Some of the richest pieces of color are the dark blue plates printed with the “Wilkie Designs,” such as the well-known Letter of Introduction, and the much sought after Valentine design. The Don Quixote series is also good. Equally glorious and resplendent in color are pieces bearing the Dr. Syntax designs. I have seen only plates and tureens with the latter. These Syntax plates have an additional source of interest in the wit of the humorous scenes that they represent. “Dr. Syntax’s Noble Hunting Party,” “Dr. Syntax Upsets the Beehive,” “Dr. Syntax Painting the Portrait of his Landlady,” “Dr. Syntax Star-Gazing,” “Dr. Syntax Reading his Tour.” These I have seen, and there are doubtless many others. They were printed from a set of pictures drawn by Thomas Rowlandson, one of the most celebrated designers of his day of humorous and amusing subjects. They were drawn to illustrate a book published by William Combe, in 1812, called “Dr. Syntax’s Tour in Search of the Picturesque.” A second tour, “In Search of Consolation,” appeared in 1820. This was also illustrated by Rowlandson. A third tour, “In Search of a Wife,” was printed the following year. These books had an immense and deserved popularity. Not only did these Staffordshire plates appear, but a whole set of Derby figures were modelled—“Dr. Syntax Walking”—“In a Greenroom”—“At York”—“Going to Bed”—“Tied to a Tree”—“Scolding the Landlady”—“Playing the Violin”—“Attacked by a Bull”—“Mounted on Horseback”—and were sold in large numbers. The Staffordshire plates have survived in greater variety in this country. Doubtless they were imported in larger quantities than were the Derby figures. Strangely enough, no Biblical scenes are represented on these Staffordshire plates, save one with a print of the Flight into Egypt. Other interesting forms of ware manufactured in Staffordshire were the old drinking-mugs known as “Tobys.” They were seated figures of rummy, old, red-nosed fellows with drinking-mugs in their hands. They wore usually cocked hats, the hat forming the lip of the mug. They were gayly dressed in high colors, and were sometimes twelve and even fourteen inches in height. A terrible damper has been put, within a few years, on the joy of collecting these “Tobys,” by the fact of their reproduction in vast numbers after precisely the old models, and in precisely the same colors. Of course, the modern Tobys are very shining and new, and upon examination are easily distinguished from the old ones; but when a closet-door in an antique shop suddenly and most unadvisedly swung open, the sight of a row of twenty or thirty Tobys, all precisely alike, did not seem to enhance the value of the asserted-to-be-unique specimen on the shop shelf, nor make me very warm about purchasing further specimens, were they old or new.