Shortly after Henry IV succeeded Henry III. Probably kings had ceased to be interested in gray-haired potters and their expenses. At any rate, Master Bernard was condemned to death. Before the fragile clay that God had modeled into the cup of his life had a chance to be dashed to earth by hideous bigotry, his soul was liberated from his worn-out body, and the headsman’s block was cheated of the grace of being Master Bernard’s last pillow on earth. May heaven rest his soul! I shall never forget, little blue book, how Miss Solander shed a tear over those last pages, how my own eyes were not dry. Somehow I think everything must have its story, and when I am in Cleon’s house or in my own, looking at this thing or at that with the love a collector holds for the things of yesterday, I am not content with the thing alone, but my thoughts seek out the memory of its story. At least it was so with that inimitable _saucière_ of Master Bernard of blessed memory! CHAPTER XXVI ITALIAN MAIOLICA Whether one is a general collector or a collector of pottery and porcelain in particular, Italian maiolica will be found to be one of the most interesting of “lines,” historically as well as intrinsically. Pottery, both soft and hard, is distinct from porcelain, although the term “old china” is commonly used to embrace the whole field of ceramics--unfortunately, I think, as it is of importance to the collector to be precise in the matter of definitions. Pottery, as distinguished from porcelain, is formed of potter’s clay with which an argillaceous and calcareous marl and sand have been mixed. The wares usually designated as earthenware are soft pottery. It may be scratched with a knife or file, and it is, generally speaking, fusible at porcelain furnace heat. Soft pottery may be divided into four sorts: unglazed, lustrous, glazed, and enameled. The greater part of Egyptian, Greek Etruscan, Roman medieval and modern pottery is unglazed, lustrous, or glazed, while the centuries-later maiolica of Italy is of the fourth sort; that is, an enameled or stanniferous glazed ware, the art of making which was originally learned, we may suppose, from either Moorish potters of Majorca (one of the Balearic Islands) or perhaps from certain Persian sources. Italian maiolica was originally called _maiorica_, a name which later gave way to _maiolica_, as the Tuscans more often wrote it that way, even when referring to the Island of Majorca, as one may guess from the _rime_ of Dante, where is to be found reference to “_Tra l’isola di Cipri è Maiolica_.” The coarser ware of half-maiolica--_mezza-maiolica_--is not to be confused with the true maiolica, which is a tin-enameled pottery, lustred, although the term maiolica is generally used to designate the ware of both sorts.