A universal table furnishing was—

When not in use porringers were hung by their pierced handles on hooks on the edge of the dresser-shelf, and, being usually of polished pewter or silver, indeed made a glittering show. Pewter porringers were highly prized. One family, in 1660, had seven, and another housewife boasted of nine. They were bequeathed in nearly all the early colonial wills. In 1673 John Oxenbridge left three silver porringers and his wife one silver pottinger; but pewter was the favorite metal. I do not find porringers ever advertised under that name in New England papers, though many were made as late as this century by New Haven, Providence, and Boston pewterers. Many bearing the stamps of these manufacturers have been preserved until the present day, seeming to have escaped the sentence of destruction apparently passed on other pewter utensils and articles of tableware. Perhaps they have been saved because the little, shallow, graceful dishes, with flat pierced handle on one side, are really so pretty. The fish-tail handles are found on Dutch pewter. Silver porringers were made by all the silversmiths. Many still exist bearing the stamp of one honored maker, Paul Revere. Little earthen porringers of red pottery and tortoise-shell ware are also found, but are not plentiful.

A similar vessel, frequently handleless, was what was spelt, in various colonial documents, posned, possnet, posnett, porsnet, pocneit, posnert, possenette, postnett, and parsnett. It is derived from the Welsh posned, a porringer or little dish. In 1641 Edward Skinner left a "Postnett" by will; this was apparently of pewter. In 1653 Governor Haynes, of Hartford, left an "Iron Posnet" by will. In the inventory of the estate of Robert Daniel, of Cambridge, in 1655, we learn that "a Little Porsenett" of his was worth five shillings. In 1693 Governor Caleb Carr, of Providence, bequeathed to his wife a "silver possnet & the cover belonging to it." By these records we see that posnets were of various metals, and sometimes had covers. I have found no advertisements of them in early American newspapers, even with all their varied array of utensils and vessels. I fancy the name fell quickly into disuse in this country. In Steele's time, in the Tatler, he speaks of "a silver Posnet to butter eggs." I have heard the tiny little shallow pewter porringers, about two or three inches in diameter, with pierced handles, which are still found in New England, called posnets. They were in olden