We have now glanced at the three leading families, even while disposed to call in question the utility of the arrangement. A classification of the above kind has the one great objection, that the exceptions are so numerous as to leave the rule inapplicable to a vast number of the most interesting specimens. And, further, no perfect arrangement is practicable. The Chinese have always been imitators. The potters and artists of the thirteenth century imitated those of the tenth; those of the fourteenth imitated their predecessors of the thirteenth, and so on. Any attempt at a chronological arrangement, with any pretensions to absolute truth, is, for this and other reasons, out of the question. The classification by families, besides its necessary deficiencies, gives no assistance to one studying and trying to master the principles of Chinese art. To such an one, therefore, the only course is to take every specimen at its artistic worth. He may find a large proportion of table-ware of the Chrysanthemo-pæonian family, but he will also find much that is not of that family. He may find much of the Green family, especially under the Ming Dynasty, with a political or a religious significance, but he will also fail in discovering any such meaning in many of its representatives. He will find chrysanthemums on members of the Green family, and pæonies on members of the Rose. In short, the better plan is, as we have said, to admire what is admirable, and to be too curious neither about chronology nor the relationship of color. Otherwise, in the latter case, he will come upon incongruities. The weak and the beautiful will be placed side by side, as in the human family a dwarf may be full brother to an Adonis.