Looking at slip ware as a whole, one must not be too critical in regard to its somewhat inartistic appearance. It certainly has a charm about it which cannot be denied. It is native to the soil, and this peasant industry (if one can appropriately term it such), is chiefly to be regarded from the standpoint of what might have been if it had been allowed to develop on natural and untrammelled lines. But it was pressed on the one side by stoneware, such as the Bellarmine jugs and mugs imported from Germany, and it finally succumbed to foreign delft, which was largely used here prior to the Englishman's determined attempt, at Lambeth, at Bristol, and at Liverpool (where it was the staple industry for some time) to make his own wares.
It is the same story with the fine stoneware, the salt glaze of Staffordshire, which was a magnificent outburst of English art of the highest order, which fell before the cheapness of Wedgwood's and other cream ware, after a heroic struggle in its enamelled stage with the coloured ware of the new English china factories. These precedents might be continued further up to the present day, when German, Austrian, and Japanese competition have driven English potters into the position of attempting to hold their own against foreign art.
It is the opinion of the present writer that the coats-of-arms on the Toft dishes were a deliberate attempt to copy those frequently found on the belly of the Rhenish stoneware jugs. From the days of Elizabeth coats-of-arms and heraldic devices were a feature in these jugs used in this country. Among those at the British and the Victoria and Albert Museums, and in the fine collection at the Guildhall, the use of crests is seen to be a striking characteristic (see illustration, p. 135). As a conclusive proof that the maker of earthenware had his eye on these stoneware models, we give as an illustration a jug in _earthenware_ (not stoneware) of Bellarmine form made in England, undoubtedly by an English potter. The arms on it are those of the Earl of Dorset, not improbably those of the sixth Earl, Charles Sackville, who lived from 1637 to 1706, and was the author of the well-known song, running--
"To all you ladies now on land We men at sea indite; But first would have you understand How hard it is to write"--