JO SI AH WEDGWOOD. 179 



pottery business, which it is not too much to say he brought to 

 the highest perfection, and estabHshed a manufacture that has 

 opened a new source of extensive commerce before unknown 

 to this or any other country. 



His many discoveries of new species of earthenwares and 

 porcelains, his studied forms and chaste style of decoration, 

 and the correctness and judgment with which all his works 

 were executed under his own eye, and by artists for the most 

 part of his own forming, turned the current in this branch of 

 commerce. Before his time, England imported the finer 

 earthenwares ; but since Wedgwood's day, she has exported 

 them to an enormous extent. 



The first ware by which Wedgwood attained to great 

 celebrity was the improved cream-coloured ware. Of this new 

 article he presented some specimens to Queen Charlotte, who 

 immediately ordered a complete table service ; and was so 

 pleased with its execution that she appointed Wedgwood her 

 potter, and commanded that the ware should be called 

 "Queen's Ware." It has a dense and durable substance, 

 covered with a brilliant glaze, and is capable of bearing 

 uninjured sudden alterations of heat and cold. " It was from 

 the first," says the late Mr. Timbs, " sold at a cheap rate, and 

 the addition of embellishments very little enhanced the cost ; 

 first, a coloured edge or painted border was added to the 

 queen's ware; and lastly, printed patterns, which covered the 

 whole surface. Nor was this beautiful ware confined to 

 England ; for M. Faujas de Saint Ford shows how widely the 

 fame of Wedgwood's pottery had spread before 1792, when " in 

 travelling from Paris to Petersburg, from Amsterdam to the 

 farthest part of Sweden, and from Dunkirk to the extremity of 

 the south of France, one is served at every inn upon English 



