This is work which will bring any price, because it is so difficult and so uncommon; but it is not what I should value upon delft or porcelain. It can never be _so good_ as upon canvas; it is much more difficult to make it, and a small accident ruins it past repair. It is not "decorating china;" it is simply trying to make a picture with materials unsuited for the purpose; and its only merit is that it shows difficulties overcome. It is precisely the same in principle as the mosaics. It would have been idiotic for Raffaelle to have made the Dresden Madonna in mosaic or on porcelain. [Illustration: FIG. 88.--_Delft._] In the decorative work of the Delft potters it seems to me the things to desire are the fine plates and dishes painted, as many of them are, with luminous blues almost equal to the celestial blues of China, such as we see in Fig. 88; and the vases, the flagons, the cups and mugs, in every style and shape; the same things in polychrome, with those bold groups of flowers, equal in their way to the work of the Orientals. Besides, there are the figures of peasants, etc.; also their cows and horses, which have a quaint interest not easily explained. The Dutch potters ran into many things, such as small foot-stoves, barbers' basins, casters, salt-cellars, etc. About much of the good delft is that same quaint, countrified beauty of which I have spoken. It is good, because it is real and native to the people and its painters. When they left this and went to imitating the Chinese and the Japanese, their work seems to me almost worthless; because it was an _imitation_, and it was _inferior_. In one of the largest workshops, or fabriques, a custom prevailed that one should read portions of the Bible, which all might hear and all might discuss. This was a time when religious heat was fervent; when the great questions of church direction and free thought were rife; when Catholic and Protestant often went from the assault of the tongue to that with the arquebuse. This practice no doubt made good Protestants, but also without doubt poor potters. The most curious pieces of delft known are four _violins_, still extant, very carefully made and very carefully painted. One is (or was) in the museum at Rouen, one at the Conservatoire at Paris, the third in the collection of M. Demmin, and the fourth in a private collection at Utrecht. The story still lives that these four violins were made by the master-modelers for marriage-gifts to the four daughters of the master of the fabrique, about to marry four young potters; and that the music for the dance was drawn from them. It was a pretty conceit.