34 THE WEDGWOODS. 



As many of my readers may not know to what kind of 

 vessels I allude under the name of Bellarmine, I here give 

 an engraving of two examples to show their form and usual 



style of decoration. The Bellarmine, or Long Beard, as it 

 was commonly called, was a stone-ware pot of bottle form, 

 mostly with a handle at the back and ornament on the 

 front. The neck is narrow, and the lower part, or " belly," 

 as it is technically called, very wide and protuberant. They 

 were in very general use at the "ale-houses" to serve ale 

 in to customers, and were of different sizes the gallonier, 

 containing a gallon ; the pottle pot, two quarts ; the pot, a 

 quart ; and the little pot, a pint. 



These jugs were derisively named after Cardinal Bellar- 

 mine, who died in 1621. The cardinal having, by his deter- 

 mined and bigoted opposition to the reformed religion, made 

 himself obnoxious in the Low Countries, became naturally 

 an object of derision and contempt with the Protestants, who, 

 among other modes of showing their detestation of the man, 

 seized on the potter's art to exhibit his short stature, his 

 hard features, and his rotund figure, to become the jest of 

 the ale-house, and the byword of the people. Allusions to 

 the Bellarmines are very common in the productions of the 

 English writers of the period. 



