“It is true that the overmuch taking of it doth so much exhilerate the spirits, that a man is not improperly said to be in the _Aletitude_ (observe the word, I pray you, and all the words before or after for you shall find their first syllable to be _Ale_), and some writers are of opinion that the Turkish _Alcoran_ was invented by Mahomet, out of such furious raptures as _Ale_ inspired him withall; some affirme Bacchus (_Al’as Liber Pater_) was the first Brewer of it, among the _Indians_, who being a stranger to them they nam’d it _Ale_, as brought by an _Alien_: in a word, _Somnus altus_ signifies dead sleepe: _Quies alta_, Great rest; _Altus_ and _Alta_, noble and excellent: It is (for the most part) extracted out of the spirit of a Graine called Barley, which was of that estimation amongest the ancient _Galles_ that their Prophets (whom they called _Bards_) used it in their most important prophesies and ceremonies: This Graine, after it had beene watered and dryed, was at first ground in a Mill in the island of _Malta_, from whence it is supposed to gaine the name of Malt; but I take it more proper from the word _Malleolus_, which signifies a Hammer or Maule, for _Hanniball_ (that great _Carthaginian_ Captaine) in his sixteene yeeres warres against the Romans, was called the _Maule_ of _Italie_, for it is conjectured that he victoriously Mauld them by reason that his army was daily refreshed with the Spiritefull Elixar of _Mault_. “It holds very significant to compare a man in the _Aletitude_ to be in a planetarie height, for in a Planet, the Altitude is his motion in which he is carried from the lowest place of Heaven or from the Center of the Earth, into the most highest place, or unto the top of his circle, and then it is said to be in _Apogee_, that is the most _Transcendant_ part of all, so the Sublunarie of a Stupified Spirit, being elevated by the efficacious vigour of this uncontrolleable vertue, renders him most capable for high actions.” After much more in the same vein, sufficient to astonish the most reckless of modern punsters, our author winds up his account of the antiquity of ale as follows:— “I will therefore _shut up_ with that admirable conclusion insisted upon in our time by a discreet Gentleman in a Solemne Assembly, who by a Politick observation, very aptly compares _Ale_ and Cakes with Wine and {44} Waters, neither doth he hold it fit that it should stand in competition with the meanest wines, but with that most excellent composition which the Prince of Physicians _Hippocrases_ had so ingeniously compounded for the preservation of Mankinde, and which (to this day) speakes the Author by the name of _Hippocras_. So that you see for Antiquity—_Ale_ was famous amongst the _Troians_, _Brittaines_, _Romans_, _Saxons_, _Normans_, _Englishmen_, _Welch_, besides in _Scotland_, from the highest and Noblest Palace to the poorest and meanest Cottage.”