ician discovers that it contained
more acid than sherry. Whether he was a sleeping partner in some Spanish
house, or whether he had received a present of a few pipes of sherry that
he might turn the scale of public favour towards that wine, I know not; but
certain it is, that it became fashionable with all medical gentlemen to
prescribe sherry; and when once anything becomes fashionable, _c'est une
affaire decidee_.

I do not pretend to be much of a pathologist; but on reading Mr F----'s
analysis on the component parts of wine, I observed that in one hundred
parts there are perhaps twenty-two parts of acid in Madeira, and nineteen
in sherry; so that, in fact, if you reduce your glass of Madeira wine just
one sip in quantity, you will imbibe no more acid than in a full glass of
sherry; and when we consider the variety of acids in sugar and other
compounds, which abound in culinary preparations, the fractional quantity
upon which has been grounded the abuse of Madeira wine appears to be most
ridiculous.

But if not a pathologist, I have a most decided knowledge of what is good
wine; and if the gout should some day honour me with a visit, I shall at
least have the consolation to know that I have by potation most honestly
earned it.

But allowing that the medical gentlemen are correct, still their good
intentions are frustrated by the knavery of the world; and the result of
their prescriptions is that people drink much more acid than they did
before. I do every justice to good old sherry when it does make its
appearance at table; it is a noble wine when aged and unsophisticated from
its youth; but for once that you meet with it genuine, you are twenty times
disappointed. When Madeira wine was in vogue, the island could not produce
the quantity required for consumption, and the vintage from the north side
of the island, or of Teneriffe, was substituted. This adulteration no doubt
was one cause of its losing its well-established reputation. But Madeira
wine has a quality which in itself proves its superiority over all other
wines--namely, that although no other wine can be passed off as Madeira,
yet with Madeira the wine-merchants may imitate any other wine that is in
demand. What is the consequence? that Madeira, not being any longer in
request as Madeira now that sherry is the "correct thing," and there not
being sufficient of the latter to meet the increased demand, most of the
wine vended as sherry is made from the infe