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CUPS AND THEXB
CUSTOMS.
the present use of it. Other apostles of the truest
temperance (moderation) there were, and we cherish
them as men who have deserved well of their country.
Dr. Parr, for example, who could drink his cider-cup
on the village green on a Sunday evenings while his
farming parishioners played at bowls,-—or again, still
more legibly written in social history, and to some ex-
tent leaving an impress upon our national life, the
club-gatherings of the last century, where men of far-
seeing and prudent philosophy (Addison, Steele, Gold-
smith, Johnson, and others), whose names are inter-
woven with the history of their time, meeting together,
talked of human joys and human sorrows over claret-
cups—-men witty themselves, and the cause of wit in
other men, like sweet Sir John, whose devotion to
u
sherris sack
n
cost him his character, and will there-
fore deny him admission to our gallery of men who
have drank wisely and warily, and therefore well.
While speaking of these times, we must not forget to
mention
u
the cup that cheers, but not inebriates
;"
for
it was from the introduction of tea- and coffee-houses
that clubs sprang into existence, by a process unneces-
sary here to dilate on, but of which an excellent account
may be found in Philip and Grace Wharton
J
s
e
Wits
and Beaux of Society/
The first coffee-house esta-
blished was the
€
Grecian/ kept by one Constantine,
a Greek, who advertised that
€C
the pure berry of the
coffee was to be had of him as good as could be any-
where found/
1
and shortly afterwards succeeded in
securing a flourishing trade by selling an infusion of