mysteries—or our “chop and chop to follow,” with the indispensable wedge of Cheshire—unless it is preferred stewed or toasted—and on Saturday decorous variety is afforded in a plate of the world-renowned “Cheshire” pudding. It is of this latter luxury that we are now assembled to partake, and that with all fitting ceremony and observance.’” FOOTNOTES: [5] The late Mr. Sawyer was for many years the brilliant editor of _Funny Folks_. His articles signed “Rupert,” in the _Budget_ have often been reprinted. CHAPTER XI. THE PRESS AND THE “CHEESE” Crown high the goblets with a cheerful draught; Enjoy the present hour; adjourn the future thought. DRYDEN’S _Virgil_. Among the earlier notices of the “Cheese” which have appeared in newspapers is the following, taken from _Common Sense, or, the Englishman’s Journal_,[6] of Saturday, April 23, 1737:— “On Sunday, April 17, one Harper, who formerly lived with Mr. Holyoake at the sign of the ‘Old Cheshire Cheese,’ in Wine Office Court, Fleet Street, for eight years, found Means to conceal himself in the House, and early on Monday Morning got into the Room where the Daughter lay, and where Mr. Holyoake (as he well knew) kept his Money; and accordingly he took away a small Box wherein was £200 and Notes to the Value of £600 more. The Child, hearing a Noise, happily awaked, and cry’d out, ‘Mammy, Mammy, a Man has carried away the Box;’ which alarm’d her Father and Mother, who lay near, and immediately they got up; which oblig’d the Fellow to hide himself in the Chimney, where he was discover’d, with the Box carefully ty’d up in a Handkerchief, and being secur’d, was afterwards carried before the Lord Mayor, who committed him to Newgate.” In the _Morning Herald and Daily Advertiser_ of Monday, August 9, 1784, we read an account of an attempted murder at the “Cheese.” It appears that a porter in the Temple named John Gromont induced a woman who had cohabited with, and then deserted him, to accept a drink at a public-house in Wine Office Court, “where, starting up in a fit of frenzy, he cut the woman’s throat.” “Before the transaction he had made several attempts to destroy himself at Mr. Bosher’s, the Rainbow, opposite the end of Chancery Lane, in Fleet Street, and other public-houses in the neighbourhood.” Coming to a more recent period, we find the press notices of the “Cheese” increase in frequency. _Punch_, for April 14, 1864, describes a famous evening at the “Cheese.” Mr. John Cordy Jeaffreson, no mean authority, in his “A Book about the Table,” mentions the “Cheese” as one of the three houses in the immediate neighbourhood of the Inns of Court worthy of comparison with those near St. Paul’s, and so the references go on ever spreading till they cross the Atlantic and even return from the Antipodes. Considerations of space will only permit a few further quotations from the vast mass of journalistic literature dealing with the subject.