even admitting my competency to the task.Besides, it would be totally impossible to convey correct ideas of the complicated machinery used in this business without the aid of plates, to exemplify the descriptions. It is rather singular, that not one of our Encyclopedias contains an account of this art, although they all profess to comprise a complete body of the arts and sciences. As we have never had any thing published on the subject, I hope the following cursory particulars will be acceptable.

Though Wilton contains more than one manufactory of carpets, yet the principal house is in the firm of Buller, Maise, and Sutton. The predecessors of these gentlemen obtained a patent, about sixty years since, for the exclusive privilege of making carpets in England A patent was primarily intended to encourage genius, to reward invention, and secure the useful plans of an individual for his own benefit; yet this, like many other wise intentions, is often frustrated by the cunning or sophistry of those persons who sacrifice principle to interest; who, like the drone, encroach upon the property of others, and obtain subsistence from their industry.

The patent specified, among other particulars, that the carpets were to be made with bobbin and

anchor.

anchor. Some persons at Kidderminster, in Worcestershire having obtained an insight into the process of the manufactory, soon procured looms on the same principle, with the trifling difference of having bobbin and ball, instead of bobbin and anchor, and by this means evaded the letter of the law, and immediately established a carpet manufactory, in defiance of the patentees; this was the origin of the Kidderminster carpets.

The first carpet ever made in England was manufactured at Wilton, by, and under the direction of one Anthony Duffosy, who is lately dead. This man was brought from France by Lord Pembroke, grandfather to the present Earl, a nobleman who encouraged and promoted the manufactures of his country, by establishing this business at Wilton; and also another, that of making a cloth, which acquired a fashionable publicity, and was known by the name of the marble cloth.

About six or seven years ago, the manufacturers of this place made some new carpeting, which they designated by the name of Mock Brussels.

The Persian and Turkey carpets are most esteemed, though the first has been happily imitated by the ingenuity of the French, who have brought them to almost equal perfection with

those

those of Asiatic manufacture. The English, though not eminently celebrated for invention, have yet brought many ingenious plans to relative perfection, by perseverance and scientific skill. This particularly applies to the manufacture of carpets, which are so far improved as to be little inferior to those of foreign countries; they are, indeed, superior in beauty of colours, and neatness, and taste in the patterns.

Mr. Arthur Young, in his six weeks tour, asserts, that a journeyman's wages, in the carpet manufactory, was from ten to twelve shillings per week, and that there were about sixty or eighty persons employed in the business; this was in the year 1767. If Mr. Young's account was correct, which seems very questionable, the difference between that time and the present is very great; for now, there are men working in the business who can earn from one guinea and a half, to two guineas a week; and above one thousand persons employed in the town in different branches of the trade.

SECT.

SECT. IX.

WILTON-HOUSE.

OF this celebrated seat, and its contents, I am enabled to furnish the reader with a pretty copious description, which, I flatter myself, will prove interesting to all, but more particularly so to the connoisseur and artist, from the fund of valuable information which it contains on the arts of sculpture and painting. In describing collections of this kind, an author is subjected to endless difficulties; for though he may have catalogues to examine, and also possess the opportunity of comparing the productions with their respective descriptions, yet the latter frequently abounds with imposition and error, to detect which, and justly appreciate the merits of artists, and discriminate between originals and copies, requires a penetrating eye, some practical knowledge, a cultivated taste, a correct judgment, and an enlarged mind. My aim, in this statement, is neither to mislead the reader, nor