degrees, and would cool similarly through a
space of from forty to sixty hours, did no
remembrance of the days when human clay
was burnt, oppress you? Yes, I think so!
I suspect that some fancy of a fiery haze and
a shortening breath, and a growing heat, and
a gasping prayer; and a figure in black
interposing between you and the sky (as figures in
black are very apt to do), and looking down,
before it grew too hot to look and live, upon
the Heretic in his edifying agony—I say I
suspect (says the Plate) that some such fancy
was pretty strong upon you when you went
out into the air, and blessed God for the
bright spring day and the degenerate times!

After that, I needn't remind you what a
relief it was to see the simplest process of
ornamenting this " biscuit " (as it is called
when baked) with brown circles and blue
trees—converting it in to the common crockery-
ware that is exported to Africa, and used in
cottages at home. For (says the Plate) I am
well persuaded that you bear in mind how
those particular jugs and mugs were once
more set upon a lathe and put in motion; and
how a man blew the brown color (having a
strong natural affinity with the material in
that condition) on them from a blow-pipe as
they twirled; and how his daughter, with a
common brush, dropped blotches of blue upon
them in the right places; and how, tilting the
blotches upside down, she made them run
into rude images of trees, and there an end.

And didn't you see (says the plate) planted
upon my own brother that astounding blue
willow, with knobbed and gnarled trunk, and
foliage of blue ostrich feathers, which gives
our family the title of "willow pattern?" And
didn't you observe, transferred upon him at
the same time, that blue bridge which spans
nothing, growing out from the roots of the
willow; and the three blue Chinese going over it
into a blue temple, which has a fine crop of blue
bushes sprouting out of the roof; and a blue
boat sailing above them, the mast of which is
burglariously sticking itself into the foundations
of a blue villa, suspended sky-high,
surmounted by a lump of blue rock, sky-higher,
and a couple of billing blue birds, sky-highest
—together with the rest of that amusing blue
landscape, which has, in deference to our
revered ancestors of the Cerulean Empire, and
in defiance of every known law of perspective,
adorned millions of our family ever since
the days of platters? Didn't you inspect the
copper-plate on which my pattern was
deeply engraved ? Didn't you perceive an
impression of it taken in cobalt colour at a
cylindrical press, upon a leaf of thin paper,
streaming from a plunge-bath of soap and
water? Wasn't the paper impression daintily
spread, by a light-fingered damsel (you know
you admired her!), over the surface of the
plate, and the back of the paper rubbed
prodigiously hard—with a long tight roll of flannel,
tied up like a round of hung beef—without so
much as ruffling the paper, wet as it was?
Then (says the plate), was not the paper washed
away with a sponge, and didn't there appear,
set off upon the plate, this identical piece of
Pre-Raphaelite blue distemper which you
now behold ? Not to be denied ! I had seen
all this—and more. I had been shown, at
Copeland's, patterns of beautiful design, in
faultless perspective, which are causing the
ugly old willow to wither out of public
favour ; and which, being quite as cheap,
insinuate good wholesome natural art into the
humblest households. When Mr. and Mrs.
Sprat have satisfied their material tastes by
that equal division of fat and lean which has
made their ménage immortal ; and have, after
the elegant tradition, "licked the platter
clean," they can—thanks to modern artists
in clay—feast their intellectual tastes upon
excellent delineations of natural objects.

This reflection prompts me to transfer my
attention from the blue plate to the forlorn
but cheerfully painted vase on the sideboard.
And surely (says the plate) you have not
forgotten how the outlines of such groups of
flowers as you see there, are printed, just as I
was printed, and are afterwards shaded and
filled in with metallic colours by women and
girls? As to the aristocracy of our order,
made of the finer clay—porcelain peers and
peeresses;—the slabs, and panels, and table
tops, and tazze; the endless nobility and
gentry of dessert, breakfast, and tea services;
the gemmed perfume-bottles, and scarlet and
gold salvers; you saw that they were painted
by artists, with metallic colours laid on with
camel-hair pencils, and afterwards burnt in.

And talking of burning in (says the
plate), didn't you find that every subject,
from the willow-pattern to the landscape
after Turner—having been framed upon clay
or porcelain biscuit has to be glazed? Of
course, you saw the glaze—composed of various
vitreous materials—laid over every article;
and of course you witnessed the close imprisonment
of each piece in saggers upon the separate
system rigidly enforced by means of fine-
pointed earthenware stilts placed between
the articles to prevent the slightest communication
or contact. We had in my time—and I
suppose it is the same now—fourteen hours
firing to fix the glaze and to make it " run"
all over us equally, so as to put a good shiny
and unscratchable surface upon us. Doubtless,
you observed that one sort of glaze—
called printing-body—is burnt into the better
sort of ware before it is printed. Upon this
you saw some of the finest steel engravings
transferred, to be fixed by an after glazing
—didn't you? Why, of course you did!

Of course I did. I had seen and enjoyed
everything that the plate recalled to me, and
had beheld with admiration how the rotatory
motion which keeps this ball of ours in its
place in the great scheme, with all its busy
mites upon it, was necessary throughout the
process, and could only be dispensed with in
the fire. So, listening to the plate's reminders,