CHAPTER XIII.

_Pewter or Tin—Vulcan a Pewterer—Tin Armor—Ezekiel—Roman Pewterers and

Vitellius—Tin Idols—Singular Imposture of Durand, a French

Carpenter—Louis XI—English Pewter Ware—St. Peter’s Chalice—Mexican

Pewterers—English Laws respecting Pewter—Cheats, time of Richard

II—Pewter Articles, under Henry VIII—Pewter Money and James

II—European Manufactures, A. D. 1483—Pewter Spoons described—Anecdote

of one—Charles XII—Singular Property of Pewter Mugs—Extension of the

Principle suggested—Authors likened to Cabmen—Brass Spoons—Tinned iron

ones—Tinning—Tin Plate—Andrew Yarranton—Wooden Spoons—Forks—Cutty

Spoons—Relish of Food—Spoons at Work—Dance of Death—End of the

World—The Last Spoon._

Of metallic spoons, those made of tin or its alloys were perhaps the

first; but it is not to be supposed that proofs of this can be found in

the material or mental relics of a former world. Such things were too

easily defaced and too insignificant to be noticed or preserved, where

others infinitely more durable and valuable have perished. Before

describing _pewter_ spoons, a few references to the employment of this

factitious metal in early times may gratify some readers. Its base is

_tin_, a white and bright metal, lighter than iron and soft almost as

lead. It is generally hardened by the addition of a little antimony, as

silver is with copper; and there was no more reason to give a new name

to the mixture in one case than in the other. The name of tin is not

only withheld from articles formed of it, but given to others only

washed with it. That fine material known in commerce as ‘tin plate’ is

sheet iron coated with tin. The French distinguish it from untinned

plate by the appropriate term ‘_fer blanc_,’ or white iron. Old English

writers made a similar distinction.

From the facility of working tin, the low temperature at which it fuses,

its ductility, brilliancy, and unquestionable employment in remote ages,

we may safely infer that articles were made of it long before the

refractory ores were reduced. That implements of iron preceded those of

bronze is the uniform declaration of history; but bronze was itself an

alloy of copper and tin. The latter is the natural solder of lead, for

which it has probably been used ever since the heavier metal was

wrought. Tin was among the spoils taken from the Midianites. Articles

formed of it were to be melted down and recast; hence the antiquity of

the pewterer’s art.

Whoever Vulcan was, or however remote the times in which he lived, he

was a pewterer as well as a blacksmith and brass founder. Bucklers,

greaves, and other defensive armor were in his time made of and adorned

with _tin_. The herd of cattle and other raised work on the shield of

Achilles were executed in this metal. The corslet of Agamemnon was

composed of alternate bars or scales of gold, steel and tin. The central

stud of his shield was encircled

‘With twice ten bosses of resplendent tin.’

In the form of wire tin was also used for binding different parts

together; as the lining of Sarpedon’s shield was stitched with wires of

gold. Defensive armor of so soft a material may excite the smile of

modern soldiers, and induce incredulity in Homer’s statements, or an

impression that he is misunderstood; but independent of the remarkable

fact of the word used by him to designate tin being the same by which

the metal is still known in the East, the material is still used for the

very same purpose at this day. The Calmucks, we are told, when equipped

for war often protect their persons ‘with armor made of scales of tin.’

Lapland women make ornaments of it to decorate their own and their

husbands’ dresses. They produce beautiful wire for embroidery, &c., by

drawing the metal through holes drilled in horns or bones of rein-deer;

a practice probably dating from the age of Homer. The ‘shining

canisters,’ in which bread was served to guests, often mentioned by the

father of poets, were very likely the work of the pewterer. Frontlets,

anklets, bracelets, and other personal ornaments of tin, still worn in

the East, are of extreme antiquity. Pausanias mentions an antique tablet

of tin connected with the Messenians.

When Ezekiel wrote, tin was a staple article of import at Tyre, and we

have sufficient evidence that its consumption anciently must have been

as great as at present. Whether the slabs piled on the docks and in the

stores of Phenician merchants in the prophet’s days were drawn from

India, Spain or Britain, is uncertain, but within two, if not one

century of his death, the greatest navigators of old drew part of their

supplies from Cornwall. It is pretty evident that English mines were

wrought before iron was known on the island, for pickaxes of stag’s

horns, hard wood, and flint, have been found embedded in ore, as well as

wooden shovels and buckets; the latter without any kind of hoops. A

plate of tin was disinterred in the time of Henry VIII. inscribed with

unknown characters, supposed to have been Druidical precepts. In 1635,

tablets with strange inscriptions were found, which Stukely ascribed to

Britons of a remote age. Posidonius says the ancient Celtæ had pewter

platters.

The pewterer’s art was extensively carried on in old Rome, and most

articles current a century ago were made there. It would seem from

Pliny, (xxx. 7.) that what he calls an ‘instrument of tin’ was the

common pewter syringe. From Suetonius we infer that goblets, dishes,

pitchers, cups, urns, and other utensils of gold and silver, dedicated

to the gods, were imitated in pewter, as such things are now. Vitellius,

he remarks, rifled the temples of their treasures, substituting articles

of pewter and copper for those of silver and gold. The successor of Otho

imitated in this respect another military ethnic, who, wanting money,

took a golden robe from the statue of Jupiter, and replaced it with a

woollen one, philosophically observing that the latter would keep the

deity warmer in winter, and press lighter on his shoulders in summer.

In the dark ages the worship of heathen deities was transferred

unaltered to christian saints. The Virgin received the same compliments

that her half-pagan adorers previously paid to Diana; whose shrines,

numerous as they were, never equaled those of her successor. As the

precious metals were not so abundant after the fall of the Romans, tin

offered a good and cheap substitute for one of them; and pewterers in

Germany, Britain and Gaul, drove a brisker business in making portable

idols than ever did Demetrius and his fellow craftsmen of Asia Minor.

The feudal contests of the old barons were a scourge to Europe for many

ages. Declaring war against each other at will, arson, rapine and

murder, stalked unchecked through the land. The Church launched her

thunders in vain; she was unable to correct an evil which kings could

not cure. At length a cunning carpenter, named _Durand_, conceived a

plan (if indeed it was his own) which succeeded in France, and made the

inventor’s fortune. He solemnly gave out that God appeared to him in

Auvergne, and commanded him to proclaim an instant peace between all

contending parties. For proof of his mission, he exhibited an image of

the Virgin, which he had the impudence to say was left with him for that

purpose by the Almighty. The astonished nobles accordingly assembled in

the City Du Puy, and after listening to opinions of churchmen, hearing

the asseverations of the bold artisan, and examining his celestial

image, agreed to lay aside their animosities and swear on the holy

evangelists to entertain love and peace for each other! As a proof of

sincerity and faith in the revelation, they wore “an image of our lady

in _pewter_” on their breasts—copies of the one in Durand’s possession,

and most likely cast in the same mould—with capuches of white linen on

their heads, which articles _the carpenter sold them_!

That son of Apollyon, Louis XI. constantly wore a madonna of lead or

pewter in his hat, which he would take off and invoke when about to

commit some horrible crime, so as to be sure of pardon beforehand. It is

pleasant, says Mazeray, to notice his pranks when his own death drew

near—sending all over Europe for relics of saints, to Rheims for the

holy ampoule and oil, ordering processions and masses in his behalf, and

not forgetting prayers that God would prevent certain winds, which

incommoded him, from blowing! But there are people now-a-days who send

up official requests to the Virgin for rain or fair weather.

In the Northumberland Household Book are allusions to pewter ware:

“Item—to be payd to the saide Richard Gowge, and Thomas Percy for the

bying of vj dossen rugh pewter vessels for servynge of my house for oone

hole yere, after vj shillings the dossen.” ‘The groom of the squillery

is to be careful after every meal to gather into his office the silver

and pewter vessels, and before they goe to the scowring or washing

certainly to number them.’ [_Brathwait._] In the United States the

communion service plate is as often the work of the pewterer as of the

silversmith. It was so in the primitive church. Among the relics

preserved in St. Lateran’s at Rome, are a wooden altar and a pewter

chalice—both said to have been used by St. Peter. Coffins were formerly

made of pewter: see accounts of several in Nugent’s travels. Block tin

or pewter worms for distilling are ancient. Alchymists used them and

denounced leaden ones. Van Sleb mentions pewter mortars in Egypt.

Mexican pewterers, like other mechanics, exhibited their goods for sale

in the great market. Cortez who mentions this fact in a letter to

Charles V. does not particularize the articles. Anklets, bracelets, and

other ornaments of tin, have been worn by Negroes, Arabs and others,

from time immemorial.

The process of making pewter goods differs from that of working most

metals. Articles are formed complete, or nearly so, by running the fused

material into clay, brass or other moulds. A spoon, for example, is cast

in a moment, whereas a gold or silver one has to be forged into shape.

The importance in which pewter was anciently held in England appears

from the laws made to preserve its purity, and reputation abroad. As

spoons are enumerated we shall notice some of the enactments. Previous

to the reign of Henry VII. all articles were to be compared with

standard metal and stamped; but the law had been disregarded, since he

issued a fresh edict, forbidding under certain penalties any pewter or

brass article to be sold without the maker’s name and the assay

officer’s mark. In the time of Richard II. the pewterers complained of

their business being injured by pedlars and tinkers going round the

country and recasting worn out articles, but which they mixed with lead,

“so as to be not worth the fourth part sold for.” These pedestrian

gentlemen were charged with stealing and encouraging others to steal old

brass and pewter, and selling them to go out of the country; thus

letting foreigners into the secrets of the trades. They also robbed the

people whom they dealt with by using false weights and beams. One of the

latter, says the statute, “will stand even with twelve pounds weight at

one end, against a quarter of a pound at the other end, to the singular

advantage of themselves.” (!) This equals the morality of our old Dutch

traders, who, in buying furs by weight from their Indian brethren, are

said to have put their left hand into the scale for one pound, and their

right foot for two.

The act of Richard was renewed by Henry VIII. with severer penalties,

and new sections added. _Spoons_, as well as more important articles,

were required to be of standard workmanship and assay—all below them

were forfeited. No foreigner was to be taken as an apprentice, or in any

way to learn the trade, lest going abroad the art should go also.

Section 7, cap. 8, of the first act of Henry VIII. enumerates the

following articles; if any were found below the standard, they were to

be seized:—“Platters, chargers, dishes, saucers, porringers, trenchers,

basons, flaggons, pottles, pots, saltsels, goblets, _spoons_, cruets or

candlesticks, or any such wares of tin or pewter.” Twenty-one years

afterwards pewterers again petitioned the king. They said the trade was

ruined by foreign manufactures, which they prayed might be prohibited.

It was therefore enacted that foreign tin or pewter “platters, dishes,

saucers, pots, basons, ewers, flaggons, goblets, salts, saltsellers,

_spoons_, or any thing made of tin or pewter, might be seized, in whose

hands soever it may be found.”

A dinner set of pewter plate comprised three dozen dishes and plates,

one dozen saucers, a tankard or flagon, salts, mustard pot, pepper box,

half a dozen mugs, and one or two dozen spoons. The whole was arranged

on a kind of sideboard or dresser with shelves, called the pewter rack.

Women prided themselves in keeping the whole brilliant as silver. In

some parts of Europe they are yet to be seen, but are rapidly

disappearing.

London pewterers were incorporated in 1474. The company was designated

as ‘The master, wardens, and commonalty of the art and mystery of

pewterers.’ Their motto, “In God is all my trust;” their crest, two

hands holding a pewter dish. The best pewter was for plates and dishes,

and known as ‘plate pewter;’ it was composed of tin and from 8 to 17 per

cent of antimony, and a little copper. ‘Ley pewter,’ often denounced in

old statutes, consisted of tin with a large proportion of lead,

one-fifth, and sometimes one third! But English did not equal Roman

cheats. Pliny speaks of culinary utensils made from equal quantities of

tin and lead! Desire for wealth is a universal passion, and to get it by

the shortest methods a universal temptation. Lead costs three, and tin

sixteen cents per pound. We have heard a wealthy pewterer boast of

supplying plantations in the West Indies with worms for distilling, made

from an alloy of 100 lbs of tin to a ton of lead! ‘Pewter, (he would

remark) is tin and lead, and so were the articles I made.’ He sold them

by weight.

Making base money out of pewter has always been in vogue, but not always

by men that wore aprons. It has been practiced by some who wore crowns.

James II. of England, ‘cast all the brass guns and all the brass and

copper vessels of [Irish] protestants that he could seize, into

half-crowns, shillings and sixpences,’ and ordered them to pass current

at the value of the same denominations in silver. Continuing to want

cash, and unable to get copper, he seized the people’s pewter dishes,

plates and spoons, and converted them into _silver_ crowns. Roman

counterfeiters carried on a heavy business. Numbers of their molds have

been dug up in England. Some are of clay and so arranged that a number

of pewter coins could be cast at one operation. [_Phil. Trans._ vols. 44

and 24.] According to Tavernier, the king of Cheda and Pera coins no

other than tin money. In Sumatra such was and probably is still in

circulation.

In 1483 we have, in a list of foreign goods, the importation of which

into England was prohibited, a better account of the state of the

mechanic arts at that time in Europe than is any where else to be found.

In consequence of a moving appeal from the parties interested it was

“ordained that no merchant-stranger, after the feast of Easter next

coming, shall bring into this realm of England, to be sold, any manner

of girdles, nor harneys wrought for girdles, points, leather laces,

purses, pouches, pins, gloves, knives, hangers, tailors’ sheers, sysors,

andyrons, cobbards, tongs, fire-forks, gredyrons, stocklocks, keys,

hinges and garnets, spurrs, painted glasses, painted papers, [paper

hangings?] painted forcers, painted images, painted clothes, beaten

gold, or beaten silver wrought in papers for painters, saddles, saddle

trees, horse harness, boots, bits, stirrups, buckles, chains, latten

nails with iron shanks, turnets, hanging candlesticks, holy water

stopps, chaffing dishes, hanging lavers, curtain rings, cards for wool,

roan cards, sheers, buckles for shoes, broches or spits, bells, hawks

bells, _tinn_ and _leaden spoons_, wyre of latten and iron, iron

candlesticks, grates, horns for lanthorns, or any of the said wares.”

_Figs. 1, 2_, _Plate VI._ represent the oldest fashioned pewter spoon we

have met with. It is cast from a brass mold before us, and dates from

the time of Elizabeth, whose head and crown are figured on the handle.

Raised scroll work covers the entire back and front, except the interior

of the bowl, which was burnished. Such spoons were all but finished when

cast, so that a pedlar or tinker possessing the mold, could renew the

spoons of a family in a trice. The dimensions are those of a tea spoon,

but it must not thence be concluded that such diminutive implements were

not in use before tea was introduced. They were employed for various

purposes as now, for eating eggs, taking up preserves and such like

dainties, for pickles, salt, &c. The vinegar cruet, we know, had a place

in Roman buffets, and occasionally on the tables of Anglo-Saxons; but so

late as the 16th century, that pungent fluid was often placed on the

table in pewter saucers, whence it was transferred by small spoons.

Pewter spoons of this style were more or less common in the middle ages.

In the 17th and 18th century a less profusion of ornament prevailed,

being confined chiefly to the front part of the handle. Fifty years ago,

a row of beads round the edge, as in _Fig. 3_, and a single or double

row of engraved work (as in _2_, _Plate VII._) were common. An open

space at the top for the initials in the form of an armorial shield or

other device was also left, in imitation of silver spoons of that day. A

dozen different patterns might here be added, but the variations are too

slight to interest general readers. _Figs. 4_ and _5_—modern pewter or

Britannia metal spoons, as they are called, from the superior hardness

and color of the metal. Being _buffed_, (that is, polished on the wheel)

they are better finished than ancient spoons burnished by hand. The

handle of _Fig. 4_ resembles old patterns—that of _5_ is of more recent

date.

With an anecdote and reflection or two we will dismiss pewter spoons. A

pleasing incident is mentioned in the journal of Capt. King, the

companion of Cook, and the continuator of that great navigator’s last

voyage:—“Whilst we were at dinner in this miserable hut, on the banks of

the river Awatska, the guests of a people with whose existence we had

before been scarcely acquainted, and at the extremity of the globe, a

solitary half-worn _pewter spoon_, whose shape was familiar to us,

attracted our attention, and on examination, we found it stamped on the

back with the word ‘London.’ I cannot pass over this circumstance in

silence, out of gratitude for the many pleasant thoughts, anxious hopes

and tender remembrances it excited in us.” Captain King, like Captain

Cook, did not live to see England again, and this poor spoon probably

furnished him with the last vivid recollections of home.

Charles XII. of Sweden banished silver from his table, and replaced it

with pewter! The circumstance that led to the determination occurred on

this wise:—Returning from his long captivity among the Turks, he passed

through Lund, where the workmen of a tin mine in the vicinity waited on

him to offer their congratulations and present him specimens of various

articles formed of the metal. Charles treated them to wine, and made

them carry home the silver goblets out of which they drank it. To

encourage the new manufacture, he forbade the use of silver in future at

his own table, and ordered “all his cups, dishes, plates, _spoons_, salt

cellars and candlesticks to be made of _tin_”—an act more honorable to

his memory than any battle he won.

It is known to the learned in porterhouse lore that pewter pots impart a

peculiar flavor to ale, beer, and cider. The phenomenon is due to an

electro-galvanic influence, excited by contact of the metallic alloy

with the liquids; but the same curious savans are not known to give an

equal preference to pewter spoons, although the same principle must be

equally developed in them while delivering liquids with which they are

charged. The subject is an interesting one, and has, we presume, been

accidentally neglected. When cultivated it may lead to incredible

results, for it points to sources of human enjoyments which the most

enthusiastic could hardly hope for ere the millenium set in.

That the sense of taste depends chiefly on electricity there is little

doubt; though the modes by which this most subtle of fluids acts, and

the means of diversifying its effects on the palate, are yet among the

arcana of nature. Its fearful activity at the breakfast and dinner table

is shown by a calculation based on ascertained data:—“The largest charge

of a Leyden battery does not equal in quantity the electricity which

passes between the tongue and a silver spoon, during the simple act of

eating an egg. Indeed, if the quantity developed in the latter case were

free to assume the form of that obtained by friction, the result would

be a lightning flash of no small power.”

If then, a mug composed of tin, antimony and lead, can impart an

etherial flavor to fluids brewed from apples and malt, why may not

spoons (by varying, multiplying, and properly proportioning the elements

of their composition) be made to give the taste of roast beef to rice

pudding, and of fashionable soups to onion broth or water gruel? The

idea is not so visionary as those who never laugh may suppose. Bread

from boards, sugar from starch and old shirts, the most intense sweet

from the union of two disgusting bitters, (nitrate of silver and

hypersulphate of soda) show with what magic effect the modern chemist

plays with our palates, and how he challenges imagination itself to

limit his powers over the organs of taste.

[Illustration:

_Plate 8_ _Modern_

_Lith of E Jones 128 Fulton S^t. N.Y._

]

Will the reader wait one moment, while we catch another glimpse of a

subject, perhaps destined to occupy a large space in future annals of

science and patents, and which, when fully explored, may go a great way

towards driving hunger and alm-houses out of the world? When people

constantly dine on one food they long for a change; unless seasoned with

St. Bernard’s sauce, [hunger] both chicken and cheese, pudding and pie,

will pall on the sense. Now, by extending the electrical principle to

all kinds of eating apparatus, the time may come when a family sitting

down to the plainest food, shall derive from it the flavor of the

richest the markets afford—turkey this day, venison the next, and on the

following one canvas-back ducks, or any thing else, indigenous or

exotic, the stomach may crave. A few dozen of electro-galvanic plates,

knives, forks, spoons, bottles and cups, &c. would only be wanted; for

if properly made, each would be equivalent to a distinct dish, and

should be marked with the name of the aliment whose taste it imparted.

But a more surprising and economical feature of the system is this: when

a company cloys on one food, by simply interchanging their spoons and

plates, ladies and gentlemen might multiply, as in the permutation of

figures, their gustable dainties nearly _ad infinitum_!

Early fruits and asparagus could be had from dried apples and clover.

Poor people would sip tea when they had none in the house, and enrich it

with cream that never came from a cow. Fresh steaks could be sliced from

jerked beef or salt pork—thus enabling old sailors to laugh at the

scurvy. To wash down a dinner, any kind of wine might be got from

lemonade or root beer, by imbibing those fluids from electrical goblets;

the—but serious readers frown at what they miscall our levity, and

others are perhaps restless as stage passengers, who, anxious to get to

the end of their journey, find fault with the driver at every little

delay; hence we must forego the pleasures of a ramble in this

Hesperidian field of research, until our engagements to those who have

patronized us on the present excursion be fulfilled: for, authors are

cabmen, and books are their cabs: title pages are advertisements

soliciting the public to take trips with the Jehus whose names they

display. Some of these gentlemen furnish accommodations so elastic and

pleasant that travellers at the end of a journey leave with regret—the

vehicles of others are so rudely put together that in lumbering along,

those embarked become jolted till they are glad to get out and give up

their fare. Nor are drivers alike. Some urge their nags only over

regular routes, hurrying at a uniform speed over grass, gravel or mud,

not allowing their patrons a moment to look but till they come to the

FINIS. But some gentle spirits there are who willingly strike into new

paths, to give their customers a sight of every thing interesting or

rare; sweeping down this avenue, now wheeling over yon lawn, and anon

trotting into the turnpike again, with perfect good humor. These are the

men we try to imitate, well knowing our accommodations are poor and the

road we are traveling so rugged that, unless determined to please, we

might crack our whip for customers till doomsday and never succeed.

If the first metallic spoons were pewter or tin, the second were copper

or brass. Copper was the precursor of iron, and bronze of steel. The

world has never been, and perhaps never will be uniformly advanced in

metallurgy. The age of iron had not dawned on these continents four

centuries ago. Brass or bronze spoons are relics of the brazen age.

Several ancient ones have been described, and some of recent days

alluded to under the name of _latten_ spoons. [Laton, leton, and laiton

are French terms for brass.] _Fig. 6_, _Plate VI._ is an old English

brass spoon, with a round handle, resembling those worn in their caps by

janizaries. These implements were no doubt tinned or silvered by the

ancients. Most of their cooking utensils were. Having detected the

injurious effects of food cooked in plain brass pots, they of course

knew it was not improved when taken into the mouth from untinned brass

spoons—verdigris being equally generated by both.

_Figs. 7, 8, 9_—_Iron_ spoons; the most durable of all, and of immense

antiquity. The specimens are more clumsy in appearance than those now

made, which resemble _Fig. 4_. Tinned iron spoons certainly formed part

of the invoices of ancient hardware men. They have had a place in

English manufactures ever since ‘Sheffield whittles’ were forged. Some

ancient iron spoons had pointed handles, as shown on the second plate.

The art of tinning pots and pans, as well as plating buckles and other

articles of harness and carriage furniture, Pliny ascribes to the Gauls,

and he mentions the workmen of Bourges as excelling in the art. [xxxiv.

17.]

Iron spoons were at first forged, next cut out of thick sheets, pressed

into shape by dies, and then tinned. They have also been stamped out of

_tin plate_—one of the finest of metallurgical productions, and of whose

origin so little is known. A word or two (our limits will not allow

more) on an invention which has so greatly contributed to domestic

comfort: It can be traced only three or four centuries back to Germany

and Bohemia; how much older it may be is uncertain. There is nothing

improbable in supposing it to date from Roman or even earlier times. A

passage in Chaucer has escaped the notice of writers on the subject

which seems to refer to tin plate—if so, the article was then common:—

Tho saw I stand on a pillere

That was of _tinned iron clere_.—[_House of Fame._]

England now supplies a great part of the world with tin plate; yet 130

years have not elapsed since the first sheet was made there, nor is the

name of the man who introduced it known to one in a hundred of her

citizens. This was Andrew Yarranton, an individual of a singular genius

and great enterprise. Little of him is known, except what he tells us in

a remarkable book entitled ‘England’s Improvement by sea and land, to

out-do the Dutch without fighting, to pay debts without moneys,’ &c.

Lon. 1677. He was put apprentice to a linen draper, staid some years,

then ran away and became a soldier in the civil wars. In 1652 he

‘entered upon iron works and plied them several years.’ He practiced as

a surveyor and civil engineer. ‘Being employed by twelve gentlemen of

England to bring a manufacture out of Saxony and Bohemia, made of iron

and tin, there I did see what I here set down,’ &c. When Van Tromp

defeated the English fleet, Yarranton was in Saxony collecting

information relative to the manufacturing of ‘linen, thread, tape, and

_tin plates_,’ which, once introduced into England, with other

improvements derived from Holland, would enable his countrymen “to beat

the Dutch without fighting them;” viz. ‘by securing the mistress called

_Trade_’—the greatest prophet of his age.

About 1720 the manufacture was begun in England, but the importation of

tin-plate continued for some years after. Dr. Rutty, in the 35th volume

Phil. Trans. quoting the Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences for 1725,

observes:—“The making of tin plates, or latten as it is called, being

not commonly practiced in England though there is so great a consumption

for it ... whereby we are obliged to export our tin to Germany, and

receive it back again manufactured.”

_Figs. 10, 11, 12_—modern wooden spoons, as now sold in furnishing

stores. The one with a turned handle is the common French spoon. _Fig.

13_—the old spoon and ladle rack of rustic dwellings and kitchens. The

‘little forks’ are from a cut of the latter part of the 16th century,

showing the form of these implements when first brought into fashion.

Ladies at table held them between the finger and thumb, and knives were

not used—meat on the plates being previously cut into small pieces. The

first direct allusion to table forks we have met with is given by

Diogenes Laertius in the proem to his ‘Lives.’ The Magi, he says, used

reeds at meals, ‘with the sharp ends of which they took up their cheese,

and put it to their mouths.’ Shetland islanders used sticks as forks

when eating the flesh of seals. The old horn or wooden spoon was short,

as figured on the wall. The Gaelic word _cutag_, scottice _cutty_, was a

short hafted spoon. One of these was devoted to scraping out the

‘_kail-pot_,’ and then distinguished by the euphonius title of

_kail-gullie_. Such are the things employed,

‘When rural life o’ ev’ry station

Unite in common recreation.’

Scottish drovers carried a wallet of oatmeal and a wooden bowl. When

arrived at a brook and hungry, they mixed a little meal and water,

stirring the mixture with one end of a cutty spoon; and, when duly

compounded, eating it out of the other. The relish of food is from

heaven, and does not depend upon knives and spoons. In this respect, and

in ten thousand others, life is redolent of blessings. Had not the

Creator consulted man’s felicity, he might have made the taking of food

and every essential act of life disagreeable instead of a pleasure.

Wooden spoons no more spoil the appetite of the poor than golden ones

improve that of the rich. Forster, after living on the luxuries of Asia,

returning home by the Caspian sea, enjoyed the sweetest regale of his

life, when sitting down with the crew of a small Russian vessel—each

helping himself out of one common dish of fish broth with a wooden

platter and spoon. Servants in lord’s houses as well as rural laborers

made their own spoons and plates. None, says Brathwait, were permitted

to use trenchers but such as they made for themselves.

Simple as the spoon is, no talisman ever equaled the miracles it works.

It transforms infants into youth and youth into manhood; infuses

strength into the limbs and marrow through the bones; expanding the

person, imparting symmetry to the frame, health to the body and

intelligence to the soul. A child cannot arrive at maturity without it.

See the usual process by which it works these wonders at the foot of

_Plate VI._ There half a dozen are in active operation, and as nature is

always the same, we see how boys and girls have eaten porridge, since

porridge was made. With the exception of costume the scene represented

belongs to all times. The children of Leah, Rachel, and Niobe fed

themselves like the group of Dutch youngsters the reader beholds. They

handled their spoons in the same way, blew on the food when it was hot,

made wry faces, and shed tears when they swallowed it too soon.

The design is no fancy sketch; there is no poetry in the composition—no

got-up attitudes. Dame Nature herself arranged the figures for the

painter to copy. To be sure, the girls do not rival the graces nor the

boys Belvidere Apollos. No lady at court would imitate the posture of

either of the girls to the right. The gentleman at the back, with his

spoon in the dish, seems indetermined whether to raise it while the eye

of the reader is on him. His sister at the extreme left looks as if

ashamed to eat before strangers, and in the act of requesting the

beholder to turn his attention elsewhere—but it is unnecessary to dilate

on each figure; the rest are acting in accordance with the injunction of

Solomon:—‘Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.’ The

good dame points with pride to her thriving cherubs, and rejoices in

seeing them so agreeably amused with their spoons. To anticipate their

thirst she has placed a pitcher of water beside them.

The most touching design in Holbein’s Dance of Death is ‘The Infant.’ A

poor widow prepares a meal for her two orphans; before it is ready Death

steps in and leads out the youngest. While passing the threshold, the

romping little innocent looks back towards its mother and its spoon,

(the latter lying on the floor,) and seems to long for something to eat

before going off with the stranger.

In a curious account of Death’s doings, published in the 16th century,

the grim monster under various disguises takes away all sorts of people,

and at the most inconvenient seasons. Misers, merchants, friars, nuns,

cardinals, bishops, soldiers, beggars and belles are interrupted in the

midst of agreeable occupations, and while accompanied with things they

most valued. A _bon vivant_ carries a spit laden with trussed fowls in

one hand, and grasps in the other a jug and a spoon. The monarch of

Hades approaches and solicits his acquaintance—this is refused—a

struggle ensues; and soon, stripped of his goods, the portly sinner is

led an unwilling guest to the mansions below.

The end of the world has been symbolized by Death breaking an hour

glass; the moral would be quite as striking were he represented

destroying the last spoon. The last spoon! Bless us, what thoughts does

that call up—thoughts of its maker, state of the arts and of the world

at the time—of its owner, his profession and place of abode, his

feelings when his contemporaries drop off, and finally leave him the

last of living men—the universal heir of his species. Where, and of what

will he prepare his last meal; and what will be his reflections when he

swallows the last spoonful!

CHAPTER XIV.

_Plate VII—Silver Spoons—Chocolate, Coffee and Tea—Japanese

Spoon—Old Dessert Spoons—A mark of meanness to be without

Plate—Northmen—Prizes at Races—Necklaces of Spoons—Plated and German

Silver Spoons—The World full of Plated Characters—Cheating—Swearers

and the Devil—Laws prohibiting Plating and Transmutation—English

Assay and Stamp—Proverb—Perpetual renewal of Forms—Brazen

Girdles—Shackles—Spoons bewitched—Salad Spoon—Knife, Fork, and

Spoon—Swiss—French—Shanks of Hams decorated—Carving—Boarding School

Usages—Presents—Whittling—Mat weaving Legislators._

PLATE VII.—The first eight figures are silver spoons, such as were in

fashion 300 years ago. _Figs. 1_, _2_, are English, and _3_ French. The

style of ornament on _2_, _3_, continued in vogue to the present

century. Armorial shields, as in _3_, and other ensigns were anciently

engraved on spoons. The Greeks and Romans had their initials cut on

them, as we have. In the middle ages quaint devices, and with churchmen

an Agnus Dei, or similar emblems were adopted. [Hogarth, it will be

remembered, began his career with engraving arms and cyphers on spoons

and plate.] The shape of _Fig. 4_ is quite modern—the fiddle head,

molding of the handle, reversed bend of its tip, are now in fashion, but

the figure is copied from an engraving a century old. A plain silver

spoon of a like form is portrayed on Planche 8, of the ‘Distillateur and

Liquoriste,’ in Arts et Metières, of the French Academy. _Fig. 5_—the

ordinary spoon of the present day, and almost identical with _4_. _Fig.

6_—a recent pattern; the handle more ornamented and the point of the

bowl rounded off. _Fig. 7_—modern French, from the pattern book of a

Paris manufacturer. _Fig. 8_—a fancy tea spoon, from a set belonging to

an antiquarian collector, and of English manufacture of the last

century. [As table, dessert, and tea spoons differ only in size, each

kind is sufficiently represented by the figures on the plate.]

Speaking of tea spoons—what a revolution in manners and customs have

three beverages wrought in three centuries—chocolate, coffee, and tea!

The first, an ordinary drink of Astec princes, (see page 113) was

derived from Mexico in 1520. The second was unknown in western Europe

till the close of the 16th century. Its early history is involved in

fable. Employed by Arab monks to drive off sleep, and enable those

insensates to spend their nights in watchings, it at length was

universally adopted by Mussulmen for its refreshing properties. It was

carried from Turkey to England in 1641, and the first coffee house

opened by a Jew of Oxford, in 1650. A Greek set up another in London in

1652. Henry Blount, describing the diet of the Turks in 1634, observes,

‘They have another drinke, not good at meat, called _cauphe_, made of a

berry as big as a small beane, dryed in a furnace and beat to powder, of

a soote colour, in taste a little bitterish: they seethe and drinke it

hote as may be endured ... it is thought to be the old _blacke broth_

used so much by the Lacedemonians.’ [_Voyage to the Levant_, p. 105.]

The consumption of coffee throughout the world during the past year has

been estimated at 453 millions of pounds.

But an infusion of leaves of the tea plant has eclipsed all other

potations. Imparting tone to the stomach, soothing the irritated system,

removing languor and slightly exhilarating, it has become a favorite

beverage of civilized nations. Tea was first imported from China by the

Dutch, and in the middle of the 17th century sold in England at sixty

shillings per pound—a price equivalent to twenty dollars now.

Notwithstanding the denunciations of dietists, the moral influence of

tea has been manifestly beneficial. It has introduced elegance at meals

and politeness at table, diminished gross feeding and abolished the

grosser manners of former times. What barbarian would rob ladies of

tea—what substitute could he propose—does he wish the fair sex to live

as in times ere an infusion of the tea plant was known—to breakfast on

beef, pork, and beer, and sup on pork, beer, and beef? The meal known as

‘tea’ is the most intellectual of repasts; no excess attends it; it

rather invigorates the spirits than pampers the appetite. Coarse feeders

eschew it, for the fluid is but slightly nutritive. No drunkard loves

it, for it is the soberest of potations. To refined minds it is nectar

which drives away gloom and makes the soul sparkle with joy—a divine

cordial, the reverse of beastly malt liquors which the sensual guzzle.

Doubtless Circe kept a porter house, and Hygeia drank hyson and bohea.

A fig for those philosophers who denounce tea and modestly ask us

to take to cold water—requiring us to renounce that which has done

so much towards polishing our manners, and rendering home

attractive—pseudo-reformers, who start at a tea-pot and groan at

the sight of a saucer. The tea spoon is justly caressed by old

ladies, and more fondled by young ones than any thing else. It is

to these the bearer of sweets and the medium of taste. Without

coyness they reach out their mouths to meet it half way and pout

with their lips till they give it a kiss. As they laugh and play

with it, the vermillion of their lips is deepened in tone, and

vivacity darts from their eyes.

Tea table equipages, and adjuncts in the form of cabinet, china, silver,

iron, japanned and copper and other wares, give employment to millions

and wealth to thousands. The original tea spoon came from Asia, where

its shape often deviates considerably from ours. In the appendix to

Kempfer’s Japan is figured a portable case about a foot square,

containing every requisite for making tea, including a kettle, canister,

cup, and a singular looking tea spoon. It may be compared to a curved

and tapered marrow spoon, the small end being the handle. A tea

apparatus is carried by the Japanese ‘on their journeyings, and wherever

they go.’

It has already been stated that implements small as tea spoons were used

in Europe long before tea: besides other duties, they performed those of

modern desserts; were used in eating honey, sugar, and fruits preserved

in sugar; sweetmeats were favorite dainties in former days. Paul

Hentzer, who travelled in England in 1598, gives some interesting

particulars relating to the English court and manners. Visiting the

palace at Greenwich, he found the presence chamber hung with tapestry

and strewed with hay or rushes. He noticed the servants carrying dishes

into the queen’s dining room, and prostrating themselves before her

empty chair. Of Elizabeth herself he observes, “Next came the queen, in

the sixty-fifth year of her age, as we were told, very majestick; her

face oblong, fair but wrinkled; her eyes small, yet black and pleasant;

a nose a little hooked, her lips narrow, and her _teeth black_; a defect

the English seem subject to from their too _great use of sugar_.” In

Nichols’ progresses of Elizabeth mention is made of comfit or preserve

boxes, with “a litill spone of gold.” Aaron Hill, in his ‘Ottoman

Empire,’ says the Turks take up sweetmeats ‘with little spoons like

those we use for tea.’

With the ancients it was an indication of poverty or meanness not to

possess spoons or some articles of plate. Suetonius observes of Domitian

that he was born in Pomegranate street, and so reduced in his younger

days as not to own a single utensil of gold or silver. Vespasian drank

on solemn occasions out of a silver mug which belonged to his

grandmother. She was probably poor, for the family was an obscure one,

having no ancestral statues. The emperor himself once let out horses and

mules for hire, and hence nicknamed _the muleteer_.

Silver, remarks Olaus Magnus, was anciently in great plenty with the

Northmen. Household utensils and even cradles were made of it. Ladies

wore chains, bracelets, and round their heads bands of silver four

fingers broad. The men had girdles and buttons of the same metal. This

display, the reverend historian rather uncanonically observes, did honor

to the prince who thus ruled over a gallant people, and not over “poor

indigent fellows that are but scabs and pilfering knaves.” [B. vi. cap.

12.] Gold and silver smiths, he says, exhibited their goods at the great

annual fairs, held on the ice by the Goths, time out of mind. They

furnished the prize cups and spoons distributed at the horse and foot

races held yearly on the ice. The footmen wore skates made of the shank

bones of the rein deer, and ran over a distance of from eight to twelve

miles. The successful competitors were presented with “silver spoons,

brass vessels, swords, new garments, and young horses.”

In northern Europe, young females on festival days adorn themselves with

rows of silver spoons strung together and worn as a necklace or girdle—a

singular proof of imperfect civilization.

To accommodate all tastes and purses, iron, brass and copper spoons are

plated with silver, and silver ones with a coat of gold, fine as those

ancient ladies’ dresses which were compared to woven wind. Plating and

gilding are of unknown antiquity. In modern times a new and cheap

factitious substance has been introduced, named _argentane_ or _German

silver_. It is composed of copper, zinc and nickel, to which some add a

dose of arsenic or antimony. It constitutes a tolerable imitation of

real silver. Though slowly oxidized in air, the alloy rapidly corrodes

in acids, and injurious effects have resulted from its employment in the

kitchen and at the dining table. Recently its color and exterior

qualities have been much improved. German silver and plated wares enable

poor and economical people to imitate their betters in display, but the

cost laid out in sterling goods is the true economy. ‘A poor squire,’

said a Spanish Æsop, ‘should have his cup of silver and his kettle of

copper.’ Though they cost more than others, they last longer, and when

worn out will buy fresh ones.

It is with men as with their jewels; all is not gold that glitters. Some

put so thick a coat of virtue on that few detect the base material

underneath—others wear so thin a film that the slightest friction rubs

it through. The world is full of plated wares; streets are crowded as

well as tradesmen’s shelves. With spoons and with their owners, iron,

brass, lead and copper gilt, ape sterling metal. A like variety in both

prevails—from tinseled things to catch the vulgar eye, to tasteful forms

and ornaments that captivate politer circles. At the best, men are only

like their buttons, _i. e._ single, double or treble gilt. Artists have

a rule to distinguish between the true and false, and it applies to

moral as well as to material merchandize. Plated goods, it is said,

exhibit a darker hue, a stronger glare than native gold and silver;

hence where there is excessive gloss, be sure there’s brass below. The

art of plating human character preceded that of gilding metals. It soon

reached perfection. Recent ages have added nothing, nor will future ages

find aught to add.

Tricks of old roguish pewterers were noticed in the last chapter; the

reader will be grieved to see in this that the morals of their

contemporaries who wrought in finer metals were no better. That ancient

Scottish poem, ‘_The Sweirers and the Devill_,’ gives a graphic account

of the manner and wiles of tradesmen to sell their goods. The fiend is

described perambulating a town _incog._ on a market day, and chuckling

at the oaths and imprecations of dealers with a view to deceive

purchasers. One wished “the devill mot stik him with a knyfe,” if what

he said respecting his goods was not true. The malster renounced God,

and hoped the ‘devill of hell might taik him, gif ony bettir malt may

be.’ The tailor gave himself ‘to the feynd’ if bettir cloaks were ever

made.

Ane merchand, his geir as he did sell,

Renuncit his part of hevin and hell.

The fleshour [butcher] swoir be the sacrament,

And be Chryst’s bluid maist innocent,

Nevir fatter flesch saw man with ee.

Ane _goldsmith_ said the gold’s sa fyne,

That all the warkmanschip I tyne, [lose]

The feynd ressaif me gif I lie.

... Quoth the devill, thow art mine.

Since the discovery of the electrotype process of coating one metal with

another, spoons of German silver are made to appear so much like those

of sterling silver as to be sold by cheats for such. Similar frauds were

formerly practiced with plated goods. An English statute of 1403 is to

this effect: “Whereas many fraudulent artificers, imagining to deceive

common people, do daily make locks, [lockets] rings, beads,

candlesticks, harneis for girdles, hilts, chalices and sword pomels,

powder [pouncet] boxes, and covers for cups, of copper and of latin, and

the same over gilt and silver, like to gold and silver, and the same

sell and put in gage to many men not having full knowledge thereof, _for

whole gold and whole silver_, to the great deceit, loss, and hindrance

of the common people, and the _wasting_ of gold and silver; it is

ordained and established that no artificer, nor other man whatsoever he

be, from henceforth shall gilt nor silver any such, &c. upon pain to

forfeit to the king one hundred shillings, and to make satisfaction to

the party grieved for his damages.” Chalices and ornaments for the

church were excepted—they might be gilt or plated with silver, but at

the foot or underside the real material was to be exposed, “to the

intent that a man may see whereof the thing is made, for to eschew the

deceit aforesaid.”

By an act of the same year it was made felony to transmute lead, iron,

copper, &c. into gold and silver! “It is ordained and established that

none from henceforth shall use to multiply gold and silver, nor use the

craft of multiplication; and if any the same do, that he incur the pain

of felony in this case.” The 5th of Hen. V. allowed gilding but only on

sterling silver; no inferior metal was to be covered with silver except

“knight’s spurs and all the apparel that pertaineth to a baron.”

A. D. 1300, an act required all articles to be ‘of good and true

alloy—of no worse gold than the touch of Paris,’ and silver to equal the

current coin; no article to leave the workmen ‘untill it be essaied by

the wardens of the craft, and marked with the leopard’s head.’ Under

Edward III. every master was to stamp his own mark on the articles

before submitting them for assay to the king’s officers. In 1423,

another act required gold and silver vessels ‘to be essaied and touched

by the keeper of the touch,’ then marked, if found good, ‘with the

leopard’s head.’ No more ‘sowder’ was to be used than necessary—an

intimation that it was not spared when every article was sold by weight.

In 1294, Phillippe le Bel published regulations and renewed others, for

the guidance of Paris gold and silver smiths.

The goldsmith’s profession furnishes a cutting rebuke to simpletons and

impudent boasters:—“A fool of 24 carats” is one whose folly is without

alloy: “a philosopher of 25 carats”—nature has exceeded herself in

producing him.

Silver spoons are emblematical of that renewal of forms which organized

matter perpetually undergoes. Vegetables, animals and men are composed

of the same ingredients—alternately nourishing and imbibing nourishment

from each other. Their figures and condition, not their substance,

change. A portion of the reader’s person may have nerved the right arm

of David, swelled the stature of Goliah, blushed in the cheek of

Lucretia, handled the Crayons of Zeuxis, hunted with Meleager, or even

been part of the wild boar he slew! Start not, gentle reader, for that

which was a calf or pig, an ox or sheep, yesterday, is veal or pork,

beef or mutton to-day, and to-morrow becomes assimilated to its human

consumer; bone of thy bone, and flesh of thy flesh. It is humiliating to

human glory that the proudest individuals are composed of such vile

materials;—a courtier’s body may have toiled at Babel, and may again be

a bricklayer’s clerk. The skull of a king may once have been a calabash,

his nose a pullet’s gizzard; his blood may through a goose have trilled,

his heart have panted in a deer; his lips may once have jabbered on a

baboon’s face, and ages hence may do the like again: he yet may serve to

grease a carriage axle, manure a cabbage or a radish bed, and be served

up to clowns in salad. Princes, when sick, are fed sometimes on asses’

milk, or draw their nourishment from dugs of goats, and thus incorporate

these animals with themselves.

If there never was a transmigration of souls, there has always been one

of human bodies and of—silver spoons! As the elements of our ancestors

exist in us, so do tons of ancient plate in our buffets. Human beings

are dissolved in the grave, and the precious metals in the crucible; but

the operation in both cases is preliminary to the reäppearance of the

substances in new forms. The gold coin in the reader’s pocket may have

constituted a part of the chain which Pharaoh put round Joseph’s neck,

or of the bodkin which Fulvia thrust through Cicero’s tongue. Spoons

used at our tables may once have been shekels of the sanctuary, or paid

by Abraham for his field at Hebron. They may have entered the lips of

Cleopatra, and been employed by Andromache or Artaxerxes at dinner. The

ingenuity of antediluvian artists was perhaps expended on the substance

of that goblet. Noah may have handled it, and Judas bore it in his

scrip. A monarch’s table fork may once have picked the teeth of rebels,

or in a surgeon’s hands punctured boils and sores. As with the past so

with the future: Reader! ages hence thy silver plate may form the spoons

of an individual, a portion of whose body may be identical with thine,

and who, like thee, may sit speculating on the metamorphoses terrestrial

beings undergo.

Before leaving this very curious subject we may be permitted to suggest,

that the often quoted contest between two individuals of the feline

race, at Kilkenny, which ended by each party eating up the other, _may_

be less akin to an Irish bull and more allied to a philosophical truth

than is generally surmised.

As devices for diminishing a craving for food have been mentioned, some

moral prescriptions for moderating a longing for rich furniture might

here be quoted, but they would be of little avail. Neither one appetite

nor the other can be tamed by medical or sacerdotal doctors. Few persons

now prefer eating sand to filling the stomach with good things; yet

except to such, table equipages, if emblazoned with fiends, snakes and

toads, would exert no lasting influence. Though table cloths were

winding sheets, knife hafts dead men’s bones, and spoons, cups and

butter boats made of human skulls, the generality of mankind would soon

eat and drink as heartily as if the service were of silver, and no

arguments had been adduced against intemperance.

One device to make people stop when they had sufficient has not been

noticed; it was the last mechanical resource, viz: a broad brass or iron

band fitted to and worn around the abdomen; so that when the wearer

could not stop putting food into his mouth there was not room for it

below—the stomach no longer resembling an elastic sack, capable of

extension, but a non-elastic barrel which could not be surcharged. An

abbot in the 11th century, inordinately given to creature comforts, had

his trunk thus cased with a brazen band. With these girdles, neither

penitents nor those who loved short masses and long dinners could eat

‘Till a’ their weel-swall’d kytes belyve

Were bent like drums.’

It often happened that those who indulged an inordinate taste for gold

and silver plate wore shackles of another kind—according to the saying,

‘men of small means who eat from silver, fast and die in iron.’ Living

beyond their income, they end their days in jail. A fondness for

display, whether in the house or out of it, has caused no small share of

human misery. Many a female has ruined her husband by longing for plate.

The Italians say, the smiles of a woman are the tears of the purse—a

rich sideboard and a fat kitchen make a lean will.

When those capricious goblins yclept ‘fairies’ used to assist their

rustic friends, by kindling kitchen fires at early dawn, sweeping

floors, milking cows, and churning butter, they played less pleasant

pranks to those who slighted them. Puck scared dairy maids, skimmed

their milk, and would not let their cheeses curdle nor the butter

‘come,’ “if a bowle of curds and creame” had not been offered him. Often

he slipped boys’ stools away as they sat down:—

And then the whole quire hold their hips and loffe.

Sometimes he lurk’d in a gossip’s bowl,

In very likeness of a roasted crab, [apple]

And when she drank, against her lips he bobb’d,

And on her wither’d dew-lap pour’d the ale.

Worse things mischievous genii did to those obnoxious to their wrath.

Spoons at supper time denied their aid, and either vanished in the

steaming porridge or refused to leave the bowl or dish—more appalling

still, they have, on entering a hungry boor’s mouth, stuck fast, and

defied all human power to draw them thence, until the offended spirit

was appeased, and ceased to press the rustic’s upper and under jaw

against the implement! Legends such as these were often based on facts,

and demons more tangible than ‘Pucks’ or ‘Robin Goodfellows’ were the

authors. Fusible spoons are not of recent date, nor are metallic bowls

with spoons cast to them and made to resemble earthenware. Moreover,

spoons were as easily made to enter the mouth and remain a certain time

as those “untoothsome pears,” cherries and plums, mentioned by old

writers, “which being put into a body’s mouth, shall presently shoot

forth such and so many bolts on every side, that without the owner’s key

cannot be got out again.” The Cathayans had magical cups and we presume

spoons too, which filled themselves and then went of their own accord

“ten paces through the ayre into the hands of the Great Khan, and when

he hath drunke, in like sort they return to their place”! [_Ewbank’s

Hydraulics._]

_Fig. 9_—a French device, resembling a large pair of scissors; one blade

being a fork, the other a spoon—a singular union. The screw or pivot is

made to take out, that each implement may, when desirable, be separately

handled. The whole is of ivory or buffalo’s horn and designed to

transfer salads at table. The usual dressings, as vinegar, salt, oil,

mustard, &c. corrode metallic substances. When used, the spoon or fork

is held downwards, accordingly as a part of the fluid is required to be

raised or not. That Warwickshire wizard who ranged through all nature

and every art to cull flowers and collect ingredients for those spells

by which he has bewitched the world, did not pass by salads:

’Twas a good lady; we may pick a thousand salads ere we light on such

another herb.

Indeed, sir, she was the sweet marjoram of the salad, or rather the

herb of grace.—[_All’s well that ends well._]

_Fig. 10_—a pocket knife, fork and spoon united in one handle.

Implements of this kind were formerly much in fashion; at present they

are occasionally carried by travellers and by individuals on gunning or

fishing excursions. Captain Head used one when traversing the Pampas and

Andes. Supping at a wretched post, where table furniture was scarcely

known, a black girl held the light in one hand and furnished salt with

the other—artificial candlesticks and salt-cellars forming no part of

the establishment. He drew from his pocket, ‘a clasp knife and fork,’

and picked up with the latter chopped pieces of beef from a pewter dish

to the no small delight of the living candelabrum.

Peasants in Switzerland and other parts of the European continent,

commonly carry a device like _Fig. 10_, or a sheath containing the

separate implements. Before the revolution in France, it was customary

when a gentleman was invited to dinner, to send a servant with his

knife, fork and spoon; if he had no attendant, he took them in his

breeches pocket, as a carpenter carries a rule. “A few of the ancient

regime still follow the good old custom, because it is old.” Has not the

reader noticed at public dinners, or when making ‘New-Year’s calls,’ the

shank of a ham or leg of mutton tastefully decorated with gilt or cut

paper and ribbons? This was a custom somewhat general before forks were

introduced, and still is common in Germany and Italy. The carver grasped

that part of the joint in his left hand while he shaved off slices with

a pointed knife in his right. That he might hold it firmly and perform

his duty more expeditiously and seemly, a piece of paper was neatly tied

round the shank, and on great occasions set off with ribbons. Each slice

as cut off was raised on the point of the knife and laid on a thin piece

of bread, a pile of which was placed near the carver, who thus served

the guests in rotation. Ovid has observed there was grace in using the

fingers at table; so there is in handling a fork. In old engravings we

see ladies holding it between the finger and thumb, as if afraid to

touch it, or as people take snuff; others retain it in the hand in the

manner of a pen, and some grasp the handle with a clenched fist, as a

boy clutches an apple or a gentlemen the head of his walking cane.

Portable cases of morocco containing a separate knife, fork and spoon

are for sale in our silver smiths’ shops. It is said gentlemen of the

_ton_ would as soon go a journey without their dressing cases as some of

them would take their seats at a _table d’hote_ without their own spoons

and forks. In public gardens visitors sometimes take ice cream and other

refreshments with their own apparatus; but a certain class prefer the

proprietor’s spoons, which, when of silver, they have forgotten to

return. We have heard of knives and forks being chained to plates, and

spoons to bowls, in London chop and soup houses—imitating a practice

introduced by Edwyn in the 7th century, of fastening by the same means

iron cups to wells and springs, for the use of honest and dishonest

travellers. As the ‘Transactions’ of the Society of Literary and

Scientific Chiffonniers will no doubt be consulted in future times, the

following extract from the circular of a fashionable female boarding

school may interest young ladies and teachers a century hence:—“Parents

to furnish each pupil with bed and bedding, six towels, napkins and a

knife; a silver fork, _spoon_ and mug; a thimble and a pair of scissors;

all to be marked in full: washing seven dollars a quarter.”

A portable knife has always been an acceptable present to boys. The

first one is examined with rapture, and its possession sometimes forms

an epoch in the life of its owner, as was the case with young Achilles.

When disguised as a girl, and placed among the daughters of Lycomedes,

the wily pedlar of Ithaca took an effectual mode to discover him. The

pretended merchant unslinging his pack, displayed before the family of

Lycomedes thread, tapes, ribbons, scissors and needles, with an

assortment of neat daggers and knives; the females confined their

purchases to articles appropriate to them, but the youth, forgetting the

part his concealment required, eagerly pounced on the knives, &c. thus

revealing the secret of his sex, and to the man above all others

interested in finding him out. The Germans make annual presents to their

godsons, till the lads reach the age of fourteen, when the last gift,

invariably a pocket knife, is made. The instrument is considered

symbolical of a youth cut loose from leading strings, and thenceforward

accountable for his acts. Girls, we suppose, are treated with a pair of

scissors.

Not a few modern devices are ancient inventions. There is one

universally ascribed to Yankees, but which, so far from being of

republican origin, is descended from royalty. An ancient writer,

describing the manners and magnificence of the Persian king, says, when

he rode in a chariot, instead of occupying his thoughts in reading or

conversation, he spent the time “in whittling with a knife.”

[_Purchas._] Major Harris, in his ‘Highlands of Ethiopia,’ mentions

Arabian legislators platting date leaves into mats while sitting in

council—the most useful, in his opinion, of their acts.

CHAPTER XV.

_Plate VIII—Tea Caddy, Salt Spoons, and Salt—Salt-Cellar—Monks of La

Trappe—Egg Spoon—Paschal Eggs—Poultry raised by Steam—Mustard

Spoons—French Prayer—Celestial House Movers—Beef and Mustard—Punch

Spoon and Ladle—Wassail Bowl—Burns—‘Arts et Metières’—Sugar

Tongs—Sifter and Snuff Spoons—Cream, Marrow, and Physic Spoons—Human

Life—History and Influence of the Spoon—Author’s Request—His Parting

Bow._

PLATE VIII.—a miscellaneous collection. _Figs. 1, 2_—tea caddy spoons,

for transferring the dried herb from small canisters to tea-pots. They

are of the last century; but being imitations of nature, will be more or

less in fashion while refined taste prevails. _Figs. 3, 4, 5_—salt

spoons of silver, pearl and ivory, but sometimes made of tortoise shell,

horn and bone, and of diverse patterns. As salt has been used at table

from primitive times minute implements for taking it up are of undoubted

antiquity, though particular descriptions of them have not reached us.

Of all condiments salt is the chief, both for animals and men.

Quadrupeds relish it as well as bipeds. One of nature’s own preparing,

it is furnished in profuse abundance. Millions of tons are annually

consumed by horses, sheep and oxen in Europe and the United States.

Ancient farmers gave it to their stock, for which Plutarch (in _Nat.

Ques._) assigns the same reasons as modern agriculturists. What

philosophical husbandman is not gratified as his cattle crowd around him

for it? The mild eyes of his oxen looking grateful for a relish and

watching his movements in hopes of another. The timid ewe takes the

treat from his hand, and licks up every stray atom, while the colt, more

familiar, smells his pockets and whinnies for more.

Salt not only seasons unsavory meat but preserves it from putrefaction.

In view of these admirable qualities, Homer calls it ‘divine.’ It was a

symbol of incorruptibility and fidelity—a pledge of friendship and

hospitality which nothing but death was allowed to cancel. No social

feast was perfect without it, and oblations were seldom offered unless

it was an ingredient. ‘No sacrifice,’ says Pliny, ‘was presented to the

gods without salt.’ ‘Every oblation of thy meat offering shalt thou

season with salt.’ [_Levit._] At the ceremony of circumcision the Turks

place, or used to place, a few grains in the boy’s mouth, saying,

‘Heaven make thy name savory as salt among men, and mayest thou live to

enjoy the fruits of the earth.’ Can that which is unsavory, exclaims

Job, be eaten without salt? Even bread, says one of the ancients, is

unpalatable without it. Its enormous consumption was a fruitful source

of revenue to ancient as well as modern governments. On one occasion

Demetrius rewarded the fidelity of the Jews to him by remitting the

gabel.

The salt-cellar was held in great veneration of old, and from

superstitious motives, kept remarkably bright and clean. Placed on the

table near the images of the presiding deities (as already observed) its

presence consecrated the food. In the middle ages it was generally of

silver and elaborately wrought. A gilt one is extant modelled after the

white tower of London.

To be placed at table above the salt was a mark of honor—to desire a

guest to seat himself below it an indication of inferior rank, or of

disesteem. In the latter case the mortification was not altogether

imaginary, as the following account of an old English hall, the scene of

feasting and hospitality, will show:—“At the upper end was placed the

orsille, or high table, a little elevated above the floor, and here the

master of the mansion presided with an authority, if not a state, which

almost equalled that of the potent baron. The table was divided into

upper and lower messes _by a huge salt-cellar_, and the rank and

consequence of the visitors were marked by the situation of their seats

above and below it—a custom which not only distinguished the relative

dignity of the guests, but extended to the nature of the provision—the

wine frequently circulating only above the salt-cellar, and the dishes

below it being of a coarser kind than those near the head of the table.”

From the correspondence of the younger Pliny, it appears that a similar

practice prevailed among the Romans. [See Letter vi. Book 2.]

The fabrication of carved spoons was an employment of religious

recluses; they brought higher prices than when made by worldly minded

workmen. The monks of La Trappe were prohibited from using their

tongues—all communications being made by signs. They were forbidden to

read, write, or raise their eyes above the ground unless to direct their

steps. Their teeth too might as well have been drawn, for neither fish,

flesh nor any thing like solid food was given them to grind;—but

absorbed as these men were with celestial matters, and having no need

themselves of eating apparatus, they thought it no sin to provide them

for other people. Such of the brethren as could not endure the fatigue

of the mattock (observes Motraye) were employed in turning, carving, &c.

The traveller was presented “with an ivory spoon and fork wrought as

well as possible.”

_Fig. 6_—an egg spoon, rather larger than a ‘tea,’ and having the handle

joined to the small end of the bowl. Such kind of implements have been

in use since hens laid eggs and women boiled them. The Romans were great

consumers of eggs; hence the saying ‘_ab ovo usque ad mala_,’ from eggs

to apples—an elliptical expression for a feast—eggs being the first, and

apples the last dish served up. Eggs played important parts in monastic

feasts and farces. The tenth of all produce of land, fowls and cattle

kept monks’ larders well supplied, and woe to him who robbed the church

of tythes, or ‘stole eggs from a cloister.’ “If a peeter penny or an

housle egg were behind, or a patch of tythe unpaid, then beware of

spirits.” At Easter, eggs were boiled hard and stained of various colors

with onion peeling or broom flowers, and sometimes gilded. They were

consecrated according to a ritual of Pope Paul V. and presented to

children and friends, under the name of _pace_ or _paschal_ eggs. The

practice of boys striking eggs against each other, the shattered

becoming the property of the owners of the sound ones, is descended from

mediæval times.

The egg was an ancient emblem of the universe, and has been symbolized

in a thousand things. An envious man thinks his neighbor’s fowls lay

more than his. Eggs are now hatched by steam, and chickens reared

without the aid of clucking hens. Released from anxious care about their

young and from the debilitating work of incubation, matronly fowls have

now nought to do but quietly lay their eggs and pass their time in

pleasure. Cooks with poultry can be supplied without tearing screaming

pullets from their parent’s side—sundering the finest fibres of

affection. Then the ‘_Eccaleobion_,’ it is said, will shortly place

within the poor’s reach luxuries hitherto denied them. The destitute are

not long to remain ignorant of the taste of chicken broth and plovers

fricasseed, of broiled partridge, quail and meadow hens; of roasted

geese, and ducks and turkeys.

_Fig. 7_ a silver and _8_ an ebony mustard spoon. Forms of the ancient

implements have not reached us, but some sayings to which the condiment

gave rise are still in use:—‘’Tis mustard after dinner,’ indicating that

the time for using a thing has passed, or that the thing itself is of no

consequence; ‘a man amused with mustard;’ one that makes great things of

trifles. It has ever been deemed essential to beef, especially salt

beef; hence an old French prayer:—

De trois choses Dieu nous garde,

_Du bœuf salé sans moutarde_,

D’un valet qui se regarde,

D’une femme qui se farde.

‘Dijon mustard’ was renowned in the time of Philip the Fair, during

whose reign the reader will recollect two important transactions took

place—the introduction of the mariner’s compass into modern Europe, and

[in 1291] the transportation by angels of the Virgin Mary’s dwelling at

Nazareth into Dalmatia; whence it was conveyed three years afterwards

(by the same celestial house movers) to the opposite coast of the

Adriatic, and located on land belonging to a widow named Loretta. There

it has remained for the edification of pious pilgrims, and the maturing

of grace in the hearts of its reverend proprietors.

_Grumio._ What say you to a piece of beef and mustard?

_Kath._ A dish that I do love to feed upon.

_Grumio._ Aye, but the mustard is too hot a little.

_Kath._ Why then the beef, and let the mustard rest.

_Grumio._ Nay, then I will not; you shall have the mustard,

Or else you get no beef from Grumio.

_Kath._ Then both, or one, or any thing thou wilt.

_Grumio._ Why then, the mustard without the beef.

[_Taming of the Shrew._]

_Fig. 9_—a punch spoon, and _13_ a punch ladle—two of the least

beneficial applications of a valuable thing.

Many estates have been spent in the getting,

Since women for tea forsook spinning and knitting,

And men for _punch_ left off hewing and splitting.

Few things have better exemplified the truth of another saying of ‘Poor

Richard’ than punch and punch spoons:—‘What maintains one vice would

bring up two children.’ The old ‘wassail bowl’ and its accompanying

spoon were not such promoters of dissipation as their modern

descendants, nor did they accommodate such pernicious liquids. Families

took wassail at home on festivals, when innocent hilarity reigned; but

to indulge in punch, men meet at taverns, where they ply the ladle till

they perform antics rude and grotesque as those for which that hero is

known whose name is the same as the liquor. After supper at Christmas

“the wassail bowl was brought in, of which every one partook, by taking

with a spoon a roasted apple out of the ale and eating it, then drinking

the healths of the company out of the bowl, wishing them a merry

christmas and a happy new year.” With the Greeks and Romans wine was

carried to the dining room in large vases, and poured into bowls, whence

it was drawn by ladles into cups and tumblers. See figures on the second

plate.

O whiskey! saul o’ plays an’ pranks!

Accept a bardie’s humble thanks!

When wanting thee, what tuneless cranks

Are my poor verses!

Unfortunately for Burns he did not confine himself to invocations of the

spirit, or even to moderate draughts at her fountain. His punch bowl of

Inverary marble and its attending ladle were too often put in

requisition. Under their influence he produced his poem called ‘Scotch

Drink,’ in which he thus humorously blesses every total abstinence man:

May gravels round his blather wrench,

An’ gouts torment him inch by inch,

Wha twists his gruntle wi’ a glunch

O’ sour disdain,

Out owre a glass o’ _whiskey punch_

W’ honest men.

How opinions change! With the laudable view of preserving a knowledge of

the arts and of innocent comforts, and to guard, as far as human power

can, against a second deluge of barbarism, the old French Academy

published descriptions, in great detail, of the most valuable

manufactures and professions. In ‘L’Art du Distillateur Liquoriste’ is

figured and described a Paris coffee room with its appendages, including

a “grande jatte de porcelaine _pleine de punch_, un cuiller de buis pour

puiser cette liqueur, et la verser dans les verres.”

_Figs. 10_—sugar tongs; a singular application of the spoon, which,

instead of scooping up fluids or semi-fluids is here designed to take up

solids. When loaf sugar was introduced, (the period of which is

uncertain, for it was made several ages before its alleged discovery by

Venetians in the 16th century,) the ordinary spoon could not readily

plunge among the lumps nor be secure of catching one, or of retaining it

when caught; hence _two_ spoons were joined in the chase, and as one

heads the game while the other closes up the rear, they seldom lose

their destined prey. Two spoons inseparably linked in a pair of sugar

tongs are like those married couples, who none but mutual pleasures

know, and whose time is spent among the sweets of life.

_Fig. 11_—another curious transformation. We have seen the spoon

resemble a pair of shears, then a pair of tongs—here it is a _sifter_.

Copiously perforated, the bowl is used to sprinkle refined sugar over

the crust of pies, custards and other delicious dainties. Strange, how

one thing glides into another! What primeval artist ever thought that

spoons would be converted into riddles—made as useless for lifting

liquids as the buckets of the Danaides! The bowl is also sometimes

flattened and pierced for a fish slice, and, when half covered, is made

into a basting ladle! By the way, we forgot to mention at page 177, that

snuff spoons were also punctured, because they could not properly

discharge their contents otherwise. When held laden to the nostrils, the

sudden withdrawal of the superincumbent air by the snifter draws up the

spoon itself if the bowl be not perforated, just as a piece of paper

held near the mouth is sucked in by an inspiration. But when two or

three minute holes are made in the bowl, no sooner does the owner set

his nasal pump at work than the atmospheric air, ascending through the

openings, drives up the powder in a trice, and scatters none in lateral

directions.

_Fig. 12_—a cream spoon, invented on the labor saving principle. It

supersedes the necessity of lifting the pitcher with its contents every

time a modicum only of the fluid is wanted—exhibiting the advantages of

economizing force, though in a less degree than the tea or coffee urn.

Fifty cups can be filled from one of these by simply opening a tap which

the little finger can effect; whereas no lady could charge half that

number from a tea-pot without her arms and shoulders complaining of the

labor. _Fig. 14_ is the well known marrow spoon, of the history of which

we are uninformed. It is however an emblem of many good things. O! for

the salt of wit, cream of pleasantry, and marrow of rich stories!

The last spoon figured on the plate is not the least appropriate to

finish with. The others are for taking food, this for taking physic;

they to comfort people when in health, this to cure them when sick.

Having furnished so many devices by which the stomach is often

overloaded, it may be expected that one at least will be given to assist

in recovering its natural tone. Every person knows that pills were

formerly _gilded_ with the view of preventing their substance from

annoying the sense while passing the gullet. Roman apothecaries supplied

squeamish patients with such; as a box half full with the gold leaf

remaining has been found at Pompeii. The spoon _Fig. 15_ is designed for

much the like purpose, viz: to send fluids down the same passage with as

little delay and annoyance as possible. To patients in a recumbent

position, and to such as are disposed to resist, it is a capital thing.

The handle is hollow and communicates with the bowl. When the latter is

charged (through the lid which is shown open) the thumb of the nurse or

attendant is placed over the aperture of the handle and the lid closed.

The contents are then prevented, by the exclusion of air, from escaping.

The spoon is next properly placed in the patient’s mouth, and the thumb

removed, when the liquid necessarily goes to its appointed place, for

air cannot pass to the lungs but through the handle and bowl. This

contrivance is modern, but covered spoons for administering broths to

sick people, and medicines to children, are old.

Roman _bon vivants_ took a vomit before dinner, as well as one after,

and even now there are persons who prepare for the principal meal by

exciting an artificial craving with ‘dinner pills.’ There have been, and

perhaps always will be, men who live only to digest, and many more with

two stomachs to eat and not one to work.

The different states of human life—infancy, adolescence, manhood,

senility and second childhood, are represented by pap, dessert, table,

tea and physic spoons. The spoon is the first artificial thing an infant

studies, the earliest one he handles and knows. As intelligence dawns it

is recognized, and at its sight he flutters like a nestling impatient

for aliment. In time he leaves the nurse’s arms and tries to feed

himself; ambitious to manage his spoon alone, he scatters half the food

upon his bib, and smears his hands, his face and throat with porridge.

Next a youth, he handles it with ease and plies it with dexterity; a

stranger to artificial appetite, he relishes the food it bears, and

grows in strength and beauty. A strong man now, his breasts the

implement has filled with milk, and made his bones abound with marrow.

But quickly the noon of life is past; age and infirmity with rapid

strides approach, and take his relish and his strength away. An

octogenary now, he feeds himself with pain. Next, helpless as when born,

he stares in idiot vacancy and recognizes nothing—save a spoon. The

nurse now feeds him as at first, and tends this fitful being, till he

goes wailing out of life as he came crying in.

Lest the reader should feel symptoms of a surfeit, we will now make an

end, although many things are left untouched, especially such as relate

to the statistics of spoons, their diversified materials, processes of

manufacture, their cost, numbers annually worn out, hosts of artists

employed in making them, talents they have exercised and skill

displayed; the myriads incessantly engaged in using them, the daily

influx into our world of fresh beings that want them, and a probably

increasing demand to the end of time for them—for though science

supersedes many things, and the progress of the arts renders old

machines useless, neither science nor arts, nor fashion to boot, can

ever banish spoons from the earth, or make much alteration in them.

While men’s mouths are not placed at the ends of flexible trunks,

manufacturers will find work; and the last spoons will differ as little

from ours as the persons of the present and the latest spoonmakers. Nay,

if people in Venus and Mars eat like us, as they probably do, a

deputation from each at one of our public dinners would be at no loss in

applying these table utensils.

An extended account of the spoon; of its influence on food, manners, and

imagination; of its virtues, the pleasures it imparts and sorrows it

soothes, would be a history of all times and people. Looking at the

excitement it produces, how seas are crossed, lands ploughed, rivers

dragged, fish ponds made, cattle slain, birds ensnared, caldrons cast,

mines exhausted and forests burnt for fuel; mountains of clay used up

for pottery, kitchens built and cooks employed, &c. to supply materials

and prepare them for it—one might suppose the spoon was the spring that

keeps all things in motion—the source of genius and parent of the useful

arts.

We trust the reader, now he has arrived at the close, will admit that he

is more familiar with the subject than when he began it. Few persons

would refuse a modest author so slight a reward for his toil, since he

could hardly solicit a less one. But there are envious critics, we fear,

who, without perusing our work, will condemn it; perhaps declaring there

is nothing novel in its spirit or its plan, and that the best things in

it were written years ago! If they do, and if, which heaven forefend,

they should prove it too, we shall, with the feelings of injured

innocence, fervently pray that those impertinent plagiarists may perish

who said _our_ good things before us, and that memory may fail all who

remember them!

[Illustration: An upside-down teacup sitting on a saucer with a spoon

balanced horizontally across its base. The word "FINIS" is written

across the side of the cup.]

RESPECTED GUEST:—Perceiving by the inverted position of thy bowl and

spoon that thou hast not despised the plain food set before thee, but

hast relished it so well as to leave none, I, HAB’K O. WESTMAN, present

myself in _propria persona_, as in duty bound, to make my parting bow,

and acknowledge my sense of thy patronage. It is also my wont, when an

agreeable customer is about to leave me, to request him, if the

entertainments have been to his liking, and the charges no more than

they should be, to invite his friends to take an opportunity of judging

of my cookery, and my conscience in making out bills. Adieu, kind

patron! Heaven send thee pleasant adventures and a speedy return to “The

Globe,” when I hope to have a better dish awaiting thy reception—one

preparing under the auspices of our society, and the recipe of which was

commended by Dr. Swallow himself—who was, as thou art aware,

“Of palate exquisite, of labor free,

A kitchen doctor of the first degree.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------

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