74 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [iv. 



substantive denoting the action itself, though we do use 

 names identical with, or plainly derived from, theirs for 

 the scum and lees. These are called, in Low German, 

 "gascht" and "gischt;" in Anglo-Saxon, "gest," "gist," 

 and "yst," whence our "yeast." Again, in Low German 

 and in Anglo-Saxon, there is another name for yeast, 

 having the form " barm," or " beorm ; " and, in the 

 Midland Counties, " barm " is the name by which yeast 

 is still best known. In High German, there is a third 

 name for yeast, " hefe," which is not represented in 

 English, so far as I know. 



All these words are said by philologers to be derived 

 from roots expressive of the intestine motion of a 

 fermenting substance. Thus "hefe" is derived from 

 "heben," to raise; "barm" from "beren" or "baren," 

 to bear up ; " yeast," " yst," and " gist," have all to do 

 with seething and foam, with "yeasty waves," and 

 " gusty " breezes. 



The same reference to the swelling up of the ferment- 

 ing substance is seen in the Gallo-Latin terms "levure" 

 and " leaven." 



It is highly creditable to the ingenuity of our ancestors 

 that the peculiar property of fermented liquids, in virtue 

 of which they " make glad the heart of man/' seems to 

 have been known in the remotest periods of which we 

 have any record. All savages take to alcoholic fluids 

 as if they were to the manner born. Our Vedic fore- 

 fathers intoxicated themselves with the juice of the 

 " soma ; " Noah, by a not unnatural reaction against a 

 superfluity of water, appears to have taken the earliest 

 practicable opportunity of qualifying that which he was 

 obliged to drink ; and the ghosts of the ancient Egyptians 

 were solaced by pictures of banquets in which the wine- 

 cup passes round, graven on the walls of their tombs. 

 A knowledge of the process of fermentation, therefore, 



