The Trapnell collection contained an early seventeenth-century bottle, with a seal of a king’s head; another dated Henry Galshell, 1700; another inscribed T. Bellamy, 1773. I own one bearing “C. Yoxall, 1778” in raised letters on a raised lozenge. These are all of dark, thick glass, and are short-necked and tun-bellied. A little later, in 1786, for instance, the shape became like that of a beer bottle to-day, but larger.

The rectangular, shouldered spirit bottles, with separately made short necks, and engraved or gilded, are usually Dutch, and were perhaps enclosed in cases, something like “tantalus” bottles. There are tall, embossed spirit bottles, often of coloured glass, with cut-glass stoppers. There are cut-glass English bottles, decanter-shaped but stopperless, a cork being used. Holster bottles were a kind of flask carried in the saddle holster. Bottles for oil and vinegar and spices resembled cruet bottles as a rule. Scent bottles, large, in plain glass, are found; small scent bottles, cut or coloured, or mounted with silver or pinchbeck stoppers, exist in great numbers; I own a Bristol scent bottle which is cut like a shell cameo, through two layers of coloured glass, one pink, one opal, down to the basal layer of plain glass; it cost me 6s. 6d.

DECANTERS

During most of the eighteenth century wine came to table in bottles; “decanting” began to be the fashion about 1780, perhaps. The decanters of that date have sloping shoulders as a rule; some in shape resemble a drawn glass with short stem reversed; a little later decanters became more globular and high-shouldered, with shorter necks. Engraved festoons on a decanter, as indeed upon a wine glass, usually indicate the “Empire” period by their decoration—the end of the eighteenth century, if not the beginning of the next. It must be said, however, that some “Jacobite” decanters exist with long necks and globular bodies; so difficult is it to find a rule without an exception in old glass. These Jacobite decanters have pointed stoppers, too; whereas oval rounded stoppers seem generally to have been the early form.

JUGS

Ale jugs, wine jugs, and water jugs in plain, coloured, or cut glass are plentiful. The most desirable are Waterford made, known by the tint, the weight, and the cutting. Cork-made jugs, resembling Waterford-made in cutting, but yellowish in tint, are found. Bristol coloured jugs, Wrockwardine striped and Nailsea splashed glass jugs exist; these, like many other old plain glass jugs, are blown and not cut. Jugs with very large necks and lips, either blown or cut, are fairly early examples. Sometimes a plain glass jug will have a raised festoon of plain or coloured glass about its neck.

Milk and cream jugs in Bristol blue, opal, or ruby glass are well known; cut milk-jugs exist in fair number.