now and then in his cups, Jean is quite as
often in his glasses.

John Barleycorn is an ephemeral being,
bodily, though his blood renders him
immortal in point of fact. Comparatively
pigmy, too, in stature, being rarely, if ever,
quite tall enough to make a French
foot-soldier of. The term of Jean Raisin's life
occasionally approaches the antediluvian
standard. In a comfortable home, he is half
a Methuselah. His growth, like that of the
cartilaginous fishes, appears to be indefinitely
extensible, varying like those fantoccini
which change from a dwarf to a giant at
pleasure. Here, he is seldom more than
three or four feet high; but in Italy I have
seen him as tall as an elm, with arms long
enough to reach from tree to tree. In
another well-authenticated instance, a body
as big round as that of a full-grown man,
with limbs capable of sustaining a weight
equivalent to that of four thousand fine
bunches of grapes, must be allowed to be a
tolerably fair specimen of vigour and
capability. For further particulars (price
six-pence) apply at the vinery, Hampton Court.

Hurrah, then, for Jean Raisin! for the
generous grape; for the noble vine! Hurrah,
too, for the golden Barleycorn! the
dulcet malt, the invigorating ale and porter!
No longer let them envy each other's fame,
but shake hands and be friends, standing
shoulder to shoulder on every French and
English sideboard without a shadow of
ill-will or jealousy! Burton-on-Trent shall
exchange wares with Bordeaux; pale ale
shall restore the tone of the millions of
French stomachs that long for bitters; while
claret and burgundy, and the wines of the
south, at last uncorked for the multitude,
shall cause fevers and agues to loose their
hold on many a hard-worked Englishman's
frame, and—true, though you may call it
disgusting—free many an English child from
intestinal worms.

Jean Raisin's forest is the land of good
cheer. Fancy, not a small stage-coachman,
but the coachman of a small stage-coach,
quartering peaches and soaking them in
burgundy, as his ordinary dessert during the
first days of October! We observe this while
picking a partridge and quaffing much better
than ordinary wine at tenpence a bottle.
Wine for breakfast, wine for dinner, and
wine again, if you like it, for supper. But
people hearing talk of the price of French
wines in France, imagine that a bottle of the
genuine article goes as far as port and sherry
in England. Alas! no. It does not burn
half so big a hole in your stomach when you
swallow it. It may be, and consequently is,
absorbed in immensely greater quantities
without any harm done. Some English go
so far as to say that it is wasting your time
to try to get drunk with it. As a matter of
amusement, there are certain public-houses
where they ask you whether you will drink
by the bottle or the hour. The afternoon's
diversion generally costs much about the
same, whichever mode of measurement you
may decide upon; the only difference being
that what you gain in quantity you lose in
quality, and vice-versa.

Nowhere are the cooks less liable to the
charge of being satanic emissaries for the
purpose of spoiling the gifts of Heaven, than
in Jean's dominions. But nowhere have cooks
such materials to deal with. It is true that
Lower Burgundy possesses a breed of pigs
whose proportions are the reverse of the
came-leopard's, inasmuch as they slope down with
a steep descent from the insertion of the tail
to the nape of the neck. A herd of Tonnerre
pigs, when standing still, resemble a collection
of letters A. They would gain no prize at
the Birmingham show; but that does not
hinder them from making excellent pig-meat.
The sheep are better than are usually seen in
France, being evidently a collateral branch
of our own Southdown family. Their
cutlets, washed down with a glass of sparkling
Eperneuil, are popularly believed to
be restorative of the traveller's strength
after a long day's journey. The very
house-doors manifest the gaminess of
Raisinland, by hanging out inviting bell-pulls
made of roe-deer's feet and ankles. The
game of the vineyards is the most exquisite
in the world. Grapes communicate to
the creatures which have once tasted them,
a succulence of flesh and a superiority of
flavour, which indisputably promote them
to the place of honour, upon whatever table
they deign to appeal. Nothing on earth is
comparable to the fig-pecker of the
vineyards, who requires not that we should
fatten him, like the lazy ortolan. The fig-pecker
is a marvel of plumpness and
delicacy, of whom it has been observed that,
if he had the stature of the turkey, no
fortune in the world would be large enough
to purchase him at the price he deserves.
Nothing comes near the fig-peckers of the
vineyards, unless it be the quail of the
vineyards, the thrush of the vineyards
(and, faut des grives on prend des merles
—when thrushes run short, we are glad
to get blackbirds), and the pheasant of the
vineyards. Observe, there is not the slightest
proof that the fig-pecker and the quail fatten
on the grapes. It is a well-known fact that
both those succulent species frequent the
vines for some insectivorous and frugivorous
motive, and that their sojourn thereamong
has the property of improving their flesh.
Bees, too, abound in Burgundy. What
beautiful honey the vine-blossoms make!

Vine-leaves, wrapped round roasting
pigeons and quails, and so impregnated with
the gravy, become themselves a dainty morsel.
The goats whose milk is made use of to
manufacture the famous Mont d'Or cheese,
are fed on vineleaves that have been pounded,
pressed, and salted down according to a