THE POTTER.

The Potter converts clay of various kinds, and mixed also with various ingredients, into utensils of innumerable shapes and sizes, for
domestic and a variety of other purposes.

Vessels capable of holding liquid food, and drink, for the use of man, would be so essential to his immediate necessities, that the fabrication would doubtless be prior to the humblest cottage. Vessels formed by excavating pieces of wood and leather were, in all
probability, prior to those of earthenware. This manufacture is so ancient, that we have no traces to the period of its invention, it was very common at different periods of Scripture History, as the well-known simile, of being broken in pieces like a potter's vessel sufficiently indicates.

The ancient Greeks and Etrudcans particularly excelled in it ; but Porcelain, the most perfect species of pottery, has been made in
China from time immemorial. It is very remarkable, that the oldest specimen of China Porcelain does not differ in its essential qualities from the most recently manufactured ; strong proof that many centuries must have elapsed in bringing it to that state, unless, contrary to the usual progress of most arts, it was practised at once in the state in which it now is ; a most improbable supposition.

There is strong ground for supposing, that the art of pottery had been brought to great perfection in the East before it was known
either in Africa or Europe. It was afterwards cultivated by the Egyptians, from whom it descended to the Greeks and Romans.

A species of earthenware was manufactured in Persia, which was considered a great curiosity, on account of its metallic lustre.

The Romans appear to have cultivated this art to a considerable extent. The taste and elegance displayed in their vessels for ornamental decoration were doubtless borrowed from what the Greeks had long before practised : the country most celebrated for this art was the ancient Etruria.

It was the ambition of the late Mr. Wedgewood to equal the manufacture of Etruria, after which he named the village which has
grown out of his genius and industry. The potteries of this country, prior to his exertions and example, produced nothing but of a
flimsy fabric, destitute of taste, and scarcely fit for domestic use. Since his time the manufactures of Staffordshire have been celebrated both at home and abroad. Stoke upon Trent, and Etruria above-mentioned, both in Staffordshire, are amongst the principal places in which the manufacture of earthenware is carried on. Worcester is also famed for fine Porcelain, as is Coal-port.

This trade is subdivided into a variety of branches ; that is, the Stoneware Potter, the Delf Potter, the Maker of Portugal, or rather
Brosely Ware, the common Earthenware Potter, the Maker of Queen's Ware, and many others ; we can only give a general outline of the whole.

Clay and flints are the principal substances of which every kind of earthenware is made : clay alone shrinks and cracks, the flint gives it solidity and strength. The wheel and the lathe are the chief instruments in the business of the pottery: the first is intended for large works, and the other for small ; the wheel is turned by a labourer ; but the lathe is put into motion by the foot of the workman.
When the clay is properly prepared and made into lumps, proportioned to the size of the cup, plate, or other vessel to be made, the potter places one of the lumps upon the head of the wheel before him, which he turns round, while he forms the cavity of the vessel with his finger and thumb, continuing to widen it from the middle, and thus turning the inside into form with one hand while he
proportions the outside with the other, the wheel being kept the whole time in constant motion. The mouldings are formed by holding a piece of wood or iron, cut into the shape of the moulding, to the vessel while the wheel is going round ; but the feet and handles are made by themselves, and set on by the hand ; and if there be any sculpture in the work, it is usually made in wooden moulds, and stuck on piece by piece on the outside of the vessel. When the vessel is finished, the workman cuts it off from the remaining part of the clay, and sets it aside to dry; and when it be hardened sufficiently to bear removing without danger, it is covered with a glazing, made of a composition of lead, and put into a furnace, where it is baked. Some sorts are glazed by throwing sea-salt into the furnace among the different pieces of pottery. The salt is decomposed, and its vapours form a glazing upon the vessels; which is not, however, much esteemed : it was introduced into Eugland by two brothers from Holland, of the name of Elers, about the year 1700, who settled in the neighbourhood of the Staffordshire potteries. -

English stone-ware is made of tobacco-pipe clay mixed with flints calcined and ground. This mixture burns white, and vessels of tbis kind were formerly all glazed with sea-salt. Wedgewood's queen's-ware is made of to bacco-pipe clay, much beaten in water. By this process the finer parts of the clay remam suspended in the water, while the coarser and all impurities fall to the bottom. The thick liquid is further purified by passing it through hair and lawn sieves, after which it is mixed with another liquid, consisting of flints, calcined, ground, and suspended in water. The mixture is then dried in a kiln; and being afterwards beaten to a proper temper, it becomes fit for being formed at a wheel into dishes, plates, bowls, &c.

When this ware is to be put into a, furnace to be baked, the several pieces of it are placed in cases made of clay, which are piled one upon another in the dome of the furnace ; a ftre is then lighted, and the ware is brought into a proper temper for glazing. By being baked, the ware acquires a strong property of imbibing moisture; in this state it is called biscuit and when dipped into the glaze, consisting of water made thick with white-lead and ground flints, it absorbs it into its pores, and the ware presently becomes dry. It is then exposed a second time to the fire, and the lead forms a glossy coat on the surface, which is more or l ess yellow, according as a greater or less proportion of that metal has been used.

The use of ground flints in the potteries was introduced in the following manner : about the year 1720, a potter travelling to London on horseback, had occasion to seek a remedy for a disorder in his horse's eyes: the hostler at the inn, by burning a flint-stone, reduced it to a fine powder, which he blew into them. The potter observing the beautiful white colour of the flint after calcination, instantly conceived the uses to which it might be applied in his art, and then introducing the white pipe-clay, found in the north of Devonshire, instead of the drossy clay of his own country, readily produced the white stone- ware.

As a proof ot the extent to which machinery is arrived in this country, we may mention here, that in the neighbourhood of Coal
Port, in Shropshire, on the banks of the Severn, is a water wheel, one hundred feet in diameter, which turns an apparatus for the
purpose of reducing calcined flints to a powder for the making of English Porcelain.

This is a business which is of so multifarious a kind, that it is not easy to give an idea either of the capital necessary to carry it on,
or of the wages of the workmen employed in it. But the finer branches require considerable capital, aud the best workmen earn good wages.