It seems hardly necessary to enter upon a description of these wares; but, lest the omission be noted, we will venture a reminder that, compared with other kinds of Japanese porcelain, their ornamentation is simple and scattered. The ground is invariably a rich cream, which is the natural color of the clay as it is brought out and enhanced by a clear vitreous enamel. In Satsuma ware, which is the more highly prized, the rarer and more expensive of the two varieties, the coloring of the clay is paler; but, this difference is hardly appreciable unless the faience be closely compared with a piece of Kioto. The enamel, which is traversed by a myriad of minute cracks, is one of the strong points in both wares. This raquelė effect is a special achievement of Japanese art, as the wonderful cloisonné enamels have likewise been. It was first applied to Satsuma ware, which was manufactured under the patronage of a

A MANDARIN VASE.

are a gracious concession to our outraged taste. To use an expressive though degenerate phrase, they are not too grotesque-just grotesque enough.

A somewhat self-sufficient connoisseur in ceramics observes of Satsuma ware, from which Kioto is hardly to be distinguished:

"Many of the products are very ingenious in form and odd in effect; but the ware has little to commend it either in beauty or national characteristics."

But here we beg leave to differ. To our thinking, the rich, creamy tints of Satsuma, its curious craquelé enamel, and bamboo twigs in bas-relief, with their slender leaves heavily gilded, are much more pleasing to the eye than the intermingled roses and ribbons, cherubs and doll-faced adults, which are the outgrowth of the French school, or the most fanciful creations of that art whose fundamental principle is the distortion of nature.

A NANKIN VASE AND COVER.

4.

The

a free hand in the famous Chinese black. drawing itself is more effective than it is correct, and many are the improvements (?) on nature which the decorator achieves with his fearless brush. I have noticed, however, that the artists of Satsuma and Kioto do not discard symmetry in their unique designs; but their idea of symmetry does not signify similarity. Each design has a central figure or object of special prominence, which is flanked by a number of details the sums of which appear to have about the same specific gravity; but on one side there may be two cranes volant, and on the other a single ornithological nondescript of twice the size. There is, however, a suggestion of equilibrium in the various parts of the design.

of real antiquity; but it is a faience which preserves so well the semblance of youth that the dubious question of its age can hardly be discussed with satisfaction. Kioto is nothing more than an imitation of Satsuma; but so perfect is it, and so like the genuine, that its depreciation has no basis save in the over-nice discriminations of connoisseurs who are apt to assign a fabulous value to mere age, and who discard all imitations, no matter how meritorious.

The colors used in the decoration of these two kinds of faience are, for the most part, pure, and are offset by patches of gilding. They run through an octave or so of the chromatic scale, but are applied in such judicious quantities that their variety produces only a pleasing effect. The decoration is wholly superficial, being applied after the enamel has been hardened, except where the fancy of the potter has prompted him to raise in bas-relief a sprig of bamboo, the pinion of a bird, a blade of grass, or an anomalous flower.

5.

I have in my possession a tête-à-tête set of Kioto which I regard as particularly beautiful. It consists of a small tea-pot, a sugar-bowl, a creampitcher, two cups, and two saucers, the whole being arranged on a lacquered tray. To convey some idea of the relative cost of this ware and Satsuma, I will say that my tête-à-tête set cost me only ten dollars, tray included. The same thing in Satsuma would cost about three or perhaps four times that price. This set, however, is very simply ornamented. The more elaborately decorated pieces are more expensive. Its design is nevertheless a typical one, and, in my opinion, one of

The pigments used are mixed in a peculiar way, or it may be that after they have been applied they are coated with enamel; at all events, they are smooth and shining, being used merely to fill in the outlines of figures and objects drawn with

the most graceful. The shapes of the various pieces are very comely, the cream-pitcher in particular having a form of unique beauty. This little vessel has been fashioned in accordance with

madness of the Japanese artist which enables him to venture upon the most startling and inharmonious effects in color, and yet produce an ensemble of pleasing character.

12.

when the pitcher was yet soft clay in his hands, and left them to harden into two curled lips that quaintly droop over the sides. You will see that little touch frequently given to the rims of vases, to dishes in basket shape, and to many small pieces of varied utility.

The handles of the Kioto tea-cups which are now before me, and of a tall vase that is standing by, are odd little elbows of porcelain bamboo, colored a vivid green and with the joints gilded. The cups and the rest of the tea-set represent what appears to me a shallow marsh. In the foreground there is a plant with long reedy stems and dull-red flowers. Overhead a number of parti-colored cranes. and gilt-winged birds are circling amid sparse little patches of gold clouds. That is all. But the effect is singularly pleasing.

The vase, on the other hand, is literally overrun with flowers which are not unlike our clematis blossoms, but are colored brick-red, and a muddy plum. Down in one corner I see a knot of something that looks like violets, and overhead there is the inevitable stork in giant proportions. The centre of the design consists of two shoots of bamboo, with its long-fingered gilt leaves in bas-relief. I wish I could discover what method it is in the

It is hardly possible for the collector or the every-day buyer to fail to recognize Satsuma and Kioto ware. True, he is more than apt to be at loss to determine which is which, but he is morally certain to know whether or not the article he purchases is one of the two. Their style is unique. The characteristics I have pointed out in them are combined in no other faience. Their cream-colored clay and craquelé enamel is not to be mistaken. More than once, I imagine, some unconscionable dealer will cheat you with Kioto when you wish to buy Satsuma. It really makes very little difference. It is quite as pretty. Only, on principle, one doesn't like to be deceived in such a matter. But what are we going to do about it? Study Japanese, perhaps, in order to be able to decipher the variable hieroglyphics which constitute the trade-marks and reveal the names of the manufactory and the maker? I hardly think so. Nor will we be likely to institute such careful and tedious comparisons as alone can teach us to tell the one ware from the other. We will buy Kioto and Satsuma indiscriminately, as we buy some of the beautiful Jones Majolica, and fancy it is the product of the world-renowned manufactories of Majorca or Faenza. And shall we be less æsthetic,

"I IN these flowery meads would be;
These crystal streams should solace me,
By whose harmonious bubbling noise

I with my angle would rejoice."— WALTON.

IZAAK WALTON, Sometimes called the angler optimist, was born at Stafford in 1593, and passed his early manhood in London, where he carried on the business of linen-draper. In his fiftieth year he retired from trade with a competency sufficient to satisfy his modest desires. It was probably his marriage with a sister of Bishop Ken that brought him in contact with so many eminent men of his day; and so exquisitely pleasing was his manner, and such the simplicity of his character, that it is not strange that what might have been a mere transient acquaintanceship soon became a solid and life-long friendship. He died on the 15th of December, 1683, at the great age of ninety, in the house of Dr. Hawkins, his sonin-law, prependary of Winchester Cathedral, and was buried in the vault of that sanctuary. It has been truthfully said that no character, whether personal or literary, is more perfectly enviable

than that of Walton.

His first publication was the "Life of Dr. Donne," which was followed in order by the lives of Hooker, Sir Henry Wotton, George Herbert, and Bishop Sanderson. The lives, though far less widely known than "The Complete Angler," are, in their way, not less exquisite and unique. Wordsworth dedicated a beautiful sonnet to them, in which he speaks of the five saintly names of the subjects of them as

"Satellites burning in a lucid ring

Around meek Walton's heavenly memory."

These biographies are unlike any other biographies; they charm us with their simple grace, their unaffected fervor, their personal attachments, their undisguised piety.

"The Complete Angler; or, Contemplative Man's Recreation," was published in 1655. A fac-simile of the original edition was issued in 1875, and, from first to last, more than fifty editions have appeared. As a treatise on the art of an

It was certainly a very unpretentious announcement. A second part was added to the book by Charles Cotton, his friend, and his rival in the passion for angling. It is somewhat inferior, but breathes the same spirit, and contains many simple yet exquisite lyrics. Cotton owned a fine estate in Derbyshire, upon the river Dove, celebrated for its trout. Walton spent considerable of his time there, and the two friends were very congenial. Shaw gives Cotton a place in his "Manual of English Literature," seemingly for two reasons:

first, because he was best known as the friend of Walton, and secondly, because he wrote the "Voyage to Ireland," which, Campbell remarks, to a great extent anticipated the manner of Anstey in "The Bath Guide." The latter was published in 1766, and became the most popular work of the day. It was not the dry, statistical, overlypractical book which might have been inferred from its title. No one was more agreeably surprised than Walpole, who pronounced it "a set of letters in verse, in all kinds of verse; so much wit, fun, poetry, and originality never met together before."

"The Complete Angler" is something almost absolutely unique in literature, because of its inimitable descriptions of nature, quaint dia

logues, pious philosophy, and evident gratitude for the sweet enjoyments of life. The expressions are as pure and sweet and graceful as the sentiment, and the occasional occurrence of a little touch of old-fashioned pedantry only adds to the indefinable fascination of the work, "breaking up its monotony like a ripple upon the sunny surface of a stream." "The slight tincture of credulity and innocent eccentricity which pervades his works," says Mr. Mills, "gives them a finer zest and more original fervor, without detracting from their higher power to soothe, instruct, and delight."

This genial optimist, this lingerer in the sunset hour, this loiterer in the soft gray dawns, caught his inspiration from nature. Nature is man's best teacher, for she is wisdom's self. It is through her that we view nature's God, for

"She has made nothing so base, but can

Read some instruction to the wisest man."

of the quail in the stubble; the song of the thrush, "running through the sweetest length of notes;" the wood-lark, "shaking from its throat such floods of delicious music that woods and waves seem to listen;" the whippoorwill "singing his fitful hymn in the drowsy watches of the night;" the caw of rook, the scream of jay, the hoot of owl; the winds sweeping the skirt of some greenspreading wood, "its music not unlike the dash of ocean on his winding shore;" each tree a natural harp, each different leaf a different note, "blent in one vast thanksgiving."

Spending so much of his time among those sweet secluded spots where

"The murmuring brooklet told its babbling tale Like a sweet under-song,"

he, indeed, could have exclaimed with Cowper:

"-meditation

May think down hours to moments. Here the heart
May give a useful lesson to the head,
And learning wiser grow without her books."

"Nothing is lost on him who sees

With an eye that genius gave; For him there's a story in every breeze,

And a picture in every wave."

Oh, how much that is sweet and fair and pure Walton saw and heard in those long, almost numberless days which he spent by purling brook, placid lake, and silver-sheeted river!

The dusky dells, the torrent-torn ravines, the breezy hills," where cliff on cliff like fiery ramparts rise," the pathless woods, the daisy-starred meadows; the silent, bright-hued, perfume-breathing flowers, beneath which "so many tender thoughts are lying," and whose "daintiness touches us like poetry;" the sluggishly-drifting clouds, "softly shaking on the dimpled pool prelusive drops ;" clouds massive, black, portentous, "the angry gleam of the red lightning cleaving the frowning folds;" the sun dispelling the mists of the dawn, "bannered with glory and burnished with gold," or its last red rays lost in the gathering twilight; "the nightingale the only vesper bell;" the tinkling of streamlet, the roar of cataract, the wash of restless waves; the whistle

"Laugh at the love and pride of man,

At the sophist's school and the learned clan; For what are they all, in their high conceit, When man in the bush with God may meet?"

Walton knew how to appreciate life; he did not regard it as a mazy web of circumstances. It cannot well appear mean to one who uses it nobly. Mind unemployed is mind unenjoyed. His charming little book was not the product of an idle thinker, but rather of a thinker's idleness. The most pleasant things in the world are pleasant thoughts, and the great art of life is to have as many of them as possible. Walton's thoughts were intuitions that came to him in the patient practice of his out-door propensity. Is it any wonder he wrote so prettily about the things to which he was wedded, any more than that Eschylus should recount in imperishable language the overthrow of the Persians, when he himself was one of the gallant band who charged down the plain of Marathon in the decisive battle of the world?”’

Bovee says: "Our impressions usually relate to what is visible to us. Out-door thoughts are, therefore, apt to be more comprehensive than indoor thoughts. Our in-door thoughts are usually