CHAPTER VI

THE POSSET-POT AND THE PORRINGER

The antiquity of the Posset-pot--Its national use--The Porringer--The two forms contemporary with each other--Stuart examples--The seventeenth and eighteenth century potters--The merging of the two types into the bowl.

A cold climate demands hot cordials. There was no elaborate system of hot-water pipes in the draughty, cold, and damp Elizabethan mansions with their rush-covered floors. It was a necessity, apart from long and deep potations of strong drinks, to take a nightcap or caudle-cup of something hot. In the eighteenth century the drinking of hot punch superseded this. But in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the custom of the posset of hot sack with spices and having milk and eggs, as a supper beverage was universal. Not that the posset-cup was idle in the daytime. It succeeded, even if it did not replace, the standing or loving-cup at weddings and other ceremonies. “Mix a posset for the merry Sir John Falstaff,” might, and possibly did, refer to any hour of the day, for that jovial soul did not stand on ceremony as to when he drank, so long as it was copious and oft-repeated.

That the posset-cup was of something thicker than mere spiced ale or hot wine is shown by Shakespeare’s “Thou shalt eat a posset to night at my house” (_Merry Wives of Windsor_). And Lady Macbeth, as a last act before the final commission of the treacherous crime, says:--

I have drugged their possets, That death and nature do contend about them, Whether they live or die.

We have seen that the caudle was curdled milk, with wine and hot spices, and that it was smoking hot. Shakespeare says, “We’ll have a posset for’t soon at night, i’ faith, at the latter end of a sea-coal fire.” It was undoubtedly hot, and it seems to have been, sometimes for medical reasons, made doubly so. Hence Dryden writes:

A sparing diet did her health assure; Or sick, a pepper posset was her cure.

The object of a vessel, in the end, determines its established form. Its purpose being to receive a hot caudle, demanded that the posset-pot or cup should have a cover to keep its contents warm. Its two handles never seem to have deserted it, until it became a shallow dish or bowl for broth. These handles undoubtedly served a purpose, but the love of ornament and the balance of vessels which were always of beautiful form and perfect symmetry demanded two handles, by which design they succeeded the style of the loving-cup handed around, but it is not possible to conceive that the posset-cup was other than for personal use.

In regard to early days the posset-cup has not survived. We have mainly posset-cups of the Stuart period which ran contemporary with the porringer. We might almost term this the transitional period. But the difference is apparent. Whereas the posset-cup or pot had a cover, the porringer had no cover. Otherwise in form there is little difference. But it must be borne in mind that the covered vessel was a protection against poison. When this fear was no longer prevalent the open vessel became safe.

The illustrations show the various types. They belong mainly to the Stuart period. It is not possible to give a posset-pot from which the contemporaries of Falstaff drank their caudle. We can only conjecture from frequent literary references that such vessels were in common use. Apparently they have long disappeared, as there are few Tudor examples. There is a fine posset-pot and cover, of gold, of the sixteenth century, at Exeter College, Oxford.

The earliest example illustrated is a Commonwealth porringer, with the hall-mark for 1653 (illustrated p. 197). Here evidently is a vessel open-mouthed, and there was no intention that it should possess a cover. It is of different form to the contemporary posset-cup, and was not used for the same purpose. Apparently it was for something intended to retain the heat to a lesser degree, hence the absence of the lid. It is futile nowadays to conjecture with exactitude for what purpose these vessels were used. But, presumably, the porringer was for something more solid and less stimulating.

The date of this Puritan porringer is a memorable one. It belongs to the year when the Dutch were defeated off Portland in February, again off the North Foreland in June, and off Texel in July, when Van Tromp was killed. In the year of this porringer Oliver Cromwell forcibly dissolved the Rump Parliament. “Clad in plain grey clothes and grey worsted stockings,” Oliver sat in the House listening impatiently to Sir Harry Vane, till at length he could bear it no more. He rose, and after charging the House with injustice and self-interest, he cried, “Your hour is come; the Lord hath done with you.” Clapping his hat on his head, he strode into the middle of the House with “It is fit you should sit here no longer! You should give place to better men! You are no Parliament!” Thirty musketeers entered at a sign from their general, and the thirty members crowded to the door. The Speaker refused to quit his chair, till Harrison offered to “lend him a hand to come down.” Cromwell lifted the mace from the table. “What shall we do with this bauble?” he said; “Take it away!”[4]

On the same page is illustrated a Charles II posset-pot and cover, with the date mark of London for 1662, and by its side is a small porringer of the date of 1669. This was evidently for the use of a child, which is some indication that these smaller vessels were actually used for something in the nature of food, and the possibility that they derive their name from the word “porridge” is a conjecture not to be easily dismissed.

The bowl of Stuart days has an ogee outline contracted towards the mouth, giving it a pear-shaped form; this is common in porringers and posset-pots of the seventeenth century. In the example with the London hall-mark for 1662 the body is decorated with spheroidal swelling lozenges, giving character to the piece. The cover is plain, and heightens considerably the fine proportions, and is surmounted by a knob in baluster form. The handles are delicate and of gracefully curved form. The handles of the adjacent porringer, it will be seen, are flat. From 1653, the date of the Commonwealth porringer, to this latter small porringer, it will be seen that the handles are in a transitional stage. The upper half of the handle may be likened to a fanciful letter C, the bottom curve of which ends half-way in the interior of the handle, the handle being continued until it joins the bowl lower down. In the second example, 1662, the C stretches from the juncture of the handle with the bowl at the top to its juncture again at the lower end, the continuation of the handle below this is a slight additional outward curve. In 1669 the handle had become a letter S. The C form is slightly indicated by a break in the upper curve on the inside of the handle.

A comparison of the various forms of handle illustrated in this chapter shows that the C form in combination with the S form oscillated throughout the seventeenth century. In the elaborate posset-cup and cover of 1679 (illustrated p. 201) the S form would seem to have become established; but another example, 1683 (illustrated p. 205), shows the