SOCIETY OF ARTS.
The collection of specimens illustrating decorative manufactures, at the house of the Society of Arts, is a very fair beginning, and limited, as the first of an annual series necessarily was, it is highly interesting. Several of the specimens are beautiful, especially those of coloured glass, and wood-carving. The bringing of the several handicraft arts together in one view is calculated to serve two important purposes: it furnishes a means of surveying the state of art in the more tasteful branches of workmanship; and it must stimulate improvement, by affording to the most enterprising manufacturers in such branches the means of mutual comparison. The coup d'ceil on entering the rooms is brilliant. A closer scrutiny at once humiliates and cheers: if some of the higher feeling for art and nicer delicacies of taste are wanting, immense progress has been made—as wit- ness that curious collection of crockery, from the Tudors to Wedgwood; and the most recent specimens exhibit a vast accession in the rate of pro- gress. The rooms, after private views at night, were opened to the public: on Thursday.
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