576 pPant Tsor©, Tseger^/, and T9ljp1c/. 



Janus bore it with him to Latium ; Osiris similarly benefitted 

 Egypt ; and Spain obtained it through Geryon, her most ancient 

 monarch. Old traditions all point to Greece as the native place 



of the Vine, and there it is still to be found growing wild. There 



are many allusions to the Vine in the Scriptures. Noah, we find, 

 planted a Vineyard (Gen. ix., 20) ; enormous bunches of Grapes 

 were brought by the Israelitish spies out of Palestine ; Solomon 

 had a Vineyard at Baalhamon. *' He let out the Vineyard unto 

 keepers ; every one for the fruit thereof was to bring one thousand 

 pieces of silver " (Cant, viii., 11). The Bible contains many illus- 

 trations borrowed from the husbandry of the Vineyard, showmg 

 that Vine culture was sedulously pursued, and formed a fruitful 

 source of wealth. In Leviticus xxv., 4, 5, we find a command that 

 every seventh year the Vines were to be left untouched by the 



pruning knife, and the Grapes were not to be gathered. Of the 



ancient pagan writers who have alluded to the Vine in their works, 

 Cato has left abundant information as to the Roman Vine-craft, 

 and Columella, Varro, Palladius, Pliny, and Tacitus have all given 

 details of the Vine culture of the ancients. More than sixty 

 varieties of the Vine appear to have been known to the Greeks and 

 Romans, one of which, called by Columella and Pliny the Amethys- 

 tine, has certainly been lost, for they record that the wine from its 



Grapes never occasioned drunkenness. The Elm was preferred 



to any other tree by the ancients as a prop for Vines, and this con- 

 nexion has led to numerous fanciful notices by the poets of all 

 ages. Statins calls it the " Nuptial Elm;" Ovid speaks of " the 

 lofty Elm, with creeping Vines o'erspread ;" Tasso says : — 



" As the high Elm, whom his dear Vine hath twined 

 Fast in her hundred arms, and holds embraced, 

 Bears down to earth his spouse and darling kind, 

 If storm or cruel steel the tree down cast. 

 And her full grapes to nought doth bruise and grind, 

 Spoils his own leaves, faints, withers, dies at last, 

 And seems to mourn and die, not for his own 

 But for her loss, with him that lies o'erthrown." — Fairfax. 



Beaumont tells us that — 



"The amorous Vine, 

 Did with tlie fair and straight-limbed Elm entwine." 



Cowley speaks of the "beauteous marriageable Vine," and Browne 

 writes of " the amorous Vine that in the Elm still weaves." 

 Horace, however, connects the Vine with the Poplar, instead of the 

 Elm. Milton, describing the pursuits of our first parents in Eden, 

 says : — 



" They led the Vine 



To wed her Elm ; she, spoused, about him twines 



Her marriageable arms, and with her brings 



Her dower, the adopted clusters, to adorn 



His barren leaves." 



In the Mythologie des Plantes, we find it stated that the Persians 

 trace the use of wine in Persia to the reign of the blessed 



