Self Help; with Illustrations of Conduct and Perseverance

s-Palissy, B?tt

. . Patience lies at the root of all pleasures, as well as of all powers. Ho

'une telle beauté que . . . dèslors, sans avoir esgard que je n'avois nulle connoissance des terres

to be found in the whole range of biography. Of these we select three of the most striking, as exhibited in the li

a comparatively recent date. The Etruscan ware was very valuable in ancient times, a vase being worth its weight in gold in the time of Augustus. The Moors seem to have preserved amongst them a knowledge of the art, which they were found practising in the island of Majorca when it was taken by the Pisans in 1115. Among the spoil carr

ezing with the cold, he was accustomed to provide himself with a basket of shavings, in which he placed them to keep himself warm and enable him to proceed with his drawings. "Nor," says Vasari, "am I in the least astonished at this, since no man ever becomes distinguished in any art whatsoever who does not early begin to acquire the power of supporting heat, col

ore facile and less dear than marble. Hence it was that he began to make his models in clay, and to endeavour by experiment so to coat and bake the clay as to render those models durable. After many trials he at length discovered a method of covering th

At that time coarse brown jars and pipkins were almost the only articles of earthenware produced in France; and this continued to be the case, with comparatively small improveme

ch trade Bernard was brought up. His parents were poor people-too poor to give him the benefit of any school education. "I had no other books," said he afterwards,

arch whether there was any place in it for him. He first travelled towards Gascony, working at his trade where he could find employment, and occasionally occupy

ncreased, while, do what he could, his earnings remained too small for his needs. It was therefore necessary for him to bestir himself. Probably he felt capable of better things than drudging in an employment so precarious as glass-painting; and hence he was induced to turn his attention to the kindred art of

ary time; but occurring as it did when he was meditating a change of calling, he at once became inflamed with the desire of imitating it. The sight of this cup disturbed his whole existence; and the determination to discover the enamel with which it was glazed thenceforward possessed him like

hem, subjected them to the heat of a furnace which he erected for the purpose of baking them. His experiments failed; and the results were broken pots and a waste of fuel, drugs, time, and labour. Women do not readily sympathise with experiments whose only tangible effect is to dissipate the means of buying clothes and food for their

my intention." In the intervals of his experiments he occasionally worked at his former callings, painting on glass, drawing portraits, and measuring land; but his earnings from these sources were very small. At length he was no longer able to carry on his experiments in his own furnace because of the heavy cost of fuel; but he bought more potsherds, broke them up as before into three or

prepare the requisite map. The work occupied him some time, and he was doubtless well paid for it; but no sooner was it completed than he proceeded, with redoubled zeal, to follow up his old investigations "in the track of the enamels." He began by breaking three dozen new earthen pots, the pieces of which he c

ce; and thither he himself went to watch the results of the baking. Four hours passed, during which he watched; and then the furnace was opened. The material on one only of the three hundred pieces of potsherd had melted, and it was taken out to cool. As it hardened, it grew white-white and polished! The piece of potsherd was covered with white enamel, described by Palissy as

bjected to a preliminary process of baking, they were covered with the enamel compound, and again placed in the furnace for the grand crucial experiment. Although his means were nearly exhausted, Palissy had been for some time accumulating a great store of fuel for the final effort; and he thought it was enough. At last the fire was lit, and the operation proceeded. All day he sat by the furnace, feeding it with fuel. He sat there watching and feeding all through the long night. But the enamel did not melt. The sun rose upon his labours. His wife brought him a

had made with his own hands for the purposes of the first experiment were by long baking irretrievably spoilt for the purposes of a second. His money was now all spent; but he could borrow. His character was still good, though his wife and the neighbours thought him foolishly wasting

were burnt in vain! The enamel had not yet melted. Ten minutes more heat might do it. Fuel must be had at whatever cost. There remained the household furniture and shelving. A crashing noise was heard in the house; and amidst the screams of his wife and children, who now feared Palissy's reason was giving way, the tables were seized, broken up, and heaved into the furnace. The enam

he had at length mastered the secret; for the last great burst of heat had melted the enamel. The common brown household jars, when taken out of the furnace after it had become cool, were fou

ady for sale? Fortunately there remained one man in Saintes who still believed in the integrity, if not in the judgment, of Palissy-an inn-keeper, who agreed to feed and lodge him for six months, while he went on with his manufacture. As for the working potter w

o inspire me, and I held on manfully; sometimes, when visitors called, I entertained them with pleasantry, while I was really sad at heart. . . . Worst of all the sufferings I had to endure, were the mockeries and persecutions of those of my own household, who were so unreasonable as to expect me to execute work without the means of doing so. For years my furnaces were without any covering or protection, and while attending them I have been for nights at the mercy of the wind and the rain, without help or consolation, save it might be the wailing of cats on the one side and the howling of dogs on the other. Sometimes the tempest would beat so furiou

e walked. [77] The family continued to reproach him for his recklessness, and his neighbours cried shame upon him for his obstinate folly. So he returned for a time to his former calling; and after about a year's diligent labour, during which he earned bread for his household and somewhat recovered his character among his neighbours, he again resumed his darling enterprise. But though he had already spent about ten years in the search

omplished. He proceeded from one step of improvement to another; always aiming at the greatest perfection possible. He studied natural objects for patterns, and with such success that the great Buffon spoke of him as "so great a naturalist as Nature only can produce." His ornamental pieces are now regarded as rare gems in the cabinets of virtuosi, and sell at al

st into a dungeon at Bordeaux, to wait his turn at the stake or the scaffold. He was condemned to be burnt; but a powerful noble, the Constable de Montmorency, interposed to save his life-not because he had any special regard for Palissy or his religion, but because no other artist could be found capable of executing the enamelled pavement for his magnificent chateau then in course of erection at Ecouen, about four leagues from Paris. By his influence an edict was issued appointing Palissy Inventor of Rustic Figuline

old man of seventy-eight, trembling on the verge of the grave, but his spirit was as brave as ever. He was threatened with death unless he recanted; but he was as obstinate in holding to his religion as he had been in hunting out the secret of the enamel. The king, Henry III., even went to see him in prison to induce him to abjure his faith. "My good man," said the King, "you have now served my mother and myself for forty-five years. We have put up with your adhering to your religion amidst fires and massacres: now I am so pressed by the Guise party as well as by my own people, that I am constrained to leave you in the hands of your enemies, and to-morrow you will be burnt unless you become converted

ntice with an apothecary at Berlin. He seems to have been early fascinated by chemistry, and occupied most of his leisure in making experiments. These for the most part tended in one direction-the art of converting common on metals into gold. At the end of several years, B?ttgher pretended to have

erick I. was presented with a piece of the gold pretended to have been converted from copper, he was so dazzled with the prospect of securing an infinite quantity of it-Prussia being then in great straits for money-that he determined to secure B?ttgher

f money at the time, and he was overjoyed at the prospect of obtaining gold in any quantity by the aid of the young alchemist. B?ttgher was accordingly conveyed in secret to Dresden, accompanied by a royal escort. He had scarcely left Wittenberg when a battalion of Pru

he Prince Fürst von Fürstenburg, who, accompanied by a regiment of Guards, hurried with it to Warsaw. Arrived there, it was determined to make immediate trial of the process. The King and the Prince locked themselves up in a secret chamber of the palace, girt themselves about with leather aprons, and like true "gold-cooks" set to work melting copper in a crucible and afterwards applying to it the red fluid of B?ttgher. But the result was unsatisfactory; for notwithstanding all that they could do, the copper o

the Elector were, however, at his heels; they had tracked him to the "Golden Stag," which they surrounded, and seizing him in his bed, notwithstanding his resistance and appeals to the Austrian authorities for help, they carried him by force to Dresden. From this time he was more strictly watched than ever, and he was shortly after transferred to the strong

had been brought by the Portuguese from China, which were sold for more than their weight in gold. B?ttgher was first induced to turn his attention to the subject by Walter von Tschirnhaus, a maker of optical instruments, also an alchemist. Tschirnha

lay, brought to him for the purpose of making his crucibles, set him on the right track. He found that this clay, when submitted to a high temperature, became vitrified and retained its shape; an

ear 1707, he found his perruque unusually heavy, and asked of his valet the reason. The answer was, that it was owing to the powder with which the wig was dressed, which consisted of a kind of earth then much used for hair powder. B?ttgher's quick imagination immediately seized upon the idea. This white earthy powder might possibly be the very earth of w

ented his first piece of porcelain to the Elector, who was greatly pleased with it; and it was resolved that B?ttgher should be furnished with the means necessary for perfecting his invention. Ha

ott, der gro

dmacher einen

rs or escape the Elector's control. The new workshops and furnaces which were erected for him, were guarded by

French, and Dutch, and distributed by the Ambassadors of the Elector at all the European Courts, Frederick Augustus set forth that to promote the welfare of Saxony, which had suffered much through the Swedish invasion, he had "directed his attention to the subterranean treasures (unterirdischen Sch?tze)" of the country, and having employed some able persons in the investigation, they had succeeded in manufacturing "a sort of red vessels (eine Art rother Gef?sse) far superior to the Indian terra sigillata;" [85] as also "coloured ware and plates (buntes Geschirr und Tafeln

ls, named Matthieu and Nehmitz, were put over his head as directors of the factory, while he himself only held the position of foreman of potters, and at the same time was detained the King's prisoner. During the erection of the factory at Meissen, while his assistance was still indispensable, he was conducted by soldiers to and from Dresden; and even after the works we

isgusted with the world and with himself, he took to drinking. Such is the force of example, that it no sooner became known that B?ttgher had betaken himself to this vice, than the greater number of the workmen at the Meissen factory became drunkards too. Quarrels and fightings wit

by the King in April, 1714, B?ttgher was promised his full liberty; but the offer came too late. Broken in body and mind, alternately working and drinking, though with occasional gleams of nobler intention, and suffering under constant ill-health, the result of his enforced confinement, B?ttgher lingere

. Although soft porcelain had been made at St. Cloud fourteen years before B?ttgher's discovery, the superiority of the hard porcelain soon became generally recognised. Its manufacture was begun at Sèvres in 17

terns scratched in while the clay was wet. The principal supply of the better articles of earthenware came from Delft in Holland, and of drinking stone pots from Cologne. Two foreign potters, the brothers Elers from Nuremberg, settled for a time in Staffordshire, and introduced an improved manufacture, but they shortly after removed to Chelsea, where they confined themselves to the manufacture of ornamental pieces. No porcelain capable of resisting a scratch with a hard point had yet been made in England; and for a long t

ed to read and write at the village school; but on the death of his father he was taken from it and set to work as a "thrower" in a small pottery carried on by his elder brother. There he began life, his working life, to use his own words, "at the lowest round of the ladder," when only eleven years old. He was shortly after seized by an attack of virulent smallpox, from the effects of which he suffered during the rest of his life, for it was followed by a disease in the right knee, which recurred at frequent intervals, and was only got rid of by the amputation of the limb many years later. Mr. Gladstone, in his eloquent éloge on Wedgwood recently

new articles to the trade, and gradually extending his business. What he chiefly aimed at was to manufacture cream-coloured ware of a better quality than was then produced in Staffordshire as regarded shape, colour, glaze, and durability. To understand the subject thoroughly, he devoted his leisure to the study of chemistry; and he made numerous experiments on fluxes, glazes, and various sorts of clay. Being a close inquirer and accurate observer, he noticed that a certain earth containing silica, which was black

rse of which he lost time, money, and labour, that he arrived at the proper sort of glaze to be used; but he would not be denied, and at last he conquered success through patience. The improvement of pottery became his passion, and was never lost sight of for a moment. Even when he had mastered his difficulties, and become a prosperous man-manufacturing white stone ware and cream-coloured ware in large quantities fo

been made a baron. Valuable sets of porcelain were entrusted to him for imitation, in which he succeeded to admiration. Sir William Hamilton lent him specimens of ancient art from Herculaneum, of which he produced accurate and beautiful copies. The Duchess of Portland outbid him for the Barberini Vase when that article was offered for sale. He bid as high as seventeen hundre

rediscover the art of painting on porcelain or earthenware vases and similar articles-an art practised by the ancient Etruscans, but which had been lost since the time of Pliny. He distinguished himself by his own contributions to science, and his name is still identified with the Pyrometer which he invented. He was an indefatigable supporter of all measures of public utility; and the construction of the Trent and Mersey Canal, which completed the navigable communication between the east

ithout taking into account the increased numbers to which it gave employment in coal-mines, and in the carrying trade by land and sea, and the stimulus which it gave to employment in many ways in various parts of the country. Yet, important as had been the advances made in his time, Mr. Wedgwood was of opinion that the manufacture was but in its infancy, and that the improvements which he had effected were of but small amount compared with those to which the art was capable of attaining, through the continued industry and growing intelligence of the manufacturers, and the natural facilities and political advantages enjoyed by Great Britain; an opinion which has been fully borne out by the progress which has since been effected in

difficulties, their courage and perseverance in the pursuit of worthy objects, are not less heroic of their kind than the bravery and devotion o