44 Wine, Beere, 



NOTES 



Title Page. Siccis omnia. Horace, Odes, 1, xviii, 3. 



S. Ok sometimes without Sugar. The mixing of sugar with wine was apparently 

 confined to England. Fynes Moryson {Itinerary, ed. 1907, iv, 176) remarks that he 

 has never observed sugar used for the purpose in any other country. "And be- 

 cause the taste of the English is thus deUghted with sweetnesse,'' Moryson con- 

 tinues, "the Wines in Tavemes (for I speake not of Merchants or Gentlemens 

 Cellars) are commonly mixed at the filUng thereof, to make them pleasant." The 

 practice of sugaring wine is often commented on with surprise by foreign travellers 

 in England. (See Rye, England as seen by Foreigners, p. 190.) From the present 

 passage it appears that sugar was at this time customarily used to disguise the 

 taste of inferior or adulterated wines. Yet Falstaff, who protested against adul- 

 terants ("There's lime in this sack, too!"), habitually drank sweetened wine. 



16. to the honest Countrey man Ale too. Cf. Greene, Looking Glasse for London 

 and England, I, ii, 247-8 {Works, ed. CoUins, I): "for marke you, sir, a pot of Ale 

 consists of four parts, Imprimus the Ale, the Toast, the Ginger, and the Notmeg." 



41. What's that a Ghost? The remark suggests the costume, half white and 

 half pale-blue, of the character Sugar in Maeterlinck's The Blue Bird. 



51. / have knowne him solde for two pence. The price of sugar at this time 

 ranged from Is 8d per pound for "fine" sugar to about Is for ordinary sugar. 

 (See Rogers, A History of Agriculture and Prices, V, 472.) Later in the seventeenth 

 century, with the importation of sugar from the new world, prices greatly decreased. 

 The Uttle paper of sugar sold in the taverns to the drinkers doubtless contained less 

 than an ounce of the precious stuff, if we are to allow mine host a fair profit above 

 the current price. 



56. you come from Barbary your sdfe. The north and west coasts of Africa, 

 with the adjacent islands, were an important source of sugar importation into 

 England at this time, though the trade with the new world had already begun. 

 (See Ellen D. Ellis, An Introduction to the History of Sugar as a Commodity, Bryn 

 Mawr College Monographs.) Some sugar bought by Lord Spencer in 1605 at the 

 high price of 2s the pound is designated in the records as "Barbary sugar." (Rog- 

 ers, A History of Agriculture and Prices, V, 462.) 



76. / heare say you runne a wenching. The fondness of the English and es- 

 pecially of EngUsh women for sweets of every kind was a soiurce of wonder to 

 foreigners. The Spaniards who came to England with the embassy of the Count 

 ViUamediana in 1603 won the favor of the fair ladies of Canterbury by presenting 

 them through their lattices with sweetmeats, "which they enjoyed mightily; for (it 

 is remarked) they eat nothing but what is sweetened with sugar." (Rye, England 

 as seen by Foreigners, p. 190.) Cf. the allusion to eating sugar on toast (above, 

 I. 66), and drinking it with water (above, line 470). The efiect on the teeth of 

 a too Uberal indulgence of this taste is often alluded to. Thus the German, Paul 

 Hentzner, describing the person of Queen Elizabeth, remarks the blackness of her 

 teeth, "a defect the English seem subject to, from their too great use of sugar." 

 (Quoted by Rye, ib., 104.) 



