INTRODUCTION.

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culminating point, demanded some distinct enunciation; and it was accordingly in thefirst Parisian “ Exposition ” of 1797 that the triumphs of the old school of Sevres , ofBoule, of the Gobelins, &c., were achieved. The utility of exhibitions, as healthystimulants to Industry, was thereby so manifested, that they have been repeated underevery form of government which has since prevailed in .France ; and in their recordsan interesting narrative of the rapid growth of human ingenuity, in the hot-bed ofmodern civilisation, is to be met with. The almost incessant wars which so longdevastated’ Europe , and which only terminated in 1815, impeded the culture of thosearts which have been emphatically designated the “ Arts of Peace.” Those wars, how-ever, had no sooner terminated than an extraordinary activity was manifested, moreespecially in this country; and on looking back over the last six-and-thirty years, elementsof change must be found to have been introduced, calculated to derange the wholeprevious system of fabrication and demand. The extension of the application of steam,gas, &c. to the thousand purposes upon which they are now brought to bear, havescarcely less affected National Industry by changing the conditions of supply, than hasthe spread of popular education by entirely altering the nature and peculiarities ofdemand. The most remarkable feature of the movement to which we are alluding—that,namely, which has taken place in this country during the last six-and-thirty years—isthe universality of developement attained by combining the division of labour in manu-facture with the aggregation of its results in commerce. Sympathising, on the one hand,with the highest excellence both of art and manufacture, modern English productionhas, on the other, effected a concurrent and unprecedented reduction in price. Anamount of thought and ingenuity equal to the origination of many of the monsterengineering works which form the pride, the boast, and the glory of the present day,has been bestowed upon an attempt to reduce the cost of a common cotton printthe fraction of a farthing per yard. Other nations have not been idle while Englandhas worked, and it is, therefore, little wonderful that, under the action of a progressworthy to have enlisted the pens of men such as Babbage , Brougham, Macculloch, Porter,&c. to record, the great festival, in which that progress finds its tangible embodiment,should speak eloquently, chronicling the race which has been run by all nations forpre-eminence in a glorious, though peaceful, competition.

Were it but possible now to procure some pictures vivid enough to recall a seriesof the principal elements and objects which adorned those triumphs of industry of pastages to which allusion has been made, how interesting and improving would the examinationof such collections be: as it is, years of study must now be given to realise in any