It is not njy intention now to say anything about the progress ' '— 

 of arts and manufactures at all, but only to bring under your 

 notice a section of litei-ature which is nearly ignored by biblio- 

 graphers and antiquarians, and is altogether out of the ken of 

 book-reprinting clubs. 



It is hardly to be expected that a ])ractical art can have any 

 literature worth speaking of. The man who is busy })ractising it 

 can have little time to write about it, and he who wishes to learn it 

 must put to his hand and work at it, and that under the supervision 

 of a master, and not by merely reading books. This is the appren- 

 ticeship that every one must serve. No amount of reading will 

 make a scul])tor, or a gardener, or a shoemaker, or a surgeon, or a 

 musical executant. The arts must be acquired by practice, and 

 they are extended and improved by practice. Every one who 

 exercises them comes to have special power and certain ways of 

 doing things, which may enable him to surpass others who are 

 similarly engaged. These are his " secrets," which very often he 

 cannot, or will not, reveal to others. Eai^d insight into a 

 particular case, power of overcoming physical obstacles, ingenious 

 adaptations of means to ends, exhibition of due care at the right 

 time, enable one man to effect what othei-s cannot. 



In earlier times artists were very chary indeed of telling their 

 secrets, and in the great craze of the middle ages — -the craze to 

 make the philosopher's stone — the adepts were continually on their 

 guard to conceal their art from the unworth}', while revealing 

 Avhat was thought suitable for the genuine artist to know. The 

 philosopher was warned to admit no one to his laboratory — or to his 

 confidence. Even at the present day, secrets have not wholly died 

 out ; there are manufactures which are still undivulged, and any 

 one engaged in the scientific investigation of some phenomenon or 

 law of nature, will not tell his professional brethren unreservedly 



author had a very clear notion of the importance of his subject, and of its 

 general interest. 



So far as I know, no complete and systematic work on the liistory of arts 

 and manufactures has appeared in this country. A collection of essays by 

 David Bremner on the Industries of Scotland was published at Edinburgli 

 in 18G9. They deal cliicfly with the then states of tlie industries, althouuli 

 there are usually short liistorical narratives prefixed. Tlic work entitled 

 '■'■ Manufaciur'mrf ArU in Ancient y'iwf.s'," by James Napier, London, ISTt. 

 8vo, is occupied almost entirely with the history of metals aud of dyeing. 



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