And drawing abide, if ye draw not too fast.
Tusser, 1557.
Alexander Newell, Dean of St. Paul’s and Master of Westminster School in the reign of Queen Mary, was an excellent angler. But, (says Fuller,) while Newell was catching of fishes, Bishop Bonner was catching of Newell, and would certainly have sent him to the shambles had not a good London merchant conveyed him away upon the seas. Newell was fishing upon the banks of the Thames when he received the first intimation of his danger, which was so pressing that he dared not go back to his own house to make any preparation for his flight. Like an honest angler, he had taken with him provision for the day, and when, in the first year of England’s deliverance, he returned to his country and his old haunts, he remembered that on the day of his flight he had left a bottle of beer in a safe place on the bank: there he looked for it, and “found it no bottle, but a gun—such the sound at the opening thereof; and this (adds Fuller,) is believed (casualty is mother of more invention than industry) the origin of Bottled Ale in England.”
THE POTATO.
Although Sir Walter Raleigh was unexpectedly prevented from accompanying Sir Humphrey Gilbert to Newfoundland, he eventually proved one of the greatest benefactors to his own country, by the introduction of the potato on his return from America, in the year 1584. This root was first planted on Sir Walter’s estate at Youghall, which he afterward sold to the Earl of Cork; but not having given sufficient directions to the person who had the management of the land, the latter mistook the flowers for the fruit and most valuable part of the plant, and, on tasting them, rejected them as a pernicious exotic. Some time afterwards, turning up the earth, he found the roots spread to a great distance, and in considerable quantities; and from this stock the whole kingdom was soon after supplied with this valuable plant, which gradually spread throughout Europe and North America. Its name, potato, in Irish paitey, and in French patate, is said to be derived from the original language of Mexico, of which it is supposed to be a native.
Anspach’s History of Newfoundland.
TARRING AND FEATHERING.
Anquetil, in his Histoire de France, 1805, has the following passage in reference to this mode of chastisement:—
They (the two crusading kings, Richard Cœur de Lion and Philip Augustus) afterwards made in concert the laws of police which should be observed in both their armies. No women, except washerwomen, were to be permitted to accompany the troops. Whoever killed another was, according to the place where the crime should be committed, to be cast into the sea, or buried alive, bound to the corpse of the murdered person. Whoever wounded another was to have his hand cut off; whoever struck another should be plunged three times into the sea; and whoever committed theft should have warm pitch poured over his head, which should then be powdered with feathers, and the offender should afterwards be left abandoned on the first shore.