Art in the Belfast Museum. 35 



the department of ceramic art. My remarks will therefore 

 chiefly have reference to that, the oldest of arts, and to illustrate 

 them I have made a selection of objects of different periods and 

 styles, from the wares of ancient Greece to those of our own 

 country and the nineteenth century. It is well understood that 

 we in this nineteenth century are immensely superior to all 

 pre-existent persons in our manufacturing resources, in power 

 over the material and forces of nature, in science and in indus- 

 trial art. At any rate, that is a very general impression. Can 

 it be that as the result of all our increased facilities and oppor- 

 tunities, we are producing nothing worthy of preservation to 

 hand down as models and examples to our descendants, who 

 may not be as clever as ourselves .? Why do not our museums 

 contain more specimens of the " highest excellence" .? Instead 

 of setting before students examples of modern manufacture, the 

 authorities of our museums collect and display everything that 

 is not modern, and even the productions of semi-barbarians, 

 and our art instructors continually point to those as our very 

 best models. Far from the history of ceramic art showing un- 

 broken progress, the productions of recent centuries exhibit 

 continual and rapid decline, and the lowest point of depravity 

 was reached in the middle of this boasted and conceited century. 

 Of the examples to which I desire to draw your attention this 

 night the best are the very oldest, and all that have any pre- 

 tension to beauty or excellence are either old or barbaric. We 

 are only beginning to discover our deficiencies and to remedy 

 them by recourse to the study of such examples. The very 

 stimulus to that study came in great measure from a people 

 who had been regarded at the time as little better than savages 

 — our Indian fellow- subjects. The Indian section in the Great 

 Exhibition of 1851 was a revelation to all who had eyes to see, 

 and shamed our own productions of industrial art into utter 

 worthlessness. In skill ot workmanship, in beauty of form and 

 general design, and in harmony of colour there is no comparison 

 possible between the refined productions of the East and our 

 own crude and garish manufactures. How comes it, then, that 



