as if he were fair game.  A toast is pressed upon him, though all know that it is not his custom to drink it.  On refusing, they begin to teaze him.  One jokes with him.  Another banters him.  Toasts both illiberal and indelicate, are at length introduced; and he has no alternative but that of bearing the banter, or quitting the room.  I have seen a Quaker in such a company (and at such a distance from home, that the transaction in all probability never could have been known, had he, in order to free himself from their attacks, conformed to their custom) bearing all their raillery with astonishing firmness, and courageously struggling against the stream.  It is certainly an awkward thing for a solitary Quaker to fall in such companies, and it requires considerable courage to preserve singularity in the midst of the prejudices of ignorant and illiberal men.

This custom, however, of drinking toasts after dinner, is, like the former of drinking healths at dinner, happily declining.  It is much to the credit of those, who move in the higher circles, that they have generally exploded both.  It may be probably owing to this circumstance, that though we find persons of this description labouring under the imputation of levity and dissipation, we yet find them respectable for the sobriety of their lives.  Drunkenness indeed forms no part of their character, nor, generally speaking, is it a vice of the present age as it has been of former ages; and there seems to be little doubt, that in proportion as the custom of drinking healths and toasts, but more particularly the latter, is suppressed, this vice will become less a trait in the national character.

There are one or two customs of the Quakers, which I shall notice before I conclude this chapter.

It is one of the fashions of the world, where people meet in company, for men and women, when the dinner is over, to drink their wine together, and for the women, having done this for a short time, to retire.  This custom of the females withdrawing after dinner was probably first insisted upon from an idea, that their presence would be a restraint upon the circulation of the bottle, as well as upon the conversation of the men.  The Quakers, however, seldom submit to this practice.  Men and women generally sit together and converse as before dinner.  I do not mean by this that women may not retire if they please, because there is no restraint upon any one in the company of the Quakers; nor do I mean to say, that women do not occasionally retire, and leave the men at their wine.  There are a few rich families, which, having mixed more than usual with the world, allow of this separation.  But where one allows it, there are ninety-nine, who give wine to their company after dinner, who do not.  It is not a Quaker-custom, that in a given time after dinner, the one should be separated from the other sex.