POTTERS CALLED BY SOUND OF HORN. 131 



pans, and other apparatus to construct for the purpose of the 

 new manufacture he introduced from time to time, and for 

 which he had very few resources beyond those of his own 

 mechanical invention. If we consider besides the necessary 

 dependence of his discoveries on experimental chemistry and 

 a knowledge of fossils, which he acquired by his own efforts 

 without any intelligent assistant, we shall perceive him in a 

 state of uncommon labour and fatigue of spirits. He was 

 attached to his profession, he saw very early the improve- 

 ments it was susceptible of, and he pursued it with a willing 

 mind. His days were spent at the bench with his workmen, 

 instructing them, and generally forming with his own hands 

 the first models of the things he proposed to make ; and his 

 evenings were taken up in designing or contriving tools for 

 the purposes of the succeeding day. He possessed a decision 

 of mind very favourable in this situation of difficulty. He 

 began, after contriving anything, by declaring that it must 

 be done let what would stand in the way ; and it almost 

 constantly was so in the end, for only a very few things that 

 he undertook were unsuccessful. He contracted at this time 

 a habit of thinking during the night on the difficulties of the 

 day, which generally were surmounted before the return of 

 morning, and he was prepared to go on with his work ; but 

 he felt the inconvenience of this custom very much in the 

 advanced part of his life, for if any subject of business took 

 hold of his mind before he went to rest, it was sure to 

 deprive him of sleep the greatest part of the night." Unlike 

 his friend Brindley who it is said would lie in bed for the 

 day to think over some great scheme Wedgwood studied in 

 the night, that he might be " up and doing " in the day. 



Up to this period the only method in the few places 

 where even that primitive mode had been adopted, for the 

 workmen generally loitered in and out of the pot-yards as 

 they pleased for calling the potters to their labours was by 

 sounding a horn. "Wedgwood, at the new works he was 

 now entering upon, adopted a better plan, and one which 

 gave a name to the works which will remain with them so 



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