26 Josiah Wedgwood CHAP. 



blessing. We often repine at what we call our "ill- 

 luck," when, in truth, a mercy has been vouchsafed to 

 us. This inability to continue at the thrower's bench 

 proved the turning-point of Wedgwood's career. 



The Eight Honourable W. E. Gladstone, in his address 

 at Burslem on the founding of the Wedgwood Memorial 

 Institute, 1 feelingly observed : " Then comes the well- 

 known smallpox, the settling of the dregs of the disease 

 in the lower part of the leg, and the eventual amputa- 

 tion of the limb, rendering him lame for life. It is not 

 often that we have such palpable occasion to record our 

 obligations to the smallpox. But, in the wonderful 

 ways of Providence, that disease, which came to him as 

 a twofold scourge, was probably the occasion of his 

 subsequent excellence. It prevented him from growing 

 up to be the active vigorous workman, possessed of all 

 his limbs, and knowing right well the use of them ; but 

 it put him upon considering whether, as he could not 

 be that, he might not be something else, and something 

 greater. It sent his mind inwards; it drove him to 

 meditate upon the laws and secrets of his art. The 

 result was, that he arrived at a perception and grasp of 

 them which might, perhaps, have been envied, certainly 

 have been owned, by an Athenian potter. Relentless 

 criticism has long since torn to pieces the old legend of 

 King Numa receiving in a cavern, from the Nymph 

 Egeria, the laws which were to govern Rome. But no 



1 Wedgwood : an Address delivered at Burslem, Staffordshire, 26th 

 October 1863. 



