The extent of the business at that time may be gathered from the following verse:—
Now boasting Whitbread, serious did declare, To make the majesty of England stare, That he had buts enough, he knew, Plac’d side by side, to reach along to Kew: On which the king with wonder swiftly cry’d, “What if they reach to Kew then, side by side, What would they do, what, what, plac’d end to end?”
To this Mr. Whitbread replies that they would probably reach to Windsor.
After awhile the King began to take notes.
Now, majesty, alive to knowledge, took A very pretty memorandum-book, With gilded leaves of asses’ skins so white, And in it legibly did write—
Memorandum,
A charming place beneath the grates, For roasting chesnuts or potates,
Mem.
’Tis hops that gives a bitterness to beer— Hops grow in Kent, says Whitbread, and elsewhere.
Quaere.