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COTS AND THEIR CUSTOMS.
19
should be clear like tlie tears of a penitent, so that
a man may see distinctly to the bottom of the glass j
its colour should represent the greenness of a buffaloes
horn; when drank, it should descend impetuously like
thunder j sweet-tasted as an almond j creeping like
a squirrel] leaping like a roebuck j strong like the
building of a Cistercian monastery j glittering like a
spark of fire; subtle like the logic of the schools of
Paris; delicate as fine silkj and colder than crystal/
1
If we pursue our th,eme through the 13th, 14th, and
15th centuries, we find but little to edify us, those
times being distinguished more by their excess and
riot than by superiority of beverages or the customs
attached to them. It would be neither profitable nor
interesting to descant on scenes of brawling drunken-
ness, which ended not unfrequently in fierce battles*—
or pause to admire the congregation of female gossips
at the taverns, where the overhanging sign was either
the branch of a tree, from which we derive the saying
that
€€
good wine needs no bush/
J
or the equally common
appendage of a besom hanging from the window, which
has supplied us with the idea of "hanging out the
broom.
n
The chief wine drank at this period was
Malmsey, first imported into England in the 13th cen-
tury, when its average price was about 50s. a butt|
this wine, however, attained its greatest popularity in
the 15th century. There is a story in connexion with
this wine which makes it familiar to every schoolboy;
and that is, the part it played in the death of the Duke
of Clarence. Whether that nobleman did choose a butt