wonderful success. I could produce several cases out of the best phy sical writers, as Forestus, Riverius, Rulandus, &c. where these berries have acted their parts, even to admiration; but, if you are curious and inquisitive after the qualities and nature of them, I will recommend a learned German, Martyn Blochwitz, to your reading, where you may entertain yourself with great variety. Yet I have one thing still to take notice of, that the same medicine may be prepared out of the spirit, oil, and salt of this berry, that you have been taught before to make out of the juniper-berry; but you may obtain them all in a simple decoction, if it be well managed.

You have read here the great use of these two berries, that are more universally agreeable to all tempers, palates, and cases, than perhaps any other two simple medicines, which are commonly known amongst us; so that several persons, being under ill habits of body, and upon the frontiers of some lingering diseases, cannot but desire to drink them, when they have occasion to resort to publick-houses. Yet, for all this, my poor advice will certainly meet with that fate, which does attend almost every thing in the world, that is, Laudatur ab his, culpatur ab illis: but it dreads most of all the Turky and East-India merchant, who will condemn it in defence of their coffee and thee, which have the honour of coming from the Levant and China. Besides, I am afraid of a lash, or a frown, from some young ladies, and little sparks, who scorn to eat, drink, or wear any thing, that comes not from France, or the Indies; they fancy poor England is not capable of bringing forth any commodity, that can be agreeable to their grandeur and gallantry, as though nature, and God Almighty, had cursed this island with the productions of such things, as are every way unsuitable to the complexions and necessities of the inhabitants; so we cannot but repartee upon these a-la-mode persons, that, while they worship so much only foreign creatures, they cannot but be wholly ignorant of those at home. His excellency, the most acute and ingenious ambassador from the Emperor of Fez and Morocco (who now resides amongst us) is reported to have advised his attendants to see every thing, but admire nothing, lest they should seem thereby to disparage their own country, and shew themselves ignorant of the great rarities and wonders of Barbary.

Poor contemptible berries, fly hence to Smyrna, Bantam, or Mexico; then the merchants would work through storms and tempests, through fire and water, to purchase you, and, on your arrival here would proclaim your vertues in all publick assemblies; so true is that common saying, A prophet is never valued in his own country. The English soil is certainly influenced by some pestilential star, that blasts the credit of is productions.

The Way of making Mum, with some Bemarks upon that Liquor.

IN the first place, I will give some instructions how to make mum, as it is recorded in the house of Brunswick, and was sent, from thence, to General Monk.

To make a vessel of sixty-three gallons, the water must be first boiled to the consumption of a third part; let it then be brewed, according to. art, with seven bushels of wheat-malt, one bushel of oat-malt, and one bushel of ground beans; and, when it is tunned, let not the hogshead be too much filled at first. When it begins to work, put to it of the inner rind of the fir, three pounds; of the tops of fir and birch, of each one pound; of carduus benedictus dried, three handfuls; flowers of rosa solis, two handfuls; of burnet, betony, marjoram, avens, pennyroyal, flowers of elder, wild thyme, of each one handful and an half; seeds of cardamum bruised, three ounces; bay-berries bruised one ounce; put the seeds into the vessel. When the liquor hath wrought a while with the herbs, and after they are added, let the liquor work over the vessel as little as may be, fill it up at last, and, when it is stopped, put into the hogshead ten new-laid eggs, the shells not cracked or broken; stop all close, and drink it at two years old; if carried by water it is better. Dr. Ægidius Hoffman added water-cresses, brook-lime, and wild parsley, of each six handfuls, with six handfuls of horse-radish rasped in every hogshead; it was observed that the horse-radish made the mum drink more quick than that which had none.

By the composition of mum, we may guess at the qualities and properties of it. You find great quantities of the rind, and tops of fir, in it; therefore if the mum-makers at London are so careful and honest, as to prepare this liquor, after the Brunswick fashion, which is the genuine and original way; it cannot but be very powerful against the breeding of stones, and against all scorbutick distempers. When the Swedes carried on a war against the Muscovites, the scurvy did so domineer among them, that their army did languish and moulder away to nothing, till, once incamping near a great number of fir-trees, they began to boil the tops of them in their drink, which recovered the army, even to a miracle; from whence the Swedes call the fir, the scorbutick tree, to this very day. Our most renowned Dr. Walter Needham has observed the great success of these tops of fir in the scurvy, as Mr. Ray informs us; which is no great wonder, if we consider the balsam or turpentine (with which this tree abounds) which proves so effectual in preserving even dead bodies themselves from putrefaction and corruption. If my memory does not deceive me, I have heard Mr. Boyle (the ornament and glory of our English nation) affirm, that the oil of turpentine preserves bodies from putrefaction much better than the spirit of wine. The fir, being a principal ingredient of this liquor, is so celebrated by some modern writers, that it alone may be sufficient to advance the mum trade among us. Simon Pauli (a learned Dane) tells us the great exploits of the tops of this tree in freeing a great man of Germany from an inveterate scurvy. Every physician will inform you, how proper they are against the breeding of gravel and stones; but then we must be so exact, as to pull these tops in their proper season, when they abound most with turpentine and balsamick parts, and then they may make the mum a proper liquor in gonorrhoea's. Besides, the eggs may improve its faculty that way; yet I will not conceal what, I think, the learned Dr. Merret affirms in his observations upon wines, that those liquors,

into which the shavings of fir are put, may be apt to create pains in the head; but still it is to be confessed, that the fir cannot but contribute much to the vigour and preservation of the drink.

By the variety of its malt, and by the ground beans, we may conclude, that mum is a very hearty and strengthening liquor. Some drink it much, because it has no hops, which, they fancy, do spoil our English ales and beers, ushering in infections; nay, plagues amongst us. Bartholine exclaims so fiercely against hops, that he advises us to mix any thing with our drink, rather than them; he recommends sage, tamarisks, tops of pine, or fir, instead of hops, the daily use of which in our English liquors is said to have been one cause, why the stone is grown such a common disease among us! Englishmen. Yet, Captain Graunt, in his curious observations upon the bills of mortality, observes, that fewer are afflicted with the stone in this present age, than there were in the age before, though far more hops have been used in this city of late than ever.

As for eggs in the composition of mum, they may contribute much to prevent its growing sowre, their shells sweetening vinegar, and destroying acids; for which reason they may be proper in restoring some de cayed liquors, if put whole into the vessel. Dr. Stubbs, in some curious observations made in his voyage to Jamaica, assures us, that eggs, put whole into the vessel, wil preserve many drinks, even to admiration, in long voyages; the shells and whites will be devoured and lost, but the yolks left untouched.

Dr. Willis prescribes mum in several chronical distempers, as scurvies, dropsies, and some sort of consumptions. The Germans, especially the inhabitants of Saxony, have so great a veneration for this liquor, that they fancy their bodies can never decay, or pine away, as long as they are lined and embalmed with so powerful a preserver; and indeed, if we consider the frame and complexions of the Germans in general, they may appear to be living mummies. But to conclude all in a few words; if this drink, called mum, be exactly made according to the foregoing instructions, it must needs be a most excellent alterative medicine: the ingredients of it being very rare and choice simples, there being scarce any one disease in nature against which some of them are not prevalent, as betony, marjoram, thyme, in diseases of the head; birch, burnet, water-cresses, brook-lime, horse-radish, in the most inveterate scurvies, gravels, coughs, consumptions, and all obstruc tions. Avens and cardamom-seeds for cold weak stomachs. Carduus benedictus, and elder-flowers, in intermitting fevers. Bay-berries and penny-royal, in distempers attributed to the womb. But it is to be feared, that several of our Londoners are not so honest and curious, as to prepare their mum faithfully and truly; if they do, they are so happy as to furnish and stock their country with one of the most useful liquors under the sun, it being so proper and effectual in several lingering listempers, where there is a depravation and weakness of the blood and bowels.

There still remains behind a strong and general objection, that may, perhaps, fall upon this little puny pamphlet, and crush it all to pieces,

that is, the histories are too short, and imperfect; to which I have only this to answer,

Ars longa, vita brevis,

A perfect natural history of the least thing in the world, cannot be the work of one man, or scarce of one age; for it requires the heads, hands, studies, and observations of many, well compared and digested toge ther; therefore this is rather an essay, or topick, for men to reason upon, when they meet together in publick-houses, and to encourage them to follow the example of Adam, who, in the state of innocence, did contemplate of all the creatures that were round about him in Paradise, but after the fall, and the building of a city, the philosopher turned politician.

POSTCRIPT.

LIQUORS and drinks are of such general use and esteem, in all the habitable parts of the world, that a word or two concerning them cannot be improper or unwelcome.

First, the saps and juices of trees will afford many pleasant and useful liquors. The Africans and Indians prepare their famous palm-wine (which they call sura or toddy) out of the sap of the wounded palin tree, as we do our birch-wine in England, out of the tears of the pierced birch-tree, which is celebrated in the stone and scurvy. So the sycamore and walnut, being wounded, will weep out their juices, which may be fermented into liquors. In the Molucca's, the inhabitants extract a wine out of a tree called laudan.

Fruits and berries yield many noble and necessary liquors. Every nation abounds with various drinks by the diversity of their fruits and vegetables. England with cyder, perry, cherry, currant, gooseberry, raspberry, mulberry, blackberry, and strawberry wine. France, Spain, Italy, Hungary, and Germany, produce great varieties of wines from the different species and natures of their grapes and soils. In Jamaica and Brasil they make a very delicious wine out of a fruit called ananas, which is like a pine-apple, not inferior to Malvasia wine. The Chinese make curious drinks out of their fruits; so do the Brasilians and Southern Americans; as from their cocoa, acajou, pacobi, uuni, or murtilla's. We may note here, that all the juices of herbs, fruits, seeds, and roots will work and ferment themselves into intoxicating liquors, out of which spirits and brandies may be extracted. Most nations under the sun have their drunken liquors and compounds; the Turk his maslack, the Persians their bangue, the Indians their fulɔ, rum, arack, and punch. The Arabians, Turks, Chinese, Tartars, and other eastern countries do make inebriating liquors out of their corn and rice; some, rather than not be drunk, will swallow opium, dutroy, and tobacco, or some other intoxicating thing, so great an inclination has mankind to be exalted. Pliny complains, that drunkenness was the study of his time, and that the Romans and Parthians

contended for the glory of excessive wine-drinking. Historians tell us of one Novellius Torquatus, who went through all the honourable degrees of dignity in Rome, wherein the greatest glory and honour, he obtained, was for the drinking, in the presence of Tiberius, three gallons of wine at one draught, before ever he drew his breath, and without being any ways concerned. Athenæus says, that Melanthius wished his own neck as long as a crane's, that he might be the longer a tasting the pleasure of drinks; yet, what he reports of Lasyrtes is wonderful, that he never drank any thing, tho', notwithstanding, he urined as others do. The same famous author takes notice, that the great drinkers used to eat coleworts, to prevent drunkenness; neither are some men of our days much inferior to those celebrated antients. The Germans commonly drink whole tankards, and ell-glasses, at a draught, adoring him that drinks fairly and most, and hating him that will not pledge them, The Dutchmen will salute their guests with a pail and a dish, making hogsheads of their bellies. The Polander thinks him the bravest fellow that drinks most healths, and carries his liquor best, being of opinion, that there is as much valour in drinking as fighting. The Russians, Swedes, and Danes have so naturalised brandy, aqua vitæ, beer, mum, &c. that they usually drink our Englishmen to death, so that the most ingenious author of the Vinetum Britannicum concludes, that tempe rance (relatively speaking) is the cardinal virtue of the English.

It is very wonderful what Mr. Ligon and other American travellers relate of the cassava-root, how out of it the Americans do generally make their bread, and common drink, called parranow; yet that root is known to be a great poison, if taken raw; their drink, called mobby, is made of potatoes. But we will conclude all with Virgil, who, speaking of the many liquors in his time, says,

Sed

neque quam multæ species, nec nomina quæ sunt, Est numerus.

A DESCENT FROM FRANCE:

OR,

The French Invasion of England, considered and discoursed.

[From half a sheet, folio, printed at London, 1692.1

THA

HAT there is, or at least has been, an intended invasion from France, headed by King James, is too apparent; and that the greatest encouragement to such an undertaking must be the expected,