The Flowing Bowl A Treatise on Drinks of All Kinds and of All Periods, Interspersed with Sundry Anecdotes and Reminiscences

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THE FLOWING BOWL, By EDWARD SPENCER


      *      *      *      *      *      *

 _By the Same Author_

 CAKES AND ALE

 A Memory of many Meals; the
 whole interspersed with various
 Recipes, more or less original,
 and Anecdotes, mainly veracious.

 THIRD EDITION

 Small Crown 8vo, Cloth, 2s.

 _Cover designed by Phil May_


 THE GREAT GAME
 AND HOW IT IS PLAYED

 A Treatise on the Turf,
 full of Tales

 Small Crown 8vo, cloth, 2s.

 LONDON: GRANT RICHARDS

      *      *      *      *      *      *

THE FLOWING BOWL

A Treatise on Drinks of All Kinds and of
All Periods, Interspersed with Sundry
Anecdotes and Reminiscences

by

EDWARD SPENCER

(‘Nathaniel Gubbins’)

Author of ‘Cakes and Ale,’ etc.






London
Grant Richards
1903




PREFACE


I claim no merit for the following pages, other than may attach
to industry, application, the gift of copying accurately, and the
acquisition of writer’s cramp. The mechanical writing is—to the great
joy of the compositors who have dealt with it—every letter mine own;
but the best part of the book has been conveyed from other sources.
In fact the book is, as the old lady said of the divine tragedy of
_Hamlet_, “full of quotations.” The hand is the hand of Gubbins, but
the voice is, for the most part, the voice of the great ones of the
past, including Pliny and Gervase Markham. The matter, or most of it—I
am endeavouring to drive the fact home—is culled from other sources;
and if this is the most useful and interesting work ever published it
is more my fortune than my fault.

The genial reception of my earlier effort, _Cakes and Ale_—which
was condemned only by worshippers of _Ala_, who were not expected
to applaud—together with the hope of earning something towards the
purchase of a Bath Chair—have induced me to issue this little treatise
on liquids, as a companion to my first cloth-bound book. And innate
modesty—I stick to “innate,” despite the critics—compels me to add that
I think the last is the better work. I will, however, leave a generous
and discriminating public to decide that question for itself.

 LONDON, CHRISTMAS EVE, 1898.




CONTENTS


 CHAPTER I

 THE OLD ADAM

 Introductory — Awful habits of the ancients — A bold, bad book —
 Seneca on the Drink Habit — The bow must not be always strung —
 _Ebrietatis Encomium_ — The noble Romans — “Dum vivimus vivamus” —
 The skeleton at the banquet — Skull-cups — “Life and wine are the
 same thing” — Virgil and his contemporaries — Goats for Bacchus —
 The days of Pliny — Rewards for drunkenness — Novellius Torquatus
 — Three gallons at a draught — A swallow which did not save Rome —
 The antiquity of getting for’ard — Noah as a grape-grower — Father
 Frassen’s ideas — Procopius of Gaza — New Testament wine — Fermented
 or not? — Bad old Early Christians — Drunkenness common in Africa —
 Religion a cloak for alcohol — Tertullian on cider — Paulinus excuses
 intemperance — Excellence of Early Christians’ intentions . . . Pages
 1–10


 CHAPTER II

 MORE FRIGHTFUL EXAMPLES

 Eating and drinking the only work of the monks — Nunc est bibendum —
 An apology for Herodotus — A jovial pope — Good quarters in Provence
 — Intemperance of holy men — A tippling bishop — Alexander the Great
 — “Lovely Thais sits beside thee” — A big flare-up — Awful end of
 Alec — Cambyses always shot straight — Darius the strong-of-head —
 Philip drunk and Philip sober — Dionysius gets blind — Tiberius loved
 the bowl — So did Flavius Vobiscus, the diplomatist — Bluff King Hal
 — The Merry Monarch and the Lord Mayor — Dear Old Pepys — A Mansion
 House wine-list — Minimum allowance of sack — A slump in brandy — A
 church-tavern — Dean Aldrich — The Romans at supper — “The tippling
 philosophers” . . . Pages 11–21


 CHAPTER III

 DRINKS ANCIENT AND MODERN

 The Whitaker of the period — France without wine — Babylonian boozers
 — Beer discovered by the Egyptians — A glass of bitter for Cleopatra —
 Brai