Spectacles are of very respectable age, although they cannot be traced back to the ancient peoples, for the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, notwithstanding that they polished glass and rock crystal and possessed much scientific lore, were ignorant of their use as aids to sight.
It is said that the credit of the discovery of how to make use of artificial aids to defective sight must be accorded to Roger Bacon, who in his book _Opus Majus_, published in the thirteenth century, mentioned magnifying glasses as being useful to old people to make them see better. True spectacles are said to have been fashioned in 1317 by Salvino degli Armati, a Florentine nobleman. At first they were convex; indeed, no mention of concave glasses for shortsighted persons was made until towards the middle of the sixteenth century. From that time onward there were developments, and among the household curios are to be found silver, brass, and tortoiseshell rims, and glasses of more or less utility.
Old china and pottery have been fully dealt with by many specialist writers, but there are some household curios made of porcelain, china, and earthenware which cannot be omitted from this survey of household curios. Foremost among these are the now scarce Toby jugs, made at so many of the famous potteries. In a large collection the variations are at once recognized; yet the same idea seems to have run through the minds of the artists in fashioning these jugs, so essentially typical of the age in which they were made and used. Among the Sunderland jugs are many variations both in size and colouring; they were rich in colours, too, and look exceedingly well on an old cabinet.
The posset cups of silver were supplemented by tygs and posset cups and many-handled drinking cups of early Staffordshire make. The brown and yellow slip decoration of this ware is a striking characteristic. All the early seventeenth-century ale drinking cups like the tygs had handles, and in those days of conviviality the double or multiplied handle served a useful purpose, for the vessels were in use when it was the custom of the ale-house for several friends to drink out of one vessel, just as in more polite society and on public occasions the loving cup was passed round.