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TOK AY. 269
Tokay is 20 doubt a fine wine, but I think no ways adequate to its
price; there are few of my countrymen, except on account of its
fcarcenefs, who would not prefer to it good claret or burgundy,
whieh do not coft above one-fourth of the price. Some of the {weetith:
Spanith wines, begging its pardon, are in my opinion equally good ;
and unlefs it be very old, it is too fweet for an Englifhman’s palate :.
but, as I have often faid, de guflibus non ef di/putandum ; and. Tihope.
my good Hungarian friends will pardon my want of judgment,
though I know how much they are prepoflefled in favour of their
cara patria and its dear produce. I have heard many of them fay;.
that the worft Hungarian wines were fuperior to the beft French,
How much they have faid about zbeir vegetable gold, found growing
amongft the bunches of grapes, is pretty well known, as this ftory
is to be found. almoft in every Hungarian autlior who has fung the:
praifes of his country, though the gens éclairés pretend not to be¬
eve it. Mr. Groffinger, who within this year or two has written
a large work in Latin upon the natural hiftory of Hungary, gives
this explanation of the colour of the teeth of fheep. “ Si vera
fulgor perennis eff, auro tribui potef, quod im vegetabilibus, Montane
Hungaria delitefit.’ And Mr. Windifh, one of their beft.Geo¬
graphers, fays in a work written about 1780, nay I will write it at
full length, about frventeen hundred and eighty, ich the reader fhould :
think the printer by miftake had put a feven for a four, that rye;
through the excellency of the Hungarian foil, is turned into wheate-‘
But happy are the people who are thus proud of their countrys
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