j 
 
 / O/- 
 
 ' 
 
 7 
 
 7 
 
 /fV^/
 
 UP THE HEIGHTS 
 
 OF 
 
 T?AME AND FORTUNE, 
 
 AND 
 
 TO BECOME 
 
 MEN OF MARK 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 FRED'K BRENT READ. 
 
 PUBLISHERS: 
 WILLIAM H. MOORE & COMPANY, 
 
 68 PEARL STREET, CINCINNATI. 
 I873- 
 
 SOLD TO SUBSCRIBERS ONLY.
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by 
 
 WM. H. MOORE & COMPANY, 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 
 
 STEREOTYPED AT THE FRANKLIN TYPE FOUNDRY, CINCINNATI.
 
 H 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 SA.NTA BARBARA 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 THE present volume is intended for popular reading. It has 
 been prepared with direct reference to supplying a large cir- 
 cle of readers with a fund of practical infofhiation of an interesting 
 nature, and of an instructive and elevating character. It has come 
 to be true that information must be compactly given, if it is to be 
 acceptable to any considerable number of people : it is believed 
 that this volume furnishes, in an entertaining series of biographies 
 in PART I, a chain of remarkable facts and events not heretofore 
 groupe'd together, or otherwise accessible in any available form. 
 
 With the decease of Prof. S. F. B. Morse, in April of the present 
 year, culminated the career of the last one of less than a dozen 
 men whose inventions and improvements have changed the indus- 
 trial, commercial, and social relations of the world. In this work 
 the lives of some of these men are given in nearly chronological 
 order. 
 
 A single unit only has been added to the column of centuries, 
 beyond three years for grace, since Watt secured the first patent 
 on his Condensing Engine ; and not even a century has passed 
 since Boulton and Watt became partners and began the manufac- 
 ture of Steam-engines : now there are said to be engaged in the 
 manufacturing and labor interests of Great Britain alone a hundred 
 thousand of them, without mentioning Locomotives, or engines em- 
 ployed in navigation. Perhaps three times as many more Steam- 
 engines are employed in other countries. The civilized world may 
 fairly be said to tremble beneath the surging power and groaning 
 
 thug of iron arms and sinews, propelled by steam. 
 
 (iii)
 
 IV PREFACE, 
 
 The dormant power of the coal beds of America, which has 
 awaited the beaming of this high noon of the nineteenth century, 
 is destined to perform an important part in the onward march of 
 events. 
 
 The story of the invention and early development of the Amer- 
 ican Telegraph has never before been told. In the rushing move- 
 ments of modern life none can tarry to read or listen to long sto- 
 ries : what is done, must be done quickly ; and what is said, must 
 be said briefly. Interesting and instructive facts are in demand, 
 but they must be given in short space, and with due consideration 
 for the value of time, now that modern Motors have gone so far 
 toward annihilating both space and time. We can not doubt that 
 the series of events brought to view in the sketches of Morse and 
 Vail, although briefly narrated, will be especially interesting to very 
 many people. The facts are impartially stated, with no purpose but 
 to present the truth. 
 
 The later portions of the work, comprised in PARTS II and III, 
 will be found to possess attractions of a different kind possibly 
 not less desirable, even if in substance less positively material. 
 The sketches in these divisions of the work are certainly as well 
 adapted to mold character and incite to noble aims. 
 
 For the essential services rendered by many gentlemen and la- 
 dies, residing at widely separated points, who have furnished facts 
 and illustrations, or directed to sources of information, we take 
 pleasure in expressing our obligations. 
 
 LINDEN CABIN, November -jtli, 1872.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PART I. 
 GREAT INVENTORS, ETC. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 JAMES WATT, Inventor of the Condensing Engine, . . 9 
 
 SIR RICHARD ARKWRIGHT, an Inventor and Improver of 
 
 Cotton Machinery, . . . . . .21 
 
 ELI WHITNEY, Inventor of the Cotton-Gin, etc., . . 27 
 
 JOHN FITCH, the Originator and Builder of the first Steamboats, 
 
 17851790, 32 
 
 ROBERT FULTON, an Inventor, and the Successful Pioneer in 
 
 Steam Navigation, ...... 57 
 
 DANIEL FRENCH, an Inventor who obtained his patent two 
 
 years before Fulton ; his Second boat, under the command of 
 CAPT. HENRY M. SHREVE, was the first that ascended the 
 
 Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, and he was the Successful 
 
 Inventor and Improver of Western River Steamers, and also 
 
 Inventor of the Snag-boat, . . . . .67 
 
 RICHARD TREVITHICK, the Original Inventor of a Locomotive 
 
 for Tram Roads, ...... 90 
 
 GEORGE STEPHENSON, the first Successful Railway Engineer 
 
 and Passenger Locomotive Builder, .... 105 
 THE STEAM ENGINE its structure, its spirit, its food, and its 
 
 performances, . . . . . . .219 
 
 SAMUEL F. B. MORSE, Original Inventor of the American 
 
 Telegraph, ....... 233
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PACK. 
 
 ALFRED VAIL, the associate of Professor Morse, and Inventor 
 of the present, the first Morse Alphabet and Instruments used 
 in practical telegraphing, ..... 265 
 
 PART II. 
 DELVERS IN SCIENCE AND LITERATURE. 
 
 GEORGE CUVIER, the Eminent Naturalist, . . .301 
 
 HUGH MILLER, the Stone Mason, Geologist, Author, and Editor, 311 
 ROBERT and WILLIAM CHAMBERS, Authors, Editors and 
 
 Publishers, . . . . . . -S3 1 
 
 HORACE GREELEY, Printer, Author, EdVor, and Publisher, . 719 
 
 PART III. 
 MEN of the PEOPLE, who were PRACTICAL PHILANTHROPISTS. 
 
 JOHN FREDERICK OBERLIN, Philanthropist, . . 745 
 
 STEPHEN GIRARD, Merchant and Banker, . . .751 
 
 GEORGE PEABODY, Merchant and Banker, . . -755
 
 PART I. 
 STEAM AND ELECTRICITY, 
 
 AND THE 
 
 MEN WHO FIRST UTILIZED THEM 
 
 AND MADE THEM THE 
 
 Great Motors of Modern Progress.
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS AND EMBELLISHMENTS. 
 
 Portraits of Prof. Morse and Mr. Peabody, (Frontispiece). PACK 
 
 Fitch's Model Boat of 1785, with section of endless chain, ..... 40 
 
 Fitch's Boat of 1787, from " Columbian Magazine," also Dr. Franklin's Model, . . 43 
 
 Fhch's Philadelphia and Trenton Packet, 1790, ...... 48 
 
 Fitch's Bardstown Model, and Fac-simile of Letter, . 55 
 
 Fulton's First Steamboat on the Hudson, 1807, . .... 62 
 
 French's Steamer " Enterprise," 1814, First boat to ascend the Mississippi and Ohio, (see pp. 70-72.) 62 
 
 Portrait of Henry M. Shreve, ......... 67 
 
 Steamers " Paragon " and " Caledonia," Western rivers 1819 and 1823, . . see 78 and 79 
 
 Ohio River Steamers, .......... S6 
 
 Oliver Evans's Road Engine, ........ 93 
 
 Richard Trevithick's Tramroad Locomotive, ....... 93 
 
 Blenkinsop's and Stephenson's Coal Engines, ....... 149 
 
 First Railway Coach and First Passenger Engine, . . . . . . 171 
 
 An American Locomotive, with diagram, ....... 308 
 
 War Steamer " Devastation," . . . . . . . . .. 332 
 
 Statue of Prof. Morse, .......... 256 
 
 Portrait of Alfred Vail, with Telegraph Instrument, ...... 384 
 
 Fac-simile of Certificate, ..... 293 
 
 Portrait of Hugh Miller, .......... 31 1 
 
 House where Hugh Miller was born, ........ 311 
 
 Lake Steamer China, . . . . . . ' . . . . (^ 
 
 " Sound " Steamer Commonwealth, ... .., 738 
 
 Girard College, Philadelphia, ......... 753 
 
 (riii)
 
 JAMES WATT 
 
 ALL the inventions and improvements of recent times, if meas- 
 ured by their effects upon the condition of society, sink into 
 insignificance, when compared with the extraordinary results which 
 have followed the employment of steam as a mechanical agent. To 
 one individual, the celebrated Watt the merit and honor of having 
 first rendered it extensively available are pre-eminently due. The force 
 of steam, in mechanics, was almost entirely overlooked until within 
 the last two centuries. The Ancients were, in a small measure, ac- 
 quainted with its expansive powers ; its prodigious energies were noticed 
 by a French writer, Solomon de Caus, who flourished in the beginning 
 of the seventeenth century; in the decade of 1660, the Marquis of 
 Worcester similarly remarked the properties of steam. About twenty 
 years later, Sir Samuel Morland projected a method of employing it ; 
 and Denis Papier, a native of France, about 1690, contrived an 
 Engine, acting with steam and the pressure of the atmosphere, for 
 lifting water, but on an exceedingly nide plan. The next who tried 
 such a scheme was Captain Savery, who, about 1698, began to erect 
 Engines for lifting water, somewhat on the principle of the sucking- 
 pump. Not long after Savery had invented his Engine, Thomas 
 Newcomen, an iron-monger, and John Galley, a glazier, both of Dart- 
 mouth, in Devonshire, England, began also to direct their attention 
 to the employment of steam. Their first Engine was constructed 
 about 1711. This machine still acted on the principle of condensing 
 the steam by means of cold water, and the pressure of the atmosphere 
 on the piston. It was found of great value for pumping water from 
 deep mines ; but the mode of its construction, the great waste of fuel, 
 the continual cooling and heating of the cylinder, and the limited 
 capacities of the atmosphere in impelling the piston downward, all 
 tended to circumscribe its utility. Our knowledge of what might be 
 done by steam was in this state, when the subject at last happily 
 attracted the attention of Mr. Watt. 
 
 JAMES WAIT was born at Greenock, Scotland, on the i9th of Janu- 
 
 (9)
 
 10 JAMES WATT. 
 
 ary, 1736. His father was a merchant, and also one of the magistrates 
 of that town. He received the rudiments of his education in his 
 native place ; but his health being even then extremely delicate, as 
 it continued to be to the end of his life, his attendance at school was 
 not always very regular. He amply made up, however, for what he 
 lost in this way, by the diligence with which he pursued his studies 
 at home, where, without assistance, he succeeded, at a very early age, 
 in making considerable proficiency in various branches of knowledge. 
 Even at this time, his favorite study is said to have been mechanical 
 science, to a love of which he was probably, in some degree, led by 
 the example of his grandfather and his uncle ; both had been teachers 
 of mathematics, and had each left a large reputation for learning and 
 ability in that department. Young Watt, however, was not indebted 
 to any instructions of theirs for his own acquirements in science, the 
 former having died two years before, and the latter the year after, he 
 was born. At the age of eighteen, he was sent to London to be 
 apprenticed to a maker of mathematical instruments; but, in little 
 more than a year, the state of his health forced him to return to Scot- 
 land, and he never received any further instruction in that profession. 
 A year or two after this, however, a visit which he paid to some 
 relatives in Glasgow suggested to him the plan of attempting to 
 establish himself there in that business. In 1757, he removed thither, 
 and was immediately appointed Mathematical Instrument Maker to 
 the college. He remained for some years, enduring almost constant 
 ill health, but continued both to prosecute his profession, and to labor 
 with extraordinary ardor and perseverance in the general cultivation 
 of his mind. 
 
 Here he enjoyed the friendship and intimacy of several distin- 
 guished persons who were members of the University; especially of 
 the celebrated Dr. Black, spoken of as the discoverer of the principle 
 of latent heat, and Mr. (afterwards Dr.) John Robinson, so well 
 known by his treatises on Mechanical Science, who was then a stu- 
 dent, and about the same age as himself. Honorable as this ap- 
 pointment was, and important as were many of the advantages given 
 him, he probably did not find it a very lucrative one ; and, therefore, 
 in 1763, when about to marry, he removed from his apartments in 
 the University to a house in the city, and entered upon the profes- 
 sion of general Engineer. 
 
 For this his genius and scientific attainments admirably qualified 
 him. He soon acquired a high reputation, and was extensively em- 
 ployed in making surveys and estimates for Canals, Harbors, Bridges, 
 and other public works. His advice and assistance were sought for 
 in almost all the important improvements of this description then 
 undertaken or proposed in his native country. But another pursuit 
 was destined, ere long, to divert him from this line of exertion, and 
 to occupy his whole mind in efforts still more worthy of its extraor- 
 dinary powers.
 
 IMPROVEMENT OF NEWCOMEN'S ENGINE. II 
 
 While yet residing in the college, his attention had been directed 
 to the employment of Steam as a Mechanical agent, by some specula- 
 tions of his friend, Robinson, as to the practicability of applying this 
 power to the movement of wheel carriages. He had also, himself, 
 made some experiments with Papin's digester, to ascertain the expan- 
 sive force of steam. 
 
 He had not prosecuted the inquiry, however, so far as to have ar- 
 rived at any determinate result, when, in the winter of 1763-4, a small 
 model of Newcomen's _engine was sent to him by the Professor of 
 Natural Philosophy, to be repaired and fitted for exhibition in the 
 class. The examination of this model set Watt thinking anew, and 
 with more interest than ever, on the powers of steam. Struck with 
 the radical imperfections of the Atmospheric Engine, he began to 
 reflect upon the possibility of using steam in mechanics, in some new 
 manner, and with much more powerful effect. With this idea he 
 engaged in an extensive course of experiments for ascertaining the 
 properties of steam, and was rewarded with several valuable discov- 
 eries. The rapidity with which water evaporates, he found, for instance, 
 depended simply upon the quantity of heat which was made to enter 
 it ; and this again on the extent of the surface exposed to the fire. 
 He also ascertained the quantity of coal necessary for the evapora- 
 tion of any given quantity of water, the heat at which water boils 
 under various pressures, and many other particulars of a similar kind, 
 which had never before been accurately determined. 
 
 Thus prepared by a competent knowledge of the properties of the 
 agent with which he had to work, he proceeded to consider, with a 
 view to amend, what he deemed the two grand defects of Newcomen's 
 engine. The first of these was the necessity arising from the method 
 employed to concentrate the steam, which was, to cool the cylinder by 
 injecting cold water before every stroke of the piston. On this ac- 
 count, a much more powerful application of heat was requisite for the 
 purpose of again heating the vessel to be refilled with steam. In fact, 
 Watt ascertained that, in feeding the machine, there was a waste of not 
 less than three-fourths of the fuel. If the cylinder, instead of being 
 cooled at every stroke, could be kept permanently hot, a fourth part 
 of the heat would be found sufficient to produce steam to fill it. 
 How, then, was this desideratum to be attained ? Savery, the first 
 who really constructed a working engine, and whose arrangements 
 showed superior ingenuity, employed cold water upon the outside of 
 the steam cylinder, a perfectly manageable process, but at the same time 
 a very wasteful one, inasmuch as, every time it was repeated, it con- 
 densed not only the steam, but also cooled the vessel, which had again 
 to be heated by a very large expenditure of fuel. Newcomen's 
 method of injecting the water into the cylinder was a considerable im- 
 provement on Savery's, but still was objectionable on the same ground, 
 though not to the same degree ; it still not only condensed the steam, 
 but cooled also the cylinder itself, in which more steam was to be
 
 12 JAMES WATT. 
 
 immediately manufactured, and therefore should, if possible, have been 
 kept hot. It was also a very serious objection to this plan, that the 
 injected water itself, from the heat of the place into which it was 
 thrown, was very apt to be partly converted into steam ; and the more 
 cold water used, the more (under the circumstances) was new steam 
 generated. In fact, in the best of Newcomen's Engines, the perfection 
 of the vacuum was thus so greatly impaired, that the resistance to the 
 piston, in its descent, amounted to about a fourth part of the whole 
 atmospheric pressure by which it was carried down, or, in other words, 
 the working power of the machine was thereby diminished one-fourth. 
 
 After reflecting upon all this, it at last occurred to Watt that it might 
 be possible to condense steam in some other vessel than in the cylinder. 
 This fortunate idea having presented itself, it was not long before the 
 means for realizing it were also suggested. In the course of one or 
 two days, as he tells us, he had all the necessary apparatus arranged 
 in his mind. The plan which he devised was a simple one, therefore 
 the more beautiful. He connected the cylinder and another vessel by 
 an open pipe, so that, when the steam was admitted into the former, it 
 flowed into the latter, and filled it also ; this latter vessel only being 
 subjected to a condensing process, by contact with cold water, a va- 
 cuum was produced, and into that, as a vent, more steam would imme- 
 diately rush from the cylinder, which would likewise be condensed, 
 and so the process would go on until the steam had left the cyl- 
 inder, and a perfect vacuum had been effected in that vessel, without 
 so much as a drop of cold water having touched or entered it. The 
 separate vessel alone, or the condenser, as Watt called it, was cooled 
 by the water condensing the steam, and, instead of being an evil, 
 manifestly promoted and quickened the condensation. When Watt 
 reduced these views to the test of an experiment, he found the result 
 to answer his most sanguine expectations. The cylinder, although 
 emptied of its steam for every stroke of the piston, as before, was now 
 constantly kept at the same temperature with the steam, (or 212 Fa- 
 renheit), and the consequence was, that one-fourth of the fuel formerly 
 required sufficed to feed the engine. But besides this saving of expense 
 in maintaining the engine, its power was greatly increased by the more 
 perfect vacuum ; the condensing water could not, as before, create 
 new steam while displacing the old. 
 
 Thus, by the genius of this great inventor, was the serious defect of 
 the old apparatus remedied. In carrying his ideas into execution, he 
 encountered, as was to be expected, many difficulties, arising princi- 
 pally from the impossibility of realizing theoretical perfection of 
 structure with such materials as he had to work with; but his ingenuity 
 and perseverance overcame every obstacle. 
 
 One of the things which caused him the greatest trouble was, how 
 to fit the piston so exactly to the cylinder as, without effecting the 
 freedom of its motion, to prevent the passage of air between the two. 
 In the old Engine, this end had been attained by covering the piston
 
 ECONOMY OF FUEL. 13 
 
 with a small quantity of water, which, dripping into the space below, and 
 mixing with the steam, had little or no evil consequence. But in the 
 new construction, this receptacle for the steam, always to be kept both 
 hot and dry, such an effusion of moisture, although only in very small 
 quantities, would have occasioned material inconvenience. The air 
 alone, which in the old engine followed the piston in its descent, acted 
 with considerable effect in cooling the lower part of the cylinder. His 
 attempts to overcome this difficulty, while they succeeded in that ob- 
 ject, conducted Watt also to another improvement, which effected the 
 complete removal of what we have called the second radical imper- 
 fection of Newcomen's engine, namely, its non-employment of the 
 expansive force of the steam. The effectual way of preventing the air 
 from escaping into the part of the cylinder below the piston would 
 be, he thought, to dispense with the use of that element above the 
 piston, and substitute there the same contrivance as below, alternate 
 steam and a vacuum. This was, of course, to be accomplished by 
 merely opening communications from the upper part of the cylinder 
 to the boiler on the one hand, and the condenser on the other, and 
 forming it at the same time into an air-tight chamber, by means of a 
 cover, with only a hole in it to admit the rod or shank of the piston ; 
 which might, besides, without impeding its freedom of action, be padded 
 with hemp, the more completely to exclude the air. It was so con- 
 trived, accordingly, by a proper arrangement of the cocks and the ma- 
 chinery connected with them, that, while there was a vacuum in one end 
 of the cylinder, there should be an admission of steam into the other ; 
 and the steam so admitted now served, not only, by its susceptibility 
 of sudden condensation, to create the vacuum, but also, by its expan- 
 sive force, to impel the piston. 
 
 These were the great improvements made by Watt, in what may be 
 called the principle of the steam-engine, or, in other words, in the 
 manner of using and applying the steam. They constitute, therefore, 
 the grounds of his claim to be regarded as the true author of the con- 
 quest that was at last obtained by man over this powerful element. 
 But original and comprehensive as were the views out of which these 
 fundamental inventions arose, the exquisite and inexhaustible inge- 
 nuity which the Engine, as finally perfected by him, displays in every 
 part of its subordinate mechanism, te calculated to strike us, perhaps, 
 with scarcely less admiration. It forms undoubtedly the best exempli- 
 fication that had ever been afforded, of the number and diversity of 
 services which a piece of machinery might be made to render itself, 
 by means solely of the various applications of its first moving power, 
 when that had once been called into action. Of these contrivances, 
 however, we can only notice one or two, by way of specimen. Per- 
 haps the most singular is that called the Governor. This consists of 
 an upright spindle, which is kept constantly turning, by being con- 
 nected with a certain part of the machinery, and from which two 
 balls are suspended in opposite directions by rods, attached by joints,
 
 14 JAMES WATT. 
 
 somewhat in the manner of the legs of a pair of tongs. As long as 
 the motion of the Engine is uniform, that of the spindle is so like- 
 wise, and the balls continue steadily revolving at the same distance 
 from each other. But as soon as any alteration in the action of the 
 piston takes place, the balls, if it has become more rapid, fly farther 
 apart, under the influence of the increased centrifugal force which act- 
 uates them, or approach nearer to each other in opposite circum- 
 stances. This alone would have served to indicate the state of mat- 
 ters to the eye; but Watt was not to be so satisfied. He connected the 
 rods with the valve in the tube, by which the steam is admitted to 
 the cylinder from the boiler, in such a way that, as they retreat from 
 each other, they gradually narrow the opening which is so guarded, 
 or enlarge it as they tend to collapse ; thus diminishing the supply 
 of steam when the engine is going too fast, and, when it is not going 
 fast enough, enabling it to regain its proper speed, by allowing it an 
 increase of aliment. Again, the constant supply of a sufficiency of 
 water to the boiler is secured by an equally simple provision, namely, 
 by a float resting on the surface of the water, which, as soon as it is 
 carried down by the consumption of the water, to a certain point, 
 opens a valve and admits more. And so on, through all the different 
 parts of the apparatus, the various wonders of which can not be better 
 summed up than in the forcible and graphic language of a recent 
 writer: "In the present perfect state of the engine, it appears a thing 
 almost endowed with intelligence. It regulates with perfect accuracy 
 and uniformity the number of its strokes in a given time, counting or 
 recording them moreover, to tell how much work it has done, as the 
 clock records the beats of its pendulum; it regulates the quantity of 
 steam admitted to work ; the briskness of the fire ; the supply of the 
 water to the boiler ; the supply of coal to the fire ; it opens and shuts 
 its valves with absolute precision as to time and manner; it oils its 
 joints; it takes out any air which may accidentally enter into parts 
 which should be vacuous ; and when any thing goes wrong which it 
 can not itself rectify, it warns its attendants by ringing a bell ; yet, 
 with all these talents and qualities, and even when exerting the power 
 of six hundred horses, it is obedient to the hand of a child ; its ali- 
 ment is coal, wood, charcoal, or other combustible ; it consumes none 
 while idle; it never tires, and tfants no sleep; it is not subject to 
 malady, when originally well made, and only refuses to work when 
 worn out with age ; it is equally active in all climates, and will do 
 work of any kind ; it is a water-pumper, a miner, a sailor, a cotton- 
 spinner, a weaver, a blacksmith, a miller, etc., etc. ; and a small en- 
 gine, in the character of a steam pony, may be seen dragging after it 
 on a railroad hundreds of tons of merchandise, or regiments of sol- 
 diers, with by far greater speed than that of our fleetest coaches. It 
 is the king of machines, and a permanent realization of the Genii of 
 Eastern fable, whose supernatural powers were occasionally at the 
 command of men."
 
 HIS FIRST PATENT. 15 
 
 In addition to difficulties which his unrivaled mechanical ingenuity 
 enabled him to surmount, Watt, notwithstanding the merit of his 
 invention, had to contend for some time with others of a different 
 nature, in his attempts to reduce them to practice. He had no pecu- 
 niary resources of his own, and was at first without any friend willing to 
 run the risk of the outlay necessary for an experiment on a sufficiently 
 large scale. At last, he applied to Dr. Roebuck, an ingenious and spir- 
 ited speculator, who had just established the " Carron Iron Works," 
 not far from Glasgow, and held also, at this time, a lease of the ex- 
 tensive coal works at Kinneal, the property of the Duke of Hamilton. 
 Dr. Roebuck agreed to advance the requisite funds on having two- 
 thirds of the profits made over to him ; and upon this Mr. Watt took 
 out his first patent in the beginning of the year 1769. An Engine, 
 with a cylinder of eighteen inches in diameter, was soon after erected 
 at Kinneal ; and although, as a first experiment, it was necessarily in 
 some respects of defective construction, its working completely de- 
 monstrated the great value of Watt's improvement. But Dr. Roebuck, 
 whose undertakings were very numerous and various, in no long time 
 after forming this connection, found himself involved in such pecuniary 
 difficulties as to put it out of his power to make any farther advances 
 in the prosecution of its object. 
 
 On this, Watt applied himself for some years almost entirely to the 
 ordinary work of his profession as a Civil Engineer ; but at last, about 
 the year 1774, when all hopes of any further assistance from Dr. Roe- 
 buck were at an end, he resolved to close with a proposal which had 
 been made to him through his friend, Dr. Small, of Birmingham, that 
 he should remove to that town, and enter into partnership with an 
 eminent hardware manufacturer, Mr. Boulton, whose extensive estab- 
 lishments at Soho had already become famous over Europe, and pro- 
 cured for England an unrivaled reputation for the arts there carried 
 on. 
 
 Accordingly, an arrangement having been made with Dr. Roebuck, 
 by which his share of the patent was transferred to Mr. Boulton, the 
 firm of Boulton & Watt commenced the business of making Steam En- 
 gines in the year 1775. 
 
 Mr. Watt now obtained from Parliament an extension of his patent 
 for twenty-five years from that date, in consideration of the acknowl- 
 edged National importance of his Inventions. The first thing which 
 he and his partner did was to erect an Engine at Soho, which they 
 invited all persons interested in such machines to inspect. They then 
 proposed to erect similar engines wherever required, on the very lib- 
 eral principle of receiving as payment for each only one-third of the 
 saving in fuel which it should effect, as compared with one of the old 
 construction. 
 
 But the Draining of Mines was only one of the many applications 
 of the steam power now at his command, which Watt contem- 
 plated, and in the course of time accomplished. During the whole
 
 l6 JAMES WATT. 
 
 twenty-five years, indeed, over which his renewed patent extended, 
 the perfecting of his invention was his chief occupation ; and, not- 
 withstanding a delicate state of health, and the depressing affliction of 
 severe headaches, to which he was extremely subject, he continued 
 throughout this period to persevere with unwearied diligence in adding 
 new improvements to the mechanism of the engine, and devising the 
 means of applying it to new purposes of usefulness. He devoted, in 
 particular, the exertions of many years to the contriving of the best 
 methods of making the action of the piston communicate a rotatory 
 motion under various circumstances; and between the years 1781 and 
 1785 he took out four different patents for inventions, having this 
 object in view. 
 
 While residing at the University of Glasgow, in 1759, Watt's young 
 friend, Robinson, suggested the feasibility of applying steam power to 
 the driving of wheel carriages on common roads. Robinson prepared 
 a rough sketch of his proposed steam carriage, and in this sketch he 
 located the cylinder with its open end downward, to avoid the neces- 
 sity for using a working beam. Watt was then young, but twenty- 
 three, and was very much occupied in his business of making 
 Mathematical Instruments ; he, however, proceeded to construct a 
 model locomotive provided with two cylinders of tin-plate, intending 
 that the pistons and their connecting rods should act alternately on 
 two pinions attached to the axles of the carriage-wheels. The model, 
 when made, did not answer Watt's expectations ; and, shortly after, 
 when Robinson left college to go to sea, he laid the project aside, 
 and did not resume it for many years. 
 
 In the meantime, an ingenious French mechanic and military officer, 
 named Nicholas Joseph Cugnot, constructed a steam carriage, at the 
 arsenal, in 1769, at the cost of the Comte de Saxe. On being first 
 set in motion, it ran against a stone wall which stood in its way, and 
 threw it down. Here was evidence of its power. It afterwards tra- 
 veled two and a quarter miles an hour, but could not be easily man- 
 aged ; and the size of the boiler being insufficient, it would not continue 
 to work more than twelve to fifteen minutes. This locomotive was a 
 simple and ingenious form of a high- pressure engine ; and, although 
 rude in construction, it was, considering the time of its appearance, 
 a creditable piece of work, and excited no small degree of interest on 
 the streets of Paris, where it made several successful trial-trips. One 
 day, however, when turning the corner of a street near the Madeleine, 
 and it was running at a speed of about three miles an hour, it be- 
 came over-balanced, and fell with a heavy crash. Considered dangerous, 
 it was thenceforth locked up securely in the arsenal. But the inventor's 
 merits were duly recognized, by the Government granting him a pension 
 of three hundred livres. His locomotive is still to be seen in one of 
 the museums of Paris. 
 
 While Cugnot was constructing his machine at Paris, one Francis 
 Moore, a linen-draper, was taking out a patent in London for moving
 
 ROAD LOCOMOTION. 17 
 
 wheel carriages by steam. In March, 1769, he gave notice of his 
 patent, but it does not appear that he did any thing beyond lodging 
 the titles of his inventions. 
 
 James Watt's friend and correspondent, Dr. Small, of Birmingham, 
 when he heard of Moore's intended project, wrote to the Glasgow in- 
 ventor, to stimulate him to perfect his steam-engine, then in hand, and 
 urging him to apply it, among other things, to purposes of locomotion. 
 "I hope soon," said Small, "to travel in a fiery chariot of your in- 
 vention." Watt replied to the effect that, " if linen-draper Moore 
 does not use my Engines for driving his carriages, he can't drive them 
 by steam. If he does, I will stop them." But Watt was a long way 
 from perfecting his invention. The steam-engine, capable of driving 
 carriages, was a problem to the solution of which Watt never fairly 
 applied himself. It was enough for him to accomplish the great work 
 of perfecting his condensed Engine, and with that he rested content. 
 
 But Watt continued to be so strongly urged by those about him to 
 apply steam power to purposes of locomotion that, in his comprehen- 
 sive patent of August 24, 1784, he included an arrangement with that 
 object in view. From his specifications, we learn that he proposed 
 a cylindrical or globular boiler, protected outside by wood, strongly 
 hooped together, with a furnace inside entirely surrounded by the 
 water to be heated, except at the ends. 
 
 Though Watt repeatedly expressed his intention of constructing a 
 model locomotive after his specification, it does not appear that he 
 ever carried it out. He was too much engrossed with other work ; 
 and besides, he never entertained very sanguine views as to the practica- 
 bility of road locomotion by steam. He continued, however, to dis- 
 cuss the subject with his partner, Boulton, and from his letters we 
 gather that his mind continued undetermined as to the best plan to be 
 pursued. 
 
 From what he said to Boulton, it is plain that Watt's views as to road 
 locomotion were crude and undefined; and, indeed, he never carried 
 them farther. While he was thus discussing the subject with Boulton, 
 William Murdock, one of the most skilled and ingenious workmen of 
 the Soho firm, then living at Redruth, in Cornwall, was occupying 
 himself during his leisure hours, which were but few, in constructing 
 a model locomotive, after a design of his own. He had, doubtless, 
 heard of the proposal to apply steam to locomotion, and, being a 
 clever inventor, he forthwith set himself to work out the problem. 
 The plan he pursued was very simple, and yet efficient. His 
 model was of small dimensions, standing little more than a foot high ; 
 but it was sufficiently large to demonstrate the soundness of the 
 principle on which it was constructed. It was supported on three 
 wheels, and carried a small copper boiler, heated by a spirit-lamp, 
 with a flue passing obliquely through it. The cylinder, of three-fourth- 
 inch diameter, and two- inch stroke, was fixed in the top of the boiler, 
 the piston-rod being connected with the vibrating beam attached to
 
 l8 JAMES WATT. 
 
 the connecting-rod which worked the crank of the driving-wheel. 
 This little engine worked by the expansive force of the steam only, 
 which was discharged into the atmosphere after it had done its work 
 of alternately raising and depressing the piston in the cylinder. 
 
 This model was invented and constructed in 1781; but from the 
 correspondence of Boulton & Watt, we infer that it was not ready 
 for trial until 1784. The first experiment with it was made in Mur- 
 dock's own house at Redruth, when it successfully hauled a model 
 wagon round the room, the single wheel placed in front of the en- 
 gine, and working in a swivel frame, enabling it to run round in a 
 circle. 
 
 Another experiment was made out of doors, on which occasion, small 
 though the engine was, it fairly outran the speed of its inventor. One 
 night, after returning from his duties at the Redruth mine, Murdock 
 determined to try the working of his model locomotive. For this 
 purpose, he had recourse to the walk leading to the church, about a 
 mile from the town. It was rather narrow, and was bounded on each 
 side by high hedges. The night was dark, and Murdock set out alone 
 to try his experiment. Having lit his lamp, the water soon boiled, 
 when off started the engine, with the inventor after it. Shortly after, 
 he heard distant shouts of terror. It was too dark to perceive ob- 
 jects ; but he found, on following up the machine, that the cries pro- 
 ceeded from the worthy pastor of the parish, who, going toward the 
 town, was met on this lonely road by the hissing and fiery little mon- 
 ster, which he subsequently declared he had taken to be the Evil One, 
 in propia persona. 
 
 Watt was by no means pleased when he learned that Murdock was 
 giving his mind to these experiments. He feared that it might have 
 the effect of withdrawing him from the employment of the firm, to 
 which his services had become almost indispensable ; for there was no 
 more active, skillful, or ingenious workman in all their concern. Watt 
 accordingly wrote to Boulton, recommending him to advise Murdock 
 to give up his locomotive-engine scheme ; but, if he could not succeed 
 in that, then, rather than lose Murdock's services, Watt proposed that 
 he should be allowed an advance of 100 to enable him to prosecute 
 his experiments, and if he succeeded within a year in making an engine 
 capable of drawing a post-chaise carrying two passengers and the 
 driver, at four miles an hour, it was suggested that he should be taken 
 as partner into the locomotive business, for which Boulton & Watt 
 were to provide the necessary capital. 
 
 Two years later, (in September, 1786), we find Watt again express- 
 ing his regret to Boulton that Murdock was "busying himself with 
 the steam carriage." "I have still," said he, "the same opinion 
 concerning it that I had ; but to prevent as much as possible more 
 fruitless argument about it, I have one of some size under hand, and 
 am resolved to try if God will work a miracle in favor of these car- 
 riages. I shall, in some future letter, send you the words of my
 
 WHAT THE STEAM-ENGINE HAS ACHIEVED. 19 
 
 specification on that subject. In the mean time, I wish William 
 could be brought to do as we do, to mind the business in hand, and 
 let others throw away their time and money in hunting shadows." In a 
 subsequent letter, Watt expressed his gratification "that William applies 
 himself to his business." From that time Murdock, as well as Watt, 
 dropped all further speculation on the subject, and left others to work 
 out the problem of the locomotive engine. Murdock' s model re- 
 mained but a curious toy, which he took pleasure in exhibiting to his 
 intimate friends. 
 
 Symington & Sadler, the "hunters of shadows" referred to by 
 Watt, did little to advance the question. 
 
 So long as Boulton & Watt's patent continued to run, constant 
 attempts were made in Cornwall and other mining regions to get 
 round it, but they were Kings within the entire realm of their endeav- 
 ors, until the term of their patent ended, in 1800. 
 
 Watt's engines had cleared the mines of water, and thereby rescued 
 the mine lords from ruin ; but they felt it to be a great hardship for 
 them to be obliged to pay Boulton & Watt for the right to use them, 
 and, therefore, they sought to stimulate the local Engineers to contrive 
 some evasion of the patent. Jonathan Hornblower, who had been 
 engaged in erecting Watt's engines in Cornwall, was the first to pro- 
 duce an engine that seemed likely to answer the purpose. 
 
 Then Edward Bull, who had been first a stoker, and then an assistant- 
 tender of Watt's engine, turned out another pumping-engine, which 
 promised safely to evade the patent ; but the patentees proved successful 
 in defending their right in Several actions which were tried, so that 
 the mine lords were compelled to disgorge, greatly to their disgust. 
 Poor Hornblower was abandoned by them, and shortly after was almost 
 in a state of starvation, and soon was imprisoned for debt. . 
 
 The Steam-Engine has already gone far to revolutionize the whole 
 domain of human industry ; and almost every year is adding to its 
 power and conquests. In our manufactures, our arts, our commerce, our 
 social accommodations, it is constantly achieving what, a little less 
 than a century ago, would have been accounted miracles and impossi- 
 bilities. The trunk of an Elephant, it has been finely and truly said, 
 that can "pick up a pin" or rend an oak is nothing to it. It can 
 engrave a seal, and crush masses of obdurate metal like'wax, draw out, 
 without breaking, a thread as fine as gossamer, and lift a Ship of War 
 like a bauble in the air. It can embroider muslin, and forge anchors ; 
 cut steel into ribbands, and impel loaded vessels against the fury of 
 the winds and waves. It had been employed many years at collieries, 
 in propelling heavily-loaded carriages over railways; but the final 
 great experiment of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, for the 
 first time, practically demonstrated with what hitherto undreamed-of 
 rapidity traveling by land might thereafter be carried on through the 
 agency of steam power. 
 
 Coaches, by this the most potent of all our mechanical agencies,
 
 20 JAMES WATT. 
 
 have been drawn forward at the flying speed of from thirty to sixty 
 miles an hour; but it would be rash to conclude that even this is to 
 be our ultimate limit of attainment. 
 
 In navigation the resistance of water increases rapidly, as the propel- 
 ling force increases ; but in railway traveling by land no such serious 
 resistance has to be overcome. When present speed of land travel shall 
 have become universal, in what a new state of society shall we find our- 
 selves. We are now able to travel some seven hundred miles per day, for 
 seven or eight days, on a continuous east and west line from the Atlantic 
 to the Pacific, bringing the remotest extremes of our large country 
 (especially when aided by telegraphic facilities) into neighborhood 
 relations, and making the Nation a community indeed. When these 
 facilities, like the light of heaven, shall have become equally diffused 
 over the World, the benefits conferred by the highest civilization will 
 not be long deferred. 
 
 " It is gratifying to reflect that, even when he was yet alive, Watt re- 
 ceived from the voice of the most illustrious of his contemporaries 
 the honors due to his genius. In 1785, he was elected a Fellow of 
 the Royal Society ; the degree of the Doctor of Laws was conferred 
 upon him, by the University of Glasgow, in 1806; and in 1808 he 
 was elected a member of the French Institute. He died on the 25th 
 of August, 1819, in the eighty-fourth year of his age."
 
 SIR RICHARD ARKWRIGHT: 
 
 r I "HE biography of James Watt having been given, we now turn to 
 RICHARD ARKWRIGHT, who was born at Preston, in Lancashire, 
 England, on the 23d of December, 1732, some ten months later than 
 Washington first saw the light in Virginia. 
 
 Arkwright, from a very humble origin, rose to affluence and distinc- 
 tion by his perseverance in improving and perfecting machinery adapted 
 to the cotton manufacture. Steam power was made cheap and avail- 
 able by the inventions of Watt ; so that when, a few years later, Whit- 
 ney had, by the invention of the Cotton-Gin, made the production 
 of Cotton profitable, at a comparatively low price, the combination 
 resulted which has since built up the great manufacturing towns of 
 Britain and the United States, and brought into prominence those 
 who, for a half century and more, have been known as the Cotton 
 Lords of England, the Manufacturers of the New England States, and 
 the Cotton Planters of the South. These great interests have almost 
 completely changed the commerce of the world. 
 
 The parents of Arkwright were very poor; and he was the youngest 
 of a family of thirteen children. The education he received was ex- 
 tremely limited, if indeed he was ever at school at all. But little 
 learning would probably be deemed necessary for the profession to 
 which he was bred, that of a barber. He followed this business until 
 nearly thirty years of age, and during this early period his history is 
 hidden and obscure enough. 
 
 About the year 1760, however, or soon after, he quit shaving, and 
 commenced business as an itinerant hair-dealer, collecting the com- 
 modity by traveling up and down the country; and then, after he had 
 dressed it, selling it again to the wig-makers, with whom he very soon 
 acquired the character of keeping a better article than any of his rivals 
 in the same trade. He obtained possession, too, we are told, of the 
 then secret method of dyeing hair, by which he, doubtless, contrived to 
 augment his profits; and, perhaps, in his accidental acquaintance 
 with this little piece of chemistry, we may find the germ of that sen- 
 sibility he soon began to manifest to the value of new and unpub- 
 
 * Under the heading adopted for Part I, this and the sketch of Whitney, follow- 
 ing it, are scarcely in place; the reader will make due allowance. 
 
 (21)
 
 22 SIR RICHARD ARK WRIGHT. 
 
 Hshed inventions in these arts, and his passion for patent-rights and 
 the pleasures of monopoly. 
 
 It would appear that his first effort in mechanics, as has happened 
 in the 1 case of many other ingenious men, was an attempt to discover 
 the perpetual motion. It was on inquiring after a person to make him 
 some wheels for a project of this kind that, in the latter part of the 
 year 1767, he got acquainted with a clockmaker of the name of Kay, 
 then residing at Warrington, with whom it is certain that he was, for 
 a considerable time after, closely connected. From this moment we 
 may date his entrance upon a new career. 
 
 The manufacture of cotton cloths was introduced into England 
 only towards the end of the seventeenth century; although stuffs, 
 improperly called Manchester Cottons, had been fabricated nearly 
 three centuries before, which, however, were made entirely of wool. 
 It is generally thought that the first attempt at the manufacture of 
 cotton goods in Europe did not take place till the end of the fifteenth 
 century, Avhen the art was introduced into Italy. Before this, the 
 only cottons known had been imported from the East Indies; where 
 alone, because of cheap labor, the cotton plant could be grown with 
 profit, until after Whitney invented the Cotton-Gin. 
 
 The English Cottons, for many years after the introduction of the 
 manufacture, had only the weft of cotton, the warp or longitudinal 
 threads of the cloth being of linen. It was conceived to be imprac- 
 ticable to spin the cotton with a sufficiently hard twist to make it 
 serviceable for this latter purpose. Although occasionally exported, too, 
 in small quantities, the manufactured goods were chiefly consumed in 
 England. It was not t\\l the year 1760 that any considerable demand 
 arose for them abroad. 
 
 But about this time the exportation of cottons, both to the Con- 
 tinent and to America, began to be carried on on a large scale, 
 and the manufacture, of course, received a corresponding impulse. 
 The thread had hitherto been spun entirely (as it still continues to 
 be in India) by the tedious process of the distaff and spindle, the 
 spinner drawing out only a single thread at a time. But as the de- 
 mand for the manufactured article continued to increase, a greater 
 and greater scarcity of weft was experienced, till at last, although 
 there were 50,000 spindles constantly at work in Lancashire alone, 
 each occupying an individual spinner, they were found quite insuffi- 
 cient to supply the quantity of thread required. The weavers gener- 
 ally in those days had the weft they used spun for them by the 
 females of their family; and now "those weavers," says Mr. Guest, 
 in his history of the Cotton Manufacture, "whose families could not 
 furnish the necessary supply of weft, had their spinning done by their 
 neighbors, and were obliged to pay more for the spinning than the 
 price allowed by their masters ; and, even with this disadvantage, very 
 few could procure weft enough to keep themselves constantly employed. 
 It was no uncommon thing for a weaver to walk three or four miles in
 
 HIS EARLY POVERTY. 23 
 
 a morning, and call on five or six spinners, before he could collect weft 
 to serve him the remainder of the day ; and when he wished to weave 
 a piece in a shorter time than usual, a new ribbon or gown was neces- 
 sary to quicken the exertions of the spinner." 
 
 It was natural, in this state of things, that attempts should be made 
 to contrive some more effective method of spinning, and, in fact, sev- 
 eral ingenious individuals seem to have turned their attention to the 
 subject. Long before this time, indeed, spinning had been thought 
 of by more than one speculator. A Mr. Wyatt, of Lichfield, is stated 
 to have actually invented an apparatus for that purpose so early as 
 the year 1733, and to have had factories built and filled with these ma- 
 chines both at Birmingham and Northampton. These undertakings, 
 however, not being successful, the machines were allowed to perish, 
 and no model or description of them was preserved. There was also 
 a Mr. Laurence Earnshaw, of Motram, in Cheshire, of whom "it is 
 recorded," says Mr. Baines, in his history of Lancashire, "that in the 
 year 1753, he invented a machine to spin and reel cotton at one opera- 
 tion, which he showed to his neighbors and then destroyed it, through 
 the generous apprehension that he might deprive the poor of bread" 
 a mistake, but a benevolent one. 
 
 It was in the year 1767, as we have mentioned, that Arkwright 
 became acquainted with Kay. In 1768, the two friends appeared 
 together at Preston, and immediately began to occupy themselves 
 busily in the erection of a machine for spinning cotton thread, of 
 which they had brought a model with them. They prevailed upon a 
 Mr. Smalley, who is described to have been a liquor merchant and 
 painter of that place, to join them in their speculation ; and the room 
 in which the machine was fixed was the parlor of a dwelling-house 
 attached to a free grammar-school, which Smalley obtained from his 
 friend, the school-master. At this time Arkwright was so poor that, 
 an election contest having taken place in the town of which he was 
 a burgess, it is asserted that his friends, or party, were obliged to sub- 
 scribe to get him a decent suit of clothes before they could bring him 
 into the poll-room. As soon as the election was over, he and Kay left 
 Preston, and, carrying with them their model, betook themselves to Not- 
 tingham, the apprehension of the hostility of the people of Lancashire to 
 the attempt he was making to introduce spinning by machinery, having, 
 as Arkwright himself afterward stated, induced him to take this step. 
 On arriving at Nottingham, he first made arrangements with the Messrs. 
 Wright, bankers, for making the necessary supply of capital ; but 
 they, after a short time, having declined to continue their advances, 
 he took his model to Messrs. Need & Strutt, stocking-weavers of the 
 place, the latter of whom was a particularly ingenious man, and well 
 qualified, from scientific acquirements of which he had possessed him- 
 self under many disadvantages, to judge of the adaptation of the new 
 machinery to its proposed object. An inspection of it perfectly satis- 
 fied him of its great value; and he and Mr. Need immediately agreed
 
 34 SIR RICHARD ARKWRIGHT. 
 
 to enter into partnership with Arkwright, who, in 1769, took out a 
 patent for the machine as its inventor. A Spinning Mill driven by 
 horse-power was, at the same time, erected, and filled with the frames ; 
 being, unless we include those erected many years before by Mr. Wyatt, 
 the first works of the kind that had been known in England. In 1771, 
 Arkwright and his partners established another Mill at Cromford, in 
 the parish of Wirksworth, in Derbyshire, the machinery of which was 
 set in motion by a water-wheel, and in 1775 he took out a second 
 patent, on additions which he had made to his original apparatus. 
 
 In what we have hitherto related, we have carefully confined our- 
 selves to facts which are universally acknowledged ; but there are other 
 points of the story that have been stated in very opposite ways, and 
 have given rise to much doubt and dispute. 
 
 The machinery for which Arkwright took out his patents consisted 
 of various parts, his second specification enumerating no fewer than 
 ten different contrivances; but of these, the one that was by far of 
 greatest importance was a device for drawing out the cotton from a 
 coarse to a finer and harder twisted thread, and so rendering it fit to 
 be used for warp as well as weft. This was most ingeniously managed 
 by the application of a principle which had not yet been introduced 
 into any other mechanical operation. The cotton was in the first 
 place drawn off from the skewers, on which it was fixed by one pair 
 of rollers, which were made to move at a comparatively slow rate, and 
 which formed it into threads of the first and coarser quality; but at 
 a little distance behind was placed a second pair of rollers, revolving 
 three, four, or five times as fast, which took it up when it had passed 
 through the others, the effect of which would be to reduce the thread 
 to a degree of fineness so many times greater than that which it orig- 
 inally had. The first pair of rollers might be regarded as the feeders 
 for the second, which could receive no more than the others sent to 
 them; and that, again, could be no more than these others themselves 
 took up from the skewers. As the second pair of rollers therefore re- 
 volved, we will say five times for every one revolution of the first pair, 
 or, which is the same thing, required for their consumption in a given 
 time five times the length of thread that the first did, they could obvi- 
 ously only obtain so much length by drawing out the common portion 
 of cotton into thread of five times the original fineness. Nothing 
 could be more beautiful or more effective than this contrivance, which, 
 with an additional provision for giving the proper twist to the thread, 
 constitutes what is called the water frame or throstle. 
 
 Of this part of his machinery, Arkwright particularly claimed the 
 invention as his own. He admitted with regard to some of the other 
 machines included in his patent, that he was rather their improver 
 than their inventor; and the original spinning-machine for coarse 
 thread, commonly called the spinning-jinny, he frankly attributed, in 
 its first conception, to a person of the name of Hargrave, who resided 
 at Blackburn, and who, he said, having been driven out of Lancashire
 
 'COURAGE AND PERSEVERANCE. 25 
 
 in consequence of his invention, had taken refuge in Nottingham, but, 
 unable to bear up against a conspiracy formed to ruin him, had been 
 at last obliged to relinquish the further prosecution of his object, and 
 died in obscurity and distress. 
 
 There were, however, other parties who had an interest as well as 
 Arkwright in these new machines, and who would not allow that any 
 of them were of his invention. As to the principal of them, the 
 water-frame, they alleged that it was in reality the invention of a 
 poor reed-maker by the name of Highs, or Hayes, and that Arkwright 
 had obtained the knowledge of it from his old associate Kay, who 
 had been employed by Highs to assist him in constructing a model of 
 it a short time before Arkwright had sought his acquaintance. Many 
 cotton-spinners, professing to believe this to be the true state of the 
 case, actually used Arkwright's machinery in their factories, notwith- 
 standing the patent by which he had attempted to protect it ; and 
 this invasion of his monopoly was carried to such an extent, that he 
 at last found himself obliged to bring actions against no fewer than 
 nine different parties. 
 
 It would be needless to enter here into the history of Arkwright's 
 legal contests, which, after varied success, he finally lost. Whatever 
 conclusion may be come to on the subject of his claim to the inven- 
 tion of the machinery introduced by him into his spinning factories, 
 it is incontestable that to him alone belongs the merit both of having 
 combined its different parts with admirable ingenuity and judgment, 
 and of having, by his unwearied and invincible perseverance, first 
 brought it into actual use on any thing like an extensive scale, and 
 demonstrated its power and value. The several inventions which his 
 patent embraced, whether they were his own or not, would probably 
 but for him have perished with their authors; none of whom except 
 himself had the determination and courage to face the multiplied 
 fatigues and dangers that lay in the way of achieving a practical ex- 
 emplification of what they had conceived in their minds, or to en- 
 counter any part of that opposition, incredulity, and ridicule; of those 
 disappointments, repulses, losses, and other discouragements over all 
 of which he at last so completely triumphed. When he set out on 
 this career, he was poor, friendless, and utterly unknown. We have 
 already stated that, on his coming with Kay to Preston, he was almost 
 in rags; and it may be added, that, when he and Kay made applica- 
 tion immediately before this to a Mr. Atherton for some pecuniary 
 assistance to enable them to prosecute their plans, Arkwright's appear- 
 ance alone was enough to determine that gentleman to have nothing 
 to do with the adventure. Can we have a more exciting example, 
 then, of what a resolute heart can do under apparently the most hope- 
 less circumstances? of what ingenuity and perseverance together may 
 overcome in the pursuit of what they are determined to obtain? 
 And this is the grand lesson which the history of Arkwright is fitted 
 to teach us: to give ourselves wholly to one object, and never to dc-
 
 26 SIR RICHARD ARK WRIGHT. 
 
 spair of reaching it. Even after he had succeeded in forming his 
 partnership with Messrs. Need & Strutt, his success was far from being 
 secured. For a long time the speculation was a hazardous and un- 
 profitable one, and no little outlay was required to carry it on. He 
 tells us himself that in his case it did not begin to pay till it had 
 been persevered in for five years, and had swallowed up a capital of 
 more than twelve thousand pounds. We can not doubt that it re- 
 quired all Arkwright's dexterity and firmness to induce his partners 
 to persevere with the experiment under this large expenditure and 
 protracted disappointment. But it was the character of the man to 
 devote his whole heart and faculties to whatever he engaged in. 
 Even to the close of his life, the management of his extended manu- 
 facturing operations was his only occupation, and even amusement. 
 Although he had been from early life afflicted with severe asthma, he 
 took scarcely any recreation, employing all of his time either in super- 
 intending the daily concerns of these establishments, which were regu- 
 lated upon a plan that itself indicated in its contriver no little ingenuity 
 and reach of mind, or in adding such improvements to his machinery 
 from time to time as his experience and observation suggested. And 
 thus it was that he raised himself from a poor barber to what he event- 
 ually became not merely a man of rank and affluence, but the founder 
 of a new branch of National industry, destined in a wonderfully short 
 space of time, to assume the very first place among the manufacturers 
 of his own country and America.
 
 ELI WHITNEY. 
 
 ELI WHITNEY, the Arkwright of America, and one of the most 
 intrepid and persevering improvers that ever lived, was the son 
 of a respectable farmer at Westborough, Worcester County, Massa- 
 chusetts, where he was born in the year 1765. Very early, young 
 Eli gave striking indications of the mechanical genius for which he 
 afterwards was so distinguished. His education was of a limited 
 character until he reached the age of nineteen, when he conceived the 
 idea of entering college. Notwithstanding the opposition of his 
 parents, he prepared himself for the Freshman class in Yale College, 
 which he entered May, 1789, partly by means of the profits of his 
 manual labor, and partly by teaching a village school. 
 
 Soon after he took his degree, in the autumn of 1792, he entered 
 into an engagement with a gentleman of Georgia, to reside in his 
 family as a private teacher. But on his arrival in that state, he found 
 that another teacher had been employed, and he was left entirely 
 without resources. Fortunately, however, among the passengers in 
 the vessel in which he sailed was Mrs. Greene, the widow of the 
 celebrated General, who had given him an invitation to spend some 
 time at her residence at Mulberry Grove, near Savannah : and on 
 learning his disappointment, she benevolently insisted upon his making 
 her house his home until he had prepared himself for the bar, as was 
 his intention. 
 
 Whitney had not been long in her family before a complete change 
 was made in his purposes. A party of gentlemen on a visit to Mrs. 
 Greene, having fallen into a conversation upon the state of agricul- 
 ture among them, expressed great regret that there was no means of 
 cleansing the green seed-cotton, or separating it from its seed, remark- 
 ing that, until ingenuity could devise some machine which would 
 greatly facilitate the process of cleansing, it would be in vain to 
 think of raising cotton for the market. "Gentlemen," said Mrs. 
 Greene, " apply to my young friend, Mr. Whitney ; he can make 
 any thing." She then conducted them into a neighboring room where 
 
 (27)
 
 28 ELI WHITNEY. 
 
 she showed them a number of specimens of his genius. The gentle- 
 men were next introduced to Whitney himself, and when they named 
 their object, he replied that he had never seen either cotton or cotton 
 seed during his life. But the idea was engendered ; and it being out 
 of season for cotton in the seed, he went to Savannah and searched 
 among the warehouses and boats until he found a small portion of it. 
 This he carried home, and set himself to work with such rude materials 
 and instruments as a Georgia plantation afforded. With these re- 
 sources, however, he made tools better suited to his purpose, and 
 forged his own wire, of which the teeth of the earliest gins were made, 
 which was an article not at that time to be found in the market of 
 Savannah. Mrs. Greene and Mr. Miller (a gentleman who having 
 first come into the family of General Greene as a private tutor, after- 
 ward married his widow) were the only persons admitted to his 
 workshop who knew in what way he was employing himself. The 
 many hours he spent in his mysterious pursuits afforded matter of 
 great curiosity, and often railery to the younger members of the fam- 
 ily. Near the close of the winter the machine was so nearly completed 
 as to leave no doubt of its success. Mrs. Greene then invited to her 
 house gentlemen from different parts of the State, and on the first 
 day after they had assembled she conducted them to a temporary 
 building which had been erected for the machine, and they saw with 
 astonishment and delight, that more cotton could be separated from 
 the seed in one day, by the labor of a single hand, than could be done 
 in the usual manner in the space of many months. 
 
 The machine which Mr. Whitney thus constructed, consisted chiefly 
 of a process of circular saws, which, by a rotary motion, dragged the 
 cotton between wires, leaving the seeds to fall to the bottom, while 
 the cotton so cleaned was carried off by a rotary brush playing upon 
 the saws. An invention so important to the agricultural interests as 
 it has proved to every department of human industry, could not long 
 remain a secret. The knowledge of it soon spread through the state, 
 and so great was the excitement on the subject, that multitudes of per- 
 sons came from all quarters to see the machine : but it was not deemed 
 prudent to gratify their curiosity until the patent-right had been 
 secured. So determined, however, were some of the populace to pos- 
 sess this treasure, that neither law nor justice could restrain them. They 
 broke open the building by night and carried off the machine. In this 
 way the public became possessed of the invention ; and before Mr. 
 Whitney could complete his model and secure his patent, a number 
 of machines were in successful operation, constructed with some slight 
 deviation from the original, with the hope of evading the penalty for 
 violating the patent-right. A short time after this he entered into 
 partnership with Mr. Miller, who, having considerable funds at com- 
 mand, proposed to him to become his joint adventurer, and to be at 
 the whole expense of maturing the invention until it should be 
 patented. If the machine succeeded in its intended operation, the
 
 VALUE OF THE COTTON-GIN. 29 
 
 parties agreed to share equally all the profits and advantages accru- 
 ing from it. The instrument of their partnership bears date May 
 
 Immediately afterward Mr. Whitney repaired to Connecticut, where, 
 as far as possible, he was to perfect the machine, obtain a patent, and 
 manufacture and ship for Georgia such a number of machines as would 
 supply the demand. On June 20, 1793, he presented his petition for 
 a patent to Mr. Jefferson, then secretary of state ; but the prevalence 
 of yellow fever in Philadelphia, at that period the seat of govern- 
 ment, prevented his concluding the business until several months 
 afterward. We have not space sufficient at our disposal to give a sat- 
 isfactory detail of the obstacles and misfortunes which for a long time 
 hindered the partners from reaping those advantages from the inven- 
 tion which it should have procured for them, and which they had an 
 ample right to expect. These difficulties arose principally from the 
 innumerable violations of their patent-right, by which they were in- 
 volved in various, almost interminable, lawsuits. The legislature of 
 South Carolina purchased, in 1801, their right for that state for the 
 sum of fifty thousand dollars a mere " song," to use Whitney's 
 own phrase, in comparison with the worth of the thing ; but it was secur- 
 ing something. It enabled them to pay the debts which they had 
 contracted, and divide something between . them. In the following 
 year, Mr. Whitney negotiated a sale of his patent-right with the 
 state of North Carolina, the legislature of which laid a tax of two 
 shillings and sixpence upon every saw (and some of the gins had forty 
 saws) employed in ginning cotton, to be continued for five years, 
 which sum was to be collected by the Sheriffs in the same manner as 
 the public taxes, and after deducting the expenses of collection, the 
 proceeds were faithfully paid over to the patentees. No small por- 
 tion, however, of the funds thus obtained in the two Carolinas was 
 expended in carrying on the fruitless lawsuits which it was deemed 
 necessary to prosecute in Georgia. A gentleman who was well ac- 
 quainted with Mr. Whitney's affairs in the South, and sometimes 
 acted as his legal adviser, observed, that, in all his experience in the 
 thorny profession of law, he had never seen a case of such persever- 
 ance under such persecution: "Nor," he adds, "do I believe that 
 I ever knew any other man who would have met them with equal 
 coolness and firmness, or who would have obtained even the partial 
 success which he had." 
 
 There have indeed been but few instances in which the author 
 of such inestimable advantages to a whole country as those which 
 accrued from the invention of the cotton gin to the Southern States, 
 was so harshly treated, and so inadequately compensated, as the sub- 
 ject of this sketch. He did not exaggerate when he said it raised 
 the value of those states from fifty to one hundred per cent. " If 
 we should assert," said Judge Johnson, "that the benefits of this 
 invention exceed one hundred millions of dollars, we can prove the
 
 30 E L I \V H I T N E Y. 
 
 assertion by correct calculation." Besides the violations of his right, 
 he had to struggle against the efforts of malevolence and self interest 
 to deprive him of the honor of the invention, which he did triumph- 
 antly. In 1803, the entire responsibility of the whole concern 
 devolved upon him, in consequence of the death of Mr. Miller. 
 In 1812, he made application to Congress for the renewal of his 
 patent. In his memorial, he presented a history of the difficulties 
 which he had been forced to encounter in defense of his right, ob- 
 serving that he had been unable to .obtain any decision on the merits 
 of his claim until he had been eleven years in the law, and thirteen 
 years of patent term had expired. He set forth that his invention 
 had been a source of opulence to thousands of the citizens of the 
 United States : that as a labor-saving machine, it would enable one 
 man to perform the work of a thousand men ; and that it furnishes 
 to the whole family of mankind, at a very cheap rate, the most 
 essential article of their clothing. Hence, he humbly conceived 
 himself entitled to a farther remuneration from his country, and 
 thought he ought to be admitted to a more liberal participation with 
 his fellow-citizens to the benefits of his invention. It strikes us with 
 no little surprise, that the Southern planters, gentlemen who enjoy 
 a great and just reputation for elevation and generosity of character, 
 should not have taken some means of conveying to Mr. Whitney 
 an adequate and substantial testimony of the gratitude which they 
 must have felt toward one to whom they were so incalculably indebted. 
 So far, however, from this having been the case, even the application 
 just mentioned was rejected by Congress, on account of the warm op- 
 position it experienced from a majority of the southern members. 
 
 Some years before, in 1798, Mr. Whitney, impressed with the un- 
 certainty of all his hopes founded on the cotton-gin, had engaged in 
 another enterprise, which conducted him by slow but sure steps to a 
 competent fortune. This was the manufacture of arms for the United 
 States. He first obtained a contract through the influence of Oliver 
 Wolcott, at that time Secretary of the Treasury, for ten thousand 
 stand of arms, amounting to one hundred and thirty-four thousand 
 dollars, which was to be fulfilled within a little more than two years. 
 This was a great undertaking, as may be inferred from the facts, that 
 the works were all to be erected, the machinery was to be made, and 
 much of it to be invented ; the raw materials were to be collected 
 from different quarters, and the workmen themselves, almost without ex- 
 ception, were yet to learn the trade. The impediments he was obliged 
 to remove were too numerous and great to allow him to fulfill his stip- 
 ulation as to time, and eight years instead of two elapsed before the 
 muskets were all completed. The entire business relating to the con- 
 tract was not closed until January, 1809, when (so liberally had the 
 government made advances to the contractor) the final balance due 
 Mr. Whitney was only two thousand four hundred dollars. It is 
 universally conceded that his superior genius and industry greatly
 
 HIS DEATH. 31 
 
 contributed to the improvement of the manufacture of arms, and 
 indeed to the general advancement of arts and manufactures; for 
 many of his inventions for facilitating the making of muskets were 
 applicable to most other manufactures of iron and steel. 
 
 In 1812, he entered into a new contract with the United States for 
 fifteen thousand stand of arms, and in the meantime executed a simi- 
 lar engagement for the State of New York. In January, 1817, he 
 married the youngest daughter of Pierpofit Edwards, late Judge of 
 the District Court for the State of Connecticut. For the five subse- 
 quent years he continued to enjoy domestic happiness, a competent 
 fortune, and an honorable reputation, when he was attacked by a 
 fatal malady, an enlargement of the prostate gland, which, after causing 
 great and protracted suffering, terminated his life on the 8th of Janu- 
 ary, 1825. In person, Mr. Whitney was considerably above the 
 ordinary size, of a dignified carriage, and of an open, manly, and 
 agreeable countenance. His manners were conciliatory, and his 
 whole appearance such as to inspire respect. He possessed great 
 serenity of temper, though he had strong feelings and a high sense of 
 honor. Perseverance was a striking trait in his character. Every 
 thing that he attempted he effected as far as possible. 
 
 In the relations of private life, he enjoyed the affection and esteem 
 of all with whom he was connected.
 
 JOHN FITCH. 
 
 'T^HROUGH the power of steam, great changes have been wrought 
 in the relations of states and in the commerce of the world ; 
 the ends of the earth have, in a large sense, been brought together. 
 By this power rapid, comfortable, and cheap transit has been attained, 
 and enjoyed for a half century, by the nations of Europe, and more 
 especially by our own people. In traversing the ocean, and to a greater 
 extent upon our own great inland seas, and in threading the great 
 rivers of our central valley, America has reaped the benefits conferred 
 by steam navigation. By the aid of this agent, and largely because 
 of it, our large territories have been magically transformed into great 
 and magnificent states, covered with towns and cities, and filled with 
 the comfortable homes of a great and free people. 
 
 Therefore, all Americans must feel deeply interested in knowing 
 who first made steam available for purposes of locomotion. With 
 slight exceptions, two entire generations have given the first place to a 
 distinguished name among her sons, which should take a secondary 
 position on the roll of honor. Why this has been so, in the face of 
 facts known to many men filling the highest places in the history of 
 our country, will be to our readers, as it is to us, a mystery not easily 
 solved. Fifty-five years ago, in the year 1817, the original patents, 
 drafts, specifications, and models of Fitch and Fulton were exhibited 
 before a committee of the New York Legislature, raised upon the 
 petition of Governor Ogden, of New Jersey. Many witnesses were 
 examined, and among them men of the highest character, and the 
 arguments of able council were heard. After much deliberation, this 
 committee reported to the legislature, and in the document submitted 
 are the following expressions : " The steamboats built by Livingston 
 and Fulton were in substance the invention patented to John Fitch, 
 in 1791, and Fitch, during the term of his patent (fourteen years), 
 had the exclusive right to use the same in the United States." 
 
 We now proceed to sketch the career of this remarkable person, 
 a career filled with unusual incidents. John Fitch was the fifth 
 child of Joseph and Sarah Fitch, and was born January zist, 1743, at 
 (32)
 
 HIS DESIRE FOR EDUCATION. 33 
 
 thepaternaf homestead, in the township of Windsor, Hartford Count}', 
 Connecticut. The father was not inclined to liberality, but was a 
 rigid and stern man, who, as his son says, "always had plenty of 
 victuals in the house." John began his attendance at school when 
 quite young, and, when nine years old, had mastered the " fundamental 
 rules" of arithmetic, and manifested a strong love for study; yet he 
 was taken from school, and although so small as to be unable to 
 "swingle more than two pounds of flax, or thrash more than two 
 bushels of grain in a day," was put at this "pitiful, trifling labor," 
 greatly to his disgust in later years, because he felt that he had been 
 unreasonably deprived of the benefits of such an education as might 
 easily have been given him. 
 
 At the age of eleven, he heard of Salmon's Geography, as a book 
 that would furnish " information of the whole world," and asked his 
 father to buy it for him ; but he did not feel disposed to make the 
 purchase. John, however, soon after, obtained permission to plant 
 potatoes on small patches of ground not otherwise occupied, and at 
 odd ends of time and on holidays cultivated them, and thus procured 
 the desired treasure. He became thoroughly versed in its contents, 
 and able to impart his knowledge of nations, .their population, boun- 
 daries, towns, etc. His father instructed him in surveying to the ex- 
 tent of his own information. Among their neighbors was Governor 
 Wolcott, father of Oliver Wolcott, afterwards one of the signers of 
 the Declaration of Independence. One day the governor asked his 
 father if John might carry the chain for him while making some sur- 
 veys on his farm, and John was thereby much elevated in his own 
 estimation, especially because of the deference paid by the governor 
 to his suggestions. They were together two days or more, so that 
 John expected pay; but in this he was disappointed, as the old gentle- 
 man was too saving of his means, to meet his wishes. John attended 
 school for six months in his thirteenth year, but, for several years 
 previous, had but about a month at school each year. At fifteen he 
 was hired out by his father for one winter, at eleven shillings a 
 month. 
 
 At the age of seventeen, becoming weary and disgusted with farm 
 labor, he started for Rocky Hill, on the Connecticut River, on an 
 agreement to make one voyage to New York, in a vessel under the 
 command of Capt. Abbott ; but, experiencing rough treatment at the 
 hands of the mate, he quit the craft before leaving port, and engaged 
 on another vessel, in which he coasted, and after five weeks returned 
 home. 
 
 This trip was a pleasant one for him, so that, when solicited by one 
 Cheney to become his apprentice and learn the business of clock- 
 making, he felt undecided as to whether to make another venture to 
 sea or learn the trade. Finally his indentures were duly executed, 
 with the understanding that he should furnish his own clothes and 
 work half the year at farm labor. His brother-in-law supplied him 
 3
 
 34 JOHN FITCH. 
 
 with the clothes, and his preceptor in clock-making was equal to his 
 utmost demands for " outside work." He was eighteen years old when 
 he became an apprentice, and at the end of two years had spent 
 more than two-thirds of his time at other labor than clock-work. 
 Much of his time had been spent at "trifling, pottering brass-work," 
 so that he became dissatisfied, and at the end of two years and a half, 
 by a mutual understanding, left Benjamin, and went to live with his 
 brother, Timothy Cheney, who was to teach him "brass and wooden 
 clock-making and watch-making." At the former place he had taken 
 dinner from the same pot of bean soup for nine consecutive days 
 without being molested; but his new master "was a very small 
 feeder," and constantly imveighing against gluttony. His wife was 
 "a pretty sensible, good kind of a woman," and supplied her table 
 well, while the family always ate as "quick as him," who was ever 
 prompt to close the meal by returning thanks. After eight months' 
 service, in which he was working brass from sunrise to ten o'clock at 
 night, he complained of injustice, and quarreled with his employer, 
 who finally released him from his bond to stay a year, upon the condi- 
 tion that he should pay 87. , which was adjusted by the joint note of 
 his brother and brother-in-law. 
 
 At twenty-one, John Fitch found himself in debt 2O/., and without 
 knowledge of either clock or watch-making. With twenty shillings 
 loaned him by a young man named Burnham, who was courting his 
 sister, he resolved to start business as an artificer in small brass-work. 
 His father boarded him the first' month without pay. He was suc- 
 cessful in paying his debts, and at the end of two years was out of 
 debt and worth 5o/. During this tim% he had acquired some knowledge 
 of brass clocks, and had successfully cleaned and repaired a clock for 
 one of the Wolcott family. 
 
 Soon he was induced to enter a partnership with two poorer young 
 men than himself, who were ^manufacture potash, while he managed 
 his business in brass-work ; but it became necessary for him to quit 
 his own business and endeavor to save his investment in the potash 
 works, which were twenty-five miles away from his father's home. 
 He bought out his partners, but did not succeed in making his new 
 business profitable. In the mean time he courted, and on the 2gth of 
 December, 1766, married Lucy Roberts, who was several years 
 his senior, and the daughter of a man of property. Fitch built a 
 shop for brass-work, which proved larger and more expensive than 
 was requisite, or than he could pay for, without extra efforts ; but 
 finally he disentangled himself from embarrassments. 
 
 Meanwhile, "his wife was high-tempered," and although he avers 
 "he never gave her an angry word," he was continually subject to 
 her displeasure. Becoming convinced that he could not live happily 
 with her. and, after repeatedly stating to his wife that she musf restrain 
 her temper, or he would be forced to leave her, he finally left their 
 home, against her warm and urgent entreaties to remain with herself
 
 A GUNSMITH IN THE REVOLUTION. 35 
 
 and infant son. Their son, Shaler Fitch, was born November 20", 
 1767, and their daughter, Lucy, after the father's departure in 1769. 
 After working in the State of New York three months, Fitch traveled 
 by land, making money as he went, in cleaning clocks ; by the way 
 of Elizabeth town, Rahway, New Brunswick, and Princeton, he 
 reached Trenton, New Jersey, in May 1769. 
 
 At Trenton, Fitch was employed by a tinner to make a quantity of 
 brass buttons, which he accomplished under difficulties. His em- 
 ployer, Clunn, had an old watch which he successfully repaired. 
 This increased his confidence, so that, by the aid of his friend, Clunn, 
 he found employment with a silversmith of limited acquirements in 
 his profession, who* had a fine set of tools, but was without skill to 
 use them. 
 
 By his ingenuity and application, Fitch soon possessed himself of 
 the trade'; but business in the shop was dull, and he thought best to 
 itinerate as a peddler in the surrounding districts. He started off with 
 fifty or sixty pairs of brass sleeve-buttons, which he sold for lod. per 
 pair, and during his trip of a fortnight cleaned a dozen clocks. Re- 
 turning to Trenton, he manufactured for himself a lot of silver and 
 brass buttons, with which he started out again in two weeks, and suc- 
 ceeded admirably. 
 
 His recent employer, Wilson, getting embarrassed, Fitch bought 
 his tools for 4o/., and paid 307. down in cash. He pursued his busi- 
 ness by trips through the country, often carrying a budget of 2oo/. 
 value, and thus increased his means until, at the breaking out of the 
 Revolution, he estimated his assets at 8oo/. 
 
 The Committee of Safety of the Province of New Jersey solicited the 
 services of Fitch as a gunsmith, after he had become first lieutenant 
 of the first company raised in Trenton. During the summer of 1776, 
 Fitch was called upon for arms to supply the militia, ordered on an 
 expedition to Amboy, and was under the necessity of soliciting from 
 the owners all the arms to be had by their consent ; but he soon was 
 unwittingly involved in a quarrel, which was mortifying to him, so 
 that he abandoned his comrades in the expedition, and returned to 
 Trenton, where his presence was much needed. He was of infinitely 
 more service to the State in the gun -factory than he could have been 
 in the field. 
 
 He afterwards pursued his business in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, 
 but his $40,000 in continental money was of no greater value than 
 $100 in specie. He determined that he would save his money by 
 buying land-warrants in Virginia, and for that purpose left Bucks 
 County in the spring of 1780, for Philadelphia, where he obtained 
 from Dr. John Ewing, of the University of Pennsylvania, letters of 
 recommendation to Dr. Madison, then president of William and Mary 
 College, at Richmond, Virginia. He journeyed to Richmond on 
 foot, through a country desolated by war, and from Richmond west 
 was accompanied by William Tucker, whom he had engaged to assist
 
 36 JOHN FITCH. 
 
 him in his surveys of lands, which he intended to locate in what is 
 now known as Kentucky. After many weeks and much fatigue, he 
 found himself, in the early summer of 1 780, at Wheeling Island. His 
 trip down the Ohio River was not without exciting adventures. In 
 company with a Baptist preacher, named Barnard, who explored for 
 him, he located some sixteen hundred acres of land. He returned 
 to Virginia from Kentucky in the spring of 1781. His returns of 
 survey were filed at Richmond, but his patents were not issued until 
 the following year; one bore the date June ist, 1782, and two 
 others September ist, 1782. On his return from his western trip, 
 Fitch went to his old home in Bucks County, to collect, and settle 
 up his old business. 
 
 He finally decided to take his money about i5o/., in specie and 
 invest it in flour, at Fort Pitt, now Pittsburgh, and go down the 
 Ohio and Mississippi to New Orleans, intending to return from there 
 to Philadelphia. Early in March, 1782, he reached Fort Pitt, and 
 proceeded to carry out his plans, by chartering, in company with 
 several others, a boat commanded by Captain Patterson. They 
 started on their voyage with nine men besides the Captain, but were 
 attacked by Indians, while aground, near the mouth of the Muskingum. 
 One or two of their number were shot, and the rest made captives. 
 
 After many months of adventure among the tribes of Ohio, during 
 the great excitement which followed the wholesale slaughter by the 
 whites of the Christian (Moravian) Indians, the party reached the 
 Maumee River, and soon after arrived at Detroit.* They were passed 
 into the hands of the British as prisoners of war, and were sent below 
 Niagara to Prison Island, forty-five miles above Montreal, in the 
 early summer of 1782. They were exchanged in the autumn, leaving 
 Quebec, November 25, and arriving in New York on Christmas, 1782. 
 When the ship cast anchor, he and his fellow-prisoners had been ten 
 weeks on the route from Prison Island. When discharged, he went 
 directly to his friends in Warminster, Pennsylvania. 
 
 Fitch succeeded in interesting several gentlemen, who formed a 
 Company, and sent him with others to survey lands on the Northern 
 side of the Ohio, 1783. They began near the mouth of the Hocking 
 River, and surveyed (up the river some eighty or ninety miles) about 
 36,000 acres ; after this a greater number of acres were located, and 
 the party returned to Philadelphia. 
 
 Colonel Whittlesey tells us that Fitch joined the Bristol (Pa.) Lodge 
 of Freemasons in January, 1 783. His associates in the land venture 
 were satisfied with the results of his former trip, and induced him to 
 start out early that year. He began surveying, up the Muskingum, in 
 
 * The sketch we give of Fitch is simply to show his connection with the inven- 
 tion of the Steam-boat. Our readers who feel interested in his adventures, will 
 find them in Westcott's Life of John Fitch, published by Lippincott, Philadelphia, 
 1857. We have condensed our Narrative mainly from that work.
 
 HIS FIRST THOUGHTS ON STEAM-BOATS. 37 
 
 March, 1783, and went a distance of seventy-five miles from its 
 mouth. On this trip 250,000 acres were surveyed, and he felt sure 
 that one day he would be "a man of fortune;" but on his return to 
 Bucks County, he learned that Congress had recently passed resolu- 
 tions, "that the North-Western Territory should be divided into 
 States, and that all lands should be laid out at right angles, and in 
 sections of one mile square, and should in that manner be located." 
 He felt that his plans were in a measure frustrated; he, however, 
 deemed it judicious to go again to the frontiers, and "re-survey, or 
 rather note the most valuable sections." General Harrison, then 
 Governor, issued a proclamation aimed at Fitch's movements, but its 
 effect was to deter later adventurers, and therefore benefit Fitch's 
 Company, which had already done its work. 
 
 On his return to Eastern Pennsylvania, Fitch petitioned Congress 
 for an appointment as Surveyor in the western country, backed by 
 the reputable names of some of his associates ; but, trusting too much 
 to his attainments, he was not attentive to pushing his claims, and 
 therefore was distanced by another. While awaiting the result of 
 his application, he busied himself in making improvements on 
 Hutchin's and Morrow's maps of the North-Western country, which 
 draft he engraved on a sheet of copper, hammered and polished by 
 himself. The map, he speaks of, as "coarsely done, portable to any 
 one who wanted to go to the woods, and more to be relied on than 
 any published." 
 
 Colonel Charles Whittlesey, whose life of Fitch in the second 
 series of Sparks' American Biography has already been alluded to, 
 whose West-Point education and large experience as a Surveyor, give 
 his opinions great weight, says of this map, that "the general posi- 
 tions of the great rivers and lakes are given with surprising accuracy." 
 He quotes the remarks of Fitch, to show the singular shrewdness of the 
 man, and his extensive knowledge of the country. 
 
 During the early part of 1785, Fitch seems to have been suffering 
 from rheumatism, and while making slow progress in walking with a 
 friend in Bucks County, an acquaintance passed them at a rapid 
 pace, in a two-wheeled vehicle, then known as "a chair." The 
 speed of the horse, brought up in conversation some speculations 
 which he had no doubt previously entertained respecting the feasi- 
 bility of propelling carriages by steam. The rough condition of the 
 roads, and the apparently greater benefits to be derived by applying 
 the power to vessels, soon turned his thoughts to "a steam-boat." 
 These facts were certified to in 1788, by James Scout, to whom Fitch 
 submitted his plan of a boat in May or June, 1 785 ; and also by 
 James Ogilbee, the friend with whom he was walking when the thought 
 of steam power was first spoken of. Watson's Annals of Phila- 
 delphia gives some facts furnished by Daniel Longstreth, whose 
 father was the friend and associate of Fitch. He says: "It was in
 
 38 JOHNFITCH. 
 
 Cobe Scout's log shop that Fitch made his model steam-boat, with 
 paddle-wheels, as they are now used." 
 
 The model was tried on a small stream on Joseph Longstreth's 
 meadow, about a half mile from Davisville, in Southampton Town- 
 ship, and it realized every expectation. The machinery was made 
 of brass, with the exception of the paddle-wheels, which were made 
 of wood by Nathaniel B. Boileau, whilst on a visit, during vacation, 
 from Princeton College."* Colonel Whittlesey says: "The buckets 
 of the wheels were found to labor too much in the water, entering as 
 they did at a considerable angle, and departing at the same. They 
 lost power by striking at the surface, and afterwards lifting themselves 
 out of water. This led to the substitution of oiars or paddles." 
 
 After due reflection Fitch, with his small resources, determined, if 
 possible, to obtain aid from Congress, a forlorn hope in those straitened 
 times. He procured various letters commending his invention. One 
 from his friend, Dr. John Ewing, of the University of Pennsylvania, 
 bears date Philadelphia, 2oth August, 1785, from which we take these 
 words: "I have examined Mr. Fitch's machine for rowing a boat by 
 the alternate operation of steam and the atmosphere, and am of 
 opinion that his principles are proper, and philosophical, and have no 
 doubt of the success of the scheme, if executed by a skillful workman. 
 . . The application of this force (steam) to turn a -wheel in the 
 water, so as to answer the purpose of oars, seems easy and natural 
 by the machine which he proposes, and of which he has shown me a 
 rough model. . . I hope he will meet with the encouragement which 
 his mechanical genius deserves. His project deserves a trial," etc. 
 
 Congress was at that time sitting in New York, and, on his way 
 there, Fitch called on Dr. Smith, of Princeton College, who gave his 
 project a like endorsement. Under date of August 29, Fitch addressed 
 "His Excellency, the President of Congress," the following letter: 
 "Sir, the subscriber begs leave to lay at the feet of Congress an at- 
 tempt he has made to facilitate the internal navigation of the United 
 States, adapted especially to the waters of the Mississippi. The ma- 
 chine he has invented for the purpose, has been examined by several 
 gentlemen of learning and ingenuity, who have given it their appro- 
 bation. 
 
 "Being thus encouraged, he is desirous to solicit the attention of 
 Congress to a rough model of it now with him, that after examination 
 into the principles upon which it operates, they may be enabled to 
 judge whether it deserves encouragement. And he, as in duty bound, 
 shall ever pray, etc. 
 
 [Signed] "JOHN FITCH." 
 
 * N. B. Boileau was a native of Hatboro, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania ; 
 he was born in 1762, and died March 1 6, 1850, in Abington. He graduated at 
 Princeton ; did not study a profession, but was a gentleman of high character, and
 
 IN CONTACT WITH DISTINGUISHED STATESMEN. 39 
 
 The application was referred to a committee, which made no report, 
 greatly to the chagrin and disappointment of the inventor. He went 
 back to Bucks County very much incensed at the treatment he had re- 
 ceived, but full of determination to persevere, and show that the 
 Committee of Congress were "ignorant boys." On the 27th of 
 September, he presented "the model, with a drawing and description," 
 to the American Philosophical Society. 
 
 In a letter, addressed to "His Excellency, Dr. Franklin," under 
 date of October 12, 1785, he says, "he is full in the belief that it 
 will answer for sea voyages as well as for inland navigation," and 
 speaks of "the good effects of the machine in the almost omnipotent 
 force by which it is actuated, and the very simple, easy, and natural 
 way by which the screw or paddles are turned to answer the purpose 
 of oars." He concludes by saying that he expects "to return from 
 Kentucky about the first of June next," and solicits Dr. Franklin's 
 " friendly assistance in introducing another useful art into the world." 
 
 Dr. Franklin was chief among the patrons of James Rumsey, whose 
 boat was in principle a practical adaptation of Franklin's plan, using 
 the steam-engine to do the work of pumping in and ejecting water. 
 
 On his route west, Fitch called on Ex-Gov. Johnson, of Maryland, 
 who advised him to call at Mount Vernon, on General Washington. 
 The distinguished man received him with courtesy, but gave him no 
 encouragement. Fitch says, "I believe that his greatest failure is a 
 too great delicacy of his own honor, which we hardly can suppose 
 can be carried to excess. The certificate which he gave to Rumsey's 
 pole-boat was perhaps one of the most imprudent acts of his life." 
 Arriving at Richmond, infatuated with his steam-boat scheme, Fitch 
 was easily persuaded to seek aid from the Virginia Legislature, but 
 no formal report was secured from the committee to which the pro- 
 posal was referred. James Madison presented his memorial, and 
 Patrick Henry was then Governor of the State. His course was 
 altered by what transpired in Richmond, and in order to print an 
 edition of his map for sale, under an arrangement made there, he 
 retraced his steps to Philadelphia. 
 
 He again saw Ex-Gov. Johnson at Fredericktown, who gave him 
 a letter, dated Nov. 25, 1785, addressed to "His Excellency, Gov- 
 ernor Smallwood," of Maryland, in which he speaks of Fitch's "im- 
 provement of the steam-engine" for "a variety of uses," "amongst 
 others, to force a vessel forward in any kind of water," etc. . . . 
 He presented this letter to the Governor at Annapolis, in the latter 
 part of December, and on the gth of January, 1 786, three days after 
 the memorial was received, the committee of the Legislature reported 
 as follows: "However desirous it is for liberal and enlightened leg- 
 
 an active politician; was a member of the Legislature of Pennsylvania tor twelve 
 years, and in 1817 was a candidate for Governor, but Governor Findlay was 
 elected.
 
 40 JOHNFITCH. 
 
 islators to encourage useful arts, yet the state and condition of oar 
 finances are such that there can be no advance of public money at 
 present." 
 
 Fearing that his invention would be supplanted in some way by 
 the efforts of a rival interest patronized by Dr. Franklin, he memo- 
 rialised the Legislature of Pennsylvania for an exclusive right to pro- 
 pel vessels "by fire and steam," in the waters of that State. This 
 was dated March n, and on the next day a similar memorial was 
 presented by one Donaldson, who " had hit upon or been informed of 
 the method of sucking in and voiding water through a tube," as 
 suggested to the Philosophical Society by Dr. Franklin. Without 
 waiting further, Fitch left for Trenton, where he obtained from the 
 Legislature of New Jersey, an act bearing date March 18, 1786, which 
 secured to him for fourteen years "the sole and exclusive right of 
 constructing, making, using, and employing, or navigating all and 
 every species or kind of boats or water craft which might be urged 
 or impelled by the force of fire or steam, in all the creeks, rivers, 
 etc., within the territory or Jurisdiction of this State." 
 
 Within a month following, Fitch had organized a company, with the 
 number of shares fixed at forty, on many of which twenty dollars each 
 were collected. There were, at this time, but three steam-engines in 
 the whole country ; of these two were' in New England, and they had 
 been imported from England thirty or forty years before the Revolu- 
 tionary War, and the third was also imported by a Mr. Hornblower, 
 and put up by him at the Schuyler Copper Mine, Passaic, New Jersey. 
 Fitch was advised to visit Hornblower, to obtain, if possible, a skilled 
 assistant; but he became acquainted, about this time, with Henry 
 Voight, a watchmaker, who proved to be, in Fitch's estimation, "a 
 man of superior mechanical abilities," on whom he could depend. 
 Voight suggested that a working model should be at once made of a 
 steam-engine, and one with a three-inch cylinder was produced, and 
 at the same time a small skiff was prepared. 
 
 Experiments on the skiff were tried with "a screw of paddles," the 
 endless chain, and one or two other modes, "which did not answer 
 their expectation," and caused them to be dispirited. After a sleep- 
 less night and many cogitations about "cranks and paddles for rowing t 
 a boat," Fitch, at sunrise, sought Voight's residence, and together, 
 after a change was suggested by Voight, they completed the scheme, 
 so that finally " the oars worked perfectly." 
 
 In a letter to Stacy Potts, of Trenton, Fitch says: (July 28, '86,) 
 "I completed my experiments yesterday, and find that they exceed 
 my most sanguine expectations. * * We shall not come short of 
 ten miles per hour." We find him saying of the model also: "It 
 fully convinced me that the steam-engine might be worked both ways 
 as well as one." 
 
 The members of the company were greatly pleased, and resolved to 
 constnict a new and larger boat, with a twelve-inch cylinder, but it was
 
 Fitch's Model. 
 
 FBUM DRAWINGS DEPOSITED, SEPT. 27, 1785, WITH AMER. PHIL. SOCIETY, PHILADELPHIA. 
 
 See page 40. 
 
 Section of Endless Chain, 
 
 WITH Bl.ADEg, TO ANSWER INSTEAD OF PADDLES. 
 Utixaittd K-itk Ike atom, and belonging to It. 
 
 See page 40.
 
 OBTAINS EXCLUSIVE PRIVILEGES. 41 
 
 no easy task to secure the money necessary. Some had gone into the 
 project originally to help Fitch, others had embarked in it as a business 
 speculation. Funds were needed, but were not cheerfully given. All 
 the hardships that Fitch had "experienced as an Indian captive or 
 prisoner of war were as nothing to the distress of feeling, in raising 
 money from my best friends." He felt himself bound in honor to 
 go on with the work. In his extremity, he prepared a petition for aid 
 to the Pennsylvania Legislature, in which he spoke of his plan as one 
 that would, when completed, "enrich America at least three times as 
 much as all that country north-west of the Ohio, because it would make 
 that country four times as valuable, beside the inconceivable advantages 
 it would be to the settled portions of the continent." 
 
 The committee on this petition reported in favor of paying "John 
 Fitch's drafts to any amount not exceeding i5o/., on proof that the 
 money so drawn has been applied to completing his steam-boat ;" but 
 the members of the assembly were not as well disposed, for the reso- 
 lution was lost; ayes 28, nays 32. Fitch made still another effort by 
 writing an earnest letter to General Thomas Mifflin, then Speaker, but 
 the appeal met no response. 
 
 By this time Donaldson, Rumsey, and others, were hard at work 
 with schemes to take from Fitch the laurels he had already gained, and 
 he was just then for a period shorn of his best gifts for improving his 
 invention, by the controversies in which he thought it necessary to 
 engage, as well by the pecuniary embarassments which resulted from 
 his endeavors to perfect his machinery. Amid much else that he 
 wrote, he says: "The propelling of a boat with steam is as new as the 
 rowing of a boat with angels; and I claim the first thought and in- 
 vention of it." "I am obliged to say that I have made the greatest 
 improvement on inland navigation that was ever made." 
 
 On the 28th of March, 1787, after much controversy over Donald- 
 son's pretehsions, the Pennsylvania Legislature ignored the latter and 
 passed a law essentially the same as that passed by New Jersey, giving 
 Fitch exclusive rights for steam-boats in the waters of that State. On 
 the 3d of the previous month February exclusive rights were granted 
 by Delaware, and on the igth of March by New York. 
 
 In the Columbian Magazine, early in 1787, we find a detailed state- 
 ment of the new boat. "It is to be propelled through the water by 
 the force of steam. The steam-engine is to be similar to the late 
 improved steam-engines in Europe, these alterations excepted. The 
 cylinder is to be horizontal, and the steam to work with equal force at 
 each end thereof. The mode of forming a vacuum is believed to be 
 entirely new; also, of letting the water into it, and of letting it off 
 against the atmosphere without any friction. The undertakers are also 
 of opinion that their engine will work with an equal force to those late 
 improved engines, it being a twelve-inch cylinder. 
 
 " They expect it will movfe with a clear force, after deducting friction, 
 of between eleven and twelve hundred pounds weight; which force is
 
 42 JOHN FITCH. 
 
 to be applied to the turning of an axle-tree on a wheel of eighteen 
 inches in diameter. The piston is to move about three feet, and each 
 vibration of the piston turns the axle about two-thirds round. They 
 propose to make the piston to strike thirty strokes in a minute, which 
 will give the axle about forty revolutions. Each revolution moves 
 twelve oars five and a half feet. As six oars come out of the water, 
 six more enter it, which makes a stroke of about eleven feet each rev- 
 olution. 
 
 "The oars work perpendicularly, and make a stroke similar to the 
 paddle of a canoe. The cranks of the axle-tree act upon the oar 
 about one-third of their length from the lower end, on which part of 
 the oar the whole force of the axles is applied. The engine is placed 
 in about two-thirds of the boat, and both the action and the reaction 
 of the piston operate to turn the axle-tree the same way. ' ' 
 
 The information thus given is the most connected statement now to 
 be found of the invention of Fitch. The drawings and papers he 
 deposited with the American Philosophical Society, long since disap- 
 peared. The models and drawings which were in the United States 
 Patent Office were burned by the five there in 1826. Fitch's manu- 
 scripts are full as journals, but contain no clear statement as to the 
 manner in which the steam-engine was to be constructed. 
 
 At this time it would seem that both Fitch and Voight had become 
 acquainted with such facts concerning Watt's engine as were accessible, 
 but it is plainly evident that they lacked the practical knowledge of 
 details, so important in adjusting the different portions of such a com- 
 plex mechanism to each other, and did not understand the true scien- 
 tific relations of boiler, cylinder, condenser, andair-pump, necessary 
 to make a perfect whole; indeed, these relations were not then under- 
 stood by even the most scientific engineers. They made experiments, 
 and groped their way toward success as best they could, and failed of 
 ultimate triumph, not so much for want of capital, which was deplora- 
 bly wanting, but more because artisans could not be reached who were 
 sufficiently skilled to execute what was planned. 
 
 In May, 1787, the steam-engine was completed, but "the wooden 
 caps to the cylinder" admitted air, and being horizontal, "the piston 
 was leaky." The machinery was all removed, and again setup, with 
 the cylinders perpendicular, making a tedious and expensive job; and 
 this time the condensation proved imperfect, rendering it necessary to 
 " throw the condenser away." Other forms had previously failed and 
 been cast aside also. Now a substitute was supplied by Voight. 
 While these alterations progressed, the projectors and their associates 
 were looking for success; but as one defect was remedied, another 
 appeared. Soon the boiler was insufficient to generate a continuous 
 supply of steam. The boat had moved three to four miles an hour, 
 but stoppages to accumulate steam were frequently necessary. The 
 shareholders of the company became discouraged, and some abandoned 
 their interests. Fitch, almost in despair, was inclined to give up his
 
 A Curious Plan of Dr. Franklin's 
 FOB PROPELLING A BOAT BY PUMPING IN AND EJECTING WATEB. 
 
 Vide Proceeding* of American Philoiophical Society, Dec. 1786. 
 See page 39. 
 
 From "A Figure of John Fitch's Steamboat, by himself,' 
 
 (BEFORI IT WAS BUILT, AND so WITHOUT SMOKE-STACK.) 
 Tide hit Letter to Columbian Magazine. It mu dated December 8, ITS*. 
 
 Seo pages 41 aud 42.
 
 OPINIONS OF DISTINGUISHED MEN. 45 
 
 endeavors to perfect his invention; but finally he decided to make a 
 new appeal for aid, from which we quote a few sentences giving his 
 notions on some points : 
 
 " The laws of God are positive, and he that does not comply with 
 them in the strictest sense can not expect success. His laws are 
 equally positive in every branch of mechanism, and in all sciences. 
 * * * I was vain in undertaking a business which I knew nothing 
 about, that has taken nearly a century to bring to perfection, I 
 mean the steam-engine, especially when it was to be applied to a dif- 
 ferent purpose from any heretofore in use. * * * It is sure that 
 the laws of God in mechanism have permitted a steam-engine to work 
 on board of a small boat equally as well as if it had been on land, 
 and rowed the boat at the same time, notwithstanding we had fre- 
 quently to stop, and for no other reason than for the want of steam," 
 etc., etc. 
 
 It is not important to copy the appeal, for it is rambling and dis- 
 jointed in style, and would fill several pages. It presents several 
 points strongly however, and had enough influence upon several of the 
 larger stockholders to induce them to furnish more money, so that 
 the necessary alterations were completed. Sufficient steam was gen- 
 erated, and the machinery worked well, when the new trial occurred 
 August 22, 1787. At this time the convention which framed the 
 Federal Constitution was sitting in Philadelphia; its members were 
 invited, and many witnessed the experiment, among whom were 
 several who later complimented Mr. Fitch in flattering terms by notes 
 addressed to him. Governor Randolph, of Virginia, "was pleased 
 to give the invention countenance." Dr. Johnson, of Virginia, 
 "himself, and he doubts not other gentlemen, will be happy to give 
 him every encouragement in their power." 
 
 Duykinck's Cyclopedia of American Literature contains the following, 
 which was taken from an entry in the diary of Rev. Ezra Stiles, of 
 New Haven, Connecticut, dated August 27, 1787: 
 
 "Judge Ellsworth, a member of the Federal Convention, just re- 
 turned from Philadelphia, visited me, and tells me the convention will 
 not rise under three weeks. He there saw a steam-engine for rowing 
 boats against the stream, invented by Mr. Fitch, of Windsor, in Con- 
 necticut. He was on board the boat, and saw the experiment suc- 
 ceed." 
 
 We also append the following certificates from distinguished men : 
 
 " These may certify that the subscriber has frequently seen Mr. 
 Fitch's steam-boat, which, with great labor and perseverance, he has at 
 length completed; and has likewise been on board when the boat 
 was worked against both wind and tide, with a very considerable 
 degree of velocity, by the force of steam only. Mr. Fitch's merit in 
 constructing a good steam-engine, and applying it to so useful a pur- 
 pose, will no doubt meet with the encouragement he so justly deserves
 
 4o JOHNFITCH. 
 
 from the generosity of his countrymen, especially those who wish to 
 promote every improvement of the useful arts in America. 
 
 " DAVID RITTENHOUSE. 
 [The celebrated Astonomer.] 
 "PHILADELPHIA, December 12, 1787." 
 
 " Having also seen the boat urged by the force of steam, and having 
 been on board of it when in motion, I concur in the above opinion 
 of Mr. Fitch's merits. JOHN EWING, 
 
 "Provost of the University of Pennsylvania." 
 
 "From the well-known force of steam, I was one of the first of 
 those who encouraged Mr. Fitch to reduce his theory of the steam-boat 
 to a practice, in which he has succeeded far beyond my expectations. 
 I am now fully of the opinion that steam-boats may be made to 
 answer valuable purposes in facilitating the internal navigation of the 
 United States, and that Mr. Fitch has great merit in applying a 
 steam-engine to so valuable a purpose, and entitled to every encour- 
 agement from his country and his countrymen. 
 
 "ANDREW ELLICOTT. 
 
 "PHILADELPHIA, December 13, 1787." 
 
 It will not be desirable or necessary here to follow Fitch through 
 his controversies with Rumsey, by pamphlets and otherwise, farther 
 than to assure our readers of his unwearied endeavors and of his 
 success in showing his substantial right to claim for himself the 
 priority as inventor of a practical steam-boat. An eminent French 
 traveler, J. P. Brissot (Dc Warville), on his return to France, pub- 
 lished a volume, in which, under date of Philadelphia, he says, " I 
 went to see an experiment on board of a boat near the Delaware. 
 * * * The inventor was Mr. Fitch. * * * His invention 
 had been disputed by Mr. Rumsey, of Virginia, and the discussion 
 had occasioned the publication of several pamphlets. Be that as it 
 may, the machine I saw appeared to me to be well executed, and to 
 answer its purpose," etc. In a note, Mr. Brissot adds what he after- 
 wards learned in Europe about Fitch's boat. " There have been 
 several experiments made with this STEAM-BOAT. Mr. Fitch, on one 
 occasion, ran twenty miles in three hours ; with the tide in his favor, 
 he made eight miles an hour. This artist is unceasingly engaged in 
 perfecting his boat. He is a modest and estimable man. In 
 looking over the American journals of 1790, I see with pleas- 
 ure that Mr. Fitch by no means abandons his invention. I learn 
 that on May nth, 1790, he made the run from Philadelphia to 
 Burlington in three hours and a quarter, having the wind against 
 him and the tide in his favor. Under these circumstances he ran 
 seven miles an hour." 
 
 We pass over briefly what is spoken of as the "second successful
 
 THE SUCCESSFUL TRIAL. 47 
 
 steam-boats of 1788." The controversy with Rumsey had absorbed 
 Fitch's attention, and kept the company from finishing their boat ; 
 now, however, there was a respite, and the interests of the stock- 
 holders were put in shape to resume work. Meanwhile, Congress 
 had assembled in New York, in April 1789, and, under the new 
 Constitution, in possession of powers not equaled under the old con- 
 federation, had been besieged by authors and inventors for exclusive 
 rights, who had asked for copyrights and patent-rights, and among 
 these applicants was Fitch, who, in getting a hearing, was troubled 
 and harassed by almost interminable delays. In the Senate, March 
 22, 1790, the petition of John Fitch was read, praying that a clause 
 providing for a trial by jury might be inserted in the bill before 
 Congress, " to promote the progress of useful arts." 
 
 It was ordered that the petition be referred to the committee, who 
 have under consideration the last-mentioned bill. The bill (not 
 modified according to Fitch's request) was passed, and signed by the 
 PRESIDENT, April loth, 1790, thus forming the "initial point" of 
 the U. S. patent laws. The steam-boat company began to put in 
 place the machinery for their " new packet, passenger, and freight 
 steam-boat," in the spring of 1790; but previous events and present 
 complications brought quarrelsome scenes between Fitch and some 
 of the directors. As will have been already noticed, Fitch was not 
 an amiable man ; now his temper was soured and he was not able, 
 as he says, to overcome his disposition. " When in easy circumstances," 
 he now says of himself, " modest to excess, can put up with any in- 
 dignity, and resent in no other way than by familiarity ; but when 
 in wretchedness, haughty, imperious, insolent to my superiors, and 
 the greater the man the more sweet the pleasure in retorting upon 
 him in his own way." 
 
 Seven condensers had been tried, of various sorts and sizes, and 
 had been thrown aside ; of these the five smaller had worked best ; 
 the last was one of his friend Dr. Thornton's planning ; but it proved 
 radically defective, and a new one, from suggestions of Fitch, was 
 made, which seems to have secured the end sought. Fitch was 
 greatly elated, as the following extract will show : " April 16 [1790], 
 got our work completed, and tried our boat again, and although the 
 wind blew very fresh at the north-east, we reigned Lord High Admi- 
 rals of the Delaware, and no boat in the river could hold its way 
 with us, but all fell astern, although several sail -boats, which were 
 very light, and had heavy sails that brought their gunwales well down 
 to the water, came out to try us. We also passed many boats with 
 oars, which were strongly manned and without loading ; they seemed 
 to stand still as we passed them. We also ran round a vessel (that 
 was beating to windward), in about two miles, which had a half mile 
 start of us, and came in without our works failing." After this, 
 several successful trips were given to members of the company and 
 to distinguished persons.
 
 48 JOHNFITCH. 
 
 "The United States Gazette " of May 1 7th contained a notice, 
 dated Burlington, May nth, in these words : " The friends of science 
 and the liberal arts will be gratified in hearing that we were favored, 
 on Sunday last, with a visit from the ingenious Mr. Fitch, accom- 
 panied by several gentlemen of taste and knowledge in mechanics, 
 in a steam-boat constructed on an improved plan. From these gentle- 
 men we learn that they came from Philadelphia in three hours and a 
 quarter, with a head-wind, the^ tide in their favor. On their return, 
 by accurate observations, they proceeded down the river at the rate 
 of upwards of seven miles an hour. ' ' 
 
 On June i6th, Governor Mifflin, with members of the Philadelphia 
 City Council, took a trip on the new boat, and were so much pleased, 
 that they directed COLORS to be purchased at their expense ; but fear- 
 ing, as politicians, to favor a scheme which had for four years pre- 
 viously been derided by the multitude, they refused to make a pitblic 
 presentation of the flags, declaring that they were given by private 
 subscriptions. Such was poor human nature, so short a time after 
 the "War of Independence," in free America! There is, perhaps, 
 no country in the civilized world where the tyranny of what is called 
 " public opinion " so completely over-rides the independent action 
 of the individual man, even now at this later period, when we prate 
 so much of our absolute freedom. Are we yet free from slavery? 
 
 The boat was duly finished, and frequently made the trip up the 
 Delaware and back, as appears by advertisements published in the 
 " Pennsylvania Packet," and also in the " Federal Gazette," bearing 
 various dates, from June i4th to the middle of September. It was 
 announced to set off from Arch Street Ferry, in Philadelphia, every 
 Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, for Burlington, Bristol, Bordentown, 
 and Trenton, to return on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. 
 
 Averaging the trips made at twenty-five miles each, this, 
 
 THE FIRST PASSENGER STEAM- BO AT, 
 
 must have run, before she was laid up, between two and three thousand 
 miles. That the voyages were made without material hinderances is 
 apparent. Fitch, in his manuscript journal, charges detentions 
 to the heedlessness of Voight, in weighing down the safety-valve, in 
 defiance of his entreaties, and thus bringing about accidents of small 
 importance ; excepting twice, when the axle-trees were broken, there 
 were none which were not repaired in an hour or two. The boat is 
 said to have " run five hundred miles," on an average, without the 
 least accident occurring. General Joseph Bloomfield, of New Jersey, 
 testified before a committee of the New York Legislature, in 1814, 
 that he had frequently been a passenger on Fitch's boat on the Dela- 
 ware. Dr. Thornton, Fitch's former associate, stated that " our boat 
 (Fitch's) went at the rate of eight miles an hour, in the presence of 
 witnesses yet (1814) living." See U. S. Patent Office Report, 1850. 
 It is unnecessary to follow the fortunes of Mr. Fitch, in building 
 the steam-boat "PERSEVERANCE ' ' for operating in the waters of Virginia ;
 
 Cylinders, Condensers, and Air-Pumps. 
 
 From Original Drawings, depvrited tcith Fitch's MSS. in the Philadelphia Library, 
 
 Fitch's Philadelphia & Trenton Packet. 
 
 I'll \ M:I Kill i;. IT'.. *. , pllge 4ij.
 
 GOES TO FRANCE. 49 
 
 in seeking to have a boat built at Pittsburgh, so that, as he said, " the 
 navigation of the Mississippi and Ohio shall be made easy;" or in 
 his endeavors to get special privileges from the Government, his as- 
 sociates had, with but three or four exceptions, deserted him. Their 
 ventures with him had not paid, and, consequently, they had not the 
 disposition to furnish further means. Had his personal qualities been 
 different, he would probably have achieved success ; plainly, he was 
 dissolute in his habits, and both vulgar and violent in his language. 
 His fondness for stimulants added fuel to the flames which burnt out 
 his life. Had he, in the midst of the difficulties which surrounded 
 him, been as strictly temperate as he was ingenious, skillful, and per- 
 severing, his efforts would undoubtedly have been crowned with suc- 
 cess, and Fulton would not, twenty years later, have so nearly carried 
 off the laurels which he had so nearly within his grasp. 
 
 Our aim in this sketch has been to do justice to Mr. Fitch's 
 memory as an inventor ; and, while we believe him entitled to the 
 first honors, for applying steam to navigation, we have no apologies 
 to make for his course of life, when the heaviness of many grievous 
 disappointments weighed upon his mind, and caused him to feel de- 
 jected and hopeless. 
 
 Fitch finally obtained a patent, under the new law of the United 
 States; but it did not cover the ground which he fairly had a right 
 to claim, and he became disgusted and despairing. Patents to Fitch, 
 Rumsey, and also to others, bore date August 26th, 1791, leaving to 
 the parties the pleasant prospect of long and expensive litigation. 
 While the steam-boat company and Fitch were awaiting the slow 
 action of the Commissioners of Patents, Aaron Vail, U. S. Consul at 
 L'Orient, France, had inspected the operations of the steam-boat, and 
 become convinced of the value of the invention. He sought an in- 
 terest in the improvement, with the view of obtaining patents in 
 France and other parts of the continent. The majority of the com- 
 pany assenting, Fitch entered into an agreement with Vail, March 
 1 6th, 1791, which two years later induced Fitch to visit Mr. Vail; 
 but arriving at the consulate in the midst of the agitations attendant 
 upon the revolution in France, he found all business suspended. 
 After a brief stay, " he deposited his papers and specifications in the 
 hands of Mr. Vail, and crossed the channel to England," where he 
 remained some time at the house of his friend, Robert Leslie, in Lon- 
 don, with whom he had been on terms of intimacy. Mr. Leslie, as 
 a resident of Philadelphia, had made important improvements in 
 watches and clocks. 
 
 In 1794, after having published in London a small pamphlet on a 
 subject connected with " keeping a ship's traverse," Fitch returned 
 home, working his passage to Boston as a common sailor. In a state 
 of destitution, he found his way to Connecticut, where he saw his 
 daughter Lucy, Mrs. Kilbourne. He remained nearly two years at 
 4
 
 5 JOHN FITCH. 
 
 East Windsor with his sister, and her husband, Timothy King, but 
 did not, however, become reconciled to his wife. 
 
 The year before he sailed to Europe there seems to have been some 
 correspondence with members of his family. A letter dated Septem- 
 ber 25th, 1792, was addressed to Colonel James Kilbourne, who had 
 married his daughter Lucy. We copy, as given by Colonel Whittle- 
 sey, in his life of Fitch. " My dear child, know that I am a man of 
 tender feelings, however my children may have been educated to form 
 their opinions of me. No man loves his children more than myself, 
 although I never saw but one. Forgive me for not entering into' a 
 justification of my conduct ; but esteem your mother-in-law and my- 
 self, as we have both merited ; but I require of you, that you treat 
 her kindly, because she was once the wife of John Fitch. But much 
 as I love my children, any mediation through them would be inef- 
 fectual." 
 
 Had Fitch been surrounded with the kindly influences of a pleasant 
 home, would he have been the reckless, irritable, and dissolute man 
 that he finally came to be ? Would he have given way to the terrible 
 temptation which resulted in his death ; would he not rather have 
 courageously combatted and overcome the difficulties which beset his 
 path, and finally succeeded in carrying out the brilliant schemes, which 
 his genius and observation had caused him to originate? Had he been 
 a man of correct habits and noble character, would his efforts have 
 been fruitless? We do not believe it ! He might have missed his 
 aim, in some degree, but he would not have broken down as he did 
 utterly. He would not, in despair, have written out and sealed up 
 his history as an inventor, feeling that no one cared for him, or would 
 do him justice. 
 
 We here extract a paragraph from a letter dated 24th July, 1792, 
 and addressed by him to "Thomas Jefferson, Esq. : " (which, at the 
 suggestion of friends, was never delivered to Mr. Jefferson, but de- 
 posited with his other MS.), "I, sir, am sorry to live in a State, 
 that no sooner becomes a Nation than it becomes depraved. The 
 injuries which I have received from my nation, or rather from the 
 first officers of the Government, has induced me for a lesson of 
 caution to future generations, to record the treatment which I have 
 received, which will, in a few days, be sealed up and placed in the 
 Library of Philadelphia, to remain under seal till after my death, in 
 which, sir, your candor is seriously called in question." Four days 
 later he wrote another letter addressed to the Librarian of the Phila- 
 delphia Library, with which, was another enveloped and sealed to 
 accompany his MS. ; from the latter we extract these paragraphs : 
 " I have two reasons for keeping it under seal for thirty years, al- 
 though I must be a sufferer during that time. The first is, that the 
 children of two valuable families might possibly be injured by it, but 
 by that time, may probably be married, and the improper conduct of
 
 SALEOFHISENGINE. 51 
 
 their parents may not hurt their temporal interests, however injured 
 I may have been by them." 
 
 Another is, that the warmth of the present age is so much in favor 
 of the first officers of the Government, whose candor / have so stren- 
 uously called in question, that I much fear they would be destroyed 
 without ever giving the world an opportunity of knowing in what 
 manner I have been treated by them." This was dated Philadelphia, 
 July 30, 1792. 
 
 The Library Records show this minute: "October 4, 1792. A 
 sealed cover, inscribed manuscripts, was presented by John Fitch, 
 who requests the same may be kept unopened until the year 1823* 
 the Librarian to deposit the same in the museum." Later, he in- 
 quired whether the trust was accepted, and on receiving an affirma- 
 tive answer, gave further instructions not now of special impor- 
 tance who ever desires further and fuller information, should procure 
 "Westcott's Life of John Fitch " a volume of over four hundred 
 pages, published -by Lippincott, Philadelphia. Fitch's manuscripts 
 cover over 500 pages, and may be consulted as left by him. They 
 were deposited with the Librarian after his schemes had practically 
 failed, and therefore whatever transpired afterwards, must be looked 
 for elsewhere. We do not find that Fitch gave much heed to leaving 
 further records of his movements. Mr. Westcott has, however, 
 gathered industriously whatever he could get trace of, and we acknowl- 
 edge our indebtedness. He says "the Perseverance, with the engine, 
 nearly finished, was abandoned. The share-holders became careless 
 upon the subject, and for four years the boat and machinery remained 
 without change. The "General Advertiser" of August 18, 1795, an- 
 nounced the last act in the melancholy drama." 
 
 "A STEAM-ENGINE." 
 
 "On Wednesday, the 24th inst., will be sold by Public Vendue, 
 on Smith's wharf, between Race and Vine Streets, (Philadelphia), a 
 sixteen-inch cylinder steam-engine, with machinery appertaining 
 thereto. The terms of the sale will be cash, and the sale to com- 
 mence at ten o'clock in the morning. Composing the same, are, 
 viz." here follows the list of items: 
 
 After Fitch had spent two years with his sister and brother-in-law, 
 King, at East Windsor, Connecticut, he seems to have determined to 
 seek his lands in Kentucky, and perhaps in passing through New 
 York, called upon, or was brought into contact with Robert R. 
 (Chancellor) Livingston, who even then was greatly interested in 
 steam navigation. A Mr. John Hutchings, mentioned in the Docu- 
 mentary History of New York, says that in the summer of 1796 or 
 1797, he then a lad, assisted Mr. Fitch in steering a steam-boat, and 
 otherwise aiding in the working of the machinery. The boat was 
 
 They were opened formally by officers of the Library in 1823.
 
 5 2 JOHN FITCH. 
 
 navigated upon "the Collect," a large pond of fresh water, since 
 filled up, on a portion of the site of which now stands (The 'Tombs'), 
 the present city prison, between which and Canal Street was the 
 space then covered with water. 
 
 "This boat was propelled by a screw-propeller. The boiler was a 
 ten or twelve gallon iron pot, with a lid of truck-plank, firmly fast- 
 ened to it by an iron bar placed transversely. The boat was a ship's 
 yawl, steered by an oar." Mr. Hutchings says "the steam was suffi- 
 ciently high to propel the boat once, twice, or thrice around the pond ; 
 when, more water being introduced into the boiler or pot, and steam 
 generated, she was again ready to start on another expedition. . . 
 . They had no doubt but that the boat might be propelled six 
 miles an hour, though then making something less. 
 
 From New York, Mr. Fitch went to Philadelphia, and called to 
 see his acquaintances, among whom was Oliver Evans, whose later 
 improvements of the steam-engine are well known to the scientific 
 world. Upon arriving in Kentucky in the late fall; or early winter of 
 1796, Fitch found fresh occasions for annoyance and trouble in the 
 occupancy of his lands by Squatters ; it is gratifying, however, to 
 know that, after much litigation, he finally dispossessed them. 
 
 Here, as Colonel Whittlesey says, " on the confines of civilization, 
 steam navigation lost none of its interest to him." At Bardstown, 
 in the shop of Mr. Howell, he wrought upon a model boat, and con- 
 structed its machinery of brass, and polished each part neatly. It 
 "had wheels, and not oars," and had been seen floating in a small 
 stream near the village, by persons who were residents of Bardstown, 
 in 1843. 
 
 This model engine was years with the St. Louis Mercantile Library 
 Association, and by the kindness of L. J. Cist, Esq., of Cincinnati, 
 we are enabled to give an engraving from a photograph he has of the 
 machine.* It came to the Library Association through the agency of 
 a relative of Mr. Fitch, Mrs. C. M. Scott. 
 
 The will of John Fitch bears date June 25, 1798, and "was pro- 
 duced " in the County Court of Nelson County, Kentucky, for 
 probate, on the i8th day of July following. He died, as seems prob- 
 able, early in July, immediately, from the effects of opium, which had 
 been prescribed by his physician, but which he concealed until he 
 had retained twelve pills to swallow at once, and thus quietly he ended 
 his fretted and weary life. He was very intemperate during his resi- 
 dence in Bardstown. Soon after reaching there, he took lodgings 
 with Alexander McConn, and deeded to him one hundred and fifty 
 acres of his land, stipulating with him that he should, besides giving 
 him his board at his tavern, provide him with a pint of whisky a day: 
 this ration, Fitch afterwards remarked to McConn, was " not getting" 
 him "off fast enough; you must add another pint," said he, and 
 
 * See page 55 for an interesting fac-simile letter of Fitch.
 
 HIS DECEASE AND BURIAL. 53 
 
 then doubled his quantity of lands to secure the quart a day. A sad 
 record to make of so bright a genius. 
 
 His remains were buried respectably in the public burying ground 
 of the place, at the expense of his landlord ; who, many years after- 
 wards, at the request of the Hon. Robert Wickliffe, identified the 
 spot where his remains were interred. Since then the place was ac- 
 curately described by citizens who caused the description to be filed 
 with his will, that the remains may hereafter be found, if the place 
 of burial is not now marked, as has been affirmed by some one, "by 
 a rough, unhewn, unlettered stone." 
 
 "Would it ever have been difficult to find the grave of Fitch," 
 in the words of Whittlesey, if he, when building his steam-boats, 
 had found a Robert R. Livingston to aid him with a large capital. 
 Or even had his Engines been made by skilled mechanics at an es- 
 tablishment like that of Boulton & Watt, at Soho, instead of being 
 made as they were, with his boilers and other machinery, by rough 
 blacksmiths, without proper tools or apparatus, under the superin- 
 tendence of an Inventor who had never seen an Engine of any sort, 
 but such a miniature one as he had coined from his own brain, and 
 produced with his own hands, would Fitch have wandered to the 
 wilds of Kentucky, and died almost an outcast, had he possessed the 
 facilities for perfecting his machinery which were afforded to Fulton 
 twenty years later? 
 
 Chancellor Livingston was an ardent worker in the domains of 
 Steam. As early as 1797, assisted by Nisbet and Brunei, he had 
 succeeded in propelling a vessel by steam on the North River, at the 
 rate of nearly three miles an hour, and, by virtue of his efforts, the 
 following year he obtained the repeal of the law passed in 1787, 
 giving Fitch exclusive rights in the waters of New York, and secured 
 its privileges for himself. Livingston in this law, is described as a 
 "possessor of a mode of propelling boats by steam, upon new and 
 advantageous principles," and not as an inventor. When Livingston 
 had joined Fulton, it took them several years to attain the speed 
 called for by the terms of the New York law, and to equal that at- 
 tained by Fitch on the Delaware, more than twenty years earlier. 
 
 No one can reasonably question that Fitch's steam-boats were the 
 first vessels successfully propelled by steam. Fitch, on the Delaware, 
 anticipated Symington & Taylor's Dalwinston boat two years, and 
 Rumsey by his small one on the Potomac by ten months. English 
 writers affirm that the Charlotte Dundas, built by Symington, in 1801, 
 for the Forth and Clyde Canal, was the first " practical steam-boat " 
 built in the Kingdom ; but, strange to say, his vessel was soon laid aside 
 and never again used. Fitch's skiff-boat, moved by the model engine, 
 with three-inch cylinder, in July, 1786, was followed in August, 1787, 
 by the large boat propelled by an engine having a twelve-inch cylin- 
 der. Passages were made several times up and down the Delaware in the 
 summer and autumn of 1788, and the next season there were other
 
 54 JOHN FITCH . 
 
 trials. When 1790 came and the machinery had been perfected, the 
 steam-boat became a regular packet, and carried both freight and pass- 
 engers with regularity and promptness, for several months, with the 
 few exceptions before referred to. 
 
 Mr. James Rumsey went to England in 1788, probably with the in- 
 tention of securing patents for himself, and with a view, no doubt, to 
 make available the greater facilities to be found there for perfecting steam 
 .machinery. He was fortunate in securing the aid of a wealthy Amer- 
 ican merchant in London, but before completing his vessel, he sud- 
 denly died of apoplexy, on the 24th of December, 1792. His 
 vessel was successfully moved by steam the February following, but 
 for some reason not now known the project was abandoned. The 
 bitter controversies between himself and Mr. Fitch, by pamphlets, and 
 before Congressional and other Committees, were ended, it will be 
 remembered, by patents being granted to each, with the pleasant 
 privilege left of future litigations in the Courts. Neither one or the 
 other, for themselves or by thir heirs or representatives, ever ob- 
 tained any pecuniary return whatever for their efforts in steam navi- 
 gation. It will be seen that Fitch's efforts were not without avail 
 to those who came after him. 
 
 Thus far we have neglected to speak of Mr. Fitch's personal ap- 
 pearance. He was represented in middle life as standing six feet 
 two inches in height, of thin and spare person and face, with very black 
 hair, tawny complexion, and a dark and very piercing eye. When 
 he walked he was straight as an Indian, and when wearing moccasins, 
 as he did when in captivity and on the frontiers, his tread could not 
 be distinguished from that peculiar to the denizens of the forest. 
 He was fond of walking, and made his long journeys to and from the 
 West in that way. His personal bravery and intrepidity in scenes of 
 danger were evinced on various occasions throughout his eventful 
 career. They were shown before he was six years of age, in his 
 hasty transfer to the chimney hearth of burning bundles of flax which 
 had caught fire from a candle in the hands of his younger sister, when 
 displaying to him some presents which she had received. He burnt 
 his hands and feet badly, and nearly singed the hair from his head, 
 but bravely saved his father's house from the flames, by his noble con- 
 duct, when there was no one else in the house who could have done it. 
 Amid all his misfortunes there is much to indicate that he was truthful, 
 fair-minded, and upright in his intercourse with men. His letters to 
 his children manifest much warmth of affection. Perhaps we do not 
 err in saying that his sensitive nature received a bias from the events 
 which followed the death of his mother, before he was five years of 
 age, from which his later training and experiences in no degree relieved 
 him. He passed from the scenes of earth at the age of fifty-five, in 
 the midst of comparative strangers, and among those who, under the 
 circumstances, could have but little sympathy for him.
 
 
 
 >*rUjk m\ 
 
 5 W l^! > JU * * 
 
 V ?\ J >* C * . .T 3 >v (w
 
 ROBERT FULTON. 
 
 ROBERT FULTON, one of the most deservedly famous of 
 modern Engineers, was born in the town of Little Britain, State 
 of Pennsylvania, in the year 1765. His family, though respectable, 
 was not opulent, and the patrimony which fell to him as the elder of 
 two sons, on the death of the father in 1768, was very small. He 
 received his early education in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and displayed, 
 even from childhood, a strong taste for those pursuits in which he 
 afterwards acquired celebrity. 
 
 All the intervals of study, dedicated usually by boys to play, 
 were spent by young Fulton in the workshops of mechanics, or in 
 the use of his pencil; and by the time he had reached the age of 
 seventeen, he had become so skillful in drawing, as to obtain a con- 
 siderable income by painting portraits and landscapes in Philadel- 
 phia, in which city he remained until he came to his majority. 
 
 In 1786, Fulton went to his native district to visit his mother, and 
 had the pleasure of purchasing for her, with his earnings at Philadel- 
 phia, a small farm in Washington County, which greatly increased 
 her comforts for the remainder of her life. Having effected this 
 labor of love, he set out to re-establish himself at Philadelphia, but 
 met some gentlemen by the way, who were so much struck by the 
 production of his pencil, as to advise him strongly to go to England, 
 assuring him that there he could obtain the patronage of his country- 
 man, Benjamin West then in high favor as a painter with the British 
 public. Fulton followed the counsel thus accidentally given to him. 
 At the age of twenty-two, (1787), he crossed the Atlantic, and pre- 
 sented himself before Mr. West, who received him with the utmost 
 kindness, and installed him at once as an inmate of his own family. 
 Here Fulton continued for several years, practicing the art of paint- 
 ing under the eye of his friendly entertainer. 
 
 Owing to the loss at sea, some years afterwards, of a number of 
 his manuscripts, it is not accurately known for what reason he gave 
 up the profession of an Artist for that of an Engineer. It would 
 appear that he went to Devonshire in the character of a painter, and 
 
 (57)
 
 58 ROBERT FULTON. 
 
 spent two years there, during which time he became known to the 
 Duke of Bridgewater, of canal celebrity, and to Lord Stanhope, a 
 nobleman famed alike for eccentricity and mechanical genius. The 
 formation of such acquaintances possibly led to the alteration in Ful- 
 ton's views for the future. Whatever was the cause, we find him, 
 from the year 1793 downwards, devoting his whole mind and time to 
 improvements in the mechanic arts. In the year mentioned, he en- 
 gaged actively in a project to improve inland navigation, and in May, 
 j 794, he obtained from the British government a patent for a double 
 inclined plane, to be used in transporting canal boats from one level 
 to another without the aid of locks. 
 
 In the same year he submitted to the British Society, for the promo- 
 tion of arts and commerce, an improvement on mills for sawing 
 marble, for which he received an honorary medal and the thanks of 
 the society. He also obtained patents for machines for spinning flax 
 and for making ropes; and invented a mechanical contrivance for 
 scooping out the earth, in certain situations, to form the channels for 
 canals or aqueducts. To conclude the account of his labors at this 
 period in England, he published, in 1796, his treatise on canal navi- 
 gation, to which he appended his name as a professed Civil Engineer. 
 This work, it was admitted by all, contained many ingenious and orig- 
 inal thoughts on the subjects of which it treats. Whether these fruits 
 of his genius were productive of much emolument to Mr. Fulton, does 
 not seem to be well ascertained. In the year following the publica- 
 tion of his treatise, he left England and went to Paris, where he 
 took up his residence with his distinguished countryman, Joel 
 Barlow. 
 
 The objects to which Fulton's mind chiefly directed itself, during 
 his seven years' stay in France, were of a remarkable cast. " Under 
 the impression that, while individual countries maintained standing 
 navies, the seas could never be the scene of secure and peaceful com- 
 merce, I turned," says he, "my whole attention to find out the means 
 of destroying such engines of oppression, by some method which 
 would put it out of the power of any nation to maintain such a system, 
 and would compel every government to adopt the simple principles 
 of education, industry, and a free circulation of its produce." 
 
 This explanation refers to his schemes for destroying ships of war, 
 by passing explosive machines secretly beneath them. After several 
 fruitless attempts to call the attention of the French and Dutch Gov- 
 ernments to his plans for this purpose, Fulton was at last successful 
 in inducing Bonaparte, in the year 1801, to appoint a commission, with 
 a view of inquiring into the practicability of his designs. Having 
 gone to Brest, accordingly, Mr. Fulton there exhibited his machines. 
 One of these was a plunging boat (called by him a Nautilus), made 
 water-tight in part, and otherwise so constructed, that, with three 
 companions, the inventor could remain in it for four or five hours at 
 the depth of many feet 1>elow the surface of the water, and could there
 
 EXHIBITION OF HIS MACHINES AT BREST. 59 
 
 propel it from place to place with great ease, without a ripple being 
 seen above. At the same time the Nautilus could sail as readily above 
 as beneath the water, its sails being struck when the plunge was made. 
 The other machine was named by the inventor, a Torpedo, and was 
 merely a sub-marine bomb, which could be exploded in the water. 
 Mr. Fulton showed to the commission these engines in actual opera- 
 tion, by remaining for four hours in the water, and shifting from place 
 to place in the Nautilus, and by blowing a shallop to atoms with the 
 Torpedo. He made it clear that, with a little flotilla of these Engines, 
 a vast fleet, under favorable circumstances, could be blown in pieces 
 into the air. 
 
 After these experiments were made, an opportunity was sought of 
 trying their effect on some of the British vessels, then hovering around 
 the French coast. No proper chance, however, presented itself, and 
 the French Government became tired of the matter. At this junct- 
 ure, the British ministry, who had heard with some alarm of Mr. 
 Fulton's projects, made proposals to him to give his services to Britain. 
 Sincere in his belief that, wherever put in force, his inventions 
 would ere long bring to an end the war system of Europe, Mr. Fulton 
 conceived himself at liberty to accept of the invitation from the British 
 Government. He went to London in May, 1804; but his journey 
 was productive only of disappointment. In the single opportunity 
 afforded him of trying his machines on French vessels, they failed of 
 success. The British ministry also changed members, and in 1806 
 Mr. Fulton sailed for America. It is impossible to regret, for his own 
 sake, that such was the issue of these schemes of destruction, though, 
 at the same time, we are firmly of the opinion that his motives were 
 pure, and that his anticipations would have been ultimately fulfilled. 
 This notice of Fulton's explosive inventions may be closed, by men- 
 tioning that he endeavored afterwards to apply the same engines to 
 the defense of the United States, but did not succeed in extracting 
 from them any practical benefit. 
 
 We come now to notice the great achievement of Fulton's life. 
 For many years previous to this period, his attention had been turned 
 to the subject of Navigation by Steam, as is distinctly shown by the 
 following passage of a letter to him from Lord Stanhope, dated Octo- 
 ber 7, 1793 : "Sir, I have received yours of the 3oth September, in 
 which you propose to communicate to me the principles of an inven- 
 tion which you say you have discovered, respecting the moving of 
 ships by means of steam. I shall be glad to receive, etc." This 
 letter shows Fulton, thus early, to have formed plans for steam navi- 
 gation. The application of steam to the propulsion of vessels on water 
 had been suggested long before by Jonathan Hulls, in a little work 
 published in London in 1737. Though this person's description of 
 the machine invented by him is amazingly clear, and though he took 
 out a patent for it, the attention of the world does not appeal- to have
 
 60 ROBERT FULTON. 
 
 been arrested to the subject. The idea dropped aside for nearly fifty 
 years. 
 
 It will be remembered that Fulton was a resident of Philadelphia, 
 in the practice of his profession as an artist, during the early years of 
 his manhood. The city directory for 1785, gives his business as that 
 of miniature painter, corner of Walnut and Second Streets. He re- 
 mained there until 1787 when he sailed for London. Previous to his 
 departure, Fitch's invention must have been well known to so intelli- 
 gent a resident of the city as young Fulton, even supposing that the 
 applications of Fitch to the Legislatures of Virginia, Maryland, Penn- 
 sylvania, and New Jersey, in behalf of his invention, were unknown 
 to him, as they might have been to one who had but little more than 
 attained his majority. Whatever Mr. Fulton may have learned before 
 going to Europe, it is certain that he had in his possession, for several 
 months, all the specifications and drawings of Mr. Fitch, which the 
 latter deposited with Mr. Aaron Vail, the American Consul at L'Orient, 
 France, at the close of Mr. Fitch's brief visit to him at the consulate 
 in 1793.* 
 
 About 1785, Patrick Miller, Esq., of Dalwinston, in Dumfriesshire, 
 Scotland (a gentleman who had made a fortune by banking, and 
 bought that estate, made experiments with a double vessel driven by 
 paddle-wheels.) The tutor of his children, James Taylor, a native of 
 Leadhills, Lanarkshire, and a man of much mechanical ingenuity, 
 suggested the application of the steam-engine to Mr. Miller's paddled 
 vessel ; and the consequence was, the preparation of a vessel, having 
 a small steam-engine on the deck, which was launched in Dalwinston 
 Lake, in October, 1788. A clever mechanician named Symington, an 
 early friend of Taylor, was the person to whom the fitting up of this 
 vessel was intrusted. Afterwards, at the expense of Mr. Miller, and 
 under the superintendence of Mr. Taylor, Mr. Symington made 
 another vessel, which was tried on the Forth and Clyde Canal, in 
 December, 1789, with such complete success, that, but for the injury 
 done to the banks, it in all probability would never have been taken 
 off. The disgust of Mr. Miller with the expense of this experiment, 
 was the means of withdrawing him and Mr. Taylor from the pursuit 
 of an interesting object, which was then followed up for some years 
 by Symington alone. 
 
 Mr. Fulton, when on a visit to Scotland, saw and examined the 
 Charlotte Dundas, a boat made by Symington, which, it is said, was 
 lying in a dismantled state on the banks of the Forth and Clyde 
 Canal. f However this may be, it is certain that the first decisive ex- 
 periments of the same nature made by Fulton himself, did not take 
 
 * See Duer's second letter to Golden quotation from Nathaniel Cutting. 
 
 t Woodcroft, in his history of Early Steam Navigation pages 64 and 65 shows 
 that in 1801, Fulton visited Symington's boat on the Clyde Canal, and took drawings 
 of the machinery.
 
 THE FULTON FOLLY. 6l 
 
 place until the year 1803, when he was resident in Paris. In the in- 
 tervals which his torpedo schemes allowed to him, he prosecuted ar- 
 dently the subject of steam navigation, in concert with the American 
 embassador, Mr. Robert R. Livingston. In July of the year mentioned, 
 their first experimental boat, which was sixty-six feet long by eight 
 feet wide,* and was driven by wheels, was launched on the Seine, in 
 presence of the members of the French Institute and a great concourse 
 of spectators. The boat moved slowly, but in other respects the ex- 
 periment was satisfactory, and Messrs. Fulton and Livingston resolved 
 to carry the same principles into practical operation as soon as they 
 met in their native country. 
 
 Fulton went to England, where he, no doubt, procured the Watt's 
 Engine, which he used in his first boat, probably taking it with him to 
 New York in 1806. Previously to that time, Mr. Livingston had got 
 an act passed by the Legislature of New York, granting to himself 
 and Mr. Fulton the exclusive privilege (originally granted to Fitch) 
 of steam navigation^ in all the waters of the State, for the term of 
 twenty years. Though they passed this statute, the Legislators of 
 New York are said to have regarded it as a mere delusion, and made 
 it a standing jest for more than one session. Similar feelings of scorn 
 and derision pervaded the minds of the public at large. Notwith- 
 standing this, Fulton, immediately on his arrival in New York, began 
 the construction of his steam -boat. The expense proved to be great, 
 and he was compelled to offer a share of the prospective advantages 
 to some of his friends, with a view of getting pecuniary aid in the 
 mean time. No man would accept his offers. " My friends (as he 
 himself relates) were civil, but shy ; they listened with patience to 
 my explanations, but with a settled cast of incredulity on their coun- 
 tenances ; I felt the full force of the lamentation of the poet : 
 
 Truths would you teach, to save a sinking land, 
 All shun, none aid you, and few understand. 
 
 "As I had occasion to pass daily to and from the building-yard 
 while my boat was in progress, I have often loitered, unknown, near 
 the idle groups of strangers gathering in little circles, and heard vari- 
 ous inquiries as to the object of this new vehicle. The language was 
 uniformly that of scorn, sneer, or ridicule. The loud laugh rose at 
 my expense, the dry jest, the wise calculation of losses and expendi- 
 tures, the dull but endless repetition of 'the Fulton Folly.' Never 
 did a single encouraging remark, a bright hope, or warm wish, cross 
 my path." 
 
 In spite of this painful discouragement the boat was completed in 
 August, 1807. To continue his own language, " The day arrived 
 when the experiment was to be made on the Hudson River. To me 
 it was the most trying and interesting occasion. I wanted some 
 friends to go on board to witness the first successful trip. Many of 
 
 The proportions adopted by Fitch, as shown by Dr. Thornton.
 
 62 ROBERT FULTON. 
 
 them did me the favor to attend, as a matter of personal respect ; 
 but it was manifest they did it with reluctance, fearing to be partners 
 of my mortification, and not of my triumph. I was well aware that, 
 in my case, there were many reasons to doubt my own success. The 
 machinery was new and ill made, and many parts were constructed 
 by mechanics unacquainted with such work: and unexpected difficul- 
 ties might reasonably be presumed to present themselves from other 
 causes. The moment arrived in which the word was to be given for 
 the vessel to move. My friends were in groups on the dock. There 
 was anxiety mixed with fear among them. They were silent, sad, 
 and weary. I read in their looks nothing but disaster, and almost 
 repented of my efforts. The signal was given, and the boat moved 
 on a short distance and then stopped, and became immovable. To 
 the silence of the preceding moment now succeeded murmurs of dis- 
 content and agitation, and whispers and shrugs. I could hear dis- 
 tinctly repeated, 'I told you so, it is a foolish scheme, I wish we 
 were well out of it.' I elevated myself on a platform and stated 
 that I knew not what was the matter, but if they would be quiet, 
 and indulge me for half an hour, I would either go on or abandon 
 the voyage. I went below and discovered that a slight maladjust- 
 ment was the cause. It was obviated. The boat went on ; we left 
 New York ; we passed through the Highlands ; we reached Albany. 
 Yet even then the imagination surpassed the force of fact. // was 
 doubted if it could be done again, or if it could be made in any case of 
 any great value." Mr. N. P. Willis, in quoting this letter, exclaimed, 
 " What an affecting picture of the struggles of a great mind, and what 
 a vivid lesson of encouragement to genius, is contained in this simple 
 narration." 
 
 Pine wood was the fuel used, and the ignited vapor rose many feet 
 above the flue, sending off a galaxy of sparks to a great height, so that 
 those who saw the boat returning at night at the rate of five miles an 
 hour, conceived her to be a monster moving on the waters, breath- 
 ing flames and smoke. It was said that the crews on the ordinary 
 vessels on the river, hid themselves under decks and fell to their 
 prayers. But the good people on the Hudson ere long became 
 familiar with the spectacle, for the "Clermont" soon began to travel 
 regularly, as a passenger boat, between Albany and New York. 
 
 Thus, by the genius and perseverance of Robert Fulton, for the 
 first time, on a great line of travel, was steam navigation made effec- 
 tually conducive to the common purposes of life. He soon after- 
 wards took out a parent for his invention in navigation by steam; but 
 all his exertions could not save him from the encroachments of oth- 
 ers on the rights to which he laid claim. A series of vexatious law- 
 suits was the consequence, by which his life was long embittered. 
 He was two or three years in getting sufficient speed to fulfill the 
 requirements of the New York law. This law was hotly contested 
 by Aaron Ogden, of Elizabethtown, N. J., but a shrewd compromise
 
 Steamer "Clermont," 18O7 Fulton's First Boat. (Hudson River.) 
 
 French's Steamer "Enterprise," 1814. 
 First Boat to ascend Mississippi anj Ohio Rivers.
 
 CAPTAIN VANDERBILT. 63 
 
 was effected, which gave Ogden such an interest in the monopoly for 
 running boats to New York as made him a sturdy defender of the 
 special privileges of Fulton and Livingston. 
 
 Not long afterwards, a wealthy lawyer of Savannah, Ga. , (Thomas 
 Gibbons), successfully established a ferry between what is now called 
 Elizabethport and New York. This brought about the celebrated 
 lawsuit of Gibbons vs. Ogden. The case was finally carried to the 
 Supreme Court of the United States, which decided the New York 
 law to be unconstitutional. It may interest our readers to know that 
 it was on these steam-boats that the celebrated Commodore Vander- 
 bilt commenced his career. Previous to 1830 he was Captain of one 
 of them. His connection with Gibbons brought under his control 
 large sums of money, . which he used advantageously after that gentle- 
 man's decease. 
 
 In 1811 Fulton built two steamers as ferry-boats, for crossing the 
 Hudson. The succeeding year, the example was followed by Mr. 
 Bell, of Helensburgh, Scotland, who launched a steam vessel on the 
 Clyde, the first used for the service of the public in the old hemis- 
 phere. Various steam-boats were, after an interval, built under the 
 directions of Fulton, for the navigation of the Ohio, Mississippi, and 
 other waters of the United States. 
 
 In the month of April, 1809, Nicholas J. Roosevelt was sent to the 
 West by Fulton and Livingston, to survey the rivers from Pittsburgh 
 to New Orleans, with a view to the introduction of steam navigation ; 
 his report was favorable, and ultimately, in the early autumn of 1811, 
 the steamer "Orleans" was finished at Pittsburgh. She left Pitts- 
 burgh on her experimental voyage in October, without freight or 
 passengers, excepting the young wife and family of Mr. Baker, the 
 engineer, a few domestics, Andrew Jack, the pilot, and six hands. 
 There were no wood-yards on the rivers, therefore there were con- 
 stant delays to obtain fuel. 
 
 On the fourth day after leaving Pittsburgh, however, they arrived 
 safely at Louisville, having voyaged nearly seven hundred miles in 
 about seventy hours; the novel appearance of the vessel, and the 
 rapidity of its movement over the broad reaches of the Ohio, excited 
 a mixture of terror and surprise to many of the settlers on its banks. 
 Most of them had probably never heard of the invention. It is re- 
 lated that the boat reached Louisville on a fine, still, moonlight night. 
 The extraordinary sounds produced by the escaping steam, while 
 rounding to, caused general alarm, and brought multitudes from their 
 houses to ascertain the cause of the strange phenomena. 
 
 The low water on the falls at Louisville prevented the boat from 
 pursuing her voyage to New Orleans, and resulted in several trips 
 being successfully made between Louisville and Cincinnati, during 
 the detention of three or four weeks. In November the water rose 
 sufficiently to allow the boat to go over the falls. In due time they 
 moored the boat opposite the first vein of coal on the Indiana side ;
 
 04 ROBERTFULTON. 
 
 they found a considerable quantity of coal ready for use, with which 
 they proceeded to supply the boat. Squatters in the neighborhood 
 accosted them in great alarm, asking if they had not heard 
 strange noises on the river and in the woods during the preceding 
 day. They assured the boatmen that the shores had shaken and the 
 earth trembled. Hitherto the voyagers had perceived nothing extraor- 
 dinary, and the following day nothing occurred to break the monot- 
 onous silence of those vast solitudes. The weather was observed to 
 be oppressively hot, the air misty, still, and dull, and, though the sun 
 was visible, it was like a great ball of copper, his rays shedding scarcely 
 any more than a mournful twilight on the surface of the water. As 
 evening approached, indications of what was passing became evident. 
 Sitting on the deck, ever and anon they heard a rushing sound, a 
 violent splash, and saw large portions of the shore tearing away from 
 the land, and falling into the river. 
 
 The day following, the same portentous signs continued. The pilot 
 of the boat became alarmed and confused, affirming that he was lost, 
 as he found the channel every-where altered. Where he had 
 hitherto known deep water, lay numberless trees swaying, with their 
 roots upwards. On the banks, trees were waving and nodding, without 
 a breath of air to stir them ; but the adventurers had no choice but 
 to continue their route. Usually they had brought to under the shore, 
 but now the numerous wrecks of flat-boats and rafts waYned them 
 away from the shore. In his extremity the pilot determined to land 
 at a large island in mid-channel ; but he sought it in vain, for it had 
 entirely disappeared. Just at night-fall they discovered a small island, 
 they rounded to, and moored at the foot of it. They listened watchfully 
 to the roaring and surging waters during the long autumnal night, 
 noticing with solicitude the commotions produced by the falling of 
 large masses of earth and trees into the rushing waters of the river. 
 It was a long night ; but morning dawned and showed them they 
 were near the mouth of the Ohio River. The passing earthquake had 
 been distinctly felt on the vessel ; but the changes in the channel 
 and on the shore kept the pilot from recognizing either, for con- 
 siderable periods of time. 
 
 About noon they reached New Madrid, Missouri, and found its 
 inhabitants in great distress and consternation ; portions of the popu- 
 lation had fled to the higher grounds, while others prayed to be taken 
 on board the boat. The earth was opening in great fissures on every 
 side, while houses were hourly falling. Such were the scenes that 
 greeted the eye and roused the sensibilities of those who made the 
 first steam voyage on the bosom of the Mississippi. Often they 
 floated three or four hundred miles on that great stream, without 
 seeing a single human habitation. The citizens of Natchez were 
 greatly surprised at the appearance of the boat, at the close of the 
 first week in January, 1812. It was supposed that she must have 
 been wrecked in the great convulsion which had occurred. Here we
 
 STEAM ON THE OHIO AND MISSISSIPPI. 65 
 
 close our episode ; but give a few facts concerning this and other 
 boats on the Western rivers. 
 
 By the kindness of Robert Buchanan, Esq., of Cincinnati, we here 
 insert some very interesting facts which he furnished : 
 
 " In the spring of 1811, I was residing at Pittsburgh, and saw there 
 the first steamboat launched on the Western waters. It was the 
 ''Orleans,' built for Fulton & Livingston, under the superintendence 
 of Mr. Roosevelt. In 1809, Mr. R. had examined the rivers from 
 Pittsburgh to New Orleans, and reported favorably. The boat was 
 of about 200 tons, with a low-pressure engine. 
 
 "In the autumn of 1811 I saw this steamboat pass down the Ohio, 
 on her way to New Orleans. I was then in a store at Fawcetstown, 
 now Liverpool, Ohio, about forty-eight miles below Pittsburgh. 
 
 "I well remember the alarm created by its sudden appearance. 
 Few had heard of the boat, and none expected it. With its lever 
 beam moving up and down, it looked like a floating sawmill, for the 
 cabin was below, and no upper works on the deck. With our towns- 
 people, it was a source of marvelous relation to the surrounding neigh- 
 bors for years afterward. 
 
 " During the same autumn, we had another incident to relieve the 
 dull monotony of village life. The news of the battle of Tippecanoe 
 reached us, and, as usual, the story had lost nothing by traveling. 
 We had wonderful rejoicing on the occasion. Guns were fired, run- 
 ners were sent out, and the people came flocking in from the surround- 
 ing country to hear the news. The consumption of gunpowder and 
 whisky was, of course, large, and, toward the close of the ceremonies, 
 several of the citizens became quite fatigued with their patriotic 
 efforts. 
 
 " In December, 1811, I went back to Pittsburgh, and witnessed the 
 great alarm caused by the earthquakes in that month. A few years 
 afterward, I saf their effects on the country around New Madrid, 
 where they were more disastrous than at any other point in the Mis- 
 sissippi Valley. 
 
 " The next boat built at Pittsburgh was the * Vesuvius.' I saw her 
 launched in the autumn of 1813 I think in November. I also saw 
 the little steamboat 'Enterprise,' built at Brownsville, pass down, late 
 in the year 1814, and witnessed her return to Pittsburgh in the spring 
 of 1815. She was the first boat that reached that place from New 
 Orleans, and caused an immense sensation at the time. Many said 
 then, 'Good-bye to keel-boats and barges; 1 but others thought the 
 new experiment in navigation would not succeed. 
 
 " The steamboat '^Etna ' was the next. She was built at Pittsburgh 
 in 1814, and in 1815 was employed as a tow-boat below New Orleans. 
 In the fall of the same year she made a trip to Louisville in sixty 
 days, having lost about thirty by breaking of her machinery and other 
 detentions. This was the first large boat that came up to Louisville 
 from New Orleans. From this period until 1821 I was conversant 
 5
 
 66 
 
 ROBERT FULTON. 
 
 with the movements of all the steamboats on the Western waters, for 
 they were few in numbers and soon told." 
 
 Fulton gave his valuable assistance to the construction of the Erie 
 Canal and other public works. After war was declared between 
 Great Britain and the United States, in 1814, Mr. Fulton again di- 
 rected his attention to the subject of torpedoes, sub-marine guns, 
 and other instruments of the kind; but none of his schemes were 
 ever brought into practice. 
 
 He erected, however, a steam-ship of war (named " Fulton the 
 First"), of such size, that several thousand men might parade on her 
 deck, and capable of throwing an immense quantity of red-hot shot 
 from her numerous port-holes. But when the engineer of this magni- 
 ficent structure had nearly seen it completed, he was removed from 
 his country and his friends. Having exposed himself too long on the 
 deck of his steam-frigate, in bad weather, he was seized with a severe 
 pulmonary affection, and died on the 24th of February, 1815. 
 
 We have no desire to depreciate the fame of Mr. Fulton, but he 
 acquired his reputation very largely from fortuitous circumstances. 
 His wealthy associates in steamboat projects had long been struggling 
 for success, and knew their interests were deeply involved in his and 
 their achieving it ; they, therefore, found it convenient for them to 
 write him into fame. His career with the steamboat was but for a few 
 years in middle life, and it was cut short by a sudden and rapid 
 illness. His wife was Miss Harriet Livingston ; family influence 
 coupled with the final success of steam navigation under his nominal 
 leadership led to the deification of his memory to an extent that can 
 scarcely be accounted for on any rational basis, now that we know the 
 facts as to the originality of his so-called invention. 
 
 In person, Mr. Fulton was tall and well proportioned. He was 
 an excellent man in his private character, being generous, affectionate, 
 and humane. To him, rating his deeds even as low* as some critics 
 would make them, the human race owes much. The waters of half 
 the world are now covered with models of that admirable machine 
 which sixty years ago he successfully set afloat on the waters of the 
 Hudson, never more to cease moving ; and now the journey between 
 the Old and New World, whether across the Atlantic or Pacific, is, 
 by the same means, made a pleasure trip of a few summer days. 
 Steam vessels float constantly in all the great routes of commerce. 
 Whether in the North Sea, the Mediterranean, or on the Indian 
 Ocean ; whether on the Ganges, in the Amoor, on the Danube, the 
 Thames, the Nile, or the Niger, on the Amazon, the Mississippi, 
 Missouri, Yellowstone, the Columbia, or the Ohio, on the great in- 
 land seas of America or the Old World, steam is all-powerful and 
 ubiquitous ; on sea and on land it is the servant of man.
 
 FRENCH AND SHREVE 
 
 WERE leading names in early steamboat navigation on the 
 Ohio. 'It is a curious fact that two years prior to the date of 
 Fulton's patent, in 1811, Daniel French, of New York, obtained a 
 patent for a steamboat and engine, October i2th, 1809. Fulton had 
 probably felt himself comparatively safe under the special privileges 
 of the New York and Louisiana statutes. It was in the early spring 
 of 1809 that Nicholas J. Roosevelt, in the interest of Fulton, visited 
 Pittsburgh, and commenced his investigations, looking to the naviga- 
 tion by steam of the Ohio and Mississippi. It was, however, not 
 until twenty months after the "Orleans" had started on her trip to 
 Natchez that the first small experiment of French's was completed at 
 Pittsburgh. The " Comet " was built by Samuel Smith, on the plans 
 of French, with a stern wheel, and with what he called a vibrating 
 cylinder. Her first trip was to Louisville and back in the summer 
 of 1813. The following year she took her departure, early in the 
 spring, for New Orleans, and in July started on her return, but 
 grounded on a sand bar several hundred miles up the river, where 
 she remained until floated off by high water in December. The two 
 following years, 1815-16, she took the place of the "Orleans," in 
 the Natchez trade. She was partially burned opposite New Orleans, 
 but was rebuilt, and made several trips to the falls at Louisville, but 
 finally closed her career in the Natchez trade, in 1820. 
 
 Another boat, the "Enterprise," is stated in FarnswortH s Cincin- 
 nati Directory, of 1820, to have been built at Brownsville, Penn., of 
 forty-five tons burden, by French, under the same patent, and to 
 have made two voyages to the falls at Louisville in the summer of 
 1814, under the command of Captain I. Gregg. One of the stock- 
 holders in the "Enterprise" was Captain Henry M. Shreve. He 
 was absent on a trip to New Orleans, in command of a barge of 
 his own, when the steamer was finished, and, therefore, it was 
 placed temporarily under command of Gregg. Up to about this
 
 68 FRENCH AND SHREVE. 
 
 time according to a lecture delivered by Judge James Hall, of 
 Cincinnati, thirty years later "the whole commerce from New- 
 Orleans to the upper country was carried in about twenty barges, 
 averaging one hundred tons each, and making but one trip in the 
 year; so that the importations through New Orleans in one year 
 could not much have exceeded the freight by one of our largest 
 steamers in the course of the season. On the Upper Ohio there were 
 about one hundred and fifty keel-boats of about thirty tons each, 
 which made the voyage frorA Pittsburgh to Louisville and back in 
 two months, or about three such trips in a year." Dr. McMurtrie, 
 of Louisville, says " there were only six keel-boats and two barges 
 owned on the Ohio river in 1806 ; in connection with the flat-boats 
 and pirogues in use, they then sufficed for the entire carrying trade 
 of the river." 
 
 These flat-boats, or arks, were usually built of green oak planks, 
 rudely pinned together in such a manner as to answer for the de- 
 scending voyage to New Orleans, or elsewhere, when they were 
 abandoned, and their crews returned on foot overland through a 
 wilderness inhabited by hostile Indian tribes ; such a life was full of 
 wild adventure. These were the earliest pioneers of Western trade, 
 but under this system commerce could scarcely be said to exist. A 
 few keel-boats and pirogues made ascending voyages under extreme 
 difficulties, but with such transportation there could be but little 
 trade. Almost the only demand for farm produce was caused by im- 
 migration from the east. Oats and corn were perhaps ten cents, and 
 wheat thirty to forty cents a bushel. To the flat-boat, pirogue, and 
 keel-boat, propelled by setting poles and oars, succeeded barges with 
 sails. The propulsion of boats by sails was not of course new, but 
 previously it had been thought impossible to use canvas advantage- 
 ously in navigating the rapid waters of the Mississippi Valley. When 
 this new mode of navigation came into use, Henry M. Shreve came 
 upon the stage of action. He was twenty-nine when he took charge 
 of the little steamer "Enterprise." 
 
 In the year 1787, while the Revolutionary Fathers were framing 
 the Federal Constitution at Philadelphia, and John Fitch was offer- 
 ing them free rides in his steamer on the Delaware, Colonel Israel 
 Shreve, who had commanded the Second Regiment of New Jersey 
 Patriots, migrated from his old Quaker homestead, in Burlington 
 County, New Jersey, to " Washington Bottom," in the valley of the 
 Monongahela, and purchased a farm on the first tract of land surveyed 
 west of the Alleghanies, by Washington, in 1748. Henry Miller 
 Shreve was born October 2ist, 1785, at the homestead of his parents, 
 in New Jersey, and, therefore, was not two years old when the new 
 home in Pennsylvania was taken possession of. Although the family 
 were Quakers, and bound by their rules to non-resistance, the father 
 and his eldest son, John Shreve who was a lieutenant under the 
 father had obeyed the summons to the field at the opening of the
 
 SHREVE COMMANDER OF A BARGE. 69 
 
 Revolution, and fought gallantly at Brandywine and elsewhere through- 
 out that great contest for liberty. When the family had pitched their 
 tent among the hardy pioneers on the borders, they could, with the 
 rest of the settlers, divide their time between their farms and the 
 Indian wars. At all times they must be prepared to meet the wily 
 savage, with his tomahawk and scalping-knife. In such surroundings 
 the young grew to manhood inured to hardship, quick to discern and 
 repel danger, and skilled in the use of the rifle. 
 
 Arrived at his majority, after receiving his education in a school 
 so well calculated to train him for the sterner duties of life in the 
 great region where his lot was cast, young Shreve determined, in 
 1807, to build at Brownsville, on the Monongahela, a barge of thirty- 
 five tons burden. He manned it with a crew of ten men, for a 
 voyage to St. Louis, where he landed, after a trip of forty days, late 
 in December. He purchased a cargo of furs, and on his return to 
 Pittsburgh forwarded them to Philadelphia. He continued in this 
 trade for three years on his own account, and with considerable profit, 
 numbering himself among those who began thus a commerce be- 
 tween two cities whose transactions with each other now reach several 
 millions annually. 
 
 In 1810, after careful consideration, he determined to try his for- 
 tunes in a new field, which had been mainly worked by British 
 traders, and on the 2d of May, in a new barge of thirty-five tons, 
 manned by twelve men, and loaded with a finely assorted cargo, 
 Captain Shreve left St. Louis for Fever River. After various deten- 
 sions to hunt food, etc., he landed where Galena now stands, after 
 a trip of fourteen days. He began his traffic with the Indians, and 
 in six weeks had bought sixty tons of lead. With so great a weight, 
 he was forced to build a flat-boat, and to buy a Mackinaw boat to 
 transport his return cargo. After a voyage of twelve days he arrived 
 at St. Louis, but continued on to New Orleans, and shipped v the lead 
 thence to Philadelphia, and from the venture realized a profit of 
 over $11,000. This was the first beginning of the American lead 
 trade on the Upper Mississippi ; but so many went into the trade 
 from St. Louis, that the business was soon overdone. Captain Shreve 
 returned to Brownsville, where he built a barge of ninety-five tons, 
 with which he entered upon regular voyages between Pittsburgh and 
 New Orleans, in which he continued for four years. 
 
 The difficulties of river navigation at that period can not well be 
 appreciated. Each voyage consumed six months, and was attended 
 with extreme toil, great expense and imminent peril. During a 
 favorable wind, barges would float gently down the stream with the 
 aid of sails and oars, guided with the utmost care and diligence 
 through the forests of snags, among which the vessel in its tortuous 
 course was to thread its way. At other times oars and "setting 
 poles" were the sole resort. The force of the current bore them 
 rapidly forward, but subjected them to the constant danger of strik-
 
 70 FRENCH AND SHREVE. 
 
 ing a snag, sawyer or sunken root, and going down with their cargoes 
 at a moment's warning. In ascending voyages, the cordelle was used 
 at the more dangerous and difficult points, and the barges dragged 
 up stream by main force many of those boats of over one hundred 
 tons requiring a crew for their management of forty men. This was 
 the improved mode of performing those early voyages of 2,000 miles 
 in general use from 1804 to 1814. In less than thirty-five years after- 
 ward the inland commerce on the 15,000 miles of rivers of this great 
 central valley had grown to be more than double the whole foreign 
 trade of the Republic. On these great arteries nature had prepared 
 the way for a thriving commerce, but thews of iron and the mighty 
 pulsations of steam were requisite to stem the current of these rush- 
 ing streams. Cropping out on the very margins of the noble water 
 courses, waiting for the progressive movements soon to be ushered 
 in, lay boundless stores of fuel black diamonds ready to shine upon 
 the face of man and bring him untold millions of wealth whenever, 
 by his craft, the sun should track his way to their slightly hidden 
 recesses. Down to the water's edge for thousands of miles were 
 myriads of acres of timber lands awaiting the axe of the woodsman. 
 Frontiersmen had scaled the Alleghanies and beaten back the Indian 
 tribes, in the full expectation that new avenues to wealth would be 
 opened to them. If steam-power had not come to their relief, 
 what now would have been the relative condition of the Mississippi 
 Valley ? 
 
 Navigation in the quiet bays and on the short rivers of the Atlantic 
 was not the problem to be worked out, for sailing vessels could solve 
 those difficulties with the aid of fair winds and the tides of old ocean ; 
 but the problem to be solved was, whether steam vessels could be 
 forced through the main arteries into the very heart of the continent. 
 In due time we shall see what Captain Shreve was enabled to accom- 
 plish for the good of his fellows. We have seen how much his ex- 
 perience had done to fit him for the work now before him. 
 
 On the ist of December, 1814, Captain Shreve left Pittsburgh in 
 command of the steamer "Enterprise," French's diminutive little 
 craft, but half the size of the barge he had commanded for four years 
 previously in the like long voyage of 2,000 miles through the great 
 bends of the Ohio and Mississippi. He had on board what he in 
 patriotic pride felt to be precious freight, in a load of ordinance and 
 military stores for General Jackson's army at New Orleans. About 
 two months previously three keel-boats, laden with small arms for the 
 same army, had left Pittsburgh, but under permission to trade by the 
 way a strange contract which endangered, it is said, the safety of 
 New Orleans, then threatened by the British expedition under Gen- 
 eral Pakenham. In his voyage, Captain Shreve felt a double anxiety; 
 for the trip was his first in a steam vessel, and the supplies he was car- 
 rying were of the first importance to the best interests of his country. 
 Born of good Revolutionary stock, an ardent Republican, and a warm
 
 SHREVE AND THE BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS. "]I 
 
 advocate of the war then waging.against England, he felt in common 
 with the people of the West extreme indignation at the burning of 
 Washington City by the enemy. He knew that it was of vast mo- 
 ment that General Jackson should receive his military supplies with- 
 out delay, and in a fortnight they were safely landed in camp. As 
 anticipated, he found great excitement prevailing on his arrival in 
 New Orleans, and after receiving the thanks of the commanding 
 General, he was ordered to proceed up the Mississippi and tow down 
 the long delayed keel-boats. He was absent six and one-half days, 
 during which time his little steamer had run 654 miles, and then he 
 returned to New Orleans with the small arms and amunition so much 
 needed. From that time to the jd of January, he was engaged in 
 transporting materiel from the city to the final battle-ground of the 
 8th of that month. On the 3d, he received notice that the com- 
 mander-in-chief desired him to call at head-quarters, which he imme- 
 diately did. 
 
 On reporting himself to General Jackson he was accosted as follows : 
 " Capt. Shreve, I understand that you are a man who will always do 
 what you undertake. Can you pass the British batteries on the bank 
 of the river nine miles below, and with your steamer bear supplies to 
 Fort St. Philips?" After a moment's reflection, which convinced 
 him of the extreme danger of the enterprise, and suggested a mode of 
 success, he answered: "Yes, if you will give me my own time." 
 "What time do you require," asked the General. " Twenty- four 
 hours," was the reply. It was then agreed that the supplies should be 
 put on board the steamer by 4 o'clock that afternoon, and the effort made 
 to pass the British before the next morning. It will be borne in mind that 
 two battles had been fought prior to the interview just mentioned. 
 The British were encamped several miles below the city, and had 
 erected heavy batteries so as to command the river entirely. It was 
 of great moment that Fort St. Philips should be relieved before the 
 enemy advanced, in order that it might be made the key to subsequent 
 operations whatever the issue of the impending battle. 
 
 That evening, the steamer was run down to the Scud just above 
 the British batteries. The side most exposed had been completely 
 covered with cotton bales, fastened securely to the vessel with iron 
 hooks. By midnight, as is usual there, a dense fog covered the river, 
 and screened all objects from view. Taking advantage of that cir- 
 cumstance, Capt. Shreve put his steamer in motion, under "a slow 
 head of steam," with muffled wheel; the strictest silence having first 
 been enjoined on the crew. As anticipated by him, he passed wholly 
 unobserved by the sentries on the shore, at a signal from whom his 
 vessel would have been shattered into fragments. Reaching the Fort 
 in safety, he discharged his freight, and on the next night repassed the 
 batteries, undiscovered, until beyond effective reach of the enemy's 
 long guns. Only a few spent balls struck the cotton bales by which 
 his vessel was protected. This daring exploit excited the greatest
 
 7* HENRY M. SHREVE. 
 
 admiration in General Jackson's camp, and received his marked com- 
 mendation. 
 
 The day previous to the battle of the 8th of January, Captain 
 Shreve requested permission to join the ranks ; and he was accord- 
 ingly stationed at the sixth gun a long twenty-four pounder, in Col. 
 Humphrey's battery. There he shared in all the perils and glories of 
 that remarkable victory ready to aid-^his country in any manner 
 possible, and at all necessary risks. It was during those eventful scenes 
 that he became familiar with the character of General Jackson ; and 
 an intimate friendship sprung up between them, which nothing but 
 death dissolved. He was one of the original seven who made the 
 first demonstration in Louisville in favor of General Jackson's election 
 to the Presidency. 
 
 After the battle of New Orleans, the steamer "Enterprise" was 
 sent to the Gulf to exchange prisoners with the British fleet ; subse- 
 quently with troops up the Red River, and then made nine trips to 
 Natchez. On the 6th of May, 1815, Captain Shreve determined to 
 make an effort to ascend the Mississippi and Ohio to Louisville. 
 Although every previous attempt had signally failed, he was convinced 
 that success was practicable. On the 3151 of that month, the " Enter- 
 prise" reached Louisville the first steam vessel that ever performed tliat 
 voyage. Still the delays, difficulties, and expense of the undertaking 
 rendered it doubtful whether steam navigation on the Western rivers 
 would prove of any practical benefit. 
 
 The experience acquired by him while in command of that steamer, 
 wrought out improvements of momentous value. He had examined 
 closely the engines of Fulton and French, watched their operations in 
 every particular, studied out their defects, and diligently applied his 
 inventive powers to devise the proper remedies. Convinced that the 
 various inventions he had matured in his own mind would overcome 
 the main obstacles to success, he abandoned the command of the 
 "Enterprise" for the purpose of testing his plans, and commenced 
 the construction of the "Washington." A much larger vessel than the 
 "Enterprise" was the next in point of time, and was constructed for 
 Fulton's heirs at Pittsburgh. This was ^the "^Etna," of 360 tons 
 (same tonnage as the " Vesuvius," mentioned in the sketch of Fulton). 
 Her length, as stated by her commander, Captain R. De Hart, was 
 "153 feet 3 inches ; breadth, 28 feet, and 9 feet depth of hold." She 
 left Pittsburgh in March and arrived at New Orleans in April. "A 
 lack of confidence in steam-power to ascend the Mississippi above 
 Natchez with a cargo, caused her to be employed for the summer in 
 towing ships from the lower river up to New Orleans. Barges then 
 got freight in preference from New Orleans to the falls at eight cents 
 per pound." Captain De Hart says further in his letters of January 
 28th, 1842, that " in the fall of the year 1815, however, the river then 
 being very low, some of the owners of the "^Etna " and others made 
 another attempt to ascend with a load, and put in her about 200 tons
 
 HIS NEW BOAT "WASHINGTON." 73 
 
 very few passengers freight at four and a half cents per pound for 
 heavy, and six cents for light goods. Above Natchez she had to de- 
 pend upon drift-wood, and occasionally lying by two or three days, at 
 civilized settlements getting wood cut and hauled; broke a wrought 
 water-wheel shaft, near the mouth of the Ohio, and laid at Henderson 
 nearly fifteen days trying to weld it, and at last had to end the passage to 
 the falls with one wheel in sixty days." At Louisville had two shafts 
 cast. Her trip down, with about 300 tons freight, at about one cent per 
 pound, was made in seven days. Her next trip up was made early 
 in 1816, under many of the same difficulties, in about thirty days, and 
 broke the other wrought shaft by drift-wood in ascending the 
 Ohio. 
 
 The, "Buffalo," 300 tons, and "James Monroe," 120 tons, were next 
 in order, and were built by a Mr. Latrobe, at Pittsburgh, but seems to 
 have been sacrificed at a sale under the hammer of the sheriff. The 
 latter went into the Natchez trade. Then Captain Shreve's new boat 
 the "Washington," 400 tons burden, made its appearance. She was 
 built at Wheeling, in accordance with his directions, while he super- 
 intended, in person, the constnlction of his new engines at Brownsville. 
 That steamboat was the first "two-decker" on the western waters. 
 In appearance it resembled a dismasted frigate, the cabin being 
 between decks. Previously, the boiler had always been placed in the 
 hold of the vessel; and, under Fulton's patent, upright and stationary 
 cylinders used under French's the vibrating cylinder. Despite the 
 ridicule with which his suggestions were received, he ordered the 
 cylinder to be placed in a horizontal position, and the vibration to be 
 given to the pitman. Fulton and French used a single low-pressure 
 engine; Captain S. built a double, high-pressure engine, (the first 
 used on the Western rivers,) with cranks at right-angles, and the 
 boilers on the upper deck. Mr. David Prentice had previously em- 
 ployed the cam wheel for working the valves to the cylinder ; and 
 Captain Shreve added his great invention of the "cam cut-off," by 
 which three-fifths of the fuel was saved. Most of these improvements, 
 originating with him, have long been in universal use, although their 
 origin has not been generally known. The "Washington," when 
 finished, was, in every essential part, unlike any other steam-vessel 
 then known. The machinery weighed only one-twentieth as much as 
 the Fulton engine, and was worked with about one-half the usual 
 amount of fuel. The alterations and improvements by Captain S. 
 made the engine essentially a new machine; and in the course of a 
 few years, no other model way used west of the Alleghanies. If 
 Fulton's inventions entitle him to the great fame awarded by the 
 world, why should not equal merit be accorded to Captain Shreve, 
 whose improvements superseded all others more than fifty years ago ? 
 
 On the 24th of September, 1816, the " Washington " passed over 
 the Falls of the Ohio, on her first trip to New Orleans, returning to 
 Louisville in November following. The trial was eminently success-
 
 74 HENRY M. SHREVE. 
 
 ful. At New Orleans she was visited by the most distinguished citi- 
 zens of the place, all of whom expressed surprise and admiration at 
 the ingenuity of her commander. Edward Livingston, after a critical 
 examination, remarked to Captain S.: " You deserve well of your 
 country, young man ; but we (referring to the Fulton and Livingston 
 monopoly) shall be compelled to beat you (in the courts) if we can." 
 The ascending voyage to Louisville demonstrated satisfactorily the 
 practicability of resisting by steam the currents of the Mississippi. 
 In consequence of the ice in the Ohio River, and continued low 
 water, the " Washington " remained at the falls until March 3d, 1817. 
 On that day she started on the voyage, from which all Western his- 
 torians date the commencement of steam navigation in the Mississippi 
 Valley. She was heavily laden, both in descending and ascending, 
 and crowded with passengers. From the time of starting to her 
 return to the landing at Shippingport, just below Louisville, includ- 
 ing all detentions at New Orleans and elsewhere, only forty-one days 
 were consumed ; the ascending voyage being made in twenty-five days. 
 " This was the trip," said the early historian of Cincinnati, " which 
 convinced the despairing public, that steamboat navigation would 
 succeed on the Western waters." To commemorate the event, and 
 express their gratitude for the triumphant solution of the great prob- 
 lem of the day, the citizens of Louisville gave him a public dinner, 
 and hailed him as the first of benefactors to the Mississippi Valley. 
 In reply to a complimentary sentiment, he predicted that the time 
 was not distant when the ascending trip from New Orleans to Louis- 
 ville would be made in ten days a prediction received with incredu- 
 lity, even by those who had then met to celebrate an event, of which 
 they had previously despaired. That prediction was not a random 
 statement, but a conclusion formed from accurate mathematical cal- 
 culations. That prediction has been more than verified since. The 
 trip has been made in less than half the time. On his return to New 
 Orleans, his friends hastened on board, eagerly inquiring what acci- 
 dent had forced him to put back none of them supposing that he 
 had been to Louisville since they last parted with him. Out of the 
 profits of those two voyages he paid all the expenses of running the 
 steamer, the original cost of the construction, and divided among the 
 stockholders a surplus of seventeen hundred dollars. 
 
 Several efforts on the part of Spain, France, and England to com- 
 mand the navigation of the Mississippi River were made, but the 
 General Government and the Western pioneers resisted all such efforts. 
 In 1788, Congress resolved that they had no intention to give up to 
 Spain the navigation of that river " that the free navigation of the 
 river Mississippi is a clear and essential right of the United States." 
 But a corporation nearly effected in 1815 what had been so resolutely 
 opposed for more than a century. At an early day after his patent 
 had been obtained, Fulton associated himself with Robert R. Living- 
 ston, of New York, with the view of monopolizing the trade of the
 
 HIS VESSEL SEIZED. 
 
 75 
 
 Western States and Territories. Failing to procure a charter from 
 several Legislatures to which they applied, they finally obtained, in 
 1811, an act of incorporation from "Orleans Territory," granting to 
 them the exclusive right " to navigate all vessels propelled by fire and 
 steam on the rivers in said Territory." By an abuse of its powers, 
 the territorial Legislature sought to place in the hands of a soulless 
 monopoly the keys to Western commerce an occlusion of the Missis- 
 sippi, as fatal to trade as that attempted by the French Government 
 in 1802. That corporation laid its relentless grasp on the Father of 
 Waters, resolved not to relax its hold, but to extort tribute, for all 
 coming time, from the people of half the continent. It dared not 
 rely on Fulton's patent, for the invention of Fitch claimed prece- 
 dence, and French's ingenuity had secured a patent equally valuable ; 
 hence it sought, by corporate privileges, to make trade subservient 
 to the aggrandizement of the few, instead of leaving it open to hon- 
 orable competition. Among those who felt indignant at the outrage, 
 Captain Shreve stood foremost. He determined to resist such exac- 
 tions in every way known to the laws. Anticipating that a protracted 
 legal controversy would commence as soon as the steamer " Enter- 
 prise " arrived at New Orleans, he had consulted while there with 
 his barge, in the spring of 1814, A. L. Duncan, Esq., one of the 
 most prominent members of the bar, and gave him five hundred 
 dollars as a retaining fee, together with a bond for fifteen hundred 
 more, to be paid on the successful termination of the impending suit. 
 That foresight was fortunate; for, on learning that the " Enterprise " 
 was on her way down the river, the company retained in its service 
 the whole New Orleans bar, and offered to Mr. Duncan three 
 thousand dollars if he would remain silent. But he frankly replied 
 that he was Captain Shreve's counsel, and had advised him to oppose 
 the pretensions or demands of the corporation. On the first arrival 
 of that steamboat, however, New Orleans was under martial law, and 
 she was not seized until^tay 6th, 1815, the day fixed for her depart- 
 ure for Pittsburgh ; but his counsel, anticipating the step, had the 
 necessary bail ready. The "Enterprise" was accordingly released, 
 and pursued her voyage. In a few months the trial took place in 
 the inferior court, and the jury promptly returned a verdict in favor 
 of "free navigation." The cause was removed by writ of error to 
 the Supreme Court of the Territory; and the act of incorporation 
 was there pronounced unconstitutional, in the year 1816. But that 
 colossal monopoly resolved not to relinquish its privileges on the first 
 defeat. Hence, when the "Washington" reached New Orleans, in 
 the fall of 1816, she was also seized, and Captain Shreve arrested. By 
 advice of his counsel, he refused to give bail, and the officer expostu- 
 lated with him strongly, offering to receive his bond without sureties, 
 rather than take him to prison. While they were conversing, how- 
 ever, the rumor had spread along the levee, and an immense crowd 
 collected, determined to oppose the arrest. At the request of Cap-
 
 76 HENRY M. SHREVE. 
 
 tain Shreve, no outbreak occurred, and he agreed to go to the office 
 of Mr. Edward Livingston, who, with John R. Grymes, was the prin- 
 cipal counsel for the company. The crowd followed ; but on reach- 
 ing Mr. Livingston's office, Captain Shreve was prudently released. 
 The steamer, when seized, was instantly abandoned to the Marshal ; 
 and Mr. Duncan applied to the Court for an order on the company 
 to. give bail for damages, caused by her detention. Messrs. Living- 
 ston and Grymes resisted the motion, but it was granted. They then 
 became seriously alarmed for their monopoly. Public sentiment 
 cheered on their opponent, eminent jurists sustained his cause, and 
 he could not be intimidated into a compromise. Messrs. Livingston 
 and Grymes offered him in behalf of their clients, one-half of all the 
 advantages of their monopoly, if he would instruct his counsel to so 
 shape the defense as to cause a verdict to be rendered against him. 
 The temptation was powerful, but he had commenced the controversy 
 for other objects than private gain. He felt the force of his position 
 that on him hung the right of free navigation that his companions 
 on the waters of the West looked to him as their leader and repre- 
 sentative in the struggle ; and he was equal to the occasion. He had 
 dared to risk his fortune in a contest, single-handed, against the most 
 powerful monopoly of the times, and the same spirit which prompted 
 him to resist at first, impelled him to spurn the bribe and lose this 
 chance for great wealth. The issue was one of vast moment to the 
 millions who received the benefits of the free navigation of the Mis- 
 sissippi and its branches. 
 
 At this period, 1817, there had been built on the Ohio about fifteen 
 boats, several of them under one hundred tons capacity ; besides those 
 mentioned already there had appeared the "Franklin," 125 tons, 
 and the "Oliver Evans," seventy-five tons, both built in Pittsburgh, 
 with engines made by George Evans under Oliver Evans's engine 
 patent. Then came the "Harriet," forty tons, from Pittsburgh, the 
 " Kentucky," eighty tons, from Frankfort, an\i the " General Shelby," 
 ninety tons, constructed at Louisville, but having a Boulton and Watts 
 engine. Following these appeared, in 1817, the " New Orleans," 300 
 tons, built by the Fulton and Livingston interest at Pittsburgh for the 
 Natchez trade ; she was sunk once at Baton Rouge, and two months 
 after being raised was lost by sinking at New Orleans. After this 
 date we hear nothing further of Fulton's boats on the Western rivers. 
 
 After the memorable success of Captain Shreve with the " Wash- 
 ington," all fears respecting the navigation of Western .waters by 
 steamboats seem to have vanished. Boat-yards were established at 
 convenient points and steamboat building was active. It is difficult, 
 at this late day, to appreciate the enthusiasm excited among " the 
 people of the West " over the achievements of the " Washington" 
 and her gallant captain. Dr. McMurtrie, in his sketches of Louisville, 
 published in 1819, remarks: "Next to Fulton the Western country 
 owes a vast debt of gratitude to Captain Henry M. Shreve. It is to
 
 AND FREE NAVIGATION. 77 
 
 his exertions, his example, and, let me add, to his integrity and 
 patriotic purity of principle, that it is indebted for the present flour- 
 ishing state of its navigation. The offer of the Livingston Company 
 was rejected with scorn and indignation, and the affair left to justice, 
 whose sword instantly severed the links that enchained commerce on 
 the Western rivers." Had Shreve been weak and grasping, how 
 different the result ! How long would the great monopoly have held 
 control of steamboats, and the prices of transportation for freight and 
 passengers? Fulton had really almost no legitimate claim to origi- 
 nality in connection with the steamboat; he had, however, secured 
 the co-operation of large capitalists, who, after quarreling with each 
 other over the steam apparatus of Watt, John Fitch, John Stevens, 
 and Robert R. Livingston, had finally concluded to join forces and 
 take the country, at least the fluid portions of it, and put it in charge 
 of their monster leviathan ; but justice, under an overruling Provi- 
 dence, brought their counsels to naught, and gave to the wings of 
 commerce on water, the power of steam free of all constraint, as 
 came to be as palpably the fact on land a few years later, when the 
 locomotive sprang upon the iron track, ready to move in all its pon- 
 derous power and winged fleetness, without paying tribute to patent 
 laws, or being in the least restrained from fulfilling its destiny as 
 rapidly as the laws of nature would permit. The " Washington " was 
 not built under French's patent, as was the "Enterprise," but was 
 built after the plans of Captain Shreve, in which were embodied 
 numerous inventions of his own ; the originality of these was uni- 
 versally conceded. He neither invoked the aid of the patent law to 
 secure his rights, nor suffered loss by infringing upon the claims of 
 others under the patents they had received. The experience of four 
 years had demonstrated that neither Fulton's patent, or that of 
 French, could ever be made of special benefit to Western commerce. 
 
 Captain Shreve' s new boat, the " Ohio," 443 tons, was built at New 
 Albany in 1818; also the "Volcano," 250 tons, and at Shippingport, 
 opposite, the "Napoleon," 332 tons; while there were built at Cin- 
 cinnati the same season several other boats for Captain Bakewell, small 
 ones, ranging from 70 to 120 tons. The "Vesta," 100 tons, was 
 constructed at Cincinnati in 1817. 
 
 Three of the first boats started from Cincinnati in 1817-18 had 
 been large New Orleans barges and were altered into small steamers. 
 The first keel for a steamboat was laid by Thomas W. Bakewell, early 
 in 1817. In that year he had built for him in Cincinnati by Captain 
 Zach Neilson and his partner, Richardson, the "Eagle," 120 tons, 
 and the " Henderson;" and the "Hecla," by Ayres & Son, all of 
 the same measurement. From that time to 1830 Captain Bakewell 
 built an average of three boats each year, " principally on contract 
 for the South." His early boats had low-pressure engines, because in 
 the absence of experience he preferred following Watt and Boulton. 
 This venerable gentleman is still (1872) in good health, and resides
 
 78 HENRY M. SHREVE. 
 
 with his son in Pittsburgh. He has recently interested himself in 
 scientific calculations respecting the strength of steam boilers, and be- 
 lieves that he has demonstrated that boilers, calculated on the basis 
 now usually adopted, will bear but sixty-two and two-thirds of a pound 
 of pressure to the square inch, where the prevailing theory assumes 
 that the pressure may safely be 100 pounds. If correct in his calcu- 
 lations the great cause for explosions occurring so frequently may be 
 readily explained. 
 
 In building the "Ohio" Captain Shreve made important changes, 
 by introducing the use of double flues and " supplying the boilers 
 through the aft stands," thus saving fuel and preventing the 
 " stands " from being burnt out every few months. This vessel was 
 nmning for about three years when Captain Shreve built the " George 
 Washington." The " Calhoun," eighty tons, built at Pittsburgh, 
 was sent off on an exploring expedition up the Yellowstone in 1819. 
 The " Independence " was said to have been the first steamboat that 
 undertook the ascent of the Missouri. She was of fifty tons burden, 
 and accompanied the "Expedition," 120 tons, both reaching Boone's 
 Lick, 200 miles up the Missouri, in June, 1819. Great rejoicings 
 were caused at that period when it was believed " beyond a doubt 
 that this important and extensive river, for several hundred miles at 
 least, can be navigated by steamboats with the same ease and facility 
 as the waters of the Ohio and Mississippi." 
 
 The " General Pike " was the first boat built in the West for the 
 special accommodation of passengers; she was constructed, in 1818, 
 at Cincinnati for a company of her citizens. According to the City 
 Directory of 1820, "she measures 100 feet keel, 25 feet beam, and 
 draws only 3 feet and 3 inches water" (in marked contrast to the 
 Fulton boat, "JEtna.," of three years previous, with 9 feet hold) 
 "the length of her cabin is 40 feet and the breadth 25 feet. At one 
 end are six and at the other eight state-rooms, divided in the middle 
 by a passage, leaving in the center a commodious hall, 40 by 18, suf- 
 ficiently large for the accommodation of about one hundred passen- 
 gers. Her accommodations are ample, her apartments spacious and 
 superb, her machinery and apparatus perfectly safe and in fine order, 
 and her commander, Captain Bliss, always attentive and obliging." 
 Such were the views of Farnsworth in 1820. As a matter of interest, 
 we furnish a cut of this first Louisville, Cincinnati, and Maysville 
 Packet, from a drawing made under the supervision of two of the old 
 and highly respected citizens of Cincinnati one a steamboat captain 
 of 1821, a half century and more ago. The engraving will indicate 
 the vessel to the eye far better than can be done by words. One of 
 our friends also kindly furnished an accurate drawing of the steamer 
 " Paragon," 376 tons. She was built at Cincinnati, by Wm. Parsons, 
 and owned by Wm. Noble and Robert Nelson ; and was launched on 
 the 1 8th of January, 1819. Her length on deck was 156 feet 27 
 feet beam and 9 feet hold. She had a low pressure engine and was
 
 THE "CALEDONIA" AND CAPTAIN NOBLE. 79 
 
 spoken of as having " spacious and convenient apartments for the 
 accommodation of ladies and gentlemen," and as a " first-rate running 
 boat. ' ' We feel especial pleasure in being able to present an accurate 
 picture of this boat as well as one of the " General Pike." These 
 were not obtained without considerable effort in finding the proper 
 source for information. 
 
 During 1819 there was built in New Orleans, for the Louisville 
 trade, a large boat, of 460 tons, called the " Columbus." In the same 
 year the "Vulcan," 300 tons, was built at Cincinnati for Hugh and 
 James Glenn and others; also, the "Tennessee," 400 tons, built for 
 Breedlove and Bradford, of New Orleans. 
 
 Steamboat building seems to have received a great impetus during 
 that year. This was probably brought about by the withdrawal of 
 the special claims of Livingston and Fulton under the statutes enacted 
 in their favor. Congress likewise gave the Postmaster-General 
 authority to have the mails conveyed by packets from Louisville to 
 New Orleans, provided the expense should not exceed the cost of 
 transportation by land. The "Post Boy," built at New Albany, for 
 Captain Shreve and others, was put into this line the same year. By 
 this time, Captain Shreve had matured further improvements which 
 his observations had suggested. 
 
 When 1820 had come, seventy and more steamers had been 
 launched on the Western rivers, which had taken the place of barges 
 and keel-boats. Wood-yards were established at many convenient 
 points, so that fuel could be had for passing boats, and in places 
 where had been Indian camps, thriving villages had sprung up, and 
 become the centers of a growing trade with the interior settlements. 
 
 Among the illustrations of this volume, given to exhibit the pro- 
 gressive changes in steamboat architecture as well as to preserve their 
 forms for future reference, we give an authentic drawing of the " Cale- 
 donia," which was launched at Cincinnati on the 3131 of December, 
 1823. She was 150 feet keel, 27^ feet beam, and 9 feet hold ; and 
 her measurement was 340 tons. She was built for Captain Win. Noble, 
 and under his supervision. Her low-pressure engine was taken out 
 four years later and a high-pressure one substituted. The " Cale- 
 donia " ran between Louisville and New Orleans until the summer of 
 1832 ; she was then altered into a tow-boat and used between New 
 Orleans and the Balize. Captain Noble was an esteemed citizen of 
 Cincinnati, and in the early days of steam-boating in the Western 
 rivers was prominent as a steamboat owner and commander, and took 
 the lead in all improvements. Before the days of steamboats he built 
 and owned the largest barge then afloat ; and was an early and effective 
 advocate of a canal round the falls of the Ohio. He was a native 
 of Lancaster County, Penn., and died May 23d, 1827, aged forty-six 
 years. To testify their high estimate of his character and commemo- 
 rate his virtues the citizens of Cincinnati erected a monument over 
 his grave.
 
 80 HENRY M.SHREVE. 
 
 Captain Thomas W. Bakewell, in a letter to Geo. T. Williamson, 
 Esq., President of the Pioneer Association of Cincinnati, dated Feb- 
 ruary 2oth, 1857, furnished a complete list of 150 steamboats mainly 
 built, and all running on the Western waters before 1825. Of these 
 we note that 38 were built at Pittsburgh, 37 at Cincinnati, 15 at 
 Louisville, 5 at New Orleans, and 6 at New York ; several x were built 
 at New Albany and Jeffersonville ; others at Steubenville, Wheeling, 
 Marietta, Maysville, Frankfort, and points where nothing of this kind 
 has been done for many years. 
 
 In 1824 Captain Shreve finished his new steamer " George Wash- 
 ington," which was constructed on the model now in common use 
 the first built with the cabin on the upper, or what had been known 
 as the hurricane deck. The previous boat built by him was the 
 " United States," which had been a year or two in service, and like 
 the other steamers built before the "George Washington," had too 
 much the form of a sea or lake vessel, making the draught too great 
 for the frequent shallow water of navigation on Western rivers, and 
 was not adapted to accommodate the increasing crowds of passengers. 
 
 Some of the partners of Shreve objected to the plan of his new 
 venture, saying that the boat would be too "top-heavy," and con- 
 sequently they refused their consent to the experiment, until he de- 
 monstrated by mathematical calculations that the weight of the upper 
 deck and cabin, when filled with passengers, would be less than that 
 of the deck-loads carried in the common " two-deckers," previously 
 in tse. Some years before he had introduced the double engine, 
 which was usually connected with a stern-wheel, because a boat could 
 more easily be managed than when having side-wheels moved by a 
 single crank. The numerous sharp bends and dangerous snags in the 
 rivers required that boats should be thoroughly under the control of 
 the pilot, and to secure this, more than the rudder was necessary. To 
 effect his purpose more completely, Captain Shreve constructed the 
 "George Washington" with side-wheels, each to be worked by a 
 separate engine. Thus the pilot and engineer could make sudden 
 turns and manage the largest steamers as easily as a skiff with oars. 
 When this new feature was suggested it met with general ridicule, 
 and his associates very reluctantly consented to its being tested. The 
 predictions of Captain Shreve were soon verified, and the " George 
 Washington " became the model for all Western steamboats. His 
 daily experience, aided by his habits of close practical observation in 
 all matters pertaining to steam navigation, guided by sound judgment 
 and great sagacity, enabled him, through a long course of years, to be 
 of far more essential service to his country than Fulton ever was. His 
 originality in steamboat improvements is far more manifest at this late 
 day, and his innovations were manifestly the result of his own reflec- 
 tions, since we know that he was unaided by the counsel of scientific 
 friends. 
 
 Voyages on the Mississippi and its tributaries were greatly hindered
 
 AND JOHN C. CALHOUN. 8l 
 
 and protracted, and serious disasters were constantly occurring 
 because of the innumerable snags, etc., which filled the beds of these 
 waters, whose channels furnished the intercommunication for an area 
 not less than 15,000 miles in extent. The removal of every obstruc- 
 tion from these great highways of commerce, that no hinderances might 
 interrupt its movements^ or endanger military operations when re- 
 quired for the safety of the nation, was of the first importance. 
 
 For untold centuries the fierce current of the Mississippi had been 
 uprooting from its alluvial banks and bottom lands trees of giant 
 growth, and sweeping them onward, until striking upon a bar, or 
 caught in a bend of the river, they were stayed in their course and 
 formed a leafless forest for over twelve hundred miles. The strong 
 and pointed branches of these trees, peering above the surface of the 
 water, often threatened sudden destruction to the vessel of the most 
 skillful navigator in the almost trackless windings of the Father of 
 Waters. 
 
 From the archives of the War Department, it may be seen that on 
 the 5th of July, 1824, Captain Shreve wrote an interesting reply to a 
 circular, issued in May preceding, by Major-General Macomb, in 
 which many important suggestions were made to the Government. 
 In that letter he affirmed that " the river may be entirely freed from 
 such obstructions," naming several modes by which it could be done. 
 He offered to submit for inspection, if desired, the model of a machine 
 invented by him in 1821 for that purpose, but the request was not 
 made. The Department chose to offer a premium of a thousand 
 dollars for the best plan for removing snags, sawyers, etc. ; for which 
 Captain Shreve declined to compete. The premium was awarded to 
 Mr. Bruce, of Kentucky ; but before his machine was completed it 
 was considered a failure, and he abandoned it, concluding that it 
 could not be used successfully. He, however, began to fulfill his con- 
 tract with the Government for removing snags, .under the supervision 
 of Major Babcock, of the Military Engineers, using ordinary flat- 
 boats, levers, chains, and saws, worked by manual labor. After nearly 
 two years had elapsed, only a portion of the obstructions in the 
 channel of the Ohio had been removed, without mastering a single snag 
 in the Mississippi. The people began to complain loudly, for the 
 $65,000 appropriated was nearly exhausted. A new supervisor died 
 shortly after his appointment, and there was a hitch in regard to the 
 whole matter. Finally, through Mr. Calhoun, the former suggestions 
 of Captain Shreve were again brought to the notice of the Depart- 
 ment, and it was decided that he should be appointed superintendent. 
 On the loth of December, 1826, his commission was forwarded to 
 him, and he accepted it January 2d, 1827. 
 
 Pursuant to instructions he examined the whole subject and reported 
 
 that it was impossible for Mr. Bruce to comply with his contract ; 
 
 that the apparatus used was unsuitable, and that a new plan must be 
 
 adopted. He received orders to commence operations on the most 
 
 6
 
 82 HENRY M. SHREVE. 
 
 economical plan at Government expense, and by the use of such 
 means as the small balance of the appropriation would warrant. 
 During that season he "used a twin-boat," with wheel and windlass, 
 worked by manual labor. The additional experience thus gained 
 convinced him more fully that a mightier power than human strength 
 applied to simple machines was requisite. He urged the building of 
 a steam-vessel on the model which he had invented, but the scheme 
 was ridiculed and derided by Western boatmen, and opposed by the 
 red-tape officials at Washington. He assured the authorities of the 
 entire feasibility of his project, and after being met by incredulity 
 on all sides, determined to test his invention on a small scale at 
 his own expense, and thus came to know that he was urging no 
 absurd experiment. There were Western boatmen, who, having 
 witnessed his success, and being of General Jackson's opinion, that 
 " he was a man who would do whatever he undertook," petitioned 
 to have his request granted. The Department consented finally, 
 June 2yth, 1828, and the first snag-boat was built, and, under the 
 name of the " Heliopolis," was ready for operations July 22d, 1829. 
 
 This machine-boat had twin hulls about eleven feet apart, firmly 
 connected "abaft midships," and so constructed that a blow from 
 the snag-beam bore equally on every part and timber of the vessel. 
 The snag-beam connected the twin hulls at their bows, was wedge- 
 shaped, and placed at the water line, in the exact center of percussion, 
 so that a blow from it produced no jar whatever, and consequently 
 did not disturb in the least any of the machinery connected with the 
 boilers or engines. Besides that simple contrivance there was an in- 
 genious combination of the pulley, windlass, wheel and axle, lever, 
 etc., for lifting the numerous impediments to navigation. The boat 
 when at work in removing these obstacles moved under a full head 
 of steam, and struck the snag a sudden blow with the full momentum 
 of the moving mass, perhaps equaling the force of a pressure of three 
 or four thousand tons. If firmly imbedded, the snag was instantly 
 broken at the point of leverage, generally a distance below the bed 
 of the river, equal to the diameter of the snag. But if too loose to 
 offer so great a resistance, the boat in its progress turned it over, and 
 at the same time trimmed off all the limbs on the under side. On 
 its return passage the snag was trimmed on the other side, and a 
 chain was forced beneath it. In perhaps five minutes it was lodged 
 upon the deck, and soon sawed into small pieces. All the machinery 
 as well as the boat of this admirably ingenious and effective worker 
 was driven by the same steam-engines. 
 
 On the igth of August, 1829, the "Heliopolis" entered the Mis- 
 sissippi, and began its operations at Plum Point, where the snags 
 formed an almost impassable barrier. All were in doubt excepting 
 the inventor, but when she had in a few hours shown her capacity 
 to wrestle with that immensely tangled thicket of river forest, and re- 
 move it, with the greatest facility and ease, all were convinced, and
 
 AND HIS SNAG-BOAT. 83 
 
 the triumph was complete. So thoroughly had Captain Shreve's 
 genius met every difficulty, so entirely perfect was the machine in all 
 its parts, that to this day no improvement or alteration has been made 
 in it.' It saved to the nation millions upon millions of dollars, and 
 preserved life to an extent that can not be estimated. This simple 
 but admirably effective invention is still constantly in use upon ob- 
 structions which are ever renewing. The Government engineers, after 
 minute surveys, reported the removal of the great Red River raft 
 nearly or quite impracticable, and Captain Shreve was consulted. 
 His response was satisfactory, and he was ordered to undertake the 
 Herculean task. From the official report to Congress the following 
 extract is given : 
 
 "The great raft of the Red River, consisting of trees, logs, and 
 drift-wood of every description, firmly imbedded in its channel for 
 more than one hundred and sixty miles, was removed, and the navigation 
 of that river opened, including the raft, a distance of nearly twelve 
 hundred miles. This work alone, in consequence of the immense quan- 
 tity of public land reclaimed in that region and rendered fit for cul- 
 tivation, the enhanced value of other lands on the upper part of the 
 river, and the reduced cost in the transportation of supplies to Fort 
 Towson and to the Indians located in that neighborhood has been 
 worth millions to the Government. . . . Eighty-five thousand 
 dollars was the saving in one season on freight alone." 
 
 The cost of removing those obstructions was but about $300,000, 
 instead of $3,000,000, as had been prophesied. Such snag-boats have 
 to be constantly removing new obstacles in all the Western rivers. 
 
 Upon the advent of John Tyler to the Presidency, after the decease 
 of General Harrison, Captain Shreve was officially informed of his re- 
 moval from office, by a letter dated at Washington, September nth, 
 1841. After thirty-four years literally spent on the waters, he re- 
 turned to the quiet pursuits of an agricultural life, in which he was 
 engaged when a youth. His farm was near St. Louis, and with the 
 same zeal and liberality which he had always manifested, he devoted 
 himself energetically to improving his landed estate. 
 
 A list of 369 steamboats on the waters of the Mississippi and Ohio, 
 and their branches, was printed October nth, 1841, in the Louisville 
 Advertiser, but Captain R. DeHart, then a veteran steamboat officer, 
 made a corrected list, showing a largely increased number, and insisted 
 that there were then between four and five hundred steamboats on 
 the Western rivers, measuring from 75 to 600 tons, all carrying, or- 
 dinarily, over their tonnage. They were valued at from eight to 
 forty thousand dollars each, and made a speed up-stream of seven to 
 fifteen miles an hour, and descended at from ten to eighteen miles : 
 making trips from New Orleans to the falls in five to eight days, and 
 down in four to five days. These facts from so competent a witness 
 sufficiently establish the prophesy of twenty-five years earlier, made
 
 84 HENRYM.SHREVE. 
 
 by Captain Shreve, when he claimed that the trip from New Orleans 
 would ultimately be accomplished within ten days. 
 
 A British engineer, Mr. David Stevenson, who visited this country 
 in 1837, published a work after his return, from which we now give 
 some pertinent extracts. " The steam navigation of the United 
 States is one of the most interesting subjects connected with the 
 history of North America, and there is no class of works in that com- 
 paratively new and rising country which bear stronger marks of long- 
 continued exertion, successfully directed to the perfection of its object, 
 than are presented by many of the steamboats which now navigate 
 its rivers, bays, and lakes. In this country (Britain) most of the 
 steamboats go out to sea, where they encounter as bad weather and 
 as heavy waves as ordinary sailing vessels, but by far the greater 
 number of American steamboats ply on the smooth surface of rivers, 
 sheltered bays, or arms of the sea, exposed neither to waves, or wind. 
 The consequence is that in America a much more slender construc- 
 tion and more delicate mold give the requisite strength, and secure 
 a much greater speed. In America the machinery and the cabins are 
 raised above the deck of the vessels, admitting of powerful engines, 
 with an enormous length of stroke. These arrangements would be 
 wholly inapplicable to vessels navigating our coasts, at least to the 
 same extent. 
 
 " The early introduction of steam navigation and the very rapid in- 
 crease in the number of steamboats in the United States has opened 
 an extensive field for the prosecution of important inquiries. Steam- 
 boat builders have been enabled to make constant accessions to their 
 practical knowledge, which have gradually wrought great improve- 
 ments in the construction and action of their vessels each builder 
 holding his own opinions, founded generally not on theoretical prin- 
 ciples, but on deductions drawn from a close examination of practical 
 effects. Twelve years ago (1825) thirty hours were occupied in 
 making passages between New York and Albany 150 miles. Now 
 the voyage is made generally in ten hours, exclusive of time used in 
 making stoppages, being at the astonishing rate of fifteen miles an 
 hour. This great increase of speed has been effected by constant ex- 
 periments on the form and proportions of engines and vessels a per- 
 severing system of trial and error, which is still going forward. 
 
 " These observations apply to the Eastern waters of the United 
 States more especially, where competition has led to the construction 
 of a class of vessels unequaled in speed elsewhere. The construction 
 of many of these boats has been changed materially from their origi- 
 nal form. It is no uncommon thing to alter steamboats, by cutting 
 them through the middle, and either increasing or diminishing their 
 dimensions as the occasion may require. The Hudson River Steamer 
 4 Swallow,' holds the reputation of being one of the swiftest steamers 
 which have ever navigated American waters, and this vessel has 
 received an addition of twenty-four feet to her original length, besides
 
 VARIETIES OF STEAMBOATS. 85 
 
 having been otherwise considerably changed. Before these alterations 
 were made, she was considered, as regards speed, an inferior vessel. 
 
 " Local circumstances have given rise to three distinct classes of 
 vessels in American steam navigation. The Eastern boats are dis- 
 tinguished for their long sharp build, great speed, and the use of 
 condensing engines of large dimensious having a great length of 
 stroke. On the Western waters the vessels have a lighter draught of 
 water, less speed, and are propelled by high-pressure engines of small 
 size, working by steam of great elasticity. The steamers on the lakes, 
 again, have a very strong build and a large draught of water, and 
 possess in a very great degree the character of sea-boats. They have 
 also masts and sails which the others do not have." These are the 
 views of an intelligent observer, whose opinions are valuable, because 
 they were given after careful inspection, and at the period just prior 
 to the great railroad movement which has since more especially at- 
 tracted the attention of both foreign and native travelers. 
 
 The contentions of rival interests in steamboat lines on the Hudson 
 and on Long Island Sound for years before and after Mr. Stevenson's 
 visit, had much to do with quickening the speed of boats, then 
 making such rapid strides towards the twenty miles an hour, which 
 was about the utmost limit, we think, reached and maintained with 
 approaches to regularity, on the waters of which New York was the 
 focal attraction. 
 
 John Stevens, of Hoboken, N. J., was one of the early experi- 
 menters in steamboat machinery of the period when Livingston was 
 following up the endeavors of Fitch. Stevens was a man of large 
 wealth, with a fondness for scientific experiments, but without practi- 
 cal skill in mechanics. He employed practical machinists in further- 
 ance of his projects, and so soon as 1791 began experiments, which 
 resulted in his obtaining patents from the Government soon after 
 the patent law was enacted. He built a workshop on his own estate 
 that he might have his workmen constantly under his supervision. In 
 this way his son, Robert L. Stevens, became a practical engineer and 
 steamboat builder. When the privilege of navigating the waters of 
 New York by steam in which the elder Stevens was finally interested 
 with Livingston and Fulton, was rendered valueless, by the decision 
 of the United States Supreme Court, holding the New York law to 
 be unconstitutional, the younger Stevens was ready to bend all his 
 energies to a competition with Vanderbilt as a manipulator of Gibbons' 
 wealth (quite a portion of which had been left with special reference 
 to being used to break down monopolies), or with any other man or 
 company of men who were fond of excitement and at the same time 
 had an eye to business and favor with the public, in furnishing fine 
 steamboat accommodations for those traveling on business, or for 
 pleasure. As may readily be seen the incentives to a vigorous strife 
 lor fine appointments to secure high speed, attract passengers, and 
 enable them to enjoy a high degree of comfort, were not wanting.
 
 86 HENRY M. SHREVE. 
 
 Robert Buchanan, Esq., now (1872), at the age of seventy-six, an 
 active citizen of Cincinnati, in which city he has resided for half a 
 century, and during the entire period has been one of her eminent 
 merchants, in a communication to the Pioneer Association of that 
 city, under date of January 29th, 1857, remarks: 
 
 " In 1821 I took command of the steamboat ' Maysville,' 309 tons, 
 and remained on her for two years. In the spring of 1822 I took her 
 up to Pittsburgh, and was saluted by the firing of cannon from the 
 shore. Upon inquiring the cause I was informed that it was in honor 
 of the largest steamboat, in the New Orleans trade, that had ever 
 come up the river to that city. 
 
 "Early in the spring of 1811 I left my native home, on the banks 
 of French Creek, in a small canoe. On reaching the Alleghany 
 River I went on board of an open keel-boat, and was taken to Pitts- 
 burgh. This was my first experience in navigation. When traveling 
 now on the splendid floating palaces that adorn our rivers, and look- 
 ing back to my first voyage on the Western waters, the change seems 
 like magic almost realizing some of the stories of Eastern fable. 
 But in this Western world our ' Aladdin's lamp ' is the midnight lamp 
 of the student, and Qur ' Genii ' the Inventor. 
 
 11 Let me call your attention for a moment to the present state of 
 steam navigation in the West. On our large rivers and tributaries 
 about nine thousand miles can be navigated by steamboats. 
 
 "The number of boats engaged in this trade is near 800, with a 
 capacity of perhaps 200,000 tons, and employing some 20,000 men. 
 
 "To transport the up freight alone carried by these boats, it is es- 
 timated that it would require 8,000 keel-boats and barges, and 200,000 
 men, averaging the steamboats at six trips, and the others at three 
 trips annually. This is for the up cargo only, saying nothing about 
 the down cargo or passengers. Thus may be seen at a glance the 
 immense benefits of steam navigation to the vast country lying between 
 the range of the Alleghany and the Rocky Mountains, once denomi- 
 nated the West, but now, since the acquisition of California, the West 
 no longer, but the great central portion of our Union." 
 
 As before stated, Captain Shreve, on leaving the river, retired to 
 his estate near St. Louis and interested himself in agricultural pursuits. 
 There, as elsewhere, he was thoroughly practical, but he found pleas- 
 ant recreation and profitable amusement in "experimental farming." 
 
 His first wife having deceased, he married a second time, in 1846, 
 a daughter of John W. Rogers, of Boston, Massachusetts. By this 
 marriage he had two daughters one of them died, and the other is 
 Mrs. Emlen Hutchinson, of Philadelphia. The first Mrs. Shreve 
 was the daughter of Adam Blair, of Brownsville, Penn. Captain 
 Shreve married Miss Blair in 1811 ; she bore him two daughters and 
 one son : the latter died in infancy. The eldest daughter married 
 John W. Reel, of St. Louis, but is not now living. The surviving
 
 PERSONAL APPEARANCE DECEASE. 87 
 
 daughter of his first wife married Captain Walker R. Carter, long a 
 well-known resident of St. Louis. 
 
 In mature life Captain Shreve was a man of fine personal appear- 
 ance. Standing five feet eleven inches in height, and weighing over 
 two hundred pounds, his presence was commanding. Although so 
 large when he had arrived at middle life, he was at the age of 
 twenty-five years so slight in form as to be taken for a lad of 
 seventeen. Slight in frame, he was as a youth very muscular, re- 
 markably spry, and possessed of immense strength. He took great 
 pleasure in athletic sports, and excelled in all of them. When on 
 his trading expeditions he had frequent races with the Indians, 
 whom he always distanced, and consequently astonished. His 
 courage was no less remarkable ; he seemed never to know what 
 fear was, either in the presence of a savage, or, if occasion required, 
 in an encounter with wild beasts. 
 
 At the opening of the Telegraph at St. Louis, Captain Shreve 
 sent the first message borne by electricity, from the banks of the 
 Mississippi to the tide waters of the Atlantic. It was to the President 
 of the United States, at Washington. Thus did he fill out the measure 
 of a career of great usefulness and brilliant endeavor. Quietly at his 
 home, for the last ten years of his life, he enjoyed the pleasures of a 
 serene old age, and died after a protracted illness in his 66th year, 
 March 6th, 1851. His widow is still living. 
 
 SUPPLEMENTARY. 
 
 FOR the information of our readers, we here propose to give a few 
 facts which may prove interesting. It is well known that a very 
 large portion of American commerce with foreign countries has been 
 carried on since the war of 1861-5 in foreign vessels. Previous to 
 the advent of the Alabama and other Confederate cruisers, American 
 vessels were to be found in every sea. Great Britain profited enor- 
 mously by the events which gave her shippers a practical monopoly 
 of the carrying trade on the Atlantic. When the war broke out in 
 1861 the tonnage of British vessels was 5,895,369 tons, and of Ameri- 
 can vessels, 5,539,813 tons. In 1821 American tonnage was but half 
 that of Great Britain ; during the intervening forty years we almost 
 got upon a par with her in the carrying trade of the world ; but by 
 1871 the tonnage of American vessels had fallen to 3,946,150 tons, 
 while Great Britain had increased her tonnage to 7,142,891 tons, 
 showing that relatively the United States had fallen back to where she 
 was a half century previous.
 
 88 SUPPLEMENTARY. 
 
 This seems decidedly bard, but these figures do not tell all the 
 truth, for a large amount of the tonnage deducted from the American 
 total of 1 86 1 was transferred to foreign registers, but nominally only 
 to foreign ownership. The old emigrant packets were displaced by 
 iron steamers, and the tonnage formerly in the coasting trade has not 
 been needed again, because of the increased railroad facilities by which 
 freights now pass overland. During the years when our ships were 
 forced into the hands of foreign owners, and Americans ceased to 
 build the clipper ships, which for two or three decades had been so 
 famous, a marked revolution was going forward in marine architect- 
 ure. Wood gave place to iron, and for the construction of iron 
 ships Britain possessed for the time superior advantages. 
 
 There are, however, many indications going to show that the recent 
 rapid development of our iron industries, coupled with influences now 
 at work in Britain, especially in the increased prices of coal and of 
 wages, will bring about such changes as will tend to establish on our 
 own shores the business of iron ship-building. We have the coal and 
 the ore with which to increase to an indefinite extent our production 
 of iron, while Britain must import her ores, and now can not mine 
 coal enough to supply her consumptive demand. Another year will 
 see an enormous increase in the production of American iron-, and 
 with a more abundant supply prices must decline. It would seem 
 that we have been and are building iron steamships better and cheaper 
 for Americans, all things considered, than those built in Great Britain. 
 " Among the vessels already built, and now building in American 
 waters, are many which are better than the best ever constructed in 
 British ship- yards, and none have been launched in this country which 
 are not better in material and construction than the average of Clyde- 
 built bottoms." "These are facts," says the Iron Age, "and in 
 them we see the promise of a future for iron ship-building in the 
 United States, and for our maritime interests, which shall leave us no 
 reason to envy the achievements of Great Britain." 
 
 The American Steamship Company of Philadelphia an offshoot of the 
 Pennsylvania Central Railroad Company are now (1872) having built 
 for them at the extensive ship yards of Messrs. Cramp & Sons, Phila- 
 delphia, four large iron steamers. During the war that firm finished 
 several monitors and gun-boats for the United States navy, among 
 which was the New Ironsides, which did good service at Charleston. 
 After proving itself one of the most successful of the ironclads, she was 
 unfortunately lost by fire. This firm turned out a few months since 
 the iron screw steamship George W. Clyde. She was built for the 
 coasting trade, and on her trial trip made ten knots an hour, and is 
 said to be of very symmetrical and graceful form. She is 220 feet 
 long, of 1,200 tons burden, and can carry 2,200 bales of cotton. 
 
 Each of the four vessels building for the Pennsylvania road, is to 
 be 355 feet long, 43 feet beam, and 57 feet deep, and of 3,016 tons 
 burden. They are to be equipped with compound engines made in
 
 FOREIGN STEAMERS. 89 
 
 this country, but modeled after the English. They will thus rank in 
 size and power along with the largest of the many foreign steamships 
 plying between Europe and the United States, and as they will traverse 
 the same route, there will be opportunities for accurate comparison 
 of speed, economy, and efficiency. 
 
 It is interesting to examine the reports of steamship traffic between 
 New York and European ports. There are now considerably over a 
 hundred vessels, belonging to different lines, plowing the waters of the 
 Atlantic. Last year the exact number of steamers was one hundred 
 and five. The distribution was as follows : Cunard line, 20 steamers, 
 with an aggregate measurement of 53,412 tons; Anchor line, 18 
 steamers, of 30,679 tons; Inman line, 1 6 steamers, of 36,643 tons; 
 Bremen line, 13 steamers, of 35,999 tons; National line, 12 steamers, 
 of 45, 982 tons; Hamburg line, 9 steamers, of 27,187 tons; Williams 
 & Guion line, 8 steamers, of 12,192 tons ; French line, 4 steamers, of 
 12,192 tons; White Star line, 3 steamers, of 11,211 tons; and the 
 Baltic Lloyd's, 2 steamers, of 3,600 tons. Of these ten lines of steam- 
 ers, seven during 1871 transported 311,176 passengers. In addition to 
 the above lines running from New York, there are now three lines of 
 steamers between Montreal and Great Britain. The Allan line dis- 
 patches a steamer every week, and an extra steamer once every two 
 weeks ; the Beaver line, owning five ships, dispatches a steamer 
 once every week ; and the Dominion line, owning three ships, dispatches 
 a steamer every fortnight. There are weekly lines of Atlantic steamers 
 running from Boston and from Baltimore.
 
 RICHARD TREVITHIOK. 
 
 BEFORE giving a brief sketch of this talented Englishman, and 
 his connection with the locomotive engine, we present a few 
 facts respecting the steam carriage of Oliver Evans, who was an ac- 
 quaintance of John Fitch, and resided in Philadelphia when Fitch 
 visited there on his last trip to Kentucky. As we have already seen, 
 the application of steam-power to carriages on common roads was 
 entertained by Fitch, for a short time, in his earlier experiments. 
 
 Oliver Evans was a native of Newport, Delaware, and was engaged 
 with his project for driving steam carriages on common roads not long 
 after John Fitch was working on his steam-boat projects; but he was 
 poor, and, like Fitch, was unable to command the means requisite for 
 an undertaking which his friends thought impracticable. 
 
 In 1800 or 1801, Evans began a steam carriage at his own expense; 
 but he had not proceeded far with it when he altered his intention, 
 and applied the engine intended for the driving of a carriage to the 
 driving of a small grinding-mill, in which it was found efficient. In 
 1804 he constructed, at Philadelphia, a second engine, of five-horse 
 power, working on the high-pressure principle, which was placed on 
 a large flat, or scow, mounted upon wheels. "This," says his biog- 
 rapher, "was considered a fine opportunity to show the public that 
 his engine could propel both land and water conveyances. When 
 the machine was finished, Evans fixed under it, in a rough and tem- 
 porary manner, wheels with wooden axle-trees. Although the whole 
 weight was equal to two hundred barrels of flour, yet his small engine 
 propelled it up Market Street, and round the circle to the water-works, 
 where it was launched into the Schuylkill. A paddle-wheel was then 
 applied to its stern, and it thus was propelled down that river to the 
 Delaware, and up the Delaware to the city, a distance of sixteen 
 miles, in the presence of thousands of spectators." It does not 
 appear that any farther trial was made of this road engine. 
 
 While the discussion of steam-power for road locomotion was pro- 
 (9)
 
 INVENTOR OF THE LOCOMOTIVE. 91 
 
 ceeding in England, other projectors were advocating the extension of 
 wagon-ways and railroads. Mr. Thomas, of Denton, near Newcastle- 
 on-Tyne, read a paper before the Philosophical Society of that town 
 in 1800, in which he urged the laying down of railways throughout 
 the country, on the principle of the coal-wagon ways, for the general 
 carriage of goods and merchandise ; and Dr. James Anderson, of 
 Edinburgh, about the same time, published his "Recreations of Ag- 
 riculture," wherein he recommended that railways should be laid 
 along the principal turnpike-roads, and worked by horse-power, which, 
 he alleged, would have the effect of greatly reducing the cost of 
 transport, and thereby stimulating all branches of industry. 
 
 Railways were adopted in places, for short distances, and in some 
 cases lines were laid down of considerable length. One of the first 
 constructed under the powers of an Act of Parliament was the Car- 
 diff and Merthyr tram-road, about twenty-seven miles in length, for 
 the accommodation of the iron-works of Plymouth, Wales, the Act 
 for which was obtained in 1794. Another railroad, about twenty- 
 eight miles in length, was constructed under the powers of an Act 
 obtained in 1801, and accommodated the Tredegar and Sirhoway 
 Iron-works and the Trevill Lime-works. 
 
 ,In the immediate neighborhood of London, another, the Wandsworth 
 and Croydon tram- way, was made after 1800, extending southward to 
 Merstham, in Surrey. All these were worked by horses, and in the 
 case of the Merstham line, donkeys shared in the work. No pro- 
 posal had yet been made to apply the power of steam. 
 
 On the day of opening the southern portion of the Merstham Rail- 
 road in 1805, a train of twelve wagons laden with stone, weighing in 
 all thirty-eight tons, was drawn six miles in an hour by one horse, 
 with apparent ease, down an incline of i in 120. 
 
 About the same time, the subject of road locomotion was 
 brought into prominent notice by an important practical experiment 
 conducted in a remote corner of the kingdom. The experimenter 
 was a young man, then obscure, but afterward famous, who may be 
 fairly regarded as THE INVENTOR OF THE RAILWAY LOCOMOTIVE, if any 
 single individual be entitled to that appellation. This was Richard Trev- 
 ithick, a person of extraordinary mechanical skill, but of marvelous ill 
 fortune, who, though the inventor of many ingenious contrivances, and 
 the founder of fortunes of many, himself died in extreme poverty, 
 leaving behind him nothing but his great inventions and the recollec- 
 tion of his genius. 
 
 Richard Trevithick was born on the i3th of April, 1771, in the 
 parish of Illogan, a few miles west of Redruth, in Cornwall. In the 
 immediate neighborhood rises Castle-Carn-brea, a rocky eminence, 
 supposed by Borlase to have been the principal seat of Druid ic wor- 
 ship in the West of England. The hill commands an extraordinary 
 view over one of the richest mining fields of Cornwall, from Chace- 
 water and Redruth to Camborne.
 
 92 RICHARD TREVITHICK. 
 
 Trevithick's father acted as purser at several of the mines. 
 Though a man in good position and circumstances, he does not 
 seem to have taken much pains with his son's education. Being an 
 only child, he was very much indulged among other things, in his 
 dislike for the restraints and discipline of school; and he was left to 
 wander about among the mines, spending his time in the engine- 
 rooms, picking up information about pumping-engines and mining 
 machinery. 
 
 His father, observing the boy's strong bent toward mechanics, 
 placed him for a time as pupil with William Murdock, while the 
 latter lived at Redruth, superintending Boulton & Watt's pumping- 
 engines in the neighborhood. Trevithick doubtless learned much 
 from that able mechanic. It is probable that he got his first idea 
 of the road locomotive which he constructed from Murdock' s ingeni- 
 ous little model, described in the life of Watt, the construction and 
 action of which must have been quite familiar to him. 
 
 About that time there was an unusual demand for engineers, which 
 it was found difficult to supply ; and young Trevithick had no difficulty 
 in getting an appointment. The father was astonished at his boy's 
 presumption (as he supposed it to be) in undertaking such a respon- 
 sibility, and begged the mine agents to reconsider their decision. But 
 the result showed that they were justified in appointing young Trev- 
 ithick, though he had not yet attained his majority. 
 
 Like the other Cornish engineers, young Trevithick took an active 
 part in opposing the Birmingham patent, and is said to have con- 
 structed several engines, with the assistance of William Bull (formerly 
 an erector of Watt's machines), with the object of evading it. These 
 engines are said to have been highly creditable to their makers, work- 
 ing to the entire satisfaction of the mine-owners. The issue of the 
 Watt trial, however, which declared all such engines to be piracies, 
 brought to an end for a time a business which would otherwise have 
 proved a very profitable one, and Trevithick's partnership with Bull 
 then came to an end. 
 
 While carrying on his business, Trevithick had frequent occasion to 
 visit Mr. Harvey's iron foundery at Hayle, then a small one, but now 
 one of the largest in the West of England. During these visits 
 Trevithick became acquainted with the various members of Mr. 
 Harvey's family, and married Miss Jane Harvey, in November, 1797. 
 A few years later Trevithick engaged in partnership with his cousin, 
 Andrew Vivian, also an engineer. They carried on engine-making at 
 Camborne, a mining town a few miles south of Redruth. Watt's 
 patent-right expired in 1800, and from that time engineers were 
 free to make engines after their own methods. Trevithick was not 
 content to follow beaten paths, but occupied himself in contriving 
 various new methods of employing steam, economizing fuel, and in- 
 creasing the effective power of the engine.
 
 Oliver Evans' Road Engine, 1801. 
 See page 90. 
 
 Trevithick's Tram-Road Locomotive, 1804.
 
 AMERICAN HIGH-PRESSURE BOILER. 95 
 
 He early entertained the idea of making the expansive force of 
 steam act directly on both sides of the piston, on the high-pressure 
 principle, and thus getting rid of Watt's process of condensation. 
 Although Cugnot had employed high-pressure steam in his road loco- 
 motive, and Murdock in his model, and although Watt had distinctly 
 specified the action of steam at high-pressure as well as low, in his 
 patents, the idea was not embodied in any practical working engine 
 until taken in hand by Trevithick. The results of his long study 
 were embodied in the patent which he took out in 1802, in his own 
 and Vivian's name, for an improved steam-engine, and " the applica- 
 tion thereof for driving carriages and other purposes." 
 
 The arrangement of Trevithick' s engine was ingenious. It exhibited 
 a beautiful simplicity of parts ; the machinery was arranged effectively, 
 uniting strength with solidity and portability, and enabling steam to 
 be employed with very great rapidity, economy, and force. Watt's 
 principal objection to using high-pressure steam consisted in the danger 
 to which the boiler was exposed by internal pressure. Trevithick 
 avoided this by using a cylindrical wrought-iron boiler, the form cap- 
 able of presenting the greatest resistance to the expansive force of 
 steam. Boilers of this kind were not, however, new. Oliver Evans, 
 of Delaware, had made use of them in his high-pressure engines prior 
 to the date of Trevithick's patent ; and, as Evans did not claim the 
 cylindrical boiler, it is probable that the invention was in use before 
 his time. Nevertheless, Trevithick had the merit of introducing the 
 round boilers into Cornwall, where they are still known as " Trev- 
 ithick boilers." The saving in fuel effected by their use was such that 
 in 1812 the Messrs. Williams, of Scorrier, made Trevithick a present 
 of 3Oo/., in acknowledgment of the benefits arising from that source 
 alone. 
 
 Trevithick's steam carriage was the most compact and handsome 
 yet invented, and, as regards arrangement, has scarcely to this day 
 been surpassed. It consisted of a carriage capable of accommodating 
 some half dozen passengers. Underneath the engine and machinery 
 was inclosed, in about the size of an orchestra drum, the whole being 
 supported on four wheels two in front, by which it was guided, and 
 two behind, by which it was driven. The engine had but one cyl- 
 inder. The piston-rod outside the cylinder was double, and drove 
 a cross-piece, working in guides, on the opposite side of the cranked 
 axle to the cylinder, the crank of the axle revolving between the 
 double parts of the piston-rod. Toothed wheels were attached to 
 this axle, which worked into other toothed wheels fixed on the axle 
 of the driving-wheels. The steam-cocks were opened and shut by 
 a connection with the crank-axle ; and the force-pump, with which 
 the boiler was supplied with water, was also worked from it, as were 
 the bellows to blow the fire and thereby keep up the combustion in the 
 furnace. 
 
 The specification clearly alludes to the use of the engine on rail-
 
 96 RICHARD TREVITHICK. 
 
 roads as follows: "It is also to be noticed that we do occasionally, 
 or in certain cases, make the external periphery of the wheels uneven 
 by projecting heads of nails or bolts, or cross grooves or fittings to 
 railroads where required, and that in cases of hard pull we cause a 
 lever, belt, or claw to project through the rim of one or both of the 
 said wheels, so as to take hold of the ground, but that, in general, 
 the ordinary structure or figure of the external surface of those wheels 
 will be found to answer the intended purpose." The specification 
 also shows the application of the high-pressure engine on the same 
 principle to the driving of a sugar-mill, or for other purposes where 
 a fixed power is required, dispensing with condenser, cistern, air-pump, 
 and cold-water pump. In the year 1803, a small engine of this kind 
 was erected after Trevithick's plan, which worked by steam of at 
 least 3olbs. on the inch above atmospheric pressure, and gave much 
 satisfaction. 
 
 The first experimental steam carriage was constructed by Trevithick 
 & Vivian in their workshops at Camborne, in 1803, and was tried on 
 the public road adjoining the town, and in the town itself. John 
 Petherick, a native of Camborne, who was alive in 1858, stated in a 
 letter that he well remembered seeing. the engine, worked by Mr. 
 Trevithick himself, come through the place, to the great wonder of 
 the inhabitants. He says, " The experiment was satisfactory only as 
 long as the steam pressure could be kept up. During that continu- 
 ance, Trevithick called upon the people to 'jump up,' so as to create 
 a load on the engine; and it soon became covered with men, which 
 did not seem to make any difference to the power or speed so long 
 as the steam was kept up. This was sought to be done by the appli- 
 cation of a cylindrical horizontal bellows worked by the engine itself; 
 but the attempt to keep up the power of the steam for any consider- 
 able time proved a failure." 
 
 Trevithick made several alterations in the engine, improving it, 
 and its success determined him to take it to London, and exhibit it 
 as a novelty in steam mechanism. It was run by road from Cam- 
 borne to Plymouth, a distance of ninety miles. At Plymouth, it was 
 shipped for London, where it arrived in safety, and excited much 
 curiosity. Sir Humphry Davy, Mr. Davies Gilbert, and other scien- 
 tific gentlemen, inspected the machine, and rode upon it. Several 
 of them took the steering of it by turns, and they expressed their 
 satisfaction with the mechanism by which it was directed. Sir 
 Humphry, writing to a friend in Cornwall, said, "I shall soon hope 
 to hear that the roads of England are the haunts of Captain Trev- 
 ithick's dragons a characteristic name." After the experiment at 
 Lord's, the carriage was run along the New-road, and down Gray's- 
 Inn Lane, to the premises of a carriage-builder in Long Aere. To 
 show the adaptability of the engine for fixed uses, Trevithick had it 
 taken from the carriage on the day after this trial, and removed to
 
 \ 
 FIRST RAILWAY LOCOMOTIVE. 97 
 
 the shop of a cutler, where he applied it with success to the driving 
 of the machinery. 
 
 The steam carriage became the talk of the town, and public curi- 
 osity increasing, Trevithick resolved to inclose a piece of ground, 
 and admit persons to see the engine at so much a head. He had a 
 tram-road laid down in an elliptical form, and the carriage was run 
 round it on the rails in the sight of great numbers. On the second 
 day, another crowd collected, but, for some unknown reason, the place 
 was closed and the engine removed. 
 
 While the steam carriage was being exhibited, a gentleman was 
 laying heavy wagers as to the weight which could be hauled by a 
 single horse on the Wandsworth and Croydon iron tram-way; and 
 the number and weight of wagons drawn by the horse were something 
 surprising. Trevithick very probably put the two things together 
 the steam horse and the iron-way and kept the performance in mind 
 when he proceeded to construct his second or railway locomotive. 
 In the mean time, having dismantled his steam carriage, sent back the 
 phaeton to the coach-builder to whom it belonged, and sold the little 
 engine which had worked the machine, he returned to Camborne to 
 carry on his business. In the course of the year 1803, he went to 
 Pen-y-darran, in South Wales, to erect a forge engine, and, when it 
 was -finished, he began the erection of a railway locomotive the first 
 ever constructed. There were already, several lines of rail laid down 
 in the district, for the accommodation of the coal and iron works. 
 That between Merthyr Tydvil and Cardiff, was the longest and most 
 important, and it had been at work for some years. It had probably 
 occurred to Trevithick that here was a fine opportunity for putting to 
 practical test the powers of the locomotive, and he proceeded to 
 construct one in the workshops. 
 
 This first railway locomotive was finished and tried upon the Mer- 
 thyr tram-road on the 2ist of February, 1804. It had a cylindrical 
 wrought-iron boiler, with flat ends. The furnace and flue were 
 inside the boiler, the flue returning, having its exit at the same 
 end at which it entered, so as to increase the heating surface. The 
 cylinder, 4^ in. in diameter, was placed horizontally in the end of 
 the boiler, and the waste steam was thrown into the stack. The 
 wheels were worked in the same manner as in the carriage-engine 
 already described ; and a fly-wheel was added on one side, to secure 
 a continuous rotary motion at the end of each stroke of the piston. 
 The pressure of the steam was about 40 Ibs. on the inch. The engine ran 
 upon four wheels, coupled by cog-wheels, and the four wheels were 
 smooth. 
 
 On the first trial, this engine drew for a distance of nine miles, ten 
 tons of bar iron, together with the necessary carriages, water, and 
 fuel, at the rate of five and a half miles an hour. Rees Jones, an 
 old engine-fitter, who helped to erect the engine, gave the following 
 account of its performances: "When the engine was finished, she 
 7
 
 98 RICHARD TREVITHICK. 
 
 was used for bringing down metal from the old forge. She worked 
 very well ; but frequently, from her weight, broke the tram-plates, 
 and also the hooks between the trams. After working for some time 
 in this way, she took iron from Pen-y-darran down the Basin Road, 
 upon which road she was intended to work. On the journey she 
 broke a great many tram-plates ; and, before reaching the Basin, she 
 ran off the road, and was brought back by horses. The engine was 
 never used as a locomotive after this ; but was used as a stationary 
 engine for several years." 
 
 As a locomotive, it was a remarkable success. The defect lay not 
 in the engine so much as in the road. This was formed of plate-rails 
 of cast iron, with a guiding flange upon the rail instead of on the engine- 
 wheels, as in the modern locomotive. The rails were also of a very 
 weak form, considering the quantity of iron in them ; and, though 
 they were sufficient to bear loaded wagons mounted on small 
 wheels, as ordinarily drawn along them by horses, they were found 
 quite insufficient to bear Trevithick's engine. To relay the road 
 of sufficient strength would have involved a heavy out-lay, which 
 the owneis were unwilling to incur, not yet perceiving the advan- 
 tage in economy of employing engine in lieu of horse power. The 
 locomotive was taken off the road, and the experiment, successful 
 though it had been, brought to an end. 
 
 Trevithick had, however, in a great measure, solved the problem 
 of steam locomotion on railways. He had produced a compact en- 
 gine, working on the high-pressure principle, capable of carrying fuel 
 and water sufficient for a journey of considerable length, and of draw- 
 ing loaded wagons at five and a half miles an hour. He had shown 
 by his smooth-wheeled locomotive that the weight had given sufficient 
 adhesion for hauling the load. He had discharged the steam into the 
 chimney, though not for the purpose of increasing the draught, as 
 he employed bellows for that purpose. Trevithick's friend, Mr. 
 Davies Gilbert, afterward President of the Royal Society, especially 
 noticed the effect of discharging the waste steam into the chimney, 
 and observed that, when moving, each puff brightened the fire, while 
 scarcely any steam or smoke came from the chimney. 
 
 Mr. Gilbert published the result of his observations in "Nichol- 
 son's Journal," and Mr. Nicholson proceeded to make a series of experi- 
 ments, the result of which was, that in 1806 he took out a patent for 
 a steam-blasting apparatus ; but it is remarkable that Trevithick him- 
 self remained skeptical as to its use, as late as 1815. 
 
 In the mean time Trevithick occupied himself as a general engineer, 
 and was ready for any enterprise likely to give scope to his inventive 
 skill. In whatever work employed, he was sure to introduce new 
 methods and arrangements, if not new inventions. He was full of 
 speculative enthusiasm, a great theorist, and yet an indefatigable ex- 
 perimenter. Trevithick was not satisfied to carry on a prosperous 
 engine business in Cornwall. Camborne was too small for him, and
 
 THAMES TUNNEL GOES TO PERU. 99 
 
 the Cornish mining districts presented too limited a field for his 
 ambitious spirit. So he went to London, the patent-office drawing 
 him as the loadstone does the needle. In 1808, he took out two 
 patents, one for " certain machinery for towing, driving, or forcing 
 and discharging ships and other vessels of their cargoes," and the 
 other for "a new method of stowing cargoes of ships." In 1809, he 
 took out another patent for constructing docks, ships, etc., and pro- 
 pelling vessels. 
 
 In these patents, Trevithick was associated with one Robert Dick- 
 inson, of Great Queen Street, but his name stands first in the specifi- 
 cation, wherein he describes himself as " of Rotherhithe, in the county 
 of Surrey, engineer." While Trevithick lived at Rotherhithe, he en- 
 tered upon a remarkable enterprise no less than the- construction of 
 a tunnel under the Thames a work which was carried out with so 
 much difficulty by Sir Isambard Brunei some twenty years later. 
 
 Trevithick returned to Camborne in 1809, where we find him busily 
 occupied with new projects, and introducing his new engine worked 
 by water power, as well as in perfecting his high-pressure engine and 
 its working by expansion. In 1815, Trevithick took out a farther 
 patent, embodying several important applications of steam power. 
 One of ttoese consisted in "causing steam of a high pressure to spout 
 out against the atmosphere, and by its recoiling force to produce 
 motion in a direction contrary to the issuing steam, similar to the 
 motion produced in a rocket, x or to the recoil of a gun." In 
 another part of his specification, Trevithick described the screw-pro- 
 peller as " a screw or a number of leaves placed obliquely round an 
 axis similar to the vanes of a smoke-jack, which shall be made to re- 
 volve with great speed in a line with the required motion of the ship, 
 or parallel to the same line of motion." In a second part of the 
 specification, he described a plunger or pole-engine, in which the 
 steam worked at high pressure. The first engine of this kind was 
 erected by Trevithick at Herland, in 1815, but the result was not 
 equal to his expectations, though the principle was afterward success- 
 fully applied by Mr. William Sims, who purchased the patent-right. 
 
 In this specification, Trevithick also described a tubular boiler of a 
 new construction, for the purpose of more rapidly producing high- 
 pressure steam, the heating surface being extended by constructing 
 the boiler of a number of small perpendicular tubes, closed at the 
 bottom, but all opening at the top into a common reservoir, from 
 whence they received their water, and into which the steam of all the 
 tubes was united. 
 
 While Trevithick was engaged in these ingenious projects, an event 
 occurred which, though it promised to issue in the most splendid re- 
 sults, proved the greatest misfortune of his life. We refer to his 
 adventures in connection with the gold mines of Peru. Many of the 
 richest of them had been drowned out, the pumping machinery of 
 the country being incapable of clearing them of water. The districts
 
 IOO RICHARD TREVITHICK. 
 
 in which they were situated were almost inaccessible to ordinary 
 traffic, all transport being conducted on the backs of men or of 
 mules. The parts of an ordinary condensing engine were too pon- 
 derous to be carried up these mountain heights, and it was evident 
 that, unless some lighter sort of engine could be employed, the mines 
 in question must be abandoned. 
 
 Mr. Uville, a Swiss gentleman interested in South American mining, 
 went from Peru to England in 1811, for the purpose of obtaining 
 such an engine, but he received no encouragement. He was about 
 to return to Lima, in despair of accomplishing his object, when, ac- 
 cidentally passing a shop-window in Fitzroy Square, he caught sight 
 of an engine exposed for sale. It was the engine constructed by 
 Trevithick for his first locomotive, which he had sold some years 
 before. Mr. Uville was pleased with its construction and mode of 
 action, and at once purchased it. Arrived in South America, he had 
 the engine transported across the mountains to the rich mining district 
 of Pasco, a hundred miles north of Lima, to try it on the highest 
 mountain ridges. 
 
 The experiment was satisfactory, and an association of influential 
 gentlemen was immediately formed to introduce the engine on a large 
 scale, and enter into contracts with the mine-owners for clearing their 
 shafts of water. The Viceroy of Peru approved the plan, and the 
 association dispatched Mr. Uville to England to purchase the engines. 
 He took ship for Falmouth about the end of 1812, for the purpose of 
 finding out Trevithick. He only knew of Trevithick by name, and 
 that he lived in Cornwall. Full of his subject, he could not refrain 
 from conversing on the subject with passengers on board the ship. It 
 so happened that one of them a Mr. Teague was a relative of 
 Trevithick, who, shortly after their landing, introduced him to the in- 
 ventor ; in the course of a few days, Uville was enabled to discuss the 
 scheme with Trevithick, at his own house at Camborne. The result 
 was an order for a number of high-pressure pumping-engines, which 
 were put in hand, and on the ist of September, 1814, nine of them 
 were shipped at Portsmouth for Lima, accompanied by Uville and 
 three Cornish engineers, one of whom was Bull, Trevithick's first 
 partner. 
 
 The engines reached Lima, and were welcomed by a royal salute 
 and public rejoicings. Such was the difficulty of transporting the 
 materials across the mountains, that it was the middle of the year 1816 
 before the first engine was set to work to pump out the Santa Rosa 
 mine, in the royal mineral territory of Yaiiricocha. The association 
 to whom the engines belonged had entered into a contract to drain 
 this, among other mines, on condition of sharing one-fourth of the gross 
 produce of the ores. The first results were so satisfactory that the pro- 
 jectors were filled with no less astonishment than delight, and they 
 " anticipated a torrent of silver that would fill surrounding nations 
 with astonishment."
 
 HIS ADVENTURES IN PERU. IOI 
 
 In the mean time Trevithick was at home manufacturing the remain- 
 ing engines, also new coining apparatus for the Peruvian mint, and 
 furnaces for purifying silver ore by fusion. With these engines and 
 apparatus he sailed for Lima in October, 1816, reaching there the 
 following February. He was received with almost royal honors, and was 
 officially announced as "Don Ricardo Trevithick, an eminent professoi 
 of mechanics, machinery, and mineralogy, inventor and constructor 
 of the engines of the last patent," and was escorted to the mines ac- 
 companied by a guard of honor. The news occasioned great rejoic- 
 ings, and the chief men came down the mountains to welcome him. 
 Uville wrote to his associates that Trevithick had been sent out " by 
 heaven for the prosperity of the mines, and that the lord warden pro- 
 posed to erect his statue in solid silver." Trevithick wrote to his 
 friends in Cornwall that he had before him the prospect of almost 
 boundless wealth, having, in addition to his emoluments as patentee, 
 obtained a fifth share in the Lima Company, which, he expected, on 
 a moderate computation, would yield him about ioo,ooo/. a year. 
 
 But these brilliant prospects were suddenly blasted by the Peru- 
 vian revolution which broke out in the following year. While Mr. 
 Boaze was reading his paper before the Royal Geological Society of 
 Cornwall, in which these anticipations of Trevithick's fame and fortune 
 were described, Lord Cochrane was on his way to South America to 
 take command of the Chilian fleet in its attack on the ports of Peru, 
 still in the possession of the Spaniards. 
 
 Toward the end of 1818, Lord Cochrane hoisted his flag, and as- 
 sailed the Spanish fleet in Callao Harbor. This proved the signal for 
 a general insurrection, during the continuance of which the commer- 
 cial and industrial affairs of the province were completely paralyzed. 
 
 The result to Trevithick was, that he and his partners in the Min- 
 ing Company were consigned to ruin. It has been said that the 
 engineer joined the patriotic party, and invented for Lord Cochrane 
 an ingenious gun-carriage, centered and equally balanced on pivots, 
 and easily worked by machinery; but of this no mention is made by 
 Lord Cochrane in his "Memoirs." The Patriots kept Trevithick on 
 the mountains as a sort of patron and protector of their interests ; 
 but for this very reason he became proportionately obnoxious to the 
 Royalists, who destroyed his engines, and broke up his machinery 
 wherever they could. At length he -determined to escape from Peru, 
 and fled northward across the mountains, accompanied by a single 
 friend, making for the Isthmus of Panama. In the course of this 
 long, toilsome, and dangerous journey, he encountered great privations; 
 he slept in the forest at night, traveled on foot by day, and crossed 
 the streams by swimming. At length, his clothes torn, worn, and 
 hanging almost in shreds, and his baggage all lost, he succeeded in 
 reaching the port of Carthagena, on the Gulf of Darien, almost 
 destitute.
 
 102 RICHARD TREVITHICK. 
 
 Here he encountered Robert Stephenson, who was waiting at the 
 one inn of the place until a ship was ready to set sail for England. 
 Stephenson had finished his engagement with the Columbian Mining 
 Company, and was eager to return home. When Trevi thick entered 
 the room, Stephenson at once saw that he was an Englishman. He 
 stood some six feet in height, and, though well proportioned when 
 in ordinary health, he was now gaunt and hollow, the picture of priva- 
 tion and misery. 
 
 Stephenson made up to the stranger, and was not a little surprised 
 to find that he was no other than the famous engineer, Trevithick, 
 the builder of the first patent locomotive, and who, when he last 
 heard of him, was accumulating so gigantic a fortune in Peru. 
 Though now penniless, Trevithick was as full of speculation as ever, 
 and related to Stephenson that he was on his way home for the pur- 
 pose of organizing another gold-mining company, which should make 
 the fortunes of all who took part in it. He was, however, unable to 
 pay for his passage, and Stephenson lent him the money for the 
 purpose. 
 
 As there was no vessel likely to sail for England soon, Stephenson 
 and Trevithick took the first ship for New York. After a passage full 
 of adventure and peril, the vessel was driven on a lee-shore, and the 
 passengers and crew barely escaped with their lives. On reaching 
 New York, Trevithick immediately set sail for England, and landed 
 at Falmouth in October, 1827, taking back with him a pair of silver 
 spurs, the only remnant of those "torrents of silver" which his en- 
 gines were to raise from the mines of Peru. 
 
 Very soon Trevithick memorialized the government for some re- 
 muneration adequate to the great benefit which the country had de- 
 rived from his invention of the high-pressure steam-engine, and his 
 introduction of the cylindrical boiler. The petition was prepared in 
 December, 1827, and was cheerfully signed by the leading mine-own- 
 ers and engineers in Cornwall ; but there their efforts on his behalf 
 ended. 
 
 He took out two more patents one in 1831, for a new method of 
 heating apartments, and another in 1832, for improvements in the 
 steam-engine, and the application of steam power to navigation and 
 locomotion, but neither of them seems to have proved of any service 
 to him. 
 
 Strange to say, though Trevithick had been so intimately connected 
 with the practical introduction of the Locomotive, he seems to have 
 taken but little interest in its introduction upon railways, but confined 
 himself to advocating its employment on common roads as its most 
 useful application. On the i2th of August, 1831, by which time the 
 Liverpool and Manchester line was in full work, Trevithick appeared 
 as a witness before the select committee of the House of Commons 
 on the employment of steam carriages on common roads. He said 
 "he had been abroad a good many years, and had had nothing to do
 
 HIS NUMEROUS INVENTIONS. 103 
 
 with steam carriages until very lately. He had it now, however, in 
 contemplation to do a great deal on common roads, and, with that 
 view, had taken out a patent for an entirely new engine, the arrange- 
 ments in which were calculated to obviate all the difficulties which had 
 hitherto stood in the way of traveling on common roads." Though 
 in many things he was before his age, here he was unquestionably 
 behind it. But Trevithick was now an old man ; his constitution was 
 broken, and his energy worked out. Younger men were in-the field, 
 less ingenious and speculative, but more practical and energetic ; and 
 in the blaze of their fame the Cornish engineer was forgotten. 
 
 During the last year of his life Trevithick resided at Dartford, in 
 Kent. He had induced the Messrs. Hall, the engineers of that place, 
 to give him an opportunity of testing the value of his last invention 
 that of a vessel driven by the ejection of water through a tube 
 and he went there to superintend the construction of the necessary 
 engine and apparatus. The vessel was duly fitted up, and several ex- 
 periments were made with it in the adjoining creek, but it did not real- 
 ize a speed of more than four miles an hour. Trevithick, being of 
 opinion that the engine-power was insufficient, proceeded to have a 
 new engine constructed, to the boiler of which, within the furnace, 
 numerous tubes were attached, round which the fire played. So much 
 steam was raised by this arrangement that the piston " blew," but still 
 the result of the experiments was unsatisfactory. While laboring at 
 these -inventions, and planning new arrangements never to be carried 
 out, the engineer was seized by the illness of which he died, on the 
 2zd of April, 1833, in the 62d year of his age. 
 
 As Trevithick was entirely without means at his death, besides being 
 some sixty pounds in debt to the landlord of the Bull Inn, where he 
 had been lodging for nearly a year, he would propably have been 
 buried at the expense of the parish but for the Messrs. Hall and their 
 workmen, who raised a sum sufficient to give the "great inventor " a 
 decent burial ; and they followed his remains to the grave in Dept- 
 ford Church-yard, where he lies without a stone to mark his resting- 
 place. 
 
 There can be no doubt as to the great mechanical ability of Trev- 
 ithick. He was a man of original and intuitive genius in invention. 
 Every mechanical arrangement which he undertook to study issued 
 from his hands transformed and improved. But there he rested. He 
 struck out many inventions, and left them to take care of themselves. 
 His great failing was the want of perseverance. His mind was always 
 full of projects; but his very genius led him astray in search of new 
 things, while his imagination often outran his judgment. Hence his 
 life was but a series of beginnings. 
 
 Look at the extraordinary things that Trevithick began. He made 
 the first railway locomotive, and cast the invention aside, leaving it 
 to others to take it up and prosecute it to a successful issue. He 
 introduced, if he did not invent, the cylindrical boiler and the high-
 
 104 RICHARD TREVITHICK. 
 
 pressure engine, which increased so enormously the steam-power of 
 the world ; but he reaped the profits of neither. He invented an 
 oscillating engine and a screw propeller ; he took out a patent for 
 using superheated steam, as well as for wrought-iron ships and wrought- 
 iron floating docks ; but he left it to others to introduce these several 
 inventions. 
 
 Never was there such a series of splendid mechanical beginnings. 
 He began a Thames Tunnel, and abandoned it. He went to South 
 America with the prospect of making a gigantic fortune, but he had 
 scarcely begun to gather in his gold than he was forced to fly, and 
 returned home destitute. This, however, was a misfortune which no 
 efforts on his part, could have prevented. But even when he had the 
 best chances, Trevithick threw them away. When he had brought 
 his road locomotive to London to exhibit, and was beginning to ex- 
 cite the curiosity of the public respecting it, he suddenly closed the 
 exhibition in a fit of caprice, removed the engine, and returned to 
 Cornwall in a tiff. The failure, also, of the railroad on which his 
 locomotive traveled so provoked him that he at once abandoned the 
 enterprise in disgust. 
 
 There may have been some moral twist in the engineer's character, 
 into which we do not seek to pry; but it seems clear that he was 
 wanting in that resolute perseverance, that power of fighting an up- 
 hill battle, without which no great enterprise can be conducted to a 
 successful issue. In this respect, the character of Richard Trevithick 
 presents a remarkable contrast to that of George Stephenson, who 
 took up only one of the many projects which the other had cast 
 aside, and by dint of application, industry, and perseverance, carried 
 into effect one of the most remarkable, but peaceful revolutions 
 which has ever been accomplished in any age or country. 
 
 We now proceed to^describe the history of this revolution in con- 
 nection with the Life of George Stephenson, and to trace the loco- 
 motive through its several stages of development until we find it re- 
 cognized as one of the most vigorous and untiring workers in the 
 entire world of industry.
 
 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 
 
 THE colliery village of Wylam is situated on the north bank of 
 the Tyne, about eight miles west of Newcastle. The New- 
 castle and Carlisle Railway runs along the opposite bank; and the 
 traveler by that line sees the usual signs of a colliery in the unsightly 
 pumping-engines surrounded by heaps of ashes, coal-dust, and slag, 
 while a neighboring iron-furnace in full blast throws out dense smoke 
 and loud jets of steam by day, and lurid flames at night. These 
 works form the nucleus of the village, which is almost entirely occu- 
 pied by coal-miners and iron- furnace-men. The place is remarkable 
 for its large population, but not for its cleanness or neatness as a 
 village; the houses, as in most colliery villages, being the property 
 of the owners or lessees, who employ them in temporarily accommo- 
 dating the work-people, against whose earnings there is a weekly 
 Iset-off for house and coals. About the end of last century, the estate 
 of which Wylam forms part, belonged to Mr. Blackett, a gentleman 
 of considerable celebrity in coal-mining, then more generally known 
 as the proprietor of the "Globe" newspaper. 
 
 There is nothing to interest one in the village itself. But a few 
 hundred yards from its eastern extremity stands a humble detached 
 dwelling, which will be interesting to many as the birth-place of one 
 of the most remarkable men of our times George Stephenson, the 
 Railway Engineer. It is a common, two-storied, red-tiled, rubble 
 House, portioned off into four laborers' apartments. 
 
 The lower room in the west end of this house was the home of 
 the Stephenson family, and there George Stephenson was born, the 
 second of a family of six children, on the Qth of June, 1781. The 
 apartment is now, what it was then, an ordinary laborer's dwelling; 
 its walls are unplastered, its floor is of clay, and the bare rafters are 
 exposed overhead. 
 
 Robert Stephenson, or "Old Bob," as the neighbors familiarly 
 called him, and his wife Mabel, were a respectable couple, careful 
 and hard-working. Robert Stephenson's father was a Scotchman, 
 who came into England in the capacity of a gentleman's servant.
 
 106 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 
 
 Mabel, his wife, was the second daughter of Robert Carr, a dyer at 
 Ovingham. The Carrs were, for several generations, the owners of 
 a house in that village adjoining the church-yard. Mabel Stephenson 
 was a woman of somewhat delicate constitution, and troubled occa- 
 sionally, as her neighbors said, with "the vapors." 
 
 George Stephenson was the the second of a family of six children. 
 
 An old Wylam collier, who remembered George Stephenson's father, 
 thus described him : " Geordie's fayther war like a peer o' deals 
 nailed thegither, an' a bit o' flesh i' th' inside ; he war as queer as 
 Dick's hatband went thrice aboot, an' wudn't tie. His wife Mabel 
 war a delicat' boddie, an' varry flighty. They war an honest family, 
 but sair hadden doon i' th' world." Indeed, the earnings of old 
 Robert did not amount to more than twelve shillings a week ; and, as 
 there were six children to maintain, the family, during their stay at 
 Wylam, were necessarily in very straitened circumstances. The 
 father's wages being barely sufficient, even with the most rigid economy, 
 for the sustenance of the household, there was little to spare for 
 clothing, and nothing for education, so that none of the children were 
 sent to school. 
 
 Old Robert was a general favorite in the village, especially among 
 the children, whom he was accustomed to draw about him while 
 tending the engine-fire, and feast their young imaginations with tales 
 of Sinbad the Sailor and Robinson Crusoe, besides others of his own 
 invemion ; so that " Bob's engine-fire " came to be the most popular 
 resort in the village. Another feature in his character, by which he 
 was long remembered, was his affection for birds and animals; and he 
 had many tame favorites of both sorts, which were as fond of resort- 
 ing to his engine-fire as the boys and girls themselves. In the winter 
 time he had usually a flock of tame robins about him ; and they 
 would come hopping familiarly to his feet to pick up the crumbs 
 which he had saved for them out of his humble dinner. At his cot- 
 tage he was rarely without one or more tame blackbirds, which flew 
 about the house, or in and out at the door. In summer time he would 
 go bird-nesting with his children ; and one day he took his litde boy, 
 George, to see a blackbird's nest for the first time. Holding him up 
 in his arms, he let the wondering boy peep down, through \he 
 branches held aside for the purpose, into a nest full of young birds- 
 a sight which the boy never forgot, but used to speak of with delight 
 to his intimate friends, when he himself had grown an old man. 
 
 The boy, George, led the ordinary life of working people's children. 
 He played about the doors; went bird-nesting when he could; and 
 ran errands to the village. He was also an eager listener, with the 
 other children, to his father's curious tales, and he early imbibed 
 from him his affection for birds and animals. In course of time he 
 was promoted to the office of carrying his father's dinner to him while 
 at work, and at home he helped to nurse his younger brothers and 
 sisters. One of his earliest duties was to see that the other children
 
 THE FIRST MONEY HE EARNED. 107 
 
 were kept out of the way of the chaldron wagons, which were then 
 dragged by horses along the wooden tram-road immediately in front 
 of the cottage door. 
 
 This wagon-way was the first in the northern district on which the 
 experiment of a locomotive engine was tried. But, at the time of 
 which we speak, the locomotive had scarcely been dreamt of in Eng- 
 land as a practicable working power ; horses only were used to haul the 
 coal ; and one of the first sights with which the boy was familiar was 
 the coal-wagons dragged by them along the wooden railway at Wy- 
 lam. Thus eight years passed ; after which, the coal having been 
 worked out on the north side, the old engine, which had grown 
 "dismal to look at," as an old workman described it, was pulled 
 down ; and then old Robert, having obtained employment as a fire- 
 man at the Dewley Burn Colliery, removed with his family to that 
 place. 
 
 Young though he was, George was now of an age to be able to 
 contribute something toward the family maintenance ; for, in a poor 
 man's house, every child is a burden until his little hands can be turned 
 to profitable account. That the boy was shrewd and active, and pos- 
 sessed of a ready mother-wit, will be evident enough from the follow- 
 ing incident. One day his sister Nell went into Newcastle to buy a 
 bonnet, and Geordie went with her "for company." At a draper's 
 shop, in the Bigg Market, Nell found a "chip" quite to her mind, 
 but on pricing it, alas ! it was found to be fifteen pence beyond her 
 means. Girl-like, she had set her mind upon that bonnet, and no 
 other would please her. She accordingly left the shop very much de- 
 jected. But Geordie said, " Never heed, Nell ; come wi' me, and 
 I'll see if I cannawin siller enough to buy the bonnet ; stand ye there 
 till I come back." Away ran the boy, and disappeared amid the 
 throng of the market, leaving the girl to wait his return. Long and 
 long she waited, until it grew dusk, and the market-people had nearly 
 all left. She had begun to despair, and fears crossed her mind that 
 Geordie must have been run over and killed, when at last up he came 
 running, almost breathless. "I've gotten the siller for the bonnet, 
 Nell !" cried he. " Eh, Geordie !" she said, " but hoo hae ye got- 
 ten it?" " Hauddin the gentlemen's horses!" was the exultant 
 reply. The bonnet was forthwith bought, and the two returned to 
 Dewley in triumph. 
 
 George's first regular employment was of a very humble sort. A 
 widow, named Grace Ainslie, then occupied the neighboring farm- 
 house of Dewley. She kept a number of cows, and had the privilege 
 of grazing them along the wagon-ways. She needed a boy to herd the 
 cows, to keep them out of the way of the wagons, and prevent their 
 straying or trespassing on the neighbors' "liberties;" the boy's duty 
 was also to bar the gates at night after all the wagons had passed. 
 George petitioned for this post, and, to his great joy, he was appointed, 
 at the pay of twopence a day.
 
 108 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 
 
 It was light employment, and he had plenty of spare time on his 
 hands, which he spent in bird-nesting, making whistles out of reeds 
 and scrannel straws, and erecting liliputian mills in the little water- 
 streams that ran into the Dewley bog. But his favorite amusement 
 at this early age was erecting clay engines in conjunction with his 
 playmate, Bill Thirlwall. The place is still pointed out where the 
 future engineers made their first essays in modeling. The boys found 
 the clay for their engines in the adjoining bog, and the hemlocks 
 which grew about supplied them with imaginary steam-pipes. They 
 even proceeded to make a miniature winding-machine in connection 
 with their engine, and the apparatus was erected upon a bench in front 
 of the Thirlwalls' cottage. Their corves were made out' of hollowed 
 corks ; their ropes were supplied by twine ; and a few bits of wood 
 gleaned from the refuse of the carpenters' shop completed their 
 materials. With this apparatus the boys made a show of sending the 
 corves down the pit and drawing them up again, much to the marvel 
 of the pitmen. But some mischievous person about the place seized 
 the opportunity early one morning of smashing the fragile machinery, 
 greatly to the grief of the young engineers. We may mention, in 
 passing, that George's companion afterward became a workman of re- 
 pute, and creditably held the office of engineer at Shilbottle, near 
 Alnwick, for a period of nearly thirty years. 
 
 As Stephenson grew older and abler to work, he was set to lead 
 the horses when plowing, though scarce big enough to stride across 
 the furrows ; and he used afterward to say that he rode to his work 
 in the mornings at an hour when most other children of his age were 
 asleep in their beds. He was also employed to hoe turnips, and do 
 similar farm-work, for which he was paid fourpence a day. But his 
 highest ambition was to be taken on at the colliery where his father 
 worked ; and he shortly joined his elder brother James there as a 
 "corf-bitter," or "picker," to clear the coal of stones, bats, and 
 dross. His wages were then advanced to sixpence a day, and after- 
 ward to eightpence when he was sent to drive the gin-horse. 
 
 Shortly after, George went to Black Callerton Colliery to drive the 
 gin there ; and, as that colliery lies about two miles across the fields 
 from Dewley Burn, the boy walked that distance early in the morning 
 to his work, returning home late in the evening. One of the old 
 residents described him as a " grit-growing lad, with bare legs an* 
 feet ; very quick-witted, and full of fun and tricks : indeed, there was 
 nothing under the sun but he tried to imitate." He was usually 
 foremost also in the sports and pastimes of youth. Among his first 
 strongly developed tastes was the love of birds and animals, which he 
 inherited from his father. 
 
 After he had driven the gin for some time, he was taken on as 
 assistant to his father in firing the engine. He used to relate how 
 he was wont to hide himself when the owner of the colliery went 
 round, in case he should be thought too little a boy to earn the
 
 YOUTHFUL SPORTS AND OCCUPATIONS. 
 
 109 
 
 wages paid him. His young ambition was to be an engine-man ; and 
 to be an assistant fireman was the first step toward this position. 
 Great, therefore, was his joy when, at about fourteen years of age, he 
 was appointed assistant fireman, at a shilling a day. 
 
 Other workings of the coal were opened out in the neighborhood, 
 and to one of these George was removed as fireman on his own ac- 
 count, wheie he had for his mate a young man named Coe. They 
 worked together there for about two years, by twelve-hour shifts. 
 He was now fifteen years years old. He endeavored to attain such 
 a knowledge of his engine as would eventually lead to his employ- 
 ment as engine-man, with its accompanying advantage of higher pay. 
 He was a steady, sober, hard-working young man, but nothing more 
 in the estimation of his fellow- workmen. 
 
 One of his favorite pastimes in by-hours was trying feats of strength 
 with his companions. Although in frame he was not particularly ro- 
 bust, yet he was big and bony, and considered very strong for his 
 age. At throwing the hammer, George had no compeer. At lifting 
 heavy weights off the ground from between his feet, by means of a 
 bar of iron passed through them placing the bar against his knees 
 as a fulcrum, and then straightening his spine and lifting them sheer 
 up he was also very successful. On one occasion he lifted over 
 eight hundred pounds a striking indication of his strength of bone 
 and muscle. 
 
 When at Throckley Bridge, his wages were raised to i2s. a week. 
 On coming out of the foreman's office that Saturday evening, he 
 announced the fact to his fellow- workmen, adding triumphantly, " I 
 am now a made man for life !" 
 
 A pumping-engine was erected about half a mile west of Newburn, 
 and old Stephenson went to work it as fireman, his son George act- 
 ing as the enginfc-man or plugman. At that time he was about sev- 
 enteen years old a very youthful age at which to fill so responsible 
 a post. He had thus got ahead of his father in his station, for the 
 plugman holds a higher grade than the fireman, requiring more prac- 
 tical knowledge and skill. 
 
 From the time that George Stephenson was appointed fireman, and 
 more particularly afterward as engine-man, he applied himself so 
 assiduously and 7 successfully to the study of the engine and its gear- 
 ing taking the machine to pieces in his leisure hours for the pur- 
 pose of cleaning it and understanding its various parts that he soon 
 acquired a thorough practical knowledge of its construction and 
 mode of working, and very rarely needed to call the engineer of 
 the colliery to his aid. His engine became a sort of pet with him, 
 and he was never wearied of watching and inspecting it with admir- 
 ation. . 
 
 There is, indeed, a peculiar fascination about an engine to the per- 
 son whose duty it is to watch and work it. It is almost sublime in
 
 110 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 
 
 its untiring industry and quiet power; capable of performing the 
 most gigantic work, yet so docile that a child's hand may guide it. 
 No wonder, therefore, that the workman who is the daily companion 
 of this life-like machine, and is constantly watching it with anxious 
 care, at length comes to regard it with a degree of personal interest 
 and regard. This daily contemplation of the steam-engine, and the 
 sight of its steady action, is an education of itself to an ingenious 
 and thoughtful man. And it is a remarkable fact, that nearly all 
 that has been done for the improvement of this machine has been 
 accomplished, not by philosophers and scientific men, but by labor- 
 ers, mechanics, and engine-men. Indeed, it would appear as if this 
 were one of the departments of practical science in which the higher 
 powers of the human mind must bend to mechanical instinct. 
 
 Stephenson was now in his eighteenth year, but, like many of his 
 fellow- workmen, he had not yet learned to read. All that he could 
 do was to get some one to read for him by his engine-fire, out of 
 any book or stray newspaper which found its way into the neighbor- 
 hood. Bonaparte was then overrunning Italy, and astounding Europe 
 by his brilliant succession of victories ; and there was no more eager 
 auditor of his exploits, as read from the newspaper accounts, than the 
 young engine-man at the Water-row Pit. 
 
 Modeling of engines in clay continued to be one of his favorite 
 occupations. He made models of engines which he had seen, and of 
 others which were described to him. These attempts were an im- 
 provement upon his first trials at Dewley Burn bog, when occupied 
 there as a herd-boy. He was, however, anxious to know something 
 of the wonderful engines of Watt, and was told that they were to be 
 found fully described in books, which he must search for information 
 as to their construction, action, and uses. But, alas ! Stephenson 
 could not read ; he had not yet learned even his letters. 
 
 He shortly found that, to advance farther as a skilled workman, he 
 must master this wonderful art of reading. Although a grown man, 
 he was not ashamed to go to school to learn his letters. 
 
 His first school-master was Robin Cowens, who kept a night-school. 
 George took lessons in spelling and reading three nights in the week, 
 costing threepence a week, and at the age of nineteen he was proud 
 to be able to write his own name. A Scotch dominie, named 
 Andrew Robertson, set up a night-school in the village of Newburn 
 in the winter of 1799. George accordingly began taking lessons 
 from him, paying fourpence a week. Robert Gray told the author 
 that George "took to figures wonderful." George's secret was his 
 perseverance. He worked out the sums in his by-hours, improving 
 every minute of his spare time by the engine-fire. In the evenings, 
 he took to Robertson the sums which he had "worked," and new 
 ones were "set " for him to study out the following day. Thus his 
 progress was rapid. 
 
 George still found time to attend to his favorite animals while work-
 
 HIS PETS, HIS WAGES AND FAVORITE. m 
 
 ing ; like his father, he used to tempt the robin -redbreasts to hop and 
 fly about him at the engine-fire by the bait of bread-crumbs saved 
 from his dinner. But his chief favorite was his dog so sagacious 
 that he almost daily carried George's dinner to him at the pit. The 
 tin containing the meal was suspended from the dog's neck, and, 
 thus laden, he proceeded faithfully from Jolly's Close to Water-row 
 Pit, quite through the village of Newburn. He turned neither to left 
 nor right, nor heeded the barking of curs at his heels. But his 
 course was not unattended with perils. One day the big, strange dog 
 of a passing butcher, espying the engine-man's messenger with the 
 tin-can about his neck, ran after and fell upon him. There was a 
 terrible tussle and worrying, which lasted for a brief while, and, 
 shortly after, the dog's master, anxious for his dinner, saw his faith- 
 ful servant approaching, bleeding but triumphant. The tin-can was 
 still round his neck, but the dinner had been spilled in the struggle. 
 Though George went without his dinner that day, he was prouder of 
 his dog than ever when the circumstances of the combat were related 
 to him by the villagers who had seen it. 
 
 It was while working at the Water-row Pit that Stephenson learned 
 the art of braking an engine. This being one of the higher depart- 
 ments of colliery labor, and among the best paid, George was very 
 anxious to learn it. 
 
 After working at the Water-row Pit and at other engines near New- 
 burn for about three years, George went to Black Callerton early in 
 1810. Though only twenty years of age, his employers thought so 
 well of him that they appointed him to the responsible office of 
 brakeman at the Dolly Pit. For convenience' sake, he took lodgings 
 at a small farmer's in the village, finding his own victuals, and pay- 
 ing so much a week for lodging and attendance. In the locality 
 this was called " picklin in his awn poke neuk." It not urffrequently 
 happens that the young workman about the collieries, when selecting 
 a lodging, contrives to pitch his tent where the daughter of the 
 house ultimately becomes his wife. This is often the real attraction 
 that draws the youth from home, though a very different one may be 
 pretended. The monotony of George Stephenson's occupation as a 
 brakeman was somewhat varied by the change which he made, in his 
 turn, from the day to the night shift. His wages while working at 
 the Dolly Pit amounted to from i/. 15^. to 2/. in the fortnight ; but 
 he gradually added to them as he became more expert at shoe-mend- 
 ing, and afterward at shoe-making. 
 
 Probably he was stimulated to take in hand this extra work by the 
 attachment he had by this time formed for a young woman named 
 Fanny Henderson, who officiated as servant in the small farmer's 
 house in which he lodged. Her temper was one of the sweetest ; 
 and those who knew her were accustomed to speak of the charming 
 modesty of her demeanor, her kindness of disposition, and, withal, 
 her sound good sense.
 
 _T2 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 
 
 Not long after he began to work at Black Callerton, he had a 
 quarrel with Ned Nelson, a roystering bully, who was the terror of 
 the village. Stephenson was not able to please this pitman by the 
 way in which he drew him out of the pit, and Nelson swore at him 
 grossly because of the clumsiness of his braking. George defended 
 himself, and Nelson, after giving a great deal of abuse, threatened to 
 kick George, and ended by challenging him to a pitched battle, 
 when a day was fixed on which the fight was to come off. Great was 
 the excitement at Black Callerton when it was known ; all wished 
 that he might beat Nelson, but they scarcely dared to say so. They 
 came about him to inquire if it was really true that he was " goin' to 
 fight Nelson." "Ay; never fear for me; I'll fight him." So on 
 the evening appointed, after George had done his day's labor, he 
 went into the Dolly Pit Field, where his already exulting rival was 
 ready to meet him. George stripped, and "went in" like a prac- 
 ticed pugilist, though it was his first and last fight. After a few 
 rounds, George's wiry muscles and practiced strength enabled him 
 severely to punish his adversary and to secure an easy victory. 
 
 This circumstance is related in illustration of Stephenson's personal 
 pluck and courage, and it was thoroughly characteristic of the man. 
 He was no pugilist, and the reverse of quarrelsome. But he would 
 not be put down by the bully of the colliery, and he fought him. 
 There his pugilism ended ; they afterward shook hands, and continued 
 good friends. In after life Stephenson's mettle was often as hardly 
 tried, though in a different way, and he did not fail to exhibit the 
 same courage in contending with the bullies of the railway world as 
 he showed in his encounter with Ned Nelson, the fighting pitman of 
 Callerton. 
 
 ENGINE-MAN AT WILLINGTON QUAY AND KILLINGWORTH. 
 
 George Stephenson had now acquired the character of an expert 
 workman. He was diligent and observant while at work, and sober 
 and studious when the day's work was done. On pay-Saturday after^ 
 noons, when the pit-men held their fortnightly holiday, occupying 
 themselves chiefly in cock-fighting and dog-fighting in the adjoining 
 fields, followed by adjournments to the "yel-house," George was 
 accustomed to take his engine to pieces, for the purpose of obtaining 
 "insight," and he cleaned all the parts, and put the machine in 
 thorough working order before leaving her. 
 
 After working at Callerton for about two years, Stephenson re- 
 ceived an offer to take charge of the engine on Willington Ballast 
 Hill at advanced wages. He determined to accept it, and at the 
 same time, to marry Fanny Henderson, and begin house-keeping on 
 his own account. Though he was only twenty-one years old, he had 
 contrived, by thrift, steadiness, and industry, to save as much money
 
 HIS INDUSTRY. 113 
 
 as enabled him, with the help of Fanny's small hoard, to take a cottage- 
 dwelling at Willington Quay, and furnish it in a humble but com- 
 fortable style for the reception of his bride. 
 
 When the cottage-dwelling had been made snug, the marriage took 
 place in Newburn Church on the 28th of November, 1802. George 
 Stephenson's signature, as it stands in the register, is that of a person 
 who seems to have just learned to write. 
 
 George Stephenson diligently set himself to study the principles of 
 mechanics, and to master the laws by which his engine worked. For 
 a workman, he was, even at that time, more than ordinarily specula- 
 tive, often taking up strange theories, and trying to sift out the truth 
 that was in them. While sitting by the side of his young wife in his cot- 
 tage-dwelling in the winter evenings, he was usually occupied in 
 studying mechanical subjects, or in modeling experimental machines. 
 
 Among his various speculations, he tried to discover a means of 
 Perpetual Motion. Although he failed, as so many others had done 
 before him, the very efforts he made tended to whet his inventive 
 faculties, and to call forth his dormant powers. Where he had first 
 obtained the idea of this machine whether from conversation, or 
 reading, or his own thoughts, is not known; but his son Robert was 
 of opinion that he had heard of an apparatus of this kind, as described 
 in the "History of Inventions." 
 
 Much of his spare time continued to be occupied by labor more 
 immediately profitable. In the evenings, he would occasionally em- 
 ploy himself for a few hours in casting ballast out of the collier 
 ships, by which means he was enabled to earn a few shillings weekly. 
 Mr. William Fairbairn, of Manchester, informed the writer that, 
 while Stephenson was employed at the Willington Ballast Hill, he 
 himself was working in the neighborhood as an engine apprentice at 
 the Percy Main Colliery. He was very fond of George, who was a 
 fine, hearty fellow, besides being a capital workman. In the summer 
 evenings young Fairbairn was accustomed to go down to Willington 
 to see his friend, and on such occasions he would frequently take 
 charge of George's engine for a few hours, to enable him to take a 
 two or three hours' turn at heaving ballast out of the ship's holds. 
 It is pleasant to think of the future President of the British Asso- 
 ciation thus helping the future Railway Engineer to earn a few extra 
 shillings by overwork in the evenings, at a time when both occupied 
 the rank but of humble working men in an obscure northern village. 
 
 Mr. Fairbairn was also a frequent visitor at George's cottage on the 
 Quay, where, though there was no luxury, there was comfort, cleanli- 
 ness, and a pervading spirit of industry. Even at home George was 
 never for a moment idle. When there was no ballast to heave, he 
 took in shoes to mend; and, from mending, he proceeded to making 
 them, as well as shoe-lasts, in which he was admitted to be very ex- 
 pert. William Coe, who continued to live at Willington in 1851, in- 
 formed the writer that he bought a pair of shoes from George Stephen- 
 8
 
 114 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 
 
 son for "js. 6d., and he remembered that they were a capital fit, and 
 wore very well. 
 
 But an accident occurred in Stephenson's household about this 
 time, which had the effect of directing his industry into a new and 
 still more profitable channel. The cottage chimney took fire one day 
 in his absence, when the alarmed neighbors, rushing in, threw quan- 
 tities of water upon the flames ; and some, in their zeal, even mounted 
 the ridge of the house, and poured buckets of water down the chim- 
 ney. The fire was soon put out, but the house was thoroughly soaked. 
 When George came home, he found the water running out of the 
 door, every thing in disorder, and his new furniture covered with 
 soot. The eight-day clock, which hung against the wall one of the 
 most highly-prized articles in the house was seriously damaged by 
 the steam with which the room had been filled. Its wheels were so 
 clogged by the dust and soot, that it was brought to a complete 
 stand-still. 
 
 George was advised to send the article to the clock-maker, but 
 that would cost money; and he declared that he would repair it 
 himself at least he would try. The clock was accordingly taken to 
 pieces and cleaned ; the tools which he had been accumulating for 
 the purpose of constructing his Perpetual Motion machine readily 
 enabled him to do this, and he succeeded so well that, shortly after, 
 the neighbors sent him their clocks to clean, and he soon became one 
 of the most expert clock-cleaners in the neighborhood. 
 
 It was while living at Willington Quay that George Stephenson's 
 only son was born on the i6th of October, 1803. The christening 
 of the boy took place at Walsend. 
 
 After working for about three years as a brakeman at the Willing- 
 ton machine, George Stephenson was induced to leave his situa- 
 tion for a similar one at the West Moor Colliery. To this place 
 Stephenson first came as a brakeman about the end of 1804. He 
 had not been long in his new home ere his wife died of consumption, 
 leaving him with his only child Robert. George deeply felt the loss, 
 for his wife and he had been very happy together. Their lot had 
 been sweetened by daily successful toil. 
 
 Shortly after this event he received an invitation from some gentle- 
 man concerned in large spinning-works near Montrose, in Scotland, 
 to proceed thither and superintend the working of one of Boulton and 
 Watt's engines. Having left his boy in charge of his housekeeper, he 
 set out on the journey to Scotland, on foot, with his kit upon his back. 
 At Montrose he gave proof of practical ability in contrivance. The 
 water required for the purposes of his engine, as well as for the use of 
 the works, was pumped from a considerable depth. The pumps fre- 
 quently got choked by the sand drawn in at the bottom of the well. The 
 barrels became worn, and the bucket and clack leathers destroyed, so 
 that it became necessary to devise a remedy; and he proceeded to adopt 
 this original expedient. He had a wooden box or boot made, twelve
 
 GOES TO SCOTLAND. 115 
 
 feet high, which he placed in the well, and into this he inserted the 
 pump. The result was that water flowed clear over into the boot, 
 and was drawn up without admixture of sand. 
 
 During his stay in Scotland, Stephenson saved 28/., which he took 
 back with him to Killingworth, after an absence of about a year. 
 Longing to get back to his kindred, and yearning for the boy whom 
 he left, he trudged back to Killingworth on foot as he had gone. 
 He related to his friend Coe, on his return, that when on the borders 
 of Northumberland, late one evening, foot-sore and wearied with his 
 long day's journey, he knocked at a small farmer's cottage door, and 
 requested shelter for the night. It was refused ; and then he en- 
 treated, being sore, tired, and unable to proceed any farther, they 
 would permit him to lie down in the out-house, for that a little clean 
 straw would serve him. The farmer's wife appeared at the door, 
 looked at the traveler, then retiring with her husband, the two con- 
 fabulated a little apart, and finally they invited Stephenson into the 
 cottage. Always full of conversation and anecdote, he soon made him- 
 self at home in the farmer's family, and spent with them some pleas- 
 ant hours. He was hospitably entertained for the night, and when 
 he left the cottage in the morning, he pressed them to make some 
 charge for his lodging, but they refused to accept any recompense. 
 They only asked him to remember them kindly, and if he ever came 
 that way, to be sure and call again. Many years after, when Ste- 
 phenson had become a thriving man, he did not forget the humble 
 pair who had thus succored and entertained him on his way; he 
 sought their cottage again, when age had silvered their hair ; and 
 when he left the aged couple on that occasion, they may have been 
 reminded of the old saying, that we may sometimes "entertain angels 
 unawares. ' ' 
 
 Reaching home, Stephenson found that his father had met with a 
 serious accident at Blucher Pit, which had reduced him to great dis- 
 tress and poverty ; his eye-sight was irretrievably lost. The helpless 
 and infirm man had struggled for a time with poverty ; his sons who 
 were at home, poor as himself, were little able to help him, while 
 George was at a distance in Scotland. On his return, however, with 
 his savings in his pocket, his first step was to pay off his father's 
 debts, amounting to about is/./ and, shortly after, he removed the 
 aged pair to a comfortable cottage, where the old man lived for 
 many years supported by his son. 
 
 Stephenson does not seem to have been very hopeful as to his pros- 
 pects in life at the time. Indeed, the condition of the working 
 classes was then very discouraging. England was engaged in a great 
 war, which pressed upon the industry, and severely tried the resources 
 of the country. There was a constant demand for men to fill the 
 drmy, navy, and militia. Never before had England witnessed such 
 drumming and fifing for recruits. 
 
 George Stephenson was one of those drawn for the militia. He
 
 Il6 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 
 
 must therefore either quit his work and go a-soldiering, or find a 
 substitute. He adopted the latter course, and borrowed 6/., which, 
 with the remainder of his savings, enabled him to provide a militia- 
 man to serve in his stead. Thus the whole of his hard-won earnings 
 were swept away at a stroke. He was almost in despair, and contem- 
 plated the idea of leaving the country, and emigrating to the United 
 States. His sister Ann, with her husband, emigrated about that time, 
 but George could not raise the requisite money. His poverty rooted 
 him to the place where he afterward worked out his career so man- 
 fully and victoriously. 
 
 In 1808 Stephenson, with two other brakemen, took a small con- 
 tract under the colliery lessees, braking the engines at the West 
 Moor Pit. George found that the ropes which, at other pits in the 
 neighborhood, lasted about three months, at the West Moor Pit be- 
 came worn out in about a month. He set himself to ascertain the 
 cause ; and, finding it was occasioned by excessive friction, he shifted 
 the pulley-wheels so that they worked immediately over the center of 
 the pit. By an entire re-arrangement of the gearing of the machine, 
 he succeeded in greatly lessening the wear and tear of the ropes, to 
 the advantage of the owners as well as the workmen. 
 
 " In the year 1810 an atmospheric or Newcomen engine, originally 
 made by Smeaton, was fixed at a new pit for the purpose of pump- 
 ing out the water ; but, somehow, the engine failed to clear the pit. 
 The engine had been fruitlessly pumping for nearly twelve months, 
 and came to be regarded as a total failure. Stephenson had gone to 
 look at it when in course of erection, and then observed to the over- 
 man that he thought it was defective ; he also gave it as his opinion 
 that if there were much water in the mine, the engine could never 
 keep it under. Of course, as he was only a brakeman, his opinion 
 was considered to be worth very little on such a point. He continued, 
 however, to make frequent visits to the engine to see " how she was 
 getting on." From the bank-head where he worked his brake he 
 could see the chimney smoking at the High Pit ; and, as the work- 
 men were passing to and from their work, he would call and inquire 
 " if they had gotten to the bottom yet." And the reply was always to 
 the same effect the pumping made no progress, and the workmen 
 were still "drowned out." 
 
 One Saturday afternoon he went over to the High Pit to examine 
 the engine more carefully than he had yet done. He had been turn- 
 ing the subject over in his mind, and, after a long examination, he 
 seemed to have satisfied himself as to the cause of the failure. Kit 
 Heppel, one of the sinkers, asked him, "Weel, George, what do you 
 mak' o' her? Do you think you could do any thing to improve her?" 
 "Man," said George, in reply, "I could alter her and make her 
 draw; in a week's time from this I could send you to the bottom." 
 
 Heppel at once reported this conversation to Ralph Dodds, the 
 head viewer, who, being now quite in despair, and hopeless of sue-
 
 HIS SUCCESS AT THE HIGH PIT. 117 
 
 ceeding with the engine, determined to give George's skill a trial. 
 George had already acquired the character of a very clever and 
 ingenious workman, and, at the worst, he could only fail, as the rest 
 had done. 
 
 In the evening Dodds went in search of Stephenson, and met him 
 on the road, dressed in his Sunday's suit, on his way to "the 
 preaching" in the Methodist Chapel, which he at that time attended. 
 "Well, George," said Dodds, "they tell me that you think you can 
 put the engine at the High Pit to rights." "Yes, sir," said George, 
 "I think I could." "If that's the case, I'll give you a fair trial, 
 and you must set to work immediately. We are clean drowned out, 
 and can not get a step farther. The engineers hereabouts are all bet ; 
 and if you really succeed in accomplishing what they can not do, 
 you may depend upon it I will make you a man for life." 
 
 Stephenson began his operations early next morning. The only 
 condition that he made, before setting to work, was that he should 
 select his own workmen. There was, as he knew, a good deal of jeal- 
 ousy am^ng the "regular" men that a colliery brakeman should pre- 
 tend to know more about their engine than they themselves did, and 
 attempt to remedy defects which the most skilled men of their craft, 
 including the engineer of the colliery, had failed to do. But George 
 made the condition a sine qua non. "The workmen," said he, "must 
 either be all Whigs or all Tories." There was no help for it, so Dodds 
 ordered the old hands to stand aside. The men grumbled, but gave 
 way; and then George and his party went in. 
 
 The engine was taken entirely to pieces. The cistern containing 
 the injection water was raised ten feet ; the injection cock, being too 
 small, was enlarged to nearly double its former size, and it was so ar- 
 ranged that it should be shut off quickly at the beginning of the stroke. 
 These and other alterations were necessarily performed in a rough 
 way, but, as the result proved, on true principles. Stephenson also, 
 finding that the boiler would bear a greater pressure than five pounds 
 to the inch, determined to work it at a pressure of ten pounds, 
 though this was contrary to the directions of both Newcomen and 
 Smeaton. 
 
 The necessary alterations were made in about three days, and many 
 persons came to see the engine start, including the men who had put 
 her up. The pit being nearly full of water, she had little to do on 
 starting, and, to use George's words, "came bounce into the house." 
 Dodds exclaimed, " Why, she was better as she was ; now she will 
 knock the house down." After a short time, however, the engine 
 got fairly to work, and by ten o'clock that night the water was lower 
 in the pit than it had ever been before. The engine was kept pump- 
 ing all Thursday, and by the Friday afternoon the pit was cleared of 
 water, and the workmen were "sent to the bottom," as Stephenson 
 had promised. Thus the alterations effected in the pumping appara- 
 tus proved completely successful.
 
 Il8 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 
 
 Mr. Dodds was particularly gratified with the manner in which the 
 job had been done, and he made Stephenson a present of ten pounds, 
 which, though very inadequate when compared with the value of the 
 work performed, was accepted with gratitude. George was proud of 
 the gift as the first marked recognition of his skill as a workman ; 
 and he used afterward to say that it was the biggest sum of money 
 he had, up to that time, earned in one lump. Ralph Dodds, how- 
 ever, did more than this ; he released the brakeman from the handles 
 of his engine at West Moor, and appointed him engine-man at the 
 High Pit, at good wages, during the time the pit was sinking the 
 job lasting for about a year; and he also kept him in mind for far- 
 ther advancement. 
 
 Stephenson's skill as an engine-doctor soon became noised abroad, 
 and he was called upon to prescribe remedies for all the old, 
 wheezy, and ineffective pumping-machines in the neighborhood. In 
 this capacity he soon left the " regular" men far behind, though they, 
 in their turn, were very much disposed to treat the Killingworth 
 brakeman as no better than a quack. Nevertheless, his prd^atice was 
 really founded upon a close study of the principles of mechanics, and 
 on an intimate practical acquaintance with the details of the pump- 
 ing engine. 
 
 Another of his smaller achievements in the same line is still told 
 by the people of the district. At the corner of the road leading to 
 Long Benton there was a quarry from which a peculiar and scarce 
 kind of ochre was taken. In the course of working it out, the water 
 had collected in considerable quantities ; and there being no means 
 of draining it off, it accumulated to such an extent that the farther 
 working of the ochre was almost entirely stopped. Ordinary pumps 
 were tried, and failed ; and then a windmill was tried, and failed too. 
 On this, George was asked what ought to be done to clear the quarry 
 of the water. He said "he would set up for them an engine, little 
 bigger than a kail-pot, that would clear them out in a week." And 
 he did so. A little engine was speedily erected, by means of which 
 the quarry was pumped dry in the course of a few days. Thus his 
 skill as a pump-doctor soon became the marvel of the district. 
 
 In elastic muscular vigor Stephenson was now in his prime, and he 
 still continued zealous in measuring his strength and agility with his 
 fellow-workmen. The competitive element in his nature was always 
 strong, and his success in these feats of rivalry was certainly remark- 
 able. Few, if any, could lift such weights, throw the hammer, and 
 put the stone so far, or cover so great a space at a standing or running 
 leap. One day, between the engine hour and the rope-rolling hour, 
 Kit Heppel challenged him to leap from one high wall to another, 
 with a deep gap between. To Heppel's surprise and dismay, George 
 took the standing leap, and cleared the eleven feet at a bound. Had 
 his eye been less accurate, or his limbs less agile and sure, the feat 
 must have cost him his life.
 
 THE. GRAND ALLIES. 1 19 
 
 But so full of redundant muscular vigor was he, that leaping, put- 
 ting, or throwing the hammer, were not enough for him. He was 
 also ambitious of riding on horseback ; afid, as he had not yet been 
 promoted to an office enabling him to keep a horse of his own, he 
 sometimes borrowed one of the gin-horses for a ride. On one of these 
 occasions he brought the animal back reeking, when Tom Mitcheson, 
 the bank horse-keeper, a rough-spoken fellow, exclaimed to him, "Set 
 such fellows as you on horseback, and you'll soon ride to the De'il." 
 But Tommy Mitcheson lived to tell the story, and to confess that, 
 after all, there had been a better issue of George's h6rsemanship than 
 what he had predicted. 
 
 Old Cree, the engine-wright at Killingworth High Pit, having been 
 killed by an accident, George Stephenson was, in 1812, appointed 
 engine-wright of the colliery at the salary of 100 a year. He was 
 also allowed the use of a galloway to ride upon in his visits of in- 
 spection to the collieries leased by the "Grand Allies" in that 
 neighborhood. 
 
 The "Grand Allies" were a company of gentlemen, consisting of 
 Sir Thomas Liddell (afterward Lord Ravensworth), the Earl of Strath- 
 more, and Mr. Stuart Wortley (afterward Lord Wharncliffe), the 
 lessees of the Killingworth collieries. Having been informed of the 
 merits of Stephenson, of his indefatigable industry, and the skill 
 which he had displayed in the repairs of the Dumping-engines, they 
 readily acceeded to Mr. Dodds' recommendation that he should be 
 appointed the colliery engine-wright ; and, as we shall afterward find, 
 they continued to honor him by distinguished marks of their ap- 
 proval. 
 
 THE STEPHENSONS AT KILLINGWORTH EDUCATION AND SELF- 
 EDUCATION OF FATHER AND SON. 
 
 George Stephenson had been diligently employed for several 
 years in self-improvement, and experienced the usual results in in- 
 creasing mental strength, capability, and skill. Every man's best 
 success is found in the alacrity and industry with which he takes 
 advantage of opportunities which present themselves for well-doing. 
 He was an eminent illustration of the importance of cultivating this 
 habit of life. Every spare moment was laid under contribution to 
 add to his earnings or his knowledge. He missed no opportunity 
 of observation in his own department. 
 
 He continued his attempts to solve the mystery of Perpetual 
 Motion, and contrived several model machines with the object of 
 embodying his ideas in a practical working shape. He afterward 
 lamented the time lost in these futile efforts, and said if he had en- 
 joyed the opportunities of learning from books what previous experi- 
 menters had done, he would have been spared much labor and mor-
 
 120 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 
 
 tification. Not knowing, he groped his way by his own independent 
 thinking and observation, when, lo ! he found that his supposed 
 invention had long been known. Often he hit upon discoveries 
 which were but old and exploded fallacies. Yet his very struggle 
 was of itself an education of the best sort. By wrestling with them, 
 he strengthened his judgment, and sharpened his skill and mechanical 
 ingenuity. Being very much in earnest, he was compelled to con- 
 sider the subject of his special inquiry in all its relations, and thus 
 he gradually acquired practical ability through his very efforts after 
 the impracticable. 
 
 Many of his evenings were spent in the society of John Wigham. 
 Under Andrew Robertson he had never quite mastered the Rule of 
 Three, and it was only with Wigham that he made progress in the 
 higher branches of arithmetic. John Wigham was of great use to 
 his pupil in many ways. He was a good talker, fond of argument, 
 an extensive reader, as country reading went in those days, and a 
 very suggestive thinker. He taught him to draw plans and sections. 
 One who remembers their evening occupation, says he "used to won- 
 der what they meant by weighing the air and water in so odd a 
 way." They were trying the specific gravities of objects; and the 
 devices which they employed, the mechanical shifts to which they 
 were put, were often of the rudest kind. In these evening enter- 
 tainments the mechanical contrivances were supplied by Stephenson, 
 while Wigham found the scientific rationale. The opportunity thus 
 afforded to the former of cultivating his mind by contact with one 
 wiser than himself proved of great value, and in after life Stephenson 
 gratefully remembered the assistance which, when a humble workman, 
 he had received from John Wigham, the farmer's son. 
 
 His leisure moments thus carefully improved, it will be inferred 
 that Stephenson continued a sober man. Though his notions were 
 never extreme on this point, he was systematically, temperate. It 
 appears that on the invitation of his master, Ralph Dodds, and an 
 invitation from a master to a workman is not easy to resist, he had, 
 on one or two occasions, been induced to join him in a forenoon 
 glass of ale in the public-house of the village. But one day, about 
 noon, when Mr. Dodds had got him as far as the public-house door, 
 on his invitation to " come in and take a glass o' yel," Stephenson 
 made a dead stop, and said, firmly, " No, sir, you must excuse me; 
 I have made a resolution to drink no more at this time of day." 
 And he went back. He desired to retain the character of a steady 
 workman ; and the instances of men about him who had made ship- 
 wreck of their character through intemperance were then, as now, 
 unhappily too frequent. 
 
 But another consideration besides his own self-improvement had 
 already begun to exercise an important influence upon his life. This 
 was the training and education of his son Robert, now growing up 
 an active, intelligent boy, as full of fun and tricks as his father had
 
 MAINTAINS HIS PARENTS. 121 
 
 been. When a little fellow, scarce big enough to reach so high as to 
 put a clock-head on when placed upon the table, his father would 
 make him mount a chair for the purpose ; and to "help father" was 
 the proudest work which the boy then, and ever after, could take 
 part in. When the little engine was set up at the Ochre Quarry to 
 pump it dry, Robert was scarcely absent for an hour. He watched 
 the machine very eagerly when it was set to work, and he was very 
 much annoyed at the fire burning away the grates. The man who 
 fired the engine jvas a sort of wag, and thinking to get a laugh at 
 the boy, he said, " Those bars are getting varra bad, Robert ; I think 
 we maun cut up some of that hard wood, and put it in instead." 
 " What would be the use of that, you fool?" said the boy, quickly. 
 " You would no sooner have put them in than they would be burnt 
 out again." 
 
 So soon as Robert was of a proper age, his father sent him over to 
 the road-side school at Long Benton ; but the education was of a 
 very limited kind, scarcely extending beyond the primer and pot- 
 hooks. 
 
 George was still maintaining his infirm parents, and the cost of 
 living continued excessive. But he fell back, as before, upon his old 
 expedient of working up his spare time in the evenings at home, or 
 during the night shifts when it was his turn to tend the engine, in 
 mending and making shoes, cleaning clocks and watches, making 
 shoe-lasts for the shoemakers of the neighborhood, and cutting out 
 the pitmen's clothes for their wives ; and we have been told that to 
 this day there are clothes worn at Killingworth rriade after " Geordie 
 Steevie's cut." To give his own words: " In the earlier period of 
 my career," said he, " when Robert was a little boy, I saw how defi- 
 cient I was in education, and I made up my mind that he should not 
 labor under the same defect, but that I would put him to a good 
 school, and give him a liberal training. I was, however, a poor man; 
 and how do you think I managed ? I betook myself to mending my 
 neighbors' clocks and watches at nights, after my daily labor was done, 
 and thus I procured the means of educating my son." 
 
 By dint of such extra labor in his by-hours, with this object, 
 Stephenson contrived to save a sum of ioo/., which he accumulated in 
 guineas, each of which he afterward sold to Jews, who went about buying 
 up gold coins (then dearer than silver), at twenty-six shillings apiece; 
 and he lent out the proceeds at interest. He was now, therefore, a 
 comparatively thriving man. When he was appointed engine-wright 
 of the colliery, Robert was sent to Mr. Bruce's school in Percy Street, 
 Newcastle, at mid-summer, 1815, when he was about twelve years old. 
 His father bought for him a donkey, on which he rode into Newcastle 
 and back daily. 
 
 During the time Robert attended school at Newcastle, his father 
 made the boy's education instrumental to his own. Robert was ac- 
 customed to spend some of his spare time at the rooms of the Literary
 
 122 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 
 
 and Philosophical Institute, and when he went home in the evening 
 he would recount to his father the results of his reading. Sometimes 
 he was allowed to take with him to Killingworth a volume of the 
 " Repertory of Arts and Sciences," which father and son studied to- 
 gether. But many of the most valuable works belonging to the New- 
 castle Library were not permitted to be removed from the rooms ; 
 these Robert was instructed to read and study, and bring away with 
 him descriptions and sketches for his father's information. His 
 father also practiced him in the reading of plans and drawings, with- 
 out at all referring to the written descriptions. He used to observe 
 to his son, "A good drawing or plan should always explain itself;" 
 and, placing a drawing of an engine or machine before the youth, he 
 would say, " There, now, describe that to me the arrangement and 
 the action?" Thus he taught him to read a drawing as easily as he 
 would read a page of a book. Both father and son profited by this 
 excellent practice, which shortly enabled them to apprehend with the 
 greatest facility the details of even the most difficult and complicated 
 mechanical drawing. 
 
 While Robert went on with his lessons in the evenings, his father 
 was usually occupied with his watch and clock cleaning, or contriving 
 models of pumping-engines, or endeavoring to embody in a tangible 
 shape the mechanical inventions which he found described in the odd 
 volumes on Mechanics which fell in his way. This daily and unceas- 
 ing example of industry and application, working on before the boy's 
 eyes in the person of a loving and beloved father, imprinted itself 
 deeply upon his mind in characters never to be effaced. A spirit of 
 self-improvement was thus early and carefully planted and fostered in 
 him, which continued to influence his character through life; and 
 toward the close of his career he was proud to confess that if his pro- 
 fessional success had been great, it was mainly to the example and 
 training of his father that he owed it. 
 
 Robert was not, however, exclusively devoted to study, but, like 
 most boys, full of animal spirits ; he was very fond of fun and play, 
 and sometimes of mischief. Robert, like his father, was very fond 
 of reducing his scientific reading to practice ; and after studying 
 Franklin's description of the lightning experiment, he proceeded to 
 expend his store of Saturday pennies in purchasing about half a mile 
 of copper wire at a brazier's shop in Newcastle. Having prepared 
 his kite, he set it up in the field opposite his father's door, and bring- 
 ing the wire, insulated by means of a few feet of silk cord, over the 
 backs of some of Farmer Wigham's cows, he soon had them skipping 
 about the field in all directions with their tails up. One day he had 
 his kite flying at the cottage door as his father's galloway was hanging 
 by the bridle to the paling, waiting for the master to mount. Bring- 
 ing the end of the wire just over the pony's crupper, so smart an 
 electric shock was given it that the brute was almost knocked down. 
 At this juncture his father issued from the house, riding-whip in
 
 GROWER OF HUGE VEGETABLES. 123 
 
 hand, and was witness to the scientific trick just played off upon his 
 galloway. "Ah! you mischievous second rel !" cried he to the boy, 
 who ran off, himself inwardly chuckling with pride, nevertheless, at 
 Robert's successful experiment. 
 
 At this time, and for many years after, Stephenson dwelt in a cot- 
 tage standing by the side of the road leading from the West Moor 
 Pit to Killingworth. 
 
 There was a little garden attached to the cottage, in which, while 
 a workman, Stephenson took a pride in growing gigantic leeks and 
 astonishing cabbages. There was great competition in the growing 
 of vegetables among the villagers, all of whom he excelled excepting 
 one, whose cabbages sometimes outshone his. To protect his garden- 
 crops from the ravages of the birds, he invented a strange sort of 
 "fley-craw," which moved its arms with the wind; and he fastened 
 his garden door by means of a piece of ingenious mechanism, so that 
 no one but himself could enter it. His cottage was quite a curiosity- 
 shop of models of engines, self-acting planes, and perpetual-motion 
 machines. 
 
 He also contrived a wonderful lamp which burned under water, 
 with which he was afterward wont to amuse the Brandling family at 
 Gosforth going into the fish-pond at night, lamp in hand, attracting 
 and catching the fish, which rushed wildly toward the flame. 
 
 Dr. Bruce tells of a competition which Stephenson had with the 
 joiner at Killingworth as to which of them could make the best 
 shoe-last ; and when the former had done his work, either for the 
 humor of the thing or to secure fair play from the appointed judge, 
 he took it to the Morrisons in Newcastle, and got them to put 
 their stamp upon it ; so that it is possible the Killingworth brake- 
 man, afterward the inventor of a safety-lamp and originator of the 
 locomotive railway system, and John Morrison, the last-maker, after- 
 ward the translator of the Scriptures into the Chinese language, 
 may have confronted each other in solemn contemplation of the suc- 
 cessful last, which won the verdict coveted by its maker. 
 
 Sometimes George would endeavor to impart to his fellow-workmen 
 the results of his scientific reading. Every thing that he learned 
 from books was so new and so wonderful to him, that he regarded 
 the facts he drew from them in the light of discoveries, as if they 
 had been made but yesterday. Once he tried to explain to some of 
 the pitmen how the earth was round, and kept turning round. But 
 his auditors flatly declared the thing to be impossible, as it was clear 
 that "at the bottom side they must fall off!" "Ah ! " said George, 
 "you don't quite understand it yet." His son Robert also early 
 endeavored to communicate to others the information which he had 
 gathered at school ; and Dr. Bruce relates that, when visiting Kill- 
 ingworth on one occasion, he found him engaged in teaching algebra 
 to such of the pitmen's boys as would become his pupils. 
 
 While Robert was still at school, his father proposed to him during
 
 124 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 
 
 the holidays that he should construct a sun-dial, to be placed over 
 their cottage door at West Moor. "I expostulated with him at first," 
 said Robert, " that I had not learned sufficient astronomy and math- 
 ematics to enable me to make the necessary calculations. But he 
 would have no denial. 'The thing is to be done,' said he, 'so just 
 set about it at once." Well, we got a 'Ferguson's Astronomy," and 
 studied the subject together. Many a sore head I had while making 
 the necessary calculations to adapt the dial to the latitude of Killing- 
 worth. But at length it was fairly drawn out on paper, and then my 
 father got a stone, and we hewed, and carved, and polished it, until 
 we made a very respectable dial of it; and there it is, you see," 
 pointing to it over the cottage door, "still quietly numbering the 
 hours when the sun shines. I assure you, not a little was thought of 
 that piece of work by the pitmen, when it was put up and began to 
 tell its tale of time." The date carved upon the dial is "August 
 nth, MDCCCXVI." Both father and son were, in after-life, very proud 
 of their joint production. Many years after, George took a party of 
 savans, when attending the meeting of the British Association at 
 Newcastle, over to Killingworth, to see the pits, and he did not fail 
 to direct their attention to the sun-dial; and Robert, on the last visit 
 which he made to the place, a short time before his death, took a 
 friend into the cottage, and pointed out to him the very desk, still 
 there, at which he had sat when making his calculations of the lati- 
 tude of Killingworth. 
 
 From the time of his appointment as engineer at the Killingworth 
 Pit, George Stephenson was relieved from the daily routine of manual 
 labor, having advanced himself to the grade of a higher-class work- 
 man. Among other works of this time, he projected and laid down a 
 self-acting incline along the declivity which fell toward the coal- 
 loading place near Wellington, where he had formerly officiated as 
 brakeman ; and so arranged it that the full wagons, descending, 
 drew the empty wagons up the railroad. This was one of the first 
 self-acting inclines laid down in the district. 
 
 The following is Stephenson's own account of his various duties 
 and labors at this period of his life, as given before a Committee of 
 the House of Commons in 1835 :* 
 
 "After making some improvements in the steam-engines above 
 ground, I was requested by the manager of the colliery to go under- 
 ground along with him, to see if any improvements could be made 
 in the mines by employing machinery as a substitute for manual labor 
 and horse-power, in bringing the coals out of the deeper workings of 
 the mine. On my first going down the Killingworth pit, there was a 
 steam-engine underground for the purpose of drawing water from a 
 pit that was sunk at some distance from the first shaft. The Killing- 
 worth coal field is considerably dislocated. After the colliery was 
 
 * Evidence given before the Select Committee on Accidents in Mines, 1835.
 
 IMPROVEMENTS IN COLLIERIES. 125 
 
 opened, at a very short distance from the shaft, one of those disloca- 
 tions was met with. The coal was thrown down about forty yards. 
 Considerable time was spent in sinking another pit to this depth. 
 And on my going down to examine the work, I proposed making 
 the engine (which had been erected some time previously) to draw 
 the coals up an inclined plane which descended immediately from 
 the place where it was fixed. A considerable change was accordingly 
 made in the mode of working the colliery, not only in applying the 
 machinery, but in employing putters instead of horses in bringing 
 the coals from the hewers; and by those changes the number of 
 horses in the pit was reduced from about 100 to 15 or 16. During 
 the time I was engaged in making these important alterations, I went 
 round the workings in the pit with the viewer almost every time that 
 he went into the mine, not only at Killingworth, but at Mountmoor, 
 Derwentcrook, Southmoor, all of which collieries belonged to Lord 
 Ravensworth and his partners; and the whole of the machinery in all 
 these collieries was put under my charge." 
 
 It will thus be observed that Stephenson had now much better op- 
 portunities for improving himself in mechanics than he had heretofore 
 possessed. His practical knowledge of the steam-engine could not 
 fail to prove of the greatest value to him. His shrewd insight, 
 together with his intimate acquaintance with its mechanism, enabled 
 him to apprehend, as if by intuition, its most abstruse and difficult 
 combinations. The study which he had given to it when a work- 
 man, and the patient manner in which he had groped his way through 
 all the details of the machine, gave him the power of a master in 
 dealing with it as applied to colliery purposes. 
 
 The subject of the locomotive engine was already occupying Stephen- 
 son's careful attention, although it was still regarded in the light of 
 a curious and costly toy, of comparatively little real use. But he had, 
 at an early period, recognized its practical value, and formed an ade- 
 quate conception of the might which as yet slumbered within it, and 
 he now proceeded to bend the whole faculties of his mind to the de- 
 velopment of its powers. 
 
 THE LOCOMOTIVE ENGINE GEORGE STEPHENSON BEGINS ITS 
 IMPROVEMENT. 
 
 The rapid increase in the coal-trade of the Tyne, about the begin- 
 ning of the present century, had the effect of stimulating the ingenuity 
 of mechanics, and encouraging them to devise improved methods of 
 transporting the coal from the pits to the shipping-places. The rail- 
 way wagons still continued to be drawn by horses. By improving 
 and flattening the tram-way, considerable economy in horse-power had 
 been secured ; but, unless some more effective method of mechanical 
 traction could be devised, it was clear that railway improvement had 
 almost reached its limits.
 
 126 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 
 
 Notwithstanding Trevithick's comparatively successful experiment 
 with the first railway locomotive on the Merthyr Tydvil tram-road in 
 1804, he seems to have taken no farther steps to bring his invention 
 into notice. He was probably discouraged by the breakage of the 
 cast-iron plates, of which the road was formed, which were crushed 
 under the load of his engine, and could not induce the owners of 
 the line to relay it with better materials so as to give his locomotive 
 a fair trial. Trevithick himself does not seem to have erected another 
 engine, but we gather from Mr. Rastrick that, ten or twelve years 
 before that time, he had made an engine for Trevithick after his 
 patent, and that the engine was exhibited in London. "A circular 
 railroad was laid down," said Mr. Rastrick, "and it was stated that 
 this engine was to run against a horse, and that which went a sufficient 
 number of miles was to win." It is not known what afterward became 
 of this engine. 
 
 There were, however, at a much earlier period, several wealthy and 
 enterprising men, both in Yorkshire and Northumberland, who were 
 willing to give the locomotive a fair trial ; and had Trevithick but 
 possessed the requisite tenacity of purpose had he not been too soon 
 discouraged by partially successful experiments he might have risen 
 to both fame and fortune, not only as the inventor of the locomotive, 
 but as the practical introducer of railway locomotion. 
 
 One of Trevithick's early friends and admirers was Mr. Blackett, 
 of Wylam. The Wylam wagon-way is one of the oldest in the north 
 of Erfgland. Down to the year 1807, it was formed of wooden spars 
 or rails, laid down between the colliery at Wylam where old Robert 
 Stephenson worked and the village of Lemington, some four miles 
 down the Tyne, where the coals were loaded into keels or barges, 
 and floated down past Newcastle, to be shipped for London. Each 
 chaldron-wagon had a man in charge of it, and was originally drawn 
 by one horse. The rate at which the wagons were hauled was so 
 slow that only two journeys were performed by each man and horse 
 in one day, and three on the day following. This primitive wagon- 
 way passed, as before stated, close in front of the cottage in which 
 George Stephenson was born, and one of the earliest sights which met 
 his infant eyes was this wooden tram-road worked by horses. 
 
 Mr. Blackett was the first colliery owner in the North who took an 
 active interest in the locomotive. He obtained from Trevithick, in 
 October, 1804, a plan of his engine, provided with " friction-wheels," 
 and employed Mr. John Whinfield, of Pipewellgate, Gateshead, to 
 construct it at his foundry there. The engine was made under the 
 superintendence of one John Steele, an ingenious mechanic, who had 
 been in Wales, and worked under Trevithick in fitting the engine at 
 Pen-y-darran. When the Gateshead locomotive was finished, a tem- 
 porary way was laid down in the .works, on which it was run back- 
 ward and forward many times. For some reason or other, however, 
 it is said because the engine was too light for drawing the coal-
 
 BLENKINSOP'S ENGINE. 127 
 
 trains, it never left the works, but was dismounted from the wheels, 
 and set to blow the cupola of the foundry, in which service it long 
 continued to be employed. 
 
 Mr. Blackett had the Wylam wooden tram-way taken up in 1808, 
 and a plate-way of cast iron laid down instead a single line, furnished 
 with sidings, to enable the laden wagons to pass the empty ones. The 
 new iron road proved so much smoother than the old wooden one, 
 that a single horse, instead of drawing one, was enabled to draw 
 two, or even three, laden wagons. Although the locomotive seemed 
 about to be lost sight of, it was not forgotten. In 1811, Mr. 
 Blenkinsop, the manager of the Middleton Collieries, near Leeds, 
 revived the idea of employing it in lieu of horses to haul the coals 
 along this tram-way, and in the patent which he took out for his pro- 
 posed engine, followed in many respects the design of Trevithick ; 
 but, with the help of Matthew Murray, of Leeds, one of the most 
 ingenious mechanics of his day, he introduced several important and 
 valuable modifications. 
 
 The principal new features in this engine were the two cylinders 
 and the toothed-wheel working into a rack-rail. Mr. Blenkinsop 
 contrived the latter expedient in order to insure sufficient adhesion 
 between the wheel and the road, supposing that smooth wheels and 
 smooth rails would be insufficient for the purpose. Clumsy and slow 
 though the engine was, compared with modern locomotives, it was 
 nevertheless a success. It was the first engine that plied regularly 
 upon any railway, doing useful work; and it continued so employed 
 for more than twenty years. What was more, it was a commercial 
 success, for its employment was found to be economical compared 
 with horse power. In a letter to Sir John Sinclair, Mr. Blenkinsop 
 stated that his engine weighed five tons; consumed two-thirds of a 
 hundred weight of coals and fifty gallons of water per hour ; drew 
 twenty-seven wagons, weighing ninety-four tons, on a dead level, at 
 three and a half miles an hour, or fifteen tons up an ascent of two 
 inches in the yard; that when "lightly loaded" it traveled at a speed 
 of ten miles an hour ; that it did the work of sixteen horses in twelve 
 hours ; and that its cost was 4oo/. Such was Mr. Blenkinsop's own 
 account of the performances of his engine, which was for a long time 
 regarded as one of the wonders of the neighborhood. 
 
 The Messrs. Chapman, of Newcastle, in 1812, endeavored to over- 
 come the same fictitious difficulty of the want of adhension between 
 the wheel and the rail by patenting a locomotive to work along the 
 road by means of a chain stretched from one end of it to the other. 
 This chain was passed once round a grooved barrel-wheel under the 
 center of the engine, so that when the wheel turned, the locomotive, 
 as it were, dragged itself along the railway. An engine constructed 
 after this plan was tried on the Heaton Railway, near Newcastle ; 
 but it was so clumsy in action, there was so great a loss of power by 
 friction, and it was found to be so expensive and difficult to keep in
 
 128 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 
 
 repair, that it was very soon abandoned. Another remarkable ex- 
 pedient was adopted by Mr. Brunton, of the Butterley Works, Derby- 
 shire, who in 1813 patented his Mechanical Traveler, to go upon legs 
 working alternately like those of a horse. But this engine never got 
 beyond the experimental state, for, at its very first trial, the driver, to 
 make sure of a good start, overloaded the safety-valve, when the boiler 
 burst and killed a number of the by-standers, wounding many more. 
 These, and other contrivances with the same object, projected about 
 the same time, show that invention was busily at work, and that many 
 minds were anxiously laboring to solve the problem of steam locomo- 
 tion on railways. 
 
 Mr. Blackett, of Wylam, was encouraged by the success of Mr. 
 Blenkinsop's experiment, and again he resolved to make a trial of the 
 locomotive upon his wagon-way. Accordingly, in 1812, he ordered 
 a second engine, which was so designed as to work with a toothed 
 driving-wheel upon a rack-rail, as at Leeds. Notwithstanding, how- 
 ever, the comparative failure of the second locomotive, Mr. Blackett 
 persevered with his experiments. One of the chief causes of failure 
 being the rack-rail, the idea occurred to Mr. Hedley, that it might be 
 possible to secure sufficient adhesion between the wheel and the rail 
 by the mere weight of the engine, and he proceeded to make a series 
 of experiments for the purpose of determining this problem. Having 
 found the proportion which the power bore to the weight, he dem- 
 onstrated by successive experiments that the weight of the engine 
 would of itself produce sufficient adhesion to enable it to draw upon 
 a smooth railroad the requisite number of wagons in all kinds of 
 weather. And thus was the fallacy which had heretofore prevailed on 
 this subject exploded, and it was satisfactorily proved that rack-rails, 
 toothed wheels, endless chains, and legs, were alike unnecessary for 
 the efficient traction of loaded wagons upon a moderately level road. 
 
 From this time forward, considerably less difficulty was experienced 
 in working the coal-trains upon the Wylam tram-road. At length the 
 rack-rail was dispensed with. The road was laid with heavier rails ; 
 the working of the old engine was improved ; and a new engine was 
 shortly after built and placed upon the road, still on eight wheels. 
 
 While Mr. Blackett was experimenting and building locomotives at 
 Wylam, George Stephenson was anxiously studying the same subject 
 at Killingworth. 
 
 In the first place, Stephenson resolved to make himself thoroughly 
 acquainted with what had already been done. Mr. Blackett's engines 
 were working daily at Wylam, past the cottage where he had been 
 born, and thither he frequently went to inspect the improvements 
 made by Mr. Blackett from time to time both in the locomotive and 
 in the plate-way along which it worked. 
 
 An efficient and economical working locomotive engine still remained 
 to be invented, and to accomplish this object Stephenson now applied 
 himself. Profiting by what his predecessors had done, warned by
 
 HIS FIRST LOCOMOTIVE. I 29 
 
 their failures and encouraged by their partial successes, he commenced 
 his labors. There was still wanting the man who should accomplish for 
 the locomotive what James Watt had done for the steam-engine, and 
 combine in a complete form the best points in the separate plans of 
 others, embodying with them such original inventions and adaptations 
 of his own as to entitle him to the merit of inventing the working lo- 
 comotive, as James Watt is to be regarded as the inventor of the work- 
 ing condensing engine. This was the great work upon which George 
 Stephenson now entered, though probably without any adequate idea 
 of the ultimate importance of his labors to society and civilization. 
 
 He proceeded to bring the subject of constructing a " Traveling 
 Engine," as he then denominated the locomotive, under the notice 
 of the lessees of the Killingworth Colliery, in the year 1813. Lord 
 Ravensworth, the principal partner, had already formed a very favor- 
 able opinion of the new colliery engine-wright ; and, after considering 
 the matter, and hearing Stephenson's explanations, he authorized 
 him to proceed with the construction of a locomotive. 
 
 Stephenson was under the necessity of working with such men and 
 tools as were at his command, and he had in a great measure to train 
 and instruct the workmen himself. The engine was built in the 
 workshops at the West Moor, the leading mechanic being John Thirl- 
 wall, the colliery blacksmith, an excellent mechanic in his way, 
 though quite new to the work now intrusted to him. 
 
 In this first locomotive, Stephenson, to some extent, followed the 
 plan of Blenkinsop's engine. The wheels of the locomotive were all 
 smooth, Stephenson having satisfied himself by experiment that the 
 adhesion between the wheels of a loaded engine and the rail would 
 be sufficient for the purpose of traction. 
 
 The engine was, after much labor and anxiety, and frequent alter- 
 ations of parts, at length brought to completion, having been about 
 ten months in hand. It was placed upon the Killingworth Railway 
 on the 25th of July, 1814, ana its powers were tried on the same day. 
 On an ascending gradient of i in 450, the engine succeeded in draw- 
 ing after it eight loaded carriages of thirty tons' weight at about four 
 miles an hour ; and, for some time after, it continued regularly at 
 work. 
 
 Although a considerable advance upon previous locomotives, " Blu- 
 cher " (as the engine was popularly called) was nevertheless a some- 
 what cumbrous and clumsy machine. The parts were huddled together. 
 The boiler constituted the principal feature; and, being the foundation 
 of the other parts, it was made to do duty not only as a generator of 
 steam, but also as a basis for the fixings of the machinery and for 
 the bearings of the wheels and axles. The want of springs was se- 
 riously felt; and the progress of the engine was a succession of jolts, 
 causing considerable derangement to the machinery. The mode of 
 communicating the motive power to the wheels by means of the 
 spur-gear also caused frequent jerks, each cylinder alternately propel- 
 
 9
 
 130 GEORGE STEPHEN SON. 
 
 ling or becoming propelled by the other, as the pressure of the one 
 upon the wheels became greater or less than the pressure of the 
 other ; and, when the teeth of the cog-wheels became at all worn, a 
 rattling noise was produced during the traveling of the engine. 
 
 As the principal test of the success of the locomotive was its 
 economy as compared with horse-power, careful calculations were 
 made with the view of ascertaining this important point. The result 
 was, that it was found the working of the engine was at first barely 
 economical ; and at the end of the year the steam-power and the 
 horse-power were ascertained to be as nearly as possible upon a par 
 in point of cost. 
 
 Robert says: "Thus, in 1815, my father had succeeded in manu- 
 facturing an engine which included the following important improve- 
 ments on all previous attempts in the same direction : simple and direct 
 communication between the cylinder and the wheels rolling upon the 
 rails ; joint adhesion of all the wheels, attained by the use of hori- 
 zontal connecting-rods ; and, finally, a beautiful method of exciting 
 the combustion of fuel by employing the waste steam which had for- 
 merly been allowed uselessly to escape. It is, perhaps, not too much 
 to say that this engine, as a mechanical contrivance, contained the 
 germ of all that has since been effected. It may be regarded, in fact, 
 as a type of the present locomotive engine. 
 
 "In describing my father's application of the waste steam for the 
 purpose of increasing the intensity of combustion in the boiler, and 
 thus increasing the power of the engine without adding to its weight, 
 and while claiming for this engine the merit of being a type of all 
 those which have been successfully devised since the commencement 
 of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, it is necessary to observe 
 that the next great improvement in the same direction, the 'multitu- 
 bular boiler,' which took place some years later, could never have 
 been used without the help of that simple expedient, the steam-blast, 
 by which power only the burning of coke was rendered possible. 
 
 " I can not pass over this last-named invention of my father's 
 without remarking how slightly, as an original idea, it has been ap- 
 preciated; and yet how small would be the comparative value of the 
 locomotive engine of the present day without the application of that 
 important invention ! 
 
 "Engines constructed by my father in the year 1818, upon the 
 principles just described, are in use on the Killingworth Colliery 
 Railway to this very day (1856), conveying, at the speed of perhaps 
 five or six miles an hour, heavy coal-trains, probably as economically 
 as any of the more perfect engines now in use. 
 
 "There was another remarkable piece of ingenuity in this machine, 
 which was completed so many years before the possibility of steam 
 locomotion became an object of general commercial interest and Par- 
 liamentary inquiry. I have before observed that up to and after the 
 year 1.818 there was no .such class of skilled mechanics, nor were
 
 INVENTOR OF THE STEAM-BLAST. 131 
 
 there such machinery and tools for working in metals, as are now at 
 the disposal of inventors and manufacturers. Among other difficul- 
 ties of a similar character, it was not possible at that time to construct 
 springs of sufficient strength to support the improved engines. The 
 rails then used being extremely light, the roads became worn down 
 by the traffic, and occasionally the whole weight of the engine, 
 instead of. being uniformly distributed over four wheels, was thrown 
 almost diagonally upon two. In order to avoid the danger arising 
 from such irregularities in the road, my father arranged the boiler so 
 that it was supported upon the frame of the engine by four cylinders 
 which opened into the interior of the boiler. These cylinders 
 were occupied by pistons with rods, which passed downward and 
 pressed upon the upper side of the axles. The cylinders, opening into 
 the interior of the boiler, allowed the pressure of steam to be applied 
 to the upper side of the piston, and that pressure being nearly equal 
 to the support of one-fourth of the weight of the engine, each axle, 
 whatever might be its position, had the same amount of weight to 
 bear, and consequently the entire weight was at all times nearly 
 equally distributed among the wheels. This expedient was more neces- 
 sary in this case, as the weight of the new locomotive engines far ex- 
 ceeded that of the carriages which had hitherto been used upon col- 
 liery railways, and therefore subjected the rails to much greater risk 
 from breakage. And this mode of supporting the engine remained 
 in use until the progress of spring-making had considerably advanced, 
 when steel springs of sufficient strength superseded this highly ingen- 
 ious mode of distributing the weight of the engine uniformly among 
 the wheels." 
 
 The invention of the Steam-blast by George Stephenson, in 1815, 
 was fraught with the most important consequences to railway locomo- 
 tion, and it is not saying too much to aver that the success of the 
 locomotive has been in a great measure the result of its adoption. 
 Without the steam-blast, by means of which the intensity of combus- 
 tion is maintained at its highest point, producing a correspondingly 
 rapid evolution of steam, high rates of speed could not have been 
 kept up ; the advantages of the multitubular boiler (afterward in- 
 vented) could never have been fully tested, and locomotives might 
 still have been dragging themselves unwieldily along at little more 
 than five or six miles an hour. 
 
 The following passage from Mr. Wood's " Practical Treatise on 
 Railroads" clearly describes the express object and purpose for 
 which George Stephenson invented and applied the steam-blast in 
 the Killingworth engines. Describing their action, Mr. Wood says : 
 
 " The steam is admitted to the top and bottom of the piston by 
 means of a sliding valve, which, being moved up and down alternately, 
 opens a communication between the top and bottom of the cylinder 
 and the pipe that is open into the chimney, and turns up within it. The 
 steam, after performing its office within the cylinder, is thus thrown
 
 132 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 
 
 into the chimney, and the power with which it issues will be propor- 
 tionate to the degree of elasticity ; and the exit being directed upward, 
 accelerates the velocity of the current of heated air accordingly. ' ' 
 
 It was only when the improved passenger engine, fitted with the 
 multitubular boiler, was required to run at high speed that the full 
 merits of the blast were brought out ; and in detecting its essential 
 uses in this respect, and sharpening it for the purpose of increasing its 
 action, the sagacity of Timothy Hackworth, of Darlington, is entitled 
 to due recognition. 
 
 Our purpose in this sketch is not to present a full life of George 
 Stephenson, but simply to bring before our readers the history of his 
 early life, to follow him in his sturdy endeavors to overcome the diffi- 
 culties which encompassed his path, and gather the best lessons of his 
 career for the encouragement of others who may yet strive to " win 
 their way in the world" and more especially to trace his own and his 
 son Robert's connection with developing and perfecting the railway 
 locomotive ; we therefore omit references to. many items of interest, 
 his " Miners' Safety Lamp," and other inventions and improvements. 
 Our narrative is abridged from the large and handsomely illustrated 
 volume of Samuel Smiles,* which may be read with profit. 
 
 In 1819, the owners of the Hetton Colliery, in the county of Dur- 
 ham, determined to have their wagon-way altered to a locomotive 
 railroad. The result of the working of the Killingworth Railway had 
 been so satisfactory that they resolved to adopt the same system. The 
 Hetton Coal Company, possessed of adequate means, invited Stephen- 
 son to act as the engineer of the proposed railway. Stephenson 
 accepted the appointment, his brother Robert acting as resident 
 engineer and personally superintending the execution of the works. 
 
 Although George Stephenson had, with every step made toward its 
 increased utility, become more and more identified with the success of 
 the locomotive engine, he did not allow his enthusiasm to carry him 
 away into costly mistakes. He carefully drew the line between the 
 cases in which the locomotive could be usefully employed and those in 
 which stationary engines were calculated to be more economical. 
 
 On the original Hetton line there were five self-acting inclines 
 the full wagons drawing the empty ones up and two inclines worked 
 by fixed reciprocating engines of sixty-horse power each. The loco- 
 motive traveling engine, or "the iron horse," as the people of the 
 neighborhood then styled it, worked the rest of the line. On the 
 day of the opening of the Hetton Railway, the i8th of November, 
 1822, crowds of spectators assembled from all parts to witness the 
 first operations of this ingenious and powerful machinery, which was 
 entirely successful. On that day five of Stephenson's locomotives 
 were at work upon the railway, under the direction of his brother 
 Robert ; and the first shipment of coal was then made by the Hetton 
 
 *"The Life of George Stephenson and of his son Robert Stephenson."
 
 MINE EXPL'OSION. 133 
 
 Company at their new staiths on the Wear. The speed at which the 
 locomotives traveled was about four miles an hour, and each engine 
 dragged after it a train of seventeen wagons weighing about sixty-four 
 tons. 
 
 While thus advancing step by step attending to the business of 
 the Killingworth Colliery, and laying out railways in the neighbor- 
 hood he was carefully watching over the education of his son. We 
 have already seen that Robert was sent to school at Newcastle, where 
 he remained about four years. While Robert was at school, his father, 
 as usual, made his son's education instrumental to his own. He en- 
 tered him a member of the Newcastle Literary and Philosophical 
 Institute, the subscription to which was three guineas a year. Robert 
 spent much of his leisure hours there, reading and studying ; and 
 when he went home in the afternoons, he was accustomed to carry 
 home with him a volume of the "Repertory of Arts and Sciences," 
 or of some work on practical science, which furnished the subject of 
 interesting reading and discussion in the evening hours. Both father 
 and son were always ready to acknowledge the great advantages they 
 had derived from the use of so excellent a library of books; and, to- 
 ward the close of his life, the latter, in recognition of his debt of 
 gratitude to the institution, contributed a large sum for the purpose 
 of clearing off the debt, but conditional on the annual subscription 
 being reduced to a guinea, in order that the usefulness of the Insti- 
 tute might be extended. 
 
 Robert left school in the summer of 1819, and was put apprentice 
 to Mr. Nicholas Wood, the head viewer at Killingworth, to learn the 
 business of the colliery. He served in that capacity for about three 
 years, during which time he became familiar with most departments 
 of under-ground work. His occupation was not unattended with peril, 
 as the following incident will show : Though the use of the Geordy 
 lamp had become general in the Killingworth pits, and the workmen 
 were bound, under penalty of half a crown, not to use a naked candle, 
 it was difficult to enforce the rule, and even the masters themselves 
 occasionally broke it. One day Nicholas Wood, the head viewer; 
 Moodie, the under viewer, and Robert Stephenson, were proceeding 
 along one of the galleries, Wood with a naked candle in his hand, 
 and Robert following him with a lamp. They came to a place where 
 a fall of stones from the roof had taken place, on which Wood, 
 who was first, proceeded to clamber over the stones, holding high the 
 naked candle. He had nearly reached the summit of the heap, when 
 the fire-damp, which had accumulated in the hollow of the roof, ex- 
 ploded, and instantly the whole party were blown down, and the 
 lights extinguished. They were a mile from the shaft, and quite in 
 the dark. There was a rush of the work-people from all quarters 
 toward the shaft, for it was feared that the fire might extend to more 
 dangerous parts of the pit, where, if the gas had exploded, every soul 
 in the mine must inevitably have perished. Robert Stephenson and
 
 134 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 
 
 Moodie, on the first impulse, ran back at full speed along the gallery 
 leading to the shaft, coming into collision, on their way, with the 
 hind quarters of a horse stunned by the explosion. When they had 
 gone halfway, Moodie halted, and bethought him of Nicholas Wood. 
 " Stop, laddie !" said he to Robert, " stop ; we maun gang back and 
 seek the maister." So they retraced their steps. Happily, no far- 
 ther explosion took place. They found the master lying on the heap 
 of stones, stunned and bruised, with his hands severely burnt. They 
 led him to the bottom of the shaft ; and he afterward took care not 
 to venture into the dangerous parts of the mine without the protec- 
 tion of a Geordy lamp. (George Stephenson's improved lamp for- 
 mines.) 
 
 The time that Robert spent at Killingworth as viewer's apprentice 
 was of advantage both to his father and himself. The evenings were 
 generally devoted to reading and study, the two from this time 
 working together as friends and co-laborers. One who used to drop 
 in at the cottage of an evening well remembers the animated and 
 eager discussions which on some occasions took place, more especi- 
 ally with reference to the growing powers of the locomotive engine. 
 The son was even more enthusiastic than his father on the subject. 
 Robert would suggest numerous alterations and improvements in de- 
 tail. His father, on the contrary, would offer every possible objec- 
 tion, defending the existing arrangements proud, nevertheless, of 
 his son's suggestions, and often warmed and excited by his brilliant 
 anticipations of the ultimate triumph of the locomotive. 
 , These discussions probably had considerable influence in inducing 
 Stephenson to take the next important step in the education of his 
 son. Although Robert, who was only nineteen years of age, was 
 doing well, and was certain, at the expiration of his apprenticeship, 
 to rise to a higher position, his father was not satisfied with the 
 amount of instruction which he had as yet given him. Remembering 
 the disadvantages under which he had himself labored, through his 
 ignorance of practical chemistry during his investigations connected 
 with the safety-lamp, more especially with reference to the properties 
 of gas, as well as in the course of his experiments with the object of 
 improving the locomotive engine, he determined to furnish his son 
 with a better scientific culture than he had yet attained. He also 
 believed that a proper training in technical science was indispensable 
 to success in the higher walks of the engineer's profession, and he 
 determined to give Robert the education, in a certain degree, which 
 he so much desired for himself. He would thus, he knew, secure ah 
 able co-worker in the elaboration of the great ideas now looming 
 before him and with their united practical and scientific knowledge 
 he probably felt that they would be equal to any enterprise. 
 
 He accordingly took Robert from his labors as under viewer in the 
 West Moor Pit, and in October, 1822, sent him for a short course 
 of instruction to the Edinburgh University. Robert was furnished
 
 MARRIES THE SECOND TIME. 135 
 
 with letters of introduction to several men of literary eminence in 
 Edinburgh, his father's reputation in connection with the safety-lamp 
 being of service to him in this respect. 
 
 One of the practical sciences in the study of which Robert 
 Stephenson took special interest while at Edinburgh was that of Geol- 
 ogy. The situation of a city, in the midst of a district of highly inter- 
 esting geological formation, easily accessible to pedestrians, is indeed 
 most favorable to the pursuit of such a study ; and it was the practice 
 of Professor Jameson frequently to head a band of his pupils, armed 
 with hammers, chisels, and clinometers, and take them with him on 
 a long ramble into the country, for the purpose of teaching them 
 habits of observation, and reading to them from the open book of 
 Nature itself. 
 
 Toward the end of the summer the young student returned to 
 Killingworth to re-enter upon the active business of life. The six 
 months' study had cost his father 8o/. a considerable sum to him in 
 those days ; but he was amply repaid by the additional scientific cul- 
 ture which his son had acquired, and the evidence of ability and 
 industry which he was enabled to exhibit in a prize for mathematics 
 which he had won at the University. 
 
 We may here add that by this time George Stephenson, after re- 
 maining a widower fourteen years, had married, in 1820, his second 
 wife, Elizabeth Hindmarsh, the daughter of a respectable farmer at 
 Black Callerton. She was a woman of excellent character, sensible, 
 and intelligent, and of a kindly and affectionate nature. George's 
 son Robert, whom she loved as if he had been her own, to the last 
 day of his life spoke of her in the highest terms; and it is unques- 
 tionable that she contributed in no small degree to the happiness of 
 her husband's home. 
 
 GEORGE STEPHENSON ENGINEER OF THE STOCKTON AND DARLINGTON 
 
 RAILWAY. 
 
 It is not improbable that the slow progress made by railways in 
 public estimation was, in a considerable measure, due to the compar- 
 ative want of success which had attended the first projects. We do 
 not refer to the tram-xoads and railroads which connected the col- 
 lieries and iron-works with the shipping-places. These were found 
 convenient and economical, and their use became general in Durham 
 and Northumberland, in South Wales, in Scotland, and throughout 
 the colliery districts. But none of these were public railways. 
 Though the Merthyr Tydvil Tram-road, the Sirhoway Railroad, and 
 others in South Wales, were constructed under the powers of special 
 acts, they were exclusively used for the private purposes of the coal- 
 owners and iron-masters at whose expense they were made. 
 
 The first public Railway Act was that passed in 1801, authorizing 
 the construction of "The Surrey Iron Railway." By a subsequent
 
 136 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 
 
 act, powers were obtained to extend the line to Reigate, with a 
 branch to Godstone. The object of this railway was to furnish a 
 more ready means for the transport of coal and merchandise from the 
 Thames to the districts of South London, and at the same time to 
 enable the lime-burners and proprietors of stone-quarries to send the 
 lime and stone to London. With this object, the railroad was con- 
 nected with a dock or basin in Wandsworth Creek capable of con- 
 taining thirty barges, with an entrance lock into the Thames. 
 
 The works had scarcely been commenced ere the company got into 
 difficulties, but eventually 26 miles of iron-way were constructed and 
 opened for traffic. Any person was then at liberty to put wagons on 
 the line, and to carry goods within the prescribed rates, the wagons 
 being worked by horses,, mules, and donkeys. Notwithstanding the 
 very sanguine expectations which were early formed as to the paying 
 qualities of this railway, it never realized any adequate profit to the 
 owners. But it continued to be worked, principally by donkeys for 
 the sake of cheapness, down to the passing of the act for constructing 
 the London and Brighton line in 1837, when the proprietors disposed 
 of it to the new company. The line was dismantled ; the stone 
 blocks and rails were taken up and sold ; and all that remains is the 
 track still observable to the south of Croydon, and an occasional 
 cutting and embankment, which still mark the route of this first pub- 
 lic railway. There was, as yet, no general recognition of the ad- 
 vantages either of railways or locomotives. 
 
 The ill success of railways was generally recognized. Nearly twenty 
 years passed between the construction of the first and the second 
 public railway in England ; and this brings us to the projection of 
 the Stockton and Darlington, the parent public locomotive railway in 
 the kingdom. 
 
 The district lying to the west of Darlington, in the county of Dur- 
 ham, is one of the richest mineral fields of the North. Vast stores 
 of coal underlie the valley, and from an early period it was an exceed- 
 ingly desirable object to open up new communications to market. 
 But the district lay a long way from the sea, and the Tees being un- 
 navigable, there was next to no vend for the Bishop Aukcland coal. 
 
 It is easy to understand, therefore, how the desire to obtain an out- 
 let for this coal should have early occupied the attention of the coal- 
 owners. The first idea that found favor was the construction of a 
 canal. About a century ago, in 1766, shortly after the Duke of 
 Bridgewater's Canal had been opened to Manchester, a movement 
 was set on foot at Darlington to have the country surveyed to Stock- 
 ton. 
 
 In October, 1768, Whitworth presented his plan of the , proposed 
 canal from Stockton by Darlington to Winston, and in the following 
 year Brindley concurred with him in a joint report. 
 
 When it became known that some engineering scheme was afoot at 
 Stockton, Ralph Dodd, the first projector of a tunnel under the
 
 RAILWAY OR CANAL. 137 
 
 Thames, and the first to bring a steam-boat from Glasgow into the 
 Thames, addressed the Corporation of Stockton in 1796 on the pro- 
 priety of forming a line of internal navigation by Darlington and 
 Staindrop to Winston. Still nothing was done. 
 
 The public head is usually very thick, and it is difficult to hammer 
 a new idea into it. Canals were established methods of conveyance, 
 and were every-where recognized ; whereas railways were new things, 
 and were struggling hard to gain a footing. Besides, the only pub- 
 lic railway in England, the Croydon and Merstham, had proved a 
 commercial failure, and was held up as a warning to all speculators 
 on tram-ways. But, though the Newcastle meeting approved of a 
 canal in preference to a railway from the Tyne to the Sol way, nothing 
 was really done to promote the formation of either. 
 
 In May, 1818, the movement in favor of a canal was again revived 
 at Stockton. In September, 1818, Mr. Overton, who had laid 
 down several coal railways in Wales, was consulted, and, after sur- 
 veying the district, sent in his report. Mr. Rennie also was con- 
 sulted. Both engineers gave their opinion in favor of a railway, 
 "whether taken as a line for the exportation of coal or as one for a 
 local trade." The committee reported in favor of the railway. 
 
 A survey of the line was then ordered, and steps were taken to 
 apply to Parliament for the necessary powers to construct the railway. 
 But the controversy was not yet at an end. Stockton stood by its 
 favorite project of a canal, and would not subscribe a farthing toward 
 the projected railway ; but neither did it subscribe toward the canal. 
 The landlords, the road trustees, the carriers, the proprietors of 
 donkeys (by whom coals were principally carried for inland sale), were 
 strenuously opposed to the new project ; while the general public, 
 stupid and skeptical, for the most part stood aloof, quoting old saws 
 and keeping their money in their pockets. 
 
 Several energetic men, however, were now at the head of the rail- 
 way project, and determined to persevere with it. Among these, the 
 Peases were the most zealous. Edward Pease might be regarded as 
 the back-bone of the concern. Opposition did not daunt him, nor 
 failure discourage him. When apparently overthrown and prostrate, 
 he would rise again stronger than before, and renew his efforts with 
 increased vigor. He had in him the energy and perseverance of many 
 men. One who knew him in 1818 said, " He was a man who could 
 see a hundred years ahead." In his eighty-eighth year, in 1854, a few 
 years before his death, he still possessed the hopefulness and mental 
 vigor of a man in his prime. Still sound in health, his eye had not 
 lost its brilliancy, nor his cheek its color, and there was an elasticity 
 in his step which younger men might have envied. 
 
 The Richardsons and Backhouses, members, like himself, of the 
 Society of Friends, influenced by his persuasion, united themselves 
 with him ; and so many of the same denomination (having confidence 
 in these influential Darlington names) followed their example and sub-
 
 138 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 
 
 scribed for shares, that the railway obtained the designation, which it 
 long retained, of "The Quakers' Line." 
 
 The Stockton and Darlington scheme had to run the gauntlet of a 
 fierce opposition in three successive sessions of Parliament. The ap- 
 plication of 1818 was defeated by the Duke of Cleveland, who after- 
 ward profited so largely by the railway. 
 
 Some time elapsed before any active steps were taken to proceed 
 with the construction of the railway. Doubts were raised whether the 
 line was the best that could be adopted for the district, and the sub- 
 scribers generally were not so sanguine about the undertaking as to 
 induce them to press it forward. 
 
 One day, about the end of the year 1821, two strangers knocked at 
 the door of Mr. Pease's house in Darlington, and a message was 
 brought to him that some persons from Killingworth wanted to speak 
 with him. They were invited in, on which one of the visitors intro- 
 duced himself as Nicholas Wood, viewer at Killingworth, and then 
 turning to his companion, he introduced him as George Stephenson, 
 engine-wright, of the same place. 
 
 Mr. Pease entered into conversation with his visitors, and was soon 
 told their object. Stephenson had heard of the passing of the Stock- 
 ton and Darlington Act, and desiring to increase his railway experi- 
 ence, and also to employ in some larger field the practical knowledge 
 he had already acquired, he determined to visit the known projector 
 of the undertaking, with the view of being employed to carry it out. 
 He had brought with him his friend Wood for the purpose at the same 
 time of relieving his diffidence and supporting his application. 
 
 Mr. Pease liked the appearance of his visitor : "There was," as he 
 afterward remarked, when speaking of Stephenson, "such an honest, 
 sensible look about him, and he seemed so modest and unpretending. 
 He spoke in the strong Northumbrian dialect of his district, and 
 described himself as ' only the engine-wright at Killingworth ; that's 
 what he was. 1 ' 
 
 Mr. Pease soon saw that our engineer was the very man for his pur- 
 pose. The whole plans of the railway were still in an undetermined 
 state, and Mr. Pease was therefore glad to have the opportunity of 
 profiting by Stephenson 's experience. In the course of their conversa- 
 tion, the latter strongly recommended a railway in preference to a 
 tram-road. They also discussed the kind of tractive power to be 
 employed, Mr. Pease stating that the company had based their whole 
 calculations on the employment of /torse-power. " I was so satisfied," 
 said he afterward, "that a horse upon an iron road would draw ten 
 tons for one ton on a common road, that I felt sure that before long 
 the railway would become the king's highway." 
 
 But Mr. Pease was scarcely prepared for the bold assertion made by 
 his visitor, that the locomotive engine with which he had been work- 
 ing the Killingworth Railway for many years past was worth fifty 
 horses, and that engines made after a similar plan would yet entirely
 
 GEORDIE THE ENGINE-WRIGHT. 139 
 
 supersede all horse-power upon railroads. Stephenson was daily be- 
 coming more positive as to the superiority of his locomotive, and 
 hence he strongly urged Mr. Pease to adopt it. " Come over to 
 Killingworth," said he, "and see what my engines can do; seeing is 
 believing, sir." Mr. Pease accordingly promised that on some early 
 day he would go over to Killingworth, and take a look at the won- 
 derful machine that was to supersede horses. 
 
 The result of the interview was, that Mr. Pease promised to bring 
 Stephenson's application for the appointment of engineer before the 
 directors, and to support it with his influence ; whereori the two visi- 
 tors prepared to take their leave, informing Mr. Pease that they in- 
 tended to return to Newcastle "by ni^;" that is, they expected to 
 get a smuggled lift on the stage-coach by tipping Jehu for in those 
 days the stage coachmen regarded all casual roadside passengers as 
 their proper perquisites. They had, however, been so much engrossed 
 by their conversation that the lapse of time was forgotten, and when 
 Stephenson and his friend made inquiries about the return coach, 
 they found the last had left, and they had to walk eighteen miles to 
 Durham on their way back to Newcastle. 
 
 Mr. Pease having made farther inquiries respecting Stephenson's 
 character and qualifications, and having received a very strong recom- 
 mendation of him as the right man for the intended work, he brought 
 the subject of his application before the directors of the Stockton 
 and Darlington Company. They resolved to adopt his recommend- 
 ation, that a railway be formed instead of a tram-road ; and they 
 farther requested Mr. Pease to write to Stephenson, desiring him to 
 undertake a re-survey of the line at the earliest practicable period. 
 
 A man was dispatched on a horse with the letter, and when he 
 reached Killingworth he made diligent inquiry after the person named 
 on the address, "George Stephenson, Esquire, Engineer." No such 
 person was known in the village. It is said that the man was on the 
 point of giving up all farther search, when the happy thought struck 
 some of the colliers' wives who had gathered about him that it must 
 be " Geordie the engine-wright," the man was in search of, and to 
 Geordie's cottage he accordingly went, found him at home, and de- 
 Kvered the letter. 
 
 About the end of September, Stephenson went carefully over the 
 line of the proposed railway for the purpose of suggesting such im- 
 provements and deviations as he might consider desirable. He was 
 accompanied by an assistant and a chainman, his son Robert entering 
 the figures while his father took the sights. After being engaged in 
 the work at intervals for about six weeks, Stephenson reported the 
 result of his survey to the Board of Directors, and showed that, by 
 certain deviations, a line shorter by about three miles might be con- 
 structed at a considerable saving in expense, while at the same time 
 more favorable gradients an important consideration would be 
 secured.
 
 140 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 
 
 It was, however, determined in the first place to proceed with the 
 works at those parts of the line where no deviation was proposed, and 
 the first rail of the Stockton and Darlington Railway was laid with 
 considerable ceremony, near Stockton, on the 23d of May, 1822. 
 
 It is worthy of note that Stephenson, in making his first estimate 
 of the cost of forming the railway according to the instructions of 
 the directors, set down, as part of the cost, 6, zoo/, for stationary en- 
 gines, not mentioning locomotives at all. It was the intention of the 
 directors, in the first place, to employ only horses for the haulage of 
 the coals, and fixed engines and ropes where horse-power was not ap- 
 plicable. The whole question of steam -locomotive power was, in the 
 estimation of the public, as \$e\l as of practical and scientific men, as 
 yet in doubt. The confident anticipations of George Stephenson as to 
 the eventual success of locomotive engines were regarded as mere 
 speculations ; and when he gave utterance to his views, as he fre- 
 quently took the opportunity of doing, it even had the effect of shak- 
 ing the confidence of some of his friends in the solidity of his judg- 
 ment and his practical qualities as an engineer. 
 
 When Mr. Pease discussed the question with Stephenson, his remark 
 was, " Come over and see my engines at Killingworth, and satisfy 
 yourself as to the efficiency of the locomotive. I will show you the 
 colliery books, that you may ascertain for yourself the actual cost of 
 working. And I must tell you that the economy of the locomotive 
 engine is no longer a matter of theory, but a matter of fact." So 
 confident was the tone in which Stephenson spoke of the success of 
 his engines, and so important were the consequences involved in ar- 
 riving at a correct conclusion on the subject, that Mr. Pease at length 
 resolved on paying a visit to Killingworth in the summer of 1822, in 
 company with his friend Thomas Richardson, a considerable subscriber 
 to the Stockton and Darlington undertaking, to inspect the wonderful 
 new power so much vaunted by their engineer. 
 
 When Mr. Pease arrived at Killingworth village, he inquired for 
 George Stephenson, and was told that he must go over to the West Moor, 
 and seek for a cottage by the roadsi4e with a dial over the door 
 "that was where George Stephenson lived." They soon found the 
 house with the dial, and, on knocking, the door was opened by Mrs. 
 Stephenson. In answer to Mr. Pease's inquiry for her husband, she 
 said he was not in the house at present, but that she would send for 
 him to the colliery. And in a short time Stephenson appeared before 
 them in his working dress, just as he had come out of the pit. 
 
 He very soon had his locomotive brought up to the crossing close 
 by the end of the cottage, made the gentleman mount it, and showed 
 them its paces. Harnessing it to a train of loaded wagons, he ran 
 it along the railroad, and so thoroughly satisfied his visitors of its 
 power and capabilities, that from that day Edward Pease was a de- 
 clared supporter of the locomotive engine. In preparing the Amended 
 Stockton and Darlington Act, at Stephenson's urgent request, Mr.
 
 FIRST APPOINTMENT AS ENGINEER. 141 
 
 Pease had a clause inserted, taking power to work the railway by 
 means of locomotive engines, and to employ them for hauling passengers 
 as well as merchandise.* The act was obtained in 1823, on which 
 Stephenson was appointed the company's engineer, at a salary of 
 3oo/. per annum; and it was determined that the line should be 
 constructed and opened for traffic as soon as practicable. 
 
 He at once proceeded, accompanied by his assistants, with the 
 working survey of the line, laying out every foot of the ground him- 
 self. Railway surveying was as yet in its infancy, and was slow and 
 difficult work. It afterward became a separate branch of railway 
 business, and was intrusted to a special staff. Indeed, on no subse- 
 quent line did George Stephenson take the sights through the spirit- 
 level with his own hands and eyes as he did on this railway. He 
 started very early dressed in a blue-tailed coat, breeches, and top- 
 boots and surveyed until dusk. He was not at any time particular 
 as to his living ; and, during the survey, he took his chance of get- 
 ting a little milk and bread at some cottager's house along the line, 
 or occasionally joined in a homely dinner at some neighboring farm- 
 house. The country people were accustomed to give him a hearty 
 welcome when he appeared at their door, for he was always full of 
 cheery and homely talk, and, when there were children about the 
 house, he had plenty of humorous chat for them as well as for their 
 seniors. 
 
 After the day's work was over, George would drop in at Mr. Pease's 
 to talk over the progress of the survey, and discuss various matters 
 connected with the railway. Mr. Pease's daughters were usually 
 present ; and, on one occasion, finding the young ladies learning the 
 art of embroidery, he volunteered to instruct them. This incident, 
 communicated by the late Edward Pease, has since been made the 
 subject of a fine picture by Mr. A. Rankley, A.R.A., exhibited at the 
 Royal Academy Exhibition of 1861. "I know all about it," said 
 he, "and you will wonder how I learned it. I will tell you. When 
 I was a brakeman at Killingworth, I learned the art of embroidery 
 while working the pitmen's button-holes by the engine fire at nights." 
 He was never ashamed, but, on the contrary, rather proud, of re- 
 minding his friends of these humble pursuits of his early life. Mr. 
 Pease's family were greatly pleased with his conversation, which was 
 always amusing and instructive ; full of all sorts of experience, gath- 
 ered in the oddest and most out-oT-the-way places. Even at that 
 early period, before he mixed in the society of educated persons, 
 there was a dash of speculativeness in his remarks which gave a high 
 degree of originality to his conversation ; and he would sometimes, 
 in a casual remark, throw a flash of light upon a subject which called 
 up a train of pregnant suggestions. 
 
 * The first clause in any railway act empowering the employment of locomotive 
 engines for the working of passenger traffic.
 
 142 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 
 
 One of the most important subjects of discussion at these meetings 
 with Mr. Pease was the establishment of a manufactory at Newcastle, 
 for the building of locomotive engines. Up to this time all the loco- 
 motives constructed after Stephenson's designs had been made by 
 ordinary mechanics working at the collieries in the North of England. 
 But he had long felt that the accuracy and style of their work- 
 manship admitted of great improvement, and that upon this the more 
 perfect action of the locomotive engine, and its general adoption, in 
 a great measure depended. One principal object that he had in 
 view in establishing the proposed factory was to concentrate a num- 
 ber of good workmen for the purpose of carrying out the improve- 
 ments in detail which he was from time to time making in his engine ; 
 for he felt hampered by the want of efficient help from skilled me- 
 chanics, who could work out in a practical form the ideas of which 
 his busy mind was always so prolific. Doubtless, too, he believed 
 that the manufactory would prove a remunerative investment, and 
 that, on the general adoption of the railway system which he antici- 
 pated, he would derive solid advantages from the fa.ct of his estab- 
 lishment being the only one of the kind for the special construction 
 of locomotive engines. 
 
 Mr. Pease approved of his design, and strongly recommended him 
 to carry it into effect. But there was the question of means ; and 
 Stephenson did not think he had capital enough for the purpose. 
 He told Mr. Pease that he could advance iooo/. the amount of the 
 testimonial presented by the coal-owners for his safety-lamp inven- 
 tion, which he had still left untouched ; but he did not think this 
 sufficient for the purpose, and he thought that he should require at 
 least another iooo/. Mr. Pease had been very much struck with the 
 successful performances of the Killingworth engine ; and, being an 
 accurate judge of character, he believed that he could not go far 
 wrong in linking a portion of his fortune with the energy and indus- 
 try of George Stephenson. He consulted his friend Thomas Rich- 
 ardson in the matter, and the two consented to advance SOQ/. each 
 for the purpose of establishing the engine factory at Newcastle. A 
 piece of land was accordingly purchased in Forth Street, in August, 
 1823, on which a small building was erected the nucleus of the gi- 
 gantic establishment which was afterward formed around it ; and 
 active operations were begun early in 1824. 
 
 While the Stockton and Darlington Railway works were in prog- 
 ress, our engineer had many interesting discussions with Mr. Pease 
 on points connected with its construction and working, the deter- 
 mination of which in a great measure affected the formation and 
 working of future railways. The most important points were these : 
 i. The comparative merits of cast and wrought iron rails. 2. The 
 gauge of the railway. 3. The employment of horse or engine power 
 in working it when ready for traffic. 
 
 The kind of rails to be laid down to form the permanent road
 
 HIS UNSELFISH ADVICE. 143 
 
 was a matter of considerable importance. A wooden tram-road had 
 been contemplated when the first act was applied for ; but Stephenson 
 having advised that an iron road should be laid down, he was in- 
 structed to draw up a specification of the rails. He went before the 
 directors to discuss with them the kind of material to be specified. 
 He was himself interested in the patent for cast-iron rails, which he 
 had taken out in conjunction with Mr. Losh, in 1816, and, of course, 
 it was to his interest that his articles should be used. But when 
 requested to give his opinion on the subject, he frankly said to the 
 directors, " Well, gentlemen, to tell you the truth, although it would 
 put 5oo/. in my pocket to specify my own patent rails, I can not do 
 so after the experience I have had. If you take my advice, you will 
 not lay down a single cast-iron rail." " Why ?" asked the directors. 
 " Because they will not stand the weight, and you will be at no end 
 of expense for repairs and relays." "What kind of road, then," he 
 was asked, " would you recommend ?" " Malleable rails, certainly," 
 said he ; " and I can recommend them with the more confidence 
 from the fact that at Killingworth we , have had some Swedish bars 
 laid down nailed to wooden sleepers for a period of fourteen years, 
 the wagons passing over them daily, and there they are, in use yet, 
 whereas the cast rails are constantly giving way." 
 
 Stephenson's recommendation of wrought-iron instead of cast-iron 
 rails was the cause of a rupture between Mr. Losh and himself. Steph- 
 enson thought his duty was to give his employers the the best ad- 
 vice ; Losh thought his business was to push the patent cast-iron rails 
 wherever he could. Stephenson regarded this view as sordid ; and 
 the two finally separated after a quarrel, in high dudgeon with each 
 other. 
 
 The price of malleable rails was, however, so high being then 
 worth about i2/. per ton as compared with cast-iron rails at about 5 /. 
 ioj., and the saving of expense was so important a consideration with 
 the subscribers, that Stephenson was directed to provide in the speci- 
 fication that only one-half of the rails required or about 800 tons 
 should be of malleable iron, and the remainder of cast-iron. The 
 malleable rails were of the kind called " fish-bellied," and weighed 
 28 Ibs. to the yard, being 2% inches broad -at the top, with the 
 upper flange ^ inch thick. They were only 2 inches in depth at 
 the points at which they rested on the chairs, and 3^ inches in the 
 middle or bellied part. 
 
 When forming the road, the proper gauge had also to be deter- 
 mined. What width was this to be ? The gauge of the first tram- 
 road laid down had virtually settled the point. The gauge of wheels 
 of the common vehicles of the country of the carts and wagons 
 employed on common roads, which were first used on the tram-roads 
 was about 4 feet 8^ inches. And so the first tram-roads were laid 
 down of this gauge. The tools and machinery for constructing coal- 
 wagons and locomotives were formed with this gauge in view. The
 
 144 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 
 
 Wylam wagon-way, afterward the Wylam plate-way, the Killingworth 
 railroad, and the Helton railroad, were as nearly as possible on the 
 same gauge. 
 
 As the period drew near for the opening of the line, the question 
 of the tractive power to be employed was anxiously discussed. At 
 the Brtisselton incline, fixed engines must necessarily be made use of; 
 but with respect to the mode of working the railway generally, it was 
 decided that horses were to be largely employed, and arrangements 
 were made for their purchase. 
 
 Although locomotives had been regularly employed in hauling coal- 
 wagons on the Middleton Colliery Railway, near Leeds, for more 
 than twelve years, and on the Wylam and Killingworth Railways 
 near Newcastle for more than ten years, great skepticism still prevailed 
 as to the economy of employing them for the purpose in lieu of 
 horses. In this case, it would appear that seeing was not believing. 
 The popular skepticism was as great at Newcastle, where the oppor- 
 tunities for accurate observation were the greatest, as anywhere else. 
 In 1824 the scheme of a canal between that town and Carlisle again 
 came up, and, though a few timid voices were raised on behalf of a 
 railway, the general opinion was still in favor of a canal. The ex- 
 ample of the Hetton Railway, which had been successfully worked by 
 Stephenson's locomotives for two years past, was pointed to in proof 
 of the practicability of a locomotive line between the two places ; but 
 the voice of the press as well as of the public was decidedly against 
 the " new-fangled roads." 
 
 "There has been some talk," wrote the " Whitehaven Gazette," 
 " from a puff criticism in the ' Monthly Review,' of an improvement 
 on the principle of railways ; but we suspect that this improvement 
 will turn out like the steam carriages, of which we have been told so 
 much, that were to supersede the use of horses entirely, and travel 
 at a rate almost equal to the speed of the fleetest horse /" The idea was 
 too chimerical to be entertained, and the suggested railway was ac- 
 cordingly rejected as impracticable. 
 
 The "Tyne Mercury" was equally decided against railways. 
 " What person," asked the editor (November i6th, 1824), "would 
 ever think of paying any thing to be conveyed from Hexham to New- 
 castle in something like a coal-wagon, upon a dreary wagon-way, and 
 to be dragged for the greater part of the distance by a ROARING 
 STEAM-ENGINE !" The very notion of such a thing was preposterous, 
 ridiculous, and utterly absurd. 
 
 When such was the state of public opinion as to railway locomo- 
 tion, some idea may be formed of the clearsightedness and moral 
 courage of the Stockton and Darlington directors in ordering three 
 of Stephenson's locomotive engines, at a cost of several thousand 
 pounds, against the opening of the railway. 
 
 These were constructed after Stephenson's most matured designs, 
 and embodied all the improvements which he had contrived up to
 
 OPINION ON SUCCESS OF RAILWAYS. 145 
 
 that time. No. i engine, the " Locomotion," which was first delivered, 
 weighed about eight tons. It had one large flue or tube through the 
 boiler, by which the heated air passed direct from the furnace at one 
 end, lined with fire-bricks, to the chimney at the other. The com- 
 bustion in the furnace was quickened by the adoption of the steam- 
 blast in the chimney. The heat raised was sometimes so great, and 
 it was so imperfectly abstracted by the surrounding water, that 
 the chimney became almost red-hot. Such engines, when put to their 
 speed, were found capable of running at the rate of from twelve to 
 sixteen miles an hour; but they were better adapted for the heavy 
 work of hauling coal-trains at low speeds for which, indeed, they 
 were specially constructed than for running at the higher speeds 
 afterward adopted. Nor was it contemplated by the directors as pos- 
 sible, at the time when they were ordered, that locomotives could be 
 made available for the purposes of passenger traveling. Besides, the 
 Stockton and Darlington Railway did not run through a district in 
 which passengers were supposed to be likely to constitute any con- 
 siderable portion of the traffic. 
 
 We may easily imagine the anxiety felt by George Stephenson 
 during the progress of the works toward completion, and his mingled 
 hopes and doubts (though his doubts were but few) as to the issue of 
 this great experiment. When the formation of the line near Stock- 
 ton was well advanced, the engineer one day, accompanied by his 
 son Robert and John Dixon, made a journey of inspection of the 
 works. The party reached Stockton, and proceeded to dine at one 
 of the inns there. After dinner, Stephenson ventured on the very 
 unusual measure of ordering in a bottle of wine, to drink success to 
 the railway. John Dixon relates with pride the utterance of the 
 master on the occasion. "Now, lads," said he to the two young 
 men, " I venture to tell you that I think you will live to see the day 
 when railways will supersede almost all other methods of conveyance 
 in this country when mail-coaches will go by railway, and railroads 
 will become the great highways for the king and all his subjects. 
 The time is coming when it will be cheaper for a working man to 
 travel on a railway than to walk on foot. I know there are great and 
 almost insurmountable difficulties to be encountered, but what I have 
 said will come to pass as sure as you now hear me. I only wish I 
 may live to see the day, though that I can scarcely hope for, as I know 
 how slow all human progress is, and with what difficulty I have been 
 able to get the locomotive introduced thus far, notwithstanding my 
 more than ten years' successful experiment at Killingworth." The 
 result, however, outstripped even George Stephenson's most sanguine 
 anticipations ; and his son Robert, shortly after his return from 
 America in 1827, saw his father's locomotive adopted as the tractive 
 power on railways generally. 
 
 Tuesday, the ayth of September, 1825, was a great day for Darling- 
 ton. The railway, after having been under construction for more 
 10
 
 1 46 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 
 
 than three years, was at length about to be opened. The project had 
 been the talk of the neighborhood for so long, that there were few 
 people within a range of twenty miles who did not feel more or less 
 interested about it. Was it to be a failure or a success? Opinions 
 were pretty equally divided as to the railway, but as regarded the 
 locomotive the general belief was that it would "never answer." 
 However, there the locomotive was "No. i" delivered onto the 
 line, and ready to draw the first train of wagons on the opening day. 
 
 A great concourse of people assembled on the occasion. Some 
 came from Newcastle and Durham, many from the Aucklands, while 
 Darlington held a general holiday, and turned out all its population. 
 To give tclat to the opening, the directors of the company issued a 
 programme of the proceedings, intimating the times at which the pro- 
 cession of wagons would pass certain points along the line. The pro- 
 prietors assembled as early as six in the morning at the Brusselton 
 fixed engine, where the working of the inclined planes was success- 
 fully rehearsed. A train of wagons laden with coals and merchandise 
 was drawn up the western incline by the fixed engine, a length of 
 1960 yards, in seven and a half minutes, and then lowered down the 
 incline on the eastern side of the hill, 880 yards, in five minutes. 
 
 At the foot of the incline the procession of vehicles was formed, 
 consisting of the locomotive engine No. i, driven by George Stephen- 
 son himself; after it six wagons loaded with coals and flour, then a 
 covered coach containing directors and proprietors, next twenty-one 
 coal-wagons fitted up for passengers (with which they were crammed), 
 and lastly six more wagons loaded with coals. 
 
 Strange to say, a man on a horse, carrying a flag, with the motto 
 of the company inscribed on it, Periculum privatum utilitas publica, 
 headed the procession ! A lithographic view of the great event, pub- 
 lished shortly after, duly exhibits the horseman and his flag. It was 
 not thought so dangerous a place after all. The locomotive was only 
 supposed to be able to go at the rate of from four to six miles an 
 hour, and an ordinary horse could easily keep ahead of that. 
 
 Off started the procession, with the horseman at its head. A great 
 concourse of people stood along the line. Many of them tried to 
 accompany it by running, and some gentlemen on horseback galloped 
 across the fields to keep up with the train. The railway descending 
 with a gentle incline toward Darlington, the rate of speed was con- 
 sequently variable. At a favorable part of the road Stephenson de- 
 termined to try the speed of the engine, and he called upon the 
 horseman with the flag to get out of the way ! Most probably deem- 
 ing it unnecessary to carry his Periculum privatum farther, the horse- 
 man turned aside, and Stephenson " put on the steam." The speed 
 was at once raised to twelve miles an hour, and, at a favorable part 
 of the road, to fifteen. The runners on foot, the gentlemen on 
 horseback, and the horseman with the flag, were consequently soon 
 left far behind. When the train reached Darlington, it was found
 
 GREAT RAILWAY CELEBRATION. 147. 
 
 that four hundred and fifty passengers occupied the wagons, and that 
 the load of men, coals, and merchandise amounted to about ninety 
 tons. 
 
 At Darlington the procession was rearranged. The six loaded 
 coal -wagons were left behind, and other wagons were taken on with 
 a hundred and fifty more passengers, together with a band of music. 
 The train then started for Stockton, a distance of only twelve miles, 
 which was reached in about three hours. The day was kept 
 throughout the district as a holiday; and horses, gigs, carts, and 
 other vehicles, filled with people, stood along the railway, as well as 
 crowds of persons on foot, waiting to see the train pass. The whole 
 population of Stockton turned out to receive the procession, and, 
 after a walk through the streets, the inevitable dinner in the Town 
 Hall wound up the day's proceedings. 
 
 All this, however, was but gala work. The serious business of the 
 company began on the following day. Upon the result of the ex- 
 periment now fairly initiated by the Stockton and Darlington Com- 
 pany, the future of railways in a great measure depended. If it failed, 
 like the Croydon and Merstham undertaking, then a great check 
 would unquestionably be given to speculation in railways. If it suc- 
 ceeded, the Stockton and- Darlington enterprise would mark the 
 beginning of a new era, and issue in neither more nor less than a 
 complete revolution of the means of communication in all civilized 
 countries. 
 
 The circumstances were, on the whole, favorable, and boded success 
 rather than failure. Prudent, careful, thoughtful men were at the 
 head of the concern, interested in seeing it managed economically 
 and efficiently; and they had the advantage of the assistance of an 
 engineer possessed of large resources of mother wit, mechanical 
 genius, and strong common sense. There was an almost unlimited 
 quantity of coal to be carried, the principal difficulty being in ac- 
 commodating it satisfactorily. Yet it was only after the line had 
 been at work for some time that the extensive character of the coal 
 traffic began to be appreciated. Al first it -was supposed that the 
 chief trade would be in coal for land sale. But the clause inserted 
 in the original act, at the instance of Mr. Lambton, by which the 
 company were limited to y^d. per ton per mile for coal led to Stock- 
 ton for shipment, led to the most unexpected consequences. It was 
 estimated that only about 10,000 tons a year would be shipped, and 
 that principally by way of ballast. Instead of which, in the course 
 of a very few years, the coal carried on the line for export consti- 
 tuted the main bulk of the traffic, while that carried for land sale 
 was merely subsidiary. 
 
 The anticipations of the company as to passenger-traffic were, in 
 like manner, more than realized. At first, passengers were not 
 thought of, and it was only while the works were in progress that the 
 starting of a passenger-coach was seriously contemplated. Some
 
 148 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 
 
 eighty years since, there was only one post-chaise in Darlington, 
 which ran on three wheels. There are people still living who remem- 
 ber when a coach ran from Stockton three days in the week, passing 
 through Darlington and Barnard Castle; but it was starved off the 
 road for want of support. There was then very little intercourse 
 between the towns, though they were so near to each other, and 
 comparatively so populous; and it was not known whether people 
 would trust themselves to the iron road. Nevertheless, it was deter- 
 mined to make trial of a railway coach, and George Stephenson was 
 authorized to have one built at Newcastle at the cost of the company. 
 This was done accordingly, and the first railway passenger-carriage 
 was built after our engineer's design. It was, however, a very modest, 
 and, indeed, a somewhat uncouth machine, more resembling a show- 
 man's caravan than a passenger-coach of any extant form. A row 
 of seats ran along each side of the interior, and a long deal table 
 was fixed in the center, the access being by means of a door at the 
 back end, in the manner of an omnibus. This coach arrived from 
 Newcastle on the day before the opening, and formed part of the 
 procession above described. Stephenson was consulted as to the 
 name of the coach, and he at once suggested the "Experiment;" 
 and by this name it was called. Such was the sole passenger-carry- 
 ing stock of the Stockton and Darlington Company in the year 
 1825. But "The Experiment" proved the forerunner of a mighty 
 traffic; and long time did not elapse before it was displaced, not 
 only by improved coaches (still drawn by horses), but afterward by 
 long trains of passenger-carriages drawn by locomotive engines. 
 
 The "Experiment" was fairly started as a passenger-coach on the 
 loth of October, 1825, a fortnight after the opening of the line. It 
 was drawn by one horse, and performed a journey daily each way 
 between the two towns, accomplishing the distance of twelve miles 
 in about two hours. The fare charged was a shilling, without dis- 
 tinction of class ; and each passenger was allowed fourteen pounds of 
 luggage free. The " Experiment " was not, however, worked by the 
 company, but was let to contractors, who worked it under an ar- 
 rangement whereby toll was paid for the use of the line, rent of 
 booking-cabins, etc. The speculation answered so well that several 
 private coaching companies were shortly after got up by innkeepers at 
 Darlington and Stockton, for the purpose of running other coaches upon 
 the railroad, and an active competition for passenger-traffic sprang up. 
 
 The traffic of all sorts increased so steadily and rapidly, that diffi- 
 culty was experienced in doing it satisfactorily. It had been provided 
 by the first Darlington Act that the line should be free to all parties 
 to put horses and wagons on the railway at certain prescribed rates, 
 and carry for themselves. This led to confusion, and could not con- 
 tinue with a large and rapidly-increasing traffic. The freight trains 
 
 * Before the use of locomotives on the railroad from Jersey City to Newark, 
 say in 1835, cars not greatly differing from the better ones now used on "Horse 
 Railroads" were run by horse-power for many months; distance nine miles.
 
 Blenkinsop's Locomotive, Leeds, 1811. 
 See page 127. 
 
 Coal Engine No. I, " Locomotion," 1825. 
 STOCKTON * DARLINGTON R. R. See page 110.
 
 THE RACE; HORSE vs. LOCOMOTIVE. 149 
 
 got so long, that it became necessary to use the locomotive engine to 
 help. Then mixed trains of passengers and merchandise began to 
 run, and the Railway Company found it necessary to take the entire 
 working of the traffic. In time, new coaches were built for the better 
 accommodation of the public, until, finally, passenger-trains were run 
 by the locomotive, though this was not until after the Liverpool and 
 Manchester Company had established this branch of traffic. 
 
 The three Stephenson locomotives were from the first employed to 
 work coal-trains, and their efficiency led to the gradual increase of 
 locomotive power. The speed of the engine slow though it seems 
 now was in those days regarded marvelous. A race actually came 
 off between No. i engine, the "Locomotion," and a stage-coach, 
 traveling from Darlington to Stockton by the ordinary road, and it 
 was regarded a triumph of mechanical skill that the locomotive 
 reached Stockton first, beating the coach a hundred yards ! The 
 same engine was in good working order in the year 1846, on the 
 opening of the Middlesbo rough and Redcar Railway, traveling at the 
 rate of about fourteen miles an hour. 
 
 For years the principal hauling of the line was performed by horses. 
 The inclination of the gradients being toward the sea, this was per- 
 haps the cheapest mode of traction, so long as the traffic was not very 
 large. The horse drew the train along the level road until, on reach- 
 ing a descending gradient, down which the train ran by its own 
 gravity, the animal was unharnessed, when, wheeling round to the 
 other end of the wagons, to which a "dandy-cart" was attached, its 
 bottom only a few inches from the rail, and bringing his step into 
 unison with the speed of the train, he leaped nimbly into his place 
 in the hind car, fitted with a well-filled hay-rack. 
 
 The details of the working were gradually perfected by experience, 
 the projectors of the line little thinking that they were laying the 
 foundations of a system which was yet to revolutionize the communi- 
 cations of the world, and confer the greatest blessings on mankind. 
 The commercial results of the enterprise were satisfactory from the 
 opening of the railway. Conferring great public benefit upon the in- 
 habitants, and throwing open entirely new markets for the stores of 
 coal found in the district, the profits to stockholders gave encourage- 
 ment to the projectors of railways generally, which was not without 
 important effects in stimulating similar enterprises in other districts. 
 
 It is pleasing to relate, in connection with this great work the 
 Stockton and Darlington, projected by Edward Pease, and executed b^ 
 George Stephenson that when Mr. Stephenson became a prosperous 
 and celebrated man, he did not forget the friend who had helped 
 him in his early days. He continued to remember Mr. Pease with 
 gratitude and affection, and that gentleman, to the close of his life, 
 was proud to exhibit a handsome gold watch, received as a gift from 
 his celebrated prot'eg'e, bearing these words " Esteem and gratitude : 
 from George Stephenson to Edward Pease."
 
 150 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 
 
 THE LIVERPOOL AND MANCHESTER RAILWAY PROJECTED. 
 
 While the coal proprietors of the Auckland district were taking 
 steps to connect their collieries with the sea by an iron railroad, the 
 merchants of Liverpool and Manchester were considering whether 
 some better means could not be devised for bringing these important 
 centers of commerce and manufacture into more direct connection. 
 
 There were canals as well as roads between the two places, but all 
 routes were alike tedious and costly, especially as regarded the transit 
 of heavy goods. The route by turnpike was thirty-six miles, by the 
 Duke of Bridgewater's Canal fifty miles, by the Mersey and Irwell 
 navigation the same, and by the Leeds and Liverpool Canal fifty-six 
 miles. 
 
 These were all overburdened with traffic. The roads were bad, the 
 tolls heavy, and the haulage expensive. The journey by coach occu- 
 pied five to six hours, and by wagon nearly a day. Few heavy goods 
 went by road. The canals nearly monopolized this traffic, and charged 
 what they liked. They conducted their business in a drowsy, sleepy, 
 stupid manner. If the merchant complained of delay, he was told to 
 do better if he could. If he objected to the rates, he was warned 
 that if he did not pay them promptly his goods might not be carried 
 at all. 
 
 The canal companies were in a position to dictate their own ter,ms, 
 and they did this in such a way as to disgust alike the senders and 
 receivers, so that both Liverpool and Manchester were up in arms 
 against them. Worse than the heavy charges for goods was the occa- 
 sional entire stoppage of the canals. Sometimes frozen up ; sometimes 
 blocked by press of traffic, so that goods lay unmoved for weeks 
 together ; at some seasons it occupied a longer time to bring cotton 
 from Liverpool to Manchester by canal-boat than it had done to 
 bring it from New York to Liverpool by sailing ship. 
 
 Was there no way of remedying these great and admitted evils ? 
 Were the commercial public to be bound hand and foot, and left at 
 the mercy of the canal proprietors? Immense interests at Liverpool 
 and Manchester were at stake. The Liverpool merchants wanted new 
 facilities for sending raw material inland, and the Manchester manu- 
 facturers for sending the manufactured products back to Liverpool 
 for shipment. Vast populations had become settled in the towns of 
 South Lancashire, to whom it was of vital importance that the com- 
 munication with the sea should be regular, constant, and economical. 
 
 These considerations early led to the discussion of some improved 
 mode of transit from Liverpool into the interior for heavy goods, and 
 one of the most favored plans was that of a tram-road. 
 
 While the project was still in embryo, the rumor of it reached Mr. 
 William James, an enthusiastic advocate of tram-roads and railways. 
 As a land-surveyor and land-agent, as well as coal-owner, he had laid
 
 PUBLIC OPINION AGAINST RAILWAYS. 15! 
 
 down many private railroads. He had also laid out and superin- 
 tended the execution and the working of canals, projected extensive 
 schemes of drainage and inclosure, and was one of the most useful 
 and active men of his time. But a series of unfortunate speculations 
 in mines having seriously impaired his fortunes, he again reverted 
 to his profession of land-surveyqr, and was so occupied in the neigh- 
 borhood of Liverpool when he heard of the scheme set on foot for 
 the construction of the proposed tram-road to Manchester. He at 
 once called, upon Mr. Sandars and offered his services as its surveyor. 
 A trial survey was begun, but it was conducted with great difficulty, 
 the inhabitants of the district entertaining much prejudice against 
 the scheme. In some places Mr. James and his surveying party 
 had even to encounter personal violence. 
 
 . . . Pamphlets were published and newspapers hired to revile 
 the railway. It was declared that its formation would prevent the 
 cows grazing and hens laying, while the horses passing along the 
 road would be driven distracted. The poisoned air from the locomo- 
 tives would kill the birds that flew over them, and render the pres- 
 ervation of pheasants and foxes no longer possible. Householders 
 adjoining the projected line were told that their houses would be 
 burnt up by the fire thrown from the engine chimneys, while the air 
 around would be polluted by clouds of smoke. There would no longer 
 be any use for horses ; and if railways extended, the species would 
 become extinguished, and oats and hay be rendered unsalable com- 
 modities. Traveling by rail would be highly dangerous, and country 
 inns would be ruined. Boilers would burst and blow passengers to 
 atoms. But there was always this consolation to wind up with that 
 the weight of the locomotive would completely prevent its moving, 
 and that railways, even if made, could never be worked by steam-power. 
 
 Although the press generally spoke of the Liverpool and Manches- 
 ter project as a mere speculation as only one of the many bubble 
 schemes of the period there were other writers who entertained dif- 
 ferent views, and boldly and ably announced them. Among the most 
 sagacious newspaper articles of the day, calling attention to the ap- 
 plication of the locomotive engine to the purposes of rapid steam- 
 traveling on railroads, was a series which appeared in 1824, in the 
 "Scotsman" newspaper, then edited by Mr. Charles Maclaren. In 
 those publications the wonderful powers of the locomotive were logic- 
 ally demonstrated, and the writer, arguing from the experiments on 
 friction, made more than half a century before, by Vince and Coulomb, 
 which scientific men seemed to have altogether lost sight of, clearly 
 showed that, by the use of steam-power on railroads, the cheaper as 
 well as more rapid transit of persons and merchandise might be con- 
 fidently anticipated. 
 
 Not many years passed before the anticipations of the writer, san- 
 guine and speculative though they were at that time regarded, were 
 amply realized. Even Mr. Nicholas Wood, in 1825, speaking of the
 
 152 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 
 
 powers of the locomotive, and referring, doubtless, to the speculations 
 of the " Scotsman " as well as of his equally sanguine friend Stephen- 
 son, observed : " It is far from my wish to promulgate to the world 
 that the ridiculous expectations, or rather professions, of the enthusi- 
 astic speculist will be realized, and that we shall see engines traveling 
 at the rate of twelve, sixteen, eighteen, or twenty miles an hour. 
 Nothing could do more harm toward their general adoption and im- 
 provement than the promulgation of such nonsense."* 
 
 Among the papers left by Mr. Sandars, we find a letter addressed to 
 him by Sir John Barrow, of the Admiralty, as to the proper method 
 of conducting the case in Parliament, which pretty accurately repre- 
 sents the state of public opinion as to the practicability of locomotive 
 traveling on railroads at the time at which it was written, the loth of 
 January, 1825. Sir John strongly urged -Mr. Sandars to keep the 
 locomotive altogether in the background; to rely upon the proved 
 inability of the canals and common roads to accommodate the exist- 
 ing traffic, and to be satisfied with proving the absolute necessity of 
 a new line of conveyance ; above all, he recommended him not even 
 to hint at the intention of carrying passengers. " You will at once," 
 said he, " raise a host of enemies in the proprietors of coaches, post- 
 chaises, innkeepers, etc., whose interests will be attacked, and who, 
 I have no doubt, will be strongly supported, and for what ? Some 
 thousands of passengers, you say but a few hundreds, /should say 
 in the year." 
 
 He accordingly urged that passengers as well as speed should be kept 
 entirely out of the act ; but, if the latter were insisted on, then he 
 recommended that it should be kept as low as possible say at five 
 miles an hour ! 
 
 When George Stephenson, at the interviews with counsel, held pre- 
 vious to the Liverpool and Manchester Bill going into Committee of 
 the House of Commons, confidently stated his expectation of being 
 able to run his locomotive at the rate of twenty miles an hour, Mr. 
 William Brougham frankly told him that if he did not moderate his 
 views, and bring his engine within a reasonable speed, he would " in- 
 evitably damn the whole thing, and be himself regarded as a maniac, 
 fit only for Bedlam." 
 
 The idea thrown out by Stephenson of traveling at a rate of speed 
 double that of the fastest mail-coach appeared at the time so prepos- 
 terous that he 'was unable to find any engineer who would risk his 
 reputation in supporting such "absurd views." Speaking of his 
 isolation at that time, he subsequently observed at a public meeting of 
 railway men in Manchester : " He remembered the time when he 
 had very few supporters in bringing out the railway system when he 
 sought England over for an engineer to support him in his evidence 
 before Parliament, and could find only one man, James Walker, but 
 
 * " Wood on Railroads," ed. 1825, p. 290.
 
 WHAT THE GREAT "QUARTERLY SAID. 153 
 
 was afraid to call that gentleman, because he knew nothing about rail- 
 ways. He had then no one to tell his tale to but Mr. Sandars, of Liv- 
 erpool, who did listen to him, and kept his spirits up; and his schemes 
 had at length been carried out only by dint of sheer perseverance." 
 
 George Stephenson's idea was at that time regarded as but the 
 dream of a chimerical projector. It stood before the public friend- 
 less, struggling hard to gain a footing, scarcely daring to lift itself 
 into notice for fear of ridicule. The civil engineers generally rejected 
 the notion of a Locomotive Railway ; and when no leading man of 
 the day could be found to stand forward in support of the Killing- 
 worth mechanic, its chances of success must indeed have been pro- 
 nounced but small. 
 
 The "Quarterly " scouted the idea of traveling at a greater speed 
 than eight or nine miles an hour. "What can be more palpably 
 absurd and ridiculous than the prospect held out, of locomotives trav- 
 eling twice as fast as stage-coaches ! We would as soon expect the 
 people of Woolwich to suffer themselves to be fired off upon one of 
 Congreve's ricochet rockets, as trust themselves to the mercy of such 
 a machine going at such a rate. We will back old Father Thames 
 against the Woolwich Railway for any sum. We trust that Parlia- 
 ment will, in all railways it may sanction, limit the speed to eight or 
 nine miles an hour, which we entirely agree with Mr. Sylvester is as 
 great as can be ventured on with safety." 
 
 PARLIAMENTARY CONTEST ON THE LIVERPOOL AND MANCHESTER BILL. 
 
 The Liverpool and Manchester Bill went into Committee of the 
 House of Commons on the 2ist of March, 1825. s Mr. Adam, in his 
 opening speech, referred to the cases of the Hetton and Killingworth 
 railroads, where heavy goods were safely and economically transported 
 by means of locomotive engines. " None of the tremendous conse- 
 quences," he observed, "have ensued from the use of steam in land 
 carriage that have been stated. The horses have not started, nor the 
 cows ceased to give their milk, nor have ladies miscarried at the sight 
 of these things going forward at the rate of four miles and a half an 
 hour." Notwithstanding the petition of two ladies, alleging the great 
 danger to be apprehended from the bursting of the locomotive boil- 
 ers, he urged the safety of the high-pressure engine, when the boilers 
 were constructed of wrought iron ; and as to the rate at which they 
 could travel, he expressed his full conviction that such engines "could 
 supply force to drive a carriage at the rate of five or six miles an 
 hour." 
 
 George Stephenson, many years afterward, said : "When I went to 
 Liverpool to plan a line from thence to Manchester, I pledged my- 
 self to the directors to attain a speed of ten miles an hour. I said I 
 had no doubt the locomotive might be made to go much faster, but 
 that we had better be moderate at the beginning. The directors said
 
 154 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 
 
 I was quite right ; for that if, when they went to Parliament, I talked 
 of going at a greater rate than ten miles an hour, I should put a cross 
 upon the concern. It was not an easy task for me to keep the engine 
 down to ten miles an hour, but it must be done, and I did my best." 
 
 George Stephenson stood before the committee to prove what the 
 public opinion of that day held to be impossible. The self-taught 
 mechanic had to demonstrate the practicability of accomplishing that 
 which the most distinguished engineers of the time regarded as im- 
 practicable. Clear though the subject was to himself, and familliar 
 as he was with the powers of the locomotive, it was no easy task for 
 him to bring home his convictions, or even to convey his meaning, to 
 the less informed minds of his hearers. In his strong Northumbrian 
 dialect, he struggled for utterance, in the face of the sneers, in- 
 terruptions, and ridicule of the opponents of the measure, and 
 even of the committee, some of whom shook their heads and whispered 
 doubts as to his sanity when he energetically avowed that he could 
 make the locomotive go at the rate of twelve miles an hour ! It 
 was so grossly in the teeth of all the experience of honorable mem- 
 bers, that the man "must certainly be laboring under a delusion!" 
 
 And yet his large experience of railways and locomotives, as de- 
 scribed by himself to the committee, entitled this " untaught, inartic- 
 ulate genius," as he has been described, to speak with confidence 
 on the subject. Beginning with his experience as a brakeman at 
 Killingworth in 1803, he went on to state that he was appointed to 
 take the entire charge of the steam-engines in 1813, and had superin- 
 tended the railroads connected with the numerous collieries of the 
 Grand Allies from that time downward. He had laid down or super- 
 intended the railways at Burradon, Mount Moor, Springwell, Bedling- 
 ton, Hetton and Darlington, besides improving those at Killingworth, 
 South Moor, and Derwent Crook. He had constructed fifty-five 
 steam-engines, of which sixteen were locomotives. Some of these had 
 been sent to France. 
 
 The engines constructed by him for the working of the Killingworth 
 Railroad, eleven years before, had continued steadily at work ever 
 since, and fulfilled his most sanguine expectations. He was prepared 
 to prove the safety of working high-pressure locomotives on a railroad, 
 a^d the superiority of this mode of transporting goods over all oth- 
 ers. As to speed, he said he had recommended eight miles an hour 
 with twenty tons, and four miles an hour with forty tons ; but he was 
 quite confident that much more might be done. Indeed, he had no 
 doubt they might go at the rate of twelve miles. As to the charge 
 that locomotives on a railroad would so terrify the horses in the 
 neighborhood that to travel on horseback or to plow the adjoining 
 fields would be rendered highly dangerous, the witness said that 
 horses learned to take no notice of them, though there were horses 
 that would shy at a wheelbarrow. A mail-coach was likely to be 
 more shied at by horses than a locomotive. In the neighborhood of
 
 HIS GREAT ABILITIES AS MANAGER. 155 
 
 Killingworth, the cattle in the fields went on grazing while the engines 
 passed them, and the farmers made no complaints. As to accidents, 
 Stephenson knew of none that had occurred with his engines. 
 
 The point on which Stephenson was hardest pressed was that of 
 speed. " I believe," he says, " that it would have lost the company 
 their bill if he had gone beyond eight or nine miles an hour. If he 
 had stated his intention of going twelve or fifteen miles an hour, not 
 a single person would have believed it to be practicable." 
 
 CHAT MOSS CONSTRUCTION OF THE RAILWAY. 
 
 The appointment of principal engineer of the railway was taken 
 into consideration at the first meeting of the directors, held at Liver- 
 pool subsequent to the passing of the act of incorporation, and they 
 proceeded to appoint George Stephenson principal engineer, at a salary 
 of i,ooo/. per annum. He at once removed his residence to Liverpool. 
 
 In the construction of the railway, George Stephenson's capacity 
 for organizing and directing the labors of a large number of workmen 
 of all kinds eminently displayed itself. A vast quantity of ballast- 
 wagons had to be constructed for the purposes of the work, and im- 
 plements and materials had to be collected, before the mass of labor 
 to be employed could be efficiently set in motion at the various points 
 of the line. There were not at that time, as there are now, large con- 
 tractors, possessed of railway facilities, capable of executing earth- 
 works on a large scale. Our engineer had, therefore, not only to 
 contrive the instruments, but to organize the labor, and direct it in 
 person. The very laborers themselves had to be trained to their work 
 by him; and it was on the Liverpool and Manchester line that Mr. 
 Stephenson organized the staff of that formidable band of railway 
 navvies, whose handiworks will be the wonder and admiration of 
 succeeding generations. Looking at their gigantic traces, the men 
 of some future age may be found to declare, of the engineer and his 
 workmen, that " there were giants in those days." The works of the 
 Liverpool and Manchester Railway were then regarded as of a stu- 
 pendous kind. 
 
 By the end of 1828, the directors found they had expended 
 46o,ooo/. , and they were still far from completion. Mr. Cropper, one 
 of the directors, who took an active interest in their progress, said to 
 Stephenson one day, "Now, George, thou must get on with the rail- 
 way, and have it finished without farther delay: thou must really have 
 it ready for opening by the first day of January next." "Consider 
 the heavy character of the works, sir, and how much we have been 
 delayed by the want of money, not to speak of the wetness of the 
 weather: it is impossible." "Impossible!" rejoined Cropper; "I 
 wish I could get Napoleon to thee he would tell thee there is no 
 such word as 'impossible' in the vocabulary." "Tush!" exclaimed 
 Stephenson, with warmth, " do n't speak to me about Napoleon ! Give
 
 156 GEORGE STEPH ENSOtf. 
 
 me men, money, and materials, and I will do what Napoleon couldn't 
 do drive a railroad from Liverpool to Manchester over Chat Moss ! ' ' 
 And truly the formation of a high road over that bottomless bog was 
 apparently a more difficult task than the making even of Napoleon's 
 far-famed road across the Simplon. 
 
 It may well be supposed that Stephenson's time was fully occupied 
 in superintending the extensive and for the most part novel works 
 connected with the railway, and that even his extraordinary powers 
 of labor and endurance were taxed to the utmost during the four 
 years that they were in progress. Almost every detail in the plans 
 was directed and arranged by himself. Every bridge, from the sim- 
 plest to the most complicated, including the then novel structure of 
 the "skew bridge," iron girders, siphons, fixed engines, and the ma- 
 chinery for working the tunnel at the Liverpool end, had all to be 
 thought out by his own head, and reduced to definite plans under his 
 own eyes. Besides all this, he had to design the "Rolling Stick" in 
 anticipation of the opening of the railway. He must be prepared 
 with wagons, trucks, and carriages, himself superintending their man- 
 ufacture. The permanent road, turn-tables, switches, and crossings 
 in short, the entire structure and machinery of the line, from the 
 turning of the first sod to the running of the first train of carriages 
 on the railway, went on under his immediate supervision. And it 
 was in the midst of this vast accumulation of work and responsibility 
 that the battle of the locomotive engine had to be fought a battle 
 not merely against material difficulties, but against the still more 
 trying obstructions of deeply-rooted mistrust and prejudice on the 
 part of a considerable minority of the directors. 
 
 He had no staff of experienced assistants, not even a staff of 
 draughtsmen in his office, but only a few pupils learning their busi- 
 ness, and he was frequently without even their help. The principal 
 draughtsman was Mr. Thomas Gooch, a pupil he had brought with 
 him from Newcastle. " I may say," writes Mr. Gooch, "that nearly 
 the whole of the working and other drawings, as well as the various 
 land-plans for the railway, were drawn by my own hand. They 
 were done at the company's office in Clayton Square during the day, 
 from instructions supplied in the evenings by Mr. Stephenson, either 
 by word of mouth, or by little, rough hand-sketches on letter-paper. 
 The evenings were also generally devoted to my duties as secretary, 
 in writing (mostly from his own dictation) his letters and reports, or 
 in making calculations and estimates. The mornings before break- 
 fast were not unfrequently spent by me in visiting, and lending a 
 helping hand in the tunnel and other works near Liverpool the un- 
 tiring zeal and perseverance of George Stephenson never for an instant 
 flagging, and inspiring with a like enthusiasm all who were engaged 
 under him in carrying forward the works." 
 
 Occasionally he mould take an early ride before breakfast, to in- 
 spect the progress of the Sankey viaduct. He had a favorite horse,
 
 PLAIN FOOD SHREWD, COMMON SENSE. 157 
 
 brought by him from Newcastle, called "Bobby" so tractable that, 
 with his rider on his back, he would walk up to a locomotive with 
 the steam blowing off, and put his nose against it without shying. 
 "Bobby," saddled and bridled, was brought to Stephenson's door 
 betimes in the morning, and, mounting him, he would ride the fifteen 
 miles to Sankey, putting up at a little public house which then stood 
 upon the banks of the canal. There he had his breakfast of " crowdy," 
 which he made with his own hands. It consisted of oatmeal 
 stirred into a basin of hot water a sort of porridge which was 
 supped with cold sweet milk. After this frugal breakfast he would 
 go upon the works, and remain there, riding from point to point for 
 the greater part of the day. His strong natural acumen showed itself 
 even in such matters as grammar and composition a department of 
 knowledge in which, it might be supposed, he could scarcely have 
 had either time or opportunity to acquire much information. But 
 here, as in all other things, his shrewd common sense came to his 
 help, and his simple, vigorous English might almost be cited as a 
 model of composition. 
 
 He delighted to test the knowledge of his young companions, and 
 to question them upon the principles of mechanics. If they were not 
 quite "up to the mark" on any point, there was no escaping detec- 
 tion by evasive or specious explanations on their part. He felt that 
 he himself had been made stronger and better through his encounters 
 with difficulty, and he would not have the road of knowledge made 
 too smooth and easy for them. "Learn for yourselves think for 
 yourselves," he would say: "make yourselves masters of principles 
 persevere be industrious and there is then no fear of you." And 
 not the least emphatic proof of the soundness of this system of educa- 
 tion, as conducted by George Stephenson, was afforded by the after- 
 history of the pupils themselves. There was not one of those trained 
 under his eye who did not rise to eminent usefulness and distinction 
 as an engineer. 
 
 ROBERT STEPHENSON'S RESIDENCE IN COLOMBIA, AND RETURN THE 
 BATTLE OF THE LOCOMOTIVE "THE ROCKET." 
 
 Robert Stephenson, who was absent from England during the con- 
 struction of the Liverpool Railway, was now about to rejoin his father 
 and take part in "the battle of the locomotive," which was impend- 
 ing. On his return from Edinburgh College, at the end of 1821, he 
 had assisted in superintending the works of the Hetton Railway 
 until its opening in 1822, after which he proceeded to Liverpool to 
 take part with Mr. James in surveying the proposed railway there. 
 In the following year he was assisting his father in the working sur- 
 vey of the Stockton and Darlington Railway ; and when the Loco- 
 motive Engine Works were started in Forth Street, Newcastle, he 
 took an active part in that concern. "The factory," he says, "was 
 in active operation in 1824; I left England for Colombia in June of
 
 158 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 
 
 that year, having finished drawing the designs of the Brusselton 
 stationary engines for the Stockton and Darlington Railway before I 
 left." Speculation was very rife at the time, and among the most 
 promising adventures were the companies organized for the purpose 
 of working the gold and silver mines of South America. 
 
 The Colombian Mining Association of London offered an engage- 
 ment to young Stephenson to go out to Mariquita, and take charge 
 of the engineering operations of that company. Robert was himself 
 desirous of accepting it, but his father said it would first be necessary 
 to ascertain whether the proposed change would be for his good. His 
 health had been very delicate for some time, partly occasioned by his 
 rapid growth, but principally because of his close application to work 
 and study. Father and son proceeded together to call upon Dr. 
 Headlam, the eminent physician of Newcastle, and to his great relief 
 the doctor decided that a temporary residence in a warm climate was 
 the very thing likely to be most beneficial to him. 
 
 After a tolerably prosperous voyage, he landed at La Guayra, on 
 the north coast of Venezuela, on the 23d of July; from thence he 
 proceeded to Caraccas, the capital of the district, fifteen miles inland. 
 There he remained two months, unable to proceed, because of the 
 wretched state of the roads. About the beginning of October, he set 
 out on mule-back for Bogota, the capital, twelve hundred miles dis- 
 tant, through a very difficult region. In the course of the journey, 
 Robert visited many of the districts reported to be rich in minerals, 
 but he met with few traces, except of copper, iron, and coal, with 
 occasional indications of gold and silver. He found the people ready 
 to furnish information, which, however, when tested, usually proved 
 worthless. A guide, whom he employed for weeks, kept him buoyed 
 up with the hope of finding richer mining places than he had yet 
 seen ; but when he professed to be able to show him mines of" brass, 
 steel, alcohol, and pinchbeck," Stephenson discovered him to be an 
 incorrigible rogue, and dismissed him. At length he reached Bogota, 
 and after an interview with Mr. Illingworth, the commercial manager 
 of the Mining Company, he proceeded to Honda, crossed the Mag- 
 dalena, and shortly after reached the site of his intended operations 
 on the eastern slope of the Andes. 
 
 Robert Stephenson's residence in Colombia was not without disa- 
 greeable incidents ; his men were intemperate and unruly ; the cap- 
 tain of the miners quarreled and fought with the men, and was inso- 
 lent to his chief. Disease also fell upon Mr. Stephenson first, 
 fever, and then visceral derangement, followed by a return of his 
 "old complaint, a feeling of oppression in the breast." No wonder 
 that in the midst of these troubles he grew home-sick ; he had stuck 
 to his post, his duty, and kept up his courage ; and by mildness, firm- 
 ness, and the display of cool judgment, he contrived to keep the men 
 to their work, and gradually carry forward the enterprise. By July, 
 1826, quietness and order were restored, and the works were proceed-
 
 ROBERT IN SOUTH AMERICA. 
 
 J 59 
 
 ing more satisfactorily, though the yield of silver was not as yet very 
 promising; his opinion was that at least three years' diligent and 
 costly operations would be necessary to render the mines productive. 
 
 Meanwhile he removed to the dwelling erected for his accommoda- 
 tion at Santa Anna. The structure, after the fashion of the country, 
 was of split and flattened bamboo, tied together with the long fibers of 
 a dried climbing plant ; the roof was of palm-leaves, and the ceiling 
 of reeds. When an earthquake shakes the district, the inmates of such 
 a fabric merely feel as if shaken in a basket. In front of the cottage 
 lay a woody ravine, extending almost to the base of the Andes, gor- 
 geously clothed in primeval vegetation magnolias, palms, bamboos, 
 tree-ferns, acacias, cedars ; and towering over all were the great almen- 
 drons, with their smooth, silvery stems, bearing aloft noble clusters 
 of pure white blossom. The forest was haunted by myriads of gay 
 insects, butterflies with wings of dazzling luster, birds of brilliant 
 plumage, humming-birds, golden orioles, toucans, and a host of sol- 
 itary warblers. But the glorious sunsets seen from his cottage-porch 
 more than all astonished and delighted the young engineer, and he 
 was accustomed to say that, after having witnessed them, he was re- 
 luctant to accuse the ancient Peruvians of idolatry. 
 
 But all these natural beauties failed to reconcile him to the harass- 
 ing difficulties of his position, which continued to increase rather 
 than diminish. He, therefore, determined to leave at the end of his 
 three years' engagement, and communicated his decision to the di- 
 rectors accordingly. 
 
 In a letter to Mr. Illingworth, then resident at Bogota, dated the 
 24th of March, 1826, Robert wrote as follows: "Nothing but the 
 fullest consent of my partners in England could induce me to stay in 
 this country, and the assurance that no absolute necessity existed to 
 call me home. I must also have the consent of my father. I know 
 that he must have suffered severely from my absence, but that having 
 been extended so far beyond the period he was led to expect, may 
 have induced him to curtail his plans, which, had they been accom- 
 plished, as they would have been by my assistance, would have placed 
 us both in a situation far superior to any thing that I can hope for as 
 the servant of an association however wealthy and liberal. What I 
 might do in England is, perhaps, known to myself only; it is diffi- 
 cult, therefore, for the association to calculate upon rewarding me to 
 the full extent of my prospects at home. My prosperity is involved 
 in that of my father, whose property was sacrificed in laying the 
 foundations of an establishment for me ; his capital being invested in 
 a concern which requires the greatest attention, and which, with our 
 personal superintendence, could not fail to secure that independence 
 which forms so principally the object of all our toil." 
 
 On receiving his letter, the board, through Mr. Richardson, of 
 Lombard Street, one of the directors, communicated with his father 
 at Newcastle, representing that if he would allow his son to remain
 
 160 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 
 
 in Colombia the company would make it " worth his while." To this 
 the father gave a decided negative, and intimated that he himself 
 urgently needed his son's assistance, and that he must return at the 
 close of his three years' term a decision, Robert wrote, "at which 
 I feel much gratified, as it is clear that he is as anxious to have me 
 back in England as I am to get there." 
 
 At the same time, Edward Pease, partner in the Newcastle firm, 
 wrote Robert to the following effect : "I can assure thee that the 
 business at Newcastle, as well as thy father's engineering, have suffered 
 very much from thy absence, and, unless thou soon return, the former 
 will be given up, as Mr. Longridge is not able to give it that atten- 
 tion it requires; and what is done is not done with credit to the 
 house." The idea of the manufactory being given up, which Robert 
 had labored so hard to establish, was painful in the extreme, and he 
 wrote to Mr. Illingworth, urging that arrangements be made enabling 
 him to leave without delay. Meantime he was prostrated by another 
 violent attack of aguish fever; and when able, wrote, June, 1827, 
 that he was "completely wearied and worn down with vexation." 
 
 At length, when sufficiently recovered from his attack, he set out 
 on his voyage homeward in the beginning of August. At Mompox, 
 on his way down the river Magdalena, he met Mr. Bodmer, his suc- 
 cessor, with a fresh party of Miners from England, on their way up 
 the country to the quarters which he had just quitted. Next day a 
 steam-boat was met ascending the river, with Bolivar the Liberator on 
 board, on his way to Bogota; and it was a mortification to our en- 
 gineer that he had only a passing sight of that distinguished man. 
 
 Arrived at the port of Carthagena, on his return, he found himself 
 under the necessity of waiting some time for a ship. The delay was 
 very irksome to him, the more so as the place was then desolated by 
 the ravages of the yellow fever. While sitting one day in the large, 
 bare, comfortless public room of the miserable hotel at which he put 
 up, he observed two strangers, whom he at once perceived to be Eng- 
 lish. One of the strangers was a tall, gaunt man, shrunken and hol- 
 low-looking, shabbily dressed, and apparently poverty-stricken. On 
 making inquiry, he found it was Trevithick, the builder of the first 
 railroad locomotive ! He was returning home from the gold mines 
 of Peru penniless. Robert Stephenson lent him 507. to enable him 
 to reach England ; and though he was afterward heard of as an in- 
 ventor there, he had no farther part in the ultimate triumph of the 
 locomotive. But Trevithick's misadventures on.this occasion had not 
 yet ended ; for before he reached New York he was wrecked, and 
 Robert Stephenson with him. 
 
 After a short tour in the United States and Canada, Robert Steph- 
 enson and his friend took ship for Liverpool, where they arrived at 
 the end of November, and at once proceeded to Newcastle. The 
 factory, we have seen, was by no means in a prosperous state. During 
 the time Robert had been in America it had been carried on at a
 
 LOCOMOTIVE WORKS. l6l 
 
 considerable loss ; and Edward Pease, very much disheartened, wished 
 to retire from it, but George Stephenson being unable to raise the 
 requisite money to buy him out, the establishment was of necessity 
 carried on by its then partners until the locomotive could be estab- 
 lished in public estimation as a practicable and economical working 
 power. Robert Stephenson immediately instituted a rigid inquiry 
 into the workings of the concern, unraveled the accounts, which had 
 been allowed to fall into confusion during his father's absence at Liv- 
 erpool, and very shortly succeeded in placing the affairs of the fac- 
 tory in a more healthy condition. In all this he had the hearty sup- 
 port of his father, as well as of the other partners. 
 
 The works of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway were now 
 approaching completion. But the directors had not yet decided as 
 to the motive power to be employed in working the line. The dif- 
 ferences of opinion were apparently irreconcilable. It was necessary, 
 however, to come to some decision without loss of time, and many 
 board meetings were held to discuss the subject. The old-fashioned 
 horse system was not without advocates; but, looking at the large 
 traffic there was likely to be, and the probable delays in transit, if 
 this method were adopted, the directors concluded that the employ- 
 ment of horse-power was inadmissible. 
 
 Fixed engines had many advocates; the locomotive very few: it 
 stood as yet almost in a minority of one George Stephenson. It 
 may be mentioned that the Newcastle and Carlisle Railway Act was 
 conceded in 1829 on the express condition that it should not be 
 worked my locomotives, but by horses only. 
 
 Grave doubts still existed as to the practicability of working a large 
 traffic by means of traveling engines. The most celebrated engineers 
 did not believe in the locomotive, and would scarcely take the trou- 
 ble to examine it. The ridicule with which George Stephenson had 
 been assailed by the barristers before the Parliamentary Committee 
 had not been altogether distasteful to them. Perhaps they did not 
 relish the idea of a man who had picked up his experience in New- 
 castle coal-pits appearing in the capacity of a leading engineer before 
 Parliament, and attempting to establish a new system. 
 
 The directors could not disregard the adverse and conflicting views 
 of the professional men whom they consulted. But Stephenson had 
 so repeatedly and earnestly urged upon them the propriety of making 
 a trial of the locomotive before coming to any decision against it, 
 that they authorized him to proceed with the construction of one of 
 his engines by way of experiment. In their annual report, March 
 27th, 1828, they state that they had, after due consideration, author- 
 ized the engineer " to prepare a locomotive engine, which, from the 
 nature of its construction, and from experiments already made, he is 
 of opinion will be effective for the purposes of the company, without 
 proving an annoyance to the public." The locomotive thus ordered was 
 ii
 
 162 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 
 
 placed upon the line in 1829, and was found of great service in 
 drawing wagons full of marl from the cuttings. 
 
 Meantime the discussion proceeded as to the power to be per- 
 manently employed. The directors were inundated with schemes of 
 all sorts. The projectors of England, France, and America seemed 
 to be let loose upon them. There were plans for working the wagons 
 along the line by water-power. Some proposed hydrogen, and others 
 carbonic acid, gas. Atmospheric pressure had its eager advocates. 
 And various kinds of fixed and locomotive steam-power were sug- 
 gested. Thomas Gray urged his plan of a greased road with cog- 
 rails ; and Messrs. Vignolles and Ericsson recommended the adoption 
 of a central friction-rail, against which two horizontal rollers under 
 the locomotive, pressing upon the sides of this rail, were to afford 
 the means of ascending the inclined planes. 
 
 The directors felt unable to choose from amid these projects. Their 
 engineer expressed himself decidedly in favor of smooth rails and 
 locomotive engines, confident that they would be found the most 
 economical and by far the most convenient moving power. The 
 Darlington Railway being now at work, a deputation went down to 
 inspect the fixed and locomotive engines on that line, as well as at 
 Hetton and Killingworth. They returned with much information ; 
 but their testimony as to the relative merits of the two kinds of 
 engines was so contradictory, that the directors were as far as ever 
 from a decision. 
 
 They then resolved to call to their aid two professional engineers 
 of high standing, who should visit the Darlington and Newcastle rail- 
 ways, carefully examine both modes, and report to them fully on the 
 subject. The gentlemen selected were Mr. Walker, of Limehouse, 
 and Mr. Rastrick, of Stourbridge. After careful examination, they 
 made their report in the spring of 1829. They concurred in the opinion 
 that the cost of an establishment of fixed engines would be somewhat 
 greater than that of locomotives to do the same work, but they 
 thought the annual charge would be less if the former were adopted. 
 It was admitted that there appeared more grounds for expecting im- 
 provements in the construction and working of locomotives than of 
 stationary engines. " On the whole, however, and looking especially 
 at the computed annual charge of working the road on the two sys- 
 tems, on a large scale, Messrs. Walker and Rastrick were of opinion 
 that fixed engines were preferable, and accordingly recommended 
 their adoption to the directors. And in order to carry the system 
 recommended by them into effect, they proposed to divide the rail- 
 road into nineteen stages of about a mile and a half each, with twenty- 
 one engines fixed at the different points to work the trains forward. 
 
 Such was the result, so far, of George Stephenson's labors. The 
 two best practical engineers of the day concurred in reporting sub- 
 stantially in favor of the employment of fixed engines. Not a single 
 professional man of eminence could be found to coincide with the
 
 STATIONARY ENGINES, OR LOCOMOTIVES. 163 
 
 engineer of the railway in his preference for locomotive over fixed 
 engine power. He had scarcely a supporter, and the locomotive 
 system seemed on the eve of being abandoned. Still he did not de- 
 spair. With the profession against him, and public opinion against 
 him for the most frightful stories went abroad respecting the dangers, 
 the unsightliness, and the nuisance which the locomotive would create 
 Stephenson held to his purpose. Even in this, apparently the 
 darkest hour of the locomotive, he did not hesitate to declare that 
 locomotive railroads would, before many years had passed, be " the 
 great highways of the world." 
 
 He urged his views in all ways, in season, and, as some of them 
 thought, out of season. He pointed out the greater convenience of 
 locomotive power for the purposes of a public highway, likening it to 
 a series of short, unconnected chains, any one of which could be re- 
 moved and another substituted, without interruption to the traffic; 
 whereas the fixed-engine system might be regarded in the light of a 
 continuous chain extending between the two termini, the failure of 
 any link of which would derange the whole. But the fixed-engine 
 party were very strong at the board, and, led by Mr. Cropper, they 
 urged the propriety of forthwith adopting the report of Messrs. Walker 
 and Rastrick. Mr. Sandars and Mr. William Rathbone, on the other 
 hand, desired that a fair trial should be given to the locomotive ; and 
 they objected to the expenditure of the large capital necessary to 
 construct engine-houses, with their fixed engines, ropes, and ma- 
 chinery, until they had tested the powers of the locomotive as recom- 
 mended by their own engineer. George Stephenson continued to 
 urge upon them that the locomotive was yet capable of great improve- 
 ments, if proper inducements were held out to inventors and ma- 
 chinists to make them ; and he pledged himself that, if time were 
 given him, he would construct an engine that should satisfy their re- 
 quirements, and prove itself capable of working heavy loads along the 
 railway with speed, regularity, and safety. At length, influenced by 
 his persistent earnestness not less than by his arguments, the directors, 
 at the suggestion of Mr. Harrison, determined to offer a prize of 5oo/. 
 for the best locomotive engine, which, on a certain day, should be 
 produced on the railway, and perform certain specified conditions in 
 the most satisfactory manner. 
 
 The requirements of the directors as to speed were not excessive. 
 All that they asked for was that ten miles an hour should be main- 
 tained. Perhaps they had in mind the animadversions of the 
 " Quarterly Reviewer," on the absurdity of traveling at a greater 
 velocity, and also the remarks published by Mr. Nicholas Wood, 
 whom they selected to be one of the judges of the competition, in 
 conjunction with Mr. Rastrick, of Stourbridge, and Mr. Kennedy, 
 of Manchester. 
 
 It was now felt that the fate of railways in a great measure de- 
 pended upon the issue of this appeal to the mechanical genius of Eng-
 
 164 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 
 
 land. When the advertisement of th*e prize for the best locomotive 
 was published, scientific men began more particularly to direct their 
 attention to the new power which was thus struggling into existence. 
 In the mean time public opinion, on the subject of railway working 
 remained suspended, and the progress of the undertaking was watched 
 with intense interest. 
 
 During the progress of this important controversy George Stephen- 
 son was in constant communication with his son Robert, who made 
 frequent visits to Liverpool, to assist his father in the preparation of 
 his reports to the board on the subject. Mr. Swanwick remembers 
 the vivid interest of the evening discussions which then took place 
 between father and son as to the best mode of increasing the powers 
 and perfecting the mechanism of the locomotive. He wondered at 
 their quick perception and rapid judgment on each other's sugges- 
 tions; at the mechanical difficulties which they anticipated and pro- 
 vided for in the practical arrangement of the machine ; and he speaks 
 of these evenings as most interesting displays of two actively ingenious 
 and able minds stimulating each other to feats of mechanical inven- 
 tion, by which it was ordained that the locomotive engine should 
 become what it now is. These discussions became more frequent, 
 and still more interesting, after the public prize had been offered for 
 the best locomotive by the directors of the railway, and the working 
 plans of the engine, which they proposed to construct, had to be 
 settled. 
 
 One of the most important considerations in the new engine was 
 the arrangement of the boiler and the extension of its heating surface, 
 to enable steam enough to be raised rapidly and continuously, foi 
 the purpose of maintaining high rates of speed. The quantity of 
 steam generated must chiefly depend upon the quantity of fuel con- 
 sumed in the furnace, and, by necessary consequence, upon the high 
 rate of temperature maintained. 
 
 It will be remembered that in Stephenson's first Killingworth 
 engines he stimulated combustion in the furnace by throwing the 
 waste steam into the chimney, thereby accelerating the ascent of the 
 current of air, greatly increasing the draught, and consequently the 
 temperature of the fire. This plan was adopted as early as 1815, and 
 was so successful that he attributed to it the greater economy of the 
 locomotive as compared with horse-power. Hence its continuance 
 upon the Killingworth Railway. Though this steam-blast greatly 
 quickened combustion and contributed to the rapid production of 
 high-pressure steam, the limited amount of heating surface presented 
 to the fire was still felt to be an obstacle to the complete success of 
 the locomotive engine. Mr. Stephenson endeavored to overcome this 
 by lengthening the boilers and increasing the surface by the flue- 
 tubes. The "Lancashire Witch," which he built for the Bolton 
 Railway, and used in forming the Liverpool and Manchester embank- 
 ments, was constructed with a double tube, each of which contained
 
 TUBULAR BOI LERS. 165 
 
 a fire, and passed longitudinally through the boiler. But this arrange- 
 ment necessarily led to a considerable increase in the weight of those 
 engines, which amounted to about twelve tons each ; and as six tons 
 was the limit allowed for engines admitted to the Liverpool competi- 
 tion, it was clear that the time was come when the Killingworth en- 
 gine must undergo a farther important modification. 
 
 For many years ingenious mechanics had been engaged in attempt- 
 ing to solve the problem of the best and most economical boiler for 
 the production of high-pressure steam. The use of tubes in boilers 
 for increasing the heating surface had long been known. As early as 
 1 780, Matthew Boulton employed copper tubes longitudinally in the 
 boiler of the Wheal Busy engine in Cornwall the fire passing through 
 the tubes and it was found that the production of steam was thereby 
 considerably increased.* The use of tubular boilers afterward became 
 common in Cornwall. In 1815, Trevithick invented his light high- 
 pressure boiler for portable purposes, in which, to " expose a large 
 surface to the fire," he constructed the boiler of a number of small 
 perpendicular tubes "opening into a common reservoir at the top." 
 In 1823, W. H. James contrived a boiler composed of a series of an- 
 nular wrought-iron tubes, placed side by side, and bolted together, so 
 as to form by their union a long cylindrical boiler, in the center of 
 which, at the end, the fire-place was situated. The fire played round 
 the tubes, which contained the water. In 1826, James Neville took 
 out a patent for a boiler with vertical tubes surrounded by the water, 
 through which the heated air of the furnace passed, explaining also, 
 in his specification, that the tubes might be horizontal or inclined, 
 according to circumstances. Mr. Goldsworthy Gurney, the persever- 
 ing adaptor of steam carriages to traveling on common roads, applied 
 the tubular principle in the boiler of his engine, in which the steam 
 was generated within the tubes ; while the boiler invented by Messrs. 
 Summers and Ogle for their turnpike-road steam carriage consisted of 
 a series of tubes placed vertically over the furnace, through which 
 the heated air passed before reaching the chimney. 
 
 About the same time George Stephenson was trying the effect of 
 introducing small tubes in the boilers of his locomotives, with the 
 object of increasing their evaporative power. In 1829, he sent to 
 France two engines, constructed at the Newcastle works for the Lyons 
 and St. Etienne Railway, in the boilers of which tubes were placed 
 containing water. The heating surface was thus considerably increased ; 
 but the expedient was not successful, for the tubes, becoming furred 
 with deposit, shortly burned out and were removed. It was then 
 
 * Some correspondence took place between Boulton and Watt on the subject, 
 when the latter was scheming the application of the steam-engine to locomotive pur- 
 poses. In a letter to Boulton, dated the 2yth of August, 1784, Watt said, " Perhaps 
 some means may be hit upon to make the boiler cylindrical with a number of tuba 
 passing through, like the organ-pipe condenser, whereby it might be thinner and 
 lighter; but," he added, " I fear this would be too subject to accidents."
 
 l66 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 
 
 that M. Seguin, the engineer of the railway, is said to have adopted 
 his plan of employing horizontal tubes through which the heated air 
 passed in streamlets, and for which he took out a French patent. 
 
 In the mean time, Mr. Henry Booth, whose attention had been di- 
 rected to the subject, on the prize being offered for the best locomo- 
 tive to work that line, proposed the same method which, unknown 
 to him, Matthew Boulton had employed, but not patented, in 1780, 
 and James Neville had patented, but not employed, in 1826; and it 
 was carried into effect by Robert Stephenson in the construction of 
 the "Rocket," which won the prize at Rainhill in October, 1829. 
 The following is Mr. Booth's account in a letter: 
 
 "I was in almost daily communication with Mr. Stephenson at 
 the time, and I was not aware that he had any intention of competing 
 for the prize till I communicated to him my scheme of a multitubular 
 boiler. This new plan of boiler comprised the introduction of nu- 
 merous small tubes, two or three inches in diameter, and less than 
 one-eighth of an inch thick, through which to carry the fire, instead 
 of a single tube or flue eighteen inches in diameter, and about half 
 an inch thick, by which plan we not only obtain a very much larger 
 heating surface, but the heating surface is much more effective, as 
 there intervenes between the fire and the water only a thin sheet of cop- 
 per or brass, not an eighth of an inch thick, instead of a plate of 
 iron of four times the substance, as well as an inferior conductor of 
 heat. 
 
 " When the conditions of trial were published, I communicated my 
 multitubular plan to Mr. Stephenson, and proposed to him that we 
 should jointly construct an engine, and compete for the prize. Mr. 
 Stephenson approved the plan, anfl agreed to my .proposal. He set- 
 tled the mode in which the fire-box and tubes were to be mutually 
 arranged and connected, and the engine was constructed at the 
 works of Messrs. Robert Stephenson & Co., Newcastle-on-Tyne. 
 
 " I am ignorant of M. Seguin 's proceedings in France, but I claim 
 to be the inventor in England, and feel warranted in stating, without 
 reservation, that, until I named my plan to Mr. Stephenson, with a 
 view to compete for the prize at Rainhill, it had not been tried, and 
 was not known, in this country." 
 
 From the well known high character of Mr. Booth, we believe his 
 statement to be made in perfect good faith, and that he was as much 
 in ignorance of the plan patented by Neville as he was of that of 
 Seguin. As we have seen, from the many plans of tubular boilers 
 invented during the preceding thirty years, the idea was not new ; 
 and we believe Mr. Booth entitled to the merit of inventing the 
 method which was so effectually applied in the construction of the 
 famous "Rocket" engine. 
 
 The circumstances connected with the construction of the "Rocket," 
 as described by Robert Stephenson, may be briefly stated. The tub- 
 ular principle was adopted in a more complete manner than had yet
 
 STEAM-BLAST INVENTION. 167 
 
 been attempted. Twenty-five copper tubes, each three inches in 
 diameter, extended from one end of the boiler to the other, the heated 
 air passing through them on its way to the chimney ; and the tubes 
 being surrounded by the water of the boiler, it will be obvious that a 
 large extension of the heating surface was thus effectually secured. 
 The principal difficulty was in fitting the copper tubes in the boiler- 
 ends so as to prevent leakage. They were manufactured by a New- 
 castle coppersmith, and soldered to brass screws which were screwed 
 into the boiler-ends, standing out in great knobs. When the tubes 
 were thus fitted, and the boiler was filled with water, hydraulic press- 
 ure was applied ; but the water squirted out at every joint, and the 
 factory floor was soon flooded. Robert went home in despair ; and, 
 in the first moment of grief, he wrote to his father that the whole 
 thing was a failure. By return of post came a letter from his father, 
 telling him that despair was not to be thought of that he must " try 
 again;" and he suggested a mode of overcoming the difficulty, 
 which his son had already anticipated and proceeded to adopt. It 
 was, to bore clean holes in the boiler-ends, fit in the smooth copper 
 tubes as tightly as possible, solder up, and then raise the steam. This 
 plan succeeded perfectly, the expansion of the copper tubes com- 
 pletely filling up all interstices, and producing a perfectly water-tight 
 boiler, capable of withstanding extreme external pressure. 
 
 The mode of employing the steam-blast for the purpose of increas- 
 ing the draught in the chimney was also the subject of numerous ex- 
 periments. When the engine was first tried, it was thought that the 
 blast in the chimney was not sufficiently strong for the purpose of 
 keeping up the intensity of the fire in the furnace, so as to produce 
 steam with the required velocity. The expedient was, therefore, 
 adopted, of hammering the copper tubes at the point at which they 
 entered the chimney, whereby the blast was considerably sharpened ; 
 and on a farther trial it was found that the draught was increased to 
 such an extent as to enable abundance of steam to be raised. The 
 rationale of the blast may be explained by referring to the effect of 
 contracting the pipe of a water-hose, by which the force of the jet 
 of water is proportionately increased. Widen the nozzle of the pipe 
 and the jet is in like manner diminished. So it is with the steam- 
 blast in the chimney of the locomotive. 
 
 Doubts were, however, expressed, whether the greater draught ob- 
 tained by the contraction of the blast-pipe was not counterbalanced 
 in some degree by the negative pressure upon the piston. Hence a 
 series of experiments was made with pipes of different diameters, 
 and their efficiency was tested by the amount of vacuum that was pro- 
 duced in the smoke-box. The degree of rarefaction was determined 
 by a glass tube fixed to the bottom of the smoke-box, and descend- 
 ing into a bucket of water, the tube being open at both ends. As 
 the rarefaction took place, the water would, of course, rise in the tube, 
 and the height to which it rose above the surface of the water in the
 
 168 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 
 
 bucket was made the measure of the amount of rarefaction. These 
 experiments proved that a considerable increase of draught was ob- 
 tained by the contraction of the orifice; accordingly, the two blast- 
 pipes, opening from the cylinders into either side of the "Rocket" 
 chimney, and turned up within it, were contracted slightly below the 
 area of the steam-ports ; and, before the engine left the factory, the 
 water rose in the glass tube three inches above the water in the bucket. 
 
 The other arrangements of the "Rocket" were briefly these: the 
 boiler was cylindrical, with flat ends, six feet in length, and three feet 
 four inches in diameter. The upper half of the boiler was used as a 
 reservoir for the steam, the lower half being filled with water. 
 Through the lower part the copper tubes extended, being open to the 
 fire-box at one end and to the chimney at the other. The fire-box, 
 or furnace, two feet wide and three feet high, was attached immedi- 
 ately behind the boiler, and was also surrounded with water. The 
 cylinders of the engine were placed on each side of the boiler, in an 
 oblique position, one end being nearly level with the top of the 
 boiler at its after end, and the other pointing toward the center of 
 the foremost or driving pair of wheels, with which the connection was 
 directly made from the piston-rod to a pin on the outside of the wheel. 
 The engine, together with its load of water, weighed only four tons 
 and a quarter; and it was supported on four wheels, not coupled. 
 The tender was four-wheeled, and similar in shape to a wagon the 
 foremost part holding the fuel, and the hind part a water-cask. 
 
 When the "Rocket" was finished, it was placed upon the Killing- 
 worth Railway for the purpose of experiment. The new boiler ar- 
 rangement was found perfectly successful. The steam was raised 
 rapidly and continuously, and in a quantity which then appeared 
 marvelous. The same evening Robert dispatched a letter to his fa- 
 ther at Liverpool, informing him, to his great joy, that the "Rocket" 
 was "all right," and would be in complete working trim by the day 
 of trial. The engine was shortly after sent by wagon to Carlisle, 
 and thence shipped for Liverpool. 
 
 The time so much longed for by George Stephenson had now ar- 
 rived, when the merits of the passenger locomotive were about to be 
 put to test. He had fought the battle for it until now almost single- 
 handed. Engrossed by his daily labors and anxieties, and harassed 
 by difficulties and discouragements which would have crushed the 
 spirits of a less resolute man,, he had held firmly to his purpose 
 through good and through evil report. The hostility which he ex- 
 perienced from some of the directors opposed to the adoption of the 
 locomotive was the circumstance that caused him the greatest grief 
 of all ; for, where he had looked for encouragement, he found only 
 carping and opposition. But his pluck never failed him ; and now 
 the "Rocket" was upon the ground, to prove, to use his own words, 
 "whether he was a man of his word or not."
 
 BATTLE OF THE LOCOMOTIVES. 
 
 169 
 
 Great interest was felt at* Liverpool, as well as throughout the 
 country, in the approaching competition. Engineers, scientific men, 
 and mechanics arrived from all quarters, to witness the novel display 
 of mechanical ingenuity on which such great results depended. The 
 public generally were no indifferent spectators either. The popula- 
 tions of Liverpool, Manchester, and the adjacent towns felt that the 
 successful issue of the experiment would confer upon them individual 
 benefits and local advantages almost incalculable, while populations 
 at a distance waited for the result with almost equal interest. 
 
 On the day appointed for the great competition of locomotives at 
 Rainhill, the following engines were entered for the prize: 
 
 1. Messrs. Braithwaite and Ericsson's* "Novelty." 
 
 2. Mr. Timothy Hackworth's " Sanspareil." 
 
 3. Messrs. R. Stephenson & Co.'s "Rocket." 
 
 4. Mr. Burstall's "Perseverance." 
 
 Another engine was entered by Mr. Brandreth, of Liverpool the 
 "Cycloped," weighing three tons, worked by a horse in a frame, but 
 it could not be admitted to the competition. The above were the 
 only four exhibited, out of a considerable number of engines con- 
 structed in different parts of the country, in anticipation of this con- 
 test, many of which could not be satisfactorily completed by the day 
 of trial. 
 
 The ground on which the engines were to be tried was a level piece 
 of railroad, about two miles in length. Each was required to make 
 twenty trips, or equal to a journey of seventy miles, in the course of 
 the day, and the average rate of traveling was to be not under ten 
 miles an hour. It was determined that, to avoid confusion, each 
 engine should be tried separately, and on different days. 
 
 The day fixed for the competition was the ist of October, but, to 
 allow sufficient time to get the locomotives into good working order, 
 the directors extended it to the 6th. On the morning of the 6th, the 
 ground at Rainhill presented a lively appearance, and there was great 
 excitement. Many thousand spectators looked on, among whom 
 were some of the first engineers and mechanicians of the day. A 
 stand was provided for the ladies; the "beauty and fashion" of the 
 neighborhood were present, and the side of the railroad was lined 
 with carriages of all descriptions. 
 
 It was quite characteristic of the Stephensons, that, although their 
 engine did not stand first on the list for trial, it was the first ( that 
 was ready, and it was accordingly ordered out by the judges for an 
 experimental trip. Yet the "Rocket" was by no means the " favor- 
 ite" with either the judges or the spectators. Nicholas Wood has 
 
 * The inventor of this engine was a Swede, who afterward came to the United 
 Stales, and here achieved considerable distinction as an engineer. His caloric en- 
 gine has so far proved impracticable to a large extent, but his iron cupola vessel, the 
 " Monitor," must be admitted to have been a remarkable success in its way.
 
 170 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 
 
 since stated that the majority of the judges were strongly predisposed 
 in favor of the "Novelty," and that "nine tenths, if not ten tenths, 
 of the persons present were against the 'Rocket' because of its ap- 
 pearance." Nearly every person favored some other engine, so that 
 there was nothing for the " Rocket " but the practical test. The first 
 trip made by it was quite successful. It ran about twelve miles, with- 
 out interruption, in about fifty-three minutes. 
 
 The "Novelty" was next called out. It was a light engine, very 
 compact in appearance, carrying the water and fuel upon the same 
 wheels as the engine. The weight of the whole was only three tons 
 and one hundred weight. A peculiarity of this engine was, that the 
 air was driven or forced through the fire by means of bellows. The 
 day being now far advanced, and some dispute having arisen as to 
 the method of assigning the proper load for the "Novelty," no par- 
 ticular experiment was made farther than that the engine traversed the 
 line by way of exhibition, occasionally moving at the rate of twenty- 
 four miles an hour. The "Sanspareil," constructed by Mr. Timothy 
 Hackworth, was next exhibited, but no particular experiment was 
 made with it on this day. This engine differed but little in construc- 
 tion from the locomotive last supplied by the Stephensons to the 
 Stockton and Darlington Railway, of which Mr. Hackworth was the 
 locomotive foreman. 
 
 The contest was postponed until the following day; but, before 
 the judges arrived on the ground, the bellows for creating the blast 
 in the "Novelty" gave way, and it was found incapable of going 
 through its performance. A defect was also detected in the boiler 
 of the "Sanspareil," and some farther time was allowed to get it re- 
 paired. The large number of spectators who had assembled to wit- 
 ness the contest were greatly disappointed at this postponement ; but, 
 to lessen it, Stephenson again brought out the "Rocket," and, at- 
 taching to it a coach containing thirty persons, he ran them along 
 the line at the rate of from twenty-four to thirty miles an hour, much 
 to their gratification and amazement. Before separating, the judges 
 ordered the engine to be in readiness by eight o'clock on the follow- 
 ing morning, to go through its definite trial according to the pre- 
 scribed conditions. 
 
 On the morning of the 8th of October, the "Rocket "'was again 
 ready for the contest. The engine was taken to the extremity of the 
 stage, the fire-box was filled with coke, the fire lighted, and the 
 steam raised, until it lifted the safety-valve, loaded to a pressure of 
 fifty pounds to the square inch. This proceeding occupied fifty-seven 
 minutes. The engine then started on its journey, dragging after it 
 about thirteen tons' weight in wagons, and made the first ten trips 
 backward and forward along the two miles of road, running the thir- 
 ty-five miles, including stoppages, in an hour and forty-eight minutes. 
 The second ten trips were, in like manner, performed in two hours 
 and three minutes. The maximum velocity attained during the trial
 
 First Railway Coach, 1825. 
 STOCKTON t DAKLIXOTOS ROAD. See p&ge 148. 
 
 First Passenger Engine, 1829. 
 STEPHEN-SON'S PREMIUM " ROCKET." See p*g 170.
 
 THE "ROCKET" CONQUERS. 171 
 
 k 
 
 trip was twenty-nine miles an hour, or about three times the speed 
 that one of the judges of the competition had declared to be the 
 limit of possibility. The average speed at which the whole of the 
 journeys were performed was fifteen miles an hour, or five miles be- 
 yond the rate specified in the conditions published by the company. 
 The entire performance excited the greatest astonishment among the 
 assembled spectators ; the directors felt confident that their enterprise 
 was now on the eve of success; and George Stephenson rejoiced to 
 think that, in spite of all false prophets and fickle counselors, the 
 locomotive system was now safe. When the "Rocket," having per- 
 formed all the conditions of the contest, arrived at the "grand 
 stand," at the close of its day's successful run, Mr. Cropper one of 
 the directors favorable to the fixed engine system lifted up his hands, 
 and exclaimed, " Now has George Stephenson at last delivered him- 
 self." 
 
 Neither the "Novelty" nor the "Sanspareil" was ready for trial 
 until the loth, on the morning of which day an advertisement ap- 
 peared, stating that the former engine was to be tried on that day, 
 when it would perform more work than any engine on the ground. 
 The weight of the carriages attached to it was only about seven tons. 
 The engine passed the first post in good style; but, in returning, the 
 pipe from the forcing-pump burst and put an end to the trial. The 
 pipe was afterward repaired, and the engine made several trips by 
 itself, in which it was said to have gone at the rate of from twenty- 
 four to twenty-eight miles an hour. 
 
 The "Sanspareil" was not ready until the i3th; and when its 
 boiler and tender were filled with water, it was found to weigh four 
 hundred weight beyond the weight specified in the published condi- 
 tions as the limit of four-wheeled engines; nevertheless, the judges 
 allowed it to run on the same footing as the other engines, to enable 
 them to ascertain whether its merits entitled it to favorable considera- 
 tion. It traveled at the average speed of about fourteen miles an 
 hour, with its load attached; but at the eighth trip the cold-water 
 pump got wrong, and the engine could proceed no farther. 
 
 It was determined to award the premium to the successful engine 
 on the following day, the i4th, on which occasion there was an un- 
 usual assemblage of spectators. The owners of the "Novelty" 
 pleaded for another trial, and it was conceded. But again it broke 
 down. Then Mr. Hackworth requested an opportunity for making 
 another trial of his "Sanspareil." But the judges had now had 
 enough of failures, and they declined, on the ground that not only 
 was the engine above the stipulated weight, but that it was constructed 
 on a plan which they could not recommend for adoption by the di- 
 rectors of the company. One of the principal practical objections 
 to this locomotive was the enormous quantity of coke consumed or 
 wasted by it about 692 Ibs. per hour, when traveling caused by the
 
 1)2 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 
 
 sharpness of the steam-blast in the chimney, which blew a large pro- 
 portion of the burning coke into the air. 
 
 The "Perseverance" of Mr. Burstall was found unable to move at 
 more than five or six miles an hour, and it was withdrawn from the 
 contest at an early period. The "Rocket " was thus the only engine 
 that had performed, and more than performed, all the stipulated con- 
 ditions, and it was declared to be entitled to the prize of SOQ/., which* 
 was awarded to the Messrs. Stephenson and Booth accordingly. And 
 farther, to show that the engine had been working quite within its 
 powers, George Stephenson ordered it to be brought upon the ground 
 and detached from all incumbrances, when, in making two trips, it 
 was found to travel at the astonishing rate of thirty-five miles an 
 hour. 
 
 The "Rocket" had thus eclipsed the performances of all locomo- 
 tive engines that had yet been constructed, and outstripped even the 
 sanguine expectations of its constructors. It satisfactorily answered 
 the report of Messrs. Walker and Rastrick, and established the effi- 
 ciency of the locomotive for working the Liverpool and Manchester 
 Railway, and, indeed, all future railways. The " Rocket " showed 
 that a new power had been born into the world, full of activity and 
 strength, with boundless capability of work. It was the simple but 
 admirable contrivance of the steam-blast, and its combination with 
 the multitubular boiler, that at once gave locomotion a vigorous life, 
 and secured the triumph of the railway system.* As has been well 
 observed, this wonderful ability to increase and multiply its powers 
 of performance with the emergency that demands them has made this 
 giant engine the noblest creation of human wit, the very lion among 
 machines. The success of the Rainhill experiment, as judged by the 
 public, may be inferred from the fact that the shares of the company 
 immediately rose ten per cent, and nothing farther was heard of the 
 proposed twenty-one fixed engines, engine-houses, ropes, etc. All 
 this cumbersome apparatus was thenceforward effectually disposed of. 
 
 * When heavier and more powerful engines were brought upon the road,, the old 
 " Rocket," becoming regarded as a thing of no value, was sold in 1837. It was 
 purchased by Mr. Thompson, of Kirkhouse, the lessee of the Earl of Carlisle's coal 
 and lime works, near Carlisle. He worked the engine on the Midgeholme Rail- 
 way for five or six years, during which it hauled coals from the pits to the town. 
 There was wonderful vitality in the old engine. When the great contest for the 
 representation of East Cumberland took place, and Sir James Graham was super- 
 seded by Major Aglionby, the " Rocket" was employed to convey the Alston ex- 
 press with the state of the poll from Midgeholme to Kirkhouse. On that occasion 
 the engine was driven by Mr. Mark Thompson, and it ran the distance of upward 
 of four miles in four and a half minutes, thus reaching a speed of nearly sixty 
 miles an hour, proving its still admirable qualities as an engine. But again it was 
 superseded by heavier engines ; for it only weighed about four tons, whereas the 
 new engines were at least three times that weight. The " Rocket " was conse- 
 quently laid up in ordinary in the yard at Kirkhouse, from whence it has since been 
 transferred to the Museum of Patents at Kensington, where it is still to be seen.
 
 LIVERPOOL AND MANCHESTER RAILWAY. 173 
 
 Very different now was the tone of those directors who had dis- 
 tinguished themselves by the persistency of their opposition to George 
 Stephenson's plans. Coolness gave way to eulogy, and hostility to 
 unbounded offers of friendship, after the manner of many men who 
 run to the help of the strong. Deeply though the engineer had felt, 
 aggrieved by the conduct exhibited toward him, during this eventful 
 struggle, by some from whom forbearance was to have been expected, 
 he never entertained toward them in after-life any angry feelings ; 
 on the contrary, he forgave all. But, though the directors afterward 
 passed unanimous resolutions eulogizing "the great skill and un- 
 wearied energy" of their engineer, he himself, when speaking con- 
 fidentially to those with whom he was most intimate, could not help 
 pointing out the difference between his " foul-weather and fair-weather 
 friends." Mr. Gooch says that, though naturally most cheerful and 
 kind-hearted in disposition, the anxiety and pressure which weighed 
 upon his mind during the construction of the railway had the effect 
 of making him occasionally impatient and irritable, like a spirited 
 horse touched by the spur, though his original good-nature from time 
 to time shone through it all. When the line had been brought to a 
 successful completion, a very marked change in him became visible. 
 The irritability passed away, and when difficulties and vexations arose, 
 they were treated by him as matters of course, and with perfect com 
 posure and cheerfulness. 
 
 OPENING OF THE LIVERPOOL AND MANCHESTER RAILWAY, AND EXTEN- 
 SION OF THE RAILWAY SYSTEM. 
 
 The directors of the railway now began to see daylight, and they 
 derived encouragement from the skillful manner in which their engi- 
 neer had overcome the principal difficulties of the undertaking. He 
 had formed a solid road over Chat Moss, and thus achieved one 
 "impossibility;" and he had constructed a locomotive that could 
 run at a speed of thirty miles an hour, thus vanquishing a still more 
 formidable difficulty. 
 
 A single line of way was completed over Chat Moss by the first of 
 January, 1830, and on that day the "Rocket," with a carriage full of 
 directors, engineers, and their friends, passed along the greater part 
 of the road between Liverpool and Manchester. Mr. Stephenson 
 continued to direct his close attention to the improvement of the de- 
 tails of the locomotive, every successive trial of which proved more 
 satisfactory. In this department he had the benefit of the able and 
 unremitting assistance of his son, who, in the workshops at Newcastle, 
 directly superintended the construction of the engines required for 
 the working of the railway. He did not by any means rest satisfied 
 with the success, decided though it was, which had been achieved by 
 the "Rocket." He regarded it but in the light of a successful ex- 
 periment ; and every successive engine placed upon the railway exhib-
 
 174 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 
 
 ited some improvement on its predecessors. The arrangement of the 
 parts, and the weight and proportion of the engines, were altered as the 
 experience of each successive day, or week, or month suggested; and it 
 was soon found that the performances of the " Rocket," on the day of 
 trial, had been greatly within the powers of the improved locomotive. 
 
 The first entire trip between Liverpool and Manchester was per- 
 formed on the 1 4th of June, 1830, on the occasion of a board meet- 
 ing being held at the latter town. The train was on this occasion 
 drawn by the "Arrow," one of the new locomotives, in which the 
 most recent improvements had been adopted. George Stephenson 
 himself drove the engine, and Captain Scoresby, the circumpolar nav- 
 igator, stood beside him on the foot-plate, and minuted the speed 
 of the train. A great concourse of people assembled at both termini, 
 as well as along the line, to witness the novel spectacle of a train of 
 carriages drawn by an engine at the speed of seventeen miles an hour. 
 On the return journey to Liverpool, in the evening, the "Arrow" 
 crossed Chat Moss at a speed of nearly twenty-seven miles an hour, 
 reaching its destination in about an hour and a half. 
 
 In the mean time, Mr. Stephenson, and his assistant, Mr. Gooch, 
 were diligently occupied in making the necessary preliminary arrange- 
 ments for the conduct of the traffic against the time when the line 
 should be ready for opening. The experiments made with the object 
 of carrying on the' passenger traffic at quick velocities were of an es- 
 pecially harassing and anxious character. Every week, for nearly 
 three months before the opening, trial trips were made to Newton and 
 back, generally with two or three trains following each other, and 
 carrying altogether from two to three hundred persons. These trips 
 were usually made on Saturday afternoons, when the works could be 
 more conveniently stopped and the line cleared for the occasion. In 
 these experiments, Mr. Stephenson had the able assistance of Mr. 
 Henry Booth, the secretary of the company, who contrived many 
 of the arrangements in the passenger carriages, not the least valuable 
 of which was his invention of the coupling screw, still in use on all 
 passenger railways. 
 
 At length the line was finished and ready for the public opening, 
 which took place on the i5th of September, 1830, and attracted a 
 vast number of spectators from all parts of the country. The com- 
 pletion of the railway was justly regarded as an important national 
 event, and the ceremony of its opening was celebrated accordingly. 
 The Duke of Wellington, then Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel, Se- 
 cretary of State, Mr. Huskisson, one of the members for Liverpool, 
 and an earnest supporter of the project from its commencement, 
 were among the number of distinguished public personages present. 
 
 Eight locomotive engines, constructed at the Stephenson works, 
 had been delivered and placed upon the line, the whole of which 
 had been tried and tested, weeks before, with perfect success. The 
 several trains of carriages accommodated in all about six hundred per-
 
 THE "ROCKET MAKES QUICK TIME. 175 
 
 sons. The "Northumbrian" engine, driven by George Stephenson 
 himself, headed the line of trains; then followed the "Phoenix," 
 driven by Robert Stephenson; the "North Star," by Robert Ste- 
 phenson, senior (brother of George); the " Rocket," by Joseph Locke; 
 the "Dart," by Thomas L. Gooch ; the "Comet," by William All- 
 card; the "Arrow," by Frederick Swanwick; and the " Meteor," by 
 Anthony Harding. The procession was cheered in its progress by 
 thousands of spectators through the deep ravine of Olive Mount ; up 
 the Sutton incline ; over the Sankey viaduct, beneath which a multi- 
 tude of persons had assembled carriages filling the narrow lanes, 
 and barges crowding the river; the people below gazing with wonder 
 and admiration at the trains which sped along the line, far above 
 their heads, at the rate of some twenty-four miles an hour. 
 
 At Parkside, about seventeen miles from Liverpool, the engines 
 stopped to take in water. Here a deplorable accident occurred to 
 one of the illustrious visitors, which threw a deep shadow over the 
 subsequent proceedings of the day. The "Northumbrian" engine, 
 with the carriage containing the Duke of Wellington, was drawn up 
 on one line, in order that the whole of the trains on the other line 
 might pass in review before him and his party. Mr. Huskisson had 
 alighted from the carriage, and was standing on the opposite road, 
 along which the "Rocket" was observed rapidly coming up. At 
 this moment the Duke of Wellington, between whom and Mr. Hus- 
 kisson some coolness had existed, made a sign of recognition, and 
 held out his hand. A hurried but friendly grasp was given ; and be- 
 fore it was loosened there was a general cry from the by-standers of 
 "Get in, get in!" Flurried and confused, Mr. Huskisson endeav- 
 ored to get round the open door of the carriage, which projected over 
 the opposite rail, but in so doing he was struck down by the " Rocket," 
 and falling with his leg doubled across the rail, the limb was in- 
 stantly crushed. His first words, on being raised, were, "I have met 
 my death," which unhappily proved true, for he expired that same 
 evening in the parsonage of Eccles. It was cited, at the time, as a 
 remarkable fact, that the "Northumbrian" engine, driven by George 
 Stephenson himself, conveyed the wounded body of the unfortunate 
 gentleman a distance of about fifteen miles in twenty-five minutes, or 
 at the rate of thirty-six miles an hour. This incredible speed burst 
 upon the world with the effect of a new and unlooked-for phenom- 
 enon. 
 
 The accident threw a gloom over the rest of the day's proceedings. 
 The Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel expressed a wish that 
 the procession should return to Liverpool. It was, however, repre- 
 sented to them that a vast concourse of people had assembled at 
 Manchester to witness the arrival of the trains; that report would exag- 
 gerate the "mischief, if they did not complete the journey ; and that a 
 false panic on that day might seriously affect future railway traveling, 
 and the value of the company's property. The party consented ac-
 
 176 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 
 
 cordingly to proceed to Manchester, but on the understanding that 
 they should return as soon as possible, and refrain from farther fes- 
 tivity * 
 
 On the trains coming to a stand in the Manchester station, the 
 duke did not descend, but remained seated, shaking hands with the 
 women and children, who were pushed forward by the crowd. Shortly 
 after, the trains returned to Liverpool, which they reached after con- 
 siderable delays, late at night. 
 
 On the following morning, the railway was opened for public traf- 
 fic. The first train of 140 passengers was booked and sent on to 
 Manchester, reaching it in the allotted time of two hours ; and from 
 that time the traffic has regularly proceeded from day to day until 
 now. 
 
 It is scarcely necessary that we should speak at any length of the 
 commercial results of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. Suf- 
 fice it to say that its success was complete and decisive. The antici- 
 pations of its projectors were, however, in many respects at fault. 
 They had based their calculations almost entirely on the heavy mer- 
 chandise traffic such as coal, cotton, and timber relying little upon 
 passengers ; whereas, the receipts derived from the conveyance of pas- 
 sengers far exceeded those derived from merchandise of all kinds, 
 which for a time continued a subordinate branch of the traffic. 
 
 For some time after the public opening of the line, Mr. Stephen- 
 son's ingenuity continued to be employed in devising improved 
 methods for securing the safety and comfort of the traveling public. 
 Few are aware of the thousand minute details which have to be ar- 
 ranged the forethought and contrivance that have to be exercised 
 to enable the traveler by railway to accomplish his journey in safety. 
 After the difficulties of constructing a level road over bogs, across 
 valleys, and through deep cuttings have been overcome, the mainte- 
 nance of the way has to be provided for with continuous care. Every 
 rail, with its fastenings, must be complete, to prevent risk of accident, 
 and the road must be kept regularly ballasted up to the level, to dim- 
 inish the jolting when passing over it at high speed. Then the sta- 
 tions must be protected by signals, observable from such a distance as 
 to enable the train to be stopped in event of an obstacle, such as a 
 stopping or shunting train being in the way. For some years the 
 signals employed on the Liverpool Railway were entirely given by 
 men with flags of different colors stationed along the line ; there were 
 no fixed signals nor electric telegraphs ; but the traffic was neverthe- 
 less worked quite as safely as under the more elaborate and compli- 
 cated system of telegraphing which has since been established. 
 
 For the purpose of stopping the train, brakes on an improved plan 
 were contrived, with new modes of lubricating the carriage-axles, on 
 which the wheels revolved at an unusually high velocity. In all these 
 contrivances Mr. Stephenson's inventiveness was kept constantly on 
 the stretch; and though many improvements in detail have been
 
 A MAN OF ALL WORK. 177 
 
 effected since his time, the foundations were then laid by him of the 
 present system of conducting railway traffic. As a curious illustra- 
 tion of the inventive ingenuity which he displayed in contriving the 
 working of the Liverpool line, we may mention his invention of the 
 Self-acting Brake. He early entertained the idea that the momentum 
 of the running train might itself be made available for the purpose 
 of checking its speed. He proposed to fit each carriage with a brake, 
 which should be called into action immediately on the locomotive at 
 the head of the train being pulled up. The impetus of the carriage 
 carrying them forward, the buffer-springs would be driven home, and, 
 at the same time, by a simple arrangement of the mechanism, the 
 brakes would be called into simultaneous action ; thus the wheels 
 would be brought into a state of sledge, and the train speedily stop- 
 ped. This plan was adopted by Mr. Stephenson before he left the 
 Liverpool and Manchester Railway, though it was afterward discon- 
 tinued; and it is a remarkable fact, that this identical plan, with the 
 addition of a centrifugal apparatus, was recently revived by M. 
 Guerin, a French engineer, and extensively employed on foreign 
 railways. 
 
 Finally, Mr. Stephenson had to attend to the improvement of the 
 power and speed of the locomotive, with a view to economy as well 
 as regularity in the working of the railway. In the "Planet " engine, 
 delivered upon the line immediately subsequent to the public open- 
 ing, all the improvements which had up to this time been contrived 
 by him and his son were introduced in combination the blast-pipe, 
 the tubular boiler, horizontal cylinders inside the smoke-box, the 
 cranked axle, and the fire-box firmly fixed to the boiler. The first 
 load of goods conveyed from Liverpool to Manchester by the "Planet" 
 was eighty tons in weight, and the engine performed the journey 
 against a strong head wind in two hours and a half. On another 
 occasion, the same engine brought up a cargo of voters from Man- 
 chester to Liverpool, during a contested election, within a space of 
 sixty minutes. The "Samson," in the following year, exhibited still 
 farther improvements, the most important of which was that of coupling 
 the fore and hind wheels of the engine. By this means the adhesion 
 of the wheels on the rails was more effectually secured, and thus the 
 full hauling power of the locomotive was made available. The " Sam- 
 son," shortly after it was placed upon the line, dragged after it a train 
 of cars, weighing a hundred and fifty tons, at a speed of about twenty 
 miles an hour, the consumption of coke being reduced to about a third 
 of a pound per ton per mile. 
 
 The rapid progress thus made will show that the inventive faculties 
 of Mr. Stephenson and his son were kept fully on the stretch ; but 
 their labors were amply repaid by the result. They were, doubtless, 
 to some extent, stimulated by the number of competitors who about 
 the same time appeared as improvers of the locomotive engine. But 
 the superiority of Stephenson's locomotives over all others that had 
 la
 
 178 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 
 
 yet been tried induced the directors of the railway to require that the 
 engines supplied to them by other builders, should be constructed 
 after the same model. Mr. Stephenson himself always had the great- 
 est faith in the superiority of his own engines over all others, and 
 did not hesitate strongly to declare it. When it was once proposed 
 to introduce the engines of another maker on the Manchester and 
 Leeds line, he said, "Very well; I have no objection; but put them 
 
 to this fair test. Hang one of 's engines on to one of mine, 
 
 back to back. Then let them go at it; and whichever walks away 
 with the other, that's the engine" 
 
 Stephenson's mechanics were in request all over England the 
 Newcastle workshops continuing for many years to perform the part 
 of a training-school for engineers, and to supply locomotive superin- 
 tendents and drivers, not only for England, but for nearly every 
 country in Europe preference being given to fhem by the directors 
 of railways, in consequence of their previous training and experience, 
 as well as because of their generally excellent qualities as steady and 
 industrious workmen. 
 
 The success of the Liverpool and Manchester experiment naturally 
 excited great interest. People flocked to Lancashire from all quarters 
 to see the steam-coach running upon a railway at three times the 
 speed of a mail-coach, and to enjoy the excitement of actually trav- 
 eling in the wake of an engine at that incredible velocity. The 
 travelers returned to their respective districts full of the wonders of 
 the locomotive, considering it to be the greatest marvel of the age. 
 Railways are familiar enough objects now, and our children who grow 
 up in their midst may think little of them; but thirty years since, it 
 was an event in one's life to see a locomotive, and to travel for the 
 first time upon a public railroad. 
 
 The practicability of railway locomotion being now proved, and 
 its great social and commercial advantages ascertained, the extension 
 of the system was merely a question of time, money, and labor. 
 Although the Legislature took no initiative step in the direction of 
 railway extension, the public spirit and enterprise of the country did 
 not fail it at this juncture. The English people, though they may 
 be defective in their capacity for organization, are strong in individ- 
 ualism, and not improbably their admirable qualities in the latter 
 respect detract from their efficiency in the former. Thus, in all 
 times, their greatest national enterprises have not been planned by 
 officials, and carried out upon any regular system, but have sprung, 
 like their Constitution, their laws, and their entire industrial arrange- 
 ments, from the force of circumstances and the individual energies 
 of the people. Hence railway extension, like so many other great 
 English enterprises, was now left to be carried out by the genius of 
 English engineers, backed by the energy of the British public. 
 
 The mode of action was characteristic and national. The execu- 
 tion of the DW lines was undertaken entirely by joint-stock associa-
 
 RAILWAYS OPPOSED. 179 
 
 tions of proprietors, after the manner of the Stockton and Darlington, 
 and Liverpool and Manchester companies. 
 
 Mr. Stephenson was, of course, actively engaged in the construc- 
 tion of numerous railways now projected. During the formation 
 of the Manchester line, he had been consulted respecting many simi- 
 lar projects. The commercial results of the Manchester line greatly 
 exceeded the expectations of its projectors. Now, that the practica- 
 bility of working it by locomotive power had been proved, it was as 
 easy for engineers to make railways, and to work them, as it was for 
 navigators to find America after Columbus had made the first voyage. 
 
 When it was proposed to extend the advantages of railways to the 
 population of the midland and southern counties of England, an 
 immense amount of alarm was created in the minds of the country 
 gentlemen. They did not relish the idea of private individuals, 
 principally residents in the manufacturing districts, invading their 
 domains, and they every -where rose up in arms against the "new- 
 fangled roads." Colonel Sibthorpe openly declared his hatred of 
 the " infernal railroads," and said that he "would rather meet a high- 
 wayman, or see a burglar on his premises, than an engineer ! " Mr. 
 Berkeley, the member for Cheltenham, at a public meeting in that 
 town, re-echoed Colonel Sibthorpe's sentiments, and "wished that 
 the concoctors of every such scheme, with their solicitors and engi- 
 neers, were at rest in Paradise!" The impression prevailed among 
 the rural classes that fox-covers and game-preserves would be seriously 
 prejudiced by the formation of railroads ; that agricultural communi- 
 cations would be destroyed, land thrown out of cultivation, land- 
 owners and farmers reduced to beggary, the poor-rates increased 
 through the number of persons thrown out of employment by the 
 railways, and all this in order that Liverpool, Manchester, and Bir- 
 mingham shop-keepers and manufacturers might establish a monstrous 
 monopoly in railway traffic. 
 
 The inhabitants of even some of the large towns were thrown into 
 a state of consternation by the proposal to provide them with the ac- 
 commodation of a railway. The line from London to Birmingham 
 would naturally have passed close to the handsome town of North- 
 ampton, and was so projected. But the inhabitants of the place, 
 urged on by the local press, and excited by men of influence and 
 education, opposed the project, and succeeded in forcing the pro- 
 moters, in their survey of the line, to pass the town at a distance. 
 The necessity was thus involved of distorting the line, by which the 
 enormous expense of constructing the Kilsby Tunnel was incurred. 
 Not many years elapsed before the inhabitants of Northampton be- 
 came clamorous for railway accommodation, and a special branch was 
 constructed for them. The additional cost involved by this forced 
 deviation of the line could not have amounted to less than half a 
 million sterling; the loss falling, not upon the shareholders only, but
 
 180 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 
 
 upon the public. Other towns in the south followed the example of 
 Northampton in howling down the railways. 
 
 Mr. Stephenson was asked to undertake the office of engineer of 
 the Leicester and Swannington Railway, but his answer was that he 
 had thirty miles of railway in hand, which was enough for any engi- 
 neer to attend to properly. Was there any person he could recom- 
 mend? "Well," said he, "I think my son Robert is competent to 
 undertake the thing." Would Mr. Stephenson be answerable for him? 
 Oh, yes, certainly." And Robert Stephenson, at twenty-seven years of 
 age, was installed engineer of the line. 
 
 While the road was in progress, Robert kept up a regular corre- 
 spondence with his father at Liverpool, consulting him on all points 
 in which his greater experience was likely to be of service. Like his 
 father, Robert was very observant, and always ready to seize oppor- 
 tunity by the forelock. It happened that the estate of Snibston, near 
 Ashby-de-la-Zouch, was advertised for sale, and the young engineer's 
 experience as a coal-viewer and practical geologist suggested to his 
 mind that coal was most probably to be found underneath. He 
 communicated his views to his father on the subject. The estate lay 
 in the immediate neighborhood of the railway ; and if the conjecture 
 proved correct, the finding of the coal must necessarily prove a most 
 fortunate circumstance for the purchasers of the land. He accord- 
 ingly requested his father to come over to Snibston and look at the 
 property, which he did ; and after a careful inspection of the ground, 
 he arrived at the same conclusion as his son. 
 
 The large manufacturing town of Leicester, about fourteen miles 
 distant, had, up to that time, been exclusively supplied with coal 
 brought by canal from Derbyshire, and the Stephensons saw that the 
 railway under construction from Swannington to Leicester would 
 furnish a ready market for any coals which might be found at Snib- 
 ston. Having induced two of his Liverpool friends to join him in the 
 venture, the Snibston estate was purchased in 1831, and, shortly after, 
 Stephenson removed his home from Liverpool to Alton Grange, for 
 the purppse of superintending the sinking of the pit. 
 
 The works were opened out on a large scale, and George Stephen- 
 son had the pleasure and good fortune to send the first train of main 
 coal to Leicester by railway. The price was immediately reduced 
 there to about 8s. a ton, effecting a pecuniary saving to the inhabit- 
 ants of the town of about 4o,ooo/. per annum, or equivalent to the 
 whole amount then collected in government taxes and local rates, 
 besides giving an impetus to the manufacturing prosperity of the 
 place, which has continued to the present day. The correct princi- 
 ples upon which the mining operations at Snibston were conducted 
 offered a salutary example to the neighboring colliery owners. The 
 numerous improvements there introduced were freely exhibited to 
 all, and they were afterward reproduced in many forms all over the 
 Midland Counties, greatly to the advantage of the mining interest.
 
 A KIND AND CAREFUL EMPLOYER. 181 
 
 Mr. Stephenson was attentive to the comfort and well-being of 
 those immediately dependent upon him the . work-people of his 
 colliery and their families. Unlike many large employers who have 
 " sprung from the ranks," he was one of the kindest and most indulgent 
 of masters. He would have a fair day's work for a fair day's wages, 
 but he never forgot that the employer had his duties as well as his 
 rights. First of all, he attended to the proper home accommodation 
 of his work-people. He erected a village of comfortable cottages, 
 each provided with a snug little garden. He was also instrumental 
 in erecting a church adjacent to the works, as well as Church schools 
 for the education of the colliers' children ; and with that broad 
 catholicity of sentiment which distinguished him, he farther provided 
 a chapel and a school-house for the use of the dissenting portion of 
 the colliers and their families an example of benevolent liberality 
 which was not without a salutary influence upon the neighboring 
 employers. 
 
 ROBERT STEPHENSON CONSTRUCTS THE LONDON AND BIRMINGHAM 
 
 RAILWAY. 
 
 Of the extensive projects which followed close upon the comple- 
 tion of the Liverpool and Manchester line, that of a railway between 
 London and Birmingham was the most important. The scheme 
 originated in 1830. Two plans were proposed. One to London by 
 way of Oxford, and the other by Coventry. They resolved to call 
 George Stephenson to their aid, and requested him to advise them 
 as to the two schemes. After a careful examination, Stephenson re- 
 ported in favor of the Coventry route. The Lancashire gentlemen, 
 who were the principal subscribers, supported his decision, and that 
 line was adopted. 
 
 At the meeting of gentlemen, held at Birmingham, to determine 
 the appointment of engineer, there was a strong party in favor of 
 associating with Stephenson a gentleman with whom he had been 
 brought into serious collision. When the offer was made to him, he 
 requested leave to retire and consider the proposal with his son. The 
 father was in favor of accepting it. His struggle heretofore had been 
 so hard that he could not bear the idea of missing so promising an 
 opportunity of professional advancement. But the son, foreseeing 
 the jealousies and heartburnings which it would most probably create, 
 recommended his father to decline. George adopted the suggestion, 
 and, returning to the committee, he announced his decision, on which 
 they decided to appoint him in conjunction with his son 
 
 Public meetings were held in all the counties through which the 
 line would pass, at which the project was denounced, and strong re- 
 solutions against it were passed. Robert Stephenson, describing the 
 opposition, said, " We called one day on Sir Astley Cooper, the 
 eminent surgeon, in hope of overcoming his aversion to the railway.
 
 182 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 
 
 He was one of our most inveterate and influential opponents. His 
 country house at Berkhamstead was situated near the intended line, 
 which passed through part of his property. We found a courtly, fine- 
 looking old gentleman, of very stately manners, who received us 
 kindly, and heard all we had to say in favor of the project. But he 
 was quite inflexible in his opposition to it. No deviation or improve- 
 ment that we could suggest had any effect in conciliating him. He 
 was opposed to railways generally, and to this in particular. ' Your 
 scheme,' said he, ' is preposterous in the extreme. It is of so ex- 
 travagant a character as to be positively absurd. Then look at the 
 recklessness of your proceedings ! You are proposing to cut up our 
 estates in all directions for the purpose of making an unnecessary road. 
 Do you think for one moment of the destruction of property involved 
 by it ? Why, gentlemen, if this sort of thing be permitted to go on, 
 you will in a very few years destroy the noblesse /' We left the honor- 
 able baronet without having produced the slightest effect upon him, 
 excepting, perhaps, it might be, increased exasperation against our 
 scheme. I could not help observing to my companions as we left 
 the house, ' Well, it is really provoking to find one who has been 
 made a " Sir" for cutting that wen out of George the Fourth's neck, 
 charging us with contemplating the destruction of the noblesse, be- 
 cause we propose to confer upon him the benefits of a railroad.' ' 
 
 Such being the opposition of the owners of land, it was with the 
 greatest difficulty that an accurate survey of the line could be made. 
 An instructive commentary on the mode by which these noble lords 
 and influential landed proprietors were finally "conciliated" was 
 found in the simple fact that the estimate for land was nearly trebled, 
 and that the owners were paid about 750,0007. for what had been 
 originally estimated at 250, ooo/. The total expenses of carrying the 
 bill through Parliament amounted to the enormous sum of 72,868/. 
 
 Robert Stephenson was, with his father's sanction, appointed 
 engineer-in-chief of the line, at a salary of i,5oo/. a year. He was 
 now a married man, having become united to Miss Frances Sander- 
 son in 1829, since which his home had been at Newcastle, near to 
 the works there ; but, on receiving his new appointment, he removed 
 with his wife to London, to a house on Haverstock Hill, where he 
 resided during the execution of the Birmingham Railway. 
 
 The difficulties encountered in the construction of this railway were 
 very great, the most formidable of them originating in the character 
 of the work. Extensive tunnels had to be driven through unknown 
 strata, and miles of underground excavation had to be carried out in 
 order to form a level road from valley to valley under the interven- 
 ing ridges. This kind of work was the newest of all to the contract- 
 ors of that day. Robert Stephenson's experience in the collieries of 
 the North rendered him well fitted to grapple with such difficulties ; 
 yet even he, with all his practical knowledge, could scarcely have 
 forseen the serious obstacles which he was called upon to encounter.
 
 AN INTERESTING COMPARISON. 183 
 
 The magnitude of the works, which were unprecedented in Eng- 
 land, was one of the most remarkable features in the undertaking. 
 The following striking comparison has been made between this rail- 
 way and one of the greatest works of ancient times. The great Pyr- 
 amid of Egypt was, according to Diodorus Siculus, constructed by 
 three hundred thousand according to Herodotus, by one hundred 
 thousand men. It required for its execution twenty years, and the 
 labor expended upon it has been estimated as equivalent to lifting 
 15,733,000,000 of cubic feet of stone one foot high; whereas, if the 
 labor expended in constructing the London and Birmingham Railway 
 be in like manner reduced to one common denomination, the result 
 is 25,000,000,000 of cubic feet more than was lifted for the Great 
 Pyramid ; and yet the English work was performed by about 20,000 
 men in less than five years. And while the Egyptian work was exe- 
 cuted by a powerful monarch concentrating upon it the labor and 
 capital of a great nation, the English railway was constructed, in the 
 face of every conceivable obstruction and difficulty, by a company of 
 private individuals out of their own resources, without the aid of gov- 
 ernment or the contribution of one farthing of public money. 
 
 The laborers who executed these formidable works were in many 
 respects a remarkable class. The "railway navvies,"* as they were 
 called, were men drawn by the attraction of good wages from all parts 
 of the kingdom ; and they were ready for any sort of hard work. 
 Many of the laborers employed on the Liverpool line were Irish ; 
 others were from the Northumberland and Durham railways, where 
 they had been accustomed to similar work ; and some of the best came 
 from the fen districts of Lincoln and Cambridge, where they had 
 been trained to execute works of excavation and embankment. These 
 old practitioners formed a nucleus of skilled manipulation and apti- 
 tude which rendered them of indispensable utility in the immense 
 undertakings of the period. Their expertness in all sorts of earth- 
 work, in embanking, boring, and well-sinking their practical knowl- 
 edge of the nature of soils and rocks, the tenacity of clays, and the 
 porosity of certain stratifications were very great ; and, rough-look- 
 ing as they were, many of them were as important in their own de- 
 partment as the contractor or the engineer. 
 
 During the railway-making period the navvy wandered about from 
 one public work to another, apparently belonging to no country and 
 having no home. He usually wore a white felt hat, with the brim 
 turned up, a velveteen or Jean square-tailed coat, a scarlet plush waist- 
 coat with little black spots, and a bright-colored kerchief round his 
 Herculean neck, when, as often happened, it was not left entirely 
 bare. His corduroy breeches were retained in position by a leathern 
 strap round the waist, and were tied and buttoned at the knee, dis- 
 
 The word " navvy," or " navigator," is supposed to have originated in the fact 
 of many of these laborers having been originally employed in making the naviga- 
 tions, or canals, the construction of which immediately preceded the railway era.
 
 184 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 
 
 playing beneath a solid calf and foot incased in strong, high-laced 
 boots. Joining together in a " butty gang," some ten or twelve of 
 these men would take a contract to cut out and remove so much 
 " dirt " as they denominated earth-cutting fixing their price accord- 
 ing to the character of the "stuff," and the distance to which it 
 had to be wheeled and tipped. The contract taken, every man put 
 himself to his metal ; if any was found skulking, or not putting forth 
 his full working power, he was ejected from the gang. Their powers 
 of endurance were extraordinary. In times of emergency, they would 
 work for twelve and even sixteen hours, with only short intervals for 
 meals. The quantity of flesh meat which they consumed was some- 
 thing enormous ; but it was to their bones and muscles what coke is 
 to the locomotive the means of keeping up the steam. They dis- 
 played great pluck, and seemed to disregard peril. Indeed, the most 
 dangerous sort of labor such as working horse-barrow runs, in which 
 accidents are of constant occurrence has always been most in request 
 among them, the danger seeming to be one of its chief recommen- 
 dations. 
 
 Working together, eating, drinking, and sleeping together, and 
 daily exposed to the same influences, these railway laborers soon pre- 
 sented a distinct and well-defined character, strongly marking them 
 from the population of the districts in which they labored. Reckless 
 alike of their lives as of their earnings, the navvies worked hard and 
 lived hard. For their lodgings, a hut of turf would content them ; 
 and, in their hours of leisure, the meanest public house would serve 
 for their parlor. Unburdened, as they usually were, by domestic 
 ties, unsoftened by family affection, and without much moral or re- 
 ligious training, the navvies came to be distinguished by a sort of 
 savage manners, which contrasted strangely with those of the sur- 
 rounding population. Yet, ignorant and violent though they might 
 be, they were usually good-hearted fellows in the main frank and 
 open-handed with their comrades, and ready to share their last penny 
 with those in distress. Their pay-nights were often a saturnalia of 
 riot and disorder, dreaded by the inhabitants of the villages along 
 the line of works. The irruption of such men into the quiet hamlet 
 of Kilsby must, indeed, have produced a very startling effect on the 
 recluse inhabitants of the place. Robert Stephenson used to tell a 
 story of the clergyman of the parish waiting upon the foreman of 
 one of the gangs to expostulate with him as to the shocking impro- 
 priety of his men working during Sunday. But the head navvy 
 merely hitched up his trowsers and said, " Why, Soondays hain't 
 cropt out here yet !" In short, the navvies were little better than 
 heathens, and the village of Kilsby was not restored to its wonted 
 quiet until the tunnel-works were finished, and the engines and scaf- 
 folding removed, leaving only the immense masses of debris around 
 the line of shafts which extend along the top of the tunnel.
 
 GROWTH OF RAILWAYS. 185 
 
 MIDLAND RAILWAY STEPHENSON'S LIFE AT ALTON VISIT TO BELGIUM 
 GENERAL EXTENSION OF RAILWAYS AND THEIR RESULTS. 
 
 The rapidity with which railways were carried out, when the spirit 
 of the country became roused, was indeed remarkable. This was 
 doubtless in some measure owing to the increased force of the cur- 
 rent of speculation at the time, but chiefly to the desire which the 
 public began to entertain for the general extension of the system. 
 It was even proposed to fill up the canals and convert them into 
 railways. The new roads became the topic of conversation in all cir- 
 cles ; they were felt to give a new value to time ; their vast capabili- 
 ties for "business" peculiarly recommended them to the trading 
 classes, while the friends of "progress " dilated on the great benefits 
 they would eventually confer upon mankind at large. It began to 
 be seen that Edward Pease had not been exaggerating when he said, 
 "Let the country but make the railroads, and the railroads will 
 make the country!" They also came to be regarded as inviting ob- 
 jects of investment to the thrifty, and a safe outlet for the accumu- 
 lations of inert men of capital. Thus new avenues of iron road 
 were soon in course of formation, branching in all directions, so 
 that the country promised, in a wonderfully short space of time, to 
 become wrapped in one vast network of iron. 
 
 The Midland Railway was a favorite line of Mr. Stephenson's. It 
 passed through a rich mining district, with valuable coal-fields, and 
 it formed part of the main line between London and Edinburgh. 
 Although one of the many great works, it was enough of itself to be 
 the achievement of a life. Compare it with Napoleon's military road 
 over the Simplon, and it will at once be seen how greatly it excels 
 that work, not only in the constructive skill displayed, but also in cost 
 and magnitude, and the amount of labor employed. The road of 
 the Simplon is 45 miles in length; the North Midland, 72^ miles. 
 The former has 50 bridges and 5 tunnels, measuring together 1,338 
 feet in length ; the latter has 200 bridges and 7 tunnels, measuring 
 together 11,400 feet, or about 2^ miles. The former cost about 
 720,ooo/. sterling, the latter above 3,ooo,ooo/. Napoleon's grand 
 military road was constructed in six years, at the public cost of the 
 two great kingdoms of France and Italy, while Stephenson's railway 
 was formed in about three years, by a company of private merchants 
 and capitalists, out of their own funds and under their own superin- 
 tendence. 
 
 It is scarcely necessary that we should give any account in detail 
 of the North Midland works. The making of one tunnel so much 
 resembles the making of another the building of bridges and viaducts, 
 no matter how extensive, so much resembles the building of others 
 the cutting out of "dirt," the blasting of rocks, and the wheeling 
 of excavation into embankments, is so much matter of mere time and
 
 1 86 GEORGE STEPHEN* SON. 
 
 hard work, that it is quite unnecessary to detain the reader by any 
 attempt at their description. Of course there were the usual diffi- 
 culties to encounter and overcome, but the engineer regarded these 
 as matters of course, and would probably have been disappointed if 
 they had not presented themselves. 
 
 George Stephenson, when out on foot in the field, was ever fore- 
 most, and delighted to test the prowess of his companions by a good 
 jump at any hedge or ditch that lay in their way. His companions 
 used to remark his singular quickness of observation. Nothing escaped 
 his attention the trees, the crops, the birds, or the farmer's stock ; 
 and he was usually full of lively conversation, making some striking 
 remark or propounding some ingenious theory. When taking a flying 
 survey of a new line, he rapidly noted the general face of the country, 
 and inferred its Geological structure. He once remarked to a friend, 
 "I have planned many a railway traveling along in a post-chaise." 
 His first impressions of the direction to be taken almost invariably 
 proved correct ; and there are few of the lines recommended by him 
 which have not been executed. As an illustration of his quick and 
 shrewd observation we may mention that, when employed to lay out 
 a line to connect Manchester with the Potteries, the gentleman who 
 accompanied him cautioned him to provide large accommodation for 
 carrying off the water, observing, "You must not judge by the ap- 
 pearance of the brooks ; for after heavy rains these hills pour down 
 volumes of water." "Pooh! pooh! don't I see -your bridges?" re- 
 plied the engineer. 
 
 While occupied in carrying out great railway undertakings which we 
 have not even named, George Stephenson 's home continued, for the 
 greater part of the time, to be at Alton Grange, near Leicester. But he 
 was so much occupied in traveling about from one committee of directors 
 to another one week in England, another in Scotland, and probably 
 the next in Ireland, that he often did not see his home for weeks 
 together. He also made frequent inspections of various important 
 and difficult works in progress, especially on the Midland and Man- 
 chester and Leeds lines, besides occasionally going to Newcastle to 
 see how the locomotive works were going on there. During the 
 three years ending 1837 perhaps the busiest years of his life* he 
 traveled by post-chaise alone upward of 20,000 miles, and yet not 
 less than six months out of the three years were spent in London. 
 Hence there is comparatively little to record of Mr. Stephenson 's 
 
 * During this period, he was engaged on the North Midland, from Derby to 
 Leeds ; the York and North Midland, from Normanton to York ; the Manchester 
 and Leeds ; the Birmingham and Derby, and the Sheffield and Rotherham Rail- 
 ways ; the whole of these, of which he was principal engineer, having been author- 
 ized in 1836. In that session arrangements were made for the construction of 214 
 miles of new railways under his direction, at an expenditure of upwards of five 
 millions sterling.
 
 PROJECTS AND INTENSE APPLICATION. 187 
 
 private life at this period, during which he had scarcely a moment 
 that he could call his own. 
 
 To give an idea of the number of his projects, and of the extent and 
 rapidity of his journeys, we subjoin from his private secretary's jour- 
 nal the following epitome of one journey in 1836, which will indicate 
 his great application to business : 
 
 " August 9th. From Alton Grange to Derby and Matlock, and 
 forward by mail to Manchester, to meet the committee of the South 
 Union Railway. August loth. Manchester to Stockport, to meet 
 committee of the Manchester and Leeds Railway; thence to meet 
 directors of the Chester and Birkenhead, and Chester and Crewe 
 Railways. August nth. Liverpool to Woodside, to meet committee 
 of the Chester and Birkenhead line; journey with them along the 
 proposed railway to Chester; then back to Liverpool. August iath. 
 Liverpool to Manchester, to meet directors of the Manchester and 
 Leeds Railway, and traveling with them over the works in progress. 
 August 1 3th. Continued journey over the works, and arrival at 
 Wakefield: thence to York. August i4th. Meeting with Mr. Hud- 
 son at York, and journey from York to Newcastle. August isth. 
 At Newcastle, working up arrears of correspondence. August i6th. 
 Meeting with Mr. Brandling as to the station for the Brandling 
 Junction at Gateshead, and stations at other parts of the line. 
 August i yth. Carlisle to Wigton and Maryport, examining the rail- 
 way. August ipth. Maryport to Carlisle, continuing the inspec- 
 tion. August 2oth. At Carlisle, examining the ground for a station ; 
 and working up correspondence. August 2ist. Carlisle to Dumfries 
 by mail ; forward to Ayr by chaise, proceeding up the valley of the 
 Nith, through Thornhill, Sanquhar, and Cumnock. August 2ad. 
 Meeting with promoters of the Glasgow, Kilmarnock, and Ayr Rail- 
 way, and journey along the proposed line ; meeting with the magis- 
 trates of Kilmarnock at Beith, and journey with them over Mr. Gale's 
 proposed line to Kilmarnock. August 23d. From Kilmarnock along 
 Mr. Miller's proposed line to Beith, Paisley, and Glasgow. August 
 24th. Examination of site of proposed station at Glasgow ; meeting 
 with the directors ; then from Glasgow, by Falkirk and Linlithgow, 
 to Edinburgh, meeting there with Mr. Grainger, engineer, and several 
 of the committee of the proposed Edinburgh and Dunbar Railway. 
 August 25th. Examining the site of the proposed station at Edin- 
 burgh , then to Dunbar, by Portobello and Haddington, examining 
 the proposed line of railway. August 26th. Dunbar to Tommy 
 Grant's, to examine the summit of the country toward Berwick, with 
 a view to a through line to Newcastle ; then return to Edinburgh. 
 August 27th. At Edinburgh, meeting the provisional committee of 
 the proposed Edinburgh and Dunbar Railway. August 28th. Jour- 
 ney from Edinburgh, through Melrose and Jedburg, to Horsley, along 
 the route of Mr. Richardson's proposed railway across Carter Fell. 
 August 29th. From Horsley to Mr. Brandling's, then on to New-
 
 l88 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 
 
 castle; engaged on the Brandling Junction Railway. August 3oth. 
 Engaged with Mr. Brandling ; after which, meeting a deputation from 
 Maryport. August 3ist. Meeting with Mr. Brandling and others 
 as to the direction of the Brandling Junction in connection with the 
 Great North of England line, and the course of the railway through 
 Newcastle ; then on to York. September ist. At York ; meeting 
 with York and North Midland directors ; then journeying over Lord 
 Howden's property, to arrange for a deviation ; examining the pro- 
 posed site of the station at York. September zd. At York, giving 
 instructions as to the survey ; then to Manchester by Leeds. Sep- 
 tember 3d. At Manchester ; journey to Stockport, with Mr. Bidder 
 and Mr. Bourne, examining the line to Stockport, and fixing the 
 crossing of the river there ; attending to the surveys ; then journey 
 back to Manchester, to meet the directors of the Manchester and 
 Leeds Railway. September 4th. Sunday at Manchester. September 
 5th. Journey along part of the Manchester and Leeds Railway. 
 September 6th. At Manchester, examining and laying down the sec- 
 tion of the South Union line to Stockport ; afterward engaged on the 
 Manchester and Leeds working plans, in endeavoring to give a greater 
 radius to the curves ; seeing Mr. Seddon about the Liverpool, Man- 
 chester, and Leeds Junction Railway. September 7th. Journey 
 along the Manchester and Leeds line, then on to Derby. September 
 8th. At Derby; seeing Mr. Carter and Mr. Beale about the Tarn- 
 worth deviation ; then home to Alton Grange. September loth. 
 At Alton Grange, preparing report to the committee of the Edin- 
 burgh and Dunbar Railway." 
 
 Such is a specimen of the enormous amount of physical and mental 
 labor undergone by the engineer during the busy years referred to. 
 He was no sooner home than he was called away again. Thus, in 
 four days after his arrival at Alton Grange from the above journey 
 into Scotland, we find him going over the whole of the North Mid- 
 land line as far as Leeds; then by Halifax to Manchester, where he 
 staid for several days on the business of the South Union line ; then 
 to Birmingham and London ; back to Alton Grange, and next day 
 to Congleton and Leek ; thence to Leeds and Goole, and home 
 again by the Sheffield and Rotherham and the Midland works. And 
 early in the following month (October) he was engaged in the North 
 of Ireland, examining the line, and reporting upon the plans of the 
 projected Ulster Railway. He was also called upon to inspect and 
 report upon colliery works, salt works, brass and copper works, and 
 such like, in addition to his own colliery and railway business. He 
 usually also staked out himself the lines laid out by him, which in- 
 volved a good deal of labor since undertaken by assistants. And oc- 
 casionally he would run up to London, attending in person to the 
 preparation and depositing of the plans and sections of the projected 
 undertakings for which he was engaged as engineer. 
 
 His correspondence increased so much that he found it necessary
 
 BUSINESS HABITS AND AMUSEMENTS. 189 
 
 to engage a private secretary, who accompanied him on his journeys. 
 He was himself exceedingly averse to writing letters. The compara- 
 tively advanced age at which he learned the art of writing, and the 
 nature of his duties while engaged at the v Killingworth Colliery, pre- 
 cluded that facility in correspondence which only constant practice 
 can give. He gradually, however, acquired great facility in dictation, 
 and had also the power of laboring continuously at this work ; the 
 gentleman who acted as his secretary in the year 1835, stated that, 
 during his busy season, he one day dictated no fewer than thirty-seven 
 letters, several of them embodying the results of much close thinking 
 and calculation. On another occasion he dictated reports and letters 
 for twelve continuous hours, until his secretary was ready to drop off 
 his chair from sheer exhaustion, and at length pleaded for a suspen- 
 sion of the labor. This great mass of correspondence, though closely 
 bearing on the subjects under discussion, was not, however, of a kind 
 to supply the biographer with matter for quotation, or to give that 
 insight into the life and character of the writer which the letters of 
 literary men so often furnish. They were, for the most part, letters 
 of mere business, relating to works in progress, Parliamentary con tests, 
 new surveys, estimates of cost, and railway policy curt, and to the 
 point ; in short, the letters of a man every moment of whose time 
 was precious. 
 
 Fortunately, George Stephenson possessed a facility of sleeping, 
 which enabled him to pass through this enormous amount of fatigue 
 and labor without injury to his health. He had been trained in a 
 hard school, and could bear with ease conditions which, to men more 
 softly nurtured, would have been the extreme of physical discomfort. 
 Many, many nights he snatched his sleep while traveling in his 
 chaise; and at break of day he would be at work, surveying until 
 dark, and this for weeks in succession. His whole powers seemed to 
 be under the control of his will, for he could wake at any hour, and 
 go to work at once. It was difficult for secretaries and assistants to 
 keep up with such a man. 
 
 It is pleasant to record that in the midst of these engrossing oc- 
 cupations his heart remained as soft and loving as ever. In spring- 
 time he would not be debarred of his boyish amusement of bird-nest- 
 ing, but would go rambling along the hedges spying for nests. In 
 the autumn he went nutting, and when he could snatch a few minutes 
 he indulged in his old love of gardening. His uniform kindness and 
 good temper, and his communicative, intelligent disposition, made 
 him a great favorite with the neighboring farmers, to whom he would 
 volunteer much valuable advice on agricultural operations, drainage, 
 plowing, and labor-saving processes. Sometimes he took a long rural 
 ride on his favorite "Bobby," now growing old, but as fond of his 
 master as ever. Toward the end of his life "Bobby " lived in clover, 
 his master's pet, doing no work ; and he died at Tapton in 1845, 
 more than twenty years old.
 
 ipo GEORGE STEPHENSON. 
 
 The amount of Parliamentary business having greatly increased, 
 the Stephensons found it necessary to set up an office in London, in 
 1836. There consultations were held, schemes matured, and depu- 
 tations were received. Besides journeys at home, Stephenson was 
 called abroad ; at the desire of King Leopold, he made visits to Bel- 
 gium, to assist the Belgian engineers. That monarch early discerned 
 the powerful instrumentality of railways in developing a country's 
 resources, and determined at the earliest possible period to adopt 
 them as the great highroads of the nation. 
 
 Mr. Stephenson made a second visit, in 1837, on the opening of 
 the line from Brussels to Ghent. Stephenson dined with the chief 
 ministers of state, the municipal authorities, and five hundred of the 
 principal inhabitants. On entering the room, the general and excited 
 inquiry was, "Which is Stephenson?" The English engineer had 
 not before imagined that he was esteemed to be so great a man. 
 
 At the dinner at York, which followed the partial opening of the 
 York and North Midland Railway, Mr. Stephenson said "he was 
 sure they would appreciate his feelings when he told them that, when 
 he first began railway business, his hair was black, although it was 
 now gray ; and that he began his life's labor as a poor plowboy. 
 About thirty years since, he had applied himself to the study of how 
 to generate high velocities by mechanical means. He thought he had 
 solved that problem ; and they had for themselves seen, that day, 
 what perseverance had brought him to. He was, on that occasion, 
 only too happy to have an opportunity of acknowledging that he had, 
 in the latter portion of his career, received much most valuable assist- 
 ance, particularly from young men brought up in his manufactory. 
 Whenever talent showed itself in a young man, he had always given 
 that talent encouragement where he could, and he would continue 
 to do so/' 
 
 This was no exaggerated statement. Stephenson was no niggard 
 of encouragement and praise, when he saw honest industry struggling 
 for a footing. Many were the young men whom he took by the hand 
 and led steadily up because he had noted their zeal, diligence, and 
 integrity. One youth, a carpenter on the Manchester line, before 
 many years, was recognized as an engineer of distinction. Another 
 young man, found industriously working, he engaged as his private 
 secretary, who soon rose to eminent influence and usefulness. Indeed, 
 nothing gave him greater pleasure than to help any deserving youth. 
 
 The proprietors of the canals were astounded that, notwithstanding 
 the immense traffic by rail, their own receipts continued to increase ; 
 and that they fully shared in the expansion of trade and commerce. 
 The cattle-owners were amazed to find the price of horse-flesh increas'- 
 ing with the extension of railways, and that the number of coaches 
 running to and from the new railway stations gave employment to a 
 greater number of horses than under the old stage-coach system. 
 Those who had prophesied the decay of the metropolis, and the ruin
 
 EFFECTS OF RAILWAYS CITY AND COUNTY. IQI 
 
 of the suburban cabbage-growers, in consequence of the approach of 
 railways to London, were disappointed ; for, while the new roads let 
 citizens out of London, they also let country people in. Their action, 
 in this respect, was centripetal as well as centrifugal. Tens of thou- 
 sands who had never seen the metropolis could now visit it expedi- 
 tiously and cheaply ; and Londoners who had never visited the coun- 
 try, or but rarely, were enabled, at little cost of time or money, to 
 see green fields and clear blue skies far from the smoke and bustle 
 of town. 
 
 The prophecies of ruin and disaster to landlords and farmers were 
 equally confounded by the openings of the railways. The agricul- 
 tural communications, so far from being "destroyed," as had been 
 predicted, were immensely improved. The farmers were enabled to 
 buy their coals, lime, and manure, for less money, while they obtained 
 a readier access to the best markets for their stock and farm-produce. 
 Notwithstanding the predictions to the contrary, their cows gave 
 milk as before, the sheep fed and fattened, and even skittish horses 
 ceased to shy at the passing trains. The smoke of the engines did 
 not obscure the sky, nor were farm- yards burnt up by the fire thrown 
 from the locomotives. The farming classes were not reduced to beg- 
 gary; on the contrary, they soon felt that, so far from having any 
 thing to dread, they had very much good to expect from the exten- 
 sion of railways. 
 
 Landlords also found that they could get higher rent for farms sit- 
 uated near a railway than at a distance from one. Hence they be- 
 came clamorous for "sidings." They felt it to be a grievance to be 
 placed at a distance from a station. After a railway had been once 
 opened, not a landlord would consent to have the line taken from 
 him. Owners who had fought the promoters before Parliament, and 
 compelled them to pass their domains at a distance, at a vastly in- 
 creased expense in tunnels and deviations, now petitioned for branches 
 and nearer station-accommodation. Those who held property near 
 towns, and had extorted large sums as compensation for the antici- 
 pated deterioration in the value of their building land, found a new 
 demand for it springing up at greatly advanced prices. Land was 
 now advertised for sale with the attraction of being "near a railway 
 station." 
 
 The prediction that, even if railways were made, the public would 
 not use them, was also completely falsified by the results. The ordi- 
 nary mode of fast traveling for the middle classes had, heretofore, 
 been by mail-coach and stage-coach. Those who could not afford 
 to pay the high prices charged by such conveyance went by wagon, 
 and the poorer classes trudged on foot. George Stephenson was wont 
 to say that he hoped to see the day when it would be cheaper for 
 a poor man to travel by railway than to walk, and not many years 
 passed before his expectation was fulfilled. The railway proved a great 
 benefactor to men of industry in all classes.
 
 192 GEORGE STEPHENS N. 
 
 Many deplored the inevitable downfall of the old stage-coach sys- 
 tem. There was to be an end of that delightful variety of incident 
 usually attendant on a journey by road. The rapid scamper across 
 a fine country on the outside of a four-horse "Express" or "High- 
 flyer;" the seat on the box beside Jehu, or the equally coveted place 
 near the facetious guard behind ; the journey amid open green fields, 
 through smiling villages and fine old towns, where the stage stopped 
 to change horses and the passengers to dine, was all very delightful 
 in its way, and many regretted that this old-fashioned and pleasant 
 style of traveling was about to pass away. 
 
 The avidity with which the public at once availed themselves of 
 the railways proved that a better system had been discovered. Not- 
 withstanding the reduction of the coach-fares on many of the roads 
 to one-third of their previous rate, the public preferred traveling by 
 railway. They saved in time, and they saved in money, taking the 
 whole expenses into account. 
 
 It was some time before the more opulent classes, who could afford 
 to post to town in aristocratic style, became reconciled to the railway 
 train. It put an end to that gradation of rank in traveling which 
 was one of the few things left by which the nobleman could be dis- 
 tinguished from the Manchester manufacturer and bagman. But to 
 younger sons of noble families the convenience and cheapness of the 
 railway did not fail to commend itself. One of these, whose eldest 
 brother had just succeeded to an earldom, said to a railway manager, 
 "I like railways; they just suit young fellows like me, with 'nothing 
 per annum, paid quarterly.' You know, we' can't afford to post, and 
 it used to be deuced annoying to me, as I was jogging along on the 
 box-seat of the stage-coach, to see the little earl go by, drawn by his 
 four posters, and just look up at me and give me a nod. But now, 
 with railways, it's different. It's true, he may take a first-class ticket, 
 while I can only afford a second-class one, but we both go the same 
 pace. ' ' 
 
 For a time, however, many of the old families sent forward their 
 servants and luggage by railroad, and condemned themselves to jog 
 along the old highway in the accustomed family chariot, dragged by 
 country post-horses. But the superior comfort of the railway shortly 
 recommended itself to even the oldest families; posting went out of 
 date ; post-horses were with difficulty to be had along even the great 
 high-roads; and nobles and servants, manufacturers and peasants, 
 alike shared in the comfort, the convenience, and the dispatch of rail- 
 way traveling. The late Dr. Arnold, of Rugby, regarded the open- 
 ing of the London and Birmingham line as another great step ac- 
 complished in the march of civilization. "I rejoice to see it," he 
 said, as he stood on one of the bridges over the railway, and watched the 
 train flashing along under him, and away through the distant hedge- 
 rows "I rejoice to see it, and to think that feudality is gone forever: 
 it is so great a blessing to think that any one evil is really extinct."
 
 OPENS NEW COAL MINES. 193 
 
 It was long before the late Duke of Wellington would trust him- 
 self behind a locomotive. The fatal accident to Mr. Huskisson, 
 which had happened before his eyes, contributed to prejudice him 
 strongly against railways, and it was not until the year 1843, tnat ne 
 performed his first trip on the South-western Railway, in attendance 
 upon her majesty. Prince Albert had for some time been accustomed 
 to travel by railway alone, but in 1842 the queen began to make use 
 of the same mode of conveyance between Windsor and London. 
 
 GEORGE STEPHENSON'S COAL-MINES APPEARS AT MECHANICS' INSTI- 
 TUTES HIS OPINION ON RAILWAY SPEEDS ATMOSPHERIC SYSTEM 
 
 RAILWAY MANIA VISITS TO BELGIUM AND SPAIN. 
 
 While George Stephenson was engaged on the works of the Mid- 
 land Railway, in the neighborhood of Chesterfield, several seams of 
 coal were cut through in the Claycross Tunnel, when it occurred to 
 him that if mines were opened out there, the railway would provide 
 the means of a ready sale for the article in the midland counties, 
 and even as far south as the metropolis itself. 
 
 At a time when every body else was skeptical as to the possibility 
 of coals being carried from the midland counties to London, he 
 induced some of his Liverpool friends to join him in a coal-mining 
 adventure at Chesterfield. A lease was taken of the Claycross estate, 
 then for sale, and operations were shortly after begun. At a subse- 
 quent period, Stephenson extended his coal-mining operations in the 
 same neighborhood, and, in 1841, he entered into a contract with 
 owners of land in the townships of Tapton, Brimington, and New- 
 bold for the working of the coal thereunder, and pits were opened on 
 the Tapton estate on an extensive scale. About the same time, he 
 erected great lime works, close to the Ambergate station of the Midland 
 Railway, from which, when in full operation, he was able to turn out 
 upward of two hundred tons a day. The limestone was brought on 
 a tram-way from the village of Crich, two or three miles distant, the 
 coal being supplied from Claycross Colliery. The works were on a 
 scale such as had not before been attempted, and proved very suc- 
 cessful. 
 
 Tapton House was included in the lease of one of the collieries, 
 and was conveniently situated the engineer could proceed north or 
 south on the various lines then under construction. He took up his 
 residence there, and it continued his home until the close of his life. 
 
 Tapton House is situated amid woods, upon a commanding emi- 
 nence. Green fields dotted with fine trees slope away from the 
 house in all directions. Mr. Stephenson had so long been accus- 
 tomed to laborious pursuits, and felt himself still so full of work, 
 that he could not at once settle down into the habit of quietly enjoy- 
 ing the fruits of his industry. 
 
 13
 
 194 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 
 
 Besides directing the mining operations at Claycross, the lime- 
 kilns at Ambergate, and the construction of extensive railways still 
 in progress, he occasionally paid visits to Newcastle, where his loco- 
 motive manufactory was now reaping the advantages of his early 
 foresight in an abundant measure of prosperity. One of his most 
 interesting visits was in 1838, at the meeting of the British Associa- 
 tion there, when he acted as one of the Vice-Presidents in the section 
 of Mechanical Science. Extraordinary changes had taken place in his 
 own fortunes, as well as in the face of the country, since he had first 
 appeared before a scientific body in Newcastle the members of the 
 Literary and Philosophical Institute to submit his safety-lamp for 
 their examination. Twenty-three years had passed over his head, full 
 of honest work, of manful struggle, and the humble "colliery engine- 
 wright, of the name of Stephenson," had achieved an almost world- wide 
 reputation. His fellow-townsmen, therefore, could not hesitate to do 
 honor to his presence. He took the opportunity of paying a visit to 
 Killingworth, accompanied by distinguished savans, his friends. He 
 pointed them, with honest pride, to the cottage in which he lived so 
 many years, showing what parts had been his handiwork, and told 
 them the story of the sun-dial over the door. The dial had been 
 serenely numbering the hours through the busy years that had 
 elapsed since that dwelling had been his home. 
 
 From a very early period in his history he had taken an active in- 
 terest in Mechanics' Institutes. While residing at Newcastle, in 1824, 
 he presided at a public meeting held in that town for the purpose of 
 establishing a Mechanics' Institute. But, as George Stephenson was 
 comparatively unknown, his name failed to secure " an influential 
 attendance." The local papers scarcely noticed the proceedings, 
 yet the Mechanics' Institute was founded and struggled into existence. 
 Years passed, and it was felt to be an honor to secure Mr. Stephen- 
 son's presence. Among the Mechanics' Institutes in the neighborhood 
 of Tapton, were those of Belper and Chesterfield, and at their soirees 
 he was a frequent and a welcome visitor, and loved to tell his audit- 
 ors of the difficulties which had early beset him through want of 
 knowledge, and of the means by which he had overcome them. His 
 grand text was PERSEVERE. 
 
 George Stephenson was always an immense favorite with his audi- 
 ences. His personal appearance was in his favor. A handsome, 
 ruddy, expressive face, lit up by bright dark blue eyes, prepared one 
 for his earnest words when he stood up, and the cheers had subsided 
 which invariably hailed his rising to speak. He was not glib, but 
 very impressive. And who, so well as he, could guide the working- 
 man in endeavors after higher knowledge? His early life had been 
 all struggle encounter with difficulty groping in the dark after 
 greater light, but always earnestly and perseveringly. His words 
 were, therefore, all the more weighty, since he spoke from the fullness 
 of his own experience.
 
 SPEED OF RAILWAY TRAINS. 195 
 
 Nor did he remain an inactive spectator of improvements in rail- 
 way working, but continued to contrive improvements in the loco- 
 motive, and to mature his invention of the carriage-brake. When 
 examined before the Select Committee on Railways, in 1841, his 
 mind seems to have been impressed with the necessity which existed 
 for adopting a system of self-acting brakes, stating that, in his opin- 
 ion, this was the most important arrangement that could be provided 
 for increasing the safety of railway traveling. "I believe," he said, 
 " that if self-acting brakes were put upon every carriage, scarcely any 
 accident could take place." 
 
 While before the same committee, he stated his views with refer- 
 ence to railway speeds, about which wild ideas were afloat, one gen- 
 tleman of celebrity having publicly expressed the opinion that a speed 
 of a hundred miles an hour was practicable in railway traveling ! Not 
 many years had passed since Mr. Stephenson had been pronounced 
 insane for stating his conviction that twelve miles an hour could be 
 performed by the locomotive ; but, now that he had established the 
 fact, and greatly exceeded that speed, he was thought behind the age 
 because he recommended it to be limited to forty miles an hour. He 
 said: "I do not like either forty or fifty miles an hour upon any 
 line I think it an unnecessary speed; and if there is danger upon 
 a railway, it is high velocity that creates it. I should say no railway 
 ought to exceed forty miles an hour on the most favorable gradient ; 
 but, upon a curved line, the speed ought not to exceed twenty-four 
 or twenty-five miles an hour." He had, indeed, constructed for the 
 Great Western Railway an engine capable of running fifty miles an 
 hour with a load, and eighty miles without one. But he never was 
 in favor of a hurricane speed of this sort, believing it could only be 
 accomplished at an unnecessary increase both of danger and expense. 
 
 "It is true," he observed on other occasions, "I have said the 
 locomotive engine might be made to travel a hundred miles an hour, 
 but I always put a qualification on this, namely, as to what speed 
 would best suit the public. The public may, however, be unreasonble; 
 and fifty or sixty miles an hour is an unreasonable speed. Long be- 
 fore railway traveling became general, I said to my friends that there 
 was no limit to the speed of the locomotive, provided the works could 
 be made to stand; but there are limits to the strength of iron, whether 
 it be manufactured into rails or locomotives, and there is a point at 
 which both rails and tires must break. Every increase of speed, by 
 increasing the strain upon the road and the rolling stock, brings us 
 nearer to that point. At thirty miles, a slighter road will do, and 
 less perfect rolling stock may be run upon it with safety. But if you 
 increase the speed by say ten miles, then every thing must be greatly 
 strengthened. You must have heavier engines, heavier and better- 
 fastened rails, and all your working expenses will be immensely 
 increased. I think I know enough of mechanics to know where to 
 stop. I know that a pound will weigh a pound, and that more
 
 196 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 
 
 should not be put upon an iron rail than it will bear. If you could 
 insure perfect iron, perfect rails, and perfect locomotives, I grant fifty 
 miles an hour or more might be run with safety on a level railway. 
 But then you must not forget that iron, even the best, will 'tire,' and 
 with constant use will become more and more liable to break at the 
 weakest point perhaps where there is a secret flaw that the eye 
 can not detect. Then look at the rubbishly rails now manufactured 
 on the contract system some of them little better than cast metal : 
 indeed, I have seen rails break merely on being thrown from the 
 truck on to the ground. How is it possible for such rails to stand a 
 twenty or thirty ton engine dashing over them at the speed of fifty 
 miles an hour? No, no," he would conclude, "I am in favor of 
 low speeds because they are safe, and because they are economical ; 
 and you may rely upon it that, beyond a certain point, with every 
 increase of speed there is a certain increase in the element of danger." 
 
 While the railway mania was at its height in England, railways 
 were also being extended abroad, and George Stephenson continued 
 to be invited to give the directors of foreign undertakings the benefit 
 of his advice. One of the most agreeable of his excursions with that 
 object was his third visit to Belgium, in 1845. His special purpose 
 was to examine the proposed line of the Sambre and Meuse Railway. 
 Arrived on the ground, he went carefully over the entire length 
 of the proposed line, and was delighted with the novelty of 
 the journey, the beauty of the scenery, and the industry of the 
 population. His companions were entertained by his ample and 
 varied stores of practical information on all subjects, and his con- 
 versation was full of reminiscences of his youth, on which he always 
 delighted to dwell when in the society of his more intimate friends. 
 
 The engineers of Belgium invited him to a magnificent banquet at 
 Brussels. Stephenson was greatly pleased with the entertainment. 
 Not the least interesting incident of the evening was his observing, 
 when the dinner was about half over, the model of a locomotive en- 
 gine placed upon the center-table, under a triumphal arch. Turning 
 suddenly to his friend Sopwith, he exclaimed, "Do you see the 
 'Rocket?' ' It was, indeed, the model of that celebrated locomo- 
 tive ; and the engineer prized the delicate compliment thus paid him 
 perhaps more than all the encomiums of the evening. 
 
 The next day (April 5th) King Leopold invited him to a private 
 interview at the palace. Accompanied by Mr. Sopwith, he proceeded 
 to Laaken, and was cordially received by his majesty. The king 
 immediately entered into familiar conversation with him, discussing 
 first the railway project which had been the object of his visit to Bel- 
 gium, and then the structure of the Belgian coal-fields, his majesty 
 expressing his sense of the great importance of economy in a fuel to 
 the comfort and well-being of society. The subject was always a 
 favorite one with George Stephenson, and, encouraged by the king, 
 he proceeded to explain to him the geological structure of Belgium.
 
 INTERVIEW WITH KING OF BELGIUM. 197 
 
 In describing the coal-beds, he used his hat as a sort of model to 
 illustrate his meaning, and the eyes of the king were fixed upon it 
 as he proceeded with his description. The conversation then passed 
 to the rise and progress of trade and manufactures, Stephenson point- 
 ing out how closely they every-where followed the coal, being mainly 
 dependent upon it, as it were, for their very existence. The king 
 seemed greatly pleased, and expressed himself as obliged by the inter- 
 esting information which the engineer had communicated. 
 
 George Stephenson paid a farther visit to Belgium in the course of 
 the same year, on the business of the West Flanders Railway, and he 
 had scarcely returned from it ere he was requested to proceed to Spain 
 for the purpose of examining and reporting upon a scheme then on 
 foot for constructing "the Royal North of Spain Railway." 
 
 Urgent business required Mr. Stephenson's presence in London on 
 the last day of November. He traveled, therefore, almost continu- 
 ously, day and night, and the fatigue consequent on the journey, 
 added to the privations endured by the engineer while carrying on 
 the survey among the Spanish mountains, began to tell seriously on 
 his health. By the time he reached Paris he was evidently ill, but 
 he nevertheless determined on proceeding. He reached Havre in 
 time for the Southampton boat, but when on board pleurisy developed 
 itself, and it was necessary to bleed him freely. After a few weeks' 
 rest at home, however, he gradually recovered, though his health re- 
 mained severely shaken. 
 
 ROBERT STEPHENSON'S CAREER THE STEPHENSONS AND BRUNEL EAST 
 
 COAST ROUTE TO SCOTLAND ROYAL BORDER BRIDGE, BERWICK 
 
 HIGH-LEVEL BRIDGE, NEWCASTLE. 
 
 The career of George Stephenson was drawing to a close. He had 
 for some time been gradually retiring; in 1840, when the extensive 
 main lines in the Midland districts had been finished and opened, he 
 publicly expresed his intention of withdrawing. Being now sixty, and 
 having spent the greater portion of his life in very hard work, he 
 naturally desired rest. There was less necessity for continuing "in 
 harness," as Robert was in full career as a leading engineer, and his 
 father had pleasure in handing over to him nearly all the railway ap- 
 pointments which he held. 
 
 Robert Stephenson had amply repaid his father's care. The sound 
 education of which he had laid the foundations at school, improved 
 by his subsequent culture, but more than all by his father's ex- 
 ample of application, industry, and thoroughness in all that he un- 
 dertook, told powerfully in the formation of his character not less 
 than in the discipline of his intellect. His father had familiarized 
 him with the laws of mechanics, and carefully trained and stimulated 
 his inventive faculties. "I am fully conscious in my own mind," 
 said the son, at a meeting of the Mechanical Engineers at Newcastle,
 
 198 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 
 
 in 1858, "how greatly my civil engineering has been regulated and 
 influenced by the mechanical knowledge which I derived directly 
 from my father; and the more my experience has advanced, the more 
 convinced I have become that it is necessary to educate an engineer 
 in the workshop. That is, emphatically, the education which will 
 render the engineer most intelligent, most useful, and the fullest of 
 resources in time of difficulty." 
 
 Robert Stephenson was but twenty-six years old when the perform- 
 ances of the "Rocket" established the practicability of steam loco- 
 motion on railways. He was shortly after appointed engineer 
 of the Leicester and Swannington Railway ; after which, at his fa- 
 ther's request, he was made joint engineer with himself in laying out 
 the London and Birmingham Railway, and the execution of that line 
 was afterward intrusted to him as sole engineer. The stability and 
 excellence of that railway, the difficulties which had been successfully 
 overcome in its construction, and the judgment displayed by Robert 
 Stephenson throughout the whole undertaking, established his reputa- 
 tion as an engineer, and his father could now look with confidence 
 and pride upon his son's achievements. From that time forward, fa- 
 ther and son worked together cordially, each jealous of the other's 
 honor; and, on the father's retirement, it was generally recognized 
 that, in the sphere of railways, Robert Stephenson was the foremost 
 man, the safest guide, and the most active worker. 
 
 We have thus noted some leading points in the life of the son up 
 to the age of forty, and here direct the reader's attention to "The Life 
 of Robert Stephenson, F.R.S., late President of the Institution of 
 Civil Engineers, by J. C. Jeaffreson, Barrister-at-Law, 2 Vols., 8vo., 
 London, 1864," and briefly proceed to sketch the later days, more 
 especially of the father, who fought his own way from obscurity to 
 eminence as the son did net. 
 
 George Stephenson could not brook the idea of seeing the loco- 
 motive, for which he had fought so many stout battles, pushed to one 
 side, and that in the very county in which its great powers had been first 
 developed, for Brunei's atmospheric railway, which finally proved 
 wholly valueless for practical purposes. Shareholders in the projected 
 Atmospheric Company were happily prevented by his opposition from 
 investing their capital in what would unquestionably have proved a 
 gigantic blunder, for, in less than three years later, the whole of the 
 atmospheric tubes which had been laid down on other lines were 
 pulled up, and the materials sold, including Mr. Brunei's immense 
 tube on the South Devon Railway, to make way for the working of 
 the locomotive engine. George Stephenson's first verdict of "It 
 won't do" was thus conclusively confirmed. 
 
 One day George was standing with his back to the fire, when Lord 
 Howick called to see Robert. Oh ! thought George, he has come to 
 try and talk Robert over about that atmospheric gimcrack; but I'll 
 tackle his lordship. "Come in, my lord," said he; "Robert's busy;
 
 "ATMOSPHERIC SYSTEM" A FAILURE. 199 
 
 but I'll answer your purpose quite as well ; sit down here, if you 
 please." George began, " Now, my lord, I know very well what you 
 have come about; it's that atmospheric line in the North; I will 
 show you, in less than five minutes, that it can never answer." " If 
 Mr. Robert Stephenson is not at liberty, I can call again," said his 
 lordship. "He's certainly occupied on important business just at 
 present," was George's answer, "but I can tell you far better than 
 he can what nonsense the atmospheric system is : Robert's good-na- 
 tured, you see, and if your lordship were to get alongside of him, you 
 might talk him over; so you have been quite lucky in meeting with 
 me. Now just look at the question of expense ;" and then he pro- 
 ceeded in his strong Doric to explain his views in detail, until Lord 
 Howick could stand it no longer, and he rose and walked toward 
 the door. George followed him down stairs to finish his demolition 
 of the atmospheric system, and his parting words were, "You may 
 take my word for it, my lord, it will never answer." George after- 
 ward told his son with glee of "the settler" he had given Lord 
 Howick. 
 
 So closely were the Stephensons identified with the Newcastle and 
 Berwick Railway, and so great was the personal interest which they 
 were both known to take in its success, that, on the news of the pass- 
 ing of the bill reaching Newcastle, a sort of general holiday took 
 place, and the workmen belonging to the Stephenson Locomotive 
 Factory, upward of eight hundred in number, walked in procession 
 through the principal streets of the town, accompanied by music and 
 banners. 
 
 CLOSING YEARS OF GEORGE STEPHENSON's LIFE ILLNESS AND DEATH 
 
 CHARACTER. 
 
 George Stephenson was present on the occasion of the floating and 
 raising of the first Conway tube, and there witnessed a proof of the 
 soundness of Robert's judgment as to the efficiency and strength of 
 the structure, of which he had at first expressed some doubt ; but be- 
 fore the like test could be applied at the Britannia Bridge, George 
 Stephenson's mortal anxieties were at an end, for he had then ceased 
 from all his labors. Toward the close of his life, George Stephenson 
 devoted himself chiefly to his extensive collieries and lime works, 
 taking a local interest only in such projected railways as were calcu- 
 lated to open up new markets for their products. 
 
 At home he lived the life of a country gentleman, enjoying his 
 garden and grounds, and indulging his love of nature, which, through 
 all his busy life, had never left him. It was not until the year 1845 
 that he took an active interest in horticultural pursuits. Then he be- 
 gan to build new melon-houses, pineries, and vineries, of great extent; 
 and he now seemed as eager to excel all other growers of exotic 
 plants in his neighborhood, as he had been some thirty years before
 
 200 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 
 
 to surpass the villagers of Killingworth in the production of cabbages 
 and cauliflowers. He had a pine-house built 68 feet in length, and a 
 vinery 140 feet. Workmen were constantly employed in enlarging 
 them, until at length he had no fewer than ten glass forcing-houses. 
 He did not take so much pleasure in flowers as in fruits. At one of 
 the county agricultural meetings, he said that he intended yet to grow 
 pine-apples at Tapton as big as pumpkins. The only man to whom 
 he would "knock under " was his friend Paxton, the gardener to the 
 Duke of Devonshire ; but he was so old in the service, and so skillful, 
 that he could scarcely hope to beat him. Yet his "Queen" pines 
 did take the first prize at a competition with the duke, though 
 this was not until shortly after his death, when the plants had become 
 fully grown. Stephenson's grapes also took the first prize at Rother- 
 ham, at a competition open to all England. He was extremely suc- 
 cessful in producing melons, having invented a method of suspending 
 them in baskets of wire gauze, which, by relieving the stalk from 
 tension, allowed nutrition to proceed more freely, and better enabled 
 the fruit to grow and ripen. 
 
 Farming operations were carried on by him with success. He ex- 
 perimented on manure, and fed cattle after methods of his own. He 
 was very particular as to breed and build in stock-breeding. " You 
 see, sir," he said to one gentleman, "I like to see the coo's back at 
 a gradient something like this" (drawing an imaginary line with his 
 hand), "and then the ribs or girders will carry more flesh than if 
 they were so or so." When he attended the county agricultural 
 meetings, which he frequently did, he was accustomed to take part in 
 the discussions, and he brought the same vigorous practical mind to 
 bear upon questions of tillage, drainage, and farm economy which he 
 had before been accustomed to exercise on mechanical and engineer- 
 ing matters. 
 
 All his early affection for birds and animals revived. He had 
 favorite dogs and cows and horses ; and again he began to keep 
 rabbits, and to pride himself on the beauty of his breed. There was 
 not a bird's nest in the grounds that he did not know of; and from 
 day to day he went round watching the progress which the birds made 
 with their building, carefully guarding them from harm. His minute 
 knowledge of the habits of British birds was the result of a long, lov- 
 ing, and close observation of nature. 
 
 At Tapton he remembered the failure of his early experiment in 
 hatching birds' eggs by heat, and he now performed it successfully, 
 being able to secure a proper apparatus for maintaining a uniform 
 temperature. He was also curious about the breeding and fattening 
 of fowls ; and when his friend, Edward Pease, of Darlington, visited 
 him at Tapton, he explained a method which he had invented of fat- 
 tening chickens in half the usual time. The chickens were confined 
 in boxes, which were so made as to exclude the light. Dividing the 
 day into two or three periods, the birds were shut up at the end of
 
 AN OBSERVER, NOT A READER. 2OI 
 
 each, after a heavy feed, and went to sleep. The plan proved very 
 successful, and Mr. Stephenson jocularly said that if he were to devote 
 himself to chickens he could soon make a little fortune. 
 
 Mrs. Stephenson tried to keep bees, but found they would not 
 thrive at Tapton. Many hives perished, and there was no case of 
 success. The cause of failure was long a mystery to the engineer; 
 but one day his acute powers of observation enabled him to unravel 
 it. At the foot of the hill on which Tapton House stands, he saw 
 some bees trying to rise up from among the grass, laden with honey 
 and wax. They were already exhausted, as if with long flying ; and 
 then it occurred to him that the height at which the house stood 
 above the bees' feeding-ground rendered it difficult for them to reach 
 their hives when heavy laden, and hence they sank exhausted. He 
 afterward incidentally mentioned the circumstance to Mr. Jesse, the 
 naturalist, who concurred in his view as to the cause of failure, and 
 was much struck by the keen observation which had led to its solution. 
 
 George Stephenson had none of the habits of the student. He read 
 very little ; for reading is a habit which is generally acquired in youth, 
 and his youth and manhood had been, for the most part, spent in 
 hard work. Books weariedjhim and sent him to sleep. Novels ex- 
 cited his feelings too much, and he avoided them, though he would 
 occasionally read through a philosophical work on a subject in which 
 he felt particularly interested. He wrote very few letters with his 
 own hand. Nearly all his letters were dictated, and he avoided even 
 dictation when he could. His greatest pleasure was in conversation, 
 from which he gathered most of his imparted information. 
 
 It was his practice, when about to set out on a journey by railway, 
 to walk along the train before it started, and look into the carriages 
 to see if he could find "a conversible face." On one of such occa- 
 sions, at the Euston Station, he discovered in a carriage a very hand- 
 some, manly, and intelligent face, which he afterward found was that 
 of the late Lord Denman. He was on his way down to his seat at 
 Stony Middleton, in Derbyshire. Stephenson entered the carriage, 
 and the two were shortly engaged in interesting conversation. It 
 turned upon chronometry and horology, and the engineer amazed his 
 lordship by the extent of his knowledge on the subject, in which he 
 displayed as much minute information, even down to the latest im- 
 provements in watch-making, as if he had been bred a watchmaker 
 and lived by the trade. Lord Denman was curious to know how a 
 man, whose time must have been mainly engrossed by engineering, 
 had gathered so much knowledge on a subject quite out of his own 
 line, and he asked the question. " I learned clock-making and watch- 
 making,"was the answer, "while a working man at Killingworth, when I 
 made a little money in my spare hours by cleaning the pitmen's clocks 
 and watches; and since then I have kept up my information on the 
 subject." This led to farther questions; and then he proceeded to
 
 202 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 
 
 i tell ,Lord Denman the interesting story of his life, which held him 
 entranced during the remainder of the journey. 
 
 Many of his friends readily accepted invitations to Tapton House 
 to enjoy his hospitality, which never failed. With them he would 
 "fight his battles o'er again," reverting often to his battle for the loco- 
 motive ; and he was never tired of telling, nor were his auditors of 
 listening to, the lively anecdotes with which he was accustomed to 
 illustrate the struggles of his early career. While walking in the 
 woods or through the grounds, he would arrest his friends' attention 
 by allusion to some simple object such as a leaf, a blade of grass, a 
 bit of bark, a nest of birds, or an ant carrying its eggs across the path 
 and descant in glowing terms on the creative power of the Divine 
 Mechanician, whose contrivances were so exhaustless and so wonderful. 
 This was a theme upon which he was often accustomed to dwell in 
 reverential admiration when in the society of his more intimate 
 friends. 
 
 One night, when walking under the stars, and gazing up into the 
 field of suns, each the probable center of a system, forming the Milky 
 Way, a friend observed, " What an insignificant creature is man in 
 sight of so immense a creation as thisl*' "Yes!" was his reply: 
 " but how wonderful a creature also is man, to be able to think and 
 reason, and even in some measure to comprehend works so infinite!" 
 
 A microscope which he had brought down to Tapton was a source 
 of immense eftjoyment, and he was never tired of contemplating the 
 minute wonders which it revealed. One evening, when some friends 
 were visiting him, he induced each of them to puncture his skin so 
 as to draw blood, in order that he might examine the globules through 
 the microscope. One of the gentlemen present was a teetotaler, and 
 Stephenson pronounced his blood to be the most lively of the whole. 
 He had a theory of his own about the movement of the globules in 
 the blood, which has since become familiar. It was, that they were 
 respectively charged with electricity, positive at one end and negative 
 at the other, and that they thus attracted and repelled each other, caus- 
 ing a circulation. No sooner did he observe any thing new than he 
 immediately set about devising a reason for it. His training in mechan- 
 ics, his practical familiarity with matter in all its forms, and the 
 strong bent of his mind, led him first of all to seek for a mechanical 
 explanation ; and yet he was ready to admit that there was a some- 
 thing in the principle of life so mysterious and inexplicable which 
 baffled mechanics, and seemed to dominate over and control them. 
 He did not care much, either, for abstruse mechanics, but only for 
 the experimental and practical, as is usually the case with those whose 
 knowledge has been self-acquired. 
 
 Even at his advanced age the spirit of frolic had not left him. 
 When proceeding from Chesterfield Station to Tapton House with his 
 friends, he would almost invariably challenge them to a race up the 
 steep path, partly formed of stone steps, along the hill-side. And he
 
 HIS TEMPERATE LIVING. 203 
 
 would struggle, as of old, to keep the front place, though by this 
 time his "wind" greatly failed him. He would occasionally invite 
 an old friend to take a wrestle with him on the lawn, to keep up his 
 skill, and perhaps to try some new "knack" of throwing. In the 
 evening he would sometimes indulge his visitors by reciting the old 
 " Damon and Phyllis," or singing his favorite song of "John Ander- 
 son my Joe." 
 
 But his greatest enjoyment on such occasion was " a crowdy." 
 "Let's have a crowdie night," he would say; and forthwith a kettle 
 of boiling water was ordered in, with a basin of oatmeal. Taking a 
 large bowl, containing a sufficiency of hot water, and placing it be- 
 tween his knees, he poured in oatmeal with one hand and stirred the 
 mixture vigorously with the other. When enough meal had been 
 added, and the stirring was completed, the crowdie was made. It 
 was then supped with new milk, and Mr. Stephenson generally pro- 
 nounced it "capital !" It was the diet to which he had been accus- 
 tomed when a working-man, and all the dainties with which he had 
 become familiar in recent years had not spoiled his simple tastes. To 
 enjoy crowdie at his years, besides, indicated that he still possessed 
 that quality on which no doubt much of his practical success in life 
 depended a strong and healthy digestion. 
 
 He would also frequently invite to his house the humbler compan- 
 ions of his early life, and take pleasure in talking over old times with 
 them. He never assumed any of the bearings of the great man on 
 such occasions, but treated his visitors with the same friendliness and 
 respect as if they had been his equals, sending them away pleased 
 with themselves and delighted with him. At other times, needy men 
 who had known him in their youth would knock at his door, and they 
 were never refused access. But if he had heard of any misconduct 
 on their part, he would rate them soundly. One who knew him in- 
 timately in private life has seen him exhorting such backsliders, and 
 denouncing their misconduct and imprudence, with the tears stream- 
 ing down his cheeks. And he would generally conclude by opening 
 his purse, and giving them the help which they needed " to make a 
 fresh start in the world." 
 
 His life at Tapton during his later years was occasionally diversified 
 by a visit to London. His engineering business having become lim- 
 ited, he generally went there for the purpose of visiting friends, or 
 "to see what there was fresh going on." He found a new race of 
 engineers springing up on all sides men who knew him not; and 
 his London journeys gradually ceased to yield him pleasure. At 
 other times he visited Newcastle, which always gave him great pleas- 
 ure. He would, on such occasions, go out to Killingworth and seek 
 up old friends, and if the people whom he knew were too retiring, 
 and shrunk into their cottages, he went and sought them there. 
 Striking the floor with his stick, and holding his noble person up- 
 right, he would say, in his own kind way, " Well, and how's all
 
 204 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 
 
 here to-day?" To the last he had always a warm heart for Newcastle 
 and its neighborhood. 
 
 Sir Robert Peel, on more than one occasion, invited George Ste- 
 phenson to his mansion at Dray ton, where he was accustomed to 
 assemble round him men of the highest distinction in art, science, 
 and legislation, during the intervals of his Parliamentary life. The 
 first invitations were respectfully declined ; but Sir Robert again 
 pressing him to come down to Tamworth, where he would meet 
 Buckland, Follett, and others well known to both, he at last con- 
 sented. 
 
 Stephenson's strong powers of observation, together with his native 
 humor and shrewdness, imparted to his conversation at all times 
 much vigor and originality. Though mainly an engineer, he was also 
 a profound thinker on many scientific questions, and there was 
 scarcely a subject of speculation, or a department of recondite science, 
 on which he had not employed his faculties in such a way as to have 
 formed large and original views. 
 
 In 1847, the year before his death, George Stephenson was again 
 invited to join a distinguished party at Drayton Manor, and to assist 
 in the ceremony of formally opening the Trent Valley Railway, 
 which had been designed and laid out by himself many years before. 
 The first sod of the railway had been cut by the prime minister in 
 November, 1845, an< ^ tne formal opening took place on the 26th of 
 June, 1847, tne une having thus been constructed in less than two 
 years. 
 
 What a change had come over the spirit of the landed gentry 
 since the time when George Stephenson had first projected a railway 
 through that district ! Then they were up in arms against him, char- 
 acterizing him as the devastator and spoiler of their estates, whereas 
 now he was hailed as one of the greatest benefactors of the age. 
 Sir Robert Peel, the chief political personage in England, welcomed 
 him as a guest and friend, and spoke of him as the chief among 
 practical philosophers. A dozen members of Parliament, seven bar- 
 onets, with all the landed magnates of the district, assembled to cel- 
 ebrate the opening of the railway. The clergy were there to bless 
 the enterprise, and to bid all hail to railway progress, as "enabling 
 them to carry on with greater facility those operations in connection 
 with religion which were calculated to be so beneficial to the coun- 
 try." The army, speaking through the mouth of General A' Court, 
 acknowledged the vast importance of railways, as tending to improve 
 the military defenses of the country. And representatives from eight 
 corporations were there to acknowledge the great benefits which rail- 
 ways had conferred upon the merchants, tradesmen, and working 
 classes of their respective towns and cities. 
 
 In the spring of 1848, George Stephenson was invited to Whittington 
 House, near Chesterfield, the residence of his friend and former 
 pupil, Mr. Swanwick, to meet the distinguished American, Emerson.
 
 LAST DAYS AND DECEASE. ' 205 
 
 On being introduced to each other, they did not immediately engage 
 in conversation ; but presently Stephenson jumped up, took Emerson 
 by the collar, and, giving him one of his friendly shakes, asked how 
 it was that in England we could always tell an American. This led 
 to an interesting conversation, in the course of which Emerson said 
 that he had every-where been struck by the haleness and come- 
 liness of the English men and women, from which they diverged into 
 a discussion of the influences which air, climate, moisture, soil, and 
 other conditions exercised on the physical and moral development 
 of a people. The conversation was next directed to the subject of 
 electricity, on which Stephenson launched out enthusiastically, ex- 
 plaining his views by several simple and some striking illustrations. 
 From thence it gradually turned to the events of his own life, which 
 he related in so graphic a manner as completely to rivet the attention 
 of the American. Aftenvard Emerson said "that it was worth cross- 
 ing the Atlantic, were it only to have seen Stephenson he had such 
 force of character and vigor of intellect." 
 
 The rest of George Stephenson's days were spent quietly at Tap- 
 ton, among his dogs, his rabbits, and his birds. When not engaged 
 about the works connected with his collieries, he was occupied in 
 horticulture and farming. He continued proud of his flowers, his 
 fruits, and his crops, while the old spirit of competition was still 
 strong within him. Although he had for some time been in delicate 
 health, and his hand shook from nervous debility, he appeared to 
 possess a sound constitution. Emerson had observed of him that he 
 had the lives of many men in him. But, perhaps, the American 
 spoke figuratively, in reference to his vast stores of experience. It 
 appeared that he had never completely recovered from the attack of 
 pleurisy which seized him during his return from Spain. As late, 
 however, as the 26th of July, 1848, he felt himself sufficiently well 
 to be able to attend a meeting of the Institute of Mechanical Engi- 
 neers at Birmingham, and to read to the members his paper " On the 
 Fallacies of the Rotatory Engine." 
 
 It was his last public appearance. Shortly after his return to Tap- 
 ton, he had an attack of intermittent fever, from which he seemed to 
 be recovering, when a sudden effusion of blood from the lungs car- 
 ried him off, on the i2th of August, 1848, in the sixty-seventh year 
 of his age. When all was over, Robert wrote to Edmund Pease : 
 " With deep pain I inform you, as one of his oldest friends, of the 
 death of my dear father this morning at twelve o'clock, after about 
 ten days' illness from severe fever." Mr. Starbuck, who was also 
 present, wrote: "The favorable symptoms of yesterday morning 
 were toward evening followed by a serious change for the worse. 
 This continued during the night, and early this morning it became 
 evident that he was sinking. At a few minutes before twelve to-day 
 he breathed his last. All that the most devoted and unremitting care
 
 
 206 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 
 
 of Mrs. Stephenson* and the skill of medicine could accomplish has 
 been done, but in vain." 
 
 George Stephenson's remains were followed to the grave by a large 
 body of his work-people, by whom he was greatly admired and be- 
 loved. They remembered him as a kind master, who was ever ready 
 actively to promote all measures for their moral, physical, and men- 
 tal improvement. The inhabitants of Chesterfield evinced their 
 respect for the deceased by suspending business, closing their shops, 
 and joining in the funeral procession, which was headed by the cor- 
 poration of the town. Many of the surrounding gentry also attended. 
 The body was interred in Trinity Church, Chesterfield, where a simple 
 tablet marks the great engineer's last resting-place. 
 
 The statue of George Stephenson, which the Liverpool and Man- 
 chester and Grand Junction Companies had commissioned, was on 
 its way to England when his death occurred ; and it served for a 
 monument, though his best monument will always be his works. The 
 statue referred to was placed in St. George's Hall, Liverpool. A full- 
 length statue of him, by Bailey, was also erected, a few years later, 
 in the noble vestibule of the London and North-western Station, in 
 Euston Square. A subscription for the purpose was set on foot by the 
 Society of Mechanical Engineers, of which he had been the founder 
 and president. A few advertisements were inserted in the newspapers, 
 inviting subscriptions ; and it is a notable fact that the voluntary 
 offerings included an average of two shillings each from 3,150 work- 
 ing men, who embraced this opportunity of doing honor to their 
 distinguished fellow-workman. 
 
 But the finest and most appropriate statue to the memory of George 
 Stephenson is that which was erected in 1862, after the design of 
 John Lough, at Newcastle-upon-Tyne. It is in the immediate neigh- 
 borhood of the Literary and Philosophical Institute, to which both 
 George and his son Robert were so much indebted in their early 
 years ; close to the great Stephenson locomotive foundry, established 
 by the shrewdness of the father ; and in the vicinity of the High- 
 Level Bridge, one of the grandest products of the genius of the son. 
 The head of Stephenson, as expressed in this noble work, is massive, 
 characteristic, and faithful ; and the attitude of the figure is simple, 
 yet manly and energetic. It stands on a pedestal, at the respective 
 corners of which are sculptured the recumbent figures of a pitman, a 
 mechanic, an engine-driver, and a plate-layer. The statue appro- 
 priately stands in a very thoroughfare of working-men, thousands of 
 whom see it daily as they pass to and from their work ; and we can 
 imagine them, as they look up to Stephenson's manly figure, applying 
 
 *The second Mrs. Stephenson having died in 1845, George married a third 
 time, in 1848, about six months before his death. The third Mrs. Stephenson 
 was an intelligent and respectable lady, who had for some years officiated as 
 his housekeeper.
 
 WEALTH LEFT HIS SON. 207 
 
 to it the words addressed by Robert Nicoll to Robert Burns, with 
 perhaps still greater appropriateness : 
 
 "Before the proudest of the earth 
 
 We stand, with an uplifted brow ; 
 Like us, thou wast a toiling man 
 And we are noble now !" 
 
 George Stephenson had a shrewd, kind, honest, manly face. His fair, 
 clear countenance was ruddy, and seemingly glowed with health. 
 The forehead was large and high, projecting over the eyes, and there 
 was that massive breadth across the lower part, which is usually ob- 
 served in men of eminent constructive skill. The mouth was firmly 
 marked, and shrewdness and humor lurked there as well as in the 
 keen gray eye. His frame was compact, well knit, and rather spare. 
 His hair became gray at an early age, and toward the close of his 
 life it was of a pure silky whiteness. He dressed neatly in black, 
 wearing a white neckcloth ; and his face, his person, and his deport- 
 ment at once arrested attention. 
 
 ROBERT STEPHENSON'S VICTORIA BRIDGE, LOWER CANADA RAILROAD 
 STATISTICS OF CANADA, THE UNITED STATES, AND OTHER COUNTRIES 
 THE DISTINGUISHED HONOR CONFERRED UPON ROBERT STEPHEN- 
 SON HIS ILLNESS AND DEATH. 
 
 George Stephenson bequeathed to his son his valuable collieries, 
 his share in the engine manufactory at Newcastle, and his large ac- 
 cumulation of savings, which, together with the fortune he had him- 
 self amassed by railway work, gave Robert the position of an 
 engineer millionaire the first of his order. He continued, however, 
 to live in a quiet style ; and although he bought occasional pictures 
 and statues, and indulged in the luxury of a yacht, he did not live 
 up to his income, which went on accumulating until his death. 
 
 Although Robert Stephenson, in conformity with this expressed in- 
 tention, for the most part declined to undertake new business, he 
 did not altogether lay aside his harness, and he lived to repeat his 
 tubular bridges both in Egypt and Canada. The success of the tubu- 
 lar system, as adopted at Menai and Conway, was such as to recom- 
 mend it for adoption wherever great span was required, and the pecu- 
 liar circumstances connected with the navigation of the Nile and the 
 St. Lawrence may be said to have compelled its adoption in carrying 
 railways across both those rivers. 
 
 Having, as engineers say, "diverged from the main line," and got 
 over into Canada, we may go on to speak briefly of what has been 
 done in railroads in the provinces, and also in the United States.* 
 The two main lines of Canada, the "Grand Trunk" and "Great 
 
 Up to the beginning of 1872.
 
 208 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 
 
 Western," make, with their branches, about 2,000 miles; the former 
 has 336 locomotives and 160 first-class passenger cars, and the latter 
 140 locomotives and 133 first-class cars. Altogether there are, per- 
 haps, in the Canadas nearly 3,000 miles of railroad in operation, and 
 over 600 locomotives employed. 
 
 The people of the United States were the first to follow the exam- 
 ple of England, after the practicability of steam locomotion had been 
 proved on the Stockton and Darlington and Liverpool and Man- 
 chester Railways. The first sod of the Baltimore and Ohio Railway 
 was cut on the 4th of July, 1828, and the line, as originally contracted 
 for, was completed and opened for traffic in the following year, when 
 it was worked partly by horse-power, and partly by a locomotive built 
 at Baltimore, which is still preserved in the Company's workshops. In 
 1830 the Hudson and Mohawk Railway was begun, while other lines 
 were under construction in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and New Jersey; 
 and in the course of ten years, 1,843 m iles were finished and in operation. 
 In ten more years, 8,827 miles were at work; at the end of 1864, 
 not less than 35,000 miles, mostly single tracks ; while about 15,000 
 miles more were under construction. At the close of 1870 there 
 were in operation 53,400 miles; and at the opening of the present 
 year, 1872, there were 60,850 miles of railway in the United States 
 doing active duty. In the passenger and freight service on these 
 roads there were employed nearly 12,000 locomotive engines, all con- 
 structed essentially on the same general plan as the improved engines 
 produced by the Stephensons at Newcastle. 
 
 Among the illustrations in this volume appear cuts representing the 
 locomotive in its various stages of development: the later one, a 
 picture of one of the better class now used in the United States, ac- 
 companied by a diagram, which will convey to the reader a much 
 clearer idea of the different parts of this ponderous and agile machine 
 than can be given by words alone. 
 
 Having spoken of the length of railroads in Canada and the United 
 States, we proceed to* give the number of miles in operation at the 
 opening of 1867, in the different countries of the world: In Mexico 
 there were but 78 miles ; in Cuba 396 miles ; in all of South America 
 about 1,250 miles; in Australasia about 600 miles; in Africa 491 
 miles; in Asiatic Turkey 143 miles; in Java 101 miles; in Ceylon 
 37 miles, and in British India 3,379 miles. While on the continent 
 of Europe there were in Turkey 170 miles; in Russia 2,775 miles; 
 Norway 44 miles, and Sweden 1,025 miles; Denmark 295 miles; in 
 Holland 700 miles; Belgium about 1,600 miles; in Austria 3,830 
 miles ; in Prussia and the remaining German States 9,400 miles ; in 
 Switzerland 824 miles; in Italy 3,215 miles; in Portugal 434 miles; 
 in Spain 3,116 miles; in France 8,982 miles; and in Great Britain 
 and Ireland 13,289 miles. About 50,000 miles in all Europe, and be- 
 tween 6,000 and 7,000 miles on the other continents, not counting
 
 RAILWAY WORKMEN SPEEDS. 209 
 
 North America, which now more than equals in number of miles 
 all that had elsewhere been built five years ago. 
 
 According to Mr. Mills, 166,047 men an d officers were employed 
 in the working of 13,289 miles open in the United Kingdom in 1865, 
 besides 53,923 employed on lines then under construction. The 
 most numerous body of workmen is that of the laborers (81,284) 
 employed in the maintenance of the permanent way. Being mostly 
 picked men from the laboring class of the adjoining districts, they 
 are paid considerably higher wages, and hence one of the direct 
 effects of railways on the laboring population (besides affording them 
 greater facilities for locomotion) has been to raise the standard of 
 wages of ordinary labor at least 2s. a week in all the districts into 
 which they have penetrated. The workmen next in number is that 
 of the artificers (40,167) employed in constructing and repairing the 
 rolling-stock; the porters (25,381), the plate-layers (12,901), guards 
 and brakemen (5,799), firemen (5,266), and engine-drivers (5,171). 
 But, besides the employees directly engaged in the working and 
 maintenance of railways, large numbers of workmen are also occu- 
 pied in the manufacture of locomotives and rolling-stock, and in 
 providing the requisite materials for the permanent way. Thus the 
 consumption of rails alone averages nearly 400,000 tons a year in the 
 United Kingdom alone, while the replacing of decayed sleepers re- 
 quires about 10,000 acres of forest to be cut down annually and 
 sawn into sleepers. Taking the various railway workmen into account, 
 with their families, it will be found that they represent a total of 
 about three-quarters of a million persons, or about one in fifty of 
 the population, who are dependent on railways for their subsistence. 
 
 The results of the working of railways in many respects differ from 
 those anticipated by their projectors. One of the most unexpected 
 has been the growth of an immense passenger-traffic. The Stockton 
 and Darlington line was projected as a coal line only, and the Liv- 
 erpool and Manchester as a merchandise line. Passengers were not 
 taken into account as a source of revenue; for, at the time of their 
 projection, it was not believed that people would trust themselves to 
 be drawn upon a railway by an "explosive machine," as the locomo- 
 tive was described to be. Indeed, a writer of eminence declared 
 that he would as soon think of being fired off on a ricochet rocket as 
 travel on a railway at twice the speed of the old stage-coaches. So 
 great was the alarm which existed as to the locomotive, that the Liv- 
 erpool and Manchester Committee pledged themselves, in their second 
 prospectus, issued in 1825, "not to require any clause empowering 
 its use;" and as late as 1829, the Newcastle and Carlisle Act was 
 conceded on the express condition that it should not be worked by 
 locomotives, but by horses only. 
 
 Nevertheless, the Liverpool and Manchester Company obtained 
 powers to make and work their railway without any such restriction ; 
 and when the line was made and opened, a locomotive passenger- 
 14
 
 210 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 
 
 train was ordered to be run upon it by way of experiment. Greatly 
 to the surprise of the directors, more passengers presented themselves 
 than could conveniently be carried. The first passenger vehicles were 
 of a very primitive character, being mainly copied from the old stage- 
 coach. The passengers were "booked" at the railway office, and 
 their names were entered in a way-bill which was given to the guard 
 when the train started. Though the usual stage-coach bugleman 
 could not conveniently go along, the trains were played out of the 
 terminal stations by a lively tune performed at the end of the platform ; 
 this was done at the Manchester Station until a comparatively recent 
 date. 
 
 The number of passengers was so unexpectedly great that it was 
 soon found necessary to remodel the entire system. Tickets were in- 
 troduced, and more roomy and commodious carriages provided. 
 Every thing was found to have been made too light. The prize 
 " Rocket," which weighed only 4^ tons when loaded with its coke 
 and water, was found quite unsuited for drawing the increasingly 
 heavy loads of passengers. There was this difference between the 
 stage-coach and the railway train, the former was " full" with six in- 
 side and ten outside, the latter must be able to accommodate what- 
 ever number of passengers came. Hence heavier and more powerful 
 engines, and larger and more substantial carriages, were from time to 
 time added. 
 
 The speed of the trains was increased. The first locomotives used 
 with coal-trains ran four to six miles an hour. On the Darlington 
 line the speed was increased to about ten miles, and on the Manches- 
 ter line the first passenger-trains were run at the average speed of 
 seventeen miles an hour, at that time considered very fast. When 
 the London and Birmingham line was opened, the mail-trains were 
 run at twenty-three miles an hour ; and gradually the speed went up, 
 until now the fast trains are run fifty to sixty miles an hour the 
 pistons in the cylinders, at sixty miles, traveling 800 feet per minute. 
 
 To bear the heavy engines run at high speeds, a much stronger and 
 heavier road was found necessary. Shortly after the opening of the 
 Liverpool and Manchester line, it was entirely relaid with stronger 
 materials. Now that express passenger-engines are from thirty to 
 thirty-five tons each, the weight of the rails has been increased from 
 35 Ibs. to 75 Ibs. or 86 Ibs. to the yard. Stone blocks have given 
 place to wooden sleepers ; rails with loose ends resting on the chairs, 
 to rails with their ends firmly "fished" together; and in many 
 places, where the traffic is unusually heavy, iron rails have been re- 
 placed by those of steel. 
 
 And now see the enormous magnitude to which railway passenger- 
 traffic has grown. In the year 1866, 274,293,668 passengers were 
 carried by day tickets in Great Britain alone. But this was not all ; 
 for in that year 110,227 periodical tickets were issued by the different 
 railways ; and assuming half of them to be annual, one-fourth half-
 
 STATISTICS OF RAILWAY TRAFFIC. 211 
 
 yearly, and the remainder quarterly, tickets, and that their holders 
 made only five journeys each way weekly, this would give an addi- 
 tional number of 39,405,600 journeys, or a total of 313,699,268 pas- 
 sengers carried in Great Britain in one year. 
 
 It is difficult to grasp the idea of the enormous number of persons 
 represented by these figures. The mind is bewildered, and can form 
 no adequate notion of their magnitude. To reckon them singly would 
 occupy twenty years, counting one a second for twelve hours a day. 
 Or, supposing every man, woman, and child in Great Britain to make 
 ten journeys by rail yearly, the number would fall short of the passen- 
 gers carried in 1866. 
 
 Mr. Porter, in his "Progress of the Nation," estimated that thirty 
 millions of passengers, or about eighty-two thousand a day, traveled 
 by coaches in Great Britain in 1834, an average distance of twelve 
 miles each, at an average cost of 5^. a passenger, or at the rate of 5^. 
 a mile ; whereas above 313 millions are now carried by railway an 
 average distance of 8^4 miles each, at an average cost of is. \y z d. 
 per passenger, or about three half-pence per mile, iy considerably 
 less than half the time. 
 
 But, besides, one hundred and twenty-four million tons of minerals 
 and merchandise were carried by railway in the United Kingdom in 
 1866, and fifteen millions of cattle, besides mails, parcels, and other 
 traffic. The distance run by passenger and goods trains in the year 
 was 142,807,853 miles, to accomplish which it is estimated that four 
 miles of railway on an average must be covered by running trains 
 during every second all the year round. 
 
 To perform this service, there were, in 1866, 8,125 locomotives at 
 work in the United Kingdom, consuming about three million tons of 
 coal and coke, and flashing into the air every minute some thirty 
 tons of water in the form of steam in a high state of elasticity. There 
 were also 19,228 passenger-cars, 7,276 vans and breaks attached to 
 passenger-trains, and 242,947 trucks, wagons, and other vehicles ap- 
 propriated to merchandise. Buckled together, buffer to buffer, the 
 locomotives and tenders would extend for a length of about 54 miles, 
 or more than the distance from London to Brighton ; while the carry- 
 ing vehicles, joined together, would form two trains occupying a 
 double line of railway extending from London to beyond Inverness. 
 
 A notable feature in the growth of railway traffic of late years has 
 been the increase in the number of third-class passengers, compared 
 with first and second class. Sixteen years since, the third-class pas- 
 sengers constituted only about one-third ; ten years later they were 
 about one-half; whereas now they form nearly two-thirds of the whole 
 number carried. Thus George Stephenson's prediction, " that the time 
 would come when it would be cheaper for a working man to make a 
 journey by railway than to walk on foot," is already realized. 
 
 The degree of safety with which this great traffic has been con- 
 ducted is not the least remarkable of its features. Of course, so long
 
 212 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 
 
 as railways are worked by men, they will be liable to the imperfections 
 belonging to all things human. Though their machinery may be 
 perfect, and their organization as complete as skill and forethought 
 can make it, workmen will at times be forgetful and listless, and a 
 moment's carelessness may lead to the most disastrous results. Yet, 
 taking all circumstances into account, the wonder is that traveling by 
 railway at high speeds should have been rendered comparatively so 
 safe. 
 
 To be struck by lightning is one of the rarest of all causes of death, 
 yet more persons were killed by lightning in Great Britain, in 1866, 
 than were killed on railways from causes beyond their own control ; 
 the number in the former case having been nineteen, and in the latter 
 fifteen, or one in every twenty millions of passengers carried. Most 
 persons would consider the probability of their dying by hanging to 
 be extremely remote ; yet, according to the Registrar General's re- 
 turns for 1867, it is thirty times greater than that of being killed by 
 railway accident. Taking the number of persons who traveled in 
 Great Britain in 1866 at 313,699,268, of whom fifteen were accident- 
 ally killed, it would appear that, even supposing a person to have a 
 permanent existence, and to make a journey by railway daily,, the 
 probability of his being killed in an accident would occur on an 
 average once in above 50,000 years. 
 
 The remarkable safety with which railway traffic is on the whole 
 conducted, is due to constant watchfulness and highly-applied skill. 
 The men who work the railways are for the most part picked men. 
 Where railways fail in these respects, it will usually be found that it 
 is because better men are not to be had. It must also be added that 
 the onerous and responsible duties which railway workmen are called 
 upon to perform require a degree of consideration on the part of the 
 public which is not very often extended to them. 
 
 Few are aware of the complicated means and agencies that are in 
 constant operation on railways day and night to insure the safety of 
 the passengers to their journeys' end. The road is under a system 
 of continuous inspection, under gangs of men about twelve to every 
 five miles, under a foreman whose duty it is to see that the rails and 
 chairs are sound, all their fastenings complete, and the line clear of 
 obstructions. 
 
 Then, at all the junctions, sidings, and crossings, switch-men are 
 stationed, with definite instructions as to the duties to be performed 
 by them. At these places signals are provided, worked from the 
 station platforms, or from special signal-boxes, for the purpose of pro- 
 tecting the stopping or passing trains. When the first railways were 
 opened the signals were of a very simple kind. The station-men 
 gave them with their arms stretched out in different positions ; then 
 flags of different colors were used ; next fixed signals, with arms or 
 discs, or of rectangular or triangular shape. These were followed by
 
 RUNNING TRAINS BY TELEGRAPH. 213 
 
 a complete system of semaphore signals, near and distant, protecting 
 all junctions, sidings, and crossings. 
 
 The Electric Telegraph has also been found a valuable auxiliary 
 in insuring the safe working of large railway traffics. Though the 
 locomotive may run at sixty miles an hour, electricity, when at its 
 fastest, travels at the rate of 288,000 miles a second, and is therefore 
 always able to herald the coming train. The electric telegraph may, 
 indeed, be regarded as the nervous system of the railway. By its 
 means the whole line is kept throbbing with intelligence. The method 
 of working electric signals varies on different lines ; but the usual 
 practice is to divide a line into so many lengths, each protected by its 
 signal-stations, the fundamental law of telegraph working being that 
 two engines are not to be allowed to run on the same line between 
 two signal-stations at the same time. When a train passes one of 
 such stations, it is immediately signaled on usually by electric sig- 
 nal-bells to the station in advance, and that inverval of railway is 
 "blocked" until the signal has been received from the station in ad- 
 vance that the train has passed it. Thus, an interval of space is always 
 secured between trains following each other, which are thereby alike 
 protected before and behind. And thus, when a train starts on a 
 journey of it may be hundreds of miles, it is signaled on from station 
 to station, and "lives along the line," until at length it reaches its 
 destination, and the last signal of "train in" is given. By this 
 means an immense number of trains can be worked with regularity 
 and safety. 
 
 One of the remarkable effects of railways has been to extend the 
 residential area of all large towns and cities. This is especially nota- 
 ble in the case of London. Before the introduction of railways, the 
 residential area of the metropolis was limited by the time occupied 
 by business men in making the journey outward and inward daily ; 
 but now that stations have been established near the center of the 
 ^ity, the metropolis has become extended in all directions along its 
 railway lines, and the population of London, instead of living in the 
 city or its immediate vicinity as formerly, have come to occupy a 
 residential area of not less than six hundred square miles ! 
 
 We have little to add as to the closing events in Robert Stephen- 
 son's life. Retired in a great measure from the business of an en- 
 gineer, he occupied himself for the most part in society, in yachting, 
 and in attending the House of Commons and the Clubs. It was in 
 the year 1847 l ^ at he entered the House of Commons as member for 
 Whitby; but he does not seem to have been very regular in his at- 
 tendance, and only appeared on divisions when there was a "whip" 
 of the party to which he belonged. He was a member of the Sew- 
 age and Sanitary Commissions, and of the Commission which sat on 
 Westminster Bridge. He very seldom addressed the House, and then 
 only on matters relating to engineering. The last occasions on which
 
 214 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 
 
 he spoke were on the Suez Canal and the cleansing of the Serpentine. 
 Besides constructing the railway between Alexandria and Cairo, he 
 was consulted, like his father, by the King of Belgium as to the rail- 
 ways of that country; and he was made Knight of the Order of Leo- 
 pold, because of the improvements which he had made in locomotive 
 engines, so much to the advantage of the Belgian system of inland 
 transit. He was consulted by the King of Sweden as to the railway 
 between Christiana and Lake Miosen, and in consideration of his ser- 
 vices was decorated with the Grand Cross of the Order of St. Olaf. 
 He also visited Switzerland, Piedmont, and Denmark, to advise as to 
 the system of railway communication best suited for those countries. 
 At the Paris Exhibition of 1855, the Emperor of France decorated 
 him with the Legion of Honor in consideration of his public services; 
 and at home the University of Oxford made him a Doctor of Civil 
 Laws. In 1855, he was elected President of the Institute of Civil 
 Engineers, which office he held with honor and filled with distin- 
 guished ability for two years, giving place to his friend Mr. Locke at 
 the end of 1857. 
 
 He was habitually careless of his health, and perhaps he indulged 
 in narcotics to a prejudicial extent. Hence he often became " hip- 
 ped," and sometimes ill. When Mr. Sopwith accompanied him to 
 Egypt in the Titania, in 1856, he succeeded in persuading Mr. Ste- 
 phenson to limit his indulgence in cigars and stimulants, and the 
 consequence was that by the end of the voyage he felt himself, as he 
 said, "quite a new man." Arrived at Marseilles, he telegraphed 
 from thence a message to Great George Street, prescribing certain 
 stringent and salutary rules for observance in the office there on his 
 return. But he was of a facile, social disposition, and the old asso- 
 ciations proved too strong for him. When he sailed for Norway in 
 the autumn of 1859, though then ailing in health, he looked like a 
 man who had still plenty of life in him. By the time he returned 
 his fatal illness had seized him. He was attacked by congestion of 
 the liver, which first developed itself in jaundice, and then ran into 
 dropsy, of which he died on the i2th of October, in the fifty-sixth 
 year of his age. He was buried by the side of Telford in Westmin- 
 ster Abbey, amid the departed great men of his country, and was at- 
 tended to his resting-place by many of the intimate friends of his 
 boyhood and his manhood. Among those who assembled round his 
 grave were some of the greatest men of thought and action in Eng- 
 land, who embraced the sad occasion to pay the last mark of their 
 respect to this illustrious son of one of England's greatest working 
 men. 
 
 It would be out of keeping with the subject thus drawn to a con- 
 clusion to pronounce any panegyric on the character and achieve- 
 ments of George and Robert Stephenson. These, for the most part, 
 speak for themselves ; and both were emphatically true men, exhibit- 
 ing in their lives many valuable and sterling qualities.
 
 SINCERE IN WORK, AND IN FRIENDSHIP. 215 
 
 No beginning could have been less promising than that of the elder 
 Stephenson. Born in a poor condition, yet rich in spirit, he was from 
 the first compelled to rely upon himself, every step of advance which 
 he made being conquered by patient labor. Whether working as a 
 brakeman or an engineer, his mind was always full of the work in 
 hand. He gave himself thoroughly up to it. Like the painter, he 
 might say that he had become great "by neglecting nothing." 
 Whatever he was engaged upon, he was as careful of the details as if 
 each were itself the whole. He did all thoroughly and honestly. 
 There was no "scamping" with him. When a workman, he put his 
 brains and labor into his work ; and when a master, he put his con- 
 science and character into it. He would have no slop-work executed 
 merely for the sake of profit. The materials must be as genuine as 
 the workmanship was skillful. The structures which he designed and 
 executed were distinguished for their thoroughness and solidity ; his 
 locomotives were famous for their durability and excellent working 
 qualities. The engines which he sent to the United States in 1832 
 are still in good condition ; and even the engines built by him for 
 the Killingworth Colliery, upward of thirty years since, are working 
 there to this day. All his work was honest, representing the actual 
 character of the man. 
 
 He was ready to turn his hand to any thing shoes and clocks, 
 railways and locomotives. He contrived his safety-lamp with the ob- 
 ject of saving pitmen's lives, and periled his own life in testing it. 
 With him to resolve was to do. Many men knew far more than 
 he, but none was more ready forthwith to apply what he did 
 know to practical purposes. It was while working at Willington 
 as a brakeman that he first learned how best to handle a spade in 
 throwing ballast out of the ship's holds. This casual employment 
 seems to have left upon his mind the most lasting impression of what 
 "hard work" was; and he often used to revert to it, and say to the 
 young men about him, " Ah, ye lads ! there's none o' ye know what 
 work is." Mr. Gooch says he was proud of the dexterity in hand- 
 ling a spade which he had thus acquired, and that he has frequently 
 seen him take the shovel from a laborer in some railway cutting, ami 
 show him how to use it more deftly in filling wagons of earth, gravel, 
 or sand. 
 
 In manner, George Stephenson was simple, modest, and unassum- 
 ing, but always manly. He was frank and social in spirit. When 
 a humble workman, he had carefully preserved his sense of self- re- 
 spect. His companions looked up to him, and his example was worth 
 much more to many of them than books or schools. His devoted 
 love of knowledge made his poverty respectable, and adorned his hum- 
 ble calling. When he rose to a more elevated station, and associated 
 with men of the highest position and influence in Britain, he took 
 his place among them with perfect self-possession. They wondered 
 at the quiet ease and simple dignity of his deportment ; and men in
 
 2l6 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 
 
 the best ranks of life have said of him that " he was one of Nature's 
 gentlemen." 
 
 Probably no military chiefs were ever more beloved by their sol- 
 diers than were both father and son by the army of men who, under 
 their guidance, worked at labors of profit, made labors of love by 
 their earnest will and purpose. True leaders of men and lords of 
 industry, they were always ready to recognize and encourage talent 
 in those who worked for and with them. Thus it was pleasant, at 
 the openings of the Stephenson lines, to hear the chief engineers at- 
 tributing the successful completion of the works to their assistants ; 
 while their assistants, on the other hand, ascribed the principal glory 
 to their chiefs. 
 
 George Stephenson, though a thrifty and frugal man, was essen- 
 tially unsordid. His rugged path in early life made him careful of 
 his resources. He never saved to hoard, but saved for a purpose, 
 such as the maintenance of his parents or the education of his son. 
 In his later years, he became a prosperous and even a wealthy man ; 
 but riches never closed his heart, nor stole away the elasticity of his 
 soul. He enjoyed life cheerfully, because hopefully. When he en- 
 tered upon a commercial enterprise, whether for others or for himself, 
 he looked carefully at the ways and means. Unless they would 
 "pay," he held back. "He would have nothing to do," he de- 
 clared, "with stock-jobbing speculations." His refusal to sell his 
 name to the schemes of the railway mania his survey of the Spanish 
 lines without remuneration his offer to postpone his claim for pay- 
 ment from a poor company until their affairs became more prosper- 
 ous, are instances of the unsordid spirit in which he acted. 
 
 Another marked feature m Mr. Stephenson's character was his pa- 
 tience. Notwithstanding the strength of his convictions as to the 
 great uses to which the locomotive might be applied, he waited long 
 and patiently for the opportunity of bringing it into notice ; and for 
 years after he had completed an efficient engine, he went on quietly 
 devoting himself to the ordinary work of the colliery. He made no 
 noise nor stir about his locomotive, but allowed another to take credit 
 for the experiments on velocity and friction which he had made with 
 it upon the Killingworth railroad. By patient industry and labori- 
 ous contrivance, he was enabled, with the powerful help of his son, 
 almost to do for the locomotive what James Watt had done for the 
 condensing engine. He found it clumsy and inefficient, and he made 
 it powerful, efficient, and useful. Both have been described as the 
 improvers of their respective engines; but, as to all that is admirable 
 in their structure or vast in their utility, they are rather entitled to 
 be described as their inventors. They have both tended to increase 
 indefinitely the mass of human comforts and enjoyments, and to 
 render them cheap and accessible to all. But Stephenson's inven- 
 tion, by the influence which it is daily exercising upon the civiliza- 
 tion of the world, is even more remarkable than that of Watt, and is
 
 POWERS OF CONVERSATION AND OBSERVATION. 217 
 
 calculated to have still more important consequences. In this respect 
 it is to be regarded as the grandest application of steam power that 
 has yet been discovered. 
 
 George Stephenson's powers of conversation were very great. He 
 was so thoughtful, original, and suggestive. There was scarcely a 
 department of science on which he had not formed some novel and 
 sometimes daring theory. Thus Mr. Gooch, his pupil, who lived 
 with him when at Liverpool, informs us that, when sitting over the 
 fire, he would frequently broach his favorite theory of the sun's light 
 and heat being the original source of the light and heat given forth 
 by the burning coal. "It fed the plants of which that coal is made," 
 he would say, "and has been bottled up in the earth ever since, to 
 be given out again now for the use of man." His son Robert once 
 said of him, "My father flashed his bull's eye full upon a subject, 
 and brought it out in its most vivid light in an instant : his strong 
 common sense and his varied experience, operating on a thoughtful 
 mind, were his most powerful illuminators." 
 
 The Bishop of Oxford related the following anecdote of him at a 
 recent public meeting in London: "He heard the other day of an 
 answer given by the great self-taught man, Stephenson, when he was 
 speaking with something of distrust of what were called competitive 
 examinations. Stephenson said, 'I distrust them for this reason 
 they will lead, it seems to me, to an unlimited power of cram;' and 
 he added, ' Let me give you one piece of advice never to judge of 
 your goose by its stuffing !" ; 
 
 George Stephenson had once a conversation with a watchmaker, 
 whom he astonished by the extent and minuteness of his knowledge 
 as to the parts of a watch. The watchmaker knew him to be an emi- 
 nent engineer, and asked how he had acquired so extensive a knowl- 
 edge of a branch of business so much out of his sphere. "It is very 
 easily explained," said Stephenson; "I worked long at watch-clean- 
 ing myself, and when I was at a loss, I was never ashamed to ask for 
 information." 
 
 His hand was open to his former fellow-workmen whom old age 
 had left in poverty. To poor Robert Gray, of Newburn, who acted 
 as his brideman on his marriage to Fanny Henderson, he left a pen- 
 sion for life. He would slip a five-pound note into the hand of a 
 poor man or a widow in such a way as not to offend their delicacy, 
 but to make them feel as if the obligation were all on his side. 
 When Farmer Paterson, who married a sister of George's first wife, 
 Fanny Henderson, died and left a large young family fatherless, pov- 
 erty stared them in the face. "But ye ken," said our informant, 
 "George struck infaytherfor them" And perhaps the providential 
 character of the act could not have been more graphically expressed 
 than in these simple words. 
 
 On his visit to Newcastle, he would frequently meet the friends of 
 his early days, occupying very nearly the same station in life, while
 
 2l8 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 
 
 he had meanwhile risen to almost world-wide fame ; but he was not 
 less hearty in his greeting of them than if their relative position had 
 remained the same. Thus, one day, after shaking hands with Mr. 
 Brandling on alighting from his carriage, he proceeded to shake hands 
 with his coachman, Anthony Wigham, a still older friend, though he 
 only sat on the box. 
 
 Robert Stephenson inherited his father's kindly spirit and benevo- 
 lent disposition, and almost worshiped his father's memory; he was 
 ever ready to attribute to him the chief merit of his own achieve- 
 ments as an engineer. "It was his thorough training, his example, 
 and his character, which made me the man I am." 
 
 In society Robert Stephenson was simple, unobtrusive, and modest, 
 but charming and even fascinating in an eminent degree. Sir John 
 Lawrence has said of him that he was, of all others, the man he 
 most delighted to meet in England he was so manly, yet gentle, 
 and withal so great. While admired and beloved by men of such 
 caliber, he was equally a favorite with women and children. He put 
 himself upon the level of all, and charmed them no less by his inex- 
 pressible kindliness of manner than by his simple yet impressive con- 
 versation. 
 
 His great wealth enabled him to perform many generous acts in a 
 right noble and yet modest manner, not letting his right hand know 
 what his left hand did. Both father and son were offered knight- 
 hood, and both declined it. 
 
 As respects the immense advantages of railways to mankind, there 
 can not be two opinions. They exhibit, probably, the grandest or- 
 ganization of capital and labor that the world has yet seen. Although 
 they have unhappily occasioned great loss to many, the loss has been 
 that of individuals, while, as a national system, the gain has already 
 been enormous. As tending to multiply and spread abroad the con- 
 veniences of life, opening up new fields of industry, bringing nations 
 nearer to each other, and thus promoting the great ends of civiliza- 
 tion, the founding of the railway system by George Stephenson and 
 his son must be regarded as one of the most important events, if not 
 the very greatest, in the first half of this nineteenth century.
 
 THE STEAM-ENGINE. 
 
 DO not be startled, dear reader of biographies, at the subject 
 pressed upon us for our present sketch, albeit our work is a 
 volume of biographies. We hear much of the iron age, the golden 
 age, the age of steam, etcetera, but can any one tell us when steam was 
 born, or when it will cease to be? Manifestly then, we are, at least appar- 
 ently, unequal to the task in hand. Many may almost remember the 
 time when "all the steam came from grand-ma's kettle;" but our 
 boilers are getting large now, and frequently burst and destroy us 
 poor humans. Thus far our biographical sketches have been of men, 
 high in the scale of mental power and mechanical genius; men of 
 brains and spirit. Out of their brains and spirit, the great, may we say 
 undying, life of the STEAM-ENGINE was first spoken, and then wrought 
 into power. We know its spirit, we can in some degree measure its 
 power ; we have felt and seen its manifestations of strength ; we know 
 its frame ; its thews, its sinews, are of iron, and we have all felt the 
 pulsations of its Titan heart ; and so we move on to detail somewhat 
 more of its life and sources of power than has in previous sketches 
 been made clear. There are many circumstances attending this ex- 
 traordinary piece of mechanism which impart to it an interest univer- 
 sally felt ; whether we regard the details of its structure and operation, 
 the physical principles which it calls into play, or the beautiful con- 
 trivances by which these physical principles are rendered available. 
 
 The limnings thus far presented to our readers are, with two ex- 
 ceptions, biographies of men out of whose lives was evolved, so to 
 speak, the Life of the Steam-Engine, and it is not a little remarkable 
 perhaps, that in nearly every instance these individuals began their 
 speculations and investigations into steam this dormant element of 
 strength in districts where the food for our gigantic motive-power 
 lay treasured in Nature's great store-houses, of limitless extent ; ready 
 to feed the monster, from the day of its birth to the day of its 
 death ; which for aught that appears will occur at the end of time. 
 
 (219)
 
 220 WHO DEVELOPED STEAM-POWER. 
 
 Mr. Phillips, the eminent Professor of Geology, in the University 
 of Oxford, remarks that, " coal, since it has been applied to the 
 steam-engine, is really hoarded power applicable to almost every pur- 
 pose which human labor, directed by ingenuity, can accomplish." 
 He then goes on to remark, with the pride of a genuine Briton, "It 
 is the possession of her coal-mines which has rendered Britain in re- 
 lation to the whole world, what a city is to the rural district which 
 surrounds it the producer and dispenser of the various products of 
 art and industry. Our coal-fields are vastly more precious to us than 
 would have been mines of the precious metals, like those of Peru and 
 Mexico." If the latter statement be true of Britain it must be true 
 of the United States also, even to a much greater extent. 
 
 According to Mr. Hunt, the keeper of the Mining Records of 
 Britain, the coal area of the British Islands is 12,800 square miles, or 
 one-tenth of the whole surface ; according to the same authority, the 
 proportion in the United States is still greater ; the coal area being 
 two-ninths of the whole surface. Scotland possesses the largest coal- 
 field in Britain 1,600 square miles in the basin of the Forth and 
 Clyde ; this field is very rich in iron as well as coal. Between the 
 Tweed and the Trent, in the north of England, there are nearly 
 10,000 square miles. 
 
 As already suggested in this connection it was in one of these dis- 
 tricts that Watt brought forth his almost, if not quite perfect, con- 
 densing engine. On the Forth and Clyde Canal was the theater for 
 Symington's steam-boat. Near Newcastle the Newcastle of coals 
 the Stephensons grew to maturity, connected with those great collieries; 
 and there, too, grew to full development of monstrous power and 
 bird-like speed, their giant pet, the locomotive. On the Schuylkill 
 and the Delaware successfully experimented Oliver Evans and John 
 Fitch ; here, too, on or near the great anthracite coal-fields of Penn- 
 sylvania, Robert Fulton first saw the light, and noted the development 
 of steam-power, to which he has allied his name for all time. 
 
 We propose now to see what the steam-engine, well fed and 
 watered, can do; in the language of Dr. Lardner, "Coals are by 
 the steam-engine, made to spin, weave, dye, print, and dress silks, 
 cottons, woollens, and other cloths ; to make paper, and print books 
 upon it, when made, to express oil from the olive [aye, we may add, 
 and from cotton-seed too, which is largely taking the place of the 
 oil from the olive, for which it is sold in all the markets of the 
 world], and wine from the grape ; to draw up metal from the bowels 
 of the earth; to pound and smelt it, to melt and mold it, to forge 
 it, to roll it, and fashion it into every desirable form ; to transport 
 these manifold products of its own labor to the doors of those for 
 whose convenience they are produced ; to carry persons and goods 
 over water and land, from town to town, and country to country, 
 with a speed as much exceeding the ordinary wind, as the ordinary 
 wind exceeds that of a common pedestrian."
 
 INTERESTING FACTS. 221 
 
 " Such are the virtues, such the powers, which the steam-engine, 
 with its rotary or continuously circular motion, as brought into being by 
 Watt, has conferred upon COALS. The means of calling these powers 
 into activity are supplied by a substance which nature has happily pro- 
 vided in unbounded quantity in every part of the earth ; and, though 
 it has no price, it has inestimable value. This substance is water. A 
 pint of water may be evaporated by two ounces of coals. In its 
 evaporation it swells into two hundred and sixteen gallons of steam, 
 with a mechanical force sufficient to raise a weight of thirty-seven 
 tons a foot high. The steam thus produced has a pressure equal to 
 that of common atmospheric air ; and by allowing it to expand by 
 virtue of its elasticity, a further mechanical force may be obtained 
 at least equal in amount to the former. A pint of water, therefore, 
 and two ounces of common coal, are thus rendered capable of doing 
 as much work as is equivalent to seventy-four tons raised a foot high. 
 
 "The circumstances under which the steam-engine is worked on a 
 railway are not favorable to the economy of fuel; nevertheless, a 
 pound of coke burned in a locomotive-engine will evaporate about 
 five pints of water. In their evaporation, they will exert a mechanical 
 force sufficient to draw two tons weight on the railway a distance of 
 one mile in two minutes. Four horses, working in a stage-coach on a 
 common road, are necessary to draw the same weight the same dis- 
 tance in six minutes. 
 
 " A train of cars, weighing about eighty tons, and transporting 240 
 passengers with their luggage, has been taken from Liverpool to 
 Birmingham, and thence back to Liverpool, the trip each way taking 
 about four and a half hours, stoppages included the distance being 
 95 miles. This double journey of 190 miles is effected by the 
 mechanical force produced from the combustion of four tons of coke, 
 valued at about 5/. To carry, in England, the same number of pas- 
 sengers daily between the same places, by stage coaches, would require 
 20 vehicles and an establishment of 3,800 horses, with which the 
 journey would be performed both ways in about twelve hours, stop- 
 pages included. 
 
 "The circumference of the earth measures 2,500 miles; and if it 
 were begirt with an iron railway, such a train as that described car- 
 rying 240 passengers would be drawn round it by the combustion of 
 about thirty tons of coke, and the circuit would be accomplished in 
 five weeks." 
 
 Capt. Savery contrived his engine, in 1698, .with especial reference 
 to the drainage by pumping of the deep mines of England, and it 
 was used mainly for this purpose. Indeed, it is necessary to recollect 
 that, notwithstanding the extensive and various applications of steam- 
 power in the arts and manufactures, up to the time when Watt got his 
 patent extended in 1775, the steam-engine had never been employed 
 for any other purpose than that of raising water by working pumps. 
 
 The water of streams was used over and again, in the manufacturing
 
 222 THE STEAM-ENGINE. 
 
 districts of England, by being pumped up, and thus re-supplied to 
 water-wheels driving machinery. The motion required, therefore, 
 was merely an upward force, such as is necessary to elevate the piston 
 of a pump. 
 
 " In the drainage of the Cornish mines now, the economy of fuel 
 is much attended to, and coal is made to do more there than else- 
 where. A bushel of coal usually raises 40,000 tons of water a foot 
 high ; but on some occasions it has raised 60,000 tons a foot high. 
 Let us take its labor at 50,000 tons. A horse, worked in a fast stage- 
 coach, pulls against an average resistance of about a quarter of a ton 
 weight. Against this he is able to work at the usual speed through 
 about 8 miles daily; his work is, therefore, equivalent to about five 
 hundred tons raised one foot. A bushel of coals, as used in Corn- 
 wall, therefore, performs as much labor as a day's work of one hun- 
 dred such horses." 
 
 " When steam-engines were first brought into use, they were com- 
 monly applied to work pumps for mills, which had previously been 
 worked or driven by horses. In forming their contracts, the first 
 steam-engine builders found themselves called upon to supply engines 
 for executing the same work as before had been executed by some 
 certain number of horses. It was, therefore, convenient, and indeed 
 necessary, to be able to express the performance of these machines 
 by comparison with the animal power to which manufacturers, miners, 
 and others, had been so long accustomed. When an engine, there- 
 fore, was capable of performing the same work, in a given time, as 
 any given number of horses of average strength usually performed, it 
 was said to be an engine of so many horses' power. It was, how- 
 ever, a considerable period before this term came to have a definite 
 meaning. Mr. Smeaton estimated that a horse of average strength, 
 working for eight hours a day, was capable of performing a quantity 
 of work equal in its mechanical effect to 22,916 tons raised one 
 foot per minute, while Desaguliers estimated the same power at 27,500 
 tons. The difference between these estimates probably arose from 
 their being made from the performances of different classes of 
 horses." 
 
 "Messrs. Boulton and Watt caused experiments to be made with 
 the strong horses used in the breweries in London, and from the re- 
 sults of these trials they assigned 33,000 pounds, raised one foot per 
 minute, as the value of a horse's power. This is the unit of engine 
 power now universally adopted. The steam-engine is no longer used 
 to replace the power of horses, and, therefore, no contracts are based 
 upon this comparison. The term horse-power, then, means simply 
 the ability of the engine to move 33,000 pounds through one foot 
 per minute." 
 
 " The conversion of a given volume of water into steam is produc- 
 tive of a certain definite amount of mechanical force, this amount 
 depending on the pressure under which this water is evaporated, and
 
 COAL CONSUMED. 
 
 223 
 
 the extent to which the expansive principle is used in working the 
 steam. It is evident that this amount of mechanical effect is a major 
 limit, which can not be exceeded by the power of the engine. 
 
 "What is known as the duty or service of engines varies according 
 to their form and magnitude, the circumstances under which they 
 are worked, and the purposes to which they are applied. In double- 
 acting engines, working without expansion, the coal consumed per 
 nominal horse-power per hour varies from 7 to i2lbs. An examina- 
 tion of the steam-logs of several government steamers, made a few 
 years since, gave as the average consumption of fuel at that time of 
 the best class of marine engines, about 8 Ibs. per nominal horse-power 
 per hour. Out of fifteen atmospheric engines working at Newcastle- 
 on-Tyne, in 1769 the date of Watt's earliest discoveries the yearly 
 duty of the poorest was shown to be 3,220,000 Ibs., and of the best 
 7, 440,000 Ibs. In 1772, Smeaton began his improvements on the atmos- 
 pheric-engine, and raised the duty to 9,450,000, but when Watt, in 
 1776, had obtained a duty of 21,600,000, Smeaton acknowledged 
 that Watt's engines gave a duty double that of his own. From 1779 
 to 1798, Watt increased that of his engines from 23,400,000 to 27,- 
 000,000. The engine which accomplished the last was under the 
 care of Mr. Murdock, at Cornwall, and was by Mr. Watt pronounced 
 perfect. [Mr. Murdock will be remembered as the ingenious producer 
 of a model locomotive heated by a spirit-lamp, which so frightened 
 the village parson upon a dark evening, as it moved rapidly down 
 upon him on the side walk.] Mr. Watt thought further improvement 
 in the duty of his steam-engine could not be expected-. Yet in 
 twenty years afterward the best engine had attained to an average 
 duty of 40,000,000 Ibs., and in forty years it was about 84,000,000 Ibs. 
 per year. How impossible, then, for even the most sagacious to fore- 
 see the results of mechanical improvement." 
 
 We now revert again to fuel, or the food of what the men of the 
 Newcastle collieries originally called the "Iron Horse." For this 
 home of the Stephensons, near the close of the thirteenth century 
 Henry III. gave a charter, granting license to the burgesses of 
 Newcastle to dig for coal. In 1281 just five hundred years be- 
 fore George Stephenson was born, at Wylam Colliery Newcastle 
 is said to have had a considerable trade in this article, and about 
 this time the use of coal had commenced in London, by smiths, 
 brewers, dyers, soap-boilers, etc. A notion got abroad that the 
 smoke was highly injurious to the public, and in 1316, on petition 
 of Parliament his majesty Edward I. issued a proclamation prohibit- 
 ing its use, on the ground of its being an intolerable nuisance. 
 Notwithstanding this, and the fact that more rigorous means were 
 resorted to, its use continued progressively to gain ground. Since the 
 reign of Charles I., the use of coal in London has been universal, to 
 the exclusion of nearly all other articles of fuel. The coals of 
 Britain are almost wholly bituminous, similar to the coals taken out
 
 224 THE STEAM-ENGINE. 
 
 of the Western Alleghanies and generally mined in the Mississippi 
 Valley. The Anthracite Coal, of Pennsylvania, is nearly pure carbon, 
 igniting with some difficulty, and giving out intense heat during com- 
 bustion. It is almost exclusively used in the cities and towns of the 
 Northern Atlantic States, and wherever wood is not cheaper, in that 
 part of the Union. Its adaptation for use in blast furnaces makes it 
 immensely valuable to the great home interest in iron, of the Key- 
 stone State ; and it yields a rich revenue to her citizens from the de- 
 mand for it in the large manufacturing and commercial districts of 
 the Eastern States, "while it is in growing request wherever in the 
 South and West a cleaner fuel is preferred to the smoky and sooty 
 coals of the great central valley. Strangely enough, it was scarcely 
 known to exist in this country fifty years ago, and now the tonnage 
 engaged in transporting it to a minor extent by the old canals on 
 the railroads of the East is of enormous magnitude, as will appear 
 from the reports of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, the Le- 
 high Valley, the Delaware and Lackawanna, the New Jersey Central, 
 the Pennsylvania Central, and other roads. A half century ago, this 
 coal, as discovered in Ireland, and in South Wales, was considered 
 to be incombustible refuse and was thrown away, but now it is there 
 thought to be of the very highest value for furnace purposes. 
 
 In this running and brief history of coal, we not only discover the 
 food for our iron horse developed from the great store-houses of na- 
 ture in a rapidly increasing measure, just as the creature is developed 
 into a perfect life, but we also discover the work it is being called 
 upon to perform. Its family is growing by thousands a year, while 
 its habitat, the railroads, are multiplying in endless ratio. The iron 
 steamers of the sea, too, and of the great inland routes of commerce, 
 are, and are to be, insatiable in their demands for this great genera- 
 tor of strength for iron arms and sinews. Europeans, if not Ameri- 
 cans, are demonstrating that iron steam-ships can carry much cheaper 
 than sailing vessels, the time taken for trips considered, because ves- 
 sels propelled by steam are gradually superseding sailing vessels. It 
 is probable that coal will ere long be included among those articles 
 that are reckoned as contraband of war. Now that steam is destined 
 to play an important part in naval warfare, the coal by which steam 
 is produced is certainly entitled to a prominent place among muni- 
 tions de guerre. 
 
 Nearly all the coal consumed in London was taken there by coast- 
 wise vessels from Newcastle and elsewhere forty years ago (1832), 
 while within that period the transportation into London, by railways- 
 alone, has grown to be equal to that taken by vessels, and the amount 
 carried by the latter is fifty per cent in excess of what it was then ; 
 mean-time, its average price has not increased there. In this no mention 
 is made of the tonnage required on railways for distributing coal to 
 the manufacturing and other districts of Britain. Herein may be 
 seen outlines of a future traffic, huge in proportions, yet to be ac-
 
 COAL ITS FOOD. 225 
 
 quired by the railroads of the Western States of the Union, not to 
 name others. 
 
 The importation into the United States of what has been for many 
 years known on the Atlantic coast as " Liverpool coal" has always 
 been considerable; so late as 1865 the amount was 134,000 tons; an 
 ugly fact in view of our greater supplies. The productive coal measures 
 of the United States exceed those of all the rest of the world, as at 
 present known, and the greatest fields of coal in the Union are in the 
 districts of the Mississippi Valley, already pointed out. 
 
 Coal for most purposes is much better than wood ; but, in 
 fact, the two, although in appearance so different, are, in their 
 ultimate composition, very nearly allied. They both have for 
 their basis or chief ingredient the substance called by the chemists 
 carbon, and their chief other ingredient, the substance called hydrogen, 
 which, when separated, exists in the form of gas. The hydrogen is 
 easily driven away or volatilized from either coal or wood, by heat- 
 ing in a close place ; and when it is caught and preserved, it forms 
 the gas now used to light the streets and buildings of our cities and 
 larger towns. What remains of coal after being so treated is the sub- 
 stance called coke, referred to in this article as used in running loco- 
 motives on the English railways ; and what remains of wood, similarly 
 treated, is the substance called charcoal ; both being nearly pure car- 
 bon, but differing as to the states of compactness. This kindred 
 nature of coal and wood does not surprise us when the fact is known 
 that much of our coal is really transformed wood ; many coal-mines 
 being evidently the remains of antediluvian forests, swept together in 
 the course of terrestrial changes, and afterward solidified to the state 
 now seen. The species of the plants or trees which formed them are 
 often quite apparent. The extensive beds of peat moss or turf, now 
 existing on the surface of the earth consist chiefly of vegetable remains 
 in an early stage of change, which finally terminates in the formation 
 of coal. 
 
 The phenomenon of common fire or combustion is merely the fuel 
 being chemically dissolved in the air of the atmosphere. If the fuel 
 has nothing volatile in it, as is true of pure carbon, and nearly true 
 of coke and charcoal, it burns with the appearance of red-hot stones ; 
 but if there be an ingredient, as hydrogen, which on being heated, 
 readily assumes the form of air, that ingredient dilates before burning, 
 and in the act produces the more bulky incandescence called flame. 
 
 The two great purposes which combustion serves to man are to 
 give light and heat. By the former he may be said to lengthen con- 
 siderably the duration of his natural existence; for he converts a 
 portion of the almost useless night into what, for many ends, serves 
 him as well as day ; and by the latter, besides converting winter 
 into any climate within doors which he desires, he is enabled 
 to effect most important mutations in many of the substances 
 which nature offers for his use; and since the invention of 
 
 '5
 
 226 THE STEAM-ENGINE. 
 
 the steam-engine, he makes heat perform a great and constantly 
 increasing proportion of the work of society. From these considera- 
 tions may be perceived the importance of having fire at command ; 
 and as the cheapest means of commanding-fire, of having abundance 
 of coal. By it our dwellings are lighted and heated, and thus made 
 more comfortable ; with it the steam-engine may be fed, labor 
 lifted from our shoulders and taken from our hands, and we may 
 be enabled comfortably to go with railroad and steamer speed to 
 the ends of the earth. 
 
 From an admirable article by Robert Hunt, F. R. S., we make the 
 following extract on 
 
 "COAL AS A RESERVOIR OF POWER." 
 
 "The sun, according to the philosophy of the day, is the great 
 store-house of Force. All the grand natural phenomena are directly 
 dependent upon the influence of energies which are poured forth with- 
 out intermission from the central star of our system. Under the in- 
 fluences of light, heat, actinism, and electricity, plants and animals 
 are produced, live, and grow, in all their infinite variety. Those 
 physical powers, or, as they were formerly called, those imponderable 
 elements, have their origin in one or other of those mysterious zones 
 which envelop the orb of day, and become evident to us only when 
 mighty cyclones break them up into dark spots. Is it possible to 
 account for the enormous amount of energy which is constantly being 
 developed in the sun ? This question may be answered by saying 
 that chemical changes of the most intense activity are discovered to 
 be forever progressing, and that to these changes we owe the develop- 
 ment of all the physical powers with which we are acquainted. In 
 our laboratory we establish, by mechanical disturbance, some chemi- 
 cal phenomenon, which becomes evident to our senses by the heat 
 and light which are developed, and we find associated with them the 
 principle which can set up chemical change and promote electrical 
 manifestations. We have produced combustion, say, of a metal, or 
 of a metallic compound, and we have a flame of a color which belongs 
 especially to the substance which is being consumed. We examine a 
 ray of light produced by that flame by passing it through a prism, 
 and this analysis informs us that colored bands, having a fixed angle 
 of refraction, are constant for that especial metal. Beyond this, re- 
 search acquaints us with the fact that, if the ray of light is made to 
 pass through the vapor of the substance which gives color to the 
 flame, the lines of the spectrum which were chromatic become dark 
 and colorless. We trap a ray of sunlight, and we refract it by means 
 of a spectroscope an instrument giving results which we already 
 have seen described* when we detect the same lines as those which 
 we have discovered in our artificial flame. We pursue this very in- 
 
 * Popular Science Review, vol. i., pp. 210-214.
 
 SUNSHINE AND COAL-BEDS. 227 
 
 teresting discovery, and we find that several metals which give color 
 to flame, and produce certain lines, when subjected to spectrum 
 analysis, are to be detected in the rays of the sun. Therefore our 
 inference is, that some substances, similar to the terrestrial bodies, 
 with which we are familiar, are actually undergoing a change in the 
 sun, analogous to those changes which we call combustion ; and, more 
 than this, we argue that the high probability is, that all solar energies 
 are developed under those conditions of chemical change that, in 
 fact, the sun is burning, and while solar matter is changing its form, 
 Force is rendered active, and as ray-power passes off into space as 
 light, heat, etc., to do its work upon distant worlds, and these forms 
 of Force are expended in doing the work of development on those 
 worlds. This idea theory call it what you may involves of 
 necessity the waste of energy in the sun, and we must concede the 
 possibility of the blazing sun's gigantic mass becoming eventually 
 a globe of dead ashes, unless we can comprehend some method by 
 which energy can be again restored to the inert matter. Certain it is 
 that the sun has been shining thousands of years, and its influence on 
 this earth we know to have been the production of organized masses, 
 absorbing the radiant energies, in volumes capable of measurement. 
 On this earth, for every equivalent of heat developed, a fixed equiva- 
 lent of matter has changed its form ; and so likewise is it with regard 
 to the other forces. On the sun, in like manner, every cubic mile of 
 sunshine represents the change of form of an equivalent of solar mat- 
 ter, and that equivalent of matter is no longer capable of supplying 
 Force, unless by some conditions, beyond our grasp at present, it 
 takes up again that which it has lost. That something of this kind 
 must take place is certain. The sun is not burning out. After the 
 lapse of thousands of years we have the most incontrovertible evidence 
 that the light of to-day is no less brilliant now than it was when man 
 walked amid the groves of Eden. We may venture farther back into 
 the arcana of time, and say that the sun of the past summer (1872) has 
 shone with splendor equal to the radiant power which, myriads of 
 ages ere yet man appeared on this planet, stimulated the growth of 
 those luxuriant forests which perished to form those vast beds from 
 which we derive our coal. Not a ray the less is poured out in any 
 hour of sunshine ; not a grain-weight of matter is lost from the mass 
 of the sun. If either the sunshine were weakened, or the weight of 
 the vast globe diminished, the planets would vary in their physical 
 conditions, and their orbits would be changed. There is no evidence 
 that either the one or the other has resulted. Let us see if we can 
 guess at any process by which this stability of the solar system is 
 maintained. 
 
 It was first shown by Faraday, in a series of experimental investi- 
 gations which may be regarded as the most beautiful example of in- 
 ductive science with which the world has been favored since Bacon 
 promulgated his new philosophy, that the quantity of electricity con-
 
 228 THE STEAM-ENGINE. 
 
 tained in a body was exactly the quantity which was necessary to 
 decompose that body. For example, in a voltaic battery of zinc and 
 copper plates a certain fixed quantity of electricity is eliminated by 
 the oxidation of a portion of the zinc. If, to produce this effect, the 
 oxygen of a given measure of water say a drop is necessary, the 
 electricity developed will be exactly that which is required to separate 
 the gaseous elements of a drop of water from each other. An equiva- 
 lent of electricity is developed by the oxidation of an equivalent of 
 zinc, and that electricity is required for the decomposition of an 
 equivalent of water, or the same quantity of electricity would be 
 equal to the power of effecting the re-combination of oxygen and hy- 
 drogen, into an equivalent of water. The law which has been so 
 perfectly established for electricity is found to be true of the other phys- 
 ical forces. By the combustion which is a condition of oxidation 
 of an equivalent of carbon, or of any body susceptible of this change 
 of state, exact volumes of light and heat are liberated. It is theo- 
 retically certain that these equivalents of light and heat are exactly 
 the quantities necessary for the formation of the substance from which 
 those energies have been derived. That which takes place in terres- 
 trial phenomena is, it is highly probable, constantly taking place in 
 solar phenomena. Chemical changes, or disturbances analogous to 
 them, of vast energy, are constantly progressing in the sun, and thus 
 is maintained that unceasing outpour of sunshine which gladdens the 
 earth, and illumines all the planets of our system. Every solar ray is 
 a bundle of powerful forces ; light, the luminous life-maintaining 
 energy, giving color to all things ; heat, the calorific power which 
 determines the conditions of all terrestrial matter; actinism, peculiarly 
 the force which produces all photographic phenomena; and electricity 
 regulating the magnetic conditions of this globe. Combined in action, 
 these solar radiations carry out the conditions necessary to animal 
 and vegetable organization, in all their varieties, and create out of a 
 chaotic mass forms of beauty rejoicing in life. 
 
 To confine our attention to the one subject before us. Every per- 
 son knows that, to grow a tree or shrub healthfully, it must have 
 plenty of sunshine. In the dark we may force a plant to grow, but it 
 forms no woody matter, it acquires no color ; even in shade it grows 
 slowly and weak. In sunshine it glows with color, and its frame is 
 strengthened by the deposition of woody matter eliminated from the 
 carbonic acid of the air in which it grows. A momentary digression 
 will make one point here more clear. Men and animals live by con- 
 suming the products of the vegetable world. The process of support- 
 ing life by food is essentially one of combustion. The food is burnt 
 in the system, developing that heat which is necessary for life, and 
 the living animal rejects, with every expiration, the combinations, 
 principally carbonic acid, which result from this combustion. This 
 carbonic acid is inhaled by the plant ; and, by its vital power, excited 
 by sunshine, it is decomposed ; the carbon forms the ligneous structure
 
 HOW WOOD AND COAL ARE DEVELOPED. 229 
 
 of the plant, and the oxygen is liberated to renew the healthful con- 
 dition of the atmosphere. Here we see a sequence of changes analo- 
 gous to those which have been shown to be a law of electricity. 
 
 Every equivalent of matter changing form in the sun sends forth 
 a measured volume of sunshine, charged with the organizing powers 
 as potential energies. These meet with the terrestrial matter which 
 has the function of living, and they expend themselves in the labor 
 of producing a quantity of wood, which represents the equivalent 
 of matter which has changed form in the sun. The light, heat, 
 chemical and electrical power of the sunshine have produced a certain 
 quantity of wood, and these physical energies have been absorbed 
 used up in the production of that quantity. Now, we learn that a 
 cube of wood is the result of a fixed measure of sunshine ; common 
 experience teaches us that, if we ignite that wood, it gives out, in 
 burning, light and heat ; while a little examination proves the presence 
 of actinism and electricity in its flame. Philosophy teaches us that 
 the powers set free in the burning of that cube of wood are exactly 
 those which were required for its growth, and that, for the production 
 of it, a definite equivalent of matter changed its form on a globe 
 ninety millions of miles distant from us. 
 
 Myriads of ages before man appeared the monarch of this world 
 the sun was doing its work. Vast forests grew, as they now grow, 
 especially in the wide-spread swamps of the tropics, and, decaying, 
 gathered into thick mats of humus-like substance. Those who have 
 studied all the conditions of a peat-morass, will remember how the 
 ligneous matter loses its woody structure in depth depth here rep- 
 resenting time and how at the bottom a bituminous or coaly matter 
 is not unfrequently formed. Some such process as this, continued 
 through long ages, at length produced those extensive beds 6f coal 
 which are so distinguishingly a feature of the British and American 
 coal-fields. At a period in geological time, when an Old Red Sand- 
 stone land was washed by ocean waves highly charged with carbonic 
 acid, in which existed multitudinous animals, whose work in Nature 
 was to aid in the building up masses of limestone-rock, there prevailed 
 a teeming vegetation from which have been derived all the coal-beds 
 of the British Isles. Our space will not allow of any inquiry into 
 the immensity of time required for the growth of the forests necessary 
 for the production of even a single seam of coal. Suffice it to say 
 that, within one coal-field, we may discover coal-beds to the depth 
 of 6,000 feet from the present surface. The section of such a coal- 
 field will show us coal and sandstone, or shale, alternating again and 
 again a yard or two of coal and hundreds of feet of shale or sand- 
 stone until we come to the present surface, every one of those deeply- 
 buried coal-beds having been at one time a forest, growing under the 
 full power of a brilliant sun, the result of solar forces, produced then, 
 as now, by chemical phenomena taking place in the sun itself. Every 
 cubic yard of coal in every coal-bed is the result of a very slow, but
 
 230 THE STEAM-ENGINE. 
 
 constant, change of a mass of vegetable matter ; that change being 
 analogous to the process of rotting in a large heap of succulent 
 plants. The change has been so slow, and continued under a con- 
 stantly-increasing pressure, that but few of the gaseous constituents 
 have escaped, and nearly all those physical forces which were used in 
 the task of producing the woody matter 'of the plant have been held 
 prisoners in the vegetable matter which constitutes coal. How vast, 
 then, must be the store of power which is preserved in the coal de- 
 posits of these islands ! 
 
 We are now raising from our coal-pits nearly one hundred and ten 
 millions of tons of coal annually. Of this quantity we are exporting 
 to our colonial possessions and foreign parts about ten million tons, 
 reserving nearly a hundred million tons of coal for our home con- 
 sumption. Not many less than one hundred thousand steam-boilers 
 are in constant use in these islands, producing steam to blow the 
 blast for smelting the iron ore ; to urge the mills for rolling, crushing, 
 and cutting with giant power ; to twirl the spindle, and to urge the 
 shuttle. For every purpose, from rolling cyclopean masses of metal 
 into form to weaving silky textures of the most filmy fineness, steam 
 is used, and this steam is an exact representative of the coal employed, 
 a large allowance being made for the imperfections of human machin- 
 ery. This requires a little explanation. Coal is a compound of 
 carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, the last two elements exist- 
 ing in quantities so small, as compared with the carbon, that they 
 may be rejected from our consideration. The heat which we obtain 
 in burning the coal is almost all derived from the carbon ; the hy- 
 drogen in burning produces some heat, but for our purpose it is suffi- 
 cient to confine attention to the carbon only. 
 
 One v pound of pure coal yields, in combining with oxygen in com- 
 bustion, theoretically ', an energy equal to the power of lifting 10,808,- 
 ooo pounds one foot high. The quantity of heat necessary to raise 
 a pound of water one degree will raise 772 pounds one foot. A 
 pound of coal burning should yield 14,000 units of heat, or 772X14.- 
 000=10,808,000 pounds, as above. Such is the theoretical value of 
 a pound of pure coal. Many of our coal-seams are about a yard in 
 thickness ; several important seams are much thicker than this, and 
 one well-known seam, the thick coal of South Staffordshire, is ten 
 yards in thickness. This, however, concerns us no further than that 
 it is useful in conveying to the mind some idea of the enormous re- 
 servoir of power which is buried in our coal formations. One square 
 yard of coal from a yard-thick seam that is, in fact, a cubic yard of 
 coal weighs about 2,240 pounds avoirdupois; the reserved energy 
 in that cube of coal is equal to lifting 1,729,200 pounds one foot 
 high. We are raising every year about 110,000,000 tons of coal from 
 our coal-beds, each ton of coal being about a square yard. The heat 
 of that coal is equal to a mechanical lifting power which it is scarcely 
 possible to convey to the mind in any thing approaching to its reality.
 
 COAL AS A RESERVOIR OF POWER. 231 
 
 If we say it is 190,212,000 millions we merely state an incomprehen- 
 sible number. We may do something more than this, if we can con- 
 vey some idea of the magnitude of the mass of coal which is raised 
 annually in these islands. 
 
 The diameter of this globe is 7,926 miles, or 13,880,760 yards; 
 therefore the coal raised in 1870 would make a solid bar more than 
 eight yards wide and one yard thick, which would pass from east to 
 west through the earth at the equator. Supposing such a mass to be 
 in a state of ignition, we can perhaps imagine the intensity of its heat, 
 and its capability, if employed in converting water into steam, of ex- 
 erting the vast force which we have endeavored to indicate. It was 
 intimated last year in the House of Commons, by a member of the 
 coal commission, that the decision of that body, after a long and 
 laborious inquiry, would be that there existed in our coal-fields a 
 supply for about one thousand years at our present rate of consump- 
 tion. We have therefore to multiply the above computation by 1,000 
 to arrive at any idea of the reserved power of our British coal-fields. 
 What must it have been ere yet our coal deposits were disturbed ! At 
 the time of the Roman occupation coal was used in this country. In 
 the ruins of Roman Uriconium coal has been found. Certainly up 
 to the present time a quantity of not less than three thousand million 
 tons of coal has been dug out of our carboniferous deposits and con- 
 sumed. All this enormous mass of matter has been 'derived from 
 vegetable organizations which have been built up by sunshine. The 
 sun-rays which compelled the plants to grow were used by the plant, 
 absorbed, imprisoned in the cells, and held there as an essential in- 
 gredient of the woody matter. The heat, light, actinism, and elec- 
 tricity, which are developed when we burn a lump of coal, represent 
 exactly the quantity of those forces which were necessary to the 
 growth of the vegetable matter from which that coal was formed. 
 The sunshine of infinitely remote ages becomes the useful power of 
 the present day. 
 
 Let it not, however, be supposed that we employ all the heat 
 which is available in our coal. All our appliances, even the very 
 best, are so defective that we lose far more than we use. A pound 
 of pure coal should evaporate thirteen pounds of water ; in practice 
 a pound of coal does not evaporate four pounds, even in the most 
 perfectly-constructed steam-boilers, with the most complete steam- 
 engines, such as have been constructed for pumping water for the 
 Chelsea and the other water-works upon the Thames. 
 
 Numerous attempts have been made to burn our coal so as to se- 
 cure a more effective result than this. Still, with the best we allow 
 more than one-half of the heat latent in the coal to escape us. 
 The subtle element eludes our grasp our charms are powerless to 
 chain the sprite ; he will not be bound to labor for us, but passes 
 off into space, regardless of the human Prospero, whose wand of 
 science he derides.
 
 232 THE STEAM-ENGINE. 
 
 In conclusion, our philosophy has enabled us to determine the heat- 
 value of our coal-fields, and to prove that all this heat has a solar 
 origin. Our science has shown us that, although we can eliminate 
 all this heat, we can not use it. There is an immense quantity con- 
 stantly passing into space as radiant heat which we can not retain. 
 
 The circle of action between the vegetable and the animal world 
 is a beautiful and a remarkable provision. The animal burns carbon 
 and sends into the air carbonic acid (a compound of carbon and 
 oxygen); the vegetable breathes that carbonic acid and decomposes 
 it ; the carbon is retained and the oxygen liberated in purity, to main- 
 tain the life and fire-supporting principle of the atmosphere. Changes 
 similar to these may be constantly going forward in the sun, and pro- 
 ducing those radiations which are poured forth in volumes, far beyond 
 the requirements of all the planets of our system. Although there is 
 probably some circle of action analogous to that which exists upon 
 this earth, maintaining the permanency of the vegetable and animal 
 world, still there must be a waste of energy, which must be resupplied 
 to the sun. 
 
 May it not be that Sir Isaac Newton's idea that the comets trav- 
 ersing space gather up the waste heat of the solar system, and event- 
 ually, falling into the sun, restore its power is nearer the truth than 
 the more modern hypothesis, that meteorites are incessantly raining 
 an iron shower upon the solar surface, and by their mechanical impact 
 reproducing the energy as constantly as it is expended ? 
 
 THE WAR STEAMER " DEVASTATION," 
 
 Of which we furnish a fine cut, is one of the later vessels built for the British navy. 
 She was not designed for long cruises, but can make long voyages with the 1,800 
 tons of coal, which she is able to carry. Her hull is 285 feet long, with an extreme 
 width of 58 feet, without the armor-plates and backings, which increase it to 62 feet 
 3 inches. Her armor-plates are 10, 12, and 14 inches in thickness. The two tur- 
 rets measure each 24 feet 3 inches in their internal diameter, and are built up of five 
 layers. Each turret carries two Frazer muzzle-loading rifled guns, of 35 tons each. 
 She was built for a powerful fighting ship. " The engines are two pairs of driving 
 twin screws, independently with a power of 800 horse, but can be made to work to 
 seven times that amount."

 
 SAMUEL E. B. MORSE. 
 
 SAMUEL F. B. MORSE died at his residence in west Twenty- 
 Second Street, New York, on Tuesday, April 2d, 1872. If it be 
 legitimate to measure a man by the magnitude of his achievements, 
 by the boon he has conferred on the world, he, who gently folded 
 his hands upon his breast that evening, and in Christian resignation 
 bade farewell to earth, was the greatest man of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury. He was the Napoleon of Peace. He could afford to leave to 
 the warriors of his generation the turbulent pursuit of that which 
 historians call glory, to become the apostle of that higher glory which 
 men call Usefulness. Even in the whirl of battle and the bewilder- 
 ing zigzags of politics, the race, doubtless, does creep slowly onward 
 toward a better destiny, but the chief crowns of honor will always 
 be awarded to the scholars and inventors who give leisure and oppor- 
 tunity to the million, and make easier the hard work of every day. 
 
 The life of Professor Morse had been almost identical with the life 
 of the republic. He was born on April 27th, 1791, during Washing- 
 ton's second term as President. We think of Shelly and Keats as 
 poets of a distant past ; yet Morse was born a year before Shelly, and 
 five years before Keats, while their brilliant friend and eulogist, 
 Byron, was only three years his senior. When Morse first opened 
 his eyes, within sight of Bunker Hill, six of the presidents, whom he 
 lived to see inaugurated, were not yet born. James Buchanan was a 
 fortnight old. Napoleon Bonaparte was a lieutenant of artillery, and 
 had not yet seen active service. Morse was a child when Robes- 
 pierre held Paris in his bloody grasp ; a lad at school before Napoleon 
 won Marengo ; an historical painter, struggling with poverty in Eng- 
 land, before Napoleon was captured by his allied enemies. He lived 
 under the administration of every one of the eighteen presidents; saw 
 the republic grow from four to forty millions from a weak and de- 
 spised band of successful rebels, to one of the leading Powers of the 
 earth ; witnessed the struggle of slavery for conquest, and its triumph-
 
 234 SAMUEL F. B. MORSE. 
 
 ant overthrow. Some of the grandest enterprises of philanthropy 
 and some of the most important achievements of art were perfected 
 within the zone of his life. 
 
 Samuel Finley Breese Morse came of good sturdy stock ; a family 
 blessed with patience and pluck, in the habit of struggling with ad- 
 versity, and of overcoming it. Several of his nearest relatives were 
 famous as authors and inventors. His father, Jedediah Morse, was 
 known all over the English-speaking world as " the father of Ameri- 
 can geography." Born in Woodstock, Connecticut, in 1761, he was 
 graduated from Yale in his twenty-second year, and was licensed to 
 preach two years thereafter, having, meantime, printed a little i8mo 
 geography for young ladies the first American geography printed on 
 this continent. Serving three years as tutor, he was in 1789 installed as 
 pastor of the Congregational Church in Charlestown, Massachusetts. 
 He preached on Sunday, and served God during the week by enlarg- 
 ing and improving his geography, making wide excursions through 
 the States, and establishing a large correspondence, for the purpose 
 of gathering information. He showed great vigor in obtaining cor- 
 rect surveys and statistics, and reliable knowledge of the character 
 and customs of the people, the distribution of important staples, etc. , 
 and this work was pushed so assiduously, and his publications were 
 so exhaustive, that Belknap, the historian, of New Hampshire, 
 Hutchins, the geographer-general of the United States, and other 
 gentlemen, graciously discontinued their projects of similar books, 
 and surrendered all their materials to him. He was among the most 
 active in securing the enactment of the original copyright law, and 
 availed himself of its benefits, perhaps, in 1790. Some years later 
 Noah Webster's first " American spelling-book" made its appearance. 
 For thirty years, he remained master of the geographical field, with 
 out a peer, almost with a rival, and then he surrendered to his son 
 Sidney. 
 
 Young Samuel speedily made a boy's acquaintance with Charlestown ; 
 participating in the village kite-flying festivals and hop-scotch tour- 
 naments, its miscKtef, its marbles, and its mumble-peg. He was a 
 rather healthy, rugged, sturdy boy; and the success of his father's 
 pet geography saved him from that tough tussle with poverty and 
 hard work, in the midst of which most of the illustrious Americans 
 of that generation fought their way through the district school. He 
 had an easy time of it, on the whole. Earth seemed to the boy a 
 tolerably pleasant planet to live on, and life did not assume the 
 fabled aspect of the hyena to him till he arrived at mature years and 
 walked into the arena to face it. His studies were prosecuted mostly 
 under his father's direction ; and they were successful, for he was only 
 fifteen when, in 1806, he entered Yale College and took his place in 
 the class which his father entered twenty-seven years before. Young 
 as he was, his brother Sidney E., three years younger, was in the 
 sophomore class, ahead of him, a brilliant precocious boy of twelve,
 
 A STUDENT IN SCIENCE AND ART. 235 
 
 predestined by a fond mother to the pulpit, and dreaming the dreams 
 which were to find fruition twenty years later, in the establishment 
 of the New York Observer, for a long period, the most successful re- 
 ligious newspaper in America ; and having now a larger circulation 
 than hitherto, and thirty years later in the invention of the valuable 
 art of Cerography, and, still later, of the Bathometer, for measuring 
 the hitherto measureless depths of the sea. 
 
 Samuel was never quite so devout as Sidney, but he was a faithful 
 and orderly student. He is also said to have been " somewhat eccen- 
 tric." His principal eccentricity consisted in learning his lessons 
 thoroughly and methodically. It was also known, however, that he 
 had strong predilections for the natural sciences, and that his love 
 of the fine arts amounted to a passion. One of the earliest proofs 
 of his fondness for painting is still in the possessibn of his family ; it 
 is a pleasant group, in which the father and mother and the three 
 sons, Samuel, Sidney, and Richard, are sketched, by a hand not yet 
 skilled in art, in the prim and stately outward adornments worn 
 at that day. He made himself familiar with the small private collec- 
 tions of pictures in New Haven at that early day, and even ventured 
 on a trip to New York and Philadelphia, where he was entranced with 
 the productions of those eminent Americans, Washington Allston, and 
 Benjamin West. West was gloating over the wonders of the Apoc- 
 alypse, and was covering his " redish-brown canvas " with ornate 
 angels on impossible steeds ; but the very audacity stirred young 
 Morse's soul within him, and he resolved to be an artist. 
 
 Yet his love was divided. Having taken Nature for his sweetheart, 
 he found her absorbing and exacting, developing new charms day by 
 day. Professor Benjamin Silliman was instructor in chemistry, and 
 Professor Day in philosophy, and under their guidance the young 
 enthusiast found a new world in the laboratory. Traditions at Yale 
 still tell of the perils encountered in his pursuit of knowledge, and 
 how near he came to blowing up the Old South with a retort that 
 exploded in his room. 
 
 The student also developed a strong fondness for mathematics, and 
 in his junior year resolved to practice the profession of civil engi- 
 neering as the work of his life. But he was only eighteen, and sub- 
 ject to rather sudden if not frequent changes of opinion. 
 
 Commencement-day arrived, and passed to the credit of the stu- 
 dent. We do not know whether or not he won any of the honors 
 of his class; but his success in life may be accepted as inferential 
 proof that he was not the valedictorian. When Samuel Morse, A. 
 B., aged eighteen, turned his back reluctantly upon the beloved 
 laboratory, in 1810, Sidney Morse, A. B., aged fifteen, had been out 
 of college a year, and was writing profound political treatises for the 
 Boston magazines, on the perils that menaced the federal system from 
 an undue multiplication of States! Once in print, of course, Sidney
 
 2 3 SAMUEL F. B. MORSE. 
 
 resolved to become an author and editor. The touch of type is gen- 
 erally fatal. 
 
 The time had now arrived for Samuel to select his profession irrev- 
 ocably. His father tried to increase the attraction which civil 
 engineering seemed to possess for him, urging that it was at once 
 respectable, honorable and lucrative, and that, in the new and ex- 
 panding country, these terrestrial artists were sure to grow in power 
 and usefulness. The number of competent civil engineers in the 
 country at that time was small, for all constructions were comparatively 
 rude, and George Stephenson, in England, was just being haunted 
 by his first vague dreams of a railroad. 
 
 The career selected by the practical sire seemed to the ambitious 
 youth too earthly. It did not sufficiently minister to his Esthetic and 
 literary taste. The incense of Silliman's laboratory still hung pleas- 
 antly about him, and his young eyes were full of the miracles of 
 Benjamin West. The result of his reflections, under such circum- 
 stances, may easily be divined. He resolved to be a painter. His 
 father argued the case, presented the obvious objections to the choice 
 he had made, ridiculed his chimerical hopes, and resisted him gently 
 when Samuel announced that he was going to Europe to study. 
 
 "Who ever knew an artist that amounted to any thing?" asked the 
 successful geographer, contemptuously. 
 
 "The backers of Michael Angelo ! " responded the boy proudly. 
 
 "Well, we'll see," rejoined the father; "go 'long your own 
 way. I don't like it, but go along, and I'll give you a good outfit." 
 
 So during the next summer the summer of 1811 he started for 
 England in company with Allston, and under his protection. All- 
 ston had already won fame in London and on the continent as a 
 great colorist, and had returned to his native country for a wife, and 
 he was now doubtless glad to carry back as his protege the young 
 student who had shown such enthusiastic admiration of his work. 
 
 The journey of Morse to Europe, at this time, was rendered doubly 
 opportune, by the fact that the Philadelphia Quaker, Benjamin West, 
 had succeeded Sir Joshua Reynolds in the Presidency of the Royal 
 Academy, and George III was his munificent patron. The young 
 man enjoyed the instruction of both Allston and West, and he en- 
 tered zealously upon his studies. His imagination was less grotesque 
 and fantastic than that of his teachers, and he had little penchant 
 for what Allston admiringly calls " the magnificent and the awful." 
 His treatment of historical and metaphorical subjects was quieter 
 than theirs, and less vigorous. He immediately became acquainted 
 with the young American, Charles Leslie, who afterward acquired 
 renown as one of the first painters of England, and Leslie and 
 Morse began the practice of their profession by painting portraits of 
 each other. 
 
 Morse made rapid progress. If he took West for his model in 
 drawing, and Allston in coloring if he emulated West's industry
 
 RESIDENCE IN LONDON, BOSTON, ETC. 237 
 
 and Allston's genius he could not have begun under happier aus- 
 pices. During the next year he conceived the idea of his first pre- 
 tentious composition The Dying Hercules and imitated Allston in 
 first modeling the figure in clay. After six weeks of careful labor, 
 the statue was finished, and submitted to West. The venerable artist, 
 on entering the room, put on his spectacles, and, as he walked around 
 the model, a look of genuine satisfaction beamed from his face. He 
 rang for an attendant and summoned his son. "Look here, Raph- 
 ael!" said he, in the presence of the artist, "did I not always tell 
 you that every painter could be a sculptor?" We may imagine the 
 delight of the student at such commendation. The same day his at- 
 tention was called to the fact that the Adelphi Society of Arts had 
 offered a prize for the best single figure in sculpture. The time for 
 entries would expire within three days, but Morse seized the occa- 
 sion and placed his piece with the thirteen others on exhibition. He 
 took the prize, and received the gold medal from the hand of the 
 Duke of Norfolk. He was evidently enjoying the sunshine. Spurred 
 to larger "rivalry" by his success, he contended for the prize of the 
 Royal Academy in historical painting: subject," Judgment of Jupiter 
 in the case of Apollo, Mapessa, and Idas." He finished his picture, 
 but, before the exhibition, he suddenly awoke one morning, in 1815, 
 to the fact that the last dollar of his money was gone. His sweet 
 dream of an artist's paradise vanished forever. Disappointed and 
 chagrined, he withdrew from the competition, and left the Babylon 
 of Britain for America. His picture was highly praised by connois- 
 seurs, and West afterwards expressed the opinion that it would have 
 won the prize. It was obvious that the man who made the telegraph 
 ought to have been competent to portray the passions of his great 
 rival, the god who directed the lightnings of the Aegean. 
 
 Morse now took up his residence in Boston, within sight of the 
 old homestead, and announced that he was willing to paint portraits 
 for cash. He was ready, as he expressed it, to "coin brains into 
 bread." His ambition was seriously crippled by the extreme reluc- 
 tance of the people to come forward and get their portraits. His 
 brother Sidney was in Boston, also editing the Recorder, the first or 
 second distinctively religious newspaper in the country. 
 
 Discouraged and shocked by the low artistic taste which prevailed 
 in the city, the portrait-painter plunged into the woods of New 
 Hampshire, and there sought refuge from the selfishness of the cold 
 world. He offered to paint portraits for ten dollars each; but the 
 frontier farmers, engaged in clearing up their 1 land, and eliminating 
 superfluous wildcats and woodchucks from the agricultural problem, 
 could not generally afford even to have their houses painted, and 
 after enduring a year of their kindly but unprofitable hospitality, the 
 artist started for Charleston, South Carolina, with whose glories All- 
 ston had made him familiar. At this date the Muses were, undenia- 
 bly, more at home in the Southern metropolis than in the yankee
 
 238 SAMUEL F. B. MORSE. 
 
 capital ; and it is somewhat curious that while Morse stayed in 
 Charleston, the home of Allston, and practiced portrait-painting for 
 five or six years, Allston returned to America and settled down in 
 Boston, the home of Morse. The artist found .more portraits to paint 
 in Charleston than among the pine hills of New Hampshire ; but his 
 experience during these years went far to confirm the objections 
 which the Cambridge geographer had urged against reliance upon the 
 fine arts as a means of support. 
 
 Among other ventures, he painted the interior of the House of 
 Representatives of the United States rather an ambitious subject. 
 While in France he had succeeded admirably with an Interior of the 
 Louvre, introducing copies of the famous pictures on the walls in min- 
 iature, and he thought that if he could give portraits of the most 
 distinguished American Congressmen, in miniature, it would be a hit. 
 It took him nearly two years to paint it, and when it was done, 
 a though the portraits were authentic and cleverly arranged, it attracted 
 little attention, and the artist rolled up the huge canvas in disgust. 
 His impecunious and cynical friend, the poet Percival, stormed at 
 the public about it, and declared it was a disgrace that Morse had 
 to pay $ 1 10 for the privilege of exhibiting the great work free in 
 New York ! 
 
 Morse now resolved to plunge into politics, and accepted the posi- 
 tion of an attache of the American legation to Mexico. He aban- 
 doned the design, however, and in 1823, went to live in New York, 
 attracted to the metropolis largely by the fact that his brother Sid- 
 ney had gone there to start the New York Observer, the organ of the 
 Presbyterians. Samuel Morse was thirty-two. He was somewhat in 
 debt, but his artistic ability and fine social qualities were at once 
 recognized, and he found appreciation and patronage. Lafayette re- 
 visited America in 1824, and, in the midst of the furor of his wel- 
 come, th corporation of New York commissioned Morse to paint a 
 full-length portrait of him for the City Hall. The distinguished 
 patriot sat to the artist, and the result was satisfactory. William 
 Cullen Bryant, who knew Morse for fifty years, says of his character 
 and habits as an artist: "His mind, as I remember, was strongly 
 impelled to analyze the processes of his art to give them a certain 
 scientific precision to reduce them to fixed rules, to refer effects to 
 clearly defined causes, so as to put it in the power of the artist to 
 produce them at pleasure and with certainty, instead of blindly grop- 
 ing for them, and, in the end, owing them to some happy accident, 
 or some instinctive effort, of which he could give no account." 
 
 He was called away from the delightful task of finishing the portrait of 
 Lafayette to attend the death-beds of his wife and father, and to watch 
 over his sick children. In the beautiful cemetery at New Haven is a 
 stone on which he caused to be inscribed: "In memory of Lucretia 
 Pickering, wife of Samuel F. B. Morse, who died February 7, 1825, 
 aged 25. Beautiful in form, features, and expression : bland in her
 
 ELECTRO-MAGNETIC TELEGRAPH. 239 
 
 manners, highly cultivated in mind, dignified without haughtiness, 
 amiable without tameness, firm without severity, cheerful without 
 levity; in suffering the most keen the serenity of her mind never 
 left her ; though suddenly called from earth, eternity was no stranger 
 to her thoughts, but a welcome theme of contemplation." 
 
 Morse was constitutionally an organizer. In 1825 he induced the 
 artists of the city to meet together at his room, ostensibly to eat 
 strawberries and cream, and the result was the organization of the 
 National Academy of Design, which has since grown to such noble 
 proportions, and has given to artists a far higher consideration in the 
 country than was ever before accorded to them. Morse was elected 
 its first president, and retained the position for sixteen years. He 
 delivered in the New York Athenaeum the first course of art lectures 
 ever attempted in America. 
 
 Meantime he plodded away at the easel. Though he was an excel- 
 lent practical chemist, and knew what the nitrate of silver was, and 
 had read of the success of Humphrey Davy in producing a transient 
 human profile on a screen, the artist-scientist never thought of the 
 yet unborn Daguerreotype. But his friendship for Prof. J. F. Dana 
 had become very intimate, and he attended, with keen appreciation, 
 his lectures on electro-magnetism at the Athenaeum. The first electro- 
 magnet ever used in the United States belonged to Morse, and the 
 spiral coil used by Dana suggested to the inventor the magnet now 
 used in every Morse instrument in the world. 
 
 The experiments and developments in the realm of electricity now 
 announced the speedy birth of the telegraph. Morse had kept up 
 his interest in chemistry, and had eagerly followed the progress of 
 the new and marvelous discoveries. During his whole life as an 
 artist he had speculated frequently on the phenomena of electricity 
 and electro-magnetism. With his friend, Dana, he had investigated 
 these and cognate matters, and, like many of the scientific men of 
 his age, they had discussed the practicability of conveying intelligible 
 signs through long distances. 
 
 In 1829 Morse again went to Europe to finish his education in art, 
 which had been so abruptly broken off fourteen years before. He 
 went to profit by study, and hoping to acquire the facility and dex- 
 terity, the lack of which so much embarrassed him. He remained 
 three years, and in October, 1832, he sailed from Havre for New 
 York in the packet-ship Sully. In the cabin of that vessel was born 
 the electric telegraph. In this place let us see what was known of 
 electricity and telegraphing when Morse discovered his new world 
 upon the Sully. 
 
 For conveying messages, the signal, for the sea, and the semaphore, 
 for the land, were deemed sufficient. They were substantially the 
 same method. The semaphores were a line of tall towers built on 
 commanding elevations at a distance of five to ten miles, equipped 
 with powerful telescopes, and an apparatus on the top consisting of
 
 240 SAMUEL F. B. MORSE. 
 
 a mast with two arms, which turned in different directions for the 
 different letters of the alphabet. This answered very well in clear 
 weather, but it was expensive, and often an important dispatch would 
 break off abrnptly in the middle with the dismal words "Stopped by 
 the fog." The semaphore was greatly superior to the telegraph of 
 the Gauls, which consisted in shouting the news from one hill to 
 another, and by the use of which Caesar summoned his armies to- 
 gether in three days; and to the signal of the fiery cross, by which 
 the Saxons announced the approach of the Normans; and it served 
 so well in France, that there was much public remonstrance when, in 
 1848, it was superseded by the electric telegraph. 
 
 Franklin set alcohol on fire as early as 1748, almost half a century 
 before Morse was born, by sending a charge of friction electricity 
 under the Schuylkill river. Dr. Watson, in England, in 1747, sent 
 shocks through two miles of wire suspended on posts, using the inter- 
 vening earth to complete the circuit. Pre-arranged signals were com- 
 municated by the electric shock by Lesage, at Geneva, in 1774, and 
 by Lomond, of France, in 1787, probably by causing the divergence 
 of pith-balls. In 1794, when Morse was three years old, Reizen, of 
 Germany, constructed an electric telegraph, using thirty-seven wires, 
 and so arranging spaces upon tin-foil that when they were illuminated 
 the indicated letter was exhibited. Similar telegraphs were .con- 
 structed in Madrid in 1797-8, one of them extending twenty-six 
 miles. Ronolds set up an eight-mile electric telegraph in England, 
 in 1816, and in 1827 Harrison G. Dyar constructed a line of two 
 miles on Long Island, using iron wire, glass insulators and wooden 
 posts, and employing the chemical action of the electric current on 
 litmus paper as his means of communicating. Ronolds asked the 
 English Government to adopt his invention, and the tardy reply set 
 forth that "telegraphs are of no use in time of peace, and during war 
 the semaphore answers all required purposes !" This in the nine- 
 teenth century ! 
 
 All these attempts were partial failures, for the reason that they all 
 used machine or friction electricity, and all, with the exception of 
 Dyar's New York contrivance, were merely signaling and not record- 
 ing telegraphs. 
 
 The construction of the Voltaic pile, by Professor Alexander Volta, 
 of Pavia, was indispensable as a preliminary condition to the inven- 
 tion of a successful electric telegraph ; for before a satisfactory tele- 
 graph could be made possible, there must be assured a regular and 
 constant flow of the fluid whenever summoned, like those electric cur- 
 rents produced by chemical action. It must be uniform and abundant 
 under all circumstances ; whereas the old methods by friction supplied 
 only small quantities, and that irregularly. A century ago the crank of 
 the electrical machine was turned mainly for amusement and the grati- 
 fication of curiosity. But at a semi-scientific reunion at Bologna, while 
 Galvani was making investigations on the nervous irritability of cold-
 
 EARLY ELECTRICIANS. 241 
 
 blooded animals, he discovered that the limbs of a dead frog contracted 
 violently on each recurrence of the spark. He afterwards obtained the 
 same results by bringing the copper hook, on which the nerve hung, and 
 the limb itself simultaneously in contact with an iron railing. The 
 experiment was repeated all over Europe with great delight and 
 amazement. Galvani insisted that the electricity arose in the limb 
 itself. Volta proclaimed the opposite theory, that the electric force 
 originated in the contact of the heterogeneous metals. The contest 
 was vigorous, but it is now known that both were wrong, and the chemi- 
 cal theory is generally accepted, attributing the source of galvanic 
 electricity to the chemical action of a liquid on a metal coupled 
 with another metal less easily acted on than itself. 
 
 In 1799, Volta by accident discovered the extraordinary action of 
 certain liquids on metals, and immediately conceived and constructed 
 the Voltaic pile. He took a series of two discs, _ = ,_ 
 one of copper (c), and one of zinc (0), soldered ^fl ^) C 
 together. He separated each compound plate 
 with a circular piece of woolen cloth (/&), moist- 
 ened with a solution of common salt or diluted 
 sulphuric acid, and placed these above each other 
 in a pile. The electricity which he drew from the 
 pile was sufficient to produce shocks and even 
 sparks. These effects were obtained continuously, and the pile needed 
 no recharging. This was an immense advance in the study of elec- 
 trical phenomena. Thenceforward progress was rapid. 
 
 Sommering began experimenting for a Voltaic-battery telegraph in 
 1809. He used thirty-five wires, each terminating in a gold point, 
 and all the points were set up vertically on a horizontal line at the 
 bottom of a reservoir of water. An electric current caused bubbles 
 of gas to rise to the surface over the points affected, and thus the 
 letters were indicated. But the incomplete batteries then in use were 
 unequal to a long circuit or prolonged action. They were soon ex- 
 hausted, and practical telegraphing had to wait the discovery of 
 electro-magnetism. 
 
 This important branch of the science was developed during the 
 next twenty years, by CErsted, of Copenhagen; Schweigger, of Halle, 
 and Ampere, of Paris. William Sturgeon, of London, and Becquerl, 
 Kemp, and Olm, of Germany; but to Professor Joseph Henry, then 
 Professor of Mathematics at Albany, afterwards at Princeton College, 
 New Jersey, is pre-eminently due the honor of having explored the 
 laws of nature in advance of all others, and for being the "first to wrest 
 electro-magnetism from Nature's embrace and make it a missionary in 
 the cause of human progress" after making over "four thousand ex- 
 periments."* By his important discoveries the battery was strength- 
 
 See an article from Prof. Henry stating some results, in vol. xix of Silli 
 man's American Journal of Science, published in 1831, pp. 400, etc. 
 16
 
 242 SAMUEL F. B. MORSE. 
 
 ened inconceivably; adapting the telegraph to the longest distances. 
 He strengthened the magnet by increasing the number of coils of 
 wire on the arms, and first demonstrated the practicability of send- 
 ing intelligence between the most distant points. [In 1835, Henry 
 being in London, showed Wheatstone his method of producing these 
 mechanical effects by exciting magnetism at a distance, and the Eng- 
 lish savan profitably added this to the intelligence brought by Cooke 
 from Germany.] The distinguished English electrician, Faraday, in 
 the winter of 1831-2, published his discoveries of the induction of 
 electric currents, and of the evolution of electricity from magnets 
 which soon after enriched the world with the induction coil, invented 
 by Prof. Charles G. Page, of Salem, Mass. t 
 
 Thus it is plain that the science of electro-magnetism was far ad- 
 vanced when Morse entered the lists to compete for the great prize. 
 By the year 1832 there was much earnest talk, in all scientific circles, 
 about the wonderful phenomena of electricity and what was likely to 
 result. So it was quite natural that on the packet Sully, the next 
 day after the artist-chemist took passage for home, conversation turned 
 to the discovery of CErsted, establishing the correlation of elec- 
 tricity and magnetism. A gentleman described some experiments he 
 had just witnessed in Paris, in which a magnet gave forth sparks. 
 
 "How long does it take the fluid to pass through one hundred 
 feet of wire?" asked a passenger. 
 
 "It passes instantaneously," replied Morse, quoting Franklin's 
 experiment on a wire four miles long. 
 
 "And if that is so," he added, by way of comment, "and if the 
 presence of electricity could be made to manifest itself in any desired 
 part of the circuit, I see no reason why intelligence might not be 
 transmitted instantaneously by electricity." 
 
 " How convenient it would be to send news from Boston to Wash- 
 ington!" exclaimed the other incredulously. 
 
 "I see no reason why we may not," confidently rejoined Morse. 
 
 From that moment he never relinquished his hold of the idea. It 
 occupied all his thoughts. It seemed to him a settled fact that, in 
 a gentle and steady current of the electric fluid there was a source 
 of regular and rapid flight, which might be applied to a machine for 
 conveying messages from place to place, and inscribing them on a 
 tablet at their point of destination. He procured pen and paper, and 
 shut himself into his state-room. It remained now to devise merely 
 the necessary apparatus, and before the Sully dropped anchor in New 
 York Harbor, Morse had invented and put on paper, in drawings and 
 explanatory words, foreshadowings of the apparatus employed to this 
 hour by most of the telegraph lines in the world. The alphabetic system 
 used on his first machine, the narrow sheets of paper upon a revolving 
 block, and a mode of burying wires in the earth were all thought of, 
 and recorded on board that packet-ship. We can fancy the inventor, 
 full of this thought, as he paced the deck of the Sully, or lay in his
 
 THE ORIGINAL REGISTER. 
 
 243 
 
 berth, revolving in his mind the mechanical contrivances by which 
 this was to be effected, until the whole process had become definitely 
 outlined in his imagination, and he saw before him all the countries of 
 the civilized world intersected with lines of his electric wire, bearing 
 messages to and fro with the speed of light. 
 
 Except the idea of suspending the wires on posts, all the essential 
 features of the invention were thought out before the'vessel entered 
 the harbor. A few days after landing it occurred to him that a sus- 
 pension of the insulated wires on poles might be preferable, though 
 he still believed the burying process the best. But science had done 
 her part in advance by making the earth a conductor. It remained 
 for the inventor to devise an apparatus which should utilize the sci- 
 entific discoveries already made, which Professor Morse in due time 
 accomplished, but not without many months of labor. 
 
 Of course the telegraph was the aggregate result of the genius and 
 patient toil of many men, and it is agreed by almost universal con- 
 sent, even in Europe, that the world is far more indebted to Morse's 
 system than to any other; but this, as the sequel will show, is not 
 the product of Professor Morse alone. 
 
 His first idea was to pass a strip of chemically prepared paper in 
 contact with the wire, decomposing the chemicals so as to form marks 
 of different lengths, which should form a sign alphabet. Next he 
 adopted, after much patient work in experimenting, a rude apparatus, 
 which he made, in 1835, w ^ ms own hands, using a half mile of wire 
 strung around the room, but this only transmitted in one direction. 
 In a work on telegraphs by Alfred Vail, published in 1845, w ^ ^ 
 found an article copied from the New York Journal of Commerce, 
 of September 5th or 6th, 1837, written and signed by Professor 
 Morse, in which he speaks of this first machine, and says: "The reg- 
 ister makes but one kind of marks, to wit, V this can be varied two 
 ways, by intervals, thus: VVVV, signifying one, two, three, etc., 
 and by reversing thus : A." These marks were produced by a pend- 
 ulum motion, which was wholly different from any thing in the later 
 invention, the latter being the first used in practical telegraphing. 
 He exhibited his original machine to his friends and the fame of it 
 went abroad. It was not until the winter of 1837-8, however, that 
 an improved apparatus was completed and exhibited at the New York 
 University. There had now been provided two instruments, one 
 for each end of the wire, enabling him to send dispatches and receive 
 answers. 
 
 We have seen that Prof. Morse returned from Europe on the Sully 
 in 1832, and that by 1835 he had, with his own hands, constructed 
 the rude instrument already referred to. This was shown to his 
 friends at his rooms in the New York University. Over thirty years 
 afterwards, at the Delmonico banquet, on the evening of December 29, 
 1868 a magnificent entertainment was given by the solid and wealthy 
 men of the city of New York as a compliment to Prof. Morse
 
 244 SAMUEL F. B. MORSE. 
 
 Chief Justice Chase, of the United States Supreme Court, presiding, 
 Prof. Morse, in referring to these first efforts remarked: "In 1835, 
 according to the concurrent testimony of many witnesses, it lisped 
 its first accents and automatically recorded them, a few blocks only 
 distant from the spot from which I now address you. It was a feeble 
 child indeed, ungainly in its dress, stammering in its speech; but it 
 had then all the distinctive features and characteristics of its present 
 manhood. It found a friend an efficient friend in Mr. Alfred Vail, 
 of New Jersey, who, with his father and brother, furnished the means 
 to give the child a decent dress preparatory to its visit to the seat 
 of Government. These few facts suffice here to indicate the birth of 
 the telegraph," etc. 
 
 It is true that Alfred Vail was "an efficient friend," and that through 
 him, his wealthy father, Stephen Vail, and his brother, George Vail, 
 were induced to advance considerable sums of money in aid of the 
 venture. But it would have been more magnanimous if in those 
 last days of the aged savan he had stated the precise facts, and given 
 Alfred Vail the full credit to which he was justly entitled. He would 
 thus have generously raised, a fitting monument to the memory of 
 one who had years before "been gathered to his fathers" in the 
 prime of manhood, who had with wondrous modesty and singular 
 reticence refrained from claiming as of his own invention the im- 
 proved Morse instrument and alphabet, simply because he had, while 
 a student under Prof. Morse, at New York University, become inter- 
 ested as a friend in the experiments which Morse was pursuing, and 
 at an early date had entered into a contract whereby he agreed "to 
 devote his personal services and skill in constructing and bringing 
 to perfection the mechanical parts of said invention, until the same 
 shall be made the property of the United States, or otherwise be 
 disposed of by said proprietors, and without charge for such personal 
 services to the other proprietors, and for their common benefit; said 
 service to be in accordance with the general direction and super- 
 vision of said Morse." By virtue of this Mr. Vail became an owner 
 of one-eighth the patent, at the same period that Prof. Gale, also of 
 the University, became, for his scientific contributions and skill, an 
 owner of one-sixteenth of the patent. 
 
 Prof. Gale, in the case of Smith vs. Downing, presented diagrams 
 of the veritable Morse Machine of '36, as it passed September '37 into 
 Mr. Vail's hands for an entire mechanical reconstruction throughout, 
 to speak a language not wholly unknown to the first machine, but 
 to perform entirely new functions, and to produce an entirely new 
 system of signs and letters, which the first by its structure, was phys- 
 ically incapable of being made to speak. Alfred Vail first produced 
 in the new instrument the first available Morse machine. He invented 
 the first " combination of the horizontal lever motion to actuate a 
 pen or pencil, or style," and the entirely new telegraphic alphabet 
 of dots, spaces, and marks which it necessitated, not long before
 
 THE "MORSE MACHINE. 245 
 
 September, 1837, the month that the old instrument passed into 
 his hands for reconstruction. His more perfect invention of a steel 
 style upon a lever which could strike into the paper as it was drawn 
 onward over a ground roller, and emboss upon it the same alphabetic 
 characters, was not invented until 1844, about the time the first line 
 of telegraph began to operate between Baltimore and Washington. 
 This instrument, somewhat transformed, still holds its place (1872) 
 as practically the best ever invented, and after standing all imag- 
 inable tests is not likely to be jostled from its firm pedestal of fame 
 in the " MORSE system." 
 
 Prof. Morse never claimed to be the unaided inventor of the magnetic 
 telegraph. Indeed, in his sworn testimony before the Court in Phila- 
 delphia, in the case of French et al, vs. Rogers et a/, in reply to nu- 
 merous questions of defendant's counsel, he disclaimed being " the 
 inventor of the electro-magnet;" "the discoverer that the electro- 
 magnet will attract an armature of steel or iron;" or "the first 
 inventor of the combination of an electro-magnet with a circuit of 
 conductors." He disclaimed having been "the first to discover that 
 the breaking and closing of an electric or galvanic circuit, having 
 within it a generator of electricity or galvanism, would cause an alter- 
 nate flow and cessation of a current of electricity or galvanism." 
 He disclaimed being "the first to discover that when an electro- 
 magnet is connected with and forms part of such circuit, the magnet 
 will be made attractive and non-attractive as the current flows or 
 ceases to flow." 
 
 He disclaimed being "the first inventor of an apparatus consisting 
 of a galvanic battery, or other generator of electricity or galvanism, 
 a metallic circuit of electric or galvanic conductors, an electro- magnet 
 with an armature and a device for closing or breaking such circuit, 
 or that he was the inventor of the combination generally, or of any 
 of its parts in the abstract, but he did claim that he was "the first 
 inventor of the combination of those parts, as described in my patent 
 and used in my telegraph."* In the case of Smith vs. Downing, in 
 Boston, and of Morse vs. O'Reilly, at Louisville, Prof. Morse just as 
 emphatically disclaimed the invention of the various parts of the tele- 
 graph, and claimed only the first combination of those parts (admitted 
 to have been invented by others) for a particular purpose, and upon 
 this ground only were his patents maintained. 
 
 The people of the United States are under lasting obligations to 
 Mr. Henry O'Reilly for years of pioneer labor in constructing and 
 organizing about 8,000 miles of their great lines of telegraph. Prof. 
 Gale, in the case of Morse vs. O'Reilly, testified that when he first 
 saw Morse's apparatus, in 1836, it was quite feeble and inefficient, 
 but that it became powerful when Morse, at his suggestion, greatly 
 increased the power of the battery and multiplied by ten the turns 
 
 * This patent was issued, of course, after Vail became his associate.
 
 246 SAMUEL F. B. MORSE. 
 
 of wire on the arms of the magnet ; and Prof. Gale acknowledges 
 that he learned this from Henry's experiments. There can be no 
 doubt that Steinheil, in Germany, Wheatstone, Cooke and Bain, in 
 England, and Morse, House, and O'Reilly, in America, were all dis- 
 ciples of Prof. Joseph Henry, now President of the "Smithsonian 
 Institute," Washington City. 
 
 Professor Henry's experiments with the Electro-magnet aided Pro- 
 fessors Gale and Morse in their investigations, while Mr. Vail's 
 thorough work in perfecting the new alphabet and machine gave to 
 the world the best practical telegraph yet known. Morse's original 
 instrument could not have successfully performed the labor required. 
 
 There seems to be little doubt that Dr. Barlow, the English scien- 
 tist, invented a telegraph in 1825, which was mechanically nearly the 
 same as that afterwards devised by Morse upon the Sully. But he 
 failed for the same reason that Morse's first efforts failed, because the 
 method of sending the fluid through long lines was not known to the 
 inventor. Indeed it had not been discovered in 1825. Neither 
 knew how to propel the galvanic current to a distance, and neither 
 knew how to generate the needful magnetic forces at a distance. 
 Each failed to construct a practical electro-magnetic telegraph that 
 could be worked. Prof. Morse could not send more than from " fif- 
 teen to forty feet" from the operator as stated in 1856, by Prof. 
 Gale, who on the day upon which that conversation occurred, in the 
 winter of 1836 suggested modifications to him, that resulted in send- 
 ing the current of electricity through as many hundred feet of wire. 
 
 In a letter dated March 3^, 1872, Prof. Gale said: "Was Morse's 
 invention the achievement of a machine, or was it the discovery of a 
 law or principle of science? The plain answer is, that the Morse in- 
 vention is a machine, and nothing more, nor has it been claimed by 
 any body else. [Is it not a pity that Alfred Vail was so modest, and 
 cared so much more for others than others have since cared for him?] 
 Henry's achievement in this relation is the discovery of a scientific 
 law or principle, which is, that a certain arrangement of electric con- 
 ductors increases electric force to send electric currents through long 
 distances adaptable to telegraphic purposes. Now, as Professor Henry 
 did not invent a telegraphic machine, and Morse did not discover a 
 law or principle in electricity, there can be no conflict between those 
 two honorable gentlemen." In the same letter Prof. Gale said fur- 
 ther: "When I first saw the machine (in 1836) the steed was already 
 harnessed, and only needed breaking in;" but he omitted facts which 
 should have been given, describing the old Morse machine, and re- 
 specting the origin of what is now known as the Morse instrument, 
 stating rather carelessly, we think, that "Morse invented the form 
 of the various parts of his machine," and so failed to furnish the 
 public correct information. This was, to say the least, disingenuous, 
 and really very much more than had been said by Prof. Morse at the 
 Delmonico banquet, and again at the Academy of Music on the even-
 
 THE OLD AND NEW INSTRUMENTS. 
 
 247 
 
 ing of the day on which his statue was unveiled at Central Park. 
 So much for the truth of history.* 
 
 We now come again to our narrative of Prof. Morse's early move- 
 ments in connection with his invention. They were days, months, 
 and years of tribulation, sore disappointment and trial. During this 
 same year, 1838, Steinheil in Bavaria, and Wheatstone in England, 
 had separately announced the invention of a telegraph by themselves, 
 and their governments properly lent them assistance in perfecting 
 their apparatus. William Cullen Bryant, speaking of this period, 
 says: " Morse remarked to me, with some despondency, ' Wheatstone 
 and Steinheil, who have electric telegraphs, are furnished the means 
 of bringing forward their methods, while to my invention, of earlier 
 date than theirs, my country seems to show no favor.'" It is obvious 
 that this republic never appeared to less advantage in the eyes of 
 history than during the period when Morse struggled with ignorance, 
 skepticism, and derision for the privilege of making his native land 
 renowned. 
 
 Surprised by the announcements of the British and German tele- 
 graphs, and fearing that he was to lose the prize for which he was 
 struggling, by what he felt sure was a later device, he promptly went 
 to England, and met Wheatstone upon his own ground. He found 
 that Wheatstone's telegraph was far inferior to his own, and that its 
 birth was at least four years later; and he at once applied for a 
 patent. He proved by numerous witnesses the priority of his inven- 
 tion, and then demonstrated that it was superior and altogether dif- 
 ferent ; but he was refused a patent on the ground that a description 
 of the invention had been previously published in England, the 
 article from the Journal of Commerce, copied by a London scientific 
 magazine detailing some of the results of Morse's experiments and 
 discoveries. In France he received a useless brevet d'invention; in 
 other countries nothing. He returned home in the fall, and, some- 
 what depressed by his failures, applied again to Congress. 
 
 The next four years were years of hope and despair, of appeal, 
 ridicule, and fruitless struggle. He laid aside his brush entirely, and 
 gave his whole soul to the telegraph. Session after session he perse- 
 vered, and year after year he met with rebuff and defeat. His bill 
 
 * We have been led into an investigation of the facts connected with this case 
 because a friend of ours was present while Prof. Morse and Alfred Vail were ex- 
 perimenting at Speedwell, near Morristown, N. J., early in the autumn of 1837, 
 and were using a mile or more of bonnet wire, wound round a reel, and registering 
 with the machine, described as having a pendulum motion, and making the V shaped 
 character, named in the early letter of Prof. Morse to the N. Y. Journal of Com- 
 merce, from which we have previously giveh an extract. There is indisputable 
 evidence as to the entire truth of all that has been asserted respecting the paternity 
 of what must be known hereafter, as heretofore, as the Morse Machine. It was 
 invented by Alfred Vail, and made at his father's Foundry and Machine Shop*, at 
 Speedwell, Morris County, New Jersey. For illustrations and explanatory matter 
 descriptive of these admirable instruments, see pp. 251-254 inclusive.
 
 248 SAMUEL F. B. MORSE. 
 
 was amended by Congressional wits to include a line to the moon, 
 and to pay for experiments in witchcraft, mesmerism, and Millcris-m t 
 the Speaker refusing to rule out the absurd amendment, on the plea 
 that, "it would require a scientific analysis to determine how far the 
 magnetism of mesmerism was analogous to that employed in tele- 
 graphing." 
 
 At last came the close of the session of 1842-3. On the evening 
 of March 3, the Professor once more gave up in despair, and under 
 the fire of the quips and jokes that greeted his bill left the Capitol 
 and returned, despairing, to his hotel, resolved to return to portrait- 
 painting for funds to develop his invention. But his friends stood 
 by him Ferris, Kennedy, Winthrop, McClay, and Wood and, in 
 the last hour of the expiring session, by a vote of 89 to 83, the bill 
 passed, appropriating $30,000 for Morse's first line to Baltimore. 
 
 We are indebted to Harper 1 s Monthly for the following anecdote : 
 
 " Morse made his preparations to return to New York next day, and 
 retiring to rest, sank into a profound slumber, from which he did not 
 awake until a late hour on the following morning. But a short time 
 after, while seated at the breakfast-table, the servant announced that 
 a lady desired to see him. Upon entering the parlor he encountered 
 - Miss Annie Ellsworth, the daughter of the Commissioner of Patents, 
 whose face was all aglow with pleasure. 
 
 " I have come to congratulate you," she remarked, as he entered 
 the room, and approached to shake hands with her. 
 
 "To congratulate me!" replied Mr. Morse, "and for what?" 
 
 "Why, upon the passage of your bill, to be sure," she replied. 
 
 "You must surely be mistaken; for I left at a late hour, and its 
 fate seemed inevitable." 
 
 "Indeed, I am not mistaken," she rejoined; "father remained 
 until the close of the session, and your bill was the very last that was 
 acted on, and I begged permission to convey to you the news. I am 
 so happy that I am the first Jto tell you." 
 
 The feelings of Mr. Morse may be better imagined than described. 
 He grasped his young companion warmly by the hand and thanked 
 her over and over again for the joyful intelligence. "As a reward," 
 concluded he, " for being the first bearer of the news, you shall send 
 over the telegraph the first message it conveys." 
 
 "I will hold you to that promise," replied she. "Remember." 
 
 "Remember," responded Mr. Morse; and they parted. 
 
 By the month of May, 1844, the whole line was laid, and magnets 
 and recording instruments were attached to the ends of the wires at 
 Mount Clare Depot, Baltimore, and at the Supreme Court Chamber, 
 in the Capitol at Washington. When the circuit was complete, and 
 the signal at the one end of the line was responded to by the operator 
 at the other, Mr. Morse sent a messenger to Miss Ellsworth to inform 
 her that the telegraph awaited her message. She speedily responded 
 to this, and sent for transmission the following, which was the first
 
 FIRST TELEGRAPHIC DISPATCH. 249 
 
 formal dispatch ever sent through a telegraphic wire connecting re- 
 mote places with each other: 
 
 "WHAT HATH GOD WROUGHT!". 
 
 The original of the message is now in the archives of the Histori- 
 cal Society at Hartford, Connecticut. 
 
 The first important information conveyed through the Telegraph was 
 the announcement of the nomination of James K. Polk, for the pres- 
 idency, by the Baltimore Democratic Convention, May 27th, 1844. 
 The news, published in the evening paper, was received with the 
 greatest incredulity, which was rendered almost universal, even among 
 the friends of the enterprise, by the fact that the nomination was a 
 most improbable one. Morse's fortune was made when the morning 
 train on the new railroad, almost as great a wonder, brought the 
 confirmation. 
 
 In 1846, when there were less than a thousand miles of telegraph 
 wire on the continent, Morse wrote: "When all that transpires of 
 public interest at New Orleans, St. Louis, Albany, New York, Char- 
 leston, Boston, and Washington shall be simultaneously known in 
 each and all these places together; when all the agents of the Gov- 
 ernment are in instantaneous communication with head-quarters ; 
 when the several departments can at once know the actual existing 
 condition of their remotest agencies, and transmit at any moment 
 the necessary orders to meet an exigency, then will some estimate be 
 formed of the powers and advantages of the Magnetic Telegraph." 
 
 Thenceforward the Morse telegraph went rapidly forward to take 
 possession of the earth, first spreading over America and then \vrest- 
 ing continental Europe from every rival. The reader of this sketch 
 will have seen already that Morse was not the first inventor of a 
 telegraph, for rude telegraphing was practiced centuries before he was 
 born. He was not even the inventor of the electric telegraph, for 
 Sommering had constructed and operated one while Morse was in 
 college. All that Morse's friends claim and it is enough is that 
 he was the inventor of the first practical electro-magnetic recording 
 telegraph. 
 
 Wheatstone's was greatly inferior, requiring a number of wires and 
 delivering slowly. That of Prof. A. C. Steinheil, of Munich, was 
 much better than Wheatstone's, being constructed upon the same 
 principle as that of Morse, but rather more complicated, and more 
 liable to get out of repair. Steinheil showed himself a true child of 
 science by conceding the superiority of Morse's system, and at a 
 convention in Germany, in 1851, for the adoption of a uniform sys- 
 tem, he magnanimously recommended that of Morse as being the 
 simplest and best in the world, and by his advice it was adopted 
 throughout Germany. This generous conduct contrasts strikingly 
 with that of Wheatstone, especially when it is remembered that the 
 latter borrowed his invention from a young Englishman named 
 William F. Cooke, who, in 1836, brought to England a system of
 
 250 SAMUEL F. B. MORSE. 
 
 telegraphing by the deflection of the needle, which had occurred to 
 him while a student in Heidelberg. 
 
 The superiority of Morse's system is sufficiently attested by the 
 fact that it has been universally adopted by the whole world except 
 Great Britain. There are but a few miles of any other telegraph on 
 the entire continents of America, Europe, and Asia. It possesses 
 Russia, Italy, France, Germany, Austria, and Spain ; Egypt and 
 Africa; Turkey and Greece; India, Australia, China and Japan. 
 Every other system vanishes from the competition. Honors were 
 showered upon Morse by every European nation. No member of 
 the English-speaking race ever received so many tokens of royal 
 approval, and so many marks of distinction. Yale was first to recog- 
 nize her son; she conferred the degree of LL.D. in 1848. During 
 the same year the Sultan of Turkey decorated him with the Nishan 
 Jftichar (the order of glory), set in diamonds. The kings of Prussia 
 and of Wurtemberg, and the Emperor of Austria awarded to him 
 gold medals for his achievements in science. In 1856 Napoleon 
 presented to him the cross of chevalier of the Legion of Honor ; while, 
 in 1857, he received from the King of Denmark the cross of Knight 
 of the Dannebrog, and in 1858, from the Queen of Spain, the cross 
 of Knight-commander of the order of Isabella, the Catholic. In 
 1857 he received his most substantial honor from various European 
 nations, whose representatives met, at the invitation of Napoleon, in 
 Paris to devise means for giving the great inventor a collective testi- 
 monial. In that conference were the embassadors of France, Russia, 
 Sweden, Belgium, Austria, Sardinia, Tuscany, Rome, and Turkey, 
 and they closed by forwarding to their benefactor a vote of thanks 
 and a purse of 400,000 francs ($75,000). But Morse was now in 
 little need of money; the telegraph had already begun to make him 
 rich. 
 
 During the twenty years following 1850, he was the recipient of 
 frequent testimonials and ovations. In 1856 the telegraph companies 
 of Great Britain united to give him a banquet in London, at which 
 Cooke, the inventor of Wheatstone's telegraph, presided. Two years 
 later a similar banquet was given him in Paris. 
 
 Submarine telegraphy also originated with Prof. Morse, who, in 
 company with Samuel Colt, laid the first cable, in 1842, across New 
 York Harbor winning the gold medal of the American Institute. 
 
 Mr. Frederick N. Gisborne and Cyrus W. Field finally organized 
 the sentiment which carried the Atlantic Cable to completion ; but as 
 early as August 10, 1843, six months before the first telegraph line 
 was put up, Morse wrote to John C. Spencer, then Secretary of the 
 Treasury, detailing the results of his submarine experiments in New 
 York Harbor, to show the power of electricity to communicate at 
 great distances, and adding at the close, in words which were the 
 prophecy of Science, " The practical inference from this law is, that 
 telegraphic communication on the electro-magnetic plan may, with cer-
 
 MORSES RECORDING INSTRUMENT. 
 
 251 
 
 FIG. i. 
 
 tainty, be established across the Atlantic Ocean. Startling as this may 
 now seem, I am confident the time will come when this project will be 
 realized !" This was about eleven years before the great scheme en- 
 listed the skill and energies of Cyrus W. Field. 
 
 Morse's Recording Instrument, or, as it is shortly called, the 'Morse' 
 or 'Register,' is shown in fig. i. L is the line-wire, and E the earth- 
 wire, conveying the current from the distant station. The current 
 thus sent traverses the coils of the electro-magnet, MM', the armature, 
 A, of which is in consequence drawn down. A is attached to the 
 lever //', moving 
 round the axes k. 
 By the attraction 
 of A, the end /' is 
 lowered, and 
 brought against 
 the stud . The 
 armature must not 
 touch the soft iron 
 of the electro-mag- 
 net on being 
 drawn down, for 
 if it did, it would 
 stick, and would 
 not be instantly 
 
 released when the current ceases. When the end /' is lowered, the 
 end / is raised ; //', at its inner end, carries a steel point or style, /, 
 which by the upward motion is brought against a strip of paper, PP 7 , 
 carried towards F by the rollers rr' set in motion by clock-work, C, 
 quite independently of electricity. The clock-work is liberated or 
 stopped by the switch S. The paper is supplied from a large roll or 
 bobbin, above the instrument, which turns round as the rollers de- 
 mand. So long as the style is elevated the paper strip is made by 
 the clock-work to rub against it. A line is thus embossed on its upper 
 surface. To facilitate the doing of this there is a groove in the upper 
 roller, opposite the style. When the current from the distant station 
 ceases, the lever //' is pulled back to its original position by the spring 
 s, and the style falls away from the paper. To prevent it falling too 
 far, another stud, m, lies on the other side of the axis. When the 
 circuit is again closed, the style once more marks the paper, and thus 
 the lever keeps oscillating under the opposing actions of the magnet- 
 ism developed by the transmitted current, and the elasticity of the 
 spring, s. The time that the style remains elevated, determines the 
 kind of mark on the paper. If it is nearly momentary, a dot is 
 imprinted ; for a longer time, a dash. We have thus the combinations 
 of an alphabet in the combination of dots and dashes. Thus, A is 
 a dot and a dash (. ); B, a dash and three dots ( . . . ), etc. 
 The alphabet is so arranged that the letters occurring most frequently
 
 252 SAMUEL F. B. MORSE. 
 
 are more easily signaled ; thus, E is one dot ; T, one dash. An 
 expert telegrapher can transmit from thirty to forty words a minute 
 by this instrument on a land-line of between 200 and 300 miles. 
 Several modifications of Morse's telegraph have been made, the chief 
 one being the substitution of ink-marking for embossing. The beau- 
 tiful instruments of Siemens and Halske are of this kind. 
 
 A clerk that has been well accustomed to Morse's telegraph, in 
 transcribing, seldom looks to the paper. The mere clicking of the 
 lever becomes a language perfectly intelligible to him. He need 
 therefore only to*look to the record when he may have heard indis- 
 tinctly. Sir Charles Bright does away with the recording instrument 
 altogether, and substitutes two bells, one muffled, the other clear, 
 sounded by a hammer oscillating between them. The bells speak a 
 telegraphic language as quick as the clerk can write. It is stated in 
 favor of Bright's system (which is used by the Magnetic Company 
 in Britain) that the signals are all as it were dots in Morse's instru- 
 ment, and so take less time than dots and dashes. Recording instru- 
 ments are generally considered preferable to instruments which merely 
 signal, as they fix any fault of transmission or copying on the party 
 at fault. Acoustic signaling, again, is preferable to ocular signaling, 
 a person can hear and write much more easily than see and write. 
 
 Transmitting Key. Let us now transfer our attention to the distant 
 station, to see how the current is transmitted from it. This is done 
 by the transmitting key, shown in fig. 2. A brass lever, //, moves 
 round the axis A. On opposite sides of the axis, two nipples of 
 platinum, m, , are soldered to its lower sides. The nipple m is called 
 the hammer. Below is the stop anvil, b, tipped with platinum, 
 which is in connection with the earth-wire E. Below the hammer, 
 m, lies the anvil a, the nipple of which is likewise of platinum ; a is 
 connected by the wire C with one of the poles of the sending battery, 
 FlG a generally the copper pole. 
 
 \L Hf ^ When the lever is left to itself, 
 
 \ it n anc ^ ^ are m contact under 
 
 **^ the force of the spring s. 
 
 ^5 ' When the hand presses on the 
 
 BB_^_<*j"v" ^_ ebonite (insulating) handle H, 
 
 "="^1 contact is broken at n and b, 
 
 and established at m and a. 
 Three wires are in connection 
 with the key, E and C just named, and L, the line-wire from the 
 distant station connected with the axis pillar, and therefore with the 
 lever. When the key is in the receiving position, that shown in the 
 figure, the current from the sending station takes the route L, A, /, 
 , b, E, the Morse, and then to earth. When H is pressed down, 
 the key is in the sending position, and transmits the battery current 
 by C, a, m, A, L, to the distant station. The play of the anvil and 
 hammer need not be more than one-tenth of an inch. This is more 
 
 fc j 
 
 >
 
 THE BATTERY. 
 
 2 53 
 
 than sufficient for completely breaking the current, and it allows of 
 speedy manipulation. 
 
 The Battery. The batteries employed are in Britain almost uni- 
 versally Daniell's. Constancy and certainty of action is what is 
 most wanted in the battery, and this Daniell's battery yields. In 
 Germany, Bunsen's battery is also used, charged with diluted sulphuric 
 acid, the carbon being immersed in a mixture of i of acid to 10 
 of water, and the zinc in a mixture of i to 20. When batteries 
 have to be moved about much, sand is put in to keep the liquid 
 from spilling. The number of cells employed varies with the dis- 
 tance, the insultation of the line, and the delicacy of the instruments. 
 The register, as afterwards mentioned, is seldom worked directly by 
 the transmitted current, but by relay. To work a relay with good 
 insulation, 60 Daniell's cells will suffice for a distance of 300 miles. 
 For less distances, less of course will suffice. For short circuits, 
 where the resistance is small and current strong, small cells soon 
 exhaust themselves ; large cells therefore must be used to maintain the 
 supply. Magneto-electricity is also employed as a source of the cur- 
 rent. This answers well 'on short circuits, or for private telegraphs, 
 but experience has proved that the galvanic battery is by far the most 
 advantageous source of electricity for extensive telegraphic work. 
 
 How Two Stations arc connected together. The manner in which 
 two stations are 'joined up' on Morse's system is shown in fig. 3. 
 B and B t are 
 
 the batteries at FlG - 3 - 
 
 the stations 
 S, S t ; k, /fare 
 the transmit- 
 ting keys; , 
 ;/, the regis- 
 ters j g, g', the 
 galvanometers; 
 LL, the line- 
 wire insulated 
 on posts; P, 
 P,, the earth- 
 plates. When the key k, at the station S, which is here represented 
 as the sending station, is depressed, the current from the battery B 
 takes the following course. From the copper pole C, of the battery 
 B, it goes to the anvil of k, passes through k to the galvanometer g, 
 which having traversed, it goes into the line LL to the receiving sta- 
 tion S,, traverses the galvanometer, the key k ', the coils of the register 
 ;/; thence it goes 'to earth' at the plate P 2 , returns by the ground 
 to P at the sending station, and thus finally reaches the zinc pole 
 Z of the battery B. At the station S, b and n are out of circuit ; and 
 at S,, If and battery B, are out of circuit ; n is thrown out of circuit, 
 because its coil offers a resistance equal to several miles of the line-
 
 254 
 
 SAMUEL F. B. MORSE. 
 
 wire, and it is requisite to keep down the resistance to the minimum. 
 If it were in circuit, both registers could print simultaneously, but 
 that is not necessary, one record at the receiving station being 
 enough. The sender would thus have no idea as to whether his mes- 
 sage had told or not, did not the motions of the needle of the gal- 
 vanometer, g, reveal the currents put in circuit. The galvanometer 
 also shows the presence of earth-currents on the line. If k were left 
 to itself, and k depressed, the station S a would then be the sending, 
 and S the receiving station, and the connections would be exactly as 
 shown in the figure, only at opposite stations. 
 
 Suppose the clerk at S wishes to telegraph to S,, he depresses the 
 key k several times, so as to send a series of dots and dashes giving 
 the name of the station. The attention of S, is first arrested by the 
 clicking of the armature of the Morse. He thereupon turns the 
 switch S (fig. i), and sets the clock-work-in motion, and sends back 
 to S that he is ready, and the printing thereupon begins. When both 
 keys are depressed, the whole circuit is broken, so that when both 
 sender and receiver have their hands on their respective keys, no 
 message can be sent. One might fancy that confusion would arise 
 from cross messages, but clerks soon get over this inconvenience, and 
 communicate back and forward with perfect facility. There is a code 
 of working signals to indicate the kind of message, 'repeat,' 'under- 
 stand,' etc., besides numerous recognized contractions. To arrest the 
 attention of attendants, the current is sometimes made to ring an 
 alarm bell. 
 
 The Morse telegraph is noted for its surpassing simplicity. The 
 signs for the letters of the English alphabet (which are variously 
 modified to adapt them to other alphabets), and for the numerals 
 and punctuation marks, are as follows, the most used being the 
 simplest : 
 
 LETTERS. 
 
 A- 
 
 B 
 
 C-- - 
 
 D 
 
 E- 
 F 
 
 i 
 
 2 
 
 Period 
 
 Comma 
 
 Interrogation 
 
 G 
 H 
 I -- 
 
 T 
 
 M 
 N - 
 O- - 
 P - 
 
 S -- 
 T 
 U-- 
 V - - 
 
 
 
 J 
 
 K 
 
 Q 
 
 W-- 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 NUMERALS. 
 
 I 
 
 1 = 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 PUNCTUATION 
 
 o 
 
 
 Y ---- 
 Z ---- 
 &- --- 
 
 Exclamation 
 
 Quotation 
 
 Parenthesis 
 
 The income derived from the telegraph began soon after 1846, to 
 place Morse in affluence. He now enjoyed a life of such prosperity
 
 ERECTION OF STATUE. 255 
 
 as is rarely allotted to man. His dreams had all come true except 
 the dream of becoming a great painter, for his studies in art had been 
 abruptly broken off before he had attained that excellence for which 
 he strove. But he lived to enjoy for his gigantic achievement in 
 telegraphy that complete and unbounded fame which usually comes 
 only to posthumous blossoming. Wealth dropped suddenly into his 
 hand. He received all the honors generally accorded to dead heroes 
 only. He lived to see with his own eyes the culmination of his 
 triumphs, and to hear with his own ears the world's spontaneous ac- 
 claim. 
 
 After a life of immense activity which knew almost all that earth 
 can teach of trial and adversity, of derision and poverty, of defeat 
 and victory, Mr. Morse, at the age of seventy, retired from the 
 business perplexities of life, and devoted himself to the gratification 
 of the tastes of a private gentleman, and the exercise of a generous 
 hospitality. * In the winter he lived at his city residence in New York, 
 which was as beautiful as a refined taste and an ample fortune could 
 make it. 
 
 His country residence, situated in a most picturesque spot, amidst 
 deep ravines and lofty forest trees, on the banks of the Hudson, two 
 miles south of Poughkeepsie, is built in the style of an Italian villa, 
 and is topped with a high tower, and encircled with extensive piazzas, 
 clustering with vines and flowers. The master of this mansion had 
 long since taken to himself a second wife, and was surrounded by a 
 family of children. In this delightful spot, adorned with all the 
 chasteness of an artist's taste, in the midst of a charming and affec- 
 tionate family, and a large circle of admiring friends, the evening of 
 his life was passed in undisturbed tranquillity. Occasionally the little 
 world of " Locust Grove " was flattered by the announcement of the 
 completion of some new telegraphic enterprise ; but it soon subsided 
 into its customary channel, and moved along as quietly as the dream- 
 ing river that flowed languidly at its feet. 
 
 On June loth, 1871, when Professor Morse had just passed his 
 eightieth birthday, a bronze statue of heroic size, in his honor (by 
 B. M. Pickett), was unveiled in Central Park, New York, on an 
 eminence a little south of the Casino. Its inauguration was made 
 the occasion of a joyful assembling of telegraphers from all parts of 
 the United States. 
 
 A week before the day fixed for the ceremonies there had been 
 more applications for seats to the evening reception than the Academy 
 of Music would hold. We quote from the Journal of 'the Telegraph: 
 
 " As early as June ;th familiar faces from distant cities began to 
 show themselves, and many an old familiar name was again named, 
 as we grasped hands that once toiled with us in our early labors. 
 By Saturday morning, June loth, there were recorded delegates from 
 Pennsylvania, Mississippi, District of Columbia, Maryland, Connecti- 
 cut, Canada, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Georgia, Ohio, Tennessee,
 
 256 SAMUEL F. B. MORSE. 
 
 Illinois, New Jersey, Iowa, North Carolina, Michigan, Kentucky, Cali- 
 fornia, Nebraska, Indiana, Vermont, Maine, Rhode Island, West Vir- 
 ginia, Virginia, Nova Scotia, and Minnesota. We speak the simple 
 truth, which is yet upon every lip, that never was there assembled in any 
 city, for any purpose, a finer looking or more intelligent class of men. 
 In this we glory. As we gazed on the vast assemblage convened on the 
 evening of the eventful day in the Academy of Music, we felt that the tele- 
 graph interests of America were in the hands of true and noble men. 
 
 By four o'clock in the afternoon at least ten thousand invited 
 guests had gathered around the pedestal which supported the veiled 
 statue. Governor Hoffman, of New York, welcomed the telegraphers 
 of the Continent in fitting language, after which Governor Claflin, 
 of Massachussetts, the native state of Morse, threw aside the drapery 
 and displayed the statue to the vast assemblage. A tumultuous out- 
 burst of applause followed, the band playing the " Star Spangled 
 Banner." 
 
 William Cullen Bryant, the venerable poet and the life-long friend 
 of Morse, then paid his tribute to the inventor in a brief address, 
 of which we quote a single paragraph : 
 
 " But long may it be, my friends very long before any such re- 
 semblance of our illustrious friend shall be needed by those who have 
 the advantage of his acquaintance, to refresh the image of his form 
 and bearing as it exists in their minds. Long may we keep with us 
 what is better than the statue the noble original. Long may it re- 
 main among us in a healthful and serene old age. Late, very late, 
 may He who gave the mind to which we owe the grand discovery 
 to-day commemorated, recall it to his more immediate presence that 
 it may be employed in a higher sphere and in a still more beneficial 
 activity." 
 
 The mayor of the city responded ; letters were read from President 
 Grant, the Governors of several States, and one which left London 
 at 8 P. M., and was read at five minutes to four. 
 
 The reception given in the evening was as enthusiastic as it well 
 could be. The hall was densely crowded. Cheers from the gentle- 
 men and waving of white handkerchiefs by the ladies greeted Pro- 
 fessor Morse as he entered, and these were kept up for a considerable 
 time. He gracefully acknowledged the salutation and seemed much 
 affected by it. In the front of the platform was the speaker's stand, 
 on either side of which was a magnificent vase of flowers. In the 
 center also stood a small table, bearing the first telegraphic register 
 ever employed on actual service on the continent, and which was 
 kindly loaned by Mrs. Alfred Vail, of Morristown, N. J., whose 
 property it is. 
 
 Hon. William Orton presided, and made the welcoming speech. 
 We quote : 
 
 " In few instances have statues been erected to living men in 
 token of the gratitude of their fellows for benefits conferred, enjoyed
 
 Bronze Stz 
 
 CIWTKIL P 
 
 ic of Professor Morse.
 
 CEREMONIES AT UNVEILING OP STATUE. 257 
 
 and appreciated. Indeed, gratitude is rarely a settled conviction 
 pervading the public. mind, and persisting in conferring honor where 
 honor is really due. Popular fancy is notoriously capricious. 
 Frenchmen erected and then demolished the statue of Louis XIV. 
 On its site was reared the column of Austerlitz to commemorate the 
 achievements of the first Napoleon, and to perpetuate the glory of 
 France. Within a few weeks the latter has been torn from its base 
 in obedience to popular clamor, and the fragments of its beautiful 
 bronzes have littered the Place Vendome. But Frenchmen are not 
 exclusively capricious nor Parisians the only image breakers. A 
 century ago loyal New Yorkers erected a statue of George the III. 
 Six years later, indignant patriots tore down the leaden effigy, con- 
 verted it into bullets and fired them at the soldiers of their king. 
 The glories they illustrated had been achieved through oppression 
 and suffering, and the devastation and ruin which mark the track of 
 war. Our work, on the other hand although in honor of a man 
 commemorates an achievement which, in the infancy of its results, 
 has already conferred inestimable benefits upon the people of more 
 than hal f the globe, without having occasioned a pang of sorrow to 
 a single human being. [Cheers.] If he is entitled to be esteemed 
 a benefactor who makes two blades of grass to grow where but one 
 grew before with what honors shall we crown him through whom 
 wars have been postponed and shortened peace promoted and ex- 
 tended time annihilated and distance abolished and all the highest 
 and noblest faculties of man multiplied, extended, and enlarged. 
 [Applause.] Wonderful art ! Most fortunate of artists ! The love- 
 liest tints that glow beneath the pencil will fade away; the granite 
 and bronze this day reared will yield their particles one by one till 
 not a trace remains ; but the fame of our artist, and the wonder of 
 his art will go down the ages with civilization and Christianity, till 
 " the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the 
 Lord, as the waters cover the sea." [Applause.] 
 
 Brief addresses were made by Dr. George B. Loring, on the Tele- 
 graph and International Intercourse ; and Dr. Samson, on the Tele- 
 graph and Literature; when the band played the " Morse Telegraph 
 March." 
 
 Mr. Orton now announced that the hour of 9 P. M. had arrived, 
 and that all the wires of America were connected with the instrument 
 before him, and that Professor Morse would send a message. It was 
 a sublime thought, that the touch of a finger on a tiny key, in the 
 New York Academy of Music, would so soon vibrate throughout the 
 continent. The audience seemed to see the 10,000 anxious faces 
 looking down on the instruments in every town of the new world, 
 waiting the expected sound. It caused intense silence. Miss Sadie 
 E. Cornwell, a young lady of much attractiveness of person and 
 manner, who had been selected to transmit the message, was then 
 conducted to her place by Mr. Applebaugh, and sent the following 
 
 17
 
 258 SAMUEL F. B. MORSE. 
 
 dispatch, every operator watching the manipulation in a stillness 
 which was most impressive. The message was as follows : 
 
 GREETING AND THANKS TO THE TELEGRAPH FRATERNITY THROUGH- 
 OUT THE WORLD. GLORY TO GOD IN THE HIGHEST; ON EARTH 
 PEACE, GOOD-WILL TO MEN. 
 
 At the last click of the instrument Professor Morse, escorted by 
 Mr. Orton, approached the table and took his seat. As his fingers 
 touched the key, tremendous cheers rung through the house, but were 
 stopped by a gesture from Mr. Orton. Again that impressive silence 
 fell on the house. Slowly the sounder struck " S. F. B. Morse," 
 the Professor's hand fell from the key, the entire audience rose, and 
 a wild storm of enthusiasm swept through the house, which was con- 
 tinued for some time ; ladies waving their handkerchiefs, and old 
 venerable men cheering as joyously as the youngest. Professor 
 Morse, visibly affected, resumed his chair beside the President, and 
 for several moments pressed his brow with his hands. The whole 
 scene was thrilling and impressive. The tableau, the aged happy 
 Professor, Miss Cornwell, wreathed in smiles, Mr. Applebaugh, ex- 
 uberant, furnished a subject for an artist. When the excitement and 
 applause had subsided, Mr. Orton said : 
 
 " Thus the father of the Telegraph bids farewell to his children." 
 
 The current was then switched off to an instrument behind the 
 scenes. 
 
 Quickly along the wires came hundreds of responses, from half the 
 cities of the earth from all parts of America from Canada, Nova 
 Scotia, Cuba, England, Germany, Turkey, China, and Japan. A few 
 are here introduced : 
 
 " FROM MILWAUKEE. 
 
 " Milwaukee sends greeting. The heavens declare the glory of 
 God. The firmament showeth His handiwork. Day unto day uttereth 
 the speech, and night unto night showeth the knowledge ; your lines 
 have gone out throughout all the earth, and your words to the end 
 of the world." 
 
 " FROM JACKSONVILLE, FLA. 
 
 " Greeting : The glory of God, whose hand furnishes the light- 
 ning, has been reflected in him who has been honored as His agent 
 in making the lightning the servant of man." 
 
 "FROM WASHINGTON. 
 
 " May the God of Storms bless you and make your path on this 
 earth all sunshine. After this earth, peace." 
 
 " FROM PLYMOUTH, MASS. 
 
 " The Old Colony sends you joyous and kindly greeting. May 
 your laurels be ever green as the memory of the Fathers, and your 
 fame as enduring as Old Plymouth Rock."
 
 GREETINGS FROM TELEGRAPHERS. 259 
 
 "FROM CHARLESTON, S. C. 
 
 " From the far South we send back the kindly greeting of our 
 father in telegraphy, and with our brothers of the North, East, and 
 West uniting in making up the circuit of praise to him whose genius 
 devised and whose patient energies worked out this the grandest in- 
 vention of the nineteenth century." 
 
 " FROM LOUISVILLE, KY. 
 
 " Kentucky, whose jurists near a quarter of a century since first 
 vindicated your legal title against all pretenders to the immortal 
 fame as the inventor of the electric telegraph, to-day proudly rejoices 
 to see the whole civilized world in affirmation of her judgment so 
 unanimously and enthusiastically award you a place among the noblest 
 benefactors of mankind. Serus in ccelum redeas." 
 
 The Hong-Kong message was dated at 1:15 P. M. ! 
 
 General N. P. Banks then addressed the assemblage, on the Tele- 
 graph as a National Defense. Mr. J. D. Reid, editor of the Journal, 
 and the suggestor of the statue, said : "I hold in my hand a paper 
 which I regard as one of the most wonderful of modern times. There, 
 sir, is the record of a subscription, wholly spontaneous, covering sixty 
 feet of solid nonpareil, and which is not yet stopped. It bears the 
 name of almost every messenger, operator, and telegraphic officer on 
 the continent. The British provinces have vied with the United 
 States in the heartiness of this tribute. It is a splendid record of love, 
 which speaks with silent but most potential eloquence." 
 
 It was now announced that the hero of the hour would say a few 
 words. As the venerable professor rose to respond, the whole vast 
 audience broke into a warm cheer of salutation. It was a moment of 
 intense interest. His venerable presence, his quiet and refined bear- 
 ing, the feeling of relationship between himself and the audience, 
 the thought that this was to be the parting word, all rendered the 
 scene most solemn and impressive. He said : 
 
 " FRIENDS AND CHILDREN OF THE TELEGRAPH. Whatever I may 
 say must fall far short of expressing the grateful feelings, or conflict- 
 ing emotions, which agitate me on an occasion so unexampled in the 
 history of inventions. Gladly would I have shrunk from this public 
 demonstration were it not that my absence to-night, under the cir- 
 cumstances, might be construed into an apathy which I do not feel, 
 and which your overpowering kindness would justly rebuke. 
 
 "But where shall thanks begin, if, looking through all intervening 
 instrumentalities, the Great Author of the gift of the telegraph to the 
 world be not first of all acknowledged. ' Not unto us, not unto us, 
 but unto God be all the glory.' 
 
 " When I consider that He who rules supreme over the ways and 
 destinies of man, often makes use of the feeblest instruments to 
 accomplish His benevolent purposes to man, as if, by grandest con-
 
 260 SAMUEL F. B. MORSE. 
 
 trast, to point the mind with more marked effect to Him as their 
 author, I cheerfully take my place on the lowest seat at His footstool. 
 [Applause.] 
 
 "It is His pleasure, however, to work by human instrumentality. 
 You have chosen to impersonate, in the statue this day erected, the 
 invention rather than the inventor, and it is of no small significance 
 that in the attitude so well chosen, and so admirably executed by the 
 talented young sculptor whose work presents him so prominently and 
 so favorably before you, he has given permanence to that pregnant 
 and just sentence which was the first public utterance of the tele- 
 graph : ' What hath God wrought ?' 
 
 "Little did that young friend, twenty-seven years ago, (and whose 
 presence here to-night I most cordially greet), in the artless inno- 
 cence of a devout heart, dream of the far-reaching effect of that first 
 telegram which she indited, upon him who transmitted it. While 
 as if by inspiration she struck the key-note of the invention, placing 
 its real author upon the throne, it at the same time struck a respond- 
 ing chord within this bosom which still vibrates to temper with its 
 ringing note, any proud aspiration of a selfishness that, unchecked, 
 might be disposed to exclaim : ' Is not this great Babylon which I 
 have built, by the might of my power ?' Yes, little did that young 
 friend dream that she had thus furnished me a substantial retreat from 
 the conflicting elements, which public and private praise at home, 
 and the gratulations of foreign nations, stir into activity in the human 
 heart unless is kept in just prominence the Supreme Author of the 
 gift. 
 
 " You have chosen to impersonate in my humble effigy, an inven- 
 tion which, cradled upon the ocean, had its birth in an American 
 ship. It was nursed and cherished not so much from personal as 
 from patriotic pride. Forecasting its future, even at its birth, by 
 most powerful stimulus to perseverance through all the perils and 
 trials of its early days and they were neither few nor insignificant 
 was the thought that it must inevitably be world-wide in its applica- 
 tion, and moreover, that it would every-where be hailed as a grateful 
 American gift to the nations. It is in this aspect of the present oc- 
 casion that I look upon your proceedings as intended, not so much 
 as homage to an individual as to the invention ' whose lines ' from 
 America ' have gone out through all the earth, and their words to the 
 end of the world.' ......... 
 
 "To-night you have before you a sublime proof of the grand pro- 
 gress of the Telegraph in its march round the globe. It is but a 
 few days since that our veritable antipodes became telegraphically 
 united to us. We can speak to and receive an answer in a few 
 seconds of time from Hong Kong, in China, where ten o'clock to- 
 night here is ten o'clock in the day there, and it is perhaps a debat- 
 able question whether their ten o'clock is ten to-day or ten to-mor- 
 row. China and New York are in interlocutory communication. We
 
 SPEECH AT ACADEMY OF MUSIC. 261 
 
 know the fact, but can imagination realize the fact? But I must not 
 further trespass on your patience at this late hour. 
 
 " I can not close without the expression of my cordial thanks to 
 my long-known, long-tried, and honored friend Reid, whose un- 
 wearied labors early contributed so effectively to the establishment 
 of Telegraph lines. To the eminent Governors of this State and 
 the State of Massachusetts, who have given to this demonstration 
 their honored presence; to my excellent friend the distinguished 
 Orator of the day ; to the Mayor and city authorities of New York ; 
 to the Park Commissioners; to the officers and managers of the vari- 
 ous and even rival Telegraph Companies, who have so cordially united 
 on this occasion; to the numerous citizens, ladies and gentlemen; 
 and though last, not least, to every one of my large and increasing 
 family of Telegraph children, who have honored me with the proud 
 title of Father, I tender my cordial thanks." [Applause.] 
 
 Professor Morse's address was listend to throughout with the deepest 
 interest, and was delivered in a clear, steady voice, in which there was 
 no evidence of feebleness or decay. It was a remarkable circumstance 
 that, near midnight, as the great audience were leaving the Academy, 
 a magnificent auroral display appeared in the sky, as if the elements 
 were in joyous sympathy with the occasion and lighted their electric 
 fires on that tranquil summer night to testify their approbation. 
 
 Well might Professor Morse rejoice that he had lived to see this 
 day ! Europe then possessed 450,000 miles of wire and 13,000 sta- 
 tions; America, 180,000 miles of wire and 6,000 stations; India, 
 14,000 miles of wire and 200 stations; and Australia, 10,000 miles of 
 wire and 270 stations; and the extension throughout the world was 
 proceeding at the rate of 100,000 miles of wire per annum. There 
 were, in addition, 30,000 miles of submarine telegraph wire in success- 
 ful operation, extending beneath the Atlantic and German Oceans ; the 
 Baltic, North, Mediterranean, Red, Arabian, and China Seas; the 
 Persian Gulf, the Bay of Biscay, the Strait of Gibraltar, and the Gulfs 
 of Mexico and St. Lawrence. 
 
 The close of his life now drew rapidly near. But the following 
 letter written to Mr. Field, then attending the Telegraphic Conven- 
 tion at Rome, and one of the last the great telegrapher ever penned, 
 shows that old age did not impair the vigor of his faculties. The 
 chirography was also said to be wonderfully firm and clear : 
 
 "NEW YORK, December 4, 1871. 
 
 "Mv DEAR MR. FIELD: Excuse my delay in writing you. The 
 excitement occasioned by the visit of the Grand Duke Alexis has just 
 closed, and I have been wholly engaged by the various duties con- 
 nected with his presence. 
 
 "I have wished for a few calm moments to put on paper some 
 thoughts respecting the doings of the Great Telegraphic Convention, 
 to which you are a delegate.
 
 262 SAMUEL F. B. MORSE. 
 
 " The telegraph has now assumed such a marvelous position in human 
 affairs throughout the world ; its influences are so great and important 
 in all the varied concerns of nations, that its efficient protection 
 from injury has become a necessity. It is a powerful advocate for 
 universal peace. Not that of itself it can command a " Peace, be 
 still !" to the angry waves of human passions, but that by its rapid 
 interchange of thought and opinion it gives the opportunity of ex- 
 planations to acts and laws which in their ordinary wording often 
 create doubt and suspicion. 
 
 " Were there no means of quick explanation, it is readily seen that 
 doubt and suspicion working on the susceptibilities of the public mind 
 would engender misconception, hatred, and strife. How important, 
 then, that in the intercourse of nations there should be the ready 
 means at hand for prompt correction and explanation. 
 
 " Could there not be passed, in the great International Convention, 
 some resolution to the effect that in whatever condition, whether of 
 peace or war between nations, the telegraph should be deemed a 
 sacred thing, to be by common consent effectually protected both on 
 land and beneath the waters? 
 
 "In the interest of human happiness, of that 'Peace on earth' 
 which, in announcing the advent of the Savior, the angels proclaimed 
 with 'good-will to men,' I hope that the Convention will not ad- 
 journ without adopting a resolution asking of the nations their united 
 effective protection to this great agent of civilization. 
 
 "The mode and the terms of such resolution may be safely left to 
 the intelligent members of the honorable and distinguished Conven- 
 tion. Believe me as ever, your friend and servant, 
 
 "SAMUEL F. B. MORSE. 
 
 "HoN. CYRUS W. FIELD, Rome, Italy." 
 
 Professor Morse, familiar as his name was on both sides of the 
 Atlantic, was facially known to comparatively few persons, and often 
 attracted by his striking appearance the attention of those who had 
 not the slightest suspicion that he was the celebrated inventor of the 
 magnetic telegraph. His countenance and bearing were noticeable 
 and impressive, even in Broadway, that great thoroughfare which 
 swallows up individualities, and converts provincial whales into me- 
 tropolitan minnows. The Professor's features were large, but regular, 
 well-proportioned and harmonious on the whole, and made remark- 
 able by his long, abundant white hair, moustache and whiskers, which 
 he wore full and flowing. His complexion was rather florid, and his 
 eye of an undecided color, inclining to gray, capable of great variety 
 of expression, and often lighting up with what is considered the un- 
 mistakable fire of genius. Profound intellect, commanding patience, 
 capacity for investigation, and supreme self-discipline were pictured 
 in his face, and, apart from these mental and spiritual qualities, were 
 reflected kindness of heart, gentleness of manner, and a temperament
 
 HI S APPEAR ANCE A N A N E C D O T E . 2 6t 
 
 41 
 
 thoroughly sympathetic. If America had had seven distinctively 
 wise men, such as ancient Greece boasted of, Professor Morse would 
 have been recognized at sight as one of the sages by every discerning 
 eye. The air and manner of Nestor hung about him, and he always 
 conveyed the impression common to genius and high character 
 of reserved power. In stature he was not above the medium height ; 
 his bearing was quiet, and wholly unostentatious ; his speech simple, 
 direct and exact. He always felt a just and natural pride in his wonder- 
 ful invention ; was fond of talking of it on proper occasions, and to 
 congenial companions, and at such times seemed to be illumined 
 with the satisfaction which a great idea generates in one who has 
 seen it advance to full fruition. 
 
 The following anecdote related by Col. Strother, the " Porte 
 Crayon " of the magazines, portrays vividly the straits in which Morse 
 found himself more than once before he achieved success : 
 
 " I engaged to become Morse's pupil, and subsequently went to 
 New York and found him in a room in University Place. He had 
 three other pupils, and Isoon found that our professor had very little 
 patronage. I paid my fifty dollars ; that settled for one quarter's in- 
 struction. Morse was a faithful teacher, and took as much interest in 
 our progress more, indeed, than we did ourselves. But he was very 
 poor. I remember that when my second quarter's pay was due my 
 remittance from home did not come as expected, and one day the 
 professor came in, and said courteously : 
 
 " ' Well, Strother, my boy, how are we off for money? ' 
 
 "'Why, professor,' I answered, 'I am sorry to say I have been 
 disappointed ; but I expect a remittance next week." 
 
 " ' Next week ! ' he repeated sadly ; ' I shall be dead by that time.' 
 
 "'Dead, sir?' 
 
 " ' Yes, dead by starvation.' 
 
 " I was distressed and astonished. I said hurriedly ' Would ten 
 dollars be of any service ? ' 
 
 " < Ten dollars would save my life ; that is all that it would do.' 
 
 " I paid the money, all that I had, and we dined together. It was 
 a modest meal, but good, and after he had finished he said : ' This is 
 my first meal for twenty-four hours. Strother, don't be an artist. It 
 means beggary. Your life depends upon people who know nothing 
 of your art, and care nothing for you. A house dog lives better, and 
 the very sensitiveness that stimulates him to work, keeps him alive to 
 suffering.' 
 
 "I remained with Professor Morse three years, and then we separ- 
 ated. Some years afterwards I met him on Broadway, one day. He 
 was about the same as before, a trifle older and somewhat ruddier. I 
 asked him how he was getting along with his painting, and he told 
 me that he had abandoned it ; that he had something better he be- 
 lieved ; and told me about his proposed telegraph. I accompanied 
 him to his room, and there found several miles of wire twisted about,
 
 264 SAMUEL F. B. MORSE. 
 
 and the battery, which he explained to me. His pictures, finished 
 and unfinished, were lying about covered with dust. Shorty after- 
 wards Congress made an appropriation, and Morse was on the high 
 road to wealth and immortality." 
 
 During considerable portions of several years following Professor 
 Morse's return from his European trip in 1839, he could be seen 
 daily at Bedford's Eating House at the corner of Beekman and Nas- 
 sau streets, New York, in company with Prof. Geo. Bush, Professor 
 of Oriental Literature in New York City University, also author of 
 Commentaries on the Old Testament, and often with other gentlemen 
 of like tastes, each partaking of such frugal meals as men with pleth- 
 oric purses seldom partake of. But these days of darkness came to 
 an end, when Congress came to his aid, and Morse began ere long to 
 tread firmly the high road to fame and fortune. 
 
 Prof. Morse was twice married ; as has been mentioned, his first 
 wife deceased in 1825. She was Miss Lucretia P. Walker, the daugh- 
 ter of a prominent citizen of Concord, New Hampshire, and left 
 three children, now living. His second wrte was Miss Sarah Gris- 
 wold, daughter of the late Capt. S. B. Griswold, U. S. A., who, with 
 one daughter and three sons by this marriage, survives him. 
 
 During the early spring of this year, Prof. Morse began to show 
 unmistakable signs of approaching dissolution. Yet his departure 
 corresponded with his life. Scarcely any perturbations of mind or 
 body; all was calm and dignified, when, at 8 P. M., of April 2d, 1872, 
 his spirit passed from earth. His death was beautiful in its unclouded 
 vision. He held firmly to the Christian faith, and was buried from 
 the Presbyterian church. 
 
 Dr. Adams, in his funeral sermon, said: 
 
 "A few days before his decease, in the privacy of his chamber, I 
 spoke to him of the great goodness of God to him in his remarkable 
 life. 'Yes, so good !' was his quick response, 'and the best part of 
 all is yet to come.' Spared to see more than eighty years, he saw 
 none of the infirmities of age either in mind or body. His delicate 
 tastes, his love for the beautiful, his fondness for the fine arts, his 
 sound judgment, his intellectual activity, his public spirit, his intense 
 interest in all which concerned the welfare and decoration of the city, 
 his earnest advocacy of Christian liberty throughout the world, 
 continued unimpaired to the last." 
 
 Thus, with vigor of mind unimpaired; with serene faith, and steady 
 hand, and undimmed eye ; with peace in his heart and " Peace on 
 earth" upon his lips, Professor Morse ended his earthly mission.
 
 ALFRED VAIL. 
 
 IN the month of September, 1807,' just as the leaves or our Ameri- 
 can forest -trees had* begun to put on their rich autumnal tints, 
 preparatory to their descent to mother earth, to mingle with their 
 native dust, there was born into the family of a sturdy machinist, 
 living in a substantial brick dwelling standing hard by the roadside, 
 and within perhaps fifty yards of what has for generations been known 
 as Speedwell Iron Works, a son, who in process of time came to be 
 given the name of Alfred Vail. The road in front led from the 
 county town, a mile distant, down the hill past the dwelling on to- 
 wards the office, forge, and machine shops, and then at once across 
 the bridge of the stream to the great iron region of the county, at 
 Dover, Boonton, etc. The stream furnished the power for the forge- 
 hammers, turning-lathes, and all the appliances by which steamboat 
 shafts, cotton-press screws, and a thousand other forms of machinery 
 were there wrought into shapes to answer the ends for which they 
 were intended. Thus fashioned, they brought to the stalwart father 
 and owner of the works the ingots which he constantly sought with 
 an energy and industry seldom surpassed. 
 
 Down to within a short space of the point where the waters of the 
 stream descended from the level surface of the dam, on either side 
 of this beautiful Speedwell lake as it is now called "for possibly 
 three-quarters of a mile up stream, the pellucid waters had at that 
 period mirrored the forms of a thick growth of forest-trees, majestic 
 in the towering heights attained by a hundred years of undisturbed 
 development. Away from the din and thug of the machinery, up 
 the margins of this beautiful and charming dell, and on the bosom of 
 the placid waters of the lake, many an hour had been charmed swiftly 
 away by the dashing and romantic youth of the neighboring village. 
 
 Near the crown of a ridge overlooking the valley, through which 
 flowed these headwaters of the Passaic, half a mile from the upper 
 end of the lake-let, is the residence from which John Clevcs Synunes 
 
 (265)
 
 266 ALFRED VAIL. 
 
 emigrated to Ohio, to take possession of his "Miami purchase." 
 From that pleasant ' Solitude ' went forth, in the bloom of youth. 
 Anna Symmes, who soon became the bride of General Wm. Henry 
 Harrison. Pretty, intelligent, and joyous then, she was ever inter- 
 esting and cheerful in the presence of her large family, and beloved 
 by a large circle of friends. She survived the decease of President 
 Harrison nearly a fourth of a century, and was buried in the tomb 
 beside her husband, on the estate at North Bend, which was taken 
 for his home by Judge Symmes in 1788. As was natural, many of 
 the early settlers of Cincinnati, Dayton, and other localities of the 
 valleys of the two Miami rivers followed Judge Symmes from Morris 
 County and other portions of " East and West Jersey." Israel Lud- 
 low, the engineer who made the first survey and original plat of 
 Cincinnati, was a native of Long Hill, in the south-western part of 
 Morris County. His daughter, Mrs. Garrard, was married in Cincin- 
 nati to Judge John McLean, of the United States Supreme Court, 
 himself a native of the north part of Morris County. Mrs. McLean 
 survives her husband, and is residing with her sons at Lake Pepin, on 
 the Mississippi. The last wife of Chief-Justice Chase was a descend- 
 ant of Israel Ludlow also. Matthias Denman, one of the early 
 associates of Judge Symmes, was also from Morris County, and ended 
 his days near the Short Hills, in the same county. 
 
 The works at Speedwell had been purchased of Major John Kinney, 
 an officer in the Revolutionary army, who for many years later was 
 a resident of the adjacent village of Morristown, living quietly with his 
 daughter afterwards the wife of Judge Hornblower, who was for a 
 considerable period the Chief-Justice of the Supreme Court of New 
 Jerseyy and a resident of Newark. Supported by his cane, with a 
 buck-horn head, and silver-mounted, Major Kinney clad in knee- 
 breeches, and the accompanying habiliments of the Revolutionary 
 period, with a long cue pendant from his head, and a cocked hat sur- 
 mounting it, could be seen any pleasant day nimbly picking his way 
 around the "green," or through the streets of this ancient historic 
 town at the period when Alfred Vail was growing to manhood. Major 
 Kinney was the type of many men then living who were the remaining 
 representatives of the " New Jersey Patriots," or the "Jersey Blues,", 
 who had but little to occupy their attention beyond telling of their 
 exploits with the " Red - coats " during the War of Independence. 
 
 Since the days when Washington and his patriot army went into 
 winter quarters within its borders, the County of Morris has been of 
 historic interest. It was at the old Ford Mansion, in the eastern 
 suburbs of the village of Morristown, that Washington took up his 
 head quarters in the winter of 1779-80. It is but recently that the 
 Hon. Henry A. Ford, the venerable grandson of its occupant in the 
 days of Washington, was carried from its broad halls to his final 
 resting-place, and there buried beside the remains of his distinguished 
 father, the late Gabriel Ford, who for many years was Judge of the
 
 HIS NATIVE COUNTY, AND FAMILY. 267 
 
 (State) Supreme Court.* The mansion is in excellent repair, and is 
 still occupied by the family of its late proprietor. 
 
 Washington's army, after the brilliant achievements at Trenton and 
 Princeton, pursued the British in their flight as far as Kingston, but 
 after thirty-six hours almost continuous movement, weary, foot-sore, 
 and exhausted, it was turned aside to the Highlands of Morris County, 
 and there, during the severe winter of 1776-77, the soldiers suffered 
 not less intensely than they did at Valley Forge. But these sufferings 
 did not dampen their military ardor or keep them from sleepless vigil- 
 ance. The enemy in New York was closely watched. Means of com- 
 munication were found in beacon fires through the long winter nights 
 upon the high hills and mountains spurs of the " Blue Ridge " which 
 skirt and pierce the county in each direction from the town. On the 
 eastern borders of the county are what are termed the Short Hills, a 
 range of highlands affording many magnificent views of the country 
 as far north as the Orange County line in New York, and South to 
 Raritan Bay and river. On a clear day the prospect from the higher 
 summits in the direction of New York city, and out the Narrows 
 through which the Hudson makes its way to the Atlantic, brings to 
 the eye such views and charming landscapes as can nowhere else be 
 seen in the vicinity of the great metropolis. 
 
 During the stormy period of the Revolution, a few miles out of 
 Morristown, probably at or near the locality in the county which is 
 now known as Littleton, on the route through Speedwell to Rocka- 
 way or Denville, Stephen Vail, the father of Alfred Vail, was born 
 June 28th, 1780. His father, Davis Vail, was a Quaker, noted as a 
 man of probity and good sense, who reared his family with a view 
 to the practical realities of life. The county probably never fur- 
 nished a more perfect specimen of devotion to an industrious and 
 useful calling than was manifested by this Quaker's son. He was 
 
 * Hon. D. K. Este, the oldest member of the Cincinnati Bar, formerly the sole 
 Judge of the old Superior Court of that city, and almost a nonagenarian, still in 
 vigorous health, and daily seen walking the streets of the Queen City, studied law 
 with Gabriel Ford, before the latter became Judge. Soon after commencing his 
 law studies, in 1 803, he visited at the office in New York, a friend who was then a 
 student with Alexander Hamilton. On being introduced, Hamilton inquired if he was a 
 son of Captain Moses E*te, of Morristown. He replied that he was ; when Hamil- 
 ton rejoined : " Do you know, sir, that but for me you would not have been here ? 
 I knew your father well. In passing over the field with General Washington, after 
 the battle of Monmouth, I recognized Captain Este (then a young man), and on in- 
 quiring found that he w^s severely wounded. I immediately ordered him carried 
 from the field, and, with care and attention, his life was saved." 
 
 Judge Este's first wife was the eldest daughter of General Harrison. \Vc learn 
 from him that John Cleves Symmes was Judge of the Court in Morris County before 
 the Revolution ; that he was colonel of a regiment of the New Jersey Militia in the 
 Revolution, and a member of the Continental Congress. Symmes was a meml>cr of 
 Congress when he arranged for his " Miami purchase," and the President of Con- 
 gress, Elias lioudinot, and others of that body, became interested with him, although 
 not ostensibly so.
 
 268 ALFRED VAIL. 
 
 the eldest of a family of eight children, of whom Dr. Wm. P. Vail, 
 now a resident of Sussex County, New Jersey, and nearly seventy, 
 was the youngest. The doctor was in early life an apprentice of his 
 brother, and assisted in building at the Speedwell Iron Works " the 
 first steam engine that ever propelled a vessel across the Atlantic;" 
 this was in 1819; the vessel probably went from Savannah. 
 
 Stephen Vail was the first man in New Jersey to set up a machine 
 for making cut nails, which he started at Dover in his native county. 
 As his mother was often heard to say, he was "a born mechanic." 
 He early married a young lady of excellent sense and of great amia- 
 bility and nobleness of character, who, although much of the time in 
 feeble health, manifested the best qualities of a true housewife and 
 an earnest Christian mother. Mrs. Vail was an active member of 
 the First Presbyterian Church at Morristown during the pastorate of 
 Rev. Albert Barnes, since so widely known by his commentaries on 
 the Scriptures. She had several children ; the eldest was a daughter, 
 Harriet, and the second a son, Alfred, the subject of our present 
 sketch. Following these were a daughter, Sarah, and a son, George, 
 who on reaching his majority became associated in business as partner 
 with his father, and for a Congressional term or two fifteen to 
 eighteen years afterwards represented his native district in Congress. 
 George Vail's present residence was erected under his own supervision 
 on a beautiful lawn, on the opposite margin of the lake, from the 
 house in which he was born, and it is, in its whole make,. as sincere 
 a specimen of architecture as the country affords. The material is the 
 brown "pudding stone " of the region, of which in former days there 
 were so many immense bowlders scattered upon the surface of the 
 fields. Those he used were cracked open, and the inner variegated 
 surface forms the outside exposure of the walls ; an example which 
 has found many imitators where purses had sufficient depth. The 
 fine Methodist Church, built within a few years, on the south side 
 of the public square of the town, at a cost of over 100,000, is of 
 this material. 
 
 The whole surroundings of Morristown are now beautiful in an 
 eminent degree. In the scenery, nature has scattered her favors with 
 a lavish hand, in alternations of hill and valley, wooded mountain- 
 sides, and rolling meadow lands, meandering streams and gurg- 
 ling rivulets. Scattered through the town and in the suburbs, evidences 
 of wealth and refined taste are seen upon all sides. The merchants 
 of New York finding the region so salubrious and healthy are dotting 
 the whole vicinity with fine residences. With improved railroad 
 facilities, the city will soon be within an hour's travel. 
 
 Alfred Vail passed his early life at the home of his parents in the 
 beautiful region which we have attempted to describe, and amid in- 
 fluences which were likely to engender and foster mechanical tastes. 
 His youth until his seventeenth year was spent in attending school 
 in Morris Academy. In that building many men who have attained
 
 GRADUATES AT NEW YORK UNIVERSITY. 269 
 
 to eminence have sat as pupils, or presided as principals. For many 
 years during the later decades of the past and the earlier years of the 
 present century the town was especially famous for its superior educa- 
 tional facilities. When young Vail had left school, his tastes and the 
 tendencies of his surroundings led him at once into the business of 
 his father the manufacture of steam-engines and other machinery 
 manufactured of iron and brass. He was much in the brass foundry, 
 and at an early age became noted for his skill. His constitution was 
 like his mother's, delicate. With great fondness for study, especially 
 in the mechanic arts and sciences, he had frequent longings for more 
 thorough attainments. He had, however, become a citizen of full 
 age before he broke away from his moorings, and began his prepara- 
 tion for college. With great zeal and energy he pursued his studies 
 at the academy in Bloomfield, Essex County, until duly prepared 
 he entered the New York City University in 1832, probably at pre- 
 cisely the period of Professor Morse's return from Europe in the 
 packet ship "Sully." Vail graduated in due course in 1836, with 
 decided honor, and with such recognition from the faculty as led to 
 an early offer of a professorship in the institution. 
 
 The reader has learned from the remarks embodied in the sketch 
 of Professor Morse, that Mr. Vail became interested, and finally 
 absorbed, in improving the telegraph. We need not repeat here what 
 has there been stated as to the precise manner in which he was led 
 into an early association with Professor Morse. It was not the in- 
 tention when those remarks were penned to make a separate sketch of 
 Mr. Vail's career in connection with telegraphy, but new investiga- 
 tions have led to new determinations ; and in the language of the 
 senior associate, in his criticism of 1853, upon Professor Henry's 
 course with regard to him, " there is a paramount duty to see that the 
 truth of history be not violated, especially since the telegraph has be- 
 come so large a part of the history of science, and is directly associated 
 with the progress of the world." We have seen how completely 
 Professor Morse had in his last days narrowed his recognition of Vail's 
 connection with the telegraph to the one point of pecuniary aid. " To 
 this complexion did it come at last!" Imperceptibly to himself, be- 
 yond a doubt, and with no preconceived purpose of injustice, but 
 gradually, during many years of adulatory attentions from the govern- 
 ments and savans of the civilized world, he had become greedy of fame, 
 and was led into studied silence on some matters which he had treated 
 in an entirely different spirit when he was pinched with poverty and 
 needed, not merely mflney, but skilled assistance to bring his bantling 
 to perfection. His invention was born, it is true, but it had need 
 to fulfill the requirements suggested by the question of Nicodemus, 
 "and be born again," with the spirit of a new life, before it could 
 go forth on its mission of peace and good-will, into all the earth. 
 
 From a paragraph in a pamphlet prepared by Professor Morse in 
 1853, which was soon after reprinted by him in Paris, we now quote
 
 270 ALFRED VAIL. 
 
 views as therein stated : " Alfred Vail being then (1837) a student* 
 in the New York City University, and a young man of great ingenuity, 
 having heard of my invention, he was naturally desirous of seeing it 
 as it then existed in my rooms in the University. In the summer 
 of that year he came to my rooms and I explained it to him, and 
 from that moment to the present (1853) he has taken the deepest 
 interest in the telegraph. Finding that I was unable to command 
 the means to bring my invention properly before the public, and be- 
 lieving that he could command those means through his father and 
 brother, he expressed this belief to me, and I at once made such an 
 arrangement with him as to secure the pecuniary means and the skill 
 of these gentlemen. It is to their joint liberality, but especially to 
 the attention, and skill, and faith, in the final success of the enterprise 
 maintained by Mr. Alfred Vail, that is due the success of my endeavors 
 to bring the telegraph at that time creditably before the public. He was 
 with me, assisting me in its construction, in its first exhibitions to 
 the New York public in 1837, to the Franklin Institute, in Philadel- 
 phia, and to Congress in 1838 ; and from his peculiar experience in all 
 that relates to the invention, was appointed one of my Assistant Super- 
 intendents on the passage of the Telegraph Bill in 1843." 
 
 In such terms did Professor Morse state his views of his signal 
 benefactor, midway of his career with the invention, which has borne 
 his name to the highest pinnacle of fame. Now, let the question be 
 answered, what was it that Morse invented ? We reply by quoting 
 from Professor Gale's letter of 1872, printed in the sketch of Morse: 
 " Was Morse's invention the achievement of a machine, or was it the 
 discovery of a law or principle of science ? The plain answer is, that 
 the Morse invention is a machine, and nothing more." 
 
 Professor Gale, in the case of Smith vs. Downing, presented dia- 
 grams of the Morse machine (1836) as it passed (September, 1837,) 
 into Mr. Vail's hands for an entire mechanical reconstruction 
 throughout, to speak a language not wholly unknown to the first 
 machine, but to perform entirely new functions, and to produce an 
 entirely new system of signs and letters, which the first, by its structure, 
 was physically incapable of being made to speak. Alfred Vail first 
 produced in the new instrument the first available Morse machine. 
 He invented the first "combination of the horizontal lever motion 
 to actuate a pen or pencil, or style," and the entirely new tele- 
 graphic alphabet of dots, spaces and marks which it necessitated, and 
 he did so prior to September, 1837, the month when the old in- 
 strument passed into his hands for reconstruction. His more perfect 
 invention of a steel style upon a lever which could strike into the 
 paper as it was drawn onward over a ground roller, and emboss 
 upon it the same alphabetic characters, was not invented until 1844, 
 about the time the first line of telegraph began to operate between 
 
 * Probably a resident graduate.
 
 INVENTOR OF THE MORSE ALPHABET, ETC. 271 
 
 Baltimore and Washington. This instrument, somewhat transformed, 
 still holds its place (1872) as practically the best ever invented, 
 and after standing all imaginable tests is not likely to be jostled 
 from its firm pedestal of fame in the " MORSE system." 
 
 The new machine was Vail's and not Morse's. The claim is 
 clearly made, then, that Alfred Vail in the first place invented an en- 
 tirely new alphabet, which he had the genius to foresee could be 
 made to register easily on a horizontal line with one continuous 
 movement of the paper from right to left. Secondly, he invented an 
 entirely new machine, in which was the first combination of the hori- 
 zontal lever motion to actuate a pen, or pencil, or style, so arranged 
 as to perform the new duties required with a precision, simplicity, 
 skill, and rapidity infinitely beyond the "stammering speech" and 
 the creeping infantile movements of the true Morse machine, as 
 originally conceived and brought forth ! and, thirdly, Vail invented 
 several years afterward the new lever and roller, which embossed 
 into paper the wholly simple and perfect alphabetic characters which 
 he alone originated, altogether the complete invention used from the 
 first opening of a telegraph line until now, a period of nearly thirty 
 years. It registers as well as transmits its own messages, and from 
 May 25th, 1844, until now it has proved itself the best instrument 
 ever made, as is sufficiently proved by its almost universal use 
 throughout the world, by all peoples and with all languages. If as 
 Dr. Gale, their only early associate, wrote less than six months ago, 
 " Morse's invention is a machine," what becomes of his claims as an 
 inventor when the machine was conceived and brought forth from 
 the brain and hands of another ? 
 
 We now go back to the days of 1837, when the new alphabet had 
 appeared, but when the new machine although conceived was not 
 brought forth, and commence at this point by quoting a letter of 
 Professor Morse, addressed to Mr. Vail at Morristown, and dated 
 
 " NEW YORK, Sept. 29, 1837. 
 
 " DEAR SIR, I have only that which is agreeable to tell you. Since 
 you were here I have a most satisfactory letter from Hon. W. C. 
 Rives, and also from Captain Pell, who was the commander of the 
 " Sully " on my passage home. They both have given me most un- 
 qualified testimony to the priority of my invention on board the ship. 
 
 " I have dispatched my letter to the Secretary of the Treasury, 
 and have the papers and drawings nearly ready for the Patent office.* 
 They will be on their way probably on Monday, or at farthest 
 Tuesday. 
 
 "If you intend to do any thing in England or France no time is to 
 be lost.f 
 
 * For the caveat obtained in October. 
 
 f Here the director is seen to be not Morse but Vail, with cash at his command 
 to pay Morse's expenses abroad.
 
 272 ALFRED VAIL. 
 
 " I hold myself in readiness to execute the commission with respect 
 to the portraits any time after next week, and hope to find the ma- 
 chinery in a state of such advancement that we may have time, before 
 the winter session, to become perfectly familiar with it, so as to strike 
 conviction at once into the minds of the members of Congress. 
 When we exhibit its powers to the powers that be, Professor Gale's 
 services will be invaluable to us, and I am glad he is disposed to 
 enter into the matter with zeal. The more I think of the whole 
 matter, the more I am convinced that if it is perseveringly pushed at 
 this moment (so favorable on many accounts to its adoption by Gov- 
 ernment) the result will be all that we ought to wish for. 
 
 " We want the wire; we are ready for some important experiments 
 necessary to establish with certainty some points not yet established 
 by experiment. 
 
 " The law of the magnetic influence at a distance is not yet dis- 
 covered, and your twenty miles of wire may enable us to make this 
 discovery, and to keep ahead of our European rivals, as well as to 
 proceed with certainty in our other arrangements. 
 
 " I have not yet heard from Dr. Jackson, in reply to my letter, 
 and I hope he will be wise enough not to continue a claim in which 
 he must be conscious he is wrong. If he persists he may give me 
 trouble, but he can not succeed in the end, for I think I have evi- 
 dence which will settle the matter. 
 
 " Truly your friend and servant, SAMUEL F. B. MORSE." 
 
 It will be borne in mind that this letter of Professor Morse was 
 written on the next to the last day of September, from New York, to 
 Mr. Vail, then at his father's residence at Speedwell, one mile north 
 of Morristown, which is about thirty miles from New York. 
 
 The Morris and Essex Railroad was that season completed, so that 
 by the way of Newark and Jersey City the journey (somewhat length- 
 ened in distance from the old stage route to Elizabethtown Point, and 
 thence by Gibbons's steamboats to the city) was even then accomplished 
 in but little less than two and a half hours.* In building the Morris 
 
 * This railroad was among the earliest in the country, on a route not lying in the 
 lines of the great thoroughfares of travel between the north and south, or east and 
 west. The great through New York and Philadelphia line, which displaced the 
 stages, for many years so fine and marked a feature of travel through New Bruns- 
 wick, Princeton, and Trenton, under the dashing control of the " whips " of the 
 day, then just passed, was by the steamboats of the Camden and Amboy line to 
 Amboy, thence by railroad to Camden, opposite Philadelphia, on the Jersey side of 
 the Delaware. The Camden and Amboy Railroad had been opened possibly a half 
 dozen years before the Morsi road, under the special manipulations of the jjreat 
 steamboat owner, R, L. Stevens, of Hoboken. He it was who was mainly instru- 
 mental in getting the celebrated charter, giving an exclusive right of way across the 
 State for ninety-nine years, to this Pioneer Railroad Company, which has for twenty 
 years and more excited so much unpleasant criticism upon New Jersey legislation, 
 because of excessive railroad charges.
 
 MORSE AND VAIL EXPERIMENTING. 273 
 
 and Essex Railroad, Stephen Vail, the owner of the Speedwell 
 Works, took a large pecuniary interest, for it gave him easy access 
 to New York with his heavy freights of iron, manufactured for the 
 markets of New York and the South. The ship-building interests 
 in the vicinity of what was known as the Dry Dock in the East 
 River portion of New York drew heavily upon his facilities for forg- 
 ing heavy shafts as well as for lighter machinery. In his half 
 century of business-life he forged out and accumulated well towards 
 a million of dollars, and finally tied up his fortune for the latest 
 of his heirs as nearly as the laws of the State admit of. He died 
 at the age of eighty-four years, July i2th, 1864. His son Alfred, 
 in leaving home soon after his majority, to pursue a course of study 
 in preparation for the ministry of the Presbyterian Church, had in- 
 curred his disapprobation, but he completed his course at college, 
 and at the age of thirty associated himself, as we have seen, with 
 Professor Morse. 
 
 Alfred Vail had at least as soon as the earlier part of Septem- 
 ber, 1837, entered with Professor Morse upon a series of experi- 
 ments at Speedwell with the rude machine of Morse's own construc- 
 tion ; which were conducted in a large building, erected for a cotton 
 factory on a small stream some two hundred yards or more distant 
 from the machine shops. When he had by working with Professor 
 Morse satisfied himself as to the capacities of the system and machine 
 of Professor Morse, Mr. Vail with his accustomed patience and the 
 concentration of his fine natural and acquired abilities for inven- 
 tion, gave himself up to the work before him. His contract with his 
 associate will be found embodied in the previous sketch. With high 
 enthusiasm and that thorough conscientiousness which was so marked 
 a feature of his character, he bent all his powers to producing a 
 machine that should be equal to accomplishing the conception which 
 five years previously had taken possession of Professor Morse, and 
 who, in the interval, had been slowly developing the machine, which 
 now to Vail's fine mechanical tastes was indeed a roughly formed em- 
 bodiment of a finely conceived thought. Vail grasped the far reaching 
 necessities of the case and entered upon his labor ; so entirely was 
 he absorbed that he would often rise from his bed in the still hours 
 of night and jot down his thoughts. Meanwhile Morse had gone 
 back to New York, and with Professor Gale was going through with 
 experiments referred to in the letter to Vail, just quoted. Vail was 
 not only perfecting his ideas on the newly projected machine which 
 was to express his alphabet, but was also at the same time interesting 
 his father and brother, especially the latter who is still residing at 
 Speedwell in the scheme for telegraphing. Professor Morse, still 
 in New York with Professor Gale, wrote : 
 
 " NEW YORK, October 24th, 1837. 
 
 "ALFRED VAIL, ESQ. : Dear Sir, The wire proves to be not good, 
 18
 
 274 ALFRED VAIL. 
 
 it is made of bad copper, and is brittle, and in short lengths ; we 
 have much trouble and consume much time in soldering. The spark 
 passes freely as yet, three and a half miles, and magnetizes well at 
 that distance, though evidently with diminished strength, which 
 would seem to indicate that there is a limit somewhere. We have 
 just heard that Professor Wheatstone has tried an experiment with 
 his method, twenty miles with success. We have, therefore, nothing 
 to fear. We also learn that he has sent to take out a patent in this 
 country. My Caveat will be in his way. Professor Locke, of Cin- 
 cinnati, who has just returned, tells me all this, and he knows 
 Wheatstone and his whole plan, and says there are no less than six 
 disputants for the priority of the invention in England. 
 "More when I see you. 
 
 " Truly yours, etc., SAMUEL F. B. MORSE." 
 
 The "more when I see you" of this second letter indicates the 
 early return of Professor Morse to Speedwell to note the progress of 
 his young associate and at the same time to busy himself in painting the 
 portraits of several members of Judge Vail's household, in fulfillment 
 of the arrangement referred to in the first letter. The next three 
 weeks were occupied by him in this way, while Alfred Vail was 
 earnestly bringing forward the since noted Morse machine. Dr. 
 John Locke, who brought the news to Professor Morse of so many 
 claimants in England for honors in connection with the discovery of 
 the telegraph, was himself for a considerable period absorbed in ex- 
 periments in the same direction at his home in Cincinnati. Here we 
 copy a letter announcing Professor Morse's safe return from Speed- 
 well, etc. : 
 
 "NEW YORK, November i3th, 1837. 
 
 " DEAR SIR : I write a hasty line just to say that I arrived safely 
 and am well this morning, so that I have not suffered by my journey. 
 I arrived full in time to see the experiment the professor was making 
 with the entire ten miles, and you will be gratified and agreeably 
 surprised when I inform you that the result now is that with a little 
 addition of wire to^the coils of the small magnet which I had all 
 along used, the power was as great apparently through ten as through 
 three miles. This result has surprised us all, yet there is no mis- 
 take, and I conceive settles the whole matter. 
 
 "In haste, but truly yours, SAMUEL F. B. MORSE." 
 
 Dawn came at last, and with it quickening warmth. The winter 
 weeks had been long to the patient genius and artisan, and also to 
 the expectant artist, Alfred Vail completed his machine January 6th, 
 1838, over which a jubilee was held, Judge Vail becoming quite 
 enthusiastic. During these months Dr. Gale had been diligent in 
 his part of the labor experimenting in New York. Soon every thing
 
 EXHIBITIONS OF THE NEW MACHINE. 275 
 
 was ready for a public demonstration of the telegraph. At the jubilee 
 a party of Morristown gentlemen were present by invitation, to wit- 
 ness the experiment of sending messages from the first floor of the old 
 cotton factory to the attic. The next experiment, or rather the next 
 work of the inventors was in laying a line of wire from Speedwell to 
 Morristown, placing the wire along the ground inside the fence, on 
 which a successful trial was made. 
 
 Now, the creature was truly born anew, and wholly regenerated 
 was ready to become a true missionary to the benighted. Much labor 
 was spent in the succeeding five years in endeavors to enlighten the 
 heathen of America and Europe. The parents of the child took it 
 in their arms and moved off. They gave " its first exhibitions to the 
 New York public," next " to the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia," 
 then at Washington to Congress and the Cabinet for three months, 
 following January, as Professor Morse avers in one of his published 
 statements. 
 
 We here copy a bill from the original in the handwriting of Prof. 
 Morse, which may throw some light on the relations then existing 
 between the parties as to pecuniary matters, and also in regard to 
 what was passing at the time : 
 
 NEW YORK, April n, 1838. 
 A. Vail in account with S. F. B. Morse for expenses of patent, etc. 
 
 Fare to Philadelphia ................................. : ....................... $3 oo 
 
 Breakfast . ..................................................................... 50 
 
 Porterage .................................................................... .. 25 
 
 Fare to Baltimore ............................................................ .. 3 oo 
 
 Dinner ........................................................................... 25 
 
 Porterage and omnibus ...................................................... 50 
 
 Bill at Baltimore (overnight) .............................................. I 50 
 
 Porterage ........................................................................ 25 
 
 Porterage to cars .............................................................. 25 
 
 Fare to Washington .......................................................... 2 50 
 
 Porterage ........................................................................ 25 
 
 Bill at FuHer's ................................................................. 21 75 
 
 Fare from Washington to Baltimore ...................................... 2 50 
 
 Porterage ........................................................................ 25 
 
 Bill at Baltimore (Sunday) ........................... .. ..................... 3 
 
 Porterage and servant ................................................. 1 ..... 
 
 Fare in steamboat to Philadelphia ....................................... 2 50 
 
 Dinner .................................................... .. ..................... 50 
 
 Porterage and omnibus to cars ............................................ 
 
 Fare to New York ........................................................... 5 oo 
 
 Porterage ........................................................................ 25 
 
 Tea .............. * ............................................................... 50 
 
 Lodging at Bunker's ......................................................... 50 
 
 Deduct Sunday at Baltimore ............................................... 3 75
 
 276 ALFRED VAIL. 
 
 As soon as he could well get off after failing to do any thing 
 practically beneficial at Washington, Professor Morse left for Europe 
 under the patronage of his friends at Speedwell, as is plainly shown 
 from what he wrote to Mr. Vail in the first letter, copied in this 
 sketch. We now copy from a letter to Alfred Vail, dated 
 
 "PARIS, October n, 1838. 
 
 "I exhibited the telegraph to the Institute, and the sensation pro- 
 duced was as striking as at Washington. It was evident that hitherto 
 the assembled science of Europe had considered the plan of an electric 
 telegraph as ingenious, but visionary, and like aeronautic navigation, 
 practicable in little more than theory and destined to be useless. I 
 can not describe to you the scene at the Institute when your box with 
 the registering machine, just as it left Speedwell, was placed upon 
 the table, and surrounded by the most distinguished men of all 
 Europe, celebrated in the various arts and sciences Arago, Baron 
 Humboldt, Guy Lassac, and a host of others whose names are stars 
 that shine in both hemispheres. Arago described it to them, and I 
 showed its action. A buzz of admiration and approbation filled the 
 whole hall, and the exclamations ' extraordinaire ',' ' tres bienj ' tres 
 admirable,' I heard on all sides. The sentiment was universal." 
 
 We next give an extract from a letter of Professor Morse to his 
 brother, Sidney E. Morse, written a few days earlier : 
 
 , " PARIS, October i, 1838. 
 " MY DEAR BROTHER : 
 
 " I have obtained a patent in France, although Wheatstone has also 
 a patent here for his invention. They do not interfere, except that 
 mine is pronounced far superior in simplicity and practicability. 
 They are different inventions. After waiting until it was safe to 
 exhibit my invention, I was desirous that the king should see it, 
 and this would doubtless have been effected before this, but for the 
 birth at the moment of the Count de Paris. In the mean time, 
 through the kindness of Mr. Warden, late cur Consul and member 
 of the Institute, I was introduced to the celebrated Arago, who was 
 desirous of seeing my telegraph. I carried it to the Observatory 
 one morning and showed him its operation, with which he was 
 delighted ; he told me he had been written to by the Administrator 
 in Chief of the Telegraphs in France, to obtain information in regard 
 to Wheatstone's telegraph, for that the Government were about to try 
 an experiment with the electric telegraph on an extended scale, and 
 were desirous of ascertaining, among the various plans before the pub- 
 lic, which was the best. M. Arago immediately offered me a letter 
 to M. Foy, the Administrator of the Telegraph, in which he com- 
 mends my telegraph. ......
 
 HIS MACHINE IN PARIS, LONDON, ETC. 277 
 
 " In the mean time, at the request of M. Arago, I consented to ex- 
 hibit it to the Institute at one of their sittings, and on the loth of 
 September I found myself in the midst of the most celebrated scientific 
 men of the world. M. Arago explained in the most lucid manner 
 the details and actions of the instrument, and I perceived by the ex- 
 pression of face, and the exclamations of surprise and gratification 
 which were uttered by the members, as they crowded around the 
 table, that the telegraph had won their regard. 
 
 "In a few days the various journals of Paris spoke in its praise." 
 
 In the controversy with Professor Henry in 1853, Professor Morse, 
 as has been noticed, speaks of exhibiting his telegraph at Washington 
 for three months in the early part of 1838, but by the . statement of 
 expenses incurred on his trip to that city, rendered to Mr. Vail under 
 date of April n, '38, which we have printed for the first time, a shade of 
 doubt is cast upon Professor Morse's accuracy as to the time of ex- 
 perimenting in Washington before Congress and the Cabinet. The 
 fact that Morse's patent was ordered to be issued May ist, 1838, is 
 decisive as to the bill being correctly rendered, as we have printed 
 it. In the same paragraph as that in which the three months at Wash- 
 ington is spoken of, Professor Morse states also that his telegraph 
 " was exhibited to a large audience of a thousand or more persons, 
 through ten miles of wire, in the New York City University, in the 
 autumn of 1837," and yet we have now lying before us a letter from 
 him in which he affirms that the first trial at " Speedwell, January 6, 
 1838," was with a "line of about three miles," which "was the 
 longest which at that time had been made." He further says, in 
 the same letter, " ten miles of wire, in two spools of five miles each, 
 were prepared at the University, to exhibit to Congress the operations 
 of the telegraph at Washington ; and the trial at Speedwell was made 
 when about three miles had been completed, and adds: "You will 
 see in Mr. Alfred Vail's work, The American Electro-magnetic Tele- 
 graph, at pages 74, 75, the results of an experiment on a short wire 
 of 1,700 feet, which I made on the 4th of September, 1837, in the 
 University." 
 
 The letters to Mr. Vail and to Sidney E. Morse show the progress 
 made to October n, '38, in Paris. During that autumn, in the same 
 city, thousands of visitors flocked to see his experiments. In the 
 month of March, 1839, the exhibitions were made to the members 
 of the Royal Society, of both Houses of Parliament, and the Lords 
 of the Admirality at Lord Lincoln's in London, afterwards the 
 Duke of Newcastle, the same gentleman who afterwards accompanied 
 the Prince of Wales in his journey through the United States. Prof. 
 Morse returned to New York in April, 1839, with the expectation of 
 proceeding, within five or six weeks to Russia to establish the tele- 
 graph in that country, under a contract which he had made with
 
 278 ALFRED VAIL. 
 
 Baron Meyendorff, a Russian Government agent. During Professor 
 Morse's absence in Europe, his associate, Dr. Gale, loaned Professor 
 Henry, then at Princeton, one of the spools containing five miles of 
 copper telegraph wire, with which interesting experiments were made 
 at Princeton, the results of which were reported by Professor Henry, 
 in a paper read before the American Philosophical Society, November 
 zd, 1838, and published early in 1839, under the title of " Contribu- 
 tions to Electricity and Magnetism." A copy was sent to Professor 
 Morse at New York, which he found awaiting his return. This led 
 to a correspondence between the two professors, manifesting great 
 kindness on both sides, which was pleasantly continued for several 
 years ; but these relations, unhappily, were broken up by some real or 
 fancied neglect of Mr. Vail so closely associated with Professor 
 Mo'rse who soon wholly disclaimed the charge, and stated his efforts 
 to procure the facts and give Professor Henry due credit for his 
 discoveries in Electro-magnetism in his (Vail's)book on the telegraph. 
 Two letters from Professor Henry to Professor Morse, which are of 
 historical interest, we reproduce the italics are our own : 
 
 " PRINCETON, May 6th, 1839. 
 
 "DEAR SIR, Your favor of the 24th ult., came to Princeton 
 during my absence, which will account for the long delay of my 
 answer. I am pleased to learn that you fully sanction the loan which 
 I obtained from Dr. Gale, of your wire, and I shall be happy if any 
 of the results are found to have a practical bearing on the Electric 
 Telegraph. 
 
 "It will give me much pleasure to see you in Princeton after 
 this week ; my engagements will not then interfere with our com- 
 munications on the subject of electricity. During this week I shall 
 be almost constantly engaged with a friend in some scientific labors 
 which we are prosecuting together. 
 
 " I am acquainted with no fact which would lead me to suppose 
 that the project of the Electro-magnetic Telegraph is impracticable ; 
 on the contrary, I- believe that science is now ripe for the application, 
 and that there are no difficulties in the way, but such as ingenuity 
 and enterprise may obviate. But what form of the apparatus, or what 
 application of the power will prove best, can, I believe, be only 
 determined by careful experiment. I can say, however, that so far 
 as I am acquainted with the minutiae of your plan, / see no practical 
 difficulty in the way of its application for comparatively short distances ; 
 but if the length of the wire between the stations be great, I think 
 that some other modification will be found necessary, in order to develop 
 a sufficient power at the further end of the line. I shall, however, 
 be happy to converse freely with you on these points when we meet. 
 In the mean time I remain, 
 
 " With much respect yours, etc., JOSEPH HENRY."
 
 OPINIONS OF PROFESSORS MORSE AND HENRY. 279 
 
 We quote from Professor Gale's deposition, on this interesting point 
 and append the second letter of Prof. Henry: 
 
 " It was early a question between Professor Morse and myself, 
 where was the limit of the magnetic power to move a lever. I ex- 
 pressed a doubt whether a lever could be moved by this power, at a 
 distance of twenty miles, and my settled conviction was, that it could 
 not be done with sufficient force to mark characters on paper at 100 
 miles distance. To this Professor Morse was accustomed to reply 
 ' If I can succeed in working a magnet ten miles, I can go round the 
 globe.' The chief anxiety at this stage of the invention was, to as- 
 certain the utmost limit of the distance at which he (Morse) could 
 work or move a lever by magnetic power. He often said to me 
 ' It matters not how delicate the movement may be ; if I can obtain 
 it at all, it is all I want.' Professor Morse often referred to the 
 number of stations which might be required, and which he observed 
 would add to the complication and expense. The said Morse always 
 expressed his confidence of success in propagating magnetic power 
 through any distance of electric conductors which circumstances 
 might render desirable. His plan was thus often explained to me. 
 ' Suppose,' said Professor Morse, ' that in experimenting on twenty 
 miles of wire, we should find that the power of magnetism is so feeble 
 that it will but move a lever with certainty but a hair's breadth ; 
 that would be insufficient, it may be, to write or print, yet it would 
 be sufficient to close and break another, or a second, twenty miles 
 further ; and this second circuit could in the same manner be made 
 to break and close a third circuit twenty miles further ; and so on, 
 round the globe.' " 
 
 " PRINCETON COLLEGE, February 24th, 1842. 
 
 " MY DEAR SIR, / am pleased to hear you have again petitioned 
 Congress, in reference to your telegraph, and I most sincerely hope you 
 will succeed in convincing our representatives of the importance of the 
 invention. In this you may, perhaps, find some difficulty, since, in 
 the minds of many, the Electro-magnetic Telegraph is associated with 
 the various chimerical projects constantly presented to the public, and 
 particularly with the schemes, so popular a year or two ago, for the 
 application of electricity as a moving power in the arts. I have as- 
 serted from the first, that all attempts of this kind are premature, 
 and made without a proper knowledge of scientific principles. The 
 case is, however, entirely different in regard to the Electro-magnetic 
 Telegraph. Science is now fully ripe for this application, and I have 
 not the least doubt, if proper means be afforded, of the perfect suc- 
 cess of the invention. 
 
 "The idea of transmitting intelligence to a distance by means of 
 electric action, has been suggested by various persons from the time 
 of Franklin to the present ; but until the last few years, or since the 
 principal discoveries in electro-magnetism, all attempts to reduce it
 
 280 ALFRED VAIL. 
 
 to practice were necessarily unsuccessful. The mere suggestion, how- 
 ever, of a scheme of this kind, is a matter for which little credit can 
 be claimed, since it is one which would naturally arise in the mind 
 of almost any person familiar with the phenomena of electricity ; but 
 the bringing it forward at the proper moment, when the develop- 
 ments of science are able to furnish the means of certain success, 
 and the devising a plan for carrying it into practical operation, are 
 the grounds of a just claim to scientific reputation as well as public 
 patronage. 
 
 " About the same time with yourself, Professor Wheatstone, of 
 London, and Dr. Steinheil, of Germany, proposed plans of the 
 Electro-magnetic Telegraph; but these differ as much from yours as 
 the nature of the common principle would well permit ; and unless 
 some essential improvements have lately been made in these European 
 plans, I should prefer the one invented by yourself. 
 
 " With my best wishes for your success, I remain, with much esteem, 
 " Yours truly, (Signed) JOSEPH HENRY." 
 
 We now insert a sentence or two from page 7 of the printed copy 
 of Professor Henry's Communication to the Board of Regents of the 
 Smithsonian Institution, March, 1857. "I was finally compelled 
 under legal process to return to Boston from Maine, whither I had 
 gone on a visit, and to give evidence on the subject. I distinctly 
 declared that Professor Morse was entitled to the merit of combining 
 and applying the discoveries of others, in the invention of the best 
 practical form of the telegraph. My testimony tended to establish 
 the fact that, though not entitled to the exclusive use of the electro- 
 magnet for telegraphic purposes, he was entitled to his particular 
 machine, register, alphabet, etc." 
 
 We now quote from Professor Morse, concerning the Morse-Vail 
 alphabet and instrument : 
 
 " The main object in my telegraphic invention is Telegraphic Re- 
 cording, and by means of electro-magnetism. The new alphabet, ad- 
 apted to the purpose, is to be marked or printed at a distance. This 
 alphabet is formed by breaking into parts, conventionally, a continu- 
 ous line, thus : 
 
 n I t i u m s f a 
 
 and by different combinations of the longer and shorter parts of such 
 line, with the longer and shorter spaces between the broken parts, 
 the various letters are formed. These letters are produced at a dis- 
 tance, by, commanding the magnetic power of a galvanic current, in- 
 duced in an electro-magnet, causing the current to flow, or to cease 
 flowing at certain determinate intervals of time. Duration, both in 
 the flow and the cessation of the current, is an indispensable element
 
 AN INTERESTING INQUIRY. 281 
 
 in the formation of a line, and also of a space, for forming the letters. 
 The flow of the current of galvanism, and consequently the magnetic 
 power, is caused by closing the circuit ; the cessation of the current, 
 and consequently the cessation of the magnetic power, is caused by 
 opening the circuit. The duration of a line is marked by the duration 
 of the closing ; and the duration for a space is marked by the dura- 
 tion of the opening of the circuit. Two distinct and opposite acts are, 
 therefore, equally necessary in forming every letter, to wit : closing 
 and opening the circuit. The closing as well as the opening, and the 
 opening as well as the closing, are equally and alike necessary to the 
 result. They are indissolubly connected. No letter can be formed 
 but by the conjoint acts of closing and opening the circuit. Hence, to 
 produce the one or the other of these two acts, at pleasure, it is plain 
 that the instrument at a station must be so constructed as to be con- 
 trolled by the distant operator, enabling him to produce, at any 
 moment, at his option, either of these two acts, to wit, the closing 
 or opening of the circuit." 
 
 Professor Henry, it will have been perceived, confined Prof. Morse's 
 claim to the very alphabet and instruments, which are now claimed as 
 the invention of Alfred Vail. The question naturally comes up, why 
 was this claim for Vail not asserted in the lifetime of Prof. Morse? 
 We reply, that it was ; and in due time it will be seen that Prof. 
 Morse came at last to recognize the position in which he was placed, 
 by the pregnant fact, that his original machine, made in New York, 
 had been, by his own action, and almost of necessity, wholly dis- 
 carded, in 1837, and had never been used in practical telegraphing; 
 while the alphabet and machine which Vail had conceived and brought 
 forth at Speedwell, was in universal use throughout the civilized world, 
 having shown and maintained its superiority over all competitors during 
 an interval of twenty-eight years since it was complete in its present 
 perfected form, and began its service on the original Baltimore and 
 Washington line, in practical telegraphing. Of course there was not 
 the same lightness of form and perfection of finish, in the workman- 
 ship of the first instruments, but with the exceptions as to size and 
 clumsiness the original instrument used in the Baltimore office is al- 
 most exactly similar to those in use at present. 
 
 It may be truly said of Alfred Vail that he was possessed of all the 
 qualities which usually belong to high inventive genius. Of his father 
 it had been said by his father's mother that Stephen was a " born 
 mechanic;" perhaps as was said of some one, it might be said of 
 Alfred that " he was born with a hammer in his hand." On leaving 
 Morris Academy he entered his father's machine shops and diligently 
 applied himself, more especially to work in the brass foundry. His 
 health was generally delicate ; he was, however, in accordance with 
 the rules of the Works regularly in his place ; and frequently brought 
 from the foundry for the admiration of his family and friends
 
 282 ALFRED VAIL. 
 
 evidences of his skill as an artisan and also as an inventor. Before 
 attaining his majority he had become deeply interested in religious 
 subjects, and had determined to study for the ministry. This deter- 
 mination was a sore disappointment to his father, who, with his keen 
 practical eye saw the natural gifts of his son for the business in which 
 he was engaged. He had looked forward with pride and hope to 
 the time when Alfred should become a partner with him, and have 
 full scope given for the use of his best abilities and skill. When these 
 hopes were dashed, there was bitter disappointment, which Judge Vail 
 could not for years afterward wholly conceal. The younger son, 
 however, soon became interested in the business, and the firm of 
 Stephen Vail & Son had a long career of great prosperity. 
 
 Soon after graduating, Alfred returned home, associated with Prof. 
 Morse, by the contract quoted in the sketch of that gentleman, and 
 within eight months following had been with him at New York, 
 Philadelphia, and Washington, as we have already noted, exhibiting 
 the new invention. The junior member of the Speedwell firm had 
 much to do with supplying the means for attendant expenses at that 
 time, and during the several years forward to the appropriation by 
 Congress, passed March 3d, 1843. For the four years intervening, 
 from 1839 to 1843, tne entire business interests of the country were 
 greatly depressed. The country had seen profound political changes. 
 Mr. Van Buren's presidential term had ended, and President Harrison 
 within one short month, in the spring of 1841, had been inducted into 
 office, and from the White House carried to his tomb. John Tyler 
 became President, satisfying neither Whigs, who elected him to the 
 Vice-Presidency, or the Democrats, who opposed his election, by 
 his course as President. National affairs and the business of the peo- 
 ple were in an unsettled condition. Congress enacted a general Bank- 
 rupt law early in Tyler's administration, and amid the general up- 
 heaval in public and private affairs the people were dejected, and in 
 no condition to make new private ventures, or to allow their re- 
 presentatives in Congress to expend the public moneys in chimerical 
 schemes of any sort. The want of success with Congress for Professor 
 Morse's project may, in the light of these facts, be readily understood 
 and properly appreciated. 
 
 Alfred Vail shared in all the disappointments and keen anxieties 
 which weighed down Professor Morse through the struggles of those 
 weary years of delay and trial. " His faith in the final success of the 
 enterprise," spoken of by his associate, never forsook him. It was in 
 no sense a wild or visionary scheme to him, he had measured it from 
 center to circumference, and had an earnest realization of what the 
 effect of his labor would be, and felt an unswerving Christian confi- 
 dence in the final success of the system which he had been instru- 
 mental in producing. Mean time he had married, and becom- 
 ing interested in building locomotives, with his father and brother 
 for associates, he removed to Philadelphia and represented their in-
 
 MODES OF BUILDING THE TELEGRAPH. 283 
 
 terests and his own in the firm of Baldwin, Vail, cV 5 Hufty. Mr. 
 Matthew Baldwin afterward took the business and continued it for 
 many years with signal success, and, until his decease, when it passed 
 into the hands of M. Baird & Co. 
 
 The appropriation made by Congress, on the last night of the ses- 
 sion, March 3d, 1843, f r building the experimental Baltimbre and 
 Washington line of telegraph, brought into immediate requisition the 
 scientific and mechanical services of Mr. Vail. He entered upon 
 his duties^ in completion of his pet scheme, with all the earnestness 
 and patience for which he was so distinguished. There were fourteen 
 months consumed in obtaining the materials and getting the line 
 in order. The wire was of copper, and covered, like that used in 
 the experimental trial at Morristown, with cotton and a coating of gum- 
 shellac. The proposal to suspend it on poles was laughed at, as it would, 
 it was supposed, be cut down and sold as fast as it could be put up. 
 It was therefore inclosed in lead pipe and laid in the ground, and 
 covered up with a depth of two feet of earth ; and even then it was 
 seriously debated whether or not it should be protected by a half 
 pipe of heavy iron laid over it, so as to render it more difficult of 
 access. After several miles had been laid, tests were applied, and 
 the wire found to be useless. It was then dug up and suspended on 
 posts, as at the present day. Professor Morse says it was abandoned 
 in the winter of 1843-44, among other reasons, in consequence of 
 ascertaining that in the process of inserting the wire into the pipe 
 (which was, at the moment of forming the pipe from the lead at melt- 
 ing heat), the insulating covering of the wires had become charred at 
 various and numerous points of the line to such an extent that greater 
 delay and expense would be necessary to repair the damages than to 
 put the wire upon posts. At length the wire was partly in working 
 condition, Mr. Morse as superintendent of the Electro-magnetic Tel- 
 egraph, was stationed in Washington, and Alfred Vail as assistant, was 
 located, at first, at the Junction House of the Annapolis and Balti- 
 more Railroad. 
 
 The following will show the method of exciting the public pulse 
 adopted by these original operators. 
 
 Extracts from letters of Morse to Vail : 
 
 "WASHINGTON D. C., May i, 1844. 
 
 . . . . " Get from passengers in the cars all the news you can 
 and transmit. A good way of exciting wonder will be to tell the 
 passengers to give you some short sentence to send me, and let them 
 note the time and call at the Capitol to verify the time I received it. 
 Before transmitting, notify me, (48). Your message to-day that ' the 
 passengers in the cars gave three cheers for Henry Clay,' excited the 
 highest wonder in the passenger who gave it to you to send, when 
 he found it verified at the Capitol."
 
 284 ALFRED VAIL. 
 
 "WASHINGTON, May u, 1844. 
 
 " Every thing worked well yesterday, but there is one defect in 
 your writing. Make a longer space between each letter, and a still 
 longer space between each word. I shall have a great crowd to-day, 
 and wish all things to go off well. Many M. C.'s will be present; 
 perhaps Mr. Clay ; give me news by the cars. When the cars come 
 along try and get a newspaper from Philadelphia or New York, and 
 give items of intelligence. The arrival of the cars at the Junction 
 begins to excite here the greatest interest, and both morning and 
 evening I have had my room thronged." 
 
 In the sketch of Professor Morse we had the details of the great 
 demonstration at evening (following the ceremonies at Central Park), 
 when even China joined in the ovation, and now by way of contrast 
 we give the early prattle of the telegraph as it chatted between Wash- 
 ington and Baltimore in May, 1844. The following was copied from 
 a diary kept at the time by Mr. Vail. 
 
 In the correspondence V. standing for Vail, and M. for Morse. 
 
 " BALTIMORE, May 25, 1844. 
 
 "What hath God wrought? V. Yes, M. 
 " The city of Baltimore, V. Yes, M. 
 " Stop a few minutes, M. Yes, V. 
 
 " MAY 27th. 
 
 " I am ready, M. Yes, V. Have you any news, M. ? No, V. 
 Mr. Saxton's respects to you, M. My respects to him, V. 
 
 "What time have you? V. Nine o'clock twenty-seven minutes, 
 M. What is your time, M. ? Nine o'clock twenty-eight minutes, 
 V. What weather have you, M. ? Cloudy, V. Separate your words 
 more, V. Oil your clock-work, V. Buchanan stock said to be 
 rising, V. I have a great crowd at my window, M. Oh ! ah ! V. 
 A Van Buren cannon in front with a fox-tail upon it, V. I wait for 
 news, M. State Convention met at the Odeon, ten o'clock, A. M. 
 Dr. Humphries of Somerset, Chairman ; Thos. Perry, of Alleghany, 
 Secretary," etc. 
 
 At the suggestion of his relative, Dr. Wm. P. Vail, Alfred Vail, in 
 1850, communicated to him in writing some minor items of interest 
 which we now substantially reproduce : 
 
 "The telegraph was shown without charge until April ist, 1845. 
 Congress, during the session of 1844-45, niade an appropriation of 
 $8,000, to keep it in operation during the year, placing it under the 
 supervision of the Postmaster-General. He ordered a tariff of 
 charges of one cent for every four characters, appointing as operators 
 of the line, Mr. Vail for Washington, and H. J. Rogers for Baltimore. 
 "This commenced April ist, 1845, a d was to test the profitable-
 
 Vnil's Original Instrument Wa8h'n and Bait. Line.
 
 AN INQUISITIVE POLITICIAN. 285 
 
 ness of the enterprise. Mr. Polk had just been inaugurated, and the 
 city was filled with persons seeking office. A gentleman of Virginia 
 came to the office of the telegraph April ist, and desired to see its 
 operation without cost. The oath of office being fresh in the mind 
 of the operator, the gentleman was told of the rates of charges, 
 and in compliance with his wishes it was suggested that he might 
 ask Baltimore regarding the weather, etc. This he refused to 
 do, and coaxed, argued, and threatened. He said there could be no 
 harm in showing its operation, as that was all he wanted. He was 
 told of the oath just taken by the incumbent, and of the intention 
 to observe it faithfully. He stated he had no change. In reply he 
 was told, that if he would call upon the Postmaster-General, and ob- 
 tain his consent, the operation should be shown him gratis. He 
 stated that he knew the Postmaster-General, and had considerable 
 influence with some of the officers of Government, and that he, the 
 operator, had better show it to him at once, intimating that he might be 
 subjected to some peril by refusing. On being told that the operator 
 did not think that he was at liberty to use the property of the Gov- 
 ernment for individual benefit when under oath to exact pay, the 
 gentleman left the office in no pleasant mood. 
 
 "Such was the patronage received by the Washington office on the 
 ist, 2d, and 3d of April. On the 4th the same gentleman ' turned 
 up' again, and repeated some of his former arguments. He was 
 asked if he had seen the Postmaster-General, and obtained his con- 
 sent. He replied he had not. After considerable discussion, which 
 was rather amusing than vexatious, he said that he had nothing less 
 than a twenty-dollar bill, and one cent, all of which he pulled out 
 of his breeches' pocket. He was told that he could have a cent's 
 worth of telegraphing, if that would answer, to which he agreed. 
 After his many maneuvers, and his long agony, the gentleman was 
 finally gratified in the following manner : Washington asked Balti- 
 more, 4, which means, in the list of signals What time is it ? Bal- 
 timore replied, i, which meant one tf clock. The amount of the 
 operation was one character each way, making two in all, which, at 
 the rate of four for a cent, would amount to half a cent exactly. 
 He laid down his cent, but he was told that half a cent would suffice, 
 if he could produce the change. This he declined to do, and gave 
 the whole cent, after which, being satisfied, he left the office. 
 
 " Such was the income of the Washington office for the first four 
 days of April, 1845. On the 5th, twelve and a half cents were re- 
 ceived. The 6th was the Sabbath. On the yth, the receipts ran up 
 to sixty cents; on the 8th, to $1.32; on the 9th, to $1.04. It is 
 worthy of remark, said Mr. Vail, that more business was done by the 
 merchants after the tariff was laid than when the service was gratu- 
 itous. 
 
 " The above details may strike many as very trifling and undigni- 
 fied. So they are in themselves; but therein consists their charm,
 
 286 ALFRED VAIL. 
 
 and their relevancy. Deep in our nature there is a principle that 
 loves to contrast small beginnings with grand results. History is full 
 of this. Development is characteristic of the works of God, and of 
 man as well." 
 
 The sole idea, then, was to get appropriations from Congress, to ex- 
 tend the lines of telegraph ; but Morse and Vail were not successful 
 in their endeavors to get such an appropriation for completing a line 
 to New York from Baltimore, and consequently they felt dispirited 
 and discouraged. The Hon. Amos Kendall, who had been Postmas- 
 ter-General the latter part of Gen. Jackson's term as President, and 
 also under Mr. Van Buren, had been consulted with, and had thrown 
 out the suggestion that he would be glad /to talk over the idea of mak- 
 ing the telegraph profitable as a private enterprise, should Congress 
 fail to make an appropriation. The result was that in March, 1845, a 
 contract was made between Mr. Kendall and the original Morse pat- 
 entees Morse, Vail, and Gale. Morse had previously sold a fourth 
 interest' to Hon. F. O. J. Smith, of Portland, Me., who, as a member 
 of Congress, and chairman of the Committee on Commerce, had been 
 very active in procuring the first appropriation for the line to Balti- 
 more. By his contract Mr. Kendall became the agent of the three 
 original associates, who vested in him the power to manage and dis- 
 pose of their interest according to his discretion. He was to receive 
 10 per cent, on the first hundred thousand dollars and one-half of all 
 sales made over one hundred thousand dollars. 
 
 No man by previous training, native integrity and ability, and ac- 
 quired skill, could have been more admirably fitted for such a trust 
 than was Mr. Kendall. He was an attorney, of superior attainments, 
 with a large experience in the public office, which above all others could 
 give him the best possible facilities for becoming acquainted with the 
 wants of the public in the special direction in which he was now to 
 be occupied. In the language of his biographer, " independently of 
 the pecuniary advantages which he confidently believed would follow 
 its judicious management, the subject had a peculiar fascination for a 
 mind like Mr. Kendall's. It called into requisition his best execu- 
 tive ability, in the formation and administration of new telegraph 
 companies," during a period of fifteen years. We could wish that 
 Mr. Kendall's biographer had found place in his nearly seven hundred 
 pages for at least a brief outline of his doings in connection with the 
 telegraph ; but, excepting brief allusions in a few letters written to 
 his family at home by Mr. Kendall when out on journeys, there are 
 scarcely three pages in the volume pertaining to the subject.* 
 
 * His journal brings to light some interesting and striking contrasts to present 
 modes of travel. He was four days in going from Boston to New York, two from 
 there to Philadelphia, two more to Baltimore, and one from there to Washington. 
 From Washington to Pittsburg occupied nine days ; beyond that point there were no 
 public conveyances. He went down the Ohio in a flatboat to Maysville, from there 
 to Cincinnati in a skiff, and from thence on foot to Lexington. He left Boston on
 
 TELEGRAPH INTRODUCED INTO EUROPE. 287 
 
 Mr. Kendall was two years the senior of Prof. Morse, and was, like 
 Morse, a native of Massachusetts. He graduated at Dartmouth Col- 
 lege, and in 1816 emigrated to Lexington, Ky., and was soon engaged 
 in teaching in the family of the Hon. Henry Clay, and in prosecut- 
 ing his law studies. His trip required over a month of constant 
 travel. 
 
 In less than ninety days after he had control, Mr. Kendall was in 
 conference with Mr. Butterfield * and others in New York, who had 
 proposed to build a line from Buffalo to Springfield, there to connect 
 with the projected line from New York to Boston. A line was early 
 established between New York and Montreal ; another from Baltimore 
 to Harrisburg ; one from there to Reading ; another from Philadelphia 
 to Pottsville. Many lines were built by O'Reilly and others without 
 waiting for arrangements under Morse's patent. House used his in- 
 strument on a line from Cincinnati to Jeffersonville, Ind., opposite 
 Louisville, and sent his first printed dispatch over that line in the 
 autumn of 1847. ^ r - O'Reilly was especially active and energetic 
 in pushing his rival lines, and Mr. Kendall had his time and atten- 
 tion largely occupied in asserting in the courts the rights of the Morse 
 patentees. Ezra Cornell, since made so famous by his large benefac- 
 tions for educational purposes, laid the foundations of his large fortune 
 by persevering labors in establishing new lines of telegraph. 
 
 The early and wide-spread use of the Morse system in Europe is 
 attributable beyond question to the dashing energy of two young men, 
 whose, fathers were New York publishers until the catastrophes imme- 
 diately following the commercial crisis of 1837. In the year 1848, 
 two young New Yorkers, Chas. Robinson, aged 23, and Chas. -L. 
 ^Chapin, aged 19, having each had a few years' experience in the tele- 
 graph business, conceived the idea of introducing the American 
 (Morse) system of telegraph into Europe. Although aware that their 
 youth and the prejudices of foreign telegraphers would present serious 
 obstacles to their success, they boldly set out on the expedition, with 
 the best wishes of their friend, Prof. Morse, who, without personal 
 connection or pecuniary interest, felt a warm interest in the success of 
 the young men, and furnished them with introductions to many em- 
 bassadors at the courts of Europe. Reaching the city of Hamburg, 
 Germany, they at once gave public exhibitions of their system, and by 
 their American energy broke down all opposition, and proved the 
 Morse telegraph to be more simple and better than any then being 
 used. A company of merchants was organized, a line of wire erected 
 from the city to Cuxhaven, at the mouth of the river Elbe, and the 
 system put into successful operation. Scarcely had this been done, 
 
 the 2ist of February, and reached Lexington on the I2th of April, 1814; but spent 
 nineteen days at various points on his route. The space that he took over a month 
 to travel can now be spanned in forty hours or less railroad travel, and in " less 
 than no time " with words by his perfected lines of telegraph. 
 
 * So well known since in connection with express and " overland stage lines."
 
 288 ALFRED VAIL. 
 
 when the young gentlemen received an official invitation from the 
 Russian Government to visit the city of St. Petersburg. They exhib- 
 ited their system several times to the Emperor Nicholas, and during 
 their visit received marked testimonials of his appreciation of Amer- 
 ican enterprise and science. As guests of his Imperial Majesty, their 
 stay was made exceedingly pleasant. 
 
 Soon after their return to Hamburg, our young Americans received 
 notice of the appointment, by the King of Prussia, of a commission, 
 composed of scientific gentlemen, to examine at Berlin all the several 
 systems of telegraphy then in use, with an official invitation to 
 present before them the Morse system. A prize of 1,000 thalers and 
 a highly remunerative contract under the Government was offered for 
 competition. Again our young Americans, after passing through the 
 most difficult scientific tests, and despite their ignorance of foreign 
 languages, succeeded in proving the Morse system superior to all others 
 represented at the exhibition, and received most flattering comments 
 upon their success and the perfectedness of the telegraph they pre- 
 sented. Before the commission could render an official decision to 
 their sovereign, the civil revolution broke out, and for a time anar- 
 chy reigned. They remained long enough to witness some of the 
 horrors which occurred while the mob ruled that beautiful city, and 
 returned to Hamburg. 
 
 In the year 1850, finding that the disorder which ruled throughout 
 Europe would render their longer stay of little service, they returned 
 to their home, bringing with them gratifying testimonials and receiv- 
 ing from Prof. Morse warm thanks for the success which had attended 
 the first introduction of American telegraphy into Europe. 
 
 In the year 1852, while Superintendent of the New York and Erie 
 R. R. Telegraph, Mr. Chapin introduced the system of running trains 
 by telegraph. The road at that time was using one track, and so 
 thoroughly safe was his plan proven to be, that it was at once adopted 
 along the whole route, and is still in use upon that road, and very 
 many if not all the railroads in this country. 
 
 In the year 1854, Mr. Chapin was enabled to carry into operation 
 the excellent system of telegraphy used by the police department of 
 the city of New York. (In 1859 he introduced and perfected in that 
 same city the system of Fire Alarm Telegraph, which is acknowl- 
 edged to be the most perfect in use in the world.) 
 
 Professor Morse was appointed United States Commissioner to the 
 Universal Exposition at Paris in 1867; and as a result there was sent 
 out from the Government printing office at Washington a report, 
 made by him, covering over 150 octavo pages, nearly all of which is 
 taken up with statements concerning the Telegraphic Apparatus and 
 Processes 'in Telegraphing used in Europe. \Vhat is known as his 
 system is used there almost exclusively, therefore nearly the whole of 
 the pamphlet is taken up with discussions respecting the Morse- 
 Vail instrument, and the forms of it exhibited at 'the Exposition.
 
 HIS OLDEST INSTRUMENT. 289 
 
 We quote from page 13 the first paragraph, published under the 
 heading, The Morse System Introduced in Europe : 
 
 " In the spring of 1838 this telegraph was introduced to the Eu- 
 ropean world through the French Academy of Sciences, uncler the 
 auspices of the distinguished Arago, and in the autumn of that year it 
 was breveted in France." 
 
 Evidently the time above named is six months too early, as Professor 
 Morse's letters to his brother and Mr. Vail, which we have given, 
 show. 
 
 Before leaving for Washington to exhibit the telegraph in 1838, 
 Vail perfected two instruments for transmitting and receiving mes- 
 sages, which were used by Professor Morse and Mr. Vail for several 
 years. The one used by Morse, after undergoing several alterations 
 finally disappeared, and is now lost. That of Mr. Vail was carefully 
 preserved by him. It was loaned by Mrs. Vail for use at the last 
 ovation to Professor Morse in New York, and is still in the possession 
 of the family at Morristown. With the exception of size and clumsi- 
 ness, the instrument is almost exactly similar to those in present use, 
 and can compare in effectiveness of working with the latest made. 
 It was recently attached to the wires at Morristown, after having 
 had an interval of rest of over twenty-five years, and it did its work 
 as well as any. Its size is sixteen inches in length, seven inches in 
 height, six inches wide ; it has two magnets of three inches diameter. 
 Its weight is twenty pounds. A capital photograph of the instrument 
 was taken and is in possession of Mr. Lundy, editor ofthe/ffpttMifOH, 
 at Morristown. The publishers of this volume furnish a fine engrav- 
 ing of this instrument on the page with Mr. Vail's portrait. The 
 machine was left by Mr. Vail, carefully put away in a cabinet. In 
 removing it, several years since, his family found attached to it a cer- 
 tificate, written upon soft printing paper with a lead pencil ; this was 
 folded up and fastened to the. instrument. The original was preserved, 
 and the publishers of the present work are happy in presenting to the 
 public for the first time an exact fac-simile of this exceedingly inter- 
 esting and important document, so far as retained. 
 
 Respecting the European instruments, referred to in the pamphlet, 
 under the head named above, we extract the following : 
 
 "Adopted in countries renowned for consummate skill in the 
 manufacture of philosophical instruments and delicate instruments of 
 precision, it is natural to expect that the telegraphic instruments con- 
 structed by the accomplished mechanicians of Europe, while preserv- 
 ing the essential principles of the original telegraph, would take many 
 forms and display a great variety of mechanical adaptations to produce 
 the result most effectively. 
 
 "It ought to be here mentioned, however, to the credit of the 
 
 19
 
 290 ALFRED VAIL. 
 
 mechanicians of the United States, to whom was intrusted the manu- 
 facture of the first Morse telegraphic instruments in use on the 
 American lines, that most of the instruments, not only in form, but 
 in poiat of efficiency, compactness, and finish of workmanship, in ac- 
 curacy of mechanical adaptation and durability, were not inferior to 
 most of those now manufactured and used in Europe. Many of the 
 modifications in form, and the varied distribution of parts of the 
 mechanism in the American instruments, take precedence in time 
 of the European instruments. But the beauty and accuracy of 
 mechanical finish in the great majority of the instruments, it is con- 
 ceded, are for the most part in favor of the European mechanicians. 
 Especially is this the case in the ingenious instruments used for im- 
 printing the common or Roman letter, first attempted by Vail as early 
 as 1837 ; afterwards effectively accomplished by House, but subse- 
 quently the instruments for which were so admirably perfected by 
 Hughes." 
 
 " Mr. Vail proposed and draughted his plan of a printing instru- 
 ment, a description of which he has given in full, with diagrams, in 
 his work entitled the American Electro-magnetic Telegraph, published 
 in 1845. The complicated machinery necessary to produce the re- 
 sult, which seemed more curious than useful, and its slowness of 
 operation, compared with the Morse-(Vail) instrument, were obstacles 
 to its practical application. It was never practically tested." 
 
 " There is a peculiarity inherent in the nature of the original Morse- 
 (Vail) code, which adapts it for recognition by each of four at least of 
 the senses. It addresses not merely the sight by its written character, 
 but the hearing, the taste, and the touch. It allows, therefore, of 
 course, recognition by sound. This quality of the Morse-(Vail) code, 
 of being recognized by more than one of the senses, does not belong 
 to ordinary alphabetic characters, and arises from its novel construc- 
 tion. The principle of the code is this : it is formed from broken 
 or unequal parts of a continuous line. It is composed of shorter and 
 longer lines, or, as they are usually styled, dots and dashes, the 
 shorter line being a dot, and the longer a dash. Each letter there- 
 fore is a line, or group of lines of different lengths, each group being 
 a combination of these elementary parts, differing from all the other 
 groups. For example, A is represented by a short and a long line, 
 
 thus, ; B, by a long line and three short ones, thus, ; N, 
 
 by a long line and a short one, thus, , and so on. These differ- 
 ences are at once recognized by the eye when written, but in the 
 process of writing them by the Morse-(Vail) apparatus each group or 
 letter is also indicated to the ear by its sound. The rationale of this 
 peculiarity is this : in writing or printing either the dot or the dash 
 in these groups the pen lever produces two sounds, as well in making 
 a dot as in making a dash. One of the two sounds is caused by the 
 stroke of the pen-lever against the stop, which limits its motion in one 
 direction, and the other of the two sounds is caused by the stroke
 
 CERTIFIES TO HIS INVENTION. 291 
 
 against the stop, which limits its motion in the other direction. 
 These sounds are the natural and ordinary accompaniment of the pro- 
 cess of writing or printing the letters. 
 
 " It might seem, at first blush, that, as each dot and each d^sh has 
 equally two sounds, the one would be confounded with the other ; 
 but the difference by which a dot and a dash is distinguished the one 
 from the other is, not by the number of the sounds, but by the differ- 
 ence of the interval, in the respective cases, between the first and 
 second sound. In the one case, that of the dot, the two sounds which 
 indicate it are separated by a short interval of time ; in the other case, 
 that of a dash, the two sounds have a longer interval between them. 
 This difference of interval very soon becomes familiar to the ear, and 
 enables the operator to hear as well as to see the transmitted dis- 
 patch. This acoustic effect is, in fact, the half-way result of a process 
 arrested before its entire completion ; completed, indeed, to the ear, 
 but not, as yet, to the eye. Or the whole process may perhaps be 
 better described as producing two results, either of which suffices, and 
 therefore either may be dispensed with at pleasure, or both used to- 
 gether. This choice of results is exemplified in the various instru- 
 ments using the Morse-(Vail) code. This sounder, for example, dis- 
 penses with the writing apparatus, and thus becomes a semaphore ; on 
 the other hand, the various inking instruments dispense with the 
 sound, and are wholly dependent upon the written record, while the 
 embossing instruments using the dry point have the double advantage 
 of both results : they have the aid of the ear as well as of the eye. 
 The inking process, therefore, it will be perceived, while gaining an 
 advantage in one direction, loses an advantage in another." 
 
 Here we insert the text of the original fac-simile certificate as it 
 was found, excepting the erasures made by Mr. Vail, and the word 
 combination given in italics, which was undoubtedly the word used, 
 but it was torn off when first discovered by Mr. Vail's family : 
 
 " This lever and roller were invented by me in the 6th story of 
 the New York Observer office, in 1844, before we put up the telegraph 
 line between Washington and Baltimore, and this combination has been 
 always used in Morse's instrument. I am the sole and only inventor 
 of this mode of telegraph embossed writing. Professor Morse gave 
 me no clue to it, or did any one else, and I have not asserted publicly 
 my right as first and sole inventor, because I wished to preserve the 
 peaceful unity of the invention, and, because, I could not, according 
 to my contract with Professor Morse, have got a patent for it.* 
 
 (Signed) "ALFRED VAIL." 
 
 * It is evident that Mr. Vail ended his first writing of this certificate with the 
 words " first and sole inventor," and then signed his name. Afterwards he con- 
 cluded to give his reasons, as is very plainly to be seen from the curve downwards 
 of the words because I wished, etc, occurring under his first signature. See second 
 page forward.
 
 292 ALFRED VAIL, 
 
 The commendable enterprise of the young Americans, Robinson and 
 Chapin, in going to Europe, in 1848, to introduce the American 
 system, although not productive of large pecuniary returns to them, 
 had much to do with popularizing the system there, and bringing to 
 Professor Morse the jewels, money, and fame which he gathered in 
 rich profusion (and reluctantly shared as to money with his asso- 
 ciates, owners of the patent) during the ten to fifteen years following. 
 He was compelled by another associate to share with him in the free- 
 will offerings made by European governments ; and of the amount 
 some five thousand dollars were paid to Mr. Vail; but of the other 
 valuable presents sent, no token came to his hands ; of the rich and 
 costly jewels which on occasions bedecked the person of the one who 
 was the recipient of all the honors, no gem reached the finger or 
 person of any member of Mr. Vail's family ; but had Mr. Vail have 
 lived in contact with his associate for a century no hint of this failure 
 would have escaped him. Can any one, however, give a good reason 
 why he should not at least have received the share required by the 
 terms of the original contract ? Mr. Vail's youth and modesty at first 
 had kept him from asserting his just right to attach his name to the 
 machine, made to express his alphabet, as he should have done at the 
 moment of producing the marvelous instrument. As time rolled on 
 the difficulty of compassing the point between the two parties in 
 interest increased in compound proportion. Honors were heaping 
 upon Professor Morse, while Mr. Vail's name, but little mentioned at 
 the commencement, was finally lost to public view. The last para- 
 graph in the fac-simile certificate (see opposite page) manifests such a 
 spirit as can not aid in making due assertion of one's rights in this self- 
 asserting age. 
 
 "If it be asked what telegraphic system is specifically announced 
 as most developed and extended throughout the world, the answer 
 would seem to be definitely and summarily given in the proceedings 
 of the International Telegraphic Convention, held in Paris in March, 
 1865, composed of the representatives of twenty of the principal 
 nations of Europe, assembled for the special purpose of examining the 
 various projects, in order to adopt a uniform system, and to regulate 
 international telegraphy for their common benefit. They thus decree 
 in their third article : ' L'appareil Morse reste provisoirement adopte 
 pour le service des fils internationaux.' Concise as is this announce- 
 ment, as the result of their deliberations, it proclaims that the Morse- 
 (Vail) system an American system is preferred for special interna- 
 tional service throughout Europe. 
 
 " Russia, Norway and Sweden, Denmark, Hamburg, Hanover, 
 Prussia, Holland, Belgium, France, Wurtemberg, Bavaria, Saxony, 
 Austria, Spain, Portugal, Baden, Switzerland, Italy, Greece, and the 
 Ottoman Empire, by their respective embassadors, took part in this 
 convention, and these, it will be seen, comprise all the nations of 
 continental Europe.
 
 RETURNS TO HIS NATIVE PLACE. 295 
 
 " Great Britain was the only nation in Europe not represented in 
 that convention ; but even in Great Britain the Morse- (Vail) system is 
 the one almost exclusively used in all her colonial possessions, in India, 
 Australia, and Canada, and to an increasing extent also in the United 
 Kingdom, especially in connection with the continental telegraph 
 lines." 
 
 Several references have been made in extracts already given in this 
 sketch to the volume on the telegraph which Mr. Vail published 
 during 1845, tne y ear ^ n which the arrangement with Mr. Kendall 
 was consummated. For several years following, Mr. Vail continued 
 to reside in Washington, where his time and energies were consumed 
 in experiments and improvements for perfecting the details which 
 were from time to time embodied in building and working lines of 
 telegraph, as they were constantly being put in operation North, 
 South, and West. He became an expert electrician, and devoted him- 
 self zealously to the interests then in hand. A warm and earnest 
 friendship seems to have sprung up between Mr. Kendall and himself, 
 and for four years, until 1849, tne 7 were, by their mutual interests, 
 and as residents at the Capitol, in frequent intercourse. 
 
 Mr. Vail's thorough scientific and mechanical knowledge of all that 
 pertained to the telegraph, and his deep interest in its success, made 
 him a valuable counselor in the new projects which frequently came 
 up for consideration during those early years in which Mr. Kendall 
 was effectively urging forward the schemes for erecting new lines, 
 then being set on foot in all directions. 
 
 In 1849 Mr. Vail purchased a residence in Morristown, and returning 
 to his native place with his family, he spent his remaining years in 
 scientific and literary pursuits. He left at least one work nearly ready 
 for the press, on which he had spent years of labor. His correspond- 
 ence was very voluminous, as evidenced by the immense accumula- 
 tions which remain with his Manuscripts and Library. He was 
 methodical, careful, and exact in all his affairs, and of spotless integ- 
 rity. While not pushing and aggressive in his business, as men of 
 less modesty are apt to be, Mr. Vail was not lacking in thrift or finan- 
 cial talent. As early as 1847 Professor Morse plied him most 
 persuasively and urgently to sell to him his interest in the telegraph 
 for $15,000. Said he, "Think calmly of what such a sum as fifteen 
 thousand dollars is; I will," etc.; but Vail as steadily refused. He 
 not only foresaw its success, but he felt all the interest that belongs 
 naturally to one when contemplating the future of his offspring. 
 
 We may here fitly contemplate for a moment what transpired during 
 the autumn of 1837, at Speedwell, when the two gentlemen, Morse 
 and Vail, were each in processes of labor, to present in due time, the 
 products of their genius. The pupil of West and Allston, and Presi- 
 dent of the " National Academy of Design," accomplished successfully 
 his labor, and the product is not known or recognized as his, beyond
 
 296 ALFRED VAIL. 
 
 the village where it was "brought forth. While the conception and 
 product of the skillfully scientific mechanician, who had, it is true, 
 received his University degree, but whose skill in mechanics was 
 largely the product of nature, by degrees slowly, but surely, perfected 
 in a machine-shop, has been known as his, only by his own family 
 and a few others. The work which the artist did is wholly unknown, 
 while the work of the scientific mechanician which the artist did not 
 do neither conceived or executed has for over a third of a century 
 borne the name of the artist, and made him a fame not surpassed in 
 the annals of invention ; while we here announce to the world the 
 true work done by the artist, and the true claimant, for at least a 
 share of the honors so long unduly appropriated. The original 
 Vail instrument has a tenacity of life quite beyond that which 
 usually appertains to similar creations of human skill ; it is yet unrivaled. 
 In the words of the distinguished associate and friend of both, the 
 Hon. Amos Kendall, "If justice be done, the name of Alfred Vail 
 will forever stand associated with that of Samuel F. B. Morse in the 
 history of the invention and introduction into public use of the 
 Electro-magnetic Telegraph." Such were the terms used by Mr. 
 Kendall at a meeting of the directors of the Magnetic Telegraph 
 Company, held at Philadelphia on the i6th of February, 1859. Mr. 
 Vail had been a leading director of the company, and had then re- 
 cently deceased. Resolutions of grief were offered, and Mr. Kendall 
 in seconding and warmly supporting the resolutions, made use of the 
 language we have already quoted, and said further, that " Mr. Vail 
 was one of the most honest and scrupulously conscientious men with 
 whom it has ever been my fortune to meet." He likewise said that 
 " Professor Morse had always frankly acknowledged his indebtedness 
 to Mr. Vail;" but it is altogether improbable that even Mr. Kendall 
 at that time, or during the following ten years which he survived, 
 was apprised of the extent to which Professor Morse was indebted to 
 Mr. Vail for his fame as an inventor. 
 
 After Mr. Vail's decease his rights were less recognized than ever be- 
 fore. So far as Professor Morse's conduct could affect it, slowly but surely 
 the star of his fame receded in the dim night of time. At length 
 when the evening of Professor Morse's long life had come, the even- 
 ing of that bright day when his fame had crystallized itself, so to 
 speak, into a rock-based statue, conspicuously located, where the 
 sun might ever continue to shed his glorious rays upon the stalwart 
 bronze on that evening, in New York, when the telegraphists half 
 way round the world were chanting the praises of Professor Morse 
 with their fingers on the instrument, which Vail invented, and made 
 to talk on a lightning-line-of-light, over mountains, hills, and valleys, 
 and possibly through deep seas, from China to America on that 
 evening, when in the full-orbed splendor of his fame at that hour, 
 when many of those who were doing Professor Morse honor were 
 basking in the rays of the orb of day, then rising to the zenith of
 
 HIS REPUTATION, AND PROF. MORSE. 297 
 
 their heavens what was it that Professor Morse had to say of his 
 old associate? "Alfred Vail, of Morristown, New Jersey, with his 
 father and brother, came to the help of the unclothed infant, and with 
 their funds, and mechanical skill, put it into a condition creditably to 
 appear before the Congress of the nation. To these New Jersey 
 friends is due the first important aid in the progress of the invention."* 
 
 These are the quiet, subdued terms in which Professor Morse was 
 content to hand his co-inventor and early friends down to posterity. 
 He makes no allusion to Alfred Vail which would lead any one to 
 suspect that he was any thing more than a skillful mechanic ; that 
 Vail had ever done any thing beyond putting into form the concep- 
 tions of Morse's brain. To say the least, it was an unhappy holding 
 off from a magnanimous and generous course. Each reader will have 
 his own opinion of its justice ; we suggest that it may not be improper 
 to consider, in connection with this, the buzz of admiration raised 
 in the French Academy of Sciences in the memorable month of Sep- 
 tember, 1838, as stated in the letter from Professor Morse of October 
 iith, 1838, written to Mr. Vail from Paris, and also the hint thrown 
 out in the first letter of Morse, printed in this sketch. 
 
 Professor Morse did not survive that ovation many months, but he 
 lived long enough to see and feel most keenly that he had not been 
 generous; that he had made a great mistake, and had been led into 
 injustice, for which he should in some way make reparation. The 
 facts we have given had, in some quarters, found expression, in a 
 semi-private way they had come to the sight and hearing of Professor 
 Morse ; so that at last he sent for a near friend of Mr. Vail, who 
 "found him in bed, 'sick from anxiety,' as he said, 'occasioned by 
 these attacks.' In a conversation of two hours he several times said: 
 * The one thing I want to do now is justice to Mr. Vail.' ' The wit- 
 ness goes on to say, "Just four weeks from that day he passed from 
 earth, and I have never heard that he left one word for it ; indeed I 
 did not expect that he would." Here we leave Professor Morse and 
 his relations to Alfred Vail. Our only purpose has been simply to 
 bring the facts concerning this wonderful invention to the light of 
 day. 
 
 Alfred Vail was born at Speedwell, Morris County, New Jersey, 
 September 25th, 1807. He deceased on the i8th of January, 1859, 
 in his fifty-second year, at his residence in South street, Morristown, 
 within two miles of the spot where he first saw the light. There, in 
 
 * These, and the remarks made at the Delmonico banquet, inserted in the first 
 paragraph on the eleventh page of the sketch of Morse, are of similar import. There, 
 however, no reference is made to mechanical skill ; the credit then given was 
 simply for pecuniary aid " furnishing the means to give the child 'a feeble child, 
 of stammering speech ' a decent dress." It was natural that its parent should 
 always speak of it as a child ; for it died in infancy, and was buried at Speedwell. 
 It never breathed after Vail's plump boy struck the bantling.
 
 298 ALFRED VAIL. 
 
 retirement, he had interested himself for ten years in such studies and 
 literary pursuits as were congenial to his tastes, and in manifesting, in 
 his quiet way, great purity of life and earnestness of Christian character. 
 He was kind, genial, generous, a devoted husband, a warm friend. 
 He was twice married in 1839 to Miss Jane Cumings, of New York 
 city; in 1855 to Miss Amanda Eno, of Connecticut. He left three 
 sons, Stephen, Cumings, and George. 
 
 In person Mr. Vail was about medium height and of slight frame. 
 His complexion was fair ; his eyes large, lustrous, and usually soft, 
 but often fired with deep earnestness. There was nothing of the 
 visionary in him. He had a calm, steady realization of what effects 
 his invention would produce, and a firm faith in its universal applica- 
 tion within its sphere of labor. What man, in so compact a form, 
 ever worked out grander and more admirable results toward the 
 hastening of the day when " many shall run to and fro, and knowledge 
 shall be increased ' ' and registered ! An incident will serve to show 
 the wonderful perfection of the instrument and the keenness of percep- 
 tion attained by skillful telegraphists. A former expert operator at 
 Hartford, Connecticut, recently escaped from the Middletown Insane 
 Asylum, where he had been confined, and successfully eluded pursuit 
 for a fortnight. A Mr. Hempstead, who had known the insane man, 
 Sherman, intimately as a fellow-operator ; while at work in the office, 
 at Hartford, at night, suddenly recognized among the clatter of a score 
 of messages passing over the wire, a sound which he at once declared 
 was the touch of the missing Sherman. It proved to be a message from 
 Wallingford, and an investigation showed that Mr. Hempstead was 
 right in ascribing it to the insane man, who was found there, having 
 dropped into the office in the former place, as was believed, and taken 
 a hand at his old business.
 
 PART II. 
 
 DELVERS 
 
 SCIENCE AND LITERATURE.
 
 CUVIER. 
 
 GEORGE CUVIER, the most eminent Naturalist in modern times, 
 was born August 23, 1 769. The place of his nativity was the little 
 town of Montbelaird, in Switzerland, formerly the capitol of the district 
 so-called, and which, up to 1796, formed part of the German do- 
 main of the Duke of Wurtemburg. His father was a distinguished 
 officer in a Swiss corps in the pay of France, and who, after forty- 
 years' service, retired to his native town with a small pension and a 
 military title of honor. He there espoused a young lady of good 
 family, to whose admirable management and superintendence the 
 future eminence of George Cuvier (who was the second son) is 
 mainly to be attributed. He was of an extremely delicate constitu- 
 tion, and, with a view of strengthening his body and enlightening his 
 mind, she directed his attention to the beauties of outward nature. 
 
 To the latest day of his life, Cuvier cherished with the most lively 
 fondness, every reminiscence of this excellent woman; and, in his later 
 years, when immersed in the toils of legislation and science, ex- 
 pressed the warmest gratitude to any one who brought him a bouquet 
 of flowers, which his mother had more especially loved. Under her 
 instructions alone, Cuvier was taught to read with facility when only 
 four years of age. She also instructed him in sketching, while 
 she fostered in every way the desire for solid information which he 
 so early manifested, by procuring a supply of historical and scientific 
 works calculated to expand his youthful mind. When .of age to 
 learn Latin, she not only attended him to and from school personally, 
 but even undertook the superintendence of his daily lessons, and had 
 the satisfaction of finding that he maintained a superiority over all 
 his school-fellows. When ten years old, Cuvier was removed to a 
 higher school called the Gymnase, where his progress attracted par- 
 ticular attention. He was singularly diligent and thoughtful, with an 
 uncommon memory. But the author who attracted all his regard in 
 his leisure moments was Button, the whole of whose plates, even at 
 this early age, he faithfully copied and colored ; manifesting at the 
 
 (301)
 
 3 02 CUVIER. 
 
 same time the most extraordinary aptitude for mastering the driest 
 details of nomenclature. His acquisition of the dead languages, 
 Mathematics, and Geography was not less remarkable, and he pur- 
 sued all these studies with an ardor that seemed incompatible with 
 the indulgence of childish sports. 
 
 Cuvier was intended for the church, and, from the poverty of his 
 parents, was a candidate for admission to the free school of Tubingen. 
 In this competition, he composed and delivered a poetical oration on 
 the prosperity of the principality, which he is said to have recited with 
 astonishing effect ; but, from the base treachery of his master in the 
 Gymnase, he lost the just reward of his able composition. His 
 merits, however, had now become so conspicuous as to attract the 
 notice of Duke Charles, Uncle of the King of Wurtemburg, who, 
 upon an interview with him, became so much interested in his wel- 
 fare, that he sent him, upon his own charges, to the Academic Caro- 
 line, at Stuttgart a seminary founded by the Duke himself, and in 
 which he took the deepest interest. 
 
 This was in 1784, when Cuvier entered his fifteenth year. His 
 varied talents, or rather his unbounded capacity, had now the means 
 of expanding itself upon the wide range of studies now open to him. 
 The pupils of this institution were instructed in almost every branch 
 of knowledge, but more particularly those connected with civil polity ; 
 and many of them became in after-years the ministers not only of 
 the various courts of Germany, but even of Russia, and other Euro- 
 pean states. Cuvier was inferior to none in the ready acquisition of 
 every subject of study ; but amidst all his occupations, that of Natu- 
 ral History was pursued with an ardor that increased in proportion 
 to the means of self-instruction which he possessed. He read Lin- 
 naeus, Reinhart, and all the best authors ; inspected all the Museums 
 within his reach ; collected specimens, and drew and colored Insects, 
 Birds, and Plants, in his hours of recreation. Even then he began to 
 perceive the great advantages which the study of Entomology (anat- 
 omy of insects) would lend to his future investigations, while its 
 prosecution led to the acquisition of habits of minute observation. 
 
 Cuvier had only been four years at Stuttgart, (during which time, 
 however, he had won many marks of distinction; amongst others, 
 the order of Chevalerie, which was only granted to five or six of the 
 pupils out of four hundred), when the disturbed condition of France 
 and Germany, occasioning the departure of his patron and the dis- 
 continuance of his father's pension, obliged him to leave that Semi- 
 nary ; and he took what appeared to his companions to be the most 
 desperate resolution, of becoming tutor in a private family, that of 
 Count d' Hericy, a Protestant nobleman, with whom he removed to 
 Caen, in Normandy, in July, 1788. 
 
 Change of residence, society, and circumstances, however, could 
 not for a moment check the persevering assiduity of Cuvier, and the 
 transition from an inland to a maritime situation, only contributed
 
 TESSIERS OPINION OF HIM. 
 
 303 
 
 to direct his active mind into new channels of study and investiga- 
 tion. Here he began to study the anatomy of Fishes; compare fossil 
 with recent species, and, from their dissection, was conducted to the 
 development of his great views on the whole of the Animal Kingdom, 
 by which he subsequently read the physical history of creation, through 
 all its various phases, as in a book. Whilst engaged in making records 
 of observations simply for his own guidance and use, he was unwit- 
 tingly rectifying the mistakes and over-sights of all preceding and 
 contemporary Naturalists. 
 
 Nearly six years passed over Cuvier's head thus usefully and tran- 
 quilly employed, while France was undergoing the dreadful ordeal of 
 the revolution. But its impulse at last reached his retreat. A society 
 or union, like those organized by the populace throughout every other 
 part of the Empire, and which armed the inhabitants against them- 
 selves, was about to be established at the neighboring town of Fe- 
 camp, when Cuvier, perceiving the impending danger, induced his 
 employer and the neighboring land-holders to anticipate its forma- 
 tion by constituting the Society themselves. Of this body, Cuvier 
 was appointed Secretary, and the members, instead of discussing san- 
 guinary affairs at their meetings, devoted their attention solely to the 
 consideration of Agriculture. At one of these, a speech was deliv- 
 ered by a venerable-looking individual, who resided in the neighbor- 
 hood under the character of a surgeon. Cuvier, however, although 
 he had never seen him before, quickly recognized in the speaker the 
 author of certain valuable articles on Agriculture in the Encyclopedic 
 Methodique, and, approaching him after the sitting was finished, he 
 addressed him as the Abbe Tessier. The old man was at first much 
 alarmed, for he had fled from Paris, and concealed himself under his 
 present disguise, to avoid the common doom of all who then bore 
 the hated name of Abbe; but Cuvier soon quieted his fears, arid 
 they became thenceforward the most intimate friends. 
 
 Tessier perceived at once the extraordinary talents and acquire- 
 ments of his new acquaintance. "At the sight of this young man," 
 he wrote to his friend Jussieu, "I felt the same delight as the phi- 
 losopher who, when cast upon an unknown shore, there saw traces of 
 geometrical figures. M. Cuvier is a violet which was concealed among 
 common herbs. He has great acquirements ; he draws plates for 
 your work, and I have urged him to give Botanical lectures this 
 summer. He has consented to do so, and I congratulate the students 
 on the fact, for he demonstrates with great method and clearness. 
 I doubt if there could be found a better Comparative Anatomist; he 
 is indeed a pearl worth picking up. I contributed to draw M. De- 
 lambre from his retreat : do you now help me to draw M. Cuvier 
 from his, for he is made for science and the world." The result of 
 these warm recommendations was the transmission of some of Cuvier's 
 papers to Paris, where their great value was properly appreciated; and 
 in a few months afterwards he was appointed colleague of M. Mert-
 
 304 C U V I E R . 
 
 reid in the newly created chair of Comparative Anatomy at Paris, 
 whither he removed, being then only twenty-six years of age. 
 
 Cuvier's first thoughts, on finding himself placed in a respectable 
 and permanent situation, were for his distressed relatives. His mother 
 was then dead, but he invited his father and brother to come and live 
 with him ; and after seeing them comfortably settled, he applied 
 himself to his favorite studies with a zeal that nothing could repress. 
 He was every-where heard with delight and conviction, for he had 
 already, before coming to Paris, adopted those extensive views, and 
 arrived at those profound and sagacious conclusions, which guided his 
 investigations into physical nature, and shook to their base all the 
 then existing systems of Linnaeus and other Naturalists. Besides his 
 public lectures and private pursuits, he published, during the first year 
 of his residence at Paris, more than half a dozen treatises on various 
 subjects of Natural history, in which the most expanded views were 
 combined with evidence of the minutest accuracy arid arrangement. 
 He especially impressed on his pupils the importance of Entomolog- 
 ical study. A young medical student came to him upon a certain 
 occasion, full of a discovery he supposed himself to have made in 
 dissecting a human body. Cuvier immediately asked him if he was 
 an Entomologist, to which the other replied in the negative. "Go 
 then and anatomize an insect," said Cuvier, 1 "and then consider the 
 discovery you have made." The young man did so, and returned 
 to Cuvier to confess his error. "Now," said Cuvier, "you see the 
 value of my touch-stone." His discovery of the red blood of the 
 leech, and the other animals which he grouped in the class Annetides, 
 was made in 1796; and he read his celebrated memoir on the Nu- 
 trition of Insects, in which he showed the manner in which respira- 
 tion was carried on by tracheae, and how the nutritious fluid diffused 
 itself over the whole internal surface of the body, so as to be every- 
 where absorbed. 
 
 Cuvier's removal to Paris was fortunately the period when the Arts 
 and Sciences and social order were beginning to be re-established 
 after the convulsions of the Revolution. The National Institute, one 
 of the noblest of the societies of Europe, was founded in 1796: Cu- 
 vier was one of its original members, and for more than thirty years 
 maintained the most distinguished rank amongst them. His appoint- 
 ment in the Jardin des Plantes had now fixed him in the midst of 
 those objects to which his life would have been devoted by inclina- 
 tion; and from the day of his appointment to the day of his death, 
 his labors were devoted to forming and completing the collections of 
 which it can now boast, and which, in every respect, may almost be 
 pronounced unrivaled. The intensity of his devotion to this occupa- 
 tion was strongly manifested upon a remarkable occasion in the year 
 1798. Bonaparte was then preparing for his expedition to Egypt, 
 and deputed M. Berthollet to select some scientific men to accom- 
 pany the armament. Berthollet particularly recommended Cuvier,
 
 HIS MEMOIR ON FOSSIL BONES. 305 
 
 Jeho, accordingly received a notification of his appointment ; but, un- 
 dazzled by the flattering nature of the proposal, and the prospects it 
 held out of advancing his private interests, by bringing him into 
 frequent and personal communication with Napoleon, he had the 
 firmness to decline the honor, saying that he was conscious that he 
 could much more advance the science of Natural History by the 
 steady prosecution of it at the Jardin des Plantes than by any casual 
 study of it elsewhere. And well did he prove the sincerity of his 
 motives. Soon afterwards he published his Tableau Elementaire, 
 consisting of' 710 octavo pages, which was only a precursor to his 
 great work, Regne Animal, or the Animal Kingdom, in which he 
 adopted Daubenton's two grand divisions of vertibrate and inverti- 
 brate animals ; dividing each into four great classes, and subdividing 
 them into orders, genera, and species. 
 
 Cuvier also produced at the same time his first " Memoir on Fos- 
 sil Bones," being an essay on the fossil bones of the larger quad- 
 rupeds, particularly those of the Elephant, the Mastodon, the Hip- 
 popotamus, the Rhinoceros, etc. A view of the specimens he collected, 
 first opened to the gaze of foreigners after the peace of 1814, could 
 alone enable any one to form a proper estimate of the labors of 
 Cuvier. These collections, when inspected, broke up the slumber 
 of many old institutions, caused renewed investigation into neglected 
 specimens of other countries, and spread an active love for the pur- 
 suit of Natural History through all ranks of the people. And be it 
 observed, that, when Cuvier first began this anatomical collection, 
 his materials consisted of a few skeletons tied together like so many 
 fagots, and put away in the lumber-room of the College. 
 
 Circumstances by degrees contributed to the success of Cuvier's 
 labors. Wherever French Armies marched, it was their pride to 
 collect whatever might enrich the increasing collections at Paris; 
 and under the directions of Cuvier, the numerous contributions thus 
 received were arranged according to the system which his eloquent 
 lectures explained. By labors which knew little intermission, and 
 with the help of these daily increasing stores, he was enabled to lay 
 the foundations of Comparative Anatomy, to make the discovery of 
 ancient Zoology, and to introduce a reform throughout the whole 
 series of the Animal Kingdom. The death of M. Daubenton, in 
 1799, opened the way for the succession of Cuvier as professor at 
 the College of France; and thus he discharged the double duty of 
 teaching Natural Philosophy at the latter institution, and lecturing on 
 Comparative Anatomy at the Jardin des Plantes. It is painful to 
 state that his pecuniary remuneration for this great labor was neither 
 commensurate in amount nor regular in its payment. 
 
 In 1800, Cuvier commenced his celebrated "Lectures on Com- 
 parative Anatomy," which were completed in five years. They were 
 delivered from notes, and with a persuasive eloquence perfectly un- 
 rivaled. His skill in delineating forms was so great, and the rapidity 
 20
 
 306 CUVIER. 
 
 and exactness with which he produced them so extraordinary, that 
 it seemed to his pupils as if he rather created living objects than 
 inanimate representations. He did not consider the whole organic 
 structure of each animal separately, but examined an individual 
 organ through the whole series of animals in succession. It was by 
 this method that he was ultimately led to the revealment of an order 
 of facts illustrative of the theory of the Earth. It was by a com- 
 bination of Mineralogical observations and the sciences relating to 
 organic structures, that the successive eras of the earth were made 
 apparent. As it would, however, only incumber the present sketch 
 to notice the extent of his geological discoveries, we shall leave 
 these. 
 
 To his researches into Fossil remains, Cuvier ever attached the 
 utmost importance. His writings on these and other subjects are 
 indeed so numerous, that it is impossible for us even to attempt a 
 list of them. His labors increased with his years in magnitude and 
 diversity, but only to show the extent of his capacity. After Bona- 
 parte's return from Egypt, and being declared First Consul, Cuvier 
 was elected Secretary to the class of Physical and Mathematical 
 Sciences of which Bonaparte was President. The latter soon per- 
 ceived the value and variety of Cuvier' s talents, and selected him as 
 one of the six general inspectors appointed in 1802, for the purpose 
 of establishing a lyceum school in each of thirty cities of France. 
 While absent on this duty, Napolean made the secretaryship of the 
 class of Physical and Mathematical Sciences perpetual, with a salary 
 of 6000 francs. 
 
 In 1803 Cuvier married Madame Duvancel, the widow of a fermier- 
 general who was guillotined in 1794. She brought four young chil- 
 dren home with her. Madame Cuvier appears to have been an 
 admirable woman, and to have proved an invaluable blessing to her 
 husband. She bore him four children, all of whom as well as his 
 step-children, were successively taken from him, excepting one of 
 the latter. In 1808 Cuvier was appointed one of the Councilors for 
 life, of the New Imperial University, and Bonaparte (now Emperor) 
 about the same time employed him to write a history of the progress 
 of the human mind from the year 1789. Of this work to which 
 Cuvier applied himself with his usual ardor, Baron Pasquier says : 
 "We were present when it was read to the Emperor in the Council 
 of State, and such scenes are never effaced from the memory. Napo- 
 leon had asked merely a report, and under the unassuming title, the 
 skillful reporter had raised a monument which stands like a Pharos 
 between two ages, showing at once the road that had been traversed 
 and that which still ought to be pursued." 
 
 His situation as University Councilor brought him into the Em- 
 peror's presence to discuss affairs of administratipn. During the years 
 1809 and 1810 he was appointed to organize the Academies of the 
 Italian States. In 1811 he was employed to form Academies in Holland
 
 ATTACKED BY PARALYSIS. 307 
 
 and the Hanseatic towns. Upon these duties he entered with all the 
 enthusiasm of his benevolent mind, and no employment could have 
 been more delightful. Napoleon was so much pleased with the man- 
 ner in which he discharged his task, that he conferred on him the 
 title of Chevalier, and also named him in 1813, maitre des requetes in 
 the Council of State. During these various tours, Cuvier prosecuted 
 his study of Natural History unremittingly. 
 
 The extraordinary talents of Cuvier, blended as they were with so 
 much dignity of character and so much experience, were indispensable 
 to France under all the successive changes of government which 
 happened during his lifetime. The Consulate, the Imperial Govern- 
 ment, the Restoration, the Monarchy of July, did but anew direct 
 public attention to the civil services of a man whose attainments and 
 sagacity were for all time. 
 
 He was favored, admired, esteemed, of all parties, and yet inde- 
 pendent. Undistracted by all the changes that befell his country, he 
 was ever occupied with her best interests, and endeavoring to diffuse 
 that mental and moral preparation, without which he well knew the po- 
 litical rights she so urgently sought would prove the reverse of blessings. 
 
 After the restoration, Louis XVIII. bestowed on him the dignity of 
 Councilor of State, and he was thus called on to take a considerable 
 share in the internal administration of his country^ as President of 
 the Committee of the Interior, an office which involved him in end- 
 less details of business. In 1818 he visited England for six weeks, 
 and during his absence from Paris had the distinguished honor of 
 being created one of the forty of the Academic Francaise. In 1819 
 he was named Grand-Master of the University, and in the same year 
 was created a Baron. In 1826 Charles X. bestowed on him the dec- 
 oration of grand officer of the Legion of Honor, and his old 
 sovereign, the King of Wurtemburg, about the same time made him 
 commander of the order of the Crown. During the same year he 
 lost the favor of the Court, by steadily refusing the appointment of 
 Censor of the Press ; but he incurred a much heavier dispensation in 
 the loss of his only remaining child, Clemantine, a beautiful young 
 woman, on the eve of marriage. 
 
 In 1830 he again visited England along with his step-daughter, 
 Mademoiselle Duvancel, and they happened to be in London during 
 the Revolution of the Barricades. On his return to Paris, Cuvier 
 was most graciously received Ijy Louis Philippe, by whom he was, in 
 1832, created a Peer of France. But he lived not long to enjoy his 
 dignity. On the gth of May he was attacked by partial paralysis in 
 his arms, and aware in what it was to terminate, made his will, and 
 arranged some important matters with the most perfect calmness. On 
 the nth his legs were paralyzed, but so powerful was the love of 
 science within him, that he sought to illustrate a paper which he had 
 previously read in the Institute by reference to his own case, saying, 
 "It is the nerves of the will that are affected," alluding to the dis-
 
 308 CUVIER. 
 
 tinction between the nerves of the will, and those of sensibility, and 
 the discoveries of Sir Charles Bell and Scarpa. To M. Pasquier, who 
 saw him on the izth, he remarked : "I had great things still to do. 
 All was ready in my hand. After thirty years of labor and research, 
 there remained but to write, and now the hands fail to carry with 
 them the head." On the i3th, after vainly trying to swallow a 
 mouthful of lemonade, he gave the draught to his step-daughter to 
 drink, saying it was delightful to see those he loved still able to 
 swallow. After which affectionate remark he calmly expired. May 
 i3th, 1832. 
 
 Cuvier was an uncommonly fine-looking man, both in person and 
 features, his countenance being indicative of that talent and in- 
 telligence by which he was distinguished. His manner was noble and 
 dignified ; he was kind and conciliatory to all ; and his charity and 
 benevolence were unbounded. His application was prodigious. He 
 was never without occupation, and his only relaxation was in the 
 change of his objects of business or study. Amid his multifarious 
 occupations out of his house, if he had only a quarter of an hour to 
 spare before dinner on his return, he availed himself of it to resume 
 some composition, interrupted since the night before, on some scien- 
 tific subject. During the drives through the city, he read and even 
 wrote in his carriage, having a desk fitted up in it for that purpose. 
 He dined between six and seven, after which, if he did not go out, he 
 immediately retired to his study, where he continued till ten or 
 eleven. His extreme facility for study, and of directing all the 
 powers of his mind to diverse occupations of study, from one quarter 
 of an hour to another, was one of the most extraordinary qualities of 
 his mind. 
 
 We conclude our notice of the great man by observing, that the 
 habit he had acquired of never being idle, of being undisturbed by 
 interruptions, and of returning to unfinished labors as if no such in- 
 terruptions had occurred, was shown in this instance to be so valuable, 
 that, if it is to be acquired by those who do not naturally possess it, 
 it merits the strongest efforts of the mind for its attainment.
 
 HUGH MILLER, 
 
 THE 
 
 STONE-MASON OF CROMARTY. 
 
 " Scientific men recognized in him one who could cope with them 
 
 in their own department, who knew the facts as well as they, and could reason 
 
 them out with greater power. Literary men acknowledged in him a brother who could 
 
 mold a sentence or turn a period with the best of them. The ablest and 
 
 boldest man in the country would have felt his knees shaking 
 
 at the thought of engaging in a controversy with 
 
 the stone-mason." Dr. McCosk.
 
 Where Hugh Miller was Born. 
 
 The Suitors of Cromarty, from Uncle Sandy's Garden.
 
 HUGH MILLER; 
 
 BIRTHPLACE, PARENTAGE, AND EARLY CHILDHOOD. 
 
 THE name of Hugh Miller, we may safely presume, will be his 
 most enduring monument; but the eye of the voyager, as he 
 passes from the blue expanse of the Moray Frith into the land-locked 
 bay of Cromarty, will discover on the left, crowning a swell of 
 green upland, which runs crescent-like along th/e coast, a pillar of 
 red sandstone, rising fifty feet into the air, and surmounted by a 
 statue. The few white houses, embowered in garden foliage, which 
 form the better part of the village of Cromarty, cluster beneath; and the 
 sea, faced by a row of thatched fishermen's cottages, comes rippling, 
 at every flow of the tide, to within a bow-shot of its base. The 
 statue represents a grave, strong-built man, of massive head, and 
 thoughtful face, who seems to look out steadfastly upon the waves. 
 Statue and pillar constitute the monument reared by his countrymen 
 to Hugh Miller. 
 
 Almost at the foot of the pillar, stands a humble cottage, and N on 
 the sward from which it rises is placed the village church-yard. In 
 that cottage Hugh Miller was born ; and during his boyhood and 
 early youjh he was dependent on a widowed mother, who maintained 
 herself and her family by the "sedulously plied but indifferently re- 
 munerated labor" of her needle. In that church-yard are several 
 head-stones, chiseled by his hand when he earned his bread as a jour- 
 neyman mason. 
 
 How the son of a sailor's widow came to address and retain an 
 audience as wide as the world of culture, how the Cromarty stone- 
 mason qualified himself for achieving a European reputation, is a 
 question fitted to interest wise curiosity, and deserving of explicit and 
 careful consideration. 
 
 Hugh Miller, as all the world knows, was the author of an autobio- 
 
 (3")
 
 312 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 graphic work, entitled, " My Schools and School-masters." That book 
 has been recognized by all judges as one of the most captivating and 
 able of the author's performances, and has a place in English literature, 
 from which it can not be moved ; but it is no substitute for the biog- 
 raphy of Hugh Miller. In the first place, it deals with but one 
 portion of its author's career, and that the portion which preceded 
 his emergence into public life. In the second place, there is much 
 biographic material relating to Hugh Miller, unencroached upon in 
 the " Schools and School-masters. " From early boyhood, he was fond 
 of jotting down particulars connected with his personal history, and 
 for many years previous to his being harnessed to steady literary toil, 
 he took great delight in letter-writing. In the third place, biography 
 is necessarily a different matter from autobiography ; the latter is 
 simply one of the sources from which the biographer should construct 
 his narrative. " It is possible," says Hugh Miller himself, "for two 
 histories of the same period and individual to be at once true to fact, 
 and unlike each other in the scenes which they describe and the events 
 which they record." 
 
 Hugh Miller was born in the town of Cromarty, Scotland, on the 
 loth of October, 1802. The occurrence appears to have acted on the 
 imagination of his father, as he had a " singular dream " respecting 
 his first-born. The midwife remarked that the conformation of the 
 head was unusual, and indicated, in her sage opinion, that the child 
 would turn out an idiot. 
 
 Cromarty was a more important place seventy years ago than it is 
 now, but its dimensions never exceeded those of a considerable 
 village. It is one of several miniature towns which stud the shores of 
 the Maolbuie, or Black Isle, a peninsular block of land, abutting on 
 the German Ocean in a green headland, fringed with pine, known to 
 mariners as the Southern Sutor of Cromarty. On the landward side 
 of this headland nestles the little town. The Maolbuie, stretching 
 westward, rises from encircling sea, occasionally in abrupt crags, gene- 
 rally in gradual undulation. Here and there, along the water-courses 
 and in the hollows, are glimpses of green field and leafy wood, but the 
 general impression is that of a huge swell of brown moorland, over- 
 blown by sea-winds, traversed by chill fogs, and constituting, on the 
 whole, one of the most bleak and ungenial districts in Scotland. The 
 natives of Cromarty have always been a hardy, long-lived race. The 
 climate, though salubrious, is severe. The town is exposed at all 
 seasons to high gales from the North Sea, laden with mist or sleet, 
 and even at midsummer keen blasts from the Atlantic make their way 
 through the western hill-gorges, send the spray of the frith whistling 
 through the air, and pierce to every nook and cranny of the shivering 
 town. But there are fertile spots in its immediate neighborhood, and 
 in sheltered nooks the elm and poplar flourish ; the air, except when 
 darkened by sea-fog, is clear and bracing ; a chain of hills, running 
 along the frith on the north, leads the eye to the heights of Ben
 
 HEIGHTS OF BEN WYVIS. 313 
 
 Wyvis, sleeping in the pearl-blue of distance ; there are brooks rip- 
 pling through wooded dells, and caves hollowed in the rock ; and 
 at all times, and from almost every point of view, there is a gleaming 
 of green or purple waters, wreathed with snowy foam. In favorable 
 weather, Cromarty is a pleasant place ; one who had passed in it a 
 kindly childhood and youth might love it well. Nature, as seen in 
 its vicinity, if not clad in Alpine grandeur, has many aspects of beauty 
 and tenderness, and at least one aspect, that of ocean, in calm or in 
 storm, of utmost sublimity. 
 
 Like all towns on the eastern coast of Scotland, Cromarty is in- 
 habited principally by an English-speaking race, substantially identical 
 with that found in the lowlands of Scotland. Hugh Miller never 
 spoke the language of the Scottish Highlanders, and was apt in con- 
 versation to lay emphasis on the fact of his being a Teuton. But 
 there was a dash of good Celtic blood in his veins. Donald Ross, 
 called also Donald Roy, or the Red, the grandfather of his grand- 
 mother, was of the best Gaelic type, with the vivacity, courage, and 
 religious susceptibility of his race. The history and character of 
 Donald, as portrayed in the revering narratives of his descendants, 
 were among the sacred influences of Hugh Miller's childhood. The 
 figure of his gray-haired sire, standing up in the church of Nigg, and 
 defying the Presbytery, in the Name of God, to join a minister, not 
 called by its people, to its stone walls ; the ring which Miller's grand- 
 mother had received, at the time of her marriage, from Donald, as her 
 spousal ring to her other husband, the Head of the Church ; the mys- 
 terious hints which would pass round the fireside circle in the evening, 
 that this patriarch, like the men of God of old, had been privileged 
 with visions of the unseen world, with whisperings out of the abysmal 
 deeps of futurity, all this was stamped upon the child's imagination, 
 predisposing him, in the dawn of his sympathies, to look with rever- 
 ence on the religious character, and preparing him to become, one 
 day, a leader among the evangelical religionists of Scotland. 
 
 Strong, however, as the influence of his Celtic ancestry may have 
 been on Hugh Miller, it was not so powerful as that derived from 
 his Lowland fathers. He was descended on that side from a long line 
 of sea-faring men, whose intrepid and adventurous spirit had led them 
 from their native Cromarty, to sail, in the earliest times of Scottish 
 history, with Sir Andrew Wood, or the "bold Bartons," and at a 
 later period to voyage and fight under Anson, or to engage in buc- 
 caneering enterprises on the Spanish main. For more than a hun- 
 dred years before the birth of Hugh Miller, not one of his paternal 
 ancestors had been laid in the church-yard of Cromarty. To the 
 latest hour of his life, he cherished the profoundest enthusiasm for his 
 father, the hardy and resolute seaman, whose name he bore. He was 
 only five years old when Hugh Miller, the elder, perished at sea; 
 but he had already learned to love his father with an affection stronger 
 than is common in childhood, and, " long after every one else had
 
 314 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 ceased to hope," he might be seen on the grassy knoll behind his 
 mother's house, looking wistfully out upon the Moray Frith for "the 
 sloop with the two stripes of white and the two square topsails." 
 
 Miller has left us, in the "Schools and School-masters," a power- 
 ful and vivid sketch of his father, and the lineaments are those of a 
 remarkable man. Very gentle, very brave, serenely invincible in 
 every change of fortune, patient to endure individual wrong, but 
 with a flash of keenest fire in him to avenge the cruelty or injustice 
 which he saw practiced on others, he was great without knowing it, 
 and, what is also perhaps an advantage, without its being known. 
 Miller says finely, that there was a "bit of picture" in all his recol- 
 lections of his father, and most picturesquely has he arranged the 
 pieces in the mosaic of his narrative. We see the bold seaman, bronzed 
 by the southern sun, asleep in his open boat on the Ganges, and 
 mark him start on awaking as he meets the glare of a tiger's eye, its 
 paw resting on the gunwale. We behold him afloat for three days 
 in the open sea, on the bottom of an upturned boat, sharks glancing 
 around him on the crests of the waves. He bears meekly the op- 
 pression^ of a cruel captain, until his kind-hearted Irish comrade is 
 being chained down to the deck beneath a tropical sun; then, the 
 genial warmth in his bosom kindling into electric flame, he faces the 
 tyrant. "The captain drew a loaded pistol from his belt; the sailor 
 struck up his hand ; and, as the bullet whistled through the rigging 
 above, he grappled with him and disarmed him in a trice." At the 
 action off the Dogger Bank he does the work of two men, and, when 
 the action seems over, is utterly prostrate; but no sooner does rhe 
 sign of battle fly again along the line than he springs to his feet frtsh 
 as if he had awakened from morning slumber. Not less characteristic 
 is the steadfastness of his manly ambition to realize a competence. 
 As wave after wave of adversity meets him, he rises through the swell, 
 his brow showing clear and proud in the light of victory. 
 
 It was the deliberate conviction of Hugh Miller that his father was 
 an abler man than he. To this opinion few will subscribe; but the 
 more we study the character of the son, the deeper will be our con- 
 viction that it is essentially the character of the father, developed 
 on the intellectual side with more of symmetry and completeness, 
 and seen at last under softer lights. Physiologists would probably 
 have something to say on this point. Modern science tends to show 
 that there was more in Mr. Shandy's philosophy of character than 
 Sterne's humor gives account of, and that, if we can rightly estimate 
 the effect of local circumstance and other influences to modify or to 
 transmute, the ground-plan of a man's character may be found written 
 in his bones. Hugh Miller's father was, at the time of his birth, a 
 man of forty-four; mature in every faculty; of marked individuality 
 and iron will. His mother was a girl of eighteen, who had been 
 brought up at her husband's knee, and had learned to revere him as 
 a father before she accepted him as a lover. Throughout life she
 
 MEMORIES OF CHILDHOOD. 315 
 
 displayed no special force of mind or character. The first child of 
 such a marriage was likely to bear the indelible stamp of his father's 
 manhood. 
 
 Fancy delights to construct oracles from the earliest recollections 
 of men who have become famous. We must guard against attaching 
 too much importance to the infantile reminiscences of Miller. Those 
 he mentions are graceful in themselves, and form a singularly appro- 
 priate introduction to the life of a man of science. He remem- 
 bered going into the garden one day before completing his third year, 
 and seeing there "a minute duckling covered with soft, yellow hair, 
 growing out of the soil by its feet, and beside it a plant that bore as its 
 flowers a crop of little muscle-shells of a deep, red color." The 
 "duckling," he tells us, belonged to the vegetable kingdom, though 
 he could no longer identify it; the muscle-bearing plant was, he be- 
 lieved, a scarlet-runner. If there is in this incident any thing unusual, 
 it is the circumstance that natural phenomena of form and color, so 
 simple and common, should have powerfully affected the, imagination 
 of a child not three years old. The incidents first stored in memory 
 are generally those of change or excitement a storm, a removal, a 
 journey, a visit to a puppet-show or waxwork. The forms of those 
 natural objects by which a child is surrounded leaves, trees, flowers 
 fall faintly on the mental tablets; probably not one man in a thousand 
 retains a more vivid recollection of them than of the curtains round 
 his cradle. During Hugh Miller's life the observation of a new fact 
 in nature afforded him a thrill of pleasure which never lost its fresh- 
 ness, and it seems probable that the first consciousness of this pleasure 
 arose in the breast of small, toddling, large-headed Hugh, when he 
 opened wide his eyes to take the bearings of the mysterious duckling 
 and the vegetable muscles. 
 
 More definitely important in a biographic point of view, are those 
 incidents of Miller's childhood which formed what he calls a "ma- 
 chinery of the supernatural." About the time when the incomprehen- 
 sible duckling grew out of the earth before his eyes, he thought that 
 he beheld the apparition of his buccaneering ancestor, John Feddes, 
 "in the form of a large, tall, very old man, attired in a light blue 
 great-coat," who stood on the landing-place at the top of the stairs 
 and regarded him with apparent complacency. He was much fright- 
 ened, and for years dreaded a reappearance of the phantom. 
 
 Still more circumstantial is his account of what he saw on that 
 night when, far away on the North Sea, his father's ship went down. 
 "There were no forebodings," he is careful to tell us, "in the Cromarty 
 cottage." No storm agitated the air, and though the billows of a deep 
 ground-swell broke heavily under leaden skies, the weather occasioned 
 no alarm. A hopeful letter had been received from his father, 
 written at Peterhead, and his mother sat "beside the household fire, 
 plying the cheerful needle." Suddenly the door fell open, and little 
 Hugh was sent to shut it. "Day," he proceeds, "had not wholly
 
 316 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 disappeared, but it was fast posting on to night, and a gray haze 
 spread a neutral tint of dimness over every more distant object, but 
 left the nearer ones comparatively distinct, when I saw at the open 
 door, within less than a yard of my breast, as plainly as I ever saw 
 any thing, a dissevered hand and arm stretched towards me. Hand 
 and arm were apparently those of a female ; they bore a livid and 
 sodden appearance; and directly fronting me, where the body ought 
 to have been, there was only blank, transparent space, through which 
 I could see the dim forms of the objects beyond. I was fearfully 
 startled, and ran shrieking to my mother, telling what i had seen; 
 and the house-girl, whom she next sent to shut the door, apparently 
 affected by my terror, also returned frightened, and said that she, too, 
 had seen the woman's hand; which, however, did not seem to be the 
 case. And finally my mother going to the door, saw nothing, though 
 she appeared much impressed by the extremeness of my terror and 
 the minuteness of my description. I communicate the story as it lies 
 fixed in my memory, without attempting to explain it. The supposed 
 apparition may have been merely a momentary affection of the eye, 
 of the nature described by Sir Walter Scott in his 'Demonology,' 
 and Sir David Brewster in his -'Natural Magic.' But if so, the affec- 
 tion was one of which I experienced no after-return ; and its coinci- 
 dence in the case, with the probable time of my father's death, seems 
 at least curious." 
 
 Men who believe in a ghost-story seldom favor us with unqualified 
 avowals of the fact. Hugh Miller seems to have been persuaded at 
 fifty that the livid hand he saw at five was preternatural. The inci- 
 dent is thus invested with interest, in a biographic point of view. It 
 affords us a glimpse into the subtlest workings of Hugh Miller's 
 mind. We must, therefore, consider it carefully. 
 
 The appearance, to begin with, is to be classed among the more 
 easily explicable phenomena of optical delusion. The child, from 
 the day his mind began to receive impressions of any kind, had been 
 encompassed with an atmosphere of superstition. In days of steam- 
 ships and telegraphs, sailors and fishermen continue a superstitious 
 race; but it is only by the strongest effort of imagination that we can 
 realize the extent to which the natural and the supernatural were 
 confounded in remote fishing-towns like Cromarty at the commence- 
 ment of this century. Teach a child to look for ghosts, and he will 
 be sure to see them. Hugh had learned to associate the idea of his 
 father with a special manifestation of the awful and the supernatural. 
 Often, while the embers were burning low on winter evenings, and 
 every inmate of the cottage listened in awe-struck silence, had he 
 hung upon the lips of "Jack Grant, the mate," as he told how his 
 father had sailed from Peterhead beneath a gloomy twilight; how a 
 woman and child who begged a passage were taken on board; how 
 the wind rose, and the snow-storm lashed the vessel; how a dead-light 
 gleamed out on the cross-trees; how a ghostly woman, with a child
 
 FATHER AT SEA. 317 
 
 in her arms, flitted round the master at the helm; how, when dawn 
 glimmered over the sea, the ship struck, and rolled over amid the 
 breakers on "the terrible bar of Findhorn!" and how the corpse of 
 the woman, still clasping the babe in her arms, was floated out through 
 a hole in the side of the wreck. 
 
 Turn now to the passage quoted. His father being away at sea, 
 the child is sent, as the dusk thickens, to close the cottage door. 
 The night-mist is creeping up from the sea. I have seen that mist 
 seen it through the eyes of childhood on the moorland of the Maol- 
 buie, a few miles west of Cromarty; and no one who has seen it can 
 wonder that a vivid imagination should evoke spectral forms from its 
 twilight imagery. The same power of fantasy which called up the ghost 
 of old John Feddes to stand upon the top of the stair, revealed to 
 the eye of the boy, as he peered into the mist on that melancholy 
 evening, a dissevered hand and arm. There is one little circum- 
 stance which renders it matter of demonstration, that his mind was 
 preoccupied by expectation of the marvelous. "Hand and arm" he 
 informs us, "were apparently those of a female." How did he know 
 this? A child of five could not distinguish between the "livid and 
 sodden" hand and arm of a man and the "livid and sodden" hand 
 and arm of a woman. His imagination, haunted by the woman of 
 Jack Grant's narrative, created her. 
 
 The whole affair, then, resolves itself into a strong mental impres- 
 sion of little Hugh's throwing itself out, in bodiless form on the mist 
 of the night. And as was the boy, so was the man. A sustained 
 intensity of mental vision, a creative power of fantasy, characterized 
 Miller to the last. Not powerful enough to overbear or to pervert the 
 scientific instinct with which it was associated, it had a pervasive in- 
 fluence on his mental operations; the feeling, belief, impression, on 
 his mind had for him a substantive reality ; and there was an antece- 
 dent probability that, if the steadiness of his intellectual nerve were 
 shaken by disease, or by excess of mental toil, some fixed idea might 
 obtain the mastery over him and hurl his reason from her throne. 
 
 It has been said that his mother was not remarkable for mental 
 power, or for strength of character. She had, however, one intellec- 
 tual faculty in extraordinary vigor, to wit, memory, and she loaded it 
 with knowledge of a peculiarly unprofitable kind. Her belief in 
 fairies, witches, dreams, presentiments, ghosts, was unbounded, and 
 she was restrained by no modern scruples from communicating either 
 her fairy lore, or the faith with which she received it, to her son. 
 Her faith in her legendary personages was inextricably involved with 
 her belief in the angels and spirits of Scripture; and to betray skepti- 
 cism as to apparitions and fairies was, in her view, to take part with the 
 Sadducee or the infidel. " Such was the powerful influence," says Mrs. 
 Miller, " to which little Hugh was subjected for the first six years of 
 his life, a kind of education the force of which he himself could 
 scarcely estimate. Add to every thing else, that much of his mother's
 
 318 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 sewing was making garments for the dead. Fancy that little, low 
 room, in the winter evenings, its atmosphere at all times murky from 
 the dark earthen floor, the small windows, the fire on the hearth, 
 which, though furnished with a regular chimney, allowed much smoke 
 to escape before it found passage. Fancy little Hugh sitting on a low 
 stool by that hearth- fire, his mother engaged at a large chest, :which 
 serves her for a table, on which stands a single candle. Her work is 
 dressing the shroud and the winding-sheet, the dead irons click inces- 
 santly, and her conversation, as she passes to and fro to heat her irons 
 at the fire, is of the departed, and of mysterious warnings and specters. 
 Suddenly, as the hour grows late, distinct raps are heard on this chest, 
 the forerunners, she says, of another dissolution. Her tall, thin 
 figure is drawn up in an attitude of intense listening for these signs 
 from the unseen world. The child has been surrounded and per- 
 meated with the weird atmosphere. Then a paroxysm of terror 
 supervenes, and he is put to bed, to that bed in the corner, in a 
 recess in the wall, where he can still see the work proceed, and hear 
 the monotonous click-click of those irons, till his little eyes close, 
 and the world of dreams mingles with that of reality. I have no 
 doubt that the overpowering terror of those early times, the inability 
 to distinguish between waking and sleeping visions, returned in his 
 last days, stimulating the action of a diseased brain. The peculiarity 
 of his mother's character told against him. There was plenty of 
 affection, but no counterbalancing grain of any thing which could in 
 the least qualify these tremendous doses of the supernatural. He did 
 not learn to read so early as most children, though, as he has told 
 me, he learned his letters first when almost in arms, off the sign-boards 
 above fche shop doors, so that, until after six, the marvelous, in its 
 lighter and more harmless forms, as in ' Jack and the Bean-stalk,' etc., 
 did not mingle with its darker and stronger shadows. From his 
 mother Hugh undoubtedly drew almost all the materials for his 
 'Scenes and Legends,' and ' Lykewake,' etc., and every minutest 
 touch I have given you has been gathered from his lips and hers. ' ' 
 
 Hugh Miller's mother was evidently one who, in the jargon of the 
 spirit-rapping fraternity, would be called a good medium. Interpreted 
 into the language of persons who are neither knaves nor fools, this 
 will mean, that she was one who, having long permitted fantasy to be 
 sole regent of her mind, had fallen into the habit of mistaking the 
 pale shapes and flitting shadows of its ghostly moonlight for the sub- 
 stantial forms of noonday. Mrs. Miller closes her account of this 
 singular woman with the following anecdote: "She told me that, on 
 the night of Hugh's death, suspecting no evil, and anticipating no bad 
 tidings, about midnight she saw a wonderfully bright light, like a ball 
 of electric fire, flit about the room, and linger first on one object of 
 furniture and then on another. She sat up in bed to watch its prog- 
 ress. At last it alighted, when, just as she wondered, with her eyes 
 fixed on it, what it might portend, it was suddenly quenched did
 
 HIS MOTHER. 
 
 319 
 
 not die out, but, as it were, extinguished itself in a moment, leaving 
 utter blackness behind, and on her frame the thrilling effect of a sud- 
 den and awful calamity." The power of distinguishing between 
 visions seen when the eyes were shut and actual phenomena seen 
 when the eyes were open, had manifestly been impaired in this woman ; 
 and we can not believe that the influence of so superstitious a mother 
 upon Hugh Miller was not powerful, merely because he has refrained 
 from saying much about her in the "Schools and School-masters." 
 Had he completely emancipated himself from that influence, we might 
 have had a full statement of its nature and extent ; but, though he 
 evidently believed some of the ghostly sights of his childhood to have 
 been preternatural, he would instinctively shrink from the confession 
 that his notions of the night-side of nature, and of the boundary line 
 between the visible and the invisible world, were to the last modified 
 by what he had learned at his mother's knee. It is fair to her to 
 add, that her power of enchaining the attention of listeners, while 
 she told her tales, was quite extraordinary, and that her son assuredly 
 owed to her, in part at least, his genius for narrative. 
 
 FIRST SCHOOL UNCLE JAMES AND SANDY BEGINNINGS OF LITERATURE 
 
 AND SCIENCE. 
 
 The brave, kind father, then, is dead; and the boy, gaze he never 
 so long across- the waves, will not again clap his hands and run to 
 tell his mother that the sloop is in the offing. The girlish widow, 
 with her son of five, and her two daughters just emerging from in- 
 fancy, must face the world alone. Of fixed yearly income, she has 
 about twelve pounds, but she is skilled as a seamstress, and applies 
 herself industriously to her needle. By way of substitute for a father's 
 authority over her children, and for a husband's counsels to herself, 
 she has the vigilant, superintending friendliness of her two brothers, 
 known to readers of the "Schools and School-masters" as Uncle 
 James and Uncle Sandy. These occupied a single dwelling, into 
 which they took one of the little girls, and in which Hugh lived as 
 much as at home. He could hardly have been more happy in fireside 
 guides and instructors. James the elder, was a saddler; Alexander, 
 a carpenter. In any rank of society they would have been excep- 
 tional men. Thoughtful, sagacious, modest, independent; ardent in 
 their love of knowledge, and with no inconsiderable stock of infor- 
 mation; reverent towards God; mindful of duty they were such as 
 the best Scottish peasants and mechanics of the olden time used to ' 
 be. "I never knew a man," says Miller, "more rigidly just in his 
 dealings than Uncle James, or who regarded every species of mean- 
 ness with a more thorough contempt." What a grand contribution 
 to the education of Hugh Miller was made by Uncle James in leaving 
 that impression on his memory and his heart ! When Miller first 
 
 H
 
 320 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 heard Dr. M'Crie preach, he wrote to his Uncle James: "In age 
 and figure I know not where to point out any one who more resem- 
 bles him than yourself." Collating this with his description of the 
 military bearing and combined modesty and dignity of demeanor of 
 Dr. M'Crie, we are led to form a favorable idea of Uncle James's 
 outer man. Uncle Sandy had been in the navy, had fought in many 
 engagements in the great French war, and had settled down in his 
 native place to a life of happy industry, digging his sawyer's pit in 
 summer in some protected nook of the green wood, and finding en- 
 tertainment at even-tide in the wonders of the field or the shore. 
 He fought his battles over again, and yet again, for the benefit of 
 little Hugh; but it was from others, not from himself, that the boy 
 heard of his personal exploits ; and his estimate of military splendors 
 was not extravagant. " Phrophecy I find," he said, f< gives to all 
 our glories but a single verse, and it is a verse of judgment." In 
 after-life, Miller thought of writing a life of Alexander Wright. 
 
 Such were Hugh Miller's instructors from the end of his fifth year, 
 instructors to whom, as he justly testifies, he owed more than to any 
 of the teachers whose schools he afterwards attended. The tales with 
 which they charmed him called intellect and imagination into genial 
 and healthful exercise. "I remember," he says, in an account of 
 his early years, composed for Principal Baird when he was twenty- 
 seven, and largely drawn upon in the " Schools and School-masters," 
 " I remember that from my fourth to my sixth year, I derived much 
 pleasure from oral narrative, and that my imagination, even at this 
 early period, had acquired strength enough to present me with viv- 
 idly-colored pictures of all the scenes described to me, and of all the 
 incidents related." His eye had not yet opened on the world of 
 books. 
 
 Hugh had been sent to a dame's school before his father's death, 
 and in the course of his sixth year, after much labor and small ap- 
 parent profit, he made the discovery that " the art of reading is the 
 art of finding stories in books." Did ever child in Eastern romance 
 light on so wonderful a talisman? The gates flew open and the 
 gardens of knowledge stretched before him, the trees drooping with 
 golden fruit, the earth radiant with flowers. Hugh Miller had made 
 what he calls the grand acquirement of his life, he could hold con- 
 verse with books. 
 
 Now at last, like all children of talent, he reveled in the tradi- 
 tionary literature of the nursery: "Jack the Giant-Killer," "Blue 
 Beard," "Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp." Two other books 
 gave him equal or greater delight: the "Pilgrim's Progress," and 
 Pope's "Homer." "I saw," says Miller, "even at this immature 
 period, that no writer could cast a javelin with half the force of 
 Homer." Pope's transmutations of the "Iliad" and "Odyssey" 
 have often been favorite reading with children. One of the choice
 
 EARLY SCHOOL DAYS. 321 
 
 sports of Arnold's early boyhood was to act the battles of the Ho- 
 meric heroes, and recite their several speeches according to Pope. 
 Hugh was now promoted from the dame's school to the parish 
 school, and introduced into the society of one hundred and twenty 
 boys. These, with a class of girls, bringing the whole number up to 
 one hundred and fifty, were under the superintendence of a single 
 master; and, when it is added that the competence of that master's 
 acquirements and the excellence of his character were qualified by 
 sluggishness, and associated with no force, fineness, or sympathetic 
 richness of mind, it will be evident that little deserving the name 
 of education could be had in the place. A boy of six, however 
 strong his intellectual bent, requires a certain amount of well-applied 
 compulsion to induce him to prefer his lessons to his play. Hugh 
 left to do as he choose, preferred the latter; but if, in his lessons, 
 he was "an egregious trifler," he was intellectual enough in his 
 sports. In addition to the nursery treasures already mentioned, the 
 narratives of Cook, Anson, and Woods Rogers afforded him inex- 
 haustible delight, and inflamed him with a passionate desire to be a 
 sailor. He spent much of his time sauntering about the harbor, or 
 peering and prying aboard the ships. One of his amusements was 
 to trace on the maps of an old geographical grammar the path of 
 vessels to and from the countries % visited by his father or by Uncle 
 Sandy. He began to compose before he could write. " I was in 
 the habit," he says, in the account of his life previously referred to, 
 " of quitting my school companions for the sea-shore, where I would 
 saunter for whole hours, pouring out long blank-verse effusions (rhyme 
 was a discovery of after-date) about sea-fights, storms, ghosts, and 
 desert islands. These effusions were no sooner brought to a close 
 than forgotten; and no one knew any thing of them but myself; for 
 I had not yet attained the art of writing, and I could compose only 
 when alone." That passion for linguistic expression that rapture in 
 fitting thought and emotion to words, by which nature seems to point 
 out the born literary man, was already characteristic of Miller. 
 
 Following this child, whose very amusements are intellectual, into 
 the school-room, we perceive that he is in a fair way to earn the 
 reputation of dunce. Accustomed to learn by the eye, to stray 
 down vistas of picture constructed for him by his imagination from 
 the materials of his favorite books, he takes no interest in the me- 
 chanical operations of memory. The Latin rudiments in particular 
 prove incapable of imaginative illumination. The sluggard school- 
 master never tells him that if he be but brave enough to grope for a 
 time as through a dark passage, the classic wonder-land will open on 
 his sight. An intelligent and spirited boy to work heartily at his 
 tasks, must know what he is about, and have some conception of the 
 guerdon which is to reward his toil. It never occurs to this school- 
 master that he may be the dunce, stolidly inapprehensive .of the re- 
 quirements of*the case, and of the nature of his duty towards his 
 21
 
 322 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 peculiar pupil. He takes the more obvious, comfortable, and human- 
 natural course of deciding that Hugh's uncles have overrated his 
 abilities, and that he is a mere ordinary dullard. 
 
 Miller's trifling proved infectious. He had one day, on some im- 
 pulse of the moment, taken to relating to the boy who sat next him, 
 the adventures of Sir William Wallace. A group of fascinated list- 
 eners soon hung round the interesting dunce. To narratives from 
 blind Harry succeeded tales from Cook and Anson ; and when these 
 were exhausted, imagination was called upon to supply the article in 
 request. The improvising practice he had enjoyed in his solitary 
 walks now stood him in good stead, and he regaled his auditors 
 with 
 
 boyish histories 
 
 Of battle, bold adventure, dungeon, wreck, 
 
 Flights, terrors, sudden rescues. 
 
 "In a short time" these are his own words "my narratives had 
 charmed the very shadow of discipline out of the class." In his 
 English reading-lessons he appeared to some advantage, the master 
 contriving to make out that he could distinguish between good and 
 bad in style ; but on the whole, he looked upon school attendance as 
 a mere curtailment of his freedom, made no progress whatever in 
 spelling and parsing, and in Latin, failed utterly. 
 
 In some respects always excepting those for which it was specially 
 intended the school was not amiss. In the company of one hundred 
 and fifty boys and girls, there is likely to be not a little that will con- 
 tribute to mental and physical development. From the windows, 
 could be seen, at all hours, ships and boats entering or leaving the 
 harbor; at certain seasons the turf before the door glittered with myr- 
 iads of herrings, the air became alive with bustle of curing opera- 
 tions; a pig-slaughtering establishment was at hand, where Hugh, 
 turning characteristically from the slaying processes, could look in- 
 quiringly into the mysteries of porcine anatomy ; and there was a 
 chance, at any moment, of taking part in a glorious expedition sent 
 forth to exact, arte vel Marie, the tribute of peats which the boat- 
 men of Ross, as they arrived with their cargoes, were bound to pay 
 to the school. An annual cock-fight was celebrated by the boys and 
 their teacher ; but in this he took no more interest than in the kill- 
 ing of the pigs ; the tenderness he had derived from his father for- 
 bade him. 
 
 In his tenth year, the spell cast over his imagination by the narra- 
 tives of the sea-captains had been broken. He had read "The Adven- 
 tures of Sir William Wallace," by the Scottish Homer of the fifteenth 
 century, of whom we know only that his name was Harry, that he 
 was blind, that he earned his bread by repeating his poetry in the 
 laird's hall and by the farmer's ingle, and that he professed to base 
 his narrative on a history of Wallace, written in Latin by his chap- 
 lain, named Blair. *
 
 ADVENTURES OF "WALLACE. 323 
 
 It was owing doubtless to the entireness and intensity of his pa- 
 triotic devotion to Scotland and to Wallace, that his book was for 
 centuries "the Bible of the Scottish people," and that it profoundly 
 affected the boyish imaginations of Robert Burns, of Walter Scott, 
 and of Hugh Miller. The fiery patriotism of this book inspired those 
 national songs of Burns, and those magical tones occurring at intervals 
 in all his poems, which will thrill readers to their inmost hearts so 
 long as love of country endures. Its effect on Hugh Miller was to 
 make him a Scottish patriot to the finger-tips. Affection for his 
 country was from that time a ruling passion in his breast, and his 
 ideal of a great man was a great Scotchman. 
 
 No wise critic will dispute that this was an important and an au- 
 spicious advance in the development of the boy. He who, as a boy, 
 is indifferent to his own country, will, as a man, be indifferent to all 
 countries. Hugh Miller, we need not doubt, owed much of that 
 home-bred vigor, that genial strength, racy picturesqueness, and idio- 
 matic pith which characterize his writings, to the early influence of 
 Blind Harry. 
 
 Meanwhile he has been learning to read in a book whose lessons 
 he could not outgrow, and whose illuminated lettering, of gem and 
 flower and shell, has a charm for eye and heart, which had been 
 absent from the Latin Rudiments. Upon the sands at ebb-tide, 
 when the* slant sun-light strikes ruddy from -the west, the boy may 
 be seen trotting by the side of Uncle Sandy, hunting for a lump- 
 fish in the weeded pools, hanging in ecstasy over the sea-mosses, 
 that glance through the lucid wave with more delicate splendor of 
 rubied flush and scarlet gleam, of golden tress and silken fringe, of 
 tender pearl and beaming silver, than graced the jeweled princesses 
 of his fairy-books, and drinking in with eager attention every word 
 uttered by his guide. We can picture him a kilted urchin, probably 
 barefooted, with bright auburn hair, glowing blue eyes, cheek 
 touched with the crimson of health, the face marked by quiet 
 thoughtfulness and incipient power. His uncles were doubtless per- 
 plexed with their nephew ; but, on the whole, despite the head- 
 shaking of the school-master, and Hugh's manifest lack of interest 
 in the Rudiments, they could not believe that the boy who, since 
 the dawn of his faculties, had been a good listener, a voracious 
 reader, a quick and intelligent observer, was the dunce his pedagogue 
 pronounced him. 
 
 MILLER'S ADVENTURE IN THE DOOCOT CAVE. 
 
 He was twelve years old when the notable adventure of the Doocot 
 Cave afforded him the subject of his first verses. The incident, 
 slight in itself, happens to possess extraordinary interest in a biograph- 
 ical point of view. An event which impresses the mind strongly
 
 324 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 in boyhood becomes entwined, as we proceed in our life-journey, 
 with innumerable associations, and when at successive stages in our 
 path we attempt to recall its precise circumstances, we fail to place 
 them in their original bareness before the mind's eye. Suppose, then, 
 that in endeavoring to know a man, to realize what, in the stages of 
 his growth, he was, and what he could do, we met with successive 
 accounts from his pen of one and the same incident, would we not 
 feel that a curiously instructive opportunity was afforded us of taking 
 the observations necessary for our purpose? How glad would the 
 biographer of a great painter be to light upon a series of pictures 
 from his hand, the subject the same in all, but the occasions when 
 they were painted falling at different dates in his history, from the 
 morning of life until its afternoon ! It is this advantage we possess 
 in connection with Hugh Miller's boyish adventure in the Doocot 
 Cave. There exist at least four accounts of the incident drawn up by 
 himself, four successive paintings of the same scene by the boy, the 
 strippling, the man of twenty-seven, and the man of fifty. 
 
 The first is that referred to in the "Schools and School- masters," 
 as executed in " enormously bad verse " a day or two after the oc- 
 currence. The copy before me is the identical one which excited the 
 admiring wonder of Miss Bond, mistress of the Cromarty Boarding 
 School. Attached to it is that pictorial representation of the scene 
 which Miller describes as consisting of " horrid crags of burtit umber, 
 perforated by yawning caverns of India ink, and crested by a dense 
 forest of sap-green." You can see what is intended ; the sea is below 
 the cavern, and the sward and wood are above ; but the whole is not 
 superior to the ordinary daubing of child-artists. The verses exhibit 
 internal evidence of having been written within a day or two of the 
 event they record. The agony of distress and terror experienced by 
 the boy of twelve when he and his companion a lad still younger 
 found themselves, as night came on, with the sea before, impassible 
 rocks on either hand, and a dark cavern behind, this, and their 
 contrasted rapture when the boats hailed them at midnight, supersede 
 all reflection on the beauties of the landscape or the wonders of the 
 cave. The grammar and spelling are about as bad as possible. Here 
 are the first two lines : 
 
 " When I to you unfolds my simple tale, 
 And paints the horrors of a rocky vail." 
 
 He forgets to say what will happen when the dreadful revelation 
 takes place, and strikes presently into description of the cave. We 
 need not retain the childish misspelling : 
 
 " There stands a cavern on the sea-beat shore, 
 Which stood for ages since the days of yore, 
 Whose open mouth stands forth awfully wide, 
 And oft takes in the roaring, swelling tide. 
 Out through the cavern water oozes fast, 
 Which ends in nothing but white stones at last.
 
 LIFE AT TWELVE YEARS. 
 
 Two boys, the author one, away did stray, 
 Being on a beauteous and a sunshine day." 
 
 The contemptuous "nothing but white stones " hardly betrays the 
 future geologist, and the naivete of "the author one" is charming. 
 The last three stanzas relate, in very flat prose fitted with rhyme, 
 that the boys went to the cavern "for some stones," found that the 
 water had filled in round them, tried to get out but could not, were 
 doubly pained when " the night came on, down poured the heavy 
 rain," and " ran so very fast " to the boats when they came to rescue 
 them. Nothing here but the sternest historical realism. Fancy has 
 not gilded the clouds, nor enthusiasm softened the colors ; the fact 
 stands simply out as an experience of unromantic misery. 
 
 For several years this version seems to have contented Hugh, the 
 revision it underwent extending only to verbal alterations. The lad 
 of nineteen, however, discards the whole, and produces a more polished 
 and melodious ditty. The friend who shared the adventure is dis- 
 missed, and the interest centers in the "author," or, as he is now 
 more poetically styled, "the Muses' youngest child," or, with a 
 touch of remorseful pathos, "the Muses' rude, untoward child." 
 He has learned to sketch in Scott's lighter manner, and there is 
 something of gracefulness and vivacity in his handling : 
 
 " Well may fond memory love to. trace 
 The semblance of that lonely place ; 
 Much may she joy to picture fair 
 Each cliff that frowns in darkness there ; 
 For when alone in youth I strayed 
 To haunted cave or forest glade, 
 Each rock, each lonely dell, I knew, 
 Where flow'rets bloomed, or berries grew ; 
 Knew where, to shelf of whitened rock, 
 At eve the sable cormorants flock ; 
 Could point the little arm to where 
 Deep the wild fox had dug his lair ; 
 Had marked with curious eye the cell 
 Where the rock-pigeon loved to dwell ; 
 Had watched the seal with silent ken, 
 And, venturous, stormed the badger's den." 
 
 In the following lines there seems to be an echo from Byron's 
 tales: 
 
 " Oft had our poet wished to brave 
 The giddy height and foaming wave 
 That wildly dashed and darkly frowned 
 The Doocot's yawning caves around. 
 For many a tale of wondrous kind 
 With wild impatience fired his mind; 
 Talcs of dark caves, where never ray 
 Of summer's sun was seen to play ; 
 Talcs of a spring whose ceaseless wave 
 Nor gurgling sound nor murmur gave, 
 But like that queen who, in her pride, 
 Latona's ruthless twins defied,
 
 326 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 To meltless marble, as it flows 
 
 Through stiffening moss and lichens, grows; 
 
 Before he deem these marvels true 
 
 The caves must meet his curious view." 
 
 Considerable progress here from the " water oozing fast," and 
 "nothing but white stones," of the first edition. In that perform- 
 ance the arrival of the boat had been emphatically chronicled, "the 
 author" dwelling with manifest satisfaction on the event. It would 
 not, however, have been poetical enough for " the Muses' youngest 
 child" to be taken off at midnight by mere terrestrial fishermen. In 
 the new edition, accordingly, he remains until "Aurora" makes her 
 appearance : 
 
 " And clear and calm the billow rolled, 
 With shade of green and crest of gold." 
 
 The second of these lines is finely colored. 
 
 In the vigor of early manhood, Miller described the adventure of 
 the cave in a letter to a former teacher. The picture has become 
 full in detail, and glowing in tint: "The cave proved a mine of 
 wonders. We found it of great depth, and, when at its farthest ex- 
 tremity, the sea and opposite land appeared to us as they would if 
 viewed through the tube of a telescope. We discovered that its sides 
 and roof were crusted over with a white stone, resembling marble, 
 and that it contained a petrifying spring. The pigeons, which we 
 disturbed, were whizzing by us through the gloom, reminding us of 
 hags of our story books, when on their night voyage through the air. A 
 shoal of porpoises were tempesting the water in their unwieldy gam- 
 bols, scarcely a hundred yards from the cavern's mouth, and a flock 
 of sea-gulls were screaming around them, like harpies around the viands 
 of the Trojan. To add to the interest of the place, we had learned 
 from tradition that, in the long syne, this cave had furnished Wallace 
 with a hiding-place, and that more recently it had been haunted by 
 smugglers. In the midst of our engagements, however, the evening 
 began to darken, and we discovered that our very fine cave was 
 neither more nor less than a prison. We attempted climbing round, 
 but in vain ; for the shelf from whence we had leaped was unattain- 
 able, and there was no other path. 'What will my mother think? ' 
 said the poor little fellow, whom I had brought into this predicament, 
 as he burst into tears.- ' I would care nothing for myself, but my 
 mother.' The appeal was powerful, and, had he not cried, I pro- 
 bably would ; but the si<,ht of his tears roused my pride, and, with 
 a feeling which Rochefoucault would have at once recognized as 
 springing from th? master principle, I attempted to comfort him ; 
 and for the time completely forgot my own sorrow in exulting, with 
 all due sympathy, over his. Night came on both dark and rainy, and 
 we lay down together in a corner of the cave. A few weeks prior, 
 the corpse of a fisherman, who had been drowned early in the pre- 
 ceding winter, had been found on the beach below. It was much
 
 PROSE VERSION OF DOOCOT CAVE. 327 
 
 gashed by the sharp rocks, and the head was beaten to pieces. I 
 had seen it at the time it was 'carried through the streets of Cromarty 
 to the church, where, in this part of the country, the bodies of 
 drowned persons are commonly put until the coffin and grave be pre- 
 pared ; and all this night long, sleeping or waking, the image of this 
 corpse was continually before me. As often as I slumbered, a man- 
 gled, headless thing would come stalking into the cave and attempt 
 striking me, when I would awaken with a start, cling to my com- 
 panion, and hide my face in his breast. About one o'clock ^n the 
 morning we were relieved by two boats, which our friends, who had 
 spent the early part of the night in searching for us in the woods 
 above, had fitted out to try along the shore for our bodies ; they 
 having at length concluded that we had fallen over the cliffs, and 
 were killed." 
 
 Last of all, written when he was turned of fifty, we have the 
 narrative of the occurrence as it appears in the " Schools and School- 
 masters." The passage, too long to quote in its completeness, is one 
 of the most rich and elaborate in the works of Hugh Miller. The 
 "nothing but white stones" of the first description, and the "melt- 
 less marble" of the second, have become the blended poetry and 
 science of the following sentences : " There were little pools at the 
 side of the cave, where we could see the work of congelation going 
 on, as at the commencement of the October frost, when the cold 
 north wind ruffles, and but barely ruffles, the surface of some mount- 
 ain lochan or sluggish mountain stream, and shows the newly formed 
 needles of ice, projecting mole-like from the shores into the water. 
 So rapid was the course of deposition, that there were cases in which 
 the sides of the hollows seemed growing almost in proportion as the 
 water rose in them ; the springs, lipping over, deposited their minute 
 crystals on the edges ; and the reservoirs deepened and became more 
 capacious as their mounds were built up by this curious masonry." 
 The idea of the telescope, which occurs first in the third description, is 
 finely worked out in the fourth: "The long, telescopic prospect of 
 the sparkling sea, as viewed from the inner extremity of the cavern, 
 while all around was dark as midnight ; the sudden gleam of the sea- 
 gull, seen for a moment from the recess, as it flitted past in the sun- 
 shine; the black, heaving bulk of the grampus, as it threw up its slender 
 jets of spray, and then, turning downwards, displayed its glossy back 
 and vast angular fih ; even the pigeons, as they shot whizzing by, one 
 moment scarce visible in the gloom, the next radiant in the light, 
 all acquired a new interest, from the peculiarity of the setting in 
 which we saw them. They formed a series of sun-gilt vignettes, framed 
 in jet ; and it was long ere we tired of seeing and admiring in them 
 much of the strange and the beautiful." 
 
 The scenery of the heavens is hardly referred to in the first sketch. 
 The fact of a rain-storm having aggravated the horrors of the situa- 
 tion, is mentioned; but the boy thinks of nothing except the addi-
 
 328 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 tional pain it occasioned. When Hugh Miller had watched the 
 sunsets of forty other summers, he "put in the sky" of his picture 
 thus: "The sun had sunk behind the precipices, and all was gloom 
 along their bases, and double gloom in their caves; but their rugged 
 brows still caught the red glare of evening. The flush rose higher 
 and higher, chased by the shadows ; and then, after lingering for a 
 moment on their crests of honeysuckle and juniper, passed away, and 
 the whole became somber and gray. The sea-gull sprang upward 
 from yhere he had floated on the ripple, and hied him slowly away 
 to his lodge in his deep-sea stack ; the dusky cormorant flitted past, 
 with heavier and more frequent stroke, to his whitened shelf high on 
 the precipice ; the pigeons came whizzing downwards from the up- 
 lands and the opposite land, and disappeared amid the gloom of 
 their caves; every creature that had wings made use of them in speed- 
 ing homewards; but neither my companion nor myself had any, and 
 
 there was no possibility of getting home without them 
 
 For the last few hours, mountainous piles of clouds had been rising 
 dark and stormy in the sea-mouth; they had flared portentously in 
 the setting sun, and had worn, with the decline of evening, almost 
 every meteoric tint of anger, from fiery red to a somber, thunderous 
 brown, and from somber brown to doleful black." 
 
 All these things were seen by Hugh Miller, as he stood on the 
 threshold of the cave, or looked out from within through its rock- 
 hewn telescope ; but it was not the Hugh Miller of twelve years who 
 saw them ; it was the Hugh Miller of fifty who was transported by 
 imagination to stand again in the entrance of the cave, or gaze again 
 from its interior, and to see "what the eye brought with it the means 
 of seeing." It was as if Turner, at fifty, had taken it into his head 
 to paint the first sunset on which he had looked with boyish delight, 
 and in so doing, had thrown upon the canvas the science and subtlety 
 of a life spent in the observation of nature. 
 
 FIRST GLIMPSE OF THE SUTHERLAND HIGHLANDS EXPERIMENTS IN 
 SELF-AMUSEMENT THE REBELLIOUS SCHOOL-BOY. 
 
 Soon after the occurrence which has detained us so long, the boy 
 proceeded on a visit to certain relatives in the Highlands of Suther- 
 land; a visit which was repeated in two successive autumns. His 
 faculties were thus exercised by new scenes and new acquaintances ; 
 he listened to discussions on the poems of Ossian, and began secretly 
 to think it probable that the famed Celtic bard belonged to the 
 ancient clan, MacPherson; he added to the picture-gallery of his 
 imagination a few fresh subjects long, low valleys in tender blue, 
 enlivened by green-wooded knolls, and delicately draped with wreaths 
 of morning mist; reaches of quiet lake, with gray ruins nodding on 
 slim promontories; waterfalls glancing by the silvery boles of birch-
 
 AMUSEMENTS AT FOURTEEN. 329 
 
 trees, and sending up a steamy spray to fall gem-like on their drooping 
 foliage ; and he laid the foundation of that thorough comprehension 
 of the character of the Highlanders, and of the condition of the 
 Highlands, which made him in after-life one of the best authorities 
 on all Highland questions. 
 
 Whether in Sutherland or at home, his mind was constantly active, 
 constantly growing. His school-fellows wondered and derided as 
 they beheld him launching on the horse-pond a succession of mys- 
 terious vessels constructed from the descriptions of Anson, Cook, 
 and other voyagers. In the "Schools and School-masters" we hear 
 of one of these, a proa, similar to those used by the Ladrone 
 islanders, but this was no more than a single specimen of his ship- 
 carpentering. "I used," he wrote to Baird, "to keep in exercise the 
 risible faculties of all the mimic navigators of the pond, with slim, 
 fish-like boats of bark, like those of the .North American Indians, 
 awkward, high-pooped galleys, like those I had seen in an old edition 
 of Dryden's "Virgil," two-keeled vessels, like the double canoes of 
 Otaheite, and wall-sided half-vessels, like the proas of the Ladrone 
 islands. Nor could I," he proceeds, "derive, like my companions, 
 any pleasure from the merely mechanical operation of plain sailing. 
 I had a story connected with every voyage, and every day had its 
 history of expeditions of discovery, and cases of mutiny and ship- 
 wreck." Navigation gave place to chemistry, but his experiments 
 were "wofully unfortunate." Then he tried painting; but, as the art 
 seems to have required boiling of oil, and as he boiled it so effectually 
 that the flame found its way out at the chimney-top, and a "sublime 
 fire-scene," threatening to become more sublime than agreeable, was 
 the result, the brush was thrown aside. The founding of leaden 
 images was next attempted ; but one of the busts being waggishly like 
 a neighbor, and troubles arising in consequence, this, also, was aban- 
 doned. "My ingenuity gained me such a reprimand, that I flung my 
 casts into the fire." He now took a turn at "mosaic work," and 
 this was followed by attempts to fashion watch-seals. "When I had 
 worn the points of my fingers with cutting and polishing until the 
 blood appeared, I forsook the grindstone." He fdl in with a book 
 on natural magic, palmistry, and astrology, and for a time went wool- 
 gathering upon that particular range of the mountains of vanity. He 
 became a sufficient adept in palmistry to make out, from a perusal of 
 the mystic characters inscribed on the palm of his left hand, that his 
 life was to be strange and eventful, that he was to become a revolu- 
 tionary leader, and that he was to die like Wallace, on the scaffold. 
 Verse-writing, prose-writing, and "a third sort of composition which 
 imitated the style of MacPherson's 'Ossian,' " were engaged in, prob- 
 ably with fitfulness, but with passionate enjoyment. 
 
 His principal amusement at this period, however, was one of which 
 he has singularly enough omitted mention in the "Schools and 
 School-masters." He drew the map of a country in the sand, and,
 
 330 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 having collected quantities of variously colored shells from the beach, 
 arranged them so as to represent its inhabitants. Appointing himself 
 king of the miniature community, he designed its towns, roads, 
 canals, harbors, and other public works. He ruled his dominions by 
 every different form of government with which he was acquainted, 
 and attacked or defended them by every stratagem of war with which 
 books or his uncles had made him familiar. 
 
 In his fourteenth year, all other amusements yielded to that of 
 heading a band of his school-fellows, with whom, in the harvest va- 
 cation, he spent every day, from dawn to sunset, in or about a deep 
 cavern, penetrating one of the steepest precipices which skirt the 
 southern base of the hill of Cromarty. One of the brotherhood 
 brought a pot, another a pitcher; the shore supplied shell-fish, the 
 woods, fuel ; the fields, potatoes, peas, and beans ; and so they went 
 a-gypsying the long summer day. 
 
 "The time not employed in cooking," says Miller in his letter to 
 Principal Baird, "or in procuring victuals, we spent in acting little 
 dramatic pieces, of which I sketched out the several plans, leaving 
 the dialogue to be supplied by the actors. Robbers, buccaneers, 
 outlaws of every description, were the heroes of these dramas. They 
 frequently, despite of my arrangements to the contrary, terminated 
 in skirmishes of a rather tragic cast, in which, with our spears of 
 elder and swords of hazel, we exchanged pretty severe blows. We were 
 sometimes engaged, too, in conflicts with other boys, in which, as 
 became a leader, I distinguished myself by a cool, yet desperate 
 courage. Nor was I entitled to the rank I held from only the abili- 
 ties which I displayed in framing plays and in fighting. I swam, 
 climbed, leaped, and wrestled better than any other lad of my years 
 and inches in the place." 
 
 With schooling, in the mean time, it fared as ill as possible. 
 Hugh had made up his mind not to learn, and he could neither be 
 coaxed nor beaten out of his determination. Sooth to say, he had 
 become a self-willed, turbulent lad, and the haziness of conception on 
 the subject of meum and tuum, indicated by potato-pilfering and 
 orchard-robbing, was not the darkest shade which we have to bring 
 into harmony at this period, as we best may, with the idyllic bright- 
 ness of his boyhood. In the letter to Principal Baird and elsewhere, 
 he mentions a fact or two which he omits from the "Schools and 
 School-masters," but which can not be withheld consistently with bio- 
 graphic veracity. 
 
 Setting his school-master, his uncles, and his mother at defiance, 
 he played truant three weeks out of four, and cast off every trammel 
 of authority. Distressed and alarmed, his relatives tried force. The 
 stubborn will and intrepid spirit which he had inherited from his 
 father were roused to fiercer opposition. He carried about with him 
 a long clasp-knife, with which to repel any attack that might be made 
 upon him by his uncles. They next had recourse to expostulation.
 
 THE BOY PLAYS TRUANT. 3JI 
 
 They represented to him, with affectionate earnestness, that he was 
 losing his sole chance of escaping a life of manual labor, and urged 
 that the possession of faculties whose right use would enable him to 
 rise in life, made it the more disgraceful in him to sink actually below 
 his father's station. The arguments were unanswerable, and Hugh 
 seems to have made no attempt to answer them, but he held his own 
 course. His mother, profoundly afflicted by the seeming disappoint- 
 ment of her hopes, gave him up altogether, and bestowed her affection 
 on his^wo sisters. In the winter of 1816, both the little girls died. 
 Hugh loved them, and was deeply affected when the music of their 
 voices, which had cheered the cottage so long, passed suddenly away 
 forever. But keener far was the pang which struck to his heart when 
 he overheard his mother remarking how different would her condition 
 have been, had it pleased Heaven to take her son and leave one of 
 her daughters. "It was bitter for me," he says, "to think, and yet 
 I could not think otherwise, that she had cause of sorrow, both for 
 those whom she had lost, and for him who survived ; and I would 
 willingly have laid down my life, could the sacrifice have restored to 
 her one of my sisters." A noble impulse, and sincere, but an im- 
 pulse merely; in a few weeks he was again at the head of his band. 
 "A particular way of thinking," he remarks, "a peculiar course of 
 reading, a singular train of oral narration, had concurred from the 
 period at which I first thought, read, or listened, in giving my char- 
 acter the impress it then bore, and it was not in the power of de- 
 tached accident or effort to effect a change." He had, at this time, 
 cast all religion to the winds. We have it explicitly in his own words, 
 that he became an atheist. "A boy-atheist," he writes to Mr. John 
 Swanson in 1828, "is surely an uncommon character. I was one in 
 reality ; for, possessed of a strong memory, which my uncles and an 
 early taste for reading had stored with religious sentiments and stories 
 of religious men, I was compelled, for the sake of peace, either to do 
 that which was right; or, by denying the truth of the Bible, to see 
 every action, good and bad, on the same level." His atheism, how- 
 ever, was a mere affectation a drossy scum on the surface of his 
 nature, with no real basis either in head or in heart. It was one form 
 of his rebelliousness at the time. He was obstinately willful and 
 irreligious, and he thought it bold and fine, and also logically con- 
 sistent, to call himself an atheist. 
 
 Three school-masters in succession had an opportunity of exercising 
 their talents upon Hugh, and in each case the failure was signal. 
 His schooling ended when he was fifteen in a pitched battle with the 
 dominie. His gains from ten years of nominal education were small. 
 Penmanship, clear and strong, a smattering of arithmetic, spelling, of 
 which a boy of ten might be ashamed, syntax, which joined substan- 
 tives in the singular to verbs in the plural, and vice versd, were his 
 scholastic acquirements. His miscellaneous reading, however, had 
 been extensive ; he had stored up a vast amount of information in a
 
 332 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 capacious and retentive memory ; he composed freely in prose and 
 verse, though there is hardly any sign of vitality in his writings of 
 this period, except the delight they evince in the work of composition. 
 Before the close of the day on which his conflict with the school- 
 master took place, he had avenged himself in a copy of satirical verses, 
 which, to say the least, show a great advance, in flexibility and in 
 command of language, on those in which he first recorded the ad- 
 venture in the Doocot Cave. As given in " Schools and School- 
 masters," they are much improved, the epithets freshened and bur- 
 nished, and the best line in the whole, 
 
 " Nature's born fop, a saint by art," 
 
 added. I find the lines in the "Village Observer," a manuscript 
 magazine, in Miller's boyish handwriting, dated February, 1820. 
 
 Such was Hugh Miller at the time he left school. A rugged, proud, 
 and stiff-necked lad, impossible to drive, and difficult to lead, his 
 character already marked with strong lines, and developing from with- 
 in or through self-chosen influences. " I saw," said Baxter, of Crom- 
 well, " that what he learned must be from himself;" and the obser- 
 vation might already have been made of Hugh Miller. To his friends 
 he was a perplexity and offense ; to his uncles, in particular, who 
 knew him too well, and were too sagacious to accept the off-hand 
 theory of his school-masters, that he was merely a stupid and bad boy, 
 he must have seemed a mass of contradictions. Intellectual in his 
 wildest play, fond of books, and capable of discerning excellence from 
 its counterfeits in thought and style, passionately addicted to the ob- 
 servation of nature, and forgetting no fact he once ascertained, how 
 could he be dull in the ordinary sense? If, again, capacity to in- 
 fluence one's fellows was a test of power, could it be said that he 
 who was undisputed sovereign of the boys of the place was the stupid- 
 est of them all ? A dunce who from childhood had entertained his 
 companions with tales of his own invention, who fitted his play-fellows 
 with dramatic parts by way of pastime, who was never weary when his 
 pen was in his hand, who possessed more literary information than 
 any one twice his age in Cromarty, was a phenomenon new to the 
 experience of Uncle James and Uncle Sandy. It was a puzzle for 
 them, and it is something of a puzzle for us. 
 
 Not a few among them men of the highest eminence as thinkers 
 and writers will decide with impatient emphasis that Hugh's rebel- 
 lion against the tyranny of grammar was the genial assertion of his 
 native force, the bursting of the flower-pot by the oak sapling, the 
 most propitious thing which could have befallen him. There is much 
 to be said on this side of the question. The boy who was dux of the 
 school in Cromarty when Hugh Miller was dunce, the model boy, 
 who was the delight of the school-master, and who carried off the 
 highest prizes when he went to college, the boy whom the story 
 books designate for a Lord Mayor's coach and a handsome fortune,
 
 CONTRADICTIONS OF CHARACTER. 333 
 
 became a respectable and useful minister of the Church of Scotland, 
 and would probably never have been heard of beyond the circle of 
 his parishioners, but for the circumstance of his having been mentioned 
 in the works of his friend, the dunce. The name of the dux has 
 been touched by the pen of the dunce, and is likely to live as long as 
 the English language. By taking the bit into his teeth, leaping the 
 fences, and scouring the plain at his own wild will, Hugh Miller ob- 
 tained that freedom for his faculties which is necessary to all vigorous 
 growth, to all beauty and capricious grace of movement. Had he re- 
 ceived the technical training of a college professor, would college 
 professors have said that they would give their hand from their wrist 
 for the curiosa felicitas of his style ? Take young creatures, colts, or 
 lambs, mew them up, feed and fodder them on the most approved 
 scientific principles, you will have them sleek and fat, but will there 
 be buoyancy or elastic strength in their limbs ? will there be the light 
 of health and joy in their eyes? will not the "poor things," like 
 Tennyson's hot-house flowers, "look unhappy?" The law of free- 
 dom applies to all life, human as well as animal, and the finer and 
 fresher the mental qualities, the greater is the risk that constraint 
 will benumb or pervert them. The grand thing to be secured is 
 mental force, and it is possible that laborious effort to attain skill 
 in the expression of force may draw fatally on the original force 
 itself. The faculties, like over-drilled -soldiers, may have no strength 
 left to play their part in life's battle. It is a Shakespearean opinion 
 that 
 
 " Universal plodding prisons up 
 
 The nimble spirits in the arteries ; 
 
 As motion and long-during action tires 
 
 The sinewy vigor of the traveler." 
 
 The worst possible result of school discipline is to take the edge 
 from that exultant ardor with which a strong youth thinks of work, 
 for mind or for body, as the supreme of pleasures. Hugh Miller's 
 freedom was -not unredeemed trifling; it was his native force devel- 
 oping in its own way and seeking its own nourishment. If he 
 turned from the Latin Rudiments, he found a literature on which he 
 never tired to expatiate, a literature whose teaching he accepted 
 with enthusiasm ; a literature which acquainted him with foreign 
 lands, <ind caused him to thrill at the deeds of brave men ; a litera- 
 ture whose inmost spirit he vitally assimilated and made his own. If 
 attention to his grammatical task in the dingy school-room pained 
 him, his powers were concentrated in highest action when he accom- 
 panied Uncle Sandy in his researches on the shore at ebb-tide, or 
 when, in solitary rambles, he looked carefully, constantly, lovingly 
 into the face of nature. Even in those doings with his brethren of 
 the cave, which seemed to have occasioned his relatives most alarm, 
 he was acquiring habits of self-possession, courage, fidelity, reticence, 
 which are not always imparted by artificial training.
 
 334 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 And let us not forget that stubbornness of purpose, inflexibility of 
 will, the unpardonable sin in the eyes of most pedagogues, is after all 
 the indispensable basis of character for any man who will do much. 
 Acquire it as he may, the ability to go forward in the path he has 
 chosen, to face the pelting shower and the scorching sun, to do 
 wholly, heartily, inflexibly, what he deliberately wills to do, is of 
 sovereign importance for a man. Quicquid vult valde vult, this is 
 the diploma of masterhood in nature's university; "unstable as 
 water, thou shall not excel," this is the hopeless doom. "I sowed 
 flower-seed," wrote John Sterling, respecting his management of his 
 garden in boyhood, " and then turned up the ground again and 
 planted potatoes, and then rooted out the potatoes to insert acorns 
 and apple-pips, and at last, as may be supposed, reaped neither roses, 
 nor potatoes, nor oak-trees, nor apples." The words are an epitome 
 of Sterling's biography. Hugh Miller, even in boyhood, had a pur- 
 pose, and held to it, firmly resolved that he would not have his limbs 
 straightened on the Procrustean bed prepared for him, conscious that 
 he was neither dunce nor reprobate, but growing in h : .s own way. 
 
 It must be * carefully noted that the character always remained 
 sound in the vital parts. Of meanness, untruthfulne?.s, cruelty, avarice, 
 he showed no trace. Had his sensual passions been vehement as 
 those of Burns or Mirabeau, the probability is that he would have 
 fallen into debauchery ; but his wildest passion was a passion for free- 
 dom; his dissipation was to wander in the wood or by the wave. 
 Neither morally nor intellectually was he, at any time, dissolute. 
 
 And yet it is impossible to hide from ourselves that there is another 
 side to all this. It is difficult to believe that insubordination, turbu- 
 lence, habitual neglect of tasks, with which a sentiment of duty is 
 more or less associated, can be other than disadvantageous to the 
 mind. To check the lawlessness natural to man ; to break self-will 
 to the yoke ; to change the faculties from a confused barbarian herd 
 or horde into a disciplined or exercised company must ever be an 
 essential part of the training of youth. Educated hurftan nature is 
 more natural than uneducated. Shakespeare says again : 
 
 " Nature is made better by no mean 
 But nature makes that mean ; so, o'er that art, 
 Which, you say, adds to nature, is an art 
 That nature makes." 
 
 Does not this throw us back on the reflection that education of 
 the highest kind, based on nature, guided by nature, yet raising 
 nature to heights otherwise unattainable, is not to be easily attained f 
 In every case where an original mind is concerned, education is too 
 subtle a process, requiring too intimate and individual a communion 
 of soul with soul, to be managed by the rough, common methods. A 
 boy of genius would require a teacher of genius, one whose percep- 
 tions were so keen, whose sympathies were so fine and true, that he
 
 WITHOUT PARENTAL AUTHORITY. 335 
 
 could understand the exceptional mind, obey its monitions as he led 
 i^ on, apply to it a constraint which would be felt as gentleness, and 
 a gentleness which would tell as constraint. Had Hugh Miller found 
 such a teacher, the advantage to himself and the world might doubt- 
 less have been great. He had capacities in him for consummate 
 scholarship, an exact and tenacious memory, great attention, great 
 application, true taste, and clear judgment. Learning could never 
 with him have been pedantry; and. it is indisputable, that the man 
 who can converse with the ancients in their own tongues commands 
 a wider intellectual horizon than the man who knows only his native 
 language. One can not help wishing that Hugh Miller had seen 
 Homer himself lead out Achilles to poise a javelin, or had perceived 
 how different a person is the brawney, broad-shouldered, highly un- 
 rhetorical Ulysses of the " Odyssey," from the Ulysses whom Pope 
 taught to look and speak " in a manner worthy of the times of civiliza- 
 tion." Had Hugh Miller's father survived, his shrewd sense and 
 peremptory authority might have given a new color to the school- 
 ing of the boy; and, without sacrificing his freedom, Hugh might 
 have taken enough along with him to go to college. Once at a 
 university, the ambition of scholarship would have laid hold on him, 
 and with genius unimpaired and materials extended, he might, in 
 the first bloom of his manhood, have taken his place among the 
 foremost intellectual workers of his time. 
 
 There is another consideration which lends a melancholy emphasis 
 to these regrets. Hugh Miller came of a long-lived, strong-boned 
 race, and we have learned from himself that he was the most ath- 
 letic boy of his years in Cromarty. Had he proceeded to a uni- 
 versity, he would have avoided those fifteen years in the quarry and 
 the hewing-shed, during which his robust constitution was shaken, 
 and the seeds of ineradicable disease were sown in his frame. In 
 that case, the tear and wear of the severest of the intellectual pro- 
 fessions, journalism, though combined with unremitting attention to 
 science, might have failed to prevent his attaining a green old age. 
 In his letter to Baird, he refers to the obscurity and hardship of his 
 life as a mason, as "punishment for his early carelessness." But 
 why follow these speculations further, or launch into the vainest and 
 vaguest. of all philosophies, the plilosophy of what might have been? 
 By natural endowment and the action of circumstances, in one 
 word, by the will of God, Miller was fitted for the work appointed 
 him, and this is all we require to know or can know. 
 
 WIDOWED MOTHER MARRIES MILLER A BOY-EDITOR A LAD OF HIS 
 OWN WILL BECOMES APPRENTICE HARDSHIPS ALLEVIATIONS. 
 
 Boy-life, with its freshness of faculty, its exuberance of delights, 
 its opulence of wayward force, lies behind Hugh Miller. In the
 
 33> HUGH MILLER. 
 
 autumn of 1819, his mother, after a widowhood of fourteen years, 
 accepts a second husband, and he removes with her to the house of 
 his step-father. "I had no particular objections to the match," he 
 writes to a friend a few years later, "but you may be certain that it 
 gave me much disgust at the time." It compels him to realize the 
 fact that the world has changed for him, and that duty now demands 
 that play shall cease and work begin. Half a year, however, glides 
 away pleasantly enough his own expression is, "very agreeably" 
 in the house of his step-father. He still continues those sportings 
 with literature which have from infancy been among his choicest en- 
 joyments. I have before me Nos. I., II., and III. of a tiny magazine, 
 written in Miller's hand, and entitled, " The Village Observer, or 
 Monthly MSS." They are" dated January, Febmary, March, 1820. 
 Hugh is the editor and principal contributor. It is in February of 
 this year that he enters on his apprenticeship, and the March number 
 closes the series.* The pen gives place to the hammer for a time. 
 
 These "Village Observers" are absolutely authentic documents of 
 Miller's history at this time, and enable us to realize the circumstances 
 of his life before any tint of fancy, or association from the pursuits of 
 a subsequent period, had softened their harsher features. In the 
 three numbers there is not the remotest allusion to his apprenticeship. 
 This may be imputed to the disagreeableness of the subject ; but it is 
 somewhat remarkable that place is not found for a brief description 
 of those rare and beautiful birds discovered by him in the quarry on 
 the evening of his first day of labor, and delineated with enthusiastic 
 minuteness in his "Old Red Sandstone." The one was a goldfinch, 
 very uncommon in the Highlands of Scotland, with "hood of ver- 
 milion, and wings inlaid with gold ;" the other, a bird of the wood- 
 pecker tribe, "variegated with light blue and a grayish yellow." 
 Neither does Hugh, in the capacity of village observer, give us, in his 
 March number for 1820, any hint of that " exquisite pleasure " which, 
 as we are told in the " Old Red Sandstone," he derived from con- 
 templating the adjacent landscape when resting, on the second day, 
 from his toil at the hour of noon. "All the workmen," he says in 
 that book, "rested at midday, and I went to enjoy my half hour 
 alone on a mossy knoll in the neighboring wood, which commands 
 through the trees a wide prospect of the bay and the opposite shore. 
 There was not a wrinkle on the water, nor a cloud in the sky, and 
 the branches were as moveless in the calm as if they had been traced 
 on canvas. From a wooded promontory, that stretched half-way 
 across the frith, there ascended a thin column of smoke. It rose 
 straight as the line of a plummet for more than a thousand yards, and 
 then, on reaching a thinner stratum of air, spread out equally on every 
 side, like the foliage of a stately tree. Ben Wyvis rose to the west, 
 white with the yet unwasted snows of winter, and as sharply defined 
 in the clear atmosphere as if all its sunny slopes and blue retiring 
 hollows had been chiseled in marble. They reminded me of the
 
 BEGINS HIS APPRENTICESHIP. 337 
 
 pretty French story, in which an old artist is described as tasking 
 the ingenuity of his future son-in law, by giving him, as a subject for 
 his pencil, a flower-piece, composed of only white flowers, of which 
 the one-half were to bear their proper color, the other half a deep 
 purple hue, and yet all be perfectly natural ; and how the young man 
 resolved the riddle and gained his mistress by introducing a transpar- 
 ent purple vase into the picture, and making the light pass through 
 it on the flowers that were drooping over the edge. I returned to 
 the quarry, convinced that a very \exquisite pleasure may be a very 
 cheap one, and that the busiest employments may afford leisure enough 
 to enjoy it." This is beautiful writing and excellent philosophy; 
 but there is not a word in any degree resembling it, whether descrip- 
 tive or philosophical, in the " Monthly MSS.," edited by Hugh Miller 
 at the time. Nor is mention made of the ripple-marked sandstone, on 
 beholding which, on the same day, he "felt as completely at fault as 
 Robinson Crusoe did on his discovering the print of the man's foot 
 on the sand." 
 
 What is, perhaps, still more surprising, there is a similar absence of 
 reference to ornithological, geological, or aesthetic alleviations of his 
 early toil in the account of this period, written by him ten years sub- 
 sequently for Principal Baird. "My first six months of labor," he 
 writes to Baird in 1829, "presented only a series of disasters. I was, 
 at the time, of a slender make and weak constitution ; and I soon found 
 I was ill-fitted for such employments as the trundling of loaded wheel- 
 barrows over a plank, or the raising of huge blocks of stone out of a 
 quarry. My hands were soon fretted into large blisters, my breast 
 became the seat of a dull, oppressive pain, and I was much distressed, 
 after exertion more than usually violent, by an irregular motion of my 
 heart. My spirits were almost always miserably low ; and I was so 
 wrapped up in a wretched, apathetic absence of mind, that I have 
 wrought for whole hours together with scarcely a thought of what I 
 was doing myself, and scarcely conscious of what others were doing 
 around me." 
 
 Both these narratives may be strictly consistent with fact. In 
 that case they afford a striking illustration of Miller's own remark, 
 that two varying descriptions may be given by the same person of the 
 same events, and yet both be veracious. He said nothing, in the 
 earlier documents, of the rare birds, the beautiful landscape, the 
 ripple-marked stone, because it was not until afterwards that he re- 
 garded them as of importance^ He mentally associated with his first 
 years of labor feelings which belonged to a later time. He was an 
 observer from infancy, and his observations gave him joy; his memory 
 became stored with facts ; but not until he studied geology did he 
 apprehend that these facts had any scientific value. When geology 
 took possession of Miller, the possession was complete. He thought, 
 talked, wrote of geology ; his leading articles, his discussions of polit- 
 ical and religious questions, were full of it. From the boyish maga- 
 
 22
 
 33 8 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 zines he edited, it is absent ; from the poems which he composed in 
 boyhood and youth, it is absent; in the letters which he wrote to his 
 favorite associates, of which we have an uninterrupted series, begin- 
 ning a year or two later than the time at which we have arrived, we 
 look for it in vain ; and in the narrative composed at the request of 
 Baird, there is not one throb of scientific enthusiasm. It was, I 
 believe, at a time much later than that of his apprenticeship that 
 Hugh Miller, though his eye had always beamed with delight when it 
 rested on an object of beauty, learned to take a geological interest in 
 the ammonite, " graceful in its curves as those of the Ionic volute, 
 'and greatly more delicate in its sculpturing," or to read, hour after 
 hour, with scientific curiosity, in the " marvelous library of the 
 Scotch Lias." 
 
 Boys and girls are moralists and politicians before they care about 
 science. 
 
 Perhaps the most significant trait which the last number of the 
 " Village Observer " presents of Hugh is this from a " Journal of the 
 Week:" "Wrote a moral essay upon the advantages of industry, 
 but tore it in pieces on considering that its author was one of the 
 most indolent personages on earth did nothing, but still determined 
 on reform." 
 
 Farewell, then, to the busy idleness of verse-making and magazine- 
 editing. In the last days of February, Miller still has leisure to put 
 together the number for March, but no other nurnber follows. He 
 binds himself verbally, but by no legal instrument, apprentice for 
 three years to "old David Wright," stone-mason, brother-in-law of 
 his mother. Old David was something of a character. 
 
 Miller's uncles, who had taken the right measure of his capacity, 
 and who had loved and watched over him as a son, have done their 
 utmost to oppose this decision. Their sure instinct tells them that 
 the place of this recruit is not in the ranks ; they have earnestly 
 wished to see him enrolled among the brain-workers of the commu- 
 nity ; and, like all Scottish peasants of the old historic type, they re- 
 gard the ministers of the Church of Christ as taking precedence of all 
 others in the intellectual aristocracy. They have told him that if he 
 will only return to his books, and prepare for college, their home and 
 their savings will be at his command. They have tried to appeal to 
 his pride and desire for advancement. Uncle James has gone the 
 length of hinting with some bitterness that, if he has found books too 
 hard for him, he may find labor harder still, and may turn from the 
 latter with the same inconstancy with which he turned from the former. 
 But Hugh, as James Wright knows and has said, is " a lad of his own 
 will," and his mind is made up. As for his declinature of the clerical 
 profession, he satisfies both himself and Uncle James on that head, 
 by the consideration that he has no call to the sacred office. The 
 feeling of independence, strong in Hugh Miller as in Robert Burns, 
 rebels against the idea of his going to college, dependent on the bounty
 
 HE DECLARES FOR STONE AND LIME. 339 
 
 of relatives. Strangely enough, too, that passion for literature, 
 whether in the form of reading or of writing, which had marked him 
 from his childhood as the predestined author, drove him to the quarry. 
 The conception of a literary career founded upon a complete Univer- 
 sity education, and commencing with the instruments and further- 
 ances which ages have accumulated, had not dawned upon his mind. 
 Literature had been to him a coy maiden, radiant, fascinating, but 
 free and light-winged as a forest bird, and he shrank from formal 
 irreversible espousals. He has observed that "Cousin George," a 
 mason, though hard-worked during several months in the year, has the 
 months of winter to himself. This decides him in favor of the trade 
 of mason. In winter and early spring he will return to his beloved 
 Muse, to dally with her in a life-long courtship ; or, if it is to end in 
 marriage, for the thought of rising by literature does lurk, deep 
 hidden, in his heart, she will take his hand as a beneficent princess 
 takes that of a knightly though low-born suitor, and lift him at once 
 to fame and fortune. Uncle James's remark on the probability of his 
 failing at labor as he has failed at study, he 'takes note of; it may be 
 pleasant to teach Uncle James that he can will to work as well as will 
 to play, and that, though others have lost the mastership of him, he 
 has not lost mastership of himself. Enough ; he declares unalterably 
 for stone and lime, and becomes apprentice to his uncle, old David 
 Wright. The engagement is understood to be for three years. In 
 the chill February morning of 1820, he takes his way to the quarry. 
 
 Relieved or not relieved by touches of romance, Hugh Miller's first 
 season of labor proves to be one of sternest hardship, putting to the 
 strain his whole faculty of endurance. The dark side is given in all 
 his contemporary or nearly contemporary renderings of the subject ; 
 the lights in the picture come out only when it is seen through the 
 vista of years. Still quite a boy, slender and loose-jointed, uninter- 
 mitted toil presses hard on him both in mind and body. His spirits 
 fail. He is constantly in pain, often prostrated by sickness. He 
 shows at first no quickness or dexterity in acquiring his trade, and is 
 the most awkward of the apprentices. Uncle David begins to be of 
 opinion that this incomprehensible compound of genius and dunce is 
 incapable of attaining the skill of an ordinary mechanic. The lad is 
 sorely tempted to become a dram-drinker. We have two accounts 
 of his triumph over this temptation, the one harshly realistic, of date 
 1829, the other more picturesque, dated 1853. 
 
 "It is probable," he writes, "that the want of money alone pre- 
 vented me from indulging, at this period, in the low vice of dram- 
 drinking." He thus describes the affair in "My Schools and 
 School-masters:" "In laying down the foundation-stone of one of 
 the larger houses built this year by Uncle David and his partner, the 
 workmen had a royal 'founding-pint,' and two whole glasses of the 
 whisky came to my share. A full-grown man would not have 
 deemed a gill of usquebaugh an overdose, but it was considerably too
 
 340 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 much for me ; and when the party broke up, and I got home to my 
 books, I found, as I opened the pages of a favorite author, the letters 
 dancing before my eyes, and that I could no longer master the sense. 
 I have the volume at present before me, a small edition of the 
 Essays of Bacon, a good deal worn at the corners by the friction of 
 my pocket ; for of Bacon I never tired. The condition into which 
 I had brought myself was, I felt, one of degradation. I had sunk, by 
 my own act, for the time, to a lower level of intelligence than that 
 on which it was my privilege to be placed ; and though the state could 
 have been no very favorable one for forming a resolution, I in that 
 hour determined that I should never again sacrifice my capacity of 
 intellectual enjoyment to a drinking usage ; and, with God's help, I 
 was enabled to hold by the determination." It was, therefore, not 
 "the want of money alone" which prevented him from becoming a 
 tippler ; but we may be permitted to think that this little circum- 
 stance was a valuable auxiliary to Bacon. 
 
 Soon, also, there came alleviations of his hardship more practical 
 than those derived from geological discovery and admiration of High- 
 land scenery. As he does not sink under exertion, his physical 
 stamina gradually asserts itself, and makes labor a source of strength. 
 It was a characteristic of Miller during life, that he progressed in any 
 pursuit not by little and little, but by leaps. His master and fellow- 
 workmen, who, during the first months of his apprenticeship, have 
 regarded him as too awkward to learn his trade, are suddenly aston- 
 ished to find him one of the most expert hewers in the squad. "So 
 flattered was my vanity," he writes, " by the respect which they paid 
 me on this account, and such satisfaction did I derive from emulating 
 them in what they confessed the better department of their profession, 
 that the coming winter, to which, a few weeks before, I had looked 
 forward as good men do to the pleasures of another state of existence, 
 was no longer an object of desire." 
 
 To throw down the tools, however, could not but be a relief, and 
 the leisure of winter is hailed with satisfaction. After a pedestrian 
 journey to Strath-Carron, in company with his cousin, George Munro, 
 in the course of which he makes some observations, not of an impor- 
 tant character, on an old Scotch forest of native pine, he returns to 
 Cromarty. The education of toil has already done more for him 
 than any previous education, and the unruly boy has become a 
 thoughtful, docile young man. 
 
 EARLY FRIENDSHIPS SWANSON, FINLAY, ROSS PLEASURES OF THE 
 
 IMAGINATION TWO OF NATURE'S GENTLEMEN. 
 
 From his early boyhood Miller had given proof of the blended faith- 
 fulness and tenderness of his nature by the affection with which he clung 
 to one or two chosen friends. His friendship with John Swanson,
 
 HIS BOSOM FRIEND. 341 
 
 him of the Doocot cave, already warm and confidential when Hugh 
 was twelve and John ten, continued in freshness and intensity until 
 the hour of Miller's death. Finlay, whom he describes as a gentle- 
 spirited boy, who loved to share with him the solitude of the caves 
 by moonlight, seems to have held the first place in his regard in the 
 period immediately preceding his apprenticeship. 
 
 By far the most remarkable, however, of these early friends of Miller 
 was William Ross. There are many memorials of Ross in Miller's 
 papers, and I can perceive that the account given of him in the 
 "Schools and School-masters" is not too highly colored. The child 
 of parents crushed into the dust by poverty, his father half imbecile, 
 his mother feeble in health and broken-spirited, his own energies de- 
 pressed by perpetual sickness, he had received from capricious nature 
 a mental organization of exquisite delicacy, enriched with fine and 
 tender elements. Modest, gentle, affectionate; tremulously alive 
 to the feelings and claims of others ; depreciating every thing in him- 
 self, exalting every capacity and accomplishment of one he loved ; 
 unaffectedly religious, and unmoved by utmost calamity from simple 
 faith in a divine care and a heavenly love, William Ross was the 
 very ideal of a bosom friend. There is a letter dated Nigg, loth 
 July, 1821, from Ross to Miller, which will serve to introduce him to 
 the reader. He had just lost by death one of the very few who had 
 been kind to him in his boyhood. 
 
 " Where, think you, have I sitten down to write you? In my grand- 
 mother's room, and before the very table at which I once used to read 
 (in happier days) a chapter in the big old Bible, and sing a psalm every 
 night and morning. I can not tell you how I feel. The remembrance 
 of the innocence and happiness of the days that are gone has softened 
 my heart, indifferent as it has become to the pure feelings of devotion. 
 I have done reading just now the three last chapters of the Gospel 
 of St. John, and with the history of the sufferings of our Savior I 
 was never more affected. I feel my soul raised above the things of 
 this world in the contemplation of the truly godlike patience with 
 which, in his human nature, he bore the terrible evils which were 
 inflicted on him, and his resignation to the will of his heavenly 
 Father. 
 
 "Oh that I could fix the present mood, and render it permanent ! 
 What a world of happiness dwells in the bosom of the devout man ; 
 amid all the storms of adversity he has a fortress and a God. His 
 hopes repose on that Providence who has the disposal Of all events; 
 not knowing himself what is good or evil of the things of this life, 
 he does his duty, and trusts to his Father for the rest. How far dif- 
 ferent is God from man ! If we ask His favor he will not withhold it. 
 ' To the poor he is a friend, and he will not hide his face from the 
 needy.' I find we must love Him before we can truly love one an- 
 other. I see this love as the master-principle as the purifier of the 
 heart ; it warms our affections to our friends, makes us grateful to our
 
 342 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 benefactors, and forgiving to our enemies. Oh, my dear Miller, bear 
 with me now as you have often done before ! I am weak as a child. 
 
 " My mind is filled with recollections of the joys that are gone, 
 and the dear sainted friend that has left me. I went to her house, 
 but I did not see her waiting my approach, her feet did not sound in 
 the passage as I entered the door ; ' my dear Willie' was not heard 
 on my unexpected appearance. The good hand that once nursed me 
 was not stretched out with an air of tender affection towards me. I 
 looked to the place where she used to sit, but she was not there; in 
 her bodily shape I did not behold her, yet her image was before me, 
 and all the good she did me was present in my view. What a va- 
 cancy is here ! What a change has death made to me ! But I must 
 have done; the last light of evening is taking its leave. Good-by." 
 
 The difference between the character of Miller, who met every check 
 and impulse with pugnacity, and that of Ross, whose gentleness was 
 feminine, and who could not bear to be thought ill of even by those 
 who acted to him meanly and unkindly, tended probably to cement 
 their friendship. The proceedings of Ross on completing his appren- 
 ticeship, and commencing practice as a house- painter on his own ac- 
 count, illustrate, in a touching manner, his simplicity and kindliness. 
 The master who had enjoyed his services for five years and valuable 
 services they were, for William's talent in his vocation was eminent 
 seems to have quite cast him off when his term expired. He writes to 
 Miller : 
 
 " Want stared me in the face ; and, having determined not to be a 
 burden to any, I meant to leave, if I possibly could, the place ; for, 
 though I had no prospect of employment, I deemed it better to 
 starve among strangers (if nothing else awaited me) than in this coun- 
 try On the Tuesday after you had left me I waited on 
 
 Mr. , and told him what I would do if he would trust me. He 
 
 would not ; and after so downright a refusal you can not imagine the 
 perturbed state of my mind. What hurt me most was that he should 
 
 have doubted my probity. I then went straight to Mr. , to see 
 
 what he thought of me ; for, after the first shock was over, I was indif- 
 ferent to what I might meet with. He was not quite so direct with 
 me, but what he said amounted to a. refusal too. Before evening I 
 had paid them both, which so reduced my slender finances that I could 
 go nowhere, and here, without money or employment, I could not 
 well stay. The friend who would have sympathized with me was 
 gone; and perhaps 'twas better that he was. The way in which I 
 have been treated could not but have hurt you. 
 
 " Now that you have my worst news, I will tell you better. Colonel 
 
 G sent for me to refresh the walls of his dining-room, and gave 
 
 me 55. when I had done. Soon after, I saw Mr. , who asked me 
 
 whether I was employed, and told me, on replying in the negative, 
 
 that his brother-in-law, Mr. , had bought paint at London, and 
 
 was looking out for some one to paint his house for him by the day.
 
 ROSS'S ESTIMATE OF HIS ABILITY. 343 
 
 I would do the work most readily, I said, but as my old master had 
 thought of getting it for himself, I could not think of interfering. 
 He assured me, however, that that was out of the question, as it was 
 
 owing to the exorbitancy of my master's estimate that Mr. had 
 
 procured the materials for himself. I accordingly went and settled 
 
 with Mr. for the work at 33. per day. This will make a sad 
 
 change, I am afraid, in all I enjoyed of the favorable opinion of my 
 master; but I can't help it." 
 
 Was there not a delicacy of honor in the reluctance of the lad, 
 whom starvation actually stared in the face, to accept work which his 
 old master had " thought of getting," such as is rarely met with in 
 any rank of life ? In a letter written shortly afterwards, we have this 
 note of that master's conduct: "I came here to furnish brushes for 
 the work, but my master would sell me none." Brushes, however, 
 were obtained, and he proceeds: "I am happier in my mind than 
 usual. There are glimpses of sunshine breaking out upon me, and a 
 less troubled sky overhead. Oh, how grateful ought I to be to that 
 bounteous Benefactor who knows our wants, and can and will supply 
 them ! I hardly know, my dear Miller, how to conclude. I trust I 
 am grateful to Him for you too." It must have been a sweetly toned 
 nature which unkindness so bitter did not provoke to one angry word, 
 and which was so easily stimulated to childlike gladness and to pious 
 gratitude. In the deep forest, one beam penetrates to the wounded 
 bird, and it breaks on the instant into song. 
 
 Such was the young man with whom Miller spent the greater part 
 of his time on being relieved from the labors of his first year of ap- 
 prenticeship. He read his poems to Ross, and showed him his 
 drawings. Hugh had formed a high estimate of both, and the under- 
 current of critical severity which invariably accompanied his friend's 
 applause, though not strong enough to damp his ardor, was useful in 
 giving precision to his ideas of himself. Ross had penetration enough 
 to discern that a certain imaginative glow, which threw out objects, 
 as it were, in aerial perspective, and cast over them a pleasing light 
 of fancy or association, belonged to Miller. In their walks in the 
 wood or by the shore, he encouraged Hugh to cultivate literature, ap- 
 plauding " the wild vigor of his imagination," and hinting that his 
 word -pictures of the moment revealed more of poetical genius than 
 the formal productions either of his pencil or his pen. 
 
 Ross's advice to Miller on the whole was as follows : " Your drawings 
 have but little merit, nor can I regard them even as works of 
 promise ; neither by any means do you write good verses. And why, 
 do you think, do I tell you so ? Only to direct your studies to their 
 proper object. You draw ill, because nature never intended that you 
 should do otherwise ; whereas you write ill, only because you write 
 seldom. You are possessed of talents which, with due culture, will 
 enable you to attain no common command of the pen ; for you are 
 an original thinker, your mind is richly imbued with poetry, and,
 
 344 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 though devoid of a musical ear, you have, from nature, something 
 much better, that perception of the harmonies of language which is 
 essential to the formation of a good and elegant style." So far as I 
 can judge, no critic could have more correctly estimated Miller's 
 capacity at the time, or given him better advice. 
 
 A spectator, observing these lads, the one apprenticed to a mason, 
 the other to a house-painter, would hardly have guessed the nature 
 of their conversation. Had they been youths of aristocratic birth 
 or university distinction, could their intercourse have been more 
 completely that of gentlemen ? We may note how steadily Hugh 
 pushes forward what, without much conscious resolving on the sub- 
 ject, has become the purpose of his life, self-culture. With quiet 
 persistence, undistracted by the commencement of lifelong toil as a 
 mason, he cherishes the ambition of maturing his powers of thought 
 and expression. Attesting, also, the radical nobleness of his charac- 
 ter, and the high tone of the society in which he had lived, this 
 circumstance is to be noted, that the ambition of making money 
 never seized him. The big bells of Babylon dinning into all young 
 ears, never more loudly than in our age, their invitations to make 
 fortunes, had no persuasion for him. To extend the empire of his 
 mind, to enrich and beautify the garden of his soul, this was what 
 presented itself as a supreme object of ambition to our Scottish boy 
 of eighteen, with a mallet in his hand. 
 
 CONON-SIDE LIFE IN THE BARRACK WANDERINGS IN THE WOODS 
 
 * SCENERY OF CONON-SIDE AT HOME AGAIN. 
 
 In the spring of 1821, Miller resumed his labors. In the latter 
 end of May, his master had finished the work contracted for in the 
 district of Cromarty, and, as no more contracts were to be had, was 
 compelled to descend from the position of master and seek employment 
 as journeyman. The apprentice he had taken at the same time with 
 Miller seized the opportunity of regaining his freedom, and setting 
 up as journeyman on his own account ; and one might have thought 
 that the willful, headstrong lad, who had set his uncles and his 
 school-masters at defiance, would have followed this example. But 
 Hugh was no longer the turbulent school-boy of sixteen, and among 
 the qualities which had ripened in the wholesome atmosphere of 
 labor was a profound sense of justice. He continued to serve old 
 David Wright, and proceeded with him to the banks of the Conon. 
 
 He is now, for the first time, introduced to the barrack or bothy 
 life of a squad of masons. A description of the barrack, and the 
 scene it presented on his first becoming one of its inmates, occurs in 
 his letter to Baird. "I followed," he writes, "the horde into their 
 barrack. It consisted of one large apartment. Along the wall, and 
 across one of the gables, there was a range of beds, rudely con-
 
 THE BARRACK. 345 
 
 strutted of outside slab deals, and filled with straw, which bristled 
 from beneath the blankets and from between the crevices of the 
 frames in a manner much less neat than picturesque. At each bed- 
 side there were two chests, which served not only the purpose origi- 
 nally intended, but also for chairs and tables. Suspended by ropes 
 from the rafters above, there hung, at the height of a man's head 
 from the ground, several bags filled with oatmeal, which by this con- 
 trivance was secured from the rats, with which the place was infested. 
 Along the gable furthest removed from the door there was a huge 
 wood fire ; above it there were hung several small pots, enveloped in 
 smoke, which, for lack of proper vent, after filling the whole barrack, 
 escaped by the door. Before the fire there was a row of stones, each 
 of which supported an oaten cake. The inmates, who exceeded 
 twenty, had disposed of themselves in every possible manner. Some 
 were lounging in the beds, others were seated on the chests. Two of 
 them were dancing on the floor to the whistling of a third. There 
 was one employed in baking, another in making ready the bread. 
 The chaos of sounds which reigned among them was much more com- 
 plete than that which appalled their prototypes, the builders of Babel. 
 There was the gabbling of Saxon, the sputtering of Gaelic, the hum- 
 ming of church music, the whistling of the musician, and the stamp- 
 ing of the dancers. Three of the pots on the fire began to boil 
 together, and there was a cry for the cook. He came rushing for- 
 ward, pushed the man engaged in baking from out his way with 
 one hand, and drawing the seat from under the one employed in 
 making ready the bread with the other, he began to shout out, so as 
 to drown their united voices, for meal and salt. Both were brought 
 him, and in a few minutes he had completed his task." 
 
 Wild companions, a wild lodging, and wild mode of life ; nor can 
 much bodily comfort be associated with the idea of a diet whose 
 sole variation is from oatmeal in porridge to oatmeal in cakes ; but 
 Miller is not unhappy. He is now recognized as a good workman, 
 and his frame is more capable of labor than in the previous season. 
 His spirit is buoyant, and full of gay, hopeful humor ; and his 
 readiness to take and return a jest, together with his sprightliness 
 and his obliging disposition, secure him the good-will of his com- 
 panions. On the long summer evenings, when work is over, he can 
 wander about the district, climbing its ridges of hill, exploring its 
 ruins and natural curiosities, diving into the recesses of its woods, 
 and following the course of its streams. He is still boy enough to 
 enjoy the raspberries which grow in the woods, and the poetry of 
 his nature finds aliment in the new and picturesque aspects of hill 
 and plain which every eminence reveals to him. 
 
 The gentler aspects of the scenery near appear to have attracted 
 Miller. " Strathpeffer," he wrote to Baird, "one of the finest val- 
 leys in this part of the country, lies within five miles of Conon-side. 
 My walks occasionally extended to it; and I still retain a vividly-
 
 346 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 pleasing recollection of its enchanting scenery, with the more pleas- 
 ing features of the scenes through which I passed on my way to it. 
 
 But he was not exclusively engaged on these occasions in view- 
 hunting. " I have not even yet," he adds, "summed up my evening 
 amusements. They were not all poetical. The country round Conon- 
 side abounds with wild fruit, and I feasted among the woods, during 
 my long rambles, on gueens, rowans, raspberries, and blae-berries, 
 with all the keenness of boyish appetite. The fruit furnished me with 
 an ostensible object for my wanderings ; and when complimented by 
 a romantic young^girl, who had derived her notions of character from 
 the reading of romances, on that disposition which led me to seek my 
 pleasures in solitude, I could remark in reply that I was not more 
 fond of solitude than of raspberries." 
 
 It was late in the year when he returned to Cromarty. Nearly a 
 month of winter had passed. Ross was now residing in the cottage 
 of his parents, on the northern side of Cromarty Frith, and Miller 
 lacked the stimulus of his literary sympathy. " What remained of the 
 season," he wrote, " together with the greater part of the ensuing 
 spring, was spent in profitless indolence. I neither wrote verses nor 
 drew pictures, but wandered during the day through the fields and 
 woods, and among the rocks of the hill of Cromarty ; and my even- 
 ings were commonly spent either in the workshop of my Uncle 
 James, where a few of the more intelligent mechanics of the place 
 generally met, or in the company of a new acquaintance," the help- 
 less cripple, described in the " Schools and School-masters " as "poor 
 lame Danie," who, with his old mother, occupied "a damp, under- 
 ground room." Miller formed a friendship with the suffering boy, 
 and took delight in alleviating the tedium of his lingering illness. 
 
 RETURN'S TO CONON-SIDE MAKES HIMSELF RESPECTED IN THE BAR- 
 RACK COMPANIONS ATTEMPTS GEOMETRY AND ARCHITECTURE 
 
 HARDSHIPS EXPERIMENT IN NECROMANCY DREAM THE BOTHY 
 
 SYSTEM LITERARY RECREATIONS TEDIUM END OF APPRENTICESHIP 
 
 THE BLESSING OF LABOR PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 The working season of 1822 finds him again on Conon-side. He 
 is now in the third year of his apprenticeship, and he feels that he 
 has a position in the barrack. "I had determined," said he in his 
 letter to Baird, " early this season, to conform to every practice of 
 the barrack, and, as I was an apt pupil, I had in a short time become 
 one of the freest, and not the least rude, of its inmates. I became 
 an excellent baker, and one of the most skillful of cooks. I made 
 wonderful advances in the art of practical joking, and my bonmots 
 were laughed at and repeated. There were none of my companions 
 who could foil me in wrestling, or who could leap within a foot of 
 me ; and after having taken the slight liberty of knocking down a
 
 THE FOREMAN. 347 
 
 young fellow who insulted me, they all began to esteem me as a lad 
 of spirit and promise." 
 
 "The foreman of the squad, when a young man," writes Miller, 
 "had bent his excellent natural parts to the study of his profession, 
 and became so skillful in it as to be intrusted with the superintendence 
 of a party of workmen while yet an apprentice. His early proficiency 
 was a subject of wonder to his less- gifted companions ; he was much 
 gratified by their admiration, and acquired that appetite for praise 
 which is of so general experience, and which in many instances be- 
 comes more keen the more it is supplied with food. He had too 
 much sense to be open to the direct flatteries of other people, but he 
 was not skillful in detecting his own ; and having attained, in his 
 limited circle, the fame of being talented, he set himself to acquire 
 the reputation of being generous and warm-hearted ; and this, perhaps, 
 for he was naturally of a cold temperament, from that singular weak- 
 ness incident to human nature, which has so frequently the effect of 
 making even men of reflection derive more pleasure from the praise 
 of the qualities or talents of which they are destitute than of those 
 which they really possess." 
 
 Miller was advised by this man to study geontetry and architecture. 
 " With the latter," he says, " I had previously been acquainted ; of the 
 former, I was entirely ignorant. I had not even a single correct idea of it. 
 The study of a few detached hours, though passed amid the distrac- 
 tion of a barrack, made me master of the language peculiar to the 
 science ; and I was then surprised to find how wide a province it 
 opens to the mental powers, and to discover that what is termed 
 mathematical skill means only an ability of reasoning on the forms 
 and properties of lines and figures, acquired by good sense being 
 patiently directed to their consideration. I perceived, however, 
 that from prosecuting this study I could derive only amusement, 
 and that, too, not of a kind the most congenial to my particular 
 cast of mind. I had no ambition to rise by any of the professions 
 in which it is necessary ; and I chose rather to exercise the facul- 
 ties proper to be employed in it in the wide field of nature and of 
 human affairs, in tracing causes to their effects, and effects to 
 their causes; in classing together things similar, and in marking 
 the differences of things unlike. The study of architecture I found 
 more amusing ; partly, I believe, because it tasked me less ; partly 
 because it gratified my taste, and exercised my powers of invention. 
 In geometry I saw that I could only follow the footsteps of others, 
 and that I would be necessitated to pursue the beaten track for whole 
 years before I could reach that latest discovered extremity of it, be- 
 yond which there lies undiscovered, untrodden regions, in which it 
 would be a delight to expatiate. Architecture, on the contrary, ap- 
 peared to me a field of narrow boundaries. I could see at one glance 
 both over it and beyond it. I have found that the grotesque cottage 
 of * Highland peasant, the hut of a herd-boy, a cavern half veiled
 
 348 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 over with trailing plants, an opening in a wood, in short, a countless 
 variety of objects of art and nature, supplied me with ideas which, 
 though connected with it, had not become part of it." 
 
 From mathematics, therefore, as previously from classics, Hugh 
 Miller turned aside. His apprenticeship had begun with trying 
 experiences, and its termination was marked also by extremity of 
 hardship. In the September of this year, 1822, his master obtained 
 work a few miles from Cromarty. Miller and he worked from dawn 
 until nightfall.- Their work was painful : They toiled " day after day, 
 with wet feet, in a water-logged ditch," laying stone upon stone, until 
 the cuticle was worn away, and the fingers oozed blood. Miller de- 
 scribes the labor as "torture." "How these poor hands," he says, 
 "burnt and beat at night, as if an unhappy jjeart had been stationed 
 in every finger! and what cold chills used to run, sudden as electric 
 shocks, through the feverish frame!" His health was affected; a 
 dull, depressing pain weighed upon his chest, and there were symp- 
 toms of pectoral blood-spitting. He lost his spirits, and thought he 
 was going to die. 
 
 What with brooding on early death by day, wandering among tombs 
 in night-visions, his brain was rapidly approaching that degree of agi- 
 tation at which will and intellect fall under the dominion of mania. 
 
 In the "Schools and School-masters," and in the letter to Baird, 
 he dwells upon the wretched and dissolute life of the two or three 
 farm-servants who occupied the same bothy with himself. Their or- 
 dinary pleasures consisted in drinking, and amusements of a low and 
 gross character. "The deteriorating effect of the large farm system," 
 he wrote, "is inevitable; and unless means be taken to check the 
 spread of the ruinous process of brute-making which the system in- 
 volves, the Scottish people will sink, to a certainty, in the agricultural 
 districts, from being one of the most provident, intelligent, and moral 
 in Europe, to be one of the most licentious, reckless, and ignorant." 
 
 If iwo men ever lived who knew the Scottish people, and were able 
 to give an intelligent opinion concerning them, these two men were 
 Robert Burns and Hugh Miller ; and their joint authority in favor of 
 the old system and against the new, viewed in relation to the capacity 
 of each to produce upright, independent, self-respecting men, will 
 hardly be outweighed by any consideration. 
 
 It may be hoped that such bothies as that in which Hugh Miller 
 lived at this time are no longer to be found in Scotland. The roof 
 leaked ; the sides were " riddled with gaps and breaches; " along the 
 ridge, "it was open to the sky from gable to gable," "so that," 
 he writes, " when I awakened in the night, I could tell what o'clock 
 it was, without rising out of bed, by the stars which appeared through 
 the opening." Even in that dismal place, Miller contrived to supply 
 himself with the consolations of literature. He obtained the poems 
 of Douglas and Dunbar, besides a collection of poems from the MS. 
 of George Bannatyne, and "perused them with great interest; " but
 
 THE EDUCATED APPRENTICE. 349 
 
 even this resource failed him. The fuel used for warming the barrack 
 became soaked with rain, and could not produce a blaze to read by, 
 so that he could only stick doggedly to work, passing as many hours 
 of the twenty-four in sleep as was practicable. "I restricted myself," 
 he writes, " to two meals per day, that immediately after taking dinner 
 I might go to bed ; and in a short time this new arrangement became 
 such a matter of habit, that I commonly fell asleep every evening about 
 six o'clock, and did not rise, sometimes not even awaking, until nearly 
 eight next morning, finding that sleep was not a bad make-shift in the 
 absence of livelier entertainments." In the letter from which this is 
 quoted he pronounces the spring and summer of the first year of his 
 apprenticeship "the gloomiest seasons of his life;" in the "Schools 
 and School-masters," the closing period is declared to have been 
 "by far the gloomiest he ever spent." At both periods he suffered 
 about as much as man can suffer ; but in the intermediate stages there 
 were glimpses, nay abiding gleams, of enjoyment. On the nth of 
 November, 1822, his apprenticeship came to an end. 
 
 He was now an accomplished workman ; and perhaps in all his books 
 there is no passage more weighty or valuable than that in which he 
 gives his estimate of the importance of this fact, and impresses upon 
 artisans the supreme necessity of being masters of their trade. "It 
 is not uninstructive," he writes, " to observe how strangely the public 
 are led at times to attach paramount importance to what is in reality 
 only subordinately important, and to pass over the really paramount 
 without thought or notice. The destiny in life of the skilled mechanic 
 is much more influenced, for instance, by his second education that 
 of his apprenticeship than by his first, that of the school ; and yet 
 it is to the education of the school that the importance is generally 
 regarded as attaching, and we never hear of the other. 
 
 The careless, incompetent scholar has many opportunities of recov- 
 ering himself; the careless, incompetent apprentice, who either fails 
 to serve out his regular time, or who, though he fulfills his term, is 
 discharged an inferior workman, has very few ; and, further, nothing 
 can be more certain than that inferiority as a workman bears much 
 more disastrously on the condition of the mechanic than inferiority 
 as a scholar. Unable to maintain his place among brother journey- 
 men, or to render himself worthy of the average wages of his craft, the 
 ill-taught mechanic falls out of regular employment, subsists precari- 
 ously for a time on occasional jobs, and either, forming idle habits, 
 becomes a vagabond tramper, or, getting into the toils of some rapa- 
 cious taskmaster, becomes an enslaved sweater. For one workman 
 injured by neglect of his school education, there are scores ruined by 
 neglect of their apprenticeship education. Three-fourths of the dis- 
 tress of the country's mechanics (of course not that of the unhappy 
 class who have to compete with machinery), and nine-tenths of their 
 vagabondism, will be found restricted to inferior workmen, who, like 
 Hogarth's "careless apprentice," neglected the opportunities of their
 
 35 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 second term of education. The sagacious painter had a truer in- 
 sight into this matter than most of our modern educationists." 
 
 During his apprenticeship, the character of Miller began to reveal 
 the essential traits which we afterwards find in it. " Gloomy" many 
 of its seasons were ; the " gloo'miest " of his life, at least until he 
 became a literary celebrity and editor of a religious newspaper ; but 
 both its gloom and its gladness went to the making and maturing of 
 his character. The aching joint, the fevered pulse, the breast op- 
 pressed with pain, the eye swimming in bewildered trance of agony 
 and exhaustion ; the meditative midnight hour, when his eye marked 
 the stars as they crossed the rent in the roof ; the evening wander- 
 ings in woodland and by stream, when sunset clothed in ruddy light 
 the old tower on the crag, these constituted the true education of 
 Hugh Miller. Henceforth we recognize him as the man he was, and 
 are able to trace in his countenance those lines of fortitude and reso- 
 lution which so strongly marked that of his father. He had won the 
 first decisive victory of life, earnest of all other victories, the 
 victory of reason and conscience over momentary inclinations, of in- 
 telligent will over laggard indolence and lawless impulse. He had 
 disciplined the wayward activity of boyhood into manly force. He 
 had chastened rude strength into ordered energy. Blustering self- 
 assertion, juvenile conceit, had given place to deliberate self-respect ; 
 and that rebellious disposition which had perplexed his uncles and 
 been the despair of his mother was calmed and concentrated into 
 modesty, into self-command, into the gentleness of conscious power. 
 The flawed and brittle iron had become steel. " Noble, upright, 
 self-relying toil," he exclaims, with grand enthusiasm, "who that 
 knows thy solid worth and value would be ashamed of thy hard hands, 
 and thy soiled vestments, and thy obscure tasks, thy humble cottage, 
 and hard couch, and homely fare !" 
 
 Not, however, to all men is toil an education and hardship a bless- 
 ing. Hugh Miller came to his apprenticeship fortified against evil, 
 and prepared for good by that training in courage and truthfulness, 
 in just thought and manly feeling, which he had unconsciously re- 
 ceived in companionship with his uncles. Those gentlemen of 
 nature's finest modeling were, though he knew it not, the examples 
 by which he shaped himself. He acted on all occasions as he felt 
 that Uncle James or Uncle Sandy would have acted. How bravely 
 he makes the most of adverse circumstances ! How cheerfully 
 he accommodates himself to his situation ! How kindly are the 
 relations he establishes between himself and his coarse and riotous 
 associates ! He has a deep-lying conviction of his ability to rise 
 above the sphere in which he finds himself placed ; but he has already 
 got firm hold of a very ancient philosophy of life, a philosophy which 
 has been of use to wise men in every age ; and it has made him 
 comparatively indifferent to what is called success. According to this 
 philosophy, happiness is too subtle an essence to be purchased with
 
 THE JOURNEYMAN. 351 
 
 gold, or to be dealt out wholesale to one class of men as distinguished 
 from another ; the rude fare of the peasant is as sweet to him as his 
 dainties to the peer ; the honest pride which warms the heart of the 
 capable artisan is as instinct with joy as the aristocrat's pride of rank 
 or birth ; nature's face has a smile for* all who will lovingly look into 
 it; and rising in the world may mean failing in all that makes life 
 precious, character illustrious, man happy. 
 
 FAVORABLE OPINIONS FROM OLD DAVID WRIGHT AND UNCLE JAMES 
 FIRST WORK AS JOURNEYMAN AUNT JENNY'S COTTAGE SENDS 
 POETICAL PIECES TO ROSS SELF-DELINEATION. 
 
 On returning to Cromarty, Miller soon regains his health, and 
 things wear for him on the whole a pleasant aspect. Old David 
 Wright, who had occasionally been morose to his apprentice, now 
 declares that, though unsecured to him by any written agreement, 
 Hugh had been, " beyond comparison, more tractable and obedient 
 than any indentured pupil he eVer had." Uncle James, whose pre- 
 dictions of failure at work, as a natural sequel to failure at school, 
 had contributed not a little to the support of Miller at the worst 
 time, for it would be exquisitely gratifying to punish and to please 
 Uncle James by one and the same course of action, does ample 
 justice to the faithfulness with which, from a mere sense of honor, 
 he has completed his engagement, and owns that there is in him, 
 after all, the making of a man. 
 
 His first employment as a journeyman is characteristic. "Aunt 
 Jenny," a sister of his mother, who had long wished to have some dwell- 
 ing which she could call her own, and in which her spinning-wheel 
 and knitting-needles might supply her modest wants, had never sur- 
 mounted the alarm occasioned by the prospect of paying rent. Hugh 
 inherited a little piece of garden ground from his father. Part of this 
 he now devotes to the purpose of building a cottage for Aunt Jenny. 
 Money he has none, but the few pounds which his aunt has saved are 
 enough to buy wood for the roof and to pay for carting the necessary 
 stones and mortar, and he builds the cottage. The worthy aunt is 
 saved from fear of rent for the remainder of her days, and Hugh has 
 his reward. 
 
 During the brief interval between the building of Aunt Jenny's cot- 
 tage and his first engagement as a journeyman, he writes to William 
 Ross, in Edinburgh, and copies out for him a selection of his poems. 
 
 The poems are fluent and vivacious, but display little original power 
 or depth of melody. The following lines are not without a certain 
 pensive sweetness and sincerity :
 
 35 2 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 THE DAYS THAT ARE GONE. 
 
 " On the friends of my youth and the days that are gone, 
 In the depth of the wild wood, I ponder alone, 
 And my heart by a sad gloomy spirit is moved, 
 When I view the fair scenes that in childhood I loved. 
 Harsh roars the rough ocean, o'ercast is the sky, 
 The voice of the wind passeth mournfully by; 
 For winter reigns wide ; ' sure 'tis winter with me ;' 
 But a spring to my winter I never shall see : 
 For aught of earth's joys 'tis unmanly to moan, 
 Yet bursts the sad sigh for the days that are gone. 
 
 The fair flowers of summer have vanished away, 
 The green shrub is withered, and leafless the spray; 
 Yet memory, half sad and half sportive, still shows 
 How bloomed the blue violet, how blossomed the rose. 
 Say, shall not that memory as fondly retain 
 Hold of joys I have proved as of charms I have seen ? 
 Yes ! Nature's fair scenes are more dear to this heart 
 Than the trophies of love or the pageants of art, 
 Yet more to this bosom those friends are endeared, 
 By whom in life's dawn the gay moments were cheered ; 
 More cherished, though darker their memory shall be, 
 Than that of the rose or the violet by me. 
 
 Ye rocks, whose rough summits seem lost in the clouds, 
 Ye fountains, ye caves, and ye dark waving woods, 
 In the still voice of memory ye bid me to mourn 
 For the joys and the years that must never return, 
 The years ere the gay hopes of youth were laid low, 
 Or hope half-despondent had wept o'er the blow, 
 The joys, ere my knowledge of mankind began 
 By proving the toils and the sorrows of man. 
 
 Yet why should I sorrow ? poor child of decay, 
 Myself, like my pleasures, must vanish away, 
 And life in the view of my spirit may seem 
 The tossing confused of a feverish dream. 
 Yes, life is a dream, a wild dream, where the will 
 Striveth vainly the precepts of right to fulfill ; 
 A dream where the dreamer to sorrow is tied ; 
 A dream where proud reason but weakly can guide ; 
 It controls not my spirit, despite of my will, 
 The joys of the by-past are haunting me still. 
 
 And oft when all bright on my night slumbers break 
 The spirits of pleasures I prize when awake, 
 When I seize them with gladness and revel in joy, 
 Comes the beam of the morning my bliss to destroy; 
 Away on the light wings of slumber they fly, 
 While their memory remains, and I languish and sigh. 
 O days of bright pleasure ! O days of delight ! 
 From me ye forever have winged your flight. 
 But the calm, pensive Muse still remains to beguile 
 The day of dark thought, of affliction and toil ; 
 By the gloom of the present the past to endear, 
 By the joys of the by-past the present to cheer." 
 
 We may here give the following somewhat high-flown account of him-
 
 GAIRLOCH. 353 
 
 self, which served as preface to a second copy of his juvenile poems, 
 with which he seems to have favored Ross : 
 
 " CRO MARTY, March 15, 1823. 
 
 "DEAR WILLIE 1823 would have sounded oddly seven years ago, 
 about which time we first got acquainted ; yet, by the natural course 
 of things, it has become the present time, and the by-past years live 
 only in the memory of the evil or good committed in them. In 1815, 1 
 was a thoughtless, careless school-boy, who proved his spirit by play- 
 ing truant three weeks in the four, and his genius by writing rhymes 
 which pleased nobody but himself. In 1823, that same school-boy finds 
 himself a journeyman mason, not quite so free from care, but as much 
 addicted to rhyming as ever. But is this all ? Can he boast of no 
 good effect produced by the experience of a space of time which 
 brings him from his thirteenth to his twentieth year? Has that time 
 passed away in a manner useless to himself and uninteresting to others? 
 Not entirely so ; for in that time he got acquainted with William 
 Ross ; in that time he changed the thoughtless hilarity of nature for 
 the placid, tideless composure of sentiment ; and in that time the gay 
 hopes of fortune and of fame which engaged him even in the simplest 
 days of his childhood have changed into a less noble, though not a 
 less pleasing form. His happiness no longer depends upon the hope 
 of the applause of others ; not even of the approbation of his friends ; 
 he acts and he writes for himself. His own judgment is his critic 
 his own soul is the world to which he addresses himself; but do not 
 imagine that his own tongue sounds his own praise, which I am afraid, 
 if I went on any longer in this strain, you might justly say." 
 
 GAIRLOCH LETTERS DESCRIPTIVE OF HIS JOURNEY FROM CONON-SIDE 
 
 AND OF GAIRLOCH SCENERY LOVE-POETRY OLD JOHN FRASER 
 
 MAGNANIMOUS REVENGE GAIRLOCH LANDSCAPES BACK TO CRO- 
 
 MARTY. 
 
 "About mid-summer, work turns up at Gairloch. Gairloch is an 
 arm of the sea on the western coast of Ross-shire. Its length is, 
 perhaps, somewhat more than eight miles, its breadth varies from three 
 to five. The shores, with the exception of two or three little sandy 
 banks, are steep and rocky; the surrounding country is highland in 
 the extreme. 
 
 "There is neither horse nor plow in the village, a long, crook- 
 handled kind of spade, termed a cass chrom, and the hoe, supplying 
 the place of the latter, the highlander himself, and more particularly 
 his wife, that of the former; for here (shall I venture the expression?) 
 as in all semi-barbarous countries, the woman seems to be regarded 
 rather as the drudge than the companion of the man. It is the part 
 of the husband to turn up the land and sow it; the wife conveys the 
 
 23
 
 354 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 manure to it in a square creel with a slip bottom, tends the corn, 
 reaps it, hoes the potatoes, digs them up, and carries the whole home 
 on her back. When bearing the creel, she is also engaged in spin- 
 ning with the distaff and spindle. I wish you but saw with what 
 patience these poor females continue working thus, doubly employed, 
 for the greater part of a long summer's day. I frequently let the 
 mallet rest on the stone before me, as some one of them passes by, bent 
 nearly double with the load she is carrying, yet busily engaged in 
 stretching out and turning the yarn with her'right hand, and winding 
 it up with her left. Can you imagine a more primitive system of 
 agriculture, or wonder that I should be half inclined to imagine that, 
 instead of having taken a journey of a few score miles to witness it, 
 I had retraced, for that purpose, the flight of time for the last six 
 centuries?" 
 
 " I am busily courting three maids, who, though they have not a 
 syllable of English amongst them, are very kindly teaching me Gaelic ; 
 and from a young lady, a governess, I have borrowed a few books. 
 One of these is a small volume of poems by a Miss Campbell, twelve 
 years ago a young lady of seventeen. At even that early age she was a 
 poetess, and rich in those sentiments and feelings which we deem so fas- 
 cinating in the amiable and accomplished woman. Even, though occa- 
 sionally the girl peeps out in most of her pieces, I like them none 
 the worse ; her puerilities, joined to no equivocal indications of a fine 
 genius, leading one to entertain hopes of her future eminence ; and 
 certainly, if her riper years have but fulfilled the promise which her 
 earlier ones have given, she must be now a very superior person 
 indeed. I feel much interested in her, and wish much to know what 
 has become of her." . . . 
 
 Thus abruptly ends the narrative. Miller's jesting allusion to the 
 three maids whom he was "courting," suggests the remark that his 
 insensibility to female attractions in his youth, contrasts strongly not 
 only with the impassioned admiration of Burns for every beautiful 
 face he ever saw, but with the susceptibility to woman's charms com- 
 mon to vivid and poetical natures. 
 
 Rhyming or reasoning, courting or cogitating, Hugh Miller, during 
 this season at Gairloch, is worth looking at. Not yet twenty-one, 
 living in a hovel, from which water, a foot deep, has been drained off 
 to render it habitable, his food oatmeal without milk, his companions 
 stone-masons, his employment manual labor, he bates no jot of hope 
 or heart, but takes the whole with a frank effulgence of mirth, a rug- 
 ged humor of character, which bears him victoriously through. It 
 never strikes him that there is hardship in his own lot, but he has 
 ready sympathy for the distresses of others. Might not some Scotch 
 artist try to realize for us that picture, drawn by Miller of himself 
 with so little thought of picturesque effect, when the pensive lad 
 drops his mallet and looks at the highland woman, bent nearly double 
 with her burden, yet, as she wearily trudges past, working with both
 
 OLD JOHN FRASER. 355 
 
 hands? One can see the kind, grave, deep-thoughted face, the 
 steadfast blue eyes moistening with compassion, the lip touched, per- 
 haps, with a faint, mournful smile of stoical, not cynical, acceptance 
 of the sternness of fate. 
 
 Miller's poetical faculty, though not powerfully stirred by the 
 nymphs of Gairloch, and though more felicitous, now and subsequently, 
 in prose than in verse, did not at this time slumber. That picture of 
 the old, gray tower of Fairburn, " like a giant eremite musing in 
 solitude," is genuinely imaginative. 
 
 One of Miller's Gairloch fellow-workmen exerted a most important 
 influence upon him. I refer to John Fraser, one of three brothers, 
 who, if Mr. Darwin's theory is sound, were a variation of the hu- 
 man species adapted to found a race of superlative masons and stone- 
 cutters, and to outlive and extirpate, by natural selection, all other 
 masons and stone-cutters. Miller states, on the authority of " Mr. 
 Kenneth Matheson, a gentleman well-known as a master-builder in 
 the west of Scotland," that David Fraser, the most remarkable of 
 the brothers, could do three times as much as an ordinary workman. 
 John, even when advanced in life, could build against " two stout 
 young fellows" and "keep a little ahead of them both." "I 
 recognize old John," says Hugh Miller, "as one of not the least 
 useful nor able of my many teachers;" and the justice of the remark 
 is attested by the admirably philosophic account which he gives of 
 the lesson old John taught him. The secret of Fraser's power was 
 that he saw " the finished piece of work," as it lay within the stone, 
 and cut down upon the true figure at once, without repeating, like 
 an ordinary workman, his lines and draughts. And is not this faculty 
 of seeing with the mind's eye what the hand has to execute of con- 
 ceiving the work as a whole, so that there shall be neither hurry nor 
 delay in carrying it out essentially the faculty by which a Hannibal 
 or a Napoleon wins battles, a Dante or a Shakespeare writes poems, 
 a Titian or a Turner paints masterpieces? 
 
 The work completed, Miller removed, with two of his brother 
 workmen, to a village in the neighborhood, to build a house for an 
 innkeeper, who made a point of inviting them to dine with him on 
 Sunday. " He was a loquacious little man, full of himself, and de- 
 sirous of being reckoned a wit," but without capacity to play the 
 part. Miller, less talkative than his fellow-workmen, was supposed 
 by mine host to be available as a butt, and was made the object of 
 sundry small witticisms. He took this in good part for awhile, but 
 one day he retorted upon his entertainer and reduced him to silence. 
 The consequence was, that he was excluded from the invitation next 
 Sunday, and left to regale himself on oatmeal and milk in the solitude 
 of the barrack. He took his revenge in a way gratifying at once to 
 his pride and his kindliness. One of the favored workmen had bar- 
 gained with the innkeeper to give the latter a hammer and trowel, but, 
 after receiving the money for the articles, had played him false. " I
 
 35<> HUGH MILLER. 
 
 was informed of the circumstance," says Miller to Baird, "when on 
 the eve of setting out for the low country ; and taking my hammer 
 and trowel from my bundle, I presented them to the innkeeper's 
 wife alleging, when she urged me to set a price on them, that they 
 were a very inadequate return for her husband's kindness to me during 
 the two first weeks of our acquaintance." It was a mode of revenge 
 to which neither Uncle James nor Uncle Sandy could have taken ex- 
 ception. 
 
 Before quitting Gairloch, we may take his final picture of one of its 
 landscapes : " There is a steep, high hill, rather more than a mile 
 from the manse, to the summit of which I frequently extended my 
 walks. The view which the eye commands is of a character wilder 
 and more sublime than can be either rightly imagined or described. 
 Towards the east and south there spreads a wide, savage prospect of 
 rugged mountains, towering the one over the other from the fore- 
 ground to the horizon, and varying in color, in proportion to the 
 distance, from the darkest nisset to the faintest purple. They are 
 divided by deep, gloomy ravines, that seem the clefts and fissures of 
 a shattered and ruined planet ; and their summits are either indented 
 into rough naked crags, or whitened over with unwasting snows 
 forming fit thrones upon which the spirits of winter might repose, 
 each in a separated insulated territory, and from whence they might 
 defy the milder seasons as they passed below. To the north and west 
 the scene is of a different description ; it presents a rocky indented 
 shore, and a wide sea speckled over with islands. On 'both sides, 
 however, though the features are dissimilar, the expression is the 
 same. Scarcely more of the works of man appear visible in the 
 whole wide circumference than appeared to the gaze of Noah, when 
 he first stood on the summit of Mount Ararat, and contemplated the 
 wreck of the deluge. 
 
 " It was on a beautiful evening in the month of June that I first 
 climbed the steep side of this hill and rested on its summit. I was 
 much impressed by the wide extent and sublime grandeur of the scene. 
 Part of the eastern skirt of the Atlantic was spread out beneath me, 
 mottled with the Hebrides. In one glance, I had a view of Longa, 
 Skye, Lewis, Harris, Rona, Raza, and several other islands with whose 
 names I was unacquainted. The sky and sea were both colored with 
 the same warm hue of sunset, and appeared as if blended together ; 
 while the islands which lay on the verge of the horizon seemed 
 dense purple clouds, which, though motionless in the calm, the first 
 sea-breeze might sweep away. Toward the south my eye was caught 
 by two gigantic mountains, which, as if emulous of each other, towered 
 above the rest, like the contending chiefs of a divided people ; while 
 toward the east I beheld a scene of terrible ruin and sublime disorder 
 mountain piled upon mountain, and ravine intersecting ravine. All 
 my faculties of reason and imagination seemed at first as if frustrated 
 and held down by some superior power ; the magnitude of the scene
 
 SAILS FOR EDINBURGH. 357 
 
 oppressed me ; I felt as if in the presence of the Spirit of the Universe ; 
 and the apology of the Jewish spies recurred to me, ' We were as 
 grasshoppers before them. ' ' 
 
 This was written when Miller was twenty-seven. It is remarkable 
 for the absence of all geological allusion, and for the strong human 
 element in the imagery. 
 
 The winter of 1823 was spent, as usual, in Cromarty. Miller had 
 no friend of his own age with whom he cared much to associate. He 
 seems to have been in a trivial mood, and to have made business of 
 amusement. "There was," he says, " a little mischievous boy of 
 about ten years of age whom I choose as a companion for lack of a 
 better. He was spirited and sensible for his years, and deemed me a 
 vepy superior kind of playfellow. I taught him how to climb, and leap, 
 and wrestle, how to build bridges and rig ships, and how to make 
 baskets and rush caps. I told him stories, and lent him books, and 
 showed him how to act plays, and lighted fires with him in the caves 
 of the hill of Cromarty, and, in short, went on in such a manner that 
 my acquaintances began to shake their own heads and to question the 
 soundness of mine. My Uncle James, who used sturdily to assert, in 
 the face of all opposing evidence, that my powers of mind averaged 
 rather above than below the common standard, seriously told me 
 about this time, that if I would not act more in the manner of other 
 people, he would defend me no longer." 
 
 COMES OF AGE SETS SAIL FOR EDINBURGH PARTING REFLECTIONS 
 MORNING ON THE MORAY FRITH FIRST SIGHT OF EDINBURGH 
 ABSENT FROM CHURCH FOR FIVE SUNDAYS AND "A FEW MORE 1 ' 
 HOLYROOD, CHARLES II. *S STATUE, EFFIGY OF KNOX, THE COLLEGE, 
 FERGUSON'S GRAVE, DR. M'CRIE THE PANORAMA, THE THEATER. 
 
 In the autumn of 1823, Miller became of age, and claimed proprietor- 
 ship of a wretched tenement on the Coal-hill of Leith, which had 
 been a constant source of loss and annoyance to his mother from 
 the time of his father's death. His wish was to dispose of it, and, to 
 investigate the affair on the spot, he sailed from Cromarty for Leith 
 in the spring of 1824. 
 
 "Two days of our voyage had passed pleasantly, but upon the 
 morning of the third I was surprised and somewhat disheartened 
 when, upon getting on deck, I perceived nothing but a dark rolling 
 sea, and a dense cloud of mist closing upon the vessel upon every 
 side. . . Often as I paced the narrow space the deck afforded 
 me, did I behold in fancy the scenes I was soon to visit, and as often 
 was that fancy carried back to picture the regrets and joys of home. 
 But that you may better know what my thoughts were, I insert the 
 copy of a short, I should rather say unfinished, poem I composed 
 that morning. It will show you what ideas I had formed of Edin-
 
 358 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 burgh, and how little the hope of its pleasures appeared when com- 
 pared with the well-proved joys of the home I had left : 
 
 " Thou mayst boast, O Edina, thou home of delight, 
 For thy gallants are gay, and thy ladies are bright ; 
 August is thy palace, thy castle sublime 
 Has braved the rude dints of fire, battle, and time. 
 
 " Thou mayst boast, O Edina, thou famed abode 
 Of the wise and the learned, of the great and the good ; 
 Thou mayst boast of thy worthies, mayst boast of thy towers, 
 Thy halls and thy temples, thy grots and thy bowers. 
 
 " Yet lovelier by far and more dear to this heart 
 Than all your gay trophies of labor and art, 
 Is the home of my fathers, the much-loved land, 
 Of the dauntless of heart and the mighty of hand. 
 
 " 'T is there the gray bones of my fathers are laid, 
 'Twas there that my life's sunny friendships were made, 
 And till death chills my bosom and closes my e'e, 
 These friends and that land shall be dear unto me." 
 
 " The weather was still extremely thick, and though my eyes were 
 earnestly fixed in that direction, I could see but little of Edinburgh. 
 These were but transient glimpses, but of the town of Leith, I had a 
 full and distinct view. A young lad, one of the passengers, was point- 
 ing out to me the harbor, docks, and public buildings, and between 
 the amusement his remarks afforded me, and the pleasure I took in 
 looking at the vessels we passed and repassed in the roadstead, an 
 hour or two flew away very agreeably." 
 
 His verses are so poor that an apology may seem necessary for pre- 
 senting them to the reader. But here we have at least the lad Miller 
 in his habit as he lived, with no gleam from the after-time to disturb 
 the artless unconsciousness of modest, simple-hearted youth. Both in 
 his letter to Baird, and in the "Schools and School-masters," there 
 are elaborate pictures of his first sight of Edinburgh. It is well to 
 remember that the bareness in the record of his impressions which 
 meets us in these letters on Edinburgh, may arise partly from his in- 
 experience. 
 
 The great city to one who had never seen a larger town than In- 
 verness, it was very great threw him at first out of all habitudes. He 
 frankly confesses, " though conscious that by so doing he will lay him- 
 self open to merited censure," that on the first four Sundays after his 
 arrival he absented himself from church, and "strolled through the 
 streets of Leith and Edinburgh ; " that the fifth was occupied in scal- 
 ing Arthur's Seat and viewing the city and adjacent country from its 
 summit ; and that " a few more" were passed in the company of some 
 townsmen of his own, who, "Cameronian-like, preferred the open air 
 to a church." 
 
 He is much disappointed with the High Street, having been led by
 
 STATUE OF CHARLES II. 359 
 
 something he had read in the works of Smollett to fancy that it was 
 " one of the finest in Europe." He looks with great contempt upon 
 the equestrian statue of Charles II. ' in Parliament House Square. 
 "This lascivious and dissipated monarch," he says, "is attired in the 
 garb of an ancient Roman ; and, by his appearance, a person unac- 
 quainted with the history of his reign might suppose him to have been 
 a sapient and warlike prince, dauntless in the field and wise in the 
 
 council When I first saw the statue, I could not help 
 
 quoting a few lines from Thomson's 'Liberty,' which will appear to 
 you as it did to me, the character of Charles the Second faithfully 
 drawn, maugre the inscription and the Roman dress: 
 
 " ' By dangerous softness long he mined his way : 
 By subtle arts, dissimulation deep, 
 By sharing what corruption showered profuse, 
 By breathing wide the gay lascivious plague, 
 And pleasing manners suited to deceive, 
 
 A pensioned king, 
 Against his country bribed by Gallic gold.' " 
 
 The natural and unaffected manner in which Miller alludes to Smollett 
 and Thomson is not without significance. How completely this young 
 mason is already a literary character ! 
 
 His estimate of Edinburgh College is high, and the terms in which 
 it is couched prove that he had already acquired some technical 
 knowledge of architecture. " The College in my opinion is the finest 
 building in Edinburgh, either taken in its parts or as a whole. It forms 
 a square, the exterior of which displays all the chaste simplicity of the 
 Doric order, and the interior the lighter graces of the Ionic and Co- 
 rinthian." 
 
 He visits the burying grounds of the city. Here is an interesting 
 note : "I have seen the grave of poor Ferguson, and the plain stone 
 placed at its head by his brother in misfortune and genius, Robert 
 Burns. I felt much affected when standing above the sod which 
 covers the mortal remains of the young poet, and could have dropped 
 a tear to his memory and to the memory of his still greater successor, 
 but I was not Shandean enough to command one. You know I never 
 could weep except when insulted and stung to the heart by those 
 whose unkindness I could not or would not resent, and then the tears 
 I dropped were those of grief, rage, hatred in short, the offspring of 
 any passion except tenderness." This is a touch of self-portraiture 
 worth whole chapters of retrospective delineation. 
 
 In another letter, dated October, 1824, and addressed to his Uncle 
 James, we meet with the following careful sketch of Dr: McCrie : 
 " In age and figure I know not where to point out any one who 
 more resembles him than yourself. His countenance is pale and ex- 
 pressive, and his forehead deeply marked with the lines of thought ; 
 the spareness of his habit reminded me of long study and deep re-
 
 360 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 search, and his demeanor, at once humble and dignified, finished the 
 portrait. You may doubt when I tell you that the discourse he that 
 day delivered, was one of the "best I ever heard that my partiality 
 blinded me to its defects. This was not the case ; for, though partial 
 to the doctor, it was his superior talents that made me so, and had 
 his discourse been of that dull, commonplace kind, which I have often 
 heard in a church that shall be nameless, my disappointment would 
 have been great in proportion to my expectation. I need not tell 
 you that, as an historian, Dr. McCrie ranks very high. At a time 
 when every witling thought himself licensed to ridicule the firmness 
 or denounce the boldness of the Reformers of our religion, the doctor 
 stood forth in their defense, and, endowed with powers equal to the 
 task, dispersed the dark cloud of obloquy in which partial or design- 
 ing men had enveloped their names. If we consider him as a 
 preacher, he will appear in a light as favorable. His manner is calm 
 yet impressive, and his sentiments (always beautiful, and ofttimes 
 highly original) are conveyed in language strong and nervous, yet at 
 the same time plain and simple. In short, Dean Swift's definition 
 of a good style, ' proper words in their proper places,' can be very 
 well exemplified in his. I have now heard him several times. One 
 Sunday his voice, which is not naturally strong, was nearly drowned 
 by loud and continued coughing, which arose from every corner of 
 the church. For some time he went on without any seeming embar- 
 rassment, but just when in the middle of an important argument made 
 a full stop. In a moment every eye was fixed upon the doctor, and 
 such was the silence caused by this attention that for the space of a 
 minute you might have heard a pin fall. ' I see, my brethren, you 
 can all be quiet enough when I am quiet,' was his mild and somewhat 
 humorous reproof, and such was its effect that for the remainder of 
 the day, he received very little interruption. There was something 
 in this little incident that gave me much pleasure. I thought it told 
 more truly of the discernment and good temper of the doctor than 
 even his discourse did, beautiful and instructive as that was." 
 
 There is a quiet accuracy in this portrait, which shows that Miller 
 was beginning to find his hand as a master of English prose. In our 
 last extract he appeared in the light of a philosopher and critic, but 
 we are reminded, as we accompany him to the panorama, that he has 
 not yet thrown off the boy. 
 
 " Upon the earthen mound where the good people of Edinburgh see 
 shows and sights of all descriptions, from the smoking baboon to the 
 giant of seven feet and a half, stands a circular wooden building, 
 which in size and appearance reminds the reader of Gulliver's travels 
 of the washing tubs of Brobdignag. In this building all the pano- 
 ramic scenery which is painted in or brought to Edinburgh is 
 exhibited. The battle of Trafalgar, together with a series of scenes 
 representing the Emperor of France, from the skirmish of Genappe 
 till his death in the solitary island of St. Helena, was, when I came
 
 PANORAMA IN EDINBURGH. 361 
 
 here, the subject of exhibition. Of this species of entertainment I 
 had formed no idea, and willing to fill up the blank which a name 
 unaccompanied with an idea leaves in the mind, and perhaps not a 
 little urged by a natural fondness for sights of the amusing descrip- 
 tion, I left my work one evening about an hour sooner than usual, 
 called upon my friend, Will Ross, as I passed his way, and accom- 
 panied by him made directly for the panorama. We were ushered 
 into a darkened gallery, the sides and ceiling of which were covered 
 with green cloth. Our eyes were immediately turned toward an 
 opening about thirty feet in width, through which, by a striking 
 illusion, we perceived the ocean stretching out for many leagues be- 
 fore us, and upon it the British fleet, commanded by Nelson and 
 CoRingwood, bearing down a double line upon the enemy, who, at a 
 little distance, in the form of a crescent, seemed to await their com- 
 ing. Not even in a camera obscura have I seen any thing so natural. 
 The sun seemed beaming upon the water; the British pennant was 
 unfolding to the wind ; the vessels appeared as if gently heaving to 
 the swell, while upon their decks all was bustle and activity. The 
 marines were loading their muskets ; the seamen were employed 
 about the great guns ; some of the officers were busied in giving 
 orders, and others, with great anxiety, were looking through their 
 glasses as if to catch every movement of the enemy. In truth, the 
 deception was so complete that, forgetting the ground upon which I 
 stood, I fancied myself just on the eve of a great battle, and felt my 
 mind impressed with that indescribable emotion which, in the reality 
 of such a circumstance, the young soldier always feels. This scene 
 was soon changed, and in its place another represented which dis- 
 played all the terrible confusion of the engagement. The first only 
 showed us the cloud that concealed the storm ; here it was repre- 
 sented as if bursting in its full fury. It was the deck of the * Vic- 
 tory,' as it appeared at the moment Nelson received his death wound. 
 You will have some idea of the size of the picture when I tell you 
 that there were above two hundred figures, all as large as life, at 
 once under my eye. In the middle of these was 'Nelson ; the sword 
 was falling from his hand ; his features were distorted as if by sudden 
 and acute pain ; and the pale, cadaverous hue of his countenance be- 
 tokened speedy dissolution. The attention of the figures nearest him 
 seemed to be entirely engrossed by his fall ; an anxious expression of 
 the countenance or a sudden turn of the head showed that those at a 
 greater distance had some faint perception of what had happened, 
 while others in the outskirts of the picture were busied in working 
 the guns, or in supplying those who wrought them with ammunition. 
 A few paces from Nelson a young officer was eagerly pointing out to 
 a marine the main-top of one of the vessels with which the 'Victory* 
 was engaged, from which the fatal bullet was supposed to have come, 
 and he, with great deliberation, was leveling his musket in that direc- 
 tion. The third scene was of a terrific description. It represented
 
 362 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 the battle as if drawing near its close. In the foreground was the 
 ' Redoubtable,' a French ship-of-the-line, on fire. The flames were 
 bursting out furiously from window and gun-port, tinging the waves 
 below with a red and fiery glare. Some of the crew were seen 
 throwing themselves overboard ; while others, with despair depicted 
 on their countenances, were clinging to the vessel's sides as if uncer- 
 tain which death to choose. The fourth and last scene was of a calm, 
 but, though it represented the hour of victory, of a gloomy character. 
 In the distance, a few of the fugitive vessels were seen giving their 
 broadside and crowding on every sail to expedite their flight. In the 
 foreground, all was desolation. Dismasted and shattered vessels, huge 
 fragments of rigging to which a few shivering wretches still clung, 
 and a sun again shining through a clearing atmosphere on the mad- 
 ness and the misery of man, made this scene, like the last of a 
 tragedy, by far the saddest." 
 
 From the panorama he turns to the theater. Much of his reading, 
 he says, had been of a description approved by Uncle James, but he 
 had read more plays and novels than would have been sanctioned by 
 that stern moralist. 
 
 " When reading," he says, " the plays of Shakespeare or of Otway, 
 of Rowe or of Addison, I saw with the mind's eye their heroes not 
 as actors, but as men ; and the scenes they described brought to my 
 view not the painted scenes of the stage, but the real face of nature, 
 in the same manner that a beautiful portrait gives us the idea of a 
 real person, not of a mask. But when I saw men who neither in ap- 
 pearance nor reality came up to the idea I had formed of the charac- 
 ters they represented, I rated them in the bitterness of my soul as 
 mere pretenders who could not act their part upon the stage so well 
 as common men do the parts assigned them in the great drama of 
 life." In his letter to Baird, he says: " I was more pleased with the 
 panorama than with the theater. I several times attended the the- 
 ater, but I did not derive from theatrical representation half the 
 pleasure I had anticipated. I was displeased with both actors and 
 the stage. The stage I now regard as merely a little area floored with 
 fir deal and surrounded by painted sheets the actors as a company 
 of indifferent-looking people who could bear no comparison with 
 either the ideal dramatis persona of my imagination, or the real 
 characters whom I had seen acting their parts in the great drama of 
 life. On the evening I first sat in the Theater Royal of Edinburgh, 
 I felt as if, after having admired an exquisite portrait, which the art 
 of the painter had almost awakened into life, I should be asked 
 whether I could not recognize the original of it in an inanimate image 
 of wax. ' '
 
 NIDDRIE HOUSE. 363 
 
 NIDDRIE AND THE WORKMEN MILLER PREJUDICED BY THEM AGAINST 
 
 THEIR CLASS. 
 
 Miller soon found employment in his trade, near Edinburgh, in 
 building an addition to Niddrie House. To give ourselves a vivid 
 idea of the locality, exactly as it impressed itself upon him at the time, 
 we avail ourselves of his own description, December, 1824: 
 
 "We shall, if you please, ascend the highest pinnacle of Niddrie 
 House, and from thence survey the country. As far as the eye can 
 reach in an east or southerly direction, a low, unvaried flat presents 
 itself, gradually rising, as it recedes from the sight, into low, swelling 
 hills, and falling with a sweep as gradual toward the Frith of Forth, 
 which from this elevation appears in all its extent, glittering with 
 many sails. Upon the north and west the face of the country is of a 
 bolder character. Arthur's Seat and Salisbury Crags upon the one 
 hand, and the blue, heathy Pentland hills upon the other, will remind 
 us of the beautiful and picturesque scenery which surrounds our native 
 town. . . To the grounds about Niddrie, my work gives me access. 
 Often, in the fine summer evenings, have I sauntered through its fields 
 and woods, alone, but not solitary, watching the last beam of the sun 
 as it tinged with a purple hue the Pentland hills, or, as it streamed 
 on the roofless walls and dismantled turrets of Craigmillar Castle. 
 . . . Niddrie House is a large, irregular building, bearing date in 
 one part 1636, and in another not yet finished. The modern addi- 
 tion will, when the winter storms of a few years have soiled the 
 natural hue of the stone, and rounded the angular moldings, appear 
 by far, the most antique, as it is executed in the heaviest style of the 
 Saxon Gothic. The large, mullioned windows are crowned with rich 
 labels, and the walls deeply indented with molded embrasures. Oc- 
 tagon turrets rising above the roof, project from every corner, and 
 instead of those large stacks of chimneys which disfigure many modern 
 houses, here every one has its own airy column connected at top to 
 the rest by a star-like cope. When finished, you might suppose this 
 building, from its antique appearance and secluded situation, to have 
 been some nunnery founded by that church-endowing monarch, David 
 I. Adjoining the house is a large garden, which, from its irregular 
 and partial cultivation, differs very little in appearance from the sur- 
 rounding pleasure-grounds. In that corner of it which lies nearest 
 the north-west gable of the house is a vault in which the Wauchopes 
 of Niddrie, time immemorial, have been interred. Its front is screened 
 by a huge bush of ivy, which, overshading the door and twining 
 about a sepulchral urn that rests directly above, gives the whole a 
 gloomy, yet picturesque appearance. Death does not move the bodies 
 of the proprietors of Niddrie far from the house which sheltered them 
 when living; the dead Laird in his vault is not thirty feet distant 
 from the living one in his bedchamber. Bounding the other extremity
 
 364 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 of the garden is a burying-ground, in which the humbler inhabitants 
 of the country and village adjacent, find their last resting-place. It 
 is a solitary spot, embosomed in wood, and at a considerable distance 
 from any house. These circumstances, which in the north country 
 would make a burying-ground, after night-fall, the supposed haunt of 
 restless spirits, here affords the violator of sepulchers opportunity to 
 tear from its grave the newly deposited body, and to convey it to 
 some of the dissecting-rooms about Edinburgh. Such is the barbar- 
 ous audacity of these wretches, that they frequently break and over- 
 turn monuments which lie in their way; and, without any desire of 
 concealing their depredations, leave the violated graves half open, and 
 scatter around them, as if in derision, the cerements that wrapped 
 the body. I hope I am not bloodthirsty, yet I think I could level a 
 musket at the villain who robbed the tomb of the body of one of 
 my relatives, with as much composure and with as little compunction 
 as I would feel in taking aim at a wooden target. 
 
 "The house, or rather cottage, in which I at present lodge stands 
 upon the side of the Dalkeith road. It is sheltered on the north and 
 west by the Niddrie woods, and on the east fronts a wide though not 
 diversified prospect of corn-fields and farm-steadings. From the door, 
 at night, through a long, wooded avenue, I see the Inchkeith light 
 twinkling in the distance, like a star rising out of the sea." 
 
 With the peace and beauty of nature around him, and Edinburgh 
 at hand, his circumstances might at first sight be pronounced favor- 
 able. 
 
 There was, however, a very important drawback. It was a serious 
 misfortune to Miller, and one which left deep traces of its injurious 
 influence upon his mind, that the men in company with whom he 
 worked at Niddrie were, for the most part, dissolute and worthless. 
 Nor were the exceptions of a kind likely to inspire him with any en- 
 thusiasm for the order to which he provisionally belonged. They 
 were men of strong religious sentiments, but narrow intellects, unable, 
 save by the silent eloquence of their moral superiority to the rest of 
 the squad, to make any impression either upon him or upon their 
 comrades. The others were as bad specimens of their class as it is 
 possible to conceive. Selfish and willful as spoiled children, brutishly 
 sensual, flippantly, because ignorantly, infidel, habitually profane, 
 they showed Miller how base a thing a working-man can be, and 
 to his dying day his opinion of working-men retained the stamp 
 which it received in the society of these reprobates. Owing to the 
 building mania, which was at its height at this time, they had 
 abundance of work and high wages ; but they were mean enough to 
 be jealous of the workmen from the North, and Miller found himself 
 exposed to the thousand nameless vexations which spiteful cunning 
 can suggest to mechanics wishing to subject a comrade to humilia- 
 tion. It is often necessary for a stone-cutter, in order to have the 
 block which he hews placed conveniently for the chisel and mallet,
 
 WORTHLESS FELLOW -WORK MEN. 365 
 
 to be assisted by his fellow- workmen. This customary civility was 
 refused to Miller, whose pride prevented him from begging a favor, 
 or complaining of its being tacitly refused. The ablest, and, except 
 himself and the religious workmen, the best in the squad, was a young 
 man whom he calls " Cha." He was the " recognized hero " of the 
 band, and his heart seems to have smote him on account of the base 
 combination against a stranger. He put an end to it by stepping out 
 one day to assist Miller, when he was being left to roll up to his 
 block-bench a stone of the size which two or three commonly united 
 to place. 
 
 Even Cha, however, was not merely a blackguard, but, in all that 
 relates to moral sanity and self-respecting manhood, a fool. Like 
 the majority of his fellows, he celebrated the fortnightly payment of 
 wages by two or three days of drunkenness and debauchery. 
 
 At first hated as an intruder, and ridiculed as a Highlander, Miller, 
 being found to be not only capable of holding on his own path, but 
 superior in the valued accomplishments of swimming, leaping, running, 
 and wrestling, rose into something like popularity among his fellow- 
 workmen. It was impossible, however, that between him and them 
 there could be any communion ; and, tacitly accepting these sixteen 
 masons of Niddrie as representatives of their class, he acquired a pro- 
 found distrust, sharpened and embittered by contempt, for workmen 
 in general. It can not be denied that, so far as these unfortunates 
 were concerned, he gave working-men a fair trial, and looked candidly 
 and boldly into their ways and habits. He permitted himself to be 
 carried along in the stream when the masons of the district turned 
 out on a strike, and he forced himself to endure one or two dreary 
 hours in accompanying them to the foul subterranean haunt where 
 they enjoyed the sport of badger-beating. Every thing he beheld in 
 the character and conduct of these workmen offended his higher 
 nature. They were too far below him to exert any such influence as 
 might have tempted him to a fellowship with them. In an atmos- 
 phere of profanity, sensuality, and the most coarse and sordid selfish- 
 ness, he continued an Apollo among neat-herds, pure, proud, and 
 lofty-minded. 
 
 THE STONE-CUTTER'S DISEASE LINES TO SISTER JEANIE WRITES AN 
 ODE ON GREECE AND OFFERS IT TO THE " SCOTSMAN." 
 
 Miller, after working two seasons, returned from Edinburgh in un- 
 broken spirits. Whatever the drawbacks of his Edinburgh sojurn, 
 he had never ceased to be happy, and his mood, as we learn from an 
 expression used in a letter to William Ross, had commonly been that 
 of exuberant gayety. But one circumstance connected with his work 
 while at Edinburgh now comes into view, to which it is impossible 
 to refer without mournfulness. While the young journeyman, so
 
 366 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 brave of spirit, so modestly content with his exile from the society 
 he was fitted to adorn, was cutting blocks into pillars in the shed at 
 Niddrie, the seeds of painful and ineradicable disease were being 
 sown in his constitution. The hardships of his apprenticeship had 
 brought him to the gates of death, and although he seemed to have 
 recovered his strength, it is probable that his lungs were of less than 
 the average vigor when he entered as a journeyman upon the occu- 
 pation of stone-hewing. In two seasons he became so deeply affected 
 with "the stone-cutter's malady," that he had to choose between 
 throwing himself loose for a season from his employment and certain 
 death. "So general," he says, "is the affection, that few of our 
 Edinburgh stone-cutters pass their fortieth year unscathed, and not 
 one out of every fifty of their number ever reaches his forty-fifth." 
 
 For the first month or two after his return to Cromarty, he deemed 
 it probable that his illness had gone too far for recovery. " I still 
 remember" these are his words "the rather pensive than sad feel- 
 ing with which I used to contemplate, at this time, an early death, 
 and the intense love of nature that drew roe, day after day, to the 
 beautiful scenery which surrounds my native town, and which I loved 
 all the more from the consciousness that my eyes might so soon 
 close upon it forever." It was at this time that he composed the 
 lines "To Jeanie." The little girl of five, to whom he addressed 
 them, was his mother's eldest daughter by her second marriage. 
 With that gentleness which ever characterized him, he made friends 
 with Jeanie, and led her by the hand in his quiet walks. The lines 
 are in Scottish dialect, of which Miller was never such a master as 
 Burns. They are not distinguished by power or originality, but are 
 interesting as a reflex of his mood at the time, and breathe the 
 closing stanzas especially an unaffected and artless pathos : 
 
 " Though to thee a spring shall rise, 
 An' scenes as fair salute thine eyes ; 
 An' though, through many a cludless day, 
 My winsome Jean shall be heartsome and gay: 
 
 " He wha grasps thy little hand 
 Nae langer at thy side shall stand, 
 Nor o'er the flower-besprinkled brae 
 Lead thee the lownest an' the bonniest way. 
 
 " Dost thou see yon yard sae green, 
 Speckled wi' many a mossy stane ? 
 A few short weeks o' pain shall fly, 
 An' asleep in that bed shall thy puir brither lie. 
 
 " Then thy mither's tears awhile 
 May chide thy joy an' damp thy smile ; . 
 
 But sune ilk grief shall wearawa', 
 And I '11 be forgotten by ane an' by a'.
 
 MILLER'S FIRST ADDRESS. 367 
 
 " Dinna think the thought is sad; 
 Life vexed me aft, but this male's glad ; 
 When cauld my heart and closed my e'e, 
 Bonny shall the dreams o' my slumbers be." 
 
 But he is young, and though his lungs have been permanently and 
 incurably injured, the energy of his constitution, aided by repose and 
 by peace of mind, is sufficient for the present to conquer the disease. 
 With returning health return his interest in life and his intellectual 
 ambition. 
 
 It was in September of 1826 that Hugh Miller made his first 
 attempt to address his countrymen in the columns of a newspaper. 
 He wrote an "Ode on Greece," which is hardly above the average 
 standard of juvenile compositions, though here and there a vigorous 
 note breaks through, echoed from Byron. 
 
 How this trumpet -blast might have influenced the Greeks we can 
 not tell. The editor of the "Scotsman" proved a Trojan on the 
 occasion, and Miller's Ode was returned upon his hands. 
 
 Not long after, Hugh refers to the subject in a letter to Ross, and 
 bravely decides that the piece might not have been worth publishing 
 after all. "Perhaps" he thus expresses his philosophical resigna- 
 tion "my Ode was ill-timed; perhaps its merits are of so doubtful 
 a kind that no one except myself can discover them ; perhaps but 
 I have said enough. Why should I be a seeker after fame? Fame 
 is not happiness; it is not virtue. Bad men enjoy it; wretched men 
 attain it. It rewarded the deeds of Erostratus as largely as those of 
 Leonidas." With equal judiciousness and self-severity, he touches 
 upon his efforts in the way of mental improvement. " It is the re- 
 mark of a celebrated writer that without long and serious application 
 no man, however great his natural abilities, can attain the art of 
 writing correctly. At one time I flattered myself with the hope of 
 becoming a correct writer; and, with the intention of applying 
 myself sedulously to the study of the English language, I collected 
 several works that treated of grammar and composition. Besides 
 these helps I also calculated upon the assistance of my friend, John 
 Swanson. But though repeatedly warned by experience, I did not 
 calculate upon that volatility of mind which I have ever found as diffi- 
 cult to fix upon any single object, whatever may be its importance, 
 as to fix quicksilver on an inclined plane; and now I can look back 
 upon my half attempt at becoming an English scholar, just as I can 
 upon every other speculation in which I have been engaged. I see 
 a fine foundation laid, but no superstructure. I still propose, how- 
 ever, to become a correct writer, but it must be in the manner in 
 which Cowley became a grammarian. That ingenious poet, speaking 
 of himself, says: 'I was so much an enemy to all constraint, that 
 my masters could never prevail on me, by any persuasion or encour- 
 agement, to learn without book the common rules of grammar, in
 
 368 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 which they dispensed with me alone, because they found I made a 
 shift to do the usual exercise out of my own reading and observation." 
 In a letter written about the same time, we have sundry remarks 
 on literary subjects. "You ask me whether I now read Byron or 
 Ovid. I reply in the affirmative. I do read every work of ability 
 that falls in my way, whatever the opinions or intentions of their 
 authors were; but in reading these works I always strive to keep in 
 view certain leading truths, which serve as tests to discover and sepa- 
 rate sophistry from argument, and as lights to dissipate those shades 
 of obliquity which are cast over virtue, both by its artful enemies and 
 injudicious friends. At the birth of our Savior, the shrine of Apollo 
 and Delphi spake no longer with its mysterious organs of what was, 
 or of what was to come. He who was the truth had come into the 
 world, and every oracle of lies had become dumb. At His death, 
 the veil of the temple was rent in twain, and truth was no longer a 
 mystery. Thus, by His powers that which was false, and that which 
 was true, became alike evident. The Gospels are still in our hands, 
 and they, like Him of whom they speak, silence falsehood and dis- 
 cover truth. He who takes up the writings of Byron, Ovid, or 
 Moore, or any of the many writings of those men who have so 
 fearfully misapplied the talents which God gave them, will, if im- 
 pressed with a deep sense of the true religion, run no risk of being 
 allured and led astray by the blandishments of vice. But what can 
 induce, it may be asked, a man of religious principle to peruse a vol- 
 ume in which he must, of necessity, come in contact with the allure- 
 ments of vice ; in which all that he loves will be made to appear in 
 its least lovely form, all that he hates or has to fear in its most en- 
 gaging and dangerous? To this I would reply that it is no very 
 honorable safety which is procured by flight. Why should a man 
 who stands upon the advantage ground of truth and virtue yield to 
 the emissaries of vice and error? May he not, as did Gideon the 
 son of Joash, descend into the camp of these Midianites, and 
 listen to the ominous visions which perplex them, or examine the 
 unsocial sophistries upon which they have founded their systems, 
 or expose the futility of the vain beliefs upon which they have 
 founded their hopes? But, to speak in plainer language, there are 
 many advantages which may be derived from a real philosophical 
 perusal of the writings of these men. Many of them were endowed 
 with extraordinary talents, were the friends of civil liberty, and ex- 
 celled in the art of reasoning and of writing well. I can not read 
 the Essays of Hume without seeing the necessity of entrenching 
 myself behind the bulwarks of Christianity. All those outworks 
 which are raised in every direction around these bulwarks, some of 
 them by mistaken good, and others by designing bad men, must be 
 forsaken ; for I find I have to do with a foe who can lay bare the 
 designs, and demolish the sophistries of the designing priest, who can 
 crush at one blow, the boasted illuminations of the enthusiast and
 
 READS BYRON, HUME, ETC. 369 
 
 fanatic. But when I retire within the citadel of Christianity, I see 
 from it the ingenious philosopher becoming a sophist, the powerful 
 warrior assailing a rock of adamant with a battering ram of straw . 
 . . The 'Don Juan' of Byron is an extraordinary poem, in my 
 opinion ten times more so than the ' Hudibras ' of Butler. It displays 
 a thorough knowledge of human character, of the crimes and frail- 
 ties of mankind." 
 
 "Feb. 20. Since I conversed with you, I have toiled and played, 
 I have ate and drank, walked and slept ; I have been happy and in- 
 different, and no, not sad. And now I am again with my friend; 
 draw, then, your chair a little nearer, and I shall tell you of my toils 
 and amusements. I have been quarrying at Navity shore stones for 
 a house which my cousin, Robert Ross, is going to build, and, with my 
 uncles and cousins, have brought home several boat-loads of them. 
 You remember Navity with its rough, bold shore, steep precipices 
 and sloping braes, so I need not tell you that there are few places 
 where he who labors is so ready to forget that labor is a curse. Nor 
 need I tell you how pleasant I found it to sweep on the calm wave, in 
 a fine frosty morning, past the rude bays and steep promontories of 
 the Gallow Hill, or how grand and awful the wide caverns, rugged 
 precipices, and wooded brow of that hill appeared when our boat 
 crept round its shores, heavy laden in a clear moonshine night." His 
 amusements are principally verse-making and solitary walks. 
 
 SERIOUS THOUGHTS CORRESPONDENCE WITH SWANSON FREAKISH 
 HUMOR WRITING IN THE OPEN AIR CORRESPONDENCE ON RELIGION. 
 
 In a tone of earnestness, which contrasts strongly with his reference 
 to religion in his earlier productions, prose or verse, Miller exclaims : 
 
 "Hark! wherefore bursts that rapturous swell? 
 
 Why are the night's dark shadows riven? 
 ' A Saviour sought the depths o* hell, 
 That such as thee might rise to heaven.' 
 
 "My cares, my hopes, my wishes climb 
 
 To reach that friend who reigns above me ; 
 Truth's best perfection dwells in Him, 
 And He has sworn to aid and love me." 
 
 The composition of these stanzas is connected with a revolution 
 which has been silently transacting itself in the mind and character 
 of Hugh Miller, and which will come under our notice as we review 
 his correspondence of this period. 
 
 We have seen that from his childhood he had displayed a fine na- 
 tural disposition ; that he was fearless, unselfish, affectionate. Of the 
 baser passions, avarice and cruelty, he never exhibited a trace ; and 
 of that leas ignoble passion which has frequently co-existed with high 
 and generous attributes of character, but which has frequently also, 
 24
 
 370 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 as in Mirabeau, Burns, and Byron, *made wreck of the palaces of the 
 soul, he was singularly destitute. The extravagances of his boyhood, 
 the pranks of a wild, free, gipsying life, reaching their climax of wick- 
 edness in robbery of an orchard and rebellion against an uncle, would 
 not be regarded even by a morose school of moralists as portending a 
 vicious manhood. The lessons which he received from Uncle James 
 and Uncle Sandy had sunk deep into his heart, even when he chafed 
 under their inculcation ; and while he passed through the severely 
 salutary discipline of his apprenticeship, his feelings toward those 
 admirable men had gradually settled into a profound and filial regard. 
 As we mark him, therefore, among his comrades of the bothy and the 
 shed, we are struck by the moral nobleness, the virgin purity, which 
 constantly attend him, and which render him undefilable by the foul- 
 ness amid which he moves. But religion had not become the supreme 
 influence in his mind ; he was still he knew it himself, and his friends 
 knew it "in the camp of the unconverted." 
 
 On returning from Edinburgh, he renewed his acquaintance with 
 John Swanson, and the closest friendship was soon established between 
 them. Swanson had recently thrown up a growing business in Cro- 
 marty, had resolved to become a preacher of the Gospel, and had 
 proceeded, shortly after the renewal of his intimacy with Miller, to 
 Aberdeen, in order to pursue his studies. His robust and healthful 
 nature was aglow with the impassioned ardor of first faith and first love. 
 "Oh ! " he exclaims to Miller, in a letter dated Aberdeen, July, 1825, 
 "I pant after that time when I may be fully assured that you are 
 traveling toward Zion ! " 
 
 In September, Swanson again writes, and still, apparently in response 
 to hesitation exhibited, or objections started, by his correspondent, 
 insists upon the plenitude of the divine mercy. " He is described 
 as holding out His hands all day long to a rebellious and gainsaying 
 people, and shall we impiously dare to say that He is unwilling to 
 receive any? 'Tis true there are mysterious doctrines in the Bible; 
 'tis true, election, etc., are spoken of; but, if I know aught of the 
 spirit of the Scriptures, these were never meant to keep a returning 
 sinner back from God. Indeed, I presume we often mistake this very 
 doctrine. It appears to me not as intended for our use before conver- 
 sion, but after it. It seems to me given for the support and consola- 
 tion of the saints, and not as a question for the returning penitent. 
 We never hear of the Apostles making use of such expressions as 
 these to an inquirer: 'It may be, you are not elected. It may 
 be, though you tell us you believe, you are deceived.' But we 
 find them asking this question, ' Dost thou believe ?' Believe what ? 
 That Jesus is the Christ. And I ask you, my dear Hugh, dost thou 
 believe ? Do you believe that he lived ? that he was the Sent of God ? 
 that he died to save sinners? I know that thou believest. Well, is 
 your life and conversation corresponding to this belief? Do you 
 pray? read the Scriptures? obey the injunctions of Christ?"
 
 CORRESPONDENCE WITH SWANSON. 371 
 
 Miller, however, is shy of coining to close quarters. In a letter of 
 1 8th November he takes a sportive tone, and chats lightly on miscella- 
 neous matters. 
 
 But Swanson is in a mood far too earnest to be pleased with Miller's 
 light humor, and he gently rebukes his levity. He returns at once 
 to his point, and puts the direct question, " Have you made your 
 peace with God?" Hugh can now fence no longer. He confesses 
 that he had been prevented from responding to his friend's appeals 
 by a "backward, mistrustful pride and bashfulness." In simple- 
 hearted reliance on the friendliness of a correspondent who justified 
 the confidence reposed in him, he gives an account of himself. "At 
 times I have tried to pray. At times I have even thought that these 
 prayers were not in vain. I have striven to humble my proud spirit 
 by reflecting on my foolishness, my misery and guilt. I have thought 
 to be reconciled to that God who, in his awful justice, has doomed 
 the sinner to destruction, yet who, in his infinite mercy, has found 
 out a way of redemption ; but I am an unsteady and a wavering crea- 
 ture, nursing in my foolishness vain hopes, blinded by vain affections ; 
 in short, one who, though he may have his minutes of conviction and 
 contrition, is altogether enamored of the things of this world, and a 
 contemner of the cross." 
 
 The letter in which this passage occurs is dated December, 1825. 
 About this time Swanson becomes so absorbed in his studies that he 
 finds it impossible to devote time to correspondence, and he writes 
 Miller briefly, on the I4th of January, 1826, to that effect. "Go on, 
 my dear Hugh," he says, in reference to the chief subject on 
 which they had exchanged thoughts, "go on, and the Lord himself 
 will bless you. If you are not under the teaching of the Spirit of 
 God, I am deceived, and if I do not find you soon established in the 
 way of happiness, peace, and life, I shall be miserably disappointed." 
 
 One can not help remarking, by the way, that this correspondence is 
 creditable to these young friends. "How," exclaims Miller in one 
 of his letters, " can I repay you for that deep, that generous interest 
 which you take in my spiritual concerns ! How can I make a suitable 
 return for a friendship which, unlike the cold, selfish attachments of 
 earth, approaches, in its nature and affectionate disinterestedness, to 
 the love of heaven ? Perhaps I say too much, I am certain you think 
 so, but with a heart so full a wiser man could hardly say less." Mo- 
 dest, noble, kind-hearted Hugh ! How many would have resented 
 Swanson's interference in affairs which jealous pride and sensitive in- 
 dependence might so plausibly allege to lie solely between a man and 
 his Maker ! From the meanness of such pride and the bitterness of 
 such independence, Miller's true heart guards him well. He is deeply 
 grateful. Swanson, for his part, thrilling with joy in the possession of 
 the pearl of price, yearns to share the treasure with his friend, and to 
 seal their friendship with the seal of immortality. 
 
 Pleased, perhaps, for the moment, that his correspondence with
 
 37 3 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 Swanson should take a less earnest turn, Miller recurs, in his next 
 letter, to his vein of .light, miscellaneous writing. 
 
 This wild and buoyant humor was not, however, constant with him. 
 "You seem," he writes, "to have been in low spirits. Are you also 
 subject to those strange rises and falls of spirit which, without any assign- 
 able cause, make your humble servant happy, miserable, and mad by 
 turns? I wish the college session over, and you fairly settled at your 
 mother's fireside. I am really vexed on seeing you determined on 
 killing yourself. Is he not as much a suicide who swallows death in 
 the form of a mathematical problem, as he who takes an ounce of 
 opium ? The latter is certainly the easiest way of getting out of the 
 world, there is rro pedantry in it." Affecting words, when read in 
 connection with the history of Miller's closing years ! How little did 
 he think, while rejoicing in the freedom of the hill-side and the sea- 
 shore, and warning his friend with gentle earnestness not to overtask 
 his brain, that he should himself yield to the terrible temptation, and 
 pay the penalty with his life ! " Happy and miserable and mad by 
 turns:" the expression is striking and strange. 
 
 He gives a somewhat satisfactory account of himself to his cousin, 
 William Munro, in a letter dated ist of May. " I am writing at 
 this moment in the open air, under the shade of a honeysuckle. The 
 sun is peeping through its leaves, and casting upon my paper spangles 
 of a bright hue and strangely fantastic form. As I look upon them 
 I can not avoid recognizing a picture of my own mind. It is thus its 
 lights and shadows blend together. A little cloud has passed over 
 the sun, and my page has become dark and somber ; and is it not 
 thus that my fair hopes and gay imaginings ofttimes pass away, and 
 leave behind them a cloud of darkness?" This picture may be some- 
 what high wrought, as Miller had announced to William Ross his in- 
 tention to send his cousin "a fine sentimental letter, resembling that 
 of a boarding-school miss." 
 
 On the 2d of September, Miller writes to Swanson, " I feel that, 
 after your earnest and affectionate exhortation, it would be something 
 worse than unfriendly of me not to unbosom myself before you; yet 
 what have I to confess ? Were I an unbeliever, though I would as- 
 suredly lose my friend by confessing myself one, still that confession 
 would be made. I would scorn to hold the affections of any one by 
 appearing what I am not. Or if, on the other hand, I were a Chris- 
 tian in the true sense of the word, I hope I would have courage 
 enough to avow my profession, not only to you or to those from whom 
 I could expect nothing except kindness, but even to the proudest and 
 boldest scorner But what profession can the lukewarm Laodicean 
 make ? the man who, one moment, is as assured of the truth of the 
 gospel of Christ as he is of his own existence, and who, in another, 
 regards the whole scheme of redemption as a cunningly devised fable. 
 It will not do ! I am not at present collected enough to give you a 
 faithful account of what is my religious belief; I will just say that, as
 
 AN AUTUMN PICTURE. 373 
 
 far as the head is concerned, my creed is a sound one, but alas for 
 the heart !" The remainder of the letter accords well with this 
 profession of indifference, or at least of vacillation and vicissitude, 
 in spiritual affairs. He speaks of other matters, and bewails his bash- 
 fulness in society. 
 
 Swanson receives this letter and answers the same day. He im- 
 plores his friend to get rid of the melancholy which preys upon his 
 mind by a " full, free, and simple acceptation of the gospel. Pardon 
 me, my dear friend," he adds, "when I say that I fear you have 
 religious opinions not derived from the Bible. Read it as if you 
 never heard a word concerning it before." On the 3oth of Septem- 
 ber, Miller writes again : " I am still employed on the chapel brae in 
 
 hewing a second tombstone for Colonel G . That spot is now 
 
 beginning to lose its charms ; every breeze which passes over it carries 
 a shower of withered leaves upon its wings ; the herbage is assuming 
 a sallow hue, and I stand alone in the midst of desolation, in all ex- 
 cept sublimity of feeling the prototype of Campbell's last man. I do 
 not know whether I am advancing in wisdom as in years (I rathej: 
 suspect not), but somehow the thought of death often presses upon 
 me in these days. I look upon the little hillocks which are laid 
 above men and women and children, the traits of whose features 
 are pictured in my memory, and when by its aid I conjure up their 
 forms when, gay and restless, they followed the businesses or the 
 pleasures of life, and then when, in the eye of the imagination, I 
 behold them stretched in the dark coffin, cold, and black, and 
 moldy, without form or motion, I pause and ask, What is this 
 Death, this mighty Death, that turns mirth to sadness, that unnerves 
 the arm of the strong and pales the cheek of the beautiful ? 
 
 "I remember to have seen, many years ago, old Eben, the sexton, 
 digging a grave. He raised a coffin, which, though much decayed, 
 was still entire, and placed it on the earth he had thrown out. I 
 was a mere boy at the time, and out of foolish curiosity, when his 
 back was turned, I raised with the edge of his spade the lid of the 
 coffin. The appearance of the moldering remains which it con- 
 tained, nothing can erase from my memory. I see them even now 
 before me, in all their sad and disgusting deformity, and still when 
 I hear or read of the empire of death of the wrecks of death, or 
 of the change which death works on the human frame imagination 
 immediately reverts to a long, black skeleton, clothed over with a 
 moldy earth to which, in some places, the rotten grave-clothes are 
 attached. This is a disgusting image, but it is not a useless one, for 
 when, thinking of death, I bare my arm and look at the blue veins 
 shining through the transparent skin when I look and think that 
 the day may not, can not, be far distant when it shall become as 
 black and as moldy as that of the skeleton I start, for there is 
 something in the contrast which removes all the accumulation of com-
 
 374 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 monplace which the habit of hearing and speaking at second-hand of 
 death hath cast upon that awful thing. 
 
 " But what is the fruit, you will ask, of these cogitations? Follow 
 me a little farther and you shall see. If the soul be a mere quality 
 affixed to matter, which shall die when that matter is changed from 
 animate into inanimate, then, though the thought of the havoc which 
 death works on the human frame tends to lower the pride of the 
 haughty, it is not a harassing one to the philosopher. Life is full of 
 evil and unhappiness; death is a state of rest. When the tyrant 
 Edward invaded this country ; when Wallace, its bravest defender, 
 was betrayed and slain ; when the carnage of Flodden filled Scotland 
 with mourning, or the defeat of Pinkie with fear I was neither sad, 
 nor angry, nor afraid, for I was not called into existence until twenty- 
 four years ago. And in a few years after this, if the soul be not im- 
 mortal, I shall again have passed (if I may use the expression) into a 
 state of non-existence, and though my moldering remains may raise 
 horror in the breasts of the living, the vacuum which once existed 
 shall not sympathize with them. But that the soul is immortal, if it 
 be the same wise God that created the heavens and earth who formed 
 man, I must believe ; and if that soul, after it has departed from its 
 fleshy nook, is to be punished or rewarded according to the deeds 
 done in the body this I also must and shall believe ; then death 
 becomes not the herald of rest, but the messenger of judgment. Thus 
 far unassisted reason can go. Socrates went still further, for, when 
 other philosophers were raving of an absurd, because unattainable, 
 virtue, by the possession of which men were to be made happy both 
 in this world and the next, he taught of the evil that dwelleth in the 
 human heart, and of the help which cometh from God. But it is to 
 the pages of Revelation we must turn, if it be our desire to learn with 
 certainty how to prepare for death by making the Judge our friend. 
 
 "You have often urged me with a friendly zeal, both in speech 
 and by writing, to forsake sin and turn to God. Your letters and 
 conversations have had an effect I wish I could add the desired one. 
 I give some of my time 'to the study of the Scriptures, and have become 
 perhaps nearly as well acquainted as the mere theorist can be w4th 
 the scheme of redemption. Nay, more, I pray. But the day-beam 
 has not yet, I am afraid, dawned upon me the light vouchsafed is 
 not a clear and steady one like the beam of the morning ; it is rather 
 like the reflection of. lightning in a dark night a momentary glimpse 
 succeeded by an hour of gloom. My prevailing disposition is evil, 
 and though I have oftener than once experienced a feeling strange 
 indeed to the human heart a feeling of love to God the cares of 
 the world and the allurements of pleasure draw away my affections, 
 and the old man is again put on. 
 
 " The town clock has struck the hour of twelve so, for the present, 
 adieu ! " 
 
 Swanson replies on the pth of October.
 
 A BOY ATHEIST. 375 
 
 A month elapses before Hugh replies, and his answer has none of 
 the warmth of feeling for which we might have looked. " After 
 perusing your last letter," he writes, "I sat down to tell you that I 
 was not a little alarmed by your recognizing me as, a Christian brother; 
 I then stated my grounds of alarm ; and, willing to furnish you with 
 a kind of data by which you would be enabled to judge of the spiritual 
 state of your friend, I recommenced a historical detail of the fluctuat- 
 ing opinions of my mind for the last seven years. But I now see 
 that a narrative so long, and in which I will require to be so careful 
 of error, will engross more of my time than I can conveniently de- 
 vote to it at present." 
 
 The " historical detail," here referred to, in so far as it appears to 
 have ever been written down, is contained in an unfinished letter, 
 dated October, 1826, from which we extract : 
 
 " I know not in what words to confess that your last letter, friendly 
 and affectionate-breathing as it was, alarmed and in some degree ren- 
 dered me unhappy. You recognize, you address me as a Christian 
 brother ; and, when I look within and see how doubtful the signs of 
 a radical change of heart are, when I see how little there is to justify 
 even the limited profession I made when I last addressed you by 
 writing, I tremble lest you are throwing away your affections on a 
 deceiver, who is now even less worthy of your friendship than when 
 he confessed himself a stranger to Christ. But why tremble on this 
 account ? If I am a deceiver, I am not a willful one ; for the hypo- 
 crite only trembles when detected or on the verge of detection, and 
 if, by mistaking an excited imagination for a changed heart, I de- 
 ceive both my friend and myself, I am surely rather unfortunate than 
 guilty. 
 
 " I believe I may term my education a religious one. I was ex- 
 amined in the Catechism by my uncles every Sabbath night, and 
 forced to attend regularly at church. This, you will say, is a poor 
 definition of the words religious education, but in nine cases out of 
 ten it is all that is meant by them. As I advanced into the latter 
 years of boyhood, I became impatient of this restraint, and, after many 
 struggles, in which I showed a fierceness and desperation of char- 
 acter worthy of the liberty for which I strove, I became, as some 
 of my friends satirically termed me, a lad of my own will. As a lad 
 of my own will, I was a Sabbath -breaker, and a robber of orchards ; 
 and, as strange, foolish thoughts, passages of Scripture, and questions 
 on the subject of religion would at times either flash upon my recol- 
 lection or rise in my mind, just for the sake of peace, I also became 
 an atheist. A boy atheist is surely a strange and uncommon charac- 
 ter. I was one in reality, for, possessed of a strong memory, which 
 my uncles and an early taste for reading had stored with religious 
 sentiments and stories of religious men, I was compelled, as I have 
 already said, for peace' sake, either to do that which was right, or, by 
 denying the truth of the Bible, to set every action, good or bad, on
 
 37 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 the same level, and I had chosen the latter as the more free and 
 pleasing way. My mind, as you will see in the sequel of my story, 
 long retained the bent which it at this time acquired ; but my actions, 
 restrained by a rising pride, by notions of honor, perhaps by a con- 
 science which, though fast asleep, had its dreams, became less repre- 
 hensible. I became what the world calls honest ; and, from a dislike 
 of drink and noisy company, had all along preserved a habit of 
 sobriety, but to every other vice to which a young man of sixteen is 
 exposed, I was addicted. You are aware that, much earlier than this, 
 I composed pieces in rhyme, which I called poems. One of the 
 drawers of my desk is filled with copies of these youthful effusions, 
 which I preserve both for the sake of the recollections attached to 
 them, and for the history I can trace in them of the growth of my 
 mind and its varying opinions. 
 
 "About the end of the year 1820, I had a fearful dream, which, 
 for the time, had the effect of converting me into a kind of believer 
 a believer of I knew not what. I dreamed I was wandering through 
 a solitary and desert country; that I was alone, restless, and un- 
 happy. All at once the skies became dark and overcast, and a gloom 
 like that of a stormy winter's evening seemed to settle over the face 
 of nature. By one of those changes so common in dreams, the 
 country appeared no longer unpeopled ; but the figures I saw were so 
 dark, so indistinct, so silent, that in my terror I regarded them not 
 as men, but spirits who were wandering about in unhappiness until the 
 time came in which they were to reanimate the bodies in which they 
 once dwelt. A fearful presentment arose in my mind that the day of 
 judgment was at hand ; I felt the petrifying influence of despair per- 
 vade every faculty, yet, though my agony was extreme, I could neither 
 weep nor pray. In a little time the Clouds began to disperse, and 
 through a clear blue opening, I perceive a large cloudy scroll spread 
 On the face of the heavens, which, with a flickering, undulating mo- 
 tion, at one moment resembled a dark, sulphureous flame, and at 
 another reminded me of a banner waving in the wind. I fixed my 
 eyes upon it in fear and astonishment, and perceived that in its cen- 
 tre a few dark characters were inscribed. I strove to decipher them, 
 but could not. In a few seconds, however, the coloring of the scroll 
 deepened gradually, as the hues of the rainbow increase from dimness 
 to brilliancy. I read its startling motto, ' Take warning ! ' and 
 awoke. My mind was dreadfully agitated. The sweat, which, dur- 
 ing my dream, had flowed from every pore, was cooled upon my 
 brow, but my heart was still burning. In my terror I vowed that, for 
 the future, I would be no longer a sinner, and I began to pray ; but 
 my prayers were addressed, not to the God of the Christian, but to 
 the God of the heathen philosopher. I was awakened to a painful 
 consciousness of sin. I had heard that God was merciful, and on 
 the strength of that attribute I addressed myself to him ; but alas ! 
 I did not know that his justice is as infinite as his mercy, and that
 
 A DREAM IMPRESSES HIM. 377 
 
 
 
 no sinner can be accepted by him unless he appeal to the sufferings 
 and righteousness of that Saviour whom his sins have pierced. 
 
 "The recollection of my dream haunted me for about ten days, 
 during which time I prayed. A natural bashfulness withheld me from 
 making any show of sanctity, but my heart was very proud of its 
 newly acquired purity, and I regarded myself as a much better man 
 *han many of my acquaintances. But the foundation on which my 
 hopes were raised was not one of sand a sandy foundation would 
 have served me until the day of the tempest, whereas, the thin vapor 
 upon which I had built sunk of itself without being once assailed. 
 Suffice it to say that, as my fears subsided and my pride increased, 
 my prayers became more and more a matter of form, until at length 
 they ceased altogether, and except that I believed in the being of 
 a God, and continued to see a beauty in moral virtue, I became, 
 in thought and feeling and action, the same man I had formerly 
 been. 
 
 " In the working season of the two following years, I wrought and 
 resided at Conon-side, a gentleman's seat and farmsteadings, situ- 
 ated on a bank of the River Conon, near where it falls into the 
 Cromarty Frith. When there, there was no one for whose good 
 opinion I cared a pin within twenty miles of me, so I felt myself at 
 liberty to do or say whatever I thought proper. In a short time, I be- 
 came a favorite with my brother workmen. " He is a good-natured, 
 honest, knowing fellow," they would say, "but desperately careless 
 of church." This was just the character I wished to bear; as for 
 church attendance, I thought it rather a dubious virtue. Indeed, I had 
 seen too much of the prejudices of mankind, and knew too little of 
 true Christianity to think otherwise. 
 
 " When at Conon-side, I had an opportunity of studying several 
 characters of the grave, serious cast, but the knowledge of them 
 
 which I acquired there did me no good. One, a Mr. M , was*a 
 
 man of a grave, taciturn humor, whose definition of the word ' Chris- 
 tian ' would be, as I apprehended, ' a hearer of the gospel for Mr. 
 McDonald's sake.' He was exceedingly reserved and unsocial in his 
 manners, and little loved by his fellow-workmen. Once or twice I 
 have seen him grow very angry when some parts of the conduct of 
 his favorite preacher were censured, censured, too, as Ik thought, 
 with reason. There was another of the workmen with whom I 
 wrought, who was of the grave, serious cast. He contributed quar- 
 terly to the support of the Bible Society, was regular in his attend- 
 ance at church, and reproved swearing or indecent language every 
 time he chanced to hear it among his companions. But it did not 
 escape my observation that this man was so censorious that not even 
 
 his brother saint, Mr. M , was exempted from the severity of his 
 
 animadversions, and so proud of his purity of life that the errors and 
 misconduct of others afforded him pleasure. Perhaps he regarded 
 them as foils to the virtues he possessed.
 
 3?8 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 
 
 " Besides these two there were some others who made a profession 
 of religion with whom I became partially acquainted ; but the tenor 
 of their lives was ill-qualified to impress my mind with a high opinion 
 of the sanctifying influences of Christianity. One was a hard, austere 
 man, of obtuse feelings, who seemed determined, whatever he thought 
 of the world to come, to make the most he could of the present ; a 
 second was silly and weak ; and a third was what I termed a Sabbath- 
 Christian that is, one who attends church, calls the preacher precious 
 man, can tell a great many of the strange legends of the Scottish 
 Church, and reprobates the poor wretches who prefer common sense 
 to fanaticism. And are these men Christians? thought I. I have 
 often heard divines bid that part of their congregations which they 
 termed men of the world look at the life of the Christian, and grow 
 convinced of the power and truth of Christianity by that example 
 which is superior to precept. I have obeyed them. I have observed 
 his actions, and through these actions have striven to discover his 
 motives, and what have I found ? In good truth, the philosopher 
 who sees clearly that he who believes and he who does not believe, 
 only differ in that th one practices the grave and the other the gay 
 vices of humanity, may well laugh at the pretensions of these divines, 
 and tell them that they either speak of they know not what, or will- 
 fully deceive because it is their interest to do so. 
 
 " I remember one Sunday, after my companions had gone to 
 church, and I remained behind, as was my custom, that, to pass 
 away the time, I took a solitary walk in the woods of Conon-side. 
 The day was pleasant, but, from a kind of nervous melancholy which 
 hangs pretty often on my spirits, and is, as I believe, constitutional, 
 I could not enjoy it. I felt quite unhappy, and after having had re- 
 course to every species of wonted amusement, sat down on a green 
 knoll, in despair of enjoying solitude for that day. A train ot the 
 darkest thoughts began to rise and pass through my mind. I looked 
 upon what I had done in the past, I thought of the unhappiness of 
 the present, I formed surmises of the future. There was a voice from 
 within which incessantly whispered in my ear, ' You are doing wrong ! 
 you are doing wrong ! and how, then, can you expect pleasure? ' and 
 so miserable did I feel from these cogitations and these questionings, 
 that I started from my seat, and strove to dissipate them by strong 
 bodily exertion. In a few hours after, my spirits had regained their 
 usual tone, and I could look back upon what I had felt, and say, 
 ' Have I experienced what men call an awakened conscience ? What, 
 then, is conscience ? The breast of the murderer and the dishonor- 
 able, mean man may well be the haunts of remorse; but surely, with 
 one who neither does nor wishes any man ill, conscience is but the 
 ashes of early prejudices raked together by a disordered imagination.' 
 
 " In the latter end of the autumn of this year (1822) I wrought and 
 resided at Pointzfield for several weeks. My constitution is naturally 
 delicate, and by building in stormy weather on a wet, marshy spot of
 
 VIEWS OF HIMSELF. 379 
 
 ground, I caught a severe cold, which hung about me for several 
 weeks ; I felt my strength wasting away ; my breast became the seat 
 of a dull, oppressive pain, and, imagining I was becoming consump- 
 tive, I began seriously to think of death. So assured was I at this 
 time of approaching dissolution, that even through the perspective of 
 hope I could only look forward on a few short months of life, and, as 
 I could not bring myself to doubt of a separate existence of soul or 
 of a judgment according to deeds done in the body, I began seriously 
 to think of a preparation for death. But how was this preparation to 
 be made? I knew prayer to be the only language by which the sin- 
 ner could intercede with the Deity for pardon ; but then experience 
 had shown me how unable I was of myself to bring my mind into the 
 frame of devotion, or to preserve that frame unchanged when it was 
 produced by fear, disgust, and the mingling dictates of reason. At 
 length I bethought me of an expedient which I hoped would preserve 
 me from that falling off or apostatizing, of which I had experienced 
 two years before ; for, awakening the sincere fervency of feeling 
 which my expedient was to render lasting, I had before me the fear 
 of death. For the three previous years, when I had freely and seri- 
 ously pledged my word in a matter of importance, to any of my 
 brother men, I had a pride of rigidly adhering to it. From this I 
 concluded that, were I to pledge myself to God by oath, I would have 
 A restraining bond upon me strong enough to preserve me for the 
 future from known sin. I would thus be shut up by every principle 
 of honor to serve God of loving him I had no idea. I made and 
 took my vow to be I know not what, called God to witness it, and 
 for a few following days persisted in praying twice a day. But prayer 
 soon became an irksome duty ; proud thoughts over which I had no 
 control, and strong desires that would not be repressed by a few 
 light words, came rushing on my mind in a mingled torrent, and 
 swept before them every vain resolve. To add to their strength, my 
 health began to amend, and tit not only appeared an impracticable, 
 but even a foolish thing to strive any longer to be religious. 
 
 " I passed the winter of this year and the spring of the following 
 one at home, and there became acquainted with an old companion of 
 my uncles. He had resided at Edinburgh for many years, and, 
 though a clever, was neither a steady nor respectable, man, but for 
 the sake of becoming acquainted with his character, which was eccen- 
 tric in the extreme, I courted his company and conversation. At 
 Edinburgh he had been a member of one of those deistical clubs so 
 common in large towns ; and, by a natural quickness, and from the 
 habit of speaking at their meetings, had acquired the faculty of argu- 
 ing extempore with a good deal of skill. My uncles, whose principles 
 and opinions were in almost every particular the reverse of his, im- 
 pressed by early recollections, still continued attached to him, but, as 
 might be expected, frequently attacked opinions which he was by no 
 means slow to defend. The doctrine of predestination, that hobby-horse
 
 380 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 ^ 
 
 of disputants, was brought frequently on the carpet, as was also the 
 doctrine of universal, as opposed to partial, redemption. At first I 
 merely listened to these verbal controversies, but seeing that my 
 uncles, though well-grounded in the doctrines of Christianity, were 
 ill-qualified to answer every objection raised against it by a veteran 
 quibbler, out of a desire of assisting them, I set myself to examine 
 the different bearings of the doctrines they defended. Predestination 
 first engaged me. I read all that is said of it in Scripture, drew con- 
 clusions from the prescience of God, and from Plato's Dialogues of 
 Socrates, and some other philosophic writers, and endeavored to pro- 
 duce data from whence to show that predestination is not a doctrine 
 peculiar to revealed religion. I had long looked upon controversial 
 divinity as the worst kind of nonsense ; and since my argumentative 
 conversation with my cousin G., had entertained an antipathy against 
 verbal controversy of every kind ; this, added to a hesitating manner 
 of speech, and a consciousness of an inability to preserve my ideas 
 from becoming confused when I waxed warm on my subject, after all 
 my preparation, withheld me from attacking my brother deist. 
 
 " Had any one told me at that time that I was in reality brother 
 in belief to a deist, I would have complained of injustice. In fact, 
 my opinions were so wavering that, with a due regard to truth, I 
 could not tell what I did or did not believe. I saw there were two 
 schools of deism the high and the low. Epicurus of the ancient 
 philosophers and Hume of the modern, men who, while they remained 
 skeptical on the subject of future rewards and punishments, and of the 
 providence of God, cherished virtue for its own sake, both by example 
 and precept, I regarded as members of the first ; while I looked upon 
 the brood of half-bred wits, who, with Paine at their head, battled 
 with religion because it gave a deeper and stronger sanction to the 
 laws of morality, as the masters of the second. The leaders of the 
 former I consider to be good, wise men (indeed, I am still readier to 
 regret their defects than censure them), while the whole body which 
 composed the latter I regarded as a band of conspirators against all 
 that is good or noble in human nature. I looked upon the Edinburgh 
 deist as a pupil of the school last described ; indeed, the irregularity 
 of the life he led lent this opinion a strong sanction. 
 
 "The more I thought and read, the more wavering and unsettled 
 my opinions became. I began to see that the precepts inculcated by 
 the Christian faith are equal if not superior in purity to those taught 
 in the school of philosophy ; but then the strange, mysterious doc- 
 trines which mingled with these precepts had in them something 
 repulsive. I could believe in many things which I did not under- 
 stand ; but how could I believe in things evidently not beyond the 
 reach of reason, but directly opposed to it ? I could believe that man 
 is either a free agent, or chained down by the decrees of God to a 
 predestined line of conduct ; but how could I believe that he was at
 
 DOCTRINES OF CHRISTIANITY. 381 
 
 once free and the child of necessity? And yet the contradiction (as 
 it appeared) seemed to me to be the doctrine of the Bible. 
 
 " I regarded the main doctrine of Christianity as one of those which 
 lie not beyond the reach of reason, but, as I have said, are directly 
 opposed to it. How, thought I, can one man who is a criminal be 
 pardoned and rewarded because another who is none, has, after mer- 
 iting reward, been punished? How can it be said that he who thus 
 pardons the guilty and punishes the innocent is not only just, but that 
 he even does this that he may become just and merciful ? It appeared 
 still more strange than even this that the only way of becoming virtu- 
 ous was, not by doing good and virtuous deeds, but by believing that 
 Christ's death was an atonement for sin, and his merits a fund of 
 righteousness for which they who thus believe were to be rewarded. 
 Certainly, thought I, if the Christian religion be not a true one, it is 
 not a cunningly devised fable; for its mysteries are either not far 
 enough removed from the examination of the rational faculties, or too 
 directly opposed to the conclusions which they must necessarily form. 
 The mystery of the Trinity I regarded as an exception to this ; the 
 nature of God is so little known to man that I could neither believe 
 nor doubt it." 
 
 In this abrupt and unsatisfactory manner the document ends. It 
 will appear in the sequel that evidence exists in other quarters, en- 
 abling us to trace the essential facts of Miller's spiritual history. 
 
 I 
 
 NEW-YEAR MUSINGS OPINION TEN DAYS LATER. 
 
 On the ist of January, 1827, he writes to Ross. His reflections are 
 not of a jocund character : " The first sun of the year has not yet 
 risen, but I have trimmed and lighted my lamp, and set myself down 
 to write by the assistance of its little red flame. . . . Many are the 
 reflections which a closing and an opening year suggest. You have 
 often seen that Egyptian symbol, an adder holding its tail in its mouth ; 
 and I am sure that you have observed that the slender circular body of 
 that adder is but a dull-looking thing, varied as it only is by a slight 
 difference in bulk, or a still slighter difference in the loops of its scaly 
 coat ; while, upon that part of it where its head and tail meet, the eye 
 can rest with pleasure. It is said that this adder is a symbol of the 
 year; and certainly, as the eye is attracted more by its head and tail, 
 than by any part of its body, so the attention of the moralist is excited 
 more by the beginning and close of the year than by any of its inter- 
 mediate parts. The moralist, do I say? Alas! true moralists are by 
 no means common characters, yet serious reflection at such a season 
 as this is not confined to a class of men so extremely rare. I remem- 
 ber that at a stage of life removed little from childhood, on a New-Year's 
 day, not all the halfpence my friends gave me could make me happy. 
 A certain vague regret for the days of sport that had passed away, 
 and a fearful anticipation of the days of care and toil which I knew
 
 382 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 were coming on, conspired to cast a gloom over my mind. But in 
 this the boy indulged in a folly not always avoided by the man. When I 
 looked at the head and tail of the snake, I thought of the sting which in 
 reality both of them bear, but not of the antidote growing near. I 
 now perceive that it was unwise thus to suffer the clouds of unavailing 
 regret and dismal anticipation to cast their shade over my enjoyments. 
 He who taught that there is but one thing truly needful taught also 
 that 'sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.' It is an opinion of 
 mine, that all the drinking and feasting so common at this season were 
 at first resorted to for the sake of dissipating gloomy thoughts like 
 those with which I was once perplexed. The more I think of this, 
 the more I am confirmed of its truth. Judging from experience, it 
 appears reasonable enough that the man who is unprepared to die 
 should forget that he is mortal ; but it is monstrous to suppose that, 
 deeming as most do, death the greatest evil, he should yet joy at its 
 approach. If an opening year warned a boy of the toils which awaited 
 him, it may surely whisper to men of death. And it does ! Get one 
 of the most stupid of those who are revelers at this season to make a 
 single moral remark, and that one will be, that he is now by a year nearer 
 his grave than he was twelve months ago. From reflections like these, 
 though custom, by giving its sanction to the festivities of the season, 
 has, after its usual manner, obscured every circumstance of its own 
 beginning and growth, I can regard that loud huzza which has pene- 
 trated even to this recess, as that of madness raised to drown the deep, 
 low murmurings of thought. Many are the reflections which a closing 
 and opening year suggest, and yet the writer who would set himself to 
 collect and arrange these would find that there is little to be said of 
 the years which commenced and concluded seven hours ago, which has 
 not already been said (perhaps well said) of some preceding ones. . . . 
 But in morals, regarded as the rules of life, there is nothing common- 
 place. Filled with a desire of making new acquirements and a love 
 of novelty, man is generally moving onward in knowledge there is a 
 law in his very nature which urges him on ; but for that which is 
 morally good he has no natural inclination. Before he quit his vicious 
 habits he must be threatened with the horrors of eternal punishment, 
 nay, perhaps made to feel in conviction a foretaste of these horrors. 
 Before he commence a course of virtuous actions, he must be presented 
 with the strongest motives, assurance of eternal peace and joy, and, 
 what is necessarily superior to any motive, he must be powerfully as- 
 sisted by the Spirit of God. Ah, my dear friend, there can surely be 
 no commonplace in morals, whether by the word we mean virtuous 
 actions, or the precepts which enjoin or the considerations which en- 
 force them. The uncertainty of time and the certainty of death, the 
 guilt and madness of misspending time, and the sure coming of judg- 
 ment, all of these are topics extremely commonplace for an author, 
 but truths which to every human creature are important in the highest 
 degree. I can not look back upon the past year with a feeling of pleas-
 
 NEW-YEAR REFLECTIONS. 383 
 
 ure, and yet I should look upon it with one of thankfulness. I am 
 certain I have not marked it by a single meritorious deed, and yet, 
 by the good mercy of God, I have been preserved from actions no- 
 toriously vicious. I have at times, I trust, by his help, cleared my 
 heart of its viler affections, and repressed its evil desires. I have be- 
 sought his assistance, and experienced within me the workings of grat- 
 itude. But, alas ! at other times, I have willfully opened the flood-gates 
 of passion ; I have courted rather than resisted temptation ; I have 
 apologized for known sin in my heart ; and in thought many times oft- 
 ener than once indeed have I committed evil." 
 
 Thus by the " little red flame," in the chill hour before the dawn, 
 on the first day of 1827, does Hugh Miller jot down for his friend 
 his stern and sad communings with himself. The drear glimmer of the 
 lamp light is traceable on the page, and the remarks on the festivities 
 of Christmas and New- Year's day are too harshly puritanic for his 
 sunnier and wiser hour; but the severity of his self-judgment, and 
 the deep and humble piety which pervades the letter, makes it valu- 
 able as a revelation of his state of mind at the time. Let us, there- 
 fore, proceed : 
 
 " In that awful day when things shall appear as they really are, 
 how shall I apologize for the evil I have committed in that portion 
 of time which was measured out by the past year ? The more I con- 
 sider the more clearly do I see that the evil I have committed in it 
 was of a positive, the good merely of a negative, kind. All that I 
 can urge in my defense is, that I might have entered still deeper into 
 evil than I have done. But will this defense serve ? Were it to serve 
 in an earthly court, the vilest criminal could with justice allege it ; and 
 will God, in whom dwelleth, and from whom cometh, all wisdom, ac- 
 cept it from his creatures ? Alas ! hope itself can not build on a foun- 
 dation like this. If mankind have no better plea they are surely lost; 
 yet self-love, in the very face of reason, whispereth the contrary. Ah, 
 William, there can be no greater deceiver than self-love, no flatterer 
 more dangerous, for there is none we suspect less. Often, when we 
 think of a future state of being, of an Almighty Judge, and of our 
 own appearance before him, in our imaginations we not only pic- 
 ture that Judge as merciful, but we even conceive of him as possessed of 
 feelings and partialities, and consequently of weaknesses, like ourselves. 
 We deem him to be One who will look upon our faults with the same 
 favorable eye with which we ourselves regard them, as one who will 
 give us credit for the merits which we think we possess. Alas! we 
 do not consider -that one-half of these imagined merits are fictitious, 
 the children of our fancy ; and that the other half of them consist of 
 natural talents and propensities which have, for wise ends, been given 
 us, but which we have misapplied. And what, then, remains ? As I 
 have said already, I must say again, that man's best plea, if he ground 
 his defense on works, is, that he has not committed all the evil which 
 he might have committed ; and I must say again that, if mankind have
 
 384 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 no better plea than this, they are surely lost. But, dear William, 
 Christianity is not the cunningly devised fable I once thought it. 
 There is a Savior, and he who believes upon him with that true, 
 earnest belief which conquereth evil, shall, for the sake of the suffer- 
 ings of that Savior, have his sins forgiven him, and for the sake of 
 his righteousness, be rewarded. I once thought this an absurd doc- 
 trine ; now, though I have more experience of men and things than I 
 ever had before, and though my reason has strengthened, and is, as I 
 hope, still strengthening, I can regard it as a wonderful display of the 
 wisdom of God. 
 
 "Many are the reflections which an opening and a closing year 
 suggest ! How impenetrably dark is that cloud which hangs over the 
 future ! How dubious and uncertain do the half-remembered inci- 
 dents of the past appear ! And what, since we have so little left us 
 to bear witness of the past since we have nothing to assure us that 
 in this body, the future shall be ours what is that present time 
 which we dare challenge as our own ? Is it a day, an hour, a minute, 
 a moment? No, it is simply a line of division, a thing which has 
 neither solidity nor extension, breath nor thickness. And is this 
 nonentity all we can call our own ? Cowley, in his essay on the 
 danger of procrastination, gives a translation of an epigram of Martial, 
 which, as it falls in with, my present train of thought, and is, of itself, 
 very ingenious, I shall here insert. By the by, I recommend Cowley 
 to you as an excellent and shrewd fellow, who, if you court his 
 company and conversation, will, I am sure, give you much pleasure, 
 and, perhaps, some instruction. He is a true poet, though of a rare 
 school. But the epigram : 
 
 " ' To-morrow you will live, you always cry ; 
 
 In what far country does this morrow lie ? 
 
 That 't is so mighty long ere it arrive, 
 
 Beyond the Indies does this morrow live ? 
 
 'T is so far-fetched, this morrow, that I fear 
 
 'Twill be both very old and very dear. 
 
 To-morrow I will live, the fool does say. 
 
 To-day itself 's too late ; the wise lived yesterday.' 
 
 "What is, or where is, to-morrow? is the question of the Roman 
 epigrammatist. I would, in like manner, ask what is, or rather what 
 was, yesterday? It has left a few marks upon the face of the earth. 
 Yesterday a field was plowed, a house built, and a grave dug ; and 
 these marks, and scarce any thing else, make yesterday different from 
 the dream of yesternight; but the grave must very soon be closed, 
 the plowed field will soon become a piece of green sward, and to 
 Him with whom a thousand years are as a day, it will appear but a 
 short space when the foundations of the house will become a piece 
 of green sward also. Yet things like these are the monuments of 
 yesterday. But what is yesterday itself? what was it, rather? It 
 was a space of time measured by the sun, which was given to men 
 that in it they might prepare for death ; and instead of preparing for
 
 MORAL REFLECTIONS. 385 
 
 death, the whole power of their bodies and every energy of their 
 souls have been- employed in building and plowing, and in other such 
 occupations, even though they saw graves opening and closing before 
 them. What, though those wasting monuments of yesterday which 
 men have raised or inscribed on the face of the earth were eternal 
 what has the soiil of man to do with these external things? If his 
 soul be immaterial, as many judicious philosophers affirm, then, 
 though mysteriously connected with a material body, it can surely 
 have no proper and natural connection with the earth in which veg- 
 etables grow, or the stones with which houses are built. But I am 
 quaintly deducing a moral from an uncertainty, which I can simply, 
 and with ease, deduce from a known truth. I am also speaking rather 
 loosely of the particular provision to be made for the soul, and 
 making no allowance for that which must, of necessity, be made for 
 the body. Be it sufficient that I mention the last, since the propor- 
 tion which the interests of the body bear to those of the soul must be 
 that which finite bears to infinite. 
 
 "The particular provision which must be made for the soul is, as I 
 firmly believe, specified in those revealed books which compose the 
 Old and New Testaments. The uncertainty to which I refer is the 
 immateriality of the soul. The truth the truths I should rather say 
 which concern the separate existence of the soul and the resurrec- 
 tion of the body, are those of God. 
 
 "And now I will just conclude, for I become, though very serious, 
 very tiresome, by remarking that, since time past is little more than 
 a shadow, since time coming is something less, it is man's true wisdom 
 to intrench himself within himself not in selfishness ; it is selfish- 
 ness which prompts him to wander, and in his wanderings, to form 
 connections with unfit objects such as earth and stones not in 
 selfishness, but with a love to God greater, and a love to his neighbor 
 equal to that which he bears to himself, intrenching himself in a 
 good conscience and a rational (that is, a scriptural) hope of salva- 
 tion, perceiving that to himself his own soul is every thing. And, 
 dear William, is it not truly every thing? All that to us remains of the 
 past lies in the store-houses of our memories, or the books of our 
 consciences; all the surmisings which we form of the future are 
 drawn from the experiences of the past, which we have laid up in 
 these store-houses; while our imaginations sit retired, each in its own 
 recess, drawing pictures of these experiences, and of the images which 
 are preserved aloi\g with them, joining or disjoining them at pleasure. 
 Oh, how strange and varied are the powers of that soul which is des- 
 tined to immortality ! It can be made of itself, just as we deal with 
 it, either a heaven or a hell. And now I have done. No, not yet. 
 I must, by quoting Shakespeare, forestall some of your remarks: 
 
 "When I did hr 
 The motley fool thus moral on the ' 
 My lungs began to crow like tha- 
 
 25
 
 386 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 That fools should be so deep contemplative ; 
 And I did laugh sans intermission 
 An hour by his dial.' " 
 
 This remarkable letter was not sent away at once. On the loth of 
 the month Hugh took it up, and added a few words. The "thoughts 
 and modes of expression" seem, he says, as new to him "as if they 
 had been found by some other person." From this he infers that, if 
 he and his two friends made copies of their letters, the volume con- 
 taining them, if of no great interest to third parties, would be not 
 only interesting but extremely useful to the correspondents. "You 
 may see," he proceeds, "that I am bent on making this experiment." 
 Miller carried out his intention to a very considerable extent, and 
 seems never, while he resided in Cromarty, to have grudged the labor 
 of copying for preservation what he wrote. 
 
 Reverting to his letter, he remarks justly that it is "too much in 
 the style which a preceptor would assume," while some of the obser- 
 vations "are commonplace and ill-connected, and others of them 
 unpardonably quaint." He assures Ross that the preceptorial tone is 
 "only in seeming, not in reality," and that he does not suppose his 
 correspondent to be ignorant of any thing he has written. "The 
 blockhead who sets himself up as an adviser of others, is always one 
 who is very far indeed beyond the power of advice to reclaim." By 
 way of practical conclusion to the whole matter, we have the follow- 
 ing: "But why, you may ask, why then write me that which I 
 already know? The question, though a simple, is truly a hard one, 
 and I can answer it in no other way than by saying that I wrote 
 from my feelings; that, from seeing the connection which the passing 
 time and my wasting life have together, I was insensibly led to think 
 of time and eternity, life and death, and, as I was, when my mind 
 was thus occupied, writing my friend, to commit these thoughts to 
 paper for his perusal. But besides general there are in these pages 
 particular facts. I have told you that what I now believe I did not 
 once believe, and I have told you how I have determined, relying 
 on the help of God, to make the doctrines of Christianity the rule 
 of my belief its precepts, that of my conduct. Ah, William, how 
 easy it is to write of virtuous deeds ! how difficult to perform them ! 
 How easy is it to make a good resolve ! how difficult to abide by 
 one! But the power, truth, and goodness of God are infinite, and 
 he has promised to give his Holy Spirit to them that ask it." 
 
 From this point, Hugh Miller never receded. A profound change 
 had passed over his spiritual nature, a change none the less pene- 
 trating or pervasive that its operation had taken place in the silent 
 chambers of his soul, and had manifested itself in few external signs. 
 Through no paroxysms of self-accusing agony did he make his way 
 into the temple of his spiritual rest. By no raptures of religious 
 enthusiasm did he announce his arrival at his Father's house. With 
 the deliberate assent of reason, conscience, and feeling, he embraced
 
 HIS ESTIMATE OF RELIGION. 387 
 
 the Gospel of Christ, and solemnly cast in his lot with those who 
 confessed Christ before men. On this point there was to be no 
 further debate. By one supreme act of resolution he defined the 
 future of his soul's life. Aided, as he reverently believed, by the Di- 
 vine Spirit, he placed his trust in the power, truth, and goodness of 
 the Infinite One, as revealed in Jesus of Nazareth. But the religion 
 of Miller, though from this time it lay entwined with the deepest roots 
 of his being, and was the supreme and determining element in his 
 character, came little to the surface. It was an unseen force, a hidden 
 fire, influencing him at all moments, but never obtruded on the public 
 eye. It would have been offensive to all the instincts of his modest 
 and manly nature, to unveil the secret places of his soul to the gen- 
 eral observer. 
 
 The reader may have remarked that, in his letters to Ross, Miller 
 assumes that part of Mentor, which, in the other correspondence, is 
 taken so decisively by Swanson. The influence emanates from Swan- 
 son, and Hugh passes it on to Ross. His relations with the latter 
 appear to have been of a more tenderly confidential character than 
 his relations with the former. 
 
 MILLER AT TWENTY-SIX LETTER TO ROSS THE BLESSING OF A TRUE 
 
 FRIEND ROMANCE THE SHADOW OF RELIGION FORMER AND PRESENT 
 
 VIEWS OF RELIGION FREETHINKERS WHO CAN NOT THINK AT ALL 
 
 CHRISTIAN THE HIGHEST STYLE OF MAN PROJECT OF GOING TO 
 INVERNESS. 
 
 Hugh Miller, then, as we meet him on the threshold of his twenty- 
 sixth summer, has passed through the stages of boyhood and youth, 
 with their changes of mood and development of faculty, and acquired 
 that fundamental type of character which he subsequently retained. 
 Steadily prosecuting the enterprise of self-culture, he is animated by 
 the purest spiritual ambition, and experiences, in faculties invigorated 
 and knowledge increased, that deep joy which is the student's reward. 
 He has derived, it is scarce necessary to say, inestimable advantage 
 from the completion of that religious process which had long been 
 going on in his mind. The event which he would have called his 
 conversion, and pronounced of transcendent importance in relation to 
 all other occurrences in his life, has taken place. He knows what he 
 believes. The atmosphere of his soul is clear and calm, and the un- 
 fathomable azure of heaven touches with softening radiance all its 
 clouds. Placid resolution, energy peacefully fronting the tasks of 
 life, a thoughtful gayety and smiling fortitude, attest the genial firm- 
 ness with which he now wields the scepter of his mental realm. 
 
 In a letter to Ross, dated May, 1828, he writes : 
 
 " Religion, my dear friend, is a very different thing from what the 
 people of the world think it. Four years ago I deemed the love of 
 God a passion altogether chimerical. When I looked towards the
 
 388 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 sky, I saw that the sun was a glorious and sublime object, and a very 
 apt image of the God who had created it and all things; but I 
 thought I could as rationally love that sun as I could the invisible 
 Being of whom I deemed it the best type. I found what I reckoned 
 admirable things in the writings of Plato. Socrates I regarded as a 
 very excellent, talented man ; his reasonings on the immortality of 
 the soul, on the love of God, on prayer, and on the nature of holi- 
 ness and of man, delighted me. But though I never once thought of 
 bringing forward arguments to weigh against his, I could not consider 
 what he taught in the light of serious truths. I felt the same pleasure 
 in perusing his dialogues, or in reading fine moral poems and dis- 
 courses, as I felt when looking at an elegant statue or picture ; but I 
 thought as little of taking the precepts I found in these pieces as 
 rules to live by as I did of paring my limbs or features to the exact 
 proportions of those of the Apollo Belvidere or the Hercules Farnese. 
 As for the religion of the New Testament, I could not at all admire 
 it. Some of the morals it inculcated I thought good, though in the 
 main rather calculated to make a patient than an active man, and 
 better adapted for the slave and the vanquished than for the freeman 
 and the conqueror. The scheme of Redemption and its consequent 
 doctrines I regarded as peculiarly absurd. I held it impossible that a 
 man of taste and judgment could in reality be a Christian. As for 
 those men who were evidently possessed of both these faculties in a 
 high degree and yet professors of religion, I interpreted their seeming 
 assent to its dogmas as the effect of a prudence similar to that which 
 made Plato, Seneca, and some of the other ancient philosophers, 
 profess a belief in the mythologic fables of Greece and Rome. I was 
 myself, an imitator of these men, and I looked upon the professed 
 atheist or deist, not perhaps with as much abhorrence as the serious 
 believer would regard him with, but with a much higher contempt ; 
 for it seemed to me a thing childishly imprudent for any one to as- 
 sume the character of a freethinker, when all to be acquired by op- 
 posing the current of what I regarded as popular prejudice was the 
 unqualified hatred and detestation of nineteen-twentieths of one's 
 countrymen and relations. I therefore professed, as you will perhaps 
 remember, a great respect for religion, though always ready to con- 
 fess to any one who was seriously a Christian that I had no experi- 
 mental knowledge of its truth. I found the doctrine of predestina- 
 tion very serviceable as a kind of shield to protect me against the 
 advices (you may smile at the term) of such. You may see from 
 what I have written what it was made me think it possible that your 
 profession of respect for religion was insincere , but you will pardon 
 me, as you know how natural it is for a man to judge his neighbor by 
 himself. 
 
 "But though misled for once by this method of judging, I shall 
 yet avail myself of it in forming an opinion of that formidable body, 
 the men of the world, so far as their regards for religion are concerned.
 
 IGNORANCE OF SKEPTICS. 389 
 
 My present self takes my former self as a specimen of these men ; ay, 
 and conceit goes so far as to say that former self may be regarded as 
 no unfavorable specimen either. 'Tis true I was not one of the 
 most acute though one of the most prudent of freethinkers. I will 
 not arrogate to myself the powers of a Paine or a Hobbes, yet, 
 setting conceit apart, I think I may say that my natural acuteness 
 and acquired knowledge, at the time I deemed the historical part of 
 the Bible a collection of fables, and its doctrinal a mass of absurdities,- 
 were far superior to the acuteness or knowledge of the generality of 
 such men as harbor similar opinions. I mean such of them as think 
 for themselves ; and it is proper to make this distinction; for I can assure 
 you, however much the men who arrogate a faculty of detecting im- 
 postures the rest of the world are deceived by, may boast of the su- 
 perior power of mind lavished in their sept, that there are blockheads 
 who are skeptics as well as weak men who are Christians, nay, more, 
 that there are men who profess themselves freethinkers who were not 
 born to be thinkers at all. 
 
 " The few intelligent skeptics I have been acquainted with, I have 
 invariably found as ignorant of religion as I myself was four years 
 ago, and, from my present knowledge of it, I conclude (and it would 
 be difficult to prove my conclusion false) that all its enemies, even 
 the most acute, are thus ignorant. I have perused the Essays of 
 Hume, one of the best reasoners, perhaps, the world ever produced, 
 and on rising from that perusal this estimate appeared to me juster 
 than ever. Holding this opinion, I can pity these men, but I feel 
 little disposed to fear their arguments, having experience of their 
 futility ; nor yet do I feel uneasy at the thought of being the object 
 of the contempt of such ; for my memory must altogether fail me be- 
 fore I forget that with a contempt similar to theirs I once regarded 
 men well skilled in that wisdom, the beginning of which is the fear 
 of God. 
 
 " With the second class, the non-thinkers, it is not so easy to deal. 
 They are so numerous as to compose nearly two-thirds of the inhabit- 
 ants of our large towns ; and even in our villages and in the country, 
 whose inhabitants, forty years ago, were a superstitious, it may be, 
 but certainly a moral and decent people, they are springing up like 
 mushrooms. Consummately ignorant of religion, and deficient in all 
 general knowledge, they ridicule and defame all those who, professing 
 a belief in the doctrines of the Bible, make its morality the rule of 
 their lives. They are searchers after truth on the plan laid down by 
 my Lord Shaftesbury. Men of the firmest minds find it a hard task 
 to keep themselves cool and undisturbed when made the butts of ridi- 
 cule. The ridicule of the fool, too, is peculiarly bitter. I have had 
 occasion to feel it at times, having oftener than once come in contact 
 with persons of the stamp described ; and I have felt hurt at finding 
 myself made their butt ; but as there is no character I regard with so 
 much contempt as a coward, I have been solaced at finding, from re-
 
 39 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 peated experience, that none except arrant cowards set upon me in 
 this manner. These pusillanimous mockers never venture singly to 
 attack a man. They fight in companies, having no chance if the person 
 they single out be strong in judgment or in humor, unless they can 
 drown his arguments or wit in their laughter. For any two of the 
 fraternity, unless they be more ignorant and stupid than common, I 
 find myself an overmatch. Argument or the sallies of wit confound 
 them. They can do nothing except laugh, and not even that when 
 alone. 
 
 " But as I have detailed the opinions which I formerly held of re- 
 ligion at some length, it may not be improper to state, as a per contra, 
 a few of those I at present hold respecting it. I have now so far 
 changed my opinion of religion as to think, with a celebrated poet, 
 that Christian is the highest style of man, and that, by the New Testa- 
 ment, men of the greatest powers of mind and the deepest learning 
 may be taught wisdom. Nor can I deem, as I did once, the scheme 
 of morals which this book contains mean and contemptible. I am 
 convinced that, were that scheme universally acted upon, earth would 
 become a heaven ; and further, that no one can act upon it unless 
 possessed of the highest and noblest fortitude a fortitude, indeed, 
 too noble to have any place in the natural human heart, but which 
 God has promised to infuse into the hearts of all such as believe Jesus 
 to be the Christ. As for taste, I can not help wondering how I could 
 at any time be so very absurd as to think the doctrines of Christian- 
 ity opposed to this principle, especially when I understood and relished 
 the larger poems of Cowper and Milton. Through the Revelation, by 
 which I am taught of all that Christ has done and suffered for sin- 
 ners, the God whom I would formerly regard with a cold feeling of 
 admiration, I can now love as my God and Father. I feel him 
 brought near to me, and that; too, in a way against which my pride 
 of heart had formerly revolted, and which my reason deemed as un- 
 worthy of divine wisdom to devise or of human to trust to. 
 
 " This is not merely an avowal of a change of opinion. There is 
 implied in it a change of heart. Though still sinful and foolish in a 
 degree I would be ashamed to confess even to my friends, I trust I 
 am now less selfish and possessed of a more affectionate heart than I 
 was before I believed. My friends are dearer to me than they were 
 formerly, and yet I do not now, as I did once, make their approba- 
 tion the rule of my actions. I am, perhaps, still too fond pf praise 
 from such of my fellow-men as I respect and love, but I find that my 
 desire of avoiding that which is bad and dishonorable follows me into 
 solitude, and that my belief in God's omnipresence (may I not hope 
 the assistance of a spirit also?) gives me strength to accomplish this 
 desire. But you will not be satisfied, if I run on in this strain to the 
 end of my letter. Let me close this part of it, then, in the words of 
 one of the many texts which point out the principle upon which the 
 change I have been describing hinged : ' Whosoever believeth that
 
 A NEW FRIEND. 391 
 
 Jesus is the Christ, is born of God.' Mark what follows: 'Whoso- 
 ever is born of God overcometh the world. ' 
 
 . . . . Rousseau was certainly in the right when he said that the 
 art of writing well was of all others the most difficult to acquire. I 
 have been wishing, ay, and striving, too, as hard as my indolent, 
 volatile nature suffered, for these three years past to acquire this art ; 
 and all I have yet attained is an ability of detecting my mistakes and 
 
 of seeing how incorrect my modes of expression are 
 
 " There is a general stagnation in this part of the country in all 
 kinds of trade. The season favorable to my department is fast ad- 
 vancing, but, except two tombstones (and one of these is not yet 
 finished ), I have done nothing this year. I have some thoughts of 
 putting into execution a plan which has been revolving in my mind 
 these several months back. I engrave inscriptions on stone (conceit 
 apart) in a neater and more correct manner than any other mason in 
 this part of the country. The masons of Inverness, as I have been 
 informed, are very deficient in this art. My plan is to go to that 
 town, take lodgings in some cheap part of it, and make myself known 
 by advertisement as a stone engraver. What think you of this ? The 
 want of friends and of a due confidence in one's self are, it is true, 
 disqualifying circumstances, but time and chance happeneth to all." 
 
 SEEKS WORK IN INVERNESS RESOLVES TO PRINT HIS POEMS MAKES 
 
 THE ACQUAINTANCE OF MR. CARRUTHERS CORRECTS PROOF-SHEETS 
 
 OF HIS POETRY, AND DECIDES THAT IT IS POOR RETAINS INFLEX- 
 IBLY HIS FIRST OPINION OF ITS MERITS, AND RESOLVES TO CULTIVATE 
 PROSE DEATHS OF UNCLE JAMES AND OF WILLIAM ROSS DEDICA- 
 TION OF HIS POEMS TO SWANSON. 
 
 The plan of seeking work in Inverness, which he carried into effect 
 in the course of the summer, had important consequences, but they 
 proved to be by no means of the kind he anticipated. Miller re- 
 solved to print his poems on his own account. He thus formed the 
 acquaintance of Mr. Robert Carruthers, editor of the " Inverness 
 Courier," and the acquaintance ripened rapidly into a friendship 
 which continued during the life of Htigh Miller. With that critical 
 acumen which all the world has learned to acknowledge in the 
 biographer of Pope, Mr. Cnrruthers discerned the originality and 
 worth of Miller, and though he came in the guise of a stone-mason, 
 shy, taciturn, ungainly, with a quire of rugged verses in his pocket, 
 admitted him at once to the enjoyment of that equality and that 
 fraternity which have from of old prevailed in the republic of letters. 
 Miller had indeed made a notable acquisition, and he did not fail to 
 appreciate it. The perfect judgment, the perfect temper, the literary 
 sympathy, not less intelligent than warm, the indestructible cordiality, 
 unchilled by forty years' editorial experience, which have endeared 
 Mr. Carruthers to thousands from London to Inverness, won his con-
 
 392 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 fidence and his heart. To his dying day there was no newspaper 
 which he read with half the interest with which he hung over the 
 "Inverness Courier." 
 
 Soon his poems began to be put into his hands in a form which, 
 though he probably had them by heart, made them nevertheless new 
 to him, to-wit, in print. The effect was memorable. His critical 
 faculty realized with startling and painful, but quite convincing, viv- 
 idness, that they fell far below the mark of good English poetry. 
 Hugh Miller was hardly one of those who "can hear their detrac- 
 tions and put them to mending," for his pugnacity always awoke 
 when he was attacked ; but he was one of a'class perhaps still smaller, 
 who can estimate their own performances with austere justice, and 
 abide by that estimate in the face of contemptuous disparagement on 
 the one hand, and the most ingenious and plausible encomiums on the 
 other. The " Poems written in the Leisure Hours of a Journeyman 
 Mason," met with a success which, had Miller been a rhyming artisan 
 of the ordinary caliber, would have turned his "head. Issued from a 
 newspaper office in the north of Scotland, they were recognized as 
 imbued with true excellence in periodicals of the first order, and by 
 critics of culture and authority. The " Lines to a Sun-dial placed in 
 a Church-yard " were quoted in magazine and newspaper throughout 
 the length and breadth of the United Kingdom, and the author was 
 assured that they displayed " a refinement of thought, an elegance and 
 propriety of language, that would do honor to the most accomplished 
 poet of the day." Had Miller not had the making of a poet in him, 
 the like of this would have led him at once to exhalt his horn as a 
 prodigy of genius, too fine to work at his craft, who had only to put 
 his name to a copy of verses to make them immortal, and whom the 
 human species were bound to supply with the necessaries of life gratis. 
 The plaudits profoundly gratified Miller, but did not move him a 
 hair's breadth from the Rhadamanthine sternness of his judgment on 
 himself, or shake in his bosom " that serene and unconquerable pride 
 which no applause, no reprobation, could blind to its shortcoming 
 or beguile of its reward." 
 
 The question may be gravely put, whether he did not err in de- 
 termining, as he did, to abandon poetical composition and devote 
 himself, for a time at least, to prose. 
 
 It was within the capacity of Miller to produce reflective and de- 
 scriptive poetry equal to any in the English language. On the other 
 hand, he fell short both in lyrical passion and dramatic sympathy, and 
 his imagination, though powerful, was cold. His ear, too, may have 
 been naturally better fitted to the modulation of prose than of verse. 
 It is bootless to speculate on the subject. The army of the Muses is 
 like that of Gideon. All who are fearful or afraid, all who do not 
 serve for life or for death, not only may but must quit it ; and Miller 
 was critic enough to know the "intolerable severity" of Apollo. 
 Some of our most eminent writers, Mr. Carlyle and Mr. Ruskin, for
 
 HIS DOUBLE GRIEF. 393 
 
 instance, would maintain that, in deliberately abandoning verse, 
 amid the acclamations which greeted his earliest efforts, Hugh Miller 
 presented an example which specially deserves to be followed, and 
 gave one of the noblest proofs afforded by his career of sterling 
 ability and massive sense. 
 
 From the ideal woe of perceiving for the first time that he stood 
 at an immeasurable distance below the great masters of English 
 poetry, he was recalled to the hard reality of grief by the intelligence 
 that his Uncle James had died; and, on proceeding to Cromarty in 
 consequence of this intelligence, he learned that William Ross also 
 was no more. Uncle James, as we well know, had been as a father 
 to him ; or rather as one among ten thousand fathers ; for, if the 
 affection with which he regarded his nephew was as that of a tender 
 parent, the counsel, the example, the sympathetic forbearance, the 
 just appreciation, which Miller experienced at his hands, were such 
 as the fewest parents can bestow. From Uncle James, as by a fine 
 moral contagion, Hugh derived that proud integrity, that sensitive 
 honor, in money matters, which was with him, as with Burns, a pas- 
 sion. 
 
 The death of Ross touched him keenly. Among his early friends 
 Swanson had his deepest respect, but the tenderest of his friendships 
 was with Ross. Of him alone among his boyish companions did 
 Miller speak as possessed of genius, and we have seen enough to 
 prove that his estimate was not extravagant. Ross could sympathize 
 with much which elicited no response from the Puritan rigor of Swan- 
 son, and with his delicate feeling for beauty were combined a fem- 
 inine gentleness and depth of affection which greatly endeared him 
 to Miller. " My hope of salvation is in the blood of Jesus. Fare- 
 well, my sincerest friend." These were the closing words of William 
 Ross's last letter to Miller. 
 
 The Journeyman's Poems were dedicated to John Swanson, the 
 name disguised in asterisks. In a dedicatory epistle to his friend, 
 written in prose, Miller declares him to be "the best scholar and 
 truest philosopher he ever knew," and avows his gratitude to him 
 for "having convinced one who possibly might have done some mis- 
 chief as an infidel, that the Religion of the Bible is not a cunningly 
 devised fable." Of his own book, he ventures to state the opinion, 
 " that a spirit of poetry may be found in it, wrestling with those 
 improprieties of language consequent on imperfect education, just 
 as the half-formed animals of the Nile, that are warmed into life by 
 the beams of the sun, struggle to free themselves from the mud and 
 slime in which they are enveloped." He virtually takes upon him- 
 self the blame, however, of whatever defect of education the volume 
 may display, confessing that, in the present age, "ignorance implies 
 rather want of mind than want of opportunity for cultivating the 
 mental faculties." True words; and specially brave and modest from 
 the lips of a poetical mechanic.
 
 394 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 RESUMES WORK AS A STONE-CUTTER AT CROMARTY INTIMACY WITH 
 
 MR. STEWART THE LITERARY LION OF THE PLACE WRITES FOR THE 
 
 " INVERNESS COURIER" LETTERS ON THE HERRING FISHERY EX- 
 TRAORDINARY SHOAL OF HERRINGS A NIGHT ON GUILLIAM EMI- 
 GRATION OF HIGHLANDERS TO CANADA SCIENCE AT LAST. 
 
 Having committed the body of Uncle James to the grave, and 
 piously recorded on- his tombstone that he had " lived without re- 
 proach and died without fear," Miller did not return to Inverness, 
 but resumed his employment in the church-yards of Cromarty. The 
 publication of his poems was sufficient to make him a person of some 
 importance in his native town. He associated himself with the bet- 
 ter portion of its inhabitants, those who combined a moderate liber- 
 alism of political opinion with literary or scientific tastes and strong 
 religious principles. His acquaintance with the Rev. Mr. Stewart, 
 which had formerly been slight, now deepened into intimacy, and no 
 sooner had he an opportunity of knowing Mr. Stewart well, than he 
 conceived for him the highest esteem, and dismissed forever from his 
 mind, as the mere fruits of misunderstanding, what he had formerly 
 fancied to the disadvantage of his minister. Miller's profession of 
 religion, also, was more decided than formerly, and he began to 
 teach in the Sunday-school. Hewing under sunny skies on the 
 chapel brae, he often finds Mr. Stewart or some intelligent friend 
 stealing to his side to give and take an hour's conversation, and 
 sometimes his visitors are of the fair sex. The journeyman mason 
 has become the literary lion of Cromarty. 
 
 But "nature's noblest gift" to Miller, his "gray goose-quill," has 
 not been laid aside. Turning his attention to prose, and availing 
 himself of the columns of the "Inverness Courier," which his friend 
 Carruthers gladly throws open, to him, he writes, in the summer of 
 1829, five letters on the Herring Fishery, which, "in consequence," 
 said Mr. Carruthers, "of the interest they excited in the Northern 
 Counties, and in justice to their modest and talented author, were 
 issued in pamphlet form in September of the same year. They are 
 written 'with much vivacity, and abound with pertinent remarks and 
 fine descriptive passages. 
 
 These letters were fitted to interest many to whom the poems of 
 the journeyman mason would be a sealed book. Whatever might 
 be his rhyming capabilities, the Cromarty mason was clearly a man 
 of sense and talent. The circle of his friends and admirers con- 
 tinued, therefore, to widen. In character of occasional correspondent, 
 he contributed items of news and occasional articles to the "Inver- 
 ness Courier." These are admirably done, and in some of them we 
 detect impressions and opinions cherished by Miller to the last. 
 
 Among the latest of these contributions to the "Inverness Courier" 
 is one helping us to trace one of the most interesting stages in Mil-
 
 A NEW ACQUAINTANCE. 395 
 
 ler's intellectual history, namely, the transfer, of his enthusiasm and 
 ambition from literature to science. A short newspaper article on 
 crab-fishing marks the point at which the stream of scientific acquire- 
 ment which had long, with gathering volume, been flowing under- 
 ground, rose to the surface. Miller writes as one who has from 
 infancy been familiar with the natural objects and appearances of the 
 Cromarty beach, and who had not written about them sooner merely 
 because it did not occur to him that they could afford occupation to 
 his pen. He does not yet adopt a scientific nomenclature ; but he 
 .describes natural objects with exquisite precision and lucidity, and 
 dwells upon details of structure which the mere literary sketcher or 
 anecdotic sportsman would have regarded with indifference. He has 
 learned also to contemplate, not in vague wonder but with reverent 
 and delicate appreciation, the mystery and miracle of God's work in 
 nature. "I am confident," he says, in concluding a description of 
 the sea-urchin, "that there is not half the ingenuity, or half the 
 mathematical knowledge, displayed in the dome of St. Peter's, at 
 Rome, or St. Paul's, at London, that we find exhibited in the con- 
 struction of this simple shell." 
 
 MILLER AND HIS NEW FRIENDS INTRODUCED TO PRINCIPAL BAIRD 
 WILL NOT GO TO EDINBURGH FOR THE PRESENT HIS POEMS DO NOT 
 SELL WILL NOT RELINQUISH LITERARY AMBITION. 
 
 Additions were made to the previously limited number of Miller's 
 friends and acquaintances, occasioned by the publication of his 
 poems. It is in no ordinary degree pleasing to observe the friendliness 
 which he experienced from persons greatly his superiors in social 
 position, and the manner in which that friendliness was responded to 
 by him. On the one hand, there was cordiality without the faintest 
 trace of the "insolence of condescension;" counsel and furtherance 
 of every kind to the utmost limit permitted by genuine respect, and 
 by sympathetic apprehension of what a sensitively proud and inde- 
 pendent nature required; unfeigned recognition of his intellectual 
 rank, and of the title it gave him to be treated as a gentleman. On 
 the other hand there was perfect appreciation of all this ; gratitude 
 not for patronage to the mechanic, but for fellowship and sympathy 
 with the man ; independence not petulantly insisted upon, not ob- 
 trusively displayed, but quietly, unaffectedly, almost unconsciously 
 worn as habit of soul and principle of deportment. Principal Baircl, 
 at this time one of the most eminent ministers of the Church of 
 Scotland, was among the first to stretch out a friendly hand to the 
 Cromarty poet. Miller was introduced to him in Inverness by Mr. 
 Carruthers, shortly after the appearance of the poems, and Baircl sug- 
 gested that he should draw up that account of his education and 
 opinions which has been so frequently mentioned. The first part 
 of the narrative was soon ready, and Miller dispatched it in the
 
 396 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 autumn of 1829, to Baird in Edinburgh. He took occasion at the 
 same time, to thank Baird for "the very favorable critique" on the 
 poems which had appeared in the " Caledonian Mercury." The 
 critique in question had been written by Dr. James Brown, working 
 editor of the " Encyclopaedia Britannica," and Baird hastens to declare 
 that he "had no hand whatever, directly or indirectly," in its publi- 
 cation. "But you say nothing," adds Baird, "in your letter as to 
 my suggestion, when at Inverness, of giving your busy hours to your 
 profession here during the ensuing winter, and your leisure hours to 
 reading books, and plying your pen, and extending your acquaint- 
 ance with the living as well as the dead world of literature." These 
 words occur in a letter dated November 24, 1829. We have Miller's 
 reply, bearing date the 9th of the following December: "From my 
 engagements here and at Inverness, I can not avail myself of your 
 kind invitation to spend the winter at Edinburgh, but I appreciate 
 its value, and feel grateful for your kindness. My acquaintance with 
 the dead world of literature is very imperfect, and it is still more so 
 with the living; instead, however, of regretting this, I think it best 
 to congratulate myself on the much pleasure which, from this circum- 
 stance, there yet remains for me to enjoy. If I live eight or ten 
 years longer, and if my taste for reading continues, I shall, I trust, 
 pass through a great many paradises of genius. Half the creations 
 of Scott are still before me, and more than half those of every other 
 modern poet. But though I can appreciate the value of an oppor- 
 tunity of perusing the works of such authors, there are opportunities 
 of a different kind to be enjoyed in Edinburgh, which, from a rather 
 whimsical bent of mind, I would value more highly. My curiosity 
 is never more active than when it has the person of a great man for 
 its object; nor have I felt more delight in any thing whatever than 
 in associating in my mind, when that curiosity was gratified, my 
 newly acquired idea of the personal appearance of such a man with 
 the ideas I had previously entertained of his character and genius. 
 When I resided in the vicinity of Edinburgh, I have sauntered for 
 whole hours opposite the house of Sir Walter Scott, in the hope of 
 catching a glimpse of his person ; and several times, when some tall, 
 robust man has passsed me in the streets, I have inquired of my com- 
 panions whether that was not Professor Wilson. But, perhaps I 
 am more ambitious now than I was five years ago. Perhaps I 
 would not be satisfied with merely seeing such men, and I am aware 
 that I have not yet done any thing which entitles me to the notice 
 of the eminent, though in one instance, I have been so fortunate as 
 to attain it. I must achieve, at least, a little of what I have hoped 
 to achieve before I go to Edinburgh. But even this intention must 
 not be followed up with too great eagerness. Ortogrul of Basra, after 
 he had surveyed the palace of the vizier, despised the simple neatness 
 of his own little habitation. I must be careful lest, by acquiring too 
 exclusive a bent towards literary pursuits, I contract a distaste for
 
 ONE OF THE INCURABLES. 397 
 
 those employments which, though not very pleasing in themselves, 
 are, in my case, at least, intimately connected with happiness. I do 
 not think I could be happy without being independent, and I can 
 not be independent except as a mechanic." 
 
 The friendliness both of Dr. Baird and of Mr. Carruthers was too 
 genuine to permit indulgence in the cheap flattery of bidding Miller 
 abandon his trade and launch into the perils of a literary life; and he 
 had the manliness and sense to appreciate their discretion while valu- 
 ing their applause. 
 
 "With respect to literary pursuits," he says, "I have every claim to be 
 regarded as one of the incurables mentioned by Goldsmith. At this 
 moment I am as determined upon improving, to the utmost, my ability 
 as a writer as I could have been, had the public, by buying my work, 
 rendered the speculation a good one. With only my present ability to 
 judge of my own powers, the event can alone determine whether, 
 when I have attained the art of writing, I shall succeed or fail in 
 making myself known. But could I decide whether I possess or be 
 devoid of true genius, it would be an easy matter for me to anticipate 
 the result. If destitute of this spirit, I shall certainly not rise to 
 eminence; for my situation in life is not one of those in which 
 fortune or the influence of friends can supply the want of ability, or 
 in which mediocrity of talent can become admirable by clothing itself 
 in the spoils of learning. My education is imperfect; I can not even 
 subsist except by devoting seven-eighths of my waking hours to the 
 avocations of a laborious profession ; and I have no claim from birth 
 to either the notice of the eminent or the patronage of the influential. 
 But if nature has bestowed upon me that spirit of genius which ulti- 
 mately can neither be repressed nor hidden, then, though fortune 
 should serve me as Jupiter did Briareus when he buried him under 
 Etna, I shall assuredly overturn the mountain." 
 
 MISS FRASER HER PARENTAGE, RESIDENCE IN EDINBURGH, POSITION 
 IN CROMARTY SOCIETY OF THE PLACE MILLER'S MANNER AND 
 APPEARANCE A FASCINATING COMPANION HE AND MISS FRASER 
 BECOME LOVERS GLIMPSES OF ROMANCE METAPHYSICAL LOVE- 
 MAKING A NEW AMBITION AWAKES IN MILLER FABLE OF APOLLO 
 
 AND DAPHNE REVERSED LETTER TO MISS FRASER AND TO MRS. 
 
 FRASER. 
 
 In the summer of 1831, Hugh Miller first saw Miss Lydia Mackenzie 
 Fraser. About a year before, when residing with relations in Surrey, 
 this young lady had received a letter from her mother, in which, 
 among other descriptive touches relating to Cromarty, occurred the 
 following : " You may guess what are its literary pretensions, when I 
 tell you that from my window at this moment I see a stone-mason 
 engaged in building a wall. He has just published a volume of poems,
 
 398 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 and likewise letters on the herring fishery ; both of which I now send 
 you." Miss Fraser was quick, intelligent, interested in literature; 
 this announcement naturally excited her curiosity. On coming to 
 Cromarty she did not for some time see the poetic stone-mason, and, 
 when she did, he was not aware that her eyes rested on him. She 
 and her mother had stepped in to have a look at a school recently 
 opened on " the brae-head" of Cromarty, when a man entered, look- 
 ing like a working-man in his Sunday dress, who, as a whisper from 
 her mother informed her, was Hugh Miller. She was struck by the 
 deep thoughtfulness of his face and by the color of his eyes, " a deep 
 blue, tinged with sapphire." The first occasion on which, for his 
 part, he heard her name, and cast an attentive glance upon her 
 features, was that which is described in the " Schools and School- 
 masters." He was talking with two ladies beside a sun-dial, which 
 he had set up in his uncle's garden, when she " came hurriedly trip- 
 ping down the garden walk" and joined the group. " She was," he 
 adds, " very pretty ; and, though in her nineteenth year at the time, 
 her light and somewhat petite figure, and the waxen clearness of her 
 complexion, which resembled rather that of a fair child than of a grown 
 woman, made her look from three to four years younger." Evidently, 
 though he saw her but for a few minutes, and did not exchange a 
 word with her, she made an unusual impression upon him. 
 
 The probability, in fact, was, that this young lady would form an 
 important addition to the circle of his acquaintance, and to that of 
 the intellectual "upper ten" in Cromarty. Both beauty and talent 
 had been among the attributes of the stock from which she sprung, 
 The " lovely Barbara Hossack," and several other women noted in 
 the Highlands for their persona'l attractions, had been of her ancestry 
 on the female side ; Provost Hossack, of Inverness, trusted friend of 
 President Forbes and honored intercessor with the Duke of Cumber- 
 land for the vanquished of Culloden ; Mr. Lachlan Mackenzie, famed 
 Highland preacher, of whom tradition in the northern Scotch coun- 
 ties has much to report; and the Mackenzies of Red castle, "said to 
 be the most ancient house in the north of Scotland," had been 
 among her kindred in the line of male descent. Her father, notably 
 handsome in youth, and famous in Strathnairn as a deer-stalker, en- 
 tered, later in life, into business in Inverness, and was at first pros- 
 perous, but, being generous and unsuspecting to a fault, was robbed 
 by a clerk and beguiled by a relative, and at last overborne by disap- 
 pointments and difficulties. 
 
 After the death of Mr. Fraser, his widow, possessing some small 
 property of her own, went to live in Cromarty. His daughter had 
 been taken away by relatives in Surrey when his affairs were getting 
 into confusion. She had received the best education obtainable at 
 the time by young ladies. Having resided in Edinburgh in the house 
 of Mr. George Thomson, the correspondent of Burns, she had had 
 the benefit not only of being instructed by Edinburgh masters, but of
 
 LITERARY CIRCLE OF CRO MARTY. 399 
 
 being introduced to a singularly pleasant and rather distinguished 
 circle of society. George Thomson attracted to his musical parties 
 the most skillful and enthusiastic votaries of Scottish music in Edin- 
 burgh. Nor were literature and art unrepresented at those gatherings. 
 Scott himself, never out of his element when kindness and intelli- 
 gence ruled the hour, had appeared sometimes among Thomson's 
 guests, though this was before Miss Fraser became an inmate of his 
 dwelling. James Ballantyne and his brother Alexander were frequently 
 of the number. James had the gift of singing " Tullochgorum " with 
 rough heartiness. Alexander was an exquisite violinist. Pieces from 
 Beethoven, Mozart, and their compeers, were performed at those 
 parties, Thomson's preference for Scottish music by no means render- 
 ing him insensible to the claims of other schools. Thomson, of Dud- 
 dingston, who, when clear and unapproached pre-eminence has been 
 allowed to Turner, must be placed high among the landscape painters, 
 not only of Scotland but of Great Britain, was sometimes present, 
 attracted, perhaps, by the original portrait of Burns, by Nasmyth, or 
 Wilkie's Auld Robin Gray, both of which adorned George Thomson's 
 drawing-room. Mrs. Grant, of Laggan, and Tennant, of "Anster 
 Fair," figured among the literary celebrities. 
 
 A young lady, of great natural ability, accustomed to polite society 
 in Surrey, and advantageously educated and introduced in Edinburgh, 
 would be likely to shine in the intellectual circle of Cromarty. For 
 a very small town, Cromarty was happy in the quality of its inhabit- 
 ants. The Rev. Mr. Stewart was the central star in its social firma- 
 ment, his supremacy beginning about this time to be disputed by 
 Miller. Not that there was ftny thought of rivalry or jealousy on 
 either side ; they were the closest and most faithful friends ; but that 
 the reputation of Miller even in its dawn shot its rays to a wicker 
 horizon than had as yet been reached by Mr. Stewart's, and that the 
 culture of the minister was, in all save theological reading and gram- 
 matical knowledge of Greek and Latin, narrower than that of the 
 parishioner. A colonel, a captain, both intelligent beyond the average 
 of their class, with ladies to match, a banker, who had been an officer 
 in the navy, and retained professional enthusiasm enough to make 
 him study naval history until he became a walking encyclopaedia of 
 information on sea-battles these,' with a variety of studious and ac- 
 complished ladies, eminent, some for Calvinistic metaphysics, some 
 for geological predilections, made up the cluster of notabilities which 
 circled round Alexander Stewart and Hugh Miller, the Duke and 
 the Goethe of this miniature Weimar. The women had their full 
 share of the intellect of the place, or more. " By much the greater 
 half of the collective mind of the town," says Miller in one of his 
 letters, " is vested in the ladies." It speaks for the sterling worth as 
 well as the intellectual penetration of the Cromarty notables, that they 
 welcomed to a footing of perfect social equality the man who was to 
 be seen any forenoon, bare-armed, dusty- visaged, with mallet in hand
 
 400 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 and apron in front, making his bread by cutting inscriptions in the 
 church-yard. With Miller any intercourse but that of perfect equality 
 would have been impossible. Diffident in company as he was, his 
 pride was as inflexible as that of Burns, and, if possible, more sensi- 
 tive. The slightest trace of condescending patronage would have 
 driven him away, and forever. The colonels and captains who were 
 to be found in country towns at this period were generally men of 
 the French war, men who had seen enough of life and action to bring 
 out the stronger lines of their character, men frank of bearing, direct 
 of speech, and perfectly brave. In the Highland towns they were 
 likely to be cadets of old Highland houses. Constitutional fondness 
 for war, concurrently with shallowness of the paternal purse, had led 
 many such into the army. Pride as well as courage was likely to be 
 hereditary with these military gentlemen, and it is, I repeat, to the 
 credit of those of Cromarty that they recognized Miller for what he 
 was, a man qualified to adorn and delight any circle. 
 
 Once the singularity of admitting a stone-mason to social fellowship 
 was got over, the charm of Miller's acquaintance would secure his 
 footing. All who knew him with any degree of intimacy have testi- 
 fied to the fascination of his presence. For women in particular his 
 manner and conversation had an exquisite charm. The leonine rough- 
 ness of his exterior, the shaggy hair, the strong-boned, overhanging 
 brows, the head carried far forward, and shoulders bent as with brood- 
 ing thought, the working-man's gait and gesture, lent the enchantment 
 of a delicate surprise to the deep gentleness which they disguised. 
 Never was the difference between the conventional gentleman and the 
 true gentleman the possibility that one may be every inch a true 
 gentleman and yet every inch not a conventional gentleman more 
 signally illustrated than in the case of Miller. A fine and tender 
 sympathy, the soul of politeness, enabled him, spontaneously, uncon- 
 sciously, to feel with every feeling, to think with every thought, of the 
 person with whom he conversed. The faculty of skillful and kindly 
 listening is rarer even than that of fluent and brilliant talk, and Miller 
 had it in fine perfection. He had, however, the gift of captivating 
 speech as well. His conversation, though never voluble, impulsive, 
 precipitate, exhibited the action not only of a powerful but of an 
 educated intellect, practiced in logic and trained to the expert use of its 
 linguistic instruments. He never was at a loss for an idea, never at a 
 loss for a word, and the stores of his memory afforded him an exhaust- 
 less supply of illustration from what he had seen in nature or read in 
 books. There was a pensiveness, also, in his tone, a profound sadness 
 in his eye, a touch of egotistic melancholy about him, which is a spell 
 of absolute inthrallment for most women, and, indeed, for most men. 
 "The bewitching smile," says Mr. Disraeli, "usually beams from the 
 grave face. It is then irresistible." 
 
 Miss Fraser, as we should have expected, was not without admirers 
 of the other sex at the time when she formed the acquaintance of
 
 HIS FIRST LOVE. 401 
 
 Hugh Miller. They were "younger and dressed better" than the 
 stone-mason, and had chosen "the liberal professions." But no man 
 has so strong an attraction for a superior girl as a man of brains, 
 and Miller's seniority of ten years was in his favor rather than the 
 reverse, in the contest with more juvenile rivals. Miss Fraser, meet- 
 ing him here and there in society, was interested by his conversation. 
 On sunny forenoons, she might pause in her walk to have a chat with 
 him in the church-yard. On which side the friendship first glowed 
 into a warmer feeling need not be determined ; probably they be- 
 came lovers almost simultaneously ; and it is certain that this his first 
 and last love took entire possession of Miller's heart. 
 
 A number of materials, letters of the period, memoranda, note- 
 books, illustrative of this part of the history, have come into my 
 hands, and from these I have selected at my own discretion, and 
 on my own responsibility. Here is a glimpse of him from an au- 
 thentic source, when he seems to have been already pretty far gone : 
 "One evening we (Miss Fraser and Hugh Miller) encountered each 
 other by chance in a wooded path of the hill, above which slope a 
 few cultivated fields skirted by forest. Hugh Miller prevailed on me 
 to accompany him to a point which commands a fine view of the 
 frith and surrounding country. We sat down to rest at the edge of a 
 pine wood, in a little glade fragrant with fallen cones, and ankle- 
 deep in the spiky leaves .of the firs. I sat on the stump of a felled 
 tree. He threw himself on the ground, two or three yards from my 
 feet. The sun was just setting, and lighted up the pillared trunks 
 around with a deep, copper-colored glow. Hugh took out a volume 
 of Goldsmith. When did he ever want a companion of that descrip- 
 tion ? He read in a low voice the story of Edwin and Angelina. It 
 was then I first suspected that he had a secret which he had not 
 revealed." 
 
 Things had reached this rather critical posture, when Mrs. Fraser, 
 alarmed at the notion that her daughter might bestow her heart and 
 hand on a mechanic, commanded that the intimacy should be broken 
 off. The young lady was disconsolate; wept much; felt " like a poor 
 little parasite which had succeeded in laying hold of some strong and 
 stately tree, and which a powerful blast had laid prostrate in the dust." 
 Under these circumstances the following entry from the same hand will 
 not seem surprising : 
 
 " It was late on the evening of a very hot summer Sabbath during 
 the time of interdict, that, feeling listless and weary, I crept out a 
 little to breathe the air. I had no intention of walking, did not 
 even put on .bonnet or shawl. I stole down the grassy garden-path 
 and listened to the murmur of the sea, whose waves beat on the 
 shore at a stone's throw beyond. But the night was still sultry, and I 
 imagined that, by getting to the top of some eminence, I might find 
 the cooling breeze for which I longed. So I found myself, I scarcely 
 knew how, at the ancient chapel of St. Regulus. There the trees 
 26
 
 402 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 which line the sides of the ravine by which it is surrounded waved 
 the tops of their branches, the blue sea looked forth between, and as 
 the twilight gave place to night the stars began to twinkle forth. I 
 stood on the edge of the hill enjoying the slight breeze and the soft 
 brightness of earth and sky, when suddenly I perceived that Hugh 
 stood beside me. He spoke of the sweetness of the evening, the 
 beauty of the landscape, and so on ; but his speech was cold and re- 
 served, and he made no allusion to our peculiar position. Possibly 
 his pride was touched by it. At that very time, however, as he after- 
 wards told me, he cut a notch in the wood of a beam which crossed 
 the roof of his cottage for every day on which we had not met. He 
 stayed but a short time there, leaving me standing just where he had 
 found me ; but there was no notch on that day. I on my part knelt 
 at a cold grave-stone, and registered over the dead a vow, rash and 
 foolish perhaps; but it was kept." 
 
 From these suggestive glimpses, readers of imagination and sensi- 
 bility will gather all the information that is necessary upon the sub- 
 ject. This love affair was clearly romantic, but not the less real on 
 that account. A judicious mother, reflecting probably that young la- 
 dies of nineteen are not likely to cease to love for being told to do so, 
 removed the interdict, and though marriage was for the present to be 
 considered as out of the question, the young people were permitted to 
 enjoy each other's society. 
 
 It would be a mistake to suppose that the intellectual benefit of 
 their intercourse was entirely on the side of the lady. Her mind, if 
 not so well stored, so deliberate, so patiently thoughtful, as that of 
 her lover, had the piercing clearness and acuteness of good female in- 
 tellect, and would sometimes strike direct to the heart of a subject 
 when circumspect and meditative Hugh was gyrating round and round 
 it. On one occasion, for example, one probably of many, the pair 
 had enjoyed a game of chop-logic apropos of that venerable problem, 
 the origin of evil. Miller's argument, as placed before Miss Fraser, 
 I can not state in his own words, but its substance is derivable from a 
 letter of his to Miss Dunbar, of Boath. "May not evil," suggests 
 Hugh, who, however, pronounces the question, in the essence of it, 
 unanswerable, " be the shade with which good is contrasted that it 
 may be known as good, the sickness to which it is opposed as health, 
 the deformity beside which it is shown forth as beauty? Nay, may it 
 not be affirmed that the plan of the Deity would not have been a per- 
 fect one if it did not include imperfection, nor a wise one if it 
 admitted not of folly, nor a good one if evil did not form a part of 
 it? Is there not something like this implied in the remarkable text 
 which informs us that the weakness of God is mightier than the 
 strength of men, and his foolishness more admirable than their wis- 
 dom?" All which plausible balancing of advantage and disadvan- 
 tage, Miss Fraser brings front to front with the sheer mystery of pain. 
 "Allowing," she writes, "that the actual contrast between good and
 
 THE LOVER DISENCHANTED. 403 
 
 evil, ease and suffering, increased our value for the ease and the good, 
 how reconcile with our ideas of justice the fact that there are thou- 
 sands born to suffer continual pain, and to be depraved forever? 
 Two thousand gladiators once lay expiring in the Roman Ampitheater, 
 but does it reconcile us to the fact that hundreds of thousands of 
 spectators were delighted with the scene? This metaphysician, for 
 all her petite figure, waxen clearness of complexion, and child-like 
 appearance, has not, to my knowledge, received a satisfactory answer 
 to her question either from Hugh Miller or any one else. Such a 
 lady-love was capable of furnishing intellectual diamond dust of very 
 superior quality for the sharpening of a man's wits. 
 
 ' Miss Eraser's intercourse with Miller the relation in which he was 
 now placed with her was beneficial to him in another way. It 
 broke up the theory of life which he had formed for himself, and 
 replaced it by one of a more masculine character. Profoundly imbued 
 as he was with the aynbition of self-culture, and loving praise with 
 the ardor of a born literary man, he was nevertheless firmly persuaded 
 that, in the rank of mason, in the town of Cromarty, he could enjoy 
 as much happiness as it was possible for him to enjoy on earth. A 
 wife, he thought, he could dispense with ; no passion, except the 
 passions of the mind, had ever seriously moved him ; and though he 
 took special delight in conversation with clever women, he could 
 have that conversation without marriage. He would ply the mallet 
 in the summer days ; he would owe no man a sixpence ; he would 
 read his favorite books in the evenings of June, and the short days 
 of December ; he would train himself to ever-increasing vigor and 
 grace of style, and would write with the fresh enthusiasm of one for 
 whom literature was its own reward. Thus was he contented to live 
 and to die; the world, it was his inflexible conviction, had nothing 
 better than this to offer him. If the question were simply of more 
 or less happiness, it would be difficult to prove that in all this he was 
 wrong. The quality, however, of the happiness would not have been 
 the highest, and he might have awakened from his idyl of intellec- 
 tual luxury to the consciousness that, in evading the pains of action, 
 he had missed the sternest, but the noblest joys of life. When Miss 
 Fraser taught him to understand the love-poetry of Burns, as he ex- 
 pressly says she did, he bade adieu forever, though not without a 
 sigh, to the tranquil hopes which had hitherto inspired him. He 
 told Miss Fraser that she had spoiled a good philosopher, and it was 
 with no exultation, though with calm and fixed resolution, that he felt 
 the spirit of the philosophic recluse die within him and the spirit of 
 the man arise. The classic fable was reversed. Daphne overtook 
 and disenchanted her lover. Miller awoke from the dream which 
 was stealing over him ; the roots which had already struck deep into 
 his native soil, and which promised to bind him down to a mild, 
 tree-like existence on the hill of Cromarty, were snapped asunder; 
 a stronger circulation swept in fierce thrills along his veins; and with
 
 44 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 new hope, new ambition, new aspiration, he girded up his loins for 
 the race of life. Hitherto, "he professed just what he felt, to be 
 content with a table, a chair, and a pot, with a little fire in his grate, 
 and a little meat to cook on it." He professed such contentment no 
 longer ; for himself he could have lived and died a working-man, but 
 he could not endure the idea of his wife being in any rank save that 
 of a lady. 
 
 Habitually self-conscious, observant of every event in his mental 
 history, Miller did not fail to mark the change which had passed over 
 him. In a letter written in the summer of 1834, he describes it with 
 grace, naivete, and lightness of touch, to her who was its cause. The 
 first part of the letter- is unimportant, but it may as well be inserted 
 for the illustration it affords of his simple and pleasurable mode of 
 life in Cromarty at this period : 
 
 "CROMARTY, Wednesday, 12 o'clock. 
 
 "I am afraid you are still unwell. Your window was shut till near 
 ten this morning, and, as I saw no light from it last evening, I must 
 
 conclude you went early to bed. How very inefficient, my L , 
 
 are the friendships of earth ! My heart is bound up in you, and 
 yet I can only wish and regret, and yes, pray. Well, that is some- 
 thing. I can not regulate your pulses, nor dissipate your pains, nor 
 give elasticity to your spirits; but I can implore on your behalf the 
 great Being who can. Would that, both for your sake and my own, 
 my prayers had the efficacy of those described by simple-hearted 
 
 James!* They are sincere, my L , when you form the burden 
 
 of them, but they are not the prayers of the righteous. . . . 
 
 " My mother, as you are aware, has a very small garden behind her 
 house. It has produced, this season, one of the most gigantic thistles, 
 of the kind which gardeners term the Scotch, that I ever yet saw. 
 The height is fully nine feet, the average breadth nearly five. Some 
 eight years ago I intended building a little house for myself in this 
 garden. I was to cover it outside with ivy, and to line it inside with 
 books ; and he,re was I to read, and write, and think all my life long ; 
 not altogether so independent of the world as Diogenes in his tub, or 
 the savage in the recesses of the forest, but quite as much as is pos- 
 sible for man in his social state. Here was I to attain to wealth, not 
 by increasing my goods, but by moderating my desires. Of the thirst 
 after wealth I had none I could live on half a crown per week, and 
 be content; nor yet was I desirous of power I sought not to be any 
 man's master, and I had spirit enough to preserve me from being any 
 man's slave. I had no heart to oppress ; why wish, then, for the seat 
 or the power of the oppressor ? I had no dread of being subjected 
 
 *"The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." James 
 v. 16.
 
 LETTER TO MRS. FRASER. 405 
 
 to oppression ; did the proudest or the loftiest dare infringe on my 
 rights as a man, there might be disclosed to him, perchance, 
 
 '"Through peril and alarm 
 The might that slumbered in a peasant's arm.' 
 
 "Even for fame itself I had no very exciting desire. If I met with it 
 in quest of amusement, well ; if not, I could be happy enough without 
 it. So much for the great disturbers of human life, avarice and am- 
 bition, and the thirst of praise. My desires were not tall enough to 
 penetrate into those upper regions which they haunt ; I was too low 
 for them, and for the inferior petty disturbers of men's habits I was 
 certainly too high. Love, for instance, I could have nothing to fear 
 from. I knew myself to be naturally of a cool temperament; and, 
 then, were not my attachments to my friends so many safety-valves? 
 Besides, no woman of taste could ever love me, for I was ugly and 
 awkward ; and as I could love only a woman of taste, and could never 
 submit to woo one to whom I was indifferent, my being ugly and awk- 
 ward was an iron wall to me. No, no, I had nothing to fear from love. 
 
 My own dear L , only see how much good philosophy you have 
 
 spoiled. I am not now indifferent to wealth or power or place in the 
 world's eye. I would fain be rich, that I might render you comfort- 
 able ; powerful, that I might raise you to those high places .of society 
 which you are so fitted to adorn ; celebrated, that the world might 
 justify your choice. I never think now of building the little house, 
 or of being happiest in solitude ; and if my life is lo be one of celi- 
 bacy, it must be one of sorrow also, of heart-wasting sorrow but I 
 must not think of that." 
 
 One other letter upon this subject we must not omit. It was ad- 
 dressed by Miller to Mrs. Fraser: 
 
 "CROMARTY, November 2, 1833. 
 
 "My DEAR MADAM: I trust ingratitude is not among the number 
 of my faults. But how render apparent the sense I entertain of your 
 kindness in so warmly interesting yourself in my welfare? Just by 
 laying my whole mind open before you. Two years ago there was not 
 a less ambitious or more contented sort of person than myself in the 
 whole kingdom. I knew happiness to be altogether independent of 
 external circumstances; I more than knew it, I felt it. My days 
 passed on in a quiet, even tenor; and though poor, and little known, 
 and bound down to a life of labor, I could yet anticipate, without one 
 sad feeling, that in all these respects my future life was to resemble 
 the past. Why should I regret my poverty? I was independent, in 
 debt to no one, and in possession of all I had been accustomed to 
 regard as the necessaries of life. Why sigh over my obscurity ? My 
 lot was that of the thousands around me ; and, beside, was I not 
 born to an immortality too sublime to borrow any of its grandeur or
 
 4 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 importance from the mock immortality of fame? Why repine be- 
 cause my life was to be one of continual labor ? I had acquired ha- 
 bits of industry, and had learned from experience that, if labor be 
 indeed a curse, the curse of indolence is by far the weightier of the 
 two. It will not surprise you, my dear madam, that, entertaining 
 such sentiments, I should have used no exertions, and expressed no 
 wish, to quit my obscure sphere of life for a higher. Why should I? 
 I carried my happiness about with me, and was independent of every 
 external circumstance. 
 
 "I shall not say that I still continue to think and feel after this 
 manner, for, though quite the same sort of man at present that I was 
 then, I have, perhaps, ascertained that my happiness does not now 
 center so exclusively in myself. To you, I dare say, I need not be 
 more explicit. But though in consequence of this discovery, I have 
 become somewhat solicitous perhaps of rising a step or two higher in 
 the scale of society, I find it is one thing to wish and quite another 
 to attempt. I find, too, that habits long indulged in, and formed 
 under the influence of sentiments such as I describe, must militate so 
 powerfully against me, if that attempt be made, as to leave little 
 chance of success. My lack of a classical education has barred against 
 me all the liberal professions ; I have no turn for business matters ; 
 and the experience of about twelve years has taught me that, as an 
 architect or contractor (professions which, during at least that space 
 of time, have been the least fortunate in this part of the kingdom of 
 all others), I can indulge no rational hope of realizing what I desire. 
 There is one little plan, however, which is rather more a favorite 
 with me than any of the others. I think I have seen men not much 
 more clever than myself, and possessed of not much greater command 
 of the pen, occupying respectable places in the ephemeral literature 
 of the day as editors of magazines and newspapers, and deriving from 
 their labors incomes of from one to three hundred pounds per annum. 
 A very little application, if I do not overrate my abilities, natural and 
 acquired, might fit me for occupying a similar place, and, of course, 
 deriving a corresponding remuneration. But how push myself for- 
 ward? Simply in this manner. I have lately written, as I dare say 
 you are aware, a small traditional work, which I have submitted to 
 the consideration of some of the literati of Edinburgh, and of which 
 they have signified their approval in a style of commendation far sur- 
 passing my fondest anticipations. I shall try and get it published. If 
 it succeed in attracting any general notice, I shall consider my literary 
 abilities, such as they are, fairly in the market; if (what is more pro- 
 bable) it fail, I shall just strive to forget the last two years of my life, 
 and try whether I can not bring a very dear friend to forget them too. 
 God has not suffered me in the past to be either unhappy njyself or 
 a cause of unhappiness to those whom I love, and I can trust that he 
 will deal with me after the same fashion in the future. I need not say, 
 my dear madam, that I write in confidence, and for your own eye alone.
 
 THINKS OF EMIGRATING TO AMERICA. 407 
 
 If I fail in my little scheme, I shall bear my disappointment all the 
 better if it be not known that I built much upon it, or looked much 
 beyond it. In such an event, the pity of people who, in the main, are 
 less happy than myself (and the great bulk of mankind are certainly 
 not happier) shall, I trust, never be solicited by, 
 
 I "My dear Madam, etc. 
 
 NEW OUTLOOK IN LIFE DIFFICULTIES OF PUBLICATION LETTERS TO 
 
 MISS FRASER. 
 
 The quiet of intellectual luxury and philosophical contentment, 
 broken up by the agitation of a more genially inspiring hope; the 
 pride of the stone-mason, who has been accepted as lover by a lady 
 forbidding him to place her in any position in which the world 
 might fail to recognize her for what she was Miller now looked 
 anxiously round him for some means of bettering his social status. 
 He often thought of the backwoods of America ; but, though the 
 project of emigration may have had some charms for his fancy, it 
 never laid hold on his heart. He may have seen himself, with his 
 mind's eye, a brawny pioneer of civilization, making clear, with stal- 
 wart arm and glowing forehead, a space in the primeval forest, to be 
 occupied with field and garden and homestead, and at moments there 
 may have been fascination in the view; but his affections were an- 
 chored in Scotland. His -favorite idea, therefore, as we saw in the 
 preceding letter, was that he might undertake the editorship of a 
 Scottish newspaper. Some offer of the kind reached him from Inver- 
 ness, but he did not consider it eligible. He shrank from the risk 
 of depending for a livelihood upon promiscuous contribution to peri- 
 odicals, and had the shrewdness to be aware that, neither by his 
 poems nor by his letters on the herring fishery, had he attained celeb- 
 rity enough to command for his productions a ready sale and a 
 high price in the market of current literature. His disposition was 
 at all times the reverse of sanguine, and the largest and most radiant 
 possibility had a less attraction for him than a very small certainty. 
 
 For the present, therefore, he determined to watch and wait, con- 
 centrating his efforts on the improvement of his prose style, and 
 preparing a prose work which might conclusively scale for him the 
 heights of literary distinction. Soon after the appearance of his 
 poems, we find him at work on a traditional history of his native 
 parish, and, at the time when his engagement with Miss Fraser com- 
 menced, he had composed enough to fill a goodly volume. To re- 
 move its blemishes, heighten its beauties, and procure its publication, 
 were for several years his chief endeavors. Against getting from 
 friends and the public, orders in advance of publication, the British 
 mode of publishing by subscription, he had objections which were,
 
 408 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 for a long time, invincible. The stubborn independence of his na- 
 ture, the profound contempt with which he looked upon those men- 
 dicant friars of literature, who, incompetent to succeed as mechanics 
 and failing to sell their manuscripts to book-sellers, hawk subscription- 
 lists about country districts, and make beggary more hideous by con- 
 ceit and affectation, and the dainty exclusiveness of his appetite for 
 fame, loathing the very idea of a reputation he did not owe to his 
 unaided efforts, all combined to dissuade him from this mode of 
 publication. 
 
 Ultimately he gave way on the point, influenced by satisfactory 
 reasons of which we shall hear; but the difficulty was evidently un- 
 resolved at the time when Miss Fraser addressed to him the following 
 note. Its precise date has not been preserved, but I take it to have 
 been written in 1833. "You are in difficulty about the printing of 
 your book, and I might render you some assistance. Can I help, at 
 least, satisfying myself whether or not it be in my power? I have a 
 little hoard of money (about forty pounds), which I may put in 
 trinkets or in the fire, and no one know any thing of the matter. 
 Will you not let me put it to a nobler use? . . . Dear Hugh, 
 do not refuse me; if it will pain you to fancy yourself indebted to 
 me, make it a loan. I shall indeed receive my own with usury when 
 it shall have been of service to you." To which the reply was de- 
 cisive, and, I have no doubt, prompt. "Not all that industry ever 
 accumulated could impart to me so exquisite a feeling as your kind 
 and generous offer. My heart still throbs when I think of it, and 
 yet, during the greater part of last night for I have not slept for 
 two hours together I could think of nothing else. Could I avail 
 myself of it, however, I would but ill deserve the affection which 
 
 has prompted it God bless and reward you ; every new 
 
 trait I discover in your character, while it draws me closer to you, 
 shows me how ill I deserve you." 
 
 Miss Fraser, with a view of assisting her mother and finding a chan- 
 nel for her own energies, taught a class of young ladies. In the eyes 
 of these, Hugh Miller, whose relation with their mistress they knew, 
 was naturally a person of importance, and when they had any thing 
 to coax out of her they thought it good policy to apply to him. 
 Little children, sweet-tempered women, light-hearted, laughing girls 
 all gentle and injpocent creatures loved and trusted this man, and 
 "found their comfort in his face." The old Scottish customs of 
 Halloween, immortalized by Burns, had not yet become obsolete in 
 Cromarty, and Miss Fraser's pupils were disposed to celebrate their 
 Halloween in the room usually devoted to study. Miss Fraser's con* 
 sent was required; and one day, when Hugh was at work in the 
 church-yard, he was "waited upon by a deputation" of the girls 
 with a request to write a petition for them. He complied. 
 
 "To Miss Fraser, the humble petition of her attached and grate- 
 ful pupils,
 
 HUSBANDS AND HALLOWEEN. 409 
 
 " Sheweth, 
 
 " That your petitioners had great-grandmothers who were young, 
 unmarried women about the beginning of the last century. Like 
 most young women of our own day, they were all exceedingly anxious 
 to know what sort of husbands they were to have, or whether they 
 were to have any husbands at all. And, that they might satisfy 
 themselves on this important matter, they burnt nuts and ate apples 
 every Halloween, and with such singular success that they all lived 
 to see themselves married married, too, to men who had the honor 
 of being the great-grandfathers of your humble petitioners. 
 
 "That your petitioners have, therefore, acquired a profound re- 
 spect for the ancient and laudable practice of burning nuts and eating 
 apples. They are desirous, too, to have a peep into the future, not 
 only for the sake of their grandmothers, but also for their own, being 
 not a little solicitous, as every Halloween for the last five years has 
 given them a new set of husbands, to ascertain the exact number 
 which is to fall to the share of each. 
 
 "That your petitioners deem Happiness a very excellent sort of 
 lady, and know many wiser women than themselves who are of the 
 same opinion. There is that in her character which makes people 
 regard even the places in which she has visited them with feelings 
 similar to those which incited the old Greeks and Romans of our 
 story-books to raise temples and altars on the hill-tops on which their 
 gods had alighted. Now it so happens that your petitioners have 
 sent her a card of invitation for next Halloween, to share with them 
 in their nuts and apples, and she is to be with them without fail. 
 And they would fain meet with her on this occasion in that apart- 
 ment in which their dear mistress has done so much to render them 
 wiser and better. For so sincerely do they love it, that they are 
 desirous of loving it more, and this by rendering it a scene of splen- 
 did hopes, rich promises, and good fun by associating with it recol- 
 lections, not of long lessons or false grammar, but of fine husbands, 
 gilt coaches, nuts, gingerbread, and apples. 
 
 "May it therefore please you to grant to your humble petitioners 
 full possession, during the coming night of fun and prediction, of 
 that interesting apartment in which you have so often imparted to 
 your petitioners more of good than they have been all fully able to 
 carry away. As you have already so liberally given to them of the 
 kernel, may it now please you to add the shell. And your attached 
 and grateful petitioners shall, in return, sacrifice an entire egg to 
 your happiness and prosperity." 
 
 The petition was successful. 
 
 One thing is clear: Hugh Miller's existence at this time was 
 bright and cheerful. At peace with himself, and, if we except a 
 fierce Cromarty radical or two, with all the world ; exempt from 
 every care which gnaws the human heart; happy in friendship, happy 
 in love ; hope and ambition touching his hori/on with bright auroral 
 hues, but not inflaming him with any feverish heat he was indeed
 
 410 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 most fortunate. For events, there were occasional trips to Inver- 
 ness, fishing excursions to the rocks, exploring rambles on the shore, 
 picnics to the Burn of Eathie. All the time he was pursuing his 
 enterprise of self-culture with the steady enthusiasm of a Goethe. 
 He never wrote a letter or penned a paragraph for the "Inverness 
 Courier" without striving to make it a means of improving himself 
 in composition. He grudged no toil in writing and rewriting his 
 Traditions, resolutely bent upon bringing them in style, thought, and 
 interest, to his high standard. 
 
 It need not seriously qualify our estimate of his felicity to know 
 that the business of getting his volume into print proved for him, as 
 it has proved for so many authors, a business of difficulty. Sir 
 Thomas Dick Lauder known to literature by his novel, "The Wolf 
 of Badenoch," and to science by his account of the great Moray- 
 shire floods and dissertation on the parallel roads of Glen Roy had 
 formed a high opinion of the Cromarty poet's capacity, and exerted 
 himself to procure the publication of his book. Sir Thomas sub- 
 mitted the manuscript to an Edinburgh critic, an expert, it appears, 
 in the tasting department of the literary guild, whom he describes as 
 "one of the first literary judges of the day." The response was 
 more flattering than satisfactory. "I do not," wrote this minister 
 of fate, "pretend to have read the whole with much care; but I 
 have read quite enough to impress me with a decided opinion of his 
 [Miller's] very extraordinary powers as a prose writer." There is, 
 however, an objection to the history, to wit, "its great lengthiness; " 
 and though the great man repeats his conviction that Mr. Miller is 
 "a very extraordinary person," he does not say that he will recom- 
 mend any of the purveyors of literary viands whom he professionally 
 advises to place it on their bill of fare. Messrs. Oliver and Boyd, 
 and Mr. Andrew Shortrede, to whom respectively the volume is 
 offered, are almost equally complimentary and equally tantalizing. 
 Mr. Miller's manner of treating his subject "does him great credit." 
 It is difficult to say what will succeed, but "as easy as ever to say 
 what ought to succeed, and under this class no one can hesitate to 
 rank the Traditional History of Cromarty." But "the work would 
 require considerable pruning to suit the public taste," and, on the 
 whole, "we regret that we can not avail ourselves of your kind offer." 
 Mr. Shortrede would "risk the printing," if any one would "venture 
 the other expenses;" but farther than this not even Mr. Shortrede, 
 though he evidently hankers after the thing, will go. He proposes to 
 forward the MS. to his London correspondent, "to ascertain his 
 opinion," before returning it. Sir Thomas, who felt that he "had 
 no chance with Black, Cadell," or other publishers, apprised Miller 
 of his want of success, trying to put the discouraging tale as tenderly 
 as possible. "The difficulty," he said, "of getting out a literary 
 work at present is immense. I have never been able to get my first 
 volume of Legends launched, and I now begin to despair of doing
 
 LETTER TO SIR THOMAS LAUDER. 411 
 
 so." In short, our aspiring Ixion can not have the real Juno, but 
 here is a cloud, as like her in form and color as a cloud can possibly 
 be, and he is most civilly invited to derive what satisfaction he can 
 from embracing it. 
 
 Sir Thomas's note is dated i4th October, 1833; Miller replies on 
 the 1 8th of the same month. He is disposed to make as much of 
 the cloud as is feasible, but sees well that it is a cloud after all. 
 
 "HONORED SIR: I little thought, when writing you last spring, 
 of the world of trouble to which my request and your own goodness 
 were to subject you ; had I but dreamed of it I would not now, 
 perhaps, be possessed of your truly valuable opinion of my MS., 
 an opinion which has given me more pleasure than I dare venture 
 fully to express. .1 set myself down in my obscure solitudes to seek 
 amusement in making rude pictures of my homely ancestors, and the 
 scenes of humble life by which I am surrounded, and find that my 
 careless sketches have elicited the praise of a master. 
 
 "In a work composed as mine has been, and on such a subject, by 
 a person, too, so acquainted with the taste of the public and the 
 present aspect of the literary world, what wonder that there should 
 be a good deal which would be perhaps better away ? The circum- 
 stances which have barred upon me those magazines of thought which 
 constitute the learning of the age have prevented me from acquiring 
 its manners, or becoming familiar with its tastes. And yet, as it was 
 probably these very circumstances which led me to think on most 
 subjects for myself, I must just bear with the misfortune of being un- 
 couth and tedious in some of my pages for the sake of being a little 
 original in the rest. . . . Some of my dissertations, too, are, I 
 suspect, sad, leaden things, though they amused me not a little in the 
 casting; and some of my minor traditions, though recommended to 
 me by my townsfolks, are, I am aware, like reptiles in a bottle of 
 spirits, hardly worth the liquid which preserves them. . . . Some 
 of my acquaintance here, who seem much more anxious to see my 
 history in print than I am myself, are urging me to publish by sub- 
 scription; and this they assure me I could accomplish through the 
 medium of my friends without the meanness of personal solicitation, 
 or indeed without meanness of any kind ; but I ,im still averse 
 to the method, and at any rate will not determine with regard to 
 it until my MS. has been submitted to Mr. Shortrede's corre- 
 spondent. Even should his opinion be an unfavorable one, and 
 the dernier scheme prove unfavorable too, still my fate as a writer 
 shall not, I trust, be decided by that of my Traditions. The same 
 cast of mind which has enabled me to overcome not a few of the 
 obstacles which my place in society and an imperfect education have 
 conspired to cast in my way, and this, too, at a time when the ap- 
 proval of such men as the gentleman whom I have now the honor 
 of addressing was a meed beyond the reach of even my fondest an-
 
 412 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 ticipations, shall, I tnist, enable me to persist in improving to the 
 utmost the powers which I naturally possess. And should I fail at 
 last, it will assuredly be less my fault than my misfortune. 
 
 "I am wholly unable to express the sense I entertain of your 
 goodness, but believe, honored sir, that I can feel and appreciate it. 
 My days are passing quietly and not unhappily among friends to 
 whom I am sincerely attached, and by whom I know myself to be 
 regarded with a similar feeling ; and though that depression which 
 affects the trade of the whole country bears so low that it has reached 
 even me, I can live on the little which I earn, and am content. Still, 
 however, I indulge in hopes and expectations which I would ill like 
 to forego hopes, perhaps of being somewhat less obscure, and some- 
 what abler to assist such of my relatives as are poorer than even 
 myself; but the future belongs to God. Winter, my season of leisure, 
 is fast approaching, and should I live to see its close, I shall probably 
 find myself ten or twelve chapters deep in the second volume of my 
 Traditions, manger the untoward destinies of the first." 
 
 The reference to Mr. Shortrede's London correspondent was un- 
 availing. Nothing remained but to fall back upon the scheme of pub- 
 lication by subscription. "I stated," he writes to Sir Thomas Dick 
 Lander, in June, 1834, "when I had last the honor of addressing you, 
 that some of my townspeople and acquaintance seemed to be more 
 anxious to see my history in print than I was myself, and that they 
 were urging me to publish it by subscription. It is not difficult to be 
 persuaded to what one half-inclines ; my chief objection to the scheme 
 arose out of a dread of subjecting myself to a charge of meanness by 
 teasing the public into an unfair bargain giving it a bad book, and 
 pocketing money not counterfeit in return. But I am assured that 
 the book is not bad, and that there would therefore be nothing mean 
 or unfair in the transaction ; and the partiality for one's own per- 
 formances, so natural to the poor author, has rendered the argument 
 a convincing one. I publish, therefore, by subscription, so soon as 
 three hundred subscribers at eight shillings can be procured. Pecu- 
 niary advantage forms no part of my scheme ; and, though not very 
 sanguine, I trust I shall succeed. ... If ever my Traditions get 
 abroad, I find they will be all the better for having stayed so long at 
 home. Since sending you my MS. I have thought of alterations 
 which will materially improve some of the chapters." 
 
 The subscription scheme was attended with complete success. 
 Miller's townsmen and friends exerted themselves strenuously in his 
 behalf, and in due time his book saw the light. But we must not 
 anticipate. 
 
 His correspondence, while these negotiations on the subject of his 
 volume were in progress, had been copious, and some portion of it 
 must be laid before the reader. No further introduction is required to 
 the following selection from his letters of the period, addressed to Miss 
 Fraser. Whenever Miller left Cromarty, whether for Inverness or
 
 RELIGIOUS. NONSENSE THE WORST. 413 
 
 elsewhere, he commenced wrking to Miss Fraser, and seems to have 
 carried a pen and ink-horn al/ong with him, so that he might put his 
 impressions into black and white for conveyance to his mistress at 
 very resting-place on the way. 
 
 " INVERNESS, 10 o'clock at night. 
 
 " Your criticisms, my Lydia, came rather late; but when I receive 
 my proof-sheets, I shall bring them to you that we may talk over them. 
 You are a skillful grammarian, but in some points we shall differ you 
 know we can differ, and yet be very excellent friends. I might try 
 long enough ere I could find a mistress so fitted to be useful to me 
 so little of a blue-stocking, and yet so knowing in composition. I 
 am glad you are better, and that you slept so well last night, even 
 though your slumber abridged your letter. I saw you to-day as I 
 passed your mother's. You were standing in the door with a lady, 
 and looked, I thought, very pale. O my own Lydia, be careful of 
 yourself ! Take little thought and much exercise. Read for amuse- 
 ment only. Set yourself to make a collection of shells, or butterflies, 
 or plants. Do any thing that will have interest enough to amuse you 
 without requiring so much attention as to fatigue. I was sadly an- 
 noyed in the steamboat to-night by a sort of preaching man one 
 
 M , a Baptist. He has little sense and no manners, and his 
 
 religion seems to consist in finding fault. Of all nonsense, my Lydia, 
 religious nonsense is the worst ; of all uncharitableness, that of 
 the sectary is the bitterest. We too often speak of intolerance as pe- 
 culiar to classes who chance to have the power of exercising it, as 
 inseparably connected with church establishments and a beneficed 
 clergy; but it is not with circumstances or situations that it is con- 
 nected ; it is with inferior natures it is with bad men. The proud, 
 heart-swollen Churchman, who condemns heretics to the flames of 
 this world, and the rancorous heresiarch, his opponent, who can only 
 IJthreaten them with the flames of the next, possess it in an equal 
 degree. Nay, it may rage in the breast of the Dissenter, and find 
 no place in that of the Churchman. I saw as much of it in M 
 to-night (and yet no man could denounce it more earnestly) as might 
 serve a Grand Inquisitor. I had no dispute with him, as I saw it 
 would be an easier task to find him argument than comprehension; 
 besides, I wished to see the fellow, horns and all ; and had I touched 
 him, he might have drawn in the latter. Good-night, my Lydia; 
 these are commonplace remarks, but they have an important bearing 
 on the present time. A persecuting, intolerant spirit directed against 
 our national Church animates the great body of our Dissenters, and 
 there can not be a fairer specimen of the more active of the class 
 
 than M . Good-night: fine thing to be able to write to one's 
 
 friends."
 
 414 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 INVERNESS, Thursday Morning. 
 
 "I have been walking about the streets for an hour, looking at 
 people's heads and faces, and at the book-sellers' windows. I wish I 
 knew the house you were born in ; I would pay my respects to it 
 with a great deal more devotional sincerity than some pilgrims feel 
 when kneeling before the Virgin's house at Loretto. I have been 
 walking in the suburbs; it is still too early to call on any of my ac- 
 quaintance. You little know, my lassie, how covetous I have become. 
 I have hardly in the course of my walk seen a snug little house with 
 woodbine on the walls, and a garden in front, without half ejaculating, 
 'Here with my Lydia, and with a very little of that wealth which 
 thousands know not how to employ, I could be happy.' Well, 
 though not born to riches, I have been born to what riches can not 
 purchase, to the possession of an expansive heart that can be sin- 
 cerely attached, and happy in its attachment, and to the love, the 
 pure, disinterested, unselfish love of a talented and lovely woman." 
 
 "GRAY CAIRN, half- past 3 o'clock. 
 
 "Here, my own Lydia, have I sitten down to write you after a 
 rather smart walk of about eleven miles ; and my first thought is of 
 you. Have you ever visited the gray cairn, or surveyed the bleak 
 barren moor that surrounds it ? It towers high and shapeless around 
 me, gray with the moss and lichens of forgotten ages, a mound strid- 
 ing across the stream of centuries, to connect the past with the present, 
 a voucher to attest the truth of events long forgotten, a memorial 
 carved over by the fingers of fancy with a wild, imaginative poetry. 
 How very poetical savage life appears when viewed through the dim 
 vista of time ! The savages of the present day we regard as a squalid, 
 lazy, cruel race of animals, disgusting mixtures of the wolf, the fox, 
 and the hog, who live, and love, and fight, not with the wisdom, 
 gallantry, courage of men, but with the craft, the brutality, the feroc^ 
 ity of wild beasts. Not such the sentiment when we look through 
 the clouded avenue of the past or^ the deeds and habits of our painted 
 ancestors. The poetical haze of the atmosphere magnifies the size of 
 the figures, smooths down their various hardnesses of outlines, and 
 softens and improves their colors. On the wild moor before me have 
 some of them fought and died in some nameless but hard-contested 
 and bloody conflict, nameless now, though long celebrated among 
 their descendants, and often sung at their rude hunting-feasts and 
 war banquets. See how we are surrounded by vestiges of the fray ! 
 Observe yonder rectangular, altar-like tumulus, the scene, it is pro- 
 bable, of human sacrifice ; mark how thickly those grave-like mounds 
 are scattered over the moor, and how regularly they run in lines. 
 And then turn to the cairn behind, the monument of some fallen 
 chief. Give yourself up for a moment, my Lydia, to the sway of 
 imagination. The moor is busy with life, the air rent with clamor.
 
 THE PROGRESS OF HIS MIND. 415 
 
 Do you not see waving arms and threatening faces, the glittering 
 of spears, the flashing of swords, eyes flaring, wounds streaming, 
 warriors falling? See, the combatants are now wedged into dense 
 masses, now broken into detached bands; now they press onward, 
 now they recede ; now they open their ranks, now they close in a 
 death-grapple. There are the yells of pain, the roarings of rage, 
 and the shouts of exultation. Passion is busy, and so is death. But 
 the figures recede and the sounds die away, till we see only a wide, 
 solitary moor, with its mounds and its tumuli, and hearing only the 
 wind rustling through the heath." 
 
 SCHOOL- HOUSE OF NIGG, Monday Evening. 
 
 "Here am I set in Mr. Swanson's sleeping-room beside a not bad 
 collection of books. I find I am not nearly so great a literary glut- 
 ton now as I was fifteen years ago; there was a keenness in my appetite 
 at that time which I have hardly ever seen equaled. The very 
 heaven of my imagination was an immense library ; and my fondest 
 desires asked nothing more from the future than much time and many 
 books. Have you marked the progress of your mind, from the days 
 in which you dressed your doll to the days in which you are ad- 
 dressed by your lover? I remember that from my fourth to my 
 sixth year I derived much pleasure from oral narrative, and that my 
 imagination, even at this early period, had acquired strength enough 
 to present me with vividly colored pictures of all the scenes described 
 to me, and of all the incidents related. My mind then opened to 
 the world of books. I began to understand the stories of the Bible, 
 and to steal into some quiet corner, that I might peruse tales and 
 novels unmolested by my companions. In my twelfth year I could 
 relish a volume of the 'Spectator,' and some of the better essays of 
 Johnson ; in my fifteenth I was delighted with the writings of the 
 poets. About a year after, I found that 'twas better to be solitary 
 than in company ; my mind had acquired strength enough, as nurses 
 'say of their children, to stand alone; and a first consequence of the 
 improvement was, that I exchanged my many companions for a few 
 friends. I became a thorough admirer of nature for its own sake; 
 before, I had only affected to love it from finding so much written in 
 its praise. I was first delighted by the mild, the calm, the beautiful ; 
 next, by the wild, the terrible, the sublime. Years passed on, and 
 man became my study. I delighted in tracing the progress of the 
 species, from the extreme of barbarism to that of refinement, and in 
 marking the various shades of intellectual character. Studies of a more 
 abstract class succeeded, and I became a metaphysician. I strove to 
 penetrate into the first causes and to anticipate the remoter consequences 
 of things; and reasoned on subjects such as those which employed the 
 fiends in Milton when they ' found no end in wandering mazes lost ;' 
 but I soon perceived that the over-subtle thinker reaps only a harvest 
 of doubt, and that, when truth is our object, it is quite as possible to 
 miss the mark by overshooting as by falling short. In the progress
 
 4*6 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 related, and I can not trace it further, habits have been successively 
 formed and relinquished, and appetites acquired and satiated. But, 
 though many of these have long since ceased, much of that which 
 they accumulated for me still remains, wrought up in some degree 
 into one entire mass, but in some degree also bearing in their separate 
 portions the color and stamp of the period at which they were ac- 
 quired. I find, too, that as in the progress of my mind (to use your 
 own happy language) ' what were at one time the subjects of thought 
 and reason to me have become first principles,' so habits and modes 
 of thinking which have been formed under the influence of our second 
 nature custom have become to me what seem primary tendencies of 
 the mind ; and that if there be much of originality in my thoughts? 
 I, perhaps, owe it in nearly as great a degree to the peculiarity of my 
 education as to any innate vigor of faculty. But you will deem me 
 dull and an egotist." 
 
 "ROADSIDE, Tuesday, n o'clock. 
 
 "I am on my way to Chapel-Hill; the day is so oppressively hot 
 that the grass and corn* look as if half boiled, and there is a dense 
 cloud of flies buzzing about my head. I saw, two minutes since, a 
 large weasel quitting its hole to drink. My eyes are so dazzled by the 
 glare of the sun on the white of your letter, which I have been again 
 perusing, that I hardly see the characters I am forming. You have 
 embodied very happily, in your description, the yawning tedium of 
 some of our Cromarty parties, and caught to the life the tone of the 
 sort of flippancy which has to pass in them for wit. 'Tis a sad waste 
 of time, my own Lydia, to be engaged in such ; how much better 
 could we not contrive to spend an evening with only ourselves for 
 our guests! But I suppose parties every- where are almost equally pro- 
 fitless. They were profitless even in Athens, in its best days. 'Why,' 
 says Socrates, ' do the people call in musicians when they entertain 
 their friends? Is it not because they have not learned to converse ! ' " 
 
 "MANSE OF KILMUIR, half-past 7 o'clock. 
 " I was on the way to the ferry this evening, but John impressed 
 
 me to accompany him on a visit to Mr. M . We crossed the 
 
 sands of Nigg together, a long, dreary flat, roughened by the cork- 
 like hillocks of the sand-worm, and speckled with shells. Barren 
 and dreary as it may seem, I know no part of the country busier 
 with life. Myriads of sea-cockles have grown up and perished in it, 
 age after age, till the shells have so accumulated that in some places 
 they form beds many feet in thickness ; and, though thousands of 
 cart-loads have of late years been carried away for lime, the supply 
 seems as great as at first. As we passed through, immense shoals of 
 shrimps and young flounders were striking against our naked feet, 
 reminding me, from their numbers and their extreme minuteness, of 
 
 American readers will bear in mind that " Corn " in Britain means any kind 
 of grain.
 
 FOOT-PRINTS OF CREATION. 417 
 
 the cloud of flies that buzzed round my head at noon. I saw the 
 sand-worms lie so thickly that their little pyramids fretted the entire 
 surface nearly as far as the eye could reach, reminding one of the 
 ripple raised by a light breeze on a sheet of water, while the remote 
 horizon was darkened by endless beds of muscles and periwinkles. 
 I am certain there is more of animal life in a few acres of this waste 
 than is comprised in the human population of the entire world. In 
 some comparatively recent era recent, at least, in the chronology of 
 the geologist the sea seems to have stood several fathoms higher on 
 our coasts than it does at present. Large beds of shells have been 
 found in the interior of the valley, the opening of which is occupied 
 by the sands of Nigg, more than two miles beyond the extreme rise 
 of the tide ; and John tells me that, not many years since, the bones 
 of a fish of the whale species were found in the parish of Fearn, at 
 a still higher level. 
 
 "I was shown, on quitting the sands, two fine chalybeate springs, 
 which gush out of a rock of veined sandstone among the woods of 
 Tarbat-house. They are thickly surrounded by pine and willow, in 
 a solitary but not unpleasing recess, and their waters, after leaping 
 to the base of the rock, with a half-gurgling, half-tinkling sound, 
 unite in a small runnel, and form a little melancholy lochan, matted 
 over with weeds, and edged with flags and rushes. The waters of 
 both are strongly though not equally acidulous, and the course both 
 along the rock and through the runnel is marked by a steep belt of 
 ferruginous matter, which might be converted into a pigment, resem- 
 bling burnt-sienna." 
 
 In the letter to his "Dear Lydia," just quoted, he was dilating 
 upon geological specimens, and here we transcribe from a letter to 
 Mtes Dunbar, dated " Cromarty, Sept. 25, 1834." 
 
 " For the last fortnight some of my very few leisure hours have 
 been employed in collecting geological specimens for my kind friend, 
 Mr. George Anderson one of the most thorough-bred geologists in 
 the north of Scotland. By the way, I see from the newspapers that 
 he has been highly complimented for his labors in this department, 
 at the great scientific meeting at Edinburgh. Some of the specimens 
 I have procured are exceedingly curious; they contain the petrified 
 remains of animals that now no longer exist except in a fossil state 
 bits of charcoal, pieces of wood, and nondescript substances which 
 one can hardly refer to either the animal or vegetable world. Of 
 the several animal tribes the very curious shell-fish termed the cornu 
 ammonis abounds most ; but, though at one period the most numer- 
 ous of all the testaceous tribes of the country, it is now no longer to 
 be found except as a fossil, deeply embedded in limestone or bitu- 
 minous shale, and buried under huge hills of clay and gravel. There 
 are grounds, indeed, for the belief that the race of man, and almost 
 all the tribes of animals with which we are acquainted, have come 
 into being since it ceased to exist ; at least no remains of the living 
 
 27
 
 418 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 tribes have been found in the beds in which the cornu abounds. 
 Like the nautilus, it was a sailing animal, and, though different in 
 form, its structure seems to have been nearly the same. We find it 
 partitioned in the same way by little cross walls, which divide the 
 cavity within into a number of minute cells, by means of which, 
 and by a power it must have possessed of altering its gravity, by 
 nearly vacating or occupying these to the full, it seems to have moved 
 upwards or downwards at pleasure. The inner part of the shell seems, 
 from the more perfect impressions of it which I have met with, to 
 have been of a pearly luster ; the outer is ridged and furrowed with 
 much regularity, and there is at least as much elegance in its general 
 contour as in that of the Ionic volute, which it nearly resembles. 
 But why so much beauty, when there was no eye of. man to see and 
 admire? Does it not seem strange that the bays of our coasts should 
 have been speckled by fleets of beautiful little animals, with their 
 tiny sails spread to the wind and their pearly colors glancing to the 
 sun, when there was no intelligent eye to look abroad and delight in 
 their loveliness? Of all the sciences there is none which furnishes so 
 many paradoxical facts and appearances as geology. . . ." 
 
 Are not these foreshadowings of his future fitness for writing of the 
 "Old Red Sandstone," for tracing the-" Foot-prints of the Creator," 
 and giving to the world the "Testimony of the Rocks?" 
 
 Mrs. Grant, of Laggan, suggested about this time to her friend, 
 Miss Dunbar, with a view to Miller's advancement in life, that he 
 might do the "blocking work" for a young sculptor "likely to rise to 
 eminence." Mrs. Grant referred to "Allan Cunningham's success 
 in doing the blocking work for Chantrey," by way of illustrating 
 the promotion intended for Miller. On this Miss Dunbar wrote to 
 Hugh: "I could not well take it on me to reply to what she sug- 
 gests without a reference to yourself, though I dare say I anticipate 
 your answer, and so I write. Pardon the terms she uses'as applicable 
 to you, and believe me, that neither in speaking nor writing of you 
 have I expressed myself in a way to sanction them. I had honesty 
 and delicacy enough not to assume the airs of a lady-patroness ; I 
 ever spoke of you as my friend, and as proud that you were such." 
 In the same letter Miss Dunbar mentioned that Baron Hume, nephew 
 to the historian, pronounced by Kemble "positively the first " critic 
 of the day, had seen the prospectus of Miller's book. " He perused 
 it," she adds, " with much interest and no little surprise, and states, 
 as his opinion, that the writer excels in that classical style which 
 many well-known writers of the present day, so far from attaining to, 
 do not seem even to understand." Hugh, in his reply, speaks of 
 Baron Hume before touching on Mrs. Grant's proposal. 
 
 " CROMARTY, October 25, 1834. 
 
 "Never was my little remnant of modesty in such danger as it 
 has been exposed to by the critical remark of Baron Hume. But, if
 
 HIS SCHEME OF RELIGION. 419 
 
 at all worthy of the compliment it conveys, I owe my merit chiefly 
 to accident; to my having kept company with the older English 
 writers the Addisons, Popes, and Robertsons of the last century 
 at a time when I had no opportunity of becoming acquainted with 
 the authors of the present time. And the tone of these earlier writers 
 I have, I dare say, contrived in some measure to catch, just as in my 
 spoken language I have caught the tone of our Cromarty Scotch. 
 
 " Favor me, when you write Mrs. Grant, by tendering her my best 
 thanks for her suggestion, and the interest she takes in my welfare, 
 and oblige me by stating that I can not avail myself of the former. 
 But why, my dear madam, apologize for the terms she employs in 
 speaking of me? Trust me, I am not one of those who repay with 
 insolence the notice by which they are honored. The much kind- 
 ness you have shown me, and the confidence you have reposed in 
 me, have not yet made me forget our respective places in society; 
 and, though no one entertains a more sincere love of independence, 
 or more carefully avoids any imputation of meanness, it would not 
 cost me a single blush were the whole world to know how much 
 cause you have given me to be grateful." 
 
 TWO LETTERS ON RELIGION. 
 
 The two letters addressed to Mr. William Smith, Forres, are with- 
 out question among the most important Miller ever wrote. They 
 form a supplement to that portion of his spiritual history which em- 
 braced his period of indifference and semi-skepticism, and contain 
 not only an explicit confession of faith, but a statement of that intel- 
 lectual basis on which it was for him a necessity that his faith should 
 rest. Reticent as he was in all that related to his soul's condition, 
 sensitively averse to the (fnveiling to human eyes of his spiritual ex- 
 perience, he would probably never have written such letters had 
 not an occasion occurred which constrained him to overcome every 
 scruple. A friend lay ill, perhaps unto death; it seemed possible to 
 Hugh that he might minister to his spirit's health and his eternal sal- 
 vation; and he yielded to the impulse of affection and the mandate 
 of duty. The scheme of religion which he unfolds in the letters is 
 that of simple acceptance of Christ for salvation, as he is offered in 
 the gospel, acceptance with the heart as well as the head, acceptance 
 with clear consciousness that the difficulties of the intellect can not 
 be wholly removed. The religion of Miller was to cling close to 
 Christ, to die with Christ, to rise with Christ, to wear with him the 
 crown of thorns, and to receive from him the crown of glory. 
 
 The idea formerly thrown out by Miller, that Christianity suggests 
 objections so many and so obvious that common sense would not 
 have permitted its invention by man, receives in these letters its 
 balance and counterpart in the hypothesis that the adaptation of
 
 420 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 Christianity to man's wants is so exquisite, and the evidence so strong, 
 that its obvious offenses to mere human reason tend to prove that it 
 is divine. 
 
 From a biographic point of view, the letters have a special interest, 
 as showing the tenacity with which Miller retained thoughts which 
 had once been deliberately accepted into his intellectual system. 
 The illustration of the working of the atonement of Christ, given 
 long subsequently in the " Schools and School-masters," is but a slight 
 expansion of that which he here lays before his friend, and the thesis 
 maintained, that man can apprehend facts and results in God's uni- 
 verse, whether physical or spiritual, but not the constructive princi- 
 ples and processes by which they are brought about, is worked out in 
 a chapter on the Discoverable and the Revealed in the "Testimony 
 of the Rocks," which is, perhaps, the most valuable that Hugh Miller 
 ever penned. 
 
 "CROMARTY, August 5, 1835. 
 
 "MY DEAR WILLIAM: I need not tell you how famous Cromarty 
 is for its hasty reports, or on how slender a foundation the imagina- 
 tion of the townsfolks sometimes contrives to build. I must needs 
 tell you, however, for the circumstance forms my only apology for 
 now writing you, that the last story current among us affected me 
 more deeply than any of its class ever did before. On your late 
 severe attack, your brother, the doctor, was called hastily to Forres, 
 and the story went that you were dead. I never before knew how 
 much I valued and esteemed you; the thought, too, that one with 
 whom I had so often conversed, and with whose mind I was so 
 thoroughly acquainted, had passed the dark bourne which separates 
 this world from the other, had something inexpressibly solemn and 
 melancholy in it. I felt for the time that, disguise the fact as we 
 may, the main business of this life consists in preparing for another, 
 and conscience was not quite silent when I remembered that, though 
 you and I had beaten together over many an interesting topic, the 
 most interesting of all had been omitted. You remember the fable 
 of the wise men who were permitted to make a three days' visit to 
 the moon that they might report to our lower world regarding its 
 plants and animals, and who, on their return, had to confess that 
 they had squandered their time in drinking with gay young men and 
 dancing with beautiful women, and had only remarked that the trees 
 and sky of the planet, when seen casually through a window, very 
 much resembled those of our own. Alas for the application of this 
 ingenious story ! 
 
 "There are few men who do not, at some time or other, think 
 seriously of the future state, or who have not formed some, at least, ^ 
 theoretic set of notions regarding the best mode of preparing for it. ' 
 Man was born to anticipate a hereafter ; he is a religious animal by 
 the very constitution of his nature, and the thousand forms of super-
 
 CHRISTIANITY OF DIVINE ORIGIN). 421 
 
 stition which still overspread the world and darken every page of its 
 history are just so many proofs of this. It has often struck me that 
 the infidel, when in his assaults on revelation he draws largely from 
 this store of delusion, sadly mistakes his argument; every false religion 
 which has sprung out of the nature of man shows us, not surely that 
 there is no true religion, but that we stand in need of a true one ; 
 every mythologic folly and absurdity should convince us that we need 
 an infallible guide. Regarded in this light, the 'Shaster' and the 
 ' Koran ' are substantial proofs of how ill we could do without the 
 Bible; and Paganism and Mahometism powerfully recommend 
 Christianity. You, my dear William, to whom it has been given to 
 possess an inquiring and reflecting mind, must have often thought of 
 the final destinies of man ; I myself have observed in you much of 
 that respect for sacred things which is one of the characteristics of 
 an ingenuous nature; but there is, perhaps, danger that your very 
 ingenuity and acuteness might have led you into error. 
 
 " Christianity is emphatically termed the wisdom of God, but it is 
 not on a first examination that a reasoning mind can arrive at the 
 evidence of its being such ; on the contrary, some of its main doc- 
 trines seem opposed to the more obvious principles of common sense ; 
 and this quite in the same way that, before the days of Newton, it 
 would have seemed contrary to these principles to allege that the 
 whiteness of light was occasioned by a combination of the most vivid 
 colors, or that the planets were held in their orbits by the law which 
 impelled a falling stone towards the ground. Now this is exactly 
 what we might expect of the true religion. A religion made by ra- 
 tional men many deists, you know, were eminently such, and we 
 may instance theirs will be, like themselves, rational and easily un- 
 derstood ; but this very facility is a conclusive proof that it had its 
 origin in the mind of man. It is like all his other works, like the 
 clocks and watches and steam-engines of his construction, easily 
 understood and easily imitated ; but it is not thus with Christianity, 
 nor is it thus with the great machine of the universe. Let us, my 
 dear William, take a brief survey of some of the main doctrines of 
 this religion ; they concern us so nearly that it may be fatal to mis- 
 understand them. 
 
 " The invariable reply of the apostles of our Savior to that most 
 important of all queries, ' What shall I do to be saved ? ' was, ' Be- 
 lieve in the Lord Jesus Christ.' Belief seems to be, if I may so speak, 
 the main condition of man's acceptance ; but belief in what, or whom ? 
 in a person who is at once God and man, and who thus, to the per- 
 fection of a Divine nature, adds the feelings of a human heart ! Now 
 there is something amazing in this, something which, for its exquisite 
 fitness to our moral and sentient constitution, is worthy the concep- 
 tion of a God. Observe, my dear William, the false religions of the 
 world, and you will find that they run into two opposite extremes. 
 In the artificial religions which have been formed by the intellect of
 
 422 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 man, God is represented as a mere abstraction of wisdom and power. 
 He is the Great First Cause of the philosopher, and it is scarcely more 
 possible for the human heart to love him as such than it is for him to 
 love any of the great second causes, such as the sun with its light and 
 heat, or the law of gravitation. And hence the coldness and utter 
 inefficacy of all such religions, whether known under the name of 
 philosophical Deism or Socinian Christianity ; they are totally unfitted 
 to the nature of man. The religions of the other class are rather the 
 offspring of passion than intellect ; they arise in those obscure and 
 remote ages when unenlightened man created his gods in his own 
 image. What was Jupiter or his son Hercules, or what their com- 
 panions in the court of Olympus, the Dianas, Venuses, or Minervas 
 with which the old poets have brought us acquainted, but human 
 creatures bearing the very mold and impression of their worshipers ? 
 And such deities could be loved and feared just in the way one hu- 
 man creature can love or fear another ; the belief in them powerfully 
 influenced the conduct, but their worship, as it originated in the dark- 
 ened human heart, was a worship of impurity. 
 
 " Observe with what a truly godlike wisdom Christianity is formed, to 
 avoid the opposite extremes of these two classes, and how it yet em- 
 braces more than the philosophy of the one, and more than the warmth 
 of the other ; the object of our worship is at once God, the First Great 
 Cause, and the man Jesus Christ, our brother. 
 
 " But not merely must we believe in Christ as God, but also as our 
 Savior ; as the restorer of our moral nature, and our sacrifice or atone- 
 ment. There are wonderful Janus-like mysteries here, inexplicable in 
 their one aspect as they regard God, though simple and easy in the 
 other as they regard man. Perhaps an illustration from the human 
 frame may serve to explain my meaning. Need I remind you, who 
 are an anatomist, and acquainted with Paley to boot, of the admir- 
 able adaptation of the human frame to the various ends for which it 
 was created, or how easy it is for a person of even ordinary capacity to 
 be made to perceive this adaptation? Almost any one can see how 
 fairly and beautifully the machine works, but who, on the other 
 hand, can conceive of the higher principles on which it is constructed ? 
 Who can know any thing of the workings of the brain as the organ 
 of thought, or of the operations of the nerves as the seats of feeling ; 
 of how the chyle is chosen by its thousand blind mouths, and every 
 other fluid rejected ; of how one gland should secrete a liquor so un- 
 like that secreted by another, of, in short, any of the thousand phe- 
 nomena of our animal nature when we trace them towards their first 
 cause ? The working of the machine is simple, its construction we 
 find to be inexplicably mysterious. Now it is thus with Christianity. 
 No one can understand how the sufferings of the Savior satisfy the 
 justice of God, that regards, if I may so speak, the construction of 
 the scheme ; but every one who examines may see how wonderfully 
 these vicarious sufferings are suited to the nature and the wants of
 
 THE EXHORTATION. 423 
 
 man, for that regards its working. But it is not in the limits of 
 so brief a composition as a letter that such a subject can be discussed. 
 " May I recommend to you, my dear William, to lay hold on this Sav- 
 ior as the way, and the truth, and the life ? He is willing and able to 
 save to the uttermost all who trust in him. You suffer from pain and de- 
 jection, he suffered from pain and dejection also, and hence his wonderful 
 fitness to be the God and Savior of a race born to anguish and sorrow. 
 Not only does he know our weaknesses as God, but he sympathizes in 
 them as man. Forgive me the freedom with which I write you, it is as a 
 friend, as one foolish and careless, and often so wrapped up in the 
 dreams of life as to forget its real businesses, but also as one convinced 
 that the Savior can, through his Spirit, make wise unto salvation, and 
 that to secure an interest in him is to possess a righteousness that is 
 perfect, and to have every sin forgiven through an atonement that is 
 complete. May I ask, my dear William, that when you address your- 
 self to him, and, oh, he is willing to hear and ready to help, you 
 will put up one petition for your affectionate friend, Hugh Miller." 
 
 CROMARTY, August 27, 1835. 
 
 " MY DEAR WILLIAM : I have learned from your brother that you 
 are still confined to your room. Believe me, I sympathize with you 
 very sincerely ; and it is in the hope of helping to enliven your soli- 
 tude for at least a few brief minutes that I again avail myself of a 
 leisure hour in which to write you. I know from experience that 
 there is no solitude like that of a sick-chamber, it wears away the 
 poor remnant of spirits that indisposition spares to us; but it will not 
 render the sense of this loneliness weightier to you to learn that an 
 old friend, though also a powerless one, continues to regard you with 
 sympathy and esteem. It is a better assurance, however, that He who 
 is more thoroughly your friend than any one else, and who can sym- 
 pathize with you more deeply, is possessed of a power that has no 
 limits. 
 
 "Your brother hinted to me that you are not unwilling I should 
 recur to the subject of my last. I feel, my dear William, that I am 
 unworthy to approach a theme so sacred; I am also too little im- 
 pressed with it, too little in love with it ; but I know of its impor- 
 tance, and I believe in its truth. In one respect, too, we may be bet- 
 ter fitted for conference with each other on the doctrines of religion 
 than either of us would be with minds who had never doubted of 
 them. I know you are not unacquainted with infidel objections, 
 you are familiar with some of the most insidious writings of Voltaire ; 
 I am intimate with these also, and with those of many a skeptic be- 
 sides. And so, as we can approach our subject over nearly the same 
 ground, it is surely not irrational to expect that it may present itself 
 to us in nearly the same points of view. 
 
 " I think I remarked to you in my last letter, that Christianity is no 
 common-sense religion ; were it such, it would have little in common
 
 424 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 \ 
 
 with the other marvelous workings of Him who devised it, as these are 
 shown in all he has made, and in his mode of governing all. But 
 do not infer from this, as some infidels do, tacitly at least, that to 
 the human comprehension the absurdities of false religions and the 
 mysteries of Christianity are placed on a similar level. Between 
 what can not be understood because it has no meaning, and what can 
 not be understood because it surpasses the grasp of our minds, there 
 not only obtains an infinite difference, but a difference fully cogni- 
 zable by the human intellect. The scribblings of a child and the ab- 
 struser calculations of a Newton or La Place would not appear equally 
 unmeaning to an attentive observer, however humble his powers ; he 
 could not but see now and then little breaks of sense in the mysteries 
 of the one, and wonderful effects produced by them, which would 
 most effectually distinguish them from the nothingness of the other. 
 And it is thus with Christianity. We get occasional glimpses of its 
 meaning, and see instances of its power that may well enable us to 
 distinguish between it and the 'Shaster' and 'Koran.' Its adapta- 
 tion to the nature of man is truly exquisite. There is a pretty story 
 in Kames's 'Art of Thinking,' introduced by the philosopher for a 
 very different purpose, which will, in part, enable us to conceive of 
 this. Two men who fought in the wars of Queen Anne the one a 
 petty officer, the other a private soldier had been friends and com- 
 rades for years, but quarreling on some unlucky love affair, they be- 
 came bitter enemies. The officer made a natural though ungenerous 
 use of his authority in continually annoying and persecuting the other, 
 whom he almost fretted into madness, and who was often heard to swear 
 that he would die to be avenged on him. Both were men of known 
 bravery, and on an occasion of some dangerous service, both were 
 chosen to be of the party selected to attempt it. But the attempt 
 was unsuccessful, and the officer was struck down by a ball in the re- 
 treat. 'Ah, and will you leave me here to perish ? ' he exclaimed, as 
 his old companion rushed past him. The appeal was irresistible ; the 
 poor injured man returned, and, raising his wounded enemy, he bore 
 him off amid a storm of shot and shell. And he had just reached 
 what seemed to be a place of safety, when he was struck by a chance 
 ball and fell dead under his burden. But his fate seemed an envi- 
 able one compared with that of the wounded man. He rose, for- 
 getful of his wound, and, tearing his hair, and flinging himself on the 
 body, he burst out into the most heart-rending lamentations. For 
 two days he refused all sustenance, still calling on his companion, 
 and ever exclaiming, ' Hast thou died for me who treated thee so 
 barbarously ! ' and he expired on the third, the victim of mingled 
 grief and remorse. Do you not perceive, my dear William, that the 
 principle which the story unfolds lies deep in our nature? Nothing 
 so prostrates the pride of man or so stings him to the heart as a re- 
 turn of benefits for injuries, of great good for great evil. In the 
 expressive language of Scripture, it is heaping live coals on the head,
 
 SCHEME OF SALVATION COMPLETE. 425 
 
 and to blow up these to a tenfold intensity that the hardest heart may 
 melt under them, it is necessary that the injured benefactor, instanced 
 in the story, should die for his enemy. Need I attempt an applica- 
 tion, or point out to you with what marvelous, godlike wisdom 
 Christianity appeals to the principle described? 'Peradventure for a 
 good man,' says the Apostle, ' some would even dare to die ; but God 
 commended his love towards us, in that, while we were yet sinners, 
 Christ died for us.' 
 
 "I am sorry we should have missed so many opportunities of con- 
 versing on this subject ; little can be done for it in the limits of a 
 letter; and besides, in the course of conversation, doubts may be 
 stated and cleared which, though they may weigh heavily on your 
 mind, can not be anticipated by mine. It must have struck you as 
 something very mysterious in the scheme of Redemption that man, 
 instead of having to trust to his own virtues for reward, and his own 
 repentance for pardon, must look exclusively to the righteousness 
 and atonement of the Savior. And yet so important is this doctrine, 
 that the scheme of Salvation is inefficient without it ; for, for what 
 other cause did the Savior come into the world, or in what other 
 sense could he be said to die for us? I have seen much of what may 
 be called the working of this doctrine, and, unable as I am to com- 
 prehend it in the abstract, have admired its wonderful adaptation to 
 the nature and wants of man. There is no place where its impor- 
 tance can be better appreciated than beside a death-bed. In the 
 closing scene of life, man's boasted virtues become, in most instances, 
 so intangible that they elude his grasp; and his sins, however little 
 noted before, start up around him like so many threatening specters, 
 to call up all his remorse for the past, and all his fears for the future. 
 It is then that the scheme of Redemption appears worthy of the in- 
 finite wisdom and infinite goodness of a God ; that the righteousness 
 of Him, who ever went about doing good, appears an inexhaustible 
 fund to which we may apply; that the agony in the garden, the 
 mockeries and scourgings in the hall, the inconceivable sufferings and 
 shame of the cross, array themselves on the side of mercy, and sum 
 up efficacy enough to annihilate every sin. It is when every minor 
 light of comfort is extinguished that the Savior shines forth, and 
 more than compensates for them all. 
 
 "So much for the fitness of this scheme. I have stated that, re- 
 garded in the abstract, it surpasses my comprehension ; but do not 
 suppose from this that it is more surrounded by difficulties than any 
 of the many schemes of religion which men have opposed to it. The 
 simplicity of most of these is but an apparent simplicity, complete in the 
 eyes of the shallow thinker, but which entirely disappears when sub- 
 jected to the gaze of a superi or discernment. True, the difficulties 
 of Christianity may be more strikingly apparent than those of phil- 
 osophic religions, but it is only because God in his goodness, instead 
 of confining it to the acute and the highly talented, has brought it
 
 426 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 down to the level of the whole race of man; and thus common 
 capacities are brought in contact with truths of so lofty and abstruse 
 a character that the greatest minds can but see their importance and 
 consistency without being able to comprehend them. It is well, 
 however, that the heart of the simplest can be made to feel their 
 fitness; and that the excellence of doctrines too mighty to be 
 grasped by the most capacious minds can be so appreciated by 
 babes as to be made effectual to their salvation. 
 
 "After all our reasonings, my dear William, it is through the 
 heart alone that we can lay hold of the Savior ; and to prepare the 
 heart, 'by working faith in it,' is the office of that Spirit which God 
 giveth to all who ask it. Have you ever considered the doctrine of 
 the Trinity, and the peculiar fitness which it gives to the character 
 of God as a God of man ? Perhaps the query is rather obscure ; 
 what I mean to express is this : One great proof of the wisdom of 
 the Deity is derived from that exquisite adaptation of parts which 
 obtains throughout creation. You have studied this in the human 
 frame, and must have seen, in extending your view, that not more 
 admirably are the parts of that frame fitted to each other than man 
 as a whole is fitted to external nature. Now, by rising a little higher, 
 and taking with you the Scripture character of a triune God, you will 
 perceive that there is yet a third exquisite adaptation of the nature 
 of man to the nature of the Deity, what, indeed, we might expect, 
 when we consider for what purpose, and in whose image, man was 
 originally created. The subject far exceeds the limits to which I am 
 restricted, but I must attempt giving you a brief outline of my mean- 
 ing: In all true philosophy, God is regarded as the first cause of all 
 things, and as uncaused himself. Necessarily, then, he must have 
 existed from eternity, while every thing else must have begun to exist; 
 and ere that beginning, he must have existed an eternity alone. But 
 is this, his eternity of solitude, to be regarded as the womb of Deity, 
 in which, though his thoughts might be employed (I am acquainted 
 with only the language of earth), his affections lay dormant ? Surely 
 not. Who can think of a God of infinite goodness existing for an 
 eternity without love? But love requires an object, and God ex- 
 isted alone. Yes ; but when we feel that the ill-conceived God of 
 the philosopher must, so circumstanced, have been a solitary being, 
 we know that the God of the Christian existed in the society of 
 himself regarding the Son and the Spirit with an infinite love, and 
 infinitely beloved by them. Is there not something wonderfully 
 pleasing in this view of the character of God something that har- 
 monizes with our nature and all its affections of love, friendship, 
 brotherly affection, filial attachment, and paternal regard? And then 
 to think that all the persons of the adorable Godhead are interested 
 in us, and perform a part in our redemption ! The Father willed that 
 the Son should be sent, the Son became man and died for us, and by 
 the Spirit is the sacrifice made effectual to us, and our hearts pre-
 
 THE BANK ACCOUNTANT. 427 
 
 pared. It is surely no marvel that angels* desire to look into a 
 mystery so fraught with the wisdom and goodness of Deity. 
 
 "Permit me again, my dear William, to recommend to you Jesus 
 Christ as the only Savior. Open all your heart to him, for he is man 
 and can sympathize in all its affections; trust yourself implicitly in 
 him, for he is God, omnipotent to aid and unable to deceive. Faith 
 can realize his presence, and there is happiness to be found in his 
 society, when the full heart pours itself out before him, of which the 
 world can form no conception. In life or in death, in health or in 
 sickness, it is well to be able to lean one's self on him, as John did 
 at the last supper, and to feel as it were the heart of his humanity 
 beating under the broad buckler of his power. Whatever it may be 
 your fate to encounter, whether protracted, spirit-subduing indispo- 
 sition, or that solemn and awful change so big with interest to the 
 human heart, and so fitted to awaken its hopes and its fears ; or 
 whether you are to be again restored to the lesser cares and narrower 
 prospects of the present life, in whatever circumstances placed, or 
 by whatever objects surrounded, you will find him to be an all-suffi- 
 cient Savior, and the friend that sticketh closer than a brother. Would 
 that I were more worthy to recommend him to you, more like him- 
 self; but I know you will forgive me the freedom with which I write, 
 and that you will not associate with his infinite wisdom and purity 
 any of the folly or the evil which attaches to, my dear William, your 
 sincere and affectionate friend, 
 
 "HUGH MILLER." 
 
 OFFER OF A SITUATION RESOLVES TO ACCEPT IT SAILS FOR EDIN- 
 BURGH INTERCOURSE WITH SIR THOMAS D. LAUDER LINLITHGOW. 
 
 Many as are the happy circumstances which we have noted in 
 Hugh Millei's life, it is to be remembered that, at the age of thirty- 
 two, he still finds himself a stone-mason ; and that he is ardently at- 
 tached to a lady, whom he has inflexibly resolved not to marry while 
 he continues to earn his bread by the labor of his hands. The scheme 
 of emigration to America, almost insuperable as were his objections 
 to it, begins to be again entertained. " My mother," says Mrs. 
 Miller, "had at length agreed, if nothing suitable turned up, to give 
 us three hundred pounds of mine, of which she had the life-interest; 
 and with this sum we were to face the great wilderness." Such is 
 Hugh's outlook towards the end of 1834 ; the final decision on the 
 question of emigration being, I suppose, deferred until the volume 
 of Traditions, of which we have heard so much, and which is now 
 getting actually into the printer's hands, shall have seen the light. 
 
 One morning he sits down, by invitation, to breakfast with Mr. 
 Robert Ross, just appointed agent of the Commercial Bank in Cro- 
 marty. Mr. Ross is a warm friend of Miller's, and has asked him
 
 428 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 to his house on this occasion to have some talk on a matter of busi- 
 ness. Mr. Ross mentions that he will want an accountant, that the 
 young man who had been thought of for the situation can not find 
 security, and that his guest may have the place if he will. Hugh is 
 taken by surprise, and, with his usual diffidence, commences to make 
 excuse. "I know nothing," he says, " of business, and very little of 
 figures ; there is not a person in the country worse qualified for the 
 office." Mr. Ross understands his man, and persists. "Say, how- 
 ever, that you accept, and I shall become responsible for the rest." 
 Hugh reflects for a few moments. "I thought of the matter; I re- 
 membered that no man was ever born an accountant ; and that the 
 practice and perseverance, which do so much for others, might do a 
 little for me. The appointment, too, came to me so unthought of, 
 so unsolicited, and there seemed to be so much of the providential 
 in it, that I deemed it duty not to decline." This last was no mere 
 conventional phrase on the lips of Miller. His religion, quiet and 
 unobtrusive as it was, had impressed itself upon all his habits of 
 thought and life. It had become the one thing essential to his hap- 
 piness, that he should feel a Divine hand leading him. As usual in 
 the changes of his life, he regarded the alteration in his circumstances 
 with calmness and equanimity, deliberately glad to behold the pros- 
 pect of life in Scotland with the woman he loved opening before 
 him ; but not forgetful of the tranquil hours, so rich in delicate en- 
 joyment of heart and mind, which he had passed, mallet in hand, on 
 the chapel brae of Cromarty, or in sequestered country church-yards, 
 his thoughts busy with some problem of science, or thesis of philos- 
 ophy, or newly discovered jewel of poetry, while nature prepared 
 for him, in every changing aspect of the landscape, a fresh delight 
 for eye and soul. 
 
 To be initiated in banking, it was necessary for him to proceed a 
 second time to the south of Scotland. He sailed for Edinburgh, ex- 
 pecting to be taken into the office of the Commercial Bank there, 
 but found, on his arrival, that he was to be stationed in the branch 
 office at Linlithgow. He spent a few days in Edinburgh, both before 
 going on to Linlithgow, and on his return thence ; and experienced, 
 on both occasions, great kindness from Sir T. Dick Lauder, Mr. 
 Robert Paul, manager of the bank in Edinburgh, and others. 
 
 Hugh was no sooner out of sight of Miss Eraser than he began 
 writing to her. He embarked after nightfall, November 27, 1834; 
 the ship weighed anchor at dawn, and we find him, pen in hand, 
 "tossing on the Moray Frith, on the swell raised by the breeze of 
 the previous night." 
 
 A few days after reaching Edinburgh, the ardent lover nd inde- 
 fatigable correspondent writes that he has been to the Grange House, 
 the residence of Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, and says of his reception 
 with enthusiasm. "I can not express to you the kindness with which 
 I was received. He scolded me for taking lodgings. Why not come
 
 VISIT TO THE GRANGE. 429 
 
 and live with him? And I was only forgiven on condition that, after 
 arranging matters with the secretary of the bank, I should part with 
 my landlady, and take up my abode at the Grange. * I have a snug 
 room for you,' he said; 'breakfast shall be prepared for you to suit 
 your office hours; and in the evening I shall have you to myself. 
 To-morrow you must come and dine with me ; I shall get Black, the 
 book-seller, to meet with you, and meanwhile I shall write him a note 
 that will be at once an introductory one and an invitation.' He then 
 introduced me to Lady Lauder and his daughters; showed me his 
 library, a capacious room, shelved all round, and rich in the litera- 
 ture of the past and the present. 'Here,' said he, 'Robertson, the 
 historian, penned his last work; and here,' opening the door of an 
 adjoining room, ' he died.' He next brought me to the leads of his 
 house ; pointed out the more striking features of the scenery ; told, 
 and told well, a number of little stories connected with it ; showed 
 me the extent of his lands but I want space to enumerate. We 
 parted." 
 
 Armed with Sir Thomas's note, he waits upon Mr. Adam Black, 
 future Lord Provost of Edinburgh, and member of Parliament for the 
 city, and is civilly received. Next day he starts for Linlithgow, and 
 seems hardly alighted there, when his pen is again in requisition, to 
 describe to Miss Fraser what occurred on the evening passed with 
 Sir Thomas. 
 
 " LINLITHGOW, December. 
 
 " I do not know that I have any thing more amusing to communi- 
 cate to you, my Lydia, than what passed during the evening I spent 
 at Sir Thomas's. But I am afraid you will find me no Boswell. I 
 would fain be a faithful chronicler ; but, in attempting to record 
 dialogue, the words always slip away, and only the ideas remain. My 
 invitation was for six o'clock, the fashionable hour for dinner here ; 
 but, by missing the road in the darkness, I was, unluckily, rather late. 
 The Grange House is built in the style of two centuries ago, with a 
 number of narrow serrated gables, that break the light into fantastic 
 masses, by their outjets and indentation ; here a pointed turret, there 
 coped with stone, and bearing the family crest atop ; yonder an 
 antique balustrade ; and, directly in front of the iron-studded door, 
 there are two time-worn columns with a huge dragon sprawling on 
 each. The garden is in quite the same ancient style, planted by some 
 old-world mason, with flights of stairs, cross-walls, and arches. The 
 first thing that caught my eye on entering the lobby was a huge, 
 carved settle, of dark-colored oak, with the bust of a mitred prelate 
 frowning from the wainscoting over it ; there were spears, too, resting 
 against the wall, and in the antique staircase a host of old paintings 
 of ladies, in strange, uncouth dresses, who were loved and married 
 three centuries ago ; and of their lovers and husbands, grim-looking 
 fellows, with long beards and coats of mail. I was ushered into the
 
 430 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 parlor, a splendid apartment, as lofty as any two of our Cromarty 
 rooms placed over each other, and more capacious than any four, with 
 a carved oak roof, paneled sides, antique wainscot furniture, and an 
 immense profusion of paintings. Sir Thomas and Mr. Black were 
 standing beside the fire, discussing the change in the ministry ; Lady 
 Lauder was seated at a work-table a little away. I was received by the 
 lady very kindly, by Mr. Black very politely, by Sir Thomas as if 
 we had been friends and companions for twenty years. The political 
 conversation was then resumed. Sir Thomas remarked that if the 
 Duke of Wellington calculated on the soldiery, and he could not well 
 see what else he could calculate upon, he trusted he had mistaken 
 their spirit. For the army, said he, is composed of the people, and 
 in a time of peace like the present must be imbibing their opinions. 
 I stated to him, in proof of what he remarked, that I had crossed the 
 ferry of Fort George last summer with a party of soldiers, and was 
 interested to learn, from their conversation, that many of them were 
 acquainted with the periodicals, and fond of reading. And I question, 
 I said, whether a reading soldiery be the best for doing every thing 
 they are bid. Sir Thomas deemed the remark of some value, simple 
 as it may seem. . . Sir Thomas showed us a highly interesting 
 relic of Queen Mary, a watch, formed like a human skull, which was 
 presented by her to that Lady Seaton whom Scott has made the 
 heroine of his Abbot. The upper part of the skull is richly embossed 
 with figures; there is the crucifixion, the adoration of the shepherds, 
 and several other Scripture scenes connected with the history of our 
 Savior ; on the sides there is a series of vignettes, the frock without 
 a seam, the nails, the scourge, the crown of thorns, and the spear. 
 The workmanship is evidently French. 
 
 " Sir Thomas took up a volume, presented by Sir Walter Scott to 
 Lady Lauder, and showed us Sir Walter's holograph on the title-page. 
 ' This," said he, ' I deem a valuable volume ; and here is something I 
 consider as equally so.' He opened a portfolio, and showed us the 
 original plan and elevation of Abbotsford, also a present from Sir 
 Walter to the lady. The conversation then turned on Sir Walter. 
 ' I had some curious correspondence with him,' said Sir Thomas, 
 * shortly before his death. Contrary to the opinion he had formerly 
 entertained, he then held with Dr. Jamison, that the Celts had never 
 inhabited the south of Scotland. I instanced several Gaelic names 
 of places in the south among the rest that of his own Melrose, or the 
 barren promontory and he seemed reconvinced ; but half his mind 
 was gone at the time. Our Gaelic names,' continued Sir Thomas, 
 ' are strikingly characteristic of either the scenery of the places which 
 they designate, or of some incident in their history, so very remote, 
 perhaps, as to lie beyond the reach of written records. I was led, 
 after writing my essay on the parallel roads of Glenroy, to examine 
 appearances on the course of the Findhorn, very similar to those of 
 the highland glens. Among the rest there is a holm on the Relugas
 
 CELTIC CHARACTER. 43! 
 
 property, round the sides of which I could trace very distinctly what 
 seemed to have been at one time the shores of a lake ; but what was 
 my surprise when, on asking a Gaelic scholar for the etymology of 
 the name of a field which occupies the upper part of the holm, I was 
 informed that it was composed of two words which mean ' head of the 
 loch.' Now, at how remote a period must not the name have been 
 given ? ' I instanced some of our Cromarty names as apparently of 
 very remote antiquity ; stated that a moor in the upper part of the 
 parish had, as shown by its cairns and its tumuli, been the scene of 
 a battle at so early a period that history bears no recollection of the 
 event, but that a farm in its vicinity still bears the name df Achnagarne, 
 that is, field of the carcasses ; and that a rock in the sea, which Sir 
 Thomas, in his survey of the burgh, has marked out as one of its 
 boundaries, and on which tradition says a boat was once wrecked, is 
 still known as Clach Mallacha, that is, the stone of the curse. We 
 had some conversation on the Celtic character. I described to Sir 
 Thomas the form of the old Celtic head, as given us by the phrenol- 
 ogists, and as I have seen it in the skulls of the Inverness Museum ; 
 concluding my description by remarking that civilization seems to 
 produce variety in the human species, somewhat in the manner that 
 domestication produces it in some of the inferior animals. Sir 
 Thomas seemed pleased with the thought, and illustrated it by a fact 
 or two. 
 
 " He must have been a very busy man. He showed me his 
 Travels in Italy in MS. They form four thick quarto volumes, ele- 
 gantly bound, and illustrated with admirable crow-quill drawings. He 
 showed me an elegant piece of penmanship, ' The Lamentable Case 
 of Sir William Dick,' a thin folio, in which the old style of printing 
 and engraving was so well imitated, that it was only from the freshness 
 of the paper I detected it as a copy. This Sir W. Dick was one of 
 his ancesters (Scott makes David Dean allude to him, in the Heart of 
 Midlothian, as the godly provost), who was possessed, in the days of 
 Charles I. , of the then enormous sum of 200, ooo/. , but who lost almost all 
 during the Commonwealth and the reign of Charles II. Sir Thomas 
 stated to us besides that he had filled with notices of his family a roll 
 of vellum about eighty feet in length. On Mr. Black and I rising to 
 go away, he took down his large stick, and accompanied us by way 
 of guard, he said for about half a mile, and on parting kindly repeated 
 his invitation to me of coming to the Grange the moment I returned 
 from Linlithgow. 
 
 " I do not know that you have ever seen Sir Thomas. He is a 
 noble-looking, elderly man, upwards of six feet in height, very erect, 
 with bold, handsome features, and a profusion of gray hair, approach- 
 ing to white, curling round his temples. His head is a very large 
 one, with a splendid development of sentiment. Benevolence, vene- 
 ration, and ideality seem all of the largest size. Love of approbation 
 and combativeness are also amply developed. His forehead is broad
 
 432 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 and high; but the knowing organs are more powerful than the reflect- 
 ive ones. The contour of the whole is beautiful, and as much the 
 reverse of common-place as any thing you ever saw. 
 
 "My trunk being too bulky for the coach, I took a berth in a 
 canal-boat, which leaves Edinburgh at seven in the morning and 
 reaches this place about ten. I saw little on the passage to interest 
 me except the old castle of Niddrie, at which, as you will remember, 
 Queen Mary passed the night after her escape from Loch Leven, and 
 in which Scott has laid some of the scenes of the Abbot. My fellow- 
 passengers were a Paisley shop-keeper and a Linlithgow farmer; the 
 former a smart, shallow young man ; the latter a shrewd, sagacious old 
 fellow, with a decided cast of dry humor. On landing here, I found the 
 bank-accountant, a Mr. Miller, waiting my arrival. He introduced me to 
 Mr. Paterson, the agent. Both of them are exceedingly civil nay 
 more kind young men ; but the patience of both must be sorely 
 tried ere I can have done with them. I am one of the stupidest 
 blockheads you ever knew ; and, considering how extensive your ex- 
 perience in this way must have been among your pupils, that is saying 
 something. For the first day or two I felt miserably depressed and 
 sadly out of conceit with myself. I do not know what I would not 
 have given to have had you beside me to comfort me, but I dare say 
 you would have begun by laughing at me. My lodgings here are 
 much too fine and too expensive ; but they were taken for me by Mr. 
 Paterson at the request of Mr. Paul, who intimated my coming by 
 letter, and so I could on no account decline them. I dislike expense 
 even for its own sake, and independent of the embarrassment which 
 it always occasions, especially when 'tis incurred for a man's self, 
 for food a little more delicate, and clothes a little finer, than ordinary. 
 My disposition, too, as the Edinburgh phrenologists will, I dare say, 
 find, leads me rather to acquire than to dissipate. . . . Remember, 
 I expect a reply. You little know the exquisite pleasure which I de- 
 rive from your letters." 
 
 In another letter he says to her: "Linlithgow forms, as you are 
 aware, part of the great coal-field of Scotland, and there are pits on 
 every side of it. The coal seems to have been formed out of vast 
 accumulations of reeds, somewhat resembling in appearance, at least, 
 the sugar-cane. To what a remote and misty antiquity do such ap- 
 pearances lead us ! To a time in which the district in which I am 
 now writing to you formed part of the delta of some immense river, 
 which drained of its waters a widely-extended continent, the place 
 of which is now occupied by the Atlantic. Think how many ages 
 must have elapsed before the vegetable spoils of even the largest 
 stream could have formed the depositions of so extensive a coal 
 measure ; how many more must have passed in which new accumu- 
 lations of strata settled above these to a depth of many hundred 
 feet settled so slowly, too, that each layer formed a plain on which 
 plants and animals flourished and decayed. Continue the history till
 
 CHURCH AND PALACE LINLITHGOW. 433 
 
 the immense continent was slowly worn away, and the sea beyond, 
 enriched with the spoils of so many ages, became a scene of earth- 
 quakes and volcanoes; and then, after we have marked in imagina 
 tion the retiring of the waters, and the ascent of a new continent 
 from what had been the profounder depths of the sea, after we are 
 lost in calculating the periods which must have elapsed ere the ascent 
 of one plutonic eminence was followed by that of another, antiquity, 
 as it regards the human race, has but its beginning. I find myself 
 lost in immensity when I think of such matters. But I dare say you 
 have quite enough of geology for one letter. 
 
 "The church of Linlithgow is a fine old building, well-nigh as 
 entire in the present day as it was four centuries ago. In style it 
 seems to hold a middle place between the simple Norman Gothic 
 and the highly ornamental Gothic of the reign of Henry VII.; and 
 there is a chastity in the design of at least the interior, which we 
 may vainly look for in our modern imitation buildings. I never look 
 up to a lofty stone roof without feelings of awe. Burke has said that 
 fear is a necessary ingredient in the sublime. I do not know but 
 that there is a lurking sensation of terror in the feeling which I ex- 
 perience ; it does not owe its existence to the art in which, accord- 
 ing to Thomson, 'greatest seems the little builder man.' I sit in the 
 northern aisle every Sunday, beside a huge column, and directly 
 opposite the gallery in which the specter appeared to James IV. The 
 clergyman is a fine, useless preacher of the Moderate party, who 
 gives us rather ordinary matter dressed up in pretty good language. 
 He does not pray on Sabbaths, like our north-country ministers, to 
 be 'preserved from thinking his own thoughts,' and may, indeed, 
 spare himself the trouble he has none of his own to think. 
 
 "The palace is situated a little behind the church. It is a huge, 
 quadrangular pile, about sixty paces on each side, full of those irregu- 
 larities which would not be tolerated in a modern building, but which, 
 associated as they are with our conceptions of Scotland in the past, 
 please more than elegance itself. There runs along the top a deeply- 
 tusked cornice; the corners are crowned with turrets, and broken 
 piles of building, which finely vary the outline a-top, and rise high 
 above the outer wall on either side. The carvings are sorely time- 
 worn, and they seem to have been grotesque enough when at their 
 best. On either side of an old gateway, which was shut up in the 
 reign of James VI., there are two Gothic niches, surmounted by 
 miniature cupolas that resemble the models of an architect; at the 
 base of each there is the figure stretching forth his hands, and writh-f 
 ing in agony, as if crushed by the superincumbent weight. The 
 Scottish shield, guarded by angels, is blazoned on an immense tablet 
 above. But decay has been busy with the guardians, and with what 
 they guard. There is a large court in the interior, whose corners 
 are occupied by lofty towers, through each of which a staircase leads 
 to the top. The view inside is very striking; all the sides are unlike. 
 28
 
 434 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 One of these was built in the reign of James VI.; and from the ele- 
 gance and peculiar style of the architecture, I would deem it a design 
 of Inigo Jones. The other sides are of a different character, and 
 testify of an earlier age. The windows are square, and huge of dimen- 
 sions, labeled a- top, and divided into compartments by mull ions of 
 stone. There is an uncouth profusion, too, of Gothic sculpture. In 
 the middle of the court there are the ruins of a well, and beside it a 
 hollow which must once have received its waters, and formed a little 
 lake ; but the stream has long since failed. I passed through a wil- 
 derness of arched passages, with windows darkened by mullions of 
 crumbling stone, and grated with wasted iron. I have seen the room 
 in which the unfortunate Mary was born. I have seen, too, the 
 large hall in which our Scottish parliament sometimes assembled, with 
 the stone gallery in which the beauties of other days have listened 
 to the long-protracted and often stormy debate. I ascended to the 
 top of the building, and from an elevation of nearly a hundred feet 
 looked over the surrounding country. The palace is built on a grassy 
 eminence that projects into the lake, which extends about half a mile 
 on either side of it, and nearly as much in front. A curtain of little 
 hills rises from the opposite shore, and shuts in the scene towards the 
 north. To the south we see the town, and the long line of the canal, 
 with its multitudinous bridges; and all around there is an undulating 
 and freely diversified country, studded with abrupt, woody knolls of 
 plutonic formation, and speckled with human dwellings. I need not 
 tell you that, as I looked from the walls and saw so much of the 
 antique and the venerable beneath me, and so much of the beautiful 
 around, I wished for a companion to see all that I saw, and to feel all 
 that I felt ; nor need I say, my Lydia, what companion it was I 
 wished for. Uncommunicated pleasure, you know, is apt to change 
 its nature, and to become pain. 
 
 " Mr. Miller, our accountant here, is the son of a dissenting 
 clergyman who died about four years ago. I have passed an evening, 
 with Mr. Paterson, our bank agent, a frank, obliging young man 
 (he is five years younger than I am), of much general information, 
 and with none of the little pride of our north-country bankers in his 
 composition. Among the many causes of gratitude which Providence 
 has given me, the kindness which I every-where meet with is not one 
 of the least. 
 
 " This is the country of historical associations and historical relics. 
 I described to you the watch of Queen Mary. I have since seen two 
 . pieces of her needle-work. They are at present in the possession of 
 my landlady, who was for many years housekeeper to a lady of quality, 
 whose name I forget, and who, at her death, left her her wardrobe 
 the relics of Mary included. The one is an apron, the other a tippet, 
 both of muslin, which was once white, but which now, both in color 
 and in fragility, resembles a spider's web. The apron is a complex 
 piece of work, nearly as much so as the borders on which I have so
 
 VISITS PRINCIPAL BAIRD. 435 
 
 often seen you engaged ; the tippet is simpler. You will laugh at me 
 when I tell you that, all unpracticed in the art as I am, I am employed 
 in making a pattern of it for you, that you may see how muslin was 
 flowered in the sixteenth century, and bedeck yourself, should you 
 deem it worth your imitation, in the same style of ornament with the 
 beautiful Mary. I need not tell you I am no critic in such matters ; 
 it strikes me, however, that the flowering of both pieces has a grotesque, 
 Gothic air, and differs as much from the needle-work of the present 
 day, as the old castle of the sixteenth century does from the modern 
 mansion-house. In the possession of such persons as my landlady, 
 one frequently meets with interesting relics on the last stage of their 
 journey to oblivion. The work-table on which I write is only about 
 twenty inches square a-top ; yet I am certain that top must have em- 
 ployed some skillful mechanic of a century ago for a full month. It is 
 curiously inlaid with more than four hundred little pieces of colored 
 wood and bone, and represents a flower-piece." 
 
 Later he writes: "I was only a few days in Linlithgow when a 
 gentleman called on Mr. Paterson to inquire for me, stating that 
 Principal Baird was at his country house, and very unwell, but desir- 
 ous notwithstanding that I should call on him on the following 
 Thursday. I then learned for the first time that the Principal's 
 country house is not more than two miles from Linlithgow. I found 
 the grounds in the vicinity of the house laid out into little patches, 
 each bearing a different variety of field or garden vegetables, and 
 altogether presenting the appearance of what is termed an experiment 
 farm. Husbandry and gardening are two of his hobbies. The house 
 is a little, old-fashioned structure. I was shown into a low parlor ; the 
 Principal was in bed, I was told, but was just going to try to get up. 
 He found himself unable to rise, and I was shown up to his room. He 
 received me with great kindness, held my hand between both his for 
 more than ten minutes, and overpowered me with a multitude of ques- 
 tions, particularly regarding my new profession and what had led to 
 it. ' Ah,' said he, when I had given him what he requested, the 
 history of my connection with the bank, ' the choice of your towns- 
 man, Mr. Ross, shows that you still retain your character for steadi- 
 ness and probity.' After sitting by his bedside for a short time, I 
 took my leave, afraid that he might injure himself by his efforts to 
 entertain me ; for they were evidently above his strength. It struck 
 me, too, that there was a tone of despondency about him which mere 
 indisposition could not have occasioned. Benevolent old man ! from 
 what I have since heard, I have too much reason to conclude that his 
 sickness is of the heart." 
 
 Miller proceeds to mention his having formed the acquaintance of 
 a Mr. Turpie, at whose house he was introduced to a Dr. Waldie, 
 both unknown to fame. " Mr. Turpie," he goes on, describing an 
 evening passed in the company of these gentlemen, " took up a book, 
 and showed me what he deemed a very old poem. I read a few
 
 436 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 verses, and pronounced it to be a modern imitation. The decision 
 led to a few queries, and the queries to a sort of colloquial dissertation 
 on old Scottish poetry, a subject with which, you know, I am pretty 
 well acquainted. I quoted Barbour, Dunbar, Gavin Douglas, Lindsay, 
 and a great many others. The obsolete literature of our country was 
 quite a" 'terra incognita to all the party, but they seemed interested by 
 the glimpse I gave them of it ; and Mr. Turpie, when the conversa- 
 tion once more became general, asked me, half in simple earnest, half 
 in the style of compliment (a question which, by-the-by, Mr. Paterson 
 had put to me a few days before), ' Pray, Mr. Miller, are there any 
 books which you have not read ?' A few evenings after, the doctor 
 and Mr. Turpie called on me at my lodgings. The former is a meta- 
 physician, and he had come to me apparently with the intention of 
 discussing what may be termed the metaphysics of phrenology : its 
 connection, for instance, with the grand question of liberty and 
 necessity, and the doctrines of the will. I communicated to him my 
 ideas on the subject as clearly as I could ; met his objections when 
 they could be met ; and showed him I should rather say strove to 
 show him the boundaries of that horizon of darkness which, closing 
 round the human intellect in this direction, renders many of them 
 unanswerable, not because they are powerful as arguments, but because 
 they can not be understood. We parted very well pleased with each 
 other. 'The doctor,' said Mr. Turpie to me a few days after, 'can 
 find no line long enough to measure you by ; he has just met with a 
 Dr. Baird, a nephew of the Principal, who tells him that his uncle is 
 quite enthusiastic regarding you, and deems you equal to any thing.' 
 But enough of this. Never in my life before did I write any thing so 
 redolent of conceit as the last page and a half; but with you, my 
 lassie, I know I am more than safe. Remember, too, I ejive you full 
 liberty to laugh at me as much as you please." 
 
 " EDINBURGH. 
 
 Again in reply to Miss Fraser : " Dear me, what a red-hot 
 Highlander you are ! You make me say things against the poor Celt 
 I never so much as thought of, merely, I suppose, that you may have 
 the pleasure of defending him. Who ever doubted that the poems of 
 Ossian were the compositions of a Scotch Highlander ? Truly not I, 
 nor any one else I ever heard of, except a few Irishmen. They were 
 written by a countryman, every line of them, bating the little bits 
 that were borrowed from Milton and the Bible, by a genuine coun- 
 tryman, who, though not over-endowed with honesty, equaled in 
 genius any writer of his age. Ossian, indeed, or Oscian, as the Irish 
 call him, was, as you know, a bog-trotter of the beautiful island, who 
 made ballads in the days of the good St. Patrick, and sold them for 
 half-pence a piece ; but who can say that of MacPherson ? 
 
 " Since you love Highlanders so well, I fain wish I could introduce 
 you to my cousin, George Munro. I would not fear to match him, as
 
 MUNRO THE HIGHLANDER. 437 
 
 a specimen of what his country can produce, against your Alness 
 Highlander or any Highlanders you ever saw. He resides with his 
 wife and family in Stirling, and since I last wrote you I have spent 
 a day with him. Let me describe him to you as he is, both in mind 
 and person. He is a well-built, robust man of five feet eight, large- 
 limbed, broad-shouldered, keen-eyed, and with resolution stamped on 
 every feature. Nature has written man on his whole appearance in 
 her most legible hand. But what I have to add, will, I am afraid, 
 give you a lower opinion of him. No one ever regarded me as par- 
 ticularly well built or handsome. I am, besides, fifteen years younger 
 than my cousin, and yet, through one of those tricks of resemblance 
 so strangely occasioned by blood, I have been repeatedly addressed as 
 Mr. Munro. His mind is one of the most restless and most concen- 
 trated in its energies I ever knew. He never yet attempted any 
 thing which he did not master, and never mastered any thing of 
 which he did not tire. He was born in the Highlands of Sutherland, 
 and bred a mason ; no one could have fewer opportunities of im- 
 provement, and yet he was not much turned of twenty ere he had 
 added to the commoner rules of his art a knowledge of architecture, 
 drawing, and the mathematics. The intellectual man is rarely an 
 athlete, but George had a body as well as mind to educate, and after 
 studying the mathematics he set himself to study the art of defense, 
 and became so skillful a pugilist that there are few professed boxers 
 who would gain in a contest with him. He resided at this time in 
 Glasgow. On his return home, he married, and took a little farm on 
 the banks of a Highland loch, where he proposed to himself to spend 
 his days. But he soon tired of the agricultural life ; it was too quiet 
 and too monotonous, and, quitting the farm, he engaged as superin- 
 tendent of some saw-mills erecting in that part of the country, and 
 proved for some months, from his thorough, though hastily acquired, 
 knowledge of the machinery, a most serviceable man to his employers. 
 He sickened, however, at the ceaseless clatter of the wheels, and, 
 throwing up his superintendency, he again resumed the mallet. He 
 then became a slater, and proved one of the best in the country; but 
 the details of the art were too soon mastered to engage him long. 
 He next applied himself to Gaelic literature, and published a trans- 
 lation of Bunyan's Visions, which has been commended as true to 
 both the spirit and sense of the original. He then spent some time 
 in fruitlessly attempting to square the circle, in studying botany, and 
 in the composition of a metrical tale. He then taught a school, and 
 applied to the General Assembly to be admitted on their list of 
 teachers ; but was unfortunately unsuccessful. His next employment, 
 unlike any of the others, was almost forced upon him, he was 
 nominated superintendent of a bridge erecting over the Forth, and 
 acquitted himself with so much credit, that some of the neighboring 
 gentlemen urged him to stay in that part of the country. George 
 consented, and became a civil engineer. Lord Abercrombie requested
 
 438 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 him to inspect, if he had courage enough, a copper mine in Airdrie, 
 which had lain unwrought for many years, and which, damp and 
 dark, and full of water and unwholesome gases, was deemed inacces- 
 sible by all the other engineers of the country. George knew very 
 little of copper mines, but he furnished himself with a torch, and, 
 without assistant or companion, explored the cavern to its inmost ex- 
 tremity, and then drew up a report which has since been successfully 
 acted upon. Some works of an unusual and difficult character were 
 projected last season on the river Dee. George undertook the super- 
 intendency of them, constructed a theodolite for himself, accomplished 
 several difficult levelings, which a recent survey has proved to be 
 correct, departed from the original plan, and executed the whole in 
 a manner which the original designer has pronounced more complete 
 and effective. An eminent lawyer has described his reports as at once 
 the plainest and most rational ever presented to him ; but George 
 has become master enough of his new profession to long for another ; 
 and ere I parted from him he told me that he wishes much for some 
 employment, such as that of a Gaelic teacher, which would afford him 
 leisure to write a work on etymology. 
 
 "This is a curious portrait, but it is that of the individual, not that 
 of the Highlander; a few strokes more, and you shall see it envel- 
 oped in tartan. Never was there man more zealous for the honor of 
 his country ; he finds more mind in her poets, and more meaning in 
 her language, than in the language and the poets of every other put 
 together. Ossian surpasses Homer, and nothing can be more absurd 
 than to question the authenticity of his poems. He seems to have 
 attached himself to him by a true Highland contract, and stands by 
 him on all occasions in ' the right and the wrong.' To conclude, he 
 has all the characteristic courage of his countrymen, and all their 
 hospitality and warmth of heart. He accompanied me eleven miles 
 on my way to Linlithgow, and as he shook my hand at parting, I 
 saw the tear gather in his eye. Do not grudge him, my Lydia, the 
 page and a half which I have devoted to him ; nor chide me when I 
 tell you that I read to him the part of your letter in which you describe 
 the Alness Highlander and the Ross-shire clergy. His remark on your 
 style you will deem a neat one. 'There are,' said he, 'more Mrs. 
 Grants than one.' 
 
 "I saw much in my journey that interested me; never before did I 
 pass over so large a tract of the classic ground of Scotland. Almost 
 every stream and mountain in this district have been celebrated in 
 scng ; almost every plain has been a field of battle. I stood at Ban- 
 nockburn, on the stone where Bruce fixed his standard, and repeated 
 to my cousin the spirited description of Barbour. I have seen the 
 scene of Wallace's conference with the elder Bruce; that of the bat- 
 tle of Shirramuir, of Stirling Bridge, and of Falkirk ; the tombs of 
 Sir John the Graham, Sir John Stuart, and Sir Robert Munro ; the 
 site of the house in which James III. was assassinated; the room in
 
 LITERARY PURSUITS. 
 
 439 
 
 Stirling Castle in which his father, James II., stabbed the Black 
 Douglas; the pulpit of John Knox; the Tor-wood in which Wallace 
 so often sheltered from the English, and in which Cargill excommu- 
 nicated Charles II. ; the links of Forth, rendered classic by Macneil ; 
 and the distant peaks of Ben Lomond and Ben Ledi. Had I time 
 for geological disquisition, I could tell you something curious of the 
 valley of the Forth, and of some singular etymologies given me by 
 my cousin, which, like the name of the holm mentioned by Sir 
 Thomas, threw light on a very remote period. In founding the piers 
 of the new bridge, the workmen dug through a layer, composed 
 mostly of marine exuviae, in which they found the skull of a wolf, 
 with several other remains of a very early age, the productions of 
 art. There is an eminence that rises out of the bottom of the valley, 
 quite in the manner that Inchkeith does out of the frith, which still 
 bears in Gaelic the name of the Island, though now fully five miles 
 from the sea; and a hollow that lies still farther up continues to be 
 known as the Bay of the Anchors. But all these topics we shall 
 discuss when we meet. Heigh-ho, my Lydia, we have missed many 
 a happy meeting this winter ! 
 
 "Since coming here I have made a very few accessions to my 
 library. . . My own volume is getting. on pretty well ; I have re- 
 turned proofs of the first two hundred pages; but I am afraid I have 
 committed a sad blunder regarding it. Nothing could have been 
 easier for me than to have rendered it an unbroken series of 
 legendary stories; I have materials at will, and find no difficulty in 
 narration. As it is, however, it abounds in dissertation ; and holding, 
 as it does, a middle station between works of amusement and abstract 
 thinking, runs no small risk, I am afraid, of being neglected by the 
 readers of both. Was it not strange that I should not have discov- 
 ered this when the work was in manuscript ? But it is, I believe, of 
 almost general experience among writers, that their productions must 
 appear in print before they can form an estimate regarding them at 
 all approaching to correct. Lavater used to remark that his works, 
 when in MS., appeared to him almost faultless, though no sooner 
 had they passed through the press than he became frightened to look 
 at them. Pope has expressed himself to nearly the same purpose. 
 Well, the past can't be recalled, but I may trust that my fate is not 
 staked on one throw, and that the next may be a better game. 
 
 "On Wednesday last I dined with Principal Baird, and have seldom 
 spent an evening more pleasantly. He was in one of his happiest 
 moods, and full of anecdote and remark. He seems to form a kind 
 of connecting link between the literature of the past and of the pres- 
 ent age. In his youth he was the friend and companion of men 
 whose names leap to our tongues when we sum up the glories of our 
 country, of Burns and Robertson and Blair. Nearly fifty years ago, 
 he edited the poems of Michael Bruce, in behalf of the mother of 
 the poet, who was then very poor and very old, childless, and a
 
 440 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 widow. Twenty years after, he was the warm friend and patron of 
 the linguist Murray. He was the first who introduced Pringle, the 
 poet, to the notice of the public. He lived on terms of the closest 
 intimacy with Sir Walter Scott, and is thoroughly acquainted with 
 Wilson. What a stride from the times of the historian of Charles V. 
 to those of the editor of ' Blackwood's Magazine ! ' Does it not 
 sound somewhat strangely that the friend and contemporary of the 
 amiable though ill-fated poet of Kinross, who died nearly sixty years 
 
 ago, should be the warm friend of your own H M ? I need 
 
 not tell you how very interesting I found his anecdotes. He gave 
 me notes of his conversations with Burns, and of his correspondence 
 with Scott. One of his remarks regarding the former in connection 
 with somebody else, I am too vain to suppress. 'Burns,' said he, 
 ' excelled, all men I ever knew in force of genius; he leaped to his 
 conclusions with a vigor altogether wonderful ; but I do not agree 
 with those who regard his mind as equally powerful in all its facul- 
 ties. Any task that required prolonged and steady exertion was no 
 task for him ; and I have remarked that his good sense never reached 
 the dignity of philosophy. The writer who chose so humble a 
 theme as the " Herring Fishery of the Moray Frith," has, I dare say, 
 never thought of entering the lists with Burns; nor, perhaps, could 
 he produce such poems as "Tarn o' Shanter" and the "Cotter's 
 Saturday Night;" but, in tracing causes and deducing effects, Burns 
 might just as vainly have entered the lists with him.' ' 
 
 HIS FIRST PROSE BOOK CORRESPONDENCE ON THE SUBJECT LETTERS 
 
 FROM MR. CARRUTHERS AND MR. R. CHAMBERS RECEPTION AND 
 CHARACTER OF THE BOOK DONALD MILLER. 
 
 While initiating himself, not without irksomeness, into the routine 
 of bank business, and astonishing Mr. Turpie by the extent of his 
 reading, Miller occupied his spare moments in Linlithgow in correct- 
 ing the proof-sheets of the "Scenes and' Legends in the North of 
 Scotland."* It was his first grand effort in prose, his first clear pref- 
 erence of a claim to have his name inscribed in the list of English 
 authors. The "Poems by a Journeyman Mason" had been printed 
 at his own expense, in Inverness. The " Letters on the Herring 
 Fishery" had filled but a moderately sized pamphlet. Here, at last, 
 was an unmistakable book, introduced to the reading world by pub- 
 lishing firms of the highest eminence in Edinburgh and London. We 
 have had a glimpse of the difficulties encountered in bringing it this 
 length, but what we have seen will not by any means represent to us 
 their full extent, or the amount of exertion to which Miller submitted 
 
 Reprinted in the United States by Wm. H. Moore & Co., sixteen years later, 
 in 1851, after they published " Foot-prints of the Creator," from the Edinburgh 
 edition, with a sketch of the author's life, by Sir David Brewster.
 
 HIS FIRST PROSE BOOK. 44! 
 
 in the furtherance of his project. From his correspondence on the 
 subject we shall take two or three additional passages, recollecting, 
 while we read, that for at least two years he was engaged in the task 
 of opening a way for the publication of his volume. 
 
 Here, first, is his account of the conception and plan of the book, 
 as presented to his tried and faithful friend, Sir T. D. Lauder, so 
 early as March, 1833: "In making choice of my subject, I thus 
 reasoned with myself: White's 'Natural History of Selborne' is a 
 most popular little book, and deservedly so, though Selborne itself 
 be but an obscure parish somewhere in the south of England. The 
 very local title of the work has not in the least militated against its 
 interest. But why? Partly, it would seem, from the very pleasing 
 manner in which it is written; partly because the natural history of 
 even a single parish may be regarded as the natural history of the 
 whole country in which that parish is included. And may not the 
 germ of a similar popularity be found, if the writer do not fail in his 
 part, in the traditional history of a Scottish village ? Which of all 
 the animals is a more interesting study than man ? Or can those 
 varieties of any of the numerous classes which we find in one district 
 . of country be more clearly identified with the varieties which we find 
 in another, than we can identify with one another those multiform 
 classes of the human character which, though every-where different 
 in their minor traits, are every-where alike in their more important? 
 Besides, the history of one Scottish village is, in some measure, the 
 history of every one; nay, more, it may form a not unimportant 
 portion of that of the kingdom at large. 
 
 The people of Scotland, in all its several districts, have been 
 moving forward, throughout the last century, over nearly the same 
 ground, though certainly not at the same pace; and a faithful 
 detail of the various changes and incidents which have occurred 
 during their march, from what they were in the past to what they 
 are in the present, can not surely be merely local in its interest. 
 What does it matter that we examine but only a little part of any 
 thing, if from that part we acquire an ability to judge of the whole? 
 The philosopher can subject but comparatively small portions of any 
 substance to the test of experiment ; but of how wide an application 
 are the laws which he discovers in the process ! 
 
 "You will perceive at a glance the conception I thus formed of 
 my task was somewhat too high to leave me any very great chance 
 of satisfying myself in the execution of it. I have not done so, and, 
 indeed, could be almost sorry if I had. I have frequently met with 
 an ingenious argument for the immortality of the soul, drawn from 
 the dissatisfaction which it always experiences in the imperfect good 
 of the present, and from its fondly cherished expectations of a more 
 complete good in the future; and so long as I am dissatisfied with 
 what I write, and with how I think, I solace myself, on a nearly 
 similar principle, with the hope that I shall one day write better, and
 
 442 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 think more justly. My traditional history, however, is, I trust, not 
 a very dull one ; it is a different sort of work, in some respects, 
 from any of a merely local cast I have yet chanced to see; and I am 
 of opinion, though I dare say I may be mistaken by that partiality 
 which men insensibly form for any pursuit in which they have long 
 been engaged, that a set of works of a similar character would not 
 be quite without its use in the literature of our country. The occur- 
 rences of even common life constitute, if I may so speak, a kind of 
 alphabet of invention, the types, rather, which genius employs in 
 setting up her forms. She picks them out in little broken bits from 
 those cells of the memory in which they have been stored up, and 
 composes with them entire and very beautiful pieces of fiction. And 
 I am convinced a set of works similar in character to my manuscript 
 history from each district of the kingdom would form a complete 
 part of this kind. Might not such a set be properly regarded as a 
 magazine of materials for genius to work upon?" 
 
 Allan Cunningham, in whom, as a brother of the hammer and a 
 brother of. the pen, Miller took a particular interest, and whom he 
 obliged with the sketch of Black Russel, was applied to when the 
 subscription scheme had been set on foot, in the hope that he might 
 do something for the book in London. 
 
 "CROMARTY, August, 1834. 
 
 "For the last few years, I have devoted to the pen well-nigh all 
 the hours I could spare from the mallet, and have produced a volume 
 which I would fain see in print. It is traditional, and wants only 
 genius to resemble very much stome of your own. Our materials, at 
 least, must have been collected in the same manner and from the same 
 class, in prosecuting a wandering employment in a truly interesting 
 country, rich with the spoils of the past; in the work-shed, and the 
 barrack, and the cottage, from old men and old women, the solitary, 
 fast-sinking remnants of a departed generation. But the mason of 
 the north has no such creative powers as he of Galloway, powers 
 that can operate on a darkened chaos of obsolete superstitions and 
 exploded beliefs, and fashion it into a little poetical world, bright and 
 beautiful, and busy with passion and life. Still, however, my tradi- 
 tions are not without their interest, though possibly they may owe 
 little to the collector. They are redolent of Scotland and the past, 
 and form the harvest of a field never yet subjected to any sickle ex- 
 cept my own. Our northern districts seem to have produced many 
 that could invent, but none that could give their inventions much 
 publicity; many that could think and feet poetry, but none that could 
 write it; their literature is, consequently, an oral literature; their 
 very history is traditional ; they may be thought of as fields unreaped, 
 as mines unopened ; and must not some little interest attach to a 
 work, however deficient as a piece of composition, that may properly 
 be regarded as a sample of the grain, a specimen of the ore? I trust,
 
 A FRIENDLY REPLY. 443 
 
 however, that my mode of telling my stories will not be deemed very- 
 repulsive. I have had a hard and long-protracted struggle with the 
 disadvantages attendant on an imperfect education. To you, at least, 
 I need not say how hard and how protracted such a struggle must 
 always prove; but I have at length, I trust, got on the upper side of 
 them; and, if I eventually fail, it will be rather from a defect of 
 innate vigor than from any combination of untoward circumstances 
 pressing upon me from without. 
 
 " I publish by subscription,* from the nature of the work and 
 the obscurity of the writer, the only way open to me. But, trust me, 
 I have no eye to pecuniary advantage ; I would not give a very little 
 literary celebrity for all the money I ever saw ; besides, bad as the 
 times are, I am master enough of the mallet to live by it. I could 
 ill-afford, however, the expense of an unlucky speculation; and, as 
 literature is not so much, thought of in Cromarty as the curing of 
 herrings, I find that, without extending my field, I can not securely 
 calculate on covering the expense of publication. Forgive me that I 
 apply to you. I am a pilgrim, passing slowly and heavily along the 
 path which leads right through the wicket; now floundering through 
 the mud of the slough, now journeying beside the hanging hill, now 
 plodding through the low-lying grounds haunted by Apollyon. And 
 what wonder that I should think often and much of one who has 
 passed over the same tract, and who, undeterred by the dark valley 
 or the enchanted grounds, with all their giants and all their wild 
 beasts, has at length set him down amid the gardens of Beulah, in full 
 view of the glorious city? .... My book-sellers in London 
 are Smith and Elder, to whom, should you succeed in procuring a few 
 names for me, the list may be transmitted." 
 
 Allan sent a few sensible and friendly words in reply. "I am glad 
 that you think of publishing; for there is so much truth and nature 
 and information in your writings, that they can not fail of doing your 
 name a good turn. A work of the kind set forth in your prospectus 
 will be welcome to all true-hearted Scotsmen; and, though limited in 
 its range, will influence many who live besouth the Tweed. I have 
 laid one of your printed intimations on the table of my book-seller, 
 and desired him to mention it to his visitors. When the work appears 
 I will say a good word for it with all my heart. I mentioned it to 
 some friends here ; but you must understand that the Londoners are 
 not accustomed to put down their names for works of a literary nature, 
 whatever the merit may be; but this must not discourage you ; almost 
 all authors sacrifice a work or two for the sake of having their merits 
 made widely known. I did this; and now I find purchasers, though 
 I found few at first. I desired our mutual friend Carruthers to place 
 
 *As authors often do now, by getting friends to subscribe before printing is 
 begun ; this, however, is not the American mode of publishing wh.xt arc known as 
 M subscription books."
 
 444 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 my name among the subscribers long before you wrote to me. Your 
 book-seller must send copies to most of the influential newspapers and 
 reviews ; a kind word from them saves an advertisement, and possibly 
 helps the sale of the works. But take a brother-mason's as well as a 
 brother-writer's advice: Don't be too solicitous about being noticed 
 in reviews; let the thing take its course: a worthy work seldom 
 fails." 
 
 One sample will suffice of the letters in which he applied to gentle- 
 men of influence landed proprietors, clergymen, leading merchants . 
 in his district, to countenance his enterprise. 
 
 TO SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE, OF COUL, BART. 
 
 "Permit me to submit to your judgment the inclosed prospectus. 
 I am acquainted with only your writings, and the high character 
 which you bear as a gentleman of taste and science ; but there is 
 more implied in such an acquaintance than in a much closer intimacy 
 with a common mind ; and it is the knowledge I have derived from 
 it which now emboldens me to address you. 
 
 "I am one of the class, almost peculiar to Scotland, who became 
 conversant in some little degree with books and the pen amid the 
 fatigues and privations of a life of manual labor. For several years 
 past I have amused my leisure hours in striving to acquire the art of 
 the writer, and in collecting and arranging the once widely spread, 
 but now fast sinking, traditions of this part of the country. I have 
 written much, that I might learn to write well, and have made choice, 
 as the scene of my exertions, of a field so solitary and little known 
 that I might not have to contend with laborers more practiced than 
 myself; and I have found in this field much that I have felt to be 
 interesting, and much that I deem original, incidents of a structure 
 wholly unborrowed, striking illustrations of character and manners, 
 inventions not unworthy of poetry, and strongly defined traces of 
 thought and feeling, which might afford employment to the philoso- 
 pher. 
 
 "My amusements at length produced a volume which, though not 
 quite such a work as I had conceived might have been written on the 
 subject, I deemed not entirely devoid of merit. I submitted my MS., 
 through Sir Thomas D. Lauder (a gentleman who has honored me 
 by his notice and shown me much kindness), to some of the literati 
 of Edinburgh. Their judgment regarding it has been favorable 
 beyond my most sanguine anticipations. Still, however, the work is 
 local in its character, and more exclusively so in its title, and in times 
 like the present I can have nothing to expect from the book-sellers. 
 But the circumstances which militate most against the general interest 
 of the work must have some little tendency to impart to it a particular 
 interest in the district of country whose traditions it relates, and whose 
 scenery and general character it purports to describe. If, like a con- 
 vex lens, the focus bears on only a narrow space, in that narrow space
 
 MR. BLACK PUBLISHES HIS BOOK. 445 
 
 the rays must be concentrated. For a work of this kind the mode 
 of publishing by subscription is the only available one; and, after 
 hesitating long, for the scheme has often been resorted to in this part 
 of the country by men of an inferior cast, inferior both in sentiment 
 and intellect, and I was unwilling it should be thought that I had any 
 thing in common with them, -^- 1 now betake myself to it. I would ill- 
 like to risk my respectability as a man for the uncertain chance of 
 being a little known as a writer; but there is surely nothing mean in 
 a mode of publication which such men as Pope and Cowper and Burns 
 have had recourse to. The meanness must consist not abstractedly in 
 the scheme itself, but, when the work chances to be a worthless one, 
 in the inveigling the public into what must be regarded as an unfair 
 bargain. I have no eye to pecuniary advantage. My hopes and fears 
 are those of the literary aspirant only ; and, little known either as a 
 man or a writer, my eye naturally turns to one whose favorable opin- 
 ion, holding as he does so high a place in society and letters, would 
 obtain for me the suffrages of the class best able to forward my little 
 plan." 
 
 The disappointment experienced by Miller in procuring the publi- 
 cation of his book was confined to his attempts to induce a book- 
 seller to undertake the risk of issuing it. No sooner did he adopt the 
 plan of subscription than he met with eijcouragement and aid on all 
 hands. Without any conscious effort, he had succeeded in inspiring 
 every one who knew him with confidence, and those who knew him 
 well were not only confident of his future, and proud of his abilities, 
 but bound to him by strong personal attachment. He had shown 
 himself friendly, and he had found friends who took delight in serv- 
 ing him. 
 
 At last Mr. Black agreed to publish on terms which, under 
 the circumstances, must be pronounced generous. Miller received 
 four hundred copies for his subscribers at cost price, and, in the event 
 of profit being realized on the sale of the remainder of an edition of 
 one thousand two .hundred and fifty copies, was to share it with Mr. 
 Black. The selling price was fixed at seven shillings and sixpence. 
 On these terms, Miller would clear about sixty pounds, even if the 
 unsubscribed copies should not sell. These terms were not arranged 
 until after Mr. Black had met Miller in Edinburgh, and it is evi- 
 dent that he also had learned to believe that the Cromarty mason, 
 just developing into a bank clerk, was a man with a future. 
 
 In the spring of 1835, then, the book was in the hands of the 
 subscribers, and congratulations poured in upon Miller. He was in a 
 mood of quiet satisfaction, wholly unimpassioned, nay, he was not 
 without anxiety as to the loss which might be incurred by Mr. Black ; 
 his friends were joyful, cordial, exultant. Here is a heart-warming 
 letter from Mr. Carruthers:
 
 446 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 "INVERNESS, April 17, 1835. 
 
 " Many thanks for your bonny little book. It was delivered to 
 me yesterday evening about six o'clock, and I went through fully 
 three-fourths of it before going to bed. Depend upon it, my dear 
 fellow, you have made a hit this time. I don't say that the Legends 
 will lift you into high popularity with all your robes and singing gar- 
 lands just at once. Your fame will not come rushing on you like a 
 spate. But the book will have a steady general sale, and will lay the 
 foundation of a permanent literary reputation, destined, I trust, to go 
 on increasing, and to be crowned with many honors. 
 
 " You are right in your remark about there being rather too much 
 dissertation, especially in the first two or three chapters. This surplus, 
 like that of the Irish Church, would have, perhaps, been better ap- 
 propriated to other purposes; yet one soon becomes reconciled to it 
 or ceases to consider it unnatural. I think you lack dramatic power, 
 at least, your sketches of character struck me as inferior to the descrip- 
 tive and moralizing passages. I should, however, except honest Don- 
 ald Miller, who is equal to Washington Irving's happiest creations. 
 The great charm of the book is, that it is full of original matter, 
 not concocted from other works, though you have much curious read- 
 ing, too, but fresh and flowing, full of truth and nature. Taste, you 
 know, is a plant of very slo^v growth, yet you have already outstrip- 
 ped our friend Allan Cunningham in this respect. Allan had better 
 opportunities than you in his early days. His father had an excellent 
 library, was an intelligent man, and mixed with intelligent people. 
 Nay, the poet himself was turned of thirty, had been a reporter for the 
 London press, and was almost necessarily well versed in critical lore, 
 before he tried his hand at prose. Yet even his last work, his Life of 
 Burns, is full of sins against right taste and delicacy of feeling. But, af- 
 ter all, your solitude and seclusion were your best teacher. We may 
 wonder how you got your style, so pure and vigorous ; but it was 
 your lonely communings with nature that fixed the matter in your 
 mind, and gave it room to grow. You studied deeply and minutely 
 all you heard, read, and saw, and thus came to your task fraught with 
 thoughts, feeling, and knowledge, pondered over daily for years, and 
 molded into perfect shapes. Your imagination had merely to supply 
 a coping for this depository. But I am getting too dissertative myself. 
 If the 'Edinburgh Review' is at your command, turn to one of the 
 early volumes for a review of ' Cromek's Reliques,' and you will find 
 some excellent observations of Jeffrey, on the peculiar position of 
 Burns in his youth. Situation is as necessary for the proper growth 
 of genius as of forest-trees; and I can not help thinking, my dear 
 friend, that though your early lot has been hard, it has been favorable 
 for the development of your mental power. 
 
 " It will be your own fault if you do not sail with full and pros- 
 perous gale. Your next appearance will be looked forward to with
 
 SENDS A COPY TO MR. CHAMBERS. 447 
 
 interest, and will secure you good terms with your book-seller. Pub- 
 lishers are a fraternity wise in their generation, and I really think they 
 will be casting out nets for you hereafter. I hope you will go on 
 writing and accumulating materials. You speak of White's ' Selborne' 
 as a sort of model. Your work resembles Crabbe's 'Borough,' and 
 his general style, much more closely. The same faithful and minute 
 painting of humble objects; the same love of the sea and all pertain- 
 ing to it, fishes, men, and marine scenery. Of course the characters 
 are different, being modified by national and local circumstances. 
 We of Scotland have the advantage in point of morality and staid 
 demeanor. But Crabbe's poachers and navigators, with their strong, 
 unbridled passions, are perhaps better fitted for poetry. What do 
 you say to a series of sketches in verse of your Cromarty worthies, 
 their characters, passions, and adventures? Of this, and fifty other 
 subjects, I shall hear you speak, I hope, soon. When the sun gets 
 warmer, and spring is leading (as Wordsworth finely says) her earliest 
 green along the leaves, I shall steal away some Friday 1 or Saturday, 
 and ruralize with you on the hill-side over the bay. I hope sincerely 
 that Wilson will shine on you with one of his long, laudatory, imag- 
 inative articles in 'Blackwood.' Adam Black will take every means 
 of giving you publicity. But I see no fear of your success, so that 
 the pushing of the trade will be the less necessary. I send you a 
 capital review from the 'Spectator,' which you may not have seen. 
 Tell me, from time to time, how you get on, and how the work goes 
 off." 
 
 Miller sent at this time a copy of his book of poems to Mr. Rob- 
 ert Chambers, accompanying it with the following letter: 
 
 "The Moray Frith has been so blocked up this spring, by the 
 westerly winds, thaf it is only now an opportunity occurs of sending 
 you the Jacobite Psalm which I mentioned to you when in Edinburgh. 
 It is by no means a very polished composition, but the writer was 
 evidently in earnest; and in the closing stanzas there is an energy and 
 power, united to much simplicity, which he must have owed rather to 
 his excited feelings as a Scotchman and a Jacobite, than to his art 
 as a poet. It has struck me as a curious fact, and one which I do 
 not remember to have seen noticed, that almost all our modern Jaco- 
 bites are staunch Whigs. Burns was a representative of the class, and 
 I think I see from the verses of the poor Jacobite Psalmist, that had 
 he flourished ninety years later he would have been a Whig too. 
 
 " Oblige me by accepting the accompanying volume. It contains, 
 as you will find, a good many heavy pieces, and abounds in all the 
 faults incident to juvenile productions, and to those of the imperfectly 
 taught; but you may here and there meet in it with something to 
 
 amuse you My forthcoming volume, which I trust I 
 
 shall be able to send you in a few weeks, will, I hope, better deserve 
 your perusal. And yet I am aware it has its heavy pieces, too, dan- 
 gerous-looking sloughs of dissertation, in which I well-nigh lost my-
 
 448 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 self, and in which I shall run no small risk of losing my readers. 
 
 i) 
 
 To this there came, in due course, the following reply: 
 
 "ANNE STREET, EDINBURGH, March 31, 1835. 
 
 " I have just received your letter of the ipth inst., with the accom- 
 panying volume, of which I have already read a considerable portion. 
 It is fortunate it arrived to-day, as I was about to write for another 
 purpose than the acknowledgment of your letter ; and it is better to 
 kill two birds with one stone than a single one only. My object was 
 to mention that I have read your history of Cromarty all to the last 
 two chapters, being, perhaps, the fourth or fifth work of which I have 
 read so much of these half dozen years. For a copy which has been 
 sent to me, apparently by your order, I beg to thank you, but I had 
 previously bought one, and was by that time far on in the perusal of 
 it. Further, I have put an extract from it into our printer's hands, 
 with a preliminary notice, in which I express my opinion of it; three 
 weeks, however, must elapse before this can appear. I think you will 
 not be displeased with the terms in which I have spoken of the vol- 
 ume and its author; at least, I am very sure that the notice is meant 
 for the benefit of both. I dwell chiefly on the value which I conceive 
 the book to have, as an example of the operations of a mind of deep 
 reflection and sensibility, reared amidst humble scenes and circum- 
 stances, imperfectly educated, and in want of all appropriate material 
 to act upon. Yet, while acknowledging that the reflection and the 
 sensibility are often misspent, I take care to convey the impression 
 that the book is a good one of the kind it professes to belong to, 
 and calculated to afford much amusement to the reader, for I believe 
 it would not be bought as a ' psychological curiosity ' only. Between 
 ourselves, I think it would have been better to retrench a good deal 
 of the moralizing in the early chapters. I assure you, though not un- 
 accustomed to philosophical reading, I find your thinking pretty hard 
 and solid ; it requires a little more time and pains to follow you than 
 the most of us care to expend on a book of what we suppose light 
 reading. The history of Cromarty ! you would have made a history 
 of John o* Groat's house philosophical, I believe. Yours seems to 
 be the true sort of mind to make minnows talk like whales. Such 
 powers are not appropriate to topographical narration, or the chroni- 
 cling of old stories. A playful fancy and a power of whimsical allu- 
 sion answer these walks of literature much better. You are like a 
 man assorting needles with a gauntlet. I must also mention to your- 
 self that I have found a few little matters in your volume which can 
 not be traditionary; such, for instance, as a George's Square in Edin- 
 burgh, some fifteen years before the actual erection of the place bear- 
 ing that name ; the numbering of houses, too, when there were no 
 numbers; and the coming by the head of Leith Walk from Queens- 
 ferry to Edinburgh. You speak of dates of the thirteenth and four-
 
 MR. CHAMBERSS LETTER. 
 
 449 
 
 teenth centuries on the front of Urquhart Castle, in connection with 
 architectural styles, I am sure not much earlier than the seventeenth, 
 and when I am equally sure that no dates were carved on houses in 
 Scotland, at least, far as I have ridden, and much as I have seen in 
 my native country, I never saw a date upon a building earlier than the 
 sixteenth century. This shows that you fill up and round off; and 
 why not ? but only such matters must be managed discreetly. 
 
 " I am much obliged by the Jacobite Psalm, which is certainly much 
 above the tame poetry of the period. Your remark about the Jaco- 
 bites has often struck myself. I account for their becoming Liberals 
 in after-times, by the fact of Jacobitism at length becoming identified 
 with a patriotic indignation at the corrupt government of the early 
 Brunswick sovereigns, in which last character it must have very readily 
 associated with modern Liberalism. . 
 
 _" I had thought of it as a duty to endeavor to give you some hints 
 as to your future conduct in literature, such as a metropolitan may 
 be sometimes able to give to a provincial. But now that I see your 
 volume, I deem it needless to try. A mind such as you have the for- 
 tune to possess can hardly ever or anywhere be at a loss. I could 
 hope, however, that you may keep in view the advantage, for your 
 own happiness, of advancing into some more conspicuous situation in 
 life, where the powers and tendencies of your mind may find more 
 fitting scope and exercise than at present. For the attainment of such 
 an end, great worldly prudence, and what people are now universally 
 calling tact, are as essentially necessary as the bare possession of tal- 
 ent ; and here I hope you will never be found wanting. With the 
 best wishes for your happiness, under whatever circumstances, I re- 
 main, etc." 
 
 The Jacobite Psalm, referred to by Mr. Chambers, is what Miller 
 describes as " a curious version of the one hundred and thirty-seventh 
 Psalm, the production of some unfortunate Jacobite." 
 
 "My legendary volume," says Miller in the "Schools and School- 
 masters," "was, with a few exceptions, very favorably received by the 
 critics. Leigh Hunt gave it a kind and genial notice in his 'Journal ;' 
 it was characterized by Robert Chambers not less favorably in his; 
 and Dr. Hetherington, the future historian of the Church of Scot- 
 land and of the Westminster Assembly of Divines, at that time a 
 licentiate of the Church, made it the subject of an elaborate and 
 very friendly critique in the 'Presbyterian Review.'" We have 
 already referred 'to the remark on its style made by Baron Hume, and 
 the eager delight of Miller at being recognized as a worthy successor 
 of the Addisons and Goldsmiths, at whose feet he had loved to sit. 
 The book "attained no great popularity;" but it crept gradually into 
 circulation, and moved off "considerably better in its later editions 
 than it did on its first appearance." 
 
 These words are likely to prove true for an indefinite period. This 
 is one of those books which has to find its readers, but which, when 
 29
 
 450 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 it has found, retains them by a charm like that of old friendship and 
 of old wine. There is in it an aroma of racy thought and natural 
 home-bred feeling. We may call it a bit of genuine historical litera- 
 ture, for it reproduces with vivid fajthfulness the aspect of human 
 life in one particular corner of the planet. The actual fields and 
 waters, crags and woods, green dells and bleak moors, gray castles 
 and thatched cottages, wimpling burns, and broomy braes, and brown 
 sea-shores, beside which Miller has played since childhood, form the 
 scenery of the drama; and, amid these, life goes masquerading in its 
 coat of many colors, life, with its fitful changes and abrupt contrasts, 
 its heart-wrung tears and grotesque grins, its broken-winged sublimi- 
 ties and grandeurs tempered by absurdity; its queer jumble of tragedy 
 and comedy, and merry scorn of all the unities. The writing is, 
 perhaps, too careful for full display of strength. Miller lingered for 
 many years over his stories, copying and recopying, here polishing 
 down a roughness, there throwing in a touch of color; now rounding 
 a sentence with more subtle curve, now drawing out a similitude with 
 more elaborate precision, grudging no labor and no time. In this 
 kind of work his arm could not show its sweep and power. In much 
 of his subsequent writing there is a rapid force, a rhythmic energy, 
 which we do not find in the Addisonian periods of his first prose 
 book. But in quiet, delicately wrought perfection; in beauty fine as 
 the tints of a shell, as the veining of a gem, as the light and shade 
 of a cameo, Miller never surpassed, if he ever equaled, some parts 
 of this volume. The hint of Mr. Carruthers as to its defect in dra- 
 matic power is not without pertinency and justice. Hugh had trained 
 himself to narrative, and was comparatively unskilled in dialogue ; 
 but the essential element in dramatic power, the ability to realize 
 human character and feeling in different situations, is certainly dis- 
 played in the "Scenes and Legends." The characters live. We 
 see them; occasionally we hear them, and what they say is character- 
 istic; it is mainly the dramatic form, not the dramatic substance, 
 that is wanting. 
 
 To illustrate the careful finish of this book, it would be easy to find 
 a number of passages, exquisite descriptions of landscape, specially 
 felicitous similitudes, apt and eloquent reflections; but to select from 
 these one or two brief enough for quotation, and decisively the best 
 to be had, would be exceedingly difficult. We therefore refer the 
 reader to the work itself. 
 
 It is, perhaps, worthy of mention that, in his researches into the 
 history of his native district and of its remarkable men, he had come 
 upon evidence that he had the blood of Sir Thomas Urquhart, of 
 Cromarty, in his veins. Far too proudly contemptuous of such a 
 title to distinction to specify the fact in his published writings, he 
 nevertheless referred to it, when the matter turned up in conversation, 
 as incontrovertible. The chapter devoted to Sir Thomas in the 
 "Scenes and Legends" describes him as a man of genius and learn-
 
 LETTER TO MISSDUNBAR. 451 
 
 ing, but fantastic, speculative, and eccentric in the highest degree. 
 He flourished in the times of the Covenant and Commonwealth. 
 
 DEATH OF MISS DUNBAR. 
 
 During those months which Miller passed in Linlithgow, his friend, 
 Miss Dunbar, lay on her death-bed, slowly sinking under intolerable 
 agonies. She retained her faculties unimpaired, and in the intervals 
 of pain manifested that gracious interest in all that concerned her 
 friends, which characterized her in health. Her malady was known 
 to be incurable, but it does not appear that Miller was- aware of 
 any reason for apprehending that it would soon have a fatal termin- 
 ation. He continued, therefore, to write to her in the light, dis- 
 cursive manner he had previously adopted. 
 
 " LINLITHGOW. 
 
 " I must try to coin time (the phrase is poor Henry Kirke White's, 
 who killed himself in the process), in which to show you that the 
 hurry of my new occupation is as unable to dissipate the recollection 
 of your kindness as the rougher fatigues of my old one. The more I 
 see of life the more I am convinced that ' it is not in man that walk- 
 eth to direct his steps.' Here am I in Linlithgow, acquiring that 
 degree of skill in business matters that may fit me for a bank ac- 
 countant. Six weeks ago I had as much thought nay, more of 
 emigrating to the wilds of America. 
 
 " I would much rather have spent in Edinburgh the few weeks I 
 have to pass in this part of the country than here ; but it was neces- 
 sary, in order to acquire the skill of the branch-accountant, that I 
 should remove to a branch bank; and, as I take care never to quar- 
 rel with necessity, I get on pretty well. . . ." 
 
 Miss Dunbar writes in reply, under date of January i, 1835, in 
 which she says : 
 
 "It is now two o'clock, and I am but just up and dressed, and 
 this is my first occupation. I heard of your appointment from the 
 newspaper, and of your having gone to Edinburgh, from an acquaint- 
 ance. Pardon me, my dear friend, some sad thoughts I may even 
 call them bitter ones I will own I had, amid all the pleasure which 
 both circumstances afforded me. I have always borne much good- 
 will to my acquaintance and friends in general ; there are few whom 
 I absolutely dislike, and not a few whom I really like much; but 
 there was always one who more particularly occupied my heart, and 
 whom I loved more than all the rest put together, and for the last 
 five years you have been that one ; and now that I have so short a 
 time to be here, I can have no hope of ever again seeing you. But 
 I assure you the sad, bitter thoughts were but passing ones ; and your 
 letter gave me entire pleasure. 
 
 "There is scarcely any one I am sorry to part with- but you. God
 
 45 2 HUGHMILLER. 
 
 knows how fervently I wish you life and happiness, and your ad- 
 vancement in public favor. I consider your late appointment as very 
 respectable, and as procured for you in the most agreeable and deli- 
 cate manner, but can not help regarding your literary pursuits as the 
 main business of your life. When, probably, will your book be out? 
 or is it actually gone to press? Many a time I have wondered to 
 myself if ever I shall see it, and have sometimes hopes that I may ; 
 but were I to be guided by my present feelings of pain and discom- 
 fort, I should say the thing is not very likely. . . . You are not 
 aware of Lord Medwyn's high appreciation of your genius. It was 
 to his brother, Mr. John Forbes, that Major Gumming Bruce lately 
 transmitted one of your letters and extracts from your 'Traditional 
 History,' given him by the Messrs. Anderson, in four franked covers. 
 The major had sent to me, as a thing of course, for your address, 
 that Mr. Forbes might have waited On you; but I could give him no 
 
 clue " 
 
 Before writing the next letter, Miller heard that Miss Dunbar 
 had just lost by death two near relatives to whom she was much at- 
 tached. The thought of her bereavement recalled to him his own 
 sorrow for departed friends, and in pensive mood, tenderly sym- 
 pathetic, deeply affectionate, he took pen in hand, and described to 
 her his experience of grief. If we would understand the enthusiasm 
 of love with which all who knew Hugh Miller well regarded him, 
 we ought to consider carefully the heart-delineation of this letter : 
 
 " CROMARTY, March, 1835. 
 
 "Intelligence of your sad bereavement reached me through the 
 medium of the newspapers. I can not express what I felt. I 
 knew that your cup was full before, full to the brim ; but I saw 
 that, regarding it as mingled by your Father, you were resigned 
 to drink. Now, however, a new ingredient has been added, an in- 
 gredient bitterer, perhaps, to a generous mind than any of the others. 
 To days of languor and nights of suffering, torn affections and 
 blighted hopes have been added; and those relatives to whom the 
 overcharged heart naturally turns for solace and sympathy are equally 
 involved in misfortune. When we sit during the day in a darkened 
 chamber, we have but to throw open a casement and the light comes 
 pouring in ; but it is not so during the night, when there is no light 
 to enter. You were before sitting in the shade, not, however, in so 
 deep a recess but that at times a ray reached you from without ; but I 
 now feel that your sad bereavement must have converted your day 
 into night; that you are sitting in darkness, and that an atmosphere 
 of darkness surrounds you. 
 
 "I am not unacquainted with grief. There are friends separated 
 from me by the wide, dark, impassable gulf, whom I can not think 
 of even yet without feeling my heart swell. . . . Grief, my dear 
 madam, is an idolater. It first deifies, and then worships. It has a
 
 ANOTHER LETTER TO MISS DUNBAR. 453 
 
 strange power, too, of laying hold of the moral sense, so that it be- 
 comes a matter of consequence with us to deny ourselves all pleasure, 
 and to reject all comfort, in what we deem justice to the deceased. 
 There is something wonderful in the feeling I have not yet seen ex- 
 plained. It seems to have its seat deep in the mysterious parts of 
 our nature, and constitutes a tie to connect, as it were, the living with 
 the dead. No man who truly deserves the name can desire to die 
 wholly unlamented ; and the regret which the heart claims for itself, 
 it willingly oh, how willingly! renders to another. We weep not 
 for ourselves, but in justice to the lost, and even after exhausted na- 
 ture can not yield another tear, there is a conscience in us that chides 
 us for having sorrowed so little. I need not ask you if you have ex- 
 perienced this feeling ; no heart was ever truly sorrowful without the 
 experience of it. It is a sentiment of our nature that lies contiguous, 
 if I may so express myself, to that noble sentiment which leads us, 
 independent of our reasonings, to feel that there is a hereafter. For 
 do we not think of the dead to whom we owe so many tears, as a 
 being who exists; and could we owe any thing to either a heap of 
 dust or a mere recollection ? It may be well, however, to remind 
 you that there is a time when the claims of this moral sense should 
 be resisted. It continues to urge that tribute be given to the dead 
 long after the tribute is fully paid, and spurs on exhausted nature to 
 fresh sorrows, when the voice of duty and the prostration of the en- 
 ergies call it to repose. . . -, . 
 
 " I shall not urge with you the commoner topics of consolation; I 
 know the heart will not listen even when the judgment approves. 
 Grief is a strange thing; it is both deaf and blind. Where could it 
 be more perfectly pure from every mixture of evil and folly than in 
 the breast of our Savior? and yet even in him we see it finding vent 
 in -a flood of tears, when he must have known that he whom he 
 mourned as dead was to step out before him a living man. Can I, 
 then, hope to dissipate your sorrow? Can I urge with you any argu- 
 ment of consolation equally powerful with the belief which he enter- 
 tained? or, were I possessed of some such impossible argument, 
 could I hope that it would have more influence with you than that be- 
 lief had with him ? He believed, and yet he wept. May I not re- 
 mind you, however, that he who sorrowed then can sympathize in our 
 sorrows now ; that he loved little children, and declared that of such 
 is the kingdom of heaven ; and that he has enjoined us, through his 
 servant, not to sorrow at those who have no hope?" 
 
 At about the same time, perhaps in the very hour, when this letter 
 was put into the hand of Miss Dunbar, the "Scenes and Legends," 
 for which she had looked with a solicitude more tenderly intense than 
 that of Miller himself, reached Forres. The heart of the sweet and 
 gentle lady thrilled once more amid her anguish with a joy like that 
 of a mother when she knows that a beloved son, whose efforts she has 
 long watched, with whom she has long hoped and feared, whose
 
 454 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 claim to a place of honor among men she has never questioned, has 
 at last done something which will compel the world to own that he is 
 all she knows him to be. Miss Dunbar wrote Miller the following 
 touching letter, probably the last she ever penned : 
 
 " I know you wish to hear from me, and in gratifying you I would 
 gratify myself, for I have much to say to you, but, alas! the power 
 of writing is past. My intervals of ease from most excruciating pain 
 are truly like angel visits ; and when they do occur I am in such a 
 state of lowness and exhaustion as to be incapable of any exertion. 
 I am now raised up, and supported in bed by pillows, while I make 
 this, I fear, last effort to write to you. . . . What can I do, but 
 throw myself on His mercy who is the Sent of God ? He is my rock, 
 my strength, my hope in life and in death. Often do I wish to see 
 you, and to hear you speak of the things which pertain to eternity. 
 I recollect the light and comfort I derived from your conversation 
 last summer. . . . But to the Book ; contrary to all my anticipa- 
 tions, I have lived to have it in my hand! What shall I say of it? 
 It would seem, from the very little of it I have yet read, as if I were 
 quite satisfied with seeing and handling it. I look into every chapter, 
 I glance over the whole, but somewhat childlike, I feel too happy 
 to read." 
 
 Hugh, with no suspicion that the end was near, had begun his 
 reply to this letter, and finished two or three pages, when he received 
 the following notice: 'Torres, June 30, 1835. Miss Dunbar, of 
 Boath, died here last night at half- past ten o'clock." 
 
 In a letter written, a few days subsequently, to Sir Thomas D. 
 Lauder, Miller refers to Miss Dunbar as follows : 
 
 " My kind friend, Miss Dunbar, of Boath, is dead; she died on the 
 evening of Monday, the zgi\\ ultimo. For the last four years her life 
 has been one of much suffering; but she had a youthfulness of spirit 
 about her that availed itself of every brief cessation from pain. She 
 had learned, too, to draw consolation and support from the best of 
 all sources; and so, her latter days, darkened as they were by a 
 deadly and cruel disease, have not been without their glimpses of 
 enjoyment. Her heart was one of the warmest and least selfish I 
 ever knew. It was not in the power of suffering, or of the near ap- 
 proach of death, to render her indifferent to even the slightest inter- 
 ests or comforts of her friends. I was employed in writing to her, 
 and with all the freedom which her goodness permitted me, when 
 the letter reached me which intimated her death. My thoughts were 
 so cast into the conversational mold that I could almost realize her 
 presence ; and, had she suddenly expired before me, I could not have 
 been more affected." 
 
 We must not quit this episode in Hugh Miller's life without the re- 
 mark that it reveals much of what he was. The sister of Sir Alex- 
 ander Dunbar, Bart., of Boath, moving in the most refined and culti- 
 vated society of Scotland, Miss Dunbar was in every sense a ladj.
 
 MILLER AS BANK ACCOUNTANT. 455 
 
 Her penetration and sound literary judgment might have convinced 
 her that Miller was a man of genius, and led her to ^desire his 
 acquaintance; but that that acquaintance should have ripened into 
 friendship nay, that she should have signalized the journeyman mason 
 as the truest and dearest of all her friends can be accounted for only 
 on the supposition that there was in him a sterling worth, a delicate 
 nobleness, a beaming purity of soul, and dewy tenderness of feeling, 
 which would have marked him out in any class of society as one of 
 nature's gentlemen. . 
 
 LETTERS TO MISS FRASER, FINLAY, AND DR. WALDIE. 
 
 On returning from Linlithgow to Cromarty, Miller addressed him- 
 self with assiduity to his duties as a bank accountant. In the course 
 of the bank's operations, a sum of money, amounting to some hun- 
 dreds of pounds, was transmitted weekly from Cromarty to Tain, and 
 he thought it necessary to act as messenger. He walked the whole 
 way from the northern shore of Cromarty ferry to Tain, and back ; 
 and, as part of the road lay through a deep wood, he provided him- 
 self with a brace of pistols, and traveled with them loaded. This 
 was the first occasion of his using fire-arms; and he seems to have 
 never subsequently, except, perhaps, for brief periods, abandoned the 
 practice. The resolute intensity of application with which he mas- 
 tered the details of banking, and the conscientious caution with which 
 he took the road, in order to obviate mishaps in the transmission of 
 the money, may be noted as characteristic of our man. 
 
 The change in his circumstances, when he thus passed out of what 
 is termed the working class, was naturally pleasing to his friends. 
 Mr. Stewart declared, with hearty satisfaction, that he was "at length 
 fairly caught." For his own part, he took the matter with conspic- 
 uous quietness, betraying no consciousness of having risen in life, not 
 altering his demeanor by one jot or tittle, and, except in his thoughts 
 of the future of domestic felicity, which was now virtually secure to 
 him, not finding himself a happier man. After a day spent in the 
 uncongenial drudgery of running up columns of figures, he did not 
 experience in literary composition that delicious freshness which it had 
 formerly yielded him. " For the first six months of my new em- 
 ployment," he says, " I found myself unable to make my old use of 
 the leisure hours which I found I could still command. There was 
 nothing very intellectual, in the higher sense of the term, in record- 
 ing the bank's transactions, or in summing up columns of figures, or 
 in doing business over the counter ; and yet the fatigue induced was 
 a fatigue, not of sinew and muscle, but of nerve and brain, which, 
 if it did not quite disqualify me for my former intellectual amuse- 
 ments, at least greatly disinclined me towards them, and rendered 
 me a considerably more indolent sort of person than either before or 
 since. It is asserted by artists of discriminating eye, that the human
 
 456 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 hand bears an expression stamped upon it by the general character as 
 surely as the human face; and I certainly used to be struck, during 
 this transition period, by the relaxed and idle expression that had 
 on the sudden been assumed by mine. And the slackened hands 
 represented, I too surely felt, a slackened mind. The unintellectual 
 toils of the laboring man have been occasionally represented as less 
 favorable to mental cultivation than the semi-intellectual employ- 
 ments of that class immediately above him, to which our clerks, shop- 
 men, and humbler accountants belong; but it will be found that exactly 
 the reverse is the case, and that, though a certain conventional gen- 
 tility of manner and appearance on the side of the somewhat higher 
 class may serve* to conceal the fact, it is on the part of the laboring 
 man that the real advantage lies. The mercantile accountant, or 
 law-clerk, bent over his desk, his faculties concentrated on his columns 
 of figures, or on the pages which he has been carefully engrossing, 
 and unable to proceed one step in his work without devoting to it 
 all his attention, is in greatly less favorable circumstances than the 
 plow-man or operative mechanic, whose mind is free though his 
 body labors, and who thus finds in the very rudeness of his employ- 
 ment a compensation for its humble and laborious character. And it 
 will be found that the humbler of the two classes is much more largely 
 represented in our literature than the class by one degree less humble. 
 Ranged against the poor clerk of Nottingham, Henry Kirke White, 
 and the still more hapless Edinburgh engrossing clerk, Robert Fer- 
 guson, with a very few others, we find in our literature a numerous 
 and vigorous phalanx composed of men such as the Ayrshire Plow- 
 man, the Ettrick Shepherd, the Fifeshire Foresters, the sailors Dam- 
 pier and Falconer, Bunyan, Bloomfield, Ramsay, Tannahill, Alex- 
 ander Wilson, John Clare, Allan Cunningham, and Ebenezer Elliot. 
 And I was taught at this time to recognize the simple principle on 
 which the greater advantages lie on the side of the humbler class." 
 The unfavorable influence of his new occupation on his literary ac- 
 tivity proved to be of a temporary nature. "Gradually," he proceeds, 
 "I became more inured to a sedentary life, my mind recovered its 
 spring, and my old ability returned of employing my leisure hours, 
 as before, in intellectual exertion." 
 
 Once more, therefore, we niay pronounce him happy. A time 
 which, to him, seemed doubtless long, was still to elapse before his 
 union with Miss Fraser, but the engagement was now fully counte- 
 nanced by her mother, and the intercourse of the lovers was constant 
 and unconstrained. William Ross was in his grave ; John Swanson 
 was about to leave the district ; his friendship with Miss Dunbar had 
 become a tender and exalting reminiscence. He clung all the more 
 closely to her who was yet left to him, in whom he found the affec- 
 tion of Ross, the mental stimulus of Swanson, the sympathy of Miss 
 Dunbar, and who was dearer to him than them all. As Miss Fraser 
 resided almost uninterruptedly in Cromarty, there is not much in the
 
 AN ADVENTURE HIS LOOKS. 457 
 
 way of correspondence between her and Hugh to throw light upon 
 their intercourse at this period ; but we have one or two letters, 
 through which, as through "luminous windows," we can see into the 
 "happy palace" of love and friendship in which these two abode. 
 Here is a note from the lady: 
 
 " My own Hugh, I am tired, tired of being away from you. Alas ! 
 you have no idea of the frivolous bondage to which sex and fashion 
 subject us. I do nothing all day, and hear nothing, yet I am 
 obliged to take the time from sleep which I devote to you. I have 
 found the young captain whom I threatened you with much hand- 
 somer than I described him to you, but a thousand times more insipid: 
 Why, when I look at him, do I always think of you? or why do his 
 black, bright eyes, that would be fine had they meaning, always re- 
 mind me of those gentle blue ones which I have so often seen melt 
 with benevolence and a chastened tenderness? Why are mankind 
 such slaves of appearances as to admire the casket and neglect the 
 gem ? It is degradation to the dignity of thought and sentiment to 
 compare it with a mere beauty of form or color. Good-by. 
 
 "It is morning, but I am not beside you on the leafy hill, with 
 the blue water shimmering at our feet. When shall we be there 
 again?" 
 
 When this letter reached Cromarty, Hugh was in Tain, but he evi- 
 dently lost no time in replying to it on his return. 
 
 " CROMARTY, July, 1835. 
 
 " I need not tell you at this time of day how much it is in your power 
 to make me happy, and how thoroughly my very existence seems to 
 be bound up in yours. I have but one solace in your absence, my 
 Lydia, that one thought of your return. 
 
 " There crossed with me in the ferry-boat a little ragged gypsy 
 boy, the most strongly marked by the peculiar traits of his tribe I 
 almost ever saw. Have you ever observed the form of the true gypsy 
 head ? I am much mistaken if it be not the very type of the Hindoo. 
 In the line of the nose the forehead is perfectly perpendicular, indi- 
 cating, I should think, a large development of comparison; but caus- 
 ality is less marked, and the whole contour is one of little power. It 
 is not, however, the sort of head one would expect to find on the 
 shoulders of a savage, more especially of the savage who can continue 
 such in the midst of civilization. On reaching the school-house, I 
 learned that John (Swanson) had resigned the school in consequence 
 of an appointment to the mission at Fort William. I find that, in a 
 pecuniary point of view, he is to gain almost nothing from the change. 
 The salary does not exceed sixty pounds a year, and he is to be fur- 
 nished with neither house nor garden. But it is to open to him a 
 wider field of usefulness, and to John that is motive enough. He is, 
 in the extreme meaning of the term, what Bonaparte used to designate 
 with so much contempt, an ideologist, that is, a foolish fellow who does
 
 458 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 good just because it is good, and for the pure love of doing it. I 
 feel, however, very anxious on his account regarding the mission. 
 The part of the country to which he is going is said to be wretchedly 
 unwholesome, full of lakes and marshes, and infested with miasma; 
 and sometimes, when I consider the exhaustive fervency of his spirit 
 and the weakness of his frame, I can not avoid fearing that I may 
 have yet to think of him in connection with a solitary Highland 
 church-yard and a nameless grave. Poor William Ross ! he is now 
 seven years dead, and were I to lose John also, where might I look 
 for friends of the same class, men who, attached to me for my own 
 sake alone, could regard me in every change of circumstances with 
 but one feeling ? And John, too, is more than my friend. He is, 
 my own Lydia, and I love him ten times the more for it, he is 
 ours. 
 
 "I pursued my journey from the school-house in the morning, and, 
 in passing through the deep, dreary wood of Culrossie,* found myself, 
 as I supposed, quite on the eve of an adventure. I carried with me 
 a considerable sum of money, several hundred pounds, and that I 
 might be the better able to protect it had furnished myself with a 
 brace of pistols, when lo ! in the thickest and most solitary part of 
 the wood up there started two of the most blackguard-looking fellows 
 I ever saw. They seemed to be Irish horse-jockeys. One wore a 
 black patch over his eye and a ragged straw hat; the other a white 
 frieze jacket, sorely out at the elbows ; and both were armed with 
 bludgeons loaded with lead. I had time enough ere they came up to 
 cock both my pistols. One I thrust under the breast-flap of my coat, 
 the other I carried behind my back, and, sheering to the extreme 
 e<^ge of the road with a trigger under each fore-finger, I passed them 
 unmolested. One of them regarded me with a sardonic grin. My 
 posture, I suspect, must have seemed sufficiently stiff and constrained 
 for that of a traveler." 
 
 He next touches upon some book purchases in which he and his 
 correspondent have a common interest. " There is a neat pocket- 
 copy of Johnson's Lives that will do well for the beech-tree; I have 
 besides got a copy of 'Paley,' similar to the one you had from Mrs. 
 
 I ; a copy of Smollett's 'Humphrey Clinker' (my heart warmed 
 
 to this book, for, though many years have passed since I last pe- 
 rused it, it was one of my earliest favorites), and a minute copy of 
 'Childe Harold.' I saw, in Douglas's, Leigh Hunt's Journal. The 
 notice of our little book is a highly gratifying one ; is it not well that 
 it is the highest names who praise it most? Hunt characterizes it as 
 'a highly amusing book, written by a remarkable man, who will infal- 
 libly be well known. ' I am placed side by side with Allan Cunningham ; 
 there is a but, however, in the parallel, which I suspect Allan will not 
 
 particularly like. ' But,' says Hunt, ' Mr. M , besides a poetical 
 
 imagination, has great depth of reflection; and his style is so choice, 
 pregnant, and exceedingly like an educated one, that if it betrays itself
 
 HIS FRIEND, MISS DUN BAR. 459 
 
 in any respect to be otherwise, it is by that very excess ; as Theo- 
 phrastes was known not to have been born in Attica by his too-Attic 
 nicety.' 
 
 "My poor friend, Miss Dunbar, of Boath, is dead ; she died on the 
 evening of Monday, the 3oth of June. The severe and ever-recurring 
 attacks of her cruel disease had undermined a constitution originally 
 good, and it at length suddenly gave way under the pressure of what 
 seemed to be comparatively a slight indisposition. She is gone, and I 
 have lost a kind and attached friend. But it would be selfish to re- 
 gret that suffering so excruciating as hers should have terminated ; 
 for months past I could think of her only as a person stretched on 
 the rack, with now and then, perhaps, a transient glimpse of enjoy- 
 ment, for such is the economy of human feeling, that every cessa- 
 tion from suffering is positive pleasure to the sufferer ; but what, alas ! 
 had she to anticipate in this world save pang after pang in prolonged 
 and direful succession, nights of pain and days of weariness, and at 
 length the opening of a door of escape, but only that door through 
 which she has just passed ? I trust, my own Lydia, that it is well 
 with her. Her heart was in the right place ; it was ever an affec- 
 tionate one, perhaps too exquisitely so; but it seems finally to have 
 fixed on the worthiest of all objects. She had learned to look for 
 salvation through Him only in whom it is alone to be found. There 
 are many whom suffering has the effect of so wrapping up in them- 
 selves that they can feel for no one else. But it was not thus with 
 Miss Dunbar ; she could think, even when at the worst, of the little 
 comforts and interests of her friends; half her last letter to me is 
 occupied with a detail of what she had thought and heard regarding 
 my Traditions. I was engaged in writing her when the note was 
 brought me which intimated her death. 
 
 " I have got a rather severe cold, which hangs about me. Never 
 was cold better treated than mine; it eats and drinks like a gentleman. 
 A shop-keeping acquaintance gives it liquorice, Mr. Ross gives it 
 bramble-berry jam, Mrs. Denham has given it honey, and now Mrs. 
 Fraser has sent it a pot of tamarinds. 'Twill be a wonder if, in such 
 circumstances, it goes away at all. I have begun, but barely begun, 
 my statistical account of the parish ; it must, I am afraid, be both dull 
 and commonplace, for I am alike unwilling either to repeat myself, or 
 to anticipate any of my better materials for a second volume of 
 'Scenes and Legends,' and the residue is mere gossip. Even were it 
 otherwise, my abundance, like the wealth of a miser, would have the 
 effect of rendering me poor. Had I but a single story to tell, I would 
 tell it ; but who would ever think of telling one of a hundred? 
 
 " I have no words to express to you, my own Lydia, how much I 
 long for your return, or how cold a looking place Cromarty has be- 
 come since you left it. Ordinary pleasures and lukewarm friendships 
 do well enough for men who have not yet had experience of the in- 
 tense and the exquisite, but to those who have they do not seem pleasures
 
 460 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 or friendships at all. I am amusing myself, however, just as I best 
 can ; sometimes picking up a geological specimen for my collection, 
 sometimes making an excursion to the hill or the burn of Eathie. I 
 accompanied to the latter place, on Saturday last, Mr. Ross and his 
 children, with two of their cousins, the Joyners. We were all thor- 
 oughly wetted, and thoroughly amused; we told stories, gathered im- 
 mense bunches of flowers, incarcerated alight company of green grass- 
 hoppers, who were disorderly, and ruined two unfortunate born beauties 
 of the butterfly tribe. We, besides, ran down a green lizard. I have 
 picked up of late, in the little bay below the willows, a fossil fish, in 
 a high state of preservation ; the scales, head, tail, fins, are all beau- 
 tifully distinct, and yet so very ancient is the formation in which it 
 was found, that the era of the lias, with all its ammonites and belem- 
 nites, is comparatively recent. 
 
 "You are fretted, my own dear girl, by the bondage to frivolity 
 which sex and fashion impose upon you. No wonder you should, 
 when one thinks of the sort of laws by which you are bound. The 
 blockheads are a preponderating majority in both sexes ; but somehow 
 in ours the clever fellows contrive to take the lead and make the laws, 
 whereas I suspect that in yours the more numerous party are tenacious 
 of their privileges as such, and legislate both for themselves and the 
 minority." 
 
 In the letter from Miss Fraser, to which our next from Miller is a 
 reply, there occurred several descriptive sketches of the scenery amid 
 which she was at the time, and an allusion to the Rev. Mr. Fraser, of 
 Kirkhill, who had just lost his life by a fall from his gig. The pass- 
 age in which Hugh refers to the early writings of David Urquhart and 
 the threatening ambition of Russia, is curious, when viewed in connec- 
 tion with the issue of Russian scheming in the Crimean war. 
 
 "I am thinking long for you, dearest, and for the last week have 
 been counting the days ; counting them in the style of the fool whom 
 Jacques met in the forest : ' To-day is the iQth, the 20th comes to- 
 morrow, and the 22d will be here the day after;' they will creep 
 away one by one, and Lydia will be with me ere they bring the month 
 to an end. My heart is full of you ; full of you every hour, and 
 every minute, and all day long. I walked last Saturday on the hill 
 and saw our beech-tree, but lacked heart to go down to it; I thought 
 it looked dreary and deserted, and I felt that, were I to lose you, it 
 would be, of all places in the world, the place I could least bear to 
 see. Your grave but how can I speak of it ! would be a place 
 devoted to sorrow, but to a sorrow not sublimed into agony. I could 
 clasp the green turf to my bosom, and make my bed upon it; but 
 our beautiful beech-tree, with its foliage impervious to the sun, and 
 its deep, cool recess, in which we have so often sat under the cover 
 of one plaid, I could not visit it, Lydia, unless I felt myself dying, 
 and were assured I would die under its shadow. Many, many thanks, 
 dearest, for your kind, sweet letter. It is just what a letter should
 
 MISS ERASER. 461 
 
 be, with heart and imagination and pretty, easy words in it, and yet 
 it is an unsatisfactory thing after all. Instead of consoling me for 
 your absence, it only makes me long the more for you. It is but a 
 pouring of oil on a flame that burnt fiercely enough before. 
 
 "I have seen one of the scenes you describe so sweetly, the 
 bridge of Ardross; but it is a good many years since, and it was 
 after I had just returned from the western Highlands of Ross-shire, 
 where I had visited many scenes of a similar character, but on a much 
 larger scale ; and so, I was not so much impressed by it. I still re- 
 member, however, the dark rocks and the foaming torrent, and the 
 steep slopes waving with birch and hazel, that ascends towards the 
 uplands, and the abrupt, heathy summit of Foyers overlooking the 
 whole. I trust your' guides did not forget to point out to you the 
 two majestic oak-trees of this wild dell, that are famed as by far the 
 finest in Ross-shire. One of them has been valued at one hundred 
 pounds sterling ; and not many years since, when the late Duke of 
 Sutherland purchased the estate of Ardross eta which it grows, there 
 was a road cut to it that he might go and see it. You are now in the 
 parish of Urquhart with good Mr. Macdonald. There is not much 
 to be seen in your immediate neighborhood. Do not omit visiting, 
 as it is quite beside you, the ancient burying-ground of Urquhart. 
 See whether there be not yet an old dial-stone on the eastern wall, 
 beside a little garden. I saw it there fourteen years ago, and the 
 thoughts which it suggested have since traveled far in the stanzas be- 
 ginning 'Gray Dial-stone.' 
 
 " I am happy, dearest Lydia, that you are not going to Cadboll. 
 Typhus is still raging, I hear, in that part of the country. My own 
 dearest lassie, why am I so much more anxious on your account than 
 on my own? But it is always thus when the heart takes a firm grasp 
 of its object. Man, in his colder moods, when the affections lie 
 asleep, is a vile, selfish animal ; his very virtues are virtues so exclu- 
 sively on his own behalf, that they are well-nigh as hateful as his vices. 
 But love, my dearest, is the fulfilling of the law; it draws us out of 
 our crust of self, and we are made to know through it what it is to 
 love our neighbor not merely as well but better than ourselves. \Ve 
 err grievously in those analogies by which we attempt to eke out our 
 knowledge of the laws of God through an acquaintance with the laws 
 of man ; and quite as grievously, and in the same way, when we strive to 
 become wise by extinguishing our passions. The requirements of the 
 statute book are addressed to the merely rational part of our nature; 
 and could one abstract the reason of man from the complex whole of 
 which he consists, that single part of him would be quite sufficient for 
 the fulfillment of them. But it is not so with the law of Deity ; it is a 
 law which must be written on the heart, and it addresses itself to our 
 whole nature ; or, to state the thing more clearly, it is not more a 
 law promulgated for man's obedience than a revelation of his primi- 
 tive constitution, and, through grace, this constitution must be in
 
 462 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 some degree restored ere the law, which is as it were a transcript 
 of it, can be at all efficient in forming his conduct. 
 
 "Are you aware that wild deer sometimes swim across wide estua- 
 ries, such as the Frith of Cromarty ? It was only last week that some 
 of our boatmen found a fine roe swimming across to the Black Isle 
 side, nearly opposite the church of Rosskeen, and fully three-quarters 
 of a mile from the nearest shore. It is still alive, and in the keep- 
 ing of Mr. Watson. My uncle tells me that in calm weather deer 
 not unfrequently cross the opening of the bay from Sutor to Sutor; 
 and that when he was a boy there was a fine large animal of this 
 species captured by some fishermen when swimming from the Black 
 Park, near Invergordon, to the Cromarty quarries, where the frith is 
 fully five miles in breadth. 
 
 " I have seen of late some highly interesting articles on the polit- 
 ical designs of Russia, by David Urquhart, of Braelanguel, a talented 
 young fellow, better acquainted with the details of the question than 
 perhaps any other Briton of the present day. It is wonderful with 
 what art this mighty empire has been extending and consolidating its 
 power for the last century. Should it go on unchecked for half a cen- 
 tury more, civilized Europe must fall before it, and the world witness, 
 a second time, the arts and refinements of polished life overwhelmed 
 and lost in a deluge of northern barbarism. The democratic prin- 
 ciple, says Hume, is generally strongest among a civilized people; the 
 thirst of conquest, among a semi-barbarous one. Urquhart shows me 
 that the Russians of the present time are strongly possessed by the 
 latter, and never, certainly, was the democratic principle stronger in 
 civilized Europe than now. Witness the struggles of the antagonist 
 parties in France, Austria, and Italy, and to what extremes Whigs 
 and Tories carry matters among ourselves. And the democratic prin- 
 ciple has this disadvantage, when contemporary with the other, that it 
 leadsmen to seek their opponents at home, and draws their attention from 
 abroad. And hence they may remain unwarned and disunited until 
 warning and union be of no avail. But forgive me, I am boring you 
 with politics ; remember, however, that I do not often transgress in 
 this way." 
 
 Readers will recollect Finlay, the gentle, rhyming boy, who had 
 been of the Marcus Cave band, and to whom Miller had been ardently 
 attached. Seventeen years had passed away since he left Cromarty, 
 and it does not appear that any tidings of him had reached Hugh in 
 the interval. One day, however, he was surprised by the arrival of a 
 letter dated Spanish Town, Jamaica, signed by the hand of Finlay. 
 He had often, he said, thought of writing, but he had fancied that 
 Miller had left Scotland, being convinced that, had he remained in 
 his native country, he must have distinguished himself. "Often," 
 he proceeds, "have I looked into the advertising columns of 'Black- 
 wood,' 'Fraser,' and 'Tait,' to see the announcement of a volume of 
 poetry, tales, or something to show that genius was not confined to
 
 LETTER TO FINLAY. 463 
 
 the south, and at length I was yesterday gratified by seeing your name 
 in a stray number of Chambers' Journal for last year as the author 
 of the 'Traditionary History of Cromarty.' You have no idea, my 
 dear fellow, how my heart glowed when I read your praises ; and, 
 with the whole Scotsman running riot in my veins, have I reveled 
 in the story of Sandy Wright (there is some of it like my own, entre 
 nous), so like the benevolent heart of my ain Hugh Miller." 
 
 This was a great occasion for Miller. The image of his boy-friend 
 lay in his heart like a coin of pure gold committed to a delicate 
 casket, and when he looked upon it after seventeen years the likeness 
 was bright as on the morning when he bade Finlay adieu. He seized 
 his pen and wrote as follows. As we read this letter can we help 
 loving Hugh Miller? 
 
 "CROMARTY, OCT. 15, 1836. 
 
 " MY OWN DEAR FINLAY : Yes, the wise old king was quite in 
 the right. * As cold waters to the thirsty soul, so is good news from 
 a far country.' My very hopes regarding the boy-friend, whom I 
 loved so much and regretted so long, have been dead for the last twelve 
 years. I could think of you as a present existence only in relation 
 to the other world ; in your relation to this one merely as a recollec- 
 tion of the past. And yet here is a kind, affectionate letter, so full 
 of heart that it has opened all the sluices of mine, that assures me 
 your pulses are still beating, and shows me they desire to beat for- 
 ever. I can not tell you how much and often I have thought of you, 
 and how sincerely the man has longed after and regretted the friend 
 of the boy ; you were lost to me ere I knew how much I valued and 
 loved you. I dare say you don't remember that shortly before you 
 left Cromarty you scrawled your name with a piece of burnt stick on 
 the eastern side of Marcus Cave, a little within the opening. I have 
 renewed these characters twenty and twenty times; and it was not 
 until a few years ago, when a party of gypsies took possession of the 
 cave, and smoked it all as black as a chimney, that they finally disap- 
 peared. Two verses of the little pastoral you wrote on leaving us 
 are fresh in my memory still fresh as if I had learned them only 
 yesterday. But I dare say at this distance of time you will scarce 
 recognize them. 
 
 " ' Ye shepherds, who merrily sing 
 
 And laugh out the long summer day, 
 Expert at the ball and the ring, 
 
 Whose lives are one circle of play, 
 
 " ' To you my dear flock I resign, 
 
 My colley, my crook, and my horn; 
 To leave you, indeed, I repine ; 
 But I must away with the morn.' 
 
 "There they are, just as you left them in the winter of 1819.
 
 464 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 What, dear Finlay, have the seventeen intervening years been doing 
 with your face and figure? The heart, I know, is unchanged; but 
 what like are you? Are you still a handsome, slender, high-featured 
 boy, dressed in green? John Swanson is a little black manny with a 
 wig ; and I have been growing older, but you won't believe it, for 
 the last eighteen years. Great reason to be thankful, I am still ugly 
 as ever. Five feet eleven when I straighten myself, with hair which 
 my friends call brown, and my not-friens, red; features irregular, 
 but not at all ill-natured in the expression ; and immense head, and 
 a forehead three-quarters of a yard across. Isn't the last a good thing 
 in these days of phrenology? And isn't it a still better thing that a 
 bonny sweet lassie, with a great deal of fine sense and a highly culti- 
 vated mind, doesn't think me too ugly to be liked very much, and 
 promises to marry me some time in spring ? Do give me a portrait 
 of yourself first time you write, and, dearest Finlay, don't let other 
 seventeen years pass ere then. Is it not a wonder we are both alive? 
 John Layfield, John Mann, David Ross, Andrew Forbes, Adam 
 McGlashan, Walter Williamson, are all dead, yes, Finlay, all dead. 
 Of all our cave companions, only John Swanson survives. John is a 
 capital fine fellow. He was quite as wild a boy, you know, as either 
 of ourselves, and perhaps a little worse tempered ; but, growing good 
 about twelve years ago, he put himself to college with an eye to the 
 Church, and is now a missionary at Fort William. Dearest Finlay, 
 have you grown good too ? I was in danger of becoming a wild in- 
 fidel ; argued with Uncle Sandy about cause and effect and the cate- 
 gories; read Hume, and Voltaire, and Volney, and all the other witty 
 fellows who have too much sense to go to heaven ; and was getting 
 nearly as much sense in that way as themselves. But John cured me; 
 and you may now say of me what Gray says of himself: ' No very 
 great wit, he believes in a God.' The Bible is a much more cheer- 
 ful book than I once used to think it, and has a world of sound 
 philosophy in it besides. 
 
 " Do you remember how I stole you from John ? You were ac- 
 quainted with him ere you knew me, and used to spend almost all 
 your play-hours with him on the Links, or in his little garden. But 
 I fell in love with you, and carried you off at the first pounce. And 
 John was left lamenting ! I brought you to the woods, and the wild 
 sea-shore, and the deep, dark caves of the Sutors, and taught you 
 how to steal turnips and peas ; and succeeded (though I could never 
 get you improved into a robber of orchards though you had no 
 serious objection to the fruit when once stolen) in making you nearly 
 as accomplished a vagabond as myself. Are not you grateful ? ' The 
 boy,' Wordsworth says, 'is father to the man.' If so, your boy- 
 father was a warm-hearted bonnie laddie, worthy of all due honor 
 from you in your present filial relation; but as for mine, I can't re- 
 spect the rascal, let the commandment run as it please. Don't you 
 remember how he used to lead you into every kind of mischief, and
 
 LETTER TO FINLAY. 465 
 
 make you play truant three days out of four? A perfect Caliban, 
 
 too: 
 
 " I'll show thee the best springs, I'll pluck thee berries, 
 And I, with my long nails, will dig thee pig-nuts.' 
 
 But he's gone, poor fellow ! and his son, a much graver person, who 
 writes a highly sensible letter, has a thorough respect for all his 
 father's old friends, .and steals neither peas nor turnips. Fine thing, 
 dearest Finlay, to b-2 able now and then to play the fool. I wouldn't 
 give my nonsense to be sure the amount is immensely greater for 
 all my sense twice told. 
 
 "You give me the outlines of your history, and I must give you 
 those of mine in turn. But they are sadly unlike. You have been 
 going on through life like a horseman on a journey, and are now far 
 in advance of the starting-point. I, on the contrary, have been 
 mounted, whip and spur, on a hobby, and after seventeen years' hard 
 driving, here I am in exactly the same spot I set out from. But I 
 have had rare sport in the fine ups and downs, and have kept sad- 
 dle the whole time. You remember I was on the eve of becoming 
 a mason apprentice when you left me. The four following years 
 were passed in wandering in the northern and western Highlands, 
 and hills, and lakes, and rivers, one of the happiest and most con- 
 tented, though apparently most forlorn, of stone-masons. I lived in 
 these days in kilns and barns, and on something less than half a 
 crown per week, and have been located for months together in 
 wild, savage districts, where I could scarce find, in a week's time, 
 a person with English enough to speak to me ; but I was dreaming 
 behind my apron of poets and poetry, and of making myself a 
 name ; and so the toils and hardships of the present were lost in 
 the uncertain good of the future. Would we not be poor, unhappy 
 creatures, dear Finlay, were there more of sober sense in our com- 
 position and less of foolish hope? In 1824 I went to Edinburgh, 
 where I wrought for part of two years. I was sanguine in my ex- 
 pectations of meeting with you. I have looked a thousand times 
 .after the college students and smart lawyer clerks whom I have seen 
 thronging the pavement, in the hope of identifying some one of 
 them with my early friend. On one occasion I even supposed I 
 had found him, and then blessed God I had not. I was sauntering 
 on the Calton on a summer Sabbath morning of autumn, when I 
 met with a poor maniac who seemed to recognize me, and whose 
 features bore certainly a marked resemblance to yours. I can not 
 give expression to what I felt ; and yet the sickening, unhappy 
 feeling of that moment is still as fresh in my recollection as if I 
 had experienced it but yesterday. Strange as it may seem, I gave 
 up from this time all hope of ever seeing you, and felt that, even 
 were you dead, and I had some such presentiment, there are much 
 worse ways of losing a friend than by death. 
 30
 
 466 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 " After returning from Edinburgh I plied the mallet for a season 
 or two in the neighborhood, working mostly in church-yards, a 
 second edition of Old Mortality, and then did a very foolish thing. 
 I published a volume of poems. They were mostly juvenile ; and I 
 was beguiled into the belief that they had some little merit by the 
 pleasing images and recollections of early life and lost friends which 
 they awakened in my own mind through the influence of the associ- 
 ative faculty. But this sort of merit lay all outside of them, if I may 
 so speak, and existed in relation to the writer alone ; just as some 
 little trinket may awaken in our mind the memory of a dear friend, 
 and be a mere toy of no value to every body else. My poems, like 
 the Vicar of Wakefield's tracts on the great monogamical question, are 
 in the hands of only the happy few ; they made me some friends, 
 however, among the class of men whose friendship one is disposed to 
 boast of; and at least one of them, ' Stanzas on a Sun Dial,' promises 
 to live. Chambers alludes to it in the notice to which I owe the 
 restoration of a long-lost friend. The volume which, maugre its in- 
 different prose broken into still more indifferent rhyme, and all its 
 other imperfections, I yet venture to send you, is dedicated to our 
 common friend, Swanson ; but, being as tender of his name as my 
 own, the whole is anonymous. In the latter part of the year in 
 which it appeared, I sent a few letters on a rather unpromising sub- 
 ject, the Herring Fishery, to one of the Inverness newspapers. They 
 were more fortunate, however, than the poems, and attracted so much 
 notice that the proprietors of the paper published them in a pam- 
 phlet, which has had an extensive circulation. I send it you with 
 the volume. Every mind, large or small, is, you know, fitted for its 
 predestined work ; some to make epic poems, and others to write 
 letters on the Herring Fishery. 
 
 " I continued to divide my time between the mallet and the pen 
 till about two years ago, when I was nominated accountant to a 
 branch of the Commercial Bank, recently established in Cromarty. 
 I owe the appointment to the kindness of the banker, Mr. Robert 
 Ross, whom I dare say you will remember as an old neighbor, and 
 who, when you left Cromarty, was extensively engaged as a provision 
 merchant and ship owner. I published my last, and I believe best, 
 work, ' Scenes and Legends of the North of Scotland,' shortly after. 
 Some minds, like winter pears, ripen late ; and some minds, like ex-* 
 otics in a northern climate, don't ripen at all, and mine seems to 
 belong to an intermediate class. Sure I am it is still wofully green, 
 somewhat like our present late crops ; but it is now twenty per cent, 
 more mature than when I published my former volume, and I flatter 
 myself with the hope that, if winter doesn't come on too rapidly, 
 it may get better still. Read, dear Finlay, my ' Scenes and Legends ' 
 first ; you may afterwards, if you feel inclined, peep into the other 
 two as curiosities, and for the sake of lang syne ; but I wish to be 
 introduced to you as I am at present, not as I was ten years ago.
 
 PHRENOLOGY AS A SCIENCE. 467 
 
 The critics have been all exceedingly good-natured, and I would 
 fain send you some of the reviews with which they have favored me 
 (these taken together would form as bulky a volume as the one on 
 which they were written), but I have only beside me at present the 
 opinion expressed by Leigh Hunt (the friend and coadjutor of Byron, 
 you know), and the notice of a literary paper, The Spectator. These 
 I make up in the parcel. 
 
 "Where, think you, am I now? On the grassy summit of 
 McFarquhar's Bed. It is evening, and the precipices throw their 
 cold dark shadows athwart the beach. But the red light of the sun 
 is still resting on the higher foliage of the hill above ; and the oppo- 
 site land, so blue and dim, stretches along the horizon, with all its 
 speck-like dwellings shimmering to the light like pearls. Not a feat- 
 ure of the scene has changed since we last gazed on it together. 
 What seem the same waves are still fretting against the same pebbles ; 
 and yonder spring, at which we have so often filled our pitcher, 
 comes gushing from the bank with the same volume, and tosses up 
 and down the same little jet of sand that it did eighteen years ago. 
 But where are all our old companions, Finlay? Lying widely scat- 
 tered in solitary graves ! David Ross lies in the sea. John Man 
 died in a foreign hospital, Layfield in Berlin, McGlashan in England, 
 Walter Williamson in North America. And here am I, though still 
 in the vigor of early manhood, the oldest of all the group. Who 
 could have told these poor fellows, when they last met in the cave 
 yonder, that ' Eternity should have so soon inquired of them what 
 Time had been doing?' 
 
 "Regard, my dear Finlay, my 'Scenes and Legends' as a long 
 letter from Cromarty. Do write me a little newspaper. Tell me 
 something of your mode of life. Give me some idea of a Jamaica 
 landscape. What are your politics ? What your creed ? What have 
 you been doing, and thinking, and saying, since I last saw you ? Tell 
 me all. Your letter is the greatest luxury I have enjoyed for I know 
 not how long." 
 
 The Dr. Waldie, of whom we heard as a friend of Miller's in Lin- 
 lithgow, wrote to him after his return to Cromarty, and received a 
 reply. The science, or sham science, of phrenology, was then mak- 
 ing much noise in the world, and Hugh was for some time disposed 
 to trust in it. The examination of his own head by a professional 
 phrenologist did not tend to confirm him in his prepossessions ; and, 
 as he had argued with Dr. Waldie in favor of phrenology, he hastened 
 to lay before the doctor those grounds on which he was now con- 
 strained to question its pretensions. 
 
 " I think with much complacency of our little discussions on 
 phrenology and geology and all the other ologies, and of the relief 
 which I used to derive from them when well-nigh worn out with the 
 unwonted employments of the desk. You will, I dare say, be dis- 
 posed to smile when I tell you that I am not half so staunch a
 
 468 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 phrenologist now as I was six months ago, and be ready to infer 
 that my head did not prove quite so good a one as I had flattered 
 myself it should. Nay now, that is not the case : the head did not 
 prove quite as good a one, scarcely inferior in general size to that 
 of Burns, and well developed both in front and atop. I am more 
 disposed to quarrel with the science for what it confers upon me than 
 for what it withholds. For instance, few men are so entirely devoid 
 as I am of a musical ear ; it was long ere I learned to distinguish 
 the commonest tunes, and, though somewhat partial to a Scotch 
 song, I derive my pleasure chiefly from the words. Besides, and the 
 symptom is, I suspect, no very dubious one, of all musical instru- 
 ments I relish only the bagpipe. Judge, then, of my surprise to 
 learn from Mr. Coxe (and I warned him to be wary) that Nature 
 intended me for a musician. You are aware that twenty is the 
 highest number in the phrenological scale ; the proportional develop- 
 ment of music in my head is as sixteen. But if more than justice 
 be done me as a musician, in other respects I have cause to com- 
 plain. The organ of language is more poorly developed than any 
 other in the head. One, of course, can't claim the faculty one is 
 said to want with as much boldness as one may disclaim the faculty 
 one is said to possess ; but you will forgive me if I produce some- 
 thing like testimony on the point. The effects of an imperfect de- 
 velopment of language, say the phrenologists, are a difficulty of com- 
 municating one's ideas to another from a want of expression, which 
 frequently causes stammering and a repetition of the same words, 
 and a meagerness of style in writing. But what say the critics in 
 remarking on my little book? 'What we chiefly found to admire,' 
 says one, 'is the singular felicity of the expression.' 'The wonder 
 of the book,' says another, 'lies in the execution; there is nothing 
 of clumsiness, and the style is characterized by a purity and elegance, 
 an ease and mastery of expression, which remind one of Irving, or 
 of Irving's master, Goldsmith.' The Presbyterian Review and Leigh 
 Hunt testify to a similar effect. ' But has not vanity something to 
 do in calling in such testimony ?' Nothing more likely ; still, how- 
 ever, the evidence is quite to the point ; and, as I have, perhaps, 
 in some little degree influenced your opinions regarding phrenology, 
 I deem it proper thus to state to you the facts which have since 
 modified my own. The rest of the forehead, regarding as an index 
 of mind, has its discrepancies. Causality is largely developed ; 
 wit will you believe it? still more largely; whereas comparison 
 and individuality are only moderate. Now, I know very little of 
 my own faculties if this order should not be reversed. Individual- 
 ity, or the ability of remembering facts, if I be not much mistaken, 
 takes the lead, comparison comes next, causality follows, and wit 
 at a considerable distance brings up the rear. I find little to re- 
 mark regarding the rest of the head ; constructiveness, benevolence, 
 conscientiousness, firmness, ideality, and caution, are all large ; self-
 
 HIS MARRIAGE. 469 
 
 esteem is moderate, love of approbation is amply, but not inordinately, 
 developed, and the lower propensities are barely full. You see it is 
 not altogether my interest to become a skeptic to the reality of the 
 science ; but my opinions regarding it have, notwithstanding, under- 
 gone a considerable change. Phrenology, however, whatever conclu- 
 sion the world may ultimately arrive at regarding it, will be found to 
 have had an important use. It has brought the metaphysician from 
 the closet into the world, and turned his attention, hitherto too exclu- 
 sively directed to the commoner operations of our nature, as these 
 may be observed in the species, to the wonderful varieties of indi- 
 vidual character. 
 
 " I am glad you have read Edwards. He stands high as a philos- 
 opher, even with those who differ with him. Sir James Mackintosh, 
 in his masterly dissertation on Ethics, describes his reasoning powers 
 as ' perhaps unequaled, certainly unsurpassed, among men.' Nothing 
 so common among thinkers' of a low order as what are termed com- 
 mon-sense objections to the Scripture doctrine of predestination ; 
 from minds capacious enough to receive the arguments of Edwards, 
 we have none of these. But the man who studies him would need 
 be honest. No sincere lover of the truth was ever the worse for his 
 admirable reasonings, and religious men have been often the better 
 for them ; but they may be converted by the vicious into apologies 
 for their indulgence of every passion, and the perpetration of every 
 crime. 
 
 " I trust you will recommend me to Mr. Turpie. Ask him if he 
 remembers how he used to mar my calculations by getting astride of 
 my shoulders, and my many threats of beating him, which he learned 
 to treat with so thorough a disregard." 
 
 In the course of the summer of 1835, Miller was applied to for 
 contributions to the "Tales of the Borders," a periodical series be- 
 gun by Mr. J. Mackay Wilson, and highly and deservedly popular. 
 Wilson had died, and the publication of the Tales was continued for 
 the benefit of his widow. Hugh consented, and a sufficient number 
 of sketches and tales from his pen to fill a considerable volume ap- 
 peared in the series. His entire remuneration, as he informs us in 
 the "Schools and School-masters," was five pounds. 
 
 MARRIAGE CORRESPONDENCE DEATH OF DAUGHTER VIEWS ON 
 
 BANKING. 
 
 On the yth of January, 1837, Hugh Miller was married to the lady 
 whom he had so long and so ardently loved. Mr. Ross, his superior 
 in the bank and attached personal friend, gave away the bride, and 
 Mr. Stewart performed the ceremony. It was a day to make Hugh's 
 heart, calm as he was in all things, profoundly calm as to his own 
 achievements and successes, glow with honorable pride and well-earned 
 joy. He had dared, while in his mason's apron, to aspire to the hand
 
 47 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 of one who was by birth and breeding a lady. The attractions of 
 personal beauty, enhancing those of a cultivated mind and graceful 
 and animated manners, had led him captive, and for the first and 
 last time, in all the intensity of meaning that can be thrown into the 
 word, he loved. This affection had been for him an inspiration, 
 turning the current of his existence into a new channel, and rippling 
 its smooth surface with the genial agitations of hope. He had waited 
 five years, and at times he had been anxious and despondent, for he 
 never wavered in his determination either to marry Miss Fraser into 
 the position of a lady or not to marry her at all. He had now 
 established himself in all points essential to right success in life, and 
 might contemplate the future in a mood of quiet assurance. He had 
 made his mark in the literature of his country. He had passed into 
 the ranks of the brain-workers of the community, depending no 
 longer for livelihood on the toil of his hands. Any bride might now 
 be proud of him. What was very pleasaftt for him at the time, and 
 is pleasant for us to contemplate from this distance, his ascent had 
 been viewed with unaffected satisfaction by his fellow-townsmen and 
 by all who knew him. He had approved himself a thoroughly friendly 
 man, and he had been rewarded by the good-will and kind wishes 
 of many friends. On the occasion of his marriage his happiness was 
 heartily shared in by the people of Cromarty, and the married pair 
 drove off on their wedding trip in the carriage of Mrs. Major Mac- 
 kenzie, which she had offered, some time before, to her friend Miss 
 Fraser. 
 
 " Setting out," says Miller," immediately after the ceremony, for the 
 southern side of the Moray Frith, we spent two happy days together 
 in Elgin ; and, under the guidance of one of the most respected citi- 
 zens of the place, my kind friend Mr. Isaac Forsyth, visited the 
 more interesting objects connected with the town or its neighbor- 
 hood." 
 
 His wedding gift to his wife was a Bible, on which he inscribed a 
 few stanzas expressive of pious joy, deep but not exultant. Under 
 such auspices Hugh Miller set up his household in Cromarty. His 
 salary was but sixty pounds a year, and the addition which he made 
 to it by literary contributions was as yet small. Mrs. Miller con- 
 tinued to take a few pupils. A parlor, bedroom, and kitchen had 
 been furnished, and one servant did the menial work. An attic room 
 was occupied with shelves, on which his few books and fossils, the 
 nucleus of a good library and a valuable museum, were arranged. 
 A table and chair were placed in this room, and it became Hugh's 
 study. It was here that he wrote a number of tales and sketches, 
 published in the continuation of Wilson's "Tales of the Borders." 
 The dreary, semi-intellectual routine of a bank clerkship somewhat 
 damped his literary ardor. His mind, however, gradually regained 
 its elasticity, and he soon found more lucrative employment as a writer 
 for Chambers' Edinburgh Journal.
 
 LETTER TO ROBERT CHAMBERS. 471 
 
 The month in which he was married had not yet come to an end 
 when he learned that John Swanson had lost his mother. To com- 
 fort his friends in their distress was always a sacred duty with Hugh, 
 and he at once wrote him. 
 
 On the 1 2th of September of the same year we find him writing 
 to Mr. Robert Chambers, offering one or two pieces for the Journal. 
 " I am leading," he says, " a quiet and very happy life in this remote 
 corner, with perhaps a little less time than I know what to do with, 
 but by no means overtoiled. A good wife is a mighty addition to a 
 man's happiness ; and mine, whom I have been courting for about six 
 years, and am still as much in love with as ever, is one of the best. 
 My mornings I devote to composition; my days and the early part 
 of the evening I spend in the bank ; at night I have again an hour 
 or two to myself; my Saturday afternoons are given to pleasure, 
 some sea excursion, for I have got a little boat of my own, or some 
 jaunt of observation among the rocks and woods; and Sunday as a 
 day of rest closes the round. 
 
 "Your collection of ballads I have found to be quite a treasure, 
 excellent in itself as a most amusing volume, and highly interesting, 
 regarded as the people's literature of the ages that have gone by. 
 You now occupy the place in relation to the people which the metrical 
 historians and the authors of the ballads did a few centuries ago." 
 
 To this there came a reply warmed by that true-hearted kindness 
 with which Miller's correspondent has cheered so many of the youth- 
 ful soldiers of literature. "The account you give me of your domestic 
 condition is necessarily gratifying to one who feels as your friend, 
 and is anxious to be regarded in the same light by yourself. Your 
 present circumstances are most creditable to you, and show that your 
 intellect has its true and proper crown, moral worth. May you 
 ever be thus happy, as you deserve to be ! I have sometimes thought 
 of more prominent and brilliant situations for you; but after all, if 
 you can be content with the love of a virtuous woman in a place 
 where you have the chief requisites and a little of the luxuries of 
 life, and where, exempt from, the excitements and sordid bustle of a 
 town, you can employ those contemplative powers of mind which I 
 believe to be your highfst gifts, you are probably better as you are. 
 Wordsworth has been much laughed at for keeping so constantly in 
 the country ; but I believe he is right. There is every thing certainly 
 in town that can make the mind active, but it is not the place for 
 doing any thing great, and it is not the place for a pure and morally 
 satisfactory life." 
 
 Hugh was gladly welcomed as a contributor to the Journal. As 
 usual, he replies promptly to Mr. Chambers's " kind and truly 
 friendly letter:" 
 
 " I have some legendary stories lying by me, which I wrote about 
 a twelvemonth ago, with the intention of giving them to the public 
 in a volume ; but the Journal will spread them much more widely.
 
 472 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 There is a dash of the supernatural in some of them ; but I trust 
 that will break no squares with us unless they should lack in interest : 
 besides, I hope there is philosophy enough in them to save the writer's 
 credit with even the most skeptical of your readers. Superstition, 
 however, is not at all the same sort of thing in these northern dis- 
 tricts of the kingdom that it is in those of the south. It is no mere 
 carcass, with just enough of muscle and sinew about it for an eccentric 
 wit to experiment upon now and then by a sort of galvanism of the 
 imagination, but an animated body, instinct with the true life. I am 
 old enough to have seen people who conversed with the fairies, and 
 who have murmured that the law against witchcraft should have been 
 suffered to fall into desuetude ; and as for ghosts, why, I am not very 
 sure but what I have seen ghosts myself. Superstition here is still living 
 superstition, and, as a direct consequence, there is more of living 
 interest in our stories of the supernatural and more of human nature. 
 When a man has a place in them, it is not generic but specific man 
 man with an individual character. The man who figures in an 
 English or South of Scotland legend is quite as abstract a person as 
 the man in a fable of yEsop ; with us he has as defined a personality 
 as the 'Rip Van Winkle,' of Washington Irving himself. By the 
 way, much of the interest of this admirable story is derived from the 
 well-defined individuality of poor Rip." 
 
 One or two other letters or notes passed between him and Mr. 
 Chambers, but they are of little importance. Hugh once has this 
 remark on the nature of contentment : " The content which is merely 
 an indolent acquiescence in one's lot is so questionable a virtue that 
 it seems better suited to the irrational animals than to man. That 
 content, on the other hand, which is an active enjoyment of one's 
 lot, can not be recommended too strongly. And it is this latter 
 virtue, if virtue it can be called, that my papers attempt to inculcate. 
 True, it leads to no Whittington and his cat sort of result, but it does 
 better, it leads to happiness, a result decidedly more final than a 
 coach and six. Mr. Chambers once suggested that he might advan- 
 tageously " shift the scene " from his " dearly beloved Cromarty," and 
 that the less he introduces of superstition the better. "I am at the 
 same time very sure," he adds, " that whatever be the nature of your 
 subject, you can not fail to give it that certain yet indescribable inter- 
 est which so peculiarly characterizes all that comes from your pen." 
 
 The cup of Miller's happiness was full when a little daughter began 
 to smile upon him from the arms of her mother. All gentle, help- 
 less things he loved with a passion of tenderness, and his affection 
 for his own little prattler was inexpressible. He observed her move- 
 ments with ever fresh interest and charm. " My little girl," he wrote 
 once, " has already learned to make more noise than all the other 
 inmates of the house put together, and is at present deeply engaged 
 in the study of light and color. She is still in doubt, however, 
 whether the flame of the candle may not taste as well as it looks."
 
 DEATH OF HIS DAUGHTER. 473 
 
 "She was," says Mrs. Miller, "a delight and wonder to Hugh above 
 all wonders. Her little smiles and caresses sent him always away to 
 his daily toil with a lighter heart. In the spring of 1839 I had a close 
 nursing for several weeks. Then there was a marked amendment. 
 One lovely evening in April I went out, for the first time that spring, 
 to breathe the air of the hill. When I returned, I found the child 
 in her nurse's arms, at the attic window, from which she used to 
 greet her papa when he came up street. She had been planting a 
 little garden, in the window-sill, of polyanthus, primrose, and other 
 spring flowers. When she saw me, she pushed them away, with the 
 plaintive 'Awa, awa,' she used to utter, and laid her head upon my 
 breast. An internal fit came on. The next time she looked up it 
 was to push my head backwards with her little hand, while a startled, 
 inquiring, almost terrible look came into her lovely eyes. All the 
 time she lay dying, which was three days and three nights, her father 
 was prostrate in the dust before God in an agony of tears. Whether 
 he performed his daily bank duties, or any part of them, I do not 
 remember; but such a personification of David the King, at a like 
 mournful time, it is impossible to imagine. All the strong man was 
 bowed down. He wept, he mourned, he fasted, he prayed. He en- 
 treated God for her life. Yet when she was taken away, a calm and 
 implicit submission to the divine will succeeded, although still his 
 eyes were fountains of tears. Never again in the course of his life 
 was he thus affected. He was an affectionate father, and some of his 
 children were at times near death, but he never again lost thus the 
 calmness and dignity, the natural equipoise, as it were, of his man- 
 hood." This was the first and the last poignant domestic sorrow 
 Miller experienced. He cut the little head-stone for his darling, and 
 never again put chisel to stone. 
 
 SCIENCE IN THE ASCENDANT. 
 
 During these last quiet years of his residence in Cromarty, when 
 Miller was putting the last touches to the curiosa felicitas of his style, 
 and choosing irreversibly the form in which his higher intellectual 
 activity was to be exerted, the question came often directly or indi- 
 rectly before him whether his supreme devotion should be to liter- 
 ature or to science. Poetry had been as good as abandoned. He did, 
 indeed, as his wife and one or two of his most confidential friends 
 were aware, cherish the resolution to return to verse, and had visions of 
 bringing even his science ultimately to minister to the Muse. Hut for 
 the present his critical faculty in the poetical department had out- 
 stripped his productive faculty, and he wrote almost exclusively in 
 prose. We find, however, from his correspondence, that the leg- 
 endary tales and biographical sketches to which he had so long de- 
 voted attention, had ceased to interest him is formerly, and that he 
 contemplated a transference of his allegiance from literature to sci-
 
 474 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 ence. Literature has been called the science of man ; science may 
 be called the literature of nature. If the hackneyed quotation from 
 Pope as to man being mankind's noblest study has become hackneyed 
 on account of its truth, and if Sir W. Hamilton's favorite lines 
 about man and mind being the only great things on earth are not 
 rhodomontade, and if Shakespeare is higher than Newton among the 
 moderns, and Homer higher than Aristotle or Plato among the an- 
 cients, it would seem to follow that literary art, as displayed in his- 
 tory, poetry, the drama, and prose fiction, takes legitimate preced- 
 ence of that inquiry into the sequences of the physical world, which 
 bears specifically the name of science. But it was under the influ- 
 ence of no abstract considerations that Miller determined in favor 
 of the latter. Literature, as it presented itself to his mind, did not 
 afford scope to his abilities. The traditions, the legends, the history 
 of his native place, the characters of the men he had known since 
 boyhood, did not appear to furnish materials out of which im- 
 portant literary works could be constructed. The vein was worked 
 out. 
 
 It is perhaps surprising that he did not, so far as can be discovered, 
 think of Scottish history as a field in which to employ himself. He 
 might have written a history of Scotland which the world would have 
 placed among the acknowledged master-pieces in this species of com- 
 position. The view taken of Scottish history by Miller was essen- 
 tially the same as that taken by Burns, by Scott, by Wilson, by Car- 
 lyle, and he was more profoundly in sympathy with the religious 
 genius of his nation than any one of these. His strength as a stylist 
 lay in description, and all his books afford proof of his skill in con- 
 tinuous narrative. 
 
 In the history of literature, again, he was fitted to excel. No such 
 employment of his powers, however, seems to have occurred to him. 
 Science invited him to an unbeaten path to an assured originality 
 and the scene in which her wonders were to be sought had been 
 his play-ground since infancy. That devotion to science was attain- 
 ing in his mind the power of a ruling passion is attested in that chap- 
 ter of the "Scenes and Legends" in which he presents himself to his 
 readers as the "Antiquary of the World." There is a curious interest 
 in observing how much this chapter contains of what, a few years 
 subsequently, made Miller famous as a geologist throughout the world. 
 
 In a letter addressed to Mr. Duff, in December, 1838, we meet 
 with 'the following passage, descriptive of an attack of illness, under 
 which Hugh had recently suffered : 
 
 "During the whole of November I was toiled almost to death 
 at the bank with our yearly balance, and I have been confined by 
 small-pox ever since, with a face doubtless a good deal less hand- 
 some than usual, and surrounded by faces uglier than even my own. 
 There were faces on the bed -curtains, and faces on the walls, and 
 faces in abundance on my wife's tartan gown; and when I shut my
 
 L IT ER ATURE' AN D SCIENCE. 
 
 475 
 
 eyes to exclude them, I just saw them all the more clearly. I strove 
 hard to call up more agreeable pictures. The tree-ferns and sau- 
 rians of the lias, or the half-tailed fish and cocostei of the Old Red 
 Sandstone, it would be worth while getting into a fever to see ; but I 
 called upon them as vainly as Hotspur did upon the spirits of the 
 'vasty deep.' I saw faces, faces, faces, and saw nothing else. The 
 phenomena of mind as exhibited in disease have, I suspect, been 
 studied a great deal too little. Can you tell me how a person affected 
 by fever can be both a man and a magic-lantern at the same time, 
 and marvel exceedingly in his capacity of spectator at what he exhibits 
 to himself in his character of showman ? I am as much a geologist 
 as ever, a huge breaker of stones ; and I expect, when I have broken 
 up a few hundred cart-loads more, to know something of the matter. 
 I am fighting my way, all alone, by main strength, the very anti- 
 type of Thor and his hammer, and find that I have not been fourteen 
 years a mason for nothing. ... I must set myself in right 
 earnest, some time next summer, to draw up an account of the geol- 
 ogy of this part of the country. I have picked up, in a desultory 
 way, a good many facts, some of them of value enough to be pre- 
 served ; and I am of opinion, besides, that the geology of Cromarty, 
 well understood, may serve, in part, at least, as a kind of key to 
 that of Moray, and of the various localities in which there occur 
 fish-beds of the same kind with ours. More splendid sections are to 
 be found nowhere. The burn of Eathie is a study in itself." 
 
 His literary essays and his legendary tales had drawn upon Miller 
 the attention of men eminent in the world of literature; this chapter 
 of his book constituted his introduction to circles interested in the 
 pursuit of science. "I may mention," he says in a letter to Mr. 
 Robert Chambers, "that a geological chapter in my little volume of 
 'Scenes and Legends' has attracted more notice among the learned 
 
 than all the other chapters put together. Mrs. had a hit at me 
 
 in Tait for introducing such a subject ; I could not tell her, however, 
 of Fellows of the Geological Society and Professors of Colleges whom 
 my chapter has brought more than a day's journey out of their route 
 to explore the rocks of Cromarty." The Old Red Sandstone was at 
 this time a comparatively unknown region to geologists, and the 
 palaeontological discoveries to which Miller was feeling his way excited 
 the keenest interest. Dr. John Malcolmson, who had recently 
 arrived in this country from India, visited Cromarty, discussed geo- 
 logical problems with Hugh, and examined with him the geological 
 sections of the neighborhood. The Cromarty geologist began to 
 correspond with Sir Roderick, then Mr. Murchison, and with M. 
 Agassiz. Fleming was at this time professor of natural science in 
 King's College and University, Aberdeen, and he hastened to Cro- 
 marty to look with the only eyes he ever trusted in matters of obser- 
 vation, his own, into the wonders of Eathie burn and Marcus cave. 
 It was doubtless of great service to Miller at this stage in his geo-
 
 476 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 logical studies to be brought into converse with the author of the 
 " Philosophy of Zoology," and to have his theories, just beginning 
 to shape, overhauled by one of the acutest, most searching, most phil- 
 osophically skeptical intellects of the century. His controversy with 
 Dr. Fleming on the old Scotch coast-line, the existence of which the 
 latter denied to the last, probably commenced at this period, and 
 twenty years afterwards, when the eminence and authority of both 
 were acknowledged in the Geological Society of Edinburgh, the 
 debate remained unfinished. But in none of its stages did it do any 
 thing else than add zest to the cordiality of their friendship. Miller 
 knew how to value the trenchant logic, sharp analysis, and severe 
 inductive cross-examination of Fleming ; and to find a worthy antag- 
 onist whom he might bring under the raking fire of his argumenta- 
 tive batteries was one of the choicest pleasures Fleming could find in 
 life. He was now in the prime of his faculties; and his brilliant, 
 incissive talk, touching, often with caustic humor, on a thousand men 
 and things, is remembered by Mrs. Miller as very pleasantly enliven- 
 ing their quiet life in Cormarty. While science was more and more 
 absorbing Mr. Miller's attention, a backward glance being now and 
 then given to literature, he did not cease to take the same lively 
 interest as hitherto in the affairs of his native town. 
 
 It concerns us to note that Miller is at last ready to take flight for 
 Edinburgh. On the 23d of December he writes to Mr. Dunlop from 
 Cromarty, in answer to a note from that gentleman telling him that 
 all difficulties have been vanquished, and that the sooner he appears 
 in Edinburgh the better. "I still," he says, " feel occasional shrink- 
 ings of heart when I think of the untried field on which I am so 
 soon to enter. 'Tremble thus the brave?' asks one of Ossian's 
 heroes when on the eve of his first battle. But I think of the past 
 and take courage, of the past in my country's history, with its clear, 
 unequivocal bearing on the cause in which I am to be engaged ; on 
 the past, too, in my own experience of life. I have seen much of 
 the goodness of the Almighty. Twenty years ago I was a loose- 
 jointed boy, in rather delicate health, taxed above my strength as a 
 laborer in a quarry. It is surely a much better thing to be employed 
 as an advocate of principles which I have ever regarded as sacred, 
 and of whose importance the more carefully I examine I am con- 
 vinced the more." 
 
 He had now been for five years connected with the bank, and this 
 sufficed to place him behind the scenes with regard to all business 
 operations in the district, and to make known his name to its men 
 of capital. -Hugh Miller was already a public man in the north of 
 Scotland ; and, ere he departed for Edinburgh, a number of his 
 friends and admirers entertained him at a public dinner in Cromarty, 
 and presented him with a tea-service in plate. Seldom has a demon- 
 stration of the kind attested a warmer or more sincere feeling on the 
 one hand, or been more honorably earned on the other. Those who
 
 THE STONE MASON THE PEOPLE'S HERO. 477 
 
 had watched Miller most closely, and who knew him best, stepped 
 forward to declare that they loved him and considered him a credit 
 to them. 
 
 AT THE EDITORIAL DESK, ETC. 
 
 In the last days of 1839, Hugh Miller proceeded to Edinburgh to 
 edit the Witness. He stepped into the arena alone. His wife and 
 infant daughter he left for the present at Cromarty. Taking lodg- 
 ings in St. Patrick's Square, in the old part of the town, he applied 
 himself with ardor and assiduity to his task. "In weakness and great 
 fear," diffident of his power to maintain the conflict against "well- 
 nigh the whole newspaper press of the kingdom," he was neverthe- 
 less " thoroughly convinced of the goodness of the cause," and willing 
 to devote to it the whole energies of his mind. "I found myself," 
 he was soon able to say, "in my true place." The Witness started 
 with a circulation of about six hundred ; but the high character of 
 its articles at once attracted attention, and it became evident in an 
 exceedingly brief period that an immense accession had been ma'de 
 to the power with which the majority in the church acted on the 
 body of their countrymen. And from the first, the personality of 
 Hugh Miller was felt to be too massive and original to be absorbed 
 in the anonymity of journalism. The voice of the Witness was 
 known to be his voice, and the name of Hugh Miller was mentioned 
 with affectionate enthusiasm, as that of the people's own champion, 
 who among the laymen of the conflict was what Chalmers was among 
 the clergy. Hugh Miller the people's friend, champion, hero ! It 
 was appropriate that a self-educated man should speak for the com- 
 monalty of Scotland. It suited the stubborn independence and self- 
 helping vigor of the race. The popular imagination, besides, ready 
 always to be moved by adventitious circumstances, found an additional 
 charm and picturesqueness in his having been a stone-mason, one who 
 had actually " bared a quarry," and hewn in a church-yard. But this 
 rugged plebeian, who stood forth to fight the people's battle, was 
 not one who required the indulgence of refined critics. No pen 
 wielded on either side in the controversy was more classic than that 
 of Hugh Miller. 
 
 He shared the excitement which he contributed so largely to pro- 
 duce. Not only was he animated by the clearest sense of duty, and 
 profoundly convinced that the cause was that of conscience, liberty, 
 and Scotland, but he was conscious that the fray was not without its 
 spectators. "The series of events which terminated in the Disrup- 
 tion " the words are his own "formed a great and intensely excit- 
 ing drama, and the whole empire looked on." He shared the ex- 
 citement of his countrymen; but he also, it need scarcely be added, 
 suffered from it. Never did Hugh Miller toil as during these first 
 three months of his editorship of the Witness. He wrote not
 
 478 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 merely the leading articles, but a large proportion of the remarks 
 introductory to the reports of public meetings, paragraphs on the de- 
 cease of eminent men, and so on. The paper was puplished twice a 
 week, and Miller would often have more than one regular leader in 
 each number. His brother combatants, his personal friends, the buzz 
 of applause arising throughout Scotland, cheered him on. In nothing 
 was his temperament more characteristically the temperament of a 
 man of genius of literary genius than in his susceptibility to the 
 influence of praise. It was once truly said of him that " he was like 
 a horse which can be urged by the voice of encouragement beyond 
 its power of living exertion." Soon also the new paper was attacked 
 by one or other of its many rivals of the opposite side, and with all 
 his gentleness Miller was, when roused, a terrible foe. Professor 
 Massou has remarked that Hugh Miller never engaged in contro- 
 versial battle without not merely "slaying, but battering, bruising, 
 and beating out of shape" his antagonist. But the moment his 
 enemy was vanquished his anger died away. A magistrate of Edin- 
 burgh once awakened his wrath. He thought that the civic digni- 
 tary had used the power of place to annoy or crush a more honest 
 man than himself, and there was a pompousness in his public be- 
 havior, and a meanness in some of his money-making practices, care- 
 fully disguised from the public eye, which gave Miller advantage over 
 him. An article appeared in the Witness which made him the 
 laughing-stock of Edinburgh. Next day, when Miller stepped into the 
 publishing office, some one made a remark on the severity of his ar- 
 ticle. "Ah," said Miller, in his calmest tone, a very dangerous 
 tone, " I have another shot in the locker for the baillie." " Really, 
 Mr. Miller," replied the first speaker, "I think you ought to forbear. 
 
 Baillie has had his head shaved." Miller left the second shot 
 
 in the locker. 
 
 Few controversialists have erred less on the side of severity than 
 Hugh Miller, none perhaps with keener contrition when he found 
 that he had been in the wrong. He told Mrs. Miller that he found 
 it necessary to "abstract" men before he could punish them, and 
 that " the sight of the human countenance, if it had but a tinge of 
 geniality, so softened and unmanned him," that he could not shake 
 off the thought of the individual, and had no heart to attack him. 
 
 It has been said that Miller, as editor of the Witness, felt himself 
 in his place. The stimulus of a strong excitement was useful in rous- 
 ing his mind to full exertion, and in dispelling the meditative, pen- 
 sive, almost languid mood in which, in the stillness of Cromarty, he 
 might have indulged. His style, after he came to Edinburgh, com- 
 pared with that of the " Scenes and Legends," is improved in energy 
 and fervor. To do his best, he required to be moved ; and his most 
 powerful compositions are his earnest newspaper articles and the letter 
 to Lord Brougham. Dr. Guthrie said with reference to the article 
 on the siege of Acre, that he would rather have written it than taken
 
 HIS EDITORIAL LIFE. 
 
 479 
 
 the fortress. Doubtless, also, Miller was at this time happy. "He 
 drank delight of battle with his peers." Fervid emotion bathed the 
 frame-work of his intellect in flame. The excitement brought its own 
 reward. The additional power and keener sympathetic joy, which a 
 great agitation produces, more than compensate for the daintier 
 pleasures of the intellectual recluse. But, of course, in his heroic 
 joy there is a burning which consumes the earthen vessel. While 
 Miller rejoiced in spirit as a strong man to run a race, his body and 
 brain gave unmistakable evidence that the pace bore hard upon him. 
 Hour after hour he would sit writing, until the letters danced before 
 his eyes and every nerve tingled under the strain. Heedless of ex- 
 posure, and working deep into the long winter nights, he caught 
 influenza. No matter ; he would not pause ; he would not lay aside 
 the pen which he had taken up in the cause of his Church and his 
 country. The giddiness of mere exhaustion became the semi-delirium 
 which accompanies inflammatory affections of the lungs and pleura. 
 Had the intense excitement of the conflict been suspended, he would 
 probably have fallen into a state of prostration like that which over- 
 took his father in the sea-fight, who while the guns continued to 
 roar did the work of two men, and when they ceased fell upon the 
 deck more feeble than a child. Miller grew haggard in the conflict, 
 but he never flinched. 
 
 The darkest hour, however, was now past, and streaks of dawn ap- 
 peared on the horizon. In April, 1840, he was joined by Mrs. Mil- 
 ler, who brought with her their infant daughter, Harriet. It was a 
 dark and dreary evening when Mrs. Miller saw his figure, in gray 
 suit and plaid, looming through the mist on Granton pier. Her 
 presence, she found, was much needed. Miller looked ill, and his 
 circumstances were comfortless. His sitting-room was dingy with 
 dust and littered with papers. 
 
 So deeply had Miller felt the discomforts of his situation that, 
 before Mrs. Miller's arrival, he had taken a small house in Sylvan 
 Place, on the southern or country side of the Meadows. 
 
 Hugh Miller modeled his newspaper essays, as he modeled the 
 chapters of his books, on the productions of his beloved Addison and 
 Goldsmith, rather than on those of the "eminent hands" whose 
 slashing leaders have made their reputation on the London press. It 
 was his habit to fix upon his subject a few days, or even longer, be- 
 fore the article was to appear, and nothing pleased him better than 
 to have Mrs. Miller as volunteer antagonist, to maintain against him, 
 at the supper table, the thesis he proposed to controvert. Supper 
 was his favorite meal. At breakfast he hardly tasted food, a cup of 
 coffee and crumb of bread being the limit of his wants. After work- 
 ing at his desk in the early part of the day, he would walk out, make 
 his way into the country, saunter about the hills of Braid or Arthur Seat, 
 with his eye on the plants, and land shells, and geological sections, 
 or explore for the thousandth time the Musselburgh shore or the Gran-
 
 480 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 ton quarries. He never clearly admitted the canonical authority 
 of the dinner hour. He expected something warm to be kept ready 
 for him ; but, if the day was particularly favorable, or if a storm had 
 strewn the coast with the treasures of the deep sea, or if some new 
 phenomenon struck him in connection with the raised beach of Leith 
 and required interpreting and thinking out, or if he met with a 
 brother naturalist and got into talk the shades of evening would be 
 falling thick before he again crossed his threshold. Even at that 
 hour he had little appetite. It was not until his brain, obeying what 
 his habits of night-study had made an irresistible law for him, awoke 
 in his fervor about ten o'clock, that he showed a keen inclination for 
 food. Porter or ale, with some kind of dried fish or preserved meat, 
 formed his favorite supper. On these occasions he conversed with 
 great freedom, and found it both pleasant and profitable to have his 
 views and arguments vigorously controverted. There can be no 
 doubt that the extraordinary success of many of his articles, the re- 
 peated case of their being the town-talk and country-talk of the 
 day, was due, in a considerable degree, to his having beaten over 
 the ground with Mrs. Miller. 
 
 Hugh Miller conducted the Witness for sixteen years, and he 
 can not have written for the paper fewer than a thousand articles. 
 " Admirable disquisitions on social and ethical questions, felicities of 
 humor and sportive though trenchant satire, delicate illustration and 
 racy anecdote from an inexhaustible literary erudition, and crystal jets 
 of the purest poetry, such things will repay the careful student of 
 the Witness file, but can never be known to the general public." 
 
 It was a tragic element in Miller's lot as a newspaper editor that 
 he had no particle of enthusiasm for the press, no confidence in the 
 newspaper as an educating agency. He has put it on record that 
 the mechanics he had known whose culture consisted in life-long 
 familiarity with ne'wspapers were uniformly shallow and frivolous. Of 
 himself he has spoken as doomed to cast off shaving after shaving 
 from his mind, to be caught by the winds, and, after whirling lightly 
 for a little time, to be blown into the gulf of oblivion. Perhaps he 
 did not enough take into account the essentially ephemeral nature of 
 human productions, or reflect that the longest-lived book and the 
 newspaper article of the hour are alike covered up one day. 
 
 " The memory of the withered leaf 
 In endless time is scarce more brief 
 Than of the garnered autumn sheaf." 
 
 Nay, inasmuch as a powerful newspaper writer lodges his thoughts 
 in the minds of men engaged in affairs, and has them thus woven 
 into the web of events and the fabric of institutions, it might be ar- 
 gued that he least of all toils without result of his labors. Hugh 
 Miller, at any rate, looked with fixed distrust upon journalistic writing, 
 both as culture for a man's own mind and as a means of influencing
 
 CHURCH DISRUPTION. 481 
 
 his fellows. He regarded science as a counteractive to the deterior- 
 ating effects of this kind of work upon his intellectual powers. 
 
 At the time when Hugh Miller undertook the editorship of the 
 Witness, the sympathies of the people of Scotland had been to but 
 a comparatively slight extent awakened and secured for the contend- 
 ing Church. A vague but potent impression swayed the public mind 
 that the agitation was a mere clerical affair. "The ministers wanted 
 power. They would like to put down patrons with one hand, and 
 to silence with the other every luckless parson who did not vote in 
 the Presbytery and preach in the pulpit as the Evangelical majority 
 were pleased to dictate. Perhaps it was just as well that the Court 
 of Session should keep these petulant little popes in their own places." 
 No man did so much to dissipate these notions, so perilous to the 
 movement, as Hugh Miller. The Church of Scotland, he proclaimed, 
 was standing once more, as she had so often stood, on the side of 
 the people, and he tore to shreds the flimsy plea that the dogs, va- 
 liantly defending the fold, had an eye only to their class interests. 
 On the other hand, his influence was mightily exerted to prevent the 
 mere ecclesiastical element from assuming that predominance which 
 many alleged to be the object of the whole struggle. Hugh Miller 
 felt, with a depth and solemnity of conviction which converted the 
 feeling into a sentiment of duty, that the Witness was to be the 
 organ of no clerical party, the sounding-board of no Church Court, 
 but was to represent the movement in all the breadth and independ- 
 ence of its national characteristics. 
 
 Within the present century no day has dawned on Scotland when 
 the heart of the nation was so profoundly agitated as on that on 
 which the majority in the General Assembly of 1843 ^ e ^ St. Andrew's 
 Church and proceeded to Canonmill's Hall. 
 
 Among those who were assembled in Canonmill's Hall to welcome 
 the Free Church, the stalwart form and great shaggy head, and 
 earnest, thoughtful features of Hugh Miller were particularly noticed. 
 One can fancy how the fire would glitter in his moist eye, and the 
 enthusiasm glow on his face, as he listened to words like these in the 
 address of Chalmers: "We read in the Scriptures, and I believe it 
 will be found true in the history and experience of God's people, 
 that there is a certain light, and joyfulness, and elevation of spirit 
 consequent upon a moral achievement such as this. There is a cer- 
 tain felt triumph, like that of victory over conflict, attending upon a 
 practical vindication, which conscience has made of her own suprem- 
 acy, when she has been plied by many and strong temptations to 
 degrade or to dethrone her. Apart from Christianity altogether, 
 there has been realized a joyfulness of heart, a proud swelling of 
 conscious integrity, when a conquest has been effected by the higher 
 over the inferior powers of our nature; and so, among Christians too, 
 there is a legitimate glorifying, as when the disciples of old gloried 
 in the midst of their tribulations, when the spirit of glory and of 
 
 3*
 
 482 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 God rested on them, when they were made partakers of the Divine 
 nature and escaped the corruption that is in the world ; or as when 
 the apostle Paul rejoiced in the testimony of his conscience. But let 
 us not forget, in the midst of this rejoicing, the deep humility that 
 pervaded their songs of exultation ; the trembling which these holy 
 men mixed with their mjrth trembling arising from a sense of their 
 own weakness; and then courage, inspired by the thought of that aid 
 and strength which were to be obtained out of His fullness who 
 forme^i all their boasting and all their defense." 
 
 It is worthy of mention that the name "Free Church of Scot- 
 land ' ' appears to owe its origin to Hugh Miller. He had made use 
 of it in articles in the Witness months before the Disruption ; and his 
 grand anxiety was that the Free Church should be, in all respects 
 save that of formal alliance with the State, the old Scottish Church. 
 Hugh Miller was a man of definite opinions, and held them tena- 
 ciously; but he was not devoid of that capacity of growth, which is, 
 perhaps, the ultimate characteristic of great minds. Such an intel- 
 lect as his could not become a fossil, however exquisitely colored and 
 definitely traced might be the markings on it. As a man of science 
 he kept the gates of his soul grandly open. 
 
 THE OLD RED SANDSTONE LETTER TO A CHILD FIRST IMPRESSIONS 
 
 OF ENGLAND AND ITS PEOPLE. 
 
 Amid the stormful enthusiasm of a great popular conflict, Hugh 
 Miller had not forgotten the serener if not more lofty devotion which 
 had inspired him as a servant of science. "Of Bacon," he once 
 wrote, "I never tired;" and often, probably, when the excitement 
 and sword-clashing of polemical battle filled the air around him, 
 would that vessel rise before the eyes of his imagination, which Bacon 
 saw, speeding on, age after age, across calm ocean spaces in 
 search of light, horizon after horizon opening before her, constella- 
 tion after constellation kindling in her skies. And now, when he 
 had been for the better part of a year editor of the Witness, he ven- 
 tured to yield to the prompting of his heart, and to recur to those 
 geological studies which had been his delight in the quiet days of 
 Cromarty. 
 
 On the Qth of September, 1840, there appeared in the Witness 
 the first of a series of articles under the title, "The Old Red Sand- 
 Stone." There were seven in all, each occupying two or three col- 
 umns. The last was published in the Witness of October 17, 1840. 
 The moment was propitious. Hugh Miller could state in the outset 
 that the Old Red Sandstone formation had been hitherto considered 
 as remarkably barren in fossils; that a continental geologist, in tabu- 
 lating the various formations, had appeared to omit this one alto- 
 gether; and that Lyell, whose standard work on the "Elements of 
 Geology" had been issued two years previously, had devoted but
 
 THE OLD RED SANDSTONE. 483 
 
 two and a half pages to its description. He could add that he had 
 "a hundred solid proofs," lying close to his elbow, that the fossils 
 of the system are "remarkably numerous." Nor were they less 
 strange than they were abundant. "The figures on a Chinese vase 
 or an Egyptian obelisk are scarce more unlike what now exists in 
 nature than the fossils of the lower Old Red Sandstone." They 
 seemed to be products of "nature's apprenticeship." 
 
 The importance of the Old Red Sandstone, as part of the geological 
 record, had begun to be surmised by naturalists; and remarks like 
 these were fitted to awaken the curiosity of the general public. The 
 ear of the world, therefore, was open for the word which Hugh Mil- 
 ler could speak. Before September had closed, his reputation as a 
 geologist was made. On the 23d day of that month the British Asso- 
 ciation for the Advancement of Science held its annual meeting. In 
 the Geological Section, Mr. Lyell in the chair, Miller's discoveries 
 were brought under the attention of leading geologists., Mr. Mur- 
 chison, now Sir Roderick, spoke in terms of high eulogy of his per- 
 severance and ingenuity in the geological field, declared that he had 
 raised himself to a position which any man might envy, pointed to 
 the specimens forwarded by him to London, and invited M. Agassiz 
 to describe the class to which they belonged. The distinguished French- 
 man followed in a similar strain, and proposed to name one of the 
 most remarkable specimens "Pterichthys Milleri." Dr. Buckland's 
 enthusiasm knew no bounds. He "had never been so much aston- 
 ished in his life by the powers of any man as he had been by the 
 geological descriptions of Mr. Miller. That wonderful man described 
 these objects with a felicity which made ; him ashamed of the com- 
 parative meagerness and poverty of his own descriptions in the 
 'Bridgewater Treatise,' which had cost him hours and days of labor. 
 He would give his left hand to possess such powers of description 
 as this man." It was, in Dr. Buckland's view, " another proof of 
 the value of the meeting of the Association, that it had contributed 
 to bring such a man into notice." 
 
 There is something fine in this spectacle of the magnates of science 
 welcoming with glad acclaim a brother who, coming at one stride 
 from the quarry, makes out his title to rank as one of them. Men 
 of letters were almost equally astonished at the performance of the 
 Cromarty stone-mason. The benefit which Miller had derived from 
 his long discipline in literary composition was now evident. Into 
 the description of bare and rigid organism be could throw a fascina- 
 tion which charmed every lover of literary form. Here was a self- 
 educated man, who had educated himself not to mere copiousness of 
 glittering words, but to the chastened strength, the subtle modulation, 
 the placid-beaming clearness, of a classic. Every page spoke of ripe 
 thought and confirmed intellectual habits. 
 
 The " Old Red Sandstone," which, in the following year, appeared 
 in the form of a book, was the first literary work executed by Miller
 
 484 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 in the maturity of his power. It stands at the head of a series of 
 unique and remarkable books with which he permanently enriched 
 English literature, books in which the results of face to face inspec- 
 tion of nature, in the quarried hill-side or on the ribbed sea-shore, 
 are interwoven with fresh, racy, sagacious judgments on men and 
 manners ; books in which observations distinguished by exquisite 
 scientific accuracy furnish the ground-plan for landscapes over which 
 is poured the softest, ruddiest glow of imaginative coloring. The 
 nature of Hugh Miller's imaginative power is characteristically ex- 
 hibited in this work. His imagination is bold, yet its audacity is al- 
 ways restrained by reference to ascertained fact. Its pictures are 
 never vague. If, as one critic remarked, his fossil fishes "swim and 
 gambol," they do so as the mind's eye of Hugh Miller, after severe 
 inspection and long gaze into the past, had seen them swim and gam- 
 bol in primeval seas. If the stone branch budded like a rod of 
 Aaron on his page, and forests, breaking from their sepulchres in the 
 rock, grew green again in the sunlight and rustled in the wind, it 
 was not that an oriental fancy delighted in clothing phantom hills 
 with visionary foliage, but because the science of the West had put 
 into his hand a lamp which lighted for him the long vistas of bygone 
 time. This species of imagination is the most valuable which a 
 scientific man can possess, and without it no man, however accurate 
 his observation, however just his conception of individual facts, can 
 be great in science. True workers in science are of three kinds, in 
 ascending order of excellence, the accurate observer and compiler ; 
 the sound generalizer; and the seer of nature, who first observes, 
 then generalizes, and lastly illuminates his generalizations so that 
 they become visions. There were many geologists of his time who, 
 having devoted themselves exclusively to science for nearly as many 
 years as Hugh Miller lived, traversed wider fields of observation and 
 attained a greater acquaintance with fact ; but not the most distin- 
 guished of his contemporaries surpassed him in those august operations 
 of the mind, which may be claimed indifferently for science and for 
 poetry. 
 
 Viewed in relation to the dimensions of the field it covers, the 
 "Old Red Sandstone" of Hugh Miller is a comprehensive account 
 of the formation as it appears in Scotland. The journeyman mason 
 presented to the world of science a monograph on one of the chief 
 rock-systems of his country, and it proved to be an imperishable 
 masterpiece. On that division of the Old Red which is exhibited 
 at Cromarty, and to which Miller had special access, it was almost 
 exhaustive. He added little afterwards to his discoveries in the 
 Cromarty beds, and no other eye has been keen enough to detect in 
 them any thing else of importance. Subsequent research has proved 
 that what he regarded as the Lower Old Red is the middle division 
 of the system. In relation to the Old Red Sandstones of the southern 
 shores of the Moray Frith and of Fife, Perth, and Forfar the book
 
 THE OLD RED SANDSTONE. 485 
 
 was necessarily less complete at its first appearance ; but even of 
 these it presented a distinct, and, in the main outlines, a correct 
 account, and when Miller put his finishing touches to it in later 
 editions, ' it could claim to be the standard work on the Scottish Old 
 Red. Sir Roderick Murchison has since demonstrated that the geo- 
 logical position of the conglomerate of the Western Highlands is in 
 the Silurian system. But this would not have surprised Hugh Miller, 
 who entertained doubts upon the subject. 
 
 With every year of his life his skill and care as a geological ob- 
 server increased, but the keen and exquisite discernment he had already 
 attained may be illustrated by a fact which can be stated in his own 
 words. "After carefully examining many specimens," he wrote in 
 1855, "I published a restoration of both the upper and under side 
 of pterichthys fully fifteen years ago. The greatest of living ichthy- 
 ologists, however, misled by a series of specimens much less complete 
 than mine, differed from me in my conclusions ; and what I had rep- 
 resented as the creature's under or abdominal side, he represented 
 as its upper or dorsal side ; while its actual upper side he regarded 
 as belonging to another, though closely allied, genus. I had no op- 
 portunity, as he resided on the Continent at the time, of submitting 
 to him the specimens on which I had founded ; though, at once cer- 
 tain of his thorough candor and love of truth, and of the solidity of 
 my data, I felt confident that, in order to alter his decision, it was 
 but necessary that I should submit to him my evidence. Meanwhile, 
 however, the case was regarded as settled against me ; and I found 
 at least one popular and very ingenious writer on geology, after re- 
 ferring to my description of the pterichthys, going on to say that, 
 though graphic, it was not correct, and that he himself could describe 
 it at least more truthfully, if not more vividly, than I had done. 
 And then there followed a description identical with that by which 
 mine had been supplanted. Five hears had passed, when one day 
 our greatest British authority on fossil fishes, Sir Philip Egerton, was 
 struck, when passing an hour among the ichthyic organisms of his 
 princely collection, by the appearance presented by a central plate 
 in the cuirass of the pterichthys. It is of a lozenge form ; and, oc- 
 cupying exactly such a place in the nether armature of the creature 
 as that occupied by the lozenge-shaped spot on the ace of diamonds, 
 it comes in contact with four other plates that lie around it, and 
 represent, so to speak, the white portions of the card. And Sir 
 Philip now found that, instead of lying over, it lay under, the four 
 contiguous plates ; they overlapped it, instead of being overlapped 
 by it. This, he at once said, on ascertaining the fact, can not bo 
 the upper side of the pterichthys. A plate so arranged would have 
 formed no proper protection to the exposed dorsal surface of the 
 creature's body, as a slight blow would have at once sent it in upon 
 the interior frame-work ; but a proper enough one to the under side 
 of a heavy swimmer, that, like the flat fishes, kept close to the bot-
 
 486 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 torn ; a character which, as shown by the massive bulk of its body, 
 and its small spread of fin, must have belonged to the pterichthys. 
 Sir Philip followed up his observations on the central plate by a 
 minute examination of the other parts of the creature's armature ; and 
 the survey terminated in a recognition of the earlier restoration set 
 aside so long before as virtually the true one; a recognition in 
 which Agassiz, when made acquainted with the nature of the evidence, 
 at once acquiesced." This is the kind of fact which proves consum- 
 mate practical ability of that character which can not be derived 
 from books. 
 
 We may here take in a letter written by Miller, about the time 
 when the "Old Red Sandstone" was getting into circulation as a 
 book, to a little boy whom he had known in Cromarty. It contains 
 a few details as to his history at the time which can not be presented 
 to the reader so pleasantly in any other way, and it adds one other 
 illustration to the many we have already had of his gentle, playful, 
 sympathetic manner with children. 
 
 " EDINBURGH, 5 SYLVAN PLACE, Sept. 8, 1841. 
 
 "Mv DEAR ALIE MUNRO: I will tell you how it was that I did 
 not reply to your kind letter last spring. It was all in consequence 
 of another letter which I received only two days after I received it, 
 and which entirely put it out of my mind for the time. This other 
 letter was a Cromarty letter ; and it informed me that my poor mother 
 was very, very ill, and that unless I hurried north to see her, I might 
 never see her more. And so I did hurry away north, with the very 
 first coach that set out, and was one day and two nights on the 
 road. I found my mother much better than my fears had antici- 
 pated, for the disease that threatened her life had taken a favorable 
 turn ; and ere I parted from her, which was in about a week after, 
 she was well-nigh recovered. Meanwhile however, I had forgotten 
 your letter. Now I know, my dear Alie, you will forgive me when 
 you take all this into your grave consideration. My journey was a very 
 unpleasant and sad one, so sad and unpleasant that one might almost 
 make an agreeable story out of it. Wrecks and battles, you know, 
 make good subjects for stories ; and the worse and more unpleasant 
 the wreck or battle, just all the better is the story. So long as I was 
 with the coach I had nothing worse than sad thoughts and very bad 
 weather to annoy me. From Fortrose to Cromarty, however, I had to 
 grope my way as if I had been playing all the way at blind-man's- 
 buff. Never yet have I been out in so dark a night. I had to feel 
 for the road with my staff, and I discovered on two or three occa- 
 sions that I had got off it only by tumbling into the ditch. It was 
 at least three hours after midnight ere I reached my journey's end. 
 
 " I saw Aunt and Uncle Ross in Cromarty, and Cousin Mora. 
 Cousin Mora is a smart, pretty little girl. But I dare say you will
 
 LETTER TO A CHILD. 487 
 
 deem my news of the north somewhat old, and there is no denying 
 that it is less new now than it was six months ago. It is not so old, 
 however, by a great deal, as the news you gave me about the battle 
 of Hastings ; and I of late have been giving much older news to the 
 public in a' book on the Old Red Sandstone. You remind me, dear 
 Alie, of the stones and fossils which I used to point out to you on 
 the shore of Cromarty. I have written a whole book about them, 
 with curious looking prints in it the portraits of fish that lived so 
 very long ago, that there were no men in the world at the time to 
 give them names. But they have all got names now, stiff-looking 
 Greek names, which only scholars can understand. One of them has 
 been named after me, Pterichthys Milleri, which means Miller's 
 winged fish, and I send you prints of it that you may see what a 
 strange-looking creature it was. By the way, have you got great 
 chalk cliffs at Hastings? There are very curious fossils found in 
 chalk, sea-eggs, of a kind no longer found alive, spindle-shaped 
 stones, called Belemnites, other stones called Ammonites, that re- 
 semble coiled snakes, cockle-like shells with spines on their backs, 
 and a great many other curious things besides that were once living 
 creatures. 
 
 "I trust you will remember me to Aunt Munro, whose kindness to 
 me in Cromarty I very often remember, and who has since been very 
 kind to my sister Jane. I dare say that my answering your letter, 
 though at this late time, I have made her lose her wager. You know 
 lose it she must, if there was no particular time specified. I am 
 very, very busy in these days, thinking, reading, writing, beating one 
 day, beaten the next ; called a blockhead at one time without believ- 
 ing it, believing it at another without being called it ; living, in short, 
 a hurried, bustling, fighting sort of life. It is very seldom I can 
 command leisure enough to write letters, and sometimes when I have 
 the leisure I want the will. But you see I have at length written to 
 you, and had it not been for one circumstance, of which I have 
 already told you, I would have written you six months ago. I have 
 a little daughter who helps me at times in putting wrong my papers, 
 books, and fossils. She has got language enough to call a dog bow- 
 wow, and a cat mew ; and when she sees a fossil she points to it, 
 and calls it 'papa's fish.' She had a philosophical desire long ago 
 to ascertain whether the flame of a candle might not taste and feel 
 as pleasantly as it looked ; but she is no longer curious on this head. 
 I sometimes sing to her, and she seems much pleased with my music 
 a thing no one ever was before. I am afraid, however, that her 
 mother will spoil her just and simple taste in this matter; but know 
 not how to prevent it. And now, my dear Alie, I have come to the 
 close of my letter. It is not long, you see; but there is a good deal 
 of nonsense in it for all that. I would like very much to be a little- 
 boy once more; but alas, I am a big man, and can not play myself
 
 488 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 so much or so often as I could wish. Some of my reddish-brown 
 hair is actually getting gray. I am, my dear boy, 
 
 " Your affectionate friend, 
 
 " HUGH MILLER." 
 
 There is perhaps no work of Miller's by which the general reader 
 can better judge him than his " First Impressions of England and its 
 People." The subject has the look of being hackneyed beyond all 
 chance of effective writing ; yet the book, I venture to say, is one of 
 the most fresh and charming in the language. The materials were 
 gathered in eight weeks of autumnal wandering through England in 
 1845, an d the composition occupied the leisure hours of a hard- 
 worked editor for six months. Yet how admirable is the style ! 
 With what subtle felicity does it combine the dignity of elaborate 
 literary form with perfect ease and freedom ! And how completely 
 do we feel, as we read, that we are in converse with a cultivated 
 mind ! The treasures which Miller had been accumulating since he 
 was six years old the impressions, facts, reflections, fancies of life- 
 long observation and study flow out upon the page in stintless yet 
 chaste abundance, absolutely without straining or parade. There is 
 no gaudy metaphoric daubing, no wearisome drawing out of simili- 
 tudes, but the right illustration, brief and happy, always comes in at 
 the right place, and the nice, bright word of metaphor, like the 
 honey-touch on the lip of Jonathan when he was weary, never fails. 
 
 Of Miller's power as a critic, the passage in this book recounting 
 his visit to the birth-place of Shakespeare, as well as several others, 
 furnish ample proof, and the sketch of the younger Littleton is man- 
 aged with great adroitness and lightness of touch. . . . The 
 Scotchman is, of course, seen peeping from beneath his plaid as he 
 journeys through England. "To my eye," he says, " my country- 
 men and I have now seen them in almost every district of Scotland 
 present an appearance of rugged strength which the English, though 
 they take their place among the more robust European nations, do 
 not exhibit." But if he dearly loves to put in a good word for 
 Scotland, he can do justice to England. " Scotland has produced 
 no Shakespeare ; Burns and Sir Walter Scott united would fall short 
 of the stature of the giant of Avon. Of Milton we have not even a 
 representative. . . . Bacon is as exclusively unique as Milton, 
 and as exclusively English ; and, though the grandfather of Newton 
 was a Scotchman, we have certainly no Scotch Sir Isaac." 
 
 Miller's acknowledgment of what he owed to the literature of 
 England, suggested by his visit to Poet's Corner in Westminster 
 Abbey, is beautiful and strictly autobiographic. u I had no strong 
 emotions," he says, with signal honesty, " to exhibit when pacing 
 along the pavement in this celebrated place, nor would I have ex- 
 hibited them if I had." The reader will feel that deep and true 
 emotion pervades the words which follow. "Here was poor Gold-
 
 THOUGHTS ON ENGLISH AUTHORS. 489 
 
 smith ; he had been my companion for thirty years ; I had been first 
 introduced to him through the medium of a common-school collection, 
 when a little boy in the humblest English class of a parish school, 
 and I had kept up the acquaintance ever since. There, too, was 
 Addison, whom I had known so long, and, in his true poems, his 
 prose ones, had loved so much ; and there were Gay, and Prior, 
 and Cowley, and Thomson, and Chaucer, and Spenser, and Milton ; 
 and there, too, on a slab on the floor, with the freshness of recent 
 interment still palpable about it, as if to indicate the race at least 
 not long extinct, was the name of Thomas Campbell. I had got 
 fairly among my patrons and benefactors. How often, shut out for 
 months and years together from all literary converse with the living, 
 had they been almost my only companions, my unseen associates, 
 who, in the rude work-shed, lightened my labors by the music of 
 their numbers, and who, in my evening walks, that would have been 
 so solitary save for them, expanded my intellect by the solid bulk 
 of their thinking, and gave me ey,es, by their exquisite descriptions, 
 to look at nature! How thoroughly, too, had they served to break 
 down in my mind at least the narrow and more illiberal partialities 
 of country, leaving untouched, however, all that was worthy of 
 being cherished in my attachment to poor old Scotland ! I learned 
 to deem the English poet not less my countryman than the Scot, if 
 I but felt the true human heart beating in his bosom ; and the in- 
 tense prejudices which I had imbibed, when almost a child, from the 
 fiery narratives of Blind Harry and of Barbour, melted away, like 
 snow-wreaths from before the sun, under the genial influences of the 
 glowing poesy of England. It is not the harp of Orpheus that will 
 effectually tame the wild beast which lies ambushing in human nature, 
 and is ever and anon breaking forth on the nations, in cruel, deso- 
 lating war. The work of giving peace to the earth awaits those 
 Divine harmonies which breathe from the Lyre of Inspiration, when 
 swept by the Spirit of God. And yet the harp of Orpheus does 
 exert an auxiliary power. It is of the nature of its songs, so rich in 
 the human sympathies, so charged with the thoughts, the imaginings, 
 the hopes, the wishes, which it is the constitution of humanity to 
 conceive and entertain, it is of their nature to make us feel that 
 the nations are all of one blood, that man is our brother, and the 
 world our country." 
 
 "Sir, you have an eye," was what English critics said when Mil- 
 ler's chapters, detailing his impressions, were published in the columns 
 of the Witness. A Birmingham editor, ignorant as to Miller, and 
 fancying, for what reason I know not, that he was a "dominie," 
 quoted passages descriptive of Birmingham and its district, and said 
 that the writer must be a very remarkable man, since he had seen 
 a great deal which had escaped the observation of the natives, but 
 which, on its being pointed out to them, they also could see. Mr. 
 William Drummond, then sub-editor of the Witness, and an esteemed
 
 49 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 . I 
 
 friend of Miller's, showed him the article in the Birmingham paper, 
 and he had a hearty laugh at it. Truth to speak, he had an eye 
 that was worth its place in a man's head ; searching, inevitable, keen, 
 swift, sure ; which gathered information at every moment and in all 
 places, to be hoarded up in the cells of a memory which seems never 
 to have lost an atom of the store. 
 
 It is impossible not to see that Miller's heart warmed to England 
 every day he continued within her borders. He was surprised with 
 the frankness, and ready hospitality, and generosity of the people. 
 The fact clearly is, broad as was his accent and plain his garb, that 
 he had in England, as elsewhere, an irresistible charm for every one 
 who came near him. 
 
 SCIENCE AND RELIGION. 
 
 " Such is the state of progression in geological science that the ge- 
 ologist who stands still but for a very little must be content to find 
 himself left behind." The words are Hugh Miller's, they occur in 
 his preface to the first edition of the "Old Red Sandstone." Their 
 application is of course peculiarly forcible to the geologist whose ac- 
 tivity has been arrested by death. No man can do more than his 
 own piece of work in science, and the question on which our estimate 
 of the merit of a scientific worker must depend, is not whether he 
 penetrated to the limits of any one province in nature, or uttered 
 the final and absolute truth as to any one of nature's laws and pro- 
 cesses, but whether he did the work he professed to do faithfully, 
 honestly, and, to the point to which he carried it, thoroughly. 
 
 As science continues to advance, the several positions taken up by 
 Hugh Miller, in prosecuting the sublime enterprise of proving the ex- 
 istence and illustrating the character of God from his works, may 
 or may not prove tenable. Without question some of them would 
 now be abandoned by the most eminent geologists. On taking the 
 chair as President of the Royal Physical Society of Edinburgh, in 
 1852, he enunciated the following proposition: "There is no truth 
 more thoroughly ascertained than that the great Tertiary, Secondary, 
 and Palaeozoic divisions represent, in the history of the globe, periods as 
 definitely distinct and separate from each other as the modern from the 
 ancient history of Europe, or the events which took place previous 
 to the Christian era from those that in the subsequent centuries which 
 we reckon from it. All over the globe, too, in the great Palaeozoic 
 division, the Carboniferous system is found to overlie the system of 
 the Old Red Sandstone, and that, in turn> the widely developed Sil- 
 urian system." Having spoken thus without evoking one dissentient 
 symptom in his audience, he could expect an affirmative answer to 
 the question which he proceeded to put : "I would ask such of the 
 gentlemen whom I now address as have studied the subject most 
 thoroughly, whether, at those grand lines of division between the
 
 SCIENCE AND RELIGION. 49! 
 
 Palaeozoic and Secondary, and again between the Secondary and Ter- 
 tiary periods, at which the entire type of organic being alters, so that 
 all on the one side of the gap belongs to one fashion, and all on the 
 other to another and wholly different fashion, whether they have 
 not been as thoroughly impressed with the conviction that there ex- 
 isted a Creative Agent, to whom the sudden change was owing, as if 
 they themselves had witnessed the miracle of Creation ? ' ' 
 
 Professor Huxley now declares that " for any thing that geology or 
 palaeontology are able to show to the contrary, a Devonian fauna and 
 flora in the British Islands may have been contemporaneous with 
 Silurian life in North America, and with a Carboniferous fauna and 
 flora in Africa. Geographical provinces and zones may have been as 
 distinctly marked in the Palaeozoic epoch as at present, and those 
 seemingly sudden appearances of new genera and species, which we 
 ascribe to new creation, may be simple results of migration." 
 
 The tendency of scientific research throughout every province of 
 nature has been to obliterate lines of demarkation, and to show, 
 stretching beyond us into the infinitude both of time and space, im- 
 measurable curves and undulations of unity. The definite proofs 
 afforded by spectrum analysis of the sameness of matter throughout 
 the solar and stellar expanses" marked a stage of sublime advancement 
 in our conception of the harmony of things ; and correspondences, 
 indubitable though mysterious, between terrestrial magnetism, the 
 spots of the sun, and those systems of aerolites which have recently 
 attracted so much of the attention of philosophers, suggest that the 
 unities of nature are as intimate and as wonderful as her diversities. 
 
 Miller was in the same line of battle with his ablest scientific con- 
 temporaries. How he would have comported himself if he had lived 
 to see the publication of Mr. Darwin's work on the " Origin of 
 Species," to witness its reception throughout the world of science, to 
 follow the lines of research and speculation to which it pointed the 
 way, we need not inquire. This, however, I will venture to say : 
 first, that he would have distinctly declared, as, indeed, he did with 
 reference to the old theory of development, that Mr. Darwin's doc- 
 trine has no necessary affinity with atheism ; secondly, that he would 
 have subjected the facts and reasonings of Mr. Darwin and his fol- 
 lowers to a scrutiny more searching than they have yet received ; and 
 thirdly, that, if he had found them incontrovertible, he would, with- 
 out a moment's hesitation, have proclaimed his assent to them. His 
 reverence for God's truth was infinitely deeper than his regard for 
 his own conception of it. That truth he would accept, howsoever 
 and whensoever it was revealed, conscious that the willful misreading 
 of nature is a sin against Him whose ordinance nature is. Strange 
 imagination, that the Ineffable One is less honored by reverent cau- 
 tion and hesitation by childlike fingering among the letters of his 
 name and childlike diffidence in spelling it out than by vociferous 
 dogmatism on the subject ! Hugh Miller dared not force his con-
 
 492 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 science to lie to God by bribing his intellect to lie for God. His 
 writings on those high questions which belong to the border-land 
 between science and theology have a perennial value, not because 
 of the finality of their matter, but because of the Tightness of their 
 manner. With true reverence and sterling integrity, he discoursed 
 of the relations between physical and moral law in this universe, and 
 the reciprocal bearings of God's revelation of himself in matter and 
 by matter his works ; and his revelation of himself in mind and by 
 mind his word. 
 
 Familiar as Miller was with the tremendous reasonings of Hume's 
 "Dialogue's on Natural Religion," he was not one to take refuge in 
 the amiable platitudes of the Rose Matilda school, or to wrap him- 
 self from the lightnings in garlands of flowers. He would not have 
 shrunk from admitting, in all that width of extension and precision 
 of application which Mr. Darwin and his school have shown to be- 
 long to it, the law of pain throughout the world of life. Survival 
 of the stronger, with extermination of the weaker by famine and 
 anguish, he would, I think, have allowed to be the law of physical 
 nature. He would, at the same time, have maintained that "a grad- 
 ual progress towards perfection," though, as Mr. Huxley points out, 
 it forms no necessary part of the Darwinian creed, is revealed in 
 nature. He would have dwelt with Goethe on the fact that death 
 itself is but a subtle contrivance by which more life is obtained. 
 Above all, he would have insisted, as neither Hume, Goethe, nor 
 Darwin have insisted, upon sin as an explanation of misery; and upon 
 the promise of redemption and immortality through Christ, as send- 
 ing a stream of celestial radiance far up into the hollow of the terres- 
 trial night. 
 
 In his latest work, the "Testimony of the Rocks," he expounded 
 the Age theory of Mosaic geology with admirable breadth and lucid- 
 ity ; and it is generally admitted that this is the sole hypothesis which 
 can now be maintained with any show of plausibility by those who 
 hold Christian theologians bound to furnish a scheme of reconcilia- 
 tion between geology and Genesis. 
 
 Hugh Miller maintained the entire independence of science. "No 
 scientific question," he says, "was ever yet settled dogmatically, or 
 ever will be. If the question be one in the science of numbers, it 
 must be settled arithmetically ; if in the science of geometry, it must 
 be settled mathematically ; if in the science of chemistry, it must be 
 settled experimentally. ... As men have yielded to astronomy 
 the right of decision in all astronomical questions, so must they re- 
 sign to geology the settlement of all geological ones." Again: 
 "The geologist, as certainly as the theologian, has a province exclu- 
 sively his own ; and were the theologian ever to remember that the 
 Scriptures could not possibly have been given to us as revelations of 
 scientific truth, seeing that a single scientific truth they never yet re- 
 vealed, and the geologist that it must be in vain to seek in science
 
 LATER YEARS AS EDITOR. 493 
 
 those truths which lead to salvation, seeing that in science these truths 
 were never yet found, there would be little danger even of difference 
 among them, and none of collision." 
 
 THE LAST EDINBURGH PERIOD. 
 
 The life of Hugh Miller, so varied and eventful in its early period, 
 formed no exception, in the ten years preceding its close, to that 
 placid uniformity which proverbially characterizes the lives of liter- 
 ary men, and which precludes detailed description. 
 
 During those years he conducted the Witness with steady and 
 ever-broadening success, speaking his weighty word on every impor- 
 tant question as it arose, and widely accepted as a guide of opinion. 
 -.' * . . The words of Miss Dunbar, that the day was coming when his 
 country's greatest would court his acquaintance, had been literally 
 fulfilled, and there was no circle in Edinburgh or in London which 
 would not have felt itself honored by his presence. In the commu- 
 nications addressed to him by men of rank or reputation, it was as- 
 sumed as a matter of course that his place was among the intellectual 
 aristocracy of his time, and that he was one of those whose acquaint- 
 ance conferred distinction. Again and again did the Duke of Argyll 
 solicit the honor of a visit from Miller, resting his hope of a favorable 
 reply, not on his own aristocratic birth, but oh community of scien- 
 tific interests and pursuits. The difficulty was to overcome that feel- 
 ing on the part of Miller which we found himself describing as dif- 
 fidence, but which is, perhaps, insufficiently characterized by the 
 term; a feeling which partook little of self-distrust, and still less of 
 haughty coldness, but consisted principally in a shy and sensitive re- 
 serve, a consciousness that his mental instruments could work per- 
 fectly only in their owij placid atmosphere. He was totally devoid 
 of ambition to shine in mixed and fashionable society. On the 
 whole, I should say that the word "shyness" most correctly describes 
 the quality in Hugh Miller which led him inexorably though cour- 
 teously to decline invitations like that of the Duke of Argyll. 
 
 He was not a man to have many intimate friends, and few indeed 
 of those whom he knew subsequently to coming to Edinburgh did 
 he take to his heart with that impassioned ardor of affection which 
 marked his Cromarty friendships. 
 
 PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF A LADY. 
 
 "When his family came to town, it was with no common pleasure that 
 I recognized in Mrs. Miller a young lady who had been a class-fel- 
 low of mine. This led me frequently to her house and gave me the 
 opportunity of seeing her husband, and my admiration of and interest 
 in him increased every time I met him. There could be no greater 
 or more exciting pleasure than to converse with Hugh Miller. He
 
 494 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 did not harangue, but conversed, and raised those with whom he did 
 so for the time to his own level. One felt amazed to hear one's own 
 trifling remarks made the means of bringing out his stores of obser- 
 vation and thought; and if by good fortune one brought to his notice 
 some to him yet unknown fact or quotation from the poets, to whose 
 ' terrible sagacity' he loved so often to refer, it was indeed gratifying 
 to see the look of pleased attention with which he listened. It 
 seemed as if he could not but be thinking, and that every thing 
 brought grist to his mill, set going some new train of thought, or 
 confirmed some old one. Then, of course, there were all the excit- 
 ing subjects of the time a time never to be forgotten by those who 
 lived in it, and shared the principles and emotions of those engaged 
 in the struggle which ended in the formation of the Free Church. 
 
 "In the end of 1848 I happened, when calling on Mrs. Miller in 
 Stuart street, to hear that her husband was giving some little lectures 
 on geology to a few lady friends, and I was most kindly invited to 
 join the party. We met on Saturday forenoons, and sat round a 
 table on which he had arranged some specimens to illustrate what he 
 was going to tell us about. These lectures were the germs of those 
 he afterwards delivered before the Philosophical Institution, and 
 which have been published under the title of the ' Sketch-book of 
 Popular Geology.' Any one who reads that volume may see how 
 pleasant as well as instructive they were. But it can not convey the 
 interest of being taught by sw^h a teacher, who thought no question 
 too trivial to be answered, and explained himself by all manner of 
 illustrations, homely or otherwise, but always comprehensible and dis- 
 tinct; while over every thing his imagination threw an endless charm, 
 and his earnest faith a deeper interest. His manner to women I 
 always thought particularly good wholly wanting in flattery, but full 
 of gentle deference. Our meetings frequently ended by our enjoying 
 Mrs. Miller's hospitality and society at luncheon, when we witnessed 
 the same gentle manner in his own family, and various little inci- 
 dents which showed his strong parental love. As spring came on 
 our lectures took place in the open air instead of in Mrs. Miller's 
 drawing-room, and we had some charming walks to shores and quar- 
 ries in the neighborhood of Portobello, and to Salisbury Crags and 
 Arthur Seat, where the Queen's Drive had been lately opened, and 
 afforded us many illustrations of what we had learned from him dur- 
 ing the winter. Never was geology more pleasantly studied. 
 
 " We spent a few weeks that autumn in the neighborhood of Mel- 
 rose, and, having asked him to visit us on the banks of Tweed, I 
 had the following note from him : 
 
 "'EDINBURGH, 2 STUART STREET, 2 ist August, 1849. 
 
 " ' Your kind note reached me as I was engaged on the last article 
 for the Witness which I shall write for at least several weeks. The
 
 FOOTPRINTS OF THE CREATOR. 495 
 
 completion of my book* has at length set me at liberty; on Thurs- 
 day I leave by the Wick Steamer for the extreme north ; and on the 
 Saturday, to which your kind invitation refers, I shall be sauntering, 
 if the voyage be a prosperous one, not along the soft-wooded banks 
 of the Tweed, but along the bleak crags that overlord the Pentland 
 Firth. Your river has all the beauty on its side, but the broad Pent- 
 land with its roaring eddies is by far the more magnificent river of 
 the two. My book will not be fairly published until Saturday first ; 
 but on Saturday last I did myself the pleasure of forwarding copies 
 to all my lady pupils, though I am not sure that your copy has got 
 
 further than C street. You will, I suspect, find the pure geology 
 
 of it rather dry ; but in the concluding chapters, more especially in 
 the last taken in connection with the chapter on the degradation prin- 
 ciple, you will, I think, find some thoughts that will interest you. A 
 man who merely refutes an error, if it be an ingenious one and suited 
 to fill the imagination, does only half his work. The void created 
 ought to be filled with something as novel and curious as that which 
 has been taken away ; and in the chapters to which I refer I attempt 
 embodying a theory compensating for the development one. I had 
 a note yesterday from Mrs. Miller. She was well when it was writ- 
 ten, and in spirits, and just emerging from the bustle of a Free- 
 Church-Manse marriage.' 
 
 " He seemed to feel an increase of kindness to us, his ' lady pupils,' 
 after that pleasant season. My recollections of him at Stuart street 
 are fragmentary. 
 
 "In the summer of 1856 there was an archaeological collection 
 exhibited in Edinburgh. In the beginning of August I went there 
 early the last day it was open, and came upon Hugh Miller looking 
 at the ethnographical department. He told me he had been ill, and 
 was then on his way home after a week's recreation. I expressed 
 surprise at this, as I thought I had noticed his hand in the Wit- 
 ness during the past month. He said I was right, but that he had 
 written these articles during the time of the Assembly. After look- 
 ing with him for a little at the stone and bronze weapons, I went 
 further to look at some portraits of Mary Stuart, and at a print to 
 which he directed my attention the print which was the subject of 
 conversation when the boy Walter Scott met Robert Burns. As I 
 returned I found Hugh Miller standing by Robert Bruce's sword, 
 which had been placed in an upright position in the center of the 
 gallery. He measured it, and then, turning to me, recited from the 
 ' Lord of the Isles ' the lines referring to it. Lord Elgin had sent 
 the sword, and were speaking of his being of the same family as the 
 king, when Hugh Miller told the story of the old Scotch lady of the 
 name, who, on being asked if she was of King Robert Bruce's family, 
 answered that the king was of her family. 
 
 M. W." 
 * Footprints of the Creator
 
 496 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 At Cromarty and Linlithgow, Miller, as we saw, was an indefati- 
 gable and voluminous correspondent. In Edinburgh, penning two 
 or three leading articles per week, and with a book generally on 
 hand, he required no further vent for his literary productiveness, and 
 wrote no such letters as those which it formally had been his delight 
 to pour forth. He told his friends that they must consider the Wit- 
 ness a bi-weekly letter from him, and confined his epistolary perform- 
 ances to notes of reply to invitations, brief answers to geological 
 querists, and the like. In this rapid fashion he corresponded if 
 correspondence it can be called with a very large proportion of the 
 most eminent scientific men of his time. Professors Owen, Agassiz, 
 Sedgwick, Sir Charles Lyell, Sir David Brewster, Mr. Mantell, occur 
 to me at the moment as among those who compared notes with him 
 as a scientific peer and fellow-worker. 
 
 A few extracts may be taken from the letters sent to Mrs. Miller 
 during the English tour ; but as he made large use of those letters 
 in preparing the "First Impressions," we must glean sparingly: 
 
 "OLNEY, pth September, 1845. 
 
 " Here I am in a quiet old inn, kept by a quiet old man who re- 
 members 'Squire Cowper and Mrs. Unwin ; and in the early part of 
 the day I walked the walk described by the 'Squire in the ' Task/ 
 with an old woman of seventy-one for my guide, for whose schooling 
 Mrs. Unwin had paid. She knew the Lady Hesketh, too, and, when 
 a little thing, used to get coppers from her. A kindly lady was the 
 Lady Hesketh ; there are no such ladies nowadays that is, at Wes- 
 ton Underwood, I suppose. She used to put coppers into her little 
 silk bag every time she went out, in order to make the children whom 
 she met happy. She and Mrs. Unwin, too, were remarkably good to 
 the poor. I walked with the old woman, much entertained with her 
 gossip, through the stately colonnade of limes whose ' obsolete pro- 
 lixity of shade ' the poet has celebrated, and which is in sober truth 
 a very notable thing, on to the ' alcove,' and from thence to the 
 ' rustic bridge,' and then on through the field with the chasm in the 
 center of it, into which the sheep of the fable proposed throwing 
 themselves, to ' Yardley Oak.' Then returning by another road, I 
 passed by the * peasant's nest,' and after making the old woman 
 happy with half a crown, parted from her and struck down to the 
 Ouse, a sluggish, sullen stream fringed with reeds and rushes, that 
 winds through flat, dank meadows, on which a rich country looks 
 down on either side. I saw the broad leaves of the water-lilies bob- 
 bing up and down in the current, but the lilies themselves were gone. 
 By the way, my old guide knew not only the 'squire and the two 
 ladies, Mrs. Unwin and the Lady Hesketh, but also the little dog 
 Beau, and a pretty little dog he was, with a good deal of red about 
 him. 
 
 " Directly opposite Cowper 's house in Weston Underwood I picked
 
 AT SHAKESPEARE'S HOME. 497 
 
 up a fossil pecten and terebratula, and bethought me of his denuncia- 
 tions of the geologists, who, to be sure, in his days were a sad in- 
 fidel pack. . . . Immediately behind the garden is the snug 
 parsonage-house the home in succession of John Newton and 
 Thomas Scott and the parish church in which they both preached, 
 a fine, solid structure, with a tall, handsome spire, closes the vista in 
 this direction. 
 
 "So much for Olney. The greater part of yesterday I spent in 
 Stratford-on-Avon, where I saw both the birthplace and grave of 
 ' William Shakespeare, Gentleman,' have you ever heard of such a 
 person ? The birthplace, a low-browed room, under the beams of 
 which one can barely walk with one's hat on, is not half a mile re- 
 moved from the burial-place. The humbly born boy was a purpose- 
 like fellow, and returned to his native town a gentleman, and to get 
 himself a grave among its magnates in the chancel of the church. 
 By the way, in utter defiance of fine taste and fine art, I pronounce 
 the humble stone bust, his monument, incomparably superior to all 
 the idealized likenesses of him, whether done on canvas or on mar- 
 ble, that men of genius have yet produced. The men of genius 
 make him a wonderfully pretty fellow, with poetry oozing out of every 
 feature; but their Shakespeare would never have been 'William 
 Shakespeare, Gentleman? neither, in the times of Elizabeth and 
 James, when money was of such value, would he have returned to 
 his native village a man of five hundred a year. The Shakespeare 
 of the stone bust is the true Shakespeare ; the head, a powerful mass 
 of brain, would require all Chalmers' hat ; the forehead is as broad, 
 more erect, and of much more general capacity ; and the whole coun- 
 tenance is that of a shrewd, sagacious man, who could, of course, be 
 poetical when he willed it rather more so than any body else but 
 who mingled wondrous little poetry in his every-day business. The 
 man whom the stone bust represents could have been Chancellor of 
 the Exchequer, and in opening the budget his speech would embody 
 many of the figures of Cocker, judiciously arranged, but not one 
 poetical figure. 
 
 "You speak, dearest, of temperament, and the difficulty of bear- 
 ing up against it by any mere effort of the will when it is adverse to 
 small, but not unimportant, every-day duties. I know somewhat of 
 that difficulty from experience in myself; willing may do much, but 
 it will not change nature, or convert uphill work into downhill. But 
 I trust we shall both get on, bearing and forbearing, with a solid 
 stratum of affection at bottom. I have been conscious, since my late 
 attack, of an irritability of temper, which is, I hope, not natural to 
 me, and which, when better health comes, will, I trust, disappear. I 
 keep it down so that it gives no external sign ; since I entered Eng- 
 land it has found no expression whatever; but I am very sensible of 
 it, especially after passing a rather sleepless night. To-day I am in 
 a very genial humor, the entire secret of which is in the excellence 
 32
 
 498 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 of last night's rest, induced, I think, by the fatigue of the previous 
 day. I mention the thing merely in corroboration of your remark 
 we can not be independent of the animal part of us. I am a good 
 boy to-day because I slept well last night, but I was not so good a 
 boy a week since, for my nerves were out of order, and my sleep 
 had been bad. 
 
 " By the way, you said nothing in your last about Harriet. Tell 
 her that I have put a kiss in the heart of this round O, which she 
 must try to bring out of it. This is a fine country for nuts, and I 
 must get some for her Halloween, brought to Archibald Place. I did 
 not get to the Liverpool meeting. . . . From the tone of the 
 dissenting papers here regarding it, I have lost all hope of its pro- 
 ducing aught except bad speeches. Voluntaryism has eaten the very 
 pith out of Dissent ; like a goodly tree eaten by white ants, it will 
 yield to the first shock of the tempest." 
 
 This note to his mother-in-law, on occasion of the birth of his 
 son Hugh, is worth printing on account of the autobiographic touch 
 respecting his own birth, and the characteristically mournful reflec- 
 tion which follows. 
 
 "2 STUART ST., EDINBURGH, 
 
 " 4 o'clock, Thursday Afternoon. 
 
 "The doctor has just been with us, and he is well pleased with the 
 appearance of both mother and child. Baby, in his introduction 
 into the world, had a sore struggle for life ; and in pugilist's phrase, 
 but with a deeper meaning than theirs was about five minutes ' deaf to 
 time. ' Accidents can scarce be hereditary ; but my mother has told 
 me that, when making my debut, I refused to breathe for a still longer 
 period. Were all the future known to the little entrants, such refusals 
 would, I dare say, be more common than they are, and more dog- 
 gedly persisted in." 
 
 Miller was particularly gratified by terms in which the gift of the 
 "Footprints" was acknowledged by Professor Owen, and quotes, in 
 the following letter, to a'lady, the passage in which the work was 
 mentioned by that eminent philosopher: 
 
 " Unpopular as I suppose my little book was to prove, the first 
 thousand has gone off bravely, and I am passing a second through 
 the press. Some of the letters regarding it are of a very gratifying 
 character. One, in special, from the first comparative anatomist in 
 the world (Richard Owen), is singularly warm hearted and cheering; 
 and, as you will not set it down to the score of vulgar vanity, I must 
 just give you an extract, partly in order to show you, as one of my 
 pupils, that I was not mistaken in supposing that the least popular 
 portions of my book would be exactly those to which a certain class 
 of students would attach most interest : ' I have just received and, 
 setting all other things aside, devoured your Asterolepis of Strom- 
 ness. I find it not so hard and indigestible as it may prove to the
 
 SECRETARY OF BRITISH ASSOCIATION. 499 
 
 Vestigesians. I have been instructed and delighted by it. I have 
 also derived a heartfelt encouragement from it. It is almost the first 
 contemporary work in which I have found some favorite ideas of my 
 own weighed out and pronounced upon. This cheers one up after 
 the despondency that will, in spite of reason, creep over one through 
 the blank silence in which one's favorite works are received by those 
 in whose especial behoof they have been cogitated and printed. I 
 allude to the host of estimable anatomists, anthropotomists, and Zo- 
 ologists that we live and move against in our scientific cotteries of 
 London.' This, you will agree with me, is worth whole volumes of 
 ignorant criticism ; a newspaper reviewer, very favorable in the main, 
 speaks of my 'rather tedious introduction;' it was, however, not for 
 newspaper reviewers, but for men such as Professor Owen that that 
 introduction was written ; and the professor, you see, does not deem 
 it tedious." 
 
 In the autumn of 1850, the annual meeting of the British Associa- 
 tion for the Advancement of Science was held in Edinburgh. In 
 the beginning of June the following note from Sir Roderick Murchi- 
 son reached Miller : 
 
 " 1 6 BELGRAVE SQUARE, May 31, 1850. 
 
 "At a meeting of the Council of the British Association held yes- 
 terday I was named President of Section C (or Geology and Geo- 
 graphy), with yourself and James Nicol as secretaries for our special 
 science, and with A. Keith Johnstone for geography. 
 
 "As I moved that you be placed in this office, and as my motion 
 passed unanimously (and indeed with acclamation in a full meeting, 
 Professor Kelland from Edinburgh being present), I trust you will 
 not allow any thing to prevent your accepting it. I honestly confess 
 that no honor could be more gratifying to me than to occupy the 
 geological chair in my native country; and if I know that the author 
 of the ' Old Red Sandstone' will be one of the secretaries, I shall be 
 still more proud, for I consider that we come from the same nook of 
 land, the Black Isle and Cromarty being inseparable." 
 
 He replied as follows: 
 
 " Accept my best thanks for the great and unexpected honor you 
 have done me in proposing me as one of the secretaries for the Geo- 
 logical Section of the British Association at its coming meeting. I 
 am afraid my qualifications for the office are not of the highest kind ; 
 my newspaper, too will engage much of my time, and my health for the 
 last few years has not been very strong ; but I feel that I could scarce 
 decline the appointment without, at least, appearing to fail in respect 
 to the Council of the Association and in gratitude to you. I shall, 
 therefore, do my best to fulfill its duties, trusting that the good-nature 
 of the Association may excuse my shortcomings, and the activity and 
 business habits of my coadjutor, Professor Nicol, more than compen- 
 sate for them. I have, I think, some curious things to set before the
 
 500 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 English Geologists illustrative of the first ages of ganoidal existence 
 fossils either without duplicate, or in a better state of keeping than 
 elsewhere which may serve to show them that at least one of the 
 pages of the geological record (that which you were the first to open) 
 is more fully and clearly written in the rocks of our native country 
 than in perhaps those of any other. My set of the remains of the 
 Asterolepis is, in particular, very curious and, I believe, unique ; and, 
 though I do not know that I can say much regarding them in addi- 
 tion to what I have already said in my little work 'The Footprints,' 
 it may be something to verify and illustrate by fossils so rare and 
 little known what in the work I had to illustrate by but a set of 
 greatly reduced wood-cuts. 
 
 Hugh Miller was a tenderly affectionate parent, and never did he 
 display the least severity to his children until he became ill the last 
 year of his life. One or two specimens may be given of the letters 
 which, when absent on his geological tours, he used to address to 
 them : 
 
 TO HIS SON WILLIAM.* 
 
 CROMARTV, August 24th, 1851. 
 
 " On the morning of Saturday I rose at five o'clock, and set out 
 on foot (from Assynt) on my way to the Low Country, with the 
 purpose of examining the marble quarries of Ledbey ere the mail-gig, 
 with which I was to travel, should come up. The morning was 
 lovely beyond description. While all was in deep shade in the 
 valleys, the tops of the tall mountains gleamed like fire to the rising 
 sun ; and Loch Assynt, that seemed as black and as polished as a 
 jet brooch, and here and there its patches of reflected flame. I 
 passed one other very pretty loch, not of great extent, but speckled 
 with green islands waving with birch and hazel, and abounding in 
 fish, that as I went by were dimpling it with a thousand rings, and 
 leaping for a few inches into the air. I here met an English manu- 
 facturer in kelt and hose, surrounded by half-a-dozen Highland 
 gillies, all tightly breeched. I found the marble, white and gray, 
 rising amid the heath and long grass, like old snow on a mountain- 
 top in midsummer, and detached several specimens. But I was fairly 
 beaten off from examining the deposit as thoroughly as I could have 
 wished, by armies of midges, that rose in clouds about my face every 
 time I bent down to strike a blow, and made it feel as if it had 
 been bathed in boiling water. There is perhaps no place in the 
 world in which these little creatures are more troublesome than in the 
 western parts of Sutherland. I traveled on by the gig to Lairg, which 
 I reached about two o'clock, and took in one meal breakfast and 
 dinner. When I was a boy a few years older than you I used to 
 
 * Now Lieutenant in the 37th Grenadiers in India.
 
 LETTERS TO HIS CHILDREN. 501 
 
 spend some of my holidays in the neighborhood of this place ; and, 
 being desirous to revisit the localities with which I was so well ac- 
 quainted of old, I determined on passing a day or two in the Lairg 
 Inn. But I was told by the landlord that his house was quite full, 
 and that he could not accommodate me. ' I have a plaid of my own ; 
 could you not give me the use of a sofa?' I asked. The landlord 
 looked at me, and then beckoned me into a corner. ' Mr. Miller, 
 you are a man of sense,' he said ; * all my bedrooms have been en- 
 gaged for months by sporting gentlemen from the south, and my 
 public room is occupied chiefly by their servants. The engaged 
 rooms I can not give you \ and the servants are no company for you. 
 Even the very bed I can give you is in a double-bedded room, oc- 
 cupied in part by Lord Grosvenor's valet. I state to you the real 
 case, while you are yet in time to ride away by the mail to Golspie.' 
 I thanked the landlord, who is really a very decent man, and deter- 
 mined that, as I have prosecuted my researches during the last thirty 
 years under great difficulties, the difficulty of the servants in general, 
 and of the valet in particular, should not turn me back now. And so 
 I took my share of the double-bedded room. Papa thinks that his 
 status, such as it is, is that of the man of science, and that it is so 
 dependent on what he achieves for himself, that it could not be im- 
 proved by sleeping in the same bed with a lord, or yet depressed by 
 going to lied in the same room with a lord's valet. I had calculated 
 on attending church at Lairg ; the Free Church is only a few hundred 
 yards from the inn, and though a rapid river lies between, the late 
 MrS. Mackay, of Rockfield, had given money to make a suspension 
 bridge over it, just in order that the people on the Lairg side might 
 get easily to church. But on this Sabbath there was no preaching, 
 the minister being from home ; and though the men of the district 
 officiated, their addresses were all in Gaelic. The father and grand- 
 father of Mrs. Mackay's husband were, in succession, ministers in 
 this parish, and there is an interesting monument in the church-yard 
 to their memory, and to that of two of the sons of the son, the one 
 a captain in the army, who ' fell,' says the epitaph, ' in the moment 
 of victory at the muzzle of the enemies' cannon, at the memorable 
 battle of Assaye, fought between General Wellesley and the Mahrat- 
 tas;' the other a commander in the navy, of whom it is said that 
 'his narratives of the shipwreck of the 'Juno,' and of his exertions 
 in the Red Sea, where, under God, he saved part of the 86th regi- 
 ment, will commemorate his talents, fortitude, and humanity.' Now, 
 regarding the narrative of the shipwreck of the ' Juno,' something 
 curious can be told, in which you may take an interest when you 
 grow older. There is a very famous description of a shipwreck in 
 Byron's poem's, into which there are introduced many circumstances 
 new to poetry. And it was in this narrative that Byron found almost 
 all of them. Indeed, his description may be in great part regarded 
 as but a metrical rendering of Commander Mackay's narrative."
 
 502 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 ASSYNT, August 2oth, 1852. 
 
 " Harriet, you, and Bessie are the public for which I write ; while 
 poor little Hugh, who is, I suspect, not intelligent enough to feel 
 any interest in papa's adventures, must be regarded as that ignorant, 
 but not uncared-for, portion of the community which education has 
 not yet reached. I broke off late on Saturday night in the little inn 
 of Huna ; the Sabbath morning rose clear and beautiful ; I never 
 saw the Orkney Islands look so near from the main land ; their little 
 fields, at the distance of many miles, gleamed yellow in the sun ; 
 and the tall Old Red Sandstone cliffs of Hoy cliffs nearly a thou- 
 sand feet in height were sharply relieved against the sky, and bore 
 a blood-hued flush of deep red ; while the Pentland Frith, roughened 
 by a light breeze, was intensely blue. I walked on after breakfast to 
 the Free Church, and heard from Mr. Macgregor two solid, doctri- 
 nal discourses. The congregation, however, was very thin ; but I 
 ought not to judge of it, I am told, by present appearances, as many 
 of the men connected with it are at the herring-fishery. Still, how- 
 ever, it is only half a congregation at best, the other half congrega- 
 .tion of the parish being in the Established Church. Papa and his 
 friends could not help being Free Churchmen, as you will learn when 
 you get older ; we could not avoid the Disruption ; but papa does- some- 
 times regret that the Disruption should in so many parishes have, as 
 it were, made two bites of a cherry ; that is, broken up into two 
 congregations a moiety of people that would have made one good 
 one, but no more. After sermon, and after dinner, I walked on in 
 the cool of the evening towards Wick, which I reached about nine 
 o'clock. The little inn at Huna is far, far from any butcher's shop; 
 and so a poor hen had to die every day papa was there, in order 
 that papa should dine. There is an album kept at it, as I told Har- 
 riet two years ago, in which all visitors write their names, and what- 
 ever else may come into their heads ; and so it contains, as you may 
 think, a great deal of nonsense, with here and there a witty thought, 
 and here and there a just sentiment. Papa wrote some not very 
 good rhymes in it about two years ago, and some not very good 
 rhymes on the present occasion ; though in the space between the 
 two visits he wrote only solid prose. But those who pass evenings 
 in the inn at Huna have usually not much to do ; and so many of 
 them, in imitation of those who have rhymed in the album before 
 them, set themselves to break the queen's English into very clumsy 
 lines, with not much sense in them, that chime at their terminations. 
 The following formed papa's last effort : 
 
 " ' Right curious volume ! two long years have passed 
 Since I glanced o'er thy chequered pages last ;
 
 "MY SCHOOL AND SCHOOL -MASTERS." 503 
 
 And leaves then blank in thee are filled, rare book, 
 
 E'en in a way on which 'tis sad to look ; 
 
 So scant the wit, the wisdom seldom seen, 
 
 While dreary wastes of folly spread between. 
 
 Yes, sad, full sad, for, curious book, I see 
 
 Too true a picture of my life in thee ; 
 
 Folly in both prevails, in both how few 
 
 The points to instruct the heart, or glad the view; . 
 
 In both the past admits of no recall, 
 
 E'en as the thing was done we stand or fall ; 
 
 The ill expressed we can not well suppress, 
 
 Nor can we make the by-past nonsense less. 
 
 Yet must I hold, poor, curious book ! that thine 
 
 Is e'en by much a harder fate than mine : 
 
 For thee no new editions wait, no Mind 
 
 Shall add the wisdom that it does not find ; 
 
 Raise into worth the groveling and the low, 
 
 And mental force and moral weight bestow ; 
 
 E'en faulty as thou art, thou still must be, 
 
 A nobler destiny waits, I trust, on me ; 
 
 The Great Corrector shall revise my past, 
 
 And in a fairer mold its lines re-cast ; 
 
 For folly, wisdom; strength for weakness lend, 
 
 And all my blots erase, and all my faults amend.' 
 
 "So much for papa's rhymes. There are some people, who 
 rhyme not much better than papa, who believe themselves to be 
 poets ; but that is a mistake, and it usually does those who entertain 
 it some harm. They rhyme, and rhyme, and rhyme, and deem them- 
 selves neglected because the world does not buy and praise their 
 rhymes. But for rhymes such as theirs and papa's the world has no 
 use whatever; the article bears no money value in the market ; though 
 to devote twenty minutes or so, in two years, to the manufacture of 
 it, as papa does, is productive of no manner of harm. 
 
 During the year 1853 a large proportion of the chapters of Hugh 
 Miller's autobiographical work appeared in the Witness. In the 
 beginning of 1854 the book was published under the now well-known 
 title, "My Schools and School-masters." Its success was immediate 
 and decisive. Literary men were glad to meet Miller in a field from 
 which controversy of every kind was excluded, and to mark the 
 skill with which he wielded the instruments of pure literary art. Their 
 disposition was to pronounce it his most valuable work. Readers 
 will with interest peruse the two following letters on the subject : 
 
 FROM MR. ROBERT CHAMBERS. 
 
 " i DOUNE TERRACE, March r, 1854. 
 
 "I can not think of confining my thanks for your volume to the 
 few hurried words I had an opportunity of saying last week. Not
 
 504 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 that I am excitedly grateful for the kind reference you have made 
 to myself, but because I have read your first three hundred and fifty 
 pages with a heart full of sympathy for your early hardships and 
 efforts, and an intense admiration of the observant and intelligent 
 mind which I see working in that village boy on the shore of the 
 Cromarty Frith. I can not refrain from congratulating you on the 
 publication of this book, which I consider as yet your best, and the 
 one that will prove most enduringly useful, interesting, and popular, 
 simply because yourself have been the best phenomenon you have 
 ever had to describe. I can not refrain from congratulating you on 
 the triumphs you have achieved over the great difficulties of your 
 early position, which now appear to me far beyond any thing I had 
 previously imagined. And, believe me, I am most cordially sincere 
 when I offer you my best wishes for the remainder of a career, the 
 early part of which has been so creditable to you. Be assured that 
 Scotland has few dearer living names at present than Hugh Miller, 
 and must henceforth feel the deepest interest and concern in every 
 thing you do. 
 
 "Your autobiography has set me a thinking of my own youthful 
 days, which were like yours in point of hardship and humiliation, 
 though different in many important circumstances. My being of 
 the same age with you, to exactly a quarter of a year, brings the 
 idea of a certain parity more forcibly upon me. The differences are 
 as curious to me as the resemblances. Notwithstanding your won- 
 derful success as a writer, I think my literary tendency must have 
 been a deeper and more absorbing peculiarity than yours, seeing that 
 I took to Latin and to books both keenly and exclusively, while you 
 broke down in your classical course, and had fully as great a passion 
 for rough sport and enterprise as for reading that being, again, a 
 passion of which I never had one particle. This has, however, re- 
 sulted in making you, what I never was inclined to be, a close observer 
 of external nature an immense advantage in your case. Still I 
 think I could present against your hardy field observations by frith 
 and fell, and cave and cliff, some striking analogies in finding out 
 and devouring of books, making my way, for instance, through a 
 whole chestful of the ' Encyclopaedia Britannica,' which I found in 
 a lumber garret ! I must also say, that an unfortunate tenderness of 
 feet, scarcely yet got over, had much to do in making me mainly a 
 fireside student. As to domestic connections and conditions, mine, 
 being of the middle classes, were superior to yours for the first twelve 
 years. After that, my father being unfortunate in business, we were 
 reduced to poverty, and came down to even humbler things than you 
 experienced. I passed through some years of the direst hardship, 
 not the least evil being a state of feeling quite unnatural in youth, a 
 stern and burning defiance of a social world in which we were harshly 
 and coldly treated by former friends, differing only in external re- 
 spects from ourselves. In your life there is one crisis where I think
 
 OPINIONS OF CHAMBERS AND CARLYLE. 505 
 
 your experiences must have been somewhat like mine ; it is the brief 
 period at Inverness. Some of your expressions there bring all my 
 own early feelings again to life. A disparity between the -internal 
 consciousness of powers and accomplishments and the external osten- 
 sible aspect led in me to the very same wrong methods of setting 
 myself forward as in you. There, of course I meet you in warm 
 sympathy. I have sometimes thought of describing my bitter, pain- 
 ful youth to the world, as something in which it might read a lesson ; 
 but the retrospect is still too distressing.* I screen it from the 
 mental eye. The one grand fact it has impressed is the very small 
 amount of brotherly assistance there is for the unfortunate in this 
 
 world. I remember hearing the widow of Mr. tell how she had 
 
 never been asked by any relation of either herself or her husband to 
 accept of a five-pound note, though many of them were very well 
 off. The rule is to leave these stricken deer to weep themselves 
 away unsuccored. I have the same experience to relate. Till I 
 proved that I could help myself no friend came to me. Uncles, 
 cousins, etc., in good positions in life some of them stoops of kirks, 
 by-the-by not one offered, or seemed inclined to give, the smallest 
 assistance. The consequent defying, self-relying spirit, in which, at 
 sixteen, I set out as a bookseller with only my own small collection 
 of books as a stock not worth more than two pounds, I believe 
 led to my being quickly independent of all aid; but it has not been 
 all a gain, for I am now sensible that my spirit of self-reliance too 
 often manifested itself in an unsocial, unamiable light, while my 
 recollections of 'honest poverty' may have made me too eager to 
 attain and secure worldly prosperity. Had I possessed uncles such 
 as yours I might have been much the better of it through life. 
 
 " Pray accept with lenity these hurried and imperfect remarks, 
 into which I have been led by a sort of sympathetic spirit, almost 
 against my own sense of propriety." 
 
 FROM MR. THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 " 5 CHEYNE Row, CHELSEA, LONDON, pth March, 1854. 
 
 "I am surely much your debtor for that fine book you sent me 
 last week, which was welcome in two ways, the extrinsic first, and 
 now the intrinsic; for I have now read it to the end (not a common 
 thing at all in such cases), and found it right pleasant company for 
 the evenings I stole in behalf of it ! Truly I am very glad to con- 
 dense the bright but indistinct rumor labeled to me by your name, 
 for years past, into the ruddy-visaged, strong-boned, glowing figure 
 of a man which I have got and bid good speed to with all my heart ! 
 
 "You have, as you undertook to do, painted many things to us; 
 
 'Sec the "Autobiographic Reminiscences of Robert and Wm. Chambers,'' pub- 
 lished in this volume.
 
 506 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 scenes of life, scenes of nature, which rarely come upon the canvas ; 
 and I will add, such draughtsmen, too, are extremely uncommon, in 
 that and in other walks of painting. There is a right genial fire in 
 the book, every-where nobly tempered down into peaceful radical 
 heat, which is very beautiful to see. Luminous, memorable ; all 
 wholesome, strong, fresh and breezy, like the ' Old Red Sandstone 
 Mountains' in a sunny summer day; it is really a long while since I 
 have read a book worthy of so much recognition from me, or likely 
 to be so interesting to sound -hearted men of every degree. I might 
 have my objections and exceptions here and there (not to the matter, 
 I think, however, if sometimes to the form) ; but this is really the 
 summary of my judgment on the business. And so, once more, I 
 return you many thanks, as for a gift that was very kind, and has 
 been very pleasant to me." 
 
 The month before this Miller lectured in Exeter Half, London, to 
 the Young Men's Christian Association. The following notes of his 
 visit to the metropolis occur in a letter to Mrs. Miller of February gth : 
 
 "I was safely delivered of my address between the hours of eight 
 and ten on Tuesday evening (skillfully assisted by Mr. Allon), and 
 am now as well as could be expected. Mr. Allon is a clergyman, 
 but an independent one. 
 
 "I had a noble audience of, as the Morning Advertiser says, five 
 thousand persons, and I carried them with me throughout. During 
 the earlier stages of the address they were attentive, which I hardly 
 expected, as my preliminary matter was somewhat scientific and dry, 
 and throughout the concluding part rapturous in their applause. On 
 the whole, a more successful address was never delivered in the great 
 hall. Allon's pronunciation was beautiful, and showed me better than 
 a hundred lessons the faults of my own. He read, too, with great 
 vigor, and gave to my style the proper classical effect." 
 
 The story of Hugh Miller's life has been given to the readers of 
 this volume in his own language and in that of his friends ; arranged 
 as to sequence in the order adopted by his excellent biographer Mr. 
 Peter Bayne, who is also his distinguished successor as editor of the 
 Witness. The narrative, although essentially abridged from the thou- 
 sand pages covered by Mr. Bayne in his very valuable work,* is yet 
 given with fullness, especially during the period of Hugh Miller's 
 youth and earlier struggles "up the heights" to the point where he 
 finally became the observed of all observers. We think the sketch 
 will have been found not a skeleton merely, but a well-rounded nar- 
 rative, conveying, in the purest classical English, many of the best 
 thoughts of a great and independent thinker, particularly during the 
 period prior to his leaving the country for his more public career as 
 editor in the city of Edinburgh. 
 
 * The Life and Letters of Hugh Miller, by Peter Bayne, M. A.
 
 DR. MCCOSHS RECOLLECTIONS. 507 
 
 We have just noted Miller's remarks on the lecture which he gave 
 before the Young Men's Christian Association in London, and have 
 observed that he felt keenly his inability to read before an English 
 audience what he could write in so masterly a style, but he was only 
 the more ready to appreciate Mr. Al Ion's ability to supplement his 
 labor, by adding, a clear and distinct English pronunciation, which 
 Miller's native heath could not train him to render. It can not be 
 doubted that the narrative we print will read well if it be only well 
 read. We now present the very valuable views of our great subject 
 as given in Dr. McCosh's Recollections of Hugh Miller : 
 
 "I have been requested to write out some recollections of my old 
 friend, and I have a melancholy pleasure in complying. 
 
 "The name of Hugh Miller first became known to me, as it did to 
 Scotchmen generally, by his ' Letter from One of the Scotch People ' 
 to Lord Brougham. Multitudes rejoiced when they heard soon after 
 that the friends of Non-Intrusion and Spiritual Independence had 
 made arrangements for his conducting a newspaper in Edinburgh. 
 They felt that from that day the cause received an accession of 
 strength. We were particularly pleased to find that, from the first, 
 and to the end, he maintained an attitude of independence, not only 
 of politicians, but of Church leaders. The movement had hitherto 
 assumed too much of an ecclesiastical aspect. No doubt it had in 
 it all along the popular element of Non-Intrusion ; but the Spir- 
 itual Independence side was the one mainly dwelt on in Church 
 courts ; the Scottish people did not always understand what was 
 meant by overtures to the General Assembly about independence of 
 the civil courts; and not a few entertained the suspicion that the 
 ministers were seeking for power to themselves which would set them 
 above the law of the land, in the settlement of ministers. Certain 
 it is that the cry of the clergy did not always carry with it the pop- 
 ular sympathy; and there were times and places in which public 
 meetings called to support it were put down by mob opposition. It 
 was most important that at that crisis the grand old cause of Scot- 
 land should have one of the people to support it, and a shout of joy 
 burst out all over Scotland when Hugh Miller came forth as the 
 champion of popular rights. The newspaper was published twice a 
 week; and Wednesdays and Saturdays, the publishing days, were 
 looked forward to by many, because they brought the Witness. The 
 paper was read, not so much for its news, nor even its reports of 
 Church courts, as for its leading articles. Many a retired country 
 minister, living, perhaps, in the midst of a body of farmers, who had 
 no appreciation of the questions at issue, had his spirit aroused as by 
 a trumpet clang by the powerful appeal made to him, and he paused 
 in the midst of writing his sermon on the Saturday to read the lead- 
 ing article. The day laborer or weaver could not afford to take the 
 paper, but he was grateful when some one, minister or elder, lent it 
 to him. The literary men in our universities had, as a whole, a deep
 
 508 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 suspicion of the movement, and did not like to be thought readers 
 of the stone-mason's paper, but were glad when they could get fur- 
 tive glances at it, and were obliged to acknowledge its literary supe- 
 riority. From a very early date Hugh Miller's name became a 
 household one in the best families of Scotland. The common people 
 never called him Mr. Miller ; they would no more have done this 
 than they would have called Robert Burns by the name of Mr. Burns; 
 they identified themselves with him and identified him with them- 
 selves by calling him Hugh Miller. They felt as if he still carried 
 his chisel and his hammer, and as if he were now forming and fash- 
 ioning, by firm and manly stroke, a nobler edifice than ever his 
 mason's tools had constructed. I was in circumstances to know the 
 feeling of Scotland at the time, and I am convinced that the old 
 national cause, which was defeated in 1843, but which gained the 
 victory in its defeat as, with reverence be it spoken, the cause of 
 Christ did when he was crucified was indebted, among the great 
 mass of the people, to Hugh Miller as much as to any other man. 
 
 "I read his paper from the first; but shy as I have ever been to 
 court the great men whom I admired, I was not personally acquainted 
 with him till 1850. That year I published my first work, 'The 
 Method of Divine Government.' I had made up my mind to meet 
 failure as well as success; and I believe that if the work had met 
 only with popular neglect I would have clung to it the more reso- 
 lutely, as the father will dote the more lovingly on that daughter in 
 whom the silly beaux see no merits. I had fortified myself against 
 both praise and blame; but there were two men in Edinburgh about 
 whose good opinion I felt somewhat sensitive : these were Sir William 
 Hamilton and Hugh Miller. I asked my publishers to send a copy 
 of my work to each. Meanwhile the public scarcely knew what to 
 make of my big, and, as some deemed, pretentious book. The 
 Athenaum noticed me contemptuously, evidently without reading me; 
 it praised some of my works afterwards, when I had earned a repu- 
 tation. My very friends shook their heads, and were expecting a 
 failure. Now it was at this time, when readers were hesitating which 
 side to take, that the two Edingurgh giants spoke out, and spoke out 
 courageously not uttering ambiguous oracles, which would make 
 them right whatever the way in which the public might ultimately 
 decide. I was not known at the time beyond a limited district in 
 the north of Forfarshire and the south of Kincardineshire ; I believe 
 neither of the eminent men referred to had ever heard of me before; 
 and this led them to exaggerate my merits. I feel, in this distant 
 land, a deep gratitude to the many kind Scottish friends who helped 
 to bring my book into notice; but I feel most to the great Scottish 
 metaphysician ; and with him, and above him, to the man who spoke 
 first, to Hugh Miller. 
 
 "I felt now as if I ought to seek the acquaintanceship of Hugh 
 Miller. This was brought about by our mutual friend, the Rev. Dr.
 
 HIS DIGNITY AND MODESTY. 509 
 
 Guthrie, who invited him to meet me at dinner. And this may be 
 the fittest place for describing his outward appearance as it first came 
 under my notice. In dress he neither affected a slovenly carelessness 
 nor a prim gentility. It was very much the dress worn on Sundays 
 by the better class of tradesmen and upland farmers. It must be 
 confessed that at first sight he had somewhat of a shaggy appearance, 
 relieved, however, by a look of high independence and an air of in- 
 domitable energy and perseverance. He was a man of the highest 
 type throughout ; but if he had a counterpart in any of the lower 
 animals it was in the noblest of the dog tribe, such as Landseer loves 
 to paint, as in his Dignity as contrasted with Impudence. Yet he 
 was withal wonderfully shy, and unwilling to seem to be seeking the 
 favor of any man. A little incident may show what I mean. Dr. 
 Guthrie and I had been walking together on the day on which he 
 had asked him to meet me at dinner; and when we were at some 
 distance we saw him approaching the door. * Let us run,' says Dr. 
 Guthrie; 'for if he goes to my house and finds me not in he will set 
 off;' and we did run to catch him. I remember another circumstance 
 illustrating the same point. I was talking to him of the literateurs 
 of Edinburgh, great and small. He did not seem to have much 
 intimacy with them. We talked of Lord Jeffrey, of whom he spoke 
 kindly and respectfully. 'He expressed/ he said, 'a wish to make 
 my acquaintance when I came to Edinburgh; but as he did not call 
 on me, I did not see my way to call on him, and we have not had 
 much intercourse. ' I happened to be in his house one forenoon when 
 he was expecting a call from Sir Roderick Murchison in the after- 
 noon. He was too proud a man to make any boastings about it ; but 
 it was evident that he was highly gratified by the proffered visit ; and 
 he had his splendid museum in the highest possible order to show it 
 to the distinguished geologist. He had a heart to cherish a sense of 
 favors when bestowed without any condescension, or endeavor to in- 
 terfere with his independence, but certainly with no stomach to seek 
 favors even from those who would have been most willing to grant 
 them. 
 
 " We met at dinner on the day I have referred to. Besides Dr. 
 Guthrie, Mr. Miller and myself, there were only one or two others 
 present. Dr. Guthrie restrained his usual flow of mingled manly 
 sense, humor, and pathos, to allow his friend to speak freely ; and he 
 had soon to go out to a congregational meeting. So I had the great 
 man to myself for the evening, and he under no restraint. I have 
 observed that in large, promiscuous companies he was apt to feel awk- 
 ward and restrained, and to retire into himself, and sit silent. But 
 when there were only a few persons present, and these of congenial 
 tastes, his conversation was of the most brilliant description. You 
 saw the thoughts laboring in his brain as distinctly as you see the 
 machinery in a clock when the clock-work is in a glass case. That 
 evening we talked of subjects that were familiar to him, and which
 
 510 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 I was at that time studying, such as the typical forms which Professor 
 Owen was detecting in the vertebrate skeleton, and the possibility of 
 reconciling them with the doctrine of final cause and the mutual 
 adaptation of parts. He was not sure about some points, and my de- 
 light was to set his mind a working. He afterwards brought out his 
 matured views in a very brilliant article which he wrote, reviewing a 
 paper of mine in the 'North British Review.' But that night his 
 thoughts came out tumbling with a freshness, an originality, and a 
 power, which somewhat disappeared when he came to write them out 
 in elegant English. 
 
 " From that date he expected me to go out to Portobello or Mus- 
 selburgh and see him when I went to Edinburgh, which I commonly 
 did once or twice a year. I took care not to intrude upon him the 
 night before the bi-weekly issue of his paper; but I always found 
 him welcoming me on the Wednesday or Saturday night when the 
 hard work of composition was off his mind. On these occasions he 
 showed me his museum, with the feeling of a boy showing his toys 
 to his companion. He sometimes, but not often, talked of church 
 matters; but it was evident that having to write and speak so much 
 about them he rather kept off them with me except, indeed, that 
 he was ever ready to speak of the great religious cause of the freedom 
 of the church, as imbedded deep in the hearts, even as it was in the 
 history, of Scotchmen, and certain in the end to triumph. Some- 
 times we talked of geology and religion and the difficult problems 
 which they started. At times I introduced a topic new to him, as 
 on one occasion ' Comte's Classification of the Sciences and the Pos- 
 itive Philosophy,' not so well-known then as now.' It was extremely 
 interesting to watch his mind grasping the new ideas, apprehending 
 but not yet fully comprehending them. In next paper he had an arti- 
 cle on the subject, but it is evident that his mind had not yet settled 
 down into clearness, and the written composition had not the full 
 expanse of the conversation. Had he lived he would certainly have 
 grappled with the 'Positive Philosophy* as he did with the 'Vestiges 
 of Creation.' 
 
 " Having great confidence in his singleness of purpose and his far- 
 sighted wisdom, I consulted him when I was about to be called to 
 the Chair of Logic and Metaphysics in Belfast, stating to him my 
 difficulty about giving up my pastoral work. He gave me a clear 
 and unequivocal advice. 'If a man,' says he, 'has decidedly a high 
 heaven-bestowed gift even if it should be that of a mason or me- 
 chanic he should exercise it to the glory of God. You have,' he 
 was pleased to add, ' such a gift ; go and use it, and God will open 
 spheres of usefulness to you.' 
 
 "The last conversation I had with him was in the early autumn 
 of the year before his decease. He was completing his last work, 
 ' The Testimony of the Rocks,' and we went over the topics discussed 
 in it. I was struck then, as I ever was, with his powerful memory
 
 COMPARED WITH BURNS. 511 
 
 and his special acquaintance with the English literature of last cen- 
 tury I suspect it was the literature most accessible to him in his 
 younger years. He could quote verbatim long passages from the 
 poets of that epoch, illustrating points casting up from the conversa- 
 tion. As we took the usual walk through his museum he freely 
 allowed that the apparent breaks between the various geological 
 epochs and animals were being fast filled up by new geological dis- 
 coveries, and showed the same examples as we went along. It was 
 evident to me that he was setting himself to a thorough grappling 
 with these facts, and to a consideration of their relation to the great 
 truths of natural and revealed religion. Often do some of us wish 
 that he had been spared to take his place in the more formidable 
 conflicts of these times. 
 
 "In common with not a few others, I looked on Hugh Miller as 
 the greatest Scotchman left after T homas Chalmers fell. These two 
 men differed in many points, but they were essentially kindred spirits ; 
 they were alike in their high aims ; in their lofty genius ; in the 
 moving power of their writings ; in their partiality for the study of 
 the works of God ; in their deep reverence for the Word of God ; in 
 their desire to unite science and religion, and attachment to the 
 principles of the Church of Scotland. What Chalmers did for the 
 older sister, astronomy, Miller has done for the younger, geology, in 
 wedding her to religion. Both lived for the purpose of elevating 
 their countrymen and their race ; and in order "to effect this end both 
 labored to promote the church's independence and the freedom of 
 its members. Each had his own field of influence ; each had a class 
 of minds on whom he exercised a burning and enduring power for 
 good. Most appropriately, now that their day's work is done, do 
 they sleep side by side in the same grave-yard. 
 
 "I am tempted to compare Miller, and when I compare him, to 
 contrast him with another eminent Scotchman, Robert Burns. Both 
 were sprung from the nobler order of the Scottish peasantry ; neither 
 was originally educated as a scholar ; both rose to the highest* emi- 
 nence in the midst of difficulties which led the one as well as the 
 other seriously to propose emigrating to America ; both had a deep 
 love for Scotland and her common people ; both will go down through 
 all coming ages as household words, and as representatives of the in- 
 telligence of the sons of toil in their native land ; and both were 
 characterized by a noble modesty and a manly independence of na- 
 ture ' Owre blate to seek, owre proud to snool.' But with the re- 
 semblances there were differences. In respect of native genius they 
 rank in my view equally high ; but the complexion and bent of that 
 genius differed in the two individuals. No one would compare any 
 poetry published by Hugh Miller with the poetry of Robert Burns; 
 though there are passages of very high poetic power in all the prose 
 works of Miller. Let us only look at that bold sketch of a proposed 
 Epic towards the close of the sixth Lecture of his ' Testimony of the
 
 512 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 Rocks,' in which he represents Lucifer, son of the. morning, cast 
 down on the Pre-Adamite earth, while yet a half-extinguished vol- 
 cano j then, as ages roll on, moving amidst tangled foliage and rav- 
 enous creatures, horrid with trenchant tooth and barbed sting, and 
 enveloped in armor of plate and scale, marking all the while and 
 wondering at the progressive work of God, as animal follows plant, 
 and man succeeds animal, and seeking to frustrate it by diabolical 
 wiles, which, however, only fulfill the eternal counsels of Heaven, and 
 issue in the crowning work, the descent and death and ascension of 
 the Incarnate Son of God. Greater as a poet, Robert Burns can not 
 be placed as a thinker, or a man of science, or a writer of prose, on 
 the level of Hugh Miller. Dugald Stewart expressed his surprise to 
 find Burns form so correct an idea of the then prevailing theory in 
 Edinburgh, which referred all beauty to the association of ideas, a 
 theory which seems to have gained the momentary assent of Burns 
 in spite of his own better sense and truer feeling : ' That the martial 
 clangor,' he says, ' of a trumpet had something in it vastly more 
 grand, heroic, and sublime, than the twingle-twangle of a Jew's-harp; 
 that the delicate flexure of a rose-twig, when the half-blown flower 
 is heavy with the tears of dawn, was infinitely more beautiful and 
 elegant than the upright stalk of the burdock, and that from some- 
 thing innate and independent of all association of ideas these I had 
 set down as irrefragible orthodox truths, until perusing your book 
 shook my faith.' No one who had conversed with Hugh Miller 
 would have expressed surprise that he was capable of understanding 
 such truths. He must have been in the clouds himself, who, in talk- 
 ing with him, did not confess that Hugh Miller could soar as high 
 as he, and keep well-balanced pinions all the while. He had no 
 difficulty in understanding the Association Theory, and many other 
 theories of Hume and Brown as well, and in brushing away them and 
 some other meager or misty explanations by a few brief but cogent 
 facts and arguments. In his works he has combined, as no working 
 man ever did before, lofty speculation with rigid science, and irradi- 
 ated the whole with the corruscations of poetry. Nor is it to be 
 omitted that there is a far more important point of difference between 
 the Ayrshire plowman and the Cromarty mason.' Both were men 
 of naturally strong passions ; but where the one yielded to the temp- 
 tations that assailed him, 
 
 "'And thoughtless follies laid him low, 
 And stained his name.' 
 
 the other resisted with all his might. As I conversed with Hugh 
 Miller, or after parting with him, with his words of power still ring- 
 ing in my ears, often have I felt, and said too, but not in his hear- 
 ing, ' What an amount of mischief would that mighty man have 
 done had he, say on his being tempted by his brother masons at
 
 HIGH REPUTATION. 513 
 
 Niddry, given way where he stood firm ; had he, like Burns, joined 
 the foes of evangelical religion, instead of becoming its defender ; or 
 had he, when at one time tempted to skepticism, abandoned the 
 religion of the Bible, with " its grand central doctrine of the true 
 humanity and true divinity of the adorable Savior" (to use Miller's 
 language), and gone after some plausible form of nature-worship or 
 man-worship.' I feel as if his country and his Church had not, when 
 he was yet alive, been sufficiently grateful to God for raising such a 
 man to guide aright so large a portion of the thinking mind of Scot- 
 land at a most critical era in its history. 
 
 "Every man in Scotland had heard of Hugh Miller. Noble lords 
 were in the way of pointing their sentences and securing a plaudit by 
 an allusion to him. The artisan and peasant felt that he was one of 
 themselves, and one who (unlike some others sprung from their ranks) 
 never felt ashamed of them, or his connection with them. The in- 
 fidels knew him well, for many a hard blow had he dealt them ; and 
 they were obliged to respect while they feared him. The religious 
 community recognized him as in certain departments the ablest, as 
 he was the most disinterested, defender of the faith. Scientific men 
 recognized in him one who could cope with them in their own de- 
 partment, who knew the facts as well as they, and could reason 
 them out with greater power. Literary men acknowledged in him a 
 brother who could mold a sentence or turn a period with the best of 
 them. The ablest and boldest man in the country would have felt 
 his knees shaking at the thought of engaging in a controversy with 
 the stone-mason. Even those who had no learning relished him ; 
 and some have earnestly wished to be better scholars that they might 
 understand him ; and some have made themselves scholars by spell- 
 ing their way through his writings. Thinkers in no way inclined 
 to agree with him in his ecclesiastical or political opinions took the 
 Witness, because they liked to have thoughts awakened within them ; 
 and even those who were not particularly disposed to think, read 
 his writings for the sake of their pictorial power and noble sentiment. 
 One of the most distinguished assemblies I ever looked on met in 
 the City Hall of Glasgow, in September, 1855, to hear the opening 
 address of the president, the Duke of Argyll, to the British Associa- 
 tion for the Promotion of Science. There were present a very large 
 number of the savans of the age, and mingling with them a number 
 of others quite sufficient to make the audience a singularly promis- 
 cuous one, shrewd merchants who traded with the ends of the 
 earth, and other not less excellent merchants, who were not particularly 
 shrewd, and who were conversant with little other literature than 
 the Glasgow Herald, and along with them their wives and daughters, 
 some of them blue stockings, but others quite as useful members of 
 the family who knew cookery vastly better than geology. In ad- 
 dressing the assembly, the noble duke gave us a panoramic view of 
 a number of the most distinguished scientific men of the day, and an 
 33
 
 514 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 epitome of their discoveries. Many of them were cheered as their 
 names passed in brief review ; but there were two whose names 
 called forth the loudest and most repeated shouts. The one of these 
 was a prince in rank, even as he is a prince in science. Prince 
 Lucien Bonaparte, the cousin of the then ally of England in the 
 Russian war, received a cheer worthy of Glasgow. There was just 
 one other who was acclaimed by so loud a burst ; and some of us 
 observed with interest that in his case the cheer came from every 
 heart, and from a greater depth in the heart ; that cheer was in honor 
 of one we need not name him, but when his name was pronounced 
 it moved the vast assembly simultaneously like an electric shock of 
 one of nature's noblest, made noble not by the hand of man, but by 
 the evident mark of God upon him. 
 
 " But fame was not the idol before which this great man bowed. 
 The love of reputation was but an under-current in his soul. He 
 lived to do a work, but it was for the glory of God and the good of 
 mankind. I watched him with interest, as many did, in the meetings 
 of the Geological Section of the British Association ; and I observed 
 that he sat, and stood, and spoke, and moved with the most perfect 
 simplicity. There was no bravado on the one hand nor mock humil- 
 ity on the other ; there was no courting of popularity, no tricks to 
 draw attention ; no looking round to see if men and women were 
 gazing at him. He received the advances of distinguished indivi- 
 duals with deference, and was gratified by them ; but there was no 
 fawning or flattery on his part, and he received in precisely the same 
 manner (as some of us can testify) the most obscure of his old 
 friends, and assumed towards them no airs of superiority or of patron- 
 age. Whatever might be the situation in which he was placed, one 
 felt in regard to him that the fiddlers struck up the right tune, when, 
 after his health was drunk at a parting dinner at Cromarty, they 
 played, 'A man's a man for a' that.' But I would not be exhibiting 
 his full character if I did not add, that, bending before no man, he 
 ever bowed in lowliest reverence before his God ; that seeking no 
 patron, climbing by no dirty arts, and determined to be dependent 
 on no man, he ever felt and acknowledged his dependence on a 
 higher power. 
 
 " PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY, Jan. 1870." 
 
 CLOSING SCENES. 
 
 Hugh Miller's capacity for work was not what it once had been. 
 He used, he said, to write an article at a sitting ; he now liked to 
 do it in two, relieving himself by a walk in the interval. This was 
 in the summer of 1855, and the weakness which even then was steal- 
 ing over him continued, month by month, to increase. The mason's 
 disease the presence of particles of stone in the lungs augmented
 
 DISEASED STATE OF MIND. 515 
 
 the torturing irritation of repeated inflammatory attacks in this 
 most sensitive organ. The tendency to brood, to live in a world 
 of thought, and meditation, and phantasy, apart from that of living 
 men, which he had manifested from childhood, grew upon him 
 as his physical energies decayed. That imaginative timidity, also, 
 which had made a man who, if confronted by a lion, would have 
 looked it down, arm himself with pistols against the assassin who 
 might lurk in the recesses of a wooded glen, or haunt a lonely road 
 at midnight, fed itself on the accounts of garotte robberies, house- 
 breakings, outrages by ticket-of-leave men, of which, in the autumn 
 of 1856, the newspapers had more perhaps than the dismal average. 
 Hugh Miller sympathized with Mr. Carlyle in his views as to the 
 necessity of subjecting to a rigorous discipline our professional crimi- 
 nals, and the folly of leaving men whom repeated conviction has 
 proved to be incorrigible to prey upon the community. He wrote 
 upon the subject in the Witness, and it was much in his mind. A 
 slight circumstance was sufficient to give the matter a personal turn, 
 and to convince him that he was himself exposed to danger. In a 
 corner of the grounds at Shrub Mount, Portobello, where he now 
 resided, a building had been reared under his direction for the accom- 
 modation of his beloved specimens, and he was impressed with the 
 idea that it might be broken into and robbed by the prowling mis- 
 creants who were never absent from his imagination. One evening 
 his eldest boy, having been in the garden after dark, returned with 
 the news that he had seen a lantern moving among the trees, and 
 had heard whispered voices. Miller went out to survey the ground ; 
 and though nothing appeared to be amiss, the attention of the house- 
 hold was awakened, and night after night the children and the serv- 
 ants had tales to tell of mysterious sounds having been heard, and 
 strange sights having been seen. All this influenced his imagination, 
 and pistol and sword were ever in readiness to repel attack. 
 
 At this time Mrs. Miller and her husband occupied different sleep- 
 ing apartments. A severe illness had almost deprived Mrs. Miller of 
 the use of her limbs, and it was not without great pain that she 
 could go up stairs. It was therefore necessary for her to have her bed- 
 room on the ground floor. For him, on the other hand, the air of 
 an upper apartment was considered best, and he slept in a small 
 room adjoining his study, on the second floor. Every morning anil 
 evening, during one of his illnesses, Mrs. Miller ascended to his 
 room, "at the cost of an hour's severe pain," to minister to his 
 wants. At other times, when his strength permitted, and her limbs 
 were powerless, he would carry her in his arms to her sofa, " in the 
 kindest and tenderest manner." 
 
 One night Mrs. Miller was startled by her husband bursting into 
 her room at midnight, with fire-arms, she thinks, in his hand, and 
 asking in a loud voice whether she had heard unusual noises in the 
 house. She answered composedly that she had heard nothing. He
 
 516 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 went into his eldest daughter's room, and made the same inquiry. 
 Soothed apparently by the result, he retired to his own room. 
 
 There were other matters, however, besides this imaginative excite- 
 ment on the subject of robbery, which, as the months of autumn 
 were succeeded by those of winter, occasioned deep anxiety to Mrs. 
 Miller. The time was approaching when the "Testimony of the 
 Rocks ' ' was to see the light, and her husband was working- at it with 
 indomitable resolution. His activity had always been high-strung, but 
 there was now- a feverish intensity in his application which amazed 
 and saddened Mrs. Miller. He had been on the whole a calm and 
 regular worker, had loved the morning air and devoted the hours of 
 night to slumber; he now moved restlessly about during the day, as 
 if unable to concentrate his thoughts, and only as the darkness fell 
 aroused his intellectual energies and compelled them to their task. 
 Night after night, in spite of entreaties, he commenced his toil when 
 the rest of the family retired to rest. Through the long, silent hours 
 his tired and throbbing brain was forced by his iron will to forge link 
 after link in the argument he was drawing out. Sometimes, when 
 Mrs. Miller awoke in the morning, she heard, as she thought, the 
 servants beginning their work, but found that it was her husband 
 leaving his. The slightest noise distressed him. That his nerves 
 were in a state of disorder Mrs. Miller could not doubt, but the 
 dread which tormented her was that of apoplexy. Of insanity she 
 never thought until the appearance of other symptoms, but the vision 
 of Hugh Miller struck down by apoplexy and carried into the house 
 constantly haunted her. At night, before bidding him farewell, she 
 would linger, on one pretense or another, trying to find an oppor- 
 tunity to remonstrate against his vigils ; but she saw that he was nerv- 
 ously irritable, and she often feared to speak, lest the evil she 
 wished to abate might be aggravated. 
 
 Although any one who was constantly and closely with him could 
 not but remark the change which had taken place, his manner with 
 friends who saw him in occasional interviews remained unaltered. 
 Perhaps a deeper tone of earnestness mingled in the genial flow of 
 conversation with which he entertained every visitor, and the rever- 
 ence and godly fear which lay at the very roots of his being became 
 more than usually conspicuous. On Thursday, the i8th of December, 
 a friend who had a long conversation with him, "n^ver enjoyed an 
 interview more, or remembered him in a more genial mood." On 
 the Saturday following, another friend from Edinburgh found him in 
 the same state. True to a habit which had characterized him from 
 his youth, of leading the conversation to some book or topic which 
 was occupying his mind, he repeated with deep feeling a prayer of 
 John Knox's, which, he said, "it had been his frequent custom to 
 repeat privately during the days of the Disruption." There was no 
 name which represented more for Hugh Miller than that of John 
 Knox. The Scotland of Knox and the Puritans was the Scotland
 
 AT CHURCH HIS L,A S T SABBATH. 517 
 
 which he loved; the Church of Knox was the Church for which he 
 had toiled when his strength was in its meridian, and when his dawn- 
 ing fame first thrilled him with rapture; the faith of Knox was the 
 faith to which, after Hume and Voltaire and Lamarck had done 
 their worst, he still anchored his soul. 
 
 Next day Mr. and Mrs. Miller went to church in the forenoon, 
 and, on the way home, he remarked that the wind was cold, and that 
 he did not feel well, and asked whether she would remain at home 
 with him in the afternoon. She consented, adding that she was very 
 tired, and that one of her limbs pained her. Mrs. Miller usually 
 went to church in a basket phaeton, but did not use it that day, and 
 her husband observed affectionately that he wished he could carry 
 her. In a lane opening on the main road, a few yards frsmi the gate 
 of Shrub Mount, there was a poor woman who, some days previously, 
 had met with an accident, and Mrs. Miller now said that she would 
 go and inquire for her, remaining not more than a few minutes. An 
 expression of pain crossed his face, as if he disliked the momentary 
 separation. 
 
 The time of the afternoon service, the rest of the household being 
 in church, was passed by Hugh Miller and his wife in solemn thought- 
 ful converse. The reader knows what she was to him. She had 
 been his friend, respected for her intellect, honored for her character, 
 before he loved her; and when he did love her, it was with the in- 
 tense and passionate devotion of a strong man, who never loved 
 woman but one. . . . On this Sunday afternoon he was in his 
 most tender and confidential, which was always also his religious 
 mood; no secular matters were spoken of. ... His affection 
 was so ardent that Mrs. Miller regarded it with something of surprise. 
 He suddenly seized her hand, and kissed it with a manner she had 
 never seen befort. "There was in it a great deal more than affec- 
 tion an air of courtliness, so to speak, indescribable." In ponder- 
 ing on this action, Mrs. Miller has asked whether it could possibly 
 have had the meaning of a farewell. Comparing it with the strange 
 and painful expression which flitted across his countenance as they 
 came from church, she is persuaded that he was haunted by the 
 dread of some prostrating stroke, and that there were sensations in his 
 brain which gave him the idea that it might be" near. He was cer- 
 tainly haunted by some great terror ; but it was not the fear of apo- 
 plexy, it was the fear of an overmastering paroxysm of insanity. He 
 spent the evening quietly, reading a little book on a religious subject, 
 and writing a brief notice of it for the paper. 
 
 On Monday morning Mrs. Miller made her way upstairs before 
 breakfast, and met him on the top of the stairs. He said that he 
 had passed a bad, restless night. At breakfast, which only Mrs. 
 Miller and his eldest daughter partook with him, his conversation 
 was animated and copious. He ate nothing, however, merely swal- 
 lowing a cup of tea, and his mind was evidently occupied with his
 
 518 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 sensations in the night. He spoke of sleep-walking, and told an 
 anecdote of a student who had left his room, clambered on the roof, 
 entered an adjoining house, _divested himself, night after night, of his 
 shirt, and hidden the garments, to the number of half-a-dozen, in a 
 cask of feathers. Breakfast over, he recurred to the subject which 
 had never been from his thoughts. "It was a strange night," he 
 said; " there was something I didn't like. I shall just throw on my 
 plaid, and step out to see Dr. Balfour." Dr. Balfour lived in Port- 
 obello, and was in customary attendance upon Mr. Miller and his 
 family. The proposal of her husband astonished Mrs. Miller. During 
 his whole life he had shown the utmost reluctance to take medical 
 advice, and this was the first time she had ever known him speak of 
 going voluntarily in quest of a doctor. She cordially approved of 
 his determination, and, at about ten o'clock, he presented himself 
 to Dr. Balfour. 
 
 Of the consultation which followed Dr. Balfour has given a full 
 report. "On my asking," says the doctor, "what was the matter 
 with him, he replied, ' My brain is giving way. I can not put two 
 thoughts together to-day ; I have had a dreadful night of it ; I can 
 not face another such. I was impressed with the idea that my mu- 
 seum was attacked by robbers, and that I had got up, put on my 
 clothes, and gone out with a loaded pistol to shoot them. Imme- 
 diately after that I became unconscious. How long that continued 
 I can not say; but when I awoke in the morning I was trembling all 
 over, and quite confused in my brain. On rising I felt as if a stil- 
 etto was suddenly, and as quickly as an electric shock, passed through 
 my brain from front to back, and left a burning sensation on the top 
 of the brain, just below the bone. So thoroughly convinced was I 
 that I must have been out through the night, that I examined my 
 trousers, to see if they were wet or covered with mud, but could find 
 none. I was somewhat similarly affected through the night twicf 
 last week, and I examined my trousers in the morning, to see if I 
 had been out. Still the terrible sensations were not nearly so bad 
 as they were last night. Towards the end of last week, while pass- 
 ing through the Exchange in Edinburgh, I was seized with such a 
 giddiness that I staggered, and would, I think, have fallen, had I not 
 gone into an entry, where I leaned against the wall, and became 
 quite unconscious for some seconds.' " Dr. Balfour informed him 
 that he had been overworking his brain, and agreed to call at Shrub 
 Mount on the following day to make a fuller examination. 
 
 Mr. Miller had no sooner left the house to seek Dr. Balfour, than 
 Mrs. Miller, turning to her daughter, said : " There is something un- 
 usual the matter with your father ; I can not be satisfied with- 
 out more advice. I am quite certain he would make some difficulty 
 about it ; therefore you and I will go up by the twelve o'clock coach, 
 and make an appointment with Professor Miller to come down here." 
 When Mr. Miller returned, he mentioned that he had a funeral to
 
 C CORRECTING HIS LAST PROOF-SHEETS. 519 
 
 attend at two o'clock, and would go to Edinburgh by the twelve- 
 o'clock coach. She told him that she and Miss Miller, having some 
 thing to do in town, were to go at the same time. He inquired par- 
 ticularly what was their errand, and Mrs. Miller, "acting under a 
 stern and inexorable necessity," put him off with the statement that 
 they wished to see a picture then being exhibited in Prince's street. 
 The picture was there, they wished to see it, and they actually did so on 
 this occasion ; but the principal object of their trip to town remained 
 unseen in the background. Professor Miller, " with his usual quick, 
 decisive kindness," said, "I'll be down to-morrow at three o'clock." 
 Mrs. Miller arranged that Dr. Balfour should come at the same hour. 
 
 When she returned home, she found her husband already there, 
 resting on the sofa in the dining-room. He told her what he had 
 been doing since they parted, dwelling especially on the precautions 
 which he was using to avoid taking cold. In return, he wanted to 
 know exactly what his wife and daughter had been about in town. 
 "We saw the picture as we intended." "Nothing else? Was that 
 really your chief business?" Mrs. Miller saw that a suspicion of the 
 true state of affairs had crossed his mind. She feared his serious dis- 
 pleasure, and thought it possible that, if not treated with frankness, 
 he might keep out of the way and defeat her main aim. With hesi- 
 tation, therefore, and placing her hand on his forehead, "Don't," 
 she said, " be displeased. I went likewise to Professor Miller to ask 
 him to come and see you. He is to come at three to-morrow. You 
 won't object you won't throw any obstacle in the way if it were 
 only to relieve my mind?" He made no answer, and remained 
 silent for a considerable time. At the moment he was, Mrs. Miller 
 thinks, displeased ; but the shadow soon passed from his face, and 
 during the evening he was in his gentlest, kindest mood. 
 
 Next morning Mrs. Miller again met him at the top of the stairs 
 before breakfast, and was relieved to find that he had passed a better 
 night. Immediately after breakfast he began to correct the last 
 proofs of the "Testimony of the Rocks." About midday he be- 
 came restless, and she feared that he might make some movement 
 which would prevent the consultation. The day was bitterly cold, 
 with drizzling rain. She made pretenses to be near him, watchful 
 lest he should slip away unnoticed. At last he proclaimed his in- 
 tention of going up to town to anticipate Professor Miller's visit. 
 "I can not bear," he said, "taking him down in this way. You 
 know his generosity, and he has so much to do." " Well, believe 
 me," replied Mrs. Miller, "there's not much he has to do he would 
 put in competition with coming to see you when you need it. Just 
 look at the day. You know that, if you go out, you will bring on 
 another inflammatory attack in your chest, and then I shall have done 
 more harm than good. Do stay now, and let things go on, if you 
 never do again." " Well," he answered, "I will." Mrs. Miller was 
 passing his chair at the moment, and putting her hand into the
 
 520 
 
 HUGH MILLER 
 
 shaggy hair which he used to wear on the top of his head, she gave it a 
 slight tug, "half a caress, half a playful rebuke for his contumacy," 
 while she thanked him for complying. "Don't," he said mildly; 
 "it hurts me." 
 
 The medical gentleman arrived and 'the interview commenced. 
 "We examined his chest," such is Professor Miller's report, "and 
 found that unusually well ; but soon we discovered that it was head- 
 symptoms that made him uneasy. He acknowledged having been 
 night after night up till very late m the morning, working hard and 
 continuously at his new book, ' which,' with much satisfaction he 
 said, ' I have finished this day.' He was sensible that his head had 
 suffered in consequence, as evidenced in two ways : first, occasionally 
 he felt as if a very fine poniard had been 'suddenly passed through 
 and through his brain. The pain was intense, and momentarily fol- 
 lowed by confusion and giddiness, and the sense of being very drunk, 
 unable to stand or walk. He thought that a period of unconscious- 
 ness must have followed this a kind of swoon but he had never 
 fallen. Second, what annoyed him most, however, was a kind of 
 nightmare, which for some nights past had rendered sleep most mis- 
 erable. It was no dream, he said ; he saw no distinct vision, and 
 could remember accurately nothing of what had passed. It was a 
 sense of vague and yet intense horror, with a conviction of being 
 abroad in the night wind, and dragged through places as if by some 
 invisible power. 'Last night,' he said, 'I felt as if I had been rid- 
 den by a witch for fifty miles, and rose far more wearied in my mind 
 and body than when I lay down.' So strong was his conviction of 
 having been out, that he had difficulty in persuading himself to the 
 contrary, by carefully examining his clothes in the morning to see 
 if they were not wet or dirty; and he looked inquiringly and anx- 
 iously to his wife, asking if she was sure he had not been out last 
 night, and walking in this disturbed trance or dream. His pulse was 
 quiet, but his tongue foul. The head was not hot, but he could not 
 say he was free from pain. But I need not enter into professional 
 details. Suffice it to say, that we came to the conclusion that he was 
 suffering from an overworked mind, disordering his digestive organs, 
 enervating his whole frame, and threatening serious head affection. 
 We told him this, and enjoined absolute discontinuance of work, 
 bed at eleven, light supper (he had all his life made that a principal 
 meal), thinning the hair of the head, a warm sponging-bath at bed- 
 time, etc. To all our commands he readily promised obedience. 
 For fully an hour we talked together on these and other subjects, and 
 I left him with no apprehension of impending evil, and little doubt- 
 ing but that a short time of rest and regimen would restore him to 
 his wonted vigor." 
 
 It may occur to many to ask how it could happen that medical 
 men so circumspect, so vigilant, so able, as Professor Miller and Dr. 
 Balfour, having become acquainted with these symptoms of insanity,
 
 MENTAL DERANGEMENT "CASTAWAY. 591 
 
 did not suggest that precautions should be taken, to the extent at 
 least of removing fire-arms from the person and presence of their 
 patient. Miller's fear of robbery had returned in all its force. A 
 revolver lay nightly within his reach. A broad-bladed dagger was 
 ready to his hand. At his bed-head lay a naked sword. Why were 
 not these taken away ? The reply is, that, though paroxysms of mad- 
 ness had already visited Miller, he had revealed no trace of suicidal 
 mania, and the circumstances under which his mental disorder had 
 originated were not such as to suggest alarm. His brain had been 
 overworked ; but the labor which had shaken his nerves and sapped 
 his strength had been congenial to him ; and his conversation was 
 that of one who looked with hope and with interest to the future. 
 His intellect, besides, apart from the maniacal belief which at mo- 
 ments oppressed it,. that he was made the sport of demons in 'the 
 night, was strong and clear. That powerful action of the mind may 
 take place even when it is under the spell of overmastering mania is 
 demonstrated by the fact that Cowper wrote in a single day, while 
 suffering "the most appalling mental depression," the "Castaway," 
 a poem which, in the masculine brevity of its narrative, and the con- 
 centration of its magic power, is altogether masterly. Listening to 
 the conversation of Hugh Miller, which, even while he described the 
 agonies that tortured him, attested the vigor of his faculties, the 
 medical gentlemen never thought it possible that intensity of mental 
 horror might suddenly paralyze his will, and deprive reason of con- 
 trol over his actions. It is so easy to be wise after the event ! so 
 difficult to forecast the steps of destiny ! The riddle of the Sphynx, 
 once we know its solution, looks childishly simple; and yet it took 
 an (Edipus to read it. 
 
 Professor Miller and Dr. Balfour having left Shrub Mount, it was 
 now time for dinner. The servant entered the dining-room to spread 
 the table, and found Mr. Miller alone. The expression which once 
 or twice already had been observed on his features was again there. 
 His face was so distorted with pain, that she shrank back appalled. 
 He lay down upon the sofa and pressed his head, as if in agony, 
 upon the cushion. 
 
 The paroxysm flittered by, and when Mrs. Miller returned to the 
 dining-room he was in apparent health. She naturally shared the 
 hopeful anticipations which Professor Miller had expressed, and her 
 mind would dwell with comfort on the regimen and rest which were 
 now, by medical authority, to be brought to bear upon his case. 
 After dinner the conversation turned upon poetry. Miss Miller, 
 " then just blooming into womanhood, between sixteen and seven- 
 teen years of age," was at the time attending classes, and among 
 other tasks had to produce verses upon given themes. She consulted 
 her father upon her performances, and he would take the opportu- 
 nity of delivering a chatty little lecture upon poetry, taking down 
 from the shelf the works of some well-known author, to serve for the
 
 522 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 illustration of his remarks. This evening the subject of lecture was 
 Cowper, one of his supreme favorites. He ranked the bard of Olney, 
 both in poetry and in prose, among the great masters of the English 
 language. The verses on Yardley Oak he would often refer to, as 
 evincing the wonderful power with which Cowper could bend the 
 roughest words to suit his purposes of delineation and of melody. 
 The lines are perhaps the fittest which a critic could select to illus- 
 trate the genius of Cowper. They have that brief, decisive force by 
 which, at his best, he recalls the mighty touch of Dryden, with a 
 vivid, eye-to-eye truth to nature, which reminds us that Cowper, if 
 the poetical child of Dryden, was the poetical sire of Wordsworth : 
 
 " Thou wast a bauble once ; a cup and ball, 
 Which babes might play with ; and the thievish jay, 
 Seeking her food, with ease might have purloined 
 The auburn nut that held thee, swallowhig down 
 Thy yet close-folded latitude of boughs, 
 And all thine embryo vastness, at a gulp. 
 But fate thy growth decreed ; autmnal rains 
 Beneath thy parent-tree mellowed the soil 
 Designed thy cradle ; and a skipping deer, 
 With pointed hoof dibbling the glebe, prepared 
 The soft receptacle, in which, secure, 
 Thy rudiments should sleep the winter through." 
 
 The vein of reflection, too, obscured by no mysticism, yet touch- 
 ing on deep things, which runs through the piece, would please 
 Miller. 
 
 " While thus through all the stages thou hast pushed 
 Of treeship, first a seedling, hid in grass ; 
 Then twig ; then sapling ; and, as century rolled 
 Slow after century, a giant bulk 
 Of girth enormous, with moss-cushioned root 
 Upheaved above the soil, and sides embossed 
 With prominent wens globose, till at the last 
 The rottenness, which Time is charged to inflict 
 On other mighty ones, found also thee. 
 
 What exhibitions various hath the world 
 Witnessed, of mutability in all 
 That we account most durable below ! 
 Change is the diet on which all subsist, 
 Created changeable, and .change at last 
 Destroys them. Skies uncertain now the heat 
 Transmitting cloudless, and the solar beam 
 Now quenching in a boundless sea of clouds ; 
 Calm and alternate storm, moisture and drought, 
 Invigorate by turns the springs of life 
 In all that live, plant, animal, and man, 
 And in conclusion mar them. Nature's threads. 
 Fine passing thought, even in her coarsest works, 
 Delight in agitation, yet sustain 
 The force that agitates, not unimpaired ; 
 But worn by frequent impulse, to the cause 
 Of their best tone their dissolution owe."
 
 AND COWPER'S POETRY. 523 
 
 Mrs. Miller's little Christmas volume, " Cats and Dogs," which 
 has since been highly popular, was then passing through the press. 
 Mr. Miller took a lively interest in it, and gave a warmly favorable 
 opinion of its qualities. He now asked the children if they knew 
 Cowper's lines "To a Retired Cat," and, on their answering in the 
 negative, read them with sprightly appreciation. The cat, it may be 
 remembered, finding an open drawer, lined with the softest linen, 
 concludes that it has been prepared expressly for her accommodation, 
 falls fast asleep in it, is immured by the chamber-maid, and is in 
 danger of being starved. 
 
 " That night, by chance, the poet watching, 
 Heard an inexplicable scratching; 
 His noble heart went pit-a-pat, 
 And to himself he said, ' What's that ?' 
 He drew the curtain at his side, 
 And forth he peeped, but nothing spied ; 
 Yet, by his ear directed, guessed 
 Something imprisoned in the chest, 
 And, doubtful what, with prudent care, 
 Resolved it should continue there. 
 At length, a voice which well he knew, 
 A long and melancholy mew, 
 Saluting his poetic ears, 
 Consoled him and dispelled his fears ; 
 He left his bed, he trod the floor, 
 He 'gan in haste the drawers explore, 
 The lowest first, and without stop 
 The rest in order to the top. 
 For 'tis a truth well known to most, 
 That whatsoever thing is lost, 
 We seek it, ere it come to light, 
 In every cranny but the right. 
 Forth skipped the cat, not now replete 
 As erst with airy self-conceit. 
 
 The father reading and remarking; the children with happy faces 
 and merry trills of laughter clustered round his knee ; the mother 
 tranquillized and hopeful after her terrible anxieties of the preceding 
 days, such is the spectacle which, on this Tuesday evening, two 
 days before Christmas, 1856, we behold in the home of Hugh Miller. 
 Mrs. Miller was making tea, when she heard his voice " in tones of 
 anguish," reading "The Castaway." Here are a few of the verses: 
 
 " Obscurest night involved the sky, 
 
 The Atlantic billows rolled, 
 When such a destined wretch as I, 
 
 Washed headlong from on board, 
 Of friends, of hope, of all bereft, 
 His floating home forever left.
 
 524 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 " Not long beneath the whelming brine, 
 . Expert to swim, he lay ; 
 
 Nor soon he felt his strength decline, 
 
 Or courage die away ; 
 But waged with death a lasting strife, 
 Supported by despair of life. 
 
 " He long survives who lives an hour 
 
 In ocean, self-upheld ; 
 And so long he, with unspent power, 
 
 His destiny repelled ; 
 And ever, as the minutes flew, 
 Entreated help, or cried 'Adieu!' 
 
 " At length, his transient respite past, 
 
 His comrades, who before 
 Had heard his voice in every blast, 
 
 Could catch the sound no more. 
 For then by toil subdued, he drank 
 The Stirling wave, and then he sank. 
 
 " No poet wept him ; but the page 
 
 Of narrative sincere, 
 That tells his name, his worth, his age, 
 
 Is wet with Anson's tear; 
 And tears by bards or heroes shed 
 Alike immortalize the dead. 
 
 " I therefore purpose not, or dream, 
 
 Descanting on his fate, 
 To give the melancholy theme 
 
 A more enduring date ; 
 But misery still delights to trace 
 Its semblance in another's case. 
 
 " No voice divine the storm allayed, 
 
 No light propitious shone, 
 When, snatched from all effectual aid, 
 
 We perished, each alone ; 
 But I beneath a rougher sea, 
 And whelmed in deeper gulfs than he." 
 
 Mrs. Miller, however, was not alarmed. She felt that her husband, 
 in capacity of critic and reader, was merely bringing out by sudden 
 and skillful contrast the range of Cowper's power, now archly droll, 
 now sternly tragical. 
 
 Early in the evening, as might have been expected after that agi- 
 tating day, Mrs. Miller began to feel weary. She went to the kitchen 
 and gave particular orders about his bath ; then, returning to the 
 sitting-room, she remarked to him that she was "very, very tired," 
 and would be forced to leave him sooner than usual. "Now," he 
 said, " that I am forbidden ale or porter, don't you think that in 
 future I might have a cup of coffee before going to bed?" With
 
 "IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT?" 525 
 
 some hesitation she assented, and promised that the coffee should be 
 brought him. The good-night kiss followed, and she retired to 
 slumbers which were probably the deeper on account of the excite- 
 ment and fatigue, the anxieties and consolations, of the preceding 
 day. Miller went upstairs to his study. At the appointed hour he 
 took the bath, but, alas ! his intense repugnance to physic prevailed 
 over him, and the dose of prescribed medicine was left untouched. 
 From his study he went into his sleeping-room and lay down upon 
 his bed. 
 
 At what hour can never be ascertained, but either in the dead of 
 night or in the gray dawn of morning, he arose from the bed and 
 half dressed himself. Then the trance of paroxysmal horror again 
 came over him, and the maniacal persuasion which had for days been 
 haunting him drove him mad. He rushed to the table, and, on a 
 folio sheet of paper, on the center of the page, traced the following 
 lines : 
 
 " DEAREST LYDIA : My brain burns. I must have walked ; and a 
 fearful dream rises upon me. I can not bear the horrible thought. 
 God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy upon me ! 
 Dearest Lydia, dear children, farewell ! My brain burns as the recol- 
 lection grows. My dear, dear wife, farew%ll ! 
 
 "HUGH MILLER." 
 
 The iron resolution and courage of the man appeared even in the 
 maniac. He wore a thick woven seaman's jacket over his chest.. This 
 he raised on the left above the heart, and, applying the muzzle of 
 his revolver, fired. The ball perforated the left lung, grazed the 
 heart, cut through the pulmonary artery at its root, and lodged in the 
 rib on the right side. The pistol slipped from his hand into the 
 bath, which stood close by, and he fell dead instantaneously. The 
 body was found lying on the floor, and the feet upon the study rug. 
 
 A post-mortem examination having been made, the following report 
 was the result: 
 
 "EDINBURGH, December 26, 1856. 
 
 "We hereby certify on soul and conscience, that we have this 
 day examined the body of Mr. Hugh Miller, at Shrub Mount, Porto- 
 bello. 
 
 "The cause of death we found to be a pistol-shot through the left 
 side of the chest ; and this, we are satisfied, was inflicted by his own 
 hand. 
 
 "From the diseased appearances found in the brain, taken in con- 
 nection with the history of the case, we have no doubt that the act 
 was suicidal, under the impulse of insanity. 
 
 " JAMES MILLER, W. T. GAIRDNER, 
 
 "A. H. BALFOUR, A. M. EDWARDS."
 
 526 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 It is a melancholy satisfaction to reflect, that in no case of suicide 
 which ever took place, can the evidence of insanity have been more 
 express or conclusive, Had no trace of disease been found in the 
 brain ; had no word written by Hugh Miller at the last attested mad- 
 ness the overwork to which he had subjected himself, the excitement 
 to which he had been a prey would have afforded adequate grounds 
 for believing him insane. But the actual mania which was gaining 
 the mastery over him had been defined by himself some days before 
 his death; and this mania, namely, that he was driven by witches 
 or demons in the darkness, is specified beyond possibility of mistake 
 or doubt, in the thrilling words, "I must have walked." That even 
 when he was the victim of mania, the tenderness of his nature sur- 
 vived ; that he could still discriminate the supremacy of his affection 
 for the wife of his youth ; that the cry of his heart, when reason was 
 eclipsed in madness and the shadow of death fell on the reeling 
 brain, rose clear to God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ will 
 be dwelt on with sad interest by those whom Hugh Miller taught 
 to love him with inexpressible love. 
 
 "The body," writes Dr. Hanna, who was one of the first to 
 see it, "was lifted and laid upon the bed. We saw it there a 
 few hours afterwards. The head lay back, sideways, on the pil- 
 low. There was the massive brow, the firm-set, manly features, 
 we had so often looked upon admiringly, just as we had lately 
 seen them no touch nor trace upon them of disease nothing 
 but that overspread pallor of death to distinguish them from what 
 they had been. But the expression of that countenance in death 
 will live in our memory forever. Death by gun-shot wounds is said 
 to leave no trace of suffeiing behind; and never was there a face 
 of the dead freer from all shadow of pain, or grief, or conflict, than 
 that of our dear departed friend. And as we bent over it, and remem- 
 bered the troubled look it sometimes had in life, and thought what 
 must have been the sublimely terrific expression that it wore at the 
 moment when the fatal deed was done, we could not help thinking 
 that it lay there to tell us, in that expression of unruffled majestic 
 repose that sat upon every feature, what we so assuredly believe, that 
 the spirit had passed through a terrible tornado, in which reason had 
 been broken down ; but that it had made the great passage in safety, 
 and stood looking back to us, in humble, grateful triumph, from the 
 other side." 
 
 The excitement occasioned by the event throughout Scotland was 
 tremendous, and no such funeral had taken place in Edinburgh since 
 that of Chalmers. He was laid in the Grange Cemetery, near the 
 spot where Chalmers rests. 
 
 From a large number of letters received by Mrs. Miller on the oc- 
 casion of her husband's death, the two which follow are selected 
 for publication :
 
 LETTERS FROM DICKENS AND CARLYLE. 527 
 
 "TAVISTOCK HOUSE, LONDON, 
 
 "Thursday, April 16, 1857. 
 
 " DEAR MADAM : Allow me to assure you that I have received the 
 last work of your late much-lamented husband with feelings of mourn- 
 ful respect for his memory and of heartfelt sympathy with you. It 
 touches me very sensibly to know, from the inscription appended to 
 the volume, that he wished it to be given to me. Believe me, it will 
 fill no neglected place on my book-shelves, but will always be pre- 
 cious to me, in remembrance of a delightful writer, an accomplished 
 follower of science, and an upright and good man. 
 
 "I hope I may, dear madam, without obtrusion on your great 
 bereavement, venture to offer you my thanks and condolences, and 
 to add that, before I was brought into this personal association with 
 your late husband's final labor, I was one of the many thousands 
 whose thoughts had been much with you. 
 
 " Yours faithfully and obliged, 
 
 "CHARLES DICKENS. 
 "MRS. HUGH MILLER." 
 
 "CHELSEA, April 15, 1857. 
 
 " MY DEAR MADAM : Last night I received a gift of your send- 
 ing, which is at once very precious and very mournful to me. 
 
 " There is forever connected with the very title of this book the 
 fact that, in writing it, the cordage of a strong heart cracked in 
 pieces ; that the ink of it is a brave man's life-blood ! The book 
 itself, I already see, is full of grave, manly talent, clearness, elo- 
 quence, faithful conviction, inquiry, knowledge ; and will teach me 
 and others much in reading it, but that is already an extrinsic fact, 
 which will give it a double significance to us all. For myself, a voice 
 of friendly recognition from such a man, coming to me thus out of 
 the still kingdoms, has something in it of religion, and is strange 
 and solemn in these profane, empty times. 
 
 "In common with every body, I mourned over the late tragic ca- 
 tastrophe; the world's great loss, especially your irreparable and ever- 
 lamentable one ; but as for him I confess there was always present, 
 after the first shock, the thought that at least he was out of bondage, 
 into freedom and rest. I perceived that for such a man there was 
 no rest appointed except in the countries where he now is ! 
 
 "Dear madam, what can we say? The ways of God are high 
 and dark, and yet there is mercy hidden in them. Surely, if we 
 know any thing, it is that ' His goodness endureth forever.' I will not 
 insult your grief by pretending to lighten it. You and your little 
 ones, yes, you have cause, as few have had, to mourn ; but you have 
 also such assuagements as not many have. 
 
 " With respectful sympathy, with many true thanks and regards, I 
 remain, Sincerely yours, 
 
 "T. CARLYLE."
 
 528 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 " Politeness is the last touch, the finishing perfection of a noble 
 character. It is the gold on the spire, the sunlight on the corn-field, 
 the smile on the lip of the noble knight lowering his sword-point to 
 his lady-love. It results only from the truest balance and harmony 
 of soul. Hugh Miller possessed it. A duke in speaking to him would 
 know he was speaking to a man as independent as himself ; a boy, in 
 expressing to him an opinion, would feel unabashed and easy, from 
 his genial and unostentatious deference. He has been accused of 
 egotism. Let it be fairly admitted that he knows his name is Hugh 
 Miller, and that he has a colossal head, and that he once was a ma- 
 son ; his foible is probably that which caused Napoleon, in a company 
 of kings, to commence an anecdote with ' When I was a lieutenant 
 in the regiment of La Fere.' But we can not think it more than a 
 very slight foible ; a manly self-consciousness somewhat in excess. 
 Years in the quarry have not dimmed in Hugh Miller that finishing 
 gleam of genial light which plays over the frame-work of character, 
 and is politeness. Not only did he require honest manliness for this ; 
 gentleness was also necessary. He had both, and has retained them ; 
 and therefore merits fairly 
 
 " ' The grand old name of gentleman.' " 
 
 It was impossible to be long in Miller's company without perceiv- 
 ing the ardor of his devotion to science. He considered literature 
 inferior to science as a gymnastic of the mind. For the facile cult- 
 ure of the age he had great contempt, and ranked both religion and 
 labor as stimulating, training agencies for mind and character, higher 
 than what is commonly called education. "As for the dream," he 
 says in one of his books, "that there is to be some extraordinary 
 elevation of the general platform of the race achieved by means 
 of education, it is simply the halucination of the age the world's 
 present alchemical expedient for converting farthings into guineas, 
 sheerly by dint of scouring." All that he had won had been won 
 by stern effort, and he had no faith in royal roads to any kind of 
 attainment. 
 
 A man of priceless worth ; fine gold, purified sevenfold ; delicate 
 splendor of honor, sensitive and proud ; perfect sincerity and faith- 
 fulness in heart and mind. He never failed a friend. His comrade 
 of the hewing-shed sits down at his table when he has become one 
 of the most distinguished men of his time ; another friend is discov- 
 ered to be at hand-grips with fortune, and he applies himself, with 
 cunning delicacy, to solve the problem, of inducing him to accept 
 assistance. This was the manner and habit of the man. 
 
 Of his power of brain of his genius and originality his books, 
 viewed in connection with the circumstances of his career, are the living 
 witnesses. To their testimony must be added the fact of the great 
 influence he exerted upon his contemporaries, the personal weight, 
 the intellectual mass and magnitude, he was felt to possess. Profes-
 
 ESTIMATE OF HIS ABILITIES AND CHARACTER. 529 
 
 sor Masson, commenting on the curious notion of a Fleet street ora- 
 cle, that he was devoid of genius, has declared his conviction that, 
 " if the word was applicable to the description of any mind, it was 
 to the description of Hugh Miller's." If we estimate the amount 
 of obstruction which lay between the mason lad of Gairlock and Nid- 
 dry, and the Hugh Miller of Edinburgh, whom Murchison, Lyell, 
 Agassiz hailed as a brother, we shall admit that the opinion is not 
 prima facie unreasonable. I take liberty to add that, if genius 
 means an indefinable something, conferred by nature, inimitable, in- 
 communicable, never given twice in exactly the same form and color 
 a power of enchantment which all men feel, but no man can quite 
 describe then the critic who denies genius to Hugh Miller does 
 not understand his craft. He owed, without question, much to cult- 
 ure. Twenty years of study and practice, assiduous reading, careful 
 self-correction, were required to perfect his prose style and to give 
 him the complete command of it which he ultimately obtained. But 
 all this only brought into clearness and use the gift born with him, 
 a gift traceable in his earliest letters, a gift of tempered mental 
 strength, of brightly keen perception and broad imaginative vision, 
 a rare gift of expression, in subtly modulated sentence, and exqui- 
 sitely felicitous image, and solemn harmony of sense and sound, and 
 tenderly brilliant color lighting up the whole. Mr. Robert Cham- 
 bers proved himself to have the true critical eye when be referred, 
 at a very early period of their intercourse, to the singular interest at- 
 taching to all he wrote. The omniscient little critics who deny him 
 genius may imitate that if they can ; it secured Miller a large and 
 intelligent audience throughout the civilized world, an audience whose 
 ear he caught so soon as his power was revealed, and which thirty 
 years after the publication of the "Old Red Sandstone," continues 
 to extend. 
 
 So far as we can penetrate the charm of his composition, it lies 
 mainly in the fine continuity of it, in the absence of all jerking, jolt- 
 ing movement, in the callida junctura not of word to word merely, 
 but of sentence to sentence, thought to thought, illustration to illus- 
 tration. An author's peculiar excellence, if we have rightly discrim- 
 inated it, will give us a hint as to where we should look for his beset- 
 ting fault, and in reading Miller long at one time, we may find in 
 his billowy regularity and smoothness of movement a sense of 
 monotony. Yet, after all, there is a marvelous enchantment in his 
 books ; the breath of the hills is in them, the freshness of the west 
 wind and the sea. Shall we not now venture to decide the question 
 was left open when it last came before us that it was advantageous for 
 him to break away from school, and betake himself to the caves and 
 the wood? Nature is the only safe nurse of genius; education is 
 indispensable, but even the education must be suggested by nature, 
 and come at her prompting. Shakespeare was an educated man ; 
 he had a large knowledge of the books of his time; but all genera- 
 34
 
 530 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 tions would have been poorer if his brain had been drugged in boy- 
 hood with the trite erudition of Universities. Books came to Miller 
 at the right moment ; when he had already so filled his mind with 
 Nature's imagery that they could do no more than genially assist him 
 to use it. To read him is like taking a walk with him ; we are never 
 far from the crags and the waters, the dewy branch and the purple 
 heather. Compare this with the prim urban elegance of Jeffrey, or 
 the hard vehemence, like rainless thunder, or the full gallop of cav- 
 alry, of the style of Sir William Hamilton, and you will begin to 
 realize how much Hugh Miller owed to the circumstance that his 
 Alma Mater was his mother earth. As a naturalist, also, and as a 
 geologist, his power came essentially from the same source. The 
 hours on the ebb shore with Uncle Sandy ; the tracing of the subtle- 
 ties of life among the minute denizens of the crystal pools ; the 
 watching of the race of the waves when the tide turned, first slowly, 
 tentatively, listlessly, each timorous wavelet with its lifted handful of 
 dusty sand, then in hurrying, clamorous advance of leaping foam and 
 marshaled surge along the reaches of the shore; the long years of 
 toil in the quarry, and of wandering among the hills, to mark the 
 fellowship of the rocks, and learn the joints and curvature of the 
 bones of the world these gave him his intuitive sympathy with 
 Nature's ways, his geological eye to discern how THE ARCHITECT had 
 put together this and that bit of the planet. " The thing was done 
 so," he could say, "and not in the way you mention; you can fold 
 up your theoretical demonstration when you please." 
 
 May we not call his life, first and last, beautiful, august, heroic? 
 From the father, whose very image he in later years became, he de- 
 rived the ground work of his character, and for the education of 
 conscience he was primarily indebted, though he little knew it at the 
 time, to his Uncle James. In early manhood he was encompassed 
 with hardship, with coarseness, with manifold temptation. His soul 
 took no taint. He rose superior to every form of vulgarity : the 
 vulgar ambition of wealth, the vulgar ambition of notoriety, the 
 vulgar baseness of sensuality and license. He aspired to fame, but 
 it was to fame which should be the ratification of his own severe 
 judgment. " I have myself," he said, "for my critic;" and while 
 the decision of this sternest censor was even moderately favorable, 
 no sneers could depress, no applause elate him. His course was a 
 steadfast pursuit of truth and of knowledge, an unwearied dedication 
 of himself to all that he believed to be true, and honest, and lovely, 
 and of good report.
 
 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS, 
 
 GRADUATES OF BOOK-STALLS, 
 
 Printers, Editors, and Publishers of the " Edinburgh Journal," " Chambers' Information for the 
 
 People," " Chambers' Cyclopedia of English Literature," " History of 
 
 the Rebellion of 1745," " Book of Days," etc., etc. 
 
 "HE THAT THOLES OVERCOMES."
 
 PREFATORY NOTE. 
 
 ON the death of my brother, DR. ROBERT CHAMBERS, numerous biographic 
 sketches of him appeared, both in Great Britain and the United States, all of them 
 kind and complimentary, but in many cases imperfect or erroneous as regards certain 
 leading details. It seemed to me that, while still spared life and opportunity, I 
 might try to do justice to the memory of the deceased, by giving a correct history 
 of his life and principal writings. 
 
 The attempt, however, involved a difficulty. Having been intimately associated 
 with my brother, not only in early life, but in literary enterprises, it was scarcely 
 possible to relate the story of one without frequent reference to the other. I have 
 so far yielded to this necessity, as to offer some Autobiographic Reminiscences, in 
 subordination to the principal object in view. To this extent only do these pages 
 sketch the history of two individuals. 
 
 I need hardly say that the retrospect of some early events, which could not well 
 be omitted, has not been unaccompanied with poignant recollections ; but if a perusal 
 of the narrative serves in any degree to inspire youth with notions of self-reliance, 
 along with a hopeful dependence on Providence when pressed by adverse circum- 
 stances, I shall be more than recompensed. W. C. 
 
 January, 1872.
 
 ROBERT AND WM. CHAMBERS. 
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHIC REMINISCENCES, ETC. 
 
 EARLY YEARS l8oo TO 1813. 
 
 MY brother and I were born and spent our early years in a 
 small country town in the south of Scotland, situated amidst 
 beautiful scenery, and had therefore the advantage as advantage it 
 might be called of being acquainted from infancy with some of the 
 noble works of nature, along with rural objects and circumstances. 
 The place of our birth was Peebles, an ancient royal burgh on the 
 upper part of the Tweed, where our ancestors had dwelt from time 
 immemorial the tradition among them being, that they were des- 
 cended from a personage inscribed as " William de la Chaumbre, 
 Bailif e Burgois de Pebles," in the list of those who signed bonds of 
 allegiance to Edward I, 1296. However that might be, I was born 
 in this little old burgh, i6th April, 1800; and Robert, coming next 
 in order in the family, was born loth July, 1802. 
 
 For the place of birth and early associations almost every one has 
 a peculiar affection ; and among the Scotch, as is well known, this 
 feeling is a marked national characteristic. It will not seem surpris- 
 ing, therefore, that through life Robert cherished kindly remembrances 
 of the scenes of his infancy. A few years previous to his decease, he 
 began notes of what may have been intended as a memoir of himself, 
 but which were not carried farther than reminiscences from the dawn 
 of intelligence to about his tenth year. Fragmentary as are these 
 memoranda, they abound in the geniality of sentiment for which the 
 writer was remarkable, and serve to illustrate the state of things in 
 certain by-corners of Scotland sixty to seventy years since. The fol- 
 lowing portions may accordingly be acceptable, supplemented here 
 and there by such particulars from my own remembrance as may 
 help to complete the picture: 
 
 "In the early years of this century," he proceeds, "Peebles was 
 little advanced from the condition in which it had mainly rested for 
 
 (533)
 
 534 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 several hundred years previously. It was eminently a quiet place 
 'As quiet as the grave, or as Peebles', is a phrase used by Cockburn. 
 It was said to be a finished town, for no new houses (exceptions to 
 be of course allowed for) were ever built in it. Situated, however, 
 among beautiful pastoral hills, with a singularly pure atmosphere, and 
 with the pellucid Tweed running over its pebbly bed close beside 
 the streets, the town was acknowledged to be, in the fond language 
 of its inhabitants, a bonny place. An honest old burgher was en- 
 abled by some strange chance to visit Paris, and was eagerly questioned, 
 when he came back, as to the character of that capital of capitals ; 
 to which, it is said, he answered that ' Paris, a'thing considered, was 
 a wonderful place but still, Peebles for pleesure !' and this has 
 often been cited as a ludicrous example of rustic prejudice and nar- 
 rowness of judgment. But, on a fair interpretation of the old gentle- 
 man's words, he was not quite so benighted as at first appears. The 
 ' pleesures ' of Peebles were the beauties of the situation and the op- 
 portunities of healthful recreation it afforded, and these were certainly 
 considerable. 
 
 "There was an old and a new town in Peebles each of them a 
 single street, or little more ; and as even the new town had an an- 
 tique look, it may be inferred that the old looked old indeed. It 
 was indeed chiefly composed of thatched cottages, occupied by weavers 
 and laboring people a primitive race of homely aspect, in many in- 
 stances eking out a scanty subsistence by having a cow on the town 
 common, or cultivating a rig of potatoes in the fields close to the 
 town. Rows of porridge luggies (small wooden vessels) were to be 
 seen cooling on window-soles ; a smell of peat smoke pervaded the 
 place ; the click of the shuttle was every-where heard during the day; 
 and in the evening, the gray old men came out in their Kilmarnock 
 night- caps, and talked of Bonaparte, on the stone seats beside their 
 doors. The platters used in these humble dwellings were all of wood, 
 and the spoons of horn ; knives and forks rather rare articles. The 
 house was generally divided into two apartments by a couple of box- 
 beds, placed end to end a bad style of bed prevalent in cottages all 
 over Scotland ; they were so close as almost to stifle the inmates. 
 Among these humble people, all costumes, customs, and ways of liv- 
 ing smacked of old times. You would see a venerable patriarch 
 making his way to church on Sunday, with a long-backed, swing- 
 tailed, light-blue coat of the style of George II, which was probably 
 his marriage coat, and half a century old. His head-gear was a 
 broad-brimmed blue bonnet. The old women came out on the same 
 occasions in red scarfs, called cardinals, and white mutches (caps), 
 bound by a black ribbon, with the gray hair folded back on the fore- 
 head. There was a great deal of drugget, and huckaback, and serge 
 in that old world, and very little cotton. One almost might think 
 he saw the humbler Scotch people of the seventeenth century before 
 his eyes.
 
 ANECDOTES OF PECULIAR PEOPLE. 535 
 
 " Apropos of the box-beds, there was a carrier named Davie Loch, 
 who was reputed to be rather light of wits, but at the same time not 
 without a sense of his worldly interests. His mother, finding her 
 end approaching, addressed her son, in the presence of a number of 
 the neighbors : 
 
 " 'The house will be Davie's, of course, and the furniture too.' 
 "'Eh, hear her!' quoth Davie; 'sensible to the last, sensible lo 
 the last.' 
 
 " ' The lyin' siller ' 
 
 " ' Eh, yes ; how clear she is about every thing !' 
 " ' The lyin' siller is to be divided between my two daughters' 
 "'Steekthe bed-doors, steek the bed-doors,' interposed Davie? 
 'she's raving now !' And the old dying woman was shut up accord 
 ingly. 
 
 " In this old-town population, there survived two or three aged 
 persons who professed an adherence to the Covenant and covenanted 
 work of Reformation. One of these, designated Laird Baird, remains 
 clearly daguerreotyped on my memory, a tall, bony, grim old man, 
 with blue rig-and-fur stockings rolled half-way up his thighs, and a 
 very umbrageous blue bonnet. His secular business consisted in 
 thatching houses; his inner life was a constant brooding over the sins 
 of a perjured and sinful nation, and the various turns of public affairs, 
 in which he traced the punishments inflicted upon us by an outraged 
 Deity, for our laying aside the Solemn League and Covenant. He 
 came up to my mother one summer evening, as she was standing at 
 her door with her first-born in her arms. ' Ye're mickle pleased wi' 
 that bairn, woman,' said the laird gruffly. ' If the French come, 
 what will ye do wi' him? I trow ye'll be fleeing wi' him to the tap 
 o' the Pentland Hills. But ye should rather pray that they may 
 come. Ye should pray for judgments, woman, judgments on a 
 sinfu' land. Pray that the Lord may pour out the vials of his wrath 
 upon us, it would be for our guid.' And then he went on his way, 
 leaving the pretty young mother heart-chilled by his terrible words. 
 Having known something of old-town worthies of this kind, there was 
 no novelty or surprise to me, a few years thereafter, when I read of 
 Habakkuk Mucklewrath in Scott's 'Old Mortality.' 
 
 " I had reason to know the old town in my earliest years, for our 
 family then dwelt in it, though in a modern-slated house, which my 
 father had had built for him by his father when about to be married. 
 Our ancestors had been woolen manufacturers, substantial and respect- 
 able people, although living in a very plain style. My father growing 
 up at the time when the cotton manufacture was introduced into 
 Glasgow, had there studied it, and now conducted it on a pretty ex- 
 tensive scale at Peebles, having spmetimes as many as a hundred 
 looms in his employment. My earliest recollections bring before me 
 a neat, small mansion, fronting to the Eddleston Water; a tastefully 
 furnished sitting room, containing a concealed bed, one or two other
 
 536 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 little rooms and a kitchen, a ground-floor full of looms, and a garret 
 full of webs and weft. Games at marbles played with my elder brother 
 on the figures of the parlor carpet, when recovering from an illness, 
 come back upon me as among the pleasantest things I have experienced 
 in life ; or wandering into the workshop below ; it was a great 
 entertainment to sit beside one of the weavers, and watch the move- 
 ments of the heddles and treadles, and hear the songs and the gossip 
 of the man. Weavers were topping operatives in those days, for they 
 could realize two pounds a week, sometimes even more, and many 
 young men of good connections had joined the trade. My father, 
 as agent for Mr. Henry Monteith, for Mr. Mcllroy, and others, in 
 Glasgow, realized a good income, which enabled him to live on an 
 equality with the best families of the place. 
 
 " To a child, of course, all things were new, and the first occur- 
 rence of any thing to his awakened senses, never fails to make a deep 
 impression. I think I yet remember the first time I observingly saw 
 the swelling green hills around our little town. I am sure I could 
 point to within ten yards of the spot where I saw the first gowan and 
 the first buttercup ; first heard the hum of the mountain bee ; first 
 looked with wonder into a hedge-sparrow's nest, with its curious 
 treasure of blue eggs. A radius of half a mile would have described 
 the entire world of my infancy ; of that world every minute feature 
 remains deeply stamped within me, and will while life and conscious- 
 ness endure. There is a great deal of studious observation in a child. 
 Casual, trivial, and thoughtless words spoken by his seniors in his 
 presence go into him, to be afterwards estimated and judged of; so 
 it is a great mistake to speak indecorously before children. 
 
 " At the time when I was coming upon the stage of the world, a 
 number of old things were going out of it. The Rev. Dr. Dalgliesh, 
 the minister of the parish, still wore a cocked hat. He died in 1808 ; 
 and I can just remember seeing him one Sunday, as he walked home 
 from church, with that head-gear crowning his tall and dignified 
 figure. There were still a few men with pigtails whisking constantly 
 over the collars of their coats. Spencers still lingered in use. Boots, 
 formerly used only in riding and traveling, were also in vogue with 
 men who desired to be smartly dressed. One could either have top- 
 boots, that is, boots with a movable cinture of pale leather at top, or 
 tassel-boots, by which was meant what were afterwards called Hes- 
 sians, terminating in a wavy line under the knee, with a tassel hang- 
 ing out over the middle in front. A buckish weaver, called Willie 
 Paterson, had got a pair of tassel boots, on which he could fasten 
 tops, and thus enjoy tops or tassels at his pleasure. People meeting 
 him when he went to church would say : ' Willie, I see this is top- 
 day with you.' Top-day or tassel -day for Willie Paterson's boots 
 was a favorite joke. As an alternative for boots were gaiters to the 
 knee, originally tight, but latterly lax, with vertical foldings. 
 " ' Lax in their gaiters, laxer in their gait,'
 
 SHOP-KEEPERS OF PEEBLES. 537 
 
 is a line in the ' Rejected Addresses,' which strongly recalls to me 
 the year 1812. 
 
 " The new town was a smarter place than the old ; yet it con- 
 tained many homely old thatched houses, and few of any elegance. 
 The shops were for the most part confined and choky places, with 
 what were called half-doors, a bell being generally rung by customers 
 to summon the worthy trader. The shop of the candle-maker was 
 provided with a bell-pull consisting of an old key dangling at the 
 end of a cord, which was put in requisition to summon ' Candle 
 Nell,' as the female in charge of the establishment was familiarly 
 called. No attempt was made to keep up an appearance of business. 
 All was quiet and sombre by day, and in the evenings a dim candle 
 on the counter made the only difference. A favorite position of the 
 shop-keeper was to lean on his arms over the half-door, gazing abroad 
 into the vacant street, or chatting with a casual bystander. I do not 
 think there were more than three traders in the town who had any 
 apprentice or hired assistant. If the husband was out for a fore- 
 noon's fishing in the Tweed, his wife was his sufficient lieutenant. 
 It seems to me remarkable that small as the concerns generally were, 
 the family life of these people was of a somewhat refined character. 
 The tone of the females was far from being vulgar. Accomplish- 
 ments, such as are now so common, were unknown : but all had a 
 good education in English, and their conversation was not deficient 
 in intelligence." 
 
 Considering how little business was done, and also the easy way in 
 which things were conducted, one would scarcely be prepared for the 
 genteel interior of many of the dwellings, or for the tasteful dresses 
 and courteous manners of the wives of the tradesmen. Though a trifle 
 too obese, Candle Nell herself, when the shop was shut, could receive 
 company in style, and, addressed in her proper name, do the honors 
 of her brother's household. A considerable number of persons, as 
 has been said, kept a cow. The going forth of the town cows to 
 their pasturage on a neighboring hill, and their return, constituted 
 leading events of the day. Early in the summer mornings the in- 
 habitants were roused by inharmonious sounds blown from an ox-horn 
 by the town-herd, who leisurely perambulated the streets with a gray 
 plaid twisted around his shoulders. Then came forth the cows, de- 
 liberately, one by one, from their respective quarters, and took their 
 way instinctively by the bridge across the Tweed, their keeper coming 
 up behind to urge forward the loiterers. Before taking the ascent 
 to the hill, the cows, in picturesque groups, might have been seen 
 standing within the margin of the Minister's Pool, a smooth part of 
 the river, which reflected on its glistening surface the figures of the 
 animals in various attiudes, along with the surrounding scenery ; the 
 whole river, cows, and trees forming a tableaux such as would have 
 been a study for Berghem or Wouvermans.
 
 538 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 There was much pleasant intercourse among families at a small 
 cost. Scarcely any gave ceremonious dinners. Invitations to tea at 
 six o'clock were common. After tea there were songs, with perhaps 
 a round of Scottish proverbs a class of sayings which, from their 
 agreeable tartness, found scope for exercise in ordinary transactions, 
 and were more especially useful in snubbing children, and keeping 
 them in remembrance of their duty. The Peebles people were not 
 behind their neighbors in the art of applying these maxims. As, for 
 example, if a fastidious youth presumed to complain that his porridge 
 was not altogether to his mind, he would have for reply, "Lay your 
 wame to your winnin' ; " that is, "Suit your stomach to your earn- 
 ings," a staple observation in all such cases. Or, if one of unset- 
 tled habits got into a scrape, such as "slumping" in the ice, and 
 coming home half-drowned, instead of being commisserated, he would 
 be coolly reminded that "An unhappy fish gets an unhappy bait." 
 Or, if one hinted that he was hungry, and would not be the worse 
 of something to eat, he would, if the application was inopportune, 
 be favored with the advice in dietetics, "You'll be the better o' 
 findin' the grunds o' your stamick." Or, if he, on the other hand, 
 asked for a drink of water shortly after dinner, he would be told that 
 " Mickle meat taks mickle weet ; " by which wholesome rebuke he 
 was instructed in the excellent virtue of moderation in eating. Or, 
 if one, when put to some kind of difficult task, said he wanted 
 assistance, he would get the proverb pitched at him, " Help your- 
 sel', and your friends will like you the better." Or, when a family 
 of children quarreled among themselves, and appealed to their 
 mother for an edict of pacification, she would console them with the 
 remark, "You'll all agree better when ye gang in at different kirk 
 doors." A capital thing were these proverbs and sayings for stamp- 
 ing out what were called notions of "uppishness" in children, or 
 hopes of having every thing their own way. 
 
 It must not, however, be inferred, from a proficiency in hurling 
 these repressive maxims, that there was any actual deficiency in the 
 affections. Along with a singular absence of demonstrativeness, there 
 was often a spirit of true kindness. At that period, and till com- 
 paratively recent times, there was no demoralizing poor-law, such as 
 now exists, to steal the hearts of the people, and create paupers by 
 wholesale. Those in easy circumstances helped, and gave some little 
 personal attention to, their poorer neighbors ; and I can remember 
 that, on the occasion of a sudden death by a distressing accident in 
 the family of a laboring man, the feelings of the whole community 
 were munificently stirred up in compassion. 
 
 The country was still haunted by medicants of various orders, in- 
 cluding old decrepit women, who were carried about on hand-bar- 
 rows from door to door, begging meal or half-pence. The town, 
 also, was never without two or three natural idiots, generally harmless 
 in character. The most interesting and amusing of these was Daft
 
 DAFT JOCK GREY'S SONG. 539 
 
 Jock Grey or, to give him his proper title, "Daft Jock Grey of 
 Gilmanscleugh," a wanderer through Roxburgh, Selkirk, and Peebles 
 shires, who was known to Sir Walter Scott, and possessed qualities 
 not unlike those assigned to the character of Davie Gellatley. Jock 
 was a kind of genius, had a great command of songs, and composed 
 a ballad, which, commencing with an allusion to his own infirmity, 
 recited, in jingling rhymes, the names and qualities of a number of 
 persons whose houses he frequented in his extensive rambles. It may 
 be amusing to read this curious jingle of names and places, which, 
 as far as I remember, ran as follows, though it is proper to mention 
 that Jock seldom sang it twice the same way sometimes throwing in 
 a new verse, or leaving out an old one : 
 
 'DAFT JOCK GREY'S SONG. 
 
 "There's Daft Jock Grey o' Gilmanscleugh, 
 
 And Davie o' the Inch, 
 And when ye come to Singley, 
 They'll help ye in a pinch. 
 
 And the laddie he's but young, 
 
 And the laddie he's but young, 
 And Robbie Scott ca's up the rear, 
 And Caleb beats the drum.* 
 
 " There are the Tails o' Caberston, 
 
 The Taits o' Holylee, 
 The ladies o' the Juniper Bank,f 
 They carry a' the gree. 
 
 And the laddie he's but young, etc. 
 
 " There's Lockie o' the Skirty Knows, 
 
 There's Nicol o' Dick-neuk, 
 And Bryston o' the Priestrig, 
 And Hall into the Heap. 
 
 And the laddie he's but young, etc. 
 
 " The three Scott's o' Commonside, 
 
 The Tamson's o' the Mill, 
 
 There's Ogilvy o' Branxholm, 
 
 And Scoon o 1 Todgiehill. 
 
 And the laddie he's but young, etc. 
 
 " The braw lads o' Fawdonside, % 
 
 The lasses o' the Peel, 
 And when ye gang to Firnielee, 
 
 Ye'll ca' at Ashestiel-t 
 
 And the laddie he's but young, etc. 
 
 Caleb Rutherford, town-drummer of Hawick. 
 
 f The Misses Thorburn. Mr. Thorburn, farmer at Juniper Bank, is reputed to 
 have had some characteristics of Dandie Dinmont. 
 
 J At Ashestiel, Ettrick Forrest, Sir Walter Scott resided with his family for sev- 
 eral years prior to 1810; from this place he dates some of his beautiful introduc- 
 tions to the different cantos of Marmion.
 
 540 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 " There's Lord Napier o' the Lodge, 
 
 And Gawin in the Hall, 
 And Mr. Charters o' Wilton Manse, 
 Preaches lectures to us all. 
 
 And the laddie he's but young, etc. 
 
 " There are three wives in Hassendean, 
 
 And ane in Braddie-Yards, 
 And they're away to Gittenscleugh, 
 And left their wheel and cards.* 
 
 And the laddie he's but young, etc. 
 
 " There's Bailie Nixon, merchant,! 
 
 The Miss Moncrieflfs and a', 
 And if ye gang some farther east, 
 You'll come to Willie Ha'. 
 
 And the laddie he's but young, 
 
 And the laddie he's but young, 
 And Robbie Scott ca's up the rear, 
 And Caleb beats the drum." 
 
 Jock was also a mimic, and as such gave acceptable imitations of 
 the style of preaching of all the ministers in his rounds. Before 
 commencing an imitation, he required to have an apron thrown over 
 his head, and thus he stood, like a veiled prophet, for a few mo- 
 ments, as if recalling the appropriate inspiration. Attempts had been 
 made to get him to attend to regular labor, but without effect. The 
 minister of Selkirk on one occasion addressed him somewhat pcAnp- 
 ously: "John, you are an idle fellow; why don't you work? You 
 could at least herd a few cows." 
 
 "Me herd ! " replied Jock; "I dinna ken corn frae gress." That 
 answer settled the minister. 
 
 Hogmanay, the last day of the year,| was the grand festival of all 
 varieties of mendicants, daft folk, and children generally ; for there 
 was a universal distribution of oat-cakes, cheese, short bread, and 
 buns at the doors of the inhabitants. Among those who secured a 
 respectable dole on such occasions was the town-piper, dressed in a 
 red uniform and cocked hat, as befitted a civic official. Piper Ritchie, 
 for such was his name, enjoyed a munificent salary of a pound a 
 year from the corporation, along with a pair of shoes ; and it was un- 
 derstood that, besides his dole at Hogmanay, he was entitled to re- 
 ceive at least a groat annually from all well-disposed householders. 
 His emoluments were completed by certain small fees for playing at 
 
 * Hand-cards for carding wool. 
 
 t In Hawick. 
 
 J The origin of the word Hogmanay has been very puzzling. None of the 
 ordinary explanations is worth any thing. I venture to suggest that it is a fa- 
 miliar corruption from an old cry in French : Aux gufujc mener (bring to the 
 beggars.) The calling out of the word at doors by children and mendicants is in 
 this view quite appropriate.
 
 DOMESTIC FESTIVITIES. 541 
 
 weddings. In escorting a marriage-party, he marched with becoming 
 importance in front, playing with might and main a tune called 
 "Welcome Hame, my Dearie," which air I would be glad to re- 
 cover. 
 
 On Hogmanay Day, tradesmen called personally with their yearly 
 accounts, of which they received payment along with some appro- 
 priate refreshment. There was first-footing on New Year's morning. 
 And Handsel Monday the first Monday in the year was marked 
 by tossing a profusion of ballads and penny chap-books from win- 
 dows among a crowd of clamorous youngsters. New Year was also 
 signalized by various domestic festivities. The severity of manners 
 of a hundred years earlier had worn off. There was unrebuked jovi- 
 ality at births and marriages, and even in a solemn way at deaths. 
 In the house of the deceased, on the morning before the funeral, 
 there was a Lyke-wake, consisting of a succession of services of re- 
 freshments, presided over by an undertaker, one of whose profes- 
 sional recommendations consisted in saying a fresh grace to each 
 batch of mourners. Laird Grieve, an aged and facetious carpenter, 
 carried off the chief business in coffin-making, in consequence 
 of being able to say seven graces of considerable length with- 
 out repetition. The consumption of whisky at these lugubrious en- 
 tertainments was incredible, and sometimes encroached seriously on 
 the means of families. After the funeral, there was an entertainment 
 called the Dredgy, which was a degree more cheerful than the pre- 
 ceding potations. 
 
 Although the belief in witchcraft had died out generally, it was 
 still entertained in a limited way by the less enlightened classes. I 
 have a recollection of a poor old woman being reputed as a witch, 
 and that it was not safe to pass her cottage, without placing the 
 thumb across the fourth finger, so as to form the figure of the cross. 
 This species of exorcism I practiced under instructions from boys 
 older than myself. I likewise remember seeing salt thrown on the 
 fire, as a guard against the evil eye, when aged women, suspected 
 of not being quite canny, happened to call at a neighbor's dwelling. 
 The aged postman, as was confidently reported, never went on his 
 rounds with the letters without a sprig of rowan-tree (mountain ash) 
 in his pocket, as a preservative against malevolent influences. There 
 was no police. Offenders against the law were usually captured by 
 a town-officer, at the verbal command of the provost, who adminis- 
 tered justice in an off-hand way behind his counter, amidst miscel- 
 laneous dealings with customers, and ordered off alleged delinquents 
 to prison without keeping any record of the transaction. Dismission 
 from confinement took place in the like abrupt and arbitrary manner. 
 
 As will be observed, there was still much of an old-world air about 
 Peebles. The transit to and from it was tedious and expensive. In 
 winter there was a dearth of fuel, causing the poorer classes to rely 
 for warmth on that species of deposit from cows, mixed with coal-
 
 542 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 culm and baked in the sun, which we learn from the Malmesbury 
 Papers was used as fuel in Cambridgeshire after the middle of last 
 century. Although the town had existed for a thousand years or 
 more, it possessed no printing-press. Only two or three newspapers 
 came to it in the course of a week, and these were handed about till 
 they were in tatters. Advertisements were made by tuck of drum; 
 the official employed for the purpose being an old soldier, a tough 
 little man with a queue, known as "Drummer Will." It was told 
 of him that he had gallantly beat a drum at the battle of Quebec 
 until the whole regiment had perished, he alone being the survivor, 
 and still vigorously beating his drum like a hero amidst fire and shot. 
 Now settled down as an officer of the civic corporation, Drummer 
 Will usefully performed the triple duty of acting as jailer, constable, 
 and agent for advertisements, which, after collecting an audience, he 
 read by means of a pair of Dutch spectacles, and always pronounced 
 adverteesements. 
 
 Robert describes the way the more affluent burghers often spent 
 their evenings : 
 
 "The absence of excitement in the ordinary life of a small town, 
 made it next to impossible for a man of social spirit to avoid convi- 
 vial evening meetings, and these were frequent. The favorite howff 
 was an old-fashioned inn kept by a certain Miss Ritchie, a clever, 
 sprightly woman of irreproachable character, who, so far from the 
 obsequiousness of her profession, required to be treated by her guests 
 with no small amount of deference, and, in especial, would never 
 allow them to have liquor after a decent hour. When that hour ar- 
 rived I think it was the Forbes-Mackenzie hour of eleven it was 
 vain for them to ask a fresh supply. ' Na, na ; gang hame to your 
 wives and bairns,' was her dictum, and it was impossible for them 
 to sit much longer. 'Meg Dods,' in 'St. Ronan's Well,' is what I 
 would call a rough and strong portraiture of Miss Ritchie, a Miss 1 
 Ritchie of a lower sphere of life ; and if I may judge from a conver- 
 sation I once had with Sir Walter Scott regarding the supposed pro- 
 totype, I think he knew little about her. The tout-ensemble of the 
 actual inn a laird's town-house of the seventeenth century, with a 
 grande cour in front, accessible by an arched gate surmounted by a 
 dial with the little low-ceiled rooms and Miss Ritchie herself ruling 
 house, and servants, and guests with her clear head and ready tongue, 
 jocosely sharp with every body, forms a picture in my mind to which 
 1 should now vainly seek to find a parallel. 
 
 "Into one of Miss Ritchie's parlors, or some similar place, would 
 little groups of the burghers converge every evening after the shut- 
 ting up of their shops, there to talk over the last public news, or any 
 petty occurrence that might have taken place nearer home. There 
 was hardly any declared liberalism among them, for the exigencies of 
 the country, under the great struggle with Bonaparte, had extinguished 
 nearly all differences of opinion. Dear to man is the face of his
 
 VILLAGE NEWS AND SOCIAL LIFE. 543 
 
 brother man ; pleasant it is every where to hear that brother man's 
 voice, and have an interchange of ideas with him. In that lifeless 
 little town, to have denied the inhabitants these social meetings would 
 have been to practice the greatest cruelty ; and on a liberal view, ad- 
 mitting that the means of a more legitimate excitement were not to 
 be had, the jug of whisky-toddy at Miss Ritchie's in the evening 
 puts on a defensible aspect. Toddy might there be regarded as the 
 very cement of society, an attraction of cohesion, without which a 
 small country town would have been pulverized and dispersed into 
 space. I suppose the same end was served in former times by two- 
 penny ale, a liquor of which only the fame remained in my youthful 
 days ; but since the middle of the eighteenth century, usquebaugh 
 had been coming into general use, and a hot solution of it with 
 sugar, under a name introduced (strange to say) from the East Indies, 
 namely, toddy, was already universal. The decoction was made in 
 stone-ware quart jugs, and poured into the glasses of the company, 
 again and again, in successive rounds, as soon as each person had 
 drained off what was before him; those who lagged in their pota- 
 tions being always duly prompted and pushed on by their neighbors. 
 They always met under the belief that they were going to have just 
 one jug ; but somehow, when that was ended, there was always a pain- 
 ful feeling of surprise, and to have a second seemed only a doing 
 of justice to themselves, under an unaccountable wrong continually 
 inflicted upon them by the nature of things. Matters being so far 
 righted, they might have been expected to see the propriety of going 
 home to their beds ; but here came in a local circumstance which inter- 
 ested them to an opposite conclusion. The burgh happened to have 
 a most bibulous coat armorial, consisting of three fishes (by the way, 
 I suspect that fishes drink no more than land animals do, though the 
 contrary is always supposed) ; and so, when the second jug was 
 emptied, some one was sure to mention ' Peebles Arms,' thereby 
 hinting the duty they were under, in loyalty to the town, to have a 
 third jug. Such an argument in such circumstances was irresistible ; 
 and thus it came about that the one virtuous jug of the intention 
 always proved to be three in the guilty event. 
 
 "Our neighbor, Laird Grieve, the aged joiner and undertaker, 
 had a son ' Tarn,' who succeeded to his business. Tarn was a blithe, 
 hearty man, with an old-fashioned gentility in his aspect, and was a 
 general favorite in the town, which he served for many years in the 
 capacity of a bailie. He had a small carpenter's shop, and a saw-pit, 
 and an appearance of uncut logs about his premises ; but I never 
 could connect the idea of either work or business with Bailie Grieve. 
 He continued, however, all through life to have a kind of eminence 
 as a maker of fishing-rods. He was also an excellent angler, in which 
 capacity he was well known to the late Professor Wilson. 
 
 " It used to be very pleasant, in returning to Peebles as a visitor, 
 to call upon Tarn at his neat, small, white house, near the bottom of
 
 544 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBEBS. 
 
 the old town, where, in a miniature.terraced garden with a neat white 
 railing, I saw tulips for the first time, and thought them the prettiest 
 objects in creation. Being a widower and without children, the bailie 
 had an old woman, Bet, for a general servant and housekeeper ; and 
 her reception of us, as she opened the door, and showed us into her 
 master's little, low-ceiled parlor, was always of an enthusiastic char- 
 acter. Presently there would be a gust of kindly and somewhat vo- 
 ciferous talk, Bet standing within the door (but holding it by the 
 handle) all the time, and lending in her word whenever she had oc- 
 casion. Dear traits of the old simple world, how delightful to recall 
 you in these scenes of comparative refinement and comparative stiff- 
 ness and frigidity!" 
 
 Among that considerable part of the population who lived down 
 closes and in old thatched cottages, news circulated at third or fourth 
 hand, or was merged in conversation on religious or other topics. 
 My brother and I derived much enjoyment, not to say instruction, 
 from the singing of old ballads, and the telling of legendary stories, 
 by a kind old female relative, the wife of a decayed tradesman, who 
 dwelt ih one of the ancient closes. At her humble fireside, under the 
 canopy of a huge chimney, where her half-blind and superannuated 
 husband sat dozing in a chair, the battle of Corunna and other pre- 
 vailing news was strangely mingled with disquisitions on the Jewish 
 wars. The source of this interesting conversation was a well-worn 
 copy of L'Estrange's translation of " Josephus," a small folio of date 
 1720. The envied possessor of the work was Tarn Fleck, " a flichty 
 chield," as he was considered, who, not particularly steady at his legit- 
 imate employment, struck out a sort of profession by going about in 
 the evenings with his " Josephus," which he read as the current news; 
 the only light he had for doing so being usually that imparted by the 
 flickering blaze of a piece of parrot coal. It was his practice not 
 to read more than from two to three pages at a time, interlarded with 
 sagacious remarks of his own by way of foot-notes, and in this way 
 he sustained an extraordinary interest in the narrative. Retailing the 
 matter with great equability in different households, Tarn kept all 
 at the same point of information, and wound them up with a 
 corresponding anxiety as to the issue of some moving event in He- 
 brew annals. Although in this way he went through a course of 
 "Josephus " yearly, the novelty somehow never seemed to wear off. 
 
 " Weel, Tam, what's the news the nicht?" would old Geordie 
 Murry say, as Tam entered with his "Josephus" under his arm, and 
 seated himself at the family fireside. 
 
 "Bad news, bad news," replied Tam. "Titus has begun to be- 
 siege Jerusalem; it's gaun to be a terrible business;" and then he 
 opened his budget of intelligence, to which all paid the most rever- 
 ential attention. The protracted and severe famine which was en- 
 dured by the besieged Jews was a theme which kept several families
 
 MODES OF LIVING EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 545 
 
 in a state of agony for a week ; and when Tarn in his readings came 
 to the final conflict and destruction of the city by the Roman general, 
 there was a perfect paroxysm of horror. At such seances my brother 
 and I were delighted listeners. All honor to the memory of Tam 
 Fleck. 
 
 In the old-town community, where he often figured, our more im- 
 mediate paternal ancestors, as enjoying the fruits of uninterrupted 
 frugality and industry for centuries, had attained to a somewhat en- 
 viable position. My grandfather, William Chambers, continuing the 
 occupation of his predecessors, carried on the manufacture of woolen 
 and linen cloths, on what would now be called an antiquated and 
 meager scale, in a long, thatched building at the corner of a quad- 
 rangle which in old times had formed the market-place of the town. 
 One end of this homely structure was his dwelling, consisting of two 
 apartments ; and in the other were several hand-looms and warping 
 machines. All the family labored according to their ability, 'and the 
 whole arrangements were of a thrifty kind, not absolutely enjoined 
 by the pressure of daily wants, but conformable to the ordinary usages 
 of the period. 
 
 The whole establishment might be taken as a type of a state of 
 society once common in the smaller provincial towns of Scotland ; 
 and contrasting it with the present state of things, we may observe 
 the remarkable advances which have been made in the country since 
 the latter part of the eighteenth century. Here was ~a man of some 
 consideration an independent manufacturer, so to speak and in no 
 respect penurious, living in a style inferior to that of any mechanic 
 in the present day with a wage of only twenty shillings a week. No 
 elegances, nor what we now deem indispensable comforts. When 
 people are inclined to grumble with their accommodations, and to 
 speak of the dearth of luxuries, would it not be well for them, in 
 however small a degree, to compare their condition with that of their 
 grandfathers three-quarters of a century ago ? 
 
 Upright, pious, and benevolent, my grandfather very acceptably 
 held the office of an elder of the church for the last thirty years of 
 his existence. To the poor and wretched he was an ever ready 
 friend, adviser, and consoler. I have heard it related that on Sunday 
 evenings he would return exhausted with his religious peregrinations 
 and exercises, having, in the course of a few hours, visited perhaps 
 as many as a dozen sick or dying persons, and offered up an extem- 
 pore and suitable prayer with each. At his death, in 1799, this 
 worthy man left his widow and second son, William, to carry on the 
 business, my father James, the elder son, having about the same pe- 
 riod begun his cotton manufacturing concern. 
 
 Of this widow, my grandmother, I retain some recollections. Ac- 
 cording to an old custom in Scotland, she was, though married, 
 known only by her maiden name, which was Margaret Kerr. Mar- 
 garet was a little woman, of plain appearance, a great stickler on 
 35
 
 54<> ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 points of controversial divinity, a rigorous critic of sermons, and a 
 severe censor of what she considered degenerating manners. She 
 possessed a good deal of " character," and might almost be taken for 
 the original of Mause Headrigg. As the wife of a ruling elder, she 
 possibly imagined that she was entitled to exercise a certain authority 
 in ecclesiastical matters. An anecdote is told of her having once 
 taken the venerable Dr. Dalgliesh, the parish minister, through hands. 
 In presence of a number of neighbors, she thought fit to lecture him 
 on that particularly delicate subject, his wife's dress: "It was a sin 
 and a shame to see sae mickle finefy." 
 
 The minister did not deny the charge, but dexterously encountered 
 her with the Socratic method of argument : " So, Margaret, you think 
 that ornament is useless and sinful in a lady's dress?" 
 "Certainly I do." 
 
 " Then may I ask why you wear that ribbon around your cap ? A 
 piece of cord would surely do quite as well." 
 
 Disconcerted with this unforeseen turn of affairs, Margaret deter- 
 minedly rejoined in an undertone: "Ye'll no hae lang to speer sic 
 a like question." 
 
 Next day her cap was bound with a piece of white tape; and never 
 afterwards, till the day of her death, did she wear a ribbon, or any 
 morsel of ornament. I am doubtful if we could match this out of 
 Scotland. For a novelist to depict characters of this kind, he would 
 require to see them in real life; no imagination could reach them. 
 Sir Walter Scott both saw and talked with them, for they were not 
 extinct in his day. 
 
 The mortifying rebuff about the ribbon, perhaps, had some influ- 
 ence in making my ancestress a Seceder. As she lived near the 
 manse, I am afraid she must have been a good deal of a thorn in the 
 side of a parish minister, notwithstanding all the palliatives of her 
 good-natured husband, the elder. At length an incident occurred, 
 which sent her abruptly off to a recently erected meeting-house, to 
 which a promising young preacher, Mr. Leckie, had been appointed. 
 It was a bright summer morning about five o'clock, when Margaret 
 left her husband's side as usual, and went out to see her cow attended 
 to. Before three minutes had elapsed, her husband was aroused by 
 her coming in with dismal cries: "Eh, sirs! eh, sirs! did I ever 
 think to live to see the day? O man, O man, O William, this is a 
 terrible thing indeed! Could I ever have thought to see't?" 
 
 "Gracious, woman!" exclaimed the worthy elder, by this time 
 fully awake, "what is't? Is the coo deid?" for it seemed to him 
 that no greater calamity could have been expected to produce such 
 doleful exclamations. 
 
 "The coo deid !" responded Margaret: "waur, waur, ten times 
 waur. There's Dr. Dalgliesh only now gaun hame at five o'clock in 
 the morning. It's aufu', it's aufu' ! What will things come to?" 
 The elder, though a pattern of propriety himself, is not recorded
 
 FOOD IN SCOTLAND, MIDDLE OF LAST CENTURY. 547 
 
 as having taken any but a mild view of the minister's conduct, more 
 particularly as he knew that the patron of the parish was at Miss 
 Ritchie's inn, and that the reverend divine might have been detained 
 rather late with him against his will. The strenuous Margaret drew 
 no such charitable conclusions. She joined the Secession congrega- 
 tion next day, and never again attended the parish church. 
 
 EARLY YEARS CONTINUED l8oO TO 1813. 
 
 Before introducing my mother to the modest mansion, the first 
 home of her married life, situated on the north bank of the Eddies- 
 ton Water, a small tributary of the Tweed, something characteristic 
 of old Scotland may be said of her parentage : and here we return 
 to Robert's manuscript. 
 
 "In the middle of the last century, the farm of Jedderfield, situated 
 on the hill-face above Neidpath Castle, a mile from Peebles, the 
 property of the Earl of March, was occupied, at the rent of eighteen 
 pounds, by an honest man named David Grieve. While the 
 noble proprietor was pursuing his career of sport and debauchery in 
 London the course which was consummated by him many years 
 after, under the title which he finally acquired of Duke of Queens- 
 berry (familiarly Old (?.), the tenant, David Grieve, reared on that 
 small bit of his lordship's domains a family of fourteen children, 
 most of whom floated on by their own merits to much superior posi- 
 tions in life : one to be a merchant in Manchester, two to similar 
 positions in Edinburgh, one to be a surgeon in the East India 
 Company's service, and so forth. This family afforded an example 
 of the virtuous, frugal life of the rural people of Scotland previous to 
 that extension of industry which brought wealth and many comforts 
 into our country. The breakfast was oatmeal porridge ; the supper, 
 a thinner farinaceous composition named sowens ; for the dinner, 
 there was seldom butcher-meat : the ordinary mess was a thin broth 
 called Lenten keil, composed of a ball of oat-meal kneaded up with 
 butter, boiled in an infusion of cabbage, and eaten with barley or 
 pease meal bannocks. Strange as it may seem, a people of many 
 fine qualities were reared in this plain style, a people of bone and 
 muscle, mentally as well as physically ' buirdly chiels and clever 
 hizzies,' as Burns says. There was not a particle of luxury in that 
 Sabine life; hardly a single article of the kind sold in shops was 
 used. The food was all obtained from the farm, and the clothing was 
 wholly of homespun. I can not be under any mistake about it, for 
 I have often heard the household and its ways described by my ma- 
 ternal grandmother, who was David Grieve's eldest daughter. Even 
 the education of the children was conducted at home, the mother 
 giving them lessons while seated at her spinning-wheel. 
 
 " Janet, the eldest girl, was wedded at eighteen by a middle-aged
 
 548 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 farmer, named William Gibson, who rented a large tract of pasturage 
 belonging to Dr. Hay, of Haystoun. This farm, called Newby, was 
 not less than seven miles long; it commenced near Haystoun, about 
 two miles from Peebles, and at the other extremity bordered on 
 Blackhouse, in Selkirkshire, where the Ettrick Shepherd spent his 
 youthful days. The Gibsons were a numerous clan in Tweeddale, 
 and some of them, including the tenant of Newby, were comparatively 
 wealthy. William Gibson had never less than a hundred score of 
 sheep on his farm, and such was the abundance of ewe-milk, that, 
 for a part of the year, his wife made a cheese of that material every 
 day." The ewes were milked early in the morning by lassies, who 
 for this purpose trooped off with bowies, or pails, on their heads from 
 the homestead to sheep-pens among the hills, a fashion of rural life 
 commemorated in the songs of Ramsey and other Scottish poets : 
 
 " I've heard the liltin' at the ewe milkin', 
 
 Lasses a-liltin' before dawn of day ; 
 Now there's a moanin' on ilka green loanin' 
 The Flowers of the Forest are a' wede away." 
 
 In marrying William Gibson, the reputedly rich farmer of Newby, 
 Janet Grieve was thought to make an enviable match, and of this 
 there was some outward tokens. The marriage took place in 1768. 
 On the day preceding the event, Janet's " providing," which was 
 sumptuous, was dispatched in a cart from Jedderfield to what was to 
 be her new home ; the load of various articles being conspicuously 
 surmounted by a spinning-wheel, decorated with ribbons of different 
 colors. The marriage was signalized by more than the customary 
 festivities, in the midst of which the young and blooming bride was 
 placed behind her husband on horseback ; and thus, after pacing 
 grandly through Peebles with a following of rustic cavaliers, the wed- 
 ded pair arrived at Newby. In the present day, we should in vain 
 look for this old farm-establishment, for every vestige of it is gone ; 
 and we only discover the spot, which is the edge of a gowany bank 
 overhanging Haystoun Burn, by a decayed tree that flourished in the 
 corner of the small garden. 
 
 " There was a much Jess frugal style of life at Newby than at Jedder- 
 field. Although the homestead consisted of only a cottage, containing 
 a but and a ben, that is, a kitchen and parlor, with the usual append- 
 ages of a barn, etc., it gave shelter every night to groups of the va- 
 grant people, the multitude of whom was a matter of remark and lam- 
 entation a few years before to Fletcher, of Salton, and other patriots. 
 On a Saturday night there would be as many as twenty of these poor 
 creatures received by the farmer for food and lodging till Monday 
 morning. Some of them, who had established a good character, were 
 entertained in the farmer's Aa', where himself, his wife, and servants 
 ordinarily sat, as was the fashion of that time. - The family rather 
 relished this society, for from hardly any other source did they ever
 
 THEIR GRAND- MOTHER AND HER FRIENDS. 549 
 
 obtain any of the news of the country. One well-remembered guest 
 of this order was a robust old man named Andrew Gemmells, who had 
 been a dragoon in his youth, but had long assumed the blue gown and 
 badge of a king's bedesman, or licensed beggar, together with the meal- 
 pocks and long staff. A rough and ready tongue, and a picturesque 
 if not venerable aspect, had recommended Andrew in many house- 
 holds superior to my grandfather's. 
 
 " Sir Walter Scott, who commemorates him under the name of 
 Edie Ochiltree, tells how a laird was found one day playing at draughts 
 with Gemmells, the only mark of distinction of rank presented in the 
 case being that the laird sat in his parlor, and the blue-gown in the 
 court outside, the board being placed on the sill of the open window 
 between. I can corroborate the view which we thus acquire of the 
 old beggar's position, by stating that the guidwife of Newby learned 
 the game of draughts commonly called in Scotland the dam-brod 
 from Andrew Gemmells, and often played with him at her hall fire- 
 side. Somewhat to his disgust, the pupil became in time the equal 
 of the master, and a visitor one day backed her against him for a 
 guinea, which the old man did not scruple to stake, and which he 
 could easily have paid if unsuccessful, as he carried a good deal of 
 money about his person. When it appeared, however, that she was 
 about to gain the game, Andrew lost his temper, or affected to do so, 
 and, hastily snatching up the board, threw the ' men ' into the ash- 
 pit. Andrew circulated all through the counties of Peebles, Selkirk, 
 and Roxburgh, going from house to house, and getting an awmos 
 (alms), with lodging if necessary, at each, appreciated as an original 
 wherever he came every-where civilly and even kindly treated. It 
 must have been, on the whole, a pleasant life for the old man, but 
 one that could only be so while the primitive simple style of farm- 
 life subsisted, that is, while the farmer, his wife, and children, still 
 herded in the same room with their servants, and were not above 
 holding converse with the remembered beggar. Perhaps poor 
 Andrew found at last that things were taking an unfavorable turn 
 for him, for he died in an outhouse at a farm in the parish of Rox- 
 burgh, in the month of February too (1794). 
 
 " My grandmother was wedded, and went home to her husband's 
 house at Newby, in 1768. She was a remarkably good looking, portly 
 woman, bearing a considerable resemblance to a profile portrait of 
 Madame Roland, the famous heroine of the French Revolution. The 
 ' leddies ' of Haystoun, sisters and daughters of the landlord, Dr. Hay, 
 felt an interest in the pretty young wife, and put themselves on famil- 
 iar terms with her. They would send a message to her on Saturday, 
 asking if she designed to go to church at Peebles next day, and if 
 so, making an appointment with her to join their party. The five or 
 six ' leddies,' and the young guidwife of Newby, might have been 
 seen next morning picking their steps along the road to Peebles, 
 each wearing her pretty checked plaid or mantilla over her head, such
 
 550 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 being the old Scottish succedaneum for a bonnet. A most interest- 
 ing group it must have been, for the Hays were all handsome people, 
 and the young guidwife was reckoned the bonniest woman in Peebles- 
 shire in her day. A lively gossiping conversation was kept up. The 
 ' leddies ' would be telling their young rustic friend of the assemblies 
 they had been attending in Edinburgh, where Miss Nicky Murray 
 (sister of the Chief-justice Earl of Mansfield) was in the height of 
 her authority ; the guidwife probably telling them in turn of the re- 
 sults of the lambing season, or some bit of country news. 
 
 " In the second year of my grandmother's married life, one of 
 her Haystoun friends, the daughter of Dr. Hay, was married, and 
 taken to a permanent residence in Edinburgh, by Sir Wm. Forbes, 
 the banker, a man who enjoyed as much of the public esteem in 
 Scotland as any man living during his time, whose memory has been 
 embalmed in the verse of Scott, and whose autobiography I had much 
 pleasure in editing a few years ago, through the impression made 
 upon me regarding him by my grandmother's recollections. Two 
 unmarried Misses Hay, who survived to an extreme old age, always 
 kept up their intimacy with my grandmother, and I remember ' Miss 
 Ailie ' calling upon her in Edinburgh about 1855. Miss Ailie was 
 understood to be above ninety at that time, but she never seemed to 
 admit or acknowledge the progress of time, and time really seemed 
 to have very little to do with her. A question about somebody's 
 age arose, and I recollect the old lady saying, rather snappishly, and 
 with the air of one whose words admitted of no reply : ' As to age, 
 it's a subject that was never mentioned in my father's family.' Misses 
 Ailie and Bettie Hay spent their latter days in a flat in West Nicol- 
 son street, Edinburgh, and only once during a great number of 
 years revisited the ancient paternal mansion in Peeblesshire. I was 
 at Newby not long after, and heard from the farmer how the old 
 ladies came and wandered about the place, lingering fondly in every 
 romantic nook which they had known in former years, and declaring 
 that they thought they could have recognized the place by the smell 
 of the flowers. 
 
 " I feel impelled here to remark the pleasant old-fashion of calling 
 ladies by some familiar form of their Christian name. The world 
 was full of Miss Betties, Miss Peggies, and Miss Beenies, long ago ; 
 nay, the daughters of dukes and earls were Lady Madies, Lady Liz- 
 zies, and Lady Kates. There was something very endearing in the 
 custom. It brought high and low together on the common ground 
 of family fireside life. Your Miss Elizabeths and Lady Catharines 
 seem a people in a different sphere, beyond the range of our sym- 
 pathies. I have heard a gentleman say that, in the family of which 
 he was one, all went well while they continued to call each other by 
 the pet names of their nursery days ; and that, on a resolution being 
 formed to exchange these for the formal Christian names, there en- 
 sued a marked diminution of their mutual affection, and they never
 
 SHEPHERD DOG SAGACITY. 551 
 
 afterwards were the same thing to each other that they had been. 
 This fact seems to me one well worth bearing in mind. 
 
 " My grandmother and her maids were generally up at an early 
 hour in the morning to attend to the ewes, and their time for going 
 to rest must have consequently been an early one. There was always, 
 however, a period, called ' between gloaming and supper-time," dur- 
 ing which another industry was practiced. Then 'it was that the 
 wheels were brought out for the spinning of the yarn which was to 
 constitute the clothing of the family. And I often think that it 
 must have been a pleasing sight in that humble hall the handsome 
 young mistress amidst her troop of maidens, all busy with foot and 
 finger, while the shepherds and their master, and one or two favored 
 gaberlunzies, would be telling stories or cracking jokes for the gen- 
 eral entertainment, or some one with a good voice would be singing 
 the songs of Ramsay and Hamilton. At a certain time of the year, 
 the guidwife had to lay aside the ordinary little wheel, by which lint 
 was spun, and take to the 'muckle wheel,' which was required for" the 
 production of woolen thread, the material of the goodman's clothes, 
 or else the 'reel,' on which she reduced the product of the little 
 wheel to hanks for the weaver. Even the Misses Hay were great lint 
 spinners, and I suspect that their familiar acquaintance with the guid- 
 wife of Newby depended somewhat on their common devotion to 
 the wheel. 
 
 "It was on this farm of Newby, while in the possession of Mr. 
 Gibson, in the year 1772, that there occurred a case of the sagacity 
 of the shepherd's dog, which has often been adverted to in books, 
 but seldom with correctness ^as to the details. A store-farmer, in an- 
 other part of the county, had commenced a system of sheep-stealing, 
 which he was believed to have practiced without detection for several 
 years. At length a ewe, which had been taken among other sheep 
 from Newby, reappeared on the farm, bearing a birn (Anglice, brand) 
 on her face in addition to that of her true owner. The animal was 
 believed to have been attracted to her former home by the instinct 
 of affection towards the lamb from whom she had been separated, 
 and her return was the more remarkable as it involved the necessity 
 of her crossing the river Tweed. The shepherd, James Hislop, did 
 not fail to report the reappearance of the ewe to his master, and it 
 was not long before they ascertained whose brand it was which had 
 been impressed over Mr. Gibson's. As many sheep had been for some 
 time missed out of the stock, it was thought proper that Hislop 
 should pay a visit to Mr. Murdison's farm, where he quickly discov- 
 ered a considerable number of sheep bearing Mr. Gibson's brand O, 
 all having Mr. Murdison's, the letter T, superimposed. In short, 
 Murdison and his shepherd Miller were apprehended, tried, convicted, 
 and duly hanged in the grassmarket a startling exhibition, consid- 
 ering the position of the sufferers in life, and made the more so by 
 the humbler man choosing to come upon the scaffold in his ' dead-
 
 552 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 clothes.' The long-continued success of the crime of these wretched 
 men was found to have depended on the wonderful human-like sense 
 of Miller's dog 'Yarrow.' Accompanied by 'Yarrow,' the man would 
 take an opportunity of visiting a neighboring farm and looking 
 through the flocks. He had there only to point out certain sheep 
 to his sagacious companion, who would come that night, select each 
 animal so pointed out, bring them together, and drive them across the 
 country, and, moreover, across the Tweed, to his master's farm, never 
 once undergoing detection. The story ran that the dog was hanged 
 soon after his master, as being thought a dangerous creature in a 
 country full of flocks ; but I would hope that this was a false rumor, 
 and my grandmother, who might have known all the circumstances 
 connected with the case, never affirmed its truth." 
 
 About 1780, Mr. Gibson retired with a moderate competency to 
 Peebles, where he concluded his days. Here were born to him a 
 girl and boy, who at his death were left in charge of their mother 
 and several appointed guardians. Unfortunately, as regards these 
 children, their mother made a second marriage with a teacher, Mr. 
 Robert Noble, and in the short space of two or three years she was 
 again left a widow, with an addition of two boys, Robert and David, 
 without any provision whatever from this new connection. To the 
 two young Gibsons, Jean and her brother William, this affair led to 
 much domestic unhappiness, along with a desire to escape from it in 
 the best way possible. Jean grew up an uncommonly beautiful girl, 
 and being in some small degree an heiress, had a number of admirers, 
 one of them being my father, to whom she was married ; and the 
 young pair began housekeeping in the neat mansion already de- 
 scribed. 
 
 This marriage took place in May, 1799. I was born in less than a 
 year afterwards, and, as has been said, Robert was born in 1802. My 
 furthest stretch of memory pictures my mother as a gentle, lady like 
 person, slender in frame, punctiliously tasteful in dress, and beautiful 
 in features, but with an expression of blended pensiveness and cheer- 
 fulness indicative of the position into which she had been brought. 
 Even as a child I could see she had sorrows perhaps regrets. It 
 might have been safe to say that her union had been " ill-fated." 
 
 It is not, however, to be assumed from this circumstance that my 
 father was undeserving of regard. He possessed numerous estimable 
 qualities, but, in association with these, a pliancy of disposition which, 
 according to the language of the world, renders a man " his own worst 
 enemy." In my experience in private life, I have never known any 
 one more keenly conscientious in matters concerning others, and less 
 so in things concerning himself. Accurate, upright, aspiring in his 
 tastes and notions, with a fund of humor, and an immense love for 
 music, he may be said to have taken a lead in the town for his gen- 
 eral knowledge. He made some progress in scientific attainments.
 
 THEIR MOTHER AND FATHER. 553 
 
 Affected, like others at the time, with the fascinating works of James 
 Ferguson on astronomy, he had a kind of range for that branch of 
 study, which he pursued, by means of a tolerably good telescope, in 
 company with Mungo Park, the African traveler, who had settled as 
 a surgeon in Peebles, and one or two other acquaintances. 
 
 He often lamented that his parents had not followed out a design 
 of bestowing on him a liberal education. Supposing him to have 
 been under some delusion in this respect, it could, I think, have been 
 nothing but a sincere love of literature that induced him to acquire 
 a copy of the " Encyclopaedia Britannica," at a time when works of 
 this expensive nature were purchased only by the learned and affluent. 
 The possession of this voluminous mass of knowledge in no small 
 degree helped to create a taste for reading in my own, and more 
 particularly my brother's mind; at all events a familiarity with the 
 volumes of this great work is among the oldest of my recollections. 
 Nor can I omit to mention other agreeable reminiscences of these 
 early days. My father, as an amateur, was an excellent and untiring 
 performer on the German flute, an instrument which shared his affec- 
 tions with his telescope. Seated at the open window of his Jit tie 
 parlor in calm summer gloamings, he would play an endless series of 
 Scottish airs, which might be heard along the Eddleston Water; then, 
 as the clear, silvery moon and planets arose to illumine the growing 
 darkness, out would be brought his telescope, which being planted 
 carefully on its stand on my mother's tea-table, there ensued a critical 
 inspection of the firmament and its starry host. From circumstances 
 of this kind, discussions about the satellites of Jupiter and the belts 
 of Saturn are embedded in reminiscences of my early years. 
 
 Once or twice a year my father had occasion to go to Glasgow in 
 connection with business arrangements. The journey, upwards of 
 forty miles, was performed on foot, in company with Jamie Hall, a 
 stocking manufacturer, who was an oddity. They were usually two 
 days on the road. Hall made a point of paying his way in pairs of 
 stockings, of which he carried a choice stock on his back, calculated 
 to settle all the reckonings till he arrived at the Spoutmouth in the 
 Gallowgate. In one of these visits to Glasgow, my father, through 
 his love of music, purchased a spinet, which, arriving on the top of 
 the carrier's cart, created some perturbation in the household. It 
 was a heedless acquisition, for there was no place to put it except in 
 the garret, among heaps of warps and bundles of weft. There, ac- 
 cordingly, where there was barely standing-room, the unfortunate 
 spinet was deposited, and became an object of musical indulgence, 
 sometimes for hours, in which enjoyment all sublunary cares were 
 forgot. 
 
 With these tastes and accomplishments, it was, as just stated, my 
 father's misfortune to have a remarkable facility of disposition. With 
 a power of penetrating character, and a correct knowledge of physiog- 
 nomy, he was disqualified to battle with the realities of life through
 
 554 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 his guilelessness and goodness of heart. Notwithstanding all his 
 boasted shrewdness, he was constantly exposed to imposition, being 
 cheated, as it were, with his eyes open. Desirous to please, he could 
 not resist importunities to lend money or give credit, though con- 
 scious that by doing so he would almost inevitably incur a loss. Yet, 
 with this pliancy, he could fire up on occasions, particularly when 
 his word was doubted, or his principles attacked. Careless of con- 
 sequences, he avowed his hatred of political subserviency at a time 
 when independent principle, as far as Scotland was concerned, was 
 very nearly trampled out of existence. Henry Cockburn, in his 
 " Memorials," speaks of the deplorable state of things in Edinburgh. 
 In country towns, matters were fully worse. My father's views of 
 public policy were not calculated to make friends in an age of politi- 
 cal sycophancy. In 1807, on the occasion of a contested election 
 for a member of parliament for the group of burghs of which Peebles 
 was a member, he was threatened with oppressive measures for simply 
 refusing to advise his brother to vote in a particular manner. 
 
 The circumstances of the case were these : My uncle, as a member 
 of the town -council, having at the election stuck to the liberal side 
 along with nine other members, constituting, as they were called, 
 the steady ten, my father was earnestly solicited to remonstrate with 
 his brother, and, if possible, induce him to vote for the opposite 
 party. Money had been tendered, a place had been offered, but all 
 would not do. Every overture was rejected. To employ a new kind 
 
 of persuasive, my father was visited by Mr. C , of K , a land 
 
 proprietor in the neighborhood, who spoke rather freely. My father 
 was unyielding, would have nothing to do with the affair ; besides, 
 he thought his brother was in the right. "Well, then," concluded 
 his visitor, " if you are resolved on being obstinate, we know what 
 to do. I think I possess some influence among the manufacturers of 
 Glasgow with whom you are connected, and will get them to remove 
 their commissions ; in short, either help us, or lay your account with 
 being ruined." This, of course, was too much for my father's equa- 
 nimity. Bursting with rage, he ordered the political emissary out 
 of the house, telling him at the same time, that he alike despised 
 and defied him. The menace had been idly made ; at least, it came 
 to nothing. I have just a bare recollection of this strange scene, 
 which was called to mind some years ago, when I saw my father's 
 old oppressor walking about Edinburgh, a decayed gentleman, in 
 somewhat melancholy mood, having, from reverses of fortune, been 
 obliged to sell his estate and retire into obscurity. He was undoubt- 
 edly a man of amiable character, who, from a too eager spirit of 
 partisanship, had been led to commit a mean and disreputable act, 
 as his threatened attempt to crush my father must be considered to 
 have been. Such is now the improved tone of society and manners, 
 that, in mentioning the above incident, one feels as if digging fossils 
 from the submerged strata of an antediluvian world.
 
 THEIR PARENTS; SCHOOLS, ETC. 555 
 
 His musical accomplishments rendered my father's society peculiarly 
 attractive. He had a good voice, and sung the Scottish songs with 
 considerable effect ; consequently he was much in request at con- 
 vivialities, to which, from a fondness for lively conversation, he had 
 no particular objection. There, indeed, lay my father's weakness, 
 too slight a regard for personal responsibilities. His indifference in 
 this respect could not fail to throw additional obligations on my 
 mother, whose destiny it was to confront and overcome innumerable 
 embarrassments. Acquainted with only the elementary branches of 
 education, and unskilled in any fashionable accomplishments, she 
 nevertheless possessed a strong understanding. I might truly say 
 that, both in appearance and manners, she was by nature a lady, 
 and circumstances made her a heroine. Delicate in frame, and with 
 generally poor health, she was ill-adapted for the fatigues and anxie- 
 ties which she had to encounter ; but such was her tact and dexterity, 
 as well as her determined resolution, that she bore and overcame 
 trials which I feel assured would have sunk many in like circumstances 
 to the depths of despair. "What she did may afterwards appear. 
 Meanwhile, a number of young children demanded her care. 
 
 Robert and I had a strange congenital malformation. We were 
 sent into the world with six fingers on each hand, and six toes on 
 each foot. By the neighbors, as I understand, this was thought 
 particularly lucky ; but it proved any thing but lucky for one of us. 
 In my own case, the redundant members were easily removed, leaving 
 scarcely a trace of their presence ; but in the case of Robert, the re- 
 sult was very different. The supernumerary toes on the outside of 
 the foot were attached to, or formed part of, the metatarsal bones, 
 and were so badly amputated as to leave delicate protuberances, cal- 
 culated to be a torment for life. This unfortunate circumstance, by 
 producing a certain degree of lameness and difficulty in walking, no 
 doubt exerted a permanent influence over my brother's habits and 
 feelings. Indisposed to indulge in the boisterous exercise of other 
 boys, studious, docile in temperament, and excelling in mental 
 qualifications, he shot ahead of me in all matters of education. 
 Though dissimilar in various ways, we, however, associated together 
 from our earliest years. It almost seemed as if a difference of tastes 
 and aptitudes produced a degree of mutual reliance and co-operation. 
 With a more practical and exigent tone of mind than Robert, I 
 might possibly have made a decent progress at school, had my 
 teachers at all sympathized with me. As it happened, I look back 
 upon my school experiences with any thing but satisfaction. A very 
 few particulars will suffice. 
 
 My first school was one kept by a poor old widow, Kirsty Cranston, 
 who, according to her own account, was qualified to carry forward 
 her pupils as far as reading the Bible ; but to this proficiency there 
 was the reasonable exception of leaving out difficult words, such as 
 Maher-shalal-hash-baz. These, she told the children, might be made
 
 556 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 "a pass-over," and accordingly, it was the rule of the establishment 
 to let them alone. From this humble seminary I was in time trans- 
 ferred to the burgh school, then under the charge of Mr. James Gray, 
 author of a popular treatise on arithmetic. The fee, here, was two 
 shillings and twopence per quarter for reading and writing, and six- 
 pence additional for arithmetic. The pupils were the children of 
 nearly all classes Jn the town and rural districts around. They 
 numbered about zr hundred and fifty boys and girls. Probably a 
 third of them in summer were barefooted, but this was less a neces- 
 sity than a choice ; at any rate, it well suited the locality. In front 
 of the school-house lay the town green, and beside it was the Tweed, 
 in which the school-boys were constantly paddling. 
 
 Gray was a man of mild temperament, and a good teacher, but 
 his pupils entertained little respect for his abilities. Yielding, like 
 too many others at the time, to over-indulgence, he sometimes went 
 off on a carouse, and entered the school considerably inebriated, 
 which was deemed vastly amusing. Nor did this sort of conduct 
 incur any public censure. The magistrates and council, whose duty 
 it was to call him to account, were associates in his revels, and ap- 
 preciated him as a boon-companion. When elevated to a certain 
 pitch, he sung a good song about Nelson and his brave British tars ; 
 and this in itself, in the heat of the French War, extenuated many 
 shortcomings. At this school, too, as is usual with such seminaries 
 in Scotland, the Bible was read as a class-book, but with no kind of 
 reverence, or even decorum. The verses were bawled out at the 
 pitch of the voice, without the slightest regard to intonation or elo- 
 cutionary effect. When the teacher was temporarily absent, there 
 took place a battle of the books one side of the school against the 
 other. On such occasions the girls, not choosing to be belligerents, 
 discreetly retired under the tables, leaving the boys to carry on the 
 war, in which dog-eared Bibles without boards, resembling bunches 
 of leaves, handily flew about as missiles. To have to look back on 
 this as a place of youthful instruction ! 
 
 There was another stage in my educational career. I was advanced 
 to the grammar-school, as it is called, a superior burgh establishment, 
 of which Mr. James Sloan was head-master. Here I was introduced 
 to Latin, for which the fee was five shillings a quarter. My progress 
 was very indifferent. Of course it was very stupid of me not intui- 
 tively appreciating this branch of learning, and likewise in feeling 
 that its acquisition was a cheerless drudgery. Like others, perhaps, 
 in like circumstances, I have lived to regret my inattention, or call 
 it incapacity; for even the small knowledge of Latin which I did 
 acquire during two years of painful study, has not failed to be of 
 considerable service in various respects. 
 
 Mr. Sloan was held in general esteem, and justly reputed as an 
 excellent teacher. He grounded well, and apt scholars got on fa- 
 mously with him. My brother, who, like myself was advanced from
 
 FLOGGING IN SCHOOL, BRUTALITY OUT. 557 
 
 the burgh to the grammar-school, became a proficient and favorite 
 pupil ; his mind, as it were, taking naturally to his instruction in the 
 classics. The healthy locality of the school was much in its favor, 
 and attracted boarders from Edinburgh, the colonies, and elsewhere. 
 The association of town scholars with boys from a distance was a 
 pleasing feature in the establishment, and proved mutually advan- 
 tageous. I could have nothing to say derogatory of the method of 
 culture but for the severity of discipline which was heedlessly pur- 
 sued, according to what, unfortunately, was too common at the pe- 
 riod. 
 
 The truth is, violence held rule almost every-where; the desperate 
 warlike struggle in which the country was engaged, apparently post- 
 poning all pacific and humane notions. Boys the boy-nature being 
 neither studied nor understood were flogged and buffeted unmerci- 
 fully, both at home and at school; and they in turn beat and dom- 
 ineered over each other according to their capacity, harried birds' 
 nests, pelted cats, and exercised every other species of cruelty within 
 their power. A coarse, bustling carter in Peebles, known by the 
 facetious nickname of " Puddle Mighty," used to leave his old, worn- 
 out and much abused horses to die on the public green, and there, 
 without incurring reprobation, the boys amused themselves by, day 
 after day, battering the poor prostrate animals with showers of stones 
 till life was extinct. In the business of elementary instruction, the 
 law of kindness was as yet scarcely thought of. Orders were some- 
 times given to teachers not by any means to spare the rod. "I've 
 brought you our Jock; mind ye, lick him weel! " would a mother of 
 Spartan temperament say to Mr. Gray, at the same time dragging for- 
 ward a struggling young savage to be entered as a pupil ; and so Jock 
 was formally resigned to the dominion of the tawse. 
 
 I can never forget a scene which took place in Mr. Sloan's semi- 
 nary one summer afternoon. In the morning of that day a sensation 
 had been created by the intelligence that two of the boarders, gen- 
 tlemen's sons from Edinburgh, had absconded, and that two town- 
 constables one of them Drummer Will had been dispatched in 
 search of them. The youths were caught, brought back in disgrace, 
 and were now to suffer a punishment suitable to the gravity of the 
 offense. Sullen and terrified, the two culprits stood before the assem- 
 bled school ; the two town-officers in their scarlet coats sitting as a 
 guard within the doorway. The usual hum ceased. There was a 
 death-like stillness. First reproaching the offenders with their highly 
 improper conduct, the teacher ordered them instantly to strip for 
 flogging. The boys resisted, and were seized by an assistant and the 
 two officers. With clothes in disorder, they were laid across a long, 
 desk-like table, the rise of which in the middle offered that degree of 
 convexity which was favorable to the application of the tawse. Kick- 
 ing and screaming, they suffered the humiliating infliction, and the 
 school was forthwith dismissed for the day. Such things at the
 
 558 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 period were matters of course, even of approbation, and therefore it 
 would be wrong to condemn teachers who fell in with the general 
 fashion. Teaching, it was imagined, could not be conducted other- 
 wise; school, like army flogging, was an authorized national insti- 
 tution. 
 
 , Laying aside any consideration of the elementary branches and the 
 classics, the amount of instruction at these schools was exceedingly 
 slender. At not one of them was there taught any history, geogra- 
 phy, or physical science. There was not in my time a map in any 
 of the schools, in which respect the place had fallen off; for at the 
 sale of the effects of Mr. Oman, a previous teacher, my father bought 
 a pair of old globes, and it was chiefly from these that my brother 
 and I obtained a competent knowledge of the terrestrial and celes- 
 tial spheres. Possibly I have said more than enough of my school 
 remembrances; and I finish with stating that my entire education, 
 which terminated when I was thirteen years of age, cost, books in- 
 cluded, somewhere about six pounds. So little was taught in the way 
 of general knowledge, that my education, properly speaking, began 
 only when I was left to pick it up as opportunities offered in after 
 life. 
 
 There are a few circumstances of a pleasing nature mixed up with 
 these dismal recollections. I refer to rural rambles and books. I 
 spent many hours on the picturesque banks of the Tweed, and in 
 angling excursions to Manor Water. Half-holiday visits to Neidpath 
 Castle, a deserted residence of the Dukes of Queensberry, were a 
 frequent amusement. The castle was appropriated as a depot for the 
 clothing and accoutrements of the local militia, placed under charge 
 of a worthy old soldier, Sergeant Veitch ; and through my acquaint- 
 ance with one of his sons, I had the entree to the fortalice. The 
 sergeant was generally looked up to. In virtue of his military knowl- 
 edge, he was appointed drill-master to the awkward squad, and for 
 the same reason was intrusted with the custody of the local militia 
 arms. Bred a weaver, he worked at a loom which was placed in a 
 deep window recess, in what was usually styled the Duke's Drawing- 
 room. At times, he condescended to speak to me, and to mention 
 incidents in his career, while a sergeant in a foot regiment, at Bunker 
 Hill and other places of note during the great American war, all 
 of which contributed to my small stock of knowledge. 
 
 Two annual fairs, with their concourse of traveling merchants, 
 shows, gingergread, and wheel of fortune men, made a pleasing 
 break in the monotony of the place. For many years these fairs were 
 frequented by a personage known as "Beni Minori," who carried 
 about a singularly attractive raree show. The real name of this hum- 
 ble showman was Robert Brown ; that of Beni Minori having been 
 assumed for professional reasons. Brown was born in London in 
 1737, and reared under the charge of his grandparents near Carlisle, 
 where he remembered the passing of Prince Charles Stuart on his
 
 AMUSING AND PECULIAR PERIPATETICS. 559 
 
 way into and out of England, the subsequent surrender of the High- 
 land garrison to the Duke of Cumberland, and the still later and more 
 agitating sight of the bloody heads over the gates of the city. The 
 early years of Brown's life were spent as a post-boy. He then went 
 to sea in 1759, was captured by the French, and remained a pris- 
 oner till the end of the "Seven Years' War." Next he went to the 
 West Indies, and had a perfect recollection of the famous victory 
 achieved by Rodney, April 12, 1782. Eeturning to England, he 
 purchased the show-box of an old and dying Italian, named Beni 
 Minori, and assuming his name, he was, from some resemblance to 
 the deceased, universally recognized as the same personage. Now 
 began the wanderings of Beni, otherwise Brown, through the north 
 of England and southern counties of Scotland, every-where carrying 
 his show-box on his back, and resorting to all the fairs within his 
 rounds. Our first interview with Beni was in Peebles about 1805, 
 and the last time we saw him was in 1839, in the Edinburgh Charity 
 Work-house, where this aged and industrious man had at length found 
 a sheltering roof under which to die. Here were learned the leading 
 particulars of Beni's variegated life. He mentioned that his mother 
 had been dead a hundred and two years ; for, in giving him birth, 
 she survived only a quarter of an hour. He had long ceased to have 
 a single relation in the world. Twelve years ago he had lost his 
 wife, to whom he had been united sixty-four years. There was no 
 living being to whom he could look with the eyes of affection. The 
 only thing he cared for was his show-box, which he daily cleaned 
 and arranged; every picture, ring, and cord being to him like the 
 face of an old friend. Though thus cast a living wreck on the shores 
 of time, Beni always retained the liveliness which had procured for 
 him the attachment of the boys of Peebles. His appearance was 
 still that of a weather-beaten foreigner. He wore ear-rings, chewed 
 tobacco, and joked till the last. With some little assuagement of his 
 condition, provided by the kindness of a few acquaintances, Beni 
 survived till June, 1840, when he died at the age of 103 years. 
 
 Among the musical geniuses, vocal and instrumental, who enliv- 
 ened, or perhaps troubled the fairs, there was a venerable violinist, 
 John Jameson byname, a kind of type of " Wandering Willie." 
 Aged and blind, John wandered through the county, playing at kirns, 
 penny-weddings, and fairs ; all his journeys being on foot, and per- 
 formed with the assistance of two faithful companions, his wife, Jenny, 
 and an old white horse, probably worth ten shillings. The manner 
 in which this humble trio went about from place to place, generally 
 getting lodgings at farm-steadings for nothing, or at most for a tune 
 on the violin, was so remarkable as to deserve commemoration. First 
 came the wife, limping with one hand pressed on that unfortunately 
 rheumatic side, the other leading the old horse by a halter. Second, 
 the horse, which never seemed very willing to get along, and needed 
 to be pulled with all the vigor which Jenny's spare hand could
 
 560 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 impart. Across its back, pannier fashion, hung on one side John's 
 weather-worn fiddle-case, while on the other was a bag of apples, an 
 article in which the wife dealt in a small way. Last of all came 
 John, led by the tail of the reluctant quadruped ; so that the whole 
 cavalcade moved in a piece Jenny pulling at the horse, and the 
 horse pulling at John ; and in this way the party managed to make 
 out their journeys through Peebleshire. 
 
 Though not disposed to be so sedentary as my brother, I had 
 scarcely a less ardent attachment to books. These, however, I pos- 
 sessed no means of purchasing. To procure the objects of my de- 
 sire, I executed with a knife various little toys, which I exchanged 
 for Juvenile books with my better provided companions. The room 
 occupied by my brother and myself was more like a workshop than 
 a sleeping apartment, on account of the disorder which was caused 
 by these mechanical operations. 
 
 Let us again return to Robert's account of these early school- 
 days: 
 
 "My first two years of schooling were spent amidst the crowd of 
 children attending Mr. Gray's seminary. On the easy terms of two 
 shillings and twopence per quarter I was well grounded by the mas- 
 ter and his helper in English. The entire expense must have been 
 only about eighteen shillings, a fact sufficient to explain how Scotch 
 people of the middle class appear to be so well educated in compari- 
 son with their southern compatriots. It was prior to the time when 
 the intellectual system was introduced. We were taught to read the 
 Bible and Barrie's 'Collection,' and to spell words. No attempt was 
 made to enlighten us as to the meaning of any of the lessons. The 
 most distressing part of our school exercises consisted in learning 
 by heart the Catechism of the Westminster Assembly of Divines, a 
 document which it was impossible for any person under maturity to 
 understand, or to view in any other light than as a torture. It was 
 a strange, rough, noisy, crowded scene, this burgh school. No refine- 
 ment of any kind appeared in it. Nothing kept the boys in any sort 
 of order but flagellation with the tawse. Many people thought the 
 master did not punish enough. This idea, in fact, was the cause of 
 an act of wild justice, which I saw executed one day in the school. 
 
 "The reader must imagine the school-hum going on in a dull 
 monotone, when suddenly the door burst open, and in walked a mid- 
 dle-aged woman of the humbler class, carrying something in her right 
 hand under her apron. The school sunk into silence in an instant. 
 With flashing eyes and excited vision, she called out, ' Where is Jock 
 Forsyth.' Jock had maltreated a son of hers on the green, and she 
 had come to inflict vengeance upon him before the whole school. 
 Jock's conscious soul trembled at the sight, and she had no difficulty 
 in detecting him. Ere the master had recovered his astonishment 
 which her intrusion had created, the fell virago had pounced upon 
 the culprit, had dragged him into the middle of the floor, and there
 
 ELDER, THE PEEBLES* BOOKSELLER. 561 
 
 began to belabor him with the domestic tawse, which she had brought 
 for the purpose. The screams of the boy, the anxious entreaties of 
 the master, with his constant ' Wifie, wifie, be quiet, be quiet,' and the 
 agitated feeling which began to pervade the school, formed a scene 
 which defies words to paint it. Nor did Meg desist till she had given 
 Master Forsyth reason to remember her to the latest day of his ex- 
 istence. She then took her departure, only remarking to Mr. Gray, 
 as she prepared to close the door, ' Jock Forsyth will no' meddle 
 with my Jamie again in a hurry." 
 
 " Boys for whom a superior education was desired were usually 
 passed on at the beginning of their third year to the grammar- 
 school, the school in which the classics were taught, but which also 
 had one or two advanced classes for English and writing. This was 
 an example of an institution which has affected the fortunes of Scots- 
 men not much less than the parish schools. Every burgh has one, 
 partly supported out of public funds. For a small fee (in the Peebles 
 grammar-school it was only five shillings a quarter), a youth of the 
 middle classes gets a good grounding in Latin and Greek, fitting him 
 for the university; and it is mainly, I believe, through this superior 
 education, so easily attained, that so many of the youth of our north- 
 ern region are inspired with the ambition which leads them upwards 
 to professional life in their own country, or else sends them abroad 
 in quest of the fortune hard to find at home. I observe, while writ- 
 ing these pages, the advertisement of an academy in England, where, 
 beside sixty pounds by way of board, the fees for tuition amount to 
 twenty-five. For this twenty-five pounds, a Scottish burgher of my 
 young days could have five sons carried through a complete classical 
 course. The difference is overwhelmingly in favor of the Scotch 
 grammar-school, as far as the money matter is concerned. And thus 
 it will appear that the good education which has enabled me to ad- 
 dress so much literature, of whatever value, to the public during the 
 last forty-five years, never cost my parents so much as ten pounds. 
 
 " There was a bookseller in Peebles, a great fact. There had not 
 always been one ; but some years before my entrance upon existence, 
 a decent man named Alexander Elder had come to the town, and 
 established himself as a dealer in intellectual wares. He was a very 
 careful and sober man, and in the end, as was fitting, became rich in 
 comparison with many of his neighbors. It seems a curious reminis- 
 cence of my first bookseller's shop, that, on entering it, one always 
 got a peep of a cow, which quietly chewed her cud close behind the 
 book-shelves, such being one of Sandy's means of providing for his 
 family. Sandy was great in Shorter Catechisms, and what he called 
 spells, and school Bibles, and Testaments, and in James Lumsden's 
 (of Glasgow) halfpenny colored pictures of the ' World Turned Up- 
 side Down,' the ' Battle of Trafalgar, 1 etc., and in penny chap-books 
 of an extraordinary coarseness of language. He had stores, too, of 
 school slates and skecly, of paper for copies, and of pens, or rather 
 36
 
 562 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 quills, for * made ' pens were never sold then, one of which he would 
 hand us across his counter with a civil glance over the top of his 
 spectacles, as if saying, 'Now, laddie, see and mak' a guid use o't.' 
 But Sandy was enterprising and enlightened beyond the common 
 range of booksellers in small country towns, and had added a circu- 
 lating library to his ordinary business. My father, led by his strong 
 intellectual tastes, had early become a supporter of this institution, 
 and thus it came about that by the time we were nine or ten years 
 of age, my brother and 1 had read a considerable number of the 
 classics of English literature, or heard our father read them ; were 
 familiar with the comicalities of 'Gulliver,' 'Don Quixote,' and 
 ' Peregrine Pickle ;' had dipped into the poetry of Pope and Gold- 
 smith, and indulged our romantic tendencies in books of travel and 
 adventure, which were to us scarcely less attractive than the works 
 of pure imagination. When lately attending the Wells of Homburg, 
 I had but one English book to amuse me, Pope's translation of the 
 'Iliad,' and I felt it as towards myself an affecting reminiscence, that 
 exactly fifty years had elapsed since I perused the copy from Elder's 
 library, in a little room looking out upon the High Street of Peebles, 
 where an English regiment was parading recruits raised for Welling- 
 ton's Peninsular campaign. 
 
 " There was certainly something considerably superior to the com- 
 mon book-trader in my friend Alexander Elder, for his catalogue in- 
 cluded several books striking far above the common taste, and some- 
 what costly withal. There was, for example, a copy of a strange and 
 curious book of which Sir Walter Scott speaks on several occasions 
 with great interest, a metrical history of the clan Scott, written 
 about the time of the Revolution by one Walter Scott, a retired old 
 soldier of the Scottish legions of Gustavus Adolphus, who describes 
 himself unnecessarily as ' no scholar,' for in its rhyme, metre, and 
 entire frame of language it is truly wretched, while yet interesting 
 on account of the quaintness of its ideas and the information it con- 
 veys. Another of Sandy's book treasures and the money value of 
 them makes the term appropriate was the '^Eneidos of Virgil," 
 translated into Scottish verse by Gavin Douglas, Bishop of Dunkeld, 
 well known as a most interesting product of the literary mind of 
 Scotland at the beginning of the sixteenth century, and gratifying to 
 our national vanity as prior to any translations of Virgil into English. 
 "In a fit of extraordinary enterprise, Sandy had taken into his 
 library the successive volumes of the fourth edition of the ' Encyclo- 
 paedia Britannica,' and had found nobody but my father in the 
 slightest degree interested in them. My father made a stretch with 
 his moderate means, and took the book off Sandy's hands. It was 
 a cumbrous article in a small house ; so, after the first interest in its 
 contents had subsided, it had been put into a chest (which it filled), 
 and laid up in an attic beside the cotton wefts and the meal ark. 
 Roaming about there one day, in that morning of intellectual curi-
 
 TAUGHT BY VALUABLE BOOKS. 563 
 
 osity, I lighted upon the stored book, and from that time for weeks 
 all my spare time was spent beside the chest. It was a new world to 
 me. I felt a profound thankfulness that such a convenient collection 
 of human knowledge existed, and that here it was spread out like a 
 well-plenished table before me. What the gift of a whole toy-shop 
 would have been to most children, this book was to me. I plunged 
 into it. I roamed through it like a bee. I hardly could be patient 
 enough to read any one article, while so many others remained to be 
 looked into. In that on Astronomy, the constitution of the material 
 universe was all at once revealed to me. Henceforth I knew what 
 no other boy in the town then dreamed of that there were infinite 
 numbers of worlds besides our own, which was by comparison a very 
 insignificant one. From the zoological articles, I gathered that the 
 animals, familiar and otherwise, were all classified into a system 
 through which some faint traces of a plan were discernible. Geog- 
 raphy, of which not the slightest elements were then imparted at 
 school, here came before me in numberless articles and maps, expand- 
 ing my narrow village world to one embracing the uttermost ends of 
 earth. I pitied my companions who remained ignorant of what 
 became to me familiar knowledge. Some articles were splendidly 
 attractive to the imagination; for example, that entitled Aerostation, 
 which illustrated all that had been done in the way of aerial travel- 
 ing from Montgolfier downwards. Another paper interested me 
 much, that descriptive of the inquiries of Dr. Saussure regarding 
 the constitution and movement of glaciers. The biographical articles, 
 introducing to me the great men who had laid up these stores of 
 knowledge, or otherwise affected the destinies of their species, were 
 devoured in rapid succession. What a year that was to me, not 
 merely in intellectual enjoyment, but in mental formation ! I believe 
 it was my eleventh, for before I was twelve, misfortune had taken 
 the book from us to help in satisfying creditors. It appears to me 
 somewhat strange that, in a place so remote-, so primitive, and con- 
 taining so little wealth, at a time when the movement for the spread 
 of knowledge had not yet been thought of, such an opportunity for 
 the gratification of an inquiring young mind should have been pre- 
 sented. It was all primarily owing to the liberal spirit of enterprise 
 which animated this cow-keeping country bookseller. 
 
 " The themes first presented to the young mind certainly sink into 
 it the deepest. The sciences of which I obtained the first tracings 
 through the " Encyclopaedia," have all through life been endeared 
 to me above the rest. The books of imagination which I first read 
 from Elder's library have ever borne a preference in my heart, what- 
 ever may be the judgment of modern taste regarding them. It pains 
 me to this day to hear severe remarks made upon Fielding and 
 Sterne. I should feel myself to be a base ingrate if I could join in 
 condemning men who first gave me views of social life beyond my 
 natal village sphere, and who, by their powers of entertainment, lent
 
 564 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 such a charm to years during which material enjoyments were few. 
 These intellectual ' loves of life's young day ' sometimes led literary 
 men in the choice of themes for their own pens. It was from such 
 a feeling regarding Smollett, that I was induced to make an effort to 
 set his life in a more respectful light before the world than it had 
 previously enjoyed, while assuredly invited to other tasks in several 
 respects more promising. It strikes me that gratitude to an author, 
 also to a teacher, to any one who has benefited us intellectually, is as 
 desirable a form of the feeling as any. I raise statues in my heart to 
 the fictionists above-named, and to many others who nowhere have 
 statues of bronze or marble, and I likewise deem it not unfitting that 
 there should be flower-crowned miniatures in my bosom of James 
 Sloan and Sandy Elder." 
 
 I can unite in these commendations. With Elder's field of litera- 
 ture laid open to us, Robert and I read at a great rate, going right 
 through the catalogue of books without much regard to methodized 
 study. In fact, we had to take what we could get and be thankful. 
 Permitted to have only one volume at a time, we made up for short 
 allowance by reading as quickly as possible, and, to save time, often 
 read together from the same book, one having the privilege of turn- 
 ing over the leaves. Desultory as was this course of reading, it un- 
 doubtedly widened the sphere of our ideas ; and it would be ungrate- 
 ful not to acknowledge that some of my own success, and not a few 
 of the higher pleasures experienced in life, are primarily due to that 
 library in the little old burgh. 
 
 Enough perhaps more than enough has been given of these rem- 
 iniscences of boyish days, and something may now be said of the 
 circumstances which, in a strangely unexpected manner, sent my 
 brother and myself adrift into the world that lay beyond our hitherto 
 limited horizon. 
 
 The calm tenor of my father's affairs was at length abruptly ruffled. 
 The introduction of the power-loom and other mechanical appliances 
 had already begun to revolutionize the cotton trade. Down and 
 down sank hand-loom weaving, till it was threatened with extinction, 
 and ultimately the trade was followed only as a desperate necessity. 
 Happy were those who gave it up in time, and betook themselves to 
 something else. Moved by the declining aspect of his commission 
 business, by father bethought himself of commencing as a draper. 
 For this purpose, he alienated the small property in which my brother 
 and I were born, and removed to a central part of the town. Here 
 he began his new line of business, for which, excepting his obliging 
 manners, he had no particular qualification. As, however, there was 
 then little of that eager striving which is now conspicuous every- 
 where, matters would have gone on pretty well, but for one untoward 
 circumstance. 
 
 As an out-of-the-way country town, Peebles had been selected by
 
 PRISONERS OF WAR. 565 
 
 government as a place suitable for the residence of prisoners of war on 
 parole, shortly after the re-commencement of hostilities in 1803. 
 Not more, however, than twenty or thirty of these exiles arrived at 
 this early period. They were mostly Dutch and Walloons, with 
 afterwards a few Danes unfortunate mariners seized on the coast of 
 the Netherlands, and sent to spend their lives in an inland Scottish 
 town. These men did not repine. They nearly all betook them- 
 selves to learn some handicraft, to eke out their scanty allowance. At 
 leisure hours they might be seen fishing, in long leather boots, as if 
 glad to procure a few trouts and eels, and at the same time satisfy 
 the desire to dabble in the water. In 1810, a large accession was 
 made to this body of prisoners of war, by the arrival of upwards of a 
 hundred officers of an entirely different quality. They consisted of 
 French, Poles, and Italians, in a variety of strange, tarnished uni- 
 forms, fresh from the seat of war in the Peninsula. These unfortunate 
 gentlemen, a few of them very young, were accommodated with 
 lodgings in the town, and being scarcely under any sort of restriction, 
 they gradually became domesticated in several families. For their 
 own amusement, as well as to repay acts of hospitality, perhaps, 
 also, to make friends among the trades-people, they set up a private 
 theater in an old ball-room, in which they enlivened the town by 
 performing gratuitously some of the plays of Corneille and Moliere 
 To these performances I was freely admitted, on my father's account; 
 and so reaped the double advantage of having my ear accustomed to 
 the French language, and of being made acquainted with some of 
 the French dramatists. Nor did I dislike the French on other ac- 
 counts. The kitchen of their mess offered a market for my rabbits, 
 which I bred as an article of commerce to aid in purchasing books. 
 
 My mother, even while lending her dresses and caps to enable 
 performers to represent female characters, never liked the intimacy 
 which had been formed between the French officers and my father. 
 Against his giving them credit, she constantly remonstrated in vain. 
 It was a tempting but perilous trade. For a time they paid wonder- 
 fully well. A number of them, when captured in Spain, had secreted 
 sums of money about their person, and gold ducats and sequins, as 
 I remember, were for a period as common as guineas in Peebles ; 
 though that, perhaps, is not saying very much. These exiles likewise 
 occasionally received remittances from France ; for although the war 
 was going on very hotly, there was still, as a matter of public con- 
 venience, some kind of postal intercourse maintained with the French 
 coast. With such allurements, my father confidingly gave extensive 
 credit to these strangers, men who, by their position, were not amen- 
 able to the civil law, and whose obligations, according, were alto- 
 gether debts of honor. The consequence was what might have been 
 anticipated. An order suddenly arrived from the government, com- 
 manding the whole of the prisoners to quit Peebles, and march chiefly 
 to Sanquhar in Dumfriesshire, the cause of the movement being the
 
 566 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 prospective arrival of a militia regiment. The intelligence came one 
 Sunday afternoon. What a gloom prevailed at several firesides that 
 fatal evening ! 
 
 On their departure, the French prisoners made many fervid 
 promises that, should they ever return to their own country, they 
 would have pleasure in discharging their debts. They all got home 
 at the peace in 1814, but not one of them ever paid a farthing. A 
 list of their names, debts, and official position in the army of Napo- 
 leon, remains as a curiosity in my possession. It is not unlikely that 
 a number of these returned exiles found a grave on the field of 
 Waterloo. Whatever became of them, there was soon a crisis in my 
 father's affairs. The pressure might have been got over, for with 
 patience there were means to satisfy all demands ; but the possibility 
 of rectifying affairs was defeated by weakly taking the advice of an 
 interested party, a relative of my mother, who recommended a seques- 
 tration. The result was that the sage adviser, as trustee, managed 
 every thing so adroitly for his own benefit, that the creditors received 
 but a small dividend, and the family lost almost every thing. It is 
 hateful to refer to this piece of folly and villainy, because it reminds 
 me of poignant distresses ; but it is necessary to give it some degree 
 of prominence, for it forms the pivot on which the present narrative 
 turns. 
 
 By various shifts, the family continued to struggle on for a year or 
 two in Peebles after this catastrophe. The penury which was endured 
 was less painful than the acute sense of social degradation. My 
 mother looked for some sympathy and assistance from her brother 
 and also from other relatives at a distance, but without avail. Feel- 
 ing, with a too keen susceptibility, that he had lost caste, my father 
 never quite held up his head after this event ; yet, deplored at the time, 
 it really proved a fortunate circumstance. Like a wholesome though 
 unpleasant storm in a stagnating atmosphere, it cleared the way for 
 a new and better order of things. A seemingly great misfortune 
 ultimately proved to be no misfortune at all, in fact, a blessing, for 
 which my brother and I, as well as other members of the family, 
 could not be sufficiently thankful. 
 
 The wise resolution was adopted of quitting Peebles. My mother, 
 animated by keen anxiety and foresight, was particularly solicitous to 
 remove, with a view to procure means of advancement for her sons. 
 Accordingly, impelled alike by necessity and inclination, the family 
 removed to Edinburgh, Robert being alone left to pursue his educa- 
 tion for a short time longer. Crowded into the Fly, then the only 
 engine of public conveyance to the Scottish capital, we crossed the 
 Kingside-Edge, as a high ridge of land is called, on a bleak day in 
 December, 1813, my mother with an infant daughter on her knee, 
 and a heart full of mingled hopes and fears of the future. It was a 
 five hours' journey, of which one entire hour was spent at Venture- 
 fair to rest the horses. Here the party were hospitably entertained
 
 REMOVAL TO EDINBURGH. 567 
 
 with warm kail by Jenny Wilson, who kept the small inn along with 
 her brother William. So reinvigorated, we drove on in somewhat 
 better spirits, entering Edinburgh by the Causeway side; my mother 
 with but a few shillings in her pocket there was not a half-penny in 
 mine. 
 
 SETTLING IN EDINBURGH 1813-1814. 
 
 Families falling by misfortune into straightened circumstances, of 
 course lose many old friends and acquaintances, at least as far as fa- 
 miliar personal intercourse is concerned. This loss, though often the 
 subject of sorrowful and angry remark, is not an unmitigated evil. 
 Sympathy is doubtless due, throughout all perplexing social distinc- 
 tions; gracious are the acts of a true friend; kindness to the unfor- 
 tunate will ever command approbation ; but let us not forget that it 
 is better for personal intimacies to suffer some modification, than for 
 the impoverished to lose self-respect and become dependent on a 
 system of habitual condescension. It seems hard to take this view 
 of the matter, but I fear that on no other basis can the indigent as- 
 pire to be the associates of the affluent. Could matters be seen rightly, 
 they would appear to be as well ordered in this as in other things 
 which concern our welfare. 
 
 Happily, the defection, real or apparent, of old friends is not un- 
 compensated. Sinking into a lower sphere, a new and hitherto un- 
 discovered region is disclosed. A higher class, as we are apt to feel, 
 has cruelly turned its back on us; but we are received with open arms 
 by a very good and agreeable sort of people, in whose moderate in- 
 comes, and, it may be, misfortunes and struggles, we feel the pleas- 
 ures of fellowship. The Vicar of Wakefield, it will be recollected, 
 did not find the jail such a bad thing after all. 
 
 My parents, on settling in Edinburgh, may be presumed to have 
 found consolations of this nature. According to immemorial usage, 
 families with limited means from the southern counties of Scotland, 
 who seek a home in the capital, sagaciously pitch on one of the second- 
 rate streets in the southern suburbs. There, sprinkled about in com- 
 mon stairs, they form a kind of colony, possessing a community of 
 south-country recollections and gossip. 
 
 Following the established rule, our first home was a floor entering 
 from a common stair in West Nicolson street. Beneath us, level 
 with the ground, resided a poor widow, who drew a scanty living from 
 a small huckstery concern. Immediately above us dwelt the widow 
 of a Roxburgshire clergyman, a motherly person, with two grown-up 
 daughters. Over this respectable family, and highest of all, was a 
 tailor, who, working in the window-sole of his apartment, had the 
 reputation of doing things cheaply. On a level with us, next tene- 
 ment, but entering by a different stair, was a family of some distinc- 
 tion, consisting ol the two ladies, Miss Betty and Miss Ailie Hay,
 
 568 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 already spoken of by my brother. The kitchen fire-places of both 
 dwellings being back to back, with a thin and imperfect wall between, 
 the servant girls of the two families, both exiles from Tweedside, 
 were able to carry on comforting conversations by removing a brick 
 at pleasure in the chimney ; through which irregular channel much 
 varied intelligence from Peebles-shire was interchanged between the 
 two families. Here we lived till Whitsunday, 1814, when we removed 
 to a floor of a like quality in Hamilton's Entry, Bristo street, the 
 back windows of the house overlooking the small court in which is 
 situated a little old building, with a tiled roof, that had been Walter 
 Scott's first school in Edinburgh. 
 
 If any thing, the families hereabout were more hard-up, and, to be 
 plain, we were more hard-up too. Our dwelling was on the second 
 floor of the stair, and on the flat immediately beneath resided Eben- 
 ezer Picken, a scholarly gentleman in reduced circumstances, who, 
 after trying various shifts to secure a living for himself and family, 
 now professed to teach languages, and endeavored to sell by subscrip- 
 tion one or two volumes of poems, which, I fear, did not do much 
 for him. He died in 1816. His son, Andrew, who was also a poetic 
 genius, and about my own age, became affected with the mania con- 
 cerning Poyais, and emigrated with a number of others to that pesti- 
 lential marsh, where most of the settlers died shortly after landing, 
 Andrew kindly acting as chaplain, with a shirt for surplice, and read- 
 ing the funeral service. From a fellow-feeling in circumstances, we 
 formed an intimacy with our neighbors the Pickens, while residing 
 in the same tenement, and the friendship was extended over a series 
 of years, until the remaining members of the family went to America. 
 
 As regards ways and means. On coming to Edinburgh, my father 
 had resumed his commission business from Glasgow cotton-manufac- 
 turers, but this trade had long been declining, and was but a meager 
 dependence. To aggravate his difficulties, he was not qualified by 
 knowledge of the world to deal with the class of workmen to whom 
 he furnished employment. Some of them were decent enough old 
 sinewy men, sufficiently tnistworthy; but others, accustomed to go 
 on the tramp, used artifices that baffled his ingenuity. Carrying on 
 their handicraft in obscure recesses in Fountainbridge, St. Ann's 
 Yards, the Back of the Canongate, or Abbey Hill, it was sometimes 
 as difficult to trace them out as to get any right clew to their ma- 
 neuvers. It was by no means unusual to find that the materials in- 
 trusted to them were dishonestly pawned, and that sums of money 
 advanced for half-done work on piteous appeals of distress were irre- 
 coverable. In short, my father was much too soft for this kind of 
 business; and the result was what might have been expected. With 
 resources on the verge of exhaustion, there ensued privations against 
 which it required no small degree of composure to bear up. The old 
 German flute, preserved as a precious relic throughout all the vicissi- 
 tudes of the family, was sometimes resorted to as a solace, although
 
 RESIDENCE IN EDINBURGH. 569 
 
 the favorite airs, such as "Corn Rigs," did not sound half so sweetly, 
 it was thought, in the dingy atmosphere of Hamilton's Entry, as they 
 had done along the Eddleston Water. 
 
 The dark Ages, as we have since jestingly called them, had begun, 
 and for a number of successive years an acquaintance was contracted 
 with families and individuals, who, if not experiencing a similar de- 
 pression, occupied an unpretending position in society. I can recol- 
 lect some of them, and also the shifty scenes to which they were less 
 or more impelled, by the necessities of their situation. Widows of 
 decayed tradesmen, who were moving heaven and earth to get their 
 sons into hospitals, and their daughters taught to be governesses. 
 Teachers in the decline of life, like poor Picken, endeavoring to draw 
 a subsistence from the fees of most-difficult-to-be-procured pupils. 
 Licensed preachers to whom fate had not assigned a kirk, and who, 
 after years of pining, now made a livelihood by preparing young men 
 for university degrees. Genteel unmarried women, left destitute by 
 improvident fathers, who contrived to maintain themselves by color- 
 ing maps, or by sewing fine needle-work for the Repository a benev- 
 olent and useful institution, to which be all praise. Why continue 
 the catalogue? 
 
 There was some use in knowing and being known to these kinds 
 of people. I speak not of the value to myself, as having an oppor- 
 tunity of studying some of the humbler and more characteristic 
 phases of society. To my father and mother, these persons, with 
 their varied experience, could furnish hints as to how petty difficul- 
 ties incidental to their condition might be overcome. One or two 
 things they seem to have made their special study. They knew the 
 proper methods of applying for situations in public offices, and what 
 expedients could be attempted to elude the payment of rates and 
 taxes. For the most part, they entertained a high respect for, and 
 duly stood in awe of, magistrates, ministers, and great men generally ; 
 for it was only through such distinguished authorities that certificates 
 of character and help in various ways could be obtained in cases of 
 emergency. Far be it from me to impute dishonesty to these in- 
 geniously struggling and scheming classes. On the whole, in the 
 darkest of their days, so far as I knew, they maintained a wonderful 
 determination to keep square with the world. It must be admitted, 
 however, that the classes to which I allude too frequently partici- 
 pated in loose notions concerning taxes. Demands of this nature 
 seemed to be little better than asking money for nothing. Rates and 
 taxes might be right in the abstract ; that they did not question. But 
 the collector who came periodically to your door with a portentious 
 pocket-book, and made point-blank demands for sums of money 
 such as fifteen shillings and ninepence half-penny, or one pound 
 eleven and threepence which it was exceedingly inconvenient to pay, 
 was clearly a nuisance ; and with no stretch of conscience, he might
 
 570 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 be coaxed, wheedled, put off, and told to call again as long as it was 
 safe to do so. 
 
 In the midst of the straits to which these remarks refer, my father, 
 through congeniality of taste, made the acquaintance of several per- 
 sons possessed of musical and poetical acquirements. One of these 
 was Mr. John Hamilton, author of the song, " Up in the Morning 
 Early," who, drawing to the conclusion of his days, lived in a stair 
 at the south end of Lothian street, and in good weather might be 
 seen creeping feebly along the walks in the Meadows, deriving pleas- 
 ure from the sunshine, to which he was soon to bid adieu. Another 
 was Mr. Samuel Clarke, noted for his musical genius, who acted as 
 organist of the Episcopal Chapel in the Cowgate, the services of 
 which place of public worship were at that time conducted by the 
 Rev. Archibald Alison, author of the "Essay on Taste," and "Ser- 
 mons on the Seasons," and whose son was the late Sir Archibald 
 Alison, author of the "History of Europe." As music was my 
 father's overwhelming passion, his introduction to the church organ 
 under the auspices of Clarke was a matter of extreme exultation. 
 Entranced with the performances of the organ and choir, he became 
 a frequent attender on the ministrations of Mr. Alison, whose per- 
 suasive piety, refined sentiments, and elegant diction, possessed, as is 
 well known, an indescribable charm. 
 
 Charged more especially with family cares, my mother had other 
 considerations than church music. What was to be done with rne 
 was a primary concern. I was in my fourteenth year. Further 
 schooling was out of the question. Robert might go on with his 
 education as long as seemed expedient, but it was time I should get 
 to work. What would I be? My tastes lay in the direction of books; 
 any department would do. A friend, put on the scent, reported that 
 on inquiry of a leading member of the profession, bookselling was a 
 poor business ; at best, it was very precarious, and could not be rec- 
 ommended. Not discouraged, I still thought my vocation lay 
 towards literature in some shape or other. 
 
 Since our arrival in town, I had read all that could be read for 
 nothing at the booksellers' windows, and at the stalls which were 
 stuck about the College and High School Wynds. I had also be- 
 come a great frequenter of the evening book-auctions. The principal 
 were Carfrae's in Drummond street, and that of Peter Cairns in the 
 Agency Office, opposite the University. At present, book-auctions 
 are only during the day; then they took place in the evening, and 
 were a favorite resort. The sales were indicated by a lantern, with 
 panes of white calico, at the door, on which was inscribed, "Auction 
 of Books." My attendance, punctual on the hanging of the lantern, 
 was a new and delightful recreation. The facetiae ol the auctioneers, 
 their observations on books and authors, and the competitions in the 
 biddings, were all interesting to a lad fresh from the country. Car- 
 frae's was the more genteel and dignified. Cairns' was the more
 
 AN EDINBUGH AUCTIONEER. 571 
 
 amusing of these lounges, wherefore it suited best for those who went 
 for fun, and not for buying, on which account it chiefly secured my 
 patronage. 
 
 Peter was a dry humorist, somewhat saturnine from business misad- 
 ventures. Professedly, he was a bookseller in South College street, 
 and exhibited over his door a huge sham copy of Virgil by way of 
 sign. His chief trade, however, was the auctioning of books and 
 stationery at the Agency Office, a place with a strong smell of new 
 furniture, amidst which it was necessary to pass before arriving at the 
 saloon in the rear where the auctions were habitually held. Warm, 
 well lighted, and comfortably fitted up with seats within a railed in- 
 closure, environing the books to be disposed of, this place of evening 
 resort was as good as a reading room ; indeed, rather better, for there 
 was a constant fund of amusement in Peter's caustic jocularities, as 
 when he begged to r.emind his audience that this was a place for sell- 
 ing, not for reading books, sarcasms, which always provoked a round 
 of ironical applause. His favorite author was Goldsmith* an edition 
 of whose works he had published, which pretty frequently figured in 
 his catalogue. On coming to these works, he always referred to them 
 with profound respect; as, for example, "The next in the catalogue, 
 gentlemen, is the works of Oliver Gooldsmith, the greatest writer that 
 ever lived, except Sheakespeare ; what do you say for it? I'll put it 
 up at ten shillings." Some one would perhaps audaciously bid two- 
 pence, which threw him into a rage, and he would indignantly call 
 out, " Tippence, man; keep that for the brode" meaning the plate 
 at the church door. If the same person dared to repeat the insult 
 with regard to some other work, Peter would say, " Dear me, has 
 that poor man not got rid of his tippence?" which turned the laugh, 
 and effectually silenced him all the rest of the evening. Peter's 
 temper was apt to get ruffled when biddings temporarily ceased. . He 
 then declared that he might as well try to auction books in the poor- 
 house. On such occasions, driven to desperation, he would try the 
 audience with a bunch of quills, a dozen black-lead pencils, or a 
 "quare" of Bath-post, vengefully knocking which down at the price 
 bidden for them, he would shout to " Wully," the clerk, to look after 
 the money. Never minding Peter's querulous observations further 
 than to join in the general laugh, I, like a number of other penniless 
 youths, got some good snatches of reading at the auctions in the 
 Agency Office. I there saw and handled books which I had never 
 heard of, and in this manner obtained a kind of notion of bibliog- 
 raphy. My brother, who, like myself, became a frequenter of the 
 Agency Office, relished Peter highly, and has touched him off in one 
 of his essays. 
 
 Inquiries for the situation of apprentice in a bookseller's shop not 
 proving successful, and time wearing on, I relinquished my precon- 
 ceived fancies, and stated that I should be glad to be put to any 
 line of business whatever. No sooner had this been concluded on
 
 572 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 than an opening seemed to cast up in a grocer's shop situated in the 
 Tolbooth Wynd, Leith. Unfortunately, Leith was two miles distant, 
 but it was announced that the grocer munificently imparted board 
 and lodging to his apprentices, and that, in present circumstances, 
 was of some importance. It was resolved I should look after the 
 place. Accordingly, I one day went off to Leith, trudging down 
 from Edinburgh towards the Tolbooth Wynd, not greatly elated with 
 the prospect before me, but determined not to be nice in accepting 
 terms. A friend of the family resident in Leith, was to introduce 
 me. 
 
 On reaching the spot with him, nearly opposite the public fountain, 
 I paused a moment outside to reconnoiter the grocer's premises, be- 
 fore proceeding. The windows exhibited quantities of raw sugar in 
 different varieties of brownness, hovering over which were swarms 
 of flies in a state of frantic enjoyment. Sticks of black liquorice 
 leaned coaxingly on the second row of panes, flanked by tall glass 
 jars of sweeties and peppermint drops; behind these outward attrac- 
 tions, there were observable yellow-painted barrels of whisky, rows 
 of bottles of porter, piles of cheeses of varied complexions, firkins of 
 salt butter, and boxes of soap. At the counter were a number of 
 women and children buying articles, such as quarter-ounces of tea 
 and ounces of sugar; and the floor was battered with dirt and debris. 
 
 I was not much pleased with the look of the place, but I had no 
 choice. Entering, somewhat timidly, with my conductor, I was de- 
 scribed as the boy who had been recommended as an apprentice, 
 and was ushered into the back room to be examined as to my capa- 
 bilities. It was immediately seen that I was physically incompetent 
 to fill the situation. The chief qualification in demand was muscular 
 vigor. The boy wanted would have to draw a truck loaded with 
 several hundredweights of goods, to be delivered to customers, it 
 might be miles distant. Instead of an apprentice, it was in reality a 
 horse that might have been advertised for, or at the least an able- 
 bodied porter. I was at once pronounced to be unfit for this envi- 
 able post ; a much too delicately made youth, a day's work with the 
 barrow or the bottle-basket would finish me. I had better abandon 
 the idea of being a grocer. With these remarks pronounced for 
 doom, I retired, not a little down -cast at the unfortunate issue of 
 the expedition, and sorrowfully returned up the Walk to Edinburgh. 
 
 MY APPRENTICESHIP 1814 TO 1819. 
 
 How little are we able to penetrate the future! The journey to 
 Leith was not thrown away. In returning homewards, I had occa- 
 sion to pass the shop of Mr. John Sutherland, bookseller, Calton 
 street, an establishment opposite the Black Bull Hotel, the starting- 
 place of the mail-coaches for London. In the window was the an- 
 nouncement, "An Apprentice Wanted." Here was the right thing
 
 WILLIAM A BOOKSELLER'S APPRENTICE. 573 
 
 at last. I did not lose time in communicating this piece of intelli- 
 gence. 
 
 Having in the first place narrated the failure of the Leith affair, I 
 proceeded to describe the discovery I had "made in Calton street. 
 There was forthwith a family cogitation on the subject, and it was re- 
 solved that next day I should accompany my mother on a tour of in- 
 vestigation into the nature of the place. Next morning, accordingly, 
 after being brushed up for the occasion, I set out for Sutherland's. Our 
 reception was gratifyingly polite. The bookseller expressed himself 
 satisfied with my appearance and the extent of my education. He 
 said that in all respects I should be perfectly qualified for the situa- 
 tion. My principal duties for one or two years would be very easy. 
 I would only have to light the fire, take off and put on the shutters, 
 clean and prepare the oil lamps, sweep and dust the shop, and go 
 all the errands. When I had nothing else to do, I was to stand be- 
 hind the counter, and help in any way that was wanted ; and talking 
 of that, it would be quite contrary to rule for me ever to sit down, 
 or to put off time reading. 
 
 In laying down the law, Sutherland admitted that at first the du- 
 ties, though no way burdensome, might not, perhaps, be very pleas- 
 ant, but the routine was sanctioned by immemorial usage. Constable 
 and all the other great booksellers had begun in this way. Every 
 one who aspired to take a front rank in the profession must begin by 
 being a junior apprentice. The period of service was five years at 
 four shillings a week ; not high pay, to be sure, but it was according 
 to universal rule, from which he could see no departure. J 
 
 My mother, who conducted the negotiation, found no fault with the 
 proposed duties and terms; still she had her misgivings, and ventured 
 to remark that her son was surely wrong in wishing to follow the busi- 
 ness. "We may manage," she said " to get him through his appren- 
 ticeship, but I have serious fears of what is to follow. We can not 
 set him up in business, and how" (looking around) "can he ever be 
 able to get a stock of books like that?" 
 
 The bookseller endeavored to allay her apprehensions, and his re- 
 marks are worth repeating: "There is no fear of any one getting 
 forward in the world, if he be only steady, obliging, attentive to his 
 duties, and exercise a reasonable degree of patience. I can assure 
 you, when I was the age of your son, I had as poor prospects as any 
 one; yet I have so far got on tolerably well. In the outset of life it 
 is needless to look too far in advance. We must just do the best 
 we can in the mean time, and hope that all will turn out rightly in 
 the end." These sensible observations left nothing further to be said. 
 The bargain was struck. I was to come next Monday morning to be 
 initiated by an elder apprentice. And so, on the 8th of May, 1814, 
 I was launched into the business world. 
 
 About a year and a half after this event, the family quitted Edin- 
 burgh. My father was appointed commercial manager of a salt man-
 
 574 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 ufactory, called Joppa Pans, a smoky odorous place, consisting of a 
 group of sooty buildings, situated on the sea-shore half-way between 
 Portobello and Musselburgh ; and thither, to a small dwelling amidst 
 the steaming salt-pans, they all removed except myself. Robert, who 
 had now come from Peebles, and been for some time at an academy 
 in Edinburgh, accompanied them, the arrangement being that he 
 should walk to and from town daily. I was left to pursue my business, 
 being for this purpose consigned to a lodging that may merit some 
 notice. 
 
 Until this disruption, I had no occasion to rely on myself. Now 
 matters were changed. I was to have an opportunity of learning 
 practically how far my weekly earnings would go in defraying the cost 
 of board and lodging. In short, at little above fourteen years of age, 
 I was thrown on my own resources. From necessity, not less than 
 from choice, I resolved at all hazards to make the weekly four shil- 
 lings serve for every thing. I can not remember entertaining the 
 slightest despondency on the subject. As with other lads of my age, 
 I had something 1 to interest me in the circumstances attending the 
 close of the war, and the excitement which followed on various mat- 
 ters of public concern. 
 
 As favorable for carrying out my aims at an independent style of 
 living, I had the good fortune to be installed in the dwelling of a 
 remarkably precise and honest widow, a Peebles woman, who, with 
 two grown-up sons, occupied the top story of a building in the West 
 Port. My landlady had the reputation of being excessively parsimo- 
 nious, but as her honesty was of importance to one in my position, 
 and as she consented to let me have a bed, cook for me, and allow 
 me to sit by her fireside the fire, by the way, not being much to 
 speak of for the reasonable charge of eighteen pence a week, I was 
 thought to be lucky in finding her disposed to receive me within her 
 establishment. To her dwelling, therefore, I repaired with my all, 
 consisting of a few articles of clothing and two or three books, in- 
 cluding a pocket Bible the whole contained in a small blue-painted 
 box, which I carried on my shoulder along the Grassmarket. 
 
 This abode, the uppermost floor in Boak's Land, was more ele- 
 vated than airy. The back of the tall edifice overhung a tannery 
 and a wild confusion of mean inclosures, with an outlook beyond to 
 the castle, perched on its dark, precipitous rock. The thoroughfare 
 in front was then, as it is still, one of the most crowded and wretched 
 in the city. The apartment assigned to me was a bed-closet, with a 
 narrow window fronting the street. Yet this den was not all my 
 own. For a time, it was shared with a student of divinity, a youth 
 of my own age from the hills of Tweeddale ; and afterwards with my 
 brother Robert, when it was found inexpedient for him to live in 
 the country, and go to and from town daily. 
 
 Being all of us from Peeblesshire, there was much to speak of in 
 common, though with no great cordiality of intercourse. In the
 
 YOUTHFUL ASSOCIATIONS. 575 
 
 evenings, when mason and carpenter lads dropped in, the conversa- 
 tion turned chiefly on sermons. Each visitor brought with him expe- 
 riences as to how texts had been handled on the preceding Sunday ; 
 on which there ensued discussions singularly characteristic of a well- 
 known phase in the Scotch mind. , 
 
 "Weel, Tammie," inquired the widow one evening of Tammie 
 Tod, a journeyman mason lately arrived from the country, "what was 
 the doctor on last afternoon?" 
 
 " He was on the Song," meaning the Song of Solomon. 
 
 "Ah, the Song ! that would be grand. He's a wonderfu' man the 
 doctor; and what was his text?" 
 
 "It was a real fine text," said Tammie, "the deepest ever I heard: 
 ' For my head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of the 
 night;' fifth chapter, second verse, the second clause of the verse." 
 
 "I ken that text weel," responded the widow. "I heard a capi- 
 tal discourse on it thirty years syne; but how did the doctor lay it 
 out?" 
 
 "He divided it into five heads, ending with an application, which 
 it would be weel for us a' to tak' to heart." 
 
 And so Tammie, who had a proficiency in dissecting and criticis- 
 ing sermons, proceeded to describe with logical precision the manner 
 in whic.li his minister had handled the very intricate subject; his 
 definitions being listened to and commented on with extraordinary 
 relish. 
 
 Let no one hastily conclude that there was any thing to ridicule in 
 these searching, though perhaps too speculative and familiar disquisi- 
 tions ; for apart from any religious consideration, they bore evidence 
 of that spirit of inquiry and love 'of reasoning on momentous topics 
 which may be said to have made Scotland what it is. I may not 
 have been the better, but was by no means the worse, for hearing 
 Tammie Tod's sermon experiences in that little upper floor in the 
 West Port, and have often compared what there came under my ob- 
 servation with the unideaed sotting and want of all mental culture 
 which unhappily mark certain departments of the population in dif- 
 ferent parts of the United Kingdom. 
 
 On market-days, my landlady was usually visited about dinner-time 
 by some horny-fisted old acquaintance from about Leithen or Gala 
 Water, with a shepherd's plaid around his shoulders ; and who, 
 after being treated to a share of the bannocks and kail, would finish 
 off with a blast on the widow's tobacco-pipe ; for, with all her saving 
 habits, our worthy hostess indulged moderately, I must say in this 
 luxury. The conversation of these worthies ran still on controversial 
 divinity. They talked of the " Hind Let Loose," Boston's " Mar- 
 row," the " Crook in the Lot," and the " Fourfold State," standard 
 topics among the class to which they belonged ; and if I did not 
 quite apprehend or was not improved by the discussions, they at least 
 afforded an amusing study of character.
 
 576 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 The charge made for my accommodation in these quarters left some 
 scope for financiering as regards the remaining part of my wages. It 
 was a keen struggle, but, like Franklin, whose autobiography I had 
 read with avidity, I faced it with all proper resolution. My contriv- 
 ances to make both ends meet were not without a degree of drollery. 
 As a final achievement in the art of cheap living, I was able to make 
 an outlay of a shilling and ninepence suffice for the week. Below 
 that I could not well go. Reaching this point, I had ninepence over 
 for miscellaneous demands, chiefly in the department of shoes, which 
 constituted an awkwardly heavy item. On no occasion did I look to 
 parents for the slightest pecuniary subsidy. 
 
 Was there none, all this time, to lend a helping-hand to the strug- 
 gling bookseller's apprentice? I did not put any one to the test. 
 My mother had some relations in town moving in respectable circles; 
 but they were connected with the worthless personage whose conduct 
 had insured my father's ruin ; and, passing over any unpleasant rec- 
 ollections on this score I felt disinclined to court their intimacy. 
 Admitting that I may in this respect have acted with unreasonable 
 shyness, I am inclined to think that the policy of keeping aloof was 
 the most advantageous in the end. Isolation was equivalent to in- 
 dependence of thought and action. Contact with the relatives I 
 speak of would have been subjection. 
 
 High principle, however, hardly entered into my calculations. 
 Pursuing my course from a resolute feeling of self-reliance, I just went 
 on without troubling myself about any body, trusting that things some- 
 how would come right in the long-run. I should say from my own 
 observation that young persons often chafe unnecessarily at being 
 neglected by those whom they imagine should take notice of them. 
 On the contrary, as a general rule, they ought to be thankful for 
 being let alone, with a clear stage whereon they can act their part, 
 alike unincumbered with advice or disheartened by adverse criticism. 
 To be always pining to be noticed, brought forward, taken by the 
 hand, and done for, is any thing but wise or manly. There are, 
 doubtless, instances where the deserving are entitled to such assistance 
 as can be safely or conveniently extended towards them. But in too 
 many cases the visionary expectation of aid paralyzes exertion, and 
 consumes valuable time that might very properly be devoted to indi- 
 vidual effort. At any rate, I do not doubt that I should have suf- 
 fered injury at this critical period, by getting entangled with fine 
 people, invited to fine houses, and led to mix in fine evening parties. 
 Proceedings of that seductive kind would have been distinctly at 
 variance with my condition. What was I but one of a thousand 
 nameless lads, whom in passing no one knew or cared for? Shrouded 
 by insignificance, I could fortunately, like others in a similar situation, 
 work my way on in silence and obscurity, without any provocation 
 to false shame, which almost more than any thing else is the stumb- 
 ling-block of youth. The very circumstance of my having come from
 
 AN ERRAND BOY'S LABOR. 577 
 
 the country, and of being little known to young men of my own 
 standing, was a point in my favor. 
 
 It nevertheless, I own, required some fortitude to bear up against 
 the hardships incidental to my situation as a junior apprentice, liter- 
 ally the slave of the lamp, and the drudge of the establishment. 
 Though not beaten and dragooned as I had been at school, it was my 
 destiny to experience no very gentle treatment. My employer, a 
 stern disciplinarian, took the work out of his apprentices. He seemed 
 to have no regard for the number of miles he caused them to walk 
 in a day in the way of business. In addition to his trade as a book- 
 seller, he kept a circulating library, and also acted as an agent for 
 the State Lottery. Independently, therefore, of a multitude of errands 
 with parcels of books and stationery, I was charged with the delivery 
 of vast quantities of circular letters eulogizing the successive lotteries, 
 which, in reason, ought to have been dispatched through the post- 
 office. Frequently I was sent on my travels with as many as three 
 hundred letters, sorted and tied in bundles in the manner of a postman ; 
 and as my circuit took me up dozens of long stairs over miles of 
 thoroughfares, I had an opportunity of acquiring a knowledge of the 
 town and the names of its inhabitants. 
 
 In all this I was mercilessly overtasked, and can never cease to 
 think so. But there was something likewise to be thankful for. 
 Sutherland enforced habits of punctuality and order, which happily 
 stuck to me through life, along with a due appreciation of such mor- 
 sels of time as can be spared from ordinary pursuits. My apprentice- 
 ship, like that of many others, was my drill, harsh, no doubt, but it 
 is difficult to see how, without some kind of vigorous training, youth 
 is to grow into manhood with a proper conception of a number of 
 commonplace but important obligations. Certainly, old injunctions 
 say as much. 
 
 My heaviest grievance was the delivery of those odious piles of 
 lottery circulars, a species of labor that in no shape advanced my 
 professional knowledge. To what hand, however, could I turn to rid 
 myself of this slavery ? The choice lay between suffering and ruin. 
 It was my safest course to submit. Over the doorway of an old 
 house in West Bow, which I passed several times daily, was the in- 
 scription, carved in stone, 
 
 "HE THAT THOLES OVERCOMES." 
 
 I made up my mind to thole, a pithy old Scottish word signifying 
 to bear with patience ; the whole inscription reminding us of a st-nti- 
 ment in Virgil : " Whatever may happen, every kind of fortune is to 
 be overcome by bearing it."* 
 
 After all, the drudgery I had in connection with the lotteries is not 
 utterly to be condemned. It afforded an amusing insight into the 
 
 * " Quidquid crit, supcranda omnis fortuna fcrendo est." &ncid t v. 
 37
 
 578 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 weakness of human nature. I could scarcely have learned what I did 
 by sitting with composure in the lap of ease and luxury. As regards 
 the state lottery, it is interesting for me to remember that I was once 
 a humble minister in that gigantic national concern. And what a 
 queer, struggling, whimsical set of people came under notice ! Some 
 would buy only odd numbers of five figures, such as 17,359 > some 
 eagerly sought for numbers which they had dreamt of being prizes, 
 and would have no other; some brought children to select a number 
 from the quantity offered, a degree of weakness which was outdone 
 by those who superstitiously brought the seventh son of a seventh son 
 to make the selection for them ; some, more whimsical still, would 
 only purchase at the last moment what every body else had rejected. 
 Few were so extravagant as to buy whole tickets, or even halves, 
 quarters, or eighths. The great majority contented themselves with 
 a sixteenth, the price of which was usually about a guinea and a half; 
 and as the fortunate holder of the sixteenth of a twenty-thousand- 
 pound prize would realize above twelve hundred pounds, the tempta- 
 tion to this species of gambling was enormous. 
 
 It would be an error to imagine that the dispersion of those myriads 
 of lottery circulars in the obscurest quarters had no practical efficacy. 
 The chief buyers of sixteenths were persons connected with the mar- 
 kets, hackney-jcoachmen, waiters at hotels, female housekeepers, small 
 tradesmen, and those of limited means generally, who hoped to be- 
 come rich by a happy turn of the wheel. Inmates of the Sanctuary 
 of Holyrood and the debtors' prisons were numbered among the 
 steady customers of the state lottery. Both, therefore, as a messenger 
 with lottery intelligence, and as an errand-boy with parcels of books, 
 I had frequent occasion to visit and become less or more acquainted 
 with these places. 
 
 The Sanctuary, which embraced a cluster of decayed buildings in 
 front and on both sides of Holyrood Palace, was at that time more re- 
 sorted to by refugee debtors than it is in this improved age. It was 
 seldom without distinguished characters from England ; some of them 
 gaunt, oldish gentlemen, seemingly broken dpwn men of fashion, 
 wearing big gold spectacles, who now drew out existence here in de- 
 fiance of creditors. To this august class of persons, who stood in 
 need of supplies of books from the circulating library, I paid frequent 
 visits ; and conscious, perhaps, that they gave me some extra trouble, 
 they were so considerate as to present me with an occasional sixpence, 
 which I could not politely refuse. 
 
 Customers in the Canongate jail, and in the old Tolbooth, re- 
 nowned as the "Heart of Mid -Lothian," were less munificent, but 
 considerably more hearty in their intercourse. The greater number 
 of them were third-rate shop-keepers, who, after struggling for years 
 against debts, rents, and taxes, had finally succumbed to the sheriff- 
 orficer, and been drifted to a safe anchorage, which they did not seem
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF TOLBOOTH. 579 
 
 to think particularly unpleasant. The law had done its worst upon 
 them, and for a time they were at rest. 
 
 The chief of these prisons, the Old Tolbooth, was a tall, black 
 building in the High street, noted in the national annals : That Tol- 
 booth on the lofty pinnacle of which was ignominiously stuck the 
 head of the gallant Marquis of Montrose, in 1650, and whence, after 
 bleaching for ten years, it was taken down and replaced by the head 
 of the Marquis of Argyll ; that Tolbooth which Byron has referred 
 to with unjustifiable bitterness in his " English Bards and Scotch Re- 
 viewers," 
 
 " Arthur's steep summit nodded to its base, 
 
 The surly Tolbooth scarcely kept her place. 
 
 The Tolbooth felt for marble sometimes can, 
 
 On such occasions, full as much as man, 
 
 The Tolbooth felt defrauded of her charms, 
 
 If Jeffrey died except within her arms." 
 
 After undergoing various mutations, this gloomy structure now 
 served the double purpose of a jail for debtors and criminals. The 
 two departments were quite distinct, the apartments for criminals 
 being in the east end, and those for debtors being in the west. But 
 all entered by the same door, that portal where the rioters of the 
 Porteous Mob thundered in 1736. This doorway, situated at the 
 foot of the south-eastern turret, was opened by a turnkey who was 
 seated outside, or in a small adjoining vault on the ground-floor of 
 the building. Level with it, facing the north, and occupying the re- 
 mainder of the street-floor, was the office of the Town-guard, who 
 were ready at hand in case of any emergency. Having gained an 
 access by the outer portal of the Tolbooth, you ascended a flight of 
 about twenty steps to an inner door, which was opened on the ring- 
 ing of a bell by the outer turnkey. You were now in the Hall, a 
 spacious apartment, with a sanded stone floor, and seats along the 
 sides. It was well lighted by a large stanchioned window facing the 
 south. Fixed on the wall nearly opposite the doorway, there was a 
 black-board, on which was painted the following admonitory inscrip- 
 tion, that is said to have been originally and specially designed for 
 the King's Bench Prison: 
 
 " A prison is a house of care, 
 
 A place where none can thrive; 
 A touchstone true to try a friend, 
 
 A grave for men alive: 
 Sometimes a house of right, 
 
 Sometimes a house of wrong, 
 Sometimes a place for jades and thieves, 
 
 And honest men among." 
 
 The hall was a common vestibule, whence an entrance was gained 
 to the two departments. While the criminals were confined to their 
 rooms in the East End, the prisoners under civil process, who were
 
 580 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 lodged in the West End, moved about at pleasure during the day 
 from the hall to the several apartments on two upper stories ; and 
 accordingly, for them there was almost the freedom of a lodging- 
 house. The place of public execution was the flat roof of a low 
 building attached to the western gable, and, to reach it, convicts 
 were conducted across the hall. 
 
 My knowledge of this strange old jail needs a word of explana- 
 tion. Among the debtors whom I visited in the way of business, 
 there was one, a young man, who had been previously known to our 
 family. Having failed in business under circumstances which led to 
 an unusually long imprisonment, I frequently saw him, and was able 
 to learn numerous particulars concerning the West-Enders and their 
 ways of living, which would otherwise have been beyond my reach. 
 As the Tolbooth was removed in 1817, it was my fortune to be its 
 visitor during the last three years of its existence, and to become 
 familiarized with a condition of things of which there is now no parallel. 
 My experiences of Tolbooth life were in the days of free-and-easy 
 prison arrangements. As yet, neither county prison- boards nor prison 
 inspectors had been heard of. The magistrates and council under- 
 took the responsibility of cost and management, also appointed the 
 officials, the chief of whom, honored with the designation of captain, 
 was ordinarily some old citizen who stood well with the corporation. 
 There was a simplicity about the whole system which is now difficult 
 to be realized by any description. So far as the debtors were con- 
 cerned, the prison was little else than a union of lodging-house and 
 tavern, under lock and key. Acquaintances might call as often and 
 stay as long as they pleased. The inmates and their visitors, if they 
 felt inclined, could treat themselves to refreshments in a cozy little 
 apartment, half-tavern, half-kitchen, superintended by a portly female, 
 styled Lucky Laing, whence issued pretty frequently the pleasant 
 sounds of broiling beefsteaks, and the drawings of corks from bottles 
 of ale and porter. 
 
 Much of the cordiality that prevailed was due to the governor, 
 Captain Sibbald, a benevolently disposed little man, with a merry 
 twinkle in his eyes, dressed in a sober pepper-and-salt colored suit. 
 1 heard no end of his acts of kindness to debtors as well as crim- 
 inals, or of putting poor youths in the way of well-doing who had 
 passed through his hands. Although his salary was no more than a 
 hundred and fifty pounds a year, he was known to take on himself 
 the obligation of guaranteeing the payment of a debt, rather than 
 retain in custody a poor man with a large family, brought to him for 
 imprisonment. In the East End, he had almost constantly a male 
 or female convict under sentence of death ; and though not able to 
 mitigate their unhappy doom, he always endeavored to assuage their 
 present sufferings. Until his time, they had been literally fed on 
 bread and water, during the six weeks that elapsed between sentence 
 and execution. He generously broke through this harsh rule, not a
 
 STORIES OF TOLBOOTH INMATES. 581 
 
 little to the dissatisfaction of the Lord Advocate of the day ; but in 
 the contest his humanity prevailed, and the rule was ever after prac- 
 tically relaxed. I heard it approvingly said of him, that at his own 
 expense he procured a dentist to draw a tooth which so tortured a 
 convict that he could not sleep; it was further reported that he 
 always saw that the men were comfortably shaved on the morning of 
 the day they were to be hanged, and that he uniformly pressed a glass 
 of wine on the women on their being conducted through the hall 
 to execution. Such was the gossip of the prison. 
 
 One of the strange things told of the Tolbooth is, that on various 
 occasions it gave a secure retreat to persons who fled from justice. 
 A gentleman alleged to have been concerned in the Rye-House Plot, 
 in the reign of Charles II, and of whom the civil authorities were in 
 search, received protection from a friend in the Tolbooth, where no 
 one thought of looking for him ; and whence he eventually escaped 
 to the continent. In 1 746, there was a similar case of protection to 
 a gentleman who was sought after ineffectually, for his concern in 
 the Rebellion. 
 
 I can realize the truth of these traditions, by having found a volun- 
 tary resident in the Tolbooth, who was not recognized as a prisoner, 
 or as being there at all. This was a gifted but erratic genius, known 
 by his familiar Christian name, Davie, who, after suffering a variety 
 of disasters, received sympathy and succor among his friends in the 
 West End. Of course, for this indulgence, he was indebted to the 
 good-hearted governor, who, like his predecessors, did not find it to 
 be consistent with his duty to be too particular. In making his last 
 round at night, and ascending the spiral staircase, which was pro- 
 vided with a rope that performed the part of a hand-rail, he would 
 considerately, as if by accident, jingle the bunch of well-worn keys, 
 by way of announcing his approach. In casting a look around the 
 apartment to see that all strangers were gone, and saying, " Good- 
 night, gentlemen," he might have known, had he cared to know, 
 that one of the inmates shared his bed with Davie, who was at that 
 very moment thanks to the jingle of the keys ensconced upright 
 in a tight-fitting wall-press at the corner of the apartment. 
 
 I had often occasion to meet and interchange courtesies with Davie, 
 who was an essential adjunct of the prison fraternity. Having lost 
 means, character, and friends, in the outer world, he was duly quali- 
 fied by his obliging manners, his accomplishments, and his poverty, 
 to be an acceptable guest of the West-Enders. The Tolbooth was 
 his home by choice. He lived in it for years, seeing out successive 
 groups of debtors, but always as much esteemed by the new-comers 
 as by the older residents. How they could have done without him, 
 it is painful to consider. He was a general factotum, went out anil 
 made purchases for them, carried messages to law-agents, posted let- 
 ters, and, on great occasions, ordered in dinners from Mrs. Ferguson's, 
 a noted tavern in the neighborhood. His jocularities, his singing, and
 
 582 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 his ability to take a hand at whist, were of course recommendations of a 
 high order. There were other reasons for thinking well of Davie. He 
 was modest as regards his own wants. Debtors of the better class, on 
 quitting the prison, would make him a present of a few articles of 
 dress, and perhaps kindly leave half-a-crown in one of the pockets. 
 Davie could not be said to have any regular meals. He lived princi- 
 pally on odd crusts of bread, pieces of biscuits, drams, and drops of 
 ale or porter. Talking of drams, it was against rule to introduce 
 spirits into the prison, but, through the agency of Davie, there never 
 was any particular scarcity of the article. As a scout serviceable in 
 this as in other things, he stood well with Peter, the keeper of the 
 door in the hall, rather a good-humored Cerberus. Peter was blind 
 of an eye, which some might think an advantage; he wore a woolen 
 cap on his bald head, and always walked softly about the sanded 
 stone floor in carpet-shoes. 
 
 The West End was two rooms in breadth, one entering from the 
 other. The windows in these apartments looked only south and north, 
 but the inmates had a device for extending the prospect in other 
 directions. They had only to hold out a mirror beyond the stanch- 
 ions to catch a glimpse of who was at the portal near the north-west 
 corner of St. Giles, or of what was going on in the street. By means 
 of this kind, they were able to see the remnant of the 42d regiment 
 as it marched towards the castle on its return from Waterloo. The 
 method of looking directly westward up the Lawnmarket was still 
 more ingenious. In the gable of the building there was a hole or slit 
 into which the beam of the gallows was inserted for public executions. 
 So intruded, the beam projected about two feet into one of the 
 debtors' apartments, where it made its appearance near the foot of 
 the bed in which Davie participated. I remember paying a visit to 
 the prison on the day after an execution, while it was still a subject 
 of conversation. Confined to their rooms during the tragical cere- 
 mony, one of the debtors, along with Davie, I was told, had jocularly 
 seated themselves on the inner end of the beam at the time the 
 miserable culprit was in the course of being suspended from the other. 
 The hole in the gable was already closed, but as executions, accord- 
 ing to the heartless policy of the period, were then frequent, the 
 building was performed in a superficial way. In the center of the 
 masonry, a cork was introduced by particular request, and this being 
 pulled out at pleasure, a view was obtained in the required direction, 
 a convenience this of no small consequence to the West-Enders, 
 which the obliging governor of the establishment did not notice or 
 call in question. 
 
 Besides Davie, who became a naturalized inhabitant of the Tol- 
 booth, there were other hangers-on in whose society the inmates 
 found a degree of solace. For the greater part, the debtors were at- 
 tempting to carry through the legal process of liberation known as 
 the cessio, and accordingly required the assistance of law-practitioners.
 
 TOLBOOTH ATTORNEYS AND PHYSICIANS. 583 
 
 Professional aid in these and other matters was usually rendered by 
 a class of persons who it would be hazardous to say were on the roll 
 of authorized attorneys. A kind of supernumeraries in the profession, 
 and with a knowledge of forms, they hung about the prisons for jobs; 
 modestly, as it were, keeping on the outskirts of society, in order to 
 gather up the defiled crumbs which the notabilities of the law dis- 
 dained to recognize. For the services which they rendered to the 
 poorer order of clients, it is not clear that payment was made in coin. 
 Seemingly, they had the run of the prison. When half-a-mutchkin 
 was smuggled in through Davie's valuable assistance, they came in 
 for a tasting, and at various hours of the day, not being particular as 
 to time of luncheon, they held deeply interesting conferences in 
 Lucky Laing's tavern over smoking dishes of steaks and creaming 
 tumblers of porter. Talking plentifully between mouthfuls, and 
 winking knowingly with one eye, they held out such sanguine hopes 
 of getting things carried through cheaply no expense to speak of but 
 the office fees as could not fail to raise the drooping spirits of the 
 poor wives who came to hold council with their imprisoned husbands. 
 
 The law agents of this stamp who frequented the West End had 
 for coadjutor a medical practitioner, not less necessary than them- 
 selves in carrying on operations. I am not aware that in the present 
 day the doctor who haunted the Tolbooth has any distinct representa- 
 tive. He had at one time occupied a respectable position as a med- 
 ical practitioner, but now, broken down by intemperance, he confined 
 his professional services to the inmates of the West End, to whom 
 he made himself presentable by blacking the white edges of his but- 
 ton-molds with ink, and keeping a band of faded crape on his hat, 
 as if always in deep mourning. It was fortunate for the doctor that 
 the law had considerately instituted the cessio. He lived upon it. 
 Without it there was no visible refuge but the work-house. His func- 
 tion consisted in granting sick certificates ; fee, five shillings, with a 
 dram, as a matter of course, and a biscuit to give the refection an air 
 of respectability. In virtue of a certificate of this nature, fortified 
 by a warrant from the court, the ailing debtor was allowed to go 
 home to his sorrowing family, and his prescribed thirty days' impris- 
 onment became a sort of legal fiction. At all events, the law was 
 satisfied, which was what the West-Enders alone cared for. I lost 
 sight of the doctor after the Tolbooth was pulled down in 1817. He 
 then disappeared from the visible creation, as a result of one of the 
 many statutory enactments that have latterly rubbed out our social 
 eccentricities. 
 
 As an old eddy corner of the world's tumultuous current, into 
 which light floating wreck was naturally swept, the Old Tolbooth, 
 with its scenes of grief and drollery, might not be supposed to be 
 quite an appropriate resort for a lad who had to make his way in the 
 sober track of life. All I can summon to remembrance in the mat- 
 ter is, that I here incidentally saw down into the depths of society,
 
 584 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 to which the affluent classes have little opportunity of penetrating. 
 M^ experiences among the shifty sub-middle classes, here as else- 
 where, proved by no means the least valuable part of my training for 
 the career into which I was ultimately drifted. Nor has the recollec- 
 tion of the Old Tol booth and its inmates ever ceased to afford a fund 
 of entertainment. In the Memoirs of a celebrated duchess, we are 
 favored with the contrast which Her Grace draws between her pres- 
 ent grand dull routine of existence, and the times long past, when, 
 skirmishing with pecuniary difficulties, she pursued the life of an act- 
 ress her preference being decidedly given for "lang syne," with 
 its sparkling wit, glee, and poverty, unburdened with the vapid so- 
 lemnities of etiquette. The duchess, however, had no wish to return 
 to these delightful early pursuits. 
 
 I made such attempts as were at all practicable, while an appren- 
 tice, to remedy the defects of my education at school. Nothing in 
 that way could be done in the shop, for there reading was proscribed. 
 But allowed to take home a book for study, I gladly availed myself 
 of the privilege. The mornings in summer, when light cost nothing, 
 were my chief reliance. Fatigued with trudging about, I was not natur- 
 ally inclined to rise, but on this and some other points I overruled the 
 will, and forced myself to get up at five o'clock, and have a spell at 
 reading until it was time to think of moving off; my brother, when 
 he was with me, doing the same. In this way I made some progress 
 in French, with the pronunciation of which I was already familiar 
 from the speech of the French prisoners of war at Peebles. I like- 
 wise dipped into several books of solid worth, such as Smith's 
 "Wealth of Nations," Locke's "Human Understanding," Paley's 
 "Moral Philosophy," and Blair's " Belles-Lettres," fixing the lead- 
 ing facts and theories in my memory by a note-book for the purpose. 
 In another book, I kept for years an accurate account of my ex- 
 penses, not allowing a single half-penny to escape record. 
 
 In the winter of 1815-16, when the cold and cost of candle-light 
 would have detained me in bed, I was so fortunate as to discover an 
 agreeable means of spending my mornings. The sale of lottery tick- 
 ets, I have said, formed a branch of my employer's business. Besides 
 distributing the lottery circulars, it fell to my lot to paste all the 
 large show-boards with posters of glaring colors, bearing the words 
 "Lucky Office," "Twenty Thousand Pounds still in the Wheel," 
 and such-like seductive announcements. The board-carriers shilling- 
 a-day men were usually a broken-down set of characters; as, for 
 example, old waiters and footmen, with pale, flabby faces and purple 
 noses ; discharged soldiers, who had returned in a shattered condi- 
 tion from the wars ; and tattered operatives of middle age, ruined 
 by dram-drinking. 
 
 Among the last-named class of board -carriers, there was a journey- 
 man baker who had an eye irretrievably damaged by some rough, but 
 possibly not unprovoked, usage in a king's birthday riot. What from
 
 A SHIFT FOR HOT ROLLS. 585 
 
 the bad eye, and what from whisky, this unfortunate being had fallen 
 out of regular employment. Now and then when there was a push 
 in the trade, as at the New Year, he got a day's work from his old 
 employer, a baker in Canal street. He was not at all nice as to oc- 
 cupation : he would deliver handbills, perambulate the 1 streets with a 
 lottery-board at -the top of a pole over his shoulder, or any thing else 
 that cast up, only he needed a little watching, for, when out on a 
 job with the relics of the previous day's shilling in his pocket, he 
 was prone to thirstiness in passing a dram-shop, into which he would 
 dive, board and all, regardless of consequences. 
 
 From this hopeful personage, whom it was my duty to look after, 
 T one day had a proposition, which he had been charged to com- 
 municate. If I pleased, he would introduce me to his occasional em- 
 ployer, the baker in Canal street, who, he said, was passionately fond 
 of reading, but without leisure for its gratification. If I would go 
 early, very early, say five o'clock in the morning, and read aloud to 
 him and his two sons, while they were preparing their batch, I should 
 be regularly rewarded for my trouble with a penny roll newly drawn 
 from the oven. Hot rolls, as I have since learned, are not to be 
 recommended for the stomach, but I could not in these times afford 
 to be punctilious. The proposal was too captivating to be resisted. 
 
 Behold me, then, quitting my lodgings in the West Port, before five 
 o'clock in the winter mornings, and pursuing my way across the town 
 to the cluster of sunk streets below the North Bridge, of which Canal 
 street was the principal. The scene of operations was a cellar of 
 confined dimensions, reached by a flight of steps descending from 
 the street, and possessing a small back window immediately beyond 
 the 'baker's kneading boardl Seated on a folded-up sack in the sole 
 of the window, with a book in one hand and a penny candle stuck 
 in a bottle near the other, I went to work for the amusement of the 
 company. The baker was not particular as to subject. All he stipu- 
 lated for was something droll and laughable. Aware of his tastes, I 
 tried him first with the jocularities of "Roderick Random," which 
 was a great success, and produced shouts of laughter. I followed this 
 up with other works of Smollet, also with the novels of Fielding, and 
 with " Gil Bias; " the tricks and grotesque rogueries in this last-men- 
 tioned work of fiction giving the baker and his two sons unqualified 
 satisfaction. My services as a reader for two and a half hours every 
 morning were unfailingly recompensed by a donation of the antici- 
 pated roll, with which, after getting myself brushed of the flour, I 
 went on my way to shop-opening, lamp-cleaning, and all the rest of 
 it, at Calton street. It would be vain in the present day to try to 
 discover the baker's workshop, where these morning performances 
 took place, for the whole of the buildings in this quarter have been 
 removed to make way for the North British Railway station. 
 
 Such, with minor variations, was my mode of life for several years 
 an almost ceaseless drudgery. At that period there were no public
 
 586 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 institutions of a popular kind to stimulate and regulate plans of self- 
 culture. The School of Arts, the precursor of mechanics' institutions, 
 was not set on foot until 1821. Young persons in humble circum- 
 stances were still left to grope their way. They might spend their 
 spare hours in study, if they had a mtfid; nobody cared any thing at 
 all about it. Neither were young men, by the usages of business, 
 allowed any time to carry out fancies as to mental improvement. 
 Shop-hours extended from half-past seven o'clock in the morning till 
 nine at night, with no abatement on Saturdays. Notions of mere 
 amusement I did not dare to entertain. The Theater Royal had its 
 attractions, but expense, if nothing else, stood in the way. I had as 
 yet been only once in the theater. A friend of our family had 
 treated me to the shilling-gallery, shortly after coming to Edinburgh ; 
 it was to see John Kemble, who played Rollo, a subject of absorb- 
 ing interest, and not for a number of years afterwards could I ven- 
 ture on any species of theatrical indulgence. In gracefully submit- 
 ting to this self-denial perhaps I had no great merit. So far as spare 
 time was concerned, my mind had become occupied not only in 
 the morning readings and study, but in sundry scientific experiments, 
 to which I was led by James King, who was an apprentice to a seeds- 
 man next door. 
 
 King was two or three years my senior, and I looked up to him 
 on that account as well as for his general ability. He came from 
 Fife, which is noted for the saliency and genius of its people. Our 
 proximity to each other, and similarity of tastes, brought us into ac- 
 quaintance. He had a younger brother, George, an apprentice to 
 Mr. Crombie, a well-known dyer, with whom I also became acquainted ; 
 and when my brother Robert came to town to lodge with me, he was 
 introduced to the circle. We formed, so to speak, a club of four 
 lads, devoted to some species of scientific inquiry and recreation. 
 The Kings were great upon chemistry. Their talk was of retorts, 
 alkalies, acids, combustion, and oxygen gas, all which gave me a fa- 
 vorable opinion of their learning. They likewise spoke so familiarly 
 of electricity, Leyden jars, and the galvanic pile, as to excite in me 
 a desire to know something of these marvels. Chemistry and elec- 
 tricity became accordingly the subject of discussion and experiment; 
 but the difficulty was to know where experiments could be conducted. 
 My lodgings were out of the question. So were those of the Kings. 
 They lived in a garret, situated immediately behind the well on the 
 south side of the Grassmarket, which it was inexpedient to constitute 
 a hall of science, and the notion of resorting to it was given up. 
 In this dilemma, a friendly and every way suitable retreat, which re- 
 mains vividly in my recollections, presented itself, and was gratefully 
 accepted. 
 
 As you go up a narrow and steep road to the Gallon Hill, at the 
 foot of Leith street, a covered passage descends and strikes off to the 
 left, and conducts you to a confined court, wherein stood, and, per-
 
 JAMIE THE GRAVE-DIGGER. 587 
 
 haps, still stands, a small cottage with a tiled roof, that had to all 
 appearance existed long before the streets with which it was envir- 
 oned. The back window in Gallon street, where I used to clean the 
 lamps, looked into the court, and I could notice that the little old- 
 fashioned cottage was occupied by a thin and aged personage with a 
 bright brown scratch wig, who, in fine weather, made his appearance on 
 the pavement as a common street porter. The name by which he was 
 known in the neighborhood was Jamie Alexander. As voucher for 
 his respectability, he wore on the left breast of his coat a pewter 
 badge, marked No. 3, indicative of the early period at which he had 
 been enrolled by the magistrates in the fraternity of porters; and of 
 this antiquity of his emblem of office he felt naturally proud; all 
 other porters, however old, being boys in comparison, and not pos- 
 sessing that distinction of rank which he did. 
 
 Jamie was a Highlander by birth, and in his youth, long ago, had 
 been a servant to a Mr. Tytler, a gentleman of literary and scientific 
 attainments, with whom he had traveled and seen the world, and in 
 whose company he had picked up a smattering of learned ideas and 
 words. With this grounding, and naturally handy, Jamie was a kind 
 of Jack-of-all trades. It was in his capacity of porter that King and 
 I had become acquainted with him, but at his advanced age he relied 
 more distinctly on less toilsome pursuits. The versatility of his talents 
 rendered him peculiarly acceptable as an acquaintance, and his house 
 was well adapted for our meetings. This ancient mansion consisted 
 of only a single apartment; it was kitchen, parlor, bedroom, and 
 workshop all in one, a queer and incongruous jumble, like the mind 
 of the occupant. 
 
 Usually, at night, we found Jamie seated at one side of his fire, 
 and his wife Janet, a more commonplace character, at the other. Be- 
 hind the old man was his work-bench, loaded with a variety of tools 
 and odds and ends adapted to a leading branch of employment, 
 which consisted in clasping broken china and crystal for the stone- 
 ware shops. This operation he performed with a neatness that sur- 
 prised most persons, who knew that he had lost the sight of one of 
 his eyes. It did not seem to be generally understood that Jamie had 
 a contrivance satisfactory to himself for remedying this ocular defi- 
 ciency. In his old pair of spectacles he fixed two glasses for the 
 seeing eye, and he maintained that by this arrangement of a double 
 lens, his single eye was as good to him as two, a point we did not 
 think fit to contest. 
 
 To vary the routine of employment, and at the same time enjoy a 
 little out-door recreation, Jamie at times took a job from the under- 
 takers. Dressed in a thread-bare black suit, he walked as a saulic 
 before the higher class of funerals, with his hat under his arm, and 
 the black velvet cap of a running footman covering his brown wi^. 
 In connection with his profession of sou/if, he related numerous tra- 
 ditionary anecdotes illustrative of the festivities of deceased saulie
 
 588 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 and gumflermen in the servant's hall of great houses* while waiting in 
 lugubrious habiliments to head the funeral solemnity, -his stories re- 
 minding one- of the interspersal of scenes of drollery throughout the 
 tragedies of Shakespeare, and, I doubt not, true to nature. Besides 
 these diverting reminiscences of grand funerals, he gave 'his experi- 
 ences of grave-digging in the Calton bury ing-ground, where he often 
 assisted. He confidently stated that the digging of graves was a 
 wonderfully exhilarating and healthful occupation, if executed with 
 proper skill and leisure. Nothing, in his opinion, was so efficacious 
 in assuaging a rheumatism in the back, or securing long life; and to 
 hear him on this subject, you would have thought it would be a good 
 thing in the way of health and amusement to take to regular exer- 
 cise in grave-digging. It appeared that independently of payment 
 for this kind of labor according to tariff, Jamie seldom left the 
 ground without a few bits of old coffin in good condition, which had 
 been thrown to the surface in the course of excavation. Such pieces 
 of wood, improved by seasoning in the earth, he said, excelled for 
 some purposes of art. From them he made a common kind of fid- 
 dles, and also cheap wooden clocks. 
 
 With much oddity of character, there was a fine spirit of industry, 
 cheerfulness, and contentment in the old man. As a Highlander, 
 he spoke Gaelic, and from him I learned to be tolerably proficient 
 in pronouncing that test in the language, laogh, the word for calf. 
 With a love of the ancient music of the hills, he played the bagpipe, 
 but this instrument, from deficiency of breath, he had latterly laid 
 aside, and taken to the Irish pipes, which are played by means of 
 bellows under the arm. His pipes lay conveniently on a shelf over 
 his work-bench, and taking them down, he, at our request, would 
 favor us with a pibroch. Having finished the tune, he ordinarily 
 delivered some oracular remarks on pipe-music in general, and of the 
 operatic character of the pibroch in particular, the only time, by the 
 way, I ever heard the thing explained. 
 
 Janet, the mistress of the mansion, did not greatly encourage our 
 visits. Her chief concern in life seemed to consist in nursing a small 
 and ingeniously made-up fire, which was apt to be seriously deranged 
 by King's chemical experiments, such as the production of coal-gas 
 in a blacking-bottle, used by way of retort, the proposal of lighting 
 the city with gas having suggested this novel experiment. For a 
 special reason, this old woman was not more favorable to electric 
 science. Under King's advice and directions, my brother and I con- 
 trived, out of very poor resources, to procure a cylindrical electrify- 
 ing machine, with some apparatus to correspond. Having one night 
 given Janet an electric shock, slyly conveyed to her through a piece 
 
 * Mutes bearing tall poles shrouded in black drapery are called in Scotland 
 gumfler men ; such being a corruption of gonfalonier, the bearer of a gonfalon, or 
 standard, in old ceremonial procession.
 
 THEIR SUNDAYS AT HOME. 589 
 
 of damp tobacco, she ever after viewed the machine with the darkest 
 suspicions. In these apprehensions her gray cat had some reason to 
 join ; when the Leyden jars were placed on the table, she fled to the 
 roof of the bed, and there kept eying us during our mysterious incan- 
 tations. 
 
 Sunday, with its blessed exemption from a dull round of duties, 
 came weekly with its soothing influences ; and this leads to a little 
 explanation. If any one is so complimentary as to think that I had 
 some merit in devising how to live on so low a figure as a shilling 
 and ninepence a week, he may be disposed to modify his surprise on 
 my stating that the expenditure did not include Sunday, so that, 
 after all, the one-and-ninepence weekly inferred as much as three- 
 pence-halfpenny a day. For several years, I walked home to the 
 country every Saturday night. Between nine and ten o'clock, in all 
 states of the weather, summer and winter, I might have been found 
 making the best of my way down the North Back of the Canongate, 
 past Holy rood, across the King's Park by Muschet's Cairn, and so on 
 through Portobello. It was necessary not to loiter by the way, for, 
 with a somewhat limited wardrobe, a few things which I carried with 
 me had to be washed and otherwise prepared before midnight. In 
 these night-travels my brother Robert, while he remained in town, 
 accompanied me. 
 
 The Sundays spent on the shore of the Firth of Forth formed a re- 
 freshing change on the ordinary course of life. The salt-pans had 
 ceased to send up their nauseous vapors and clouds of smoke. A 
 pleasant and not uninstructive calm was experienced amidst the shell 
 and tangle covered rocks, against which the pellucid waves of the 
 sea dashed in unremitting murmurs. Usually, I went to Inveresk 
 Church with other members of the family, and so became acquainted 
 with Musselburg and its environs. Sometimes I walked by a footpath 
 across the fields by Brunstain and Millerhill to Dalkeith, to visit my 
 grandmother, Mrs. Noble, and her younger son David, who had re- 
 cently been settled there (Robert, the elder son, having gone to Nova 
 Scotia), and enjoyed the variety of accompanying them to the antique 
 parish church of that pretty country town. 
 
 There was an immense charm in these occasional Sabbath-day 
 walks to Dalkeith, in which I usually carried a French New Testament 
 in my pocket for lingual exercise. The sunshine, the calm that pre- 
 vailed, the fresh air, the singing of birds, the green leafy trees, and 
 the blossoming wild-flowers by the wayside, all filled my heart with 
 gladness, for they renewed my recollections of the country. The 
 fields, stuck about with coal-pits, at which the gin-horses had inter- 
 mitted their accustomed toil, were not such pretty fields as I had 
 seen on Tweedside ; still they were environed with hedgerows, and 
 formed a pleasing contrast to the huge rows of dingy buildings among 
 which I pursued my ordinary employment. As a boy, 1 had passion- 
 ately cultivated flowers in a little garden assigned to me, and now
 
 5QO ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 rejoiced to see a few growing by the side of the pathway. The Mid- 
 Lothian primroses, I imagined considering the neighborhood of the 
 coal-pits had not the freshness and bloom of the primroses which 
 I had gathered in the woods and dells at Neidpath ; but still they 
 were primroses, and, as the best within reach, I plucked and carried 
 home a handful as a gift to my mother in her dreary residence at the 
 Pans, and was pleased to see her put them in a glass with a little 
 water, to preserve as a souvenir of my weekly visit. 
 
 The small smoked-dried community at these salt-pans was socially 
 interesting. Along with the colliers in the neighboring tiled hamlets, 
 the salt-makers at least the elderly among them had at one time 
 been serfs, and in that condition they had been legally sold along 
 with the property on which they dwelt. I conversed with some of 
 them on the subject. They and their children had been heritable 
 fixtures to the spot. They could neither leave at will nor change 
 their profession. In short, they were in a sense slaves. I feel it to 
 be curious that I should have seen and spoken to persons in this coun- 
 try who remembered being legally in a state of serfdom ; and such 
 they were until the year 1799, when an act of parliament abolished 
 this last remnant of slavery in the British Islands. Appreciating the 
 event, they set aside one day in the year as a festival commemorative 
 of their liberation. Perhaps the custom of celebrating the day still 
 exists. 
 
 After these Sunday communings with the family, I was on Monday 
 morning off again for Edinburgh to have a fresh tug at the shop- 
 shutters, carrying away with me, I need hardly say, all kinds of ad- 
 monitory hints from my mother, the burden of her recommendations 
 being to avoid low companions, to mind whom I was come of, and 
 " aye to haud forrit." What was to become of me was, as she said, 
 a perfect mystery ; still there was nothing like securing a good char- 
 acter in the mean while that was clear, at all events. 
 
 My mother, however, had more cause for uneasiness on her own 
 than my account. The aspect of family affairs was acquiring addi- 
 tional gloom. My father was not the man for the situation he filled. 
 In fact he detested situations of all kinds. His rough and irritable 
 spirit of independence gave him a dislike to be ordered by any body. 
 His feelings at this period were in a morbid condition, the result of 
 circumstances already adverted to, and therefore not to be judged 
 severely. Having unfortunately failed in the means of acting an in- 
 dependent part, he was perhaps on that account the more anxious 
 that his sons should be successful in making the attempt. At any 
 rate, he endeavored to impress on me the vast necessity and advan- 
 tage of, in all things, thinking for myself, and taking, as far as pos- 
 sible, an independent course. He objected to my ever entertaining 
 the notion of continuing to serve any one after my apprenticeship 
 had expired. No amount of salary was to tempt me ; no prospect of 
 ease to seduce me. I should strike out for myself, if it were only to
 
 GOOD PHILOSOPHY WHAT SMIBERT DID. 591 
 
 sell books in a basket from door to door. There might be suffering 
 and humiliation in the mean time; but I would be daily gaining ex- 
 perience, and, with prudence, accumulating means. If I behaved 
 myself properly, a few years would set all to rights. 
 
 These disquisitions amused and probably had some effect in inspir- 
 ing me. My father had strong convictions as to the propriety of al- 
 lowing children to think and struggle for themselves; such, in his 
 opinion, being true kindness, and any thing else little better than 
 cruelty. Seated in his arm-chair at the Pans, with two or three of 
 us about him, he would discourse in this pleasant way, interlarding 
 anecdote with philosophy. 
 
 "You think it a hard business, I dare say," addressing me, "to 
 live in your present pinching way, scheming as to buying meal and 
 milk, and all that; but it is doing you an immense deal of good. It 
 is strengthening your mind, and teaching you the art of thinking, 
 that is the great point. You should be thankful for my not doing 
 any thing for you. Perhaps you would like to have every thing held 
 up to you lodgings, tailors' bills, boots, and what not, all paid for 
 the asking. What would be the upshot? You would never know 
 the value of money. You would grow up as ignorant and dependent 
 as a child, and never be able to take a front rank in the world. It 
 is melancholy to see so many fathers spoiling their children from 
 mistaken notions of kindness. Young men treated in that foolish 
 way can do nothing for themselves, but must have somebody always 
 behind them to shove them into situations, where their minds lose all 
 power of thinking and planning correctly. No doubt they can plan 
 what they would like to have for dinner ; few folk are ill at that, or 
 about going to the theater, or what should be the color of their 
 gloves. But that is not what I mean. What I am speaking of is the 
 faculty of thinking and acting for yourself in all kinds of unexpected 
 difficulty. I could tell you plenty of stories about inability to think 
 or act independently. You remember the excise officer at- Peebles, 
 who for a number of years looked after Kerfield Brewery, a most ex- 
 cellent person, but not qualified to think for himself. His mind had 
 been stunted for want of exercise. Stirred up by his wife, an ambi- 
 tious little woman, with whom he had received some money, he in- 
 considerately threw up his situation, and purchased the effects of a 
 deceased brewer at Galashiels, his object being to go into business for 
 himself. When he came to look into matters, he was utterly at a loss. 
 It was all simple enough, but the man had no power of planning. 
 Besides putting things in repair, he had to buy grain and hops, order 
 new barrels, purchase horses, and hire servants. For one thing, he 
 had to open and read a hundred and thirty-nine letters applying for 
 the situation of clerk. All this, along with other perplexities, drove 
 him clean wild. He felt that he had got into an affair he could not 
 go through with, and then, when he reflected upon the loss of his 
 comfortable situation, and still worse the loss of his money, he be-
 
 592 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 came seriously ill, and took to his bed. In these circumstances, his 
 wife, greatly at a loss what to do, sent for our old friend Smibert, 
 who was once Provost of Peebles, a man of extraordinary shrewdness. 
 From his cleverness, we used to call him Talleyrand. When the poor 
 sick man saw the old Provost make his appearance, he felt a won- 
 derful degree of relief. The wife, sitting by the side of the bed, ex- 
 plained the scrape they had got into, and asked what should be done. 
 
 "' Done," answered their visitor, leaning on his crooked-headed 
 stick to save his lame leg; 'what's to be done but to sell off the 
 .whole concern, and try to get reinstated in the Excise?' 
 
 " ' Very good,' said the wife; ' but how is the sale to be effected ? 
 it's easy speaking.' 
 
 "'Leave it all to me,' replied Smibert, briskly; 'I know how to 
 manage: I'll advertise and take in offers.' 
 
 " The words had not been well spoken, when the sick man de- 
 clared he found himself getting well, and that they might take the 
 blister from the back of his neck. In a day or two he was quite re- 
 covered. Talleyrand arranged matters beautifully. He sold off the 
 concern, though at a sacrifice to the owner, who after some trouble, 
 got himself reinstated in the Excise; but he had to begin over again, 
 and lost ten years on the books by his ridiculous attempt at inde- 
 pendent exertion." 
 
 Such was the run of my father's disquisitions. Unfortunately, his 
 extreme views of independence did not comport with his functions as 
 manager of the salt-works, where he suffered a species of ignomini- 
 ous banishment. Among the near neighbors were a few excise offi- 
 cers set to watch over the works and give permits to purchasers. One 
 of these officials was a Mr. Stobie, in whom there was a degree of 
 interest; for, while in the position of an expectant of Excise, he had 
 done duty for Robert Burns in his last illness, April, 1796, when, as 
 the poet says in a letter to Thomson: " Ever since I wrote you last, 
 1 have only known existence by the pressure of the heavy hand of sick- 
 ness, and have counted time by the repercussions of pain." It re- 
 dounded to the honor of Stobie that he acted gratuitously for Burns 
 at this melancholy crisis, and it was pleasing for our family to make 
 his acquaintance, and hear some particulars of the greatest among 
 Scottish poets. 
 
 Beyond such acquaintanceships, there was little to compensate for 
 the smoke, dirt, and misery that were endured at the Pans. The 
 business in itself violated all my fathers notions of propriety. It 
 consisted almost wholly in supplying material for a contraband trade 
 across the Border to England, the high duties on salt in the latter 
 country rendering this a profitable traffic. Purchased in large quan- 
 tities at Joppa and other salt-works, the bags were transferred in carts 
 to Newcastleton in Liddesdale, where the article was stored by a 
 dealer, and sold by him to be smuggled across the fells during the 
 night. For years this was a great trade. Perhaps it did not pertain
 
 A FRESH DOMESTIC TROUBLE. 593 
 
 to the Scotch salt-makers to urge the extinction of so flourishing a 
 traffic, but neither could any one of susceptible feelings look on it 
 with perfect complacency. 
 
 Whatever were the precise causes' of discord, a disruption was 
 precipitated by my father having the misfortune to be waylaid and 
 robbed of some money which he had collected in the way of business 
 in Edinburgh. Knocked down and grievously bruised about the 
 head, he was found late at night lying helpless on the road, and 
 brought home by some good Samaritan. The painful circumstances 
 connected with this untoward affair led to his being discharged from 
 his office. In his now hapless state, greatly disabled by the ^injuries 
 which he had received, and without means, the consideration of 
 every thing fell on my mother. Her mind rose to the occasion. 
 Removing from the sooty precinct to one of a row of houses near 
 Magdalene Bridge, on the road to Musselburgh, she prepared to set 
 on foot a small business, and was not without hope of meeting with 
 general sympathy and support, for by her agreeable manners and ex- 
 emplary conduct under various difficulties, she had made some good 
 friends of different classes in the neighborhood. 
 
 With something like dismay, I heard of the fresh disaster, the 
 climax, it was to be hoped, of a series of agonizing misfortunes. The 
 house at the Pans had been about the most revolting of human habi- 
 tations, but it at least gave shelter, and bore with it some means of 
 livelihood. Now, all that was at an end. The future was to be a 
 matter of new contrivance. Of course, I hastened from town to con- 
 dole over present distresses, and share in the family counsels. On 
 my unexpected arrival near midnight, cold, wet, and wayworn, all 
 was silent in that poor home. In darkness, by my mother's bedside, 
 I talked with her of the scheme she had projected. It was little I 
 could do. Some insignificant savings were at her disposal, and so 
 was a windfall over which I had cause for rejoicing. By a singular 
 piece of good fortune, I had the previous clay been presented with 
 half a guinea by a good-hearted tradesman, on being sent to him 
 with the agreeable intelligence that he had got the sixteenth of a 
 twenty thousand pound prize in the state lottery. The little bit of 
 gold was put into my mother's hand. With emotion too great for 
 words, my own hand was pressed gratefully in return. The loving 
 pressure of that unseen hand in the midnight gloom, has it not 
 proved more than the ordinary blessing of a mother on her son ? 
 
 " All this, still legible in memory's page, 
 And still to be so to my latest age, 
 Adds joy to duty, makes me glad to pay 
 Such honors to thee a.-> my numbers may ; 
 Perhaps a frail memorial, but sincere 
 Not scorned in heaven, though little noticed here." 
 
 COW PER. 
 
 38
 
 594 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 Early in the following morning I was back to business in Gallon 
 street. My mother's ingenious efforts, conducted with consummate 
 tact, and wholly regardless of toil, were successful. Her only embar- 
 rassment _was my father, prematurely broken down in body and mind. 
 It is not the purpose, however, of the present memoir to pursue the 
 family history. Let us revert to the leading object in hand. 
 
 ROBERT'S EARLY DIFFICULTIES 1814 TO 1819. 
 
 It will be necessary to go back a little, in order to trace the diffi- 
 culties that were encountered by Robert in the early part of his 
 career, while I was still following out the duties of an apprentice. 
 
 The family depression during this gloomy period was felt more 
 acutely by my brother than by myself, for, besides being more sus- 
 ceptible in feelings, he was, from his gentle and retiring habits, less 
 able to face the stern realities with which we were unitedly environed. 
 Left, as has been said, for a time in Peebles to pursue his studies at 
 the grammar-school, he was finally brought to Edinburgh, and placed 
 at a noted classical academy, that of Mr. Benjamin Mackay, in 
 West Register street, preparatory to being (if possible) sent to the 
 university. There was an understanding in the family that, as the 
 most suitable professional pursuit, he was to be prepared for the 
 Church. The expenses attending on this course of education were 
 considerably beyond present capabilities, but all was to be smoothed 
 over by a bursary, of which a distant relative held out some vague 
 expectations. 
 
 When the family quitted Edinburgh, Robert accompanied them, 
 but shortly afterwards, with a considerable strain on finances, he was 
 associated with me in my West Port lodgings. Here, from the un- 
 congenial habits with which he was brought in contact, he felt con- 
 siderably out of place. I was fortunately absent during the greater 
 part of the day in my accustomed duties ; but he, after school hours, 
 had to rely on such refuge as could be found at the unattractive 
 fireside of our landlady, who, though disposed to be kind in her way, 
 was so chilled by habits of penury as to give little consideration for 
 the feelings of the poor scholar. He spoke to me of his sufferings 
 and the efforts he made to assuage them. The want of warmth was 
 his principal discomfort. Sometimes, benumbed with cold, he was 
 glad to adjourn to that ever hospitable retreat, the Old Tolbooth, 
 where, like myself, he was received as a welcome visitor by the West- 
 Enders ; and it is not unworthy of being mentioned, that the oddities 
 of character among these unfortunate, though on the whole joyous, 
 prisoners, and their professional associates, not forgetting Davie, 
 formed a fund of recollection on which he afterwards drew for liter- 
 ary purposes. That strange old prison, with its homely arrangements, 
 was therefore to him, as to me, identified with early associations,
 
 ROBERT'S YOUTHFUL INVESTIGATIONS. 595 
 
 a thing the remembrance of which became to both a subject of life- 
 long amusement. There was also some exhilaration for him in occa- 
 sionally attending the nightly book-auctions, where, favored with 
 light and warmth, seated in a by-corner, he could study his lessons, 
 as well as derive a degree of entertainment from the scene which 
 was presented. A further source of evening recreation, but not till 
 past nine o'clock, and then only for an hour, was found in those 
 meetings with the brothers King and myself for mutual scientific in- 
 struction. 
 
 Viewed apart from these solacements, his life was dreary in the ex- 
 treme. Half-starved, unsympathized with, and looking for no com- 
 fort at home, he probably would have lost heart but for the daily ex- 
 ercises at school, where he stood as rival and class-fellow of Mackay's 
 best pupils. A good Latinist considering his years, and appreciative 
 of wit and humor, he had an immense love of the odes and satires of 
 Horace, nor was he scarcely a less admirer of the classic myths of 
 Virgil, for they touched on that cord of romance and legendary lore 
 which vibrated in his own mental constitution. 
 
 Ever since his arrival in Edinburgh, and without suggestion from 
 any one, he had taken delight in exploring, at fitting times, what was 
 ancient and historically interesting in the Old Town, which, for 
 tastes of this kind, presents a peculiarly comprehensive field of in- 
 quiry. Once crowded within defensive walls, the older part of the city 
 remained a dense cluster of tall, dark buildings, lining the central 
 street and diverging lanes, or closes, with comparatively little change 
 in exterior aspect. However altered as regards the quality of the 
 dwellers on the different floors, the tenements still exhibited innumer- 
 able artistic and heraldic tokens of the past ; nor were the environs 
 of the town less illustrative of moving incidents of the olden time. 
 To this huge antiquarian preserve, as it might be called, with its va- 
 ried legends, my brother immediately attached himself with the fervor 
 of a first love, for so enduring was it as materially to tinge the rest 
 of his existence. 
 
 Patiently ranging up one close and down another, ascending stairs, 
 and poking into obscure courts, he took note of carvings over door- 
 ways, pondered on the structure of old gables and windows, exam- 
 ined risps the antique mechanism which had answered the purpose 
 of door-knockers and extending the scope of his researches, scarcely 
 a bit of Arthur's Seat or the Braid Hills was left unexplored. The 
 Borough-moor, where James the Fourth marshaled his army before 
 marching to the fatal field of Flodden ; the "bore-stone," in which, 
 on that occasion, was planted the royal standard, 
 
 " The staff, a pine-tree, strong and straight, 
 Pitched deeply in a massive stone, 
 Which still in memory is shown, 
 
 Yet bent beneath the standard's weight
 
 596 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 Whene'er the western wind unrolled, 
 
 With toil, the huge and cumbrous fold, 
 And gave to view the dazzling field, 
 Where in proud Scotland's royal shield, 
 
 The ruddy lion ramped in gold." Marmion. 
 
 Royston, where the Earl of Hertford landed with an English army, and 
 proceeded to set fire to and destroy Edinburgh ; the spot at the Kirk 
 of Field, where Darnley was blown up; the tomb of the Earl of 
 Murray; the grassy mounds in Bruntsfield Links, which formed the 
 relics of Cromwell's batteries when besieging the castle after the vic- 
 tory of Dunbar; the grave-stone in the Grayfriars Churchyard, on 
 which, in 1638, was signed the National Covenant ; the adjoining in- 
 closure, in which, for a time, were pent up, like cattle, the cowd of 
 prisoners taken at the battle of Bothwell Bridge ; the closed-up post- 
 ern of the castle surmounting the precipitous rocks up which Claver- 
 house, Viscount Dundee, clambered to confer with the governor (and 
 how he got either up or down no one can tell), when setting out for 
 his last field, Killiecrankie ; these, and such like historical memorials, 
 became all familiar to my brother by making good use of intervals 
 that could be spared from his daily attendance at the academy. 
 
 Though only twelve months had elapsed since he came from the 
 country, and not yet fourteen years of age, he already possessed a 
 knowledge of things concerning the old city and its romantic history 
 which many, it may be supposed, do not acquire in the course of 
 a lifetime. While most other youths, his school-mates, gave them- 
 selves up to amusements not unbecoming for their age, his recrea- 
 tions had all in them something of the nature of instruction. And 
 such were his extraordinary powers of memory, that whatever he saw 
 or learned, he never forgot ; every thing which could interest the 
 mind being treasured up as a fund of delightful recollections, ready 
 to be of service when wanted. 
 
 At the academy were a few boys, the sons of citizens, who in- 
 dulged in fancies not unlike his own, and with whom he formed a 
 lasting friendship. They could tell legendary stories of marvelous 
 events in the city annals, connected with reputed wizzards, noted ec- 
 centric characters, and remarkable criminals, to which he listened 
 with avidity ; as, for example, the story of Major Weir, who, for the 
 commission of a series of attrocities, was condemned and executed 
 in 1670, and whose house in the West Bow enjoyed the reputation 
 of being so much under the dominion of evil spirits, that no person 
 would live in it for more than a hundred years afterwards ; for when 
 any family made the attempt, they were subject to such an extraor- 
 dinary illusion of the senses, that in going up the stair they felt as 
 if they were going down, and when going down, that they were going 
 up. Or the story of Deacon Brodie, a man moving in a good posi- 
 tion, who, having long secretly carried on a system of depredations, 
 was ultimately condemned and executed for committing a burglary
 
 CLOSE OF EDUCATIONAL CAREER. 597 
 
 on the Excise Office, 1788. Or the still more curious story of a lad 
 who, while under sentence of death in the Old Tolbooth, escaped 
 by a clever device of his father, and lay for weeks concealed in the 
 mausoleum of the "Bluidy Mackenyie," where he was secretly sup- 
 plied with food by the boys of Heriot's Hospital, till he escaped 
 from the country. Or what remained still a matter of public horror 
 and wonderment, the assassination and robbery of Begbie, a bank 
 porter, in 1806, the perpetrator of which double crime had never 
 been discovered, notwithstanding all the efforts of the authorities. 
 
 By these varied means in his early youth, in the midst of difficul- 
 ties, Robert laid the foundation of much that afterwards assumed 
 shape in literature, although at the time he was only satisfying a 
 natural craving for what was traditionally curious. Looking back to 
 the days when we lived together in the West Port, I can not recol- 
 lect that he ever spent a moment in what was purely amusing, or of 
 no practical avail. Nor was this a sacrifice. The acquisition of 
 knowledge was with him the highest of earthly enjoyments. It was 
 well for him that he had these soothing resources. What his trials 
 were at this time may be learned from the following passages in a 
 letter written by him, in 1829, to the young lady to whom he was 
 shortly afterwards married : 
 
 " My brother William and I lived in lodgings together. Our room 
 and bed cost three shillings a week. It was in the West Port, near 
 Burke's place. I can not understand how I should ever have lived 
 in it. The woman who kept the lodgings was a Peebles woman, who 
 knew and wished to be kind to us. She was, however, of a very 
 narrow disposition, partly the result of poverty. I used to be in great 
 distress for want of fire. I could not afford either that or candle 
 myself. So I have often sat beside her kitchen fire, if fire it could 
 be called, which was only a little heap of embers, reading Horace 
 and conning my dictionary by a light which required me to hold the 
 books almost close to the grate. What a miserable winter that was ! 
 Yet I can not help feeling proud of my trials at that time. My 
 brother and I he then between fifteen and sixteen, I between thir- 
 teen and fourteen had made a resolution together that we would ex- 
 ercise the last degree of self-denial. My brother actually saved money 
 off his income. I remember seeing him take five-and-twenty shil- 
 lings out of a closed box which he kept to receive his savings ; and 
 that was the spare money of only a twelvemonth. I dare say the 
 Potterrow itself never sheltered two divinity students of such absti- 
 nent habits as ours. My father's prospects blackened towards the 
 end of the winter ; and even the small cost of my board and lodg- 
 ing at length became too much for him. I then for some time spent 
 the night at Joppa Pans, and regularly every morning walked, lame 
 as I was, to Edinburgh to attend school. Through all these dis- 
 tresses, I preserved the best of health, though perhaps my long fasts 
 at so critical a period of life repressed my growth. A darker period
 
 598 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 than even this ensued ; my father lost his situation, and I was with- 
 drawn from a coursex>f learning which it was seen I should never 
 be able to complete." 
 
 Such is a fair account of the termination of Robert's educational 
 career. Of course there was mourning over the ruin of long-cherished 
 hopes, and yet the circumstance ought in reality to have been a 
 cause for rejoicing. I greatly doubt if my brother would, according 
 to ordinary expectations, ever have excelled as a clergyman. He was 
 deficient in oratorical qualities, nor did he possess to a sufficient de- 
 gree that self-possession which is indispensable to a successful public 
 speaker. Nature had destined him to wield the pen, not to live by 
 exercise of the tongue. In the mean while, he was greatly downcast. 
 Returning home, his privations were now greater than my own, for 
 they were aggravated by the spectacle of domestic troubles, from 
 which, except at weekly intervals, I was happily exempt. 
 
 Depressed, and it might be said friendless, with only his Horace 
 and a few other Latin books, over which he would pore lovingly 
 for hours, he was at this painful juncture not unconscious that he 
 should make some sort of effort at self-reliance. He could arrive at 
 no other conviction. In the picturesque language of the Psalmist, 
 his " kinsmen stood afar off," a circumstance which unhappily roused 
 feelings much more bitter than any experienced in my own less deli- 
 cately framed mental system. 
 
 For a brief space, he procured a little private teaching at Porto- 
 bello. Afterwards, a place was procured for him in the counting- 
 house of a merchant, who resided in Pilrig street, situated between 
 Edinburgh and Leith ; but this involved a journey on foot to and 
 fro daily of altogether ten miles, with the poorest possible requital. 
 At the end of six months this employment came to an end, and for 
 a few weeks he filled a similar situation in Mitchell street, Leith. 
 " From that place," he says in the letter above referred to, "I was 
 discharged, for no other reason that I can think of but that my em- 
 ployer thought me too stupid to be likely ever to do him any good. 
 I was now in the miserable situation of a youth betwixt fifteen and 
 sixteen, who, having passed the proper period without acquiring the 
 groundwork of a profession, is totally hors de combat, and has the 
 prospect of evermore continuing so. I was now, however, at the 
 bottom of the wheel. Now came the time to rise. You have already 
 some notion of my self-denial and fortitude of mind. Now came 
 the time to exert all my faculties. ' ' He then alludes to circumstances 
 of which I am able to give a more explicit detail. 
 
 At this dismal period, when, as he says, he was "at the bottom 
 of the wheel," I saw him only on Sundays, and it was on such occa- 
 sions alone that we had an opportunity for private consultation. On 
 one of these Sabbath evenings, we sat down together in deep cogita- 
 tion, on a grassy knoll overlooking the Firth and the distant shores of 
 Fife. The scene, placid and beautiful, befitting the calm which
 
 THE OLD BOOKS ROBERT'S START. 599 
 
 seemed appropriate to the day of rest, assorted ill with the pressure 
 of those personal necessities that demanded immediate and far from 
 pleasant consideration. Jeremy Taylor has* consolingly remarked, 
 that " there is no man but hath blessings enough in present possession 
 to outweigh the evils of a great affliction." It may be so. I have 
 no doubt it is so. How the blessings are to be recognized and 
 brought into practical application is sometimes the difficulty. In 
 Robert's case, the blessings might have been stated as consisting of 
 youth, health, a fair education, moral and intellectual culture, and 
 aspirations which embraced an earnest resolution to outweigh, by 
 honest industry, the misfortunes into which he had been plunged by 
 no fault of his own. Evidently all depended on his being put on 
 the right path. The great question for solution was what he should 
 do, not only for his own subsistence, but to disembarrass the family, 
 in which he acutely felt himself to be in the light of an incumbrance. 
 
 This was the critical moment that determined my brother's career. 
 I had for some days been pondering on a scheme which might pos- 
 sibly help him out of his difficulties, provided he laid aside all ideas 
 of false shame, and unhesitatingly followed my directions. The 
 project was desperate, but nothing short of desperate measures was 
 available. My suggestion was that, abandoning all notions of secur- 
 ing employment as a clerk, teacher, or any thing else, and stifling 
 every emotion which had hitherto buoyed him up, he should, in the 
 humblest possible style, begin the business of a bookseller. The 
 idea of such an enterprise had passed through his own mind, but had 
 been laid aside as wild and ridiculous, for he possessed neither stock 
 nor capital, nor could he have recourse to any one to lend him as- 
 sistance. "I have thought of all that," I said, "and will show you 
 how the thing is to be done." I now explained that in the family 
 household there were still a number of old books, which had been 
 dragged about from place to place, and were next to useless. The 
 whole, if ranged on a shelf, would occupy about twelve feet, with 
 perhaps a foot additional by including Horace and other school-books. 
 They were certainly not much worth, but, if offered for sale, they 
 might, as I imagined, form the foundation on which a business could 
 be constructed. I added that there was at the time an opening for 
 the sale of cheap pocket Bibles, respecting which I could aid by my 
 knowledge of the trade, and even go the length of starting him with 
 one or two copies out of my slender savings. 
 
 The project being turned over and over, and canvassed, proved 
 acceptable. My father, so far from having any objections, assented 
 to the scheme. The old books, Horace and all, were collected and 
 carried off, the only one left being an old tattered black-letter Bible, 
 of the date 1606, that had been in the family for two hundred years, 
 and which, with scribblings on the blank pages, formed a kind of 
 register of births, deaths, and marriages, during that lengthened 
 period. Too sacred to be ruthlessly made an article of commerce,
 
 600 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 it was fortunately reserved, and in due time became my only patri- 
 mony. 
 
 With the few old books so collected, Robert began business in 
 1818, when only sixteen years of age, from which time he became 
 self-supporting, as I had been several years earlier. I should have 
 hesitated to mention these particulars of my brother's early career, 
 but for the fact of his having, in a letter to his friend, Hugh Miller, 
 dated March i, 1854, and published in the "Life and Letters" of 
 that person (1871), given an account, which, as a candid revelation 
 of his own feelings, is fully more painful. 
 
 Writing to Miller, he says: "Your autobiography has set me 
 a-thinking of my own youthful days, which were like yours in point 
 of hardship and humiliation, though different in many important cir- 
 cumstances. My being of the same age with you, to exactly a quarter 
 of a year, brings the idea of a certain parity more forcibly upon me. 
 The differences are as curious to me as the resemblances. Notwith- 
 standing your wonderful success as a writer, I think my literary ten- 
 dency must have been a deeper and more absorbing peculiarity than 
 yours, seeing that I took to Latin and to books both keenly and ex- 
 clusively, while you broke down in your classical course, and had 
 fully as great a passion for rough sport and enterprise as for reading, 
 that being again a passion of which I never had one particle. This 
 has, however, resulted in making you what I never was inclined to 
 be, a close observer of external nature, an immense advantage in your 
 case. Still I think I could present against your hardy field observa- 
 tions by firth and fell, and cave and cliff, some striking analogies in 
 the finding out and devouring of books, making my way, for instance, 
 through a whole chestful of the 'Encyclopaedia Britannica,' which I 
 found in a lumber-garret. I must also say, that an unfortunate ten- 
 derness of feet, scarcely yet got over, had much to do in making me 
 mainly a fireside student. As to domestic connections and conditions, 
 mine, being of the middle classes, were superior to yours for the first 
 twelve years. After that, my father being unfortunate in business, 
 we were reduced to poverty, and came down to even humbler things 
 than you experienced. I passed through some years of the direst 
 hardship, not the least evil being a state of feeling quite unnatural in 
 youth a stern and burning defiance of a social world in which we 
 were harshly and coldly treated by former friends, differing only in 
 external respects from ourselves. In your life there is one crisis 
 where I think your experiences must have been somewhat like mine : 
 it is the brief period at Inverness. Some of your expressions there 
 bring all my own early feelings again to life. A disparity between 
 the internal consciousness of powers and accomplishments and the 
 external ostensible aspect, led in me to the very same wrong methods 
 of setting myself forward as in you. There, of course, I meet you 
 in warm sympathy. I have sometimes thought of describing my 
 bitter, painful youth to the world, as something in which it might
 
 LETTER OF ROBERT TO HUGH MILLER. 6oi 
 
 read a lesson; but the retrospect is still too distressing. I screen 
 it from the mental eye. The one grand fact it has impressed is 
 the very small amount of brotherly assistance thire is for the un- 
 fortunate in this world. . . . Till I proved that I could help 
 myself, no friend came to me. Uncles, cousins, etc., in good posi- 
 tions in life, some of them stoops of kirks, by-the-by, not one offered, 
 or seemed inclined to give, the smallest assistance. The consequent 
 defying, self-relying spirit in which, at sixteen, I set out as a book- 
 seller, with only my own small collection of books as a stock, not 
 worth more than two pounds, I believe, led to my being quickly in- 
 dependent of all aid ; but it has not been all a gain, for I am now 
 sensible that my spirit of self-reliance too often manifested itself in 
 an unsocial, unamiable light, while my recollections of 'honest pov- 
 erty ' may have made me too eager to attain and secure worldly pros- 
 perity. ' ' 
 
 The place at which Robert attempted the adventurous project of 
 selling the wreck of the family library, along with his own smalt 
 parcel of school-books, was Leith Walk, where a shop of particularly 
 humble kind, at a yearly rent of six pounds, with space for a stall in 
 front, was procured for the purpose. The situation of this unpre- 
 tending place of business was opposite Pilrig avenue. Here he may 
 be said to have set up house, for, provided with a few articles of 
 furniture, and exercising a rigorous frugality, he lived in his very 
 limited establishment. To keep him company, and aid by my pro- 
 fessional advice, as well as to lessen his expenses, I went to reside 
 with him, quitting, with my blue-painted box, my quarters in the 
 West Port, to which I had no reason to feel special attachment. The 
 time was near at hand when I would myself have to appear in a new 
 character. 
 
 BEGINNING BUSINESS 1819 TO l82I. 
 
 Late on Saturday evening in May, 1819, my apprenticeship came 
 to a close, and I walked away with five shillings in my pocket to 
 which sum my weekly wages had been latterly and considerately 
 advanced. My employer, to do him every justice, offered to retain 
 me as assistant at a reasonable salary; but I liked as little to remain 
 as to try my luck elsewhere as a subordinate. Whether influenced 
 by my father's harangues about independence, or by my own natural 
 instincts, I had formed the resolution to be my own master, and con- 
 cluded that the sooner I was so the better. And so, at nineteen 
 years of age, I was left to my shifts. 
 
 The exploit was somewhat hazardous, and unless on special grounds, 
 I would not recommend it to be followed. Society is composed of 
 employers and employed. All can not be masters. The employed 
 may happen to be the best off of the two; at all events, they are 
 burdened with less responsibility. My resolution, therefore, to fight
 
 602 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 my way, inch by inch, entirely on my own account, was, I acknowl- 
 edge, an eccentricity. Yet, who can lay down any precise rule on 
 this point? Looking at all available circumstances, every one must 
 think for himself, and take the consequences. In the ordinary view 
 of affairs, my prospects were not particularly cheering. Exclusive 
 of the five shillings in my pocket, I was without any pecuniary reli- 
 ance whatsoever. There were, however, some things in my favor. 
 As in my brother's case, I had youth, health, hope, resolution, and 
 was as free from expensive habits and tastes as from any species of 
 embarrassing obligation. There was nothing to keep me back, un- 
 less it might be the comparatively narrow scope for individual exer- 
 tion in our northern capital. At that time, however, I knew nothing 
 personally of London and its illimitable field of operation. The 
 best had to be made of what was within reach. Fortunately, I con- 
 tinued still to have no acquaintances whom it was necessary to con- 
 sult ; had no giddy companions, who would have been ready enough 
 to jeer me out of schemes of humble self-reliance. I had no dread 
 of losing caste, because I had no artificial position to lose; and as 
 for losing self-respect, that entirely depends on conduct and the 
 motives by which it is influenced. It will be seen that I was not 
 without the kind of ambition which is indispensable- to success. On 
 that very account, I treated all immediate difficulties, or humiliations, 
 as of no moment. 
 
 Circumstances occurred to get me over the first step, which is 
 always the most difficult. The success of my brother in his enter- 
 prise pointed out a line of business that might with advantage be fol- 
 lowed. As Leith Walk happens to be identified in an amusing way 
 with his as well as my own early career, I may say a few words re- 
 specting it, although at the risk of telling what may be generally 
 known. 
 
 Leith Walk is to Edinburgh what the City Road is to London, a 
 broad kind of Boulevard stretching a mile in length to the seaport, 
 and constantly used as a thoroughfare by merchants, clerks, strangers, 
 and seafaring people. In the early years of the present century, it 
 was the daily resort of a multiplicity of odd-looking dependents on 
 public charity such as old blind fiddlers, seated by the wayside ; sailors 
 deficient in a leg or an arm, with long queues hanging down their backs, 
 who were always singing ballads about sea-fights ; and cripples of vari- 
 ous sorts, who contrived to move along in wooden bowls, or in low- 
 wheeled vehicles drawn by dogs ; all which personages reckoned on 
 reaping a harvest of coppers in the week of Leith races, that great an- 
 nual festival of the gamins of Edinburgh, which has been commemo- 
 rated in the humorous verses of Robert Fergusson. Besides its hosts of 
 mendicants, the Walk was garnished with small shops for the sale of 
 shells, corals, and other foreign curiosities. It was also provided with 
 a number of petty public houses; but its greatest attraction was a 
 show of wax-work, at the entrance of which sat the figure of an old
 
 WHERE THEY BEGAN BUSINESS. 603 
 
 gentleman in a court-dress, intently reading a newspaper, which, 
 without turning over the leaves, had occupied him for the last ten 
 years. ' 
 
 The oddest thing about the Walk, however, was an air of preten- 
 sion singularly inconsistent with the reality. The sign-boards offered 
 a study of the definite article The Comb Manufactory, The Chair 
 Manufactory, The Marble Work, and so forth, appearing on the fronts 
 of buildings of the most trumpery character. At the time I became 
 acquainted with the Walk, it owned few edifices that were much 
 worth. Here and there, with intervening patches of nursery grounds 
 and gardens, there was a detached villa or a row of houses with 
 flower-pots in front, in one of which rows, called Springfield, in the 
 house of his friend Mr. M'Culloch of Ardwell, the English humorist, 
 Samuel Foote, used to dine on his visits to Edinburgh.* But the 
 majority of the buildings were of a slight fabric of brick and plaster, 
 with tiled roofs, as if the whole were removable at a day's notice. 
 There being no edifices, however mean and inconvenient, which do 
 not find inhabitants, these frail tenements were in demand by a 
 needy order of occupants, whose ultimate limit in the article of rent 
 was ten to twelve pounds a year fifteen a little beyond the thing, 
 twenty not to be thought of. 
 
 It was one of these temporary and unattractive buildings, situated, 
 as has been said, opposite Pilrig avenue, that had been rented by my 
 brother, and it was there I joined him in housekeeping, with nothing 
 to keep but the disconsolate walls and about ten shillings' worth of 
 furniture, along with a bed of very insignificant value. In 1819, 
 Robert had to quit, in consequence of the proprietor making repairs 
 on the row of buildings, and he removed about a hundred yards fur- 
 ther down the walk. The alterations on Gile's Buildings, as they 
 were called, had just been made when I stood in need of a place of 
 business, and I rented one pretty nearly on the spot which my brother 
 had vacated. The changes that had been made partook of the usual 
 character of the neighborhood shabby pretension. The proprietor, 
 a builder in Edinburgh, had accumulated a number of old shop doors 
 and windows, which, dismissed as unfashionable, gave a genteel finish 
 to the new fronts that were stuck up along the row of mean brick 
 edifices. Here I procured a place of moderate dimensions, for which 
 I was to pay an annual rent of ten pounds. 
 
 Without stock, capital, or shop furniture, my attempt at beginning 
 business would almost seem like trying to make something out of 
 
 * The intimacy of Foote and a land-proprietor in the stewartry of Kirkcudbright 
 will seem a little unaccountable. The friendship accidentally began by both being 
 detained as travelers during a protracted snow-storm, first in an inn at Moffat, and 
 afterwards at the Crook, in the winter of 1744-45. They were detained no less than 
 twenty days altogether in effecting a journey from Moffat to Edinburgh, which may 
 now be performed in about two hours. A daughter of M'Culloch was married to 
 Thomas Scott, brother of Sir Walter.
 
 604 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 nothing. I admit, the* problem was difficult of solution. In one re- 
 spect, it was fortunate in the way of example that Robert had begun 
 first, but in another it was a disadvantage. In setting up he had 
 cleared my father's house of all its old books, which, though not 
 many in number, or of great value, still bore bulk so far, and giving 
 a face to things, served for a not positively bad beginning. Coming 
 later into the field, nothing was left for me to lay hands on in the 
 like predatory fashion. I should doubtless, as a last resource, have 
 procured a portion of Robert's stock of books, which, in the course 
 of a year, had increased by his industry to be worth about twelve 
 pounds, but by a remarkably happy turn of events, I did not need to 
 encroach on his painfully accumulated property. 
 
 During the first week of my freedom, there arrived in Edinburgh 
 a traveling agent for an enterprising publisher in London. He had 
 come to exhibit to the Scottish booksellers specimens of cheap edi- 
 tions of standard and popular works. Until within a short time pre- 
 viously, editions of the works of Johnson, Gibbon, Robertson, Blair, 
 Hume and Smollett, Burns, and other standard writers, had been a 
 monopoly of certain publishers, who united to publish them, and 
 gave them the imposing name of "Trade Editions." Long out of 
 copyright, these works were public property, and could legally be 
 printed and issued by any one, but not until now had any one had 
 the audacity and enterprise to disregard the assumed etiquette of the 
 profession, and print and sell editions on his own account. In dar- 
 ing to break down this monopoly, the publisher I refer to encoun- 
 tered some abuse, which, however, did not deter him in his operations. 
 His editions, as a rule, were not so highly finished as those issued 
 under the auspices of the trade ; but as they were sold at about half 
 the price, they were correspondingly appreciated by that portion of 
 the book-buying world who are not scrupulously nice as to typograph- 
 ical elegance. 
 
 This active personage, well-known in Cheapside, had another and 
 quite as successful a branch of business. It consisted in purchasing, 
 wholesale, the remainders of editions which hung on the hands of 
 publishers, and of issuing copies at a cheap price under new attrac- 
 tions, such as a portrait frontispiece and a flashy exterior, by which 
 means two important ends were served : the shelves of the publishers 
 were relieved of much dead stock, and the public was satisfied. 
 
 It was the agent of this enterprising tradesman who, by a singular 
 accident, fell in my way. In concluding his business tour, he had 
 arrived in Edinburgh to hold a trade-sale previous to proceeding to 
 London. A trade-sale, as it may be known, comprehends a dinner 
 at some noted tavern. A large number of booksellers are invited to 
 attend, and immediately after the cloth is withdrawn, and the wine 
 decanters put in circulation, the sale begins. All the guests are pro- 
 vided with catalogues of the books for disposal, and as each work is 
 offered in turn at a specified price, copies are handed about as speci-
 
 .WILLIAM'S START IN BUSINESS. 605 
 
 mens. The inducement to make purchases is a certain reduction on 
 the ordinary allowance, and, in addition, thirteen copies are usually- 
 given for the price of twelve. At the period to which I am referring, 
 trade- sales of this festive description were more common than they 
 are in these sober-minded days, and at them such large quantities of 
 books were ordinarily disposed of, that the seller, who acted as host, 
 and sat at the top of the table, did not find occasion to grudge the 
 expense of the entertainment. The business was conducted with a 
 blending of fun and conviviality. There was occasionally a toast, 
 with the honors, as an interlude, and it was not unusual for one or 
 two of the guests to be called on for a song. 
 
 The sale on the present occasion took place in the Lord Nelson 
 Hotel, Adam Square. The agent in charge requiring some one ac- 
 quainted with the handling and arranging of books, previous to the 
 dinner, heard of me from a bookseller as being unemployed and likely 
 to suit his purpose. I agreed to assist him as far as was in my power, 
 and did so without any notion of requital. 
 
 The trade-sale was well attended, and went of with uncommon eclat. 
 Mr. Robert Miller, of Manners and Miller, told his drollest anecdotes, 
 whistled tunes with the delicacy of a flageolet, and sung his best 
 songs as few men can sing them. There was a large sale effected ; 
 for it was the first time that a variety of standard works had been 
 offered at considerably reduced prices. On the day succeeding this 
 bibliopolic festival, I attended to assist in packing up, in the course 
 of which I was questioned regarding my plans. I stated to the friendly 
 inquirer that I was about to begin business, but that I had no money ; 
 if I had, I should take the opportunity of buying a few of his speci- 
 mens, for I thought I could sell them to advantage. "Well," he 
 replied, "I like that frankness; you seem an honest lad, and have 
 been useful to me ; so do not let the want of money trouble you : 
 select, if you please, ten pounds' worth of my samples, and I will let 
 you have the usual credit." 
 
 That was a turn-point in my life. In a strange and unforseen man- 
 ner, I was to be put in possession of a small collection of salable 
 books, sufficient to establish me in business. Gladly embracing the 
 offer, I selected a parcel of books great and small, to the value of 
 ten pounds, which I proceeded to pack into an empty tea-chest, and 
 carry off without incurring the aid or expense of a porter. Borrow- 
 ing the hotel truck, I wheeled the chest to my shop in Leith Walk, 
 elated, it may be supposed, in no ordinary degree at this fortunate 
 incident, and not the least afraid of turning the penny long before 
 the day of payment came round. 
 
 Though furnished in this extraordinary manner with a stock, I was 
 still unprovided with any kind of fixtures, such as counter or shelv- 
 ing. But this deficiency gave me little concern. It was not my 
 design to sell books inside a shop. That, I knew, would never do. 
 My plan, like that of my brother and also many illustrious predeces-
 
 606 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 f 
 
 sors, was to expose my wares on a stall outside the door. I had 
 years previously read the "Autobiography of James Lackington," 
 who mentions that he began business as a bookseller in 1774, the 
 whole of his stock of old books, laid out on a stall, not amounting 
 to five pounds in value; that in 1792, when he retired into private 
 life, the profits of his business amounted to 5,ooo/. a year; and that 
 he had realized all he was possessed of by " small profits, bound by 
 industry and clasped by economy." I could not possibly expect to 
 reach any thing like this marvelous success of Lackington, but at any 
 rate there was an example offered in his small beginning, which it 
 was my resolution to follow. 
 
 I spent little time in preliminary arrangements. With the five 
 shillings which I had received as my last week's wages, I purchased 
 a few deals from a neighboring woodyard, and from these, with a 
 saw, hammer, and nails, I soon constructed all the shop furniture 
 which I required ; the most essential articles being a pair of stout 
 trestles, on which was laid a board, whereupon to exhibit my wares 
 to the public. With these simple appliances, I am to be supposed 
 as beginning business one day in June, when, the weather happening 
 to be fine, I had the satisfaction of making several sales. Daily, the 
 contents of my small establishment disappeared, and I was able to 
 introduce variety by buying lots of second-hand books at the nightly 
 auctions, which I regularly attended with my brother. As regards 
 the account I had incurred, I discharged it in the due course of" 
 business, and for some time continued to order and pay for regular 
 supplies. Within six months, the first and most critical part of my 
 struggle was over. In a small way, I may be considered as having 
 been fairly established. 
 
 By studying to sell cheaply, my profits in the aggregate were not 
 great : but along with Robert, I lived frugally, incurred no unneces- 
 sary expenses, and all that was over I laid out in adding to my 
 stock. As my sales were to a large extent new books in boards, I 
 felt that the charge made for the boarding of them was an item that 
 pressed rather heavily upon me. Why, thought I, should I not buy 
 the books in sheets, and put them in boards myself? It is true, I 
 had not been taught the art of bookbinding, but I had seen it executed 
 in my frequent visits to bookbinder's workshop, and was confident 
 that if I had the proper apparatus I could at least put books in 
 boards; for that was but a rudimentary department of the craft. 
 The articles available for the purpose at length fell in my way. 
 After this, I procured my books in sheets, which I forthwith folded, 
 sewed, and otherwise prepared to my satisfaction, thereby saving on 
 an average threepence to fourpence a volume, my only outlay being 
 on the material employed ; for my labor was reckoned as nothing. 
 
 In this droll scheming way, I tried to make the best of my lot. The 
 condition of the weather was an important element of consideration. In 
 fine days, the Walk was thronged with foot-passengers, a number of
 
 THE BOOKSTALL AND DR. JOHNSON. 607 
 
 whom found some recreation in lounging for a few minutes over my 
 stall. If there was a prospect of rain, they hurried on ; and when it 
 became determinedly wet, business was over -for the day. I might 
 as well bring in my books at once, and try to find something to do 
 indoors. When the stall was not in operation, sales were almost at 
 a stand-still. Hundreds, I found, as Lackington had done before 
 me, would buy books from a stall, who would not purchase them 
 equally cheap in a shop. The advantageous peculiarity of the stall 
 is, that it secures those who have formed no deliberate intention to 
 buy. Lying invitingly with their backs upward, the books on a 
 stall solicit just as much attention as you are pleased to give them. 
 You may look at them, or let them alone. You may, as if by chance, 
 take up and set down volume after volume without getting com- 
 promised. The bookseller, however, is perfectly aware of what is 
 likely to ensue. When he observes that the lounger over his stall is 
 not satisfied with a casual glance, but goes on examining book 
 after book, he is pretty certain there is to be a purchase. Con- 
 tinued inspection excites an interest in the mind. There is perhaps 
 no intention at first to buy, but gradually the feelings are warmed 
 up, and it is then scarcely possible to resist asking the price of 
 some book which more particularly strikes the fancy. Asking the 
 price is equivalent to passing the Rubicon. After that, the desire 
 for purchasing becomes nearly irresistible. Going into shops to 
 buy books in cold blood is quite a different thing. Before entering, 
 there must in general be a distinct intention to purchase. 
 
 Stall-keepers of all varieties know the value of the obtrusive prin- 
 ciple; and it may be doubted if the modern shop system is in most 
 cases an improvement on the old practice of exposing wares in open 
 booths along the sides of the thoroughfare. The original Stationarii, 
 who exposed their books at the gateways of universities, immediately 
 after the invention of printing, what were they but stall-keepers ? 
 Did not also many booksellers of good repute last century set up 
 stalls for the sale of their wares on market-days ? One does not read 
 without interest the anecdote of Michael Johnson, bookseller at Lich- 
 field, who, being unable from illness to set up his stall as usual at 
 Uttoxeter, requested his son Samuel to do so in his stead, which re- 
 quest was refused, from a feeling of false pride ; and how this act of 
 filial disobedience, having preyed in after life on the morbidly sus- 
 ceptible mind of the great lexicographer, he, by way of expiation, 
 went to Uttoxeter on a market-day, and stood in a drenching rain 
 on the site of his father's stall, amidst the jeering remarks of the 
 bystanders. There is something, therefore, like a classic authority 
 for book-stalls. They remind us of the infancy of printed literature 
 and the usages of an olden time. 
 
 The Walk offered uncommon facilities for the traffic in which I 
 was engaged. Long stretches of the foot way, from thirty to forty 
 feet wide, admitted of stalls being set outside the doors without ob-
 
 608 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 structing the thoroughfare. Some might think that they were an at- 
 traction to what was otherwise a pleasant promenade. The book- 
 stalls were four in number those belonging to my brother and myself, 
 and two others. They were all situated on the shady side of the 
 road, forming at proper distances from each other a series of literary 
 lures, likely to be visited en suite. Interesting from the diversity of 
 their wares, they to a certain extent were mutually helpful. There 
 was nothing like a feeling of rivalry among us. Accustomed to dis- 
 cuss professional matters, we were able to cultivate a few jocularities 
 as a seasoning to a too frequent dullness. We learned how. to dis- 
 tinguish habitual nibblers, who never bought, but only gave trouble, 
 from those on whom we could reasonably reckon for a purchase, and 
 knew how to act accordingly. The stall offered a study of character. 
 There was not a little perversity or stupidity to be amused with. 
 Some stall frequenters would buy nothing but books which had been 
 used. Defective in judgment, they could not imagine the possibility 
 of getting a new book as cheaply as an old one. The stall-keepers 
 on the Walk found it necessary to humor purchasers of this sort. It 
 was not difficult to do so; they had only to cut up the leaves, and 
 soil the outside of a book, in order to make it thoroughly acceptable. 
 
 With all the diligence that could be exercised, there was little 
 scope for expansion in my small trade. With every effort, time hung 
 heavy on my hands. I fretted at inaction. To relieve the monotony 
 of the long, dull hours during bad weather, I took to copying poems 
 and various prose trifles in a fine species of penmanship, in the hope 
 of selling them for albums. It was assuredly a weak resource, but 
 what could I do? If I spent days over the manufacture of a few 
 verses, which sold for only a single shilling, it was employment, bet- 
 ter than sitting vaguely idle. 
 
 The notion of attempting to write in a style closely resembling 
 the delicate print-like lettering on copperplate engravings occurred 
 to me two or three years previously. A retired naval officer in 
 poor circumstances had written an account of his captivity in 
 France during the war, and raffled it for five pounds. The pen- 
 manship was exceedingly elegant, and I felt desirous to attempt 
 something that might prove equally tasteful. From time to time, I 
 made attempts at imitation, but never came up to the original. I 
 had, however, acquired a facility in the art. The work was executed 
 with a finely pointed crow-pen on smooth paper, ruled with lines 
 for the purpose, and cost prodigious care and patience, because any 
 blunder would have been fatal. Occupying any spare hours when 
 the stall could not be put out, and poring over a desk, I was able 
 to realize a few shillings by these laborious transcriptions. What 
 was of much greater value, these little pieces of penmanship helped 
 to bring me more into notice, and to procure me the friendship of 
 some estimable persons. 
 
 A gentleman who happened to see one of my specimens of calli-
 
 IMPORTANCE OF CIVILITY. 609 
 
 graphy, was pleased to think better of it than it deserved, and without 
 solicitation patronized my humble business establishment. He was 
 about to be married, and wished to procure a quantity of books of a 
 superior kind, in the finest bindings, for his library. One day, he 
 called to inquire as to the practicability of my supplying his wants. 
 Satisfied with the information, he gave an order of such magnitude 
 as astonished me, and raised serious doubts as to how, with my mis- 
 erable resources, it was to be executed. Apprehending some diffi- 
 culty on this score, he relieved all anxieties by stating that I should 
 bring the books in parcels from time to time, and that each parcel 
 would be paid for on delivery. 
 
 This fortunate transaction gave me a lift onward, and stimulated 
 to new efforts. The fact that I had been unexpectedly benefited in a 
 large degree by a gentleman seeing one of my small pieces of pen- 
 manship, suggests the reflection, that in business, as in human affairs 
 generally, incidents which are seemingly insignificant often lead to 
 important results. Young men are apt to treat what appears a small 
 matter with indifference, if not disdain, without being conscious that 
 in commerce nothing is small or to be passed over as of no moment. 
 I once heard a merchant who had risen to great wealth say, that civil- 
 ity in serving a woman in humble circumstances, with a pennyworth 
 of tape, had led, by a remarkable chain of circumstances to dealings 
 to the extent of hundreds of pounds. In my own case, as just stated, 
 a small piece of transcription with a crow-pen had, by an unforeseen 
 current of events, terminated in a manner much more advantageous 
 than I had any reason to expect. 
 
 The progress I had made during the first year rendered it expe- 
 dient to procure an enlargement of my premises. This being effected, 
 I was able to appropriate a small back-room as a dwelling, so as to 
 be near my work ; the furniture as meager as might be, for I could 
 not indulge in the luxury of a carpet, and was fain to inclose my 
 bed with a drapery of brown paper in place of curtains. 1 was also 
 enabled in various ways to extend my business operations, and ac- 
 commodate those who did me the honor to call. Among these vis- 
 itors were several literary aspirants who hung about the outskirts of 
 society. Few are aware of the great number of poets in Scotland. 
 Those whose names become generally known are insignificant in num- 
 ber to the host who are never heard of beyond the limited locality 
 in which they move. My brother's and my own literary tastes, to 
 say nothing of our connection with books, made us acquainted with 
 several poets of this order. Among these, the oddest was an aged 
 shoemaker, who, deserting his last, had taken to the writing of poems 
 and dramas. His standard production was "The Battle of Lun- 
 carty," which his admirers thought "almost" as good as Shakes- 
 peare. William Knox, the author of "The Lonely Hearth and 
 other Poems," was a gentle enthusiast of a different stamp, but suc- 
 
 39
 
 6lO ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 cumbed at an early age to what were mildly termed his "genial 
 propensities." 
 
 We were more happy in knowing intimately Robert Gilfillan, still 
 a young man, writer of some pleasing and popular Scottish songs, 
 who had been bred in Leith as an apprentice to a grocer, and had 
 therefore undergone that routine of duties which I had narrowly 
 escaped. He was a person of amiable temperament, simple in habits, 
 with whom it was a pleasure to interchange courtesies. I may say 
 the same of Henry Scott Riddell, who was numbered among our 
 early friends, and has left some singularly touching lyrics and other 
 pieces. 
 
 There was still another of these geniuses, John C. Denovan, an 
 excitable being, who lived in a world of romance strangely at vari- 
 ance with his actual circumstances. I first knew Denovan when he 
 was a porter to a tea-dealer at the foot of Leith Street Terrace, di- 
 rectly opposite the spot where I had been an apprentice. He was 
 the child of misfortune. His father had procured for him the posi- 
 tion of midshipman, in which capacity he made a single voyage and 
 acquired notions of life at sea. Then he was somehow deserted, and 
 left to his shifts with his mother, a poor abject being, to whom he 
 stuck to the last. In his reduced condition, he acquitted himself 
 honestly, but his wayward fancies did not square with the difficulties 
 with which he had to struggle. He was always overflowing with allu- 
 sions to Wordsworth, Byron, Keats, and Leigh Hunt. A little crazy 
 on poetical subjects, he, by an easy transition, became half mad on 
 politics, and edited a weekly periodical called The Patriot which 
 was desperately radical in character. One of its leading articles, I 
 remember, began with the portentious words: "Day follows day, and 
 chain follows chain." Yet Denovan was a harmless creature. His 
 poetical pieces were noticed with some approbation by Sir Walter 
 Scott, who, while visiting Ballantyne's printing-orifice at Paul's Work, 
 now and then, in a kindly way, looked in upon him at his den in 
 Leith Wynd, where he latterly made a livelihood by coffee-roasting, 
 and where he died in 1827. There was a little exhilaration in having 
 an occasional conversation on literary topics with these writers. To 
 a higher region we did not yet aspire. 
 
 I still at odd times continued my labors with the crow-pen, but at 
 best this was a trivial art, and I had secret yearnings to procure a 
 press and types, in order to unite printing with my other branches of 
 business. 1 partly formed this desire by having employed a printer to 
 execute a small volume, purporting to be an account of David Ritchie, 
 the original of the Black Dwarf, whom I had seen when a boy in 
 Peeblesshire. The success of this enterprise, commercially, led to 
 the conclusion that if! could print as well as write my poor productions, 
 1 might add to my available means. It would be enough if I could 
 procure an apparatus sufficient for executing small pamphlets and 
 tne humbler varieties of job-printing.
 
 WILLIAM AT PRINTING. 6ll 
 
 For some time my inquiries failed to discover what would be within 
 the compass of my means, until at length a person who had begun 
 business in a way not unlike my own, and constructed a press for his 
 own use, intimated his desire of selling off, in order to remove to a 
 distant part of the country. The whole apparatus, including some 
 types, was to be disposed of cheaply by private bargain. The price 
 sought could not be considered excessive. It was only three pounds. 
 To se^ up as a printer on a less capital than this was surely impossible. 
 I paid the money and became the happy possessor. From that time 
 I troubled myself no more with imitative print-writing. That branch 
 of art was taken up and followed for a time by my brother, who so 
 greatly excelled in it as to leave my efforts far behind. 
 
 I hesitate to think that I acted properly in directing my mind 
 towards letterpress printing, while deficient in capital to pursue the 
 profession with any solid advantage. My best excuse was the wish 
 to occupy idle time. In the mornings, when the sun was up, 1 en- 
 deavored to make use of the daylight by reading and study, as I had 
 done formerly. Perusing the Spectator, I carefully scrutinized the 
 papers of Addison and other writers, sentence by sentence, in order 
 to familiarize myself with their method of construction and treatment. 
 But beyond this I had little patience. I felt that the time had come 
 for action, and that every hour spent in doing nothing was little bet- 
 ter than wasted. Yet, with every excuse, I have never ceased to be 
 amazed at my presumption in trying, without any knowledge of the 
 typographic art, to set up with such miserable mechanical appliances. 
 The press, which was constructed to stand on a table, was an imper- 
 fect little machine, with a printing surface of no more than eighteen 
 inches by twelve, and when wrought, a jangling and creaking noise 
 was produced that might be heard as far as two houses off. 
 
 As regards my font of types, it consisted of about thirty pounds' 
 weight of brevier, dreadfully old and worn, having been employed 
 for years in the printing of a newspaper, and, in point of fact, only 
 worth its value as metal. Along with the font, I had a pair of cases, 
 in which the letters were assorted. My bargain did not embrace a 
 frame or stand for the cases. That I supplied by the ordinary re- 
 source of wood bought from a timber-yard, and the application of 
 my carpenter's tools. For a small additional outlay, 1 procured a 
 brass composing-stick, some quoins, and other pieces of furniture, an 
 iron chase, and a roller, along with a pound-weight of printing ink. 
 I was now complete. 
 
 As soon as i had arranged all parts of my apparatus, I looked 
 abroad over the field of literature to see which work should first en- 
 gage my attention. My best plan, as I thought, would be to begin 
 by printing a small volume on speculation ; to sell the copies, and 
 with the proceeds buy a variety of types for executing casual jobs 
 which might drop in. A small volume I must print, and finish in a 
 marketable style, that is clear, in order to raise Kinds. Fixed in this
 
 012 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 notion, I selected for my first venture a pocket edition of the songs 
 of Robert Burns. 
 
 I had never been taught the art of the compositor, but just as I 
 had casually gleaned some knowledge of book-binding, so I had 
 picked up the method of setting types. When an apprentice, I had 
 been frequently sent errands to the printing-office of Mr. Ruthven, 
 in Merchants Court, the premises which, two centuries previously, 
 had formed the town mansion of Thomas Hamilton, first Earl of 
 Haddington, jocosely styled, by James VI, "Tarn o' the Cowgate." 
 In the fine old dining-hall where "Tarn" had entertained royalty, 
 I was, while waiting for proofs, favored with an opportunity of seeing 
 the compositors pursue their ingenious art, and learning how types 
 were arranged in lines and pages. Recollections of what I had thus 
 seen of compositorship were now revived, and I began to set up my 
 song-book without receiving any special instruction ; my composing- 
 frame being placed in such a situation that I was ready to attend to 
 other matters of business. While so occupied, I was visited by my 
 old friend, James King, whom I had for some time lost sight of. 
 His taste for chemistry had brought him into the employment of a 
 glass manufacturer ; and now, in connection with that line of busi- 
 ness, he was about to sail for Australia, where a useful career was be- 
 fore him. He was amused with, and, I think, compassionated my 
 feeble efforts. We parted, not to meet until both were in different 
 circumstances, many years afterwards. 
 
 My progress in compositorship was at first slow. I had to feel my 
 way. A defective adjustment of the lines to a uniform degree of 
 tightness was my greatest trouble, but this was got over. The art of 
 working my press had next to be acquired, and in this there was no 
 difficulty. After an interval of fifty years, I recollect the delight I 
 experienced in working off my first impression ; the pleasure since of 
 seeing hundreds of thousands of sheets pouring from machines in 
 which I claim an interest being nothing to it ! If the young and 
 thoughtless could only be made to know this, the happiness, the 
 dignity of honest labor conducted in a spirit of self-reliance ; the in- 
 significance and probably temporary character of untoward circum- 
 stances while there is youth, along with the willing heart ; the proud 
 satisfaction of acquiring by persevering industry instead of by com- 
 passionate donation, how differently would they act ! 
 
 I think there was a degree of infatuation in my attachment to that 
 jangling, creaking, wheezing little press. Placed at the only window 
 in my apartment, within a few feet of my bed, I could see its outlines 
 in the silvery moonlight when I awoke; and there, at the glowing 
 dawn, did its figure assume distinct proportions. When daylight 
 came fully in, it was impossible to resist the desire to rise and have 
 an hour or two of exercise at the little machine. 
 
 With an imperfect apparatus, the execution of my song-book was 
 far from good. Still, it was legible in the old ballad and chap book
 
 NINE POUNDS PROFIT. 613 
 
 style, and I was obliged to be content. Little by little I got through 
 the small volume. It was a tedious drudgery. With my limited 
 font, I could set up no more than eight small pages, forming the 
 eighth part of a sheet. After printing the first eight, I had to dis- 
 tribute the letter and set up the second eight, and so on throughout 
 a hundred pages. Months were consumed in the operation. The 
 number of copies printed was seven hundred and fifty, to effect which 
 I had to pull the press twenty thousand times. But labor, as already 
 hinted, cost nothing. I set the types in the intervals of business, 
 particularly during wet weather, when the stall could not be put out, 
 and the press-work was executed late at night or early in the morn- 
 ing. The only outlay worth speaking of for the little volume was 
 that incurred for paper, which I was unable to purchase in greater 
 quantities than a few quires at a time, and therefore at a consider- 
 able disadvantage in price, but this was only another exemplification 
 of the old and too well-known truth, that "the destruction of the 
 poor is their poverty," about which it was useless to repine. 
 
 When completed, the volume needed some species of embellish- 
 ment, and fortune* helped me at this conjuncture. There dwelt in 
 the neighborhood a poor but ingenious man, advanced in life, named 
 Peter Fyfe, with whom I had already had some dealings. Peter, a 
 short man, in a second-hand suit of black clothes, and wearing a 
 white neckcloth, which he arranged in loose folds so as effectually to 
 cover the breast of his shirt, was from the west country. He had 
 been a weaver's reed-maker in Paisley, but having been unfortunate 
 in business, he had migrated to Edinburgh, in the hope of procuring 
 some kind of employment. Necessitous and clever, with an inex- 
 haustible fund of drollery, he was ready for any thing artistic that 
 might come in his way. Peter did not want confidence. I am not 
 aware of any department in the fine or useful arts of which he would 
 have confessed himself ignorant. At this period, when few knew any 
 thing of lithography, and he knew nothing at all, he courageously 
 undertook, in answer to an advertisement, to organize and manage 
 a concern of that kind, and by tact and intuition gave unqualified 
 satisfaction. Peter was just the man I wanted. Although altogether 
 unacquainted with copperplate engraving, he executed, from the de- 
 scriptions I gave him, a portrait of the Black Dwarf, for my account 
 of that singular personage ; which sketch has ever since been accepted 
 as an authority. 
 
 I now applied to this genius for a wood-engraving for my song- 
 book, which he successfully produced, and for a few shillings addi- 
 tional he executed a vignette representing some national emblems. 
 Invested with these attractions, the song-book was soon put in boards, 
 and otherwise prepared for disposal. I sold the whole either in 
 single copies at a shilling, or wholesale to other stall-keepers at a 
 proper reduction, and, after paying all expenses, cleared about nine 
 pounds by the transaction.
 
 6l4 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 Nine pounds was not a large sum, but it served an important end. 
 I was able to make some additions to my scanty stock of types, 
 which I procured from an aged printer with a decaying business. 
 To be prepared for executing posting-bills, I cut a variety of letters 
 in wood with a chisel and pen-knife. For such bold headings, 
 therefore, as "Notice," "Found," or "Dog Lost," I was put to no 
 straits worth mentioning. One of my most successful speculations 
 was the cutting in wood of the words "To Let," in letters four 
 inches long, an edition of which I disposed of by the hundred at an 
 enormous profit, to dealers who sold such things to stick on the fronts 
 of houses to be let. 
 
 Through the agency of book-hawkers who purchased quantities of 
 my "Burns's Songs," I procured some orders for printing "Rules" 
 for Friendly and Burial Societies. These answered me very well. 
 The Rules were executed in my old brevier, leaded, on the face of 
 half a sheet of foolscap, and were therefore within the capacity of 
 my font. A person who was a lessee of several toll-bars in the neigh- 
 borhood of the city, found me out as a cheap printer, and gave me 
 a job in printing toll-tickets, which I executed to his satisfaction. 
 Another piece of work of a similar character which came in my way 
 was the printing of tickets for pawnbrokers. My principal employer 
 in this line was a lady whose establishment was a second floor in 
 High street. She was a short, plump, laughing, good-natured woman, 
 turned of fifty years of age. Her family consisted of a niece, who 
 attended to business, and an aged female domestic, who went by the 
 name of " Pawkie Macgouggy." Pawkie, who had been a servant 
 in the family for upwards of twenty years, received me when I called 
 with a package of tickets, and kindly gave me a seat in the kitchen 
 till her mistress could be communicated with. 
 
 The lady was so obliging as to show me some politeness, and then, 
 as well as a few years later, I learned a part of her history. She 
 had traveled abroad, and brought with her to Edinburgh a knowledge 
 of Continental cookery. With this useful acquirement, she set up a 
 tavern business in South Bridge street, and there she laid the foun- 
 dation of her fortune by a dexterous hit in the culinary art. This 
 consisted in the invention of a savory dish possessing an odor which, 
 it was said, no human being could resist. To this marvelously fasci- 
 nating dish she gave the name of Golli-Gosperado. The way she at- 
 tracted customers was ingenious. Her tavern was down a stair, and 
 was lighted by windows to the street, protected by iron gratings, 
 over which the passengers walked. Having prepared her Golli-Gos- 
 perado, she put a smoking dish of it underneath the gratings in the 
 pavement. According to her own account, the odor was overpower- 
 ing. Gentlemen in passing were instantly riveted to the spot. They 
 declared they must have some of that astonishing dish, whatever it 
 was, and at whatever cost, and down-stairs they rushed accordingly. 
 For a time there was quite a furore in the town about the Golli-
 
 FRANKLIN IN EDINBURGH. 615 
 
 Gosperado. The happy inventor retired from the trade with so 
 much money that she was able to set up as a pawnbroker. In that 
 profession she was likewise successful, and ultimately retired alto- 
 gether from business to a villa in the neighborhood, where she died, 
 being attended in her last moments by the faithful and sorrowing 
 Pawkie Macgouggy. 
 
 My means being somewhat improved, it did not appear unreason- 
 able that I should enlarge my stock of letter by ordering a moderate 
 font of long primer adapted for pamphlet-work from an aged type- 
 founder, named Matthewson, who carried on business at St. Leonard's, 
 and with whom I had become acquainted. In his walks, he occa- 
 sionally called to rest in passing, and hence our business dealings. 
 His cut of letter was not particularly handsome, but in the decline 
 of life, and in easy circumstances, he did not care for new fashions. 
 
 Disposed to be familiar, Matthewson gave me an outline of his 
 history. He had, he said, been originally a shepherd boy, but from 
 his earliest years had possessed a taste for carving letters and figures. 
 One day, while attending his master's sheep, he was accidentally 
 observed by the minister of the parish to be carving some words on 
 a block of wood with a pocket-knife. The clergyman was so pleased 
 with his ingenuity that he interested himself in his fate, and sent 
 him to Edinburgh to pursue the profession of a printer. Shortly 
 afterwards, he began to make himself useful by cutting dies for let- 
 ters of a particular description required by his employer, there being 
 then no type-founder in the city. While so occupied, he attracted 
 the notice of Benjamin Franklin on his second visit to Scotland. 
 This was about 1771. Franklin was pleased with the skill of the 
 young printer, and offered to take him to Philadelphia, and there 
 assist him in establishing a letter-foundry. Matthewson was grateful 
 for the disinterested offer, of which, unfortunately, for family reasons, 
 he could not take advantage. He set up the business of letter- 
 founding in Edinburgh, which he had all to himself until the com- 
 mencement of establishments with higher claims to taste in execution. 
 To vary the monotony of my occupation, I had for some time been 
 making efforts at literary composition. It was little I dared to at- 
 tempt in that way, for anxiety concerning ways and means impelled 
 me to disregard every species of employment that partook of recrea- 
 tion, or which was not immediately advantageous. With a view to 
 publication at the first favorable opportunity, I wrote an account of 
 the Scottish Gypsies, for which I drew on my recollection of that 
 picturesque order of vagrants in the south of Scotland, and also the 
 traditions I had heard regarding them. It was a trifle nothing 
 worth speaking of; but being now provided with a tolerably good 
 font of long primer, also some new brevier suitable for foot-notes, I 
 thought it might be made available. I accordingly set up the tract 
 as a six-penny pamphlet ; and for this small brochure a coarse cop- 
 per-plate engraving was furnished by that versatile genius, Peter
 
 6l6 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 Fyfe. It represented a savage gypsy-fight at a place called Lowrie's 
 Den, on the top of Soutra Hill. The edition was sold rapidly off, 
 and I cleared a few pounds by the adventure. What was of greater 
 service, I felt encouraged to put my thoughts on paper, and to en- 
 deavor to study correctness and fluency of expression. The tract on 
 the Gypsies also procured me the acquaintance of a few persons in- 
 terested in that wayward class of the community. 
 
 My enlarged typographical capabilities led to new aspirations. 
 Robert, who had made corresponding advances in business, but ex- 
 clusively in connection with book-selling, was occupying his leisure 
 hours in literary composition, which came upon him like an inspira- 
 tion at nineteen years of age. His tastes and powers in this respect 
 suggested the idea of a small periodical which we might mutually 
 undertake. He was' to be the editor and principal writer. I was to 
 be the printer and publisher, and also to contribute articles as far 
 as time permitted. 
 
 The periodical was duly announced in a limited way, and com- 
 menced. A name was adopted from the optical toy invented by Sir 
 David Brewster, about which all classes were for a time nearly crazy. 
 It was called the Kaleidoscope, or Edinburgh Literary Amusement. 
 In size it was sixteen pages octavo the price threepence and it 
 was to appear once a fortnight. The first number was issued on 
 Saturday, October 6, 1821. The mechanical execution of this lit- 
 erary serial sorely tested the powers of my poor little press, which 
 received sundry claspings of iron to strengthen it for the unexpected 
 duty. My muscular powers likewise underwent a trial. I had to 
 print the sheet in halves, one after the other, and then stitch the two 
 together. I set all the types and worked off all the copies, my younger 
 brother, James, a fair-haired lad, rolling on the ink and otherwise 
 rendering assistance. 
 
 This was the hardest task I had yet undergone; for, being pressed 
 by time, there was no opportunity for rest. Occupied with business, 
 the composing-frame, and the press, also with some literary compos- 
 ition, I was in harness sixteen hours a day; took no more than a 
 quarter of an hour to meals; and never gave over work till midnight. 
 Sometimes I had dreadful headaches. Of course, I do not justify 
 this excessive application. It was clearly wrong. I was acting in 
 violation of the laws of health. Enthusiasm alone kept me up ; cer- 
 tainly no material stimulus. My only excuse for this ardently pur- 
 sued labor, which must have been troublesome to quietly disposed 
 neighbors, was what at the same period might have been offered by 
 my brother for his incessant self-sacrificing exertions a desire to 
 overcome a condition that provoked the most stinging recollections. 
 I should probably have broken down but for the weekly repose and 
 fresh air of Sunday, when, after attending church, I had an exhilarat- 
 ing ramble on the sands and links. 
 
 Robert wrote nearly the whole of the articles in the Kaleidoscope,
 
 A POOR ODD POET. 617 
 
 verse as well as prose. My contributions consisted of only three or 
 four papers. The general tone of the articles, by whomsoever pro- 
 duced, may be acknowledged to have been unnecessarily causiic and 
 satirical. There was also a certain crudeness of ideas, such as might 
 be expected from young and wholly inexperienced writers. Never- 
 theless, there was that in the Kaleidoscope which was indicative of 
 Robert's future skill as an essayist; for here might be found some of 
 the fancies which were afterwards developed in his more successful 
 class of articles. In particular, may be mentioned the paper styled 
 the "Thermometer of Misfortune," in which occur the ideas that 
 were in after years expanded into the essay on the luckless class of 
 intemperates popularly known as "Victims." 
 
 This little periodical also contained a few articles descriptive of a 
 wayward class of authors in the lower walks of life, written from per- 
 sonal knowledge, and marked by that sympathy for the unfortunate 
 which characterized my brother through life. I feel tempted to give 
 one of these sketches. It refers to Stewart Lewis, a hapless being 
 with whom Robert had become acquainted when he himself was in 
 straits previous to commencing his small business. 
 
 STEWART LEWIS. 
 
 "It was towards the end of 1816, when I lived in a cottage on 
 one of the great roads which lead to this metropolis, that I was en- 
 gaged in a mercantile concern in the city, and traveled thither every 
 morning, and, after the duties of the day were performed, came back 
 in the evening. I was one evening, after my return, entertained by 
 my mother with an account of two extraordinary persons who had 
 called during my absence, and who afterwards proved to be Stewart 
 Lewis and his wife, traveling on an expedition to Haddington, sell- 
 ing a small volume of poems which he had just published. 
 
 " The appearance and singular manners of these visitants were de- 
 scribed to me in such terms of respect as made me regret my ab- 
 sence when they called; and the volume of poems which they had 
 left increased my desire to see their author; for the acquaintance of 
 a poet, and one who had actually printed his productions, was at that 
 time an object of very great interest, and even curiosity. 
 
 "On the very next evening, however, my curiosity was destined 
 to be gratified, for who should drop in upon us but poor Lewis with 
 his wife ! They had, to use the wife's expression, 'never been off 
 their feet ' since early in the morning, and were very much fatigued 
 accordingly. I was then introduced to the poet, and in the course 
 of five minutes we were engaged in as sincere a friendship as if we 
 had lived together from infancy. Whether it was from the naturally 
 ardent enthusiasm of his temper, or a secret instinctive discovery 
 that I was afterwards to become one of his own brotherhood, I will 
 not, can not determine. From what I can recollect of his appear-
 
 6l8 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 ance and countenance, he was dressed in a suit of shabby clothes, 
 mostly of a gray color; his person was slender; his face interesting, 
 and bearing peculiar marks of genius and intelligence ; his forehead 
 was high, his hair gray and thin, and he had a countenance wrinkled 
 with care and squalid with poverty. He never spoke but under the 
 influence of a sort of furor; and he even did not return thanks for 
 the favor of another cup of tea without an excitation of feeling and 
 expression which had in it something of poetic fervor. 
 
 "His wife was a little old woman, with no remains of that beauty 
 which had captivated the high-toned heart of Stewart Lewis thirty 
 years before. He had thus addressed her on the thirtieth anniver- 
 sary of their marriage : 
 
 " ' Though roses now have left thy cheek, 
 And dimples now in vain I seek ; 
 Thy placid brow, so mild and meek, 
 Proclaims I still should love thee. 
 
 "'How changed the scene since that blest day! 
 My hair's now thin and silver gray; 
 Though all that 's mortal soon decay, 
 My soul shall live to love thee.' 
 
 She spoke in a low, querulous voice, subdued in its tones by a long 
 course of misery. They addressed each other by terms of endear- 
 ment as strong, and spoke with as great an affection, as they had 
 done on their marriage day. An instance of conjugal attachment has 
 seldom been found like that of Stewart Lewis and his sorrow-broken 
 spouse. He had addressed several poems to her even in her old age, 
 some of which are eminently beautiful, and breathe the spirit of as 
 fond an affection as if they had still been the accents of a first love, 
 unbroken and unproved. 
 
 "They were much fatigued when they arrived; but a refreshment 
 of tea soon revived their spirits ; and though the success of their 
 journey had been very limited, the poor bard was soon elevated to a 
 state of rapturous excitement ; while yet in the intervals of his joy, 
 the wife, who had less of a poetic temperament, and whom misfor- 
 tune had taught the very habit of sorrow, would interfere, with a 
 voice mournfully soothing, and warn him of his inevitable griefs to- 
 morrow. 
 
 "After this we had frequent visits of Stewart Lewis; but as these 
 were generally through the day, when I was engaged in the duties of 
 my profession, I had little opportunity of seeing him. He had left 
 several copies of his poems with us, and I afterwards succeeded in 
 disposing of a few to the most poetical of the neighborhood, which 
 raised a small sum. I then resolved to pay him a visit. My father 
 accompanied me in this adventure, out of curiosity to see his dwell- 
 ing. After searching all the closes at the west end of the Cowgate 
 for his habitation, we were at length directed to it by an old woman,
 
 THE PALLID CRONE. 619 
 
 who appeared like a corpse from the grave, rising out of a low cellar 
 in a very dark close such a pallid and wrinkled crone as I have seen 
 full oft in my antiquarian researches through the ancient lanes of the 
 town, emerging from her dark dungeon at midday to taste one breath 
 of a somewhat purer atmosphere than that of her own subterranean 
 domicil. With her shriveled arm she pointed up a narrow, crazy stair 
 which winded above her head, and told us that the object of our 
 search lived there. We thanked her, and ascended. At the second 
 landing-place we entered a dark, narrow passage from which a num- 
 ber of doors seemed to diverge, the habitations of miserables, and 
 in one of which dwelt Stewart Lewis. 
 
 " On entering this wretched abode, we found the unfortunate bard, 
 with his son, a lad of seventeen, sitting at a table, and employed in 
 stitching up various copies of his poems in blue paper covers. At our 
 entrance he started up with an exclamation of surprise, and welcomed 
 us to his humble shed. I perceived, however, that his countenance 
 presently lost that bold smile of welcome, and his tongue that vehe- 
 ment gush of poetical, enthusiastic language habitual to him in even 
 the lowest occurrences of common life ; while his mind seemed en- 
 gaged in recollecting whether there was any thing in the house with 
 which he might entertain us. I soon eased him of his fear on that 
 account by laying in his hand the small sum which I had collected 
 for his benefit from the sale of his poems. His face immediately 
 assumed its former smile, and, after thanking me, he sent away his 
 son with two-thirds of the money to purchase whisky an act of im- 
 provident extravagance which I could not help condemning with per- 
 haps too great vehemence for a guest. He did not seem offended by 
 my remonstrances. It was obvious, however, that the cause of his 
 miserable and hopeless condition had been disclosed. 
 
 " After this interview I never saw Stewart Lewis more. His wife 
 died shortly after, and he came to my father's house in my absence, in 
 a state of distraction for his loss. He waited many hours for my re- 
 turn, but at last went away without seeing me. The depth of his 
 sorrow was intimated to me in a way perhaps more affecting than any 
 personal interview might have been. He left a letter, in which was 
 written, in a hand which I could scarcely decipher, and in charac- 
 ters which strayed over the whole page, 
 
 " 'Mv DEAR SIR: 
 
 I AM MAD. 
 
 STEWARD LEWIS.' 
 
 "The affection which this poor man entertained for the benign 
 being who, for upwards of thirty years, had shared with him a con- 
 stant train of sorrow and poverty without ever repining, had in it 
 something truly romantic. She was the first and only woman he had 
 ever loved, and he always declared that he could not survive her
 
 620 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 loss. Their love was mutual, and her devotion to him had been often 
 shown by more substantial proofs than words. 
 
 "She had frequently, even when they were in a state of starvation, 
 worked a whole day at some coarse millinery work to earn a sixpence, 
 that she might, with mistaken kindness, supply her husband with 
 spirits. The unfortunate habit of drinking intoxicating liquors, which 
 he had acquired after an early disappointment in life, never after- 
 wards left him ; and whether to drown reflections on his own misery 
 and blasted prospects, or to inspire him with the faculty of versifica- 
 tion, he found the indulgence of that propensity, as he imagined, 
 necessary to his existence. But never was the brow of this woman 
 clouded with a reproof of the cause of all her sorrows, and a word 
 of remonstrance against his foibles was never heard to escape her 
 lips. He has commemorated his unutterable affections in several 
 beautiful songs. In one, which he calls his 'Address to his Wife,' 
 I find the following pathetic verses : 
 
 " ' In youthful life's ecstatic days, 
 
 I've rapt'rous kissed the lips o' thine ; 
 And fondly yet, with joy I gaze 
 On thee, auld canty wife o' mine. 
 
 " ' When fortune's adverse winds did blaw, 
 
 And maist my senses I wad tine, 
 Thy smilin' face drove ill awa', 
 Thou ever dear auld wife o' mine. 
 
 " ' Lang round the ingle's heartsome blaze, 
 
 Thy thrifty hand made a' to shine ; 
 Thou'st been my comfort a' my days, 
 Thou carefu' auld wife o' mine. 
 
 ' When life must leave our hoary head, 
 
 Our genial souls will still be kin', 
 We'll smile and mingle wi' the dead, 
 Thou canty auld wife o' mine ' 
 
 After the death of his wife he wandered all over Scotland and the 
 northern counties of England, reckless of his fate. He lamented her 
 death in ceaseless complaints, and seemed careless of life. The re- 
 mainder of the copies of his poems which he had left with us a 
 considerable number were sent to him while he was at Inverness, 
 and he subsisted entirely on what the sale of them provided for up- 
 wards of a twelvemonth. When weary of existence, and worn out 
 with fatigue, he died at an obscure village in Dumfriesshire about the 
 end of 1818. He left three daughters, none of whom I ever saw, 
 and one son, who had latterly been the companion of his wander- 
 ings a youth unfortunately weak in his intellects, and of whose fate 
 I have been able to learn nothing." 
 
 My brother's poetical pieces were the best. Some of them were
 
 ROBERT'S POETRY. 621 
 
 touching and beautiful, particularly the address "To the Evening 
 Star," which has been often reprinted by compilers of volumes of 
 poetry without intimating its origin, which is not surprising, for who 
 knows that the obscure periodical in which it first made its appear- 
 ance ever existed ? It may be given as a specimen of his powers of 
 versification at nineteen years of age. 
 
 TO THE EVENING STAR. 
 
 Soft star of eve, whose trembling light 
 
 Gleams through the closing eye of day, 
 Where clouds of dying purple bright 
 
 Melt in the shades of eve away, 
 And mock thee with a fitful ray, 
 
 Pure spirit of the twilight hour, 
 Till forth thou blazest to display 
 
 The splendor of thy native power. 
 
 'Twas thus when earth from chaos sprung, 
 
 The smoke of forming worlds arose, 
 And, o'er thine infant beauty hung, 
 
 Hid thee awhile in dark repose ; 
 Till the black veil dissolved away, 
 
 Drunk by the universal air, 
 And thou, sweet star, with lovely ray, 
 
 Shone out on paradise so fair. 
 
 When the first eve the world had known 
 
 Fell blissfully on Eden's bowers, 
 And earth's first love lay couched upon 
 
 The dew of Eden's fairest flowers ; 
 Then thy first smile in heaven was seen 
 
 To hail the birth of love divine, 
 
 And ever since that smile hath been 
 
 The sainted passion's hallowed shrine : 
 Can lover yet behold the beam 
 
 Unmoved, unpassioned, unrefined ? 
 While there thou shin'st the brightest gem, 
 
 To Night's cerulean crown assigned. 
 
 Since then how many gentle eyes 
 
 That love and thy pure ray made bright, 
 Have gazed on thee with blissful sighs, 
 
 Now veiled in everlasting night ! 
 O, let not love or youth be vain 
 
 Of present bliss, and hope more high ; 
 The stars the very clods remain 
 
 Love, they, and all of theirs must die. 
 
 Now throned upon the western wave, 
 
 Thou tremblest coyly, star of love ! 
 And dip'st beneath its gleamy heave 
 
 Thy silver foot, the bath to prove.
 
 622 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 And though no power thy course may stay, 
 Which nature's changeless laws compel, 
 
 To thee a thousand hearts shall say, 
 Sweet star of love, farewell, farewell ! 
 
 The Kaleidoscope did not last. It sold pretty well, but only 
 to the extent of paying expenses, yielding no reward whatever for 
 literary effort. Yet it was not an absolutely valueless undertaking. 
 It was a trial of one's wings, and encouraged to higher flights in 
 more favorable times and circumstances. The concluding number 
 appeared on the i2th of January, 1822. 
 
 From about this time, new and enlarged views began to predomi- 
 nate. Early difficulties had been successfully mastered. Three to 
 four years of a funny, scheming, struggling, tolerably hard-working ex- 
 istence, to be remembered like a dream or chapter of a romance, had 
 effected every reasonable anticipation. Robert's originally small 
 stock had increased to be worth about two hundred pounds, and I 
 had made a similar advance. The Walk, as we thought, had fairly 
 served its day. With sentiments somewhat akin to those of Tom Tug, 
 in the " Waterman," when bidding a pathetic farewell to his " trim- 
 built wherry," we were disposed to bid an affecting and grateful 
 adieu to stall and trestles, and bequeath to others the advantages, 
 the drolleries, and classic associations of open-air traffic. Migration 
 was accordingly resolved on, and we had sundry communings as re- 
 gards where we should respectively attempt to establish ourselves in 
 Edinburgh. 
 
 It was now that Robert, as will be afterwards stated in his own 
 words, became known to Sir Walter Scott, by writing for him, and 
 presenting, through Mr. Constable, a transcript of the songs of the 
 " Lady of the Lake," in the small and neat style of calligraphy to 
 which I have made some reference. Immediately afterwards, in 1822, 
 he removed to India Place ; I removed to Broughton street in the 
 spring of 1823; both places, as we diffidently ventured to hope, being 
 intermediate to something better. 
 
 ROBERT'S WRITINGS 1822 TO 1832. 
 
 My brother's literary efforts had hitherto been on a limited scale. 
 He had composed some pieces, remarkable, perhaps, for his years 
 and the untoward circumstances in which he was placed ; but, except 
 by a few acquaintances, none augured that he would make any prog- 
 ress as an author. His first production, not a very high flight, was 
 entitled " Illustrations of the Author of Waverley." It consisted of 
 short sketches of several individuals, chiefly connected with the south 
 of Scotland, popularly believed to have been the originals of charac- 
 ters in the earlier fictions of Sir Walter Scott, as, for example, Davie 
 Gellatley, Dominie Sampson, Meg Merrilies, and Dandie Dinmont. 
 The south-country people who came about us one of them a retired
 
 ROBERT'S "TRADITIONS OF EDINBURGH." 623 
 
 parish minister given to gossip formed a convenient source of infor- 
 mation on the subject. 
 
 In a book which speculated on the identification of actual scenes, 
 incidents, and characters with what had given rise to the fictions of 
 the novelist, it would have been strange if the writer had not some- 
 times gone a little wide of the mark. According to the Introduction 
 to the annotated edition of the " Monastery," an erroneous conject- 
 ure had been hazarded respecting Captain Clutterbuck, who, not a 
 little to the surprise of Sir Walter, was identified with a friend* and 
 neighbor of his own. Apart, however, from misapprehensions of this 
 kind, the "Illustrations" pointed, in a wonderfully correct manner, 
 at the originals of some of the principal characters in the earlier 
 novels. The work, issued in 1822, formed a small volume, of which 
 I was the printer. It was well received, and was subsequently (1824) 
 republished in better style by an Edinburgh bookseller. 
 
 After being settled in India Place, Robert carried out the design 
 of writing the " Traditions of Edinburgh," a work for which he was 
 in a degree prepared by those youthful explorations already adverted 
 to, as well as by his having meditated over the subject. Professedly, 
 the book was to consist of amusing particulars concerning old houses, 
 distinguished characters, and curious incidents, such as could be 
 picked up from individuals then still living. The scheme met with 
 general approval. There were still alive persons who had some re- 
 membrance of the Scottish capital in the early part of the reign of 
 George III, when persons of rank were as yet dwellers in the tall 
 tenements and dingy closes of the Old Town. One gentleman in the 
 decline of life remembered as many as fifty titled personages, some 
 of them of historical note, who dwelt in the Canongate (formerly the 
 Court end of the town) as lately as 1769. There were others whose 
 recollections did not extend so far back, but who in youth had been 
 acquainted with interesting public characters who had disappeared. 
 By procuring information from these various individuals regarding a 
 past state of things, traditions were gathered together which in a lew 
 years later would have entirely vanished. 
 
 The " Traditions," thus happily put in shape while there were still 
 living memories to draw upon, well suited the antiquarian tastes of 
 my brother, and he entered on the work with the keenest possible 
 relish. It was issued in parts, and I was, of course, the printer and 
 publisher, the whole case and press work being as hitherto executed 
 with my own hands. The result was a book in two volumes, with 
 the date of 1824. In an introductory notice to a new edition in 
 1868, the author gives the following account of the manner in which 
 the work was produced and received : 
 
 " I am about to do what very few could do without emotion : re- 
 vise a book which I wrote forty-five years ago. This little work came 
 out in the Augustan days of Edinburgh, when Jeffrey and Scott,
 
 624 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 Wilson and the Ettrick Shepherd, Dugald Stewart and Allison, were 
 daily giving the productions of their minds to the public, and while 
 yet Archibald Constable acted as the unquestioned emperor of the 
 publishing world. I was then an insignificant person of the age of 
 twenty ; yet, destitute as I was both of means and friends, I formed 
 the hope of writing something which would attract attention. The 
 subject I proposed was one lying readily at hand the romantic things 
 connected with Old Edinburgh. If, I calculated, a first part or num- 
 ber could be issued, materials for others might be expected to come 
 in, for scores of old inhabitants, even up perhaps to the very 'oldest,' 
 would then contribute their reminiscences. 
 
 " The plan met with success. Materials almost unbounded came 
 to me, chiefly from aged professional and mercantile gentlemen, who 
 usually, at my first introduction to them, stared at my youthful ap- 
 pearance, having formed the notion that none but an old person 
 would have thought of writing such a book. A friend gave me a 
 letter to Mr. Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, who, I was told, knew the 
 scandal of the time of Charles II as well as he did the merest gossip 
 of the day, and had much to say regarding the good society of a 
 hundred years ago. 
 
 " Looking back from the year 1868, I feel that C. K. S. has him- 
 self become, as it were, a tradition of Edinburgh. His thin, effem- 
 inate figure, his voice pitched in alt., his attire, as he took his daily 
 walks on Princes street a long blue frock-coat, black trousers, rather 
 wide below, and sweeping over white stockings and neat shoes ; some- 
 thing like a web of white cambric round his neck, and a brown wig 
 coming down to his eyebrows had long established him as what is 
 called a character. He had recently edited a book containing many 
 stories of diablerie, and another in which the original narrative of 
 ultra-presbyterian church history had to bear a series of cavalier 
 notes of the most mocking character. He had a quaint, biting wit, 
 which people bore as they would a scratch from a provoked cat. Es- 
 sentially, he was good-natured, and fond of merriment. He had 
 considerable gifts of drawing, and one caricature portrait by him of 
 Queen Elizabeth dancing, 'high and disposedly,' before the Scotch 
 embassadors, is the delight of every body who has seen it. He was 
 intensely aristocratic, and cared nothing for the interests of the great 
 multitude. He complained that one never heard of any gentlefolks 
 committing crimes nowadays, as if that were a disadvantage to them 
 or the public. Any case of a Lady Jane stabbing a perjured lover 
 would have delighted him. While the child of whim, Mr. Sharpe, 
 was generally believed to possess respectable talents, by which, with 
 a need for exerting them, he might have achieved distinction. His 
 ballad of the 'Murder of Caerlaverock,' in the 'minstrelsy,' is a 
 masterly production ; and the concluding verses haunt one like a 
 beautiful strain of music :
 
 SHARPE AND SIR WALTER SCOTT. 625 
 
 " ' To sweet Lincluden's haly cells 
 
 Fu' dowie I'll repair; 
 There Peace wi' gentle patience dwells, 
 
 Nae deadly feuds are there. 
 
 " ' In tears I'll wither ilka charm, 
 
 Like draps o' balefu' yew ; 
 And wail the beauty that could harm 
 
 A knight sae brave and true.' 
 
 " After what I had heard and read of Charles Sharpe, I called 
 upon him at his mother's house, No. 93 Princes street, in a some- 
 what excited frame of mind. His servant conducted me to the first 
 floor, and showed me into what is generally called among us the 
 back drawing-room, which I found carpeted with green cloth, and 
 full of old family portraits, some on the walls, but many more on the 
 floor. A small room leading off this one behind, was the place 
 where Mr. Sharpe gave audience. Its diminutive space was stuffed 
 full of old curiosities, cases with family bijouterie, etc. One petty 
 object was strongly indicative of the man a calling-card of Lady 
 Charlotte Campbell, the once adored beauty, stuck into the frame 
 of a picture. He must have kept it at that time about thirty years. 
 On appearing, Mr. Sharpe received me very cordially, telling me 
 he had seen and been pleased with my first two numbers. Indeed, 
 he and Sir Walter Scott had talked together of writing a book of the 
 same kind in ..company, and calling it ' Reekiana,' which plan, how- 
 ever, being anticipated by me, the only thing that remained for him 
 was to cast any little matters of the kind he possessed into my care. 
 I expressed myself duly grateful, and took my leave. The conse- 
 quence was, the appearance of notices regarding the eccentric Lady 
 Anne Dick, the beautiful Susanna, Countess of Eglintoune, the Lord 
 Justice-clerk Alva, and the Dutchess of Queensberry (the ' Kitty ' of 
 Prior), before the close of my first volume. Mr. Sharpe's contribu- 
 tions were all of them given in brief notes, and had to be written 
 out on an enlarged scale, with what I thought a regard to literary 
 effect as far as the telling was concerned. 
 
 "By an introduction from Dr. Chalmers, I visited a living lady 
 who might be considered as belonging to the generation at the be- 
 ginning of the reign of George III. Her husband, Alexander Mur- 
 ray, had, I believe, been Lord North's solicitor-general for Scotland. 
 She herself, born before the Porteous Riot, and well remembering the 
 Forty-five, was now within a very brief space of the age of a hundred. 
 Although she had not married in her earlier years, her children, Mr. 
 Murray of Henderland and others, were all elderly people. I found 
 the venerable lady seated at a window in her drawing-room in George 
 street, with her daughter, Miss Murray, taking the care of her which 
 her extreme age required, and with some help from this lady, we had 
 a conversation of about an hour. She spoke with due reverence of 
 her mother's brother, the Lord Chief-justice Mansfield ; and when I 
 40
 
 626 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 adverted to the long pamphlet written against him by Mr. Andrew 
 Stuart at the conclusion of the Douglas Cause, she said that to her 
 knowledge he had never read it, such being his practice in respect 
 of all attacks made upon him, lest they should disturb his equanimity 
 in judgment. As the old lady was on intimate terms with Boswell, 
 and had seen Johnson on his visits to Edinburgh as she was the 
 sister-in-law of Allan Ramsay the painter, and had lived in the most 
 cultivated society of Scotland all her long life there were ample 
 materials for conversation with her; but her small strength made this 
 shorter and slower than I could have wished. When we came upon 
 the poet Ramsay, she seemed to have caught new vigor from the sub- 
 ject ; she spoke with animation of the child-parties she had attended 
 in his house on the Castlehill during a course of ten years before his 
 death, an event which happened in 1757. He was 'charming,' she 
 said; he entered so heartily into the plays of children. He, in partic- 
 ular, gained their hearts by making houses for their dolls. How pleas- 
 ant it was to learn that our great pastoral poet was a man who, in his 
 private capacity, loved to sweeten the daily life of his fellow-creatures, 
 and particularly of the young ! At a warning from Miss Murray, I 
 had to tear myself away from this delightful and never-to-be-fotgotten 
 interview. 
 
 "I had, one or two years before, when not out of my teens, at- 
 tracted some attention from Sir Walter Scott, by writing for him and 
 presenting (through Mr. Constable) a transcript of the songs of the 
 ' Lady of the Lake,' in a style of peculiar calligraphy, which I prac- 
 ticed for want of any better way of attracting the notice of people 
 superior to myself. When George IV, some months afterwards, came 
 to Edinburgh, good Sir Walter remembered me, and procured for 
 me the business of writing the address of the Royal Society of Edin- 
 burgh to his Majesty, for which I was handsomely paid. Several 
 other learned bodies followed the example, for Sir Walter Scott was 
 the arbiter of every thing during that frantic time, and thus I was 
 substantially benefited by his means. 
 
 "According to what Mr. Constable told me, the great man liked 
 me, in part because he understood I was from Tweedside. On seeing 
 the earlier numbers of the 'Traditions,' he expressed astonishment 
 as to 'where the boy got all the information.' But I did not see or 
 hear from him till the first volume had been completed. He then 
 called upon me one day, along with Mr. Lockhart. I was over- 
 whelmed with the honor, for Sir Walter Scott was almost an object 
 of worship to me. I literally could not utter a word. While I stood 
 silent, I heard him tell his companion that Charles Sharpe was a 
 writer in the 'Traditions,' and taking up the volume, he read aloud 
 what he called one of his quaint bits. 'The ninth Earl of Eglintoune 
 was one of those patriarchal peers who live to an advanced age ; in- 
 defatigable in the frequency of their marriages and the number of 
 their children; who linger on and on, with an unfailing succession
 
 CONTRIBUTIONS OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. 627 
 
 of young countesses, and die at last leaving a progeny interspersed 
 throughout the whole of Douglas's "Peerage," two volumes, folio, 
 re-edited by Wood.' And then both gentlemen went on laughing 
 for perhaps two minutes, with interjections : ' How like Charlie ! ' 
 * What a strange being he is !' 'Two volumes, folio, re-edited by Wood, 
 ha, ha, ha ! There you have him past all doubt ;' and so on. I was 
 too much abashed to tell Sir Walter that it was only an impudent 
 little bit of writing of my own, part of the solution into which I had 
 diffused the actual notes of Sharpe. But, having occasion to write 
 next day to Mr. Lockhart, I mentioned Sir Walter's mistake ; and 
 he was soon after good enough to inform me that he had set his 
 friend right as to the authorship, and they had had a second hearty 
 laugh on the subject. 
 
 "A very few days after this visit, Sir Walter sent me, along with a 
 kind letter, a packet of manuscript, consisting of sixteen folio pages, 
 in his usual close handwriting, and containing all the reminiscences 
 he could at the time summon up of old persons and things in Edin- 
 burgh. Such a treasure to me ! And such a gift from the greatest 
 literary man of the age to the humblest ! Is there a literary man of 
 the present age who would scribble as much for any humble aspirant? 
 Nor was this the only act of liberality of Scott to me. When I was 
 preparing a subsequent work, ' The Popular Rhymes of Scotland,' 
 he sent me whole sheets of his recollections, with appropriate ex- 
 planations. For years thereafter, he allowed me to join him in his 
 walks home from the Parliament House, in the course of which he 
 freely poured into my greedy ears any thing he knew regarding the 
 subjects of my studies. His kindness and good-humor on these oc- 
 casions were untiring. I have since found, from his journal, that I 
 had met him on certain days when his heart was overladen with woe. 
 Yet his welcome to me was the same. After 1826, however, I saw 
 him much less frequently than before, for I knew he grudged every 
 moment not spent in thinking and working on the fatal tasks he had 
 assigned to himself for the redemption of his debts. 
 
 "All through the preparation of this book, I was indebted a good 
 deal to a gentleman who was neither a literary man nor an artist him- 
 self, but hovered round the outskirts of both professions, and might 
 be considered as a useful adjunct to both. Every votary of pen or 
 pencil among us knew David Bridges at his drapery establishment in 
 the Lawnmarket, and many had been indebted to his obliging dis- 
 position. A quick, dark-eyed little man, with lips full of sensibility 
 and a tongue unloving of rest, such a man in a degree as one can 
 suppose Garrick to have been, he held a sort of court every day, 
 where wits and painters jostled with people wanting coats, jerkins, 
 and spotted handkerchiefs. The place was small, and had no saloon 
 behind \ so, whenever David had got some ' bit ' to show you, he 
 dragged you down a dark stair to a packing place, lighted only by a 
 grate from the street, and there, amidst plaster-casts numberless,
 
 628 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 would fix you with his glittering eye, till he had convinced you of 
 the fine handling, the ' buttery touches ' (a great phrase with him), 
 the admirable ' scummling ' (another), and so forth. It was in the 
 days prior to the Royal Scottish Academy and its exhibitions; and it 
 was left in a great measure to David Bridges to bring forward aspir- 
 ants in art. Did such a person long for notice, he had only to give 
 David one of his best 'bits,' and in a short time he would find him- 
 self chattered into fame in that profound, the grate of which I never 
 can pass without recalling something of the buttery touches of those 
 old days. The Blackwood wits, who laughed at every thing, fixed 
 upon our friend the title of ' Director-general of the Fine Arts,' 
 which was, however, too much of a truth to be a jest. To this ex- 
 traordinary being I had been introduced somehow, and, entering 
 heartily into my views, he brought me information, brought me 
 friends, read and criticised my proofs, and would, I dare say, have 
 written the book itself if I had so desired. It is impossible to think 
 of him without a smile, but at the same time a certain melancholy, 
 for his life was one which, I fear, proved a poor one for himself. 
 
 " Before the ' Traditions ' were finished, I had become favorably 
 acquainted with many gentlemen of letters and others who were 
 pleased to think that Old Edinburgh had been chronicled. Wilson 
 gave me a laudatory sentence in the ' Noctes Ambrosianae.' The Bard 
 of Ettrick, viewing my boyish years, always spoke of and to me as an 
 unaccountable sort of person, but never could be induced to believe 
 otherwise than that I had written all my traditions from my own 
 head. I had also the pleasure of enjoying some intercourse with the 
 venerable Henry Mackenzie, who had been born in 1745, but always 
 seemed to feel as if the ' Man of Feeling ' had been written only one 
 instead of sixty years ago, and as if there was nothing particular in 
 antique occurrences. The whole affair was pretty much of a triumph 
 at the time. Now, when I am giving it a final revision, I reflect 
 with touched feelings, that all the brilliant men of the time when it 
 was written are, without an exception, passed away, while, for my- 
 self, I am forced to claim the benefit of Horace's humanity: 
 
 " ' Solve senescentum mature sanus equum, ne 
 Peccet ad extremum ridendus, et ilia ducat.' " * 
 
 In this recent edition of the "Traditions" are comprehended a 
 variety of particulars gathered since the first appearance of the work, 
 and calculated to heighten the legendary picture of Old Edinburgh. 
 A great portion of this new matter was drawn from a small work 
 which my brother wrote under the title of " Reekiana," which ap- 
 peared in 1833. The new edition of the "Traditions" is therefore 
 a considerable improvement on the old. One does not read without 
 
 * Discreetly unharness in good time a horse growing old, lest in the end he make 
 a miserable break-down.
 
 A LADY'S REMINISCENCES OF 1745. 629 
 
 interest an account of interviews with aged persons, such as Sir Wil- 
 liam Macleod Banatyne, who recollected the circumstance of "his 
 father drawing- on his boots to go to make interest in London in be- 
 half of some of the men in trouble for the Forty-five, particularly his 
 own brother-in-law, the clanranald of that day." Perhaps the most 
 interesting of these interviews was one narrated as follows, with Mrs. 
 Irving, a venerable lady who possessed by inheritance the patent of 
 Anderson's pills, a drug which took its origin from Dr. Anderson, a 
 physician of the time of Charles I: 
 
 "In 1829, Mrs. Irving lived in a neat, self-contained mansion in 
 Chessels's Court, in the Canongate, along with her son, General Irv- 
 ing, and some members of his family. The old lady, then ninety- 
 one, was good enough to invite me to dinner, where I likewise found 
 two younger sisters of hers, respectively eighty-nine and ninety. She 
 sat firm and collected at the head of the table, and carved a leg of 
 mutton with perfect propriety. She then told me, at her son's re- 
 quest, that, in the year 1745, when Prince Charles's army was in pos- 
 session of the town, she, a child of four years, walked with her nurse 
 to Holyrood Palace, and seeing a Highland gentleman standing in 
 the doorway, she went up to him to examine his peculiar attire. She 
 even took the liberty of lifting up his kilt a little way ; whereupon 
 her nurse, fearing some danger, started forward for her protection. 
 But the gentleman only patted her head, and said something kind to 
 her. I felt it as very curious to sit as a guest with a person who 
 had mingled in the Forty-five. But my excitement was brought to 
 a higher pitch, when, on ascending to the drawing-room, I found the 
 general's daughter, a pretty young woman, recently married, sitting 
 there, dressed in a suit of clothes belonging to one of her nonagena- 
 rian aunts a very fine one of flowered satin, with elegant cap and 
 lappets, and silk shoes three inches deep in the heel the same hav- 
 ing been worn just seventy years before at a Hunter's Ball at Holy- 
 rood Palace. The contrast between the former and the present 
 wearer the old lady shrunk and taciturn, and her young representa- 
 tive full of life, and resplendent in joyous beauty had an effect upon 
 me which it would be impossible to describe. To this day, I look 
 upon the Chessels's Court dinner as one of the most extraordinary 
 events of my life. Mrs. Irving died in 1837, at the age of ninety- 
 nine." 
 
 Passing to the next of my brother's productions: In November, 
 1824, there was a week of calamitous fires in Edinburgh, which des- 
 olated a portion of the High Street and Parliament Square. To help 
 the fund raised on behalf of the sufferers on the occasion, he wrote 
 a popular account of the chief " Fires which have occurred in Edin- 
 burgh since the Beginning of the Eighteenth Century." In the ex- 
 citement of the moment it had a considerable sale, and was so far 
 useful.
 
 630 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 The success of the "Traditions" encouraged the preparation of a 
 companion to that work, applying to the general features of the city, 
 and partly devoted to the service of strangers. It was styled "Walks 
 in Edinburgh," and was issued in 1825. From the pleasing, anec- 
 dotic style in which the book was written, it was well received, and 
 added to the literary repute of the writer. 
 
 Diligent, painstaking, and with a love of what was old and char- 
 acteristic, Robert had for some time been collecting a variety of 
 familiar sayings in rhyme, and these appeared early in 1826, under 
 the title of "Popular Rhymes of Scotland." As has been already 
 mentioned, Sir Walter Scott, with his accustomed kindness, forwarded 
 some contributions to the work, which has passed through three edi- 
 tions. As regards the purport of this collection of national rhymes, 
 the following explanation is given in the preface to the third and 
 considerably extended edition : 
 
 " Reared amidst friends to whom popular poetry furnished a daily 
 enjoyment, and led by a tendency of my own mind to delight in 
 whatever is qaint, whimsical, and old, I formed the wish, at an early 
 period of life, to complete as I considered it, the collection of the 
 traditionary verse of Scotland, by gathering together and publishing 
 all that remained .of a multitude of rhymes and short snatches of 
 verse applicable to places, families, natural objects, amusements, etc., 
 wherewith not less than by song and ballad, the cottage fireside was 
 amused in days gone past, while yet printed books were only familiar 
 to comparatively few. This task was executed as well as circum- 
 stances would permit, and a portion of the ' Popular Rhymes of Scot- 
 land' was published in 1826. Other objects have since occupied me, 
 generally of a graver kind; yet amidst them all, I have never lost 
 my wish to complete the publication of these relics of the old natural 
 literature of my native country." 
 
 Among the persons to whom my brother applied for materials for 
 the work was William Wilson, a young man of about his own age, 
 who had similar poetical and archaeological tastes, and for a time 
 edited a literary periodical in Dundee. Between the two there sprung 
 up an extraordinary friendship, which was not weakened by Wilson 
 some years later emigrating to America, and setting up as a book- 
 seller at Poughkeepsie, a pretty town on the Hudson, in the State 
 of New York. The letters which passed between them bring into 
 view a number of particulars concerning my. brother's literary aims 
 and efforts. Writing in January, 1824, to Wilson, whom he always 
 addressed as his "dear Willie," he refers gratifyingly to the "Tra- 
 ditions," and the manner in which the book had brought him into 
 notice : " This little work is taking astonishingly, and I am getting a 
 great deal of credit by it. It has also been the means of introducing 
 me to many of the most respectable leading men of the town, and 
 has attracted to me the attention of not a few of the most eminent
 
 ROBERT'S "PICTURE OF SCOTLAND," ETC. 631 
 
 literary characters. What would you think, for instance, of the 
 venerable author of the "Man of Feeling" calling on me in his 
 carriage to contribute his remarks in manuscript on my work I The 
 value of the above two great advantages is incalculable to a young 
 tradesman and author like me. It saves me twenty years of mere 
 laborious plodding by the common walk, and gives me at twenty-two 
 all the respectability which I could have expected at forty." 
 
 Later in the same year, he incloses a lyrical effusion to Wilson, the 
 inspiring heroine of which can be guessed at from the name of a 
 young lady, who was prevented by her mother from forming an in- 
 timacy with one not supposed to be in the category of an " eligible." 
 It is to be regretted that "Leila" was not afterwards particularly 
 fortunate in her marriage. 
 
 " Fair Leila's eyes, fair Leila's eyes, 
 Oft fill my breast with glad surprise 
 Surprise and love, and hope and pride, 
 With many a glowing thought beside. 
 
 " The light that lies in Leila's eyes 
 No trick of vain allurement tries, 
 But sheds a soft and constant beam, 
 Like moonlight on the tranquil stream ; 
 Yet as the seas from pole to pole 
 Move at yon gentle orb's control, 
 So tumults in my bosom rise 
 Beneath the charm of Leila's eyes. 
 
 Fair Leila's eyes, fair Leila's eyes, etc. 
 
 " Fair Leila's eyes I'd gladly shun 
 The flaunting glare of Fortune's sun, 
 And to the humble shade betake, 
 Which they a brighter heaven could make. 
 The wildfire lights I once pursued 
 
 Should ne'er again my steps delude : 
 I'd fix my faith, and only prize 
 The steadfast light of Leila's eyes. 
 
 Fair Leila's eyes, fair Leila's eyes, etc." 
 
 Improving in his prospects, Robert removed with his bookselling 
 business to Hanover street, where the conducting of his establishment 
 fell partly on James, who had been reared as a coadjutor. In 1826, 
 following next after the "Rhymes," appeared his " Picture of Scot- 
 land," a work in two volumes, the materials of which had been gath- 
 ered together by a succession of toilsome peregrinations over a large 
 part of the country, exclusively of previous historical studies. An 
 ardent attachment to Scotland had led him to undertake the work ; 
 for, as he said, " Instead of the pilgrim's scallop in my hat, I took 
 for motto the glowing expression of Burns': ' I have no dearer aim 
 than to make leisurely journeys through Caledonia; to sit on the
 
 632 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 fields of her battles ; to wander on the romantic banks of her streams ; 
 and to muse by the stately towers of venerable ruins, once the home- 
 steads of her heroes.' ' In the main topographical, the book com- 
 prehended an interlarding of native anecdote and humor, along with 
 illustrations of the manners of a past age. " The reclamation of that 
 which is altogether poetry the wonderful, beautiful past," he adds, 
 was a primary object of the book, being " conscious and certain that, 
 though many of his own generation may not give him credit for so 
 exalted a purpose, the people who shall afterwards inherit this roman- 
 tic land will appreciate what could not have been preserved but with 
 a view to their gratification." 
 
 The "Picture of Scotland" was followed in rapid succession by 
 several works which still further extended Robert's popularity as a 
 writer. The quantity of literary work of one kind or other which he 
 went through during some years at this period was astonishing, more 
 particularly when we know that he continued to give a certain degree 
 of attention daily to business. Indeed, with all his love of letters, 
 he by no means relied on his efforts with the pen. He used to repeat 
 a sage remark of Scott, that literature is a good cane to walk with, 
 but not a staff to lean upon ; an observation too apt to be neglected 
 by young and inexperienced writers. 
 
 Archibald Constable, in his attempts to revive a publishing business 
 after the catastrophe of 1825, happily struck out the idea of a series 
 of cheap popular works, by which employment was found for a num- 
 ber of persons with literary tastes and of tried ability. Robert was 
 one of the earliest so pressed into the service of " Constable's Mis- 
 cellany." In 1828, appeared his " History of the Rebellion of 1745," 
 in two volumes ; at the close of the same year was issued his " His- 
 tory of the Rebellions in Scotland under the Marquis of Montrose 
 and others from 1638 to 1660," in two volumes; this was followed, 
 in 1829, by a " History of the Rebellions in Scotland under Viscount 
 Dundee and the Earl of Mar in 1689 and 1715," in one volume; 
 and finally, in 1830, he contributed the "Life of James I," in two 
 volumes. Such, however, was not the entire amount of his literary 
 labor. Intermediately, he edited "Scottish Ballads and Songs," in 
 three volumes (1829),, and the " Biography of Distinguished Scots- 
 men," in four volumes. Besides which, he furnished Mr. Lockhart 
 with a variety of valuable notes for his " Life of Robert Burns." 
 
 Of all these works, that which attained the greatest and most en- 
 during popularity was the " History of the Rebellion of 1745," the 
 materials of which were gathered from the principal sources of infor- 
 mation available in 1827. Several families, whose ancestors had been 
 compromised in the insurrection, obligingly furnished traditional 
 anecdotes for the work, which thereby assumed a character consider- 
 ably different from one consisting of dry historical annals. While 
 received with general approbation, the " History of the Rebellion," 
 from the feeling with which it was written, led to a notion that it
 
 "THE LYON IN MOURNING." 633 
 
 was the work of a Jacobite. Such seems to have been the opinion 
 of a writer in the Quarterly Review, who, in reviewing Lord Mahon's 
 " History of England " (1839), refers to the " many curious details, 
 gleaned with exemplary diligence, and presented in a lively enough 
 style," in the histories of the rebellions of 1715 and 1745, by "Mr. 
 Robert Chambers, a bookseller and antiquary of Edinburgh," adding: 
 " His Jacobitism seems that of a rampant Highlander ; and we doubt 
 not, had he flourished at the proper time, he would have handled his 
 claymore gallantly ; nor are we at all surprised to hear that he enjoys 
 considerable popularity among certain classes in Scotland; but we 
 can not anticipate that these historical performances will ever obtain 
 a place in the English library." 
 
 To conclusions as to his supposed Jacobitism, my brother made 
 some demur. He declared that he " disapproved of the insurrection 
 of 1745, and held that it undoubtedly was a crime to disturb with 
 war, and to some extent with rapine, a nation enjoying internal peace 
 under a settled government. But, on the other hand, it was evident 
 that those who followed Charles Edward acted according to their lights, 
 with heroic self-devotion, and were not fairly liable to the vulgar rid- 
 icule and vituperations thrown upon them by those whose duty it was 
 to resist and punish them. Accordingly, it was just that the adven- 
 tures of the persons concerned should be detailed with impartiality, 
 and their unavoidable misfortunes be spoken of with humane feeling." 
 Such is the vindicatory remark he makes in a prefatory note to the 
 seventh edition of the work, issued as lately as 1869; and in the pres- 
 ent day, few will be disposed to challenge the accuracy of this view 
 of the matter. Whether this historical performance has obtained a 
 place in what the reviewer is pleased to call "the English library," 
 I am not prepared to say, further than that, without adventitious 
 aid, it has been very extensively diffused in all parts of Great Britain, 
 and remains, to appearance, a generally received work on the subject. 
 
 The new edition of the "History" just referred to has been so 
 greatly extended as to be almost a new work. The prolific source 
 of the fresh information that was obtained, was a collection of ten 
 volumes in manuscript, styled on the title-pages the " Lyon in 
 Mourning," which had been prepared by the anxious care of the 
 Right Rev. "Bishop Forbes, of the Scottish Episcopal Church, and who 
 was settled as a minister of that communion in Leith at the middle 
 of the eighteenth century. Laboring under the suspicion that he was 
 a Jacobite dangerous to the reigning dynasty, he was confined in Ed- 
 inburgh Castle during the rebellion, and only liberated in 1746. By 
 this means he was saved from the disasters of the falling cause, and 
 brought into leisurely communication with a number of the insur- 
 gents who were seized at various times and placed in confinement 
 along with him. After regaining his liberty, Bishop Forbes prose- 
 cuted the design of collecting from the mouths and JX.MIS of the sur- 
 vivors of the late enterprise such narratives, anecdotes, and memo-
 
 634 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 rabilia as they could give from their own knowledge, or as eye-wit- 
 nesses, respecting this extraordinary historical episode. The whole 
 of the trustworthy information so acquired was written on octavo 
 sheets, which in the end formed volumes; and nothing can exceed 
 the "neatness, distinctness, and accuracy with which the whole task 
 appears to have been performed. In allusion to the woe of Scotland 
 for her exiled race of princes, the ten volumes composing the work 
 were bound in black, and styled the "Lyon in Mourning." The 
 poor bishop died in 1776, leaving the collection to his widow, who, 
 after many years, sold it to Sir Henry Stewart of Allanton, who had 
 been induced to turn his attention to the subject ; and he commenced 
 a work designed to present a historical review of the different at- 
 tempts made to restore the Stewart family to the throne. The work 
 had been carried a certain length, when it was interrupted by ill- 
 health, and permanently laid aside. On a visit to Allanton House, 
 in 1832, my brother first heard of the "Lyon, "and was so fortunate 
 as to have it assigned to him for literary purposes. The result (1834) 
 was the "Jacobite Memoirs of the Rebellion of 1745." But from 
 the wide-spread information contained in the collection, were drawn 
 innumerable particulars of a deeply interesting kind for the revised 
 edition of the "History." 
 
 Between 1823 and 1835, Robert amused himself, and gave relief 
 to his feelings, by occasionally writing poetical pieces, which he col- 
 lected and printed in a volume for private circulation. The follow- 
 ing is one of these effusions, purporting to be written July 1829, in 
 reference to the very amiable young lady, Miss Annie Kirkwood, 
 whom he married in December of that year.* 
 
 THOU GENTLE AND KIND ONE. 
 
 " Thou gentle and kind one, 
 
 Who com'st o'er my dreams 
 Like the gales of the west, 
 
 Or the music of streams ; 
 O softest and dearest, 
 
 Can that time e'er be, 
 When I could be forgetful 
 
 Or scornful of thee ? 
 
 " No ! my soul might be dark, 
 
 Like a landscape in shade, 
 And for thee not the half 
 
 Of its love be displayed, 
 But one ray of thy kindness 
 
 Would banish my pain, 
 And soon kiss every feature 
 
 To brightness again. 
 
 * December 7, 1829. Robert Chambers married to Anne Kirkwood, only child 
 of the late John Kirkwood, Custom-house, Glasgow. Newspaper Notice.
 
 THE "STIRLING JUG." 635 
 
 "And if, in contending 
 
 With men and the world, 
 My eye might be fierce 
 
 Or my brow might be curled ; 
 That brow on thy bosom 
 
 All smoothed would recline, 
 And that eye melt in kindness, 
 
 When turned upon thine. 
 
 " If faithful in sorrow, 
 
 More faithful in joy 
 Thou shouldst find that no change 
 
 Could affection destroy; 
 All profit, all pleasure 
 
 As nothing would be, 
 And each triumph despised, 
 
 Unpartaken by thee." 
 
 Always ready to lend a helping hand to the promotion of any lit- 
 erary object connected with his native country, my brother, in 1830, 
 contributed historical and descriptive notices to a work styled the 
 "Picture of Stirling." An opportunity was thereby afforded of giv- 
 ing an account of an object formerly of national importance, known 
 as the "Stirling Jug," such having been the legal standard for the 
 old Scotch pint (equal to about an English quart), which is referred 
 to, as some may perhaps think, rather too frequently in the verses of 
 Burns and others. As little is popularly known regarding the history 
 of the Stirling Jug, we may copy it for general edification: 
 
 "By an act of the Scottish Parliament, in 1437, various burghs in 
 the Lowlands were appointed to keep the various standard measures 
 for liquid and dry goods, from which all others throughout the 
 country were to be taken. To Edinburgh was appointed the honor 
 of keeping the standard ell ; to Perth the reel ; to Lanark the pound ; 
 to Linlithgow the firlot; and to Stirling the pint. This was a judi- 
 cious arrangement, both as it was calculated to prevent any attempt 
 at an extensive or general scheme of fraud, and as the commodities 
 to which the different standards referred were supplied in the greatest 
 abundance by the districts and towns to whose care they were com- 
 mitted; Edinburgh being then the principal market for cloth, Perth 
 for yarn, Lanark for wool, Linlithgow for grain, and Stirling for dis- 
 tilled and fermented liquors. The pint measure, popularly called the 
 Stirling Jug, is still kept with great care in the town where it was 
 first deposited four hundred years ago. It is made of brass, in the 
 
 shape of a hollow cone truncated The handle is fixed 
 
 with two brass nails; and the whole has an appearance of rudeness, 
 quite proper to the early age when it was first instituted by the Scot- 
 tish Estates as the standard of liquid measure for this ancient bac- 
 chanalian kingdom. It will be interesting to all votaries of antiquity 
 to know that this vessel, which may in some measure be esteemed a
 
 636 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 national palladium, was rescued, about eighty years ago, from the 
 fate of being utterly lost, to which all circumstances for some time 
 seemed to destine it. The person whom we have to thank for this 
 good service was the Reverend Alexander Bryce, minister of Kirk- 
 newton, near Edinburgh, a man of scientific and literary accomplish- 
 ment much superior to what was displayed by the generality of the 
 clergy of this day. Mr. Bryce (who had taught the mathematical 
 class in the college of Edinburgh during the winter of 1745-46, in- 
 stead of the eminent Maclaurin, who was then on his death-bed) 
 happened to visit Stirling in the year 1750; when, recollecting that 
 the standard pint jug was appointed to remain in that town, he re- 
 quested permission from the magistrates to see it. The magistrates 
 conducted him to their council-house, where a pewter pint jug was 
 taken down from the roof, whence it was suspended, and presented to 
 him. After a careful examination, he was convinced that this could 
 not be the legal standard. He communicated his opinion to the 
 magistrates ; but they were equally ignorant of the loss which the 
 town had sustained, and indisposed to take any trouble for the pur- 
 pose of retrieving it. It excited very different feelings in the acute 
 and inquiring mind of Dr. Bryce; and resolved, if possible, to re- 
 cover the valuable antique, he immediately instituted a search ; which, 
 though conducted with much patient industry for about a twelve- 
 month, proved, to his great regret, unavailing. In 1752, it occurred 
 to him that the standard jug might have been borrowed by some of 
 the coppersmiths or braziers, for the purpose of making legal meas- 
 ures for the citizens, and, by some chance, not returned. Having 
 been informed that a person of this description, named Urquhart, 
 had joined the insurgent forces in 1745; that, on his not returning, 
 his furniture and shop utensils had been brought to sale ; and that va- 
 rious articles, which had not been sold, were thrown into a garret as 
 useless, a gleam of hope darted into his mind, and he eagerly went 
 to make the proper investigation. Accordingly, in that obscure gar- 
 ret, buried underneath a mass of lumber, he discovered the precious 
 object of his research. 
 
 "Thus was discovered the only standard, by special statute, of all 
 liquid and dry measure in Scotland, after it had been offered for sale 
 at perhaps the cheap and easy price of one penny, rejected as un- 
 worthy of that little sum, and subsequently thrown by as altogether 
 useless ; and many years after it had been considered by its constitu- 
 tional guardians as irretrievably lost. For his ' good services ' in re- 
 covering the Stirling Jug, Mr. Bryce was presented with the freedom 
 of the city of Edinburgh, January, 1754." 
 
 Towards the close of 1831, Robert made what many may think a 
 bold attempt in literature. It was, by a collection of sayings and 
 anecdotes, " to vindicate, for the first time, the pretensions of the 
 Scottish nation to the character of a witty and jocular, as they are
 
 SCOTTISH JESTS AND ANECDOTES. 637 
 
 already allowed to be a painstaking and enlightened race." The 
 book, styled " Scottish Jests and Anecdotes," certainly contained a 
 prodigious array of good things, collected from all imaginable sources, 
 including personal experience in general society. It being the first 
 attempt of the kind, the editor says he felt as if " entitled to some 
 share of that praise which is so liberally bestowed upon discoverers 
 like Cook and Parry, and might expect to be celebrated in after 
 ages as the first man who extended the Geography of Fun beyond the 
 Tweed." The work was pretty well received, and went through two 
 editions; after which, dropping out of notice, it was left for the 
 Very Rev. Dean Ramsay to take up the subject in that more earnest 
 spirit which has insured a great share of public approbation. 
 
 That my brother had any merit in discovering that the Scotch are 
 a ' ' witty ' ' people, will be doubted by those who think them inca- 
 pable of getting beyond a certain species of dry and caustic humor. 
 One thing certainly remarkable in all works purporting to be col- 
 lections of Scottish jests and anecdotes, is the abundance of droll 
 sayings ai\d doings of parish ministers, beadles, and old serving-men. 
 As a specimen of what Robert collected of this nature, we may give 
 an anecdote referring to what he calls 
 
 THE UNLUCKY PRESENT. 
 
 "A Lanarkshire minister (who died within the present century) 
 was one of those unhappy persons, who, to use the words of a well- 
 known Scottish adage, 'can never see green cheese but their een 
 reels.' He was extremely covetous, and that not only of nice articles 
 of food, but of many other things which do not generally excite the 
 cupidity of the human heart. Being on a visit, one day, at the 
 house of one of his parishioners, a poor lonely widow, living in a 
 moorland part of the parish, he became fascinated by the charms of a 
 cast-iron pot, which happened, at the time, to be lying on the hearth, 
 full of potatoes for the poor woman's dinner, and that of her chil- 
 dren. He had never, in his life, seen such a nice little pot it was 
 a perfect conceit of a thing it was a gem no pot on earth could 
 match it in symmetry it was an object altogether perfectly lovely. 
 ' Dear sake! minister,' said the widow, quite overpowered by the rev- 
 erend man's commendations of her pot ; ' if ye like the pot sae 
 weel as a' that, I beg ye' 11 let me send it to the manse. It's a 
 kind o' orra' [superfluous] ' pot wi' us ; for we've a bigger ane, that 
 we use for ordinar, and that's mair convenient every way for us. Sae 
 ye'll tak a present o't. I'll send it ower the morn wi' Jamie, when 
 he gangs to the schule.' ' O !' said the minister, 'I can by no 
 means permit you to be at so much trouble. Since you are so good 
 as to give me the pot, I'll just carry it home with me in my hand. 
 I'm so much taken with it, indeed, that I would really prefer carry- 
 ing it myself." After much altercation between the minister and the
 
 638 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 widow on this delicate point of politeness, it was agreed that he should 
 carry home the pot himself. 
 
 "Off then he trudged, bearing this curious little culinary article 
 alternately in his hand and under his arm, as seemed most convenient 
 to him. Unfortunately the day was warm, the way long, and the 
 minister fat, so that he became heartily tired of his burden before he 
 got half-way home. In these distressing circumstances, it struck him 
 that if instead of carrying the pot awkwardly at one side of his per- 
 son he were to carry it on his head, the burden would be greatly 
 lightened. Accordingly, doffing his hat, which he resolved to carry 
 home in his hand, and having applied his handkerchief to his brow, 
 he placed the pot, in inverted fashion, upon his head. There was, 
 at first, much relief and much comfort in this new mode of carrying 
 the pot, but mark the result. The unfortunate minister, having taken 
 a by-path to escape observation, found himself, when still a good 
 way from home, under the necessity of leaping over a ditch which 
 intercepted him in passing from one field to another. He jumped, 
 but unfortunately the concussion given to his person in descending 
 caused the helmet to become a hood; the pot slipped down over his 
 face, and resting with the rim upon his neck, there stuck fast. What 
 was worse of all, the nose, which had permitted the pot to slip down 
 over it, withstood every desperate attempt on the part of its proprie- 
 tor to make it slip back again; the contracted part, or neck, of the 
 pot being of such a peculiar formation as to cling fast to the base of 
 the nose, although it had found no difficulty in gliding downwardly 
 over it. Was ever minister in a worse plight? What was to be 
 done? The place was lonely; the way difficult and dangerous; hu- 
 man relief was remote, almost beyond reach. It was impossible even 
 to cry for help ; or if a cry could be uttered, it would not travel 
 twelve inches in any direction. To add to the distresses of the case, 
 the unhappy sufferer soon found great difficulty in breathing. What 
 with the heat occasioned by the beating of the sun on the metal, and 
 what with the frequent return of the same heated air to his lungs, he 
 was in the utmost danger of suffocation. Every thing considered, it 
 seemed likely that if he did not chance to be relived by some acci- 
 dental wayfarer there would soon be death in the pot. 
 
 "The instinctive love of life, however, is omniprevalent. Pressed 
 by the urgency of his distresses, the poor minister fortunately recol- 
 lected that there was a smith's shop at the distance of about a mile 
 across the fields, which if he could reach he might possibly find re- 
 lief. Deprived of his eyesight, he acted only as a man of feeling, 
 and went on as cautiously as he could with his hat in his hand. 
 Half crawling, half sliding, over ridge and furrow, ditch and hedge, 
 the unhappy minister traveled with all possible speed, as nearly as he 
 could guess, in the direction of the place of refuge. I leave it to the 
 reader to conceive the surprise, the mirth, the infinite amusement of 
 the blacksmith and all the hangers-on of the smiddy, when, at length,
 
 ROBERT EDITS THE "ADVERTISER." 639 
 
 torn and worn, faint and exhausted, blind and breathless, the unfor- 
 tunate man arrived at the place and let them know (rather by signs 
 than by words) the circumstances ^of his case. 
 
 " The merriment of the people who assembled soon gave way to 
 considerations of humanityr Ludicrous as was the minister, with such 
 an object where his head should have been, and with the feet of the 
 pot pointing upwards, it was necessary that he should be speedily re- 
 stored to his ordinary condition if it were for no other reason than 
 that he might continue to live. He was, accordingly, at his own re- 
 quest, led into the smithy, by-standers flocking around to tender him 
 their kindest offices or to witness the process of release ; and having 
 laid down his head upon the anvil the smith lost no time in seizing 
 arid poising his goodly forehammer. ' Will I come sair on, minister ?' 
 exclaimed the considerate man of iron in at the brink of the pot. 
 'As sair as ye like,' was the minister's answer; ' better a chap i' the 
 chafts than die for want of breath.' Thus permitted, the man let fall 
 a blow which fortunately broke the pot in pieces without hurting the 
 head which it inclosed, as the cook-maid breaks the shell of the lob- 
 ster without bruising the delicate food within. A few minutes of the 
 clear air, and a glass of the guidwife's cordial, restored the unfortu- 
 nate minister ; but assuredly the incident is one which will long live 
 in the memory of his parishioners." 
 
 We have not yet completed the review of literary work in which 
 Robert was engaged from about 1829 to 1832. Busied as he was, 
 he undertook the editorship of the Edinburgh Advertiser, a newspaper 
 of old standing, as well as an old style of politics, that has been lat- 
 terly discontinued. This species of employment had the effect of 
 bringing him in contact with some local public characters, and of 
 widening his acquaintanceship among the political party who viewed 
 the proposed changes in the constitution with distrust. It may be 
 conceived that his connection with the old Advertiser was not uncon- 
 genial with the feelings of Sir Walter Scott. But between the great 
 novelist and my brother personal intercourse had ceased, for Sir 
 Walter was now an invalid at Abbotsford. Letters, however, passed 
 between them, as is observable from Robert's private papers, some- 
 times in reference to literary matters, and on other occasions concern- 
 ing the introductions of strangers. A Miss MacLaughlin, with musical 
 acquirements, having visited Edinburgh, besought for herself and her 
 mother an introduction to Sir Walter, which being granted, the fol- 
 lowing letter was shortly afterwards received, dated from Abbotsford, 
 March 7, 1831 : 
 
 " MY DEAR MR. CHAMBERS, I was quite happy to see Miss Mac- 
 Laughlin, who is a fine, enthusiastic girl, and very, very pretty withal. 
 They that is, her mother and she breakfasted with me, though I 
 had what is unusual at Abbotsford, no female assistance. However,
 
 640 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 we got on very well, and I prepared the young lady a set of words 
 to the air of ' Crochallan.' But although Miss M. proposed to leave 
 me a copy of the Celtic harmonies, I suppose the servant put it in 
 her carriage. Purdie is the publisher. Will you get me a copy of 
 the number containing ' Crochallan,' with a prose translation by a 
 competent person, and let me know the expense?* 
 
 ' ' I fear I can not be of use to you in the way you propose, though 
 I sincerely rejoice in your success, and would gladly promote it ; but 
 Dr. Abercrombie threatens me with death if I write so much. I must 
 assist Lockhart a little, for you are aware of our connection, and he 
 has always shown me the duties of a son ; but except that, and my 
 own necessary work at the edition of the Waverley Novels, as they 
 call them, I can hardly pretend to be a contributor, for, after all, 
 that same dying is a ceremony one would put off^s long as he could. 
 .!.':. . I am, dear Mr. Chambers, very faithfully yours, 
 
 ' ' WALTER SCOTT. ' ' 
 
 The next letter received, which has the date Abbotsford, August 
 2, 1831, bears a melancholy record of Sir Walter's growing bodily 
 weakness : 
 
 "DEAR MR. CHAMBERS, I received your letter through Mr. 
 Cadell. It is impossible for a gentleman to say no to a request which 
 flatters him more than he deserves. But even although it is said in 
 the newspapers, I actually am far from well. I am keeping my head 
 as cool as I can, and speak with some difficulty ; but I am unwilling 
 to make a piece of work about nothing, and instead of doing so I 
 ought rather to receive the lady as civilly as I can. I am much out, 
 riding, or rather crawling about my plantations in the morning when 
 the weather will permit ; but a card from Miss Eccles will find me 
 at home, and happy to see her, although the effect is like to be dis- 
 appointment to the lady. I am your faithful, humble servant. 
 
 " I have owed you a letter longer than I intended ; but I write 
 with pain, and generally use the hand of a friend. I sign with my 
 initials as enough to represent the poor half of me that is left, but 
 am still much yours, W. S." 
 
 This appears to have been the last letter received by my brother 
 from Sir Walter Scott. 
 
 * The origin of the beautiful song of Chro Challin takes a conspicuous place in 
 the traditions of the Scottish Gael. Chro Challin is the Cattle of Colin, In the song, 
 a maiden, anxious to make out a favorable case for her lover, who is a hunter, de- 
 scribes him as possessing large herds ; but does this in a metaphorical manner, so 
 that, in the long run, it turns out that his cattle are only the deer of the mountains. 
 . . . Other romantic origins are given to the song and air, which still charm the 
 Highland ear. R. CHAMBERS, in Land of Burns.
 
 ANECDOTE OF ERSKINE. 641 
 
 - SOME REMINISCENCES 1822 TO 1832. 
 
 Robert's success with the "Traditions," and my own progress in 
 the new field I had selected, left nothing to regret. The "Dark 
 Ages " had vanished into the dim past. The mediaeval period had 
 dawned. There was no longer a fierce skirmishing with difficulties, 
 but there was much less drollery. As men get up in the world they, 
 as a rule, take on the gravity which by immemorial usage pertains to 
 what are called the respectable classes. They are likewise apt to part 
 convoy with a number of individuals who have hitherto kept within 
 hail. The reason is plain. Each, from choice, pursues his own line 
 of navigation. Mankind are roughly divided, in unequal proportions, 
 into two sects those who consume day by day all they can lay their 
 hands on, thinking no more of what is to be their fate in a year or 
 ten years hence than the lower animals ; others a much less numer- 
 ous body who are always looking ahead and acting with less or 
 more regard to the future. What impressive examples one could 
 produce of these differences of taste ! Two young men, of good edu- 
 cation, start in life with pretty equal chances of success. On,e of 
 them rises by gradations to be Lord Chancellor : where do we find 
 the other ? Seated with his back to the wall, drawing figures in red 
 and white chalk on a smooth piece of pavement, in the hope of re- 
 tiring to his evening haunt with the sum of half a crown in sixpences 
 and half-pence, to be spent probably in the felicity of a carouse. 
 That, we may presume, is the line of life he has deliberately preferred. 
 He had worked for beggary, and he has got it. When a man will 
 make no sacrifice of his pleasures, but sets his heart on freshly 
 beginning the world every day, or every week, it is not difficult to 
 do so. The facility with which the thing can be done explains much 
 of what seems to perplex society and drive it almost to its wit's 
 end. 
 
 In the strange complication of human affairs, luck, no doubt counts 
 for something ; but have we properly considered what is luck ? Surely, 
 the business of life can not be said to be conducted on the haphazard 
 principles of a game of roulette ! Is there no prearrangement, no 
 Providential design, leading by a series of circumstances to results 
 which have been hitherto shrouded from our finite intelligence ? To 
 be lucky, as it is called, one requires to make some reasonably strenu- 
 ous exertion probably to make some unpleasant sacrifices. Erskine 
 might not, perhaps, have risen to be Lord Chancellor but for the for- 
 tunate sprain which caused him hastily to relinquish an intended visit, 
 and return home, where he was waited on by a worthy old maritime 
 gentleman, whose intricate case he took up, mastered, and carried 
 through triumphantly. But we must bear in mind that he had by 
 previous and toilsome exertion, and no little self-sacrifice, prepared 
 himself to benefit by the fortunate accident which brought him into
 
 642 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 notice. 5 '' It is a pity that one has to make so many sacrifices of incli- 
 nations, to thole a good deal, possibly to relinquish some amusements, 
 in order to attain any thing like permanent comfort ; but so it is, and 
 ever will be. When my brother and I got emancipated from the Dark 
 Ages, it was our fate to proceed on a course wholly different from that 
 which several persons we had known were pleased to pursue. Their 
 policy being to live all for the present, and not for the future, sent 
 us naturally -in opposite directions. Apparently wishing to end as 
 they began, they spent daily or weekly all they earned, and were 
 ever at the same point of progress. They doubtless, however, en- 
 joyed themselves to their own satisfaction, and there we must leave 
 them. 
 
 Relaxing no effort, five to six years had effected a beneficial change 
 of circumstances. We were both, in a sense, raised to a higher plat- 
 form, and had, indeed, reached that social status, if not something 
 above it, which had been lost by the family calamity of 1812. It 
 seemed as if the gales of fortune were at length about to blow stead- 
 ily in our favor, without disturbance from any cross-current. We 
 were not, however, to be let off so easily. Fate had one more trial 
 in reserve. 
 
 My father had come to live in Edinburgh. Afflicted with dreary 
 recollections, sometimes half-distracted, and ready to catch at delu- 
 sive hopes, he plunged into proceedings which I can only refer to 
 with any degree of patience, from the insight which they afforded 
 of new and diverting phases of character. Among his dreams of 
 the past, he raked up the fancy of trying to recover a piece of prop- 
 erty which had long ago belonged to the family, but had somehow 
 been suffered to drift, improperly, as was alleged, into other hands. 
 The property in question was a wretched old house, perhaps not 
 worth 2oo/, and the proposal of fighting for it in the Court of Ses- 
 sion was repugnant alike to my brother's feelings and my own. Un- 
 fortunately, any remonstrances on our part, and also strong objec- 
 tions urged by my mother, were unavailing. The suit was commenced 
 and its history might almost furnish materials for a tragi-comic 
 drama. 
 
 The prime adviser in the case was a person who, from his reputed 
 knowledge of law, was held in high esteem by certain classes of peo- 
 ple. He was a neat little man, in drab breeches and white woolen 
 stockings, who labored under the infirmity of a stiff, crooked knee, 
 on which account he walked very oddly, by successive jerks, with 
 the help of a stick. Having been bred in the office of a country 
 solicitor, this erudite person had formed an acquaintance with legal 
 forms and technicalities, and adding to this a theoretic knowledge of 
 Scotch law from Erskine's "Institutes," he was qualified, as many 
 thought, for acting as counsel to those who stood in need of legal 
 advice. With his acquirements, it was perhaps only as an act of 
 * Campbell's Lives of the Chancellors,
 
 A RED NOSE AND NECKCLOTH. 643 
 
 considerable condescension that he made his living as a dealer in 
 wines, spirits, and other liquids, in an inferior part of the city. As 
 a friend of the oppressed, the little man had much pleasure in be- 
 stowing his knowledge of the law gratis. He took no fees. AJ1 he 
 expected from those who favored him with their company in his pleas- 
 ant back-room was, that they would pay for what liquor they thought 
 fit to call for, and that certainly was not unreasonable. 
 
 The fame of this legal oracle traveled beyond the narrow precincts 
 of the locality. His renown as a gossip on legal and other matters 
 attracted the occasional visits of a club of convivialists, who were in 
 the habit of spending an hour or two daily in discussing public 
 affairs over some inspiriting liquid delicacies. These assemblages, 
 wherever they happened to be held, were greatly more amusing than 
 gatherings of this kind usually are, for they were open to all who, 
 with a little time at their disposal, could add to the hilarity of the 
 company. The meetings were sometimes honored with the presence 
 of certain officials from the Excise Office, whose duties, consisting 
 mainly of drawing their salaries and reading the morning's news- 
 paper, admitted of this kind of recreation. Among this set there 
 were two or three who shone as stars of the first magnitude. It is 
 true they related the same jokes perhaps daily for years, but as the 
 sederunt was a variable body, and as it was a standing rule in this 
 club of convivialists to laugh at every whimsicality, no matter how 
 often repeated, the old jokes were always as good as new. 
 
 One of these assiduous government officials whose presence was 
 always peculiarly acceptable, was a Mr. Moffat, a genteelish, middle- 
 aged personage, with a red nose, dressed in a white neckcloth and a 
 blue coat with yellow metal buttons, and who was always licking 
 his lips, as if he had just partaken of some delicious repast. He had 
 one story about himself, which he was ordinarily called on to relate : 
 
 "By the by, Mr. Moffat, that was a curious anecdote you told us 
 one day about the Board of Excise ; I am sure the gentlemen present 
 would like to hear it." 
 
 "O, by all means; if I can remember it rightly." Then bright- 
 ening up, taking a sip at his potation, and licking his lips with more 
 than usual vehemence, he would proceed. 
 
 "Well, gentlemen, you must know, I was one day in my room at 
 the office. It was a busy day with me. I had to sign several papers 
 brought to me by Grubb. After that was over, when I was just sit- 
 ting down to the newspaper, a message was brought, requiring my 
 presence at the Board. I could not imagine why I was sent for. 
 Surely, thinks I, it can not be on account of going out a few min- 
 utes daily for necessary refreshments. However, there was no time 
 to consider. So off I went to the Board-room, trusting to put as 
 good a face on the matter as possible. Well, to be sure, there were 
 the whole of the Commissioners a very full meeting that day 
 seated around the table covered with green cloth, each of them with
 
 644 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 fresh pens and sheets of paper before him, as if about to take down 
 a deposition. I am going to be pulled up, thinks I. Things cer- 
 tainly looked very bad. My feelings were a little calmed when the 
 chairman a polite man, exceedingly so requested me, in a softened 
 and pleasant tone of voice, to take a chair near him. Well, gentle- 
 men, I sat down accordingly, making a bow to the Board. The 
 chairman then addressed me : ' Mr. Moffat, the Commissioners have 
 had a great difficulty under their consideration. It is a thing of no 
 small importance, for it concerns the interest of the Department. 
 Some of the Commissioners incline to one view of the matter, and 
 some to another. In short, not to keep you in suspense, that which 
 puzzles the Board is the pronunciation of a word a very important 
 word ; not, indeed, that I am puzzled, for my mind is clear upon 
 the subject. To settle the matter definitely, we appeal to you. 
 Knowing your scholarly acquirements, and more particularly your 
 acquaintance with the drama and the correct elocution of the stage, 
 we have agreed to abide by your decision.' Here, of course, I 
 again bowed. 'Yes,' continued the chairman, 'we put ourselves 
 into your hands. To be perfectly fair, I will not utter the word, 
 but write it down, letter by letter, thus: 
 
 R-e-v-e-n-u-e, 
 
 and leave you . to determine, how it should be pronounced. ' I felt 
 honored. I had for years studied the word. I had made up my 
 mind about it. Bowing once more to the Board, and turning to- 
 wards the chairman, I said : ' Sir, I feel the importance of the occa- 
 sion. That word is certainly a very important word. It is a word 
 in which the whole nation has a very great interest. Knowing espe- 
 cially its value to the Department, I have for years made it my study, 
 and will state the opinion at which I have arrived. The common or 
 vulgar pronunciation of the word is Revenue; but that is decidedly 
 incorrect. The true pronunciation, which / hold by, is that of John 
 Kemble namely Reven'ue a heavy emphasis to be laid on the .' 
 Instantly there was a shout of applause from various members of the 
 Board, and the chairman, who was vastly pleased, said to me most 
 emphatically : ' Thank you, Mr. Moffat ; you and I must eat mutton 
 together." 
 
 Influenced by frequent and animated consultations with the smart 
 little man with the crooked knee, and convinced that he had Erskine 
 on his side, my father passed into the hands of an habitue of the back- 
 room, a man of advanced age, who wore a brown duffel great-coat 
 and a low-crowned hat, whose function consisted in bringing cases to 
 certain practitioners before the supreme courts. I saw him once or 
 twice. In character and appearance he reminded me of the miser- 
 able order of professionals whom I had seen in the Old Tolbooth. 
 His coarse features possessed the singular faculty of appearing to
 
 "PILLAGE AND PLUNDER," OF THE LAW. 645 
 
 smile in the lower department, while they were grave and thoughtful 
 above, the line of division of the two expressions being across from 
 the point of the nose. My father was introduced by this legal jackal 
 to an operator in whom he said he had every confidence ; having 
 first assured himself that there were persons behind backs who would 
 be good for the expenses. At this time there were practitioners in 
 Edinburgh well qualified in the art of fleecing. One of them was 
 known in the Parliament House under the jocose name of Pillage, 
 while another of the same category was called Plunder. Each had a 
 son who helped in his father's business, and hence people pleasantly 
 spoke of Old Pillage and Young Pillage, and Old Plunder and 
 Young Plunder. Both firms were believed to be one concern. They 
 were in some sort a confederacy, which, through the devices of 
 scouts, like the gentleman in the brown duffel great-coat and low- 
 crowned hat, procured the conducting of cases pro and con; and 
 they would jointly so manage matters through a dragged-out process, 
 for which the forms of court offered opportunities, that the respective 
 litigants did not get a final decision till not another shilling could be 
 wrung from them. 
 
 In the present unhappy case the end came with more than usual 
 celerity, for means soon ran dry. My father, as we all foresaw, 
 lost his suit, and my brother and I, as had been safely prognosticated, 
 had to stand in the breach and incur obligations, in order to avert 
 certain unpleasant consequences. It is sickening to think what suf- 
 ferings are incurred through the follies of litigation. Money that I 
 could ill spare was swept away, and Robert lost a large part of what 
 he had realized by the "Traditions," as much, I think, as about 
 two hundred pounds. The only grudge entertained on the subject 
 was, that the money should have been sacrificed so unworthily. 
 These losses kept us back one or two years. 
 
 It was about this time that the family renewed acquaintance with a 
 clerical functionary, who, through his wife, was somehow, in a re- 
 mote degree, related to us. I recollected seeing him among the 
 habitual visitors of the Tolbooth, where, with the reputation of being 
 a worthy man, who had been unfortunate in life, and always took a 
 lenient view of human infirmities, he was held in general esteem. 
 He held the office of Morning Lecturer in one of the city churches, 
 an antiquated benefice in the gift of the magistrates and council. His 
 duty was to preach early in the Sunday mornings, for which he re- 
 ceived some thirty pounds a year. Since 1639, when the office was 
 instituted by the bequest of David Mackall, a pious citizen, the fancy 
 for going to church before breakfast had so greatly fallen off that the 
 congregation consisted usually of only the precentor and a respectable 
 spinster of middle age, who occupied a floor in the Lawnmarket, and 
 who, of all the inhabitants of Edinburgh, appreciated the Morning 
 Lecturer for his discourses. 
 
 To judge \from his bulk, gravity of aspect, and tastefully powdered
 
 646 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 white hair, this amiable divine might have stood high in ecclesiastical 
 matters. Of no point in his personal appearance, however, was he 
 so proud as his nails. These nails of his, as every body soon learned 
 from his wife, were a singularly precious inheritance. They had 
 come into his family a long time ago through his great-grandmother, 
 an heiress, who had married, her friends thought, beneath her. In 
 some of her descendants, "the nails" cast up, and in others they 
 did not. Our friend was one of the lucky owners ; and with his 
 handsome token of aristocracy, as also a certain solemnity of features, 
 his parents resolved to make him a minister. Not very fortunate in 
 his career, it was well for him that he could derive some consolation 
 from the points of his fingers, seeing that the support of a family 
 and the rent of a dwelling in an upper floor had to be encountered, 
 with no more to depend on in the regular course of things than the 
 small salary assigned to him by the civic corporation. As to that 
 salary, it was the Morning Lecturer's fixed opinion that he was 
 shamefully cheated. He always maintained that the magistrates and 
 council had grossly misappropriated Mackall's bequest, and that, if 
 he had his due, he should, at the very least, have a thousand a year. 
 Before his face, people condoled with him about his misusage ; but, 
 excepting perhaps the aforesaid spinster, no one actually thought 
 him to be underpaid. 
 
 So long as the Old Tolbooth lasted, the lecturer possessed a pleas- 
 ant forenoon resort, where there was always something doing in the 
 way of general conviviality. Mingling in the festivities of the West 
 Enders, he was in reality among friends and customers whom he 
 served in the clerical line of business. For years he had managed 
 to eke out his means of livelihood by baptizing the children of per- 
 sons who did not claim membership with any of the ordinary congre- 
 gations, and who had a special dislike to answering troublesome 
 questions. His flock, in this respect, were a scattered body all over 
 the Old Town, but with a certain density about the Fleshmarket Close 
 and the head of the Canongate. 
 
 In undertaking jobs for his employers,, this accommodating divine 
 preferred visiting them at their own homes in the evening, at which 
 time, under the blaze of candle-light, and with the mellowing influ- 
 ence of supper, the heart is more beneficently inclined than during 
 the day. It being contrary to rule in Scotland to receive fees for 
 religious solemnities, this poor clergyman resorted to a device, which 
 for a time mitigated the distresses of the household. The Being who 
 tempers the wind to the shorn lamb, gave him a child, who was for a 
 time the daily provider of his family. This child, Bobby, was a boy 
 in petticoats, who had the misfortune to have a bad squint, but by 
 raising emotions of compassion, the squint was rather a good thing 
 than otherwise. As soon as Bobby was able to toddle about, he in- 
 variably accompanied papa on his baptismal excursions. Before set- 
 ting out, his mother provided him with a small but conspicuous
 
 THEIR FATHERS DECEASE. 647 
 
 pocket of colored silk, which she hung outside his dress, ready for 
 receiving any money-present which might be munificently slipped 
 into it, in requital of the religious ordinance that was performed. 
 
 It was an interesting thing to see the pair, father and child, sally 
 out, after the street-lamps were lit, on a mission to the foot of some 
 long, dingy close, and there to climb up some long, crooked stair, 
 the father stumping on his faded tartan cloak, with his cane in one 
 hand, and holding Bobby with the other, both gleeful of what would 
 possibly be deposited in that pretty little pocket, and of what pleasure 
 there would be in taking it home to mamma. Bobby relished these 
 expeditions into the by-corners of the city, although the long dark 
 stairs were almost too much for his little legs ; and when kept late he 
 was apt to get sleepy. But he was usually treated to something nice 
 by the hostess, md had the satisfaction at departure of finding a 
 crown-piece occasionally half a guinea, wrapped in a piece of 
 paper lying at the bottom of his pocket, about which there was not 
 a little sprightly talk on the way home. 
 
 I heard the Morning Lecturer speak of a frightful piece of villainy 
 that had been perpetrated on Bobby, amounting, as he thought, to 
 worse than sacrilege. On one occasion, the reward slipped into the 
 child's pocket was a coin wrapped in paper, which, on inspection 
 at a street lamp, proved to be only a farthing, a circumstance which 
 we may take as indicating the class of persons to whom these spiritual 
 services were occasionally rendered. On the whole, the produce of 
 the child's wallet for several years kept the wolf from the door ; and 
 it was a great grief to the family that Bobby at length grew too 
 big for petticoats, and also too big to be taken uninvited to baptisms. 
 What with the removal of that dear old haunt, the Tol booth, and 
 afterwards Bobby's overgrowth for financial purposes, it was a sad 
 business for our poor friend, whose last days in his upper flat were, 
 as we had occasion to know, not quite so comfortable as befitted one 
 with such a superior quality of nails, or who was so useful a member 
 of the clerical profession. 
 
 Now came a domestic affliction. My unfortunate father never got 
 over the loss of his lawsuit, and the way he had been led into it by 
 the versatile genius with the crooked knee, and his coadjutor in the 
 duffel great-coat. Under his accumulation of disasters and fresh 
 cankering reminiscences, ascribable in a great degree to his excessive 
 simplicity of character, he died in November, 1824, in the week of 
 those conflagrations of which Robert has given some account. 
 
 Shortly alter the issue of the "Traditions," it became expedient 
 for me to relinquish printing, and to adhere more exclusively to other 
 branches of business including some undertakings of a literary nature. 
 The parting with my poor little press, which had latterly been super- 
 seded by newer mechanism, was uot unaccompanied with that kind 
 of regret with which one bids farewell to an old and cherished com- 
 panion. It is pleasing, however, to know that it did not suffer de-
 
 648 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 struction, but was purchased by a person in Glasgow, who aspired to 
 begin as a printer in a way similar to myself; and for any thing I 
 know to the contrary, this little machine may still be creaking and 
 wheezing on the banks of the Clyde, for, like many who are afflicted 
 with asthma, it possessed a wonderful degree of vitality. 
 
 Partly with the design of furnishing a companion to the " Picture 
 of Scotland," I commenced a work, purporting to describe the insti- 
 tutions, secular and religious, peculiar to our northern kingdom, and 
 which I styled the "Book of Scotland." The work required con- 
 siderable research as well as personal knowledge, and the task was one 
 for which I avow myself to have been ill qualified. I sold it to a 
 publisher for thirty pounds. It is now very properly forgotten. In- 
 dependently of its imperfections, the subjects treated of would now 
 stand in need of a new elucidation, in consequence of innumerable 
 recent legislative alterations. Poor as was this production, it pro- 
 cured me the honor of being employed along with Robert to prepare 
 the "Gazetteer of Scotland" for a publisher; the price to be paid 
 for it being a hundred pounds. It was to be a compilation from all 
 available and trustworthy sources, along with such original matter as 
 could reasonably be infused into it. To impart a sufficient degree of 
 freshness, I made several pedestrian journeys to different parts of the 
 country, gathering here and there particulars which I thought would 
 be of value. 
 
 In these excursions I had necessarily to husband time and exercise 
 a pretty rigorous economy. Lodging at the humbler class of inns, 
 my expenses did not exceed a few shillings a day. My object was to 
 see as many places as possible, and fix their situation and appearance 
 in my mind. I took notes only of dates, inscriptions, and other 
 matters demanding great precision. I now found the value of cul- 
 tivating the memory, and of having learned to rely on recollections 
 of places which I had seen. From practice, I acquired the art of 
 summoning up the remembrance of scenes and places which I had 
 visited, and persons I had seen, even to very minute particulars. 
 Gathering and storing up observations in this way, I traversed Fife 
 and the lower parts of Perth and Forfar shires. My longest stretch 
 in one day was from the neighborhood of Cupar to Edinburgh, by 
 Lochlevin, Kinross, Dunfernline, Inverkeithing, and Queensferry, a 
 stretch of forty miles, varied by the passage of the ferry. It was a 
 delightful ramble in a long day in June, which left the most pleasing 
 recollections, notwithstanding that I was a little footsore on reaching 
 home. By such means as this I was able to impart some originality 
 to the ordinary descriptions of the "Gazetteer." 
 
 Although my brother was ostensibly associated with me in this pro- 
 duction, his duties were chiefly those of final supervisor of the press. 
 As the work was a thick octavo volume, double columns, in small 
 type, the mere penmanship of it extended to ten thousand pages, 
 many of which i wrote twice or thrice over, to insure accuracy. My
 
 THEIR "GAZETTEER OF SCOTLAND." 649 
 
 share of the price of copyright was seventy pounds. This book was 
 a great literary exercise, and as such, remuneration was of inferior 
 consequence. I wrote the whole of it, as I had previous productions, 
 behind the counter, amidst the involvements and interruptions of 
 ordinary business, by which means I acquired a kind of facility of 
 dropping and resuming a subject at a moment's notice, which proved 
 of considerable value. To finish the work at the appointed time, I 
 was frequently compelled to remain at the desk for two or three hours 
 after closing up for the night. The labor incurred by so much 
 thinking and writing, together with close application otherwise, un- 
 ameliorated with any sort of recreation, brought on an illness which 
 for some time assumed a threatening appearance. But this was hapily 
 got over without any permanently bad effects. 
 
 The publication of the " Gazetteer" helped, perhaps, to bring me 
 a little more into notice; but if local notoriety was desirable, that 
 was incidentally effected by writing a series of letters in an Edin- 
 burgh newspaper, concerning that species of civic administration 
 which terminated shortly afterwards in a financial collapse. These 
 letters bore my name, for it has been with me a rule in life never to 
 write an anonymous letter. If ever there was an instance of the 
 value of this species of candor, it was on the present^ occasion. The 
 letters engaged public attention, and when issued in a collected form 
 in a small pamphlet, the sale was immense. On looking back to this 
 exploit, I feel that the strictures were much too severe, and visited 
 on individuals that which properly belonged to a system. 
 
 Though these and some other literary exercises were of no pecun- 
 iary advantage adequate to the time and trouble spent upon them, 
 they were immensely serviceable as a training, preparatory to the part 
 which it was my destiny to take in the cheap literature movement of 
 modern times. It is regarding that movement, and the change which 
 it wrought in my brother's as well as in my own course of life, that 
 something is now to be said. 
 
 CHEAP LITERATURE MOVEMENT OF 1832. 
 
 Not the least curious thing about the rise of cheap literature in the 
 form of detached sheets in our times is, that it is in reality a "Re- 
 naissance." Differing only in degree, it is a revival of what had long 
 passed away and been popularly forgotten. Let us look a little into 
 the matter historically, saying a few words, in the first-place, regarding 
 the oldest cheap literature of all, the Penny Chap Books of our 
 simple-minded lorefathers. Like the corresponding Folk Lore of the 
 Germans, the old Chap Books, consisting of coarsely printed sheets, 
 duodecimo, embellished with equally coarse frontispieces, aimed at 
 no sort of instruction, such as we now understand by the term; yet 
 they furnished amusement to the humble fireside. They appealed to 
 the popular love of the heroic, the marvelous, the pathetic, and the 
 humorous. Many of them were nothing more than an embodiment
 
 650 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 of the legends, superstitions, ballads, and songs, which had been kept 
 alive by oral tradition before the invention of printing. Supersti- 
 tions, as may be supposed, formed the stable material. So numerous 
 were the books for telling fortunes, discovering and averting witch- 
 craft, narrating the appearance of ghosts, prognosticating the weather, 
 interpreting dreams, and explaining lucky and unlucky days, that the 
 extent and depth of public credulity must have been immense. 
 
 Objectionable and pitiable in character as were the greater num- 
 ber of Chap Books, miserable as they were in appearance and aim, 
 they were nevertheless to be taken as illustrative of popular intelli- 
 gence and taste during the lengthened period in which they bore rule; 
 and as such, reflect a certain light on the social progress of Great 
 Britain. It would seem, indeed, that just as a crop of worthless in- 
 digenous plants grow up on a meager uncultivated soil, so do Chap 
 Books spring up in the mental infancy of the common people, and 
 continue till displaced by a literature equally entertaining, but of a 
 standard which corresponds to a state of higher advancement. An- 
 other consideration suggests itself. A country may be renowned for 
 its scholarship, its science, its exquisite proficiency in the fine arts, 
 and yet not be beyond its Chap Book era. Such is the case at this 
 moment in Italy, where took place the revival of letters, where uni- 
 versities have longest existed, and where sculpture and painting have 
 for ages been carried to an enviable pitch of excellence. With start- 
 ling discordance, under the very shadow of the university of Padua, 
 the cathedral of Milan, and the glorious galleries of the Uffizi at Flor- 
 ence, a Chap Book literature is copiously dispersed, as primitive in 
 character and as poor in appearance as any thing which satisfied our 
 illiterate peasantry of a past age. The moral that may be drawn 
 from the fact of a country being rich in universities, and at the same 
 time abounding in books for interpreting dreams and expounding 
 lucky numbers in the lottery, will occur to every one. 
 
 Pervading town and country as a literature in request among all 
 the humbler classes who could read, English and also Scottish Chap 
 Books were extirpated by no edict, but disappeared slowly through 
 the united effects of education, and a demand for something equally 
 exhilarating and much more comformable to improved manners and 
 feelings. Some circumstances, not to be referred to without regret, 
 conspired to prolong the Chap Book era beyond the time at which 
 it would probably have vanished. Newspapers, which began to as- 
 sume a determinate form as miscellaneous intelligencers about the 
 period of the Restoration, attained to a considerable standing and 
 popularity shortly after 1695, when they were relieved from the 
 licensing act that had hitherto oppressed them. The press, now in 
 effect free, and the public mind entering, as it were, on the new 
 phase which had been initiated at the Revolution, we are led by in- 
 numerable evidences to conclude that a great change was about to 
 ensue in the matter of popular literature.
 
 OLD ERA OF CHEAP LITERATURE. 651 
 
 We see the dawn of this hopeful transition in the reign of Queen 
 Anne, when much was done, and much more was unscrupulously 
 checked. We now look, not without surprise, on penny newspapers 
 and penny literary sheets, but these are no new thing. There were 
 papers of both kinds, or of a mixed nature, equally low-priced, a 
 hundred and fifty years ago. As yet these cheap papers did not 
 attempt to supersede the Chap Book literature, but can not doubt 
 that such must soon have been the issue. Let me pause for a mo- 
 ment on this outcrop of improved popular prints at the commence- 
 ment of the eighteenth century. 
 
 The first cheap periodical which contained observations written 
 with literary skill was a paper called the Review, begun by Daniel 
 Defoe while he was confined in Newgate for publishing his ironical 
 pamphlet, "A Short and Easy Way with the Dissenters." In spite 
 of depressing circumstances, he kept up his Review for nine years, 
 Commencing in 1704, it lasted till 1713, and formed the pred- 
 ecessor of, as well as the exemplar for, the Tattler, which was begun 
 in 1709 by Richard Steele, assisted by his friend Addison. The 
 Tattler appeared three times a week, and was sold for a penny. Soon 
 after its close in 1711, the same writer commenced the Spectator, also 
 issued at a penny, but appearing daily. Here, then, to all appear- 
 ance, was a most auspicious beginning of a cheap and popular liter- 
 ature, of a quality which leaves us nothing to regret, but very much 
 to admire. One can scarcely write with any degree of temper of the 
 overthrow of so promising a department of literature. 
 
 As early as 1701, a bill had been brought into parliament to im- 
 pose a half-penny stamp on newspapers; but such was the clamor 
 raised by the printers, that the scheme was dropped. Beat off for a 
 time, the House of Commons, which had then little sympathy with 
 social progress, successfully renewed the attack on the press, and the 
 1 2th of August, 1712, saw the newspapers, as well as the purely liter- 
 ary sheets, issued with a stamp; a half-penny if half a sheet, and a 
 penny if a whole sheet. At the same time, a tax of a shilling was 
 imposed on every advertisement. The pretext for these measures 
 was a wish to stem allegedly impertinent discussions on public affairs. 
 But the good was swept down as well as the bad. The Spectator, 
 which had been the vehicle for the noble writings of Addison, imme- 
 diately experienced a severe reverse. The price was doubled, to 
 meet the new expenses, but the expedient failed. Any rise in the 
 charge for a cheap periodical is generally fatal to its circulation. 
 After a vain struggle, the Spectator expired in 1713. No man in the 
 present day would dare to vindicate the policy which thus obstructed 
 the growth of a wholesome popular literature. That there was as yet 
 neither capital nor mechanical appliance to facilitate the issue of 
 large impressions, is admitted. But who can tell what might have 
 ensued under an unrestricted issue of newspapers, and the cheaper 
 kinds of literary sheets ?
 
 652 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 It is painful to peruse the history of what followed. Such was the 
 growing demand for newspapers, that there were constant attempts, 
 some of them wonderfully successful, to evade the law. In the reign 
 of George II, unstamped half-penny and penny sheets were sold to 
 such an extent by hawkers in the streets of London, that an act was 
 passed in 1743 to suppress this contraband traffic, and any newsboy 
 who dared to offer one of these low-priced intelligericers did so at 
 the risk of three months' imprisonment. Additional stamp and other 
 duties, though in various ways repressive, never utterly quenched the 
 chief popular press, and only postponed its final triumph. Embarrassed 
 with fiscal duties, the news and literary sheets which struggled on 
 through the reign of the first three Georges were, along with the 
 magazines and reviews that sprung into popularity, of no small im- 
 portance in rearing and primarily affording a maintenance to a brill- 
 iant series of eighteenth-century writers: Defoe, Steele, Addison, 
 Johnson, Goldsmith, Smollett, and others. 
 
 Although books, chiefly reprints, were in time cheapened and 
 greatly popularized by a series of enterprising publishers, beginning 
 with Alexander Donaldson (father of the founder of Donaldson's 
 Hospital, Edinburgh), and although books of all kinds were ren- 
 dered generally accessible by circulating libraries, the more aspiring 
 of the humbler orders, particularly those at a distance from towns, 
 still experienced great difficulty in procuring works to improve their 
 knowledge or entertain their leisure hours. Perusing the memoirs of 
 Robert Burns, James Ferguson, Thomas Telford, George Stephenson, 
 and others who, by dint of genius and painstaking study, raised 
 themselves from obscurity to distinction, we perceive what were their 
 difficulties in getting hold of books; such as they did procure being 
 mostly borrowed from kindly disposed neighbors. 
 
 Usually, in these untoward circumstances, the mind of the rustic 
 youth took the direction of rhyming in the style of Ramsay and 
 Robert Fergusson. This was specially observable in the cases of Tel- 
 ford, who, while still a journeyman mason in his native Eskdale, 
 contributed verses to Ruddiman's Weekly Magazine, under the un- 
 pretending signature of " Eskdale Tarn." In one of these composi- 
 tions, which was addressed to Burns, he sketched his own character, 
 and the efforts he made to improve his stock of knowledge by poring 
 over a borrowed volume with no better light than what was afforded 
 by the cottage fire : 
 
 " Nor pass the tentic curious lad, 
 Who o'er the ingle hangs his head, 
 And begs oe neighbors books to read; 
 
 For hence arise 
 Thy country's sons, who far are spread, 
 
 Baith bold and wise." 
 
 So matters remained; the protracted French War and its imme- 
 diate consequences postponing any substantial improvement, at least
 
 SCOTT'S NOVELS, ETC. 653 
 
 as regarded the less affluent classes. From 1815 till 1820, while the 
 marvelous fictions of Scott and the poems of Byron were issuing 
 with rapidity from the press, low priced and scurrilous prints/' min- 
 istering to the fancies of the seditious and depraved, were also pro- 
 duced in vast numbers. It was an era of transition from war to 
 peace, and as yet society had not composed itself decoriously in the 
 new state of things. There was much to rectify, and little patience 
 was exercised in the process ; and, above all, there was little or no 
 harmony among the different classes of the community. So much 
 may be mentioned to extenuate the unscrupulous character of the 
 cheap political prints that swept over the country, which time, free 
 discussion, and various meliorations would have counteracted or ex- 
 tinguished. More abrupt measures, however, were adopted. Cer- 
 tain statutes killed off the whole at a blow in 1820. 
 
 No cheap unstamped paper could be safely attempted immediately 
 after this, unless it were purely literary, and abstained from any com- 
 ment on public affairs. Of this class was the obscure periodical at- 
 tempted by my brother and myself in 1821. In 1822, a cheap 
 weekly sheet, styled the Mirror, was begun in London by John Lim- 
 bird, but with little pretensions to original writing. It was illustrated 
 with wood engravings, was generally amusing, and so far might be 
 defined as a step in the right direction. 
 
 From about this time, benevolently disposed and thoughtful men 
 set about devising methods for improving the intelligence and profes- 
 sional skill of artisans. The School of Arts, the earliest of its class, 
 was founded in Edinburgh in 1821. Two years later, Dr. Birdbeck 
 founded a Mechanics' Institution in London, and another in Glas- 
 gow. How views of this nature should now have at length assumed 
 a practical shape would lead to a too lengthened exposition. Refer- 
 ence may merely be made to the influence exercised by the writings 
 of Scott, Campbell, Wordsworth, Southey, and Byron during the 
 early years of the century ; likewise to the efficacy of the newer class 
 of reviews and magazines, as well as, more lately, the improved char- 
 acter of the newspaper press. Permeating, as it were, down through 
 society, literature, in various inviting forms, had vivified and brought 
 to the surface new orders of readers, and, besides, set a fashion for 
 seeking recreation in books and periodicals, which was favorable to 
 any cheapening of these engines of instruction and entertainment. 
 
 To causes of this nature are we chiefly to impute the Mechanics' 
 Institution movement, and what was coeval with it, the rise of the 
 Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, which was founded in 
 1825. Viewed as a distinct and imposing effort to stimulate the pop- 
 ular understanding, this association, with all the mistakes which 
 marked its short career, is never to be spoken of without respect. As 
 is well known, the Society was commenced under the auspices of 
 several noblemen and gentlemen, who have for the greater part left 
 their impress on the age Lords Auckland and Althorp (afterwards
 
 654 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 Earl Spencer), Lord John Russell, Lord Brougham, Sir James Mack- 
 intosh, Matthew D. Hill, Dr. Maltby, Mr. Hallam, and Captain Basil 
 Hall, to which a long list of names could be added. The object of 
 the Society was to issue a series of cheap treatises on the exact sci- 
 ences, and on various branches of knowledge. In 1827, the year 
 which saw the first of the Society's works, Archibald Constable, a 
 man of bold conceptions, commenced the issue of his "Miscellany" 
 of volumes of a popular kind ; and others catching the contagion, 
 for a time there was a perfect deluge of works, designed for the in- 
 struction and amusement of the multitude, and so moderate in price, 
 that no one could now complain of being unable to fill his shelves 
 at a small outlay. We also ought not to forget the service done to 
 literature by such papers as the Literary Gazette and Athenceum, this 
 last surviving as the representative of its class. 
 
 It is interesting to look back on those times, and note the progres- 
 sive steps towards a thoroughly cheap yet original and wholesome 
 literature. There was merit in the very shortcomings and failures, 
 for, with their temporary or partial success, they showed that the 
 public were not indisposed to support that in which they could have 
 reason to place confidence. Some mistakes had been committed. 
 The prints suppressed in 1820 had dealt principally in invective, of 
 which no good can come. And those which were established after- 
 wards, such as the Mirror, were purposeless in their aims. 
 
 The reign of William IV was the true era of the revival of cheap 
 periodical literature. The political agitations of 1831, by stirring up 
 the popular feelings, helped materially to stimulate the appetite for 
 what would excite, instruct, and amuse. So far as the humbler orders 
 were concerned, it almost appeared as if the art of printing, through 
 certain mechanical appliances particularly the paper-making machine 
 and the printing-machine was only now effectually discovered. 
 
 To meet the popular demand, a number of low-priced serials of a 
 worthless or at least ephemeral kind were issued in London in 1831. 
 At the same time, there were several set on foot in Edinburgh. The 
 forerunner and best of these was styled the Cornucopia, which con- 
 sisted of four pages, folio, and was sold for three half-pence. The 
 editor and proprietor of this popular sheet was George Mudie, a 
 clever but erratic being, who, I believe, had been a compositor. As 
 the Cornucopia contained a quantity of amusing matter, and in point 
 of size resembled a newspaper, it was deemed a marvel of cheapness; 
 for at this time the ordinary price of a newspaper was fivepence. 
 Eminently successful as a commercial undertaking, Mr. Mudie's 
 sheet, if properly conducted, could not have failed to be permanently 
 successful. 
 
 As a bookseller, I had occasion to deal in these cheap papers. 
 One thing was greatly against them. They were frequently behind 
 time on the day of publication ; and any irregularity in the appear- 
 ance of periodicals is generally fatal. It was also obvious that they
 
 PUBLICATION OF "CHAMBER'S JOURNAL." 655 
 
 were conducted on no definite plan. They consisted for the most 
 part of disjointed and unauthorized extracts from books, clippings 
 from floating literature, old stories, and stale jocularities. With no 
 purpose but to furnish temporary amusement, they were, as it appeared 
 to me, the perversion of what, if rightly conducted, might become a 
 powerful engine of social improvement. Pondering on this idea, I 
 resolved to take advantage of the evidently growing taste for cheap 
 literature, and lead it, as far as was in my power, in a proper direc- 
 tion. 
 
 It is, I think, due to myself and others to offer this explanation. 
 I have never aspired to the reputation of being the originator of low- 
 priced serials ; but only, as far as I can judge, the first to make a 
 determined attempt to impart such a character to these productions 
 in our own day, as might tend to instruct and elevate independently 
 of mere passing amusement. Professionally, I considered that the at- 
 tempt was a noble and fair venture, one for which I might not be dis- 
 qualified by previous literary experiences, humble as these had been. 
 The enterprise promised to be at least in concord with my feelings. 
 
 Before taking any active step, I mentioned the matter to Robert. 
 Let us, I said endeavor to give a reputable literary character to what 
 is at present mostly mean or trivial, and of no permanent value ; but 
 he, thinking only of the not very creditable low-priced papers then 
 current, did not entertain a favorable opinion of my projected un- 
 dertaking. With all loyalty and affection, however, he promised to 
 give me what literary assistance was in his power, and in this I was 
 not disappointed. Consulting no one else, and in that highly wrought 
 state of mind which overlooks all but the probability of success, I at 
 length, in January 1832, issued the prospectus of Chambers' s Edinburgh 
 Journal, a weekly sheet at three half-pence. Announcing myself as 
 editor, I stated that " no communications in verse or prose were 
 wanted." In this, there was an air of self-confidence, not perhaps 
 to be justified, but, as showing that my periodical was not to be 
 composed of the contributions of anonymous and irresponsible cor- 
 respondents, the effect was on the whole beneficial. 
 
 The first number appeared on Saturday, the 4th of February, 1832. 
 It contained an opening address, written in a fervid state of feeling, 
 as may be judged by the following passages : 
 
 "The principle by which I have been actuated, is to take advan- 
 tage of the universal appetite for instruction which at present exists ; 
 to supply to that appetite food of the best kind, in such form and at 
 such price as must suit the convenience of every man in the British 
 dominions. Every Saturday, when the poorest laborer in the country 
 draws his humble earnings, he shall have it in his power to purchase 
 with an insignificant portion of even that humble sum, a meal of 
 healthful, useful, and agreeable mental instmction. Whether I suc- 
 ceed in my wishes, a brief space of time will determine. I throw 
 myself on the good sense of my countrymen for support ; and all I
 
 656 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 seek is a fair field wherein to exercise my industry in their service. 
 It may perhaps be considered an invidious remark, when I state as 
 my humble conviction, that the people of Great Britain and Ireland 
 have never yet been properly cared for, in the way of presenting 
 knowledge under its most cheering and captivating aspect, to their 
 immediate observation. The scheme of diffusing knowledge has cer- 
 tainly been more than once attempted by associations established 
 under peculiar advantages. Yet, the great end has not been gained. 
 The dearth of the publications, official inflexibility, and above all, 
 the plan of attaching the interests of political or ecclesiastical parties 
 to the course of instruction or reading, have separately or conjunctly 
 circumscribed the limits of the operation ; so that the world, on the 
 whole, is but little the wiser with all the attempts which have been 
 made. The strongholds of ignorance, though not unassailed, remain 
 to be carried. Carefully eschewing the errors into which these 
 praiseworthy associations have fallen, I take a course altogether novel. 
 Whatever may be my political principles, neither these nor any other 
 which would be destructive of my present views, shall ever mingle 
 in my observations on the arrangements of civil society." I con- 
 cluded by notifying the species of subjects which would receive par- 
 ticular attention. 
 
 High as were my expectations, the success of the work exceeded 
 them. In a few days there was, for Scotland, the unprecedented sale 
 of fifty thousand copies ; and at the third number, when copies 
 were consigned to an agent in London for dispersal through Eng- 
 land, the sale rose to eighty thousand, at which it long remained, 
 with scarcely any advertising to give it publicity. To the best of my 
 recollection, all the other cheap papers issued in Edinburgh immedi- 
 ately disappeared. In London, some also, were dropped, but others 
 sprung up in their stead. For a time, indeed, there was not a week 
 which had not a new serial ; but few of these candidates for public 
 approval outlived the second or third number. So many began and 
 never went farther, that a gentleman whom we happened to hear of 
 possessed a large pile of first numbers of periodicals of which a second 
 never appeared. 
 
 On the 3ist of March, 1832, being about six weeks after the com- 
 mencement of Chambers' s Journal, appeared the first number of the 
 Penny Magazine of the " Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowl- 
 edge." We learn from Mr. Charles Knight, its publisher, that the 
 Penny Magazine was suggested to him on a morning in March, and 
 that the Lord Chancellor (Brougham), who was waited on, cordially 
 entered into the project, which was forthwith sanctioned by the 
 Committee of the Society.* The Penny Magazine begun under such 
 
 * Passages in a Working Life, vol. ii. p. 180. This explanation disposes of a 
 strange mistake which a writer has fallen into, doubtless from erroneous information, 
 regarding Chambers 's Journal. He speaks of my having seen a prospectus of the
 
 "PENNY MAGAZINE" A FAILURE. 657 
 
 distinguished auspices, and which, as is understood, had a very large 
 circulation, terminated unexpectedly in 1845 > though not without 
 having exerted, during its comparatively brief career, an influence, 
 along with similar publications, in stimulating the growth of that 
 cheap and wholesome literature which has latterly assumed such 
 huge proportions. 
 
 Why the Penny Magazine, with its alleged success as regards cir- 
 culation, its large array of artists and writers, and its body of distin- 
 guished patrons, should have perished so prematurely, while there 
 were still considerable strongholds of ignorance to be attacked, no 
 one has ever ventured to explain. A silence equally mysterious hangs 
 over the close of the Useful Knowledge Society, the proceedings of 
 which were so vigorously heralded and sustained by articles in the 
 Edinburgh Review, that no one could say the association failed for 
 want of recommendation from the highest literary quarters. In the 
 absence of any explanations on the subject, it may be conjectured 
 that with all the ability displayed, and the best intentions of every 
 one concerned, the treatise of the society were on the whole too 
 technical and abstruse for the mass of operatives ; they made no 
 provision for the culture of the imaginative faculties ; and, in point 
 of fact, were purchased and read chiefly by persons considerably re- 
 moved from the obligation of toiling with their hands for their daily 
 bread. In a word, they may be supposed to have been distasteful to 
 the popular fancy. If any other reason be wanted, it probably lay 
 in the fact ttyat a society can not, as a rule, compete with private 
 enterprise. 
 
 It is not my duty to sit as critic on aims and efforts not unlike 
 my own. There are different ways of doing things, and it may 
 happen that one is as good as another. All that need be said is, 
 that it has been a matter of congratulation, that Chambers' s Journal 
 owed nothing, in its inception or at any part of its career, to the 
 special patronage or approval of any sect, party, or individual. In 
 the whole proceedings of my brother and myself, we never courted 
 the countenance or recommendation of any person or persons, or of 
 any body of people, civil or religious ; and after an experience of 
 forty years, circumstances would point to the conclusion that this has 
 not been the worst, besides being the least obsequious, line of policy. 
 
 Penny Magazine a long time before the periodical itself appeared ; that I forwarded 
 to the promoters certain suggestions calculated to improve the chances of its success ; 
 that no answer being vouchsafed, my self-love was wounded ; and that I determined 
 to realize my unappreciated ideas myself, in the form of Chambers' s Jottrnal. This 
 is altogether incorrect. I did not hear of the Penny Magazine, nor could I, till 
 shortly before its appearance, and after the Journal had been some weeks estab- 
 lished.
 
 658 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 THE CONDUCTING OF " CHAMBERS* S JOURNAL." 
 
 As in the case of a dissolving view, when, as if by magic, a bleak 
 wintry scene is transformed into a landscape glowing with the warmth 
 and verdant garniture of summer, so by the appearance of the Jour- 
 nal, and the wide popularity it secured, was there effected an agree- 
 able and wholly unforseen change on my own condition, and that of 
 others connected with me. The revolution was abrupt, and of a kind 
 not to be treated with indifference. The moderate and not very 
 conspicuous business in which I had been engaged was immediately 
 relinquished, in consequence of the absorbing and prospectively ad- 
 vantageous literary enterprise in which I had embarked ; and remov- 
 ing to a central part of the town, new and enlarged premises were 
 acquired. Until the fourteenth number of the work, Robert was only 
 in the position of contributor. Then abandoning his separate pro- 
 fessional relations, he became joint editor, and was also associated 
 with me in the firm of W. & R. Chambers. 
 
 Had Chambers' s Journal been commenced in London, no mechani- 
 cal difficulty would have been experienced. The case was very dif- 
 ferent in Edinburgh, where, at the time, there were obstructions as 
 regards both paper and printing. John Johnstone, a genial old man, 
 husband of the authoress of " Clan Albyn," and other novels, was a 
 printer, and by him the work was for a time executed, as well as it 
 could be in the circumstances. Other printers were -afterwards em- 
 ployed, but their hand-presses, even with relays of men toiling night 
 and day, proved altogether inadequate for the large impressions that 
 were required. At length, a set of stereotype plates of each number 
 was sent weekly to London, from which copies were printed for 
 circulation in England ; while from another set impressions were 
 executed in Edinburgh by machines which we procured for the 
 purpose. Steam settled the difficulty. The work was at first a sheet 
 folio, subsequently the size was reduced to a quarto, and at last to an 
 octavo form. 
 
 Entering on the comprehensive design of editing, printing, and 
 publishing works of a popularly instructive and entertaining tendency, 
 Robert and I were for a considerable length of time alone, our 
 immediately younger brother, James, having, to our distress, died in 
 February, 1833, an d such was the degree of mutual confidence 
 between us, that not for the space of twenty-one years was it thought 
 expedient to execute any memorandum of agreement. 
 
 Though unusual, the combination of literary labor with the busi- 
 ness of printing and publishing, is not without precedent. We may- 
 call to mind the examples set by Edward Cave, Samuel Richardson, 
 and Robert Dodsley last century. We might, indeed, point to Sir 
 Walter Scott in our own times ; the only thing to be deplored in the 
 case of that great man being that he kept his connection with the
 
 EACH A HELP TO THE OTHER. 659 
 
 printing establishment of the Ballantynes a profound secret, through 
 an apprehension of losing caste among his law friends, instead of 
 avowedly, like Richardson, becoming the printer, as well as holder of 
 the copyrights, of his own productions. 
 
 A happy difference, yet some resemblance, in character, proved of 
 service in the literary and commercial union of Robert and myself. 
 Mentally, each had a little of the other, but with a wide divergence 
 in matters requisite as a whole. One could not have well done with- 
 out the other. With mutual help there was mutual strength. All 
 previous hardships and experiences seemed to be but a training in 
 strict adaptation for the course of life opened up to us in 1832. 
 Nothing could have happened better a circumstance which may per- 
 haps go a little way towards inspiring hopes and consolations among 
 those who may be destined to pass through a similar ordeal. 
 
 The permanent hold on the public mind which the Journal for- 
 tunately obtained, was undoubtedly owing, in a very great degree, to 
 the leading articles, consisting of essays, moral, familiar, and humor- 
 ous, from the pen of my brother. My own more special duties were 
 confined for the most part to papers having in view some kind of 
 popular instruction, particularly as regards the young, whom it was 
 attempted to stimulate in the way of mental improvement. There 
 likewise fell to my share the general administration of a concern 
 which was ever increasing in dimensions. In conducting the Journal, 
 the object never lost sight of was not merely to enlighten, by pre- 
 senting information on matters of interest, and to harmlessly amuse, 
 but to touch the heart, to purify the affections, thus, if possible, im- 
 parting to the work a character which would render it universally 
 acceptable to families. 
 
 At no time was there any attempt to give pictorial illustrations of 
 objects in natural history, the fine arts, or any thing else. Without 
 undervaluing the attractions of wood-cut engravings, the aims of the 
 editors were in a different direction. Their desire, it will be per- 
 ceived, was to cultivate the feelings as much as the understanding. 
 Hence the endeavor to revive, in a style befitting the age, the essay 
 system of last century. In this effort, it may be allowable to say 
 that Robert was eminently successful. His own explanations on the 
 subject, embraced in the preface to a collection of his essays (pub- 
 lished in 1847), are worthy of being quoted: 
 
 "It was in middle life that I was induced to become an essayist, 
 for the benefit of a well-known periodical work established by my 
 elder brother. During fifteen years I have labored in this field, 
 alternately, gay, grave, sentimental, philosophical, until not much 
 fewer than four hundred separate papers have proceeded from my pen. 
 These papers were written under some difficulties, particularly those 
 of a provincial situation, and a life too studious and recluse to afford 
 much opportunity for the observation of social characteristics. Yet
 
 660 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 perhaps these restraints have had some good effect on the other hand, 
 in making the treatment of subjects less local and less liable to the 
 accidents of fashion than it might otherwise have been. One ruling 
 aim of the author must be taken into account : it was my design from 
 the first to be the essayist of the middle class that in which I was 
 born and to which I continued to belong. I therefore do not treat 
 their manners and habits as one looking de haut en has, which is the 
 usual style of essayists, but as one looking around among the firesides 
 of my friends. For their use I shape and sharpen my apothegms; 
 to their comprehension I modify any philosophical disquisitions on 
 which I have entered. Every-where I have sought less to attain ele- 
 gance or observe refinement than to avoid that last of literary sins 
 dullness. I have endeavored to be brief direct ; and I know I have 
 been earnest. As to the sentiment and philosophy, I am not aware 
 that any particular remark is called for. The only principles on 
 which I have been guided are, as far as I am aware, these : whatever 
 seems to be just, or true, or useful, or rational, or beautiful, I love 
 and honor; wherever human woe can be lessened, or happiness in- 
 creased, I would work to that end ; wherever intelligence and virtue 
 can be promoted, I would promote them. These dispositions will, I 
 trust, be traced in my writings." 
 
 The year that saw the beginning of Chambers 's Journal brought 
 gloom over the literary world. After an unavailing search for health 
 in the south of Europe, Sir Walter Scott returned to Abbotsford in 
 the course of the summer, to die. The scene was gently closed on 
 the 2ist of September, 1832. The funeral of this illustrious Scots- 
 man was appointed to take place on Wednesday the 26th. Among 
 the very few mourners from Edinburgh who attended were my brother 
 and myself. We saw the remains of the great man laid with appro- 
 priate solemnities in his grave amid the picturesque ruins of Dry- 
 burgh. 
 
 Indebted to Sir Walter for so many kindnesses some years previ- 
 ously, and in correspondence with him till the close of 1831, my 
 brother felt that he had lost his most honored friend; Almost imme- 
 diately he proceeded to write a memoir of the deceased from such 
 materials as were within reach, as well as from personal recollections. 
 The memoir w.as issued by us in a popular form and had an extraor- 
 dinary sale, as many as eighty thousand copies.* It is referred to in 
 the following letter from Allan Cunningham, with whom my brother had 
 opened a correspondence. The letter is for other reasons interesting : 
 
 " 27 LOWER BELGRAVE PLACE, 2yth of October, 1832. 
 "My DEAR SIR Your letter was a welcome one. It is written 
 with that frank openness of heart which I like, and contains a wish, 
 
 * This memoir has been revised and reissued, Life of Sir Walter Scott, by Robert 
 Chambers, LL. D., with Abbotsford Notanda, by Robert Carruthers, LL. D. (1871).
 
 ALLAN CUNNINGHAM. 66l 
 
 which was no stranger to my own bosom, that we should be known 
 to each other. You must not suppose that I have been influenced in 
 my wish by the approbation with which I know your works have been 
 received by your country. It is long since I took to judging in all 
 matters for myself, and the ' Picture of Scotland ' and the ' Tradi- 
 tions of Edinburgh,' both of which I bought, induced me to wish 
 Robert Chambers among my friends. There was, perhaps, a touch or 
 so of vanity in this your poetic, ballad-scrap, auld-world, new-world, 
 Scottish tastes and feelings seemed to go side for side with my own. 
 Be so good, therefore, as to send me your promised ' Book of Ballads,' 
 and accept in return, or rather in token of future regard, active and 
 not passive, my 'Rustic Maid of Elvar,' who has made her way 
 through reform pamphlets and other rubbish, like a lily rising through 
 the clods of the spring. There 's a complimentary simile in favor.of 
 myself and my book ! You must not, however, think ill of it because 
 I praise it; but try and read it, and tell me what you feel about it. 
 
 " I have been much pleased with your account of Sir Walter Scott; 
 it wears such an air of truth, that no one can refuse credence to it, 
 and is full of interesting facts and just observations. I have no inten- 
 tion of expanding, or even of correcting, my own hasty and inac- 
 curate sketch. Mr. Lockart will soon give a full and correct life of 
 that wonderful man to the world. The weed which I have thrown on 
 his grave for I can not call it a flower may wither as better things 
 must do. Some nine thousand copies were sold; this we consider 
 high, though nothing comparable, I know, to the immense sale of 
 Chambers' s Journal. 1 I am truly glad of your great circulation ; your 
 work is by a thousand degrees the best of all the latter progeny of the 
 press. It is an original work, and while it continues so must keep the 
 lead of the paste and scissors productions. My wife, who has just 
 returned from Scotland, says that your Journal is very popular among 
 her native hills of Galloway. The shepherds, who are scattered there 
 at the rate of one to every four miles square, read it constantly, and 
 they circulate it in this way : the first shepherd who gets it reads it, 
 and at an understood hour places it under a stone on a certain hill- 
 top ; then shepherd the second in his own time finds it, reads it, and 
 carries it to* another hill, where it is found like Ossian's chief under 
 its own gray stone by shepherd the third, and so it passes on its way, 
 scattering information over the land. 
 
 " My songs, my dear sir, have all the faults you find with them, and 
 some more. The truth is, I am unacquainted with any other nature save 
 that of the Nith and the Solway, and I must make it do my turn. I 
 am like a bird that gathers materials for its nest round its customary 
 bush, and who sings in his own grove, and never thinks of moving 
 elsewhere. The affectations of London are as nothing to me; in my 
 ' Lives of the Painters,' I have, however, escaped from my valley, and 
 on other contemplated works I hope to show that though I sing in
 
 662 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 the charmed circle of Nithsdale, I can make excursions in prose out 
 of it, and write and think like a man of the world and its ways. 
 
 " I remain, my dear sir, with much regard, yours always, 
 
 "ALLAN CUNNINGHAM. 
 
 "To ROBERT CHAMBERS, Esq." 
 
 It was gratifying for us, as editors of Chambers Journal, to receive 
 the approbation and good wishes of so prodigious a popular favorite 
 as "Honest Allan," for, independently of the wide circulation of 
 the work, his good word was an assurance that the principles on which 
 it had been started and inflexibly maintained, were commendable. It 
 will now seem strange to mention, that the success of this unassum- 
 ing periodical led to species of persecution. On all hands we were 
 beset with requests to give it the character of a " religious publica- 
 tion." It was in vain for us to state that that* was not our role ; that 
 our work was addressed to persons of all shades of thinking, religious 
 and secular, and that we could not, without violation of our original 
 profession, take a side with any one in particular. We only got 
 abused, and were called names. The era of this species of persecu- 
 tion, for such it was, however grotesque and ridiculous, extended for 
 nearly twenty years after the commencement of the work ; and we 
 had often cause to be amused with the unreasonableness of the de- 
 mands which were preferred, also to wonder if others in like circum- 
 stances were similarly assailed. 
 
 On one occasion we were impelled to address our readers, partly 
 in explanation of the reasons for maintaining the principles on which 
 the Journal was established. Some passages may be quoted as speci- 
 fying the literary character of the work : 
 
 " With so many good results before us, it would surely be unwise 
 were we to alter our plans in order to please the fancies of any sect, 
 party, or individual. It is our firm conviction that any attempt to 
 do so would be attended by failure. The many would be lost for the 
 sake of the few who would be gained, and the work would soon 
 dwindle into deserved insignificance. So much we say in all friend- 
 liness to those who seem inclined to fasten upon us functions for which 
 we have no vocation. No, no ; we must decline usurping the mission 
 of the politician and the divine ; we must leave the newspaper and 
 the evangelical magazine to follow out their respective aims. To us, 
 be it enough that we hold by the original charter of our constitution. 
 Chambers' s Journal shall never be written for this or that country, 
 nor to meet this or that fashion of opinion, but to remain to the end 
 what it has been from the beginning : a Literary Miscellany, aspiring 
 to inculcate the highest order of morals, universal brotherhood, and 
 charity ; to present exalted views of Creative Wisdom and Provi- 
 dential Care ; and to impart correct, or at all events, earnest and care- 
 fully formed, ideas on subjects of economic or general concern ; en- 
 deavoring at the same time to raise no false expectations, to outrage
 
 LETTER TO LEIGH HUNT. 663 
 
 no individual opinion, and to keep out of sight every thing that 
 would set mankind by the ears." 
 
 While resolutely holding to our appointed course, the establishment 
 of rival publications less or more differing from our own in character, 
 some of them religious, or colorably so, was so far from giving us un- 
 easiness, that we ever hailed them as coadjutors, all laboring for the 
 public good in their respective vocations ; for it is only by such varied 
 means that every department of the community can be reached. In 
 April, 1834, Leigh Hunt set on foot the London Journal, which the 
 editor, in his address, spoke of as being " similar in pomt of size and 
 variety to Chambers 's Edinburgh Journal, but with a character a little 
 more southern and literary." Now that Mr. Hunt and my brother 
 have both passed away, it is more than ever pleasing to peruse the 
 correspondence that took place between them -en the subject of this 
 new claimant for popular favor. My brother wrote as follows : 
 
 "EDINBURGH, April 15, 1834. 
 
 " DEAR SIR, I take leave to address you in this familiar manner 
 for several reasons. The chief is your kind nature as exemplified in 
 your writings, which prove you the friend of all mankind ; the lesser 
 are your allusions, on more occasions than one, to writings of mine 
 when you did not perhaps know the exact name of the author. My 
 purpose is to congratulate you on the first number of your Journal, 
 which I have just seen, and to express my earnest and sincere hope 
 that it will repay your exertions and render the latter part of your 
 life more prosperous than you say the earlier has been. You will 
 perhaps appreciate my good wishes the more that they proceed from 
 an individual who, according to vulgar calculations, might expect to 
 be injured by your success. I assure you, so far from entertaining 
 any grudge towards your work on that score, I am as open to receive 
 pleasurable impressions from it as I have ever been from your previous 
 publications, or as the least literary of your readers can be, and as 
 hopeful that it will succeed and prove a means of comfort tp you as 
 the most ancient and familiar of your friends. I know that your 
 work can never do, by a tenth part, so much ill to my brother and 
 myself as it may do good to you; for every book, however similar to 
 others, finds in a great measure new channels for itself; and still 
 more certain am I that the most jealous and unworthy feelings we 
 could entertain would be ineffectual in protecting us from the conse- 
 quences of your supplanting our humble sheets in the public favor. 
 My brother and I feel much pleasure in observing that a writer so 
 much our senior, and so much our superior, should have thought our 
 plan to such an extent worthy of his adoption, and hope your doing 
 so will only furnish additional proof of the justice of our calculations. 
 This leads me to remark that, while I acknowledge the truth of your 
 pretensions to having been the reviver of the j>eriodical literature of 
 a former age, and have looked to your manner of treating light sub-
 
 664 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 jects as in part the model of our own, I must take this and every other 
 proper opportunity of asserting my elder brother's merit as the origin- 
 ator of cheap respectable publications of the class of which your 
 Journal is so important an edition. In the starting of Chambers' 's 
 Edinburgh Journal, in February, 1832, he was unquestionably the first 
 to develop this new power of the printing-press ; and considering that 
 we had some little character (at least in Scotland) to lose, and en- 
 countered feelings in our literary brethren little less apt, I may say, 
 to deter us from our object than the terrors which assailed Rodolph 
 in the Witch's.Glen (a simile more expressive than it is apt), I humbly 
 conceive that when the full utility of my brother's invention shall 
 have been perceived by the world, as I trust it will in time, he will 
 be fully fntitled to have his claims allowed without dispute. 
 
 "That we have regretted to find ourselves the objects of so many 
 of the meaner order of feelings among our brethren, it would be vain 
 to deny. I must say, however, that we would have been ill to satisfy 
 indeed if the admission of our weekly sheet into almost every family 
 of the middle rank, and many of the lower throughout the country, 
 had not more than compensated us for that affliction. Our labors, 
 moreover, are profitable beyond our hopes, beyond our wants, besides 
 yielding to us a ceaseless revenue of pleasure in the sense they convey 
 to us of daily and hourly improving the hearts and understandings 
 of a large portion of our species. That you may aim as heartily at 
 this result, and be as successful in obtaining it, is the wish of, dear 
 sir, your sincere friend and servant, ROBERT CHAMBERS. 
 
 "To LEIGH HUNT, Esq." 
 
 There was a reply, lively and characteristic, a copy of which ap- 
 peared in the fourth number of the London Journal, being introduced 
 with some complimentary remarks : 
 
 " 4 UPPER CHEYNE Row, CHELSEA, 
 April 21, 1834. 
 
 " Mv DEAR SIR, I should have sooner acknowledged the receipt 
 of your kind and flattering letter had I not, in the midst of a great 
 press of business, been answering it in another manner through the 
 medium of the London Journal, in the columns of which I have taken 
 the liberty of putting it. I hope you will excuse this freedom, which 
 I could not have taken with you had I respected you less ; and I 
 trust I have anticipated any delicacies you might have had on the 
 point by stating to the reader that you had given me no intimation 
 as to whether I might so use it or not. But setting aside other rea- 
 sons for this step injurious, I trust, to neither of us it appeared to 
 me too good a thing for the public to lose, as an evidence of the new 
 and generous good-will springing up among reflecting people, and 
 specially fit to be manifested by those who make it their business to 
 encourage reflection. It would have been like secreting a sunbeam
 
 REPLY OF LEIGH HUNT. 665 
 
 a new warmth a new smile for the world. Nor will you think this 
 image hyperbolical when you consider the effect which such evidence 
 must have upon the world, however your modesty might incline you 
 to depreciate it personally. Mankind, in ignorance of the sweet and 
 bright drop of benevolence which they all more or less carry in their 
 hearts ready to bathe and overflow it in good time, have been too 
 much in the habit of returning mistrust for mistrust, and doubting 
 every one else because each of themselves was doubted. Hence a 
 world of heart-burnings, grudgings, jealousies, mischiefs, etc., till 
 some even of the kindest people were ashamed to seem kind or to 
 have better opinions of things than their neighbors. Think what a 
 fine thing it is to help to break up this general ice betwixt men's 
 hearts, and you will no longer have any doubt of the propriety of 
 the step I have taken, even supposing you to have had any before, which 
 I hope not. I forgot to say one thing in my public remarks on your 
 letter, which was to express my hearty agreement with you as to the 
 opinion that publications of this kind do no injury to one another. 
 But this was implied in my address to the public in the first number, 
 and I hope is self-evident. Most unaffectedly do I rejoice at hearing 
 your own words confirm, and in so pleasant and touching a manner, 
 the report of the great success of you and your brother in your specu- 
 lation. I can not pretend, after all that I have suffered, not to be 
 glad to include a prospect of my own success in it, however it may 
 tall short of its extent. Any kind of a bit of nest of retreat, with 
 powers to send forth my young comfortably into the world, and to 
 keep up my note of cheerfulness and encouragement to all ears while 
 I have a voice left, is all that I desire for myself, or ever did. But 
 in consequence of what I have suffered, and conscientiously suffered 
 too, I claim a right to be believed when I say that I could rejoice 
 in the success of other well-wishers to their species, apart from my 
 own, and have often done so ; and in this spirit, as well as the other, 
 1 congratulate you. That you and your brother may live long to see 
 golden harvests of all sorts spring up from the seed you have sown, 
 and to reap in consequence that ' revenue of pleasure ' you speak of, 
 as well as the more ordinary one, is the cordial wish of, dear sir, 
 yours faithfully, LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 "To ROBERT CHAMBERS, Esq." 
 
 No one could more regret than we did that Mr. Hunt's literary 
 venture was not permanently successful. At the sixty-second num- 
 ber, he united with his journal a periodical called the Printing 
 Machine, at the same time raising the price from three half-pence to 
 twopence, and altering the day of publication. Changes of this 
 kind are hazardous, if not usually injurious. From whatever cause, 
 the publication, as far as can be remembered, did not reach its hun- 
 dredth number, although, from the quality of its contents, it merited 
 a much longer existence.
 
 666 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 RETROSPECT OF GENERAL WORK DONE. 
 
 Looking back to 1833, memory brings up recollections of Robert 
 living in the bosom of a young family, in a home noted for its ge- 
 nial hospitality, as well as for certain evening parties, in which were 
 found the most enjoyable society and music ; his wife seated at the 
 harp or piano-forte, which he accompanied with his flute the jold flute 
 which had long ago sounded along the Eddleston Water, and had 
 been preserved through many vicissitudes; the entertainment being 
 sometimes varied by the tasteful performances of worthy old George 
 Thomson Burns's Thomson on the violin; my mother living with 
 the junior members of the family in the composure and comfort 
 which she had so meritoriously earned ; and I settled in my newly- 
 married life. Such was the position of affairs. All the surroundings 
 agreeable. 
 
 The sad thing in these recollections is, that so many who com- 
 posed our general society, and figured among the notables of the 
 period, have passed from- the stage of existence. A lady with whom 
 we formed an intimacy, and who greatly enjoyed these evening par- 
 ties, was Mrs. Maclehose, the celebrated "Clarinda" of Robert 
 Burns. Now a widow in the decline of life, short in stature, and of 
 a plain appearance, with the habit of taking snuff, which she had in- 
 herited from the fashions of the eighteenth century, one could hardly 
 realize the fact of her being that charming Clarinda who had taken 
 captive the heart of "Sylvander," and of whom he frenziedly wrote, 
 on being obliged to leave her: 
 
 " She, the fair sun of all her sex, 
 
 Has blest my glorious day; 
 And shall a glimmering planet fix 
 
 My worship to its ray ?" 
 
 Vastly altered since she was the object of this adoration, Clarinda 
 still possessed a singular sprightliness in her conversation, and, what 
 interested us, she was never tired speaking of Burns, whose unhappy 
 fate she constantly deplored. 
 
 Another of our acquaintances, but seen only at times when he came 
 to town, was James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd. I saw him first at 
 my brother's house in 1831, and was amused with his blunt simplic- 
 ity of character and good nature. It did not seem as if he had the 
 slightest veneration for any one more than another whom he addressed, 
 no matter what was their rank or position ; and I could quite believe 
 that he sometimes took the liberty, as is alleged of him, of familiarly 
 addressing Sir Walter Scott as " Watty," and Lady Scott as " Char- 
 lotte." The Shepherd, however, was a genuinely good creature and 
 agreeable acquaintance. On one occasion, he invited my brother 
 and myself to what he called "a small evening party," at his inn in 
 the Candlemaker Row, intimating, in an easy way, that we might
 
 THE "NOCTES AM B RO S I AN JE ." 667 
 
 bring any of our friends with us. We went accordingly. Some time 
 afterwards, when poor Hogg was no more, Robert gave an account, 
 not in the least exaggerated, of this extraordinary entertainment, 
 which may here be introduced as a specimen of the lighter class of 
 articles in the early years of the Journal. 
 
 THE CANDLEMAKER ROW FESTIVAL. 
 
 " The late James Hogg was accustomed, in his later days, to leave 
 his pastoral solitude in Selkirkshire once or twice every year, in order 
 to pay a visit to Edinburgh. He would stay a week or a fortnight 
 in the city, professedly lodging at Watson's Selkirk and Peebles' Inn 
 in the Candlemaker Row, but in reality spending almost the whole 
 of his time in dining, supping, and breakfasting with his friends ; for, 
 from his extreme good nature, and other agreeable qualities as a com- 
 panion, not to speak of his distinction as a lion, his society was 
 much courted. The friends whom he visited were of all kinds, from 
 men high in standing at the bar to poor poets and slender clerks ; 
 and amongst all the Shepherd was the same plain, good-humored, 
 unsophisticated man as he had been thirty years before, when tend- 
 ing his flocks among his native hills. In the morning, perhaps, he 
 would breakfast with his old friend Sir Walter Scott, at his house in 
 Castle street, taking with him some friend upon whom he wished to 
 confer the advantage of an acquaintance with that great man. The 
 forenoon would be spent in calls, and in lounging amongst the back- 
 shops of such booksellers as he knew. He would dine with some 
 of the wits of Blackwood's Magazine, whom he would keep in a roar 
 till ten o'clock; and then recollecting another engagement, off he 
 would set to some fifth story in the Old Town, where a young trades- 
 man of literary tastes had collected six or eight lads of his own sort, 
 to enjoy the humors of the great genius of the 'Noctes Ambrosianae.' 
 In companies of this kind he was treated with such homage and 
 kindness, that he usually got into the highest spirits, sang as many 
 of his own songs as his companions chose to listen to, and told such 
 droll stories that the poor fellows were like to go mad with happi- 
 ness. After acting as the life and soul of the fraternity for a few 
 hours, he would proceed to his inn, where it was odds but he would 
 be entangled in some further orgies by a few of the inmates of the 
 house. 
 
 "The only uneasiness which the poet felt in consequence of his 
 being so much engaged in visiting, was that it rendered his residence 
 at Watson's little better than a mere affair of lodging, so that, in his 
 reckoning, the charge for his bed bore much the same proportion to 
 that for every thing else which the sack bore to the bread in FalstaflTs 
 celebrated tavern bill. To remedy this, in some degree, the honest 
 Shepherd was accustomed to signalize the last night of his abode in 
 the inn by collecting a vast crowd of his Edinburgh friends, of all
 
 668 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 ranks and ages and coats, to form a supper party for the benefit of the 
 house. In the course of the forenoon, he would make a round of 
 calls, and mention, in the most incidental possible way, that two or 
 three of his acquaintances were to meet that night in the Candlemaker 
 Row at nine, and that the addition of this particular friend whom he 
 was addressing, together with any of his friends he chose to bring 
 along with him, would by no means be objected to. It may readily 
 be imagined that, if he gave this hint to some ten or twelve individ- 
 uals, the total number of his visitors would not probably be few. In 
 reality, it used to bring something like a Highland host upon him. 
 Each of the men he had spoken to came, like a chief, with a long 
 train of friends, most of them unknown to the hero of the evening, 
 but all of them eager to spend a night with the Ettrick Shepherd. 
 He himself stood up at the corner of one of Watson's largest bed- 
 rooms to receive the company as it poured in. Each man as he 
 brought in his train would endeavor to introduce each to him separ- 
 ately, but would be cut short by the lion with his bluff, good-humored 
 declaration, ' Ou ay, we'll be a" weel acquent by and by.' 
 
 " The first two clans would perhaps find chairs, the next would get 
 the bed to sit upon ; all after that had to stand. This room, being 
 speedily filled, those who came subsequently would be shown into 
 another bedroom. When it was filled too, another would be thrown 
 open, and still the cry was, 'They come!' At length, about ten 
 o'clock, when nearly the whole house seemed 'panged' with people, 
 as he would have himself expressed it, supper would be announced. 
 Then such a rushing and thronging through the passages upstairs and 
 downstairs, such a tramping, such a crushing, and such a laughing 
 and roaring withal for, in the very anticipation of such a supper, 
 there was more fun than is experienced at twenty ordinary assemblages 
 of the same kind. All the warning Mr. Watson had got from Mr. 
 Hogg about this affair was a hint, in passing out that morning, that 
 twae-three lads had been speaking of supping there that night? Wat- 
 son, however, knew of old what was meant by twae-three, and had 
 laid out his largest room with a double range of tables, sufficient to 
 accommodate some sixty or seventy people. Certain preliminaries 
 have in the mean time been settled in the principal bed-room. Mr. 
 Taylor, commissioner of police for the ward which contains the 
 Candlemaker Row, is to take the chair for a commissioner of police 
 in his own ward is greater than the most eminent literary or profes- 
 sional person present who has no office connected with the locality. 
 Mr. Thomson, bailie of Easter Portsburgh, and Mr. Gray, moderator 
 of the Society of High Constables, as the next most important local 
 officials present, are to be croupiers. Mr. Hogg is to support Mr. 
 Taylor on the right, and a young member of the bar is to support 
 him on the left. 
 
 "In then gushes the company, bearing the bard of Kilmeny along 
 like a leaf on the tide. The great men of the night take their seats
 
 THE "ETTRICK SHEPHERD." 669 
 
 as arranged, while others seat themselves as they can. Ten minutes 
 are spent in pushing and pressing, and there is after all a cluster of 
 Seatless, who look very stupid and nonplused till all is put to rights 
 by the rigging out of a table along the side of the room. At length 
 all is arranged ; and then, what a strangely miscellaneous company 
 is found to have been gathered together ! Meal-dealers are there 
 from the Grassmarket, genteel and slender young men from the 
 Parliament House, printers from the Cowgate, and booksellers from 
 the New Town. Between a couple of young advocates sits a decent 
 grocer from Bristo street ; and amid a host of shop-lads from the 
 Luckenbooths is perched a stiffish young probationer, who scarcely 
 knows whether he should be here or not, and has much dread that 
 the company will sit late. Jolly, honest like bakers, in pepper-and- 
 salt coats, give great uneasiness to squads of black coats in juxta- 
 position with them ; and several dainty-looking youths, in white neck- 
 cloths and black silk eye-glass ribbons, are evidently much discom- 
 posed by a rough tyke of a horse-dealer who has got in among them, 
 and keeps calling out all kinds of coarse jokes to a crony about 
 thirteen men off on the same side of the table. Many of Mr. Hogg's 
 Selkirkshire store-farming friends are there, with their well-oxygenated 
 complexions and Dandie-Dinmont-like bulk of figure ; and in addi- 
 tion to all comers, Mr. Watson himself, and nearly the whole of the 
 people residing in his house at the time. If a representative assem- 
 bly had been made up from all classes of the community, it could 
 not have been more miscellaneous than this company, assembled by 
 a man to whom, in the simplicity of his heart, all company seemed 
 alike acceptable. 
 
 "When supper was finished, the chairman proceeded to the per- 
 formance of his arduous duties. After the approved fashion in muni- 
 cipal convivialities, he gave the King, the Royal Family, the Duke 
 of York and the Army, the Duke of Clarence and the Navy, and all 
 the other loyal and patriotic toasts, before he judged it fit to intro- 
 duce the toast of the evening. He then rose and called for a real, a 
 genuine bumper. 'Gentlemen,' said he, 'we are assembled here 
 this evening in honor of one who has distinguished himself in the 
 poetical line ; and it is now my pleasing duty to propose his health. 
 Gentlemen, I could have wished to escape this duty, as I feel myself 
 altogether incapable of doing justice to it ; it is my only support in 
 the trying circumstances in which I have been placed, that little can 
 be required to recommend the toast to you. (Cheers.) Mr. Hogg 
 is an old acquaintance of mine, and I have read his works. He has 
 had the merit of raising himself from a humble station to a high place 
 among the literary men of his country. You have all felt his powers 
 as a poet in his "Queen's Wake." When I look around me, gentle- 
 men, at the respectable company here assembled when I see so many 
 met to do honor to one who was once but a shepherd on a lonely hill 
 1 can not but feel, gentlemen, that much has been done by Mr.
 
 670 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 Hogg, and that it is something fine to be a poet. (Great applause.) 
 Gentlemen, the name of Hogg has gone over the length and breadth 
 of the land, and wherever it is known, it is held as one of those 
 which do our country honor. It is associated with the names of 
 Burns and Scott, and, like theirs, it will never die. Proud I am to 
 see such a man among us, and long may he survive to reap his fame, 
 and to gratify the world with new effusions of his genius ! Gentle- 
 men, the health of Mr. Hogg, with all the honors.' The toast was 
 accordingly drunk with great enthusiasm, amid which the Shepherd 
 rose to make his usual acknowledgment : ' Gentlemen, I was ever 
 proud to be called a poet, but I never was so proud as I am this 
 nicht,' etc. 
 
 "This part of the business over, the chairman and croupiers began 
 to do honor to civic matters. The chairman gave the Magistrates 
 of Edinburgh, to which Mr. Thomson, one of the croupiers, felt 
 himself bound to return thanks. Mr. Thomson then gave the Com- 
 missioners of Police, which brought the chairman upon his legs. 
 'Messrs. Croupiers and Gentlemen,' said he, 'I rise, as an humble 
 member of the body just named, to thank you, in the name of that 
 body, and my own, for this unexpected honor. I believe I may say 
 for this body, that they do the utmost in their power to merit the 
 confidence of their constituents, and that, if they ever fail in any 
 thing to give satisfaction, it is not for want of a desire to succeed. 
 But let arithmetic speak for us. You all know that the police affairs 
 of the city were formerly administered at an expense to you of no 
 less than one-and-sixpence a pound on the valued rental. And you 
 all know what a system it was, how negligent, inefficient, and tyran- 
 nical. Now, gentlemen, our popularly elected commission has been 
 seven years in existence, during all which time we have watched, 
 and lighted, and cleaned you at thirteen pence half-penny !' (Great 
 and prolonged cheering.) 
 
 "There is now for two hours no more of Hogg. The commis- 
 sioners, bailies, and moderators, have the ball at their foot, and not 
 another man can get in a word. Every imaginable public body in 
 the city, from the University to the Potterrow Friendly Society, is 
 toasted, most of them with the honors. Then they come to individ- 
 uals. A croupier proposes the chairman, and the chairman proposes 
 the croupiers. One of the latter gentlemen has a gentlemen in his 
 eye, to whom the public has been much indebted, and whose pres- 
 ence is always acceptable, and after a long preamble of panegyric, 
 out comes the name, the honored name of Mr. John Jaap, ex-resi- 
 dent commissioner of police for the next ward. It is all in vain 
 for Mr. Hogg's literary or professional friends to raise their voices 
 amidst such a host of bourgeoisie. The spirit of the Candle- 
 maker Row and Bristo street rules the hour, and all else must 
 give way, as small minorities ought to do. Amidst the storm of civic 
 toasts, a little thickish man, in a faded velvet waistcoat and strong-
 
 JAMES HOGG AND HIS COMICALITIES. 671 
 
 ale nose, rises with great solemnity, and addressing the chair, begs 
 leave to remind the company of a very remarkable omission which 
 has been made. 'Gentlemen, 1 said he, 'I am sure, when I mention 
 my toast, you will all feel how much we have been to blame in de- 
 laying it so long. It is a toast, gentlemen, which calls in a peculiar 
 manner for the sympathies of us all. It is a toast, gentlemen, which 
 I am sure needs no recommendation from me, but which only requires 
 to be mentioned in order to call up all that feeling which such a toast 
 ever ought to call up a toast, gentlemen, a toast such as seldom oc- 
 curs. Some perhaps, are not aware of an incident of a very inter- 
 esting nature which has taken place in the family of one of our 
 worthy croupiers this morning. It has not yet been announced in 
 the papers, but it probably will be so to-morrow. In the mean time 
 I need only say "Mrs. Gray, of a daughter." (Cheering from all 
 parts of the house.) On such an occasion, gentlemen, you will not 
 think me unreasonable if I ask you to get up, and drink, with all the 
 honors, a bumper to Mrs. Gray and her sweet and interesting charge.' 
 (Drunk with wild joy by all present.) 
 
 "About two o'clock in the morning, after the second reckoning 
 has been called and paid by general contribution, Mr. Taylor leaves 
 the chair, which is taken by the young advocate. Other citizenly 
 men, including the croupiers, soon after glide off, not liking to stay 
 out late from their families. As the company diminishes in number, 
 it increases in mirth, and at last the extremities of the table are 
 abandoned, and the thinned host gathers in one cluster of intense 
 fun and good-fellowism around the chair. Hogg now shines out for 
 the first time in all his luster, tells stories, sings, and makes all life 
 and glee. The ' Laird of Lamington,' the ' Women Folk,' and 
 ' Paddy O'Rafferty,' his three most comic ditties, are given with a 
 force and fire that carries all before it. About this time, however, 
 the reporters withdraw, so that it is not in our power to state any 
 further particulars of the Candlemaker Row Festival. 
 
 "The Shepherd now reposes beneath the sod of his native Ettrick, 
 all the sorrows and joys of his checkered career hushed with his own 
 breath, and not a stone to point pale Scotia's way, to pour her sor- 
 rows o'er her poet's dust. While thus recalling, for the amusement 
 of an idle hour, some of the whimsical scenes in which we have met 
 James Hogg, let it not be supposed that we think of him only with a 
 regard to the homely manners, the social good-nature, and the un- 
 important foibles, by which he was characterized. The world amidst 
 which he moved was but too apt, especially of late years, to regard 
 him in these lights alone, forgetting that beneath his rustic plaid 
 there beat one of the kindest and most unperverted of hearts, while 
 his bonnet covered the head from which had sprung 'Kilmeny' and 
 'Donald Macdonald.' Hogg, as an untutored man, was a prodigy, 
 much more so than Burns, who had had comparatively a good edu-
 
 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 cation ; and now that he is dead and gone, we look around in vain 
 for a living hand capable of awakening the national lyre. The time 
 will probably come when this inspired rustic will be more justly ap- 
 preciated." 
 
 One thing leads to another. The continued success of the Journal 
 brought on, as if by a natural sequence, fresh enterprises, to which, 
 with some assistance, we could give proper attention. In 1833 we 
 projected and issued the work styled " Chambers's Information for 
 the People." It consisted of a series of sheets, on subjects in which 
 distinct information is of importance among the people generally ; 
 such as the more interesting branches of science, physical, mathe- 
 matical, and moral ; natural history, political history, geography and 
 literature ; together with papers on fireside amusements and miscel- 
 laneous topics considered to be of popular interest. As latterly im- 
 proved, the work is comprehended in two octavo volumes, illustrated 
 with wood-engravings. First and last, its sale has amounted to up- 
 wards of a hundred and seventy thousand sets, very nearly two millions 
 of sheets. How far the diffusion of this enormous quantity of popu- 
 larized knowledge at a small price may have proved beneficial, it is 
 not for us to say. The work was reprinted in the United States, 
 but with what success we never heard. With some changes of sub- 
 ject, a translation appeared in Paris under the title of "Instruction 
 pour le Peuple." There was also a translation of a portion of the 
 work into Welsh, by Ebenezer Thomas, or Eben the Bard, a person 
 of no mean celebrity in Wales. 
 
 Next, in 1835, was announced and begun a literary undertaking 
 very much more onerous and elaborate. This was Chambers's Edu- 
 cational Course," consisting of a series of treatises and school-books, 
 constructed according to the most advanced views of education, both 
 as a science and an art. In the series of books which followed was 
 comprehended a section on physical science, the first time, as far as 
 we were aware, of any thing of the kind having been attempted in a 
 form addressed to common understandings. Of the series of books 
 my brother wrote several, including " History of the British Em- 
 pire," and "History of the English Language and Literature," this 
 being the first time that any thing of the kind had been attempted 
 as a class-book. 
 
 To acquire some knowledge of the state of education, and the 
 nature of the treatises employed, in the kingdom of the Netherlands, 
 I made a deliberate journey through that country in 1838, visiting the 
 schools in the principal towns, every-where seeing with much pleasure 
 the satisfactory manner in which the "religious difficulty," as it is 
 called, had been overcome. What fell under notice was described 
 in a "Tour in Holland and the Rhine Countries" (1839), and it 
 vindicated the plan which had been adopted in constructing our 
 " Educational Course " free of matter that could lead to controversy. 
 No more need be said of the "Course" than that it met with a
 
 ROBERT, AND HUGH MILLER. 673 
 
 friendly reception at home and in the colonies, and that this accept- 
 ability is still increasing. 
 
 Writing to his old friend Wilson at Poughkeepsie, in 1835, my 
 brother says : "I am continuing to pursue that course of regular 
 plodding industry which you have witnessed since its commencement. 
 Personally, I have now hardly any thing to do with business, but I 
 participate with my elder brother in the great advantage of uniting 
 the duties of a publisher with those of an author. Of the Journal, 
 about sixty thousand are now sold ; and in England the circulation 
 is steadily rising. That work seems now indeed received and sanc- 
 tioned as a powerful moral engine for the regeneration of the middle 
 and lower orders of society. We have just commenced the publica- 
 tion of a series of educational works, designed to embrace education 
 physical, moral, and intellectual according to the most advanced 
 views. To all appearance, this will also be a successful undertaking. 
 While my brother has been married two years without any surviving 
 children, I have now no fewer than four. . . . We all enjoy 
 good health ; and I often think I realize in my domestic circle that 
 happiness which authors have endeavored to represent as visionary. 
 Men, it is allowed, are apt to speak of things as they find them ; 
 and, for my part, I would say that it is possible to lead the life of a 
 literary man without any of those grievances and evil passions which 
 others picture as inseparable from the profession. I envy none, de- 
 spise none, but, on the contrary, yield due respect to all, whether 
 above or beneath me. I am but little disposed to pine for higher 
 honors than I possess ; they come steadily, and 1 am content to wait 
 till they come. The result is, that hardly such a thing as an annoy- 
 ance ever breaks the calm tenor of my life, and that" there is not one 
 person with whom I was ever acquainted whom I can not meet as a 
 friend." 
 
 From 1835 to 1837, as is seen by my brother's papers, he was in 
 pretty frequent communication with Hugh Miller on literary subjects. 
 Settled at Cromarty as an assistant in a bank, Miller had some spare 
 time on his hands, which he wished to devote to writing stories and other 
 articles for Chambers* s Journal, the reading of that periodical having 
 apparently been to him a means of mental stimulus. Limits, unfor- 
 tunately, do not admit of the insertion of Miller's letters in full. In 
 one, dated igth of March 1835, he refers to the difficulties he had 
 encountered in acquiring a facility in writing for the press: 
 
 "Oblige me by accepting the accompanying volume. It contains, 
 as you will find, a good many heavy pieces, and abounds in all the 
 faults incident to juvenile productions, and to those of the imper- 
 fectly taught; but you may here and there meet with something to 
 amuse you. I have heard of an immensely rich trader who used to 
 say he had more trouble in making his first thousand pounds than in 
 making all the rest. I have experienced something similar to this 
 
 43
 
 674 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 in my attempts to acquire the art of the writer; but I have not yet 
 succeeded in making my first thousand. My forthcoming volume, 
 which I trust I shall be able to send you in a few weeks, will, I hope, 
 better deserve your perusal. And yet I am aware it has its heavy 
 pieces too dangerous looking sloughs of dissertation in which I 
 well-nigh lost myself, and in which I had no small risk of losing my 
 readers. One who sits down to write for the public at a distance of 
 two hundred miles from the capital has to labor under sad disadvan- 
 tages in his attempts to catch the tone which chances to be popular at 
 the time; more especially if, instead of having formed his literary 
 tastes in that tract of study which all the educated classes have to pass 
 through, he has had to pick them up by himself in nooks and by- 
 corners where scarcely any one ever picked them up before. Among 
 educated men the starting-note, if I may so express myself, is nearly 
 the same all the world over, and what wonder if the after-tones 
 should harmonize ; but, alas ! for his share of the concert who has to 
 strike up on a key of his own. . . . All my young friends here, 
 and I have a great many, are highly delighted with your volume of 
 Ballads." 
 
 Some years later, Mr. Miller made distinct overtures to be a con- 
 tributor. Under date i4th of September, 1837, he writes: 
 
 " I have been a reader of your Journal for the last five years, a 
 pleased and interested reader; and a few days ago the thought struck 
 me that, so far at least as one contributor goes, I might also be a 
 writer for it. ... I have been writing a good deal of late 
 mostly stories ; but the vehicle in which I have given them to the 
 public [a collection of tales] does not quite satisfy me. Some of 
 my brother-contributors are rather more stupid than is agreeable in 
 one's associates ; and besides there is less pleasure in writing sense 
 in the name of another than in one's own. Every herring should 
 hang by its own head. May I ask you, without presuming too far 
 on your good nature and the kindness you have already shown me, 
 to read one or two of my stories, and say at your convenience 
 whether 1 might not find some way of disposing of such to better 
 advantage. ... I send you also a copy of verses which I 
 addressed about two years ago to a lady, who has since become my 
 wife. I do not know that they have much else besides their sincerity 
 to recommend them, but sincerity they have. It is, I believe, Cow- 
 per who tells us that ' the poet's lyre should be the poet's heart.' ' 
 
 The articles sent were duly acknowledged and inserted. Others 
 followed in 1838, chiefly of familiar papers on geology. It is one of 
 the things to look back upon with gratification, that Hugh Miller 
 had been, not only an early reader of, but a contributor of interest- 
 ing papers to, Chambers' 's Journal.
 
 "CHAMBERS'S ENCYCLOPEDIA." 675 
 
 Shortly after this period, considerable additions were made to our 
 establishment, to meet the requirements of an ever-growing business. 
 It is not the purpose, however, of the present Memoir to diverge 
 into any account of the various enterprises in which we happened to 
 engage. Only two may be mentioned as peculiarly furthering the 
 distribution of a cheap, and, as it was hoped, useful species of pub- 
 lications among the less affluent classes in the community. One of 
 these undertakings was " Chambers's Miscellany of Useful and Enter- 
 taining Tracts," a work completed in twenty volumes, adapted for 
 parish, school, regimental, prison and similar libraries. The circu- 
 lation was immense ; and to keep the work abreast of the age, it has 
 recently undergone considerable revision. 
 
 The other of these enterprises was one which exceeded all former 
 efforts. This was " Chambers's Encyclopaedia, a Dictionary of 
 Universal Knowledge for the People," a work begun in 1859, and which 
 continued to be issued till its completion, in ten volumes, in 1868. 
 Unless with the assistance of a large and varied body of contributors, 
 a book of this comprehensive nature could not have been attempted. 
 This assistance was procured, and what was of greater importance, 
 Dr. Andrew Findlater entered with much spirit into our views, and 
 brought his erudition and habits of assiduous literary labor into exer- 
 cise as acting editor. For all parties, however, the task was herculean. 
 In commencing the work, my brother and I felt excusable in describ- 
 ing it as our "crowning effort in cheap and instructive literature." 
 
 When we entered on the undertaking, it was considerably more 
 than a hundred years since Ephraim Chambers gave to the world his 
 " Cyclopaedia, or Universal Dictionary of Knowledge," the prototype, 
 as it proved to be, of a number of similar works in Britain as well as 
 in other countries, which must have contributed in no small measure 
 to increase the sum of general intelligence. In nearly all these works 
 there was a tendency to depart from the plan of their celebrated origi- 
 nal, as concerns some of the great departments of science, literature, 
 and history; these being usually presented, not under a variety of 
 specific heads, as they commonly occur to our minds when informa- 
 tion is required, but aggregated in large and formal treatises, such as 
 in themselves form books of considerable bulk. By such a course, it 
 is manifest that the serviceableness of an encyclopaedia as a dictionary 
 of reference is greatly impaired, whatever be the advantages which 
 on other points are gained. The Germans, in their " Conversations 
 Lexicon," were the first to bring back the encyclopaedia to its origi- 
 nal purpose of a dictionary. The Penny Cyclopadia was another 
 effort in the same direction, but it was extended to such dimensions 
 as to put it out of the reach of the very classes for whom it was de- 
 signed. Our object was to give a comprehensive yet handy and cheap 
 Dictionary of Universal Knowledge, no subject being treated at greater 
 leitgth than was absolutely necessary. As now completed, it will be 
 for the world to judge whether the work realizes the object aimed at.
 
 676 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 It would have been impossible to give concentrated attention to 
 the various works mentioned, as well as to those of which Robert 
 was exclusively the author or editor, without a proper organization 
 in one large establishment. As regards Chambers' s Journal, we were 
 fortunate in having a succession of able and zealous literary assistants; 
 among others, Mr. T. Smibert (deceased), Mr. W. H. Wills, Mr. 
 Leitch Ritchie (deceased), and Mr. James Payn to whom be every 
 acknowledgment. 
 
 So aided, and with twelve printing machines set to work, there 
 was at length a fair average produce of fifty thousand sheets of one 
 kind or other daily. Under one roof were combined the operations 
 of editors, compositors, stereotypers, wood-engravers, printers, book- 
 binders, and other laborers, all engaged in the preparation and dis- 
 persal of books and periodicals. The assemblage of so many indivi- 
 duals in various departments, actuated by a common purpose, sug- 
 gested the idea of annual entertainments to all in our employment. 
 The first of these entertainments, which had for its express object the 
 promotion of a good feeling between employers and employed, took 
 place in the summer of 1838. The meeting was in the form of a 
 temperance soiree, with some slight refreshments and music. It was 
 held in one of the large apartments of our printing-office; and to 
 grace the assemblage, some persons of local distinction were invited. 
 Among the notabilities who attended on the occasion were Lords 
 Murray and Cunningham ; also Mr. James Simpson, a keen educa- 
 tionist, but best remembered for his amusing account of a visit to 
 the field of Waterloo, shortly after the battle. Usually at these soirees 
 there were about two hundred of all classes, and of both sexes, pres- 
 ent, all in evening dress, and joyous for the occasion. In the in- 
 tervals of the instrumental music, addresses were delivered, and songs 
 were sung ; on one occasion, as I have pleasure in remembering, 
 George Thomson delighted the company with the song of the 
 " Posie," the warbling of which sent the mind back to 1792, when 
 our national bard was pouring forth his matchless lyrics. The ad- 
 dresses on both sides were of that friendly nature which was calculated 
 to promote a spirit of mutual amity not to be forgotten. 
 
 The presence of my mother was a pleasing feature at the earlier of 
 these annual soirees. Now at an advanced age, but retaining her 
 buoyancy of feelings, she entered sympathizingly into the spirit of 
 the occasion. Grateful for many unexpected blessings, her existence 
 drew placidly to a close. She died in 1843, having exemplified in 
 her life the brightest virtues that can adorn the matronly character. 
 
 ROBERT'S LATER WORKS 1842 TO 1865. 
 
 There is no pleasing every body. My brother's connection with 
 Chambers' s Journal gave no small dissatisfaction to a writer who 
 affected to mourn over his desertion of what at one time promised to
 
 THE "LAND OF BURNS," ETC. 677 
 
 confer " distinction in the historical and antiquarian departments of 
 literature." So much (and a good deal more) was querulously said 
 of him in a leading critical organ in 1842. The accomplished re- 
 viewer who, in a spirit of patronizing sorrow, fell into this disconso- 
 late frame of mind, had wholly failed to remember that the most 
 precious writings of Steele and Addison made their appearance in 
 penny papers ; that the classic essays of Johnson were issued origi- 
 nally in the same form ; and that the immortal fiction of Defoe first 
 appeared chapter by chapter in the columns of a London newspaper. 
 Forgetting all that, and possessing no sympathy with the cause of 
 popular enlightenment, the lofty-minded reviewer perceived only a 
 lamentable loss of caste for all who attempted to give their ideas to 
 the world at any thing under the quality of a handsome twelve-shil- 
 ling octavo, fit for the " English library." 
 
 The critic was a little rash in his speculations. So far from 
 devoting himself exclusively to the cheap periodical which roused so 
 much temper, Robert continued to employ a large portion of his time 
 on separate works, which raised him considerably in the estima- 
 tion of the literary world. Abstaining from interference in public 
 affairs, for which he never had any aptitude, his life was now, as it 
 had been for many years, that of a literary recluse, who indulges in 
 but a limited amount of recreation. His papers for Chambers 's Jour- 
 nal occupied him for only one or two days a week. At the very time he 
 was so unceremoniously called in question, he had completed, in con- 
 junction with Professor Wilson, a most elaborate work on the " Land 
 of Burns," which, extending to two highly embellished quarto 
 volumes, is understood to have rewarded -the enterprise of the pub- 
 lishers by whom it had been undertaken. 
 
 The success of this small educational book on English literature 
 led to the conception of a work vastly more comprehensive. He 
 projected a " Cyclopaedia of English Literature " that should form a 
 history, critical and biographical, of British authors, from the earliest 
 to the present times, accompanied with a systematized series of ex- 
 tracts a concentration of the best productions of English intellect, 
 headed by Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton ; by Moore, Bacon, Locke; 
 by Hooker, Taylor, Barrow; by Addison, Johnson, Goldsmith; by 
 Hume, Robertson, Gibbon ; and more lately by Byron and Scott 
 set in a biographical and critical history of the literature itself. This 
 was certainly no mean enterprise. The end which, if possible, was to 
 be attained, was the training of an entire people to venerate the 
 thoughtful and eloquent of the past and present times. "These 
 gifted beings," it was justly observed, "may be said to have en- 
 deared our language and institutions our national character, and the 
 very scenery and artificial objects which mark our soil to all who 
 are acquainted with, and can appreciate their writings." 
 
 It being impossible, with all his self-sacrificing diligence, to exe- 
 cute so onerous a task single-handed, my brother besought and re-
 
 678 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 ceived the aid of his friend Dr. Robert Carruthers of Inverness, who, 
 both by his literary tastes and professional pursuits, was eminently 
 qualified to co-operate in the undertaking. Completed in two vol- 
 umes octavo, and issued in 1844, the " Cyclopaedia of English Lit- 
 erature " had a most successful career, and continues to be popular, 
 not only for private reading, but as a book for the higher class of 
 students. 
 
 In 1847 were issued his "Select Writings," in seven volumes, for 
 which several characteristic illustrations were furnished by David 
 Roberts, R. A. A copy having been presented by the author to his 
 friend, D. M. Moir the "Delta" of Blackwood it was acknowl- 
 edged as follows : 
 
 "Allow me to congratulate you on the publication of your 'Se- 
 lect Writings,' a thing which you owe to yourself and your family, 
 and of which both will have reason to be proud. ... In these 
 days of flash and fury, when a certain class of writers seem to think 
 that a work is valuable only as far as it departs from the regions of 
 good taste and common sense, the essays will stand forth as a beacon 
 to the unwary, and as a token that some minds have escaped the in- 
 fection. Nor can I doubt that they will attain a large degree of 
 popularity, which they deserve. In last night glancing through the 
 volumes I have made myself more intimate with many old acquaint- 
 ances, highly characteristic of Scotland and the author, and equally 
 creditable to our ' auld respectit mother,' and to her son." 
 
 It will probably be allowed that the essays comprehended in three 
 volumes of these "Select Writings," were the greatest of my broth- 
 er's productions. In them were seen his depth of thought on moral 
 and economic subjects, also his sense of humor, with power of dis- 
 criminating character. Old readers of Chambers' s Journal will re- 
 member the recurring weekly pleasure of reading these essays: "Gen- 
 eral Invitations," "The Pleasures of Unhappiness," "The House 
 of Numbers," "The Unconfined," " Danger of Appearing Ill-used," 
 "The Downdraught," etc. In a preceding chapter, a specimen of 
 the more humorous class of papers is given in " Candlemaker Row 
 Festival." Perhaps in the whole round of his four to five hundred 
 leading articles, none was more appreciated for the delicacy of its 
 conceptions than one which is now brought back to light. 
 
 IDEA OF AN ENGLISH GIRL. 
 
 " ' Girl ' is a word of delightful sense. It suggests ideas of light- 
 ness, elegance, and grace, joined to simplicity, innocence, and truth, 
 all embodied in that class of human beings which make the nearest 
 approach to the angelic. The very sound of the word is appropriate ; 
 it comes upon the ear and the heart like a flourish of fairy trumpets. 
 The letters which compose it seem to be all dancing as they trip 
 along. There is no slur or drag in this exquisite syllable ; it is a kind
 
 "IDEA OF AN ENGLISH GIRL." 679 
 
 of perpetual motion. How far the same ideas may be suggested by 
 the corresponding words in other languages I will not stop to in- 
 quire ; it is enough for me that our word is suitable to the character 
 of our girls English girls, I mean for the word has nothing to do 
 with Scotland, where ' lassie ' has its own delicious sense and admir- 
 able appropriateness. The English ' girl ' is the being whom the 
 word was meant to describe, and no being or thing could have a 
 designation more descriptive. 
 
 " Neck of lily, cheeks of rose, and eyes of heaven. Hair of sunny 
 auburn, whose tiny tendrils dance with the slightest motion. A face 
 nearer round than oval, but irradiated by the unsetting sun of a kind 
 nature. A figure meek and graceful, wreathed in innocent muslin, 
 and perpetually undulating and bending into lines of beauty. Such 
 is the fair Saxon girl of Old England, as she grows in some sheltered 
 nook of the merry land, unsmirched by the smoke and sophistica- 
 tions of cities, and little knowing of any other world than the little 
 one which forms her home. It is the fortune of few eyes to behold 
 this fair girl, for her parents prefer a life of retirement ; but to the 
 few who have once seen her, she is as the recollection of the Caaba 
 is to the Mohammedan pilgrim, an idea to be cherished forever. She 
 chiefly holds intercourse with nature ; with the more beautiful parts 
 of it ; for there is a sympathy in lovely things that makes them love 
 one another. She dotes upon flowers fair roses, sisters to herself 
 and rhododendrons that strive to match her in stature ; nor is there 
 even a little violet in the garden but every day exchanges with her kind 
 looks, as if the dewdrop lurking in it were a mirror to her own smil- 
 ing loveliness, diminishing the object, but not leaving a lineament 
 unexpressed. Out of these troops of floral friends she is ever and 
 anon choosing some one more endeared than the rest, to wear for 
 awhile in her bosom ; a preference which might make those which re- 
 mained die sooner than that which was cropped. Her favorite seat 
 is under a laburnum, which seems to be showering a new birth of 
 beauty upon her head. There she sits in the quiet of nature, think- 
 ing thoughts as beautiful as flowers, with feelings as gentle as the 
 gales which fan them. She knows no evil, and therefore she does 
 none. Untouched by earthly experiences, she is perfectly happy; 
 and the happy are good. 
 
 " Affection remains in her as a treasure, hereafter to be brought 
 into full use. As yet she only spends a small share of the interest 
 of her heart's wealth upon the objects around her ; the principal will 
 on some future and timely day be given to one worthy, I hope, 'to 
 possess a thing so valuable. Meanwhile, she loves as a daughter and 
 a sister may do. Every morning and evening she comes to her par- 
 ents with her pure and unharming kiss; nor, when some cheerful 
 brother returns from college or from counting-house to enliven home 
 for a brief space, is the same salutation wanting to assure him of the 
 continuance of her most sweet regards. Often, too, she is found in-
 
 680 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 tertwining her loveliness with that of her sisters arm clasping waist, 
 and neck crossing neck, and bosom pressed to bosom, till all seems 
 one inextricable knot of beauty. No jealousy, no guile, no envy, no 
 more than what possesses a bunch of lilies growing from the same 
 stem. She has some spare fondness, moreover, for a variety of pets 
 in the lower orders of creation. There are chickens which will leave 
 the richest morsels at the sound of her voice, and little dogs which 
 will give up yelping, even at the most provoking antagonists, if she 
 only desires them. Her chief favorite, however, is a lamb, which 
 follows her wherever she goes, a heaven-sent emblem of herself. To see 
 her fondling this spotless creature on the green, innocence reposing 
 upon innocence, you might suppose the golden age had returned, and 
 that there was to be no more wickedness seen on earth. 
 
 " Our ' English girl ' may be seen in various places. You meet her 
 on a walk, and are charmed with her fresh complexion and blue 
 modest eyes, as half seen under the averted bonnet. Then there are 
 neat shoes and white stockings, so pretty as compared with the hard 
 outline of the booted foot, in which the ladies of other countries de- 
 light. There are also her gauzy frock, and its streaming sashes and 
 ribbons, and her hair depending in massy ringlets adown her lovely 
 neck. The whole figure breathes of the free and pure mind which 
 animates it. At another time she is found in some pretty withdraw- 
 ing room, whose casements open upon flowery walks or green veran- 
 das. Her head is now invested only with the grace of nature her 
 flowing hair. Her countenance, instead of being flushed, as in the 
 other case, by the open air, beams from the gentle toil of some do- 
 mestic duty in which she has been assisting her mother. 
 
 " Appropriate to her late task, she still wears her neat apron, 
 edged with blue trimming, and from the front of which perk out two 
 smart, provoking-looking pockets, which gush over with all kinds of 
 female paraphernalia, such as scissors, cotton-balls, and knitting- 
 wires. You enter, and, being a friend of the family, she is so glad 
 to see you. In five minutes you know all about the accomplishments 
 of her canaries, the late behavior of Bob, the spaniel, an accident 
 which happened that morning to her best frock, and the annual 
 which she has received as a present ' from a friend,' as the inscrip- 
 tion has it and here she evidently wishes you rather to look into 
 the inside of the book than dwell on the initial pages. She has also 
 a few of the nothings called 'ladies work,' light, visionary fabrics of 
 card and wafers, which she has been executing for a charity sale that 
 is soon to take place ; these are all brought out and displayed before 
 you. Then there is her album, with holograph poems, by three au- 
 thors of reputation, and a thousand contributions, both original and 
 selected, from less distinguished persons, the whole being garnished 
 by her own drawings. All these things you must inspect, for she 
 only shows them in the hope of entertaining you; and then she turns 
 to music.
 
 ROBERT'S FAMILY AT ABBEY PARK. 681 
 
 "She has had selections from the last opera sent to her, and these 
 she runs over, for your amusement, on the piano-forte ; carefully tak- 
 ing you bound, however, to observe that she has not yet sufficiently 
 practiced them to be quite perfect in their execution. In truth you 
 little need such apologies for her deficiencies. It is not for her ex- 
 ternal accomplishments though these are considerable that you 
 value this fair specimen of humanity. You appreciate her for her 
 beauty which nature could never have conferred if it had not been 
 intended as a reverence-compelling merit for her gentle and artless 
 nature, so well enshrined in that form of native and indefeasible 
 grace and because, by dwelling on the contemplation of such a 
 being, your estimation of your kind is elevated ; a gratification in it- 
 self, and one of the highest order. 
 
 " Such is the ' English girl,' as she still exists in many of the happy 
 homes throughout this pleasant land. She is one of the creations of 
 nature, which, though decaying in generations, live nevertheless for- 
 ever as a race. It would be as absurd to expect that the next spring 
 should fail to prank the sod of England with primroses, as to sup- 
 pose that there will ever be a time with us when the cheeks of girls 
 shall not bloom, and their hearts cease to be stored with those blessed 
 influences which tend so much to cheer the rest of their kind. We 
 may be ruined twice over in the newspapers but there will never 
 be a time when the lover of nature shall want objects to solace him- 
 self withal. For him shall the ground, year after year, be covered 
 with a new robe of green, the trees redress their disheveled locks, 
 the flowers once more put on their bloom ; and for him there shall 
 never be wanting sweet faces decked with maiden smiles, and painted 
 with perennial roses, to assure him that England is still right at the 
 heart.' " 
 
 It might also be conjectured that my brother's " Idea of an Eng- 
 lish girl " had been partly suggested by the unaffected manners and 
 happy looks of one or other of his own daughters. Essentially what 
 is called a "family man," he experienced immense delight in the 
 society of his children, who were treated with the utmost tenderness 
 and consideration. Ultimately, he had eight daughters and three 
 sons; the daughters charming girls, most of them with flaxen ring- 
 lets, all with pet names, and so merry and entertaining, that there 
 presence shed a continual sunshine through the dwelling. Two of 
 the girls, Janet and Eliza, were twins, and so closely resembled each 
 other, that you could scarcely have told one from the other a cir- 
 cumstance which was often diverting in its consequences. Clustered 
 round their mother, Mrs. R. Chambers, a woman of brilliant musical 
 powers, much vivacity, and of literary tastes the " Mrs. Balderston" 
 of a number of amusing essays the evening musical parties were now 
 more enjoyable than ever ; for by way of variety the girls, in their
 
 682 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 childish glee, would sing together some droll and lively ditty, to the 
 delight of the company. 
 
 For some purpose connected with his young family, my brother 
 removed to St. Andrews; his residence being a villa called Abbey 
 Park, prettily situated outside the town. While here in 1843 ne m " 
 terspersed his usual literary occupations with writing pieces of verse 
 concerning his children, the daughters, of course, coming in for the 
 largest share of these rhyming fancies. To show how a literary man 
 may gracefully unbend from graver studies to amuse the innocent 
 beings around him, I copy the following verses from his note-book, 
 under date 1843: 
 
 A LAY OF ABBEY PARK. 
 
 The King of the Fairies was wanting a wife, 
 
 And thought he would try the kingdom of Fife : 
 
 So he came to St. Andrews, where soon the gay spark 
 
 Found his way through the town to sweet Abbey Park ; 
 
 Rung the bell, was shown in, made an elegant bow. 
 
 Mrs. Chambers requested that he'd take a chair; 
 He did so, but said that he scarcely knew how 
 
 To begin to inform her about his affair : 
 The fact was, the Queen of the fairies was dead, 
 And he wanted again to be happily wed ; 
 So hearing reports of the six Misses C., 
 
 All booming and handsome (though not much purse), 
 He thought how exceedingly nice it would be 
 
 If one would take him for better for worse. 
 His queen, he said, was kept not ill 
 
 Pin-money handsome, a coach of her own, 
 A palace built snug in the side of a hill; 
 
 And further, he said, he could not depone. 
 Mamma thought the offer a capital chance, 
 So she called in her troop like an opera dance, 
 And told his kingship that he might 
 At least of her beauties have a sight ; 
 Papa, she said, would soon be in 
 
 (For he, good man, had gone to golf), 
 When they might talk of it chin to chin, 
 
 And so it would either be on or off. 
 Just then comes in Pa, hears the story, quite grave : 
 " Well, which would your majesty choose to have ? 
 Here's Jane, the eldest, we'll begin with her, 
 Or I never would hear an end of the stir." 
 " O," says the king, " she's too much grown, 
 A full head taller than me, you'll own." 
 " Well, here's our charming maid, Miss Mary, 
 Who seems already one half a fairy 
 The dark gazelle, the Andalusian !" 
 O, such eyes in my kingdom would breed confusion !" 
 " Then here's Miss Annie, an honest young woman, 
 Who is fond of every thing that's at all uncommon ; 
 Although in good sense surpassed by few " 
 " O, a blonde in Fairyland won't do."
 
 EDINBURGH RESIDENCE OF ROBERT. 683 
 
 ' Well, here are our twins ; and first Jenny, 
 
 A gentle, benevolent sort of a henny, 
 
 Who would tend you kindly if you were sick 
 
 Next pranksome Lizz, full of fun and trick." 
 
 " O, these are but one, though two appear ; 
 
 I couldn't take half a queen, I fear. 
 
 I rather would err on the other side, 
 
 And have something more than one for my bride." 
 
 Delighted, cried Pa : " Here's the very thing, 
 
 Our Major Amelia, who well can sing, 
 
 For she's two pretty misses in one !" 
 
 At once, then the king cried : " Done, sir; done!" 
 
 So Amelia was dressed in a frock of green, 
 
 And away she tripped as the Fairy Queen, 
 
 And at Abbey Park ne'er again was seen." 
 
 In 1840 Robert was elected a member of the Royal Society of 
 Edinburgh, from which time to 1850 he carried on an extensive 
 epistolary correspondence with men of literary and scientific repute ; 
 and at this period he often visited London, where he mingled in the 
 society of men of letters. His mind had become occupied with 
 speculative theories which brought him into communication with Sir 
 Charles Bell, George Combe, his brother Dr. Andrew Combe, Dr. 
 Neil Arnott, Professor Edward Forbes, Dr. Samuel Brown, and other 
 thinkers on physiology and mental philosophy. Of Sir Charles Bell, 
 he says in a note, on hearing of the sudden death of that eminent 
 surgeon and physiologist (1842): "Sir Charles was my father at the 
 Royal Society a most ingenious, excellent man." He had likewise, 
 in a more particular manner, acquired a fancy for geological investi- 
 gations, which introduced him to another class of inquirers. Return- 
 ing to Edinburgh, and residing at Doune Terrace, his house was open 
 to all strangers of literary or scientific tastes who were pleased to 
 visit him ; and he now may be said to have acquired a wide circle 
 of acquaintances. His conversaziones at this period will still be re- 
 membered. Often they had some specific object, such as showing 
 antiquities of historical interest, and saying something regarding them 
 for the amusement of the guests ; or of discussing some curious point 
 in geology that had lately been exciting remark ; for example, the 
 traces of glacial action disclosed on the face of a huge bowlder by the 
 cutting of the Queen's Drive on Arthur's Seat. With such phenom- 
 ena as this he was familiar, as is seen by his communications to the 
 Royal Society of Edinburgh. 
 
 My brother took up geology, not as a plaything, but as a matter 
 to be pursued with his usual quiet earnestness of purpose. He went 
 off from time to time on trips to different parts of England, Scotland, 
 and Ireland ; his explorations, however, being confined in a great 
 measure to the sea-coast, the shores of lakes, and banks of rivers, in 
 order to trace the mutations that had in the course of ages taken place 
 on the earth's surface, as regards the relative level of sea and land.
 
 684 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 The result of these excursions, and of much consideration on the 
 subject, was the work, "Ancient Sea-Margins," published in 1848. 
 The facts detailed were geologically instructive, as well as interesting 
 from another point of view ; for the explanations regarding raised 
 beaches at once put to flight the mythic legends concerning the old 
 parallel roads of Glenroy, and similar terrace-like appearances. 
 
 While partially occupied by pursuits of this kind, and neither from 
 his habits nor inclinations suited to engage in the turmoil of civic 
 administration, he weakly and unfortunately, at the close of autumn, 
 
 1848, permitted himself to be brought forward as a candidate for, the 
 office of Lord Provost of Edinburgh, which was about to be vacated. 
 The movement, though well meant, was ill-timed. Sectarianism ran 
 high. Means the most unscrupulous were employed to injure him in 
 general estimation. A city for which he had done something not 
 readily to be forgotten, was invoked to do him dishonor. And, as 
 might have been anticipated from his singularly sensitive nature, he 
 threw up his candidature in disgust, leaving the field open to his 
 more favored adversary. The whole thing was a mistake. Robert 
 ought on no account to have suffered himself to be brought into a 
 position so alien to his feelings. He might have been well assured 
 that a rumor to the effect that he was the author of a work which 
 had caused no little exasperation, " Vestiges of the Natural History 
 of Creation," would be used to his disadvantage, and that any thing 
 he might say on the subject would be unavailing. As if to cover the 
 whole affair with ridicule, the theories propounded in the work which 
 caused so much civic commotion, have since been rivaled, if not out- 
 done, in seeming extravagance by Darwin, without incurring any 
 particular animosity. It appears now to be generally recognized that 
 the utmost latitude may be allowed to scientific research and specu- 
 lation, without endangering the foundations of religious belief; so 
 greatly has the world advanced in liberality of sentiment during the 
 last quarter of a century. 
 
 It is grateful to turn from this brief but unpleasant episode to some 
 notice of an excursion which he made to the north of Europe. In 
 the summer of 1848 he had visited Rhineland and Switzerland, with 
 a view to satisfy himself on the subject of glacial action, the theories 
 regarding which, of Agassiz and Forbes, had lately raised much in- 
 terest among geologists. As Norway was known to offer some strik- 
 ing examples of the effects produced by glaciers, my brother resolved 
 to proceed thither. Quitting Edinburgh in the latter part of June, 
 
 1849, ne sailed from Hull to Copenhagen ; thence he went to Got- 
 tenburg, from which he made a deliberate journey through Sweden 
 and Norway, sometimes going by steam -vessels, sometimes by cari- 
 oles, and at other times by boats on the fiords that indent the coast; 
 but always making explorations on foot wherever it vas expedient to 
 do so. The result of the excursion was given in a series of papers 
 in Chambers' s Journal, at the close of 1849 an< ^ beginning of 1850,
 
 "TRACINGS IN THE NORTH." 685 
 
 under the title of " Tracings of the North of Europe." Besides any 
 scientific value attaching to these papers, they offered amusing sketches 
 of the social condition of the country as far as Hammerfest, or nearly 
 to the seventy-first degree of north latitude. 
 
 The accounts given of the simple politeness and kindly hospitality 
 of the people form the most agreeable part of the narrative. These 
 qualities were well exemplified when boating with some fellow-travel- 
 lers in the Altcnfiord. A few passages may here be presented : 
 
 SCENE IN NORWAY. 
 
 " In the afternoon, after rowing upwards of twenty miles, we 
 began to approach Komagfiord, where we designed to spend the 
 night. The washed, shattered coast here presents remarkable dis- 
 turbances of the slate strata, with curious interjections, vein ings, 
 and contortions. Many blocks appear, lying on the slate, of totally 
 different kinds of rock, and therefore presumably brought from a 
 distance. By-and-by terraces begin to appear, with many of these 
 traveled blocks reposing upon them. Such stones speak, and the 
 tale which they tell is as truthful, perhaps more truthful, than most 
 of those narrated in black and white. 
 
 " At length, at an early hour of the evening, we turned into a 
 comparatively small, but sheltered and almost land-locked recess, 
 where we first see palings along the green hill-sides, indicating pas- 
 toral farming, and then a neat house seated a little way back from 
 the shore, with a number of smaller buildings scattered near it, 
 including one which advances as a wharf into the sea. That pretty 
 red and yellow mansion, so riant with its clean dimity window 
 curtains, and a little garden in front, is the kiopman's house of 
 Komagfiord. It has a small porch in the center, with a wooden 
 esplanade and a short flight of steps descending on either hand. 
 A good-looking man, in the prime of life, leans over the rail at 
 the wharf, to receive us as we land. We are met by him with a 
 few courteous words in English ; we present our letter of recom- 
 mendation for Mr. Buch, the kiopman, who presently appears, a 
 bulkier and older man, of remarkably open genial countenance, 
 reminding me much of Cowper's description, though not exactly 
 true so far as dress is concerned, 
 
 
 
 ' An honest man, close-buttoned to the chin, 
 Broadcloth without, and a warm heart within.' 
 
 He meets us with welcome, and we are speedily conducted, with our bag- 
 gage, to the house, a few steps from the shore, where we are at once 
 introduced into a clean parlor, adorned with family portraitures and 
 some of the favorite prints of Sweden and Norway, particularly the 
 never-absent royal family. Mr. Buch, however, does not speak any lan- 
 guage besides his own. He only looks the welcome he feels. His wife
 
 686 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 / 
 
 presently appears, a pleasant-looking matron ; likewise his daughter 
 and sole child, whom we by-and-by discover to be the wife of the 
 younger man. Two or three little children, too, the offspring of 
 the young couple, make their way into the room to see those extra- 
 ordinary beings, the English strangers. The younger man, Mr. 
 Fantrom, knowing a good deal of English, we speedily, through that 
 channel, become acquainted with the whole of this amiable family, 
 from whom I was eventually to receive a greater amount of kindness 
 than it almost ever was my lot to experience from strangers. We 
 desired, of course, to be considered as travelers taking advantage in 
 all courtesy of the obligation under which the kiopman likes to receive 
 such persons into his house ; but it will be found that we could not 
 induce our kind hosts to regard us in that light. The family seemed 
 to be in very comfortable circumstances, and the union in which the 
 three generations lived together was beautiful to contemplate. I 
 shall not soon, I trust, forget the kiopman's house of Komagfiord. 
 
 "After the refreshment of tea for we had taken a good luncheon 
 at sea we went out to examine the neighboring grounds, and soon 
 ascertained that a terrace of detrital matter and blocks goes entirely 
 round the little valley, at the height of about sixty-four feet above 
 the sea. Walking along it round the angle which divides the fiord 
 from the open sea in Varg Sound, we find it become a terrace of ero- 
 sion on the rough coast there, with huge blocks every-where incum- 
 bering its surface blocks of foreign rock. Mr. Fantrom obligingly 
 went along with us over this ground, and seemed glad when I could 
 employ him in holding the leveling staff for a few minutes. We 
 soon found him a very sensible, well-informed man, though geology 
 and geodesy were new ideas to his mind. 
 
 " The latter part of the evening proved extremely beautiful, and we 
 were tempted to take seats on the esplanade in front of the door, to 
 enjoy the cool but still balmy air, a delightful refreshment after the 
 heat of the day. The little fiord lay like grass below our feet, with 
 a merchant sloop moored in the entrance ; the rugged mountains be- 
 yond the Sound rose clear into the bright blue sky, where the light 
 was yet scarcely dulled. Mr. Buch sat down with his long pipe, 
 emitting alternate puffs of smoke, and sentences addressed Jp his son- 
 in-law and grandchildren. The bustle of Mrs. Buch engaged in her 
 household duties made the smallest possible stir within. All besides 
 was as calm as nature before the birth of sound. Having nothing 
 better to do, I proposed at this juncture to bring out my flute, and 
 play a few airs, provided it should be agreeable to all present. 
 
 "This being cordially assented to, I proceeded to introduce the 
 music of my native country to these simple-hearted Norwegians. The 
 scenery and time seemed to give magic to what might otherwise per- 
 haps have proved of very little interest ; and finding my audience 
 give unequivocal tokens of being pleased with my performance, I 
 was induced to go on from one tune to another for fully an hour.
 
 BURNS' REL'ATIVESON "BONNIE BOON." 687 
 
 It was curious to think of my audience hearing for the first time 
 strains which are an inheritance of the heart to every Scottishman 
 from his earliest sense to myself, for instance, since three years old 
 and to reflect on some of our national favorites, as the ' Flowers of 
 the Forest, 1 ' Loch Erroch Side,' and the ' Shepherd's Wife,' now 
 floating over the unwonted ground of a Norwegian fiord. With each 
 air, in general, the idea of some home friend, with whom it is a 
 favorite, was associated. There was scarcely one which did not take 
 my mind back to some scene endeared by domestic affection, or the 
 love which, in common with every Scot, I cherish for the classic 
 haunts of my native land. It was deeply interesting now to summon 
 up all these associations in succession, in the presence of an alien 
 family who could know nothing of them, and to whom it would have 
 been in vain to explain them, but who, from that very incapability 
 of sympathy, made them in the existing circumstances fall only the 
 more touchingly and penetratingly into my own spirit." 
 
 On returning from his northern excursion, my brother set to work 
 on a subject for which he had long been accumulating materials 
 " The Life and Works of Robert Burns." As the brilliant and pain- 
 ful history of Burns had been already written by seven of his coun- 
 trymen, it might seem unnecessary to resume its consideration. Some- 
 thing, however, was wanting. There still survived persons who were 
 acquainted with the poet, but they were passing away, and now was 
 the time for gathering from them such facts and reminiscences as 
 might serve for a full and authentic biography. Among others whose 
 memory might be reckoned on, was Burns' youngest sister, Mrs. Begg ; 
 and she, on being communicated with, entered cordially into the 
 project. George Thomson was also at hand, and glad to be of any 
 service. As regards the works of the poet, a peculiar arrangement 
 was contemplated. This consisted in presenting the various com- 
 positions in strict chronological order, in connection with the narra- 
 tive, so that they might render up the whole light they were qualified 
 to throw upon the history of the life and mental progress of Burns ; 
 at the same time that a new significance was given to them by their 
 being read in connection with the current of events and emotions 
 which led to their production. Acting on this plan, and after minute 
 personal investigations, the "Life and Works of Robert Burns " was 
 produced in 1850. It was well received, and passed through several 
 editions, to suit different classes of purchasers. 
 
 Already, a small pension on the roll of Her Majesty's Charities 
 and Bounties for Scotland had been granted to Mrs. Begg and her 
 two daughters, and some private efforts had been further made in their 
 behalf. My brother set on foot the collection of a fund, which was 
 moderately successful. In writing from Edinburgh, May 4, 1842, to 
 his wife at St. Andrews, he says : " On Monday, the first fruits of 
 my application for Burns' sister approved in two tributes, one of ten
 
 688 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 pounds from Mr. Tegg, bookseller ; the other, ten guineas from Mr. 
 Procter, the poet. Isn't that capital?" To increase these resources, 
 the profits of a cheap edition of the "Life and Works of Burns" 
 were set aside. The sum realized was not great, but it helped. 
 Writing under date May 15, 1856, to James Grant Wilson, son of his 
 friend Wilson of Poughkeepsie, and who had lately been in Scotland, 
 Robert says : "I am glad you saw old Mrs. Begg, but it was a pity to 
 miss the black eyes and intelligent face of her daughter, Isabella, who 
 is a charming creature of her kind and sort, and more a reminiscence 
 of Burps than even her mother. Just about a fortnight ago, W. and 
 R. C. had the pleasure of handing two hundred pounds to the Misses 
 Begg, being the profits of the cheap edition of the "Life and Works 
 of Burns" edited by me, as promised by us at the time of publica- 
 tion. This sum will lie at interest, accumulating till Mrs. Begg and 
 her annuity cease, when, with one hundred and sixty pounds of the 
 fund formerly collected for Mrs. B., it will be sunk in distinct annui- 
 ties for the daughters. The result, with their several pensions of ten 
 pounds, will place them above all risk of any thing like want. They 
 well deserve all that has been done for them by their self-devotion to 
 their mother in less bright days. I have great pleasure in thinking 
 of that happy family on the banks of Boon, and reflecting on the 
 little services I have been able to render them." 
 
 In June, 1855, ^ e ^ a ^ an excellent opportunity of visiting the Faroe 
 Islands and Iceland, and this, for geological reasons, he did not neg- 
 lect. The Thor, a Danish screw war steamer, touched at Leith on its 
 way to Iceland, and at a certain charge six gentlemen were accommo- 
 dated as passengers. It was a pleasant trip. Reikiavik, the capital 
 of Iceland, was reached in safety ; and in a day or two began a jour- 
 ney, in a rude fashion, on the backs of ponies, to the famed Geysers, a 
 distance of seventy miles across a wild country, with no proper places 
 for rest or lodging. Yet, as he describes the excursion, it was, though 
 rough, a novel, hilarious affair after all. At Thingvalla, the only 
 accommodation for the night was to bivouac in the church, and the 
 only means of lingual communication with the clergyman who acted 
 as host, was in a corrupt Latin. Robert made his couch in the pul- 
 pit. On the second day the party got to a farm-house in the vicinity 
 of the Geysers ; and next morning some of these hot-water volcanoes 
 were in ebullition. The chief curiosity is the Great Geyser, a kind 
 of well, nine feet in diameter, and eighty-seven feet deep, from which 
 were seen thrown up violent jets of water to a height of from seventy 
 to a hundred feet. The heat of the water is extraordinary. " It has 
 been found that the water of the Great Geyser at the bottom of the 
 tube has a temperature higher than that of ordinary boiling water, 
 and this goes on increasing till an eruption takes place, immediately 
 before which it has been found as high as 261 Fahrenheit," or 49 
 above ordinary boiling-point, a circumstance inferring enormous com-
 
 DOMESTIC ANNALS OF SCOTLAND. 689 
 
 pression under violent heat, until the water bursts out into the atmos- 
 phere. 
 
 Returning by the way they had come, the excursionists were again 
 glad to take up their quarters in the establishment of the parish 
 minister, who, it appeared on a cross-examination in Latin by my 
 brother, supported a wife and eight children, performed his parochial 
 duties, and traveled once a month to a preaching station eighteen 
 miles distant, all for five-and-twenty pounds a year. " We could not 
 but wonder how so large a family, besides a horse, could be supported 
 on means so small. In wandering about the place, I lighted upon 
 his little stithy, which reminds me to tell that in Iceland a priest is 
 always able to shoe your horses if required. The little book in which 
 these particulars were given, entitled " Tracing in Iceland and the 
 Faroe Islands," was published in 1856. 
 
 A number of years had elapsed since he wrote a " History of Scot- 
 land " for a series of books issued by Richard Bentley. The subject 
 was so familiar, that he now applied himself with zest to a work en- 
 titled the "Domestic Annals of Scotland." It was comprised in 
 three volumes. Two of these were issued in 1859, and a third ap- 
 peared in 1 86 1. The period over which the annals extended was 
 from the Reformation to the Rebellion of 1745, nearly two hundred 
 of the most interesting years in Scottish history. The work, however, 
 was not a history in the usual sense of the word. It consisted of a 
 chronicle of occurrences of a familiar, sometimes amusing nature, 
 beneath the region of history, but calculated to convey a correct 
 notion of the manners, customs, passions, superstitions, and ignorance 
 of the people ; the pestilences, famines, and other extraordinary events 
 which disturbed their tranquillity ; the traits of false political economy 
 by which their well-being was checked ; and generally those things 
 which enable us to see how our forefathers thought, felt, and suffered, 
 and how, on the whole, ordinary life looked in their days. The 
 materials for this assemblage of facts were searched for in public 
 records, acts of parliament, criminal trials, private diaries, family 
 papers, histories, biographies, journals of transactions, etc. ; the 
 whole amounting to nearly a hundred different authorities, while the 
 passages selected were so strung together chronologically as to offer 
 a progressive picture of the times. On this work, so laborious, yet 
 coincident with his feelings, he occupied himself at times during five 
 years without in any respect remitting his writings for Chambers' s 
 Journal. 
 
 About this time (1860), he edited and wrote an introductory notice 
 to a volume purporting to be the " Memoirs of a Banking-house," by 
 Sir William Forbes, of Pitsligo, Bart., author of the life of the poet 
 Beattie. The banking-house so signalized was that which was set on 
 foot in Edinburgh by John Coutts & Co., who occupied as business 
 premises an upper floor in the Parliament Close. The Coutts family 
 were from Montrose, and began as corn-merchants and negotiators 
 44
 
 690 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 of bills of exchange. One of them, John Cotitts, was Lord Provost 
 of Edinburgh in 1742. He had four sons Patrick, John, James, and 
 Thomas. By these the business was continued, and received as ap- 
 prentice the youthful Sir William Forbes, in 1754. In the whole 
 round of biography, there is nothing finer by way of example to the 
 young than the life of Sir William Forbes. Born in 1739, heir to a 
 baronetcy, and left fatherless at four years of age, without patrimony, 
 he was, commercially speaking, a self-made man, though, like many 
 youths in similar circumstances, he owed much to the care of an 
 amiable and intelligent mother, who, dwelling in a small house in 
 one of the dingy lanes of Edinburgh, maintained on the most slender 
 means the style and manners ofxi lady. Her son, Sir William, a 
 boy fourteen years of age, instead of being bred to one of the 
 " learned professions," was put apprentice to Messrs. Coutts; from an 
 apprentice, he became a junior clerk ; from a clerk, he rose to be a 
 partner ; and finally, when several of the partners died or quitted 
 Edinburgh, the firm was transformed into that of Sir William Forbes & 
 Co., of which he was the leading member. The firm, as is well 
 known, is now merged in the Union Bank of Scotland. 
 
 Sir William, as we learn from the memoir, was reared, and acquired 
 strict habits of business, chiefly under the eye of John Coutts ; for 
 Thomas, his brother, the youngest son of the Lord Provost, removed 
 to London. There, founding the banking concern of Coutts & Co., 
 he died in 1822, at about ninety years of age; his youngest daughter 
 Sophia, married to Sir Francis Burdett, being mother of the much- 
 esteemed Baroness Burdett Coutts. The memoir, which contains 
 many curious particulars about banking in the olden time, was writ- 
 ten by Sir William Forbes, with a view to impress his son and suc- 
 cessor with the paramount importance of exercising, with diligence 
 in his profession, the highest principles of integrity, for only by such 
 could he expect to sustain the enviable reputation of the house. 
 The universal mourning on the death of Sir VVilliam Forbes, in 1806, 
 shortly after he had completed his " Life of Beattie," caused Sir 
 Walter Scott to refer to him in one of the cantos of " Marmion," 
 when addressing the amiable banker's son-in-law, and the poet's 
 friend, Mr. Skene, of Rubislaw : 
 
 " Scarce had the lamented Forbes paid 
 The tribute tohis minstrel's shade, 
 The tale of friendship scarce was told, 
 Ere the narrator's heart was cold. 
 Far we may search before we find 
 A heart so manly and so kind." 
 
 In editing the autobiography of this distinguished banker, my 
 brother enjoyed a pleasure instead of performing a task. The same 
 might be said of a series of detached papers, written at spare inter- 
 vals, or to deliver as lectures. The subjects of these tracts, ultimately
 
 WILLIAM VISITS AMERICA. 69! 
 
 issued in 1861 under the title of "Edinburgh Papers," were vari- 
 ous old domestic architecture, merchants and merchandise in old 
 times, the posture of the scientific world, some notions on geol- 
 ogy, and the romantic Scottish ballads. By this last-named paper, 
 the accepted opinions regarding several popular ballads, as given by 
 Percy and Scott, were considerably ruffled. In it he ventured to 
 show that, so far from being ancient, these ballads had been written, 
 in an affectedly old style, not earlier than the beginning of the eight- 
 eenth century the surreptitious manufacture being executed by a 
 woman clever at versification, Lady Wardlaw, of Pitreavie. Professor 
 Aytoun, among others, was, of course, not well pleased at this un- 
 happy overturn of certain literary traditions, but could not disprove 
 the accuracy of the view that had been adopted. There was. at the 
 time considerable discussion on the subject. 
 
 My brother and I had talked of visiting the United States and 
 Canada. We had pretty extensive business relations in these coun- 
 tries ; but what chiefly interested us was the social aspect of affairs 
 beyond the Atlantic. I was able to make this desired trip in 1853, 
 the account of which appeared as "Things as they are in America" 
 (1854). Robert's excursion was postponed for a few years longer. 
 
 When the old Theater Royal in Edinburgh was about to be taken 
 down in 1859, in order to make way for the new General Post-office, 
 he, at the request of some amateurs of the drama, wrote a historical 
 sketch of the old building, with its successive managers, and the great 
 theatrical stars who had made their appearance on its stage. The 
 pamphlet was a trifle, but not devoid of some amusing particulars; 
 for example, the account given of the visit of Mrs. Siddons, in May, 
 1784, when she performed twelve nights, extending over a period of 
 three weeks, and 'during which she played her principal characters, 
 including Mrs. Beverly, Jane Shore, Isabella, Lady Randolph, and 
 Euphrasia in the "Grecian Daughter:" 
 
 MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 "The furor created in the town by the performances of this illus- 
 trious lady was extraordinary. Prodigious crowds attended hours 
 before the performance for the chance of a place. It came to be 
 necessary to admit them at three, and then people began to attend 
 at twelve to get in at three. The General Assembly of the Church, 
 in session at the time, found it necessary to arrange their meetings 
 with some reference to the hours at the theater, for the younger mem- 
 bers had discovered that attendance on Mrs. Siddons's performances 
 was calculated to be of some advantage to them as a means of im- 
 proving their elocution. People came from distant places, even from 
 Newcastle, to witness what all spoke of with wonder. There were 
 one day applications for 2,557 places, while there were only 630 of 
 that kind in the house. Porters and servants had to bivouac for a
 
 692 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 night in the streets on mats and palliasses, in order that they might 
 get an early chance of admission to the box-office next day. At the 
 more thrilling parts of the performance the audience were agitated 
 to a degree unprecedented in this cool latitude. Many ladies fainted. 
 This was particularly the case on the evening when ' Isabella, or the 
 Fatal Marriage,' was performed. The personator of Isabella has to 
 exhibit the distress of a wife on finding, after a second marriage, that 
 her first and loved hnsband, Biron, is still alive. Mrs. Siddons her- 
 self was left at the close in such an exhausted state that some min- 
 utes elapsed before she could be carried off the stage. A young 
 heiress, Miss Gordon of Gight, in Aberdeenshire, was carried out of 
 her box in hysterics, screaming loudly the words caught from the 
 great actress : ' O, my Biron ! my Biron !' A strange tale was there- 
 with connected. " A gentleman, whom she had not at this time seen 
 or heard of, the Honorable John Biron, next year met, paid his 
 addresses, and married her. It was to her a fatal marriage in several 
 respects, although it gave to the world the poet Lord Byron. Strange 
 
 to say, a lady lived till January, 1858, the Dowager Lady G , 
 
 who was in the house that evening, and who never could forget the 
 ominous sounds of 'O, my Biron !' The writer of this little memoir 
 has heard the story related by another lady, who was also in the house 
 that night, and who died in 1855. By her performances in Edin- 
 burgh on this occasion Mrs. Siddons cleared i,ooo/., her benefit 
 alone yielding 3507.; all this being over and above the profits of a 
 night given to the Charity Work-house. It was remarked that the 
 doctors ought to have given her a piece of plate, for there prevailed 
 for some time after her visit a disorder called the * Siddons fever ' 
 a pure consequence, as was believed, of the unusual exposure, excite- 
 ment, and fatigue to which she had been the means of subjecting a 
 large part of the community." 
 
 Robert, accompanied by his wife, effected his long desired visit to 
 America in 1860, every-where receiving much attention from men of 
 literary and scientific tastes. Unfortunately, his dear old friend and 
 correspondent, Willie Wilson, had died shortly before his arrival in 
 the country. Of his extensive excursion my brother did not give any 
 regular account, but contented himself with writing two or three 
 articles in Chambers' s Journal. One of these, entitled " A City 
 Elevated," was a description of the method of raising houses bodily 
 four to five feet above the level on which they had been built, with- 
 out the slightest derangement to the walls or contents of the build- 
 ing. This extraordinary method of elevation he saw at Chicago in 
 October, 1860, the object of the process being to raise the rows of 
 dwellings sufficiently high above Lake Michigan to give an outfall to 
 the drainage of the town. The work, he says, was executed by con- 
 tract, the raising of a hugh pile of buildings costing 3,5007. This 
 process of house-raising seemed to him a wonderful novelty in 
 
 \
 
 ROBERT IN THE UNITED STATES. 693 
 
 engineering. A few passages as to how the thing was done may be 
 quoted : 
 
 A CITY ELEVATED. 
 
 " The first step is to scarify away all the ground or fabric of any 
 kind around the base of the building, supplying, however, provisional 
 galleries and gangways for the use of the public during the process of 
 elevation. Then the earth is dug out from under a portion of the 
 foundations and strong beams inserted, supported by rows of jack- 
 screws set together as closely as possible. When this is properly 
 arranged another piece of the foundations is removed in like manner, 
 and so on till beams with jack-screws are under every wall of the 
 mass of building. In the case of the block in question, there were 
 in all six thousand screws employed. 
 
 " The next step is to arrange for putting the screws into action. 
 To every ten a man is assigned, furnished with a crowbar. At the 
 signal of a whistle he turns a screw one-fourth round, goes on to an- 
 other which he turns in like manner, and so on till all are turned. 
 The screw having a thread of three-eighths of an inch, the building 
 has thus been raised a fourth part of that space throughout, or exactly 
 3~32d of an inch. The whistle again sounds; each crowbar is again 
 applied to its series of ten screws, and a similar amount of vertical 
 movement for the whole building is accomplished. And this opera- 
 tion is repeated till the whole required elevation is accomplished. 
 When the desired elevation is attained, the beams are one by one 
 replaced with a substructure of masonry, and the pavement is restored 
 on the new level. In this case the elevation of four feet eight inches 
 was accomplished in five days, and it is stated that the cost of new 
 foundations and pavement was from forty to fifty thousand dollars. 
 The block, which was full of inhabitants, contained much plate-glass, 
 elegantly painted walls, and many delicate things ; but not a pane was 
 Broken, a particle of plaster or paint displaced, nor a piece of furni- 
 ture injured. The writer deems it not superfluous to say, that he saw 
 and partly inspected this mass of building, and certainly found 
 nothing that could have led him to surmise that it had originally 
 rested on a plane nearly five feet below its present level. 
 
 " Let us English people ponder on these heroic undertakings of our 
 American cousins. They are well worthy of imitation. It is the mis- 
 fortune of many of our cities that large portions of them are built on 
 ground so little above the level of an adjacent river as to be but im- 
 perfectly drainable. Southwark is a notable example, and Belgravia, 
 with finer buildings, is no better off in this important respect. Sani- 
 tary considerations point out how desirable in these cases it is that 
 the buildings should be raised a few feet. Chicago, a town of yes- 
 terday, scarcely yet to be heard of in geographical gazetteers, has 
 shown that it can be done, and, comparatively speaking, at no great 
 expense. ' '
 
 694 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 We now approach the end. On my brother's return from America, 
 there were consultations on the project of a work, likely to be success- 
 ful, but which could not be executed in Edinburgh. It required the 
 resources of the British Museum. For this purpose it was resolved 
 that he should migrate, with his family, to London, if his stay should 
 be only for a few years. So to London he went, his residence being 
 in one of the pleasant villas at St. John's Wood. The work which 
 had suggested this wrench in accustomed habits was the "Book of 
 Days," a miscellany of popular antiquities in connection with the 
 calendar, including anecdotes, biographies, curiosities of literature, 
 and oddities of human life and character. Formed somewhat on the 
 plan of Hone's "Every-Day Book," the work was considerably more 
 elaborate and searching. 
 
 It is painful to relate what happened. Some anticipated help hav- 
 ing failed, and forced to rely too exclusively on himself, his mental 
 powers underwent a strain they were ill able to bear. The work was 
 finished, but the author was finished also. Not that he died on the 
 spot, but his system was shattered, and he could not in future incur 
 any continuous exertion. To aggravate his disorder, he experienced 
 some sad domestic bereavements. In September, 1863, he lost his 
 wife, and almost immediately thereafter Janet, a favorite twin-daughter 
 of much promise. Like most other works he produced, the "Book 
 of Days " proved a success. But at what a cost ! He was heard to 
 say: " That book was my death-blow," and such it really was. 
 
 Returning to Scotland in an enfeebled state of health, my brother 
 took up his residence in St. Andrews, a place to which he had twenty 
 years previously become attached, on account of its agreeable society, 
 its bracing atmosphere, and its extensive links, or downs, noted for 
 the game of golf, a healthful out-door amusement, not demanding 
 too great an amount of physical exertion. There we may leave him 
 for a little space, in the society of his youngest and unmarried 
 daughter, Alice his windows overlooking the Firth of Tay, and the 
 celebrated Bell-rock Light-house flashing far in the east, like a lus- 
 trous gem on the bosom of the German Ocean. 
 
 A SKELETON IN THE HOUSE, AND OTHER MATTERS. 
 
 There is a skeleton in every house ! All have some thing or other 
 to trouble them, however well off and at ease they may appear to be. 
 For twenty-one years after the commencement of Chambers' s Journal, 
 and while all seemed to be going on prosperously, my brother and I 
 were plagued with a skeleton, of whom the world had no means of 
 being cognizant. The nature of the skeleton was this. Operating 
 from Edinburgh as a center, we had necessarily to intrust a large 
 commission business to a bookseller in London, who had us pretty 
 much at his mercy. Things might be going right or wrong with 
 him, for any thing we could satisfactorily discover. At first, there
 
 CELEBRATED AUTHORS. 695 
 
 was no cause for uneasiness ; but in the progress of events, when a 
 small grew into a great concern, we could not divest ourselves of 
 apprehensions of a catastrophe. 
 
 Such was our skeleton ! Perhaps we were no worse off than our 
 neighbors, but that is always a poor consolation. We might possibly 
 have rid ourselves of the skeleton. That, however, would perhaps 
 only have amounted to a substitution of a new for an old source of 
 distrust. So we .were fain to temporize, and to make the best of 
 things as they stood. In a social point of view, we were on excel- 
 lent terms with the personality of our skeleton, and there was not a 
 little pleasant intercourse among us. I was often for weeks in Lon- 
 don ; and by these visits an acquaintanceship was kept up with va- 
 rious esteemed contributors, among whom we had great pleasure in 
 numbering Mrs. S. C. Hall, who wrote for us some admirable stories 
 of Irish life, and through whom we procured a juvenile story from 
 the venerable Maria Edgeworth. 
 
 On one of these occasions of visiting the metropolis, a new and 
 unexpected acquaintance was formed. It was in 1844, when residing 
 in Greek street, Soho. One day, about noon, a carriage drives up to 
 the door not a vehicle of the light, modern sort, but an old family 
 coach, drawn by a pair of sleek horses. From it descends an aged 
 gentleman, who, from his shovel hat and black gaiters, is seen to be 
 an ecclesiastical dignitary. I overhear, by the voices at the door, 
 that I am asked for. "Who, in all the world, can this be?" A 
 few minutes solve the question. Heavy footsteps are heard deliber- 
 ately ascending the antique balustraded stair. My unknown visitor 
 is ushered in his name announced : " The Rev. Sydney Smith." I 
 hasten to receive so celebrated a personage as is befitting, and ex- 
 press the pleasure I have in the unexpected visit wondering how he 
 had discovered me. 
 
 "I heard at Rogers's you were in town," said he, "and was re- 
 solved to call. Let us sit down and have a talk." We drew towards 
 the fire, for the day was cold, and he continued : " You are sur- 
 prised possibly at my visit. There is nothing at all strange about it. 
 The originator of the Edinburgh Review has come to see the origin- 
 ator of the Edinburgh Journal." 
 
 I felt honored by the remark, and delighted beyond measure with 
 the good-natured and unceremonious observations which my visitor 
 made on a variety of subjects. We talked of Edinburgh, and I asked 
 him where he had lived. He said it was in Buccleuch Place, not 
 far from Jeffrey, with an outlook behind to the Meadows. "Ah," 
 he remarked, " what charming walks I had about Arthur's Seat, with 
 the clear mountain air blowing in one's face 1 I often think of that 
 glorious scene." I alluded to the cluster of young men Jeffrey, 
 Homer, Brougham, himself, and one or two others, who had been 
 concerned in commencing the Review in 1802. Of these, he spoke 
 with most affection of Homer, and specified one who, from his van-
 
 696 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 ity and eccentricities, could not be trusted. Great secrecy, he said, 
 had to be employed in conducting the undertaking, and this agrees 
 with what Lord Jeffrey told my brother. My reverend and face- 
 tious visitor made some little inquiry about my own early efforts, and 
 he laughed when I reminded him of a saying of his own about study- 
 ing on a little oatmeal for that would have applied literally to my 
 brother and to mys,elf. " Ah, labora, labora," he said sententiously, 
 " how that word expresses the character of your country!" 
 
 "Well, we do sometimes work pretty hard," I observed; "but 
 for all that, we can relish a pleasantry as much as our neighbors. 
 You must have seen that the Scotch have a considerable fund of 
 humor. ' ' 
 
 "O, by all means," replied the visitor; "you are an immensely 
 funny people, but you need a little operating upon to let the fun 
 out. I know no instrument so effectual for the purpose as the cork- 
 screw!" Mutual laughter, of course. 
 
 There was some more chat of this kind, and we parted. This in- 
 terview led to a few days of agreeable intercourse with Sydney Smith. 
 By invitation, I went next morning to his house in Green street, 
 Grosvenor Square, to breakfast; and the day following, went with 
 him to breakfast with a select party, at the mansion of Samuel Rog- 
 ers, St. James's, when there ensued a stream of witticisms and re- 
 partees for pretty nearly a couple of hours. This was assuredly the 
 most pleasant conversational treat I ever experienced. On quitting 
 London, I bade good-by to Sydney Smith with extreme regret. We 
 never met again. He died in February the following year. 
 
 Years pass on ; in each excursions being made with some literary 
 object in view. While residing in London, in 1847, I was honored 
 with the acquaintance of Miss Mitford, whom I visited by invitation 
 at her neat little cottage, Three-mile Cross, near Reading ; the pleas- 
 antest thing about the visit being a walk with the aged lady among 
 the green lanes in the neighborhood she trotting along with a tall 
 cane, and speaking of rural scenes and circumstances. I see by the 
 lately published life of Boner, that in a letter to him, under date 
 December 16, 1847, sne refers to this visit, stating that she was at the 
 time engaged along with Mr. Lovejoy, a bookseller in Reading, in a 
 plan for establishing lending libraries for the poor, in which, she 
 says, I assisted her with information and advice. What I really ad- 
 vised was that, following out a scheme adopted in East Lothian, par- 
 ishes should join in establishing itinerating libraries, each composed 
 of different books, so that, being shifted from place to place, a degree 
 of novelty might be maintained for mutual advantage. 
 
 In 1848, I visited Germany, mainly to look into educational and 
 penal arrangements; and at Berlin, through the polite attention of 
 Professor Zumpf, had the satisfaction of becoming acquainted with 
 the Prussian compulsory system of education, which, in its later de-
 
 WILLIAM IN FRANCE. 697 
 
 velopments, has had so startling an effect on the affairs of continental 
 Europe. 
 
 I had visited France several times: to see the extinct volcanoes 
 of Auvergne, and the Roman remains of Provence ; to see the prison 
 discipline at Roquette and Fontrevault, and the juvenile reformatory 
 at Mettray; to see Voisin's method of rousing the dormant intellect 
 of imbecile children at the Bice'tre, and so on. I again visited the 
 country in 1849 > an< ^ on *h\s occasion remaining longer than usual 
 in Paris, and seeing more of the social life of the people. For this, 
 let me acknowledge myself indebted to the Dowager Countess of 
 Elgin (a Scottish lady of the Oswalds of Uunnikier), who found me 
 out in the Boulevard des Italiens, and introduced me along with 
 my wife to an agreeable literary circle, including M. Lamartine, M. 
 Mohl and Leon Faucher. Lamartine tall, thin, and unimpassioned 
 the center of a group of admirers, listened with cold complacency 
 when I told him that translation of his "Voyage en Orient" had 
 been eminently popular in England. Faucher was greatly more con- 
 versible. He was interested in hearing about our system of poor- 
 laws, municipal government, and other topics connected with social 
 economy, on which I did my best to give him some information. 
 
 On one of these evenings, I was introduced to a young French- 
 man, son of a noted revolutionist, during the Reign of Terror, who 
 had afterwards saved his life by hiding himself, and changing his 
 name, until he could again appear publicly. He had recently died, 
 and his whole effects were about to be sold, in order that the prod- 
 uce might be equally divided among his family. The articles were 
 said to be curious ; and such I found to be the case, on going by 
 invitation to see them in an old dignified mansion, near the Temple 
 the most curious thing of all being the identical proclamation which 
 Robespierre had begun to write at the Hotel de Ville, when his as- 
 sailants burst in upon him, and he was shot through the jaw. He 
 had got only the length of scrawling the words, "Courage mes com- 
 patriotes" when, being struck, the pen fell from his hand, and^big 
 drops of blood were scattered over the paper. Bearing these marks 
 of discoloration, how strange a memorial of the horrors of 1794 ! 
 
 I was much delighted with the simplicity and inexpensiveness of 
 the evening parties at the house of the countess, which was situated 
 in the neighborhood of the Rue de Bac, and had been a palace of 
 some pretension in the days of the old monarchy. People came to 
 see and converse with each other not ceremoniously to eat and 
 drink, and go away in a state of discomfort. The few weeks I spent 
 in Paris on this occasion were among the most delightful in my whole 
 existence. 
 
 How my brother and I, as fancy directed, should have had leisure 
 to spend months in rambling up and down the world, is worth a 
 little explanation. In one of Robert's essays he moralizes on the 
 advantage of blending with pursuits that amount of leisure which
 
 698 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 will enable us to cultivate the higher class of feelings ; for, by neg- 
 lect on this score, life in the long-run will only be looked back 
 upon as a disappointing dream. On principles of this kind, we en- 
 deavored to act, but could have obtained no success in the attempt, 
 by following the too common practice of hurrying into one project 
 after another, irrespective of consequences. At the outset, we laid 
 down three rules, which were inflexibly maintained : Never to take 
 credit, but pay for all the great elements of trade in ready money ; 
 never to give a bill, and never discount one ; and never to undertake 
 any enterprise for which means were not prepared. Obviously, by no 
 other plan of operations could we have been freed from anxiety, and 
 at liberty to make use of the leisure at our disposal. 
 
 No anxiety ? yes, there was some. We had still the skeleton, 
 which had so grown and grown in dimensions as to be at length truly 
 formidable. About 1852 matters became critical. It was as clear 
 as could be that we were to incur a heavy loss. In nothing in his 
 whole life did my brother manifest more vigor of character than in 
 determining to get rid, at all hazards, of this source of disquietude. 
 He thought of Scott and the Ballantynes, and how, by an extreme 
 and misplaced confidence, arising from kindness of heart, a man may 
 be irretrievably ruined. Without further periphrasis : taking all risks, 
 we withdrew our agency in 1853, and established a branch business 
 in London under charge of our youngest brother, David the Benja- 
 min of the family on whose fidelity we could rely. 
 
 Now comes a startling and melancholy fact, from which it would 
 not be difficult to draw a moral. The concern that had for twenty- 
 one years possessed our agency, had reaped a profit from it of not 
 much short of forty thousand pounds a sum equal to about eight 
 times what Gibbon received for his " Decline and Fall of the Roman 
 Empire," and eighty times what poor Robert Burns ever received for 
 all his world-famed writings ! All was gone, and a vast deal more 
 vanished into empty space. A fortune, such as few are born to, had 
 been absolutely thrown away. 
 
 The whole of this affair, with some collateral circumstances, re- 
 viewed over a course of years, furnished an interesting and not un- 
 instructive commercial study. In London, as any one may observe, 
 there are two prevailing methods of ruination : extravagance in living, 
 and trading beyond means ; substituting sanguine expectations, along 
 with borrowed money, for capital. Such, no doubt, are errors every- 
 where, but in the metropolis they revel without restraint, almost 
 without rebuke. And from the glimpses obtained, I regret to say, 
 they are not unknown in certain sections of the publishing profession. 
 In whatever department of trade, so frightful is the hurry, that means 
 are not suffered to accumulate in order to allow of ready-money 
 payments. The whole transactions subside into a system of bills 
 bills to wholesale stationers, bills to printers, bills to artists, bills to 
 writers, bills to every body. In the same wild way, bills that
 
 THE CURSE OF DISCOUNTS. 699 
 
 are received are hurried off for discount. There is great seeming 
 prosperity, but so is there too frequently a great bill-book dismal 
 record of difficulties and heart-aches. The chief difficulty is how to 
 effect discounts. Hours are perhaps spent daily in the effort. Com- 
 mercially, there is a struggle between life and death every four-and- 
 twenty hours. Who would covet existence on such terms ? 
 
 The banks, somehow, fail to monopolize the discount trade. They 
 are rivaled by private capitalists, who, in ordinary slang, are known 
 as "parties." There is always a "party" some mysterious being 
 who lives at Bath, or Boulogne, or somewhere to whom, through a 
 " party " more immediately visible, succor is looked for in emergen- 
 cies. The "party" dealt with is sometimes a mighty pleasant and 
 presentable person jolly, good-natured countenance; punctilious in 
 dress; abounding in anecdotes about the drama and the " Derby;" 
 well read, and, avowing a high opinion of Campbell as a poet, can 
 give with proper effect quotations from the "Pleasures of Hope." 
 Meeting him at a ceremonious family dinner, you would never, from 
 his appearance and high-souled chivalric ideas, take him for a 
 " party," but half the guests know that he possesses that imposing 
 character in relation to the unfortunate host, whom he could any day 
 crumple up at pleasure, and only bides his time to do so. When 
 Junius made the famous remark, that " party is the madness of many 
 for the gain of a few," he spoke the truth in more ways than one. 
 
 Usually, in one way or other, the money-lending "party" becomes 
 the final beneficiary. Should the advances be made to some un- 
 happy publishing concern, copyrights are assigned in security, and 
 seldom do they return to their original owner. Valuable literary 
 property, the fruit of ingenuous conception and enterprise, is thus 
 constantly undergoing a process of transfer and confiscation. We 
 may feel shocked with the tyranny of capital, but the blame is due 
 to the extravagant credit system, along with an insane overhaste to 
 be rich; along, also for we must not forget that with an insane 
 extravagance in living, which yields comfort to neither body nor 
 mind ; this, however, is a circumstance so very commonplace as to 
 engage little or no attention. 
 
 It will be remembered how James King, our early friend and fellow- 
 laborer in scientific experiments, had emigrated to Australia, in order 
 to follow out an industrial career. From one thing to another, he 
 became proprietor of vineyards at Irawang, New South Wales, and 
 there devoted himself to the perfection of the wine manufacture in 
 the colony. In this pursuit he was, by his chemical knowledge, per- 
 severance, and enterprise, eminently successful ; but what avails pro- 
 fessional eminence with loss of health ? Returning to England, he 
 traveled over the continent, and established a friendship with Baron 
 Liebig, who furnished valuable suggestions as to improving the quality 
 and aroma of his wines. Hints of this kind, however, he did not 
 live to profit by. I found him in London, a wreck sad contrast to
 
 700 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 what he had been when departing, as a high-spirited youth, to push 
 his fortune abroad. A renewal of intercourse was scarcely practicable, 
 for he heard and spoke only with difficulty. He died in London in 
 1857, leaving a widow and son to conduct his affairs in the colony. 
 
 Amidst literary and other avocations, my brother and I never for- 
 got Peebles. We visited the place notably so in 1841, to be com- 
 plimented with the " Freedom of the Burgh " and tried to keep up 
 an acquaintance with old friends, ever diminishing in number till 
 scarcely one of them was left. Remembering the benefits we had re- 
 ceived from Elder's library long since extinct in 1859, I gifted to 
 the town a suite of buildings consisting of a library of ten thousand 
 volumes, reading-room, museum, gallery of art, and lecture-hall, with 
 the view of promoting the mental improvement of the humbler classes ; 
 but whether the institution so organized will have any such effect, 
 seems, after an experience of twelve years, exceedingly doubtful. So 
 slight has been the success, that others may well pause before ventur- 
 ing on a similar experiment. Perhaps the only other incident concern- 
 ing myself worthy of notice, is that of having been elected Lord Pro- 
 vost of Edinburgh in 1865 an office that was held by me for four 
 years, and regarding which little is left to reflect on with satisfaction, 
 but the circumstance of having projected and obtained an act of Par- 
 liament for the sanitary improvement of the city. 
 
 While giving some attention to Chambers' s Journal, now in its 
 forty-first year, it may be permitted me to mention that latterly I 
 was able to add a few books to the list already mentioned : " The 
 Youth's Companion and Counselor," 1860; " Something of Italy," 
 1862; ''History of Peeblesshire," 1864; "Wintering in Mentone," 
 1870; and "France: its History and Revolutions," 1871. 
 
 It is not for me to say a single word regarding the influence which 
 Chambers' s Journal, and other publications, edited by my brother and 
 myself, may have exerted in the cause of popular enlightenment dur- 
 ing the past forty years. Of that, the public must be the judge. 
 Much more pleasing is it to think that the mass of cheap and respect- 
 ably conducted periodical literature, which sprung intermediately into 
 existence under a variety of conditions and auspices, has proved one 
 of the many engines of social improvement in the nineteenth century. 
 Referring to the example of patience which was set by the operatives 
 of Lancashire under the agonizing calamity of famine which unhap- 
 pily visited them, a minister of the crown did not hesitate to declare 
 "that to the information contained in the excellent cheap papers of 
 this country he attributed much of the calm forbearance with which 
 the distressed had borne their privations."* This unexpected 
 acknowledgment receives significance from the fact which history 
 will scarcely fail to notice that the state, under successive ministries, 
 
 * Right Hon. Mr. Milner Gibson's speech at Ashton-under-Lyne, January 21, 
 1863.
 
 ROBERT'S CLOSING YEARS. 701 
 
 so far from facilitating the diffusion of a cheap and wholesome litera- 
 ture, unconsciously did all in its power for its repression, by means of 
 exorbitant excise duties on paper, the removal of which was effected 
 only after a long and costly process of popular agitation. In plain 
 terms, the cheap press, in its early and struggling stages, owes nothing 
 to the state, and it may be added, little to the learned and affluent. 
 It has grown up by the force of circumstances, not by any special 
 favor. Looked superciliously on throughout, it had its origin in the 
 People, and from the People alone has it received substantial support 
 and encouragement. 
 
 ROBERT'S CLOSING YEARS AND LITERARY REMAINS. 
 
 Change of air and scene is* said to work wonders on the overtasked 
 brain. It did so to a certain extent on Robert. The fresh air and 
 tranquillity of St. Andrews, with some moderate exercise at golf, had 
 a beneficial effect on his health. He wished for peace, and here it 
 was, enlivened with converse in the society of old friends. He had 
 built for himself a house, with a spacious saloon-library, entering 
 from which was a small apartment fitted up as a study. Environed 
 by his books, a very choice collection, he was now enjoying a luxuri- 
 ous and "learned leisure." All task-work was at an end. Some- 
 times he came for a few days to Edinburgh; and, extending his 
 journey, he occasionally visited Mrs. Priestley in London, or some 
 other of his married daughters. At the new year, as long as he was 
 able, he made an excursion across the Tay to Fingask Castle, in the 
 Carse of Gowrie, to pass a day or two according to old fashions with 
 his friends, the Thrieplands. 
 
 No house, to look at, could be more pleasant than that which he 
 had constructed according to his fancy at St. Andrews. In it he con- 
 stantly received company, and was always the same kindly and enter- 
 taining host. But apart from these receptions, his establishment was 
 cheerless, contrasted with former days, when his home was enlivened 
 by a troop of merry-hearted girls. Possibly it was from a sense of 
 comparative solitude, that he formed a second matrimonial alliance. 
 He married (January, 1867) the widow of Robert Frith, a lady of 
 musical accomplishments, and of that liveliness of disposition which 
 was calculated to soothe his declining years. 
 
 In 1868, the University of St. Andrews conferred on him the hon- 
 orary degree of LL. D. He was after that known as " the Doctor," 
 and the doctor's dinner and evening parties had something in them 
 of the smack of old times. All could see that he was gradually 
 declining in health ; but then he never failed in his accustomed cheer- 
 fulness, his love of music, and his anecdotic, though now slowly 
 uttered remarks. 
 
 The pen was now taken up only as an amusement ; but such was 
 the pleasure he derived from writing, that he felt as if the abandon-
 
 702 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 ment of literary exercise would kill him outright. Little by little, he 
 finished a book that he had long been employed upon. It was the 
 "Life of Smollett," interspersed with characteristic specimens of 
 his writings. This was a sljght work, in one volume, but which had 
 the recommendation of adding something to the personal history of 
 Smollett and his family, and presenting a curious fragmentary memoir, 
 written by the novelist's grandfather, Sir James Smollett, a stern old 
 Whig Presbyterian, knighted by William III. This was the last of 
 my brother's printed productions, and with it his literary career 
 closes. 
 
 No one can live at St. Andrews without taking keenly to golf. It 
 is the staple out-door recreation of the place. The links over which 
 it is played are peculiarly favorable for the game, because the ground 
 is beset with that amount of difficulties which gives a piquancy to 
 the sport. There are nine holes in the links, as so many goals to be 
 successively reached by the golfer in making his round. These holes 
 formed a theme for a series of half-comic, half-moralizing sonnets, 
 which were intended to be nine in number. My brother, however, 
 completed only the following three : 
 
 THE NINE HOLES OF ST. ANDREWS. 
 
 IN A SERIES OF SONNETS. 
 
 1. The Bridge Hole. 
 
 " Sacred to hope and promise is the spot 
 
 To Philp's and to the Union Parlor near, 
 
 To every golfer, every caddie dear 
 Where we strike off O, ne'er to be forgot, 
 Although in lands most distant we sojourn. 
 
 But not without its perils is the place ; 
 
 Mark the opposing caddie's sly grimace, 
 Whispering, ' He's on the road !' ' He's in the burn !' 
 
 " So is it often in the grander game 
 
 Of life, when, eager, hoping for the palm, 
 
 Breathing of honor, joy, and love, and fame, 
 Conscious of nothing like a doubt or qualm, 
 
 We start, and cry : ' Salute us, muse of fire !' 
 
 And the first footstep lands us in the mire. 
 
 2. The Cartgate Hple. 
 
 " Fearful to Tyro is the primal stroke, 
 
 O Cartgate, for behold the bunker opes 
 Right to the teeing place its yawning chops, 
 Hope to engulf ere it is well awoke. 
 
 That passed, a Scylla in the form of rushes 
 Nods to Charybdis which in ruts appears : 
 He will be safe who in the middle steers ; 
 
 One step aside, the ball destruction brushes.
 
 ROBERT S LITERARY REMAINS. 703 
 
 " Golf symbols thus again our painful life, 
 
 Dangers in front, and pitfalls on each hand : 
 But see, one glorious cleek-stroke from the sand 
 Sends Tyro home, and saves all further strife ! 
 He's in at six old Sandy views the lad, 
 With new respect, remarking, That's no bad !' 
 
 3. The Third Hole. 
 
 " No rest in golf still perils in the path : 
 
 Here, playing a good ball, perhaps it goes 
 Gently into the Principalian Nose, 
 
 Or else Tarn's Coo, which equally is death. 
 
 Perhaps the wind will catch it in mid-air, 
 
 And take it to the Whins ' Look out, look out !' 
 Tom Morris, be, O be a faithful scout!' 
 
 But Tom, though links-eyed, finds 't not anywhere. 
 
 " Such thy mishaps, O merit : feeble balls 
 
 Meanwhile roll on, and lie upon the green ; 
 'Tis well, my friends, if you, when this befalls, 
 Can spare yourselves the infamy of spleen. 
 It only shows the ancient proverb's force, 
 That you may farther gow and fare the worse." 
 
 Those who were unacquainted with his private habits of thought 
 may be surprised to know that, chiefly about this time, he wrote a 
 number of prayers, and graces to be said at meals, all breathing the 
 purest religious spirit. He began the "Life and Preachings of Jesus 
 Christ, from the Evangelists." It was a work apparently designed 
 for the edification of youth, and was left unfinished. He likewise 
 began a catechism for the young, which he did not live to complete. 
 The reminiscences of his early life, from which some extracts have 
 been given, were also among his latest compositions. The mass of 
 papers which he accumulated, and left as literary remains, is inde- 
 scribable in variety. A considerable number of these fragments refer 
 to Scottish Songs and Ballads, for which he ,, entertained a great 
 affection ; and this reminds me, that with some trouble he collected, 
 from the singing of old persons in Liddesdale and elsewhere, the airs 
 of twelve of the Border Ballads, and had them printed for private 
 circulation, in 1844. 
 
 One of the more bulky papers which he left is a species of inquiry 
 into the so-called manifestations of spiritualism. Without pronouncing 
 an opinion dogmatically, he considered the subject worthy of patient 
 investigation. "The phenomena of spiritualism," he says, "may be 
 the confused elements of a new chapter of human nature, which will 
 only require some careful investigation to form a respectable addition 
 to our stock of knowledge. Such, I must confess, is the light in 
 which it has presented itself to me, or rather the aspect which it pro- 
 mises to assume." Acknowledging so much, perhaps he thought of 
 a saying he had heard used by Sir Walter Scott, that, " If there be
 
 704 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 a vulgar credulity, there is also a vulgar incredulity." In his anxiety 
 for fair-play, he perhaps leant to the side of credulity. 
 
 Among the papers amassed by my brother, some old and some new, 
 we have the evidence of a mind that for half a century had never 
 been free from some kind of literary assiduity. His casual thoughts, 
 things he heard spoken of, anecdotes, stories, fragments of family 
 history, all, sooner or later, assumed shape in sentences and para- 
 graphs. He never forgot any thing. His memory, from a faculty 
 of concentrativeness, was altogether remarkable. He could tell you 
 any date in history ; he remembered all the people of any note he 
 had conversed with, and how they looked, and what they said, if it 
 was at all worth remembering. Every place he had visited was fresh 
 in his recollection. 
 
 With a memory so stored, he was always writing down odds and 
 ends, as if assembling materials for books, which years would have 
 been required to work into shape. To give an idea of these memo- 
 randa, I select the following, some of them being from a small note- 
 book with dates : 
 
 ANECDOTE OF HUGH CHISHOLM. 
 
 "Shortly after writing the 'History of the Rebellion,' I heard an 
 anecdote of two Jacobites, one of them, Colquhoun Grant, who 
 had been at the battle of Prestonpans, and there having mounted the 
 horse of an English officer, whom he had brought down with his 
 broadsword, chased for miles a body of Cope's recreant dragoons ; 
 the other, Hugh Chisholm, a Highlander, who had been also out in 
 the '45, and lived in Edinburgh for a considerable period between 
 1780 and 1790. Sir Walter Scott saw him at that time, and says 
 something regarding him in the ' Tales of a Grandfather. ' The anec- 
 dote is this : 
 
 " ' Hugh Chisholm, who had been associated with the Prince in 
 his wanderings, was ^supported latterly by a pension, which was got 
 up for him by some gentlemen. Lord Monboddo was much attached 
 to this interesting old man, and once proposed to introduce him to 
 his table at dinner, along with some friends of more exalted rank. 
 On his mentioning the scheme to Mr. Colquhoun Grant, one of the 
 proposed party, that gentleman started a number of objections, on 
 the score that poor Chisholm would be embarrassed and uncomfort- 
 able in a scene so unusual to him, while some others would feel of- 
 fended at having the company of a man of mean rank forced upon 
 them. Monboddo heard all Mr. Grant's objections, and then as- 
 suming a lofty tone, exclaimed, " Let me remind you, Mr. Grant, 
 Hugh Chisholm has been in better company than either yours or 
 mine 1" The conscience-struck Jacobite had not another word to say. 
 
 " 4 Chisholm was accordingly brought to Monboddo's table, where 
 he behaved with all the native politeness of a Highlander, and gave
 
 CURIOUS STORY OF A FOUNDLING. 705 
 
 satisfaction to all present. He was very much struck with the ap- 
 pearance of Lord Monboddo's daughter, Miss Burnet Burns's Miss 
 Burnet* who presided over the feast. He seemed, indeed, com- 
 pletely rapt in admiration of this singularly beautiful woman, inso- 
 much that he seldom took his eyes off her the whole night. One of 
 the company had the curiosity to ask what he thought of her, when 
 he burst out with an exclamation in Gaelic, indicative of an uncom- 
 mon degree of admiration, " She is the most beautiful living creature 
 I ever saw in all my life." 
 
 STORY OF A FOUNDLING. 
 
 (Feb. 9, 1845.) "Miss Edmondstone, a lady of ninety, relates a 
 curious story of a foundling. About eighty years ago, Mr. Gordon, 
 of Ardoch, in Aberdeenshire a tall castle situated upon a rock over- 
 looking the sea was one stormy night alarmed by the firing of a 
 gun, apparently from a distressed vessel. Collecting his dependents, 
 and furnishing himself with lights and ropes, he hurried down to the 
 beach, amidst the peltings of one of the severest storms he had any 
 recollection of. On arriving there, he and his people could discern 
 no ship ; they saw no light ; they heard no cry. But, searching 
 about, they found an infant lying in a kind of floating crib or cra- 
 dle, as if it had been brought ashore from a perished vessel by the 
 force of the winds and the .waves. The young stranger was removed 
 to the castle, and taken care of; and in the morning there were in- 
 dubitable signs of a shipwreck on the beach, but no other person 
 seemed to have got ashore. 
 
 " Mr. Gordon, unable to trace the history of the infant (i* was a 
 female), brought her up with his own daughters, and became as much 
 attached to her as to any of his children. The foundling received, 
 in all respects, the same treatment and the same education as the 
 young ladies with whom she was associated, and in time she grew to 
 woman's estate. About that time a similar storm occurred. Mr. 
 Gordon hurried as usual to the shore ; but this time was so happy as 
 to receive a shipwrecked party, among whom was a gentleman pas- 
 senger. After a comfortable night spent in the castle, this stranger 
 was next morning surprised by the entrance of the young ladies, 
 upon one of whom he fixed a gaze of the greatest interest. 
 
 "'Is this your daughter too?' said he to his kind host. 'No,' 
 said Mr. Gordon; 'but she is as dear to me as if she were.' And 
 then he related the story of the former storm, and of the discovery 
 of the infant upon the beach. At the conclusion, the stranger said 
 with much emotion that he had all reason to belive that young lady 
 was his own niece. He then stated the circumstances of a sister's 
 
 * Address to Edinburgh, and Eltgy on the late Miss Burntt of Monboddo. She 
 died of consumption, 171(1 June, 1790. 
 
 45
 
 ;c6 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 return from India, corresponding to the time of the shipwreck ; and 
 explained how it might happen that Mr. Gordon's inquiries for the 
 parents of the child had failed. ' She is now,' he said, 'an orphan; 
 but her father has left her the bulk of his fortune, to be bestowed 
 upon her, if she should ever be found.' 
 
 "All these things being fully substantiated by the stranger, it be- 
 came necessary that the young lady should leave Ardoch, to put her- 
 self under the care of a new protector ; but this was a bitter trial, 
 and she could at last be reconciled to quit Ardoch only on the con- 
 dition that one of her friends, the daughters of Mr. Gordon, should 
 accompany her. This was consented to, and the whole party soon 
 v Jeft Scotland to proceed to Gottenburg, in Sweeden, where her uncle 
 carried on a large mercantile concern. 
 
 " There is no further romance in the tale as far as the young lady 
 is concerned ; for fact does not always go as fiction would. But a 
 curious circumstance resulted, nevertheless, from the shipwreck. Miss 
 Gordon was wooed and won at Gottenburg by a young Scottish mer- 
 chant named Erskine, a son of Erskine of Cambo in Fife, a youth of 
 narrow fortunes, and seventeen persons between him and the title and 
 estates of the Earl of Kelly. The seventeen died, and this young 
 man became an earl. More than this, a sister of Miss Gordon was, 
 through the same connection of circumstances, married to a younger 
 brother of the former, who succeeded to this title. Thus, through 
 the accident of the shipwreck, two daughters of an Aberbeenshire 
 laird became Countesses of Kelly. Unfortunately neither had any 
 children ; so that the title has reverted to the Earl of Mar, the re- 
 presentative of the family of which that of Kelly was a branch." 
 [Since* the preceding was written, the earldoms of Mar and Kelly have 
 been disjoined, in consequence of the Earl of Mar and Kelly having 
 died without issue, 1866, when the earldom of Mar passed to heirs- 
 general, and the earldom of Kelly to heirs-male.] 
 
 VISIT TO MISS PORTER. 
 
 (July 4th.) " Accompanied Mrs. Hall to a house in Kensington 
 Square, to be introduced to Miss Porter. Tall, thin old lady, reclin- 
 ing on a sofa. Weakly health. Above seventy. Kindly Scottish 
 manners. We talked of her young days spent in Surgeon's Square, 
 Edinburgh. Her mother occupied part of the long house on the 
 south side of the square, the west half; Lady Henderson the other. 
 Knew the Kerrs of Chatto as neighbors. Miss Porter, when a little 
 girl, saw one day a thin, elderly gentleman, in a light-colored coat 
 with a plaid, in the square. Went up to him, and said he was like 
 her grandpapa, and for that reason asked him to come in. He fol- 
 lowed her into the house, where she introduced him to her mother, 
 as being so like grandpapa. He fell into conversation about the army, 
 led to it by seeing the sword of Miss Porter's father over the fireplace.
 
 AUTHORESS OF " S C O T T I S H C H I E F S . f 707 
 
 He said he had also been a soldier ; having fallen in love with his 
 mother's waiting-maid, he had taken to that life in consequence of a 
 quarrel with his friends. He had been at the battle of Culloden, and 
 mention of this seemed greatly to affect him. By-and-by he went 
 away* It should be mentioned that Miss Porter, on taking his hand 
 at first, had observed it to be small, thin, and blue-veined like a 
 lady's. A few days after, a young medical student, visiting Mrs. 
 Porter's, mentioned the curious circumstance that an old gentleman 
 had been run over by a wagon in the streets, had been carried to the 
 infirmary, and was there found to be a female. It was afterwards 
 learned that this singular person was the sister of a clergyman, a per- 
 son of good connections, who had a slight craze, and believed him- 
 self to be Jeanie Cameron, of whom an untrue scandal had been 
 reported. The injured female died in the infirmary. 
 
 "Miss Porter's brother, Robert, when a mere child, had been taken 
 to drink tea with some of the rest of the family in a house where 
 they met Flora Macdonald. A picture attracted his attention, and he 
 showed a curiosity to see it nearer. Flora put him upon a chair to 
 see it, told him it was the battle of Preston, and gave him some ex- 
 planations about it. This, he used to acknowledge afterwards, was 
 his first lesson in historical painting. 
 
 " Lady Anne Barnard told Miss Porter that she had written ' Auld 
 Robin Gray,' in order to raise a little money for the succor of an old 
 nurse, having no other means. She had heard from her music master, 
 that so much as five pounds was sometimes got for a successful song, 
 and she thought she would try. It was successful in the object. Lady 
 Anne wrote much poetry besides, which is preserved by one of her 
 relations." [The Miss Porter above referred to was Jane, authoress 
 of "Thaddeus of Warsaw " and the "Scottish Chiefs." She died 
 1850.] 
 
 PLAYFULNESS OF ANIMALS. 
 
 (July 2zd.) " It is well known that lambs hold regular sports apart 
 from their dams, which only look on at a little distance to watch and 
 perhaps enjoy the happiness of their offspring. Monkeys act in the 
 same manner. Mr. Leigh Hunt, with whom I supped this evening, 
 told me that he had observed a young spider sporting about its parent, 
 running up to and away from it in a playful manner. He has likewise 
 watched a kitten amusing itself by running along past its mother, to 
 whom she always gave a little pat on the cheek as she passed. The 
 older cat endured this tranquilly for awhile; but at length, becoming 
 irritated by it, she took an opportunity to hit her offspring a blow on 
 the side of the head, which sent the little creature spinning to the 
 other side of the room, where she looked extremely puzzled at what 
 had happened. An irritated human being would have acted in precisely 
 the same manner."
 
 708 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 ADAPTIVENESS. 
 
 (July 27th.) " There is a quality of human nature which may be 
 called adaptiveness. Some persons readily adapt themselves to any 
 new society into which they may be thrown ; others not. When a 
 man rises in the world, it is often found that his wife does not, can 
 not rise with him. Sometimes this does not proceed solely from want 
 of the intellect and taste requisite for the purpose, but from a kind of 
 willfulness. Not feeling that new acquaintances attribute any peculiar 
 merit to her, or pay her any particular attention, she affects to hold 
 lightly the marks of approbation bestowed upon her husband, and 
 takes a kind of pleasure in not favoring his advance. In some cases, 
 the mere sense of awkwardness under the new circumstances may 
 operate to the same effect. Women ought to consider it as a duty to 
 adapt themselves, as far as they may, to their changed condition. A 
 regard for the happiness of the husband and family demands it." 
 
 IGNORANCE OF NATURAL HISTORY. 
 
 "At the meeting of the British Association at Cambridge (June, 
 1845), Mr. Goadby, who had his beautiful anatomical preparations of 
 the lower animals exhibited at the model-room, was greatly struck by 
 the appearance of ignorance in the gownsmen, as shown in the remarks 
 which they made and the questions they asked. One, who had a lady 
 on his arm, told his fair companion that these were models. Another 
 similarly attended, apparently wishing to avoid troublesome questions, 
 said to her very oracularly, ' O, this is all anatomy. ' A third collegian 
 inquired who made those things. ' The glasses do you mean ?' inquired 
 Mr. Goadby. 'No; the things in the glasses.' 'The same that 
 made you," was the reply. Several men, better informed, spoke of 
 the objects comprehensively as insects, though only -a portion of them 
 were of that class in the animal kingdom. None of these men had 
 ever heard of such a thing as a mollusk or an echinoderm. Altogether, 
 Mr. G. thinks he never before showed his preparations to a more ig- 
 norant set of visitors than the gownsmen of Cambridge. 
 
 "As an illustration of the benefit that might be derived from the 
 introduction of natural history into schools, Mr. Goadby was once 
 lecturing on his preparations at Cheltenham, when he had, among his 
 
 other auditors, Lord M , of the Irish peerage. Lord M is a 
 
 middle-aged man, congenitally lame, insomuch that he is dependent 
 on others for locomotion. Possessing an active mind, and forbidden 
 to take the amusements of other men of his order, ^he has given his 
 mind a good deal up to study, but not wholly, for the gaming-table 
 had unfortunately asserted a strong claim over him, and he had thus 
 lost the whole of his patrimonial property, reserving only a diminished 
 income from some estates of his wife. This clever nobleman, whom
 
 HOW MEN ARE ESTIMATED. 709 
 
 every body loved for his amiable dispositions, seemed exceedingly 
 interested in the lecture, and after it was over, he lingered an hour, 
 inspecting and inquiring into the peculiarities of the animals which 
 formed the subject of it. At last, he burst out : ' If I had been 
 taught such things in my youth, what it would have been for me!' 
 implying that the having such an amusement for his leisure would 
 have saved him from those wretched pursuits in which he had sought 
 excitement, and which had proved his ruin." 
 
 SHYNESS AND MODESTY. 
 
 "Shyness is a curious peculiarity of some men, and the explana- 
 tion of much that is dubious and obscure in their behavior. It often 
 happens that a man gets the reputation of being haughty or unsocial, 
 when he is only shy. An unconquerable bashfulness oppresses him. 
 When such a man is drawn into company, participating in the excite- 
 ment of the hour, and having got over all the difficulties of the first 
 address, he generally comes out ; often we find him talkative and 
 entertaining, so that strangers go away, saying, 'Well, there is one 
 of the pleasantest men I have met with.' Strange it is to meet the 
 same man next day, and find him make an effort to avoid you. Lord 
 
 M , a person of this kind, always walks along the inner side of the 
 
 pavement, with eyes bent on the ground, as if anxious to escape 
 observing or being observed. The J. G. (Boyle), who is associated 
 with him on duty every day for one half the year, has actually known 
 
 Lord M to cross to another side of the road on approaching him, 
 
 and endeavor to escape his notice by pretending to take an interest 
 in something on the other side of the hedge. Men, on the other 
 hand, who get the reputation of being forward, are often merely men 
 of strong animal spirits, these rendering them frank and bold in 
 society, where, from their comparative rank, they are expected to be 
 quiet and respectful. 
 
 " In some cases, shyness may arise from modesty, an unwilling- 
 ness to intrude. Be this as it may, it is well to bear in mind that 
 the world generally takes men at their own apparent estimate of 
 themselves. Hence modest men never do attain the same considera- 
 tion which bustling, forward men do. It has not time or patience 
 to inquire rigidly, and it is partly imposed upon and carried away 
 by the man who vigorously claims its regards. The world also never 
 has two leading ideas about any man. There is always a remarkable 
 unity in its conceptions of the characters of individuals. If a his- 
 torical person has been cruel in a single degree, he is set down as 
 cruel and nothing else, although he may have had many good 
 qualities, all but equally conspicuous. If a literary man is industrious 
 in a remarkable degree, the world speaks of him as only industrious, 
 though he may also be very ingenious."
 
 7 10 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 LACTATION. 
 
 " Can lactation have any affect in determining the moral character 
 of infants? A friend of mine has a son who, on account of the 
 death of his mother immediately after his birth, was given out to be 
 nursed by a woman in humble life. This woman was afterwards 
 found to be very worthless. The boy, who is now in his sixteenth 
 year, has already been a source of great distress to his father, in con- 
 sequence of strong traits of character destitute of probity. He can 
 not be corrected by any kind of discipline out of a propensity to 
 dissimulation. The strange thing about him is, that no sooner does 
 he commit some gross offense than he expresses regret for what he 
 has done, promises never to do the like again, and then all at once 
 commits some fresh mischief, to be in turn repented of. As a last 
 resource, he was sent to a school at Brussels ; but he ran away from 
 it in disgraceful circumstances, came to London, and entered the 
 army as a private soldier. This, as usual, he said he was sorry for, 
 and wished to be bought off. His father, however, said he would 
 only do so on his rising, by good conduct, to be a corporal. So he 
 went with his regiment to India." [There, as was afterwards learned, 
 he died.] " My friend, the father of this unhappy youth, imputes 
 his moral imperfections to lactation. He was, he thinks, vitiated by 
 the milk of his nurse. And he says he is warranted in this notion 
 by having heard of other instances of vitiation of character by simi- 
 lar means. It is worthy of remark that the boy was with his nurse 
 only during the time of lactation. 
 
 " It does not seem unlikely that a child born of virtuous par- 
 ents, and partaking of their organization, may partake of a corrupt 
 element from a milk-nurse. The constitution of the new being in 
 our species is not completed at birth, as it is in some of the lower 
 animals. The lactation is a portion of the process of reproduction. 
 That portion being conducted by a distinct parent of inferior moral 
 character, may be the means of introducing a depravity where, origi- 
 nally, all was morally fair. In other words, we might say that at 
 birth a child is not thoroughly quit of its mother. Nature designs 
 the connection to subsist until the period of milk-nursing is past. 
 
 " In the ' Coltness Collections,' is a passage expressing the senti- 
 ments of the wife of Sir James Stewart, of Coltness, who was Lord 
 Provost of Edinburgh in 1650. She strictly declined the offer of 
 her husband to have her children sent out to hired wet-nurses, saying, 
 * she should never think her child wholly her own, when another dis- 
 charged the most part of a mother's duty, and by wrong nourishment 
 to her tender babe might induce wrong habits or noxious diseases.' 
 She added : ' I have often seen children take more a strain of their 
 nurse than their mother.' "
 
 DUTIES TO OURSELVES AND OTHERS. 711 
 
 From desultory thoughts on secular subjects my brother seems to 
 have latterly turned to literary exercises of a religious nature. It is 
 impossible to say, definitely, on what he was for the last time occu- 
 pied. I am inclined, however, to think that it was the catechism 
 for the young, left unfinished. As throwing some light on his views 
 regarding man's destiny, the following passages may appropriately con- 
 clude the present chapter. After a series of questions and answers 
 regarding the Divine Government of the world, he comes to some 
 of the duties imposed on human beings. 
 
 " Ques. Have you any special rules to assign for the guidance of 
 men in this world ? 
 
 " Ans. Yes; some rules may be set down which will form a guid- 
 ance in the common run of circumstances. 
 
 " Q. How do you describe them? 
 
 " A. They may be wholly described as duties, that is, observ- 
 ances and doings which we owe to our fellow-creatures. 
 
 " Q. Have we not also duties towards ourselves? 
 
 " A. Some duties are so called ; but a duty is properly something 
 owed, and in owing, another person is necessarily concerned. It 
 can easily be shown, of all duties said to be owing to ourselves, that 
 they are, more comprehensively, duties owing to society. 
 
 " Q. Will you first describe that class of duties? 
 
 " A. A man is required to cultivate a sense of dependence on, 
 and responsibility to, God, the author and ruler of his being, the 
 arbiter of his final destiny, because it is good for his spiritual nature 
 to do so, and the better he is in this respect it is the better for 
 society. He ought to study to preserve his self-respect, because with- 
 out that he can bear little value towards his fellow-creatures. He is 
 called on to cultivate the means of preserving his health, because, in 
 sickness and infirmity, he is an encumbrance instead of a benefit to 
 society. It is incumbent on him to practice diligence in his calling, 
 and prudence in his household, because without these qualities in 
 individuals society would be scarcely able to exist. 
 
 " Q. Do men not sometimes malice mistakes as to what seems their 
 duty? 
 
 "A. Yes; men sometimes entertain feelings of ambition, under a 
 pretext of duty to themselves, with little or no regard to the good of 
 the community. Such feelings, being only selfish, are detestable. 
 On the other hand, to obtain wealth and power by fair means, ami 
 employ them generally towards others, is not merely justifiable, but 
 laudable. The unfailing criterion in all such personal matters is, how 
 do they affect our neighbors? If well, then we are doing right ; if 
 ill, then we are doing wrong. Where we only seek to make our- 
 selves as good, wise, useful, as possible, we are certainly fulfilling the 
 ends of God in society, and may claim approval of God and man.
 
 712 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 " Q. Please now to describe the duties where a more direct refer- 
 ence is made to others. 
 
 " A. They are partly negative and partly positive. We are called 
 on to abstain from injuring our neighbor, in his property, his health 
 and life, his feelings, his g^od name, his rights of all kinds, and 
 rather to promote his good in these respects. One most important 
 duty is to practice upon him no deception by word or deed. Another, 
 is to respect his right of forming his own opinions, without which he 
 is marred in the exercise of that final judgment on right and wrong 
 which hasten set forth as the Divine voice speaking within him. 
 We must also respect his right of employing his faculties in the way 
 that seemeth to him best, consistently with the good of his fellow- 
 creatures. 
 
 " Q. Does this view of duties apply also in the affairs of state? 
 
 " A. Undoubtedly. In political procedure, truth, rectitude, for- 
 bearance, and respect for rights are as much required as in ordinary 
 society. And as no man can neglect or violate the simplest laws 
 which bind him to his neighbor, without creating some degree of suf- 
 fering, which is liable to react against himself, so it is certain that 
 those in authority can not use it recklessly or oppressively without 
 producing an unhappiness which will turn round to their own annoy- 
 ance, injury, or destruction. There is, in short, but one rule of duty 
 in the world, and that is summed in 'Love your Neighbor.' . . 
 The errors and delusions of- mankind are unfortunately endless ; and 
 they are to be deplored, not only as occupying much time and thought 
 uselessly, but as obscuring our ideas as to what is of real importance 
 for the fulfillment of the Divine purposes of our being." 
 
 Tffese may be considered to be among the last sentiments written 
 by my brother. 
 
 HIS LAST DAYS, DEATH, AND CHARACTER. 
 
 The year 1870 opened gloomily in that pleasant-looking house at 
 'St. Andrews. After a short illness, and very unexpectedly, my 
 brother's second wife died on the i8th January. Now was he again 
 in a sense desolate. Yet though afflicted with this fresh calamity, and 
 broken down in health, he did not repine. His bereavements only 
 tended the more to bring out his true character. In him were now 
 seen united the piety of the Christian with the philosophy of an 
 ancient sage "I know," he said, "that my days are numbered. 
 My time can not be long. I feel the gradual but sure indication of 
 approaching dissolution. But don't let us be dismal about it; that 
 would be alike futile and sinful. " And so he spoke as one reconciled 
 to his appointed destiny. Setting his affairs in order, he looked 
 calmly on the advances of the destoyer. He had done his work, and 
 we may be permitted to think that he had done it nobly.
 
 APPROACHING DISOLUTION. 713 
 
 Pale and feeble, he crept about, took short drives, and received 
 visitors as usual: for bodily weakness did not in the least affect his 
 spirits. With one of his married daughters, Mrs. Dowie, who had 
 come to visit him, he walked to the Cathedral Burial-ground, and 
 pointed out the spot where he wished to be interred. It was the inte- 
 rior of the old Church of St. Regulus. "There, " said he, "I hope 
 to have the honor of finding a resting-place ; I should certainly be in 
 excellent company, for Mr. Lyon, the historian of St. Andrews, told 
 me there is a surprising number of bishops interred here." The de- 
 sire to be buried in this place of historical note was what might have 
 been looked for. The Church of St. Regulus is one of the most ancient 
 ecclesiastical structures in Scotland. It dates from the twelfth century, 
 and, as seen by its tall, square tower, is built in the Romanesque style. 
 When the cathedral, a more modern and ornamental structure, was 
 laid in ruin by a mob at the Reformation, this adjacent antique church 
 was so far spared, that till this day it remains all, except the roof, in a 
 state of good preservation. Carefully secured as crown property, it 
 can not be called a part of the general cemetery ; and interment within 
 it requires the sanction of the chief commissioner of Her Majesty's 
 Board of Works. 
 
 Being recommended change of scene, my brother accompanied Mrs. 
 Dowie to her home at West Kirby, near Birkenhead ; and thereafter, 
 in April, went with her by way of Gloucester, to Torquay, where for 
 a time he took up his abode. Here he felt a slight improvement of 
 health, and was able, not only to attend and fully enjoy an interesting 
 lecture by Mr. Pengelly on the discoveries in Kent's Cavern, but to 
 visit the cave, and make remarks on the objects of natural history 
 that had recently been brought to light. Before returning home, he 
 once more visited Mrs. Priestley in London, and also his surviving 
 sister, Mrs. Wills, at Sherrards, in Hertfordshire, where he greatly en- 
 joyed the beauty of a quiet rural scene. Brightened up a little by these 
 visits among relatives, he returned to Scotland, in the company of his 
 youngest daughter, who describes the fervency of his emotion in cross- 
 ing the Border and finding himself again in his native country. He 
 got back to St. Andrews in June. 
 
 From this time, he did not leave home, where, to keep him company, 
 he was visifed, one after the other, by several of his daughters. I 
 went to see him in August, and found him in a frail condition, though 
 able to converse on literary and other topics. His most conspicuous 
 ailment was want of appetite, along with a deadly paleness of coun- 
 tenance. So greatly was his system disorganized, that on sitting down 
 to table, he could not eat. Nothing that he was solicited to take did 
 him any good, farther than keeping up the spark of life. Still, in a 
 way he joked and told stories, felt an interest in the stirring news con- 
 cerning France, and continued to take delight in music. 
 
 Towards the conclusion of autumn, a change for the worse took 
 place, and his mind was visibly weakened. Then came winter in more
 
 714 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 than ordinary severity, with its deadly effects on the aged and invalid. 
 Shortly after the beginning of 1871, he could no longer sit up, and 
 for his accommodation, his study, adjoining the library, had been for 
 some time fitted up as a bedroom. Here I found him in bed on the 
 27th January. He said he preferred to be in this apartment, for it was 
 on a level with the sitting rooms, whence he could hear something 
 of the lively conversation of his daughters, and where they could 
 conveniently see him. A piano was placed in the library for his 
 sblacement. 
 
 Constantly attended by Dr. Oswald Bell, and by great care in nurs- 
 ing, he got through the winter. His married daughters now left him, 
 not anticipating any immediate change. Day by day, however, he 
 lost strength, and Mrs. Dowie was recalled. On her appearance, he 
 said he was glad that she had come back to see the last of him. On 
 Sunday, 12th March, he was able to listen to and heartily appreciate 
 his favorite prayers and psalms in the Morning Service, ejaculating 
 from time to time: " How true, how beautiful. " 
 
 In a note to me, Mrs. Dowie gives a simple and touching account of 
 the closing scene : 
 
 "On Wednesday, the isth, he described himself as 'quite word- 
 less,' and just pressing our hands, returned our embraces with fervor. 
 He begged for some music, and was much gratified on my playing to 
 him ' Macpherson's Farewell,' an air he greatly admired, and which 
 in former years he used to play himself on the piano, with my ac- 
 companiment. Next day, he seemed very torpid, and scarcely spoke 
 to us, more than answering questions. Early in the following morning, 
 life was fleeting away. His last faintly uttered words were: 'Quite 
 comfortable quite happy nothing more ! ' And so, with us sitting 
 in silent tears beside him, at about five o'clock on Friday morning, 
 the 1 7th March, he gently breathed his last. " 
 
 At this mournful juncture, I had gone to London on account of the 
 illness of my youngest brother, David, whose health had for some time 
 been in a critical condition partly the result of a /all from an 
 omnibus, which left injurious effects on the system, and partly from 
 distress at the death of his wife. He was now confined to bed, and 
 in so delicate a state that intelligence of the death of Robert brought 
 on a paroxysm, which terminated in his decease on the 2ist March. 
 Of the last painful scene I could not be a witness, for I was required 
 at St. Andrews to assist at the funeral of my brother Robert. 
 
 This solemnity took place on the 22d ; and to meet the wishes of 
 many who expressed a wish to be present, the arrangements were 
 more of a public character than had at first been intended. Service 
 was performed over the body in the Episcopal chapel, by the incum- 
 bent, the Rev. L. Tuttiett ; after which the procession of friends and 
 relatives proceeded to the Church of St. Regulus, in the Cathedral 
 Burying-ground, for interment, in which permission had been oblig- 
 ingly granted. On approaching the cemetery, the funeral procession
 
 THE OPINION OF ROBERT S PASTOR. 715 
 
 was met by the provost and magistrates of St. Andrews, also by 
 members of the Senatus Academicus, with their official insignia. 
 Surrounded by a large and sympathizing crowd, and with the last 
 offices of the Church, the body of Robert Chambers was lowered into 
 the grave, where it reposes amidst the dust of ecclesiastics whose names 
 are now only known by the records of history.* 
 
 In his sermon on Sunday, 26th, the Rev. Mr. Tuttiett made some 
 remarks on the deceased. A few passages may be quoted : 
 
 " A little more than a year ago, when first I came to minister in 
 this church, there sat before me one to whom I could not but turn 
 with especial interest at that time. He was, I knew, a man dear to 
 many of his fellow-worshipers, dear to the place in which he lived, 
 dear to his country, and to many far away. He was a man of high 
 endowments, great and varied knowledge, deep philosophy, sound 
 judgment, and refined taste. He was also, what is far better than all 
 this, a man of upright and unostentatiously religious life ; noble and 
 kind in his nature, gentle and modest in his manner, genial and warm 
 in his sympathies, faithful in his friendships, and generous in his deal- 
 ings. He had come from his recently bereaved home to seek comfort 
 in the common prayers of the Christian Brotherhood with whom he 
 delighted to worship. The text of the sermon he heard on that occa- 
 sion was taken from St. Paul's address in the synagogue of Antioch : 
 ' David, after he had served his own generation, by the will of God, 
 fell on sleep, and was laid to his fathers.' Those words seem to have 
 struck his mind most forcibly. I shall not forget with what earnest- 
 ness and solemnity he afterwards commented upon them. They sug- 
 gested, he thought, ' a sublime ideal of human life, and a comfortable 
 view of decease.' Certainly he seems to have kept such an ideal be- 
 fore him. He ' served his own generation ' in the way God marked 
 out for him faithfully and well. Let me only remind you how much 
 he has done, in conjunction with the brother who now survives him, 
 for th~e dissemination of that pure, wholesome literature which, though 
 not coming under the special denomination of religious, has very 
 greatly served the cause of religion by humanizing and elevating the 
 mind, and thus preparing it for the direct teaching of divine truth. 
 Those who, like myself, have been much interested in the work of 
 popular education in England, must ever honor his name for this 
 service to the generation in which he lived. But my object is not so 
 much to speak his praises as to gather out for myself and for you the 
 instruction of his life and example. He was a great lover of Nature, 
 and a patient, nor by any means an unsuccessful student of her works. 
 
 * He left the following family: Jane (Mrs. F. Lehmann); Robert Anne (Mrs. 
 Dowie) ; Eliza (Mrs. 1'riestley); Amelia (Mrs. R. Lehmann) ; James; William; 
 Ph'cbe (Mrs. Zeigler) ; and Alice. Mary (Mrs. Edwards) predeceased him, leaving 
 three orphan children to his care.
 
 716 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 And he was ever ready to encourage the investigations of every man 
 whose heart was loyal to truth, even though the investigator might 
 seem, in his better judgment, to be proceeding upon a wrong principle. 
 But certainly, in his conversations with myself, he ever evinced the 
 clearest recognition of a Personal God moving amidst his own crea- 
 tion, and ruling it constantly by his Word. ... He seems to 
 have had so great a reverence for the deep things of God, and so 
 humbling a sense of his own inability to grapple with them, that he 
 was ever most unwilling to converse about them. He was, I believe, 
 a sincerely attached member of the Episcopal Church of Scotland. 
 He venerated its old historic associations and traditions. He loved 
 its sound and sober standards of faith and devotion. At the same 
 time he very highly esteemed the ministers of the National Establish- 
 ment ; he did full justice to the good he knew in other communions ; 
 and he never counted men offenders for difference of opinion. . . 
 He seemed to be a man of vigorous, manly intellect, sparing no 
 labor, no self-devotion, in the acquirement of whatever knowledge 
 he thought it good, for himself and for his fellow-creatures, to pos- 
 sess ; and at the same time a man of pure, gentle, kind, and unselfish 
 character, whom it was impossible to know and not to love." 
 
 
 
 Here terminates our Memoir. The principal subject of it had 
 passed away in his sixty-ninth year, a victim, as it appeared to 
 himself and his family, of that species of excessive literary labor 
 which, by overtasking the nervous system, often proves so fatal. Of 
 the esteem generally entertained for him in his private character, I 
 do not propose to dilate. His genial and kindly disposition, to say 
 nothing of his acquirements, gave him many friends. Never had 
 children a more loving father. In public affairs he was not qualified 
 to take a prominent part. At one time, as has been seen, he edited 
 a newspaper in the old Conservative interest, but his politics were of 
 a mild type; and latterly he was numbered among the friends of 
 social progress within sound constitutional limits. His generosity 
 in extending aid to the needy and deserving was a marked trait in 
 his character. His tastes led him to be elected a Fellow of several 
 learned Societies, and he was a member of the Athena5um Club. 
 Diligent, accurate, and upright, he entertained clear views on all 
 ordinary concerns; and no one could be more unscrupulous in his 
 denunciation of whatever was narrow, mean, or dishonorable. If, 
 in any of these respects, he sometimes cherished resentments that, 
 founded on misconception and prejudice, had better have been for- 
 gotten, it is allowable to think that such failings might fairly be im- 
 puted to an overwrought susceptibility of temperament not common 
 in the ordinary walks of life. 
 
 With regard to my brother's literary character and works, I shall 
 not, having said so much already, attempt any elaborate estimate or 
 analysis. His best services were devoted to his native country, and,
 
 HIS LITERARY CHARACTER AND WORKS. 717 
 
 with the exception of his illustrious contemporary, Sir Walter Scott, 
 no other author has done so much to illustrate its social state, its 
 scenery, romantic historical incidents, and antiquities, the lives of its 
 eminent men, and the changes in Scottish society and the condition 
 of the people (especially those in the capital), during the last two 
 centuries. His first work, the "Traditions of Edinburgh," evinced 
 this strong bias and ruling passion of his mind. He was, as has been 
 stated, assisted by Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe and Sir Walter Scott, 
 but the great bulk of the traditions and all their setting were his own. 
 He knew every remarkable house, its possessors, and their genealogy ; 
 every wynd and close from the Castle-hill to Holyrood ; and in de- 
 scribing these, he poured forth a vast amount of curious reading and 
 information, much of which would have been lost but for the taste 
 and diligence of so enthusiastic a collector. Perhaps this work will 
 hereafter be considered the most unique and valuable of all his labors. 
 His next production, however, has enjoyed a still greater share of 
 popularity. I allude to the "History of the Rebellion of 1745-46," 
 a work which was very carefully written ; and the subject had a wide 
 and deep interest. As latterly extended, by materials gathered from 
 the " Lyon in Mourning,"* the book has taken its place among our 
 standard works, as a faithful and animated narrative of one of the 
 most striking and memorable periods in our national annals. 
 
 The other popular histories written between 1827 and 1830 are less 
 original and less valuable than the narrative of the '45. The " Calen- 
 dars of State Papers" were not then published, nor had antiquarian 
 clubs and family repositories enriched our stores of historical knowl- 
 edge with those minute and graphic details which add life, and spirit, 
 and individuality to the pages of Macaulay and Froude. My brother's 
 works are of the nature of memoirs. His object was to present a 
 view or portraiture of the external circumstances of the period em- 
 braced a series of military narratives rather than to attempt "his- 
 tories of the legitimate description, which should appeal only to the 
 moral faculties of the select few." He anticipated Macaulay in 
 desiring to make history interesting to the many, embracing details 
 of the manners, customs, social habits, and daily life of the nation ; 
 and with all young readers, and generally with the middle and lower 
 ranks of the Scottish people, he was eminently successful. Of a 
 kindred character with these works was the "Popular Rhymes of 
 Scotland," an amusing embodiment of folk-lore and mementoes of 
 childhood descending from one generation to another in various 
 countries of Europe. 
 
 By the establishment of Chambers' s Journal, my brother was hap- 
 pily led into a new walk of literature. He came forward as a weekly 
 
 * This curious and valuable collection of manuscripts has been bequeathed to the 
 Faculty of Advocates, Edinburgh, in grateful acknowledgment of the many benefits 
 derived from their extensive library.
 
 718 ROBERT AND WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 
 
 essayist. During fifteen years, as he has himself related, he labored 
 in this field, " alternately gay, grave, sentimental, and philosophical," 
 until not much fewer than four hundred separate papers proceeded 
 from his pen. In these were best seen his imaginative faculties. His 
 familiar and humorous sketches of Scottish life and character are 
 allowed to be true to nature ; they were certainly drawn from the 
 life, and may be compared to the descriptions of Henry Mackenzie 
 in the "Mirror" and "Lounger" as to discrimination and fidelity 
 of portraiture. Many of my brother's essays are also on literary and 
 antiquarian topics, and will be found not only honorable to his dili- 
 gence as a self-directed and self-upheld student, but replete with 
 correct, humane, and manly feeling. Essays or short disquisitions on 
 scientific subjects were occasionally inserted in the Journal, for, as 
 has been shown, my brother, latterly, devoted much time and study 
 to geology and other departments of physical science ; the result of 
 which was the work on "Ancient Sea-margins," and a variety of 
 papers communicated to the Royal Society of Edinburgh. 
 
 The patient investigation, long journeys, and careful accumulation 
 of facts employed in establishing his geological theories, indicate the 
 true scientific spirit and enthusiasm, and there can be little doubt that, 
 had the circumstances of his early life been more favorable, he would 
 have taken a high place among the men of science who have illus- 
 trated the nineteenth century. Considering that his education, as he 
 frankly avows, never cost his parents so much as ten pounds, the 
 wonder is that he did so much. 
 
 As regards his " Cyclopaedia of English Literature," his " Life and 
 Writings of Burns," his "Domestic Annals of Scotland," his "Book 
 of Days," and the lesser works he produced, sufficient has perhaps 
 been said in the course of this Memoir. On none of his later works 
 did he look back with so much heartfelt pleasure and satisfaction, and 
 'none deserves greater praise, for its remarkable fidelity, than that 
 concerning Robert Burns. Here, for the first time, the life of the 
 poet, with all its lights and shades, was correctly delineated. The 
 story of Highland Mary, and the dark days of Dumfries, were placed 
 truly before the world, and allusions in the poems and letters were 
 fully explained. Of all future editions of the Scottish poet, this ex- 
 planatory and chronological one must form the basis. 
 
 Altogether, as nearly as can be reckoned, my brother produced 
 Upwards of seventy volumes, exclusively of detached papers which it 
 would be impossible to enumerate. His whole writings had for their 
 aim the good of society, the advancement in some shape or other of 
 the true and beautiful. It will hardly be thought that I exceed the 
 proper bounds of panegyric in stating, that in the long list of literary 
 compositions of Robert Chambers, we see the zealous and successful 
 student, the sagacious and benevolent citizen, and the devoted lover 
 of his country.
 
 HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 IN the great battle of life, the essential conditions of success are 
 character and opportunity. The rarest qualities of manhood 
 demand the influence of favorable circumstances for their true and 
 complete development. But in certain cases, the lack of outward 
 opportunity finds compensation in the superior force of inward endow- 
 ment. The native power of character triumphs over every obstacle, 
 and assures its possessor a distinguished and noble career. Of this 
 truth, the subject of the present brief memoir affords a brilliant and 
 impressive illustration. Horace Greeley is often spoken of as a re- 
 markable type of the self-made man, but we shall here present him 
 as a signal example of the supremacy of character over the want of 
 opportunity. His career has been the spontaneous evolution of his 
 inward nature, the inevitable product of the qualities of the man, 
 which were exhibited in his earliest childhood, and gave promise of 
 the success of his maturity, but received no friendly impulse from 
 surrounding circumstances. No favorite of fortune, he has been the 
 conqueror of fate. 
 
 Horace Greeley was born in Amherst, N. H., February 3, 1811. 
 His father was a poor and hard-working farmer, struggling to support 
 an increasing family, and burdened with a large debt incurred for 
 the purchase of his farm. The soil of this farm was hard and rocky, 
 consisting of a strong, gravelly loam, too cold and rough for the cul- 
 tivation of wheat, but producing moderate crops of rye, oats, pota- 
 toes, Indian corn, and grass. The house in which Horace was born 
 was a modest, unpainted structure of one story, standing upon a ledge 
 of rock, half-way up a steep hill, and commanding an extensive view 
 of the surrounding country. In the kitchen was the huge, old-fash- 
 ioned country fire-place, which had devoured all the wood on the 
 farm, and was still ravenous in its demands for more. There was an 
 orchard of natural fruit, on the hill-side near the house, which bore 
 a kind of sweet and spicy apple whose flavor is seldom equaled by 
 the choicer productions that are now sold in the market. 
 
 The earliest experience of Horace was found in the severe labors 
 
 (7^9)
 
 720 HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 of the farm. He learned to work almost as soon as he could walk. 
 His usual task, before he was five years old, was to ride the horse to 
 plow before the oxen, in which pursuit there was sometimes a little 
 peril. Occasionally, the plow would strike a fast stone, when the 
 team was brought up all standing, and the tiny, white-headed rider 
 would be thrown over the horse's head four or five feet in front. 
 After the corn was ready for hoeing, he would precede his father in the* 
 furrows, dig open the hills, and kill the wire-worms and grubs that 
 were forestalling the scanty harvest. In the frosty autumn mornings, 
 he was called out at sunrise to watch the oxen, that were feeding on 
 the thick, sweet grass beside the cornfield, while the men were at 
 breakfast, before yoking up and driving the team afield. 
 
 Another occupation of the growing boy was to watch the pits for 
 burning charcoal in the neighboring woods. The pit of green wood 
 was often nine days in burning, and every pit must be watched night 
 and day till the process was complete. The business was not with- 
 out its peculiar fascinations. It was a pleasure to the young 
 night-watcher and charcoal-burner to sit or lie on a mild, quiet 
 evening, in a rude forest hut of logs three or four rods from the pit, 
 with a bright fire burning between, telling funny stories, and beguil- 
 ing the hours with a pleasant game of cards, checkers, or fox-and- 
 geese, and perhaps a forage on some luckless water-melon patch in the 
 vicinity. 
 
 Picking stones was, of course, an endless labor on the rocky New 
 England farm. Every plowing turned up a fresh crop of bowlders 
 and pebbles from the size of a hickory-nut to that of a tea-kettle. 
 The work was to be done mainly in March or April, when the ground 
 was saturated with ice-cold water, if not whitened with falling snow. 
 The half-frozen fingers and toes of the diligent youngster soon made 
 him regard this task with abhorrence, and with all his love for his 
 native State, he can scarcely to this day forgive her for dividing her 
 granite into such small fragments. 
 
 The annual gathering of hops, which at that time were cultivated 
 to a considerable extent by the farmers in that part of New Hamp- 
 shire, afforded an agreeable relief to the prevailing monotony of rural 
 toil. It formed a sort of rustic carnival, a festive harvest-home, 
 like the vintage in the south of France and Italy. The picking 
 took place in the early part of September, and was chiefly performed 
 by young women, the daughters of neighboring farmers, and the 
 older children of both sexes. In stripping the hops from the poles, 
 and storing them away in large bins, there was often an ardent rivalry 
 among different groups. The work was pushed with intense excite- 
 ment, and when completed, gave way to good cheer and social 
 amusement. Mr. Greeley fondly dwells on these recreations of his 
 boyish days as among the most enticing features of New England 
 country life half a century ago. 
 
 In spite of his employment in the rugged labors of the farm, Hor-
 
 HIS MOTHER, AND FIRST SCHOOL. 72! 
 
 ace, for many years, was a feeble and sickly child. He was often 
 under medical treatment, and could not even watch the falling rain 
 through a closed window, without an instant and violent attack of 
 illness. On this account, as well as of the loss of two elder children, 
 just before his birth, his mother was led to regard him with an ex- 
 ceptional affection and tenderness. She made him her companion 
 and confidant as soon as he had learned to talk. Her rich store of 
 ballads, stories, anecdotes, and traditions, was daily poured into his 
 listening ears. He learned to read at her knee, longer ago than he 
 can remember, although he faintly recollects her as she sat spinning 
 at her little wheel, with the book in her lap, from which he had his 
 daily lesson. 
 
 The mother of Horace Greeley was a woman of extraordinary na- 
 tural endowments and character. She was tall, muscular, and well- 
 formed in person, with the strength of a man without his coarseness, 
 of overflowing animal spirits, delighting in hard work, of which she 
 was abundantly capable, and of an exuberant good-will to every 
 thing that lived. She was the life of the house, and the favorite of 
 the whole neighborhood, especially of the children. An intense 
 reader, she remembered whatever she read. Her industry was almost 
 fabulous. Her activity was of a masculine type in its vigor and 
 power of accomplishment. She worked out of doors as well as in 
 doors, and was no less efficient in the hay-field than her husband. 
 She hoed in the garden, she labored in the field, and while doing 
 more than the work of an ordinary man and woman combined, would 
 laugh and sing all day long, and tell stories all the evening. 
 
 When Horace was about two years old, he began to pore over the 
 Bible, which was opened for his entertainment on the floor, and 
 curiously scan the newspaper that was given him to play with. At 
 three years of age, he could read any of the books prepared for children, 
 and at four any book whatever. His third winter was spent at the 
 house of his grandfather, in a neighboring town, where he attended 
 a district school for the first time. The school-house, according to 
 the rude fashion of the day, was a small building of one story, con- 
 taining but one apartment, with two windows on each side. It had 
 a small door on the gable-end that faced the road, and a low door- 
 step before it. It was without the semblance of an ornament, not 
 inclosed by a fence, nor shaded by a tree. There was nothing to 
 protect it from the heat of the sun in summer, or the blast of the 
 storm in winter. Its whole aspect was singularly forlorn and repul- 
 sive. The little school-room was built for about fifty pupils, and it 
 could scarcely hold the chair and table of the teacher. Opposite the 
 door was a vast fire-place, four or five feet wide, where a load of wood 
 could burn in one prodigious fire. A low, slanting shelf along the 
 sides of the room served for a desk to those who wrote, while the 
 pupils were seated on inverted slabs, supported on sticks, and without 
 backs. The school began at nine o'clock in the morning, and the 
 46
 
 722 HORACE GREELEV. 
 
 arrival of that hour was announced by the teacher rapping upon the 
 window-frame with a ruler. The young folks of both sexes came 
 tumbling in from their frolics in the snow. Among the pupils there 
 might be a dozen grown-up young men and women. Not unfrequendy, 
 married men, and occasionally married women, attended school in the 
 winter. 
 
 With the start that had been given him by his mother, Horace 
 could not fail to make rapid progress in school. He was so eager in 
 his attendance, that when the snow-drifts were too deep for him to 
 wade through, one of his aunts would take him upon her shoulders 
 and carry him to the door. He soon rose to the head of the first 
 class in spelling, and it was no easy thing for a juvenile rival to' re- 
 move him from the position. This was an accomplishment in which 
 he especially excelled, and in the spelling-matches which were then 
 in vogue, he usually bore away the palm, although only four years 
 old. These matches took place in the evening when he could not 
 keep his eyes open, and should have been in bed. It was often 
 necessary to give him a sharp rap when it came his turn to spell the 
 word, so that it was said he could spell as well asleep as awake. 
 
 The first book he ever owned was " The Columbian Orator," a 
 medley of dialogues extracts from orations, sermons, and speeches 
 in Parliament and Congress, with two or three versified themes for 
 declamation. Among its contents was a famous piece, 
 
 " You'd scarce expect one of my age 
 To speak in public on the stage," 
 
 which the young orator was so often dragged forward to recite, that 
 he came to hate the very sound of it. He spoke in a soft, whining 
 voice, with a lisping accent, but with perfect confidence in his own 
 powers of elocution, and greatly to the amusement of the school. 
 
 At this time, Horace is described as an active, bright, and eager 
 boy, but not fond of play, and seldom taking part in the sports of 
 his companions. He was the pet of the school, though not a favorite 
 play-fellow, and was liked by those whom he signally excelled as well 
 as by the others. In some respects, he was very brave, but in others he 
 exhibited a vein of timidity. He was never afraid in the dark, nor 
 frightened by ghost stories. In speaking or reciting, he was always 
 self-possessed, and did not hesitate to question the decision of his 
 teacher, when he thought it was wrong, though never in a spirit of 
 impertinence. But he could not stand up to a boy and fight. If 
 attacked, he would neither return the blow nor run away, but bear it 
 quietly. His ear was so sensitive that any loud noise, like the report 
 of a gun, would almost throw him into fits. If a gun were about to 
 be fired off, he would either run from the spot, or throw himself upon 
 the ground and stuff grass into his ears. On the Fourth of July, 
 when the people burned an immense quantity of gun-powder in honor
 
 HIS PASSION FOR READING. 723 
 
 of the day, he would betake himself to the woods in order to escape 
 the sound of the fire-arms. 
 
 Horace was in about his fourth year when he began the habit of 
 insatiable reading, which has been one of his ruling tastes in every 
 period of his life. He would lie under a tree on his back, com- 
 pletely absorbed in his book, often reading on, unmindful of dinner-time 
 and sunset, as long as he could see. His delight in books led him, 
 while yet a mere child, to resolve on being a printer. It is related 
 that he went one day to a blacksmith's shop and watched the process 
 of shoeing a horse with great eagerness. The blacksmith, seeing how 
 intently he looked on, said to him, "You'd better come with me 
 and learn the trade. " " No," said Horace, very decidedly, "I've 
 made up my mind to be a printer." 
 
 The passion for reading grew with the growth of his mind. His 
 father's stock of books was very small. -Besides the Bible and the 
 Presbyterian Confession of Faith, his library amounted to scarcely 
 twenty volumes. But he took a weekly newspaper from the neigh- 
 boring village, the arrival of which was an occasion of intense excite- 
 ment to the future editor. An hour before the post-rider was ex- 
 pected, Horace would walk down the road to meet him, and get the 
 first sight of the precious sheet. As soon as it came into his hands, 
 he would hurry off to some secluded spot, lie down on the grass, and 
 greedily devour its contents. 
 
 He scoured the country round in search of books. When he had 
 exhausted the scanty collections of the neighbors, he pursued the 
 quest in the neighboring towns. It is said that there was not a book 
 within seven miles of his father's house which he did not borrow. As 
 soon as he was dressed in the morning he flew to his book. Every 
 minute of the day which he could snatch from his work on the farm, 
 and his studies in school, was devoted to reading. He was so absorbed 
 in the pursuit, that when his parents wanted him, it was like rousing 
 a heavy sleeper from his slumbers, to secure his attention. Even ihen, 
 he clung to his book. He would read as he went to the cellar and 
 cider-barrel, to the wood-pile or potato-patch, and having performed 
 his errand, would take the book from his pocket, where it had been 
 placed for the moment, and again fall to reading with a zest increased 
 by the interruption. He even kept a supply of pine-knots, one of 
 which he would light as soon as it was dark, and place on the back 
 log in the kitchen fire-place, when, stretching himself at full length 
 on the hearth, with his books piled upon the floor, he would be silent 
 and motionless, and read all through the long winter evenings, with- 
 out the slightest notice of what was going on around him. Visitors 
 would come in, chat with the family, and go away, without attracting 
 his attention, and entirely unaware of the presence of the quiet student 
 before the fire. It was no easy matter to get him to bed. His father 
 wished him to be up betimes, and, therefore, insisted on his going 
 to bed early. He also feared that the boy would hurt his eyes, reading
 
 724 HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 for so many hours with his head in the fire by the flickering light of 
 a pine-knot. Accordingly, by nine o'clock he would begin to rouse 
 up the prostrate and dormant body and send the unwilling reader to 
 bed. Even then Horace would not go to sleep before he had related 
 to his younger brother what he had read, and recited the lessons of 
 the next day for school. The only sport in which he loved to indulge 
 was fishing, and this he followed for its utility rather than an amuse- 
 ment. He fished for the sake of fish, keeping his eye on the float, 
 and never diverting his attention by talking with the other boys. The 
 consequence was that he would catch more fish than all the rest of 
 the party. For shooting he had no taste. If he sometimes went 
 with a shooting-party, he would never carry a gun, and when the shot 
 was fired he would lie down and stop his ears till the game was dis- 
 patched. 
 
 When Horace was about ten years old, an event occurred which 
 changed the fortunes of the family. His father, although an honest, 
 industrious, hard-working man, was never prosperous in his pecuniary 
 affairs. He had no profit in carrying on his farm, and what with 
 bad crops, frequent losses, and becoming security for a neighbor, he 
 had fallen deeply in debt. At length his property was attached, and 
 he was obliged to conceal himself through fear of arrest. The family 
 remained in the old homestead while he took a journey on foot in 
 quest of a new home. After working as a hired man for two 01 
 three months, he returned in due time, and on January ist, 1821, 
 started with his family for Westhaven, Vt., where he had hired a 
 small house for sixteen dollars a year. The journey was made in a 
 two-horse sleigh, in which were closely packed the father and mother, 
 four children, and the little wordly gear that was left. They were 
 three days upon the road, and after suffering intensely from the cold, 
 arrived safely at their humble home in the north-west of Vermont. 
 The family now made the acquaintance of genuine poverty not 
 beggary nor dependence, but the manly American sort. The sum 
 total of their possessions scarcely amounted to two hundred dollars ; 
 but they never ran in debt, and were never in want, never without 
 meal, meat, and wood, and very seldom without money. The father 
 was glad to turn his hand to any work that he could find chopping 
 wood at half a dollar a day, gathering in the harvest, preparing the 
 ground for a new crop, tending a saw-mill, and above all, clearing 
 up wild land, piling and burning the trees after they had been cut 
 down. After a time he began to keep cattle and sheep, and pros- 
 pered in a small way. Working hard and spending little, he con- 
 trived to save some money, although it was a slow process. 
 
 He was assisted by all his family in whatever he undertook. There 
 was not much to do at home, and after breakfast the house was left 
 to take care of itself, while father, mother, boys, girls and oxen went 
 off to work. The father chopped the large logs, and directed the 
 labor of the whole company. Horace drove the team, but none too
 
 HIS LOVE TO TRADE. 725 
 
 well, and was gradually supplanted in the office by his younger 
 brother. Each of the boys could chop the smaller trees. The 
 mother and sisters gathered the light wood into heaps. When the 
 great logs had to be rolled upon one another, it took the strength and 
 skill of all the little group. There was no complaining, with all this 
 severe labor. The cheerful spirit of the mother made perpetual sun- 
 shine even in the gloom of the forest. Her merry song and laughter 
 rose from the tangled brushwood in which she was often buried. No 
 severity of labor could disturb the harmony and good humor that 
 prevailed in the family. At night they would return to their frugal 
 supper of bean porridge, which was served in primitive style. A 
 large milk-pan was placed on the floor filled with the savory viand, 
 and the children helped themselves from the common dish without 
 plate or bowl. 
 
 Their clothing was naturally of the homeliest material. It 
 consisted chiefly of the coarsest kind of homespun linen, or linsey 
 woolsey, dyed with butternut bark, and made up into the rudest gar- 
 ments by the mother. Horace seldom wore more than three garments 
 at the same time in the summer season. A ragged straw hat, a torn 
 shirt, never buttoned, and a pair of coarse trowsers, very short in the 
 legs, composed his wardrobe. A pair of shoes and stockings and a 
 jacket were added in winter. In the evening nothing could tempt 
 him from his books. The rough house was a favorite resort for the 
 children of the neighborhood. They were fond of listening to his 
 mother's songs and stories, and of playing with his brothers and sis- 
 ters. Horace did not mind their noise and romping, but would 
 never join in their active sports. The only amusement which could 
 tempt him from his books was a game of checkers, of which he be- 
 came extravagantly fond. Nobody in the neighborhood could beat 
 him. He gained so much skill before he was fully grown up, that 
 there were few players in the country round who could win of him 
 two games in three. 
 
 Throughout his boyhood Horace was always busy at something, 
 when he had left his book for a short time. Like most of the Yankee 
 race, he loved to trade. He would save up a hoard of nuts, and ex- 
 change them at the store for the little knickknacks which had ex- 
 cited his fancy. A bundle of pitch-pine roots, which he would take 
 to the store on his back and sell for kindling wood, was a favorite 
 investment. He had a great passion for bee-hunting, and would 
 often gather an immense quantity of wild honey, which he knew how 
 to sell at a good price. In this way he managed always to have a 
 little money. When a peddler came along with books in his wagon, 
 Horace was sure to be one of his best customers. 
 
 His reading took a wide range. Before he was fifteen he had 
 devoured an incredible number of books. He had read the whole 
 Bible before he was six years old. In his eighth year he read the 
 Arabian Nights with intense pleasure; Robinson Crusoe in his ninth;
 
 7:5 HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 Shakespeare in his eleventh ; and by the time he was old enough to 
 be an apprentice he had dispatched most of the common histories, 
 ancient and modern, and all the novels and romances that he could 
 procure for love or money. 
 
 Horace was still a boy when he adopted the rigid temperance 
 principles, of which he has been a strenuous advocate in his subse- 
 quent career. He was only thirteen years old when he made the 
 deliberate resolve never to drink distilled liquors. At that time 
 whisky and tobacco were the universal luxuries in Vermont. There 
 was no entertainment of relatives and friends, scarcely a casual gath- 
 ering of two or three neighbors for a social chat, without strong drink. 
 During the childhood of Horace, in New Hampshire, cider was the 
 universal beverage. In many a family of six or eight persons a bar- 
 rel would hardly hold out for a week. The transition to a more 
 potent stimulant was easy and natural. Rum was provided at all 
 seasons and on all occasions. No house or barn was raised without 
 a bountiful supply. A wedding without toddy, flip, sling, or punch 
 would have been deemed a mean affair, even in the poorest families, 
 while those who were well off dispensed wine, brandy, and gin in pro- 
 fusion, as a matter of course. Horace's determination not to drink 
 was at first mentioned only at the family fireside. But it soon leaked 
 out among the neighbors, some of whom took it in high dudgeon. At 
 the annual sheep-washing, in the following June, it was talked about 
 and condemned. It was decided that the young Nazarene should 
 comply with the customs of the place. He was required to take a 
 glass of liquor, and, upon his refusal, he was held by two or three 
 of his young companions, older and stronger than himself, while the 
 liquor was turned into his mouth, and a part of it forced down his 
 throat. 
 
 The religious creed to which Horace Greeley has adhered through 
 life was adopted at an early age, illustrating the saying of the poet 
 that '"the child is father of the man." His parents accepted the 
 orthodox faith of New England the father inheriting a partiality 
 for the Baptists, while his mother was inclined toward the Presbyterians. 
 Neither of them was a member of the church, nor had a character for 
 extreme devotion. The father, however, was strict in certain observ- 
 ances. He would not allow novels or plays to be read in the house 
 on Sunday. When they lived near a church the family attended it 
 regularly, Horace among the rest. Sometimes on Sunday the father 
 would require the children to read a certain number of chapters in 
 the Bible. The religious education of the boy was, accordingly, free 
 from a strong sectarian influence, but doubtless leaning toward the 
 prevalent orthodoxy of the day. Yet, from the age of twelve, he 
 began to doubt the doctrine of eternal punishment, and within a year 
 or two from that time, was fully grounded in the faith of the Uni- 
 versalists, although he never entered a Universalist church till he was 
 twenty years old.
 
 APPRENTICED TO THE PRINTING BUSINESS. 727 
 
 The desire to become a printer, which was cherished by Horace 
 from his childhood, has already been spoken of. When he was but 
 eleven years old, hearing that an apprentice was wanted in the news- 
 paper office at Whitehall, he applied for the situation, with the con- 
 sent of his father, but was at once rejected on account of his tender 
 age. He went home downcast and sorrowful. It was not until four 
 years afterward that another opportunity was presented. In the 
 spring of 1826, an apprentice was advertised for by the publishers of 
 a weekly newspaper in East Poultney, a rural village in Vermont, 
 about twelve miles distant from the family home. His father was 
 about to remove to the West, and no longer had need of his services. 
 He cheerfully consented to the wishes of Horace, who walked over 
 to Poultney, made an agreement with the publishers, and a few days 
 afterward engaged in their employ. He took his place at the font 
 as though "to the manner born," and after a few words of instruction 
 from the foreman, addressed himself to his new task. He needed no 
 further assistance. He had thought of his chosen vocation for so 
 many years that he seemed to comprehend the mysteries of the craft 
 intuitively. All he had to acquire was manual dexterity. He worked 
 on in perfect silence, hour after hour, through the day. When he 
 left the office at night he could set type better than many an ap- 
 prentice who had been in practice for a month. The next day he 
 worked with the same silence and intensity, and so on for several 
 days, until he acquired the respect of his companions, who at first 
 had been disposed to make fun of the green hand. 
 
 In his new situation Horace found unwonted opportunities for the 
 attainment of knowledge and the exercise of his faculties. The editor 
 of the paper was a man of good education and kindly feelings. With 
 him the young aspirant often engaged in friendly debate. Historical^ 
 political and religious questions were fully and earnestly discussed. 
 Horace proved to be so thoroughly master of the situation, that his 
 more experienced rival was often at fault. The town library gave 
 him access to books ; he still read during all his leisure hours ; be- 
 came a frequent talker in the village lyceum ; and often wrote dis- 
 sertations on subjects of interest. Though modest and retiring in 
 his manners, he would sometimes engage in discussion with the ablest 
 village politicians, who never left the field without a profound impres- 
 sion of the soundness of his views and the accuracy of his statements. 
 
 He now gained his first experience in original composition. He 
 began, not indeed to write, but to compose paragraphs for the paper 
 as he stood at the desk, and to put them in type as he composed 
 them. He had joined a debating society during the first winter of 
 his residence in Poultney, and soon became one of its leading mem- 
 bers. Whenever he was appointed to speak or read an essay, he never 
 wanted to be excused, but was always ready. He would stick to his 
 opinion against all opposition, replying with the most perfect assurance 
 to men of high station and of low. His wonderful memory gave him
 
 728 HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 a great advantage over his opponents. He never forgot the minutest 
 details of important events, and could draw upon his reading for 
 facts with full confidence in the exactness of his impressions. He 
 was never treated as a boy by his fellow-members of the society, but 
 as a man and an equal. His opinions were regarded with as much 
 deference as those of the judge or the sheriff. 
 
 Horace was always a fluent and interesting speaker, although he 
 made no pretensions to the graces of oratory. He gained not a little 
 power in debate by his pertinent appeals to facts that had been lost 
 sight of, or by the correction of a false quotation. He never lost 
 his temper, and always retained the good will even of his adversaries 
 by his evident earnestness and sincerity. 
 
 The father of Mr. Greeley, meantime, had taken up his residence in 
 Erie County, Pennsylvania, where he had purchased some wild land 
 which he was laboring to convert into a farm. He was aided in his 
 struggles by the filial devotion of his son. Horace spent not a dollar 
 of his scanty stipend on superfluities, but religiously devoted to his 
 father whatever could be saved by the most rigid economy. His dress 
 while at work in summer was only a shirt and trowsers. In his walks 
 about the village, he added a cheap straw hat to this simple costume ; 
 but, even in winter, did not indulge in the luxury of an overcoat. 
 The boys in the neighborhood often laughed at him for his homely 
 dress. 
 
 During his residence at Poultney he twice visited his parents in 
 Pennsylvania, a distance of six hundred miles, walking a great part 
 of the way, and performing the rest of the journey by a slow canal- 
 boat. He found the days of steady, solitary walking most favorable 
 to quiet meditation. A walk of two or three hundred miles in the 
 clear, calm autumnal weather was a luxury. On approaching his 
 father's forest-home, it was just at dusk, and he lost his way in the 
 woods. He remained over night in the cabin of a settler. It con- 
 sisted of a single room ; the logs of which it was built were still so 
 green that the fire was made close to one side on the bare earth, with 
 no fire-place and no chimney, but a hole through the bark-covered 
 roof. His father's dwelling was of the same description. It was in 
 the midst of the primeval wilderness. The giant timber yielded slowly 
 to the ax. The crops were precarious and scanty, ravaged by myr- 
 iads of pigeons and all manner of four-footed beasts, while the 
 family of the pioneer were doomed to an almost desperate struggle for 
 existence. The mother of Horace could never become reconciled to 
 this rude way of life. The shadow of the great woods oppressed her 
 from the hour she first entered them ; the old smile departed from 
 her face, she lost the familiar gladness of her manner ; and though 
 she lived to the age of sixty-eight, for many years, she had been 
 worn out by hard work, and broken down both in body and mind. 
 
 While an apprentice at East Poultney, Horace boarded for some 
 time at the village tavern. It was kept by a worthy, old-fashioned
 
 VISITS HIS PARENTS. 729 
 
 couple, who became greatly attached to their singular guest, and he 
 to them. As tbey give their recollections of his habits in the family, 
 he was rather fond of good living, and ate and drank whatever was 
 set before him with a healthy appetite. He was very fond of coffee, 
 but cared little for tea. He stood for no ceremony at the table, but 
 fell to without waiting to be asked or helped, and stopped as suddenly 
 as he had begun. Nothing could tempt him to touch a drop of 
 strong drink. When any topic of interest was started at the table, 
 he joined in the discussion with great confidence, and maintained his 
 opinion against all the talkers, with remarkable vivacity, but in per- 
 fect good temper. He came at length to be regarded as a sort of 
 living cyclopaedia, and was referred to as a final authority whenever 
 there was a dispute. He never went to a social party of any kind, 
 never joined his acquaintance on an excursion, never slept away from 
 home, nor was absent from a meal as long as he lived at the tavern, 
 except when he went to visit his parents. He seldom went to church, 
 and usually spent the Sunday in reading. His religious and political 
 opinions were already fixed. He was a decided Universalist, a staunch 
 whig, and a zealous anti-mason. 
 
 After serving an apprenticeship of four years in the printing office 
 at East Poultney, he had become master of the trade, and rendered 
 important assistance in editing the newspaper. The little establish- 
 ment, however, proved unsuccessful. It had changed proprietors 
 several times, but none of them could make it prosper. At length it 
 was decided to abandon the enterprise, and the paper was discontinued 
 in the month of June, 1830. Young Greeley was now in his twentieth 
 year ; the world was all before him, and he was free to take any course 
 that he might judge fit. 
 
 His first step was to visit his parents in their remote home. At that 
 time the journey required about twelve days. It was accomplished, as 
 on previous occasions, partly on foot and partly by canal-boat. He 
 arrived at the house in the wilderness late in the evening. He found 
 his father and brother completely transformed into back- woodsmen. 
 Their log cabin stood in the midst of a narrow clearing, covered with 
 blackened stumps and smoked with burning timber. Dark forests, 
 almost unbroken, abounding in wolves and other wild beasts, extended 
 a day's journey in every direction. The country was so full of game 
 that a hunter would sell a deer before it was shot, appointing a day 
 for the purchaser to call for the venison. The howling of wolves 
 could be heard at the house as they roamed about in search of the 
 sheep, which the emigrant vainly attempted to rear in the wilderness. 
 Horace remained at home for several weeks, helping his father in his 
 work, fishing occasionally, and nursing a lameness, under the care 
 of his mother, which he had contracted in Vermont. He then took 
 a start towards the East in search of employment as a printer. He 
 found work in several places, but the pay was poor, and he was not 
 tempted to make a permanent engagement. As a last resort, he went
 
 730 HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 to Erie, at that time a town of five thousand inhabitants, and with 
 extensive trade on the lake and in the interior. After some delay in 
 the early part of 1831, he obtained a situation in the office of the Erie 
 Gazette, and was soon in high favor with his employers and fellow 
 workmen. He was considered a remarkably correct compositor, 
 though not a rapid one, but his steady devotion to his work enabled 
 him to accomplish more than faster hands. He was soon employed 
 as a regular journeyman, at the usual wages of fifteen dollars a month 
 and board. All the intervals of labor were spent in reading. More 
 and more he became absorbed in politics. He could tell the -name 
 and post-office address of every member of Congress, with something 
 of his political character and history. He recalled the details of 
 every important election that had occurred within his memory, even, 
 in some instances, to the county majorities. 
 
 Mr. Greeley remained in this position about seven months, never 
 losing a day's work, living with the most rigid economy, and devot- 
 ing the greater part of his modest earnings to the aid of his father, 
 \vho was struggling for the support" of his family in the wilderness. 
 He retained only twenty-five dollars of his wages for himself, and 
 with this sum in his pocket, he determined to seek his fortune in a 
 wider sphere. After a short visit at home, he tied up his scanty 
 stock of clothing in a bundle, and set his face toward the city of New 
 York. The summer was now at its height. The roads were choked 
 up with dust, and the weather was intensely hot. He started on foot, 
 intending to pay a visit to a friend, who lived about forty miles west 
 of Rochester. On the journey he was almost parched with thirst, 
 and the hard water of that region, which he was compelled to drink 
 abundantly, seemed before night to cover his mouth and throat with 
 scales, and made him long for a draught from the sweet wells or 
 springs of New England. 
 
 He remained with his friend about twenty-four hours, and then 
 walked down to the Erie canal to wait for a boat. Night came on, 
 with no appearance of any boat, and after lingering until nearly mid- 
 night, the young traveler started on the tow-path, and walked through 
 the darkness about fifteen miles to Brockport. He narrowly escaped 
 being swept into the canal by the tow-line of the boats going west; 
 but towards morning he was overtaken by a boat, in the right di- 
 rection, and gladly went on board. The passage to Albany took 
 nearly three days, and losing the regular morning boat for New Yorlc 
 he engaged a berth in a tow-boat, and in twenty hours gained his first 
 view of the great metropolis. This was just at sunrise on the morn- 
 ing of Friday, August lyth, 1831. His stock of cash was now reduced 
 to ten dollars, and all the rest of his personal property was in the 
 pocket-handkerchief in which he carried his summer clothes. He 
 had no friend nor acquaintance in the vast city. He had not even 
 a letter of introduction, nor a certificate of his skill as a printer. His 
 decidedly rustic manner and address were not in his favor. His
 
 SEEKING WORK IN NEW YORK. 731 
 
 general appearance was not prepossessing to strangers, and he had 
 none of the arts with which so many are accustomed to push their 
 way in a new position. A keen observer might indeed have detected 
 signs of promise in the overgrown boy who stood before him in his 
 round jacket, and received a favorable impression from the noble 
 contour of his brow and the youthful beauty of his face. But to 
 most persons, nothing was apparent but an unmistakable air of rural 
 verdancy and an ignorance of the ways of the world, which could 
 not but be looked upon with a certain degree of suspicion. 
 
 The first business of the new-comer was to find a cheap boarding- 
 house. For this purpose he sallied up Broad street, and near the 
 corner of Wall spied out a second-rate tavern, which seemed to him 
 suitable to his slender finances. Upon inquiring the price of board 
 at the bar, he was dismayed at finding it not less than six dollars a 
 week, and at once set out on a new quest. He now wandered into 
 West street, along the wharves of the North River, a quarter of the 
 city more remarkable for bustle and noise than for refinement and 
 elegance, and soon found a house of humble pretensions, on which 
 the sign of " boarding " attracted his notice. It was indeed a squalid 
 edifice, but the cheapness of its entertainment made up for the defi- 
 ciency of its accommodations. The price of room and board was 
 only $2.50 a week; Horace eagerly accepted the terms, and was soon 
 seated at the breakfast table in the bosom of the family. As it was 
 Friday, no meat was provided by the Roman Catholic host, an <v- 
 rangement at which the new inmate of the household was not disposed 
 to demur ; but when Sunday evening was celebrated by general card- 
 playing among the guests, his rustic traditions received a violent 
 shock. 
 
 After his frugal breakfast of salt-fish and potatoes, he strolled out 
 in pursuit of work. In his ignorance of the city, he traversed many 
 streets in which a printing office could by no possibility be found. 
 During that day and the next, however, he discovered the favorite 
 haunts of the craft, and visited fully two thirds of them without the 
 faintest gleam of success. Among other places, he called at the 
 Journal of Commerce office, when the editor of the paper the late 
 distinguished David Hale after coolly surveying his person from head 
 to foot, pronounced him a runaway apprentice from the country, and 
 advised him to go home to his master. 
 
 He passed the week walking many weary miles in this fruitless 
 search, and returned to his lodgings on Saturday evening, thoroughly 
 disgusted with New York. He resolved to shake off its dust from 
 his feet the next Monday morning, while he could still make his es- 
 cape with a pittance of money in his pocket. 
 
 Still, his desolate prospects did not cloud the cheerful sunshine of 
 his Sunday's rest. He arose in the morning, refreshed in spirit ana 
 alert in purpose, and, according to his usual habit, went to church 
 twice. In the morning, he induced a man who lived in the house to
 
 732 HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 accompany him to a small Universalist church, nearly three miles off, 
 and in the evening, for the first time, he found his way to a Uni- 
 tarian church, in which he was delighted to hear an eloquent exposi- 
 tion of the religious views which he had cherished from his earliest 
 boyhood. 
 
 On returning from church in the forenoon, he met with several 
 young Irishmen, who had called at the house in their saunterings 
 about town, who, on hearing that he was a printer-lad in pursuit of 
 work, became interested in his behalf with the spontaneous kindness 
 that is natural to their race. One of them gave him directions to a 
 place where he knew that journeymen printers were wanted, and ad- 
 vised him to make application without delay. 
 
 He went to the office early the next morning, and at once found 
 employment. The work was of a complicated and difficult character. 
 It was the composition of a very small New Testament, in double 
 columns. The text was thickly strewn with references by Greek and 
 other letters to the notes, which, with the numerous italics and the 
 diminutive type, required all the skill of an accomplished workman. 
 The young printer had never before encountered such a curiously 
 intricate piece of typography. Several men had tried their hand at it 
 and had given it up after a few hours. Greeley worked steadily 
 through the day in perfect silence, and on presenting his proofs to 
 the foreman at night, they were found greater in amount and more 
 correct in composition than had previously been the case in the prog- 
 ress of the work. He was now constantly employed upon it, work- 
 ing from twelve to fourteen hours a day, and earning not more than 
 six dollars a week. He was often at his case before six in the morn- 
 ing, and often remained till nine in the evening the first to begin and 
 the last to leave. No one but him worked before breakfast or after 
 tea. His original and vigorous character soon made a strong im- 
 pression upon his fellow-workmen. He had the habit of talking freely 
 while at work. Politics, religion, and all the exciting questions of 
 the day became the topics of earnest discussion. His conversation 
 was vehement and positive. He maintained his opinions with un- 
 wavering confidence, which in one of a less genial temperament, 
 might have been regarded as arrogance. His good humor, indeed, 
 became a proverb among his companions. He was the most obliging 
 man in the office. He was always willing to lend his money, and, with 
 his saving habits, always had money to lend. 
 
 The work at length became slack in the establishment in which he 
 was first employed, and in the month of November, 1831, he was com- 
 pelled to discontinue his engagement. He found a situation in vari- 
 ous printing-offices, however, as a journeyman until the end of 1832, 
 when an opportunity was presented to him for going into business on 
 his own account, and, commencing his journalistic career in which 
 he has since attained such signal pre-eminence. 
 
 Among the acquaintances which Mr. Greeley had made in various
 
 BECOMES EDITOR. 733 
 
 New York printing-offices, was a young man named Francis Story, 
 for whom he had conceived a warm and devoted attachment. Story, 
 who was only a little older than himself, and with scarcely a hundred 
 dollars of capital, had made up his mind to start a printing establish- 
 ment on a small scale, and offered his young comrade a share in 
 the enterprise. He relied on the patronage of a prominent broker 
 and dealer in lottery tickets, who issued a weekly Bank Note Re- 
 porter, devoted in a great measure to advertising his own business. 
 The printing of this paper was offered to the new firm. Story was 
 also intimate with a young medical student of the name of Shepard, 
 who had set his heart upon the publication of a cheap daily news- 
 paper, to be sold about the streets for a single penny. This person 
 was desirous to secure the co-operation of Story in the intended proj- 
 ect. The latter laid the plan before Mr. Greeley, but he hesitated 
 about engaging in the enterprise. His means had been reduced to a 
 small sum, as he had devoted most of his savings to the aid of his 
 father in his struggle with the wilderness. But his scruples were at 
 length removed by the ardent enthusiasm of his friend. A partner- 
 ship was formed, materials purchased on credit, and the miniature 
 office was opened in due form. In spite of the awkward, bashful 
 ways of Horace Greeley, which gave no promise of pecuniary success, 
 one of the oldest and wealthiest type-founders in New York furnished 
 him with the requisite outfit, on no security but his personal obliga- 
 tion. It is a curious circumstance that this purchase of less than 
 fifty dollars has since secured to the worthy type-founder the sale of 
 more than $50,000 worth of type, by giving him the custom of the 
 Tribune. 
 
 The proposed journal, called the Morning Post, was issued on the 
 first of January, 1833, but was sold at the price of two cents instead 
 of one. It was a bitter cold day, and a furious snow-storm was rag- 
 ing in the streets. There were few persons abroad, the newsboys 
 became discouraged, and the new paper found but a scanty sale. 
 During the first week there was scarcely sufficient demand to pay 
 the expenses. The sales diminished every day, and before the mid- 
 dle of the third week the Morning Post had come to an end. The 
 proprietor had few qualifications for his task. He was neither a 
 writer nor a man of affairs. As he was totally ignorant of the de- 
 tails of editorship, the work of preparing the numbers devolved 
 chiefly on Mr. Greeley, and they were brought out under almost 
 every possible disadvantage. 
 
 In spite of the failure of the paper, the firm went on without se- 
 rious embarrassment. Its principal reliance was the Bank Note Re- 
 porter, which afforded a small but regular income to the establish- 
 ment. A certain amount of lottery printing was added to the business, 
 by the managers of the State lotteries, and Mr. Greeley's practical 
 dexterity was called into constant requisition by the setting up and 
 arranging of the list of prizes and schemes of drawings. An article
 
 734 HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 in favor of licensing lotteries by the State, which he wrote at this 
 time, attracted considerable attention, though he soon after changed 
 his opinions on the subject, and became a strenuous advocate of their 
 suppression by law. 
 
 Meantime, he met with a severe loss in the death of his partner, 
 Mr. Story, who was drowned while bathing in the East River, July 
 9, 1833. His place in the firm was supplied by Mr. Jonas Winches- 
 ter; the business continued to prosper, and the dream of editorship 
 revived in the heart of Horace Greeley. In the ensuing spring, the 
 plan of a family newspaper was formed, and on the 22d of March, 
 1834, the first number of the New Yorker was issued, without any 
 previous sound of trumpets to announce its coming. This was a 
 large, handsome weekly folio, afterward changed to a double quarto, 
 mainly devoted to the literature of the day, but giving a regular digest 
 of important news, including a summary of election returns and other 
 political intelligence. The editing of this sheet devolved almost ex- 
 clusively on Mr. Greeley. It was issued under his immediate super- 
 vision. The leading articles were written, and the selections made, 
 for the most part, by his own hand, during the seven years and a 
 half in which it continued to be published. The New Yorker, at 
 that time, is pronounced by eminent authority to have been the best 
 newspaper of its kind ever published in this country. It took no 
 side in politics, though the editor could not always conceal his ardent 
 convictions. The tone of the paper, though firm and decided, was 
 gentle and modest. It made the editor known throughout the Union, 
 and gained him hosts of friends. But the journal never became 
 a source of pecuniary profit. Its circulation was large for that day; 
 but it was conducted on the credit system, and its proceeds were 
 swallowed up in bad debts. During the greater part of its existence, 
 it afforded no support to the editor, who was compelled to find the 
 means of living from some other source. It at last became neces- 
 sary to suspend its publication, which was never afterwards resumed. 
 This took place in September, 1841, about five months after the es- 
 tablishment of the Tribune. Mr. Greeley provided for the reim- 
 bursement of the subscribers who had paid in advance, while more 
 than $10,000 of outstanding debts appeared in its books. 
 
 In 1838, while still engaged in conducting the New Yorker, Mr. 
 Greeley undertook the editorial charge of the Jeffersonian, a political 
 weekly newspaper, devoted to the interests of the Whig party, and 
 published in the city of Albany. Although intended as a campaign 
 paper for the New York State elections of that year, its tone was 
 moderate and conciliatory. It abstained from vehement personal 
 abuse in its treatment of opponents, rarely evincing a partisan spirit, 
 and never bitterness of temper. The Jeffersonian, according to its 
 original plan, continued in existence but one year, and in May, 1840, 
 the Log Cabin was established in the interest of General Harrison, 
 the Whig candidate for President of the United States. The man-
 
 ESTABLISHES THE TRIBUNE. 735 
 
 agement of this journal devolved upon Mr. Greeley, under whose 
 skillful editorship it soon gained a large circulation and an unexampled 
 degree of popularity. It established the reputation of the editor as 
 a writer of signal courage and ability, a wise and sagacious politician, 
 and a man of large humanity and rare firmness and elevation of moral 
 principle. After a career of about eighteen months, the Log Cabin 
 was finally merged in the Tribune, the celebrated daily journal, with 
 which Mr. Greeley's name is completely identified, and for which 
 all his previous newspaper enterprises had served as an admirable 
 preparation. 
 
 The first number of the New York Tribune was issued on the loth 
 of April, 1841. It was a day of gloomy omens. The weather was 
 unseasonably chilly, with a storm of sleet and snow, and the funeral 
 ceremonies of President Harrison, whose sudden death had taken 
 place six days before, enhanced the sombre character of the scene. 
 The prospects of the new journal seemed to be in accordance with 
 the cheerless aspect of the day. It had no presses, no capital, no 
 ample staff of assistants, no troops of friends to bear it up with their 
 good wishes or substantial aid. Of the first number, five thousand 
 copies were printed, with a list of five hundred subscribers, and most 
 of them which would not sell were given away. For the first week, 
 the current expenses far exceeded the income, nor was the paper es- 
 tablished on a sound financial basis, until the accession of Mr. 
 Thomas McElrath as a partner, who undertook the sole charge of 
 the publishing department. From that time, the course of the 
 Tribune has been one of constantly increasing prosperity. It has 
 possessed an exhaustless source of vitality in the character of its edi- 
 tor, and in return has crowned his name with the brilliant reputation 
 that has made him a man of mark among the celebrities of the age. 
 His position in regard to the journal for which he cherishes the affec- 
 tion of a parent for his child is best described in his own words : 
 "Fame is a vapor; popularity an accident; riches take wings; the 
 only earthly certainty is oblivion ; no man can foresee what a day 
 may bring forth; while those who cheer to-day will often curse to- 
 morrow ; and yet I cherish the hope that the journal I projected and 
 established will live and flourish long after I shall have moldered 
 into forgotten dust, being guided by a larger wisdom, a more uner- 
 ring sagacity to discern the right, though not by a more unfaltering 
 readiness to embrace and defend it at whatever personal cost ; and 
 that the stone which covers my ashes may bear to future ages the 
 still intelligible inscription, 'Founder of the New York Tribune.' ' 
 
 The peculiar opinions, and even the personal idiosyncrasies of Mr. 
 Greeley, have found their most expressive illustration in the columns 
 of that journal. He has been prominent as an advocate of the most 
 rigid forms of temperance in eating and drinking. At an early age, 
 as we have seen, he foreswore the use of all intoxicating liquors, and 
 has ever since remained faithful to the pledge. Nor has he been
 
 736 HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 lukewarm in enforcing his own example upon the adoption of others. 
 In 1832 he became a partial convert to the views of Sylvester Gra- 
 ham, a popular lecturer on dietetics, who maintained that the people 
 of the United States were in the habit of taking too concentrated 
 food. Mr. Greeley never went so far as to discontinue the use of 
 meat, although he believes that a superior diet might be found in 
 sound, unbolted grain, ripe and fresh fruits, and a variety of vegeta- 
 bles, with a moderate use of milk, butter and cheese, and but little 
 of spices or condiments. 
 
 Another conspicuous movement which engaged the attention of 
 Mr. Greeley, and which has been from time to time defended in the 
 columns of the Tribune, is the plan for improving the condition 
 of the laboring classes by the better organization of industry. Mr. 
 Greeley believes in the adequacy of capital to supply employment, 
 and, hence, that in a true society there need be no able-bodied pau- 
 pers. In his opinion, the productive power of labor is greatly dim- 
 inished by a radical defect in our present social arrangements. The 
 different classes are in a state of antagonism with each other, and 
 the consequence is what may be called a condition of social anarchy. 
 The energies of men are wasted in providing safeguards against roguery 
 and crime. Labor loses much of its effect by bad management, imper- 
 fect implements, and the want of the most powerful machinery. There 
 is also great waste in consumption. It takes a thousand fires and a 
 thousand cooks to prepare the food of a village, when a dozen fires 
 and a hundred cooks would do it far better in a scientific combina- 
 tion of families. Mr. Greeley argues, moreover, that every child 
 should be trained to skill in productive industry, as well as in letters 
 and science. He should be made familiar with the action of machinery 
 and the processes of the useful arts. These ends, he believes, can 
 be best attained in a well organized association, and not in the pres- 
 ent methods of isolated industry. While, therefore, the Tribune 
 has been devoted to the support of social and industrial co-operation, 
 it has lent no countenance to the theories of communism, or any 
 plan of social reform in which the individual is lost in the supremacy 
 of the mass. 
 
 On the subject of slavery, Mr. Greeley, from his earliest boyhood, 
 shared in the sentiment which prompted the memorable utterance of 
 President Lincoln: "I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not 
 wrong, then nothing is wrong. I can not remember when I did not 
 so think and feel." When only a child of seven to ten years of age, 
 he eagerly devoured every thing he could find on the progress of the 
 great Missouri struggle, and intensely sympathized with the North 
 in her effort to prevent the admission of Missouri as a slave State. 
 At the commencement of the Abolition movement, however, he took 
 no part with the agitators. He could not perceive the tendency of 
 their efforts towards the achievement of their end. Hence, he never 
 became a member of an Abolition society, and rarely found time to
 
 HIS EXPERIENCES IN EUROPE. 737 
 
 attend an Abolition meeting. Warmly devoted to the Whig party, 
 he deprecated the effect of the Abolition movement in politics, per- 
 suaded that it would weaken the only great national organization 
 which presented the prospect of resistance to the aggressions of the 
 slave power. It was not until after the defeat of Henry Clay, as a 
 candidate for the presidency, of whom Mr. Greeley had been a most 
 enthusiastic and effective advocate, and the election of Polk and 
 Dallas, in 1844, that the Tribune engaged in the anti-slavery 
 warfare. Its position was clearly explained in the language of the 
 editor: "When we find the Union on the brink of a most unjust 
 and rapacious war, instigated wholly (as is officially proclaimed) by 
 a determination to uphold and fortify slavery, then we do not see 
 how it can longer be rationally disputed that the North has much, 
 very much, to do with slavery. If we may be drawn into fight for it, 
 it would be hard, indeed, that we should not be allowed to talk of it." 
 But the limits of this brief sketch forbid us dwelling at greater length 
 on the political career of Mr. Greeley, and we resume the personal 
 narrative as of greater interest to the readers for whom the present 
 volume is chiefly intended. 
 
 In the month of April, 1851, Mr. Greeley made a short visit in 
 Europe, for the purpose mainly of attending the World's Fair, in the 
 Crystal Palace. He arrived in Liverpool, after an intensely disa- 
 greeable voyage, the misery of which he compared to two months' hard 
 labor in the State Prison, under sullen skies and a pouring rain. Liver- 
 pool impressed him unfavorably. The English sun he could not recog- 
 nize as the same object to which that name is applied in America. Hav- 
 ing been appointed as a member of one of the juries of the World's 
 Fair, he devoted a large part of every day, while he remained in 
 London, to the laborious and thankless duties of that office. The 
 sights of the great British metropolis made but a slight impression on 
 his mind. He describes Hampton Court as larger than the Astor 
 House, but less lofty and containing fewer rooms. Westminster Abbey 
 was only a barbaric profusion of stained windows, groined arches, and 
 all manner of costly and wasteful architecture. The intoning of the 
 ritual, which was then coming into fashion, sounded like a caricature 
 of the Yankee drawl in a Methodist pulpit. He declined attending 
 the Epsom races, through unwillingness to come in contact with the 
 sporting men and swindlers whom that occasion calls together. But 
 he was deeply affected by the want and misery displayed at the 
 Ragged Schools, and vehemently expressed his regret that "he had 
 hitherto said too little, done too little, dared too little, sacrificed too 
 little to awaken attention to the infernal wrongs and abuses that are 
 inherent in the very structure and essence of civilized society, as it 
 now exists throughout Christendom." 
 
 After a residence of nearly two months in London, Mr. Greeley 
 took his departure for Paris. He remained only eight days in the 
 gay capital of France, which he by no means found in accordance 
 47
 
 738 HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 with his habitual tastes. At the opera he saw only "a medley of 
 drinking, praying, dancing idol-worship and Delilah-craft such as 
 he had never before encountered." The French people impressed 
 him as intelligent and courteous, but, at the same time, as sensual 
 and irreverent. There were thousands in Paris who could die for 
 liberty, but no class that could comprehend the idea of the temper- 
 ance pledge. 
 
 From Paris he started for Lyons, crossing the Alps to Turin, and 
 spending about three weeks in Genoa, Pisa, Florence, Bologna, 
 Venice, Milan, and Rome. The poetical element in the Eternal City 
 presented strong attractions to his mind. He passed most of his time 
 in the galleries of Art. The Coliseum fully equaled the descriptions 
 with which he was familar, but St. Peter's, which he calls the Niagara 
 of churches, was, at first view, a disappointment. 
 
 After a rapid journey through Switzerland, Germany, Belgium, and 
 the north-eastern part of France, he returned to London. In Swit- 
 zerland he was struck with the thrift and contentment of the people. 
 He saw no beggar, and was cheated by no official. The Germans 
 were greatly to his liking, by their good humor, their kindly, unos- 
 tentatious manners, and their mutual deference and respect. He 
 nowhere saw the signs of chronic aristocracy but in England. 
 Although he did not wholly admire her grave and stately people, he 
 found much to commend in their character. He highly appreciated 
 their industry, their method, their practical sense, and the domestic 
 virtues of the women. The comfort and warmth of the English fire- 
 side were a perpetual charm. Mr. Greeley returned from Europe in 
 August, and at once engaged in his usual routine of editorial and 
 political toil. 
 
 After an interval of four years, he made a second visit to Europe 
 in 1855, remaining abroad about three months. His previous im- 
 pressions were confirmed by his new experience. Six weeks in Paris 
 afforded him the nearest approach to leisure which he had enjoyed 
 for thirty years. 
 
 In 1859 he put in execution a purpose which he had long cherished, 
 of making a journey across the continent, and forming a personal 
 acquaintance with the region of the Pacific. He was deeply impressed 
 with the majestic promise that impels the Anglo-Saxon race toward 
 the shores of that mighty sea. Another extensive journey in the 
 south-western quarter of the Union was performed in the month of 
 May, 1871, which gave him a gratifying opportunity of meeting with 
 a large portion of his countrymen to whom his name had been long 
 familiar, but who had hitherto been strangers to his person. 
 
 A prominent feature in Mr. Greeley's character is his fondness for 
 rural life and rural pursuits. He says of himself that he should have 
 been a farmer. His younger days were spent in its peaceful occupa- 
 tions, and his maturer tastes have given him a keen relish for the 
 calling. If he were to begin his life anew, he would choose to earn
 
 c 
 9 
 -
 
 TRANSFERS RESIDENCE TO CHAPPAQUA. 739 
 
 his bread by the cultivation of the soil. After passing twenty years 
 in the city, he determined to seek a quiet retreat in the country for 
 himself and his family. He chose for his new home a rocky, wooded 
 hillside, near the little village of Chappaqua, about thirty-five miles 
 north-east of New York. The farm, consisting of seventy-five acres, 
 one third of which is forest, has the advantage of an unrivaled spring 
 of pure and living water, and a brawling brook which rushes down 
 from its source in granite hills. 
 
 On coming into possession of his farm, in 1851, Mr. Greeley's 
 first business was to shut cattle out of the woods, where they had 
 roamed at will for untold years. His own special department in the 
 labors of the farm is the care of the woods. Every Saturday that he 
 can command is devoted to the ax and pruning-knife. He began 
 his career as forester by cutting out the witch-hazels and trimming up 
 the trees, especially the hemlocks. Many of these he has trimmed 
 to the height of fifty feet, climbing the rugged trunks with the activity 
 of a school-boy. The young orchards, which he has planted with 
 his own hands, are in a state of healthy bearing. The arable por- 
 tions of his farm have been improved by -removing rock and stone, 
 systematic underdraining, deep plowing, and the liberal use of 
 artificial and mineral manures, as well as compost from the peat-bog 
 and barn-yard. It now produces excellent crops of Indian corn, 
 oats, turnips, and especially of grass, with occasional harvests of spring- 
 wheat. 
 
 Mr. Greeley was married, in 1836, to Mary Cheney, a native of 
 Connecticut, with whom he had become acquainted while boarding 
 at the Graham House in New York. She was a lady of superior in- 
 tellect and admirable accomplishments, cherishing a strong interest 
 in the reforms to which Mr. Greeley has devoted so large a portion 
 of his life. In pursuance of her vocation as a teacher, she was at 
 that time residing in the State of North Carolina, where the wedding 
 took place. For eight years after his marriage, Mr. Greeley continued 
 to live in the busiest quarter of New York city, always within 
 half a mile of the City Hall. At the end of that time, he turned 
 his face toward the country, and removed to a spacious wooden 
 house, which since the death of its previous owner, had greatly fallen 
 from its ancient state, and was then in a state of decay. It was sit- 
 uated on the East River, nearly opposite the southern point of Black- 
 well's Island, with eight acres of ground, including a wooded ravine, 
 numerous shade and fruit trees, abundant shrubbery, and an ample 
 garden. The location was so secluded that the house could be 
 reached only by a narrow private lane, and, with no gas-lights, was 
 exceedingly dark at night. Accustomed to the tumult of the large 
 city, Mr. Greeley at first found the silence so unearthly and appalling 
 that he could scarcely sleep on his return from the labors of the day 
 at his office. The house-keeping was in a style of more than primi- 
 tive simplicity. In accordance with the principles of Graham, which
 
 740 HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 were even more rigidly followed by Mrs. Greeley than her husband, 
 the diet consisted chiefly of beans and potatoes, boiled rice, bread 
 and butter, with no condiment but salt, and none of the unwhole- 
 some dainties that tempt a sickly appetite in fashionable life. Tea 
 and coffee were strictly prohibited, even in the most homeopathic 
 dilutions. 
 
 It was during Mr. Greeley's residence in this house that Margaret 
 Fuller became an inmate of his family. His friendship for this re- 
 markable woman was an interesting portion of his experience, and in 
 the highest degree honorable to the character of both parties. Dur- 
 ing a residence of some weeks, for several successive seasons, in the 
 vicinity of Boston, Mrs. Greeley had formed an intimate acquaint- 
 ance with Margaret, and conceived for her an ardent attachment. 
 This led to her engagement in the literary department of the Tribune, 
 the duties of which she performed with signal ability for nearly 
 two years. Mr. Greeley regarded her as, in some respects, the great- 
 est woman whom America has yet known, while she, on her part, 
 fully appreciated the rare traits of character which have given him so 
 marked an influence among his contemporaries. " Mr. Greeley," she 
 wrote to a friend, "is a man of genuine excellence, honorable, be- 
 nevolent, and of uncorrupted disposition. He is sagacious, and, in his 
 way, of even great abilities. In modes of life and manner he is a 
 man of the people, and of the American people. With the exception 
 of my own mother, I think him the most generously disinterested 
 person I have ever known. ' ' 
 
 In the summer of 1849, Mr. Greeley experienced a great sorrow, 
 which has left a vein of tender sadness in his subsequent life. This 
 was the death of his only son, in the sixth year of his age, a child of 
 wonderful gifts and singular promise. As described by his father, 
 this marvelous boy was a model of juvenile beauty a beauty not 
 merely physical, but visibly radiating from the soul, and to which in 
 visiting the Italian galleries, a year or two later, he could find no 
 parallel. His hair was of the richest and finest gold. " The sunshine 
 of picture " never glorified its equal. The delicacy of his complexion 
 attracted the admiration of observers, who had traversed both hemis- 
 pheres without seeing a child who could be compared to this one. He 
 displayed a peculiar wisdom beyond his years ; his arch sayings are 
 treasured in the memory; while the sunny brightness of his disposi- 
 tion was the charm of the friendly circle that were drawn to the rural 
 residence of the family, no less by their admiration of the son than 
 by their regard for his parents. On the i2th of July, one of the 
 hottest midsummer days of our climate, this precious object of such 
 fond affection and of such sanguine hopes was stricken by the cholera 
 about one o'clock in the morning, and at five o'clock in the afternoon 
 had yielded to the power of the subtle epidemic. He was entirely 
 sane and conscious till near the last, with little or no pain, and with 
 no indication that his end was so near at hand. " When at length,"
 
 CANDIDATE FOR THE PRESIDENCY. 74! 
 
 says Mr. Greeley, " the struggle ended with his last breath, and even 
 his mother was convinced that his eyes would never again open on 
 the scenes of this world, I knew that the summer of my life was 
 over, that the chill breath of its autumn was at hand, and that my 
 future course must be along the downhill of life." 
 
 We close our narrative with the nomination of Mr. Greeley as can- 
 didate for the presidency of the United States by the Cincinnati 
 Convention, in May of the present year. As it has been our aim in 
 the preceding sketch to illustrate the personal qualities of Mr. Greeley, 
 by which he has overcome the force of circumstances, and risen to 
 the rank of one of the foremost American citizens, rather than to 
 exhibit an analysis of his political career, or to engage in the dis- 
 cussion of his political views, we simply record the event without 
 superfluous comment. 
 
 Mr. Greeley, although now entering upon the decline of life, 
 evinces no diminution of physical or intellectual strength. His 
 habits of rigid temperance have been favorable to the preservation of 
 his powers, and enabled him to accomplish an amount of labor at 
 which, in most cases, the most strenuous industry would stand appalled. 
 In addition to his unceasing toil as a daily journalist, he has written 
 several elaborate volumes which attest the variety of his attainments, 
 .the extent of his literary culture, and the persistence of his mental 
 activity. Among the productions of his pen are several poems, most 
 of them composed at an early age, which betray a liveliness of im- 
 agination, and a sense of rhythmical harmony, that are rarely found 
 in union with talents and tastes of so decidedly practical a cast. For 
 himself, however, he disdains all pretensions to the character of a 
 poet, and prefers to rest his fame on the utility of his writings. His 
 true position among his countrymen is that which we have endeavored 
 to illustrate in the present memoir, as an example of the conquest of 
 difficulties by force of character. The lesson of his life is the lesson 
 of self-reliance and self-help as the great conditions of success. 
 
 [NOTE. The writer of the preceding memoir acknowledges his obligations to 
 the " Life of Horace Greeley," by James Parton, and to Mr. Greeley's " Recollec- 
 tions of a Busy Life," for the facts on which his narrative is founded.
 
 PART III. 
 
 MEN OF THE PEOPLE 
 
 WHO BECAME 
 
 PUBLIC BENEFACTORS.
 
 JOHN FREDERICK OBERLIN. 
 
 THE individual whose entertaining and most instructive life we 
 now bring to the notice of the reader, is a remarkable exempli- 
 fication of the good which an actively benevolent person may some- 
 times accomplish, in a particular locality, under the most disadvan- 
 tageous circumstances. 
 
 Oberlin was a native of Strasbourg, and, after being educated as a 
 Lutheran clergyman, was appointed, in 1767, when twenty-seven 
 years o( age, to the Cure of Waldbach, in the Ban de la Roche, a 
 high and sterile valley in Alsace. His mind was animated with the 
 most ardent desire of usefulness, not only in his profession, but in 
 many other respects; and greatly did his parish need the attentions 
 of such a philanthropist. The whole valley afforded subsistence, and 
 that of the most wretched kind, for only about a hundred families, 
 who were a race of rude and ignorant rustics, cut off by their pecul- 
 iar dialect, as well as by the inaccessibility of their situation, from 
 all the rest of mankind. The husbandmen were destitute of the 
 commonest implements, and had no means of procuring them ; they 
 had no knowledge of agriculture beyond the routine practices of their 
 forefathers; they were ground down and irritated by a hateful feudal 
 service. He devoted himself to the correction of these evils, at the 
 same time that he labored in his spiritual vocation. The people at 
 first did not comprehend his plans or appreciate his motives. Igno- 
 rance is always suspicious. They resolved, with the dogged perti- 
 nacity with which the uneducated of all ranks cling to the rubbish 
 of old customs, not to submit to innovations. 
 
 The peasants agreed on one occasion to waylay and beat him, and 
 on another to duck him in a cistern. He boldly confronted them, 
 and subdued their hearts by courageous mildness. But he did more ; 
 he gave up exhorting the people to pursue their real interests ; he 
 practically showed them the vast benefits which competent knowl- 
 edge and well-directed industry would procure for them. 
 
 These mountaineers in many respects were barbarians ; and he
 
 746 JOHN FREDERICK OBERLIN. 
 
 resolved to civilize them, as all savages are civilized, by bringing them 
 into contact with more enlightened communities. The Ban de la 
 Roche had no roads. The few passes in the mountains were con- 
 stantly broken up by the torrents, or obstructed by the loosened 
 earth which fell from the overhanging rocks. The river Bruche, 
 which flows through the Canton, had no bridge but one of stepping 
 stones. Within a few miles of this isolated district was Strasbourg, 
 abounding in wealth and knowledge, and in all the refinements of 
 civilization. He determined to open a regular communication be- 
 tween the Ban de la Roche and that city; to find there a market for 
 the produce of his own district, and to bring thence in exchange 
 new comforts and new means of improvement. He assembled the 
 people, explained his objects, and proposed that they should blast the 
 rocks to make a wall, a mile and a half in length, to support a road 
 by the river, over which a bridge must also be made. The peas- 
 ants one and all declared the thing was impossible, and every one 
 excused himself from engaging in such an unreasonable scheme. 
 Oberlin exhorted them, reasoned with them, appealed to them as 
 husbands and fathers, but in vain. He at last threw a pickax upon 
 his shoulder and went to work himself, assisted by a trusty servant. 
 He had soon the support of fellow-laborers. He regarded not the 
 thorns by which his hands were torn, nor the loose stones which fell 
 from the rocks and bruised them. His heart was in the work, and 
 no difficulty could stop him. He devoted his own little property to 
 the undertaking ; he raised subscriptions among his old friends, and 
 tools were bought for all who were willing to use them. 
 
 On the Sunday the good pastor labored in his calling as a teacher 
 of sacred truths; but on Monday he rose with the sun to his work 
 of practical benevolence, and, marching at the head of two hundred 
 of his flock, went with renewed vigor to his conquest over the natural 
 obstacles to the civilization of the district. In three years the road 
 was finished, the bridge was built, and the communication with Stras- 
 bourg was established. The ordinary results of intercourse between 
 a poor and a wealthy, a rude and an intelligent community, were 
 soon felt. * The people of the Ban de la Roche obtained tools, and 
 Oberlin taught their young men the necessity of learning other trades 
 besides that of cultivating the earth. He apprenticed the boys to 
 Carpenters, Masons, Glaziers, Blacksmiths, and Cartwrights, at Stras- 
 bourg. In a few years these arts, which were wholly unknown to the 
 district, began to flourish. The tools were kept in good order ; wheel- 
 carriages became common ; the wretched cabins were converted into 
 snug cottages; the people felt the value of these great changes, and 
 they began to regard their pastor with unbounded reverence. 
 
 Oberlin, however, had still some prejudices to encounter in carry- 
 ing forward the education of this rude population. He desired to 
 teach them better modes of cultivating their sterile soil; but they 
 would not listen to him. " What," said they, with the common preju-
 
 FORCE OF EXAMPLE. 747 
 
 dice of all agricultural people in secluded districts, " what could he 
 know of crops, who had been bred in a town?" It was useless-to 
 reason with them ; he instructed them by example. He had two 
 large gardens near his parsonage, crossed by footpaths. The soil was 
 exceedingly poor ; but he trenched and manured the ground with a 
 thorough knowledge of what he was about, and planted it with fruit 
 trees. The trees flourished, to the great astonishment of the peas- 
 ants ; and they at length entreated their pastor to tell them his secret. 
 He explained his system, and gave them slips out of his nursery. 
 Planting and grafting soon became the taste of the district, and in 
 a few years the bare and desolate cottages were surrounded by smil- 
 ing orchards. The potatoes of the Canton, the chief food of the 
 people, had so degenerated that the fields yielded the most scanty 
 produce. The peasants maintained that the ground was in fault ; Ober- 
 lin on the contrary procured new seed. The soil of the mountains 
 was really peculiarly favorable to the cultivation of this root, and the 
 good minister's crop of course succeeded. 
 
 The force of example was again felt, and an abundance of potatoes 
 soon returned to the canton. In like manner Oberlin introduced 
 the culture of Dutch clover and flax, and at length overcame the 
 most obstinate prejudice, in converting unprofitable pastures into 
 arable land. Like all agricultural improvers, he taught the people 
 the value of manure and the best modes of reducing every substance 
 into useful compost. The maxim which he incessantly repeated was, 
 " let nothing be lost." He established an Agricultural Society and 
 founded prizes for the most skillful farmers. In ten years from his 
 acceptance of the pastoral office in the Ban de la Roche, he had 
 opened communications between each of the five parishes of the Can- 
 ton and with Strasbourg, introduced some of the most useful arts 
 into a district where they had been utterly neglected, and raised the 
 agriculture of these poor mountaineers from a barbarous tradition into 
 a practical science. Such were some of the effects of education in 
 the most comprehensive sense of the word. The instruction which 
 Oberlin afforded to the adults of his Canton was only just as much as 
 was necessary, to remove the most pressing evils of their outward 
 condition, and to impress them with a deep sense of religious obli- 
 gation. 
 
 But his education of the young had a wider range. When he 
 entered the ministry, the hut which his predecessor had built was 
 the only school-house of the five villages composing the Canton. It 
 had been constructed of unseasoned logs, and was soon in a ruinous 
 condition. The people, however, would not hear of a new building ; 
 the log-house had answered very well, and was good enough for their 
 time. Oberlin was not to be so deterred from the pursuit of his 
 benevolent wishes. He applied to his friends at Strasbourg, and took 
 upon himself a heavy pecuniary' responsibility. A new building was 
 soon completed at Waldbach, and in a few years the inhabitants in
 
 748 JOHN FREDERICK OBERLIN. 
 
 the four other parishes came voluntarily forward to build a school- 
 honse in each of the villages. Oberlin engaged zealously in the prep- 
 aration of teachers for these establishments, which were to receive 
 all the children of the district when of a proper age. But he also 
 carried the principle of education farther than it had ever gone in 
 any country. He was the founder of infant schools. He saw that, 
 almost from the cradle, children were capable of instruction ; that 
 evil habits began much earlier than the world had been accustomed 
 to believe ; and that the facility with which mature education might 
 be conducted, greatly depended upon the impressions which the rea- 
 son and the imagination of infants might receive. He appointed 
 conductrices in each commune, paid at his own expense, and established 
 rooms, where children from two to six might be instructed and amused ; 
 he thus gave the model of those beautiful institutions which have first 
 shown us how the happiness of a child may be associated with its 
 improvement, and how knowledge and the discipline which leads to 
 knowledge are not necessarily 
 
 " Harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose." 
 
 The children in these little establishments were not kept " from morn 
 till noon, from noon till dewy eve," over the horn-book and primer. 
 They were taught to knit, and sew, and spin ; and when they were 
 weary, they had pictures to look at, and maps Engraved on wood for 
 their special use, of their own Canton, of Alsace, of France, and of 
 Europe. They sang songs and hymns, and they were never suffered 
 to speak a word of patois. This last regulation shows the practical 
 wisdom of their instructor. There are parts of Great Britain which 
 will always fall short of the general civilization, as long as the langu- 
 ages which have no literature continue to be spoken there. The 
 Welsh, and Irish, and Gaelic, however venerable in the eyes of the 
 antiquaries, are effectual obstacles to the civilization of the districts 
 from which they are not yet rooted out. 
 
 When the children of the Ban de la Roche the children of peas- 
 ants, be it remembered, who a few years before the blessing of such 
 a pastor as Oberlin was bestowed upon them, were not only steeped 
 to the lips in poverty, but were groping in that darkness of the un- 
 derstanding which too often accompanies extreme indigence; when 
 these children were removed to the higher schools, which possessed 
 the most limited funds, they were taught reading, writing, arithmetic, 
 geography, astronomy, sacred and profane history, agriculture, natural 
 history, especially botany, natural philosophy, music, and drawing. 
 Oberlin reserved for himself, almost exclusively, the religious instruc- 
 tion of this large family ; and he established a weekly meeting of all 
 the scholars at Waldbach. The inhabitants of Strasbourg and of all 
 the neighboring towrfc from which the Ban de la Roche had been 
 recently cut off, came to look upon the wonders which one man had 
 effected. Subscriptions poured in upon the disinterested pastor, and
 
 WHAT THE CHILDREN LEARNED. 749 
 
 endowments were added. Well did he use this assistance ; he founded 
 a valuable library for the use of the children ; he printed a number 
 of the best school-books for their particular instruction ; he made a 
 collection of philosophical and mathematical instruments ; he estab- 
 lished prizes for teachers and scholars. 
 
 Thus did this extraordinary man strive to raise the intellectual 
 standard of his parishioners, whilst he labored to preserve the purity 
 of their morals and the strength of their piety. Never did religion 
 present more attractive features than in the secluded districts of the 
 Ban de la Roche. The love of God was constantly inculcated as a 
 rule of life ; but the principle was enforced with no ascetic desire to 
 separate it from the usefulness and the enjoyment of existence. The 
 studies in which these poor children were trained, contributed as 
 much to their happiness as to their knowledge. They were not con- 
 fined for years to copying large text and small hand, to learning by 
 rote the one spelling-book, to hammerring at the four rules of arith- 
 metic without understanding their principles or their more practical 
 applications. 
 
 The children of Oberlin's schools were taught whatever could be 
 useful to them in their Agricultural and Rural life, and whatever 
 could enable them to extract happiness out of their ordinary pur- 
 suits. They were incited to compose short essays on the manage- 
 ment of the farm and orchard ; they were led into the woods in 
 search of indigenous plants, to acquire their names, and to cultivate 
 them in their own little gardens ; they were instructed in the delight- 
 ful art of copying these flowers from nature; it was impressed upon 
 their minds that as they lived in a district separated by mountains 
 from the rest of mankind, and, moreover, a district naturally sterile, 
 it was their peculiar duty to contribute something towards the gen- 
 eral prosperity, and thus previously to receiving Religious Confirma- 
 tion, Oberlin required a certificate that the young person had planted 
 two trees. Trees were to be planted, roads were to be put into good 
 condition and ornamented, to please Him " who rejoices when we 
 labor for the public good." Surely a community thus trained to ac- 
 quire substantial knowledge, equally conducive to individual happi- 
 ness and general utility, were likely to become virtuous and orderly 
 members of society, contented in their stations, respectful to their 
 superiors, kind to each other, hospitable to the stranger, and tolerant 
 to those who differed from them in opinion. Oberlin lived to see 
 the excellent results of his wise and benevolent system. 
 
 In 1784 Oberlin lost his excellent wife. There was a servant in 
 his family, an orphan named Louisa Schepler, who had been brought 
 up in his schools, and was afterwards one of the conductrices of the 
 Infant establishments. After being the nurse of Oberlin's children 
 for nine years following the death of their mother, the poor girl 
 wrote to her master, to beg that she might be allowed to serve him 
 without wages.
 
 750 JOHN FREDERICK OBERLIN. 
 
 "Do not, I entreat you," she says, "give me any more wages; 
 for as you treat me like your child in every other respect, I earnestly 
 wish you to do so 'in this particular also. Little is needful for the 
 support of my body. My shoes, my stockings and sabots will cost 
 something ; but when I want them I can, as a child, ask you for them, 
 
 In the course of twenty years, the population of the Ban de la 
 Roche had increased to six times the number that Oberlin found 
 them when he entered upon his charge. The knowledge which their 
 pastor gave to the people gave to them also the means of living, and 
 the increase of their means increased their numbers. The good min- 
 ister found employment for all. In addition to their Agricultural pur- 
 suits, he taught Straw-plaiting, Knitting, and Dyeing with the plants 
 of the country. 
 
 In the course of years, Mr. Legrand, of Basle, a wealthy and phil- 
 anthropic manufacturer, who had been a Director of the Helvetic 
 Republic, introduced the weaving of Silk Ribbons into the district. 
 
 The people of the Ban de la Roche for eighty years had been in 
 dispute with the seigneurs about their right to the forest, to which 
 each party laid claim. In 1813 Oberlin persuaded his flock to come 
 to an accommodation, which should at the same time have respect 
 to the claims of the owners, and secure a due portion of their own 
 proper privileges. He convinced them that this ruinous contest was 
 the scourge of the country, and that it was the duty of all men to live 
 in peace. The parties agreed to an accommodation advantageous to 
 both sides; and the pen with which the deed of pacification was 
 signed was solemnly presented to him by the Mayors of the Canton. 
 It was for that pen to record, as clearly as facts can speak, that an ed- 
 ucated people are the truest respectors of the rights of property ! 
 Without an acquaintance with their political duties (that part of edu- 
 cation which is often most fearfully neglected among ourselves), Ober- 
 lin could never have convinced those peasants that any portion of 
 the claims of the signeurs were founded in justice and the common 
 good. 
 
 Oberlin died in the year 1827, when he had attained a very great 
 age. The difficulties which he had surmounted, and the actual good 
 which he did, should be a lesson of encouragement to all individuals 
 who may be situated with the means of producing some local im- 
 provement within their reach. In the fullness of his heart, the venerable 
 man, looking round upon the valleys which he had filled with the 
 peacefulness of contented industry, and upon the people whom he had 
 trained to knowledge, and to virtue the best fruit of knowledge, he ex- 
 claimed, "Yes, I am happy !" And when he died he was followed to the 
 grave by an entire population, upon whom he, a poor but industrious 
 clergyman, had showered innumerable blessings, the least of which 
 the idle and self-indulging lord of thousands has neither the grace 
 to will nor the spirit to bestow.
 
 STEPHEN GIRAKD. 
 
 FEW individuals in recent times have rendered themselves more 
 famous than this eccentric and singular Frenchman, who for 
 sixty years resided in Philadelphia, and became one of its greatest 
 merchants and bankers. He did not possess much of that true worth 
 which should render his memory respected, but his life presents a re- 
 markable instance of great results, achieved by small means carefully 
 and skillfully managed. 
 
 Girard was a native of Bourdeaux, and was born in the year 1750. 
 His parents were poor, and he received no other education than is 
 implied in the fact that when he was a child he was taught to read 
 and write. Although nearly his entire manhood was spent in his 
 adopted city he never acquired a sufficient knowledge of the English 
 language to speak it correctly ; but the native vigor of his mind sup- 
 plied in large measure such deficiencies as in most other men, would 
 have been insuperable barriers to success. 
 
 In his mature years he often referred to the ridicule, from which he 
 suffered in his early youth, because of the distorted features of his 
 face, produced by his defective eye. 
 
 At the age of ten or twelve years he shipped as a cabin boy on a 
 small vessel bound to the West Indies, and afterwards sailed from 
 New York in the same humble capacity. At this time his conduct 
 was so exemplary as to win the complete good-will of the master of 
 the vessel ; he was so much pleased with his fidelity and industry, 
 that he not long after gave him the command of a small craft, in 
 which Girard made several voyages to New Orleans and other ports. 
 His great frugality and success in such small speculations as he could 
 then engage in, put it in his power soon to become part owner of a 
 vessel, in which he continued to sail as master. 
 
 In 1769 Girard, then but nineteen years of age, established himself 
 in Philadelphia, and in the course of the next year he married Polly 
 
 (750
 
 752 HIS CHARACTER AND HABITS. 
 
 Lum, the pretty daughter of a caulker, then in her seventeenth year, 
 and a servant girl in his neighborhood. His marriage did not prove 
 a happy one, because of the asperity of his temper ; and the final 
 result was a divorce from his wife, who afterwards became insane, and 
 for the last twenty-five years of her life she was an inmate (1790 to 
 1815) of a lunatic asylum. She bore him but one child, who died in 
 infancy. 
 
 Girard's commercial operations were interrupted by the war 
 of the Revolution, so that for several years he was occupied as a 
 grocer and dealer in liquors ; he, however, again entered the West 
 India, trade, and was soon recognized as a rich man. Though he was 
 in general, morose in his manners, and harsh in his disposition, yet, 
 during the prevalence of the yellow fever at Philadelphia, in 1793, ne 
 distinguished himself by his active benevolence in attending the sick, 
 and on all occasions he manifested a singular readiness to afford 
 medical advice and personal assistance to such sufferers as came under 
 his notice, while,' at the same time, he would never relieve the distresses 
 of his friends or relatives, whether their troubles arose from bodily 
 ailments or a collapsed condition of purse. 
 
 The first impressions upon the spectator made by Stephen Girard 
 were decidedly unfavorable ; his person was altogether quite forbid- 
 ding. His vulgar exterior, his cold, abstracted, and taciturn habits 
 did not fail to excite in the mind of the casual observer a feeling ap- 
 proaching to contempt. He was short and square built, and resembled 
 an old sailor. His wall-eye, mean garb, and general presence con- 
 trasted so strikingly with his large fortune, that one could scarcely 
 fail to feel disgusted at his appearance and bearing. He was partially 
 deaf in one ear, and his conversation was sadly disfigured by his 
 broken French dialect. He talked but little, except on business, and 
 then said no more than was necessary to make himself understood. 
 His volubility, however, when excited by anger, was without a parallel, 
 especially when among his workmen and dependents, and his language 
 was not either refined or courteous. But to compensate for these 
 ebullitions of temper towards his inferiors, he had the art of concili- 
 ating them by the most fascinating displays of occasional good nature, 
 which impressed them favorably, and led to great readiness on their 
 part to serve him devotedly. 
 
 In his habits of attention to business, Mr. Girard was precise and 
 regular; perhaps more so at his counting-room than at his bank. On 
 discount days, at the latter, he observed regular hours. During the 
 spring and summer months he was accustomed to spend an hour or 
 two each morning in a garden attached to his bank, where he em- 
 ployed himself in nursing his fig-trees, dressing his shrubs, and prun- 
 ing his vines. 
 
 At the venerable age of eighty-one he died, and was buried without 
 religious ceremonies in a Roman Catholic cemetery. His will devised 
 an immense estate, perhaps greater than was ever before given, for
 
 STEPHEN GIRARD. 753 
 
 purposes wholly beneficent and charitable, which led to prolonged 
 litigation in the courts of Pennsylvania. In these legal contests 
 Daniel Webster and other eminent counsel were conspicuous. 
 
 Mr. Girard's estate was valued at about twelve millions of dollars, 
 and was all devoted to educating destitute children, and the relief of 
 the poor and distressed. To the Pennsylvania Hospital he bequeathed 
 30,000, charged with an annuity of $200 to a female slave whom 
 he set free ; to the Deaf and Dumb Asylum, $20,000 ; to the Phila- 
 delphia Orphan Asylum, $10,000 ; to the Philadelphia Public Schools, 
 $10,000 ; to the City Corporation, for investment, the interest to be 
 applied annually for the purchase of fuel for the poor, $ 10,000 ; 
 to the Society of Shipmasters, to relieve distressed masters, their 
 widows and children, $10,000; to the Grand Lodge of Free- 
 masons, Pennsylvania, $10,000; for a school for poor white 
 children in Passayunk (where his farm was), $6,000 ; legacies to 
 individuals, about $120,000; annuities amounting to about $4,000; 
 to the city of New Orleans, 1,000 acres of improved land in Louisi- 
 ana, and one-third of 207,000 acres of unimproved land in said state, 
 the remaining two-thirds being devised to the city of Philadelphia ; 
 to the latter city, stock in the Schuylkill Navigation Company, 
 $110,000; for the erection and endowment of a (Girard) College 
 (Philadelphia), for poor white male orphans, $200,000, with provision 
 that, should this sum prove insufficient, the necessary sum should be 
 taken from the residuary fund ; to Philadelphia, for certain city im- 
 provements, to be invested and the interest annually applied, $500,000; 
 to the State of Pennsylvania for internal improvements by canals, 
 $300,000 ; to the city of Philadelphia, all his remaining real and 
 personal estate (no part of the former to be sold), estimated to be 
 worth $8,000,000, in aid of the Orphans' ("Girard") College, if 
 needed, for improvements of the city, and the relief of taxes. The 
 control and guardianship of the college was given to the Mayor, 
 Aldermen, and citizens of Philadelphia, and the site fixed by Mr. 
 Girard on " Peel Hill," situated, as stated then, in Pennsylvania 
 Township, on the Ridge Road, on premises containing forty-five 
 acres, on which such buildings were to be erected as would accom- 
 modate at least 300 scholars, with buildings for teachers and all pur- 
 poses proper to the institution. In his will Mr. Girard gave particular 
 directions for constructing the buildings as to form, size, and materials. 
 The foundations of the main edifice were laid in the summer of 1833, 
 but the structure was not completed and opened until the beginning of 
 1848. The principal building is said to be the finest modern speci- 
 men of Grecian architecture. The form is that of a Corinthian temple, 
 surrounded by a portico, having thirty-four columns, each six feet in 
 diameter and fifty-five high, resting on a basis of eleven white marble 
 steps. The building is ninety-seven feet high, one hundred and eleven 
 feet wide, and one hundred and sixty-nine feet long. The walls are 
 of white marble, and the stairways and roof also. The entrances are 
 48
 
 754 GIRARD COLLEGE. 
 
 on the north and south fronts, each having doorways thirty-two feet 
 high and sixteen feet- wide. There are twenty-four windows on each of 
 the east and west sides. Mr. Girard's remains were buried beneath the 
 center of the lower vestibule and are covered by a marble statue. 
 Besides this main edifice there are five other buildings within the in- 
 closure a laboratory, a wash-house, bakery, etc. The cost of erect- 
 ing the whole was but little less than $2, 000,000. Provision was 
 made by the will for supporting as many poor orphans as the premises 
 could be made to accommodate ; first, those of Philadelphia ; secondly, 
 those of Pennsylvania ; thirdly, those of the city of New York ; and, 
 fourthly, of New Orleans. These poor orphans to be taught " the 
 various branches of a sound education," etc., etc., and "the French 
 and Spanish languages," the Latin not being forbidden, but not recom- 
 mended. Also such other learning and science to be taught as the 
 capacities of the several scholars should merit or warrant. Principles 
 of morality to be inculcated, but, in the terms of the founder's will 
 (showing his singular and eccentric character), no ecclesiastic mis- 
 sionary or minister, of any sect whatsoever, shall ever hold or exercise 
 any station or duty whatever in said college ; nor shall any such per- 
 son ever be admitted within the premises appropriated to the purposes 
 of said college." Orphans are admitted between the ages of six and ten 
 years, and are fed, clothed, and educated, and when between fourteen 
 and eighteen years are bound out to learn some useful occupation, often 
 to agriculturists, mechanics, etc. As many are admitted to the insti- 
 tution as the endowment will support. 
 
 It is to be remarked that the trustees of Girard College early decided 
 to introduce the Bible for the use of the scholars, as not being incon- 
 sistent with the will of the founder ; and as a commentary upon the 
 course of human events, it may be stated that the present President 
 of that noble institution is likewise President of the American Bible 
 Society, and an LL. D. of eminent attainments and the highest 
 religious character, who fills his position in the college acceptably 
 and with signal ability. 
 
 Mr. Girard died in 1831, and now, after an interval of forty years, 
 no clergyman is allowed to enter the college or its beautiful grounds, 
 situated on Girard Avenue, in one of the most beautiful portions of 
 Philadelphia.
 
 GEORGE PEABODY. 
 
 1 "ARLY in November, 1869, some unusually solemn funeral 
 ^ obsequies were celebrated in Westminster Abbey. Under the 
 noble arches of that venerable pile, where repose the ashes of Eng- 
 land's most famous dead ; where the dust of sovereigns mingles with 
 the common clay of earth ; where sleeps the long line of kingly 
 poets, whose potent genius has moved for centuries the tears and 
 laughter of the world ; where philosopher and divine, prince and 
 statesman, form a hallowed circle, within which no meaner name than 
 that of royalty dare enter, stood the simple coffin of George Peabody, 
 merchant. Among all the reverend shadows which haunt the spot, 
 lay the remains of the American country boy, graduate of America's 
 humblest university, the New England District School ; the mer- 
 chant, who had climbed by low steps to princely fortune ; the phi- 
 lanthropist, who in his old age had so endeared himself to the hearts 
 of two English-speaking peoples, that each vied with the other to do 
 honor to his dust. Around his coffin earls doffed hats and stood with 
 uncovered heads while a royal bishop read the funeral service ; and 
 when all was over, the carriage of a queen followed his embalmed body 
 to the ship of royal line, which was to bear it to the humble shades 
 of a New England cemetery, for its final resting-place. Never did 
 simple worth and pure benevolence command their meed of reverence 
 more fully than in the case of the man of whose life these pages pro- 
 pose to give a brief epitome. 
 
 George Peabody belongs to an old and respectable family. In 
 the first record of the business transactions of the town of Topsfield, 
 Massachusetts, the name of Lieutenant Francis Peabody appears. He 
 came from Hertfordshire, England, in 1667. His wife was a daughter 
 of Reginald (or Roland) Foster, who was of the party at Branksome 
 Hall, when Scots and English together toasted " Cranstown's lord 
 and fair Margaret." 
 
 (755)
 
 756 GEORGE PEABODY. 
 
 * M Where many a yeoman, bold and free, 
 Revelled as merrily and well. 
 As those that sat in lordly selle. 
 Watt Tinlinn there did frankly raise 
 The pledge to Arthur Fire-the-braes ; 
 And he, as by his breeding bound, 
 To Howard's merry-men sent it round. 
 To quit them, on the English side, 
 Red Roland Foster loudly cried, 
 'A deep carouse to yon fair bride.' " 
 
 Of Lieutenant Francis Peabody's five stalwart sons, three went to 
 reside in Boxford, the other two remaining in Topsfield. From these 
 five brothers sprang all the American Peabodys'. Several of these 
 have stood high in different professions, and especially in the ministry, 
 where are found many eminent names. 
 
 Thomas Peabody, the father of George, lived in South Danvers, 
 Massachusetts, a characteristic New England village, adjoining the old 
 town of Salem. Of all the towns in this country where the laws of 
 growth and change prevail, none better prove the exception to the 
 almost universal rule, than those old towns which cluster about some 
 of the seaport cities of New England as their commercial and metro- 
 politan center. Danvers, Marblehead, Ipswich, and half a dozen 
 other villages near Salem, lead year after year, a quiet, changeless ex- 
 istence, unconscious of the moving of those forces which every twenty- 
 five or thirty years build up a Chicago, Cincinnati, or San Francisco. 
 When George Peabody was born, February i8th, 1795, we doubt if 
 his eyes opened upon a very different scene from that which the 
 visitor to his birth-place would behold to-day. The elms have grown 
 larger, the houses have had an occasional coat of white paint, the 
 blinds a fresh green ; but there is the same long village street, 
 bordered with quiet-looking houses, and the same straggling suburbs, 
 which wander off to join the town of Salem, as in George Peabody's 
 early days. The chief marks of improvement are the fine building 
 which the town owes to his generosity, and the single horse-car track, 
 stretching out from Salem, over which a one-horse car rolls at rare 
 intervals during the day. 
 
 The house where he was born is still standing just the house you 
 would expect to find : Two stories, with the front door in the 
 middle; two windows each side of the front door; the house built 
 close to the street, and painted white, with green blinds. The blinds 
 are probably a modern improvement, and so is the long L built out 
 from the main body. In George's childhood, no doubt, green paper 
 curtains flapped at the windows to exclude the sun in summer ; and 
 the four rooms in the main part of the house were then large enough 
 to serve the growing family of Thomas Peabody. The house is built 
 in the strong, staunch fashion of those times, the rooms, perhaps 
 
 * Lay of Last Minstrel. SCOTT.
 
 THE GROCER'S CLERK. 757 
 
 seven feet high, having a heavy beam running across the ceiling, under 
 which a tall man would stoop to pass. The Peabodys, it seems, did 
 not often grow too tall for such a ceiling, and George Peabody him- 
 self, although he was a broad-shouldered, well-made man, was never 
 of such commanding height that he was obliged to stoop in the home 
 of his boyhood. 
 
 We know little of his early days, but it requires small stretch of 
 the imagination to paint them. He was a member of the district 
 school, and learned there a little reading and spelling and geography. 
 There was not much need of studying the "History of our country," 
 for the Revolutionary War was fresh in his father's memory. When 
 George Peabody was born, Washington was serving out the last year 
 of his second term of the Presidency. He was instructed principally 
 in Penmanship and Arithmetic, and must have improved his oppor- 
 tunities for perfection in the former branch, for it is related of him, 
 that, when he was fifteen years old, a clerk in his brother's store in 
 Newburyport, he earned the first money, outside his meager salary, 
 by writing ballots for the Federal party, on election day. All his 
 life, too, he is said to have written a precise and very shapely hand. 
 He undoubtedly mastered the rudiments of Arithmetic in these early 
 days, but he must have added largely to his slender stock of knowl- 
 edge before he could decide the fate of the millions which flowed 
 through the great banking house of Peabody & Co., in London. 
 
 The Peabodys, as a family, took to trade, and not to the farm. 
 Two of the family were already proprietors of country stores, when 
 George entered the employment of Mr. Sylvester Proctor in Danvers. 
 Amid a motley assortment of codfish, calico, oil, molasses, stockings 
 knit of home-spun yarn, drugs and patent medicines, the boy of 
 eleven began business life. Four years were spent in this employ- 
 ment, patiently and honorably spent, till the boy had grown into a 
 strippling of fifteen. In the main street of South Danvers (now called 
 Peabody) one can still see the old building, half store and half dwell- 
 ing-house, with a little window high up among the rafters, which 
 looks out from the attic bedroom where George Peabody slept when 
 he lived under his employer's roof. 
 
 At fifteen, his mode of life took a sudden change for a year. Per- 
 haps he wished to try if a farmer's life would suit his taste better 
 than the grocer's store ; perhaps his parents wanted him to have a 
 little rest after the long years of confinement at the counter. At any 
 rate, he went to his grandfather's farm in Thetford, Vermont, to spend 
 a year there. 
 
 His grandfather, Jeremiah Dodge (his mother's father), and his 
 uncle Eliaphet, both owned fertile farms in the Connecticut valley, 
 in that part of Thetford known as Post Mills village. Here George 
 found a great family of cousins, stout boys, who worked on their 
 father's farm, and brisk, deft-handed girls, who took care of the dairy,
 
 758 GEORGE PEABODY. 
 
 spun and wove the cloth for family use, and worked cheerfully from 
 morn till eve. 
 
 It is probable that George joined the boys in their labor; and it is 
 likely, also, that he may have added to his scanty store of book- 
 learning by attending the winter school. For this surmise we can 
 find no confirmation ; but if he did go to school that winter, it was 
 his last and only opportunity. From the time he left Vermont, he 
 plunged into active life ; and "all his after culture must have come 
 from his experience and observation in the great world of trade and 
 society. Perhaps his lack of early educational advantages gave to 
 him his thorough respect for books, libraries, and all such appliances 
 of learning. Certain it is, that all his charities leaned largely in one 
 direction. Wherever any portion of his life, from earliest boyhood, 
 had been spent, he has marked that spot in our memories, by a gift 
 to promote intelligence and culture there. Thus the little village of 
 Post Mills, Thetford, bears evidence of his bounty in the shape of a 
 town library, free to the inhabitants, which has the name of " Pea- 
 body Library." 
 
 After a year in Thetford, George went back to his father's house in 
 Danvers. On his return, he passed through Concord, the elm-shaded 
 capital of New Hampshire. Years after, when he was the honored 
 guest of that city, one of the committee who were entertaining him 
 asked if he had ever been in Concord before. 
 
 " Yes, sir, once certainly," answered Peabody, with a twinkle of the 
 eye, "I spent one night here in journeying from my grandfather's, 
 in Thetford, Vermont. I put up at the hotel here, and sawed wood 
 enough to pay for my night's lodging." 
 
 In 1811, being now sixteen years old, he joined his brother David 
 in the old town of Newburyport. Here the elder had established a 
 "dry goods store," and hither George went to serve as his clerk 
 and assistant. His manners were always marked by that true and 
 hearty courtesy which won him friends in all his business relations. 
 The affability he showed to customers, the alacrity with which he car- 
 ried out the wishes of his employers, were always marked traits in 
 his character. Even after his immense fortune was made, he was 
 noted for his suavity in all his business transactions. A bluff, old 
 drayman, who was often employed to transport luggage for him, used 
 to say : " Mr. Peabody, bless his soul, why he would be just as nice 
 a man if he wasn't worth a dollar. He is such an easy and com- 
 fortable kind of a man to have "round." 
 
 His stay in Newburyport was brought to a sudden close. New- 
 buryport, in later times, has been famous for its fires. For years, 
 sudden and inexplicable conflagrations have formed the staple excite- 
 ment of that otherwise torpid old city. We are, therefore, not sur- 
 prised to learn that a sudden fire broke out one evening in David 
 Peabody's store, and consumed the building and stock of goods. 
 George was just putting up the shutters, and he was the first to give the
 
 A SOLDIER OF THE WAR OF l8l2. 759 
 
 alarm.- It was too late, however; and with the burning of his broth- 
 er's store, his residence in Newburyport ended. 
 
 This was the first turn in the tide of his affairs which helped him on 
 to fortune. If he had remained in Newburyport, in company with 
 his brother, he might have achieved a mediocre success as a retail 
 merchant. But the fire drove him away, and, going out into larger 
 fields for business, he soon found the measure of his power. 
 
 His uncle, John Peabody, was keeping store in Georgetown, near 
 Washington, D. C., and, on hearing of the calamity in Newburyport, 
 he sent for George to come to him. With his uncle he remained 
 two years, winning golden opinions from all who knew him, by his 
 politeness, his genial manners, and his attention to business. 
 
 He was an agreeable companion, too, ready with a good joke, and had 
 a hearty appreciation of fun. He was a keen sportsman, and, above 
 all, fond of Isaac Walton's favorite pursuit. His salary was still very 
 small, and his habits were frugal always, but a select society of young 
 men, who knew no lack of pocket-money, were, glad to pay his ex- 
 penses in fishing and hunting parties, if he would join them, in his 
 leisure hours. 
 
 "I would gladly pay his share of the expenses in those days, to 
 share his society, "said one of his old companions, in speaking of their 
 youthful days, long afterwards. 
 
 Shortly after his arrival in Georgetown, the war of 1812, between 
 America and England, broke out. Young Peabody was not yet of 
 legal age for a soldier, but he went forward and offered his services. 
 They were accepted. He was made a member of an artillery force, 
 and sent to Fort Warburton, to guard the river approach to the Cap- 
 ital. But the expected attack was not then made by the British, and 
 Peabody was released from active duty. Years afterwards, Congress 
 remembered his services with the gift of one hundred acres of land. 
 
 At the end of the two years spent with his uncle, George Peabody 
 was nineteen years old. His business habits were now formed. All 
 the circumstances of his life, and the natural bent of his character, 
 seem to have been steadily training him for a successful merchant. 
 He was still a youth in years, and in appearance, but a youth who pos- 
 sessed the method and clear insight of a much older man. He had 
 attained his full height, which was about five feet eight, although in 
 later years his portly figure, and the dignity of his bearing, gave him 
 the appearance of a much larger man. He had a clear complexion, 
 an honest, open blue eye, with light hair, and was altogether an em- 
 bodiment of earnest, industrious, intelligent young manhood. 
 
 Mr. Elisha Riggs, of Georgetown, was at this time looking out for 
 a business partner. After considering the matter carefully, he sent 
 for young Peabody, and invited him to join him in the wholesale 
 trade in dry-goods ; he furnishing the capital, and the young partner 
 in the firm transacting the larger part of the business. 
 
 Peabody hesitated. His mind took in at once all the advantages
 
 760 GEORGE PEABODY. 
 
 of this offer to himself. But his strict sense of honesty would not 
 allow him to omit stating to Mr. Riggs what might be disadvantage- 
 ous to him. 
 
 "Mr. Riggs," he said, looking with his honest. blue eyes full into 
 the face of his proposed partner, " I see but one objection to your 
 plan, but I fear you will think that a great one. I am only nineteen 
 years old. I fear I am too young a man to risk your enterprise 
 with." 
 
 " Never mind your age," answered the shrewd merchant. "I know 
 what I want. If /don't find fault with your youth, you need not. 
 Will you accept my offer ?' ' 
 
 The bargain was closed ; and stepping over, in this one stride, sev- 
 eral rounds in the ladder of fortune, George Peabody became the 
 junior partner in the firm of Riggs & Peabody, wholesale mer- 
 chants. 
 
 For a few years his position in the firm was much like that of a 
 commercial traveler. He journeyed through Virginia, Maryland, 
 Pennsylvania, and New York, almost always on horseback, for the 
 country was not then netted with railways, becoming acquainted with 
 the people, and establishing in a large circuit the credit and reputa- 
 tion of the firm. In 1815, the house removed to Baltimore. Sven 
 years later, branch houses were opened in New York and Philadelphia; 
 and in 1830, after sixteen years of partnership, Riggs & Peabody dis- 
 solved. Riggs retired from business, leaving Peabody, at thirty-five 
 years of age, the senior partner in one of the largest and richest 
 mercantile houses in the United States. 
 
 In 1827, before the retirement of Mr. Riggs, Mr. Peabody made 
 his first trip across the Atlantic. After the dissolution of the firm, he 
 gradually withdrew from its business, and finally, in 1837, established a 
 house in London, under the name of George Peabody & Co., Warn- 
 ford Court, City. The financial panic in this country, known as the 
 "crisis of 1837," followed close upon Mr. Peabody's permanent re- 
 moval to London. This year was one of the saddest in our civil 
 history. Three- fourths of all the banks in the country fell, and thou- 
 sands were ruined. American merchants, and those English mer- 
 chants who dealt exclusively with the United States and her securi- 
 ties, saw nothing but disaster staring them in the face. 
 
 In this juncture, the State of Maryland remembered Peabody, and 
 caught at the hope of his serving them in England. They appointed 
 him one of three commissioners to devise some means for saving the 
 credit of the State. His services at this time were never forgotten 
 by Maryland. He worked with disinterested zeal, refusing all remu- 
 neration. "There were probably not a dozen men in Europe," says 
 Edward Everett, "who, upon the subject of American securities, 
 would have been listened to for a moment in the parlor of the 
 Bank of England. But his judgment commanded respect, his integ- 
 rity won back the reliance which men had been accustomed to place
 
 FROM MERCHANT TO BANKER. 761 
 
 on American securities ; and if on this solid basis of unsuspected 
 good-will he reared his own prosperity, let it be remembered that, 
 at the same time, he retrieved the credit of the State of Maryland, 
 of which he was agent, performing the miracle by which the word 
 of an honest man turns paper into gold." 
 
 From 1837 dates his great and constant increase of prosperity. In 
 London, and in all the manufacturing centers, he bought English 
 manufactures at the lowest prices, shipped them to the United States, 
 and in return received American produce. But this was not the trade 
 which brought him most profit. The merchants and manufacturers, 
 American and English, who dealt with him, often procured money 
 advances from him on account of the goods they had placed in his 
 hands before they could be sold. Others left money with him after 
 the goods were disposed of, knowing they could draw a fair rate of 
 interest while it remained in his hands. Thus gradually he slid from 
 the occupation of a merchant to that of a banker, and finally dealt 
 altogether in money and securities. His career of prosperity is 
 almost unexampled. In six years from the time he was fixed in Lon- 
 don, and was negotiating to save the credit of his adopted State, he 
 was running a race with rich houses as those of Gurney, Rothschilds, 
 and the Barings. 
 
 The head of the house of Baring was Joshua Bates, also an Ameri- 
 can, and a native of Massachusetts. He was born in Weymouth, and 
 had been in England since 1815. His benefactions were noble, and 
 the magnificent reading-room in the Boston Public Library bears the 
 name of Bates Hall, from the munificent endowment which he gave 
 that institution. 
 
 Peabody's life in London was an unostentatious one. He was 
 always simple and modest in his habits, yet genial and fond of society. 
 He never kept house, but lived in a suite of bachelor apartments. It 
 is said that in the ten most prosperous years of his life, his personal 
 expenses were never over three thousand dollars per annum. Yet he 
 was always hospitable. American visitors in London testified for 
 years, to the charm of the little dinners he was accustomed to give 
 to select parties of guests. Sometimes he arranged a pleasant party 
 at Hampton Court ; sometimes at Richmond, and often at the club 
 of which he was a member. These dinners were celebrated for their 
 elegance. In the perfection of the cookery and appointments, he 
 took great pride. Yet his own tastes were exceedingly simple. Often, 
 at the head of the sumptuous entertainment he had provided for his 
 guests, he sat with only a plainly cooked mutton-chop before him, 
 while course after course of different degrees of richness, all tempting 
 the appetite of the gourmand, passed him by. Fruit was his chief 
 luxury, and he always had the choicest sorts on his table at every 
 meal. To his frugal habits he was no doubt indebted for his robust 
 and vigorous old age. After a life of unstinted devotion to business, 
 he was hale and fresh in his seventieth year.
 
 762 GEORGE PEABODY. 
 
 In society he could talk forcibly and well. His memory always 
 tenacious of the facts and associations of his life, as his benefactions 
 will testify, was richly stored with incidents which made him an en- 
 tertaining companion. His observation was wonderfully quick and 
 acute, and his appreciation of other men's good points made him 
 able to draw people out in conversation in the manner which dis- 
 played them to the best advantage. 
 
 His favorite evening amusements were whist and backgammon. 
 After dinner was over at his club, or in his own apartments, it was 
 his greatest satisfaction to get together three appreciative companions, 
 and sit down to Sarah Battle's favorite game. Like her, he scorned 
 the flippant players, who amused themselves at whist without earnest- 
 ness or a true reverence for the game, and sat down to it as a serious 
 matter a thing not to be engaged in in a trifling spirit. Later in 
 the evening he would play backgammon, as a relief from the more 
 vigorous requirements of whist. Over this game he could jest, and 
 crack a good joke once in a while ; but whist to him, as to all gen- 
 uine whist-players, was a serious pursuit. 
 
 When the size of the company forbade games for private amuse- 
 ment, singing was his favorite entertainment. He particularly liked 
 simple ballad-singing especially Scotch songs. Auld Robin Grey, 
 Bonny Dundee, or Robin Adair, would touch and stir him as no 
 foreign music ever could. 
 
 No voice at his own fireside ever won him from care or soothed 
 him to rest. He remained a bachelor all his life. There are many 
 explanations of, and reports about, his unmarried state all agreeing 
 on one point; that at one time, after he had taken up his abode in 
 London, then an elderly bachelor, he was engaged to a beautiful and 
 loveable woman. Discovering, after their engagement, that she loved 
 another, he released her from the engagement, and never married. 
 The most trustworthy in appearance of all these reports was printed after 
 his death in the 'Providence Journal,' and as it bears strong evidence 
 of truth, it is here given in the words of the unknown correspond- 
 ent of that paper. 
 
 " More than thirty years ago, in the far-famed school of John Kings- 
 bury, was one of the fairest of all the fair daughters of Providence, 
 celebrated as that city has ever been for its lovely girls. Her school 
 education finished, she went with friends to Europe ; not, however, 
 before having given her youthful affections to a young man whom she 
 had met in a sister city. Before marriage had consummated their 
 happiness, adversity came upon him, and he found himself in no 
 situation to marry. He was not willing she should waste her youth 
 and glorious beauty in waiting through long years for the day to come 
 when he could call her his own ; so he released her from her vows 
 and they parted ; she going, as I said before, to Europe. 
 
 ** There she met George Peabody, then, comparatively speaking, a
 
 HIS FIRST AND ONLY LOVE. 763 
 
 young man, but one who was already making his mark, and whose 
 wealth was beginning to pour in from every side. 
 
 " He saw her, and was struck (as who that ever saw her, was not 
 struck ?) with her grace, her winning ways, her exceeding loveliness ; 
 and after a while he proposed marriage. Her heart still clung to her 
 loved one across the wide Atlantic ; but, after some time, she yielded, 
 perhaps to the wishes of her friends, perhaps to the promptings of 
 worldly ambitions ; who can fathom the heart of a young and beauti- 
 ful maiden ? She became the affianced wife of Mr. Peabody. After 
 a little interval, she came back to this country, and soon after her 
 arrival met her first love, and after-events justify me in saying, her 
 'only love.' At sight of him, all her former affection came back, 
 if indeed it had ever left her, and Mr. Peabody, with his wealth and 
 brilliant prospects, faded away ; and she clung with fond affection to 
 her American lover, willing to share a moderate income with the 
 chosen of her heart. All was told to Mr. Peabody ; and he, with the 
 manliness which characterized all his actions, gave her up; and in due 
 time she was married, and settled in a city not more than three hun- 
 dred miles from Providence. What she suffered in coming to a final 
 conclusion was known to but few. Her fair cheeks lost their round- 
 ness, and grew wan and pale ; her lovely eyes had a mournful wist- 
 fulness that touched every heart. Some blamed her ; others praised 
 her ; but the painful conflict was at length ended. Her womanhood 
 vindicated itself, and she wavered no more. 
 
 " I well remember," the writer proceeds to add, "when in Lon- 
 don, twenty-eight years ago, hearing all these facts talked over in a 
 circle of American friends ; and also at a brilliant dinner-party, given 
 by General Cass, at Versailles, it was discussed in all its length and 
 breadth. Whether, in his visits to this country, Mr. Peabody ever 
 met his once affianced bride, I can not say ; neither do I know 
 whether, when she heard of his more than princely wealth, her heart 
 ever gave a sigh at the thought, ' All this might have been mine." ' 
 
 In 1851, the Crystal Palace, in London, was opened for the first 
 World's Fair. When the American exhibitors came with their 
 various productions, to place them among those of other nations, 
 they found that portion of the great building allotted to American in- 
 dustries bare and undecorated. The nations of Europe had made 
 money appropriations and sent commissioners to fit up the arcades 
 and galleries devoted to their wares with the taste and beauty' appro- 
 priate to the place. But the American inventors and exhibitors had 
 no appropriation from Congress, and often no means of their own. 
 At this juncture George Peabody came opportunely forward, and 
 supplied $15,000 ta put the contributions of his native country in 
 proper shape for exhibition, and gave them worthy surroundings in 
 their niche in the great World's Palace. This is the first public gift 
 of George Peabody of which I find any record; but from this time his 
 charities rolled on, an ever increasing tide, until his death.
 
 764 GEORGE PEABODY. 
 
 In 1852, Henry Grinnell gave one of his ships to Dr. Elisha Kane, 
 to aid him in fitting out an expedition to go to the Arctic Regions 
 in search of Sir John Franklin. To this enterprise, Peabody supplied 
 $10,000; and this sum was increased by a donation from the Smith- 
 sonian Institute and one or two other societies, and made up the amount 
 expended in that enterprise, which reflected so much honor on Dr. 
 Kane and our country. Dr. Kane christened various portions of water 
 and land discovered in this expedition by the names of his patrons. 
 Mr. Grinnell and his sister, Mrs. Mary Minturn, and Mr. Peabody, 
 were all remembered ; and there is now a bay called Peabody Bay, 
 and a point called Peabody Land, in the frozen regions which the 
 adventurous Kane explored. 
 
 In the summer of 1852, the town of Danvers held its centennial 
 celebration. The name of George Peabody had always been an hon- 
 ored one among his townsmen, and on this occasion they sent an in- 
 vitation for him to be present with them on this memorial day. 
 
 Mr. Peabody could not leave London, but he sent a note regretting 
 his inability to be there, and a sealed packet with this endorsement: 
 " The seal of this is not to be broken till the toasts are being pro- 
 posed by the chairman, at the dinner, i6th June, at Danvers, in com- 
 memoration of the one hundreth year since its severance from Salem." 
 
 On unsealing the letter, a draft for twenty thousand dollars was found 
 inclosed, for the purpose of founding a town library and Lyceum In- 
 stitute. The conditions of the gift were simply that half the sum 
 should form a fund whose interest should be devoted to sustaining a 
 course of free lectures; that $7,000 should be used in the erection of 
 a proper building for a Lyceum Institute ; and that all sectarian the- 
 ology and political discussion should be excluded from the Institute. 
 His letter closes with a request that Mr. Sylvester Procter, his earliest 
 employer, should lay the corner-stone of the Institute, if he were liv- 
 ing. The old man had before this been gathered to his fathers ; but 
 the request of Peabody shows one of his most marked characteristics 
 a disposition to remember and honor those with whom he was con- 
 nected by ties of friendship or early association. 
 
 The Lyceum building at Danvers was at once begun, and named 
 Peabody Institute, in honor of its founder. Long before its comple- 
 tion, however, it far outgrew its original design; and before the death 
 of its founder, it had received upwards of $200,000 from him. 
 
 In the fall of 1856, nearly twenty years after his removal to Lon- 
 don, Mr. Peabody visited this country for the first time since his de- 
 parture. Invitations at once showered on him from all sources, and 
 the highest public honors were proffered him in New York, Baltimore. 
 Philadelphia, and Boston. But he refused them with a manly mod- 
 esty, which was an unaffected trait of the man all through life, and 
 would have no public reception, except the one offered him by his 
 own town of Danvers. 
 
 During this visit to America, Mr. Peabody first announced his de-
 
 OPPOSED TO BIGOTRY AND INTOLERANCE. 765 
 
 sign of giving Baltimore an institution similar to the one he had given 
 Danvers, on a grander and improved scale. The gift was to include 
 a building which should be an architectural addition to the city, and 
 a fund, secured by investment, which should furnish money to pay 
 lecturers, purchase works of art, appliances for science, and any other 
 purposes which its trustees think desirable. This building, also named 
 for its founder, was finished in 1866, when Mr. Peabody was able to 
 be present at the dedication. To this institution he gave one million 
 dollars. Concerning it also he made the stipulation, that it should be 
 free from all influences which would make it sectarian in conduct, or 
 partisan in politics. His language, in making this condition, is so 
 noble, that we can not forbear quoting from his letter to the trustees. 
 He says: "My earnest wish to promote at all times a spirit of har- 
 mony and good-will in society, my aversion to intolerance, bigotry> 
 and party rancor, and my enduring respect and love for the happy 
 institutions of our prosperous republic, impel me to express the wish 
 that the institute I have proposed to you shall always be strictly guarded 
 against the possibility of being made a theater for the dissemination 
 or discussion of sectarian theology or party politics; that it shall 
 never lend its aid or influence to the propagation of opinions tending 
 to create or encourage sectional jealousies in our happy country, or 
 which may lead to the alienation of the people of one State or section 
 of the Union from those of another; but that it shall be so conducted, 
 through its whole career, as to teach political and religious charity, 
 toleration and beneficence, and prove itself to be, in all conditions 
 and contingencies, the true friend of our inestimable Union, of the 
 salutary institutions of free government, and of liberty, regulated by 
 law." 
 
 After his return to England in 1859, Mr. Peabody began to 
 mature a scheme for the amelioration of the English poor. His phil- 
 anthropic eye saw clearly that to establish institutes for intellectual 
 culture in that great city, similar to those he had been founding in 
 the United States, would be like giving a stone to those who were 
 crying for bread. He, therefore, laid aside any wishes he may have 
 had for the educational or literary improvement of the working-classes, 
 and devoted himself to plans of material benevolence. 
 
 In 1862, he wrote to Sir Curtis Lampson, Lord Stanley, Sir James 
 Emerson Tennant, Charles Francis Adams, and Mr. J. Morgan, con- 
 stituting them a committee to carry out his designs. All these gentle- 
 men were his intimate friends. Mr. Adams was then our minister in 
 England ; Sir Curtis Lampson was an American by birth, who had 
 been knighted by the Queen ; Lord Stanley and Sir James Tennant 
 were both men of strong American sympathies, and Mr. Morgan was 
 the esteemed partner of Mr. Peabody. In his letter to them, Mr. 
 Peabody says : 
 
 " From a comparatively early period of my commercial life, I had 
 resolved in my own mind that, should my labors be blessed with sue-
 
 766 GEORGE PEABODY. 
 
 cess, I would devote, a portion of the property thus acquired to pro- 
 mote the intellectual, moral, and physical welfare and comfort of my 
 fellow-men, wherever, from circumstances or location, their claims 
 upon me would be the stronger." 
 
 For this purpose, he informs this board of trustees, that he has 
 placed at their disposal i5o,ooo/. This sum he afterward increased 
 till it reached 350,0007. before his death, and at his death bequeathed 
 150,0007. more, so that it was made half a million pounds sterling, or 
 two millions and a half of dollars. 
 
 The manner in which the trustees of Mr. Peabody decided to carry 
 out his wish, " to ameliorate the condition and augment the comfort 
 of the poor," was the result of deep consideration. They concluded 
 that the hard-working lower classes were much better subjects for im- 
 provement than the large mass of London paupers. Accordingly, 
 they proposed to build large blocks or squares of houses, fitted up 
 cleanly and comfortably, in which working men and their families 
 could find comfortable homes, at a lower rent than they were obliged 
 to pay in the loathsome tenement houses in which they lived. 
 
 The first site fixed upon was in Spitalfields, near the terminus of 
 the Eastern Counties Railway. Afterwards lots were bought at Chelsea, 
 Westminster, Islington, and Shadwell, each sufficient to form a large 
 square, the smallest being over 13,000 square feet, and the largest 
 about 73,000 square feet. These lots were situated in different parts 
 of London, in districts where the great masses of working men lived. 
 
 On these sites, substantial brick buildings have been erected. 
 Those in Islington and Spitalfields consist each of four detached blocks, 
 five stories high, and let out in tenements of one, two, and three 
 rooms, built around a large square. Those at Shadwell and West- 
 minster are each three blocks, with one open side ; but in all cases there 
 is a large space, which is used as a play-ground by the children of 
 the poor people who live in the buildings. In most of the blocks, the 
 upper story is fitted up for a co-operative laundry, with wash-houses, 
 baths, and all modern conveniences. Excellent ventilation and drain- 
 age are maintained throughout all these buildings ; water from cisterns 
 immediately under the roof is distributed to each tenant ; great shafts, 
 with voids from each tenement, are arranged to carry all refuse and rub- 
 bish to the cellar, from whence carts take it away daily. The rooms 
 are small, on an average about nine feet by twelve, but they are very 
 comfortably ventilated, and amply provided with cupboards, shelves, 
 and other conveniences unusual in the houses of the London poor. It 
 is said that the ample and airy play-ground, where the children can be 
 allowed to play, safe from the carriages and carts that crowd the 
 streets, is the most popular arrangement in the whole great enterprise, 
 and that many a poor mother blesses George Peabody, since her 
 child can have his free share of air and liberty, without danger of 
 being run over and maimed for life by the heavy vehicles in the 
 streets.
 
 OFFERED A BARONETCY. 767 
 
 The rooms of the tenements have tiled floors and white-washed 
 walls ; and a family of six can hire three comfortable, well-lighted 
 rooms for five dollars per month. This is about one-fifth lower than 
 the rent of the damp, loathsome places which usually constitute 
 the abodes of the class who now occupy Mr. Peabody's model 
 houses. 
 
 Already it has been proved that the inmates of these houses show 
 the results of their improved style of living, in improved health and 
 morals. With a comfortable sitting-room, in which to spend his 
 evenings, the father of the family no longer seeks the ale-house or 
 gin-shop. Drunkenness and quarreling are rare among the inhabitants. 
 According to the report of 1865, the total population of these houses 
 was 1,971. They include almost every trade laborers, porters, 
 policemen, carmen, needle-women, and char-women, are the trades 
 most largely represented, with an occasional blacksmith, carpenter, 
 and machinist. It is to be hoped that such charities as those of 
 George Peabody will be repeated, till every poor man in England, 
 in America, in the whole civilized world, will have a clean, comfort- 
 able dwelling, with healthful surroundings. It need not be a chari- 
 table enterprise altogether, for, with judicious management, such 
 buildings could be made self-supporting, and even remunerative to 
 their founders. 
 
 The English people were enthusiastic in their expressions of grati- 
 tude to the great capitalist, who thus showed at once his good sense 
 and his philanthropy. They would have loaded him with honors, if 
 he had not kept aloof from all popular demonstration. A baronetcy 
 was proffered him, but he refused it. Badges and insignia of rank of 
 various sorts he declined in the same quiet way. London gave him 
 the freedom of the city, and many institutions passed resolutions 
 making him one of their honorary members. London resolved to 
 place his statue in a public square, near the Royal Exchange, and 
 selected Mr. Story, the American sculptor, to do the work. At the 
 unveiling of the noble figure, the Prince of Wales presided. In his 
 speech the prince said : 
 
 "It affords me the deepest gratification to pay a mark of honor 
 and respect to the name of the great American citizen the great 
 philanthropist I may say, the citizen of the world. England can 
 never adequately pay the debt of gratitude she owes that man ; Lon- 
 don especially, to which his wonderful charity has been so liberally 
 distributed." 
 
 Mr. Motley, then our American minister, made the closing speech, 
 and, amid music and shouting, the statue was unveiled. It represents 
 Mr. Peabody seated in an arm-chair, standing on a massive pe- 
 destal. The whole preserves most accurately and simply the form 
 and features of the good man. 
 
 Before his last visit to America he was asked what recognition of 
 his generosity to her people he would accept from the Queen of Eng-
 
 768 GEORGE PEABODY. 
 
 land. He replied, "A letter from the Queen, which I can take 
 with me to America, and deposit there as a memorial of one of her 
 most faithful sons." 
 
 Shortly after this the following letter was sent Mr. Peabody, through 
 Lord John Russell : 
 
 "WINDSOR CASTLE, March 28, 1866. 
 
 " The Queen hears that Mr. Peabody intends shortly to return to 
 America; and she would be sorry that he should leave England with- 
 out being assured by herself how deeply she appreciates the noble 
 act, of more than princely munificence, by which he has sought to 
 relieve the wants of her poorer subjects residing in London. It is an 
 act, as the Queen believes, wholly without parallel ; and which will 
 carry its best reward in the consciousness of having contributed so 
 largely to the assistance of those who can so little help themselves. 
 
 "The Queen would not, however, have been satisfied without giv- 
 ing Mr. Peabody some public mark of her sense of his munificence, 
 and she would gladly have conferred upon him either a baronetcy or 
 the Grand Cross of the order of Bath, but that she understands Mr. 
 Peabody to feel himself debarred from accepting such distinctions. 
 It only remains, therefore, for the Queen to give Mr. Peabody this 
 assurance of her personal feeling, which she would further wish to 
 mark by asking him to accept a miniature portrait of herself, which 
 she will desire to have painted for him, and which, when finished, 
 can either be sent to him in America, or given to him on the return, 
 which she rejoices to hear he meditates, to the country which owes 
 him so much." 
 
 The miniature of which she thus speaks was at once ordered, and 
 on its completion was sent to Danvers, Mass. It was a half-length, 
 enclosed in a massive gold frame, richly chased, the size about 14 
 inches long by 10 in width. It was at once deposited in the vault 
 in Peabody Institute, which he had built to receive those acknowl- 
 edgments of his gifts which he most highly valued. The contents 
 of the vault are as follows : The miniature of the Queen, and her 
 letter accompanying it ; an autograph copy of the Queen's Journal, 
 published by her in 1865; the gold box containing the freedom of 
 London ; a gold box from the Fishmongers' Association in London ; 
 a book of autographs collected by Mr. Peabody among his wide 
 circle of distinguished acquaintances ; a medal from the Congress of 
 the United States; and several smaller souvenirs. 
 
 In 1866, Mr. Peabody visited America for the last time. As he 
 grew old, and began to look upon his earthly race as almost run, he 
 seems to have been drawn more and more to the home of his child- 
 hood. He felt, too, that not many more years of life, in the com- 
 mon course of humanity, could be his, and, wishing to direct his 
 enormous wealth into the channels in which Ire wished it to flow, he
 
 HIS CHARITIES. 769 
 
 gave more and more lavishly to those institutions which were his 
 favorite objects of charity. 
 
 To establish in Harvard College a museum and a professorship of 
 Archaeology and Ethnology, he gave $150,000. At the same time he 
 gave Yale College the same amount for a museum of Natural History. 
 The Essex Institute, in Salem, one of the best and noblest institutions 
 for science in the United States, received $140,000 from Mr. Pea- 
 body's unfailing generosity. Never was generosity more wisely mani- 
 fested than in this gift ; and this Institute, in connection viith the 
 Peabody Academy for science, gives promise of unlimited future use- 
 fulness in the cause of science in this country. 
 
 Mr. Peabody remembered also the towns in New England where 
 portions of his boyhood were spent. Revisiting Thetford, Vermont, 
 the home of his grandfather, where he had spent his sixteenth year, 
 he gave the village of Post Mills $5,000 for a village library, and to 
 it a fine portrait of himself. To Newburyport he sent $15,000 for 
 the enlargement and improvement of their city library, and gave them 
 also his portrait to hang upon s its walls. Of the little town in Mass- 
 achusetts where his mother was born, and which, in 1839, had been 
 called Georgetown in his honor, he said : "I should like to take each 
 resident by the hand, for never in any visit there have I been annoyed 
 by calls or letters, and not one of the citizens has in any way solic- 
 ited help from me." 
 
 To Georgetown he gave a church, which he erected in memory of 
 his mother, to whom he had been always a most loving and tender 
 son. Mrs. Peabody used to relate of her son, that, as soon as he went 
 into business in Baltimore, in 1822, he wrote her that he "should be 
 able to supply the family with all the flour they needed." From that 
 time to her death, George's care for his mother's wants increased with 
 the growth of his prosperity. This church, dedicated to the mother 
 whom he so loved and honored, is called " Memorial Church," and 
 is a worthy monument to a mother's memory. He also remembered 
 Georgetown with a town library and lyceum for free lectures. 
 
 To two other institutions of learning, Phillips Academy, in An- 
 dover, and Kenyon College, in Ohio, he gave respectively $25,000 
 and $20,000. In Kenyon College he became interested because his old 
 and valued friend, Bishop Mcllvaine, was president of the Institution. 
 When Mr. Peabody was maturing his plans for the relief of the Eng- 
 lish poor, lie consulted Bishop Mcllvaine often upon the subject, and 
 felt for him a most earnest and sincere friendship. 
 
 But the crowning munificence of this great philanthropist was 
 one of the last acts of his life, and one of the noblest. In a letter 
 to the trustees of the Southern Educational Fund, he places at their 
 disposal over two millions of dollars, to be devoted to the free edu- 
 cation of the people of the South. In this letter he says : 
 
 "With my advancing years, my attachment to. my native land has 
 become more devoted ; my hope and faith in its successful and glo- 
 
 49
 
 77 GEORGE PEABODY. 
 
 t 
 
 rious future has grown brighter and stronger ; and now, looking 
 forward beyond my stay on earth, as may be permitted to one who 
 has passed the limit of three-score and ten years, I see our country 
 emerging from the clouds which surround her, taking a higher rank 
 among the nations, and becoming richer and more powerful than ever 
 before. But to make her prosperity more than superficial, her moral 
 and intellectual development should keep pace with her material 
 growth ; and in those portions of our nation to which I have referred, 
 the urgent and pressing needs of an impoverished people must, for 
 some years, preclude them from making, by unaided effort, such ad- 
 vances in education and the diffusion of knowledge among all classes 
 as every lover of his country must ardently desire. 
 
 "With the wish to discharge, so far as I am able, my own respon- 
 sibility in this matter, I give you gentlemen, most of whom have 
 been my personal and especial friends, the sum of one million, to be 
 held in trust by you, and the income thereof used for the promotion 
 and encouragement of intellectual, moral, or industrial education 
 among the young of the more destitute portions of the South and 
 South Western States of the Union." 
 
 To this amount he adds, in the letter, over a million more in state 
 bonds, and the amount was increased by a bequest in his will, to 
 almost two and a half millions. Of this trust, he proposed Robert 
 Winthrop, of Massachusetts, as chairman ; Governor Fish, of New 
 York, and Bishop Mcllvaine, as vice-chairmen ; and General Grant, 
 W T illiam Evarts, and his nephew, George Peabody Russell, were 
 among the committee. 
 
 The words of this letter advocating the education of the South, 
 and so effectually aiding to advance this cause, breathes the highest 
 and noblest patriotism. Notwithstanding George Peabody's long 
 residence in England, his affection and his interest were never alien- 
 ated from home. All his words and deeds speak the noblest love for 
 his country, and all his gifts tend to raise her higher and higher in 
 the scale of intellectual development. He regretted our civil war as 
 a terrible necessity, and his pity for the South, in which he had found 
 home and friends in early business life, was sincerely expressed; but 
 his devotion to the Union was unwavering. In his speech at the 
 dedication of the Baltimore Peabody Institute, he said : 
 
 " My father bore arms in some of the darkest days of the Revolu- 
 tion, and from him and his example I learned to love and honor the 
 Union. Born and educated in the North, living twenty years in the 
 South, and finally in the course of a long residence abroad, being 
 thrown in. intimate contact with individuals of every section of our 
 glorious land, I came as do most Americans who live abroad to 
 love our country as a whole, to know no South, no North, no East, 
 no West. And so I wish publicly to avow that, during the terrible 
 contest through which the nation has passed, my sympathies were, 
 and always will be, with the Union."
 
 PATRIOTISM AND GALLANTRY. 771 
 
 We have dwelt more at length upon George Peabody's patriotism, 
 because an anecdote reflecting upon his loyalty had, some years ago,' 
 an extensive circulation. The story, truthfully told, is simply thus : 
 After the first World's Fair in London, at the time when Mr. Peabody 
 stepped forward to redeem the credit of his country, by contributing 
 to place her products in honorable array beside those of European 
 nations, Mr. Peabody was in the habit of celebrating the Fourth of 
 July in London by giving a semi-public dinner, to which he invited 
 all Americans visiting that city, with whom he had any acquaintance. 
 All who bore letters of credit to him, he sought out and invited, and 
 he also asked distinguished English men and women to be present on 
 these occasions. 
 
 In 1854, some Americans proposed to have a public dinner on the 
 Fourth of July, which should have something of a national charac- 
 ter. Mr. Peabody entered into this idea with characteristic hearti- 
 ness, asking that he might provide the dinner at his own expense, but 
 leaving invitations and all other arrangements with the committee. 
 
 When the dinner was in progress, and the time for toasts had come, 
 Mr. Peabody arose and said: " In deference to her sex, if not to her 
 position, I shall propose the health of her Majesty, Queen Victoria." 
 On this, a party of U. S. officials of subordinate rank, arose and 
 flaunted out of the room, .while James Buchanan, who afterwards had 
 an opportunity to prove his loyalty, as President of the United 
 States, when the civil war began in this country, and who was then 
 American Minister to England, refused to rise in his seat, or to drink 
 the toast. This harmless piece of gallantry to the leading lady in 
 Europe made Mr. Peabody many bitter enemies to the day of his 
 death. 
 
 In the summer of 1869, Mr. Peabody, still visiting in America, felt 
 his health beginning to fail him. His physicians advised him to try 
 a warmer climate, before the cold weather should set in. He began 
 at once to make his arrangements to go to London, intending to go 
 from thence to Italy to spend the winter. His last public appearance 
 in America was on the occasion of the great Peace Jubilee, in Boston. 
 He made his last visit to his friends and relatives in America, and 
 engaged passage for England, in September. During this visit in his 
 own land, he had divided about a million and a half among his rela- 
 tives, who were principally nieces and nephews. 
 
 On his return to England, Col. Forney, of Philadelphia, sailed on 
 the same ship with him, and he thus describes him in these latest 
 days: "As I studied the figure of the venerable philanthropist yestorday, 
 as he lay dozing on one of the sofas, in the forward saloon, 1 confessed 
 I had never seen a nobler or more imposing figure. Never has hu- 
 man face spoken more humane emotions. His fine head, rivaling 
 the best of the old aristocracy, and blending the ideals of benevo- 
 lence and integrity; his tranquil and pleasing countenance and silver 
 hair, crown a form of unusual digitity and grace."
 
 772 GEORGE PEABODY. 
 
 On this last voyage to England, an incident occurred which is 
 characteristic of Mr. Peabody. On the day the passengers were to 
 leave the steamer, some resolutions were drawn up by them and pre- 
 sented to Mr. Peabody, testifying their respect and reverence for his 
 philanthropy. One of these resolutions referred to the fact that Mr. 
 Peabody had improved on the generosity of Girard and Smithson, 
 who had bequeathed their benefaction to posterity after their deaths, 
 while he had, during his life, given his wealth for the good of humanity. 
 
 Mr. Peabody immediately objected to this clause, and had the pass- 
 age expunged. "Whatever may be said of me," he said modestly, 
 "yet even the shadow of a contrast that might be construed into a 
 criticism on those illustrious men should be avoided." 
 
 When Mr. Peabody reaphed London and began to make arrange- 
 ments for his journey southward, his strength failed more and more, 
 until he was obliged to admit the impossibility of travel. He went 
 to the house of his intimate and esteemed friend, Sir Curtis Lampson, 
 and there, Nov., 1869, he died. In his last moments a faithful cler- 
 gyman from America, with whom he had once made a voyage, called, 
 and was admitted to his death-chamber. Amid the prayers of this 
 friend, the dying man gently murmured: "It is a great mystery, but 
 I shall know all soon. Amen." And so his spirit passed away. As 
 soon as the Atlantic cable flashed the news of his decease across the 
 ocean, the country aroused to honor his memory. The Peabody and 
 Baltimore Institutes ; the Massachusetts Legislature ; the Congress of 
 the United States; all passed resolutions in his honor. In England 
 the public sorrow was no less marked. It had been decided by him- 
 self that his remains should be laid by the side of his mother's body, 
 in the tomb in Danvers, and thither he was to be borne. But in 
 accordance with the general wish, his funeral service was pronounced 
 in Westminster Abbey. Mr. Gladstone, the Earl of Clarendon, Earl 
 Grey, and all the high officials of the city of London were among 
 the mourners. The Bishop of the city preached his funeral sermon, 
 and one of the archdeacons read the burial service. 
 
 From France, the voice of Victor Hugo came in sorrow for the loss 
 of so good a man. His letter closes eloquently with these words: 
 "His fatherland will guard his ashes, and our hearts his menory. The 
 Free American Flag can never display stars enough above his coffin." 
 
 In the cemetery of Harmony Grove, between the towns of Salem 
 and Danvers, (now only known as Peabody,) lie the earthly remains 
 of this good man. Amid its cool and leafy shades, his dust lies 
 peacefully. But the good he has done lives after him, and will yet 
 speak for him, when future generations are enjoying the treasures of 
 knowledge his bounty has provided for them. 
 
 "Farewell," says Robert Winthrop, in his address over his tomb, 
 "farewell to thee, brave, honest, noble-hearted friend of mankind."

 
 CT 
 
 104 
 
 KM 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 Santa Barbara 
 
 STACK COLLECTION 
 
 THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE 
 STAMPED BELOW. 
 
 E 
 
 30m-8,'65(F6447s4)9482