Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/487

 and Setitiments. 467 It appears, therefore, that the banquet was often accompanied with mufic. At the banquet the choice wines were brought forth, and the table was covered with paftry and fweetmeats, of which our forefathers at this period appear to have been extremely fond. A ufual article at the banquet was marchpanes, or bifcuits made of fugar and almonds, in different fanciful forms, fuch as men, animals, houfes, &c. There was generally one at leaft in the form of a caftle, which the ladies and gentle- men were to batter to pieces in frolic, by attacking it with fugar-plums. Taylor, the water-poet, calls them — Cajlles for ladies, and for carpet knights. Unmercifully fpoiPd at feajiing figlits. Where battering bullets are fne fugred plums. On fellive occafions, and among people who loved to pafs their time at table, the regular banquet feems to have been followed by a fecond, or, as it was called, a rere-hanquet. Thefe rere-banquets are mentioned by the later Elizabethan writers, generally as extravagances, and fometimes with the epithet of "late," fo that perhaps they took the place of the foberer fupper. People are fpoken of as taking " fomewhat plentifully of wine" at thefe rere-banquets. The rere-fupper was Hill in ufe, and appears alfo to have been a meal dillinguillied by its profufion both in eating and drinking. It was from the rere-fupper that the roaring-boys, and other wild gallants of the earlier part of the feventeenth century, fallied forth to create noife and riot in the ftreets. One of the great charafteriftics of the dinner-table at this period was the formality of drinking, efpecially that of drinking healths, fo much cried down by the Puritans. This formahty was enforced with great ftriftnefs and ceremony. It was not exadly the modern praftice of giving a toaft, but each perfon in turn rofe, named fome one to whom he indi- vidually drank (not one of the perfons prefent), and emptied his cup. " He that begins the health," we are told in a little book publiihed in 1623, "firfl, uncovering his head, he takes a full cup in his hand, and fetting his countenance with a grave afpeft, he craves for audience ; filence being once obtained, he begins to breathe out the name, per- adventure.