how man can act by these, operating through the medium of matter, and thus produce beauty, and utility, and power. This kind of criticism appears to be the natural and proper sequel to such a great burst of production and exhibition as we have had to witness;-to discover what the laws of operative power are, after having had so great a manifestation of what they do.

To discover the laws of operative power in literary works, though it claims no small respect under the name of Criticism, is not commonly considered the work of a science. But to discover the laws of operative power in material productions, whether formed by man, or brought into being by Nature herself, is the work of a science, and is indeed what we more especially term Science: and thus, in the case with which we have to do, we have, instead of the Criticism which naturally comes after the general circulation of Poetry, the Science which naturally comes after a great exhibition of Art: two cases of succession connected by a very close and profound analogy. That this view of the natural and general succession of science to art, as of criticism to poetry, is not merely fanciful and analogical, we may easily convince ourselves by looking for an instant at the progress of art and of science in past times. For we see that, in general, art has preceded science. Men have executed great, and curious, and beautiful works before they had a scientific insight into the principles on which the success of their labours was founded. There were good artificers in brass and iron before the principles of the chemistry of metals were known; there was wine among men before there was a philosophy of vinous fermentation; there were mighty masses raised into the air, cyclopean walls and cromlechs, obelisks and pyramids-probably gigantic Doric pillars and entablatures,-before there was a theory of the mechanical powers. The earlier generations did; the later explained that it had been possible to do. Art was the mother of Science: the vigorous and comely mother of a daughter of far loftier and serener beauty. And as it had been in the period of scientific activity in the ancient world, so was it again in the modern period in which Science began her later growth. The middle ages produced or im

proved a vast body of arts. Parchment and paper, printing and engraving, glass and steel, compass and gunpowder, clocks and watches, microscopes and telescopes, not to speak of the marvels of architecture, sculpture, and painting, all had their origin and progress, while the sciences of recent times were in their cradle, or were unborn. The dawn of the sixteenth century presented, as it were, a Great Exhibition of the works which men had been producing from the time of the downfall of Roman civilization and skill. There, too, might be seen, by him who travelled from land to land, beautiful textures, beautiful vessels of gold and bronze, of porcelain and glass, wonderful machines, mighty fabrics; and from that time, stimulated by the sight of such a mass of the works of human skill,-stimulated still more by the natural working of those powers of man from which such skill had arisen,―men were led to seek for science as well as art; for science as the natural complement of art, and fulfilment of the thoughts and hopes which art excites;-for science as the fully developed blossom, of which art is the wonderfully involved bud. Stimulated by such influences, the scientific tendencies of modern Europe took their starting impulse from the Great Exhibition of the productions of the middle ages which had accumulated in the sixteenth century; and have ever since been working onwards, with ever-increasing vigour, and in an ever-expanding sphere.

As the successful scientific speculations of the last three centuries have been the natural sequel to the art-energies of the preceding ages, so must the newest scientific speculations of our contemporaries and their successors, in order to be successful, be the result and consequence of the powers, as yet often appearing in the undeveloped form of art alone, which exist among us at the present day. And thus a great spectacle of the works of material art ought to carry with it its scientific moral. And the opportunities which we have lately had of surveying the whole of the world in which art reigns, and of appreciating the results of its sway, may well be deemed too valuable to be let slip for the purposes of that scientific speculation which is the proper sequence of such occasions. So it has seemed to those who have from the be

ginning taken a lofty, and comprehensive, and hopeful view of the great undertaking of which the first act is now completed; and especially to that mind which has always taken the most lofty, and comprehensive, and hopeful view.

And in order to carry into effect this suggestion, it has been determined that persons well qualified to draw from the spectacle the series of scientific morals which it offers, should present them to you here;-that critics should analyse for you some of the fine compositions with which you have become acquainted;-that men of science should explain to you what you ought to learn from such an exhibition of art. And it has been thought that it might not be useless that you should be reminded, in the first place, how great and unique the occasion is, and how peculiar are some of the lessons which even the most general spectator, unfit to enter into the details of any of the special arts, may draw from it.

For indeed it is obvious, at a glance, how great and unexampled is the opportunity thus given to us, of taking a survey of the existing state of art in every part of the world. I have said, that if, in the sixteenth century, an intelligent spectator could have travelled from land to land, he might, in that way, have seen a wonderful collection of the works of man in many different countries; and combining all these in his thoughts, he would have had in his mind a representation of the whole progress of human art and industry, up to the last moment, and a picture of the place which each nation at that moment occupied in the line of that progress. But what time, what labour, what perseverance, what hardships, what access to great and powerful men in every land, what happiness of opportunity, would be implied in the completion of such a survey! A life would scarcely suffice for it; a man could scarcely be found who would achieve it, with all appliances and means which wealth and power could give. He must, lik the philosophers of ancient days, spend all his years of vigour in travelling; must roam in the varied regions of India; watch the artisan in the streets of the towns of China; dive into the mines of Norway and of Mexico; live a life in the workshops of England, France, and Germany; and trace the western tide of industry and art as it spreads

over the valley of the Mississippi. And when he had done. all this, and however carefully he had done it, yet how defective must it be at least in one point! How far must it be from a simultaneous view of the condition of the whole globe as to material arts. During the time that he has been moving from place to place, the face of the world has been rapidly changing. When he saw Tunis it was a barbarous state; now that he has to make up his account, it is the first which asks for a leading place among the civilized communities of the industrial world. When he visited the plains of Iowa and Wisconsin, they were wild prairie; they are now the fields from which the cereal harvest is swept by the latest improved reaping machine. When he was at the antipodes, the naked savage offered the only specimen of art in his rude club and frail canoe; now there is there a port whose lofty ships carry regularly to European markets multiplied forms of native produce and manufactures. Even if his picture be complete as to surface, what anachronisms must there be in it! How much that expresses not the general view of the earth, but the accidental peculiarities of the traveller's personal narrative! And then, how dim must be the images of the thing seen many years ago compared with that which is present to the eye! How impossible to compare the one with the other-the object now seen in age with a similar object remembered in youth! And after all, when we have assumed such a traveller-such a one as never has been-the Ulysses of modern times-seeing the cities of many men, and knowing their minds-seeing the workshops of all nations, and knowing their arts-we have but one such. His knowledge is only his. He cannot, in any clear or effective manner, communicate any large portion of it to others. It exists only for him-it perishes with him. And now let us, in the license of epical imagination, suppose such an Ulysses-much-seeing, much-wandering, much-enduring-to come to some island of Calypso, some well-inhabited city, under the rule of powerful and benignant, but plainly, he must believe, superhuman influences, and there to find that image of the world and its arts, which he had vainly tried to build up in his mind, exhibited before his bodily eye in a vast crystal frame;—true in every minutest thread and hue, from the sparkle of the dia

mond to the mighty bulk of the colossus; true to that which belongs to every part of the earth; and this, with the effects which the arts produce, not at the intervals of the traveller's weary journey, but every where at the present hour. And, further, let him see the whole population of the land—thousands upon thousands, millions upon millions, streaming to this sight, gazing their fill, day after day, at this wonderful vision, inviting the men of neighbouring and of distant lands to gaze with them; looking at the objects, not like a fairy picture in the distant clouds, but close at hand; comparing, judging, scrutinizing the treasures produced by the all-bounteous earth, and the indomitable efforts of man, from pole to pole, and from east to west; or, as he would learn more truly to measure, from east to east again. When we have supposed such a vision, do we not seem to have gone beyond

all the wonders of that wondrous ancient Odyssean tale? And yet, in making such a supposition, have we not been exactly describing that which we have seen within these few months? Have not we ourselves made part of the population of such a charmed isle,-of the crowds which have gazed on such a magic spectacle?

But now that we have had the spectacle before us, let us consider for a moment what the vision was, and what were the reflections which it excited. We had, offered to our review, the choicest productions of human art in all nations; or, at least, collections which might be considered as representing all nations. Now in nations compared with nations there is a difference; in a nation compared with itself at an earlier time, there is a progress. There may not always be a progress in good government; there may not necessarily be, though we would gladly hope that there is, a progress in virtue, in morality, in happiness. But there always is, except when very adverse influences roll back the common course of things, a progress in art, and generally in science. In the useful and ornamental arts nations are always going forwards, from stage to stage. Different nations have reached different stages of this progress, and all their different stages are seen at once, in