Whether an advantage or otherwise, to the Romans undoubtedly we owe _signboards_. The _bush_, which was for ages with us the sign of an inn, we owe immediately to them. Our proverb, ‘Good wine needs no bush,’ is of course own child to the Latin ‘_Vino vendibili suspensa hedera non opus est_’--‘Wine that will sell needs no advertisement.’ Our sign of ‘Two Jolly Brewers’ carrying a tun slung on a long pole is the counterpart of a relic from Pompeii representing two slaves carrying an amphora.[6] Again, our country owes to Roman influence the national custom of toasting or health-drinking. The present writer has observed elsewhere[7] that among the Romans luxury was carried to unbounded excess. Many were their forms of revelry; amongst these were _comissationes_, or drinking bouts pure and simple. At these no food was taken, save as a relish to the wine. Specimens of their toasting formalities will be found in several classical authors.[8] It were idle to imagine that the Britons were uninfluenced by such marked features of social life. If these customs had not been adopted by them before the time of Agricola, it is certain that when that most diplomatic of governors held sway here, he would teach the _jeunesse dorée_ to drink healths to the emperor, and to toast the British belles of the hour in brimming bumpers. Sensual banquets, with their attendant revelry, no less than spacious baths and elegant villas, speedily became as palatable to the new subjects as to their corrupt masters.[9] Intemperance was no stranger to any rank of society. Not even the imperial purple was stainless.[10] Thus was the soil prepared for the seed so abundantly to be sown when the Saxon, the Roman’s successor, should incorporate himself with our British population. FOOTNOTES: [1] σίκερα is of course akin to the Hebrew shâkar שֵׁכָר, and it is at least curious that the three important potables may be referred to Hebrew origin: _Wine_, to the Greek οἶνος, Hebrew יַיִן _Yayin_, and _Beer_ possibly to the Hebrew בר _corn_ without the vowel point. [2] _Natural History_, iv. 17. [3] _Britannia_, London, 1590. ‘Quas in Britannia ex Probi Imperatoris tempore umbraculi magis quam fructus gratiâ habuimus.’ [4] ‘Vineas etiam quibusdam in locis germinant.’ [5] _Chronicles_, i. 186. [6] A mass of information upon the subject of signboards has been collected by Messrs. Larwood and Hotten in their _History of Signboards_. [7] _History of Toasting_; London, 1881. [8] _E.g._--‘Te nominatim voco in bibendo.’ ‘Bene te! Bene tibi!’ ‘Salutem tibi propino.’ ‘Bacchi tibi sumimus haustus.’ Compare also Tibul. II. i. 33: ‘Bene Messalam! sua quisque ad pocula dicat.’ Plautus. _Curcul._ ii. 3, 8: ‘Propino poculum magnum, ille ebibit.’ Cicero. _Tuscul. Disput._ i. 40: ‘Propino hoc pulcro Critiæ, qui in eum fuerat teterrimus; Græci enim in conviviis solent nominare cui poculum tradituri sint.’