In 1626 the Brewers’ Company was in evil case, as may be judged from a petition presented by them in that year to the City Fathers, in which they allege that they are in a decayed state and not able to govern their trade, that their Company consists of but six beer-brewers and a small number of ale-brewers, and that other brewers are free of other Companies. The petition goes on to pray that no other person than a freeman of the Company be allowed to set up a brewhouse in the City. The petition was referred to a Committee, and nothing more was heard of it. A similar petition, presented to the Common Council in the year 1752, was considered and the prayer granted. While, however, the Brewers’ Company had been allowed to fall into decay, the City regulations of the trade had become less and less irksome, and the brewers themselves increased in wealth and prosperity. Many allusions may be found in the writers of the middle of the seventeenth century, which prove that the status of the brewers had greatly improved. The old Water Poet thus describes how the brewers “are growne rich”:— Thus Water boyles, parboyles, and mundifies, Cleares, cleanses, clarifies, and purifies. But as it purges us from filth and stincke: We must remember that it makes us drinke, Metheglin, Bragget, Beere, and headstrong Ale, (That can put colour in a visage pale) By which meanes many Brewers are growne rich, And in estates may soare a lofty pitch. Men of Goode Ranke and place, and much command, Who have (by sodden Water) purchast land: {148} Yet sure I thinke their gaine had not been such Had not good fellowes usde to drinke too much: But wisely they made Haye whilst Sunne did shine, For now our Land is overflowne with Wine: With such a Deluge, or an Inundation As hath besotted and halfe drown’d our Nation. Some there are scarce worth 40 pence a yeere Will hardly make a meale with Ale or Beere: And will discourse, that wine doth make good blood, Concocts his meat, and make digestion good, And after to drink Beere, nor will, nor can _He lay a churl upon a Gentleman_. A somewhat similar moral may be drawn from the humorous little poem, written a century and a half later by a namesake of the Water Poet:— THE BREWER’S COACHMAN. Honest William, an easy and good natur’d fellow, Would a little too oft get a little too mellow; Body coachman was he to an eminent brewer, No better e’er sat on a coach-box to be sure. His coach was kept clean, and no mothers or nurses, Took more care of their babes, than he took of his horses; He had these, aye, and fifty good qualities more, But the business of tippling could ne’er be got o’er. So his master effectually mended the matter, By hiring a man who drank nothing but water, “Now William,” says he, “you see the plain case, Had you drank as he does you’d have kept a good place.”