A royal potter Wedgwood truly was; the very king of earthenware manufactures, resolute in his determination to attain the highest degree of perfection in his productions, indefatigable in his labours, and unstinting in his outlay to secure that end. He invented altogether seven or eight different kinds of ware; and succeeded in combining the greatest delicacy and purity of material, and utmost elegance of design, with strength, durability, and cheapness. The effect of the improvements he successively introduced into the manufacture of earthenware is thus described by a foreign writer about this period: "Its excellent workmanship, its solidity, the advantage which it possesses of sustaining the action of fire, its fine glaze, impenetrable to acids, the beauty and convenience of its form, and the cheapness of its price, have given rise to a commerce so active and so universal, that in travelling from Paris to Petersburg, from Amsterdam to the furthest port of Sweden, and from Dunkirk to the extremity of the south of France, one is served at every inn with Wedgwood ware. Spain, Portugal, and Italy are supplied with it, and vessels are loaded with it for the East Indies, the West Indies, and the continent of America." Wedgwood himself, when examined before a committee of the House of Commons in 1785, some thirty years after he had begun his operations, stated that from providing only casual employment to a small number of inefficient and badly remunerated workmen, the manufacture had increased to an extent that gave direct employment to about twenty thousand persons, without taking into account the increased numbers who earned a livelihood by digging coals for the use of the potteries, by carrying the productions from one quarter to another, and in many other ways. Wedgwood did not confine himself to the manufacture of useful articles, though such, of course, formed the bulk of his trade, but published beautiful imitations of Egyptian, Greek, and Etruscan vases, copies of cameos, medallions, tablets, and so on. Valuable sets of old porcelain were frequently intrusted to him for imitation, in which he succeeded so well that it was difficult to tell the original from the counterfeit, except sometimes from the superior excellence and beauty of the latter. When the celebrated Barberini Vase was for sale, Wedgwood, bent upon making copies of it, made heavy bids against the Duchess of Portland for it; and was only induced to desist by the promise, that he should have the loan of it in order that he might copy it. Accordingly, the duchess had the vase knocked down to her at eighteen hundred guineas, and Wedgwood made fifty copies of it, which he sold at fifty guineas each, and was thus considerably out of pocket by the transaction. He did it, however, not for the sake of profit, but to show what an English pottery could accomplish.