CHAP. XXIV. USE OF GOLD AND SILVER. 207 



sented to the Duke of Maryborough may have 

 stimulated the more opulent part of the nobility 

 and such public bodies as were possessed of wealth 

 to attempt to imitate, if not to rival, the splendid 

 decorations of the heroic and successful general. 

 However that may be, it seems that the mass of 

 old silver and gold articles of furniture still re- 

 maining in its ancient form is of the fabrication 

 of that reign. This is the case with the plate 

 of the Duke of Devonshire, and of other distin- 

 guished families, as well as of that belonging to 

 the Goldsmiths' Company of London and to other 

 public bodies. 



The introduction of tea, but especially the ex- 

 tension which it gradually received, till it has be- 

 come the daily fare of almost the whole com- 

 munity, had an influence on the consumption of 

 silver for small spoons. They were scarcely 

 known in the previous reign, but multiplied in 

 the reign of Anne, and have gone on increasing 

 from that time to the present, when they may 

 be counted by millions, perhaps by hundrecfs of 

 millions. 



Between the reign of Anne and the latter end 

 of that of George the second, the progress of the 

 application of silver and gold was at a slower pace ; 

 but between 1760 and 1770 a fresh impulse seems 

 to have been given, which has continued up to the 

 present time, though with some variations in its 

 rapidity. When table-spoons of silver had super- 



