o keep up the
delusion, and make it a monstrous fine thing for men to sit up drinking
half the night, to have frightful headaches all next day, to make
maudlin idiots of themselves as they were going home, and to become
brutes amongst their family when they arrived. And here I may introduce
the mention of a practice connected with the convivial habits of which
we have been speaking, but which has for some time passed away, at least
from private tables--I mean the absurd system of calling for toasts and
sentiments each time the glasses were filled. During dinner not a drop
could be touched, except in conjunction with others, and with each
drinking to the health of each. But toasts came _after_ dinner. I can
just remember the practice in partial operation; and my astonishment as
a mere boy, when accidentally dining at table and hearing my mother
called upon to "give the company a gentleman," is one of my earliest
reminiscences. Lord Cockburn must have remembered them well, and I will
quote his most amusing account of the effects:--"After dinner, and
before the ladies retired, there generally began what was called
'_Rounds_' of toasts, when each gentleman named an absent lady, and each
lady an absent gentleman, separately; or one person was required to give
an absent lady, and another person was required to match a gentleman
with that lady, and the persons named were toasted, generally, with
allusions and jokes about the fitness of the union. And, worst of all,
there were 'Sentiments.' These were short epigrammatic sentences,
expressive of moral feelings and virtues, and were thought refined and
elegant productions. A faint conception of their nauseousness may be
formed from the following examples, every one of which I have heard
given a thousand times, and which indeed I only recollect from their
being favourites. The glasses being filled, a person was asked for his
or for her sentiment, when this, or something similar, was
committed:--'May the pleasures of the evening bear the reflections of
the morning;' or, 'may the friends of our youth be the companions of our
old age;' or, 'delicate pleasures to susceptible minds;' 'may the honest
heart never feel distress;' 'may the hand of charity wipe the tear from
the eye of sorrow.' The conceited, the ready, or the reckless, hackneyed
in the art, had a knack of making new sentiments applicable to the
passing incidents with great ease. But it was a dreadful oppression on
the timid