luxury, and I believe are a most wholesome variety. Good porter needs no praise, and bottled porter iced, is, in hot weather, most refreshing. Cider cup, lemonade, and iced punch in summer, and hot in winter, are all worthy of their turns; but I do not think their turns come as often as they ought to do. We go on in the beaten track, without profiting by the varieties which are to be found on every side.

What I have hitherto said has been with a view principally to individual guidance in the use of wine, though much of it may be applied to the management of parties. In the management of parties, so far as relates to wine, judgment, liberality, attention, and courage, are necessary; and calculation, inattention, ostentation, profusion, and excess, are the vices to be guarded against. I always take for granted, that whatever wine is produced, it is to be good of its kind. Judgment is necessary in knowing what wines are suitable to the season, the food, and the description of guests; in what order to serve them, at what rate to drink, and when to stop. Liberality is necessary to furnish promptly and cheerfully the requisite supply; attention is necessary to execute what the judgment suggests; and courage is necessary to keep the erring, either from ignorance or refractoriness, in the right path, and to stop at the right point. The master of a feast should be master in deed as well as in name, and on his judicious and confident control depends for the most part real convivial enjoyment; but he should govern rather by imperceptible influence than by any outward demonstration, or appearance of interference. He should set the wine in circulation at the earliest fitting moment, for want of attention to which there is often a flagging at the outset. He should go on rather briskly at first, and should then contrive to regulate its pace according to the spirits of the party. He should cause the wines to be served in their proper order, and should preserve that order as much as in him lies, both by his own example, and by good-humoured recommendation. He should let his guests know what he intends, so that they may have an opportunity of regulating themselves accordingly; as, if he thinks proper to produce only a certain quantity of any particular wine, he should say so. Uncertainty is fatal to convivial ease, and the re-introduction of any kind of wine, after other wines have intervened, is specially to be avoided. This error arises either from want of courage in allowing a violation of propriety, or from a calculation that there would be enough, when there turns out not to be enough, and then hesitating to supply the deficiency at the proper moment. He should be liberal as long as liberality is beneficial, and as soon as he perceives that the proper point to stop at is arrived, he should

fearlessly act upon his perception. There is a liberal, hearty manner, which prevents suspicion, and enables the possessor to exercise his judgment not only without offence, but with approbation. Calculation, however studiously concealed, sheds a baneful influence over conviviality, which nothing can counteract. Inattention causes things either to go on wrong, or not to go on at all. Ostentation excites disgust or contempt, and destroys enjoyment for the sake of display, by introducing variety without reference to reason. Profusion produces the same effect from ignorance or mistaken liberality. There may be excess without variety, though it is not so probable. It is much more often the result of want of courage in the master of the feast, than of inclination on the part of the guests, and good government in the beginning is the surest guarantee of a temperate termination. In what I have said, I have supposed the giver of an entertainment to have means at his command; but where it is not so, the plainest wines, provided they are sound, and are heartily and judiciously given according to the rules I have laid down, cannot fail to give satisfaction to the reasonable, and more satisfaction too than the most costly, with the many drawbacks which usually accompany them. They are for the most part exposed to the same fate that I have already described to await delicacies in food; that is, they are so mixed up and encumbered with other things as to be deprived of their relish, and reduced to the level of their inferiors, or even below. It is to be wished that those who are not in the way of giving costly wines would never attempt it; because they are only putting themselves to inconvenience, and their guests to greater. It is a very serious tax upon one's palate and veracity to be obliged to drink and pronounce upon compounds with names to which they have not the most remote pretension. What I have said heretofore about dinners applies equally to wines. Let people keep to their own proper style, and endeavour to excel in what is within their ordinary reach. A little extra attention and a little extra expense are then productive of satisfactory results, and they are sure to please others without any sacrifice of what is due to themselves. I have yet to make some particular observations on the use of champagne, which I must defer, with two or three other topics, to my next number.

PRAISE OF WINE.

After my observations on the use of wine in the preceding article, I think I may appropriately introduce Falstaff's humorous, but in many respects just and eloquent, paneygyric upon sack,

which is only a peculiar species of wine. The effect he describes it to have upon wit and learning, peculiarly applies to the table, and may afford a hint to those who circulate their wine as if it were merely designed for sensual purposes, that it has nobler

uses.

"A good sherris-sack hath a twofold operation in it. It ascends me into the brain, dries me there all the foolish, dull, and crudy vapours, which environ it; makes it apprehensive, quick, forgetive,* full of nimble, fiery, and delectable shapes; which, delivered o'er to the voice, the tongue, which is the birth, becomes excellent wit. The second property of your excellent sherris is, the warming of the blood, which, before cold and settled, left the liver white and pale, which is the badge of pusillanimity and cowardice; but the sherris warms it, and makes it course from the inwards to the parts extreme. It illumineth the face, which, as a beacon, gives warning to all the rest of this little kingdom, man, to arm; and then the vital commoners, and inland petty spirits, muster me all to their captain, the heart; who, great and puffed up with this retinue, doth any deed of courage, and this valour comes of sherris. So that skill in the weapon is nothing without sack, for that sets it a-work; learning, a mere hoard of gold kept by a devil, till sack commences it, and sets it in act and use. Hereof comes it that Prince Harry is valiant; for the cold blood he did naturally inherit of his father, he hath, like lean, sterile, and bare land, manured, husbanded, and tilled, with excellent endeavour of drinking good, and good store of fertile sherris, that he has become very hot and valiant. If I had a thousand sons, the first human principle I would teach them, should be, to forswear thin potations, and addict themselves to sack."

and

EASE OF MIND.

Ease of mind is incomparably the most valuable of all possessions-not the ease of indolence, but of action-the smoothness of the unruffled current, not of the stagnant pool. This possession is not the gift of fortune; the gifts of fortune frequently destroy it. It must be of our own acquiring, and is, in a great measure, within the reach of all who diligently seek after it. It does not depend upon the amount of our worldly possessions, but upon our mode of using them; not upon our ability to gratify our desires, but upon our regulation of them. It is essentially the result of our habits, which habits are entirely within our own control. To enjoy ease of mind, there must be a feeling that we * Imaginative.

are fulfilling our duties to the best of our power, otherwise we only sear instead of satisfying our conscience. The possession of riches, or the pursuit of them, beyond the limits of moderation, are unfavourable to this state, because temperance in the use of worldly enjoyments is absolutely necessary to it, and then comes the responsibility of the application of our superfluity. How many men's ease must be destroyed by superabundance, who would have been happy with less temptation, or with the feeling that less was expected from them! The pursuit of riches for the sake of riches, unfits the mind for ease, by generating a perpetual restlessness and anxiety, and by exposing to continual disappointments; and the same may be said, even in a stronger degree, of an ambitious love of those worldly distinctions, which, neither in the pursuit, nor in the possession, can confer any real enjoyment. A steady advance by honest roads towards those things which are within our reach without too arduous efforts, and which, being attained, are worth our having, should be the aim of all who have their fortune to make: whilst they who have had theirs made for them, should habituate themselves to temperance in their own enjoyments, and to active and discreet liberality towards others. They who diligently cultivate the habits necessary to attain ease of mind, place themselves almost above its disturbance. To the mortifications of disappointed ambition they are not at all exposed, and to the crosses of adverse fortune very little, whilst unavoidable afflictions, in the well-constituted, soften rather than sour the mind, and cannot be said to destroy its ease. Like cypresses, they throw a shade over the current, but in no way to disturb its smoothness. Strict and constant discipline can ensure ease of mind in poverty or privation, of which St. Paul has afforded a beautiful example in his own person. "I have learnt in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need." But it must not be forgotten, that in this discipline is included the fixed contemplation of things above. They of this world only, cannot expect to bear the afflictions of the world, as if they looked upon it as a mere state of preparation for another, which is the peculiar advantage possessed by the true Christian. There is no book comparable to the New Testament for teaching that temper of mind which is alone capable of ensuring a current of happiness independent of external interruptions. It gives that tone which prevents us from annoying or feeling annoyance. It teaches us to bear all things, to hope all things, and to think no evil. How different such a state from that of those who bear nothing, hope nothing,

and are ever thinking evil! In order to derive full benefit from the doctrines of the New Testament, it is not sufficient to recur to them occasionally, but by daily attention to make them part of our system, so that the mind may become its own master, and as much as possible independent of everything without. Goldsmith says,―

"How small of all that human hearts endure,

That part which laws or kings can cause or cure!
Still to ourselves in every place consign'd,

Our own felicity we make or find."

Shakspeare observes, "there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so ;" and Milton expresses it,—

"The mind is its own place, and in itself,

Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven."

In order to enjoy ease of mind in our intercourse with the world, we should introduce into our habits of business punctuality, decision, the practice of being beforehand, despatch, and exactness; in our pleasures, harmlessness and moderation; and in all our dealings, perfect integrity and love of truth. Without these observances we are never secure of ease, nor indeed taste it in its highest state. As in most other things, so here, people in general do not aim at more than mediocrity of attainment, and of course usually fall below their standard; whilst many are so busy in running after what should procure them ease, that they totally overlook the thing itself.

Ease of mind has the most beneficial effect upon the body, and it is only during its existence that the complicated physical functions are performed with the accuracy and facility which nature designed. It is consequently a great preventive of disease, and one of the surest means of effecting a cure when disease has occurred; without it, in many cases no cure can take place. By ease of mind many people have survived serious accidents, from which nothing else could have saved them, and in every instance recovery is much retarded by the absence of it. Its effect upon the appearance is no less remarkable. It prevents and repairs the ravages of time in a singular degree, and is the best preservative of strength and beauty. It often depends greatly upon health, but health always depends greatly upon it. The torments of a mind ill at ease seem to be less endurable than those of the body; for it scarcely ever happens that suicide is committed from bodily suffering. As far as the countenance is an index, "the vultures of the mind" appear to tear it more mercilessly than any physical pain, and no doubt there have been many who would willingly have exchanged their mental agony for the most wretched existence that penury could produce. From remorse