In issuing my present work I have two distinct personal duties to perform, and I hasten, in these few brief lines of introduction, to discharge them. First, I earnestly desire to ask indulgence from my readers for any shortcomings which may be apparent in its contents; and next, I desire emphatically to express my thanks to all who have in any way, or even to the smallest extent, assisted me in my labours. The preparation of the work has extended over a considerable period of time, and I have had many difficulties to contend with that are, and must necessarily be, wholly unknown to any but myself--hard literary digging to get at facts and to verify dates, that is not understood, and would scarce be believed in, by the reader who turns to my pages--and hence errors of omission and of commission may have, nay, doubtless have crept in, and may in some places, to a greater or less extent, have marred the accuracy of the page whereon they have occurred. I can honestly say I have left nothing undone, no source untried, and no trouble untaken to secure perfect accuracy in all I have written, and yet I am painfully aware that shortcomings may, and doubtless will, be laid to my charge; for these, wherever they occur, I ask, and indeed claim, indulgence. I believe in _work_, in hard unceasing labour, in patient and painstaking research, in untiring searchings, and in diligent collection and arrangement of facts--to make time and labour and money subservient to the end in view, rather than that the end in view, and the time and labour and money expended, should bend and bow and ultimately break before _time_. Thus it is that my “Ceramic Art” has been so long in progress, and thus it is that many changes have occurred during the time it has been passing through the press which it has been manifestly impossible to chronicle. I have the proud satisfaction, however, of knowing that my work is the only one of its kind yet attempted, and I feel a confident hope that it will fill a gap that has long wanted filling, and will be found alike useful to the manufacturer, the china collector, and the general reader.