Many examples of the above varieties deserve the enthusiastic admiration they have received, yet they unquestionably belong to a lower rank of ceramic achievements than the choice productions of Chinese kilns. The potters of the Middle Kingdom, from the early eras of the Ming dynasty down to the latest years of the 18th century, stood absolutely without rivals as makers of porcelain. Their technical ability was incomparable--though in grace of decorative conception they yielded the palm to the Japanese--and the representative specimens they bequeathed to posterity remained, until quite recently, far beyond the imitative capacity of European or Asiatic experts. As for faience and pottery, however, the Chinese despised them in all forms, with one notable exception, the _yi-hsing-yao_, known in the Occident as _boccaro_. Even the _yi-hsing-yao_, too, owed much of its popularity to special utility. It was essentially the ware of the tea-drinker. If in the best specimens exquisite modelling, wonderful accuracy of finish and _pâtes_ of interesting tints are found, such pieces are, none the less, stamped prominently with the character of utensils rather than with that of works of art. In short, the artistic output of Chinese kilns in their palmiest days was, not faience or pottery, but porcelain, whether of soft or hard paste. Japan, on the contrary, owes her ceramic distinction in the main to her faience. A great deal has been said by enthusiastic writers about the _famille chrysanthemo-péonienne_ of Imari and the _genre Kakiemon_ of Nabeshima, but these porcelains, beautiful as they undoubtedly are, cannot be placed on the same level with the _kwan-yao_ and _famille rose_ of the Chinese experts. The Imari ware, even though its thick biscuit and generally ungraceful shapes be omitted from the account, shows no enamels that can rival the exquisitely soft, broken tints of the _famille rose_; and the _Kakiemon_ porcelain, for all its rich though chaste contrasts, lacks the delicate transmitted tints of the shell-like _kwan-yao_. So, too, the blue-and-white porcelain of Hirado, though assisted by exceptional tenderness of sous-pâte colour, by milk-white glaze, by great beauty of decorative design, and often by an admirable use of the modelling or graving tool, represents a ceramic achievement palpably below the soft paste _kai-pien-yao_ of King-te-chen. It is a curious and interesting fact that this last product of Chinese skill remained unknown in Japan down to very recent days. In the eyes of a Chinese connoisseur, no blue-and-white porcelain worthy of consideration exists, or ever has existed, except the _kai-pien-yao_, with its imponderable _pâte_, its wax-like surface, and its rich, glowing blue, entirely free from superficiality or garishness and broken into a thousand tints by the microscopic crackle of the glaze. The Japanese, although they obtained from their neighbour almost everything of value she had to give them, did not know this wonderful