OLD SHEFFIELD PLATED CHESTNUT DISH.
Plain design in Queen Anne style: silver gadrooned edges: lion mask handles. Date 1810.
(In the collection of B. B. Harrison, Esq.)
OLD SHEFFIELD PLATED FRUIT BASKET.
In fluted oval base, with four scroll feet. Wire work design; broad gadrooned rim. Date 1810.
(By courtesy of Walter H. Willson, Esq.)
Perhaps nowadays the hotel and restaurant habit has contributed not a little to disturbing the pride that the Englishman took in his own table. A hundred years ago, and right down to the time immediately preceding our own—the days of Thackeray and Dickens—there was a keen regard by the host for the appointments of his table. He carefully laid down wine, he personally supervised his cellars and knew the temperature necessary to maintain the character of the contents of his bins. He was a connoisseur in wines; nowadays he leaves that sort of thing to his wine-merchant. He kept an eye, too, on the plate closet, and knew to a nicety what particular services and what special vessels fitted functions over which he presided. Perhaps life has become more complex for him to-day, possibly he now pays more attention to his golf clubs and his motor-car. He has more extraneous pleasures, and after all modernity has its claims on his time. He may suffer less from gout than did his sires. But as a giver of a feast, as a host with inner knowledge, as a man sensitive for the palates of his guests, the modern host is not the same host as was his grandfather.