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PEPYS AS AN ART COLLECTOR

AND CRITIC

THE Son of a tailor, Samuel Pepys may be justly described is the first middle-class collector and critic of objects of eco rt in England. The extravagance of the age in which he lived was perhaps not without effect on his early desires for the acquisition of luxuries. His gradually increasing prosperity may be traced from the day in January 1659-60, when, at the age of twenty-seven, his dinner consisted of plain bread and cheese, to the costly dinners served on silver plates mentioned later, In the same month, too, Pepys laid the foundation of his noble library, now the glory of his alma mater, Magdalene College, Cambridge, by the purchase of a Hebrew Grammar.

The taste and appreciation of the immortal diarist for the refinements of life received an early training by his

classical education at St. Paul's School and at

the effects of which were apparent from the time of his first visit to Audley End, "without comparison one of the stateliest palaces in the kingdom," as Evelyn had described it a few years earlier. Pepys viewed with mighty admira-. tion the glories of the house, the stateliness of the ceilings and of the chimney-pieces, the splendid pictures, especially the portrait of Henry VIII by Holbein. Descending into the cellar, Pepys and his companion, the landlord of the White Hart Inn at Saffron Walden, drank most admirable drink, and health to King Charles II. His love of music, one of his cherished joys to the end of his life, is evinced by his playing on his flageolet, which produced an excellent echo among the barrels of wine in the vast cellars. Instructive, as a revelation of his increasing powers of observation and more critical taste, is his account of his later visit to Audley End, when he declared the ceiling, previously praised for its stateliness, to be less impressive and the staircase. exceeding poor. While the house contained a great many pictures, there was only one good one, the portrait of Henry VIII. The furniture is described as so ancient that he would not find room for it in his own house. From this noble mansion Pepys was taken to the ancient almshouses of Edward VI at Saffron Walden, and was there regaled with a draught of drink from a mazer-bowl of wood "tipt" with

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silver, which on being emptied revealed to his astonished gaze a picture of the Holy Virgin done in silver.*

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The first recorded addition to Pepys's collection of plate was made in June 1660, when he accepted a bribe in the shape of five pieces of gold for himself and a silver can for Mrs. Pepys. If this can was a mug, it is an interesting and early name for this type of drinking vessel-a name which he has survived to this day in New England. Shortly after wards he bought, or was given, the only known piece which has survived from his large collection, namely, the plain caudle-cup exhibited by Miss Cockerell at St. James's Cour and illustrated in the catalogue.

At this date we are introduced to the name of one of London's most opulent goldsmiths in the person of Alderman Edward Backwell, the virtual founder of English banking but this worthy's name is of more interest in the history o banking than in the annals of the goldsmith's craft, his business having been concerned mainly with banking. He was not a craftsman himself, but a buyer and seller of plate, an intermediary between the craftsmen and the public To Backwell's shop Pepys betook himself on July 4, 1660, to buy a state dish and cup"† in chased work at a cost of £19, as a gift for his patron, William Coventry, afterwards Sir William Coventry.

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Although perhaps more appropriately included in section devoted to Pepys's activities as a bibliophile, his purchase of a Bible adorned with silver crosses deserves notice here, on account of the decoration in silver.

The frequent visits of Pepys to the shops of London goldsmiths-Alderman Backwell, Sir Robert Vyner and others-quickened and stimulated his taste for the master pieces of that art. A proud moment in his life was on the occasion when his friend and patron, Edward Montagu first Earl of Sandwich, asked him to buy a piece of plate as a gift for Stephen Fox. The piece selected was a tankard from Beauchamp, the goldsmith in Cheapside. This was displayed at a private dinner given by Fox a few days later

* This identical mazer-bowl with silver mounts hall-marked in London in 1507-8, and with a silver disc of the Virgin Mary set in the interior, is still preserved at the almshouse.

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† A "state dish and cup was a dish or salver on a large foot, and the companion cup was one of the familiar caudle-cups or porringers so popular in the reign of Charles II. Several of these dishes and cups have survived this day. One of the most interesting pairs, made in London in 1668-9, w presented to Jonas Shish, His Majesty's Master Shipwright at Deptford, by the Duke of York, at the launching of the Royal Charles. This pair is now in the important collection of old English plate of Sir Ernest Cassel.

o his friends, Mr. and Mrs. Pepys, and others, when the ealth of Lord Sandwich was drunk with due ceremony nd cordiality. Pepys's vanity was again mightily gratified by the acceptance by William Coventry, already mentioned, f a gift of plate, especially as Coventry had just refused present of a noble pair of silver flagons from Commissioner Pett. Proudly going to Beauchamp, he selected a pair of lver candlesticks, which were dispatched in due course intention

-Fo the intended recipient, who took the giver'

ery kindly, but, by a strange reversal of his original acceptnce, returned the gift with a polite letter, which aroused mixed emotions in Pepys mortification at the rebuff, but hankfulness at the return of so costly a gift.

Not without interest is the cost of wrought plate in the first year of the Restoration-eight shillings an ounce for tankard selected by Pepys from the Jewel House in the Tower of London at the request of Lord Sandwich, as a present from the King in return for Lord Sandwich's New Year's gift to the King.* This sum would be equal to about forty shillings before the outbreak of the Great War in August 1914.

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Additions had been made by Pepys to his collection, but have not been recorded in his Diary, for he mentions plate which he took to Stevens, a goldsmith, to be cleaned for a dinner-party. A silver tankard was stolen from his house in this summer, to his great grief. In this same year he bought six silver spoons as a christening gift for a boy. Whether these were the Apostle spoons so popular as presents on such occasions cannot be determined, but they were probably of another pattern, since Apostle spoons were then going out of favour. Shortly afterwards he bought a silver cup and spoon for the godchild of Mrs. Pepys.

Pepys never lost an opportunity to examine historical or important plate. On the occasion of his official visit to Portsmouth, in April 1662, he noticed with admiration a present of plate from the town to the Queen, a "salt-sellar of silver, the walls christall, with four eagles and four greyhounds standing up at the top to bear up a dish; which indeed is one of the neatest pictures of plate that I ever saw." This salt and the plate presented to the Queen by

* In fulfilment of an old custom by which presents were made by the Monarch on New Year's Day to courtiers and other distinguished persons, who returned the gift in plate or jewels.

A salt answering this description was given to the Goldsmiths' Company in 1693 by Thomas Seymour, and may be the identical piece, though there are no regal emblems upon it.

368

THE NATIONAL REVIEW

the City of London in June 1662 are not now in the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle; they may have been taken by the Queen (Catherine of Braganza) on her return to her native Portugal, together with the gold toilet service presented to her by the King, Charles II, at a cost of £4,000, mentioned in Evelyn's Diary in 1673.

The "great rarity" in the form of silver dishes set with ancient gold and silver medals, bought from an ambassado in need of money, which Pepys examined with manifest interest at the seat of Captain George Cocke at Greenwich were probably not English, but some of the large dishes embossed with busts of Roman Emperors and others, so popular as embellishments of plate in Germany from the middle of the seventeenth century.

The diarist now records with satisfaction the addition of a "fair state dish and cup" embellished with his arms (this is the first mention of Pepys's arms on plate, though the cup exhibited at St. James's Court is engraved with his arms), a noble present, the best he had had, from William Warren.

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At a dinner at Barber Surgeons' Hall, Pepys noticed among other other "observables" Holbein's picture of Henry VIII and the silver-gilt cup given by the King to the Company, with bells hanging on it, which every man is to ring by shaking after he hath drunk up the whole cup in drinking the health of the royal donor.* Nothing escaped his keen eye. In dining with the Lord Mayor of London he displayed marked interest in the historic sword, one of the treasures of the City His observations on the Lord Mayor's banquet of this year are diverting and instructive to the student of ancient customs. The Lord Mayor and the Lords of the Privy Council alone were allowed the use of napkins and knives, while Pepys and other guests, regaled as they were with ten good dishes and abundant wine of divers sorts, were not provided with napkins or a change of the wooden trenchers from which they ate their food. Furthermore they drank their wine out of pitchers of earthenware. Pepys was in general disappointed with the entertainment Expecting to hear good music, there was only the noise of trumpets and drums, which displeased him, a lover and judge of music. The ladies, too, were disappointing; not one handsome face could he discern in the ladies' room. Wearied with looking upon a company of ugly women,

* The cup here mentioned was made for the most part in the year 1523-4, with portions of a later date. Four little "bells," as stated by Pepys, hang

from the bowl.

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epys went into Cheapside and there saw the Lord Mayor's how, a "silly" entertainment.

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One Captain Silas Taylor, in anticipation of future vours, presented Pepys with "a little small state dish,' nd in the same year his sideboard of plate was enriched a tankard after the death of his brother Tom.

Many causes have contributed to the destruction of old nglish plate, but one of the most destructive, if the least nown, was the custom particularly rife in the first half the eighteenth century of sending old plate to the goldmith to be melted and the metal remade into other objects the prevailing fashion. Much of the royal plate in the ossession of the Duke of York (afterwards James II) was oomed to this melancholy fate, as is known from Pepys's jaculation when he beheld it for the first time, "Lord, what deal he hath!" in the presence of the Duke's goldsmith, hen sorting out the old plate to change for new.

One of Pepys's most gratifying presents was a pair of he noblest silver flagons that he had ever seen, a gift from Ir. (afterwards Sir Dennis) Gauden, Victualler to the Navy. o noble were they that he could not think they were his; ith a merry heart he looked upon them and locked them p. Ever keen to know the intrinsic value of his plate, he ook the flagons to Stevens, the goldsmith, to be weighed, nd to his great joy he was told that their weight was over 12 ounces, valued at five shillings an ounce. He was, owever, astonished that the cost of the workmanship vas so high as from five to ten shillings an ounce.*

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With a proud heart Pepys now shows his plate to his oor relations, who "eyed mightily" his " great cupboard f plate," on the same day that he displayed the Gauden lagons on his table, the whole forming a very fine sight, nd better than he had ever hoped to see of his own. ddition to his cupboard was made shortly afterwards by he gift of a pair of very pretty candlesticks from one Lever, Purser General, much to the surprise of Pepys, who had lone this man no service, but a disservice in the matter of is accounts. Another gift was a pair of large silver candleticks and snuffers, from Harris, the sailmaker.

Not without interest in the history of English silver for he table is the purchase by Pepys of some silver forks in The New Year of 1665, a very early anticipation of the eneral use of silver forks in England. His continued interest plate is shown in January 1666, when he saluted his little Eight shillings was the cost of fashioning the tankard given by Charles II Lord Sandwich (see p. 367).

VOL. LXXVI

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