The Sun.
London, England, 1865-04-25 00:00:00

gated in hue, let us say, as the flower-beds of the
Temple-gardens, in November, when the pompones
and the chrysanthemums are in all the glory of full
bloom ! The intermediate colouring (so to speak) in
particular—alike in the parterres and in the potteries
--being, one is tempted to say, about the most mar-
vellous of all ! Instance this—the cream ware, with
its tints varying from those of newly-skimmed cream
to a pale sulphur, and so deepening and deepening
until it merges into crocus, or saffron, or orange !
From the record here given to us (very succinctly) of
British Pottery, in all its varieties and fluctuations,
it becomes manifest that it would hardly be any-
thing of an extravagance to speak of it as an art in
some sort indigenous. Among what the authoress
takes occasion to designate very aptly " our many-
nationed race," Pottery reveals itself to us under
how many different aspects or phases ! Now
Celtic as seen in urns exhumed from the
tumuli—now Roman as evidenced in still-dis-
covered paterae and mortaria—now Saxon as
observed in ' those trenchers and pitchers
which were often among the spoils of the
Vikings—now Norman, as visible in platters and
porringers ornately marked with armorial bearings
—now Mediaeval or of the period of the Renais-
sance ! After which last mentioned epoch—with
a wide gap or hiatus in between—there follow in
due sequence the greatest of the English masters of
the art, Wedgwood, and Spode, and Minton, the
greatest of them all being Wedgwood, Josiah
Wedgwood, the hero of Miss Meteyard's book.
How under his direction the art rose and flourished
in the second half of the last century, this her record
of his Life will be found to relate, as it certainly
never before has been related—fully, authoritatively,
picturesquely—often with the interest of a ro-
mance, always with the dignity of a history. In-
cidentally, moreover, through these same chapters
of the life of Wedgwood, there are squandered
around us, as it were, to the right hand and to the
left—as though, in reading the book, we were
traversing a series of galleries littered with
the choicest articles of virtu—all the wares of all
the potteries of all the ages of all the coun-
tries of the earth. Mediaeval ware, including each
of the five distinct classes of tile-work, some of it
gorgeously fretted and arabesqued—Earthenware
from all parts of England—Majolica ware—
Palissy ware—the Red-ware of Japan—Oriental
Porcelain—marbled ware and mottled ware—
pewter and Treen ware—Yellow ware, Cauliflower
ware, Melon ware, Agate ware, Tortoise-shell ware !
Ware, one might almost say—
" Striped like the zebra, freckled like the pard !"

Goblets, bowls, services of all kinds, three-
handled tygs, posset-pots, and mortuary tab-
lets, masterpieces of the potter's art from
the hand of Wedgwood himself—these and mul-
titudes of others represented in engraved effigies
of them meet us at every turn (of the leaf) as we
devour the dozen chapters making up this singularly
handsome and costly volume—the mere care given
to the illustration of which, by the way, reflects the
very highest credit upon the publishers, to say nothing
of their equally obvious care for the general getting
up of the work, more particularly in respect to its
typography. Views of the localities and medallion
portraits of the celebrities alluded to in the course
of the narrative, are plentifully intermingled with
the embellishments already mentioned—among
these notabilities being numbered, King George
Queen Charlotte, the Rev. John Wesley,
Dr. Priestley, Brindley the Engineer, Mrs. Bar-
bauld, Dr. Aikin, besides which, as the frontispiece to
the volume, we have a very fine engraving from the
original portrait of Josiah Wedgwood himself.
As a fitting preliminary to the relation of his his-
tory,' our authoress, it should be observed, more-
over, gives a highly interesting account of Wedg-
wood's progenitors, as well as of others among the
famous Potters of Staffordshire, the Mayers of
Norton, for example, and the Burslems of
Dale Hall. The true interest of the narrative,
however, begins only when we come to the record
of the birth —at Burslem, in Staffordshire
the birth, there, to Thomas Wedgwood and
Mary, his wife —of the youngest of a very
numerous family early in the July of 1730
—to wit, JOSIAH WEDGWOOD ! Then, in truth,
the charm of the book fairly " sets in " upon the
reader I The commencement thus of the genuine
interest of the story may, in point of fact, be in-
dicated to the very page—beginning as that inte-

rest seems to us to do in real earnest with the de

scription of the old house-place at Burslem, at p. 201
with its ponderous settle beside the fire,. its leather-
covered easy-chair, its shelved dresser, its clock,

and tables, and—aloft there—hooked to the beams
in the ceiling, the great oak-made cratch for bacon !
From that point in her narrative we are Miss
Meteyard's most obedient ! We " needs must hear"
—she " hath her will"—as quietly but as securely as
ever had the Ancient Mariner in the ballad of

Coleridge. From the holiday visits paid by
Josiah Wedgwood, when a child, to old Mrs.
Egerton, at the Overhouse—we follow the hero

of the story to the dame's school where he gets
his first taste of knowledge (hardly a Pierian spring
can we call it), before wending his way as he does
_ _

later on, day after day, across the meadows to

Blunt's academy at Newcastle-under-Lyme. There
it is that we note the first evidence of the boy's
ingenuity when, with a pair of scissors and paper,
he cuts out, to the delight of his school-fellows,

a fleet at sea, an army at combat, a house and gar-
den, a whole pot-work—sticking the cuttings after

wards along the entire length of the sloping desks

of the school-room, to the amazement alike o:

scholars and of schoolmaster. His real education

and the same may be said with regard to all

men of eminence, appears to have been his Self

education--when, striken down by severe illness,

he fastened upon every book he could lay his
hands upon, during the otherwise weary interval of

a long convalescence. His " real precursor" as a pot-
ter, Miss Meteyard tells us, was Samuel Astbury—
one of whom it is recorded that he won his knowledge
of the mysteries of the potter's art by a wonderful
impersonation (some say during a period of no less

- -
than two years, but our authoress regards that as
an exaggeration) by a wonderful impersonation of
utter idiotcy—an idiotcy assumed by him so as to
enable him to discover the secrets of the

Brothers Elers, certain German potters 'who

were famous in their day for the manufacture

of Elers' ware at Chelsea. An incident, this, it
will surely be allowed, sufficiently indicative of it-

self that the annals of pottery are marked with

touches of truly romantic interest.

Wedgwood's

own great career as a potter may be said to have
dated from somewhere about the spring of 1759.
Then it was that he began to apply himself

- - -
in earnest to the development of the four

great essential of his art, body, glaze, form,
and ornament. Three years after the date last

mentioned, namely, in 1762, he was introduced to

the great friendof his life, Thomasßentley the mer-
chant of Liverpool. Scarcely two years afterwards,
on the 25th of January, 1764, Josiah married—

his wife, Sarah, being one who proved to him in
fact, 'and not merely in name, a veritable help-
mate. And so we are brought down here to the

close of this first of the two volumes into which Miss

Meteyard's Life of Wedgwood is portioned out--

among the latest facts recorded in this first volume

being one that may be said to have marked a very

turning-point in the e artistic and industrial career

of the Great Potter, namely, that of his happening
to light upon the work par excellence upon the Lathe
—that open sesanze to all the Mysteries of the Beautiful
in the Art of Pottery—Plumier's " L'Art de Tourner."

From that seemingly chance-reading, came forth,

Ln point of fact, the full ripening of Wedgwood's

genius, the perfection of his art, the revelation of

his exquisite taste, the establishment of his great re-

putation. Great as that reputation may be consi-
dered to have been, however, before the publication

of this Life of The Master-Potter, it can hardly
be deemed to have attained its full developement
until now—when the seal may be said to have
been at last put to the credentials of his
fame by the hand of Eliza Meteyard 1 Credentials
formally attested—(it can hardly be pronounced

extravagant our so expressing the fact)--on the 26th

of October, 1863, in a celebrated speech delivered at
Bursiem—by the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, to
whom, by the way, this really superb work is, we

observe, most appropriately inscribed.