open from 1852 to 1853, literally keeping us awake
from one year's end to another. The church stands
on a favourable site, being surrounded by a bury-
ing-ground of four or five acres in extent, inclosed
with iron rails.

The preceding description of Stoke is in some degree applicable to most of the towns in the Potteries, though each would afford some very marked differences, a few of which we proceed to specify. Thus Burslem, which stands upon a somewhat lofty eminence, has the advantage of a picturesque site, which Stoke, lying in a comparative hollow, cannot boast. Burslem, which lies about three miles to the north, when approached from the

Not far from the church, and near the railway station, stands the new market-house, a convenient building well adapted for the purpose, having rooms above devoted to the uses of an Athenæum, or literary and artistic society, which offers the ad-railway, which runs within a mile of it, presents a vantages of a circulating library, and the opportunity of studying the arts of design at a trifling cost, but which, we were sorry to hear, from the statement of the secretary made at the annual conversazione, was in no very thriving condition. The only other public building is the town-hall, which stands on the rise of the hill towards Trentham, and which offers no particular features to distinguish it from buildings of such a class to be found in most of our country towns. The river Trent, which here is not far from its rise, cuts but an insignificant figure; it is completely eclipsed by the Grand Trunk Canal, which with its various branches intersects the Potteries, and forms a safe and suitable medium for the transference of their manufactures. The aspect of the streets and thoroughfares of Stoke is anything but attractive to a stranger, presenting more the appearance of a fourth-rate London suburb than of a town of business. Rows of small brick-built houses, rarely more than two stories in height, are broken into by huge brick-built factories covering whole acres in extent; monstrous cones of solid brick lift their peaked heads above the roofs of the houses, and here and there their burly basements bulge forth into the street and shoulder the passenger out of the direct path. Tall chimneys of brick soar up into the sky and spread their clouds of smoke through the sooty air; and beneath your feet a pavement of brick borders either side of the muddy road, and meanders away for miles towards the next town in one direction, or the green fields in another.*

fine subject for the pencil of the artist; there are deep dells and abrupt declivities, surmounted by the irregular buildings and pyramidal kilns of the Hill Pottery, which crowns the ridge of the rising ground; and there is its lonely new church, standing on its forlorn platform of table-land, and looking as though it had been doing battle with foul weather for the last half century, and had been beaten black and blue in the process. On entering Burslem the stranger will find it a large and really handsome market-town, adorned with capital buildings, and supplied with handsome and wellfurnished shops and good hotels. The town-hall and the market-house are both good and substantial erections, and the evidence of prosperity as well as the consciousness of it, meets the eye at every turn. Most of the topographical writers who have treated on the history of Staffordshire, have sought to establish the fact, if fact it be, that the practice of the potter's art in England had its rise in Burslem. Some of them argue from the original orthography of the name, which was at one time spelled "Burwardeslæm"-bur signifying in the Saxon tongue water, and lam, loam, or clay. Mr. Ward, in his "History of Stoke-uponTrent," comes to the desired conclusion from two facts which we have no grounds for disputing-the one is the custom of our Saxon forefathers of giving one common name to those employed in making tiles and pots, that, namely, of tile-wrights; and the other is, that the family of the Tile wrights, now spelled Tellwrights, have been seated at Burslem for several centuries; and they still possess here a local inheritance, which, as its origin cannot be traced, may have descended from a remote ancestry, who exercised the tile-wright's craft in a Saxon era.

The great literary celebrity of Stoke was the renowned biblical student, Dr. John Lightfoot. He was born at Stoke rectory in March, 1602, and while yet a mere youth distin guished himself at Cambridge by his extraordinary proficiency in the Latin and Greek languages. Upon leaving college he Hanley is also a handsome market-town pleaentered into orders, obtaining a curacy in Norton-under-Hales santly situated, hardly more than a mile distant in Shropshire. Here his talents procured him the patronage from Burslem, and two from Stoke. It has the of Sir Rowland Cotton, who made him his chaplain, and at whose instigation he commenced the study of Hebrew. In advantage of being placed upon high ground, is 1628 he married the daughter of W. Compton, esq., of Stone large, and apparently very populous, and, standing Park, and soon after removed to the neighbourhood of Lon don, for the sake of easier access to the means of study. In about the centre of the district, is considered by 1629, while residing at Hornsey, he published his first work, some as the capital of the Potteries. It is joined entitled, "Brubhim: or, Miscellanies, Christian and Judai- to Shelton, which stretches down the hill to within cal." The following year, being presented to the rectory of Ashley in Staffordshire, he removed thither, and there for a mile of Stoke, Hanley and Shelton being spoken twelve years devoted himself to the study of the Scriptures in of as one town; and within them, or in their immetheir original tongue. In 1642 he was nominated by the Long diate neighbourhood, some of the most extensive Parliament a member of the Assembly of Divines, in consequence of which he resigned his rectory, and was chosen manufactories are to be found. The church of minister of St. Bartholomew's. In 1644 he published the first St. Mark, which is situated on a rising ground not part of his "Harmony of the Old and New Testaments;" and in the year following he was chosen Vice-Chancellor of Cam- far from the main road in Shelton, is a beautiful bridge. At this period he laboured zealously in furthering structure, in the early English style, and it forms the completion of the London Polyglot Bible. At the Restoration, his high character and endowments secured him the continuance of his appointments; but he entered little into public life, preferring seclusion and the pursuit of his favourite studies. He continued to publish his valuable contributions to sacred literature up to the last year of his life, and contemplated a complete edition of his works, which he was prerented from preparing by his death at the age of 74. He was buried at Great Munden, where he had exercised the pas toral office for above thirty years. After his death his works,

a considerable portion of which he wrote in Latin, were collected and published in several editions, both in this country and on the continent. As a biblical scholar Dr. Lightfoot was equalled by few and perhaps excelled by none: his works have formed a kind of quarry from which succeeding writers have sometimes dug their best materials. He was the most industrious and persevering scholar of his day, and as good an Hebraist as his learned correspondent, the celebrated Buxtorf.

Thumbs, shepherds, dairymaids, cows, John Bulls, and John Wesleys, etc. etc., as the advertisements say, "too numerous to mention." Here, too, is the chief stronghold and refuge of the old willow-pattern plates and dishes, which we had hoped, not having met with them of late years in civilized society, that a growing taste had banished out of

ginal ugliness, stacked in thousands ready for the demand of some unknown market, and as blue and as bold as they were in the days of our boyhood.

a conspicuous object in the landscape as viewed from various points. It contains accommodation for above two thousand persons, and one-fourth of the sittings are free. The east window is of richlycoloured glass, representing the Nativity and the Resurrection, intermixed with various heraldic devices surrounding a whole length figure of St. Mark. Shelton was the birth-place of Elijah Fen-being, but which we found here in all their aboriton, the poet, who was contemporary with Pope, and assisted him in the translation of the "Odyssey.' He was born in 1683, received a classical education, and studied at Cambridge with a view to enter the church: he took a degree in 1704, and another in 1706; but finding that he could not conscientiously take the oaths to enable him to enter the church, he relinquished the design, and engaged himself as usher in a school. He was soon after appointed by the earl of Orrery as his secretary, fulfilling at the same time the part of tutor to the earl's eldest son. By the earl he was introduced to Pope, for whom he translated four entire books of the "Odyssey," receiving 3007. for his remuneration; he afterwards published a tragedy of considerable merit, by which he realized a thousand pounds. He was a man of amiable manners and fine principle, and was much esteemed by the literary characters of the day. He died in 1730, at the seat of Lady Trumbull in Berkshire. Pope bore testimony to the excellence of his friend after his decease, and wrote an epitaph descriptive of his character, the concluding lines of which were as follows:

"Calmly he looked on either life, and here
Saw nothing to regret, or there to fear;
From Nature's temperate feast rose satisfied,
Thanked heaven that he lived, and that he died."*

The whole of the Potteries, we were informed, are especially plagued with mud in winter and dust in summer, and in both these possessions we should imagine Longton has the lion's share. We walked well nigh ankle-deep through the miry streets, and looked in vain for the evidence of any attempt on the part of the inhabitants to clean their ways-a negligence probably arising from the conviction that any such attempt would be futile. In the market-place, it being market-day, we were greeted with a spectacle which we should have imagined that no town in England at the present day could have produced: this was nothing less than a perambulating quack doctor, who, with his bottled monsters and nauseous mixtures ostentatiously dis played upon a large table, had taken his stand close to an oyster-stall, and, sagely sucking the head of his cane, according to the established formula, stood awaiting consultations and fees. Other evidences were not wanting that, whatever efforts had been made by worthy men in the place, the schoolmaster in his walks abroad had not been so successful as might be wished in this neighbour hood; dog and rat matches were advertised by placards on the walls; and in the room of an inn to which we were driven for shelter from a violent rain-storm, the talk was all of running and racing matches, of wrestling and boxing-all of which had been made the medium of gambling wagers, in which every individual would appear to have been either a winner or a loser. Subsequent inquiries convinced us that these detestable sports form the chief subjects of amusement and excite. ment among a very large proportion of the labouring classes throughout the Potteries-a fact which explains, very unsatisfactorily, their neglect of the Athenæum at Stoke, which, with good wages and much leisure on their hands, it might have been supposed that they would have combined to sup port as a means of intellectual improvement.

Longton, or Lane End, the latter appellation having been recently cashiered from an imaginary notion that it is not suited for ears polite, is perhaps the most characteristic town in the whole of the Pottery district. It is, as its name implies, a very long town, and is undoubtedly the most crowded, and, if we are to judge from outward demonstrations, the least polished locality in the whole borough. It is a place, however, where a vast deal of business is done, and abounds in manufactories, some of considerable extent, which do a large trade. A great many of these are in the hands of men of limited capital, not a few of whom produce an inferior kind of ware suited for a cheap market. It is by the exertions of the Longton potters that the working-man and the cottager are Longton has two churches-the old Lane End enabled to set a china tea-service on their tables, church, built in 1763-4, which accommodates above brilliant in colours and gold, at a cost which we a thousand persons, and the new church of Long. must not name, but which the humblest house-ton, built by the commissioners for erecting addi keeper can contrive to pay. An immense quantity tional churches, which will hold double the number. of the low-priced English china, as well for expor- The town is crossed near the market-place by the tation as for home consumption, is here manufac-railway on a viaduct twenty or more feet above the tured weekly, as well as earthenware of all kinds, and toys consisting of images in gold and colours of men and women, and rustic groups, and dogs and cats, and Swiss cottages, and Bonapartes, Victorias, Great Moguls, Dukes of Wellington, Tom

Such a state of mind in the hour of death would be most enviable; but it is to be feared that Pope, if we are to judge from his "Essay on Man," addressed to Bolingbroke, an infidel, and his "Universal Prayer," had a very imperfect conception of the source, as pointed out in scripture, from which real peace and tranquillity in the hour of death are to be drawn, namely, a living faith in the atonement of Christ.

road, the cheap fares and short stages on which are a source of great convenience to the dwellers in the Potteries. Longton, which is three miles from Stoke, extends into the town of Fenton; and Fenton is a long straggling village made up principally of numerous potters' establishments, that line the road on either side of the way, and the humble dwellings of the work-people. This town, or at least a portion of it, was formerly in posses sion of the ancestors of Elijah Fenton the poet, and was doubtless originally called after the family

name; it has a substantial brick church which will accommodate a thousand persons, the cost of the erection of which was defrayed by a legacy devised for the purpose by the late Ralph Bourne, esq., who died in 1835.

The town of Tunstall is situated about four miles from Stoke, upon the turnpike-road leading from Liverpool to London; it is altogether a town of modern erection, and has doubled its population several times within the last half century. It contains a large number of thriving manufactories, producing the coarser sorts of ware, to the establishment and prosperity of which there is no doubt that its abnormal increase is due. Of all the pottery towns, Tunstall is the most regularly built. The church is a handsome stone erection in the Elizabethan style, and contains a thousand sittings, one third of which are free; it was built partly by subscription from the inhabitants, and partly by funds obtained from government. The population of Tunstall at the present time cannot, it is supposed, be very far short of nine thousand; threescore years ago it was little more than an insignificant hamlet, forming one of the eight small townships comprised in the north side of Wolstanton parish.

queen's ware,' so called from the patronage it obtained from Queen Charlotte, and which soon became so popular that orders flowed in upon him faster than he could execute them. He now began to perceive the immense advantages which an in land canal connecting the Trent with the Mersey would afford, not only to himself, but to all engaged in the pottery trade. He became a strenuous supporter of the scheme, already favoured by the most influential men of the district, and was largely instrumental in expediting the Act which authorized the formation of the Grand Trunk Canal. No sooner was the Act passed, than he bought the land upon which the village of Etruria now stands, and which is intersected by the canal, and commenced the erection of his manufactory while the canal was digging. He began operations there in the summer of 1769, and having erected a mansion for his residence at a convenient distance from the works, removed thither in 1771. About this period the antique specimens of terra cotta, collected by Sir William Hamilton at Naples, began to excite much interest in this country. They were called Etruscan vases, though being found in Calabria it is supposed that they were the work of Greek

shipping tonnage which owing to their bulky quality was necessary to export them, and the employment of which contributed materially to the nursery of seamen for the navy. "We can freight a vessel," said he, "with goods of which the whole ship-load shall be of no more value than the contents of a Jew's box." His modesty led him to state that he considered the art of pottery but then in its infancy, verified. In the year 1783 he had the honour of being elected a fellow of the Royal Society, and in 1786 he became a member of the Society of Antiquaries. He corresponded largely with the most eminent scientific men both in this country and abroad; and was endeared among his intimates by his social virtues and genuine benevolence. He realized a large fortune by his unwearied labours, and he never closed his purse against the calls of humanity or the claims of any institution which he thought was for the good of his fellow creatures. He died at his mansion, Etruria Hall, in January, 1795, and was buried in the parish church of Stoke.

artists; and they exhibited fine specimens of an art the secret of which had been lost for ages. Mr. Wedgwood immediately set about imitating them, and soon, by the aid of encaustic colours of his own composition, produced a series of admirable copies which sold at a high price and met with a large demand. It was from the success of this new branch of his trade that he called the seat of his manufactory by the name of Etruria, which classi-a conjecture which subsequent experience has not cal designation it yet bears, though it is best known among the population of the district by the familiar appellation of "Trury." Mr. Wedgwood had for a partner Mr. Richard Bentley, son of the critical archdeacon of Ely; and it is presumed that to his partner he was indebted for the classical subjects in the execution of which he became so highly celebrated. His prosperity at this period of his life was unprecedented; his works were sought after by the rich and the curious in every country in Europe, and the variety of beautiful designs which he threw into the market maintained the interest which his extraordinary talents had excited, and secured the continuance of his success. The most remarkable of all his performances, and the one which is considered his masterpiece, was his perfect imitation of the Barberini or Portland vase, (which the reader will recollect was smashed to pieces by a drunken visitor to the British Museum a few years ago, though afterwards, we believe, skilfully repaired,) and the first fifty copies of which were sold for fifty guineas each. Of this vase Mr. Wedgwood published a history in a small pamphlet, which was translated into French, and which evidences a mind habituated to weigh carefully and minutely the most trifling facts which can possibly affect the conclusions of the judgment. Having in the course of his untiring experiments found the necessity of some certain mode of ascertaining, with a view to regulating, the heat of his furnaces, he invented an instrument for that purpose, which he styled a pyrometer, and by which the higher degrees of heat might be tested. In May, 1782, he addressed to the Royal Society a memorial on the subject of this instrument; his communication was printed in the 72nd volume of their Transactions, and subsequently republished by him in the French language. He published various other pamphlets on the subject of his business, and in 1783 one entitled, "An Address to the Workmen in the Pottery on the subject of entering into the service of Foreign Manufacturers," which is said to have had the effect of allaying the rage for emigration which then prevailed among them, owing to the seductive offers of his foreign rivals. In 1785 Mr. Wedgwood was examined before a Parliamentary committee, and from the evidence he then gave, the country generally became first aware of the importance to the national interests of the Staffordshire manufactures: this he estimated from the immense amount of inland carriage they created from the numbers they employed and fed as well in the manufacture as in raising the raw material -from the employment they afforded to coasting vessels, even then amounting to 20,000 tons annually-from the support they gave to river and canal traffic-from the conveyance of finished goods to the various ports of shipment, five-sixths of the aggregate manufactures being destined for exportation-and, lastly, from the vast quantity of

In perambulating the district of the Potteriesin traversing their miry roads and skirting their brown canals-the visitor sees other indications of industry than those appertaining to the trade of the potter. Here and there he comes upon the "whimsey" of the iron country, or upon a group of miners emerged from their underground toil; and he will meet or overtake, as he treads the towing. path of the canal, long barges freighted not always with clay or flints for the potters, but with iron cast in pigs, or in the form of shapeless flaky lumps, on its way to the mills and manufactories of South Staffordshire. The fact is, that the pottery district is also an iron and coal district, and vast quantities of both iron-ore and coal are daily dug from the bowels of the earth within its limits. Of the iron, some portion is run into pigs and some is puddled and rolled into finished iron for the market, but the larger part of it appears to be merely separated by the action of fire from the earthy material which encumbers it, and being thus rendered lighter for carriage, is floated on to the neighbouring smelting and rolling works which lie between Wolverhamp ton and Birmingham: the coal in all probability finds purchasers on the spot, seeing that the potters burn it in prodigious quantities-one manufactory consuming as much in a week as would suffice to propel a steamer to America-and that their number is very great. In the Potteries too, in the immediate neighbourhood of Hanley, the celebrated Fourdrinier brought to perfection his astonishing paper-making machine, by which paper is produced sound, dry, and perfect, from the pulp in a few minutes, in sheets of any required width, and endless in length. Like many other men of mechanical genius, Mr. Fourdrinier reaped but very doubtful advantages from his unrivalled invention. Other paper-makers, unable fairly to compete with him, infringed his patent-right, dragged him into expensive litigation, and brought him to the very verge of ruin; eventually, after pressing his claim upon parliament for a series of years-a claim backed by the strongest of all considerations in reference to such a subject, namely, that his inven tion had been the means of largely increasing the

revenue- -the House of Commons granted him in 1839 the sum of £7000, a sum totally inadequate to the loss he had suffered in his own property, or to the benefits he had conferred upon the commerce and the revenue of the country.

We have noticed incidentally most of the churches in the several towns of the district. The number of dissenting chapels, it may be mentioned, which are scattered throughout the hills and valleys of the borough of Stoke-upon-Trent, is greater in proportion to the number of churches than is the case in most districts. It appears from a tabular statement in Ward's History of the borough, published nine years ago, that in Hanley and Shelton the sittings in both churches were 3300, while those in the several dissenting places of worship amounted to something more than 8000; and of above four thousand five hundred children educated in the Sunday schools of those united townships, little more than eight hundred received instruction in the schools of the establishment. The largest place of worship in the Potteries is Bethesda chapel in Shelton, which belongs to the Wesleyans, and will contain three thousand persons; and there is a considerable number of smaller chapels in the numerons adjacent towns and hamlets. The numerous sects throughout the Potteries appear to live in harmony with one another, and are not ashamed to combine together for the attainment of any object conducive to the general good. An abundant field of labour presents itself, indeed, both to churchmen and nonconformists, in reclaiming the numbers of individuals in the district who are indifferent to all religious truth.

There is one peculiarity of the Potteries which can hardly fail to strike an observant visitor, and that is the language or rather languages-for they are two-spoken in the district. It is very possible that a native, 'to the manner born,' may be perfectly skilled in both tongues; but to our ears they sounded as distinctly different at least as the patrician Latin and modern Italian of Rome. It happened again and again, on making inquiries as to our route from labouring men encountered by the way-side, that we were brought to a dead stand from the, to us, unintelligible replies we received; and we find it difficult to reconcile this circumstance with the fact, that a pure English is universally spoken by the middle, and, of course, the upper classes. We shall add a specimen of the dialect which, as an Irishman would say, " bothered ns complately;" and, lest we should be suspected of exaggeration, we shall extract it from a work written by a native resident and published on the spot.

The scene is a room in the Turk's Head at Burslem, where two old men are talking of old

times.

Telwright. Thee remembers, Rafy, th' caartruts beein up to th' axle-trees alung th' tâhinstreet, here, that's nâi so gud, oi rek'n?

Leigh. Aye, wal enuf; bu' ther wur no' monny caarts agait at th' teyme oi war yung; th' beyurs as had no' meules, carrit ther pots i' creytes at ther backs. Th' Chester cley wur brout i' panyers on th' back o' hosses, an th furst hoss had a bell hung at his neck, t' gee warnin' 'ut th' gang wur comin'; for th' roads wurn as narrow as they

wurn bad; and wee had'n mych wark t' get 'em mended.

T. Oi've some recollection abâit a stir as was mayde for t' hay th' roads mended an awturt.

L. It wur no little stur, belee me. An afore th' turnpoikes wurn mayd, mooast o' th' goods wurn fatcht away by jack-ass looads, bi th hig glers, as seun as âit o' th' oon.

T. Things are greatly mended for th' better sin then.

L. Ya. Oi'd summat t' doo t' get dâhin to L'rpool wi' eawr caart, at th' teyme as oi furst teyd Mester Siah Wedgut's wheit ware for t' be printed theer. Yu known as hâi ther wur no black printin on ware dun i' Boslum i' thoos deys.

T. Oi remember it varry weel. Oi s'pose Siah wur abâit th' same age as thiseln, Rafy, wur he no'?

L. Ya, oi rek'n he wur two year yunker til me. T. When he staarted i' bizness furst, he made speunes, knife-hondles, an smaw crocks, at th' Ivyhâhis, close to wheer we are nâi sittin.

L. Aye, oi weel remember th' teyme; an arter that he flitted to th' Bell workhus, wheer he put up the bell-coney for t' ring th' men to ther wurk, isted o' blowin 'em together wi' a hurn. Twur a pity he e'er laft Boslum, for he wur th' cob o' th' Wedguts.

T. Wal, aye. Bu' thee knows, Mester John an Tummy, wut bilt th' big hâhis, did'n summut for th' tâhin afore him.

L. Fawmally, it war a feerfu' ruffish spot. Aw th' hâhisen wurn thatcht loike this heer'n; an afore ther durrs e'ery body had a bread-oon an' ess-middin'; an' th' tâhin street heer wur aw full o' cley-pits.

T. Bu' th' lung Wedgut's hâhis made great altrication.

L. Ya, th' Big-hâhis wur thout a wunderfu' bildin at that teyme. Ther wur nout loike it aney wheer abûit.

T. Rafy, oi rek'n thee remembers th' oud scheymer, Brindley, workin at th' milln-reets shop i' th' yord, close by th' soide o' th' Big-hâhis?

L. Ya, that oi doo, varry weel. It wur at th' teyme 'ut he wur bildin the woindy-mill i' th' top o'th' Jenkins, for t'groind flint wi'. That's no mych more nor fefty year sin. It wur thout a famous job t' think o' groindin' flint loike fleawr. Bu' a high woind blow'd oaff' th' mill-seeles, anʼ laft th' waws stondin' thin nâi."

The above sample will suffice for our purpose, and as it contains nothing but facts well known to be true, the reader may learn from it the estimation in which Siah Wedgut (Josiah Wedgwood) was held among the working men of his day, and may gather some notion of the once deplorable condition of the now handsome town of Burslem. The old schemer Brindley he will recognise as the great engineering genius, the protégé and righthand of the canal-digging Duke of Bridgewater. But it is time that we came to an end with these rambling sketches of the Pottery district and its past celebrities, and turn our attention to next week's paper, in which it will be our duty to look after the pots.

[This series of Visits to the Potteries will be completed in
four papers.]