Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 5.djvu/81

 9th S.V.JAN. 27, loco.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

HAWKWOOD (9 th S. iv. 454 ; v. 11). It i better to say that Byron alludes ironically t< Hallam as "much renowned for Greek." Hi note to his line is as follows :

"Mr. Hallam reviewed Payne Knight's 'Taste and was exceedingly severe on some Greek verse therein: it was not'discovered that the lines wer Pindar's till the press rendered it impossible tc cancel the critique, which still stands an everlastin monument of Hallam's ingenuity."

E. YARDLEY.

"LOWESTOFT CHINA" (9 th S. iv. 498 v - 12). Are not some of the divergen authorities quoted by MR. HERBERT B CLAYTON more or less correct in regard to th painting on what is called Lowestoft china Very different sorts of ware are thus named ; the best and finest kind has a pure highly finished and glazed body, which differs in no respect whatever from the choicest Chinese output, and, in that way, is mani festly Oriental. On this body the decorations including armorials, emblems, and what not are generally, and to artistic eyes unques- tionably, of Oriental execution ; their colora- tion, its brilliance, harmonies, and design, leave, to me at least, not the least foundation for a doubt about this. I take it that these specimens, of which I have capital instances, are wholly Chinese, made in the Flowery Land to order, so far as regards their armorials, emblems, and the like purely European ele- ments, from drawings sent abroad for the purpose. Several of my plates are enriched with escutcheons which no Chinaman de- signed and no Englishman reproduced upon porcelain ; the tints are not, except in a general way, heraldic, and as to the drawing of the charges let the heralds who executed them dread the vengeance of the College of Arms. Death could not shield them. On the same plates blossom immortal flowers, gorgeous in colours and gold, and such as no man of Lowestoft or elsewhere in this brumous isle ever painted, at least during the eigh- teenth century, nor in that manner, at any time before or after. No, not during the nineteenth century, happy as that is in flower painting. As to the Oriental bodies of white ware which Mr. Chaffers could not find at Lowestoft, the probability is that they never existed ; but as to the country being inundated with them in 1802 when the famous factory there came to grief may I say that it takes many " pots " to overwhelm a country, especially if the factory has long been moribund ? On the other hand, there are among ray plates and dishes not a few at which though the bodies may be more or less good and fine, indeed only inferior to the

Oriental porcelain their makers lived to ap- proach no decent Chinaman would have looked. In no respect are they equal to even moderately fine Oriental porcelain. On these bodies the decorations are mani- festly Orientalized, but not Oriental in their coloration, brightness, clearness, delicacy, or finish. These are what the dealers and auctioneers say are Oriental porcelain painted in Lowestoft, or wholly from Lowestoft. The latter assumption is probably the less incor- rect ; as to which it is not to be forgotten that other factories than the East Anglian one turned out porcelain which was quite as good, while some shops, especially in later days, when the right clay had been found outside of China, produced bodies which left nothing to be desired, except, perhaps, a slight addition to their toughness. It was in the decorations the defects existed, and therein neither Lowestoft, Nantgarw, Worcester, Bristol, Swansea, nor Derby, was ever fit to hold a candle before artistic eyes when the immemorial art of China was looked at. It is " the seeing eye that profits by seeing." Such was the case with Sir A. W. Franks and Mr. Litchfield.

Apart from all this there is something to be said for a notion to the effect that a Chinese painter or two were imported to Lowestoft to paint on Lowestoft ware. We know of one Tan-chet-qua, or an artist of some such name, who exhibited at the Academy and sat, if it was the same person, to Reynolds himself. It may be taken for granted, however, that if a Chinaman had Deen imported we should have his name among the records of Lowestoft, which I understand are in existence somewhere. Nor, [ fancy, would Lowestoft have been alone in such an importation, say at Worcester, where ible imitations of the Celestial ware, or at Derby, Nantgarw, and Swansea. The actory-books and pay-bills of some of these vorks have been printed, but among them I mve not found the name of a Chinese. O.
 * hey strained every nerve to produce color-

" A GOOD PENNYWORTH " (9 th S. iv. 436, 522).

There was an earlier version of this ex- n-ession, viz., "Robin Hood's pennyworths": " Walton the Bayliffe leavyed of the poore mans oods 77 n att Robiiihood's peniworths." 'Cases in he Court of Star Chamber, Camden, 8vo. p. 117.

This is explained by :

" To sell Robin Hoods pennyworths. It is spoken f things sold under half their value ; or if you will, off Hold ha/f (jiven. Rolrin Hood came lightly by is ware, and lightly parted therewith ; so that he ould afford the lenyth of his J3ow for a yard of ^." Fuller, ' Worthies of England,' p. 315.