possible for them to intercept our Squadrons from Joyning, whereas if the body of the ffleet were here, It cannot reasonably be supposed but we may have such notice as to be timely out to meet them.

Principall Officers & Commissioners of the Navy.

The Right Honble Edward Russell Esq Admirall of
their Majties Fleett, and one of his Majties most
Honourable Privy Councill, Treasurer

£3000

St Richard Haddock, Comptroller

500

following extract.

The new constitution of the Admiralty will be seen by the

Lords Commissioners for executing the Office of Lord high Admirall

of England.

The Rt Honourable Thomas Earle of Pembroke
and Montgomerie one of the Lords of his Majttes

most Honble Privy Councill, &c

The Rt Honble Lord Falkland.

St John Lowther

St Richard Onslow

Capt Henry Priestman

Coll Austin

James Southern Esq Secretary

£1000

1000

1000

1000

1000

1000

500

This is the last of the Battine Series of MSS. which I have been able to inspect; probably more exist. One would like to ascertain the whereabouts of the copy the author "laid att his Ma'ties Feet" about 1684.

Since this paper was prepared, the Master and Fellows of Magdalene College, Cambridge, have given permission to Mr. J. R. Tanner to calendar the Pepysian MSS. When this is accomplished we may find some further information relating to Edward Battine.

My thanks are due to the Librarian of the Pepysian Library at Magdalene College, Cambridge, for permission to copy the communications to and from Pepys, and to the officials in the Department of MSS. in the British Museum for their constant courtesy.

ETHEGLIN or mead, with which the Britannic tribes so loved to lave their thirsty clay, and which was so highly relished by the Teutonic nations, is a beverage now seldom heard of and still more rarely tasted. Pliny (H. N., xiv, 20)

calls it a wine made solely of honey and water; rain-water after being kept for five years being best for the purpose, though he says some boiled down the fresh rain to one-third of the quantity gathered, to which they added one-third in quantity of old honey, keeping the mixture exposed to the rays of a hot sun for forty days after the rising of the Dog Star. Pliny adds that others rack it off in the course of ten days, keeping the vessels tightly stoppered in which it is placed. According to Dioscorides (v. 791), mead was composed of two parts of water to one of honey. "The right way of making Metheglin and Birch Wine", is described in Worlidge's Vinetum Britannicum, or a Treatise of Cidar and other Wines and Drinks", 1678; and dear old Hannah Wooley, of whose company we can never tire when anything nice is our theme, gives us in her Queenlike Closet (Ed. 1684, p. 124) an elaborate receipt "To make Metheglin, either Brown or White, but White is best". She says: "Take what quantity you please of Spring Water, and make it so strong with Honey that it will bear an Egg, then boil it very well, till a good part be wasted, and put into it boiling a good quantity of whole Spice, Rosemary, Balm, and other cordial and

1898

pleasant Herbs or Flowers. When it is very well boiled,
set it to cool, it being strained from the Herbs, and the
Bag of Spices taken out: when it is almost cold, put in
a little Yeast, and beat it well, then put it into Vessels
when it is quite cold, and also the Bag of Spice, and when
it hath stood a few Days, bottle it up; if you would have
it red, you must put the Honey to strong Ale Wort
instead of Water." Those who are desirous of further
enlightenment on the manufacture of mead may consult
George Fisher's Instructor, or Young Man's Best Com-
panion, 1750, p. 320; and Sir John Hill's, alias Mrs.
Glasse's, Art of Cookery (Ed. 1760, pp. 353, 374), where
they will see that it was a very spicy compound, differing
greatly from the simple melicration or hydromel of
classic days. The high antiquity of this once-esteemed
beverage is attested by the mention made of it by Pliny
and Dioscorides; and the British bards frequently allude
to Medd and Meddyglyn. Aneurin, in the third song of
The Gododin, seems to attribute the defeat of the Britons
at the fatal battle of Cattraeth, in the fifth century, to
its potency :--

"The Heroes went to Cattraeth-loquacious was their
Assemblage,

Pale Mead was their liquor, and it became their Poison.
The Heroes went to Cattraeth-They drank the intoxi-

cating Mead.

They drank the yellow, delicious, and potent Mead."

In the fifth song of The Gododin it is said :

"Together they drank the transparent Mead, by the light of Torches: though it was pleasant to the taste it produced a lasting abhorrence."

In the account of the "Origin of Poetry" given in the Prose Edda, we are told that the dwarfs, Fjalar and Galar, after murdering Kvasin, who was a sort of Solomon in his way, mixed his blood with honey, and thus composed a liquor which bestowed the gift of song on all who partook of it. Suttung, son of the giant Gilling, obtained this precious beverage from the dwarfs, and hence it acquired the title of "Suttung's Mead".

1

1

The warriors in Valhalla are described as being regaled on boiled pork, and mead which flowed from the teats of the she-goat Heidrun, which was served to them in horns by the lovely Valkyrjor, a lot of young ladies somewhat of the same stamp with the Houries of the Mahomedan Paradise. Mead was also the beverage drunk in the Hall of Hela, the Goddess of Death. But copious draughts of mead were swallowed by the Scandinavians on earth as well as in the regions beyond the grave, and they did not abandon their passion for the drink after their settlement in England; and as the mead cup was the prime feature in the marriage festival, which was kept up for thirty days, the happy pair were said to be spending their Honey Moon during the first month after their nuptials.

"There's Month that's call'd the Honey-Moon,
The sweetest in the Year,

To Those who first taste Bridal-bliss

The new Wed happy pair.

Whilst o'er them Hymen keepeth watch,
Their Friends enjoy their part,

With revelry and banqueting,
Gay Song, and gladsome heart.
For Thirty-days the Honey-Wine,
The Festive-Cup doth fill,

And Draughts as deep as Ocean's depths,
For time all Care doth kill."

The Anglo-Saxons denominated the mead cup Medufull and Meodu-scene; and their love for the liquor was so strong that the banqueting-room received the title of Medo-ærn and Medu-heal, and one who was somewhat overcome with drink was said to be Medu-werig, or mead-weary. Attila, "the Scourge of God", is said to have died through over-indulgence in hydromel on the night of his nuptials with Ildico.

In

Mead, or metheglin as it was more frequently called in mediæval times, long continued a favourite beverage, and is frequently mentioned by our old poets. Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost (v., 2), Biron, when addressing the Princess, speaks of

"Metheglin, wort, and malmsey".

And in The Merry Wives of Windsor (v., 5), Sir Hugh Evans, when reviling Sir John Falstaff, talks about

"Sack and wine, and metheglins".

Dryden introduces both mead and metheglin in his

verse :

And

"He Sheers his over-burden'd Sheep;
Or Mead for cooling Drink prepares,
Of virgin Honey in the jars."

"Tallay the strength new hardness of the Wine,
And with old Bacchus new Metheglin join."

De Meede.

(Enlarged from a Print in a Seventeenth-Century Work.)

John Philips, though he does not mention mead by name, thus alludes to it in his poem on Cyder (B. II, v. 12) :

"the Britons squeeze the Works

Of sedulous Bees, and missing od'rous Herbs
Prepare balsamic Cups, to wheezing Lungs
Medicinal, and short-breath'd, ancient Sires."

Simon of Genoa, physician to Pope Nicholas IV (128892), makes mention in his Catholicon of Medo, of a beverage made of diluted honey; and that mead was employed medicinally as late as the last century seems evident from the fact that Dr. John Quincy gives