1869 Drinking Cups and their Customs (Mixellany)

CUTS AND THE IB CUSTOMS ,

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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