Note 84 — Chapter VI · WEDGWOOD AND THE CREAM COLOUR.

Many “lives” of Wedgwood have been written, and this is not the place to repeat them. Miss Meteyard has two large volumes on him; Jewitt has one; Smiles holds him up in a recent work as a model of self-help; Professor Church has written a monograph on him and his Jasper Ware; and lastly, Mr Elbert Hubbard, of New York, has made his courtship and marriage the subject of an exhaustive and wholly imaginary study. But many of these works, and some of the Histories of Potting too, are marred by indiscriminating eulogy and a fertile imagination. Simeon Shaw, for instance, within 120 pages, manages to distinguish no fewer than 47 favoured manufacturers by name with praise of this stereotyped character:—“of whom we may observe that great professional ability is in him joined with philanthropy, and a readiness to accelerate every meritorious enterprise.” This, however, is perhaps preferable to the style:—“Wedgwood, poor dear, old soul, got terribly worried,” which distinguishes another of these Histories.