The antiquity of brickmaking is so well-known that it is scarcely necessary to allude to it. It will suffice to remind the reader of the tower of Babel, built about 400 years after the period assigned to the flood. That bricks were made in Egypt at an early period of her history is well known; and that this same people had faith in their durability is clear from the fact that they impressed them with hieroglyphics, or historical records, transmitting to us the names of their kings. Mr. Smith of the British Museum, has brought home clay cylinders which the Assyrians used for writing upon. Again, the way in which Jewish writers speak of pots and potters, comparing humanity to lumps of clay fashioned into vessels of honour and dishonour, and the silly and wicked portion of humanity to potsherds, good for nothing but to be cast upon the highway, shows that they drew much of their philosophy from the art. With them, as with other nations of antiquity, the art of working in clay ranked high. Potters of the tribe of Judah “dwelt with the king.” And one very noticeable feature is the fact that the same simple means are still employed to effect the same object; for illustrations in the catacombs of Thebes show that forty centuries ago clay was kneaded with the feet, turned upon a wheel, and baked in a circular oven, as at present. The praise of those who out of rude clay fashioned things of use and beauty, and impressed upon plastic materials the living thoughts that stirred men’s minds was loudly sung, whilst the more successful cultivators of the art were honoured with medals and statues, and their names transmitted by poets and historians to posterity. The Greeks and Romans gave a dignity to the art by raising it to a level with that of sculpture. A Corinthian potter, Pliny tells us, was in his day regarded as the first who contrived making likenesses in clay by pressing the material up to the outlines his daughter had drawn of her lover’s shadow on the wall and placing it with other pottery to be hardened in the fire. Other authors ascribe to the art a higher antiquity and speak of it as the parent of sculpture. The estimation in which it was held is shown by the fact that exhibitions of the best works in clay were frequently held in Athens; and amongst the ruins of that city statues of clay have been found, some in groups, representing Grecian Mythology; and some of large size retaining portions of the paint with which they were coloured on the eyes and eyebrows. In the Townley Gallery of the British Museum, No. 38 is a statue of a Muse, three feet eleven inches high; and also a terra-cotta statue of a Muse resting her left arm upon a pile of writing tablets, which are placed upon a square column, but the head is gone. The former represents Orania, the latter Calliop, whose office it was to note down the worthy actions of the living, as it was that of Clio’s to celebrate those of departed heroes.