Let us, with these casual remarks, leave the Greeks and Romans, with jovial old Horace at their head, quaffing his cup of rosy Falernian, his brow smothered in evergreens (as was his wont), and pass on to our immediate ancestry, the Anglo-Saxon race--not forgetting, however, that the ancient Britons had their veritable cup of honeyed drink, called Metheglin, though this may be said indeed to have had a still greater antiquity, if Ben Johnson is right in pronouncing it to have been the favourite drink of Demosthenes while composing his excellent and mellifluous orations. The Anglo-Saxons not only enjoyed their potations, but conducted them with considerable pomp and ceremony, although, as may readily be conceived, from want of civilization, excess prevailed. In one of our earliest Saxon romances we learn that "it came to the mind of Hrothgar to build a great mead-hall, which was to be the chief palace;" and, further on, we find this palace spoken of as "the beer-hall, where the Thane performed his office--he that in his hand bare the twisted ale-cup, from which he poured the bright, sweet liquor, while the poet sang serene, and the guests boasted of their exploits." Furthermore we learn that, when the queen entered, she served out the liquor, first offering the cup to her lord and master, and afterwards to the guests. In this romance, "the dear or precious drinking-cup, from which they quaffed the mead," is also spoken of: and as these worthies had the peculiar custom of burying the drinking-cups with their dead, we may conclude they were held in high esteem, while at the same time it gives us an opportunity of actually seeing the vessels of which the romance informs us; for in Saxon graves, or barrows, they are now frequently found. They were principally made of glass; and the twisted pattern alluded to appears to have been the most prevailing shape. Several other forms have been discovered, all of which, however, are so formed with rounded bottoms that they will not stand by themselves; consequently their contents must have been quaffed before replacing them on the table. It is probable that from this peculiar shape we derive our modern word "tumbler;" and, if so, the freak attributed to the Prince Regent, and since his time, occasionally performed at our Universities, of breaking the stems off the wine-glasses in order to ensure their being emptied of the contents, was no new scheme, it having been employed by our ancestors in a more legitimate and less expensive manner. We also find, in Anglo-Saxon graves, pitchers from which the drink was poured, differing but little from those now in common use, as well as buckets in which the ale was conveyed from the cellar. That drinking-cups among the Anglo-Saxons were held in high esteem, and were probably of considerable value, there can be no doubt, from the frequent mention made of their being bequeathed after death; in proof of which, from among many others, we