he is said to have been applied to, to engrave a portrait of Sir Hudson Lowe from a painting which he thought untruthfully exhibited his somewhat plain features, and he refused the commission because he could not think that the painting was life-like. He engraved, among other exquisite works, an admirable portrait of his deceased relative, the Great Josiah, from Sir Joshua Reynolds' painting. This engraving I have been fortunate enough to secure for my readers, and it will be found as a frontispiece to the present volume. It will be seen to be a remarkably fine work of art, and one in every way worthy not only of himself but of the great man whom it so well represents. Among his other more celebrated works were a fine portrait of Lord Byron, published in Paris, and portraits of the Princess Charlotte and of Prince Leopold, with numberless others which will be well known to print and portrait collectors. John Taylor Wedgwood, who was never married, died in London in the year 1856, aged seventy-four. With Thomas Wedgwood-himself the improver of some of the wares-as his partner, the "Great Josiah" found himself more at leisure, as I have said, to pursue his experiments and researches. Speaking of these chemical pursuits, the manuscript to which I have before referred says "It is not to be wondered at that his mind had a strong direction to this study in connection with chemistry, since he could not but be sensible how entirely the advancement of his views depended upon it, and he had happily acquired a fondness for the pursuit which, independently of the advantages he derived from it, was the source of rational amusement to his latest day. He possessed himself, at considerable expense, of all the minerals in this island, and there were few in other countries whose properties he had not examined. Being once shown a specimen of beautiful white clay, from the country of the Cherokees, in North America, he engaged the person who brought it over to return to that country, and procure him what quantity he could get of it. The fruit of this expedition was, however, only a few tons, which were carried on the backs of mules, from a great distance, to the port of Charlestown, in South Carolina. No clay equal to this in purity has been met with in England, nor perhaps in Europe, except in a few lead mines about Brassington, in Derbyshire, and there only in such small quantities that it cannot be made the basis of a manufactory. In 1792 Colonel Ironsides sent him a specimen of the brown matrix, from the East, which the colonel wrote to be the very clay itself, but herein was set right by Mr. W. in a letter to him. Mr. Wedgwood was well acquainted with the Brassington clay in 1765, and then procured small quantities of it for experiment.* "By numbering and registering the results of the experiments he was constantly making, he could take up the ideas they furnished at any distant time when occasion required, and by these means he saw in the drawers of his cabinet the employment of his future life, and perhaps of that of his successor. He was thus enabled to keep up the spirit and attraction of his works by a succession of novelties, and his manufactory appeared in a progressive course of improvement. His inventions as they rose had the good fortune to be countenanced by the fashionable world, which secured them a favourable reception with the bulk of mankind. His contemporaries in the pottery (in every instance but one that will be pointed out) soon adopted them, and they became general articles of commerce and public benefit. "That the efficacy of causes may have their due influence,' we have known him ever forward to declare that it was alone owing to the munificent protection of his sovereign, and the liberal encouragement of the nobility and gentry of these kingdoms, that he was able to risk the expense of these continual improvements, unparalleled, we believe, in the history of any similar manufactory in Europe. "Thus honoured and thus prosperous in his humble pot The importance of this material was evidently known to Wedgwood's contemporary, Duesbury, of the Derby china works, who rented some lead mines at the place. tery, he used to say jocosely, 'his friends threatened him with the statute of lunacy if he should begin to make porcelain.' It was not possible, however, to continue his improvement of earthenware without producing substances that, having most of the genuine and essential properties of porcelain, must necessarily be so classed. But he so profited by the admonition of his friends as to keep himself disengaged from any plan of making the porcelain in common use, so much and often so fatally the ambitious object of so many individuals. His researches marked him out a new and unbeaten track in the same field that was more congenial to his disposition and powers. About this time, the year 1766, he first discovered the art of making the unglazed black porcelain, now so well known in this country, and called it Basaltes, as it has nearly the same properties with the stone of that name. And the first uses that he made of it were to imitate the fine vases of antiquity that he found in Montfaucon's works, and other collections that had then come to his knowledge. He saw the extensive application. that might be made of such compact and durable substances as this, and others that he had begun with but not then brought to maturity, in multiplying copies of the fine works of antiquity, as well as those of our own times; and he was not without hopes that the improvement of pottery, by exciting the public attention to the productions of the arts, would lay the foundation of a school of miniature modelling in this country, which had long felt a deficiency of artists in that way. To this end his labours were directed, and it must be allowed that he has done much to promote it; but many objects yet unattained dwelt in his mind's eye, and he used to declare in his later days, that 'he considered the pottery as still in its infancy.' The close and constant attention which Wedgwood now gave to the properties of clays and different minerals, and the researches and experiments he prosecuted in chemistry, soon led to the production of a number of different kinds of wares unknown before, and which have gained for him a lasting and honourable fame. He formed an admirable library of chemical works, and carefully noted the results, not only of his own observations and experiments, but of those of others, and he soon became one of the most clever of chemists, as he certainly was one of the most accomplished of the scientific men of his time. I have now lying before me, through the kindness of Mr. Francis and Mr. Godfrey Wedgwood-to whom I have to express my deep obligation for much cordial and valuable assistance throughout my work-three large and thick folio volumes of MS. collections, partly in Josiah Wedgwood's handwriting, but principally in that of his chemist, Alexander Chisholm, on chemicals, metals, and kindred subjects, which show pretty forcibly the great attention which must have been paid to these important matters. In one of these volumes is a long list of scientific books, with the note, "Those marked O are in our collection," which evidently must have been a "collection" of no little importance. One great result of Wedgwood's labours-indeed, one of the greatest was the production in 1766 of the fine black ware, which he called "Basaltes" or "Egyptian." In this ware he produced, even in those early days, many fine pieces of work, and of a quality which only his own careful hand could afterwards improve. The other important bodiesthe jasper, the white stone, the cane-coloured, and the mortar, &c.,-followed in succession, each producing its beauties, and each being specially adapted for the purposes for which, by his master mind, it had been intended. Each, too, found its imitators among the potters of the district, who, envious of his success, were not slow to follow as closely as might be in his steps. Not one of these varieties of ware did Wedgwood patent, but with that liberality of mind which ever characterised him, he was willing that all who cared to make the bodies he had invented should do so. He was content with the knowledge of his own superioritya superiority which he ever maintained over all his many competitors. CHAPTER X. IMITATION AGATE JOSIAH WEDGWOOD'S INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.—TERRA COTTA.-BASALTES, WHITE PORCELAIN BISCUIT, JASPER, BAMBOO AND MORTAR WARES. AND MARBLE.-MR. S. C. HALL'S COLLECTION.-WEDGWOOD DETERMINES UPON REMOVING FROM BURSLEM. PURCHASES THE RIDGE HOUSE ESTATE. -ERECTION OF THE BLACK WORKS. -TAKES THOMAS BENTLEY INTO PARTNERSHIP. NOTICE OF THE BENTLEYS.-THE OCTAGON CHAPEL AT LIVERPOOL. WEDGWOOD AND BENTLEY. 66 66 ETRURIA" WORKS. BUILDING OF ETRURIA HALL.-FOUNDING AND THE characteristic properties of the different varieties of wares to which I alluded at the close of the last chapter as having been introduced in rapid succession by Josiah Wedgwood, were thus described by himself; and I cannot, therefore, do better than quote his own words : "1. A terra-cotta; resembling porphyry, granite, Egyptian pebble, and other beautiful stones of the silicious or crystalline order. "2. Basaltes or black ware; a black porcelain biscuit of nearly the same properties with the natural stone; striking fire with steel, receiving a high polish, serving as a touchstone for metals, resisting all the acids, and bearing without injury a strong fire: stronger, indeed, than the basaltes itself. "3. White porcelain biscuit, of a smooth, wax-like surface, of the same properties with the preceding, except in what depends upon colour. |