“Good bear sold here, our own bruin.”
This in the days of bear-baiting, for which Cheshire was famous, would be very misleading to those of the country bumpkins who could read. Brewer and Brewster need no explanation. Malter and Malster both exist, but I do not see them in the London Directory. There is Malthouse, however, and that is sometimes found as “Malthus”; just as loft-house, and kirk-house, and bake-house or back-house have become Loftus, Kirkus, and Bacchus. Viner and Vinter also stand in no fear of being misunderstood; but Tunman, Tonman, Tunner, and Tonner, who casked and bottled the wine that came from the Continent, would be less likely to be recognised. In the “Confessio Amantis” it is said of Jupiter that he
“Hath in his cellar, as men say,
Two townès full of love-drink,”—
where we must not suppose that the Thunderer had so capacious a cellar that it would contain all the liquor that two whole towns might possess, but that he had two tuns or barrels of love potions. In fact, “tun” was the universal term in use then, though barrel or cask has superseded it in common parlance. We still talk of “tunnels” or “tun-dishes,” the vessels used for transferring wine from barrel to bottle. “Beer-brewer” was once a familiar surname, but it has become obsolete. We all remember the old couplet—
“Hops, Reformation, baize, and beer,
Came into England all in one year.”
To make the bitter taste, wormwood had been the chief ingredient in earlier days.
While on this subject, it is worth while inquiring whether or no we possess in our directories any record of the drinking propensities of our forefathers. That they were ever great “skinkers” everybody knows who has studied the past with any degree of care. What the Water-poet said somewhat coarsely of one may well be said of the many:—
“Untill hee falls asleepe,
He skinks and drinkes;
And then like to a bore,
He winkes and stinkes.”
Even the “Friar,” according to Chaucer,
“strong was as a champioun,
And knew wel the tavernes in every toun,
And every hosteler and gay tapstere,
Better than a lazar or a beggere.”