"This is all sunshine," said Flemming, as he drank. "The wine of
the Prince, and the Prince of wines. By the way, did you ever read
that brilliant Italian dithyrambic, Redi's Bacchus in Tuscany? an ode
which seems to have been poured out of the author's soul, as from a
golden pitcher,

`Filled with the wine

Of the vine

Benign,

That flames so red in Sansavine.'

He calls the Montepulciano the king of all wines."

"Prince Metternich," said the Baron, "is greater than any king in
Italy; and I wonder, that this precious wine has never inspired a
German poet to write a Bacchus on the Rhine. Many little songs we
have on this theme, but none very extraordinary. The best are Max
Schenkendorf's Song of the Rhine, and the Song of Rhine Wine, by
Claudius, a poet who never drank Rhenish without sugar. We will
drink for him a blessing on the Rhine."

And again the crystal lips of the goblets kissed each other, with
a musical chime, as of evening bells at vintage-time from the
villages on the Rhine. Of a truth, I do not much wonder, that the
Germanpoet Schiller loved to write by candle-light with a bottle of
Rhine-wine upon the table. Nor do I wonder at the worthy
schoolmaster Roger Ascham, when he says, in one of his letters from