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 ADDRESS 
 
 DELIVEFLn AT Till: 
 
 BIRMINGHAM & MIDLAND INSTITUTE, 
 
 30TH SEPTEMBER, 1867, 
 
 MATTHEW DAVENPORT HILL, Q.C., 
 
 PRESIDENT FOR THE YE Alt. 
 
 LONDON : 
 LONGMANS AND Co.. PATERNOSTER 
 
 BIRMINGHAM : 
 
 CORNISH PR OTHERS. NEW STREET. 
 
 BRISTOL : 
 
 ARROWS}! I Til. 
 
 PRICE SIXPENCE. 
 
 THE L1BKAKY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 LOS M
 
 Ex Libris 
 C. K. OGDEN
 
 INAUGUEAL ADDRESSES. 
 
 The usage in pursuance of which the President for the 
 year delivers an Inaugural Address at the commencement of 
 the Winter Session, dates from 1862. 
 
 1862. THE EIGHT HON. Sra JOHN S. PAKINGTON, BAKT., G.C.B., M.P. 
 1868. WILLIAM SCHOLEFIELD, Esq., M.P. 
 1864. THE EIGHT HON. C. B. ADDEELEY, M.P. 
 1865. THE RIGHT HON. THE LOED WEOTTESLEY. 
 I860. THE EIGHT HON. THE EARL OF HAEEOWBY, K.G.
 
 Btack 
 
 Annex 
 
 5 
 
 1o~l 
 ADDRESS. 
 
 LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, 
 
 In a speech, of our lamented PRINCE CONSORT on 
 laying the first stone of the edifice in which we are assembled 
 this passage occurs, "It has been a great pleasure to me to 
 have been able to participate, in however trifling a degree, in a 
 work which I do not look upon as a simple act of worldly 
 wisdom on the part of this great town and locality, but as one 
 of the first public acknowledgments of a principle which is daily 
 forcing its way amongst us, and is destined to play a great and 
 important part in the future development of this nation and of 
 the world in general; I mean the introduction of science and 
 art as the unconscious regulators of productive industry." 
 
 Twelve years have elapsed since that memorable day; and 
 now by the zeal and perseverance of your leading members, 
 supported as they have been by your whole body, the object of 
 your noble ambition is in no small degree obtained. Never- 
 theless, as none I am persuaded feel so acutely as yourselves, 
 much more remains to be effected than has been yet accom- 
 plished ; and effected it assuredly will be unless I am led by my 
 predilections to a false estimate of my fellow townsmen; which, 
 considering I have known them for a term of years equal to 
 that measured out to us in Holy Writ as the ordinary span of 
 human life, would be an error utterly without excuse. 
 
 Viewing, then, the course before you, and reflecting on the 
 immense benefits which must accrue from your success to the 
 vast and growing population by whoso homes we are surrounded, 
 I have been led to ask myself why it is that up to so recent a
 
 date Birmingham remained unprovided with such an Institution, 
 one "which in this great seat of multifarious labours, each 
 calling for the application of science, and not a few demanding 
 for their successful prosecution artistic skill of no mean order, I 
 might in the present state of the commercial world venture to 
 pronounce essential to the maintenance of your position, if not 
 to your very existence as a community ? 
 
 The answer to this question will prompt a further inquiry. 
 Can we by reviewing in succession the impediments which for- 
 merly barred all attempts towards your present enterprise, and 
 still remain in sufficient numbers and strength most materially 
 to diminish your rate of progress, discover how they may be re- 
 moved from your path? And can we derive encouragement from 
 adverting to your advantages for carrying on your undertaking ? 
 
 In the hope of throwing on these questions some glimpses of 
 light, however faint or dubious such light may prove, I have 
 adopted the topics thus indicated for the subject of my Address. 
 
 The task is arduous, and the imperfect manner in which it 
 cannot but be executed will need your indulgence. Yet I can 
 find no other within my limited range of choice which I could 
 treat with the hope of adding any contribution of the slightest 
 value to what has been already brought before you. To be 
 frank, I must avow that I confess my deficiencies without self- 
 reproach. Plunged into the battle of life at a very early age, I 
 had far other duties to fulfil than to make my way through the 
 curriculum of a University. And you will therefore be conscious 
 that it would be unjust to expect from me those ripe fruits of 
 study which on prior anniversaries have been presented to you 
 by my gifted predecessors, fortunate not only in the superiority 
 of their natural powers, but in uninterrupted leisure for culti- 
 vating them during the season when the faculties expand with 
 the greatest vigor, and when the mind is 
 
 " Wax to receive and marble to retain." 
 
 One advantage, however, (of an humble nature it is true) I 
 possess over these gentlemen ; or over all but our beloved friend
 
 WILLIAH SCHOLEFIELD, of whose invaluable services death Las 
 BO recently bereaved our country and ourselves. The advantage 
 to which I refer is that my birth in this town and my residence 
 here during the early part of my life, together with my intimate 
 connexion with Birmingham up to the present day, have caused 
 me to live its history (so to speak) and thus to obtain a more 
 intimate acquaintance with circumstances favorable or unfavor- 
 able to its progress as they arose, than could be acquired through 
 the medium of books, even were such books in existence. 
 
 The conditions demanded for the establishment of your 
 Institution were manifold. I can only touch upon a few. In 
 the absence of endowments a large population is obviously 
 necessary to provide the needful revenue. A. sufficient number 
 of inhabitants Birmingham possessed long, before I was born. 
 But a population, however extensive and however wealthy, will 
 be prompted to no such enterprise as yours, unless it is imbued 
 with an earnest belief in the importance of education to. the well- 
 being of all, high and low, a state of opinion so lately formed 
 in this country that such of my audience aa are in anywise 
 advanced in years will not only remember its commencement, 
 but can revert to a time when the rich and powerful were as a 
 body hostile to the general diffusion of knowledge ; while the 
 classes whose wants, intellectual and spiritual, were most to be 
 deplored were themselves disposed to treat with indifference, 
 if not with contempt, benefits never partaken either by them 
 or their forefathers, and of which they could but imperfectly 
 conceive. 
 
 " Knowledge is power ;" and the lesson (though not the true 
 lesson) drawn by the holders of power from the French Eevolu- 
 tion forbade them to share their privileges with the multitude. 
 
 That portentous event not only widened the gulf which 
 already separated class from class, an evil impossible to over 
 estimate, but divided each into sections mutually inimical ; 
 thereby precluding even among the privileged all thought of 
 combined action. Hence the capacity of each for works of
 
 improvement, in the value of which, there might be a general 
 concurrence, was not merely limited by this division of its 
 numbers, but the sections became obstructive one to the other, 
 wasting their time and dissipating their energy in controversies 
 futile and irritating to the last degree. 
 
 Circumstances had in this town already exacerbated ill 
 feeling to an extent beyond experience elsewhere ; and when the 
 French Eevolution arrived to heap fuel on the fire, it was 
 scarcely possible that Birmingham should escape an explosion. 
 It came ; the signal being a dinner given to commemorate the 
 fall of the Bastille by the party favourable to the changes 
 made in the constitution of the French Government. That 
 meeting, which took place in July, 1791, was I must think a 
 false step. In our own day all good citizens would revolt from 
 making such an exploit, sullied as it was by a blood-thirsty 
 violation of the terms of surrender, the ground of a convivial 
 celebration, however they might reconcile themselves to the 
 event for the sake of the principles which it confirmed and 
 signalized. On the other hand, it would now be impossible for 
 a sovereign of England to comment on the appalling ravages 
 by fire and plunder which broke forth in revenge for that 
 dinner, in the tone adopted by GEORGE III. The King, writing 
 to Mr. Secretary DTJNDAS in approval of dragoons having been 
 sent to Birmingham to quell the tumult, thus continues, 
 " Though I cannot but feel better pleased that PRIESTLEY is the 
 sufferer for the doctrines he and his party have instilled, and 
 that the people see them in their true light, yet I cannot approve 
 of their having employed such atrocious means of showing their 
 discontent." If the King, who was at heart a just man, and a 
 lover of science, had known that PRIESTLEY was utterly incapable 
 of suggesting violence against person or property, and that the 
 suffering to which his Majesty alluded was the destruction of 
 that philosophical apparatus by which the great philosopher had 
 made discoveries earning for him the title of the Founder of 
 Modern Chemistry, not even the excitement which pervaded the
 
 whole country could have urged him to a declaration so much to 
 be lamented. That Dr. PRIESTLEY recoiled from the employment 
 of physical force, however righteously provoked, I can testify 
 from the information of my father, one of a number of young 
 men of Dr. PRIESTLEY'S congregation who hastened to his house 
 imploring him to let them defend it against the rage of the 
 approaching mob, whose long remembered war cry "Church and 
 King" was already heard in the distance. This offer he at once 
 declined, expressing his conviction that it was his duty as a 
 Christian Minister to submit to persecution. 
 
 The repetition of such outrages we may reasonably hope is 
 impossible ; yet I confess my conviction of that impossibility is 
 not quite so strong as it was a few months ago. "We have now 
 been taught that the volcano of religious animosity, although 
 doubtless diminished in force, is not utterly spent, but only 
 reposes in temporary slumber. 
 
 The years following the riot of 1791 witnessed various 
 displays of hostile sentiment. In preparation for a Municipal 
 dinner shortly after that event, of which a member of the power- 
 ful and wealthy party opposed to French principles bore the cost, 
 the list of guests accustomed prior to the outbreak to be invited 
 on public occasions had been sedulously cleared of adverse 
 elements. By inadvertence, however, the name of Dr. PARR was 
 retained ; and the sturdy divine, although he must have surmised 
 that he would be the only representative of his opinions, duly 
 obeyed the summons. The cloth being drawn the Chairman 
 proposed, as the Doctor no doubt expected, the toast of "Church 
 and Bang." PARR instantly started to his feet, proclaiming in a 
 stern voice his dissent, "No, Sir," said he, "I will not drink 
 that toast. It was the cry of Jacobites ; it is the cry of incen- 
 diaries. It means a Church without the Gospel, and a King 
 above the Law ! " What was the effect of this bold utterance 
 except to prove the courage of the speaker I know not; but I 
 think we shall all agree it was a rebuke well deserved and well 
 applied.
 
 8 
 
 Party conflicts, however, were not always either so bitter or 
 so energetic. I remember a worthy old clergyman, the curate 
 of St. Martin's, who, though without preferment, felt himself 
 invested, in right of his cloth, with a panoply of dignity which 
 placed him but little below a bishop. He wore a suit of black, 
 not in quite such good preservation as could have been wished, 
 surmounted by a wig and shovel hat of surprising amplitude. 
 Anecdotes were rife among dissenters of his enmity towards 
 their body. One of them, it is said, who by some good fortune 
 had acquired the privilege of accosting the churchman when 
 they met in their walks, put to him one day with all proper 
 humility this question, "Doctor CROFT, I wish to know if it 
 can be true (I hope and trust it is not) that you have said you 
 will never bury a dissenter?" "Sir," was the answer, "It is 
 false. I am ready to bury you all !" 
 
 But the laugh was not always on the side of the Doctor. 
 Before the unhappy alienation to which I have referred had 
 been consummated by the riots, churchmen and dissenters 
 now and then found themselves peacefully assembled in the 
 same room ; namely, at the meetings of members of their sub- 
 scription library, still a most useful and I am glad to learn a 
 thriving establishment. After the riots these meetings became 
 occasions for passages of arms, not however (be it understood) 
 of a deadly nature. There was a good deal of jousting at the 
 pugnacious doctor, who was invariably at his post, prepared to 
 meet all comers. The old gentleman was hard of hearing, of 
 which his opponents took wicked advantage. On one occasion 
 a wag who had observed that some panes in a window were 
 broken, placed himself near the Chairman, and moved, in a 
 low tone of voice, that the window be mended. The Doctor 
 knowing that the mover belonged to the adverse faction, at once 
 announced his intention of voting against the proposal ; but he 
 promptly discovered the mistake he had made by the roar of 
 laughter which greeted his opposition. 
 
 The contrast between the state of things just described and
 
 that now reached, when by universal though tacit agreement 
 controversies foreign to the respective objects of your various 
 meetings are banished from what ought always to be neutral 
 ground as regards political and religious differences, will pre- 
 sent to you in a strong light the facility for the promotion 
 of good works which you enjoy over your predecessors. May 
 every omen which points to a return of the old reign of discord 
 prove a false alarm ! 
 
 One hindrance to the diffusion of knowledge among the 
 classes whose benefit you chiefly have in view, I would gladly 
 pass over without comment, but it is too vast in its proportions 
 and too pernicious in its effects to permit of silence. I mean 
 the fatal habit of indulgence in strong drinks, which still pre- 
 vails in appalling magnitude. The mournful consequences of 
 this habit are undisputed, however diverse the opinions as to 
 the remedy a question on which I could scarcely enter without 
 being thought to militate against the spirit of the foregoing 
 remarks. My own views are well known to all for whom they 
 possess any interest. I content myself therefore with respect- 
 fully but most earnestly pressing upon those who either differ or 
 agree with me as to the particular steps required, to avail them- 
 selves of their power and influence, directed in accordance with 
 their own convictions and opportunities, for the discouragement, if 
 not for the effectual extinction, of this fearful vice. Surely I need 
 not call further attention to its bearing on the progress of your 
 Institution, nor point out how opposed drinking habits are to 
 the desire for improvement, which you rightly hold to be the 
 essential condition of your ability to serve the interests of the 
 class in whose behalf you are labouring. For even if this desire 
 should perchance survive the fall of the student into sensuality, 
 you are conscious that his leisure and his pecuniary means must 
 be absorbed in pursuits incompatible with improvement either 
 moral or intellectual. 
 
 I now come to a question which to treat as it deserves would 
 demand far more space than I can venture to give to it. I refer
 
 10 
 
 to that despicable species of competition in trade -which incites 
 the manufacturer, with the view of underselling his rival, to 
 deteriorate the quality of his goods. The temptations to this 
 offence, for such I must deem it, are indeed often so strong that 
 it is impossible altogether to withhold sympathy from the poorer 
 class of tradesmen who yield to them. Yet the more carefully 
 the matter is examined the more injurious to all interests, private 
 and public, will this miserable system prove to be. Nevertheless, 
 however much I may regret such practices, I should not think 
 myself justified in stigmatising as dishonest any depreciation 
 which only reduces quality in exact proportion to the reduction 
 of price. In such cases the buyer has full value for his money 
 and cannot with justice complain ; although, if his means and 
 the state of his knowledge permitted, it might have been wise for 
 him to pay for a higher degree of excellence. I confine myself, 
 then, to instances in which the reduction in value exceeds (and it 
 frequently far exceeds) the reduction made to the buyer in price, 
 his consent to the transaction being too often the consequence 
 of his ignorance of the amount of loss he sustains by his bargain; 
 an ignorance under which he labours in common with all who 
 are not conversant with the manufacture of the article bought. 
 This disproportion between the saving and the loss is apt to lose 
 its hold on our minds because of its obviousness. It is, how- 
 ever, recognised in the well-known proverb: "For want of a 
 nail the shoe was lost, for want of a shoe the horse was lost, for 
 want of a horse the rider was lost, being overtaken and slain by 
 the enemy." The nail had no doubt been wrought of low- 
 priced iron, by which the manufacturer had effected a saving too 
 minute for any portion of it to be shared by the customer, and 
 too contemptible for notice had it all been given up to him. 
 Sometimes the defect is in the material, as in the instance re- 
 ferred to in the proverb, and can only be discovered when the 
 article comes to be used, like the razors sung by PETER PINDAR, 
 made not to shave but to sell. At other times the defective part 
 is concealed by its position withinside the article, so that a
 
 buyer, however skilled in the manufacture, is still liable to be 
 deceived. 
 
 In the days when buckles were an important branch of trade 
 in Birmingham large quantities were made of a white alloy, 
 bearing some slight resemblance to silver, popularly called "soft- 
 tommy." The workmanship was on a par with the material. 
 Each was so thoroughly vile that the artizans though well drilled 
 in such contemptible handicraft were for once ashamed of the 
 products of their labour. A manufacturer, it is said, entering a 
 workshop unseen by his men, heard one of them, who had just 
 finished a buckle, throw it down with a hearty curse on the 
 wearer who was to be. " Why this profanity, and why impre- 
 cations on our customers ?" was the master's natural inquiry. 
 "Because," answered the man, "I am sure he'll curse the 
 maker as soon as he puts it on, and so I made up my mind to 
 be beforehand with him." 
 
 But it must be admitted that purchasers themselves are 
 oftentimes far from blameless. They yield without an effort to 
 the temptation offered by prices so low as almost to proclaim the 
 worthlessness of the articles proffered for sale ; confounding as 
 they do lowness of price with cheapness, than which no two 
 things can be more distinct. Whether goods are cheap or dear 
 can only be ascertained by a comparison of price with quality. 
 It is the combination of high quality with low price which con- 
 stitutes cheapness, while the common saying that bad articles 
 are dear at any price, is undeniably true. The mistake has its 
 origin in the facility with which we compare prices, while in a 
 large proportion of instances the comparison of quality with 
 quality is a task beyond our power. We all know the exact 
 difference in value between a sovereign and a guinea, but when 
 two articles of the same kind are placed before a customer, one 
 charged at a sovereign and the other at a guinea, it is frequently, 
 I may add generally, impossible for him to decide from his own 
 knowledge whether the latter is a shilling better than the 
 former. As regards value, therefore, we are compelled to rely on
 
 12 
 
 the vendor or the maker; and as the maker, assuming him to be 
 known, has the highest interest in a reputation for excellence, it 
 is most important to the public that by trade marks and other 
 appropriate means he should be identified with his productions. 
 
 Until of late years our laws for the protection of trade repu- 
 tation were notoriously so ill contrived as to be in practice all 
 but a delusion. Probably persons conversant with their work- 
 ing would pronounce them even now to stand at some distance 
 below perfection. Yet they prove a precious boon to the 
 honourable manufacturer earnestly striving after excellence ; and 
 must have borne no small part in the general advancement of 
 the Birmingham manufactures, creating thereby a gratifying 
 contrast between our past condition and our present. 
 
 Formerly the manufacturer who turned with disgust from 
 the meanness but too common among his neighbours, and 
 aspired to the production of articles which would bear the 
 severest tests of quality, had a thousand difficulties to contend 
 with in addition to the faulty state of the law. Among them 
 was this: The great London shopkeepers, who possess the 
 knowledge required for an accurate judgment on the merits of 
 goods in which they deal, were in the habit of insisting that 
 their own names should be stamped on the various articles in 
 lieu of those of the makers a very objectionable not to say 
 fraudulent practice as regards the public, and most oppressive on 
 the manufacturer, whose means of acquiring a just reputation 
 were thus usurped by mere pretenders. Many Birmingham men 
 (to their honour) resisted this demand, and thence incurred serious 
 losses which pressed hardly upon them for years while slowly 
 obtaining a recognition of their merits in other quarters. Not 
 a few, for want of capital to enable them to persevere to the 
 end, must have sunk under the trial. Some there were who, 
 harassed by unscrupulous competition on the one side and this 
 unworthy treatment by the retailers on the other, became reac- 
 tionary, throwing themselves with a sort of desperation into 
 the ranks of the party which they had hitherto and indeed still
 
 13 
 
 despised, exerting their energies to outdo their rivals in the 
 degrading struggle. I myself knew intimately two among these 
 reactionaries, both accomplished men, both imbued with an 
 intense love of excellence, yet both driven into the ignoble 
 course I have pointed out. 
 
 How obstructive such a state of things must have been to 
 the growth of a general desire for improvement, to a frame of 
 mind which should lead the masters to promote, and the junior 
 artizans to hail such an Institution as this, each of my hearers 
 will judge for himself. 
 
 But the evils of deceptive trade did not terminate with in- 
 juries to the characters and pecuniary interests of individuals. 
 Our whole town suffered severely and permanently. On this 
 ungrateful topic let me be brief. One of my schoolfellows suc- 
 ceeded his father as a silver-plater in a large way of business. 
 Meeting him after many years ho told me he had left Birming- 
 ham. "Then you have retired from trade," I suggested. "Not 
 so," he replied, " but I found that although my goods were 
 fully equal to those made at Sheffield they would not command 
 Sheffield prices. I therefore removed my establishment to that 
 place, and the step has been successful." Consciousness of in- 
 feriority to any town would be mortifying enough, but the bitter- 
 ness of standing below Sheffield I will not attempt to estimate ; 
 and yet I grieve to speak in disparagement of the home of 
 JAMES MOXTGOMEBY, EBEXEZER ELLIOTT, and SAMUEL BAILEY, 
 and of those just, enlightened, and benevolent citizens who are 
 doing their best to root out devilish principles which it is not 
 in the power of language to stamp with infamy commensurate 
 with their deserts. God knows it is not because the crimes of 
 Sheffield are less heinous than those of the detested cities of the 
 plain that its name will not be joined with theirs in eternal 
 abhorrence. But because it contains thousands of righteous 
 men, to whom nevertheless the innocent and accidental con- 
 nection with the perpetrators of these iniquities, which comes 
 of living in the same place, must be the cause of unspeakable 
 humiliation .
 
 14 
 
 The mere mention of Sheffield "will recall a portentous danger 
 which must often have painfully occupied the thoughts of my 
 hearers. I advert to consequences but too reasonably antici- 
 pated by some persons of steadfast minds from the principles 
 avowed and the courses pursued by many Trades Unions. That 
 I am myself wholly free from alarm is more than I can aver ; 
 yet such is my reliance on the sterling good sense of Englishmen 
 of every condition that my hopes far outweigh my fears. If 
 words of mine could gain the ear of Trades Unions, I would 
 implore them to reflect on the inevitable results of the policy 
 to which they would appear to be giving themselves up. Led 
 away by the desire for equality, often a generous impulse, yet 
 as often the parent of unnumbered evils, they fight against the 
 ordinances of nature. They do not, it is true, ask as heretofore 
 for "the equal division of unequal earnings," but they do 
 worse, they frame regulations to prevent strength and skill 
 from effecting more for the employer than he obtains from a 
 lower grade of capacity. This principle of trade, combined 
 with restraints on taking apprentices, whereby the supply of 
 labour is lessened and youths are cruelly precluded from be- 
 coming artizans, enhances prices and debases quality ; emulation 
 is checked, legitimate ambition has no outlet, and an approach 
 is made to the stagnation of intellect which belongs to slavery. 
 And, sad to say, this calamity is bearing us down with increas- 
 ing weight, while competing nations are pressing upwards and 
 onwards with newborn energy, and thrusting us from the position 
 we have so long held ; not, we must admit, by the paltry shift 
 of low prices for inferior goods, but by the production of better 
 articles than ours, which they are selling at moderate rates. I 
 do not however forget that we ourselves suffer from trash being 
 often substituted abroad for English goods and fraudulently sold 
 as such ; but that is an injury of far less moment, although by 
 no means to be despised. In the meantime, and until these 
 reactionary steps are arrested, such hostilities between employers 
 and employed must bring back the state of things which fol- 
 lowed the riots of 1791 ; and bring them back under aspects
 
 15 
 
 more fearful than on the former occasion. Then society was 
 divided vertically, each party collecting under its banner followers 
 of every degree ; but now the threatened severance is horizontal 
 labour arraying itself against capital ; which implies enmity 
 on the part of the working classes against all above them. 
 
 Late events, however, must have disclosed the awful abyss 
 opening before us, an abyss into which (although all interests 
 would ultimately be engulphed) labour would assuredly be 
 hurried before capital was called upon to take its turn. But 
 this disclosure cannot fail of producing a powerful effect. As 
 yet the majority of working men have not bowed their necks 
 to the yoke of Trades Unions ; and I hope and believe that the 
 larger part oven of those who bear that yoke will indignantly 
 resist all attempts to urge them into crime. And without crime 
 the coercion sought to be exercised over fellow-workmen, over 
 the youth of the nation and over masters, can never be enforced! 
 
 Meantime a system is elevating itself into importance 
 founded on conditions diametrically opposed to those of Trades 
 Unions. I refer to Co-operation in its various branches ; which, 
 however they may differ to the eye, agree in holding sacred the 
 individual rights of all, and in giving to each member, in addi- 
 tion to a fixed remuneration for his labour or his capital, an inte- 
 rest rising or falling in amount with the rise or fall of prosperity 
 in the undertaking. This principle honestly carried into effect 
 with due intelligence and industry has wrought wonders both at 
 home and abroad. Peace takes the place of war, not a peace 
 of cold neutrality, but a firm alliance, in which even the most 
 humble feels himself raised above a mere hireling and placed on 
 the footing of a friend and partner. Now that the soundness of 
 co-operation has been proved by multiplied experiments, it 
 would be to doubt of human nature itself were we to turn away 
 with distrust from a principle giving scope to the noblest impulses 
 of the heart. Discarding its aid we should lose, according to my 
 settled convictions, our best prospect of escape from the chronic 
 animosities now encompassing us, and swelling with every suc- 
 ceeding year into more disastrous proportions.
 
 16 
 
 Reverting for a moment to the occurrences in the history of 
 the trades of Birmingham which led me to speak of Sheffield, 
 let me confess that however wholesome it may be (and as I 
 believe it is) to call attention to them, my strong attachment to 
 the place of my birth would, I fear, have deterred me from such 
 a task, had I not been able to fall back on merits far outweigh- 
 ing even in our darkest days the misconduct set before you, sad 
 as it is ; merits which cannot but be inferred from the progress 
 of the town during the last half century as regards all the con- 
 stituents of genuine prosperity. "What a centre of attraction 
 has it become to multitudes of strangers striving to better their 
 condition by honest industry, and realising from your constantly 
 increasing trade the benefits they seek ! Nor has Birmingham 
 been less attractive to men of distinguished talent, ample capital, 
 energy, enterprise, and withal prudence, without which gift 
 every other loses its commercial value, whatever else remain 
 behind. Yet the pursuit of wealth has not diverted your atten- 
 tion from higher duties. What these are and how faithfully 
 they are discharged many whom I see around me testify by 
 their participation in these good works. Still the continued 
 prosperity of Birmingham can only be retained by an uninter- 
 rupted series of victories. In no place on the face of the globe 
 is so rapid a succession of trades necessary for the full employ- 
 ment of the population. Staple trades, with the exception 
 of gun-making, you have none, or next to none. Numerous 
 manufactures, however, start into existence, prosper for a time, 
 and die out again at the caprice of fashion. What is better, 
 because of more permanent benefit, discoveries in science are 
 speedily applied here to the arts of life ; and whoever desires to 
 learn with what vigilance openings of this kind are watched for 
 should read the " Industrial History of Birmingham," a work 
 which has afforded me many hours of instruction and of enjoy- 
 ment in contemplating the boundless ingenuity of my fellow 
 townsmen. Nor will it be the least of the services rendered by 
 this record that it will hand down to posterity the names of 
 friends and neighbours justly held by you in high estimation
 
 17 
 
 for what they have effected. Such men, be assured, can have 
 nothing in common with the class to which I once more reluc- 
 tantly allude ; and the memory of their enlightened efforts will 
 stimulate the young to tread in their steps. Then will these 
 be struck with the need of qualifying themselves by scientific 
 acquirements for the race they have to run ; and will gladly 
 and, I trust, gratefully throng your halls. 
 
 In the course of their studies they will observe that the 
 ardent endeavours of Birmingham to reduce theory to useful 
 practice have reacted on science itself. The aid which you have 
 received from the philosopher you have returned to him in full 
 measure. At the meeting of the British Association held here 
 two years ago, that eminent chemist, Professor MILLEE, spoke 
 thus : 
 
 "It is not alone with the name of PKIESTLEY that we asso- 
 ciate the progress of chemistry in Birmingham. Grouped 
 around the father of Pneumatic Chemistry were several remark- 
 able men, who then either resided at Birmingham or frequently 
 met there, including MATTHEW BOHLTON, JAMES KEIK, Dr. 
 "WiTHEKma, Dr. DARWIN, and foremost of them all, JAMES 
 WATT, who here diversified his engineering labours with his 
 famous investigations into the composition of water. It was at 
 the factory at Soho, too, that MURDOCH made the first great 
 experiment on gas-lighting, at the illuminations for the short- 
 lived peace of Amiens ; and it was in Birmingham that Dr. 
 ROEBUCK, in the middle of the last century, erected the first 
 leaden chamber for the making of sulphuric acid, and thereby 
 inaugurated the most important of the chemical manufactures 
 of this country. 
 
 " Nor has Birmingham failed in more modern times to main- 
 tain her reputation in connexion with the chemical arts. Here 
 twenty-five years ago ELKINGTON founded the first establishment 
 in this country for carrying out the process of electro-plating 
 and electro-gilding. Here ASKIN made the nickel of commerce, 
 with its companion metal, cobalt, as oxyde articles that might
 
 18 
 
 vie in purity with the products of the laboratory. Here CHANCE 
 has established a manufactory of optical glass, which specially 
 calls for acknowledgment on the part of the student of science ; 
 and here STURGE and ALBRIGHT have erected the only manu- 
 factory for red phosphorus which the country contains." 
 
 Your contributions to other sciences than chemistry are set 
 forth in the volume just mentioned. It also gives due promi- 
 nence to a certain class of improvements the fruit of late years 
 as having produced an aesthetic alliance between the useful 
 and the beautiful ; happily consigning to oblivion certain errors 
 in taste of your predecessors, the frequent subject of severe, but 
 not too severe, condemnation. 
 
 In this work I observe the omission of names well entitled 
 to insertion in its pages ; but I attribute this silence not to 
 injustice in its authors, but to a delicate reserve in the owners 
 of such names, a little overstrained perhaps, yet, if an error, 
 certainly an error on the right side. 
 
 Against one passage of the work, however, I must enter my 
 protest ; namely, that which treats of the new manufacture 
 created and established by the late GEORGE FREDERICK MTTNTZ, 
 a trade which the Industrial History informs us now consumes 
 copper and zinc to the extent of 11,000 tons per annum, yielding 
 a return of 800,000. These two metals melted together pro- 
 duce a species of brass, which is rolled into plates and used for 
 sheathing seaborne vessels, in order to protect them against 
 the adhesion of animal and vegetable matter, which gradually 
 accumulates on the sides and bottoms of uncovered ships and 
 seriously impedes their progress. Protection was formerly 
 afforded by a sheathing of pure copper ; which however was so 
 rapidly destroyed by corrosion, caused by the action of sea 
 water, as to cast a heavy burden of expense for renewals on our 
 navy and on the merchant service. 
 
 For this defect the celebrated chemist Sir HUMPHREY DAVY 
 was employed by the Admiralty to seek a remedy. He succeeded 
 in completely staying the progress of corrosion by applying here
 
 19 
 
 and there small pieces of zinc to the surface of the plates ; 
 expecting, for reasons which he gives in his works, that the 
 copper sheathing so treated would remain free from the adhesion 
 of. extraneous matter. His success, however, in subduing all 
 corrosive power was too complete! It left matters worse than 
 before, rendering as it did the sheathing absolutely nugatory ; 
 since (disappointing his anticipations) it quickly became covered 
 with barnacles and seaweeds. Consequently it was necessary to 
 restore corrosive action, and submit to the attendant expense as 
 to an unavoidable evil. 
 
 Some years afterwards Mr. MUNTZ took up the subject ; and 
 happily it occurred to him that although some corrosion was 
 indispensable, a small degree might probably suffice. It also 
 occurred to him that sheathing composed of an alloy of copper 
 and zinc might answer his purpose, if he could so regulate the 
 proportions of the two metals as to enable the compound to 
 resist all corrosion in excess of the quantity which he should 
 find essential to keep the sheathing clean. Having verified his 
 theory by experiment, he sued out a patent. His new sheathing 
 had a double advantage. First, because copper being dear 
 while zinc is cheap the compound which contained 40 per cent, 
 of the latter metal could be sold at a reduced price; and 
 secondly, as the alloy is far more durable than pure copper the 
 cost of renewal is only required after long wear. Thus the sale 
 of the "yellow sheathing," as it was termed, soon became large, 
 and it threatened to supersede copper sheathing altogether. 
 
 A successful patent is almost invariably disputed. In this 
 instance Mr. MUNTZ'S rivals, who had been largely engaged 
 in the manufacture of copper sheathing, boldly pirated his 
 invention, and forced him to resort to law. How severe the 
 contest was you will readily imagine when I tell you that he 
 had upon his hands at one and the same time seven distinct 
 suits. In the year 1844 the validity of his patent came on for 
 trial. The cause lasted eight days, and notwithstanding that 
 nothing was omitted by the defendants which the ability of their
 
 20 
 
 eminent advisers could suggest, the plaintiff obtained a verdict, 
 wisely accepted by his opponents as conclusive. 
 
 All this I have stated with confidence, as I have a right to 
 do, since having taken part in the trial as one of the plaintiff's 
 counsel, I am intimately acquainted with the whole case ; and 
 certainly never did any patent fall under my cognizance which 
 proved on rigid scrutiny more free from the slightest shade of 
 doubt. Yet the Industrial History denies that Mr. MUNTZ was 
 the author of the invention awarded to him by this memorable 
 verdict ; the ground of denial being that the defendants put in 
 evidence a specification of an old and forgotten patent taken out 
 by a person named COLLINS. No wonder it had been forgotten. 
 Mr. COLLINS as Sir HUMPHREY DAVY did after him aimed 
 altogether to prevent corrosion; without a thought, so far as 
 appears, of the difficulties which would at once arise on the 
 accomplishment of his object. The means he proposed were to 
 use a sheathing so far resembling that adopted by Mr. MTTNTZ 
 that it was compounded of copper and zinc. But as might be 
 expected from his silence on the necessity for the metal retaining 
 a limited susceptibility to corrosion, he did not regulate his 
 proportions with any such view. Consequently a manufacturer 
 guided only by COLLINS' directions might err on the side either 
 of too much copper and too little zinc, or vice versd of too much 
 zinc and too little copper. In the first instance the corrosion 
 would act on the sheathing to an extent unnecessarily destructive. 
 In the second, the alloy would wholly arrest the corroding pro- 
 cess, and a vessel covered with such metal might just as well 
 have remained bare. The verdict, therefore, is impregnable ; 
 and considering the magnitude of the financial relief to great 
 interests afforded by Mr. MUNTZ'S discovery, high rank as an 
 inventor cannot with justice be refused him. 
 
 But I go further. Had Mr. MUNTZ merely revived as the 
 Industrial History alleges a forgotten invention, he would have 
 conferred a signal benefit on his country ; while his services to 
 Birmingham in establishing a manufacture giving employment
 
 21 
 
 to so many hands and to so much capital deserved, I cannot but 
 think, a far more cordial acknowledgment than has been granted 
 to it. 
 
 This treatment bears all the more hardly on the reputation 
 of Mr. MUNTZ that it appears in a book, not only of great 
 intrinsic value, but of peculiar interest to the people among 
 whom he lived ; and which must as regards its general character 
 secure their respect by the soundness of its judgments. If, 
 therefore, in my attempt to remove an unfortunate misappre- 
 hension I had wandered from my self-prescribed path, I should 
 I am persuaded have received your pardon. You would not 
 have visited me with your censure for seizing this, my last 
 opportunity of addressing my fellow townsmen, to vindicate the 
 just claims of a friend who (although a younger man) has gone 
 before me to " the house appointed for all living." 
 
 But I have not wandered. As respects one in the long 
 catalogue of your men of worth, I have attempted to set in its 
 true light his contribution to your welfare ; in the belief that no 
 more efficient expedient can be found for filling the benches of 
 your students than that of stimulating the emulation of the 
 young by exhibiting examples of the success attained by the 
 honest and persevering exercise of natural gifts, enlarged and 
 strengthened by knowledge. And let me not be deemed pre- 
 sumptuous if I earnestly exhort your leaders in this Institution 
 to take measures for holding up such examples in frequent 
 succession as opportunity shall offer. How many among us 
 might have been in our early years led onwards towards distinc- 
 tion, could we have traced the career of BOULTON and WATT, 
 as we now pursue it step by step in Mr. SMILES' delightful 
 biography of these great men ! Their joint lives illustrate in 
 every page some noble faculty of head or heart, shewing us how 
 they forced their way to success through obstacles impervious to 
 common resolution ; achieving not merely a selfish, not merely a 
 national triumph, but a victory on behalf of the human race. 
 
 BOUT/TON and WAIT ! Glorious names, joined by links which
 
 22 
 
 none of the many vicissitudes of their lives could sever, and 
 which death has only the more firmly riveted. Theirs was 
 indeed a " Holy Alliance " ! Each contributed to the common 
 stock many rare and precious endowments, forming a whole of 
 incomparable value such perhaps as no single individual ever 
 possessed. The inventive genius of WATT towered to a height 
 never exceeded in any age or country. His steam engine is an 
 assemblage of wonders. Select any one part for contemplation 
 and it will fill the mind with astonishment. The ingenuous 
 will feel humbled when they measure their own capacity against 
 his gigantic powers. The aspiring will rejoice that they belong 
 to the same race of beings with JAMES WATT. Who has not 
 stood rapt in amazement before that surpassing triumph of 
 mechanism the " Governor," in which an unpretending appa- 
 ratus composed of a few pieces of iron is so constructed as to 
 appear instinct with life, and to be performing the functions of 
 intellect! Then mark the "parallel motion," so obviously suited 
 to its very simple purpose that the uninstructed spectator might 
 conclude an ordinary smith competent to devise it. Yet it 
 overcomes difficulties insuperable except to the accomplished 
 mathematician, and even to him unless with his mathematics he 
 combine inventive talent of a high order. 
 
 Boui/roN was himself the author of many ingenious and 
 beautiful inventions, and would have compared respectably with 
 any other than WATT ; with whom, however, he was the last 
 to think of competing. But his own talent qualified him, 
 and must have compelled him had compulsion been needed, 
 to regard his partner with unstinted admiration. Such is the 
 force with which genius acts on all born capable of receiving the 
 full impression of its might! In some other aspects BOTJLTON 
 had the superiority ; he was the partner of business talent, he 
 was the capitalist ; and although it is difficult to believe he could 
 have been unconscious of his advantages, yet we never find him 
 asserting them, or in any way putting himself into rivalry with 
 his friend. WATT was not blessed with strong health, and pro-
 
 23 
 
 bably for that reason ho was by no means eminent for what has 
 been called "civil courage." In truth he was timorous and 
 prone to melancholy forebodings. The financial position of the 
 firm, which BOULTOIT had exhausted his resources to keep on 
 foot, was often and for long periods very precarious, sometimes 
 hovering on the verge of bankruptcy; and unless the moral 
 constitution of BOULTON had been far more robust than that of 
 WATT, it must have yielded^ to the perpetual strain. His 
 fortitude, although it failed to shield him from fits of depres- 
 sion, was never for a moment shaken. Yet his strength was 
 free from harshness. He treated the misgivings of WATT 
 with unchanging forbearance and even tenderness. Doubtless 
 it was the part of wisdom so to act. But we must all feel that 
 to preserve unwearied for years the relation between the two 
 partners which I have described, a union of benevolence and 
 self-restraint must have been required from BOUI/TON not often 
 bestowed on erring humanity. Of his high qualities, moral and 
 mental, WATT ever spoke with an enthusiasm which did honour 
 to both. The " Princely BOTTLTON," as his partner was wont to 
 call him, well deserved the designation, even in its ideal sense. 
 He was generous to munificence, courteous, genial, and of un- 
 spotted integrity. Had he been of noble birth he must have 
 risen to a commanding height in the State. As it was he still 
 shewed himself a "leader of men." He organized an invalu- 
 able body of artizans, taught many of them to rise into artists, 
 detected merit by a fine and sure instinct, and never suffered it to 
 languish for want of encouragement. He ruled with a gentle 
 though firm hand ; and when death came upon him in ripe old 
 age his host of loving retainers followed in tears their venerated 
 chief to his grave ! He had settled round Soho a little colony 
 of skilful, ingenious, and devoted assistants in his multifarious 
 undertakings. Some of these grew into distinction, and their 
 names, like that of MURDOCH already mentioned, will not pass 
 away. 
 
 This faint sketch, unworthy as it is of the subject, yet renders
 
 24 
 
 it almost superfluous to add that from youth to age BOTH/TON 
 was devoted to the pursuit of excellence. If I might, without 
 implying in him feelings of irreverence to which his soul was an 
 utter stranger, I should say that Soho was a Temple for the 
 worship of Perfection in all its forms, in design, material, and 
 workmanship. In whatever was there fabricated he demanded 
 that fitness for its purpose should be made the first object, in 
 the useful arts, Utility, in the fine arts, Beauty, but a beauty 
 conforming itself to the purest and severest principles of taste. 
 His own aims being so exalted, it followed by irresistible necessity 
 that his contempt for the vulgar and dishonest manufacturer who 
 ruined the quality of his goods in order that by lowering his 
 prices he might drive respectable competition out of the market, 
 was as unsparing as it was deserved. 
 
 In conformity with a long established error it is usual to 
 attribute the whole merit of the spread of WATT'S engine to the 
 inventor. WATT himself knew better; and gave ample credit 
 to BOULTON, though not more than was justly his due, for his 
 invaluable services, without which the machine could not have 
 been brought to perfection, and even if brought to perfection 
 could never have been forced into general use. " Through the 
 whole of this business," says WATT, "Mr. BOULTON'S active and 
 sanguine disposition served to counterbalance the despondency 
 and diffidence which were natural to me ; and every assistance 
 which Soho or Birmingham could afford was procured." And 
 true it is that BOULTON during the terrible struggle narrated by 
 the biographer, "took the main share of the burden, pushing 
 the engine amongst the Cornish miners, bringing it under the 
 notice of London brewers and water companies, and finding 
 money to meet the heavy liabilities of the firm." 
 
 The assistance rendered by the artizans of Birmingham was 
 another essential to the construction of the engine with the 
 requisite degree of excellence to fit it for working smoothly ; 
 without which high finish it could not have been applied to 
 general purposes, but must have been confined to its ruder duties,
 
 like the engines of WATT'S predecessors. And in Birmingham 
 alone could in those days a body of workmen be found possessed 
 of sufficient skill and versatility to conquer the difficulties hourly 
 arising to defeat their attempts. "The Society of Engineers 
 in Holborn," says Mr. SMILES, " of which SHEATON was the 
 great luminary, had settled it that neither the tools nor the 
 workmen existed that could manufacture so complex a machine 
 with sufficient precision." 
 
 That the artisans of our birthplace altogether falsified this 
 prophecy, although it issued from the lips of the most eminent 
 engineer in England, will I trust justify us in feelings of pride 
 which I for one am unable to resist. Thus the sublime invention 
 of WATT is indissolubly connected with our town. In truth it is 
 the great Birmingham Machine, or "Brummagem Machine" if 
 our detractors so please ; used in such association, an uncouth 
 word will not ruffle our temper. Surely no association can be 
 more honorable, or suggest more gratifying reflections ! 
 
 When the inventor is of the highest rank the product of his 
 mind is not transitory either in duration or utility. It is for all 
 time. For if incorporated in a machine, although each individual 
 embodiment wears out and is gone, the mental creation remains, 
 and is translated again and again to a new habitation. Age does 
 not weaken it ; death has no power over it ; and the lapse of 
 years only affects it by suggesting expedients for its still further 
 improvement. Thus it is endowed with a privilege not vouch- 
 safed to any other offspring of man's intellect, not even to the 
 works of the greatest writers. These at best remain unchanged. 
 All we can hope is to restore their text when mutilated by the 
 blunders or unfaithf ulness of copyists ; or to recover them when 
 lost for ages by the barbarous indifference of the generations 
 through whose hands they should have passed down to ours. 
 
 Although our local history cannot show a second exploit with 
 any pretensions to rival the transformation of the steam engine 
 from the barbarism of its northern handicraft to the surpassing 
 excellence which it attained in the workshops of Soho, yet could
 
 26 
 
 I occupy your time for hours with the enterprises to which Bir- 
 mingham has given birth; all illustrating the ingenuity and 
 the perseverance of her sons, each having its story of good or 
 ill fortune. For in trade, as in every earthly affair, success can 
 never be ensured. Not seldom must the aspirant learn to bear 
 calamities with fortitude, and patiently content himself as best 
 he may when he has earned a right to the consolation of having 
 merited a better lot than has fallen to him by the chances of 
 life, and each narrative, whether ending happily or unhappily, 
 would, in my belief, tend to excite the young to resolutely pursue 
 a career of honourable exertion, in which diligence would be 
 directed by knowledge, guarded by caution, and governed by 
 rectitude : for although "it is not in mortals to command 
 success," it cannot be doubted that to deserve it offers the only 
 rational hope of its attainment. 
 
 After what I have said of Birmingham you will not be sur- 
 prised that I should have experienced a little disturbance of my 
 equanimity in reading the following remarks which I extract from 
 the Quarterly Review : "There is something very touching in 
 the graceful humour with which Dr. BADHAM in the epistle 
 lately cited veils his deep feeling as to his present position, 
 leaving it to his friends at Leyden to understand, if they think 
 fit, that all posts of learned leisure or more dignified employ- 
 ment had been dt, dignioribus occupati! 
 
 " We, however, well knowing that such is not the case, 
 cannot help deploring that in a land like ours, amply provided 
 with such posts, and wont to confer them with no grudging 
 hand on scholarly distinction, Dr. BADHAM, notwithstanding all 
 his critical labours, should continue to fill no higher office than 
 that of head master of a proprietary school at Birmingham, over 
 which dreary place he. contrives to throw a classic interest." 
 Then follows a passage from the Latin epistle referred to, in 
 which the Doctor reminds his correspondents that he is exiled 
 to the land of the men of iron, far away from the Muses. 
 
 " "We," continue the Reviewers, " would follow up the
 
 allusion with the hope that in this iron age of material work his 
 skilful labours, in what is at present the least popular branch of 
 learning, may herald an age of English scholarship which shall 
 have nothing of Birmingham but its energetic industry, and 
 nothing of its iron but its fibre and toughness qualities which 
 sound criticism alone can give. And to this hope we would fain 
 add a second ; that he himself may not want the reward due to 
 the leader in such a regeneration." 
 
 All competent to form a judgment on Dr. BADHAM'S merits 
 will, so far as I have ascertained, concur with the Eeviewers in 
 extolling them. But if there had been no other reason for 
 withholding this contemptuous reference to Birmingham, the 
 fact here held up for reproof, that the authorities, with whom 
 lies all the patronage of appointments to "posts of learned 
 leisure or more dignified employment," had passed over Dr. 
 BADHAM to promote less worthy candidates, while Birmingham 
 had given him a home and a welcome, should have sheltered us 
 from invidious comparisons which might perhaps be returned on 
 the learned world with interest. His remuneration here may 
 have been far below his deserts, yet derived as it was, not from 
 the ample munificence of the dead, but from the voluntary con- 
 tributions of a small number of the living, it certainly enabled 
 the men of iron to atone, to some extent at least, for the short- 
 comings of the men of Latin and Greek. You honoured the 
 profound scholar while he remained with you, regretted his 
 departure into more distant " exile," and rejoiced when he per- 
 mitted you to offer him some token of your affection and of your 
 continuing regard for his welfare. 
 
 We thank the Eeviewers for their condescending admission 
 of our energetic industry. But when they repudiate every 
 other attribute of Birmingham, some untoward influence wofully 
 misleads them. That sound criticism which they invoke, and 
 which is to herald a better age of English scholarship, can, I 
 humbly submit, only be exercised by those who have acquired 
 the faculty of sound reasoning, a faculty in which learned men
 
 28 
 
 of no small celebrity have, times out of number, been found 
 notoriously deficient. The most famous scholar of English 
 growth was, beyond contradiction, RICHARD BENTLEY, whom 
 POPE calls that 
 
 " mighty scholiast, whose immortal pains 
 
 Made Horace dull, and humbled MILTON'S strains." 
 
 Of his marvellous capacity for degrading MILTON I will give one 
 example. His Horace I pass by, with the remark that many 
 years ago I read a few of his notes, and so far as I went it 
 seemed to me that the Satirist was borne out in his reprobation, 
 stinging as it is. As to MILTON, my hearers will remember 
 who can forget it that splendid passage in the first book of the 
 Paradise Lost, in which occurs the line, 
 
 "Busiris and his Memphian chivalry." 
 
 Here we are informed by BENTLEY that the poem is twice 
 wrong. Chivalry, he says, is put for cavalry, and cavalry for 
 chariotry ; so that the line ought to stand, 
 
 " Busiris and his Memphian chariotry .'" 
 
 One of the congeries of blunders compressed into the so-called 
 corrections presents probably the most glaring absurdity to be 
 found in the whole range of conjectural criticism, fertile as it 
 is in. plants of this species, BENTLEY foists a word on his author 
 only to inform us that the word which he has so imposed is 
 wrong ! 
 
 Now I cannot but think that the critic, whose great 
 abilities none acquainted with his works, or even with his 
 biography, will deny, never would have thus exposed himself 
 to the ridicule of his contemporaries and successors had he had 
 the training of a BOULTON or a MUNTZ. They learnt to reason, 
 not so much in words as in deeds, and deeds of moment, where 
 to be captivated by a fallacy is to be led to ruin ; while on the 
 other hand, to arrive at the truth by seizing nice distinctions is 
 to arrive at wealth and fame. Had BOTTLTON'S estimate of the 
 immense capabilities of WATT'S engine, obscured as they were 
 by the imperfect state in which it came to Birmingham, been
 
 false, he might have died a pauper, with the stigma of wild 
 speculation on his memory ; and if MTJNTZ had not discerned a 
 distinction which escaped the^ eagle ken of DAVY, yellow-sheath- 
 ing, with its magnificent rewards to himself and its still greater 
 benefits to the public, would have had no existence. 
 
 I must, therefore, with all deference to the Quarterly Review, 
 be permitted to believe that Birmingham affords examples 
 worthy of imitation in addition to that of " energetic industry;" 
 and that if BENTLEY had been in the habit of reasoning under 
 responsibilities, though far lighter than those encountered at 
 Birmingham, his criticisms might have been as remarkable for 
 soundness as they assuredly are for learning. Had he only 
 varied his studies oftener than he did with application to sub- 
 jects like the physical sciences, which would have enabled him 
 to question Nature, and test the value of his ratiocination by 
 her answers, he would have avoided many a strange fallacy; 
 and that miserable abortion on which I have commented would 
 never have come into the world. 
 
 The experience of many among my hearers will, I doubt not, 
 supply instances in proof and illustration of the foregoing 
 remarks. I hope I shall be indulged in adding two to that 
 already furnished. Somewhere about the year 1780 the in- 
 habitants of this town were invited to witness the ascent of a 
 balloon inflated with hydrogen gas. The projectors fearing 
 the consequence of disappointing tho populace, swollen as 
 they knew it would be by large importations from the Black 
 Country, a region in which the natives bore no exalted character 
 for gentleness and forbearance, or for a delicate sense of justice 
 and propriety, took great pains to avert a failure; in par- 
 ticular they secured sulphuric acid of unusual purity. But, 
 alas ! when the acid was applied secundum artem to iron 
 filings, the only other ingredient at that time believed to 
 be requisite for generating hydrogen gas, not a bubble arose ! 
 The projectors, in their distress, betook themselves to Dr. 
 PBIESTLEY; and certainly they could not have done better
 
 30 
 
 than apply on a question of gaseous chemistry to the re- 
 nowned discoverer of oxygen. But even PBIESTLEY'S experience 
 proved unequal to the occasion; and the patience of the mob 
 becoming exhausted, they broke into the enclosure and destroyed 
 all before them. The explanation is simple. To generate 
 hydrogen gas a third ingredient is required, namely, water. 
 Of this the sulphuric acid of commerce, then a costly liquid, 
 usually contained a sufficient quantity, for the reason which 
 accounts for its presence in the milk of commerce. Thus the pro- 
 jectors were defeated by the very success of their endeavours to 
 obtain every thing of the best, not reflecting that what is best 
 for one purpose may be worst for another ; and that before 
 changing established modes of operation the validity of the 
 reasons for change should be guaranteed by experiment. 
 
 My second instance is drawn from glass painting. It is 
 notorious that the most strenuous labours of glass painters, 
 at home and abroad, to rival certain of the colours found in the 
 works of mediaeval artists, failed of success in spite of innume- 
 rable trials. The difficulty, I am informed, is now surmounted; 
 and I am led to believe it was first overcome at the works of the 
 late Mr. HABDMAN, an establishment which has done so much 
 for restoring the pursuit of excellence in ecclesiastical art. 
 Here, as in the former instance, the error lurked in a natural 
 but nevertheless illogical assumption. The glass of the middle 
 ages was, for general purposes, very bad as compared with our 
 own. Its transparency was imperfect : it was knotty, streaky, 
 and unequal in thickness. But this irregularity of surface 
 produces a sparkling appearance, which can be arrived at by no 
 other means, and which is at length discovered to be invaluable 
 to the artist by its effect on his colours ; so that to supply the 
 wants of the painter we have to go back, and abandon all our 
 improvements in glass-making. 
 
 After these proofs the Quarterly Eeviewers, who seem to 
 represent the interests of aristocratic culture, will, I hope, for- 
 give me for not being quite satisfied with the place they assign
 
 31 
 
 to you. Upon a mere creature of metal, fed on coals and water, 
 you have conferred the ability to impel a vessel across the 
 Atlantic without a moment of rest ; or to whirl a railway train 
 through an unbroken race of scores of miles at a velocity which 
 would leave Eclipse himself irrecoverably in the rear. Here truly 
 is exemplified the "energetic industry" attributed by your critics 
 to Birmingham ! But to have inspired inert matter with such a 
 power implies, as you have a right to demand they should 
 admit, the possession by yourselves of faculties of a far different 
 order. 
 
 And now I have done. Having trespassed so long on your 
 patience I will not intrude further with detailed applications. 
 The sum of such details would be, that the removal of every 
 obstacle to the permanent welfare of our town, and the promo- 
 tion of whatever tends to its advancement, must concurrently 
 foster the love of knowledge in the rising generation. Thus 
 imbued, the young will flock into the Birmingham and Midland 
 Institute, and thence issue forth so to use their acquirements 
 that their own profit may go hand-in-hand with the good of 
 others. That they may offer such an example to successors 
 without number is, and will ever be so long as life remains, my 
 heartfelt prayer !
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 PAGK 8. Since I delivered the foregoing Address the following 
 anecdote of Dr. CROFT has come to my knowledge, and as it is much to 
 his credit I feel bound to publish it. My informant is the son of a 
 Dissenting Minister, whose parents were married by the Doctor. At 
 the conclusion of the ceremony the bridegroom, who believed himself 
 unknown to Dr. CROFT, offered a marriage fee. It was declined, with 
 the remark, " We never take fees from each other." 
 
 PAGE 21. It was highly important to the commercial success of Mr. 
 MUNTZ'S patent that he should be able to roll the plates of his sheathing 
 in a heated state, for when cold the power required to produce the 
 necessary expansion of the metal is so great as to make the process very 
 costly. Among the workmen there was a superstition that an alloy of 
 copper and zinc could not be rolled while hot without destroying the 
 plates ; and Mr. MUNTZ'S men, as he told me, refused to stultify them- 
 selves by making what they believed a hopeless attempt ; indeed it was 
 only by the influence of a determined will that he prevailed upon them 
 to try the effect of an experiment. To their astonishment it was per- 
 fectly successful, and their apprehensions were at once dissipated. 
 
 It is seldom that the public concerns itself with more than the prin- 
 cipal feature of an invention. The subordinate parts, although they 
 often impose perplexing difficulties on the inventor, excite little attention 
 in others. But such superstitions are not without precedent. The 
 world was deprived of locomotive engines for many years by a belief 
 which prevailed among mechanists that the friction between the wheel 
 and the rail would be too slight to insure a progressive motion. And 
 after experience had proved this belief a delusion, Dr. LARDNEB, a very 
 eminent professor of mathematics, limited the attainable speed of trains 
 to thirty miles in the hour ; all higher velocity he pronounced impossible
 
 33 
 
 from the"resistance of the atmosphere. While experiments were making 
 in England for the establishment of the Electric Telegraph, I asked the 
 opinion of a foreign electrician of great celebrity as to the feasibility of 
 the undertaking. He answered at once in the negative ; giving as his 
 reason that the electric influence would die away from the wire after 
 being earned but a very short distance ! 
 
 ARROWSMITH, PBINTEE, QUAY STBEET, BBISTOL.
 
 ZIsT THE 
 
 (In one small Volume,) 
 
 CHILDREN OF THE STATE. 
 
 SUGGESTIONS FOB THE TRAINING- OF JUVENILE 
 PAUPEES, DRAWN FROM EXPERIENCE. 
 
 BY 
 
 FLORENCE HILL. 
 
 LONDON: MACMILLAN & Co.
 
 
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