68 AUBREY'S NATURAL HISTORY OF WILTSHIRE. 



thirty yeares since. In the time of the Roman Catholique religion, when a world of wax candles 

 were used in the churches, bees-wax was a considerable commodity. 



To make Metheglyn : (from Mistress Hatchman. This receipt makes good Metheglyn ; I thinke 

 as good as the Devises). Allow to every quart of honey a gallon of water ; and when the honey is 

 dissolved, trie if it will beare an egg to the breadth of tliree pence above the liquor ; or if you will 

 have it stronger putt in more honey. Then set it on the fire, and when the froth comes on the toppe 

 of it, skimme it cleane ; then crack eight or ten hen-egges and putt in the liquor to cleare it : two or 

 three handfulls of sweet bryar, and so much of muscovie, and sweet marjoram the like quantity ; some 

 doe put sweet cis, or if you please put in a little of orris root. Boyle all these untill the egges begin 

 to look black, (these egges may be enough for a hoggeshead,) then straine it forth through a fine sieve 

 into a vessell to coole ; the next day tunne it up in a barrell, and when it hath workt itself cleare, 

 which will be in about a weeke's time, stop it up very close, and if you make it strong enough, sc. to 

 carry the breadth of a sixpence, it will keep a yeare. Tliis receipt is something neer that of Mr. 

 Thorn. Piers of the Devises, the great Metheglyn-maker. Metheglyn is a pretty considerable manu- 

 facture in this towne time out of mind. I doe believe that a quantity of mountain thyme would be a 

 very proper ingredient; for it is most wholesome and fragrant. [Aubrey also gives another 

 "receipt to make white metheglyn," which he obtained "from old Sir Edward Baynton, 1640." 

 I have seen this old English beverage made by my grandmother, as here described. J. B.] 



Mr. Francis Potter, Rector of Kilmanton, did sett a lu've of bees in one of the lances of a paire of 

 scales in a little closet, and found that in summer dayes they gathered about halfe a pound a day ; 

 and one day, which he conceived was a honey-dew, they gathered three pounds wanting a quarter. 

 The hive would be something lighter in the morning than at night. Also he tooke five live bees and 

 putt them in a paper, which he did cutt like a grate, and weighed them, and in an hower or two 

 they would wast the weight of three or four wheatcomes. He bids me observe their thighes in a 

 microscope. (Upon the Brenta river, by Padua in Italy, they have lu'ves of bees in open boates ; 

 the bees goe out to feed and gather till the honey-dews are spent neer the boate ; and then the bee 

 master rows the boate to a fresh place, and by the sinking of the boate knows when to take the honey, 

 &c. J. EVELYN.) 



