h is prejudicial to health. For example, green
wine is very bad; this Guilleaume Cretin[1], a great punster, has
expressed in these verses, which, I own, I am not able to put into
English:--

"Par ce vin verds Atropos a trop os
Des corps humains ruez envers en vers
Dont un quidam apre aux pots a propos
A fort blame les tours pervers en vers."

Good wine, on the contrary, has very good effects. Erasmus[2] preserved
himself from the plague, by drinking a glass of Burgundy at a proper
season.

You see now the efficacy of good wine, which, to be in its perfection,
the adepts in the free-schools of Liber Pater say, must have these four
properties, and please these four senses:-- the taste by its savour, the
smell by its flavour, the sight by its clean and bright colour, and the
ear by the fame of the country where it grows. Old wine was looked upon
to be the best by the ancients.

A beauty, when advanc'd in age,
No more her lovers can engage;
But wine, the rare advantage, knows,
It pleases more, more old it grows.

And were they never so old themselves, they would still, if possible,
have the wine older than they were. _Nec cuiquam adeo longa erat vita,
ut non ante se genita potaret_[3]. Which these words of Seneca[4] also
confirm, "Why at your house do you drink wine older than yourself? _Cur
apud te vinum apud te vetustius bibitur._"

Martial says, "Do you ask me of what consulate this wine is? It was
before there were any consuls in the world.

"De sinuessanis venerunt massica praelis:
Condita quo quaeris consule? nullus erat."[4a]

At present the fame of the best wine in Europe is reckoned to be, that
of Monte Fiascone, two days journey from Rome. Here it was a German
abbot killed himself by drinking too much of this delicious creature.
The story is this, and it is related in Lassell's Travels:--

A certain German abbot, travelling to Rome, ordered his servant to ride
before him, and when he found the best wine, to chalk upon the door of
the inn (in order to save time) the word _EST_. Coming to Monte
Fiascone, he found it so excellent, that he put down, _Est, Est, Est_,
which the abbot finding true, drank so plentifully of it, that he went
no farther on his journey, but lies buried, they say, in the cathedral
church, with this epitaph, written by his servant the purveyor.

Est, Est, Est,
et
Propter nimium Est,
Herus meus Dominus Abbas
mortu