No. 2ie] 623 



periraent to experiment, over difficulty after difficulty, through disap- 

 pointment and discouragement, which all adventurers in pursuit of 

 novelty must encounter, until a discovery is made, a manufacture or 

 machine produced, and exposed in the fair to the view of its hundred 

 thousand visitors. 



And besides these, are to be remembered the large number, who, 

 after all their efforts, having failed to complete their specimens ac- 

 cording to intention, are not represented here, but whose detached 

 discoveries, nevertheless, go to enrich their several departments of the 

 useful arts, and are afterwards brought together and combined by 

 themselves or others for important purposes. Also, are to be remem- 

 bered the many, the importance of whose discoveries, made in pre- 

 paring for the fair, so far exceed expectation, and promise to be of 

 so great consequence, that to secure the protection of law, they elect 

 to complete them in secret. 



What animating, powerful stimulants, then, are these exhibitions ; 

 and what a restless force of the most searching intellect do they put 

 in motion upon the useful arts? But this is not all. After this mighty 

 rally of the intellectual energies of an enterprising people, prepara- 

 tory to one of these exhibitions, and this capacious receptacle is again 

 filled with the productions of their skill, its influ^ce is not yet ex- 

 hausted; they are still to receive additional impulse and energy, from 

 the invigorating showers of ptiblic approbation which the occasion 

 affords. Hither they all come — th-e master^ journeyman and appren- 

 tice—to witness the grand tournament of gei^iuses, the great trial of 

 inventive strength, and, like the knights of chivalry, to receive new 

 impulse from the approving smiles of fair ladies. 



Hither resorts the wealthy proprietor, with specimens from his 

 establishment, to receive the compliments of an admiring multitude; 

 hither, too, comes the obscure but ingenious laborer, to have bis 

 ambition aroused and self-respect enlarged by the just commendation 

 conferred upon the workmanship of his hands. Little does that 

 visitor suspect, as he passes an article, in his meanderings through the 

 Fair, and incidentally drops a word of admiration upon its beauty 

 or workmanship, that s'tanding near, anxiously watching every at- 

 tention giv-en thereto, is the youthful artisan whose work it is; and 

 that such passing remark, falling upon .the combustible spirits o( 

 youth, may arouse energies and fire a soul to live lon!T, in the fame 

 of its productions, when the beauties of this hall and this audience 

 shall have been forgotten. 



