Chapter III

_Proverb respecting Long Spoons—Attempt to define its
origin—Female Costume—Trains, Steeple Caps, Fardingales and
Ruffs—Extract from an old Sermon—Homily on Dress—Enormous cost of
Ruffs—George Heriot—Oriental long Spoons—Satan’s Household—Other
Proverbs—Conjurers—Mountebanks—Lotteries—Feats of the Spoon on the
Stage—Curious Practice of Morris-dancers—Superstition of the
Goths—Dryden—Gruel—Possets—Spoons doing duty as ferulas—Sir Thomas
More—The Spoon or Spoon-meat typical of Infancy._

The spoon, as is well known to most readers, gave rise to a once celebrated proverb, indicative of the advances of sin and the lengths to which the wicked are led—“_He wants a long spoon who sups with the devil._” The saying is now nearly obsolete, but it was formerly, like the implement itself, in every one’s mouth. Thus Chaucer, in the Squire’s Tale:

What he answerd it nedeth not reherse;
Who can say bet than he, who can do werse
Whan he hath al wel said than he hath done.
Therfore behoveth him a ful _long spone_
That shal ete with a _fend_.

Shakespeare, in the Tempest, makes Stephano exclaim, oh beholding Caliban, “Mercy! Mercy! This is a devil, and no monster; I’ll leave him; I have no _long spoon_.” And in the Comedy of Errors, the whimsical mistakes occasioned by the resemblance of the twins to each other, led the parties to suppose Satan himself was in the performance. Antipholus of Syracuse is invited by a female to dinner, his servant hints to him the character of the hostess:

_Dromio._—Master, if you go, expect spoon-meat, or bespeak a _long
spoon_.

_Ant._—Why, Dromio?

_Dromio._—Marry, he must have a _long spoon_ that must eat with the
devil.

There was in Shakespeare’s time a more substantial reason why those who supped with ladies as well as such as partook of Satan’s hospitality, should have long spoons; and why ladies themselves should have been, as they actually were, furnished with them. “Indeed!” exclaims some female reader; “pray explain.” Certainly, madam; but before doing so, it is expedient to allude to something else.

From the times when primitive British ladies were clad in skins sewed together with sinews and pinned on the person with thorns, to those when Anglo-Saxon dames wore tunics and mufflers, and Norman females wrapped themselves in broidered mantles and copes, and thence to the present days, every age has been distinguished by innovations in _costume_, and of a very marked character. Norman fashions were succeeded in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries by the English gown, bibs, aprons, and corsets. Immense trains were attached to the skirts of gowns. Horned and also steeple caps for the head made their appearance, thus lengthening both extremities of the person to a monstrous extent. A lady, on a visit of ceremony, is said to have sometimes been in the centre of a drawing-room, while the tail of her dress was still in the street. Chaucer is severe on this and other parts of female dress. In the Parson’s Tale, he rails at “the superfluitee of the foresaide gounes, _trailing in the dong_, and in the _myre_, on hors, and eke on foot.” In Dunbar’s Poems, they are represented as performing the part of a besom:

Sic fartingaillis on flaggis als fatt as quhailis
Fattit lyk fulis with hattis that littel availis;
And sic fowill _tailis_ to _sweip the calsay clene_.
[_Poems by W. Dunbar, from the MS. of George Bannatyne. Perth, 1788, p.
52._]

Steeple caps towered about a yard above the heads which bore them, so that ladies in full dress could hardly pass through an ordinary door, or stand in a modern room. Queen Elizabeth, it is well known, carried her head pretty high, in more senses than one, but she had sometimes to bend. Visiting Burleigh, when he was laid up with the gout, she was much incommoded by her head-dress in entering his dwelling. As the stateman’s servant conducted her through the door, he cautioned her to beware of the lintel, saying, “May it please your Highness to stoop.” The haughty dame replied, she would not incline her body to the Spanish King, but on this occasion would bend to see his master. For specimens of steeple caps, see illustrations in current editions of Froissart, copied from illuminated MSS. particularly Isabella, wife of Edward I. entering Paris; the Dutchess of Montfort entering Nantes, and Philippa, consort of Edward III.

The sixteenth and part of the seventeenth century were characterized by long bodices, puffed sleeves, the famous fardingale, and celebrated ruff. The huge cylindrical petticoat was projected by hoops as much at the hips as at the feet, so that the wearer seemed as if she stood through an opening in the centre of a round table, the linen cover of which reached down to the ground, and upon which she could arrange a variety of apparatus, such as a lady’s work-bag usually contains—strongly reminding one of Chinese pedlars of small wares, who carry about goods on a somewhat similar looking contrivance. “The great ladies at Genoa (observes Evelyn) go in horrible overgrown vertigals of whalebone, which being put about the waist of the lady, and full as _broad on both sides as she can reach with her hands_ bear out her coats in such a manner that she appears to be as broad as long.” See a portrait of Anne of Denmark, wife of James I. usually found in works on costume.

The stiff ruff round the neck sometimes projected so far that a plumb-line dropped from its edge would nearly coincide with the periphery of the petticoat. At other times, it was pinned up round the ears, forming a fluted and inverted truncated cone or rather, it resembled the outer leaves of a rose protecting the blushing beauty within. Portraits of Queen Elizabeth exhibit both modes of wearing the ruff. A smaller kind was worn by men in like manner, as may be seen in portraits of Bacon, Dudley, Sidney, Cecil, and others of that and the following age. See also Dutch portraits, of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and illustrated works of those periods—the ruff is represented enormously thick and proportionally broad. Both it and the fardingale are noticed by Cervantes.

Few parts of female apparel excited more notice than ruffs, and on none were bestowed more attention and regard. Cambric was first imported into England, (from Cambray in Flanders, and hence its name,) for the purpose of making them, and numerous were the devices for forming and stiffening the plaits. About the year 1574, an invention of great merit, in the estimation of ladies, was made, since it rendered the ruff much more commodious to the wearer, and increased the facility of dressing and putting it in shape. This was the famous “poking stick”—a polished steel implement which, when heated, was used for stiffening and plaiting the starched frills. The ladies had cause to rejoice that “setting pins” (slips of whalebone, &c. formerly concealed in the plaits in the manner of fans) were thus superseded. These uncomfortable adjuncts formed a species of _chevaux de frise_, enclosing the neck, and not only keeping other people, but in a manner themselves, at arms length. Ruffs were not unlike the Chinese _cangue_, a thick board like a table, resting on the shoulders of a criminal, his head being passed through a hole in the centre—a device often compared to “a frill or collar.” It prevents the wearer from reaching his mouth, so that unless fed by his friends he would inevitably perish with hunger.

Now, it has doubtless already occurred to our fair querist that, however elegant and fashionable ruffs formerly were, they must have been extremely incommodious at _meal times_. It is manifest no lady could with an ordinary spoon convey food to her lips without crushing or otherwise spoiling the most cherished part of her attire. The result was, long-handled implements came into vogue, and were not disused till “setting-pins” and “poking sticks” were laid aside, and the dimensions of ruffs diminished.

For ladies’ sakes, the following enumeration of fashionable articles of costume is taken from a sermon preached in the fourteenth century to worldly-minded misses: “Thus the devil farith with men and women: first, he stirreth them to pappe and pamper their flesh, desiring delicious meates and drinkes; and so they hop on the pillar of the devil’s temptation, with their _horns_, _locks_, _garlands of gold and rich pearls_, _cauls_, _fillets_ and _wimples_, and _riddled gowns_ and _rockets_, _colors_, _laces_, _jackes_, _paltockes_, with their long _crakowes_; and thus the devil beareth them upon the pillar to teach them to fly above simple folk, and saith they shall not hurt themselves—but he lieth falsely, for unless they are as sorry therefore as ever they were glad, they shall leap down from the pillar into the pit of hell!” Horned caps were too conspicuous objects to escape the good father’s censure. The _wimple_ was a species of hood that covered the head, neck, and shoulders. _Paltockes_—doublets, and probably pantalettes; such as worn by Turkish females. _Crakowes_, long pointed shoes.

Of the homilies appointed by Queen Elizabeth to be read in churches, the one on excess of apparel has some warm denunciations against wimples, mufflers, head-bands, crisping pins, ladies mincing as they went, and nicely treading with their feet. The gentlemen catch it also, with their _velvets_, _furred gowns_, _corked slippers_, _trim buskins_, and the multitudes of _changes of dress_—_one of this colour, another of that_, one for _morning_, another for _afternoon_, this in _Spanish_, that in the _Turkish fashion_, &c. The evil had risen to such a height that “neither Almighty God by his word, nor godly and necessary laws, could stop it.” “One spendeth his patrimony in _pounces and cuts_, another bestoweth more on a _dancing shirt_ than might suffice to buy apparel for his whole body. _Some hang their revenues about their necks, ruffling with their ruffs!_” All the world knows immense wealth, in the shape of jewels, is often pendant from a lady’s neck, but few persons are aware that gentlemen formerly laid out fortunes on _frills_, and had peculiar _shirts_ to dance in.

George Heriot, goldsmith to James I. is figured with a ruff consisting of plaits piled one over another, the whole being at least six inches thick, and projecting in proportion. He never could have conveniently fed himself with “cock-a-leekie,” or “crowdy,” the favorite dishes of King Jamie, with anything like a modern spoon, without deranging if not defiling his frill. Yet his and his master’s were of moderate dimensions compared with those of the gallants of their days.

Long spoons are common with the Turks, Persians, and most Asiatics. They are mentioned by old travellers as “reaching a great way.” The proverb associated with them no doubt arose from the primitive custom, still prevalent over the greater part of the earth, of the inmates of a house eating out of one dish. The tables on this account approaching a circular form, so as to give every individual an equal chance at the provision; like the knights at Arthur’s Round Table. In large households, the tables were necessarily made in proportion, and as the dish was placed at the centre, the implements were adapted to reach it without rising. An idea has always prevailed that Satan’s household never was a small one; spoons therefore much longer than common were supposed to be required by those invited to a seat at his table.

Other proverbs are connected with the subject. Henry IV. quoted one, when rebuked for his clemency to his foes—“More flies are caught by a _spoon_-full of honey than with a hogshead of vinegar.” Perhaps the best description of a vain-glorious person is one in which he is represented as taking in praise like porridge, and “_licking the spoon_!”

Silver spoons, almost as much as anything else, afforded employment to conjurers and wise women of yore. Frequently stolen, their disconsolate owners had recourse to rustic oracles, who, with ‘wand,’ ‘magic mirror,’ ‘key and book,’ ‘sieve and sheers,’ or other cabalistic implements, found out the rogues. Sometimes the more learned professors of occult sciences were employed—men who consulted the stars on the fate of kingdoms, stray cattle, lost keys, and goods of every description and value.

They’d search a planet’s house to know
Who broke and robbed a house below;
Examine Venus and the moon,
Who stole a thimble or a _spoon_.—_Hudibras_, _Canto_ I.

Another class of men, whose glory has also departed, found a source of profit in spoons, viz.: _Mountebanks_, who were originally travelling venders of physic—a species of merchandise associated with rather unpleasant ideas—one ill adapted to form the staple of a lucrative trade. But, shrewd and observing, the itinerant quack knew the weak points of the species, and that to succeed he had only to keep his customers in good humor. Like a nurse coaxing sick children into love with the doctor’s prescription, he tickled his hearers with the wonders his nostrums had wrought, and sold pills out of the same package for every complaint of man or beast. As people, however, are not always sick, he reminded them that they were daily in danger of being so; and hence the wisdom of buying pills which not only removed disease but prevented its approach. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, he added to his stock various light articles, as tapes, rings, ribbons, bodkins, scissors, spoons, knives, razors, tea-pots, trays, calicoes, and eventually introduced them in lotteries—expatiating on their superior qualities with a fluency which rivaled that of ‘Kikero’—as a country pedagogue of our acquaintance insists on pronouncing the name of the Roman orator.

The poets of the last century often complimented these amusing artists, as Gay in his Sixth Pastoral:

The mountebank now treads the stage and sells
His pills, his balsams, and his ague spells;

· · · · ·

Of lotteries, next with tuneful note he told,
Where _silver spoons_ were won, and rings of gold.

The same gentry were very numerous in ancient Greece and Rome, and quite as clever as their present representatives. They dealt in trinkets and small wares, whose virtues were fully equal to modern ones. Eudamus, mentioned by Aristophanes, peddled finger-rings, for protecting the wearers from the bite of serpents or other venomous animals! Like recent artists of the same profession, he probably sold razors so sharp as would shave sleeping cats without wakening them, and spoons which rendered loathsome food pleasant, and poisoned food innocuous.

Modern mountebanks sometimes wound up the business of a lottery with general satisfaction, by providing from two to six bowls of _hasty pudding_, to partake of which an equal number of their patrons were invited to step on the stage. The food was scalding hot, and being retained in wooden bowls lost little of its heat ere passed to its destination. He who transmitted the contents of one bowl to his stomach in the shortest time was the victor, and bore off the prize; which was sometimes the spoon he had used. When every thing was prepared, the contest began on a signal given by the generous provider of the feast, and instantly accompanied with acclamations of the bystanders. The witty remarks of Mr. Merryman caused roars of laughter to become, like approaching thunder, louder and louder, until the rain descended, and the faces of the multitudes were fairly washed in their own tears. Before the performers half finished the task, their visages acquired the temperature and color of fire, in spite of streams of perspiration with which they were flooded.

This employment of the spoon was at one time so common as to have given rise to the soubriquet by which the principal performer was, and still is, distinguished—_Jean Potage_ in France—_Jack Pudding_ in England.

Here we see the spoon taking an active part in the _public sports_ of the people, as well as in furthering their private pleasures. It entered into an _innocent_ contest, which the knife or the sword never did. It achieved a bloodless conquest, and as an emblem of victory was often stuck on one side of the hat, by way of cockade. And let not the disciple of Chesterfield sneer at these rustic entertainments of ignorant times, for the effects on both actors and spectators were more beneficial in shaking off the gross humors of the system than cart loads of physic or wagon loads of sermons.

The spoon in another respect assisted old charlatans, and in that part of their performances most interesting to themselves and trying to spectators—viz. in making the collection. The morris dancer, at the close of every act, put a large spoon or ladle in the mouth of the hobby-horse and made it career round the ring to solicit donations, when we may suppose few could resist the moving appeal. [_See Douce’s Illustrations of Shakespeare._]

The caldron and ladle have been employed in forbidden matters. Witches made ‘hell broth’ in one, and stirred up the ingredients with the other—making the gruel thick and slab—but the food entered no mortal stomach, and hence no mortal spoon was wanted. This may be inferred from older writers than Shakespeare—from Saxo Grammaticus and Olaus Magnus. They tell us about the practices of ‘women witches of the North, where the devil truly hath his seat’—of the ‘gruel’ and ‘earthen pot wherein the juices, herbs, worms and entrails’ were boiled, &c. but not a whisper about the spoon. Eventually the law of nature taught the Goths to detest devils and their dams, for it often happened that famines ensued when men obeyed them: ‘birds and beasts forsook the woods, and fish the waters, and would not come back again [to be eaten] until such time as the Divine Majesty was pacified by prayers and benedictions of the sacred clergy.’ So says the Reverend Archbishop of Upsal.

In satirical writings, allusions to _spoon-meats_ were formerly common. When a passionate combatant had no other resource, he too often vented his wrath in gross personalities. Thus Dryden: ‘Go back to where thy infancy began, eat pap and _spoon-meats_;’ or when a fling was made at people’s diet, as in the Scornful Lady of Beaumont and Fletcher: ‘Faith, sir, here are no _oats_ to be got, unless you’l have ’em in porredge; the people are so given to _spoon-meats_.’ A similar allusion to oatmeal gruel is made by Du Bartas:

And in a dish, for want of plate or glass,
Sups oaten drink instead of hippocras.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries oatmeal gruel constituted the regular breakfast and supper of children. Dryden has an allusion to it in the ‘Wild Gallant’:—‘_Boy_: These last three weeks I have almost forgot what my teeth were made for. Last night good Mrs. Bibber took pity on me, and crammed me a mess of gruel _with the children_, and I popt and popt my spoon three or four times to my mouth before I could find the way to it.’

If the spoon was the first thing wanted in a morning, it was often the last thing laid aside at night; for when youngsters broke their fast with porridge, old people wound up the day’s labor with posset,—a hot mixture of milk and mulled wine, and frequently taken in bed. The custom is repeatedly mentioned in old writers. Page promised Falstaff a posset, and Mrs. Quickly cheered Rugby with the hopes of another. Lady Macbeth drugged the posset of Duncan’s grooms. Thomas Heywood, a contemporary of Shakespeare notices the custom: “Thou shalt be welcome to beef and bacon, and perhaps a bag pudding; and my daughter Nell shall pop a posset upon thee when thou goest to bed.”

Besides feeding boys and girls, the spoon has been known to remind them when they do ill, its bowl being now and then applied to their pates, to teach them better manners. Among refined people or with mild housewives, this of course never occurs; but passionate cooks, when teased by young impertinents, seldom stop to reflect on the impropriety of using the same implement to baste a boy’s head and a roasting pig. In country parts this practice is probably more frequent than in cities, _one_ thing there being often necessarily put to _many_ uses. Like a faithful nurse, the spoon goes out of its way to benefit young folks by performing duties towards them that do not belong to it.

In some regions, poor people are not over-nice in their tastes—it’s a merciful dispensation they are not. When the Highland hostess took her son’s cap off his head, and immediately boiled in it a pudding for Sam. Johnson’s dinner, she made the most of her resources, did the best her limited stock of dry goods would permit, and displayed as much ingenuity in the application of an old thing to a new purpose, as one half of those do who secure their inventions by patents. There is no doubt that such a lady, when busily engaged in making “stirabout” for her family, would hasten the movements of a desidiose boy by applying the implement she was wielding to his sconce, as well as by threatening to withhold the contents of the kettle from his lips. To be sure, such a practice is not very cleanly; but what can a country matron in like circumstances do? She cannot leave the porridge to “burn” or “boil over,” in order to seek a suitable rod; if she did, in all probability the individual for whose benefit it was sought, would be _non est inventus_ when she returned.

During the fierce contests between the advocates of faith and the champions of works, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the spoon was sometimes introduced. On one occasion it proved a powerful weapon in the hands of Sir Thomas More. See how skillfully he wields it:—“I would wene one _sponeful_ of good works should no more kill y^e soule, then a potager of good wurts should kill and destroi y^e bodie.” Wurts is the old name for unfermented beer—a sweet infusion of malt—and is an aperient. This was an argument _ad hominum_, or rather _ad stomachus._ In it the Chancellor administered, and in a very quiet way, a medicine that could not help moving their bowels; and it did move them—for those whom he thus addressed at length slew him. But such occasions are not the only ones where the spoon was associated with religious controversies or ceremonies, as the sequel of this essay will show.

The spoon, or ‘spoon meat,’ and ‘strong meat,’ have ever been typical of infancy and manhood—of weak and vigorous intellects. Paul tells the Hebrews they could only digest pap or spoon meats of children, instead of the strong food of men. “Ye have need of milk, and not of strong meat. Every one that useth milk is a babe, but strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age.” Solomon has the same idea: it is in fact common as the spoon.