(_From the Noctes--Blackwood_.)
_Shepherd_.--I hae mony a time thocht it took as muckle natural
genius to mak a jug of punch as an epic poem, sic as Paradise Lost, or
even Queen Hynde hersell.
_Odoherty_.--More, my friend, more. I think an ingenious comparison
between these works of intellect could be easily made by a man of a
metaphysical turn of mind.
_North_.--A more interesting consideration would be, the effect
produced upon the national character, by the mere circumstance of the
modes of preparing the different beverages of different countries. Much
of the acknowledged inferiority of the inhabitants of wine countries,
arises from the circumstance of having their liquor prepared to their
hand. There is no stretch of imagination in pouring wine ready made from
carafe, or barochio, or flask, into a glass--the operation is merely
mechanical; whereas, among us punch drinkers, the necessity of a nightly
manufacture of a most intricate kind, calls forth habits of industry and
forethought--induces a taste for chemical experiment--improves us in
hygrometry, and many other sciences--to say nothing of the geographical
reflections drawn forth by the pressure of the lemon, or the colonial
questions, which press upon every meditative mind on the appearance of
white sugar.