THE VINE. 2^ 



Under the feudal tenures, when the serfs were often 

 suddenly compelled to follow their lords to battle, 

 husbandry, particularly the growth of grain, was 

 fearfully neglected ; and sometimes the most dreadful 

 famines were the result. The prices of wheat occa- 

 sionally fluctuated from ten shillings to twenty pounds 

 per quarter. But when just principles of tenancy 

 were established, so that the occupier of the land 

 could be sure of appropriating to himself a fair pro- 

 portion of the fruit of his labour, agriculture began 

 to flourish. The cultivation of hops was revived or 

 introduced about the end of the fifteenth century. 

 All these circumstances — the decay of the vineyards, 

 the encouragement to the growth of grain, and the 

 culture of hops — gradually tended to supersede the 

 demand for wine, by offering a beverage to the people 

 which was cheaper, and perhaps as exhilarating. Rit- 

 son, a celebrated antiquar)', has preserved a rude 

 ballad of this period in praise of that beverage which 

 was becoming the national favourite : — 



*' Bryng us home no sydyr, nor no palde wyne ; 



For an that thou do shall have Cryst's curse and mine : 

 But bryng us home good ale, and bryng us home good ale, 

 And for our der lady's love bryng us home good ale." 



We understand that on the southern coast of De- 

 vonshire, possessing the mildest temperature of the 

 English counties, there are still two or three vine- 

 yards, from which wine is commonly made. A vine- 

 yard at the castle of Arundel, on the south coast of 

 Sussex, Avas planted about the early part of the last 

 century, and of the produce there are reported to 

 have been sixty pipes of wine in the cellars of the 

 Duke of Norfolk, in 1763. This wine is said to have 

 resembled Burgundy; but the kind of grape and the 

 mode of culture have not been particularly recorded. 

 Whatever may have been the condition and qualities 

 of the early English grapes employed ia making 



