M. Alphonse Esquiros writes of our national drink thus amusingly:--"It was the favourite fluid of the Anglo-Saxons and Danes, whom we have seen descend in turn on Great Britain. Before their conversion to Christianity, they believed that one of the chief felicities the heroes admitted after death into Odin's paradise enjoyed, was to drink long draughts of ale from tall cups. Archæologians have made learned and laborious researches to recover the history of beer in Great Britain: it will be sufficient for us to say, that in Wales, ale, even small, was formerly regarded as a luxury, and was only seen on the tables of the great. In England, about the middle of the sixteenth century, Harrison assures us that, when tradesmen and artisans had the good fortune to stumble on a haunch of venison and a glass of strong ale, they believed themselves as magnificently treated as the lord mayor. At the present day, what a change! Ale and porter flow into the pewter pots of the humblest taverns; rich and poor--the poor more frequently than the rich--refresh themselves with the national beverage, as the Israelites in the Desert slaked their thirst at the water leaping from the rock, to quote a minister of the English Church. This abundance compared with the old penury, rejoices the social economist from a certain point of view, for he sees in it the natural movement of science, trade and agriculture, which in time places within reach of the most numerous class articles which, at the outset, were regarded as luxuries. Not only has beer become more available to the working classes, but the quality has improved, and at the present day English beer knows no rival on the Continent." The old compound of roasted apples, ale, and sugar, which our ancestors knew as "Lamb's Wool," is thought to have derived its name as follows:--The words La Mas Ubal are good Irish, signifying the Feast, or day, of the Apple, and, pronounced _Lamasool_, soon passed into Lamb's Wool. The mixture was drunk on the evening of the above day, which was supposed to be presided over by the guardian angel of fruits and seeds. A less fanciful etymology points to the above drink being named from its smoothness and softness, resembling the wool of lambs. Herrick sings: "Now crowne the bowle With gentle lambs-wooll, Add sugar, and nutmegs, and ginger;" and in an old play we read of this addition: "Lay a crab in the fire to roast for lamb's-wool." FOOTNOTES: [51] In the Sandwich and many of the islands of the Pacific, every child has a piece of sugar-cane in its hand; while in our own sugar colonies the negro becomes fat in crop time on the abundant juice of the ripening cane. This mode of using the cane is, no doubt, the most ancient of all, and was well known to the Roman writers. Lucan (book iii. 237) speaks of the eaters of the cane, as "those who drink sweet juice from the tender reed."