It is claimed for cider, and perry, that no fermented drinks do less hurt to the imbiber; although one authority states that the man who {175} drinks too much of either invariably falls on the back of his head, which sounds rather dangerous. Whether the drinking of cider in moderation conduces to long life deponent sayeth not; but no less an authority than Lord Bacon evidently thought so; and in his _History of Life and Death_ he tells of eight men dancing a Morris-dance, whose ages, added together, were 800 years, “tennants of one Mannour” belonging to the Earl of Essex, and habitual cider-drinkers. But the lengthening of the days of the imbiber depends, in all probability, upon the brand of cider. I have tasted some varieties which were capable, apparently, of shortening life, rather than of prolonging it; and in parts of Somersetshire, even at the present day, the locals—case-hardened and poison-proof to a man—swill a horrible decoction, which would probably kill off an alien, at long range, most speedily and effectively. Cider was called “cidre” and “sithere” by fourteenth century writers; and the word is said to be a corruption of the Greek _sikera_, used in the Septuagint to translate the Hebrew _shekar_, usually rendered “strong drink” in the Old Testament. “The name of _Cider_,” says one of these old writers, “if from _Sikera_, is but a general name for an inebriating or an intoxicating drink, and may argue their ignorance in those times of any other name than _Wine_ for that liquor or juice in the Saxon or Norman language, either of those nations being unwilling (it’s probable) to use a British name for so pleasing a drink, they not affecting the Britains, made use of few of their {176} words; but since that, that wines have been imported from foreign parts in great quantities, the English have been forced to make use of the old British name SEIDER, or _Cider_, for distinction sake, although the name _vinum_ may be as proper for the juice of the apple as the grape, if it be derived either from _Vi_ or _Vincendo_, or _quasi Divinum_, as one would have it. Also the vulgar tradition of the scarcity of foreign wines in England, viz. that Sack, which was then imported for the most part but from Spain, was sold in the apothecaries’ shops as a cordial medicine; and the vast increase in vineyards in France (Ale and Beer being usual drinks in Spain and France in Pliny’s time) is an argument sufficient that the name of _Wine_, might be attributed to our British _Cider_, and of vineyards to the places separated for the propagating the fruit that yields it.”