to great advantage in COTGRAVE's commonplaces; and, perhaps, still more in HAYWARD'S British Muse,' which collection was made under the supervisal, and by the valuable aid of OLDYS, an experienced caterer of these relishing morsels. DRINKING-CUSTOMS IN ENGLAND. THE ancient Bacchus, as represented in gems and statues, was a youthful and graceful divinity; he is so described by Ovid, and was so painted by Barry. He has the epithet of Psilas, or Wings, to express the light spirits which give wings to the soul. His voluptuousness was joyous and tender: and he was never viewed reeling with intoxication. According to Virgil: Et quocunque deus circum caput egit honestum. which Dryden, contemplating on the red-faced boorish boy astride on a barrel on our sign-posts, tastelessly sinks into gross vulgarity: 'On whate'er side he turns his honest face.' This latinism of honestum, even the literal inelegance of Davidson had spirit enough to translate, 'Where'er the god hath moved around his graceful head.' The hideous figure of ebriety, in its most disgusting stage, the ancients exposed in the bestial Silenus and his crew; and with these, rather than with the Ovidian and Virgilian deity, our own convivial customs have assimilated. We shall, probably, outlive that custom of harddrinking, which was so long one of our national vices. The Frenchman, the Italian, and the Spaniard, only taste the luxury of the grape, but seem never to have indulged in set convivial parties, or drinkingmatches, as some of the northern people. Of this folly of ours, which was, however, a borrowed one, and which lasted for two centuries, the history is curious: the variety of its modes and customs; its freaks and extravagances; the technical language introduced to raise it into an art; and the inventions contrived to animate the progress of the thirsty souls of its votaries. Nations, like individuals, in their intercourse are great imitators; and we have the authority of Camden, who lived at the time, for asserting that the English in their long wars in the Netherlands first learnt to drown themselves with immoderate drinking, and by drinking others' healths to impair their own. Of all the northern nations, they had been before this most commended for their sobriety.' And the historian adds, that the vice had so diffused itself over the nation, that in our days it was first restrained by severe laws.'* Here we have the authority of a grave and judicious historian for ascertaining the first period and even origin of this custom; and that the nation had not, heretofore, disgraced itself by such prevalent ebriety is also confirmed by one of those curious contempora ry pamphlets of a popular writer, so invaluable to the philosophical antiquary. Tom Nash, a town-wit of * Camden's History of Queen Elizabeth, Book III. Many statutes against drunkenness, by way of prevention, passed in the reign of James I. Our law looks on this vice as an aggravation of any offence committed, not as an excuse for criminal misbehaviour. See Blackstone, Book IV, C. 2, Sect. III. In Mr Gifford's Massinger, vol. II, 458, is a note, to show that when we were young scholars, we soon equalled, if we did not surpass, our masters. Mr Gilchrist there furnishes an extract from Sir Richard Baker's Chronicle, which traces the origin of this exotic custom to the source mentioned; but the whole passage from Baker is literally transcribed from Camden. the reign of Elizabeth, long before Camden wrote her history, in his 'Pierce Pennilesse,' had detected the same origin. Superfluity in drink,' says this spirited writer, 'is a sin that ever since we have mixed ourselves with the Low-Countries, is counted honourable; but before we knew their lingering wars, was held in that highest degree of hatred that might be. Then if we had seen a man go wallowing in the streets, or lain sleeping under the board, we should have spet at him, and warned all our friends out of his company." Such was the fit source of this vile custom, which is further confirmed by the barbarous dialect it introduced into our language; all the terms of drinking which once abounded with us, are, without exception, of a base northern origin.† But the best account I * Nash's Pierce Pennilesse, 1595, Sig. F 2. These barbarous phrases are Dutch, Danish, or German. The term skinker, a filler of wine, a butler or cup-bearer, according to Phillips; and in taverns, as appears by our dramatic poets, a drawer, is Dutch; or according to Dr Nott, purely Danish, from skenker. Half-seas over, or nearly drunk, is likely to have been a proverbial phrase from the Dutch, applied to that state of ebriety by an idea familiar with those water-rats. Thus, op-zee, Dutch, means literally over-sea. Mr Gifford has recently told us in his Jonson, that it was a name given to a stupefying beer introduced into England from the low-countries; hence op-zee or over-sea; and freezen in German, signifies to swallow greedily: from this vile alliance they compounded a harsh term, often used in our old plays. Thus Jonson : 'I do not like the dullness of your eye, It hath a heavy cast, 'tis upsee Dutch.' 6 And Fletcher has upsee-freeze;' which Dr Nott explains in his edition of Decker's Gull's Hornbook, as 6 a tipsy draught, or swallowing liquor till drunk.' Mr Gifford says it was the name of Friesland beer; the meaning, however, was, 'to drink swinishly like a Dutchman.' We can find of all the refinements of this new science of potation, when it seems to have reached its height, is in our Tom Nash, who being himself one of these deep experimental philosophers, is likely to disclose all the mysteries of the craft. He says, 'Now, he is nobody that cannot drink super-nagulum; carouse the hunter's hoope; quaff vpse freze crosse; with healths, gloves, mumpes, frolickes, and a thousand such domineering inventions.'* Drinking super-nagulum, that is on the nail, is a device, which Nash says is new come out of France; but it had probably a northern origin, for far northwards it still exists. This new device consisted in this, that after a man, says Nash, hath turned up the bottom of the cup to drop it on his nail, and make a pearl with what is left, which if it shed, and cannot make it stand on, by reason there is too much, he must drink again for his penance. The custom is also alluded to by Bishop Hall, in his satirical romance of Mundus alter et idem,' 'A Discovery of a New World;' a work which probably Swift read, and did not forget. The Duke of Tenterbelly in his oration, when he drinks off his large gob We are indebted to the Danes for many of our terms of jollity; such as a rouse and a carouse. Mr Gifford has given not only a new, but a very distinct explanation of these classical terms in his Massinger. 'A rouse was a large glass, in which a health was given, the drinking of which by the rest of the company formed a carouse. Barnaby Rich notices the carouse as an invention for which the first founder merited hanging. It is necessary to add, that there could be no rouse, or carouse, unless the glasses were emptied.' Although we have lost the terms, we have not lost the practice, as those who have the honour of dining in public parties are still gratified by the animating cry of 'gentlemen, charge your glasses.' According to Blount's Glossographia, carouse is a corruption of two old German words, gar signifying all, and ausz, out: so that to drink garauz is to drink all out: hence carouse. * Pierce Pennilesse, Sig. F 2, 1595. 23* VOL. III. let of twelve quarts on his election, exclaims, should he be false to their laws, 'Let never this goodly-formed goblet of wine go jovially through me; and then he set it to his mouth, stole it off every drop, save a little remainder, which he was by custom to set upon his thumb's nail, and lick it off as he did.' The phrase is in Fletcher: I am thine ad unguem that is, he would drink with his friend to the last. In a manuscript letter of the times, I find an account of Columbo the Spanish ambassador being at Oxford, and drinking healths to the Infanta. The writer adds, I shall not tell you how our doctors pledged healths to the Infanta and the archduchess; and if any left too big a snuff, Columbo would cry, supernaculum! supernaculum!' This Bacchic freak seems still preserved; for a recent traveller, Sir George Mackenzie, has noticed the custom in his Travels through Iceland. 'His host having filled a silver cup to the brim, and put on the cover, then held it towards the person who sat next to him, and desired him to take off the cover, and look into the cup; a ceremony intended to secure fair play in filling it. He drank our health, desiring to be excused from emptying the cup, on account of the indifferent state of his health; but we were informed at the same time that if any one of us should neglect any part of the ceremony, or fail to invert the cup, placing the edge on one of the thumbs as a proof that we had swallowed every drop, the defaulter would be obliged by the laws of drinking to fill the cup again, and drink it off a second time. In spite of their utmost exertions, the penalty of a second draught was incurred by two of the company; we were dreading the consequences of having swallowed so much |