It is without controversy that in the nonage of the world, men and beasts had but one buttery, which was the fountain and river, nor do we read of any vines or wines till two hundred years after the flood; but now I do not know or hear of any nation that hath water only for their drink, except the Japanese, and they drink it hot too; but we may say that whatever beverage soever we make, either by brewing, by distillation, decoction, percolation, or pressing, it is but water at first; nay, wine itself is but water sublimed, being nothing else but that moisture and sap which is caused either by rain or other kind of irrigations about the roots of the vine, and drawn up to the branches and berries by the virtual attractive heat of the sun, the bowels of the earth serving as an alembic to that end, which made the Italian vineyard-man (after a long drought, and an extreme hot summer which had parched up all his grapes) to complain, ‘For want of water I am forced to drink water; if I had water I would drink wine:’ it may also be applied to the miller, when he has no water to drive his mills. The vine doth so abhor cold, that it cannot grow beyond the 49th degree to any purpose; therefore God and nature hath furnished the north-west nations with other inventions of beverage. In this island the old drink was ale, noble ale, than which, as I heard a great foreign doctor affirm, there is no liquor that more increaseth the radical moisture, and preserves the natural heat, which are the two pillars that support the life of man. But since beer hath hopped in amongst us, ale is thought to be much adulterated, and nothing so good as Sir John Oldcastle and Smugg the smith was used to drink. Besides ale and beer, the natural drink of part of this isle may be said to be metheglin, braggot, and mead, which differ in strength according to the three degrees of comparison. The first of the three, which is strong in the superlative if taken immoderately, doth stupefy more than any other liquor, and keeps a humming in the brain, which made one say, that he loved not metheglin because he was used to speak too much of the house he came from, meaning the hive. Cider and perry are also the natural drinks of parts of this isle.
The condition of things underwent no material change during the Commonwealth and Protectorate, notwithstanding the special pleading of political partisanship. The state of morals in England and its capital is accurately described in a letter to a French nobleman during the Protectorate:—
There is within this city [London] and in all the towns of England which I have passed through, so prodigious a number of houses where they sell a certain drink called ale, that I think a good half of the inhabitants may be denominated ale-house keepers. These are a meaner sort of cabarets. But what is more deplorable, there the gentlemen sit and spend much of their time, drinking of a muddy kind of beverage, and tobacco, which has universally besotted the nation, and at which I hear they have consumed many noble estates. As for other taverns London is composed of them, where they drink Spanish wines, and other sophisticated liquors, to that fury and intemperance, as has often amazed me to consider it. But thus some mean fellow, the drawer, arrives to an estate, some of them having built fair houses, and purchased those gentlemen out of their possessions, who have ruined themselves by that base and dishonourable vice of ebriety. And that nothing may be wanting to the height of luxury and impiety of this abomination, they have translated the organs out of their churches to set them up in taverns; chanting their dithyrambics and bestial bacchanalias to the tune of those instruments which were wont to assist them in the celebration of God’s praises, and regulate the voices of the worst singers in the world, which are the English in their churches at present.... A great error undoubtedly in those who sit at the helm, to permit this scandal; to suffer so many of these taverns and occasions of intemperance, such leeches and vipers, to gratify so sordid and base a sort of people with the spoils of honest and well-natured men. Your lordship will not believe me, that the ladies of greatest quality suffer themselves to be treated in one of these taverns, where a courtezan in other cities would scarcely vouchsafe to be entertained. But you will be more astonished when I shall assure you that they drink their crowned cups roundly, strain healths through their smocks, dance after the fiddle, &c. Drinking is the afternoon’s diversion; whether for want of a better, to employ the time, or affection to the drink, I know not. But I have found some persons of quality whom one could not safely visit after dinner, without resolving to undergo this drink-ordeal. It is esteemed a piece of wit to make a man drunk, for which some swilling insipid client or congiary is a frequent and constant adjutant.
And later on, in order to contrast the two countries, the writer adds:—
I don’t remember, my lord, ever to have known (or very rarely) a health drank in France, no, not the King’s; and if we say, à votre santé, Monsieur, it neither expects pledge or ceremony. ‘Tis here so the custom to drink to every one at the table, that by the time a gentleman has done his duty to the whole company, he is ready to fall asleep, whereas with us, we salute the whole table with a single glass only.[145]
Other writers of the time notice the participation of the women in the general drinking. M. Jorevin, another French author, writes of a Worcester hotel:—
According to the custom of the country, the landladies sup with the strangers and passengers, and if they have daughters they are also of the company, to entertain the guests at table with pleasant conceits, where they drink as much as the men; but what is to me the most disgusting in all this is, that when one drinks the health of any person in company, the custom of the country does not permit you to drink more than half the cup, which is filled up and presented to him or her whose health you have drunk.[146]
John Evelyn tells of the execrable habit of making servants drunk. He remarks, under date July 19, 1654:—
Went back to Cadenham, and on the 19th to Sir Ed. Baynton’s at Spie Park, a place capable of being made a noble seate; but the humorous old knight has built a long single house of 2 low stories on the precipice of an incomparable prospect, and looking on a bowling greene in the park. The house is like a long barne, and has not a window on the prospect side. After dinner they went to bowles, and in the meanetime our coachmen were made so exceedingly drunk, that in returning home we escap’d greate dangers. This it seems was by order of the knight, that all gentlemen’s servants be so treated; but the custome is a barbarous one, and much unbecoming a knight, still lesse a Christian.
The same sort of thing happened to Evelyn again, March 18, 1669:—