To go a little further north, the ales of Edinburgh are justly celebrated, old Scotch ale being as favourite a beverage as old Burton. Scotch brewers are great believers in malt and hops, and at the present day brew excellent light ales, as well as the mightier brew which has given them their world-wide reputation. A curious ale is mentioned in the _Buik of Chroniclis of Scotland_ (fifteenth century). Owing to a very severe winter in the reign of William the Lion, liquids of many kinds were frozen solid, and ale was sold by _weight_:— So furious ouir all part wes that frost Of bestiall that thair wes mony lost; The starkest aill of malt that mycht be browin, Thocht it war keipit neuir so clois and lowin, It wald congeill _and freis into hard yis_. The thing of all men thocht wes then most nys That this be weycht, and nocht mesour, wes sauld That tyme for drink as that my author told. The wanderings of the _Penniless Pilgrim_ took him to Scotland, and he wonders much at the powers of ale-suction shown by the natives. “The Scots,” he says, “doe allow almost as large measure of their miles as they doe of their drinke, for an English gallon either of ale or wine is but their quart.” After rising from a repast, he tells how “the {170} servants of the house have enforced me into the seller or Buttery, where (in the way of kindnesse) they will make a man’s belly like a sowse-tub, and inforce mee to drinke as if they had a commission under the devil’s great seale, to murder men with drinking, with such a deal of complimentary oratory as, ‘off with your lap,’ ‘wind up your bottome,’ ‘up with your toplash,’ and many other eloquent phrases, which Tully and Demosthenes never heard of; that in conclusion I am persuaded three days fasting would have been more healthfull to mee, then two hours feeding and swilling in that manner.” Christopher North, in his _Noctes Ambrosianæ_, mentions some of the famous Scotch ales of his day. After alluding to the ales of Berwick and of Giles, he says:— “Maitland and Davison—again—has inspired my being with a _new_ feeling, for which no language I am acquainted with can supply an adequate name. That feeling impels me to say these simple words on behalf of the Spirit of Ale in general—speaking through me, its organ—_Ale loquitur_—“If not suffered by Fate to fix my abode in barrels of Berwick or Giles, where I have long reigned alternate years, in all my glory, scarcely should I feel myself priviledged to blame my stars, were I ordered for a while to sojourn in one of Maitland—and Davison.” A notice of Scoth ales, however short, would be incomplete without some reference to the great Scotch national poet, who sometimes, at any rate, would seem to have owed his inspiration to the “barley bree.” The song of Burns, _O, Willie brew’d a peck o’ maut_, is too well known to need repetition here. Who does not remember the chorus of this admirable chanson-à-boire:—