400 THE WEDGWOODS. 



useful, must be local ? Or suppose such a sum raised and vested in 

 trustees, how many of the contributors, if they could awake two 

 hundred years hence, would be satisfied with the then application 

 of their bounty ? A statue, on the other hand, is for all time, and 

 is local only so far as it can only stand on one spot. It entails no 

 expense after the first outlay, 'requires no trustees, and, with proper 

 care, artistic merit may be ensured in short, the universal consent 

 of mankind has settled the matter long ago that a monument ought 

 to be a statue ; and we shall do well not to run counter to such an 

 authority. 



" The spread of knowledge, the increased intelligence among all 

 ranks of the people, the immense progress of the physical sciences, 

 and the enlarged interest in the fine arts, which have signalised the 

 last twenty years, have unavoidably brought the exquisite art of the 

 potter into fresh notice and interest, and as unavoidably brought 

 Josiah "Wedgwood into additional prominence as England's great and 

 most famous potter. None more willingly accord this pre-eminence 

 to him than those among his contemporaries and successors, whose 

 achievements best entitle them to dispute it with him, 



" All feel that he deserves this in virtue of the twofold genius 

 which enabled him alike to satisfy the poorest and the least artistic 

 of the land with a strong, cheap, cleanly household ware, and to 

 delight the richest and the most fastidious in taste with vessels so 

 pleasing in form and colour that it was an education to the senses to 

 look at and handle them ; and their surpassing excellence as pieces 

 of useful pottery was forgotten in admiration of their beauty as 

 works of Art. His name, moreover, has gone round the world; 

 and Wedgwood ware is as famous as that of Sevres and Dresden, 

 and competes even with that of China and Japan. Nor was Josiah 

 "Wedgwood more estimable as a potter than as a man. Laden with 

 poverty in his early years, he found only an impetus to labour in 

 the load. Sorely tried with sickness, he spent the enforced leisure 

 of one long illness in studying the chemical and other scientific 

 principles, the foundation of the potter's art, and rose from his sick 

 bed to apply them with unheard-of success to the improvement of it. 

 The protracted convalescence from another malady, involving a 

 severe surgical operation which maimed him for life, was beguiled 

 by the study of those eesthetical laws the mastery of which soon 

 made him, if possible, more famous as an artist than even as a 

 manufacturer. When his genius, patience, and perseverance, aided 

 by restored health, made him a successful and wealthy man, he 

 showed himself a generous and considerate master to those in his 



