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But for all earth's acres there are few Sabine farms, whither poet, sage, and statesman come to lose in the murmur of Bandusian founts the din of faction and of strife; and even there it is not always Cæcuban or Calenian, neither Formian nor Falernian, but the vile Sabinum in common cups and wreathed with simple myrtle, that bubbles up its welcome.
"We shall build a fire." "I have no fire." "Then we shall have our talk in the darkness, like two friends. I think thou wilt find a bottle of wine." "I have no wine." The Roman laughed. "Now I see why thou art so somber and dislikest thy second life. No wine! Why, then we shall do without it: there are words that make the head go round better than the Falernian."
I should think there are few places where vineyards exist so abundantly, yet wine-making seems an industry little understood in modern Italy; or has the flavour of her grapes undergone a change? Who can forget the famous Falernian, quaffed by the emperors of Rome? At the present day, Italian wines, cheap and abundant as they may be, are certainly poor in quality.
Imagine him here the very end of the world, a sea the colour of lead, a sky the colour of smoke, a kind of ship about as rigid as a concertina and going up this river with stores, or orders, or what you like. Sand-banks, marshes, forests, savages, precious little to eat fit for a civilized man, nothing but Thames water to drink. No Falernian wine here, no going ashore.
And on the instant, the master—for they dared trust no slaves—bore in two earthen vases, one of strong Chian from the Greek Isle of the Egean, the other of Falernian, the fruitiest and richest of the Italian wines, not much unlike the modern sherry, but having still more body, and many cyathi, or drinking cups; but he brought in no water, wherewith the more temperate ancients were wont to mix their heady wines, even in so great a ratio as nine to one of the generous liquor.
We took our places, as requested, and began with a wonderful first course. We were all but submerged in Falernian wine. When several other courses had followed, and we were endeavoring to keep awake Quartilla exclaimed, "How dare you think of going to sleep when you know that the vigil of Priapus is to be kept?"
He samples the Falernian vintage and pronounces it to be "particularly good, and not degenerated." Arrived at Cutro, he is not averse to reviving his spirits with "a pretty fair modicum of wine." He also lets slip significant detail the fact that Dr. Henderson was one of his friends, and that he travelled about with him. You may judge a man by the company he keeps. Who was this Dr. Henderson?
He, who skillfully mixes the Surrentine wine with Falernian lees, collects the sediment with a pigeon's egg: because the yelk sinks to the bottom, rolling down with it all the heterogeneous parts.
Was Rome more glorious with her fine roads and tables of thuja-root, and Falernian wines, and oysters from the Lucrine Lake, and chariots of silver, and robes of purple and rings of gold, these useful blessings which are the pride of an Epicurean civilization?
The Latin with the addition of the Privernian land; and the Falernian land, which had belonged to the people of Campania, as far as the river Vulturnus, is all distributed to the commons of Rome.
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