679 



WEDEL, GEORG WOLFGANG. 



WEDGWOOD, JOSIAH. 



680 



He had chosen for himself an original and cheerful bye-path in art, 

 quite distinct from that of Wilkie at this time well worn by a crowd 

 of followers and one that led as surely and not less quickly to English 

 homes. Webster's chief object was to observe and delineate that 

 most mirthful, wilful, and changeful of animals the English School- 

 boy, and he has with hearty good-will and unflagging spirit pursued it 

 to the present time his other pictures being evidently only subsidiary 

 to his main purpose, a mere variation of the theme, or a little tem- 

 porary change of study. Since his election into the Academy (be 

 became II. A. in 1846) his principal pictures havo all been exhibited 

 there. The following is a list of them : ' The Grandmother,' ' The 

 Impenitent,' and 'Going to School,' in 1842: ' Sickness and Health,' 

 a work of great beauty, in 1843 ; ' Portraits of Mr. and Mrs. Webster,' 

 ' The Violet Seller,' and ' The Pedlar,' in 1844 ; ' The Dame's School,' 

 in 1845; 'Please remember the Grotto,' and ' Goodnight,' in 1846; 

 'A Village Choir,' and ' Instruction,' in 1847 ; ' The internal economy 

 of Dotheboys' Hall,' and 'A llubber,' one of his best works, in 1848 ; 

 'A See-saw,' and 'A Slide,' his masterpiece, in 1849; 'A study from 

 Nature,' ' A Cherry-seller,' ' A Peasant's Home,' and ' A Farm House 

 Kitchen,' iu 1850; 'A Chimney Corner,' and 'Attraction,' in 1851 ; 

 ' A School Play-ground,' ' A. B. C.' and ' A Letter from the Colonies, 1 

 in 1852; 'A Dame's School,' in 1853; 'A Villager's Offering,' 'A 

 Breakfast Party,' and 'Peasant Children,' in 1854 ; 'Spring,' and 'A 

 Race,' in 1855 ; ' Hide and Seek,' in 1856. 



Few English painters are so generally popular as Webster. His 

 pictures are invariably a centre of attraction in the exhibition room, 

 and in the picture gallery. The subjects are always such as appeal 

 to the common feelings. Every one likes to watch school-boys in real 

 life, and he selects the incidents which are looked at with most 

 pleasure. He is a thoroughly genial observer. Every thing he does is 

 marked by good feeling, kindness, and heartiness. There is a sense 

 of enjoyment about his pictures which is irresistible. His humour is 

 genuine, and unstrained, dashed sometimes with a touch of pathos, 

 sensibility to which is a never-failing accompaniment of true humour 

 and heightened occasionally by a bit of broad farce. In his repre- 

 sentations of adult life he is scarcely less happy than among children, 

 indeed in the briefest list of his masterworks it would be necessary to 

 include the ' Village Choir,' a picture that Hogarth would have 

 rejoiced in, and 'A Itubber at Whist,' one which Wilkie might have 

 envied. Still it is as a painter of riotous school-boys, that he is most 

 memorable, and his famous ' Slide ' is not likely to be forgotten by 

 any visitor to the Academy Exhibition of 184.9, or to find iu its way a 

 rival among English pictures. Of Mr. Webster's technical merits we 

 have little need to say anything. Unless they had been of a high 

 order, the keenest humour and the happiest fancies, must have failed 

 to raise him to his present position. He draws admirably ; tells his 

 stories in the clearest manner ; always disposes his figures so as to 

 produce a pleasing arrangement of lines, and light and shadow ; and 

 colours brightly and harmoniously : but he persists in painting thinly 

 and with an ill-tilled pencil, and so instead of presenting a rich, 

 forcible, and riant appearance, consonant with their true character, 

 hia pictures at the first glance often have a cold and poor appearance. 

 The Vernon collection contains two pictures by Mr. Webster, ' The 

 Truant,' and 'A Dame's School ; ' and in the Sheepshanks' gallery the 

 nation possesses six of his works, including the admirable ' Village 

 Choir' and 'Sickness and Health.' 



WEDEL, GEOHG WOLFGANG, was born on the 12th of Novem- 

 ber 1645, at Golsen in Lusatia, where his father was a Protestant 

 minister. His early studies were pursued at the college of his native 

 place, from whence he was sent to Jena, where, after having taken his 

 degree of Master of Arts, he graduated in medicine. He was dis- 

 tinguished whilst a student for his knowledge of languages and mathe- 

 matics, as well as for his poetical powers. After taking his degree in 

 medicine at Jena, he visited other universities for the sake of improve- 

 ment, and then commenced the practice of his profession at Qotha. 

 Hero he remained till 1673, when he was invited to fill the chair of 

 medicine at Jena. He occupied this chair for upwards of fifty years, 

 and died on the 6th of September 1721. Few men have left behind 

 them more works than Wedel, and among a nation of laborious 

 writers he was one of the most laborious. He published several 

 distinct works in various departments of medical science, and upwards 

 of three hundred academical dissertations. All his works display 

 great research as well as learning. He was not only a good classical 

 scholar, having had it in contemplation at one time to publish an edition 

 of the Greek Bible, but he was well versed iu Oriental literature, 

 especially the Arabic. In his medical opinions he was a disciple of 

 Van Helmont and Sylvius, and he adopted without enquiry the absurd 

 opinions of these writers on the action of medicines. Amid the 

 immense mass of his writings there is much curious and interesting 

 matter, but his mind was too much occupied with the opinions of others 

 to have any of his own, so that his influence has been much less 

 than many whose writings do not amount to a tithe of those which 

 he produced. He had a large private practice, and was remarkable for 

 his kindness to the poor and his punctuality in all public matters, so 

 much so that all his biographers express surprise at the great amount 

 of his labours. He was held in much esteem by the men of his day. 

 He was a member of the Leopoldine Academy, under the name of 

 ' Hercules,' and also a Fellow of the Koyal Society of Berlin and many 



other learned societies. He was first physician to the Duke of Saxe 

 Weimar, and also to the Elector of Mayence ; and in 1694 he was 

 created a count-palatine, and made an imperial counsellor. He waa 

 married for the third time in his sixty-third year, and had several 

 children by this marriage. He died suddenly from disease of the 

 heart, in the seventy-seventh year of his ago. Although a voluminous 

 writtr, he was not in advance of his ago in scientific acquirements. 

 It is not therefore a matter of surprise that he was a believer in 

 astrology, an art which he pursued with much zeaL 



The following are some of Wedel's numerous works : ' Opiologia,' 

 Jena, 4to, 1674; ' Exercitationes Pathologicae,' Jena, 4to, 1665; 'Do 

 Medicamontorum Facultatibus cognoscendis et applicandis Libri Duo,' 

 Jena, 4to, 1678. This work has been translated into English. 'Da 

 Medicamentorum Compositioue extemporauea ad usum hodiernum 

 accommodata,' Jena, 4to, 1678. 



Wedel had several sons, who were distinguished men in the medical 

 profession. ERNEST WEDEL was bora in 1671, and died in 1709. Ho 

 followed in the footsteps of his father. He published a work on the 

 diseases of orators, ' De Morbis Concionatorum/ which went through 

 two editions. JOHANN ADOLPH WJEDEL was the successor of hia 

 father, and was born in 1695. He has also written a large number of 

 works, the chief of them academical dissertations. 



WEDGWOOD, JOSIAH, was born on the 12th of July 1730, at 

 Burslem, in Staffordshire, where his father, Thomas Wedgwood, and 

 some other members of his family, were engaged in the manufacture 

 of pottery ; a branch of industry then in so very imperfect a state 

 that, independent of the supply of porcelain from China for the use of 

 the higher classes, England imported large quantities of porcelain and 

 various kinds of earthenware from France, Holland, and Germany, 

 for domestic use. His education was very limited ; and the low social 

 position of the class from which he sprung is implied, rather than 

 distinctly expressed, by the local historian, Simeon Shaw, who remarks 

 that " scarcely any person in Burslem learned more than mere reading 

 and writing until about 1750, when some individuals endowed the 

 free-school for instructing youth to read the Bible, write a fair hand, 

 and know the primary rules of arithmetic." The little opportunity 

 that Wedgwood had for self-improvement is further indicated by the 

 circumstance stated by Shaw, that at the age of eleven years Josiah 

 worked in his elder brother's pottery as a thrower, his father being 

 already dead. The small-pox, which left an incurable lameness in his 

 right leg, so as afterwards to require amputation, compelled him to 

 relinquish the potter's wheel. After a time he left Burslem, and 

 entered into partnership with a person named Harrison, at Stoke ; and 

 during this partnership, which was soon dissolved, his talent for the 

 production of ornamental pottery is said to have first developed itself. 

 He then became connected with a person named Wheildon, with whom 

 he manufactured knife-handles in imitation of agate and tortoiseshell, 

 melon table-plates, green pickle leaves, and similar articles. Wheildon 

 however was deriving considerable profit from other departments of 

 the pottery business, and was unwilling to embark in the new branches 

 for which Wedgwood had so great a predilection. Wedgwood therefore 

 returned to Burslem in 1759, and set up for himself, in a small thatched 

 manufactory, where "he continued to make such ornamental articles as 

 are mentioned above. His business being prosperous, he soon took a 

 second manufactory, where he made white stone-ware, and a third, at 

 which was produced the improved cream-coloured ware by which he 

 gained ao much celebrity. Of the new cream-coloured ware, Wedgwood 

 presented some articles to Queen Charlotte, who thereupon ordered a 

 complete table service, and was so pleased with its execution as to appoint 

 him her potter. Wedgwood opened a warehouse in the metropolis, at 

 which the productions of his ingenuity might be freely inspected, and in 

 his partner, Mr. Bentley, who managed the London business, he found 

 a valuable coadjutor, whose extensive knowledge in many departments 

 of literature and science, and acquaintance with many eminent patrons 

 of art, greatly assisted him in the higher branches of his manufacture, 

 and especially in obtaining the loan of specimens of sculpture, vases, 

 cameos, intaglios, medallions, and seals, suitable for imitation by some 

 of the processes he had introduced. Some persons intrusted to him 

 valuable sets of oriental porcelain for the like purpose; and Sir William 

 Hamilton lent specimens of ancient art from Herculaneum, of which 

 Wedgwood's ingenious workmen produced the most accurate and 

 beautiful copies. While Wedgwood was prosecuting these branches 

 of his art, the Portland or Barberiui Vase was offered for sale, and, 

 considering that many persons to whom the original was unattainable 

 might be willing to pay a handsome price for a good imitation of it 

 he endeavoured to purchase it, and for some time continued to offer 

 an advance upon each bidding of the Duchess of Portland, until at 

 length, his motive being ascertained, he was offered the loan of the 

 vase on condition of withdrawing his opposition, and consequently the 

 duchess became the purchaser, at the price of eighteen hundred 

 guineas. Shaw states that Wedgwood sold the fifty copies which he 

 subsequently executed at fifty guineas each, but that his expenditure 

 iu producing them is said to have exceeded the amount of the sum 

 thus obtained. According to Allan Cunningham's ' Lives of the most 

 eminent British Painters, Sculptors, and Architects ' (vol. hi., p. 286), 

 Flaxman was one of the artists employed by Wedgwood in the pre- 

 paration of models for the beautiful works of art which he was the 

 first, in modern times, to execute iu pottery. By numerous experi- 



