Grocott & Ward, comps. Grocott’s Familiar Quotations, 6th ed. 189-?.
Tea
Tea! thou soft, thou sober, sage, and venerable liquid;—thou female tongue—running, smile-smoothing, heart-opening, wink-tippling cordial, to whose glorious insipidity I owe the happiest moment of my life, let me fall prostrate.
Colley Cibber.—The Lady’s Last Stake, Act I. Scene 1.
The Muse’s friend, tea does our fancy aid,
Repress those vapours which the head invade,
And keeps that palace of the soul serene,
Fit on her birth-day to salute the Queen.
Waller.—Of Tea, from last lines.
The ship from Ceylon, Inde, or far Cathay, unloads for him the fragrant produce of each trip.
Byron.—Don Juan, Canto XII. St. 9.
And sip with nymphs their elemental tea.
Pope.—Rape of the Lock, Canto I. Line 62.
Te veniente die, te decedente canebat.
Virgil.—Georgics, Book IV. Line 466.
[Translated.—“Thee did he sing as day approached, thee as it departed.” A punster has thus rendered it:—
“At morning he sang the praises of tea,
The praises of tea too at ev’ning sang he.”
A facetious Cantab is said to have placed upon his tea-caddy the Latin words, Tu Doces, (i.e., Thou teachest,) rendering the phrase into a punning motto, Thou tea-chest.—Riley’s Dict. Class. Quot. 456.]