PROLIFIC AUTHOR.
No one need despair, after the following instance, of shining in quantity, if not in quality:—"Hans Sacks was a Nuremberg shoemaker, born there in 1494; he was instructed, by the master-singers of those days, in the praiseworthy art of poetry; he, therefore, continued to make verses and shoes, and plays and pumps, boots and books, until the seventy-seventh year of his age; when he took an inventory of his poetical stock in trade, and found, according to his narrative, that his works filled thirty folio volumes, all written with his own hand; and consisted of four thousand two hundred mastership songs, two hundred and eight comedies, tragedies, and farces (some of which were extended to seven acts), one thousand seven hundred fables, tales, and miscellaneous poems, and seventy-three devotional, military, and love songs; making a sum total of six thousand and forty-eight pieces, great and small." Out of these, we are informed, he culled as many as filled three massy folios, which were published in the year 1558-61; and, another edition being called for, he increased this three volumes folio abridgement of his works, in the second, from his other works. None but Lope de Vega exceeded him in quantity of rhyme-making.
THE ART OF POTTERY IN CHINA.
The Chinese traditions carry back the practice of the potter's art to a very remote epoch. Father Entrecolles, a French missionary, resided in China at the beginning of the last century, and his letters published in Paris, in 1741, supply some curious and interesting information on this subject. Writing in 1712, he says that at that time ancient porcelain was very highly prized, and bore large prices. Articles were extant which were reputed to have belonged to the Emperors Yao and Chun, two of the most ancient mentioned in the Chinese annals. Yao reigned in 2357 and Chun in 2255 before Christ. Other authorities place the reign of Chun in 2600 before Christ. It appears from the researches of M. Stanislaus Julian that, from the time of the Emperor Hoang-ti, who reigned 2698 to 2599 before Christ, there had always existed a public officer bearing the title of the Intendant of Pottery, and that it was under the reign of Hoang-ti that the potter's art was invented by Kouen-ou. It is also certain that porcelain, or fine pottery, was common in China in the time of the Emperors Han, 163 B.C.
In digging the foundations of the palaces, erected by the dynasties of Han and Thang, from 163 B.C. to 903 A.D. great quantities of ancient vases were found which were of a pure whiteness, but exhibited little beauty of form or fabrication. It was only under the dynasty of Song, that is to say, from 960 to 1278 A.D., that Chinese porcelain began to attain a high degree of perfection.
Further evidence of the antiquity of the potter's art in China, as well as of the existence of intercommunication between that country and Egypt, is supplied by the discoveries of Rossellina, Wilkinson, and others, who found numerous vases of Chinese fabrication, and bearing Chinese inscriptions, in the tombs at Thebes. Professor Rossellini found a small vase of Chinese porcelain with a painting of a flower on one side, and on the other Chinese characters not differing much from those used at the present day. The tomb was of the time of the Pharaohs, a little later than the eighteenth dynasty.
This vase, with its Chinese inscription, is represented in Fig. 1, from an exact cast made by Mr. Francis Davis.
Another of the Chinese vases, found in the Theban tombs, is represented in Fig. 2. This is preserved in the Museum of the Louvre. The shape of the vase is that of a flat-sided flask. A side view is given in Fig. 3.