(4) "I have seen," said he, "a hundred times in the course of my life, a weak man exhibit genuine public virtue, because supported by a wife who sustained hint in his course, not so much by advising him to such and such acts, as by exercising a strengthening influence over the manner in which duty or even ambition was to be regarded. Much oftener, however, it must be confessed, have I seen private and domestic life gradually transform a man to whom nature had given generosity, disinterestedness, and even some capacity for greatness, into an ambitious, mean-spirited, vulgar, and selfish creature who, in matters relating to his country, ended by considering them only in so far as they rendered his own particular condition more comfortable and easy." - 'OEuvres de Tocqueville.'II. 349.
(5) Since the original publication of this book, the author has in another work, 'The Lives of Boulton and Watt,' endeavoured to portray in greater detail the character and achievements of these two remarkable men.
(6) The following entry, which occurs in the account of monies disbursed by the burgesses of Sheffield in 1573 [?] is supposed by some to refer to the inventor of the stocking frame:- "Item gyven to Willm-Lee, a poore scholler in Sheafield, towards the settyng him to the Universitie of Chambrydge, and buying him bookes and other furnyture [which money was afterwards returned] xiii iiii [13s. 4d.]." - Hunter, 'History of Hallamshire,' 141.
(7) 'History of the Framework Knitters.'
(8) There are, however, other and different accounts. One is to the effect that Lee set about studying the contrivance of the stocking-loom for the purpose of lessening the labour of a young country-girl to whom he was attached, whose occupation was knitting; another, that being married and poor, his wife was under the necessity of contributing to their joint support by knitting;and that Lee, while watching the motion of his wife's fingers, conceived the idea of imitating their movements by a machine. The latter story seems to have been invented by Aaron Hill, Esq., in his 'Account of the Rise and Progress of the Beech Oil manufacture,' London, 1715; but his statement is altogether unreliable. Thus he makes Lee to have been a Fellow of a college at Oxford, from which he was expelled for marrying an innkeeper's daughter; whilst Lee neither studied at Oxford, nor married there, nor was a Fellow of any college; and he concludes by alleging that the result of his invention was to "make Lee and his family happy;"whereas the invention brought him only a heritage of misery, and he died abroad destitute.
(9) Blackner, 'History of Nottingham.' The author adds, "We have information, handed down in direct succession from father to son, that it was not till late in the seventeenth century that one man could manage the working of a frame. The man who was considered the workman employed a labourer, who stood behind the frame to work the slur and pressing motions; but the application of traddles and of the feet eventually rendered the labour unnecessary."(10) Palissy's own words are:- "Le bois m'ayant failli, je fus contraint brusler les estapes (etaies) qui soustenoyent les tailles de mon jardin, lesquelles estant bruslees, je fus constraint brusler les tables et plancher de la maison, afin de faire fondre la seconde composition. J'estois en une telle angoisse que je ne scaurois dire: car j'estois tout tari et deseche e cause du labeur et de la chaleur du fourneau; il y avoit plus d'un mois que ma chemise n'avoit seiche sur moy, encores pour me consoler on se moquoit de moy, et mesme ceux qui me devoient secourir alloient crier par la ville que je faisois brusler le plancher: et par tel moyen l'on me faisoit perdre mon credit et m'estimoit-on estre fol. Les autres disoient que je cherchois e faire la fausse monnoye, qui estoit un mal qui me faisoit seicher sur les pieds; et m'en allois par les rues tout baisse comme un homme honteux: . . . personne ne me secouroit: Mais au contraire ils se mocquoyent de moy, en disant: Il luy appartient bien de mourir de faim, par ce qu'il delaisse son mestier. Toutes ces nouvelles venoyent a mes aureilles quand je passois par la rue." 'OEuvres Completes de Palissy. Paris, 1844;' De l'Art de Terre, p. 315.
(11) "Toutes ces fautes m'ont cause un tel lasseur et tristesse d'esprit, qu'auparavant que j'aye rendu mes emaux fusible e un mesme degre de feu, j'ay cuide entrer jusques e la porte du sepulchre: aussi en me travaillant e tels affaires je me suis trouve l'espace de plus se dix ans si fort escoule en ma personne, qu'il n'y avoit aucune forme ny apparence de bosse aux bras ny aux jambes: ains estoyent mes dites jambes toutes d'une venue: de sorte que les liens de quoy j'attachois mes bas de chausses estoyent, soudain que je cheminois, sur les talons avec le residu de mes chausses." - 'OEuvres, 319-20.
(12) At the sale of Mr. Bernal's articles of vertu in London a few years since, one of Palissy's small dishes, 12 inches in diameter, with a lizard in the centre, sold for 162L.
