SUNDERLAND JUG.
(Two positions.)
XI
OLD ENGLISH EARTHENWARE[2]
It requires a word of apology for including the following “Chats” on earthenware in a volume bearing the title “Chats on English China,” but as the chief end of this little volume is to render to the beginner such aid as may be useful in the determination of the various classes of china, it was thought desirable in his interest to treat somewhat generally of earthenware in this and the succeeding chapters.
Earthenware suggests pots and pans, and the word is redolent of kitchen smells, but a Wedgwood teapot or a Toby jug, though earthenware they be, are worth the having. Pottery is the poor relation of porcelain. The one comes in silks and satins, in purple and fine linen; the other in cotton gown, like Phyllis at the fair.
The following remarks may lend a zest to dusting days, and, mayhap, the poor relation may be invited to come down from the top shelf in the kitchen to occupy a niche in the drawing-room.
It is to be hoped that what has already been said on china may have created a taste in the reader for the inventions of the potter. A blue bowl may convey a world of meaning, and may be fragrant with memories of the eighteenth century, if one cares to peer beneath the surface. To the uninitiated it will be a blue bowl—and ugly maybe at that. To some the potter’s art is as dead a thing as was Nature’s message to Wordsworth’s insensate:—
“A primrose by a river’s brim
A yellow primrose was to him,