The Express.
London, England, 1866-09-01 00:00:00

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In the main the dens ification of 1861 was copied
in the Paris Universal Exhibition of 1855. In the
Universal Exhibition of 1867, however, the visitor
must be prepared..2lffireat changes. The industrial
world has been in an arbitrary manner, so
that one manufacturer may find himself in many
groups. It is a claaificatiOn according to the wants
of man. We are told that there are wants com-
mon to all nation of the world. Every men
whether he be prince in Europe, or slave under the
King of Dahomey, has three wants, each more
or less complicat.W., according to the degree of his
civilisation. He wants food, clothing, and lodg-
ing. The arts that provide these wants, the raw
material on which these arts are expended ; and,
lastly, the fine arts, which provide for the wants
which spring from the civilisation or education of a
people ; these, according to the commissioners,
comprehend in a logical arrangement the art and
industry of the world. Taking these bases, the in-
dustry of the world has been divided for 1867 into
ten groups, viz.:-1. Works of art ;2. The means
and ,pplicatioa of the liberal arts ; 3. Furniture
and ether objaras intended for the household ; 4.
Clothes and other objects worn on the person ; 6.
iltaer materials and extracts from, or modifications
of, them in their various degrees of elaboration ; 6.
Tools and processes used in the common arts ; 7.
Food in a natural state or preserved, in various
Idegnies of preparation ; & Living objects and
models of agricultural establishments ; 9. Living
specimens and model establishments of horticulture;
10. Objects exhibited specially with the view of
bettering the physical and moral condition of
Pe° •
'Phis is a fanciful, we might almost say, a senti-
mental classification •, and is certainly not so easily
Icomprehensible to the mass as the densification
based on the Prince Consort's four grand sections.
The French mind delights in this kind of idea.
There is the central point of a circle. It is the sun
of the industrial world. Here we place the liberal
arts, the creations of the genius of man ; and hence
radiate streams of light to thieouter circumference.
The light as it travels is spread over an ever-
widening area till it falls on the cotton lying in
the pod, the flax waving in the field, the marble
tumbled in the quarry. The idea is pretty enough
—pretty for a bazaar, for a show ' • but we shall see
that these ten groups will exhibit to us not a few
heterogeneous corners, and that the system is
capable of casting a set of articles together that
shall be incongruous as the contents of a clown's
pocket.
The places of honour in the Exhibition have been
rererved for France and England. The principal
entrance to the exhibition will be exactly opposite
the Pont d'lena. It will open upon a noble vesti-
bule. The visitor will find himself in a nave nearly
80 feet in height, 50 in breadth, and more than
300 in length. Its proportions will be those of a
grand cathedral nave, and it will housed to display
all the monumental specimens of stained glass work.
This gorgeous nave will be flanked on the right by
the choicest English examples of art and industry ;
and on the left, by the industrial chefs-d'oeuvre of
France. This vast nave, which will cut through all
the circles of the building, direct to the central or
inner garden, will be, I apprehend, the moat striking
feature of the entire Exhibition. It is indeed a very
happyconception. It will cut through thevariotuigal-
leries—that is, through the food gallery, the clothing
gallery, ite., and so while at the angle of each
galleryit will present to the visitor the chefs d'oeuvre
of the two leading countries in each department
of human industry, will induct the observant spec-
tator into the secrets of the plan of the building
and the classification of its contents. At the inner
or southern extremity of the nave the second great
coup Bail of the Exhibition will be unfolded.
The visitor will find himself in a beautiful garden,
mirthful with the plashing of fountains and en-
compassed with colonnades, under which he will
see set forth in due instructive order a history of
man's labour. It has been observed, I think by
Mr. Carlyle, that man is a tool-using animal.
These colonnades about the central gardens will
bear out the definition of the philosopher of
Cheyne-walk. Man is a tool-using animal, and
ever has been. Here are the instruments he has
fashioned to his own purposes, from the daysof the
flintspear•headand hatchet to these times of exqui-
site philosophical instruments. The ages of flint
and bronze and iron will be expressed in the rude
instruments with which the unlettered workmen
of old killed their food and raised their houses,
and put raiment together. Pacing these colon-
nades, the thoughtful visitor may watch the soca-
mulation of human wisdom upon inert matter,
from the barbaric time when the man of little
light could just roughly shape a lump of iron into
a hammer-head, to the hour when human wisdom
could draw an iron thread fine as the spider's.
This exhibition of tools, from pre-historic times to
our own, should be examined in the company of a
Hosltzapfel. If France have retrograded in her
songs, if the ballad have degenerated since the day
when Chaucer learned Griseldis from the lips of
Petrarch, the arts have moved ahead. The laws, it
may be, have properly changed with the times.
In the old Gallic code, when Gaul was truly La
Genie Politique, the lute, it has been seen, was
kept sacred from the sheriff ; and now the article
which the law forbids the huisaier to lay his hand
on is the workman's box of tools. The old
Norman troubadour sang :
Esooutez icy jouvencellea,
Ecoutez away damoiseaux,
Vault mieux esti* bone que belle,
Vault illicit.' entre loyal que beau!
That was in the simple days of Norman chivalry.
This is not the vein in which such modern song-
writers as France can boast sing to the ladies of the
Boulevarts and the Champs Elysdes now-a-days.
Vault mieux eatre bells que bone

is the modern refrain • and the art galleries be
hind the historical colonnade of labour will show
how " belle " France is, and to what height she
has carried the arts of adornment. The simple old
Norman troubadour would cut a sorry figure
here with his state chivalry, brought with him from
his Scandinavian settlements beyond the Elbe and
Rhine.