1892 Drinks of the world

DAVNKS.

197

tiirn conducts us to the Lithuanian pyvas. — since etymology is a science dans laqueLle les consonants font pen de chose, et les voyelles rien de tout — may be easily attached to the secondary root piv found \\\ the Sanskrit pivdmi. In Indo-European tongues, and in accordance with the dictum of Voltaire, p, b, v, are interchangeable as labials. And so we come to the conclusion xbi^LX. pivas, or its descendant beer, means nothing else but drink ; or, in other words, that this particular form of drink is the drink /^r excellence. And so we mJght rest content, were at not for the uneasy scruples of a certain M. Pictet, who has introduced a Slavic origin. But of etymology this taste will suffice. Twenty centuries before the Christian era, Osiris, according to some authors, invented beer/ and accord- ing to others it has been at all times a drink of the Hebrews. We have, indeed, heard of Adam's ale, but that term has been generally applied to a species of drink which would hardly come under our present category. It is perhaps more probable that the beverage of Osiris and the early Hebrews was a siiiiple infusion of barley without more. Pliny, how- ever, Theophrastus, and Tacitus, speak of beer as known from very early timei^ to thf people of the North, who were prevented by their situation from the cultivation of wine.^ ^ Those who wish to investigate the antiquity of beer may find ample matter to supply their desire in a work commonly attributed to Archdeacon Roileston, entitled, " Otvo? Kpt^tvo?, a dissertation concerning the origin and antiquity of barley wine" Oxford, 1750. 2 Much has been written on the comparative merits of wine and Pyvas ox

pivas