It seemeth well that before we record the doings of departed brewers, brewsters, and ale-wives, a page or so should be devoted to the two principal ingredients—malt and water—used by those ancient worthies in compounding their “merrie-goe-downe.” Old Fuller thus moralizes on the art of malting:—“Though commonness causeth contempt, excellent the Art of first inventing thereof. I confesse it facile to make Barley Water, an invention which found out itself, with little more than the joyning of the ingredients together. But to make mault for Drink, was a masterpiece indeed. How much of Philosophy concurred to the first Kill of Mault, and before it was turned on the floor, how often was it toss’d in the brain of the first inventor thereof. First, to give it a new growth more than the earth had bestowed thereon. Swelling it in water to make it last the longer by breaking it, and taste the sweeter by corrupting it. Secondly, by making it to passe the fire, the grain (by Art fermented) {121} acquiring a lusciousnesse (which by nature it had not) whereby it doth both strengthen and sweeten the water wherein it is boyled.” Those practically engaged in the production of our English national drink, whether maltsters or brewers, will no doubt be interested to compare the art of malting as it was carried on three hundred years ago in this country, with the more familiar processes of to-day. A description of malting in the sixteenth century is given by Harrison. “Our drinke,” he says, “whose force and continuance is partlie touched alreadie, is made of barleie, water and hops, sodden and mingled together, by the industrie of our bruers, in a certain exact proportion. But before our barleie doo come unto their hands, it susteineth great alteration, and is converted into malt, the making whereof I will here set downe in such order as my skill therein may extend unto. . . Our malt is made all the yeare long in some great townes, but in gentlemen’s and yeomen’s houses, who commenlie make sufficient for their owne expenses onelie, the winter half is thought most meet for that commoditie, howbeit the malt which is made when the willow doth bud, is commonlie worst of all, nevertheless each one indeuereth to make it of the best barleie, which is steeped in a cesterne, in greater or less quantitie, by the space of three daies and three nights, untill it be thoroughly soaked. This being doone, the water is drained from it by little and little, till it be quite gone. Afterward they take it out and laieng it upon the cleane floore on a round heape, it resteth so until it be readie to shoote at the roote end, which maltsters call ‘comming.’ When it beginneth, therefor, to shoote in this maner, they saie it is ‘come,’ and then foorthwith they spread it abroad, first thick and afterward thinner and thinner upon the said floore (as it commeth) and there it lieth (with turning every day foure or five times) by the space of one and twenty daies at the