curious and accumulated treasures around them. To be sure, they must assume a flannel costume, such as is not familiar to our eyes, and they must give up the prospect of ever eating meat again, or of seeing the gentler sex, except through the bronze railing we spoke of, which keeps the bonnets from choir, chapels, and domestic department; that is, unless the inmates make good or bad use of their eyes, when, upon rare occasions, they are taken out two and two for a walk with the prior in the surrounding fields or lanes. They must only think of entering into conversation once or twice a week, reserving the use of their voices for the numerous services at which they will have to be present. They must always convince the brother who thunders at the big knocker of their door at midnight, that they are awake, if not profitably employed, and they must take what sleep they can get on something that is not very luxurious. They must wait to have their dish of hermit’s fare put through the bars of their lower room, they must then let down from the wall the ledge on which they are to eat it, and forthwith turn the same up again when the frugal repast is over. Their chief indulgence must be a gathering on festivals, to interchange solemn thought in some garden a little larger than their own slip of ground; but, otherwise, they must take the usual recipe for dulness, plenty of work and no play. Some try the place and system only for awhile; others, who have tested it for a quarter of a century, thrive under it, and like it. Applicants for “vacancies” must become Carthusian Monks of St. Bruno’s rule, and then they will find what we have been speaking of in the “Certosa della Beata Vergine delle Grazie,” some five miles out of the city of Pavia, in Northern Italy.
JOHN BARLEYCORN.
The introduction of the hop plant into this country provoked the indignation of many sturdy Britons, who were entirely satisfied with honest malt liquor, such as their forefathers had oft-times made merry upon. Had they not rejoiced at harvest-home, and gladdened their hearts at Christmas with the good old English beverage? They refused to believe that it could be improved by the infusion of an additional ingredient, and many years after the hop had been successfully grown in Kent and Sussex, the prejudice against it remained deep and general. It was a delicate and fragile plant, requiring to be petted and nursed like a sickly child, ill adapted to thrive on our English soil, and liable to diseases which had no power over barley.
But, notwithstanding prejudice and obstinacy, increasing attention was paid, year after year, to the culture of hops. It is certain that the plant was not brought into England until 1524 or 1525, but in the course of the following half century, the principles of its growth had been reduced to a science. The earliest “hand-book” on the subject is Reynold Scot’s “Perfite Platforme of a Hoppe Garden.” The only merit which Mr. Scot claimed for himself was that of giving his advice in a lucid form, “not bumbasting the same with the figures and flowers of eloquence, to the glorye of my pen, or to the obscuring of this misterie.” He was careful to premise that his book was not intended for those who were unwilling to labour, “which sort of people are greedy to test of the marrow of gaines, and loth to breake the bone of labour,” and who “in the ende buye a great kyte insteade of a little larke.”
Many futile attempts were made at this early period to cultivate hops in England. Mr. Scot, while acknowledging that the best plants could be obtained from Flanders, censures the Flemings for “dazeling us with the discommendation of our soyle,” and asserts that we need not go abroad for that which we can find at home. This was a little ungrateful. The hop, it is true, grows wild in England, but it has never been brought to complete perfection. The conclusion arrived at by a Parliamentary Committee in 1857, after listening to a great deal of evidence, was, that “the best hops in Europe are grown in Bavaria and Bohemia.” Those grown at Farnham are considered the best produced in England. Next in quality are the hops of Sussex and Kent. Latterly, the crop has failed to a very large extent, and the growers must be well-nigh disheartened by their many losses. In the debate which took place on the Hop Duties in the Session of 1861, a member, who had for some years cultivated hops on his own land, stated that he had occasionally been in doubt whether the hops on his poles were worth picking,—so poor were they in quality, and so unduly severe was the pressure of the duty; for it is a strange anomaly that the same duty is charged on hops of the worst quality as on hops of the best. The uniform rate is 17s. 7½d. per cwt., while hops of foreign growth are taxed 2l. 5s. per cwt.
The only mention made by Mr. Scot of the great object of dread to the hop-grower is in the following passage:
The hoppe that lykes not his entertaynement, namely, his seate, his grounde, his keeper * * * * commeth up greene and small in stalke, thicke and rough in leaves, very like unto a nettle. [It] will be commonly devoured or much bitten with a little blacke flie, who also will doe harme unto good hoppes, where the garden standeth bleake, or the hoppe springeth rath; but be not discomforted herewith, for the heate of the summer will reforme this matter.
Either Mr. Scot was unusually fortunate in his own plantation, or the ravages of the fly have become more deadly in our own time. In a single night irremediable mischief is sometimes occasioned by the fly, or “louse,” and the hops hang black, fetid, and rotten on the poles. The cost of cultivating an acre of hops is estimated to be, under the most favourable circumstances, from 22l. to 30l., and the grower asserts that arable land may be brought under cultivation at a sixth of the expense.[1]
Long before excise duties were laid on hops, beer and ale were laid under contribution to the revenue, greatly to the dissatisfaction of the consumer. “Is this an age,” asked one, in 1635, “to be in a man’s right wits, when the lawful use of the throat is so much neglected, and strong drinke lies sicke on his death bed? ’Tis above the- ↑ See Evidence before the Parliamentary Committee, 1857.
