Chapter XIII
), others of ivory, and some of bone. Many of the older spoons were made of brass or latten; but when silver became popular table spoons of silver were procured whenever it was possible to afford them, and a collection including in the varieties the Apostle and the seal top, and its various developments from the rat-tail to the fiddle, is obtainable. As regarding spoons Westman has written: "The spoon is one of the first things wanted when we come into the world, and it is one of the last things we part with before we go out."
[Illustration: FIG. 19.--KNIFE, FORK, AND SPOON.
(_In the Victoria and Albert Museum._)]
The collector revels in the beautifully engraved blades of the rarer curios; in the handles so varied in their materials and ornament; and in the cases in which knives, forks, and spoons have in many instances been preserved. From the curios in museums and from family treasures it is evident that much of the cutlery has been presented as donations to the housekeeping outfit of a newly-married couple, or given as presentation sets or pieces on some special occasion; just as cutlery is often chosen for presentation purposes to-day.
From the sixteenth century onwards such sets have been made and presented. The recently arranged cutlery room in the Victoria and Albert Museum at South Kensington, that great art treasure-house of the nation, contains an exceptionally representative collection. In some instances the examples are only single specimens which may have been presented separately, or they may have formed part of a more complete set. There are sets of carving knives with long blades, forks with double prongs, and broad-pointed flat-bladed servers, many of them etched and engraved all over. Even after carvers were regular features on the table the small knives and forks were brought by the guests who were bidden to the feast, for it must be remembered that it was not until 1670 that Prince Rupert brought the first complete set of forks to this country.
In the Victoria and Albert Museum there is a very beautiful little knife, the handle of which is delicately carved, the group which constitutes the design representing our first parents standing beneath the Tree of Knowledge, in the midst of which the wily serpent is cunningly concealed.
Another pair consisting of a very handsome knife and fork have handles representing animals and grotesque figures. These were the work of Dutch artists in the seventeenth century; but curiously enough the quaint leather case in which this knife and fork are enclosed was evidently of earlier date, for it has upon it "1598." Some of the cases of leather made by the _cuir boulli_ process are circular, there being separate holes for each of the knives they were intended to contain. Some of the knives are very curious, especially those with wooden or horn handles of sixteenth and early seventeenth-century make, which have been found in considerable numbers in Moorfields and Finsbury, along with sharpening steels. The ordinary table knives of a little later date, when they were sold in half-dozens and dozens along with two-pronged forks, were decorative, their handles being made of materials varying in quality and in the excellence of their manufacture. One of the most beautiful sets of rare historic value now on view in the Victoria and Albert Museum is part of a set of fourteen, the ivory handles being carved to represent the kings and queens of England. These rare examples of the English cutler's and ivory carver's art, dated 1607, have blades damascened with gold. There are knives also with handles of amber, one very remarkable set in amber over foil being decorated with the figure of Christ and His Apostles on one side of the handles, and on the other side there is the Apostles' Creed.
Among other materials used in the manufacture of handles for knives and forks, some of the latter having two prongs and others three, chiefly made in the eighteenth century, are: Battersea enamel on copper, Staffordshire agate ware, Meissen porcelain, Venetian millefiore glass, Bow porcelain, jasper, Venetian aventurine glass, enamelled earthenware, and Chantilly porcelain. In many instances these handles made of such beautiful materials are further decorated by miniature painted scenes and floral ornaments. Another favourite material is bone, some of the older handles being stained, mostly green, afterwards decorated with applied silver in floral and geometrical designs. There are a few maple-wood handles of the eighteenth century, and others of stag's horn and of shagreen.
The knife box with its divisions, referred to elsewhere, is exemplified in many remarkably fine cases to be seen in our museums and in isolated specimens in private collections.
The interest in a collection of household utensils is greatly enhanced by the halo of romance which surrounds the uses of some of them. This is seen and understood by the collector of cutlery perhaps more than of anything else, for many old customs have been associated with the giving of cutlery, and superstitious beliefs have crept in.
The gift of cutlery at weddings was not always the prosaic thing it is nowadays, for the cases and even the knives were often accompanied by some sentimental rhyme or poetic inscription. Two knives, apparently the gift of bride and bridegroom to one another, now in the British Museum, are engraved with separate inscriptions. One reads:--
"My love is fixt I will not range, I like my choice I will not change";
while on the other is engraved:--
"Witt, wealth, and beauty all doe well But constant love doth fair excell. 1676."
The early uses of knives in association with religious rites are interesting, as, for instance, the golden knife with which the old Druids cut the mistletoe with pomp and much mystic ceremony. The early Christians made use of the knife and symbolized the cross when feasting; indeed, the old country habit--which is now deemed a sign of vulgarity--of crossing the knife and fork after dining, took its origin in that act of devotion, for together they form the Greek cross. Browning refers to the custom when he says:--
"Knife and fork he never lays Crosswise, to my recollection, As I do in Jesu's praise."
In Russia this custom of the peasantry was deep-rooted; and there they were careful to take up the knife and fork and lay them down on the plate crossed before commencing their often meagre meal.
[Illustration: FIG. 20.--PAIR OF DECORATED SPOONS.
(_In the Victoria and Albert Museum._)]
Strange to say that although knives and forks have been crossed in reverence, to cross knives has been deemed unlucky, and to present a maiden with a pair of scissors--two crossed blades--has long been held by those who believe in such signs as unlucky. To give a knife is to "cut luck"--so the legend runs; hence so many when presenting a pocket knife will demand a penny (as the smallest coin when silver pennies were in circulation) in return. The Rev. Samuel Bishop, M.A., Master of the Merchant Taylors' School in 1795, wrote the following lines on the subject of presenting a knife to his wife:--
"A knife, dear girl, cuts love, they say-- Mere modish love perhaps it may: For any tool of any kind Can separate what was never join'd."
Salt Cellars.
The condiments of the table were usually supplied in separate vessels. The use of salt with meat goes back to primitive times, although we have few records of the vessels in which it was served. The Arab chief offers his guest salt as an act of friendship, and as such it is partaken of. The classic Ancients consecrated salt before using it, and the salt cellar was placed upon the table together with the first fruits "for the gods," those to whom they were offered being generally Hercules or Mercury. The Greek salt cellars were shaped like bowls, and as the salt became an important feature as a dividing line between rich and poor, the size of the cellar grew. To realize the importance of the salt cellar in mediaeval England, we have only to visit the Tower of London, where the great salt cellars of State are kept. The large standing salt was the dividing line upon the table. Salt cellars dating from the fourteenth century are in existence, and many curiously shaped designs intervened before the bell-shaped salts which were fashionable in the days of Elizabeth and the trencher salts of Queen Anne and the early Georges. Salt cellars with feet came into fashion in the reign of George II; then followed many minor changes until the beautifully perforated salt cellars with blue liners bearing hall-marks dating from the close of the eighteenth century came into vogue. It is from among the Georgian table appointments that collectors gather most of their specimens. The materials of which these salt cellars were made vary; there are sterling silver, antique pewter, and Sheffield plate; and there are salt cellars of china and porcelain which may well be included in a collection of table curios.
Cruet Stands.
The separate bottles or cruets, casters, mustard pots, and very rarely salts, were gradually gathered together and placed in a frame which grew big in late Georgian and early Victorian days. For convenience the stand was placed in the centre of the table, and often made to revolve. Such cruets are met with in silver and other metals, also in papier-mache, often ornamented with mother-o'-pearl and painted flowers. The greatest interest, however, is found in collecting separate bottles, such as those charming Bristol glass cruets, ornamented with flowers and lettered with the names of their contents, such as "VINEGAR," "SALAD OIL," "MUSTARD," "PEPPER."
There is a greater variety of form in the metal cruets and casters, which followed the prevailing styles silversmiths were then employing. Especially graceful are the old pepperettes and vase-shaped casters. The woodturner, too, contributed to the table appointments of the eighteenth century, and the carver made some curious and even grotesque figures, the heads of which took off, and thus formed pepper casters. One of the most noted grotesque sets reminds us of the Toby fill-pot jugs in form, a complete set consisting of two salts, two mustards, and two pepper pots. Genuine specimens are very difficult to meet with now, although those Staffordshire cruets have been reproduced, and are offered either singly or in sets; but the difference between the genuine antique and the modern replica ought not to deceive even an amateur.
There are varieties of mustard pots, which were in turn round, oval, square, hexagonal, and cylindrical, some being like miniature well buckets with perforated sides and blue metal liners.
Punch and Toddy.
A hundred years ago the punch bowl was inseparable from the convivial feast. It was a favourite sideboard ornament, and found in frequent use on the dining table, round which smokers and card players drew up and filled their glasses with punch and toddy. Ladles were indispensable, and were varied in form and in the materials of which they were composed. Punch ladles were in earlier days made of cherry-wood, mounted with a silver rim and fitted with a long handle, often made of twisted horn. The horn, which was somewhat pliable, was secured to the bowl by a silver socket. Other ladles were made entirely of silver, some having a current coin of the realm, a guinea preferably, fixed in the bottom of the bowl--for luck. Some of the ladles were beautifully decorated in repousse, others were shaped like sauce boats; there were ladles without lips, others deep like the porringers, and yet others were quite round like a drinking bowl. Some are family heirlooms, others have been purchased in curio shops, and unfortunately during the last few years so great has been the demand for them that many modern copies have been palmed off as genuine antiques. The hall-mark on the rim is in many instances a guarantee of age, although some of the genuine specimens do not appear to have been hall-marked at all. The fact that an old coin is found fixed within the bowl is no criterion of antiquity, and does not always indicate that the punch ladle itself is contemporary with the coin, for old coins are common enough and readily fixed in new ladles.
Collectors of old china simply revel in punch bowls. Punch was at the height of its popularity when most of the domestic porcelain and decorative china, now rare and valuable, was being made. The best known potters in Worcester, Derby, Bristol, Liverpool, and the Potteries made punch bowls, some ornamented with their characteristic decorations; others were specially emblematical, such, for instance, as the bowls covered with masonic signs; some were nautical in design, and many were enriched with coats of arms and crests. Several of the punch bowls belonging to the old City Companies are on view in the Guildhall Museum, and isolated specimens are seen to be in other places.
Oriental china was at that time being imported into this country very extensively, and some remarkably delicate bowls, contrasting with Mason's strong ironstone, are obtainable. These bowls, ladles, and the charming little egg-shaped boxes which formerly contained a nutmeg and a tiny grater are household table furnishings of exceptional interest. It may interest some to learn that punch, which came into vogue in the seventeenth century, derived its name from a Hindustani word signifying five, indicative of the five ingredients of which it was composed--spirit, water, sugar, lemon, and spice.
Porringers and Cups.
Although sterling silver and other materials from which drinking vessels are usually made have been exhaustively dealt with in other volumes of the "Chats" series, as table appointments drinking cups must be referred to here. Caudle cups were in use in the sixteenth century, and throughout the century that followed they were used along with porringers, which differed from them only in that the mouths of the porringers were wider and the sides straight. The caudle cup, sometimes called a posset cup, is met with both without and with cover, and in some instances it is accompanied by a stand or tray. Caudle or posset was a drink consisting of milk curdled with wine, and in the days when it was drunk few went to bed without a cup of smoking hot posset. Many of the early cups were beautifully embossed and florally ornamented, although others were quite plain, with the exception of an engraved shield, on which was a coat of arms, crest, or monogram. Many of the porringers which followed the earlier type were octagonal, and in some instances twelve-sided. In the reign of William and Mary the rage for Chinese figures and ornaments caused English silversmiths to decorate porringers with similar designs. The style which prevailed the longest was that known as "Queen Anne," much copied in modern replicas. Very pleasing, too, are eighteenth-century miniature porringers.
There is much to please in the work of the silversmith and potter, as well as the glass blower, in the cups they fashioned; and the artist admires the chased engraving or the rich colouring, and perchance the etching and cutting of the cup. Some, however, show preference for the earlier cups and drinking vessels of commoner materials, and for those eccentricities of the table found in curious hunting cups, vessels which had to be emptied at a draught, or to be drunk under the most difficult conditions like the puzzle cups of Staffordshire make. The peg tankards of ancient date, a very fine example originally belonging to the Abbey of Glastonbury, afterwards in the possession of Lord Arundel of Wardour, held two quarts, the pegs dividing its contents into half-pints according to the Winchester standard. On that remarkable cup the twelve Apostles were carved round the sides, and on the lid was the scene at the Crucifixion.
[Illustration: FIG. 21.--TWO WOODEN CUPS.
FIG. 22.--WOODEN FLAGON, WITH COPPER BANDS.
(_In the National Museum of Wales._)]
[Illustration: FIGS. 23, 24.--COCOANUT CUPS (SILVER-MOUNTED).
FIG. 25.--COCOANUT FLAGON.]
It is said that the pegs were first ordered by Edgar, the Saxon king, to prevent excessive drinking, the tankard being passed round, every man being expected to drink down to the next peg. Heywood, in his _Philocathonista_, says: "Of drinking cups, divers and sundry sorts we have, some of elm, some of box, and some of maple and holly." According to the quaint spelling of those days there were then in use in Merrie England: "Mazers, noqqins, whiskins, piggins, cringes, ale-bowls, wassel bowls, tankard and kames from a pottle to a pint and from a pint to a gill." The leather cups and tankards or black jacks (see