f as great antiquity. Its use was not unknown by the Egyptians; as we
are informed by Herodotus that the people of Egypt made use of _a kind
of wine_ made from dried barley, because no vines grew in that
country. According to Tacitus, in his time beer was the common drink
of the Germans, who drank it in preference to that more stimulating
(if not more nutritious) liquor, wine. We are also informed by Pliny,
that it was made and was in common use amongst the Gauls, and by many
of their neighbours. The name he gave to this drink was "_cerevisia_"
which evidently alludes to the article from which it was composed.
Although these nations held this liquor in such estimation, there has
been no record to inform us of their mode of preparing it.

Ale was introduced into our country centuries ago, by our Saxon
ancestors, and it was not long ere it became the favourite and common
drink of all classes of society. Their habit of drinking it out of
skulls, at their feasts, is well known to the reader of romance. It
was then, as it is now, commonly sold at houses of entertainment to
the people. After the Norman Conquest, the vine was very extensively
planted in England, but was drunk alone, as a chronicle of that time
says, "by the wise and the learned;" the people did not lose their
relish for the beverage of their forefathers, and wine was never held
in much respect by them. Hops had hitherto not been used in the
composition of beer; but about the fifteenth century they were
introduced by the brewers of the Netherlands with great success; from
them we adopted the practice, and they came into general use about two
centuries afterwards. Some historians have affirmed that Henry VI.
forbade the planting of hops; but it is certain that "bluff King Hal"
ordered brewers to put neither hops _nor sulphur_ into their ale. The
taste of the nation in the reign of Henry VI. seems to have changed,
as we find in the records of that time that extensive "privileges"
(_monopolies_ these _enlightened_ times would have called them) were
annexed to hop-grounds. In the reign of James I. the produce of
hop-grounds were insufficient for the consumption, and a law was made
against the introduction of "spoilt hops." Walter Blithe, in his
_Improver Improved_, published in 1649, (3rd edit. 1653) has a chapter
upon improvements by plantations of hops, which has this striking
passage. He observes that "hops were then grown to be a national
commodity; but that it