elevations. Call the peak Paxton, if you
please; but I tell you that this peak is the
centre of a mountain system, which presents
grand and bold heights to your view. Call
me a mountain, and my peaks, if you will,
you may call Ellis, Playfair, Yapp (my
compilers), Clowes (my printer), and so forth.
Never mind measuring comparative heights.
Around Mont Blanc are many mountains;
there are many large hills clustering round
Snowden. One fool makes many; one wise
man makes more: and one great fact creates
around it generally other facts great in
themselves, although less lofty than the centre
around which they are collected. In this way
I am great, 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 mean the Illustrated Catalogue.
There I provide you with a little information,
which I will repeat in a condensed form;
and then, with as much modesty as is
consistent with a proper self-respect, I shall have
pride and pleasure in communicating to you
some additional particulars. In the first
place, you are aware that I am not one of
your ordinary Catalogues; a list of books, or
specimens already arranged and ticketed,
made in a quiet way by a gentleman who
walks among the articles in dressing-gown
and slippers; then deliberately printed and
revised in presence of the original articles
which it is designed to comprehend. No,
nothing of the sort. I was a Catalogue
before the Crystal Palace was an Exhibition.
From the north and the south, from the
east and the west, my fragments were brought
together in ships, and deposited by postmen
at Hyde Park, in one party-coloured heap.
Tah-tsi here, Shah Tishoo there, Sharps over
the water, John Smith at the Antipodes,
Oaweehoitoo in the Sandwich Islands,
Monsieur Touson of Provence, Herr Grubstik of
Heinefettersdorf, Ben Ismael, and
Paskyvitchikoffsky, and fifteen thousand people more;
— deliberately I say, fifteen thousand people, of
all climes, all tempers, and all manner of
hands at literary composition, had to be
written to, and from each had to be received
his modicum of "copy." Before the articles
described were sent, or when they were upon
the road, each contributor was applied to for
his description of the articles he meant to
send. Overwhelming might have been the
eloquence of Shah Tishoo, descanting on his
carpet; stupifying might have been the ac-
count given by Meinherr Grubstik of his case
of pipe-heads. If no precaution had been
used, I should have been even a more
wonderful thing than I now am; but there would
have been a something fearful in my
composition. I should have been a monster like
that chronicled in Frankenstein. To obviate
this inconvenience, printed forms were
supplied to the contributors. "These forms,
which were to be to the Catalogue what the
manuscript of an author is to his proposed
work, were framed with care, and were
accompanied with instructions for filling them
up, which suggested those points on which
interesting or important information might
be supplied, together with the descriptive
account. There were four varieties, each
appropriated to one of the four great sections of
Raw Materials, Machinery, Manufactures,
and Fine Arts. The essential characters of
these forms were similar in each section, but
the instructions for filling them up differed
necessarily with the peculiar differences
suggested by each section. The subjoined form
represents that used in sending in descriptions
of machinery, and is a type of those used in
the other sections:—

"List of Articles of MACHINERY to be exhibited by

——————— Exhibitor's Surname.————————Christian Name.

——————— Country.———————Address, stating nearest Post Town.

———————Capacity in which the Exhibitor appears, whether as Producer, Importer, Manufacturer, Designer, Inventor, or Proprietor.

In order to facilitate their classification on
being returned by exhibitors, the forms in the
four different sections were printed in black,
blue, red, and yellow, the latter applying to
sculpture and fine art, the former to raw
materials, and the intermediate ones
respectively to machinery and manufactures.
Every exhibitor was required to send in one of
these forms, accompanied with a duplicate in
every respect similar to it, and in so doing
was supplied with a 'receipt for Catalogue
forms,' which was a guarantee for the
reception of his goods into the building." A very
large number of these forms were printed and
supplied to Local Committees, and to all
exhibitors who applied for them; together with
instructions for filling them up. These I omit.
They are well-articulated skeletons on which
to construct a succinct and sufficient
description; general forms like the "Rules for taking
Cases" given to medical students in many of
our hospitals.

Of the two copies sent in, one was held by
the Executive Committee; the other placed
in the hands of the compiler, Mr. Yapp.
The directions above specified, of course, did
give a certain uniformity and a reasonably
manageable character to the separate flakes
of the great storm of description. It is also
to be understood that many of the exhibitors
neglected altogether, or postponed to the
last minute, their answers; many answered
in their own rambling way, with a good deal