should be well acquainted with the art, which I do not pretend to be. According to my view of the matter, the Cashmere shawls, marked at 1500 francs each, were very dear, and I saw nothing in the room which is not publicly exposed in the shops in Cheapside and Oxford-street. With respect to the shawls, however, if I am to pronounce an opinion from mere complaisance and politeness towards others, with a deference at the same time towards public opinion, which I have never been remarkable for paying when in opposition to the evidence of my senses, but which, nevertheless, it is proper I am told that I should begin to show, even though I may not feel it, I must confess that they are probably very beautiful and very excellent, since a great number of very well dress ed persons, and who were of course judges of the matter, since they hesi tated not to express themselves very decidedly and loudly, pronounced them to be magnificent and incomparable; one of them adding, with much emphasis, voyez si l'angleterre peut produire des pareils. Of the woollen cloths, I must say, that many of them are very beautiful, and, considering the fineness of quality, cheap. There are black cloths of superior texture and rich colour at fifty to sixty francs per yard, similar to which is not to be obtained in England at less than £5 per yard; but, on the other hand, I consider that our black cloths at 28 or 29 shillings per yard, are very superior to the French cloths of the same quality at 40 francs. It is to be remembered, however, that the French yard is longer than ours, which brings things nearly equal. Perhaps if the use of very fine black cloth were to be general in England, it would be manufactured at as cheap or even at a cheaper rate than the French, since we have so many advantages of machinery; the only thing in favour of France is the lowness of wages, but this is much more than counterbalanced by the superiority which we derive from our engines; and it is a wellknown fact, that for so much of the wool that enters into the manufactory of cloth as is native product, the English have a superiority, which may be

estimated at the very lowest at twenty per cent.Even in silks I do not hesitate to assert, that the French are very little, if at all superior to the Eng. lish; no good silk can be purchased here at less than seven or eight francs per yard; and after allowing the difference of measure it will be no falsehood to say, that this is not ten per cent. under the London price. Then, if we come to articles of mixed manufacture, the beautiful shawls, which are manufactured in England, from silk and cotton or worsted, or other materials, are much cheaper than similar productions in Paris; the advantage in favour of England may be stated at 30 per cent. without at all offending against truth.

Passing from the woollen drapery, we proceed to a saloon devoted to luxury and taste. On every side, and at every turning splendid candalabras, services of porcelain and crystal, jewellery, and plated articles meet the sight. I should not be credited if I were to say that the porcelain and crystal are other than beautiful. France has been too long celebrated for these objects, which are among the few in which they carry on a trade with other countries profitably to themselves, to dread a successful rivalry; but it is worthy of remark,that there is little of improvement in the patterns or execution.-Wedgewood has probably come nearer to the French porcelain than any English manufactu rer; but there is still a vast difference between that which he produces and the French. The white Wedgewood ware, in imitation of French white porcelain, has not the chaste transparency and delicate whiteness of the latter, and it is, besides, less useful under the hands of an artist, as he can never rely with certainty upon the action of the colours during the process of baking. Whilst England continues superior to France in all the essential manufactures, few men will perhaps, be found to insist with much fervour upon the necessity of her being also superior in the ornaments and luxuries of mankind; but it should be remembered, that a commercial country can never be too superior to her neighbours in any of the articles,which bring trade and reputation to the national character.

The most beautiful articles in the Exhibition are several specimens of mahogany and other furniture. The most celebrated London upholsterers and cabinet-makers are completely eclipsed by some of the Parisians, who have now introduced an entire new mode of polishing, which is called plaque, and is to wood precisely what plating is to metal. The wood, by some process of which I am ignorant is made to resemble marble, and has all the beauty of that article with much of its solidity.But it is not only in the polish that French furniture is improved; its appearance is considerably altered for the better; being a happy medium between the French and English style. Amongst the articles exhibited at the Louvre are two arm-chairs, one of which is of mahogany, inlaid with pearl. I shall not attempt a description of this splendid ornament, because justice cannot be done to the manufacturer without personal inspection. It has all the elegance and grandeur of a throne,with the lightness and neatness of a common drawingroom chair. The cost, however, from the nicety of the execution rather than the expensive nature of the materials, must have been considerable.

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The articles of jewelry are not very numerous, and upon the whole they are infinitely inferior to some of English manufacture. The French, for many years, enjoyed an exclusive reputation for their jewelry, whilst the English could boast of nothing but strength in their manufactures. Things are now quite different. There are hundreds of English jewellers who work as neatly, and with more solidity than the French and the complaints at one time so general of bad gold can now only be directed against manufacturers who have no reputation to lose, and who are comparatively few in number. I still,however, consider that the French law, prohibiting the manufacture of gold articles un der a certain standard, is very excellent. Here we purchase with safety; in England only upon the reputation and assurance of the jeweller. If I purchase a gold chain in Paris, I inquire the price of the gold apart from the manufacture, and the vender is bound to give me a true answer. Thus I know what I am

paying for the intrinsic material, and its preparation; and at any time the gold will, according to the standard stated, call for its market value. Foreign governments are much more rigid in this respect than the English; but no where is it carried to a greater extent than in Holland.

Amongst the jewelry articles in the Louvre there are a few imitations of precious stones of recent invention, but they are inferior to articles of the same kind in England. A few years ago a jeweller in the Palais Royal had, however, succeeded so far in imitating the diamond as to venture the sale of his false stones in the wholesale market amongst regular dealers in diamonds. As he acted with prudence, and took care to offer his articles only so far under price as would induce a purchaser to specu late upon the implied want of cash of the vender, he had carried on trade to an extraordinary amount; no less, it is said, than two millions of francs before the fraud was discovered. When the cheat was exposed he had still the presumption to insist upon these stones being real, and defended an action for the recovery of the money paid by a merchant for a tiarra of these pretended diamonds. On the trial more than twenty dealers in the article were called, who gave different opinions, so admirably had the inventor succeeded in his imitation. By order of the judge, one of the false diamonds was ordered to be broken, and then only was the state of the case clear enough for a decision, which was of course against the vender. From that period, imitation stones made upon the same principle are only allowed to be sold, with a full explanation of their being unreal; but their resemblance to the real diamond has much damped the market.

Two of the most curious and beautiful articles in the Exhibition are a drawing-room, in spun glass, or what is here called fil de verre (glass thread) and the model of a three-masted ship in steel, gold, and silver. The first-mentioned article is of extraordinary manufacture. In size it is about two feet square. The interior of the drawingroom is all shown; on a glass tube in the centre is a vase filled with flowers;

Expanding with thine added days,

Thy feelings ripen'd and refined, Though none were near thy views to raise, Or train to fruit the budding mind; As grows the flower amid the wild, Such was thy fortune-Nature's child! No pompous learning-no parade

Of pedantry, and cumbrous lore, On thy elastic bosom weigh'd;

Instead, were thine a mazy store Of feelings delicately wrought, And treasures gleam'd by silent thought.

Obscurity, and low-born Care,

Labour and Want-all adverse things Combined to bow thee to despair ;

And of her young untutor'd wings
To rob thy genius-'Twas in vain ;
With one proud soar she burst her chain.

The beauties of the budding Spring ;
The glories of the Summer's reign;
The russet Autumn triumphing

In ripen'd fruits and golden grain ; Winter with storms around his shrine ; Each in their turns, were themes of thine.

And lowly life, the peasant's lot,

Its humble hopes, and simple joys; By mountain-stream the shepherd's cot; And what the rustic hour employs ; White flocks on Nature's carpet spread; Birds blythely carolling over-head.

These were thy themes, and thou wert blest; Yea! blest beyond the wealth of kings; Calm joy is seated in the breast

Of the rapt poet as he sings; And all that Truth or Hope can bring Of beauty gilds the Muse's wing. And, Bloomfield, thine were blissful days, (If flowers of bliss may thrive on earth ;) Thine was the glory and the praise

Of genius link'd with modest worth; To Wisdom wed, remote from strife, Calmly pass'd o'er thy stormless life. And thou art dead-no more, no more

To charm the land with sylvan strain; The harp is hush'd, thy song is o'er,

But what is sung shall long remain, When cold this hand, and lost this verse, Now hung in reverence on thy hearse!

How often does it occur that while the ears of the public are stunned with the praises of mediocrity, excellence is allowed to exist wholly unspoken of. In the Fine Arts especially, how frequently does empiricism succeed in calling the attention of the world to productions which, if not absolutely worthless, are nevertheless of very inferior value; while the works of true genius, in the absence of the just notice to which they are entitled, remain in comparative obscurity. It is one of the most imperative, and at the same time one of the most pleasing duties of the press, to redress, as far as it is capable of redressing this wrong. Its efforts to do so must of necessity be spontaneous; because there is a combined delicacy and pride accompanying merit of the highest class, which forbids any immediate appeal to criticism.

Happening the other day to stroll into the shop of the celebrated goldsmiths and jewellers, on Ludgate-hill, Messrs. Rundell and Bridge, among the many gorgeous and valuable articles by which we found ourselves surrounded, our admiration was singularly excited by a magnificent shield, which, although

of silver gilt and of large dimensions, and consequently very ponderous, was so nicely balanced on a massy and elegant stand ingeniously constructed for the purpose, as to admit of its being turned about, and examined in every part, with the greatest facility.

Every body knows the politeness with which Messrs. Rundell and Bridge, and the several members of their unrivalled establishment, gratify the curiosity of their visitors. From them, and from other sources, we collected various particulars respecting this splendid production, which, together with a few of our own observations upon it, we hope may prove not unacceptable to the readers of our Magazine.

The shield, the circumference of which is no less than nine feet, and the convexity six inches from the plane, has been executed from drawings and a model, by Mr. Flaxman; which occupied that able sculptor, at different times, for a series of years, and were finished in January, 1818. It is intended to represent the shield forged by Vulcan, "the artist of the skies ;" and presented by Thetis to her son, Achilles, to supply the place of that which