cascade at the commencement of the path which has been formed in the side to facilitate strangers in exploring their way through the rocks and underwood. But the admirers of sublime nature will mourn the ruthless devastation that has thus been made, ostensibly for the public benefit, to serve private interest. In the Chine is a chalybeate spring, highly impregnated with iron and alum, and of course beneficial in cases of debility and nervous affections.

C.R.S.

LINES TO ----.

Leeds.

J.B. WALKER.

ANTIQUITY OF MALT LIQUOR.

Malt liquor appears to have had its origin in the attention paid by an eastern sovereign to the comfort and health of his soldiers; as we are informed by the historian Xenophon, that "the virtuous Cyrus" having observed the good effects that water in which parched barley had been steeped, produced, exhorted and commanded his troops to drink this liquor; the historian entitled it "Maza." It is highly probable that Cyrus adopted this drink to counteract the ill effects of impure and foul water (which had done lasting injury to other warriors of his time), which is so common in warm, sunny climates; as Pliny informs us, that if water be impure or corrupted, by putting fried barley into it, in less than two hours, it will be pure and sweet; that its bad effects will have evaporated, and that it then may be drunk with perfect safety; he further adds that, this is the reason why we are in the habit of "putting barley-meal into the 'wine-strainers' through which we pass our wines, that they may be refined, purified, and drawn the sooner." The information conveyed to our readers by Pliny, may be made of great practical use and benefit by mariners, to whom sweet water is such a desideratum; and is as important to those who traverse the arid deserts of Africa, where sweet water is so seldom found.

That the ancients used the "juice of the grape," and that almost as a common drink, has never been doubted by the most cursory reader of history; the knowledge of this liquor being nearly coeval with the first formation of society. In the Book of Genesis we read that Noah after the flood planted a vineyard, "manufactured" wine, and got intoxicated with this "nectar fit for gods." Beer can likewise boast of as great antiquity. Its use was not unknown by the Egyptians; as we are informed by Herodotus that the people of Egypt made use of a kind of wine made from dried barley, because no vines grew in that country. According to Tacitus, in his time beer was the common drink of the Germans, who drank it in preference to that more stimulating (if not more nutritious) liquor, wine. We are also informed by Pliny, that it was made and was in common use amongst the Gauls, and by many of their neighbours. The name he gave to this drink was "cerevisia" which evidently alludes to the article from which it was composed. Although these nations held this liquor in such estimation, there has been no record to inform us of their mode of preparing it.

Ale was introduced into our country centuries ago, by our Saxon ancestors, and it was not long ere it became the favourite and common drink of all classes of society. Their habit of drinking it out of skulls, at their feasts, is well known to the reader of romance. It was then, as it is now, commonly sold at houses of entertainment to the people. After the Norman Conquest, the vine was very extensively planted in England, but was drunk alone, as a chronicle of that time says, "by the wise and the learned;" the people did not lose their relish for the beverage of their forefathers, and wine was never held in much respect by them. Hops had hitherto not been used in the composition of beer; but about the fifteenth century they were introduced by the brewers of the Netherlands with great success; from them we adopted the practice, and they came into general use about two centuries afterwards. Some historians have affirmed that Henry VI. forbade the planting of hops; but it is certain that "bluff King Hal" ordered brewers to put neither hops nor sulphur into their ale. The taste of the nation in the reign of Henry VI. seems to have changed, as we find in the records of that time that extensive "privileges" (monopolies these enlightened times would have called them) were annexed to hop-grounds. In the reign of James I. the produce of hop-grounds were insufficient for the consumption, and a law was made against the introduction of "spoilt hops." Walter Blithe, in his Improver Improved, published in 1649, (3rd edit. 1653) has a chapter upon improvements by plantations of hops, which has this striking passage. He observes that "hops were then grown to be a national commodity; but that it was not many years since the famous city of London petitioned the Parliament of England against two nuisances; and these were, Newcastle coals, in regard to their stench, &c., and hops, in regard they would spoyl the taste of drink, and endanger the people: and, had the Parliament been no wiser than they, we had in a measure pined, and in a great measure starved; which is just answerable to the principles of those men who cry down all devices, or ingenious discoveries, as projects, and therefore stifle and choak improvements." According to a late writer, in the year 1830, there were 46,727 acres occupied in the cultivation of hops in Great Britain alone.

Thirty millions of bushels of barley are annually converted into malt by the breweries of Great Britain; and upwards of eight millions of barrels of beer (of which more than four-fifths are strong) are brewed annually. This enormous consumption attests the fondness of the people for the beverage of their forefathers.

E.J.H.

A PERSIAN FABLE.

Imitated from the Latin of Sir W. Jones.