a cup, basin, or jug; then dips his hands in water, and while the board and the clay spin round together, presses and squeezes the clay till he has pressed out every little bubble of air from it. Next, he begins to hollow out the lump, and with his thumbs inside and his fingers outside, he smooths and shapes it, within and without, to the right form and thickness. You could not believe how quickly this is done, unless you were to see the potter at work.

The

The things which have been shaped upon his wheel are next given to a turner, to be finished off, and made smoother still. He turns them upon a lathe, as you may see a man turn bowls and other things in wood. cups and jugs are without handles, and the teapots without spouts; for the potter cannot make these upon his wheel, any more than he can make broad and flat things, such as plates and dishes, upon it. In order to make all these things, a lump of clay is placed upon a mould, or shape, made of plaster, and the clay is pressed down on the mould till it takes the right form. The handles and spouts are fastened to the cups and jugs and teapots to which they belong with a little "slip."

All these things, which are still damp and soft, must be baked: they are therefore put inside large vessels made of fireclay-a kind of earth which will bear very great heat--and are then carried to the "biscuit-kiln." This is a large lofty oven, surrounded on all sides by fires, which soon make everything in it redhot. earthenware is kept in this fierce heat for forty or fifty hours, by which time it is perfectly dry, and looks like a mixture of earth and glass, and now it takes the name of biscuit.

The

The Earthenware is not yet fit for use; it must be glazed, that is, made smooth like glass, and this is done by covering it all over with a mixture of lead and salt, giving it that smooth polish which you see on clean

plates and dishes. Without the glazing, earthenware would not "wear so long as it does, and would be very difficult to keep clean. A quantity of glaze is poured into a trough, and every article is dipped into it; then all are taken once more to the oven, which is not so hot as the biscuit-kiln was, and they come out of it bright and glossy, and ready for use.

What has been said refers only to "white" ware, but we use as much coloured earthenware, and even more, than we do of plain white; when the ware is to be ornamented with patterns in colours, it must be done before the article is glazed. Supposing the pattern is to be in blue-and-white, which is the commonest colour of plates and jugs, the pattern is drawn with blue paint upon very thin tough paper, and the paper is placed upon the ware and rubbed till the pattern comes off upon it. The article is washed in water directly, so that all the paper comes away in little bits, but the pattern remains.

The finest kinds of ware are often gilded, or ornamented with beautiful little paintings, and then the gold and the colours are put on by Artists with a pencil of camel's-hair. The finest ware, which was first brought from China, is called Porcelain, or (oftener) China. For a great number of years nobody knew that the right kind of clay for making this fine ware could be found in any other country; but at last it was discovered in France, England, and several other parts of Europe.

English porcelain clay comes from Cornwall, which is, as you know, the south-western corner of England. The first efforts towards making earthenware were directed to producing red earthen pans and flower-pots, and coarse brown and yellow wares; step by step it was discovered how to make it white, how to make it glossy, and how to colour it and stamp it with patterns. Perfection in the manufacture of porcelain was not arrived at without a large amount of persever

ance, reflection, accurate observation, and labour, on the part of more than one thoughtful man.

Some of the improvements seem to have been discovered, as it were, by accident. For example, potters knew that they must use lead in glazing, but they were not aware that salt should be employed too. It happened, one day, that a woman was boiling some brine for curing pork; the brine, which was in an earthen pot, boiled over and ran down the sides; when it grew cold, the outside of the pot, wherever the brine had trickled over it, looked bright and glassy. A potter who lived very near heard of it and went to look at the pot, and thought directly that salt would surely glaze his earthenware. So he went home and tried this new sort of glazing, in which he succeeded so well that all the potters in the neighbourhood began to use salt.

Another potter, who was an accurate observer of things around him, found out how to make fine white ware which nobody in England had ever been able to do before. He was taking a long journey on horseback, and, noticing that the eyes of his horse were becoming very weak, stopped on his way to see what could be done; the hostler at the inn said he thought he could cure the horse. He burned a flintstone till it was redhot, then he pounded it into fine dust, and blew a little of the dust into the horse's eyes; this proved a complete cure. The potter, who had carefully watched everything that was done, saw that the burnt flint had become quite white, and that it was very easily ground into powder. He also saw that when the powder in the horse's eyes had been wetted with the moisture that was in them, it looked like clay, from which he concluded that, if he were to burn flints, grind them, and mix them with the clay which he already used in the manufacture of earthenware, it would be of a fine white colour. It turned out just as he thought; and his wares were so good, and so beautifully white, that people

preferred them to all that they had before; and so the potters learned to mix flint with their clay.

Our chief potteries are in Staffordshire, but there are also many potteries in other parts of England.

CHAPTER XVII.

PALISSY THE POTTER.

THE name of Palissy is widely known as connected with a kind of earthenware, which, however, is so scarce as to be shown as a curiosity in some museums.

Palissy Ware is composed of a soft clay, covered with a hard polished enamel, upon which are figures of plants and animals carefully drawn, and painted in their proper colours. The naturalist will be delighted to find the accuracy with which every leaf, fish, lizard, or crab is depicted; the common observer will be struck with the quaintness rather than with the beauty of the designs, and may perhaps fancy that the chief value of the ware consists in its antiquity.

Modern art can, indeed, produce a more beautiful ware. By successive improvements, men have learned to make a finer clay and to employ a greater variety of rich colouring; but, besides the intrinsic value of Palissy's decorations as faithful copies of Nature by a master-hand, his works remain for after-generations as a standing record of what may be effected by one patient, persevering, and energetic spirit. With a strength of purpose and determination scarcely ever equalled, he worked out for himself results which are not ordinarily achieved, except by a succession of skilful men, each of whom has taken advantage of the discoveries, inventions, genius, and experience of his predecessors.

Bernard Palissy lived about three hundred years ago in a remote province of France, where he earned a scanty subsistence for himself and his family as a

painter on glass. He was a great observer of nature, possessed considerable skill in drawing, and besides having a thorough knowledge of his own trade, he knew something of land-surveying. He was both a thoughtful and a religious man, accustomed to search out for the causes of what he observed, and to recognise in all the First Great Cause.

In Palissy's time, the art of pottery was in its infancy. Porcelain was made only in China, and was but just beginning to be known in Europe, as a foreign production of great cost and rarity. In Italy, indeed, there were some few workers in enamelled pottery; but a French artisan had little opportunity of knowing what was to be found in Italy, and all that such a person saw of pottery was in the shape of coarse jars, pots, and pans-useful indeed, but neither elegant nor ornamental.

It happened one day that Palissy fell in with an enamelled cup of Italian manufacture. Struck by its beauty, he at once bethought himself, that if he could but find out how to make enamels, he might turn to good account his knowledge of drawing in the execution of ornamental designs for porcelain.

Palissy knew not how or where the cup had been made, and being married, with a family dependent upon him, could not wander abroad to ascertain what might be already known of such things in France or elsewhere. He had everything to learn, had no one to instruct or guide him and could only seek for the enamel as one groping in the dark; but, being of a manful and resolute spirit, he set to work in earnest to rival the cups of Italy, when he would have failed in an attempt to make even the roughest pipkin.

As a glass-painter, he had some knowledge of chemistry, and by help of this knowledge he hoped to discover a compound of drugs that might produce enamel. It must melt in the furnace so as to make a polished surface, and it must be perfectly white, so as to admit of