They worked longer hours at their divers businesses than we do, but they did far less work; they dined early, and had suppers, and, for evening amusements there were the theatre, and the social meeting at the Inn, where much Rum Punch and Brown Brandy was drunk, and the affairs of the Nation duly discussed, among a select Coterie. Those old boys could drink, too. A three-or four-bottle man, then common, would now be a phenomenon--and, mind you, it was not Claret or other light wines they drank--the war with France made that too great a luxury; but it was the stronger wines of Portugal and Spain, well fortified with brandy. I wonder how many died in "making their heads," and whether it was always "the survival of the fittest"! [Illustration: No. 1. "Are you all charged, Gentlemen." No. 2. "A song, Gentlemen, if you please." No. 3. "Sing Old Rose, and burn the bellows." No. 4. "I humbly move to throw the waiter out of the window, and charge him in the bill!"] They were of Convivial habits, and did not "join the ladies" after dinner, or, if they did, they were slightly inebriate, and the accompanying illustrations are no caricature of an advanced stage of a _symposium_. No. 1 is, "Are you all charged, Gentlemen?" No. 2 is, "A Song, Gentlemen, if you please." No. 3 is, "Sing Old Rose and burn the bellows."[36] No. 4 says, "I humbly move to throw the waiter out of the window, and charge him in the bill!" [Footnote 36: _Isaac Walton_ says, "Now let's go to an honest alehouse where we may have a cup of good barley wine, and sing 'Old Rose,' and all of us rejoice together." And we get a presumed explanation of the Song in _The British Apollo_ (1708-9). "In good King Stephen's days, the Ram, An ancient inn at Nottingham, Was kept, as our wise father knows, By a brisk female call'd _Old Rose_; Many, like you, who hated thinking, Or any other theme than drinking, Met there, d'ye see, in sanguine hope To kiss their landlady, and tope; But one cross night, 'mongst twenty other, The fire burnt not, without great pother, Till _Rose_, at last, began to sing, And the cold blades to dance and spring; So, by their exercise and kisses, They grew as warm as were their wishes; When, scorning fire, the jolly fellows Cry'd, '_Sing Old Rose, and burn the bellows_.'"]