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    October 16, 1852.] THE LEADER, 997

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    Palissy The Pottee. The Life Ef Bernard ...

    • eS could not afford to hire a carfc for their delivery upon his premises ; he was 1 oinpelled to journey to the brick-field , and to bring them home on his own back . He could pay no man for the building of the furnace ; he collected the materials for his mortar , drawing for himself the water at the well ; he was bricklayer ' s boy and mason to himself ; and so with incessant toil he built his furnace , having reason to be familiar with all its bricks . The furnace having been at length constructed , the cups that were to be enamelled were immediately ready . Between the discovery of the white enamel and the commencement of the furnace there had elapsed a period of seven or eight months , which lie had occupied in experiments upon clay , and in the elaborate shaping of clay vessels that were to be in due time baked and enamelled , and thereafter , on the surface of the enamel , elegantly painted . The preliminary baking of these vessels in the furnace was quite prosperous . - "Then the successful mixture for the white enamel had to be tried on a large

    sca ] e—such a mixture as that which Luca della Robbia had found ' after experiments innumerable . ' Its proportions we do not know ; but the materials used include , Palissy tells us , preparations of tin , lead , iron , antimony , manganese , and copper , each of which must exist in a fixed proportion . The materials for his enamel Palissy had now to grind , and this work occup ied him longer than a month without remission , beginning the days very early , ending them very late . Poverty pressed him to be quick : intellectual anxiety to witness a result was not less instant in compelling him to labour . The labour of the grinding did not consist only in the reduction of each ingredient to the finest powder . When ground , they were to be weighed and put together in the just proportions , and then , by a fresh series of poundings and grinding ? , they were to be very accurately mixed . The mixture was made , the vessels were coated with it . To heat the furnace was the next task ; it had to be far hotter than it was when it had baked his clays—as hot , if possible , as the never-extinguislied fires used by the glass-workers . But Bernard ' s fire had been extinct during the days of grinding : poverty could not spare a month ' s apparent waste of fuel .

    " Bernard lighted then his furnace-fire , by two mouths , as he had seen to be the custom at the glass-houses . He put his vessels in , that the enamel might melt over them . He did not spare his wood . If his composition really did melt—if it did run over his vessels in a coat of that same white and singularly beautiful enamel which he had brought home in triumph from the glass-house- —then there would be no more disappointments , no more hungry looks to fear ; the prize would then be won . Palissy did not spare his wood ; he diligently fed his fire all day , he diligently fed his fire all niffht . The enamel did not melt . The sun broke in upon

    his labour , his children brought him portions of the scanty household meals , the scantiness impelled him to heap on . more wood , the sun set , and through the dart night , by the blaze and crackle of the furnace , Palissy worked on . The enamel did not melt . Another day broko over him : pale , haggard , half stripped , bathed in perspiration , he still fed the furnace-fire , but the enamel had not melted . For the third night his wife went to bed alone , with terrible misgivings . A fourth day and a fourth night , and a fifth and sixth—six days and nights were spent about the glowin g furnace , each day more desperately indefatigable in its labour than the last ; but the enamel had not melted .

    " It had not melted ; that did not imply that it was not the white enamel . A little more of the flux \ xsed to aid the melting of a metal , might have made the difference , thought Palissy . ' Although , ' he says , ' quite stupefied with labour , I counselled to myself that in my enamel there mig ht be too little of the substance which should make the others melt ; and seeing this ' What then ? not , * I regretted greatly the omission ; ' but , ' I began , once more , to pound and grind the before-named materials , all the time without letting my furnace cool ; in this way 3 had double labour , to pound , grind , and maintain the fire / He could hire no man to feed the fire while lie was sleeping , and so , after six days and nights of unremitting toil , which had succeeded to a month of severe labour , for two or three weeks more Palissy still devoted himself to the all-important task . The labour of years

    might be now crowned with success , if he could persevere . Stupefied , therefore , with a labour under which many a weaker body would have yielded , though the . spirit h ; id maintained its unconquerable temper , 1 ' alissy did not hesitate , without an hour ' s delay , to begin his entire work afresh . Sleeping by minutes at a time , that he might not allow the supply to fail of fresh wood heaped into the furnace , Palissy ground juid pounded , and corrected what he thought wan his mistake in the proportions of the ( lux . There was great hope in the next trial ; for the furnace , having been so long alight , would be much hotter than it was before , while at the ) Name time the enamel would be in itself more prompt to melt . All bis owir vessels having been spoiled—the result of seven months' labour in the moulding , —Palksy went out into the town , when his fresh enamel was made ready , and purchased pots on which to make proof of the corrected compound .

    " Kor more than three weeks 1 ' alissy hud been imprisoned in the outhouse with his furnace , haggard , weary , unsuccessful , but not conquered yet , bis position really juslif y in ^ hope . Hut the vessels which his wife had seen him spend seven months in niiiking , lay before her spoilt ; 11 io enamel bud not melted ; appearances worn wholly against hope io ]„> ,. J ) n ol ,, Server from without . Hernard had borrowed money for his lilsj , experiments : they wen ; worse than moneyless , they were in debt . The wood was going , the hope of food was almost gone . Hernard was working at the furnace , desperately pouring in fresh wood ; his wife Hat in the house , overwhelmed with despair . Could it lessen her despair that there was no result , when all the stock of wood wits gone , and , wanting money to buy mores shn vainl y strove to hinder 1 ' alissy from tearing up the palingH of their garden , that he mi ^ ht f rO < ni wi 11 i a work which had already ruined them .

    " Bernard knew well bow much depended on his perseverance then . There wan distinct and fair hope thai , ( he molting of his present mixture would produce llK Kiihjectcd to its fire : in ion minutes twenty minutes-tho enamel mi ^ lif , 'iK'll ,. I fit , required a longer time , Hl . ill it was certain that , a billet in that hour was of more value than a stack of wood could be after the furnace had ^ rov vn cold "H' » in .

    "™> Bernard felt , ; 1 ) U ( , any words of bin , to bin wife ' s car , would only sound like the old phrases of fruitlcHH hopo . Tho Jabour and the money perilled for the IiikL 1 U ' »« niontliH , were represented by Iho npoiled vohihjIh in tho outhouse ; they woro

    utterly lost . The palings were burnt in vain ; the enamel had nob melted . There was a crashing in the house ; the children were in dismay , the wife , assisted doubtless by such female friends as had dropped in to comfort her , now became loud in her reproach . Bernard was breaking up the tables , and carrying them off , legs and bodies , to the all-consuming fire . Still the enamel did not melt . There was more crashing and hammering in the house ; Palissy was tearing up the floors , to use the planks as firewood . Frantic with despair , the wife rushed out into the town ; and the household of Palissy ' traversed the town of" Saintes , making loud publication of the scandal . " Very touch in gly does Palissy himself relate the position to which he had now been brought . ' Having , ' he says , ' covered the new pieces with the said enamel , I put them into the furnace , keeping the fire still afc its height ; but thereupon occurred to me a new misfortune , which caused irreat mortification , namely , that tie

    wood having failed me , I was forced to burn the palings which maintained the boundaries of my garden ; which being burnt also , I was forced to burn the tables and the flooring of my house , to cause the melting of the second composition . I suffered an anguish that I cannot speak , for I was quite exhausted and dried Tip by the heat of the furnace ; it was more than a month since my shirt had been dry upon me . Further to console me , I was the object of mockery ; and even those from whom solace was due ran crying through the town that I was burning my floors ! And in this way my credit was taken from me , and I was regarded as a madman .

    "* Others said that I was labouring to make false money , winch was a scandal under which I pined away , and slipped with bowed head through the streets , like a man put to shame . I was in debt in several places , and had two children at nurse , unable to pay the nurses ; no one gave me consolation , but , on the contrary , men jested at me , saying , ' It was rig ht for him to die of hunger , seeing that he had left off following his trade . ' All these things assailed my ears when I passed through the street ; but for all that there still remained some hope which encouraged and sustained me , inasmuch as the last trials had turned out tolerably well ; and thereafter I thought that I knew enough to get my own living , although I was far enough from that ( as you shall hear afterwards ) .

    " ' When I had dwelt with my regrets a little , because there was no one who had pity upon me , I said to my soul , ' Wherefore art thou saddened , since thou hast found the object of thy search ? Labour now , and the defamers will live to be ashamed . ' But my spirit said again , ' You have no means wherewith to continue this affair ; how wiil you feed your family , and buy whatever tilings are requisite to pass over the four or five months which must elapse before you can enjoy the produce of your labour ? ' " What a picture , terrible yet heroic , is that of the poor man of genius tearing up the very floor of his house for fuel , amidst the indignant cries and contemptuous pity oC friends J Is it not the very type and symbol of genius—that utter devotion to an idea ? He failed , but he tried again , and again failed , but never despaired , for he had The equal temper of heroic hearts

    Made weak by time and fate , but strong in will To strive , to seek , to find , and not to yield . He was " possessed "— -fanaticus . A great Idea rose like a luminary in his soul , and by that light his soul alone could work in peace . "What to him was failure when he knew success must come Y What to him wero poverty and cold , warmed as he was by tho fire of great convictions P So again he built up his furnaces , again he engaged all his money and all his credit in another venture—and it failed . " Palissy had referred all things to this day , which was to have extricated him from his embarrassment and misery . The poor are always promise-breakers . The rich man , if one expectation fails , is able to fall back on his reserves . The poor man , when he is in debt , compelled to pay his expectations out as promises , has fifty broken promises charged at his door for every unforeseen mischance that baulks his foresight . 1 ' alissy could not have foreseen the misadventure which made the

    longanticipated day of his deliverance , the day of his descent into new depths of sorrow . He had expected three or four hundred livres . M received , ' he says , ' nothing but shame and confusion ; for my pieces were all bestrewn with little morsels of flint , that were attached so firmly to each vessel , and so combined with the enamel , fcliafc when one paused the hand over it , the ssiid Hints cut like razors . And although tho work was in this way lost , there w ^ m ntill some who would buy it at a mean price ; but , because that would have been a decrying and abasing of my honour , I broko in pieces the entire batch from the said furnace , and lay down in melancholy—not without cau . se , for I Had no longer any means to feed my family . I bad nothing but reproaches in the bouse ; in pitied of consolation , they gave mo maledictions . My neighbours , who had heard of this allair , said that , I was nothing but u fool , and that I might have had more than eight francs for the things that I had broken ; and iill this talk was brought to mingle with my grief . '

    " 'And all this talk was brought to mingle with my grief ! ' If one could sketch a scene like this wilh the pencil of a master , it would make a goodly picture . The dilapidated outhouse , its breaches rudely filled up with green boughs : 1 ' alinny grand in his own grief , tattered in dress , with a litter of beautiful vases , cups , urns , and medallions , the products of his rich taste and fancy , broken at his feet ; the angry creditors ; the village gos ^ ipK pouring their much talk over his bowed spirit ; his thin , pale children crouching , wondering about ; his lean wife—( Jod forgave her on the instant , pouring on him maledictions , ignorant or careless how his heart would open in that , hour of itnguish to receive one Hyllable of womuu ' ti consolation . " I ' alissy retired into bin chamber , and lay down upon his bed . lie hud done well to break bis vessels . His skill sin an artist ,, and bis really ( Uncovered Hccret of

    the white enamel , placed before him : i wide field for ambition . He meant to produce costly articles of luxury , and he could not a I lord , because the / lints had . speckled them , to hurt his future icpututiou by sending bis rich creations into tho world at the price of well-side pitchers . 1 ' riiicen were to be bis paymasters , . lint he had no longer any means fo feed his family . M « s wife could not , forget that ; and h

    October 16, 1852.] The Leader, 997

    October 16 , 1852 . ] THE LEADER , 997

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 16, 1852, page 17, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_16101852/page/17/