THE VmE WJ5EVIL. 283 



Now, Tvliatever fhe songs of Bacchus may be, it has always 

 appeared to me impossible to see poetry in drunkenness, or 

 rather in the brutified state produced by wine, which trans- 

 forms men as CircS transformed the companions of Ulysses. 



Kiny goes further than Anacreon, with respect to sobriety, 

 even in the weak wine and water of which we have spoken. 

 He tells of a wine with which twenty parts of water were 

 mixed. 



Petronius recommends abstinence to those who are desirous 

 of applying themselves to elevated things. 



" Artis severae si quia amat eflfectus 

 Mentemque magnis applicat, &c." 



I love the vine so much for the richness and elegance of its 

 foliage, and for its beautiful violet and golden clusters of 

 fruit. 



There is a little beetle or weevil which lives upon the vine ; 

 its vestment, although very hard, and rather a cuirass than a 

 vestment, is of a clear green, inclining to blue in the male, 

 sprinkled with gold and silver, in such a manner that it 

 appears to be clothed in magnificent apple-green velvet. It 

 rolls itself up in the leaves of the vine, of which it makes a 

 cornet which it lines with down, and in which it lays its eggs ; 

 from these eggs issue white worms, which pass the winter in 

 the earth. The perfect insect has its head terminated by a 

 point armed with shears, with which it does much injury to 

 the grapes. 



At the extremity of my garden the vine extends in long 

 porticoes, through the arcades of which may be seen trees of 

 all sorts, and foliage of all colours. Here is an azerolier (a 

 small medlar) which is covered in autumn with little scarlet 

 apples, producing the richest eifect. I have given away 

 several grafts of this: far from deriving pleasure from the 

 privation of others, I do my utmost to spread and render 

 common and vulgar all the trees and plants that I prefer ; it 

 is as if I multiplied the pleasure and the chances of beholding 

 them of all who, like me, really love flowers for their splen- 

 dour, their grace, and their perfume. Those who, on the 

 contrary, are jealous of their plants, and only esteem them in 

 proportion with their conviction that nobody else possesses 



