The early prevalence of drinking in England seems to have been derived from our foreign intercourse. In the reign of Elizabeth and James I. we find various statutes against ebriety.
Tom Nash, in his “Pierce Pennilesse” says, “Superfluity in drink is a sin that ever since we have mixed ourselves with the Low Countries is counted honourable; but, before we knew their lingering wars, was held in that highest degree of hatred that might be. Then, if we had seen a man go wallowing in the streets, or lain sleeping under the board, we should have spit at him, and warned all our friends out of his company.”
According to our laws intoxication is looked upon as an aggravation of any offence. Sir Edward Coke calls a drunkard voluntarius dæmon. The Romans thought differently: with them intoxication was often deemed an extenuation of guilt, “Per vinum delapsis capitalis pœna remittitur.” The Greeks, more severe, had a law of Pittacus that enacted the infliction of a double punishment on those who committed a crime when drunk.
That hard drinking was introduced from Flanders and Holland, and other northern countries, seems probable from the derivation of many of the expressions used in carousing. The phrase of being “half-seas over,” as applied to a state of drunkenness, originated from op zee, which in Dutch meant over sea; and Gifford informs us that it was a name given to a stupifying beer introduced in England from the Low Countries, and called op zea; thus Jonson in the Alchemist:
I do not like the dulness of your eye;
It hath a heavy cast, ’tis up see Dutch.
An inebriating draught was also called an up see freeze, from the strong Friesland beer. The word “carouse,” according to Gifford and Blount, is derived from the name of a large glass, called by the Danes ruuse, or from the German words gar, all, and ausz out: hence drink all out.
Nash, in the work above quoted, says, “Now he is nobody that cannot drink super nagulum, carouse the hunters’ hoope, quaff upsee freze crosse, with healths, gloves, mumpes, frolickes, and a thousand such domineering inventions.” The origin of these slang terms is not quite evident. Drinking super nagulum, or on the nail, was a northern custom which consisted in only leaving one drop in the cup, which was poured upon the thumb-nail, to prove that justice had been done to the potation or toast; and that, to use the language of modern drinkers, the glass was cleared. This custom is alluded to by Bishop Hall in his “Mundus alter et idem,” in which the Duke of Tenderbelly exclaims, “‘Let never this goodly-formed goblet of wine go jovially through me:’ and then he set it to his mouth, stole it off every drop, save a little remainder, which he was by custom to set upon his thumb’s nail and lick it off.” In Fletcher we find the phrase
I am thine ad unguem;
which meant he was ready to drink with him to this extent. The term hoop alludes to the marks of hoops being traced upon drinking-pots to point out certain measures. Jack Cade says, “The three-hooped pot shall have ten hoops, and I will make it felony to drink small beer!” Hence probably the common saying of “drinking deep,” or to the last hoop. The peg tankard was another measured vessel used in the jollifications of our forefathers, and is still to be found in some parts of England, more especially in Derbyshire. Pegge in his “Anonymiana,” thus describes them: “They have in the inside a row of eight pins, one above the other, from top to bottom; the tankard holds two quarts, so that there is a gill of ale between each peg or pin. The first person who drank was to empty to the first peg, the second was to drink to the next, and so on; by which means the pegs were so many measures to the compotators, making them all drink alike or the same quantity.” In Archbishop Anselm’s Canons made in the council at London in 1102, priests are enjoined not to go to drinking-bouts, nor to drink pegs: “Ut presbyteri non eant ad potationes, nec ad pinnas bibant.”
Gloves, also called shoeing-horns, were relishes to encourage drinking, like our modern devils, introduced for a similar purpose. Bishop Hall says in his description of a carousal, “Then comes me up a service of shoeing-horns of all sorts,—salt cakes, red-herrings, anchovies, and gammon of bacon, and abundance of such pullers on.” Massinger thus describes these incentives: