or founders of this splendid ware, which cheapens, to the means and use of middle-class men, articles of elegance and luxury which great wealth alone could once command. In 1836 they first invented or developed the process by which metals could be coated with a solution of silver or gold. For this very important and remarkable invention they obtained a patent both in England and France; and in the latter country it was considered a great contribution to science as well as to artistic and useful industry. The establishment is, in itself, a school of art, in which genius is trained to the finest conceptions of taste and beauty. No one can estimate the force and extent of influence it puts forth for the culture of a nation. One might as easily count the rays emitted from a Bude light and measure their length, as to measure the reach and result of that influence upon society. Here are more than "apples of gold in pictures of silver;" here are the trees that bear both, and the leaves that guard and garnish them, all done to Nature's best truth, life, and beauty. Here are her most exquisite ferns with their crinkly foliage in tracery as delicate as she herself could work. Here are the master-thoughts and master-touches of artistic genius in designs of infinite variety. Here is thirty years' growth of the productions of that genius, in patterns of gold and silver work,
