what the cruelty and avarice of princes could do. But she scarcely
believed the report, for she brewed beer herself better than any
brewer in the land, and yet could sell the quart for eightpence,
and have profit besides. Oh, that princes and ministers could rob
the poor man so! ay, they would take the very shirt off his back
to glut their own greed and covetousness. And what did they give
their hard-earned gold for? To build fine houses for the Prince,
forsooth, and fill them with fine pictures from Italy, and
statues, as if he were a brat of a school-girl, and must have his
dolls to play with."

"What sort is your beer, old dame?" asked a fellow. "Marry, it
must be strange trash, I warrant."

Illa.--"No, no; if they would not believe her word, let
them taste the beer. She wanted nothing further but to prove how
the wicked government oppressed the poor folk; for she was a
God-fearing woman, and her heart was filled with grief to see how
the princes lately, in this poor Pomerania, squeezed the very
life-blood out of the people," &c. Then she lifted up a barrel of
beer upon the table (I have already said that Sidonia had brought
some with her to sell), and invited the discontented people to
taste it, which they were nothing loth to do, and soon broached
the said barrel. Then, having tasted, they extolled her beer to
the skies--"No better had ever been brewed." Now other troops of
the discontented came pouring in from Lastadie, Wiek, &c.,
cursing, and swearing, and shouting--"The beer must not be raised;
they would force the government to take off the tax. Would not
their comrades join?"