1785 left a large property to the descendants of an ancestor of his, living tem. Hen. VI, and which gave rise to great litigation,* and that of the banker, Frazer Honywood, who in 1763 left £20,000 to be divided amongst his relatives, of whom 400 put in their claim: † -these and similar instances are to be met with in abundance.

Traditions and legends innumerable are scattered over old books, only awaiting the collection of the industrious explorer to be resuscitated; and again to delight by the fireside, to astonish the young, and to amuse the old. The story of the 150 Metcalfs of Yorkshire riding on as many white horses as the followers of the head of their race, the Sheriff of the county, to the assizes; of the Vavasours of the same county, who never buried their wives, or married heiresses; of the Culpepers, among whom at one time were twelve knights or baronets;-are not altogether unique.

If we mistake not, Family History is a new species of literature that is destined perhaps to be popular and prolific. The field is boundless, the ground untrodden; and there is unlimited scope to employ the industry, the eloquence, and the graphic skill in portraiture of hosts of writers. The readers would be of all classes. If Fiction pleases, so much the more must Truth; and when we read of the veritable sayings and doings of our ancestors in periods so long gone by, that nothing, it is thought, but what is drawn from the imagination can be written of them, our gratification must be all the greater, and our surprise the more lively. For though Thierry tell us it was said in the early Norman centuries,

"Of the Normans be the high men that be of this land,

And the low men of Saxons '

yet the lapse of eight centuries has produced such a metamorphosis and transposition of the various ranks of society, that probably three out of every four Englishmen of the present day is lineally descended, remotely or immediately, from progenitors of gentle blood. Time slowly produces the same changes in the social as in the geological world. The strata which formerly occupied the surface are now degraded, whilst those now uppermost were at one time in the inferior position. "The lofty he hath laid low, and the humble he hath exalted."

* Vide Manning and Bray's Surrey, ii, 366.

+ Vide Ambler's Reports, and Topographer and Genealogist, part 8, page 190.

ART. VI.-Old Notions on Diet.

Via Recta ad Vitam longam; or a plaine Philosophical Discourse of the nature, faculties, and effects of all such things, as by way of nourishments, and dieteticall observations, make for the preservation of Health, with their just applications unto every age, constitution of bodie, and time of yeare. Wherein also by way of Introduction, the Nature and Choise of Habitable Places, with the true use of our famous BATHES of BATHE is perspicuously demonstrated, by To. VENNER, Doctor of Physicke, at Bathe in the Spring and Fall, and at other times in the Burrough of North Petherton neere to the ancient Haven-Towne of BRIDGWATER in Somerset shire. London: Printed by Edward Griffin, for Richard Moore, and are to be sold at his shop in St. Dunstan's Church Yard, in Fleet Street. 1620. (Quarto, pp. 195.)

NORTH PETHERTON, a town three miles from Bridgewater, and remarkable for its handsome church, was the birthplace of Tobias Venner. He was born in 1557; at the age of seventeen, became a Commoner of St. Alban's Hall, Oxford; took his degree of M. A,; and in 1613, that of M.D. He practised, as the title of his book before us indicates, "at Bath in the Spring and Fall, and at other times in " his native "Burrough." He died March 27th, 1660, and was buried in the Abbey Church at Bath, where a massive monument, with an encomiastic inscription, is erected to his memory.

Dr. Guidott, besides some very coarse and ill-tempered allusions to Venner, has said of him, "he had the character of a plain charitable physician, but no ready man at stating a case. However," adds he, "he found the right way to write a book called Via Recta ad vitam longam, wherein is this memorable observation, 'that a gammon of bacon is of the same nature with the rest of the hog.'" The critic here, has misrepresented the man he has tried to ridicule. Venner does not say "of the same nature as the rest of the hog;" the word "hog" does not occur in the paragraph. He says, "bacon is not good for them that have weake stomachs, for it is of hard digestion ;"-" a gammon of bacon is of the same nature." (i. e. indigestible), but not so good, for it is "harder of digestion." Thus much for Guidott's joke. There is enough of oddity in Venner's treatise; we need not pervert his phraseology to make more.

"The Discourse' is dedicated to "Francis Lord Verulam," and its Introduction treats "of the Nature and Choice of Habitable

Places." He commends "the ayre as the best and wholsomest to preserve life, which is subtile, bright, and cleare, not mixed with any grosse moisture, or corrupted with filthy or noisome vapors, which also with calme and pleasant windes is gently moved,"-not "that which is so shut up with hills or mountains that it cannot be freely perflated, and purified with the winds;" and he would have a dwelling to lie "open to the south and east, with hills which may somewhat hinder and keep back the vaporous west winde, and the sharp north winde in the winter." He advises that windows facing the east "be not set open before the sunne hath somewhat purged the aire, and dissipated the clowdes; for the morning aire by reason of its coldnesse and moysture of the night is grosse and impure,* very hurtful to them that have weak braines, and subject unto rheumes." He concludes his "Introduction" by a notice of fountains and other waters, and devotes five pages to waters naturally hot, "such as are our famous bathes of Bathe."

Passing over Venner's remarks on "the Divers kindes of Bread," we alight, in the next place, on "the Divers kindes of Drinke." And beginning with wines: it must be confessed that our author seems quite at home in discussing the merits of those then in use. He acknowledges "the discommoditie of wine immoderately taken," but says enough of Rhenish, Claret, Sacke, and Malmsey, to show that he has no mean opinion of either. Nor does he think lightly of other and rarer French wines; for "would to God," exclaims he, "they were so common as Claret." As to the use of wine, our sage friend would not give any "neither to children, nor to youths from fourteen years of age unto twenty-five," because it "extimulates them unto enormious and outragious actions." Nor "too often to young men, as from twenty-five unto thirty-five, and that also of the smaller sorts,"-"otherwise it will make them prone unto wrath, and unlawful desires, dull the wit, and confound the memory." But he would grant it more liberally "unto them as from thirty-five unto fifty," and even "with a liberall hand unto olde men." When Venner framed this scale, it will be observed that he himself was happily circumstanced, being past thirty-five, but not " an olde man.'

* Armstrong seems to have read Venner; at least, he is of the same opinion :

"Need we the sunny situation here

And theatres open to the south commend ?
Here, where the morning's misty breath infests
More than the torrid noon."

Art of Preserving Health, Book I.

In connexion with wine, our author considers, "whether it be expedient for health, to be drunk with wine once or twice in a month?" And here he becomes quite animated. "O, how impudently," says he, "would our drunken potifuges vaunt themselves, if for the health of the bodie, I should approve the custome of being drunk once or twice in a monthe!" and he proceeds to condemn the practice as "most pernicious; for drunkenness spoyleth the stomache, maketh the blood waterish, hurteth the braine, dulleth the senses, destroyeth the understanding, debilitateth the sinewes, and subverteth the powers of all the bodie;" yet he concludes with the saving-clause of a moderate man: "But here, I

will not denie, but that it may be very lawful and expedient, for them that are wont to be wearied with great cares, and labours, to drink sometimes until they be merry and pleasant; but not drunken." Tobias speaketh well of beer, but having no patience with excess, he must "admonish our common ale-pot drunkards, that it is worse to be drunk with ale, or beer, than with wine, for the drunkenness endureth longer, to the utter ruine of the braine and understanding."

We happened some winters ago to be in want of a receipt for the making of "Metheglin," and in the limited collection of books then accessible, we could not find any available instructions. This need not again occur, for Venner knows "Hydromel" well; let us hear him. "Metheglin," says he, "is a very strong kind of drinke, made of two parts of water, and one of hony, boyled together and scummed very cleane, and if rosemary, hyssop, time, orgaine, and sage, be first well boyled in the water, whereof you make the Metheglin, it will be the better. And afterwards when you boyle the same water with hony, if you also boyle in it a quantity of ginger (as to every gallon of water, one ounce of ginger, scraped clean and sliced) three or four wambles* about, after that it is clean scummed, or else hang the ginger sliced thin in a linnen bag, by a thread, in the barrell wherein you put the Metheglin, it will be much the better, and a drinke exceeding wholesome in the winterseason, especially for olde folkes. It must not be drunke while it is new, for then, because it is not fined from the drugs, nor the crudities thereof digested, it is very windie, and troublesome to the belly. But after that it hath well purged itselfe, and settled in the vessel three or foure months, and made as afore described, there is not for very cold, old, or phlegmatick bodies, especially in the cold * Wamble, to rise up as seething water does.-Bailey.

seasons of the yeare, a better drinke, as by the properties thereof above shewed, may be collected." *

The third section treats "of the Flesh of Beasts and Fowles," and discusses various questions as to the relative wholesomeness of lambe and mutton,-kids-flesh and swines-flesh,-veale and beef, and that of English birds of all descriptions from the stately swan, to the busy sparrow. We will only add his passing remark on "Bull's beef," which he says, "is of a rancke and unpleasant taste, of a thick, grosse, and corrupt juyce, and of a very hard digestion. I commend it unto poore hard labourers, and to them that desire to looke big, and to live basely." But he does not recommend these good people, partridges: "These birds," he says, "are only hurtful to country-men, because they breede in them the asthmatick passion, which is a short and painful fetching of breath, hy reason whereof they will not be able to undergo their usuall labours. Wherefore, when they shall chance to meet with a covie of young partridges, they were much better to bestow them upon such, for whom they are convenient, than to adventure (notwithstanding their strong stomachs) the eating of them, seeing that there is in their flesh such an hidden and perilous antipathie unto their bodies."

"Of Fish," forms section 4, and Venner with due regard to "weake stomaches," admonishes the lovers of "sammon" to carefully moderate their appetite, as that the jocundities of it entice them not to a perilous and nauseative fulness." And (name it not on the ninth of November) he thinks even "Turbot for the aged, for them that be phlegmaticke, and that have weake stomaches, verie inconvenient and hurtful." Such also must carefully refrain from the royal fish,-the sturgeon, though he admits, "that it is pleasant to the pallatt, and induceth withall a smoothing delectation to the gullett." "Red herrings and sprats," he contends, "give a very bad and adusted nourishment," and "anchovas," he calls, "the famous meat of drunkards," whose only "good propertie, if it be good, is to commend a cup of wine to the pallatt, and are therefore chiefly profitable to the vintner."

Our author in section 5 treats "of Egges and Milke," in the

*Another, and perhaps a better receipt for making this ancient English beverage may be found in Aubrey's 'Natural History of Wiltshire,' 4to, 1847. He tells us that Thos. Piers, of the Devises, was a great Metheglin-maker, and that much of it was made in that town. Mr. Britton, the editor of this book, has appended to Aubrey's receipt the following note :-"I have seen this old English beverage made by my grandmother as here described."