Bunch the Brewer.—“Gentlemen, I beseech you, hear me. My name is Bunch, a brewer; and I believe few of you can live without a cup of good liquor, nor more than I can without the help of Sir John Barleycorn. As for my own part, I maintain a great charge and keep a great many men at work; I pay taxes forty pounds a-year to his Majesty, God bless him, and all this is maintained by the help of Sir John; then how can any man for shame seek to take away his life?”
Mistress Hostess.—“To give evidence on behalf of Sir John Barleycorn gives me pleasure, since I have an opportunity of doing justice to so honourable a person. Through him the administration receives large supplies; he likewise greatly supports the labourer, and enlivens his conversation. What pleasure could there be at a sheep-clipping without his company, or what joy at a feast without his assistance? I know him to be an honest man, and he never abused any man if they abused not him. If you put him to death all England is undone, for there is not another in the land can do as he can do, and hath done; for he can make a cripple go, the coward fight, and a soldier feel neither hunger nor cold. I beseech you, gentlemen, let him live, or else we are all undone; the nation likewise will be distressed, the labourer impoverished, and the husbandman ruined.”
Court.—“Gentlemen of the jury, you have now heard what has been offered against Sir John Barleycorn, and the evidence that has been produced in his defence. It you are of opinion that he is guilty of those wicked crimes laid to his charge, and has with malice prepense conspired and brought about the death of several of his Majesty’s loving subjects, you are then to find him guilty; but, if, on the contrary, you are of {23} opinion that he had no real intention of wickedness, and was not the immediate, but only the accidental cause of these evils laid to his charge, then, according to the statute law of this kingdom you ought to acquit him.”
Verdict—Not Guilty.
A somewhat lengthy extract has been given from the report of the trial, because the facetious little narrative contains a moral as applicable at the present time as on the day on which the worthy Knight was acquitted.
And now, dear reader, your introduction to Sir John Barleycorn being complete, it is for you, should the inclination be present, to become acquainted with all that pertains to him, from the barley-wine of the Egyptians and other nations of the far past to those excellent beverages in which the people of this country do now delight. On the way you will meet with strange things and strange people, queer customs and quaint sayings and songs; you will watch malting and brewing as it was carried on five hundred years ago; you will stand by while the Flemings, who have just come to London, brew beer with the assistance of a “wicked weed called hoppes;” meanwhile Parliament will re-enact strange sumptuary laws and order that you brew only two kinds of ale or beer; you will be at times in the bad company of dissolute alewives who will whisper sad scandals in your ear; fleeing from them, you will find yourself in a solemn place where lines on stone tell how, when he lived, he brewed good ale; then being perhaps sad at heart, you shall pass into the village ale-house and join the ploughboys in their merry chorus, or sit awhile with the roystering blades in some London tavern; later you shall see the sign and learn its signification and history, and delay a moment to read the verses over the door and admire the quaint architecture and curious carving. In the ale-house you will have tasted and drank wisely, let it be hoped, of London or Dublin black beer, of Plymouth white ale, of old Nappy and Yorkshire Stingo, and as many more as your head can stand.
Then you shall take part in ancient ceremonies—wassailing, Church ales, bride ales, and the like; the merry sheep-shearers will sing for you, and for you the villagers shall dance round the ale-stake; then the old ballad-writers will lay before you their ballads praising ale, and headed with wood-cuts, humorous, but sometimes fearful to look upon. Having rested awhile in perusing these relics of the past, the doors of John Barleycorn’s greatest palaces will fly open before you, and while exploring these wonders of the present, you will chat pleasantly with {24} their founders, Dr. Johnson joining in with ponderous remarks on the brewery of his friend Thrale. The history of porter shall then be unfolded to you, after which you shall be introduced to the college butler, who is in the very act of compounding a noble wassail-bowl, and who, good man, whispers in your willing ear instructions for the making of a score or more of ale-cups; then the old Saxon leeches and their successors shall be summoned, and, in a language strange to modern ears, they shall relate how ale and certain herbs will cure all diseases; then shall you see a curious but not a wondrous sight—water passing through holes in teetotal arguments; and lastly the great French savant shall take you into his laboratory, and shall make you see in a grain of yeast a world of wonders. Last of all we beg you to treasure up in your memory these old lines:—
He that buys land buys many stones, He that buys flesh buys many bones, He that buys eggs buys many shells, But he that buys good ale buys nothing else.
