“28. After this is done they are carried to the oven, which is ordinarily above 8 foot high, and about 6 foot wide, of a round copped forme, where they are placed one upon another from the bottom to the top; if they be ordinary wares, such as _cylindricall butter-pots_, &c., that are not leaded, they are exposed to the _naked_ fire, and so is all their _flat ware_, though it be leaded, having only _parting shards_, _i.e._ thin bits of old pots, put between them to keep them from sticking together; but if they be _leaded hollow wares_, they doe not expose them to the _naked_ fire, but put them in _shragers_, that is, in coarse metall’d pots made of _marle_ (not _clay_) of divers formes, according as their wares require, in which they put commonly three pieces of clay, called _Bobbs_, for the ware to stand on, to keep it from sticking to the _shragers_; as they put them in the _shragers_, to keep them from sticking to one another (which they would certainly otherwise doe by reason of the leading), and to preserve them from the vehemence of the fire, which else would melt them downe, or at least warp them. In twenty-four hours an oven of pots will be burnt; then they let the fire goe out by degrees, which in ten hours more will be perfectly done, and then they draw them for sale, which is chiefly to the poor _Crate-men_, who carry them at their backs all over the countrey, to whome they reckon them by the piece, _i.e._ _Quart_, in _hollow ware_, so that six pottle, or three gallon _bottles_, make a _dozen_, and so more or less to a _dozen_ as they are of greater or lesser content. The _flat wares_ are also reckoned by pieces and dozens, but not (as the _hollow_) according to their _content_, but their different _bredths_.” A round dish of the “combed ware,” or marbled or mottled ware, described by Plot, is shown on Fig. 317. Some of the examples I have seen are exceedingly delicate and minute in their patterns; others, as the engraving, have been “combed” with a coarse comb or wire brush. The lead for glazing, named by Plot, was procured from the Derbyshire lead mines--the ore being powdered, or “punned,” and dusted on to the soft clay vessel before firing. [Illustration: Fig. 317.] Previous to this, in 1671, John Dwight took out a patent in the petition for which he stated that “he had discovered the Mistery of Transparent Earthen Ware, comonly knowne by the Names of Porcelaine or China and Persian Ware, as alsoe the Misterie of the Stone Ware vulgarly called Cologne Ware; and that he designed to introduce a Manufacture of the said Wares into our Kingdome of Englande, where they have not hitherto been wrought or made.” This was the origin of the famous Fulham works, a full account of which will be given in another part of this volume.