202 A VISIT TO THE GREAT EXHIBITION. 
annoyance of police, without hypocrisy, and with full liberty of 
thought. 
With this preliminary effusion, let me, continues M. Gourdon, 
commence my undertaking. But where shall I make a be¬ 
ginning]—of what shall I speak first] How am I to make an 
election, humble as I am, and uninformed about so many things, 
in the midst of such an immense assemblage of industry and 
talent from far and from near, combining specimens of all kinds 
of art and science in their newest forms, with chef d'oeuvres un¬ 
known to the world, and perfectionateness unexampled ] Even 
up to the present hour, while holding my pen in my hand, 
I feel myself posed by this question, and dazzled and confused 
for the second time, the same as I was at my first entry into the 
palace in Hyde Park: a sensation I continued to experience for 
several days afterwards. 
At length, M. Gourdon makes a beginning in the “ anato¬ 
mical department,” whence he proceeds to the examination of 
the marchalerie, or farriery department. 
This occupied a corner of the exhibition little frequented by 
the pressing and elegant crowd of persons present; though for 
my own part, I profited by the occasion to attentively examine 
what was deposited there, with the view of learning if it con¬ 
tained any thing that was really nevtf. In the collection I 
counted 129 horseshoes, all of English make, distributed into 
eight collections, every one more or less resembling another. 
The shoes, symmetrically arranged and highly polished or var¬ 
nished as they were, looked well enough to the eye; and this is 
pretty well all I can say in favour of them; since, in a practical 
point of view, I saw nothing, after a long and tedious search, 
worth the pains of giving an account of to French veterinarians 
and farriers. 
All, or nearly all, possessed the fullering so characteristic of 
English shoeing, as well as the bevelling off of the inner border 
of the web for the sake of adaptation; and most of them were 
exhibited as perfections to prevent slipping. 
With this view, imagination had been stretched to its utmost 
to stamp the most fantastical irregularities upon the exterior or 
ground surface. In one collection alone, wherein I counted 28 
horseshoes, exhibited by Mr. Woodin, that seems to have been 
the sole object. Another occupied several patterns of shoes 
after Rod way, whose fabric was distinguished by a double ful¬ 
lering. In a third collection, exhibited by Mr. Stevens, of New¬ 
market, the same object is attained by rounding, after the 
fashion of a cylinder, the inferior border of the shoe, and by 
bevelling the external (instead of its internal) surface, or else 
by fullering the entire breadth of the shoe, &c. In another 
collection are shoes exhibited by Mr. Guy, such as are proper 
