There is no Scriptural authority, however, for such an opinion; and it must be ranked among those speculations, which may be harmlessly indulged in, but cannot be established by proof.

The art of fermenting the juice of the grape has been familiar in the East, from the time of Noah till the present day; and wine is spoken of as a strengthening and exhilarating liquor in all the ancient records, both sacred and profane. It is curious to notice, however, that wine was not very early introduced into those parts of Europe which are now most celebrated for its successful cultivation. The Phoenicians appear to have transported it into the islands of the Mediterranean, whence it found its way into Greece and Italy. When Rome was founded, this plant seems to have been little known in Italy; but, in a subsequent age, it had become so plentifully distributed, and its produce had risen to such repute, that Pliny mentions the desire of possessing a land of vineyards, as one great cause of the irruption of the Gauls into that country.

The vine was introduced by the Romans into Britain ; and it is a curious fact, established by documentary evidence, that this plant was once extensively cultivated in the south of England, where not a vineyard is now to be found.* This is one evidence, among many others, of a change of climate consequent on cultivation. The vine still grows wild in some of the southern counties.

In France, the cultivation of the grape was not common till the seventh century. It has since become the great staple commodity of the southern provinces of that country, where it is more successfully propagated, than in any other region, and where some of the finest wines are made for exportation.†

*The county of Gloucester is particularly recommended by Malmsbury, in the twelfth century, as excelling in its vineyards; and the Isle of Ely was known to the Normans, under the name of the Isle of Vines. Vineyards are also frequently mentioned in the descriptive accounts contained in Doomsday Book.

† In 1823, there were, in France, about four millions of acres under vine cultivation, the annual mean product of which, was twenty-two millions and a half pounds sterling. In the same year, wine and brandy were exported from that country, to the amount of considerably more than three millions pounds sterling.

[In the United States there are several species of the grape, which grow wild, and which, when quite ripe, are sweet and palatable. Some of them are white or green, and some purple. They are not so delicate, however, as the foreign kinds, which are successfully cultivated in gardens, and which are annually sent to market in considerable quantities. At the south and west there is some wine made, both from wild and cultivated sorts, but not in such quantities as to attract attention out of the districts where it is produced.] *

The tendency of wine is to exhilarate and support, and this doubtless is the purpose for which it has been bestowed by a bountiful Creator. But who does not know that there is another side of the picture, and that, instead of good, it is, by the folly of man, but too frequently converted into evil, both to individuals, and to society. What has been already said of ardent spirits, may, less emphatically, however, be applied to wine,-that, when taken to excess, it destroys the body and demoralizes the mind. But let it be observed, that such an abuse is not peculiar to fermented liquors. A liability to misapplication belongs to every sublunary thing; and the immoderate use of any gift is generally reproved and punished, by some unhappy consequence which attends or follows it. Men are taught to read their sins in their punishment. Such is the kind of discipline with which it pleases our unseen Governor to exercise us. The sin is within our reach. But, on the other hand, stands a disapproving conscience, an admonishing Revelation, and a frowning Providence. We may be entangled in the snare, but it is with our eyes open, and at our peril. If we fall, we fall willing victims; and the disasters which ensue, are at once our punishment for the past, and our warning for the future; while a present Deity offers encouragement and strength to the returning penitent. Frequent disregard to these inward and external calls, are justly followed by judicial blindness. The correction becomes, indeed, more severe, but less deeply felt. The heart is wilfully rendered callous, and the

*[This paragraph is introduced by the American Editor in place of an extract from the Spectacle de la Nature.']

conscience seared, till debauchery and drunkenness end in ruin; and thus the righteous Governor is justified, while the rebel perishes.

FIFTH WEEK-WEDNESDAY.

HUMAN FOOD.-TEA AND COFFEE.

THERE are two vegetable productions of warm climates, which, in all civilized countries, custom has converted into essential ingredients of ordinary food,—I allude to the leaf of the tea-tree, and the berry of the coffee plant; articles which, being formed into an exhilarating beverage by infusion, are often employed as substitutes for each other, and may therefore conveniently be treated of in the same paper.

The tea-tree is chiefly cultivated in Japan and China. The following description of it, I abridge from Wood's Zoography.This shrub grows but slowly, and does not arrive at its full size, till it is six or seven years old. It attains the height of four or five feet, and sometimes rather more; the root is black, woody, and branched; the stem is divided into several irregular branches, covered with a thin bark, and tinged with green, towards the extremity of the young shoot. The wood is hard, fibrous, and but sparingly provided with pith. The leaves are attached to the branches by a short slender pedicle, and when at their full size, resemble the leaves of the black cherry-tree, both in figure and color. They are numerous; of an intense green, serrated at the edges, and disposed alternately on the branches. The flowers spring from the axils of the leaves. When full blown, they measure an inch and more, have an agreeable smell, a white color, and resemble in form the common wild rose. ""*

In Japan, this useful shrub is cultivated, without much care, in the hedge-rows; in China, whole fields are plant

* [The botanical name of the tea-plant is Thea, and it is nearly allied to that genus of beautiful flowering shrubs, the Camellia.—AM. ED.]

ed with it, and it is made a subject of considerable attention to the agriculturist. It also grows wild on the rocky mountains, being a more hardy plant than is generally supposed. It is said, that, when it shoots out among the rocks, in inaccessible places, the Chinese have recourse to a singular stratagem to possess themselves of the leaves. These places are the haunts of numerous monkeys, whom the tea-gatherers take care to enrage, by various artifices; and these animals endeavor to revenge themselves, by tearing off the branches, and showering them down on the assailants, who immediately collect the harmless missiles, and strip them of their produce.

Sir George Staunton informs us, that the leaves undergo some laborious processes before they are brought to market. "Every leaf passes through the fingers of a female, who rolls it up, almost in the form it had assumed before it became expanded in the progress of its growth. It is afterwards placed upon plates of earthen-ware, or iron, made much thinner than can be executed by artists. out of China. It is confidently said in the country, that no plates of copper are ever employed for that purpose. Indeed, scarcely any utensil in China is of that metal, the chief use of which is for coinage. The color and astringency of green tea are thought to be derived from the early period at which the leaves are plucked, and which, like unripe fruit, are generally green and acrid."*

In the second volume of the Library of Entertaining Knowledge, Mr. Davis explains the following mode pursued by the Chinese, of turning black tea into green, of which he was a witness. "In the first place, large quantities of black tea, which had been damaged in consequence of the floods of the previous autumn, were drying in baskets with sieve bottoms, placed over pans of charcoal. The dried leaves were then transferred, in portions of a few pounds each, to a great number of cast-iron pans,

* Father Le Compte maintains that the color and peculiar qualities of green tea are derived from the use of copper plates, and this opinion has been generally received; but modern travellers unite in contradicting his assertion, and in establishing the truth of what is stated by Sir George Staunton.

imbedded in chunam or mortar, over furnaces. At each pan stood a workman stirring the tea rapidly round with his hand, having previously added a small quantity of turmeric in powder, which, of course, gave the leaves a yellowish or orange tinge; but they were still to be made green. For this purpose some lumps of a fine blue were produced, together with a white substance in powder, which, from the names given to them by the workmen, as well as their appearance, were known, at once, to be Prussian blue and gypsum. These were triturated finely together with a small pestle, in such proportion as reduced the dark color of the blue to a light shade; and a quantity equal to a small tea-spoonful of the powder being added to the yellowish leaves, these were stirred as before over the fire, until the tea had taken the fine bloom color of hyson, with very nearly the same scent."

Sir George Staunton states, that all ranks in China, are fond of tea, and that the 66 classes are upper particularly solicitous in the choice of it." The Emperor Kimlang composed a little poem describing the best mode of infusing it, which is chiefly curious as being the production of a Chinese monarch. But he concludes this effort of the royal muse with a sentiment which sufficiently shows the estimation in which this beverage is held in the native country of the plant. It may be thus rendered :— "Let the nectar fill the cup, Slowly sip, and sip it up. As you taste, a magic charm Every glowing sense shall warm ; While athwart your soul shall steal Balm each festering wound to heal. I know I feel the soothing spell,

But who the soft delight can tell."

It is curious to trace the origin of inveterate habits, such as that which is connected with the production we are considering. The first notice of the tea-plant, by a European writer, seems to have taken place in 1590, when Giovanni Botero, without mentioning its name, states that the Chinese have an herb, "out of which they extract a delicate juice which serves them for drink instead of wine." In 1633, the practice was noticed among the