of the potteries, and the birthplace of Mr. Wedgwood,) in travelling to London on horseback, was detained on the road by the inflamed eyes of his horse. Seeing the hostler, the horse-doctor of those times, burn a piece of flint and afterwards reduce it to a fine white powder, applying it as a specific for the diseased eyes, a notion arose in the mind of the traveller as to the possibility of combining this beautiful white powder with the clay used in his craft, so as to effect a change in the color and body of his ware. The experiment succeeded, and this was the origin of the English white-ware. It will not be foreign to our subject to remark here, how every trifling circumstance that occurs is turned to account, when the mind is 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, be. cause observed by men deeply engaged in scientific investigations.

We are not presuming to place a 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 honor to the French philosopher and naturalist, Reaumur, who at a rather earlier period had been almost the first in forming the connection 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 Reaumur 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 Sevres 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 Reaumur had done in France. As soon as his means permitted him to deviate without pecuniary inconvenience from the beaten path, he appears to have employed men of science to aid him in

his extended 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 laborers, 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, rendered an earthenware manufactory a nuisance to its neighborhood. The improvement in this department of the manufacture led to the substitution of white lead for salt; but although the air on glazing days was no longer odious to breathe, the substitute acted as a powerful poison on those employed in this branch of the business. Every precaution which his humanity could sug gest Mr. Wedgwood adopted, to prevent the injurious influence of the lead on his work-people: but the poison was too subtle; it was imbibed through the pores as well as inhaled; and paralysis often terminated the lives of those employed in glazing, or rendered a protracted existence an evil to them. Mr. Wedgwood's humane endeavors to discover another substitute for the lead were never realized, although his hopes often represented to him the possibility of its being effected. The evil still exists.

The forms and colors 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 colors, 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 Barbarini 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

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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.”

Inventors and Poets.

On reflection it will be found that mechanical invention, differs nothing from that which gives value to those pursuits considered to be more mental and refined. Homer and his Iliad, Virgil and his Eneid, Milton and his Paradise Lost, were minds and productions of the same exquisite fibre and tention, with Savary and Watt, with their engines, Huygens with his watch, Arkwright with his spinning frame, Meikle with his threshing machine, Bramah with his hydraulic press. In fact, observation frequently shows, that the power of constructing poetry and machines are united in the same individual. Hooke made verses as well as machines, and could as well have written a sonnet to his "mistress' eyebrow" as have presented his thirty-seven projects for flying. Samuel Moreland indited love and songs, sang them to his sweetheart. When total blindness had fallen on the jovial old man, he buried the effusions of his youth, considering them to be "gay deceits," and betook himself in his ninetieth year to the composition of psalms. Arkwright was famed among his customers for a light hand and an exquisite edge, and for verses which cut as keen as his razors. Watt in his youth was a rhymester, and few men in his generation read more fairy tales and poetry,-even in the meridian of his life, in the busiest period of his employment, the greater portion of his time was devoted to indulgence in this mental luxury. Few who knew the excellent Rennie, near the close of his life, would have dreamed of finding under the exterior of this inflexible man of business, an enthusiastic admirer of poetry and music. The venerable Telford, when building rough stone walls as a journeyman

mason, was an esteemed contributor to the poetical corner of the Scots Magazine. The inventor of the celebrated congreve rocket had previously "let off" many poetical squibs. Cartwright early distinguished himself for his poetical composition; but the fine taste and exalted feeling which pervade them, must yield to the exquisite invention and extensive usefulness of his power-loom.

Poets, as well as mechanics, differ in the manner in which they exhibit their conceptions. One excels in loftiness of thought, another in delicacy of perception; a third pleases by his harmonious numbers, and a fourth, is esteemed for the useful tendency of his writings. Some mechanics delight in clock-work,―others in steam engines—the machines of others are polished even to a bolt head—and a ponderous mass whose jerking motion is the nuisance of a district, constructed by one whose ear is more refined than his rival manufacturers, moves with all the softness of a watch; and another applies the principles of a toy to a machine for abridging labor. There are rhymesters who will spin a fine thought through an infinity of words; there are also artist wire-drawers, who, by great skill, will draw an ounce or two of gold into a thread which will encircle the world. Your sounding, flashy, sparkling authors of a thousand brilliant nothings, are a sort of kaleidescope artists, whose most original, regular, and harmonious combinations, are produced by a thread of rag, a pin's head, a leaf, a bead, or a bit of crystal.

Public Works of the United States.

"At the first view, one is struck with the temporary and apparently unfinished state of many of the American works, and is very apt, before inquiring into the subject, to impute to want of ability what turns out, on investigation, to be a judicious and ingenious arrangement to suit the circumstances of a new country, of which the climate is severe, a country where stone is scarce and wood is plentiful, and where manual labor is very expensive. It is vain to look to the American works for the finish that characterizes those of France, or the stability for which those of Britain are famed. Undressed slopes of cuttings and embankments, roughly built rubble arches, stone parapet-walls coped with timber, and canal-locks wholly constructed of that material, everywhere offend the eye accustomed to view European workmanship. But it must not be supposed that this arises from want of knowledge of the principles of engineering, or of skill to do them justice in the execution. The use of wood, for example, which may be con

sidered by many as wholly inapplicable to the construction of canal-locks, where it must not only encounter the tear and wear occasioned by the lockage of vessels, but must be subject to the destructive consequences of alternate immersion in water and exposure to the atmosphere, is yet the result of deliberate judg ment. The Americans have, in many cases, been induced to use the material of the country, ill adapted though it be in some respects to the purposes to which it is applied, in order to meet the wants of a rising community, by speedily and perhaps superficially completing a work of importance, which would otherwise be delayed, from a want of the means to execute it in a more substantial manner; and although the works are wanting in finish, and even in solidity, they do not fail for many years to serve the pur. poses for which they were constructed, as efficiently as works of a more lasting description.

"When the wooden locks on any of the canals begin to show symptoms of decay, stone structures are generally substituted, and materials suitable for their erection are with ease and expedition conveyed from the part of the country where they are most abundant, by means of the canal itself to which they are to be applied; and thus the less substantial work actually becomes the means of facilitating its own improvement, by affording a more easy, cheap, and speedy transport of those durable and expensive materials, without the use of which, perfection is unattainable.

"One of the most important advantages of constructing the locks of canals, in new countries such as America, of wood, unquestionably is, that in proportion as improvement advances and greater dimensions or other changes are required, they can be introduced at little cost, and without the mortification of destroying expensive and substantial works of masonry. Some of the locks on the great Erie canal are formed of stone, but had they all been made of wood, it would, in all probability, have been converted into a ship-canal long ago.

"But the locks are not the only parts of the American canals in which wood is used. Aqueducts over ravines or rivers are generally formed of large wooden troughs resting on stone pillars, and even more temporary expedients have been chosen, the ingenuity of which can hardly fail to please those who view them as the means of carrying on improvements, which, but for such contrivances, might be stopped by the want of funds necessary to complete them.

"Mr. M'Taggart, the resident engineer for the Rideau canal in Canada, gave a good example of the extraordinary expedients often resorted to, by suggesting a very novel scheme for carrying that