history, as fresh facts are brought to light in the course of my own investigations or of those of others interested in the matter. It is better to state at the outset that the history of the Chelsea China Works is very obscure. In fact, a London fog, such as is proverbial in the month in which I write (November), seems to have closed around, and enveloped the place in such a dense mass as to make it next to invisible. A little of this cloud of mist I have already removed, and I trust that in the course of future researches I may be able to almost entirely dispel it. At all events, every item of information is valuable, and in the following narrative a vast deal of new matter will be found, which will materially assist the collector in understanding the history of these, the most celebrated of any of the old china manufactories of the United Kingdom. The south-western district of London, on both sides of the water, has, as I have already shown, for a long period, been the seat of fictile manufactories of an extensive and important character. Fulham, Chelsea, Battersea, Vauxhall, Pedler’s Acre, Lambeth--all had their potteries at an early date, and all, probably, had their origin from one common source. What that first source was--_i.e._, where the first pottery was founded--is, of course difficult to say, but from it others sprung up, in different directions, until quite a nest of manufactories was located in the suburban districts. The artisans of the seventeenth century were chiefly Dutchmen; indeed, the manufacture was of that kind of ware known as “Delft-ware”--originally made in Holland, and introduced into England by workmen from thence. The importation of “Delft-ware” in this (seventeenth) century was considerable, and at that period the manufacture of a kind of porcelain is said to have been achieved at Delft. I have shown on another page that large quantities of ware were imported into England from Holland in the seventeenth century, and that Dutch workmen of skill and enterprise were induced, from the prospect of a good home trade here, to settle in England. These workmen, it is not too much to believe, were acquainted with the art of manufacturing porcelain as produced in Delft, as well as the ordinary kind of ware made in their native country; and thus the knowledge was brought into our kingdom, and carried on, to some little extent, by those who settled here. The first maker of china, as I have shown in my account of the Fulham Works, was Mr. Dwight, and to him I am inclined to award the honour of being the father of the Chelsea China Works, about whose origin so little is known. The probability is that after Dwight had succeeded in making porcelain, and abandoned it, some other potter started the works at Chelsea, and with good result.