PREFACE. Vll 



As an addition to the FIFTH EDITION of this little book, the Author 

 conceives he could not fix on any subject more useful, or more gene- 

 rally interesting to his Country readers, than that of the PRIVATE 

 BREWERY and the consideration which more especially served to fix 

 his choice was, that he has been occasionally and personally conver- 

 sant in the practice, throughout the greater part of his life. Indeed, 

 this has been one of his hobby-horses, of which he has always kept a 

 competent number : and happy is he, who hath his quiver full of them 

 warranted of the rational and profitable class he shall then have 

 no need of steel, of cold lead, of rats-bane, or of a hempen necklace ; 

 nor be reduced to the lamentable necessity of taking to his chair, and 

 beating the devil's tattoo over the miseries of life, which assuredly will 

 never submit to such a remedy. If the tcedium vttce (wearisomeness of 

 life) can find a remedy, it must consist in virtuous and useful action, 

 the sphere of which is confined to neither town nor country, but of 

 which the latter is, in an eminent manner the appropriate theatre. 



With the common rules for making beer, already so often repeated, 

 the author has also, to the best of his experience and information, di- 

 lated on the nature and properties of that universal English beverage, 

 to the end, he trusts, that his readers may profit thereby, and escape 

 all frauds and deceptions, those excepted which they may choose vo- 

 luntarily to impose on themselves. 



May 10, 1824. 



Preface to the Sixth Edition. 



THE decided favour of the Public having taken off five very 

 large editions of this Work, and the Country friends of the 

 Author, during some time past, having repeated their opi- 

 nions, that a new impression was in request, and would 

 doubtless be acceptable, it is at length presented to the 

 country, with considerable additions, and every species of 

 improvement within the author's view or recollection. 



Two Articles have been added on CHEESE and CIDER; 

 with also a few wood cuts, which, although we are not so 

 ostentatiously modish or modest as to style ' pictorial em- 

 bellishments,' we yet trust will pass muster, at least with 



