male and female figures seated underneath a
tree. In these matters, then, it really seems
we have less taste than the men of the seventeenth
century, who could not discover steam,
and who never saw a cotton mill in full work.

The phantom voice from Sheffield answers:
“Well, they are beautiful; but, Heaven bless
your imperfect vision, those knives were individual
works of art, and cost gold! They could
not throw them out as we do, ten thousand a
day.” “Granted, fair sir; that is exactly what
we are driving at. It is individuality and intellectual
work that we want to see on our
dinner-tables, and the more of it the better.
This very work, reduced gentlewomen and
mechanics of talent and originality could produce,
and would enjoy producing, thanks to our
schools of art, at no very tremendous cost.
They would be sure of a good market too.”

Apostle spoons are especial favourites of ours.
The shape is a sensible one. We sometimes
want to sip out of a spoon, not to thrust it
bodily into our mouths; besides, a spoon handle
adapts itself naturally to purposes of ornamentation.
We have a photograph by our side, with
a fine German example of the sixteenth century.
The bowl is engraved with floral scrolls, and
on the stem is a plump little Bacchus bestriding
a barrel, and holding a cup and grapes.

Let us pass on to another branch of table
furniture—epergnes. The present stereotyped
masses of silver vases on palm-trees, or rocks and
figures, satisfy no one who knows what good
art is. They are unmeaning and conventional;
see one, you see all; they are redeemed only by
the piles of crimson flushed azaleas and green
drooping ferns which adorn them. Far better
buy a rare old piece of Palissy, and introduce
your flowers on either side of it, or in it, if it be
a ewer, a vase, or a small fountain, of that wonderful
man’s work. It is good to think of such a
man, of his heroism and struggles through the
rain of contempt and the storms of envy, despised,
mocked, contemned, until at last, when he had
broken up his very bed and chairs, to feed his
greedy and pitiless furnaces, the mould opened
and disclosed the secret of new beauty. We turn
to some Toulouse photographs for an example of
Palissy work that would do for a central epergne
at a modern dinner-table, and we almost instantly
find one—beautiful in design, rich in ever-glowing
colours, original in character, and a chef
d’œuvre of the great potter of the sixteenth century.
It is a vase about eleven inches high,
grounded with that dark-blue transparent
enamel in which Palissy delighted. It is
indigo without its opaqueness, the early twilight
hue of an Italian sky. The body of the vase
(the drum as it is technically called) bears on
each side a cartouche, with on one side a
river nymph reclining, on the other the goddess
Flora. Finely modelled masks—it is supposed
from the hand of the great sculptor Jean
Goujon, who was cruelly shot during the massacre
of St. Bartholomew, while at work on a
scaffold at the Louvre—occupy the spaces under
the spout and the handle; and the intervening
spaces are filled with scroll foliage. The sweeping
curve of the handle is adorned with a female
figure, full of poetry and grace, holding a
cornucopia, which twines into the scroll of the
handle. Below the spout, is a spirited large
grotesque masque, and at the base are raised
gadroons.

Now, this is an epergne worthy the table of a
gourmet of thought, refinement, and taste; one
who wants his eyes, between the courses and
during the lulls of talking, to rest, not on mere
silver plate and tame conventional figures, but
on a production of mind. “But,” a melancholy
voice of scepticism replies: “but you have
selected one of the masterpieces of the pottery
of the world; how are men of moderate means
to obtain such masterpieces?” Our reply is,
that fine bits of Palissy, fit for such purposes,
though inferior to the example selected, are
easily obtainable if a man have taste and
patience.

If we were lucky enough to get a good bit of
Palissy ware, well modelled, richly coloured,
pleasant to the eye, and suggestive to the mind,
we would try and also get a certain number of
Palissy fruit and preserve dishes to match.
These would not only have more individuality
than Dresden or Worcester china, but
the relievi would be sharper, the tints purer,
the design less hackneyed, and the enamel
colours and glaze more brilliant. The gay
fruit will show all the pleasanter when contrasting
with the deep indigo blues and chocolate
browns of the French ware. If we had the
choice, we would specially select those curious
dishes, with rivulets in the centre, and shells
and fish, spotted trout and lizards, frogs or efts,
all round. Palissy used to search for these
creatures in the ponds, brooks, and hazel
coverts, round Fontainebleau; and they always
show his patient love of nature, his industry,
and his skill. He observed their colours, and
reproduced them with most laborious care.
The olive-green tints of a tench, the golden
orange of a perch, the emerald armour of the
lizard, the low-toned greenish greys of a miller’s
thumb—he took note of them all, and
toiled at the furnace mouth until the stubborn
clay glowed with the transmitted dyes.
These Palissy dishes are quaint, but they are
never repulsive, and, half hidden with fruit
and vine leaves, would just sufficiently attract
and rouse the attention, without too much
occupying it. We have before us, photographs
of two such dishes—the one has a translucent
brook flowing round the bottom, while on an
island in the centre are fish, shells, and pebbles.
On the broad sloping bank of the margin, crawl
one or two lizards; there, also lurk a coiled-up
snake and a frog. The plants the artist
has moulded, are ferns, ivy, oak leaves, and
acorns.

In the second dish, the central island is
studded with cockle shells, which are surrounded
by a circle of small univalves. At
each end is a large frog. In the circular rivulet
disport a pike, two carp, and a miller’s
thumb: while on the raised border, artfully
grouped, are two large lizards, two crayfish, a