but the majority of Liverpool ware that was imported to this country was
in the form of mugs and what are known as “watermelon” pitchers. I know
of one great yellow ware cheese-dish in Newport—a curious stand or frame
in which a whole cheese two feet in diameter could be placed upright on
its edge and thus served and cut on the table; but such pieces are
exceptional.
I am impressed when looking over the lists of sales and the catalogues
of existing collections in England, that china collectors find in
America more, cheaper, and more varied specimens of Liverpool wares,
especially those bearing transfer prints, than can be found in England.
They abound in American antique shops. Even the rarest and most
interesting of all—prints on tiles, pitchers, and teapots bearing the
mark of Sadler—are often discovered here. A whole set of Sadler’s tiles
was taken from an old colonial house in Newport.
Previous to the Revolutionary War no porcelain or pottery was made
specially for America, or, at any rate, none with special designs; but
after we became a separate nation the English potters made much china
and crockery for the American market, and made patterns for individual
purchasers as well. Washington and Franklin were the American names best
known in England previous to the year 1800; and I have never seen
Liverpool pieces that could be assigned to an earlier date of
manufacture than 1800 that bore the names even of any other
Revolutionary heroes or statesmen, except, possibly, two pitchers
decorated with battle-scenes, which are entitled respectively, “Death of
Warren” and “Death of Montgomery;” a pitcher with a portrait of Adams,
and one mug printed with the name and portrait of John Hancock.
Englishmen had vague ideas of the names of our States as well, for
Boston and “Tenasee” often appear on these wares in the list of the
thirteen States.
The number of stars depicted upon the American flag or shield on these
and Staffordshire pieces is often held up as ample testimony to the date
of the piece. Such reasoning is, of course, absurd. English engravers
and potters were as ignorant about the number of States as they were
about the names of the States, and might easily have given fifteen stars
when there were only thirteen States, or clung to the number thirteen
long after we had twenty States. I have seen several designs with the
United States flag bearing twelve and even nine stars.
Many of these pitchers are decorated with designs relating to the
character, life, and death of Washington, and such are known as
Washington pitchers. A list of the prints upon these pitchers is given
in Chapter XIII., devoted to the china commemorative of Washington.
These pitchers bear portraits and sentiments, verses or inscriptions
eulogizing the virtues and bravery of the “glorious American,” or
indicative of our national loss, and grief at his death. The lines,
“Deafness to the ear that will patiently hear, and dumbness to the
tongue that will utter a calumny against the immortal Washington,” were
much favored and printed by English potters, and were placed on pitchers
and mugs of many sizes and shapes. The legend fails to tell, however,
the awful fate which should fall on the hand which limned the senile,
feeble, forlorn caricatures of the face of Washington which usually
appear in company with the lines, and make us suspect intentional malice
in the British artist. These absurd likenesses vary as much as did the
canvas portraits of the Father of His Country at the recent Centennial
Loan Collection at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, and in some
cases bear no resemblance whatever to the well-known benign countenance,
and are evidently a portrait of some English general falsely labelled
Washington.
[Illustration: An English Notion of Washington.]
There is a print found on cream-colored teapots and plates and jugs that
look like Liverpool ware, which is sometimes called “Washington and
Martha Drinking Tea,” by American dealers who assert that the two
figures in the out-of-doors tea-party are intended for the General and
his “lady,” as he called her. The man in this print certainly bears a
marked though somewhat mincing likeness to our first President, while
the fact that the servant who approaches with a teakettle is a negro, is
offered as conclusive proof that the scene is laid in America; and
indeed, I have seen one teapot upon which was pasted a paper label with
the words, “Scene at Mount Vernon, George and Martha Washington Drinking
Tea.” Of course every china student, and indeed every person of art
education, knows that the figures of negro servants appear in many
English tea-party prints of that date, in such, for instance, as the
watch-back of Battersea enamel engraved by Richard Hancock, of the
Worcester China Works, and in the transfer prints by the same artist,
shown on page 235, Vol. I., of Jewitt’s “Ceramic Art in Great Britain.”
The pieces bearing this “George Washington” print that I have seen, bore
no stamp to show the place of manufacture; but there is a tea-canister
numbered G 252 in the Museum of Practical Geology, printed with this
scene, which has the impressed mark “Wedgwood.” It also has on the other
side of the canister the same group of shepherds and sheep that I have
seen on many pieces in America. I am afraid we cannot claim this as a
Washington print. It was engraved when Washington was a struggling
surveyor, when no Englishmen, and few Americans, even knew his name.
Miss Meteyard says that this group is from one of Jenssen’s printed
enamels, and she gives an illustration of it on page 64, Vol. II., of
her “Life of Wedgwood.” I only mention this among the Liverpool prints,
and as possibly eligible to the Washington list, in order to prove (to
make an Irish bull) that it is certainly not the one and probably not
the other. It is quite as interesting, however, to the china collector
(if not to the historical student or the relic hunter) as an example of
Hancock’s designs for transfer-printing; and when one of these teapots
is offered for $1.50 (as I have had one in a New York shop within a
year), it is well for any collector to buy it.
I will say here that these cream-ware pitchers are not from Liverpool
factories alone, they are from various Staffordshire potteries, but all
cream-colored printed pitchers are generally known in America by the
name of Liverpool ware. Some, of course, are unmistakably so, for they
bear the various marks of the Herculaneum Pottery, or the figure of the
bird which was the crest of the arms of Liverpool—the liver or lever. A
special design or mark of the American eagle with the words “Herculaneum
Pottery, Liverpool,” seems to have been made for pieces intended for the
American market, and often appears upon them.
The heroes and victories of the American navy form frequent decorations
of the specimens of this printed pottery that are found in America. The
first Naval pitchers bore the design of a ship or a frigate under full
sail, with the American flag and the words, “Success to the Infant Navy
of America.” These were printed to commemorate Truxton’s capture of the
French frigates Insurgente and La Vengeance while he was commander of
the Constellation during our little marine war with France in 1799. This
capture was honored in a popular song called “Truxton’s Victory,” and
was as great a source of delight to Englishmen as to Americans. Truxton
received from England many tokens of esteem, including a service of
silver plate worth over $3,000. Long and bitterly during the constant
naval defeats of the English in the War of 1812 must those British
merchants have regretted that silver token of encouragement to the
American Navy. A gold medal was ordered by Congress to be struck in
honor of this victory, as was also done in honor of each of the naval
heroes of the war of 1812. And many pitchers and mugs were decorated
with their portraits and names in order to commemorate their victories.
It seems odd that English potters should have made so many pitchers
bearing testimony to the victories of their late enemies, unless they
were ordered by American dealers specially for the American market; but
I have never seen anything to prove that such orders were given.
Many pieces bear the portrait of Perry and the words of his famous
dispatch, “We have met the enemy and they are ours.” I never look at a
Perry pitcher without thinking with interest and pleasure of this brave
young captain, who was only twenty-seven years old when he achieved his
famous victory. He fought the fierce naval battle clad in his sailor’s
suit, but changed at the last to his full-dress uniform in order to
receive the surrendering English officer with full dignity. Nor do I
ever see the jolly round face of Hull on pitcher or mug without thinking
of his comical appearance during the naval battle between the
Constitution and the Guerrière, in which he won such deserved honors.
Hull was very fat, and being somewhat dandified wore very tight
breeches. When, in that fierce contest, he gave his first roar of
command to the gunners, “Now, boys, pour into them—Free Trade and
Seamen’s Rights!” he bent over twice in his intense excitement and split
his tight breeches from waistband to knee. He was more of a soldier than
a dandy, however, for he finished the battle and captured the English
ship in that “undress uniform.”
Of course the pitchers decorated with American subjects are most
interesting to Americans, but there are many other Liverpool pitchers
found in New England, which bear, instead of American heroes and
battles, such lines as these:
“Dear Tom this brown jug
Which now foams with new ale,
Out of which I will drink
To sweet Nan of the Vale.”
Another has the jovial inscription, “One Pot more—and then—why
then—Another Pot of course.”
And this sharp warning is given to those who would wish to drink and not
to pay:
“Customers came and I did trust ’em,
So I lost my money and my custom,
And to lose both it grieves me sore,
So I am resolved to trust no more.”
A few pieces bear less decorous and elegant verses, such as the mug
deriding the Established Church, labelled, “Tythe in Kind or the Sow’s
Revenge.” A clergyman bent on collecting tithes is being attacked by a
sow in a pigsty. The farmer’s family are laughing while the parson is
crying out:
“The fattest pig it is my due;
Oh! save me from the wicked sow.”
Another pitcher has a fling at the Romish Church, for it bears a
likeness of his Satanic Majesty and of a priest, with the words,
“When Pope absolves
The Devil smiles.”
I have seen in America a number of drinking-mugs of cream-colored ware,
which may properly be spoken of here, though it is doubtful whether many
of them were made in Liverpool. They have the raised figure of a toad or
frog placed inside, with the pleasingly jocose intention of surprising
and scaring the drinker, who would fancy as the ugly head rose out of
the decreasing liquor that it was a real batrachian climbing up the side
to jump down his throat. One of these mugs had the frog tinted a dull
green and brown, entirely too natural and life-like in color to prove
pleasant or appetizing. Another two-handled Frog mug was of coarse white
ware, unpainted, and had an exceedingly modern look. This was probably
Newcastle ware. The price asked for these in “antique shops” is usually
three or four dollars apiece. I have seen none with mottoes as has the
one numbered S 17, in the Museum of Practical Geology.
“Though malt and venom
Seem united,
Don’t break my pot
Nor be affrighted.”
These Frog mugs are usually large in diameter, and are sometimes
decorated externally with designs of ships or naval heroes. The frog’s
appearance in sight would then prove more effectually terrifying than if
the drinker were warned by an instructive motto of the figured reptile
within.
Another agreeable old English practical joke is in the shape of puzzle
jugs, specimens of which exist in England, but have been rarely found in
America. They were made in Liverpool and Staffordshire in the
seventeenth and eighteenth century, and in salt-glazed stone-ware at
Nottingham in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. They were so
constructed that when lifted to the lips they emptied by secret passages
their liquid contents over the face and breast of the drinker. Sometimes
there were three spouts from the rim. If the drinker covered two of the
spouts with his fingers, he could drink from the third. This motto is on
a puzzle jug of earthenware, of Liverpool make, in the collection of
George M. Wales, Esq., of Boston:
“Here, gentlemen, come try y^r skill;
Ill hold a wager, if you will,
That you don’t drink this liq^r all
Without you spill or let some fall.”
Another rhyming inscription reads:
“From mother earth I took my birth,
Then form’d a Jug by Man,
And now I stand here filled with good cheer—
Taste of me if you can.”
Another short invitation reads:
“This ale is good, taste.”
And when you tasted, in good faith, you received a beery shower-bath,
which was no doubt considered very funny by eighteenth-century
Englishmen.
On another is written:
“Mathew the V 16.”
—not a very appropriate text-reference.
Still another rhyming challenge reads thus:
“A Crown Ile bet
That None can get
The ale that’s in this Jug,
Nor drink his fill
Without he spill
And shall not use a plug.”
A puzzle jug in the possession of the Vintners’ Company is in the shape
of a milkmaid bearing a pail. The pail is set on a swivel, and when the
drinker tries to swallow the liquor, the pail sends its contents over
his chest.
[Illustration: Masonic Pitcher.]
Cream-ware pitchers bearing Masonic emblems are frequently found,
usually having also the name of the person by whom they were ordered, or
for whom they were made. These rather egotistical lines were prime
favorites among these pitcher-buying Masons:
“The world is in pain
Our Secret to gain,
But still let them wonder & gaze on,
For they ne’er can divine
The word nor the sign
Of a Free and Accepted Mason.”
Another much-used set of Masonic verses runs thus:
“We help the poor in time of need
The naked cloath, the Hungry feed;
’Tis our Foundation stone.
We build upon the noblest plan,
Where Friendship rivets man to man
And makes us all as one.”
And a third:
“To judge with candour and to speak no wrong,
The feeble to support against the strong,
To soothe the wretched and the poor to feed,
Will cover many an idle, foolish deed.”
Some of these Masonic pitchers are of enormous size, as if the buyers
wished as much of a pitcher as possible for their money. Many of them
were printed at the Worcester factory. I have also seen some fine
designs that had been drawn with a pen by hand in mineral colors and
then fired in. Pitchers and mugs of Chinese porcelain are also seen with
decorations of Masonic emblems and mottoes.
Sailor pitchers are found in comparatively large numbers, with touching
prints of a sailor bidding an affectionate farewell to his lass, under a
flag and over an anchor, accompanied by such appropriate verses as the
following:
“When this you see
Pray think of me
And keep me in your mind;
Let all the world
Say what they will,
Think of me as you find.”
Or this legend, a misquotation from Charles Dibdin’s song:
“D’ye see a cherub sits smiling aloft
To keep watch o’er the life of poor Jack.”
This is often accompanied by the figure of a fat little cherub perched
in the rigging of a ship. These Sailor pitchers were brought home
frequently at the end of a voyage as gifts for a sweetheart or a wife,
as is plainly seen by these verses printed with a picture called “The
Sailor’s Return”:
“I now the joys of Life renew
From care and trouble free,
And find a wife who’s kind and true
To drive life’s cares away.”
And also this tender sentiment:
“The troubled main, the wind & rain,
My ardent passion prove
Lashed to the helm, should seas o’erwhelm
I’ll think on thee, my love.”
Or these lines:
“Kindly take this gift of mine,
The gift and giver I hope is thine,
And tho’ the value is but small
A loving heart is worth it all.”
It is a curious fact that feminine owners are exceptionally unwilling
“to part with” these Sailor pitchers. A halo of past romance, of
sentimental fancy, surrounds the yellow ware love token that “Uncle Eben
brought from Injy to Aunt Hannah,” or “my grandpa got painted in Chiny
for my grandma when he was courtin’ her” (for even these staidly sombre
English pitchers are gloriously Oriental in country owners’ eyes). This
latent longing for sentiment, this tender sympathy with youthful love
and affection, lies hidden deep in every woman’s heart, no matter what
her age; and, in the dull, repressed life of many New England homes,
finds expression in a stolid clinging to the only visible token of a
love and lovers long since dead. One stout old woman, with calm face but
suspiciously shaky voice and hands, brought out for our admiring view,
in company with a crimson silk crêpe shawl, a pair of small Liverpool
pitchers printed with a spirited marine view of a full-rigged ship, the
names John Daggett and Eliza Maxom, and this doggerel rhyme:
“No more I’ll roam,
I’ll stay at home,
To sail no more
From shore to shore,
But with my wife
Lead a happy, peaceful life.”
“Who gave you them pretty picture pitchers, Grandma?” said the little
child who was clinging to her skirts. “John Daggett ordered ’em painted
for him an’ me in Liverpool on the last trip he ever went on. He was the
han’somest man ye ever see! He died on the v’yage home, an’ yer Granpa,
he was a-seafarin’ then, he stopped an’ got ’em on the way back, an’
brought ’em home ter me.” Alas! poor John Daggett! your thoughtful gifts
of love furnished forth another wedding-feast with the considerate
sailor-companion as groom and comforter. But though passed to “a happy,
peaceful life” on a far-distant shore, you are not forgotten, but
through the reminiscent power of your last gift, live a tender idealized
memory, a dream of eternal unchanging youth and beauty, in your dear
lass’s thoughts. Your two Liverpool pitchers have never been
thoughtlessly or carelessly used in your shipmate’s, in “Grandpa’s,”
home; they have lain for half a century unscratched, unnicked, unbroken,
true cinerary urns of vanished hopes and promises, wrapped in the
crimson crêpe shawl in the deep drawer of a high chest in your old
sweetheart’s “spare-room.”
In this case we encountered a sentiment which we have met more than
once—a willingness on the part of the owner, when she found we admired
the piece, to let us have it, since we would cherish it safe and
unharmed, rather than to give it or leave it to relatives who had openly
derided it or called it a worthless old thing. As this New England
sentimentalist expressed it, while she slowly folded the shawl around
the beloved pitchers, “I’d almost ruther let ye have ’em, ye seem to set
such store by ’em, than ter leave ’em ter Asa’s wife, she aint brought
up the children extry careful, an’ I know they’d smash ’em in no time,
or put ’em in hot water or knock the nose off. Come again next year an’
I’ll think it over, I hate ter part with ’em just yet after I’ve kep’
’em fer fifty-two year an’ three months, but I’ll see.”
Various prints that are of more interest to Englishmen than to Americans
are seen on these Liverpool pitchers; such is the view on the large mug
owned by an old Newport resident, which bears the inscription, “An East
View of Liverpool Lighthouse and Signals on Bilston Hill, 1788.” In the
centre of the design is a lighthouse with forty-four signals around it.
Each signal is numbered, and below is a key with the names of the
vessels and their owners. This print also occurs on plates. In the days
before the telegraph Liverpool merchants were wont to go down to the
riverside, about two or three hours before high tide, to see whether
there were any flags hoisted on the lighthouse poles, as was always done
when a vessel came in sight. Thus were owners notified a few hours in
advance of the approach of their craft to port.
Another mug owned by the same gentleman has a map with a caricature of
Napoleon Bonaparte standing with one foot on Germany. The other foot,
having been placed on England, has been cut off by John Bull, who says,
“I ax pardon, Master Boney, but, as we say, Pares of Pompey, we keep
this spot to ourselves. You must not dance here, Master Boney.” Napoleon
is saying, “You tam John Bull, you have spoil my dance, you have ruin my
projects.” A second Bonaparte mug has a red print of John Bull sitting
upon a pedestal, inscribed “The British Constitution.” He looks across
the Channel at Napoleon, who is weeping and crying out, “O! my poor
Crazy Gun Boats, why did I venture so far from home,” while John Bull
says, “I told you they would all be swamp’d, but you would be so Damned
Obstinate.” The inscription is “Patience on a Monument smiling at
Grief,” with this distich:
“The Mighty Chief with fifty thousand Men
Marched to the Coast and March’d back again.
Ha! Ha! Ha!”
A third Bonaparte mug is thus described in _Notes and Queries_:
“Under a trophy of arms are figures of John Bull and Napoleon. John
Bull is in the act of striking his opponent with his right fist a
severe blow on the nose; the nether end of Napoleon is at the same
time in collision with sturdy John Bull’s left boot. Inscription,
‘See here John Bull drubbing Bonaparte!’ On either side of the
picture we have,
‘What! to conquer all England how dares he pretend,
This ambitious but vain undertaker,
When he knows to his cost that where Britons defend,
He’s unable to conquer one Acre!’
‘If your beggarly soldiers come among us, they’ll soon have enough of
it; and, damn me, if any ten of you shall have my person or
property—so be off!’ ‘Damn ye! you black-hearted, treacherous
Corsican! if you were not such a little bit of a fellow in spite of
your large cocked hat, I’d crack your skull in an instant with my
fist.’”
Another bears these short and pointed lines:
“May England’s oak
Produce the bark
To tan the hide
Of Bonaparte,”
which, though shaky in rhyme, are certainly more effective than the
illiterate, profane, and overlong inscriptions on other Bonaparte mugs.
A well-engraved and well-designed Liverpool print is that of “The
Farmers’ Arms,” with armorial design ingeniously formed of hay-rakes,
scythes, flails, ploughs, churns, sickles, etc., the mottoes being “In
God we Trust,” and “Industry produceth Wealth.” On the other side are
these verses:
“May the mighty and great
Roll in splendor and state,
I envy them not, I declare it,
I eat my own Lamb,
My own chicken and ham,
I shear my own sheep and I wear it.
I have lawns, I have Bowers,
I have Fruits, I have Flowers,
The Lark is my morning Alarmer;
So you Jolly Dogs now,
Here’s God bless the plow—
Long life and content to the Farmer.”
One of these really artistic Farmer pitchers with this inscription and
design sold at an auction in New York for only seven dollars and a half,
in spite of the catalogue’s alluring description of its “having once
belonged to Robert Burns.” A similar one, numbered S 32, is in the
Museum of Practical Geology in London, and is also described in Mayer’s
“Art of Pottery and History of its Progress in Liverpool.”
Besides the design of the “Farmers’ Arms” is found that of the
“Blacksmiths’ Arms,” with the motto “By Hammer and Hand all Arts do
Stand;” the “Bucks’ Arms,” with stag and huntsmen, and the motto
“Freedom with Innocence;” the “Bakers’ Arms,” and the motto, “Praise God
for All;” the “Hatters’ Arms,” with the motto, “We Assist Each Other in
Time of Need.”
Many of these Liverpool pitchers have an individual interest connected
with their original manufacture. They were the favorite expression of
respect of ships crews to their commanders, of workmen to their
employers. Such is the beautiful pitcher owned by A. M. Prentiss, Esq.,
bearing the motto, “Success to Henry Prentiss and his Employ, 1789.”
Henry Prentiss was a Revolutionary hero, a member of the Tea Party, a
wealthy Boston merchant, a large cotton manufacturer, a successful
horticulturist, a man whose name brings to old residents of Boston and
Cambridge the memory of many a story of his shrewdness and intelligence.