PREFACE
TO
THE SECOND EDITION.
The Second Edition of this book contains much additional matter, all of which has been derived from notes collected by one of the original authors of the work, whose untimely death is mourned, and whose genial hospitality is remembered, by very many friends. The compiler believes that the additions made will greatly increase the usefulness of the book to all compounders of Cups.
CUPS AND THEIR CUSTOMS.
.... "Then shall our names,
Familiar in their mouths as household words,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd."
As in all countries and in all ages drinking has existed as a necessary institution, so we find it has been invariably accompanied by its peculiar forms and ceremonies. But in endeavouring to trace these, we are at once beset with the difficulty of fixing a starting-point. If we were inclined to treat the subject in a rollicking fashion, we could find a high antiquity ready-made to our hands in the apocryphal doings of mythology, and might quote the nectar of the gods as the first of all potations; for we are told that
"When Mars, the God of War, of Venus first did think,