Wine.] All black wines, over-hot, compound, strong thick drinks, as Muscadine, Malmsey, Alicant, Rumney, Brownbastard, Metheglen, and the like, of which they have thirty several kinds in Muscovy, all such made drinks are hurtful in this case, to such as are hot, or of a sanguine choleric complexion, young, or inclined to head-melancholy.  For many times the drinking of wine alone causeth it.  Arculanus, c. 16. in 9.  Rhasis, puts in [1379]wine for a great cause, especially if it be immoderately used.  Guianerius, tract. 15. c. 2, tells a story of two Dutchmen, to whom he gave entertainment in his house, “that [1380]in one month’s space were both melancholy by drinking of wine, one did nought but sing, the other sigh.”  Galen, l. de causis morb. c. 3. Matthiolus on Dioscorides, and above all other Andreas Bachius, l. 3. 18, 19, 20, have reckoned upon those inconveniences that come by wine:  yet notwithstanding all this, to such as are cold, or sluggish melancholy, a cup of wine is good physic, and so doth Mercurialis grant, consil. 25, in that case, if the temperature be cold, as to most melancholy men it is, wine is much commended, if it be moderately used.

Cider, Perry.] Cider and perry are both cold and windy drinks, and for that cause to be neglected, and so are all those hot spiced strong drinks.

Beer.] Beer, if it be over-new or over-stale, over-strong, or not sodden, smell of the cask, sharp, or sour, is most unwholesome, frets, and galls, &c.  Henricus Ayrerus, in a [1381]consultation of his, for one that laboured of hypochondriacal melancholy, discommends beer.  So doth [1382] Crato in that excellent counsel of his, Lib. 2. consil. 21, as too windy, because of the hop.  But he means belike that thick black Bohemian beer used in some other parts of [1383]Germany.

------“nil spissius illa
Dum bibitur, nil clarius est dum mingitur, unde
Constat, quod multas faeces in corpore linquat.”

       “Nothing comes in so thick,
        Nothing goes out so thin,
        It must needs follow then
        The dregs are left within.”

As that [1384]old poet scoffed, calling it Stygiae monstrum conforme paludi, a monstrous drink, like the river Styx.  But let them say as they list, to such as are accustomed unto it, “’tis a most wholesome” (so [1385] Polydore Virgil calleth it) “and a pleasant drink,” it is more subtle and better, for the hop that rarefies it, hath an especial virtue against melancholy, as our herbalists confess, Fuchsius approves, Lib. 2. sec. 2. instit. cap. 11, and many others.