80 The Vine. 



drinking it themselves, nor offering it in libations to the gods. 

 Ovid says :— 



Nor were the gods themselves more safe above, 



Against beleaguered heavens the giants move. 



Hills piled on hills, on mountains, mountains lie, 



To make their mad approaches to the sky, 



Till Jove, no longer patient, took his time 



T' avenge with thunder their audacious crime, 



Red lightning played along the firmament, 



And their demolished works to pieces went, 



Singed with the flames, and with the bolts transfixed, 



With native earth their blood the monsters mixed. 



How strangely distorted, and reversed in the order of time, is 

 this vision of the drunken ness of Noah, and building of the tower of 

 Babel ; and it shows also, in the refusal of the Egyptians to drink 

 wine, how faithfully they remembered and repudiated the un- 

 filial act of Noah's son. Would that their modern descendants 

 were as conscientious as the sons of Jonadab, the Rechabites 

 who, even at the present day, in the East, " drink no wine," and 

 maintain the worship of the true God. 



The Vine is a native of the countries between Persia and 

 India : it was introduced into Greece by the Phoenicians, who 

 brought it there at the instance of some of the great men who 

 were anxious to raise their own wine, and who succeeded well 

 in the attempt ; from thence we hear of its introduction into Eu- 

 rope, some say into Marseilles at first, and afterwards into Eng- 

 land; in which last place it has always been carefully cultivated. 

 It is at present found in every temperate climate on the earth 

 wherever there is any civilisation ; of which it might rank as a 

 characteristic. 



The Vitus Vinifera— -Grape Vine, is a hardy, deciduous 

 climber, bearing queen flowers in June and July. It is charac- 

 terized by its very deeply cut and lobed leaves, sometimes naked, 

 and at others downy, the first prevailing the most. The fine 

 seeds contained in the germen of each of the flowers often lose 

 two or three of their number in ripening ; the great number borne 

 by the Vines often exhausting the strength, not only of the soil, 

 but of the Vine itself. To give it at this time as much aid as 

 possible, the weeds are carefully rooted up, the superabundant 

 branches pruned, and the grass thinned. It is, of course, the 

 emblem of Intoxication. 



