Of the earlier potters of Liverpool, we have little space to deal in this “Chat.” Chaffers, a contemporary of Josiah Wedgwood, and a formidable rival of the Staffordshire potter; Thomas and Samuel Shaw; John Pennington, celebrated for his punch-bowls and for a very fine blue ware, are all well known to collectors of Liverpool ware. We give the marks of these factories, and of other Liverpool makers: Philip Christian (1760-1775), W. Reid & Co. (1756-1760), Herculaneum Pottery (1790-1841). Staffordshire had its Etruria and Lancashire its Herculaneum. In the earlier days of the potter classic names were much in vogue. A favourite pattern in Herculaneum china was a series of the towns of England printed on the pieces, with the name in a medallion at the bottom of the piece. The bird is the liver, being the crest of the city of Liverpool, and was used at Herculaneum by Messrs. Case, Mort & Co. in 1833. The anchor mark is between this date and 1841, when the factory ceased. When it is remembered that Wedgwood had his ware printed by Sadler and Green and that Bow sent to Liverpool to have the Liverpool designs transferred to the Bow china, it is easy to understand how complicated it becomes to determine with exactitude how little or how much was actually printed at Liverpool, because there came a time when the secret leaked out and when other factories besides Liverpool and Worcester began to print their own wares. We reproduce a Liverpool mug, printed in brownish red colour, representing a lover and his lass. It is typically English in treatment and design, and it is this quality which makes Liverpool printed ware so interesting. There is nothing like it in any of the Continental wares. The quaint and delicate English pastoral scene breathes of the eighteenth century. The refrain might run:— “Phyllida, my Phyllida! She takes her buckled shoon, When we go out a-courting Beneath the harvest moon. . . . . The ladies of St. James’s! You scarce can understand The half of all their speeches, Their phrases are so grand: But Phyllida, my Phyllida! Her shy and simple words Are clear as after rain-drops The music of the birds.” [Illustration: _In possession of Mr. S. G. Fenton, Cranbourne Street._ OLD LIVERPOOL MUG (4 IN. HIGH). (Printed in brown.)] Or take the old Liverpool jug with the landscape printed in black on one side, and the humorous heads, entitled “Courtship and Matrimony,” on the other; which heads, by the way, will our readers kindly turn upside down to gather what the acid doggerel written underneath alludes to. It is a pity the jug is not perfect, but the top has a metal band which remedies the broken spout. The lines underneath the heads run:— “When two fond fools together meet, Each look gives joy, each kiss is sweet, But wed, how crabb’d and cross they grow Turn upside down and you will know.”