NORTHERN TOUR. 137 



At the hour of six precisely, we found ourselves at the dinner 

 table, no bad finish to a long morning's work. But independently 

 of mere animal gratification, it was here that I had the pleasure 

 of discerning the flattering estimate my host had formed of his 

 stranger guest. Not only was I commanded by him, when 

 dinner was announced, to offer my arm to his lady, in the presence 

 of two, my superiors in rank, but he had ordered his butler to 

 produce a bottle of wine, and as he informed me, nearly the last 

 of such wine perhaps as could scarcely be matched in Europe. It 

 was the wine of Syracuse such as we may conclude Archimedes, 

 who was born there, may have drunk, or Cicero in his /Edileship 

 that had been in the cellar of himself and his ancestors exactly 

 one hundred and one years ! ! Very old and very bad wine are, 

 generally speaking, synonymous words ; but here was a striking 

 exception to the rule. This wine had not only not lost its 

 strength, but there was a richness of flavour scarcely to be ex- 

 pected in wine>of such an age, and not wanting in aroma, or 

 what the French call " bouquet." What the original colour of 

 Syracuse wine may be, I know not, but this resembled sherry, 

 with somewhat of a brown hue. Mr. Cyrus Redding, in his 

 history and description of modern wines, says, the wines of 

 Sicily are good and strong. Of what strength must this have 

 been when it first came from the vat ? In the time of the elder 

 Pliny, we are told there was wine selling at four pounds, of our 

 money, per ounce, by reason of its having been made during the 

 consulship of Opimus, and consequently a century older than 

 that of the Laird of Mellerstain ! This, however, must have been 

 of a rare quality, for it was Pliny's opinion that, speaking gene- 

 rally, wine was not fit to drink after its twentieth year. " Non 

 alia res majus incrementum sentit ad vigesimum annum, majus- 

 que ab eo dispendium." 



There is no more exhilarating sight than a large and affluent 

 family living together in a state of unreserved unity and affection. 

 No wonder it has been styled the "precious ointment," which 

 brightens everything by its presence, or " the dew of Hermon," 

 which refreshes as it falls, for its price is not known until it is 

 lost, and then it is often looked for again in vain. This agreeable 

 picture is to be seen in the family of which I am now speaking, 

 and in colours of the brightest hue. It is true nature has fixed 

 the limits of youth, beauty, and vigour ; but, thank heaven, she 

 has not set bounds either to the cheerfulness of the spirits, or to 

 the gaiety of the heart ; and a merrier party was never assembled 

 than that of which I had the pleasure on this day to form one 

 within the walls of Mellerstain. It was not "song on song 

 deceived the night," but story after story, anecdote after anecdote, 



