you have now in hand as a purpose of national, rather than merely local or partial interest. It is because there are certain principles applicable to manufacture, by the observance or neglect of which its products are rendered good or bad. These principles were applied by Wedgwood with a consistency and tenacity that cannot too closely be examined, to industrial production. And these principles, being his, and being true, were also in no small degree peculiar to his practice; and deserve on this account, to be, in the permanent annals of art, especially associated with his name.

2. I have engaged, as I am aware, in a somewhat perilous undertaking. For, having come here to speak to you about a man and a business, I am obliged to begin by confessing what, if I did not confess it, you would soon discover for yourselves, namely that of both of them my knowledge is scanty, theoretic, and remote: while you breathe the air, inherit the traditions, in some cases bear the very name of the man; and have a knowledge of the business, founded upon experience and upon interest, in all its turns and stages, and from its outer skin, so to speak, to its innermost core. It is the learner who for the moment stands in the teacher's place, and instead of listening with submission, seems to aim at speaking with authority. In this course of remark it would be easy to enlarge; but I must stop, or I shall soon demonstrate that I ought not to be here at all.

3. Let me then offer something on the other side. First, I have to assure you that whatever I shall say, I submit with entire deference to the judgments of those who are better informed, and with a full assurance that if erroneous it will be corrected, and if false exploded. Secondly, as an observer, according to my limited

capacity and means, of fictile manufacture in its various branches, I have formed deliberately so high, so very high, an estimate of Wedgwood in relation not merely to his particular business, but to the general laws of industrial production, that I am glad to have an opportunity of stating it fully and freely, in order to bring it, as far as in me lies, to trial by the public judgment. And thirdly, in the office which I hold as servant of the Crown,* and which places me in incessant contact with much of the industry of the country in its several branches, I am anxious, from the deep interest I cannot but feel in its welfare, to bear my testimony to the principles, of which Wedgwood was, so to speak, an apostle; and moreover, to give to that testimony any little weight which such an office, and such a deep interest and near relation established by it, may be likely, in the absence of higher personal qualifications, to impart.

4. Thirty years ago, it would probably have been held by many, and it may still be the thought of some, that the matters, of which I have now to speak, are matters which may well be left to regulate themselves. To vindicate for trade in all its branches the principle and power of selfregulation, has been, for nearly a quarter of a century, a principal function of the British Parliament. But the very same stage in our political and social existence, which has taught us the true and beneficial application of the laws of political economy, has likewise disclosed to us the just limits of the science, and of the field of its practical application. The very same age, which has seen the State strike off the fetters of industry, has also seen it interpose, with a judicious boldness, for the protection of

Chancellor of the Exchequer.

labour. The same spirit of policy, which has taken from the British producer the enjoyment of a system of virtual bounties, paralysing to him and most costly to the community at large, has offered him the aids of knowledge and instruction by whatever means, either of precept or example, public authority could command.

5. We may consider the products of industry with reference to their utility; or to their cheapness; or with regard to their influence upon the condition of those who produce them; or, lastly, with reference to their beauty; to the degree in which they associate the presentation of forms and colours, agreeable to the cultivated eye, with the attainment of the highest aptitude for those purposes of common life for which they are properly designed. First, as to their utility and convenience, considered alone, we may leave that to the consumer, who will not buy what does not suit him. As to their cheapness, when once security has been taken that an entire society shall not be forced to pay an artificial price to some of its members for their productions, we may safely commit the question to the action of competition among manufacturers, and of what we term the laws of supply and demand. As to the condition of the workpeople, experience has shown, especially in the case of the Factory Acts, that we should do wrong in laying down any abstract maxim as an invariable rule. Generally it may be said, that the presumption is in every case against legislative interference: but that upon special grounds, and most of all where children are employed, it may sometimes not only be warranted but required. This, however, though I may again advert to it, is not for to-day our special subject. We come, then, to the last of the heads which I have named: the association of beauty

with utility, each of them taken according to its largest sense, in the business of industrial production. And it is in this department, I conceive, that we are to look for the peculiar pre-eminence, I will not scruple to say the peculiar greatness, of Wedgwood.

6. Now do not let us suppose that, when we speak of this association of beauty with convenience, we speak either of a matter which is light and fanciful, or of one which may, like some of those I have named, be left to take care of itself. Beauty is not an accident of things, it pertains to their essence; it pervades the wide range of creation; and, wherever it is impaired or banished, we have in this fact the proof of the moral disorder which disturbs the world. Reject, therefore, the false philosophy of those who will ask what does it matter, provided a thing be useful, whether it be beautiful or not and say in reply that we will take one lesson from Almighty God, Who in His works hath shown us, and in His Word also has told us, that "He hath made everything," not one thing, or another thing, but everything, "beautiful in His time." Among all the devices of creation, there is not one more wonderful, whether it be the movement of the heavenly bodies, or the succession of the seasons and the years, or the adaptation of the world and its phenomena to the conditions of human life, or the structure of the eye, or hand, or any other part of the frame of man,-not one of all these is more wonderful, than the profuseness with which the Mighty Maker has been pleased to shed over the works of His hands an endless and boundless beauty.

7. And to this constitution of things outward, the constitution and mind of man, deranged although they be, still answer from within. Down to the humblest condition of

life, down to the lowest and most backward grade of civilisation, the nature of man craves, and seems as it were even to cry aloud, for something, some sign or token at the least, of what is beautiful, in some of the many spheres of mind or sense. This it is, that makes the Spitalfields weaver, amidst the murky streets of London, train canaries and bullfinches to sing to him at his work: that fills with flower-pots the windows of the poor: that leads the peasant of Pembrokeshire to paint the outside of his cottage in the gayest colours: that prompts, in the humbler classes of women, a desire for some little personal ornament, certainly not without its dangers (for what sort of indulgence can ever be without them ?), yet sometimes, perhaps, too sternly repressed from the high and luxurious places of society. But indeed we trace the operation of this principle yet more conspicuously in a loftier region in that instinct of natural and Christian piety, which taught the early masters of the Fine Arts to clothe, not only the most venerable characters associated with the objects and history of our Faith, but especially the idea of the sacred Person of our Lord, in the noblest forms of beauty that their minds could conceive, and their hands could execute.

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8. It is, in short, difficult for human beings to harden themselves at all points against the impressions and the charm of beauty. Every form of life, that can be called in any sense natural, will admit them. If we look for an exception, we shall perhaps come nearest to finding one in a quarter where it would not at first be expected. I know not whether there is any one among the many species of human aberration, that renders a man SO entirely callous, as the lust of gain in its extreme degrees. That passion, where it has full dominion, excludes every