_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.
_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!