1863 Cups and their customs

CUPS AND THEIR CUSTOMS.

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^^ sherris sack ^^ cost him his character, and will therefore deny him admission to our gallery of men who have drunk wisely and warily, and therefore well. While speaking of these times, we must not forget to mention ^^the cup that cheers, but not inebriates ;^^ for it was from the introduction of tea- and coflFee-houses that clubs sprang into existence by a process unneces- sary here to dilate on, but of which an excellent account may be found in Philip and Grace Wharton^s ^ Wits and Beaux of Society/ The first cofice-house estab- lished was the ^ Grecian,^ kept by one Constantine, a Greek, who advertised that ^^the pure berry of the cofi'ee was to be had of him as good as could be any- * where found,^^ and shortly afterwards succeeded in securing a flourishing trade by selling an infusion of the said berry in small cups. After him came Mr, Gar- raway, who set forth that '^ tea was to be had of him in leaf and in drink ;^^ and thus took its rise Garraw&y^s well-known cofice-house, so celebrated for the sayings and doings of Dr. Johnson, one of which, being some- what to the point, we may, in passing, notice. "I admit,^^ said he, ^^ 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, Stiffle, Blind Pin-