taken, if under a well-controlled representative system, the arts are not capable of disseminating knowledge in fifty ways that have never yet been attempted, and I am also strongly impressed with the notion that they should tend to a general improvement of the morals of the people as well as of their intellect. I have no doubt that under a proper general board with local management they would be highly capable of both. Some of our manufactures far excel others in the merit of the designs, and this is usually in proportion to the difficulty of copying them, as the injury of a deficient copyright is therein less felt. I should instance, particularly, the japan manufacture, where the designs are more exquisite than any thing produced abroad. The excellence of a design is partly to be attributed to the difficulty of copying, inasmuch as it is an impediment to the pla giarist, and consequently a protection to the original designer. In the case of the japan manufacture, in consequence of the difficulty of the manual operation itself, the thing is better protected, and I ascribe it partly to the system of encouragement and competition established in the manufactures themselves; the works in japan are, however, conspicuously defective in perspective. I mention this to show, that of all the branches that ought to be taught, that of perspective is one of the first, inasmuch as it is not readily to be obtained. Each manufacturer in the japan trade has his own designers and painters. Designing is not a trade by itself, by which persons get their livelihood, that is, to furnish patterns to the manufacturers of designs in paint, not at least in Birmingham; what there may be in London I am not acquainted with. In that particular line the designs are very superior, but there are inaccuracies from want of instruction. At some interval of time and distance I examined the French and English japan works repeatedly, but not lately; there are no French ones that can atall compare with ours. The French shun the competition, though many individuals in France are anxious to introduce our japan articles into France at present. We have the advantage in both material and design; we are not equal in execution to the Asiatics, but superior in design. Mechanics' Institu. tions would be so far more beneficial than any school of design, that they would convey to pupils knowledge in chemistry or mechanica or design, according to their natural genius. They would do exceedingly well if you could manage the election of the professors; but in that case a member of an Institution is more likely to be elected than one not a member; it is therefore local talent which gets the influence, which is not so good as a person confirmed by the approbation of a general board. If the Institutions would

agree to be subjected to the decision of a board in London, that much good might be effected. The advantage Mechanics' Institu tions would derive from the parent Institution is, they would collect a variety of models, which they cannot now obtain. Therefore, in this country, where you have three or four branches of trade carried on, in Manchester, and in some places almost every branch of trade, you would not confine it to a school of design only, but make it one branch of what would be a drawing class; those who have a taste for chemistry would be good preparers for the materials of printing, and so you would make it useful. Another way might also be easily accomplished, by placing museums under the direction of men capable of communicating instruction.

Samuel Wiley examined:

I belong to the firm of Jennings and Batteridge, of Birmingham, by whom there have been great improvements made in the japan trade of late years; being men of taste, and stimulating their apprentices and teaching them the art of drawing; they have taken great pains. Our men have inserted works of art in the Birmingham Exhibition and other places. Our trade

might be increased by improving the public taste; the public taste is bad; I could sell them the worst things, the most unmeaning, in preference to the most splendid designs and the best executions. I could frequently sell bad articles, bad in execution and design, for the same money as I could sell the best. The Chinese adhere to but one style of work exclusively, and that most beautiful in point of execution, but unmeaning as it regards design and perspective; in fact, the designs are very bad. The materials they use I consider one great means of their goods looking so much better than ours; the material they use. Their material after it is laid on, whether it is gold or gold powder, is never var. nished, and there is a degree of brilliancy and richness that never appears after it is varnished; we are obliged to varnish ours to preserve its colours, in doing which we lose a great part of its brilliancy. Some years ago we procured gold powder from China, and could make it appear of the same appearance as that from Canton, and we found it very valuable indeed for the purpose of imitating the Indian cabinets and the various articles we have to copy or to repair; but there is a different appearance, as different as possibly can be, between the Indian gold and gold powder, and that of British manufacture; and the material they use for laying on the gold is different; we are informed it is a gum extracted from trees, and when the parts are laid on they are the very same as though you cut small gold wires and laid

cal east and west plane, while the sole of his left foot, with the heel a little elevated, will be in a plane inclined or dipping to the south-east-or, if his toes are turned in that direction, to the east. If the joints of a series of rocks and the planes of the stripes be parallel to the sole of his left foot, they will indicate a foot-quarry; but if parallel to his back, then a back-quarry. The rock between one bed and another being called a back, or foot, according to its position. The south surface of a back is the south bed, and the north surface the north bed; and the surfaces of a foot are the upper and under beds. The stripes do not appear on the beds of either backs or feet, as they are parallel to them.

The next point to be noticed is the cleavage, or the innumerable planes in which direction the slate-rock may be split, for roofing or other purposes. Although the slate-rock, both in back and foot quarries, appears to have been formed by a series of parallel plates or layers, and there are natural joints, which have been described, in the same direction, it cannot be further split parallel to those stripes or joints; but the planes of cleavage cross the planes of the stripes, dip. ping considerably to the south, and, in this respect, nearly at the same angle in both the back and foot quarries. But the plane of cleavage in the backquarries, as far as observation has been made, deviates less from the plane of stripes, &c., than in the foot-quarries. The angle of deviation in the former being sometimes only 18°, while in the latter it has been found as much as 70°. The back-quarries are further distinguished by being called shear-bate, and by the slates having broader stripes in consequence of the cleavage, across the stripes, being more oblique.

The striped appearance in both the back and foot quarries is, however, supposed to indicate, notwithstanding this difference in the angle of cleavage, that originally they were in the same position. Whether this has been the case or not, I will leave to geologists to determined; only observing, that I have ascertained that to put the plane of cleavage of a foot-quarry into the position of that in a back-quarry, supposing the angle with the stripes, &c. in both to be the same, the eastern end must be turned to the western, and the top, south part of the

foot, turned so as to be the lower part of the north bed of the back. This operation is most satisfactorily shown by a hand specimen of the material. Or, if the specimen be revolved on any line in the dip of the cleavage, as an axis, the change from the position of a foot to that of a back is made in half a revolution, and, by reversing the motior, from the position of a back to a foot. This curious change of position, if it has taken place, is the more remarkable, for back and foot quarries have been found alternating with each other to a great distance, and also the vertical stripes on a back and the inclined stripes on a foot have been observed with only a joint to separate them. If ever a back and foot were in the same position, there are other seams, common to both, which show also that if any change has taken place, it must have been by motions similar to those described.

The planes of cleavage in the crag and grown bars are not in the same position as in the other part of the slate; consequently, when these occur they produce a degree of unevenness on the face of the slate. In splitting large slates the elasticity of the material is very observable. In splitting a slate, say four or five feet long and an inch thick, into two, the opening at one end will be some inches apart before the other is separated.

All slate cleaves, and is more easily worked, when first taken out of the quarry. After being exposed to the air, good slate becomes harder, and it is then more difficult to split. In thus becoming harder, it is supposed it loses some moisture which it contained whilst in the quarry. Whether this is the case or not, it is evident that it has no tendency to absorb any moisture after thus becoming hard; which property, no doubt, is the reason why it remains unchanged in exposed situations for time immemorial.

The price of slate for roofing purposes varies, while the quality of the material of which they are made is the same. Slates which have an even surface, and which are of that thickness which gives them an adequate degree of strength, are considered the best. If slates are large, they must be thicker than smaller ones to be equally strong. But if either smaller or larger slates are thicker or thinner than the average requisite strength for roofing, they are sold at a less price per ton. Slates are reduced in value if they have

the whole of the manufacture in my own workshops; while in France the production of a jacquard machine is divided among the workshops of several persons. There are only two principal makers here, but the competition between those two is so great that the prices are kept low. Many inexperienced persons have made attempts to make the machines, but have not been able to compete with those who had more experience, and they have failed in producing the article as cheaply as we. I employ about from thirtyeight to forty workmen, all in London. The operation of adapting the design to the loom is this: First, the design or pattern to be made on the cloth is drawn on paper, and produced for approbation; it exhibits on paper what it is intended to be on the cloth; as the threads are very minute, they are then as it were extended on another paper, the rule-paper, of a larger size, which shows the pattern as it were magnified, so as to place so many threads to the inch, perhaps twenty, so that every square represents a thread. This is what the French call mise en carte, and in English, put upon rule-paper. The next process the rule-paper undergoes is, to be read in, which transfers the pattern from the rule-paper, and prepares it fully for the stamping of the cards. The rest of the process is mechanical, consisting of punching holes in the cards, according to the number required, and applying the card to the machine. In this mechanical operation I have seen 200 boys employed in weaving the richest figures in the loom To so simple a principle is the process of weaving now reduced, that even boys of sixteen are set to weave the figures of so complicated a nature, as formerly would have required men of twenty or thirty years' experience. In some departments of this process, the manufacture is superior in England; in others in France. Plain silks, if manufactured with the same materials, the production will be equal in England as in France; figured silks are equal, as respects the mere manufacture; and there are two points of inferiority, the designing and the mise en carte-put in rule-paper. One particular reason for inferiority in England, which has much struck me, is, the very costly price of cards. In the woollen manufacture, the cards which have been used for woollen goods have, as I have observed, been returned to the Excise. A return of duty has been obtained. I think that, if the same thing were done with the jacquard cards, it would have a tendency to diminish the price. Though generally speaking the price is about equal in the two countries; yet in the reading the designs there is this enormous difference; the average price in France is three francs, or half-a-crown sterling; in England, the price was a long time 15s; it came down to

10s., and I now charge 8s, per hundred. I attribute that to two causes, the presence of silk manufacturers, which has created a greater competition and a greater necessity for activity. This activity commenced in 1823, but since 1826 the activity and com. petition were very greatly increased. The consequence of this competition has been also the introduction of a great many French dyers to settle here. The French designer understands the mise en carte (putting on rule-paper) better than the English designer; and the French metteur en carte, understands design better than the English metteur en carte. The great reason that occasions this great difference between the metteurs en cartes and designers of England and France, is, that the designers themselves are obliged to put it on the rule-paper, and previous to that go through every branch of the business (including the weaving), and this is undoubtedly the cause that they are more perfect. I do not mean to say that they design better in France than here; but there is a much greater number of designers of the same capabilities in France than here. In consequence of the encouragement the French designers receive, they are as well more numerous as more talented in their science, in common; although there are individuals in England equally as clever, and with a profound knowledge of their art. The artist who draws the designs at Lyons is the artist generally employed to transfer it to the lined paper. This person, whom I consider the metteur en carte, is only employed in that; he is inferior here. In Lyons, in a great number of instances, there is never a design drawn at all; but the first production of the design is on the lined paper. The metteur en carte is himself an artist. It is in the connexion between the arts and the manufactures that we are inferior. In France a manufacturer employs from three to four artists, and in England one artist supplies eight to ten maufacturers. An indifferent artist employed in painting the patterns on the ruled paper may be obtained for 501 a-year, but there are men whose services are worth from 4001. a-year, or even a share of the manufac ture. The sale of the fancy trade entirely depends upon the taste and abilities of the designer. In France there are often only one or two artists who are paid, and largely paid, who get from 1801. to 2007 a-year, but there are several who give their services for the instruction they receive. The metteur en carte ought to be well instructed in designing. He ought to be also well acquainted with manufactures in theory and in principle. They are so at Lyons, but they are not so in this country. The jacquard loom was first adopted at Lyons after the Revolution. Before the invention of the jacquard machine, eight

or ten years were required to make a good workman; afterwards six months were sufficient. For ten years after the discovery, the machinery remained with very little influence, but designers increased with the introduction of the machine. From 1808 to 1810 the machine was brought into activity, but at that period it was very imperfect. In 1814 it was much improved, and in 1815 it was fairly established. When France possessed the monopoly of the jacquard machine, it gave her great advantage in other countries; but since it has been introduced into many other countries, France has only by great exertions produced better and cheaper than they. There is a school of design at Lyons. The young artists have since the discovery of jacquard particularly turned their attention to the mise en carte. There has been every augmentation of such young artists; indeed, there were no such artists before; for it was found requisite to set up jacquard machines in the school of design. This lasted two or three years only, as they now obtain the required knowledge of the loom out of the school. The discovery of the jacquard loom infinitely multiplied the number of young artists, who devoted them. themselves to the mise en carte. The great advantage of jacquard machinery is this, that it enables that to be done in a few weeks, which before occupied months; and that the change of a pattern formerly was a long, laborious, and costly affair, and now it is a very simple one, and may be done in a few minutes after the completion of the reading and the stamping of the cards. In France,

in ordinary cases, our artists receive six months' instruction in the theory of the ma nufacture before they are called into the field of practice, after they have been instructed in the school of design at Lyons; or artists, during their instruction, must pass two hours a day to understand the theory of the application of the design relative to the machine. There are private instructors who give those lessons in the school of design at Lyons; they also give instructions in themise en carte, making their talent practical. The English copy the good French, and the French copy the good English. The best English designs are those in cotton goods; but the English do not understand the mise en carte. We sometimes make good copies from English patterns for the Spitalfields looms from the English printed muslins, but it requires taste and knowledge to arrange them. The French manufacturer can come with patterns every year to England, bringing with him patterns on the material; not only designs on paper, but on the material; whilst the English manufacturer only brings it on the paper; the cause of that is, the French manufacturer employs weavers who are solely engaged in

the production of patterns, and as the pattern on the tissue cloth shows more distinctly the effect than the drawing on paper, it gives them an advantage in the market. There are individuals who are engaged, and who collect at Paris the patterns in vogue there, which they bring and dispose of in England, and they also carry to the continent such patterns as they can collect here for the purpose of sale. These only serve as mere ideas; in the execution of the working drawings the French improve upon us. If there were a school of design established in London, its effects in three years would be so to equal. ise the manufactures of the two countries, so that the country in which they were produced would not be recognisable. Jacquard machinery is applicable to every fabric, figured or flowered, every thing that can be woven; to every species of tissue to which a loom can be applied, even to straw hats, horse-hair and wire, and every other species of web. The principal difficulties in the way of improvement in the silk manufacture are, first, the high duty on paper. The high price of paper has this injurious effect, that the manufacturer is very unwilling to change his patterns. There is a difference between the cost in France and England; it is as one to four. The English card is superior to the French; but that makes little difference, because it is never worn out, a new pattern being always introduced before the cards are worn. The two disadvantages I consider are these, the higher price of the cards, and the inferiority of the metteur en carte. With respect to colours, I think, in a great many cases where there is an apparently greater beauty in the French dyes, they are much less permanent than those of England, and I have seen many examples where, after a few weeks' wearing, the French colours have wholly faded.

"I take the liberty of making the following few remarks about designing and mise en arte; for as this is the very head part of all that belongs to the weaving department, and, at the same time, is the very least cultivated in this country, it is before any thing else the most worthy of your attention and consideration. For as long as this part of the manufactory is not highly improved, and proper schools for design and mise en carte erected, and children, who already have acquired the practical and theoretical part of weaving, are engaged and trained up in this art, France will always have to boast over England of the honour of sending more fancy patterns, and finer and more beautiful workmanship, and, in fact, brought to the highest perfection. But, on the contrary, if it should meet with your Honourable Committee's approbation, and get the least en

couragement to bring it into fulfilment, and to get such schools erected in some quarter of Spitalfields, or its arrondissement, there is no doubt whatever in a very short time the English manufactures will soon rival, if not altogether equal, the French manufacture, and thus throw off the shame of seeing foreign manufacture surpass the English in quality and superior workmanship.

"Your very humble servant,
"CLAUDE GUILLOTTE."

Mr. John Henning, examined:
Have you been in the habit of executing
works in relief for a considerable time?-
Yes.

You executed the frieze on the entrance over the gate-way at Hyde Park Corner, and the frieze on the Athenæum?-Yes, in con⚫ junction with my son John, who had contracted with Mr. Burton to do that work in 1827, which was followed by the frieze of the Athenæum, which was a selection from the sculptures of the Parthenon. On both friezes the design was drawn upon the stone, and cut without the usual process of pointing These were our first works of the kind in stone. Previously I had been engaged principally in drawing and modelling, and our first work in intaglio was the sculptures of the Parthenon, which was begun in 1816, and finished in 1822.

Have you ever had occasion to consider the subject of copyright?-Yes, I have; but I have only to tell the Committee of the difficulties which we modellers and sculptors experience; I do not feel that I dare presume to propose a remedy, though I may notice the evils which I have suffered.

State them as clearly as you can ?—I have brought a specimen of the frieze of the Parthenon engraved on slate in intaglio; I have also brought a cast of this intaglio in plaster, and another, broken, in the way in which it appears now in the Museum; the intaglio is the matrix from which these casts have been taken; previous to engraving the intaglios, careful drawings were made from the mutilated marble, and the deficiencies were made good to see the effect, and then they were transferred to the slate in the opposite direction, that they might be right when

cast.

You were going to state the difficulties which these specimens were to elucidate?Yes, as soon as the casts are issued, whoever lays their hands on them may, with very little trouble, take moulds in sulphur, wax, or plaster, and multiply them to any number.

You consider that the law does not afford you protection?-There is no protection, as I understand, but in an action at law. The thing appeared so unmerciful to me, to lay hold of a poor man to raise an action against

him, that I never could think of doing that. It struck me that if there was any thing like a committee of art in London that could be appealed to, to identify where a spoliation or theft of this kind had taken place, it might be much cheaper than law.

A species of arbitration committee?—Yes; for any gentleman who knew any thing about it, could detect those thefts readily.

Have you ever thought of the subject of registering such works?—I always have un. derstood by the law, that if you put your name and date it was sufficient, but I think such property as much my own as my clothing, and no one has any more right to appropriate it than to claim my personal labour without remuneration. The originals exist in the Museum, open to all who may desire to make studies from them, without condition, but compliance with the economical arrangements of that institution. This would be fair and honourable strife who could do best; but what hand or heart can contend with the covetous and unjust, who, by the cunning labour of a few days can contrive to rob me of years of life, and scatter over the whole land the deteriorated casts of my works, much to my prejudice as an artist?

All you want is a cheap tribunal ?—That is the very thing wanted.

Have you suffered from your own works being infringed upon ?—Yes, very much, îndeed.

Can you give any remarkable instance?— I had, within the last six months; a man, without giving me his address, wrote to me twice, and put me to the trouble of writing to him; at last I got a third letter, giving particular orders to make them ready. I took it to be some gentleman; at last I found after I had packed them up by a given day, I found he had gone to a person who was in the habit of furnishing people with them, and he never came near me. Nothing would do in that case but an action at law, therefore I preferred rather putting up with the loss...

You submitted silently to the inconvenience rather than encounter another?-I cannot blame anybody for that but myself.

Then he pirated your works in this case? -No, I could not call this piracy, but rather resetting, for he went to the pirate who served him with my stolen goods; but many have pirated them, and continue to do so.

You felt you could only have recourse to an action at law?-I never understood that I had any other recourse than that.

Why had you not?-Because of the expense, and I could not think in my heart of prosecuting a person, probably without a shirt, who perhaps did it from poverty; I could not proceed against him.

You are a self-taught artist ?-I do not