"For tea, though ridiculed by those who are naturally coarse in their nervous sensibilities, or are become so from wine-drinking, and are not susceptible of influence from so refined a stimulant, will always be a favourite beverage of the intellectual; and, for my part, I would have joined Dr. Johnson in a _bellum internecinum_ against Jonas Hanway, or any other impious person who should have presumed to disparage it. But here, to save myself the trouble of too much verbal description, I will introduce a painter, and give him directions for the rest of the picture.... Paint me, then, a room seventeen feet by twelve, and not more than seven and a half feet high, ... and near the fire paint me a tea-table; and (as it is clear that no creature can come to see one on such a stormy night), place only two cups and saucers on the tea-tray; and if you know how to paint such a thing, symbolically or otherwise, paint me an eternal teapot--eternal _à parte ante_ and _à parte post_; for I usually drink tea from eight o'clock at night to four in the morning. And as it is very unpleasant to make tea, or to pour it out for oneself, paint me a lovely young woman sitting at the table." But even a "lovely young woman" would have failed to satisfy the tastes of the historian Buckle, who was a most fastidious tea-drinker. "No woman," he declared, "could make tea until he had taught her." The great thing, he believed, was to have the cups and even the spoons warmed. Commenting upon the confession of William Cullen Bryant, that he never took coffee or tea, William Howitt said,--"I regularly take both, find the greatest refreshment in both, and never experienced any deleterious effects from either, except in one instance, when by mistake I took a cup of tea strong enough for ten men. On the contrary, tea is to me a wonderful refresher and reviver. After long-continued exertion, as in the great pedestrian journeys that I formerly made, tea would always, in a manner almost miraculous, banish all my fatigue and diffuse through my whole frame comfort and exhilaration, without any subsequent evil effect. I am quite well aware that this is not the experience of many others--my wife among the number--on whose nervous system tea acts mischievously, producing inordinate wakefulness, and, its continuous use, indigestion. Yet," he wisely adds, "this is one of the things that people should learn and act upon, namely, to take such things as suit them, and avoid such as do not." This is, as a rule, the safest course to pursue, and it is adopted by all sensible persons.