Mahakfy — The Post- Assaying on Dated Plate in T. C. D. 45 



estate was bought. Owing to these two clearances of the College plate, 

 nothing remains to us of that date except the vessels given by the donors for 

 the service of the Chapel, which have survived to the present da}-. 



Since then a third revolution (1730) has been disastrous to this precious 

 possession, but not so wholesale in its consequences — it was only a revolution 

 in taste. When the College was rapidly increasing in wealth and hospitality, 

 and required plate for its dinner-table at feasts, which became more expensive 

 all through the eighteenth century, it was found that there were far too many 

 cups and tankards, and insufficient dishes, plates, and other table ware. We 

 have many pieces for table use which were then made, but on which the 

 names of the original donors of the now melted pieces are commemorated. 

 This was not possible in such a transformation as from cups and spoons into 

 a set of dinner plates, which therefore only show the College arms. But as 

 the rest were professedly old gifts only changed in form, the College seems 

 to have evaded the payment of the new tax on silver, and to have saved this 

 expense. Hence the action of the College in 1730. But in 1752 a more 

 stringent law made it desirable that articles previously unassayed or marked 

 should undergo the process, or else they would have no saleable value. Then 

 the objects in the collection which were not marked, or shown to be gifts of 

 ancient date, were sent to the assayers, and of this the salvers of 1730 show 

 plain marks. 



A few much older tinted cups and a pair of old soup-tureens underwent the 

 same process, and so appear to have been made after 1730, whereas their 

 style shows them to be of the date of their gift. 



The main result is- to show that there was such a thing as post-assaying 

 — that an object issued without marks could be sent long afterwards to the 

 assayer, who put on it the legal marks, but not the date-letter, which would 

 have implied a falsehood. 



If, therefore, as I am convinced, we have several pieces much older than 

 1730 in style, not to say older than 1752, marked with hall-marks of the 

 latter date, the Hibernia ceases to be a conclusive evidence of the date of 

 manufacture of any piece of plate, though it is of course a strong presumptive 

 evidence, which must be disproved by clear arguments. 



Since I wrote these words, a closer examination of our plate, in which I 

 followed Mr. Westropp's careful catalogue, has completely convinced me 

 that, in the older pieces of our collection, with donor's name and date of 

 gift plainly visible, which were post-assayed, the year-letter was not omitted 

 by accident or negligence, but on deliberate purpose. 



Here are the facts on which I base this startling statement. In our collection 

 of inscribed pieax, with donor's name and date of gift, we have up to the year 



R.I. A. PROC, VOL. XXXIV., SECT. C. 7 



