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42
CUPS AND THEIR CUSTOMS.
a-days, are restricted to the bed-chamber, where they are
taken in cases of catarrh, to act as agreeable sudorifies.
They appear to us to "be too much associated with tallow
applied to the nose to induce us to give recipes for their
composition although in olden times they seem to have
been drank on festive occasions, as Shakspeare says
££
We wffl have a posset at the end o£ a sea-coal Ire 5
lf
and Sir John Suckling, who lived in the early part of
the 17th century, has in one of his poems the line—*
11
In came the Tbridesaiaids with the posset."
The Grace-cup and Loving-cup appear to be synony-
mous terms for a beverage the drinking of which has
been from time immemorial a great feature at the
corporation dinners in London and other large towns,
as also at the feasts of the various trade companies
and the Inns of Court, and which is a compound
of wine and spices, formerly called *
f
Saek.
w
It is
handed round the table before the removal of the
cloth, in large silver cups, from which no one is
allowed to drink before the guest on either side of
him has stood up; the person who drinks then rises
and bows to his neighbours. This custom is said to
have originated in the precaution to keep the right or
dagger hand employed, as it was a frequent practice
with the Banes to stab their companions in the back at
the time they were drinking. The most notable in-
stance of this was the treachery employed by Elfrida,
who stabbed Hag Edward the Martyr at Corfe Castle
whilst thus engaged. At the Temple the custom of the