The Sun.
London, England, 1845-10-27 00:00:00

ALE AND BEER.

The Egyptians are said to be the inventors of ale,
their soil producing an abundance of corn.
In Great Britain, malt liquor was used as early as
the fifth century, and considerable breweries existed in
London before the Norman conquest, supplying ales of
different qualities and degrees of strength. Ale is men •
flow din the laws of Ina, King of Wessex. It was the
favourite drink of the Angle-Saxons and Danes, as it
was of their ancestors, the Germans. It very soon
found a place at the table of royalty. We are told that
it was one of the liquors provided at a banquet in the
reign of Edward the Confessor. Chaucer, who lived in
the reigns of Edward the Third, Richard the Second,
and Henry the Fourth, has celebrated the Southwark ale
of those days as " the strong ale of Southwark."
It is probable, however, that the drinking of beer was
not a general custom in England until the reign of Henry
the Seventh, in whose time the breweries, which then
stood on the banks of the Thames, at St. Catherine's,
and are distinguished in the map given in the " Civitatts
Orbis" by the name of beer-houses, were twice "
by the king's officers, either for sending too great a quan-
tity abroad unlicensed, or for brewieg it too weak for
house consumption. During the whole reign of EU
zi-
beth the foreign demand for English beer continue d to
increase, and the liberty of export was only occasion,.l,y
checked by the occurrence of scarcity or dearth at home.
What we call beer is of later origin than ale. Thus
sings the poet:—
Ale for antiquity may plead and stand,
Before the conquest, conquering in this land;
Deere, that is younger brother of her age,
Was not then born, nor ripe to be her page.
The Philosopher's Banquet, 1633.
Taken regularly and moderately, ale is nourishing,
wholesome, and conducive to longevity. The epitaph on
Brawn, the famous Irish beggar, who died at a great age
in Cornwall, is a testimony in favour of this beverage:—
flare Brawn, the common beggar, lies,
Who counted by his tale,
Some six score winters and above—
Such virtue there's in ale.
Ale was his meat, his drink, his cloth,
Ale did his death reprieve ;
And could he still have drank his ale,
He had been still alive. _

Every reader of romance knows that it was the custom
of our Saxon ancestors to drink their ale out of skulls et
their feasts. Such were the rode ale-bowls of antiquit) .
At Braintree and Bocking, in Essex, when topers partake
of a pot of ale,the measure they have it in is a peg tankard
divided into three parts or daughts, the first of which is
called neckum, the second sink um, and the third sivorthurs.
For the origin of bottled ale, we suppose we must receive
the quaint account given by Fuller in his " Worthies of
Lancashire." He relates that the learned and pious Sir
Henry Wotton, having one day left his usual piscatory
companion, to wit, a bottle of ale, in the grass beside the
river Thames; be found it some days after, when, lo and
behold, it was " no bottle, but a gun, such the sound at
the opening thereof." This anecdote reminds us of an
Indian, who, being at an Englishman's table at Surat,
expressed his surprise by loud exclamations, on seeing
a vast quantity of froth ooze out of a bottle of porter as
soon as the cork was drawn. Being asked what surprised
him, he replied, " I don't wonder at all that the froth
comes out of the bottle; but how the deuce did you ever
contrive to squeeze it all in?"
For centuries past, la bonne mere d'Angleterre has
been spoken of in raptures by Frenchmen, Belgians, Ger-
mans, and other people. When the Persian Ambassador
and his suite left England a few years since, many of them
shed tears. One of them, struck v ith the quiet of an
Englishman's life compared with that of a Persian, de-
clared that he could not desire a better paradise than
Chelsea Hospital, where, for the rest of his life, he could
wish to sit under the trees, and do nothing but drink PS
much porter as he liked. Madame Malibran, like' many
other foreign a; tastes of both sexes, preferred bottled
porter to any other beverage. Her favourite repast, at
the conclusion of an evening's arduous performance, con-
sisted of oysters and bottled porter, 'yclept stout; not
a very pernicious indulgence, but her fondness for it gave
rise to a very ludicrous mistake on her part. Malibran,
hearing the name of the Honourable Craven Berkeley
announced in company, exclaimed with great animation,
as she seized his hand, " Ah! Mr. Barclay and Perkins,
I do owe you so mach!" The Berkeley family pronounce
their name Barclay—hence poor Malibran's mistake. The
last time Madame Pasta was in England, a literary lady
of distinction asked her whether she drank as rime!'
porter as usual. " No, mia care, prendo half-and-hi:lf
adessa," she replied. At Munich beer is regarded by
the King and his people as indispensable to the health
and comfort of the entire community. Within the last
few months that capital was the scene of a riot, arising
out of popular indignation against the brewers for rais-
ing the price of beer. If a Bavarian peasant is not at
work he is sure to have a can in his hand. Beer is to
him what it was to Boniface—meat, drink, sleep, arid
clothing; for, notwithstanding this penchant fer beer,
no signs of poverty are visible, from one end of the Ba-
varian dominions to the other.

llogarth's print of Beer Street has the following lines
appended to it :
Beer, happy produce of our isle,
Can sinewy strength impart,
And, wearied with fatigue and toil,
Can cheer each manly heart.
Labour and art, upheld by thee,
Successfully advance ;
We quaff the balmy juice with glee,
And water leave to France.
Genius of health! thv grateful taste
Rivals the cup of Jove,
And warms each generous English breast
With liberty and love.
. . . „ _ .

The celebrated Professor Liebig says, that wine,
spirits, and beer, are necessary principles for the im-
portant process of respiration ; and it would seem that
the stomachs of all mankind, teetotallers included, Niil
secrete those articles from the food which is catty.
We see frequently interesting evidence of this
fact in the case of a horse, after a feed of
corn, resuming his journey with readiness and
energy, although quite knocked up and out of breath a
few minutes before. The simple fact is, that the horse
converts the corn into bee; which facilitates his powers
of respiration, and gives him fresh vivacity. If any man
is resolved to carry out total abstinence strictly, he must
refuse every sort of ♦egetable food, even bread itself; for
all such diet contains more or less alcohol. In the Gco •
graphical Society's Journal (vol. ii. p. 286), it is recorded
that during a severe wit ter on the west coast of Africa,
the crew of the lEtna suffered so much from scurvy,
that the least scratch had a tendency to become a
dangerous wound. Capt. Belcher states, that " fish diet
was found to aggravate the complaint ; and it is worthy
of remark, that when our ships used to suffer so much
from scurvy, stockfish was a portion of their allowance.
The only thing which appeared materially to check the
disease was beer made of the essence of malt and hops ;
and I feel satisfied that a general issue of this on the
coast of Africa would be very salutary, and have the
effect especially of keeping up the constitutions of men
subjected to heavy labour in boats."--Quarterly Journal
of Agriculture.

OPENING OF THE SEW HALL, LINCOLN'S INN.—
Extensive preparations for opening the new hall of Lin-
coln's Inn, on Thursday next, the 30th instant, are going
forward, and nearly 100 workmen are daily employed.
The opening will be honoured with the presence of her Ma-
jesty Queen Victoria, his Royal Highness Prince Albert,
the Cabinet Ministers and great officers of State, and the
chief officers of her Majesty's household, the whole number-
ing eighty persons. Her Majesty will leave the Palace
shortly after twelve o'clock, and arrive at Lincoln's Inn at about
one, where her Majesty will be received by his Honour the
Vice-Chancellor of England and other authorities of Lincoln's
Inn, when her Majesty 'will be conducted to a splendid room
adjoining the great hall, that has been fitted up expressly
for her Majesty's reception. It was originally the intention
of the authorities to receive,her Majesty at the chief entrance
of the hall, opposite the old square, but on a close examination
of the size of the area in front it was found too confined to
allow the royal state carriage, with eight horses, to drive
up and return, and this part of the arrangement was neces-
sarily abandoned. Consequently her Majesty and herillus-
trious Consort will be received at the students' entrance,
next Lincoln's Inn-fields, which will be covered over with
scarlet drapery, and the steps will also be covered with the
richest carpets. Upon her Majesty and Prince Albert
taking their seats at the banquet they will bejoined by the
company who will have that high privilege. It is expected
that her Majesty's stay will be about two hours. The
students who are not privileged to the royal banquet will
dine together in the hall of the Court of Chancery at six
o'clock on the same evening. The whole of the decorative
portion of the work of the interior has been intrusted to Mr.
Palmer, of Piccadilly, and is spoken of in the highest terms
of commendation. The thoroughfare through Lincoln's Inn
will be closed on the above day, and a large body of the A
division of police will be sent down to assist the police of the
district in preserving order, and for securing the free access
for the numerous guests invited on the occasion.
EXPERIMENTS IN WOOLWICH MARSHES, OCT. 24.—
Colonel Lacy, Director of the carriage department in the
Royal Arsenal, Lieutanant-Colonel Dansey, C. 8., Lieut.-
Colonel Dundas, C. 8., Lieutenant-Colonel Chalmer, Assis-
tant Director-General of Artillery, Lieutenant-Colonel Har •
dinge, K.H., Lieutenant-Colonel Colquhoun and Captain
Palliser, of the Royal Artillery; Lieutenant-Colonel Barney,
Commandant of the Royal Engineers; Brigade-Major Sand-
ham and Captain Wynne, Royal Engineers, assembled in
the Marshes at two o'clock, P.M., to witness experiments with
a newly-erected one-gun battery, constrncted, under the
superintendence of Lieutenant-Colonel Barney, on a principle
suggested by Colonel Abbot. The battery was made 10
feet in th:ekness, by about 21 feet in front, and 8 feet high,
with tie embrasure faced with stone inside, into which was
fixed an iron bolt attaching a traversing platform 16 feet
long, on which an 8-inch gun on a ship or garrison carriage
was mounted. The base of the embrasure is very high, on
Colonel Abbott's principle, being within half an inch of the
under part of the gun when run out for firing, and directed
against an object about six feet high at2so yards' range. The
firing took place with hollow 8 inch shells,weighing4Blb. and
561 h., and the charges of powder were in the first instances
81b., and afterwards 101 b. to each round, and the last shell
fired burst from the effect of the large charge, although it did
not contain any explosive materials inside the metal of which
it was formed. 17 rounds were fired into the mound, and
the shortest recoil of the gun and carriage on the platform
was 6 feet 1 inch, the whole giving an average recoil of 7 fret
ce inches. The masonry of the embrasure appeared to
answer very well and proved very secure. The
.wheels
of the traversing platform are supported on circular pieces
of
iron screwed down upon wood imbedded in the earth, similar
to railway sleepers and about the same dimensions. The
other parts of the ground are left in the usual state, with a
i
small quantity of sand and gravel packed upon t to render
it dry. The experiments were concluded for the day at four
o'clock,
Sue R. MUSGRAVE.—WhiIst we are every day re-
ceiving letters as to the treatment of the poor by their land-
lords in a certain locality, we are most proud to learn that
this true lrishman and benevolent landlord is acting ac-
cording to the principles and tenor of his life. His disinter-
ested conduct at this peculiar crisis is worth laying before
the public. He has given orders to all his tenants not to sell
a grain of corn, that the people of the district may be so far
preserved from any approaching scarcity of food. Would
that other landlords in his neighbourhood would go and do
likewise.—Cork Examiner.

We understand that on Thursday evening two
scientific gentlemen, well known in London, were dispatched
by the Government to Ireland, in order to examine into the
real state of the potato crop, and to make a report upon the
subject. —Post.