of at least last year, symbolical—what
more so?— that the bowl was no longer of
any use, that punch was no longer drank; in
short, that people, young and old, were much
in my own condition—no longer what they
were.

In this state of thoughtful uncertainty, the
bowls bringing old faces—now, no longer old
—once more into my memory, and my
thoughts still partaking of the chequered
shade in which I was sitting, I called the
head waiter William to my aid: for, like the
little hero in the Rejected Addresses, " I
always talk to Will."

"William," I said, " why are the bowls put
out of sight? Why, more than all, is that
old blue and white Chelsea friend, from which
the Commodore and myself, with Joe Keppel
and Harry Eaton, and some more merry
fellows used to drink, going fresh into five
shillings' worth in the morning; why does
that bloated spider monopolise its noble
circle, throwing its filmy web over its top in
place of the delicious steam from old Jamaica
usquebaugh, or right Geneva, or Nantz, or
Hollands; Geneva was the drink the
Commodore loved best, though I cannot say that
I—" To what extent of rambling I should
have run I can hardly imagine, for William
was listening attentively, with a smile playing
on his lips, overcoming for a time at least two
twinges of the gout. " Why, sir " (" Coming,
sir," " Pay in nine "), " why are pawnbrokers'
windows crowded with silver punch-ladles?"
And, with this appropriate problem to solve,
he left me for a time; returning, however, as
soon as there was another cessation of
demands to pay. Yes, I say, why are
pawnbrokers the principal, almost sole,
proprietors of punch-ladles—look at any
window, how they strew the frontage with
masonic badges—punch and masonry are
both out of fashion! But how do you
account for this? no one calls for even a
half-crown bowl—or a sneaker now. " Why,
sir "—(I observe that William generally
begins any particular communication in
this manner)— " Why, sir, it is not as it
used to be when I first came here, when
you, and the Commodore, and Harry Eaton,
and the squire from Ilford, and the Romford
gentleman, and the captain of the Somerset
House militia, and the major of the Light
Horse volunteers— Herries' as was, and the
gentleman as was on the Chronicle— Mr.
Perry's friend—he who knew the old Duke
of Norfolk so well (laying particular emphasis
on the so), and the partner from Hoare's
house over the way. Lord! and how many
more I could name. Those were the days of
punch and loyalty. Punch went out of fashion
with the war. You must have another war
to get punch into demand again. I am certain
you would be confounded at hearing how
much was drank on ' the tenth of April,'
and that wasn't a war neither— but it proves
my point. Louis Napoleon is the man, sir, to
take those bowls from off their shelf, and to
lessen the number of ladles in the windows of
pawnbrokers; " and with this concluding
remark, pronounced in a kind of confidential
whisper, William left me to pursue his business
—both of us evidently wishing (for the
sake of punch alone) that Louis Napoleon
would come over.

I sat still brooding upon punch and the
land commemorated by Waller:

             The happy country where huge lemons grow.

"Who's for poonsh? " I found myself saying,
mimicking Garrick's favourite mode of
imitating Johnson—squeezing a lemon into a
punch-bowl with uncouth gesticulations, and
looking round the company for eager applicants.
Then it occurred to me, does any young
midshipman " wet his commission " now;
that is, dip his Admiralty writing in a bowl of
punch. What are our young militia-men
about—your Sherwood Foresters to wit.
Surely a bowl of punch would do them no
harm— making their clothes fit tighter to
their skins, and their arms (if moderately used)
fitter to wield either bayonet or sword. Would
Dibdin have written his sea-songs unless with
a bowl of punch before him ? Above all,
what would old Admiral Russell say—were
he to come to life again—at this decay of
punch?

This Admiral Russell was the officer who in
the reign of William III. defeated the French
off La Hogue; and for his services on that
occasion was created Earl of Orford. He was
a hearty lover of punch, and is said to have
made the largest bowl of his favourite liquor
that was ever made. He constructed a bowl
or cistern in his pleasure ground at Chippenham
in Cambridgeshire, and threw into it:—
Four hogsheads of brandy; eight hogsheads
of water; twenty-five thousand lemons;
twenty gallons of lime juice; thirteen
hundred weight of sugar; five pounds of grated
nutmeg; three hundred toasted biscuits;
and one pipe of dry mountain Malaga wine.
There's a receipt for a new edition of
Mrs. Rundell or Miss Acton! In this
lake of liquor floated a small boat, manned
with a steady boat's crew. These filled for
all comers, and more than six thousand
persons partook of the Admiral's mixture.
The cistern, or bowl, was empty long before
morning.

I believe it would be difficult to show that
the word punch was in use in England
anterior to the Restoration, or toddy in
existence, by such a name, anterior to the
Hanover succession. Punch the puppet
came over with Charles II., and the word, in
its sense of thick and short, was soon coined
for the nonce, Mr. Pepys recording under
the year 1669, how mightily he was pleased
to hear some poor people call " their fat child
Punch, that word being become a word of
common use for all that is thick and short."
It soon got into our dictionaries—Coles, the