Читать книгу The Curiosities of Ale & Beer - John Bickerdyke - Страница 11

Before they went, however, they had “dronken all that was in crouke,” and the miller, who appears to have had the lion’s share, had decidedly imbibed too much.

Well hath this miller vernished his hed, Full pale he was, for-dronken, and nought red. This miller hath so wisely bibbed ale, That as an hors he snorteth in his slepe.

Geoffrey Chaucer, along with other poets and writers of his times, was unsparing in his denunciations of the vices of the clergy, their sloth, gluttony, drunkenness and other grievous lapses.

Thei side of many manir metes, With song and solas sitting long; {41} And filleth their wombe, and fast fretes, And after mete with harp and song, And hot spices ever among; And fille their wombe with wine and ale.

Piers the Ploughman, in his Crede, which is a satire upon the clergy, makes the Franciscan say, in contrasting his own order with other religious bodies:—

We haunten not tavernes, ne hobelen abouten At merketes and miracles we medeley us never.

The frequent directions to the monks and clergy to abstain from taverns, from drinking bouts and revels, all point to the necessity then felt of tightening the bonds of church discipline, and show the laxity that had prevailed.

John Taylor, the Water Poet, frequently selected ale as his theme, and, when once mounted on his favourite hobby, soon travelled into such realms of marvellous history and miraculous philology, that it almost takes away one’s breath to follow him. The chief work in which he glorifies our English Ale has for its full title,

DRINKE AND WELCOME

OR THE

FAMOUS HISTORIE

OF THE MOST PART OF DRINKS IN USE NOW IN THE KINGDOMES OF GREAT BRITTAINE AND IRELAND, WITH AN ESPECIALL DECLARATION OF THE POTENCY, VERTUE AND OPERATION OF

OUR ENGLISH ALE,

WITH A DESCRIPTION OF ALL SORTS OF WATERS, FROM THE OCEAN SEA, TO THE TEARES OF A WOMAN.

AS ALSO,

THE CAUSES OF ALL SORTES OF WEATHER, FAIRE OR FOULE, SLEET, RAINE, HAILE, FROST, SNOWE, FOGGES, MISTS, VAPOURS, CLOUDS, STORMES, WINDES, THUNDER AND LIGHTNING

COMPILED FIRST IN THE HIGH DUTCH TONGUE BY THE PAINEFULL AND INDUSTRIOUS “HULDRICKE VAN SPEAGLE, A GRAMMATICALL BREWER OF LUBECK, AND NOW MOST LEARNEDLY ENLARGED, AMPLIFIED, AND TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH PROSE AND VERSE

BY JOHN TAYLOR.

LONDON

PRINTED BY ANNE GRIFFIN 1637.

{42}

After speaking of cider, perry, &c., the author goes on to speak of ale, which “hath been and now is used by the English, as well since the Conquest as in the times of the Brittains, Saxons, and Danes (for the former-recited drinks are to this day confined to the Principality) so as we enjoy them onely by a Statute called the courtesie of Wales. And to perfect any discourse in this I shall onely induce them into two heads, viz., the unparalleled liquor called Ale with his abstract Beere; whose antiquity amongst a sort of Northerne pated fellowes, is, if not altogether contemptible, of very little esteeme; this humour served the scurrilous pen of a shamelesse writer16 in the raigne of King Henry the third; detractingly to inveigh against this unequal’d liquor. Thus

‘For muddy, foggy, fulsome, puddle, stinking, For all of these, Ale is the onely drinking.’

16 Henry D’Avranches.

“Of all the Authors that I have ever yet read, this is the only one that hath attempted to brand the glorious splendour of that Ale-beloved decoction; but observe this fellow, by the perpetuall use of water (which was his accustomed drinke) he fell into such convulsions and lethargick diseases, that he remained in opinion a dead man; however, the knowing Physicians of that time, by the frequent and inward application of Ale, not onely recouvered him to his pristine state of health, but also enabled him in body and braine for the future, that he became famous in his writings, which for the most part were afterwards spent with most Aleoquent and Alaborate commendation of that admired and most superexcellent Imbrewage.”

“Some there are,” he says, “that affirme that Ale was first invened by Alexander the Great, and that in his conquests this liquor did infuse such vigour and valour into his souldiers. Others say that famous Physician of Piemont (named Don Alexis) was the founder of it. But it is knowne that it was of that singular use in the time of the Saxons that none were allowed to brewe it but such whose places and qualities were most Eminent, insomuch that we finde that one of them had the credit to give the name of a Saxon Prince, who in honour of that rare quality, he called Alle. Some aleadge that it being our drinke when our land was called Albion, that it had the name of the countrey; Twiscus in his Euphorbinum will have it from Albanta or Epirus, Wolfgang Plashendorph of Gustenburg, saies that Alecto (one of the three furies) gave the receipt of it to Albumazar, a Magician, and he (having Aliance {43} with Aladine, the Soldan at Aleppo) first brew’d it there, whereto may be Aleuded, the story how Alphonsus of Scicily, sent it from thence to the battell of Alcazar. My Authour is of Anaxagoras’ opinion, that Ale is to be held in high price for the nutritive substance that it is indued withall, and how precious a nurse it is in generall to Mankinde.

“It is true that the overmuch taking of it doth so much exhilerate the spirits, that a man is not improperly said to be in the Aletitude (observe the word, I pray you, and all the words before or after for you shall find their first syllable to be Ale), and some writers are of opinion that the Turkish Alcoran was invented by Mahomet, out of such furious raptures as Ale inspired him withall; some affirme Bacchus (Al’as Liber Pater) was the first Brewer of it, among the Indians, who being a stranger to them they nam’d it Ale, as brought by an Alien: in a word, Somnus altus signifies dead sleepe: Quies alta, Great rest; Altus and Alta, noble and excellent: It is (for the most part) extracted out of the spirit of a Graine called Barley, which was of that estimation amongest the ancient Galles that their Prophets (whom they called Bards) used it in their most important prophesies and ceremonies: This Graine, after it had beene watered and dryed, was at first ground in a Mill in the island of Malta, from whence it is supposed to gaine the name of Malt; but I take it more proper from the word Malleolus, which signifies a Hammer or Maule, for Hanniball (that great Carthaginian Captaine) in his sixteene yeeres warres against the Romans, was called the Maule of Italie, for it is conjectured that he victoriously Mauld them by reason that his army was daily refreshed with the Spiritefull Elixar of Mault.

“It holds very significant to compare a man in the Aletitude to be in a planetarie height, for in a Planet, the Altitude is his motion in which he is carried from the lowest place of Heaven or from the Center of the Earth, into the most highest place, or unto the top of his circle, and then it is said to be in Apogee, that is the most Transcendant part of all, so the Sublunarie of a Stupified Spirit, being elevated by the efficacious vigour of this uncontrolleable vertue, renders him most capable for high actions.”

After much more in the same vein, sufficient to astonish the most reckless of modern punsters, our author winds up his account of the antiquity of ale as follows:—

“I will therefore shut up with that admirable conclusion insisted upon in our time by a discreet Gentleman in a Solemne Assembly, who by a Politick observation, very aptly compares Ale and Cakes with Wine and {44} Waters, neither doth he hold it fit that it should stand in competition with the meanest wines, but with that most excellent composition which the Prince of Physicians Hippocrases had so ingeniously compounded for the preservation of Mankinde, and which (to this day) speakes the Author by the name of Hippocras. So that you see for Antiquity—Ale was famous amongst the Troians, Brittaines, Romans, Saxons, Normans, Englishmen, Welch, besides in Scotland, from the highest and Noblest Palace to the poorest and meanest Cottage.”

Other curious details with respect to the use of ale in the Middle Ages and in modern times will be found in their appropriate places, and having established clearly enough the highly respectable antiquity of the Prince of liquors, old or new, it is time, in the elegant language of the Water Poet, to “shut up” this portion of the subject; and so we pass on, concluding here with an extract from the Philosopher’s Banquet, on the pre-eminence of ale:—

Ale for antiquity may plead and stand Before the conquest, conquering in this land; Beere, that is younger brother of her age, Was not then borne, nor right to bee her page; In every pedling village, borough, town, Ale plaid at football, and tript all lads down; And tho’ shee’s rivall’d now by beere, her mate, Most doctors aiwt on herthis shewes her state.