connoisseurs in pottery will hardly take this into account. Several oils possessing drying properties, such as those of lavender, aniseed, or turpentine, are mixed with the colours, which, from the fact of containing vitreous substances, would work badly; even with their assistance, it requires a certain amount of skill to master the process. We must not make too much, however, of this difficulty, generally exaggerated by the ignorance of apprentices in what constitutes the very principles of their profession. When parents, in perfect ignorance of the abilities of their son, have decided, after putting their heads together, that he shall be a painter, sometimes for no other consideration than that they can get him admission into a porcelain manufactory, or that this is the nearest to their home, the boy has not the least notion of what is before him, and hardly knows that he will have to learn that very difficult thing, drawing. No wonder then, if his deficiency in this will not allow him to produce, we will not say good, but saleable paintings, unless he has spent a dozen years on his trial. On the contrary, to one well prepared by the study of art--one who, before he sets to his work, has a clear conception of the effect which he wishes to produce--the process will not stand in the way, and he will master it in the course of a few weeks. To induce talented men to devote their time to the decoration of pottery, is perhaps the greatest difficulty met with by our leading manufacturers. As long as the making of the ware only was concerned, they had to call for the assistance of practical men, such as potters, chemists, or engineers, the number of whom is fortunately great in England, and whose services can be secured by money. The same thing is not so easy in the matter of art. Up to a recent date, painting on pottery was not considered as the high road to fortune, and artists preferred to try their chance in oil or water-colour painting, fully aware that they would have to fight against an army of competitors, and to be satisfied with very small incomes, unless, by their, then problematic, genius, they could cut their way to the front. Since, however, the rage (there is no other word for it) for well decorated pottery has spread in almost every class of society, the prices paid for good work are more remunerative, and artists like Solon, Mussill, and Coleman, can make artistic pottery their special business. Royal Academicians like Poynter and Marks have thought it not beneath them to prepare cartoons for Minton, and it is probable that others would follow in the same path if, with the assistance of our chief potters, they could be initiated into some of the mysteries of the craft. No doubt they would find the study attractive, and there is no fear that, having once begun, they would not keep faithfully to it. For myself, I know of no such example.