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CUPS
AND
THEIR
CUSTOMS.
23
nation
given
in
the
24th
number
of
^
The
Tatler/
yet^
for
its
quaintness,
we
will
quote
it
:
*^
It
is
said
that
while
a
celebrated
beauty
was
in-
dulging
in
her
bath,
one
of
the
crowd
of
admirers
who
surrounded
her
took
a
glass
of
the
water
in
which
the
fair
one
was
dabbling,
and
drank
her
health
to
the
company,
when
a
gay
fellow
offered
to
jump
in,
saying,
^
Though
he
liked
not
the
liquor,
he
would
have
the
toast
J"^
This
tale
proves
that
toasts
were
put
into
beverages
in
those
days,
or
the
wag
would
not
have
applied
the
simile
to
the
fair
bather
j
and
in
the reign
of
Charles
II.,
Earl
Rochester
writes
'^
Make
it
so
large
that,
fill'd
with
sack
Up
to
the
swelling
brim,
Vast
toasts
on
the
delicious
lake,
Like
ships
at
sea,
may
swim."
And
in a
panegyric
on
Oxford
ale,
written
by
Warton
in
1720,
we
have
the
lines
^'
My
sober
evening
let
the
tankard
bless,
With
toast
embrown'd,
and
fragrant
nutmeg
fraught,
While
the
rich
draught,
with
oft-repeated
whiffs,
Tobacco
mild
improves."
Johnson,
in
his
translation
of
Horace,
makes
use
of
the
expression
in
Ode
I.
Book
IV.
thus
:
^^
There
jest
and
feast
;
make
him
thine
host^
If
a
fit
liver
thou
dost
seek
to
toast
-^^^
and
Prior,
in
the
'^
Camelion,^^
says,
''
But
if
at
first
he
minds
his
hits,
And
drinks
champaign
among
the
wits,
Five
deep
he
toasts
the
towering
lasses,
Bepeats
your
verses
wrote
on
glasses."