etween meals, and is
used by the Hostess in "1 Henry IV." (iii. 3), who says to Falstaff:
"You owe money here besides, Sir John, for your diet, and by-drinkings."

_Hooped Pots._ In olden times drinking-pots were made with hoops, so
that, when two or more drank from the same tankard, no one should drink
more than his share. There were generally three hoops to the pots:
hence, in "2 Henry VI." (iv. 2), Cade says: "The three-hooped pot shall
have ten hoops." In Nash's "Pierce Pennilesse" we read: "I believe
hoopes on quart pots were invented that every man should take his hoope,
and no more."

The phrases "to do a man right" and "to do him reason" were, in years
gone by, the common expressions in pledging healths; he who drank a
bumper expected that a bumper should be drunk to his toast. To this
practice alludes the scrap of a song which Silence sings in "2 Henry
IV." (v. 3):

"Do me right,
And dub me knight:
Samingo."

He who drank, too, a bumper on his knee to the health of his mistress
was dubbed a knight for the evening. The word Samingo is either a
corruption of, or an intended blunder for, San Domingo, but why this
saint should be the patron of topers is uncertain.

_Rouse._ According to Gifford,[972] a _rouse_ was a large glass in which
a health was given, the drinking of which, by the rest of the company,
formed a carouse. Hamlet (i. 4) says:

"The king doth wake to-night, and takes his rouse."

[972] See Dyce, vol. iv. p. 395.

The word occurs again in the following act (1), where Polonius uses the
phrase "o'ertook in's rouse;" and in the sense of a bumper, or glass of
liquor, in "Othello" (ii. 3), "they have given me a rouse already."

_Sheer Ale._ This term, which is used in the "Taming of the Shrew"
(Induction, sc. 2), by Sly--"Ask Marian Hacket, the fat ale-wife of
Wincot, if she know me not: if she say I am not fourteen pence on the
score for sheer ale"--according to some expositors, means "ale alone,
nothing but ale," rather than "unmixed ale."

_Sneak-cup._ This phrase, which is used by Falstaff in "1 Henry IV."
(iii. 3)--"the prince is a Jack, a sneak-cup"--was used to denote one who
balked his glass.

_Earnest Money._ It was, in olden times, customary to ratify an
agreement by a bent coin. In "Henry VIII." (ii. 3), the old lady
remarks:

"Tis strange: a three-pence bow'd would hire me,
Old as I am, to queen it."

There were, however, no threepences so ea