Even before Böttcher's death, however, one
of the foremen escaped to Vienna, and from
Vienna the secret spread over Germany; so
that rival establishments soon came to be set
on foot. The factory at Meissen was worked
with great profit, on the king's account, and
other factories afterwards established, during
the last century, were worked very much in
the same way, under royal auspices. In 1790
the Dresden factory was worked at a loss;
but Wedgwood, who then visited it, was so
assured of its capabilities that he offered to
rent it at three thousand a year. His offer
was declined, and the loss continued, till the
King got tired, and turned over the establishment
to the finance department. It now
yields a small profit by the production of
inferior goods. Before the Seven Years' War
it produced master-pieces, got up then as
articles of luxury " regardless of expense."

The history of the spread of porcelain
factories, after the establishment of that at
Meissen, becomes a history of workmen
kidapped by princes, or running from one place
to another to betray their secrets. This is a
history not worth recounting. We should
say, however, that in the district of the little
German states, Hesse Cassel, Saxe Cobourg,
Saxe Weimar, &c., the discovery of porcelain
was not borrowed, but original. It began
near Jena, with the son of a chemist, who
made experiments on sand, which an old
woman brought to his father's house. He
satisfied his Prince, and established a
manufactory with four workmen, which was
afterwards much enlarged.

French porcelain was first made at St.
Cloud, but perfected at Sèvres. Here, too,
the discovery of the necessary earth was the
improvement of an accident. The wife of a
poor surgeon, with an economic eye, observed
in a ravine near her town a white, unctuous
earth, which she thought would make a sub-
stitute for soap in washing. She asked her
husband what he thought. The poor surgeon
showed it to his druggist. The druggist knew
there was a great search for porcelain earth,
and suspected enough to forward a specimen
of this to the chemist Macquer. The result
was the establishment of that hard porcelain
manufacture at Sèvres, which has placed
France in the highest rank among nations in
this department of the arts. Nobody thought
of the woman from whose poverty this wealth
had sprung, and whose dread of the expense
of soap dug out the quarries of St. Yrieix.
Poor Madame Darnet was alive in 1825, and
very destitute, when she applied to Brongniart,
then Director of the Sevres factory, for aid
enough to carry her, on foot, to her old town
of St. Yrieix. Brongniart represented, then,
her situation to the King, and she obtained a
pension.

Porcelain used to be called in England
"Gomroon-ware; " for the first trade of the
English East India Company, not being with
India and China direct, was from an establishment
formed at the Port of Gombron, opposite
to Ormus, in the Persian Gulf. The first
Gomroon-ware made at Chelsea is said to
have been much inferior to the contemporary
porcelain (that itself very imperfect) of St.
Cloud;—" though," says Dr. Martin Lester,
"our men were better masters of the art of
painting than the Chineses." George the
Second, following the fashion of the German.
Princes, threw new life into the establishment
at Chelsea, introducing foreign workmen.
Chelsea produced for a short time great
results; but, on the death of its patron, it
could not survive the jealousies harboured
against foreign workmen, &c., and the
establishment finally coalesced into the porcelain.
works at Derby. No traces of the Chelsea
factory remain. Dr. Johnson at one time was
allowed to work there, for he had a notion
that he could improve the manufacture.
"He was accordingly accustomed to go down
with his housekeeper twice a week, and
stayed the whole day, she carrying a basket
of provisions with her." The doctor's pots all
tumbled to pieces in the baking. Coeval with
the Chelsea china, was the porcelain made at
Stratford-le-Bow.

We must end our talk with one more
anecdote, and that is one relating to the first
establishment of a porcelain manufactory in
Italy. Charles the Third, of Naples,
established it at Capo di Monte, in 1736. He often
worked in. it with his own hands; and, at the
annual fair held in Naples, he had a porcelain
stall in the great square opposite his palace.
Daily note was sent to him of the sales made,
and the names of the purchasers; and it was
said that he often paid with royal favour
those whom he considered his good customers.

THE GENTLENESS OF DEATH.

WHO that can feel the gentleness of Death,
Sees not the loveliness of Life? and who,
Breathing content his natural joyous breath,
Could fail to feel that Death is Nature, too?
And not the alien foe his fears dictated,
A viewless terror, heard but to be hated.

One died that was beloved of all around;
And, dying, grasped a flower of early spring,
To hold beside her in the quiet ground,
While every season shook its varied wing.
The pale flower died with her; but soon rose others,
Not planted by her sisters or her brothers.

Her sisters and her brothers came each day,
And wondered to behold the young fresh flowers,
Like that she held before she pass'd away—
Warm'd by the sun and cherished by the showers:
And they would not believe the sweet birds' sowing
Had brought the flowers about her gravestone growing.

They said—These flowers are offspring of the same
That lies beside our sister underneath;
And unto us as messengers they came
From her, and we will bind them in a wreath,
To hang amid the dews that glisten purely,
And every Spring will say: " she liveth surely."