Mr. Gladstone observed, that to have a strong grasp of this principle, and to work it out to its results in the details of a vast and varied manufacture, was a praise high enough for any man, at any time and in any place. But he thought it was higher and more peculiar in the case of Wedgwood than it could be in almost any other case. For that truth of art which he saw so clearly, and which lies at the root of excellence, is one of which England, his country, has not usually had a perception at all corresponding in strength and fulness with her other rare endowments. She has long taken a lead among the European nations for the cheapness of her manufactures, not so for their beauty. And if the day should arrive when she shall be as eminent for purity of taste as she is now for economy of production, the result will probably be due to no other single man in so remarkable a degree as to Josiah Wedgwood. * * * * * We conclude with a lively extract from the Chancellor's exhaustive and interesting address:-- "Wedgwood," he says, "in his pursuit of beauty, did not overlook exchangeable value or practical usefulness. The first he could not overlook, for he had to live by his trade; and it was by the profit derived from the extended sale of his humbler productions that he was enabled to bear the risks and charges of his higher works. Commerce did for him what the King of France did for Sevres, and the Duke of Cumberland for Chelsea, it found him in funds. And I would venture to say that the lower works of Wedgwood are every whit as much distinguished by the fineness and accuracy of their adaptation to their uses as his higher ones by their successful exhibition of the finest arts. Take, for instance, his common plates, of the value of, I know not how few, but certainly of a very few pence each. They fit one another as closely as cards in a pack. At least, I for one have never seen plates that fit like the plates of Wedgwood, and become one solid mass. Such accuracy of form must, I apprehend, render them much more safe in carriage....