Faisons redire aux echos des montagnes, Phœbe perçant à travers le feuillage, TRANSLATION. What fragrance is breathed o'er this flowery retreat, My full, full heart is thine. Oh come, my companions, and share the delight Thro' foliage glancing, the sun's fading ray RECEIPT FOR A LITERARY MINCE PIE. By an Experienced Book-keeper. Of Byron's and Shelley's Poems,' freed from scepticism, libels, and indecency, take about 6 volumes. (The refuse will do for a pic-nic.) Add about 36 vols. of Scotch Novels, well selected from Weave-a-lie's, Galt's, Hogg's and Cunningham's ;— but Weave-a-lie's are best, and Hogg's are rather strongflavored. Choose a handsome bound Lord of the Isles, for the ladies, and a Lady of the Lake,' ditto, for the gentlemen, and a Bridal of Triermain,' for both. Select the softer parts of a Crabbe's Borough,' and a 'Captain Hall's Journal.' One volume of Landor's Savage Conversations, and of 'Irving's Orations,' a fierce ounces di A sprinkling of Quarterly Reviews, and Monthly Magazines, Whig, Tory, and Radical, carefully weighing one against another. 6 To these add a skimming of Pam-flet-eers, a little Clareified Village Minstrel,' a grill of Cobbett's Registers: Pour over the last two bowls of Sonnets,' and a kiss dissolved in Madeira. 6 Then add a quart o' Wordsworth's Excursion,' Tales of a Traveller,' a few Con-way Papers,' a vol. of the 'Pioneers,' and some Highways and Byeways.' An 'India Register,' an Oriental Herald,' a Sir Marmaduke Mc Swell. 'The Cricketers,' a novel; Miss Batty's Italy,' a few Batavian Anthologies. 'Walton's Angler,' Eelia's Essays,' Coxe's Marlborough,' Crow-lie's last Comedy, Bail-lie's last Tragedy, Sayings and Doings,' and some lie-though-graphic illus trations. 'Medwin's Conversations,' (not his own, but Byron's) well-strained through a cullender, Which should be hastily followed by a Curse of Kehama,' a 'Ritter Ban,' a 'Vision of Judgement,' a peppery letter or two on the Satanic School of Poetry,' and a Peter Schlemihl. Then introduce an Almanach des Dames,' Maturin's Woman,' Every number of THE MIRROR, the thinnest volume of Veil-erius, Lady Morgan's Salvator Rosa! and Hogg's Bonny Kill-many." Chronicles of London Bridge,' Bowring's trans-lations of Span-ish Ballads.' A Wandering Jew,' D'Israeli's Anecdotes,' Mrs. Opie's last Simple Tale,' some Essays by the. Opium Eater, The History of the Crusaders,' well milled— The Lancet,' Knight's Quarterly." A handfull of Percy Anecdotes, a Forget me not,' aPleasures of Memory,' but very little of Human - Life.' A Lounger's Common Place Book,' an 'Ackerman's Repose-itory,' a 'Lay-sermon' by Coleridge, would improve this mixture. a Now put in a Barum Miscellany,' a 'Gossip,' a 'Medley,' a Lucubrator,' a Western Luminary,' LUNDY REVIEW,' a suppressed. Beacon,' a Keat's "Endim-yon.' A Blackwould,' a 'John Bull,' a 'Bullock's Mexico,' and an Oxlie's New-South-Whales,' two or three Pole-r Voyages,' by a Post-Captain,-a Lancaster Schoolbook, The Terrific Register, two or three numbers of the last will be sufficient. Be particularly careful that no Caves,' or Captain Rock's Memoirs, get into your melange, all such being abominable books. If you have any difficulty in mincing, send and borrow an old reviewer, and you will soon have the whole mess cut up as small as you like. N.B. Half the quantity is enough, unless you are Book, keeper to a very Literary Family. Have taste, relish, and candour ready, and apply some of each to every volume when read. The History of Ancient and Modern Wines. London: printed for Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy, Paternoster Row. 1824. BRAVO, Alick Henderson! a very pretty book indeed, and more than pretty :-it is really amusing and elegant. The information about Vineyards and their produce, is accurate and interesting; and the judgments passed upon the qualities of wines, are the results of a delicate and correct taste. That TASTE, in the days of yore, was somewhat fastidious, as we remember, and every fresh bottle brought fresh remon strances, and the testy cries of garçon! and waiter! were heard oftener from our box, than any other in the coffee-room. Well, every thing is for the best; and while we were making good our inheritance of three parts of a bottle of excellent Claret, which the more scrupulous Doctor quarrelled with for not being Chateau Margaux, he was cultivating a taste for tasting wine, which has eventually led to the production of this capital quarto. We really mean to speak of it in * The reader will, perhaps, think the author a man predestinated to write about liquor, when he hears his name and designation. Dr. Alexander Henderson is a Scottish gentleman, and his patrimonial estate is CASKIEBEN, in Aberdeenshire. VOL. II. НИ terms of high commendation to our readers, and shall now give pretty free extracts from the notices of Sherry and Port Wines. OF THE WINES OF SPAIN." "EMULATING France in some of her richest growths, and in the abundant produce of her vineyards, Spain has long occupied a prominent place among the wine-countries of Europe. The range of mountains that overlook the extensive coasts, and bound the principal rivers of the peninsula, present the happiest exposures, and every variety of soil best calculated for the cultivation of the vine; and the warmth of the climate ensures to its fruit an early and perfect maturity. Hence, in all those districts where a good system of management prevails, the vintages are distinguished by their high flavour and aroma, as well as, by their uncommon strength and durability: in others, these natural advantages are lost by adherence to erroneous modes of treatment. The red wines, in particular, are, often spoiled in the fermentation, and, generally speaking, are dull and heavy on the palate. In that class, the Spaniards can boast of none which will bear comparison with the more delicate growths of France; but in the preparation of dry white wines, and certain species of sweet wines, they stand nearly unrivalled: and the trade in them, which they carry on with all parts of the world, is a constant stimulus to industry, and a never-failing source of wealth to the more populous provinces of the kingdom. "In estimating the general character of the wines of any country, considerable allowance must be made for the prevailing tastes and habits of the natives, as well as the disadvantages in respect of internal commerce under which they may labour. The Spaniard, when he drinks wine as an article of luxury, gives the preference to such as is rich and sweet. Hence he is disposed to rate the growths of Malaga, Alicant, and Fuencaral, more highly than those of Xeres, which, however, are the most perfect, and most generally esteemed by other nations. The great abundance, too, in which wine is everywhere produced, makes him careless of obtaining a particular supply; or, if he were inclined to take any pains about it, the difficulties of conveyance, and want of proper conveniences for keeping it, would, in general, prevent him from indulging his wish. Hence, when not supplied from his own vineyards, he commonly remains dependent on the next tavern for what may be required for family use, and must be content with such new and indifferent wine as the vintner may choose to send him. It is also worthy of remark, that, throughout the greater part of Spain, the peasantry store the produce of their vintages in skins, which are smeared with pitch; from which the wine is apt to contract a peculiar disagreeable taste, called the olor de bota, and to become muddy and nauseous. • Bottles and casks are rarely met with; and, except in the monasteries and great commercial towns, subterraneous wine cellars are nearly unknown. Under such management, we cannot be surprised that the common Spanish wines should fall so far short of the excellence that might be anticipated from the favourable circumstances in which they are grown; or that the traveller, in the midst of the most luxuriant vineyards, should often find the manufactured produce wholly unfit for use. "The mountains round Granada," observes Mr. JACOB, "are well calculated for vines, but so little attention is paid to the cultivation of them, that the wine produced is very bad: at the posada where we reside, there is only one kind of inferior sweet white wine, which is not drinkable; but we had the best proof that good wine is made here in some which a gentleman sent us from his cellar : it was equal to any Burgundy I have ever tasted, and of the same colour, without any flavour of the skin; in fact, he had sent bottles to a vineyard about three leagues distant, celebrated for its excellent wine, in order to have it free from that taste which all the wines here acquire from being brought from the vineyards in sheepskins with tarred seams. It is rather a curious fact, that, in a country where cork-trees abound, the trifling operation of cutting them is so ill done, that, to have his wine in good or der, this gentleman thought it necessary to send to Malaga for English corks, as well as English bottles.”’ "In the province of Andalusia the best wines are grown, particularly at Xerez de la Frontera, near Cadiz, and the adjoining territories. Many of the principal vineyards are in the hands of British and French settlers; and to this circumstance it may not, perhaps, be unfair to ascribe the improvement which has, of late years, taken place in Sherry wines." "For making the Sherry wines, red and white grapes are used indiscriminately. They are gathered as they become ripe, and are spread on mats to dry. At the expiration of two or three days, they are freed from the stalks, and picked; those that are unripe or rotten being rejected. They are then introduced into vats, with a layer of burnt gypsum on Travels in the South of Spain in the Year 1809, p. 303. |