33 / 66
CUTS AND THE IB CUSTOMS ,
3 3
the said berry In small cups. After him came Mr .
Garraway, who set forth that
a
tea was to be had of
him in leaf and in drink
f*
and thus took its rise
Garraway's well-known coffee-house, so celebrated for
the sayings and doings of Dr . Johnson, one of which,
being somewhat to the point, we may , in passing,
notice.
€(
I admit," said he,
rf
that there are sluggish
men who are improved by drinking, as there are fruits
which are not good till they are rotten; there are such
men, but they are medlars/'
In the eighteenth century the principal cups that we
find noted were those compounded of Beer, the names
of which are occasionally suggestive of too great a
familiarity on the part of their worshippers,—to wit,
Humptie-dumptie, Clamber-clown, Stifle, Blind Pin -
neanx, Old Pharaoh, Three threads^ Knoek-me-down,
Hugmatee, and Foxcomb. Al l these were current at
the beginning of that century. Then, towards the end
of it wefind Cock-ale, Stepony, Stitchback, Northdown,
and Mum .
Mum
is ale brewed from malted wheat.
It is so called from Christison Mumme, a brewer of
Braunschweig in Wolfenbiittel, who lived at the end of
the 15t h century, and whose house is still standing.
When three Essex men meet to drink a pot together, the
draught taken by the list is called the Neekem, that
by the second the Sinkem, the last man draining the
pot by drinking the Swankens, from which we Ind , in
Bailey^s Dictionary,
€i
Swankie/
1
the drop which remains
at the bottom of a cup , "Bragget" is a northland
word derived from the hero Braga, who is one of the