1869 Drinking Cups and their Customs (Mixellany)

CTOS AND THEIR CUSTOMS*

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consumers I would recommend a perusal of a little work called € The Wine Guide/ by frederiek C. Mills (1861). l e t us, with these casual remarks! leave the Greeks and Romans, with jovial old Horace at their head, quaffing his eup of rosy Falernian, his brow smothered in evergreens (as was his wont), and pass on to our immediate ancestry,, the Anglo-Saxon race—not for- getting, however, that the ancient Britons had their veritable cup of honeyed drink, called Metheglin, though this may be said indeed to have had a still greater antiquity, ifBen Johnson is right in pronouncing it to have been the favourite drink of Demosthenes while composing his excellent and mellifluous orations. The Anglo-Saxons not only enjoyed their potations, but conducted them with considerable pomp and ceremony, although, as may readily be conceived, from want of civilization, excess prevailed. In one of our earliest Saxon romances we learn that u it came to the mind of Hrothgar to build a great mead-hall, which was to be the chief palace f* and, further on, we find this palace spoken of as **the beer-hall, where the Thane performed his office—he that in his hand bare the twisted ale-cup, from which he poured the bright, sweet liquor, while the poet sang serene, and the guests boasted of their exploits." Furthermore we learn that, when the queen entered, she served out the liquor, first offering the cup to her lord and master, and afterwards to the guests. In this romance, cf the dear or precious drinking-cup, from which they quaffed the mead/* is