perfect and unerring the roundness of the form, fitting only the most graceful holding-how charming the colours and pattern! And does not the old china, you will say, furnish representations of figures human and inhuman? Indeed it does, but such representatives of species unknown! Dragons with three claws, and dragons with five, that would turn zoological gardens into the Hesperides. And then, human figures-delightful unrealities, so divested of humanity-they may be inhabitants of the moon-who can imagine their anatomy under their embroidered wrappings? We gaze and wonder at the pale and peerless princesses of the celestial empire, unearthly, unfleshly substances; chaste and lustrous are their complexions of natural enamel. Look at their little roseate mouths unlike those of our omnivorous race,-did they ever open to aught grosser than æther or pomegranite seed? and those eyes that could behold nothing wrong, and those innocent feet, were they not made for that very peculiar, not quite earth, but soft-cushioned and aerated ground, surfaced and inlaid with thinnest mother-of-pearl, and dotted with chinaasters? We would enthusiastically pat the very dragons on the back for guarding them. Air, earth, and water, are all under the same shining ideality, and bow out of all ordinary rules of our sublunary planet to do their plea sure, "L'aura soave, e l'alba rugiadosa Blessed be the Genius of China, that, with a happy indifference of laws, anatomical, geometrical, and perspective, of the round or the square, avoids similarity to any thing terrestrial, and proudly favours our benighted world with the translucent idealities of the empire of porcelain. Now break through the wall of enchantment! what pictorial abominations do the mistaken views of ornamental manufacturers produce! What will the china manufacturer, the silk weaver, learn from "open" exhibitions, though Somerset-House spread before him all her treasures, and though he be put to draw the Elgin Marbles from morning till night? As a private individual, indeed, he may have taste, and * improve it, and delight in these things; but each of them, for the advantage of his art, will learn nothing. He had far better study the borders, pattern, and colour of old missals, and those beautiful works of arabesque, which abound and were executed upon true principles of the ornamental. Herculaneum and Pompeii have opened into day their treasures, and will give still more, whose value is not in the pictures, but in decoration. Some years ago we helped to paint a room for a friend from a drawing of one we brought from Pompeii. It was of the brightest colours, blue, red, and yellow, and yet such was the assortment, that the effect was any thing but gaudy.* We are surprised to find so sensible a man as Mr Ramsay Richard Reinagle, theorising before the Committee, and we think upon rather a slippery foundation; but if it be really correct, the lecture may do for the school, but surely the Committee wanted evidence and matter of fact of another kind. We are, however, disposed to dispute his very first position. He asserts that "all elegant forms are derived from curvilinear ones; and "that any mere line, whether it be perpendicular or inclined to either side, and crossed by right-angles, presents no form of beauty." Does Mr Reinagle really believe that perpendicular lines in architecture, crossed at right-angles, are not beautiful? What are architectural proportions but mostly perpendicular lines crossed at right-angles? What will Mr Cockrell say of the architrave? Mr Reinagle certainly offers specimens, in which, by the shortness of the intersecting line, it is difficult to imagine a figure! His parallel lines, he says, may be a gridiron. We deny it, for they are not a figure; but once make a figure of perpendicular lines, and you have, perhaps, as near a chance of a beautiful result as in your circular lines. We imagine the beauty of the figure wholly composed of right-angles, and the figure, the circle or oval, really to rest upon the same principle, the repetition of the parts opposite, as in a reflection. This conveys the idea of perfect order, which is always pleasing; and it has occurred to us that architectural drawings are often defective in this, that the point of sight is taken in a cross direction where the perspective is more complicated, and We may have whole sides of a room papered from the lauded French school with landscape and figures, and how ever well done of their kind, the designers, totally stepping out of their own line, and jumping into the artists', produce to the real eye of taste but contemptible works; and at the same time overlook the purpose of a room, which is to enclose, and not perpetually arrest our attention with views of the "Bay of Naples," or " Portsmouth Harbour," or hunting scenes, which, erelong, make the eyes so ache, that we wish them away a thousand times a-day. Put your pictures into frames, and know that you are looking at them in your room. And so is there an absurd affectation of flowers on carpets, pointers upon rugs, and an intermediate list of pictorial absurdities, turning from which, if you chance to light on a Turkey carpet, how gratified is the eye by the rich mixture of colours, and the repose of looking upon no objects. Yet, in spite of all our argument, which we really think founded in common sense, which is good taste, a great part of the enquiry and evidence goes to prove the necessity of giving the mahufacturer the education of the artist. He is to learn geometry, botany, perspective, and we know not how many things of about as much use to him as Coptic or Arabic. We evidently see the bias of the Committee. The fine arts are to be finer than ever-high art to be interwoven into every kind of manufacture-painters shall no more monopolize. How many millions of hands, fair and dirty, are now at work in England, working in worsted and weaving high art imported from Germany, all on the "great" known and unknown "principles ;" and when screens, carpets, sofas, cushions, and hangings, with a laudable national ambition, shall be laid before the Committee, we shall fancy them lifting up their hands in admiration of the works they have called up, and congratulating each other like the Syracusan gossips— "Praxione, here! Look at this tapestry first, how finely woven-- They stand out; and how natural they move Upon the wall-they look alive-not woven. Well, man, it must be owned, is a wise creature !— ELTON from Theocritus. From what has been said, it is evident that we consider the enquiry of the Committee, in some respect, has taken a misdirection. Yet we shall be happy if their plan of establishing schools throughout the kingdom be adopted, wherein drawing may be taught. That is the readiest mode of delineating objects; because we think this power of drawing must be a great where this great beauty of conspicuous order, column answering to column, and meeting in the arch, is overlooked. We should even prefer architectural views from the very centre. We do not see the beauty of Mr Reinagle's lines until he encloses them, and thereby making figures, and those figures will ever be most beautiful where there is the greatest correspondence between the parts. It is this principle of the one half of a figure being the repetition of the other half, that makes the great fascination of the kaleidescope, a little instrument that, in the hands of the ornamentalist of many manufacturers would be (and in some has been) of more use in one day, than years of study of the antique, or the finest specimens that ever adorned galleries of art. "Ars est celare artem," is, however, no less to be observed here, than in all instances of taste. Order itself may be too precise, and too closely curb in and check variety. It is not necessary that this reflecting principle should be in every direction too exact, though it should have, perhaps, an approach throughout. It may be enough, as in vases, if it be laterally observed-perpendicularly, it may be but slightly, or even not all shown, as the subject may admit or require. assistance, and, as it were, the tradesnan's short-hand. He will certainly most readily create forms who can most readily draw them. The evidence upon the schools in France, Berlin, and in Bavaria, particularly the latter, where there are no less than 33, is of very great value. We had forgotten that Burke regretted the neglect of any general instruction in art at our universities and public schools. We are happy to be referred to the opinion of so great a man. We have ourselves frequently taken some pains in this Magazine to impress that sentiment upon the public, and upon the minds of those who only can bring any scheme to bear. The Fine Arts would thus chiefly be benefited, and how would their acquisition adorn and even elevate classical learning? If there be any one who for the most effectual prosecution of his profession, requires the highest mental cultivation, it is the artist. This would give rank and honour to the profession, and not only necessarily create patrons, but make them likewise nice judges. All vulgarity would then be banished to the area of lower tastes, and arts and artists would assume their genuine and true dignity. The known learning of some of the professors has already, we think, been beneficial. But will it not require a judgment of which we see no promise in the Report or evidence, perhaps with the exception of that of Baron von Klenze on the Schools of Bavaria, in laying before the pupils, not indiscriminately every thing, but just such things as may best suit their ulterior destination? The mechanic will learn the art of delineation more completely by practising from complicated machinery, than from the Apollo or Venus de Medicis. The evidence of Dr Bowring will be read with interest-particularly that part which relates to copyright. The want of separation of the subjects of arts and manufactures, is felt throughout his evidence. We are not always sure to which his answers may apply; nor indeed of the direct drift of the questions. There is too much jargon about "the great principles of art," and we are sometimes surprised that any answer should be given to questions as unintelligible as the following" Is there that connexion between such works (collections of arts called Exhibitions) and the great principles of art, that is, the principles of the truth in art, the correctness of representation, and those principles which are admitted to be principles of beauty in all ages, that there would be," &c. Though the speaker undertakes to be his own interpreter, we should say, as in the case of Mr Puff, that "the interpreter is the hardest to be understood of the two." Dr Bowring is a universal linguist, and catches the inconceivable idea in a moment, and answers, "Obviously there is not." Dr Bowring had before this been rather willing to throw such indefinable examinations overboard, or at least their elucidation upon other shoulders, for being asked, "What is meant by those principles?" first answers certainly by what they are not-" That general instruction which exhibits the great principles of art, connected with its history and progress." How the instruction in principles can be the principles themselves, we leave to those to whom such replies are satisfactory; but Dr Bowring, aware that he has slipped but from words to words, and the exhibition of riding their circuit will not show any extraordinary skill on the part of himself (the Commissioner), adroitly bolts over the pale, referring to Dr Waagen. Probably I can hardly do better than refer to the evidence of Dr Waagen, as given to this Committee last session, for correct definitions of the distinctions between the principles of art and their practical application." The reader may, however, spare himself the trouble of looking for what he will not find. It is a happy figure in rhetoric to quote or refer to authors (the more foreign the better) who have never said one word upon the subject. A rather unlearned friend of ours thus puts to silence a literary bore-" You know Jablouski puts that matter clear." We were surprised at his attainments, till he assured us he knew nothing of Jablouski, but had accidentally seen his name in a review that morning, and that had he been conversing with a politician he would with equal success have used the name of Peter the Great. 66 We learn from Dr Bowring's evidence that the superior taste of French "Jacquard, the inventor of the beautiful and simple machinery by which the most intricate and complicated patterns are produced by the common shuttle, was more than once exposed to assassination, in consequence of the prejudices of the people against his discovery; he was regarded as a public enemy. Three attempts were made upon his life, and he was obliged for years to hide himself from the vengeance of the labouring population. That machine, by which this stuff was wrought, was broken up in the public place by the order and in the presence of the authorities. But Lyons, while resisting all manufacturing improvement, saw her trade decline, and her inhabitants reduced to misery. In the time of her distress, Jacquard was again thought of, and the resuscitation of the manufacture of Lyons is solely due to the introduction of the mechanism which had been thus publicly and ignominiously destroyed. Jacquard not only lived to see himself reinstated in the affections of his fellow-citizens; he was pensioned by the town of Lyons to the extent of 1000 crowns yearly; he was decorated with the Legion of Honour; he became the pride and boast of the operative classes, and I venture to say, that among the work people of Lyons there is not at this moment a name held in any thing like the same esteem and affection as the name of Jacquard. He saw this change before he died, for his death took place only last year. He was accompanied to his grave by the most distinguished persons of his neighbourhood, and by multitudes of the working orders, and his picture now occupies the place of honour in the museum of the School of Art. "I mention these circumstances as a remarkable instance and evidence of improved opinion, and of the disposition to consider the contributions of art and science as valuable auxiliaries to the manufacturing interests." It appears that in France there are "about eighty recognised Schools of Art." That" at the present moment there are 200 students in the Lyonese schools." It is not, however, clearly marked what portion are directed to the higher attainments of art, and what to manufacture. "Question-What is the constitution of the principal School of Lyons? "The School of Art of Lyons originated in a decree of Buonaparte, dated, I think, from Warsaw. It's object was to give elementary instruction in Art, with a view to the improvement of the silk manufactures of France. But its field of usefulness has widened from time to time, and it is now divided into six principal departments, that of, 1, Painting; 2, Architecture; 3, Ornament, and mise en carte (which is the means of communicating to a fabric, or to a manufacture any model or drawing upon paper). There is also, 4, a Botanical department; 5, a Sculpture department; and lastly, a department which has been added within the last year or two, that of Engraving. The department of Painting is divided into three sections; the first is the School of Painting, or drawing from the living subject; the second from busts, or inanimate nature and the third is called the class of the Principles of Painting." These Schools in France are assisted by the State. "At Paris, the budget of the Minister of the Interior gives 20,000 francs to the Royal School of Design, and the Municipality gives 6000 francs. The course of study lasts for three years, and the Students pay five francs for the first year, and ten francs for each of the second and third. As a matter of opinion, do you think it better for Government to assist or to interfere in these matters? Perhaps an answer equally applicable to all countries can hardly be given. It must be remembered that in France the action of the Government is every where; that there is no branch of the Administration which is not directly or indirectly dependent upon the Government itself, and that the influence of the Government of Paris is so intermixed with the local organization, that it would be scarcely possible for those schools to move as they move, unless the protec A fact has just come to our knowledge, which seems practically to deny our inferiority in "patterns." A lady has informed us that a partner or agent of a house in Brussels has been recently purchasing (and travelling for the express purpose) old shawls of English manufacture, solely for the patterns-not our imitations of Indian, but English patterns. tion of Government were behind them. Every body looks to the Government, and the Government middles with every thing." Dr Bowring speaks very favourably of the schools of art in Switzerland; he found that a Chinese had come from Canton, and had studied for three years at Geneva. He imagines that the average rate of wages is higher there than in any part of the European world, which he attributes to their great knowledge. In Geneva the schools are not quite gratuitous; "5 francs are paid for the first year, ten for the second and third, and the deficit is made up by the government funds." In treating on the very important subject of "Copyright," Dr Bowring enters much into the detail of the French law, and gives an account of the establishment of the local tribunals, the "Conseil de Prud'hom "The penal code recognises the right of every inventor to the protection of his patterns or other inventions, even though he should not be protected by patent, and provides that a penalty of not less than 100 francs, and not more than 2000, shall be levied on any individual who violates the copyright of another; and it also provides that a fine of not less than 25 francs, nor more than 500 francs should be levied on any individual who sells a pirated article. What is the French term for copyright? I recollect none but the The general term propriété, or property. invasion of that property by the piracy of a patent mark or pattern is called a contrefacon or forgery, and the invader is denominated a contrefaiseur, or forger. The law also provides for the confiscation of all pirated copyright, whether of patents or otherwise, also all plates, moulds, and matrices which have been pirated. Formerly the application of this law was left to the ordinary tribunals, but it was found that that machinery was too cumbrous and expensive, as is the fact at this moment in England, and a local tribunal now exists in most of the manufacturing towns of France, to which all questions of copyright are referred. That tribunal is called the Conseil de Prud'hommes; it is composed of an equal number of manufacturers and workmen, plus one manufacturer, who is the president of the tribunal, and this tribunal is charged with the decision of every question of manufacturing interest." Again "That institution is charged with the settlement of all manufacturing questions. It is really a tribunal of conciliation, against whose decision there is an appeal in cer tain cases. It has a power of fine and imprisonment. All questions of the 'marks' which any manufacturer chooses to adopt to designate his wares, and all questions of patent and copyright are referred to it. Patents in France are considered as manufacturing property, and are subjected to the conditions of two laws, known by the title of the Patent Laws, and bearing date January and May, 1791. The proprietor of a patent has the power of bringing any one who violates that patent before the ordinary tribunals; and independently of the fine which may be levied, the law requires that a quarter more than the fine shall be given to the poor of the district in which the patent has been invaded, pro 3000 francs. vided the fine does not exceed the sum of It is necessary to state that a patent has not legal effect until it is inserted in the Bulletin des Lois. The Conseil de Prud'hommes has also jurisdiction in all cases of patents; but it is required, in order that the patentee may have the right of calling upon the Conseil de Prud'hommes, that the patent should be recognised and recorded in the archives of the Conseil, as is the case in matters of pattern. And has the Conseil de Prud'hommes jurisdiction over patterns? Yes, the Counseil de Prud'hommes has jurisdiction over three descriptions of manufacturing property-over patents, over marks,' where 'marks' are violated, and over patterns. The Conseil de Prud'hommes being an economical tribunal, the patentee would have recourse to it rather than to the higher and more costly tribunals. Does a French patent, taken out for five years, come under the jurisdiction of this Court? Certainly. Or for ten years?—Yes; any man may use this minor tribunal if he prefer it. The Conseil de Prud'hommes is, as I mentioned, a tribunal which decides on the violation of patents of marks and patterns employed, or claimed by a given manufacturer. "Then it is at once a legal and an equitable tribunal ?-It is." Many of the manufacturers of France, as those of hardware and cutlery, are authorized to employ a “mark,” and on their registering that "mark at the grieffe of the Conseil, they get an exclusive title to its use; and the person who employs surreptitiously the mark or device of another, is not only responsible for the consequences and the losses, but is considered by the French law as a forger, and subject to the penalties which apply to the forgery of handwriting. A mark" is deemed a property, if a manufacturer choose to have it so recorded, and can give evidence from |