| John Bartlett (1820–1905). Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. 1919. |
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| NUMBER: | 3816 |
| AUTHOR: | John Gay (1685–1732) |
| QUOTATION: | So comes a reckoning when the banquet ’s o’er,—
The dreadful reckoning, and men smile no more. 1 |
| ATTRIBUTION: | The What d’ ye call it. Act ii. Sc. 9. |
| BIOGRAPHY: | Columbia Encyclopedia. |
| | Note 1.
The time of paying a shot in a tavern among good fellows, or Pantagruelists, is still called in France a “quart d’heure de Rabelais,”—that is, Rabelais’s quarter of an hour, when a man is uneasy or melancholy.—Life of Rabelais (Bohn’s edition), p. 13. [back] |
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