A CENTURY ago not one of the several bridges existed that now span the Thames at London. There was then, in fact, no bridge over the river at all, with the exception of that which stood where the present London bridge is now erected. It was not until the year 1735, that parliament, on the petition of the inhabitants of Westminster, passed an act for the building of a second bridge. Even then this improvement was not secured without great difficulty; a strenuous opposition being made to it by the Company of Watermen, the society called the West-Country Bargemen, the Borough of Southwark, and the City of London, all of which parties conceived themselves interested in forcing everybody who wanted to cross from one side of the water to the other, either to go round by London bridge, or to make the passage in a boat. Fortunately, however, it was determined that the convenience of the whole population should not be sacrificed, nor their personal safety placed in jeopardy, on this monstrous demand of a few individuals. On the 13th of September, 1738, the preparations for the building of the bridge were begun, by the driving of the first pile for its foundation, in the presence of a vast multitude of spectators. The piers were built in cofferdams; of which contrivance we have already given a description in our notice of London bridge in the Supplement for April. On the 29th of January following, the first stone of one of the two central piers, that next the The west side, was laid by the Earl of Pembroke. whole structure is built of stone, and principally of Portland block stones, of which few are less than a ton in weight, while many are two or three, and some even four or five tons. There are fourteen piers in all, besides the two abutments, and consequently fifteen arches. They are semicircular in form, and the span of that in the middle is seventy-six feet: the others gradually decrease in width; the sixth from the centre on each side being only VOL. I. fifty-two feet, and the two next the abutments only twenty-five each. The whole length of the bridge is 1223 feet; and the clear water-way under the arches is 870 feet. The road over it is 44 feet in breadth, the foot-paths on each side included. In the beginning of 1747, when it was nearly completed, one of the piers sank so much as to determine the commissioners to have it pulled down and rebuilt; and this was the only circumstance by which the work was materially retarded. It was at last brought to a conclusion, on the 10th of November that year; when the new bridge was formally opened by a procession passing over it. The work cost in all 389,500l., which was granted for the purpose in successive years by parliament. Maitland states that the value of 40,000l. is computed to be always under water in stone and other materials; and . according to other authorities the whole quantity of stone used in this bridge is asserted to have been nearly double that employed in St. Paul's Cathedral *. MANUFACTURE OF EARTHENWARE AND PORCELAIN. "Etruria! next beneath thy magic hands Glides the quick wheel, the plastic clay expands: Nerved with fine touch, thy fingers, as it turns, Mark the nice bounds of vases, ewers, and urns; Round each fair form, in lines immortal trace Uncopied beauty and ideal grace."-Darwin. THE business of creating from a mass of clay "vases, ewers, and urns," which, in the homely language of the potter, is termed throwing, has always excited admiration. One moment, an unfashioned lump of earth is cast on the block; the next, it is seen starting into forms of elegance and beauty. A simple wheel, and hands untutored in other arts, effect this wondrous * See Hughson's Walks through London, pp. 227. 2 F change. The means appear to be scarcely adequate to the end; and thence the poet, with seeming truth, asserts that "magic hands" perform this work of art. The remotest ages of antiquity lay claim to the invention of earthenware ;-probably it was carried to a higher point of improvement than any other of the early manufactures of the world. It could originate only in those regions which produced its essential materials, and thus we find no vestiges of its having existed in countries where clay is unknown. In America, while some regions possess curious specimens of ancient pottery, others, in which the raw material has not been found, present no such antique remains. The natives of these latter countries have availed themselves of such substitutes as nature has provided. The gourd, called calabash, which they ingeniously carve and cut into various forms, affords them as abundant a supply of vessels for holding liquids as their simple modes of life require. [New Zealander drinking from a Calabash.] The plastic power of clay was early discovered. It appears to have been employed in the most ancient times, as it still is in Egypt, to receive the impression of a seal, the affixing of which on property was probably considered, even at that period, as a legal protection. Job, in one of his poetic similies, says (chap. xxxviii. ver. 14)," It is turned as clay to the seal." Many centuries before the art was practised in Europe, the Chinese had brought it very nearly to the degree of perfection which their porcelain now exhibits. In this one branch of art they have undisputed possession of materials of the most perfect combination, of colours of unrivalled brilliance, but of "ideal grace" not one particle. From Asia this art entered Europe through Greece, the land of "creative genius." The Corinthian potters especially displayed, in their designs and execution, exquisite taste and skill. Their works were more prized than diamond or ruby, and were amongst the most valuable decorations in the dwellings of princes. Greece, supplying with porcelain Egypt the mother country of so many other arts, at length taught it to establish its own pottery, and, spreading the useful art far and wide, to become itself the benefactor of other regions. A Phoenician colony, it is supposed, founded the ancient Etruria, whence modern Europe has drawn models of skill and beauty. Though conquerors ought seldom to be regarded as benefactors, the Romans in many instances were such to the nations they subdued. Wherever they obtained a permanent empire, they planted their arts and manufactures. In this country, though some maintain that Phoenicia supplied Britain with earthen vessels in exchange for its metals, there are so many vestiges of Roman manufactures as to corroborate the belief of our being indebted to that people for the art of the potter. In the neighbourhood of Leeds the remembrance of a Roman pottery is still recorded in the name of the village which rose upon its site-Potter Newton. Although introduced into Britain at so early a period, the potter's art long remained in its rudest state. The coarse red ware only was made, but was not of sufficient beauty or utility to be received as a substitute for utensils and vessels of wood and metal, as earthenware, in its improved state, has since been. In every dwelling, even the humblest, earthenware and china are now essential, and not only in England, but in all the civilized regions of the world. This change was principally effected by the industry and comprehensive mind of one individual-Josiah Wedgwood, the founder of modern Etruria. The Staffordshire potteries, which in his day consisted of a few thinly-peopled villages, now present a continued chain of manufactories, extending for miles, in which tens of thousands of people are constantly employed and supported. For centuries previous to the time of which we are speaking, the manufacture of earthenware had, in this country, remained unimproved; and in Europe, generally, it had been almost as stationary. From the east, the wealthy and luxurious of the western hemisphere were supplied with porcelain, valued on account of its rareness rather than for its beauty; while the humbler ranks of society sought no other than metal or wooden domestic utensils, unless they added to these some of the rude works of their native potters. At length, in France, Germany, and Italy, princes and nobles, as if ashamed of the neglect the art had experienced in the most civilized portion of the world, founded in their respective countries porcelain manufactories. These subsequently became of considerable eminence. The Sèvres, Dresden, and Berlin porcelain grew in time to be the admiration of Europe, and was mingled with the works of China, which became less prized. But the benefit conferred by these royal and noble establishments was limited. Wealth was expended on them; talents were devoted to them; but their works never circulated throughout all ranks, nor effected any general change in domestic life: they have been limited to the use only of the noble and the rich. These manufactories cannot claim the merit of such general utility as those of England, conducted by a different class of men and upon different principles. Here, unaided by the hand of power, without wealth, and sometimes almost without education, men, the founders of British manufactories, have often started from the level of humble life into prominent and commanding situations. Dispensing means of subsistence and opening prospects of improved condition to thousands, they have acquired an influence in their day which nobles might covet. Among this class of benefactors to their race, the late Josiah Wedgwood stood preeminent. His early education, as was usual in his sphere, was very limited. Education in his day was supposed to be incompatible with the habits of a man of business. The disadvantages of this narrow system were early perceived by the intelligent Wedgwood, and his first step to the eminence he afterwards attained was the education of himself. Though apprenticed to a potter, he found leisure for acquisitions in literary knowledge, which subsequently enabled him to sustain a part in the literary and philosophical society of his time. He had no wild or irrational ambition which induced him to attempt attainments beyond his reach: this would have ended in disappointment and downfal. His dignified view was fixed to the improvement of himself and his condition by the most laudable means; and the result, after years of steady application, accompanied with great toil and anxiety, was an ample and distinguished success. About thirty years before he commenced the founda- dered an earthenware manufactory a nuisance to its tion of his future eminence, an accident had given rise neighbourhood. The improvement in this department to improvement in the earthenwares of Staffordshire. of the manufacture led to the substitution of white lead A potter from Burslem, (the centre of the potteries, and for salt; but although the air on glazing days was no the birth-place of Mr. Wedgwood,) in travelling to Lon- longer odious to breathe, the substitute acted as a powdon on horseback, was detained on the road by the in- erful poison on those employed in this branch of the flamed eyes of his horse. Seeing the hostler, the horse- business. Every precaution which his humanity could doctor of those times, burn a piece of flint and after-suggest Mr. Wedgwood adopted, to prevent the injuwards reduce it to a fine white powder, applying it as a rious influence of the lead on his work-people but the specific for the diseased eyes, a notion arose in the mind poison was too subtle; it was imbibed through the pores of the traveller as to the possibility of combining this as well as inhaled; and paralysis often terminated the beautiful white powder with the clay used in his craft, so lives of those employed in glazing, or rendered a proas to effect a change in the colour and body of his ware. tracted existence an evil to them. Mr. Wedgwood's The experiment succeeded, and this was the origin of humane endeavours to discover another substitute for the English white-ware. It will not be foreign to our the lead were never realized, although his hopes often subject to remark here, how every trifling circumstance represented to him the possibility of this being effected. that occurs is turned to account, when the mind is The evil still exists. seriously at work on any subject. We know that the falling of an apple, the passing of the sun's rays through a vessel of water, the swinging of a suspended lamp, casualties apparently trifling, were fraught with important discoveries, because observed by men deeply engaged in scientific investigations. We are not presuming to place our simple potter on a footing with Newton or Galileo-men of mighty powers; but we claim for him a point of resemblance, because like them he pursued his observations with investigation and experiment, so well directed as to ensure improvement and success. This man, whose name was Ashbury, also brought to his manufactory the superior clays of Devonshire and Cornwall, and as the potter's wheel had been somewhat improved by a person named Alsager, we may consider that, though still vast and unoccupied, the field of improvement was discovered a short time before Mr. Wedgwood entered it. We must here do honour to the French philosopher and naturalist, Réaumur, who at a rather earlier period had been almost the first in forming the connexion between science and the arts of life, from that time indissoluble, and ever since producing improvement to which no termination can be foreseen. Science hitherto had been regarded as an abstract pursuit leading to little practical good, if not unfitting those engaged in it for the pursuits of life. The chemical examination which Réaumur made on oriental china, anticipated what in time the common experiments of the manufacturer might have effected, though not with equal certainty or rapidity. Upon those experiments the Royal French manufactory of Sêvres was founded. This instance of the aid which science yielded to a manufacture similar to his own, was not likely to be unheeded by Mr. Wedgwood, and, accordingly, we find him effecting, in England, that union between science and his art which Réaumur had done in France. As soon as his means permitted him to deviate without The most unhappy.-Cosroes, King of Persia, in conver pecuniary inconvenience from the beaten path, he appears situation of man is most to be deplored?" One of the phisation with two philosophers and his Vizir, asked-" What to have employed men of science to aid him in his ex-losophers maintained, that it was old age accompanied with tended views. One amiable man, Mr. Chisholm, a superior chemist of the time, devoted his whole life to this business. Under the direction of the intelligence and indefatigable spirit of Mr. Wedgwood, he proceeded day by day, from experiment to experiment, until most of the principal objects in view were attained. Varieties of clay were sought for, and the comparative value of their properties for the manufacture in question was ascertained, together with the true proportion of calcined flint with which each variety would unite, and the degree of heat to which each could be submitted. The glaze also, it has been said, gave rise to a most anxious and assiduous investigation on the part of these indefatigable labourers, which ended without their attaining the object they so earnestly desired. The rude brown ware before mentioned had been always glazed with fused salt, by a process uncertain in its results, and one which, producing noxious fumes, ren The forms and colours were no less objects of his attention than the body of his manufacture. Oxides of metals, particularly those of iron, gave him an endless variety of colours, and for his forms and ornaments he took models from the best standards of grace and beauty which the ancient world afforded him. He also employed both English and foreign artists of merit in modelling and designing. The early talent of Flaxman, and the skilful pencil of Webber, were engaged in his service; of which there are evidences in the perfect imitation of the Barberini vase he has left behind him, and in the classic designs which decorate the beautiful imitation of jasper which he invented. Thus his manufactory comprehended every thing his art could attain; and taste, convenience, and comfort could draw thence ample gratification. Excellence was his aim-whether in the common articles of use, or in the choicer productions of his taste; and so ambitious was he to maintain the reputation of his manufacture, that he sacrificed every article which came from the oven in an imperfect state. Such was the eminence Wedgwood reached as a manufacturer, that he carried every thing before him. His ware displaced foreign china in his own country, and spread itself over every part of Europe-not only ornamenting the palace, but filling the cottage with means of comfort and cleanliness. No ware could be sold that had not his name stamped on each article. Wedgwood became a generic term-the question being also asked on the Continent, "Have you any Wedgwood?" He secured this preeminence by the excellence of his productions, and not by exclusive advantages. He always steadily refused to obtain patents for his inventions, saying, "the world is wide enough for us all." We shall endeavour, in a future number, to give a general statistical view of the Potteries of England. extreme poverty; the other, that it was to have the body Rat Conquest.-The most complete conquest ever made in England by invaders, is said to have been made by the Hanoverian rats that were accidentally introduced, and which have literally extirpated the original rat of the country. Public Servants.-In an admonition addressed by the present Emperor of China to the officers of his government, is this remarkable passage-" He who sincerely serves his country, leaves the fragrance of a good name to a hundred ages; he who does not, leaves a name that stinks for tens of thousands of years." WITHIN the walls of the fine old Church of Stratford-onAvon, represented in the above wood-cut, lie the ashes of SHAKSPEARE. In a small house still standing in the same town, was the great poet born. We may best convey to our readers some impression of the interest which we have felt in visiting this spot, by reprinting some passages from The Sketch Book of Washington Irving, one of the most pleasing and accomplished writers that the United States has produced. "I had come to Stratford on a poetical pilgrimage. My first visit was to the house where Shakspeare was born, and where, according to tradition, he was brought up to his father's craft of wool-combing. It is a small mean-looking edifice of wood and plaster, a true nestlingplace of genius, which seems to delight in hatching its offspring in bye corners. The walls of its squalid chambers are covered with names and inscriptions, in every language, by pilgrims of all nations, ranks, and conditions, from the prince to the peasant; and present a simple, but striking instance of the spontaneous and universal homage of mankind to the great poet of nature. "The house is shown by a ga.rulous old lady in a frosty red face, lighted up by a cold blue anxious eye, and garnished with artificial locks of flaxen hair, curling from under an exceedingly dirty cap. She was pecuiarly assiduous in exhibiting the relics with which this, like all other celebrated shrines, abounds. There was the shattered stock of the very matchlock with which Shakspeare shot the deer, on his poaching exploit. There, too, was his tobacco-box; which proves that he was a rival smoker of Sir Walter Raleigh; the sword also with which he played Hamlet; and the identical lanthorn with which Friar Laurence discovered Romeo and Juliet at the tomb! There was an ample supply also of Shakspeare's mulberry tree, which seems to have as extraordinary powers of self-multiplication as the wood of the true cross; of which there is enough extant to build a ship of the line." Since the visit of Mr. Irving to Stratford, the inscriptions on the walls of Shakspeare's house have been obliterated. We can no longer hunt out the hand-writing of Garrick or Byron amidst the crowd of Smiths and Whites whom curiosity had brought hither. The ancient tenant of the house, the keeper of the Shaksperian relics described above, being ejected from the premises which she had so long occupied with profit, in a fit of wrath had the sacred walls smeared over with whitewash the night before she quitted them. The old lady had moved with her heap of relics to a house on the opposite side of the way when we visited Stratford about seven years ago. But the knowledge of her malicious outrage prevented us looking upon her trumpery with any patience. We had ceased to have any faith in these matters. We refused to sit in her Shakspeare's chair, affirming, to her great mortification, that the real chair had been sold to the Empress of Russia; and, worst of all, we refused to purchase her own play of the Battle of Waterloo. Poor woman! she claimed to be a lineal descendant from the poet, and to prove her claim to the inheritance of his genius, wrote the most execrable verses that folly ever produced. We could have forgiven her bad verses, had some of Shakspeare's good humour and kindness of heart descended to her. But she whitewashed out all the names, noble and ignoble, of the sacred chamber to spite her successor! Her play and her plaster doubly destroyed all belief in her pedigree! We should add, that the exterior of Shakspeare's house has been much altered within the last forty years. The following cut exhibits it as it appeared in 1798. 156 [Shakspeare's House as it appeared in 1788.] We proceed with Mr. Irving's agreeable narrative:"From the birth-place of Shakspeare a few paces brought me to his grave. He lies buried in the chancel of the parish church, a large and venerable pile, mouldering with age, but richly ornamented. It stands on the banks of the Avon, on an embowered point, and separated by adjoining gardens from the suburbs of the town. Its situation is quiet and retired: the river runs murmuring at the foot of the church-yard, and the elms which grow upon its banks droop their branches into its clear bosom. An avenue of limes, the boughs of which are curiously interlaced, so as to form in summer an arched way of foliage, leads up from the gate of the yard to the church-porch. The graves are overgrown with grass; the grey tomb-stones, some of them nearly sunk into the earth, are half covered with moss, which has likewise tinted the reverend old building. Small birds have built their nests among the cornices and fissures of the walls, and keep up a continual flutter and chirping; and rooks are sailing and cawing about its lofty grey spire. "We approached the church through the avenue of limes, and entered by a gothic porch, highly ornamented, with carved doors of massive oak. The interior is spacious, and the architecture and embellishments superior to those of most country churches. There are several ancient monuments of nobility and gentry, over some of which hang funeral escutcheons, and banners dropping piecemeal from the walls. The tomb of Shakspeare is in the chancel. The place is solemn and sepulchral. Tall elms wave before the pointed windows, and the Avon, which runs at a short distance from the walls, keeps up a low perpetual murmur. A flat stone marks the spot where the bard is buried. There are four lines inscribed on it, said to have been written by himself, and which have in them something extremely awful. If they are indeed his own, they show that solicitude about the quiet of the grave, which seems natural to fine sensibilities and thoughtful minds : 'Good friend, for Jesus' sake, forbeare To dig the dust enclosed here. "Just over the grave, in a niche of the wall, is a bust of Shakspeare, put up shortly after his death, and considered as a resemblance. The aspect is pleasant and serene, with a finely arched forehead; and I thought I could read in it clear indications of that cheerful, social disposition, by which he was as much characterized among his contemporaries as by the vastness of his genius. The inscription mentions his age at the time of his decease-fifty-three years; an untimely death for the world: for what fruit might not have been expected from the golden autumn of such a mind, sheltered as it was from the stormy vicissitudes of life, and flourishing in the sunshine of popular and royal favour. "The inscription on the tomb-stone has not been without its effect. It has prevented the removal of his remains from the bosom of his native place to Westminster Abbey, which was at one time contemplated. A few years since also, as some labourers were digging to make an adjoining vault, the earth caved in, so as to leave a vacant space almost like an arch, through which one might have reached into his grave. No one, however, presumed to meddle with his remains, so awfully guarded by a malediction; and lest any of the idle or the curious, or any collector of relics, should be tempted to commit depredations, the old sexton kept watch over the place for two days, until the vault was finished and the aperture closed again. He told me that he had made bold to look in at the hole, but could see neither coffin nor bones; nothing but dust. It was something, I thought, to have seen the dust of Shakspeare. |