MEDICINES. 463 



(For correcting acid, however, / always prefer the use of salt of 

 tartar; but this, I believe, is not the general custom. I merely 

 speak of it as I find it.) 



SOME ESSENCE OF PEPPERMINT. 

 See the paper round it, for its various good qualities. 



N. B. Bottle a tea-spoonful of this in a pint of water (where you 

 cannot immediately get a pint of peppermint water), and put with it 

 two drams of salt of tartar. Keep this as a standing ornament to 

 your bed-room chimney-piece 5 and when you require it, from having 

 made too free with French wines, or hard stale port, take half a 

 wine glass full going to bed *. 



QMany who fancy themselves great judges of port wine keep it 

 but a moderate time in the wood, and a long time in little quart 

 bottles ; instead of doing just the reverse ; or of bottling it in two, 

 or four, quart magnums. Port does not, like claret, turn to vinegar, 

 unless drank within a short time after being drawn ; and therefore 

 the last glass of what was decanted, and occasionally drank, from 

 magnums, would be worth a dozen glasses, even just uncorked, of that 

 which had been bottled in pints. (The reverse would be the case with 

 spirits.) The larger the body the wine is kept in, the more agreeable 

 to the palate of a good judge, and the less injurious to the stomach. 

 It is not sufficient for wine to be old and even genuine ; but it should 

 be made of grapes that have grown in a warm part of the vineyard, 

 which give it a sweet and full body ; and it should be free from green 

 or blighted fruit, or it will get worse, instead of better, by keeping; 

 so that you may produce a bottle of wine with a fine looking crust, 

 " bee's wing," and all such nonsense, which, in reality, is neither 

 better nor more wholesome than the stale beer of a country pot-house, 

 where the poor landlord is a tenant at the mercy of a bad brewer. 



Thus many of the trade are obliged to, what they 

 call, " marry" the wine, in order, as with many other 

 kinds of marriages, to turn the bad stock to good ac- 

 count; not to say a word of the innumerable tricks 



* This mixture may be used also as a lotion to preserve the teeth, 

 immediately after eating acids. 



