Part 4

If your wines be sound, but wanting in body, colour, and flavour, draw out thirty or forty gallons, and return the same quantity of young and rich wines, such its are generally brought to this country for that purpose; to a can of which put a quart of colouring, with a bottle of wine or brandy, in which half an ounce of powdered cochineal has been previously mixed. Whisk it well together, and put it in your cask, stirring it well about with a staff; and if not bright in about a week or ten days, you may fine it for use; previous to which, put in at different times a gallon of good brandy. If Port wines are short of body, put a gallon or two of brandy into each pipe, as you see necessary. If the wines be in your own stock, put it in by a quart or two at a time, as it feeds the wine better in this way than putting it in all at once; but, if your wines are in a bonded cellar, procure a funnel that will go down to the bottom of the cask, that the brandy may be completely incorporated with the wine. When your Port is thus made fine and pleasant, bottle it off, taking care to pack it in a temperate place with saw-dust or dry sand, after which it will not be proper to drink for at least two months. When laying your wines down in bottles you should never use new deal saw-dust, as that causes it to fret too much, and often communicates a strong turpentine smell through the corks to the wine.--_Ibid._

RED CURRANT WINE.

Take seventy pounds of red currants, bruised and pressed, good moist sugar forty-five pounds, water sufficient to fill up a fifteen-gallon cask, ferment; this produces a very pleasant red wine, rather tart, but keeps well.--_Ibid._

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The Gatherer.

"I am but a _Gatherer_ and disposer of other men's stuff."--_Wotton_.

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ON CRANIOLOGY.

In days of yore, Laid wit and lore, And wisdom in the wig; But now the skull Contains them all, The peruke is too big.

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"According to Julius Africanus," says Gibbon, "the world was created on the _first of September_--an opinion almost too foolish to be recorded."

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In the memoirs of the celebrated French actor, Preville, we find the following letter, addressed by the manager of a strolling company to his prompter:--

"At last, my dear boy, here we are safe in Provins. The coach-office undertook to deliver the boxes of snow and hail. The winds and tempest came later than we expected--we even lost a zephyr. The thunder got broke on the road, and we have been forced to have fresh sodder for the two lightnings. Our divinities are well, with the exception of Love, who has got the small-pox; the Graces have been inoculated; we were obliged to leave them behind on the road, with the brick wall, which being wrapt round the sun to keep it from getting soiled, was rubbed to pieces by the sharp rays. Our rivers and sea are coming by water; and pray, when you come yourself, do not forget to bring lots of clouds with you, and a new moon. A torrent too will be wanted, for our last has most unluckily got burnt. I am anxious for a full account of all your purchases, to which you must add two yards of weeping willows. Above all, bring me a drawbridge, a fortress, and my linen, if it was not turned into tinder for the last sea-fight. Ever yours."