OLD ENGLISH PLATE.* CONSIDERING the very great interest taken in
the precious metals by most persons, it is strange that the making and marking of gold and silver plate have not been adequately discussed hitherto in any special treatise. The subject is many-sided, and appeals to a great variety of tastes. Mining and metallurgy, commerce and politics, archaeology and art,—all must be considered, in deal- ing exhaustively with the subject of decorative and Useful plate. Yet for a complete history of this kind not only are the materials in great part wanting, but such as do exist are widely scattered or difficult of access. Much credit is therefore due to the author of the book before us for the valuable contribution he has made to our knowledge of a branch of this important industry. To per- severance in collecting facts concerning the manufacture of plate in the United Kingdom he has added skill in arranging them. He has sifted the statements of previous writers, and in a good many instances has found it necessary to correct them. An instructive book, pleasant to read withal, is the result of his labours.
The plan of Mr. Cripps's manual includes an account of the materials of plate, of goldsmiths' guilds and legal enactments, of the marks on plate assayed in London, in certain provincial towns, and in Scotland and Ireland, and of frauds and offences. Then follows a chapter on ecclesiastical plate ; finally, we have
• Old English Plate. By Wilfred J. Cripps, M.A. London: Murray. 1878.
descriptions, extending to more than one hundred pages, and illustrated with many woodcuts, of all sorts of articles of domestic plate, ancient and modern. An appendix of examples or autho- rities for the London assay and makers' marks, with tables of date- letters for all the English, Scotch, and Irish offices, closes the volume. These tables, founded, so far as London is concerned, upon a work, long out of print, by Mr. Octavius Morgan, are of the highest value.
In a brief review it is manifestly impossible to do equal justice to all sections of such a work as this of Mr. Cripps, so we must be content with pointing out its most characteristic and valuable features. And the first of these to which our attention is natur- ally directed is the history and meaning of the marks found on such plate as was stamped in London. A leopard's head crowned is the very earliest of these, and is mentioned first in the year 1300 (28th Edward I., cap. 20), although it is possible that it may have been in use before. This mark has been employed ever since to the present day, with the exception of the years 1697 to 1720 ; but the head was cruelly discrowned in 1823, and now looks much more like the visage of a forlorn and morose cat than that of a royal leopard, or heraldic lion. The earliest-known piece of marked plate still existing, the Padsey spoon, bears the " leopard's " head in the bowl, and two other marks on the stem. One of these marks is a heart, the device or sign of the maker ; the other mark is a letter of the alphabet, fixing the year in which the piece was assayed. That letter is an h, and indicates the year 1445-6, but we may be sure that the use of the alphabetical letter began with a, taking us back to 1438 as the date from which this mark was certainly used, though it is just possible, even in the silence of records and ordinances, that it was used before. We do, however, know that the maker's mark was affixed to silver wares at an earlier date than 1438, for an Act of Edward III. in 1363 distinctly mentions such a mark, along with the king's mark—that is, the leopard's head—but to the date-letter there is then no reference.
A fourth mark appears in 1545 ; it was probably introduced, as Mr. Cripps suggests, in 1542, to mark the fact of the silver being of the old, sterling standard, and therefore superior to the debased coinage of the day. A fifth mark was ordered in 1784 ; it is the Sovereign's head, and indicates the payment of a duty of ls. 6d. per ounce on silver and of 17s. on gold. This very heavy duty, though returned on new plate exported, seriously interferes with the national manufacture, especially of important works in gold and silver. But the existing obligation to have silver plate assayed and marked is a very wholesome one, which could not be rescinded without the certainty of an increase of fraud in the debasement of the metal.
Generally, then, the age of a piece of plate can be told by its date-letter, if it bear a London mark not earlier than 1438. But we have further aids in this determination in the number of the marks, in the shape of the outlines or of the shields used to in- close the marks, and in the style and size of these marks. On the other hand, the fixing of the date is sometimes interfered with by such irregularities as these :—The object may not have been stamped till long after it was made ; or a new piece, with its proper stamps, may have been inserted or added in repairing and improving an old vessel. Then, too, inscriptions purporting to, be of the seventeenth century may be found upon plate bearing the stamps of the nineteenth, it having been the custom with corporations and colleges periodically to exchange their old plate, if bruised or worn, for new work bearing copies of the donor's arms and name, and the date of the donation. Quite apart, then, from forgeries of marks, and the transference of a fine mark from an old and genuine spoon of the sixteenth century to a grand piece, say, a standing cup, of the nineteenth, it is not always easy to settle the date of a specimen of old English plate by a mere glance at its marks.
It is in clearing up much of the mystery of what are known as "provincial marks" that Mr. Cripps has been particularly-suc- cessful. Many hints were furnished, it is true, by isolated papers- on antique plate in the archaeological journals, and by the de- scriptive catalogue of the loan collection exhibited at South Kensington in 1862. But by means of original inquiries, and by- personal examination of plate, mainly ecclesiastical, bearing pro- vincial marks, Mr. Cripps has been able to construct tables of date-letters for York and Norwich, and has proved the office-
mark of the former city to have been a seeded rose crowned and a fleur-de-lis, both dimidiated. The office at Norwich seems to have done but little assaying and marking, for the date-letters of but nine years between 1565 and 1697 are known to be preserved on pieces of plate stamped there. Of the date-letters before 1700
of the other old provincial assay towns nothing is known, while Exeter, at all .events, cannot have employed a date-letter at all before 1701, since all the earlier extant specimens bear nothing beyond a crowned X, and at the most a maker's sign or name in addition. We must not dwell longer on the subject of the pro- vincial marks ; doubtless there is much still remaining to be learnt concerning them, many pieces of plate, chiefly spoons of the close of the seventeenth century, being stamped with carious marks not yet identified.
Mr. Cripps gives some new and interesting details concerning the Scotch assay offices and their marks ; he has also been able to clear up some of the difficulties in connection with the Dublin date- letters. If the marks on English silver, as set forth in the volume before us, especially attract the attention of the connoisseur and collector, we are sure that the chapters on ecclesiastical and domestic plate which Mr. Cripps has given us will prove of gen- eral interest. At least, every one whose duty or inclination prompts the perusal of these portions of the book cannot fail to see clearly the sharp contrast between the thought, the care, the variety, the richness, the good workmanship, the fine design dis- played by old English plate, and the lamentable poverty and absurdity of the new. But the monstrous specimens of modern taste, so called, in the form of racing trophies, which periodically disfigure fashionable shop-windows must, we presume, meet with some admirers still. Yet bow the recent reformation in the design and make of furniture should not have spread to work in silver for household use and ornament, is bard to understand. Look at the spoon of the nineteenth century. We have replaced the figure of an apostle, which surmounted the shank so late as the seventeenth century, by a fiddle ! Can the sugar-bowl of to-day, clumsily fashioned after the model of an obese melon, or scratched with the Greek fret, be favourably compared with the medieval mazer, edged by delicate mouldings, fringed with simple leafage, and encircled with some gracious motto ? And if we turn from secular to ecclesiastical plate, do we fare much better? Good models have, it is true, been frequently followed by some recent makers of chalices and patens, but mere mechanical reproductions, lacking the spirit of the originals, have too often been the products of the misapplied labour. The refinement of the old work has sunk into feebleness, the " go " into crudity. When artist and artificer are once more identical, then we may expect design and execution to regain their former fitness and beauty. It is a modern mistake to assume that the production of good silver work demands neither special training nor high artistic power. It will not suffice to study old models, however excellent, unless fresh inspiration be gathered from nature, assimilated by the trained mind, and wrought out by the skilful hand into forms of fresh and seemly design.
Turning once more to the pages of Mr. Cripps's volume, we find in the excellent illustrations which he has given many beautiful examples of old English silversmith's work. These drawings will, we hope, do more than merely instruct the collec- tors and admirers of old plate. We trust they will give a healthy stimulus to competent workers in silver here, and help to restore to modern England her ancient fame for decorative design. We confess we were surprised and ashamed to find at the Paris Exhibition that a New York firm, Tiffany and Co., had beaten the old country and the old world in domestic silver plate.
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