xi Improvement of Models Chemistry 109 



which they had purchased in the course of their travels 

 in foreign countries. " I have been three days hard and 

 close at work," Wedgwood wrote to Bentley in October 

 1765, "taking patterns from a set of French China at 

 the Duke of Bedford's, worth at least 1500 the 

 most elegant things I have ever seen and I am this 

 evening to wait and be waited on by designers and 

 modellers." 



The artists of various kinds whom Wedgwood 

 employed were very numerous. Whenever he found a 

 young man with artistic taste, he took him up, and 

 helped him forward. He even founded a school for the 

 instruction of young men and women in drawing, 

 painting, and modelling. 



Coward seems to have been one of the earliest artists 

 employed by Wedgwood. In November 1765, we find 

 him writing to his brother in London, to send to Burslem 

 Coward's carvings of "Ich Dien" for the Queen's 

 Service ; " Satyr's head " and " Laurel festoons " for 

 Lady Holland ; and " Swan's head " and handles for 

 Lord Eockingham's vase. Ornaments of various kinds 

 were required from Coward for orders from Lord March, 

 the Duke of Northumberland, Lord Coventry, the Duke 

 of Montague, Sir T. Gascoigne, and others. It may be 

 mentioned that Coward, in conjunction with Hoskins, 

 modelled from the antique the Somnus or Sleeping Boy 

 one of the finest and largest works ever executed for 

 Wedgwood. Coward was found so useful, that while 

 other artists were paid so much for executing a piece of 



