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Many people who collect Toby jugs and the like will be interested in Mr. Herbert Read's pioneer treatise on Stafford- shire Pottery Figures (Duckworth, 42s.). Mr. Read has expert knowledge and an agreeable style. He gives .a compact history of this popular branch of English pottery and does not exaggerate its artistic importance. Salt-glazed stoneware figures began to be made in the early eighteenth century : there is one, for instance, of the notorious Dr. Sacheverell. Astbury and Whieldon developed these " image toys " in earthenware with coloured glazes. Ralph Wood and Wedg- wood enlarged the industry, and lesser men like Walton carried it on till early Victorian times. Mr. Read is inclined to blame the French modeller Voyez, whose Bohemian ways distressed Wedgwood, for perverting the peasant art of Staffordshire and leading it to try to imitate the elegance of Sevres. The illustrations, some of them in colour, are very numerous and admirably chosen.
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