Part 19

There were water-fowl near Brühl; there used to be a heronry there. But I do not think the Prince went in that direction. His ordinary shooting-ground was near Bergheim, on the other side of the Rhine and, beyond the Venusberg, in the Kottenforst, a long stretch of forest, not everywhere well-timbered, in which Peter Stamm had a "Jagd," to which of course the Prince was welcome. Wherever the forest was a little ragged there were, of course, black game. And then, in spring, to the Prince's great delight, there was woodcock shooting. The "Schnepfenstrich" was his pet sport, and never was he to be seen more regularly driving his plain little trap out to Röttgen--where Stamm had his shooting--the faithful Peter always by his side--than in the four weeks which precede Palm Sunday, the season of all others sacred in Germany to woodcock shooting, for

Oculi, da kommen sie; Laetare, das ist das wahre; Judica, sind sie auch noch da; Palmarum, Trallarum.

The Latin words are the Lutheran calendar names for the four Sundays next before Easter.

Often Stamm-hannes would be of the party--often also Everard Sator, another local Nimrod and horse-fancier, of Stamm's peculiar set, and acceptable to the Prince. And some of the Prince's more aristocratic companions would likewise occasionally join. But the Prince and Peter were in this matter inseparables, roughing it out on the wooded heights from sheer love of sport; and after that they would meet in the "Weinwirthschaft" and talk over their common experiences, being attentively overheard by a small company who reckoned it a privilege, however little they might know about shooting, to listen to these sportmen's tales, and bottle them up to retail to others after the Prince was gone.

There was another very faithful friend, of humbler station still, whose heart the Prince managed to capture by his genial affability and the kind interest which it was his wont to manifest in others. Nobody could have stayed any time in Bonn at that particular period without becoming acquainted with "Appeltring"--or, as she was more ceremoniously called to her face, "Frau Gevatterin." She was, without question, the most popular "character" in Bonn, and there was no man who had not a kind word for her, and was not ready to test her well-known power of repartee by a little joke. "Appeltring," of course, means "Apple-kate"--"Tring" standing for Katherine by one of those extraordinary transformations of names which, probably, not even Grimm could explain, and which in the Rhenish dialect convert "Heinrich" into "Drickes," and "Reinhard" into "Nieres." She was an apple-woman, as her name implies, or, rather, a seller of fruit generally, and had her stall or tent just outside the Neuthor, close to the Prince's quarters, and on a spot which he must pass several times almost every day--a coign of vantage, moreover, from which all the fashionable and unfashionable world taking the air in the Poppelsdorfer Allee, might be surveyed, as can all the fine folk passing in and out of Hyde Park from Hyde Park Corner. She was on that spot still when I was at Bonn twenty-three years later, and she was there for some time after--a weather-bronzed, wrinkled old woman then, but still full of chat and lively talk, humour and repartee, and endowed with a truly encyclopædic knowledge of everyone who had been anyone at Bonn, and of his life, and failings, and little adventures. Even in the Prince's day she was decidedly past her first youth, and devoid of personal attractions; but she had still something of the halo about her then of a not very distant serio-comic little love affair, about which she was made to hear no end of chaff--with a trumpeter (named Bengler, if I recollect right) who lost his life in that Russian war in which the great Moltke won his first spurs. During all the time that she offered her wares outside the Neuthor her stall was a favourite resort with folk who had a spare quarter of an hour on their hands, some of them of the best blood. The Emperor Frederick has sat on that spot many a time, watching the passers-by, and exchanging chat with "Tring," while eating cherries from one of the shallow flat-bottomed baskets in which "Frau Gevatterin," or her younger assistant, served them from the tent; and so have the Coburg Princes, more particularly Prince Albert, who had a peculiar liking for "Appeltring" and her quaint ways, her good temper, and her ready answers. Barring the Princes, "Tring's" customers were not always prompt paymasters. This necessitated the keeping of accounts, which, as "Tring" was nothing of a penwoman, resulted in a description of bookkeeping so curious as to induce a learned archæological society of Bonn afterwards to publish her records in facsimile. There were no names, but rude imitations of a beard, or a tassel, or big top-boots, or else a peculiar nose, or a pair of spectacles, or some other distinguishing feature about the particular debtor.

The habit of almost daily chat begot a peculiar familiarity and interest in one another's affairs between these two people at opposite poles of society, and inspired "Tring" with a devotion to the Prince which has just a touch of romance about it. To her simple but honest mind the Prince was the noblest creature that walked the earth. Whenever he failed to pass to bid her good-day, she seemed to feel as if deprived of a substantial pleasure. For years and decades after he had gone she would relate with striking animation little stories of his life in Bonn, and tell of his kindness to her. She was indefatigable in inquiries about him, and would draw in every word of information received with eager curiosity. Nor did she ever hear of anyone going to England without commissioning him--"Jrüsse Se den Prinzen Albehrt." It sounded very ridiculous to some, no doubt. But I venture to surmise, that to the Prince himself that broadly Rhenish "Jrüsse Se den Prinzen Albehrt" would have been a not unwelcome greeting.

Most of the good people here spoken of, with whom the Prince exchanged jokes and more serious intercourse, whom he charmed with his happy temper or edified with graver talk, are now dead and gone. Bonn has grown a town of 50,000 or 60,000 inhabitants, well-to-do, bright and attractive, adding to its population year by year. The University has throughout its history maintained its old high rank. As a new generation rises up old reminiscences are dying out. Stories which thirty years ago passed current from mouth to mouth are gradually being forgotten. There is so much more that used to be told of the Prince, when memories were fresh; indeed, there is much that might be told still, only the incidents seem trivial in themselves, and memorable only as demonstrating what singular power their hero possessed of riveting men's affections, and as concurring in impressing a stamp of noble principle, unselfish consideration for others, of a genial and happy disposition, and laborious devotion to study upon his student life of sixteen months. There was, there is reason to believe, very much good done in private, of which the outside world never heard. To Bonn the Prince's stay was a turning-point in its history; and, since elsewhere scarcely anything has been said about that particular epoch in the Prince's life, it may not be unmeet to gather together the fragments of traditions and reminiscences surviving, before they pass finally out of men's minds, and thus to fill a gap hitherto left in the memorials of a life which has in its later periods amply realized the promise given in the early days of youth here spoken of.

VIII.--SOMETHING ABOUT BEER.[12]

When Judas Iscariot, as the legend has it, prompted by a presumptuous ambition to emulate Our Saviour in the performance of a miracle similar to that of Cana, spoke his cabalistic words over the water which he desired to make potable, it may be argued that a worse product might have resulted from the process than beer--at any rate from a non-teetotal point of view. According to another legend, of wider currency, the inventor of beer was not the apostate apostle, but a more or less mythical king of Brabant, named Gambrinus. His bine-crowned visage may be seen beaming from the walls of most tap-rooms in Germany and in those more or less German provinces which once formed, or should have formed, or still form, that political desideratum, the "Middle Kingdom." This is a case of _ex vocabulo fabula_. For Gambrivium is Cambray--the Cambray of the League and also of early brewing. And "Gambrinus" is either John the Victorious of Brabant, who fell in a tournament held at Bar-le-Duc on the occasion of the marriage of Henri, count of that country, with Eleanor, daughter of our King Edward I., or else--and more probably--it is Jean Sans-Peur of Burgundy, who, to ingratiate himself with his Flemish subjects, had a dollar coined, showing a wreath of hop-bine encircling his head--and also instituted the order of the _Houblon_, giving no little offence thereby to his loyal clergy. Not that there was anything at all heretical in his act. No; but the case was really much worse. For the clergy, it turned out, in those days had a vested interest in beer. That was in the fourteenth century, when the liquor was still generally brewed without hops, a mixture of aromatic herbs being used instead, which was in most cases supplied from episcopal forests. So it was in Brabant. The Bishop of Liége possessed virtually a monopoly of the trade in _gruyt_, and when Duke John favoured the cultivation of hops, the bishop's income suffered a serious diminution. Accordingly, his Eminence remonstrated--just as in our country, about 1400, and again in 1442, complaint was made to Parliament of the introduction of that "wicked weed, that would spoil the taste of drink and endanger the people." In the dioceses of Utrecht and Cologne it was just the same thing. The bishops fought hard for their _gruyt_ or _krüt_, using their crosiers as a defensive weapon, but had eventually to give in. From this it would appear that what King Gambrinus really did introduce was not beer, but the use in the brewing of it of hops, the ingredient over which that eminent saint, Abbess Hildegardis of Rupertusberg, had already pronounced her benediction. St. Hildegardis was a saint of unquestionable authority, having been specially recognised at the Council of Trèves as a prophetess by St. Bernard and Pope Eugenius IV. She recommended hops on the ground that, though "heating and drying," and productive of "a certain melancholy and sadness" (she must have been thinking of the effects next day), they possess the sovereign virtues of preventing noxious fermentation and also of preserving the beer. (Burton, in partial opposition to the saint, asserts that beer--hopped, of course--"hath an especial virtue _against_ melancholy, as our herbalists confess.") St. Hildegardis' opinion was given in the twelfth century. That was not by any means the earliest age of beer; for we find it referred to in history some centuries before. Whether the inhabitants of Chalcedon, when they shouted in derision after the Emperor Valens, "Sabajarius! Sabajarius!"--which has been translated, "drinker of beer"--really referred to beer, as we now understand it, must appear doubtful. In the same way, the reputed "beer" of the early Egyptians and Hebrews--alluded to by Xenophon, Herodotus, and other ancient writers--may or may not have been beer in our sense. But in the eighth century we find Charlemagne enjoining brewing in his dominions. In 862 we have Charles the Bald making to the monks of St. Denis a grant of ninety _boisseaux d'épeautre_ a year _pour faire de la cervoise_. In 1042 we have Henri I. conferring on the monks of Montreuil-sur-Marne the valuable right of brewing, and in 1268 St. Louis laying down rules for the guidance of brewers in Paris. Paris was then, as it now is becoming again--I cannot say that I like the idea--a very "beery" place. Its brewers, even at a very remote time, formed a highly respected corporation, using as their insignia and trade-mark an image of the Holy Virgin--their patron saint--incongruously enough grouped together with Ceres, both being encircled by the legend:--_Bacchi Ceres aemula_. No modern Pope would allow such crossing of the two religions. Ceres was of course in olden time looked upon as the especial goddess of beer, made of barley, which was after her named _Cerevisia_. Juvenal mentions _Demetrius_ as its name, derived of course from Demeter. However, Fischart, a notable German poet, who lived in the sixteenth century, ascribes its invention to Bacchus, as an intended substitute for wine wherever there are no grapes. Modern Germany has produced a very pretty song, which represents Wine as a wonder-working nobleman, making a triumphal progress in grand style, clad in silk and gold, and Beer crossing his path as a sturdy but rather perky peasant, in a frieze jacket and top-boots, challenging him to a thaumaturgic tourney, as Jannes and Jambres challenged Moses. After an amusing little squabble the two make friends, and henceforth rule the world in joint sovereignty and happy unity. At Paris, in the reign of Charles V., we find the local brewers, twenty-one in number, so wealthy as to be able to pay a million _écus d'or_ for their licenses. Under Charles VI., beer had become a regulation drink at the French court, and we have our own Richard II. presenting the French king with a "_vaisseau à boire cervoise_." From this it may be inferred that the famous verselet--

Hops and turkeys, carps and beer,

or, as some rigid Anglican has improved it--

Hops, reformation, bays, and beer Came to England all in one year--

to wit, the year 1525--is a little wrong in its date, and that beer was known earlier. After the date named, we know that it soon made its way into the highest circles. As proof of this we have the one shoe which Queen Bess carelessly left behind after that lunch, of which beer formed an item, with which she was regaled on her progress through Sussex, under the spreading oak still shown in that pretty village of Northiam--

O fair Norjem! thou dost far exceed Beckley, Peasmarsh, Udimore, and Brede--

which shoe may still be seen, by favour, in the private archæological collection at Brickwall House, in company with Accepted Frewen's toasting-fork.

Saxon descent may have had much to do with the development of our own peculiar cerevisial taste--taste, that is, for beer with some body and a good strong flavour of malt. There can be no doubt that, compared with the produce of other countries, our beer is still the best--if only one's liver will stand it--the most tasty, the most nourishing--"meat, drink and cloth," as Sir John Linger puts it--beer which will occasionally "make a cat speak and a wise man dumb." The Saxons always had a liking for beer with something in it--not merely "strong water," as Sir Richard l'Estrange calls the small stuff. The ancient Teutons, we know, were all of them furious drinkers. Accordingly, not a few of the modern generation hold, with Luther's Elector of Saxony, that a custom of such very venerable antiquity ought not to be lightly abandoned. Tacitus writes that the Germans think it no shame to spend a whole day and night a-drinking. The Greek Emperor Nicephoras Phorcas told the ambassador of Emperor Otho that his master's soldiers had no other proficiency but in getting drunk. Rudolph of Hapsburgh grew vociferous over the discovery of good beer. "Walk in, walk in!" he shouted, standing at a tavern door in Erfurt, wholly oblivious of his imperial dignity; "there is excellent beer to be had inside." And "good King Wenceslas" of our Christmas carol--described as "good" nowhere else--was an habitual toper, and was "done" accordingly by the French at Rheims, where he thought more of the wine than of the treaty which he was negotiating. Henri Quatre would on no account marry a German wife. "Je croirais," he said, "toujours avoir un pot de vin auprès de moi." A modern writer, Charles Monselet, says that in Strassburg--in this respect a typically German town--"tout se ressent de la domination de la bière." Beer lends its colour to the faces of the inhabitants, to their hair, to their clothes; to the soil and the houses; and the very women seem nothing but "walking _chopes_." But the Saxons in particular--not the modern ones, but those of the North, some of whom found their way into England--always loved good stout nutritious drink, such as that to which the German composer Von Flotow ascribes our sturdy robustness:

Das ist das treffliche Elixir, Das ist das kräftige Porterbier.

Obsopæus says of the ancient Saxons:

Coctam Cererem potant _crassosque liquores_.

And an old rhyme, still quoted with gusto, goes to this effect:

Ein echter Sachse wird, wie alle Völker sagen, Nie schmal in Schultern sein, noch schlaffe Lenden tragen. Fragt Einer, welches denn die Ursach' sei: Er isset Speck und Wurst, und trinket _Mumm_ dabei.

"Mumm" is our own good old "mum," about the meaning of which in an Act of Parliament there was recently some controversy, when even Mr. Gladstone did not quite know how to explain it. It is the good, thick, stout, nourishing beer--_nil spissius illo_--which makes blood and flesh, and gives strength--"vires præstat et augmentat carnem, generatque cruorem," says the school of Salerno. Very presumably it is such beer as this, too, of which the unnamed witty poet quoted in Percy's "Reliques" writes:

nobilis ale-a Efficit heroas dignamque heroe puellam.

No doubt beer has had a good many nasty things said about it. The same school of Salerno lays it down that "crassos humores nutrit cerevisia, ventrem quoque mollit et inflat." It also affirms that ebriety resulting from beer is more hurtful than that produced by wine. But, notwithstanding this, it endorses the advice given by Matthew de Gradibus, which is, to drink it in preference to wine at the beginning of, or even throughout, meals, and above all things after any great exertion. "Cerevisia vero utpote crassior, et ad concoctionem pertinacior, non tam avide rapitur: quare ab ea potus in principio prandii vel coenae utilius inchoatur. Cerevisia humores etiam orificio stomachi insidentes abluit, et sitim, quæ ex nimia vini potatione timetur, praeterea et quamlibet aliam mendosam coercet ac reprimit." To say nothing of the censure pronounced by Crato, Henry of Avranches, and Wolfram von Eschenbach--that pillar of the Roman Church, Cardinal Chigi, charitably suggests that if beer had but a little sulphur added, it would become a right infernal drink. And Moscherosch, joking on the admixture of pitch with beer, common in his time--possibly copied from a similar practice applied to wine in the days of ancient Greece--speaks of "la bière poissée qui habitue au feu de l'enfer." "Pix intrantibus" used to be a familiar superscription placed for a joke over tavern doors. Then, again, we have Luther barely qualifying the old German rhyme--

Gott machte Gutes, Böses wir: Er braute Wein, wir brauen Bier--

by laying it down that "Vinum est donatio Dei, cerevisia traditio humana." And he went so far as to pronounce the leading brewer of his time "Pestis Germaniae." But this same Luther was himself a zealous beer-toper. He drank beer, it is on record, when plotting the Reformation with Melanchthon at Torgau. He called for _Bierseidel_ when Carlstadt came to the "Bear" at Jena to discuss with him the subject of consubstantiation. And the two divines used their pewters very freely by way of accentuating their theological arguments, and, towards the close of the sitting, even in substitution of them. Luther records with satisfaction, in his "Table Talk," that many presents reached him from France, Prussia, and Russia, of "wormwood-beer." And at Worms, where he was pleading the cause of the reformed faith before a hostile Diet, the one ray of comfort which pierced through the gloom of his imprisonment was the arrival, particularly mentioned in his letters, of a small cask of "Eimbeck" beer from one of the friendly princes. Like our modern M.P.'s annually exercised about the matter, the German reformer had a fervent zeal for the "purity of beer"--so fervent, that he actually threatened adulterating brewers with Divine wrath. He wrote these lines:

Am jüngsten Tage wird geschaut Was jeder für ein Bier gebraut.

On the other hand, Cardinal Chigi's Roman anathema is more than neutralised by any number of benedictions, expressed or implied, from holy men of his Church. There are the regulations of St. Louis, of St. Hildegardis, the enlisted interest of the Bishops of Cologne, Utrecht, and Liége, the patron-saintship of St. Amandus, St. Leonard, St. Adrian, and the Irish St. Florentius, and, moreover, the very close connection which from time immemorial monks and religious houses have maintained with brewing. In olden days they were the brewers _par excellence_. In Lorraine our English Benedictines of Dieulouard, who maintained themselves in their monastery near Pont-à-Mousson down to the time of the Revolution, long possessed an absolute monopoly of brewing, and were famed for their produce. And M. Reiber will have it that there are still in Germany, at the present day, _des congrégations de moines brasseurs_. Then there is St. Chrodegang, a near relative of Charlemagne, the great reformer of monastic orders, who particularly directed--and the rule is still observed--that monks should be allowed the option of either beer or wine. And sensible monks, a communicative Carthusian confided to me the other day, prefer good beer any day to bad wine.

If, in face of all this, neither Romanists nor Protestants can say anything against beer, much less are Mussulmans in a position to do so. For Mahomet actually, though he expressly forbids wine, never says a word in prohibition of beer--thus leaving a convenient loophole to thirsty Mahommedans, of which French writers tell us that bibulous Algerians eagerly avail themselves.

From all this it will be seen that, despite teetotal disparagement, beer comes before the world, so to speak, with very respectable credentials, entitling it to a fairly good reception. Brillat-Savarin, it is true, admits to its detriment that "l'eau est la seule boisson qui apaise véritablement la soif." But "l'eau," says another French writer, M. Reiber, "est la prose des liquides, l'alcool en est la poésie." Speaking more particularly of beer, among alcoholic drinks, M. Dubrunfaut writes: "La bière occupe incontestablement le premier rang parmi les boissons hygiéniques connues." And he goes on to say that among the beer-drinking nations one finds, as a rule, manly qualities most developed--as among the English, the Germans, the Dutch, the Belgians, and the Northern French. Brillat-Savarin only objects that beer makes people stout.