pound having the colour of port wine, filled it into casks and bonded it. He then borrowed 30%. on each cask (being under the duty). He was unfortunate enough to be detected by some defrauded money-lender, and, we believe, that he sailed to Botany Bay at the government expense,

"Leaving his country for his country's good."

The question suggests itself to our very untradesmen-like mind, how far there is any moral difference between the offence of Mr. Blumenthall and that of the respectable wine merchants who sell to the unsuspicious, as genuine first-class port, the mixture we have just chronicled?

The consumption of port wine has been decreasing of late. There is no doubt about the fact, though a variety of reasons are suggested. Some impute it to the income-tax; some to the repeal of the corn-laws and the consequent diminution of the incomes of landed proprietors; some to the growing taste for French wines; and some, on the contrary, believe that though less real port is consumed than formerly, the quantity of wine drunk as port has not diminished, but that adulterations have been more frequent and a larger quantity of French and red Sicilian wines, approximating to it in colour and flavour have been introduced for the purpose of blending and selling as port. Thus they account both for the decrease of the latter as shown by the official returns, and for the increase of consumption of French wines as evinced by the same documents. But this is scarcely a satisfactory solution of the question, and does not accord with our own, nor probably with our reader's experience. We certainly always see not only less wine drunk after dinner than of yore; but of what is drunk, the larger proportion is now claret at the same tables where port alone (except on the rarest occasions) used to figure. Dr. Johnson gave his opinion of the relative virtues of the two wines and of spirits, thus: "Claret for boys, port for men, and brandy for heroes, sir!" The doctor evidently regarded the end and aim of wine-drinking to be to convey a certain quantity of alcohol into the stomach, and on this principle he allows the hero the strongest drink, as having the strongest head to bear it. We fear that too many wine-bibbers think likewise, but they don't confess it. Nevertheless, we are persuaded that a taste for good wine, and not for alcohol, is increasing among us. Scarcely an Englishman goes to Paris that does not return with the liveliest recollections of the delicious juice of the grape he has sipped at the "Trois Frères," or the "Café de Paris." Even the Frenchman's enthusiasm for London "haf-an'-haf," does not exceed it.

A London wine-merchant, writing to the "Times" about a year ago, says:

"Our tastes have become very much vitiated, but a decided change for purer and less brandied wine is taking place, the causes of which are: 1. The numbers who now visit the continent (and no one can do so even for a month without finding all our wines, scarcely excepting our claret and other wines from France, disagreeably loaded and heavy); 2. the fear of every one with any regard for his character, lest he should appear intoxicated-a contrast to times not long past: 3. that instead of dining about five o'clock as formerly, and remaining many hours at table, the usual dinner-hour is about half-past six and later. The facts of much more white wine being drunk during dinner, and the abandonment of the habit of sitting for any length of time after it, are showing, moreover, their effects on the consumption of port. This old custom is peculiar to our

selves, and like other singularities of individuals and nations, is falling before the influence of civilization and greater intercourse with others."

Most people are aware that Madeira wine is frequently sent to the East or West Indies to mellow its flavour before it is brought to England; but it is a fact, not equally well known, that a great quantity of port wine drunk in England has first been sent to America-not for any reason connected with its flavour, but for economy. Thus: the dues payable on wines exported from Oporto to Great Britain are, as we have said, 67. per pipe; the dues payable on wines exported from Oporto to America, or any port out of Europe, are 6d. only per pipe. Consequently, by shipping wine first to America and re-shipping it thence to England the heavy dues are evaded, and the difference of freight not exceeding about 31. per pipe, the other 31. per pipe is saved to the importer. The Oporto Wine Company have made many absurd regulations to prevent this system of evasion, but none of them have answered the purpose, and about 8,000 pipes are annually brought to our shores by this circuitous route.

It is rather a common error to suppose that a taste for French wines is of modern growth in Great Britain; the truth is, that the taste for port wine is of far more recent date. From 1675 to 1678 (inclusive of both years) England consumed 31,141 tuns of French wine, and only 478 of Portuguese.

There was a prohibition in 1679 of all French wine, and from that year to 1685, inclusive, only four tuns of French wine were introduced, and 58,862 tuns of Portuguese displaced it. So that, in fact, the trade in port wine was at first forced. The French trade was re-opened in 1686, and in the four ensuing years French wine had risen to 53,515 tuns and the Portuguese had fallen in turn to 1,640 tuns.

Prior to the first of the years above mentioned the demand for French wines amounted to 20,000 tuns per annum. The introduction of port was greatly opposed; and there is an account of 5,000 hogsheads of claret having been smuggled into Cornwall, Devon, and Dorset, at the time the prohibition took place of French wines. This made a great noise at the time it occurred and the government of the day took measures to put a stop to it.

We have mentioned Beni Carlos as a red wine used for blending with and creating a semi-spurious port. This is a Spanish red wine; and Spain produces many such. At La Mancha (who does not remember the name of the place which gave birth to Don Quixote ?) a beautiful red wine is produced called Manzanares wine. It may be bought on the spot retail at 2d. a bottle. It has scarcely even found its way to England on account of the difficulties of transit; but the late Duke of Wellington had some of it in his cellar. As La Mancha is situate 300 miles from the sea, it must have been brought all that distance on the backs of mules, for as yet there are no other means of transport. There must have been some trouble, too, in procuring casks in which to carry it; for casks are a luxury unknown in that part of the country. The wine is generally stored in great earthen tanks. Cocks are put into them at different heights, and the wine is drawn off into hog-skins pitched inside, and these are slung on the backs of mules. But pitch is a flavour hardly adapted to English palates, and therefore the Duke's wine was brought in casks. When we take into consideration the expense of these, of the overland journey to Cadiz, of the freight and export dues from

VOL. XXXII.

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thence and the import duties levied in England, which amount to nearly 18. per bottle, we may guess that the Duke's wine stood him in a very different figure from the original 2d. a bottle at La Mancha.

Port wine is not a mere luxury; it has high medicinal properties, It is a tonic, and it has great astringency. During the disastrous Walcheren expedition there were at one place 250 men out of 500 of one regiment in the hospital. The surgeons declared that wine-port wine was needed, and none had been sent. "We have typhoid and typhus fever," they said, "mixed with that of the Walcheren. The greater part of these men are down and will die for want of wine." In cases of typhus fever an immense quantity of wine is given to the patient-in fact, port wine is frequently the only means of saving life, and from one to even two bottles a day are given to the sufferer. White wine will not serve in such cases, because of the absence from it of tannin, which causes the required astringency.

In making white wine they place the grapes layer upon layer without the stems, and sprinkle gypsum, which takes up the malic acid in the wine. In red wine they tread the grapes to bring out the colour and bruise the stems and the pips.

Among the many wines blended to imitate port, is a red wine called pontac, grown at the Cape. It is probably never seen on the table in England under its own name, and, indeed, such as is imported would not be greatly relished, as it is certainly a very bad imitation of port. But like other sorts of Cape, it is occasionally made very good in the country of its production, but it more resembles a Burgundy than a Portugal wine. Brandied and mixed with a little genuine port, it is occasionally reshipped from the docks to Guernsey or Jersey, and then brought back to England as port.

A great deal has lately been said on the subject of reducing the import duties on wine. At present it is 5s. 9d. a gallon. There are some people who think it should be lowered to 18., and they declare that the increased consumption that would follow, would make up the deficiency which would otherwise take place in the revenue. We are not political economists, and our little sketch is not intended to enter on such disquisitions; but if such an immense increase of demand were to take place, a very natural question occurs,—would the wine countries which we now patronize, be able to supply us with the additional quantity required? It is clear that under the present absurd regulations of the Oporto Wine Company, Portugal would not send us five or six-fold the present quantity of port wine; for they already limit our supply, both as to quantity and quality. But supposing the wine company to withdraw their regulations, as they probably would if we imposed but a shilling duty, could the country supply all we might want? On this point there is no doubt at all.

THE READING-ROOM OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM.

DURING the solemn pause in which a nation is waiting to do honour to the memory of her greatest warrior, all storms and passions seem to have lulled. He has left us "the legacy of heroes, the memory of his great name, and the inspiration of his great example," and until we have accorded to him the empty honours of the sepulchre, it is well that the political arena should be void of combatants. But in this tranquil interval, some steady, dull, practical reforms are discussed, which may soon be neglected, if not altogether forgotten, in debates on national questions, and the strife of parliamentary parties.

In this dearth of excitement, "The Times" has pointed in very able leading articles, at some most salutary reforms and enlargements which might be made very advantageously in our national library.

Now a dissertation on all the reforms required would be an Herculean task for the writer, and for the reader, perchance, wearisome work. Has any one such an object in view, let him betake himself to the various reports of committees of the House of Commons on this subject. They are far more diverting than Blue-Books are generally, and possess as much of what is interesting to any student or littérateur, as that of the late Oxford Commission does to any member of that University. There he may see the striking and eloquent confessions and complaints of Mr. Carlyle, the more statistical and practical evidence of Mr. Hallam, Mr. P. Cuningham, and others, and may read with amazement the averment of one constant habitué of the ReadingRoom, that he had for years taken daily from the library seldom less than thirty, and sometimes as many as eighty volumes. He will find the bitterest criticism on the catalogue, and suggestions from the highest authorities so conflicting, that he will be as much embarrassed by them, as doubtless were the senators to whom they were addressed.

Again, should the reader desire to have some circumstantial account of the Reading-Room, and the kind of people who frequent it, he may find in Mr. Knight's "London" an interesting paper written by Mr. Mc Turk. But the subject may at present be kept before the public eye, by a brief history of a late attempt to enjoy a day's quiet reading there, and the difficulties besetting so laudable an endeavour, with some desultory observations on the uses and abuses of the place, and the general character of its visitors.

Dear reader, suppose me to have entered the Reading-Room in a mood the most studious, and with a sincere desire to get through a great deal of work. I enter early. My books happen to-day to lie in the Reading-Room itself. I shun the time-consuming catalogue sanguine viperino cautius," and fly to the shelves where the tomes I want are to be found. I am soon immersed in a grave political treatise, in which I am anxious to analyze a carefully elaborated and severely logical argument. The earliest comers making a great clatter, and talking to the attendants (who, it may be here remarked, should all be on the staff of " Punch," if we may judge of their humorous powers by the laughter they move among each other, and the readers they know) take their tickets at what may be called the bar of the house; and the bookporters are then continually walking with thick shoes over an iron

grating, and bringing to them volumes of all sizes and weights. One or two readers are quite hedged in from vulgar gaze, and enjoy a literary seclusion behind by a high barrier of books.

Not

Among my own acquaintance, the first arrival is the Rev. Ambrose Fudge. His dress is so peculiar, that, in spite of my abstraction, my eye is arrested by that once white tie, tight almost to strangulation; the loose and heavy single-breasted long coat; and the (straight) waistcoat buttoned up to the chin. The Rev. A. F. is one of the most weakminded and morosely perverse of those very wrong-headed young ecclesiastics who still dream of priestly domination. He is altogether unlike the dandy parson, who is probably low church, or no-church, who does not visit the library, but whom I met at dinner the other day, and who talked of "interesting cases," as he eat voraciously, and whom you may encounter in Bond Street or Regent Street, in blameless boots, perfectly constructed continuations, of a rather light and secular colour, a double-breasted black waistcoat, gold chain and ditto studs, a single white tie, meet for ball or opera, and a frock-coat of faultless cut. so the Anglican Ambrose. He comes here to bask on architectural drawings, and to spice his sermons with quotations from Chrysostom and St. Austin. He is a cousin of Mr. S. G. Osborne's friend, the Rev. Richard Rubric. I knew a little of both Fudge and Rubric at the University; but I once inadvertently asked Ambrose to a wine-party on Friday. He severely rebuked me; but added, that had my invitation been for Sunday, he would with pleasure have accepted it. We kept up, however, a speaking acquaintance, until he found me here, on more than one occasion, reading Dr. Arnold's sermons, the works of Sydney Smith, and the Miscellanies of Mr. Carlyle. I think I heard him murmur between his teeth, "schismatic-scoffer-pantheist." At any rate, he now favours me with only a distant bow, or smiles a pitying smile of recognition. He has pronounced me, I am told, unregenerate and unclean, and asserted (it is his favourite phrase) that I am not " a true son of the church." I am by this very fortunately preserved from an interruption, save and except such pain and grief as would be generated in any rational mind by the farcical eccentricity of Fudge's sacerdotal costume.

I have forgotten the man and his waistcoat, and am pursuing an argument which I must destroy when I publish my pamphlet on the "Revision of Taxation," when in, with a clatter, come three young gentlemen from a London school. They seat themselves very near me, after a great deal of moving about, in which my chair is shaken, my ink emperilled, and my pen swept by a coat-tail from off the table; at length one places before him a very bad text of Aristophanes; another betakes himself to "Longinus on the Sublime;" and the third, who is evidently one of the fast specimens of the rising generation, passes his ring-adorned fingers through his lank black hair, and languidly opens Ovid's "Art of Love." He takes from his pocket a diamond edition of a metrical version, which is, in every sense of the word, a loose translation, and which should, from what I remember of it, have been published by the Sosii of Holywell Street. The youth would derive more assistance, though not perhaps as much gratification, from the literal translation of the "De Arte Amatoriâ," lately given to the world by Mr. Bohn. After, at the most liberal calculation, two minutes' reading, one of the juveniles addresses his brother pedant.