VIII.—SOMETHING ABOUT BEER.[12]

VIII.—SOMETHING ABOUT BEER.[12]

When Judas Iscariot, as the legend has it, prompted by a presumptuous ambition to emulate Our Saviour in the performance of a miracle similar to that of Cana, spoke his cabalistic words over the water which he desired to make potable, it may be argued that a worse product might have resulted from the process than beer—at any rate from a non-teetotal point of view. According to another legend, of wider currency, the inventor of beer was not the apostate apostle, but a more or less mythical king of Brabant, named Gambrinus. His bine-crowned visage may be seen beaming from the walls of most tap-rooms in Germany and in those more or less German provinces which once formed, or should have formed, or still form, that political desideratum, the "Middle Kingdom." This is a case of ex vocabulo fabula. For Gambrivium is Cambray—the Cambray of the League and also of early brewing. And "Gambrinus" is either John the Victorious of Brabant, who fell in a tournament held at Bar-le-Duc on the occasion of the marriage of Henri, count of that country, with Eleanor, daughter of our King Edward I., or else—and more probably—it is Jean Sans-Peur of Burgundy, who, to ingratiate himself with his Flemish subjects, had a dollar coined, showing a wreath of hop-bine encircling his head—and also instituted the order of the Houblon, giving no little offence thereby to his loyal clergy. Not that there was anything at all heretical in his act. No; but the case was really much worse. For the clergy, it turned out, in those days had a vested interest in beer. That was in the fourteenth century, when the liquor was still generally brewed without hops, a mixture of aromatic herbs being used instead, which was in most cases supplied from episcopal forests. So it was in Brabant. The Bishop of Liége possessed virtually a monopoly of the trade in gruyt, and when Duke John favoured the cultivation of hops, the bishop's income suffered a serious diminution. Accordingly, his Eminence remonstrated—just as in our country, about 1400, and again in 1442, complaint was made to Parliament of the introduction of that "wicked weed, that would spoil the taste of drink and endanger the people." In the dioceses of Utrecht and Cologne it was just the same thing. The bishops fought hard for their gruyt or krüt, using their crosiers as a defensive weapon, but had eventually to give in. From this it would appear that what King Gambrinus really did introduce was not beer, but the use in the brewing of it of hops, the ingredient over which that eminent saint, Abbess Hildegardis of Rupertusberg, had already pronounced her benediction. St. Hildegardis was a saint of unquestionable authority, having been specially recognised at the Council of Trèves as a prophetess by St. Bernard and Pope Eugenius IV. She recommended hops on the ground that, though "heating and drying," and productive of "a certain melancholy and sadness" (she must have been thinking of the effects next day), they possess the sovereign virtues of preventing noxious fermentation and also of preserving the beer. (Burton, in partial opposition to the saint, asserts that beer—hopped, of course—"hath an especial virtue against melancholy, as our herbalists confess.") St. Hildegardis' opinion was given in the twelfth century. That was not by any means the earliest age of beer; for we find it referred to in history some centuries before. Whether the inhabitants of Chalcedon, when they shouted in derision after the Emperor Valens, "Sabajarius! Sabajarius!"—which has been translated, "drinker of beer"—really referred to beer, as we now understand it, must appear doubtful. In the same way, the reputed "beer" of the early Egyptians and Hebrews—alluded to by Xenophon, Herodotus, and other ancient writers—may or may not have been beer in our sense. But in the eighth century we find Charlemagne enjoining brewing in his dominions. In 862 we have Charles the Bald making to the monks of St. Denis a grant of ninety boisseaux d'épeautre a year pour faire de la cervoise. In 1042 we have Henri I. conferring on the monks of Montreuil-sur-Marne the valuable right of brewing, and in 1268 St. Louis laying down rules for the guidance of brewers in Paris. Paris was then, as it now is becoming again—I cannot say that I like the idea—a very "beery" place. Its brewers, even at a very remote time, formed a highly respected corporation, using as their insignia and trade-mark an image of the Holy Virgin—their patron saint—incongruously enough grouped together with Ceres, both being encircled by the legend:—Bacchi Ceres aemula. No modern Pope would allow such crossing of the two religions. Ceres was of course in olden time looked upon as the especial goddess of beer, made of barley, which was after her named Cerevisia. Juvenal mentions Demetrius as its name, derived of course from Demeter. However, Fischart, a notable German poet, who lived in the sixteenth century, ascribes its invention to Bacchus, as an intended substitute for wine wherever there are no grapes. Modern Germany has produced a very pretty song, which represents Wine as a wonder-working nobleman, making a triumphal progress in grand style, clad in silk and gold, and Beer crossing his path as a sturdy but rather perky peasant, in a frieze jacket and top-boots, challenging him to a thaumaturgic tourney, as Jannes and Jambres challenged Moses. After an amusing little squabble the two make friends, and henceforth rule the world in joint sovereignty and happy unity. At Paris, in the reign of Charles V., we find the local brewers, twenty-one in number, so wealthy as to be able to pay a million écus d'or for their licenses. Under Charles VI., beer had become a regulation drink at the French court, and we have our own Richard II. presenting the French king with a "vaisseau à boire cervoise." From this it may be inferred that the famous verselet—

or, as some rigid Anglican has improved it—

to wit, the year 1525—is a little wrong in its date, and that beer was known earlier. After the date named, we know that it soon made its way into the highest circles. As proof of this we have the one shoe which Queen Bess carelessly left behind after that lunch, of which beer formed an item, with which she was regaled on her progress through Sussex, under the spreading oak still shown in that pretty village of Northiam—

which shoe may still be seen, by favour, in the private archæological collection at Brickwall House, in company with Accepted Frewen's toasting-fork.

Saxon descent may have had much to do with the development of our own peculiar cerevisial taste—taste, that is, for beer with some body and a good strong flavour of malt. There can be no doubt that, compared with the produce of other countries, our beer is still the best—if only one's liver will stand it—the most tasty, the most nourishing—"meat, drink and cloth," as Sir John Linger puts it—beer which will occasionally "make a cat speak and a wise man dumb." The Saxons always had a liking for beer with something in it—not merely "strong water," as Sir Richard l'Estrange calls the small stuff. The ancient Teutons, we know, were all of them furious drinkers. Accordingly, not a few of the modern generation hold, with Luther's Elector of Saxony, that a custom of such very venerable antiquity ought not to be lightly abandoned. Tacitus writes that the Germans think it no shame to spend a whole day and night a-drinking. The Greek Emperor Nicephoras Phorcas told the ambassador of Emperor Otho that his master's soldiers had no other proficiency but in getting drunk. Rudolph of Hapsburgh grew vociferous over the discovery of good beer. "Walk in, walk in!" he shouted, standing at a tavern door in Erfurt, wholly oblivious of his imperial dignity; "there is excellent beer to be had inside." And "good King Wenceslas" of our Christmas carol—described as "good" nowhere else—was an habitual toper, and was "done" accordingly by the French at Rheims, where he thought more of the wine than of the treaty which he was negotiating. Henri Quatre would on no account marry a German wife. "Je croirais," he said, "toujours avoir un pot de vin auprès de moi." A modern writer, Charles Monselet, says that in Strassburg—in this respect a typically German town—"tout se ressent de la domination de la bière." Beer lends its colour to the faces of the inhabitants, to their hair, to their clothes; to the soil and the houses; and the very women seem nothing but "walking chopes." But the Saxons in particular—not the modern ones, but those of the North, some of whom found their way into England—always loved good stout nutritious drink, such as that to which the German composer Von Flotow ascribes our sturdy robustness:

Obsopæus says of the ancient Saxons:

And an old rhyme, still quoted with gusto, goes to this effect:

"Mumm" is our own good old "mum," about the meaning of which in an Act of Parliament there was recently some controversy, when even Mr. Gladstone did not quite know how to explain it. It is the good, thick, stout, nourishing beer—nil spissius illo—which makes blood and flesh, and gives strength—"vires præstat et augmentat carnem, generatque cruorem," says the school of Salerno. Very presumably it is such beer as this, too, of which the unnamed witty poet quoted in Percy's "Reliques" writes:

No doubt beer has had a good many nasty things said about it. The same school of Salerno lays it down that "crassos humores nutrit cerevisia, ventrem quoque mollit et inflat." It also affirms that ebriety resulting from beer is more hurtful than that produced by wine. But, notwithstanding this, it endorses the advice given by Matthew de Gradibus, which is, to drink it in preference to wine at the beginning of, or even throughout, meals, and above all things after any great exertion. "Cerevisia vero utpote crassior, et ad concoctionem pertinacior, non tam avide rapitur: quare ab ea potus in principio prandii vel cœnae utilius inchoatur. Cerevisia humores etiam orificio stomachi insidentes abluit, et sitim, quæ ex nimia vini potatione timetur, praeterea et quamlibet aliam mendosam coercet ac reprimit." To say nothing of the censure pronounced by Crato, Henry of Avranches, and Wolfram von Eschenbach—that pillar of the Roman Church, Cardinal Chigi, charitably suggests that if beer had but a little sulphur added, it would become a right infernal drink. And Moscherosch, joking on the admixture of pitch with beer, common in his time—possibly copied from a similar practice applied to wine in the days of ancient Greece—speaks of "la bière poissée qui habitue au feu de l'enfer." "Pix intrantibus" used to be a familiar superscription placed for a joke over tavern doors. Then, again, we have Luther barely qualifying the old German rhyme—

by laying it down that "Vinum est donatio Dei, cerevisia traditio humana." And he went so far as to pronounce the leading brewer of his time "Pestis Germaniae." But this same Luther was himself a zealous beer-toper. He drank beer, it is on record, when plotting the Reformation with Melanchthon at Torgau. He called for Bierseidel when Carlstadt came to the "Bear" at Jena to discuss with him the subject of consubstantiation. And the two divines used their pewters very freely by way of accentuating their theological arguments, and, towards the close of the sitting, even in substitution of them. Luther records with satisfaction, in his "Table Talk," that many presents reached him from France, Prussia, and Russia, of "wormwood-beer." And at Worms, where he was pleading the cause of the reformed faith before a hostile Diet, the one ray of comfort which pierced through the gloom of his imprisonment was the arrival, particularly mentioned in his letters, of a small cask of "Eimbeck" beer from one of the friendly princes. Like our modern M.P.'s annually exercised about the matter, the German reformer had a fervent zeal for the "purity of beer"—so fervent, that he actually threatened adulterating brewers with Divine wrath. He wrote these lines:

On the other hand, Cardinal Chigi's Roman anathema is more than neutralised by any number of benedictions, expressed or implied, from holy men of his Church. There are the regulations of St. Louis, of St. Hildegardis, the enlisted interest of the Bishops of Cologne, Utrecht, and Liége, the patron-saintship of St. Amandus, St. Leonard, St. Adrian, and the Irish St. Florentius, and, moreover, the very close connection which from time immemorial monks and religious houses have maintained with brewing. In olden days they were the brewers par excellence. In Lorraine our English Benedictines of Dieulouard, who maintained themselves in their monastery near Pont-à-Mousson down to the time of the Revolution, long possessed an absolute monopoly of brewing, and were famed for their produce. And M. Reiber will have it that there are still in Germany, at the present day, des congrégations de moines brasseurs. Then there is St. Chrodegang, a near relative of Charlemagne, the great reformer of monastic orders, who particularly directed—and the rule is still observed—that monks should be allowed the option of either beer or wine. And sensible monks, a communicative Carthusian confided to me the other day, prefer good beer any day to bad wine.

If, in face of all this, neither Romanists nor Protestants can say anything against beer, much less are Mussulmans in a position to do so. For Mahomet actually, though he expressly forbids wine, never says a word in prohibition of beer—thus leaving a convenient loophole to thirsty Mahommedans, of which French writers tell us that bibulous Algerians eagerly avail themselves.

From all this it will be seen that, despite teetotal disparagement, beer comes before the world, so to speak, with very respectable credentials, entitling it to a fairly good reception. Brillat-Savarin, it is true, admits to its detriment that "l'eau est la seule boisson qui apaise véritablement la soif." But "l'eau," says another French writer, M. Reiber, "est la prose des liquides, l'alcool en est la poésie." Speaking more particularly of beer, among alcoholic drinks, M. Dubrunfaut writes: "La bière occupe incontestablement le premier rang parmi les boissons hygiéniques connues." And he goes on to say that among the beer-drinking nations one finds, as a rule, manly qualities most developed—as among the English, the Germans, the Dutch, the Belgians, and the Northern French. Brillat-Savarin only objects that beer makes people stout.

Of course there is beer and beer. The wise doctors of Salerno very rightly gave particular attention to this subject—as well they might, for beer was adulterated in their days with no more scruple than it is in ours. The Minnesinger Marner, in the thirteenth century, bitterly complains that brewers make beer even without malt. There was no minnesinging to be done on such drink. Then there was the manufacture of the aroma. Before there were hops—and even after—people had a violent fancy for spices, the indulgence in which was carried to such a point that the Church, meeting in Council at Worms in 868, and at Trèves in 895, felt bound to take notice of the matter, and in a special canon laid down the rule that beer spiced after the manner then prevalent should be allowed, as a luxury, only on Sundays and saints' days. What those spices were may be gathered from the following recipe for making beer, which appears to have been first published at Strassburg (from early days a cerevisian city) in 1512, and which was twice re-issued, under special approbation—namely, in 1552 and 1679. "To one pound of coloured 'sweet-root' (probably liquorice) add seven ounces of good cinnamon, four ounces of the best ginger, one ounce each of cloves, 'long' pepper, galanga, and nutmeg, half an ounce each of mace and of cardamom, and two ounces of genuine Italian saffron." Whatever might be added in the shape of malt, who would recognise in this decoction anything remotely worthy of the name of beer? It is of such stuff that Cardinal Chigi must have been thinking when he pronounced beer "infernal drink." For brewing beer the school of Salerno give the following good advice:

It must not, above all things, be sour. For acidity "ventriculo inimica est. Acetus nervosas offendit partes." As the Germans have it—and they ought to know—

It should be clear, because "turbida impinguat, flatus gignit, atque brevem spiritum efficit." "Bene cocta" it should be, for "male cocta ventris inflationes, tormina et colicos cruciatos generat"—which Latin speaks for itself. As for good grain, the doctors appear to prefer a mixture of barley and oats. They allow either wheat, barley, or oats. Wheat, they say, makes the most nourishing beer, but heating and astringent. Barley alone makes the beer cold and dry. A mixture of barley and oats renders it less nourishing, but also lighter on the stomach, and less confining and distending. The Germans nowadays brew beer of every conceivable grain and no-grain, even potatoes. But according to the material so is the product. Lastly, say the doctors, beer, like wine, should be old, or you will feel the effects in your stomach.

We cannot at the present period dissociate from beer the idea of hops. But it was comparatively late in history before hops were regarded as an indispensable ingredient. The Sclav nations are reported to have had them early; also the Mahommedans of the East. Haroun-al-Rashid's physician states that in his day they were given as medicine. In France, the first record of their cultivation is of the year 768, when Pepin le Bref gave some directions as to the hop-grounds belonging to the monastery of St. Denis. In Germany they are known to have been successfully cultivated about Magdeburg in 1070. We are supposed to have received them over here in 1525. In Alsace, beer-drinking country as it is, they were not cultivated till 1802. The soil being very suitable, they then made way with such rapidity that they soon crowded out completely madder and woad, which had previously been considered the most profitable crops—so profitable, that from the coques de pastel (woad), which were looked upon as the emblem of prosperity and well-being, the Lauraguais, and indeed the whole country round Toulouse, came to be christened le pays de Cocagne. Hence our own word of "Cockaigne," about the derivation of which so many contradictory guesses have been made. It may be interesting to note that in Strassburg the bakers at one time used to put hops into their yeast, and that in some foreign countries the young shoots of the hop-bine furnish a favourite vegetable, dressed like asparagus.

Drinking habits are of course by far the most developed in Germany, where beer has really become the object of a cult. Blessed with a healthy thirst, which made our own poet Owen exclaim—

the nation has seized upon beer as a second faith, "outside which there is no salvation." Fischart, indeed, in his verses bade people who must drink beer, and would not be satisfied with German wine, "go to Copenhagen; there they would find beer enough." Denmark truly was of old—we know from "Hamlet"—a grand country for drinking. But in respect of beer, in the present day, it is not "in it" with Germany. Tacitus wrote about German drinking. Emperor Charlemagne felt bound to pass a law against it. The earlier Popes, before consenting to crown a German emperor, exacted from him an affirmative reply to the standing question: "Vis sobrietatem cum Dei auxilio custodire?" Of the old Palsgraves it used to be said: "Potatores sub cœlo non meliores;" and "bibere more palatino" became a byword. Maximilian I. felt called upon to pass stringent laws. In the sixteenth century Germany went by the name of "Die grossen Trinklande." And Luther, when resting from his seidels accompanying theological disputations, expressed a fear "lest this devil (of thirst) should go on tormenting Germany till the day of judgment." The modern Germans have remained true to the custom of their forefathers, and have developed it scientifically.

The whole commonwealth literally "hinges" upon beer. The Emperor has drunk it as a student at Bonn, and presumably still drinks it—in moderation. The German Chancellor, instead of the parliamentary full-dress dinners customary among ourselves, invites the members of the Diet to "beer-evenings." If a learned professor discover a new bacillus or antidotal lymph; if an African traveller annex a new province; if a statesman attain his jubilee—there is but one form of public recognition for all varieties of merit and distinction, and that is a biercommers. No doubt the great extension of university education has a great deal to do with the spread of regulated beer-drinking. The learned classes set the tone, and the many follow it.

That has become the general motto. It sounds very filthy to hear of the astounding quantities of liquor consumed. But, in the first place, where much is drunk, it is only very light stuff. And, to make it less trying, the drinkers adopt the Socratic maxim of "small cups and many," by frothing the beer up incredibly. Altogether they follow good classical rules, which it is curious to trace, and which make their symposia rather interesting. Drinking is not the end, but only the natural means for attaining hilarity. And there is a good deal of rough geniality about it. Like the ancient Greeks, these organised drinkers fix a well-recognised τρόπος τῆς πόσεως. They have their absolute ruler, the symposiarch, their accepted order of drinking, their proper scale of fines. And also, as in Greece, only too often drinking is not a voluntary act, but ἀναγκάζεσθαι, and it is made to be ἀπνευστὶ πίνειν—drinking without taking breath. There is the προπίνειν φιλοτησίας—drinking to one another—which must be answered. There are songs and jokes—though no tæniæ and, fortunately, no kisses. And the small cups are duly followed up with the large horns, the κέρατα, and the huge vessels which the Greeks called φρέατα. Nay, these modern classics even imitate the Greeks in respect of the ἅλες καὶ κύμινον. For in many places the well-salted and carawayed ἐπίπαστα forms a standing accompaniment to the liquor. And next day, if they are a trifle "foxed," they copy the Greeks in κραιπάλην κραιπάλη ἐξελαύνειν, or, as Sir John Linger calls it in better "understanded" language, they take "a hair of the same dog," with a pickled herring covered with raw onions for a companion, which is supposed to set all things right. There are beer-courts to adjudge upon disputes, there are indeterminate beer-minutes to settle the time—everything is "beer." In all this joking there is no harm. As little harm is meant to be in the missœ cerevisiales which tradition has handed down from the time when monks were both the greatest brewers and also the greatest drinkers, and, probably, in their refectories and misericords made as much fun of the service over their cups as do now—or did until lately—German students. There is the genuine chanting of versicles and responses, but the words have reference to beer. This practice, I am glad to say, is now very much on the decline.

All this is scarcely surprising. We all knew it of the Germans long ago. But it is a little strange to find France once more—few people know about the first time—taking her place among beer-drinking countries and placing the honestas chopinandi among the precepts of the modern decalogue. The French are good enough to explain that they do this, not for their own gratification, but as a public service, as "saviours of society," to "rendre les mœurs gambrinales plus aimables." That may be. But the fact remains, that the annual consumption of beer per head of the population in France has now risen to 21 litres (about 14 quarts), which on the top of 119 litres of wine (however light), 20 litres of cider, and 4 litres of spirits, is a respectable allowance enough. For Germany the figures are said to be—93 litres of beer, 6 of wine, and 10 of spirits—and such spirits! France brews every year more than eight millions of hectolitres of beer, and consumes considerably more. To do this, of course it must import from abroad. And very rightly too, I should say. For though French beer may no longer deserve the description given of it by the Emperor Julian, who condemned it as "smelling strongly of the goat," there is still little enough that is really good. And it is drunk out of such tiny thimbles! I suspect that there is a dodge in this. The "bocks" have grown smaller and smaller, till in some places they are mere tea-cups. But then out come the restaurateurs with their old disused "bocks," now re-christened bocks sérieux, and charge double price. That promises to make France a real brewers' paradise. But, large glasses or small, there is something about the beer which you must first get used to. Accordingly, many of those gorgeous brasseries, of genuinely German type, which seem so out of place in the Paris boulevards, are supplied, not from Tantonville or Xertigny, but from Munich or Vienna, or else from Strassburg. For, of course, the attachment which Frenchmen feel for their lost provinces had a great deal to do with their new departure in the way of a liking for beer. France, as it happens, owes some reparation to Strassburg, and more particularly to its brewers. For at various times it has treated the latter most unkindly. In the first place, the Second Empire unmercifully hastened on the hour of "Bruce," making it eleven "sharp," instead of the quarter past which had been previously allowed. This threatens never to be forgotten or forgiven. In the second place, the First Republic, though it honoured hops by assigning to them, in the place of the calendar saint, St. Omer, the patronship of the 9th of September, inflicted a very grievous injury when, in the An II. of its era, its tribunal révolutionnaire imposed a fine of 255,000 livres upon the brewing trade, as is stated in the official Livre Bleu, "pour les abus qu'ils ont pu se permettre sur leur comestibilité." The mulct is explained in this wise:—"Considérant que la soif de l'or a constamment guidé les brasseurs, il les condamne à deux cents cinquante-cinq mille livres d'amende, qu'ils doivent payer dans trois jours, sous peine d'être déclarés rebelles à la loi et de voir leurs biens confisqués." There is no talk of "compensation," as among ourselves. To be sure, the bakers, with nothing against them—except it be on the score of weight—fared worse. For they were declared hostes generis humani, and fined 300,000 livres. The brewers really paid only 188,000 livres. But that was considered heavy enough. In spite of this imposition, the brewing trade in Strassburg has made tremendous strides, and continues flourishing. And very much more beer is now consumed in the city than wine. For 1878 the figures were: 121,345 hectolitres of beer and 36,583 of wine. Paris in 1881 consumed 300,000 hectolitres of beer; in 1853 only 7,000 and in 1864 still only 40,000 hectolitres. (All this beer-drinking, it will be seen, dates from 1870.) In Paris, in spite of protection, the brewing interest appears to find foreign competition rather formidable. At the time of the first revolution, a French general (Santerre), with the assistance of government subsidies, tried very hard to oust us from the market by brewing "ale" and "porter." This earned the veteran the nickname of "Le Général Mousseux." But the speculation did not pay, and had to be abandoned. Having become so popular, beer has, of course, found many fervid apologists in France. "La bière fait en ce moment le tour du monde. Mieux que tous les raisonnements et quoi qu'en disent les esprits chagrins, sa vogue prouve que la boisson en houblon est utile, que l'humanité l'apprécie et en a besoin." So says M. Reiber. "La bonne bière n'est pas une boisson malsaine; elle est tonique et nourrissante." So says Dr. Tourdes.

But really this is nothing new. Old inscriptions, dating from the Gallo-Roman era, show that Pliny was correct in setting down, at his period, the Gauls as a largely beer-drinking race. They had earthenware beer-pots, some of which have been exhumed, bearing the inscription, "Cerevisariis felicitas!" An old Gallo-Roman flagon is preserved in Paris, on which is engraved—"Hospita reple lagenam cervisia!" The oldest beer-song extant is Old-French, dating from the thirteenth century. It is as follows:

The prohibition which Charlemagne issued against keeping St. Stephen's Day too zealously by the consumption of beer and wine, applied to France no less than to Germany. The French were, in truth, great respecters of saints' days in a bibulous way. St. Martin's Day was with them a favourite occasion for drinking. Hence martiner still currently signifies drinking more than one ought. Another suggestive popular term is "Boire comme un Templier." France then has really only returned to her premier amour. But in doing so she has set upon it a seal of domination, which is significant, as meaning that it is not likely to be readily surrendered.

No doubt beer, having held its own so long, though much assailed, will still continue to maintain its position. There is too much of human nature in man to admit of its being effectually proscribed. "Abusus non tollit usum." The same school of Salerno which praises beer as a wholesome drink adds this wise proviso:—"Hic unicum de cervisiæ usu præceptum traditur: nempe ut modice sumatur, neque ea stomachus prægravetur vel ebrietas concilietur." Sebastian Brant writes in old German:

There is great virtue in the modice sumatur. The wine-trade has passed through a similar change. Though four-bottle men have died out, the wine-trade is doing better than it did in olden days. So it will probably be with beer. However temperance advocates may regret it, it is not to be got rid of by railing. In truth it is now indeed making le tour du monde. And, unless mankind changes its character altogether, it will probably go on drinking—more or less modice—to the end of the chapter, a beverage which stands commended by so exemplary a Father of the Church as the whilom Bishop of Bath and Wells, Polydore Virgil, who pronounces it

Footnotes:

[1] Blackwood's Magazine, August, 1894.

[2] The church encloses, in addition to one of the "true" pebbles with which was stoned, says M. Bellot-Herment, the chronicler of Bar, "St Etienne, curé de Gamaliel, bourg du diocèse de Jerusalem," that boldly original sculpture from the chisel of the great Lorrain artist, Ligier Richier, whom we so undeservedly ignore, the famous "Squelette"—the mere name of which frightened Dibdin away, as he himself relates. Durival terms this sculpture "une affreuse beauté"—but "beauté" it undoubtedly is.

[3] Patriotic Frenchmen derive this name from the Latin fascinatio. But quite evidently it is a gallicised form of the German fastnacht, which in Alsace is pronounced fàsenacht, or very nearly fàsenocht; in a French mouth it would naturally become faschinottes.

[4] Blackwood's Magazine, June, 1891.

[5] National Review, February, 1892.

[6] Gentleman's Magazine, February, 1893.

[7] See the Memoirs of the Family of Taaffe, p. 13.

[8] Westminster Review, May, 1892.

[9] National Review, May, 1892.

[10] Gentleman's Magazine, February, 1894.

[11] The "English" student who took the second prize on the occasion must, I think, have been Edmund Arnold. At any rate, I can discover no other English name on the register. English students were still few in those days.

[12] Gentleman's Magazine, March, 1891.