of festivities—then thousands came on foot, some carrying children strapped to their backs, some bending under loads of nick-knacks for sale. Men, women and children, mules, donkeys and dogs, were all mingled together in one throng, and the noise of confused sounds reminded me somewhat of a modern Babel on a small scale. Among this mottled group were many American officers, in their neat uniforms and mounted on prancing steeds. On each side of the road, up to the very gates of GuadalupÉ, booths were erected for the sale of cakes, drinks and sweetmeats, and where all kinds of buffoonery were being performed; gambling tables were numerous, loaded with shining coin, and here and there I noticed pits for cock-fighting, with anxious crowds assembled round to witness the cruel sport, and bets seemed running high on the favorite chickens. The whole assemblage seemed enjoying and amusing themselves to the utmost of their capacity in eating and drinking, gambling and dancing. The dancers were assembled under the shade of the wide-spreading trees, where, to the music of the harp and guitar, they performed their national dances with much spirit, dressed in the romantic costume of the country. Inside the inclosure where the sacred edifice stands, was a perfect jam of men, women and children, old and young, white, yellow and black, greasy and well-clad, who had come up here to do honor to the saint who rules over their destinies.

When I arrived at the gate leading into the inclosure where the performance was to take place, the procession of the Host was passing, and if it had not been a religious ceremony, I could not have prevented myself from laughing loud, the scene was so ludicrous and ridiculous. The image of the Virgin was borne aloft on a pole, followed by a number of priests in their stove-pipe hats and sacred vestments—then came a platoon of filthy-looking soldiers, with a band of music playing some national air, the whole brought up in the rear by a crowd of “red spirits and white, blue spirits and gray,” shooting squibs and hallooing at the top of their voices. It reminded me much more of a Fourth of July celebration, or a militia training in a frontier settlement of the United States, than a religious festival. Dismounting, I gave my horse to a soldier standing near, to hold, while I went in and witnessed the performance. On entering, I found much difficulty in getting through the crowd, but by dint of a good deal of pushing and elbowing, and also rapping a few stubborn, greasy-looking fellows over the shins with my sabre, who were slow to make room, I at last reached the door of the sacred edifice. The crowd was as dense within as without, and it seemed wholly impossible to be able to enter; beside, an odor, not as pleasant as the ottar of roses, arose from the assemblage. These considerations were sufficient to induce me to turn back and retrace my steps. This was no easy matter, as the crowd had closed up again immediately, and I found myself in as dense a throng as ever. However, return I must, and putting full faith in the old adage, “That where there is a will there is a way,” I set about the matter in good earnest, and in a short time I found myself at the point from which I had started. I again mounted my horse, but was uncertain which way to turn. Just then, I was joined by two officers of my regiment, who proposed to ride round the base of the hill toward the left, and if possible, ascend it on horseback. We spurred our horses through the crowd, which opened to let us pass, and turning to the right, rode along the base until we had reached a point nearly opposite to the place from which we started. The hill of Tapeyac is some six or eight hundred feet in height, and is a mass of rocks of igneous origin, the surface being quite smooth and bare of vegetation. It rises up from the plain abruptly, and is steep in its most sloping part. We found the ascent much more difficult than we had anticipated, and it required a great deal of hard labor to get up it. We kept in the saddle for some distance, but at last were obliged to dismount and lead our horses up the steep slope. It was really painful to see the poor animals struggle up the smooth surface of the rock, and now and then it seemed almost impossible for them to keep their footing. Thus we labored upward, and at last stood upon the summit, when man and beast rested from their toil. And while we sat down, holding in our hands the reins of the faithful animals, we looked abroad upon the varied scene below us and enjoyed the beautiful prospect. It was really magnificent, and fully repaid us for the toil we had in ascending. The elevation of our position brought under our view the famous valley of Mexico for many miles in every direction. To the south lay the city, with the bright sun shining in gilded rays upon the steeples and cupolas of the cathedral and churches, giving them almost the appearance of burnished gold and silver. More distant, in the same direction, the two snow-capped mountains of Popocatapetl and Ixtaccihuatl loomed up in stern grandeur into the clear, blue sky, and stood out from all their fellows in beautiful relief. To the left, the eye swept over the sparkling surface of lake Pezcoca, which washes the eastern barrier that shuts in this fair Eden of the New World. Nearer, to the front and to the right, the eye rests upon a wide expanse of plain, variegated with cultivated fields, with their irrigating ditches, like threads of silver, meandering through them. Here and there flocks and herds were grazing on the verdant pasture, or seeking the shade of the trees to shield them from the sun. Such, in a few words, is the nature of the beautiful landscape which opened to our view from the rocky summit where we were seated, and for the reader fully to appreciate it, he must be aware of the freshness and enchantment the balmy air and crystal skies of that clime lend to every scene. We enjoyed it to the utmost stretch of human capacity to enjoy the beauties of nature, and as we descended the rocky mount, so loth were we to have it shut from our sight, that we cast “many a longing, lingering look behind,” ere we reached the level of the plain.

On nearly the highest point, on the spot where the Indian is said to have plucked the roses, a small church has been erected, which tradition says, sprung up out of the rock in a single night. It is a dark-looking stone building, built in the heavy Spanish style of two centuries ago. It is reached from below by a winding stairway, cut in the solid rock, considerably crumbled by time, and worn by the footsteps of the thousands who pass up to worship at the shrine of their favorite saint. We entered the sacred edifice, and found it thronged with devotees, mostly half-naked Indians, who had come from the mountains and valleys beyond, on this their annual pilgrimage to the Mecca of their spiritual hopes, and who, like the devout Moslem who yearly kneels at the tomb of his Prophet, having finished his mission, is ready to lie down and die. They jostled and pushed each other in their anxiety to approach the altar and touch the garments of the image of the Virgin, and deposit their offering of money in the dish ready to receive it. Parents, anxious that their little ones should behold the great saint, lifted them up over the head of the multitude, and at a given signal the whole assemblage prostrated themselves on the hard paved floor to receive the blessing of the good father who ministered there. The poor Indians gazed in mute astonishment at all they saw, but to them the riddle was not to be solved, they were taught to believe, not to inquire. When they had deposited their offerings, and received a blessing, they turned away to make room for others who were continually pressing on.

Turning away from this scene, we led our horses down the stone stairway into the inclosure below. The crowd was not so dense as before, and we now found no difficulty in making our way through. Giving our horses to a Mexican to hold, we entered the sacred edifice dedicated to the Virgin of GuadalupÉ. The building was yet crowded with people, and the high dignitaries of the church were performing some solemn ceremony, commemorative of the occasion. In appearance this church is by far the most magnificent one I was in, in Mexico. It seemed almost one blaze of gold and silver in the bright sunlight which streamed through the windows, and played upon the rich decorations. The whole ceiling, and especially the dome, is painted in the most beautiful fresco, and so life-like are the images, that they appear almost to speak from the panels. Above the altar, at the east end of the church, in a frame-work of solid gold, is an image of the Virgin as large as life. Her dress is spangled with precious stones, and inside the frame are strips of gold running the whole length, thickly studded with diamonds, pearls, and emeralds—golden rays issue from each side, and suspended above it is a silver dove as large as an eagle. The altar is of finely polished marble, and highly ornamented, and in front runs a railing of silver. On both sides of the middle aisle, extending from the altar to the choir, some sixty feet, is a railing covered with pure silver half an inch in thickness. In addition to these, there are many silver lamps suspended from the ceilings, silver candlesticks before and around the altar, and some of the sacred desks are beautifully wrought in the precious metals. The choir is made of a beautiful dark wood, richly carved and ornamented, and the ceiling is supported by several marble pillars, highly polished, and of great beauty. As we crossed the threshold, the rich, deep tone of the organ, accompanied by the sound of many voices chanting a song of praise, swelled beneath the lofty dome, and impressed the listeners with feelings of reverence and thanksgiving. The building was odorous with the perfume of the scattered incense which had a few minutes before been cast abroad over the worshipers, and numerous priests, in their rich robes, were ministering around the altar. The anxious gazing multitude, within the temple, seemed fully impressed with the solemnity of the occasion, and conducted themselves with much propriety. We remained there a short time, and then returned to the yard to look at one or two objects of interest before we rode back to the city. Not far from the church is a “holy well,” over which a small chapel has been erected. The water is supposed to be sacred, and to have the power of healing wounds and preserving all who are touched by it. Crowds were gathered there, some dipping the tips of their fingers in, and crossing themselves, others applying a handful to the face, while some of the anxious mothers plunged their dirty children in, in order that the influence of the holy water might be sure to spread throughout the whole system, that is, if the dirt of the little urchins did not prevent it from penetrating. Being now tired of GuadalupÉ, and the dirty crowd we met there, we rode out of the inclosure, and galloped down the causeway toward Mexico, where we arrived in time to dine.

Having indulged in a short siesta, I again mounted my horse toward evening, and in company with General C., rode to the Alemeda and Passeo Nuevo. The Alemeda is a public square, in the western part of the city, planted with trees and shrubbery, adorned with shady avenues, fountains and statuary, and beautifully laid out in walks and drives. It contains about ten acres, and is the most pleasant place of resort in or near the city. The shrubbery is kept neatly trimmed and attended with great care, and is odorous the live-long year with the perfume of opening flowers. The trees clothed in their perpetual green foliage are fairly alive with birds of bright plumage and sweet song, which carol their morning and evening hymns free from harm. In the centre of the square is a large fountain, surmounted by the Goddess of Liberty, which spouts pure water high up in the air, and at its base crouch four lions, from whose mouths spout up smaller jets. A semicircular row of seats surrounds the fountain, and the surface of the space within is paved with large flat stones, laid in tasteful figures. From this point the paths and gravel-walks radiate in every direction, which are again met by others running from other centres, the point where they cross being adorned by smaller fountains. In pleasant weather hundreds of children assemble in this charming place in the afternoon, and amuse themselves with their innocent gambols in the shade of the wide-spreading trees. Hither the beauty and fashion of the capital, who seek pleasure on foot, resort toward evening, to promenade through the shady avenues. There the student carries his book, and, in some quiet secluded corner, apart from the fashionable world which rejoices around him, he sits alone and pursues his favorite study; and there also the lovers repair at the enchanting hour of eventide, and whisper anew their vows of faith and constancy. A numerous throng were gathered there, enjoying themselves in many ways, apparently unmindful that “grim visaged war” had erected his shrine in their beautiful city, and that foreign soldiery were overlooking them on the corner of every street. We rode through these shady avenues and then passed out at the south-west angle into Passeo Nuevo, with the crowd which moved that way. This is one of the fashionable and most frequented public drives of the city; it is a beautifully McAdamized road, half a mile in length, planted on each side with fine shade-trees, and adorned in the centre by a fountain, which spouts four jets of water. Seats are placed at intervals along each side of the drive, and opposite to the fountain, for the accommodation of foot people. Here all the world of Mexico may be seen toward evening, on a bright afternoon, in carriages and on horseback, and a lively, animated scene it presents. Rich equipages glitter in the declining sun, noble steeds, superbly caparisoned, and ridden by gay caballeros, proudly prance along, and beauty smiles upon every beholder. Everybody who can command any kind of a vehicle drives to the Passeo, and sometimes it is so much crowded, as to be quite difficult to drive or ride along it. The equipages which throng this path of fashion are various, and some of them are quite unique; and it is not uncommon to see the elegant turn-out of the English minister, side by side with a common country cart, lined with oxhide, and drawn by a poor old apology for a horse that would hardly dare to look a vulture in the face. Yet both parties are enjoying themselves in the fashionable world. The custom of this drive is somewhat peculiar, which all follow to the very letter of the law; it is to drive the full length twice, stop in the centre opposite the fountain to salute your friends, as they pass by, and then return home. To show our knowledge of the fashionable world, we conformed as nearly as possible to the ways of those who were initiated into the mysteries of the Passeo, and thereby, no doubt, passed for current coin. We spent one hour thus, in seeing and being seen, pleased with the animated scene we had witnessed, and then returned to our quarters. Thus I passed my first Sunday in the city of the Montezumas, and although not as religiously kept as would have been done at home, it had no evil effect upon the spiritual or moral man.

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ENDYMION.

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BY THOMAS BUCHANAN READ.

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BY A. B. REACH.

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[WITH AN ENGRAVING.]

Let us to the joyous ingathering of the fruits of the earth—the great yearly festival and jubilee of the property and the labor of Medoc. October is the joyous “wine month.” For weeks, every cloud in the sky has been watched—every cold night-breeze felt with nervous apprehension. Upon the last bright weeks in summer, the savor and the bouquet of the wine depend. Warmed by the blaze of an unclouded sun, fanned by the mild breezes of the west, and moistened by morning and evening dews, the grapes by slow degrees attain their perfect ripeness and their culminating point of flavor. Then the vintage implements begin to be sought out, cleaned, repaired, and scoured and sweetened with hot brandy. Coopers work as if their lives depended upon their industry; and all the anomalous tribe of lookers-out for chance jobs in town and country pack up their bag and baggage, and from scores of miles around pour in ragged regiments into Medoc.

There have long existed pleasing, and in some sort poetical, associations connected with the task of securing for human use the fruits of the earth; and to no species of crop do these picturesque associations apply with greater force than to the ingathering of the ancient harvest of the vine. From time immemorial, the season has typified epochs of plenty and mirthful-heartedness—of good fare and of good-will. The ancient types and figures descriptive of the vintage are still literally true. The march of agricultural improvement seems never to have set foot amid the vines. As it was with the patriarchs in the East, so it is with the modern children of men. The goaded ox still bears home the high-pressed grape-tub, and the feet of the trader are still red in the purple juice which maketh glad the heart of man. The scene is at once full of beauty, and of tender and even sacred associations. The songs of the vintagers frequently chorussed from one part of the field to the other, ring blithely into the bright summer air, pealing out above the rough jokes and hearty peals of laughter shouted hither and thither. All the green jungle is alive with the moving figures of men and women, stooping among the vines or bearing pails and basket-fulls of grapes out to the grass-grown cross-roads, along which the laboring oxen drag the rough vintage carts, groaning and cracking as they stagger along beneath their weight of purple tubs heaped high with the tumbling masses of luscious fruit. The congregation of every age and both sexes, and the careless variety of costume, add additional features of picturesqueness to the scene. The white-haired old man labors with shaking hands to fill the basket which his black-eyed imp of a grandchild carries rejoicingly away. Quaint broad-brimmed straw and felt hats—handkerchiefs twisted like turbans over straggling elf-locks—swarthy skins tanned to an olive-brown—black, flashing eyes—and hands and feet stained in the abounding juices of the precious fruit—all these southern peculiarities of costume and appearance supply the vintage with its pleasant characteristics. The clatter of tongues is incessant. A fire of jokes and jeers, of saucy questions, and more saucy retorts—of what, in fact, in the humble and unpoetic but expressive vernacular, is called “chaff”—is kept up with a vigor which seldom flags, except now and then, when the butt-end of a song, or the twanging close of a chorus strikes the general fancy, and procures for the morceau a lusty encore. Meantime, the master wine-grower moves observingly from rank to rank. No neglected bunch of fruit escapes his watchful eye. No careless vintager shakes the precious berries rudely upon the soil, but he is promptly reminded of his slovenly work. Sometimes the tubs attract the careful superintendent. He turns up the clusters to ascertain that no leaves nor useless length of tendril are entombed in the juicy masses, and anon directs his steps to the pressing-trough, anxious to find that the lusty treaders are persevering manfully in their long-continued dance.

Thither we will follow. The wine-press, or cuvier de pressoir, consists, in the majority of cases, of a massive shallow tub, varying in size from four square feet to as many square yards. It is placed either upon wooden tressels or on a regularly built platform of mason-work under the huge rafters of a substantial out-house. Close to it stands a range of great butts, their number more or less, according to the size of the vineyard. The grapes are flung by tub and caskfulls into the cuvier. The treaders stamp diligently amid the masses, and the expressed juice pours plentifully out of a hole level with the bottom of the trough into a sieve of iron or wicker-work, which stops the passage of the skins, and from thence drains into tubs below. Suppose, at the moment of our arrival, the cuvier for a brief space empty. The treaders—big, perspiring men, in shirts and tucked-up trowsers—spattered to the eyes with splatches of purple juice, lean upon their wooden spades, and wipe their foreheads. But their respite is short. The creak of another cart-load of tubs is heard, and immediately the wagon is backed up to the broad, open window, or rather hole in the wall, above the trough. A minute suffices to wrench out tub after tub, and to tilt their already half-mashed clusters splash into the reeking pressoir. Then to work again. Jumping with a sort of spiteful eagerness into the mountain of yielding, quivering fruit, the treaders sink almost to the knees, stamping and jumping and rioting in the masses of grapes, as fountains of juice spurt about their feet, and rush bubbling and gurgling away. Presently, having, as it were, drawn the first sweet blood of the new cargo, the eager tramping subsides into a sort of quiet, measured dance, which the treaders continue, while, with their wooden spades, they turn the pulpy remnants of the fruit hither and thither, so as to expose the half-squeezed berries in every possible way to the muscular action of the incessantly moving feet. All this time the juice is flowing in a continuous stream into the tubs beneath. When the jet begins to slacken, the heap is well tumbled with the wooden spades, and, as though a new force had been applied, the juice-jet immediately breaks out afresh. It takes, perhaps, half or three-quarters of an hour thoroughly to squeeze the contents of a good-sized cuvier, sufficiently manned. When at length, however, no further exertion appears to be attended with corresponding results, the tubfulls of expressed juice are carried by means of ladders to the edges of the vats, and their contents tilted in; while the men in the trough, setting-to with their spades, fling the masses of dripping grape-skins in along with the juice. The vats sufficiently full, the fermentation is allowed to commence. In the great cellars in which the juice is stored, the listener at the door—he cannot brave the carbonic acid gas to enter further—may hear, solemnly echoing in the cool shade of the great darkened hall, the bubblings and seethings of the working liquid—the inarticulate accents and indistinct rumblings which proclaim that a great metempsychosis is taking place—that a natural substance is rising higher in the eternal scale of things, and that the contents of these great giants of vats are becoming changed from floods of mere mawkish, sweetish fluid to noble wine—to a liquid honored and esteemed in all ages—to a medicine exercising a strange and potent effect upon body and soul—great for good and evil. Is there not something fanciful and poetic in the notion of this change taking place mysteriously in the darkness, when all the doors are locked and barred—for the atmosphere about the vats is death—as if Nature would suffer no idle prying into her mystic operations, and as if the grand transmutation and projection from juice to wine had in it something of a secret and solemn and awful nature—fenced round, as it were, and protected from vulgar curiosity by the invisible halo of stifling gas? I saw the vats in the ChÂteau Margaux cellars the day after the grape-juice had been flung in. Fermentation had not as yet properly commenced, so access to the place was possible; still, however, there was a strong vinous smell loading the atmosphere, sharp and subtle in its influence on the nostrils; while, putting my ear, on the recommendation of my conductor, to the vats, I heard, deep down, perhaps eight feet down in the juice, a seething, gushing sound, as if currents and eddies were beginning to flow, in obedience to the influence of the working Spirit, and now and then a hiss and a low bubbling throb, as though of a pot about to boil. Within twenty-four hours, the cellar would be unapproachable.

Of course, it is quite foreign to my plan to enter upon any thing like a detailed account of wine-making. I may only add, that the refuse skins, stalks, and so forth, which settle into the bottom of the fermentation vats, are taken out again after the wine has been drawn off, and subjected to a new squeezing—in a press, however, and not by the foot—the products being a small quantity of fiery, ill-flavored wine, full of the bitter taste of the seeds and stalks of the grape, and possessing no aroma or bouquet. The Bordeaux press for this purpose is rather ingeniously constructed. It consists of a sort of a skeleton of a cask, strips of daylight shining through from top to bottom between the staves. In the centre works a strong perpendicular iron screw. The rape, as the refuse of the treading is called, is piled beneath it; the screw is manned capstan fashion, and the unhappy seeds, skins and stalks, undergo a most dismal squeezing. Nor do their trials end there. The wine-makers are terrible hands for getting at the very last get-at-able drop. To this end, somewhat on the principle of rinsing an exhausted spirit-bottle, so as, as it were, to catch the very flavor still clinging to the glass, they plunge the doubly-squeezed rape into water, let it lie there for a short time, and then attack it with the press again. The result is a horrible stuff called piquette, which, in a wine country, bears the same resemblance to wine as the very dirtiest, most wishy-washy, and most contemptible of swipes bears to honest porter or ale. Piquette, in fact, may be defined as the ghost of wine!—wine minus its bones, its flesh, and its soul! a liquid shadow!—a fluid nothing!—an utter negation of all comfortable things and associations! Nevertheless, however, the peasants swill it down in astounding quantities, and apparently with sufficient satisfaction.

And now a word as to wine-treading. The process is universal in France, with the exception of the cases of the sparkling wines of the Rhone and Champagne, the grapes for which are squeezed by mechanical means, not by the human foot. Now, very venerable and decidedly picturesque as is the process of wine-treading, it is unquestionably rather a filthy one; and the spectacle of great, brown, horny feet, not a whit too clean, splashing and sprawling in the bubbling juice, conveys, at first sight, a qualmy species of feeling, which, however, seems only to be entertained by those to whom the sight is new. I looked dreadfully askance at the operation when I first came across it; and when I was invited—by a lady, too—to taste the juice, of which she caught up a glassfull, a certain uncomfortable feeling of the inward man warred terribly against politeness. But nobody around seemed to be in the least squeamish. Often and often did I see one of the heroes of the tub walk quietly over a dunghill, and then jump—barefooted, of course, as he was—into the juice; and even a vigilant proprietor, who was particularly careful that no bad grapes went into the tub, made no objection. When I asked why a press was not used, as more handy, cleaner, and more convenient, I was everywhere assured that all efforts had failed to construct a wine-press capable of performing the work with the perfection attained by the action of the human foot. No mechanical squeezing, I was informed, would so nicely express that peculiar proportion of the whole moisture of the grape which forms the highest flavored wine. The manner in which the fruit was tossed about was pointed out to me, and I was asked to observe that the grapes were, as it were, squeezed in every possible fashion and from every possible side, worked and churned and mashed hither and thither by the ever-moving toes and muscles of the foot. As far as any impurity went, the argument was, that the fermentation flung, as scum, to the surface, every atom of foreign matter held in suspension in the wine, and that the liquid ultimately obtained was as exquisitely pure as if human flesh had never touched it.

In the collection of these and such like particulars, I sauntered for days among the vineyards around; and utterly unknown and unfriended as I was, I met everywhere the most cordial and pleasant receptions. I would lounge, for example, to the door of a wine-treading shed, to watch the movements of the people. Presently the proprietor, most likely attired in a broad-brimmed straw hat, a strange faded outer garment, half shooting-coat half dressing-gown, would come up courteously to the stranger, and learning that I was an English visitor to the vintage, would busy himself with the most graceful kindness, to make intelligible the rationale of all the operations. Often I was invited into the chÂteau or farm-house, as the case might be; a bottle of an old vintage produced and comfortably discussed in the coolness of the darkened, thinly-furnished room, with its old-fashioned walnut-tree escrutoires, and beauffets, its quaintly-panneled walls, and its polished floors, gleaming like mirrors, and slippery as ice. On these occasions, the conversation would often turn on the rejection, by England, of French wines—a sore point with the growers of all save the first-class vintages, and in which I had, as may be conceived, very little to say in defense either of our taste or our policy. In the evenings, which were getting chill and cold, I occasionally abandoned my room with illustrations from the Tour de Nesle for the general kitchen and parlor of Madame Cadillac, and, ensconcing myself in the chimney corner—a fine old-fashioned ingle, crackling and blazing with hard wood logs—listened to the chat of the people of the village; they were nearly all coopers and vine-dressers, who resorted there after the day’s work was over to enjoy an exceedingly modest modicum of very thin wine. I never benefited very much, however, by these listenings. It was my bad luck to hear recounted neither tale nor legend—to pick up, at the hands of my compotatores, neither local trait nor anecdote. The conversation was as small as the wine. The gossip of the place—the prospects of the vintage—elaborate comparisons of it with other vintages—births, marriages, and deaths—a minute list of scandal, more or less intelligible when conveyed in hints and allusions—were the staple topics, mixed up, however, once or twice with general denunciations of the niggardly conduct of certain neighboring proprietors to their vintagers—giving them for breakfast nothing but coarse bread, lard, and not even piquette to wash it down with, and for dinner not much more tempting dishes.

In Medoc, there are two classes of vintagers—the fixed and the floating population; and the latter, which makes an annual inroad into the district, just as the Irish harvesters do into England and Scotland, comprising a goodly proportion of very dubious and suspicious-looking characters. The gen-d’armerie have a busy time of it when these gentry are collected in numbers in the district. Poultry disappear with the most miraculous promptitude; small linen articles hung out to dry have no more chance than if Falstaff’s regiment were marching by; and garden-fruit and vegetables, of course, share the results produced by a rigid application of the maxim that la proprietÉ c’est le vol. Where these people come from is a puzzle. There will be vagrants and strollers among them from all parts of France—from the Pyrenees and the Alps—from the pine-woods of the Landes and the moors of Brittany. They unite in bands of a dozen or a score men and women, appointing a chief, who bargains with the vine-proprietor for the services of the company, and keeps up some degree of order and subordination, principally by means of the unconstitutional application of a good thick stick. I frequently encountered these bands, making their way from one district to another, and better samples of the “dangerous classes” were never collected. They looked vicious and abandoned, as well as miserably poor. The women, in particular, were as brazen-faced a set of slatterns as could be conceived; and the majority of the men—tattered, strapping-looking fellows, with torn slouched-hats, and tremendous cudgels—were exactly the sort of persons a nervous gentleman would have scruples about meeting at dusk in a long lane. It is when thus on the tramp that the petty pilfering and picking and stealing, to which I have alluded, goes on. When actually at work, they have no time for picking up unconsidered trifles. Sometimes these people pass the night—all together, of course—in out-houses or barns, when the chef can strike a good bargain; at other times they bivouac on the lee-side of a wood or wall, in genuine gipsy fashion. You may often see their watch-fires glimmering in the night; and be sure, that where you do, there are twisted necks and vacant nests in many a neighboring hen-roost. One evening, I was sauntering along the beach at Paulliac—a little town on the river’s bank, about a dozen of miles from the mouth of the Gironde, and holding precisely the same relation to Bordeaux as Gravesend does to London—when a band of vintagers, men, women, and children, came up. They were bound to some village on the opposite side of the Gironde, and wanted to get ferried across. A long parley accordingly ensued between the chief and a group of boatmen. The commander of the vintage forces offered four sous per head as the passage-money. The bargemen would hear of nothing under five; and, after a tremendous verbal battle, the vintagers announced that they were not going to be cheated, and that if they could not cross the water, they would stay where they were. Accordingly, a bivouac was soon formed. Creeping under the lee of a row of casks, on the shingle of the bare beach, the women were placed leaning against the somewhat hard and large pillows in question; the children were nestled at their feet, and in their laps; and the men formed the outermost ranks. A supply of loaves was sent for and obtained. The chief tore the bread up into huge hunks, which he distributed to his dependents; and upon this supper the whole party went coolly to sleep—more coolly, indeed, than agreeably; for a keen north wind was whistling along the sedgy banks of the river, and the red blaze of high-piled fagots was streaming from the houses across the black, cold, turbid waters. At length, however, some arrangement was come to; for, on visiting the spot a couple of hours afterward, I found the party rather more comfortably ensconced under the ample sails of the barge which was to bear them the next morning to their destination.

The dinner-party formed every day, when the process of stripping the vines is going on, is, particularly in the cases in which the people are treated well by the proprietor, frequently a very pretty and very picturesque spectacle. It always takes place in the open air, amongst the bushes, or under some neighboring walnut-tree. Sometimes long tables are spread upon tressles; but in general no such formality is deemed requisite. The guests fling themselves in groups upon the ground—men and women picturesquely huddled together—the former bloused and bearded personages—the latter showy, in their bright short petticoats of home-spun and dyed cloth, with glaring handkerchiefs twisted like turbans round their heads—each man and woman with a deep plate in his or her lap. Then the people of the house bustle about, distributing huge brown loaves, which are torn asunder, and the fragments chucked from hand to hand. Next a vast cauldron of soup, smoking like a volcano, is painfully lifted out from the kitchen, and dealt about in mighty ladlefulls; while the founder of the feast takes care that the tough, thready bouilli—like lumps of boiled-down hemp—shall be fairly apportioned among his guests. Piquette is the general beverage. A barrel is set abroach, and every species of mug, glass, cup, and jug about the establishment is called to aid in its consumption. A short rest devoted to chatting, or very often sleeping in the shade, over, the signal is given, and the work recommences.

“You have seen our salle À manger,” said one of my courteous entertainers—he of the broad-brimmed straw-hat, “and now you shall see our chambre À coucher.” Accordingly, he led me to a barn close to his wine-cellars. The place was littered deep with clean, fresh straw. Here and there rolled-up blankets were laid against the wall; while all round, from nails stuck in between the bare bricks, hung by straps and strings the little bundles, knapsacks, and other baggage of the laborers. On one side, two or three swarthy young women were playfully pushing each other aside, so as to get a morsel of cracked mirror stuck against the wall—their long hair hanging down in black elf-locks, in the preliminary stage of its arrangement.

“That is the ladies’ side,” said my cicerone, pointing to the girls; “and that”—extending his other hand—“is the gentlemen’s side.”

“And so they all sleep here together?”

“Every night. I find shelter and straw; any other accommodation they must procure for themselves.”

“Rather unruly, I should suppose?”

“Not a bit. They are too tired to do any thing but sleep. They go off, sir, like dormice.”

“Oh, sil plait À Mossieu!” put in one of the damsels. “The chief of the band does the police.” (Fait la gen-d’armerie)

“Certainly—certainly,” said the proprietor, “the gentlemen lie here, with their heads to the walls; the ladies there; and the chef de la bande stretches himself all along between them.”

“A sort of living frontier.”

“Truly; and he allows no nonsense.”

“Il est meme Éxcessivement severe,” interpolated the same young lady.

“He needs be,” replied her employer. “He allows no loud speaking—no joking; and as there are no candles, no light, why they can do nothing better than go quietly to sleep, if it were only in self-defense.”

One word more about the vintage. The reader will easily conceive that it is on the smaller properties, where the wine is intended, not so much for commerce as for household use, that the vintage partakes most of the festival nature. In the large and first-class vineyards the process goes on under rigid superintendence, and is, as much as possible, made a cold matter of business. He who wishes to see the vintages of books and poems—the laughing, joking, singing festivals amid the vines, which we are accustomed to consider the harvests of the grape—must betake him to the multitudinous patches of peasant property, in which neighbor helps neighbor to gather in the crop, and upon which whole families labor merrily together, as much for the amusement of the thing, and from good neighborly feeling, as in consideration of francs and sous. Here, of course, there is no tight discipline observed, nor is there any absolute necessity for that continuous, close scrutiny into the state of the grapes—all of them, hard or rotten, going slap-dash into the cuvier—which, in the case of the more precious vintages, forms no small check upon a general state of careless jollity. Every one eats as much fruit as he pleases, and rests when he is tired. On such occasions it is that you hear to the best advantage the joyous songs and choruses of the vintage—many of these last being very pretty bits of melody, generally sung by the women and girls, in shrill treble unison, and caught up and continued from one part of the field to another.

Yet, discipline and control it as you will, the vintage will ever be beautiful, picturesque, and full of association. The rude wains, creaking beneath the reeking tubs—the patient faces of the yoked oxen— the half-naked, stalwort men, who toil to help the cart along the ruts and furrows of the way—the handkerchief-turbaned women, their gay red-and-blue dresses peeping from out the greenery of the leaves—the children dashing about as if the whole thing were a frolick, and the gray-headed old men tottering cheerfully a-down the lines of vines, with baskets and pails of gathered grapes to fill the yawning tubs—the whole picture is at once classic, venerable, and picturesque, not more by association than actuality.

A strange feature in the wine country is the wonderously capricious and fitful nature of the soil. A forenoon’s walk will show you the earth altering in its surface qualities almost like the shifting hues of shot silk—gravel of a light color fading into gravel of a dark—sand blending with the mould, and bringing it now to a dusky yellow, now to an ashen gray—strata of chalky clay every now and then struggling into light only to melt away into beds of mere shingle—or bright, semi-transparent pebbles, indebted to the action of water for shape and hue. At two principal points these blending and shifting qualities of soil put forth their utmost powers—in the favored grounds of Margaux, and again, at a distance of about fifteen miles farther to the north, in the vineyards of Lafitte, Latour, and between these latter, in the sunny slopes of St. Jullien. And the strangest thing of all is, that the quality—the magic—of the ground changes, without, in all cases, a corresponding change in the surface strata. If a fanciful and willful fairy had flown over Medoc, flinging down here a blessing and there a curse upon the shifting shingle, the effect could not have been more oddly various. You can almost jump from a spot unknown to fame, to another clustered with the most precious vintage of Europe. Half-a-dozen furrows often make all the difference between vines producing a beverage which will be drunk in the halls and palaces of England and Russia, and vines yielding a harvest which will be consumed in the cabarets and estaminets of the neighborhood. It is to be observed, however, that the first-class wines belong almost entirely to the large proprietors. Amid a labyrinth of little patches, the property of the laboring peasants around, will be a spot appertaining to, and bearing the name of, some of the famous growths; while, conversely, inserted, as if by an accident, in the centre of a district of great name, and producing wine of great price, will be a perverse patch, yielding the most commonplace tipple, and worth not so many sous per yard as the surrounding earth is worth crowns.

How comes this? The peasants will tell you that it doesn’t come at all. That it is all cant and blague and puff on the part of the big proprietors, and that their wine is only more thought of because they have more capital to get it bragged about. Near ChÂteau Lafitte, on a burning afternoon, I took refuge beneath the emblematic bush; for the emblem which good wine is said not to require, is still, in the mid and southern districts of France, in universal use; in other words, I entered a village public-house.

Two old men, very much of the general type of the people of the country—that is, tall and spare, with intelligent and mildly-expressive faces and fine black eyes, were discussing together a sober bottle. One of them had lost an arm, and the other a leg. As I glanced at this peculiarity, the one-legged man caught my eye.

“Ah!” he said, “looking at our misfortunes; I left my leg on Waterloo.”

“And I,” chimed in his companion, “left my arm at Trafalgar.”

“SacrÉ!” said the veteran of the land. “One of the cursed English bullets took me in the knee, and spoiled as tight a lancer as they had in the gallant 10th.”

“And I,” rejoined the other, “was at the fourth main-deck gun of the Pluton, when I was struck with the splinter while we were engaging the Mars. But we had our revenge. The Pluton shot the Mars’ captain’s head off!”—a fact which I afterward verified. Captain Duff, the officer alluded to, was thus killed upon his quarter-deck, and the same ball shattered two seamen almost to pieces.

“SacrÉ!” said the ci-devant lancer, “I’d like to have a rap at the English again—I would—the English—nom de tonnerre—tell me—didn’t they murder the emperor!”

A rising smile, which I could not help, stopped him. I had spoken so few words, that the fact that a son of perfide Albion was before them was only manifested by the expression of my face.

“Tiens!” continued the Waterloo man, “You are an Englishman.”

The old sailor, who was evidently by no means so keen a hand as his comrade, nudged him; a hint, I suppose, in common phrase, to draw it mild; but the ex-lancer of the 10th was not to be put down.

“Well, and if you are, what then, eh? I say I would like to have another brush with you.”

“No, no! We have had enough of brushes!” said the far more pacific man of the sea. “I think, mon voisin—that you and I have had quite enough of fighting.”

“But they killed the emperor. SacrÉ nom de tous les diables—they killed the emperor.”

My modest exculpation on behalf of Great Britain and Ireland was listened to with great impatience by the maimed lancer, and great attention by the maimed sailor, who kept up a running commentary:

“Eh! eh! entendez cela. Now, that’s quite different (to his friend) from what you tell us. Come—that’s another story altogether; and what I say is, that that’s reasonable.”

But the lancer was not to be convinced—“SacrÉ bleu!—they killed the emperor.”

All this, it is to be observed, passed without the slightest feeling of personal animosity. The lancer, who, I suspect, had passed the forenoon in the cabaret, every now and then shook hands with me magnanimously, as to show that his wrath was national—not individual; and when I proposed a bottle of rather better wine than they had been drinking neither soldier nor sailor had a word to say in objection. The wine was brought, and very good it was, though not, of course, first-class claret.

“What do you think of that?” said the sailor.

“I wish I had as good every day in England,” I replied.

“And why haven’t you?” said the fierce lancer. “You might, if you chose. But you drink none of our wines.”

I demurred to this proposition, but the Waterloo man was down on me in no time. “Yes, yes; the wines of the great houses—the great proprietors. SacrÉ—the farceurs—the blageurs—who puff their wines, and get them puffed, and great prices for them, when they’re not better than ours—the peasant’s wines—when they’re grown in the same ground—ripened by the same sun! Mille diables! Look at that bottle!—taste it! My son-in-law grew it! My son-in-law sells it; I know all about it. You shall have that bottle for ten sous, and the Lafitte people and the Larose people would charge you ten francs for it; and it is as good for ten sous as theirs for ten francs. I tell you it grew side by side with their vines; but they have capital—they have power. They crack off their wines, and we—the poor people!—we, who trim and dig and work our little patches—no one knows any thing about us. Our wine—bah!—what is it? It has no name—no fame! Who will give us francs? No, no; sous for the poor man—francs for the rich. Copper for the little landlord; silver—silver and gold for the big landlord! As our curÉ said last Sunday: ‘Unto him who has much, more shall be given.’ SacrÉ Dieu de dieux!—Even the Bible goes against the poor!”

All this time, the old sailor was tugging his comrade’s jacket, and uttering sundry deprecatory ejaculations against such unnecessary vehemence. The Trafalgar man was clearly a take-it-easy personage; not troubled by too much thinking, and by no means a professional grievance-monger. So he interposed to bring back the topic to a more soothing subject, and said that what he would like, would be to see lots of English ships coming up the Gironde with the good cottons and woollens and hardware we made in England, and taking back in exchange their cheap and wholesome wines—not only the great vintages (crus) for the great folk, but the common vintages for the common folk. “Indeed, I think,” he concluded, “that sitting here drinking this good ten sous’ wine with this English gentleman—who’s going to pay for it—is far better than fighting him and hacking him up, or his hacking us up, with swords and balls and so forth.”

To this most sensible opinion we had all the pains in the world to get the doughty lancer to incline. He couldn’t see it at all. He would like to have another brush. He wasn’t half done for yet. It was all very well; but war was grand, and glory was grand. “Vive la guerre!” and “Vive la gloire!”

“But,” said the sailor, “there is death in glory!”

“Eh bien!” shouted the warrior, with as perfect French sentiment as ever I heard, “Vive la mort!”

In the end, however, he was pleased to admit that, if we took the peasant wines, something might be made of us. The case was not utterly hopeless; and when I rose to go, he proposed a stirrup-cup—a coup de l’itrier—to the washing down of all unkindness; but, in the very act of swallowing it, he didn’t exactly stop, but made a motion as if he would, and then slowly letting the last drop run over his lips, he put down the glass, and said, bitterly and coldly, “Mais pourtant, vous avez tuÉ l’Empereur!”

I have introduced this episode principally for the purpose of showing the notions entertained by the small proprietary as to the boasted superiority of the large vineyards; but the plain truth is, that the great growers are perfectly in the right. I have stated that the quality of the soil throughout the grape country varies almost magically. Well, the good spots have been more or less known since Medoc was Medoc; and the larger and richer residents have got them, by inheritance, by marriage, and by purchase, almost entirely into their own hands. Next they greatly improved both the soil and the breed of plants. They studied and experimentalized until they found the most proper manures and the most promising cultures. They grafted and crossed the vine plants till they got the most admirably bearing bushes, and then, generation after generation, devoting all their attention to the quality of the wine, without regard to the quantity—scrupulously taking care that not a grape which is unripe or over-ripe finds its way into the tub.

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BY WM. ALEXANDER.

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BY MRS. JULIA C. E. DORR.

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