BASALTES, OR EGYPTIAN BLACK WABE. 185 



tery, lie used to say jocosely, t his friends threatened him 

 with the statute of lunacy if he should begin to make 

 porcelain.' It was not possible, however, to continue his 

 improvement of earthenware without producing substances 

 that, having most of the genuine and essential properties of 

 porcelain, must necessarily be so classed. But he so profited 

 by the admonition of his friends as to keep himself dis- 

 engaged from any plan of making the porcelain in common 

 use, so much and often so fatally the ambitious object of 

 so many individuals. His researches marked him out a new 

 and unbeaten track in the same field that was more con- 

 genial to his disposition and powers. About this time, the 

 year 1766, he first discovered the art of making the unglazed 

 black porcelain, now so well known in this country, and 

 called it Basaltes, as it has nearly the same properties with 

 the stone of that name. And the first uses that he made of 

 it were to imitate the fine vases of antiquity that he found 

 in Montfaucon's works, and other collections that had then 

 come to his knowledge. He saw the extensive application 

 that might be made of such compact and durable substances 

 as this, and others that he had begun with but not then 

 brought to maturity, in multiplying copies of the fine works 

 of antiquity, as well as those of our own times ; and he was 

 not without hopes that the improvement of pottery, by 

 exciting the public attention to the productions of the arts, 

 would lay the foundation of a school of miniature modelling 

 in this country, which had long felt a deficiency of artists 

 in that way. To this end his labours were directed, and it 

 must be allowed that he has done much to promote it ; but 

 many objects yet unattained dwelt in his mind's eye, and he 

 used to declare in his later days, that 'he considered the 

 pottery as still in its infancy.' " 



The close and constant attention which Wedgwood now 

 gave to the properties of clays and different minerals, and 

 the researches and experiments he prosecuted in chemistry, 

 soon led to the production of a number of different kinds of 

 wares unknown before, and which have gained for him a 



