white carnation pattern, Worcester china cider mug with the crescent
mark. These mugs are said to have been specially made for the
Shakespeare Jubilee of 1769 at Stratford-on-Avon when Garrick was
present. The date corresponds with the time when the mark was in use,
and establishes the age of the mug as 150 years. The china in my old
neighbourhood was naturally Worcester, Bristol and Salopian, of which
I have many specimens--of the Worcester more especially--ranging from
the earliest days of unmarked pieces through the Dr. Wall period,
Barr, Flight and Barr, down to the later Chamberlain.

An old pair of bellows is a favourite of mine; it is made of pear-tree
wood, decorated with an incised pattern of thistles and foliage,
referring possibly to the Union of England and Scotland in 1707, or as
a Jacobite emblem of a few years later. The carving is surrounded by
the motto:

"WITH MEE MY FREND MAY STILL BE FREE YET VSE MEE
NOT TILL COLD YOV BEE."

These old bellows show unmistakable signs of their more than 200 years
of honourable service, and they have literally breathed their last
though still surviving; but it would be sacrilege to renew the
leather, and might disturb the ghosts of generations of old ladies who
blew the dying embers into a ruddy glow when awaiting, in the twilight
of a winter's evening, their good-men's return from the field or the
chase.

One of my greatest finds was a pair of Chippendale chairs at a sale at
Mickleton at the foot of the Cotswolds; they belong to the early part
of the Chippendale period, before the Chinese style was abandoned.