Massinger's Duke of Milan - Pope's Epilogue to Satires - The Dun-ciad - William III. - Lord Hervey - Sir R. Walpole - The Fall of Madame Geneva - Hogarth's Gin Lane - Schiedam Adulteration - Gin Sling - Captain Dudley Bradstreet - Tom and Jerry Hawthorn.

Gin is an alcoholic drink distilled from malt or from unmalted barley or other grain, and afterwards rectified and flavoured. The word is French, genievre, juniper, corrupted into Geneva, and subsequently into its present form. It is to the berries of the juniper that the best Hollands owes its flavour. Perhaps one of the earliest allusions to gin is in Massinger's Duke of Milan (1623), Act I., scene i., when Graccho, a creature of Mariana, says to the courtier Julio, of a chance drunkard,

"Bid him sleep; 'tis a sign he has ta'en his liquor, and if you meet Ah officer preaching of sobriety, Unless he read it in Geneva print, Lay him by the heels."

In this extract the word is played upon, Geneva suggesting both the habit of spirit-drinking and Cal-vinistic doctrine.

When Pope wrote, the corrupted word "Gin " had become common. In the Epilogue to the Satires, I. 130.

"Vice thus abused, demands a nation's care; This calls the Church to deprecate our sin, And hurls the thunder of our laws on gin."

Pope has added a note to this passage, to the effect that gin had almost destroyed the lowest rank of the people before it was restrained by Parliament in 1736.

Another early allusion to Geneva is to be found in Carmina Quadragesimalia, Oxford, 1723, vol. i., p. 7, in a copy of verses contributed by Salusbury Cade, elected from Westminster to Ch. Ch. in 1714

The thesis of which Salusbury Cade maintained the affirmative, is whether life consists in heat, or in the original An vita consistat in calore ?

"Dum tremula hyberno Dipsas superimminet igni

Et dextra cyathum sustinet, ore tubum, Alternis vicibus fumos hauritque, bibitque

Quam dat arundo sitim grata Geneva levat. Languenti hic ingens stomacho est fultura, nec alvus

Nunc Hypochondriacis flatibus aegra tumet. Liberior fluit in tepido nunc corpore sanguis,

Hinc nova vis membris et novus inde calor. Si quando audieris vetulam hanc periisse: Genevae

Dicas ampullam non renovasse suam."

Which being Englished, is

Dipsas, who shivers by her wintry fire,

While her pipe's smoke ascends in spire on spire,

Alternate puffs and drinks - Geneva lays That thirst the weed is wont in her to raise. With this her belly propped, its pain expels; Intestine wind no more her stomach swells; A freer blood runs leaping through her frame, New heat, new strength recalls the ancient game. And should you hear she's dead, the cause you'll know Was that Geneva in her jug ran low."

In the Dunciad, which Pope wrote in 1726 (book iii.., 1. 143), we read,"a second see,, by meeker manners known, And modest as the maid that sips alone; From the strong fate of drams if thou get free, Another D'urfey, Ward ! shall sing in thee ! Thee shall each ale-house, thee each gill-house l mourn, And answering gin-shops sourer sighs return."

An early allusion to Geneva is in a poem by Alexander Blunt, Distiller, 8vo, 1729, price 6d., called "Geneva," addressed to the Right Honourable Sir R-------- W-------. It commences,

"Thy virtues, O Geneva ! yet unsung By ancient or by modern bard, the muse In verse sublime shall celebrate. And thou O W------ statesman most profound ! vouchsafe To lend a gracious ear: for fame reports That thou with zeal assiduous dost attempt Superior to Canary or Champaigne Geneva salutiferous to enhance; To rescue it from hand of porter vile, And basket woman, and to the bouffet.

1 Of the word gill-house a recent editor of Pope observes that it is doubtful whether it is to be understood as a house where gill, or beer impregnated with ground-ivy, was sold, or whether as an inferior lavern, where beer was sold by the measure known as a gill.

Of lady delicate and courtier grand Exalt it; well from thee may it assume The glorious modern name of royal Bob ! "Though " Brandy cognac, Jamaica Rum, and costly Arrack " are alluded to, there is no mention of Hollands in the poem, which is a defence of Geneva against ale.

In this poem a statement is contained that Geneva was introduced by William III., and that he himself drank it.

"Great Nassau, Immortal name ! Britain's deliverer From slavery, from wooden shoes and chains, Dungeons and fire; attendants on the sway Of tyrants bigotted and zeal accurst, Of holy butchers, prelates insolent, Despotic and bloodthirsty ! He who did Expiring liberty revive (who wrought Salvation wondrous ! God-like hero ! He It was, who to compleat our happiness With liberty, restored Geneva introduced. O Britons. O my countrymen can you To glorious William now commence ingrates And spurn his ashes ? Can you vilify The sovereign cordial he has pointed out, Which by your own misconduct only can Prove detrimental ? Martial William drank Geneva, yet no age could ever boast A braver prince than he. Within his breast Glowed every royal virtue ! Little sign, O Genius of malt liquor! that Geneva Debilitates the limbs and health impairs And mind enervates. Men for learning famed And skill in medicine prescribed it then Frequent in recipe, nor did it want

Success to recommend its virtues vast To late posterity."

In 1736 Lord Hervey, describing the state of England, says: The drunkenness of the common people was so universal by the retailing a liquor called Gin, with which they could get drunk for a groat, that the whole town of London and many towns in the country swarmed with drunken people from morning till night, and were more like a scene of a Bacchanal than the residence of a civil society.

Retailers exhibited placards in their windows, intimating that people might get drunk for the sum of Id. and that clean straw would be provided for customers in the most comfortable of cellars.