FIG. 18.—JACOBITE GOBLETS.
(From the Rees Price Collection, by permission of the Connoisseur.)
and one of the most interesting of commemorative glasses refers to him:
“Let no deceipt within your glass be found,
But glorious Watkin’s health go briskly round.”
The motto of the Cycle Club appears to have been the Latin “Fiat” (“May it happen”), and this word is generally found engraved on Jacobite glasses, which are, in consequence, often referred to as “Fiat” glasses. A “Fiat” glass is shown in Fig. 21, and other excellent specimens of Jacobite glasses in Fig. 19. Another motto is “Redeat.”
The best of the Jacobite glasses bear the portrait of “Bonnie Prince Charlie” on the bowl, encircled by a wreath of laurel, flanked on each side by Scotland’s emblematic thistle. Others have two roses supporting the laurels. Sometimes there is the Stuart rose, with two buds, a reference, perhaps, to James II. and his two sons. The design, too, not unfrequently includes an oak leaf, a reference to Charles II.’s escape from the Roundheads, after the battle of Worcester, by taking refuge in an oak, while
“Far below the Roundhead rode
And humm’d a surly hymn.”
Some also are engraved, in addition, with a star—the symbol of a hope never realised by the hapless Stuart line. Most of these emblems may be found in the two specimens shown in Fig. 19.
I have sometimes found the portrait of the Pretender with oak leaves, thistle, and rose, in place of the usual “Fiat,” and the motto “Audentior Ibo.”
These glasses have usually air-drawn or knopped stems and funnel-shaped bowls. These Jacobite glasses are among the luckiest “finds” of the collector of Old English glass, and it is needless to say that the greatest care is essential in purchasing anything which purports to be a genuine specimen. “Fiat” glasses, especially those bearing the portrait of the Pretender, are imitated in considerable numbers and generally disposed of through the shops of small country dealers, pawnbrokers, etc.; but I have seen specimens, even in galleries and large shops in London, which were flagrant frauds, a fact which should have been perfectly patent to the vendors. So caveat emptor.