At Gotha, in the public museum, is a collection of Chinese porcelain brought together by the late Duke of Edinburgh. It is remarkable for the number of fine pieces of early celadon that it contains. As the unique collection of Lung-chuan, of Ko yao and of other Sung wares formed by Dr. Hirth, is now comprised in it, this is probably the most important assemblage of early Chinese porcelain in Europe. These two German collections, in the Zwinger at Dresden and at Gotha, complement and illustrate each other. But we have in England, scattered through our different museums and private collections, the materials for a series of at least equal interest--I mean as a commentary on the history of the spread of Chinese porcelain over the world, a subject to which we must now return. In the early days of the Ming dynasty the commercial expeditions of the Chinese took on a more aggressive character. In the time of Yung-lo (1402-25) the eunuch Chêng-ho sailed with a fleet as far as Ceylon, and exacted homage, so the Chinese records say, from the king of that island. In the next reign, that of Hsuan-te (1425-35), the same admiral conducted a more peaceful expedition to Hormus, at the entrance of the Persian Gulf, and in company with merchantmen from India, traded with the ports of the Red Sea, from Aden as far up as Jeddah. Both in Ceylon and at Jeddah (Tien-fong is perhaps rather Mecca itself) we find mention of green porcelain among the goods imported, and at this last port the Indian and Chinese merchants established their factories at the very centre of the Mohammedan world. (I follow the extracts from the Ming Annals given by Dr. Hirth.) Still more important was the trade with Hormus and other ports of the Persian Gulf. We hear incidentally, at a later time, of a large fleet of Chinese junks at anchor in these waters. To us the Chinese trade with Persia is of special interest, for when, after a brief interval of Portuguese rule, Hormus fell into our hands, it was in a measure through the medium of the Persian ports, and of similar depôts and factories on the Indian coast (as, for instance, Surat) that we in England obtained our earliest specimens of Chinese porcelain.