Dr. Beauford was another of the eighteenth-century physicians who thought temperance a vice that hadn't even the recommendation of transient pleasure. A Jacobite of the most enthusiastic sort, he was not less than Freind a favourite with the aristocracy who countenanced the Stuart faction. As he was known to be very intimate with Lord Barrymore, the Doctor was summoned, in 1745, to appear before the Privy-Council, and answer the questions of the custodians of his Majesty's safety and honour.
"You know Lord Barrymore?" said one of the Lords of Council.
"Intimately—most intimately,"—was the answer.
"You are continually with him?"
"We dine together almost daily when his Lordship is in town."
"What do you talk about?"
"Eating and drinking."
"Oh, my lord, we never talk of anything except eating and drinking—drinking and eating."
A good deal of treasonable sentiment might have been exchanged in these discussions of eating and drinking. "God send this crum-well down!" was the ordinary toast of the Cavalier during the glorious Protectorate of Oliver. And long afterwards, English gentlemen of Jacobite sympathies, drinking "to the King," before they raised the glass to their lips, put it over the water-bottle, to indicate where the King was whose prosperity they pledged.