premonition of the New Age dawning upon mankind, wherein Carnage and Devastation shall no more secure the world’s proudest honors, while Invention and Production sink into unmarked graves? Sees that dim eye, rekindled for a moment by the neighborhood of death, the approach of that glorious era wherein Man the creator and beautifier shall be honored and feted and Man the destroyer discrowned? His furrowed brow, his sunken eye, return no answer to our eager question, as he slowly, thoughtfully plods on. But not London, not England, alone: the Civilized World is here strongly represented. America and Russia, France and Austria, Belgium and Spain, have here their Commissioners, their Notables, their _savans_, earnestly studying the Palace and its contents, eager to carry away something which shall be valued and useful at home. A Yankee Manufacturer passes rapidly through the Machinery-room until his eye rests on a novel combination for weaving certain fabrics, when, after watching it intently for a few minutes, he claps his hands and exclaims in unconscious, irrepressible enthusiasm, “That will pay my expenses for the trip!” On every side sharp eyes are watching, busy brains are treasuring, practical fingers are testing and comparing. Here are shrewd men from the ends of the earth: can it be that they will go home no wiser than they came? Many are here officially, and under pay from their respective governments; some of them sent out of compliment to Her Majesty, who specially invited the coöperation of their masters; but there are skillful artificers, and mechanics also, from Paris, from Brussels, and from far Turin, sent here by subscription expressly that they may study, profit by and diffuse the Arts here exhibited in perfection. About the pleasantest fellow _I_ met in London was a Turkish official, military by profession, born a Frenchman, but naturalized at Stamboul, who spoke good English and seemed to understand the world very fairly, though (I judge) rather less a Saint than a Philosopher. The noblest and truest man I encountered in Europe was a Belgian Manufacturer and Juror; and though there were doubtless many unworthy persons attracted to London by the novel spectacle, I doubt whether any General Council of the Christian Church has ever convened an assemblage on the whole superior, morally and intellectually, to that summoned to London by the great Exhibition. So much for the Crystal Palace and its Contents. And now of its Lessons.