editor of this volume would do well to insert in his next impression. The above sign, (the original; for we fear the board has been repainted,) was executed by Harlow, the artist of the celebrated picture of the Trial of Queen Katherine, or the Kemble Family. The painter, it will be remembered, was a pupil of the late Sir Thomas Lawrence. He was a young man of consummate vanity, and having unwarrantably claimed the merit of painting the Newfoundland dog introduced in Lawrence's portrait of Mrs. Angerstein, the two artists quarrelled, and Harlow took his resentment as follows:

"He repaired to the Queen's Head at Epsom; where his style of living having incurred a bill which he could not discharge, he proposed, like Morland under similar circumstances, to paint a sign-board in liquidation of his score. This was accepted—he painted both sides: the one presented a front view of her Majesty, in a sort of clever dashing caricature of Sir Thomas's style; the other represented the back view of the Queen's person, as if looking into the sign-board; and underneath was painted, 'T.L., Greek Street, Soho.' When Sir Thomas met him, he addressed him with, 'I have seen your additional act of perfidy at Epsom; and if you were not a scoundrel, I would kick you from one end of the street to the other.'—'There is some privilege in being a scoundrel, for the street is very long,' replied Harlow, unabashed, but moving out of reach of the threatened vengeance. Such is the current story; but there must be some error either in the facts or their date. Harlow was but a youth eighteen years old when he left Lawrence, and too young therefore for a man's resentment; neither had his conduct, a mere tricky slip, been such as to call forth fierce language in a person habitually so cautious and guarded as Lawrence. On the other hand, had Harlow arrived at manhood when it happened, he would not have allowed the words 'scoundrel' and 'perfidy' to pass with impunity. However all this may have been; the pupil quarrelled with Lawrence, and resolving to be master of his own movements in future, commenced working for himself."¹⁰

SPIRIT OF DISCOVERY.

POTTERY.¹¹

(Concluded from page 326.)

Wedgewood's Staffordshire Ware.

Lastly is the manufacture of those species of glazed pottery known by the general name of Staffordshire ware. The date of this ware is about sixty years ago, and it unquestionably originated with the late Mr. Wedgewood. It not only originated with him, but was carried by his knowledge, his skill, and his perseverance, to a degree of excellence which, in several points, has never been surpassed, and in some has never been equalled.

He perceived that the defects of the delft ware, at that time the only species of pottery employed for common domestic purposes, were the softness and looseness of texture of its body, which obliged the potter to make it thick and clumsy and heavy, in order to ensure to it a moderate durability; and that its porousness, as well as its dirty grey colour, required a thick coating of white enamel, which added still farther to its bulk and weight, and which, consisting for the most part of lead and arsenic, was hardly safe for culinary use.

He began, therefore, by inventing a body for earthenware, which at the same time should be white, and capable of enduring a very high degree of heat without fusion, well knowing that the hardness of the ware depended on the high firing to which it has been subjected. For this purpose, rejecting the common clays of his neighbourhood, he sent as far as Dorsetshire and Devonshire for the whiter and purer pipe-clays of those counties. For the siliceous ingredient of his composition he made choice of chalk-flints, calcined and ground to powder.

It might be supposed that white sand would have answered his purpose equally well, and have been cheaper; but, being determined to give the body of his ware as great a degree of compactness as possible, it was necessary that the materials should be reduced to the state almost of an impalpable powder; and calcined flints are much more easily brought to this state by grinding than sand would be. The perfect and equable mixture of these two ingredients being a point of great importance, he did not choose to trust to the ordinary mode of treading them together when moist, but having ground them between stones separately with water to the consistence of cream, he mixed them together in this state by measure, and then, evaporating the superfluous water by boiling in large cisterns, he obtained a composition of the most perfect uniformity in every part. By the combination of these ingredients, in different proportions, and exposed to different degrees of heat, he obtained all the variety of texture required, from the bibulous ware employed for glazed articles, such as common plates and dishes, to the compact ware not requiring glazing, of which he made mortars and other similar articles. The almost infusible nature of the body allowed him also to employ a thinner and less fusible glaze, that is, one in which no more lead entered than in common flint glass, and therefore incapable of being affected by any articles of food contained or prepared in such vessels. With these materials, either in their natural white or variously coloured—black by manganese, blue by cobalt, brown and buff by iron—he produced imitations of the Etruscan vases, and of various other works of ancient art, such as the world had never before seen—such as no subsequent artist has ever attempted to rival. His copies of the Portland vase are miracles of skill; and the other specimens of similar works may give some idea of the many beautiful works that were produced in his manufactory. In table ware, for many years he led the way almost without a rival; but the immense demand occasioned by the successive improvements of this article, which first put down the use of delft, and then of pewter, gave ample room and encouragement to men of capital and skill to enter the field of profit and competition. Much good has hence resulted; many subordinate improvements have been effected and are almost daily making; and a new variety of ware, called ironstone, has been invented, and so rapidly and judiciously improved, that, in appearance and in many of its intrinsic properties, it bears a close resemblance to the older and coarser porcelains of China itself.

I shall conclude by a summary account of the manufacture of the best table ware; for a considerable part of which I am indebted to notes taken by Captain Bagnold, when visiting a pottery, inferior, perhaps, to none in the country.

The materials of the Staffordshire ware are calcined flints and clay. The flints are burnt in kilns, and then, while hot, quenched in water, by which they are cracked through their whole substance. After being quenched they are ground in mills with water. The mill is a hollow cylinder of wood bound with hoops, and having a bottom of blocks of chert, a hard, tough, siliceous stone: the mill-shaft is perpendicular, and has two horizontal arms passing through it cross-wise. Between these arms are laid loose blocks of chert, which are moved round on the bed-stone as the arms revolve, and thus grind the flint with water to the consistence of cream.

The clay, from Dorsetshire and Devonshire, is mixed with water, and in this state is passed through fine sieves to separate the grosser particles. The flint and clay are now mixed by measure, and the mud or cream is passed through a