() I know nothing of the meaning of this word. I have been told that it is a college expression; and contains a threat, in the way of pleasantry, to black the person's face with a burnt cork, should he flinch or fail to empty the bottle. Possibly it may have been derived from the German "buzzen," sordes auferre, q. d. "Off with the lees at bottom."

(2) Bumpers are of great antiquity. Thus Paulus Warnefridus is cited in Du Cange's Glossary, telling us, in lib. v. de Gestis Langobard. cap. 2, "Cumque ii qui diversi generis potiones ei a rege deferebant, de verbo Regis eum rogarent, ut totam fialam biberet, ille in honorem Regis se totam bibere promittens, parum aquæ libabat de argenteo Ĉalice." Vide Martial, lib. i. Ep. 72, lib. viii. 51, &c.

I find the subsequent dissuasive from. drunkenness, a vice to which it must be confessed the drinking of healths, and especially in full bumpers, does but too naturally tend, in Ch. Johnson's "Wife's Relief:"

"Oh when we swallow down Intoxicating wine, we drink damnation; Naked we stand the sport of mocking fiends, Who grin to see our noble nature vanquish'd.

Our passions then like swelling seas burst in,

The monarch, Reason,'s govern'd by our
blood,

The noisy populace declare for liberty,
While anarchy and riotous confusion
Usurp the sov'reign's throne, claim his pre-
rogative,

Till gentle sleep exhales the boiling sur-
feit.'

That it is good to be drunk once a month, says the learned author of the "Vulgar Errors," is a common flattery of sensuality, sup porting itself upon physic and the healthful effects of inebriation. It is a striking instance of "the doing ill," as we say, " that good may come out of it." It may happen that inebriation, by causing vomiting, may cleanse the stomach, &c.; but it seems a very dangerous kind of dóse, and of which the " repetatur haustus," too quickly repeated, will prove that men may pervert that which nature intended for a cordial into the most baneful of

all poisons. It has been vulgarly called "giving a fillip to nature."

In Sir John Sinclair's "Statistical Account of Scotland," 8vo. Edinb. 1791, vol. i. p. 59,

the minister of Kirkmichael tells us: "In extraordinary cases of distress, we have a custom which deserves to be taken notice of; and that is, when any of the lower people happen to be reduced by sicknesses, losses, or misfortunes of any kind, a friend is sent to as many of their neighbours as they think needful, to invite them to what they call a drinking. This drinking consists in a little small beer, with a bit of bread and cheese, and sometimes a small glass of brandy or whisky, previously provided by the needy persons or their friends. The guests convene at the time appointed, and after collecting a shilling a-piece, and sometimes more, they divert themselves for about a

couple of hours with music and dancing, and then go home. Such as cannot attend themselves, usually send their charitable contribution by any neighbour that chooses to go. These meetings sometimes produce five, six, and seven pounds, to the needy person or family."

Ibid. vol. xviii. p. 123, parish of Gargunnock, county of Stirling: "There is one prevailing custom among our country people, which is sometimes productive of much evil. Everything is bought and sold over a bottle. The people who go to the fair in the full possession of their faculties, do not always transact their business, or return to their homes, in the same state."

THE vulgar saying "Under the Rose" is said to have taken its rise from convivial entertainments, where it was an ancient custom to wear chaplets of Roses about the head, on which occasions, when persons desired to confine their words to the company present, that they "might go no farther," they commonly said "they are spoken under the Rose."

The Germans have hence a custom of describing a Rose in the ceiling over the table.

In the comedy of "Lingua," 1657, act ii. sc. 1, Appetitus says: "Crown me no Crowns but Bacchus' Crown of Roses."

Nazianzen, according to Sir Thomas

Browne, seems to imply, in the following verse, that the Rose, from a natural property, has been made the symbol of silence: "Utque latet Rosa verna suo putamine clausa, Sic Os vincla ferat, validisque arctetur habenis,

Indicatque suis prolixa silentia labris.”

Lemnius and others have traced this saying to another origin. The Rose, say they, was the flower of Venus, which Cupid consecrated to Harpocrates, the God of Silence; and it was therefore the emblem of it, to conceal the mysteries of Venus. (1)

(1) Warburton, commenting on that passage in the first part of Shakspeare's Henry VI., "From off this brier pluck a white rose with me,"

says: "this is given as the original of the two badges of the houses of York and Lancaster, whether truly or not, is no great matter.

But the proverbial expression of saying a thing under the rose, I am persuaded came from thence. When the nation had ranged itself into two great factions, under the white and red rose, and were perpetually plotting and counter-plotting against one another, then when a matter of faction was communicated by either party to his friend in the same quar

rel, it was natural for him to add, that he said it under the rose; meaning that, as it concerned the faction, it was religiously to be kept secret."

Mr. Upton, another of the commentators, gives us the following remarks on the Bishop's criticism. "This is ingenious! What pity that it is not learned too! The rose (as the fables say) was the symbol of silence, and consecrated by Cupid to Harpocrates, to conceal the lewd pranks of his mother. So common a book as Lloyd's Dictionary might have instructed Dr. Warburton in this: Huic Harpocrati Cupido Veneris filius parentis suæ rosam dedit in munus, ut scilicet si quid licentius dictum, vel actum sit in convivio, sciant tacenda esse omnia. Atque idcirco veteres ad finem convivii sub rosa, Anglicè under the rose, transacta esse omnia ante digressum contestabantur; cujus formæ vis eadem esset, atque ista Μισῶμνάμονα συμποταν. Probant hanc rem versus qui reperiuntur in

Ibid. vol. x. p. 355.

Newton, in his "Herball to the Bible," 8vo. Lond. 1587, p. 223-4, says: "I will heere adde a common country custome that is used to be done with the rose. When pleasaunt and merry companions doe friendly meete together to make goode cheere, as soone as their feast or banket is ended, they give faithfull promise mutually one to another, that whatsoever hath been merrily spoken by any in that assembly, should be wrapped up in silence, and not to be carried out of the doores. For the assurance and performance whereof, the tearme which

they use is, that all things there saide must be taken as spoken under the rose.

"Whereupon they use in their parlours and dining roomes to hang ROSES over their tables, to put the companie in memorie of secresie, and not rashly or indiscreetly to clatter and blab out what they heare. Likewise, if they chaunce to shew any tricks of wanton, unshamefast, immodest, or irreverent behaviour either by word or deed, they protesting that all was spoken under the rose, do give a strait charge and pass a covenant of silence and secrecy with the hearers, that the same shall not be blowne abroad, nor tatled in the streetes among any others."

So Peacham in "The Truth of our Times," 12mo. Lond. 1638, p. 173. "In many places, as well in England as in the Low Countries, they have over their tables a rose painted, and what is spoken under the rose must not be revealed. The reason is this; the rose being sacred to Venus, whose amorous and stolen sports, that they might never be revealed, her sonne Cupid would needes dedicate to Harpocrates, the God of Silence."

I know not whence the saying, that needs not to be explained, of "plucking a Rose" has originated, if it had not its rise in some modest excuse for absence in the garden dictated by feminine bashfulness. Perhaps the passage already quoted from Newton's Herball to the Bible may explain it.

66

Speaking of the Sex reminds me of a remarkable saying, now pretty much forgotten, though noticed by Sir Thomas Browne, i. e. that Smoak doth follow the fairest," as usual in his time in England, and it may be in all Europe. "Whereof," he says, although there seem no natural ground, yet it is the continuation of a very antient opinion, as Petrus Victorius and Casaubon have observed from a passage in Athenæus, wherein a Parasite thus describes himself:

"To every table first I come,

Whence Porridge I am called by some.
Like whips and thongs to all I ply,
Like smoak unto the fair I fly."

GROSE, in his Provincial Glossary, explains Hob-Nob (sometimes pronounced Hab-Nab) as a north-country word, signifying "At a venture,' ""rashly."

He tells us, also, that Hob or Hub is the north-country name for the back of the chimney. We find the following in his Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue: "Will you hob or nob with me? a question formerly in fashion at polite tables, signifying a request or challenge to drink a glass of wine with the proposer; if the party challenged answered Nob, they were to chuse whether white or red." His explanation of the origin of this custom is extremely improbable. (1)

The exposition modestly hinted at in the

fifth volume of Reed's edition of Shakspeare, p. 369, seems much more consonant with truth. It occurs in a note upon that passage in Shakspeare's "Twelfth-Night, or What you Will," (a) where a character speaking of a duellist says, "His incensement at this moment is so implacable, that satisfaction can be none but by pangs of death and sepulchre: hob, nob, is his word; give't or take't." In Anglo-Saxon, habban is to have, and næbban to want. May it not therefore be explained in this sense, as signifying, "Do you choose a glass of wine, or would you rather let it alone?" (2)

(a) Mr. Steevens thinks the word derived from hap ne hap.

(1) It is, "This foolish custom is said to have originated in the days of good Queen Bess, thus: When great chimneys were in fashion, there was, at each corner of the hearth or grate, a small elevated projection called the Hob, and behind it a seat. In winter time the beer was placed on the Hob to warm, and the cold beer was set on a small table, said to have been called the Nob; so that the question 'Will you have Hob or Nob?' seems only to have meant 'Will you have warm or cold beer?' i. e. beer from the Hob, or beer from the Nob."

I found the following, which had been cut out of some newspaper for Dec. 1772, in Dr. Lort's interleaved copy of my Popular Antiquities.

"The Definition of Hob or Nob.

"In the days of good Queen Bess (we find it upon record) the Maids of Honour not only used manly exercise, but eat roast beef and drank ale for breakfast; and as in their masculine exercises they were liable to accidents and the tooth ache, so it was natural for them occasionally to warm their beer, which they

who required such indulgence generally did by ordering their cupfuls to be placed on the Hob of the grate; and when any of the company called for beer, it was just as natural for their attendants to ask 'from the Hob or not from the Hob?' which constant practice (from the constant indisposition of one or other of these fair ladies) was soon not only remarked by the courtiers, but also perhaps first humorously adopted by them, with the courtly vice of corrupting Hob or no Hob into HOB or NOB."

To this I beg leave to apply the "Credat Judæus Apella, non Ego.'

(2) Mr. M. Mason asks in a note, "Is not this the original of our hob nob, or challenge to drink a glass of wine at dinner? The phrase occurs in Ben Jonson's Tale of a Tub: 'I put it

Even to your worship's bitterment hab nab
I shall have a chance o' the dice for't, I
hope;' "

and Mr. Malone adds a passage from Holinshed's History of Ireland: "The citizens in their rage shot habbe or nabbe at random."

In the Workes of John Heywoode, 4to. Lond. 1566, Signat. A 4, is the following passage:

"Where wooers hoppe in and out, long time may bryng

Him that hoppeth best, at last to have the ryng.

I hoppyng without for a ringe of a rush, And while I at length debate and beate the bushe,

There shall steppe in other men, and catche the burdes,

And by long time lost in many vaine wurdes.

Betweene these two wives, make slouth speede confounde

While betweene two stooles my tayle goe to the grounde.

By this, sens we see slouth must breede a scab,

Best sticke to the tone out of hand, hab or nab."

In Sir John Harrington's Epigrams, book iv. ep. 91, we read:

"Not of Jack Straw, with his rebellious crew, That set king, realme, and lawes at hab or nab, Whom London's worthy maior so bravely slew

With dudgeon dagger's honourable stab."

In "The New Courtier," a popular ballad, preserved in Ritson's Antient Songs, 8vo. Lond. 1790, p. 278, we find Hab nab thus introduced :

"I write not of religion

For (to tell you truly) we have none.
If any me to question call,

With pen or sword, Hab nab's the word,
Have at all."

landladies sup with the strangers and passengers, and if they have daughters, they are also of the company, to entertain the guests at table with pleasant conceits, where they drink as much as the men: but what is to me the most disgusting in all this is, that when one drinks the health of any person in company, the custom of the country does not permit you to drink more than half the cup, which is filled up, and presented to him or her whose health you have drank." He next speaks of tobacco, which it seems the women smoked as well as the men. M. Jorevin was here in Charles the Second's reign. (a)

The following curious passage is from "Galateo, of Manners and Behaviour," 4to. b. l. (and of which the scene lies in Italy) Signat. Q 2. "Now to drink all out every man (drinking and carowsing) which is a fashion as little in use amongst us, as ye terme itselfe is barbarous and strange: I meane, Ick bring you, is sure a foule thing of itselfe, and in our countrie so coldly accepted yet, that we must not go about to bring it in for a fashion. If a man doe quaffe or carrouse unto you, you may honestly say nay to pledge him, and geveing him thankes, confesse your weaknesse, that you are not able to beare it: or else to doe him a pleasure, you may for curtesie sake taste it and then set downe the cup to them that will, and charge your

(a) In a curious book entitled "A Character of England as it was lately presented in a Letter to a Nobleman of France: with Reflections upon Gallus Castratus" (attributed to John Evelyn), 12mo. Lond. 1659, the author speaking of taverns says, p. 31, "Your L. will not believe me that the ladies of greatest quality suffer themselves to be treated in one of these taverns, but you will be more astonisht when I assure you that they drink their crowned cups roundly, strain healths through their smocks, daunce after the fiddle, kiss freely, and term it an honourable treat." At p. 37 we are told, there is "a sort of perfect debauchees, who style themselves Hectors, that in their mad and unheard of revels pierce their veins to quaff their own blood, which some of them have drank to that excess, that they died of the intemperance." At p. 36 we read: "I don't remember, my Lord, ever to have known (or very rarely) a health drank in France, no, not the King's; and if we say à votre Santé, Monsieur, it neither expects pledge or ceremony. "Tis, here so the custome to drink to every one at the table, that by the time a gentleman has done his duty to the whole company, he is ready to fall asleep, whereas with us, we salute the whole table with a single glass only."