les of about one
hundred years ago, some very interesting specimens of which are to be
seen in several of the larger local museums.

Spectacles are of very respectable age, although they cannot be traced
back to the ancient peoples, for the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans,
notwithstanding that they polished glass and rock crystal and possessed
much scientific lore, were ignorant of their use as aids to sight.

It is said that the credit of the discovery of how to make use of
artificial aids to defective sight must be accorded to Roger Bacon, who
in his book _Opus Majus_, published in the thirteenth century, mentioned
magnifying glasses as being useful to old people to make them see
better. True spectacles are said to have been fashioned in 1317 by
Salvino degli Armati, a Florentine nobleman. At first they were convex;
indeed, no mention of concave glasses for shortsighted persons was made
until towards the middle of the sixteenth century. From that time onward
there were developments, and among the household curios are to be found
silver, brass, and tortoiseshell rims, and glasses of more or less
utility.

Curious China Ware.

Old china and pottery have been fully dealt with by many specialist
writers, but there are some household curios made of porcelain, china,
and earthenware which cannot be omitted from this survey of household
curios. Foremost among these are the now scarce Toby jugs, made at so
many of the famous potteries. In a large collection the variations are
at once recognized; yet the same idea seems to have run through the
minds of the artists in fashioning these jugs, so essentially typical of
the age in which they were made and used. Among the Sunderland jugs are
many variations both in size and colouring; they were rich in colours,
too, and look exceedingly well on an old cabinet.

The posset cups of silver were supplemented by tygs and posset cups and
many-handled drinking cups of early Staffordshire make. The brown and
yellow slip decoration of this ware is a striking characteristic. All
the early seventeenth-century ale drinking cups like the tygs had
handles, and in those days of conviviality the double or multiplied
handle served a useful purpose, for the vessels were in use when it was
the custom of the ale-house for several friends to drink out of one
vessel, just as in more polite society and on public occasions the
loving cup was passed round.

Some of the so-called portrait busts and st