VEGETABLE PRODUCTIONS FURNISHING DRINKS.

TEA may now be fairly regarded as constituting a large portion of the drink of all classes in this country, and is become nearly an absolute necessary-a degree of importance it has attained from its valuable and pleasant qualities. It is a stimulant to the body and mind, without any pernicious reaction, and unproductive of any of those diseases which accompany the use of other stimulants, as spirits, wine, beer, &c.

Green tea possesses the qualities of the plant in a higher degree than the black, to those who are not habituated to its use; it acts as a stimulant to the mental faculties more powerfully than any fermented liquor, and completely banishes sleep for many hours: it is hence the resource of all, who want to watch or study during the hours usually devoted to rest.

The tea-plant is of the same natural order as the camelia of our green-houses, and some species of the tea plant belong to that genus itself; but the best tea consists of the leaves of one species of the genus Thea. This is an evergreen shrub, from three to six feet in height with long, notched alternate leaves, and bears a white-blossom something like a wild rose. It is a native of China and Japan and will grow as far north as the forty-fifth or forty-sixth degree of latitude.

The different teas of commerce are produced from varieties only of the one species, but the principal cause of the different flavour is the nature of the soil and situation in which the plant is cultivated, the time of the year in which the leaf is gathered, and the mode of preparing the crop for market.

The cultivation of the tea is nearly confined to a part only of China, for, like the vine, the excellence of the plants depends on unknown peculiarities of soil and culture, which confine it within much narrower limits than its botanical or natural situation. There are two

principal kinds of tea, black and green, of each of which there are several varieties; the former are entirely cultivated in one province, Tokien, to the nort-east of Canton, the most populous and important part of the empire. Pekoe, the finest of the black teas, consists of the leaf-buds of the best plants gathered early in spring; a small quantity of the blossoms of an olive are mixed with it to impart fragrance and flavour. The inferior sorts consist of the fully-formed leaves of the same plants: the later in the season these are gathered the less the flavour of the tea; there are three or four successive crops taken in the year. The qualities of the green teas depend on the same circumstances. Gunpowder, the finest, consists of the unopened leaf-buds of the green variety of the Thea, gathered before it opens; the inferior qualities being the produce of the subsequent successive gatherings. The leaves of the black teas are picked by hand, and dried under a shed; the different qualities are then sorted, mingled, or separated according to the demand, and after a second and more complete drying, are packed for exportation. The green tea-leaves are dried in iron pans over a stove, and are stirred by the hand during the process.

Coffee. This plant was originally indigenous in Arabia and the countries bordering on the Red Sea, but it has been for a long period successfully cultivated in most tropical countries. It belongs to the extensive natural order furnishing the genuine Peruvian bark, Ipecacuanha, and other valuable medicines. The coffee plant is a small evergreen tree, attaining a height of from twelve to fifteen feet, not much branching, having opposite oval leaves, like the bay tree, and small creamcoloured blossoms, which produce a red berry containing two seeds, flat on one side, which sides are applied to each other as the seeds lie on the fruit. It is these seeds which are used; they are roasted in iron (or now often in silver) cylinders, kept turning round to prevent the contents from being burnt. When roasted, the seeds are ground fine in small mills, the construction of which is familiar to every one; the powder is infused in boiling

water, and drunk with or without milk and sugar. That some nicety is requisite in preparing this drink is indisputable, however simple a process it may appear, but the general cause of failure arises from the berry not having been roasted only just before it is wanted, for if kept some time before it is used, a great deal of the aroma escapes, and the flavour is lost.

Chocolate. The cacas seeds, from which chocolate is prepared, are produced by the cacao, a plant of South America; it grows to the height of twenty feet, and bears large oblong leaves and small red blossoms, which are succeeded by a thick scarlet or yellow capsule, seven or eight inches long, containing many seeds as big as a scarlet bean, embedded in a fleshy substance. These seeds are roasted, and the skin being taken off, they are pounded with water, and rolled and beaten on a smooth surface into a plate, which is sweetened, and flavoured with vanilla, cinnamon, &c., and then made up into cakes in iron moulds; when dry and hard, the cakes are put into lead-paper cases to keep them from the air.

Cacao contains a great deal of nutritive matter in a small compass, and is hence of great service to travellers. The only matter which is contained in the seeds is extracted and used as medicine under the name of "Butter of Cacao."-Saturday Magazine.

SCENE FROM "KING RICHARD III."

CLARENCE. BRAKENBURY.

Brakenbury. Why looks your grace so heavily to-day? Clarence. O, I have pass'd a miserable night, So full of fearful dreams, of ugly sights, That, as I am a Christian faithful man, I would not spend another such a night, Though 't were to buy a world of happy days; So full of dismal terror was the time.

Brak. What was your dream my lord? I pray you

tell me.

Clar. Methought that I had broken from the Tower, And was embark'd to cross to Burgundy;

And in my company my brother Gloster:
Who from my cabin tempted me to walk
Upon the hatches; there we look'd toward England,
And cited up a thousand heavy times,
During the wars of York and Lancaster,
That had befall'n us. As we pac'd along
Upon the giddy footing of the hatches,
Methought that Gloster stumbled; and, in falling,
Struck me, that thought to stay him, overboard,
Into the tumbling billows of the main.

O Lord! methought what pain it was to drown!
What dreadful noise of water in mine ears!
What sights of ugly death within mine eyes!
Methought I saw a thousand fearful wrecks:
A thousand men that fishes gnaw'd upon;
Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,
Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels,

All scatter'd in the bottom of the sea.

Some lay in dead men's skulls; and in those holes
Where eyes did once inhabit there were crept,
As 't were in scorn of eyes, reflecting gems,
That woo'd the slimy bottom of the deep,
And mock'd the dead bones that lay scatter'd by.
Brak. Had you such leisure in the time of death
To gaze upon these secrets of the deep?

Clar. Methought I had; and often did I strive
To yield the ghost: but still the envious flood
Kept in my soul, and would not let it forth
To find the empty, vast, and wand'ring air;
But smother'd it within my panting bulk,
Which almost burst to belch it in the sea.
Brack. Awak'd you not with this sore agony?
Clar. No, no, my dream was lengthen'd after life;

O, then began the tempest to my soul!

I pass'd, methought, the melancholy flood

With that sour ferryman which poets write of,

Unto the kingdom of perpetual night.
The first that there did greet my stranger soul,
Was my great father-in-law, renowned Warwick;
Who spake aloud,-"What scourge for perjury
Can this dark Monarchy afford false Clarence?"
And so he vanish'd: Then came wandering by
A shadow like an angel, with bright hair
Dabbled in blood; and he shriek'd out aloud,-
"Clarence is come, false, fleeting, perjur'd Clarence,-
That stabb'd me in the field by Tewkesbury;-
Seize on him, furies, take him unto torment !"
With that, methought, a legion of foul fiends
Environ'd me, and howled in mine ears
Such hideous cries, that with the very noise
I trembling wak'd, and, for a season after,
Could not believe but that I was in hell;
Such terrible impression made my dream.

-Shakespeare.

SOAP.

THIS very useful article is produced by a combination of tallow or oil with soda or potash; with soda, hard soap is formed; with potash, soft soap. The yellow soap of commerce has also an addition of resin or turpentine, and often palm oil; these give it its yellow colour and peculiar smell; pure white soap is made by boiling a solution of soda with tallow or olive oil. Ordinary soaps are generally made by mixing a solution of the soda of commerce (carbonate of soda) with quick lime. This takes away the carbonic acid and makes the soda what is called "caustic;" this solution is drawn off, and kitchen stuff, tallow, turpentine, and sometimes palm oil, are added and boiled together, until all is converted into soap, but a large quantity of water remaining, it is necessary to separate the soap from this. For this purpose