wine, is generally allowed. Upon the propriety of taking either of these drinks, there appears, however, to be not a little difference of opinion among those engaged in superintending the process of training; by a few, pure, soft water, or toast and water, being the only drink allowed; others recommend the use of malt liquors, but denounce wine; whilst others, again, direct the latter, but forbid ale, porter, or beer; but all appear agreed, that the less that is taken of either, the better. Malt liquors are not allowed until after a months' training; and then only to the extent of a pint at dinner, and one-third of a pint at supper. If the person in training insist upon wine, he is permitted to make use of two or three glasses after dinner, but at no other time: the use of red wines is in general disapproved of. When a course of training is adopted for the improvement of the health solely, neither wine nor malt liquors are admissible. The use of spirituous liquors is never permitted in training, on any consideration whatever, not even when diluted. The greatest care is taken to procure the purest and softest water, even though it be necessary to bring it from a considerable distance. Drink is never given immediately, before a meal, unless in particular cases, when the thirst is excessive. The water is very properly directed to be taken by mouthfuls, and not in large draughts; in this manner it quenches thirst better, a too large quantity is prevented from being taken, and the stomach does not suffer from being suddenly distended. When the body is in a state of perspiration or suffering from fatigue, the individual is allowed only a very small portion of toast and water; cool, but never decidedly cold.

Exercises employed in Training.-Exercise, properly regulated, constitutes one of the most important branches of training. The great object of exercise is to increase and regulate all the secretions and excretions, more especially those of the stomach, intestines, and liver, and of the skin and kidneys; to equalize the circulation, so that a due amount of healthy blood is distributed to every portion of the body; to augment the power and bulk of the muscles; to impart tone to all the internal organs; where the habit is corpulent or too full of blood, to diminish the amount of fat, and of the fluids which overload the vessels, and to render the blood thinner and lighter. By these means, the individual acquires a more keen and regular appetite, a quick and perfect digestion, serenity of mind, and surprising increase of strength and wind, and the enjoyment of sound refreshing repose. The union, however, of vigorous exercise with pure, free air, is essential to the success of training. Diet, itself, seems to be but of secondary consideration to these, provided the food eaten be plain and in moderate quantity.

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The exercises generally recommended are walking, riding on horseback, friction with the flesh-brush, fencing, quoits, tennis, playing at shuttle-cock, and the use of the dumb-bells. These are used alternately, as convenience serves; but no day is suffered to pass without the first or second being used as an outdoor exercise, and likewise one or other of the remainder as an exercise at home. Persons under training always commence their exercises early in the morning; in summer, before six, and in winter as soon as it is light. The period for exercise abroad is never less than four hours, and generally from five to six, taken at two or three intervals. The period for in-door exercise, is usually not less than two hours. If a muscular man during his training, loses considerable flesh, his amount of exercise must be reduced. If his limbs, on the contrary, increase in bulk, it is an evidence that his exercise agrees with him. Exercise is never taken immediately before or after eating, due attention to proper periods of rest being equally important with regular exercise itself.

Pure Air.-The necessity of pure air in the process of training has already been adverted to. It is a point much, and very properly insisted upon, by every writer on the subject. The more an individual exercises in the open air, the firmer his flesh becomes. Care, however, is taken, that persons in training, while they enjoy a pure free air for several hours a day, be not exposed to cold and wet. Hence, their clothing is always adapted to the state of the weather, and changed the moment it becomes wet or damp. Rising early in the morning is considered indispensible; in summer, at five or six, and in winter at seven, or even earlier.

Among the ancients, exercise in a pure, salubrious air, was deemed essential to increase the vigour, strength, and activity of the frame. The principal schools of the Roman athletæ were accordingly established at Capua and Ravenna, places, the air of which was reckoned the purest and most healthy of any in Italy. They carried on their exercises in the open air, during every kind of weather, the changes of which soon ceased to affect them.

UNFERMENTED WINES OF THE ANCIENTS.

MENTION is made in the most ancient writings now extant, of the use of wines as a very common drink; but whether in all cases we are to understand by the term wine, the fermented juice of the grape, will admit of considerable dispute. It is more than probable, that at first the juice of the grape, and perhaps

of other fruits, was simply expressed, and drank without fur- . ther preparation. At what period the use of fermented liquors became general, it is impossible to determine. We admit it to be improbable, that the use of an exhilirating beverage prepared by fermentation, could have continued very long unknown in those regions of the earth, where the vine grows freely. The first portion of its fruit, remarks Henderson,* which had been pressed by accident or design, and allowed to remain for a short time undisturbed, would be found to have acquired new and surprising properties; and repeated trials would soon prove the value of the discovery. By degrees, the method would be learned of preserving, for constant use, the beverage so obtained; and various processes would be resorted to for enhancing its grateful qualities. The knowledge of the art would rapidly spread, and its simplicity would recommend it to universal adoption. All this is perfectly true, but, at the same time it is nevertheless certain that the simple unfermented juice of the grape was a very common drink among the ancients, even after fermented liquors were extensively manufactured; and it is to this beverage, destitute of inebriating properties, that the term 'wine' appears first to have been applied: its daily use among the ancient Greeks and Romans is noticed by writers of both nations of unquestionable authority, who have transmitted to us also minute accounts of the various plans adopted to preserve it unchanged from year to year.

It is highly probable, also, that the wines in common use among the Egyptians, as well as among the Hebrews, were unfermented. This will explain the frequent allusion which is made in the Old Testament to "the juice of the grape," or to the drinking of the pure blood of the grape." That the juice of the grape, simply expressed, was drunk, anciently, even by the kings of Egypt, would appear, from the passage in Genesis, where the butler, relating his dream to Joseph, says, " and I took the grapes, and pressed them into Pharoah's cup, and I gave the cup into Pharoah's hand." And a friend has ingeniously suggested, whether the terms wine and strong drink of the scriptures may not have designated generally, the one the simple, and the other the fermented juice of the grape.

For the following account of the unfermented wines of the Greeks and Romans, we are indebted chiefly to the splendid quarto of Henderson.

The juice that flowed from the gentle pressure of the grapes upon one another, as they were heaped in the baskets or troughs, previously to their being trodden, was in the first

History of Wines, p. 2.

place carefully collected in the vessels in which it was intended to be preserved, and set aside till the following summer, when it was exposed, during forty days, to the strongest heat of the sun. As it was procured from the most luscious grapes, and kept from the contact of the external air, the fermentation which it underwent would be very slight, and it would retain in perfection the full flavour of the fruit. This liquor appears to have been first made at Mitylene, in the island of Lesbos, and was held in high estimation.

Sometimes, however, when the quantity of the juice thus obtained was either too small, or not sufficiently saccharine, to enable it to keep without further preparation, that collected in the vat, before the grapes were subjected to the press, was put into a vessel of a particular shape, which was properly coated, and secured by a well pitched cork, and then sunk in a pond, where it was allowed to remain about a month, or until after the winter solstice. When taken up, it was commonly found to have lost all tendency to ferment, and might be preserved, unchanged, during a whole year or more. In this state it was considered as something between a syrup and a wine. When, instead of being placed in a fresh-water pond, the vessel was plunged in the sea, the liquor was thought to acquire very speedily the flavour of age. To this practice the oracle given to the fishermen, requiring them to dip Bacchus in the sea, may be supposed to allude.

On other occasions, when the juice of the grapes was deemed too thin and watery for the production of a good wine, as was almost always the case in rainy seasons, it was boiled down to a greater consistence, and a small portion of gypsum was added to it. The Lacedemonians, we are told, were in the practice of reducing it one-fifth part, and keeping it four years before it was drunk; others were satisfied with the evaporation of a twentieth part of the bulk. Sometimes, however, the inspissation was carried much further, and the boiling prolonged till one-third, one-half, or even two-thirds of the liquor were evaporated.

The liquor obtained from the juice of rich grapes, and reduced by evaporation to one-third, appears to have been drunk as a wine, and may be regarded as corresponding to the boiled wines of the moderns; but the other degrees of inspissation were chiefly employed for the purpose of correcting weak must, and for preparing the various condiments, which were resorted to for the purpose of heightening the flavours of the ancient wines. They were, in fact, identical with the saba or raisine of the French, and the sapa of the Italian, which are still used for culinary purposes, and which are made according to the same rules.

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THE ART OF SWIMMING,

ON a former occasion* we recommended swimming, at proper seasons, to the young and robust, as a recreation, combining the advantages of muscular exercise with those of bathing. As a means of preserving our own life, or that of our fellow-creatures, in cases of accidental submersion, we again call attention to it. Of the art of swimming no one should, indeed, be ignorant. To be able to preserve life, is surely a matter of exquisite delight, remarks Saltzman; but of what effect are all injunctions, excitements, or public rewards, for rescuing an individual from a watery grave; or what the strong impulse of our own humanity, when we are obliged to run about in quest of that assistance which we cannot afford ourselves? Nay, if it were possible that we could regard only our own safety, the utility of the art of swimming is too obvious to need further recommendation.

The ancient Greeks and Romans, when they would express the idea of a man's knowing nothing, or being fit for nothing, used to say, that he could neither read nor swim. All beasts can swim: therefore swimming is not strictly an art, but rather a natural faculty of the animal body, which was bestowed on it by the Creator; because he knew it would be perpetually exposed to the danger of falling into an element, so abundantly spread over the surface of the globe as water. Man only, or rather the polished European, cannot-partly because it never enters into his mind to attempt it as an object of education, and partly because the natural faculty is more or less destroyed by the physical treatment of our youth. This is a serious charge, because it includes with the impairing of this faculty, a number of diseases of the chest, by which multitudes are consigned to an early grave. Scarcely is the infant come into the world, when his chest is subjected to compression. This vile fashion does not cease here; our usual dress worn over the breast, is, in too many cases, a continuation of the compression throughout life. The breast bone and ribs are at first mere cartilages, and should extend with the growth of the body-the increasing lungs should contribute to this, by being fully expanded in the act of respiration; thus enlarging the thoracic cavities, and assisting in giving to the breast that arched form which is commonly observed in strong persons, and upon which the beauty of form so intimately depends. But this we counteract by tight bandaging, and acquire a form very different from that which nature intended. The diminished capacity of the chest thus occasioned, gives rise to various diseases of the chest, and by increasing the specific gravity of the body renders the act of swimming much more * See Vol. I. page 300.

VOL. III.-36