It is not necessary to reproduce the whole of
these suggestions in their original form; but
since it is important that exhibitors should be
informed of the principles which, to a great
extent, guided and determined the corrections
and annotations which are found in this work,
they are here subjoined." Attention was
particularly directed to the suggestion, under the
head "annotations," by which critical notices
were strictly excluded from the annotations
appended to the descriptions.

In sending about slips, many of them
consisting of three or four lines cut out of other
proofs, of course there arose danger of
inextricable confusion when the little slips, or
snips, should all come back again, and have to
be re-arranged.

A simple method of ascertaining not
merely the place in the Catalogue, but its
entire history, its destination, annotator, and
return, was, however, contrived, and the
history of every proof has thus been accurately
recorded. The information thus obtained
was so accurate and precise, that on the
temporary delay of very small proofs, their
original destination was instantly discovered,
together with the date of transmission, and
the name of the auuotator to whom they had
been sent. Much punctuality characterised
the return of the dismembered portions of this
large volume. Had not such been the case,
the original plan of scientific and technical
revision could not have been persisted in.

But, while all this work was going on, I was
being taught to speak in French and German,
by gentlemen engaged especially for that
purpose.

Furthermore, and finally, the slips of the
large Catalogue, revised, annotated, and
re-revised, were placed before the compiler, that
he might condense each description into an
average of about three lines, for the shilling,
or "Official Catalogue." The reduction of
the whole of the proofs of the British
Exhibitors only, occupied the compiler, almost
without any intermission, from the 24th of
March to the 24th of April— just a month.
The Foreign and Colonial portion was
commenced on the 10th and finished on the 28th
of April, so that the rough proof of the
Catalogue was only completed two days before the
opening of the Exhibition; fifty-two persons
having been employed in the compiling and the
annotating of these two English Catalogues.

It was not until all, or nearly all, the
fragments were in the printer's hands, that the
final numbering and arrangement could take
place; so that, at the last moment, all my
inside was twisted up and down.
Classification this was called. The classification
began at the printer's just before the arrival
of the last corrected slips; and they came, as
I told you, only two days before the
Exhibition would be open, and the Catalogue
would be demanded by the public. Woe be
to the printer who should go to bed at such a
crisis. The "Official Catalogue" was classified,
made up, printed, and bound in four days.
The first perfect impression was only
produced at ten o'clock at night upon the eve of
the eventful opening. Ten thousand
Catalogues, properly bound, were punctually
delivered, at the building, on the morning of
the 1st of May. The two copies presented to
Her Majesty and to the Prince, that morning,
elegantly bound in morocco, lined with silk,
and with their edges gilt, had been bound,
lined, and gilded in six hours. Now, perhaps,
you do begin to wonder that you had a
Catalogue at all upon the 1st of May, and are no
longer surprised that, in that first edition,
there were included descriptions of articles
which the describers had neglected
afterwards to send, or that the articles which had
arrived, of unexpected bulk, or otherwise
exceptionally, could not be placed properly in
the building, according to the exact numerical
order that had been established in the
Catalogue. Most of the errors of my first edition
are corrected in my second. Now I mean to
tell you a few more things about myself, well
calculated to excite your admiration.

My "Official" self makes three hundred
and twenty pages, or twenty sheets of double
foolscap folded into eight. Two hundred and
fifty thousand copies of this having been
printed; one hundred and five tons of paper
have been consumed therein; and, upon this
paper, the duty paid is one thousand four
hundred and seventy pounds. The
publications connected with the Catalogues, and the
number of pages in each, are as follows:—

Up and down the courts of the Exhibition,
I have been in the company of a good many
people who have audibly voted me a bore. I
trust that I shall not again have to complain
of this. I contain the composition of some
fifteen thousand authors; most of them
authors for the first time, who have had their
excrescences pruned, and their diction
occasionally mended. Now, the first production
of an author, if only three lines long, is
usually esteemed by himself as a sort of
Prince Rupert's drop, which is destroyed
entirely if a person makes upon it but a single
scratch. Some thousand authors, therefore,
are dissatisfied with the attempts made to
render me available for public use.