the stalks to fermentation with the juice of the grape-the latter, by merely using the juice. This explains to us why white wines are lighter and less intoxicating than strong red wines, and, therefore, more grateful and suitable to a weak or deranged stomach. Red wines being pressed, and subjected to a stronger fermentation to extract the colouring principle from the husk, are necessarily more loaded with extractive and astringent matter; and, as this remains in the stomach after the liquid portion is absorbed, it will be liable to occasion disturbance." There are other ingredients in wine, however, which very materially concern all those who drink it; amongst which acid is very conspicuous. In all foreign wines, that is, in those wines which are made from the grape, the acid is the tartaric, in all our made-wines it is the malic: and it has been remarked, that all those wines, which contain an excess of the latter, are of a bad quality, and that they partake of the nature of cider. The quantity of acid contained in wines has been greatly overrated in its effects upon the constitution. What, for instance, is the acid contained in Madeira, against which so many mighty objections have been urged? An atom merely of tartar! And yet the person who fancies that his digestion can be deranged by its action, will swallow twenty times the quantity of the same ingredient in some other shape with perfect indifference and impunity. That model of modern learning and sound sense, Sir Anthony Carlisle, oracularly observes, "long continued and watchful observation induces me to conclude, that the acid qualities of fermented liquors are no less injurious than the spirit which they contain ; and forthwith appears a Table," constructed to exhibit " gross proofs of the relative quantities of free acid in ordinary fermented drinks"—and a precious table it is every way worthy of its manufacturer. He tells that us, moderate sized glassful, containing two ounces (avoirdupois) of Port wine, required for neutralization three grains of Henry's calcined magnesia, or six grains of carbonate of potass, or four grains of subcarbonate of soda, or nine grains of prepared chalk!” Here is "confusion worse confounded," with the doctrine of chemical equivalents! Why, an apprentice to a country druggist, who had ever made up a saline draught, could have told Sir Anthony, that these are not the relative proportions in which such bases could, by any ingenuity, unite with any acid. There is a great deal more nonsense propagated by this erudite philosopher on this subject, but we have neither time nor inclination to tease our readers with it—they will find it fully emblazoned in Sir Anthony's dull “ Essay on the Dis 66 66 a Sir * A word or two, en passant, respecting this luminary of medical science. Anthony Carlisle has been distinguished throughout the whole of his professional career by a most sedulous opposition to all the usual habits and manners of ordinary mortals. He gravely accused an old friend of our's of poisoning a child by the administration of three grains of sugar, which he had used as a vehicle for some more nauseous article; and not long since he amused and edified the elders of Lincoln's Inn Fields, by a lecture of two hours on the anatomy of the oyster! These are innocent pastimes because they expose their own absurdity, and the learned Professor's supreme folly. But a more serious charge stands recorded against him, for having, through the medium of the press, endeavoured to excite the disgust of the public against those professional gentlemen who practise as accoucheurs. Sir Anthony, we know, is a conceited old gentleman; and so long as he confines the "comforts of his conceitedness" to the eschewing of sugar, and the mangling of oysters, well and good: but let him not hope to obtain renown by depreciating the talents, the virtues, and the honesty of those, who may be superior to him in moral attributes, and professional excellences. orders of Old Age," a work admirably calculated to produce the most soporific effects upon its readers. One circumstance, connected with vicious acidity, we may just mention, -we allude to its supposed influence in exciting gout. This result has been too exclusively attributed to the acid effects of wine; as we well know that an excess of any kind, whether in diet or exercise, will often bring on a paroxysm in one who is subject to the malady. "When the train is laid," says Dr. Paris, an additional glass of claret may have acted as the match; but in all such cases, the explosion would have equally taken place, had, instead of claret, some other exciting cause fired it:" and in this opinion every sensible man will cordially agree-except Sir Anthony Carlisle. 66 But, after all, the "characteristic ingredient" in wine is the Alcohol, or spirituous property; the proportion of which, in different wines, is regulated by the mode of manufacture. When the proportion of sugar is sufficient, and the fermentation complete, the wine is perfect and generous : if the quantity of sugar be too large, part of it remains undecomposed, and the wine is sweet and luscious: if, on the contrary, it be too small, the wine is thin and weak. Mr. Brande, with his accustomed ingenuity, has elucidated some very curious information on the relative proportion of alcohol in fermented liquors. Drs. Henderson and Prout have, also, devoted a good deal of time to similar pursuits, and Dr. Paris has given a table, illustrative of the result of their experiments. From this table, it seems that Port, Madeira, and Sherry, contain very nearly the same quantity of alcohol; while Claret, Hock, and Burgundy, contain but little more than half so much; Frontigniac and Champagne still less, while Raisin wine is stronger than any other. Of the spirits, Rum is strongest, then Brandy, and Hollands. Of malt liquors, the ratio is Ale, Stout, Porter*; Cyder, Perry, and Elder wine, being a degree above them. This table refers, of course, to genuine, unmixed wine; and we ought to state, that the stronger wines of Spain, Portugal, and Sicily, are rendered marketable in this country by the addition of brandy, and must, consequently, contain more or less uncombined spirit, according to the taste or fancy of the adulterator: this manipulation, in technical language, is called "fretting." Malt liquors differ from wines in several essential points: they contain more nutritive matter, and less spirit; they are also characterized by a peculiar bitter and narcotic principle, derived from the hop. The extractive matter furnished by the malt is highly nutritive; and we, accordingly, find, that those persons addicted to such potations are in general fat. Jackson, the celebrated trainer, affirms, if any person accustomed to drink wine would but try good malt liquor for a month, he would find himself so much the better for it, that he would soon take the one, and abandon the other. Although it is true, therefore, that malt liquor is a salutary and nutritive beverage, its beneficial effects are wasted upon those who "fare sumptuously every day," and are only exemplified in the poorer artizan, whose ⚫ With regard to the intoxicating effect of malt liquor, it depends upon something more than the specific quantity of alcohol; inasmuch as the hop, with which it is, or ought to be, flavoured, possesses of itself a strong narcotic property. diet is composed of materials less nutritive. The fashion, therefore, of eschewing "malt" at meals is founded upon something more than caprice; for the substitution of light wines, in these days of luxury, is far more conducive to health and digestion. The inordinate use of ardent spirits must be deprecated by every sensible person. Cases there are, it is true, where their use becomes medicinally necessary, and where spirit diluted with water is the best, and most wholesome beverage. In these instances, Dr. Paris informs us, that “the mixture should always be made twelve hours before it is used." that the force of the spirit may be properly blunted by an intimate incorporation with the water. It is to the frequent potation of spirits-even modified into grog or punch-that liver-complaints are so frequent in this country; and a physician of great eminence in this metropolis has frequently told us, that he has often detected considerable mischief in this organ in females, merely from sipping,-to use their own expression,-" a thimblefull after supper." Our own experience has taught us that cooks in large families, whether male or female, who are much exposed to heat, and who occasionally, no doubt, "moisten their parched tongues" with a toss or two of strong waters, are very frequently affected with diseased livers ; and from the same causes, probably, as are those enviable geese, whose tumid viscera are destined for the gourmand in the savoury form of a páté de foie-gras. Our limits will not allow us to epitomize, or extract from Dr. James Johnson's very clever book on diet, and stomachic diseases; but we may refer the dyspeptic to an admirable article in it on the benefits of travelling, where he will find not only every useful direction as to the management of his health, but the very route which the author himself pursued to renovate his own constitution. To sum up our opinion of these three great dieteticians, we may say, that the simple dyspeptic will find Wilson Philip a man to be depended upon; that the gourmand, who has destroyed the tone of his stomach, and the tension of his nerves, will find Dr. Paris a man to his taste; while the hypochondriac, moping and melancholy, will receive consolation and comfort from a half-hour's chat with James Johnson. And so we bid them Farewell! [18] THE ANNUALS. WERE we to judge from the number of names that we find appended to pieces of poetry in these volumes, it would seem that the living poets and poetesses of Great Britain are sufficiently numerous to colonize not only Parnassus, but all the intervening country between that and Helicon ; but if our estimate were formed from the quality rather than the quantity, Botany Bay, or at best the new settlement at the Swan river, would seem a more appropriate locality for the whole tribe.. "Mediocrity in poetry," says an ancient author, "is forbidden by gods, men, and columns," not meaning thereby the columns of newspapers, but the Arcade, which was to Rome what the northern vicinage of St. Paul's is to London. But like the mock-doctor in the play, "we have changed all that,"mediocrity both in poetry and prose has become an annual favourite, it is printed on the finest paper, done up in the most beautiful bindings, illustrated with the most expensive engravings, and baptized with the most lady-like and gentle names imaginable. The Annuals, taken collectively, exhibit a lamentable spectacle of literary degradation; out of the thousand and one articles which fill their expensive pages, there is scarcely one which will not have been buried in oblivion before the summer of 1830 has reached its middle course. Wisely have they been denominated Annuals; for, like the poppies, they are flashy things, that delight the senses for a brief season, and then depart unhonoured and unremembered. Yet are they pretty objects to gaze upon, and likely to be popular with men of the present generation; they can be read without any laborious exertion of intellect, for they have been written without any! they are not likely to encumber the memory, for they are literally "trifles light as air;" they are, in fact, pretty playthings for "children of a larger growth," and more innocent toys could not well be devised. Popular, no doubt, they will be. In the present decadence of British taste, a Bond-Street lounger, in all the frippery of fashion, would be readily received into circles whence the coarse-clad heroes of other days would be excluded. But as there are many who, if they read not what they denominate light literature, will read nothing, we must, for the edification of these big babies, proceed to give some account of these literary luxuries. The Winter's Wreath.—This, which we believe to be one of the latest candidates for the public approbation, holds a very high place among its cotemporaries, from the beauty of its illustrations, and the taste with which its literary articles have, in general, been selected. One of the plates particularly struck us, as giving probability to a story which we had previously looked on as one of the wildest fictions in the Arabian Tales::-we are told, that an Eastern prince fell in love with the picture of a lovely female, who had died some dozen centuries before he was born-let no one for the future disbelieve the story-the picture of the Mandaline had nearly produced a similar effect on us sober and staid reviewers. Hide, oh hide, the "unreal mockery!" else will this embodied personification of ideal beauty make reason totter on her throne. There is another female form, deno minated The Idol,--we shall never worship at her altar; we cannot discover why she has been allowed to thrust her cold, unimpassioned, tame face, into the same company with the lovely Mandoline. The scene near Der went- Water, and the View of Dort, are truly beautiful; but in the latter plate there seems to have been some mismanagement of the lights that fall on the groups of figures in the foreground, as they by no means harmonize with the soft and graceful light that reveals the shipping. The Vale of Arcady is a pretty landscape, but it is very deficient in character. We have only time to notice two other plates, The Solace of the Pandean Pipes, one of the happiest tributes that Painting has ever paid to the sister art Music, and The Peasant's Grace, one of those emanations of genius, on which the mind loves to linger, while every moment reveals to us new charms, and every charm conveys a moral lesson to the heart. Turning from the illustrations to the literature of the volume, we unhesitatingly acknowledge, that this is one of the best specimens of the Annual school of composition, that we have yet seen. It does not, indeed, contain any brilliant effusions of genius, but all its articles exhibit marks of a correct and cultivated taste. Were there nothing but the names of Roscoe and Mrs. Hemans, they would be sufficient to redeem the volume. We look upon this veteran of literature with somewhat the same feelings that a young soldier may be supposed to contemplate "the aged hero of an hundred fights," the name of Roscoe is hallowed to us by a thousand associations that connect it with every thing which can adorn and dignify human nature; literature and philanthropy equally claim him as their own; he has had the singular good fortune to live until he had seen his name indelibly written in the annals of his native land, and deeply graved on the hearts of his countrymen. We quote the following exquisite morceau, as much for its intrinsic merits as from our sincere respect for its excellent author. PARTING. How painful the hour that compels us to part With the friends that we cherish as gems of the heart! From the friends that we love when we wander alone, Though in parting we feel, we may never meet more. It is with mingled feelings of sorrow and gratification, that we meet the name of Mrs. Hemans so frequently in periodical publications. We are pleased to meet her any where, for every line she has ever written bears the impress of lofty thought, and noble sentiment. But we grieve to see the emanations of her genius scattered, like the leaves of the Sibyl, to all the winds of heaven, in an age when the admirers of poetry are neither sufficiently laborious nor sufficiently ardent to take the trouble of assembling the fragments. Can the authoress of the Sceptic and the Last Constantine doubt her powers? Or does she fear that the depraved taste of the present generation would consign her works "to lie in cold obstruction?" We can assure her, that there are still thousands in the land "who have not bowed the knee to Baal," and who would hail a new work from her pen, with the same delight a traveller feels when he meets with traces of civilization, after having long wandered through barren and barbarous wilds. The poetry of Mrs. Hemans alone deserves the character given to the speeches of Mr. Fox, "it is all over English," unperverted by the dark dreams of Germany, or the gaudy frippery of France. We quote the following stanza from the Exile's Dirge, one of her best contributions to the present volume. |