Chapter X: Stuart Period (4)

The scientific writer Dunovan, in his _Domestic Economy_, makes us acquainted with a few of the drugs with which beer is _doctored_.

It is absolutely frightful to contemplate the list of poisons and
drugs with which malt liquors have been (as it is technically and
descriptively called) _doctored_. Opium, henbane, cocculus indicus,
and Bohemian rosemary, which is said to produce a quick and raving
intoxication, supplied the place of alcohol; aloes, quassia,
gentian, sweet-scented flag, wormwood, horehound, and bitter
oranges, fulfilled the duties of hops; liquorice, treacle, and
mucilage of flax seed, stood for attenuated malt sugar. Capsicum,
ginger, and cinnamon, or rather cassia-buds, afforded to the
exhausted drink the pungency of carbonic acid. Burnt flour, sugar,
or treacle, communicated a peculiar taste, which porter-drinkers
generally fancy. Preparations of fish, assisted, in cases of
obstinacy, with oil of vitriol, procured transparency. Besides
these, the brewer had to supply himself with lime, potash, salt,
and a variety of other substances, which are of no other use, than
in serving the office of more valuable materials, and defrauding
the customer.

But the subject is, like the frauds practised, without a limit; references can only be subjoined.[196]

The principal writer in the _Tatler_, that _censor morum_, Richard Steele, was a prominent figure in the convivial circle. Wine and extravagance were his bane. He loved drink and was fond of acknowledging it. The author of the _Christian Hero_ wrote his devotional treatise in drink and in debt. The arrival of a hamper of wine could interrupt his moments of tenderest grief. The emotions were forgotten as he sent for his friends, who join him in drinking ‘two bottles apiece, with great benefit to themselves, and not separating till two o’clock in the morning.’

A story told of him by Dr. Hoadley is characteristic of the man:--

My father, when Bishop of Bangor, was, by invitation, present at
one of the Whig meetings, held at the Trumpet in Shoe Lane, when
Sir Richard, in his zeal, rather exposed himself, having the double
duty of the day upon him, as well to celebrate the immortal memory
of King William, it being the 4th November, as to drink his friend
Addison up to conversation pitch, whose phlegmatic constitution
was hardly warmed for society by that time. Steele was not fit for
it. Two remarkable circumstances happened. John Sly, the hatter of
facetious memory, was in the house; and John, pretty mellow, took
it into his head to come into the company on his knees, with a
tankard of ale in his hand to drink off to the _immortal memory_,
and to return in the same manner. Steele, sitting next my father,
whispered him--_Do laugh. It is humanity to laugh._ Sir Richard,
in the evening, being too much in the same condition, was put into
a chair, and sent home. Nothing would serve him but being carried
to the Bishop of Bangor’s, late as it was. However, the chairmen
carried him home, and got him upstairs, when his great complaisance
would wait on them downstairs, which he did, and then was got
quietly to bed.

One of his own letters to Mrs. Scurlock reveals the man:--

I have been in very good company, where your health, under the
character of the woman I loved best, has been often drunk; so that
I may say that I am dead drunk for your sake, which is more than _I
die for you_.

Matthew Prior, the poet, demands a notice. Whether he was the son of a vintner or a joiner is a moot point. He was certainly nephew to Samuel Prior, landlord of the Rummer Tavern at Charing Cross, at which house, in 1685, was held the annual feast of the nobility and gentry living in the parish of St. Martin-in-the-Fields. By this uncle he was brought up and sent to Westminster School, after which he was employed, it is said, at his uncle’s as server. Taken up by Lord Dorset, his career was remarkable, as author, as secretary to successive embassies, as member of Parliament, as favourite of the king. Dr. Johnson remarks that a survey of Prior’s life and writings may exemplify a sentence which he doubtless understood well when he read Horace at his uncle’s:--

The vessel long retains the scent which it first receives.

Mrs. Barbauld informs us, that having spent the evening with Oxford, Bolingbroke, Pope, and Swift, he would go to Long Acre and there drink a bottle of ale with a common soldier and his wife. Thus does the dog return to his vomit. Swift has left us a lively picture of manners in his descriptive breakfast with my Lady Smart at 11 A.M. Lord Smart, who was absent at the levee, returns to dinner at 3 P.M. to receive the guests. Seven of them dined, and were joined by a country baronet, who had no appetite, having already eaten a beefsteak and drunk two mugs of ale, besides a tankard of March beer when he got up in the morning. They drank claret, which the host said should always be drunk after fish, and my Lord Smart particularly recommended some cider to my Lord Sparkish. When the host called for wine, he nodded to one or other of his guests, and said, ‘Tom Neverout, my service to you.’ After the first course came pudding. Wine and small beer were drunk during this second course.... After the puddings came the third course.... Beer and wine were freely imbibed during this course, the gentlemen always pledging somebody with every glass which they drank.... After the goose, some of the gentlemen took a dram of brandy. Dinner ended, Lord Smart bade the butler bring up the great tankard full of October to Sir John. The great tankard was passed from hand to hand and mouth to mouth; but when pressed by the noble host upon the gallant Tom Neverout, he said, ‘No faith, my lord, I like your wine, and won’t put a churl upon a gentleman. Your honour’s claret is good enough for me.’ The cloth removed, a bottle of Burgundy was set down, of which the ladies were invited to partake before they went to tea. When they left, fresh bottles were brought, the ‘dead men’--meaning the empty bottles--removed, and ‘D’you hear, John? bring clean glasses,’ my Lord Smart said. On which the Colonel said, ‘I’ll keep my glass; for wine is the best liquor to wash glasses in.’

It was at this time that the works were published of one who was at once the creature and exponent of the times, Edward (better known as Ned) Ward. Campbell observes that ‘his works give a complete picture of the mind of a vulgar but acute cockney. His sentiment is the pleasure of eating and drinking.’[197] Ward possessed two qualifications for his depiction of manners; he was a tavern-keeper, and a poet. At any rate his doggerel secured him notice in the _Dunciad_. His _Secret History of Clubs_ is the authority for that kind of life at the beginning of the eighteenth century. His _London Spy_ describes the coffee-houses of the day:--‘In we went (says he), where a parcel of muddling muckworms were as busy as so many rats in an old cheese-loft; some going; some coming; some scribbling, some talking, some drinking, some smoking, others jangling; and the whole room stinking of tobacco, like a Dutch scoot or a boatswain’s cabin.’

Some of the famous taverns are also described in this work, such as the ‘Angel’ in Fenchurch Street, ‘where the vintner, like a double-dealing citizen, condescended as well to draw carman’s comfort, as the consolatory juice of the vine.’ The ‘Rose,’ in the Poultry, has gained a reputation:--‘There in a snug room, warmed with brash and faggot, over a quart of good claret, we laughed over our night’s adventure.’

Convivial life at the Universities may find its illustration in the person of Bentley.

The following is told about Lord Cartaret and Bentley, in Monk’s _Life of Bentley_, vol. ii. p. 324 (2nd edit. 1833).

Lord Cartaret was a great scholar, and, being an old Westminster boy, especially fond of Terence, which Dr. Bentley had edited. Kippis relates this anecdote, in the _Biographia Britannica_, vol. ii. p. 280:--

Dr. Bentley, when he came to town, was accustomed, in his visits to
Lord Cartaret, sometimes to spend the evenings with his lordship.
One day old Lady Granville reproached her son with keeping the
country clergyman, who was with him the night before, till he was
intoxicated. Lord Cartaret denied the charge; upon which the lady
replied that the clergyman could not have sung in so ridiculous a
manner unless he had been in liquor. The truth of the case was,
that the singing thus mistaken by her ladyship was Dr. Bentley’s
endeavour to instruct and entertain his noble friend by reciting
Terence according to the true _cantilena_ of the ancients.

Kippis, however, ought not to have called Lord Cartaret’s mother Lady Granville, as her son was the first Lord Granville, to which title he was not yet appointed. She was the Dowager Lady Cartaret.

Bentley himself ‘is stated to have been an admirer of good port wine, while he thought contemptuously of claret, which, he said, “would be port if it could.”’[198]

We infer also that Bentley did not despise ale. At any rate a great quantity was drunk at the lodge of the Master.

In 1710, when the Fellows appealed against Bentley to the Visitor of Trinity, the Bishop of Ely, this was one of the counts:--

Why have you for many years last past wasted the College Bread,
Ale, Beer, Coals, Wood, Turfe, Sedge, Charcoal, Linnen, Pewter,
Corn, Flower (_sic_), Brawn, and Bran, &c.?[199]

In a single year--1708--the expense of ale and small beer was no
less at Trinity Lodge than 107_l._ 16_s._[200]

The Fellows greatly protested against all this. And Dr. King, an old opponent of Bentley’s, made great stock of the immense consumption of bread, beer, and fuel in Bentley’s lodge:--

He wrote a piece of humour, entitled ‘Horace in Trinity College.’
The fiction supposes Horace, in fulfilment of his well-known
prophecy, _Visam Britannos hospitibus feros_, to visit Britain and
take up his abode in the Master’s lodge of Trinity College, where
he gets immensely fat (_Epicuri de grege porcus_) by the good cheer
maintained at the expense of the society.... Perhaps the most
laughable matter in the piece is the representation of a medal,
bearing on one side a figure of Horace, with a cup of audit ale
in one hand, some college rolls in the other, and an immeasurable
rotundity of person; and on the reverse _E Promptuar. Col. Trin.
Cant._

What the excellent bishop describes as ‘an immeasurable rotundity of person’ seems to have been far from uncommon in the Universities in these high days. We read in a note in Monk’s book, vol. ii. p. 394:--

The portly appearance of the three esquire-beadles at that day
[about 1739] did much credit to university cheer. They are
described by Christopher Smart, in a copy of Latin verses, by the
following periphrasis:--

‘Pinguia tergeminorum abdomina Bedellorum.’

We have certainly in Pope’s _Dunciad_ also an allusion to Bentley’s love of port (book iv.) in the following lines:--

As many quit the streams[201] that murmuring fall,
To lull the sons of Margaret and Clare-hall,
Where Bentley late tempestuous wont to sport
In troubled waters, but now sleeps in port.[202]

Pope always seemed to have disliked Bentley. But these lines, and, still more, Pope’s note, rather imply that Bentley liked his port.

But everybody was not a _bon-vivant_. Many were in the world, but not of it. What a contrast to the authors quoted was John Philips, the author of _Cyder_, a Poem.[203] And it is a poem worth reading. Johnson calls it a Georgic after the manner of Virgil, nor does it suffer from the comparison. The advice contained in it is excellent. It praises use, it condemns abuse. It well serves temperance. Thus in book ii., after praising Nature for her annual gifts, which tend to the exhilaration of languid minds, he continues:--

Within
The golden _Mean_ confined: beyond, there’s naught
Of health, or pleasure. Therefore, when thy Heart
Dilates with fervent joys, and eager soul
Prompts to persue the sparkling glass, be sure
‘Tis time to shun it; if thou wilt prolong
Dire compotation, forthwith Reason quits
Her Empire to Confusion, and Misrule,
And vain Debates; then twenty Tongues at once
Conspire in senseless Jargon, naught is heard
But din, and various clamour, and mad Rant:
Distrust, and Jealousie to these succeed,
And anger-kindling Taunt, the certain Bane
Of well-knit Fellowship. Now horrid Frays
Commence, the brimming glasses now are hurled
With dire intent; Bottles with Bottles clash
In rude Encounter.
* * * * *
Nor need we tell what anxious cares attend
The turbulent Mirth of Wine; nor all the kinds
Of Maladies, that lead to Death’s grim cave,
Wrought by Intemperance: joint-racking Gout,
Intestine stone, and pining Atrophy,
Chill, even when the sun with July Heats
Frys the scorch’d soil; and Dropsy all afloat,
Yet craving Liquids.

When a poet could thus write, there is no wonder that divines should have used still stronger language. John Disney, in a powerful treatise,[204] agitates for the execution of the laws against immorality. His remarks on the Sunday closing of public-houses are especially applicable now:--

If they must have refreshment, why cannot they have it at their
own houses? In truth refreshment is but a pretence for excess and
drunkenness. If company meets together in a public-house on Sunday
evening, when there is no danger of other business that shall
call them away, who shall tell them the critical minute when they
are sufficiently refreshed? Except the constable beat up their
quarters, they sit very contentedly hour after hour, and call for
pint after pint, and make themselves judges of their refreshment
till they’re able to judge of nothing at all. If you still ask what
harm there is in going to a public-house for only an hour or two,
and to stay no longer, I might tell you that ‘tis enough that the
Laws have forbidden it, and that her Majesty has reinforced those
laws.

Bishop Beveridge, who died in Anne’s reign, wrote an important sermon on ‘The Duty of Temperance and Sobriety.’[205] He says:--

There is no sin but some have committed it in their drink; and
if there be any that a drunken man doth not commit, it is not
because he would not, but because he could not. He had not an
opportunity.... For a man in such a condition hath no sense of
the difference between good and evil; for ‘wind,’ as the prophet
speaks (Hos. iv. 11), ‘hath taken away his heart.’ His reason, his
understanding, his conscience, is gone; and therefore, all sins are
alike to him. Hence it is that their sin never goes alone, but hath
a great train of other sins always following it; insomuch that it
cannot so properly be called one single sin, as all sin is one.

The legislation of the reign was not important. The 1st Anne permitted tradesmen whose principal dealings were in other goods to sell spirits by retail, without a licence, provided they did not allow tippling in their shops or houses.

Another law enacted in this reign allowed French wines and other liquors to be imported in neutral bottoms. Without this expedient it was believed that the revenue would have been insufficient to maintain the government.

FOOTNOTES:

[112] ‘Discovery of a London monster, called the Black Dog of Newgate.’

[113] J. R. Sheen, _Wines_. Cyrus Redding, _Modern Wines_.

[114] Beaumont and Fletcher, _The Chances_. V.

[115] _History of Signboards._

[116] _History of the English People._

[117] Strickland: _Lives of Queens_.

[118] Burton observes (_Anatomy of Melancholy_, i. 2): ‘Drunken women most part bring forth children like unto themselves.’

[119] The author of the _History of Signboards_ is wrong in saying (p. 52) that James married a daughter of Christian IV. James married a daughter of Frederic II. and a sister of Christian IV. Frederick was dead before the marriage of James.

[120] Sir John Harrington, _Nugæ Antiquæ_, i. 348. It is cited, more or less, in Lingard, _Hist. Eng._; Nichols’ _Progresses_; Aubrey, _Hist. Eng._; Samuelson, _Hist. Drink_; Sandys’ _Chrismastide_, &c.

[121] Charles Lamb’s Works, _On the Poetical Works of George Wither_.

[122] Hazlitt, _Lectures on the English Poets_.

[123] Cited in Sir H. Ellis’s Brand, _Pop. Antiq._, and in Nares’ _Glossary_.

[124] George Herbert: _Country Parson_.

[125] _Virgidemiarum_, ii. 3.

[126] _Nabal and Abigail._

[127] Blackstone: _Comm. on the Laws of England_, iv. 4.

[128] Court of Hastings Book for Lyme.

[129] _Philocothonista_, or the Drunkard opened, 1635.

[130] For a picture of social degradation in this direction, see Middleton’s _A Chast Mayd in Cheape-side_, 1630 (or T. Middleton’s _Works_, iv. 44, &c.).

[131] Heywood and Rowley, _Fortune by Sea and Land_.

[132] Gervase Markham, _English Housewife_, 1683.

[133] Pasquil, _Palinodia_, 1619.

[134] _Familiar Letters, II._ 60.

[135] Heywood, _Rape of Lucrece_.

[136] _Healthes; Sicknesse_, 1628.

[137] _Gent’s Mag._ for 1791.

[138] _Lives of the English Poets._

[139] _The Royalist_, 1646.

[140] _English Villanies_, 1632.

[141] Howell, _State Trials_, vol. iii.

[142] _Sermon on Christian Prudence._

[143] _Funeral Sermon for the Countess of Carbery._

[144] James Usher, _Body of Divinity_, 1677.

[145] _Harleian Miscellany_, vol. x. Bridgett, who cites the passage, says the letter was sketched by a French Protestant. The internal evidence of the last sentence renders it certain that John Evelyn was not the author; to whom, according to Sir H. Ellis, it has been attributed.

[146] _Antiq. Repertory_, ii.

[147] _The Drunkard’s Prospective_ (1656).

[148] Cited by Timbs, _Club Life_, and Doran, _Table Traits_.

[149] _Rape of the Lock._

[150] 7th Edition, p. 502.

[151] _Ib._ p. 259.

[152] A picture of it is given in Knight, _Old England_, and Brand, _Hist. of Newcastle_.

[153] _Works Collected_, 1654.

[154]

‘Even from my heart much health, I wish, No health I’ll wash with drink, Healths wish’d not wash’d, in words, not wine, To be the best I think.’--Witt’s _Recreations_, 1669.

[155] ‘I have discovered a treasure of pale wine.... I assure you ‘tis the same the King drinks of.’--Otway, _Friendship in Fashion_, 1678.

[156] _French Wines and Vineyards_, 1860.

[157] Butler, _Hudibras_, iii. 3.

[158] Sir George Etheridge, _Man of the Mode_, 1676.

[159] _Magnæ Britanniæ Notitia_, 1710.

[160] Roberts: _Social Hist. Southern Counties_.

[161] Hume.

[162] Works of Sir W. Temple (_On the Cure of the Gout_), vol. iii.

[163] I. Disraeli: _Curiosities of Literature_.

[164] Blackstone: _Comment. on the Laws of Eng._ 1791.

[165] Cyrus Redding: _French Wines_.

[166] _London Pageants._ Cf. also Sandford’s _History of the Coronation of James II. and his Queen at Westminster_.

[167] _Letters of the Herbert Family._

[168] _A Book about the Table_, 1875.

[169] A view of the house is given in Pegge’s _Curialia Miscellanea_, London, 1818. Cf. also _Gent. Mag._, Suppl. to vol. lxxx. part ii.

[170] Smollett, _Hist. of Eng._

[171] _Poor Man’s Plea_, 1698.

[172] _Second Discourse on the Affairs of Scotland_, 1698.

[173] Giles Jacob: _Poetical Register_, 1723.

[174] Dr. Henry Aldrich (Dean of Christ Church), 1700.

[175] _A Discourse against Drunkenness_, Lond. 1692.

[176] _Epistolæ Medicinales_, Lond. 1691.

[177] Lecky: _England in the Eighteenth Century_, vol. i.

[178] _Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Mr. William Whiston_, Lond. 1749.

[179] _Farewell to Wine_, 1693.

[180] _Mémoires d’Angleterre_, 1698. A translation by Ozell was published, London, 1719.

[181] _Hist. of Eng._, chap. xxi.

[182] _Hist. of Eng._, chap. xxi.

[183] The expressions _Uncle_, _Aunt_, refer to the relationship between the exiled king and queen, and William III.

[184] _Table Traits_, 1854.

[185] Cited in Timbs, _History of Clubs_.

[186] See Vizetelly, _History of Champagne_.

[187] _Worn-out Characters of the Last Age._

[188] Marchamont Nedham: _Short History of the English Rebellion_, 1691.

[189] _Time’s Alteration_, cited in Sandy’s _Christmas-Tide_.

[190] Cf. Molineux, _Burton-on-Trent_.

[191] _Hist. of Eng._, chap. xviii.

[192] _Ibid._ chap. xx.

[193] See the letter of Erasmus Lewis to Swift, dated Whitehall, July 27, 1714.

[194] _English Humourists_, 1858.

[195] _Spectator_, No. 243.

[196] Cf. _Wine and Spirit Adulterations Unmasked_. The chapter on ‘Sophistication of Wines’ in Redding’s _Modern Wines_. _The Vintner’s and Licensed Victualler’s Guide_, by a Practical Man. _Art of Brewing_ (Library of Useful Knowledge). Alex. Morrice, _Practical Treatise on Brewing_. Samuel Child, _Every Man his own Brewer_. Edward Lonsdale Bennet, _Practical Notes on Wine_. Professor G. Mulder, _Chemistry of Wine_. Others may be found by reference to the chapter, ‘Bibliography.’

[197] _Essay on English Poetry._

[198] Monk’s _Life_, vol. ii. p. 401.

[199] Jebb’s _Bentley_, p. 105.

[200] Monk, _Life of Bentley_, i. 264.

[201] The river Cam.

[202] Viz. ‘now retired into harbour, after the tempests that had long agitated his society.’ So _Scriblerus_. But the learned _Scipio Maffei_ understands it of a certain wine called _Port_ from _Oporto_, a city of Portugal, of which this professor invited him to drink abundantly. Scip. Maff. _de compotationibus Academicis_.

[203] London, 1708.

[204] _View of Ancient Laws against Immorality and Prophaneness._ 1729.

[205] CXXXV.