UNCHANGED amidst the petty mu- deipnosophism.Above the rest, let tabilities of rank and station, I still THE Bottle, and all that pertains to claim it, dear North, as my peculiar it, be my proper concern.

Here in privilege, to review, in your work, all deed I am great. If Barrow, as being books allied in any way whatever to himself a practised traveller, is fitted the two great sister sciences of eat- more than any other of our tribe for ing and drinking. Blackwood's Maga- discussing the vagaries of the Parrys, zine is the place, and mine is the pen, the Vauxes, the Basil Halls, the Fanny imprimis, xat'e&oxnv, and par excellence, Wrights, the Edward Daniell Clarkes, consecrated to the discussion of all and the John Rae Wilsons of our such delightful themes. Let the Quar- time-Surely I have at least as unterly rejoice in the noble art of boiling questionable a title for predominating down into a portable essence, the dif- over all that is connected with the cire fusive lucubrations of all voyagers by cumvolutions of the decanters. It is land or sea : let old Blue and Yellow recorded by Athenæus, that Darius, keep unpoached the jungles and jug- the great Darius, commanded them gleries of political economy: let The to inscribe upon his tombstone these Writer Tam glorify himself in Jem memorable, and even sublime words : Smith's quaint little ditties, and his « ΗΔΥΝΑΜΗΝ ΚΑΙ ΟΙΝΟΝ ΠΙΝΕΙΝ ΠΟΛΥΝ brother's quaint little criticisms on the ΚΑΙ ΤΟΥΤΟΝ ΦΕΡΕΙΝ ΚΑΛΩΣ :” which minora moralia of Harley Street, and signify, being interpreted : Gower Street: let the London flourish lies Darius the King, who drank three on the misty dreams of the opium- bottles every day, and never had a eater, and lay down the law unques- headach in his life." I flatter myself tioned as to the drinking up both of that my epitaph might tell a similar eisel and laudanum: sacred to th story, without any impeachment of its quackeries of the quack-doctors, be the veracity. pungent pages of the Scalpel : let John The volume now in my eye, then, Bull vibrate his hornsad libitum, among belongs in an especial manner to my the merciful bowels of Mr Zachariah province. At first, on perceiving it to Macaulay: and let the Examiner be be a bulky quarto, you may be inclined great, as of old, in the region of second- to hesitate as to this: but when you rate players, and fifth-rate painters. put on your spectacles, and discover Let each man buckle his own belt, ac- that the title is “ The History of cording to the adage, and that in his Wines, Ancient and Modern, your own way: but let me unbuckle mine, scruples will evanish as easily as do the and luxuriate in the dear, the dainty, cobwebs of a Jeffrey beneath the bethe delicate, paradisaical department of som of a Tickler. Turn over these

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* The History of Ancient and Modern Wines. London : Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy. 1824. Vol. XVI.

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costly pages, dear sir, and feast your dle ages, for one that will bother his eyes with the delicious vignettes, that head with the small Italian republics ever and anon glance out from between of the same era : We would rather the leaves, like the ruby clusters of have luminous notions touching the Bacchus himself, glowing amidst the precise nature of the liquor which Sir foliage of some tall marriageable elm, or John Falstaff quaffed, than the secret stately poplar ; pause upon these ex- intrigues which brought Charles the quisite gems; contemplate the rosy First to the scaffold : and, great as is god in each and all of these five thou

our respect for Mr Langan, there is sand attitudes : worship him where, still another claret which possesses franticand furious, he tosses the thyrsus claims upon our sympathies, far, far amidst the agitated arms of his con- above that which has of late flowed so gregated Mænades : adore him where, copiously from his potatoe-trap. This proudly seated upon the rich skins of work, in a word, is fitted to interest the monsters whom he subdued, he and delight, not one class of students, pours out the foaming cup of wine and but all. The classical scholar will here wisdom before the eyes of savage men, find the best of all commentaries on whom the very scent of the ethereal the most delightful passages of those stuff hath already half civilized : envy delightful writers, whom he is accushim, where beneath the thick shadow tomed to turn over with a daily and of his own glorious plant, he with one a nightly hand: he will speculate upon hand twines the ivy wreath around the the flavour that a Nestor loved, and ivory brows of Ariadne, and with the sit in erudite judgment over the benother approximates the dew of divi- most binns of a Nero. The English -nity to the lips of beauty. Feast, antiquarian will enjoy the flood of revel, riot in the elegance of these una light that streams upon the joyous rivalled cameos, and when you have pages of Ben Jonson : verdea will no saturated your eye with forms that longer puzzle the Giffords, nor Petere might create a thirst beneath the ribs

sameen be a stumbling-block to the of gout, and draw three corks out of Nareses.* The man of science will anone bottle--then, 0 Christopher ! and alyse the effervescence of Sheeraz: the not till then, will you be in a fit con- Physician will hear the masterly dedition for understanding the profound fence of Claret against the charge of feelings of respect, and grateful attach- goutification, and return humanized to ment, with which it is now my agree- the exercises of his calling : the eccleable duty to introduce to your acquain- siastical historian will mourn with Dr tance, and that of “ my public,” the Henderson over the injuries done to learnedly luxurious Dissertations of my the Medoc and the Cote d'or by the good friend, and jolly little compota- suppression of the monastic establishtor, Dr Alexander Henderson.

menţs of France: the lover of light The Doctor is, absque omni dubio, the reading will find the charms of rofirst historian of our age. He unites mance united with the truth and digin his single person the most admira- nity of history: The saint will have ble qualifications of all theother masters no lack of sighing, as he glances his in this great branch of literature, who

grave eye over the records of human now lend lustre to the European he- debauchery, and at the same time, he misphere-the extensive erudition of may, in passing, pick up a hint or two a Ranken-the noble self-reliance and that will be of use at the next dinner audacious virtue of a Brodie--the ele- of the African Association: The con, gant style of a Sismondi--and the prac- scious wine-merchant will read and tical sense of an Egan. In many re- tremble : and every good fellow, from spects, to be sure, the superiority he George the Fourth, down to Michael displays may be referred to the im- Angelo the Second, will read and rem mense superiority and unapproachable joice. merits of the theme he has chosen. It was in England only, and perThe history of the Cellar of Burgundy haps in this age of England, that a is a matter of infinitely more impro- work of this complete and satisfactory ving nature than that of the House of description could have been prepared. the same name: a thousand will take We produce no wines, and we are the profound interest in a dissertation up- great consumers of all the best wines on the sack and hippocras of the mid- of the globe. We are free from the

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* The Pedro-Ximenes is the name of the best Malaga grape.

violent prejudices, therefore, which ton; that binds the laurel on a Hogg induce the man of the Marne to turn without robbing the brows of a Hesiup his nose at the flask of him of the od_and thirsts

for Lord Byron's autoLoire, and vice versa. We look down biography without offering to sacrifice as from a higher and a calmer region, for its purchase, either the veracities upon all the noisy controversies about of a Rock, or the decencies of a Fau. the rival claims of the Lyonnais and blas. the Bordelais, the Mayne and the On a work, sir, such as yours, calRhein-gau. We can do equal justice culated for extensive and popular cirto the sweets of Malaga, and Rousil- culation, it would ill become an india lon, and despise the narrow-minded vidual like myself, to obtrude much bigotry which sets up either Madeira matter of a recondite and obscure oror Sherry at the expense of the other's der, or adapted to the intellectual taste ancestral stimulancy,

of particular classes of readers only. In former days, indeed, we partook, Allow me, therefore, to pass lightly however absurdly, in the paltry pre

over the dissertations with which this judices which we now spurn with our volume opens, touching the various heels. Time was when we were all vintages of the nations of antiquity. for the Cyprus-time was also when In truth, even the genius and erudi. we were all for the Xeres grape tion of a Henderson have been able to time was when little or nothing would scatter but an imperfect ray over subgo down with us but Hockamore-and jects, mantled, as these are, with the time was when even Rhedycina's learn- shades of a long night of nearly two ed bowers resounded to strains not sim- thousand years' duration. It is still, ply laudative of Oporto, but vitupera- we must admit, dubious whether the tive and vilipensive of Bourdeaux. wine that Telemachus drew out of the

We have outlived these follies. We cellars of his royal father partook more are now completely of the liberal school of the nature of port or of sherry. The of winebibbing: our grandsire's dumpy Homeric epithet of Black may mean black bottle of sherry leaves the vicinity either the deep hue inalienable from of the oven, and stands in friendlyjux- the juice of the purple grape, or the ta-position with the long-neckex of five fine grave tinge merely which wines year old demi-mousseur, and the dous that are called white acquire, in con bly-iced juice of Schloss-Johannisberg sequence of being kept for several that has been buried in the caveof caves lustres, whether in glass bottles, acever since the great era of The Reform- cording to the modern custom, or in ation. The native of the Alto-Douro is earthen jars, after the manner of the contented to precede him of the Gas heroic ages. That Nestor, however, ronne, as some sturdy pioneer trudges drank, during the battle with which in proud solemnity before the march of the 13th book of the Iliad opens,

wine a battalion of Voltigeurs. The coup- both of a red and of a strong sort, is de-milieu of Constantia or Frontignac indisputable. The epithets of difwat forms an agreeable link between the and équgpos are used together in the same Sillery, which has washed down the line, and their significancy is clear and venison, and the Hock, which is to obvious to the most German capacity. add pungency to the partridge-pie. Dido, again, when she gave her first We take Chambertin to the omelet, grand dinner to the Trojan prince, apand Sauterne to the tart. In a word, pears to have sported something near we do justice to the boundless muni- akin to champagne. ficence of nature, and see no more harm

"IMPIGER hausit in imbibing white wine and red wine,

SPUMANTEM pateram.” dry wine and sweet wine, still wine and sparkling wine, during the same The epithet impiger is admirably repast, than we would in doing homage chosen, since the act is that of swallowwithin the same fortnight to the ripe ing sparkling, or right mousseux wine luxuries of a Ronzi de Begnis, the airy --for a spumans patera can hardly be graces of a Mercandotti, the vigorous supposed to mean, in the mouth of a charms of a Vestris, and the meek mo- writer so chaste as Virgil, anything dest radiance of a Maria Tree. This short of that. He would not have talk speaks the spirit of the same unfetter- ed of that as foaming, which, in point ed age that can love a Virgil as well of fact, merely creamed ; and while the as worship a Homer; that places the rapidity of quaffing a cup of foaming bust of a Dante beside that of a Mil champagne cannot be too great, since

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