Part 4

In many of the older wine glasses the finger can feel, inside the bowl, just above the top of the stem, a small conical projection, like that of half a bead. But this is not invariable, or an essential proof of genuineness.

IX. OTHER STEMMED DRINKING GLASSES

Wine glasses do not by any means exhaust the list of collectable glasses on stems; there are many desirable stemmed glasses once used for ale, cider, perry, or spirits, to be acquired.

1. ALE AND BEER GLASSES

Many glasses, drawn, bell, or waisted-bell shape in bowl and baluster, plain round, air spiral, cotton-white spiral, or cut in stem, exist, which appear to have been used for the very strong ale then brewed; often these are engraved with representations of hops and barley.

Large vessels, perhaps used for “small beer,” exist, from 9 to 16 inches tall, and proportionately capacious: the biggest of the kind I ever saw was engraved with Jacobite emblems. The smaller examples of this class may have been used daily; the larger may have been kept for occasional use as loving-cups, or were never used at all, perhaps, being merely _tours de force_ of the glass-maker, and kept as ornaments to a sideboard. The very large ones are drawn glasses, with plain round stems, as a rule; the nine-or ten-inch tall glasses of this kind are baluster or plain round in stem. I bought one of these (see page 48) for £2 5s. not long ago; its West-End price now might be £10, for it is “Waterford.”

2. CIDER GLASSES

No doubt some of the glasses mentioned just above were used at times for strong cider; perhaps large goblets were used for draught perry or cider at times. But special cider glasses exist, engraved with representations of apples and apple-tree leaves, or apple-trees, and these, from 6 to 7 inches tall, have ogee or rectangular bowls as a rule, and usually cotton-white spiral stems.

3. CHAMPAGNE OR MUM GLASSES

There are two types of old champagne or mum glasses, each rare: one type has a wide-lipped bell or double-ogee bowl, upon a baluster stem, and much resembles some of the bigger sweetmeat glasses; the other type is 7 to 9 inches high, ogee bowl, and cotton-white stem.

4. RUMMERS AND MUGS

There were three shapes of rummers used, one goblet shape, one on a tall stem, and one on a stem which is also a base: sometimes the base of an old rummer is square. The first of these three shapes has a baluster stem, the second a plain round, spiral, or cut stem.

Fine mugs, with handles, imitating contemporary old silverware, are found; the mugs show something of a stem (see illustration, page 7). Often they are engraved with the initials of their first owner, and sometimes are dated also. Fine double-handled mugs, like loving-cups, exist.

5. SPIRIT GLASSES AND CORDIAL GLASSES

These are small in bowl and short in stem, the bowl is often straight-sided, and the stem is usually drawn, and often cut. But there are many with drawn bowls and plain stems. A “thistle” glass of this kind is specially valued. Often the bowl is engraved. Cordial glasses may have long stems.

6. COACHING GLASSES AND FUDDLING GLASSES

These are glasses which have no feet: they were used at one draught of the liquor in them. I bought a Bristol opal glass of the kind for 6d., but these are excessively rare. Almost as rare are the plain glasses, with cut stems, used in coaching days. When the stage coach paused at an inn, a waiter came out with a tray of footless glasses, each resting on its bowl; the traveller took one up, inverted it into the proper position, held it out to the bottle or decanter in the waiter’s hand, drank, and set the glass down upon its bowl again. A fuddling glass was a variety of coaching glass used indoors, for a rapid dram; a “thistle” glass of this kind was favoured in Scotland.

7. TOASTMASTER GLASSES

These are less capacious dram glasses than they seem; the lower part of the bowl was deceptively made very thick, so that the toastmaster at a banquet need not drink so much as would otherwise have been necessary, when announcing and sharing in every one of the score or two of the toasts and “sentiments” which were honoured at every convivial board. A relic of the “sentiment” habit was preserved by Dickens in the language of Mr. Dick Swiveller: “May the wing of friendship never moult a feather” was a “sentiment” in its day.

8. “HOGARTH” GLASSES

Certain short, short-stemmed, or almost stemless glasses, with “Norwich” feet often, and with drawn or waisted-bell bowls wide at the mouth, are known as “Hogarth” glasses, because they were often shown in Hogarth’s pictures of contemporary social life.

9. TAVERN AND KITCHEN GLASSES

Old glasses are often found which in shape and purpose correspond with those described in this chapter and chapters vi, vii, and viii, but were obviously inferior in finish of make when new. These may be taken to be glasses made cheaply for tavern and kitchen use; though not so attractive as the better qualities, they should not be neglected by the collector.

10. YARD OF ALE GLASSES

Evelyn tells in his diary that in 1683 the health of James II was drunk at Bromley “in a flint glass of a yard long.” Imitations of these are made, but the real old ones are excessively rare. In shape they rather resemble a coaching-horn, the mouthpiece being the foot, or the mouthpiece being replaced by a bulb. They were used at merry-makings, as proof of bibulous skill in emptying a glass a yard long. There are also half-yard glasses.

11. “THIMBLEFUL” GLASSES

These have a very small straight-sided or ogee bowl, upon a plain round, or spiral stem and big foot. They are very rare.

X. JACOBITE, WILLIAMITE, AND HANOVERIAN GLASSES

These are the aristocracy among the wine glasses, goblets, and spirit glasses. They are rare, difficult to find, and costly to buy, but not impossible to come upon by lucky hazard.

THE ROSE GLASSES

The dearest aim of every collector of old wine glasses is to come upon a Jacobite glass. The more sanguine and less strict kind of collector declares himself the owner of a Jacobite example if he possesses a glass engraved with a six-petalled heraldic Stuart rose (one petal for each King or Queen of Stuart blood who actually reigned in England, he says), a large bud (representing the Old Pretender, he explains), a smaller bud (for the Young Pretender), and a bird or (see illustration, page 20) butterfly (crossing the narrow seas, he explains, to bring the Stuarts back).

A stricter, less easily satisfied collector points out that those were “the ordinary rose glasses,” used at all fashionable dinner-tables in the eighteenth century (see illustration, page 59). The reply to that is that the six-petalled rose and one of the buds, at least, are heraldic, not naturally represented; that the heraldic, six-petalled white rose was the Stuart rose; and that, at any rate, the “ordinary rose glasses” were sometimes used by Jacobites, particularly in general assemblies, because of their covert meaning, when it would have been unsafe to use the treasonable Jacobite glasses proper. A slight addition to the rose glass makes it truly Jacobite; thus I own a fine goblet which is made Jacobite by a monk’s-hood flower being added--a reference to General Monk. An “ordinary rose glass”--not so ordinary after all, and difficult to procure now, as well as dear to buy--which has a Stuart emblem engraved _under_ the foot of it is allowed to pass muster by the stricter collector, but what he aims at or boasts of if he possesses one is a “Jacobite glass proper.”

THE “JACOBITE”

Now a “Jacobite glass proper” is engraved with a portrait of the Old Pretender, or of his son “Bonnie Prince Charlie”; or with the rose, two buds, a butterfly or a bird, and also a Jacobite motto or emblem, or both; or with the cypher of the Old Pretender and the words of a loyalist song. Upon a firing glass (the rarest of the Jacobite variety) may be seen the touching emblem of a thunder-smitten tree putting forth new branches, and the motto _Revirescit_ (It becomes green again). Upon a wine glass may be seen the word “Fiat” with a star (perhaps standing for _fiat lux_, “Let there be light,” or perhaps for “Let it be done”--the second Restoration of the Stuarts). Or the motto may be _Redeat_ (let him return), or, very rare, _Redi_; or _Radiat_ (perhaps a misspelling of _Redeat_, or possibly meant for “let him shine”). If an oak-leaf (as well as the other features) appear on the glass, it was probably used in England; if a thistle, probably in Scotland.

There still are a few Jacobite glasses lying unrecognised no doubt; two were found in a London broker’s shop a few years ago, and bought for 5s.; in 1914 a Bristol schoolmaster learned accidentally that two glasses which had stood on a shelf on a sideboard in the family for forty years were _Fiat_ glasses, and a valuer going to a house in Sussex for other purposes, discovered a Prince Charlie portrait glass (worth a hundred guineas now) still passing _incognito_--there had been “the pair of it,” but that had been “smashed to bits,” the servants said.

The rarest form of Jacobite glasses is the short toasting or firing glass, for strong waters, of “Hogarth” shape. I possess one of these; it has a “Norwich” foot; the thickness of the base of the bowl, and the “tear” in that and the short bulbous stem, seem to date it at about 1725, so that it will be an “Old Pretender” glass. It is very beautifully engraved with the six-petalled rose, the two buds, the word “Fiat,” the rising star and the (Boscobel) oak-leaf. It had been kept in an armoury, belonging to a collector who did not collect old glass.

No wonder people hunt for Jacobite glasses. They were the romantic, loyal, treasonable vessels which were emptied to the toast of “his Majesty over the water,” in clandestine and dangerous gatherings of fair women and conspiring men. Then the great punch-bowl was filled with water, to represent the narrow seas, and the red wine sparkled in the glasses held out above it; as often at loyal Georgian assemblies a Jacobite would be seen to hold his wine glass above a tumbler of water, if called on to drink to “the King”:

_Then all leapt up and joined their hands With hearty clasp and greeting, The brimming cups, outstretched by all, Over the wide bowl meeting: “A health!” they cried, “to witching eyes Of sweetheart, wife, or daughter, But never forget the white, white rose, That blooms for us over the water!”_

Flip these old glasses with the finger-nail, and they ring like a tuning-fork; draw thumb and finger upwards to the edge of the bowl, and you hear a clear faint resonance, sad as the wailings after Culloden, when final defeat had come.

THE “WILLIAMITE”

I bought two fine, perfect, baluster-stemmed Williamite glasses for a guinea once; they show William of Orange on horseback, and are inscribed with “The Glorious Memory of King William, No Surrender, Boyne, 1st. Iuly 1690”; and the initials “T.C” and “S.C”; on some such glasses two of the initials are “S.T.” (see illustration, page 47). The glass is a yellowish-white where it is thick, and if not made at Belfast, may have been made in Cork; but the engraving would be done in Ulster. Some such glasses are rather recent; no doubt the making of Williamite glasses continued longer than the making of Jacobite glasses did, because of the continued existence of Orange Lodges. Some of these glasses are inscribed “The Immortal Memory” only, or “To the glorious memory of King William” only. Williamite firing glasses, of “Hogarth” shape, are also found.

THE “HANOVERIAN”

When the House of Hanover came to the throne of the United Kingdom, loyal drinking glasses were made accordingly. “God save King George” and “Liberty” are the usual inscriptions on them; sometimes the heraldic white horse of Hanover was engraved on the bowl, or the three crosses of the Union Jack inside a garter and the rays of the sun. Hanoverian glasses are rarer than Jacobite or Williamite, but Jacobite glasses are the most valued and costly.

XI. TUMBLERS, TANKARDS, “JOEYS,” AND “BOOT” GLASSES

I class these together because they are stemless. Pewter and silver tankards were imitated in glass, and these differ from mugs in being straight-sided and quite stemless; often they were engraved with initials and dates.

Old tumblers are not found so numerously as old wine glasses are; they are usually large, are often cut, and are sometimes engraved. Some tumblers are barrel-shaped, like some rummers, but most tumblers are “straight-sided” or “rectangular.” Some tumblers are engraved with portraits (as of Admiral Keppel) or with inscriptions (as of “Wellington for ever”). I own two which celebrate the “Independence of Durham and Richd. Wharton its defender,” probably made at Sunderland in 1802, to commemorate a Parliamentary Election in which the freedom of the citizens of Durham from rule by the bishop’s bailiff was involved. Masonic tumblers are rare; so are Bristol opal-glass tumblers, yet I own one which cost me 1s.

“Joeys” are dram glasses, shaped like tumblers, or like fuddling glasses with no foot or stem (see illustration, page 62). Mr. Joseph Hume, M.P., had caused fourpenny bits to be coined; fourpenny bits were accordingly called “joeys”; even to-day people call for a “joey” of brandy. When a tax was put on gin, less of the liquor could then be sold for fourpence; so that the glass was made thicker, and the contents accordingly less. For a similar reason to-day there are in public-houses glasses called “Lloyd Georges,” I am told. The two “joeys” I own are of grass-green hue; one is inscribed with “4d.”

“Boot” glasses are small blown vessels in the shape of riding-boots, probably used for spirits in the parting dram, otherwise called the stirrup-cup. There seems little foundation for the suggestion that these were emblems of Lord Bute, in the days of George III; for as Mr. Hartshorne, the founder of glass-collecting, discovered, a jack-boot glass is preserved in the museum of Liège and another in a Dutch museum, and these are older and more elaborate than the English “boot” glasses. I own two of those which Mr. Hartshorne collected, and on which he based the “Bute” suggestion, but small “boot” glasses are exceedingly rare. A big one, cut, and 12 inches high, was once offered me; I think it came from Liège. Large boot glasses striped with white are seen sometimes; “boot” glasses can hardly have been peculiar to Great Britain. Perhaps they were used by hunting men as an emblem of their sport.

XII. BOTTLES, DECANTERS, AND JUGS

BOTTLES

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.

XIII. BOWLS, LIFTERS, SUGAR-CRUSHERS, SPOONS, ETC.

Large cut-glass bowls, and plain bowls, exist, perhaps too small for punch (except the Bristol painted opal-glass ones), but big enough for fruit or salads. Often these stand on feet and stems. Finger bowls of plain blown and of cut glass are found. Coloured glass bowls, of Bristol blue, green, violet, or red, are desirable acquisitions. The earliest form of finger bowl was not a finger glass so much as a wine cooler or glass rinser; these have two projecting lips or ears opposite each other, to support the glass as it lay in the water rinsing or cooling.

The _toddy lifter_, _punch lifter_, or _grog lifter_ is an interesting glass article; I own seven, though examples are quite rare. There are several shapes. When the lower part is a high-shouldered decanter shape it is said to be a punch lifter, and English; when the lower part is round and shoulderless, like a club, it is Scottish and a toddy lifter. In most cases there is a fillet or collar of glass round the neck, and these are called ring-necked; the absence of the ring is rare. The bowl is of the size required for an ordinary glassful, for the lifters were used to transfer punch, toddy, or grog from the punch-bowl to the glass. The earlier way of doing this was by a silver or wooden ladle, but about the year 1800 the glass lifter (which is really a pipette or siphon) came into use. When the base of the lifter sank into the punch, the punch rose into the bowl of it by a hole in the bottom of it; the thumb then closed the hole at the top of the neck, thus creating a vacuum. Then the lifter could be carried over the table to the glass, and when the thumb was taken away the punch ran down into the glass.

Glass sugar crushers, plain, cut, or ridged with spirals, are found, with a pestle-like end to them. Glass spoons are rare. Glass knives are found, but most of them are doubtful. Pestles of Nailsea glass are seen, perhaps once used by ladies in their still-rooms; maybe glass mortars to match them may turn up.

Knife rests for the table are found, some plain moulded, some cut, some even with spirals inside them.

XIV. CANDLESTICKS, LUSTRES, AND LAMPS

Lustres and girandoles are often collected; glass standard lamps seldom, at present; glass candlesticks are much hunted for.

1. CANDLESTICKS

The most beautiful of glass candlesticks are those made and cut at Waterford, which stand about 12 inches high; £10 is a low price for a pair. Bristol cut-glass candlesticks are nearly as fine; Bristol opal-glass candlesticks, plain or painted in the Battersea enamel style, are exceedingly rare. Candlesticks with air-spiral and cotton-white stems are occasionally met with. Ordinary moulded-glass candlesticks, of the early nineteenth century, are pretty numerous: fine moulded candlesticks are of earlier date.

Glass candlesticks of Georgian date follow much the same order as the contemporary wine glasses, in the feet, pontil-marks, and stems. The earliest have baluster stems about 9 inches high, and round feet between 6 and 7 inches in diameter; the feet are domed or high instep, and the pontil-mark is a lump. The dome foot occurs with the air-spiral stems, later, and even with the cut stems, later still; in these last, as in the moulded and in the cut and engraved examples, the pontil-mark does not show. Fine candlesticks ornamented by purfling were made (see illustration, page 60). Glass taper stands are found.

2. LUSTRES

The degenerate form of lustre that was found on every parlour mantelpiece about the year 1860 is the best-known form, and many of these coloured glass objects, belling out at the top and bottom, with hanging prisms fantastically cut, are still extant; but as yet they are little collected. The name “lustres,” however, may be used to include the standing girandoles and the hanging chandeliers adorned with festoons of diamond-like cut prisms, and these are much sought after; many collectors acquire loose prisms, long or diamond-shaped, whenever they can, and have them re-strung, to be added to new glass chandeliers.

The earliest form of the girandole, or standing lustre, had a glass standard and glass arms; the top of the standard was a candlestick nozzle; the glass standard and arms and the dependent prisms reflected the candlelight brilliantly. Two of these were in use at Mount Vernon when George Washington was President of the United States; in the _Boston News Letter_ for 1719, “Fine Glass Lamps and Lanthorns” were advertised. Later, French influence brought in the ormolu and brass standards, some two feet high with ormolu arms and glass hangers. A complete set of girandoles, for a mantelpiece or console-stand, consisted of three, with ormolu bases (sometimes representing a human figure), standards, and arms; the central one triply or quintuply a candlestick, the side ones singly so.

In the fine tall lustres made in pairs at Cork about 1820 all was glass, except the metal clips inserted in the nozzles to hold the candles better. Until lustres lost their meaning and became mere mantel ornaments the candlestick part of them was a usual feature.

3. LAMPS

Glass standard lamps, some with round bases, some with square bases, the stems cut or balustered, may be found; in some cases the standard is short and supports a blown-glass lampshade; in other cases a blown-glass bulb is part of the tall standard.