no more; and the historical student will not
forget how, in 1623, the Protestant courtiers of
Charles the First were scandalised to see the
young queen eating "out of treen dishes" by
way of religious penance. Even so late as
1663, the polite Mr. Pepys, recording how he
dined at the Lord Mayor's feast, states that it
was "very unpleasing" to him to see the meats
served in wooden dishes, and to be allowed "no
napkins, nor change of trenchers." Finally,
the treen ware may be seen to this day on the
tables of some charitable foundations, as, for
instance, at Christ's Hospital, in Newgate-
street.

Notwithstanding these things, it is well proved
by Miss Meteyard that coarse pottery was
undoubtedly made and sold in England throughout
the middle ages, and was never wholly superseded,
as has been generally supposed, by either
wood or pewter. Produced, however, in small
quantities, imperfectly fired, and consequently
so friable that it could with difficulty be transported
from place to place, our mediæval earthenware
was regarded as a precious possession; and
we find such common articles as baking dishes,
mugs, and covered pots, standing as special
bequests in wills of the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries. The Delft ware, and the Dutch
imitations of majolica, were held in high esteem;
and even so early as the reign of Elizabeth, a
colony of Dutch potters had actually settled in
England, while a Dutch fair was held annually
at Yarmouth for the sale of earthenware and
wooden toys.

It is in the seventeenth century that the
Staffordshire potters come distinctly before us
as proprietors of kilns, and employers of
workmen; and by the beginning of the eighteenth,
they are seen to be imitating the Dutch majolica,
and attempting to analyse the clays and glazes
which made it so superior to their own. Henceforth
improvement went on rapidly, and the
names of Thomas Sans, Thomas Toft, and
William Talor of Burslem, are rescued from
obscurity by being affixed to some very curious
ornamental dishes and plaques, rudely painted
with portraits of Charles the Second, Henry
Prince of Wales, and Charles the First, specimens
of which are engraved in Miss Meteyard's
first volume.

We have, however, no space for further details
of this Staffordshire renaissance, valuable and
important as it is; but must devote a few lines
to the hero of the book.

Josiah Wedgwood was born on a summer's
day, early in July, 1730. He came of a long
generation of potters, and his home, though
humble, was by no means so humble as it has
often been represented. His father was in easy
circumstances, and some of his relations were
men of substance and position.

The boy was predestined to pottery from his
cradle. He played, went to school, rode the
crate-men's horses, kept rabbits, and took birds'-
nests like all the other Burslem boys; and before
he had reached his twelfth year, was already at
work as a "thrower" in his brother's sheds.
His "first teapot," a vessel moulded in the
ordinary ochreous clay of the district, and
decorated with a few twining leaves in coloured
relief, is still reverently preserved at Etruria.
About this time, small-pox broke out at Burslem,
and Josiah Wedgwood, with several of his
brothers and sisters, was stricken down. The
effects of the illness stayed by him all his life.
He rose from his sick-bed lame of the right leg,
and, twenty-two years later, was compelled to
undergo amputation of the limb.

Passing over the story of his early partnerships,
of his patient self-culture, of his passion
for chemical analysis, and of that eager desire
for knowledge which prompted him, like
Boccaccio, to copy many a borrowed book with
his own hand, we find him, A.D. 1759, settled
at Burslem as a master potter; marrying and
prospering in 1764; and in 1765 diligently
employed upon a service of the now celebrated
cream-ware for no less a patron than Queen
Charlotte. Henceforth, wealth and reputation
flowed in upon him; and his life, always busy,
became one of unceasing aspiration and
endeavour. He made frequent journeys to
London and Liverpool; became acquainted with
Darwin, Priestly, Aiken, Brindley, and other
noteworthy characters of the eighteenth
century; lent active co-operation to the projectors
of the Grand Trunk Canal; planned and carried
into execution a turnpike-road, ten miles in
length, through the pottery district; and
established his famous works at Etruria, an estate
purchased by him in the immediate neighbourhood
of Newcastle-under-Lyne. Here he built
himself a handsome mansion; here prosecuted
his studies of antique art, and gathered together
his fine collections of fossils, shells, prints, books,
and specimens of curious porcelain. Here, too,
he devoted incessant thought and labour to
improvements of various kinds in glaze, fabric, and
design; and here carried on those famous
experiments in clay and colour that enabled him
afterwards to produce cameos, medallions, and
miniature sculpture in a substance so delicate
that it rivalled the texture of ivory, and so hard
that it promised to last as long as the bronzes
and intaglios of antiquity. Another of his
important discoveries enabled him to paint on
porcelain in the unglazed manner of the ancient
Etruscans; an art which had been lost since the
time of Pliny. By none of these wonderful
imitations of the classic pottery is he, however,
so universally celebrated as by his copy of the
Portland vase. Shaw states that Wedgwood
sold fifty of these copies at fifty guineas each,
but that the expense of production exceeded the
profit of sale. One of the finest of these may
be seen in the British Museum, in a room
adjoining that in which the original is preserved.

Mr. Wedgwood now employed such artists as
John Bacon and John Flaxman; both, at that
time, young and striving men; Bacon being,
however, for the most part self-taught, and
Flaxman a rising Academy student. Flaxman's
models, says Allan Cunningham, "consisted
chiefly of small groups in very low relief—the