Pliny—who would be a useful sort of man to have in a daily newspaper office nowadays—records that in his time a fermented drink made from “corn and water” was in regular use in all the districts of Europe with which he was acquainted. But in Britain little was known about beer before the Roman conquest, as the favourite beverages of our ancestors were mead and cider. But the Romans, although they never quite succeeded in subduing the stubborn dispositions of the “barbarians,” managed to teach them a bit of husbandry, and to shew them something about brewing. There were no means of making wine in those days, and—save in Wales—there were no grapes to make it with; but the Latins were not long in teaching the Britons—who were never slow to learn anything which might lead to revelry—that a very good {64} substitute for wine might be expressed from grain and water. Hops were undoubtedly known in England before the conquest, but do not appear to have been regularly used in brewing before the beginning of the sixteenth century. It is probable, therefore, that they were employed as medicine—and there is no better tonic than your hop. The Germans would seem to have brewed with the “wicked weed” before the Englanders did, according to the omniscient Pliny. The horny-handed son of toil, who can put away his four or five gallons daily during harvest-time, without falling off the waggon, may not know it, but it is only the female hop which is used by the brewer of to-day. The characteristics of the he-hop are not known to the writer, or whether he plays any part in aiding to relieve the thirst of the lieges; but the female is said to exercise “a purifying, a preservative, and an aromatic influence over the wort.”