shortcomings, the beauties and defects, of all. We have said that different nations have shown in different ways their sense of the aims and possibilities of ceramic art. The works of the Greeks indicate an absorbing admiration of elegance of form and figure-drawing. Their vases mark the second step in the progress of decoration. Firstly came linear ornamentation, and then light and line, of which all the Greek vases are examples. If, then, the Greeks in their best days had only reached the second step in decoration, to what must we ascribe the wonderful influence of their art? Certainly it is not in the subjects they chose to illustrate that its charm consists. Taking our stand in ancient Greece, we may glance along the whole line by which the art has progressed toward an approximate perfection, and at the same time see in what the Greeks were pre-eminent, and in what they were deficient. “To Greece,” says one writer, “was intrusted the cultivation of the reason and the taste. Her gift to mankind has been science and art.” Her highest idea was beauty. She left behind her canons of taste, beyond which, in their special application, we have not advanced, and have little hope of advancing. We are not, therefore, surprised when a writer on pottery reminds us that “to every eye familiar with works of art of the higher order, the cleverest imitations of nature, and the most elegant conceits of floral ornaments, whether exhibited in the efforts of Oriental or European potters, appear coarse and vulgar when contrasted with the chaste simplicity of the Greek forms.” If we would appreciate the full truth of this, we have only to make comparisons in any sufficiently extensive collection. The Greeks took the articles of daily use, and made them representatives of their ideas of beauty in both form and ornamentation. In this they followed the examples set them ages before. In accomplishment only they were alone. While, therefore, we study some as mere examples of skill, or curiosities of design, we study the Greek forms as embodying our highest ideal of beauty. Let us now examine that in which they were deficient, and see how others have tried to remedy it.