Self Help

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Frederick Augustus now resolved on forcing Bottgher to disclose the
golden secret, as the only means of relief from his urgent
pecuniary difficulties. The alchemist, hearing of the royal
intention, again determined to fly. He succeeded in escaping his
guard, and, after three days' travel, arrived at Ens in Austria,
where he thought himself safe. The agents of 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 fortress of Koningstein. It was communicated to him
that the royal exchequer was completely empty, and that ten
regiments of Poles in arrears of pay were waiting for his gold.
The King himself visited him, and told him in a severe tone that if
he did not at once proceed to make gold, he would be hung! ("Thu
mir zurecht, Bottgher, sonst lass ich dich hangen").

Years passed, and still Bottgher made no gold; but he was not hung.
It was reserved for him to make a far more important discovery than
the conversion of copper into gold, namely, the conversion of clay
into porcelain. Some rare specimens of this ware had been brought
by the Portuguese from China, which were sold for more than their
weight in gold. Bottgher was first induced to turn his attention
to the subject by Walter von Tschirnhaus, a maker of optical
instruments, also an alchemist. Tschirnhaus was a man of education
and distinction, and was held in much esteem by Prince Furstenburg
as well as by the Elector. He very sensibly said to Bottgher,
still in fear of the gallows--"If you can't make gold, try and do
something else; make porcelain."

The alchemist acted on the hint, and began his experiments, working
night and day. He prosecuted his investigations for a long time
with great assiduity, but without success. At length some red
clay, 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; and
that its texture resembled that of porcelain, excepting in colour
and opacity. He had in fact accidentally discovered red porcelain,
and he proceeded to manufacture it and sell it as porcelain.

Bottgher was, however, well aware that the white colour was an
essential property of true porcelain; and he therefore prosecuted
his experiments in the hope of discovering the secret. Several
years thus passed, but without success; until again accident stood
his friend, and helped him to a knowledge of the art of making
white porcelain. One day, in the year 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. Bottgher's quick imagination immediately seized upon the
idea. This white earthy powder might possibly be the very earth of
which he was in search--at all events the opportunity must not be
let slip of ascertaining what it really was. He was rewarded for
his painstaking care and watchfulness; for he found, on experiment,
that the principal ingredient of the hair-powder consisted of
kaolin, the want of which had so long formed an insuperable
difficulty in the way of his inquiries.

The discovery, in Bottgher's intelligent hands, led to great
results, and proved of far greater importance than the discovery of
the philosopher's stone would have been. In October, 1707, he
presented his first piece of porcelain to the Elector, who was
greatly pleased with it; and it was resolved that Bottgher should
be furnished with the means necessary for perfecting his invention.
Having obtained a skilled workman from Delft, he began to TURN
porcelain with great success. He now entirely abandoned alchemy
for pottery, and inscribed over the door of his workshop this
distich:-

"Es machte Gott, der grosse Schopfer,
Aus einem Goldmacher einen Topfer." {16}

Bottgher, however, was still under strict surveillance, for fear
lest he should communicate his secret to others or escape the
Elector's control. The new workshops and furnaces which were
erected for him, were guarded by troops night and day, and six
superior officers were made responsible for the personal security
of the potter.

Bottgher's further experiments with his new furnaces proving very
successful, and the porcelain which he manufactured being found to
fetch large prices, it was next determined to establish a Royal
Manufactory of porcelain. The manufacture of delft ware was known
to have greatly enriched Holland. Why should not the manufacture
of porcelain equally enrich the Elector? Accordingly, a decree
went forth, dated the 23rd of January, 1710, for the establishment
of "a large manufactory of porcelain" at the Albrechtsburg in
Meissen. In this decree, which was translated into Latin, 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 Schatze)" 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 Gefasse)
far superior to the Indian terra sigillata;" {17} as also "coloured
ware and plates (buntes Geschirr und Tafeln) which may be cut,
ground, and polished, and are quite equal to Indian vessels," and
finally that "specimens of white porcelain (Proben von weissem
Porzellan)" had already been obtained, and it was hoped that this
quality, too, would soon be manufactured in considerable
quantities. The royal decree concluded by inviting "foreign
artists and handicraftmen" to come to Saxony and engage as
assistants in the new factory, at high wages, and under the
patronage of the King. This royal edict probably gives the best
account of the actual state of Bottgher's invention at the time.

It has been stated in German publications that Bottgher, for the
great services rendered by him to the Elector and to Saxony, was
made Manager of the Royal Porcelain Works, and further promoted to
the dignity of Baron. Doubtless he deserved these honours; but his
treatment was of an altogether different character, for it was
shabby, cruel, and inhuman. Two royal officials, 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 were finished, he was locked up nightly in
his room. All this preyed upon his mind, and in repeated letters
to the King he sought to obtain mitigation of his fate. Some of
these letters are very touching. "I will devote my whole soul to
the art of making porcelain," he writes on one occasion, "I will do
more than any inventor ever did before; only give me liberty,
liberty!"

To these appeals, the King turned a deaf ear. He was ready to
spend money and grant favours; but liberty he would not give. He
regarded Bottgher as his slave. In this position, the persecuted
man kept on working for some time, till, at the end of a year or
two, he grew negligent. Disgusted with the world and with himself,
he took to drinking. Such is the force of example, that it no
sooner became known that Bottgher had betaken himself to this vice,
than the greater number of the workmen at the Meissen factory
became drunkards too. Quarrels and fightings without end were the
consequence, so that the troops were frequently called upon to
interfere and keep peace among the "Porzellanern," as they were
nicknamed. After a while, the whole of them, more than three
hundred, were shut up in the Albrechtsburg, and treated as
prisoners of state.

Bottgher at last fell seriously ill, and in May, 1713, his
dissolution was hourly expected. The King, alarmed at losing so
valuable a slave, now gave him permission to take carriage exercise
under a guard; and, having somewhat recovered, he was allowed
occasionally to go to Dresden. In a letter written by the King in
April, 1714, Bottgher 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, Bottgher lingered on for a few years more, until death
freed him from his sufferings on the 13th March, 1719, in the
thirty-fifth year of his age. He was buried AT NIGHT--as if he had
been a dog--in the Johannis Cemetery of Meissen. Such was the
treatment and such the unhappy end, of one of Saxony's greatest
benefactors.

The porcelain manufacture immediately opened up an important source
of public revenue, and it became so productive to the Elector of
Saxony, that his example was shortly after followed by most
European monarchs. Although soft porcelain had been made at St.
Cloud fourteen years before Bottgher's discovery, the superiority
of the hard porcelain soon became generally recognised. Its
manufacture was begun at Sevres in 1770, and it has since almost
entirely superseded the softer material. This is now one of the
most thriving branches of French industry, of which the high
quality of the articles produced is certainly indisputable.

The career of Josiah Wedgwood, the English potter, was less
chequered and more prosperous than that of either Palissy or
Bottgher, and his lot was cast in happier times. Down to the
middle of last century England was behind most other nations of the
first order in Europe in respect of skilled industry. Although
there were many potters in Staffordshire--and Wedgwood himself
belonged to a numerous clan of potters of the same name--their
productions were of the rudest kind, for the most part only plain
brown ware, with the patterns 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 time the "white ware" made in
Staffordshire was not white, but of a dirty cream colour. Such, in
a few words, was the condition of the pottery manufacture when
Josiah Wedgwood was born at Burslem in 1730. By the time that he
died, sixty-four years later, it had become completely changed. By
his energy, skill, and genius, he established the trade upon a new
and solid foundation; and, in the words of his epitaph, "converted
a rude and inconsiderable manufacture into an elegant art and an
important branch of national commerce."

Josiah Wedgwood was one of those indefatigable men who from time to
time spring from the ranks of the common people, and by their
energetic character not only practically educate the working
population in habits of industry, but by the example of diligence
and perseverance which they set before them, largely influence the
public activity in all directions, and contribute in a great degree
to form the national character. He was, like Arkwright, the
youngest of a family of thirteen children. His grandfather and
granduncle were both potters, as was also his father who died when
he was a mere boy, leaving him a patrimony of twenty pounds. He
had learned 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 Eloge on
Wedgwood recently delivered at Burslem, well observed that the
disease from which he suffered was not improbably the occasion of
his subsequent excellence. "It prevented him from growing up to be
the active, vigorous English workman, possessed of all his limbs,
and knowing right well the use of them; but it put him upon
considering whether, as he could not be that, he might not be
something else, and something greater. It sent his mind inwards;
it drove him to meditate upon the laws and secrets of his art. The
result was, that he arrived at a perception and a grasp of them
which might, perhaps, have been envied, certainly have been owned,
by an Athenian potter." {18}

When he had completed his apprenticeship with his brother, Josiah
joined partnership with another workman, and carried on a small
business in making knife-hafts, boxes, and sundry articles for
domestic use. Another partnership followed, when he proceeded to
make melon table plates, green pickle leaves, candlesticks,
snuffboxes, and such like articles; but he made comparatively
little progress until he began business on his own account at
Burslem in the year 1759. There he diligently pursued his calling,
introducing 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 before calcination, became white after
exposure to the heat of a furnace. This fact, observed and
pondered on, led to the idea of mixing silica with the red powder
of the potteries, and to the discovery that the mixture becomes
white when calcined. He had but to cover this material with a
vitrification of transparent glaze, to obtain one of the most
important products of fictile art--that which, under the name of
English earthenware, was to attain the greatest commercial value
and become of the most extensive utility.

Wedgwood was for some time much troubled by his furnaces, though
nothing like to the same extent that Palissy was; and he overcame
his difficulties in the same way--by repeated experiments and
unfaltering perseverance. His first attempts at making porcelain
for table use was a succession of disastrous failures,--the labours
of months being often destroyed in a day. It was only after a long
series of trials, in the course 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 for home and
foreign use--he went forward perfecting his manufactures, until,
his example extending in all directions, the action of the entire
district was stimulated, and a great branch of British industry was
eventually established on firm foundations. He aimed throughout at
the highest excellence, declaring his determination "to give over
manufacturing any article, whatsoever it might be, rather than to
degrade it."

Wedgwood was cordially helped by many persons of rank and
influence; for, working in the truest spirit, he readily commanded
the help and encouragement of other true workers. He made for
Queen Charlotte the first royal table-service of English
manufacture, of the kind afterwards called "Queen's-ware," and was
appointed Royal Potter; a title which he prized more than if he had
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 hundred
guineas for it: her grace secured it for eighteen hundred; but
when she learnt Wedgwood's object she at once generously lent him
the vase to copy. He produced fifty copies at a cost of about
2500l., and his expenses were not covered by their sale; but he
gained his object, which was to show that whatever had been done,
that English skill and energy could and would accomplish.

Wedgwood called to his aid the crucible of the chemist, the
knowledge of the antiquary, and the skill of the artist. He found
out Flaxman when a youth, and while he liberally nurtured his
genius drew from him a large number of beautiful designs for his
pottery and porcelain; converting them by his manufacture into
objects of taste and excellence, and thus making them instrumental
in the diffusion of classical art amongst the people. By careful
experiment and study he was even enabled to 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 eastern and western sides of the island, was mainly due
to his public-spirited exertions, allied to the engineering skill
of Brindley. The road accommodation of the district being of an
execrable character, he planned and executed a turnpike-road
through the Potteries, ten miles in length. The reputation he
achieved was such that his works at Burslem, and subsequently those
at Etruria, which he founded and built, became a point of
attraction to distinguished visitors from all parts of Europe.

The result of Wedgwood's labours was, that the manufacture of
pottery, which he found in the very lowest condition, became one of
the staples of England; and instead of importing what we needed for
home use from abroad, we became large exporters to other countries,
supplying them with earthenware even in the face of enormous
prohibitory duties on articles of British produce. Wedgwood gave
evidence as to his manufactures before Parliament in 1785, only
some thirty years after he had begun his operations; from which it
appeared, that instead of providing only casual employment to a
small number of inefficient and badly remunerated workmen, about
20,000 persons then derived their bread directly from the
manufacture of earthenware, without 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
this important branch of industry. In 1852 not fewer than
84,000,000 pieces of pottery were exported from England to other
countries, besides what were made for home use. But it is not
merely the quantity and value of the produce that is entitled to
consideration, but the improvement of the condition of the
population by whom this great branch of industry is conducted.
When Wedgwood began his labours, the Staffordshire district was
only in a half-civilized state. The people were poor,
uncultivated, and few in number. When Wedgwood's manufacture was
firmly established, there was found ample employment at good wages
for three times the number of population; while their moral
advancement had kept pace with their material improvement.

Men such as these are fairly entitled to take rank as the
Industrial Heroes of the civilized world. Their patient self-
reliance amidst trials and difficulties, their courage and
perseverance in the pursuit of worthy objects, are not less heroic
of their kind than the bravery and devotion of the soldier and the
sailor, whose duty and pride it is heroically to defend what these
valiant leaders of industry have so heroically achieved.

CHAPTER IV--APPLICATION AND PERSEVERANCE

"Rich are the diligent, who can command
Time, nature's stock! and could his hour-glass fall,
Would, as for seed of stars, stoop for the sand,
And, by incessant labour, gather all."--D'Avenant.
"Allez en avant, et la foi vous viendra!"--D'Alembert.

The greatest results in life are usually attained by simple means,
and the exercise of ordinary qualities. The common life of every
day, with its cares, necessities, and duties, affords ample
opportunity for acquiring experience of the best kind; and its most
beaten paths provide the true worker with abundant scope for effort
and room for self-improvement. The road of human welfare lies
along the old highway of steadfast well-doing; and they who are the
most persistent, and work in the truest spirit, will usually be the
most successful.

Fortune has often been blamed for her blindness; but fortune is not
so blind as men are. Those who look into practical life will find
that fortune is usually on the side of the industrious, as the
winds and waves are on the side of the best navigators. In the
pursuit of even the highest branches of human inquiry, the commoner
qualities are found the most useful--such as common sense,
attention, application, and perseverance. Genius may not be
necessary, though even genius of the highest sort does not disdain
the use of these ordinary qualities. The very greatest men have
been among the least believers in the power of genius, and as
worldly wise and persevering as successful men of the commoner
sort. Some have even defined genius to be only common sense
intensified. A distinguished teacher and president of a college
spoke of it as the power of making efforts. John Foster held it to
be the power of lighting one's own fire. Buffon said of genius "it
is patience."

Newton's was unquestionably a mind of the very highest order, and
yet, when asked by what means he had worked out his extraordinary
discoveries, he modestly answered, "By always thinking unto them."
At another time he thus expressed his method of study: "I keep the
subject continually before me, and wait till the first dawnings
open slowly by little and little into a full and clear light." It
was in Newton's case, as in every other, only by diligent
application and perseverance that his great reputation was
achieved. Even his recreation consisted in change of study, laying
down one subject to take up another. To Dr. Bentley he said: "If
I have done the public any service, it is due to nothing but
industry and patient thought." So Kepler, another great
philosopher, speaking of his studies and his progress, said: "As
in Virgil, 'Fama mobilitate viget, vires acquirit eundo,' so it was
with me, that the diligent thought on these things was the occasion
of still further thinking; until at last I brooded with the whole
energy of my mind upon the subject."

The extraordinary results effected by dint of sheer industry and
perseverance, have led many distinguished men to doubt whether the
gift of genius be so exceptional an endowment as it is usually
supposed to be. Thus Voltaire held that it is only a very slight
line of separation that divides the man of genius from the man of
ordinary mould. Beccaria was even of opinion that all men might be
poets and orators, and Reynolds that they might be painters and
sculptors. If this were really so, that stolid Englishman might
not have been so very far wrong after all, who, on Canova's death,
inquired of his brother whether it was "his intention to carry on
the business!" Locke, Helvetius, and Diderot believed that all men
have an equal aptitude for genius, and that what some are able to
effect, under the laws which regulate the operations of the
intellect, must also be within the reach of others who, under like
circumstances, apply themselves to like pursuits. But while
admitting to the fullest extent the wonderful achievements of
labour, and recognising the fact that men of the most distinguished
genius have invariably been found the most indefatigable workers,
it must nevertheless be sufficiently obvious that, without the
original endowment of heart and brain, no amount of labour, however
well applied, could have produced a Shakespeare, a Newton, a
Beethoven, or a Michael Angelo.

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