134 Analysis of Scientific Books. 



Madeira in quality, and are often passed off under that name ; this 

 is especially the case with tlie growths of Teneriffe ; they always, 

 however, want body and Havour. 



The vineyards of the Cape of Good Hope are^, with one excep- 

 tion, notorious for the execrable wine wliich they produce, and 

 notwithstanding all that has been said concernin<r the want of pro- 

 per soil, we must agree with our author in referring the failure 

 chiefly to the avarice and thick-headcdness of the Dutch farmers; 

 besides which, villanous brandy, and worse rum, are abundantly 

 added to tlie wines for exportation to prevent their tendency to 

 acescent fermentation. The farms of Great and Little Constan- 

 tine, situated at the eastern base of the Table Mountain, almost 

 nine miles from Cape Town, produce, as is well known, very ex- 

 cellent wines. Our author says that they are deficient in flavour 

 and aroma, and that it is chiefly owing to their rarity and extreme 

 costhness that they have acquired such celebrity ; in all which we 

 differ from him toto coelo. Of these wines the marked superiority 

 is, no doubt, partly referrible to soil, but chiefly to the care and 

 cleanliness with which the vintage is conducted. 



Of the Persian wines the finest are produced upon the line of 

 hills that stretch from the Peisian Gulf to the Caspian Sea, and 

 among them those of Shiraz are most esteemed, though they now 

 no longer maintain their formeT celebrity, bhiraz is very little 

 known here, except at the tables of first-rate connoisseurs ; we 

 have tasted it of very various qualities, and should compare the 

 best to Sercial Madeira. 



Dr. Henderson has a chapter on English wines, but the less, 

 we think, that is said about them, the better. The praise which 

 Philipott bestows upon Captain Toke's vineyards at Godington, 

 in Kent, reminds us of a gentleman from the north, who maintained 

 that his grapes, grown in the open air, near Perth, were infiiMtely 

 finer than any to be met with about London ; " but 1 must pre- 

 mise," he added, " that 1 prefer them a leetle soor." 'Ihe fact 

 is, that the notion of cultivating the vine in this climate with any 

 success is quite absurd. In Normandy and Picardy this culture 

 has been relinquished, and even in Champagne the grape will not 

 always ripen. What then is there to hope from the changeable 

 and wet seasons of England. Besides which, grapes ripened on 

 walls and trellises are never fit for the manufacture of good wine, 

 and it is upon such fruit only that we can make any plausible 

 trials. 



In discussing the history of modern wines used in England, 

 Dr. Henderson has given his readers a fair portion of entertaining 

 anecdotes and information, but w-e have already bestowed so much 

 space upon his work, that we must pass them over as not neces- 

 sarily connected with its main object. 



