THE GOOSEBERRY AND CTJRRAWT. 143 



island, but, in its best estate at least, almost peculiar to 

 it. It is true that it is a native of other countries : the 

 picturesque Vierlander offers it to her Hamburgh cus- 

 tomers ; its bushes may be seen mantling " the castled 

 crag of Drachenfels" and nourishing on the flat coasts of 

 the Baltic ; but the best berries brought to market in most 

 parts of Germany bear about the same relation to our 

 fruit as a Shetland pony does to a Barclay's dray-horse. 

 Though unmentioned by ancient French botanists,it grows 

 wild, too, in various parts of France; but the contemptuous 

 notice of it in the Nouveau Du Samel, sums up as the 

 amount of its usefulness that " the bushes make hedges 

 in the country, the green fruits serve instead of verjuice 

 to season mackerel (whence its common French name of 

 Groseille aux maquereaux), and the best are eaten when 

 ripe, the red and green sorts being mixed by the fruiterers 

 and sold to children and persons who like such things, by 

 measure. The English make tarts and preserves of them, 

 * and,' says M. Laundy, ' a wine which is very tolerable, 

 or, at least, very renowned amongst them.' " Shade of 

 Goldsmith ! is it thus that a frog-eating Frenchman dares 

 to speak of "our own gooseberry," that sparkling native 

 nectar on which the virtues of the immortal Vicar were 

 nurtured, and with which he was wont to cheer the hearts 

 of Wakefield's most honoured guests ? On what trivial 

 grounds the fastidious French may found a dislike, may 

 be judged by the further intimation respecting the fruit, 

 that " on the best sort, the hairy yellow, the hairs are soft, 

 and cannot produce a disagreeable impression on the most 

 delicate lips." On the most hirsute kind they would pro- 

 bably be softer than those which are wont to bristle on a 

 Frenchman's physiognomy, yet which certainly he would 

 never think it possible could cause a "disagreeable im- 

 pression." But it is the partiality manifested by perfidious 

 Albion for the poor gooseberry which evidently excites 

 this Gallic scorn of it, and induced the editors of so ela- 

 borate a work thus to mingle the splenetic with the scien- 

 tific. The writer continues : " It would seem that tTie 

 English particularly love the gooseberry, or else that they 

 chose it as specially fit to show the infinite power of Nature 



