of self-laudation; and many who endeavoured
to comply with the desires of the Executive,
made a sad mess of their descriptions,
"unaccustomed as they were to public writing."
These returned forms had then to be taken
as they came, and referred to their respective
classes. The classes were thirty in number,
and the classifier was Dr. Lyon Playfair.
The forms were then gone through in the
compiler's office; all superfluous matter was
as far as possible crossed out of them; knotty
sentences were unravelled as far as time
permitted, and bad grammar mended. The
sending out of forms occupied several men
for nearly a month, during which time they had
folded, enclosed, and directed more than fifty
thousand printed epistles. I am not quoting
my Illustrated Edition now, but have begun to
gossip, for I want to tell you a few odd things
more in detail about my compilation. The most
minute information, I know, is welcome, when
it concerns any celebrated character. The
office of my compiler was opened in the
Building in Hyde Park, on the 21st of
January, 1851, with a staff composed of the
compiler-in-chief, and three aides-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 individuals then
worked on with occasional aid until the end
of May; when five, or less, were found to be
sufficient, and in the beginning of July all
compilation duty ceased.

The returns of exhibitors from divers parts
began to meet each other in the compiler's
office towards the end of January. 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 deficiencies. For a third time, the
returns were then examined, in order to
compare them with a list of the proposed
exhibitors; and not a few supernumerary
papers, sent on speculation, were in this way
detected and cast out. Then followed the
grammatical revision; and, finally, the packet
in each class had its contents numbered, and
the numbers registered, before it passed out
of the compiler's office, and into the office of
the printer.

The first parcel reached the printer's on the
31st of January, and on the 31st of March,
six thousand and ten returns (from exhibitors
in Great Britain and Ireland) had been sent
to be set up in type. After this time the
printer was supplied at a more leisurely pace;
and on the 22nd of April, the number of
forms set up had advanced to six thousand
two hundred and forty-one. The Colonial
and Foreign returns were proceeded with
simultaneously. Returns from the colonies
were sent to press between the 6th of March
and 21st of April; foreign returns between
February 3rd and April 23rd, on which day
the last fragment of my original manuscript
was laid at the printer's door. The briskest
of the foreign states, if we must judge by its
promptitude in sending a return, was Tunis.
The second parcel of foreign returns came
from Lubeck, and the third from Switzerland.
All the matter about which I have been
speaking, was first printed for the Illustrated
Edition of the public's humble servant, and
kept set up in a fragmentary manner, until
that work was revised for publication. Proof
impressions, taken from these fragments,
were sent to the gentleman charged with the
scientific revision of the work, Mr. Robert
Ellis, who allotted the various portions to the
scientific annotators. For a few remarks
upon those annotators, I must refer once
more to the information given by my
Illustrated self.

Of course, among the returned forms, there
would not only be grammatical confusion to
correct, but a large number of scientific
blunders. Things would be falsely named;
foreign scientific words would be inaccurately
rendered, familiar objects of trade would be
popularly expressed, and throughout the
whole range of the Exhibition, a Catalogue
supplied by thousands of people differently
educated, would have no precision, uniformity,
or coherence. There was a German once,
named Feuerstein (flint), who went to French
Canada. The Frenchmen there could make
nothing of his outlandish name, so they
translated it, and called him Gun-flint. The English
occupied, after a time, that part of Canada,
and as Gun-flint remained among them, he
was again translated into Peter Gun. So
you would have had in your Catalogue here,
Feuerstein; there, Peter Gun; and never
could have known them both to represent one
and the same name. To obtain uniformity,
therefore, the plan was adopted which I now
quote:—

"A number of scientific gentlemen gave their
consent to undertake the revision and
correction of proofs of the returned forms in their
peculiar departments, with a view to remove
from them those errors which might present
themselves, and to supply what might appear
requisite to give prominence to their really
important features. In addition to this, it
appeared advisable, as critical observations
were necessarily inadmissible, to relieve the
tedium of mere description, and to assist in
pointing out the leading features of interest
in the objects described, or in direct relation
with them, by appending, as the subjects of
the proof suggested, such brief annotations as
might appear best calculated to effect these
objects.

"As a certain degree of harmony of
procedure was considered absolutely necessary, in
order to give a consistent character to such
corrections and annotations, supplied as they
would be from a variety of sources, a few
suggestions of certain general principles were
adopted, and as far as possible acted upon.