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 was not many years since the famous city of London petitioned the Parliament of England against two nuisances; and these were, Newcastle coals, in regard to their stench, &c., and hops, in regard they would spoyl the taste of drink, and endanger the people:  and, had the Parliament been no wiser than they, we had in a measure pined, and in a great measure starved; which is just answerable to the principles of those men who cry down all devices, or ingenious discoveries, as projects, and therefore stifle and choak improvements.”  According to a late writer, in the year 1830, there were 46,727 acres occupied in the cultivation of hops in Great Britain alone.

Thirty millions of bushels of barley are annually converted into malt by the breweries of Great Britain; and upwards of eight millions of barrels of beer (of which more than four-fifths are strong) are brewed annually.  This enormous consumption attests the fondness of the people for the beverage of their forefathers.

E.J.H.

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A PERSIAN FABLE.

Imitated from the Latin of Sir W. Jones.