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                           NINETEEN CENTURIES
                                   OF
                            DRINK IN ENGLAND

                              _A HISTORY_

                                   BY

                          RICHARD VALPY FRENCH
                          D.C.L., LL.D., F.S.A.

                  RECTOR OF LLANMARTIN AND RURAL DEAN
                AUTHOR OF 'THE HISTORY OF TOASTING' ETC.

                 _SECOND EDITION--ENLARGED AND REVISED_

                                 LONDON
                 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE PUBLICATION DEPOT
                        33 PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C.

                        _All rights reserved_

                              EDINBURGH:
                     PRINTED BY LORIMER AND GILLIES,
                         31 ST. ANDREW SQUARE.




PREFACE.


The earlier part of this slight contribution to the literature of an
inexhaustible subject has already appeared in a series of numbers in
a London weekly journal. The best acknowledgment of the writer is due
to the Rev. ARTHUR RICHARD SHILLITO, M.A. (late Scholar of Trinity
College, Cambridge), who has from time to time during the progress of
this work most kindly furnished him with valuable notes.




INTRODUCTION.


The object of this work is to ascertain the part which Drink has played
in the individual and national life of the English people. To this
end, an inquiry is instituted into the beverages which have been in
use, the customs in connection with their use, the drinking vessels in
vogue, the various efforts made to control or prohibit the use, sale,
manufacture, or importation of strong drink, whether proceeding from
Church, or State, or both: the connection of the drink traffic with
the revenue, together with incidental notices of banquets, feasts, the
pledging of healths, and other relevant matter.

It must interest every thoughtful being to know how our national life
and national customs have come to be what they are. They have not
sprung up in a night like a mushroom. They have been forming for ages.
Each day has contributed something. The great river of social life,
ever flowing onward to the ocean of eternity, has been constantly fed
by the tributaries of necessity, appetite, fashion, fancy, vanity,
caprice, and imitation. Man is a bundle of habits and customs.

With some, it is true, life is mere routine, a round of
conventionalities; literally 'one day telleth another;' with others,
each day is a reality, has its fresh plan, is a rational item in the
account of life. To these nothing is without its meaning; there is a
definiteness, a precision, about its hours of action, of thought, of
diversion, of ministering to the bodily claims of sustenance by eating
and drinking. Around the latter, social life has fearfully encircled
itself. The world was, and still is,--

    'On hospitable thoughts intent.'

The latter days are but a repetition of the former. 'As it was... so
shall it be also. They did eat, they drank.'

Social life is intimately connected with the social or festive board;
in short, with eating and drinking, because these are a necessity of
nature. Other customs and habits may be fleeting, but men must eat, men
must drink. Food ministers not only to the principle of life, but to
that of brain force also. Thought is stimulated, activity is excited,
man becomes communicable. He then seeks society and enjoys it. Thus has
social intercourse gathered round the social board. Eating and drinking
are two indispensable factors in dealing with the history of a nation's
social life. Adopting the adage by way of accommodation, 'In vino
veritas,' truth is out when wine is in, once know the entire history of
a nation's drinking, and you have important materials for gauging that
nation's social life.

For obvious reasons, a division has been adopted of the subject into
periods, in some respects artificial so far as the present inquiry
is concerned. The Romano-British period has been selected as the
_terminus a quo_. It might have been speculatively interesting to
penetrate further into the arcana of the past, to have inquired who
were the earliest inhabitants of this country? Were they aborigines,
natives of the soil, or were they colonists? Had they an independent
tribal existence, or were they originally a part of that great Asiatic
family who emigrated into and peopled Western Europe, and to whom the
Romans gave the name of Gauls?

Had such an inquiry been relevant, the question would have been of
immense importance; for drawing, as one must, considerably upon
imagination in dealing with any period not strictly historic, one must
either regard the primitive inhabitants as independent aborigines, and
accommodate their supplies to their wants, or, regarding them as an
offshoot from another nation, suppose them to have carried with them
the customs of their parent tribe, and find the sought-for habits of
the child in the ascertained habits of the parent.

But we are concerned with fact; and must therefore date from a period
when facts, however meagre and involved, are forthcoming.

A chapter of _Bibliography_ is appended for the benefit of any who
might wish to prosecute a study, of which the present effort is a mere
outline.




_A CONTRIBUTION TO THE BIBLIOGRAPHY OF DRINK._


    --------------------+---------------------------------------+-------
    Author.             |          Title of Work.               | Date.
    --------------------+---------------------------------------+-------
    Accum, F.           |_Adulterations of Food_                | 1820
    Ackroyd, W.         |_History and Science of Drunkenness_   | 1883
    Adair, R. G.        |_The Question of the Times_            | 1869
    Agg-Gardner, J. T.  |_Compulsory Temperance_ (Fortnightly)  |