The Express.
London, England, 1851-08-23 00:00:00

They learn in suffering • hat they teeth in I.ollg.

I, as a celebrated Catalogue, had much to go through with
ere I learnt that which I teach now in the illustrated.
edition, the official edition, the French edition, the (lemma
edition, and the twopenny edition. I call myself a celee'
prated Catalogue, and I consider myself a work of great
importance. My father, the Exhibition, certainly begot in
me an illustrious um, who shall hand down hie name for the
refreshment of posterity. My mother, the Committee, by
whom 1 was brought forth, has, I think, brew A...aid:only
rewarded for her pains. There would have been a visible
blank in the world's binary if I had not been bees.
Oa matters of business it is well known that ray manner
of speaking is extremely terse; FM none of your diffuse
Catalogues that quote poetry out of unpublished manu-
scripts, or out of Scott, and have as many explanations to
make as ministers when parliament is sitting, or av turtle-
doves who have wounded one another's feeling', and desire
to re-establish peace. I say a great deal, to be sure, but
then there is a great deal in what Ido say. Thin being my
business habit, and which, as you know fits me uneeme•:
manly tight, I fast it a relief sow to thmariir metraint.sair
wear something a little easier; something more flowing.
In fact, I mean to flow out now into a tide of gossip; to
pour into you ear, confidentially, a stream of information
on the subject of my early life, and to unbend, if I may
say so, to un-eatatugue myself; to loosen myself from the
accustomed bondage by which I um compelled to travel only
on a certain path. Still it is possible that u confirmed
business character, like mine, may slip into the old train.
Fund of arithmetic be nature, Walkingame is Byron to me,
and my Wordswortfe is lie Morgan. Should these fact
peep nut, and should my figures be Arabic, with Ices enter-
tainment in them than some other Arabian thing., that
might be mentioned, you must shrug your shoulders, and
say, it's his way; for, after all, what is he but a Catalogue?
What but a Catalogue ? No, don't say that, because it
sounds it little like depreciation. Now, I cannot utford to
be depreciated, because, as it is, my greatness is not fairly
understood. Mr. Dando's appetite tier oysters was large,
but what would you say at out Mr. Band() when you reached
home after dining with that Major Cartwright, whose own
notion of a dinner you will find put down in one of Southey's
common-place books? Said he to the young poet, •• I make
only two cuts of a leg of mutton. The first takes all that is
on one side ; the second, all that is on the other. Atter that,
I put the bone across my knife to get the marrow."
The epic grandeur of Major Cartwright's dinner, with its
two sublime cuts, would put out of your mind the lesser
lyric of a Dando, though nineteen dozen of natives should
give .'eteet to his performance. 'rite clatter going tin about
that horrid Exhibition building keeps me, I fancy, too much
unobserved. It I were to draw another parallel (the term
is mathematical, but I am not yet in a state of De-Morgan-
isation)—were I to draw ;mother parallel, I should allude
to the great mountain, Chimborazo, which is said in its first
aspect to disappoint all travellers. The enormous magni-
tude of all surrounding features, dwarfs the chief feature to
the mind; there are nu Brighton Dimmer Salisbury Plains
at hand, as objects of eomparison. Now, you have made a
Chimborazo of the Exhibition, and it towers in Ilydispark,
and you are astounded, and you do nut look at the Our-
rounding elevation.. Call the peak Paxton, if you please;
but I tell you that this peak is the centre of a mountain
system, which pre sentsgrand and bold heights to your view.
Call me a mountain, and my peaks, if you will, you may
call Ellis, i'layfair, Tapp (my compilers), Clowes (my
printer), and so forth. Never mind measuring comparative
heights. Around Mont Blanc arc many muuutains ; there
are many large hills clustering round Snowden. One tied
ninkee many ; one wise man makes more ; and 011 e great
fact creates around it generally other facts great in thent-
selves, although less lofty than the centre a ..... nd which
they arc collected. In this way lum greet, and what I
want to talk to you for now, is this: I want to have my
greatness understood.
I shall begin by quoting from a high authority, namely,
myself; and, when I say myself, I messthe Illustrated
Catalogue There I provide you with a little infornuition,
ißich I will repeat in a condensed form; and then, with

. •
much modesty as is comistent with it prolwr is..ii•respect,
• " • • .

.
shall have pride and pleasure in communicating to you
sumo additional particular.. In the first place, you arc
aware that I am nut one of your ordinary Catalogues; a list
of hooks, urspecimens already arranged and ticketed, made
in 0 quiet way. by a gentleman who walks among the arti-
cles in dressing-gown and slippers; than deliberately
painted awl revised in presence of the original
articles which it is designed to comprphend. No,
nothing of the tart. I wit. a Catalogue before
the Crystal Palace was all Exhibition. From the
north and the south, from the east and the west, my frag-
ments were brought together in ships, and deposited by
postmen at Ilydespark, in ono party-coloured heap. Tah-bd
here, Shah Tishou there, Sharps over the water, John Smith
at the Antipodes, Oawechuitoo in the Sandwich Islands,
Monsieur 'I 011.1111 of Provence, Herr Grubstik of Ileinefet-
tendurf, Ben Ismael, awl Paskyvitehikutrsky, and 1.1,000
people ;--sleliberately, I say, 14,1100 people, of all
climes, all tempera, and all manner of halal at literary
onnposition, had to Ills written to, and from each bnd to bo
received his of "copy." Melina', thu articles
described were sent, or when they were upon the rend, each
enntributor WWI ill/plied to for his description of the articles
be meant to send. Overwhelming might have het,, the
eloquence of Shall TisilllN/ descanting on his caret ; stupi-
tying might have been the amount given by Meinheer
firuhstik ul his case of pipelwails. If no precaution bad
been used, I should hove been even a more wonderful thing
than I now am; but there would have Len a something fear-
ful in my composition. I should have been:a monster like that
chronicled in Frankenstein. To nbciate this 1111.1111 A

',riot.. 41 forms were supplied to the contributors '•'l' hex• firms
which were to he to the Catalogue what the manuscript of
an author is to his proposed work, were framed with care,
and were accompanied with instructions for tilling them up,
which suggested those points on which interesting or im-
portant information might he supplied, together with thu
ticsaiptiec account. There were four varieties, each ap-
propriated to one of the tour great 444:aims of raw materials,
maeltioery, m, factures, and tine arts. The essential
characters of these (onus were ' 'par in each section, hut

the in.tructien, for tilling thorn up tlilliTtal neerssa rily
with the peculiar dilferenceit migiowtett by each owetion.
The subjoined lona rutin:tient* that t.ed in sending in
dex•riptiun. of machinery, end ft a type of thus WoC/i iu
the other bketion, :
/.,at .le.rtew at MACHIN. RV toile ...chalky!
•• ~ bri-U.41 Name. ----

hats,. -- 114,11.1 {oe.
whit h the Eshiblltte sppxr•, wht tber her..
dime?, importer, outon.,'Mlarer, designer, ifll k., ur
proprietor.

Na lof Attie...

DESCILIITIONS.

In order to facilitate their classification on sing returned
by exhibitor., the forms in the four differeat vetiens were
printed in black, blue, red, mid yellow, the latter applying
to sculpture and fine art, the ffirmer to raw materials, and
the intermediate ones respectively to machinery and manu-
factures. Every exhibitor was required to send in one of
these forms, accompanied with a duplicate in every respect
similar to it, and in su doing 1VUN11,011.4 with a " receipt
for Catalogue forme," which was a guarantee for the recep-
tion of his goods into the building. A very ;urge number
of these forms were printed aid supplied to local rout-
mates..., and to all exhibitors who applied for them ; tuge•
ther with instructions fur tilling them op. Theae I omit.
They are well-artieulated skeletons on which to construct a
succinct and sufficient description ; general forms like the
"rule. ffir taking cases" given to medical students in many
of our hospitals.
Of the two copies sent in, one NIA held by the Executive
Committee; the other placed in the hued* of the compiler,
Mr. Yupp. The directions *Mac specified, of course,
did give a certain uniformity end a reasonably manage-
able character to the separate flak. s of the great 'term
of description. It is alum to be understood that many
of the exhibitors neglected ultimether, ur postponed
to the last minute, their answers ; many an-
swered in their own rambling way, with a gaol dual
of self-laudation ; and many who endeavoured to comply
with the desires of the executive made a mid mess of their
de-eriptions, " unaccustomed as they were to public writ-
ing." These returned forms had then to ho taken as
they came, and reti mil to their respective classes. The
climes were thirty in number, and the classifier was Dr.
Lyon Mayfair. The forms were then gone through in the
compiler's office ; all superfluous matter was as for us pos.
CrSSI•II out of them ; knotty sentences acre un-
raveled as far as time peunitted,and lead grammar mended.
The sending out of forms wombat several men for nearly a
month' during which time they bud folded, eneffised, and
directed more than fifty thousand printed epistles. Ima
not quoting my illustrated edition now, but have begun to
gossip, ffir I want to tell you a few odd things more in
about my compilation. The must minute information,
I know, is welcome, when it concerns any celebrated elm-
, meter. The office of my compiler was opened in the build-
ing in Hyde-park, on 21st of January, 1841, with a stag
composed of the compiler-in-chief, and three aidva-
. de-plume. After the lapse of a few weeks, this number
was increased by one, and remained then fixed until the
middle of April, when it was further increased. Six indi-
viduals then worked on with occasional all until the cud
I of May; when five, or less, were found to he sufficient, and
in the beginning of July all compilation duty Ceilit
The returns of exhibitors front divers parts began to meet
each other in the compiler's office towards the end of Janu-
ary. As they came, they were sorted into sections, and
arranged alphabetically. Then they were re-examined to
ascertain how many had neglected to bring duplicates ; and
duplicates were made in the office to supply all such deli
cienciss. For a third time, the returns were then examined,
in order to compare them with a list of the proposed extu
biters; and not a few supernumerary papers, sent on Teen.
halos, were in this way detected and cast ant, Zits Ll