Henry. My dear father, you observed the other day that we had a great many manufactures in England. Pray, what is a manufacture?

Father. A manufacture is something made by the hand of man. It is derived from two Latin words, manus, the hand, and facere, to make. Manufactures are therefore opposed to productions, which latter are what the bounty of nature spontaneously affords; as fruits, corn, marble.

Hen. But there is a great deal of trouble with corn: you have often made me take notice how much pains it costs the farmer to plough his ground, and put the seed in the earth, and keep it clear from weeds.

Fa. Very true: but the farmer does not make the corn; he only prepares for it a proper soil and situation, and removes every hinderance arising from the hardness of the ground, or the neighbourhood of other plants, which might obstruct the secret and wonderful process of vegetation; but with the vegetation itself he has nothing to do. It is not his hand that draws out the slender fibres of the root, pushes up the green stalk, and by degrees the spiky ear; swells the grain, and embrowns it with that rich tinge of tawny russet, which informs the husbandman it is time to put in his sickle: all this operation is performed without his care, or even knowledge.

Hen. Now, then, I understand; corn is a production, and bread is a manufacture.

Fa. Bread is certainly, in strictness of speech, a manufacture; but we do not in general apply the term to anything in which the original material is so little changed. If we wanted to speak of bread philosophically, we should say, it is a preparation of corn.

Hen. Is sugar a manufacture?

Fa. No, for the same reason. Besides which, I do not recollect the term being applied to any article of food; I suppose from an idea that food is of too perishable a nature, and generally obtained by a process too simple to deserve the name. We say, therefore, sugar-works, oil-mills, chocolate-works; we do not say a beer-manufactory, but a brewery; but this is only a nicety of language, for properly all those are manufactories, if there is much of art and curiosity in the process.

Hen. Do we say a manufactory of pictures?

Fa. No; but for a different reason. A picture, especially if it belong to any of the higher kinds of painting, is an effort of genius. A picture cannot be produced by any given combinations of canvass and colour. It is the hand, indeed, that executes, but the head that works. Sir Joshua Reynolds could not have gone, when he was engaged to paint a picture, and hired workmen, the one to draw the eyes, another the nose, a third the mouth: the whole must be the painter’s own, that particular painter’s, and no other; and no one who has not his ideas can do his work. His work is therefore nobler, of a higher species.

Hen. Pray, give me an instance of a manufacture.

Fa. The making of watches is a manufacture: the silver, iron, gold, or whatever else is used in it, are productions, the materials of the work; but it is by the wonderful art of man that they are wrought into the numberless wheels and springs of which this complicated machine is composed.

Hen. Then is there not as much art in making a watch as a picture? Does not the head work?

Fa. Certainly, in the original invention of watches, as much, or more, than in painting; but when once invented, the art of watchmaking is capable of being reduced to a mere mechanical labour, which may be exercised by any man of common capacity, according to certain precise rules, when made familiar to him by practice: of this painting is not capable.

Hen. But, my dear father, making books surely requires a great deal of thinking and study; and yet I remember the other day at dinner a gentleman said that Mr. Pica had manufactured a large volume in less than a fortnight.

Fa. It was meant to convey a satirical remark on his book because it was compiled from other authors, from whom he had taken a page in one place, and a page in another; so that it was not produced by the labour of his brain, but of his hands. Thus you heard your mother complain that the London cream was manufactured; which was a pointed and concise way of saying that the cream was not what it ought to be, or what it pretended to be: for cream, when genuine, is a pure production; but when mixed up and adulterated with flour and isinglass, and I know not what, it becomes a manufacture. It was as much as to say, art has been here where it has no business; where it is not beneficial, but hurtful. A great deal of the delicacy of language depends upon an accurate knowledge of the specific meaning of single terms, and a nice attention to their relative propriety.

Hen. Have all nations manufactures?

Fa. All that are in any degree cultivated; but it very often happens that countries naturally the poorest have manufactures of the greatest extent and variety.

Hen. Why so?

Fa. For the same reason, I apprehend, that individuals, who are rich without any labour of their own, are seldom so industrious and active as those who depend upon their own exertions: thus the Spaniards, who possess the richest gold and silver mines in the world, are in want of many conveniences of life which are enjoyed in London and Amsterdam.

Hen. I can comprehend that: I believe if my uncle Leger were to find a gold mine under his warehouse, he would soon shut up his shop.

Fa. I believe so. It is not, however, easy to establish manufactures in a very poor nation: they require science and genius for their invention, art and contrivance for their execution; order, peace, and union, for their flourishing. They require, too, a number of men to combine together in an undertaking, and to prosecute it with the most patient industry; they require, therefore, laws and government for their protection. If you see extensive manufactures in any nation, you may be sure it is a civilized nation, you may be sure property is accurately ascertained and protected. They require great expenses for their first establishment, costly machines for shortening manual labour, and money and credit for purchasing materials from distant countries. There is not a single manufacture of Great Britain which does not require, in some part or other of its process, productions from the different parts of the globe, oils, drugs, varnish, quicksilver, and the like: it requires, therefore, ships and a friendly intercourse with foreign nations, to transport commodities and exchange productions. We could not be a manufacturing, unless we were also a commercial nation. They require time to take root in any place, and their excellence often depends upon some nice and delicate circumstance; a peculiar quality, for instance, in the air or water, or some other local circumstance not easily ascertained. Thus, I have heard that the Irish women spin better than the English, because the moister temperature of their climate makes their skin more soft and their fingers more flexible: thus again we cannot die so beautiful a scarlet as the French can, though with the same drugs, perhaps on account of the superior purity of the air. But though so much is necessary for the perfection of the more curious and complicated manufactures, all nations possess those which are subservient to the common conveniences of life;—the loom and the forge, particularly, are of the highest antiquity.

Hen. Yes; I remember Hector bids Andromache return to her apartments, and employ herself in weaving with her maids; and I remember the shield of Achilles.

Fa. True; and you likewise remember, in an earlier period, the fine linen of Egypt: and to go still higher, the working of iron and brass is recorded of Tubal-Cain before the flood.

Hen. Which is the most important, manufactures or agriculture?

Fa. Agriculture is the most necessary, because it is first of all necessary that man should live; but almost all the enjoyments and comforts of life are produced by manufactures.

Hen. Why are we obliged to take so much pains to make ourselves comfortable?

Fa. To exercise our industry. Nature provides the materials for man. She pours out at his feet a profusion of gems, metals, dies, plants, ores, bark, stones, gums, wax, marbles, woods, roots, skins, earth, and minerals of all kinds! She has likewise given him tools.

Hen. I did not know that nature gave us tools.

Fa. No! what are those two instruments you carry always about with you, so strong and yet so flexible, so nicely jointed, and branched out into five long, taper, unequal divisions, any of which may be contracted or stretched out at pleasure; the extremities of which have a feeling so wonderfully delicate, and which are strengthened and defended by horn?

Hen. The hands?

Fa. Yes. Man is as much superior to the brutes in his outward form, by means of the hand, as he is in his mind by the gifts of reason. The trunk of the elephant comes perhaps the nearest to it in its exquisite feeling and flexibility, (it is, indeed, called his hand in Latin,) and accordingly that animal has always been reckoned the wisest of brutes. When Nature gave man the hand, she said to him. “Exercise your ingenuity and work.” As soon as ever a man rises above the state of a savage, he begins to contrive and to make things, in order to improve his forlorn condition: thus you may remember Thomson represents Industry coming to the poor shivering wretch, and teaching him the arts of life:—

Hen. It must require a great deal of knowledge, I suppose, for so many curious works; what kind of knowledge is most necessary?

Fa. There is not any which may not be occasionally employed; but the two sciences which most assist the manufacturer are mechanics and chymistry; the one for building mills, working mines, and in general for constructing wheels, wedges, pulleys, &c., either to shorten the labour of man, by performing it in less time, or to perform what the strength of man alone could not accomplish; the other in fusing and working ores, in dying and bleaching, and extracting the virtues of various substances for particular uses; making of soap, for instance, is a chymical operation; and by chymistry an ingenious gentleman has lately found out a way of bleaching a piece of cloth in eight-and-forty hours, which by the common process would have taken up a great many weeks. You have heard of Sir Richard Arkwright, who died lately?

Hen. Yes, I have heard he was at first only a barber, and shaved people for a penny apiece.

Fa. He did so; but having a strong turn for mechanics, he invented, or at least perfected a machine, by which one pair of hands may do the work of twenty or thirty; and, as in this country every one is free to rise by merit, he acquired the largest fortune in the country, had a great many hundreds of workmen under his orders, and had leave given him by the king to put Sir before his name.

Hen. Did that do him any good?

Fa. It pleased him, I suppose, or he would not have accepted of it; and you will allow, I imagine, that if titles are used, it does honour to those who bestow them, when they are given to such as have made themselves noticed for something useful. Arkwright used to say, that if he had time to perfect his inventions, he would put a fleece of wool into a box, and it should come out broadcloth.

Hen. What did he mean by that? Was there any fairy in the box to turn it into broadcloth with her wand?

Fa. He was assisted by the only fairies that ever had the power of transformation—art and industry: he meant that he would contrive so many machines, wheel within wheel, that the combing, carding, and various other operations, should be performed by mechanism, almost without the hand of man.

Hen. I think, if I had not been told, I should never have been able to guess that my coat came off the back of the sheep.

Fa. You hardly would; but there are manufactures in which the material is much more changed than in woollen cloth. What can be meaner in appearance than sand and ashes? Would you imagine anything beautiful could be made out of such a mixture? Yet the furnace transforms this into that transparent crystal we call glass, than which nothing is more sparkling, more brilliant, more full of lustre. It throws about the rays of light as if it had life and motion.

Hen. There is a glass shop in London which always puts me in mind of Aladdin’s palace.

Fa. It is certain that if a person, ignorant of the manufacture, were to see one of our capital shops, he would think all the treasures of Golconda were centred there, and that every drop of cut-glass was worth a prince’s ransom. Again, who would suppose, on seeing the green stalks of a plant, that it could be formed into a texture so smooth, so snowy-white, so firm, and yet so flexible as to wrap round the limbs, and adapt itself to every movement of the body? Who would guess this fibrous stalk could be made to float in such light undulating folds as in our lawns and cambrics; not less fine, we presume, than that transparent drapery which the Romans called ventus textilis, woven wind?

Hen. I wonder how anybody can spin such fine thread!

Fa. Their fingers must have the touch of a spider, that, as Pope says,

and, indeed, you recollect that Arachne was a spinster. Lace is a still finer production from flax, and is one of those in which the original material is most improved. How many times the price of a pound of flax do you think that flax will be worth when made into lace?

Hen. A great many times, I suppose.

Fa. Flax at the best hand is bought at fourteen pence a pound. They make lace at Valenciennes, in French Flanders, of ten guineas a yard—I believe, indeed, higher—but we will say ten guineas; this yard of lace will weigh probably more than half an ounce: what is the value of half an ounce of flax?

Hen. It comes to one farthing and three quarters of a farthing.

Fa. Right: now tell me how many times the original value the lace is worth.

Hen. Prodigious! it is worth 5760 times as much as the flax it is made of!

Fa. Yet there is another material that is still more improveable than flax.

Hen. What can that be?

Fa. Iron. The price of pig-iron is ten shillings a hundred weight; this is not quite one farthing for two ounces: now you have seen some of the beautiful cut-steel that looks like diamonds?

Hen. Yes, I have seen buckles, and pins, and watchchains.

Fa. Then you can form an idea of it: but you have only seen the most common sorts. There was a chain made at Woodstock, in Oxford shire, and sent to France, which weighed only two ounces, and cost 170l. Calculate how many times that had increased its value.

Hen. Amazing! it was worth 163,600 times the value of the iron it was made of!

Fa. That is what manufacture can do: here man is a kind of creator and, like the great Creator, he may please himself with his work, and say it is good. In the last-mentioned manufacture, too, that of steel, the English have the honour of excelling all the world.

Hen. What are the chief manufactures of England?

Fa. We have at present a greater variety than I can pretend to enumerate, but our staple manufacture is woollen cloth. England abounds in fine pastures and extensive downs, which feed great numbers of sheep: hence our wool has always been a valuable article of trade; but we did not always know how to work it. We used to sell it to the Flemish or Lombards, who wrought it into cloth; till, in the year 1326, Edward the Third invited some Flemish weavers over to teach us the art; but there was not much made in England till the reign of Henry the Seventh. Manchester and Birmingham are towns which have arisen to great consequence from small beginnings, almost within the memory of old men now living; the first for cotton and muslin goods, the second for cutlery and hardware, in which we at this moment excel all Europe. Of late years, too, carpets, beautiful as fine tapestry, have been fabricated in this country. Our clocks and watches are greatly esteemed. The earthenware plates and dishes, which we all use in common, and the elegant set for the tea-table, ornamented with musical instruments, which we admired in our visit yesterday, belong to a very extensive manufactory, the seat of which is at Burslem, in Staffordshire. The principal potteries there belong to one person, an excellent chymist, and a man of great taste; he, in conjunction with another man of taste, who is since dead, has made our clay more valuable than the finest porcelain of China. He has moulded it into all the forms of grace and beauty that are to be met with in the precious remains of the Greek and Etruscan artists. In the more common articles he has pencilled it with the most elegant designs, shaped it into shells and leaves, twisted it into wickerwork, and trailed the ductile foliage round the light basket. He has filled our cabinets and chimney-pieces with urns, lamps, and vases, on which are lightly traced, with the purest simplicity, the fine forms and floating draperies of Herculaneum. In short, he has given to our houses a classic air, and has made every saloon and every dining-room schools of taste. I should add that there is a great demand abroad for this elegant manufacture. The emperess of Russia has some magnificent services of it; and the other day one was sent to the king of Spain, intended as a present from him to the archbishop of Toledo, which cost a thousand pounds. Some morning you shall go through the rooms in the London warehouse.

Hen. I should like very much to see manufactures, now you have told me some curious things about them.

Fa. You will do well! There is much more entertainment to a cultivated mind in seeing a pin made, than in many a fashionable diversion which young people half ruin themselves to attend. In the meantime I will give you some account of one of the most elegant of them, which is paper.

Hen. Pray do, my dear father.

Fa. It shall be left for another evening, however, for it is now late. Good-night.