"The King was in his counting house Counting out his money, The Queen was in the parlour Eating bread and Honey." "Mel mandit, panemque, morans regina culina, Dulcia plebeia non comedenda nuru." A plain cake, currant or seed, made with Honey in place of sugar is a pleasant addition to the tea-table and a capital preventive of constipation. "All kinds of precious stones cast into Honey become more brilliant thereby," says St. Francis de Sales in _The Devout Life_, 1708, "and all persons become more acceptable when they join devotion to their graces." HOP. The Hop (_Humulus lupulus_) belongs to the Nettle tribe (_Cannabineoe_) of plants, and grows wild in our English hedges and copses; but then it bears only male flowers. When cultivated it produces the female catkins, or strobiles which are so well known as Hops, and are so largely used for brewing purposes. The plant gets its first name _Humulus_ from _humus_, the rich moist ground in which it chooses to grow, and its affix _lupulus_ from the Latin _lupus_ a wolf, because (as Pliny explained), when produced among osiers, it [263] strangles them by its light climbing embraces as the wolf does a sheep. The word Hop comes from the Anglo-saxon _hoppan_ to climb. The leaves and the flowers afford a fine brown dye, and paper has been made from the bine, or stalk, which sprouts in May, and soon grows luxuriantly; as said old Tusser (1557):-- "Get into thy Hop-yard, for now it is time To teach Robin Hop on his pole how to climb." The Hop, says Cockayne, was known to the Saxons, and they called it the _Hymele_, a name enquired-for in vain among Hop growers in Worcestershire and Kent. Hops were first brought to this country from Flanders, in 1524:-- "Turkeys, Carp, Hops, Pickerel, and Beer, Came into England all in one year." So writes old Izaak Walton! Before Hops were used for improving and preserving beer our Saxon ancestors drank a beverage made from malt, but clarified in a measure with Ground Ivy which is hence named Ale-hoof. This was a thick liquor about which it was said:-- "Nil spissius est dum bibitur; nil clarius dum mingitur, Unde constat multas faeces in ventre relinqui." The Picts made beer from heather, but the secret of its manufacture was lost when they became exterminated, since it had never been divulged to strangers. Kenneth offered to spare the life of a father, whose son had been just slain, if he would reveal the method; but, though pardoned, he refused persistently. The inhabitants of Tola, Jura, and other outlying districts, now brew a potable beer by mixing two-thirds of heath tops with one of malt. Highlanders think it very lucky to [264] find the white heather, which is the badge of the Captain of Clan Ronald.