By reason of his faulty chronology, M. Jacquemart’s inference is open to question, although in the present case he appears to have reached a partial truth. The condition of both China and Japan, as it can be gleaned from history, detracts somewhat from the probability of the assumptions of the author mentioned. Europeans first landed in Japan in 1542--almost contemporaneously with the earliest manufacture of porcelain--and, in 1549, the first missionaries followed. In about thirty years (1581) one hundred and fifty thousand converts had been made, and, in 1583, an embassy was sent to the Pope by the daimios of Kiusiu. This is the Japanese embassy referred to by Mr. Marryat, as having taken place in 1584, on which occasion statuettes of the Virgin and Child, made by the Chinese for the Japanese Christians, were sent to Europe. But foreign intrigue and sectarianism soon culminated, and, in 1587, Hideyoshi banished all foreign missionaries. The work of proselytism was still carried on in private by the Jesuits, and, in 1596, a number of missionaries and converts were crucified at Nagasaki, in Hizen. The history of the next forty years is a narrative of desperate contention between the missionaries and converts on the one side, and the government on the other. The drama may be said to close with the massacre already referred to, which took place in 1637, when thousands of Christians were put to the sword, and thousands more were drowned in the harbor of Nagasaki. Mr. Marryat says that the interference of the missionaries with the decoration of porcelain, by substituting scriptural subjects for the “ancient orthodox native patterns which had existed from time immemorial,” is supposed to have contributed to the massacre. In connection with this subject the same author quotes from D’Entrecolles, who states that a plate with a biblical subject was brought to him, and that he was told this porcelain was formerly carried to Japan, but that none had been made for sixteen or seventeen years; that apparently the Christians of Japan had made use of this manufacture during the persecution, but that discovery led to a stoppage of the traffic, and that, in consequence, these works had been discontinued at King-tehchin. Mr. Marryat then refers to the Chinese pieces sent with the Japanese embassy to Europe. Assuming the statements in these passages to be correct, it is well to bear in mind that they refer to three distinct fabrics. To arrange them chronologically, the last mentioned is the porcelain made by China for Japan, before its own porcelain industry was well established, or before it had, at least, been fully developed. This supports the statement that porcelain was not made in Japan until shortly before the middle of the sixteenth century. Otherwise, the question will at once occur, Why, if porcelain had been made in Japan since the thirteenth century, should China be supplying it with religious figures before any steps had been taken in Japan against