CHAPTER III
The Great Potters—palissy, Böttgher,
Wedgwood
"Patience is the finest and worthiest part of fortitude, and the rarest too . . . Patience lies at the root of all pleasures, as well as of all powers. Hope herself ceases to be happiness when Impatience companions her."—John Ruskin
"Il y a vingt et cinq ans passez qu'il ne me fut monstré une coupe de terre, tournée et esmaillée d'une telle beauté que . . . dèslors, sans avoir esgard que je n'avois nulle connoissance des terres argileuses, je me mis à chercher les émaux, comme un homme qui taste en ténèbres."—Bernard Palissy.
IT so happens that the history of Pottery furnishes some of the most remarkable instances of patient perseverance to be found in the whole range of biography. Of these we select three of the most striking, as exhibited in the lives of Bernard Palissy, the Frenchman; Johann Friedrich Böttgher, the German; and Josiah Wedgwood, the Englishman.
Though the art of making common vessels of clay was known to most of the ancient nations, that of manufacturing enamelled earthenware was much less common. It was, however, practised by the ancient Etruscans, specimens of whose ware are still to be found in antiquarian collections. But it became a lost art, and was only recovered
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