316 
rooins in which lectures are proposed to 
be delivered, itis particularly desirable 
that there shall be no echo. The shape 
of the room, and the use of stucco on 
the walls, or what proportion of stucco 
should be used, or if it should be used at 
all, are points very worthy of consi- 
deration. Your's, &e. 
Oct. 2, 1807. 8: 
see 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SIR 
UCH is the despotism, and even 
convenient influence of establish- 
ed custom over the affections, the mo- 
ral and physical tastes of mankind, 
that we ought not to be surprised at 
difiiculties eenerall yexperienced by those 
who attempt to introduce even the 
most obviously beneficial innovations, 
The error, durmg a long course of time, 
may have linked itself with'the interests 
of bless or even become as simulated with 
his existence: Various instances are 
upon record, of slaves: having refused the 
proffered boon of liberty from their 
proprietors. Not to insist on the si 
of habit, of prejudice, and suspicion, 1 
the minds of the ignorant, of what use Is 
liberty itself to such, without the obvious 
and certain means of making it subser- 
vient to the support of lifep We need 
not, then, surely fatigue ourselves to be 
surprised that this self same, universal 
deity, Custom, should enslave tlie tastes 
of the good people of England to adulte- 
rated beer, influencing them to prefer it 
to the pure and genuine, or that grave and 
irrefragable doctors should hold forth and 
write in favour of London porter, more 
especially for the use of the nursery,and as 
a beverage the best calculated to make milk 
for the risinggeneration. Nothing can be 
more true, “than that adulterated beers 
have had a general preference among us, 
both m town and country, for the last 
twenty or thirty years, and that the great 
national advantage, which, it is to be 
hoped, will result from the establisment 
of new breweries, upon the plan of com- 
mon honesty, must be attributed to causes 
altogether distinct from public choice or 
discrimination. 
I thall recuest indulgence, 1} Mr. Editor, 
for a little more prefatory, perhaps de- 
suitory, matter. In former days, the art 
and mystery, of brewing beer had not 
been clevate 23 at present, to the rank 
of a science; it generally consistéd, whe- 
ther in the public or private’ way, of a 
few plain rules, derived from long, but 
not very difusive practical experience. 
These rules were sufiicient for the manu- 
On the common Brewery. 
[ Nov. I 
facture of very good beer, although, it 
must be acknowledged, at a very consi- 
derable expence of malt, Lhe grand ob- 
ject, indeed, of those piping times, was 
good, nutritious, and exhilirating beer; 
not, as in this age of taxes, the saving of 
malt. But as people become fastidious, 
and their palates dainty, from luxurious 
enjoyment, and as the appetite is ever 
prone to high-seasoned luxuries, the most 
popular, that is, the most intoxicating 
ales and beers of that day were those 
doctored, or adulterated with stimulating 
drugs, w hieh were in use In many common 
brewer ies, notwithstanding the denuncia- 
tions of old Elves, in his Treatise on Brew- 
ing, of those horrers which the con- 
sciences of the adulterators would inflict: 
upon them, im their latter days.- The 
sin was, indeed, then far more common, 
than regret for its commission; and we 
have not of late days heard a single in- 
stance of the death-bed repentance of a 
brewer, for the number of fellow-chris- 
tians he might have poisoned by adulte- 
rating his beer. The adulteration, howe- 
ver, was by no means so general in those 
times as since, nor the quantities of drugs 
used so large or various; the intent being 
not so much to spare malt, as to impart 
to the drink a novel and racy flavour and 
an intoxicating quality. 
But the perfection of the art of brew- 
ing,as it then stood, was remar kably con- 
fined to particular towns ov districts, and 
I well remember one considerable and po- 
pulous town, with a river of the finest 
water in the world washing its descents, 
which had been immemorially infamous 
for hard, rough, unpalatable beer, afflict- 
ing all new comers with the belly-ache, 
and which even the inhabitants, inspite 
of all the prejudice of custom, would ne- 
ver drink when they could obtain any 
other. In consequence, two brewers, 
one about twenty miles to the east, ano- 
ther about ten miles to the westward, 
reaped the benefit of supplying the olin, 
in question, with considerable quantities 
of beer. Yet so excellent a concern has — 
the brewery ever proved, that large for- 
tunes had already been made by it even 
inthis place. Nay, éven the royal blood of 
Stuart is said to have been mixed with the 
Lieod ofa-common brewer; on which 
fact, or pretended fact, I shall subjoin'a 
query at the end, for f dislike notes. 
This irregularity of skill and practice 
was remarkably predominant, m both 
public and private brewing, and whilst 
some respectable country families had:a, 
sort of hereditary right ‘to boast of the 
purity, substayce, and fineness of their 
beer, 
