The Sun.
London, England, 1853-07-20 00:00:00

THE CRYSTAL PALACE.

The Crystal Palace at Sydenham begins to cast be-
fore it a very distinct shadow of the magnificence to
come. Those who have availed themselves of the pri-
vilege, now open to all, of inspecting the works on pay-
ment of a ss. fee, must have been sufficiently impressed
with the thoroughness with which the business is being
done. They must have felt, if not said to themselves,
"This promises to be, not only the finest exhibition in
the world, but the finest exhibition possible, at the
world's present stage of progress." In magnitude and
variety, the display will certainly extend to the extreme
verge of the practically comprehensible. To have seen
the old Exhibition thoroughly, would have required no
small fraction of the leisure of a lifetime ; but the Sy-
denham display will be one which, if numerically more
finite, will yet demand far more time for its entire com-
prehension, on account of the vastly greater average in-
terest of the objects displayed. The objects will be:precisely
those which arefitted to be of the best and deepestinterest to
the greatest possible number of persons. Those of the fine
arts which are capable of being put under contribution
for exhibition will be represented with an extent and
completeness hitherto unknown. Fac similes of all the
noblest sculptures which ancient and modern times have
produced, will be assembled in one spot. Architectures
—Egyptian, Greek, Arabic, and Gothic—will not only
be represented, but re-produced, "life-size," in all their
more notable forms, and with practical illustrations of
the popular mysteries of polychromy, hypcethral roofs,
honey-comb vaulting, ancient frescoes and arabesques,
&c. ; and, furthermore, the main building itself will be
the first and most glorious specimen of an entirely new
style of architecture of singular beauty, and of great,
though, as yet, very imperfectly foreseen powers of adap-
tation to our peculiar modern wants. Mr. Ruskin, who
said of the architecture of the old Crystal Palace, that
The earth has bubbles as the water bath,
And this is of them,
will be found to have committed a memorable blunder ;
and he will doubtlessly be not slow to retract it when he
beholds, from the lovely western valley, the terraced hill
blazing with millions of flowers and jets d'cau, and
crowned with the lofty transepts, vaulted naves, and
soaring towers of the new cathedral of the arts and
sciences. If, in the presence of so poetical a subject,
we may be permitted to express ourselves by a poetical
figure, our old stone. and brick architecture may be said
to have died, like Goethe, calling for "more light," and
to have azisen, in the present form, with the full enjoy-
ment of the desiderated brilliance.

The art of nature will be represented side by side and
hand in hand with the art of man, and in the same order
—that is, historically. The marvels of Karnak and Nine-
veh, with their sphinxes and bulls as big as the Trojan
horse, will be matched with the productions of the
" heroic ages " of nature—the vast mud lake, the dreary
shore of the prx-Adamite isle, with its rank cover of
ferns, and its mighty denizens, the Ichthyosaurus, the
Mastodon, the Plesiosaurus, and the Megatherium, as
large as life, and larger than credible to the modern eye.
The race even of man will be called upon to render a full
account of itself, and the halls of the Sydenham Palace
will present to our astonished senses every variety of
the posterity of Shem, Ham, and Japhet from the "pure
Caucasian" to the Bosjesman, and from the giants of
Patagonia to the Aztec Lilliputians, together with the
physiology of these personages, we shall be enabled to
contemplate their main attainments or shortcomings in
the useful arts; especially the useful art of war, of which
the implements will no doubt appear to have constituted
the chief staple products of nine varieties out of
ten.
After the men among their war-tools, will co me the
beasts, birds, and fishes of modern times--i.e, the last
six thousand years or so—with their favourite botany ;
monkeys in their real skins climbing up their parasite
bound columns—of the palace; bats and vampires
clinging to its leafy roof ; lions and their prey coursing
through the shadowy and everlastingsummer of the aisles;
dodos and penguins squatting in appropriate recesses ;
marvellous moluscs taking their tranquil pleasure in
crystal tanks ; and fishes distorting themselves, secure
from every danger, unless, perhaps, that which was con-
templated in the famous rhyme which describes them as
sweating and swearing under " the sun's perpendicular
heat."
Full advantage of the opportunity is to be taken for
giving a system of illustrations of geology upon the
natural scale; and, in connection with this department,
we are to have complete exemplifications of the pro-
cesses of mining, quarrying, well-sinking, and tunnellin.
Although there is every reason to suppose, from the
present appearance of the works, that the Palace will he
sufficiently advanced by next May to be thrown quite
open to the public, it is not to be supposed that the
Exhibition can be perfected by that time. The Winter-
garden and the Departments of Manufactures and
Zbology will require a long time for their completion,
but whatever may be the incompleteness of the Palace
next May, the public may rest assured that, in general
effect, the display will almost surpass our present con-
ception, and that, in matter of detail, there will be far
more than can be inspected in one season by any person,
with only a reasonable amount of sight-seeing time on
hi hands.