[912] The inscription may be found in Seymour’s Survey of London, 1733, fol. vol. i. p. 603: “In the year 1589 the ingenious William Lee, Master of Arts of St. John’s College, Cambridge, devised this profitable art for stockings (but being despised went to France) yet of iron to himself, but to us and others of gold; in memory of whom this is here painted.”
[913] In his History of the World, already quoted, p. 171: “Nine and thirty years after was invented the weaving of silk stockings, westcoats, and divers other things, by engines, or steel looms, by William Lee, Master of Arts of St. John’s College in Cambridge, a native of Nottingham, who taught the art in England and France, as his servants in Spain, Venice, and Ireland; and his device so well took, that now in London his artificers are become a company, having an hall and a master, like as other societies.”
[914] Of this Aston the following account is to be found in Thoroton’s Nottinghamshire, 1677, fol. p. 297: “At Calverton was born William Lee, Master of Arts in Cambridge, and heir to a pretty freehold here; who seeing a woman knit, invented a loom to knit, in which he or his brother James performed and exercised before Queen Elizabeth, and leaving it to ... Aston his apprentice, went beyond the seas, and was thereby esteemed the author of that ingenious engine, wherewith they now weave silk and other stockings. This ... Aston added something to his master’s invention; he was some time a miller at Thoroton, nigh which place he was born.”
[915] Dell’ Agricoltura, dell’ Arti, e del Commercio. Ven. 1763, 8vo.
[916] Le Siècle de Louis XIV.
HOPS.
My object, in this article, is not to give a history of beer, because for that purpose it would be necessary to define accurately the different kinds of grain mentioned in the writings of the Greeks and the Romans; and this would be a tedious, as well as difficult, and to me a very unpleasant labour; as I should be obliged to controvert a great many received opinions. I shall only endeavour to answer the question, Where and at what time did hops begin to be used as an addition to beer? This subject has already engaged the attention of two learned men[917], whose researches I shall employ and enlarge by my own observations.
Hops at present are so well known, that a formal description of them would be superfluous. I think it necessary, however, for the sake of perspicuity, to state what follows. This plant at present grows wild in the greater part of Europe, and in Germany is common in the hedges and fences. It clings to the trunks of trees, and often climbs round poles, if long enough, to the height of twenty or thirty feet. It is almost everywhere rough and sharp to the touch, and sometimes clammy. The leaves are generally divided into three, and often into five indented lobes; but the upper ones are shaped like a heart and undivided. The male plants bear flowers, like those of the currant-bush or of the male hemp; the female plants produce their flowers in cones, which are not unlike those of the fir, except that the latter are woody, while the former are foliaceous. These cones only are used for beer; on that account the female plants alone are cultivated, and from these they are picked and dried as soon as they begin to become pulverulent. They are transplanted or propagated by means of seedlings, in hop-grounds properly prepared, where the cones become larger and better than those of the wild plants, which however are not entirely useless. They are added to beer to render it more palatable, by giving it an agreeable bitter taste; and, at the same time, to make it keep longer; and it must indeed be confessed, that of the numerous and various additions which since the earliest periods have been tried, none has better answered the purpose, or been more generally employed.
Among the botanists of the last two centuries, who perused the writings of the Greeks and the Romans, and endeavoured to discover those plants which they meant to describe, many imagined that they found in them hops. But when one takes the trouble to examine without prejudice their opinions, nothing appears but a very slight probability; and some even of these learned botanists, such as Matthioli and others, have acknowledged that it cannot be proved that the Greeks and the Romans were acquainted with our hops.