TUDOR PERIOD.
The legislative enactments of the reign of Henry VII. demand minute
attention. With a certain modification, it is true that the direct
legislative sanction of the liquor traffic dates from this reign.
The revival of the trade of England was a great object with this
monarch. The greater part of the foreign trade of England had hitherto
been carried on by foreigners in foreign vessels of burden. Henry
was sensible that this prevented the increase of English ships and
sailors; so, to remedy this in part, he got a law passed in his first
Parliament, that no Gascony or Guienne wines should be imported into
any part of his dominions, except in English, Irish, or Welsh ships,
navigated by English, Irish, or Welsh sailors, which obliged them to
build ships and go to sea, or to lack their favourite liquor. This
law was enforced and enlarged by an Act made in his third Parliament
(1487), when it was enacted that no wines of Gascony or Guienne, or
woads of Tholouse, should be imported into England, except in ships
belonging to the king or some of his subjects; and that all such wines
and woads imported in foreign bottoms should be forfeited.
By 7 Henry VII., c. 7, it was enacted (in order to counteract the duty
of four ducats a tun lately imposed by the Venetians) that ‘every
merchant stranger (except Englishmen born) bringing malmseys into
this realm, should pay 18_s._ custom for each butt, over and above the
custom aforetime used to be paid.’ The price of the butt was fixed at
4_l._
Of far more importance was the Act of 1496, passed ‘against vacabonds
and beggars.’ This empowers two justices of the peace ‘to rejecte and
put away comen ale-selling in townes and places where they shall think
convenyent, and to take suertie of the keepers of ale-houses of their
gode behavyng, by the discrecion of the seid justices, and in the same
to be avysed and aggreed at the time of their sessions.’
Leland gives in his _Collectanea_ a wine list which indicates the
comparative prices of wines at this time:--
De Vino rubeo, VI dolia, prec. dol. 4_l_ 24 li
De Vino claret, IV dol. prec. dol. 7¾ 14 li 13 8
De Vino alb. elect. unum dol 3 li 6 8
De Vino alb. pro coquina i. dol 3 li
De Malvesey, i but 4 li
De Ossey, i pipe 3 li
De Vino de Reane, ii almes 26s 8
We get a good notion of the daily routine of court living in this reign
from the ordinances of the royal household. There is nothing whatever
in them indicative of excess, but they are interesting as matters
of history, and records of etiquette. ‘When the king cometh from
evensong into his great chamber on the even of the day of estate, the
chamberlain must warn the usher before evensong that the king will take
spice and wine in his great chamber.... Then shall the gentleman usher
bring thither the esquire, and especially the king’s server (officer
who set, removed, tasted, &c.) to bring the king’s spice plate.... And
when the usher cometh to the cellar door, charge a squire for the body
with the king’s own cup.’ This is simply a specimen of pages of like
directions.
Entries in the Household Book of Edward Stafford, Duke of Buckingham,
furnish details of a nobleman’s style of living at the beginning of
the sixteenth century. On the Feast of the Nativity 290 persons dined
and supped at Thornbury Castle, on which occasion were consumed eleven
pottles and three quarts of Gascony wine, and 171 flagons of ale. This
was not excessive for the times, the vices of which are admirably
pictured in William Dunbar’s remarkable poem, _The Dance_. He describes
a procession of the seven deadly sins in the lower regions. Gluttony
brings up the rear:--
Then the foul monster Gluttony,
Of wame [belly] insatiable and gredy,
To dance he did him dress:
Him followed mony foul dronkart,
With can and collop, cup and quart,
In surfett and excess.
Fully many a wasteful wally-drag [outcast],
With wames [bellies] unwieldable did forth wag,
In creische [fat] that did incress:
Drink, aye, they cried, with mony a gape,
The fiends gave them hait leid to lap [hot lead to lap]
Their levery [reward] was no less.
The Household Book of the Earl of Northumberland is another capital
illustration of the table life of the higher nobles. In reading the
estimates, it must be taken into account that the household consisted
of 166 persons. The allowance of grain per month gave 250 quarters of
malt at 4_s._, two hogsheads to the quarter. This allowance may be
thought to speak more for the temperance of the retainers than for
the liberality of the lord. The wine was dispensed more liberally.
An annual consumption showed ten tuns and two hogsheads of Gascony.
A breakfast bill of fare appears thus: ‘Breakfastis for my lorde and
my ladye. Furst a loof of brede in trenchers, two manchets, one quart
of bere, a quart of wine, half a chyne of muton, ells a chyne of beif
boyled.’
A searching visiting of monasteries, indeed of all ecclesiastics
within the dominion, was entrusted by Henry VII. to his vicar-general
and vice-gerent, Thomas Cromwell. The scrutiny was intended mainly
for the monasteries. The eighty-six articles of instruction compass
a large field of minute inquiry. The commissioners were doubtless
much indebted to monastic factions and animosities for some of
the information which they gained. The scrutiny revealed terrible
irregularities in some cases, prominent among which were the vices of
gluttony and drunkenness. The result of this official investigation
was the dissolution of the smaller monasteries. And thus good was
effected; for, however much we discount the charges alleged, for the
reasons above suggested, the lives of the inmates had become a far
and wide scandal. Innocent VIII. sent a bull to Archbishop Morton in
1490, in which he informs him that he had heard with great grief from
persons worthy of credit, that the monks of all the different orders
in England had grievously degenerated, that giving themselves up to a
reprobate sense they led dissolute lives. But the archbishop was fully
aware of the evil, for in 1487 he had convened a synod of the prelates
and clergy of his province, for the reformation of the manners of the
clergy. In this convocation many of the London clergy were accused of
spending their whole time in taverns. But there is no disguising the
fact that profuseness of living was countenanced in the highest places
of the Church; which, if it does not excuse, at any rate explains the
excesses of the ‘inferior clergy.’ As late as 1504, when William Warham
was enthroned as Archbishop of Canterbury, a feast was given for which
was procured--fifty-four quarters of wheat, six pipes of red wine, four
of claret, one of choice white, one of white for the kitchen, one butt
of Malmsey, one pipe of wine of Osey, two tierces of Rhenish wine, four
tuns of London ale, six of Kentish ale, and twenty of English beer.
It is curious how many of our tavern signs originated from incidents
in the history of our sovereigns. The ‘Red Dragon’ was in compliment
to Henry VII., who adopted this device for his standard at Bosworth
Field. It was in old times the ensign of the famous Cadwaller, the
last of the British kings, from whom the Tudors descended. The field
of Bosworth furnished matter for another sign. The hawthorn-bush
crowned was adopted by Henry VII. in allusion to the crown of his
predecessor which was found hidden in a hawthorn-bush after the
battle. But the seventh Henry escaped the honour (?) conferred upon
his successor and perpetuated, of being immortalised by his portrait
as Bluff Harry on scores of tavern signboards. It is stated in the
_History of Signboards_ that at Hever, in Kent, one of these rude
portraits of Henry VIII. may be seen. Near this village the Bolleyn,
or Bullen, family held possessions, and old people in the district
still show where Henry used to meet Anne Bolleyn. Anyhow, years after
the sad death of Anne, the village ale-house had for its sign, ‘Bullen
Butchered.’ When the place changed hands, the name of the house was
altered to the ‘Bull and Butcher,’ which sign existed till recently,
but was altered at the request of the clergyman of the parish, who
suggested the ‘King’s Head,’ and the village painter was commissioned
to make the alteration. The bluff features of the monarch were drawn;
and in his hands was placed an axe, and so the sign remains at present.
In the collection of ordinances for the Royal Household we have an
account of the ceremony of _wasselling_, as was practised at Court on
Twelfth Night in the reign of Henry VII. The ancient custom of pledging
each other out of the same cup had given place to the use of different
cups. Moreover, ‘when the steward came in at the doore with the wassel,
he was to crye three tymes, “_Wassel_, _wassel_, _wassel_,” and then
the chappell (chaplain) was to answere with a songe.’ The custom of
‘toasting’ was in full force. Shakespeare’s _King Henry VIII._ contains
several such allusions. Thus in act i., scene 4, the king exclaims--
Let’s be merry.
Good my lord cardinal, I have a half a dozen healths
To drink to these fair ladies.
Malmsey (pronounced by Shakespeare to be ‘fulsom’) competed with sack
to be the favourite drink of the period; it was the only sweet wine
specified in the ordinances of the household of Henry VIII. Malmsey was
a strangely generic term for sweet wines from almost every vine-growing
district. Candia, Chios, Lesbos, Tenedos, Tyre, Italy, Greece, Spain,
all yielding the _Malmsey_, which we found to have proved so fatal to
Maudlin Clarence in his Malmsey butt.
Some believe it to have been first made at Napoli de Malvasia, in the
Morea. Certainly the principal part of that which was so extensively
imported in the middle ages came from the Archipelago. When subject
to Venetian rule Candia and Cyprus supplied Europe with their finest
wines, the former island alone being said to have exported 200,000
casks of Malmsey annually.
Sack is another generic term for sweet wine,[87] and is not of
necessity, as Nares describes it, ‘the same wine which is now named
sherry;’ a statement which the rest of his own remarks contradict.
Thus we find not only sherry-sack, but canary-sack, Malaga-sack,
rumney-sack, palm-sack, &c.[88] The derivation of the word is much
disputed; the town _Xique_, and the Spanish _saco_, a bag, have
been suggested; but _sack_, also written _seck_, is undoubtedly the
French _sec_, the Latin _siccus_, dry. It continued a popular wine
for another two centuries, as we find from Tom D’Urfey’s ballad on
the ‘Virtues of sack’ (1719). Redding states that the term ‘sack’ was
applied to sweet and dry wines of canary, Xeres, or Malaga. Vines are
said to have been first planted in the Canary Islands in the reign of
Charles V., imported thither from the Rhine. Canary was much drunk
formerly; the bibbers of it were dubbed ‘canary-birds,’ and the wine
‘canary-sacke.’[89] An old writer growls, ‘sacke is their chosen
nectar; they love it better than their own souls; they will never leave
off sacke, until they have sackt out all their silver; nay, nor then
neither, for they will pawn their crouds for more sacke.’
The following receipt for beer, taken from Arnold’s Chronicle,
published in 1521, reminds that by this time hops were in use, ‘ten
quarters of malt, 2 of wheat, 2 of oats, with 11lbs. of hops for making
11 barrels of single beer.’ This is the first I can find with hops as
an ingredient. The old distich, of which there are two versions,
Hops, reformation, bays, and beer,
Came into England all in one year,
and
Hops and turkeys, carp and beer,
Came into England all in a year,[90]
would fix the introduction of hops to the time of Henry VIII. But there
is a difficulty here, inasmuch as the use of this plant in brewing was
known long before, and Henry VIII., who interfered in everything from
religion to beer-barrels, forbade his subjects to put hops in their ale.
Spirits were beginning to acquire a reputation in England. Numbers of
Irish settled in Pembrokeshire in this reign, and employed themselves
in the distillation of their national beverage, usquebaugh, which had a
large sale in this country.
But, to pass from the drinks to the drinkers, the habits of Henry VIII.
are well known. He was constantly intoxicated, and kept the lowest
company. His right hand, Wolsey, was actually put in the stocks by Sir
Amias Powlett, when he was Rector of Lymington, for drunkenness at
a neighbouring fair. Why should not such punishments be revived as
either the stocks or the ‘drunkard’s cloak’? In this latter, drunkards
were paraded through the town, wearing a tub instead of a cloak, a hole
being made for the head to pass through, and two small ones in the
sides, through which the hands were drawn.
Experience is a good master. No one could look after the monks better
than Wolsey. It appears that a system of _misericords_ had found place
in monasteries. These misericords were exoneration from duties granted
by the Abbots to the monks. This privilege in course of time they
abused. The Augustinian canons absented themselves from the choir and
cloister, sometimes for whole weeks; whereupon Wolsey ordered that
these canons should recreate themselves not singly, but in a number
together, supervised by the superior, and accompanied; that they should
repair not to the towns, villages, and taverns, but to sunny places
near their houses; that they should not go to houses of laymen to eat
and drink without leave, but carry their provisions with them.
One of the most magnificent pageants on record welcomed Anne Boleyn
to the city of London in 1533. At Gracechurch Corner was erected ‘the
Mount Parnassus, with the fountain of Helicon.’ It was formed of white
marble. Four streams rose an ell high and met in a cup above the
fountain which ran copiously till night with Rhenish wine. At the great
Conduit in Cheap, a fountain ran continuously, at one end white wine,
at the other claret, all the afternoon. Anne had been maid of honour
at court. The household books of the kings describe the allowance
and rules of the table of the ladies of the household. A marvellous
picture of the times! A chine of beef, a manchet, and a chet loaf was
a breakfast for the three. To these was added a _gallon of ale_.
* * * * *
Gascon wine was now in favour for court consumption. The Losely MSS.
supply the items of Sir Thomas Carden’s purchases for Anne of Cleves’
cellar.[91] Among these were 3 hogsheads of Gascoigne wine at 3_l._
each; 10 gallons of Malmsey at 20_d._ a gallon; 11 gallons of Muscadel
at 2_s._ 2_d._ a gallon; and 10 gallons of sack at 16_d._ a gallon. A
pipe of Gascon wine was also the bribe which Lady Lisle sent to the
Countess of Rutland, to secure her good offices in obtaining the post
of maid of honour for her daughter, Miss Basset.
We are able to form a rough estimate of the quantity of liquor kept
in stock at this time, from a return which was made by order, on the
occasion of the visit of the Emperor Charles V. to the king. The city
authorities appear to have been afraid of being drunk dry by the
swarming Flemings in the emperor’s train. To avoid such a calamity,
a return was made of all the wine to be found at the eleven wine
merchants and the twenty-eight principal taverns then in London; the
sum total of which was 809 pipes.[92]
The corruptions of court life were fearlessly exposed by a
contemporary, John Skelton, in his _Bowge of Court_. Bowge (_bouche_,
mouth) denoted the courtier’s right of eating at the king’s expense.
The Bowge of Court was an allegorical ship with court vices on board.
Ecclesiastics in high places were mercilessly satirised in his
_Colin Clout_, _e.g._ (_a_) their hurry from the house of God to get
drink--
But when they have once caught
_Dominus vobiscum_ by the head,
Then run they in every stead (place),
God wot, with drunken nolls (heads),
Yet take they cure of souls.
(_b_) Their unconcern at the tragedy of the Saviour’s passion--
Christ by cruelty
Was nailed upon a tree;
He paid a bitter pension
For manne’s redemption,
He drank eysell and gall
To redeem us withal.
But sweet hippocras ye drink,
With ‘Let the cat wink!’
(_c_) Their logomachies under the excitement of drink--
They make interpretation
Of an awkward fashion,
And of the prescience
Of Divine essence,
And what hypostasis
Of Christe’s manhood is.
Such logic men will chop,
And in their fury hop
When the good ale-sop
Doth dance in their foretop.
If Sir T. Elyot (1534) was correct in speaking of temperance as a new
word, the virtue was old enough, even though the practice was rare. In
the most corrupt times virtue has ever had its witnesses, even as the
epoch of the dissolute Henry had its Sir David Lindsay, and its Earl of
Surrey. The latter, amongst _the means to attain a happy life_, could
name
The mean diet, no delicate fare;
True wisdom joined with simpleness;
The night discharged of all care;
Where wine the wit may not oppress.
The legislation of this reign did little more than affect details. The
repeal of a certain law is worthy of note. From a remarkable clause
in a statute of Henry III. it might be supposed that England was much
fallen from the flourishing condition of preceding times. It had been
enacted in the time of Edward II. that no magistrate, in town or
borough, who by his office ought to keep assize, should during the
continuance of his magistracy sell, either in wholesale or retail, any
wine or victuals. This law seemed equitable in order to prevent fraud
in fixing the assize. It was in this reign repealed. The following
piece of legislation affected the price of wines: By 23 Henry VIII.,
c. 7, the wines of Gascony and Guienne were forbidden to be sold above
eightpence the gallon, and the retail price of ‘Malmeseis, romeneis,
sakkes, and other swete wynes,’ was fixed at 12_d._ the gallon,
6_d._ the pottle, 3_d._ the quart, and directions were given to the
authorities ‘to set the prices of all kynde of wines in grosse.’ The
merchants, however, evaded or neglected the law and raised the price;
this aroused the vintners, who presented a remonstrance, in answer to
which it was enacted that the commissioners appointed previously should
have the discretionary power of increasing or diminishing the prices of
wines sold in gross or by retail, as occasion should require.
By an Act of 1531, every brewer was forbidden to take more than such
prices and rates as should be thought sufficient, at the discretion of
Justices of Peace within every shire, or by the mayor and sheriffs in a
city.
An effort, only partly successful, was made at this time to reduce
holidays, which had degenerated into occasions of excess. Complaint was
made that the number of such days was excessively increased, to the
detriment of civil government and secular affairs; and that the great
irregularities and licentiousness which had crept into these festivals
by degrees, especially in the churches, chapels, and churchyards, were
found injurious to piety, virtue, and good manners, therefore both
statutes and canons were made to regulate and restrain them, and by an
act of convocation, passed in 1536, their number was reduced.[93]
Perhaps nothing strikes one so much in connection with intemperance
in pre-reformation time as the abuses that gathered about religious
ceremonies. Everything of the kind was made a public occasion of
excess. At weddings especially was this notorious. Writing upon the
subject, a 16th century author observes, ‘Early in the morning the
wedding people begynne to excead in superfluous eatyng and drinkyng,
and when they come to the preachynge they are halfe droncke, some all
together.’[94]
It is not to be wondered at. The court was rotten, and its influence
filtered then, as always, to the masses. Even the pledge of temperance
introduced on the continent about this time was no safeguard. It is
told how Henry himself contrived to make an envoy of the German court,
who was an associate of a temperate order, break his pledge, assuring
him that if his master would only visit England he would not lack boon
companions.
Foreigners visited England. They came, they saw, they reported. A
certain Master Stephen Perlin, a French physician who was in England
just after Henry’s death, records for the benefit of his countrymen:
‘The English, one with the other are joyous, and are very fond of
music; they are also great drinkers. Now remember if you please that in
this country they generally use vessels of silver when they drink wine;
and they will say to you usually at table, “Goude chere,” and they will
also say to you more than one hundred times, “Drind oui,” and you will
reply to them in their language, “I plaigui” (I pledge you).’
One of our own writers, Philip Stubbes, who was ridiculed by Nash for
‘pretending to anatomize abuses and stubbe up sin by the rootes,’
asserts that the public-houses were crowded in London from morning to
night with inveterate drunkards, whose only care appears to have been
as to where they could obtain the best ale, so totally oblivious to all
other things had they become.[95]
And what a flood of light is thrown not only on the universal drinking,
but upon the respectability of the same, in the fact that a bishop,
Bishop Still, a Bishop of Bath and Wells, and previously Master of St.
John’s College, Cambridge, and Master also of Trinity, whose portrait
still hangs in the College hall of the latter, should be the author of
the following drinking song, which Warton calls the first Chanson à
Boire _of any merit_ in our language, and apologises for introducing a
ballad convivial and _ungodlie_.
I cannot eate but lytle meate,
My stomacke is not good,
But sure I thinke that I can drinke
With him that wears a hood.
Though I go bare, take ye no care,
I nothing am a colde,
I stuff my skyn so full within,
Of joly good ale and olde.
_Chorus._ Backe and syde go bare, go bare,
Booth foote and hand go colde,
But belly, God send thee good ale ynoughe,
Whether it be new or olde.
I have no rost, but a nut brawne toste,
And a crab laid in the fyre;
A little breade shall do me steade,
Much breade I not desyre.
No frost nor snow, nor winde, I trowe,
Can hurt mee, if I wolde,
I am so wrapt and throwly lapt
Of joly good ale and olde.
_Chorus._ Backe and syde go bare, go bare, etc.
And Tyb my wife, that, as her lyfe,
Loveth well good ale to seeke,
Full oft drynkes shee, tyll ye may see
The teares run downe her cheeke.
Then doth she trowle to me the bowle,
Even as a mault-worme sholde,
And sayth, sweete harte, I took my parte
Of this joly good ale and olde.
_Chorus._ Backe and syde go bare, go bare, etc.
Now let them drynke, tyll they nod and winke,
Even as goode fellowes sholde doe,
They shall not mysse to have the blisse
Good ale doth bring men to;
And all poore soules that have scowred bowles,
Or have them lustily trolde,
God save the lives of them and their wives,
Whether they be yonge or olde.
_Chorus._ Backe and syde go bare, go bare, etc.[96]
Is there any wonder that his ‘stomacke was not good’? Imagine some of
his successors in that See having composed it! Fancy the author of
‘Glory to Thee, my God, this night’ (Bishop Ken), having written it!
Mark, too, the insinuation of the fourth line as to the clergy of the
period! The authorship is vouched for by Thomas Park. The song begins
the second act of ‘Gammer Gurton’s Needle,’ a comedy written in 1551,
and acted at Christ’s College, Cambridge. Warton mentions that in the
title of the old edition it is said to have been written ‘by Mr. S.,
Master of Artes.’ Which, being interpreted is, Still; _afterwards_
Bishop of Bath and Wells.
It was about this time that that pernicious habit arose of _transacting
business_ over drink. We find constant allusions in the Tudor period to
the principal men of the boroughs in this manner concluding a bargain.
Thus we find an entry of Mr. William Tudbold, Mayor of Lyme, 1551, to
this effect:--‘_Item_, paid at Robert Davey’s when we new agreed with
Whytte the mason, vi d.’
These taverns were some of them kept by the clergy. Bishop Burnet
states that so pillaged were the ecclesiastics of their property, that
many clergymen were obliged for a subsistence to turn carpenters or
tailors, and some kept ale-houses.
Hitherto there had been no civil legislation whatever against
drunkenness. The crime is not mentioned in the Statute Book till the
fifth year of Edward VI. From this time we shall find a number of
statutes framed for the purpose of its prevention or punishment.
The Act, 5th and 6th Edward, c. 25, is entitled, ‘An Acte for Keepers
of Ale-houses to be bounde by Recognizances.’ The following is a brief
epitome of the Act:--Forasmuch as intolerable hurts and troubles to
the commonwealth do daily grow and increase through such abuses and
disorders as are had and used in common ale-houses and other houses
called tippling-houses, it is enacted that Justices of Peace can
abolish ale-houses at their discretion, and that no tippling-house can
be opened without a licence. That these houses be supervised by the
taking surety for the maintenance of good order and rule, and for the
suppression of gaming. Moreover, special scrutiny was made into the
forfeiting of such recognisances. Breaches of the Act were punished
with imprisonment and fine.
Two years later, an Act was passed to avoid the great price and excess
of wine. ‘For the avoiding of many inconveniences much evil rule and
common resort of mis-ruled persons used and frequented in many taverns,
of late newly set up in very great numbers in back lanes, corners, and
suspicious places within the city of London, and in divers other towns
and villages within this realm,’ it was enacted, subject to certain
exceptions of rank and income, that none should be allowed to keep
any vessel of Gascony, Guienne, or Rochelle wine for the use of his
family exceeding 10 gallons under forfeiture of 10_l._; none could be
retailed without a licence, and only two taverns could be licensed in
a borough, with the following exceptions, forty in London, three in
Westminster, six in Bristol, four in Canterbury, Cambridge, Chester,
Exeter, Gloucester, Hull, Newcastle, and Norwich; three in Colchester,
Hereford, Ipswich, Lincoln, Oxford, Salisbury, Shrewsbury, Southampton,
Winchester, and Worcester. The retail price was fixed, and none could
retail wines to be drunk within their respective houses.
Vastly important was this legislation; its consequences were manifest,
and would have been much more so, had not so much of it been permitted
to become a dead letter. At any rate it paved the way for the very
important Act of Philip and Mary in the Irish Parliament which renders
obligatory a licence for the manufacture of Aqua Vitæ, and which
brought about so great a reduction in the use of ardent spirits in that
country.
* * * * *
The consort of Queen Mary soon found out the favourite English drink.
Philip courted popularity. He gave it out that he was come to England
to live like an Englishman, and in proof thereof drank some ale for
the first time at a public dinner, gravely commending it as the wine
of the country. Queen Mary at the time of her coronation was single,
so Philip missed the usual pageant, the running of the conduits at
Cornhill and Cheapside with wine, and the oration at St. Paul’s School,
of Heywood, the Queen’s favourite poet, who ‘sat under a vine.’ It is
to be hoped that Heywood made himself more intelligible than in some of
his enigmatical epigrams, of which that on ‘Measure’ is a specimen.
Measure is a merry meane,
Which filde with noppy drinke,
When merry drinkers, drinke off clene.
Then merrily they winke.
Measure is a merry meane,
But I meane measures gret,
Where lippes to litely pitchers weane,
Those lippes they scantly wet.
The pastoral visit of Bishop Ridley to Queen Mary reminds us of a
curious feature of old English hospitality, that of drinking before
leaving. Persons of quality were either taken into the cellar for
a draught of ale or wine fresh from the cask, as was the Duke of
Buckingham into Wolsey’s cellar, or it was brought to them last thing
as they mounted their horses, and was called from this the stirrup-cup.
Boy, lead our horses on when we get up,
Wee’l have with you a merry _stirrup cupp_.
Ridley was introduced to the cellar by Sir Thomas Wharton, the steward
of the household. When he had drunk, he said he had done wrong to drink
under a roof where God’s Word was rejected.
The opinions that have been ventured upon the relative sobriety of the
Elizabethan period are as conflicting as they are various. The most
reliable contemporary who can be cited in favour of the sobriety of
the period is William Harrison, whose opinion may be gathered from two
passages of his work. He says, ‘I might here talke somewhat of the
great silence that is used at the tables of the honourable and wiser
sort generallie over all the realme, likewise the moderate eating and
drinking that is daily seene, and finallie of the regard that such one
hath to keepe himselfe from note of surfetting and drunkennesse (for
which cause salt meat, except beefe, bacon, and porke, are not anie
whit esteemed, and yet these three may be much powdered). But as in the
rehearsall thereof I should commend the nobleman, merchant, and frugall
artificer, so I could not cleare the meaner sort of husbandmen of
verie much bobbling (except it be here and there some od yeoman), with
whom he is thought to be the meriest that talketh of most ribaldraie,
or the wisest man that speakest fastest among them, and now and then
surfeiting and drunkennesse, which they rather fall into for want of
heed-taking, than wilfullie following or delighting in those errours
of set mind and purpose. It may be that divers of them living at home
with hard and pinching diet, small drinks, and some of them having
scarce enough of that, are soonest overtaken when they come unto such
banquets, howbeit they take it generallie as no small disgrace if
they happen to be cup-shotten, so that is a grefe unto them, though
now _sans remédie_ sith the thing is done and past.’ The passage that
follows certainly suggests that in some respects our ancestors were
wiser than their descendants:--
Drink is usually filled in goblets, jugs, bols of silver, in
noblemen’s houses, all of which notwithstanding are seldom set
upon the table, but each one, as necessitie urgeth, calleth for
a cup of such drinke as him listeth to drinke: so that, when he
have tasted of it, he delyvereth the cup againe to some of the
standers bye, who, making it cleane by pouring out the drinke that
remayneth, restoreth it to the cupboard from whence he fetched the
same. By this device much idle tippling is cut off; for if the full
pots shall continuallie stand at the elbowe or near the trencher,
divers will alwaies be dealing with them, whereas they now drinke
seldome, and onelie when necessitie urgeth, and so avoid the note
of grete-drynkinge or often troubling the servitors with filling
their bolls.
But there is a vast mass of evidence on the other side that must be
examined before the conflicting judgments can be put into the scale.
And first, the preambles to the Acts of Parliament testify that the
national taste was intensifying. Thus the preamble to Act 1 Eliz. c.
ii. states that of late years much greater quantity of sweet wines had
been imported into the kingdom than had been usual in former times.
Again, in 1597, an Act was passed to restrain the excessive use of
malt. The preamble asserts that greater quantity of malt is daily made
than either in times past or now is needful. It must be remembered,
however, that during the time of Elizabeth the _export_ of beer had
become a valuable branch of commerce. The queen herself, in her
right of purveyance, a prerogative then inherent in the crown, caused
quantities of beer so obtained to be sold on the Continent for her
own emolument. Further than this, honest efforts were made in some
directions to keep down the home consumption. For instance, it is
stated the Lord Keeper Egerton, in his charge to the judges when going
on circuit in 1602, bade them ascertain, for the queen’s information,
how many ale-houses the justices of the peace had pulled down, so that
the good justices might be rewarded and the evil removed.
One more Act of this reign must be noticed, the exact or full purport
of which might be mistaken. It was nominally against the danger of
fire, but in reality it was intended to prevent tipplers from having
the means of conducting furtive brewings. The Act bears the date of
1590. By 22 Eliz. it was enacted ‘that no innkeeper, common brewer, or
typler shall keep in their houses any fewel, as straw or verne, which
shall not be thought requisite, and being warned of the constable to
rid the same within one day, _subpœna_, xx_s_.’
In the next place we must take into account the extraordinary
_variety_ of wines now drunk. Holinshed observes, ‘As all estates
doo exceed herin, I meane for number of costlie dishes, so these
forget not to use the like excesse in wine, insomuch as there is no
kind to be had, whereof at great meetings there is not some store
to be had’ (Holinshed, _Chronicles_). The writer further speaks of
the importation of 20,000 or 30,000 tuns a year, notwithstanding the
constant restraints put upon it. After detailing about fifty-six sorts
of ‘small wines,’ such as claret, &c., he speaks of ‘the thirtie kinds
of Italian, Grecian, Spanish, Canarian, &c., whereof vernage (a sweet
Italian wine, so called from the thick-skinned grape or _vernaccia_
used in its manufacture), cate, piment (vin cuit), raspis, muscadell,
romnie, bastard, tire (Italian, from the grape _tirio_), oseie,
caprike, clarcie, and malmeseie, are not least of all accompted of
because of their strength and valure.’
The monasteries were noted for having the best wine and ale, the latter
of which they specially brewed for themselves. The author just quoted
mentions that the best wine was called _theologicum_, because it was
had ‘from the cleargie and religious men, unto whose houses manie of
the laitie would often send for bottels filled with the same, being
sure that they would neither drinke nor be served of the worst, or such
as was anie waies mingled or brued by the vintner. Naie, the merchant
would have thought that his soule should have gone streight waie to the
devill, if he should have served them with other than the best.’
Besides all these kinds of wines, of which the strongest were most in
request, distilled liquors were manufactured in England, the principal
of which were rosa solis and aqua vitæ. Ale and beer were also in
request. There was single beer, or small ale, and double beer, also
double-double beer, dagger ale, and bracket. But the favourite drink
was a kind of ale called huf-cap, which was highly intoxicating; thus
in Harrison’s _England_ we read, ‘These men hale at huf-cap till they
be red as cockes, and little wiser than their combs.’ And again, the
_Water Poet_,--
There’s one thing more I had almost forgot,
And this is it, of ale-houses and innes,
Wine marchants, vintners, brewers, who much wins
By others losing, I say more or lesse,
Who sale of _huf-cap_ liquor doe professe.
This drink (huf-cap) was also called mad-dog, angels’ food, and
dragon’s milk. The gentry brewed for their own consumption a generous
ale which they did not bring to table till it was two years old. This
was called _March Ale_, from the month in which it was brewed. Ale was
often richly compounded with various dainties. Often it was warmed, and
mixed with sugar and spices; sometimes with a toast; sometimes with a
roasted crab or apple, making the beverage known as _Lamb’s wool_.
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 dew-lap pour the ale.[97]
Now crowne the bowle
With gentle _lambs-wooll_,
Add sugar, and nutmegs, and ginger.[98]
The strength of the ale as commonly sold transpires from many
incidental notices in the history of the time. Thus Leicester writes to
Burleigh that at a certain place in her Majesty’s travels ‘there was
not one drop of good drink for her.... We were fain to send forthwith
to London, and to Kenilworth, and divers other places where ale was;
her own here was so strong as there was no man able to drink it.’
The sobriety of this queen has never been called in question, although
one author, in commenting on the Kenilworth pageant, remarks that
many such entertainments were accepted by this queen, who professed
to restrain luxury and extravagance, and issued sumptuary edicts,
but did not ennoble precept by example. This is ill-natured. It is
incidental to high position to accept a profusion of hospitality,
for which it can scarcely be held responsible. And unquestionably on
this occasion the hospitality was profuse. It is stated that no less
than 365 hogsheads of beer were drunk at it, in addition to the daily
complement of 16 hogsheads of wine. The entertainment lasted nineteen
days. Notwithstanding such exceptional receptions, there is no doubt
that the queen did bring influence to bear in refining the manners
of her court; and among the many changes effected, none were more
apparent than in the festive entertainments of the time. Harrison draws
particular attention to the fact that the swarms of jesters, tumblers,
and harpers, that formerly had been indispensable to the banquet-room,
were now discarded. He further mentions another valuable change of
custom. The wine and other liquors were not placed upon the tables with
the dishes, but on a sideboard, and each person called as occasion
required for a flagon of the wine he wanted, by which means ‘much idle
tippling was avoided.’ When the company had done feeding, what remained
was sent to the servants, and when these were satisfied the fragments
were distributed among the poor who waited without the gate.
To the minstrel these innovations were practically ruin. He who had
been in past times the soul of the tournament, and a welcome guest at
every banquet, was now a street ballad-singer, or ale-house fiddler,
chanting forth from benches and barrel-heads to an audience consisting
of a few gaping rustics, or a parcel of idle boys; and, as if the
degradation of these despised and unhoused favourites of former days
had not been enough, the stern justice of the law made them doubly
vile, obliging them to skulk into corners, and perform their merry
offices in fear and trembling. Minstrels were now classed in the
statute with rogues and vagabonds, and made liable to the same pains
and penalties. Already it might be said,
No longer courted and caress’d,
High placed in hall, a welcome guest,
He pour’d, to lord and lady gay,
The unpremeditated lay:
Old times were changed, old manners gone.[99]
What has just been observed of the queen, applies to more than one
of her renowned courtiers. Burleigh was a man given to hospitality,
occasionally to conviviality, if there is any truth in the lines known
as _The Islington Garland_, which thus describes him and his friend,--
Here gallant gay Essex, and burly Lord Burleigh,
Sate late at their revels, and came to them early,
alluding to the inn at Islington. But rather than read the man in an
ephemeral lampoon we would turn to his sole literary production, and
find the impress of his mind in his work addressed to his son Robert
Cecil, entitled _Precepts or Directions for the Well Ordering and
Carriage of a Man’s Life_, in which he offers the following advice:--
Touching the guiding of thy house, let thy hospitality be moderate,
and, according to the means of thy estate, rather plentiful than
sparing, but not costly. For I never knew any man grow poor by
keeping an orderly table. But some consume themselves through
secret vices, and their hospitality bears the blame. But banish
swinish drunkards out of thine house, which is a vice impairing
health, consuming much and makes no show. I never heard praise
ascribed to the drunkard, but for the well-bearing of his drink,
which is a better commendation for a brewer’s horse or a drayman,
than for either a gentleman or a serving-man.
A more striking lay homily than even this upon the evils of drink is to
be found in the writings of another notable of the period, Sir Walter
Raleigh. His words are letters of gold.
Take especial care that thou delight not in wine, for there was
not any man that came to honour or preferment that loved it; for
it transformeth a man into a beast, decayeth health, poisoneth
the breath, destroyeth natural heat, brings a man’s stomach to an
artificial heat, deformeth the face, rotteth the teeth, and, to
conclude, maketh a man contemptible, soon old, and despised of
all wise and worthy men; hated in thy servants, in thyself, and
companions; for it is a bewitching and infectious vice. A drunkard
will never shake off the delight of beastliness; for the longer
it possesses a man, the more he will delight in it; and the older
he groweth, the more he will be subject to it; for it dulleth the
spirits, and destroyeth the body, as ivy doth the old tree; or
as the worm that engendereth in the kernel of a nut. Take heed,
therefore, that such a cureless canker pass not thy youth, nor such
a beastly infection thy old age; for then shall all thy life be but
as the life of a beast, and after thy death thou shalt only leave
a shameful infamy to thy posterity, who shall study to forget that
such a one was their father.
Such is the language of the man who founded the ‘Mermaid’ in Bread
Street, the first of the long succession of clubs started in
London,[100] and connected with which were such as Shakespeare, Ben
Jonson, Beaumont, and Fletcher. And, coming from such a man, it is
convincing that the vitiation of the national taste had forced itself
upon common observation, and, of course, engraved itself upon the pages
of history. Thus Camden, speaking of the year 1581 (though the earlier
part of his observation displays imperfect acquaintance with previous
history), remarks, ‘The English, who had hitherto, of all the Northern
nations, shown themselves the least addicted to immoderate drinking,
and been commended for their sobriety, first learned in these wars with
the Netherlands to swallow a large quantity of intoxicating liquor,
and to destroy their own health by drinking that of others.’ And as a
confirmation of the _latter_ part of his assertion, it may be noticed
that the barbarous terms formerly used in drinking matches are of
Dutch, German, or Danish origin.[101]
To the same effect the chronicler Baker observes that during the
Dutch war the English learnt to be drunkards, and brought the vice
so far to overspread the kingdom that laws were fain to be enacted
for repressing it. The satirist Tom Nash, who lived at this time,
describes, as only he could, the various _classes of drunkards_ as they
presented themselves to his observation:--‘The first is _ape-drunk_,
and he leaps and sings and hollows and danceth for the heavens; the
second is _lyon-drunk_, and he flings the pot about the house, breaks
the glass windows with his dagger, and is apt to quarrel.... The third
is _swine-drunk_, heavy, lumpish, and sleepy, and cries for a little
more drink and a few more clothes; the fourth is _sheep-drunk_, wise
in his own conceit when he cannot bring forth a right word; the fifth
is _maudlen-drunk_, when a fellow will weep for kindness in the midst
of his drink.... The sixth is _martin-drunk_, when a man is drunk,
and drinks himself sober ere he stir. The seventh is _goat-drunk_,
when in his drunkenness he hath no mind but on lechery. The eighth
is _fox-drunk_, as many of the Dutchmen be, which will never bargain
but when they are drunk. All these species, and more, I have seen
_practised_ in one company and at one sitting.’
The various methods of raising money for the Church and poor have
already been examined under the heading of _Ales_. It will be necessary
in forming the estimate of manners at this time to trace how the system
developed, The use and abuse will be both apparent. For the use we turn
to the _Survey of Cornwall_,[102] where we read that:--
For the church ale two young men of the parish are yearely chosen
by their last pregoers to be wardens, who, dividing the task, make
collections among the parishioners of what provision it pleaseth
them voluntarily to bestow. This they employ in brewing, baking,
and other achates against Whitsuntide, upon which holy dayes the
neighbours meet at the church-house, and there meetly feed on
theire owne victuals, contributing some petty portion to the stock
which by many smalls groweth to a meetly greatness, for there is
entertained a kinde of emulation between the wardens, who by his
graciousness in gathering, and good husbandry in expending, can
best advance the churches profit. Besides, the neighbour parishes
at those times lovingly visit one another, and this way frankly
spend their money together. When the feast is ended the wardens
yield in their account to the parishioners, and such money as
exceedeth the disbursements is layd up in store to defray any
extraordinary charges arising in the parish or imposed on them for
the good of the country, or the prince’s service.
The next author to be cited gives both use and abuse; thus Philip Stubs
(or Stubbes), who has been already quoted, after speaking of the
contributions of malt by parishioners for church-ales, goes on to say:--
When this nippitatum (strong liquor), this huffe-cap as they call
it, this nectar of life, is set abroach, well is he that can get
the soonest to it, and spends the most at it, for he is counted the
godliest man of all the rest, and most in God’s favour, because it
is spent upon his church forsooth. If all be true which they say,
they bestow that money which is got thereby for the repaire of
their churches and chappels; they buy bookes for the service, cupps
for the celebration of the sacrament, &c.
Speaking of the manner of keeping wakes, he says they were the sources
of ‘gluttonie and drunkenness,’ and that many spend more at one of
these than in all the year besides.
For the unqualified abuse of such a system we turn to a sermon preached
in the same reign (1570) at Blandford by William Kethe, from which it
appears that these church-ales were kept on the Sunday, ‘which holy
day,’ says he, ‘the multitudes call their revelyng day, which day is
spent in bul-beatings, beare-beatings, bowlings, dicyng, cardyng,
daunsynges, drunkenness, and whoredome.’[103]
Even this picture is utterly eclipsed by the ghastly description of the
excesses at a church dedication festival, as given by the contemporary
Naogeorgus:--
The dedication of the church is yerely had in minde,
With worship passing catholicke, and in a wond’rous kinde;
* * * * *
Then sundrie pastimes do begin, and filthy daunces oft;
When drunkards they do lead the daunce with fray and bloody fight,
That handes and eares and head and face are torne in wofull plight.
The streames of bloud runne downe the armes, and oftentimes is seene
The carkasse of some ruffian slaine is left upon the greene.
Here many for their lovers sweete some dainty thing do true,
And many to the taverne goe and drinke for companie,
Whereat they foolish songs do sing, and noyses great do make;
Some in the meanewhile play at cardes, and some the dice do shake.
Their custome also is the priest into the house to pull,
Whom, when they have, they thinke their game accomplished at full;
He farre in noyse exceedes them all, and eke in drinking drye
The cuppes, a prince he is.[104]
Such a description is of itself an ample justification of the censure
of the clergy in the injunctions of Elizabeth, among which we find:
‘The clergy shall not haunt ale-houses or taverns, or spend their time
idly at dice, cards, tables, or any other unlawful game.’
But amidst all these dissipated distractions, influences of a
qualifying character were also at work. The powerful pen of Bacon was
writing, ‘All the crimes on the earth do not destroy so many of the
human race, nor alienate so much property, as drunkenness.’ George
Gascoigne was holding up an honest old-fashioned mirror, true as
steel, to the faults and vices of his countrymen.[105] In his curious
treatise, the full title of which is ‘_A Delicate Diet for Daintie
Mouthde Droonkards; wherein the fowle abuse of common carousing
and quaffing with heartie draughtes, is honestly admonished_,’
he vigorously inveighs against the popular drinks: ‘We must have
March Beere, dooble-dooble Beere, Dagger-Ale, Bragget, Renish wine,
White-wine, French wine, Gascoyne wine, Sack, Hollocke, Canaria wine,
Vino Greco, Vinum amabile, and al the wines that may be gotten. Yea,
wine of itselfe is not sufficient; but Sugar, Limons, and sundry sortes
of spices must be drowned therein.’ Spenser was teaching the virtues
of temperance in that marvellous production in which chivalry and
religion are so matchlessly blended, his _Faery Queen_. The second book
contains the legend of Sir Guyon, or of Temperance. The knight is sent
upon an adventure by the Fairy Queen, to bring captive to her court an
enchantress named Acrasia, in whom is imaged the vice of Intemperance.
The various adventures which he meets with by the way are such as show
the virtues and happy effects of temperance, or the ill consequences
of intemperance. But before claiming for the sons of Rechab a patron
in Spenser, it must be told that the same author in his _Epithalamion_
harps on other strings. There we read:--
Pour out the wine without restraint or stay,
Pour not by cups but by the bellyful.
Pour out to all that wull,
And sprinkle all the posts and walls with wine,
That they may sweat and drunken be withal.
These are dissimilar strains to those of the good Sir Guyon,
In whom great rule of Temperance goodly doth appear.
And shall we here stop short? Certainly not. The Bard of Avon, William
Shakespeare, offers many a caution to the falling and fallen. To
attempt to quote him fully would be beside the present purpose. It must
suffice to gather from his works five or six prominent reflections.[106]
I. The constant use of strong drink impairs its _remedial_ effect.
Thus in the _Tempest_, act ii. scene 3, Stephano is made to say, ‘He
shall taste of my bottle; if he have never drank wine afore, it will go
near to remove his fit.’
II. That strict temperance is a source of health.
Thus in _As You Like It_, act ii. scene 3, Adam declares--
Though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty;
For in my youth I never did apply
Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood,
Nor did not with unbashful forehead woo
The means of weakness and debility;
Therefore my age is as a lusty winter,
Frosty, but kindly.
III. That the Danes had an established character for deep drinking.
Thus _Hamlet_, act i. scene 4:--
_Hamlet._ The king doth awake to-night and takes his rouse,
Keeps wassel, and the swaggering upspring reels;
And, as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down,
The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out
The triumph of his pledge.
_Hor._ Is it a custom?
_Ham._ Ay, marry, is’t;
But to my mind--though I am native here
And to the manner born--it is a custom
More honour’d in the breach than the observance.
This heavy-headed revel, east and west,
Makes us traduced and taxed of other nations:
They clepe us drunkards, and with swinish phrase
Soil our addition; and indeed it takes
From our achievements, though perform’d at height,
The pith and marrow of our attribute.
‘They clepe us drunkards.’ And well our Englishmen might, for in Queen
Elizabeth’s time there was a _Dane_ in London, of whom the following
mention is made in a collection of characters, entitled _Looke to it,
for Ile stab ye_ (no date):--
You that will drinke _Keynaldo_ unto deth,
The _Dane_ that would carouse out of his boote.
Mr. W. Mason adds that ‘it appears from one of Howell’s letters,
dated at Hamburg in the year 1632, that the then King of Denmark had
not degenerated from his jovial predecessor. In his account of an
entertainment given by his majesty to the Earl of Leicester, he tells
us that the king, after beginning thirty-five toasts, was carried away
in his chair, and that all the officers of the court were drunk.’
See also the _Nugæ Antiquæ_, vol. ii. p. 133, for the scene of
drunkenness introduced into the court of James I. by the King of
Denmark in 1606.
Roger Ascham, in one of his letters, mentions being present at an
entertainment where the Emperor of Germany seemed in drinking to rival
the King of Denmark: ‘The emperor,’ says he, ‘drank the best that ever
I saw; he had his head in the glass five times as long as any of us,
and never drank less than a good quart at once of Rhenish wine.’
IV. That Shakespeare regarded English drunkenness as influenced by our
intercourse with the Low Countries. Thus, _Merry Wives of Windsor_, act
ii. scene 2, Mistress Page calls Falstaff a _Flemish drunkard_. The
Variorum Edition of 1803 has the following note:--
It is not without reason that this term of reproach is here used.
Sir John Smythe, in _Certain Discourses, &c._, 4to. 1590, says
that ‘the habit of drinking to excess was introduced into England
from the low countries by some of our such men of warre within
these very few years, whereof it is come to passe, that now-a-dayes
there are very fewe feastes where our said men of warre are
present, but that they do invite and procure all the companie,
of what calling soever they be, to carowsing and quaffing; and,
because they will not be denied their challenges, they, with many
new conges, ceremonies, and reverences, drinke to the health of
counsellors, and unto the health of their greatest friends both at
home and abroad, in which exercise they never cease till they be
deade drunke, or, as the _Flemings_ say, _doot drunken_.’ He adds,
‘And this aforesaid detestable vice hath, within these six or seven
yeares, taken wonderful roote amongst our English nation, that in
times past was wont to be of all other nations of christendome one
of the soberest.’
V. That whatever the Danes were, the English were worse.
In _Othello_ we have a terrible reputation. Thus:--
Act ii. scene 3. The double-dyed Iago has tempted honest foolish Cassio
to drink with him, in spite of Cassio’s very honest confession, ‘I have
very poor and unhappy brains for drinking: I could well wish courtesy
would invent some other custom of entertainment.’ But Cassio is weak.
On Iago’s urgent pressing, he says, ‘I’ll do it; but it dislikes me.’
He had just before remarked, ‘I have drunk but one cup to-night, and
that was craftily qualified too, and behold what innovation it makes
here [_striking his forehead_]: I am unfortunate in the infirmity, and
dare not task my weakness with any more.’
They passed to the revel. Iago, who is seasoned, calls out:--
Some wine, ho!
And let me the canakin clink, clink;
And let me the canakin clink:
A soldier’s a man;
A life’s but a span;
Why, then, let a soldier drink.
Some wine, boys. [_Wine brought in._
_Cassio._ ‘Fore heaven, an excellent song.
_Iago._ I learned it in England, where (indeed) they are most
potent in potting. Your Dane, your German, and your swag-bellied
Hollander,--Drink, oh!--are nothing to your English.
_Cassio._ Is your Englishman so expert in his drinking?
_Iago._ Why he drinks you with facility your Dane dead drunk; he
sweats not to overthrow your Almain; he gives your Hollander a
vomit ere the next pottle can be filled.
_Cassio._ To the health of our general!
_Mon._ I am for it, lieutenant, and I’ll do you justice.
_Iago._ _O sweet England!_
How like is human nature at all periods! Iago’s drinking song reminds
us of the half-gay, half-melancholy campaigning song, said to have been
composed by General Wolfe, and sung by him at the mess-table on the eve
of the storming of Quebec, in which he fell so gloriously:--
Why, soldiers, why
Should we be melancholy, boys?
Why, soldiers, why,
Whose business ‘tis to die?
For should next campaign
Send us to Him who made us, boys,
We’re free from pain;
But should we remain,
_A bottle and kind landlady_
Will set all right again.
This song was a favourite with Sir Walter Scott--see Washington
Irving’s _Abbotsford and Newstead_.
VI. The bane of ardent spirits and of that to which they
conduce--intemperance. Thus _Othello_, act ii. scene 3:--
O, that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their
brains! that we should, with joy, revel, pleasure, and applause,
transform ourselves into beasts!
And again--
O thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to be known
by, let us call thee--devil!
And--
Every inordinate cup is unblessed, and the ingredient is a devil.
Two customs which are alluded to in Shakespeare’s works are worthy of
note. _Merry Wives of Windsor_, act ii. scene 2.
_Bard._ Sir John, there’s one Master Brook below would fain speak
with you, and be acquainted with you; and hath sent your worship a
morning’s draught of sack.
According to Malone, it seems to have been a common custom at taverns,
in our author’s time, to send presents of wine from one room to
another, either as a memorial of friendship, or (as in the present
instance) by way of introduction to acquaintance. Of the existence of
this practice the following anecdote of Ben Jonson and Bishop Corbet
furnishes a proof: Ben Jonson was at a tavern, and in comes Bishop
Corbet (but not so then) into the next room. Ben Jonson calls for
a quart of _raw_ wine, and gives it to the tapster. “Sirrah,” says
he, “carry this to the gentleman in the next chamber, and tell him,
I sacrifice my service to him.” The fellow did, and in those words.
“Friend,” says Dr. Corbet, “I thank him for his love; but ‘pr’ythe tell
him from me that he is mistaken; for _sacrifices_ are always _burnt_”’
(_Merry Passages and Jeasts_, MSS. Harl. 6395).
This practice was continued as late as the Restoration. In the
Parliamentary History, vol. xxii. p. 114, we have the following passage
from Dr. Price’s _Life of General Monk_: ‘I came to the _Three Tuns_
before Guildhall, where the general had quartered two nights before.
I entered the tavern with a servant and portmanteau, and asked for a
room, which I had scarce got into, _but wine followed me as a present_
from some citizens, desiring leave to drink their morning’s draught
with me.’
The other custom to be noted is that of taking _night-caps_. _Macbeth_,
act i. scene 2.
_Lady Macbeth._ I have drugged their possets.
It appears from this passage as well as from many others in our old
dramatic performances, that it was the general custom to take _possets_
just before bed-time. So in the first part of _King Edward IV._, by
Heywood: ‘thou shalt be welcome to beef and bacon, and perhaps a
bag-pudding; and my daughter Nell shall pop a _posset_ upon thee when
thou goest to bed.’ Macbeth has already said:--
Go bid thy mistress, when my _drink_ is ready,
She strike upon the bell.
Lady Macbeth has also just observed:--
That which hath made them drunk, hath made me bold.
And in _The Merry Wives of Windsor_ Mrs. Quickly promises Jack Rugby a
_posset_ at night. This custom is also mentioned by Froissart.
One more quotation I cannot refrain from adding. It is not from
Shakespeare, but from one who had studied him, and who, if nothing
else, could certainly parody the ‘seven ages of man’ (_As You Like It_,
act ii. scene 7).
STAGES OF DRUNKENNESS.--All the world’s a pub,
And all the men and women merely drinkers;
They have their hiccoughs and their staggerings;
And one man in a day drinks many glasses,
His acts being seven stages. At first the gentleman,
Steady and steadfast in his good resolves;
And then the wine and bitters, appetiser,
And pining, yearning look, leaving like a snail
The comfortable bar. And then the arguments,
Trying like Hercules with a wrathful frontage
To refuse one more two penn’orth. Then the mystified,
Full of strange thoughts, unheeding good advice,
Careless of honour, sudden, thick, and gutt’ral,
Seeking the troubled repetition
Even in the bottle’s mouth; and then quite jovial,
In fair good humour while the world swims round
With eyes quite misty, while his friends him cut,
Full of nice oaths and awful bickerings;
And so he plays his part. The sixth stage shifts
Into the stupid, slipping, drunken man,
With ‘blossoms’ on his nose and bleery-eyed,
His shrunken face unshaved, from side to side
He rolls along; and his unmanly voice,
Huskier than ever, fails and flies,
And leaves him--staggering round. Last scene of all,
That ends this true and painful history,
Is stupid childishness, and then oblivion--
Sans watch, sans chain, sans coin, sans everything.
It is impossible to dismiss Shakespeare without some notice of the
man himself. But how little is known apart from his works![107] Go to
Stratford-on-Avon, visit ‘the birthplace;’ bear those good ladies who
show it tell you of the eight villages immortalised by their supposed
connection with the poet; hear them repeat the lines ascribed by
tradition to Shakespeare himself:--
Piping Pebworth, dancing Marston,
Haunted Hillborough, hungry Grafton,
Dudging Exhall, Popish Wickford,
Beggarly Broom, and drunken Bidford.
Hear them tell the story of Shakespeare’s crab-tree, how that the
young poet was one of a party who accepted a challenge for a drinking
bout from certain topers at Bidford, how that the hero became so
overcome that when he started home he could proceed no further than
the crab-tree, and so lay down there and sheltered for the night.[108]
Hear, too, of ‘ye Falcon Tavern,’ close to the grammar school where
the poet was almost certainly educated. And this is all that the
present limit allows.
How died he? We turn to the pages of an inimitable diary, and read thus:
After this act (referring to the making of his will) we surmise
the poet’s strength rallied, his friends probably heard of his
illness, and crowded around him.... Then came Ben Jonson and
Drayton, his chosen ones--they shared his inmost heart. In the
city, on the stage, at good men’s feasts.... Their minds had been
as one. Shakespeare was sick, and they came to cheer, to sooth,
to sympathize with his sufferings. Animated and excited by their
long-tried and much-loved society, as the sound of the trumpet
rouses the spirit of the dying war-horse, their presence and voices
made him forget the weakness that even then was bowing him to the
very dust. He left his chamber, and perhaps quitted his bed to join
the circle; we think we hear him, with musical voice, exclaim,
‘Sick now! droop now!’ We imagine we behold his pale face flushed
with the brilliant animation of happiness, but not of health. We
see his eyes flashing with the rays of genius, and sparkling with
sentiments of unmingled pleasure. He is himself again, the terrors
of death are passed away, the festive banquet is spread, and the
warm grasp of friendly hands have driven the thick coming fancies
from his lightened heart; he is the life of the party, the spirit
of the feasts; but the exertion was far too great for his fragile
frame, ‘the choice of death is rare,’ and the destroyer quitted not
his splendid victim.[109]
So passed away William Shakespeare, whose influence cannot be better
summed up than in the words of a very thoughtful writer:--
In all his works he is a witness ever ready to declare and expose
the ruling sin of his day and generation. It is true that he
sometimes found a picture gallery among the drunkards, used them in
his artistic way, and made them extol the virtues of the thing that
lowered them to what they were, the buffoons of his creation; but
in his heart of hearts, as he would himself express it, he abhorred
the thing, while he could not resist the acknowledgment of its
fascination.
The same cannot be said of his friend, Ben Jonson, who, like so many
of the dramatists of the period, as Marlowe, Greene, and Nash, was a
notoriously free liver. His naturally passionate disposition, so unlike
that of his famous friend, was rendered more hasty and vindictive
by his addiction to drink. He goes near to condemn himself in his
apostrophe ‘To Penshurst’:--
Whose liberal board doth flow
With all that hospitality doth know!
Where comes no guest but is allowed to eat
Without his fear, and of my lord’s own meat;
Where the same beer and bread, and self-same wine,
That is his lordship’s shall be also mine.
And I not fain to sit--as some this day
At great men’s tables--and yet dine away.
Here no man tells my cups.
To him canary was
The very elixir and spirit of wine.
He could say, though not in the original intention,
Wine is the word that glads the heart of man,
And mine’s the house of wine. Sack, says my bush,
Be merry and drink sherry, that is my posie.
The following are
_Ben Jonson’s Sociable Rules for the Apollo._
Let none but guests, or clubbers, hither come.
Let dunces, fools, sad sordid men keep home.
Let learned, civil, merry men, b’invited,
And modest too; nor be choice ladies slighted.
Let nothing in the treat offend the guests;
More for delight than cost prepare the feast.
The cook and purvey’r must our palates know;
And none contend who shall sit high or low.
Our waiters must quick-sighted be, and dumb,
And let the drawers quickly hear and come.
Let not our wine be mix’d, but brisk and neat,
Or else the drinkers may the vintners beat.
And let our only emulation be,
Not drinking much, but talking wittily.
Let it be voted lawful to stir up
Each other with a moderate chirping cup;
Let not our company be or talk too much;
On serious things, or sacred, let’s not touch
With sated heads and bellies. Neither may
Fiddlers unask’d obtrude themselves to play,
With laughing, leaping, dancing, jests, and songs,
And whate’er else to grateful mirth belongs,
Let’s celebrate our feasts; and let us see
That all our jests without reflection be.
Insipid poems let no man rehearse,
Nor any be compelled to write a verse.
All noise of vain disputes must he forborne,
And let no lover in a corner mourn,
To fight and brawl, like hectors, let none dare,
Glasses or windows break, or hangings tear,
Whoe’er shall publish what’s here done or said
From our society must be banishèd;
Let none by drinking do or suffer harm,
And, while we stay, let us be always warm.
In one of his plays he absurdly compares the host of the ‘New Inn’ to
one of those stone jugs called ‘Long Beards.’
Who’s at the best some round grown thing--_a jug_
_Fac’d with a beard_, that fills out to the guests.
These stone vessels may be recognised as glazed, of a mottled brown
colour, with a narrow neck and wide-spreading belly, a rudely executed
face with a long flowing beard, and a handle behind. Mr. Chaffers, from
whom this description is taken, says that these vessels were in general
use in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries at public-houses, to
serve ale to the customers. The largest size held eight pints. Some of
them bore coats-of-arms. They were also called _Bellarmines_, after the
celebrated cardinal who so opposed the progress of the reformers that
he incurred the hatred of the Protestants, who manifested their rancour
by satire such as this bottle, which figured a hard-featured son of
Adam.
In the _Cynthia’s Revels_ of Ben Jonson, occurs an allusion to that
hideous custom, the practice of which he attributes to a representative
lover stabbing himself, drinking a health, and writing languishing
letters in his blood. In the _Humorous Lieutenant_ of Beaumont and
Fletcher, allusion is made to the same practice of gentlemen cutting
and stabbing themselves, and mingling their blood with the wine in
which they toasted their mistresses. In the _Merchant of Venice_ the
Prince of Morocco, with the same meaning, speaks of ‘making an incision
for love.’ Jonson occupied the president’s chair in the Apollo room in
the _Devil_ Tavern (on the site of which is Child’s bank), surrounded
by the ‘eruditi, urbani, hilares, honesti,’ of that age. A contemporary
dramatist, Shakerly Marmion, describes him thus:--
The boon Delphic god
Drinks _sack_, and keeps his Bacchanalia,
And has his incense and his altars smoking,
And speaks in sparkling prophecies.
The tavern to which Ben gave such a lasting reputation had for a sign
the Devil, and St. Dunstan twigging his nose with a pair of hot tongs.
Over the chimney inside were engraved in black marble his _leges
conviviales_, and over the door some verses by the same hand, which
wind up with a eulogistic encomium upon wine.
Ply it, and you all are mounted,
‘Tis the true Phœbian liquor,
Cheers the brains, makes wit the quicker;
Pays all debts, cures all diseases,
And at once three senses pleases.[110]
Two authors, who would well bear comparison, remain to be
mentioned--Barnabie Googe and Thomas Tusser. The latter was a georgical
poet of great popularity in the sixteenth century. His poems were
faithful pictures of the domestic life of the English farmer of his
day. He concerns us now simply for his belief in the strengthening
virtues of the hop. Among his ‘Directions for Cultivating a Hop
Garden,’ we find:--
The hop for his profit I thus do exalt,
It strengtheneth drink, and it favoureth malt;
And being well brewed, long kept it will last,
And drawing abide--if ye draw not too fast.
His entire poem, after considerable expansion, appeared under the title
of _Five Hundreth Points of Good Husbandrie_.
Googe wrote upon the same subject.[111] We can glean from him some
useful information upon the culture of the vine in England. He says:--
We might have a reasonable good wine growing in many places of this
realme; as undoubtedly wee had immediately after the Conquest;
tyll partly by slouthfulnesse, not liking anything long that is
painefull, partly by civil discord long-continuying, it was left,
and so with tyme lost, as appeareth by a number of places in this
realme that keepe still the name of vineyardes; and uppon many
cliffes and hilles are yet to be seene the rootes and olde remaynes
of vines. There is besides Nottingham an auncient house, called
Chilwell, in which house remayneth yet, as an auncient monument, in
a great wyndowe of glasse, the whole order of planting, pruyning,
stamping, and pressing of vines. Beside there is yet also growing
an old vine, that yields a grape sufficient to make a right good
wine, as was lately proved. There hath, moreover, good experience
of late yeears been made, by two noble and honorable barons of this
realme, the lorde Cobham and the lorde Willyams of Tame, who had
both growyng about their houses as good wines as are in many parts
of Fraunce.
FOOTNOTES:
[87] Cf. the Act of 1536 which speaks of ‘sakkes and other sweete
wines.’
[88] ‘Now, many kinds of _sacks_ are known and used.’ Howell.
_Londinopolis_, p. 103. The palm-sack, which Ben Jonson speaks of, is
from Palma Island, one of the Canary group.
[89] Bancroft, _Two Bookes of Epigrammes and Epitaphs_, 1639.
[90] Another variety of this second version is ‘Turkeys, carps, hops,
piccarel, and beer.’ Anderson. _Hist. of Commerce_, vol. i., p. 354.
[91] See _Losely Manuscripts_, and other Rare Documents minutely
illustrating English History, Biography, and Manners from Henry VIII.
to James I., preserved in the Muniment Room at Losely House, edited
with Notes by A. J. Kempe.
[92] Camden Society reprint of the _Rutland Papers_.
[93] _Tusser Redivivus_ (1744), p. 81.
[94] _Christen State of Matrimony_ (1543).
[95] _The Anatomie of Abuses_ (1583).
[96] This song is given in Washington’s Irving’s _Sketch Book_, in its
original orthography.
[97] _Midsummer Night’s Dream_, act 2, scene i. Cf. Knight, _Pict.
Hist._, vol. ii. _Gent. Magazine_, May 1784.
[98] Herrick: _Poems_.
[99] Scott, _Lay of the Last Minstrel_. Cf. also _Christmas with the
Poets_; and the ‘Old and Young Courtier’ in the _Percy Reliques_.
[100] In the time of Henry IV. there was a club called ‘La Court de
bone Compagnie,’ of which Occleve was a member, and perhaps Chaucer.
The word _club_ is connected with _cleave_, which has the twofold
meaning of _split and adhere_; reminding one of the equivalent words
_partner_ and _associe_, the former pointing to the _division_ of
profits, the latter to the _community_ of interests. Cf. Timbs, _Club
Life_.
[101] Camden’s assertion will be found criticised towards the end of
this book.
[102] By Richard Carew, 1602.
[103] _Anatomie of Abuses_, 1583.
[104] Naogeorgus, _The Popish Kingdome_, Englyshed by Barnabe Googe.
London, 1570.
[105] Gascoigne: _The Steele Glas: A Satyre_, 1576.
[106] Since writing the present sketch, the attitude of Shakespeare
to temperance has been carefully considered and dealt with in a work
entitled _Shakespeare on Temperance_, by Frederick Sherlock.
[107] All that can possibly be verified has been investigated by
the indefatigable energy and industry, extending over nearly half a
century, of J. O. Halliwell Phillipps Esq., F.R.S., of Hollingbury
Copse, Brighton.
[108] Cf. Knight, _Old England_, vol. ii.; and C. F. Green,
_Shakespeare’s Crab Tree_.
[109] Diary of the Rev. John Ward (arranged by Charles Severn, 1839).
[110] George Daniel, _Merrie England in the Olden Time_.
[111] _Foure Bookes of Husbandry, 1578._