Spanish America and the West India islands. In India, China, and Cochin China, the cane is cultivated, and sugar is prepared from it; in Java, and other East Indian islands, it is only used as a table vegetable, the stems being sucked or chewed raw. No plant abounds so much in saccharine juice as this, and hence its wide diffusion over the tropical and warmer temperate regions of the globe. The plant itself is a tall upright grass; and one of the few having a solid stem. From its simple woody root rise from one to seven or eight jointed stems, with a pair of leaves at each joint, and crowned with a bunch of chaffy flowers, but which produce no seed. There are several varieties of the sugar cane, which differ much in size and other properties.

The soft part of the cane, which is greedily devoured in all the countries where it grows, is exceedingly nourishing, as well as palatable; so much so, that even where it is prepared by negro slaves, notwithstanding the hardness of the labour imposed both on men and cattle during crop time, they all grow fat and strong upon the cane itself and its juice.

The jackal, likewise, and the wild dog rush in eagerly to claim a share in the general feast.

I shall not attempt to explain to you the means successively employed for the extraction, boiling down, and refining, of the juice. The last, especially, is a long, complicated, and delicate process, in which very great improvements have been made of late years, by the application of chemical science, and the power of steam. It is right, however, to mention, that the sugar manufactured in the east, is all either in the form of muscovada, that is moist, or powder, sugar, or of khand, sugar-candy as we call it. Loaf sugar is entirely a European improvement invented by the Venetians about the year 1500: hence the extraordinary value set upon this form of it for a long time afterwards. In the time of Queen Elizabeth, the University of Cambridge solemnly presented their chancellor, Lord Burleigh, with two sugar-loaves, among other gifts; and similar donations were long, if they be not still, customarily made by corporations of towns, and other public bodies, to judges, and great officers of state.

In our northern climate the sweet juices are chiefly met with in fruits; and those not native ones, but the foreign products of our gardens. Some of our eatable roots, however, also possess a degree of sweetness; as red beet, turnip, parsnip, carrot, and onion; not to mention liquorice, which is sweeter than any of these, but is scarcely an article of food. Even the farinaceous vegetables acquire a sweet taste when they grow or germinate; that is, when the rudiments of a new plant begin to sprout from them. This you may discover in a sprouted potato, or in grown corn. Malt, you know, is extremely sweet; at least, you may perhaps have tasted sweet-wort; an infusion of malt in water, from which beer is made by fermentation: but malt itself is only barley made to germinate artificially, by means of heat and moisture, and then suddenly dried. This shows a close connexion between the sweet and the farinaceous part in vegetables; and as the latter is nourishing, so is the former. You may take it as a general rule, that all sweet things afford nutriment; though I would not have you conclude that they are all fit

for food, at least without proper mixture with other articles. Fruits, with us, are rather used for the pleasure of the taste, and their cooling property, than for the purpose of nourishment; indeed, the acid or tart juice which they contain with the sweet, opposes their nourishing quality by its effects on the bowels. But in the hot countries, where fruits are often lusciously sweet, they are common articles of food. Grapes, especially in their dried state, when they are called raisins, are commonly used as such; and figs still more. The date, or fruit of the palm-tree, which is a rich sweet with little flavour, makes a large share of the diet of the people of Arabia and part of Africa.

If drink is to be reckoned a part of food, the class of vegetable sweets ranks high among the substances we are treating of, for it is the basis of all fermented liquors. Fermentation is an internal motion or working of a liquor, by which it throws off its thick and foul parts, and becomes clear and bright. All sweet things, when in a fluid state, if suffered to stand in a moderate degree of heat, undergo fermentation, by which they lose

great part of their original taste, and acquire a brisk tartness, very agreeable to the palate, and cheering to the stomach and spirits. It is then properly called a wine, though that name has been principally applied to the juice of the grape when brought to this state. But there are besides, you know, the made wines, as we call them, of raisins, currants, elder-berries, and various other fruits, to which some sugar is usually added. Then there is cider, or apple-wine; perry or pear-wine, and mead, or honey-wine; and, what in this country is used more than all the rest, maltliquor, which may be termed barley-wine. To make this, the barley (as I have already mentioned) is rendered sweet by bringing on a sudden germination, which is called malting it; and the malt is steeped in hot water to extract its sweetness. It is a remarkable circumstance, that scarcely any nation, savage or civilised, has come within our knowledge, which had not found out the art of making some kind of fermented drink. This may seem an argument in favour of their usefulness; but I am apt to suspect that it has been their intoxicating quality, much