Nelson & His World

The Diary of Mrs St George, in which she recorded her impressions of Nelson and Lady Hamilton during their journey home through Europe, contains the following observation:

'After dinner we had several songs in honour of Lord Nelson..... the songs all ended in the sailor's way with: Hip, Hip, Hurra and a bumper with the last drop on the nail, a ceremony I had never heard of or seen before.'

Does anyone know what this means?

The last drop on the nail means that, when drinking someone's health, having downed your glass, you turn it upside down and pour the last drop onto your thumb-nail, from where you can then lick it off. However, if the drop is so large that it rolls off your nail, you are obliged to have your glass refilled and to down it again.

While on the subject of drink, but perhaps moving down the social scale a bit - can anyone tell me what 'Flip' consisted of at that time? Was it specifically rum and beer, or a mixture of any spirits and beer, and was it necessarily hot?

Many thanks again, Tony.

The Shorter Oxford gives the following as one of the definitions for 'flip':

'a mixture of beer and spirit sweetened with sugar and heated with a hot iron.' First recorded usage - 1695.

Incidentally, Mrs St George uses the word 'hurra' rather than 'huzza', which was the word Nelson used. ('I had their huzzas, now I have their hearts....')

'Huzza' was 'said by writers of 17th & 18th centuries to have been originally a sailor's cheer or salute; as such, it may be identical with the old hauling cry 'heisau'.'

The spelling 'hurra' isn't in the Shorter Oxford, though 'hurrah' and 'hooray' are. They are 'later substitutes for 'huzza'. The SOED also notes that 'the form 'hurrah' is literary and dignified; the popular form is 'hooray'.'

Thanks for the 'Flip' recipe, Anna.