(_By courtesy of Walter H. Willson, Esq._)] =Hot Water Jugs.=--The form of the jug offers endless possibilities to the artist who designs practical shapes that the metal worker, the glass-blower, or the potter can bring into being, each according to his technique. It is the duty of the artist, if he be practical as well as ideal, to offer only such designs as can be easily worked in the particular craft for which he is drawing his designs. In regard to narrow-necked vessels there is the suggestion that they are more suited to the potter than to the metal worker. In the East, where metal workers carry on traditions that go back long ages, we do not find that wide-mouthed vessels claim preference. It is not so much that the craftsmen are conservative and do not seek new forms, but rather that, having mastered their technique, they confine themselves to its limitations recognized centuries ago. There is no doubt that the narrow-necked jar in the old fable of the Fox and the Crane was one made by the potter. The difficulties in technique in manipulating a jug such as is illustrated (p. 235) must have been great, though not insuperable. [Illustration: OLD SHEFFIELD PLATED HOT WATER JUGS. Circular base: lower part of body decorated with star fluting. Cover surmounted by pineapple. Dated 1775. Urn-shaped body on octagonal foot. Classic ornament. Silver shield. Date 1795. (_By courtesy of Walter H. Willson, Esq._)] [Illustration: OLD SHEFFIELD PLATED HOT WATER JUG. Urn-shaped, on base with claw feet. Rosette decoration carried out in base and body, together with festoons. Shoulder and base ornamented with band of vertical fluting. This example typifies the Adam style at its best. Date 1770. (_By courtesy of Walter H. Willson, Esq._)] But the fine Adam jug, with this premiss as to narrow vessels in general, offers a superlative example of the Adam style executed as early as 1770 (illustrated, p. 235). The square base with ball feet, the simple festoon of drapery, encircling rosettes but not being supported by them, the band of ribbed ornament placed just at that position where it attains the maximum effect, the fine exquisitely balanced proportions of the neck as natural and wonderful as nature in graceful birds such as the swan, and the pleasing lines in the curve of the spout--all these points are points of beauty impossible to describe in words, but quick to strike the trained eye satiated with improper ornament and feverishly awaiting the advent of pure unalloyed beauty of form. One never grows weary of contemplating such a perfect example as this of the art of the modern metal worker, that is modern since the old days of Greece and Rome, and modern as in comparison with the outburst of the great Italian Renaissance.