“The frauds committed in the tanning of skins, and their conversion into leather; and in the manufacture of cutlery and jewellery,” says Mr. Accum, “exceed belief.” And I can assure my readers that that gentleman is not mistaken in his assertion; and, had he added that of cabinet wares and silver plate of all sorts, he would not have over-stepped the limits of truth. To those acquainted with the manufacture of silver goods, it is well known that you cannot always be sure that the various costly articles are of the legal standard with which Pride and Vanity, Luxury and Fashion, when they “set up for _Gentry_ and _Stylish_ people,” and have a desire for “_shewing off_,” gratify their whims and fantastic notions of gentility, and their ambition of “_outplating and outdishing_” their friends and neighbours. The prosecution instituted some years ago against a “legitimate” son of Crispin for the manufacture of shoes, the soles of which were ingeniously united to the welts by only six stitches in each shoe, while the external parts of the soles exhibited evident traces of a multiplicity of stitches rivalling the number of the stars of the firmament of the heavens in extent and variety, and their exact mathematical precision seemed to display the exertion of the genius of a Euclid, cannot have slipped the recollection of all my readers. And to complete the climax of sophistication, even the paper on which John gives birth to his “winged words,” and expresses his indignant feelings at the extent and the audacity of the frauds and impositions practised on his good-nature and credulous disposition, is sophisticated. In the manufacture of paper, a large quantity of plaster of Paris is often mixed up with the paper-stuff, instead of its consisting of good linen rags only, and the foreign substance is added to increase the weight of the commodity. Nor is he, when, like ourselves, desirous of having his thoughts and discoveries rendered “enduring for ages,” (monumentum ære perennius,) by having them cast in stereotype, and thus “save a penny,” exempt from the designs and contrivances of sophistication;—the founder deceives him by casting his “words that breathe and thoughts that burn” in a metal as soft and ductile as lollipop. Thus honest Bull is circumvented in all his intents, and surprised and overpowered at every turn by the Genius of Sophistication. CONCLUSION.