The Service. 55 



greenish brown, usually with a sprinkling of small white 

 spots ; and (in England) only two or three of the cluster 

 usually remain to get ripe. They are mature about the 

 same time as the medlar, which they agree with also 

 in being excessively austere until decay begins, say in 

 December, and then they remind us, alike in substance 

 and flavour, of a brown Beurre pear. After eating, 

 they leave in the throat a peculiar sensation of warmth. 



Being a native of the south of Europe (occurring also 

 in Algeria), the fruit was well known to the people of two 

 thousand years ago. Virgil, in his description of the cus- 

 toms of the Scythians, says that being unpossessed of the 

 vine, they "joyously imitated the juice of the grape, with 

 fermented cups of atidis sorbis" This rude beverage was 

 at a later period called cerevisia (the name, originally, 

 of a drink something like beer), and being one that seems 

 never to have gone out of fashion, cerevisia at last became 

 the name of the tree, the spelling changed to "service." 

 Evelyn, in the "Sylva," chap, xv., says that "ale and beer, 

 being brewed with these berries, being ripe, is an incom- 

 parable drink." The fruit is still a common article of 

 food in Italy and France, where it is "preserved" and 

 considered useful in cases of dysentery. It appears also 

 in the markets of Wiesbaden, and is sold in the streets 

 of Constantinople under the name of kizilzicks, literally 

 " little reds," the colour of the fruit while unripe, being 

 in Turkey, not far from ruddy. The warmer climate 

 does not mitigate the intense acerbity. So acid and 

 astringent is the Service even there, that a Turkish 



