Let your utensils be clean, and your ingredients of first-rate quality, and, unless you have some one very trustworthy and reliable, take the matter in hand yourself; for nothing is so annoying to the host, or so unpalatable to the guests, as a badly compounded cup. In order that the magnitude of this important business may be fully understood and properly estimated, we will transfer some of the excellent aphoristic remarks of the illustrious Billy Dawson (more properly Bully Dawson, spoken of by Charles Lamb in his 'Popular Fallacies'), whose illustricity consisted in being the only man who could brew Punch. This is his testimony:--"The man who sees, does, or thinks of anything while he is making Punch, may as well look for the North-west Passage on Mutton Hill. A man can never make good Punch unless he is satisfied, nay positive, that no man breathing can make better. I can and do make good Punch, because I do nothing else; and this is my way of doing it. I retire to a solitary corner, with my ingredients ready sorted; they are as follows; and I mix them in the order they are here written. Sugar, twelve tolerable lumps; hot water, one pint; lemons, two, the juice and peel; old Jamaica rum, two gills; brandy, one gill; porter or stout, half a gill; arrack, a slight dash. I allow myself five minutes to make a bowl on the foregoing proportions, carefully stirring the mixture as I furnish the ingredients until it actually foams; and then, Kangaroos! how beautiful it is!!" If, however, for convenience, you place the matter in the hands of your domestic, I would advise you to caution her on the importance of the office; and this could not be better effected than by using the words of the witty Dr. King:-- "O Peggy, Peggy, when thou go'st to brew, Consider well what you're about to do; Be very wise--very sedately think That what you're going to make is--drink; Consider who must drink that drink, and then What 'tis to have the praise of honest men; Then future ages shall of Peggy tell, The nymph who spiced the brewages so well." Respecting the size of the cup no fixed rule can be laid down, because it must mainly depend upon the number who have to partake of it; and be it remembered that, as cups are not intended to be quaffed _ad libitum_, as did Bicias, of whom Cornelius Agrippa says, "To Bicias shee it gave, and sayd, 'Drink of this cup of myne;' He quickly quafte it, and left not Of licoure any sygne," let _quality_ prevail over _quantity_, and try to hit a happy medium between the cup of Nestor, which was so large that a young man could not carry it, and the country half-pint of our own day, which we have heard of as being so small that a string has to be tied to it to prevent it slipping down with the cider. In order to appreciate the delicacy of a well-compounded cup, we would venture to suggest this laconic rule, "When you drink--think." OLD RECIPES.