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Montrose, Napier, Keir, and Blackhall being confined in Edinburgh Castle as "plotters," while more serious charges were being prepared against others conveniently grouped together as "incendiaries."

Affairs were in this unsatisfactory condition when Charles arrived in Edinburgh, little prescient of the annoyance and humiliation in store for him, in connection with "the Incident," which completely neutralised any good that might perchance have been brought about through his personal influence, and which virtually confirmed Argyll in his usurped position of Uncrowned King of Scotland.

JAMES HUTTON.

W

SOMETHING ABOUT BEER.

HEN 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 headand 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 Liège 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 brewing of hops, over which that eminent saint, Abbess Hildegardis of Rupertusberg, had already pronounced her benediction. S. Hildegardis was a saint of unquestionable authority, having been specially recognised at the Council of Trèves as a prophetess by S. 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.") S. 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 S. 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 S. 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 æmula. 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 topboots, 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

Hops and turkeys, carps and beer,

or, as some rigid Anglican has improved it

Hops, reformation, bays, and beer
Came to England all in one year-

to wit, the year 1525-is a little wrong in its date, and that beer was known earlier. That after the date named it soon made its way even into the highest circles we have very good proof in 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

O fair Norjem! thou dost far exceed
Beckley, Peasmarsh, Udimore, and Brede:

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 itbeer 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 set aside. 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 :

Das ist das treffliche Elixir,
Das ist das kräftge Porterbier.

Obsopæus says of the ancient Saxons :

Coctam Cererem potant crassosque liquores.

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

Ein echter Sachse wird, wie alle Völker sagen,
Nie schmal in Schultern sein, noch schlaffe Lenden tragen.
Fragt Einer, welches denn die Ursach' sei :

Er isset Speck und Wurst, und trinket Mumm dabei.

"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 aug. mentat.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 :

nobilis ale-a Ticit heroas dignamque heroe puellam,

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