Three others were born by this marriage—“a girl,” Transparent as Amber and precious as Pearl. Then a son, twice as strong as a Porter or Scout, And another as “Spruce” as his brother was “Stout.”
Double X, like his Sister, is brilliant and clear, Like his Mother, tho’ bitter, by no means severe: Like his Father, not small, and resembling each brother, Joins the spirit of one to the strength of the other.
In John Taylor’s time there seems to have existed among ale drinkers a wholesome prejudice against wine in general, and more especially sack. The water poet writes very bitterly on the subject:—
Thus Bacchus is ador’d and deified, And we Hispanialized and Frenchifide; Whilst Noble Native Ale and Beere’s hard fate Are like old Almanacks, quite out of date.
Thus men consume their credits and their wealths, And swallow Sicknesses in drinking healths, Untill the Fury of the spritefull Grape Mountes to the braine, and makes a man an Ape.
Another poet wrote in much the same strain:—
Thy wanton grapes we do detest: Here’s richer juice from Barley press’d.
Oh let them come and taste this beer And water henceforth they’ll forswear.
Our ancestors seem, indeed, almost to have revered good malt liquor. Richard Atkinson gave the following excellent advice to Leonard Lord Dacre in the year 1570: “See that ye keep a noble house for beef and beer, that thereof may be praise given to God and to your honour.”