Notes On Literature, Science And Art.

and subsequently coated over with a transparent glaze . This was the Assyrian and Persian process . To find a white opaque enamel , which could be applied direct on a coloured clay and adhere firmly to it , was a great discovery . " By using this tin enamel judiciously all

over the Pottery-ware , so as to make it more or less opaque as he wished , Lucca Delia Robia produced his famous Majolica , so called from its exportation from the island of Majorca ( the Spanish Mallorca ) to Italy , early in the fifteenth century . But it

was in Italy itself that the manufacture of Majolica attained its hi ghest perfection , so that even Perugmo , Michael Angelo , and Raphael , are said to have painted this peculiar Pottery . But keen competition , whilst it destroys monopolies , also

engenders innumerable knaveries ; and as our English manufacturers now are seeking only to make the best imitation of good articles , instead of the best manufactures , so did the Potters of the seventeenth century , in Italy , . France , Holland , and elsewhere . At Delft , in South Holland , some nine miles from Rotterdam , a blue and white imitation of Chinese Pottery

was successfully manufactured , which suplilied this and other countries , until our own Wedgwood produced a superior ware at home , which supplanted it in the markets of Europe ; but " common Delf " is still the English name for ordinary platescups and saucersetc . as " China "

, , , is for the best porcelain . " At Rouen , " says Mr , Arnoux , " the blue ornamentation was relieved with touches of red , green , and yellow ; at Moustiers the monochrome designs were light and uncommonly elegant ; at Paris ,

Marseilles , and many ' other places , the flower decoration of the old Sevres and Dresden ware was imitated with a freedom of touch and a freshness of colour which is really charming . " But the high price of tin rendered the best glazes costly , as

that of lead in our own day would have done common Pottery : the mixture of silicate of soda , powdered quartz , Mendon chalk , and borax , not having been hit upon as a substitute for the poisonous lead g lazing until very recently . Stoneware was produced in Germany , " at Nuremberg , Eatisbon , Bayreuth , and Mansfield , and other places ; but the best

Notes On Literature, Science And Art.

were made in the neighbourhood of the Lower Rhine , where the clays most fitted for that class of pottery were easily to be found . Here we find , for the first time in Europe , the body of the ware partl y vitrified by the high temperature to which it was submittedand also the remarkable

, peculiarity that it was glazed by the volitalization of common salt , thrown into the oven when the temperature had reached its climax . The combination of these two processes had never been effected before , and it would be difficult on that

account to find any connection between stoneware and some of the Egyptian potteries . For this stoneware , which was of various colours , T . Hopfer designed many of the embossed ornamentations . It began to decline towards the close of the seventeenth century , and has only been revived of late by Doulton & Co ., of Lambeth .

How very low the potter s art had sunk in France , those who have read John Morley ' s most interesting life of " Bernard Palissy , " will have a vivid recollection : for it is as interesting as any romance . And France produced only one Palissy . What a truly worshipful man he wascompared

, with numbers to whom she has shown much higher honour ! But the world , when wiser will , rank him among her greatest heroes , as he most undoubtedly was . Of the rise and progress of English pottery , I must speak in another note .

Mr . J . C . Cox has in the press the second volume of his able and interesting work on the Churches of Derbyshire , which is anx ously looked for . Resin melted with half its weight of paraffinat a temperature not exceeding

, 2-30 degrees Fall , is said to produce artificial wax ; so is rosin with one-third tallow , Rose Cottatie , Stokeslcy .

The Flood Of Years.

THE FLOOD OF YEARS .

BY WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT . From " SCRIBNER ' S MONTHLY . " A MIGHTY hand , an exhanstless urn , Pours forth the never-ending Flood of Years Among the nations . How the rushing waves