CERAMIC WARE. 227 



technical knowledge of antiquity ; disposes us to think more 

 humbly than we are sometimes wont of the revelations of 

 modern science. 



The secret of the nse of oxide of tin was not communicated 

 to Bernard Palissy. He discovered it, and that under many 

 disadvantages. Ignorant of chemistry, he could not call in 

 the power of analysis to his aid. Poor, his numerous expe- 

 riments were prosecuted under circumstances of severest de- 

 privation. The husband of a lady gifted with tremendous 

 eloquence of a certain sort, but no preference for art, and no 

 faith in the beneficence of Nature to those who question her 

 humbly by experiment; a Huguenot into the bargain, at a 

 time when adherence to that faith involved danger of torture 

 and death Palissy followed out his experiments under a host 

 of difficulties. Despite of them he discovered the secret of 

 the glaze, and from the discovery resulted his own beautiful 

 variety of Majolica. 



Palissy's glaze never attained the wiiiteness recognisable 

 in the Saracenic and Italian specimens of Majolica; nor were 

 the varieties and excellence of his tints equal to theirs ; but 

 Palissy was a genius, and struck out a path for himself. The 

 surface of this crockery is modelled into the most elaborate 

 alto and basso-relievos of plants and animals, all characterised 

 by singular fidelity to nature. Indeed, Palissy always modelled 

 from nature. If he had occasion to model the form of an 

 extinct shell-fish, such as are to be seen in geological remains, 

 he procured a specimen and modelled it ; so that a geologist 

 has commented on the identity of these things, as seen in 

 Palissy's relievos, with the geological specimens now discover- 

 able in the Paris clay. Palissy's indomitable resolution was 

 illustrated by his religious life, no less than as a potter. 

 Capable of sacrificing so much for white enamel, he was 

 equally willing to sacrifice to his persecuted Huguenot faith. 

 Neither threats, nor cajolements, nor promises of advance- 

 ment, could turn him from the honest expression of his re- 



