hurry, and one hears of nothing but shares, reports, and premiums. There is no longer conversation, intrigue, pleasure, wit, or society. Speculation has invaded everything; railroads have turned people's brains, and confounded all ranks of society. It is impossible for a philosopher to live in a town in such a condition; I shall therefore set out on a tour in the east. I prefer being among the Turks. I shall return in a year, and perhaps by that time the Parisian fever will be abated."

Beview.

Mr. Kingston's Lusitanian Sketches.

An elaborate description of Oporto, with a narrative of tours made in the northern division of that country and in the Spanish province of Leon. The whole is rendered amusing and full of interest by anecdotes and effectively worked-up local descriptions. Mr. Kingston, accompanied by a few friends, visits Guimaraens, Braga, and Salamanca, and makes on his way remarks on the celebrated retreat of Soult, when baffling Wellington, by carrying off his men into Spain, through mountain paths supposed to be impassable. Another trip, that to the battle field of Busaco, is equally in teresting, nor are the lesser trips to the vine-growing districts, where he gives an elaborate review of the wine trade.

RED PORT.

"When once the vintage has commenced, time is invaluable. The vineyards are crowded with persons, some plucking the sound grapes and filling large hampers with them, others separating the rotten or dry bunches, while the Gallegos are employed in carrying the baskets down the steep sides of the hills on their backs. The presses are stone tanks, raised high from the floor, about two to three feet deep and from twenty to thirty square. A boy stands in the centre, and rakes the grapes as they are thrown in, so as to form an even surface. When full, twenty or thirty men with bare feet and legs jump in, and to the sound of guitars, pipes, fiddles, drums, and of their own voices, continue dancing, or rather treading, for forty to fifty hours, with six hours intervening between every eighteen, till the juice is completely expressed and the skins perfectly bruised, so as to extract every particle of colour. It is necessary to leave in the stalks, in order to impart that astringent quality so much admired in port wine, as well as to aid fermentation. After the men are withdrawn, the juice, the husks, and stalks, are allowed to ferment together from two to six days; the husks and stalks then rise to the top, and form a complete cake. By this means the

colour is still further extracted from the skin. It is a very critical time, much depending on the judgment and practice of the superintendent as to the right moment to draw off the liquor; for so active is the fermentation, that it may be, if allowed to remain too long in the press, completely spoiled. Nothing but long experience can enable a person to judge on this point, and many young merchants who have attempted to do so have had cause to repent their interference with the farmer's business. The taste of the wines before drawn off into the tonels is sweet, nauseous, and sickening; and it is of a dark muddy colour; so that one can with difficulty believe it can ever become the bright, sparkling, and astringent fluid, it appears in the course of two or three years. The tonels or vats into which the wine is drawn are in a building on a lower spot than the one which contains the press, a channel leading from it to them. They contain frequently thirty pipes each. The period when the wine is thus drawn off is the time when the rich and generous qualities of the grapes are to be retained, or lost never to be restored. From the rich nature of the Douro grape, the fermentation once begun will not stop of its own accord (even when the wine is drawn off from the husks and stalks), till it has caused it to become a bitter liquid, almost if not entirely undrinkable and useless, and finally vinegar. To retain, therefore, those much prized qualities, it is absolutely necesssry to add brandy at the very critical moment, so difficult to decide, before that stage which produces the bitterness commences. Brandy always has been and always must be added to the richer and finer wines, or from their very nature they overwork themselves, and, exhausting their own strength, are destroyed. The grapes from which the rich luscious port wine is produced become, when hung up in the sun to dry, complete masses of sugar. This excessively saccharine matter, possessed only by those grapes growing in the positions most exposed to the sun's rays, gives that rich and fruity flavour of which the best port alone can boast. With the poorer and more watery grapes, the fermentation, not being so violent, will work itself out; and the little saccharine matter they contain completely disappearing, a dry light wine is the produce; which, though requiring brandy, requires less to preserve its good qualities, for the very reason that there are fewer good qualities to preserve. Such is the case with regard to the wines of Bordeaux. I do not mean to say that they do not possess good qualities, but that, being of a lighter nature than the best port, from the cooler climate or nature of the soil in which they are produced, the fermentation

is not so violent, nor do they exhaust themselves from their own strength. No brandy is therefore requisite, and that delicious liquor claret is the produce; a successful imitation of which it has been vainly attempted to produce in Portugal."

The comparison drawn by Mr. Kingston between the Spanish and Portuguese, is in no way favourable to the former. The only point, he states, in which the Spaniards excel the latter, is in household cleanliness. The Portuguese, he affirms, are good humoured, agreeable, and willing to oblige, while the Spaniards are proud, pompous, and given to imposition. To give an idea of Mr. Kingston's descriptive style, we quote a curious German superstition.

THE LOBIS HOMES.

"A destiny scarcely inferior in wretchedness to the Bruxa's is that of the Lobishomes, except that, as far as I can learn, it endures only for this life, and is owing to no fault on their part. They are born under an inauspicious star, and a sad necessity rules their fate. Every family is liable to this curse, from the highest to the lowest in the land; and though they themselves are conscious of it, they keep it a profound secret, as it is considered a great disgrace to be afflicted with it. It is common to both sexes among young people; those who suffer from it never attaining an advanced age. I have been unable to learn at what time of life it appears. If seven sons or seven daughters are born in one family, the seventh generally is subject to the demoniacal influence; at all events, one of the younger ones. The only preventive against this fate is by christening one of the seven 'Adam': should this be neglected, it is almost certain to visit the family. In the day-time they are free from the spell, but even then wear a peculiarly sad and pained expression of countenance. They mope by themselves, are taciturn and reserved; never enter society if they can avoid it, and then evidently are incapable of its enjoyment. The lower orders sit by themselves, without speaking, in a corner near the kitchen-fire; the expression of their countenances wild and forbidding, their hair and beard long and tangled, their garments disarranged and squalid. In travelling through the country, such beings are frequently pointed out as Lobishomes. As night draws on, these hapless beings rush from their abodes -the high-born damsel from her bower, the noble youth from his baronial hall, or the hard-featured peasant from his humble cot. No human power can restrain them-the demon has entered into themthey seek some solitary, wild spot, untrod by the foot of man. There they leave their habiliments, and are immediately

transformed into the appearance of horses, with long flowing manes and waving tails, fire darting from their nostrils, fury in their eyes; yet fear it is which urges them on. Away they fly, fleet as the wind, over rugged mountains and deep valleys, across streams and winter-torrents, through frost and snow, rain and the fierce lightning. Leagues are traversed in as many seconds all other animals fly before them-they neigh in agony as they rush on, yet have no power to stop. On, on, on! their pulses beat quicker, their breath grows thick; but they cannot, they dare not, rest. They sweep round, forming a wide circuit some hundred leagues in extent; yet before the morning breaks they must return to the spot whence they set out, and there resuming their mortal forms and donning their garments, they once more seek their homes, pale, fainting, and wretched. It is not surprising, after such a night's work, they should be averse to social intercourse. Often at midnight are the cottagers in remote districts startled from their slumbers by unearthly sounds, like the cry of a horse in agony; loud tramping is heard, and a noise as if a sudden blast passed by, and they exclaim, 'It is some hapless Lobishome! may the saints have mercy on him!' At times also, as the shepherds are watching their flocks on the mountain's brow, they see a wild steed dash by on the plain below, fleet as a fiery meteor, while the sheep and goats exhibit their consciousness of something supernatural by scattering far and wide. Their faithful dogs, too, forget to obey their call; and it is with the utmost difficulty they contrive to reassemble their affrighted flocks. The Lobishomes endure not this dreadful existence for more than seven years, if even so many; death invariably putting an end to their sufferings at the termination of that period-frequently before. I have been informed of but one mode of escape from this doom, or, it may be said, of being freed from this extraordinary species of enchantment. While in full headlong_career, they should be boldly encountered by some fearless person, who must wound them slightly in the chest, so that their blood shall flow. No sooner does the ruddy current reach the ground, than they are instantly restored to their proper forms. The malign influence henceforth has no further power over them, nor do they ever resume the appearance of a horse: they then become like other mortals."

PORTUGUESE PENANCES.

"The Portuguese peasantry are still addicted to performing penances. As they are seldom very heavy, they find it an easy way of soothing their consciences. The most severe I have seen poor women perform, such as crawling round a church

many times on their bare knees: frequently they hang a bag of sand to their necks, to increase their toil, and let it run out as they proceed. This is done frequently under a pelting rain, the poor wretches literally tracing their progress with their blood. Sometimes these penances are inflicted by their confessors for sins committed; at other times they are in fulfilment of vows made in consequence of recovery from sickness, or on account of finding any lost treasure. They are not in general, however, such sorrowful affairs. I have seen men with thick cloths tied round their knees; for though they had vowed to go round the church on their knees, they did not consider themselves obliged to spoil a new pair of trousers on the occasion; and as the handkerchief alone could not have preserved them, they were compelled to add pads also. They deserved as much credit as the pilgrims who boiled their peas which they put in their shoes. Young maidens frequently perform the same progress round the church, habited in thick cloth petticoats, and too often most irreverently laughing and joking all the time with attendant swains, who will, on occasion, most gallantly lift them over any very rough places. An old lady I formerly knew, vowed to make a pilgrimage barefooted to a shrine, at a considerable distance; but her friends persuading her it was more than she could perform in the way she first intended, she yet determined to keep her vow, so she ordered her sedanchair, doffed her shoes and stockings, and was carried thither."

of the fact in the case of a horse, after a feed of corn, resuming his journey with steadiness and energy, although knocked up and out of breath a few minutes before. The simple fact is, that the horse converts the corn into beer, which facilitates his powers of respiration, and gives him fresh vivacity. If any man is resolved to carry out total abstinence strictly he must refuse every sort of vegetable food, even bread itself; for all such diet contains more or less of alcohol.

Physiology of the Nose.-The blunt flat nose indicates a bold, daring, and adventurous spirit, somewhat light and fickleminded, but intellectual. The turned-up nose is not exactly wicked, but oppose it not; or, like Roxelane, it may compass the death of a Bajazet. The long, sharppointed nose is a reflecting nose-it goes to the bottom of a thought; it is a melancholy nose, one that turns back from the errors of the world; it makes a good father, a good husband, but wretched bad company. The aquiline, or eagle nose, proud, courageous, noble, like the bird from which it borrows its name; this is the real antique Greek nose, the Napoleon nose. there is the curved, or crooked nose, vehement, ardent, light, inflammable, always ready to throw up the reins to temper: Benvenuto Cellini's was a nose of this kind.

Then

Sir Thomas Gresham.-A portrait of this eminent London merchant has lately been bequeathed to the City Lecture Hall. It is a full length, painted on panel, life-size. It is the most juvenile of the portraits ex isting of Sir Thomas-representing him at the age of twenty-six. "He is attired in a plain black doublet, hose, and gown, with a flat cap upon his head, and a small lace collar. In one corner of the picture are the letters A. G.,' tied together by a knot, beneath which are the words 'Love, serve, and obei;' and under that 'T. G.,' also tied by a knot-and upon the frame, which is of black wood, and of the same age as the picture, is the motto 'Dominus Mihi Adjutor, T. G.,' repeated on each side."

M. de Laville de Mirmont.-This eminent dramatist is no more. He was sixty-three years old. Of all his works, that which attained to the highest celebrity was his "Charles VI.," which appeared in 1826. It was the last triumph of Talma-some of the critics say, the finest. It was in the robe of this triumph, that the great artist, twelfth night of its representation, Talma as it were, lay down to die. On the trod the stage for the last time, with a fever in his veins, that mingled with and heightened the madness of the terrible presentment; and eight days later he was in his grave.

H. A. Burstall, Printer, 2, Tavistock-street, Strand.