had obligingly forwarded the
grievance to the Lords of the Council.

Their answer ran: 'The Court.... The Council to George Carey, J.P....'
They learn by his late letter that the county is unwilling to contribute
the charges imposed upon it for 'setting out ships etc.' It is paid
cheerfully by other counties, and he is desired to return the names of
those persons who are obstinate in refusing payment.

There is no building of special interest excepting the church, which is
dedicated to St Thomas a Becket. The arches dividing the aisles from the
nave are high and rather pointed, giving an impression of loftiness.
There is a beautiful carved screen, with painted figures on the panels;
and the font is a very early one. Of the infants baptized in it, one at
least obtained a rather unenviable celebrity--Dr John Wolcot, better
known as 'Peter Pindar.' His bitter satires earned for him a harvest of
hatred and abuse, but nobody denied his wit. 'There is a pretty story of
the older Pindar that a swarm of bees lighted on his cradle in his
infancy and left honey on his lips; but we fear in the case of our hero
they were wasps that came, and that they left some of the caustic venom
of their stings.' A surgeon's son, he studied medicine himself, but was
unpopular with his patients for the reason that his ideas were too far
ahead of his time. His opinion that 'a physician can do little more than
watch Dame Nature, and give her a shove in the back when he sees her
inclined to do right,' was considered a shocking heresy, and, no doubt,
a confession of his own ignorance.

Before leaving Dodbrooke, mention must be made of the 'white ale'
peculiar to the place--a compound of malt, hops, and flour, fermented
with an ingredient called 'grout.' Some of the statements about this ale
show the curious tendency of traditions to transfer themselves from
points in the nebulous past to points that are just beyond the range of
living memory. It is difficult to discover when 'white ale' was first
made, but the general idea is that it was invented a very long time ago,
though personally I have not been able to find any indisputable
reference to it earlier than in the edition of Camden's 'Britannia'
published in 1720, where there is a brief notice that the people of
Dodbrooke pay tithes in white ale to the Rector. A will dated 1528,
however, gives directions in regard to a gift that was to include
'cakes, wine, and ale,' and it has been supposed that