XIX. GENERAL HINTS AND WARNINGS
INSCRIBED GLASSES
A collector should not miss an opportunity of buying an inscribed glass cheaply: for instance, a naval rummer, engraved with a cutlass, a dove with the olive-branch, and “Our brave Allies” for 4s. But fine engraved and inscribed modern glasses, imitating though not reproducing exactly the old ones, are on sale in curio-shops.
ROSES, OAK-LEAVES, BIRDS, AND BUTTERFLIES ON GLASS
Eventually any glass with roses, rosebuds, and a bird or butterfly on it will rank as “Jacobite”; glasses with oak-leaves will also be thought symbolical of Boscobel. Other such emblems will be discovered, or are alleged; for instance, the aconite or monk’s-hood flower, considered as an aspiration for another General Monk, who might restore the Stuart line.
OLD GLASSES “ENGRAVED UP”
Jacobite, Williamite, and Hanover or Trafalgar glasses being in great demand, ingenious persons take a real old wine glass, goblet, or rummer, that is plain and innocent at the time, and engrave it with Jacobite emblems or “Bonny Prince Charlie’s” head, or William of Orange on horseback, or “Trafalgar,” or “Nile.” As a rule the evident newness, roughness, and lack of “wear” of such added engraving condemn it, to the eye and to the finger; but very ingenious persons use chemicals, or mud, or attrition, in order to disguise the whitish-grey tint of newly engraved glass; if part of the engraving be “buffed” up—that is, polished till it is bright, transparent, and not the tint of ground glass (see [centre of rose], page 70), detection becomes more difficult.