The Sun.
London, England, 1863-10-27 00:00:00

stock, which overflows our narrow bounds and floods
the world. The one great want is to bring these
two groups of qualities harmoniously together; and
this was the peculiar excellence of Wedgwood—his
excellence peculiar in such a degree as to gain his
name a place above every other, so far as I know,
in the history of British industry—(cheers)—and
remarkable and entitled to fame even in the history
of the industry of the world. (Cheers.) We make
our first introduction to Wedgwood about the year
1741, as the youngest of a family of 13 children, and
as put to earn his bread, at 11 years of age, to the
trade of his father, and in the branch of a " thrower."
Then comes the well-known attack of smallpox, the
settling of the dregs of his disease in the lower part
of the leg, and the amputation of the limb, render-
ing him lame for life. It is not often that we have
such palpable occasions to record onr obligations to
the smallpox—(a laugh)—but in the wonderful
ways of Providence, that disease, which came to him
as a twofold scourge, was probably the occasion of
his subsequent excellence. It prevented him from
growing up to be the active, vigorous English work-
man, possessed of all his limbs, and knowing right

well the DIM of them. It put him upon consider-
ing whether, as he could not be that, he might

not be something else and something greater.
(Cheers.) It sent his mind inward, and drove him
to meditate upon the laws and secrets of his art; the
result was that he arrived at the perception and the
grasp of them, which might perhaps have been
envied, and certainly had been owned, by an
Athenian potter. Relentless criticism has torn to

pieces the old legend of King Numa receiving in a
cavern, from the nymph Egeria, the laws that were
to govern Rome; but no criticism can shake the re-

cord of that illness and mutilation of the boy, Josiah
Wedgwood, which made for him a cavern of his bed-

room an oracle of his own inquiring, searching,
meditative and fruitful mind. (Cheers.) From

those early days of suffering--weary, perhaps, to
him as they went by, but bright, surely, in the re-
trospect, both to him and to us—a mark seems at
once to have been set upon his career. But those
who would dwell upon his history have still to de-
plore that many of the materials are still wanting.
It is not creditable to his country or his art that
the life of Wedgwood should still remain unwritten
Here is a man who, in the well-chosen words of his
epitaph, "converted a rude and inconsiderable
manufacture into an elegant art—into an important
branch of national commerce." Here is a man who,
beginning us it were from zero, had, unaided by
the Royal or national gifts which were found neces-
sary to uphold the glories of Levres, Chelsea, and
of Dresden, produced works, truer, perhaps, to the
Inexorable laws of art than the fine fabrics that
proceeded from those establishments, and scarcely
less attractive to a polished taste. (Cheers.) Here
is a man who found his business cooped within a
narrow valley by the want of even tolerable com-
munications, and who, while he devoted his mind
to lifting that business from meanness, and ugliness,
and weakness, to the highest excellence of material
and form, had surplus energy to take a leading part
in great engineering works like the Grand Trunk
Canal from the Mersey to the Trent, which
made the raw m aerial of his industry abun-
dant and cheap, which supplied a vent for the
manufactured article, and opened for it mate-
rially a way to the outer world. Lastly, here
is a man who found his, country dependent
upon others for its supplies of all the finer
earthernware, but who, by his single strength, re-
versed the inclination of the scale, and scattered the
products of his genius and skill all over the breadth
of the Continent of Europe. And here I would say
that since I come to thin room I have received a let-
ter, in which occurs the following quotation from
the travels in England of a French gentleman, M.
Fangas St. Fond. He says, referring to Wedgwood,
" His excellent workmanship, its solidity, the ad-
vantage it possesses of standing the action of fire,
its fine glaze impenetrable to acids, the beauty and
variety of its forms, and its moderate price, have
created a commerce so active and unusual that, in
travelling from Paris to St. Petersburg, from Am-
sterdam to the furthest point of Sweden, from Dun-
kerque to the southern extremity of France, one is
served at every inn from English earthernware.
The same fine articles adorning the tables of Spain,
Portugal, and Italy, it provides the cargoes of ships
for the East Indies, the West Indies, and America."
(Cheers.) It is strange that the life of such a man
in this " nation of shopkeepers," as we are called,
should at this date remain unwritten; but I have
heard with much pleasure a rumour, which I hope
is true, that such a gap in our literature is about to
be filled up. All that we know, however, of the
life of Wedgwood seems to be eminently characte-
ristic. We find the works of his earliest youth
already impressing a new character upon his trade
—a character of what may be called efficiency com-
bined with taste, and with the best basis of taste, a
loving and docile following of nature. We find him
beginning his partnerships when manhood was but
just attained, first with Harrison, secondly with
Whieldon, but last, as we might naturally expect
in the case of a spirit so energetic and expansive,
we find that in each of these cases the bed did not
give him room enough to lie on or turn in, and in
1759, as soon as his articles expire, he escapes from
the unequal yoking, and enters into business by him-
self. But this, though a natural, was not a final
stage. It was necessary that he, who was the soul,
should be the centre and head, but it was also ne-
cessary that he should surround himself at all
points with an official staff for a great, varied,
and not merely reforming, but creative work.
Hence he associated himself with Mr. Richard
Bentley as a partner, who is stated to have chiefly
superintended the London business, but who has
credit for having supplied the information necessary
to enable the foreigner to enter so largely on the
handling of classical designs. Hence he employed
Mr. Chisholm as an experimental chemist, and other
scientific men, in the several branches of the busi-
ness; hence his connection with Flaxman, which
has redounded alike to the honour of the one and of
the other. (Cheers.) It was the fashion to say
that Queen Elizabeth was not proved to be a
woman of extraordinary power, but that she admi-
nistered with vast power fand in like manner some
might be tempted to suspect, when they see Wedg-
wood thus surrounded, that his merit lay chiefly in
the choice of instruments and coadjutors, and that
to them the main part of the praise is due, The
right hon. gentleman then proceeded ably to criti-
cise the merits of Wedgwood's productions, point-
ing out how beneficially the industry created by
the distinguished firm of 'Wedgwood had operated
on the population of the district in which it was
situated. Of these the right hon. gentleman said,
we find them increased in the course of some 25
years to about treble, abundantly employed, pros-
perous, and comfortable. (Cheers.) Nor was this
multiplication only without improvement, for he
goes on to quote from John Wesley, who had been
petted at Burslem in 1760, the following words :
" I returned to Burelem. How is the whole face of
the country changed in about 20 years, since which
the inhabitants have continually flowed in from
every side ! Hence the wilderness is literally be-
come a fruitful field; houses, villages, towns, have
sprung up, and the country is not improved more
than the people." (Loud cheers.) It is impossible
to conceive a testimony more honourable to Wedg-
wood ; nor can I better conclude these remarks than
by uttering the cordial hope that you, his successors,
who have during late years earned so much honour
for the taste and industry of the country, may
profit more and more effectually by the lessons
bequeathed you,
which your great foreruener has