IMPORTANCE OF THE MANUFACTURE. 



for every foreign market that is open to the earthenwares of 

 England." 



Mr. Wedgwood very justly observed further, that this manu- 

 facture is attended with some circumstances of advantage which 

 are almost peculiar to itself ; viz. that the value of the finished 

 goods consists almost wholly in the labour bestowed upon them ; 

 that every ton of raw materials produces several tons of merchan- 

 dise for shipping, the freight being paid, not upon the weight, but 

 according to the bulk ; that scarcely a vessel leaves any of our 

 ports whose lading is not in part made up of these cheap, bulky, 

 and, for these reasons, valuable articles, to this maritime country; 

 and that fully five parts in six of the aggregate manufactures of 

 the Potteries are exported to foreign markets. 



3. While the potters of Europe were engaged with more or less 

 success in the fabrication of an earthenware, which, whatever may 

 have been its merits, was formed of a paste coarse and opaque ; 

 the fine porcelain, which attracted so much and so well merited 

 admiration, was for a long period of time obtained exclusively 

 from the East. 



Without insisting on the claims of the Chinese to the produc- 

 tion of this beautiful article at the epochs of remote antiquity, 

 which have been already referred to, there is sufficiently con- 

 clusive evidence that they possessed and practised the art hundreds 

 of years before it was discovered in Europe or elsewhere. Thus 

 it is certain that fine porcelain was made in China 163 B.C., and 

 that its fabrication existed still in 442, A.D. 



The first porcelain oven, however, of which there are distinct 

 and detailed historic records in China was called TAOU-YAOTT, and 

 was situate at Chang-Nan in the province of KEAXG-SI. Tributes 

 of porcelain were sent from this factory to the court of Woo-tih 

 in the year 630 A.D.* 



The celebrated works of King-Te-Tching, already mentioned, 

 were not established until 1000 A.D. 



In the Ceramic Museum of Dresden are pieces of porcelain 

 which bear dates from 1403 to 1425, from 1465 to 1488, and 1573 

 to 1620, which are, therefore, spread over two centuries. The 

 stationary character of the Chinese is remarkably indicated by 

 the fact that the earliest of these specimens does not differ in the 

 slightest degree from the latest, either in its mode of fabrication, the 

 nature of its material, nor even in its colours or style of decoration. 



4. It was not until 1518 that the Chinese porcelain was brought 

 to Europe by the Portuguese, and two centuries elapsed before any 

 successful attempt was made to fabricate it. In England this fine 



* Morrison's Chinese Dictionary, part iii., p. 326, word "porcelain." 



L2 147 



