PREFACE 



TO THE 



SEVENTH EDITION. 



EXTENSIVE public patronage has demanded a Seventh 

 Edition of this Work, to which the Author has made 

 such additions and improvements as appeared to him 

 appropriate and requisite. The chief addition is the 

 article on Wine, in the two views taken of it, surely 

 of great and general importance. In the first, the 

 extensive and fraudful adulteration of foreign Wines, 

 in too many instances attended with fatal effects, and 

 even with gradual and destructive inroads on the 

 human constitution, cannot fail to be matters of vital 

 concern to the opulent classes, the universal and chief 

 consumers of the continental wines. Such frauds are 

 criminal and disgraceful to those who commit, and 

 doubtless a proof of ill taste, and dangerous negli- 

 gence, in those who tolerate them. 



With regard to our home-made substitutes, the 

 native wines, from their necessity and extensive use, 

 they form a subject of undeniable consideration, as 

 to the most perfect mode of their manufacture, to 

 the end that they may, in the highest attainable 

 degree, be qualified to perform the office of a beverage 

 intended by nature, to make glad the heart of man. 



The Author has exerted himself in the endeavour 

 to attain the means of that important object; not 

 merely from his own peculiar views and experience, 

 which yet have not been altogether slight, but from 

 the soundest scientific and experimental authorities, 



