nothing of the ingredients, he began to search for the secret, like a man groping in the dark.

In the Recepte véritable,' published in 1563, Palissy tells us that he had seen twenty-five years before (1538) an earthenware cup so beautifully shaped, and enamelled, that, from that moment, the hope of producing the like occupied all his thoughts. It is probable that at this date Palissy was already settled in Xaintes, and it seems likely that the travels which he made throughout France, to which he constantly refers in various passages of his writings, occupied the years between his boyhood and the period at which he married and finally established himself in his native district; for we know from himself that his first effort in the search for enamels, which occupied several years, must be referred to the years between 1538 and 1543. After relating the circumstances under which he made this first effort, which ended only in grief, confusion, and loss of time and money, he adds, 'Some days after, certain commissioners arrived, sent by the king to establish the gabelle in Xaintonge.'

Now the Edict of François I. in virtue of which these proceedings were taken was given at St. Germain in May 1543. Palissy was employed by the commissioners to map the islands and the country surrounding the salt-marshes of Xaintonge, and his work must have been finished before the month of July in the following year,

when another Edict was given at St. Mor, the provisions of which were based on the survey previously commanded.

As soon as he was in possession of the payment for his map, Palissy recommenced the pursuit after the white enamel, which he had heard was the basis of all others. He was unskilled; he knew no tongue but his own, no book but the earth and sky; he was unfriended and unaided in his labours; the years went by in one long agony. His neighbours mocked him as a fool

and a madman, reviled him as a coiner, or said it was well that he should die of hunger, since he had left following his trade: even those who should have comforted him cried out against him, he tells us, in the streets. During two years he did nothing but carry trial-pieces to the glass-furnaces, and at last, amongst a batch of three hundred pieces, there was one on which the composition had melted, after it had been four hours exposed to the heat of the furnace.

This was the first ray of hope. Palissy now set to work for seven or eight months, learning how to make the vessels on which he should employ the discovered enamel. He erected a furnace for himself, being his own mason, tempering his own mortar, carrying on his own back the materials for his work, for he had not the money wherewith to pay an assistant. When the toil of baking the pots in this furnace was over, it was succeeded by the terrible hardships of grinding night and