Ranelagh, where the entertainments of which relics in the shape of beautifully engraved tickets are to be found, was at Chelsea, and the gardens visited by Walpole, Johnson, and Goldsmith were famous for their promenades and for the music and singing which might be enjoyed, among the evening pleasures being displays of fireworks and masked dances. In the summer tea and coffee were sipped under the trees, and there were water carnivals on the river. There were also masquerade balls and dances, for which tickets engraved by Bartolozzi and other famous artists were issued. It is these tickets which are preserved and collected now.
The autograph hunter extends his hobby by adding old parchments and deeds with seals, for among the odd bundles of parchments in old libraries are many documents attested with thumb-marks and seals—"His mark," of days when many of the landed proprietors could not write their own names.
FIG. 78.—ANCIENT CLOG ALMANAC.
The joys of St. Valentine's Day, remembered by older people still, are unknown to the present generation, but collectors perpetuate February 14th as it was kept in the past by filling albums with such old valentines as they may be able to secure.
Watch Papers.
Another comparatively small collection can be made up of pictorial watch papers, those rare little pictorial views which once reposed in the interior of the cases of old watches. Watches are by no means common curios of the household, but now and then an old silver verge or a decorated watch case thought little of is found to contain one of those pretty pictures which were chiefly engraved and printed in the eighteenth century. Many of the designs were printed on satin; some were devices in needlework; again others were cut out in the most lace-like designs. Theatrical celebrities were often pictured; thus the theatrical amateur would buy his watch paper representing the celebrated Miss Gunning, or possibly Mr. Garrick. The pictures were really gems, too, for great artists such as Angelica Kaufmann, Cipriani, and Bartolozzi did not disdain to engrave watch papers.