The knowledge and use of porcelain in England did not long antedate the departure of the Pilgrims for the New World. As early as 1506, one exceptional importation of Chinese porcelain bowls is spoken of; but even in 1567—half a century later—one of Queen Elizabeth’s valued gifts was a “poringer of white porselyn and a cup of green porselyn,” and the notice paid such intrinsically valueless and small articles by their mention proves their rarity. Great ignorance of the processes of porcelain manufacture existed; even that learned, that marvellously well-informed man, Lord Bacon, wrote of “mines of porcelain,” and had the queer idea that china was developed in the earth, out of the common clay, by some strange and mysterious process of purification. Another universal belief was, that porcelain was a sovereign detector of poison, that it instantly showed the presence of poison in any draught that came in contact with it. Shakespeare speaks once of china, in his “Measure for Measure,” “a dish of some three-pence, your honors have seen such dishes, they are not china dishes, but very good dishes.” Ben Jonson refers more frequently to porcelain. “_Broker._ ’Tis but earth Fit to make bricks and tiles of. _Shunfield._ ’Tis but for pots or pipkins at the best If it would keep us in good tobacco pipes— _Titus._ Or in porc’lane dishes.” Again he says: “The earth of my bottles which I dig Turn up and steep, and work, and neal, myself, To a degree of porc’lane.” By the time of Pope and Dryden, china had become more widely known in England, and these writers and their contemporaries frequently refer to it. It is not probable that much china came to England until 1650, when the English East India Trading Company was established, though the Dutch had even then a large trade with China. Doubtless tea and china became plentiful in Europe together. Addison wrote in 1713, “China vessels are playthings for women of all ages.... I myself remember when there were few china vessels to be seen that held more than a dish of tea; but their size is so greatly enlarged that there are many capable of holding half a hogshead.” It is asserted that pieces of Delft ware were brought to America by the first English and Dutch settlers. It had been manufactured since the fifteenth century; but when our Pilgrim Fathers made their night-trip through Delft, no plebeian persons had Delft ware on their tables; hence the Pilgrims could have brought few pieces to New England on the Mayflower. Nor is it probable that those frugal souls owned any India china. The earliest Dutch settlers of New Netherlands were not likely either to have brought to the new land any pieces of the aristocratic Delft ware, though I have seen many Delft plates and teapots that bore the reputation of such ownership.