From Pattern Book issued by R. C. & Co. (Robert Cadman & Co.) about 1797 to Continental markets. The book contains 70 whole-page copper plate illustrations, and some of the descriptions are in French as well as English. The above Holders are priced at 17s., 24s., and 14s. (_At the Victoria and Albert Museum._) (_Reproduced by permission of the Board of Education._)] An illustration from a Design Book issued by Robert Cadman and Co. of Sheffield about 1797 gives three examples of Taper Holders (p. 183). The nozzle at the top shows the tiny light from the coiled wax taper. The apex of the stand really consists of a miniature candlestick. Two of the stands, as will be seen, have the handles and thumb pieces at the bottom. They are all of varying form; that on the left has a canopy covering the coiled taper, that in the centre encloses the taper in a wire cage, while the example on the left is the simplest in construction and enables us to see how the taper as it burned was thrust upwards to the aperture at the top. All three have extinguishers attached by a chain. Some of the descriptions in the book from which these designs are reproduced are in French as well as English, as it was intended for use in the Continental markets. VI TEAPOTS TEA AND COFFEE SETS TEA KETTLES COFFEE POTS SUGAR BASINS CHAPTER VI =Teapots--Tea and coffee sets--Tea kettles--Coffee pots--Sugar basins.= The eighteenth century of the days of Hogarth, with his _Gin Lane_ and _Beer Street_ and with his satiric pencil reflecting the follies of his day is filled to repletion with eating and drinking, especially the latter. During the later years of George II there had been going on a vigorous protest between two parties as to the relative effects of beer drinking and gin drinking. In 1752 appeared a print of the "Funeral Procession of Madame Geneva." A song was very popular in 1757 under the title of the "Beer-Drinking Briton." One couplet will suffice to indicate its character: For your beef eating, beer-drinking Britons are souls Who will shed their last blood for their country and king. In 1758, owing to the scarcity of corn, a bill was passed for the prohibition of the distillation of spirits. Porson wrote a series of epigrams in the _Morning Chronicle_ about Pitt and Dundas going drunk to the House of Commons on the evening when a message was to be delivered from his Majesty relative to war with France. Pitt, who tried to speak, found himself unable to do so, and was kindly pulled down to his seat by his friends. "Who's up?" enquired Burke of a friend at the door. "Oh! no one," says Sherry, "though Pitt's on the floor." Sheridan, the maker of the quip, and Porson, the Greek scholar, together make up a fine quartet as exemplifying the Bacchanalian habits of their day.