13 JANUARY 1838, Page 5

On Thursday night, a meeting of the Court of Aldermen

was held a the Mansionhouee ; when the Lord Mayor stated that the City sea had been lost in the fire. This instrument was of great importance, as documents of various kinds, prepared for foreign countries, would he void without the City seal. Mr. Woodthorpe, the Towmclerk, said that he had an accurate drawing of the original seal, and had ordered Mr. Wyon to prepare a new one. The Recorder said, unless the Common Council ordered a new seal to be made, a document with the substitute seal ordered hy Mr. Woodthorp would be legally, though not morally, a forgery. After some discussion, it was agreed to postpone the consideration of the subject till Monday next ; and in the mean time, a diligent search is to be made for the old seal.

A public meeting was held on Thursday evening, at Exeter Hall, for the purpose of establishing a School for the promotion of Design, and diffusing a knowledge and love of the fine arts amulet the people. Mr. Ewart was in the chair ; and addressed the meeting at consider- able length upon the advantages of the Fine Arts, in prosecuting the businesses of the engine-maker, the builder, the upholsterer and deco- rator, the coachmaker, the goldsmith and jeweller, the pattern.drawcr, the tailor, and many others whose pursuits were connected with de- signing, modelling, and colouring. As a practical illustration of the importance of the arts in these matters, Mr. Ewuit illustrated the suc- cessful adaptation of the designs of the ancients to purposes of ordi. nary use by the ingenious Mr. Wedgewond, in his beautiful specimens of pottery. The galleries of Berlin, of Dresden, the Louvre, and the Vatican, had evidently had their effect upon the taste of the people of the Continent ; and the additional use made of the British Museum, by its being made more public, he did not doubt had produced its effect upon our own population. The further dissemination of such effects expected to arise from similar causes, was the purport of the meeting. It was proposed to carry into effect the objects of the society by esta- blishing a school, in which a course of lectures should be delivered at an extremely small expenditure. The subjects of the lectures would be geometry and drawing, modelling, light, shade, and colour, human figure and anatomy, zoology, botany, antiquities and heraldry, architec- ture and machinery ; and technical lectures, in which the foregoing subjects would he specially applied to the respective trades to which they more particularly appertained. Resolutions in support of these objects, lifter Mr. Wyse, M. P., and some others, had supported the intentions of the proposed society, were then agreed to. The meeting was rather numerously attended ; and models and casts were exhibited in the room, a collection of which it is intended to attach to the insti- tution for the benefit of the pupils.