230 CERAMIC WAliE. 



sity, but, in some senses, a virtue, and much to be commended, 

 that married gentlemen (especially if philosophers) should seek 

 the society of such ladies as Phryne and Sappho. Had the 

 Grecian married ladies been so fascinating as English married 

 ladies, why, of course, these liaisons would have been 110 less 

 wholly unknown than they are now. 



Necessity, mother of invention, perpetuated the manufac- 

 ture of rough pottery by the Greeks and Romans, long after 

 the art of making these exquisite vases, tinted red and black, 

 had died out. At the very beginning of the Christian era 

 that manufacture had declined ; and in the third century the 

 secret of the manufacture had been so utterly lost, that ves- 

 sels of this material were called ancient, eagerly collected as 

 now, and deposited in museums. 



To the conquests of Alexander, in the fourth century be- 

 fore Christ, must be ultimately attributed the decline of this 

 beautiful art. Prior to these conquests, ornamental fictile 

 vases had been highly cherished ; held to be fitting prizes for 

 victors in the national games ; honoured associates of sepul- 

 chred great ones. When once the Macedonian legions had 

 gazed upon the gold and silver vessels of luxurious Persia, 

 thev longed to have vessels of the same. Thenceforward the 

 manufacture of fictile vessels fell from its once high estate. 

 Made of inferior materials and ornamented by inferior artists, 

 they soon ceased to attract connoisseurs, so tremblingly alive 

 to beauty as the ancient Greeks. 



And now we enter upon a curious speculation. Did the 

 ancient Greeks and Romans ever acquire specimens of ancient 

 porcelain, of real China ware ? Between north-eastern Asia 

 and southern Europe the means of communication must have 

 been slight indeed, rare and difficult. Nevertheless, some 

 sort of knowledge of China there was in Europe. Traditions 

 there were of the land of the Seres, whence came the highly- 

 cherished seriacum in other words, silk. Unquestionably silk 

 textures occasionally found their way from China to Greece 



