422 THE WEDGWOODS. 



" To please the noble dame the courtly squire 

 Produced a tea-pot made in Staffordshire ! 

 So Venus looked, and with such longing eyes, 

 When Paris first produced the golden prize. 

 ' Such works as this,' she cries, ' can England do ? 

 It equals Dresden, and excels St. Cloud ; 

 All modern China now shall hide its head, 

 And e'en Chantilly must give o'er her trade. 

 For lace let Flanders bear away the bell j 

 In finest linen let the Dutch excel ; 

 For prettiest stuffs let Ireland first be named ; 

 And for best-fancied silks let France be famed j 

 Do thou, thrice happy England, still prepare 

 Thy clay, and build thy fame on earthenware.' " 



Little did the writer think that through the skill, the 

 enterprise, the industry, and the perseverance of one 

 man, Staffordshire would, indeed, soon equal Dresden and 

 out-do St. Cloud in works both of utility and beauty. 

 Little did he think that " thrice happy England " would, 

 literally, still prepare its clay, and " build its fame on 

 earthenware." Little did he think that within a dozen 

 years from the time when he penned those lines, the great 

 man whose industry had tended to bring about so wonderful 

 a result, would stand in the House of Commons and give 

 his evidence that at that time from fifteen to twenty thou- 

 sand persons were employed in the potworks of Staffordshire 

 alone, and double that number received employment in pre- 

 paring the materials the coal, the flint, and the clay for 

 their use. But so it was. And the district of the Potteries 

 has gone on increasing in size and in importance from that 

 day to this. It is indeed a great fact a fact of which 

 Staffordshire has reason to be proud that the man who did 

 most to bring about this happy state of things who laid 

 the foundation on which the nation 



" Builds her fame on earthenware," 



was a son of her own native soil, who was raised up to do 

 her honour, and to add to our national prosperity. The 

 man who did all this was JOSIAH WEDGWOOD. 



