Nature and Art, September 1, 1806.] 
MARKS AND MONOGRAMS, POTTERY, &c. 
121 
especially by the British public, in works of design 
and colour, or on the greatly improved taste of pro- 
ducers and purchasers of both useful and ornamental 
fabrics, acting and reacting on each other. Taste 
seems no longer to be an esoteric secret, restricted 
as the happy possession of a few elegant dilettanti 
and frequenters of Christie’s in the season ; and in 
no one article of manufacture has the general im- 
provement been more remarkable than in that of 
fictile ware. It has become the habit to use the 
terms art and manufacture as distinct, even if not 
contradictory, and the distinction is doubtless partly 
justified by art having been so often and so long 
painfully “conspicuous by its absence” (to use Earl 
Russell’s famous bull) from English manufacture. 
The French, more logical and scientific in their 
language, have been happier in the nomenclature, 
assigning to the same distinct ideas the terms art 
and metier. The distinction as ordinarily expressed 
in English is false in terms though correct in idea, 
and has been greatly increased by, and is chiefly 
due to, the conventional application, or rather mis- 
application, of the word manufacture, to those 
establishments where the hand of man is almost 
superseded by metallic mechanism and his energy 
by steam. The fabrication of fictile ware may still 
perhaps be said to more truly realize the original 
idea of manufacture than any other to which the 
term is applied ; and, curiously enough, the more 
so in those productions which deserve the name of 
works of art. It is still the clay moulded by the 
potter’s hand which can truly claim the title, and 
whatever subsidiary aid may be afforded by set 
moulds and mechanical contrivances, fictile fabrics 
still derive their highest value in that they are 
formed by some master hand, impressing on the 
clay the conception of some master mind, whose 
imagination is thus developed in beauty of form, of 
colour, or of both. It is thus that pottery claims 
kin at once with the arts of the sculptor and the 
painter, as may be illustrated by the productions 
of Wedgwood from the designs of Flaxman, and 
those of the short-lived factory at Bow, for which 
Nollekens and Bacon designed and painted. 
The term pottery applied both to the art and the 
produce of the manufacture of earthenware, first in 
its general signification, and next as distinguishing 
opaque from translucent ware, has now so generally 
obtained in the English language that it may seem 
pedantic to observe on it as a modernism. More- 
over, even if it were’not formed, most legitimately as 
we presume, from the French poterie, art and science 
seem to have established a claim to a language of 
their own, free from the trammels of philologists ; 
and, to the horror of strict grammarians, combina- 
tions are continually perpetrated the most irregular, 
and most excruciating words are invented to supply 
a vocabulary sufficiently varied and distinctive for 
the requirements of advancing science. A striking, 
amusing, and a most successful example of this 
audacity, was exhibited a few years ago hi the 
lengthy and almost heated controversy of telegram 
versus telegrapheme, in which correctness had to suc- 
cumb to convenience. It may lie, however, worthy 
-of remark, that though the words pot and potter 
are old enough in our language, the word pottery 
does not appear to have been in acknowledged use 
in Dr. Johnson’s time; and it would, we doubt 
not, have been disowned at the academy for young 
ladies at Chiswick Mall, for it does not appear in 
the “ Dixonary” of “ the great Lexicographer” — at 
least it is not to be found in the 9th edition, quarto, 
1806, which may be fairly presumed to be about the 
date when “the Semiramis of Hammersmith” and 
her establishment flourished together in “ Vanity 
Fair.” This is the more remarkable as the fancy 
for china was fully rife in the time of Johnson, who 
himself took a considerable personal interest in the 
manufactory which was then established at Chelsea; 
and there has never perhaps been a more enthusiastic 
collector than his contemporary, Horace Walpole. 
Dr. Johnson remarked on Walpole’s writings, that 
“ he had got together a great many curious little 
things and told them in an elegant manner.” With 
the slightest verbal alteration the same might have 
been said with equal truth of his collection of 
articles of virtu. Strawberry Hill has stamped on 
all articles which belonged to it a mark of honour, 
a dignity and a value appreciated by purchasers as 
well as sellers of bric-a-brac. We may add that 
this famous collection contained many specimens of 
what is now called pottery, as distinguished from 
porcelain, but which then came under the common 
term of delft. 
As regards the word porcelain, it can claim a far 
higher antiquity among the immigrant families of 
the English tongue, and though scarcely dating 
back so far as the Conquest, and evidently of foreign 
descent, had acquired an established position long 
before the time of Johnson. He admits it into his 
Lexicon, but gives the fanciful derivation “pour 
cent annees,” which was but a continuation of a 
vulgar error that it was made of marine and egg 
shells, and buried for a hundred years. The original 
meaning and the derivation of the word is still a 
matter of some doubt, the consideration of which 
will call for our notice in its proper order. 
In remarking above, that Mr. Chaffers’s book 
contains more than might be expected from its 
title, an exception was made in respect to the 
introductory essay. “ The Vasa Fictilia of England ” 
appears to us a rather grandiose heading for the 
somewhat fragmentary paper to which it is prefixed. 
Nor is it clear why, under so extensive a Latin 
term, modern earthenware should not be included 
as well as mediaeval. Some protest, too, might 
fairly be made against the application of a Latin 
word at all to any but Romano-British pottery; for 
if the term is to be extended further, it surely 
would be better to put it into a plain English 
translation, or at least substitute an English equi- 
valent ; just as the Italian writer on the ancient 
] lottery of Arezzo, Dr. Fabroni, who is more than 
once referred to, has entitled his work in his own 
language, “Stoi’ia degli Antichi VasiFittili Aretini.” 
The adoption of Latin words, when unnecessary, 
appears to be spurious classicism. There are indeed 
cases in which, for terms connected with the arts, 
