1903 The Flowing Bowl by Edward Spencer

,Vr

228 THE FLOWING BOWL medicinally, or wine except at public dinners or in the Lord's Supper. The work whence I have gleaned the above details also informs the reader that "such as Doctor Samuel Johnson and John Howard set an example of abstinence from all inebriating drinks" ; which, as far as Doctor Johnson is concerned, is somewhat startling news to myself. I had always imagined that the burly lexico grapher—I was reproved by a critic for calling him this in Cakes and Ale—was a bit of a boon companion ; and the records of Fleet Street taverns by no means tend to contradict this idea. Not only is the hard, oaken seat at one end of the dining-room of " Ye Olde Cheshyre Cheese " marked with a brass plate, with a suitable inscrip tion, but the many visitors to that snug hostelry, including hundreds of our American cousins, are always taken upstairs and shewn Doctor Johnson's chair. Did " Sam," and " Davy," and " Noll " slake their thirst on cold water, beneath that tavern's roof? I trow not. Cross out Doctor Johnson's name as a total abstainer, please. In 1834, Mr. J. S. Buckingham, who was returned for Sheffield to the first Reform Parlia ment, succeeded in obtaining a select committee of the House of Commons, to enquire into the causes, extent, and remedies of drunkenness. In the meantime the limitation of the pledge to abstention from ardent spirits had proved a greater drawback than in other countries, because beer had been the popular beverage, and its use a cause of widespread drunkenness before ardent spirits were commonly sold. But the idea of