But toasts came _after_ dinner.

I can just remember the practice in partial operation; and my astonishment as a mere boy, when accidentally dining at table and hearing my mother called upon to "give the company a gentleman," is one of my earliest reminiscences.

Lord Cockburn must have remembered them well, and I will quote his most amusing account of the effects:--"After dinner, and before the ladies retired, there generally began what was called '_Rounds_' of toasts, when each gentleman named an absent lady, and each lady an absent gentleman, separately; or one person was required to give an absent lady, and another person was required to match a gentleman with that lady, and the persons named were toasted, generally, with allusions and jokes about the fitness of the union.

And, worst of all, there were 'Sentiments.' These were short epigrammatic sentences, expressive of moral feelings and virtues, and were thought refined and elegant productions.

A faint conception of their nauseousness may be formed from the following examples, every one of which I have heard given a thousand times, and which indeed I only recollect from their being favourites.