Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/489

 I dfid Sentiments. 469 Aff-n de neuffoh h boire En memolre Des neuf lettres de fin nom. And a lefs celebrated poet, of a rather later date, Guillaume Colletet, in a piece entitled " Le Trebuchement de I'lvrongne," printed at Paris in 1627, introduces one of his perfonages drinking fix times to his miftrefs, becaufe her name was Cloris : — Six foh je nCen vas boire au beau nom de Cloris, Cloris, le fiul dejir de ma chajie penfe'e. The manner of pledging at table, as it ftill exifted in England, is defcribed rather ludicroufly in the " Memoires d'Angleterre," of the year 1698, already quoted. "While in France," the author fays, " the cuftom of drinking healths is almoft aboliflied among people of any diftinftion, as being equally importunate and ridiculous, it exifts here in all its ancient force. To drink at table, without drinking to the health of fome one in efpecial, among ordinary people, would be confidered as drinking on the fly, and as an a6t of incivility. There are in this proceeding two prin- cipal and fingular grimaces, wdiich are univerially obferved among people of all orders and all forts. It is, that the perfon to whofe health another drinks, if he be of inferior condition, or even equal, to that of him who drinks, muft remain as inacSlive as a flatue while the drinker drinks. If, for inftance, he is in the a6l of taking fomething from a dilli, he muft fuddenly flop, return his fork or fpoon to its place, and wait, without ftirring more than a ftone, until the other has drunk ; after which, the fecond grimace is to make him an inclinalo, at the rilk of dipping his perriwig in the gravy in his plate. I confefs that, when a foreigner firft fees thefe manners, he thinks them laughable. Nothing appears fo droll as to fee a man who is in the aft of chewing a morfel which he has in his mouth, of cutting his bread, of wiping his mouth, or of doing anything elfe, who fuddenly takes a ferious air, when a perfon of fome refpetlability drinks to his health, looks fixedly at this perfon, and becomes as motion- lefs as if a univerfal paralyfis had feized him, or he had been ftruck by a thunderbolt. It is true that, as good manners abfolutely demand this refpedful