adopted, and added gleefully, "I think I have bothered them.

now!"

Stephenson's old partiality for birds and animals now manifested itself very vividly. He knew every bird's nest on his grounds, and had his pet dogs, pet cows, pet rabbits and pet horses. He was not much given to reading: he had learned to read at too late an age for reading to become a pleasure. He dictated almost all his letters, being averse to writing. Conversation was his greatest amusement, and he eagerly sought the society of intelligent persons.

28. His hospitality was characteristically thorough, and to young men of promise he was always ready to lend a helping hand. He not only gave them aid but counsel. His religious feelings were deep and earnest, but never loudly professed. He was no arrogant parvenu; he never lost sight of never was ashamed of his ignoble origin, and delighted in reminding his pupils that the secret of his successful career was simply perseverance. To the poor he was a most generous friend. For the afflicted his sympathy was always quick and active. He retained to the last his astonishing vigour of thought, plenitude of resources, clearness of conception, and fertility of invention; a brave, earnest, heroic English worker, whose life has something truly epical in its most noble simplicity.

Such was George Stephenson, the father of the English Railway System. He died of intermittent fever, on August 12, 1848, in the sixty-seventh year of his of his age.

THE POTTER'S ART.

1. AMONG those arts of the ancients which they carried to perfection, but which, during the fatal darkness of the middle ages, sank, not only into decay but even into entire oblivion, was the manufacture of enamelled and painted vases, and other vessels of earthenware-as graceful in form as they were rich in embellishment! Not a jug but was meet to be handled by a Naiad; not a cup that was unworthy to touch a Hcbe's lips! Strangers wandering through

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LUCA DELLA ROBBIA.

the towns and villages of Italy occasionally met with one of these beautiful relics of the Greek genius or the Etruscan skill. Voyagers who had ventured as far as Egypt saw with wonder the costly workmanship of the Egyptian potter. From China-through various channels-came at intervals the most precious specimens of luminous kaolin, or porcelain. But in Europe the art was lost or forgotten; the secret of the manufacture had passed from the memory of men. There were skilful workers in gold and silver, but none who could give to clay an artistic shape, or clothe it in the light and warmth of Colour.

2. Luca della Robbia, an eminent Florentine sculptor, was one of the first inquirers after the vanished art. Bred "to the trade of a goldsmith, his genius inclined him to the profession of a sculptor, and he applied himself to his adopted studies with all the love and enthusiasm of a true artistic nature. His chisel was seldom idle; he wrought at his work far into the night-hours; and, being unable in the winter-time to afford the luxury of a fire, he placed his feet in a basket of shavings to afford them warmth. Such resolution, so single-minded a devotion to one steady aim, commanded success. Luca obtained wealth, and, what he valued more, fame. Both in bronze and marble he executed numerous commissions. But, comparing the labour he expended upon an image of bronze with the payment he received for it, he was induced to look around for a material of greater plasticity, and decided upon working in clay. Studying with characteristic perseverance its properties, he succeeded at last in the invention of a glaze, or enamel, which enhanced the beauty while it increased the durability of his work. Further application revealed the secret of colouring this enamel, and Della Robbia's beautiful productions, resplendent now in the azure of the skies, the purple of the hyacinth, and the golden glow of the orange, were the admiration of kings and nobles. Up to the date of his death his commissions continued to increase, and his brothers after him carried on, for years, the lucrative employment.

3. It was probably one of their productions that stimu

BERNARD DE PALISSY.

43

lated the imagination of the famous Bernard de Palissy, whose self-denial and unconquerable perseverance opened to his country a manufacture of the most profitable character. The life of this great discoverer is so remarkable an illustration of our theme, so signal an example of success won by earnest devotion to a steady aim, that we cannot refuse to epitomise it in these pages.

BERNARD DE PALISSY,

THE FRENCH POTTER.

1. BERNARD DE PALISSY was born at Agen, of poor parents, early in the sixteenth century. He was yet a boy when his quickness and intellectual precocity attracted the attention of a land-surveyor, who willingly received him as an apprentice. Employed to draw and colour the surveys, his latent love of art was quickly developed, and from plans of estates and buildings his ready talent soared to copies of the masterpieces of the great painters. These were so admirably executed as to engage the favourable notice of some liberal connoisseurs, who employed the young artist in painting designs upon glass. His reputation widened daily; from all parts of the country he received commissions; and in the travels through France which these commissions necessitated, his active intellect devoted itself to the study of natural objects. This led him onwards to the acquisition of chemical knowledge, that he might the better understand the properties and qualities of the minerals and earths he met with.

After this arduous apprenticeship he settled himself quietly at Saintes, married, and sedulously applied himself to the profession of a painter. But, as his family increased, his labours could barely supply them with a scanty support, and the heart of the industrious workman often sank within him, contemplating a future of cloud and shadow.

2. One day there was shown to him a richly-enamelled cup of Italian manufacture; perhaps the work, as we have said, of one of Luca della Robbia's descendants. The art

of enamelling was at this time entirely unknown in France, and the idea immediately occurred to Palissy that, if he could but discover the secret of making these cups, he should secure a fortune for his family, and his unavailing toils would be at an end. Regardless,' he says, ' of the fact that I had no knowledge of clays, I began to seek for these enamels as a man gropes in the dark. I reflected that God had gifted me with some knowledge of drawing, and I took courage in my heart, and besought Him to give me wisdom and skill.''

3. Did we not know that real life is thronged with incidents of deeper interest than those of fiction, we might have supposed the tale of Palissy's trials to be the romance of some imaginative brain. He has himself recorded it in stirring language, and no man of sensibility can read the narrative without emotion. He tells us that at first his resources were so scanty that he could barely prosecute the most trivial experiments. But, happily, having received a considerable sum of money for work which he had completed, a portion was immediately expended in the purchase of a quantity of earthen pots. These he broke into fragments, and, covering each with a chemical compound, baked them in a rudely-constructed furnace, in the hope of discovering that white enamel which was the great secret of the Italian manufacture. Disappointed in his first attempt, he was not discouraged; altering the ingredients he made use of, he again repeated the experiment, but still without sucHe changed the proportions in which they were combined; he applied them separately; he chose clays of different qualities; he increased or diminished the heat to which they were exposed; but all in vain. Like the alchemists, his contemporaries, he expended his substance in the pursuit of what appeared an unconquerable mystery. He was so wholly absorbed in his labour, that it was only at intervals he practised his painting and land-surveying, and so procured a scanty subsistence. His wife grew pale with want; his children sickened; their constant cry was 'Bread! Bread! But Palissy did not yield. He knew that the goal was far distant; but that goal meant fame

cess.

POSSESSED WITH A DREAM.

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45

and fortune, and so-he persevered. The sufferings he himself endured-hope deferred, consuming anxiety, unceasing toil-he bore in silence, for neither from wife nor friend could he expect the consolations of sympathy. 'With sorrows and sighs,' he says, 'I was every day pounding and grinding new materials and constructing new furnaces, which cost much money, and consumed my wood and my time.'

Two years having thus elapsed in fruitless labours, it occurred to Palissy that the defect might lay in the furnace, which, being of his own construction, was necessarily rude and imperfect. He therefore purchased a further supply of pots; again shattered them into fragments; again dipped them in chemical compounds; and sent them to a neighbouring kiln to be properly fired. Another failure! The ingredients were altered in character and proportions, and a second time the kiln was resorted to. But still the white enamel remained undiscovered. With much loss of time, with sorrow and confusion, and at a great expense, Palissy persevered in his experiments, until literal ruin stared him in the face. His wife and children suffered bitterly from cold and hunger, but the would-be discoverer, absorbed in his dreams, in his hopes, in his glowing imaginations-his soul lit up with the light of one over-mastering desire-was insensible to pinching famine and winter-winds.

4. It happened, at this juncture, that the King's Commissioners visited the district of Saintonges for the purpose of assessing it to the gabelle, or salt-tax, and Palissy, whose skill as a land-surveyor was well known, obtained the task of surveying the salt-marshes in the vicinage. The appointment was lucrative, and comfort and plenty once more prevailed in the potter's house. But, the work ended, Palissy returned to his dreams-to his pots and his furnace -to his apparently hopeless pursuit of the secret of enamels.' Two years more were abandoned to this labour. Day after day he journeyed to the kiln, and day after day returned unsuccessful. His neighbours ridiculed him, as the world always ridicules the heroic spirits it cannot