ever, briefly advert to some of those, which the least worthy of notice.*

Under the patronage of Mr. Alderman Boydell, a new and very considerable article of manufacture and commerce, was established, consisting of engraved prints. Foreign prints had been so greatly superior to British, that great quantities had been imported. Alderman Boydell, although the person principally concerned in their importation, with a liberality, and public spirit, worthy of a Pericles, or a Lorenzo de Medici, sought after, encouraged and rewarded British artists, with the well founded idea that under the influence of suitable patronage, they might equal, if not excel the engravers of other countries. The result surpassed his expectations, and the exports of British engravings in a few years, became immense, extending from Madrid to Moscow.

Mr. Josiah Wedgwood introduced a great number of improvements in the potter's art, and the Queen, to encourage the artist, gave the product of his manufactory the name of Queen's ware. Of the immense

*It is hoped that the length of this introduction will be pardoned by critics, and prove not altogether unacceptable to artists, and others for whom it is designed. The subject of the Essay, which composes the bulk of the book is dry, abstruse, and metaphysical, and we have attempted to render the introduction amusing, perhaps instructive to some readers, who might think the Essay itself so destitute of entertainment as not to reward a perusal.

importance of this manufactory, some estimate may be formed from the following extract from Anderson's History of Commerce.

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Though the manufacturing part alone gives bread to fifteen or twenty thousand people, he (the inventor and proprietor) looks upon this as a small object, when compared with the many others which are put in motion by it, viz. the immense quantity of land carriage it creates throughout England, both in its raw materials, and finished goods; the great number of people employed in the extensive collieries for its use; the still greater number employed in raising and preparing the raw materials in several distant parts of the kingdom; the coasting vessels, the river and canal navigation, and the re-conveyance of the finished goods to the different parts of the Island."

Although this manufacture was so flourishing, yet at the time the above description was given, it was considered still in its infancy. This, however, was altogether the effect of the inventive genius of the proprietor, and the encouragement, which the policy and the laws of England afford to the authors of new and useful inventions.

But the most valuable present that the arts of life have ever received from the philosopher, and the most curious object, which human ingenuity has yet offered to his contemplation, is the steam engine.

The mariner's compass, the telescope, gun-powder, and many other most useful servants to the wants and weakness of man were the productions of chance, and we do not exactly know to whom we are indebted for them; but the steam engine was, in the very beginning the result of reflection, and the product of ingenuity. Every improvement it has received has likewise been the effect of philosophical study. It has now become almost as necessary to the very existence of many important manufactures, as air to animal life. The steam engine presents us a most indefatigable drudge, whose strength knows no bounds, and to the utility of whose labours no limits can be assigned.*

Next in importance to the steam engine, may, perhaps, be ranked the invention of cotton spinning, generally attributed to Sir Richard Arkwright. This ingenious man constructed a machine, by which, with the power afforded by one large water-wheel, above 4000 threads of cotton were spun at once; and of these the finest muslins were manufactured. Cotton spinning, by the assistance of machinery is now introduced into the United States to a great extent, and has enriched many individuals, embarked in the manufacture, as well as benefited the public to a very great amount.

In France, Germany, and other nations of continental Europe, useful science and the arts, have been per* Encyclopedia Britannica.

secuted by bigots, and too frequently sacrificed at the shrine of superstition. The immortal Galileo fell a victim to popish intolerance. The edict of Nantz, equally cruel, unjust, and impolitic, forced thousands of ingenious and industrious mechanics to seek refuge in England, and gave rise to some of the most flourishing manufactures in Great Britain.

The leaders of the French revolution appeared to act according to the axiom "knowledge is power," and the rapid and astonishing success of the "terrible republic," and still more formidable monarchy which succeeded under Buonaparte, may in a great measure be attributed to the patronage given to military science, and to new inventions in the art of war. "A man," says an excellent historian of the French Revolution, "who would have been obliged to dance attendance half his life-time after the minister of war, or of the marine, only to receive the honour of an audience, where he was more likely to be treated with contempt, than to be encouraged, could now make himself certain of a candid hearing, and a fair trial; and the vices of a government, which produced such advantages, he very naturally overlooked, and became zealous in their cause."*

From the preceding imperfect sketches of the history of the arts, it appears that they have flourished in proportion to the patronage bestowed on artists ;

Playfair's History of the French Revolution.

and that, wherever they have flourished, they have exalted the character, increased the resources, and added to the power of a nation. When fostered by a Pericles, a Lorenzo de Medici, or a Colbert, the arts have sprung up as it were by enchantment, like the wizard palaces of romance, and the most arid deserts of barbarism have suddenly bloomed like Palmyra in the wilderness.

In the United States, useful inventions have still stronger claims on public patronage than in older and more populous countries. In Great Britain, any important improvements in manufactures have frequently a temporary effect apparently injurious to very many of the poorer classes, by depriving them of the manipulations superseded, or curtailed by such improvements. Thus it has been said to be impracticable, in many parts of that country, to erect machinery for sawing timber by water or steam, on account of the opposition of those, who have been accustomed to obtain their sole support from the laborious process of sawing timber by hand. Machinery for spinning cotton, on improved plans, is reported to have been burned by those who had been accustomed to derive a support by processes, which were abridged, or rendered useless, by such machinery. But, in the United States, such is the demand for labour, the plenty of provisions, and the spareness of population in proportion to the extent of teritory, that the inconveniences experienced in

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