64 THE WEDGWOODS. * 



One description of vessel made in the pot-works of Staf- 

 fordshire and Derbyshire for Chesterfield, in the latter 

 county, produced some of the best may not be generally 

 known to the readers of this volume, and therefore a few 

 words concerning them may appropriately be introduced. 

 I allude to posset pots. These have been made and regu- 

 larly used in these and some neighbouring counties from an 

 early period until the last few years. " Posset," my readers 

 will need to be told, is an excellent mixture of hot ale, milk, 

 sugar, spices, and small slices of bread or oat-cake. In 

 Derbyshire and Staffordshire, and their neighbourhood, this 

 beverage was formerly almost, if not quite, universal for 

 supper on Christmas Eve, and the "posset pot" was thus 

 used but once a year, and became often an heir-loom in the 

 family. A small silver coin, and the wedding ring of the 

 mistress of the family, were generally dropped into the 

 posset when the guests were assembled, and those who 

 partook of it took each a spoonful in turn as the "pot" 

 was handed round. Whichever of the party fished up the 



coin was considered certain of good luck in the coming year, 

 while an early and happy marriage was believed to be the 

 certain fate of the lucky individual who fished up the ring. 

 A posset pot, here engraved, of much the same kind of ware 



Chelsea, and was indeed the distinguishing mark of that celebrated make. 

 Those three spots were simply the marks of the stilts, not of the manu- 

 factory, and may be seen on Delft, and indeed almost all other kinds of 

 ware, and of every period. 



