ou have had them before you, and tasted them.
Duly to celebrate these noble streams, from the light Laubenheimer to
the strong Nierensteiner, the mighty Ruedesheimer and the profound
Hochheimer, with all their kindred floods, is a task to which there
belongs more than the tongue of a Redi, who in his Tuscan Dithyrambic
has raved but indifferently. These spirits pass down the palate pure
and clear, refreshing the sense and refining the faculties. If I should
illustrate them, it would be by the calm maturity of first-rate
writers,--warmth and richness, without extravagance of fancy and
dreaming allegory. What is the hotter Burgundy to him who can bear it?
It descends into us like immediate inspiration; heavy, sanguine and
violent, it rouses our spirits. The wine of Bourdeaux, on the other
hand, is cheerful, loquacious; enlivens, but does not inspire. More
luxuriant and quaint are the creations of Provence and the poetical
Languedoc. Then comes hot Spain, with its Sherries and right Malaga,
and the glowing wines of Valencia. Here the wine-stream, as we taste
it, transforms itself upon our palate into a globular shape, which
rounds and widens more and more, and in Tokay and St. Georgen-Ausbruch
it assumes this appearance still more substantially and emphatically.
How are mouth and palate and the whole sense of pleasure filled by a
single drop of the most generous Cape wine! These wines the connoisseur
must only sip and palate, and not drink like our noble Rhenish. What am
I to say of you, ye sweetest growths of Italy, and particularly of
Tuscany, thou most spirited Monte-Fiascone, thou truly melting
Monte-Pulciano? Well, taste then, my friends, and understand me! But
thee I could not produce, thee, king of all wines, thee, roseate
Aleatico, flower and essence of all the spirit of wine, milk and wine,
bloom and sweetness, fire and softness together! This curiosity is not
to be drunk, tasted, sipped, or palated; but the man who is blest with
it unfolds a new organ, which may not be described to the ignorant and
sober."--Here he broke off with emotion, and dried his eyes.

"So then my presentiment was right," cried Dietrich with enthusiasm:
"this is in the realm of wine, what old Eyck or Hemling, perhaps too
brother Giovanni di Fiesole, are among painters. Such is the relish of
that sweetly moving and deep colouring, which without shade is still so
true, without white so dazzling and thrilling. So does the purple of
their drap