It is stated that at a sale at Christie's on
Friday week thirteen Apostle spoons, known to be probably of Henry VIII.'s time, were sold for the astounding sum of £4,900 ! It is not known whether the purchaser is an American millionaire or a devotee of old silver ; but in either case the sale illustrates a mania as striking as the tulip mania of the seventeenth century in Holland. We must say that we record such an incident with regret. There is nothing whatever in an Apostle spoon to interest anybody greatly except an antiquarian, and the payment of such prices must discourage true art, artists finding that the wealthy are more interested in anything odd, rare, or unique than in any product of their skill or thought. Such prices, too, make the pos- sessors of historic rarities unwilling to sell them to national museums.
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