"The King was in his counting house
Counting out his money,
The Queen was in the parlour
Eating bread and Honey."
"Mel mandit, panemque, morans regina culinâ,
Dulcia plebeiâ non comedenda nuru."
A plain cake, currant or seed, made with Honey in place of sugar is a pleasant addition to the tea-table and a capital preventive of constipation.
"All kinds of precious stones cast into Honey become more brilliant thereby," says St. Francis de Sales in The Devout Life, 1708, "and all persons become more acceptable when they join devotion to their graces."
HOP.
The Hop (Humulus lupulus) belongs to the Nettle tribe (Cannabineoe) of plants, and grows wild in our English hedges and copses; but then it bears only male flowers. When cultivated it produces the female catkins, or strobiles which are so well known as Hops, and are so largely used for brewing purposes.
The plant gets its first name Humulus from humus, the rich moist ground in which it chooses to grow, and its affix lupulus from the Latin lupus a wolf, because (as Pliny explained), when produced among osiers, it [263] strangles them by its light climbing embraces as the wolf does a sheep.
The word Hop comes from the Anglo-saxon hoppan to climb. The leaves and the flowers afford a fine brown dye, and paper has been made from the bine, or stalk, which sprouts in May, and soon grows luxuriantly; as said old Tusser (1557):—
"Get into thy Hop-yard, for now it is time
To teach Robin Hop on his pole how to climb."
The Hop, says Cockayne, was known to the Saxons, and they called it the Hymele, a name enquired-for in vain among Hop growers in Worcestershire and Kent.