To the young partner was soon given the work of re-modelling the

Establishment, a task in which he succeeded admirably. A few years

later he began to take an interest in public affairs, devoting himself

more particularly to a consideration of subjects connected with prison

discipline and the criminal code, into which his early training for

the Bar gave him some insight. In 1818 he was elected for Weymouth,

and, owing in a great measure to his exertions and co-operation, Sir

Robert Peel carried his Bill for the abolition of capital punishment

for trivial offences. Mr. Buxton’s great work was in connection with

the Slavery question. Into the cause of Liberty he threw himself heart

and soul, and to his unceasing endeavours were in great measure due

the glorious results ultimately achieved. The Beer Act, passed in

1830, had Mr. Buxton’s approval. “I have always voted for free trade

when the interests of others are concerned,” he said, “and it would be

awkward to change when my own are in jeopardy. I am pleased to have

an opportunity of proving that our real monoply is one of skill and

capital.”

In June, 1831, occurred a noteworthy event in the history of the

firm. This was a visit by a number of Cabinet Ministers to inspect

the brewery. Mr. Buxton had provided an elaborate banquet, but Lord

Brougham said that beef-steaks and porter were more appropriate to the

occasion, so of those excellent comestibles the dinner in great part

consisted. Of this visit Mr. Buxton has left a very lively account,

too long, unfortunately, to be given here. Among the guests, who

numbered twenty-three, were the Lord Chancellor, Lord Grey, the Duke of

Richmond, the Marquis of Cleveland, Lords Shaftesbury, Sefton, Howick,

Durham, and Duncannon, General Alava, Dr. Lushington, Spring Rice and

W. Brougham. Mr. Buxton first took them to see the steam engine. Lord

Brougham immediately delivered a little lecture upon steam power, and,

as the party went through the brewery, had so much to say about the

machinery that Joseph Gurney said he understood brewing better than any

person on the premises. At dinner “the Chancellor lost not a moment,

he was always eating, drinking, talking or laughing.” Later on the

Ministers inspected the stables, and the Lord Chancellor surprised

everyone by his knowledge of horseflesh. Some one proposed that he

should mount one of the horses and ride round the yard, which he seemed

very willing to do—such is the power of brown stout!

On the 9th November, 1841, a large new structure was opened, and to

celebrate the event a supper was given to the men. In the midst of it

the good news came that the Queen had given birth to a son. In honour

of Her Majesty’s first-born, a huge vat was christened. “The {358}

Prince of Wales.” The inscription can still be seen. Twenty-five years

later, when on a visit to the brewery, his Royal Highness had the

satisfaction of drinking a glass of stout drawn from his namesake.

In 1837, after twenty years’ faithful service, Mr. Buxton was defeated

at Weymouth. Finding his health demanded repose, though invited by

twenty-seven constituencies to represent them, he determined to leave

Parliamentary life, and in 1841 a baronetcy was conferred on him by

Lord John Russell. Even when out of Parliament he gave himself no rest,

his mind being full of philanthropic schemes. He died in 1845, at the

age of fifty-nine, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

In 1820 Mr. Robert Hanbury, nephew of Mr. Sampson Hanbury, became a

partner in the firm, of which he was the head for many years. He was

born in 1796, and during the few years previous to his death was the

oldest member of the London brewing trade. He is remembered for his

philanthropy and benevolence. During the period when Mr. Thomas F.

Buxton was engaged with public affairs nearly the whole management and

control of the brewery fell on Mr. Hanbury.

In 1814 the first steam-engine was erected in the brewery. Previously

the mashing was accomplished with long oars worked by sturdy Irishmen,

and each brewing occupied twenty-four hours.

At the present time (1886) the members of the firm are Messrs. Arthur

Pryor; C. A. Hanbury; T. F. Buxton; Sir T. Fowell Buxton, Bart.;

Messrs. E. N. Buxton; J. H. Buxton; E. S. Hanbury; A. V. Pryor;

R. Pryor; J. M. Hanbury; and Gerald Buxton. Of these perhaps the

best known to the public is Mr. Edward North Buxton, whose name has

long been before them in connection with many measures of national

importance.

Messrs. Truman, Hanbury, Buxton & Co. have always been a little

ahead of the times, and it is not surprising to find in the brewery

appliances of the most improved description. As an instance of this,

when Lord Palmerston was at the Home Office he ordered that all London

manufacturers should erect smoke-consuming furnaces. Mr. Buxton had,

however, already adopted the principle, so that when the Home Secretary

was abused by the manufacturers for ordering them to do the impossible,

he was able to point out that what he desired had been already done.

Palmerston publicly thanked the firm for this in the House of Commons.

The brewery, cooperage, and stables in Brick Lane cover about five

acres, and near at hand are the Coverley Fields, where are the {359}

signboard and wheelwright shops, cellars, &c., covering about three

and a half acres. As may be imagined, a small army of men is employed

in the brewery, numbering in all about four hundred and fifty.

Worthy of special notice in the brewhouse are the cleansing vessels,

which, being very shallow, do their work with great rapidity. On

the ground-floor is a novelty, one room being completely filled

with shallow slate vessels for holding the yeast in summer. Each of

these vessels has a false bottom, under which cold liquor (in vulgar

parlance, water) constantly circulates, rendering the yeast so cool

that is may be kept for some time in the hottest summer weather.

In the brewery are ninety-five vats, which have a total capacity of

3,463,992 gallons, an amount which it has been calculated is about five

times the capacity of all the swimming-baths in London put together.

These huge vats are, however, but rarely used. Nearly 80,000 casks are

always in use.

When the light ales came into fashion Messrs. Truman & Co. wisely

determined to start a pale-ale brewery at Burton. They carried out

their resolve in 1874. Of this it can only be said that everything

Science could do to make the brewery perfect was done, and that the

pale ales are brewed on the most approved Burton principles.

The founder of the firm of Whitbread & Co. was the son of a yeoman who

lived on a small estate at Cardington, in Bedfordshire. On his father’s

death he improved the property by building, and from one propitious

circumstance to another gradually amassed an immense fortune. It was

in the year 1742 that Mr. Whitbread commenced business as a brewer, at

the Brew House, Old Street, St. Luke’s, the premises now occupied by

the firm of More & Co. In 1750 he removed to Chiswell Street, where

for fifty years previously had been a brewery. Here the business was

developed with great vigour, and from the returns made necessary in

1760 by the imposition of a Beer-tax, we learn that in that year

Whitbread’s brewed no less than 63,408 barrels of beer, only one other

London firm—Calvert & Seward—brewing a greater quantity. In 1785 steam

power was introduced into the brewery. In connection with this event

are two very celebrated names, for the Sun and Planet engine, still

in use, was manufactured by the firm of which Watt was a partner; and

John Rennie adapted the other machinery to the new motive power. About

the same period six huge underground cisterns were made, after designs

by Smeaton, varying in capacity from 700 to 3,600 barrels each. Two

years later Mr. Whitbread had the honour of a visit from King George

and Queen Charlotte, the particulars {360} of which are recorded in

a humorous poem of considerable length, by Peter Pindar (Dr. Walcot),

a few verses from which will suffice to give some idea of what took

place on that auspicious occasion. A more prosaic, and no doubt more

credible, account will be found in the _Daily Chronicle_ of that period.

* * * * *

Full of the art of brewing beer,

The monarch heard of Whitbread’s fame;

Quoth he unto the queen, “My dear, my dear,

Whitbread hath got a marvellous great name;

Charly, we must, must, must see Whitbread brew—

Rich as us, Charly, richer than a Jew;

Shame, shame, we have not yet his brewhouse seen!”

Thus sweetly said the king unto the queen.

Red-hot with novelty’s delightful rage,

To Mister Whitbread forth he sent a page,

To say that Majesty proposed to view,

With thirst of knowledge deep inflam’d,

His vats, and tubs, and hops, and hogsheads fam’d,

And learn the noble secret how to _brew_.

* * * * *

The preparations at the brewery are then described, followed by the

arrival of King, Queen, Princesses and Courtiers. The conversation of

the King, who “asked a thousand questions with a laugh, before poor

Whitbread comprehended half,” was, according to the poet, as “five

hundred parrots, gabbling just like Jews.”

Thus was the brewhouse fill’d with gabbling noise,

Whilst drayman, and the brewer’s boys,

Devour’d the questions that the King did ask:

In diff’rent parties were they staring seen,

Wond’ring to think they saw a _King_ and _Queen_!

Behind a tub were some, and some behind a cask.

Some draymen forc’d themselves (a pretty luncheon)

Into the mouth of many a gaping puncheon;

And through the bunghole wink’d with curious eye,

To view and be assur’d what sort of things

Were princesses, and queens, and kings;

For whose most lofty stations thousands sigh!

And, lo! of all the gaping clan,

Few were the mouths that had not got a man!

{361}

George III. was no doubt of opinion that a thing worth doing was

worth doing well, and no detail of the manufacture of beer seemed too

insignificant to interest him. “Thus microscopic geniuses explore,”

says Peter Pindar.

And now his curious majesty did stoop

To count the nails on ev’ry hoop;

And, lo! no single thing came in his way,

That, full of deep research, he did not say,

“What’s this? he, he? What’s that? What’s this?

What’s that?”

So quick the words too when he deign’d to speak,

As if each syllable would break its neck.

The extent of the business at that time may be gathered from the

following verse:—

Now boasting Whitbread, serious did declare,

To make the majesty of England stare,

That he had buts enough, he knew,

Plac’d side by side, to reach along to Kew:

On which the king with wonder swiftly cry’d,

“What if they reach to Kew then, side by side,

What would they do, what, what, plac’d end to end?”

To this Mr. Whitbread replies that they would probably reach to Windsor.

After awhile the King began to take notes.

Now, majesty, alive to knowledge, took

A very pretty memorandum-book,

With gilded leaves of asses’ skins so white,

And in it legibly did write—

Memorandum,

A charming place beneath the grates,

For roasting chesnuts or potates,

Mem.

’Tis hops that gives a bitterness to beer—

Hops grow in Kent, says Whitbread, and elsewhere.

Quaere.

Is there no cheaper stuff? where doth it dwell?

Would not horse-aloes bitter it as well? {362}

Mem.

To try it soon on our small beer—

’Twill save us sev’ral pounds a year.

* * * * *

Mem.

Not to forget to take of beer the cask

The brewers offer’d me, away.

* * * * *

To Whitbread now deign’d majesty, to say,

“Whitbread are all your horses fond of hay?”

“Yes, please your Majesty!” in humble notes,

The brewer answered—“also fond of oats:

Another thing my horses too maintains—

And that, an’t please your Majesty are grains.”

“Grains—grains,” said majesty, “to fill their crops?

Grains, grains, that comes from hops—yes, hops, hops, hops.”

Later on the brewery pigs were reviewed by the King,

On which the observant man who fills a throne

Declar’d the pigs were vastly like his own.

After the brewery had been inspected Mr. Whitbread entertained the King

and Queen at a banquet.

For several sessions Mr. Whitbread sat in Parliament as the member

for Bedford. He was a man of much benevolence, and it is said of him

that his charity, which was as judicious as it was extensive, was

felt in every parish where he had property. His private distributions

annually exceeded 3,000. Among the records of the Brewers’ Company we

came upon a conveyance from him to the Company of three freehold farms

in Bedfordshire, the income arising from which was to be devoted to

supporting “one or two Master brewers of the age of fifty years or

upwards, who had carried on the trade of a brewer within the bills of

mortality or two miles thereof for many years in a considerable and

respectable manner with good characters but by losses in the brewing

trade only shall have come to decay or been reduced in circumstances

and want relief.” By another indenture of the same date three dwelling

houses in Whitecross Street, London, are conveyed to the Company,

the income to be devoted towards the “support and relief of poor

freemen of the Co^y. of Brewers being proper objects and their widows

(particularly preferring such objects as shall be blind, lame {363}

afflicted with palsy or very aged).” The date of the gift is 1794. Only

two years later the donor died. His portrait, by Sir Joshua Reynolds,

is still to be seen in the Hall of the Brewers’ Company.

Mr. Samuel Whitbread, son of the founder, and remembered as Mr.

Whitbread the politician, now became the head of the firm, and, having

associated with himself partners, carried on the business as Whitbread

& Co. He sat in Parliament for several years, and was a firm supporter

of the Liberal party. It is related of him that being one evening at

Brooks’s he talked loudly and largely against the Ministers for laying

what was called the _war-tax_ upon malt; every one present of course

concurred with him in opinion; but Sheridan could not resist the

gratification of displaying his ever ready wit. Taking out his pencil,

he wrote upon the back of a letter the following lines, which he handed

to Mr. Whitbread across the table:—

They’ve raised the price of table drink;

What is the reason, do you think?

The tax on malt’s the cause, I hear:

But what has malt to do with beer?

Mr. Whitbread the politician is mentioned in _Rejected Addresses_, and

it is worthy of note that he took a considerable part in the rebuilding

of Drury Lane Theatre after it had been destroyed by fire.

Since 1760 the business had wonderfully increased. In 1806 we find

Whitbread & Co. stand fourth among the London brewers, brewing 101,311

barrels. In the succeeding ten years the business more than doubled

itself, the beer brewed in 1815 amounting to 261,018 barrels.

Mr. Whitbread, the son of the founder, died in 1820. A writer in the

_London Magazine_ of that date gives a careful study of his character

as a politician. “He was an honest man, and a true Parliamentary

speaker. He had no artifices, no tricks, no reserve about him. He spoke

point-blank what he thought, and his heart was in his broad, honest,

English face. . . . . If a falsehood was stated, he contradicted

it instantly in a few brief words: if an act of injustice was

palliated, it excited his contempt; if it was justified, it roused his

indignation; he retorted a mean insinuation with manly spirit, and

never shrank from a frank avowal of his sentiments.”

Mr. Whitbread the politician left two sons, the younger of whom

represented Middlesex for several years, and died in 1879. Of the

present member for Bedford, grandson of the politician, we need say

but little. {364} He was born in 1830, was educated at Rugby and

Cambridge, has sat for Bedford since 1852, and is one of the most

respected members of the House of Commons.

There are, it need hardly be said, many other brewing firms of the

first rank in the United Kingdom. The length to which this chapter has

grown absolutely prohibits us from giving, as we had intended, a sketch

of a large Edinburgh firm. There is, however, scattered through these

pages continual reference to the good ale—“jolly good ale and old”—of

Scotland. The old ales of Edinburgh are now giving way somewhat to the

pale ales affected by the temperate drinkers of the period, but old

Scotch ale is by no means a thing of the past, and has a world-wide

reputation. Most of the Edinburgh breweries have been established a

very long time, in some cases over a hundred years.

In the earlier portions of this book punning allusions to ale by

old writers have been freely quoted; with them may be compared

the following extract from a modern play, _Little Jack Sheppard_,

written by Messrs. Stephens and Yardley, and which contains facetious

references to some of the firms whose histories have just been related.

THAMES DARRELL.

When out at sea the crew set me, Thames Darrell,

Afloat upon the waves within a barrel.

WINIFRED WOOD.

In hopes the _barrel_ would turn out your _bier_.

THAMES.

But I’m _stout_-hearted and I didn’t fear.

I nearly died of thirst.

WIN.

Poor boy! Alas!

THAMES.

Until I caught a fish—

WIN.

What sort?

THAMES.

_A bass._

Then came the worst, which nearly proved my ruin,

A storm, a thing I can’t _abear, a brewin’_.

WIN.

It makes me pale.

THAMES.

It made _me pale_ and _ail_.

When nearly _coopered_ I descried a sail;

They didn’t hear me, though I loudly whooped.

Within the barrel I was _inned_ and _cooped_.

_All’s up_, I thought, when round they quickly brought her,

That ship to me of safety was the _porter_;

Half dead and half alive. Ha! ha!

WIN.

Don’t laugh.

’Twas very bitter.

THAMES.

No, ’twas _half and half_.

{365}

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XIII.

And what this flood of deeper brown,

Which a white foam does also crown,

Less white than snow, more white than mortar?

Oh, my soul! can this be Porter?

_The Déjeunè._

P raised and caress’d, the tuneful Philips sung

O f Cyder fam’d, whence first his laurel sprung;

R ise then, my muse, and to the world proclaim

T he mighty charms of Porter’s potent name:

E ach buck from thee shall sweetest pleasure taste,

R evel secure, nor think to part in haste.

_An Acrostick._

_PORTER AND STOUT. — CIRCUMSTANCES WHICH LED TO THEIR INTRODUCTION. —

VALUE TO THE WORKING CLASSES. — ANECDOTES. — “A POT OF PORTER OH!”_

Before the Blue Last, an old public-house situate in Curtain Road,

Shoreditch, there formerly hung a board which bore this legend:—“The

house where porter was first sold.”

Whether this was true or false we cannot say; certain it is, however,

that the drink which has made London and Dublin brewers famed far and

wide had its birthplace not far from this spot.

It appears that in the early years of last century the lovers of malt

liquors in London were accustomed to regale themselves upon three

classes of these beverages; they had ale, beer, and twopenny. Many who

preferred a more subtle combination of flavours than either of these

liquors {366} alone could impart, would ask for _half-and-half_, that

is, half of ale and half of beer, half of ale and half of twopenny, or

half of beer and half of twopenny. Others again—and these were the real

connoisseurs of malt liquors—would call for a pot of three threads,

or three thirds, _i.e._, one-third of ale, one-third of beer, and

one-third of twopenny. The drawer would therefore have to go to three

different casks, and through three distinct operations, before he could

draw a pint of liquor. But the hour had come—and the man. One Ralph

Harwood, whose name is too little known to an ungrateful posterity of

beer-drinking Britons, some time about the year 1730, kept a brewhouse

on the east side of High Street, Shoreditch. In that year, or perhaps

a little earlier, as this great man brooded over the inconvenience and

waste occasioned by the calls for the “three threads,” which became

more and more frequent, he conceived the idea of making a liquor which

would combine in itself the several virtues of ale, beer, and twopenny.

He carried the idea into action, and brewed a drink which he called

“Entire,” or “Entire Butts.” It was tasted; it was approved; it became

the fruitful parent of a mighty offspring; and from that day to this

has gone on increasing in name and fame.

Visitors to the great brewery in Brick Lane are shown a hole from which

steam issues to the accompaniment of awful rumbling noises. “In there

once fell a man,” they are told—“a negro. Nothing but his bones were

found when the copper was emptied, and it is said that the beer drawn

off was of an extraordinary dark colour. Some say this was the first

brew of porter. Oh yes” (this in answer to a question), “we soon learnt

how to make it without the negro.” We must confess that we have some

doubts as to this account of the origin of porter. We do not believe

that brew could have been much darker on account of the accident,

though no doubt, under the circumstances, it contained plenty of

“body.” A similar tale is told of nearly every London porter brewery,

and later on it will be found in verse.

It seems to be to some extent a moot point among the learned how porter

obtained its present name, for no record seems to have been kept of

its christening. Harwood, no doubt, stood godfather to his interesting

infant, but, as we have seen above, he called it “Entire;” and how

or when it came to be known as porter is not quite clear. There are

several theories on the subject, each more or less plausible. One

is that being a hearty, appetizing, and nourishing liquor, it was

specially recommended to the notice of the porters, who then, as now,

formed a {367} considerable proportion of the Shoreditch population.

Pennant, in his _London_ seems, to have held this view; he calls it “a

wholesome liquor, which enables the London porter-drinkers to undergo

tasks that ten gin-drinkers would sink under.” Another explanation

of the origin of the name is that Harwood sent round his men to his

customers with the liquor, and that the men would announce their

arrival and their business by the cry of “Porter”—meaning, not the

beer, but the bearer. Be this how it may, the embodiment of Harwood’s

great idea had not attained its majority before it was known far and

wide by its present name.

* * * * *

In _The Student_ (1750) is thus related the first appearance of porter

at Oxford—. . . “Let us not derogate from the merits of porter—a liquor

entirely British—a liquor that pleases equally the mechanic and the

peer—a liquor which is the strength of our nation, the scourge of our

enemies, and which has given _immortality_ to aldermen. ’Tis with the

highest satisfaction that we can inform our Oxford students that _Isis_

herself has taken this divine liquor into her protection, and that the

_Muses_ recommend it to their votaries, as being far preferable to

Hippocrene, Aganippe, the Castalian spring, or any _poetical water_

whatever. Know, then, that in the middle of the High Street, at the

sign of the King’s Arms, opposite to its opposite, Juggins’s Coffee

House, lives Captain Jolly; who _maugrè_ the selfish opposition of his

brother publicans, out of a pure affection to this University, and

regardless of private profit, reduc’d porter from its original price of

Sixpence, and in large golden characters generously informs us that he

sells

“London Porter

At Fourpence a Quart.

“As the Captain is a genius and a choice spirit he meets with the

greatest encouragement from the gown, and sends porter to all the

common-rooms. He therefore intends shortly (in imitation of the great

Ashley, of the Punch House, Ludgate Hill) to have the front of his

house new vamp’d up, and decorated with the following inscription:—

“Pro bono academico.

Here lives Captain Jolly

who first

reduced Porter to its’ present price

and

Brought that liquor into University esteem.”

{368}

Though we fear the great Harwood does not fill the niche in the Temple

of Fame to which he is entitled, yet his praises are not entirely

unsung. Gutteridge, himself a native of Shoreditch, has commemorated

the discovery of porter in these lines:—

Harwood, my townsman, he invented first

Porter to rival wine, and quench the thirst:

Porter, which spreads its fame half the world o’er,

Whose reputation rises more and more;

As long as Porter shall preserve its fame,

Let all with gratitude our Parish name.

“It is not in my power,” says Pennant in the work we have before

quoted, “to trace the progress of this important article of trade.

Let me only say that it is now a national concern; for the duty on

malt from July 5th, 1785, to the same day 1786, produced a million

and a half of money to the support of the State, from a liquor which

invigorates the bodies of its willing subjects, to defend the blessings

they enjoy. One of these Chevaliers de Malte (as an impertinent

Frenchman styled a most respectable gentleman of the trade) has, within

one year, contributed not less than fifty thousand pounds to his own

share.”

The person to whom the Frenchman applied the title of Chevalier de

Malte was Humphrey Parsons, a brewer of last century, and the incident

which gave rise to the name has already been referred to.

Pennant gives a list of the chief porter brewers of London at the end

of last century, with the number of barrels of strong beer they brewed

from Midsummer, 1786, to Midsummer, 1787. Samuel Whitbread heads the

list with 150,280 barrels, and among the others may be noted Calvert,

now the City of London Brewery; Hester Thrale, now Barclay and Perkins;

W. Read; and Richard Meux. Most of the other names, though famous in

their day and generation, are not familiar to the modern reader. The

total amount produced by some twenty-four of the chief London brewers

was considerably over one million barrels.

It is interesting to contrast the state of the Brewing trade a hundred

years ago with the proportions to which it has attained to-day.

According to a Parliamentary return made in 1884, there are now six

brewers of the United Kingdom who produce annually over three and a

half million barrels of malt liquor, and who pay to the revenue in

Licence and Beer duty nearly one million and a half sterling per annum.

{369}

A fine flavour has occasionally been given to stout by extraordinary

means, as witness the following legend, entitled

PATENT BROWN STOUT.

A Brewer in a country town

Had got a monstrous reputation;

No other beer but his went down.

The hosts of the surrounding station,

Carving his name upon their mugs,

And painting it on every shutter;

And though some envious folks would utter,

Hints that its flavour came from drugs,

Others maintained ’twas no such matter,

But owing to his monstrous vat,

At least as corpulent as that

At Heidelberg—and some said fatter.

His foreman was a lusty Black,

An honest fellow;

But one who had a ugly knack

Of tasting samples as he brewed,

Till he was stupefied and mellow.

One day in this top-heavy mood,

Having to cross the vat aforesaid,

(Just then with boiling beer supplied),

O’ercome with giddiness and qualms he

Reel’d—fell in—and nothing more was said,

But in his favourite liquor died,

Like Clarence in his butt of Malmsey.

In all directions round about

The negro absentee was sought,

But as no human noddle thought

That our fat _Black_ was now _Brown Stout_,

They settled that the rogue had left

The place for debt, or crime, or theft.

Meanwhile the beer was day by day

Drawn into casks and sent away,

Until the lees flowèd thick and thicker,

When, lo! outstretched upon the ground,

Once more their missing friend they found,

As they had often done before—in liquor. {370}

“See,” cried his moralising master,

“I always knew the fellow drank hard,

And prophesied some sad disaster:

His fate should other tipplers strike,

Poor Mungo! there he welters like

A toast at bottom of a tankard!”

Next morn a publican, whose tap,

Had help’d to drain the vat so dry,

Not having heard of the mishap,

Came to demand a fresh supply,

Protesting loudly that the last

All previous specimens surpass’d,

Possessing a much richer _gusto_

Than formerly it ever us’d to,

And begging, as a special favour,

Some more of the exact same flavour.

“Zounds!” cried the brewer, “that’s a task

More difficult to grant than ask;

Most gladly would I give the smack

Of the last beer to the ensuing,

But where am I to find a Black

And boil him down at every brewing?”

Professor Wilson, writing on brewing,[68] thus relates his conversion

to the porter-drinker’s creed.

[68] _Blackwood’s Magazine_, vol. xxi.

* * * * *

“From ale we naturally get to porter—porter—drink ‘fit for the gods,’

being, in fact, likely to be, now and then, _too potent_ for mere

mortals. With porter we are less imbued than with ale (not but that

for some years we have imported our annual butt of Barclay); and this

we hold to be one of the great misfortunes of our life. We were early

nurtured in love and affection for ‘good ale’ by our great aunt,

with whom we were a young and frequent visitant. Excellent old Aunt

Patty! She was a Yorkshire woman, and cousin (three times removed)

to Mr. Wilberforce (the father). She too hated _rum_ as the devil’s

own brewage, but then she loved sound ale in the same ratio. Thus it

happened, as we derived our faith in malt liquor from her, that we

{371} penetrated not the mysteries of porter until our elder days.

Our heresy was first effectually shaken by Charles Lamb, who, in his

admirable way, proved to us that, in a hot forenoon, a draught of Meux

or Barclay is beyond all cordial restoratives, and after a broiling

peregrination (the stages were all full) from Coleridge’s lodgings at

Highgate to town, gave us a specimen of the inspiring powers of porter

in a perspiration, which we shall remember until the day of our death.”

Lamb was known by all his friends to have an amiable weakness for

porter, and the poet, in _An Ode to Grog_, thus commemorates the fact:—

The spruce Mr. Lamb (’pon my word it’s no flam)

With Whitbread’s Entire makes his Pegasus jog;

I’ll grant he’s a poet, but then he don’t show wit,

In thinking that Porter is better than grog.

Burns was fond of porter, as of all other extracts of malt. He

addressed the following lines to his friend Mr. Syme, along with a

present of a dozen of bottled porter:—

O, had the malt thy strength of mind,

Or hops the flavour of thy wit,

’Twere drink for first of human kind,

A gift that e’en for Syme were fit.

We have given what we believe to be a correct historical account of

the origin of porter. Peter Pindar, in the _Lamentations of the Porter

Vat_, a poem in which he celebrates the bursting of a mighty porter vat

at Meux’s Brewery, gives a somewhat less prosaic account:—

Here—as ’tis said—in days of yore,

(Such days, alas! will come no more),

Resided Sir John Barleycorn,

An ancient Briton, nobly born,

With Mrs. Hop—a well-met pair,

For he was rich, and she was fair.

Yet they—like other married Folke,

When their past vows they can’t revoke—

Were opposite in disposition,

And quarrell’d without intermission;

For He alone produc’d the _Sweets_,

Which She, with _Bitters_ only, meets! {372}

Howe’er by dint of perseverance,

By gentle conjugal endearance,

The _Sweets_ predominating most,

In strength excelling, _rul’d the roast_;

Whilst she, obedient, did her duty—

That greatest ornament of beauty.

Her _Bitters_, thus by him controll’d,

Their wholesome properties unfold,

And give to him superior pow’rs—

Superior charms for social hours;

As _Beauty_, with persuasive tongue,

Tempers the mind, by _passion_ wrung.

At length, from this domestic Pair,

Was born a well-known Son and Heir;

Whose deeds o’er half the world are fam’d,

By Britons, Master Porter, nam’d.

Meux’s great vat then contained about 3,555 barrels, and was 22 ft.

high. In October, 1814, owing to the defective state of its hoops,

it burst, and the results were most disastrous. The brewery in the

Tottenham Court Road was at that time hemmed in by miserable tenements,

which were crowded by people of the poorer classes. Some of these

houses were simply flooded with porter, two or three collapsed, and

no less than eight persons met their death, either in the ruins or

from drowning, the fumes of the porter, or by drunkenness. At the

inquest the jury returned the verdict: “Death by Casualty.” Seven huge

vats—the largest holding 15,000 barrels—now take the place of the one

that burst. The _Times_ of April 1, 1785, says, “There is a cask now

building at Messrs. Meux & Co.’s brewery in Liquorpond Street, Gray’s

Inn Lane, the size of which exceeds all credibility, being designed to

hold 20,000 barrels of porter; the whole expense attending the same

will be upwards of £10,000.” About this time the London porter brewers

vied with each other in building large vats, a practice they have now

discontinued.

* * * * *

It would be difficult to imagine a liquor more suitable for the working

classes than good porter—taken in moderation, of course. Not only

does it afford the slight stimulant which, in another place, we have

shown to be beneficial to the human body, but it also contains much

{373} nutritive matter, both organic and inorganic, together with

saccharine. The old writer who spoke of ale as being meat, drink, and

clothing probably had no highly scientific knowledge of the chemical

properties of the liquor he was extolling, but the statement—based, no

doubt, on experience—can be called an exaggerated one.

Very satisfactory is it to know that in Ireland porter is steadily

displacing whisky. Even in the western portions of the island, the

younger generation—excepting, perhaps, on holidays, at fairs, and on

other festive occasions—are taking most kindly to their “porther.”

It will be a happy thing for that country when “porther” shall have

altogether displaced poteen. The whisky sold at threepence for each

small wine-glassful in most of the country spirit shops in Ireland, and

always taken neat by the natives, is of a most injurious character,

being new, and consequently containing much fusel oil. Far be it from

us to say a word against good, well-matured whisky, which, taken in

moderation, is a most wholesome drink; but, good or bad, it is not the

drink for working men who require a more sustaining and less expensive

liquor. What have the total abstainers to suggest? _Water_, the

diffuser of epidemics, and hardly ever obtained pure by the labouring

classes; _tea_, which is almost as injurious as spirits to the nervous

system, which lacks nutritive properties, and which is by no means an

inexpensive liquor; _coffee_ and _cocoa_, both hot drinks and most

unsuitable to slake the thirst of a labouring man; various effervescing

drinks, all more or less injurious to the digestive organs, when taken

habitually, and of whose composition no man hath knowledge, save the

makers, and _temperance wines_, certain vendors of which were not

long back prosecuted for attempting to defraud the revenue, when this

abstainer’s tipple was found to contain some twenty per cent. of

alcohol. One liquor, alone, have the teetotal party invented, which

is nourishing, inexpensive, and wholesome. This we may term _oatmeal

mash_, or cold comfort. It consists of scalded oatmeal, water, and

some flavouring matter. For harvesters working in the almost tropical

heat of an August sun, this is, no doubt, a wholesome drink, but it

can hardly be called palatable. As a matter of fact, no non-alcoholic

substitute has been put forward by the teetotal party which is in the

least likely to take the place of porter; and until such beverage is

invented—an event which we feel perfectly certain will never come to

pass—the porter and stout brewers of the United Kingdom will have every

opportunity of continuing to confer on the working classes the benefits

of cheap and wholesome liquor. {374}

One temperance drink we had almost overlooked—herb-beer. In the House

of Commons, on May 6, 1886, Mr. Fletcher asked the Chancellor of the

Exchequer why the Excise officers had interfered with the sale of

herb-beer, a non-intoxicating beverage. To this the Chancellor of the

Exchequer replied, that the Inland Revenue did not interfere with any

liquors which contained less than three degrees of proof spirit, though

legally no beer could be brewed under the name of herb-beer which

had more than two degrees of alcohol. Some of these non-intoxicating

liquors, sold as temperance drinks, had been found to be of

considerably greater strength than London porter. For the protection of

the revenue it was necessary—and so on. Comment is needless.

As illustrative of the sustaining powers of brown beer, we may mention

an instance which recently came under our notice. A valuable horse

belonging to a member of the firm of Truman, Hanbury, Buxton, & Co. had

a serious attack of influenza, with slight congestion of the lungs, and

was so ill that it could take no food, and was evidently dying. As a

last resource it was offered stout, which it drank greedily. For two

weeks it entirely subsisted on this novel diet, and at the end of that

time the bad symptoms had almost disappeared. The horse subsequently

recovered.

The name Stout was used originally to signify strong or stout beer.

This excellent brown beer only differs from Porter in being brewed of

greater strength and with a greater proportion of hops. Swift thus

mentions the liquor:—

“Should but the Muse descending drop

A slice of bread and mutton chop,

Or kindly when his credit’s out,

Surprise him with a pint of stout;

Exalted in his mighty mind

He flies and leaves his stars[69] behind.”

[69] Cf. Horace’s “_Sublimi feriam sidera vertice_,” which was once

construed by an ingenuous school-boy, “I will whip the stars with my

sublime _top_ ! !”

Many actors, actresses and singers imbibe largely of porter, both

for its excellent effects upon the voice and for its restorative and

sustaining powers. Fanny Kemble used frequently to apply herself to

a vulgar pewter pot of stout in the green room both during and after

her {375} performances. Peg Woffington was president of the Beefsteak

Club, then held in the Covent Garden Theatre; and after she had been

pourtraying on the stage “The fair resemblance of a martyr Queen,” she

might have been seen in the green room holding up a pot of porter, and

exclaiming in a tragic voice, “Confusion to all order, let liberty

thrive.”

Macklin, the actor, who lived to be a centenarian, was accustomed to

drink considerable quantities of stout sweetened with sugar, at the

Antelope, in White Hart Yard, Covent Garden. Porson used to breakfast

on bread and cheese and a pot of porter.

A favourite mixture of modern Londoners is known by the name of

“Cooper,” and consists of porter and stout in equal proportions.

The best account of the origin of this name is one which attributes

it to a publican by the name of Cooper, who kept a house in Broad

Street, City, opposite to where the Excise Office stood. Cooper

was a jolly, talkative host, and associated a good deal with his

customers—principally officers of the Excise, bankers’ and merchants’

clerks, and men of that stamp. His guests found on bits of broken

plates, pieces of beef steak and mutton chops already priced with paper

labels. These they had but to choose, mark their name on the ticket,

and carry to the cook at the gridiron, which was in the room in which

they dined. Cooper drank and recommended a mixture of porter and stout,

the fame of which spread very rapidly. The combination became the

fashion in the City, and finally it was brewed entire.

An equally plausible but more invidious derivation of the name is given

by Andrew Halliday in his _Every-Day Papers_. His account is that “Some

brewers who are jealous for the reputation of their beer employ a

traveller, who visits the houses periodically, and tastes the various

beers, to see that they are not reduced too much. This functionary is

called the ‘Broad Cooper.’ When the Broad Cooper looks in upon Mr.

Noggins, and wants to taste the porter, and the porter is below the

mark, Mr. Noggins slyly draws a dash of stout into it; and this trick

is so common, and so well known, that a mixture of stout and porter has

come to be known to the public and asked for by the name of ‘Cooper.’”

It has been well observed that “Porter-drinking needs but a beginning:

whenever the habit has once been acquired, it is sure to be kept up.

London is a name pretty widely known in the world; some nations know it

for one thing, and some for another. But all nations know that London

is the place where porter was invented: and Jews, Turks, Germans,

Negroes, Persians, Chinese, New Zealanders, {376} Esquimaux, copper

Indians, Yankees and Spanish Americans, are united in one feeling of

respect for the native city of the most universally favourite liquor

the world has ever known.” When the Persian ambassador left England

some years ago, many of his suite shed tears. One of them, struck with

the security and peace of an Englishman’s life, when compared to a

Persian’s, declared that his highest ideal of Paradise was to live at

Chelsea Hospital, where for the rest of his life he would willingly sit

under the trees and drink as much porter as he could get.

Much as porter’s praises have been sung, one depreciatory remark is

recorded to have been made by the late Judge Maule. “Why do you,

brother Maule, drink so much stout?” he was asked by one of the judges.

“To bring my intellect down to the level of the rest of the bench,” was

the not very flattering reply. It may be mentioned that Judge Maule’s

joke was not a new one, for L’Estrange has it thus: “One ask’t Sir John

Millesent how he did so conforme himself to the grave justices his

brothers when they mette. ‘Why, in faith,’ sayes he, ‘I have no way but

to drink myselfe downe to the capacitie of the Bench.’”

A song well known in the early part of the century is much heartier,

and redounds with patriotic sentiment:—

A POT OF PORTER OH!

When to Old England I came home,

Fal lal, fal lal la !

What joy to see the tankard foam

Fal lal, fal lal la !

When treading London’s well-known ground,

If e’er I feel my spirits tire,

I haul my sail and look up around

In search of Whitbread’s best entire.

I spy the name of Calvert,

Of Curtis, Cox, and Co.;

I give a cheer and bawl for’t,

“A pot of Porter, ho !”

When to Old England I come home,

What joy to see the tankard foam !

With heart so light and frolic high,

I drink it off to liberty ! {377}

Where wine or water can be found

Fal lal, fal lal la !

I’ve travell’d far the world around,

Fal lal, fal lal la !

Again I hope before I die,

Of England’s can the taste to try;

For many a league I’d go about

To take a draught of Gifford’s stout;

I spy the name of Truman,

Of Maddox, Meux, and Co.;

The sight makes me a new man,—

“A pot of porter, ho !”

When to Old England I come home,

What joy to see the tankard foam !

With heart so light and frolic high,

I drink it off to liberty.

[Illustration]

{378}

[Illustration]

_Chapter XIV._

Then hail, thou big and foaming bowl,

Hail, constant idol of my soul;

How laughingly the bubbles ride

Upon thy rich and sparkling tide.

_Brasenose College Shrovetide Verses._

This, I tell you, is our jolly _wassel_,

And for twelfth-night more meet too.

_Christmas Masque (Jonson)._

_BEVERAGES COMPOUNDED OF ALE OR BEER WITH A NUMBER OF RECEIPTS.—ANCIENT

DRINKING VESSELS.—VARIOUS USES OF ALE OTHER THAN AS A DRINK._

Very few people, when warming themselves in the winter months with

Mulled Ale, know that they are quaffing a direct descendant of that

famous liquor known to our forefathers as the Wassail-Bowl, and near

akin to Lambs-Wool, of which Herrick wrote in his _Twelfth Night_:—

Next crowne the bowle full

With gentle Lambs wooll,

Adde sugare nutmeg and ginger,

With store of ale too

And thus ye must doe,

To make the Wassaile a swinger.

A beverage of still greater antiquity, but certainly a family

connection, is Bragget or Bragot, which is, or was, until quite

recently, drunk in Lancashire. The word, according to the writer of

_Cups and their {379} Customs_, is of Northland origin, and derived

from “Braga,” the name of a hero, one of the mythological Gods of the

Edda. In its Welsh form of Bragawd, the drink is mentioned in a very

ancient poem, _The Hirlas or Drinking Horn of Owen_, which has been

thus rendered into English:—

Cup-bearer, when I want thee most,

With duteous patience mind thy post,

Reach me the horn, I know its power

Acknowledged in the social hour;

_Hirlas_, thy contents to drain,

I feel a longing, e’en to pain;

Pride of feasts, profound and blue,

Of the ninths wave’s azure hue,

The drink of heroes formed to hold,

With art enrich’d and lid of gold !

Fill it with _bragawd_ to the brink,

Confidence inspiring drink;—

We have been at no little trouble to discover the nature of the drink

called bragot, bragawd, &c., and have come to the conclusion that the

composition of the beverages bearing those names varied considerably.

To define Bragot with any degree of preciseness would be as difficult

as to give an accurate definition of “soup.” In the fourteenth century,

according to a MS. quoted in Wright’s _Provincial Dialects_, “Bragotte”

was made from this receipt:—

“Take to x galons of ale iij potell of fyne worte, and iij quartis of

hony, and put thereto canell (cinnamon) oz: iiij, peper schort or long

oz: iiij, galingale (a sort of rush) oz: i, and clowys (cloves) oz i,

and gingiver oz ij.”

Halliwell tells us that Bragot was a kind of beverage formerly esteemed

in Wales and the West of England, composed of wort, sugar and spices.

It was customary to drink it in some parts of the country on Mothering

Sunday.

Bracket must at one time have been a liquor in common use in London,

for in Mary’s reign the constables were ordered to make weekly search

at the houses of the Brewers and “typlers,” to see whether they sold

any ale or beer or _bracket_ above ½d. a quart without their houses,

and above ½d. the “thyrdendeale”[70] within. {380}

[70] The thyrdendale was a measure containing a pint and a half.

In the _Haven of Health_ (1584) are directions for making bragot, which

are similar to those in the fourteenth-century receipt. “Take three

or four galons of good ale or more as you please, two dayes or three

after it is cleansed, and put it into a pot by itselfe, then draw forth

a pottle thereof and put to it a quart of good English hony, and sett

them over the fire in a vessell, and let them boyle faire and softly,

and alwayes as any froth ariseth skumme it away, and so clarifie it,

and when it is well clarified, take it off the fire and let it coole,

and put thereto of peper a pennyworth, cloves, mace, ginger, nutmegs,

cinnamon, of each two pennyworth, stir them well together and sett them

over the fire to boyle againe awhile, then being milke-warme put it to

the rest and stirre all together, and let it stand two or three daies,

and put barme upon it and drinke it at your pleasure.”

Harrison (1578), in his Preface to _Holinshed’s Chronicles_, relates

that his wife made a composition called Brakwoort, which seems to have

been rather used for flavouring ale than as a distinct beverage. It

contained no honey.

In _Oxford Nightcaps_ metheglin, mead, and Bragon, or Bragget, are all

mentioned as being compounded of honey. Idromellum, which by-the-by did

not always contain honey,[71] was sometimes spoken of as Bragget. In

Chaucer’s _Miller’s Tale_ is mention of Braket:—

“Hire mouth was sweete as braket or the meth.”

[71] See p. 53.

The Wassail Bowl, according to Warton, was the “Bowl” referred to in

the _Midsummer Night’s Dream_:—

Sometimes lurk I in a _gossip’s bowl_,

In very likeness of a roasted crab,

And when she drinks, against her lips I bob,

And on her wither’d dewlap pour the _ale_.

In _Hamlet_ our great dramatist uses the word “wassail”:—

The King doth wake to-night, and takes his rouse,

Keeps _wassail_, and the swaggering upspring reels.

The chief ingredients of the ancient Wassail Bowl were, without doubt,

strong ale, sugar, spices, and roasted apples. The following {381}

receipt—the best of some half-dozen before us—is the one adopted at

Jesus College, Oxford, where, on the festival of St. David, an immense

silver-gilt bowl, which was presented to the college by Sir Watkin W.

Wynne in 1732, is partly filled with this admirable composition, and

passed round the festive board. Into the bowl is first placed half a

pound of Lisbon sugar, on which is poured one pint of warm beer; a

little nutmeg and ginger are then grated over the mixture, and four

glasses of sherry and five pints of beer are added to it. It is then

stirred, sweetened to taste, and allowed to stand covered up for two or

three hours. Three or four slices of thin toast are then floated on the

creaming mixture, and the wassail bowl is ready. Sometimes a couple or

three slices of lemon and a few lumps of sugar rubbed on the peeling

of a lemon are introduced. The slang term at Oxford for this beverage

is “Swig.” In another receipt it is said that the liquor, when mixed,

should be made hot (but not boiled), and the liquid poured over roasted

apples laid in the bowl.

In some parts of the kingdom there are, it is to be hoped, some few

persons who still adhere to the ancient custom of keeping Wassail on

Twelfth Night and Christmas Eve; and these, if they are orthodox,

should ignore the toast of the Oxford receipt in favour of the roasted

crab. Not that there is much virtue in either apple or toast, the

excellence of the drink being due to the spices, sack, and quality of

the ale. It can easily be understood that when ale was for the most

part brewed without hops, and consequently rather insipid in taste,

many people would have a craving for something more highly flavoured,

and would put nutmeg, ginger and other spices into their liquor. It

is not unlikely that the introduction of hops was the cause which

ultimately led to beer cups going out of fashion. At the present

day they are but rarely compounded, even at the Universities. From

experience we can say that, if skilfully made, they are excellent, and

some of the receipts given in this chapter are well worthy a trial.

Lambs-wool is a variety of the Wassail Bowl. Formerly the first day of

November was dedicated to the angel presiding over fruits, seeds, &c.,

and was called _La Mas ubal_ (The Day of the Apple-fruit), pronounced

lamasool. According to Vallancey these words soon became corrupted by

the country people into Lambswool, the liquor appropriate to the day

bearing the same name.

To make this beverage, mix the pulp of half a dozen roasted apples

with some raw sugar, a grated nutmeg, and a small quantity of ginger;

add one quart of strong ale made moderately warm. Stir the whole {382}

together, and, if sweet enough, it is fit for use. This mixture is

sometimes served up in a bowl, with sweet cakes floating in it.

In Ireland Lambswool used to be a constant ingredient at the

merry-makings on Holy Eve, or the evening before All Saints’ Day,

and milk was sometimes substituted for the ale. It is now rarely or

never heard of in that country, having been superseded by more ardent

potations.

_The Miller of Mansfield_ contains a reference to Lambswool:—

Doubt not, then sayd the King, my promist secresye:

The King shall never know more on’t for mee.

A cupp of _lambswool_ they dranke unto him then,

And to their bedds they past presentlie.

Old writers frequently made allusion to the spicing of ale. In

Chaucer’s _Rime of Sir Thopas_ occur these lines:—

And _Notemuge_ to put in ale

Whether it be moist or stale—

and again, in _The Knight of the Burning Pestle_, by Beaumont and

Fletcher:—

Nutmegs and ginger, cinnamon and cloves,

And they gave me this jolly red nose.

The ale, apparently, had nothing to do with the colouration.

Even the sublime Milton condescended to make allusion to spiced ale in

his _L’Allegro_:—

Till the livelong daylight fail

Then to the _spicy nut-brown ale_.

Wither, in _Abuses Stript and Whipt_ (1613), says:—

Will he will drinke, yet but a draught at most,

That must be spiced with a nut-browne tost.

The last quotation is only one out of the many to be found in our

literature having reference to the toast with which the spiced ale was

so often crowned. Perhaps the most curious is one from Greene’s _Friar

{383} Bacon_ (sixteenth century). The Devil and Miles are conversing

on the pleasures of Hell, whence they soon afterwards proceed. “Faith

’tis a place,” says Miles, “I have desired long to see; have you not

good tippling houses there?—May not a man have a lusty fire there, a

pot of good ale, a pair of cards, a swinging piece of chalk, and a

_brown toast_ that will clap a white waistcoat on a cup of good drink?”

Even in the last century toast and spices were not uncommonly put into

ale. Warton, in his _Panegyric on Oxford Ale_, wrote:—

My sober evening let the tankard bless

With _toast_ embrown’d, and fragrant _nutmeg_ fraught,

While the rich draught, with oft-repeated whiffs,

Tobacco mild improves.

The Anglo-Saxon custom of drinking healths and pledging has been, at

any rate, since the eighteenth century, termed _toasting_. In the

twenty-fourth number of _The Tatler_ the word is connected with the

toast put in ale cups. This is probably correct, though Wedgewood

considers it a corruption of _stoss an!_ knock (glasses), a German

drinker’s cry. The explanation given in _The Tatler_ of the connection

between the two meanings of the word “toast” is, however, open to

question. It runs thus: “It is said that while a celebrated beauty was

indulging in her bath, one of the crowd of admirers who surrounded

her took a glass of the water in which the fair one was dabbling and

drank her health to the company, when a gay fellow offered to jump in,

saying, ‘Though he liked not the liquor, he would have the _toast_.’”

In the reign of Charles II. Earl Rochester writes:—

Make it so large that, filled with Sack

Up to the swelling brim,

Vast _toasts_ on the delicious lake,

Like ships at sea, may swim.

A very ancient composition was ale-brue, called later ale-berry. It was

composed of ale boiled with spice, sugar, and sops of bread. An old

receipt (1420) for it is:—

Alebrue thus make thou schalle

With grotes, safroune and good ale.

{384}

Ale-brue was perhaps originally merely a brew of ale, but the word soon

came to mean a peculiar beverage. It is mentioned in _The Becon against

Swearing_ (1543): “They would taste nothing, no not so much as a poor

_ale-berry_ until they had slain Paul,” and in Boorde’s _Dyetary_, “Ale

brues, caudelles and collesses” are recommended for “weke men and feble

stomackes.” The word also occurs in _The High and Mightie Commendation

of the Vertue of a Pot of Good Ale_:—

Their ale-berries, cawdles and possets each one,

And sullabubs made at the milking pail,

Although they be many, Beer comes not in any

But all are composed with a Pot of Good Ale.

Taylor, in _Drinke and Welscome_, says: “Alesbury (or Aylesbury), in

Buckinghamshire, where the making of _Aleberries_, so excellent against

Hecticks, was first invented.” This is probably only a punning allusion.

All who have been at City festivities have tasted the Loving Cup,

which, so it is stated in _Cups and their Customs_, is identical with

the Grace Cup, a beverage the drinking of which has been from time

immemorial a great feature at Corporation dinners both in London and

elsewhere. Mr. Timbs, in _Walks and Talks about London_, says the

Loving Cups are filled with “a delicious composition immemorially

termed sack, consisting of sweetened and exquisitely flavoured white

wine,” and Will of Malmsbury, describing the customs of Glastonbury

soon after the Conquest, says that on certain occasions the monks had

“mead in their cans, and _wine_ in their _Grace Cup_.” The Oxford Grace

Cup, however, according to _Oxford Nightcaps_ (1835), contains ale.

The receipt runs thus: “Extract the juice from the peeling of a lemon

and cut the remainder into thin slices; put it into a jug or bowl, and

pour on it three half pints of strong home-brewed beer and a bottle of

mountain wine: grate a nutmeg into it; sweeten it to your taste; stir

it till the sugar is dissolved, and then add three or four slices of

bread toasted brown. Let it stand two hours, and then strain it off

into the Grace Cup.”

Many of the cups drunk by our forefathers had medicinal qualities

attributed to them, and did in fact, often contain drugs of various

descriptions. The famous Hypocras, for instance, was flavoured with

an infusion of brandy, pepper, ginger, cloves, grains of paradise,

ambergris, and musk. A Duchess of St. Albans has left us a receipt for

making “The Ale of health and strength,” which, it sufficeth to say,

was a {385} decoction of nearly all the herbs in the garden (agreeable

and otherwise) boiled up in small beer. Old worthies, when induced to

give up their receipts for the public good, described these drinks

under the head of “Kitchen physic.” “I allowed him medicated broths,

_Posset Ale_ and pearl julep,” writes Wiseman in his book on surgery.

The name of the unfortunate Sir Walter Raleigh is dear to Britons in

connection with tobacco and potatoes. He has yet another claim on our

sympathy as the inventor of an excellent receipt for Sack Posset, which

a high authority has declared to show full well the propriety of taste

in its compounder. It runs thus:—“Boil a quart of cream with _quantum

sufficit_ of sugar, mace and nutmeg; take half a pint of sack[72]”

(sherry), “and the same quantity of ale, and boil them well together,

adding sugar; these being boiled separately are now to be added. Heat a

pewter dish very hot, and cover your basin with it, and let it stand by

the fire for two or three hours.”

[72] There were several kinds of Sack—Sherris, Malmsey, &c. The

word is derived from _saco_, the skin in which Spanish wines were

imported.

“We’ll have a posset at the latter end of a sea-coal fire,” wrote

Shakspere.

A favourite drink of the seventeenth century was Buttered Ale. It was

composed of ale (brewed without hops), butter, sugar and cinnamon. In

_Pepys’ Diary_ for December 5th, 1662, “a morning draught of _buttered

ale_,” is mentioned. There is also reference to it in _The Convivial

Songster_:—

And now the merry spic’d bowls went round,

The gossips were void of shame too;

In _Butter’d Ale_ the priest half drown’d,

Demands the infant’s name too.

At the beginning of the eighteenth century Beer Cups were much in

vogue. Cuthbert Bede specifies, but does not describe, cups bearing the

following names: Humpty-dumpty, Clamber-clown, Hugmatee, Stick-back,

Cock Ale and Knock-me-down, and there were others called Foxcomb,

Stiffle, Blind Pinneaux, Stephony and Northdown. Cock Ale was supposed

to be, and no doubt was, a very strengthening and restorative compound.

The receipt runs thus:—“Take a cock of half a year old, kill him and

truss him well, and put into a cask twelve gallons of Ale to which

add four pounds of raisins of the sun well picked, stoned, washed and

dryed; sliced Dates, half a pound; nutmegs and mace two {386} ounces:

Infuse the dates and spices in a quart of canary twenty-four hours,

then boil the cock in a manner to a jelly, till a gallon of water is

reduced to two quarts; then press the body of him extremely well, and

put the liquor into the cask where the Ale is, with the spices and

fruit, adding a few blades of mace; then put to it a pint of new Ale

yeast, and let it work well for a day, and, in two days, you may broach

it for use or, in hot weather, the second day; and if it proves too

strong, you may add more plain Ale to palliate this restorative drink,

which contributes much to the invigorating of nature.”

Among the various beverages which good house-wives deemed it their duty

to brew were Elderberry Beer, or Ebulon, Cowslip Ale, Blackberry Ale,

China Ale and Apricot Ale. Their names indicate to a great extent their

composition. China Ale, however, was not a term applied by wits to tea,

as has been suggested, but was composed of ale flavoured with China

root and bruised coriander seed, which were tied up in a linen bag,

and left in the liquor until it had done working. The ale then stood

fourteen days, and was afterwards bottled. This was the proper China

Ale, but, according to an old cookery book, “the common sort vended

about Town is nothing more (at best) than ten-shilling beer, put up in

small stone bottles, with a little spice, lemon peel, and raisins or

sugar.”

Ebulon, which is said to have been preferred by some people to port,

was made thus: In a hogshead of the first and strongest wort was boiled

one bushel of ripe elderberries. The wort was then strained and, when

cold, worked (_i.e._ fermented) in a hogshead (not an open tun or tub).

Having lain in cask for about a year it was bottled. Some persons

added an infusion of hops by way of preservative and relish, and some

likewise hung a small bag of bruised spices in the vessel. White Ebulon

was made with pale malt and white elderberries.

Blackberry Ale was composed of a strong wort made from two bushels

of malt and ¼lb. hops. To this was added the juice of a peck of ripe

blackberries and a little yeast. After fermentation the cask was

stopped up close for six weeks, the ale was then bottled, and was fit

to drink at the end of another fortnight.

In the _London and County Brewer_ (1744), is this receipt for Cowslip

Ale: Take, to a barrel of ale a bushel of the flowers of cowslip pick’d

out of the husks, and when your ale hath done working put them loose in

the barrel without bruising. Let it stand a fortnight before you bottle

it, and, when you bottle it, put a lump of sugar in each bottle. {387}

The same book enlightens us as to the composition of “an ale that will

taste like Apricot Ale”:—“Take to every gallon of ale one ounce and a

half of wild carrot seed bruised a little, and hang them in a leathern

bag in your barrel until it is ready to drink, which will be in three

weeks; then bottle it with a little sugar in every bottle.”

Egg Ale was a somewhat remarkable composition, and was doubtless

highly nutritious. To twelve gallons of ale was added the gravy of

eight pounds of beef. Twelve eggs, the gravy beef, a pound of raisins,

oranges and spice, were then placed in a linen bag and left in the

barrel until the ale had ceased fermenting. Even then an addition was

made in the shape of two quarts of Malaga sack. After three weeks in

cask the ale was bottled, a little sugar being added. A monstrously

potent liquor truly! Can this have been one of the cups with which “our

ancestors robust with liberal cups usher’d the morn”?

Coming now to beverages more familiar, a word or two as to Purl, once,

and not so long ago either, the common morning draught of Londoners.

Tom Hood, in _The Epping Hunt_, thus puns upon the word:—

Good lord, to see the riders now,

Thrown off with sudden whirl,

A score within the purling brook,

Enjoy’d their “early purl.”

According to one receipt, common Purl contained the following

ingredients:—Roman wormwood, gentian root, calamus aromaticus snake

root, horse radish, dried orange peel, juniper berries, seeds or

kernels of Seville oranges, all placed in beer, and allowed to stand

for some months. The writer who gives this receipt says a pound or two

of galingale improves it—as if anything could improve such a perfect

combination! According to an anecdote told of George III., a somewhat

simpler beverage in his day went by the name of Purl. One morning

the King, when visiting his stables, heard one of his grooms say to

another: “I don’t care what you say, Robert, but the man at the Three

Tuns makes the best _purl_ in Windsor.”

“Purl, purl,” said the King; “Robert, what’s Purl?”

The groom explaining that purl was hot beer with a dash of gin in it,

in fact, the compound now known to ’bus conductors as “dogsnose,” the

King remarked:—

“Yes, yes; I daresay very good drink; but too strong for the morning;

never drink in the morning.” {388}

A mixture of warmed ale and spirits is called Hot-Pot in Norfolk

and Suffolk, and a similar compound, to which is added sugar and

lemon-peel, used to be called Ruddle.

A somewhat remote ancestor of Purl, Dogsnose, Ruddle and other mixtures

of ale or beer and spirits, was Hum, to which Ben Jonson refers in _The

Devil is an Ass_:—

—Carmen

Are got into the yellow starch and chimney sweepers

To their tobacco, and strong waters, _hum_,

Meath and Obarni.

And it is also mentioned in Beaumont and Fletcher’s _Wildgoose Chase_:

“What a cold I have over my stomack; would I’d some _hum_.” In

Shirley’s _Wedding_ is a reference to hum glasses, the small size being

indicative of the potency of the liquor:—

They say that Canary sack must dance again

To the apothecarys, and be sold

For physic in hum glasses and thimbles.

Flip, once a popular drink, and not altogether without its patrons in

the present day, is made in a variety of ways. The following receipt is

a good one. Place in a saucepan one quart of strong ale together with

lumps of sugar which have been well rubbed over the rind of a lemon,

and a small piece of cinnamon. Take the mixture off the fire when

boiling and add one glass of cold ale. Have ready in a jug the yolks of

six or eight eggs well beaten up with powdered sugar and grated nutmeg.

Pour the hot ale from the saucepan on to the eggs, stirring them while

so doing. Have another jug at hand and pour the mixture as swiftly as

possible from one vessel to the other until a white froth appears, when

the flip is ready. One or two wine glasses of gin or rum are often

added. This beverage made without spirits is sometimes called Egg-hot,

and Sailor’s Flip contains no ale. A quart of Flip is styled in the

_Cook’s Oracle_ a “Yard of Flannel.”

There is a tale told of a Frenchman, who, stopping at an inn, asked for

Jacob.

“There’s no such person here,” said the landlord.

“’Tis not a person I want, sare, but de beer warmed with de poker.”

“Well,” said mine host, “that is flip.” {389}

“Ah! yes,” exclaimed the Frenchman, “you have right; I mean Philip.”

Purl, Flip, and Dog’s Nose have been immortalised by Dickens in his

description of the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters. The tap and parlour

of this hostel were provided with “comfortable fireside tin utensils,

like models of sugar-loaf hats, made in that shape that they might,

with their pointed ends, seek out for themselves glowing nooks in the

depths of the red coals when they mulled your ale, or heated for you

those delectable drinks, Purl, Flip, and Dog’s Nose. The first of these

humming compounds was a speciality of the Porters, which, through an

inscription on its door-posts, gently appealed to your feelings as ‘The

Early Purl House.’ For it would seem that Purl must always be taken

early; though whether for any more distinctly stomachic reason than

that, as the early bird catches the worm, so the early purl catches the

customer, cannot here be resolved.”

Of other receipts for beer cups there are many—too many, indeed, to

be given here; most of them differ from one another more in name than

anything else. Brown Betty, an Oxford cup, deriving its name from

its inventor, a bedmaker, is similar to the Oxford Wassail Bowl. The

famous Brasenose Ale, which is by no means a modern institution and is

introduced at Brasenose College on Shrove Tuesday, immediately after

dinner, consists merely of ale sweetened with pounded sugar, and served

with roasted apples floating on it.

Not all the liquors Rome e’er had

Can beat our matchless Beer;

Apicius self had gone stark mad,

To taste such noble cheer.

Thus wrote an undergraduate of Brasenose Ale.

A cup bearing the euphonious name of Tewahdiddle had the reputation

of being most excellent tipple. It consists of a pint of beer, a

tablespoonful of brandy, a teaspoonful of brown sugar, a little grated

nutmeg or ginger, and a roll or very thinly-cut lemon-peel.

Among beverages which hold a high place as cool summer drinks is The

Parting Cup, which is made thus: Place in a bowl two slices of very

brown toast, a little nutmeg, a quart of mild ale, and two-thirds of a

bottle of sherry; sweeten the liquor with syrup, and immediately before

drinking add a bottle of soda-water. Another good cup is made with

two quarts of light draught beer, the juice of five lemons, and about

three-quarters of a pound of sugar. The mixture should then be {390}

strained and allowed to stand for a short time. If flat, a little

carbonate of soda should be added.

A very favourite summer drink at Oxford was Cold Tankard; and a certain

fair damsel, who was skilful in the preparation of this pleasant

beverage, was so honoured by the undergraduates that songs were written

in her praise by the boating men and other frequenters of the riverside

inn where she presided. She was, according to one poet, cheerful,

blithe, merry, neat, comely, gay and obliging, and above all she

excelled in making Cold Tankard.

She looks up the oars, and the old tavern scores,

And now and then cleans out a wherry;

The sails she can mend,

And the parlour attend,

For obliging’s the Maid of the Ferry.

She serves in the bar, and excels all by far

In making Cold Tankard of Perry;

How sweet then at eve,

With her leave to receive

A kiss from the Maid of the Ferry.

Though “perry” is mentioned in the verse, Cold Tankard is also made

with Ale or Cider. The ingredients are the juice from the peeling of

one lemon, extracted by rubbing loaf sugar on it; two lemons cut into

thin slices; the rind of one lemon cut thin, a quarter of a pound

of loaf sugar, and a half pint of brandy. To make the cup, put the

foregoing into a large jug, mix them well together, and add one quart

of cold spring water. Grate a nutmeg into the jug, add one pint of

white wine, and a quart of strong beer, ale, perry or cider, sweeten

the mixture to taste with capillaire or sugar, put a handful of balm

and the same quantity of borage in flower (_borago officinalis_) into

it, stalk downwards. Then put the jug containing this liquor into a tub

of ice, and when it has remained there one hour it is fit for use. The

balm and borage should be fresh gathered.

The use of Borage in cups is very ancient, and old writers have

ascribed to the flower many virtues. In Evelyn’s _Acetaria_ it is said

“to revive the hypochondriac, and cheer the hard student.” In Salmon’s

_Household Companion_ (1710) Borage is mentioned as one of the four

cordial flowers; “it comforts the heart, cheers melancholy, and revives

the fainting spirits.” It may be doubted whether the comforting effects

{391} of this inward application were rightly attributed to the borage

alone. A modern writer has gone so far as to say that he never found

any benefit apparent from the presence of Borage at Lord Mayor’s feasts

and other such festive gatherings, beyond that of so stinging the

noses of those other persons who have desired to drink deeply that the

cup undrained has been. Though granting this undeniable advantage, we

cannot concur that Borage possesses no other qualities, for it gives to

cups a peculiarly refreshing flavour which cannot be imitated.

In _Cups and their Customs_ are three Beer Cups which have not yet been

mentioned. The first of these is Copus Cup. It consists of two quarts

of hot ale, to which are added four wine glasses of brandy, three wine

glasses of noyau, a pound of lump sugar, the juice of one lemon, a

piece of toast, a dozen cloves, and a little nutmeg. Was it of such a

cup as this that the lines were written?—

Three cups of this a prudent man may take;

The first of these for constitution’s sake,

The second to the girl he loves the best,

The third and last to lull him to his rest.

Donaldson’s Beer Cup is of a more simple and lighter character. To a

pint of ale is added the peel of half a lemon, half a liquor-glass of

noyau, a bottle of seltzer-water, a little nutmeg and sugar, and some

ice.

“Hungerford Park” is an excellent beverage, and is especially suitable

for shooting parties in hot weather. To make it—cut into slices three

good-flavoured apples, which put into a jug; add the peel and juice of

one lemon, a very little grated nutmeg, three bottles of ginger-beer,

half a pint of sherry, two and a quarter pints of good draught ale,

sweeten to taste with sifted loaf sugar, stir a little to melt the

sugar, and let the jug stand in ice. “The addition of half a bottle of

champagne makes it _awfully_ good,” wrote a certain Colonel B., in _the

Field_, a few years ago.

Freemasons’ Cup, which may be drank either hot or cold, is of a very

potent character, and consists of a pint of Scotch ale, a similar

quantity of mild beer, half a pint of brandy, a pint of sherry, half a

pound of loaf sugar, and plenty of grated nutmeg. Freemasons must have

strong heads.

It will, no doubt, have been noted ere this that between mulled ale

and the majority of hot beer-cups the distinction is rather in name

than composition, and the various receipts for mulling ale so closely

resemble the Wassail Bowl, Flip, &c., that it is quite unnecessary to

quote any of {392} them. A word or two on cup making. Cups are easily

made and easily marred. All the ingredients must be of good quality,

and the vessels used sweet and clean. Everything required should be at

hand before the mixing commences, and that important process should

proceed as quickly as possible. Few servants can be trusted to brew

cups, but if the matter is placed in their hands you cannot do better

than caution them in terms similar to those addressed by Dr. King to

his maid Margaret:—

O Peggy, Peggy, when thou go’st to brew,

Consider well what you’re about to do;

Be very wise—very sedately think

That what you’re going to make is—drink;

Consider who must drink that drink, and then

What ’tis to have the praise of honest men;

Then future ages shall of Peggy tell,

The nymph who spiced the brewages so well.

Yet two more beverages compounded of ale or beer, and then this

portion of the subject is completed. First, Shandy Gaff, the very

writing of which word brings to us visions of a shining river, of

shady backwaters, of sunny days, of two-handled tankards, and of deep

cool draughts well earned. For the sake of the unfortunate few who

are unacquainted with the beverage, the receipt is given: One pint

of bitter beer, one bottle of the old-fashioned ginger-beer mixed

together, and imbibed only on the hottest summer days, after rowing.

Why, we cannot say; but Shandy Gaff always seems to us out of place

anywhere but on the river.

Secondly and lastly—Mother-in-law, which, also, to some of us may bring

visions—but of another kind. The drink of this name is composed of

equal proportions of “old and bitter.”

If there is one season of the year more appropriate than another to hot

beer-cups, be they Wassail Bowls, Lambswool, Flip or Mulled Ale, it is

Christmas. Edward Moxon, a poet who flourished about the commencement

of this century, presents in his _Christmas_ a charming picture of the

merry circle gathered round the crackling yule log, regaling themselves

with mulled ale:—

Right merry now the hours they pass,

Fleeting thro’ jocund pleasure’s glass,

The yule-log too burns bright and clear,

Auspicious of a happy year: {393}

While some with joke and some with tale,

But all with sweeter _mullèd ale_,

Pass gaily life’s sweet stream along,

With interlude of ancient song—

And as each rosy cup they drain,

Bounty replenishes again.

From the excellent beverages compounded of ale or beer, concerning

which so much has been said in this chapter, let us turn to the cups,

flagons, horns, bowls and other vessels used by ale drinkers, and in

some of which these beverages were compounded.

“Come troll the jovial flagon,

Come fill the bonny bowl,

Come, join in laughing sympathy

Of soul with kindred soul.”

A few pages must suffice for a very short notice of this interesting

part of our subject.

[Illustration: Anglo-Saxon Tumblers.]

Mr. Sharon Turner, in his _History of the Anglo-Saxons_, gives many

instances of the high estimation in which cups and drinking vessels

were held by our Teutonic forefathers. Even in very early times the

precious metals were largely used in their construction, and gold and

silver cups are frequently the subjects of Anglo-Saxon bequests. In the

old poem _Beowulf_ evidence may be found bearing upon this point. One

of the treasures in the ancient barrow guarded by the dragon Grendel

is “The solid cup, the costly drinking vessel (_drync fœt deore_).”

Drinking vessels are frequently found in Anglo-Saxon tombs. The cups

represented in the cut are made of glass, and were found chiefly in

barrows in Kent. They are of the “tumbler” species, _i.e._, on being

filled they must be emptied at a draught, and cannot be set down with

any liquor in them. Mr. Wright suggests that the example to the left

represents the “twisted” pattern mentioned in _Beowulf_.

The savage custom, observed both by the Celts and Saxons, of drinking

ale or mead from {394} a cup made out of the skull of a fallen foe,

has left a trace in mediæval times in the word “scole,” signifying a

cup or bowl, and may probably still be recognised in the provincial

word “skillet,” which has the same meaning.

Henry, in his _History of England_, relates that the Celtic inhabitants

of the Western Islands of Scotland spoke in their poetical way of

intoxicating liquors as “the strength of the shell,” from the fact that

they used shells as drinking vessels.

Returning to the Anglo-Saxons—besides metal and glass cups, they used

drinking horns, and cups or bowls of wood, and in some respects the

horn was the most important of their drinking vessels. Investiture of

lands was frequently made by the horn both among the Saxons and Danes.

The celebrated Horn of Ulphus, kept in the Sacristy of York Minster,

was, according to Camden, given to the Cathedral by a noble Dane named

Ulphus, who, when his sons quarrelled as to the succession to his

estate, cut short the dispute by repairing to the Minster, and there

enfeoffed the Cathedral with all his lands and revenues, draining the

horn before the high altar as a pledge and evidence of the gift. The

Mercian King Witlaf gave a drinking horn to the Abbey of Croyland “that

the elder monks may drink from it on feast days, and remember the soul

of the donor.”

[Illustration: Cup found in the Ruins of Glastonbury Abbey.]

The peg-tankards of the Anglo-Saxons have been already referred to in

Chapter V. The Glastonbury Peg Tankard, illustrated in the cut, is made

of oak. On the lid is a representation of the Crucifixion, and round

the sides are the figures of the Apostles. It contains two quarts, and

is divided with eight pegs. {395}

While engaged on this subject of measured drinks, it may also be

mentioned that hoops were used as well as pegs by the old topers, and

hence the promise of Jack Cade that “the three-hooped pot shall have

ten hoops.” From the same fact is derived the old phrase, “carousing

the hunter’s hoop,” signifying a prolonged drinking bout. In certain

parts of Essex it has been customary, until quite recently, for topers

to drink out a pot of ale in three equal draughts, and with some

ceremony; the first draught was called _neckum_, the second _sinkum_,

and the third _swankum_.

Passing on to mediæval times, We find, as might have been expected, a

great increase of variety in the drinking vessels in common use. The

tankard, which was one of the chief vessels used for ordinary drinking

purposes, was originally a vessel containing three gallons, and used,

not to drink out of, but to carry water in. Before Sir Hugh Middleton

brought the New River water into London, the inhabitants were supplied

by the tankard bearers. The tankard was usually made of metal and the

common use of pewter in the fifteenth century is shown by an extract

from a letter of that period, in which the recipient is reminded, that

“If ye be at home this Christmas, it were well done ye should do purvey

a garnish or twain of pewter vessel.” The _hanap_ was a kind of first

cousin to the tankard, it came down from Saxon times, and the name

is found in old Vocabularies under the form _hnæp_. The minds of the

learned have been greatly exercised as to the connection of this word

hanap with our word hamper, and with the older form still found in the

term, the Hanaper Office. We would humbly suggest that the old work of

Alexander Neckam, to which we have already had occasion to refer, makes

the matter tolerably clear. The writer, in describing the contents of

a cellar, mentions _ciphi_ and _cophini_, which of course mean _cups_

and _baskets_. An ancient annotator, however, gives us just the hint

we want by writing in the MS. over the word _ciphi_ “anaps,” and over

_cophini_ “anapers.” The hanap therefore was the cup, the hanaper or

hamper was the basket in which the cups were carried.

As an example of the number and value of the various drinking vessels

in use, the following extracts are given from an inventory of the goods

of Sir John Fastolfe, who died in 1459:

Item j payre galon Bottels of one sorte.

— j payre of potell Bottellys one sorte.

— j nother potell Bottell—Item 1 payre Quartletts of one sorte.

Item iiij galon pottis of lether—Item iij Pottelers of lether.

Item j grete tankard. {396}

Item ij grete and hoge botellis.

— ij Pottis of silver, percell gilte and enameled with violetts and

dayseys.

— ij Pottes of sylver, of the facion of goods enamelyd on the toppys

withe hys armys.

Leather was a very usual material for drinking vessels in former times,

and black-jacks were to be seen in every village alehouse. Many such

are still to be found in various parts of the country, though they are

not now used.

The venerable song the _Leather Bottel_ is too well known to bear

repetition, but a verse or two of _Time’s Alterations or the Old Man’s

Rehersal_, an ancient black-letter ballad, may be given to show the

common use of the leather drinking vessel:—

Black jacks to every man

Were filled with wine and beer;

No pewter pot nor can

In those days did appear:

Good cheer in a nobleman’s house

Was counted a seemly shew;

We wanted no brawn nor souse,

When this old cap was new.

We took not such delight

In cups of silver wine;

None under the degree of a Knight

In plate drunk beer or wine:

Now each mechanical man

Hath a cupboard of plate for a shew;

Which was a rare thing then,

When this old cap was new.

Taylor, the water poet, in his _Jack a Lent_, makes mention of these

vessels (A.D. 1630):—

——— nor of Jacke Dogge, Jack Date,

Jacke foole, or Jack a Dandy, I relate:

Nor of Black Jacks at gentle Buttry bars,

Whose liquor often breeds household wars:

A variety of Black Jack was the Bombard, to which Ben Jonson refers

in the lines from the _Masque of Love Restored_. “With that {397}

they knocked hypocrisy on the pate and made room for a bombard-man,

that brought bouge[73] for a country lady or two, that fainted, he

said, with fasting.” Shakspere calls Falstaff “that swollen parcel or

dropsies, that huge bombard of sack.” “Baiting of bombard” was a slang

term for heavy drinking. Small Jacks were also in use. Decker, in

his _English Villaines Seven Times Pressed to Death_, says: “In some

places they have little leather Jacks, tip’d with silver, and hung with

small silver bells (these are called Gyngle-Boyes), to ring peales of

drunkennesse.”

[73] bouge = an allowance of meat and drink.

The Black Jack was frequently taken for a sign. The house with that

sign-board in Clare Market, London, was once the haunt of Joe Miller,

of comic fame, and from the window of this tavern Jack Sheppard is

said to have made a desperate leap, in escaping from the clutches of

Jonathan Wild and his myrmidons.

Heywood, in his _Philocothonista or Drunkard Opened, Dissected and

Anatomized_ (1635), gives a very full list of the various drinking

vessels in use in his day. “Of drinking cups,” he says, “divers and

sundry sorts we have; some of elme, some of box, some of maple, some of

holly, etc. Mazers, broad-mouthed dishes, naggins, whiskins, piggins,

creuzes, ale-bowles, wassel-bowles, court dishes, tankards, kannes,

from a pottle to a pint, from a pint to a gill. Other bottles we

have of leather, but they are mostly used amongst the shepherds and

harvest people of the countrey; small jacks we have in many ale houses

of the citie and suburbs tipt with silver: black-jacks and bombards

at the court; which when the Frenchmen first saw, they reported at

their return unto their country that the Englishmen used to drink out

of their bootes. We have besides cups made of horns of beastes, of

cockernuts, of goords, of eggs of estriches; others made of the shells

of divers fishes brought from the Indies and other places, and shining

like mother of pearle. Come to plate, every tavern can afford you flat

bowles, french bowles, prounet cups, beare bowles, beakers; and private

householders in the citie, when they make a feast to entertain their

friends, can furnish their cupboards with flagons, tankards, beere

cups, wine bowles, some white, some percell guilt, some guilt all over,

some with covers, others without, of sundry shapes and qualities.”

During the religious feuds that raged so fearfully in Holland, the

Protestant party gave the name of _Bellarmines_ to the bearded jugs

{398} they used. This was done in ridicule of their opponent, Cardinal

Bellarmine. The Cardinal’s figure was stout and squat, and well suited

the form of the stone beer-jug in use. To make the resemblance more

complete, the Cardinal’s face with his great square-cut beard was

placed in front of the jug, which became known in England as the

_Bellarmine_ or _Greybeard_ Jug. Many fragments of these jugs, of the

reign of Elizabeth and James the First, have been exhumed, and the jug

entire is not uncommon. Ben Jonson, alluding to the Greybeard, says

of a drunkard that “the man with the beard has almost struck up his

heels,” and an excellent description of this quaint old jug is to be

found in Cartwright’s play _The Ordinary_ (1651):—

——thou thing

Thy very looks like to some strutting hill,

O’ershadow’d with thy rough beard like a wood;

Or like a larger jug that some men call

A Bellarmine, but we a conscience,

Wheron the tender hand of Pagan workman

Over the proud ambitious head hath carved

An idol large, with beard episcopal.

The Greybeard Jug is still to be found in some parts of Scotland,

and the following tale, in which it figures, was taken down some

years ago from the conversation of a Scotch Church dignitary. About

1770 there flourished a Mrs. Balfour, of Denbog, in the County of

Fife. The nearest neighbour of Denbog was a Mr. David Paterson, who

had the character of being a good deal of a humorist. One day, when

Paterson came to the house, he found Mrs. Balfour engaged in one of her

half-yearly brewings, it being the custom in those days, each March and

October, to make as much ale as would serve for the ensuing six months.

She was in a great pother about bottles, her stock of which fell far

short of the number required, and she asked Mr. Paterson if he could

lend her any? “No,” said Paterson, “but I think I could bring you a

few greybeards that would hold a good deal, perhaps that would do.”

The lady assented, and appointed a day when he should come again and

bring his greybeards with him. On the proper day Mr. Paterson made his

appearance, in Mrs. Balfour’s parlour.

“Well, Mr. Paterson, have you brought your greybeards?”

“O, yes, they are down stairs waiting for you.”

“How many?”

“Nae less than ten.” {399}

“Well I, hope they are pretty large, for really I find I have a great

deal more Ale than I have bottles for.”

“I’se warrant ye, Mem, ilka ane o’ them will hold twelve gallons.”

“O, that will do extremely well.”

Down goes the lady.

“I left them in the dining-room,” said Paterson. When the lady went in

she found ten of the most bibulous old lairds of the North of Fife. She

at once perceived the joke, and entered into it. After a hearty laugh

had gone round, she said she thought it would be as well to have dinner

before filling the greybeards, and it was accordingly arranged that the

gentlemen should take a ramble and come in to dinner at two o’clock.

The extra ale is understood to have been duly disposed of.

Closely allied to the Greybeard was the Toby Philpot beer jug; it was,

however, a more elaborate article, and represented the whole figure of

a portly toper. Its origin is thus described in the humorous verses

entitled _Toby Philpot_, by Francis Fawkes:—

Dear Tom, this brown jug, which now foams with mild ale,

Out of which I now drink to sweet Nan of the Vale,

Was once Toby Philpot, a thirsty old soul,

As e’er crack’d a bottle, or fathom’d a bowl:

In bousing about, ’twas his pride to excel,

And amongst jolly topers he bore off the bell.

It chanc’d as in dog days he sat at his ease,

In his flower-woven arbour, as gay as you please,

With his friend and a pipe, puffing sorrow away,

And with honest Old Stingo sat soaking his clay,

His breath-doors of life on a sudden were shut,

And he died full as big as a Dorchester Butt.

His body when long in the ground it had lain,

And time into clay had dissolv’d it again,

A potter found out, in its covert so snug,

And with part of Fat Toby he form’d this brown jug:

Now sacred to friendship, to mirth, and mild Ale—

So here’s to my lovely sweet Nan of the Vale.

The wooden ale bowls used by the Saxons continued common in England for

many a century, and constant reference to them is to be {400} found.

In the _Miller of Mansfield_ King Henry II. is represented drinking out

of a brown bowl:

This caus’d the King, suddenlye, to laugh most heartilye,

Till the teares trickled fast downe from his eyes.

Then to their supper were they set orderlye,

With hot bag puddings, and good apply pyes;

Nappy ale, good and stale, in a browne bowle,

Which did about the board merrilye trowle.

At the time when the _Liber Albus_ was composed (1419), the gallons,

pottles and quarts used in the City of London were made of wood, as may

be judged from the fact that they are mentioned as shrinking if they

were stamped when _green_.

Dryden mentions the brown bowl as characteristic of the country life:—

The rich, tir’d with continual feasts,

For change become their next poor tenant’s guests;

Drink heavy draughts of Ale from plain brown bowls,

And snatch the homely Rasher from the coals.

Mr. Pepys records that on the 4th of January, 1667, he had company

to dinner; and “at night to sup, and then to cards, and last of all

to have a flagon of ale and apples, drank out of a wood cup, as a

Christmas draught, which made all merry.” Brown bowls were also the

drinking vessels used in singing the old song, _The Barley Mow_ “which

cannot,” says Bell “be given in words, it should be heard to be

appreciated properly, particularly with the West Country dialect.”

Here’s a health to the barley-mow, my brave boys,

Here’s a health to the barley-mow!

We’ll drink it out of the jolly brown bowl,

Here’s a health to the barley-mow!

Chorus:—Here’s a health to the barley-mow, my brave boys,

Here’s a health to the barley-mow!

We’ll drink it out of the nipperkin, boys.

Here’s, &c.

and so it proceeds, “quarter-pint,” “half-pint,” “pint,” “quart,”

“pottle,” “gallon,” “half-anker,” “anker,” “half-hogshead,” “hogshead,”

“pipe,” “well,” “river,” “ocean,” always in the third line repeating

the whole of the previously-named “measures” backwards. {401}

Among curious drinking vessels must be classed the Wager or Puzzle

Jugs, which, in the seventeenth century, were great favourites at

village inns. Some are to be seen in the South Kensington Museum. These

jugs had usually many spouts, from most of which it was difficult to

drink owing to perforations in the neck. But a secret passage for the

liquor up the hollow handle or through one spout or nozzle afforded a

means of sucking out the contents, the fingers of the drinker stopping

up the other spouts and holes during the operation. On many of these

jugs were inscriptions, such as—

From Mother Earth I claim my birth,

I’m made a joke to man,

But now I’m here, fill’d with good beer

Come, taste me if you can.

One more curious drinking vessel must be mentioned, and then this short

account of a subject upon which a large volume might well be written,

must close.

The “Ale-yard” has been described by a writer in _Notes and Queries_ as

“a trumpet-shaped glass vessel, exactly a yard in length, the narrow

end being closed, and expanded into a large ball. Its internal capacity

is little more than a pint, and when filled with ale many a thirsty

tyro has been challenged to empty it without taking away his mouth.

This is no easy task. So long as the tube contains fluid it flows out

smoothly, but when air reaches the bulb it displaces the liquor with

a splash, startling the toper, and compelling him involuntarily to

withdraw his mouth by the rush of the cold liquid over his face and

dress.”

The Ale-yard is known at Eton under the name of the “Long Glass.” Those

boys who attain to a certain standing either as Dry Bobs or Wet Bobs

(_i.e._, in the boats or at cricket) are invited to attend “Cellar,”

which is held at “Tap” once a week during the summer term. On attending

the first time the novice has to “floor the Long Glass” (_i.e._, to

finish it without drawing breath). Many have to make several attempts,

and some never succeed.

It is, no doubt, generally supposed that the uses of ale other than as

a drink are but few in number, yet malt liquors have been applied to a

variety of queer purposes. From a letter of Pope Gregory to Archbishop

Nidrosiensi, of Iceland, it would seem that in the thirteenth century

children were sometimes baptized in ale instead of water.

“Forasmuch as we learn from your letter that it has sometimes {402}

happened that infants in your country have been baptized in ale owing

to the lack of water in that region, we return in answer that since the

heart ought to be born again of water and the Holy Spirit, those ought

not to be considered as duly baptized who have been baptized in ale.

“Given at the Lateran VIII. Idus Julii, anno XV.”

In another letter of an earlier date (1237) the use of ale in the

administration of the Eucharist was forbidden, though Nashe, speaking

of the Icelanders in his _Terrors of the Night_ (1594), says: “It is

reported that the Pope long since gave them a dispensation to receive

the Sacrament in ale, since owing to their incessant frosts there, no

wine but was turned to red emagle” (_i.e._, enamel) “as soone as euer

it came amongst them.”

To leave Theology for the Stable, it is worth recording that it is

alleged that during the King’s progress through the country, in Norman

times, such was the extravagance and waste of the royal household that

the servants even washed the horses’ feet in ale. Grooms at the present

day often mix ale with lampblack and oil for rubbing on the hoofs

of horses. Possibly this was all that was done by the royal grooms.

Ancient chroniclers are notoriously inaccurate.

None appreciate good ale more than anglers, and this is clearly

evidenced in the following receipt, written by Christopher North, for

staining gut or hair lines a pale watery green:—“To a pint of strong

ale add (as soon as possible, as it is so apt to evaporate when good)

half-a-pound of soot, a small quantity of walnut leaves, and a little

powdered alum (then drink the remaining pint of ale, if you happen to

have drawn a quart); boil these materials for half or three-quarters of

an hour, and when the mixture is cold, steep the gut or hair in it for

ten or twelve hours.” Yes, good ale is apt to evaporate very quickly;

the moral is obvious.

Dame Juliana Berners, in _The Treatyse of Fysshynge wyth an Angle_,

gives two receipts “to coloure your lynes of here,” in which ale is

used. One consists of ale and alum, the other of ale and soot.

When every county had its monasteries, and every monastery its fish

stew well stocked with fine carp for Fridays’ dinners, the fattening of

fish was a matter of no little importance. In an old angling book it is

stated that “Raspins and Chippins of Bread, or almost any scraps from

the Table, placed under a cask of strong Beer or Ale, in such a manner

that the Droppings of the Liquor may fall among them, is excellent Food

for Carp. Two quarts of this is sufficient for thirty, and if they

are fed Morning and Evening it will be better than once a Day only.”

Stilton {403} cheeses, by the way, treated in a similar manner to

that directed for the “Raspins,” are immensely improved in flavour and

general excellence. Brewers’ grains are greedily eaten by most kinds

of freshwater fish, and are used by anglers as groundbait for bream,

roach, and carp in the Eastern counties.

In a work entitled _Practical Economy_, published in 1821, persons

desirous of fattening their fowls quickly are recommended to feed them

on ground-rice, milk and sugar, made into a paste, and to let them

drink beer.

The ladies who preside over the culinary department of our households

do not, so far as we know, make any use of ale other than as a drink,

excepting the occasional use of beer in the preparation of Welsh

rare-bits. From old cookery books, however, we gather that this has

not always been the case. Beer mixed with brown sugar was a favourite

sauce for pancakes; red herrings were steeped in small beer before

being broiled; and catsup for sea stores was made principally of beer

and vinegar, a few mushrooms being added for conscience’ sake. Then,

from the same source, we find that beer has other domestic uses. An

admirable method of cleaning crape is to steep it in beer, wring it

gently, and hang it out to dry; stale beer formed, and still forms, the

liquid part of the best blacking; ale or beer plus elbow grease makes

capital furniture polish; and, leaving the interior of the house, beer

grounds have been used for washing the outside of walls and houses

covered with cement to harden the latter, a change which they are said

likewise to effect on bricks and mortar.

Beer mixed with brown sugar or honey is usually rubbed over the

interiors of hives in which swarms of bees are intended to be taken.

A bunch of mint and other sweet herbs forms the brush to spread the

mixture. Not only is the sweet dressing agreeable to the taste and

smell, but the beer has doubtless a lulling and soporific effect on the

bees, and renders them less anxious to leave their new abode.

In the medicine books of the Saxon Leeches are references to the use of

ale in the composition of various lotions. Ale and beer are, indeed,

often prescribed by medical practitioners of the present day, as will

be seen by a perusal of Chapter XV. The valuable properties of bitter

beer as an incentive to appetite and a promoter of digestion, and the

nourishing qualities of the brown beers, are too well known to need

comment.

In many breweries large quantities of vinegar are manufactured from

malt liquor. This is an ancient practice, for in the City of London

{404} Records of the time of Good Queen Bess it is stated that

officials were appointed to search the premises of the brewers for

“vyneagre, bear-eagre and ale-eagre,” and to report to the Common

Council touching the same. The words “beare-eagre” and “ale-eagre”

have now gone out of use, and the acid liquid made from malt liquor is

improperly called Vinegar though in no way connected with the Vine.

A use of ale, which is additional rather than alternative to the common

one, is commemorated by the old proverb, “Fair chieve good ale, it

makes folk speak what they think.” Another such supplementary use, but

of a character less commendable, is expressed in the ancient couplet:—

The Good Noppy Ale of Southwerk

Keeps many a goodwife from the Kirk.

Moore, in his _Odes of Anacreon_, sings the praise of ale as an

incentive to literary labours:—

If with water you fill up your glasses,

You’ll never write anything wise,

For Ale is the horse of Parnassus

Which hurries a bard to the skies.

The following curious lines, copied from a MS. in the Cottonian

Library, indicate some other supplementary uses, or to speak more

correctly, the unwished-for effects of the strong ale in which our

forefathers indulged:—

Doll thi, doll, doll, doll this ale, dole,

Ale mak many a man to have a doly poll.

Ale mak many a mane to styk at a brere;

Ale mak many a mane to ly in the myere;

And ale mak many a mane to stombyl at a stone;

Ale mak many a mane to dronken home;

And ale mak many a mane to brek his tone;

With doll.

Ale mak many a mane to draw hys knyfe;

Ale mak many a mane to bet hys wyf.

With doll.

Ale mak many a mane to wet hys chekes,

* * * * * {405}

Ale mak many a mane to stomble in the blokkis;

Ale mak many a mane to mak hys hed have knokkes,

And ale mak many a mane to syt in the stokkes.

With doll.

Ale mak many a mane to ryne over the falows;

Ale mak a mane to swere by God and alhalows

And ale mak many a mane to hang upon the galows.

With doll.

A strange use of good liquor was that which anciently prevailed of

partly intoxicating criminals before execution. The ladies of Jerusalem

used to provide such a potion, consisting of frankincense and wine.

There is a curious similarity between this custom and the old practice

of giving to condemned men on their way to Tyburn Tree, a great bowl

of ale as their last earthly refreshment. It is stated in Hone’s _Year

Book_ that a court on the south side of the High Street, St. Giles’,

derives its name of Bowl Yard from the circumstance of criminals on

their way to execution being presented with a bowl of ale at the

Hospital of St. Giles. Different maxims came ultimately to prevail

in reference to this matter, and we are told that Lord Ferrers, when

on his way to execution in 1760, for the murder of his land steward,

was denied his request for some wine and water, the Sheriff stating

that he was sorry to be obliged to refuse his lordship, but by recent

regulations they were enjoined not to let prisoners drink when going to

execution, as great indecencies had been frequently committed in these

cases, through the criminals becoming intoxicated. The old saying that

the “Saddler of Bawtry was hanged for leaving his liquor,” arose from

the following circumstances: Being sick at heart from his impending

death, the Saddler refused the bowl of ale offered him on his way to

the gallows. One minute after the poor fellow’s last struggle his

reprieve arrived, so that had he but tarried to drink the ale he had

been saved.

Very different was the fortune of the Tinkler who had the good luck to

meet

——King Jamie, the first of our throne

A pleasanter monarch sure never was known.

The little incident is best told in the words of the old ballad:—

As he (the King) was a hunting the swift fallow deer,

He dropped all his nobles; and when he got clear, {406}

In hope of some pastime away he did ride

Till he came to an ale-house, hard by a wood side.

And there with a Tinkler he happened to meet,

And him in kind sort he so freely did greet:

“Pray thee, good fellow, what hast in thy jug,

Which under thy arm thou dost lovingly hug?”

“By the mass!” quoth the Tinkler, “it’s nappy brown ale,

And for to drink to thee, friend, I will not fail;

For although thy jacket looks gallant and fine,

I think my twopence as good as is thine.”

“By my soul! honest fellow, the truth thou has spoke,”

And straight he sat down with the Tinkler to joke;

They drank to the King and they pledged to each other;

Who’d seen ’em had thought they were brother and brother.

In their merry conversation the Tinkler remarks that the King is on the

border chasing deer, and that he would much like to see a King. James

immediately says he will show him one, if he will but mount behind him.

This the Tinkler does, “with his sack, his budget of leather and tools

at his back.” Doubts arising in his mind as to how he shall recognise

the King, James tells him,

“Thou’lt easily ken him when once thou art there;

The King will be covered, his nobles all bare.”

Together the two ride through the merry greenwood, and come upon the

nobles, when the Tinkler again asks to be shown the King.

The King did with hearty good laughter reply,

“By my soul! my good fellow, its thou or its I!

The rest are bare-headed, uncovered all round.”

With his bag and his budget he fell to the ground,

and beseeches mercy. Then says James—

“Come tell me thy name?” “I am John of the Dale,

A mender of kettles, a lover of ale.”

“Rise up! Sir John, I will honour thee here,

I make thee a Knight of three thousand a year.”

{407}

“This was a good thing for the Tinkler indeed,” writes the poet, who

concludes with the verse:—

Sir John of the Dale he has land, he has fee,

At the Court of the King who so happy as he?

Yet still in his hall hangs the Tinkler’s old sack,

And the budget of tools which he bore at his back.

There are two instances on record of ale being used to extinguish fire.

One January in the seventeenth century occurred a devastating fire

which burnt down the greater portion of the Temple in the neighbourhood

of Pump Court. “The night was bitterly cold,” writes Mr. Jeafferson,

in _Law and Lawyers_, “and the Templars, aroused from their beds to

preserve life and property, could not get an adequate supply of water

from the Thames, which the unusual severity of the season had frozen.

In this difficulty _they actually brought barrels of ale from the

Temple butteries, and fed the engines with the malt liquor_.” If the

ale was old and potent the flare up thereof must have been great indeed.

In the year 1613 the Globe Theatre was burnt down in consequence of

the wadding from a cannon fired off during the performance of _Henry

VIII._, setting fire to the thatched roof. Sir Henry Wotton, in a

letter to his nephew giving an account of the occurrence, wrote: “One

man had his breeches set on fire that perhaps had broiled him if he had

not by the benefit of a provident wit put it out with bottle ale.” To

what base uses may we return!

[Illustration]

{408}

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XV.

CONSTABLE OF FRANCE.

“Dieu de batailes! Where have they this mettle?

. . . can sodden water,

A drench for sur-rein’d jades, their barley broth,

Decoct their cold blood to such valiant heat?”

_King Henry V._, Act iii., Scene 5.

“If every man is to forego his freedom of action because many make a

licentious use of it, I know not what is the value of any freedom.”

_J. Risdon Bennett, M.D._

_OLD MEDICAL WRITERS ON ALE. — ADULTERATION OF ALE. — ADVANTAGES

OF MALT LIQUORS TO LABOURING CLASSES. — TEMPERANCE_ versus _TOTAL

ABSTINENCE. — ANECDOTES. — GAY’S BALLAD._

Champions of the so-called temperance cause, have gone so far towards

_in_temperance as to say that a moderate drinker is worse than a

drunkard. This absurd declaration stands self-condemned, and without

labouring thrice to slay the slain by disproving an assertion which

carries upon its face the unmistakable marks of a suicide’s death, we

propose in this chapter to prove beyond question, from the works of

ancient, mediæval, and modern writers, that sound malt liquors possess

valuable medicinal and restorative qualities, and that their proper use

is in nowise injurious to health.

In Anglo-Saxon times ale was considered to be possessed of the highest

medicinal virtues. It is mentioned in the _Saxon Leechdoms_ as an

ingredient in many of the remedies therein prescribed, and for the

most serious as well as for the most trifling complaints. In lung

{409} disease a man is to “withhold himself earnestly from sweetened

ale,” to drink clear ale, and in the wort of the clear ale “boil young

oak-rind and drink.” Fever patients are recommended to drink during a

period of thirty days an infusion of clear ale and wormwood, githrife,

betony, bishop-wort, marrubium, fen mint, rosemary and other herbs. For

one “fiend-sick” the receipt runs thus:—A number of herbs having been

worked up in clear ale, “sing seven masses over the worts, add garlic

and holy water and let him drink out of a church bell”; finally the

lunatic is to give alms and pray for God’s mercies. Another remedy for

lunacy is much simpler: “Take skin of a mere-swine (porpoise), work it

into a whip, swinge the man therewith, soon he will be well, Amen.”

Another remarkable receipt runs thus: “Take a mickle handfull of sedge

and gladden, put them into a pan, pour a muckle bowlfull of ale upon

them, boil, and then rub into the mixture twenty-five libcorns. This is

a good drink against the devil.”

For less serious evils the receipts in these Anglo-Saxon pharmacopœias

are numerous. Hiccup is cured thus: Take the root of jarrow, pound it,

and put it into good beer, and give it to the patient to sup lukewarm.“

Then I ween that it may be of good benefit to him either for hiccup or

for any internal difficulty.”

In Anglo-Saxon veterinary surgery beer was also used. “Take a little

new ale and pour it into the mouth of each of the sheep; and make them

swallow it quickly; that will do them good,” says the old _Lœce-boc_.

(_i.e._, Medicine book.)

At the present day, in some country places, cows which have lost their

milk soon after calving, are given warm ale in which aniseed has been

boiled, and ale has often been given to horses with advantage.

Not only as an inward, but also as an outward application, was ale

recommended: For pains in the knees, woodwax and hedge-rife pounded

and put into ale, and used both inwardly and outwardly, was the Saxon

remedy.

The foregoing receipts are sufficient to show the character of the

medicine prescribed in Saxon times. At a later period ale still held

its high position as a cure for most of the evils to which unfortunate

humanity is subject. In the eighth _Book of Notable Things_, a rare

work, supposed to have been written in the sixteenth century, the

following curious remedies are mentioned:—

No. 45. An excellent medicine and a noble restorative for man or woman

that is brought very low with sickness. Take two pounds of dates and

wash them clean in Ale, then cut them and take out the {410} stones

and white skins, then cut them small, and beat them in a mortar, till

they begin to work like wax, and then take a quart of Clarified Honey

or Sugar, and half an ounce of the Podder of Long Pepper, as much of

Mace of Cloves, Nutmegs, and Cinnamon, of each one Drachm, as much of

the Powder of Lignum Aloes; beat all the Spices together and Seeth the

Dates with the Sugar or Honey with an easie fire, and let it seeth;

cast in thereto a little Powder, by little and little, and stir it with

a spatula of wood, and so do until it come to an Electuary, and then

eat every morning and evening thereof, one ounce at a time, and it will

renew and restore again his Complexion, be he never so low brought.

This hath been proved, and it hath done good to many a Man and Woman.

No. 46. A notable Receipt for the black Jaundice. Take a Gallon of

Ale, a Pint of Honey, and two Handfuls of Red Nettles, and take a

penny-worth or two of Saffron, and boil it in the Ale, the Ale being

first skimmed and then boil the Hony and Nettles therein all together

and strain it well, and every Morning take a good Draught thereof, for

the space of a fortnight. For in that space (God willing) it will clean

and perfectly cure the black Jaundice.

In the Twelfth Book is a receipt which was probably far more effective

than most of the ancient remedies:—

No. 49. For a cough; Take a quart of Ale and put a Handful of Red Sage

into it, and boyl it half away; strain it, and put to the Liquor a

Quarter of a pound of Treacle, drink it warm going to Bed.

In Ben Jonson’s _Alchemist_, of about the same date, is a mention of

ale used as medicine:—

Yes, faith, she dwells in Sea-coal lane, did cure me

With sodden ale, and pellitory of the wall,

Cost me but twopence.

We have before us an old pamphlet bearing the title “_Warme Beere_,

or a Treatise wherein is declared by many reasons, that Beere so

qualified is farre more wholesome than that which is drunk cold. With

a confutation of such objections that are made against it; published

for the preservation of Health. Cambridge. Printed by R. D. for Henry

Overton, and are to be sold at his shop entering into Pope’s-Head Alley

out of Lumbard Street in London, 1641.” {411}

The following verses form an apt commencement to this whimsical old

treatise:—

IN COMMENDATION OF WARME BEERE.

We care not what stern grandsires now can say,

Since reason doth and ought to bear the sway.

Vain grandames saysaws ne’er shall make me think,

That rotten teeth come most by warmed drink.

No, grandsire, no; if you had us’d to warm

Your mornings draughts, as I do, farre less harme

Your raggie lungs had felt; not half so soon,

For want of teeth to chew, you’d us’d the spoon.

Grandame, be silent now, if you be wise,

Lest I betray your skinking niggardize:

I wot well you no physick ken, nor yet

The name and nature of the vitall heat.

’Twas more to save your fire, and fear that I

Your pewter cups should melt or smokifie,

Then skill or care of me, which made you swear,

God wot, and stamp to see me warm my beer.

Though grandsire growl, though grandame swear, I hold

That man unwise that drinks his liquor cold.

W. B.

After giving instances of the value of warm beer as opposed to cold,

the author gives the following sage account of the reasons he hath

for the faith that is in him:—“When a man is thirstie, there are two

master-qualities which do predominate in the stomach, namely heat

and drinesse, over their contraries, cold and moisture. When a man

drinketh cold beer to quench his thirst, he setteth all four qualities

together by the ears in the stomach, which do with all violence oppose

one another and cause a great combustion in the stomach, breeding

many distempers therein. For if heat get the mastery, it causeth

inflamation through the whole body, and bringeth a man into fluxes and

other diseases. But hot beer prevents all these dangers, and maketh

friendship between all these enemies, viz., hot and cold, wet and

drie, in the stomach; because when the coldnesse of the beer is taken

away by actuall heat, and made as hot as the stomach, then heat hath

no opposite, his enemie cold being taken away, and there only remains

these two enemies, dry and wet in the stomach: which heat laboureth to

make friends. When one is exceeding thirstie, the beer being made hot

and then drunk into the dry stomach, it immediately quencheth {412}

the thirst, moistening and refreshing nature abundantly. Cold beer is

very pleasant when extreme thirst is in the stomach; but what more

dangerous to the health. Many by drinking a cup of cold beer in extreme

thirst, have taken a surfet and killed themselves. Therefore we must

not drink cold beer, because it is pleasant, but hot beer, because it

is profitable, especially in the Citie for such as have cold stomachs,

and inclining to a consumption. I have known some that have been so

farre gone in a consumption, that none would think in reason they could

live a week to an end: their breath was short, their stomach was gone,

and their strength failed, so that they were not able to walk about

the room without resting, panting and blowing: they drank many hot

drinks and wines to heat their cold stomachs, and cure their diseases,

especially sweet wines, but all in vain: for the more wine they drank

to warm their stomachs, the more they inflamed their livers, by which

means they grew worse and worse increasing their disease: But when they

did leave drinking all wine and betook themselves onely to the drinking

of hot beer so hot as blood, within a moneth, their breath, stomach and

strength was so increased, that they could walk about their garden with

ease, and within two moneths could walk four miles, and within three

moneths were perfectly made well as ever they were in their lives.”