ROCKINGHAM PORCELAIN.--At Swinton, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, not far from Sheffield, pottery-works were established in the eighteenth century on the estates of the Wentworth family. These potteries were called after the Marquis of Rockingham, who was more than once at the head of the Government, and the name was carried over to the porcelain which was made there by Thomas Brameld in the next century. This factory was in existence from 1820 to 1842, and the ware turned out well represents the taste of the time. ‘Brameld,’ we are told, ‘spared no labour or cost in bringing his porcelain to perfection, and in the painting and gilding he employed the best artists.’ The ornate dinner-services made by him for William IV. and other royal personages probably surpassed in elaborate decoration and expense of production anything of the kind ever made in England. At South Kensington is a gigantic vase--it is more than three feet in height,--on the top is a gilt rhinoceros, an oak branch embraces the sides, the base is modelled in the form of three paws, and the whole body of the vase is covered with a series of highly finished pictures, chiefly flower pieces. This vase is a unique example of everything that should be avoided in the modelling and decoration of porcelain. On some of the Rockingham china we find a griffin as a mark, in honour of Lord Fitzwilliam, who had succeeded to the Wentworth estates on the death of his uncle, Lord Rockingham. * * * * * Already, at the commencement of the nineteenth century, the manufacture of porcelain in England was beginning to be concentrated in the hands of a few large firms in the pottery district of North Staffordshire, and here a definite type of ‘china body’ was established suitable for practical use. Bone-ash mixed with china-stone and china-clay from Cornwall were and still remain the essential constituents of this paste: to these materials ground flints are sometimes added.