“This Bowl was made at the Bow China Manufactory at Stratford-le-Bow, Essex, about the year 1760, and painted there by me, Thomas Craft: my cipher is in the bottom. It is painted in what we used to call the old Japan taste, a taste at that time much esteemed by the then Duke of Argyle; there is nearly two pennyweight of gold--about 15 shillings; I had it in hand, at different times, about three months; about two weeks’ time was bestowd upon it; it could not have been manufactured, &c., for less than £4. There is not its similitude. I took it in a box to Kentish Town, and had it burned there in Mr. Gyles’s kiln,[66] cost me 3s; it was cracked the first time of using it. Miss Nancy Sha, a daughter of the late Sir Patrick Blake,[67] was christened with it. I never used it but in particular respect to my company, and I desire my legatee (as mentioned in my will) may do the same. Perhaps it may be thought I have said too much about this trifling toy; a reflection steals in upon my mind, that this said bowl may meet with the same fate that the manufactory where it was made has done, and like the famous cities of Troy, Carthage, &c., and similar to Shakespear’s Cloud Cap’t Towers, &c. “The above manufactory was carried on many years under the firm of Messrs. Crowther and Weatherby, whose names were known almost over the world; they employed 300 persons; about 90 Painters (of whom I was one), and about 200 turners; throwers, &c., were employed under one roof. The model of the building was taken from that at Canton in China; the whole was heated by two stoves on the outside of the building, and conveyed through flues or pipes and warmed the whole, sometimes to an intense heat, unbearable in winter. It now wears a miserable aspect, being a manufactory for turpentine and small tenements, and like Shakespeare’s baseless fabric, &c. Mr. Weatherby has been dead many years; Mr. Crowther is in Morden College, Blackheath, and I am the only Person of all those employed there who annually visit him. T. CRAFT, 1790.” And the allusion to the works, a little later on--perhaps about 1780--will be found in “Nollekins and his Times,” as follows:-- “_Nollekins_ (to Betew, a dealer in curiosities in Old Compton Street). Do you still buy broken silver? I have some odd sleeve buttons, and Mrs. Nollekins wants to get rid of a chased watch-case by old Moser, one that he made when he used to model for the Bow manufactory.