They make their fortunes, who are stout and wise, Wit rules the heavens, discretion guides the skies. And Johnson remarks, "Those who, in the confidence of superior capacities or attainments, neglect the common maxims of life, should be reminded that nothing will supply the want of prudence; but that negligence and irregularity long continued will make knowledge useless, wit ridiculous, and genius contemptible."

86. A CAT may look at a King.

66

We have scarcely ever heard these words quoted but as a pert defence of insolent behaviour. "It is," says Bailey, a saucy proverb, generally made use of by pragmatical people, who must needs be censuring their superiors, who take things by the worst handle, and carry them beyond their bounds." Persons in an humble lot of life ought indeed to look at great and distinguished characters with honour and respect, but not view or judge of them familiarly and offensively. To order myself lowly and reverently to all my betters" is a portion of duty to our neighbour which is well understood, but too often neglected in practice by all, particularly by the young.

87. CONSCIENCE is as a thousand witnesses.

66 Labour," says Lord Bacon, "to keep a good conscience; for he that is disfurnished thereof hath fear for his bedfellow, care for his companion, and the sting of guilt for his torment."

The next upon our list has much the same force and signification.

88. A guilty CONSCIENCE needs no accuser.

The following story, cited from an old book which probably few of our readers have seen, may serve to illustrate this excellent proverb.

Ferdinand, Emperor of Germany, possessed a great number of watches, in collecting of which he had a fancy. "It pleased him once," says our quaint author,

to put

this, his variety of speaking gold, upon a table, as if he would expose it to sale: he then stepped aside. A standerby, driven by a desire of stealing, filched one of them, (a repeater,) which the emperor espying aslant, called him to him, and, without.accusation, kept him in various discourse till the watch striking disclosed the hour and his theft! He that deceiveth with unjust weight or measure may apply this. What he has done hath, like the watch, a tongue to discover him: besides, his conscience betrays him; and though he be his own judge, he cannot be acquitted. His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins.-Prov. v. 22.

89. COVETOUSNESS brings nothing home.

We shall give to this, as we endeavour to give to all our proverbs that will admit of it, an enlarged and Christian meaning; and, instead of dwelling on the odious vice of covetousness, we will try to shame those who are guilty herein by showing the beauty of the opposite quality. There are many examples of men, who, by consecrating a great part of their means to pious and eharitable uses, have increased their fortunes, and by casting their bread upon the waters, have found it again with interest after many days. In Dr. Anthony Horneck's Treatise "on Consideration" is a story to this point, which shall be told in his own words. In Nisibis there was a religious woman, who had a man that was a heathen for her husband. They were poor, yet by hard labour had got fifty pounds together; whereupon the husband thought good to put it out to interest, that they might not consume the main stock. His wife, being a Christian, readily told him, that none paid greater interest for money lent him than the God of the Christians. The man, pleased with the news, demands, where was this God to be met with? The woman told him at such a church, where He had deputies to receive the sum. They take the money, and to church they go, where they saw some poor,

widows sitting:-These are the deputies of the God of the Christians,' said the woman, they will receive your money and pay you interest. The man, not much pleased with his security, yet over-persuaded by his wife, lets the poor widows have the money, who, not knowing the man's intent, thankfully received it.

"A quarter of a year after, the man, finding himself pinched for want of provisions, bids his wife go and demand a quarter of a year's interest; to which she replies, That if he would go to those poor widows and demand the same, she did not doubt but he might have it. He goes and expostulates with these persons; but what he had given them was consumed, and they were so far from paying interest, that they were ready to beg more of him; with that he goes sad and sorrowful out of the church; but going, he spies a piece of gold, which it seems he had accidentally dropped on the floor in his first distribution of the sum to the poor. cheat those poor widows had put upon him. She bids him He takes it up, goes home, and complains to his wife of the trust in that God to whom he had lent the money, and take the piece he had found, and buy necessaries for their family. He goes to the market-place, and, among other things, buys some fish, which were to be dressed for dinner. His wife opening one of the fish, finds in the belly a precious stone, which betrayed its worth by its unusual glittering. The man carries it to a jeweller, who presently gives him £300 for the jewel, at which the man, transported, falls a praising the God of the Christians, and himself becomes a Christian, astonished with the Providence which had so miraculously disposed of second causes for his signal profit and emolument." There is that scattereth and yet increaseth; and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty.-Prov. xi. 24.

We may wind up our present paper with an old English saying, which, after the above inspired passage, will need no commentary.

WHILE we duly appreciate the important advantages which must result to a community, from the general diffusion of education among all classes, we ought always to bear in mind, that men whose condition is daily labour, have very little time to devote to the purpose of mental cultivation. The great problem, therefore, is to discover what is that species of instruction which will produce the largest sum of good result with the least possible demand of time. Now the communication of religious knowledge appears incomparably the best calculated of any other means that can be devised to answer this end. Intellectual cultivation is desired as the means of moral improvement. But that effect which the inculcation of other than religious knowledge would produce only mediately and instrumentally religious instruction would bring about directly, and in a much higher degree. And while the former may be effec tual to make men good subjects, and good citizens, and to promote their happiness in this present world; the latter, equally, or rather still more conducing to this effect, is at the same time preparing them for that existence to which the interests of the present life ought always to be held subservient.

THERE are few difficulties that hold out against real attacks; they fly, like the visible horizon, before those who advance. A passionate desire, and an unwearied will, can perform impossibilities, or what seem to be such to the cold and feeble. If we do but go on, some unseen path will open among the hills. We must not allow ourselves to be discouraged by the apparent disproportion between the result of single efforts, and the magnitude of the obstacle to be encountered. Nothing good or great is to be obtained without courage or industry; but courage and industry must have sunk in despair, and the world must have remained unornamented and unimproved, if men had nicely compared the effect of a single stroke of the chisel with the pyramid to be raised, or of a single impression of the spade with the mountain to be levelled.-SHARPE'S Letters and

Essays.

As it is no strange thing for the sea to rage, when strong winds blow upon it, so neither for multitudes to become violent, when they have men of some reputation for parts and piety to lead them on.-Icon Basilike.

THE LION-ANT. THIS formidable insect is rather more than half an inch in length, of an oval form, and grayish colour. It feeds chiefly on Solomon's emblem of industry, and has hence received the name of Formica-leo, or Lion-ant. Its head, which is very small, is armed with two strong mandibles, which look like horns, but it is with them that the larva seizes upon its prey; and as they are pierced at the extremity, they no doubt also act as suckers. As the form of the insect does not admit of active motion, nature has made amends by endowing it with admirable skill and cunning. It is only in the larva state that the lion-ant exhibits this peculiar instinct; when in its perfect form, it is a winged insect, and like most others of the same class, it now requires but little if any nourishment, the latter part of its existence being chiefly occupied in perpetuating its species.

LION-ANT IN THE LARVA STATE.

THE LION-ANT IN ITS PERFECT STATE.

It constructs, in a dry or sandy soil, a funnelshaped excavation, the sides and edges of which are loose and crumbling, and at the bottom, with body closely covered, but with jaws projecting upwards, he lies concealed. No sooner does an industrious ant, laden perhaps with its provision, approach the edge of the slope, than the finely-poised sand gives way, and the entrapped victim, rolling to the bottom, is instantly seized, and sucked to a shadow by the lurking tyrant, who, soon after, by a jerk of his head, tosses out the dead body beyond the immediate boundaries of his dwelling. There are tartars, however, among insects as well as among men; and it sometimes happens, that a large and vigorous winged insect, such as a wasp, a bee, or a beetle, tumbles head foremost into the pit.

When Greek meets Greek, then comes the tug of war; and when a lion-ant does get the tail of a wasp in his mouth, there is no saying exactly how the combat may end. The one is furnished with jaws tenacious as well as strong, but he bears no " charmed life;" while the other is armed with a weapon which never rusts, and compared with the keenness of which, the brightest sword in Damascus is as a broken foil. In these doubtful, though, to one or other of the parties, eventually mortal struggles, the result is, that either the lion-ant is dragged out of his den and stung to death, or dropped upon the ground and left a prey to birds; or that the winged insect is maimed, disabled, drawn into the sand, and slain. If an insect incapable of flight, or from its situation unable to use its wings, but of larger size than the lion-ant ventures at once to seize upon, chances to fall into the snare, it is overwhelmed in its attempts to reascend, by repeated showers of sand, thrown up by its enemy with unerring aim. No sooner, however, is the strength of the toiling and exhausted Sisyphus at least in part exhausted, than he, too, is seized upon, and sucked to death. The lion-ant makes use of its head as a catapulta, or instrument of war, with which to shower the sand upon its astonished prey.

[Chiefly from the Encyclopædia Britannica.]

PREPARATION FOR ANOTHER WORLD WERE any other event, of far inferior moment, ascertained by evidence, which made but a distant approach to that which attests the certainty of a life to come, had we equal assurance that, after a very limited, though uncertain period, we should be called to emigrate into a distant land, whence we were never to return, the intelligence would fill every breast with solicitude; it would become the theme of every tongue, and we should avail ourselves with the utmost eagerness of all the means of information respecting the prospects which awaited us in that unknown country. Much of our attention would be occupied in preparing for our departure; we should cease to consider the place we now inhabit as our home, and nothing would be considered as of moment but as it bore upon our future destination.

How strange is it then, that with the certainty we all possess of shortly entering into another world, we avert our eyes as much as possible from the prospect, that we seldom permit it to penetrate us, and that the moment the recollection recurs, we hasten to dismiss it, as an unwelcome intrusion. Is it not surprising that the volume we profess to recognise as the record of immortality, and the sole depository of whatever information it is possible to obtain respecting the portion which awaits us, should be consigned to neglect, and rarely, if ever, consulted with the serious intention of ascertaining our future condition?-ROBERT HALL.

It is, indeed, a matter of great patience to reasonable men, to find people objecting against the credibility of particular cessity or expediency of them. For, though it is highly things revealed in Scripture, that they do not see the neright, and the most pious exercise of our understanding, to inquire with due reverence into the ends and reasons of God's dispensations, yet when those reasons are concealed, to argue from our ignorance that such dispensations cannot be from God is infinitely absurd. The presumption of this And the folly of them is yet greater, when they are urged, kind of objections seems almost lost in the folly of them. as usually they are, against things in Christianity, analogous, or like to those natural dispensations of Providence, which are matters of experience. Let reason be kept to, and if any part of the Scripture account of the redemption of the world by Christ, can be shown to be really contrary but let not such poor creatures as we are, go on objecting to it, let the Scripture, in the name of God, be given up: against an infinite scheme, that we do not see the necessity or usefulness of all its parts,-and call this reasoning; and, which still further heightens the absurdity, parts which we are not actively concerned in.-BISHOP BUTLER.

dangers hover about us, none can tell whether the good IN this state of universal uncertainty, where a thousand that he pursues is not evil in disguise, or whether the next step will lead him to safety or destruction; nothing can afford any rational tranquillity but the conviction that, however we amuse ourselves with ideal sounds, nothing in reality is governed by chance, but that the universe is it; that our being is in the hands of omnipotent goodness, under the perpetual superintendence of him who created by whom what appears casual to us is directed for ends ultimately kind, and good, and merciful, and that nothing can finally hurt him who debars not himself from the Divine favour.-DR. JOHNSON.

How much is there in this world of ours, natural and moral, to delight, how much to afflict, how much to encourage, and how much to awe us, and all conduce to form one great and decisive state of trial.-DANBY. NEVER yet did there exist a full faith in the Divine Word, (by whom light as well as immortality was brought into the the heart,-which did not multiply the aims and objects of world) which did not expand the intellect, while it purified the understanding, while it fixed and simplified those of the desires and passions.-COLERIDGE.

THE USEFUL ARTS. No. X. WINE MAKING IN FRANCE. THE VINTAGE.-PROPERTIES OF THE GRAPE.-PROCESSES.-FERMENTATION. DIFFERENT SORTS OF WINES.-MEAD.-CIDER AND PERRY. -MILLS AND PRESSES.

HAVING already given some account of the culture of the grape, we shall describe wine-making as practised in France, the principle being everywhere the same.

Grapes, the fruit of the Vine, are ripe about the end of September, and the vintage, or gathering of the crop, is everywhere a season of festivity. A sufficient number of labourers are collected to complete the harvest in one or two days; for if it occupied more time, the fruit first gathered would begin to ferment before the rest was ready, and the wine would be thereby spoilt.

The bunches of grapes, cut off with scissors, or pruningknives, are collected in baskets, from which they are carried in a larger panier, made of osiers woven close enough to prevent the escape of the juice, to an open tub, or barrel, which is borne on a kind of car; when the tub is filled, it is wheeled away to the covered place, where a large vat is placed to receive these contributions. At the bottom of the vat is a tap to draw off the liquor, and a small fagot of twigs is placed inside the vat, before the opening to the tap, to prevent the stalks and skins of the grapes from clogging up the aperture.

When the vat is filled with grapes, a man, perfectly naked, gets into it, and with his feet tramples on the mass, till all the juice is expressed. The skins and stalks which float on the top, are sometimes skimmed off, but this is not always the practice, for though, when left in the juice, they impart a strong flavour to the wine, they yet hasten the fermentation, and increase the property of keeping well. The juice of the grapes is now left to ferment, and a certain degree of temperature is necessary to admit of that chemical action taking place. If it happens that the weather is too cold, a few caldrons full of the liquor are boiled and poured back to the rest, in order to raise the temperature of the whole to the proper degiee. This proceeding is especially necessary when the fruit is not quite ripe, or if rain had fallen shortly before it was gathered; for this moisture, diluting the juice, retards the fermentation, and part of this superfluous water is evaporated off by boiling some of the liquid. It is necessary to cover the vat over, either with a wooden top, or with woollen cloths, in order to confine the heat which is developed, and thus to accelerate the process. Under favourable circumstances, if the thermometer is at 60° (15° Réaumur,) fermentation commences on the first day, but in general it does not take place till the second or third, or even later.

When the action is at the height, the temperature of the liquid rises to 95°; bubbles of air then come to the surface and burst, as if the liquid were boiling over a fire: this air which escapes is carbonic acid gas. As it is necessary to keep the place in which the vats are placed, closed up, in order to maintain the temperature, precautions must be taken to renew the air, whenever any one goes in to observe the process; for otherwise they might be suffocated from the large admixture of carbonic acid with the air of the apartment. This noxious gas, however, being heavier than atmospheric air, forms a stratum on the floor, similar to the way in which water sinks to the bottom of a tumbler of oil; consequently, if this stratum of gas be not as deep as a man is high, he may not suffer from it.

The Must, or juice of the grape, is a sweet clear liquid, consisting of water, holding a large proportion of a particular kind of sugar in solution; and also a chemical principle called ferment, which varies for different liquids, but the presence of which is essential to enable that liquid to undergo fermentation. We have already seen in BREWING, that it is necessary to add ferment, (the yest,) to the wort, or barley-juice, because the principle of fermentation does not naturally exist in that liquid; the juice of grapes, and of many other fruits, on the contrary, contain this principle, and therefore no artificial addition of a ferment is necessary in making wines from them.

It is not always the sweetest tasted grape that ferments the most, or produces the best wine. There are, as has been before stated, several kinds of saccharine matter, and that which yields, by fermentation, the largest proportion of alcohol, is far from being so sweet to the palate as the sugar which is obtained from the sugar-cane in its raw state.

See USEFUL ARTS, No. IV, in Vol. VI., p. 243,

Starch and sugar consist of oxygen, hydrogen, and car bon, and these same three ingredients, in another proportion, constitute alcohol; fermentation is the chemical process by which this proportion is altered, in consequence of some of the oxygen and carbon combining and forming carbonic acid, and this being disengaged, the proper portions of each necessary to form the alcohol are left. The exact mode in which this change is brought about is not known; but it is certain, that the saccharine matter, or the starch, must be dissolved in a certain portion of water, and that the liquid must be at a certain temperature; and the fermenting principle, which is supposed to reside in the gluten, must be present, to allow of these changes taking place.

When the fermentation is completed, or when the elementary principles have combined in the proper proportions, and formed all the alcohol which the liquid was capable of yielding, the agitation gradually ceases, the temperature falls, and the fluid becomes clear again, and thinner than the original Must. If tasted, it will be found to be no longer sweet and insipid-it has now become Wine.

In very hot countries, the juice of the grape contains a greater proportion of sugar than can be turned into alcohol during the fermentation, however much this process may be prolonged. The wine which results from such grapes is therefore not altogether, chemically considered, pure wine; but consists of a large quantity of alcohol, holding unconverted saccharine matter in solution; hence such wines are sweet and fiery. On the other hand, in Champagne, Burgundy, and the Orléannois country, the grapes do not contain sugar, in proportion to the fermenting principle, which continues its activity after all the sugar has been converted. Accordingly the wines are liable to become sour, or to pass on into the next stage, the acetous fermentation; hence in these countries, the marc, or the skins, and stalks, of the fruit, are left floating on the must, during fermentation, because, as has been stated, the alcohol, as it forms, extracts from this refuse some principle which retards the acetous fermentation, or which makes the wine keep.

In colder countries, the climate of which does not allow of the fruit ripening perfectly, or of a sufficient proportion of saccharine matter being deposited in it, sugar must often be added to the must, in order to make wine at all. This is the case in England, with the made wines, as they are hence termed, prepared from our fruits.

The different flavours of wines are derived from some vegetable principle, which is a volatile oil, and which is secreted in the epidermis or skin of the fruit; the colour of the liquid is also given by a resinous product likewise residing in the skin. This resin, though not soluble in water, is so in alcohol: if therefore the skins and refuse, or the marc, is removed before the fermentation commences, the colouring-matter will be abstracted, and the wine will be white, however dark the grape might have been. White Champagne, for example, is made from a deep purple grape, and Port made from the same vineyard, will be either red or colourless, according as the skins of the fruit have been either allowed to remain in the must, during fermentation, or have been removed.

Besides the more essential constituents which have been mentioned, there exists in the grape Tartaric acid, Malic acid, and some potash and lime. It is found by trial, that the presence of Tartaric acid is necessary to fermentation; but when this process is completed, the alcohol having no affinity for this acid, it unites with the potash, and is deposited in the vessel containing the wine, under the form of a white crystalline mass, commonly called Tartar, or Cream of Tartar*.

When ready, the wine is racked off, or drawn off into smaller casks, which are kept unbunged for a short time, in order to allow the renewed fermentation to subside. When this is the case, the vessels are closed, and are ready for the market, though a considerable time, varying from one to ten years, elapses before the liquor should be bottled. Various wines are also kept for different periods in the vat before they are racked off, some being improved by standing on the lees, or sediment deposited from the liquid.

Before closing up the casks, it is usual to sulphur the wine, in order to prevent a renewal of the fermentation; this is effected by burning a little sulphur in the cask. Wine is also fined by adding white of egg, isinglass, chips of beech-wood, and other substances, to occasion a chemical action which renders the wine clearer.

It is a curious fact that wine becomes stronger by being *Malic acid in excess is injurious to wine; it is the abundance of this acid in Cider and Perry, that is, in apple and pear wine, which imparts their sharp flavour to those drinks,

kept in the cask: the wood allows some of the water of the liquid to exude, while it retains the alcohol.

By boiling the must, immediately after it is pressed from the grapes, the fermenting process is arrested, and the liquor preserves its sweet and mild taste. Flavour is imparted at discretion, by the use of different substances.

When the light wines of Champagne are bottled before the fermentation is completely terminated, they constitute the creaming, or sparkling, wine, so much esteemed. The bottles must be well corked, the cork secured with wire, and the bottle made air-tight by melted wax and resin.

In countries like our own, where grapes will not ripen sufficiently in the open air to allow of wine being made from them, other fruits are used in the making of fermented drinks; but as none of them contain saccharine matter in sufficient abundance, sugar is added to the juice or must. It ought to be generally known, that the addition of brandy to home-made wines is always prejudicial to the liquid, as well as destructive of the flavour of the fruit. One of the motives for the introduction of brandy, is to supply the want of alcohol, which ought to be naturally produced in the fermentation, but which cannot be formed for want of sufficient sugar. The object would, therefore, be better, and more cheaply, attained, by increasing the quantity of sugar, added to the juice of the fruit.

In this branch of domestic economy, as in every other art in life, a little real scientific knowledge is infinitely preferable to a blind adherence to receipts and formula. No receipt for making wine can be universally applicable, because even fruit from the same plant is not exactly the same for two years together, owing to difference in seasons and in soil. But if the maker of the wine is acquainted with the chemical principles of the art, he may correct the defects, or supply the deficiencies, of his materials, far more effectually than by merely following receipts.

The fruits that may be best employed for making wine, are the grape, either fresh or dried, gooseberry, currant, and raspberry. Most other wines, called elder, cherry, orange, &c. are rather drinks, prepared from the juice of the fruit, with alcohol artificially added.

MEAD

Is a wine made from honey and water, instead of sugar. It is often flavoured by adding the juice of some fruit, and without this addition, yeast must be employed to excite fermentation.

CIDER AND PERRY

Are the names of wines made in large quantities from the apple and pear, and drunk in our own islands, as well as in the north of France, where these fruits are abundant. The process for making the two drinks is the same. In cider, the species or variety of the apple is immaterial; the fruit should be nearly, but not quite ripe, and it must be spread on a dry floor for a few weeks to mellow. A mixture of different kinds furnishes the best cider, and the spirit and flavour is greatly increased by a considerable proportion of crabs, or wild apples. Indeed, it is one of the many merits of this excellent beverage, that every wind-fall, provided it be not bruised or rotten, is available.

After crushing the fruit, the processes of making cider resemble wine-making in all the essential particulars, except that cider is not allowed to ferment so long as grape-juice; for the liquid is not prized for its strength, or for the quantity of alcohol it may contain, but for its brisk, acidulous, sweet flavour, which would be lost if the saccharine matter were entirely converted into spirit.

The mill for crushing the fruit varies in different countries; generally it is like that used for grinding the olives for obtaining oil, and represented in a former paper*. The annexed engraving represents the kind of mill used in Ireland, where cider is better and more abundantly made than in most other places, Herefordshire hardly excepted.

When cider or perry are made in small quantities, in private families, the crushing may be performed by means of a heavy wooden pestle, in a stout tub. Whatever mode is adopted, too many apples should not be put into the mill at a time, for if that be done the fruit is not completely and equally crushed, and the labour of working the mill is greatly increased. When the pulp accumulates so as to clog the rollers, it should be removed, and put into coarse canvass sacks, or into hair bags, ready for the press.

See Saturday Magazine, Vol. VII., p. 2