In due time internal dissensions weakened them; then they went to ruin, and at last were driven out of Spain by the combined Christians. Then it was that the bitterness of war was intensified with the hatreds of religion; and then it was that a war of destruction was waged, not only against the persons of the "vile Moslems," but against all their works; so that nothing should remain to tell the story of their hated supremacy and their hated religion. Then it was that the Moorish potters of Malaga and Valencia were slaughtered or expelled, and then, too, their handiwork went with them into wholesale destruction. In this wreck and ruin, it is singular that the mosques, those finest monuments of the arts and the industry of the Moors, were spared. These remain, and a few examples of their pottery, of which we have striven to give some idea, though faint. One thing seems to be admitted on all hands, viz.: that to the Moors of Spain Europe owes either the invention or the introduction of siliceous or glass-glazed wares, and that from that date begins all improvements in fictile work; that directly from it came the potteries of the Balearic Islands, and that from Majorca came not only the names into Italy, but in all probability the potters or their secrets, which resulted in the production, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, of the wares now so famous under the name of _Majolica_, or, as it is now spelled, MAIOLICA, of which we shall have something to say further on. RHODIAN POTTERY.--Pursuing this subject eastward, we find traces of a lustred pottery on the island of _Sicily_, believed to be the work of Arabic potters. Still farther eastward, upon the island of Rhodes, have been found many plates and dishes, now classed as _Rhodian_, sometimes as _Persian_, and sometimes as _Damascus_ ware. The styles of this work, their colors and their designs, seem to group them together, and it is difficult to separate them in any consistent way. The first I saw of these were hung on the walls of the house of Mr. Frederick Leighton, the distinguished artist of London. While following his art on the island of Rhodes, he had heard that some pottery of this sort was now and then to be found on the island; the pieces he saw were very bold and striking, and tradition there said that they were the work of Persian potters, who, as prisoners, had centuries before been placed on the island. Finding clay to their hands, they went to work at their trade, and, with little doubt, practised it diligently through a long time, and handed it down to their children. Whatever was the truth of the tradition, a search among the poor people of the island unearthed many pieces of the ware, which Mr. Leighton brought with him to London. This was repeated on a second visit, until now this private collection is probably one of the best in England.