Messrs. Barclay, Perkins and Co.’s brewery ranks among the sights of London, and is visited by thousands of foreigners during the year. The present brewhouse is nearly as large as Westminster Hall, and each of the three malt bins could, if required, contain an ordinary three-storied house. The vats number a hundred and fifty, with capacities varying from one hundred to three thousand five hundred barrels; the largest of these weigh when full no less than 500 tons. The full capacity of the mash tuns is 690 quarters. The water used in brewing is drawn from an artesian well 623 feet deep, and the firm give employment to over six hundred men. Among the collection of Hearne’s Letters, in the Bodleian Library, is one from Saml. Catherall, dated “Luscom, near Bath, Nov. 2, 1729.” It contains a few semi-humorous verses on the death of two mutual friends, named Whiteside and Craster, and ends thus:— “Ev’en you alas! with grief o’ercome, shall lend Some tears, and lose y^e stoick in y^e Friend: So stern Achilles wept—But you, and I Observant of Decorum, will not cry Like children (for we all were born to Die); Basse’s Immortal Ale shall make us gay, He Holds out longest y^t dilutes his clay. “Your faithful Friend, “SAM CATHERALL. “To Mr. Thomas Hearne “At Edmund Hall, in Oxford. “By the cross post.” {343} Though there are records extant of persons bearing the name of Bass who did various notable things, such as undertaking a pilgrimage to Canterbury in 1506 (not forgetting a certain Mrs. Laura Bassi, who was promoted to the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Bologna, in Italy “having first passed a strict examination and answered all points with surprising capacity and learning), this is nevertheless the first mention of Basse’s ale. Who was this Basse”? Frankly, we cannot say, but from the date of the letter it is certain that he was not the founder of the present firm. The year 1877 was the centenary of that great commercial enterprise now known as Bass, Ratcliff & Gretton, Limited. It was when George the Third was King, and Pitt, the youngest Prime Minister this country has ever known, was in power, that Mr. William Bass, the proprietor of a considerable carrying business, commenced to brew ale at Burton. His brewhouse was situated in the High Street, and the building on that site, still in the hands of the firm, is always spoken of as the “Old Brewery.” The land occupied was about equal in extent to a moderately large garden, and the power in the brewery was probably altogether manual, for Watt had not at that time fully developed the greatest invention the world has ever known. Bass and Co.’s Brewery and its belongings now cover forty-five acres of freehold and over a hundred of leasehold land, on which are thirty-two steam engines of altogether 610 horse power!