The Express.
London, England, 1851-06-28 00:00:00

from
ces of

ge±:
flour, grain, potatoes, &c., mann! tnred ea
tow. Mears. Vemyss, of the , exlha
yarn dyed blue linen, " fast" in- tir ; border
hueleabeck, and a piece of Jae die bind*,
entirely of flax yarn. . , .
Mr. Robert JeffreS of dizzy -kill, Glosgow, kirealdy,
Forfar, and Brechin, has provided Sir different -rpeoimeni
of hurkaback, one or two of dowlu, nine varieties of ticks,
loom sheeting, diaper, &c., all of prime quality.
The firm of Jameson and Co., the well-known" importers
and manufacturers of Hull, have arranged their centribu'
Lion in a manner practically useful and instructive. We
have here samples of Petersburg, Riga, and Friesland flag,
both in the rough and in the dressed states. Petersburg
hemp, rough and dressed, both " loop and shorts," Best
Indian jute, also rough and dressed. Near these, sad
carefully classified, appear the yarn, canvas, itc., made
from each severally. Mears. Hall and Messrs. Spyce ex-
hibit patent made cordage from Baltic hemp, and else some
from Manilla hemp, together with cordage for sailing and
steam-vessels, mince, collieries, tho whale, and the deep sea
fisheries. In some of these, manual labour only is em-
ployed, in others the aid of steam is called in.
We must not conclude this notice without calling atten-
tion to the goods of some exhibitors properly belonging to
the present division, but erroneously arranged (either from
want of space or some other cause) along with the cotton
manufactures (Claes 11).
The articles to which we refer are numbered from 91 to
113, and comprise those belonging to Mr. S. Sadler, of
Irunmonger.lane ; Mr. Coulson, of Lisburn, in Ireland.
Messrs. Capper, of Once-church-street ; 3l'Leoronan, of
Bucklersbury ; Richardson, of Barnsley; and Messrs.
Wilks, of Watling-street. Their contributions consist Of
bleached linen, uranium, and sheeting', for the home and
foreign trade; Damask table and breakfast cloths, napkins.
de., beautifully wrought; striped or banded towelling;
hockaback; bleached sail canvas; cambric handkerchiefs;
eatehries ; Irish linens of very fine quality.

I'ItINTED PAPER.
Limited to its aboriginal meaning, there aro few, I
if any, specimens of " printed paper" to be seen within the
walls of the Crystal Palace that are calculated to attract the
attention of the most confirmed bibliomaniac. Typography, I
as an art, seems to have attained a very early maturity.
Within a comparatively brief period of the incident which I
has enabled Mr. Macßae to render memorable the Royal
Academy Exhibition of 1841, the " Presentation of the '
first Specimens of the first Printed Book by Caxton to his
Patron, Edward 1V.," the typefounder and letterpress
printer had exhausted even the possibilities of improve-
' ment. For delicacy and beauty, the publications of the
Aldose, and the Stephenses have never been surpassed—
perhaps not equalled—hy any subsequent typographist. The
" original editions," the " large paper copies" the works
printed on vellum, of which Dibdin wrote so lovingly, and
for which Earl Spencer bid against half a dozen honourable
and noble competitors, until the price of a single volume
exceeded that which a fair domain will now fetch in the
Irish Encumbered Estates Court, day all modern rivalry.
The printers of that age had sounded the depths of their "art
and mystery." After 3 centuries of practice and contrivance
their doings have never been outdone. It is true that they
took unheard-of trouble to attain excellence in their per-
formance, such as our busy and time-saving artists would
never stream of wasting in the pursuit of an ideal perfec-
r tion. What extant printer would spend ten years in the
persevering endeavour to collect a perfect " fount" of type,
or would expose the sheets of a voluminous work in the
plan, with an offer of fifty pounds reward to whoever could
detect a typographical error or a blemish in the impression ?
, Our existing generation of producers would not exert the
t patience, or the present race of purchasers would not
stand the cost, at which such elaborate perfection can only
be attained.

liiiatiMprovements we modern; have been able to ac-
complish lies entirely in another direction. At an alarming
sacrifice of accuracy and finish, we have secured an almost
mir.sculous superiority in price, dimensions, and rar laity
of execution.

Let us step into the department appropriated to moving
machinery. There stands a vertical cylinder steam print-
ing machine. It is throwing off copies of a journal whose'
columns of small type are copiously interspersed with
elaborate wood-cuts. Take up one of the printed
sheets. Compared with an illustrated work from the
Aldine pre..., or an old classic printed " in usum Delphini,"
we should throw aside the modern specimens of typography

with deserved contempt ; type and engravings seem la-
!mutably coarse, full of errors and imperfections, and the
whole impression is blurred and foggy, like the London
sun during this instant month, of June. But, considering
• that the illustrations represent events not sixty hours old—
that the types were all set up since the pro ions afternoon—
! and rho impression is worked otf at the rate of 100 per
' minute—the result heroine, a marvel of mechanical and
artistic skill. Mere rapidity of production has rendered,
• the printedsheet, which would have been nowise remarkable
if disinterred from the abysses of some old library, one of
the wonders of the world.

Or suppose we p.m through the swing-door into one of
- • • • •• • •

the courts that lie between the " machinery" and the nave•
Here we pause before a large sheet of printed paper, exhi-

bibs' by Messrs. Bradbury and Evans. It is a compound
of typography and engraving, designed to commemorate
the Great Exhibition itself, and is surrounded with a broad
decorative border, filled with allegorical figures, and quaint
descriptive groups and scenes. In many a page of some
antique missal and " book of offices" we might find illu-
minations displaying two-fold skill in design, and teu-fold
the artistic and inventive power that has been expended
upon the huge parallelogram before us. But, again, the
dimensions would strike with bewilderment Caxton or
Albert Darer. How a sheet of paper could be made
so large, or blocks of engraved wood could measure so
many superficial inches, or the two be brought together
with so true and beautiful a result would have defied their
utmost powers of comprehension. Thu execution of the
parts might have provoked many disparaging comments,
but the dimensions of the whole must have seemed to them
altogether marvellous.
' Once more let us pass on to a neighbouring bay. What
are those volumes of " printed paper," placed open, tier
I ahem tier, and row beside row, within this vast glass
ere monist the wall? They present the Holy Scriptures,
In different languages, exhibited by the Bible Society. The
print and paper are decent, but nothing more. But of the lan-
guages in which they arc printed, nine-tenths have never
before been exhibited in typography, many never in writ-
ten characters of any sort, and fur some the bible missions-
ties themselves had to construct letters, grammars, diction*,
rim, and everything that was required to exalt a fragment-
ary and barbarous patois to the dignity of a language. If
we crow the nave into the German department, we shall
find among the splendid collection of articles sent from the
imperial printingroffice in Vienna, a series of alphabets in
every tongue, arranged in proper order from the " Amberio"
to the Zeud," still more extensive in the range of variety.
It was the wonderful cheeping* of his first printed bibles
as compared with the cost of manuscript copies which is
said to have drawn suspicion upon Faust, forted him to
reveal his secret, and associated his name in subsequent
times with so many wild legends of diabolical agency. Oer
printers now have improved upon the prices of the early
typographers even more than these succeeded in doing on
primitive scribes and amanuenses. In the nave within the
boundary of the Visited Stater, stands a reading doh
copiously strown with broad newspaper sheets. Of that
this manipulation is no doubt rude. The type is ;pale and
shambling, the paper flimsy, and the impression blotched
and foggy. But look at the cost ! For a mass of typo-
graphy, which, thrown into an octavo form, would make
the moiety of a respectable volume, the charge is only I cent.,
I equivalent to an English halfpenny. Thousands of sheets,
various in name, style, and contents, are sold every week
at this almost nominal price in all parts of the
Union. Into the literary excellence they display
no will not stop to inquire. That may be looked
tom as an accident so far as the considerations we
an new ruining may be concerned. Given the smallest
Ibeeelemol megia or profit upon the printed sheet, and the 11
matists are quite ma likely to be good as if the price were
toefeld. Perhaps more so. Let but the writer's genius be
emancipated from government censorship, and the manu-
facturer's skill be relieved as far as possible from Excise re-
strictions, and the quality of the article they will combine
to produce will depend, nut on the absolute cost, but on the
Latelleetual taste of the community, the state of education
and amml culture among the great body of purchasers.
The supply of this, as of all other productions, is regulated
by the demand. We do not know that gross, scurrilous.
and vulgar writing can be bought cheaper than compositissi
of higher and purer quality. But this we do know—thme
Whether the superficial inches of type in a newspaper be
filled with the best or the worst species of literary composi-
tions must bo governed, not by the price, so long as this is
sufficient slightly to overlap the cost of the materials, but
by the wants and tastes of the society in which it is in-
tended to circulate.