The first MS. which he undertook in London was one sent to him by "the noble and puissant lord, Lord Antone, Erle of Ryvyers," consisting of a translation "into right good and fayr Englyssh" of Jean de Teonville's French version of a Latin work, "a glorious fair mirror to all good Christian people."
When they might have won national independence, after their warfare with the Swabian emperors, they let the golden opportunity slip. Pampered with commercial prosperity, eaten to the core with inter-urban rivalries, they submitted to despots, renounced the use of arms, and offered themselves in the hour of need, defenceless and disunited to the shock of puissant nations.
Setting aside, however, the strong improbability that a style of decoration so widely practised and so highly esteemed could have remained unknown during a century and a half to experts working for one of the most puissant chieftains in Japan, we have the evidence of trustworthy traditions and written records that enamelled faience was made by the potters at Tatsumonjithe principal factory of Satsuma-ware in early daysas far back as the year 1676.
William the Conqueror's earl of Northumberland, Robert de Comines, was slain at Durham in 1069, and the houses of Gospatric (earls of Dunbar and March) and of de Comines (the Comyns of Badenoch) were long puissant in Scottish history.
France had suddenly grown to her full stature; like the contemporary England of John Milton, she was become a " noble and puissant nation, rousing herself like a strong man after sleep."