Majolica is Italian pottery, sometimes known under the name of Raf-faele ware or Umbrian ware. It was manufactured, it is believed, in imitation of the Moorish pottery taken by the Pisans from Majorca. Hence its first name. Afterwards it was called Raffaele ware because it was decorated with paintings from the copper plates that the great engraver Marc Antonio printed from the famous Raffaele's works.

Palissy's Pottery (French) is also greatly valued. The story of his lifelong struggles, of his discouraging wife, and his death in the Bastile, are familiar to most readers from the pretty tale called "Madame Palissy's Troubles."Palissy's fayence is decorated with subjects in relief, never with flat painting. The colours are usually yellows, blues, and greys - sometimes violet, green, and brown. His plates, dishes, etc., represent the fossil shells, reptiles, fish and plants of the neighbourhood of Paris. But these are not all his works. There are statuettes, cups, saltcellars, incense burners, and baskets by him of great beauty.

* A very intelligent little Chinese girl told the writer some four or five years ago, that a female infant is sacrificed still at times for the success of the porcelain manufacture. The child is told to look at some wonderful thing in the furnace, and is then pushed in. "They think," she said, in her broken English, "that china sure to come out very good then." It was evidently a tale heard in the nursery; but considering the amount of cruelty and superstition known to exist amongst the celestials, it is not impossible that it may be true. In fact the worship of the unfortunate Pousa may have given the Chinese potters the idea of such a sacrifice.

The Fayence of Henry H.'s time is wonderfully beautiful and much valued. It is made of a hard paste, while the Majolica and Palissy ware are both of soft paste. Majolica is covered with a thick coating of enamel. The Fayence of Henry II. (French) is only covered with a thin transparent yellowish glaze - dark yellow is the predominant colour of some of its patterns. Its decorations, in relief, are generally pink.

Porcelain is composed of two substances - alumina or clay, called technically Kaolin, which cannot be melted by heat; the other felspar or petro-silex - called pe-tun-tse - which will vitrify in heat. Hard paste porcelain is composed of a greater proportion of alumina and less of silex. It requires greater heat in the furnace, and is of a denser substance than soft paste porcelain. The soft paste porcelain has more silex with the addition of alkaline fluxes, and therefore requires less furnace heat and is less dense. It is easily scratched by a knife. Porcelain is in short a substance between earthenware pottery and glass.

The first European hard porcelain was made at Dresden, under the auspices of Frederick Augustus I. Elector of Saxony, and afterwards King of Poland. The circumstances attending the Saxon discovery of the art are remarkable.

There dwelt at Berlin an apothecary's assistant called John Frederick Bbttcher, who was suspected of being an alchemist, and compelled to fly for safety to Saxony. The Elector Augustus sent for him, and demanded of him whether he truly possessed the secret of making gold. Bbttcher denied any such power, but the Elector did not believe him, and placed him under the charge of the alchemist, Tschirnhaus, who was then employed by the prince in the search for the Elixir of Life and the Philosopher's Stone. Whilst working at the furnaces, Bottcher perceived in the contents of some crucibles a substance resembling Oriental porcelain. He communicated his discovery to the Elector, who perceived the importance of the discovery, and at once removed Bottcher to the Castle of Albrechts-burg, in Meissen, where (though he supplied him with all possible comforts and luxuries) he detained the poor artist a close prisoner till his death. The first attempts of Bottcher produced only a kind of red stone-ware; it was not till the occurrence of another accidental circumstance, in 1709, that he was enabled to manufacture white porcelain.

The circumstance was this: - An iron-master of the Erzgcbirge, named Schnorr, riding one day near Aue (in Saxony), found his horse's hoofs continually stick fast in a soft white clay. As hair-powder was in general use at the time, it occurred to him that this clay, dried and powdered, might be a substitute for the wheat-flour employed in the manufacture of it. He collected some of the earth, carried it to Carls-feld, and had a hair-powder made of it, of which he sold at Dresden and other places great quantities. One of its purchasers was Bbttcher. He noticed its singular weight in his hair; ascertained where it was bought, and that it was an earth, and at once tried it as a clay, or kaolin, for his ware. It proved the right material for making white porcelain, and the great manufactory at Meissen was at once established by Augustus. This clay was known henceforth as Schnorrische weisse Erde, and was taken to the manufactory in sealed barrels by persons sworn to secresy.

Horoldt succeeded Bottcher as head of the Meissen manufactory in 1720. In 1731, Kandler, a sculptor, superintended the modelling, and the art rose to a great degree of perfection. The best productions of Kandler were the "Lute Player "representing "Hearing," from his allegorical groups of the " Senses." " The Broken Looking Glass," " Marriage a-la-Mode ;" "The Love Letter," and several groups of children. Dresden figures have in fact ever since been famous.

Dresden candelabra have never been surpassed. A friend of the writer possesses two, on which the flowers are life-like. The " lace " on figures is of especial beauty. We have been told by a collector that it is real lace which is put into the clay, and reappears as lace in china. Berlin china stands second to Dresden in beauty of form and colour. The manufacture was commenced by Frederick the Great after his occupation of Dresden in the Seven Years' War. He established it by a shameful act of injustice: - He despatched large masses of the " Schnorrische" Kaolin, or clay, to Berlin, and sent off captive thither the best modellers and painters of Meissen, who were compelled thenceforward to toil in the service of the conqueror and inveterate enemy of their country. Nevermore were these unfortunate exiles allowed to return to their native land; their descendants or pupils are still the subjects of Prussia.