‘Tis surprizing to observe, what Scores a Sot shall be allow’d to contract at some Houses for Liquor, who would not be trusted for half the Sum by any of his Neighbours, to provide Bread for his Family; one, who thus reduces them to a Necessity of begging, stealing, or perishing, whilst he riotously consumes what might preserve them from all; but this he finds Means to do, through the Encouragement of those who have so little love for their neighbours that they care not how many families they starve to support their own. The little book is thoroughly worthy to be reprinted. Would that every one engaged in ‘the trade’ would lay its maxims to heart! About this time was published a guide-book, under the title of _Vade-mecum of Malt-worms_, containing a list of all the ale-houses in London, &c. Some of these, says Wright, in his _Caricature History of the Georges_, under the name of _mug-houses_, became the resort of small societies or clubs of political partisans. Some of these were the scenes of terrible party turbulence. But we cannot leave the first Hanoverian reign without noticing another treatise much needed--quite as much--viz. that of Dr. Peter Browne, Bishop of Cork, who in 1716 wrote _A Discourse of Drinking Healths_. By this time the abuse of the practice of _toasting_ had become a national disgrace. The way in which anything or anybody that one drank a health to, came to be called a _toast_ has baffled derivation hunters of all degrees, and we are no wiser to-day than we were in 1709, when Isaac Bickerstaffe, in the twenty-fourth number of the newly-established _Tatler_, attempted to settle the matter by saying how, at Bath, in the time of Charles II., a celebrated beauty happened to be in the Cross-Bath, and out of the crowd of her admirers who were in the room, one of them took from her bath a cup of the water in which the lady was standing and drank her health to the company. Another of her admirers who was present, being half intoxicated, instead of pledging or drinking in response to the sentiment, announced his attention of jumping into the water and carrying off the bather, swearing that though he liked not the liquor, yet he would have _the toast_. He was opposed in his resolution, yet this whim gave foundation to the present honour which is due to the lady we mention in our liquor, who has ever since been called a toast. It is far more likely that, as Ellis observes, the use of the word on this occasion was a _consequence_ of its previous employment for a like purpose, and not the cause of its being adopted. It is probable that _toast_ came to be used in the sense it is stated to have been by the bath gallant, gradually, at first meaning a mere material relish or improvement to a glass of liquor, and afterwards getting to be applied to the ‘sentimental relish,’ or, as Sheridan truly calls it, the ‘excuse for the glass.’ Toasted bread