4.6 Josiah Wedgwood CHAP. 



disheartening, and he was almost as much distressed 

 as . Bernard Palissy was in his search for the enamel, 

 though he did not, like him, require to burn up his 

 furniture in order to keep his furnaces in sufficient 

 heat. The precarious activity of fire, and the inequality 

 of its force, even in different parts of the same kiln, are 

 formidable impediments. Common wares admit of con- 

 siderable latitude in the heat, and in an established 

 manufactory, experience enables an attentive workman 

 to regulate the fire pretty successfully. 



But in wares of an improved kind this cannot be 

 done. In all the porcelains and fine wares, whose 

 qualities depend essentially upon a certain degree of 

 semi-vitrif action, the hazard is very great. Even in the 

 heat that is just sufficient for the perfection of the ware, 

 it receives such a softness and flexibility, that large 

 vessels, necessary for the use of the dining-table, bend 

 and alter their form in the kiln by their own weight, 

 and a little increase of fire runs the whole into a 

 vitreous mass. 



When Wedgwood began to make fine ware for the 

 table, his repeated failures with his furnaces were most 

 disastrous. The labour and expense of a month were 

 destroyed in a few hours. One kiln had to be pulled 

 down, and another built up ; the new one also found 

 defective, from circumstances which could not have been 

 foreseen; the correction of an error in one quarter 

 followed by another elsewhere. Yet he conquered by 

 dint of observation and experience ; after losing much 



