48 Wine, Beere, 



of the time of Henry III of England. The verses, as given by Camden, are as 

 follows: 



Nescio quod Stygiae monstrum conforme paludi, 

 Cervisiam plerique vocant; nil spissius ilia, 

 Dum bibitur; nil darius est dum mingitur; unde 

 Constat quod multas feces in ventre relinquit. 



A translation of these verses, apparently independent of that in the text, occurs 

 in Randolph's Aristippus (Works, ed. Hazlitt, I, 21), where the poem is ascribed 

 to Ennius: "There is a drink made of the Stygian Lake," etc. For a remote 

 parallel to these verses see the Epigram of the Emperor JuUan, dted above, p. 10. 

 Cf. Victor Hehn, Ktdturpflanzen und Hausthiere in ihrem Uebergang aus Asien. 

 Berlin, 1887, Sth edition, p. 123. 



304. Ale from Alo. The derivation appears to have been a commonplace. 

 Cf. Randolph, The High and Mighty Commendation of the Virtue of a Pot of Good 

 Ale {Works, ed. HazUtt, II, 666) : " O ale, ab alendo, thou Uquor of Ufe." 



315. But thou art come downe of late to a glasse, Wine. Rather because of the 

 statute against drunkenness than because of the rise in price. 



363. you are all my kinsmen. Cf. Howell, Familiar Letters, II, xUv: "But 

 we may say, that what beverage soever we make, either by brewing, by distillation, 

 decoction, percolation, or pressing, it is but water at first: Nay, Wine itself is but 

 Water sublim'd." 



375. Water shall allow each of you a singtdaritie. For the form of the derision 

 and its resemblance to the judgment in Work for Cutlers, etc., see Introduction, 

 p. 15, note. Cf. Johnson's dictum: "Claret is the Uquor for boys; port for men; 

 but he who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy.'' (Boswell's Life of Johnson, 

 ed. Hill, IH, 381). The apportionment of wine to the court, beer to the dty, and 

 ale to the country is in accordance with tradition and fact. Cf . Fynes Moryson, 

 Itinerary, Ed. of 1907, IV, 176: "Clownes and vulgar men onely use large drinking 

 of Beere or Ale, how much soever it is esteemed excellent drinke even among 

 strangers; but Gentlemen garrawse onely in Wine." 



378. nimble and active watering, to make their hraines fruitfuU. Does the author 

 have in mind FalstafE's famous panegyric on sack (II Henry IV, IV, iii, 92 ff)? "It 

 ascends me into the brain; dries me there all the foolish and duU and crudy vapours 

 which environ it; makes it apprehensive, quick, forgetive, full of nimble, fiery and 

 delectable shapes; which deUver'd o'er to the voice, the tongue, which is the birth, 



becomes excellent wit Hereof comes it that Prince Harry is valiant; 



for the cold blood he did naturally inherit of his father, he hath, like lean, sterile, 



and bare land, manur'd, husbanded, and till'd " Cf. also Ra.ndolph's 



Aristippus, quoted above, note to line 118, where there is also a resemblance to 

 Falstaff's soliloquy. 



379. Pecundi calices quern nan. Horace, EpisO.es, I,v,19:"Fecundi calices 

 quern nonfecere disertum." 



