The Sun.
London, England, 1827-07-23 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

• OXFORD NIGHT CAPS.
BEING A COLLECTION OF RECEIPTS FOR 'TAKING VARIOUS

BEVERAGES USED IN TIE UNIVERSITY.

Whatever we may think of the politics of
Oxford we much approve of the Night-caps of
Old Rhedycina. Through all her vicissitudes
of Ministerial or anti-Ministerial party, whether
she was Jacobite as of old, or Williamite as at
present, she has held her fame for good liquor.
Compositions of Oxonians in prose or verse,
may perhaps be outrivalled by those of other re-
(=ions but in the composition of Bishop Punch
b
or Rumfustian, the " old mother of Chunbiner
and Tories" stands without question pre-eminent.
And accordingly we see that she has judi-
ciously chosen her Members of Parliament—
one for the promotion of the grand cause of
Toryism, the other to distinguish himself by a
regulation of ale-houses. Mr Peel represents
the heart—Mr. Estcourt the stomach of Oxford.
The various pamphlets demonstrating the danger
of the Church, are under the patronage of the
former—the great work, the name of which we
have put at the head of this article, is, we think,
directed to the attention of the latter. It is a
work in which there is no waste of words—no
circumlocution, no spending of useful time ; it
goes direct to its business and gives at once the
whole history of what it wants to salt' with a
brief precision worthy of Thucydides. We
imagine ourselves, while reading it, transplanted
to the banks of the Isis, and quaffing the Bishop
of Baliol or the swig of Oriel.
• Some of the uninitiated will enquire " what
is Bishop ?" There are ignorant persons, but
in the present times, when mutual education is
the order of the day, we shall condescend to in-
struct the ignorant. Bishop then, to use the
words of our author—
Seems to be one of the oldest winter beverages known,
and to this day is preferred to every other, not only by the
youthful votary of Bacchus at his evening's revelry, lmt also
by the grave Don by way of a night-cap ; and probably de-
rives its name from the circumstance of ancient dignitaries
of the Church, when they honoured the University with a
visit, being regaled with spiced wine. It appears from a
work published some years since, and entitled, " Oxonians,
or Anecdotes of the University of Oxford," that in the
Rolls or Accounts of some Colleges of ancient foundation, a
sum of money is frequently met with charged "pro specie-
bus" that is, for spices used in their entertainments ; for in
those days as well as the present, spiced wine was a very
fashionable beverage. In the Computus of Maxtoke Priory,
anno 1447, is the following curious entry; "Item pro
vino cretico cum speciebus et confectis datis diversis gene-
rosis in die Sancti Dionytiii quando Le fole domini Mout-
fordes erat hic, et faceret jocositates sues in camera Orioli."
" Vinurn cretecunz" is supposed to be raisin wine, or wine
made of dried grapes; and the meaning of the whole seems
to be this : Paid for raisin wine with comfits and spices,
when Sir S. Montford's fool was here, and exhibited his
merriments in the Orid chamber.

RECIPE.—Make several incisions in the rind of a lemon,
stick cloves in the incisions, and roast the lemon by a slow
fare. Put small but equal quantities of cinnamon, cloves,
mace, and all-spice, and a race of ginger, into a saucepan,
with half a pint of water; let it boil until it is reduced one-
half. Boil one bottle of port wine ; burn a portion of the
spirit out of it, by applying a lighted paper to the sauce-
pan. Put the roasted lemons and spice into the wine ;
stir it up well, and let it stand near the fire ten minutes.
Rub a few nobs of sugar on the rind of a lemon, put the
sugar into a bowl or jug, with the juice of half a lemon,
(not roasted,) pour the wine upon it, grate some nutmeg
into it, sweeten it to your taste, and serve it up with the
lemon and spice floating in it.

Oranges, although not used in Bishop at Oxford, are, as
will appear by the following lines, written by Swift, some-
times introduced into that beverage:—

Fine oranges,
Well roasted, with sugar and wine in a cup,

They'll make a sweet bishop when gentlefolks sup.
When this is put upon the table there are few,
we imagine, who would be found to say, Nolo
Episcopari—not even Dr. Percy of Rochester.
But what is Swig? The name sounds low
—it is vulgar. We admit all this ; but what's
in a name ?

Brutus will raise a ghost as well as Coesar.
All sort of malt liquor is, we know, wrong, but
it may be pleasant. We doubt if Mr. Nowell
Buxton, (or any other brewer), would differ
from us in this opinion. However, be it low or
high, here follows the recipe :
The Wassail Bowl, or Swig, as it is termed at Jesus
College in this University, is of considerable antiquity,
and up to this time is a great favourite with the sons of
Cambria; so much so, indeed, that a party seldom dines
or sups in that College without its forming a part of their
entertainment. On the festival of St. David, Cambria's
tutelary Saint, an immense silver gilt bowl, containing ten
gallons, and which was presented to Jesus College by Sir
Watkin W. Wynne in I 752, is filled with Swig, and
handed round to those who are invited on that occasion to
sit at their festive and hospitable board. The following is
the method of manufacturing it at that College :
Put into a bowl half a pound of Lisbon sugar ; pour
on it one pint of warm beer; grate a nutmeg and some
ginger into it ; add four glasses of sherry and five additional
pints of beer; stir it well ; sweeten it to your taste : let
it stand covered up two or three hours, then put three or
four slices of bread cut thin and toasted brown into it, and
it is fit for use. Sometimes a couple or three slices of lemon,
and a few lumps of loaf sugar rubbed on the peeling of a
lemon, are introduced.

Bottle this mixture, and in a few days it may be drank
in a state of effervescence.

The Wassail Bowl, or Wassail Cup, was formerly pre-
pared in nearly the same way as at present, excepting that
roasted apples, or crab apples, were introduced instead of
toasted bread. And up to the present period, in some
parts of the kingdom, there are persons who keep up the
ancient custom of regaling their friends and neighbours on
Christmas-eve and Twelfth-eve with a Wassail Bowl, with
roasted apples floating in it, and which is generally ushered
in with great ceremony. • Shakspeare alludes to the Was-
sail Bowl when he says, iu his Midsummer Night's Dream,
. Sometimes lurk lin a gossip's bowl,
In very likeness of a roasted crab, •
And when she drinks, against her lips I bob,
And on her wither'd dewlap pour the ale.
We shall not say anythimg•further on the sub-
ject 91 hordiaceous drinks. We beg however,