The punch-bowl certainly flourished proudly in America through the eighteenth century, just as it reigned in honor in England at the same time. Previous to that date the English prototype of the punch-bowl had been the posset-pot, and that primitive form still exists, and indeed is made and used in Derbyshire and the neighboring English counties to the present day. A few posset-pots have made their way to America with Derbyshire emigrants and have been gathered in by rapacious collectors. On Christmas eve in olden times the great vessel, which sometimes held two gallons, was filled with the “good drink,” and a silver coin and a wedding-ring were dropped in when the guests assembled; each partaker in turn dipped out a great spoonful or ladleful of the drink, and whoever was lucky enough to fish up the coin was certain of good luck during the ensuing year, while the ring-finder would be happily and speedily married. Posset was a very good mixture—a “very pretty drink”—not so good as punch, of course, but to us invested with a reflected glory. Hath not Shakespeare oft spoke to us of posset? In my little “Queen’s Closet Opened,” a book of culinary, medical, and potatory recipes collected by and for Queen Henrietta Maria, I find half a dozen rules for the brewing of “sack-posset.” “To make a Sack-Posset without Milk or Cream: Take eighteen Egs, whites and all, taking out the Treads, let them be beaten very well, take a pint of Sack, and a quart of Ale boyl’d, and scum it, then put in three-quarters of a pound of suger and a little Nutmeg, let it boyl a few wames together, then take it off the fire stirring the Egs still, put into them two or three Ladlefuls of drink, then mingle all together, and set it on the fire, and keep it stirring til you find it thick then serve it up”—and not drink it, but cut it up and eat it, one might fancy. There is no recipe for punch in my “Queen’s Closet.” I fear Queen Henrietta did not know about that new drink, punch, in 1676, when this quaint old book was published. Had she done so, she had not needed so many nostrums for insomnia. Englishmen in India knew of it; “spiced punch in bowls the Indians quaff,” wrote one in 1665, and in 1697 Tryer spoke of it and basely libelled it as “an enervating liquor.” The punchless Queen knew, however, how to make hypocras, metheglin, mead, caudle, cordial-water, aqua-cœlestis, aqua-mirabilis, clary-water, gillyflower-wine, usquebarb, and, best and delectablest of all, she knew how to make a Damnable Hum, and I doubt not she served it in a punch-bowl as was befitting so noble a drink.