Oct. 12. 1850.] 



NOTES AND QUERIEa 



315 



EISEIJ- AND WORMWOOD V.IJ.E. 



(Vol. ii., p. 249.) 



If Pepys' friends actually did drink up the 

 two quarts of wovmioood wine whicli he gave them, 

 It must, as Lord Braybrooke suggests, have been 

 rendered more palatable than the propoma which 

 was in use in Shakspeare's time. I have been 

 furnished by a distinguished friend with the fol- 

 lowing, among other Notes, corroborative of my 

 explanation of cisell : 



" I have found no better recipe for making worm- 

 wood wine tVian that given by old Langham in his 

 Garden of Health ; and as he directs its use to be con- 

 fined to ' Streine out a liltJe spoonfub and drinke it 

 with a draught of ale or wine,' I think it must have 

 been so atrociously unpalatable, that to drin/i it up, as 

 Hamlet challenged Laertes to do, would have been as 

 strong an argumentum ad stomachnm as to digest a 

 crocodile, even when appetised by a slice of the loaf." 



It is evident, therefore, that but small doses of 

 this nauseously bitter medicament were taken at 

 once, and to take a large draught, to drink up) a 

 quantity, " would be an extreme pass of amorous 

 demonstration sufficient, one would think, to have 

 satisfied even Hamlet." Oiir ancestors seem to 

 have been partial to medicated wines ; and it is 

 most probable that the wormwood wine Pepys gave 

 his friends had only a slight infusion of the bitter 

 principle ; for we can hardly conceive that such 

 "pottle draughts" as two quarts could be taken 

 as a treat, of such a nostrum as the Ahsinthites, or 

 wormwood wine, mentioned by Stuckius, or that 

 prescribed by the worthy Langham. 



S. W. Singer. 



Mickleham, Sept. 30. 1850. 



Eisell (Vol. ii., p. 242.). — The attempt of your 

 very learned correspondent. Me. Singer, to show 

 that " eisell" was wo?-?mvood, is, I fear, more in- 

 genious than satisfactory. It is quite true that 

 wormwood wine and beer were ordinary beverages, 

 as wormwood bitters are now ; but Hamlet would 

 have done little in challenging Laertes to a 

 draught of wormwood. As to " eisell," we have 

 the following account of it in the " Via Recta ad 

 Vitam longam, or a Plaine Philosophical Discourse 

 of the Nature, Faculties, and Eilects of all such 

 Things as by way of Nourishments, and Die- 

 teticale Observations make ibr the Preservation of 

 Health, &c. &c. By Jo. Vernier, Doctor of Phy- 

 eicke at Bathe in the Spring and Fall, and at other 

 Times in the Biirrougli of North-Pelherton, neere 

 to the Ancient Haven Towne of Bridgewater in 

 Somersetsiiire. London, 1G20." 



" £isell, or the vine;;ar which is ma<ie of cyder, is 

 also a pood sauce; it is of a very |)enclrating nature, 

 and is like to verjuice in operation, hut it is not so 

 astringent, nor altogether so cold," p. 97. 



J. K. N. 



iicplif^ ta IHinar Quench. 



Feltharris Works (Vol. ii., p. 133.). — In addi- 

 tion to the works enumerated by E. N. W., Fel- 

 tham viToie A Discourse upon Ecclesiastes ii. 11.; 

 A Discourse upon St. Luke xiv. 20. ; and A Form 

 of Prayer composed for the Family of the Right 

 Honouralde the Countess of Thomond. These two 

 lists, I believe, comprise the whole of his writings. 

 The meaning of the passage in his Rmnarhs on the 

 Low Countries, appears to be this, that a person 

 "courtly or gentle" would receive as little kind- 

 ness from the inhabitants, and show as great a 

 contrast to their lx)orishness, as the handsome and 

 docile merlin (which is the smallest of the falcon 

 tribe, anciently denominated "noble"), among a 

 crowd of noisy, cunning, thievish crows ; neither 

 remarkable ibr their beauty nor their politeness. 

 The words " after Michaelmas " are useil because 

 " the merlin does not breed here, but visits us in 

 October." Sewich's British Birds, vol. i. p. 43. 



T. H. Kerslet. 



King William's College, Isle of M;m. 



Harefinder (Vol. ii., p. 216.). — The following 

 lines from Drayton's Polyolbion, Song 23., suffi- 

 ciently illustrates this term : — 



" Tlie man whose vacant mind prepares him to the 

 sport 

 The Finder sendeth out, to seeke out nimble Wat, — 

 Which crosseth in the field, each furlong, every flat. 

 Till he this pretty beast upon the form hath found : 

 Then viewing for the course which is the fairest 



ground, 

 The greyhounds forth are brought, for coursing then 



in case, 

 And, choycely in the slip, one leading forth a brace; 

 The Finder puts her up, and gives her coursers' law," 



&c. 

 In the margin, at the second line, are the words, 

 The Harefinder. What other instances are there 

 of Wat, as a name of the hare ? It does not occur 

 in the very curious list in the ReliquicB Autiquce, 

 i. 133. K. 



Fool or a Physician — Rising and Setting 

 Sun (Vol. i., p. 157.). — The inquiry of your cor- 

 respondent C. Forbes, respecting tiic authorship 

 of the two well-known sayings on these subjects, 

 seems to have received no reply. He thinks that 

 we owe them both to that "imperial Llacchiavel, 

 Tiberius." He is right with respect to the one, 

 ami wrong with regard to the other. The saying, 

 1 " that a man after thirty must be either a i()()l or a 

 physicrian," had, as it appears, its origin from Tibe- 

 ] rius ; but the observation that " more worship the 

 ' rising than the setting sun," is to be attributed to 

 Ponipey. 



Tacitus says of Tiberius, that he Avas " solitus 

 cludere medicorum artes, atquc cos ([ui post tri- 

 cesimum setatis annum ad intcrnoscenda corpori 



