[Illustration: OLD SHEFFIELD SUGAR BASKETS.
Circular on collette foot, with fine pierced work. Blue glass liners. Threaded handle, date 1790. Beaded handle, date 1775.
(_In the collection of B. B. Harrison, Esq._)]
[Illustration: OLD SHEFFIELD PLATED SUGAR BASIN.
Circular form with two handles. The body divided into fourteen globular sections by repoussé work. Marked D✳S (Dixon & Sons). Date 1825. Height 4⅛ in. Base 3-7/16 in.
(_Reproduced by permission of the Corporation of Sheffield._)]
These basins were a later luxury of a more effeminate age. In 1711, according to the _Spectator_, in a "celebrated Coffee House near the Temple" an elderly ill-dressed man "called for a Dish of Tea, but as several Gentlemen of the Room wanted other things, the Boys of the House did not think themselves at leisure to mind him.... At last one of the Rascals presented him with some stale Tea in a broken Dish, accompanied with a Plate of Brown Sugar." We are not concerned with the rest of the story, how the old stranger found his son in the well dressed _habitué_ of the House, and exclaimed "Hark you, sirrah, I'll pay off your extravagant Bills once more, but will take Effectual care for the Future that your Prodigality shall not spirit up a parcel of Rascals to insult your Father." But we are interested in the "stale Tea in a broken Dish," and the "Plate of Brown Sugar" excites our curiosity inasmuch as it comes as a surprise to learn that other sugar was then in use; possibly it was candied on strings as we remember it in our boyhood at the table of an old-fashioned prelate and recluse. But centrifugally whitened and crystallized sugar it cannot have been, for that belongs to days within memory. A later example of sugar basin with melon-shaped body is in date about 1825 and its bold handles are finely ornamented. The rim and the foot have a pleasing contour following the fourteen sections of the _repoussé_ body (illustrated, p. 213). It was made by Dixon and Sons, and the mark is a star with the letters D and S on each side.
=Soup tureens--Hot water jugs--The marks of the makers--The supper table.=
There has been a recent dispersal of many fine collections of old silver plate, much of which consisted of glorious examples of periods which could and would only be used on state occasion at the dinner table. However much the possessor of old plate may love his family heirlooms, there is a hesitancy in actually bringing into use even in rare circumstances old plate of the Stuart period. Even though he may not be a connoisseur he might prefer some of his second-best silver for common use especially in days when people of high and low degree have often come very near to dining with Duke Humphry. It would therefore seem somewhat of a hollow mockery to bring out of the silver closet fine Queen Anne or early Georgian services with provender as bare almost as the larder of the Count Federigo degli Alberighi in Tennyson's "Falcon," in which story is told how that "noble bird" came to be served up as a meal for the lady Giovanna. Hence silver plate that is not used has been deemed a luxury to be sold under the hammer, and another race of owners will treasure old silver though it may not have come down from their ancestors.