The Sun.
London, England, 1846-08-19 00:00:00

T STT N, LONDO Nt,07,7E-I),X IrS DAY . E vg, V. a, A. TT G SIT 19, 1846.

F the:tengue-of 'the writer as its subject maybe- 140871ga
----- to tickle ever the tongue of the reader. Mr. Cocks has
'FOREIGN QUARTERLY BETTIE TV. ) evidently undertaken his account of
the Claret Country," with an epicurean
i gusto, and he knows moreover precisely what ie n. To
with touch interest at the pres nt time: It is a ",full, tion to introduce, and how it should be introducdfira-
o
true, and oarticuler account' of the career of the our thinking there is nothing whatever superfluous i
Brothers C*abral, and we quite concur in opinion with his chapters, nor are their contents in any instance su-
tho a rite;-, that
• perficial. The theme is ostensibly familiar to the author,
.
't may be
a Western Europe has offered noparallel in. recent times ' ant' he treats it well ; and if the conceit
for the bare-faced effrontry with which official peculation and Permittod, we. should say. that he treats
venality have been practised during the last fouryeara in because it is so- familiar.• A history of Bordeaux,
Portugal, where it was not one individu d alone of a ministry, with which the volume commences, is singularly
it so well
but the majority of its :Leathers, who made either stock- interesting ; it describes the growth of that beautiful
jobbing, orcontract selling, or patronage vending, the great town, from the period when it was denominated Burdi-
business of their public lives ; and notwithstanding the noto-
riety of such practices; carried on year after,year, they en- gala by the Romans, down to its reception of the Dakes
de N, niours and d'Aumale in 1845 Besides this, we are
joyed the favour of the court up to the latest moment, to an •
extent unequalled by any former administration." regaled with a charming narrative of its antiquities, its
modern buildings, the character and customs of ita in-
The government of the Cabrals habitants its system of public instructions, and the cele-
" Sprang out of a rebellion planned by a disgraced emploies '
the elder Cabral (J.,ze Bernado da Silva Cabral) in 184-2, brated personages of which it is the birthplace; among
and executed by the younger brother, Antonio da Costa whom should be especially motioned the renowned
Cabral (then Minister Of Justice), who set the novel exam- "Legislator of Nations," Charles Secondat Montesquieu.
ple of abandoning his portfolio, to upset the Government of' A railway trip to La Testes and an excursion by steamer
which he was a member." to Ruyan, billow, and thereupon the reader is inducted to
The elder brother Joze da Silva was originally an the pith of the whole performance—a description of the
official in the Court of Relaeoa of Oporto, and to which qualities, the localities, the seasons, and the manufacture
post he had been appointed during the constitutional of claret. Separate accounts are devoted to the six great
regency, while at the same time his younger brother wine districts of Upper Medoc, namely, the Arrondisse-
Costa Cabral was appointed to a magisterial situation ments of Bordeaux, Lesparre, Libourne, La R‘ale, Ba-
in Penella. On the return of Don Miguel, Silva Cabral as, and Blaye. Of the manner of the composition, we
became one of his most zealous partisans, and proclaimed shall afford our readers some inkling by transcribing the
him as absolute King at Nellus, whilst Costa Cabral accounts of the ceremonies, of the vintage, and of the
remained a Pedroist and emigrated to Belgium. 1 preparations necessary before the pressure of the grapes,
Silva Cabral, at the tall of Don Miguel, passed over to I and the fermentation of the liquid that exudes upon that
the winning side, and persuaded Don Pedro that all i pressure. The following is more than merely graphic ;
through the reign of lion Miguel he had been secretly lit is photo-graphic:--
attached to the Queen's cause. Don Pedro conferred on "The vintagers ale disposed in the following manner. The
him a magisterial office in Oporto, and here he exer- women and children are employed to cut off the grapes.
cised his ingenuity in arresting Miguelites, and seizing They ought to reject and pick away whatever is defective,
their property for the State. A mysterious loss of much unripe, parched, or rotten : one critter is allotted to every
of this property in its way from the coffers of the row of vines, and the grapes thus cut are put into baskets.
Miguelites to the Treasury brought Silva Cabral into For every eight rows of vine there are two carriers of bastes,
or buckets, thirty or thirty-two of which make a charge, or
bad odour, and he was dismissed from the office he held load, which again is composed of two small tubs, called do-
in Oporto. He was, however, soon after appointed to miles placed on a cart. A carrier, termed a videpanier, re-
the office el Corregidor of the district of Roeio, in the calves'
the basket of every vintager, as soon as it is full, and
neighbourhood of Lisbon, and here he imprisoned a empties it into the bucket, which is carried on the back of
priest named Da Silva and seized all his property, which another, to be emptied into the tubs placed in the cart. A
was of great value. In consequenee of the severities commandant, or inspector, is set over every twelve reges, whose
exercised upon him, the unfortunate priest died. An in • duty is to hasten the cutters, and to see that they do not
vestigation took place. The witnesses declared it was forget any of the grapes. When the two tubs on the cart
their profound conviction "that the imprisonment are full, the hoarier, or ox-driver, conveys the load to the
of the deceased priest had been concerted in order to ad- eufiera spacious outhouse, where the wine is made.
mit of those robberies being made, which were 'abetted When
ftoter tourbsfihvaevemaerorivweilo in the ctuoietiere
etohnetyenatreeiorteo-
ceived b
by the Correeidor," and the judges to whom the matter the pressoir,y or wine -press, Which is made either of wood or
was referred, decided against the Corregidor; and this is stone, and composed of four sides, sixteen inches high, and
the man who was recently appointed by the Queen of joined at right angles, having a bottom of nine square feet;
Portugal, Minister of Justice and Religion. Costa this press is about two feet from the ground, and slightly in-
Cabral, on his return to Portugal, was appointed to a dines towards the front. The men next scrape the grapes
judicial situation in the Azores, and wits elected as De- off the stalks; this is done either with rakes, or by rubbing
puty for St. Michael's to the Cortes. He distinguished .the bunches on a wire sieve. The stalks having been carried
himself by the violence of his ultra democratical opinions, away into another press to drain, the grapes arrethrown into
the
low bv
and contributed largely to bringing about the revolution in each other, a heap, and trodden
trthe men, who, bare legged, and fol-
round base the till
of 1836. In the clubs he was constantly denouncing for whole gis gradually levelled and crushed.of Someheap proprietors
assassination all those who opposed his views, and was are averse to the /outage, or treading of grapes : confining
called, and seemed proud to be called, the Murat of Lis- the operation to the egrappage, or scraping the grapes from
bon. Silva Carvalho had procured him his ap- the stalks, they instantly pour the fruit entire into the vat.
pointment to the Azores, and of course Silva Carvalho While this operation is being performed, a hole in the front
was the object of his unceasing attacks. By Count of the press allows the matt, or juice, to escape into a tub,
Bowfin he had been brought into the Ministry, and, of called gargouille. The men empty this juice into long
course, he immediately commenced a series of intrigues buckets, termed comportes, which are traversed near the top
against him, which ended in the downfall of his ministry. by a long stick, for the purpose of being carried by two men,
who pour the juice into the caves or vats. It is usual to fill
His influence over the King Consort became very great
these vats only to within fifteen inches of the top; otherwise
in fact, the King was governed by his German favourite there would be a risk of losing much wine at the time of
Dietz and by Costa Cabral ; and, at length, while still fermentation."
Cabinet Minister, he left Lisbon, and put himself at the Mr. Cocks has presented to merchants and connoiseurs
head of an armed force to destroy the government of in wine a volume for which they will be grateful, and in
which be was a member, and to restore the charter of recommending it as we have done, we cannot surely be
Don Pedro, which he himself had helped to set aside in performing any disservice to the advocates of total absti-
-1836. He succeeded, and for four years he and his nence. For the teetotallers, as a body, we entertain
brother were ministers. "In that period he suspended feelings of the most unaffected respect, but the teetotal-
the Constitution three times, and caused the Queen to lers themselves cannot but acknowledge, that, taken in
affix her signature thirteen times to ordinances in vie- moderation, wine may be eminently beneficial, and that
lation of the written charter, which is the fundamental a supreme authority has declared that it " maketh glad
law of the state." When he came into power he was the heart of man!" This volume cannot therefore prove,
pennyless ; when he was expelled from Portugal, the in any particular, prejudicial.
other day, by an indignant people, he was possessed of
large estates, large sums in the public securities, of a
castle at Thomar, and a palace in Lisbon,
the produce of the most barefaced peculation; and yet no
Minister ever received such support from the Court as
Cabral ; and it is to force him upon the unwilling Por-
tuguese people that the Spanish Government is at this
moment concentrating iris forces on the Portuguese fron-
tier; and to support him that the Spanish Minister at
Lisbon, Gonzales Bravo, contrary to the law of nations,
interfered in the internal concerns of the State to which
he was accredited. This, however, may be accounted
for, by the fact, that Cabral is in league with
Dietz, the German favourite of the Portuguese
King, and that Dietz, if not an agent of France,
is certainly one of the warmest of the upholders
of French influence and of French interference in
the affairs of the Peninsula. The article on the French
political preachers of the sixteenth century is worthy
of study. The writer clearly shows that the ob-
ject of the Guises and the League was to esta-
blish a sacerdotal democracy, and that the preachers
openly enforced the duty of assasssinating all
those opposed to them, as a " holy, heroic, praise-
worthy deed, which would assure Paradise to the per-
petrator ' • and one of the Garin declared, in a sermon,
that the family of Jacques Clement, the assassin of
Henry 111., ought to be ennobled. The massacre of St.
Bartholomew was constantly held up as an example
worthy to be followed ; and, even after the League
was suppressed by the firmness and wisdom of Henry
IV., Boucher, one of these preachers, declaimed bitterly
against the edict of Nantes, and published a treatise in
defence of the attempt at regicide; made by Jean Cha-
tel, in 1595. The writer thus concludes :

LITERAT-URp.

GAUGE EVIDENCE. The Bi6tory and Prospects
of the Railway System, Illustrated by the Evidence
given before the Gauge Commission. By Samuel
Sidney, author of " Bristol, a Free Port," 6.c.
We have here the gauge evidence arranged under the
separate heads of " Narrow Gauge Evidence," " Uni-
formity of Gauge Evidence," " Intermediate Gauge
Evidence," and " Broad Gauge Evidence." The evi-
dence is preceded by a brief history of the gauge ques-
tion, in which the author avows himself a " Narrow
Gauge Man," and it is illustrated by a map, showing
the territories of the respective gauges.

is a history worthy of serious contemplation even in our
own times. But let us not forget, above-all, that our fore-
fathers were watching with painful anxiety every phase of
this, to them, fearfully tragic story. Their faith and peace
were equally at stake. Spanish money was as actively em-
ployed against Elizabeth as against Henri 111. or Henri IV.
The knife of the assassin had doubtless been more than once
prepared for her. Hundreds of cunning Jesuits and wily
preachers, educated expressly for the purpose, were sent into
this country in disguise, and were busily engaged in sowing,
in private the same seditious principles. A Ligue was prepared
for England, if it had succeeded in France. Let us not, then,
judge too rashly the statesmen, who, in condemning Mary
of Scotland, thought that the death of an ambitious woman,
a Guise by her mother's blood, a ready instrument in the
hands of her family, was necessary for the safety of their
country. The designs in which she partook were those of the
Spaniard, the pope, and the house of Lorraine; and when
she manifested her zeal for the establishment of the Catholic
church and the overthrow of heretics, it was to be done by
means such as those employed on the continent by Spain,
and the pope, and the Guises. It is thus that, at certain
periods, to understand our own history, it is necessary that
we should have something more than a superficial knowledge
of that of the surrounding nations."
In addition to these articles, we have an admirable
review of " Stoke's Discoveries in Australia," an inte-
resting " Biography of Herder," a stirring account of
the attempt of Burlamacchi at Lucca, in the year 1546,
to originate a movement for the nationalisation of Italy;
a learned review of the " Oxford Graduates ;" recently
published work on Modern Painters, and several amus-
ing notices of recent American publications.

THE ECLECTIC REVIEW. No. 11. New

Series.

A prosperous course seems to lie before this periodi-
cal; and its contents, for excellence of writing, for
variety of contributions, and for uncynical morality,
justify the success which they promise. " Methodism as
it is," though of anything but general interest, is a paper
so agreeably compiled, that it will be perused with at-
tention, especially as it relates to a very large and in-
fluential body of our countrymen. Scme of its ani-
madversions are not altogether undeserved ; many of
them are richly merited. " The History of the Doe is
a capital collection of memorabilia relating to that most
sagacious of animals ; but we marvel that the writer,
while referring to Youatt and Martin, as authorities,
entirely overlooked the recent and excentric narrative of
Jesse. There is likewise an elegant little dissertation
on the last twenty years ot' the reign of George lEL,evoked
by the concluding volume of Mr. Knight's " Pictorial His-
tory of Eogland." Never was any similar fragm-nt of time
in the records of England, or possibly of Europe, so
fraught with wonderful occurrences, or so remarkable
for an array of extraordinary personages. Parlia-
are
mentary
buncombea oHnrdoa
and
nosSrdehy e
wwrai atd:aknt h,etheyanwt aer rtepei
netrsoai
woPs
dahaabes
3il
t, I
Roanul
s. Ps
heroalelir,ttatrHn,yguFuwmoeaxress:
only second in excellence to the Shalc:perian and Mil-
tonian eras : Coleridge, Shelley, Campbell, and Byron
issued their couplets as irregularly as Bulwer, Tenny-
son, Elliott, and the author of the " New Timm," do
in our generation. The startling news of an Aus-
terlitz or a Trafalgar are now replaced by intel-
ligence of a division upon some free-trade ques-
tion, or (according to the mal adroit fascetiousness
of Lord Brougham) the latest bulletin of the
potato disease. Hallam and Lingard in history ; Haz-
litt and Gifford in criticism ; Bentham in philosophy ;
Erskine in forensic and Hall in pulpit eloquence ; Mack-
intosh as a biographer ; Foster as an essayist, then
occupied posts which are now almost vacant. Sydney
Smith was to his day what Punch is to ours. The
Waverley Novels were then devoured with avidity, like
that evinced by the public for Martin Chuzzlewit and
the like. Brougham and Jeffrey were then reviewers ;
their present representatives we cannot enumerate.
Miss Mitford has been succeeded by Miss Martineau ;
in lieu of Miss Edgeworth we have Mrs. Gore or the
Countess of Blessington. The parallel might be con-
tinued almost ad infinitum, and we fancy would not
be altogether uninstructive. The closing years of
George 111. are among the most memorable lessons
of humanity ; and it is singular enough to
reflect how at that great epoch the imaginations of men
were filled by the names of two extraordinary charac-
ters, Napoleon and Byron—the one the hero of the
sword and of the sceptre, the other the hero of. mis-
anthropy and the pen. With other contributions upon
Thomas Cartwright, the Argentine Republic, &c., the
Eclectic Review is readable arid inaructive.