IN THE MIDDLE AGES.

263 favourite cup. Witness Spenser's musical and vivid descrip- tion of " A mazer ywrought of the maple warre, Wherein is enchased many a fayre sight Of bears and tygers, that maken fiers warre ; And over them spred a goodly wilde vine, Eutrailed with a wanton yvy twine. Thereby is a lanibc in the wolves jawes; But see, how fast renneth the shejiheard swain To save the innocent from the beastes pawes. And here with his sheepehooke hath him slain. Tell me, such a cuji hast thou ever seene ? Well mought it beseeme any harvest queene." The Shephkard's Calender — August. The latest of oiu- poets who alludes to it is Drydeu: in the seventeenth century it may have been still in use anion 2; the humbler classes. The annexed cut represents a very perfect mazer" of the times of Richard the Se- cond ; its mate- rial is a highly polished wood, :.Ia',rbo.r; temr Fi< r. apparently maple, and the embossed rim of silver gilt ° bears this legend : — " En tl)t name of )t trinitc fillc tlje fettp antr DiinfvC 10 mr." In the lapse of time and advance of refinement, Ave find on the tables of the opulent, drinking-vessels of other forms and various names. The hanap, a cup raised on a stem, either with or without a cover ; its form in the early part of the four- teenth century is shewn in the tail-piece, p. 180 ante; the cup said to have been given by King John to the corporation of Lynn is of the same species, as also the accompanying fine specimen of the sixteenth century from the collection of plate " " One mazer w"' one edgle of sylver." Shirley, Esq., M.P., wlio lias kindly per- Wills &c. (Surtees Society), ]i. 41.5. niittcd it to be engraved for this paper. " In the possession of Evelyn Philip