EARLY GERMAN DRINKING CUP.
The above, taken from the Londesborough collection, is a good example of the German drinking cups of fanciful shape, which were so much in fashion in that country in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The specimen before us is of silver, and dated 1619. The mill and scroll ornament on the cup are gilt. It was held in the hand to be filled, and could not be set down until emptied; the drinker, blowing through the tube into the mill, set the sails in motion, and reversed the cup on the table.
THE KING'S STONE.
Kingston-on-Thames is among the oldest of English towns; and is said to have been "the metropolis of the Anglo-Saxon kings:" certainly it was a famous place when the Romans found and conquered the Britons in this locality: there are indeed arguments for believing that the "ford" which Cæsar crossed was here, and not at Walton; and indications of barrows, fosses, and ramparts of Roman origin, are to be found in many places in the neighbourhood. It is more than probable that a bridge was constructed by the Romans here, and that a fortress was erected for its protection. The Saxons followed in due course, and here they had many contests with their enemies the Danes; but A.D. 838, Egbert convened at Kingston an assembly of ecclesiastics and nobles in council, and here, undoubtedly, many of the Saxon kings were crowned: "The townish men," says Leland, "have certen knowledge that a few kinges were crounid afore the Conqueste." Its first charter was from King John, and many succeeding sovereigns accorded to it various grants and immunities. During the war between Charles I. and the Parliament, Kingston was the scene of several "fights," being always on the side of the king. The town is now populous and flourishing, although without manufactures of any kind. Since the establishment of a railway, villa residences have largely increased in the neighbourhood; and the two suburbs, Surbiton and Norbiton, are pretty and densely-crowded villages of good houses. The church has suffered much from mutilation and restoration; it is a spacious structure, and was erected about the middle of the fourteenth century, on the site of an earlier edifice. Amongst the monuments is a fine brass, to a civilian and his wife, of the year 1437. Of existing antiquities there are but few: county historians, however, point out the sites of the ancient Saxon palace, "the castle," the Jews' quarter, and the Roman town, Tamesa; and the game of "foot-ball," it is said, is still practised by the inhabitants on Shrove Tuesday, in commemoration of the feats of their ancestors, by whom the head of a king-assassin was "kicked" about the town. But perhaps the most interesting object now to be found in Kingston is "The King's Stone." It had long remained neglected, though not unknown, among disregarded heaps of débris in "the new court-yard," when it occurred to some zealous and intelligent antiquaries that so venerable a relic of remote ages was entitled to some show of respect. It was consequently removed from its degraded position, planted in the centre of the town, and enclosed by a "suitable" iron railing. It is now, therefore, duly and properly honoured, as may be seen by the preceding engraving.