THE PALACE OF GLASS;

OR, THE INDUSTRIAL EXHIBITION.

We look'd upon the spacious Park,
The ground was smooth and bare:-

We look'd again in little space

With strange surprise upon the place-
A Palace glittered there !

WE live in a wonderful world and in wonderful times, and very necessary it is that we

No. 73. JAN. 1851.

should know what is going on around us. The Industrial Exhibition, about to take place in Hyde Park, is the talk of the whole country. Other magazines will be sure to inform their readers all about it; we are anxious, therefore, that the readers of the "Child's Companion" should have their fair share of information.

It is our intention, from time to time, to visit the Exhibition, that we may be qualified to describe what will there be presented in the pages of the " Child's Companion." We purpose to do this in a cheerful, sunshiny spirit, so that our remarks in one number of the magazine may excite a desire to see those which are to appear in the next. London will be all alive during the Exhibition; we mean to be all alive too, and hope to interest our readers by our various descriptions.

The Industrial Exhibition was first proposed by prince Albert, to encourage arts and manufactures by affording all nations an opportunity of exhibiting their productions together. This friendly comparison between different countries will be better than struggling for the mastery with angry hearts and armed hands. In the Exhibition we shall see, collected together as brethren, people from distant lands,

While nature's wondrous works around them rise,
And proofs of skill and costly merchandise.

The great building for the Exhibition, which we are now about to describe, was designed by a gentleman named Paxton, who is head gardener at Chatsworth, the seat of the duke of Devonshire. His sketch was first made on