JACOBITE “FIRING” GLASS, SHOWING THE STAR AND THE ROSEBUD
The rarest form of Jacobite glasses is the short toasting or firing glass, for strong waters, of “Hogarth” shape. I possess one of these; it has a “Norwich” foot; the thickness of the base of the bowl, and the “tear” in that and the short bulbous stem, seem to date it at about 1725, so that it will be an “Old Pretender” glass. It is very beautifully engraved with the six-petalled rose, the two buds, the word “Fiat,” the rising star and the (Boscobel) oak-leaf. It had been kept in an armoury, belonging to a collector who did not collect old glass.
JACOBITE FIRING-GLASS: NOTE THE TERRACED OR “NORWICH” FOOT AND THE “TEAR” IN THE BALUSTER STEM: ALSO THE CENTRE OF THE ROSE, BRIGHT AMIDST THE GROUND-GLASS PETALS
No wonder people hunt for Jacobite glasses. They were the romantic, loyal, treasonable vessels which were emptied to the toast of “his Majesty over the water,” in clandestine and dangerous gatherings of fair women and conspiring men. Then the great punch-bowl was filled with water, to represent the narrow seas, and the red wine sparkled in the glasses held out above it; as often at loyal Georgian assemblies a Jacobite would be seen to hold his wine glass above a tumbler of water, if called on to drink to “the King”:
Then all leapt up and joined their hands
With hearty clasp and greeting,
The brimming cups, outstretched by all,
Over the wide bowl meeting:
“A health!” they cried, “to witching eyes
Of sweetheart, wife, or daughter,
But never forget the white, white rose,
That blooms for us over the water!”
Flip these old glasses with the finger-nail, and they ring like a tuning-fork; draw thumb and finger upwards to the edge of the bowl, and you hear a clear faint resonance, sad as the wailings after Culloden, when final defeat had come.