favourite in England. Sac was the beverage so highly prized by Falstaff, and administered to the dying Lefevre, by the philanthropic and warm-hearted hero of Sterne in his Tristram Shandy. This wine was denominated Malvasia, or Malmsey, from the name of a town in the Morea, and supposed to be a corruption from Malea, the ancient name of a portion of Laconia, in the Grecian Peleponnessus. Various reasons have been assigned for the application of the term sac, some referring it to one origin, and some to another. Whether sac be a corruption of the word sec(dry), or is derived from Xeque, a town of Morocco, where this wine was produced in abundance, or else from being made from half-dried grapes, as was frequently the practice, or from the skins, sacks, or bags, in which the Spaniards preserved their wine; or from sacco, (saccus in Latin) the Spanish for a linen bag, or that sac signified a white wine as being clarified by filtration through a linen bag, as was the case with some of the wines of the ancients, must ever remain a matter of mere conjecture, or of hypothetic assumption. For the probable derivation of the term (sack), which has caused, perhaps, more research than the matter deserves, the reader is referred to page 239. Sweet woods are so plentiful, that the common utensils of the vineyards, as well as the wine-casks, are made of them, which are said to impart to the liquor an odoriferous flavour. A view of the quantity of wine shipped from the Canaries to Great Britain, for a series of years, will be found in a Table of the Addenda.

The island of Madeira is remarkable for being the first place in the western hemisphere, in which the Arundo saccharifera, or sugarcane, was cultivated. Little sugar, however, is now raised in this island, the grapes engrossing the whole attention of the inhabitants. The little sugar that is made is uncommonly fine, and said to emit an odour similar to that of the violet. It is a boast of the inhabitants that they have the best wheat, the finest sugar, and the finest wines in the world, besides the clearest water, the most salubrious air, and a freedom from all noxious animals. The vine was introduced into Madeira from Cyprus, by Prince Henry of Portugal, some time previous to the year 1445, or, as Chaptal has it, to 1420. The cultiva tors say, that the varieties of this plant in the island are unlimited. The best wine is that made in the south; the wines of the north are very inferior, and remarkable for their acidulous qualities. What is called Tinta, or tent, resembles Burgundy, when new, both in colour and flavour. Age gives it the appearance of port: it is the only red wine made on the island, and, to fix its colour, it is allowed to ferment with the husks of the fruit; but a great portion of it is mixed with other wines. Here it may be remarked, that in making

Madeira wine, grapes of every description are mixed together, except the Malmsey and Sercial grapes. The former affords a wine superior to any sweet wine, and the latter, another preferable to any dry wine, combining, as a late writer expresses it, with the ordinary richness and flavour of the Madeira, an ærative property and stimulancy, as it were of spirit, that leaves nothing to be desired: the grape from which the sercial is made, is said to have come from Hockheim. The Bual, another wine of a rare grape, is excellent, and said to be of Burgundy descent.* Of Malmsey there are three kinds, the fermentation of which is checked at an earlier stage than that of any other description made in Madeira, in order to increase its richness and sweetness: about 500 pipes of Malmsey are the ananal productions of this article alone. It is calculated that one pipe of wine to an acre is the average produce of the vineyards of the island, making in all, according to Staunton, about 25,000 pipes, of 120 gallons each.† This produce, however, must vary in proportion to the favourable or unfavourable nature of the seasons. In 1813, the produce of the whole island was 22,314 pipes, of which 101 went to the Bishop; that of Porto Santo, was 695 pipes ;-according to Walsh, who visited this island in 1828, the produce was about 30,000 pipes. In the management of the vineyards, the practice is much the same in Madeira as in France, and the other wine countries of Europe. The propagation is by cuttings, and it is only about the fourth year after planting, that the fruit produces wine. It was not until after disappointments in the produce of the grapes, that the inhabitants were persuaded to engraft their vines, a practice which has since proved to be of great advantage. The vines are supported on trellis work of cane about three feet from the ground. Grapes grow in Madeira, at an elevation of 2,700 feet above the level of the sea, but no wine can be made from any reared at a greater elevation than 2080 feet. The stony and poorest soils produce the best wines, resembling in those respects, the vineyards of the Rhine, where the vine grows among the dry shingles with scarcely a particle of mould. The mode of obtaining the juice from the grape is pressure with the feet and arms on the fruit, when collected and placed in a trough, or reservoir, constructed for the purpose. The stalks are afterwards subjected to the force of a lever, which, acting on a board, causes the remaining fluid to exude, and thereby increase the quantity of the must. Sufficient care was not taken for a long time,

in Madeira, to separate good grapes from those of an inferior quality; and hence the produce was often of an indifferent description. Of late years, however, the greatest possible care has been taken to select the best fruit for the wine-press; and to that is owing the character of the wines of this island. The general average growth is from 25,000 to 30,000 pipes, the annual exports of which are said to be from 15,000 to 16,000 pipes; 7,000 of these are sent annually to England, 3,000 to America, and 5,500 to India.

Madeira wine will not bear the sea without a powerful admixture of brandy; and this is generally added, immediately after the fermentation, and before it is refined with isinglass. But this operation is often performed in England, after which it is termed London particular, and the brandy is added more or less, according to the climate for which it is designed.

In the making of the wines, gypsum is used to clarify and mellow them, but how far this practice is valuable, must be for the consideration of those conversant with the manufacture. When one or two of the planters have taken in their vintage, which happens in September, all must immediately follow the example; otherwise the rats, the lizards, and the wasps, would commit great ravages, being the principal enemies to be encountered. Besides those, the dogs have to be chained, or muzzled, to prevent them from devouring the grapes, of which they are so excessively fond. The brandy used in the vineyards is made chiefly from the wines manufactured in the north of the island, and from the lees of the several vintages. The streets of the towns in Madeira, particularly those of Funchal, the capital, are exceedingly steep and paved with small stones, set edgewise, which render the way sharp and slippery. To carry burdens up those ascents, a small breed of bullocks are trained for the purpose, yoked two a-breast. In the removal of wine, as well as of other articles, a slide capable of holding two casks, is attached by ropes to the bullocks, which are guided by a peasant with a prong, and having a cord running through the tips of their horns, by which they are managed. Another person keeps the slide constantly moistened with a wet cloth, by which it glides along freely. The skins of goats and calves are dressed whole and inflated, preserving the shape and size of the animal, and employed for carrying water and wine occasionally.

and

Flowers and shrubs being abundant, bees are numerous, and honey is to be had of the finest description. The people are so particularly careful in their treatment of those insects, that they extract the honey from the hive without killing any of them. This is effected by means of a tube filled with dry cow-dung, which being ignited, the

smoke is driven into the hive, and the bees forced from their cells, to which they return their labours, after being deprived of their former treasure. Mead, however, forms no part of the native beverages, though it might be manufactured to an extent capable of supplying a larger population.

For an account of the extent of the wine trade of Madeira for several years, see the table in the Addenda.

As there are not any other islands in the Atlantic, which afford materials connected with this subject, and a survey having been taken of the various beverages, which foreign nations have at different times invented, Europe is next to be considered, as being the most important portion of the civilized world, where the arts and sciences have made the greatest advances, and where luxury is carried to a pitch of refinement hitherto unknown. To the efforts of the Greeks much is to be attributed, and from them the Romans borrowed most of those inventions, the knowledge of which they disseminated wherever their conquests extended. The crusades also laid open to the observations of Europeans, a state of existence superior to their own, that seemed to elevate the human character beyond that of which they had any previous conception. To acquire the luxuries of the East, a spirit of enterprise was excited, and an impulse given to commerce that led men to the exercise of every faculty, which could tend to surpass, enable them to imitate, or serve to procure, whatever was considered in other countries as valuable, rare, or magnificent. To these purposes, the discovery of the art of printing and the application of the mariner's compass contributed not a little.

Of the chemical attainments of the Saracens, a brief history has already been given; but whether to them is to be attributed the introduction of the still into Spain, or to other factitious circumstances, cannot be accurately determined. Anderson, in his History of Commerce, has placed the date of the introduction in the year 1150, but on what authority he has not related. That this art was known at an early period, there can be no question, even supposing that the Saracens were the first who introduced it into Europe. From the writings of Rhazes and Geber, the former of whom resided in Seville, at the court of Almanzor, in the ninth century, it appears that distillation was practised with success in their time, proving that Anderson had not made himself sufficiently acquainted with its origin and progress. When, therefore, this art was so familiar in the ninth, why fix its introduction in the twelfth century, as has been done by the various compilers of almost all our

Encyclopædias; thus resting on the solitary assertion of a writer, who seems to have been little conversant with the subject, and who displays neither research nor accuracy in so important a matter. In a former part of this work, it was shown that the art of distillation was practised by the people of the East, long before it was known to the Arabs; and this is further confirmed by the authority of an ancient Hindu manuscript, cited by the Asiatic Journal, from which it appears that a distilled liquor, resembling brandy, was known, under the name of Kea-Sum, from an early period of antiquity. Amongst the African Moors, it was practised with a rude apparatus in the same way, as it is, at the present day, in many parts of the East.

The first spirit of which there is any account in Europe, was made from the grape, and sold as a medicine both in Italy and Spain, under the Arabic term alcohol. The Genoese, in the thirteenth century, dealt largely in it, and are said to have acquired considerable sums in the sale of this article, named likewise aqua vita. They were the first Europeans who prepared this liquor from grain, and they sold it in small bottles at a very dear rate. In 1270, a Floren. tine physician recommended spirit of wine, as possessing great virtues and effecting valuable medicinal purposes. Mariana tells us, that the vine was among the first objects of the early husbandry of the Spaniards; and that although the primitive inhabitants commonly drank water, yet they were no strangers to wine, hence affording them, from the most remote antiquity, an article on which to exercise their inventive powers. If, according to this writer, Tubal, the son of Japheth, were the first man that peopled Spain, after the flood, no doubt the art of wine-making, as practised by Noah, was made familiar to the Spaniards. Strabo states, that although the making of beer was peculiar to the Egyptians, yet it was common in other countries, where different methods were employed in manufacturing that liquor; and that the ancient Lusitanians (Portuguese,) before wine was plentiful among them, used zythum as a substitute, which, of course, must also have been familiar in Spain. Polybius speaks of a Celtic king of part of Iberia, or Spain, who affected great pomp, and had, in the middle of his hall, golden and silver bowls full of barley-wine, of which every one quaffed at pleasure; a custom that afterwards prevailed in different parts of Europe. The Egyptians, no doubt, communicated the invention of