of Pope as it must be presumed, but of which, as to these details, Johnson seems to have known nothing. In considering character, Johnson adds, regarding Pope with a feeling which does him credit, and which, had he observed in his characters of Milton and Gray, would have done him still more credit: "A man of such exalted superiority and so little moderation" (as Pope) "would naturally have all his delinquencies observed and aggravated; those who could not deny that he was excellent, would rejoice to find that he was not perfect."

That the resentment of Bolingbroke was excessive oftentimes from his nature, but more so stimulated by the artful Scotchman, may easily be judged. Lord Chesterfield, already quoted, who drew his character with the hand of a master, said his lordship was a most "mortifying instance of the violence of human passions, and of the most improved and exalted human reason;" he added, that "impetuosity, excess, and almost' extravagancy, characterised not only his passions but his senses." On the other hand," his penetration was almost intuitive, and he adorned whatever subject he either spoke or wrote upon by the most splendid eloquence.' Chesterfield adds further, to the present point, "He received the common attentions of civility as obligations, which he returned with interest; and resented with passion the little inadvertencies of human nature, which he repaid with interest too! Even a difference upon a philosophical subject would provoke and prove him no practical philosopher at least." May not these characteristics by Chesterfield supply much towards accounting for his anger towards Pope, inflamed as his passion was by the wily Mallet? He was accused of being a materialist. It was not true; Bolingbroke was a deist, believed in a general Providence, and doubted, but by no means rejected, the immortality of the soul and a future state. A week before he died, he took leave of a friend with kindness, saying, "God, who placed me here, will do what he pleases with me hereafter; and he knows best what to do. May he bless you!" He was in all points a very extraordinary character. Lord Chesterfield, having described him, closes with this reflection on his faults, "Alas, poor human nature!"

Years fleet fast, and whole generations of men pass away with them like summer flies, and the larger part of them have no interest in anything beyond the petty object for which they momentarily live. Not born to appreciate the lights which adorn and advance humanity, such may wonder at our present remarks regarding a poet who died just a hundred and sixteen years ago. What is it to us whether Pope's memory did or did not merit the severe remarks of Bolingbroke?

It must be recollected, on the other hand, that it is obvious in the scheme of society, regulated by a power greater than ourselves, that there should appear from time to time a few individuals, mixed up in human society-very few, compared to the mass-on whom are bestowed loftier qualities, and who possess faculties given not for themselves alone, but to direct the species of which they engross a larger proportion of the reasoning power than their fellow-men, in order that they may be burning and shining lights to their kind. Such deserve to be remembered. Genius is a rare gift; and the self-sufficiency of one age is not powerful enough to extinguish what in comparison with itself it affects to despise, belonging as well to the future as the past and present. The great names

in our literature do not depend for their preservation upon the notions of ephemeral critics, nor the bad taste of the masses. Their status is fixed, and consequently all that relates to them is of interest to a comparative few, while, though unacknowledged, is really of moment to all, however unfelt may be the obligation. Pope is one of the shining lights in our literature; and although it has been the fashion of late years for small minds, and individuals of more self-conceit than judgment or good feeling, to decry his high character, as well as that of the past generally, in comparison with their own day and its living idols, they can make no impression upon the renown on which time has set its seal. To that belongs the past and the distant. "Whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings." At present the fashion is to reverse this just sentiment.

This notice, therefore, of an incident which took place so long ago, revived by the papers of Mr. Rose, must carry the foregoing apology for intruding upon the presumed advancement of the present age before every subject of the "faded past." The controversy between Byron, Bowles, and Campbell, a few years ago, when Bowles attempted to depreciate the "greatest poet in the English language after Milton"for Shakspeare is, we scarcely know why, too seldom classed among the poets, as if the drama had engrossed him, or were jealous of his being placed where he undoubtedly belongs-the greatest poet after Milton, then, can never cease to hold his place in the heart's core of our literature. All which relates to him is and will be of deep interest to that fit audience, though few, which is more likely to carry to posterity the worthy attachment of those of the past and of the existing day, worthy of it, than those who affect to treat the mightier bygone men of genius as unworthy of the endurance stamped upon them. That Mr. Rose's statement has thrown a little new light on the transaction to which we allude, though one of no great importance, is evident, and he has given Pope a participator in the charge made against him which tends to strengthen Johnson's view of the case, as one not worthy of the violent anger which Bolingbroke displayed upon the occasion.

Mr. Rose appears to have been an attached sub to Pitt, and was evidently one of those plodding, exact, and dry men, who, without genius, know best their position, and how literally to fulfil its duties. He was a very useful man at the Treasury, too, for all kinds of work, and ready, with official solemnity of visage, to execute all commands without asking questions. His work is valuable in its relation to the time when he lived, and no history of that time can be complete without it. We remember how his staid manner and his attachment to Pitt used to be satirised in the fierce war of words of those perished days:

No; there let Liverpool, Dundas, and Rose,
Plod on, and fatten on their country's woes.

So sang the Opposition in days gone by, when Canning responded with "The Needy Knife-grinder" to the "Pantisocratist Southey." Where are the men, the politics, and jokes of all parties belonging to those times?

THE WINE QUESTION,*

The most

"THE history of commerce," said Montesquieu, "is the history of the communication of peoples." This is so far true, that, remove prohibitory and protective duties, and it only requires to facilitate the means of transport and communication, to at once create commerce. savage tribe has its wants, and the civilised and productive nations are only too glad to find new outlets. It is long since we have been more powerfully struck with the force of these considerations than on reading, in the report of Mr. Lumley, her Majesty's Secretary of Legation in Spain, on the subject of the vine disease in that country and its effects on commerce, of the wonderful abundance of the vintages of Spain, and the absence of all outlets to such productiveness.

"A proprietor of extensive vineyards at Huesca, in the province of Aragon," Mr. Lumley relates, "assured me that the drought last summer was so great, and the vintage so plentiful, that it would have been easier for him to irrigate his vineyards with wine than with water. He also stated that, in order to make room for the new wine, he had on one occasion offered to sell that of a former vintage at two sueldos the cantaro, about 5d. English for a little less than four gallons; but finding that he could not even get one real for the cantaro (about d. English the gallon), and there being a scarcity of earthen wine-jars or vats, he was obliged to throw away the whole of that year's vintage.

"It is not," Mr. Lumley adds, "the province of Aragon alone that produces such a superabundance of wine; many of the wine districts of Old Castile are equally prolific. At Aranda del Duero, for instance, wine appears to be at times as cheap, and water as scarce, as at Huesca; for I was informed by an English gentleman that, on passing through that town a few years ago, he saw some bricklayers at work mixing their mortar with wine instead of water, and he stated that this was not an unusual occurrence, as there were several instances of houses in that town having been built with mortar prepared in the same way.

"In the town of Tero, in Old Castile, the Casa de Ayuntamiento,' or town-hall, is also pointed out as having been built with mortar mixed with wine."

It is obvious, then, that, with such extreme productiveness, there are only wanted facility of transport and a lowering of duties in order to enrich the cultivator, improve the country, and benefit the foreigner. Mr. Lumley feels this when he adds: "Large as is the extent of country in Aragon and Navarre cultivated with vineyards, it is small in comparison with what it might be if the demand for the wines of those provinces should continue; and what it certainly will be when the railroads now in course of construction are completed to the French frontier, as well as to

* Wine, its Use and Taxation: an Inquiry into the Operation of the Wine Duties on Consumption and Revenue. By Sir James Emerson Tennent, K.C.S., LL.D.

Reports by Her Majesty's Secretaries of Embassy and Legation on the Effect of the Vine Disease on the Commerce of the Country in which they reside. Presented to both Houses of Parliament by command of Her Majesty. 1859.

Bilbao and Barcelona, which lines will be of equal benefit to the vineyards of Old and New Castile, many of which, like those of Aragon, have been as little known to the rest of Spain as they are to the rest of Europe."

If Barcelona would be the Mediterranean port for Spanish wines, Bilbao would as manifestly become, upon the completion of the railway, the Atlantic port for the same wines; and there can be no doubt but that, with a better remuneration than a penny the gallon, a better quality of wine would be produced than that which is now converted into claret at Bordeaux, sherry at Xerez, and port at Oporto.

The wine trade of France (says Mr. Lumley) seems to have been much indebted to Spain for its existence during the last five or six years, as that of Portugal on the Douro has been; and although at Bordeaux, as at Xerez, the large stocks of old wine may be still inexhausted, though greatly diminished, there is little doubt that a large quantity of the new wine, which for the last five years has been manufactured in the south of France, and which has been exported to all parts of the world as wine of the first vintages of France, was little else than Spanish wine mixed and flavoured with other substances.

I have been told of the following recipe for making Bordeaux out of Spanish wine :

To one-third of the strong, black Aragonese wine, Cariñena, Ribeira do Ebro, or other of that class, the price of which is about five sous a bottle, add onethird of the light vin de Cahors, and one-third water; the requisite flavour is given to it by the addition of a little orris-root, and the wine thus manufactured, when sent back to Spain, sells readily at fifty sous a bottle.

Some idea may be formed of the increase of the wine trade of Spain with France from the following facts:

The exportation of Spanish wine into France, which, in 1851, amounted to 35,881 arrobas, or about 1196 pipes, value 1,451,809 reals, equal to 14,0827. sterling, chiefly for port, sherry, and Malaga, had increased, in 1855, to 18,335 pipes, value 394,9657., of which the sum of 351,8017. was for the common wine from Navarre and Aragon; in 1856 the exportation to France increased to 42,491 pipes, value 311,6517., of which 270,8897. was for common wine; while, in 1857, France took from Spain no less than 100,392 pipes, value 664,6637., of which the large proportion of 629,0537. was for common wine.

When discussing the advantages of reducing the import duty on wine, and the difficulties by which the question is surrounded, Sir James Emerson Tennent starts by assuming that wine has never been taxed in England with a view to discourage its use. It has never, he says, been taxed as a necessary, but has always been dealt with as a luxury, and Adam Smith (Wealth of Nations, b. v. c. 2) and M'Culloch (on Taxation and Funding, p. 352) both agree that there can be no better subjects for taxation than spirituous and fermented liquors: they are essentially luxuries. But Lord Chelsea, at that time secretary of legation in France, remarks upon this that it is no proof of the abstract justice of the system. How stands the case with regard to those articles of food that now enter into general consumption, and where and how is the boundary line to be drawn between luxuries and necessaries of life? Is not this question essentially one of time and place? In the seventh century the use of wheaten bread was exclusively confined to the aristocracy. In the present day, and in all civilised countries of Europe, it has become an article of primary necessity to the inhabitants of towns, and contributes largely to the nourishment of the agricultural populations. But who, in

our day, would dream of taxing bread or wheat-flour as a luxury? Again, as to meat, there is no doubt of its having ranked as a luxury in the six teenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, and of its being so considered to this day by a very large proportion of the European population; but, as regards the inhabitants of towns, it is now undeniably a necessary of life. The same may, to a great extent, be said of the potato; and although sugar, tea, coffee, cocoa, malt, and tobacco cannot, strictly speaking, be called necessaries of life, yet their use, in consequence of moderate taxation, has become so universal that few would be willing to be deprived of them.

Generally speaking, and with regard to most articles of produce, it may be affirmed that they will become, or cease to be, articles of primary necessity, according as they are favoured or discouraged by the caprices of commercial legislation. Thus it is established, by the evidence of historians as well as official documents, that French wines formed preeminently the beverage of the wealthy classes in England during the fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth, and first half of the eighteenth centuries, and until immoderate taxation, followed by the Methuen treaty, deprived them of the hold they had on public estimation, and transferred it to the produce of Portugal and Spain.

Now, although it may be argued that it would be hardly possible to define the characteristic that would stamp any article as strictly a necessary of life, yet there is every à priori reason for conceding this privilege to wine to that spontaneous produce, as it were, of peculiar soils and climates, the use of which, as a beverage, dates from the remotest antiquity, the beneficial effects of which have been so universally recognised, that medical science, in addition to recommending its pure employment as a restorative for the convalescent and a stimulant for the sick, treats it as a positive specific for some diseases, and the harmlessness of which, when not taken to excess, and when drunk unadulterated, is generally admitted.

It is manifest to the present day that very many things admitted as necessaries of life among civilised nations are regarded as luxuries by the uncivilised. There can be no doubt, that if all duties were taken off wines, not only in this country but in others, they would become as much necessaries of life as almost any other article of consumption.

Whenever only a small reduction in taxation is made-and this will apply to the proposed reduction in wines, as it has already been shown to be the case with many articles in Sir Robert Peel's tariff, and more especially with those of general consumption, as tea, sugar, coffee, &c.scarcely any relief reaches the consumer; it is in part anticipated by the gains of the grower or producer, in part by the profits of the merchant, and in part by the profits of the seller or retail dealer, so that the alteration is neither felt beneficially by the public nor by the revenue.

Hence it was, that even in the time of the inquiry of the committee of the House of Commons in 1852, and of which Sir James E. Tennent was a member, it was urged upon government, as the natural result of these convictions, that it would be of no avail to the trade in wine merely to reduce or readjust the duties if it is still to be retained in the category of luxuries instead of being classed in the tariff amongst articles of primary necessity, with a duty of one shilling per gallon.