When we consider the immense variety of professions connected both with the fine and the useful arts, in which the creation of symmetrical ornaments forms a necessary part, we cannot fail to attach a high degree of utility to any instrument by which the operations of the artist may be facilitated and improved. We are disposed to imagine that no machine is really useful, unless it is directly employed in providing for our more urgent wants. This, however, is a vulgar error. An engine which forms the head of a pin, has, in reality, as much importance as an engine for raising water, or for manufacturing cloth; for in these cases the three machines have the same object, which is merely that of abridging manual labour. The water would still be raised, and the cloth and pins manufactured, if the machines did not exist; but the machinery insures us a more regular supply of these articles, and enables us to receive them at a cheaper rate. The operations of machinery have, however, a still higher character in comparison with those of individual exertion, when they enable us to obtain any article, either of necessity or of luxury, in a more perfect state. In this case, the machine effects what is beyond the reach of manual labour; and instead of being the mere representative of animal force, it exhibits a concentration of talent and skill which could not have been obtained by uniting the separate exertions of living agents. When we consider, that in this busy island thousands of individuals are wholly occupied with the composition of symmetrical designs, and that there is scarcely any profession into which these designs do not enter as a necessary part, so as to employ a portion of the time of every artist, we shall not hesitate in admitting, that an instrument must have no small degree of utility which abridges the labour of so many individuals. If we reflect further on the nature of the designs which are thus composed, and on the methods which must be employed in their composition, the Kaleidoscope will assume the character of the highest class of machinery, which improves at the same time that it abridges the exertions of individuals. There are few machines, indeed, which rise higher above the operations of human skill. It will create, in a single hour, what a thousand artists could not invent in the course of a year; and while it works with such unexampled rapidity, it works also with a corresponding beauty and precision.