46 Wine, Beere, 



importance. On Greek wines in England see Cyrus Redding, A History of Modern 

 Wines, 25 and 290. Cf. Howell, Familiar Letters, II, liv: "In Greece there are no 

 wines that have bodies, enough to bear the sea for long voyages ; some few muscadells 

 and malmsies are brought over in smaU casks." For an account of the wines used 

 in England in the sixteenth century see William Turner's A New Booh of the Nature 

 and Properties of Wines, 1568, extract giving Enumeration of Enghsh wines, in 

 Arber, An English Garner II, 113. 



130. Who dares denie that I have heene a travailler. This argument and Beer's 

 answer, "Art thou not kept tmder lock and key," appear in one form or another 

 in many of the continental debates of Wine and Water. Cf. Denudata Veritate 

 (DuMeril, PoSsies Inidites p. 305), where Water says to Wine 



Propter tuam pravitatem 

 Nullam habes libertatem 



domos tenes parvulas: 

 Ego magna sum in mimdo; 

 Dissoluta, me dififimdo 

 Per terrae particulas. 



In the French Debat of the fifteenth century the argument is modified. Wine 

 implies that it is shut up as being the more predous liquor, while water is left at 

 large because it is valueless. (Le debat du vin et de I'eau in Le debat de deux demoysd- 

 les, p. 133.) 



"le suis gard6 en grans vesseaulx 



En queus, en muys et en tonneaulx; 



Tu cours partout comme folle." 



So also in the more popular French and German versions of the debate. 



138. Away hop of my thumbe. In Lingua, which is generally supposed to have 

 been revived and acted at Cambridge between 1616 and 1620 (Modern Language 

 Review, III, 146, and Retrospective Review, XII, 33), the part of Small Beer was 

 taken by a diminutive boy. The character Beere in the present play is scornfully 

 addressed as "Small Beere" above, 1. 637. 



146. the very preparative to a thousand rapes and murders. Cf. Denudata 

 Veritate, (DuMeril, Poesies Inedites) : 



Et qui tuus est amator 

 Homicida fornicator'' etc. 



161. Did not every man call you Bastard tother day. Bastard was a sweet Spanish 

 wine, resembling muscadel in flavor; the word was sometimes applied to any 

 sweetened wine. The New English Dictionary dtes Surfl. and Markh. Country 



Farm. (1616) 642: "Bastards seeme to me to be so called, because 



they are oftentimes adulterated and falsified with honey." 



207; old women and elder brothers, i. e. to the disgust of their next heirs. 



