on the Great Exhibition of 1851. 357 
and knowing their minds—seeing the workshops of all nations, 
and knowing their arts—we have but one such. ‘His knowl- 
edge is only his. He cannot, in any clear or effective manner, 
communicate any large’ ore of it to others. It exists only 
much- alone Be ii i come to some island: 0: 
Calypso, some well-inhabited city, under the rule of powerful 
and benignant, but plainly, he must believe; en influ- 
ences, and there to find that image of the world and its arts, 
which he had vainly tried to build up in his mind, exhibited be- 
fore his bodily eye in a vast crystal frame ;—true i every minut- 
est thread and hue, from the sparkle of the diamond to the 
mighty bulk of the collossus; 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 < opi A ~ 
everywhere at the present hour. Aud, further, let him 
whole population of the land—thousands upon di pe 
lions upon millions, streaming to this sight, gazing their fill, day 
after day, at this wonderful vision, inviting the men of neighbor- 
ing and of distant lands to gaze with them ; looking at the ob- 
jects, not like-a fairy picture in the distant clonds, but close at 
hand ; comparing, judging, scrutinizing the treasures produced 
by the all-bounteous earth, and the indomitable efforts of won 
from pole to pole, and from east to west; or, as he would. lear 
more truly to measure, from east to east ‘again. When we cans 
mewn such a vision, do we not seem to have gone beyond 
“ Quicquid Grecia mendax 
Audit in historia; “ 
all the wonders of that wondrous ancient Odyssean tale? And 
yet, in making such a supposition, have we not been exactly de- 
scribing that which we. have seen within these few months? 
Have not we ourselves made part of the population of such a 
dieeneaa ena tig crowds which have gazed on such a magic 
spectacle 
But now that we hava had the spectacle before — oe us con- 
sider for a moment what the vision was, and w e the re- 
flections which it excited. We had, offered to our one 
choicest productions of human art in all nations; or, a at least, 
collections which might be considered as representing all nations. 
ow in nations compared with nations there is a difference ; in a 
nation compared with itself at an earlier time, there is a pro 
There may not always be a progress 1 in good government ; there 
- May not necessarily be, though we would gladly hope that there 
is, a progress in virtue, in morality, | = happiness. But there 
always is, except when very adverse influences s roll the 
common course of things, a ‘progress i ait, and. generally in 
