The practice of the fictile art in England dates back, as I have already said, to a very remote period--that of its Celtic or ancient British population, by whom there is abundant evidence it was much esteemed. It is pleasant to know, and to be able indisputably to prove, that from those early days down to the present time the art has, through a long succession of ages, continued with more or less skill, to be observed among us, and that thus in pottery, as in nothing else, an unbroken chain, connecting us in our present high state of civilisation with our remote barbarian forefathers of the stone age, exists. The weapons and other implements of imperishable stone and flint have, long ages ago, died out, and any possible connection between them and the weapons or tools of our own day has died with them; but the vessels of simple clay have an abiding-place with us which has lasted without a break until now, and will yet last for ever. Hitherto the course of the potter’s art has been one of constant and gradual improvement; but its capabilities for further development are almost unbounded, and another generation will witness advances of which we can now but dimly dream. Among the ancient Britons, vessels of clay were formed for sepulchral and other uses, and it is entirely to their grave-mounds that we are indebted for the examples which have survived to our time. It is in the course of examination of these mounds that these fictile remains have been brought to light; and it is by a careful examination of these alone, and by constant comparison of the “finds” of one locality with the discoveries of another, that a proper estimate of their character has been, or can be, drawn. [Illustration: Fig. 2.--Monsal Dale.] [Illustration: Fig. 3.--Cleatham.] The pottery of this period may be safely arranged in four classes[1], viz.--1. _Sepulchral_ or _Cinerary Urns_, which have been made for and have contained, or been inverted over, calcined human bones; 2. _Drinking Cups_, which, in a similar manner, are supposed to have contained some liquid to be placed with the dead body; 3. _Food Vessels_ (so called), which are supposed to have contained an offering of food, and which are more usually found with unburnt bodies than along with interments by cremation; 4. _Immolation Urns_, (erroneously called _Incense Cups_ by Sir R. Colt Hoare for want of more knowledge of their use), which are very small vessels, found only with burnt bones (and usually also containing them), placed in the mouths of, or close by, the larger cinerary urns. These latter I believe to have been simply small urns intended to receive the ashes of the infant, perhaps sacrificed at the death of its mother, so as to admit of being placed within the larger urn containing the ashes of the parent: I venture, therefore, to name them “Immolation Urns.”