The passion for possessing fine vases has outstripped these prices at Naples; 2,400 ducats, or £500, was given for the vase with gilded figures discovered at Cumæ. Still more incredible, half a century back, 8,000 ducats, £1,500, was paid to Vivenzio for the vase in the Museo Borbonico representing the last night of Troy; 6,000 ducats, or £1,000, for the one with a Dionysiac feast; and 4,000 ducats, or £800, for the vase with the grand battle of the Amazons, published by Shultz. But such sums will not be hereafter realised, not that taste is less, but that fine vases are more common. No sepulchre has been spared when detected, and no vase neglected when discovered; and vases have been exhumed with more activity than the most of precious relics.
OLD WALKING STICKS.
It would seem that at the present time the fashion of carrying walking-sticks has to a considerable extent "gone out." So great is the bustle in our city thoroughfares, that the use of a staff, except by those who are lame, is seldom adopted by business people. Professional men still affect the custom, however; and your City man, although he may repudiate the use of a walking-stick in town, straps a good sapling to his portmanteau whenever he has a chance of getting amongst the woods and green fields. About a century and a-half ago everybody carried a cane. Dr. Johnson, Oliver Goldsmith, and a host of others, considered a good stick as necessary as a coat; and a collection of these staves would, if they could be had at the present day, be valuable, not only as relics, but also as an indication of the characters of the owners, perhaps.
In former times, a golden-mounted stick or staff was commonly used by both the male and female heads of families. Queen Elizabeth carried one of these towards the end of her life. They were then more frequently used, however, as a sign of authority than for any other purpose.
The staff was a weapon long before flint-headed arrows and such-like instruments were invented. Sheriffs, and others high in authority, have wands or staffs borne before them on important occasions; the bishops' pastoral staff is as old as episcopal authority.
In former times the running footmen, who, in a body of half-a-dozen, on each side of a carriage ran to alarm robbers and to assist the lumbering vehicle out of the ruts, were well armed with stout staves. At the present time they are still carried by the Plush family, although the use of them is not so clear. In the royal state processions, the footmen with their staves walk as in former days, and we should be sorry were these little bits of ceremony dispensed with, inasmuch as they bring to recollection a former condition of things, which makes us feel comfortable by comparison.
The monstrous sticks shown in the engraving are drawn from specimens which have been preserved by dealers in London, and put as a sort of sign at the doors of umbrella and walking-stick dealers. These were, however, a century ago, common enough, and might have been seen by the hundred together, borne by tall footmen behind ladies dressed in the old hooped dresses which we are trying now to imitate. At that time there was also a taste for various kinds of monsters, in China, wood, and other materials. Monkeys and pug-dogs were made pets of, and the sticks of the footmen fashioned into such ugly forms as no modern bogey ever dreamed of.
These clubs, sticks, maces, or whatever they may be called, were about six feet high, and were in parts painted and gilt. The centre one is an elm-sapling, and the natural bumps have been taken advantage of by the artist to model a sort of Moorish head, with ornamental covering; lower down, the knobs are fashioned into terrible heads, in which are mounted glass eyes of various and impossible colours.
