Say  why  are  beauties  prais'd  and  honour'd  most,
The  wise  man's  passion,  and  the  vain  man's  toast  ?
Why  deck'd  with  all  that  land  and  sea  afford,
■Why  angels  call'd,  and  angel-lilce  adored?

It  was  an  old  English  custom  to  put  a  toast,  a  roasted  pippin
or  so,  in  a  hot  drink,  such  as  a  tankard  of  spiced  ale,  or  of  sack ;
and  this  is  whimsically  applied  as  the  derivation  of  the  word  used
to  express  the  slavish  adulation  and  worship  of  the  fair  sex,  as
embodied  in  this  custom.  ^  '  Many  of  the  Wits  of  the  last  age
will  assert  that  the  word,  in  its  present  sense,  was  known  among
them  in  their  youth,  and  had  its  rise  from  an  accident  at  the  town
of  Bath,  in  the  reign  of  Charles  the  Second.  It  happened  that,
on  a  public  day,  a  celebrated  beauty  of  those  times  was  in  the
Cross  Bath,  and  one  of  the  crowd  of  her  admirers  took  a  glass  of
the  water  in  which  the  fair  one  stood  and  drank  her  health  to  the
■Company.  There  was  in  the  place  a  gay  fellow  half  fuddled,  who
offered  to  jump  in,  and  swore,  though  he  liked  not  the  liquor,  he
would  have  the  Toast.  He  was  opposed  in  his  resolution ;  yet
this  whim  gave  foundation  to  the  present  honour  which  is  done  to
the  lady  we  mention  in  our  liquors,  who  has  ever  since  been  called
a  TOAST.  Though  this  institution  had  so  trivial  a  beginning,  it
is  now  elevated  into  a  formal  order ;  and  that  happy  virgin,  who
is  received  and  drunk  to  at  their  meetings,  has  no  more  to  do
in  this  life  but  to  judge  and  accept  of  the  first  good  offer.  The
manner  of  her  inauguration  is  much  like  that  of  the  choice  of  a
Doge  in  Venice  :  it  is  performed  by  balloting ;  and  when  she  is  so
chosen,  she  reigns  indisputably  for  that  ensuing  year ;  but  must
be  re-elected  anew  to  prolong  her  empire  a  moment  beyond  it.
