44 THE VINE AND CIVILISATION. 
long by twenty-one feet high. The French satirist Rabelais, 
three centuries ago, likened Gargantua’s salad dish in size to 
the large tun of the friars of the Cistertian order, which tradi- 
tion says was made by order of St. Bernard, represented by 
Althamar in latin verse, and by Sir Thomas Urquhart, as fol- 
lows: 
‘The hag eighth wonder Erpach boasts: a tun 
Of such dimensions that the rolling sun 
It’s ike ne’er saw; a sea of wine it shows, 
And night and day with Bacchus’ nectar flows. 
Call! Bernard, the Cistertians all around 
This vessel gh their annual stores supply, 
Swill Erpach’s monks! make Bacchanalian cheer! 
This es ae no thirst you need not fear 
‘* The German are a distinct class in character from all other 
wines. They are generous, more dry than the French, finely 
flavoured, endure age beyond example, and of late years have 
been much improved in quality by sedulous attention bestowed 
upon their growth and better management of the vintage. The 
wines show a corresponding excellence and average twelve per 
cent. of alcohol, and it is observed that the gout is a disease 
rarely known on the banks of the Rhine, where hardly any 
other wine is drank. 
‘*The whole eastern bank of the Rhine to Lorch, or the | 
Rhinegau, and throughout its whole extent has been remark- 
able for its wines for many centuries. The whole district is a 
delicious wine garden, once the property of the church. In 
_ this favoured region stands the castie or Schloss Johannesberg, 
to which undisputably belongs the head of the Rhenish wines. 
This estate was originally a convent, founded 1106, which held 
it to 1715, since which it has been in possession of the Prince of 
Orange ; in 1807 Napoleon gave it to Marshal Kellerman, who 
