Hippocras was a wedding beverage, made of red wine, spices, and sugar, stirred with sprigs of rosemary. Another favourite drink was called "rumfustian :" it was made the same as the night-cap, except there were added the yolks of twelve eggs, a quart of home-brewed beer, a bottle of white wine, half a pint of gin, some grated nutmeg, the juice from orange peelings, and then cinnamon and sugar quantum sufficit for the palate. This was drank in such weather as Lord Byron did not like-"mists, thaws, slops, or rain." Another drink was called Brown Betty. Dissolve one pound of brown sugar in a pint of water, slice a lemon in it, and let it stand half an hour; add pounded cloves and cinnamon, half a pint of brandy, and one quart of strong ale; stir all together, put a couple of slices of toast in it, toasted quite brown, with some grated nutmeg and ginger on each slice. In the summer this should be iced; in the winter, warmed. The drinking of it may be said "to be putting the piquant damsel into a warmed bed." They had also a favourite drink called a cool tankard. A gallon of old ale, into which put the following herbs, agreeable to your taste: balm, hyssop, old inan or southern wood, with nutmeg and sugar; let it stand some time, covered up. Sometimes it is made with port, sherry, or Madeira wine, instead of the ale. Before drinking, it was always stirred up with a sprig of rosemary: this herb was symbolic of remembrance. Each person always drank out of the same tankard, a noble vessel of either gold or silver, with a chased lid, and always held a full quart; and sometimes there would be pegs sticking out in the inside, to regulate the draught. Even in the ordinary country farm-houses toast and ale was sure to be introduced at Christmas. This is made with full rounds of a loaf toasted quite brown, (but not burnt,) each slice powdered over with spice and brown sugar, put into a large bowl, and that filled with some good home-brewed ale. The following is the celebrated Dr. Aldrich's five reasons for drinking, paraphrased from "aut vini bonitus qui alteri causa:" "If on my theme I rightly think, There are five reasons why men drink; Or any other reason why." This learned gentleman was dean of Christ church, Oxford, in 1587. To make a quart of curoçoa.-To a pint of the clearest and strongest rectified spirits add two and a half drachms of the sweet oil of orange peel, and shake it up; dissolve a pound of good lump sugar in a pint of cold water, and make this into a clarified syrup, which add to the spirits; shake it up and let it stand until the following day: then line a funnel with thin muslin, and line that with filtering paper, and filter it two or three times, or until it is quite bright. This liquor is a very desirable cordial; and a tea-spoonful in a tumbler of water is a very refreshing summer drink, and a great improvement to punch. Capillaire. To a pint of clarified syrup add a wine-glassful of curocoa; or dissolve one drachm of oil of neroli in two ounces of rectified syrup, and add a few drops of it to clarified syrup. Lemonade in a minute.—Pound a quarter of an ounce of citric acid with a few drops of quintessence of lemon peel, and mix it by degrees with a pint of clarified syrup or capillaire. About the end of the century sherbet was much used, which is a most delightful cooling summer drink; and as it is a very proper summer one for this Union, I feel pleasure in giving some good recipes to make it. Nine Seville oranges and three lemons, grate off the yellow from the rinds, and put these raspings into a gallon of water, with five pounds of double refined sugar, and boil to a candy height; then take it off the fire and add pulps of oranges and lemons; keep stirring it till cool; then strain it off and put into a vessel for use. This may be iced, and flavoured with thyme, mint, sage, or rosemary. Another method of making sherbet consists of water, lemon or orange juice, in which are dissolved perfumed cakes made of the best Damascus fruits, and containing also an infusion of rose water. Another is made of violets, honey, juice of raisins, &c. These are all delightful summer drinks. Lord Byron, in a letter to Tom Moore, says: "Give me a sun, I care not how hot, And sherbet to drink, I care not how cool, and my heaven is as easily made as your Persian," which Moore had thus described: "A Persian's heaven is easily made; 'Tis but black eyes and lemonade." Drinking glasses and decanters were introduced in 1577; and soon enough was manufactured for the home consumption, beautifully enamelled, cut, and inlaid with heraldric, hunting, and other subjects. But in the servants' halls of gentlemen's mansions the ale for the servants is drawn in leathern-jacks, like engine fire-buckets, and they drink it out of horns, which hold a pint each. This saves a considerable sum yearly in crockery and glass. 137 CONTRAST OF THE TWO LEADING PARTIES. "Party is the madness of many for the gain of a few." Ir is worthy of our particular remark, and may, I hope, serve as a useful lesson to future reformers, who may be very praiseworthily and zealously inclined to effect judicious reforms in society. To show, however, how much a spirit of mere contradiction will do, witness the Puritan party, who were always a minority, speaking of them numerically; but in moral effect they were a host; and, had their system been offered in many cases in a more captivating form, they would have effected much more than they did. Their conduct puts one forcibly in mind of a witty satirist's description of that useful animal, the swine: "Try but to drive a pig against his will, The Puritan, from what he considered his religious principles, was, and must be, a stiff and rigid personage; and must hold in contempt all the kind-hearted temperings which were reckoned among the mellowing influences of human life. In 1644 the Puritan parliament established the directory, and not only abolished the book of common prayer, but voted the creed, the Lord's prayer, and the ten commandments useless. They affected a slow and drawling speech and tone, which degenerated into a snuffle or "sweet nasal twang;" while their talk was liberally checkered over with the most ordinary texts of Scripture. In their dealings they would say, "It is naught, it is naught, saith the buyer; and when he is gone away, then he boasteth." When they rebuked a talkative person, they would say, "In all labour there is profit, but the talk of the lips tendeth to penury.' ." If you meddled with any of their articles of trade, they would say, "Touch not, taste not, handle not," without you mean to buy. They were very fond of Scriptural mottoes. One which became so perfectly perverted as to be now scarcely recognised, was, "God encompasseth us." They also gave, as a first name to their children, biblical names expressive of some Christian quality which they religiously approved, and which they very properly and as piously wished their children to follow out; and being, as it were, thus ingrafted upon them, would undoubtedly tend to produce such an effect upon their daily conduct. In the beginning of the civil wars each regiment of the parliamentary army, which mainly consisted of Puritans, had a regular chaplain; but the pious personage did not long remain with it no doubt he considered that such conduct was not agreeable or consistent with his calling; so that, soon after the battle of Edge Hill, every soldier had his bible, and became his own priest or DD., which produced every species of profanity that can be imagined. In the year 1649 Cromwell and his military officers prayed and preached in the churches. If a Puritanical soldier did not growl psalms, whistle sermons, or act some audacious religious caper, he was looked upon as bad as a coward. But the Puritans who were not engaged in the "dreadful battle's strife," piously endeavoured to draw a solace to their common labours by making their religion furnish it. But this, unfortunately, called into play every sort of extravagance that could be thought of by the most excited fanatical preachers of the day. Their sermons were often the most perverted and their text the most odd that could be selected; and their pulpit conduct as ridiculously conspicuous as could be acted. I forbear giving numerous historical instances; sorry should I be to add one pang of grief to any serious religious person, or excite the blasphemous merriment of the thoughtless scoffer. Let us, by all the holy considerations of Christian charity, draw the veil of obscurity over their errors; at this distance of time the worst of them may be "forgotten as fools, or remembered as worse." In their dress they choose all sorts of plain sad colours, to show a demureness in feeling and a penury of cut. A modern political writer has observed of the Society of Friends, "That if their taste could have been consulted at the creation, what a silent and drab-coloured creation it would have been; not a flower would have blossomed its gayeties, nor a bird been permitted to sing." A ruddy cheek would make a Puritan start with horror; so that they did all they could to OLIVERIAN OR PURITAN. expose the whole paleness of their ghastly countenances, and went about clean shaved, with their hair closely cut. They also discountenanced nearly all sorts of diversions, indoors and out. Drinking healths met with their most loving, most charitable, and most unqualified condemnation. At first the Society of Friends, which commenced with George Fox, who began to travel and preach in 1643, were very turbulent; they went into the churches, which they insultingly called "steeple-houses :" they did not (though they were great bible readers) follow the first book of Thessalonians, fourth chapter, verse eleventh. I give the following anecdote from the biography of John Bunyan: "A Friend visited him in Bedford jail, and declared 'that, by the order of the Lord, he had sought for him in half the prisons in England.' Bunyan replied, "If the Lord has sent you, you need not have taken so much trouble to find me out, for the Lord knows I have been a prisoner in Bedford jail for the last twelve years." The Cavalier, to show his perfect contempt both for the principles and professions of the Puritans, exhibited a perfect levity and recklessness in contrast, which served to provoke the disgust and demureness of his better-intentioned antagonist. "Thus their actions are contrary, Just as votes and speeches vary." HUDIBRAS. The gay, the gaudy, the ermined, the jewelled cavalier studied all his powers would essay, to have everything that could be produced by land or by sea, to gratify this feeling of bitter contradiction. At the restoration, on the day of the arrival of Charles II., the people had become so tired of the gloom and constraint of the Puritans, that they lighted bon-fires, rung the bells many a long, merry peal, paraded the streets, and broke the windows of the "praise God bare-bones " people, set up their old Maypoles, roasted sheep, drank the king's health upon their knees, and made Monk's soldiers reeling drunk for several days. Swearing under the Puritans had been very properly prohibited by a fine; and now, to show their contempt for everything of that cold, disdainful sect, they swore the faster; so that it became a common saying, that such a one swore to the tune of £2000 per year while Buckingham, Rochester, Sedley, and their associates, fearless of common decency, laughed at the fopperies of the clergy, and made lampoons and drolleries of the Sacred Scriptures. * Dryden's "Wild Gallant." |