The dinner was served with like attention to ancient ceremonies, soup, venison, comfits and all. Before the dessert, instead of finger-glasses, golden ewers were borne about, filled with rose-water, and thus every body performed his abstersion most fragrantly. At the head of each table was then set an enormous golden chalice, with a cover curiously wrought, the Lord Mayor having a still more magnificent one placed before him. What next? The toast-master appeared behind his lordship’s chair, and began—“My Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, my Lord Bishop of London”—and so on through the roll of Bishops—“my Lords, Ladies and gentlemen! the Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress greet you in a loving cup, and give you a hearty welcome.” The Mayor and Mayoress then rose, and taking the loving cup in hand, she uncovered it for him, with a graceful courtesy, to which he returned a bow, and then drank, wiped the chalice with his napkin, allowed it to be covered, and then sat down, while the lady, turning to the Archbishop, who rose accordingly, repeated the ceremony, save that he uncovered the cup, and it was her turn to taste the draught. Thus the cup went round. It was my duty to begin the rite at the table at which I sat, and happily I received the kindest instructions beforehand from my partner, so that I did my duty well enough for a novice: but a more beautiful ceremony, as the pairs successively rose and sat, along the splendid room, I never beheld. I thought of Vortigern and Rowena: but the origin of the custom is said to have been even before the days— When they carved at the meal In their gloves of steel, And drank the red wine thro’ the helmet barr’d; and when, as one lifted his arm to drink, it was deemed a necessary precaution that one should stand up to guard him from a fifth-rib. With less ceremony, the custom still obtains in the halls of Oxford; but where the ladies take a part in it, it is certainly a most graceful embellishment of feasting.