to maintain the reputation of his manufacture, that he sacrificed every article which came from the oven in an imperfect state.

Such was the eminence Wedgwood reached as a manufacturer, that he carried every thing before him. His ware displaced foreign china in his own country, and spread itself over every part of Europe--not only ornamenting the palace, but filling the cot tage with means of comfort and cleanliness. No ware could be sold that had not his name stamped on each article. Wedgwood became a generic term-the question being also asked on the continent, "Have you any Wedgwood?" He secured this preeminence by the excellence of his productions, and not by exclusive advantages. He always steadily refused to obtain patents for his inventions, saying, "The world is wide enough for us all."

Inventors and Poets.

On reflection it will be found that mechanical invention, differs nothing from that which gives value to those pursuits considered to be more mental and refined. Homer and his Iliad, Virgil and his Æneid, Milton and his Paradise Lost, were minds and productions of the same exquisite fibre and tention, with Savary and Watt, with their engines, Huygens with his watch, Arkwright with his spinning frame, Meikle with his threshing machine, Bramah with his hydraulic press. In fact, observation frequently shows, that the power of constructing poetry and machines are united in the same individual. Hooke made verses as well as machines, and could as well have written a sonnet to his "mistress' eyebrow" as have presented his thirty-seven projects for flying. Samuel Moreland indited love songs, and sang them to his sweetheart. When total blindness had fallen on the jovial old man, he buried the effusions of his youth, considering them to be "gay deceits," and betook himself in his ninetieth year to the composition of psalms. Arkwright was famed among his customers for a light hand and an exquisite edge, and for verses which cut as keen as his razors. Watt in his youth was a rhymester, and few men in his generation read more fairy tales and poetry,-even in the meridian of his life, in the busiest period of his employment, the greater portion of his time was devoted to indulgence in this mental luxury. Few who knew the excellent Rennie, near the close of his life, would have dreamed of finding under the exterior of this inflexible man of bu siness, an enthusiastic admirer of poetry and music. The venerable Telford, when building rough stone wals as a journeyman

mason, was an esteemed contributor to the poetical corner of the Scots Magazine. The inventor of the celebrated congreve rocket had previously "let off" many poetical squibs. Cartwright early distinguished himself for his poetical composition; but the fine taste and exalted feeling which pervade them, must yield to the exquisite invention and extensive usefulness of his power-loom.

Poets, as well as mechanics, differ in the manner in which they exhibit their conceptions. One excels in loftiness of thought, another in delicacy of perception a third pleases by his harmoni. ous numbers, and a fourth, is esteemed for the useful tendency of his writings. Some mechanics delight in clock-work, others in steam engines the machines of others are polished even to a bolt head—and a ponderous mass whose jerking motion is the nuisance of a district, constructed by one whose ear is more refined than his rival manufacturers, moves with all the softness of a watch, and another applies the principles of a toy to a machine for abridging labor. There are rhymesters who will spin a fine thought through an infinity of words; there are also artist wire-drawers, who, by great skill, will draw an ounce or two of gold into a thread which will encircle the world. Your sounding, flashy, sparkling authors of a thousand brilliant nothings, are a sort of kaleidescope artists, whose most original, regular, and harmonious combinations, are produced by a thread of rag, a pin's head, a leaf, a bead, or a bit of crystal.

Public Works of the United States.

"At the first view, one is struck with the temporary and apparently unfinished state of many of the American works, and is very apt, before inquiring into the subject, to impute to want of ability what turns out, on investigation, to be a judicious and ingenious arrangement to suit the circumstances of a new country, of which the climate is severe,-a country where stone is scarce and wood is plentiful, and where manual labor is very expensive. It is vain to look to the American works for the finish that characterizes those of France, or the stability for which those of Britain are famed. Undressed slopes of cuttings and embankments, roughly built rubble arches, stone parapet-walls coped with timber, and canal-locks wholly constructed of that material, everywhere offend the eye accustomed to view European workmanship. But it must not be supposed that this arises from want of knowledge of the principles of engineering, or of skill to do them justice in the execution. The use of wood, for example, which may be con

sidered by many as wholly inapplicable to the construction of canal-locks, where it must not only encounter the tear and wear occasioned by the lockage of vessels, but must be subject to the destructive consequences of alternate immersion in water and exposure to the atmosphere, is yet the result of deliberate judg ment. The Americans have, in many cases, been induced to use the material of the country, ill adapted though it be in some respects to the purposes to which it is applied, in order to meet the wants of a rising community, by speedily and perhaps superficially completing a work of importance, which would otherwise be delayed, from a want of the means to execute it in a more substan tial manner; and although the works are wanting in finish, and even in solidity, they do not fail for many years to serve the purposes for which they were constructed, as efficiently as works of a more lasting description.

"When the wooden locks on any of the canals begin to show symptoms of decay, stone structures are generally substituted, and materials suitable for their erection are with ease and expedition conveyed from the part of the country where they are most abundant, by means of the canal itself to which they are to be applied; and thus the less substantial work actually becomes the means of facilitating its own improvement, by affording a more easy, cheap, and speedy transport of those durable and expensive materials, without the use of which, perfection is unattainable.

"One of the most important advantages of constructing the locks of canals, in new countries such as America, of wood, unquestionably is, that in proportion as improvement advances and greater dimensions or other changes are required, they can be introduced at little cost, and without the mortification of destroying expensive and substantial works of masonry. Some of the locks

on the great Erie canal are formed of stone, but had they all been made of wood, it would, in all probability, have been converted into a ship-canal long ago.

"But the locks are not the only parts of the American canals in which wood is used. Aqueducis over ravines or rivers are generally formed of large wooden troughs resting on stone pillars, and even more temporary expedients have been chosen, the ingenuity of which can hardly fail to please those who view them as the means of carrying on improvements, which, but for such contrivances, might be stopped by the want of funds necessary to complete them.

"Mr. M'Taggart, the resident engineer for the Rideau canal in Canada, gave a good example of the extraordinary expedients often resorted to, by suggesting a very novel scheme for carrying that

work across a thickly wooded ravine situate in a part of the country where materials for forming an embankment, or stone for building the piers of an aqueduct, could not be obtained but at a great expense. The plan consisted of cutting across the large trees in the line of the works, at the level of the bottom of the canal, so as to render them fit for supporting a platform on their trunks, and on this platform the trough containing the water of the canal was intended to rest. I am not aware whether this plan was carried into effect, but it is not more extraordinary than many of the schemes to which the Americans have resorted in constructing their public works; and the great traffic sustained by many of them, notwithstanding the temporary and hurried manner in which they are finished, is truly wonderful."

Manufactory of the Gobelins.

Among the curiosities of Paris, is a manufacture of tapestry, which is sustained as a sort of plaything by the nation. It is called the manufactory of the Gobelins, from the name of the dyers who commenced the works in ancient times, and established here their dye-house for coloring their worsted yarns, with which the pieces of tapestry were wrought. The most beautiful paintings are placed as patterns by the tapestry weavers, who rival the Chinese in fidelity and exactnes of imitation. An artist of spirit who may have the genius to design and finish a piece of painting upon canvass, could hardly be brought to spend one and often two years, in copying the same picture by inserting small bits of colored worsted, particle by particle, by means of the slow and tedious labors of the loom. Tapestry weaving must remain an imitative art instead of one that can confer honor on an artist for any originality, or bold touches of genius in the art of designing. Even at the moderate wages paid the workmen here, the cost of a single sheet of tapestry frequently exceeds $1400, and several years are required to complete it. So bright, vivid, ana well blended are the colors of the worsted thread, that few persons at the distance of three or four yards would suppose them to be the product of the loom. The frame that contains the extended threads of the warp, is placed in a perpendicular position, and the workman is seated behind the frame; carefully arranged by his side, are hundreds of little bobbins of worsted, of every imaginable color, the shade of which are so well blended and approximated to each other, that one can hardly tell where one terminates or another begins.-These bobbins he skilfully selects and holds near the picture which he is copying,

to compare the tints. Thread by thread he proceeds, and after satisfying himself in the selection of the color, he inserts a piece of worsted yarn, perhaps in some spots not longer than one eighth of an inch, using the bobbin itself instead of a shuttle, to pass the worsted filling in and out between the threads of the warp. After effecting this operation, he breaks off the yarn and crowds it in between the thread and the warp, by the teeth of a comb; he then seeks again for another tint to correspond with the picture before him. The warp or chain is composed of white woollen threads, and the weft, of all shades of colors that are prepared on the easel of the painter. The threads of the warp are not opened by means of treadles, or harness to allow the filling to be shot between them, as in common weaving; nor is a slaie or reed employed to press down or close the threads of the weft, after it is drawn in among the threads of the warp; but the artist uses for this purpose only a sort of comb, the teeth of which, after every operation of inserting a little piece of yarn, are employed to press it down and close it together in the work. The figure of an extended arm, or of a head, is wrought by the artist before he completes the filling, composing the back-ground around it. The form of a beautiful female may thus appear to be starting up in glowing colors, amid the threads spread like a cobweb over a square frame. A hand when thus woven in advance of the texture around it, seems as if formed of flesh and blood, and thrust amid the cords of a harp to sweep the sounding strings. This costly tapestry resembles the fine worsted work, executed in single stitch, by the fair hands of the ladies in their hours of domestic relaxation. It is so delicately composed that the outlines of the figure show no angular uneven edges; the surface of the tapestry being nearly as smooth and close as that of the oil painting from which it is copied. This establishment is supported at the national charge, the sheets of tapestry are used as ornaments of the royal palaces, and sometimes as royal gifts.

March of Umbrellas.

The following anecdote from a Scotch paper is well worth preserving. "When umbrellas marched first into this quarter, (Blairgorie,) they were sported only by the minister and the laird, and were looked upon by the common class of people as perfect phenomena. One day Daniel M-n went to Colonel McPherson, at Blairgorie House: when about to return, it came on a shower, and the colonel politely offered him the loan of an umbrella, which was politely and proudly accepted; and Daniel, with his head two or