Chap. V. MR. MEDHURST'S REMARKS. 



91 



Pan-yo, a writer of tlie reign of Tae-che, of the 

 Tsin dynasty, a.b. 260-268, speaks of 'pouring 

 wine into many-coloured porcelain cups and the 

 biography of Ho-chow, an eminent character of 

 the Suy dynasty, a.d. 608-622, tells us that its 

 hero restored the art, then long lost in China, of 

 making Lew-le, a sort of vitreous glaze, by con- 

 structing it of porcelain. Writers of the Tang and 

 Sung dynasties mention it oftener, its use having 

 perhaps become more general in their time. I 

 should, therefore, infer that the manufacture was 

 not known previously to the first-mentioned date, 

 as it is not probable that so useful and valuable 

 a ware would have escaped historical or casual 

 notice, had it existed in sufficient quantity to 

 allow of its being applied to the manufacture of 

 common bottles. 



" I need only add that I have trusted in no 

 instance to hearsay evidence in bringing forward 

 the information I have herein collected, but have 

 carefully examined each authority myself pre- 

 viously to recording it upon paper ; and perhaps it 

 may not be out of place for me to remark in con- 

 clusion, that my teacher scouts the idea of associ- 

 ating these bottles with the Pharaonic epoch as 

 utterly visionary and absurd, it being impossible, 

 he says, that vessels composed of a ware univer- 

 sally acknowledged to be no older than the Han 

 dynasty, and inscribed with quotations from verses 

 that cannot, if the history of Chinese poetry 

 be true, have been written before the Tang dy- 



