THE MAZER, THE STANDING CUP, THE FLAGON, THE TANKARD, THE BEAKER, THE WINE CUP, THE PUNCH-BOWL

In this chapter it will be seen that a survey is made of the drinking vessels of silver plate in use during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. With the advent of coffee and tea, silver plate found a newer field, and the coffee-pots, tea-pots, and tea-caddies of the eighteenth century are dealt with in another chapter.

During the period prior to the general use of glass, metals were employed for domestic plate. Pewter, being less costly, was more used than silver plate, which was confined to the wealthier classes; and for those of lower degree the black-jack and the “old leather bottel” sufficed. Faience from the Low Countries and from Cologne early found its way to this country. The Bellarmine jugs, large in capacity and strongly made of gres de Flandres stoneware, were possibly much in demand for serving sack and beer and other liquors consumed in large quantities. It is the tendency of all simple objects to become ornate. The earliest plain horn cups used by the herdsman and the simples developed into silver-mounted richly-chased drinking horns for use at the castle. Of this class is the drinking horn belonging to Lord Cawdor, at Golden Grove, with silver mounts supported by silver dragon and greyhound, which has a history dating from the days of Richard III.

The wooden bowl, as we see in the mazer, became enriched with costly mounts. These additions rarely added to the utility of the vessel, but they denote its elevation into usage by more wealthy people. The plain grey or mottled and excellently potted stoneware jug, the like of which Mistress Quickly must have used to pour out the canary of Falstaff and Bardolf and the thirsty set of tapsters who surrounded the fat knight, was common enough in the early sixteenth century. But in Elizabeth’s day it added luxurious appendages to itself in the shape of silver or silver-gilt rim and lid and bands and foot.

The mazer, a wooden vessel in form like the more modern punch-bowl, mounted in silver, is the earliest type of our domestic plate. These bowls were ornamented with silver bands and silver rims, and in some cases there was a silver circular plate or boss in the centre of the vessel inside. The example we illustrate is mounted in silver-gilt with quatrefoil belts. It has an inscription on the boss, “A Gift to the Parish of St. Petrock, 1490.” The wood of these mazers was usually maple, and the name is supposed to be derived from the British word masarm (maple). The Dutch word maeser means a knot of maple wood. Spenser in the sixteenth century has the lines:

Among the earliest of drinking vessels of the Middle Ages this form of the broad bowl followed the earlier horn drinking cup. Mazers were not made after the sixteenth century. The form was not confined to England, for Sir Walter Scott, in his “Lord of the Isles,” has the couplet:

In regard to some of the prices paid for mazers at auction in London, the following may convey an idea as to rarity. In 1903 a fifteenth-century mazer realized £140. In 1902 a sixteenth-century example brought £170. In 1905 a mazer dated 1527 sold for £500, but in 1908 one dated 1534 fetched the colossal price of £2,300. Certainly this is the highest price paid for maplewood. If the bowl had been all silver, and had been sold by the ounce, the sum paid would have been remarkable. But collectors are no respecters of persons, and as a rarity a mazer makes an appeal which it cannot do as a work of art.

The specimens remaining after centuries of vandalism which have come down to us from the early days differ in character. The mazer is reminiscent of Scandinavian drinking customs. To this day the Dane in drinking your health says “Scol.” Etymologists with fine imagination have linked this with skull, and sought to infer that the old Norsemen drank out of skulls. It is a myth as old as the upas-tree. Dekker in his Wonder of a Kingdom says:

We may agree with the sentiment, and we could fittingly drink confusion to a modern intriguer to like end, but, for all that, the derivation is wrong. The scol of the Dane has reference to little wooden spoons used with the bowl to ladle out the liquor, much in the same manner as the punch ladle of many centuries later performed the same service. The word scull, the oar of a shallop, is the same word. Byron, wishing to pose as a wicked person, gathered a crowd of wayward spirits at Newstead who drank out of a skull.

Some Historic Standing Cups

Contemporary with the mazers are magnificent standing cups and covers, such as the “Anathema” Cup, of the date 1481, at Pembroke College, Cambridge, or the Lynn Cup, a century earlier, in possession of the corporation of King’s Lynn. It must be remembered in the contemplation of our art treasures, and more especially the plate that is left to us, that the data upon which we may form conclusions are very slender. Happily much that is superlative is left to us, unscathed through centuries of civil war and plunderings and meltings-down; but often two pieces of the same period represent extreme types. One may be a merely ordinary common vessel and the other may be of most exquisite and beautiful work, which reached the summit of excellence even in its own day. Comparisons are odious. But it is as though in five centuries hence all else were swept aside and all that the twenty-fifth century had upon which to pass judgment on the eighteenth century potter were sundry ornate Wedgwood vases and certain crude cottage figures.

By the courtesy of the Mercers’ Company an illustration of the famous Leigh Standing Cup and cover is here produced. The date of this is 1499. The vessel is ornamented with raised crossed bands, and in the panels formed by their intersection are alternate heads of maidens and flagons, which are the badges of the company. The foot rests on three miniature flagons, and has a deep chased border with a pierced trefoil enrichment. On the cover are the arms of the City of London and the company. The cover is surmounted by a maiden seated, with an unicorn reclining in her lap, the word “Desyer” on its side. Round the cover and cup are bands of blue enamel, with letters of silver, with the following inscription:

This specimen exhibits the Gothic style, and this is the second earliest cup known with a hall-mark. The “Anathema” Cup bears the London hall-mark for 1481. The antiquity of these early cups illuminate the field of collecting. The Leigh Cup is contemporary with the magnificent chapel of Henry VII at Westminster Abbey. Here is a work of art wrought by the silversmith only two years after John Cabot made his first voyage to the mainland of America, and on the heels of the discovery of the sea route to India by Vasco da Gama.

The standing cup and cover carries with it rites and ceremonies that have been retained to the present day by all those corporations and companies and clubs who have a ritual extending into the past. It is not always easy to give the exact reason why customs are still punctiliously observed. To doff one’s hat to a friend or a superior is an act which has a long history. To take off one’s casque of armour was to become at once unprotected from the sword-cut. One can imagine two knights meeting showing this confidence in each other’s honour in removing their casques. Similarly in the taking of wine the observances of to-day in regard to the loving-cup have equally sound reasons to support them, as being a symbolic continuance of similar actions of the past when their meaning was more definitely prosaic than it is now.

There are many recorded instances where treacherous foes have stabbed a guest when in the act of drinking. It is not difficult to realize the sequel and the necessity for the usage. When one man drank, his comrade stood by his side with dagger ready to defend his friend from treachery. The custom to-day at civic banquets and in old clubs in regard to the loving-cup passed round is explained. There are always three standing. Two face each other and the third stands behind the person drinking as a safeguard against perfidy.

Poison and the fear of death were always prominently before our ancestors in the Middle Ages. The wine cup was an easy means in perpetrating revenge; in consequence crystal goblets, which were supposed to split or change colour when poison was present, were much in vogue.

There were various forms of standing cups. The craftsman expended his skill and invention in producing novelties. It thus happens that these creations exhibit the silversmith’s cunning at its best.

A very interesting cup and cover is that known as the “Westbury.” It is a fine example of the Elizabethan silversmith’s work, and is silver-gilt. It is, as is shown in the illustration, in the form of an acorn on a stem with flattened knob, and spreading moulded base, with turned knob to the cover. The cup of the acorn is cleverly suggested by a series of stamped rings. This cup has an inscription which runs:

On the cover are the initials of the donors, T. W. and M. M.

According to Hoare’s Wiltshire, and Cockayne’s Complete Peerage, Extinct and Dormant, Mary, widow of the second Earl of Marlborough, was married to one Thomas Waucklen, son of a blacksmith.

This is not too great a demand on our credulity, as a cause de cÉlÈbre in the courts disclosed the fact only a few years ago that a countess was married to the son of a coachman who had posed as a prince. We do not know in what manner Colonel Waucklen gained his military title. He possibly may during the “late wars” have emulated Hudibras,

But scandal there is which has settled heavily on the cup and its donors. It is stated that at the time of its gift to the church of Westbury, Mary the Countess had been dead a year and was buried in a turnip field. This Elizabethan cup made its public appearance in the middle of the reign of Charles II, and the said inscription would seem to have been placed upon it by the “Collonel” to screen the fact that his wife was dead. It would appear to have been for a long time in domestic use before it was handed over to the custody of the Church. It bears the London hall-mark for 1585.

The Stoneware Jug

As has already been said, the stoneware vessels of the Low Countries came into England and were in common use in the time of Elizabeth. Fine examples of mottled “tiger ware” with silver mounts were evidently used by more luxurious possessors, and such specimens bring enormous prices under the hammer. The celebrated West Malling Elizabethan jug sold at Christie’s, in 1903, for £1,522. This example was described as Fulham delft or stoneware, splashed purple, orange, green, and other colours, in the style of the old Chinese, and mounted with neck-band, handle mount, body-straps, foot and cover, of silver-gilt. It has the London hall-mark of 1581, the year after Drake returned in the Golden Hind from his voyage around the world. The maker’s mark is a fleur-de-lis stamped in intaglio, repeated on cover, neck-band, and foot. Its height is 9¹/2 inches. The weight of silver straps is only 9 oz. “It may have been used for sacred purposes,” says one of the journalistic critics, who marvelled at the price, “but without doubt is nothing more than an old sack-pot.”

We illustrate an example with silver-mounted cover and foot, about 1570 in date, which shows the type of jugs of Tudor days of this class.

There are many examples of this kind of tankard. The Vintners’ Company has one of delft mounted in silver-gilt with cover with inscription, “Think and Thank,” and “Thank David Gitting for this.” It bears a date 1563. The dates of most of the specimens of this class of stoneware or delft flagon range from about 1560 to about 1595.

The Pepys Standing Cup and Cover

In continuing the examination of loving-cups the comparison can be made between the early ornate Gothic type exemplified in the Leigh cup; the restrained and solid piece of craftsmanship in the Westbury cup; and the applied style of decoration, French in character, found in pieces from about 1670 for the next ten years or so. The Pepys cup is about 1677, and typifies this last period. There is among the York Corporation plate a silver-gilt cup, 17¹/2 inches high, with cover surmounted by a lion couchant. This “Turner” cup has the inscription: “Iones Turner serviens ad legem Civitatis Eboru Recordator hoc Majori et Communitati ejus de gratitudinis ergo dedit, 1679.” The hall-mark is London, 1679. There is a resemblance in this cup to the Pepys cup: it is finely decorated with acanthus leaves. In 1893 a copy of the Turner cup, with the lion transformed into the lion of England, and embellished with shields of the various Dukes of York, was presented to His Majesty King George by the citizens of York on the occasion of his marriage.

In 1677 Samuel Pepys was elected Master of the Clothworkers’ Company, to whom he presented this cup (illustrated), which is still used at their dinners.

Its description is as follows: Standing cup and cover, parcel gilt. Deep plain band round rim, below which is a chased laurel wreath. The rest of the cup is overlaid with an outer framework of pierced and embossed work of ornate character, which is not gilt. The design embraces foliated scrolls with griffin, and included are teazles and two rams, symbols of the Clothworkers’ Company. The cover is surmounted by a ram.

The cup bears an inscription: “Samuel Pepys Admiralitati Angl: Secretis & Societ: Pannif: Lond: Mr. An. MDCLXXVII,” and a monogram S. P., together with the arms of Pepys.

This piece belongs to the Charles II period, and is typical of the characteristic style of applied decoration, undoubtedly of French origin. This cup has the maker’s mark[3] T G or J G interlaced, and he evidently was an English craftsman working during the latter half of the Charles II period and during the short reign of James II. The vogue then disappeared.

English silver plate at the end of the seventeenth century is worthy of note, on account of its technique. A noticeable feature in this period of free chased work, in pieces with large leaves and fruit or figure subjects, is the bold manner in which the leaf springs from the collet of the foot. Among some of the most treasured objects of this late seventeenth-century outburst of fine craftsmanship are sconces and mirror frames, and especially large beakers and oviform vases and covers with floriated ornament richly chased. It was at that time that Grinling Gibbons the woodcarver revelled in his intricate flower and fruit pieces carved in the soft lime and chestnut woods. There is little doubt that the same artistic impulses were in the air. Side by side with the silversmith’s art were other fashions in furniture, in silk hangings, in costume, in the building and architecture of houses and the habits of the people who dwelt in them. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries with so many civil disturbances it was inevitable that easily movable possessions such as plate were the first to be realized. It is not difficult to imagine from the remnants still remaining what the plate must have been like which graced the splendid banqueting halls of the days of Elizabeth. The massive flagons, such as that illustrated page 105, and the gleaming dishes and lordly plates rightly belong to an age when courtiers wore doublets richly sewn with pearls, when dreams of conquests in the New World set men’s minds aflame, when new trade routes were opened and great companies formed, when the sturdy spirit of independence established itself in these realms to take root and develop into world supremacy on the seas, and establish an abiding place in the council chambers of Europe, and when Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, and Kit Marlowe, and Edmund Spenser with inspired vision penetrated into the domain of romance and won enduring fame.

But gold and silver plate hold a somewhat insecure place as historic records. The thief with vandal hands put many a cunningly fashioned vessel into the melting-pot to escape detection. The Civil War with its burnings and plunderings on the one hand, and the loyal devotion of cavaliers who gladly saw their plate go to equip Charles’s army, on the other, accounts for many more specimens of craftsmanship which can never come again. Other treasures left the country; the retinue of Queen Henrietta Maria, her French retainers and her scullions and priests, journeyed in forty coaches to Dover with much plate. Charles I, writing to Buckingham, calls upon Steenie to help him and says: “I command you to send away to-morrow all the French out of the towne, if you can by fair means, but strike not long in disputing, otherways force them away, dryving them like so many wilde beasts, until you have shipped them, and the devil goe with them.” How they plundered the Queen of jewels and plate, and of the money they owed in Drury Lane, and of the scuffle they had with the King’s Guards who turned them out of Somerset House, is a piquant story. To this day in the vaults, beside dusty documents, three stones record the last resting-place of all that is mortal of three of the Queen’s faithful French servants,—a scullion, a chaplain, and a waiting-woman.

In these troublous Stuart times many pieces of silver were buried by the owners who never came back, and they may still lie buried to this day. Others were disinterred and proudly grace some of our fine collections. One thinks of John Rivett, the blacksmith, who delivered up broken pieces of copper to the Puritan iconoclasts who had directed him to break up the equestrian statue of Charles I. But the statue itself he buried in his garden at Holborn Fields by night, and at the Restoration it was re-erected in its old place at Charing Cross, where it now stands. Without doubt, some of our most treasured plate has had as eventful a history as the “Man on the Black Horse.”

Elizabethan Flagons

To leave standing cups and retrace our steps, we may examine another class of vessel, the flagon. This is tall and usually rotund in shape, having a narrow neck. It belongs to the sixteenth century. Many of the specimens remaining are among communion plate, but its use was not confined to ecclesiastical purposes. The name is of ancient origin, and was possibly at first applied to any vessel holding drink—the Danish word flacon goes back many centuries. We find various references to it in the older writers. Bacon writes: “More had sent him by a suitor in Chancery two silver flagons,” and Shakespeare, in Hamlet, has “A mad rogue! he pour’d a flagon of Rhenish on my head once.” The relationship of the flagon to the tankard is a close one. The form as it continued to the end of the eighteenth century was practically unchanged from that of the earliest known types. It differs from the Italianate ewer with its slender neck and graceful proportions. Ale obviously required a broad, swelling vessel. There is nothing finnicking about that old English beverage. But wine necessitated something more delicate. Although nothing in silver has emulated the modern long, thin-necked, glass claret jugs with silver mounts, yet there has always been a distinction between ale, the popular drink of the people, and wine of foreign origin more pleasing to the palate of the connoisseur.

In the two Elizabethan examples illustrated (page 105), it will be seen that although taller and more grandiose, these are the prototypes of the later tankard, of which the definite form was established in the seventeenth century. The evolution of design, whether it be a continuity of the same technique and medium, or an adaption by the silver worker of the forms of the glass worker, the potter, or the woodworker, is always interesting to the student. There is little doubt that these silver tankards were in a measure derivative from Scandinavian types belonging to the earlier era. Man did not on a sudden invent new shapes for everyday use which no other man, in no other country or in no other age, had ever conceived. The salt-glazed stoneware of Germany and Flanders without doubt introduced new fashions to the silversmith. The canettes of Jacqueline Countess of Hainault in the fifteenth century, Vrouw Jacoba’s Kannetjes, the Cologne cannette of stoneware of middle sixteenth century days, and the Flemish cruche, a decorated jug with a pewter lid and mounts, all had an influence on the silversmith. But the law of supply and demand, even in early days, was something which could not be gainsaid. Man himself determined what was best fitted to his needs.

It will be seen that the earlier example of the two illustrated is dated in London, 1572, the year of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew. It has the almost straight sides, narrowing slightly towards the top and broadening towards the foot. It is decorated with chased floriated design, relieved by vertical bands continued on the cover to the apex. The cover is surmounted by a button, in form like a seal-top spoon of a later era. The handle is bold, and it lacks the strengthening band at the base which is shown in the adjacent example, where the handle is joined to the barrel by a band. The marks will be seen on the face of the piece in the middle of the surface below the cover.

The other example bears the London date letter for 1599, towards the close of Elizabeth’s reign. The piece is of fine proportions, with massive scroll handle. The cover, as in these earlier examples, is dome-shaped, and is surmounted by a circular radiating disc with baluster ornament. The billet, or thumb-piece, is chased with a man’s head. The decoration of the barrel is of the style frequently found upon tankards and bell salts of the late Elizabethan period and in the early years of James I, that is formal strap work, and scroll leafage incised in outline. The ground between is matted. In passing it may be noticed that this strap design was seized later by the woodworker in his panel work. The body rests on an applied foot, which is repoussÉ and chased with scroll outlines, similar to the cover. Two bands pass around the barrel and the lower one secures the handle. A panel with female head in relief adds dignity to a specimen which is of exceptional character.

Seventeenth Century Tankards

The word “tankard” belongs to an earlier period than the seventeenth century. It is of widespread derivation. In old French it is tanquaerd, in old Dutch it is tankaerd, and in Irish it is tancaird. And no doubt all three races drank well from these vessels. In the sixteenth century Ben Jonson says:

“When any calls for ale,” says Swift, “fill the largest tankard cup top full.” But silversmiths and collectors have their own nomenclature apart from poets, and the tankard belongs, in spite of literary proof to the contrary, to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It is the poet, again, who has continued the use of the word flagon, regardless of the anachronism. Be it a tankard, a mug, jug, can, pot, bottle or glass, such prosaic terms are swept aside in verse to figure as the “flagon” or the “flowing bowl.”

The tankard of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries becomes more utilitarian, and more national in character. The body is drum-like in form, and the cover is flat. In order to show how little the form differed from Charles II to William III, the examples illustrated on page 111 prove this point. The earlier example, on the right, is chased with acanthus and palm leaves. The beaded ornament on the handle is a feature in both.

Two other specimens are illustrated on page 111, both with the York date letter B for 1684, the year before the death of Charles II. One is made by George Gibson and the other by William Busfield. The taller tankard has a flat two-membered lid, and the other has a flat one-membered lid. In both these examples it is observable that the scroll handles have an extension of no utilitarian value. It is not beautiful nor useful. In comparison with the William III example illustrated on same page, the difference will at once be seen. In these examples a noticeable feature is the moulded base. Gradually the spread foot became of diminished size. It was of no practical use. Later forms show a restraint, almost a poverty of symmetrical design, by the absence of the foot. The form becomes more squat. We are accustomed to it in English plate, but it compares slightly unfavourably with foreign plate, where the balance is more sustained. The massive handle really demands a more solid base. In the York examples, where the finials of the handle trail on the ground, it is especially noticeable. The billets or thumb-pieces are evidently designed for ornament, and follow earlier examples of greater proportions. If they err, they err on the side of strength.

In the Exeter example illustrated on page 115, the maker’s mark is Ad., and the piece also bears the stamped marks of Britannia and the lion’s head erased, denoting the higher standard. The date letter is for 1705. This is typically Queen Anne style, and is a year after Marlborough’s great victory at Blenheim. The scroll handle is massive and the terminal is level with the base. The marks are illustrated at the foot of the page, and can be seen clearly on the body of the piece below the cover. It is an extremely interesting specimen, worthy of the cabinet of the collector. The thumb-piece is in the form of a convoluted scroll resembling the shell-like ornament placed on early salt cellars. It is essentially a metal-worker’s device, but it may be remarked that in salt cellars of faience the same ornament is used. The Lambeth delft salt cellar of the late seventeenth century, illustrated on page 161, indicates this parallel between the potter and the silversmith.

The other two Exeter examples are illustrated on page 117, and are of the period of George II. It will be seen that the cover leaves the flat form hitherto fixed during a long period extending back to Charles II, and begins to resume the domed shape of the early Elizabethan types. But there is no knob or button with baluster ornament such as in the earlier forms. The dome top of the later period is exceptionally reticent. In turning back to the William III example illustrated on page 111, in date 1701, it will be seen that the flat top did, on occasion, have an ornament; in this example the ornament takes an elaborate form, but as a rule the flat-topped tankard without ornament may be said to extend from about 1640 to 1740. In the Exeter tankard, dated 1748, the handle still follows the previous styles, and adds an ornamental form in its terminal which gives a pleasing effect with its terminal in double curves. The adjacent mug is the precursor of the new form of vessel which became individual. The tankard was passed around and followed the custom observed in the loving-cup. But the mug was personal and exhibited a change in the drinking habits of the common folk. It became a common utensil in inns in pewter, and its proportions were governed by statute. The date of this silver mug is 1733, in the reign of George II. The marks, with the Exeter date letter for the year 1733, are shown under the illustration (page 117).

The Stuart Beaker

The potter and the glassworker were always dogging the heels of the silversmith. Now and again the silversmith borrowed an idea from the other arts. The Stuart beakers are a class apart. We illustrate examples from the opening years of the seventeenth century—James I, 1606, to the days of Charles II. The James I beaker, in date 1606, shows the engraved floral design of well-balanced proportions. It is a tall, cylindrical vessel, and the decoration is in keeping with the surface to be ornamented. The engraving slightly suggests in its character, though not in its technique, the strapwork decoration of the same period. The marks of this piece are given on page 361.

These are interesting illustrations of evolution. The second example of the time of Charles I shows a slackness in design which compares unfavourably with the specimen of the previous reign. This is a piece just prior to the outburst of the Civil War. Even here, slight as is the engraving, we catch the suggestion of the later Stuart lozenge decoration employed in other arts, as for instance in furniture, notably in Stuart chair backs of this period. The love for the parallelogram was not confined to the silver worker.

The Charles II beaker, in date 1671, is without ornament. It was made a year after the infamous secret treaty of Dover, when Charles II became a pensioner of Louis XIV to the tune of £150,000 down and £225,000 a year.

The process of evolution is plain. First the tall shape with the spreading foot, followed by the squatter form with less ornament where the foot disappears, and is succeeded in a short time by the plain type. Here we have the precursor of the glass tumbler. What the silversmith made was obviously too expensive for the ordinary person. The glass workers introduced by the Duke of Buckingham from Venice in the reign of Charles II found a fashion ready to their hands. This silver beaker of the days of the Merry Monarch stands as a prototype of the modern glass tumbler. The succession of forms is something to be proud of in the history of a country. The peculiar usage of words, the continuance of old observances, and the development of costume, have each found exponents to specialize on the evolution of types and the succession to present forms. But who has idealized the glass tumbler of the public-house bar? Here in silver is the definite prototype, and no glass maker has invented anything more suitable. For wear and tear he has made the base thicker, or shall we say to disguise the fact that the glass contains less than it purports to hold?

The Wine Cup

The Stuart wine cups of silver are of exceptional interest. They are of graceful form and exhibit a variety of baluster ornament of pleasing character. The tall wine cup of the time of James I is the work of Peter Peterson, a noted silversmith of Norwich. The Norwich mark of the castle and the maker’s mark of the orb and cross are clearly visible in the illustration of the cup itself, and are further illustrated on page 395. The stem is slender and of baluster form. The upper part of the bowl has small trefoils of engraved ornament depending on the line running around the brim. The lower part of the bowl is embossed with leaves and floral conventional pattern. The foot is similarly embossed.

Sometimes these wine cups, or grace cups as they are termed, because it is believed that they were used at the end of a banquet to drink a grace, have octagonal bowls. These are found in the early seventeenth century. Other forms are like the modern open-bowled champagne-glass.

Charles I wine cups obviously are not common. The Civil War laid a heavy toll on such portable articles. During the Commonwealth, according to all report, in the words of Butler in his Hudibras, the Roundheads had a tendency to

and we have Lord Macaulay’s well-known pronouncement that the Puritans condemned bear-baiting not so much for the pain which it gave to the bear, as for the pleasure which it gave to the spectators. It is not to be supposed, therefore, that wine cups of the Commonwealth period were much in evidence. To come to the days of Charles II, the Great Fire of London in 1666 did enormous damage. The Clothworkers’ Hall burnt for three days and nights on account of the oil in the cellars. The Pepys Cup happily was saved, as we have seen. This was in September, but so great was the area of the fire in the city that the ground continued to smoke in December. Lady Carteret told Pepys that pieces of burned paper were driven by the wind as far as Cranborne in Windsor Forest. London remained in ruins till 1668. Pepys goes to Whitehall at the outset of the fire to tell the King what he had seen, and he suggested precautions by blowing up houses to stop the spread of the fire. Pepys is solicitous for the safety of the Navy Office, which was between Crutched Friars and Seething Lane, and Sir William Penn brought the workmen from Woolwich and Deptford yards to demolish houses on the “Tower Street and Fenchurch sides.” It is interesting to read that the Diarist sent off his money, plate, and valuables to Sir W. Rider at Bethnal Green, and then he and Sir William Penn dug a hole in their garden in which they put their wine and Parmezan cheese. All this is piquant in regard to the vicissitudes of fortune through which our old plate has passed.

The examples of wine cups illustrated on page 129 show two forms. One is taller than the other, and they stand as the great prototypes in solid silver of our modern wine glasses. Indeed, there is nothing to indicate that they are of silver in the illustration, save the dark surface of the bowl. It is pleasant to be able to give a Charles I piece dated 1631. The maker of this is William Shute. This belongs to the earlier period of the reign of Charles I, when the shadows were deepening. It is a delicately balanced cup with slender stem and finely proportioned baluster ornament. The marks are illustrated page 361. The other cup is of the Charles II period, and the marks are shown beneath, the maker’s being P. D. and the date letter being h for 1665, an eventful year. The Plague of London was now at its height. The first Dutch war commenced, and in June the Dutch were defeated under Van Tromp at Lowestoft.

The adjacent illustration (page 129) shows other contemporary metal work. Here is a brass candlestick of the middle seventeenth century. The baluster ornament is common to the silver cup and to the brass candlestick. No two of these candlesticks are alike, the baluster ornament varying according to the individual mood of the maker. It is the same factor which predominates in Jacobean furniture with turned rails with varying ornaments. The chain is complete. The silversmith, the brass-worker, the woodcarver, and the glassblower each found, according to his technique, this style of ornament pleasing to his mind. Accordingly the collector who comes after may see for himself the influence each has had on the other. The student may see in the established form of the stem of the modern wine glass something tempting him to linger over the process of evolution.

The Punch-bowl

Artists and writers have made the punch-bowl of the eighteenth century familiar. The china collector well knows that it was not always of silver. The amateur collector is always to the fore with his punch-ladle with silver bowl and ebony handle, and the said ladle must always have a coin of the period soldered at the bottom of the bowl to denote its genuineness. Alas! so few of these are authentic. The coin, which among other things should be the stamp of veracity, does not agree with the hall-marks—and one lie in a piece damns it in its entirety. It is a sad story, but punch-ladles seem to be the first step in obliquity of the faker. They are easy to make, and apparently easy to palm off on the young collector. There are hundreds of people who have a punch-ladle with a history—not the real history—but they have not a punch-bowl. It is like having a bridle without a horse.

The “Monteith” form of punch-bowl, with removable rim of scalloped form, made thus for the insertion of wine glasses, was known as early as 1701. Nobody can say why the term “Monteith” was applied to this, but presumably it was taken from the inventor or first user, much in the same manner as our current words, sandwich, orrery, cardigan, wellington, identify objects first used by, or contemporary with, the persons whose names they bear.

The punch-bowl is comparatively modern, inasmuch as the beverage itself is not of ancient date. The word “punch” is said to have been derived from the Hindustani, signifying the five ingredients—spirit, water, sugar, lemon, and spice. “A quart of ale is a dish for a king,” says Shakespeare in A Winter’s Tale; “Then to the spicy nut-brown ale,” says Milton in his L’Allegro. With the advent of William III there is no doubt that spirit drinking became prevalent, though it was not till the middle of the eighteenth century that the evil became a national crime fostered by the greed of the Government for taxes. The drunkenness in the reign of George II was appalling. William Hogarth, the great satirist of the eighteenth century, holds the mirror to his day in the two prints, Beer Street and Gin Lane, published in 1751. In the former, though it cannot be said to be idyllic, the comparative prosperity of the populace under the beer-drinking regime is satirically compared with their condition under the dominion of Gin in his companion picture, where for gruesome details the graver of the satirist is unsurpassed. In the foreground of this truly horrible print is a woman half in rags, evidently in a drunken condition, while the infant is slipping from her arms into a cellar, from which hangs the distiller’s spirit measure. Hogarth does not believe in half-truths. A stupefied wretch close by is clutching a keg of gin. On an adjacent parapet a dog is sharing a bone with a sot. The pawnbroker is shown as doing a busy trade. A woman is giving gin to her infant from a glass. The tottering buildings with falling bricks are symbolic of the utter rottenness of the social fabric. The spire of St. George’s, Bloomsbury, stands out as indicative of the aloofness of the Church to this devilish orgy. St. Giles is triumphant. The lurid background completes a terrible indictment of the Government of the day—the ghouls lifting a man into a coffin with a naked child at the foot, the bandaged heads and lifted stools of a drunken mob, the drunken man in a wheelbarrow with more gin being poured down his throat. Hogarth with his touch of irony combines the pathos of tears, young children standing innocently apathetic to all this, the everyday environment of their lives. This was Hogarth’s biting criticism on the attempt to stimulate the drinking of spirits and decrease the consumption of beer. Hogarth is coarse, he is offensive, he is brutal; but he deserves well of all who love truth. Rabelais had to paint his satires in gigantic gruesomeness to reach the ear of his day. Brutishness cannot be exorcised by the sprinkling of rose-water.

The punch-bowl comes straight from this period. We take it as we find it, symbolic of days when Members of Parliament did not disdain to hiccough their drunken speeches in the House, when Cabinet Ministers were not ashamed of being drunk.

This belongs to the early Georgian era; it is associated with Jacobite plots, with suppers held in secret, with toasts drunk in solemn ritual to the King over the water. It belongs to the hunting squires and parsons too, to the nabobs from “John Company,” and to the nebulous period of Hanoverian ascendancy. The Stuarts were dead with their fateful, romantic, and final downfall. Their memory lingered in the people’s hearts; it was kept alive by the old religion, and it haunted the songs of the people. But the Georges, by law elect, had planted their feet firmly—and the House of Hanover survived all romance.

Among the classes of punch-bowls the Monteith takes the aristocratic place. Its decoration is pretentious. Its utility, with its removable rim with the scalloped edge, is its claim to recognition, by the collector. The specimen illustrated (page 135), in date 1704, comes straight from the days when Charles Mordaunt, Lord Peterborough, performed his marvellous exploits in Spain. He captured Barcelona in 1705. Scholar, wit, man of fashion, he was Commander-in-Chief of the armies and the fleet in the Spanish War. He was as chivalrous as Don Quixote. He married Anastasia Robinson, the prima donna of her day. “Brave to temerity, liberal to profusion, courteous in his dealings with his enemies, a protector of the oppressed, an adorer of woman—the last of the knights-errant. He lived,” says Walpole, his biographer, “a romance, but was capable of making it a history.” This specimen comes straight from these days of sea fight and land fight in Spain and in the Low Countries under Marlborough, when “our army,” to quote Uncle Toby, “swore terribly in Flanders.”

The Queen Anne soberness of design seems to have been discarded in these Monteiths. There is something rococo and elaborate, as though in defiance of established reticence. The heavy ornament of lion’s head and handles, the massive gadrooned edge of the scalloped design, the bowl deeply fluted, the embossed medallion with coat of arms, and the foot enriched with beaded ornament, all indicate that such specimens were regarded as the Standing Cup, so to speak, of the period.

With the punch-bowl an end practically is made of silver vessels for drinking. The sovereignty of glass was now established. Porcelain and even earthenware had made inroads into the silversmith’s domain. The age of modernity was at hand.