5. Laugh, fiddle, and song, ring out gay in the town, And the happier poor man o'er brown stout may laugh; With Jacobin slang, for John's belly is full; And 'tis only when hungry that slang he will hear- 6. He rejoices to see every engine at work, From the steamer immense, to the sweet knife and fork; And all loyal and steady, and true to King George. Whigs, therefore, avaunt! there's no chance now for ye- He begs you won't let them diminish your cheer, So he wishes you, darlings, a Happy New-Year. 7. There's the King, bless his heart, long is likely to live, There's Scott writing prose—and there's—who writing verse? 8. In the midst of this wealth, of this national pride- It was he raised us up, and, remember, his frown, If we swerve from his cause, would as soon cast us down; But that so we shall swerve shall Old Kit never fear, And he wishes you, darlings, a Happy New-Year. 11* Henderson the Historian.* UNCHANGED amidst the petty mutabilities of rank and station, I still claim it, as my peculiar privilege, to review all books allied in any way whatever to the two great sister sciences of eating and drinking. Blackwood's Magazine is the place, and mine is the pen, imprimis, κar' εšoxnv, and par excellence, consecrated to the discussion of all such delightful themes. Let the Quarterly rejoice in the noble art of boiling down into a portable essence, the diffusive lucubrations of all voyagers by land or sea: let old Blue and Yellow keep unpoached the jungles and juggleries of political economy: let The Writer Tam glorify himself in Jem Smith's quaint little ditties, and his brother's quaint little criticisms on the minora moralia of Harley Street, and Gower Street: let the London flourish on the misty dreams of the opium eater, and lay down the law unquestioned as to the drinking up both of eisel and laudanum : sacred to the quackeries of the quack-doctors, be the pungent pages of the Scalpel: let John Bull vibrate his horns ad libitum, among the merciful bowels of Mr. Zachariah Macaulay: and let the Examiner be great as of old, in the reign of second-rate players, and fifth-rate painters. Let each man buckle his own belt, according to the adage, and that in his own way but let me unbuckle mine, and luxuriate in the dear, the dainty, the delicate, paradisaical department of deipnosophism. Above the rest, let THE BOTTLE, and all that pertains to it, be my proper concern. Here indeed I am great. If Barrow, as being himself a practised traveller, is fitted more than any other of our tribe for discussing the vagaries of the Parrys, the Vauxes, the Basil Halls, the Fanny Wrights, the Edward Daniel Clarkes, and the John Rae Wilsonst of our time-Surely * These remarks on "The History of Ancient and Modern Wines," were published in Blackwood for July, 1824. The vinous historian was Dr. Hender son, of Aberdeen. - M. + Sir John Barrow, Secretary of the Admiralty from 1804 to 1845, was himself a great traveller, the voluminous author of travels and biographies, and critic-general, in the Quarterly Review, of works of that class. He died in 1848.-Sir Edward Parry, the Arctic voyager, is yet alive and in office in London. - Mr. Vaux wrote "A Year's Residence in America," which gave satis I have at least as unquestionable a title for predominating over all that is connected with the circumvolutions of the decanters. It is recorded by Athenæus, that Darius, the great Darius, commanded them to inscribe upon his tombstone these memorable, and even sublime words: “ΗΔΥΝΑΜΗΝ ΚΑΙ ΟΙΝΟΝ ΠΙΝΕΙΝ ΠΟΛΥΝ ΚΑΙ ΤΟΥΤΟΝ ΦΕΡΕΙΝ ΚΑΛΩΣ:” which signify, being interpreted: "Here lies Darius the King, who drank three bottles every day, and never had a headach in his life." I flatter myself that my epitaph might tell a similar story, without any impeachment of its veracity. The volume now in my eye, then, belongs in an especial manner to my province. At first, on perceiving it to be a bulky quarto, you may be inclined to hesitate as to this: but when you put on your spectacles, and discover that the title is "The History of Wines, Ancient and Modern," your scruples will evanish as easily as do the cobwebs of a Jeffrey beneath the besom of a Tickler. Turn over these costly pages, and feast your eyes with the delicious vignettes, that ever and anon glance out from between the leaves, like the ruby clusters of Bacchus himself, glowing amidst the foliage of some tall marriageable elm, or stately poplar; pause upon these exquisite gems; contemplate the rosy god in each and and all of these five thousand attitudes: worship him where, frantic and furious, he tosses the thyrsus amidst the agitated arms of his congregated Mænades: adore him where, proudly seated upon the rich skins of the monsters whom he subdued, he pours out the foaming cup of wine and wisdom before the eyes of savage men, whom the very scent of the ethereal stuff hath already half civilized: envy him, where beneath the thick shadow of his own glorious plant, he with one hand twines the ivy wreath around the ivory brows of Ariadne, and with the other approximates the dew of divinity to the lips of beauty. Feast, revel, riot in the elegance of the unrivalled faction to no one. — -Basil Hall, in 1824, had written only his Voyage to Corea and the Loo-Choo Island, and Extracts from a Journal on the Coasts of Chili, Peru, and Mexico. He died in 1844.-Fanny Wright, after having long been a resident in the United States, died in 1853.- Dr. Clarke's Travels in Europe and Asia, between 1794 and 1802, were very popular in their day. He died In 1821.-William Rae Wilson, known by his "Travels in the Holy Land," and other works, died in 1849.-M. cameos, and when you have saturated your eye with forms that might create a thirst beneath the ribs of gout, and draw three corks out of one bottle-then, O Christopher! and not till then, will you be in a fit condition for understanding the profound feelings of respect, and grateful attachment, with which it is now my agreeable duty to introduce to your acquaintance, and that of "my public," the learnedly luxurious Dissertations of my friend, and jolly little compotator, Dr. Alexander Henderson. The Doctor is, absque omni dubio, the first historian of our age. He unites in his single person the most admirable qualifications of all the other masters in this great branch of literature, who now lend lustre to the European hemisphere-the extensive erudition of a Ranken- the noble self-reliance and audacious virtue of a Brodie-the elegant style of a Sismondi—and the practical sense of an Egan. In many respects, to be sure, the superiority he displays may be referred to the immense superiority and unapproachable merits of the theme he has chosen. The history of the Cellar of Burgundy is a matter of infinitely more improving nature than that of the House of the same name: a thousand will take profound interest in a dissertation upon the sack and hippocras of the middle ages, for one that will bother his head with the small Italian republics of the same era : We would rather have luminous notions touching the precise nature of the liquor which Sir John Falstaff quaffed, than the secret intrigues which brought Charles the First to the scaffold: and, great as is our respect for Mr. Langan, there is still another claret which possesses claims upon our sympathies, far, far above that which has of late flowed so copiously from his potatoe-trap.* This work, in a word, is fitted to interest and delight, not one class of students, but all. The classical scholar will here find the best of all commentaries on the most delightful passages of those delightful writers, whom he is accustomed to turn over with a daily and a nightly hand: he will speculate upon the flavour that a Nestor loved, and sit in erudite judgment over the benmost binns of a Nero. The English antiquarian will enjoy the flood of light that streams upon the joyous pages of Ben Johnson verdea will no longer puzzle the Giffords, nor Peter*John Langan, the Irish pugilist. — M. : sameen be a stumbling-block to the Nareses.* The man of science will analyse the effervescence of Sheeraz; the Physician will hear the masterly defence of Claret against the charge of goutification, and return humanized to the exercises of his calling the ecclesiastical historian will mourn with Dr. Henderson over the injuries done to the Medoc and the Cote d'or by the suppression of the monastic establishments of France: the lover of light reading will find the charms of romance united with the truth and dignity of history: The saint will have no lack of sighing, as he glances his grave eye over the records of human debauchery, and at the same time, he may, in passing, pick up a hint or two that will be of use at the next dinner of the African Association: The conscious wine-merchant will read and tremble and every good fellow, from George the Fourth down to Michael Angelo the Second,† will read and rejoice. : It was in England only, and perhaps in this age of England, that a work of this complete and satisfactory description could have been prepared. We produce no wines, and we are the great consumers of all the best wines of the globe. We are free from the violent prejudices, therefore, which induce the man of the Marne to turn up his nose at the flask of him of the Loire, and vice versa. We look down as from a higher and a calmer region, upon all the noisy controversies about the rival claims of the Lyonnais and the Bordelais, the Mayne and the Rheingau. We can do equal justice to the sweets of Malaga and Rousillon, and despise the narrow-minded bigotry which sets up either Madeira or Sherry at the expense of the other's ancestral stimulancy. In former days, indeed, we partook, however absurdly, in the paltry prejudices which we now spurn with our heels. Time was when we were all for the Cypress-time was also when we were all for the Xeres grape-time was when little or nothing would go down with us but Hockamore-and time was when even Rhedycina's learned bowers resounded to strains not simply laudative of Oporto, but vituperative and vilipensive of Bourdeaux. *The Pedro-Ximenes is the name of the best Malaga grape. — M. OD. † Michael Angelo Taylor, M. P. for Durham, who kept open table, during the Parliamentary session, for his Whig associates. — M. |