138 THE WEDGWOODS. 



possible ; and while it must be of the most moderate cost, 

 it must receive all the beauty that can be made conducive 

 to, or concordant with, the use. And because this business 

 of harmonising use and beauty, so easy in the works of 

 nature, is so arduous to the frailty of man, it is a business 

 that must be made the object of special and persevering 

 care. To these principles the works of Wedgwood habitually 

 conformed. 



" He did not, in his pursuit of beauty, overlook exchange- 

 able value, or practical usefulness. The first he could not 

 overlook, for he had to live by his trade : and it was by the 

 profit derived from the extended sale of his humbler pro- 

 ductions that he was enabled to bear the risks and charges 

 of his higher works. Commerce did for him what the King 

 of France did for Sevres, and the Duke of Cumberland for 

 Chelsea it found him in funds. And I would venture to 

 say that the lower works of Wedgwood are every whit as 

 much distinguished by the fineness and accuracy of their 

 adaptation to their uses as his higher ones by their suc- 

 cessful exhibition of the finest arts. Take for instance his 

 common plates, of the value of, I know not how few, but 

 certainly of a very few pence each. They fit one another as 

 closely as the cards in a pack. At least, I for one have 

 never seen plates that fit like the plates of Wedgwood, and 

 become one solid mass. Such accuracy of form must, I 

 apprehend, render them much more safe in carriage. Of 

 the excellence of these plates we may take it for a proof that 

 they were largely exported to France, if not elsewhere ; that 

 they were there printed or painted with buildings or scenes 

 belonging to the country, and then sent out again as 

 national manufactures. Again, take such a jug as he would 

 manufacture for the washhand table of a garret. I have 

 seen these made apparently of the commonest material used 

 in the trade. But instead of being built up, like the usual 

 and much more fashionable jugs of modern manufacture, in 

 such a shape that a crane could not easily get his neck to 

 bend into them, and the water can hardly be poured but 



