ON SOME FRAGMENTS OF ENGLISH EARTHENWARE. ibl 



the still red hot embers. The kneading and fashioning of his 

 crocks was, indeed, a sort of relaxation to him ; although the paltry 

 price he obtained for his product obliged him also to go through 

 this part of his work with relentless haste. His burned hands, 

 his ragged clothing bespattered with mud, made him a repulsive 

 object, even to the common labourer of the fields. Shunned by 

 all, he led a semi-civilised existence, and it was seldom, if ever, 

 that he was seen in the towns of the neighbourhood. Yet this 

 same man, who for so long remained an outcast amongst the 

 sons of toil, was one day to emerge from obscurity, and, trans- 

 forming his debasing labour into an art beautiful and refined, gain 

 for himself fame, fortune, and universal consideration. We 

 cannot follow him here up to the brilliant period of his success ; 

 the fragments to which we have now to return belong to the 

 intermediate stage, when the potter was no longer a mere kneader 

 of mud, but was just entering on the way of improvements, which 

 were subsequently to bring forth his handicraft to the level of the 

 most prominent branches of decorative art 



Individuality is not yet to be detected in the various potteries 

 discovered in the Midland counties ; everyone seems to have 

 followed the same traditions ; shapes and processes are almost 

 identical, therefore it would be a difficult task to identify any 

 special article as coming from a particular pot-work, or even from 

 a certain locality. Yet if we consider in what place the present 

 fragments have been found, and that they are all pieces of daily 

 use in the households of the time, we may safely surmise that 

 they were of local origin. Those to which we want to call the 

 reader's attention are six in number, and each, separately, is 

 deserving of some appropriate remarks. 



(No. i.) A large pitcher, unfortunately much damaged, but still 

 showing its whole shape, must, we think, be considered as the most 

 rare and curious item of our little lot, insomuch as it belongs to 

 an epoch that we believe to be somewhat anterior to that of the 

 rest. The annexed sketch dispenses us from describing the form, 

 or the rude attempt at decoration, consisting of six rosettes, pro- 

 duced by the impression of the finger tip in the wet material 



