Various Kinds of Ales and Beers. — Some Foreign Beers. — Receipts. — Songs. — Anecdotes . . . 151 CHAPTER VIII. Ale houses: Their Origin. — Hospitality in Mediæval Times. — Old London Inns and Taverns. — Anecdotes of Inns and Inn-keepers. — Curious Signs. — Signboard and Ale-house Verses. — Signboard Artists. — Ale-house Songs and Catches . . . 182 CHAPTER IX. Ancient Merry-makings, Feasts and Ceremonies peculiar to certain Seasons, at which Ale was the principal Drink. — Harvest Home, Sheep-shearing, and other songs . . . 232 CHAPTER X. The Ales. — Ale at Breakfast. — Bequests of Ale. — Drinking Customs. — A Sermon on Malt. — Excesses of the Clergy. — Anecdotes . . . 266 CHAPTER XI. Old Ballads, Songs and Verses relating to Ale and Beer . . . 294 CHAPTER XII. Brewing in the Present Day. — Anecdotal and Biographical Account of some representative London, Dublin, Burton and Country Brewing Firms. — Edinburgh Ales . . . 331 CHAPTER XIII. Porter and Stout. — Circumstances which led to their Introduction. — Value to the Working Classes. — Anecdotes. — “A Pot of Porter Oh!” . . . 365 CHAPTER XIV. Beverages compounded of Ale or Beer, with a number of Receipts. — Ancient Drinking Vessels. — Various Uses of Ale other than as a Drink . . . 378 CHAPTER XV. Old Medical Writers on Ale. — Adulteration of Ale. — Advantages of Malt Liquors to Labouring Classes. — Temperance _versus_ Total Abstinence. — Anecdotes. — Gay’s Ballad . . . 408 APPENDIX. — Pasteur’s Discoveries . . . 441 [Illustration] {1} THE CURIOSITIES OF ALE AND BEER. CHAPTER I. _INTRODUCTORY._ “For a quart of ale is a dish for a King.” _Winter’s Tale_, Act iv. Scene 2. No doubt it is a very tedious thing To undertake a folio work on law, Or metaphysics, or again to ring The changes on the Flood or Trojan War: Old subjects these, which Poets only sing Who think a new idea quite a flaw; But thirst for novelty can’t fail in liking The theme of Ale, the aptitude’s so striking. _Brasenose College Shrovetide Verses._ _SUPPRESSION OF BEER SHOPS IN EGYPT 2,000 B.C. — BREWING IN A TEAPOT. — ALE SONGS. — DISTINCTIONS BETWEEN ALE AND BEER. — ALE-KNIGHTS’ OBJECTION TO SACK. — HOGARTH AND TEMPERANCE. — IMPORTANCE OF ALE TO THE AGRICULTURAL LABOURER. — SIR JOHN BARLEYCORNE INTRODUCED TO THE READER._ Four thousand years ago, if old inscriptions and papyri lie not, Egypt was convulsed by the high-handed proceedings of certain persons in authority who inclined to the opinion that the beer shops were too many. Think of it, ye modern Suppressionists! ’Tis now forty centuries since first your theories saw the light, and yet there is not a town in our happy country without its alehouse.