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 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.
 
 RISEN BY PERSEVERANCE: 
 
 OR, 
 
 LIVES OF SELF-MADE MEN. 
 
 GrDmpilcB anU 'StrrantjcB 
 
 ROBERT COCHRANE, 
 
 CDITOR OF 
 
 ' TKK ENGLISH ESSAYISTS, ' TREASURY OF BRITISH ELOQUENCE,' 'TREASURY 0» 
 MOtlHRN BIOGRAPHY,' 'THE ENGLISH EXPLORERS,' !£TC. ETC 
 
 EDINBURGH: 
 W. P., NIMMO, HAY, & MITCHELL
 
 MORRISON AND GIBB, PRINTFKS, EDINBURGH
 
 PREFATORY NOTE. 
 
 
 HE series of popular biographies in which the present 
 volume is included, is issued by the publishers with 
 the view of meeting the steadily increasing demand 
 for biographical reading of a wholesome and instructive 
 character. To those who have afterwards to mmgle actively 
 in practical life, there is always something stimulating in 
 noting how those who have gone before — men eminent in 
 many departments — may have conducted themselves in the 
 battle of life. Perhaps as in everyday life, example is here 
 also more powerful than precept; the less moralizing the 
 better, the influence and practical lesson from each career 
 coming home almost insensibly, yet none the less powerfully, 
 to the reader. The two first sketches in the book are quoted 
 from a well-known work, the late Professor Craik's Pursuit of 
 Knmvledge tender Difficidties, London, 1830; William Cobbett 
 appeared many years ago in Taifs Magazine. The remaining 
 articles have been specially prepared or selected for the 
 present volume. 
 
 2000582
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Benjamin Franklin, ........ 5 
 
 James Brindley, . 51 
 
 William Cobbett, • < 73 
 
 Hugh Miller, 104 
 
 Sir Titus Salt, 140 
 
 Charles Dickens, .,,,.,..., 172
 
 RISEN BY PERSEVERANCE. 
 
 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 !HE name we are now to mention is perhaps the 
 most distinguished to be found in the annals of 
 self - education. Of all those, at least, who, by 
 their own efforts, and without any usurpation of the rights 
 of others, have raised themselves to a high place in society, 
 there is no one, as has been remarked, the close of whose 
 history presents so great a contrast to its commencement as 
 that of Benjamin Franklin. It fortunately happens, too, 
 in his case, that we are in possession of abundant informa- 
 tion as to the methods by which he contrived to surmount 
 the many disadvantages of his original condition; to raise 
 himself from the lowest poverty and obscurity to affluence 
 and distinction ; and, above all, in the absence of instructors, 
 and of the ordinary helps to the acquisition of knowledge, to 
 enrich himself so plentifully with the treasures of literature 
 and science, as not only to be enabled to derive from that 
 
 source the chief happiness of his life, but to succeed in placing 
 
 c 
 
 >
 
 RISEN B Y PERSE VERANCE. 
 
 himself high among the most famous writers and philosophers 
 of his time. 
 
 Franklin has himself told us the story of his early life 
 inimitably well The narrative is given in the form of a letter 
 to his son, and does not appear to have been written originally 
 with any view to publication. * From the poverty and obscu- 
 rity,' he says, * in which I was bom, and in which I passed my 
 earliest years, I have raised myself to a state of affluence, and 
 some degree of celebrity in the world. As constant good 
 fortune has accompanied me, even to an advanced period of 
 life, my posterity will perhaps be desirous of learning the 
 means which I employed, and which, thanks to Providence, 
 so well succeeded with me. They may also deem them fit to 
 be imitated, should any of them find themselves in similar 
 circumstances.' It is now many years (1817) since this letter 
 was, for the first time, given to the world by the grandson of 
 the illustrious writer, William Temple Franklin, only a small 
 portion of it having previously appeared, and that merely a 
 re-translation into English from a French version of the 
 original manuscript which had been published at Paris, and 
 which is not wholly trustworthy. 
 
 Franklin was born at Boston, in North America, on the 
 1 7th of January 1 706 ; the youngest, with the exception of 
 iwo daughters, of a family of seventeen children. His father, 
 who had emigrated from England about twenty-four years 
 before, followed the occupation of a soap-boiler and tallow- 
 chandler, — a business to which he had not been bred, and by 
 which he seems with difficulty to have been able to support 
 his numerous family. At first it was proposed to make Ben- 
 jamin a clergyman ; and he was accordingly, having before 
 learned to read, put to the grammar-school at eight years of
 
 I 
 
 BENJAAUN FRANKLIN. 
 
 age, — an uncle, whose namesake he was, and who appears to 
 have been an ingenious man, encouraging the project, by 
 offering to give him several volumes of sermons to set up with, 
 which he had taken down, in a shorthand of his own inven- 
 tion, from the different preachers he had been in the habit of 
 hearing. This person, who was now advanced in life, had 
 been only a common silk-dyer, but had been both a great 
 reader and writer in his day, having filled two quarto volumes 
 with his own manuscript poetry. What he was most proud of, 
 however, was his shorthand, which he was very anxious that his 
 nephew should learn. But young Franklin had not been quite 
 a year at the grammar-school, when his father began to reflect 
 that the expense of a college education for him was what he 
 could not very well afford ; and that, besides, the church in 
 America was a poor profession after all. He was accordingly 
 removed, and placed for another year under a teacher of writ- 
 ing and arithmetic ; after which his father took him home, 
 when he was no more than ten years old, to assist him in his 
 own business. Accordingly, he was employed, he tells us, in 
 cutting wicks for the candles, filling the moulds for cast candles, 
 attending the shop, going errands, and other drudgery of the 
 same kind. He showed so much dislike, however, to this 
 business, that his father, afraid he would break loose and go 
 to sea, as one of his elder brothers had done, found it advis- 
 able, after a trial of two years, to look about for another occu- 
 pation for him ; and taking him round to see a great many 
 different sorts of tradesmen at their work, it was at last agreed 
 upon that he should be bound apprentice to a cousin of his 
 own, who was a cutler. But he had been only for some days 
 on trial at this business, when, his father thinking the appren- 
 tice fee which his cousin asked too high, he was again taken
 
 H/SEJV B Y PERSE VERANCE. 
 
 home. In this state of things it was finally resolved to place 
 him with his brother James, who had been bred a printer, and 
 had just returned from England and set up on his own account 
 at Boston. To him, therefore, Benjamin was bound apprentice, 
 when he was yet only in his twelfth year, on an agreement that 
 he should remain with him in that capacity till he reached the 
 age of twenty- one. 
 
 One of the principal reasons which induced his father to 
 determine upon this profession for him was the fondness he 
 had from his infancy shown for reading. All the money he 
 could get hold of used to be eagerly laid out in the purchase 
 of books. His father's small collection consisted principally 
 of works in controversial divinity, a subject of little interest to 
 a reader of his age ; but, such as they were, he went through 
 most of them. Fortunately there was also a copy of PhttarcJCs 
 Lives, which he says he read abundantly. This, and a book 
 by Daniel Defoe, called An Essay on Frojecis, he seems to 
 think were the two works from which he derived the most 
 advantage. His new profession of a printer, by procuring him 
 the acquaintance of some booksellers' apprentices, enabled 
 him considerably to extend his acquaintance with books, by 
 frequently borrowing a volume in the evening, which he sat up 
 reading the greater part of the nighi in order that he might 
 return it in the morning, lest it should L^^ missed. But these 
 solitary studies did not prevent him froi i soon acquiring a 
 great proficiency in his business, in which he was every day 
 becoming more useful to his brother. After some time, too, 
 his access to books was greatly facilitated by the kindness of a 
 liberal-minded merchant who was in the habit of frequentin;] 
 the printing office, and, being possessed of a tolerable library, 
 invited young Franklin, whose industry and intelligence had
 
 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 attracted his attention, to come to see it; after which he 
 allowed him to borrow from it such volumes as he wished 
 to read. 
 
 Our young student was now to distinguish himself in a new 
 character. The perusal of the works of others suggested to 
 him the idea of trying his own talent at composition ; and his 
 first attempts in this way were a few pieces of poetry. Verse, 
 it may be observed, is generally the earliest sort of composition 
 attempted either by nations or individuals, and for the same 
 reasons in both cases, — namely, first, because poetry has pecu- 
 liar charms for the unripe understanding ; and secondly, 
 because people at first find it difficult to conceive what com- 
 position is at all, independently of such measured cadences 
 and other regularities as constitute verse. Franklin's poetical 
 fit, however, did not last long. Having been induced by his 
 brother to write two ballads, he was sent to sell them through 
 the streets; and one of them at least, being on a subject 
 which had just made a good deal of noise in the place, sold, 
 as he tells us, prodigiously. But his father, who, without 
 much literary knowledge, was a man of a remarkably sound 
 and vigorous understanding, soon brought down the rising 
 vanity of the young poet, by pointing out to him the many 
 faults of his performances, and convincing him what wretched 
 stuff they really were. Having been told, too, that verse- 
 makers were generally beggars, with his characteristic prudence 
 he determined to write no more ballads. 
 
 He had an intimate acquaintance of the name of Collins, 
 who was, like himself, passionately fond of books, and with 
 whom he was in the habit of arguing upon such subjects as 
 they met v/ith in the course of their reading. Among other 
 questions which they discussed in this way, one accidentally
 
 ro RISEN BY PERSEVERANCE. 
 
 arose on the abilities of women, and the propriety of giving 
 them a learned education. ColHns maintained their natural 
 unfitness for any of the severer studies, while Franklin took 
 the contrary side of the question, — ' perhaps,' he says, ' a little 
 for dispute sake.' His antagonist had always the greater 
 plenty of words ; but Franklin thought that, on this occasion 
 in particular, his own arguments were rather the stronger ; 
 and on their parting without settling the point, he sat down 
 and put a summary of what he advanced in writing, which he 
 copied out and sent to Collins. This gave a new form to the 
 discussion, which was now carried on for some time by letters, 
 of which three or four had been written on both sides, when 
 the correspondence fell into the hands of FrankHn's father. 
 His natural acuteness and good sense enabled him here again 
 to render an essential service to his son, by pointing out to 
 him how far he fell short of his antagonist in elegance oi 
 expression, in method, and in perspicuity, though he had the 
 advantage of him in correct spelling and punctuation, which he 
 evidently owed to his experience in the printing-office. From 
 that moment Franklin determined to spare no pains in en- 
 deavouring to improve his style ; and we shall give, in his own 
 words, the method he pursued for that end. 
 
 'About this time,' says he, 'I met with an odd volume of 
 the Spectator: I had never before seen any of them. I bought 
 it, read it over and over, and was much delighted with it I 
 thought the writing excellent, and wished, if possible, to imitate 
 it. With that view I took some of the papers, and making 
 short hints of the sentiments in each sentence, laid them by a 
 few days, and then, without looking at the book, tried to com- 
 plete the papers again by expressing each hinted sentiment at 
 length, and as fully as it had been expressed before, in any
 
 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 suitable words that should occur to me. Then I compared 
 my Spectator with the original, discovered some of my faults, 
 and corrected them. But I found I wanted a stock of words, 
 or a readiness in recollecting and using them, which I thought 
 I should have acquired before that time if I had gone on 
 making verses; since the continual search for words of the 
 same import, but of different length to suit the measure, or of 
 different sound for the rhyme, would have laid me under a 
 constant necessity of searching for variety, and also have 
 tended to fix that variety in my mind, and make me master 
 of it. Therefore I took some of the tales in the Spectator and 
 turned them into verse ; and after a time, when I had pretty 
 well forgotten the prose, turned them back again. I also 
 sometimes jumbled my collection of hints into confusion, and, 
 after some weeks, endeavoured to reduce them into the best 
 order before I began to form the full sentences and complete 
 the subject. This was to teach me method in the arrangement 
 of the thoughts. By comparing my work with the original 1 
 discovered many faults and corrected them ; but I sometimes 
 had the pleasure to fancy that in certain particulars of small 
 consequence I had been fortunate enough to improve the 
 method or the language; and this encouraged me to think 
 that I might in time come to be a tolerable English writer, of 
 which I was extremely ambitious.' 
 
 Even at this early age nothing could exceed the per- 
 severance and self-denial which he displayed in pursuing hif 
 favourite object of cultivating his mental faculties to the 
 utmost of his power. When only sixteen, he chanced to 
 meet with a book in recommendation of a vegetable diet, 
 one of the arguments at least in favour of which made an 
 immediate impression upon him, — namelv. its greater cheai>
 
 1 2 RISEN B Y PERSE VE RANGE. 
 
 ness ; and from this and other considerations, he determined 
 to adopt that way of living for the future. Having taken 
 this resolution, he proposed to his brother, if he would give 
 him weekly only half what his board had hitherto cost, to 
 board himself, an offer which was immediately accepted. 
 He presently found that by adhering to his new system of 
 diet he could still save half what his brother allowed him. 
 * This,' says he, * was an additional fund for buying of books ; 
 but I had another advantage in it. My brother and the rest 
 going from the printing-house to their meals, I remained 
 there alone, and despatching presently my light repast (which 
 was often no more than a biscuit or a slice of bread, a 
 handful of raisins or a tart from the pastrycook's, and a 
 glass of water), had the rest of the time till their return for 
 study; in which I made the greater progress, from that 
 greater clearness of head and quicker apprehension which 
 generally attend temperance in eating and drinking.' It was 
 about this time that, by means of Cocker's Arithmetic, he 
 made himself master of that science, which he had twice 
 attempted in vain to learn while at school ; and that he also 
 obtained some acquaintance with the elements of geometry, 
 by the perusal of a treatise on Navigation. He mentions, 
 likewise, among the works which he now read, Locke on the 
 Human Understandi?ig, and the Port-Royal Art of Thinking; 
 together with two little sketches on the arts of Logic and 
 Rhetoric, which he found at the end of an English grammar, 
 and which initiated him in the Socratic mode of disputation, 
 or that way of arguing by which an antagonist, by being 
 questioned, is imperceptibly drawn into admissions which are 
 afterwards dexterously turned against him. Of this method 
 of reasoning he became, he tells us, excessively fond, finding
 
 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 13 
 
 it very safe for himself, and very embarassing for those 
 against whom he used it; but he afterwards abandoned it, 
 apparently from a feeling that it gave advantages rather to 
 cunning than to truth, and was better adapted to gain vic- 
 tories in conversation, than either to convince or to inform. 
 
 A few years before this, his brother had begun to publish 
 a newspaper, the second that had appeared in America. 
 This brought most of the literary people of Boston occa- 
 sionally to the printing-office; and young Franklin often 
 heard them conversing about the articles that appeared in 
 the newspaper, and the approbation which particular ones 
 received. At last, inflamed with the ambition of sharing in 
 this sort of fame, he resolved to try how a communication of 
 his own would succeed. Having written his paper, therefore, 
 in a disguised hand, he put it at night under the door of 
 the printing-office, where it was found in the morning, and 
 submitted to the consideration of the critics, when they met 
 as usual. 'They read it,' says he; 'commented on it in my 
 hearing ; and I had the exquisite pleasure of finding it met 
 with their approbation ; and that in their different guesses 
 at the author, none were named but men of some character 
 among us for learning and ingenuity.' ' I suppose,' he 
 adds, 'that I was rather lucky in my judges, and that they 
 were not really so very good as I then believed them to 
 be.' Encouraged, however, by the success of this attempt, 
 he sent several other pieces to the press in the same way, 
 keeping his secret, till, as he expresses it, all his fund of 
 sense for such performances was exhausted. He then dis- 
 covered himself, and immediately found that he began to 
 be looked upon as a person of some consequence by his 
 brother's literary acquaintances.
 
 1 4 RISEN B Y PERSE VERANCE. 
 
 This newspaper soon after afforded him, very unex- 
 pectedly, an opportunity ot extricating himself from his 
 indenture to his brother, who had all along treated him with 
 great harshness, and to whom his rising literary reputation 
 only made him more an object of envy and dislike. An 
 article which they had admitted having offended the local 
 government, his brother, as proprietor of the paper, was not 
 only sentenced to a month's imprisonment, but prohibited 
 from any longer continuing to print the offensive journal 
 In these circumstances, it was determined that it should 
 appear for the future in the name of Benjamin, who had 
 managed it during his brother's confinement; and in ordei 
 to prevent it being alleged that the former proprietor was 
 only screening himself behind one of his apprentices, the 
 indenture by which the latter was bound was given up to 
 him ; he at the same time, in order to secure to his brother 
 the benefit of his services, signing new indentures for the 
 remainder of his time, which were to be kept private. * A 
 very flimsy scheme it was,' says Franklin; 'however, it was 
 immediately executed; and the paper was printed accord- 
 ingly under my name for several months. At length a fresh 
 difference arising between my brother and me, I took upon 
 me to assert my freedom, presuming that he would not 
 venture to produce the new indentures. It was not fair 
 in me to take this advantage, and this I therefore reckon 
 one of the first errata of my life ; but the unfairness of 
 it weighed little with me, when under tlie impressions of 
 resentment for the blows his passion too often urged him to 
 bestow upon me, though he was otherwise not an ill-natured 
 man : perhaps I was too saucy and provoking.' 
 
 Finding, however, that his brother, in consequence of this
 
 BENJAMIN FRANKL /N. 1 5 
 
 exploit, had taken care to give him such a character to all 
 those of his own profession in Boston, that nobody would 
 emqloy him there, he now resolved to make his way to New 
 York, the nearest place where there was a printer; and 
 accordingly, after selling his books to raise a little money, he 
 embarked on board a vessel for that city, without communi- 
 cating his intention to his friends, who he knew would oppose 
 it In three days he found himself at the end of his voyage, 
 near three hundred miles from his home, at the age of 
 seventeen, without the least recommendation, as he tells us, 
 or knowledge of any person in the place, and with very 
 little money in his pocket. Worst of all, upon applying 
 to the only printer likely to give him any employment, he 
 found that this person had nothing for him to do, and that 
 the only way in which he could serve him was by recom- 
 mending him to proceed to Philadelphia, a hundred miles 
 farther, where he had a son, who, he believed, might employ 
 him. We cannot follow our runaway through the disastrous 
 incidents of this second journey; but, for the reason whicli 
 he states himself, we shall allow him to give his own most 
 graphic description of his first appearance in Philadelphia. 
 
 After concluding the account of his voyage, ' I have been 
 the more particular,' says he, ' in this description of my 
 journey, and shall be so of my first entry into that city, 
 that you may, in your mind, compare such unlikely beginnings 
 with the figure I have since made there. I was in my work- 
 ing dress, my best clothes coming round by sea. I was 
 dirty, from my being so long in the boat ; my pockets were 
 stuffed out with shirts and stockings; and I knew no one, 
 nor where to look for lodging. Fatigued with walking, 
 rowing, and the want of sleep, 1 was very hungry ; and my
 
 1 6 RISEN BY PERSEVERANCE. 
 
 whole stock of cash consisted in a single dollar, and about 
 a shilling in copper coin, which I gave to the boatmen for 
 my passage. At first they refused it, on account of my 
 having rowed; but I insisted on their taking it. Man is 
 sometimes more generous when he has little money than 
 when he has plenty; perhaps to prevent his being thought 
 to have but little. I walked towards the top of the street, 
 gazing about till near Market Street, where I met a boy 
 with bread. I had often made a meal of dry bread, and 
 inquiring where he had bought it, I went immediately to the 
 baker's he directed me to. I asked for biscuits, meaning 
 such as we had at Boston; that sort, it seems, was not made 
 in Philadelphia. I then asked for a threepenny loaf, and 
 was told they had none. Not knowing the different prices, 
 nor the names of the different sorts of bread, I told him to 
 give me three penny-worth of any sort. He gave me, accord- 
 ingly, three great puffy rolls. I was surprised at the quantity, 
 but took it; and having no room in my pockets, walked 
 off with a roll under each arm, and eating the other. Thus 
 I went up Market Street, as far as Fourth Street, passing by 
 the door of Mr. Read, my future wife's father, when she, 
 standing at the door, saw me, and thought I made, as I 
 certainly did, a most awkward, ridiculous appearance. Then 
 I turned and went down Chesnut Street and part of Walnut 
 Street, eating my roll all the way, and coming round, found 
 myself again at Market Street Wharf, near the boat I came 
 in, to which I went for a draught of the river water; and 
 being filled with one of my rolls, gave the other two to a 
 woman and her child that came down the river in the boat 
 with us, and were waiting to go farther. Thus refreshed, I 
 walked again up the street, which by this time had many
 
 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 17 
 
 clean dressed people in it, who were all walking the same 
 way. I joined them, and thereby was led into the great 
 meeting-house of the Quakers, near the market. I sat down 
 among them; and after looking round a while, and hearing 
 nothing said, being very drowsy, through labour and want of 
 rest the preceding night, I fell fast asleep, and continued so 
 till the meeting broke up, when some one was kind enough 
 to rouse me. This, therefore, was the first house I was in, or 
 slept in, in Philadelphia,' 
 
 Refreshed by his brief sojourn in this cheap place of 
 repose, he then set out in quest of a lodging for the night. 
 Next morning he found the person to whom he had been 
 directed, who was not, however, able to give him any employ- 
 ment ; but upon applying to another printer in the place, oi 
 the name of Keimer, he was a little more fortunate, being se'c 
 by him, in the first instance, to put an old press to rights, 
 and afterwards taken into regular work He had been some 
 months at Philadelphia, his relations in Boston knowing 
 nothing of what had become of him, when a brother-in-law, 
 who was the master of a trading sloop, happening to hear of 
 him in one of his voyages, wrote to him in very earnest terms 
 to entreat him to return home. The letter which he sent in 
 reply to this application reaching his brother-in-law when he 
 chanced to be in company with Sir William Keith, the 
 Governor of the Province, it was shown to that gentleman, 
 who expressed considerable surprise on being told the age 
 of the writer ; and immediately said that he appeared to be 
 a young man of promising parts, and that if he would set 
 up on his own account in Philadelphia, where the printers 
 were wretched ones, he had no doubt he would succeed : for 
 his part, he would procure him the public business, and do
 
 i8 RISEN BY PERSEVERANCE. 
 
 him every service in his power. Some time after this, 
 Franklin, who knew nothing of what had taken place, was 
 one day at work along with his master near the window, when 
 * we saw,' says he, * the Governor and another gentleman 
 (who proved to be Colonel French, of Newcastle, in the 
 province of Delaware), finely dressed, come directly across 
 the street to our house, and heard them at the door. Keimer 
 ran down immediately, thinking it a visit to him ; but the 
 Governor inquired for me, came up, and with a condescen- 
 sion and politeness I had been quite unused to, made me 
 many compliments, desired to be acquainted with me, 
 blamed me kindly for not having made myself known to 
 him when I first came to the place, and would have me away 
 with him to the tavern, where he was going with Colonel 
 French, to taste, as he said, some excellent Madeira. I was 
 not a little surprised, and Keimer stared with astonish- 
 ment.' 
 
 The reader already perceives that Sir William must have 
 been rather an odd sort of person ; and this becomes still 
 more apparent in the sequel of the story. Having got his 
 young protege to the tavern, he proposed to him, over their 
 wine, that he should as soon as possible set up in Phila- 
 delphia as a master printer, only continuing to work with 
 Keimer till an opportunity should offer of a passage to 
 Boston, when he would return home, to arrange the matter 
 with his father, who, the Governor had no doubt, would, 
 upon a letter from him, at once advance his son the necessary 
 funds for commencing business. Accordingly, Franklin set 
 out for Boston by the first vessel that sailed ; and, upon his 
 arrival, was very kindly received by all his family, except 
 his brother, and surprised his father not a little by presenting
 
 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 19 
 
 him with the Governor's letter. For some time his father 
 said little or nothing on the subject, merely remarking, that 
 Sir William must be a person of small discretion, to think of 
 setting a youth up in business who wanted three years to 
 arrive at man's estate. But at last he decidedly refused to 
 have anything to do with the arrangement ; and Franklin 
 returned to his patron to tell him of his bad success, going 
 this time, however, with the consent and blessing of his 
 parents, who, finding how industrious he had been while in 
 Philadelphia, were willing that he should continue there. 
 When Franklin presented himself to Sir William with his 
 father's answer to the letter he had been honoured with from 
 that functionary, the Governor observed that he was too 
 prudent : ' But since he will not set you up,' added he, ' I will 
 do it myself.' It was finally agreed that Franklin should 
 proceed in person to England, to purchase types and other 
 necessary articles, for which the Governor was to give him 
 letters of credit to the extent of one hundred pounds. 
 
 After repeated applications to the Governor for the promised 
 letters of credit, Franklin was at last sent on board the vessel 
 for England, which was just on the point of sailing, with an 
 assurance that Colonel French should be sent to him with 
 the letters immediately. That gentleman soon after made 
 his appearance, bearing a packet of despatches from the 
 Governor : in this packet Franklin was informed his letters 
 were. Accordingly, when they got into the British Channel, 
 the captain having allowed him to search for them among the 
 others, he found several addressed to his care, which he 
 concluded of course to be those he had been promised. 
 Upon presenting one of them, however, to a stationer, to 
 v/hom it was directed, the man, having opened it, merely
 
 J?ISEN BY PERSEVERANCE. 
 
 said, *0h, this is from Riddlesdon (an attorney in Phila- 
 delphia, whom Franklin knew to be a thorough knave) ; I 
 have lately found him to be a complete rascal ;' and giving 
 back the letter, turned on his heel, and proceeded to serve 
 his customers. Upon this, Franklin's confidence in his patron 
 began to be a little shaken; and, after reviewing the whole 
 affair in his own mind, he resolved to lay it before a very 
 intelligent mercantile gentleman, who had come over from 
 America with them, and with whom he had contracted an 
 intimacy on the passage. His friend very soon put an end 
 to his doubts. 'He let me,' says Franklin, 'into Keith's 
 character ; told me there was not the least probability that 
 he had written any letters for me ; that no one who knew 
 him had the smallest dependence on him ; and he laughed at 
 the idea of the Governor's giving me a letter of credit, having, 
 as he said, no credit to give.' 
 
 Thus thrown once more on his own means, our young 
 adventurer found there was no resource for him but to 
 endeavour to procure some employment at his trade in 
 London. Accordingly, having applied to a Mr. Palmer, a 
 printer of eminence in Bartholomew Close, his services were 
 accepted, and he remained there for nearly a year. During 
 this time, although he was led into a good deal of idleness 
 by the example of a friend, somewhat older than himself, he 
 by no means forgot his old habits of reading and study. 
 Having been employed in printing a second edition ol 
 Wollaston's Religion of Nature, his perusal of the work 
 induced him to compose and publish a small pamphlet in 
 refutation of some of the author's positions, v/hich, he tells us, 
 he did not afterwards look back upon as altogether a wise 
 proceeding. He employed the greater part of his leisure more
 
 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 profitably in reading a great many works, which (circulating 
 libraries, he remarks, not being then in use) he borrowed, on 
 certain terms that were agreed upon between them, from a 
 bookseller, whose shop was next door to his lodgings in 
 Little Britain, and who had an immense collection of second- 
 hand books. His pamphlet, however, was the means of 
 making him known to a few of the literary characters then 
 in London, among the rest to the noted Dr. Mandeville, 
 author of the Fable of the Bees; and to Dr. Pemberton, Sir 
 Isaac Newton's friend, who promised to give him an oppor- 
 tunity, some time or other, of seeing that great man ; but this, 
 he says, never happened. He also became acquainted about 
 the same time with the famous collector and naturalist. Sir Hans 
 Sloane, the founder of the British Museum, who had heard 
 of some curiosities which Franklin had brought over from 
 America ; among tnese was a purse made of asbestos, which he 
 purchased from him. 
 
 While with Mr. Palmer, and afterwards with Mr. Watts, 
 near Lincoln's Inn Fields, he gave very striking evidence of 
 those habits of temperance, self-command, industry, and 
 frugality which distinguished him through after-life, and were 
 undoubtedly the source of much of the success that attended 
 his persevering efforts to raise himself from the humble con- 
 dition in which he passed his earlier years. While Mr. Watts' 
 other workmen spent a great part of every week's wages on 
 beer, he drank only water, and found himself a good deal 
 stronger, as well as much more clear-headed, on his light 
 beverage than they on their strong potations. ' From my 
 example,' says he, *a great many of them left off their 
 muddling breakfast of beer, bread, and cheese, finding they 
 could with me be supplied from a neighbouring house with
 
 RISEN BY PERSEVERANCE. 
 
 a large porringer of hot-water gruel, sprinkled with pepper, 
 crumbled with bread, and a bit of butter in it, for the price 
 of a pint of beer, viz, three halfpence. This was a more 
 comfortable, as well as a cheaper breakfast, and kept their 
 heads clearer. Those who continued sotting with their beer 
 all day, were often, by not paying, out of credit at the ale- 
 house, and used to make interest with me to get beer — their 
 light, as they phrased it, being out. I watched the pay-table 
 on Saturday night, and collected what I stood engaged for 
 them, having to pay sometimes near thirty shillings a week on 
 their accounts. This, and my being esteemed a pretty good 
 riggitey that is, a jocular verbal satirist, supported my conse- 
 quence in the society. My constant attendance (I never 
 making a St. Monday) recommended me to the master; and 
 my uncommon quickness at composing occasioned my being 
 put upon works of despatch, which are generally better paid \ 
 so I went on now very agreeably.' 
 
 He spent about eighteen months altogether in London, 
 during most part of which time he worked hard, he says, at 
 his business, and spent but little upon himself except in seeing 
 plays, and in books. At last his friend Mr. Denham, the 
 gentleman with whom, as we mentioned before, he had got 
 acquainted on his voyage to England, informed him he was 
 going to return to Philadelphia to open a store, or mercantile 
 establishment, there, and offered him the situation of his clerk 
 at a salary of fifty pounds. The money was less than he was 
 now making as a compositor ; but he longed to see his native 
 country again, and he accepted the proposal. Accordingly, 
 they set sail together; and, after a long voyage, arrived in 
 Philadelphia on the nth of October 1726. Franklin was at 
 this time only in his twenty-first year, and he mentions having
 
 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 23 
 
 formed, and committed to writing, while at sea, a plan for 
 regulating the future conduct of his life. This unfortunately 
 has been lost ; but he tells us himself, that although con- 
 ceived and determined upon when he was so young, it had 
 yet 'been pretty faithfully adhered to quite through to old 
 age.' 
 
 Mr. Denham had only begun business for a few months 
 when he died ; and Franklin was once more left upon the 
 world. He now engaged again with his old master, Keimer, 
 the printer, who had got a better house, and plenty of new 
 types, though he was still as ignorant of his business as he was 
 at the time of Franklin's former connection with him. While 
 in this situation, Franklin got acquainted with several persons, 
 like himself, fond of literary pursuits ; and as the men never 
 worked on Saturday, that being Keimer's self-appointed 
 Sabbath, he had the whole day for reading. ^ He also showed 
 his ingenuity, and the fertility of his resources, on various 
 occasions. They wanted some new types, which, there being 
 no letter foundry in America, were only to be procured from 
 England; but Franklin, having seen types cast in London, 
 though he had paid no particular attention to the process, 
 contrived a mould, made use of the letters they had as 
 puncheons, struck the matrices in lead, and thus supplied, as 
 he tells us, in a pretty tolerable way, all deficiencies. ' I also,' 
 he adds, 'engraved several things on occasion; made the 
 ink ; I was warehouseman ; and, in short, quite z. factotum.^ 
 
 He did not, however, remain long with Keimer, who had 
 engaged him only that he might have his other workmen 
 
 ' Keimer had peculiar notions upon religious observances, and amongst 
 other things fancied it a Chriaun.u duty to observe the Sabbath on the I^t 
 day of the week«
 
 24 RISEN B V PERSE VERATv CE. 
 
 taught through his means ; and, accordingly, when this object 
 was in some sort attained, contrived to pick a quarrel with 
 him, which produced an immediate separation. He then 
 entered into an agreement with one of his fellow-workmen, of 
 the name of Meredith, whose friends were possessed of money, 
 to begin business in Philadelphia in company with him, the 
 understanding being that Franklin's skill should be placed 
 against the capital to be supplied by Meredith. While he and 
 his friend, however, were secretly preparing to put their plan 
 in execution, he was induced to return for a few months to 
 Keimer, on his earnest invitation, to enable him to perform a 
 contract for the printing of some paper-money for the State of 
 New Jersey, which required a variety of cuts and types that 
 nobody else in the place could supply ; and the two having 
 gone together to Burlington to superintend this business, 
 Franklin was fortunate enough, during the three months he 
 remained in that city, to acquire, by his agreeable m.anners 
 and intelligent conversation, the friendship of several of the 
 principal inhabitants, with whom his employment brought him 
 into connection. Among these he mentions particularly 
 Isaac Decow, the surveyor-general. ' He was,' says Franklin, 
 'a shrewd, sagacious old man, who told me that he began 
 for himself, when young, by wheeling clay for the brick- 
 makers, learned to wTite after he was of age, carried the chain 
 for surveyors, who taught him surveying, and he had now by 
 his industry acquired a good estate ; and, said he, I foresee 
 that you will soon work this man (Keimer) out of his 
 business, and make a fortune in it at Philadelphia, He had 
 then not the least intimation of my intention to set up there or 
 anywhere.' 
 
 Soon after he returned to Philadelphia the types that had
 
 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 25 
 
 been sent for from London arrived; and, settling with 
 Keimer, he and his partner took a house, and commenced 
 business. ' We had scarce opened our letters,' says he, ' and 
 put our press in order, before George House, an acquaintance 
 of mine, brought a countryman to us, whom he had met in 
 the street, inquiring for a printer. All our cash was novr 
 expended in the variety of particulars we had been obliged to 
 procure, and this countryman's five shillings, being our first- 
 fruits, and coming so seasonably, gave me more pleasure than 
 any crown I have since earned ; and, from the gratitude I felt 
 towards House, has made me often more ready than perhaps 
 I otherwise should have been, to assist young beginners.' 
 He had, in the autumn of the preceding year, suggested to a 
 number of his acquaintances a scheme for forming them- 
 selves into a club for mutual improvement; and they had 
 accordingly been in the habit of meeting every Friday evening 
 under the name of the Junto. All the members of this asso- 
 ciation exerted themselves in procuring business for him ; and 
 one of them, named Breinthal, obtained from the Quakers 
 the printing of forty sheets of a history of that sect of 
 religionists, then preparing at the expense of the body. 
 * Upon these,' says Franklin, ' we worked exceeding hard, for 
 the price was low. It was a folio. I composed a sheet a 
 day, and Meredith worked it off at press. It was often eleven 
 at night, and sometimes later, before I had finished my 
 distribution for the next day's work; for the little jobs sent 
 in by our other friends, now and then, put us back. But 
 so determined was I to continue doing a sheet a day of 
 the folio, that one night, when, having imposed my forms, 
 I thought my day's work over, one of them by accident 
 was broken, and two pages (the half of the day's work)
 
 26 RISEN B V FERSE VERANCE. 
 
 reduced to //V, I immediately distributed and composed it 
 over again before I went to bed; and this industry, visible 
 to our neighbours, began to give us character and credit.' 
 The consequence was that business, and even offers of credit, 
 came to them from all hands. 
 
 They soon found themselves in a condition to think of 
 establishing a newspaper; but Franklin having inadvertently 
 mentioned this scheme to a person who came to him wanting 
 employment, that individual carried the secret, to their old 
 master, Keimer, with whom he, as well as themselves, had 
 formerly worked ; and he immediately determined to antici- 
 pate them by issuing proposals for a paper of his own. The 
 manner in which Franklin met and defeated this treachery 
 is exceedingly characteristic There was another paper pub- 
 lished in the place, which had been in existence for some 
 years; but it was altogether a wretched affair, and owed 
 what success it had merely to the absence of all competition. 
 For this print, however, Franklin, not being able to commence 
 his own paper immediately, in conjunction with a friend, set 
 about writing a series of amusing communications under the 
 title of the Busy Body, which the publisher printed, of course, 
 very gladly. ' By this means,' says he, ' the attention of the 
 public was fixed on that paper; and Keimer's proposals, 
 which we burlesqued and ridiculed, were disregarded. He 
 began his paper, however; and before carrying it on three- 
 quarters of a year, with at most only ninety subscribers, he 
 offered it me for a trifle ; and I, having been ready some time 
 to go on with it, took it in hand directly, and it proved in a 
 few years extremely profitable to me.' The paper, indeed, 
 had no sooner got into Franklin's hands than its success 
 equalled his most sanguine expectations. Some observations
 
 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 27 
 
 which he wrote and printed in it on a colonial subject, then 
 much talked of, excited so much attention among the leading 
 people of the place, that it obtained the proprietors many 
 friends in the House of Assembly, and they were, on the first 
 opportunity, appointed printers to the House. Fortunately, 
 too, certain events occurred about this time which ended in 
 the dissolution of Franklin's connection with Meredith, who 
 was an idle, drunken fellow, and had all along been a mere 
 incumbrance upon the concern. His father failing to advance 
 the capital which had been agreed upon, when payment was 
 demanded at the usual time by their paper merchant and 
 other creditors, he proposed to Franklin to relinquish the 
 partnership and leave the whole in his hands, if the latter 
 would take upon him the debts of the company, return to his 
 father what he had advanced on their commencing business, 
 pay his little personal debts, and give him thirty pounds 
 and a new saddle. By the kindness of two friends, who, 
 unknown to each other, came forward unasked to tender 
 their assistance, Franklin was enabled to accept of this 
 proposal; and thus, about the year 1729, when he was yet 
 only in the twenty-fourth year of his age, he found himself, 
 after all his disappointments and vicissitudes, with nothing, 
 indeed, to depend upon but his own skill and industry for 
 gaining a livelihood, and from extricating himself from debt, 
 but yet in one sense fairly established in life, and Avith at 
 least a prospect of well-doing before him. 
 
 Having followed his course thus far with so minute an 
 observance of the several steps by which he arrived at the 
 point to which we have now brought him, we shall not 
 attempt to pursue the remainder of his career with the same 
 particularity. His subsequent eflorts in the pursuit oi
 
 28 RISEN BY PERSEVERANCE. 
 
 fortune and independence were, as is well known, eminently 
 successful ; and we find in his whole history, even to its close, 
 a display of the same spirit of intelligence and love of 
 knowledge, and the same active, self-denying, and intrepid 
 virtues, which so greatly distinguished its commencement. 
 The publication of a pamphlet, soon after Meredith had left 
 him, in recommendation of a paper currency, a subject then 
 much debated in the province, obtained him such popularity 
 that he was employed by the Government in printing the 
 notes after they had resolved upon issuing them. Other 
 profitable business of the same kind succeeded. He then 
 opened a stationer's shop, began gradually to pay off hifs 
 debts, and soon after married. By this time his old rival, 
 Keimer, had gone to ruin ; and he was (with the exception 
 of an old man, who was rich, and did not care about business) 
 the only printer in the place. We now find him taking a 
 leading part as a citizen. He established a circulating libraiy, 
 the first ever known in America, which, although it com- 
 menced with only fifty subscribers, became in course of time a 
 large and valuable collection, the proprietors of which were 
 eventually incorporated by royal cl arter. While yet in its 
 infancy, however, it afforded its founder facilities of improve- 
 ment of which he did not fail to avail himself, setting apart, 
 as he tells us, an hour or two every day for study, which 
 was the only amusement he allowed himself. In 1732, he 
 first published his celebrated Almanac, under the name of 
 Richard Saunders, but which was commonly known by the 
 name of Poor Richard's Almanack. He continued this 
 publication annually for twenty - five years. The proverbs 
 and pithy sentences scattered up and down in the different 
 numbers of it, v/ere after\\'ards thrown ♦oe^ether into a
 
 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 29 
 
 connected discourse under the title of The Way to IVeallh, 
 a production which has become so extensively popular that 
 many of our readers are probably familiar with it 
 
 We shall quote, in his own words, the account he gives 
 us of the manner in which he pursued one branch of his 
 studies : — 
 
 'I had begun,' says he, 'in 1733 to study languages. I 
 soon made myself so much a master of the French, as to 
 be able to read the books in that language with ease. I then 
 undertook the Italian. An acquaintance, who was also 
 learning it, used often to tempt me to play chess with him. 
 Finding this took up too much of the time I had to spare 
 for study, I at length refused to play any more, unless on 
 this condition, that the victor in every game should Jiive 
 a right to impose a task, either of parts of the grammar to 
 be got by heart, or in translations, etc., which tasks tlie 
 vanquished was to perform upon honour before our next 
 meeting. As we played pretty equally, we thus beat one 
 another into that language. I afterwards, with a little pains- 
 taking, acquired as much of the Spanish as to read their books 
 also. I have already mentioned that I had had only one 
 year's instruction in a Latin school, and that when very young, 
 after which I neglected that language entirely. But when I 
 had attained an acquaintance with the French, Italian, and 
 Spanish, I was surprised to find, on looking over a Latin 
 Testament, that I understood more of that language than 
 I had imagined, wlaich encouraged me to apply myself again 
 to the study of it; and I met with the more success, as 
 tliose preceding languages had greatly smoothed my way.' 
 
 In 1736 he was chosen clerk of the General Assembly, 
 and being soon after appointed deputy-postmaster for the
 
 30 EISEN BY FERSE VERANCE. 
 
 State, he turned his thoughts to public affairs, beginning, 
 however, as he says, with small matters. He first occupied 
 himself in improving the city watch; then suggested and 
 promoted the establishment of a fire insurance company; 
 and afterwards exerted himself in organizing a philosophical 
 society, an academy for the education of youth, and a militia 
 for the defence of the province. In short, every part of the 
 civil government, as he tells us, and almost at the same time, 
 imposed some duty upon him. 'The Governor,' he says, 
 •put me into the commission of the peace; the corporation 
 of the city chose me one of the common council, and soon 
 after alderman ; and the citizens at large elected me a burgess 
 to represent them in assembly. This latter station was the 
 more agreeable to me, as I grew at length tired with sitting 
 there to hear the debates, in which, as clerk, I could take no 
 part, and which were often so uninteresting that I was induced 
 to amuse myself with making magic squares or circles, or 
 anything to avoid weariness ; and I conceived my oecoming 
 a member would enlarge my power of doing good. I would 
 not, however, insinuate that my ambition was not flattered 
 by all these promotions,^t certainly was ; for considering my 
 low beginning, they were great things to me ; and they were 
 still more pleasing as being so many spontaneous testi- 
 monies of the public good opinion, and by me entirely 
 unsolicited.' 
 
 It is time, however, that we should introduce this extra- 
 ordinary man to our readers in a new character. A much 
 more important part in civil affairs than any he had yet 
 acted was in reserve for him. He lived to attract to 
 himself on the theatre of politics, the eyes not of his own 
 countiymen only, but of the whole civilised world ; and to
 
 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 31 
 
 be a principal agent in the production of events as mighty 
 in themselves, and as pregnant with mighty consequences, 
 as any belonging to modern history. But our immediate 
 object is to exhibit a portrait of the diligent student, and 
 of the acute and patient philosopher. We have now to 
 speak of Franklin's famous electrical discoveries. Of these 
 discoveries we cannot, of course, here attempt to give any- 
 thing more than a very general account. 
 
 The term electricity is derived from electron, the Greek 
 name for amber, which was known, even in ancient times, 
 to be capable of acquiring, by being rubbed, the curious 
 property of attracting very light bodies, such as small bits 
 of paper, when brought near to them. This virtue was 
 thought to be peculiar to the substance in question, and one 
 or two others, down to the close of the sixteenth century, 
 when our ingenious and philosophic countryman, William 
 Gilbert, a physician of London, announced for the first time, 
 in his Latin treatise on the magnet, that it belonged equally 
 to the diamond and many other precious stones; to glass, 
 sulphur, sealing wax, rosin, and a variety of other substances. 
 It is from this period that we are to date the birth of the 
 science of Electricity, which, however, continued in its infancy 
 for above a century, and could hardly, indeed, be said to 
 consist of anything more than a collection of unsystematized 
 and ill - understood facts until it attracted the attention of 
 Franklin. 
 
 Among the facts, however, that had been discovered in this 
 interval, the following were the most important. In the first 
 place, the list of the substances capable ot being excited by 
 friction to a manifestation of electric virtue was considerably 
 extended. It was also found that the bodies which had been
 
 3 2 RISEN B V PERSE VERANCE. 
 
 r.ttracted by the excited substance were immediately after as 
 forcibly repelled by it, and could not be again attracted until 
 they had touched a third body. Other phenomena, too, 
 besides those of attraction and repulsion, were found to take 
 place when the body excited was one of sufficient magnitude. 
 If any other body not capable of being excited, such as the 
 human hand or a rod of metal, was presented to it, a slight 
 sound would be produced, which, if the experiment was 
 performed in a dark room, would be accompanied with a 
 momentary light. Lastly, it was discovered that the electric 
 virtue might be imparted to bodies not capable of being them- 
 selves excited ; by making such a body, when insulated, that is 
 to say separated from all other bodies of the same class by the 
 intervention of one capable of excitation, act either as the rubber 
 of the excited body, or as the drawer of a succession of sparks 
 from it, in the manner that has just been described. It was 
 said, in either of these cases, to be electrified ; and it was found 
 that if it was touched, or even closely approached, when in this 
 state, by any other body, in like manner incapable of being 
 excited by friction, a pretty loud report would take place, 
 accompanied, if either body was susceptible of feeling, with a 
 slight sensation of pain at the point of contact, and which would 
 instantly restore the electrified body to its usual and natural 
 condition. 
 
 In consequence of its thus appearing that ail those bodies, 
 and only those, which could not be themselves excited, might 
 in this manner have electricity, as it were, transferred to them, 
 they were designated conductors, as well as noji-electrics ; while 
 all electrics, on the other hand, were also called non-conductors. 
 It is proper, however, that the reader should be aware, that of 
 the various substances in nature, none, strictly speaking, belong
 
 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 33 
 
 exclusively to either of these classes ; the truth being merely, 
 that different bodies admit the passage of the electric influence 
 with extremely different degrees of facihty, and that those 
 which transmit it readily are called conductors, — the metals, 
 and fluids, and living animals particularly belonging to this 
 class ; while such as resist its passage, or permit it only with 
 extreme reluctance, — among which are amber, sulphur, wax, 
 glass, and silk, — are described by the opposite denomination. 
 
 The beginning of the year 1 746 is memorable in the annals 
 of electricity for the accidental discovery of the possibility of 
 accumulating large quantities of the electric fluid by means 
 of what was called the Ley den jar, or phial. M. Cuneus, of 
 that city, happened one day, while repeating some experiments 
 which had been originally suggested by M. von Kleist, Dean 
 of the Cathedral in Camin, to hold in one hand a glass vessel, 
 nearly full of water, into which he had been sending a charge 
 from an electrical machine, by means of a wire dipped into it, 
 and communicating with the prime conductor, or insulated non- 
 electric,- exposed in the manner we have already mentioned to 
 the action of the excited cylinder. He was greatly surprised, 
 upon applying his other hand to disengage the wire from the 
 conductor, when he thought that the water had acquired as 
 much electricity as the machine could give it, by receiving a 
 sudden shock in his arms and breast, much more severe than 
 anything of the kind he had previously encountered in the 
 course of his experiments. The same thing, it was found, took 
 place when the glass was covered, both within and without, 
 with any other conductors than the water and the human hand, 
 which had been used in this instance ; as, for example, when it 
 was coated on both sides with tinfoil, in such a manner, how- 
 ever, that the two coatings were completely separated from each
 
 34 I^ISEN B V PERSE VERANCE. 
 
 other, by a space around the lip of the vessel being left 
 uncovered. Whenever a communication was formed by the 
 mterposition of a conducting medium between the inside and 
 outside coating, an instant and loud explosion took place, 
 accompanied with a flash of light, and the sensation of a sharp 
 blow, if the conductor employed was any part of the human 
 body. 
 
 The first announcement of the wonders of the Leyden phial 
 excited the curiosity of all Europe. The accounts given of the 
 electric shock by those who first experienced it are perfectly 
 ludicrous, and well illustrate how strangely the imagination is 
 acted upon by surprise and terror, when novel or unexpected 
 results suddenly come upon it. 
 
 From the original accounts, as Dr. Priestley observes, could 
 we not have repeated the experiment, we should have formed 
 a very different idea of the electric shock to what it really is, 
 even when given in greater strength than it could have been by 
 those early experimenters. It was this experiment, however, that 
 first made electricity a subject of general curiosity. Everybody 
 was eager, notwithstanding the alarming reports that were 
 spread of it, to feel the new sensation ; and in the same year 
 in which the experiment was first made at Leyden, numbers of 
 persons, in almost every country in Europe, obtained a liveli- 
 hood by going about and showing it. 
 
 The particulars, then, that we have enumerated may be said 
 to have constituted the whole of the science of Electricity, in 
 the shape in which it first presented itself to the notice of Dr. 
 Franklin. In the way in which we have stated them, they are 
 "little more, the reader will observe, than a mass of seemingly 
 unconnected facts, having, at first sight, no semblance whatever 
 of being the results of a conmion principle, or of being reducible
 
 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 35 
 
 to any general and comprehensive system. It is true that a 
 theory, that of M. Dufay, had been formed before this time to 
 account for many of them, and also for others that we have not 
 mentioned ; but it does not appear that Franklin ever heard of 
 it until he had formed his own, which is, at all events, entirely 
 different ; so that it is unnecessary for us to take it at all into 
 account. We shall form a fair estimate of the amount and 
 merits of Franklin's discoveries, by considering the facts we 
 have mentioned as really constituting the science in the state 
 in which he found it. 
 
 It was in the year 1746, as he tells us himself in the narra- 
 tive of his life, that, being in Boston, he met with a Dr. Spence, 
 who had lately arrived from Scotland, and who showed him 
 some electrical experiments. They were imperfectly performed, 
 as the doctor was not very expert ; * but being,' says Franklin, 
 ' on a subject quite new to rrie, they equally surprised and 
 pleased me. Soon after my return to Philadelphia, our 
 Library Company received from Mr. Peter CoUinson, F.R.S. 
 of London, a present of a glass tube, with some account of the 
 use of it in making such experiments. I eagerly seized the 
 opportunity of repeating what I had seen at Boston, and, by 
 much practice, acquired great readiness in performing those 
 also which we had an account of from England, adding a 
 number of new ones. I say much practice, for my house was 
 continually full for some time with persons who came to see 
 these new wonders. To divide a little this incumbrance among 
 my friends, I caused a number of similar tubes to be blown in 
 our glasshouse, with which they furnished themselves, so that 
 we had at length several performers.' The newly-discovered 
 and extraordinary phenomena exhibited by the Leyden phial, 
 of course, very early engaged his attention in pursuing these
 
 36 J^ISEN BY PERSE VERA NCR. 
 
 interesting experiments ; and his inquisitive mind immediately 
 set itself to work to find out the reason of such strange effects, 
 which still astonished and perplexed the ablest philosophers of 
 Europe. Out of his speculations arose the ingenious and 
 beautiful theory of the action of the electric influence which is 
 known by his name, and which was at that time received by 
 the greater number of philosophers as the best, because the 
 simplest and most complete, demonstration of the phenomena 
 that had until then been given to the world. 
 
 Dr. Franklin's earliest inquiries were directed to ascertain 
 the source of the electricity which friction had the effect of at 
 least rendering manifest in the glass cylinder, or other electric. 
 The question was whether this virtue was created by the friction 
 in the electric, or only thereby communicated to it from other 
 bodies. In order to determine this point, he resorted to the 
 very simple experiment of endeavouring to electrify himself; that 
 is to say, having insulated himself and excited the cylinder by 
 rubbing it with his hand, he then drew off its electricity from it 
 in the usual manner into his own body. But he found that he 
 was not thereby electrified at all, as he would have been by 
 doing the same thing had the friction been applied by another 
 person. No spark could be obtained from him, after the 
 operation, by the presentment of a conductor; nor did he 
 exhibit on such bodies as were brought near him any of the 
 other usual evidences of being charged with electricity. 
 
 If the electricity had been created in the electric by the 
 friction, it was impossible to conceive why the person who drew 
 it off should not have been electrified in this case, just as he 
 would have been had another person acted as the rubber. The 
 result evidently indicated that the friction had effected a 
 change upon the person who had performed that operation,
 
 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 37 
 
 as well as upon the cylinder, since it had rendered him in- 
 capable of being electrified by a process by which, in other 
 circumstances, he would have been so. It was plain, in short, 
 that the electricity had passed, in the first instance, out of his 
 body into the cylinder ; which, therefore, in communicating it 
 to him in the second instance, only gave him back what it had 
 received, and, instead of electrifying him, merely restored him 
 to his usual state — to that in which he had been before the 
 experiment was begun. 
 
 This accordingly was the conclusion to which Franklin 
 came; but, to confirm it, he next insulated two individuals, 
 one of whom he made to rub the cylinder, while the other 
 drew the electricity from it. In this case, it was not the latter 
 merely that was affected ; both were electrified. The one had 
 given out as much electricity to the cylinder in rubbing it, as 
 the other had drawn from it. To prove this still further, he 
 made them touch one another, when both were instantly re- 
 stored to their usual state, the redundant electricity thrown off 
 by the one exactly making up the deficiency of the other. The 
 spark produced by their contact was also, as was to have been 
 expected, greater than that which took place when either of 
 them was touched by any third person who had not been 
 electrified. 
 
 Proceeding upon the inferences which these results seemed 
 so evidently to indicate, Franklin constructed the general 
 outlines of his theory. Every body in nature he considered 
 to have its natural quantity of electricity, which may, however, 
 be either diminished, by part of it being given out to another 
 body, as that of the rubber, in the operation of the electrical 
 machine, is given out to the cylinder ; or increased, as when 
 the body is made to receive the electricity from the cylinder.
 
 3 8 RISEN B Y FERSE VE RANGE. 
 
 In the one case he regarded the body as negatively^ in the 
 other as positively, electrified. In the one case it had less, in 
 the other more, than its natural quantity of electricity ; in 
 either, therefore, supposing it to be composed of electricity 
 and common matter, the usual equilibrium or balance between 
 its two constituent ingredients was, for the time, upset or 
 destroyed. 
 
 But how should this produce the different effects which are 
 observed to result from the action of electrified bodies ? How 
 is the mere circumstance of the overthrow of the customary 
 equilibrium, between the electricity and the matter of a body, 
 to be made to account for its attraction and repulsion of other 
 bodies, and for the extraordinary phenomena presented by the 
 Leyden phial? The Franklinian theory answers these ques 
 tions with great ease and completeness. 
 
 The fundamental law of the electric fluid, according to this 
 theory, is that its particles attract matter, and repel one 
 another. To this we must add a similar law with regard to 
 the particles of matter, namely, that they repel each other, as 
 well as attract electricity. This latter consideration was some- 
 what unaccountably overlooked by Franklin, but was after- 
 wards introduced by Mr. -^pinus, of St. Petersburg, and our 
 celebrated countryman, the late Mr. Cavendish, in their more 
 elaborate expositions of his theory of the electrical action. 
 Let us now apply these two simple principles to the explana- 
 tion of the facts we have already mentioned. 
 
 In the first place, when two bodies are in their ordinary or 
 natural state, the quantity of matter is an exact balance for 
 the quantity of electricity in each, and there is accordingly 
 no tendency of the fluid to escape ; no spark will take place 
 between two such bodies when they are brought into contact
 
 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 39 
 
 Nor will they either attract or repel each other, because the 
 attractive and repulsive forces operating between them are 
 exactly balanced, the two attractions of the electricity in the 
 first for the matter in the second, and of the electricity in the 
 second for the matter in the first, being opposed by the two 
 repulsions of the electricity in the first for the electricity in the 
 second, and of the matter in the first for the matter in the 
 second. They, therefore, produce no efiect upon each other 
 whatever. 
 
 But let us next suppose that one of the bodies is an electric 
 which has been excited in the usual way by friction — a stick 
 of wax, or a glass cylinder, for example, which has been 
 rubbed with the hand, or a piece of dry silk. In this case, 
 the body in question has received an addition to its natural 
 quantity of electricity, which addition, accordingly, it will 
 most readily part with whenever it is brought into contact 
 with a conductor. But this is not all. Let us see how it 
 will act, according to the law that has been stated, upon the 
 other body, which we shall suppose to be in its natural state, 
 when they are brought near each other. First, from the 
 repulsive tendency of the electric particles, the extra electricity 
 in the excited body will drive away a portion of the electricity 
 of the other from its nearest end, which will thus become 
 negatively electrified, or will consist of more matter than is 
 necessary to balance its electricity. In this state of things, 
 what are the attractive and repulsive forces operating between 
 the two bodies, the one, be it remembered, having an excess 
 of electricity, and the other an excess of matter ? There are, 
 in fact, five attractive forces opposed by only four repulsive — 
 the former being those of the matter in the first body for the 
 electricity in the second, of the balanced electricity in the
 
 40 RISEN B V PERSE VERANCE. 
 
 first for the balanced matter in the second, of the same for the 
 extra matter in the second, together with the two of the extra 
 electricity in the first for the same two quantities of matter ; 
 and the latter being those of the matter in the first for the 
 balanced matter in the second, of the same for the extra 
 matter in the second, together with those of the electricity 
 in the second both for the balanced and the extra electricity 
 in the first. The two bodies, therefore, ought to meet, as 
 we find they actually do. But no sooner do they meet than 
 the extra electricity of the first, attracted by the matter of 
 the second, flows over partly to it ; and both bodies become 
 positively electrified — that is to say, each contains a quantity 
 of electricity beyond that which its matter is capable of 
 balancing. It will be found, upon examination, that we 
 have now four powers of attraction opposed by five of 
 repulsion — the former being those of the matter in each body 
 for the two electricities in the other ; the latter, those exerted 
 by each of the electricities in the one against both the 
 electricities of the other, together with that of the matter 
 in the one for the matter in the other. The bodies now 
 accordingly should repel each other, just as we find to be 
 the fact. Of course, the same reasoning applies to the case 
 of a neutral body, and any other containing a superabund- 
 ance of electricity, whether it be an electric or no, and in 
 whatever way its electricity may have been communicated 
 to it. We may add, that there is no case of attraction or 
 repulsion between two bodies, in which the results indicated 
 by the theory do not coincide with those of observation as 
 exactly as in this. 
 
 We now come to the phenomena oi the Leyden phial. 
 The two bodies upon which we are here to fix our attention
 
 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 41 
 
 are the interior and exterior coatings, which, before the pro- 
 cess of charging has commenced, are of course in their 
 natural state, each having exactly that quantity of electricity 
 which its matter is able to balance, and neither therefore 
 exerting any effect whatever upon the other. But no sooner 
 has the interior coating received an additional portion of 
 electricity from the prime conductor, with which the reader 
 will remember it is in communication, than, being now 
 positively electrified, it repels a corresponding portion of its 
 electricity from the exterior coating, which therefore becomes 
 negatively electrified. As the operation goes on, both these 
 effects increase, till at last the superabundance of electricity 
 in the one surface, and its deficiency in the other, reach 
 the hmit to which it is wished to carry them. All this 
 while, it will be remarked, the former is prevented from 
 giving out its superfluity to the latter by the interposition 
 of the glass, which is a non-conductor, and the uncovered 
 space which had been left on both sides around the lip of 
 the vessel. If the charge were made too high, however, 
 even these obstacles would be overcome, and the unbalanced 
 electricity of the interior coating, finding no easier vent, would 
 at last rush through the glass to the unsaturated matter on 
 its opposite surface, probably shattering it to pieces in its 
 progress. But, to effect a discharge in the usual manner, 
 a communication must be established by means of a good 
 conductor between the two surfaces, before this extreme 
 limit be reached. If either a rod of metal, for example, or 
 the human body, be employed for this purpose, the fluid 
 from the interior coating will instantly rush along the road 
 made for it, occasioning a pretty loud report, and, in the 
 latter case, a severe shock, by the rapidity of its passage.
 
 42 RISEN BY PERSEVERANCE. 
 
 Both coatings will, in consequence, be immediately restored 
 to their natural state. 
 
 That this is the true explanation of the matter, Franklin 
 further demonstrated by a variety of ingenious experiments. 
 In the first place, he found that, if the outer coating was 
 cut off, by being insulated from every conducting body, the 
 inner coating could not be charged ; the electricity in the 
 outer coating had here no means of escape, and it was conse- 
 quently impossible to produce in that coating the requisite 
 negative electricity. On the other hand, if a good conductor 
 was brought within the striking distance from the outside 
 coating, while the process of charging was going on, the 
 expelled fluid might be seen passing away towards it in sparks, 
 in proportion as more was sent from the prime conductor 
 into the inside of the vessel. He observed also that, when 
 a phial was charged, a cork ball, suspended on silk, would 
 be attracted by the one coating when it had been repelled 
 by the other — an additional indication and proof of their 
 opposite states of electricity, as might be easily shown by an 
 analysis of the attractive and repulsive forces operating 
 between the two bodies in each case. 
 
 But Frankhn did not rest contented with ascertaining the 
 principle of the Leyden phial. He made also a very happy 
 application of this principle, which afforded a still more 
 wonderful manifestation than had yet been obtained of the 
 powers of accumulated electricity. Considering the waste that 
 took place, in the common experiment, of the fluid expelled, 
 during the process of charging, from the exterior coating, he 
 conceived the idea of employing it to charge the inner surface 
 of a second jar, which he effected, of course, by the simple 
 expedient of drawing it ofl" by means of a metal rod communi-
 
 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 43 
 
 eating with that surface. The electricity expelled from the 
 outside of this second jar was conveyed, in like manner, into 
 the inside of a third ; and, in this way, a great number 
 of jars were charged with the same facility as a single one. 
 Then, having connected all the inside coatings with one 
 conductor, and all the outside coatings with another, he had 
 merely to bring these two general conductors into contact 
 or communication, in order to discharge the whole ac- 
 cumulation at once. This contrivance he called an Electrical 
 Battery. 
 
 The general sketch we have thus given will put the reader 
 in possession, at least, of the great outlines of the Franklinian 
 theory of electricity, undoubtedly one of the most beautiful 
 generalizations to be found in the whole compass of science. 
 By the aid of what we may call a single principle, since 
 the law with regard to the electric fluid and common matter 
 is exactly the same, it explains satisfactorily not only all the 
 facts connected with this interesting subject which were 
 known when it was first proposed, but all those that have 
 been since discovered, diffusing order and light throughout 
 v/hat seemed before little better than a chaos of unintelligible 
 contradictions. We must now, however, turn to a very 
 brilliant discovery of this illustrious philosopher, the reality 
 of which does not depend upon the truth or falsehood of any 
 theory. 
 
 Franklin was by no means the first person to whom the 
 idea had suggested itself of a similarity between electricity 
 and lightning. Not to mention many other names which 
 might be quoted, the Abbe Nollet had, before him, not only 
 aitimated his suspicion that thunder might be in the hands 
 of Nature what eleclricity is in ours, but stated a variety of
 
 44 RISEN B Y PERSE VERANCE. 
 
 reasons on which he rested his conjecture. It is to Franklin 
 alone, however, that the glory belongs of both pointing out 
 the true method of verifying this conjecture, and of actually 
 establishing the perfect identity of the two powers in ques- 
 tion. ' It has, indeed, been of late the fashion,' says the 
 editor of the first account of his electrical experiments, pub- 
 lished at London in 1751, 'to ascribe every grand or unusual 
 operation of nature, such as lightning and earthquakes, to 
 electricity ; not, as one would imagine from the manner of 
 reasoning on these occasions, that the authors of these 
 schemes have discovered any connection betwixt the cause 
 and effect, or saw in what manner they were related ; but, 
 as it would seem, merely because they were unacquainted 
 with any other agent, of which it could not positively be 
 said the connection was impossible.' FrankUn transformed 
 what had been little more than a figure of rhetoric into a 
 most important scientific fact. 
 
 In a paper, dated November 7, 1749, he enumerates all 
 the known points of resemblance between lightning and elec- 
 tricity. In the first place, he remarks, it is no wonder that 
 the effects of the one should be so much greater than those 
 of the other ; for if two gun-barrels electrified will strike at 
 two inches' distance, and make a loud report, at how great a 
 distance will ten thousand acres of electrified cloud strike, 
 and give its fire; and how loud must be that crack! He 
 then notices the crooked and waving course both of the flash 
 of lightning and, in some cases, of the electric sparks; the 
 tendency of lightning, like electricity, to take the readiest and 
 best conductor ; the fact that lightning, as well as electricity, 
 dissolves metals, burns some bodies, rends others, strikes people 
 blind, destroys animal life, reverses the poles of magnets, etc
 
 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 45 
 
 He had known fur some time the extraordinary power of 
 pointed bodies, both in drawing and in throwing off the electric 
 fire. The true explanation of this fact did not occur to him ; 
 but it is a direct consequence of the fundamental principle of 
 his own theory, according to which the repulsive tendency of 
 the particles of electricity towards each other, occasioning the 
 fluid to retire, in every case, from the interior to the surface 
 of bodies, drives it with especial force towards points and other 
 prominences, and thus favours its escape through such outlets ; 
 while, on the other hand, the more concentrated attraction 
 which the matter of a pointed body, as compared with 
 that of a blunt one, exerts upon the electricity to which it 
 is presented, brings it down into its new channel in a denser 
 stream. In possession, however, of the fact, we find him 
 concluding the paper we have mentioned as follows : — ' The 
 electric fluid is attracted by points. We do not know whether 
 this property be in lightning ; but since they agree in all the 
 particulars in which we can already compare them, it is not 
 improbable that they agree likewise in this. I^et the experi- 
 ment be made.' 
 
 Full of this idea, it was yet some time before he found what 
 he conceived a favourable opportunity of trying its truth in 
 the way he meditated. A spire was about to be erected in 
 Philadelphia, which he thought would afford him facilities for 
 the experiment ; but his attention having been one day drawn 
 by a kite which a boy was flying, it suddenly occurred to him 
 that here was a method of reaching the clouds preferable to 
 any other. Accordingly, he immediately took a large silk 
 handkerchief and stretching it over two cross sticks, formed 
 in this manner his simple apparatus for drawing down the 
 lightning from its cloud. Soon after, seeing a thunderstorm
 
 46 RISEN B V PERSE VERANCE. 
 
 approaching, he took a walk into a field in the neighbourhood 
 of the city, in which there v*^as a shed, — communicating his 
 intentions, however, to no one but his son, whom he took 
 with him, to assist him in raising the kite : this was in June 
 1752. 
 
 The kite being raised, he fastened a key to the lower 
 extremity of the hempen string, and then insulating it by 
 attaching it to a post by means of silk, he placed himself 
 under the shed, and waited the result. For some time no 
 signs of electricity appeared. A cloud, apparently charged 
 with lightning, had even passed over them without producing 
 any effect. At length, however, just as Franklin was beginning 
 to despair, he observed some loose threads of the hempen 
 string rise and stand erect, exactly as if they had been repelled 
 from each other by being charged with electricity. He 
 immediately presented his knuckle to the key, and, to his 
 inexpressible delight, drew from it the well-known electrical 
 spark. It is said that his emotion was so great at this 
 completion of a discovery which was to make his name 
 immortal, that he heaved a deep sigh, and felt that he could 
 that moment have willingly died. As the rain increased, the 
 cord became a better conductor, and the key gave out its 
 electricity copiously. Had the hemp been thoroughly wet, 
 the bold experimenter might, as he was contented to do, have 
 paid for his discovery with his life. 
 
 He afterwards brought down the lightning into his house, 
 by means of an insulated iron rod, and performed with it, at 
 his leisure, all the experiments that could be performed with 
 electricity. But he did not stop here. His active and 
 practical mind was not satisfied even with the splendid dis- 
 covery, until he had turned it to a useful end. It suggested
 
 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 47 
 
 to him, as is well known, the idea of a method of preserving 
 buildings from lightning, which is extremely simple and cheap, 
 as well as effectual, consisting, as it does, in nothing more 
 than attaching to the building a pointed metallic rod, rising 
 higher than any part of it, and communicating at the lower 
 end with the ground. This rod the lightning is sure to seize 
 upon in preference to any part of the building; by which 
 means it is conducted to the earth, and prevented from doing 
 any injury. There was always a strong tendency in Franklin's 
 philosophy to these practical applications. The liglitning-rod 
 was probably the result of some of the amusing experiments 
 with which FrankUn was, at the commencement of his elec- 
 trical investigations, accustomed to employ his own leisure, 
 and afford pleasure to his friends. In one of his letters to 
 Mr. Collinson, dated so early as 1 748, we find him expressing 
 himself in the following strain, in reference to his electrical 
 experiments : — ' Chagrined a little that we have hitherto been 
 able to produce nothing in this way of use to mankind, and 
 the hot weather coming on, when electrical experiments are 
 not so agreeable, it is proposed to put an end to them for this 
 season somewhat humorously, in a party of pleasure on the 
 banks of Skuylkill. Spirits at the same time are to be fired by 
 a spark sent from side to side through the river, without any 
 other conductor than the water — an experiment which we 
 have some time since performed to the amazement of many. 
 A turkey is to be killed for dinner by the electrical shock, and 
 roasted by the electrical jack, before a fire kindled by the 
 electrified bottle ; when the healths of all the famous electricians 
 in England, Holland, France, and Germany are to be drunk 
 in electrified bumpers^ under the discharge of guns from the 
 etecirical baiicry,'
 
 48 RISEN B Y PERSE VERANCE. 
 
 Franklin's electrical discoveries did not, on their first 
 announcement, attract much attention in England; and, 
 indeed, he had the mortification of learning that his paper on 
 the similarity of lightning to electricity, when read by a friend 
 to the Royal Society, had been only laughed at by that learned 
 body. In France, however, the account that had been 
 published in London of his experiments, fortunately fell into 
 the hands of the celebrated naturalist Buffbn, who was so 
 much struck with it that he had it translated into French and 
 printed at Paris. This made it immediately known to all 
 Europe ; and versions of it in various other modern languages 
 soon appeared, as well as one in Latin. The theory pro- 
 pounded in it was at first violently opposed in France by the 
 Abbe NoUet, who had one of his own to support, and, as 
 Franklin tells us, could not at first believe that such a work 
 came from America, but said it must have been fabricated 
 by his enemies at Paris. The Abb^ was eventually, however, 
 deserted by all his partisans, and lived to see himself the last 
 of his sect. In England, too, the Franklinian experiments 
 gradually began to be more spoken of; and, at last, even the 
 Royal Society was induced to resume the consideration of the 
 papers that had formerly been read to them. One of their 
 members verified the grand experiment of bringing down 
 lightning from the clouds ; and upon his reading to them an 
 account of his success, ' they soon,' says Franklin, * made me 
 more than amends for the slight with which they had before 
 treated me. Without my having made any application for 
 that honour, they chose me a member; and voted that I 
 should be excused the customary payments, which would have 
 amounted to twenty-five guineas; and ever since have given 
 me their Transactions gratis. They also presented me with
 
 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 49 
 
 the gold medal of Sir Godfrey Copley, for the year 1753, the 
 delivery of which was accompanied with a very handsome 
 speech of the President, Lord Macclesfield, wherein I was 
 highly honoured.' Some years afterwards, when he was in 
 this country with his son, the University of St. Andrews con- 
 ferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Laws ; and its 
 example was followed by the Universities of Edinburgh and 
 Oxford. He was also elected a member of many of the learned 
 societies throughout Europe. 
 
 No philosopher of the age now stood on a prouder eminence 
 than this extraordinary man, who had originally been one of 
 the most obscure of the people, and had raised himself to all 
 this distinction almost without the aid of any education but 
 such as he had given himself. Who will say, after reading his 
 story, that anything more is necessary for the attainment of 
 knowledge than the determination to attain it ? — that there is 
 any other obstacle to even the highest degree of intellectual 
 advancement which may not be overcome, except a man's own 
 listlessness or indolence ? The secret of this man's success in 
 the cultivation of his mental powers was, that he was ever 
 awake and active in that business ; that he suffered no oppor- 
 tunity of forwarding it to escape him unimproved; that, 
 however poor, he found at least a few pence, were it even by 
 diminishing his scanty meals, to pay for the loan of the books 
 he could not buy; that, however hard wrought, he found a 
 few hours in the week, were it by sitting up half the night 
 after toiling all the day, to read and study them. Others may 
 not have his original powers of mind ; but his industry, his 
 perseverance, his self-command, are for the imitation of all ; 
 and though few may look forward to the rare fortune of 
 achieving discoveries like his, all may deviv^j both instruction
 
 50 f/SBN B Y PERSE VERANCE. 
 
 and encouragement from his example. They who may never 
 overtake the light, may at least follow its path, and guide their 
 footsteps by its illumination. 
 
 Were we to pursue the remainder of Franklin's history, we 
 should find the fame of the patriot vying with that of the 
 philosopher in casting a splendour over it ; and the originally 
 poor and unknown tradesman standing before kings, associat- 
 ing as an equal with the most eminent statesmen of his time, 
 and arranging along with them the wars and treaties of mighty 
 nations. When the struggle of American independence com- 
 menced, he was sent as ambassador from the United States to 
 the court of France, where he soon brought about an alliance 
 between the two countries, which produced an immediate war 
 between the latter and England. In 1783, he signed, on the 
 part of the United States, the treaty of peace with England, 
 which recognised their independence. Two years after he 
 returned to his native country, where he was received with 
 acclamation by his grateful and admiring fellow-citizens, and 
 immediately elected President of the Supreme Executive 
 Council. He closed his eventful and honourable life on the 
 17th of April 1790, in the eighty-fifth year of his age,* 
 
 * The most authentic edition of Franklin's memoirs is that entitled. 
 The Life of Benjamin Franklin, written by himself. By John Bigelow. 
 ■\ vols. Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia.
 
 JAMES BRINDLEY. 
 
 James BRINDLEY, the celebrated engineer, was 
 entirely self-taught in even the rudiments of 
 mechanical science, — although, unfortunately, we 
 are not in possession of any very minute details of the 
 manner in which his powerful genius first found its way 
 to the knowledge of those laws of nature of which it after- 
 wards made so many admirable applications. He was born 
 at Tunsted, in the parish of Wormhill, Derbyshire, in the 
 year 1716; and all we know of the first seventeen years of 
 his life is that, his father havmg reduced himself to extreme 
 poverty by his dissipated habits, he was allowed to grow up 
 almost totally uneducated, and, from the time he was able to 
 do anything, was employed in the ordinary descriptions of 
 country labour. To the end of his life this great genius was 
 barely able to read on any very pressing occasion ; for, gene- 
 rally speaking, he would no more have thought of looking 
 into a book for any information he wanted, than of seeking 
 for it in the heart of a millstone ; and his knowledge of the 
 art of writing hardly extended farther than the accomplishment 
 of signing his name. It is probable that, as he grew towards 
 manhood, he began to feel himself created for higher things
 
 5 2 F.TSEN B V PERSE FE RANGE. 
 
 than driving a cart or following a plough ; and we may even 
 venture to conjecture, that the particular bias of his genius 
 towards mechanical invention had already disclosed itself, 
 when, at the age of seventeen, he bound himself apprentice 
 to a person of the name of Bennet, a millwright, residing at 
 Macclesfield, which was but a few miles from his native place. 
 At all events, it is certain that he almost immediately dis- 
 played a wonderful natural aptitude for the profession he had 
 chosen. ' In the early part of his apprenticeship,' says the 
 writer of his life in the Biographia Britannica^ who was 
 supplied with the materials of his article by Mr. Henshall, 
 Brindley's brother-in-law, 'he was frequently left by himself 
 for whole weeks together to execute works concerning which 
 his master had given him no previous instructions. These 
 works, therefore, he finished in his own way ; and Mr, Bennet 
 was often astonished at the improvements his apprentice from 
 time to time introduced into the millwright business, and 
 earnestly questioned him from whom he had gained his 
 knowledge. He had not been long at the trade before the 
 millers, wherever he had been employed, always chose him 
 again in preference to the master or any other workman ; and 
 before the expiration of his servitude, at which time Mr. 
 Bennet, who was advanced in years, grev/ unable to work, 
 Mr. Brindley, by his ingenuity and application, kept up the 
 business with credit, and even supported the old man and 
 his family in a comfortable manner.' 
 
 His master, indeed, does not appear to have been very 
 capable of teaching him much of anything; and Brindley 
 seems to have been left to pick up his knowledge of the 
 business in the best way he could by his own observation 
 and sagacity. Bennet having been employed on one occasion,
 
 JAMES BRINDLEY. 53 
 
 we are told, to build the machinery of a paper mill, which he 
 had never seen in his life, took a journey to a distant part 
 of the country expressly for the purpose of inspecting one 
 which might serve him for a model. However, he had made 
 his observations, it would seem, to very Uttle purpose; for, 
 having returned home and fallen to work, he could make 
 nothing of the business at all, and was only bewildering him- 
 self, when a stranger, who understood something of such 
 matters, happening one day to see what he was about, felt 
 no scruple in remarking in the neighbourhood that the man 
 was only throwing away his employer's money. The reports 
 which in consequence got abroad soon reached the ears of 
 Brindley, who had been employed on the machinery under 
 the directions of his master. Having probably of himself 
 begun ere this to suspect that all was not right, his suspicions 
 were only confirmed by what he heard ; but, aware how 
 unlikely it was that his master would be able to explain 
 matters, or even to assist him in getting out of his difficulties, 
 he did not apply to him. On the contrary, he said nothing 
 to any one, but, waiting till the work of the week was over, 
 set out by himself one Saturday evening to see the mill 
 which his master had already visited. He accomplished his 
 object, and was back to his work by Monday morning, having 
 travelled the whole journey of fifty miles on foot. Perfectly 
 master now of the construction of the mill, he found no diffi- 
 culty in going on with his undertaking, and completed the 
 machine, indeed, not only so as perfectly to satisfy the pro- 
 prietor, but with several improvements on his model of his 
 own contrivance. 
 
 After remaining some years with Bennet, he set up in 
 business for himself. With the reputation he had already
 
 54 RISEN B V PERSE VERANCE. 
 
 acquired, his entire devotion to his profession, and the 
 wonderful talent for mechanical invention of which almost 
 every piece of machinery he constructed gave evidence, he 
 could not fail to succeed. But for some time, of course, he 
 was known only in the neighbourhood of the place where 
 he lived. His connections, however, gradually became more 
 and more extensive, and at length he began to undertake 
 engineering in all its branches. He distinguished himself 
 greatly in 1752 by the erection of a water-engine for draining 
 a coal mine at Clifton in Lancashire. The great difficulty 
 in this case was to obtain a supply of water for working 
 the engine ; this he brought through a tunnel of six hundred 
 yards in length, cut in the solid rock. It would appear, 
 however, that his genius was not yet quite appreciated as it 
 deserved to be, even by those who employed him. He was 
 in some sort an intruder into his present profession, foi 
 which he had not been regularly educated ; and it was 
 natural enough that, before his great powers had had an 
 opportunity of showing themselves, and commanding the 
 ■universal admiration of those best qualified to judge of 
 them, he should have been conceived by many to be rather 
 a merely clever workman in a few particular departments, 
 than one who could be safely entrusted with the entire 
 management and superintendence of a complicated design. 
 In 1755 it was determined to erect a new silk-mill at Congle- 
 ton, in Cheshire ; and, another person having been appointed 
 to preside over the execution of the work, and to arrange 
 the more intricate combinations, Brindley was engaged to 
 fabricate the larger wheels and other coarser parts of the 
 apparatus. It soon became manifest, however, in this in- 
 stance, that the superintendent was unfit for his office, and
 
 JAMES BRINDLEY. 55 
 
 the proprietors were obliged to apply to Brindley to remedy 
 several blunders into which he had fallen, and give his advice 
 as to how the work should be proceeded in. Still they did 
 not deem it proper to dismiss their incapable projector, but, 
 the pressing difificulty overcome, would have had him by 
 whose ingenuity they had been enabled to get over it to 
 return to his subordinate place and work under the direc- 
 tions of the same superior. This Brindley positively refused 
 to do. He told them he was ready, if they would merely 
 let him know what they wished the machine to perform, to 
 apply his best endeavours to make it answer that purpose, 
 and that he had no doubt he should succeed, but he would 
 not submit to be superintended by a person whom he had 
 discovered to be quite ignorant of the business he professed. 
 This at once brought about a proper arrangement of matters. 
 Brindley's services could not be dispensed with; those of 
 the pretender who had been set over him might be so 
 without much disadvantage. The entire management of the 
 work, therefore, was forthwith confided to the former, who 
 completed it with his usual abihty in a superior manner. 
 He not only made important improvements, indeed, in many 
 parts of the machine itself, but even in the mode of prepar- 
 ing the separate pieces of which it was to be composed. His 
 ever active genius was constantly displaying itself by the 
 invention of the most beautiful and economical simplifica- 
 tions. One of these was a method which he contrived for 
 cutting all his tooth and pinion wheels by machinery, instead 
 of having them done by the hand, as they always till then 
 had been. This invention enabled him to finish as much of 
 that sort of work in one day as had formerly been accom- 
 plished in fourteen.
 
 56 JilSEN B V PERSE VERANCE. 
 
 But the character of this man's mind was comprehensive- 
 ness and grandeur of conception ; and he had not yet found 
 any adequate field for the display of his vast ideas and almost 
 inexhaustible powers of execution. Happily, however, this 
 was at last afforded him, by the commencement of a series 
 of undertakings in this country, which deservedly rank among 
 the achievements of modern enterprise and mechanical skill, 
 and which were destined, within no long period, to change 
 the whole aspect of the internal commerce of the island. 
 
 Artificial water roads, or canals, were well known to the 
 ancients. Without transcribing all the learning that has 
 been collected upon the subject, and may be found in any 
 of the common treatises, we may merely state that the 
 Egyptians had early effected a junction by this means 
 between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean ; that both 
 the Greeks and the Romans attempted to cut a canal across 
 the Isthmus of Corinth; and the latter people actually cut 
 one in Britain from the neighbourhood of Peterborough to 
 that of Lincoln, some traces of which are still discernible. 
 Canal navigation is also of considerable antiquity in China. 
 The greatest work of this description in the world is the 
 Imperial Canal of that country, which is two hundred feet 
 broad, and, commencing at Pekin, extends southward to 
 the distance of about nine hundred miles. It is supposed 
 to have been constructed about eight centuries ago ; but 
 there are a great many smaller works of the same kind in 
 the country, many of which are undoubtedly much older. 
 The Chinese are unacquainted, as were also the ancients, 
 with the contrivance called a lock, by means of which 
 different levels are connected in many of our modern 
 European canals, and which, as probably all our readers
 
 JAMES B RIND LEY. 57 
 
 know, is merely a small intermediate space, in which the 
 water can be kept at the same elevation as either part of 
 the channel, into which the boat is admitted by the opening 
 of one floodgate, and from which it is let out by the 
 opening of another, after the former has been shut; — the 
 purpose being thus attained of floating it onwards, without 
 any greater waste of v/ater than the quantity required to 
 alter the level of the enclosed space. When locks are not 
 employed, the canal must be either of uniform level 
 throughout, or it must consist of a succession of completely 
 separated portions of water-way, from the one to the other 
 of which the boat is carried on an inclined plane, or by 
 some other mechanical contrivance. 
 
 Canals have also been long in use in several of the 
 countries of modern Europe, particularly in the Netherlands 
 and in France. In the former, indeed, they constitute the 
 principal means of communication between one place and 
 another, whether for commercial or other purposes. In 
 France, the canals of Burgundy, of Briare, of Orleans, and 
 of Languedoc, all contribute important facilities to the com- 
 merce of the country. The last-mentioned, which unites the 
 Mediterranean to the Atlantic, is sixty feet broad and one 
 hundred and fifty miles in length. It vras finished in 
 1 68 1, having employed twelve thousand men for fifteen 
 }ears, and cost twelve hundred thousand pounds sterling. 
 
 It is remarkable that, with these examples before her, 
 England was so late in availing herself of the advantages 
 of canal navigation. The subject, however, had not been 
 altogether unthought of. As early as the reign of Charles 
 the Second, a scheme was in agitation for cutting a canal 
 (which has since been made) between the Forth and the
 
 5 8 RISEN B V PERSE VERANCE. 
 
 Clyde, in the northern part ot the kingdom; but the idea 
 was abandoned, from the difiSculty ot procuring the requisite 
 funds. A very general impression, too, seems to have been 
 felt, in the earlier part of the last century, as to the desir- 
 ableness of effecting a canal navigation between the central 
 English counties and either the metropolis or the eastern 
 coast 
 
 The first modern canal actually executed in England was 
 not begun till the year 1755. It was the result of a sudden 
 thought on the part of its undertakers, nothing of the kind 
 having been contemplated by them when they commenced 
 the operations which led to it They had obtained an Act 
 of Parliament for rendering navigable the Sankey brook, in 
 Lancashire, which flows into the river Mersey, from the 
 neighbourhood of the now flourishing town of St Helens, 
 through a district abounding in valuable beds of coal. Upon 
 surveying the ground, however, with more care, it was con- 
 sidered better to leave the natural course of the stream 
 altogether, and to carry the intended navigation along a new 
 line ; in other words, to cut a canal. The work was 
 accordingly commenced ; and the powers of the projectors 
 having been enlarged by a second Act of Parliament, the 
 canal was eventually extended to the length of about twelve 
 miles. It turned out both a highly successful speculation for 
 the proprietors and a valuable public accommodation. 
 
 It is probable that the Sankey canal, although it did not 
 give birth to the first idea of the great work we are now about 
 to describe, had at least the honour of prompting the first 
 decided step towards its execution. Francis, Duke of 
 Bridgewater, who, while yet much under age, had succeeded, 
 in the year 1748, by the death of his elder brothers, to the
 
 JAMES BRINDLEY. 59 
 
 family estates, and the title, which had been first borne by 
 his father, had a property at Worsley, about seven miles west 
 from Manchester, extremely rich in coal mines, which, how- 
 ever, had hitherto been utiproductive, owing to the want of 
 any sufficiently economical means of transport. The object 
 of supplying this defect had for some time strongly engaged 
 the attention of the young duke, as it had indeed done that 
 of his father, who, in the year 1732, had obtained an Act of 
 Parliament enabling him to cut a canal to Manchester, but 
 had been deterred from commencing the work, both by the 
 immense pecuniary outlay which it would have demanded, 
 and the formidable natural difficulties against which at that 
 time there was probably no engineer in the country able to 
 contend. When the idea, however, was now revived, the 
 extraordinary mechanical genius of Brindley had already 
 acquired for him an extensive reputation, and he was applied 
 to by the duke to survey the ground through which the 
 proposed canal would have to be carried, and to make his 
 report upon the practicability of the scheme. New as he 
 was to this species of engineering, Brindley, confident in his 
 own powers, at once undertook to make the desired examina- 
 tion, and, having finished it, expressed his conviction that the 
 ground presented no difficulties which might not be sur- 
 mounted. On receiving this assurance, the duke at once 
 determined upon commencing the undertaking; and an Act 
 of Parliament having been obtained in 1758, the powers of 
 which were considerably extended by succeeding Acts, the 
 formation of the canal was begun that year. 
 
 From the first the duke resolved that, without regard to 
 expense, every part of the work should be executed in the 
 most perfect manner. One of the chief difficulties to be
 
 6o mSEN B V PERSE VERANCE. 
 
 surmotinted was that of procuring a sufficient supply of water ; 
 and, therefore, that there might be as little of it as possible 
 wasted, it was determined that the canal should be of uniform 
 level throughout, and of course without locks. It had 
 consequently to be carried in various parts of its course both 
 under hills and over wide and deep valleys. The point, 
 indeed, from which it took its commencement was the heart 
 of the coal mountain at Worsley. Here a large basin was 
 formed, in the first place, from which a tunnel of three- 
 quarters of a mile in length had to be cut through the hill. 
 We may just mention, in passing, that the subterraneous 
 course of the water beyond this basin has since been extended 
 in various directions for about thirty miles. After emerging 
 from under ground, the line of the canal was carried forward, 
 as we have stated, by the intrepid engineer, on the same 
 undeviating level, every obstacle that presented itself being 
 triumphed over by his admirable . ingenuity, which the diffi- 
 culties seemed only to render more fertile in happy inventions. 
 Nor did his comprehensive mind ever neglect even the most 
 subordinate departments of the enterprise. The operations 
 of the workmen were everywhere facilitated by new machines 
 of his contrivance; and whatever could contribute to the 
 economy with v>'hich the work was carried on, was attended 
 to only less anxiously than what was deemed essential to 
 its completeness. Thus, for example, the materials excavated 
 from one place were employed to form the necessary embank- 
 ments at another, to which they were conveyed in boats, 
 having bottoms which opened, and at once deposited the load 
 in the place where it was wanted. No part of his task, 
 indeed, seemed to meet this great engineer unprepared. He 
 made no blunders, and never had either to undo anything or
 
 JAMES BRIND LEY. 6i 
 
 to wish it undone ; on the contrary, when any new difficulty 
 occurred, it appeared almost as if he had been all along 
 providing for it — as if his other operations had been directed 
 from the first by his anticipation of the one now about to be 
 undertaken. 
 
 In order to bring the canal to Manchester, it was necessary 
 to carry it across the Irwell. That river is, and was then, 
 navigable for a considerable way above the place at which 
 the canal comes up to it ; and this circumstance interposed 
 an additional difficulty, as, of course, in establishing the one 
 navigation, it was indispensable that the other should not be 
 destroyed or interfered with. But nothing could dismay the 
 daring genius of Brindley, Thinking it, however, due to his 
 noble employer to give him the most satisfying evidence in 
 his power of the practicability of his design, he requested that 
 another engineer might be called in to give his opinion before 
 its execution should be determined on. This person Brindley 
 carried to the spot where he proposed to rear his aqueduct, 
 and endeavoured to explain to him how he meant to carry 
 on the work. But the man only shook his head, and 
 remarked that 'he had often heard of castles in the air, but 
 never before was shown where any of them were to be 
 erected.' The duke, nevertheless, retained his confidence in 
 his own engineer, and it was resolved that the work should 
 proceed. The erection of the aqueduct, accordingly, was 
 begun in September 1760, and on the 17th of July following, 
 the first boat passed over it, the whole structure forming a 
 bridge of above two hundred yards in length, supported upon 
 three arches, of which the centre one rose nearly forty feet 
 above the surface of the river ; on which might be frequently 
 beheld a vessel passing along, while another, with all its masts
 
 62 RISEN B Y PERSE VERANCE. 
 
 and sails standing, was holding its undisturbed way directly 
 under its keel. 
 
 In 1762, an Act of Parliament was, after much opposition, 
 obtained by the duke, for carrying a branch of his canal to 
 communicate with Liverpool, and so uniting that town, by 
 this method of communication, to Manchester. This portion 
 of the canal, which is more than twenty-nine miles in length, 
 is, like the former, without locks, and is carried by an 
 aqueduct over the Mersey, the arch of which, however, is less 
 lofty than that of the one over the Irwell, as the river is not 
 navigable at the place where it crosses. It passes also over 
 several valleys of considerable width and depth. Before this, 
 the usual price of the carriage of goods between Liverpool 
 and Manchester had been twelve shillings per ton by water, 
 and forty shillings by land ; they were now conveyed by the 
 canal, at a charge of six shillings per ton, and with all the 
 regularity of land carriage. 
 
 In contemplating this great work, we ought not to overlook 
 the admirable manner in which the enterprising nobleman, at 
 whose expense it was undertaken, performed his part in carry- 
 ing it on. It was his determination, as we have already stated, 
 from the first, to spare no expense on its completion. Accord- 
 ingly, he devoted to it during the time of its progress nearly the 
 whole of his revenues, denying himself, all the while, even the 
 ordinary accommodations of his rank, and living on an income 
 of four hundred a year. He had even great commercial diffi- 
 culties to contend with in the prosecution of his schemes, being 
 at one time unable to raise ;!^5oo on his bond on the Royal 
 Exchange ; and it was a chief business of his agent, Mr. 
 Gilbert, to ride up and down the country to raise money on 
 his grace's promissory notes. It is true that he was afterwards
 
 JAMES BRINDLEY. 63 
 
 amply repaid for this outlay and temporary sacrifice ; but the 
 compensation that eventually accrued to him he never might 
 have lived to enjoy ; and .at all events, he acted as none but extra- 
 ordinary men do, in thus voluntarily relinquishing the present 
 for the future, and preferring to any dissipation of his wealth 
 on passing and merely personal objects, the creation of this 
 magnificent monument of lasting public usefulness.^ Nor was 
 it only in the liberality of his expenditure that thg duke 
 approved himself a patron worthy of Brindley. He supported 
 his engineer throughout the undertaking with unflinching 
 spirit, in the face of no little outcry and ridicule, to which the 
 imagined extravagance or impracticability of many of his plans 
 exposed him — and that even from those who were generally 
 accounted the most scientific judges of such matters. The 
 success with which these plans were carried into execution is, 
 probably in no slight degree, to be attributed to the perfect con- 
 fidence with which their author was thus enabled to proceed. 
 
 We have entered at the greater length into the history of 
 this undertaking, both because it was the first of a succession 
 of works of the same description, in which the great engineer 
 of whom we are speaking displayed the unrivalled hardihood, 
 
 ^ Francis, Duke of Bridgewater, died in 1803, at the age of 67, when 
 the ducal title became extinct, ^nd the earldom passed to his cousin, 
 General Egerton. The income arising from his canal property alone was 
 understood to be, at the time of his death, between ;^5o,ooo and ;[^8o,ooo 
 per annum — a large revenue, but not amounting, although we add to it the 
 rents of his other estates, to anything like that assigned to this nobleman, 
 by the writer of his life, in the Biographic Universelle, who informs us that 
 the income-tax which he paid every year amounted alone to ;i^l 10,000 
 sterling. ' La somme qu'il payait, chaque annee, pour sa portion dans la 
 taxe du revenue [income-tax) s'elevait seule a 110,000 livres st. ' The fact 
 is, that in the returns which he made under the Act imposing the tax in 
 question, the duke estimated his income at that amount. He left at his 
 death, besides his large property in land, about ^{^600.000 in the funds.
 
 64 RISEN B V PERSE VERANCE. 
 
 originality, and fertility of his genius, and because from it is 
 also to be dated the commencement of that extended canal 
 navigation which now forms so important a part of our means 
 of internal communication in this country. While the Bridge- 
 water canal was yet in progress, Mr. Brindley was engaged by 
 Lord Gower,^ and the other principal landed proprietors in 
 Staffordshire, to survey a line for another canal, which it was 
 proposed should pass through that county, and, by uniting the 
 Trent and the Mersey, open for it a communication, by water, 
 with both the east and west coast. Having reported favourably 
 of the practicability of this design, and an Act of Parliament 
 having been obtained in 1765 for carrying it into effect, he was 
 appointed to conduct the work. The scheme was one which 
 had been often thought of ; but the supposed impossibility of 
 carrying the canal across the tract of elevated country which 
 stretches along the central region of England had hitherto pre- 
 vented any attempt to execute it. This was, however, precisely 
 such an obstacle as Brindley delighted to cope with ; and he at 
 once overcame it, by carrying a tunnel through Harecastle 
 Hill, of two thousand eight hundred and eighty yards in length, 
 at a depth, in some places, of more than two hundred feet 
 below the surface of the earth. This was only one of five 
 tunnels excavated in different parts of the canal, which extends 
 to the length of ninety-three miles, having seventy-six locks, and 
 passing in its course over many aqueducts. Brindley, however, 
 did not live to execute the whole of this great work, which was 
 finished by his brother-in-law, Mr. Henshall, in 1777, about 
 eleven years after its com.mencement. 
 
 ^ Lord Gower married a sister of the Duke of Bridgewater ; and his 
 grace left his canal property in Lancashire to his nephew, the Marques.s 
 of Stafford.
 
 JAMES BRINDLE V. 65 
 
 During the time that these operations, so new in this 
 country, were in progress, the curious crowded to witness them 
 from all quarters, and the grandeur of many of Brindley's plans 
 seems to have made a deep impression upon even his un- 
 scientific visitors. A letter which appeared in the newspapers 
 while he was engaged with the Trent and Mersey Canal, gives 
 us a lively picture of the astonishment with which the multitude 
 viewed what he was about. The writer, it will be observed, 
 alludes particularly to the Harecastle tunnel, the chief difficulty 
 in excavating which arose from the nature of the soil it had to 
 be cut through : — ' Gentlemen come to view our eighth wonder 
 of the world, the subterranean navigation which is cutting by 
 the great Mr. Brindley, who handles rocks as easily as you 
 would plum-pies, and makes the four elements subservient to 
 his will. He is as plain a looking man as one of the boors of 
 the Peak, or one of his own carters ; but when he speaks all 
 ears listen, and every mind is filled with wonder at the things 
 he pronounces to be practicable. He has cut a mile through 
 bogs, which he binds up, embanking them with stones, which 
 he gets out of other parts of the navigation, besides about a 
 quarter of a mile into the hill Yelden, on the side of which he 
 has a pump, which is worked by water, and a stove, the fire of 
 which sucks through a pipe the damps that would annoy the 
 men who are cutting towards the centre of the hill. The clay 
 he cuts out serves for brick to arch the subterraneous part, 
 which we heartily wish to see finished to Wilden Ferry, when 
 we shall be able to send coals and pots to London, and to 
 different parts of the globe.' 
 
 It would occupy too much of our space to detail, however 
 rapidly, the history of the other undertakings of this description 
 to which the remainder of Mr. Brindley's life was devoted.
 
 66 RISEN B V PERSE VERANCE, 
 
 The success with which the Duke of Bridgewater's enterprising 
 plans for the improvement of his property were rewarded, 
 speedily prompted numerous other speculations of a similar 
 description ; and many canals were formed in different parts of 
 the kingdom, in the execution or planning of almost all of 
 which Brindley's services were employed. He himself had 
 become quite an enthusiast in his new profession, as a little 
 anecdote that has been often told of him may serve to show. 
 Having been called on one occasion to give his evidence 
 touching some professional point before a Committee of the 
 House of Commons, he expressed himself, in the course of his 
 examination, with so much contempt of rivers as means of 
 internal navigation, that an honourable member was tempted to 
 ask him for what purpose he conceived rivers to have been 
 created, when Brindley, after hesitating a moment, replied, 
 ' To feed canals.' His success as a builder of aqueducts would 
 appear to have inspired him with almost as fervid a zeal in 
 favour of bridges as of canals, if it be true, as has been asserted, 
 that one of his favourite schemes contemplated the joining of 
 Great Britain to Ireland by a bridge of boats extending from 
 Portpatrick to Donaghadee. This report, however, is alleged 
 to be without foundation by the late Earl of Bridgewater, in a 
 curious work which he published some years ago at Paris, 
 relative to his predecessor's celebrated canal. 
 
 Brindley's multiplied labours and intense application rapidly 
 wasted his strength and shortened his life. He died at 
 Turnhurst, in Staffordshire, on the 27th of September 1772, 
 in the fifty-sixth year of his age, having suffered for some 
 years under a hectic fever which he had never been able 
 to get rid of. In his case, as in that of other active spirits, 
 the soul seems to have
 
 JAMES BRINDLE Y. 67 
 
 'O'er-infoim'd its tenement of clay,' 
 although the actual bodily fatigue to which his many engage- 
 ments subjected him must doubtless have contributed to wear 
 him out 
 
 No man ever lived more for his pursuit, or less for himself, 
 than Brindley. He had no sources of enjoyment, or even 
 of thought, except in his profession. It is related that, having 
 once, when in London, been prevailed upon to go to the 
 theatre, the unusual excitement so confused and agitated him 
 as actually to unfit him for business for several days, on which 
 account he never could be induced to repeat his visit. His 
 total want of education, and ignorance of literature, left his 
 genius without any other field in which to exercise itself and 
 spend its strength than that which the pursuit of his profes- 
 sion afforded it : its power, even here, would not probably 
 have been impaired, if it could have better sought relaxation 
 in variety ; on the contrary, its spring would most likely have 
 been all the stronger for being occasionally unbent. We 
 have already mentioned that he was all but entirely ignorant 
 of reading and writing. He knew something of figures, but 
 did not avail himself much of their assistance in performing 
 the calculations which were frequently necessary in the prose- 
 cution of his mechanical designs. On these occasions his 
 habit was to work the question, by a method of his own 
 chiefly in his head, only setting down the results at particular 
 stages of the operation ; yet his conclusions were generally 
 correct. His vigour of conception, in regard to machinery 
 was so great, that, however complicated might be the machine 
 he had to execute, he never, except sometimes to satisfy his 
 employers, made any drawing or model of it, but having 
 once fixed its difierent parts in his mind, would construct
 
 6 8 mSEN B V PERSE VE RANGE. 
 
 it without any difficulty merely from the idea of which he 
 had thus possessed himself. When much perplexed with 
 any problem he had to solve, his practice was to take to bed 
 in order to study it, and he would sometimes remain, we 
 are told, for two or three days thus fixed to his pillow in 
 meditation. 
 
 We shall the more clearly appreciate the impulse given to 
 inland navigation in this country by the achievements of 
 Brindley, and the extent of the new accommodation which 
 cur commerce has hence obtained within the last sixty or 
 seventy years, if we cast our eye for a moment over the map 
 of Great Britain, and note a few of the principal canals by 
 which the island is now intersected in all directions. First, 
 there is the Trent and Mersey Canal, which we have already 
 mentioned, and which was denominated by Brindley the 
 Grand Trunk Navigation, as, in fact, uniting one side of the 
 kingdom to the other, and therefore specially adapted to 
 serve, as it has since actually done, by way of stem from 
 which other similar lines might proceed as branches to 
 different points. By this canal, a complete water communi- 
 cation was established, though by a somewhat circuitous 
 sweep, between the great ports of Liverpool on the west 
 coast and Hull on the east A branch from it, the Stafford- 
 shire and Worcestershire Canal, was afterwards carried to the 
 river Severn ; and thus a union was effected between the 
 port of Bristol and the two already mentioned. This branch, 
 being about forty-six miles long, was also executed by 
 Brindley, and was completed in 1772. Similar communica- 
 tions were subsequently formed from other points on the 
 south coast to the central counties. But the most important 
 line of English canals is that which extends from the centre
 
 JAMES B RIND LEY. 69 
 
 of the kingdom to the metropolis, and, by faUing into the 
 Grand Trunk Navigation, forms in fact a continued com- 
 munication by water all the way from London to Liverpool 
 Of this line, the principal part is formed by what is called 
 the Grand Junction Canal, which, commencing at Brentford, 
 stretches north-west till it falls into a branch of the Oxford 
 Canal at Braunston, in Northamptonshire, passing at one place 
 (BUsworth) through a tunnel three thousand and eighty yards 
 in length, eighteen feet high, and sixteen and a half wide. 
 The Regent and Paddington Canals have since formed com- 
 munications between the Grand Junction Canal and the 
 eastern, western, and northern parts of the metropolis. The 
 whole length of the direct waterway thus established between 
 Liverpool and London is about two hundred and sixty-four 
 miles ; but if the different canals which contribute to form 
 the line be all of them measured in their entire length, the 
 aggregate amount of the inland navigation, in this connection 
 alone, will be found to extend to above one thousand four 
 hundred miles. 
 
 The oldest canal in the northern part of the kingdom is that 
 between the Forth and Clyde, which was executed by the 
 celebrated Smeaton, although its plan was revised by Brindley. 
 It commences at Grangemouth, on the Carron, at a short 
 distance from where that river falls into the Forth, and 
 originally terminated at Port Dundas, in the neighbourhood 
 of Glasgow. A portion of this canal, owing to the great 
 descent of the ground over which it passes towards the west, 
 has no fewer than twenty locks in the first ten miles and a 
 half It was afterwards carried farther west to Dalmuir, on 
 the Clyde, and is now connected with the Glasgow and 
 Saltcoats Canal, whose course is across the counties of
 
 70 RISEN B V PERSE VERANCE. 
 
 Renfrew and Ayr to the river Garnock, which flows into tlie 
 Atlantic opposite to the Isle of Arran. More recently, a 
 branch was extended from its north-eastern extremity, along 
 the south bank of the Forth, as far as Edinburgh , so 
 that the whole now forms an uninterrupted line of canal 
 navigation from the east to the west coast of Scotland. The 
 famous Caledonian Canal, in the north of Scotland, also 
 unites the two opposite seas, and indeed runs pretty nearly 
 parallel to a part of the line that has just been described. 
 It was commenced in 1802, under the management of Mr. 
 Telford, who conducted it throughout, and was first opened 
 on the 23d of October 1822. The distance between the 
 German and the Atlantic Oceans, measured in the direction 
 of this canal, is two hundred and fifty miles ; but of this 
 nearly two hundred and thirty miles, consisting of friths 
 and lakes, were already navigable. The canal itself, there- 
 fore, which has cost about a million of pounds sterling, is 
 only, properly speaking, about twenty miles in length ; and, 
 had not steam navigation been fortunately discovered while 
 the work was going on, there seems every reason to believe 
 that the cut would have been nearly useless. 
 
 The entire length of the canal navigation already formed 
 in Great Britain and Ireland exceeds four thousand seven 
 hundred miles. The whole of this is the creation of less 
 than a century, during which period, therefore, consider- 
 ably above forty miles of canal may be said to have been 
 produced every year — a truly extraordinary evidence of the 
 spirit and resources of a country which has been able to 
 continue so large an expenditure for so long a time on a 
 single object, and which has in a single year, during that 
 period, spent almost as much money upon war as all those
 
 JAMES BRINDLEY. 71 
 
 canals together have cost for three-quarters of a century. If 
 Brindley had never Uved, we should undoubtedly ere now 
 have been in possession of much of this accommodation ; for 
 the time was ripe for its introduction, and an increasing 
 commerce, everywhere seeking vent, could not have failed, 
 ere long, to have struck out for itself, to a certain extent, 
 these new facilities. But had it not been for the example 
 set by his adventurous genius, the progress of artificial naviga- 
 tion among us would probably have been timid and slow 
 compared to what it has been. For a long time, in all likeli- 
 hood, our only canals would have been a few small ones, 
 cut in the more level parts of the country, like that substituted 
 in 1755 for the Sankey Brook, the bene% of each of which 
 would have been extremely insignificant and confined to a 
 very narrow neighbourhood. He did, in the very infancy 
 of the art, what has not yet been undone, struggling, indeed, 
 with such difficulties, and triumphing over them, as could be 
 scarcely exceeded by any his successors might have to 
 sncounter. By the boldness and success with which, in 
 particular, he carried the Grand Trunk Navigation across 
 the elevated ground of the Midland Counties, he demonstrated 
 that there was hardly any part of the island where a canal 
 might not be formed ; and, accordingly, this very central 
 ridge, which used to be deemed so insurmountable an obstacle 
 to the junction of our opposite coasts, is now intersected by 
 more than twenty canals beside the one which he first drove 
 through the barrier. It is in the conception and accomplish- 
 ment of such grand and fortunate deviations from ordinary 
 practice that we discern the power, and confess the value, 
 of original genius. The case of Brindley affords us a wonder- 
 ful example of what the force of natural talent will sometimes
 
 72 
 
 mSEN BY PERSEVERANCE. 
 
 do in attaining an acquaintance with particular departments 
 of science, in the face of almost every conceivable disadvantage, 
 where not only all education is wanting, but even all acces? 
 to books.
 
 WILLIAM COBBETT. 
 
 fILLIAM COBBETT was a native of Farnham, in 
 
 Surrey. He was born about 1762, the third son 
 
 of a small farmer. After he had risen to 
 
 eminence and distinction, it was his delight and his pride 
 
 to refer to the honourable, if humble circumstances of his 
 
 early life — to a father whom, he says, ' I ardently loved, and 
 
 to whose every word I listened with admiration,' and to a 
 
 'gentle, and tender-hearted, and affectionate mother.' In one 
 
 of his Rural Rides, in which he was accompanied by one 
 
 of his sons, then a mere boy, he says : ' In coming from Moor 
 
 Park to Farnham town, I stopped opposite the door of a 
 
 little old house, where there appeared to be many children. 
 
 "There, Dick," said I, "when I was just such a little creature 
 
 as that, whom you see in the doorway, I lived in this very 
 
 house with my grandmother Cobbett."' He was a bold, 
 
 adventurous, hardy little chap, fond of all manner of rural 
 
 EngUsh sports, and the very ' father to the man ' he afterwards 
 
 became. Cobbett, whatever were his faults, had a genial 
 
 temperament and great warmth of feeling. In one of his 
 
 Rural Rides, in which he was accompanied by an elder son, 
 
 he wTites : — 
 
 n
 
 74 RISEN BY PERSEVERANCE. 
 
 * We went a little out of the way to go to a place called 
 the Bourne, which lies in the heath at about a mile from 
 Farnham. We went to Bourne in order that I might show 
 my son the spot where I received the rudiments of my 
 education. There is a little hop garden in which I used to 
 work when from eight to ten years old, from which I have 
 scores of times run to follow the hounds, leaving the hoe to 
 do the best that it could to destroy the weeds. But the 
 most interesting thing was a sand-hill which goes from a part 
 of the heath down to the rivulet. As a due mixture of 
 pleasure with toil, I, with two brothers, used occasionally to 
 disport ourselves, as the laAvyers call it, at this sand-hill. 
 Our diversion was this. We used to go to the top of the hill, 
 which was steeper than the roof of a house; one used to 
 draw his arms out of the sleeves of his smock-frock, and lay 
 himself down with his arms by his sides ; and then the others, 
 one at head and the other at feet, sent him rolling down 
 the hill like a barrel or a log of wood. By the time he got 
 to the bottom, his hair, eyes, ears, nose, and mouth were 
 all full of this loose sand ; then the others took their turn, 
 and, at every roll, there was a monstrous spell of laughter. 
 I had often told my sons of this, while they were very little, 
 and I now took one of them to see the spot. But that was 
 not alL This was the spot where I was receiving my educa- 
 tion ; and this was the sort of education ; and I am perfectly 
 satisfied that, if I had not received such an education, cr 
 something very much like it, — that, if I had been brought up 
 a milksop, with a nursery-maid everlastingly at my heels, — I 
 should have been at this day as great a fool, as inefficient a 
 mortal, as any of those frivolous idiots that are turned out 
 from Winchester and Westminster School, or from any of those
 
 WILLIAM COBBETT. 75 
 
 dens of dunces called colleges and universities. It is 
 impossible to say how much I owe to that sand-hill; and I 
 went to return it my thanks for the ability which it probably 
 gave me to be one of the greatest terrors to one ox the 
 greatest and most powerful bodies of knaves and fools 
 that ever were permitted to afflict this or any other 
 country.' 
 
 Breakfasting at a little village in Sussex, he looks with fond 
 complacency upon the landlady's son : ' A very pretty village, 
 and a very nice breakfast, in a very neat parlour of a very 
 decent public-house. The landlady sent her son to get me 
 some cream ; and he was just such a chap as I was at his 
 age, and dressed just in the same sort of way, his main 
 garment being a blue smock-frock, faded from wear, and 
 mended with pieces of new stuff, and, of course, not faded. 
 The sight of this smock-frock brought to my recollection 
 many things very dear to me.' This is as fine as Burns 
 gazing upon the cottage smoke in his morning walk to 
 Blackford Hill with Dugald Stewart. One anecdote of his 
 boyhood, related by himself, is so amusingly characteristic of 
 the future man, that we have never forgotten it. He was 
 not permitted to follow the hounds upon some occasion, and, 
 in revenge, procured a salt herring, which he furtively drew 
 over the ground where they were to throw off, thus to cast 
 them off the scent. The trick took to admiration, and the 
 boy as much exulted in his success as did the man in 
 tne discomfiture of his enemies, EUenborough and Vickary 
 Gibbs. 
 
 In the introduction to one of his most delightful books, — 
 next, indeed, to the Rural Rtdes,— namely, his Year's Residence 
 in Ameiica, he says : — ■
 
 7b RISEN B Y PERSE VERANCE. 
 
 ' Early habits and affections seldom quit us while we have 
 vigour of mind left. I was brought up under a father wbiise 
 talk was chiefly about his garden and his fields, with regard 
 to which he was famed for his skill and his exemplary neat- 
 ness. From my very infancy, from the age of six years, when 
 I climbed up the side of a steep sand-rock, and there scooped 
 me out a plot four feet square to make me a garden, and the 
 soil for which I carried up in the bosom of my little blue 
 smock-frock, or hunting-shirt, I have never lost one particle 
 of my passion for these healthy, and rational, and heart- 
 cheering pursuits, in which every day presents something new, 
 in which the spirits are never suffered to flag, and in which 
 industry, skill, and care are sure to meet with their due 
 reward. I have never, for any eight months together, during 
 my whole life, been without a garden.' 
 
 In the same volume in his American journal, this passage 
 occurs : — 
 
 'When I returned to England in 1800, after an absence, 
 from the country parts of it, of sixteen years, the trees, the 
 hedges, even the parks and woods, seemed so small ! It 
 made me laugh to hear little gutters, that I could jump over, 
 called rivers ! The Thames was but a " creek " ! But when, 
 in about a month after my arrival in London, I went to 
 Farnham, the place of my birth, what was my surprise! 
 Everything was become so pitifully small! I had to cross, 
 in my post-chaise, the long and dreary heath of Bagshot; 
 then, at the end of it, to mount a hill called Hungry Hill ; 
 and from that hill I knew that I should look down into the 
 beautiful and fertile vale of Farnham. My heart fluttered 
 with impatience, mixed with a sort of fear, to see all the 
 scenes of my childhood; for I had learnt before, the death
 
 WILLIAM COBBETT. 77 
 
 of my father and mother. There is a hill, not far from the 
 tovm, called Crooksbury Hill, which rises up out of a flat, in 
 the form of a cone, and is planted with Scotch fir-trees. 
 Here I used to take the eggs and young ones of crows and 
 magpies. This hill was a famous object in the neighbour- 
 hood. It served as tlie superlative degi^ee of height. "As 
 high as Crooksbury Hill" meant with us the utmost degree 
 of height. Therefore, the first object that my eyes sought 
 was this hill. 1 could not believe my eyes I Literally speak- 
 ing, I for a moment thought the famous hill removed, and 
 a little heap put in its stead; for I had seen, in New 
 Brunswick, a single rock, or hill of solid rock, ten times as 
 big, and four or five times as high ! The postboy, going 
 down hill, and not a bad road, whisked me, in a few minutes, 
 to the Bush Inn, from the garden of which I could see the 
 prodigious sand-hill where I had begun my gardening works. 
 What a nothing ! But now came rushing into my mind, all 
 at once, my pretty little garden, my little blue smock-frock, 
 my little nailed shoes, my pretty pigeons that I used to feed 
 out of my hands, the last kind words and tears of my gentle, 
 and tender-hearted, and affectionate mother ! I hastened 
 back into the room. If I had looked a moment longer, I 
 should have dropped. When I came to reflect, what a 
 change ! I looked down at my dress. What a change 1 
 What scenes I had gone through ! How altered my state ! 
 I had dined the day before at the Secretary of State's, in 
 company with Mr. Pitt, and had been waited upon by men 
 in gaudy liveries ! I had had nobody to assist me in the 
 world. No teachers of any sort. Nobody to shelter me from 
 the consequences of bad, and no one to counsel me to good 
 behaviour. I felt proud. The distinctions of rank, birth,
 
 78 RISEN BY PERSEVERANCE. 
 
 and wealth, all became nothing in my eyes, and from that 
 moment (less than a month after my arrival in England) I 
 resolved never to bend before them.' 
 
 Cobbett, in his native place, and following the employ- 
 ments of his ancestors, must inevitably have been a 'village 
 Hampden.' On looking at a little smock-frocked boy, in 
 nailed shoes and clean coarse shirt, such as he had been, 
 he very naturally remarks : ' If accident had not taken me 
 from a similar scene, how many villains and fools, who have 
 been well teased and tormented, would have slept in peace 
 by night, and fearlessly swaggered about by day ! ' Cobbett 
 -eceived so little school learning that, in his case, it may be 
 almost truly said 'reading and writing came by nature.' 
 From eight years of age he was engaged in such rural 
 occupations as picking hops and hautboys, weeding in 
 gardens, and driving away the birds, and following the 
 hounds, or getting upon horseback as often as he could, or 
 digging after rabbits' nests, rolling down the sand-hills, and 
 whipping the little efts that crept about in the heath. And 
 this is the education which, upon reflection, he preferred. 
 None of his own young children were ever sent from home 
 to school. Reading and writing came to them from imitation. 
 Throughout all Cobbett's writings (crotchets notwithstanding), 
 excellent hints are scattered upon this important subject, but 
 especially in his Advice to Young Afen. His controversy with 
 the educators as a sect, was merely one of sound. No man 
 could prize the advantages of education so highly as one who 
 owed all he knew to himself, and who had pursued knowledge 
 unremittingly, and under considerable difficulties. His first 
 start from home he has described himself in this memorable 
 passage : —
 
 WILLIAM COBBETT. 79 
 
 • At eleven years of age, my employment was clipping off 
 box-edgings and weeding beds of flowers in the garden of the 
 lUshop of Winchester, at the Castle of Farnham, my native 
 town. I had alwavs been fond of beautiful gardens, and a 
 gardener, who had just come from the King's Gardens at Kew, 
 gave such a description of them as made me instantly resolve 
 to work in these gardens. The next morning, without saying 
 a word to any one, off I set, with no clothes except those 
 upon my back, and with thirteen halfpence in my pocket. 
 I found that I must go to Richmond, and I accordingly 
 went on from place to place, inquiring my way thither. 
 A long day (it was in June) brought me to Richmond 
 in the afternoon. Two pennyworth of bread and cheese 
 and a pennyworth of small beer which I had on the 
 road, and one halfpenny which I had lost somehow or 
 other, left threepence in my pocket. With this for my whole 
 fortune, I was trudging through Richmond in my blue smock- 
 frock and my red garters tied under my knees, when, staring 
 about me, my eye fell upon a little book in a bookseller's 
 window, on the outside of which was written. Tale of a Tub, 
 price 3d. The title was so odd that my curiosity was excited. I 
 had the threepence, but then I could have no supper. In I went 
 and got the little book, which I was so impatient to read that 
 I got over into a field at the upper corner of the Kew Garden, 
 where there stood a hay-stack. On the shady side of this I 
 sat down to read. The book was so different from anything 
 that I had read before ; it was something so new to my mind 
 that, though I could not at all understand some of it, it 
 delighted me beyond description, and it produced what I have 
 always considered a sort of birth of intellect. I read on till 
 it was dark, without any thought about supper or bed. When
 
 8o RISEN B V PERSE VERANCE. 
 
 I could see no longer, I put my little book in my pocket and 
 tumbled down by the side of the stack, where I slept till the 
 birds in Kew Gardens awaked me in the morning, when off I 
 started to Kew, reading my little book. The singularity of 
 my dress, the simplicity of my manner, my confident and lively 
 air, and, doubtless, his own compassion besides, induced the 
 gardener, who was a Scotsman, to give me victuals, find me 
 lodging, and set me to work. And it was during the period 
 that I was at Kew that the present king and two of his brothers 
 laughed at the oddness of my dress while I was sweeping the 
 grass plat round the foot of the pagoda. The gardener, seeing 
 me fond of books, lent me some gardening books to read ; but 
 these I could not relish after my Tale of a Tub, which I carried 
 about with me wherever I went ; and when I, at about twenty 
 years old, lost it in a box that fell overboard in the Bay of 
 Fundy, in North America, the loss gave me greater pain than 
 I have ever felt at losing thousands of pounds. This circum- 
 stance, trifling as it was, and childish as it may seem to relate 
 it, has always endeared the recollection of Kew to me.' 
 
 At sixteen he attempted to make off to sea ; at seventeen he 
 went to London, where he supported himself for some time as 
 a copying clerk ; at twenty-two he enlisted as a private soldier, 
 and rose to the rank of sergeant-major. His regiment was the 
 53d, then commanded by one of the king's sons, the Duke of 
 Kent, and he went with it to British America, Thus, from a 
 very tender age he was left entirely to his own guidance and 
 mastership, and thus was nourished the self-depending, deter- 
 mined character which nerved him for his lifelong struggle. 
 The little illustrative snatches of personal history, especially of 
 his young days, which he has incidentally giyen, are the most 
 attractive part of his writings, and these, fortunately, mingle
 
 WILLIAM COBBETT. 8i 
 
 the most largely in the more popular and enduring part of them, 
 namely — the Rural Rides, the Year''s Residence in America, 
 and the Advice to Young Men. In the latter work he says, in 
 treating of education, and, in particular, of learning grammar : — 
 ' The study need subtract from the hours of no business, 
 nor, indeed, from the hours of necessary exercise ; the hours 
 usually spent on the tea and coffee slops, and in the mere 
 gossip which accompany them — those wasted hours of only 
 one year employed in the study of English grammar would 
 make you a correct speaker and writer for the rest of your 
 life. You want no school, no room to study in, no expenses, 
 and no troublesome circumstances of any sort I learned 
 grammar when I was a private soldier on the pay of sixpence 
 a day. The edge of my berth or that of the guard-bed 
 v\as my seat to study in, my knapsack was my bookcase, 
 a bit of board lying on my lap was my writing-table, and 
 the task did not demand anything like a year of my life. 
 I had no money to purchase candle or oil ; in winter time it 
 was rarely that I could get any evening light but that of the 
 fire, and only my turn even of that. And if I under such 
 circumstances, and without parent or friend to advise or 
 encourage me, accomplished this r.ndertaking, what excuse can 
 there be for any youth, howevei poor, however pressed with 
 business, or however chcumstanced as to room or other 
 conveniences? To buy a pen or a sheet jf paper, I was 
 compelled to forego some portion of food, though in a state 
 of half starvation ; I had no moment of time that I could call 
 my own, and I had to read and to write amidst the talking, 
 laughing, singing, whistling, and brawling of at least half a 
 score of the most thoughtless of men, and that, too, in the 
 hours of their freedom from all control Think not lightly of
 
 82 RISEN BY PERSE VERANCB. 
 
 the farthing that I had to give now and then for ink, pen, oi 
 paper. That farthing was, alas ! a great sum to me. I was 
 as tall as I am now ; I had great health and great exercise. 
 The whole of the money not expended for us at market was 
 twopence a week for each man, I remember, and well I may, ■ 
 that upon one occasion I, after all absolutely necessary 
 expenses, had, on a Friday, made shift to have a halfpenny 
 in reserve, which I had destined for the purchase of a red 
 herring in the morning ; but when I pulled off my clothes at 
 night, so hungry then as to be hardly able to endure life, 
 I found that I had lost my halfpenny. I buried my head 
 under the miserable sheet and rug, and cried like a child. 
 And again I say, if I, under circumstances like these, could 
 encounter and overcome this task, is there, can there be, in the 
 whole world a youth to find an excuse for the non-perform- 
 ance ? What youth who shall read this will not be ashamed to 
 say that he is not able to find time and opportunity for this 
 most essential of all the branches of book-learning ! ' 
 
 His natural disposition, prompt and active, made him fall 
 easily into the better parts of military habits. The original 
 maxim of the man who for forty years daily did so much, and 
 who, having put his hand to the plough, never once looked 
 back, was Toiijours pret, ' always ready ; ' and it ought to be 
 the family motto of the Cobbetts. He says of himself: — 
 
 • For my part, I can truly say that I owe more of my great 
 labours to my strict adherence to the precepts that I have 
 here given you than to all the natural abilities with which I 
 have been endowed ; for these, whatever may have been their 
 amount, would have been of comparatively little use, even 
 aided by great sobriety and abstinence, if I had not in early 
 life contracted the blessed habit of husbanding well my time.
 
 WILLIAM COBBETl. 83 
 
 To this, more than to any other thing, I owed my very extra- 
 ordinary promotion in the army. I was " always ready ; " if I 
 had to mount guard at ten, I was ready at nine ; never did 
 any man, or anything, wait one moment for me. Being, at 
 an age under twenty years, raised from corporal to sergeant- 
 major at once, over the heads of thirty sergeants, I naturally 
 should have been an object of envy and hatred ; but this 
 habit of early rising and of rigid adherence to the precepts 
 which I have given you really subdued these passions, because 
 every one felt that what I did he had never done, and never 
 could do. Before my promotion, a clerk was wanted to make 
 out the morning report of the regiment. I rendered the clerk 
 unnecessary, and long before any other man was dressed for 
 the parade, my work for the morning was all done, and I 
 myself was on the parade, walking, in fine weather, for an 
 hour perhaps. My custom was this : to get up in summer 
 at daylight, and in winter at four o'clock — shave, dress, even 
 to the putting of my sword-belt over my shoulder, and havint^ 
 my sword lying on the table before me ready to hang by my 
 side. Then I ate a bit of cheese, or pork and bread. Then 
 I prepared my report, which was filled up as fast as the com- 
 panies brought me in the materials. After this I had an hour 
 or two to read before the time came for any duty out of doors, 
 unless when the regiment, or part of it, went out to exercise in 
 the morning. When this was the case, and the matter was left 
 to me, I always had it on the ground in such time as that 
 the bayonets glistened in the rising sun — a sight which gave 
 me delight, of which I often think, but which I should in vain 
 endeavour to describe. If the officers were to go out, eight 
 or ten o'clock was the hour, sweating the men in the heat of 
 the day, breaking in upon the time for cooking their dinner,
 
 84 RISEN B Y PERSE VERANCE. 
 
 putting all things out of order and all men out of humour. 
 When I was commander, the men had a long day of leisure 
 before them ; they could ramble into the town or into the 
 woods, go to get raspberries, to catch birds, to catch fish, or to 
 pursue any other recreation, and such of them as chose and 
 were quahfied, to work at their trades.' 
 
 Much of the spare time of Cobbett was, in his younger 
 years, devoted to a very miscellaneous kind of reading. He 
 ran through all the books of a country circulating library, 
 trash and all ; and, contemptibly as he often affects to speak 
 of literary pursuits, the fruits of these early studies are often 
 revealed in the lively style and the fertility and happiness of 
 allusion which distinguish all his writings. No one has 
 abused Shakespeare so absurdly and truculently — for this was 
 one of Cobbett's many crotchets ; but, then, few have quoted 
 the bard of many - coloured life so aptly and frequently. 
 Shakespeare and the principal English poets were clearly at his 
 finger ends, while, from wayard caprice, he affected ignorance, 
 with contempt of them. Of the arts he knew nothing, not 
 even the mechanic arts ; and his tours in Scotland and Ireland 
 show how little he possessed of what is called general infor- 
 mation — the kind of knowledge which comes almost of itself, 
 and which he despised much more than was needful. Yet, 
 his acquaintance with English classical literature, and even 
 with contemporary authors, must have been extensive, and 
 gradually accumulating, in the gardens of Kew in London, 
 and in New Brunswick, and to the last hour of his life. The 
 Tale of a Tub had introduced the boy to the writings of Swift; 
 and we have been informed by an officer who joined the 53d 
 Regiment shortly after Cobbett left it, that he had written out 
 in some of the regimental books, Diredmis for a Sergeant-
 
 WILLIAM COBBETT. 
 
 Major^ or aii orderly, in the manner of Swift's Advice to 
 Seivants, which Avere full of admirable humour and grave 
 irony. The officers of the 53d and the corps were, as we have 
 reason to know, exceedingly proud of their clever sergeant- 
 major after he became famous ; and so, indeed, was the whole 
 army, from the period he became a party writer in Philadelphia. 
 He was particularly distinguished by his Royal Highness the 
 Duke of Kent. 
 
 In the Advice to Young Men, which may be called his con- 
 fessions, Cobbett has related his own love story; and a 
 delightful one it is, possessing at once the tenderness and 
 simplicity of nature, and no little of the charm of romance. 
 The scene of it was New Brunswick. But there is a collateral 
 flirtation also, involving what Cobbett terms the only serious 
 sin he ever committed against the female sex, and which he 
 relates in warning to young men. We shall take it first, and 
 that, too, in the language of his own narrative. 
 
 ' The province of New Brunswick, in North America, in 
 which I passed my years from the age of eighteen to that of 
 twenty-six, consists, in general, of heaps of rocks, in the inter- 
 stices of which grow the pine, the spruce, and various sorts of 
 fir trees, or, where the woods have been burnt down, the bushes 
 of the raspberry or those of the huckle-berry. The province is 
 cut asunder lengthwise by a great river, called the St. John, 
 about two hundred miles in length and at half-way from the 
 mouth, fully a mile wide. Into this main river run innumerable 
 smaller rivers, there called creeks. On the sides of these 
 creeks the land Is, in places, clear of rocks ; it is in these 
 places generally good and productive : the trees that grow here 
 are the birch, the maple, and others of the deciduous class ; 
 natural meadows here and there present themselves ; and some
 
 86 RISEN B Y PERSE VERANCE, 
 
 of these spots far surpass in rural beauty any other that my 
 eyes ever beheld, the creeks abounding towards their sources 
 in waterfalls of endless variety, as well in form as in magnitude, 
 and always teeming with Ssh; while waterfowl enliven their 
 surface, and wild pigeons, of the gayest plumage, flutter, in 
 thousands upon thousands, amongst the branches of the 
 beautiful trees, which, sometimes for miles together, form an 
 arch over the creeks. 
 
 ' I, in one of my rambles in the woods, in which I took 
 great delight^ came to a spot at a very short distance from 
 the source of one of these creeks. Here was everything to 
 delight the eye, and especially of one like me, who seems to 
 have been born to love rural life, and trees and plants of all 
 sorts. Here was about two hundred acres of natural meadow, 
 interspersed with patches of maple trees, in various forms and 
 of various extent ; the creek came down in cascades, for any 
 one of which many a nobleman in England would, if he could 
 transfer it, give a good slice of his fertile estate ; and, in the 
 creek, at the foot of the cascades, there were, in the season, 
 salmon the finest in the world, and so abundant and so 
 easily taken as to be used for manuring the land. 
 
 ' If Nature, in her very best humour, had made a spot for 
 the express purpose of captivating me, she could not have 
 exceeded the efforts which she had here made. But I found 
 something here besides these rude works of nature ; I found 
 something in the fashioning of which man had had some- 
 thing to do. I found a large and well-built log dwelling-house, 
 standing (in the month of September) on the edge of a very 
 good field of Indian corn, by the side of which there was a 
 piece of buckwheat just then mowed. I found a homestead, 
 and some very pretty cows. I found all the things by which an
 
 WILLIAM COBBETT. 87 
 
 easy and happy farmer is surrounded ; and I found still some- 
 thing besides all these — something that was destined to give me 
 a great deal of pleasure and also a great deal of pain, both in 
 their extreme degree, and both of which, in spite of the lapse of 
 forty years, now make an attempt to rush back into my heart. 
 
 ' Partly from misinformation, and partly from miscalculation, 
 I had lost my way ; and, quite alone, but armed wuth my 
 sword and a brace of pistols, to defend myself against the 
 bears, I arrived at the log-house in the middle of a moonlight 
 night, the hoar-frost covering the trees and the grass. A stout 
 and clamorous dog, kept off by the gleaming of my sword, 
 waked the master of the house, who got up, received me with 
 great hospitality, got me something to eat, and put me into 
 a feather bed, a thing that I had been a stranger to for some 
 years. I, being very tired, had tried to pass the night in the 
 woodsj between the trunks of two large trees which had fallen 
 side by side, and within a yard of each other. I had made a 
 nest for myself of dry fern, and had made a covering by 
 laying boughs of spruce across the trunks of the trees. But, 
 unable to sleep on account of the cold, becoming sick from 
 the great quantity of water that I had drunk during the heat 
 of the day, and being, moreover, alarmed at the noise of the 
 bears, and lest one of them should find me in a defenceless 
 state, I had roused myself up and had crept along as well as 
 I could ; so that no hero of eastern romance ever experienced 
 a more enchanting change. 
 
 * I had got into the house of one of those Yankee loyalists, 
 who, at the close of the revolutionary war (which, until it had 
 succeeded, was called a rebellion), had accepted of grants of 
 land in the king's province of New Brunswick, and who, to 
 the great honour of England, had been furnished with all the
 
 RISEN BY PERSEVERANCE. 
 
 means of making new and comfortable settlements. I was 
 suffered to sleep till breakfast time, when I found a table, the 
 like of which I have since seen so many times in the United 
 States, loaded with good things. The master and the mistress 
 of the house, aged about fifty, were like what an English farmer 
 and his wife were half a century ago. There were two sons, 
 tall and stout, who appeared to have come in from work, and 
 the youngest of whom was about my age, then twenty-three. 
 But there was another member of the family, aged nineteen, 
 who (dressed according to the neat and simple fashion of 
 New England, whence she had come with her parents five or 
 six years before) had her long light-brown hair twisted nicely 
 up, and fastened on the top of her head, in which head were a 
 pair of lively blue eyes, associated with features of which that 
 softness and that sweetness so characteristic of American girls 
 were the predominant expressions, the whole being set off by a 
 complexion indicative of glowing health, and forming — figure, 
 movements, and all taken together — an assemblage of beauties 
 far surpassing any that I had ever seen but once in my life. 
 That once was, too, two years agone ; and, in such a case and 
 at such an age, two years, two whole years, is a long, long 
 while ! It was a space as long as the eleventh part of my then 
 life ! Here was the present against the absent ; here was the 
 power of the eyes pitted against that of the memory ; here 
 were all the senses up in arms to subdue the influ- 
 ence of the thoughts ; here was vanity, here was passion, 
 here was the spot of all spots m the world, and here 
 were also the life, and the manners, and the habits, and 
 the pursuits that I delighted in ; here was everything 
 that imagination can conceive — united in a conspiracy 
 against the poor little brunette in England ! What, then,
 
 WILLIAM COB LETT. 89 
 
 did I fall in love at once with this bouquet of lilies and 
 roses ? Oh ! by no means. I was, however, so enchanted 
 with the place, I so much enjoyed its tranquillity, the shade 
 of the maple trees, the business of the farm, the sports of the 
 water and of the woods, that I stayed at it to the last possible 
 minute, promising, at my departure, to come again as often as 
 I possibly could — a promise which I most punctually fulfilled. 
 
 • Winter is the great season for jaunting and dancing (called 
 frolicking) in America. In this province, the river and the 
 creeks were the only roads from settlement to settlement. In 
 summer we travelled in canoes ; in winter, in sleighs on the 
 ice or snow. During more than two years, I spent all the 
 time I could with my Yankee friends : they were all fond of 
 me : I talked to them about country affairs, my evident delight 
 in which they took as a compliment to themselves : the father 
 and mother treated me as one of their children, the sons as 
 a brother, and the daughter, who was as modest and as full of 
 sensibility as she was beautiful, in a way to which a chap 
 much less sanguine than I was, would have given the tenderest 
 interpretation ; which treatment I, especially in the last-men- 
 tioned case, most cordially repaid. 
 
 * Yet I was not a deceiver ; for my affection for her was very 
 great : I spent no really pleasant hours but with her : I was 
 uneasy if she showed the slightest regard for any other young 
 man : I was unhappy if the smallest matter affected her health 
 or spirits : I quitted her in dejection, and returned to her 
 with eager delight : many a time, when I could get leave but 
 for a day, I paddled in a canoe two whole succeeding nights, 
 in order to pass that day with her. If this was not love, it 
 was first cousin to it ; for, as to any criminal intention, I no 
 more thought of it, in her case, than if she had been my
 
 90 RISEN B V PERSE VERANCE. 
 
 sister. Many times I put to myself the questions, "What 
 am I at ? Is not this wrong ? Why do I go ? " But still I 
 went. 
 
 'The last parting came; and now came my just punish- 
 ment ! The time was known to everybody, and was irrevocably 
 fixed ; for I had to move with a regiment, and the embarkation 
 of a regiment is an epoch in a thinly-settled province. To 
 describe this parting would be too painful even at this distant 
 day, and with this frost of age upon my head. The kind and 
 virtuous father came forty miles to see me just as I was going 
 on board in the river. His looks and words I have never 
 forgotten. As the vessel descended, she passed the mouth of 
 that creek which I had so often entered with delight ; and 
 though England, and all that England contained, were before 
 me, I lost sight of this creek with an aching heart. 
 
 ' On what trifles turn the great events in the life of man ! 
 If I had received a cool letter from my intended wife ; if I 
 had only heard a rumour of anything from which fickleness 
 in her might have been inferred ; if I had found in her any, 
 even the smallest, abatement of affection; if she had but let 
 go any one of the hundred strings by which she held my heart : 
 if any one of these, never would the world have heard of me. 
 Young as I was ; able as I was as a soldier ; proud as I 
 was of the admiration and commendations of which I was 
 the object ; fond as I was, too, of the command which, at so 
 early an age, my rare conduct and great natural talents had 
 given me; sanguine as was my mind, and brilliant as were 
 my prospects : yet I had seen so much of the meannesses, 
 the unjust partialities, the insolent pomposity, the disgusting 
 dissipations of that way of Hfe, that I was weary of it : I 
 longed exchanging my fine-laced coat for the Yankee farmer's
 
 WILLIAM COBBETT. 91 
 
 home-spun, to be where I should never behold the supple 
 crouch of servility, and never hear the hectoring voice of 
 authority again; and, on the lonely banks of this branch- 
 covered creek, which contained (she out of the question) 
 everything congenial to my taste and dear to my heart, I, 
 unapplauded, unfeared, unenvied, and uncalumniated, should 
 have lived and died.' 
 
 The fair cause of this 'serious sin,' the little brunette in 
 England, had first been seen some years before in America, 
 and after this charming manner : ' When I first saw my wife, 
 she was thirteen years old, and I was within about a month 
 of twenty-one. She was the daughter of a sergeant of artillery, 
 and I was the sergeant-major of a regiment of foot, both 
 stationed in forts near the city of St. John, in the province 
 of New Brunswick. I sat in the same room with her for 
 about an hour, in company with others, and I made up my 
 mind that she was the very girl for me. That I thought 
 her beautiful, is certain ; for that, I had always said, should 
 be an indispensable qualification; but I saw in her what I 
 deemed marks of that sobriety of conduct of which I have 
 said so much, and which has been by far the greatest blessing 
 of my life. It was now dead of winter, and, of course, the 
 snow several feet deep on the gi'ound, and the weather 
 piercing cold. It was my habit, when I had done my morn- 
 ing's writing, to go out at break of day to take a walk on a 
 hill, at the foot of which our barracks lay. In about three 
 mornings after I had first seen her, I had, by an invitation 
 to breakfast with me, got up two young men to join me in 
 my walk ; and our road lay by the house of her father and 
 mother. It was hardly light, but she was out on the snow 
 scrubbing out a washing-tub. " That's the girl for me," said I,
 
 92 RISEN B V FERSE VE RANGE. 
 
 when we had got out of her hearing. One of these young 
 men came to England soon afterwards ; and he, who keeps 
 an inn in Yorkshire, came over to Preston, at the time of the 
 election, to verify whether I were the same man. When he 
 found that I was, he appeared surprised; but what was his 
 surprise when I told him that those tall young men, whom he 
 saw around me, were the sons of that pretty little girl that he 
 and I saw scrubbing out the washing-tub on the snow in 
 New Brunswick at daybreak. 
 
 ' From the day that I first spoke to her, I never had a 
 thought of her being the wife of any other man, more than 
 I had a thought of her being transformed into a chest of 
 drawers; and I formed my resolution at once, to marry her 
 as soon as we could get permission, and to get out of the 
 army as soon as I could. So that this matter was at once 
 settled as firmly as if written in the book of fate. At the 
 end of about six months, my regiment, and I along with it, 
 were removed to Frederickton, a distance of a hundred 
 miles up the river of St. John ; and, which was worse, the 
 artillery were expected to go off to England a year or two 
 before our regiment ! The artillery went, and she along 
 with them; and now it was that I acted a part becoming a 
 real and sensible lover. I was aware that, when she got to 
 that gay place, Woolwich, the house of her father and 
 mother, necessarily visited by numerous persons, not the 
 most select, might become unpleasant to her ; and I did not 
 like, besides, that she should continue to work hard. I 
 had saved a hundred and fifty guineas, the earnings of my 
 early hours, in writing for the paymaster, the quartermaster, 
 and others, in addition to the savings of my own pay. I 
 sent her all my money before she sailed, and wrote to her
 
 WILLIAM COBBETT. 93 
 
 to beg of her, if she found her home uncomfortable, to hire a 
 lodging with respectable people, and, at any rate, not to spare 
 the money by any means, but to buy herself good clothes, 
 and to live without hard work until I arrived in England ; 
 and I, in order to induce her to lay out the money, told 
 her that I should get plently more before I came home. 
 
 * We were kept abroad two years longer than our time, Mr. 
 Pitt (England not being so tame then as she is now) having 
 knocked up a dust with Spain about Nootka Sound. Oh, 
 how I cursed Nootka Sound, and poor bawling Pitt, too, I 
 am afraid ! At the end of four years, however, home I 
 came, landed at Portsmouth, and got my discharge from 
 the army, by the great kindness of poor Lord Edward 
 Fitzgerald, who was then the major of my regiment. J 
 found my little girl a servant of all work (and hard work 
 it was), at five pounds a year, in the house of a Captain 
 Brisac, and, without hardly saying a word about the matter, 
 she put into my hands the whole of my hundred and fifcji 
 guineas unbroken ! 
 
 ' Need I tell the reader what my feelings were ? Need I 
 tell kind-hearted English parents what effect this anecdote 
 must have produced on the minds of our children ? ' 
 
 After his marriage, Cobbett lived with his wife for some 
 time in France, studying the language ; and then they went 
 to Philadelphia, where he began to teach English to French- 
 men, and, as his first work, composed his French and 
 English grammar. He remained between Philadelphia and 
 New York for about eight years, and, during most of this 
 time, had a printing establishment and a book store. 
 
 In the Advice to Young Men, he pictures his domestic 
 character and habits at this period in the most engaging
 
 94 RISEN- B Y PERSE VERaNCE. 
 
 manner, and, we daresay, not too much en beau, for all is 
 so simply right and so perfectly natural. But this, as has 
 been remarked, is the sanctified Ufe of the fireside — ' the 
 porcupine with his quills sheathed.' He says : — 
 
 ' I began my young marriage days in and near Philadel- 
 phia. At one of those times to which I have just alluded, 
 in the middle of the burning hot month of July, I was 
 greatly afraid of fatal consequences to my wife for want of 
 sleep, she not having, after the great danger was over, had 
 any sleep for more than forty-eight hours. All great cities 
 in hot countries are, I believe, full of dogs ; and they in the 
 very hot weather keep up during the night a horrible 
 barking and fighting and howling. Upon the particular 
 occasion to which I am adverting, they made a noise so 
 terrible and so unremitted, that it was next to impossible 
 that even a person in full health and free from pain should 
 obtain a minute's sleep. I was, about nine in the evening, 
 sitting by the bed. " I do think," said she, " that I could 
 go to sleep now, if it were not for the dogs." Down-stairs 
 I went, and out I sallied in my shirt and trousers, and 
 without shoes and stockings ; and going to a heap of stones 
 lying beside the road, set to work upon the dogs, going 
 backward and forward and keeping them at two or three 
 hundred yards' distance from the house. I walked thus the 
 whole night, barefooted, lest the noise of my shoes might 
 possibly reach her ears; and I remember that the bricks of 
 the causeway were, even in the night, so hot as to be dis- 
 agreeable to my feet. My exertions produced the desired 
 effect : a sleep of several hours was the consequence, and at 
 eight o'clock in the morning off went I to a day's business 
 which was to end at six in the evening.
 
 WILLIAM COBBETT. 95 
 
 ' Women are all patriots of the soil, and when her neigh- 
 bours used to ask my wife whether all English husbands 
 were like hers, she boldly answered in the affirmative. I had 
 business to occupy the whole of my time, Sundays and week 
 days, except sleeping hours ; but I used to make time to assist 
 her in the taking care of her baby, and in all sorts of things 
 — get up, light her fire, boil her tea-kettle, carry her up 
 warm water in cold weather, take the child while she 
 dressed herself and got the breakfast ready, then breakfast, 
 get her in water and wood for the day, then dress myself 
 neatly and sally forth to my business. The moment that 
 was over, I used to hasten back to her again, and I no 
 more thought of spending a moment away from her, unless 
 business compelled me, than I thought of quitting the 
 country and going to sea. The thunder and lightning are 
 tremendous in America compared with what they are in 
 England. My wife was at one time very much afraid of 
 thunder and lightning, and as is the feeling of all such 
 women, and indeed all men too, she wanted company, and 
 particularly her husband, in those times of danger. I knew 
 well, of course, that my presence would not diminish the 
 danger ; but be I at what I might, if within reach of home, 
 I used to quit my business and hasten to her the moment 
 I perceived a thunderstorm approaching. Scores of miles 
 have I, first and last, run on this errand in the streets of 
 Philadelphia The Frenchmen who were my scholars used 
 to laugh at me exceedingly on this account, and sometimes 
 when I was making an appointment with them they would 
 say, with a smile and a bow, ^^ Sauve la tomiere toiijours. 
 Monsieur Cobbett.'" 
 
 * I never dangled about at the heels of my wife \ seldom.
 
 96 RISEN BY PERSEVERANCE. 
 
 very seldom, ever walked out, as it is called, with her; 1 
 never "went a-walking" in the whole course of my life, 
 never went to walk without having some object in view 
 other than the walk, and as I never could walk at a slow 
 pace, it would have been hard work for her to keep up 
 with me.' 
 
 There is much plain sense and manly tenderness to be 
 found in this volume of confessions. This is for the rapidl}'- 
 increasing sect of club frequenters : — 
 
 •What are we to think of the husband who is in the 
 habit of leaving his own fireside, after the business of the 
 day is over, and seeking promiscuous companions in the ale 
 or the coffee house? I am told that in France it is rare 
 to meet with a husband who does not spend every evening 
 of his life in Avhat is called a cafk — that is to say, a place 
 for no other purpose than that of gossiping, drinking, and 
 gaming. And it is with great sorrow that I acknowledge 
 that many English husbands indulge too much in a similar 
 habit. Drinking clubs, smoking clubs, singing clubs, clubs 
 of oddfellows, whist clubs, sotting clubs — these are inexcus- 
 able, they are censurable, they are at once foolish and 
 wicked, even in single men ; what must they be, then, in 
 husbands ? And how are they to answer, not only to their 
 wives, but to their children, for this profligate abandonment 
 of their homes, this breach of their solemn vow made to 
 the former, this evil example to the latter ? 
 
 'Innumerable are the miseries that spring from this 
 cause. The expense is, in the first place, very considerable. 
 I much question whether, amongst tradesmen, a shilling a 
 night pays the average score, and that, too, for that which 
 is really worth nothing at all, and cannot, even by possi-
 
 WILLIAM COBBETT. 97 
 
 bility, be attended with any one single advantage, however 
 small. Fifteen pounds a year thus thrown away would 
 amount, in the course of a tradesman's life, to a decent 
 fortune for a child. Then there is the injury to health from 
 these night adventures ; there are the quarrels, there is the 
 vicious habit of loose and filthy talk, there are the slanders 
 and the backbitings, there are the admiration of contemptible 
 wit, and there the scoffings at all that is sober and serious.* 
 
 The next even improves upon this : — 
 
 'Show your affection for your wife and your admiration 
 of her not in nonsensical compliment, not in picking up her 
 handkerchief or her glove, or in carrying her fan; not, 
 though you have the means, in hanging trinkets and baubles 
 upon her; not in making yourself a fool by winking at and 
 seeming pleased with her foibles or follies or faults ; but 
 show them by acts of real goodness towards her ; prove by 
 unequivocal deeds the high value you set on her health 
 and life and peace of mind ; let your praise of her go to 
 the full extent of her deserts, but let it be consistent with 
 truth and with sense, and such as to convince her of your 
 sincerity. He who is the flatterer of his wife only prepares 
 her ears for the hyperbolical stuff of others. The kindest 
 appellation that her Christian name affords is the best you 
 can use, especially before faces. An everlasting " my dear" 
 is but a sorry compensation for a want of that sort of love 
 that makes the husband cheerfully toil by day, break his 
 rest by night, endure all sorts of hardships, if the life or 
 health of his wife demand it. Let your deeds and not your 
 words carry to her heart a daily and hourly confirmation of 
 the fact that you value her health and life and happiness 
 beyond all other things in the world; and let this be
 
 98 RISEN B V FERSE VERANCE. 
 
 manifest to her, Dafticularly at those times when Ufa is 
 always more or less in danger.' 
 
 Cobbett left America in fierce wrath, after being prose- 
 cuted for a libel on Dr. Rush. His offence was marked; 
 but his punishment for so free a country was, to say the 
 least, not lenient. The case originated in his interference 
 with the manner in which Dr. Rush treated his patients in 
 the yellow fever. He accused him of Sangrado practice, 
 or a too free use of the lancet; and it is amusingly 
 characteristic of the witty and humourous malice of the 
 man, to find him many years afterwards, when self-exiled 
 to America, concluding a double-barrelled paragraph of his 
 journal in these terms : * An American counts the cost of 
 powder and shot. If he is deliberate in everything else, 
 this habit will hardly forsake him in the act of shooting. 
 When the sentimental flesh-eaters hear the report of his 
 gun, they may begin to pull out their white handkerchiefs; 
 for death follows the pull of the trigger with perhaps even 
 more certainty than it used to follow the lancet of Dr. 
 Rush.' 
 
 A leading event in Cobbett's life was the severe fine and 
 long imprisonment to which he was subjected, for daring to 
 give way to the impulse which led him to denounce in warm, 
 but only fitting terms, the flogging of Englishmen under the 
 bayonets and sabres of Hanoverians. He was at this time 
 living in the bosom of his family on his farm of Botley, in 
 the midst of domestic enjoyment of no ordinary kind, and 
 leading no inglorious or useless life. His long imprison- 
 ment, and the ruin of his affairs, left deep traces in a quick 
 and resentful, but certainly not an ungenerous mind. 
 
 After a picture of domestic life which must charm every-
 
 WILLIAM COBBETT. 99 
 
 body, and which is well worth the attentive study of every 
 man and woman who has a family to train, he winds up : — 
 
 'In this happy state we lived until the year 18 10, when 
 the Government laid its hands upon me, dragged me 
 from these delights, and crammed me into a jail amongst 
 felons, of which I shall have to speak more fully, when, in 
 the last number, I come to speak of the duties of the 
 citizen. This added to the difficulties of my task of teach- 
 ing ; for now I was snatched away from the only scene in 
 which it could, as I thought, properly be executed. But 
 even these difficulties were got over. The blow was, to be 
 sure, a terrible one; and how was it felt by these poor 
 children? It was in the month of July when the horrible 
 sentence was passed upon me. My wife, having left her 
 children in the care of her good and affectionate sister, 
 was in London waiting to know the doom of her husband. 
 When the news arrived at Botley, the three boys — one 
 eleven, another nine, and the other seven years old — were 
 hoeing cabbages in that garden which had been the source 
 of so much delight. When the account of the savage sen- 
 tence was brought to them, the youngest could not for some 
 time be made to understand what a jail was; and, when he 
 did, he, all in a tremor, exclaimed, " Now, I'm sure, William, 
 that papa is not in a place like that ! " The other, in order 
 to disguise his tears and smother his sobs, fell to work with 
 the hoe, and chopped about like a blind person. This 
 account, when it reached me, affected me more, filled me 
 with deeper resentment, than any other circumstance. And, 
 oh ! how I despise the wretches who talk of my vindictive- 
 ness — of my exultation at the confusion of those who inflicted 
 those sufferings ! How I despise the base creatures, the
 
 I oo J^TSEN B V PERSE VE RANGE, 
 
 crawling slaves, the callous and cowardly hypocrites, who 
 affect to be "shocked" (tender souls!) at my expressions of 
 joy at the death of Gibbs, EUenborough, Percival, Liverpool, 
 Canning, and the rest of the tribe that I have already seen 
 out, and at the fatal workings of that system for endeavouring 
 to check which I was thus punished ! ' 
 
 When the spy system had produced the horrors of 1817 
 and the Six Acts, Cobbett, who was still under heavy recog- 
 nisances, thought it prudent for himself and his sureties to 
 withdraw for a time to America. He imagined, not without 
 cause, that one of the Six Acts was directly aimed at him ; 
 and the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act made his 
 situation very perilous. Cobbett therefore made the best of 
 his way to Liverpool with his large young family ; and from 
 thence, upon the 26th March 181 7, he addressed the public 
 in these terms : — 
 
 'My departure for America will surprise nobody but those 
 who do not reflect. A full and explicit statement of my 
 reasons will appear in a few days, probably the 5th of April. 
 In the meanwhile, I think it necessary for me to make known 
 that I have fully empowered a person of respectability to 
 manage and settle all my affairs in England. I owe my 
 countrymen sincere regard, which I shall always entertain 
 for them in a higher degree than towards any other people 
 upon earth. I carry nothing from my country but my wife 
 and my children, and surely they are my own at anyrate. 
 I shall always love England better than any other country — 
 I will never become a subject or citizen of any other state ; 
 but I and mine were not born under a government having 
 the absolute power to imprison us at its pleasure, and, if we 
 can avoid it, we will never live nor die under such an order
 
 WILLIAM COBBETT. 
 
 of things. . . . When this order of things shall cease, then 
 shall I again see England.' 
 
 By the disposal of his property at Botley, upon which he 
 must have expended a great deal, and other transactions at 
 this time, added to his ruinous imprisonment, law expenses, 
 and a heavy fine of a thousand pounds which had been 
 imposed upon him, his pecuniary affairs suffered serious 
 derangement, from which they probably never recovered. 
 
 In America he took a farm, or at least a house in the 
 country with some land, resumed his indefatigable habits, 
 and opened a seed store in New York. The Registers came 
 regularly across the Atlantic, and were eagerly expected. 
 Another of Cobbett's books, the Years Eesidejice in America^ 
 now appeared in parts. 
 
 Cobbett returned to England as soon as the Habeas Corpus 
 Suspension Bill had expired, and, settling at Kensington, 
 recommenced his labours as a journalist. These were, indeed, 
 never suspended, save while he was at sea. 
 
 In the autumn of 1822 he began his Rural Rides, which 
 he continued for five different seasons, and in which he 
 indulged his natural love for rural objects, and everything 
 connected with country life. He seems to have had a true 
 and lively feeling for the beautiful in nature, and the pure 
 and simple taste which is ever the attendant of this kind of 
 sensibility. He always travelled on horseback, accompanied 
 by one or other of his sons, and showed his good taste by 
 departing from the usual thoroughfares, and finding his way 
 across fields, by footpaths, by-lanes, bridle-ways, and hunting- 
 gates — 'steering' over the country, as he expresses it, for 
 such landmarks as village spires and old chapels. His object 
 was to see and converse with the farmers and labourers in
 
 f02 RISEN BY PERSEVERANCE. 
 
 their own abodes, to look at the crops, to survey the modes 
 of husbandry. The 'agricultural interest' was beginning to 
 suffer smartly by this time, and the gridiron was adorning 
 every number of the Register. Politics mingle largely in the 
 journal of the Rural Rides, but only to increase their vivacity 
 and render them more piquant; and, when Cobbett leaves 
 Bolt Court and rides abroad to air his notions, he always 
 becomes mellow in spirit — gay, and good-humoured. 
 
 The remainder of Cobbett's career, which was so full of 
 inconsistencies, may be briefly summed up. On his return 
 to England in 1800, he had published the Foraipine and 
 Weekly Register, the latter of which was continued up till 
 the time of his death. It appeared at first as a Tory, but 
 became eventually a Radical publication. It abounded in 
 violent personal and political attacks on public men. He 
 was, as has already been noted, twice fined and prosecuted 
 for libel; and in 1809, for the publication of a libel relating 
 to the flogging of some men in the local militia at Ely, he 
 had been sentenced to two years' imprisonment in Newgate, 
 to pay ;^iooo to the king, and on his release to give security 
 for his good behaviour for seven years, himself in ;^3oo, 
 and two securities in ;^ioo each. As already mentioned, 
 he went to America, and returned in 1819. Two sepa- 
 rate attempts made to enter Parliament in 1820 and 1826 
 both failed. In 1831 he was again tried for libel, when 
 he acquitted himself with a memorable speech, and 
 the jury being equally divided on the case, he was dis- 
 charged. In 1833 he entered Parliament as member for 
 Oldham, but found the late hours and stifling atmosphere 
 of Parliamentary life unsuited to his simple tastes. His life, 
 which had been one of unceasing literary industry, was
 
 WILLIAM C0BBET7'. 103 
 
 brought to a close by an attack of disease of the throat, 
 from which he never recovered. He died 17th June 1835. 
 His writings, which deal with rural life, have been commended 
 as having been widely and practically useful. Besides his 
 political writings, including twenty volumes of Parliamentary 
 Debates^ etc., Cobbett wrote his Cottage Economy, English 
 Grammar^ History of the Protestant Reformation, and Rural 
 Rides, etc. His language, as will be seen from the extracts 
 we have given, is uniformly forcible and vigorous, and, as 
 he himself says, 'his popularity' was owing to his 'giving 
 truth in clear language.' 
 
 The announcement of the death of Cobbett's eldest daughter 
 appeared in the Times of October 26, 1877. She was born 
 in Philadelphia in 1795, where her father was residing. She 
 died at Brompton Crescent, London, in her eighty-second 
 year. In 1810-12, while her father was imprisoned in New- 
 gate for libel, she kept him company, acting as his amanuensis 
 and the custodian of his papers, and writing at his dictation 
 leading articles for his weekly publication. Some of Cobbett's 
 most stirring articles are said to have been sent to press in 
 the handwriting of Miss Cobbett 
 
 Another member of Cobbett's family was M.P. for Old- 
 ham ; and his eldest son, the eccentric William Cobbett, died 
 suddenly on January 12, 1878, in one of the central halls 
 of the Houses of Parliament, whither he had come to furtht;r 
 a measure of litigation.
 
 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 HE name of Hugh Miller is one which commands 
 universal regard and respect, whether we view him 
 as a geologist, a man of letters, or as a stone- 
 mason, who possessed sturdy independence of character and 
 indomitable perseverance. In telling the story of his life, we 
 have at least two good sources of information. There is the 
 interesting autobiography which he wrote, My Schools and 
 Schoolmasters ; or, The Story of my Education, and also The 
 Life and Letters of Hugh Miller, by Peter Bayne, LL.D. 
 
 Hugh Miller was born in the town of Cromarty, loth 
 October 1802. His father, who was brave and gentle, and 
 seldom angry without just cause, had a strange dream regard- 
 ing his first-born. There was a dash of Celtic blood in his 
 descent, but his character belonged more to the lowland type. 
 His paternal ancestors had all been seafaring men; and for 
 more than a hundred years before his birth not one of these 
 ancestors had been laid to rest in the churchyard of Cromarty. 
 His own father perished at sea when he was but five years old. 
 Of this sad event, and before the news of it had arrived at his 
 home. Miller writes ; — 
 
 'There were no forebodings in the master's dwelling; for 
 
 104
 
 HUGH MILLER. 105 
 
 his Peterhead letter — a brief but hopeful missive — had been 
 just received; and my mother was sitting, on the evening 
 after, beside the household fire, plying the cheerful needle, 
 when the house door, which had been left unfastened, fell 
 open, and I was despatched from her side to shut it. What 
 follows must be regarded as simply the recollection, though a 
 very vivid one, of a boy who had completed his fifth year only 
 a month before. Day had not wholly disappeared, but it was 
 fast posting on to night, and a grey 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 ever I saw 
 anything, 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, trans- 
 parent 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, ray 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 com- 
 municate 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 Demo7iology, and Sir 
 David Brewster in his Natural Magic. But if so, the affection 
 was one of which I experienced no after return; and its
 
 io6 RISEN BY PERSEVERANCE. 
 
 coincidence, in the case, with the probable time of my father's 
 death, seems at least curious,' 
 
 This superstitious feeling was no doubt nursed by his 
 mother, who entertained a belief in fairies, witches, dreams, 
 ghosts, and presentiments. She was but eighteen when 
 married, while her husband was forty-four. Young Hugh was 
 sent to a dame school, where he learned to read, and during 
 his sixth year spelt through the Shorter Catechism, the Pro- 
 verbs, and the New Testament. He read the Old Testament 
 narrative, especially the story of Joseph, with growing interest. 
 He also perused those classics for youth, Jack the Giant-Killer, 
 Jack and the Bean Stalk, and followed them up with Pope's 
 Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, and Bunyan's Pilgrim!s Progress. 
 In process of time he also devoured all the voyages, travels, 
 and romances upon which he could lay his hands. His 
 mother, a young widow with her son of five, and two daughters 
 emerging from infancy, with a fixed income of but twelve 
 pounds, betook herself to her needle, and was otherwise 
 befriended by her two brothers, mentioned in My Schools and 
 Schoolmasters under the names of Uncle James and Uncle 
 Sandy. Thinking themselves called upon to take his father's 
 place in the work of his instruction and discipline, Miller 
 remarks that he owed much more of his real education to 
 them than to any of the teachers whose schools he afterwards 
 attended. 
 
 * My elder uncle, James,' he writes, ' added to a clear head 
 and much native sagacity, a singularly retentive memory, and 
 great thirst of information. He was a harness-maker, and 
 wrought for the farmers of an extensive district of country; 
 and as he never engaged either journeyman or apprentice, but 
 executed all his work with his own hands, his hours of labour,
 
 HUGH MILLER. 107 
 
 save that he indulged in a brief pause as the twilight came on, 
 and took a mile's walk or so, were usually protracted from six 
 o'clock in the morning till ten at night Such incessant 
 occupation left him little time for reading ; but he often found 
 some one to read beside him during the day; and in the 
 winter evenings his portable bench used to be brought from 
 his shop at the other end of the dwelling, into the family 
 sitting-room, and placed beside the circle round the hearth, 
 where his brother Alexander, my younger uncle, whose occu- 
 pation left his evenings free, would read aloud from some 
 interesting volume for the general benefit, placing himself 
 always at the opposite side of the bench, so as to share in the 
 light of the worker. Occasionally the family circle would be 
 widened by the accession of from two to three intelligent 
 neighbours, who would drop in to listen ; and then the book, 
 after a space, would be laid aside, in order that its contents 
 might be discussed in conversation. In the summer months, 
 Uncle James always spent some time in the country in looking 
 after and keeping in repair the harness of the farmers for 
 whom he wrought ; and during his journeys and twilight walks 
 on these occasions, there was not an old castle, or hill fort, or 
 ancient encampment, or antique ecclesiastical edifice, within 
 twenty miles of the town, which he had not visited and 
 examined over and over again. He was a keen local antiquary, 
 knew a good deal about the architectural styles of the various 
 ages at a time when these subjects were little studied or 
 known, and possessed more traditionary lore, picked up 
 chiefly in his country journeys, than any man I ever knew. 
 What he once heard he never forgot, and the knowledge which 
 he had acquired he could communicate pleasingly and suc- 
 cinctly, in a style which, had he been a writer of books, instead
 
 I o8 RISEN B V PERSE VERANCE. 
 
 of merely a reader of them, would have had the merit of being 
 clear and terse, and more laden with meaning than words. 
 From his reputation for sagacity, his advice used to be much 
 sought after by the neighbours in every little difficulty that 
 came their way ; and the counsel given was always shrewd and 
 honest. I never knew a man more entirely just in his dealings 
 than Uncle James, or who regarded every species of meanness 
 with a more thorough contempt. I soon learned to bring my 
 story-books to his workshop, and became, in a small way, one 
 of his readers — greatly more, however, as may be supposed, on 
 my own account than his. My books were not yet of the kind 
 which he would have chosen for himself; but he took an 
 interest in my interest ; and his explanations of all the hard 
 words saved me the trouble of turning over a dictionary. And 
 when tired of reading, I never failed to find rare delight in his 
 anecdotes and old-world stories, many of which were not to be 
 found in books, and all of which, without apparent effort on 
 his own part, he could render singularly amusing. Of these 
 narratives, the larger part died with him ; but a portion of 
 them I succeeded in preserving in a little traditionary work 
 published a few years after his death. I was much a favourite 
 with Uncle James — even more, I am disposed to think, on my 
 father's account than on that of his sister, my mother. My 
 father and he had been close friends for years, and in the 
 vigorous and energetic sailor he had found his beau-ideal of a 
 man. 
 
 •My Uncle Alexander was of a different cast from his 
 brother, both in intellect and temperament; but he was 
 characterised by the same strict integrity; and his rehgious 
 feelings, though quiet and unobtrusive, were perhaps more 
 deep. James was somewhat of a humorist, and fond of a good
 
 HUGH MILLER. 109 
 
 joke. Alexander was grave and serious, and never, save on 
 one solitary occasion, did I know him even attempt a jest. 
 On hearing an intelligent but somewhat eccentric neighbour 
 observe, that " all flesh is grass," in a strictly physical sense, 
 seeing that all the flesh of the herbivorous animals is elaborated 
 from vegetation, and all the flesh of the carnivorous animals 
 from that of the herbivorous ones. Uncle Sandy remarked that, 
 knowing as he did the piscivorous habits of the Cromarty folk, 
 he should surely make an exception in his generalization, by 
 admitting that in at least one village "all flesh is fish." My 
 uncle had acquired the trade of the cartwright, and was em- 
 ployed in a workshop at Glasgow at the time the first war of 
 the French Revolution broke out, when, moved by some such 
 spirit as possessed his uncle (the victim of Admiral Vernon's 
 unlucky expedition) or Old Donald Roy, when he buckled 
 himself to his Highland broadsword, and set out in pursuit 0/ 
 the caterans, he entered the navy. . . . 
 
 * Early on the Sabbath evenings I used regularly to attend at 
 my uncle's with two of my maternal cousins, boys of about my 
 own age, and latterly with my two sisters, to be catechized, 
 first on the Shorter Catechism, and then on the Mother's 
 Catechism of Willison. On Willison my uncles always cross- 
 examined us, to make sure that we understood the short and 
 simple questions ; but, apparently regarding the questions of 
 the Shorter Catechism as seed sown for a future day, they were 
 content with having them well fixed in our memories. There 
 was a Sabbath class taught in the parish church at the time by 
 one of the elders ; but Sabbath schools my uncles regarded as 
 merely compensatory institutions, highly creditable to the 
 teachers, but very discreditable indeed to the parents and 
 relatives of the laught ; and so they of course never thought of
 
 RISEN B Y PERSE VERANCE. 
 
 sending us there. Later in the evening, after a short twihght 
 walk, for which the sedentary occupation of my Uncle James 
 formed an apology, but in which my Uncle Alexander always 
 shared, and which usually led them into solitary woods, or 
 along an unfrequented sea-shore, some of the old divines were 
 read ; and I used to take my place in the circle, though, I am 
 afraid, not to much advantage. I occasionally caught a fact, 
 or had my attention arrested for a moment by a simile or 
 metaphor ; but the trains of close argument, and the passages 
 of dreary " application," were always lost. 
 
 ' I quitted the dame's school at the end of the first twelve- 
 month, after mastering that grand acquirement of my life — 
 the art of holding converse with books, and was transferred 
 straightforth to the grammar school of the parish, at which 
 there attended at this time about a hundred and twenty boys, 
 with a class of about thirty individuals more, much looked 
 down upon by the others, and not deemed greatly worth the 
 counting, seeing that it consisted only of lassies. . . . The 
 building in which we met was a low, long, straw-thatched 
 cottage, open from gable to gable, with a mud floor below 
 and an unlathed roof above ; and stretching along the naked 
 rafters, which, when the master chanced to be absent for a 
 few minutes, gave noble exercise in climbing, there used 
 frequently to lie a helm, or oar, or boathook, or even a fore- 
 sail, the spoil of some hapless peat-boat from the opposite 
 side of the firth. . . . The parish schoolmaster was a scholar 
 and an honest man, and if a boy really wished to learn, he 
 certainly could teach him. . . . He was in the habit of 
 advising the parents or relations of those he deemed his 
 clever lads, to give them a classical education ; and meeting 
 one day with Uncle James, he urged that I should be put on
 
 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 Latin. I was a great reader, he said ; and he found that 
 when I missed a word in my Enghsh tasks, I almost ahvays 
 submitted a synonym in the place of it. And so, as Uncle 
 James had arrived, on data of his own, at a similar conclusion, 
 I was transferred from the English to the Latin form, and, 
 with four other boys, fairly entered on the Rudiments. I 
 laboured with tolerable diligence for a day or two ; but there 
 was no one to tell me what the rules meant, or whether they 
 really meant anything ; and when I got on as far as pe7ina, a 
 pen, and saw how the changes were rung on one poor word, 
 that did not seem to be of more importance in the old language 
 than in the modern one, I began miserably to flag, and to long 
 for my English reading, with its nice amusing stories and its 
 picture-like descriptions. The Rudiments was by far the dullest 
 book I had ever seen. It embodied no thought that I could 
 perceive : it certainly contained no narrative ; it was a perfect 
 contrast to not only the Life and Adventures of Sir William 
 Wallace, but to even the voyages of Cook and Anson. None 
 of my class-fellows were by any means bright : they had been 
 all set on Latin without advice of the master ; and yet, when 
 he learned, which he soon did, to distinguish and call us up 
 to our tasks by the name of the " heavy class," I was, in most 
 instances, to be found at its nether end. Shortly after, how- 
 ever, when we got a little further on, it was seen that I had 
 a decided turn for translation. The master, good simple 
 man that he was, always read to us in English, as the 
 school met, the piece of Latin given us as our task for the 
 day ; and as my memory was strong enough to carry away 
 the whole translation in its order, I used to give him back 
 in the evening, word for word, his own rendering, which 
 satisfied him on most occasions tolerably well. There were
 
 RISEN BY PERSEVERANCE. 
 
 none of us much looked after ; and I soon learned to bring 
 books of amusement to the school with me, which, amid the 
 Babel confusion of the place, I contrived to read undetected. 
 Some of them, save in the language in which they were 
 written, were identical with the books proper to the place. 
 I remember perusing by stealth in this way Dryden's Virgil, 
 and the Ovid of Dryden and his friends ; while Ovid's own 
 Ovid and Virgil's own Virgil lay beside me, sealed up in the 
 fine old tongue, which I was thus throwing away my only 
 chance of acquiring. 
 
 * One morning, having the master's English rendering of 
 the day's task well fixed in my memory, and no book of 
 amusement to read, I began gossiping with my nearest class- 
 fellow, a very tall boy, who ultimately shot up into a lad 
 of six feet four, and who on most occasions sat beside me, 
 as lowest in the form save one. I told him about the tall 
 Wallace and his exploits, and so effectually succeeded in 
 awakening his curiosity that I had to communicate to him, 
 from beginning to end, every adventure recorded by the 
 blind minstrel. My story-telling vocation once fairly ascer- 
 tained, there was, I found, no stopping in my course. I 
 had to tell all the stories I ever heard or read — all my 
 father's adventures, so far as I knew them, and all my Uncle 
 Sandy's, with the story of Gulliver, and Philip Quarll, and 
 Robinson Crusoe — of Sinbad, and Ulysses, and Mrs. Rad- 
 cliffe's heroine Emily, with, of course, the love passages left 
 out; and at length, after weeks and months of narrative, I 
 found my available stock of acquired fact and fiction fairly 
 exhausted. The demand on the part of my class-fellows 
 was, however, as great and urgent as ever, and, setting 
 myself, in the extremity of the case, to try my abiUty of
 
 HUGH MILLER. 1 1 3 
 
 original production, I began to dole out to them, by the 
 hour and the diet, long extempore biographies, which proved 
 wonderfully popular and successful. My heroes were usually 
 warriors like Wallace, and voyagers like Gulliver, and dwellers 
 in desolate islands like Robinson Crusoe ; and they had not 
 unfrequently to seek shelter in huge deserted castles, abound' 
 ing in trap-doors and secret passages like that of Udolpho. 
 . . . With all my carelessness, I continued to be a sort oi 
 favourite with the master, and, when at the general English 
 lesson, he used to address to me little quiet speeches, vouch- 
 safed to no other pupil, indicative of a certain literary ground 
 common to us, on which the others had not entered. 
 " That, sir," he has said, after the class had just perused, 
 in the second collection, a Tatler or Spectator — "that, sir, is 
 a good paper : it's an Addiso?t;" or, " That's one of Steele's, 
 sir;" and on finding in my copy-book, on one occasion, a 
 page filled with rhymes, which I had headed "Poem on 
 Care," he brought it to his desk, and, after reading it care- 
 fully over, called me up, and with his closed penknife, which 
 served as a pointer, in the one hand, and the copy-book 
 brought down to the level of my eyes in the other, began 
 his criticism. " That's bad grammar, sir," he said, resting 
 his knife-handle on one of the lines ; " and here's an ill-spent 
 word ; and there's another ; and you have not at all attended 
 to the punctuation; but the general sense of the piece is 
 good — very good indeed, sir." And then he added, with 
 a grim smile, " Care, sir, is, I daresay, as you remark, a very 
 bad thing; but you may safely bestow a little more of it 
 on your spelling and your grammar." 
 
 ' There were^ several other branches of my education going 
 on at this time outside the pale of the school, in which, 
 
 !■ H
 
 1 1 4 J? /SEN B y PERSE VE RANGE. 
 
 though I succeeded in amusing myself, I was no trifler. 
 The shores of Cromarty are strewed over with water-rolled 
 fragments of the primary rocks, derived chiefly from the 
 west during the ages of the boulder clay ; and I soon learned 
 to take a deep interest in sauntering over the various pebble 
 beds when shaken up by recent storms, and in learning to 
 distinguish their numerous components. But I was sadly in 
 want of a vocabulary ; and as, according to Cowper, " the 
 growth of what is excellent is slow," it was not until long 
 after that I bethought me of the obvious enough expedient 
 of representing the various species of simple rocks by certain 
 numerals, and the compound ones by the numerals repre- 
 sentative of each separate component, ranged, as in vulgar 
 fractions, along a medial line, with the figures representative 
 of the prevailing materials of the mass above, and those 
 representative of the materials in less proportions below. 
 Though, however, wholly deficient in the signs proper to 
 represent what I knew, I soon acquired a considerable quick- 
 ness of eye in distinguishing the various kinds of rock, and 
 tolerably definite conceptions of the generic character of the 
 porphyries, granites, gneisses, quartz rocks, clay slates, and 
 mica schists which everywhere strewed the beach. In the 
 rocks of mechanical origin I was at this time much less in- 
 terested ; but in individual, as in general history, mineralogy 
 almost always precedes geology.' 
 
 When twelve years of age. Miller wrote some verses on a 
 singular adventure which he and another companion ex- 
 perienced in a place called the Doocot Cave. He wrote 
 four successive accounts of this experience. The first was 
 executed in enormously bad verse, which, however, excited 
 the wonder of Miss Bond, the mistress of the Cromarty
 
 HUGH MILLER. 1 1 5 
 
 boarding-school; at nineteen he altered and polished the 
 verses ; in the vigour of early manhood he described the 
 adventure in a letter to Principal Baird ; and when over fifty 
 years of age, he gave the most glowing and perfect account 
 of all in Schools and Schoolmasters. 
 
 After this romantic occurrence, he visited some friends 
 in the highlands of Sutherland, which had the effect of 
 familiarizing his mind with the scenery, character, and condi- 
 tion of the Highlands. At this time he showed considerable 
 activity of mind in the peculiar character of his amusements. 
 He made small vessels like those he had read about in the 
 voyages of Anson and Cook, and launched them in a horse- 
 pond. In turn he tried chemistry, and painting, and sculp- 
 ture, and palmistry. He would also draw a map of a 
 particular country in the sand, and, having collected quan- 
 tities of variously-coloured shells from the beach, he arranged 
 them in such a way as to represent its inhabitants; or, 
 heading a band of school-fellows, they would penetrate one 
 of the steepest precipices on the south foot of the hill of 
 Cromarty, and personate outlaws and buccaneers. Mean- 
 while his mother and uncles found him a troublesome lad 
 to manage. He would sometimes play truant from school 
 for three weeks out of four, and he continued obstinate 
 and wilful. In the winter of 1816, he lost both his two 
 little sisters, and could not but be touched at his mother's 
 grief. His schooling finished when he was fifteen in a 
 pitched battle with his teacher. Before that time he had 
 proved himself^ a desperate fighter in his combats with the 
 other boys. In his fight with his master, he was mauled in 
 a way that filled him with aches and bruises for a full 
 month after.
 
 1 1 6 RISEN B Y PERSE VERANCE. 
 
 After a widowhood of more than thirteen years, his 
 mother married again, and he was forced to begin and 
 work in earnest at some trade; so he determined being 
 a mason. Without objecting to the match, 'you may be 
 certain,' he wrote to a friend some years later, * that it gave 
 me much disgust at the time.' In making this decision, 
 he thought that perhaps Uterature or natural science might 
 be his proper vocation, but at the same time he determined 
 that much of his leisure, in spite of his misspent youth, 
 should be given to the study of the best English authors. 
 His Uncle James would have liked had he chosen some of 
 the learned professions requiring a college training, such as 
 a lawyer or a minister. But as they were all decided 
 that a minister could not be manufactured by a few 
 years' study, they at length consented that he should begin 
 a life of manual labour. He was accordingly apprenticed 
 to the husband of one of his maternal aunts for a term 
 of three years, and he began work in earnest. ' Noble, 
 upright, self-relying Toil ! ' he writes, * 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 ! Save for thee and 
 thy lessons, man in society would everywhere sink into a sad 
 compound of the fiend and the wild beast; and this fallen 
 world would be as certainly a moral as a natural wilderness. 
 But I little thought of the excellence of thy character and of 
 thy teachings, when, with a heavy heart, I set out about this 
 time, on a morning of early spring, to take my first lesson from 
 thee in a sandstone quarry.' The work oppressed his growing 
 frame at first, but use gave ease to the young stonemason. 
 How he escaped the vice of ' dram-drinking ' is thus related by
 
 HUGH MILLER. 1 1 7 
 
 himself: — 'The drinking usages of the profession in which I 
 laboured were at this time many ; when a foundation was laid, 
 the workmen were treated to drink ; they were treated to 
 drink when the walls were levelled for laying the joists ; they 
 were treated to drink when the building was finished ; they 
 were treated to drink when an apprentice joined the squad ; 
 treated to drink when his "apron was washed;" treated to 
 drink when " his time was out ; " and occasionally they learned 
 to treat one another to drink. 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 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 favourite 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 the 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 favourable 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.' 
 
 During the winter, when mason work was no longer possible, 
 he paid a visit to Strathcarron, a wild Highland glen, where he 
 made some observations on a Scotch pine forest. His year
 
 1 1 8 RISEN B Y PERSE VERANCE. 
 
 of toil had rendered him sober and thoughtful. He formed a 
 bosom friend in a young house-painter called William Ross. 
 * He was a lad of genius/ writes Miller, * drew truthfully, had 
 a nice sense of the beautiful, and possessed the true poetic 
 faculty ; but he lacked health and spirits, and was naturally of 
 a melancholy temperament, and diffident of himself.' This 
 friendship was of the highest importance to Miller. Ross told 
 him that his drawings and verses were but commonplace, that 
 he would be better employed in cultivating his writing powers, 
 in turning his attention to the cultivation of a good prose 
 style. In the spring of 182 1, work was again resumed. He 
 laboured for a while at Cononside, and was introduced for 
 the first time to the barrack or bothy life amongst a squad of 
 rough masons. Amid this barbarous life he was not entirely 
 unhappy. Their food consisted for the most part of oatmeal 
 porridge or cakes, and milk when it could be got. He was 
 charmed with the scenery of Strathpeffer, about five miles from 
 Cononside ; and during the summer nights, when he had 
 from three to four hours to himself, he could explore the 
 valleys and climb the ridges of the hills with which he was 
 surrounded. He dived into the woods and feasted on the 
 raspberries and gueans to be found there. ' My recollections,' 
 he said afterwards, ' of this rich tract of country, with its woods 
 and towers, and noble river, seem as if bathed in the red light 
 of gorgeous sunsets.' In a letter to William Ross, he thus 
 spoke of this period : ' When the task of the day was over, 
 and I walked out amid the fields and woods to enjoy the cool 
 of the evening, it was then that I was truly happy. Before me 
 the Conon rolled her broad stream to the sea ; behind, I 
 seemed shut up from all intercourse with mankind by a thick 
 and gloomy wood ; while the tower of Fairburn, and the blue
 
 HUGH MILLER. 119 
 
 hills behind it, formed the distant landscape. Not a cloud 
 rose upon the sky, not a salmon gUded beneath me in the 
 river, nor a leaf shook upon the alders that o'erhung the stream, 
 but raised some poetic emotion in my breast' The next 
 winter and spring were spent at Cromarty, where he again met 
 WilUam Ross, but in the working season of 1822 he returned 
 to Cononside. In a letter written at this period, he says : ' I 
 had determined 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 
 skilful of cooks. I made wonderful advances in the art of 
 practical joking, and my bo7i-mots were laughed at and re- 
 peated. 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 young 
 fellow who insulted me, they all began to esteem me as a lad 
 of spirit and promise.' 
 
 The neighbourhood of Cononside enabled Miller to extend 
 his geologic explorations in a definite direction. He had been 
 urged by the foreman of the squad with which he was con- 
 nected to study geometry and architecture, and these he 
 pursued for some time. He finished his apprenticeship on 
 the nth November 1822, amidst great hardship, while working 
 at a wall and farm-steading in the neighbourhood of Cromarty, 
 often standing * day after day with wet feet in a water-logged 
 ditch.' 'How these poor hands of mine,' he says, 'burnt and 
 beat at night at this time, as if an unhappy heart had been 
 stationed in every finger; and what cold chills used to run, 
 sudden as electric shocks, through the feverish frame.' Ere 
 the wmte*- was over, he had gained his ordinary robust health.
 
 1 20 mSEN B V PERSE VERANCE. 
 
 ' I read, wrote, drew,' he says, ' corresponded with my friend 
 William Ross (who had removed to Edinburgh), re-examined 
 the Eathie Lias, and re-explored the Eathie Burn — a noble 
 old red sandstone ravine, remarkable for the wild picturesque- 
 ness of its cliffs and the beauty of its cataracts. I spent, too, 
 many an evening in Uncle James's workshop, on better terms 
 with both my uncles than almost ever before — a consequence, 
 in part, of the sober complexion which, as the seasons passed, 
 my mind was gradually assuming, and in part, of the manner 
 in which I had completed my engagement with my master. 
 "Act always," said Uncle James, "as you have done in this 
 matter. In all your dealings, give your neighbour the cast of 
 the bank — ' good measure, heaped up and running over ' — and 
 you will not lose by it in the end." I certainly did not lose by 
 faithfully serving out my term of apprenticeship. It is not 
 uninstructive 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 attach- 
 ing, and we never hear of the other. The careless, incom- 
 petent scholar has many opportunities of recovering himself; 
 the careless, incompetent apprentice, who either fails to serve 
 out his regular time, or who, though he fulfils 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
 
 HUGH MILLER. 121 
 
 among brother journeymen, or to render himself worthy of 
 the average wages of his craft, the ill-taught mechanic falls out 
 of regular employment, subsists precariously for a time on 
 occasional jobs, and either, forming idle habits, becomes a 
 vagabond tramper, or, getting into the toils of some rapacious 
 taskmaster, becomes an enslaved sweater. For one workman 
 injured by neglect of his school education, there are scores 
 ruined by neglect of fheir apprenticeship education. Three- 
 fourths of the distress of the country's mechanics (of course 
 not reckoning 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 
 second term of education. The sagacious painter had a truer 
 insight into this matter than most of our modern educationists.' 
 Miller's first kindly act on becoming a journeyman was to 
 build a cottage for his Aunt Jenny, on a piece of ground he 
 had inherited from his father in Cromaity. The cottage still 
 stands a worthy monument of such an act In his correspon- 
 dence with William Ross, who was now in Edinburgh, he 
 enclosed from time to time a selection from his poems. These 
 poems, says Mr. Bayne, * are fluent and vivacious, but display 
 little original power or depth of melody.' In midsummer 1823, 
 he found work at Gairloch, on the west coast of Ross-shire. 
 He was now not yet twenty-one, and the different hovels he 
 lived in were damp and uncomfortable, and his food was of 
 the plainest, often oatmeal without milk. The winter of 1823 
 he spent as usual at Cromarty, but a small property at Leith 
 having been left to his mother, which had been a constant 
 source of annoyance ever since his father's death, he left in 
 the spring of 1824 to mvestigate the affair on the spot. He
 
 RISEN B Y PERSE VERANCE. 
 
 had also determined to try his fortune among the stonecutters 
 of Edinburgh, ' perhaps the most skilful in their profession in 
 the world.' On the fourth day after leaving Cromarty, his 
 vessel was threading the waters of the Firth of Forth. * Many a 
 long-cherished association drew my thoughts to Edinburgh. 
 I was acquainted with Ramsay, and Fergusson, and the 
 *' Humphrey Clinker " of Smollett, and had read a description 
 of the place in the Marmioii and the earlier novels of Scott, 
 and I was not yet too old to feel as if I were approaching a 
 great magical city — like some of those in the Arabian Nights 
 — that was even more intensely poetical than nature itself I 
 did somewhat chide the tantalizing mist, that, like a capricious 
 showman, now raised one corner of its curtain, and anon 
 another, and showed me the place at once very indistinctly, 
 and only by bits at a time ; and yet I know not that I could in 
 reality have seen it to greater advantage, or after a mode more 
 in harmony with my previous conceptions. The water in the 
 harbour was too low during the first hour or two after our 
 arrival to float our vessel, and we remained tacking in the 
 roadstead, watching for the signal from the pier-head, which 
 was to intimate to us when the tide had risen high enough for 
 our admission ; and so I had sufficient time given me to con 
 over the features of the scene, as presented in detail. At one 
 time a flat reach of the New Town came full into view, along 
 which, in the general dimness, the multitudinous chimneys 
 stood up like stacks of corn in a field newly reaped ; at another, 
 the castle loomed out dark in the cloud ; then, as if suspended 
 over the earth, the rugged summit of Arthur's Seat came 
 strongly out, while its base still remained invisible in the 
 wreath ; and anon I caught a glimpse of the distant Pentlands, 
 enveloped by a clear blue sky, and lighted up by the sun.
 
 HUGH MILLER. 123 
 
 Leith, with its thicket of masts, and its tall round tower, lay 
 deep in shade in the foreground — a cold, dingy, ragged town, 
 but so strongly relieved against the pale smoky grey of the 
 background, that it seemed another little city of Zoar, entire in 
 front of the burning.' 
 
 Hugh Miller visited the burying-grounds, the churches, and 
 the various places of historical interest in and around Edin- 
 burgh, and found employment at his trade at Niddrie House, 
 in the neighbourhood. That his life there ministered to his 
 growth is abundantly evident, although the workmen with 
 whom he was obliged to associate were many of them of a low 
 type of character. After working two seasons at Niddrie, he 
 returned to Cromarty, where he was welcomed by his uncle, 
 his cousin George, and other relatives. His two years' work 
 had given him the 'stonecutter's malady,' which probably 
 weakened his lungs for life. At home he renewed acquain- 
 tanceship with John Swanson, and corresponded with William 
 Ross, whom he had left in Edinburgh. His friendship and 
 correspondence with Swanson was of immense benefit to him 
 from a religious point of view. Swanson would not let young 
 Miller rest until he had asked of himself a reason for the faith 
 that was in him. In January 1826 he wrote to this effect: 
 ' Go on, my dear Hugh, go on, and the Lord Himself will 
 bless you. If you are not lander 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.' Miller in turn, in writing to his friend Ross,' 
 assumed the same tone of friendly earnestness regarding his 
 highest welfare. He had in the meantime pursued his occupa- 
 tion as stonecutter, as health and opportunity permitted. In 
 the spring of 1828 he drew up a list, headed, ' Things which I
 
 1 24 RISEN B V PERSE VERANCE. 
 
 intend doing, but many of which, experience says, shall never 
 be done.' This list comprised many projects in geometry, 
 architecture, sculpture, and in literary prose composition. In 
 the summer he formed the acquaintanceship of Dr. (then Mr.) 
 Robert Carruthers, editor of the Inverness Courier^ which 
 was afterwards of so much use to him. Dr. Carruthers printed 
 for him a collection of his verses, under the title of Poems 
 written in the Leisure Hours of a Journeyman Mason, and his 
 book met with a moderate success. Amongst the friends 
 which the publication of his poems procured for him was a 
 Mr. Strahan, who also wrote poetry. One of his sons was 
 Alexander Strahan, whom Miller introduced to Messrs. John- 
 stone & Hunter, publishers, Edinburgh, with a view of 
 learning the business, and who has since become well 
 known in the publishing world. 
 
 After many experiments in versification, he made up his 
 mind that poetry was not his proper vocation, and accordingly 
 he next tried prose. His famous letters on the herring fishing 
 were written for the Inverness Courier in the summer of 1829, 
 and attracted much attention. The publication of his poems, 
 though anonymous, yet made him the literary lion of Cromarty, 
 and extended his friendships even beyond. Sir Thomas Dick 
 Lauder, Mr. Isaac Forsyth of Elgin, Miss Dunbar of Boath, 
 and Principal Baird, for whom he wrote a sketch of his life up 
 till 1825, all gave him their patronage in the disposal of his 
 volume. In 1831 he was vitally concerned in a newspaper 
 correspondence. The minister of the Gaelic Chapel, Cromarty, 
 had petitioned to the effect that he either be assigned a parish 
 within the bounds of the parish of Cromarty, or a collegiate 
 charge with Rev. Mr. Stewart. Hugh Miller acted as the 
 mouthpiece of nearly eight hundred of his fellow-parishioners,
 
 HUGH MILLER. 1 2 5 
 
 and the letters in the newspapers and the pamphlet he pub- 
 lished were successful in averting the possibility of this proposal 
 becoming a reality. 
 
 While working in the churchyard at his occupation of stone- 
 cutting, he had occasional visitors. His own minister would 
 come and chat with him for hours together, and he also saw 
 Sir Thomas Dick Lauder and Professor Pillans while thus 
 engaged. In the summer of 1831 he first saw his future wife, 
 Miss Lydia Mackenzie Fraser. Talking with two ladies beside 
 a sun-dial in his uncle's garden, she ' came hurriedly tripping 
 down the garden walk' and joined them. She was in her nine- 
 teenth year at the time, and, as described by Miller, ' she was 
 very pretty, with a light petite figure, waxen clearness of com- 
 plexion, making her look more like a fair child than a grown 
 woman.' 
 
 The growth of the intimacy with Miss Fraser is thus plea- 
 santly told in Miller's autobiography : — 
 
 ' Only a few evenings after, I met the same young lady, in 
 circumstances of which the writer of a tale might have made 
 a little more. I was sauntering, just as the sun was sinking, 
 along one of my favourite walks on the hill — a tree-skirted 
 glade, now looking out through the openings on the ever-fresh 
 beauties of the Cromarty Firth, with its promontories, and bays, 
 and long lines of winding shore, and anon marking how redly 
 the slant light fell through interstitial gaps on pale lichened 
 trunks and huge boughs, in the deeper recesses of the wood, 
 when I found myself unexpectedly in the presence of the young 
 lady of the previous evening. She was sauntering through the 
 wood as leisurely as myself, now and then dipping into a 
 rather bulky volume which she carried, that had not in the 
 least the look of a novel, and which, as I subsequently ascer-
 
 1 26 RISEN B Y PERSE VERANCE. 
 
 tained, was an elaborate essay on causation. We, of course, 
 passed each other on our several ways without sign of recogni- 
 tion. Quickening her pace, however, she was soon out of 
 sight ; and I just thought, on one or two occasions afterwards, 
 of the apparition that had been presented as she passed, as 
 much in keeping with the adjuncts — the picturesque forest and 
 the gorgeous sunset. It would not be easy, I thought, were 
 the large book but away, to furnish a very lovely scene with a 
 more suitable figure. Shortly after, I began to meet the young 
 lady at the charming tea-parties of the place. Her father, a 
 worthy man, who, from unfortunate speculations in business, 
 had met with severe losses, was at this time several years dead; 
 and his widow had come to reside in Cromarty, on a somewhat 
 limited income, derived from property of her own. Liberally 
 assisted, however, by relations in England, she had been en- 
 abled to send her daughter to Edinburgh, where the young lady 
 received all the advantages which a first-rate education could 
 confer. By some lucky chance, she was there boarded, with a 
 few other ladies, in early womanhood, in the family of Mr. 
 George Thomson, the well-known correspondent of Burns, 
 and passed under his roof some of her happiest years. Mr. 
 Thomson — himself an enthusiast in art — strove to inoculate 
 the youthful inmates of his house with the same fervour, and to 
 develop whatever seeds of taste or genius could be found in 
 them ; and, characterized till the close of a hfe extended far 
 beyond the ordinary term by the fine chivalrous manners of the 
 thorough gentleman of the old school, his influence over his 
 young friends was very great, and his endeavours, in at least 
 some of the instances, very successful. And in none, perhaps, 
 was he more so than in the case of the young lady of my narra- 
 tive. From Edinburgh she went to reside with the friends in
 
 HUGH MILLER. 1 2 7 
 
 England to whose kindness she had been so largely indebted ; 
 and with them she might have permanently remained, to enjoy 
 the advantages of superior position. She was at an age, how- 
 ever, which rarely occupies itself in adjusting the balance of 
 temporal advantage ; and her only brother having been admitted, 
 through the interest of her friends, as a pupil into Christ's 
 Hospital, she preferred returning to her widowed mother, left 
 solitary in consequence, though with the prospect of being 
 obliged to add to her resources by taking a few of the children 
 of the town as day pupils. 
 
 ' Her claim to take her place in the intellectual circle of the 
 burgh was soon recognised. I found that, misled by the 
 extreme youthfulness of her appearance, and a marked 
 juvenility of manner, I had greatly mistaken the young lady. 
 That she should be accomplished in the ordinary sense of the 
 term — that she should draw, play, and sing well — would be 
 what I should have expected ; but I was not prepared to find 
 that, mere girl as she seemed, she should have a decided turn, 
 not for the lighter, but for the severer walks of literature, 
 and should have already acquired the ability of giving expres- 
 sion to her thoughts in a style formed on the best English 
 models, and not in the least like that of a young lady. The 
 original shyness wore away, and we became great friends. I 
 was nearly ten years her senior, and had read a great many 
 more books than she ; and, finding me a sort of dictionary of 
 fact, ready of access, and with explanatory notes attached, that 
 became long or short just as she pleased to draw them out by 
 her queries, she had, in the course of her amateur studies, 
 frequent occasion to consult me. There were, she saw, several 
 ladies of her acquaintance, who used occasionally to converse 
 with me in the churchyard ; but in order to oiake assurance
 
 128 RISEN B V PERSE VERANCE. 
 
 doubly sure respecting the perfect propriety of such a pro- 
 ceeding on her part, she took the laudable precaution of stating 
 the case to her mother's landlord, a thoroughly sensible man, 
 one of the magistrates of the burgh, and an elder of the kirk ; 
 and he at once certified that there was no lady of the place 
 who might not converse, without remark, as often and as long 
 as she pleased with me. And so, fully justified, both by the 
 example of her firiends — all very judicious women, some of 
 them only a few years older than herself — and by the deliberate 
 judgment of a very sensible man, the magistrate and elder, 
 my young lady friend learned to visit me in the churchyard, 
 just like the other ladies, and, latterly at least, considerably 
 oftener than any of them. We used to converse on all manner 
 of subjects connected with the belles lettres and the philosophy 
 of mind, with, so far as I can at present remember, only one 
 marked exception. On that mysterious affection which some 
 times springs up between persons of the opposite sexes when 
 thrown much together,— though occasionally discussed by the 
 metaphysicians, and much sung by the poets, — we by no 
 chance ever touched. Love formed the one solitary subject 
 which, from some curious contingency, invariably escaped us, 
 
 • And yet, latterly at least, I had begun to think about it a 
 good deal. Nature had not fashioned me one of the sort of 
 people who fall in love at first sight. I had even made up my 
 mind to live a bachelor life, without being very much impressed 
 by the magnitude of the sacrifice ; but I daresay it did mean 
 something, that in my solitary walks for the preceding fourteen 
 or fifteen years, a female companion often walked in fancy by 
 my side, with whom I exchanged many a thought, and gave 
 expression to many a feeling, and to whom I pointed out many 
 a beauty in the landscape, and communicated many a curious
 
 HUGH MILLER. i z 9 
 
 fact, and whose understanding was as vigorous as her taste was 
 faultless and her feelings exquisite.* 
 
 Mrs. Fraser finding out the state of affairs, and afraid that 
 her daughter might form an alliance with a mechanic, inter- 
 dicted the correspondence between the two for a time. The 
 young lady was disconsolate at this. Her mother finding out 
 that on the whole it would be more judicious to permit them 
 to meet together, when things had gone thus far, removed 
 the interdict, and they were again permitted to enjoy each 
 other's society. An understanding was arrived at between 
 them. They were to remain for three years more on the 
 existing terms of intim.acy, when, should no suitable field of 
 exertion occur for Miller at home, they were then to quit the 
 country for America. With a view of proving what he could 
 do in the field of literature and editorial work, he resolved 
 to publish his Scenes and Legends of the North of Scotland ; or^ 
 The Traditional History of Cromarty. This was attended with 
 some difficulty, but it was eventually published by Adam 
 Black of Edinburgh. At this time occurred what he has 
 termed one of the special providences of his life. The 
 Commercial Bank of Scotland having decided to start a 
 branch in Cromarty, Miller was offered the accountantship 
 of the branch bank, without any security being required. 
 This post he accepted, and travelled south to Edinburgh for 
 instructions and initiation into the mysteries of banking. 
 Linlithgow, a town west from Edinburgh, was chosen as the 
 place where he would receive the training which was necessary 
 for a bank agent. Looking backwards at this period, he says : 
 ' I had wrought as an operative mason, including my term of 
 apprenticeship, for fifteen years — no inconsiderable portion of 
 the more active part of a man's life; but the time was not
 
 1 30 mSEN B Y PERSE VERA NCR. 
 
 altogether lost. I enjoyed in these years fully the average 
 amount of happiness, and learned to know more of the 
 Scottish people than is generally known. Let me add — for 
 it seems to be very much the fashion of the time to draw 
 dolorous pictures of the condition of the labouring classes— 
 that from the close of the first year in which I wrought as 
 a journeyman up till I took final leave of the mallet and 
 chisel, I never knew what it was to want a shilling ; that my 
 two uncles, my grandfather, and the mason with whom I 
 served my apprenticeship — all working men — had had a similar 
 experience; and that it was the experience of my father also.' 
 He was also deeply conscious at this time of the change which 
 had passed over him since meeting with Miss Fraser. He 
 
 could write thus to her : — ' 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 something. I cannot regulate your pulse, nor dissipate 
 your pains, nor give elasticity to your spirits ; but I can implore 
 on your behalf the great Being who can. ... I would fain be 
 rich, that I might render you comfortable ; 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.' After a five years' courtship, on the 7th January 
 1837 the two were happily united, when his salary, with a 
 small addition froo the earnings of his wife, who kept a few 
 pupils, did not amount to much more than ;!^ioo a year. 
 
 He was now at Cromarty, a regular bank agent, and as 
 usual investigating and looking about for any opening which 
 might present itself, by which he could turn his leisure hours 
 to account. Accordingly he contributed as many tales as 
 would form a volume to the serial publication called Wilson's
 
 HUGH MILLER. 131 
 
 Border Tales. This brought him about £,2^. The publica- 
 of his Scenes and Legends had established his fame as a writer 
 of vigorous prose. Leigh Hunt and Robert Chambers each 
 spoke well of it in their respective journals ; and Dr. Hether- 
 ington ' made it the subject of an elaborate and very friendly 
 critique in the Presbyterian Review.^ His life at this time 
 he thus described in a letter to Mr. Robert Chambers ; — ' I am 
 leading 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 over-toiled. 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.' Here he wrote several 
 articles for Chambers's Journal. One or two of his sketches 
 having been returned to him by the Scottish Christian Herald, 
 he thus moralizes, in the style of Dr. Arnold, regarding the 
 Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge : ' I would fain 
 see a few good periodicals set agoing of a wider scope than 
 either those of the world or of the Church — works that would 
 bear on a broad substratum of religion the objects of what 
 I may venture to term a week-day interest. I can cite no 
 book that better illustrates my beau-ideal of such a work than 
 the Bible itself.' One of his own future coadjutors on the 
 Witness newspaper, the late Dr. Andrew Cameron, helped to 
 carry this wish into practice by originating the Christian
 
 1 3 2 JilSEN B V FERSE VE RANGE. 
 
 Treasury and the Family Treasury ; but it remained for one 
 of his own proteges, Mr. Alexander Strahan, to give even a 
 broader and more distinct impulse to this type of literature in 
 the different magazines Good Words, Sunday Magazine, and 
 Day of Rest — all of which we owe to his genius and enter- 
 prise. 
 
 The question of spiritual independence was beginning to 
 agitate the breasts of the people of Scotland, The patron 
 of the parish of Auchterarder, Lord Kinnoul, had presented 
 the Rev. Mr. Young to the charge. Only three individuals 
 in the congregation had signed the call, three hundred had 
 distinctly declined that he should be their pastor, and forty 
 had remained neutral, and in this case the presbytery refused 
 to sanction the ordination of Mr. Young. The Court of 
 Session decided against this conclusion of the presbytery, and 
 in May 1839 their decision was confirmed by the House 0/ 
 Lords. He wrote a pamphlet on the Non-intrusion con. 
 troversy, which spread his fame, and became an introduction 
 to the leaders of the movement in Edinburgh. 
 
 In 1839, Hugh Miller found himself in Edinburgh for the 
 third time. The first time he had come as a journeyman 
 mason in search of work, the second time to qualify himself 
 for the bank agency, and the third time he arrived with his 
 reputation made, and at the request of Mr. Robert Paul. He 
 was introduced to Dr. Cunningham, Dr. Candlish, Dr. Aber- 
 cromby, and others, and finally he was offered the editorship 
 of a projected Non-intrusion newspaper, to be called the 
 Witness. In spite of the confidence in his own powers which 
 his recent success might have inspired, he was doubtful for a 
 time of accepting it; but eventually he did so, and it was 
 arranged that the Witness should start at the beginning of
 
 HUGH MILLER. 133 
 
 1840. Of this turning-point in his career, he writes in his 
 autobiography : — ' I closed my connection with the bank at the 
 termination of its financial year ; gave a few weeks very 
 sedulously to geology, during which I was fortunate enough to 
 find specimens on which Agassiz has founded two of his fossil 
 species ; got, at parting, an elegant breakfast service of plate 
 from a kind and numerous circle of friends, of all shades of 
 politics and both sides of the Church ; and was entertained 
 at a public dinner, at which I attempted a speech, and got on 
 but indifferently, though it looked quite well enough in my 
 friend Mr. Carruthers' report, and which was, I suppose, in 
 some sort apologized for by the fiddlers, who struck up at its 
 close, "A man's a man for a' that." It was, I felt, not the 
 least gratifying part of the entertainment that old Uncle Sandy 
 was present, and that his health was cordially drunk by the 
 company in the recognised character of my best and earliest 
 friend. And then, taking leave of my mother and uncle, of 
 my respected minister and my honoured superior in the bank, 
 Mr. Ross, I set out for Edinburgh, and in a few days after was 
 seated at the editorial desk — a point at which, for the present, 
 the story of my education must terminate. I wrote for my 
 paper during the first twelvemonth a series of geological 
 chapters, which were fortunate enough to attract the notice of 
 the geologists of the British Association, assembled that year 
 at Glasgow, and which, in the collected form, compose my 
 little work on the Old Red Sandstone. The paper itself rose 
 rapidly in circulation, till it ultimately attained to its place 
 among what are known as our first-class Scottish newspapers ; 
 and of its subscribers, perhaps a more considerable proportion 
 of the whole are men who have received a university education 
 than can be reckoned by any other Scotch journal of the same
 
 134 RISE A BY PERSEVERANCE. 
 
 number of readers. And during the course of the first three 
 years my employers doubled my salary. I am sensible, how- 
 ever, that these are but small achievements. In looking back 
 upon my youth, I see, methinks, a wild fruit tree, rich in leaf 
 and blossom ; and it is mortifying enough to mark how few of 
 the blossoms have set, and how diminutive and imperfectly 
 formed the fruit is into which even the productive few have 
 been developed. A right use of the opportunities of instruc- 
 tion afforded me in early youth would have made me a scholar 
 ere my twenty-fifth year, and have saved to me at least ten of 
 the best years of my life — years which were spent in obscure 
 and humble occupations. But while my story must serve to 
 show the evils which result from truant carelessness in boy- 
 hood, and that what was sport to the young lad may assume 
 the form of serious misfortune to the man, it may also serve to 
 show that much may be done by after diligence to retrieve an 
 early error of this kind ; that life itself is a school, and nature 
 always a fresh study ; and that the man who keeps his eyes 
 and his mind open will always find fitting, though, it may 
 be, hard schoolmasters, to speed him on in his lifelong 
 education.' 
 
 These are noble words with which to close the record of his 
 life up till this time. He lodged in St. Patrick Square, Edin- 
 burgh, until joined by Mrs. Miller and her daughter Harriet 
 in April 1840, when they occupied a small house at No. 5 
 Sylvan Place, Meadows. Miller's salary at this time was 
 ^200 ; and as the sale of his household goods at Cronrarty 
 had only brought him ;i^40, the furnishing of his house was 
 only accomplished gradually. Mrs. Miller would herself 
 occasionally contribute to the columns of the Witness. Mr. 
 James Mackenzie, the sub-editor, was a great favourite with
 
 HUGH MILLEK. 
 
 135 
 
 Miller. Miller himself was never a ready leader-writer ; but, 
 as Dr. Chalmers remarked, ' when he did go off, he was a great 
 gun, and the reverberation of his shot was long audible; but he 
 required a deal of time to load.' His biographer. Dr. Peter 
 Bayne, remarks regarding these leaders, that * he meditated 
 his articles as an author meditates his books, or a poet his 
 verses, conceiving them as wholes, working fully out their 
 trains of thought, enriching them with far-brought treasures 
 of fact, and adorning them with finished and apposite illus- 
 tration. ... As complete journalistic essays, symmetrical in 
 plan, finished in execution, and of sustained and splendid 
 ability, the articles of Hugh Miller are unrivalled.' He con- 
 ducted the newspaper, which was published twice a week, for 
 sixteen years, and is said to have written no fewer than a 
 thousand articles for its pages. There was a difference 
 between him and some of the eminent Free Church leaders 
 as to the style of conducting the Witness, which led to a 
 private quarrel, in which Miller triumphed. It, however, 
 made him shy of dealing with purely one-sided church affairs 
 ever afterwards. It left him in proud isolation, and with 
 little recognition from Free Church leaders, who were all the 
 while reaping the benefit of his advocacy of their cause. 
 
 With reference to his powers of memory, Dr. Guthrie told 
 the following story : — ' We were sitting one day in Johnstone's 
 (the publisher's) back shop, when the conversation turned on 
 a discussion that had recently taken place in the Town 
 Council on some matters connected with our church affairs. 
 Miller said it reminded him of a discussion in Gait's novel 
 of The Provost, and thereupon proceeded, at great length, 
 to tell us what Provost this, and Bailie that, and Councillor 
 the other said on the matter; but when he reached the
 
 1 3 6 J? /SEN B Y PERSE VERA NCR. 
 
 "Convener of the Trades," he came suddenly to a halt. 
 Notwithstanding our satisfaction with what he had reported, 
 he was annoyed at having forgotten the speech of the con- 
 vener, and, getting a copy of the novel from the shelves in 
 Johnstone's front shop, he turned up the place and read it, 
 excusing himself for his failure of memory. But what was 
 our astonishment, on getting hold of the book, to find that 
 Miller had repeated pages almost verbatim, though it was 
 some fifteen years or more since he had read the novel.' 
 
 More at home in the fields of literature and science, his 
 Old Red Sandstone, which had appeared as a series of seven 
 articles in the columns of the Witness, was issued in 1841. 
 His charming book. First Impressions of England and its 
 People, was the result of eight weeks' autumnal wandering in 
 7845, and the writing of it occupied six months of his editorial 
 leisure. His fame was now established, and without ambition 
 to shine in fashionable society, he politely declined all the 
 invitations where he felt he would be out of his true sphere. 
 A lady who met him shordy after his coming to Edinburgh 
 as editor of the Witness, says : — ' His appearance was that of 
 a superior working man in his Sunday dress. His head was 
 bent forward as he sat, but when he spoke he looked one full 
 in the face with his sagacious and thoughtful eye. There 
 was directness in all he said ; to have spoken without having 
 something to say would never have occurred to him. He had 
 not the light, easy, inaccurate manner of speech one usually 
 meets with : every word was deliberate, and might have been 
 printed. There was a total want of self-assertion about him, 
 but at the same time a dignified simplicity in the way he 
 Placed his mind alongside that of the person with whom he 
 conversed. ... His manner to women I always thought
 
 HUGH MILLER. 137 
 
 particularly good — wholly wanting in flattery, but full of gentle 
 deference. 
 
 The greater portion of Hugh Miller's autobiography 
 appeared in the Witness in 1853; it was published in the 
 beginning of 1854, under the title of My Schools and School- 
 masters. In the spring of 1854, he lectured in Exeter Hall 
 to the Young Men's Christian Association. His autumn 
 holiday he always spent profitably, enlarging his knowledge of 
 the geological features of Scotland. In the summer of 1855 
 he complained of weakness, and that his working power was 
 not what it had been. He was troubled, too, with the linger- 
 ing bad effects of the mason's disease. He began to carry 
 pistols, as his imagination was haunted with the stories 01 
 robberies and outrages committed by desperate criminals, 
 which were rife at that time. In the meantime he was 
 labouring hard at the completion of his Testimony of the 
 Rod's. Night after night, in spite of his wife's entreaties, he 
 would return to his writing, and often only retired to rest in 
 the early morning. Mrs. Miller, who was herself in poor 
 health, aware that his nervous system was disordered, dreaded 
 an attack of apoplexy. Two doctors were consulted, and it 
 was found that he was suffering from an overworked mind, 
 disordering his digestive organs, enervating his whole frame, 
 and threatening serious head affection. His book was finished 
 by this time. On the night of the 24th December 1856, he 
 seems to have arisen from bed, and, in a paroxysm of mad- 
 ness, raised the thick woven seaman's jacket he wore over 
 his chest, applied the muzzle of his revolver to his left side 
 above the heart, and fired. The ball entered the left lung, 
 grazed the heart, and cutting through one of the main arteries, 
 lodged in the rib on the riglu side. The pistol slipping from
 
 138 RISEN BY PER SB VERANCE. 
 
 his hand, fell into the bath close by. He had left in writing 
 on a folio sheet of paper, which was lying on the table, the 
 following words : — 
 
 * Dearest Lydia, — My brain burns. I must have walked ; 
 and a fearful dream rises upon me. I cannot 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 recollection grows. My dear, dear 
 wife, farewell. * Hugh Miller.' 
 
 And 'so passed this strong heroic soul away.' 
 
 When Hugh Miller shot himself, Dr. Guthrie had been 
 absent from home. ' On my return to the house next day,' 
 he writes, ' I had two very painful duties to perform. The 
 first was at the request of his eldest daughter, a very amiable 
 as well as able young creature, to go up to the room where 
 her father lay, and cut off a lock of his hair for her. I shall 
 never forget the appearance of the body as I entered the 
 room and stood alone by the dead : that powerful frame, 
 built on the strongest model of humanity ; that mighty head, 
 with its heavy locks of auburn hair; and the expression of 
 that well-known face, so perfectly calm and placid. The 
 head was a little turned to one side, and the face thrown 
 upwards, so that it had not the appearance of an ordinary 
 corpse, but wore something of a triumphant, if not a defiant 
 air, as if he were still ready for battle in the cause of truth 
 and righteousness — defying his enemies to touch his great 
 reputation as a man of the highest eminence in science, of 
 the most unblemished character or the most extraordinary 
 ability, and, more than any one of his compeers, entitled to 
 be called a defender of the faith. The result of the post-
 
 HUGH MILLER. 1.39 
 
 vioriem examination showed that his reason had given way, 
 and that he was in no way responsible for his acts.' 
 
 Letters of condolence to the bereaved family flowed in 
 from all quarters, including heartfelt expressions of sympathy 
 from Charles Dickens, Thomas Carlyle, and John Ruskin. 
 His remains rest in the Grange Cemetery, Edinburgh, beside 
 the dust of Dr. Chalmers; and twenty years afterwards, on 
 the nth March 1876, she who had been the true helpmate, 
 the love and inspiration of his life, was laid beside him. His 
 well-known works, in which there is so much of the pure gold 
 of research and intellect, fill thirteen volumes. His wife and 
 eldest daughter have also contributed to the field of light 
 literature
 
 SIR TITUS SALT. 
 
 *HERE have been those who have not scrupled to 
 assert that large fortunes, and vast commercial 
 interests, must of necessity have had some portion 
 of falsehood or want of rectitude in their upbuilding ; that an 
 honest and at the same time a greatly successful business man, 
 they are inclined to think, is rather an exceptional growth of 
 this age and country. The man who claims our attention 
 now, who had much to do in developing the commercial im- 
 portance of the Midland Counties of England, and of the 
 country itself, was both honest and God-fearing, and his life is 
 another added to those perennial biographies whose lessons 
 will be drawn upon by all right-thinking men for all time to 
 come. The greatness of Sir Titus Salt was of a kind which 
 would make him popular and useful anywhere; the poet, the 
 author, and the preacher may appeal to a select few, but a 
 man who appeals to the practical instincts of a practical people, 
 as Sir Titus Salt has done, is sure to meet with almost universal 
 understanding and approval. 
 
 The grandfather of Titus Salt bore the same name, and 
 carried on an iron-founding business at Sheffield. He does 
 not seem to have been particularly successful, as, when the 
 
 140
 
 SIR TITUS SALT. 141 
 
 business was handed over to his son Daniel Salt, he in turn 
 carried it on but for a few years. This Daniel Salt was married 
 on 5th July 1802, to Grace Smithies, of the Old Manor 
 House, Morley. Her father had been a drysalter, and for a 
 short period her young husband carried on this business. In 
 personal appearance he has been described as a plain, blunt, 
 Yorkshire man, with a strong muscular figure, and an impedi- 
 ment in his speech. In business he was noted for energy and 
 industry. His wife was of a delicate constitution, of a retiring 
 disposition, and with sweet manners. She belonged to a 
 dissenting church, and was an earnest Christian woman. 
 
 Titus Salt, the first son of a large family, was born at the 
 Old Manor House, Morley, Yorkshire, on the 20th September 
 1803. The village of his nativity, situated about four miles from 
 Leeds, is said to have numbered but 2100 inhabitants at the 
 time of his birth, although it has since grown until it numbers 
 about 13,000. The people of the place had something of the 
 old Puritan spirit about them, observing the Sabbath very 
 strictly, keeping up the good habit of family worship, and were 
 almost without exception Dissenters. Young Titus inherited 
 his father's strong constitution, and in the words of one of his 
 playmates, 'he was a bright boy for his years, full of fun when 
 with those whom he knew well, but shy with strangers.' His 
 first school was a dame school, where he learned to read ; and 
 in his ninth year, he attended a school at Batley in the neigh- 
 bourhood. Batley was fully six miles from Morley, which was 
 a very considerable walk for such a young lad. He carried his 
 own dinner, consisting of oatcake and milk. This milk he was 
 obliged to supply himself with before he left home, by milking 
 the cow in the dark mornings. 
 
 Like many other great men, he was mostly indebted to his
 
 142 RISEN B V PERSE VERANCE. 
 
 mother for the higher elements of his home education ; she 
 instilled into his young mind a respect for religion, for the 
 Sabbath, for the church, and for the Christian ministry, which 
 remained with him through life. She taught him to pray and 
 to read his Bible morning and evening. The following inscrip- 
 tion was written on a Bible presented to him at this time. 
 This same inscription he re-wrote on the Bibles which he pre- 
 sented to his own children : — 
 
 •TO TITUS SALT. 
 
 * May this blest volume ever lie 
 Close to thy heart and near thine eye ; 
 Till life's last hour thy soul engage, 
 And be thy chosen heritage.' 
 
 In the year 1813, when in his tenth year, his father removed 
 from Morley, and entered upon the work of a farm at Crofton, 
 three miles from Wakefield. A young ladies' boarding-school 
 kept there was presided over by Miss Mangall, the authoress of 
 Mangalts Questions. At this time he attended a day school 
 connected with Salem Chapel, Wakefield, kept by the Rev. 
 B. Rayson. A letter from one of his schoolfellows contains 
 the following sketch of his appearance at this time : — ' Mr. 
 Rayson gave up the school at Christmas 18 15, from which 
 time it was conducted by Mr. Enoch Harrison, who had 
 for several years been Mr. Rayson's principal assistant, and 
 with whom young Salt remained some time. His father's 
 residence being upwards of three miles from school, Titus 
 generally rode on a donkey, which was left until the afternoon 
 at " The Nag's Head," a small inn near to the school, bringing 
 with him in a little basket his dinner. In person he was tall 
 and proportionately stout, and of somewhat heavy appearance. 
 His dress was usually that of a country farmer's son, — viz. a
 
 SIR TITUS SALT. 143 
 
 cloth or fustian coat, corduroy breeches, with long gaiters, or, 
 as they were generally called, " spats," or leggings, buttoned up 
 the side, with strong boots laced in front. He was generally 
 of a thoughtful, studious turn of mind, rarely mixing with his 
 schoolfellows in their sports and play, and rather looked upon 
 by them as the quiet, dull boy of the school. His words were 
 generally so few that I cannot call to mind any particular 
 thing that he either said or did. The school was a mixed 
 school for both sexes, the boys occupying the ground floor and 
 the girls the room above, and it was considered the best private 
 day school in the town.' At this school he remained four 
 years, and was well grounded in history, geography, and draw- 
 ing. Mr. Harrison said of him, that 'he was never a bright 
 pupil. He was very steady, very attentive, especially to any 
 particular study into which he put his heart. Drawing was his 
 chief delight. He was a fine, pure boy, stout and tall for his 
 age, with a remarkably intelligent eye. So much did his eye 
 impress me, that I have often, when alone, drawn it from 
 memory, simply for my own gratification. I have sketches of 
 him somewhere among my papers, with crimped frill round his 
 neck, just as he appeared then ; but though naturally very 
 quiet, he was sometimes given to random tricks.' 
 
 His father did not succeed in the farm, but continued to 
 lose money ; when the lease expired, he removed to Bradford, 
 when young Salt was in his nineteenth year. Bradford was 
 just at that time entering on the career of remarkable pro- 
 sperity for which it has since been so highly distinguished. 
 The population of the town at that time was aboui 10,000; it 
 has increased since to upwards of 170,000. His father, Daniel 
 Salt, here began the business of a woolstapler, and in order 
 that Titus might gain some knowledge of the same business, he
 
 144 RISEN B V PERSE VERANCE. 
 
 was sent to the manufactory of Messrs. Rouse & Co., where he 
 acquired a knowledge of wool-sorting and the other processes 
 preparatory to weaving. Two brothers in the employment 
 of this firm, named John and James Hammond, were of great 
 service to him in teaching him the art of sorting wool. 
 
 His biographer, the Rev. R. Balgarnie, has thus described 
 Titus Salt's daily work in the factory : — ' He is a tall young 
 man, with a " brat," or loose blouse, worn over his clothes to 
 keep them clean ; the fleece of wool is unrolled and spread out 
 on the board. Being impregnated with natural grease, it 
 holds entangled in its fibre a variety of substances with which 
 the sheep while living had come into contact ; these must be 
 carefully removed. All the wool of the fleece is not of the 
 same quality, but varies in length, fineness, and softness oi 
 fibre. It is the business of the sorter to separate these dif- 
 ferent qualities, and to put each into a basket. It is evident 
 such occupation requires long and careful education, both of 
 the eye and the hand. Had Titus Salt confined his attention 
 exclusively to this one department of the business, and then at 
 once joined his father, he might, perhaps, have been a success- 
 ful woolstapler, but not a manufacturer ; but, as we have said, 
 he resolved to know every process, from the fleece to the 
 fabric, and into each he put his heart. The next process was 
 washing with alkali, or soap and water, and his knowledge of 
 this served him in after years when his first experiments in 
 alpaca began, and which he performed with his own hands. 
 The next process was combing. It is necessary in the pro- 
 duction of yarn that all the fibres should be drawn out and 
 laid down smooth and distinct, and that all extraneous matters 
 should be extracted. When Titus Salt was with the Rouses, 
 this operation was done by hand ; now, the combing machine,
 
 SIR TITUS SALT. T45 
 
 with its ingenious improvements, has superseded it, and 
 become the glory of the trade. The wool thus combed is pre- 
 pared for spinning.' When he had thoroughly mastered every 
 detail of the business, he joined his father in the wool-stapling 
 trade. The presence of a young, ardent, earnest spirit 
 was soon felt in the business. His duty at first was the 
 attending of the pubhc wool sales in London and Liverpool, 
 and in purchasing wool from farmers in Norfolk and Lincoln- 
 shire. 
 
 The church which the Salt family attended in Bradford 
 was that of the Rev. Thomas Taylor, in Horton Lane. Titus 
 Salt was enlisted in Sabbath-school work in connection with 
 this church, and became first a librarian, then a teacher, 
 afterwards a superintendent. From this time began the 
 wholesome interest which he continued to take in Sunday 
 schools throughout his lifetime ; one of the last acts of his 
 life was the erecting a school at Saltaire, at the cost of 
 ;^ 1 0,000. In manner and appearance at this time, he has 
 been described as ' very simple and quiet in his manner, 
 not given to much speech, but a deep - thinking young 
 man.' 
 
 A strike and disturbance taking place amongst the wool- 
 combers of Bradford in 1825, Titus Salt used his influence 
 in quelling the agitation, entering into the thick of the 
 mob and endeavouring to bring them to reason. Although 
 this attempt was in vain, it may be taken as a proof of his 
 public spirit At a later period, when a strike occurred 
 amongst his own workpeople, and when waited upon by 
 a deputation in order to settle the matter under dispute, 
 he quietly replied, 'You are not in my service now. You 
 have, of your own accord, left me ; return to your work,
 
 1 46 lilSEN B Y PERSE VE RANGE. 
 
 and then I shall consider your proposals.' I'hey did return 
 to their work, and the matter was afterwards amicably settled. 
 
 The business conducted by Daniel Salt & Son continued 
 
 to increase; they dealt mostly in worsted goods. To Titus 
 
 Salt was due the credit of expanding the business beyond 
 
 a mere local trade. As a commercial traveller, he possessed 
 
 many good qualities. Calling at a warehouse in Dewsbury, 
 
 a business man rei^iarked, ' Mr. Titus Salt came to my 
 
 warehouse one day, and wanted to sell wool. I was greatly 
 
 pleased with the quiet power of the young man, and his 
 
 aptitude for business, but most of all was I struck with the 
 
 resolute way he expressed his intention of taking away with 
 
 him, that day, ;^iooo out of Dewsbury.' Though styled 
 
 the junior partner in the firm, by his practical knowledge 
 
 he became in reality the head of the firm. His personal 
 
 habits were becoming at this time confirmed : he was frugal 
 
 and careful of his money, and avoided personal adornment. 
 
 He made a vow with himself, which he kept, that he 
 
 would not buy a gold watch until he had saved ^^looo. 
 
 One most Christian and commendable rule he adopted at 
 
 this time, was to devote a portion of his income to doing 
 
 good through some religious channel. 
 
 When in Lincolnshire on business, and while calling on 
 Mr. Whitlam at Manor House, Grimsby, he met his future 
 wife. Caroline Whitlam, who afterwards became his wife, 
 was the youngest of a large family of eighteen sons and 
 daughters. 'You know,' he used to say when speaking of his 
 love affairs, ' when I went courting, I made a mistake. It 
 was another sister I was in quest of, but this one first met 
 my eye, and captivated my heart at once.' The marriage 
 took place in the Parish Church of Grimsby, on the 21st
 
 S/R TITUS SALT. 
 
 147 
 
 August 1S30. Titus Salt was in his twenty-seventh year, 
 and the bride was but eighteen. 
 
 The practical and energetic mind of Titus Salt was not 
 slow to profit from any new idea which would contribute 
 to his success in business. He was the first to establish 
 the fact that Donskoi wool, or wool from the banks of 
 the river Don in Russia, could be used in the worsted as 
 well as in woollen manufacture. He invested in this 
 Russian wool, but could find no purchasers for it in its 
 raw state. Accordingly, he took a mill, and fitting it up 
 with suitable machinery, began to spin the Donskoi wool 
 into yarn, and weave it into fabric. This experiment was 
 entirely successful, and his business was now vastly increased. 
 The like utilization of the wool called alpaca, and its service 
 in the worsted trade, laid the basis of his fame and fortune. 
 Being in Liverpool in the year 1836, the wool of the 
 alpaca then first came under his notice. Passing through 
 one of the dock warehouses, he saw a pile of dirty-looking 
 bales of alpaca ; the rents in the different bales disclosed 
 their contents. Having examined a handful 01 the wool 
 from one of the bales, he left the warehouse. Returning 
 at a later time, he took away a small quantity ot the 
 material and brought it to Bradford. He had the alpaca wool 
 scoured and combed, a process which he accomplished with 
 his own hands, when he examined its fibre and measured 
 its length. In this fibre he detected a thread which might 
 be usefully utilized in the light fancy fabrics for which 
 Bradford was noted. He mentioned the matter to his 
 friend John Hammond. 'John, I have been to Liverpool 
 and seen some alpaca wool; I think it might be brought 
 into use.' But neither John Hammond nor his father
 
 1 48 JUSEN- B y PERSE VER.'i NCR. 
 
 encouraged him in his speculation. He remained firm, 
 however, in his determination to give the wool a trial, and 
 bought the whole consignment of alpaca from the Liverpool 
 brokers at eightpence a pound Next he organized new 
 machinery for its manufacture into fabric. 
 
 Charles Dickens made this incident the basis of a 
 humorous article in Household Words, part of which we 
 quote : — 
 
 'A huge pile of dirty-looking sacks, filled with some 
 fibrous material, which bore a strong resemblance to super- 
 annuated horse hair, or frowsy elongated wool, or anything 
 unpleasant or unattractive, vras landed in Liverpool. When 
 these queer-looking bales had first arrived, or by what 
 vessel brought, or for what purpose intended, the very 
 oldest warehouseman in Liverpool docks couldn't say. There 
 had once been a rumour — a mere warehouseman's rumour 
 — that the bales had been shipped from South America on 
 " spec," and consigned to the agency of C. W. & F. Foozle 
 & Co. But even this seems to have been forgotten, and 
 it was agreed upon all hands that the three hundred and 
 odd sacks of nondescript hair wool were a perfect nuisance. 
 The rats appeared to be the only parties who approved at 
 all of the importation, and to them it was the finest invest- 
 ment for capital that had been known in Liverpool since 
 their first ancestors had emigrated thither. Well, these 
 bales seemed likely to rot or fall to the dust, or be bitten 
 up for the particular use of family rats. Merchants would 
 have nothing to say to them ; dealers couldn't make them 
 out ; manufacturers shook their heads at the bare mention 
 of them; while the agents, C. W. & F. Foozle & Co., looked 
 at the bill of lading, and had once spoken to their head
 
 S/Ji TITUS SALT 149 
 
 clerk about shipping them to South America again. One 
 day — we won't care what day it was, or even what week or 
 month it was, though things of far less consequence have 
 been chronicled to the half minute — one day a plain, 
 business-looking young man, with an intelligent face, quiet 
 manner, was walking along through these same warehouses 
 in Liverpool, when his eye fell upon some of the super- 
 annuated horse hair projecting from one of the ugly dirty 
 bales. Some lady rat, more delicate than her neighbours, 
 had found it rather coarser than usual, and had persuaded 
 her lord and master to eject the portion from her resting- 
 place. Our friend took it up, looked at it, felt at it, 
 rubbed it, pulled it about; in fact, he did all but taste it, 
 and he would have done that too if it had suited his 
 purpose, for he was "Yorkshire." Having held it up to 
 the light, and held it away from the light, and held it in 
 all sort of positions, and done all sort of cruelties to it, as 
 though it had been his most deadly enemy and he was 
 feeling quite vindictive, he placed a handful or two in his 
 pocket, and walked calmly away, evidently intending to put 
 the stuff to some excruciating private torture at home. 
 What particular experiments he tried with this fibrous sub- 
 stance I am not exactly in a position to state, nor does it 
 much signify; but the sequel was, that the same quiet, 
 business-looking young man was seen to enter the office 01 
 C. W. & F. Foozle & Co., and ask for the head of the 
 firm. When he asked that portion of the house if he would 
 accept eightpence per pound for the entire contents of the 
 three hundred and odd frowsy dirty bags of nondescript 
 wool, the authority interrogated felt so confounded that he 
 could not have told if he were the head or tail of the
 
 1 50 RISEN B V PERSE VE RANGE. 
 
 firm. At first he fancied that our fi:iend had come for the 
 express purpose of quizzing him, and then that he was an 
 escaped lunatic, and thought seriously of calling for the 
 police, but eventually it ended in his making it over, in 
 consideration of the price offered. It was quite an event 
 in the little dark office of C. W. & F. Foozle & Co., 
 which had its supply of light (of a very injurious quality) 
 from the old, grim churchyard. All the establishment stole 
 a peep at the buyer of the " South American stuff." The 
 chief clerk had the curiosity to speak to him, and hear his 
 reply. The cashier touched his coat-tails. The book- 
 keeper, a thin man in spectacles, examined his hat and 
 gloves. The porter openly grinned at him. When the 
 quiet purchaser had departed, C. W. & F. Foozle & Co. 
 shut themselves up, and gave all their clerks a holiday.' 
 
 The young manufacturer was now intensely busy, and he 
 became closely devoted to his growing business. The demand 
 for alpaca goods was increasing with great rapidity. Within 
 three years the import had risen to 2,186,480 lbs., and since 
 it has amounted to 4,000,000 lbs. The price had risen, too, 
 from eightpence up to two shillings and sixpence. A great 
 stimulus was given to trade in Bradford through this new 
 industry. Thousands of workpeople received employment; 
 they came from all parts of the country, and some foreigners, 
 chiefly Germans, became resident workers of the community. 
 Another successful combination at this time was the using a 
 cotton thread in the worsted goods, which enabled the manu- 
 facturer to produce a lighter and cheaper article. For the 
 next ten years after starting the manufacture of alpaca goods, 
 he had a heavy burden upon him in superintending his different 
 manufactories, which were situated in different parts of Brad-
 
 SIR TITUS SALT. 151 
 
 ford. His daily habit was to rise early, and he was generally 
 in the warehouse before the engine was started. The people 
 of Bradford had a saying to the effect that ' Titus Salt makes 
 a thousand pounds before other people are out of bed.' His 
 punctuality, too, was proverbial, and all his movements were 
 regulated with the greatest accuracy. He also possessed in 
 an eminent degree another admirable quality, which his 
 biographer has called wholelieartedness. The work upon 
 which he had now entered was carried forward with his whole 
 heart. 
 
 The following sketch of the character of Titus Salt is by 
 one of his workmen : — ' He was a man of few words, but when 
 he did speak, it was to the point, and pointed ; he meant what 
 he said, and said what he meant. If I asked him for an 
 advance of wages, he always said "I'll see," and it was done. 
 He was a fair-dealing master between man and man. When 
 he heard tell of a man trying to injure another man, that man 
 had to go through the small sieve. If a man did his duty, 
 he was always ready to give him a lift over the right. This I 
 have myself proved. One day, Mr. Salt was coming down 
 Manchester Road, Bradford, in his carriage. When he saw 
 one of his workpeople, who had been ill for some time, he 
 stopped his carriage and gave him a five-pound note. When- 
 ever he saw true distress, he was always ready with his heart 
 and hands to help them. He was a persevering, plodding 
 man. He had a very strong struggle with the alpaca wool. 
 It was, in some instances, thirty-six inches long ; but he was 
 determined to master it, which he did.' It must be admitted, 
 too, that he showed a considerable amount of public spirit 
 beyond the sphere of his daily work. In the year 1832, he 
 interested himself in railway communication with Leeds, in
 
 1 5 2 JIISEN B Y PERSE VE RANGE. 
 
 forming works to supply the town with water, and in the first 
 Parliamentary election in the borough. As the last head 
 constable of the town, Mr. Salt discharged his duties very 
 thoroughly. In November 1848, he was elected Mayor of 
 Bradford. The speech of Mr. Alderman Forbes, in proposing 
 him for the office, gave in brief a good character sketch of the 
 future Mayor. 
 
 •You are all, gentlemen, familiar,' he said, ' with Mr. Salt's 
 character and position. The founder of his own fortune, he 
 has raised himself to an eminence in the manufacturing 
 interest of this town surpassed by none \ and he now finds 
 himself, as a reward for his industry, intelligence, and energy, 
 at the head of a vast establishment, and affording employment 
 to some thousands of workpeople. As we all know, Mr. 
 Salt was the means of introducing a most important branch of 
 trade into this town (I mean the alpaca trade), and thus rescuing 
 that trade from comparative obscurity. Bringing to bear upon 
 it his capital and skill, he not only realized great advantage 
 for himself, but produced new fabrics in the manufactories 
 of this district, thus developing a branch of business most im- 
 portant and beneficial to the working population, I believe, 
 gentlemen, the same sagacity, practical good sense, cool 
 judgment, and vigorous energy, which have hitherto dis- 
 tinguished Mr. Salt, will be brought to bear upon the public 
 business of this borough. You need not be told of his princely 
 benefactions to our various local charities, nor of that 
 magnificent generosity which is always open to the appeal of 
 distress, and the claims of public institutions having for their 
 object the improvement of our population. With a warm 
 heart, a sound head, a knowledge of our local interests con- 
 ferred by long experience, and a 'disposition manifested on
 
 SIR TITUS SALT. 153 
 
 every occasion to do all that lies m his power to promote the 
 prosperity of the borough, I do not think we could select a 
 gentleman better qualified to succeed our late worthy Mayor, 
 Robert Milligan, Esq.' 
 
 Mr. Salt was a warm admirer of Cobden and Bright, and at 
 a banquet held to celebrate the abolition of the corn laws, he 
 was called upon to acknowledge the toast of the corporation. 
 That Bradford benefited and approved of these opinions, is 
 evident from the fact that when the Exchange buildings were 
 built, figures of Cobden, Salt, Gladstone, and Palmerston were 
 placed round the outside. A white marble statue of Cobden 
 has also been placed in the principal hall of the Exchange, 
 which was unveiled by the Right Hon. John Bright. 
 
 The year 1848 was a period of great distress in Bradford. 
 In one week, 17,680 lbs. of bread and 2954 quarts of soup 
 jvere distributed over 1200 families. In January, previous to 
 the French Revolution, he had been able to keep on most of 
 his hands, but since that event his sales had fallen off ^10,000. 
 He was willing nevertheless to engage one hundred 01 the 
 wool-combers who were unemployed, and lay their produce 
 
 by. 
 
 Amongst the other benevolent movements in which Titus 
 Salt was concerned, was that for establishing a Saturday half- 
 holiday, and at his suggestion a meeting was convened in 
 Bradford to think of some means to repress vice and profligacy. 
 During a visitation ot cholera, when several hundreds of deaths 
 occurred, Mr. Salt contributed liberally to the wants of those 
 who were suffering, and proved that he also sympathized with 
 them by visiting many scenes of distress. When the tide 
 turned and trade was again fairly prosperous, Titus Salt 
 enabled ^000 of his workpeople to visit his summer residence
 
 1 5 4 RISEN B Y PERSE VE RANGE. 
 
 at Craven, and breathe the wholesome air of the country. 
 At the close of his yeai-'s mayoralty, the Bradford, Observer 
 wrote : * Our worthy Mayor, Titus Salt, Esq., has long enjoyed 
 wide-spread and well -merited popularity throughout this 
 district. His kindness and consideration as an extensive 
 employer, and his munificence and public spirit as an in- 
 fluential citizen, had long ago won for him *' golden opinions 
 from all sorts of men." He has lost none of his fame by the 
 manner in which he has discharged the onerous duties of 
 first magistrate of this borough, but has rather gained additional 
 lustre to a good name.' 
 
 A mansion called Crow Nest, about seven miles west from 
 Bradford, became the residence of Mr. Salt in 1844. He was 
 obliged to drive to and from business, so that the time spent 
 at home was very limited. His biographer takes great delight 
 in recording that many a poor woman with a child in her arms, 
 or many a dusty pedestrian, lias had a lift from him by the 
 way when driving. Two of his children, Whitlam and Mary, 
 died here ; their bodies were afterwards placed in the family 
 mausoleum at Saltaire. 
 
 It had for a long time been a settled desire with him, 
 that when he reached the age of fifty, he would dispose of 
 his various mills, and spend the remainder of his life as 
 a country gentleman. When the time came for an ultimate 
 decision, it is said to have cost him many anxious days 
 and sleepless hours by night His habit of mind, which 
 is certainly worthy of imitation, was to weigh a question 
 calmly in his own mind, viewing it from all its different 
 sides, and then to communicate his thoughts to others. 
 The gigantic plan of bringing all his factories together on 
 the banks of the Aire, it is said, was a gradual growth in
 
 SIR TITUS SALT. 155 
 
 his mind, and was first communicated to his friend Mr. 
 Forbes. At last he decided on the site by the banks of 
 the Aire. The following conversation is said to have taken 
 place between the great manufacturer and his architect. 
 On being shown the original draught of the plan, he ex- 
 amined it and shook his head. 
 
 Mr. Salt : * This won't do at all' 
 
 Mr. Lockwood : * Pray, then, what are your objections to 
 the sketch ? ' 
 
 Mr. Salt : * Oh, it is not half large enough.' 
 
 Mr. Lockwood : * If that is the only objection, I can 
 easily get over it; but do you know, Mr. Salt, what this 
 mill which I have sketched will cost ? ' 
 
 Mr. Salt : • No ; how much ? ' 
 
 Mr. Lockwood : ' It will cost ;^ioo,ooo.' 
 
 Mr. Salt : ' Oh, very likely.' 
 
 When other detailed plans were submitted to him, which 
 with a few exceptions were adopted, his only remarks were 
 the following : — 
 
 Mr. Salt : * How much ? ' 
 
 Mr. Lockwood : * About the sum I named before.' 
 
 Mr. Salt : ' Can't it be done for less ? ' 
 
 Mr. Lockwood : * No, not in the way you want it to 
 be done.' 
 
 Mr. Salt : ' Then let it be done as soon as possible.' 
 
 The erection of the buildings was proceeded with forth- 
 with. They cover twenty-five acres, and the machinery is 
 capable of turning out 30,000 yards of finished alpaca every 
 day. Four thousand hands are employed in the works; 
 and it is said he expended no less a sum than ;^ioo,ooo 
 on workmen's dwellings. The place contains 895 dweliings,
 
 1 5 6 RISEN B Y PERSE VERANCE. 
 
 without one single public-house. Mr. Salt erected a Con- 
 gregational church in the centre of the buildings at a cost 
 of ;^i 6,000. 
 
 • The Saltaire mills,' writes a good authority, * are situated 
 in one of the most beautiful parts of the romantic valley 
 of the Aire. The site has been selected with uncommon 
 judgment as regards its fitness for the economical working 
 of a great manufacturing establishment. The estate is 
 bounded by highways and railways, which penetrate to the 
 very centre of the building, and is intersected by both canal 
 and river. Admirable water is obtained for the use of the 
 steam-engines, and for the different processes of the manu- 
 facture. By the distance of the mills from the smoky and 
 cloudy atmosphere of a large town, unobstructed and good 
 light is secured; whilst, both by land and water, direct 
 communication is gained for the importation of coal and all 
 other raw produce on the one hand, and for the exportation 
 and delivery of manufactured goods on the other. Both 
 porterage and cartage are entirely superseded; and every 
 other circumstance which could tend to economize produc- 
 tion has been carefully considered. The estate on which 
 Saltaire is built will gradually develop itself to a considerable 
 extent ; and the part appropriated to the works, which is 
 literally covered with buildings, is not less than six and a 
 half acres in extent. Here the heavy operations of the manu- 
 facture are carried on ; but the superficies given to the 
 several processes and to the storage of goods, or, in other 
 words, the floor area of the establishment, is in all about 
 twelve acres. The main range of buildings, or the mill proper, 
 runs from east to west, nearly parallel with the lines of railway 
 from Shipley to Skipton and Lancaster. This pile is six
 
 SIR TITUS SALT 157 
 
 stoieys high, 550 feet in length, 50 feet in width, and about 
 72 feet in height ; and the architectural figures, to avoid mono- 
 tony, have been most skilfully treated by the architects. A 
 bold Italian style has been adopted ; and the beautiful quality 
 Df the stone of which the whole is massively built, displays its 
 features to great advantage. Immediately behind the centre 
 of the main mill, and at right angles to it, runs another 
 six-storey building devoted to warehouse purposes, such as 
 the reception and examination of the newly manufactured 
 goods ; and on either side of this, again, lie the combing 
 shed (or apartment where the fibres of the alpaca, mohair, 
 wool, etc., are combed by machinery), the handsome range 
 of buildings devoted to offices, and the great shed for weaving 
 by power-looms. It was in the combing shed that, in 1853, 
 3500 of Sir [then Mr.] Titus Salt's guests sat down to dinner, 
 without confusion or crowding, and with perfect ventilation. 
 The great loom shed would have accommodated under its 
 single roof a party twice as numerous as this. Arranged 
 in convenient situations are washing-rooms, packing-rooms, 
 drying-rooms, and mechanics' shops. In the formation of 
 the new roads which were requisite to secure free and easy 
 access to the different parts of the mills, Sir Titus Salt 
 availed himself of the most recent experience ; therefore 
 we find bridges of the most durable and solid construction, 
 both in cast and wrought iron, one of these viaducts, on 
 the tubular girder system, crossing the canal and river Aire, 
 being not less than 450 feet in length.' 
 
 When Lord Harewood questioned him as to the change 
 of his views in the building of Saltaire, he replied, *My 
 Lord, I had made up my mind to do this very thing, but 
 on reflection I determined otherwise. In the first place.
 
 158 RISEN B V PERSE VERANCE. 
 
 I thought that by the concentration of my works in one 
 locahty, I might provide occupation for my sons. More- 
 over, as a landed proprietor, I felt I should be out of my 
 element. You are a nobleman, with all the influence that 
 rank and large estates can bring, consequently you have 
 power and influence in the country ; but outside of my 
 business, I am nothing — in it, I have considerable influence. 
 By the opening of Saltaire, I also hope to do good to my 
 fellow-men.' The inauguration banquet in connection with 
 the works came off" on 20th September 1853, on Mr. Salt's 
 fiftieth birthday, and also the date of the coming of age of 
 his eldest son. The order given to the purveyors was for 
 3750 guests; two tons weight of meat, and half a ton of 
 potatoes, were supplied for the occasion. The other pro- 
 vision on the occasion was most liberal and profuse. In 
 his remarks on the occasion, Mr. Salt said substantially 
 what we have already reported him as having said to Lord 
 Harewood. A most successful concert was held in St. 
 George's Hall, Bradford, in the evening. 
 
 Due regard was paid to the educational and religious 
 wants of the community in Saltaire. The cost of the erec- 
 tion of the school buildings was ^^7000, and the Govern- 
 ment Inspector's report upon them was : • That the school 
 buildings, for beauty, size, and equipment, had no rivals in 
 the district.' Mr. Salt himself was closely attached to Con- 
 gregationalism, but this did not prevent him taking an 
 interest in and encouraging those of a different denomination. 
 To the Wesleyans, and to the Primitive Methodists, he 
 granted sites for their different places of worship. The 
 Baptists have two chapels just outside the town, while the 
 Roman Catholics and the Swedenborgians are also repre-
 
 SIT^ TITUS SALT. 159 
 
 sented. An infirmary is also erected in the town for 
 medical and surgical treatment. Any person maimed for 
 life in the works receives a pension, or some light employ- 
 ment is given to him. Baths and wash-houses have also 
 been erected at a cost of ;^7ooo. The wash-houses are 
 provided with three steam-engines and six washing machines. 
 Those who bring clothes to the place are provided with a 
 rubbing and boiling tub, into which steam and hot and cold 
 water are conveyed by pipes. The ^vringing machine is so 
 contrived that the moisture is speedily expelled from the 
 clothes, and the drying closet is heated with hot air. The 
 clothes are then ready for the mangling and folding rooms. 
 All the processes of washing can be gone through within 
 an hour of the time the clothes are brought to the Avash- 
 house. The almshouses in the upper part of the Victoria 
 Road are built in the style of Italian villas, and are capable of 
 receiving seventy-five occupants. They were erected ' in grate- 
 ful remembrance of God's undeserved goodness, and in the 
 hope of promoting the comfort of some who, in feebleness 
 and necessity, may need a home.' The occupants are under- 
 stood to be unfit for labour, and may be either single or 
 married men or women. A weekly allowance of ten shil- 
 lings is given to a husband and wife, and seven shillings and 
 sixpence to those who are unmarried. A neat little chapel 
 has also been provided for them, where a service is held 
 every Sunday, and also on Wednesday evening. 
 
 There was another great festival at the residence of Mr. 
 Salt, at Crow Nest, on the 20th September 1856. This was 
 his birthday, and also the anniversary of the opening of 
 Saltaire Works. Three thousand of his workpeople visited 
 Crow Nest, and on this occasion presented him in the
 
 1 6o RTSEN B V PERSE VE RANGE 
 
 evening with a colossal bust of himself, executed in Carrara 
 marble, and on a pedestal of Sicilian marble. This large 
 assemblage of workpeople visited, in the course of the day, 
 the conservatories, the greenhouses, and enjoyed themselves 
 with various sports in the park. No intoxicating liquors were 
 provided, but the provisions for the occasion were of the 
 amplest kind. The bill of fare was as follows: — Beef, 1380 
 lbs. ; ham, 1300 lbs. ; tongues and pies, 520 lbs. ; plum bread, 
 1080 lbs. ; currant bread, 600 lbs. ; butter, 200 lbs. ; tea, 50 
 lbs. ; sugar, 700 lbs ; cream, 42 gallons ; and a great quantity 
 of celery. The bust was presented to him in the evening in 
 St. George's Hall, Bradford- 
 
 A Liberal in politics, Mr. Salt in the spring of 1869 came 
 forward as a candidate for the borough of Bradford in the 
 Liberal interest. He was elected, much to the gratification of 
 his many friends, but only remained in Parliament two years. 
 Writing to his constituents at the end of that time, he said : — 
 ' I find, after two years of experience, that I have not sufficient 
 stamina to bear up under the fatigues and late hours incident 
 to Parliamentary life.' Though seldom absent from the 
 House, he seldom spoke unless on some formal occasion. 
 When down at Scarborough to recruit his health, he said to a 
 friend, 'I am a weary man,' and he suffered not a Httle in 
 health during his term of office. 
 
 Towards the end of 1856, Mr. Salt was obliged to remove from 
 Crow Nest to Methley Park, after a residence there of seventeen 
 years. He remained in the latter place for nine years. The 
 place is six miles from Leeds, and before he could enter it, 
 great alterations were necessary. Before leaving Crow Nest, he 
 was presented with an Imperial Bible, elaborately bound, and 
 with an address signed by the chief inhabitants of the district.
 
 S/Ji TITUS SALT. i6i 
 
 expressive of their regret at his removal The Rev. R. 
 Balgarnie of Scarborough is inclined to date the turning-point 
 in his inner life to the hearing of a sermon preached by 
 himself, in his own church, from Isa. 1. 4 : * The Lord God 
 hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know 
 how to speak a word in season to him that is weary.' Mr. Salt 
 remarked to Mr. Balgarnie afterwards, 'That was a word in 
 season to me yesterday; I am one of the weary in want of 
 rest ; ' and after this time he showed a willingness to converse 
 on spiritual subjects. The death of a favourite daughter, 
 Fanny, came home to him with even greater power. Some 
 time after this, he became earnestly decided in religious 
 matters, and celebrated his first communion at Saltaire. * This 
 is the day,' he remarked in devout humility, 'I have long 
 desired to see, when I should come and meet my people at 
 the communion table.' From this time forward, he became 
 still more truly and systematically benevolent than he had ever 
 previously been. Liberal in the matter of denominational 
 differences, he attended the Parish Church of Methley on 
 Sabbath evenings very regularly. The bishop of the diocese 
 applying to him to subscribe to some church-building scheme, 
 he replied, 'I am a Nonconformist from conviction, and 
 attached to the Congregational body. Nevertheless, I regard 
 it as a duty and a privilege to co-operate with Christians of all 
 evangelical denominations in furtherance of Christian work.' 
 It is not known whether he subscribed in this instance or not, 
 but it is well known that he subscribed to the fund foi 
 renovating York Minster, and he also presented the new 
 Episcopalian church at Lightcliffe with a carved stone pulpit. 
 Another act of munificence was the spontaneous gift of ;^5ooo 
 to the Sailor's Orphanage at Hull, and he continued to sub*
 
 1 6 2 RISEN B Y PERSE VE RANGE. 
 
 scribe annually to its funds. Towards a Memorial Hall in 
 connection with the Congregational Church, he also subscribed 
 ;^5ooo. Towards the erection of South Cliff Congregational 
 Church, Scarborough, he contributed in all ;^25oo. He also 
 gave a donation of ;^5ooo towards the Lunatic Asylum for the 
 Northern Counties, and ;!^5ooo to the Local Infirmary of 
 Bradford ; and to the treasurer of a Pastor's Retiring Fund he 
 sent ;^i8oo. 
 
 His biographer draws a delightful sketch of his home life 
 amongst his younger children at Methley. A number of dis- 
 tinguished guests were once gathered in his house, amongst 
 whom were Owen Jones, Digby Wyatt, and Sir Charles 
 Pasley. The conversation turning upon art and literature, the 
 latter turned to their host, ' Mr. Salt, what books have you 
 been reading lately ? ' * Alpaca,' was his reply ; and shortly 
 afterwards he said, ' If you had four or five thousand people 
 to provide for every day, you would not have much time for 
 reading.' He had sufficient self-denial to give up smoking 
 after it had become a confirmed habit. His chief delight at 
 Methley was in the cultivation of fruits and flowers. 
 
 At Saltaire, public-houses were prohibited by the wise and 
 generous founder, but this was more than compensated for by 
 the erection of the Saltaire Club and Institute, at an expense 
 of ;^25,ooo. 
 
 A dining hall for those who care to patronize it has also 
 been erected opposite the works, where food can be obtained 
 at a cheap rate. The other institutions and societies are thus 
 summed up in his biography. These are — a fire brigade, a 
 horticultural society with an annual show, a cricket club, a 
 brass band, a string and reed band, a glee and madrigal 
 society, an angling association, a co-operative and industrial
 
 SIR TITUS SALT. 163 
 
 society, a coal society, a funeral society, and other benefit 
 societies for the sick. 
 
 In December 1867, Mr. Salt was enabled to return to his old 
 residence at Crow Nest. We give a description of the place 
 from his biography : — 
 
 Crow Nest. 
 
 * The mansion is of hewn stone, and consists of the centre 
 portion, with a large wing on either side, connected by a suite 
 of smaller buildings, in the form of a curve. . . . The conser- 
 vatories are also situated on the south side, in a line with the 
 mansion, and are so lofty and extensive as almost to dwarf its 
 appearance. The central conservatory is more spacious than 
 the others, and contains, in a recess, an elaborate rockery and 
 cascade, of French workmanship, which were objects of great 
 attraction at the Paris Exhibition. The lake was constructed 
 after Mr. Salt's return, and affords another illustration of his 
 fine eye for the beautiful and picturesque in nature. It is of 
 uniform depth, well stocked with fish and aquatic birds, the 
 latter finding shelter on the island in the middle. The vineries, 
 pineries, and banana house are situated at a considerable 
 distance from the mansion. We have previously stated that 
 Mr. Salt took great delight in the cultivation of fruits and 
 flowers, but the banana was his special favourite at the Crow 
 Nest, and it attained dimensions rarely met with in this 
 country. Its luxuriant foliage, immense height, and gigantic 
 clusters of breadfruit more resemble those of a tropical than 
 of a temperate clime. 
 
 * Let us enter the mansion itself On the right hand of the 
 entrance hall stands the colossal bust presented by the work- 
 people in 1856, close to which is the business-room, so called 
 because it was used for the reception of visitors who called
 
 1 64 RISEN B Y PERSE VERANCE. 
 
 upon him for the transaction of business, or deputations for the 
 presentation of appeals, etc On the left hand is the morning- 
 room, where he usually sat with his family, and from which a 
 door opens into the spacious library, which is the largest and 
 handsomest room of all. In the library is a beautiful bust of 
 Mr. Salt, sculptured in white marble. This is the last delinea- 
 tion of his features, which have been well brought out by the 
 artist, Mr. Adams-Acton. The dining, drawing, and billiard 
 rooms are furnished with exquisite taste. And this is the scene 
 to which Mr. Salt retired to spend the evening of his life.' 
 
 ONE day's occupation AT CROW NEST. 
 
 • The hour of breakfast is eight o'clock, but before that time 
 he has made his first appearance in the dining-room, where the 
 Hon's share of the post bag awaits him, containing, for the most 
 part, applications from various parts of the country, and from 
 all *' sorts and conditions of men," for pecuniary aid. Perhaps 
 one-half of them are appeals for building churches or schools, 
 or for the liquidation of debts upon them ; and the other half 
 has a variety of wants to make known. One institution is 
 restricted in its usefulness by want of funds, and much needs a 
 helping hand ; a widow is destitute, and the family cast upon 
 the world ; a young man wishes to go to college ; a literary 
 man is bringing out a book and wants it circulated ; a deputa- 
 tion hopes to be allowed to present a '* pressing case ! " All 
 these letters he briefly scans ; but they are afterwards to be 
 carefully perused and respectively answered. After breakfast 
 the household assembles for morning prayer. The head of 
 the house slowly reads a portion of sacred Scripture with much 
 impressiveness, then prayer is solemnly read from the Altar of 
 the Household. Thus the day is begun with God, and when
 
 SIR TITUS SALT. 165 
 
 evening comes it is closed in the same manner. Now the 
 family separate to their respective duties. His occupation to- 
 day is to answer the numerous letters that have arrived. In 
 this important business his eldest daughter is his confidential 
 secretary, which post she ably filled until the time of her 
 marriage.' 
 
 These acts speak volumes, and show what a centre of influ- 
 ence he had become. In 1869 he received a note from Mr. 
 Gladstone, then Prime Minister, that Her Majesty proposed 
 that he should receive a baronetcy, which, after some con- 
 sideration, he accepted. At the opening of the Congregational 
 Church, Light cliffe, in 1871, Dr. Guthrie, the Rev. Thomas 
 Binney, and Newman Hall, LL.B., took part in the opening 
 services, and were the guests of Sir Titus. It was on that 
 occasion, when speaking at the public luncheon on the subject 
 of ministers' stipends, that Dr. Guthrie expressed himself as 
 follows : — ' Some persons in Scotland,' he said, ' demur to this, 
 because, in primitive times, ministers had not even a house, 
 but wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being desti- 
 tute, afflicted, tormented ! I asked them how they would like 
 to see Candlish and me walking along the streets of Edinburgh 
 in sheepskins and goatskins, horns and all.' The Saltaire public 
 park is situated about five minutes' walk from the town, and 
 was intended by Sir Titus to furnish wholesome recreation for 
 the young and old. The area enclosed consists of 14 acres. 
 The park was formally opened on the 25th July 1871. While 
 Sir Titus was thus continually proving his thorough interest in 
 his employees, tokens of gratitude and respect on their part, as 
 we have seen, were not wanting. On i6th August 187 1, he 
 was presented with his portrait in the large hall of the Saltaire
 
 1 66 JilSEN B Y PERSE VE RANGE. 
 
 Institute. His reply was, as usual, brief and pointed. * I may 
 now congratulate you and myself,' he said, ' on the completion 
 of Saltaire. I have been twenty years at work, and now it is 
 complete ; and I hope it will be a satisfaction and a joy, and 
 will minister to the happiness of all my people residing here. 
 If I was eloquent, or able to make a long speech, I should try 
 to do so, but my feelings would not allow me.' An event took 
 place in the autumn of 1872 which moved him deeply; this 
 was the marriage of his eldest daughter, who had for many 
 years acted as his amanuensis and secretary, to Henry 
 Wright, Esq., J. P., London. 
 
 On his seventieth birthday, and on the twentieth anniversary 
 of the opening of Saltaire, he had the happiness of again seeing 
 his workpeople assembled around him, to the number of 4200, 
 at Crow Nest. In reply to a congratulatory speech he said : 
 * I am exceedingly glad to see all my workpeople here to-day. 
 I like to see you about me, and to look upon your pleasant and 
 cheerful faces. I hope you will all enjoy yourselves this day, 
 and all get safely home again without accident after your day's 
 pleasure. I hope to see you many times yet, if I am spared ; 
 and I wish health, happiness, and prosperity to you all.' 
 
 When it was proposed to erect a public statue to him in 
 Bradford, the circular bearing on the business came under his 
 notice, and, after reading it, he remarked : * So they wish to 
 make me into a pillar of Salt' In the course of a personal 
 interview which the committee had with him, he resolutely 
 refused to sanction the movement, and ultimately all he would 
 engage to do was to remain quiet and make no public 
 announcement of his disapproval. Mr. John Adams-Acton, 
 the sculptor, on receiving the order, proceeded to Carrara to 
 secure a suitable block of marble. The block weighed four-
 
 SIR TITUS SALT. 167 
 
 teen tons, and required sixteen horses to convey it from the 
 wharf. When finished, it showed him in a characteristic 
 attitude, his right arm resting on the chair on which he was 
 sitting, and holding a scroll in his left hand. The canopy 
 above is from a design by Messrs. Lockwood & Mawson, and 
 is in keeping with the architecture of the Town Hall in the 
 immediate neighbourhood. The cost of the whole, which was 
 covered by a general subscription, was ^^3000. The day of 
 the unveiling of the statue was kept as a general holiday; 
 the Duke of Devonshire conducted the ceremony, and spoke 
 plainly and pointedly of the value and usefulness of the Hfe he 
 had lived. Amongst others, Mr. Morley, M.P., took part, and 
 spoke as follows : — 
 
 SPEECH BY MR. MORLEY, M.P., AT THE UNVEILING 
 OF THE STATUE. 
 
 * He was here to thank him for the stimulus of a noble 
 example, and to express his thankfulness for this, that there is 
 not a home in Great Britain that is not happier, more pure, 
 with more comforts in it, owing to the continuous and earnest 
 efforts made by enlightened and earnest men, amongst whom 
 Sir Titus Salt had always held a prominent position. There 
 had never been an object presented to him, that could tell in 
 any way upon the wellbeing either of his neighbours or fellow- 
 countrymen, which had not found in him a readiness to give 
 either personal service or pecuniary help to the fullest extent 
 required ; and, therefore, he was entitled to the fullest expres- 
 sion of public gratitude, and their desire was, even while he 
 is living, to show him that they were not unmindful of the 
 services he had bestowed. In this money-loving and wealth- 
 acquiring age, it was refreshing to find a man possessed of 
 means, and glad of opportunities — almost thinking it a favour
 
 i68 RISEN B Y PERSE VERANCE. 
 
 when opportunities were put before him — for dispensing the 
 wealth which in so large a measure God had given him as the 
 result of his own intelligent efforts. He might add that, as 
 by conviction, and in obedience to conscience. Sir Titus Salt 
 was a Nonconformist, he had never confined his princely 
 liberality within the narrow limits of a mere sect, but had been 
 ready, with a liberality of spirit which had always done him 
 honour, to promote the erection of churches and schools, and 
 the promotion of any organization whatever which, by God's 
 blessing, might tell upon the material, social, and, above all, 
 the religious wellbeing of the people among whom he has 
 lived. There were thousands now before him, each one of 
 whom might take a lesson from the life of this distinguished 
 man. They might depend upon it that, when the History of 
 England came to be written, a very substantial chapter would 
 be given to the class of men of whom Sir Titus Salt was a dis' 
 tinguished ornament, and who, by personal sympathy and 
 continuous earnest effort, have contributed so largely to the 
 good work that has been done during the last forty years. 
 There was need when such men were advancing in years, or 
 passing away, for an accession of fresh men to come forward 
 to carry on the work that had been so nobly begun. He com- 
 mended, with all his heart, the example of Sir Titus Salt's life 
 to the imitation of every inhabitant of the town.' 
 
 The last great public and benevolent act of Sir Titus Salt's 
 life was the erection of a suite of buildings for the Sunday 
 schools of Saltaire, one of the principal features of which is 
 that the teaching halls consist of separate rooms. Every 
 classroom is supplied with a small table and chair for the 
 teacher's use, and the floors are covered with Brussels carpet.
 
 SIR TITUS SALT. 169 
 
 A life-size portrait of Sir Titus Salt, the presentation of the 
 teachers, hangs over the eastern gallery, within the building. 
 The organ-harmonium within was presented by Mr. George 
 Salt. The cost of the entire structure was ;^io,ooo, and the 
 opening ceremony took place on the 30th May 1876. 
 
 His health steadily declined from the beginning of 1876. 
 His walking exercise for the most part was confined to the 
 library or garden terrace. He was still able, however, to pay 
 several visits throughout the year amongst his friends. When 
 unable to go to church or prayer meeting, his thoughts and 
 prayers were with those who could. Being asked by his 
 spiritual adviser on one occasion if his faith and hopes in 
 Christ were clear and firm, he replied : ' No, not so much as 
 I should like them to be ; but all my trust is in Him. He is 
 the only foundation on which I rest. Nothing else ! Nothing 
 else ! ' A visit paid to Scarborough in the autumn stimulated 
 his waning strength a little at first, but he returned to Crow 
 Nest a dying man. His life, as his biographer remarks, had 
 been calm and orderly, and there remained little in his busi- 
 ness or family interests which required setting in order. On 
 Sunday, 17th December 1876, he was so ill that his absent 
 children were telegraphed for. The end came on Friday 
 afternoon, 29th December 1876. There was little physical 
 suffering, and his spirit passed calmly away. Heartfelt letters 
 of condolence flowed in from all quarters, and his remains 
 were borne to their last resting-place in the family mausoleum 
 amidst a concourse of 40,000 spectators. 
 
 His former pastor, the Rev. J. Thomson of Lightclifife, in 
 taking notice of the event on the following Sunday, preached 
 a funeral sermon from Matt, xxv. 21. The following is an 
 extract from the discourse : —
 
 1 70 RISEN B V PERSE VERANCE. 
 
 EXTRACT FROM FUNERAL SERMON BY REV. J. THOMSON. 
 
 * His greatness was the greatness of a great nature rather 
 than of any separate or showy faculty. There was no mean- 
 ness or littleness about anything he did. He lifted, by the 
 sheer force of his own greatness, any matter in which he 
 became vitally interested out of the realm of commonplace, 
 and carried it irresistibly forward to final success. He moved 
 without effort among great undertakings, liberal enterprises, 
 and bountiful benefactions. What he did and gave was from 
 the level in which he lived, and to which other men rise with 
 effort, and only for a time. He could not be said to be a 
 great reader, a great thinker, a great talker, a great expositor. 
 He was better. He was a great man, having in him some- 
 thing responsive to all these forms of greatness ; and standing 
 among men, he was seen from afar ; his very immobility, for it 
 was the repose of strength, affording that support in tryiriti; 
 times that gave a staying power to the undertakings with 
 which he was identified, and which made them ultimately 
 successful. Men knew always where to find him, and came 
 also to trust that the cause to which he lent his name and 
 influence had some just claims to consideration, and would 
 finally succeed. In his personal friendships, where he trusted, 
 he trusted wholly, and would not soon forsake one to whom 
 he had given his confidence. The rising from one position to 
 another in the social scale had no effect on his friendships. 
 The friends of his youth were with him to the close ; or, if not, 
 it was they who had fallen asleep, or fallen away from him, 
 and from these noble enterprises to which he had consecrated 
 his strength and resources. He was a pioneer, a creator of 
 the new era. He showed how the graces of the old feudalism 
 
 i
 
 SI J? TITUS SALT. 171 
 
 that was being supplanted could be grafted on and exemplified 
 by the men who brought forth and moulded the better age. 
 No feudal lord could have set open his doors ard offered 
 his resources to the retaine s of generations in th3 way he 
 provided for those that laboured under his directions. The 
 new era had, as it were, from the first a grace and benevolence 
 that other social forms had never known, or known only in 
 decay ; and it owed, and owes, it to the personal characters of 
 the men who laid its foundations, and not least to him whose 
 removal we deplore. He was always seen to advantage among 
 the people, surrounded by them, making his way among them, 
 and through the path that they, with native courtesy, made for 
 him. He treated them more at last as a benevolent and large- 
 hearted father treats his children than as an employer treats his 
 servants, or a leader his followers.' 
 
 There were other memorial services conducted in the name 
 of the deceased, but his truest claim to remembrance rests with 
 the manly rectitude of his life, with its Christian benevolence 
 and unequalled manufacturing enterprise, which led to such 
 legitimate success.
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 HE novelist plays an important part in modern life. 
 There are hundreds of lives which must move on 
 with little hope of change, living in the same street 
 or village, and doing about the same round of duties every 
 day. A work of fiction comes to those thus circumstanced as 
 the revelation of a new world, expanding the hard lines of 
 daily life, causing the mind to luxuriate in 'fresh fields and 
 pastures new.' Besides, in a good novel, we get behind the 
 scenes, and gain a glimpse of things as they really are, read 
 the promptings to this or that act. As in real life, too, we 
 meet with agreeable or disagreeable people, who may talk to 
 us as they will, with this difference, that when we close the 
 book we also for the time close the conversation, and lose sight 
 of our company. To the tired man of business, the relaxation 
 and ' play of mind ' derived from a good novel are very 
 welcome. There is much useless and damaging fiction, as 
 there are many useless and wasted lives, but with a little 
 selective power the bad may be avoided. 
 
 The novelist whose career we now follow, lived in his work 
 and for his work, though with a keen zest for the other enjoy- 
 ments of life. His writings have revealed much that was 
 
 172
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 1 7 3 
 
 formerly hidden in what was formerly known as low life ; and 
 by their sunny humour and the development of odd and 
 grotesque characters, he has created a body of literature by 
 which the world has been amused and enriched. The faults 
 and weaknesses of his books may be traceable to the faults 
 and weaknesses in his character. Yet his life is one of deep 
 and abiding interest to the student of biography. 
 
 The father of the popular novelist, John Dickens, was 
 engaged as a clerk in the Navy Pay Office at Portsmouth. 
 His wife's name was Elizabeth Barrow ; she bore him eight 
 children, two of whom died in infancy. Charles was the 
 second youngest of the family, and was born at Landport, in 
 Portsea, on Friday, 7th February 181 2. Like Thomas de 
 Quincey, reason dawned early, and his memory went back to 
 the time when he was but two years of age. His father's 
 duties caused the removal of the family to London in 18 14, 
 and shortly thereafter to Chatham. Young Dickens was at 
 this time between four and five years of age. A house called 
 Gadshill Place, between Rochester and Gravesend, took his 
 attention and admiration, when his father told him that if he 
 worked hard enough he might himself Hve in such a house. 
 As a boy he was never strong ; one good his early sicknesses 
 did hira, he believed, was the fact that they nourished an 
 inclination for reading. To Washington Irving he afterwards 
 spoke of himself as a ' very small and not-over-particularly- 
 taken-care-of boy.' From his mother were received his first 
 instructions in the art of reading. When the time came, along 
 with his sister Fanny, he was sent to a preparatory day school. 
 In this connection there is a passage in his novel, David 
 Copperfield, which his biographer, Mr. John Forster, tells us is 
 distinctly autobiographical
 
 1 74 mSEN B V PERSE VERANCE. 
 
 Like many other children of good parts or rare genius, he 
 began to write, and was precociously clever at singing comic 
 songs; and at a very early age, also, he was taken to the 
 theatre, which he enjoyed. The last two years of his resi- 
 dence at Chatham were spent at a school in Clover Lane, 
 kept by a young Baptist minister, Mr, William Giles. His 
 father's occupation led him to remove to London in 1821, 
 and of the stage - coach journey thither he thus wrote : — 
 •There was no other inside passenger, and I consumed my 
 sandwiches in solitude and dreariness, and it rained hard 
 all the way, and I thought life sloppier than I expected to 
 find it.' Shortly after their arrival in London, the Dickens 
 family were involved in money difficulties which made re- 
 trenchment a necessity, when they resided in a poor locality, 
 Bayham Street, Camden Town. His father was even arrested 
 for debt and conveyed to Marshalsea prison, where the 
 family followed. A walk through Covent Garden, the Strand, 
 or Seven Dials, had a great attraction for him; one or two 
 efforts at describing characters whom he met also belong to 
 this period. 
 
 It may or it may not be creditable to the great novelist 
 that there now occurred a passage in his life about which 
 he never cared to speak, except to some most intimate 
 friend ; it never became public until his Hfe was issued. 
 This was the fact of his being sent, when about ten years 
 of age, to make himself as useful as he could, under his 
 cousin, George Lamert, in a blacking warehouse. His de- 
 partment was to cover the pots of paste-blacking with oil- 
 paper, then with blue paper, to tie them round with a string, 
 and then to trim them off neatly; next, when a sufficient 
 quantity had been done, he affixed a printed label to them.
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 175 
 
 His great regi'et at this work consisted in the feeling that 
 he was sinking in his companionships, and that his hopes of 
 becoming learned and distinguished were doomed to dis- 
 appointment. Proud he was, nevertheless, to be able to 
 march home with six shillings he earned weekly in his pocket. 
 
 Some of the characters he met with while the Dickens 
 family resided in Marshalsea prison were afterwards made 
 use of in Pickwick and other novels. When they left this 
 place, they removed to lodgings in Little College Street, and 
 afterwards resided in Somers Town. He quitted the blacking 
 warehouse when twelve years of age. Writing in 1862, he 
 says : ' The never-to-be-forgotten misery of that old time 
 bred a certain shrinking sensitiveness in a certain ill-clad, 
 ill-fed child, that I have found come back in the never-to- 
 be-forgotten misery of this later time.' But he never became 
 a creature of circumstances ; his early untoward surroundings 
 only strengthened him to put forth the most determined and 
 persevering energy to overcome them. His gift of animal 
 spirit and sense of humour also helped to bear him up. In 
 1824 he went to a certain seminary called Wellington House 
 Academy, kept by Mr. Jones, a Welshman, which he attended 
 for two years. Mr. Thomas, one of his schoolfellows, says 
 of this period : ' My recollection of Dickens whilst at school 
 is that of a healthy-looking boy; small, but well built, with 
 a more than usual flow of spirits, inducing to harmless fun, 
 seldom, if ever, I think, to mischief, to which so many lads 
 at that age are prone. I cannot recall anything that then 
 indicated he would hereafter become a literary celebrity ; 
 but perhaps he was too young then. He usually held his 
 head more erect than lads ordinarily do, and there was a 
 general smartness about him.' Another schoolfellow says:
 
 1 7 6 RISEN B Y PERSE VERANCE. 
 
 *He was a handsome, curly-headed lad, full of animation 
 and animal spirits. . . . Depend on it, he was quite a self- 
 made man, and his wonderful knowledge and command of 
 the English language must have been acquired by long and 
 patient study after leaving his last school.' 
 
 For a short time after leaving Wellington Academy, he 
 attended another school; then he entered the office of Mr. 
 MoUoy in New Square, Lincoln's Inn, as a clerk, from which 
 he removed to the office of Mr. Edward Blackmore, attorney, 
 Gray's Inn. He entered this latter post in May 1827, and 
 left in November 1828. His salary as an office lad at first 
 amounted to thirteen shillings and sixpence, afterwards rising 
 to fifteen shillings. The fact of his father having become a 
 newspaper Parliamentary reporter for the Morm?ig Chronicle 
 may have decided him in the study of short-hand. *The 
 changes that were rung upon dots,' he writes, ' which in such 
 a position meant such a thing, and in such another position 
 something else entirely different ; the wonderful vagaries that 
 were played by circles ; the unaccountable consequences that 
 resulted from marks like flies' legs; the tremendous effects 
 of a curve in a wrong place, not only troubled my waking 
 hours, but reappeared before me in my sleep. When I had 
 groped my way blindly through these difficulties, and had 
 mastered the alphabet, there then appeared a procession of 
 new horrors, called arbitrary characters — the most despotic 
 characters I have ever known; who insisted, for instance, 
 that the thing like the beginning of a cobweb meant expec- 
 tation, and that a pen-and-ink sky-rocket stood for disadvan- 
 tageous. When I had fixed these wretches in my mind, I 
 found that they had driven everything else out of it; then, 
 beginning again, I forgot them ; while I was picking them
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 177 
 
 up, I dropped the other fragments of the system; in short, 
 it was almost heart-breaking.' All this painstaking labour 
 became of real service in furthering his desire to get on, 
 and at the age of nineteen he entered the reporters' gallery 
 on behalf of the True Sun. Next he transferred his services 
 to the Mirror of Parliament^ and then to the Morning 
 Chronicle. 
 
 His first published piece of writing saw the light in the 
 Old Monthly Magazine for January 1834. This contribution, 
 'Mrs. Joseph Porter over the Way,' was stealthily dropped 
 into a dark letter-box one night, and great was his exultation 
 when it appeared in all the glory of print. He contributed 
 in all nine sketches to this magazine, and began to use the 
 signature of 'Boz.' This term was the nickname of his 
 youngest brother, Augustus, whom, in honour of the Vicar 
 of Wakefield^ he had called Moses, but which, when pro- 
 nounced through the nose, degenerated into Boz. 'To the 
 wholesome training,' he afterwards said, 'of severe newspaper 
 work, when I was a very young man, I constantly refer my 
 first successes.' He wrote, in 1845, that ' there never was 
 anybody connected with newspapers who, in the same space 
 of time, had so much express and post-chaise experience as 
 I. And what gentlemen they were to serve, in such things, 
 at the old Morning Chronicle! Great or small, it did not 
 matter. I have had to charge for the damage of a great- 
 coat from the drippings of a blazing wax candle, in writing 
 through the smallest hours of the night in a swift - flying 
 carriage and pair. I have had to charge for all sorts of 
 breakages fifty times in a journey without question, such 
 being the ordinary results of the pace which we went at. I 
 have charged for broken hats, broken luggage, broken chaises,
 
 1 7 8 J^ISEN B V PERSE VERA NCR. 
 
 broken harness, everything but a broken head, which is the 
 only thing they would have grumbled to pay for.' He has 
 further said in allusion to this period : * Returning home 
 from exciting political meetings in the country to the wait- 
 ing press in London, I do verily believe I have been upset 
 in almost every description of vehicle known in this country. 
 I have been, in my time, belated on miry by-roads, towards 
 the small hours, forty or fifty miles from London, in a wheel- 
 less carriage, with exhausted horses and drunken postboys, 
 and have got back in time for publication, to be received 
 with never-forgotten compliments by the late Mr, Black, 
 coming in the broadest of Scotch from the broadest of hearts 
 I ever knew.' When the New Monthly ceased to pay Dickens 
 for his sketches, he transferred this part of his services to 
 the Chronicle, which remunerated him for them. 
 
 At the beginning of 1836, he found a publisher for the first 
 series of Sketches by Boz, who offered him ;^i5o for the copy- 
 right. In the Times of March 1836, the first announcement 
 of the publication of the Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick 
 Cliib^ edited by Boz, was made. The then young publishing 
 house of Messrs. Chapman & Hall had made overtures to 
 him for this monthly serial, which was to contain certain 
 sketches by Mr, Seymour, the artist, and which was also to con- 
 tain an account of certain members of a Nimrod Club, who 
 should go out shooting and fishing, and meet with sundry 
 mishaps, owing to their inexperience and for other reasons. 
 And thus the Pickwick Papers arose upon the world with 
 their stores of amusement and laughter. Between the issue 
 of the first and second numbers, Seymour, the artist, died by 
 his own hand, but not before he had sketched the form and 
 features of Mr. Pickwick as now so well known to the English
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 179 
 
 public. His place in the illustration of the serial was supplied 
 by Mr. Hablot K. Browne. His biogi-apher, Mr. John 
 Forster, who met him about this time, was charmed with his 
 youthfulness and candid open countenance. He describes 
 his forehead as good, a firm nose with full wide nostril, eyes 
 beaming with intellect and cheerful humour. His whole face 
 and bearing bore the stamp of quick, keen, practical power. 
 Leigh Hunt said of it that it had ' the life and soul in it of 
 fifty human beings.' His connection with the reporters* 
 gallery was finished in 1836. In December of this year he 
 wrote two pieces, the ' Strange Gentleman ' and the ' Village 
 Coquettes,' for the St. James' Theatre. On the 2d April of the 
 same year, he had married Catherine, eldest daughter of Mr. 
 George Hogarth, who had been a fellow-worker on the Chroiiide. 
 The success of Pickwick was assured ; it arose in parts from 
 the comparatively small number of 400 to 40,000 copies. 
 This success led Mr. Bentley, the publisher, to ask him to 
 undertake the editorship of a new magazine which was to 
 be started in January 1837. For this magazine he was to 
 supply a serial story, and soon afterwards to write two other 
 tales. Mr. Macrone, who had purchased the copyright of the 
 first series of Sketches by Boz, now threatened to issue it in 
 a serial form in the same way as Pickwick. This was only 
 prevented by Messrs. Chapman & Hall buying up the copy- 
 right, with Dickens' consent, at the exorbitant price of 
 ^2000. The intimacy now begun with Mr. John Forster was 
 of the greatest use to him ; beyond a close friendship only 
 closed with death, the latter read over the proof-sheets of his 
 novels, making many important corrections, and often saving 
 their author much trouble and anxiety when pressed with 
 other work.
 
 1 80 RISEN B Y FERSE VERANCE. 
 
 Dickens, to relieve the strain of hard work, began a habit 
 at this time which continued throughout his Hfetime, that of 
 mental rest in bodily activity. He became a great walker, 
 and pursued this steadily and systematically throughout a 
 lifetime. 
 
 On his return from a holiday at Brighton in 1837, he was 
 engaged in editing the life of Grimaldi the clown. For this 
 book he wrote a preface, and re-told many of the stories, 
 recasting them slightly from the materials which had been 
 placed in his hands. The successful completion of Pickwick 
 was the signal for a dinner, with himself in the chair, 
 and T. N. Talfourd in the vice-chair. An agreement was 
 entered upon with his publishers at this time, by which he 
 was to succeed to a third ownership of the book ; and at 
 the same time another agreement was entered into for 
 another work in parts, which was to run for nineteen months, 
 for which he was to receive twenty several payments of;!£"i5o, 
 bringing the whole up to about ;:^3ooo. For Pickwick, his 
 respective payments must have exceeded ;^25oo. The new 
 novel just bargained for turned out to be The Life and 
 Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, the sale of the first number of 
 which rose to 50,000. His previous arrangements made with 
 Bentley hampered him not a little in his new work ; however, 
 Oliver Twist was finished by October 1838, and on publica- 
 tion it had a career of great popularity and success. It 
 originally appeared in Bentley's Miscellany^ for which he was 
 still engaged to write another tale, Barnaby Rudge. He, 
 however, managed to release himself from this engagement, 
 handed over the editorship of the Miscellany to Mr. Harrison 
 Ainsworth, and bought back the copyright and existing stock 
 of Oliver Twist from Bentley for ;^2 25o.
 
 f 
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. i8i 
 
 In these days of growing prosperity, he took a cottage at 
 Twickenham, where he spent the summer of 1838, enjoying 
 the society of Talfourd, Thackeray, Jerrold, Edwin Landseer, 
 George Cattermole, Stanfield, and W. H. Ainsworth. Before 
 the close of 1839, he had removed from his old residence in 
 Doughty Street into Devonshire Terrace, which was shut out 
 from the new road by a high brick wall facing the York Gate 
 into Regent's Park. His next novel was the Old Curiosity 
 Shop, which was issued in weekly numbers. Of the first 
 number, upwards of 70,000 copies were sold. He was to 
 receive a payment of ;^5o for each number; the numbers 
 were then to be accounted for separately, and half the 
 realized profits paid to him, the other half going to the pub- 
 lishers. The writing of this story he felt intensely, and the 
 death of little Nell affected him as powerfully as it could 
 do an interested reader. Barnaby jRudge, begun during the 
 progress of Oliver Twist, appeared in numbers in 1841. 
 The prototype of Grip, the raven which plays such an 
 important part in the story, was owned by himself, and he 
 was much grieved at its death, which took place in 1841. 
 In June 1841 he made a tour in Scotland, but took his work 
 with him, transmitting regular instalments of the story he had 
 in hand. On the 25th June, he was entertained at a public 
 dinner in Edinburgh, one of the first and most striking 
 acknowledgments that his genius was making itself known and 
 at home amongst even the colder-blooded critical public in 
 the northern capital. Professor Wilson, in the room of Lord 
 Jeffrey, filled the chair, and made an admirable speech. 
 Dickens, writing the day after the event to Mr. John Forster, 
 said: — 'The great event is over; and being gone, I am a 
 man again. It was the most brilliant affair you can con-
 
 RISEN BY PERSEVERANCE. 
 
 ceive ; the completest success possible, from first to last. The 
 room was crammed, and more than seventy applicants for 
 tickets were of necessity refused yesterday, Wilson was ill, 
 but plucked up like a lion, and spoke famously. I send you 
 a paper herewith, but the report is dismal in the extreme. 
 They say there will be a better one ; I don't know where or 
 when. Should there be, I will send it to you. I thmk 
 (ahem !) that I spoke rather well. It was an excellent room, 
 and both the subjects (Wilson and Scottish Literature, and the 
 Memory of Wilkie) were good to go upon. There were nearly 
 two hundred ladies present. The place is so contrived that 
 the cross table is raised enormously, much above the heads 
 of people sitting below ; and the effect on first coming in (on 
 me, I mean) was rather tremendous. I was quite self- 
 possessed, however, and, notwithstanding the enthoosemoosy, 
 which was very startling, as cool as a cucumber.' It may be 
 interesting, and help to recall this scene, if we recall some of 
 the speeches on this occasion. 
 
 Mr. Dickens said : ' If I felt your warm and generous welcome 
 less, I should be better able to thank you. If I could have 
 listened as you have listened to the glowing language of your 
 chairman, and if I could have heard as you heard the "thoughts 
 that breathe and words that burn " which he has uttered, it 
 would have gone hard but I should have caught some portion 
 of his enthusiasm, and kindled at his example. But every 
 word which fell from his lips, and every demonstration of 
 sympathy and approbation with which you received his elo- 
 quent expressions, render me unable to respond to his 
 kindness, and leave me at last all heart and no lips, yearning 
 to respond as I would do to your cordial greeting— possessing, 
 Heaven knows, the will, and desiring only to find the way.
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 183 
 
 •The way to your good opinion, favour, and support has 
 been to me very pleasing — a path strewn with flowers and 
 cheered with siinshine. I feel as if I stood amongst old 
 friends, whom I had intimately known and highly valued. I 
 feel as if the deaths of the fictitious creatures in which you 
 have been kind enough to express an interest, had endeared us 
 to each other as real afflictions deepen friendships in actual 
 life ; I feel as if they had been real persons, whose fortunes 
 we had pursued together in inseparable connection, and that I 
 had never known them apart from you. 
 
 * It is a difficult thing for a man to speak of himself or of 
 his works. But perhaps on this occasion I may, without 
 impropriety, venture to say a word on the spirit in which mine 
 were conceived. I felt an earnest and humble desire, and 
 shall do till I die, to increase the stock of harmless cheer- 
 fulness. I felt that the world was not utterly to be despised \ 
 that it was worthy of living in for many reasons. I was 
 anxious to find, as the Professor has said, if I could, in evil 
 things, that soul of goodness which the Creator has put in 
 them. I was anxious to show that virtue may be found in the 
 by-ways of the world, that it is not incompatible with poverty 
 and even with rags ; and to keep steadily through life the motto 
 expressed in the burning words of your northern poet : 
 
 " The rank is but the guinea stamp, 
 The man's the gowd for a' that." 
 
 And in following this track, where could I have better 
 assurance that I was right, or where could I have stronger 
 assurance to cheer me on, than in your kindness on this to 
 me memorable night ? 
 
 ' I am anxious and glad to have an opportunity of saying a 
 word in reference to one incident in which I am happy to
 
 1 84 I^ISEN B V PERSE VERANCE. 
 
 know you were interested, and still more happy to know, 
 though it may sound paradoxical, that you were disappointed 
 —I mean the death of the little heroine. When I first 
 conceived the idea of conducting that simple story to its 
 termination, I determined rigidly to adhere to it, and never 
 to forsake the end I had in view. Not untried in the school 
 of affliction, in the death of those we love, I thought what a 
 good thing it would be if in my little work of pleasant amuse- 
 ment I could substitute a garland of fresh flowers for the 
 sculptured horrors which disgrace the tomb. If I have put 
 into my book anything which can fill the young mind with 
 better thoughts of death, or soften the grief of older hearts ; 
 if I have written one word which can afford pleasure or 
 consolation to old or young in time of trial, I shall consider 
 it as something achieved — something which I shall be glad to 
 look back upon in after life. Therefore I kept to my purpose, 
 notwithstanding that towards the conclusion of the story I 
 daily received letters of remonstrance, especially from the 
 ladies. God bless them for their tender mercies ! The 
 Professor was quite right when he said that I had not reached 
 to an adequate delineation of their virtues ; and I fear that I 
 must go on blotting their characters in endeavouring to reach 
 the ideal in my mind. These letters were, however, combined 
 with others from the sterner sex, and some of them were not 
 altogether free from personal invective. But, notwithstanding, 
 I kept to my purpose, and I am happy to know that many of 
 those who at first condemned me are now foremost in their 
 approbation. 
 
 ' If I have made a mistake in detaining you with this little 
 incident, I do not regret having done so; for your kind- 
 ness has given me such a confidence in you, that the fault is
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. ^85 
 
 yours and not mine. I come once more to thank you, and 
 here I am in a difficulty again. The distinction you have 
 conferred upon me is one which I never hoped for, and of 
 which I never dared to dream. That it is one which I shall 
 never forget, and that while I live I shall be proud of its 
 remembrance, you must well know. I believe I shall never 
 hear the name of this capital of Scotland without a thrill of 
 gratitude and pleasure. I shall love while I have life her 
 people, her hills, and her houses, and even the very stones of 
 her streets. And if in the future works which may lie before 
 me you should discern — God grant you may ! — a brighter 
 spirit and a clearer wit, I pray you to refer it back to this 
 night, and point to that as a Scottish passage for evermore. 
 I thank you again and again, with the energy of a thousand 
 thanks in each one, and I drink to you with a heart as full as 
 my glass, and far easier emptied, I do assure you.' 
 
 Later in the evening, in proposing the health of Professor 
 Wilson, Mr. Dickens said : — 
 
 * I have the honour to be entrusted with a toast, the very 
 mention of which will recommend itself to you, I know, as 
 one possessing no ordinary claims to your sympathy and 
 approbation, and the proposing of which is as congenial to my 
 wishes and feelings as its acceptance must be to yours. It 
 is the health of our chairman, and coupled with his name I 
 have to propose the Literature of Scotland — a literature which 
 he has done much to render famous through the world, and 
 of which he has been for many years, as I hope and believe 
 he will be for many more, a most brilliant and distinguished 
 ornament Who can revert to the literature of the land of 
 Scott and of Burns without having directly in his mind, as 
 inseparable from the subject and forernnst in the picture, that
 
 r 86 mSEJV B V I'jiRSE VERANCE. 
 
 old man of might, with his lion heart and sceptred crutch, 
 Christopher North ? I am glad to remember the time when I 
 believed him to be a real, actual, veritable old gentleman, that 
 might be seen any day hobbling along the High Street, with 
 the most brilliant eye — but that is no fiction — and the greyest 
 hair in all the world; who wrote not because he cared to 
 write, not because he cared for the wonder and admiration of 
 his fellow-men, but who wrote because he could not help it, 
 because there was always springing up in his mind a clear 
 and sparkling stream of poetry which must have vent, and, 
 like the glittering fountain in the fairy tale, draw what you 
 might, was ever at the full, and never languished even by a 
 single drop or bubble. I had so figured him in my mind, and, 
 when I saw the Professor two days ago, striding along the 
 Parliament House, I was disposed to take it as a personal 
 offence : I was vexed to see him look so hearty. I drooped 
 to see twenty Christophers in one. I began to think that 
 Scottish life was all light and no shadows, and I began to doubt 
 that beautiful book to which I have turned again and again, 
 always to find new beauties and fresh sources of interest.* 
 
 In proposing the memory of the late Sir David Wilkie, Mr. 
 Dickens said : — 
 
 * Less fortunate than the two gentlemen who have preceded 
 me, it is confided to me to mention a name which cannot be 
 pronounced without sorrow, a name in which Scotland had a 
 great triumph, and which England delighted to honour. One 
 of the gifted of the earth has passed away, as it were, 
 yesterday; one who was devoted to his art, and his art was 
 nature — I mean David Wilkie. He was one who made the 
 cottage hearth a graceful thing — of whom it might truly be 
 said that he found " books in the running brooks," and who has
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 187 
 
 left in all he did some breathing of the air which stirs the 
 heather. But however desirous to enlarge on his genius as 
 an artist, I would rather speak of him now as a friend who 
 has gone from amongst us. There is his deserted studio — the 
 empty easel lying idly by — the unfinished picture with its face 
 turned to the wall ; and there is that bereaved sister, who loved 
 him with an affection which death cannot quench. He has 
 left a name in fame clear as the bright sky ; he has filled our 
 minds with memories pure as the blue waves which roll over 
 him. Let us hope that she who more than all others mourns 
 his loss, may learn to reflect that he died in the fulness ol 
 his fame, before age or sickness had dimmed his powers, and 
 that she may yet associate with feelings as calm and pleasant 
 as we do now the memory of Wilkie.' 
 
 Having arranged regarding the issue of another work of 
 fiction, Dickens decided definitely regarding a visit to America, 
 and sailed with his wife on the 3d of January 1842. After a 
 stormy passage, he was everywhere received with the greatest 
 enthusiasm. 
 
 On his return he issued Aj/ierican Notes for General Circula- 
 tion, with a frontispiece by Clarkson Stanfield, R.A. Its 
 publication gave great offence to his American readers. At 
 the earnest request of his friend, Mr. John Forster, an intro- 
 ductory chapter was suppressed; this section was afterwards 
 printed in his life, when all danger of its doing harm might be 
 said to be over. Before the close of the year, four large 
 editions had been sold. Mr. H. W. Longfellow, the poet, 
 was his guest this year. A trip to Cornwall was also 
 undertaken in the company of Mr. Forster, Stanfield, and 
 Maclise. 'Such a trip we had into Cornwall,' he wrote 
 to Mr. J. T. Fields, 'just after Longfellow went away. . .,
 
 1 88 RISEN B Y PERSE VERANCE. 
 
 Sometimes we travelled all night, sometimes all day, some- 
 times both. . . . Heavens ! If you could have seen the 
 necks of bottles, distracting in their immense varieties of shape, 
 peering out of the carriage pockets ! If you could have 
 witnessed the deep devotion of the post-boys, the wild attach- 
 ment of the hostlers, the maniac glee of the waiters ! If you 
 could have followed us into the earthy old churches we visited, 
 and into the strange caverns on the gloomy sea shore, and 
 down into the depths of mines, and up to the tops of giddy 
 heights, where the unspeakably green water was roaring I 
 don't know how many hundred feet below ! If you could 
 have seen but one gleam of the bright fires by which we sat in 
 the big rooms of ancient inns at night, until long after the 
 small hours had come and gone ! . . . I never laughed in my 
 Hfe as I did on this jonrney. It would have done you good 
 to hear me. I was choking and gasping and bursting the 
 buckle off the back of my stock all the way. And Stanfield 
 got into such apoplectic entanglements that we were often 
 obliged to beat him on the back with portmanteaus before we 
 could recover him. Seriously, I do believe there never was 
 such a trip. And they made such sketches, those two men, in 
 the most romantic of our halting-places, that you would have 
 sworn we had the spirit of beauty with us, as well as the spirit 
 of fun.' By the 12th of November 1842, after a good deal of 
 thinking and alteration, Dickens had decided on Martin 
 Chuzzlewit as the title of his new novel, the first joart of 
 which appeared on January i, 1843. The American portions 
 of the book were considered violent exaggerations, but its chief 
 intention was to call attention to the system of ship hospitals 
 and to workhouse nurses. The book, when issued in a com- 
 plete form, was dedicated to Miss Burdett Coutts. Sydney
 
 I 
 
 CHARLES DICKENS, 189 
 
 Smith wrote to him during the progress of the work : ' Peck- 
 sniff and his daughters, and Pinch, are admirable — quite first- 
 rate painting, such as no one but yourself can execute.' That 
 he had openness of soul and liberality of mind sufficient to 
 recognise and acknowledge merit in another, was made apparent 
 by his pointing out to John Forster two stories in course of 
 publication in Blackwood's Magazine, by George Eliot. ' Do 
 read them,' he wrote ; ' they are the best things I have seen 
 since I began my course.' This year he presided at the 
 opening of the Manchester Athenasum, when Mr, Cobden and 
 Mr. Disraeli also assisted. He spoke on the education of the 
 very poor. In the intervals of the composition of Martin 
 Chuzzlewit, A Christmas Carol was written, which appeared in 
 December, illustrated by John Leech. 'I can testify,' says 
 John Forster, ' to the accuracy of his own account of what 
 befell him in its composition, with what a strange mastery it 
 seized him for itself; how he wept over it, and laughed, and 
 wept again, and excited himself to an extraordinary degree ; 
 and how he walked thinking of it fifteen and twenty miles 
 about the black streets of London, many and many a night, 
 after all sober folks had gone to bed.' 
 
 The sale of Chuzzlewit in numbers, at its best, was never 
 over 23,000, a great falling off from the Curiosity Shop and 
 Barnaby Riidge, which sold over 70,000. Although before 
 the close of the year he had received a sum of J^^^^zd 
 for the sale of 15,000 copies of the Carol, yet he found 
 himself in monetary difficulties. Determined in the mean- 
 time to break off his publishing relationships with Messrs. 
 Chapman & Hall, his usual publishers, at the same time 
 he concluded an agreement with Messrs. Bradbury & Evans, 
 printers, which, upon an advance made to him of ^^2800,
 
 1 90 EISEN B V PERSE VERANCE. 
 
 assigned them a fourth share in whatever he might write 
 during the next eight years. Then he determined upon resting 
 awhile, and concluded upon a holiday in Italy, with his family, 
 in the following year. 
 
 In May 1844 he presided at the Annual Conversazione of 
 the Polytechnic Institution, Birmingham, when he made an 
 admirable speech. One of the really kind acts performed by 
 Dickens this year was the writing of a preface to a volume 
 issued by Newby, written by John Overs, a working man. The 
 author was dying of consumption when it was published, and 
 did not long enjoy any little profit or fame which it brought to 
 him. 
 
 Before his departure to Italy, he was entertained at a dinner 
 by his friends, at the 'Trafalgar,' Greenwich, on 19th June 
 1844, Lord Normanby being in the chair. Writing from 
 Genoa on the 8th October, he betrayed a strong desire to get 
 back again to the London streets, and gave an outline sketch 
 of his forthcoming Christmas story, which he purposed to name 
 The Chimes. *I like more and more,' he said, 'my notion of 
 making, in this little book, a great blow for the poor. Some- 
 thing powerful I think I can do, but I want to be tender too, 
 and cheerful ; as like the Carol in that respect as may be, and 
 as unlike it as such a thing can be.' 
 
 The book was published at the close of the year, with 
 illustrations by MacHse, Doyle, Leech, and Stanfield. It was 
 not one of his greatest successes. As dramatized it became 
 exceedingly popular. He complained that the writing of it 
 had made his face white in a foreign land. 'My cheeks, 
 which were beginning to fill out, have sunk again; my eyes 
 have grown immensely large ; my hair is very lank ; and the 
 head inside the hair is hot and giddy.' At the close of June
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 191 
 
 1845, after doing Italy pretty thoroughly, he was again in London, 
 with the idea for a new periodical edited by himself floating 
 through his mind. His Christmas tale for 1845 was entitled 
 the Cricket on the Hearth, and its sale at the first doubled that 
 of his two preceding tales. In the autumn of the same year 
 he appeared as an actor at St. James' Theatre in Ben Jonson's 
 play, * Every Man in his Humour.' His Captain Bobadil was 
 so good that Leslie the artist took a portrait of him in that 
 character. His biographer says that as manager, also, he was 
 the life and soul of the affair. In turn he was stage-director, 
 stage-carpenter, scene-arranger, property-man, prompter, and 
 band-master. In October 1845 ^^ was busy assisting in the 
 arrangements for a new daily paper of Liberal politics. This 
 paper eventually appeared under the title of the Daily News, 
 while he was advertised as being at the head of the literary 
 department. Dickens retired from this responsibility, however, 
 after a few months' experience of it. The prospectus was 
 written by himself, and it told how it would be kept free from 
 party bias, and be devoted to the advocacy of all rational and 
 honest means whereby wrong might be redressed, just right 
 maintained, and the welfare of society be promoted. The 
 letters which afterwards appeared under the title of * Pictures 
 from Italy,' he contributed to its columns. This latter book 
 did not meet with great success. Dickens was succeeded in 
 the editorship by his friend John Forster. 
 
 Two years had elapsed since the issue of Alartiti Chuzzlewit, 
 when we find him busy planning a new book. Writing to the 
 Countess of Blessington, he said : • Vague thoughts of a new 
 book are rife within me just now ; and I go wandering about 
 at night into the strangest places, according to my usual pro 
 pensity at such a time, seeking rest and finding none.' In
 
 192 RISEN BY PERSE VERANCE. 
 
 order to start fairly, he sought a home in Switzerland, establish- 
 ing himself in a house at Lausanne, which he has thus described 
 in writing to Douglas Jerrold : ' We are established here, in a 
 perfect doll's house, which could be put bodily into the hall of 
 our Italian palazzo; but it is the most lovely and delicious 
 situation imaginable, and there is a spare bedroom, wherein 
 we could make you as comfortable as need be. Bowers of 
 roses for cigar smoking, arbours for cool punch-drinking, 
 mountainous Tyrolean countries close at hand, piled-up Alps 
 before the windows,' etc The rent was to be ;^io a 
 month for half a year. ' The country,' he further wrote, * is 
 delightful in the extreme — as leafy, green, and shady as Eng^ 
 land; full of deep glens and branchy places (rather a Leigh 
 Huntish expression), and bright with all sorts of flowers in 
 profusion. It abounds in singing-birds, besides — very pleasant 
 after Italy; and the moonlight on the lake is noble. Pro- 
 digious mountains rise up from its opposite shore (it is eight 
 or nine miles across at this point), and the Simplon, the St. 
 Gothard, Mont Blanc, and all the Alpine wonders are piled 
 there in tremendous grandeur. The cultivation is uncommonly 
 rich and profuse. There are all manner of walks, vineyards, 
 green lanes, corn fields, and pastures full of hay. The general 
 neatness is as remarkable as in England. There are no priests 
 or monks in the streets, and the people appear to be industrious 
 and thriving. French (and very intelligible and pleasant 
 French) seems to be the universal language. I never saw so 
 many booksellers' shops crammed within the same space as in 
 the steep up-and-down streets of Lausanne.' Here he remained 
 and worked for six months, beginning Dovihey &> Son, and 
 writing also his Christmas tale, A Battle of Life, amid many 
 difficulties and discouragements. 'The difficulty,' he wrote,
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 193 
 
 'of going at what I call a rapid pace is prodigious; it is almost 
 an impossibility. I suppose this is partly the eftect of two 
 jears' ease, and partly of the absence of streets and numbers 
 of figures. I can't express how much I want these. It seems 
 as if they supplied something to my brain which it cannot 
 bear, when busy, to lose. For a week or a fortnight I can 
 write prodigiously in a retired place (as at Broadstairs), and a 
 day in London sets me up again and starts me. But the toil 
 and labour of writing, day after day, without that magic 
 lantern, is immense.' 
 
 The profits accruing to the author from his fresh publishing 
 arrangements, with Doitibey and Son^ for the first half-year 
 amounted to ;^2 82o. As the writing of Dombey occupied 
 his whole attention, there was no Christmas book this year. 
 On the ist December 1847, he acted as chairman at a 
 meeting of the Leeds Mechanics' Society, and on the 28th 
 of the same month he opened the Glasgow Athenaeum. 
 
 During this year it had been announced that Shakespeare's 
 house at Stratford-upon-Avon was for sale. A public sub- 
 scription was set afoot, and by means of readings by Macready 
 and a grand performance at Covent Garden Theatre, the sum 
 of ;^3ooo was realized, sufficient to purchase it. In order to 
 provide for the proper care and custody of the house, a course 
 of amateur entertainments was given, Messrs. Charles Knight, 
 Peter Cunningham, and J. P. Collier being directors of the 
 general management, and Dickens being the stage-manager. 
 The first performance took place at the Haymarket Theatre on 
 15th May 1848. 
 
 The summer of 1848 was passed in what his biographer 
 terms strenuous idleness, while only the task of writing his 
 Christmas book, T/ie Haunted Man, lay ahead. Early in
 
 194 RISEN BY PERSEVERANCE. 
 
 1849, Dickens was busy with what pro\ed to be the finest 
 and most popular of his \yoxV.%' David Copperfield. Its sale in 
 parts averaged 25,000 copies. While this book was making 
 steady progress, and before the year was out, lie had com- 
 menced another tale. Bleak House. This story was begun 
 in his new residence, Tavistock House, in November 1851, 
 and was finished at Boulogne in August 1853. Its average 
 sale in parts was 30,000 copies, which rose to 40,000 
 copies. Writing on the 7th October from Broadstairs, he 
 gave an outline of a proposal for a new periodical. 'My 
 notion is a weekly journal, price either three halfpence or 
 twopence — matter in part original, in part selected, and always 
 having, if possible, a little good poetry. . . . Upon the 
 selected matter, I have particular notions. One is, that it 
 should always be a subject. For example, a history of piracy, 
 in connection with which there is a vast deal of extraordinary, 
 romantic, and almost unknown matter. A history of knight- 
 errantry, and the wild old notion of the Sangreal. A history 
 of savages, showing the singular respects in which all savages 
 are like each other, and those in which civilised men, under 
 circumstances of difficulty, soonest become like savages. A 
 history of remarkable characters, good and bad, /« history, — to 
 assist the reader's judgment in his observation of men, and in 
 his estimates of the truth of many characters in fiction.' This 
 weekly miscellany made its appearance under the title of 
 Household Words, on the 30th of March 1850. The first 
 number contained the beginning of a story by Mrs. Gaskell. 
 Amongst its original contributors have been John Forster, W. 
 H. Wills (for upwards of twenty years its assistant editor), G. 
 A. Sala, Moy Thomas, John HoUingshead, Miss Martineau, 
 Professor Morley, Edmund Yates, Dr. Charles Mackay, and
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 195 
 
 others. Dickens' editorial work was conscientiously done. The 
 papers sent in, after some preliminary testing by the assistant 
 editor, both ms. and proofs, received his careful attention. 
 
 During 1853 he felt conscious that he was overdoing it. 
 Busy with Bleak House, the conduct of his new periodical, and 
 the writing of his C/iild's History of England, he escaped from 
 London to Boulogne on 13th June. 'If I had substituted,' he 
 said, ' anybody's knowledge of myself for my own, and lingered 
 in London, I never could have got through.' The completion 
 of Bleak House was the signal for a trip to Italy, in company 
 with Mr. Wilkie Collins and Mr. Augustus Egg. On his 
 return to England, he began his career of public readings by 
 giving his 'Christmas Carol ' and 'The Cricket on the Hearth,' 
 in the Birmingham Town Hall, in the middle of December. 
 His success here strengthened his desire to become a public 
 reader. Between four and five hundred pounds were added to 
 the funds of the Institute through his exertions, and a prettily- 
 worked flower basket in silver was at the time presented to Mrs. 
 Dickens. The title of his next tale was Hard Times, which, 
 out of a list of fourteen proposed titles, was the one to which 
 he and Forster both agreed. It was the first tale which he 
 contributed to his own magazine, Household Words. 'The 
 difficulty,' he wrote, ' of the space, after a few weeks' trial, is 
 crushing. Nobody can have any idea of it who has not had an 
 experience of patient fiction - writing with some elbow-room 
 always, and open places in perspective. In this form, with 
 any kind of regard to the current number, there is absolutely 
 no such thing.' John Ruskin characterized it as one of the 
 most valuable of his novels. The name is said to have been 
 originally derived from a tall, solitary brick house at Broad- 
 stairs ; this watering-place for many years was Dickens' favourite
 
 1 96 RISEN B V PERSE VE RANGE. 
 
 seaside resort. The work itself in its purpose was directed 
 against the Court of Chancery, for its enormous waste of time 
 and costly procedure. For the advance sheets of the book, 
 200c dollars are said to have been paid by Messrs. Harper 
 Brothers, the New York publishers. 
 
 The work was inscribed, perhaps very justly, to Thomas 
 Carlyle. This work was one of the least successful of his 
 books with the general public. In a letter to Charles Knight 
 acknowledging the receipt of a copy of his work Knowledge is 
 Power, he described the aim of his book thus : ' My satire is 
 against those who see figures and averages, and nothing else ; 
 the representatives of the wickedest and most enormous vice 
 of this time ; the men who, through long years to come, will 
 do more to damage the really useful truths of political 
 economy than I could do, if I tried, in my whole life ; the 
 addled heads who would take the average of cold in the 
 Crimea during twelve months as a reason for clothing a soldier 
 in nankeen on a night when he would be frozen to death in 
 fur ; and who would comfort the labourer, in travelling twelve 
 miles a day to and from his work, by telling him that the 
 average distance of one inhabited place from another on the 
 whole area of England is not more than four miles. Bah ! 
 what have you to do with these ? ' 
 
 In October 1855, soon after the commencement of Little 
 Dorrit, Dickens returned to London, to preside at a dinner 
 given to W. M. Thackeray, previous to his departure for 
 America on a lecturing tour. He made, as usual, a felicitous 
 speech on the occasion. The first monthly jDortion of 
 Thackeray's great novel. Vanity Fair, made its appearance 
 on the ist of February 1847, when the sunshine of critical and 
 public favour dawned upon its author. But his writings,
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. ,97 
 
 appealing to a more select public, never attained the same 
 great circulation as those of Charles Dickens. Thackeray is 
 reported to have said : ' Ah ! they talk to me of popularity, 
 with a sale of little more than one-half of 10,000. Why, look 
 at that lucky fellow Dickens, with Heaven knows how many 
 readers, and certainly iiot less than 30,000 buyers.' At 
 another time he remarked to a friend, that it was very strange, 
 yet nevertheless a fact, that Dickens' publishers sold five copies 
 of his books for one which the booksellers sold of his own. 
 
 For his Christmas numbers 1854 and 1855, Dickens con- 
 tributed the afterwards highly popular ' Richard Doubledick,' 
 and ' Boots at the Holly Tree Inn.' In Christmas week 1855, 
 Dickens read his * Christmas Carol ' to a large audience at the 
 Mechanics' Institute, Sheffield, in aid of the funds. At the 
 close, he was presented by the Mayor with a handsome table 
 service of cutlery. The first number of Little Dorrit made its 
 appearance at Christmas 1855, and the last in April 1857. It 
 appeared at first in the usual twenty numbers, was issued when 
 complete by Messrs. Bradbury & Evans, with illustrations by 
 'Phiz,' and a dedication to Clarkson Stanfield, R.A., the land- 
 scape painter. It showed up the procrastination and formal 
 routine of the Government administration ; its title originally 
 stood as Nobody's FmiU, the leading character who would 
 bring about all the mischief in it laying the blame on Provi- 
 dence, and saying, ' Well, it's a mercy, however, nobody was to 
 blame, you know.' Its sale in parts was over 35,000 copies, 
 but it has not met with such continued popularity as some of 
 his other works. 
 
 Early in 1856, Dickens made a change of residence from 
 Tavistock House, Tavistock Square, to Gad's Hill Place. The 
 account of how he came into possession of this place is thus
 
 1 98 I^ISEN B Y PERSE VERANCE. 
 
 pleasantly told in the Daily News: — 'Though not born at 
 Rochester, Mr, Dickens spent some portion of his boyhood 
 there, and was wont to tell how his father, the late Mr. John 
 Dickens, in the course of a country ramble, pointed out to 
 him as a child the house at Gad's Hill Place, saying, " There, 
 my boy ; if you work and mind your book, you will, perhaps, 
 one day live in a house like that." This speech sunk deep, 
 and in after years, and in the course -of his many long 
 pedestrian rambles through the lanes and roads of the plea- 
 sant Kentish country, Mr. Dickens came to regard this 
 Gad's Hill House lovingly, and to wish himself its possessor. 
 This seemed an impossibility. The property was so held that 
 there was no likelihood of its ever coming into the market ; 
 and so Gad's Hill came to be alluded to jocularly, as repre- 
 senting a fancy which was pleasant enough in dreamland, but 
 would never be realized. Meanwhile the years rolled on, and 
 Gad's Hill became almost forgotten. Then a further lapse of 
 time, and Mr. Dickens felt a strong wish to settle in the 
 country, and determined to let Tavistock House. About this 
 time, and by the strangest coincidence, his intimate friend 
 and close ally, Mr. W. H. Wills, chanced to sit next to a lady 
 at a London dinner-party, who remarked, in the course of 
 conversation, that a house and grounds had come into her 
 possession of which she wanted to dispose. The reader will 
 guess the rest. The house was in Kent, was not far from 
 Rochester, had this and that distinguishing feature which 
 made it like Gad's Hill and like no other place ; and the 
 upshot of Mr. Wills' dinner-table chit-chat with a lady whom 
 he had never met before, was that Charles Dickens realized 
 the dream of his youth, and became the possessor of Gad's
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 199 
 
 Before leaving Tavistock House, Dickens gave a series of 
 dramatic performances. His friend Wilkie Collins had written 
 an entirely new drama for the occasion, called ' The Frozen 
 Deep,' and a large room was fitted up with a stage, scenerj^, 
 and footlights. Dickens' personation of one of the characters 
 surprised all who witnessed it. By the death of Douglas 
 Jerrold, in June 1857, Dickens lost an attached friend; he 
 exerted himself on behalf of his widow, and in conjunction 
 with Mark Lemon, Albert Smith, and others, a ' Jerrold Fund ' 
 was started. A series of entertainments was given, including 
 a reading by Thackeray and Dickens at St. Martin's Hall, and 
 a handsome sum was obtained. Lord Palmerston also granted 
 to the widow from the Civil List an annual pension of ;^ioo 
 a year. Dickens' Christmas number for 1857 was founded 
 on the Indian Mutiny, and was entitled, 'Perils of Certain 
 English Prisoners.' An excursion into the Lake country with 
 Wilkie Collins formed the basis of a series of articles, entitled, 
 * The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices.' 
 
 We come now to a passage in Dickens' domestic life which 
 any writer might be glad to pass over lightly, but which plays 
 such an important part in his life up to the close, and 
 without which his true nature and character cannot be fully 
 understood. From the letters sent to his biographer, Mr. 
 Forster, from time to time, there were passages which betrayed 
 great restlessness of nature. When remonstrated with for 
 making a rush up Carrick Fell, in the Lake country, he wrote : 
 ' Too late to say, "Put the curb on, and don't rush at hills:" the 
 wrong man to say it to. I have now no relief but in action ; 
 I am become incapable of rest. I am quite confident I should 
 rust, break, and die if I spared myself. Much better to die 
 doing. What I am m that way, Nature made me first, and my
 
 I^ISEN BY PERSEVERANCE. 
 
 way of life has of late, alas ! confirmed. I must accept the 
 drawback — since it is one — with the powers I have ; and I 
 must hold upon the tenure prescribed to me.' In writing 
 regarding the plans for books floating through his mind, 
 there is the same undertone of unrest. ' Am altogether in a 
 dishevelled state of mind — motes of new books in the dirty air, 
 miseries of older growth threatening to close upon me. Why 
 is it that, as with poor David, a sense comes always crushing 
 on me now, when I fall into low spirits, as of one happiness I 
 have missed in life, and one friend and companion I have 
 never made?' Then followed a complete account and dis- 
 closure of the skeleton in the domestic closet, which amounted 
 to an apparently complete incompatibility between himself and 
 his wife. 
 
 A friend presented Dickens with a Swiss chalet, which 
 arrived from Paris in ninety-four pieces, fitting like a puzzle, and 
 which formed a great resort to him during the summer months. 
 In wTiting to an American friend, he said : ' I have put five 
 mirrors in the chalet where I write, and they reflect and 
 refract in all kinds of ways the leaves that are quivering at the 
 windows, and the great fields of waving corn, and the sail- 
 dotted river. My room is up among the branches of the trees, 
 and the birds and the butterflies fly in and out, and the green 
 branches shoot in at the open windows, and the lights and 
 shadows of the clouds come and go with the rest of the 
 company. The scent of the flowers, and indeed of everything 
 that is growing for miles and miles, is most delicious.' The 
 course of his life at Gad's Hill, unless when disturbed by 
 visitors, was regular and methodical, as it had always been, 
 his time being divided between working and walking. He 
 enjoyed the dogs which from time to time he collected around
 
 CRARLES DICKENS. 
 
 him, Amongst his favourites was Turk, a noble mastiff, whicli, 
 to its master's great grief, was killed in a railway accident. 
 Linda, a real St. Bernard, brought by Mr. Albert Smith, grew 
 to be a fine animal. 
 
 The great success of a reading which he gave at St. Martin's 
 Hall, to assist the funds of a Sick Children's Hospital in Great 
 Ormond Street, helped to determine the resolution which had 
 been growing in his mind to give a series of public readings. 
 The growing restlessness of his nature, too, arising from the 
 circumstances previously mentioned, also helped this decision. 
 A fortnight after this reading, he appeared in public in the 
 character of a public reader on his own behalf This was on 
 the 29th April ; and also about this time his old home was 
 broken up, and he and his wife henceforward lived apart. The 
 eldest son lived with his mother, the other children remained 
 with himself, their intercourse with their mother being entirely 
 left to themselves. A public statement regarding this altered 
 relationship was made, as his biographer thinks, unwisely, in 
 HouseJiold Words. His paid readings were given at the following 
 dates : During 1858-59, in 1861-63, in 1866-67, ^'^d in 1868-70. 
 The first series of readings was managed by Mr. Arthur Smith, 
 the second by Mr. Headland, the third and fourth in America 
 by Mr. George Dolby, acting for the Messrs. Chappell. The 
 first series of readings, ending on the 27th of October 1859, 
 comprised in all 125 readings. Beginning in St. Martin's Hall, 
 they v,-cre continued during a provincial tour, embracing the 
 chief English, Scotch, and Irish towns. Everywhere he was 
 treated with the greatest personal affection and respect. At 
 Liverpool, while on his way to Dublin, he had an audience of 
 2300 people. Besides the tickets sold, ;^2oo in money was 
 taken at the door ' They turned away hundreds, sold all the
 
 PfSEN B Y PERSE VERANCE. 
 
 books, rolled on the ground of my room knee-deep in checks, 
 and made a perfect pantomime of the whole thing.' This 
 reading, the ' Christmas Carol ' and ' Pickwick,' had to be 
 thrice repeated. In Dublin he was enthusiastically received, 
 and was greatly pleased with the town and with its thriving, 
 populous look. Of Belfast he remarked, ' A fine place, with 
 a rough people ; everything looking prosperous ; the railway 
 ride from Dublin quite amazing in the order, neatness, and 
 cleanness of all you see ; every cottage looking as if it had 
 been whitewashed the day before ; and many with charming 
 
 gardens, prettily kept, with bright flowers Enormous 
 
 audiences. We turn away half the town. I think them a 
 better audience on the whole than Dublin ; and the personal 
 affection is something overwhelming.' The net profit to him- 
 self for a time was ^300 a week ; in Scotland for one week it 
 was much over this, being about ;^5oo. The subjects during 
 his first reading tour were restricted to the 'Carol,' the 
 
 * Chimes,' the Trial in Pickwick, the chapters wliich con- 
 tained 'Paul Dombey,' 'Boots at the Holly Tree Inn,' the 
 
 * Poor Traveller,' and ' Mrs. Gamp.' 
 
 Towards the end of 1857, he had presided at the fourth 
 anniversary of the Warehousemen and Clerks' Scliools ; and 
 in March 1858, in speaking at the Royal General Theatrical 
 Fund Dinner at the Freemasons' Tavern, paid a graceful 
 tribute to Thackeray, who presided on the occasion. In May 
 he presided at the Artists' Benevolent Fund Dinner ; and in July 
 he took part at the opening of the Royal Dramatic College. 
 In December he presided at the Institutional Association oi 
 Lancashire and Cheshire, in Manchester Free Trade Hall, 
 distributing the prizes to candidates from 114 Mechanics' 
 Institutes connected with the Association.
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 203 
 
 A dispute arose early in 1859 between Mr. Dickens and his 
 publishers, which led to the discontinuance of Household 
 Words, and also led to a return on his part to his old pub- 
 lishers. Messrs. Bradbury & Evans filed a bill in Chancery, 
 and the winding up of the publication was directed, both 
 parties refusing to sell their interest. Dickens owned five- 
 eighths, and he had command over another eighth. The 
 property on being put up to auction was bought back by 
 Dickens for ;^355o. 
 
 What complicated the matter still further was the fact that 
 Mr. Evans' son had married Miss Dickens. All the Year 
 Round was the immediate successor of Hoiisehold PVords, and 
 being an exact counterpart of the latter in all but the name, 
 was immediately successful. Of the first quarter's statement 
 regarding his new periodical, he wrote : ' So well has All the 
 Year Round gone that it was yesterday able to repay me, with 
 five per cent, interest, all the money I advanced for its estal> 
 lishment (paper, print, etc., all paid, down to the last number), 
 and yet to leave a good ^^500 balance at the bankers.' The 
 first number contained the opening of a new tale by himself, 'A 
 Tale of Two Cities ; ' another of his novels, Great Expectations, 
 was also contributed to its pages. Amongst the novelists vv'ho 
 became contributors might be named Mr. Edmund Yates, Mr. 
 Percy Fitzgerald, and Mr. Charles Lever. Mr. Wilkie Collins 
 contributed his Woman in While, N'o Name, and Moonstone, 
 and Charles Reade wrote for it his Hard Cash, and Lord 
 Lytton his Strange Story. The sale of the extra Christmas 
 numbers, before they were discontinued, was enormous, 
 running as high as about 300,000 copies. A series of 
 detached papers in the character of an 2^«commercial 
 traveller, cuninbutL-d to this serial by the great novelist himself,
 
 204 RISEN B V PERSE VERANCE. 
 
 had, many of them, a strong personal interest, and supphed 
 many personal traits of both his earlier and later life to his 
 biographer. He tells in one of them his cure for the disorder 
 of sleeplessness, which was his 'turning out of bed at two, 
 after a hard day, pedestrian and otherwise, and walking thirty 
 miles into the country to breakfast.' For a short story contri- 
 buted to the Ne7v York Ledger, called ' Hunted Down,' he 
 received the large sum of one thousand pounds ; a ' Holiday 
 Romance,' and ' George Silverman's Explanation,' of the same 
 length, were written for an American child's magazine issued 
 by Mr. Fields, and for the same price. 
 
 The success of Dickens' second series of readings was as 
 great and well assured as the first. Writing from Glasgow on 
 the 3d December 1861, he described the following strange 
 scene : — ' Such a pouring of hundreds into a place already full 
 to the throat, such indescribable confusion, such a rending and 
 tearing of dresses, and yet such a scene of good humour on 
 the whole, I never saw the faintest approach to. While I 
 addressed the crowd in the room, G. addressed the crowd in the 
 street. Fifty frantic men got up in all parts of the hall and 
 addressed me all at once. Other frantic men made speeches 
 to the walls. The whole B. family were borne in on the top of 
 a wave, and landed with their faces against the front of the 
 platform. I read \yith the platform crammed with people. I 
 got them to lie down upon it, and it was like some impossible 
 tableau or gigantic picnic — one pretty girl in full dress lying 
 on her side all night, holding on to one of the legs of my 
 table ! It was the most extraordinary sight. And yet, from 
 the moment I began to the moment of my leaving ofi', they never 
 missed a point, and they ended with a burst of cheers.' A 
 tempting offer, which could not be accepted, was made to him
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 205 
 
 at this time by a gentleman in London, who offered him 
 p^ 1 0,000 for eight months' readings in Australia. 
 
 The Christmas number which Dickens issued for 1859 was 
 called The Haunted House, and consisted of seven ghost 
 stories. In August i860, the two portions of his story, 
 Htmted JDozon, appeared. The Christmas number for 1S60 
 was called A Message frojii the Sea. The Christmas number 
 for 1 86 1 was called Tojh Tiddler's Ground. 
 
 The sudden death of W. M. Thackeray on the Christmas eve 
 of 1863, drew forth a graceful tribute from Dickens, which 
 appeared in the CornJiill Alagazine for February 1864. 
 
 The Christmas number of 1862 was entitled Somebody's 
 Luggage, and was devoted to the interests of waiters. The 
 number for Christmas 1863, which proved exceedingly 
 popular, was entitled Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings. His mother, 
 who had been in infirm health for years, died in September 
 1863, and his own son Walter died on the last day of the same 
 year, in the officers' hospital at Calcutta. He was a lieutenant 
 in the 26th Native Infantry Regiment, and had been previously 
 doing duty with the 42 d Highlanders. His new story in 
 twenty numbers, Our Mutual Friend, was now commenced. 
 Number I. was published on the ist of May 1864, with illus- 
 trations by Mr. Marcus Stone. A severe attack of illness in 
 February 1865 left behind it a lameness in his left foot, which 
 never afterwards wholly left him. This was attended with 
 great suffering, while all the time he still persisted in his 
 ordinary exercise in all weathers. During the summer he 
 took a brief holiday in France. * Before I went away,' he 
 wrote, ' I had certainly worked myself into a damaged state. 
 But the moment I got away, I began, thank God, to get well. 
 I hope to profit by this experience, and to make future dashes
 
 2o6 RISEN BY PERSEVERANCE. 
 
 from my desk before I want them.' His constitution, too, 
 received a severe shock from a raihvay accident which 
 happened at Staplehurst. The carriage in which he was 
 journeying was thrown off the rails, and for a time hung 
 suspended in the air. He had just time to scramble out of 
 the window unhurt. Although feeling unwell, at the end of 
 February 1866 he closed with an offer for a third series of 
 readings for Messrs. Chappell, Bond Street, of ;Q^o a night for 
 thirty nights. He engaged to read in England, Ireland, 
 Scotland, or Paris, and the fatigue which he afterwards under- 
 went in journeying about so rapidly from place to place was 
 immense. The sum taken amounted to ;^47 20. His success 
 was beyond even his former successes. Writing from Liver- 
 pool about the close of April, he remarked the sudden death 
 of Mrs. Carlyle, which had taken place on the 2d of the same 
 month : ' It was a terrible shock to me, and poor dear Carlyle 
 has been in my mind ever since. How often I have thought of 
 the unfinished novel. No one now to finish it. None of the 
 waiting women come near her at all.' The novel referred to 
 was a story in which the deceased had been engaged. A fresh 
 negotiation was entered into with Messrs. Chappell in August 
 1866 for another course of readings; forty-two nights for ^2500. 
 
 An instance of the cordiality of feeling subsisting between 
 Dickens and the staff of his weekly periodical is furnished in 
 his interesting story regarding the contributions of Miss 
 Adelaide Anne Procter, the daughter of 'Barry Cornwall.' 
 He wrote a touching preface for her Legends and Lyrics, 
 which was issued after her death, and explained how he first 
 gained her acquaintance. 
 
 ' In the spring of the year 1853,' he writes, 'I observed, as 
 conductor of tho. weekly journal Household Words, a short
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 207 
 
 poem among the proffered contributions, very different, as 1 
 thought, from the shoal of verses perpetually passing through 
 the office of such a periodical, and possessing much more 
 merit. Its authoress was quite unknown to me. She was 
 one Miss Mary Berwick, whom I had never heard of; and 
 she was to be addressed by letter, if addressed at all, at a 
 circulating library in the western district of London. Through 
 this channel Miss Berwick was informed that her poem was 
 accepted, and was invited to send another. She complied, 
 and became a regular and frequent contributor. Many 
 letters passed between the journal and Miss Berwick, but 
 Miss Berwick herself was never seen. How we came gradually 
 to establish, at the office of Household Words, that we know 
 all about Miss Berwick, I have never discovered. But v>'e 
 settled, somehow, to our complete satisfaction, that she was 
 governess in a family ; that she went to Italy in that capacity, 
 and returned ; and that she had long been in the same 
 family. We really knew nothing whatever of her, except that 
 she was remarkably business-like, punctual, self-reliant, and 
 reliable; so I suppose we insensibly invented the rest. For 
 myself, my mother was not a more real personage to me than 
 Miss Berwick the governess became. This went on until 
 December 1854, when the Christmas number, entitled The 
 Seven Poor Travellers, was sent to press. Happening to be 
 going to dine that day with an old and dear friend, dis- 
 tinguished in literature as Barry Cornwall, I took with me an 
 early proof of that number, and remarked, as I laid it on tlie 
 drawing-room table, that it contained a very pretty poem, 
 written by a certain Miss Berwick. Next day brought me the 
 disclosure that I had so spoken of tlie poem to the mother of 
 its writer, in its writer's presence ; that I had no such corrcs-
 
 2oS J?/SEN B V PERSE VE RANGE. 
 
 pondent in existence as Miss Berwick ; that the name had 
 been assumed by Barry Cornwall's eldest daughter, Miss 
 Adelaide Anne Procter.' 
 
 He thus describes the final ending. She had then lain 
 an invalid upon her bed through fifteen months : — ' In all that 
 time, her old cheerfiilness never quitted her. In all that time, 
 not an impatient or querulous minute can be remembered. 
 At length, at midnight on the 2d of February 1864, she turned 
 down a leaf of a little book she was reading, and shut it up. 
 The ministering hand that had copied the verses into the tiny 
 album was soon around her neck, and she quietly asked, as 
 the clock was on the stroke of one, " Do you think I am 
 dying, mamma?" — "I think you are very, very ill to-night, 
 my dear." " Send for my sister. My feet are so cold. Lift 
 me up ! " Her sister entering as they raised her, she said, 
 "It has come at last!" and with a bright and happy smile 
 looked upward and departed.' 
 
 The publication of Dickens' last complete novel began in 
 May 1864, and extended to November 1865. It was issued 
 in the old twenty-number form, a shape which might on 
 the whole yield a larger pecuniary return than the ordinary 
 orthodox three-volume novel. Of Our Mutual Friend, John 
 Forster, his biographer, remarks : — ' When somewhat tired 
 in September 1865 from the labour of writing this tale, he 
 turned to his new Christmas number, and produced the 
 delightful Doctor Marigold'' s Prescript w?is. He wrote : " Tired 
 with Our Mutual, I sat down to cast about for an idea, with 
 a depressing notion that I was, for the moment, overworked. 
 Suddenly the little character that you will see, and all 
 belonging to it, came flashing up in the most cheerful manner, 
 and I had only to look on and leisurely describe it." Before
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 209 
 
 his last visit to America, he wrote three other Christmas 
 pieces, " Barbox Brothers," " The Boy at Mugby Station," and 
 "No Thoroughfare." The latter piece was written conjointly 
 with Mr. Wilkie Collins.' 
 
 The last visit made by Dickens to America, from November 
 1S67 to April 1868, was one long triumph. A farewell 
 banquet was held on 2d November, in the Freemasons' 
 Tavern, London ; the company numbered between four and 
 five hundred gentlemen. 
 
 Lord Lytton presided, and in the course of an eulogium 
 upon the illustrious novelist said : — ' We are about to entrust 
 our honoured countryman to the hospitality of those kindred 
 shores in which his writings are as much household words as 
 they are in the homes of England. 
 
 ' If I may speak as a politician, I should say that no time 
 for his visit could be more happily chosen. For our American 
 kinsfolk have conceived, rightly or wrongly, that they have 
 some recent cause of complaint against ourselves ; and out of 
 all England, we could not have selected an envoy — speaking 
 not on behalf of our Government, but of our people — more 
 calculated to allay irritation and propitiate goodwill 
 
 ' How many hours in which pain and sickness have changed 
 into cheerfulness and mirth beneath the wand of that en- 
 chanter ! How many a hardy combatant, beaten down in the 
 battle of life — and nowhere on this earth is the battle of life 
 sharper than in the commonwealth of America — has taken 
 new hope, and new courage, and new force from the manly 
 lessons of that unobtrusive teacher.' 
 
 He concluded by proposing ' A prosperous voyage, health, 
 and long life to our illustrious guest and countryman, Charles
 
 lilSEN B V FERSE VERANCE. 
 
 Dickens.' The reports given of the banquet described how 
 the company rose as one man to do honour to the toast, 
 and drank it with such expressions of enthusiasm and goodwill 
 as are rarely to be seen in any public assembly. Again and 
 again the cheers burst forth, and it was some minutes 
 before silence was restored. 
 
 Mr. Dickens replied in a speech such as no one else could 
 have deUvered, and towards its conclusion he said : — ' The 
 story of my going to America is very easily and briefly told. 
 Since I was there before, a vast and entirely new generation 
 has arisen in the United States. Since that time, too, most 
 of the best known of my books have been written and 
 published. The new generation and the books have come 
 together, and have kept together, until at length numbers of 
 those who have so widely and constantly read me, naturally 
 desiring a httle variety in the relations between us, have 
 expressed a strong wish that I should read myself. This 
 wish, at first conveyed to me through public as well as 
 through business channels, has gradually become enforced by 
 an immense accumulation of letters from private individuals 
 and associations of individuals, all expressing in the same 
 hearty, homely, cordial, unaffected way a kind of personal 
 affection for me, which I am sure you will agree with me that 
 it would be downright insensibility on my part not to prize. 
 Little by little this pressure has become so great that, although, 
 as Charles Lamb says, " My household gods strike a terribly 
 deep root," I have driven them from their places, and this day 
 week, at this hour, shall be upon the sea. You will readily 
 conceive that I am inspired besides by a natural desire to see 
 for myself the astonishing progress of a quarter of a century 
 over there ; to grasp the hands of many faithiul friends
 
 f 
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 2n 
 
 ft-hom I left there ; to see the faces of a multitude of new 
 friends upon whom I have never looked ; and though last, 
 not least, to use my best endeavours to lay down a third cable 
 of intercommunication and alliance between the Old World 
 and the New. ■ 
 
 'Twelve years ago, when. Heaven knows, I little thought 
 I should ever be bound upon the voyage which now lies 
 before me, I wrote, in that form of my writings which obtains 
 by far the most extensive circulation, these words about the 
 American nation : " I know full well that, whatever little 
 motes my beamy eyes may have described in theirs, they 
 are a kind, large-hearted, generous, and great people." In 
 that faith I am going to see them again. In that faith I shall, 
 please God, return from them in the spring, in that same faith 
 to live and to die. My lords, ladies, and gentlemen, I told 
 you in the beginning that I could not thank you enough, and, 
 Heaven knows, I have most thoroughly kept my word. If I 
 may quote one other short sentence from myself, let it imply 
 all that I have left unsaid, and yet deeply feel ; let it, putting 
 a girdle round the earth, comprehend both sides of the 
 Atlantic at once in this moment. As Tiny Tim observed, 
 " God bless us every one." ' 
 
 He arrived in Boston, safe and well, on the night of 
 Tuesday, 19th November. His first reading came off at 
 Boston on the 2d December, and was thus described by 
 himself: — 'It is really impossible to exaggerate the magni- 
 ficence of the reception or the effect of the reading. The 
 whole city will talk of nothing else and hear of nothing 
 else to-day. Every ticket for those announced here and in 
 New York is sold. All are sold at the highest price, for 
 vhich in our calculation we made no allowance ; and it is
 
 2 1 2 RISEN B V PERSE VERANCE. 
 
 impossible to keep out speculators who immediately sell at 
 a premium. At the decreased rate of money, even, we had 
 above ;^45o English in the house last night ; and the New 
 York hall holds five hundred people more. Everything looks 
 brilliant beyond the most sanguine hopes, and I was quite 
 as cool last night as though I were reading at Chatham.' 
 After a few readings at Boston, he left for New York, 
 Washington, and Philadelphia, reading to immense audiences, 
 and being received with great enthusiasm everywhere. On 
 the nth December, he wrote to his daughter from New 
 York, ' Amazing success ! A very fine audience, far better 
 than at Boston. "Carol" and "Trial" on first night, great; 
 still greater " Copperfield " and " Bob Sawyer " on second. 
 For the tickets of the four readings of next week there were, 
 at nine o'clock this morning, three thousand people in waiting, 
 and they had begun to assemble in the bitter cold as early as 
 two o'clock in the morning.' He had some acute and 
 pertinent remarks to make regarding the New York news- 
 papers ! * The Tribune is an excellent paper ; Horace Greeley 
 is editor-in-chief, and a considerable shareholder too. All 
 the people connected with it whom I have seen are of the 
 best class. It is also a very fine property; but here the 
 New York Herald beats it hollow, hollow, hollow ! Another 
 able and well-edited paper is the Neio York Times. A most 
 respectable journal, too, is Bryant's Evening Fosf, excellently 
 written. There is generally a much more responsible and 
 respectable tone than prevailed formerly, however small may 
 be the literary merit, among papers pointed out to me as 
 of large circulation. In much of the writing there is 
 certainly improvement, but it might be more widely spread.' 
 The reading of ' Doctor Marigold,' in New York, in January
 
 I 
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 213 
 
 i.Z()Z, was a great hit. Dickens described his manager as 
 always * going about with au immense bundle that looks 
 like a sofa cushion, but is in reality paper money, and it had 
 risen to the proportions of a sofa on the morring he left 
 for Philadelphia. Well, the work is hard, the climate is 
 hard, the life is hard; but so far the gain is enormous. My 
 cold steadily refuses to stir an inch. It distresses me 
 greatly at times, though it is always good enough to leave 
 me for the needful two hours. I have tried allopathy, 
 homoeopathy, cold things, warm things, sweet things, bitter 
 things, stimulants, narcotics, all with the same result. 
 Nothing will touch it.' This cold persistently remained 
 with him durifig this fatiguing ana exciting time, and he 
 suffered greatly from sleeplessness. He usually breakfasted 
 upon an &gg and a cup of tea, had a small dinner at threa 
 o'clock, a small quail or something equally light when he 
 came home at night. An egg beaten up in sherry before 
 he began to read, and the same between the parts, was his 
 other refreshment. 
 
 Before leaving New York, there were five farewell nights ; 
 3298 dollars were the last receipts. A public dinner was 
 given in his honour at New York, Horace Greeley occupying 
 the chair. Dickens attended only with difficulty, and spoke 
 with pain. 
 
 ' It has been said in your newspapers,' he remarks, 'that 
 for months past I have been collecting materials for and 
 hammering away at a new book on America. This has 
 much astonished me, seeing that all that time it has been 
 perfectly well known to my publishers, on both sides of the 
 Atlantic, that I positively declared that no consideration on 
 earth should induce me to write one. But what I have
 
 2 1 4 ^ISEN B V PERSE VERANCE. 
 
 int(;nded, what I have resolved upon (and this is the con- 
 fidence I seek to place in you), is, on my return to England, in 
 my o\vn person to bear, for the behoof of my countrymen, 
 such testimony to the gigantic changes in this country as 
 I have hinted at to-night. Also to record that, wherever 
 I have been, in the smallest places equally with the largest, 
 I have been received with unsurpassable politeness, delicacy, 
 sweet temper, hospitality, consideration, and with unsur- 
 passable respect for the privacy daily enforced upon me 
 by the nature of my avocation here and the state of my 
 health. This testimony, so long as I live, and so long as 
 my descendants have any legal right in my books, I shall 
 cause to be republished as an appendix to every copy 
 of those two books of mine in which I have referred to 
 America. And this I will do and cause to be done, not 
 in mere love and thankfulness, but because I regard it as 
 an act of plain justice and honour.' 
 
 The time for Mr. Dickens' departure was now close at 
 hand. His last reading was given at the Steinway Hall, on 
 the ensuing Monday evening. The task finished, he was 
 about to retire, but a tremendous burst of applause stopped 
 him. He knew what his audience wanted — a few words, 
 a parting greeting before saying good-bye. Their illustrious 
 visitor did not disappoint them. ' The shadow of one word 
 has impended over me this evening,' said Mr. Dickens, ' and 
 the time has come at length when the shadow must fall. 
 It is but a very short one, but the weight of such things 
 is not measured by their length, and two much shorter 
 words express the round of our human existancc. When I 
 was reading David Copperfield a few evenings since, I felt 
 there >vas more than usual significance in the words of
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 215 
 
 Pcggotty, " My future life lies over the sea." . . , Tlie 
 relations which have been set up between us must now be 
 broken for ever. Be assured, however, that you will not 
 pass from my mind. I shall often realize you as I see you 
 now, equally by my winter fire and in the green English 
 summer weather. I shall never recall you as a mere public 
 audience, but rather as a host of personal friends, and ever 
 with the greatest gratitude, tenderness, and consideration. 
 Ladies and gentlemen, I beg to bid you farewell. God 
 bless you, and God bless the land in which I leave you ! ' 
 
 The sums gained by his last American readings were very 
 large. His agent Dolby v/as paid in commission about 
 ;;/^2 888, the commission received by Messrs. Ticknor & 
 Fields was ^looo, besides five per cent, on Boston receipts. 
 The preliminary expenses for this series of readings were 
 ;^6i4, the expenses in America amounted to ;^i 3,000. 
 His own profits were within a hundred or so of ;;^i9,oooj 
 united to his English receipts, he had thus gained ^^33,000 in 
 two years. Towards the close of 1868 Dickens began his series of 
 * Farewell Readings,' which were previously settled to take place 
 in the chief towns of England, Ireland, and Scotland. When in 
 Liverpool in 1869, he was entertained at a splendid banquet 
 in the St. George's Hall, the Mayor presiding. The number 
 of ladies and gentlemen who sat down to dinner was upwards 
 of seven hundred. In allusion to a remark in Lord Houghton's 
 speech, that had he sought Parliamentary honours, he might 
 have done good service to his countiy, he said: 'When I first 
 took literature as my profession in England, I calmly resolved 
 within myself that, whether I succeeded or whether I failed, 
 literature should be my sole profession. It appeared to me 
 at that time that it was not so well understood in England
 
 2 1 6 E/SEN B V PERSE VE RANGE. 
 
 as it was in other countries that literature was a dignified 
 profession, by which any man might stand or fall. I made 
 a compact with myself that in my person literature should 
 stand, and by itself, of itself, and for itself; and there is 
 no consideration on earth which would induce me to break 
 that bargain.' When on this course of readings, his health 
 broke down, and he was obliged to retire from the platform 
 for a time in order to recruit. He was able on the 27th 
 August to attend the dinner given by the London Rowing 
 Club to the crews of Oxford and Harvard Universities ; and 
 on the 27th of September following, he delivered the annual 
 address at the commencement of the winter session of the 
 Birmingham and Midland Institute. In order to avoid the 
 frequent journeys to and from Gad's Hill, for six months 
 he rented a house in Hyde Park Place, where a consider- 
 able portion of his unfinished novel Edwin Drood was written. 
 His last reading took place at St. James' Hall, London, on 
 the 15th of March 1870, and consisted of the 'Christmas 
 Carol,' and ' The Trial ' from Pickwick. The hall was 
 crowded in every part, having been filled as soon as the 
 doors were open, and thousands were unable to find admit- 
 tance. His reading was even more spirited and energetic 
 than ever, and his voice was clear to the last. When the 
 applause at the conclusion had subsided, Dickens spoke as 
 follows : — ' I>adies and gentlemen, — It would be worse than 
 idle, for it would be hypocritical and unfeeling, if I were to 
 disguise that I close this episode in my life with feelings 
 of very considerable pain. For some fifteen years, in this 
 hall and in many kindred places, I have had the honour of 
 presenting my own cherished ideas before you for your re- 
 cognition, and, in closely observing your reception of them.
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 217 
 
 have enjoyed an amount of artistic delight and instruction 
 whicli, perhaps, is given to few men to know. In this task, 
 and in every other I have ever undertaken, as a faithful 
 servant of the public, always imbued with a sense of duty 
 to them, and always striving to do his best, I have been 
 uniformly cheered by the readiest response, the most gene- 
 rous sympathy, and the most stimulating support. Never- 
 theless I have thought it well, at the full flood-tide of your 
 favour, to retire upon those older associations between us, 
 which date from much farther back than these, and hence- 
 forth to devote myself exclusively to the art that first 
 brought us together. Ladies and gentlemen, in but two 
 short weeks from this time I hope that you may enter, in 
 your own homes, on a new series of readings, at which my 
 assistance will be indispensable ; ' but from these garish lights 
 I vanish now for evermore, with a heartfelt, grateful, respect- 
 ful, and affectionate farewell.' 
 
 Her Majesty the Queen, interested in his life and work, 
 requested him to attend her at Buckingham Palace on 9th 
 April 1870. He was introduced to Her Majesty by his friend 
 Mr. Arthur Helps, Clerk of the Privy Council. The inter- 
 view lasted for some time, in the course of which Her Majesty 
 expressed her admiration of and interest in his works, and 
 presented him on parting with a copy of Our Life in the 
 Highlands, with this autograph inscription, ' Victoria R., to 
 Charles Dickens.' He sent her in return an edition of his 
 collected works, which the Queen graciously placed in 
 her own private library. Atter his death it became known 
 that the Queen had been anxious to bestow upon him 
 some distinction in keeping with his views and tastes, and 
 ^ Alluding to the forthcominc serial story of Edwin Drood,
 
 2 1 S RISEN B V FEKSE VERANCE. 
 
 it Vi just possible that he might have been asked to accept 
 a place in her Privy Council. It was noticed that about 
 this time he appeared rather more in society than usual, 
 although continuing to complain that he was unwell. His 
 last public appearances were in April, and his last public 
 speech was a graceful tribute, at the Academy dinner, to 
 his friend Daniel Maclise. 
 
 On the 7th of May he read the fifth number of Edwin 
 Drood to John Forster. About this time he dined with 
 Mr. Motley, the American minister, met Mr. Disraeli at 
 Lord Stanhope's, and also appeared at breakfast with Mr. Glad- 
 stone. He had an invitation for the 1 7th of the month to 
 attend the Queen's ball, but this he was unable to do owing 
 to disablement. On the i6th he wrote to Mr. Forster: 'I 
 am sorry to report that, in the old preposterous endeavour 
 to dine at preposterous hours and preposterous places, I 
 have been pulled up with a sharp attack in my foot. And 
 serve me right. I hope to get the better of it soon, but I 
 fear I must not think of dining with you on Friday. I 
 have cancelled everything in the dining way for this week, 
 and that is a very small precaution after the horrible pain I 
 have had and the remedies I have taken.' He declined 
 to attend the General Theatrical Fund dinner, when the 
 Prince of Wales was to preside, but he dined with Lord 
 Houghton a week later. On the 30th May he quitted 
 London for Gad's Hill, where he confined his attention 
 closely to his novel Edwin Drood, which was in progress. 
 He was observed now to have a very wearied appearance. 
 On Monday, 6th June, he was out with his dogs for the 
 last time, when he walked into Rochester. On the follow- 
 ing day he drove out- The Sth of June was spent in writing
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 219 
 
 in the chalet in the garden, uninterrupted save for luncheon. 
 He was late in leaving the chalet ; dinner was ordered for 
 six o'clock, but before that time he wrote several letters, 
 one to Mr. Charles Kent, arranging to see him in London next 
 day. At dinner his sister-in-law. Miss Hogarth, noticed 
 with pain a troubled expression in his face. ' For an hour,' 
 he said, ' he had been very ill, but he did not wish the 
 dinner to be interrupted.' These were the last coherent 
 words said to have been uttered by him. His talk continued 
 to be rambling, and in attempting to rise, his sister-in-law's 
 help alone prevented him from falling where he stood. En- 
 deavouring to get him to the sofa, he sank heavily to the 
 ground, falling on his left side. * On the ground ' were 
 the last words spoken by him. His family were telegraphed 
 for, and medical aid was called in ; but the case was hopeless, 
 znd he died on the evening of Thursday, 9th June, having 
 lived four months beyond his fifty-eighth year. The immediate 
 cause of death was from effusion of blood on the brain, 
 brought on by overwork. The public journals, from the Times 
 onwards, gave expression to their feeling at the loss which 
 had been sustained. The Queen telegraphed her regret 
 from Balmoral, where she had been staying. A grave in 
 Westminster Abbey was offered for the deceased^ and although 
 he would himself have preferred to have found his last resting- 
 place at Rochester, the proposal was accepted, and the 
 funeral, strictly private, took place on Tuesday, 14th June. 
 The stone placed upon his grave is inscribed — 
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 Born February the Seventh 181::. 
 
 Died June the Ninth 1870.
 
 RISEN BY PERSEVERANCE. 
 
 His will had just been completed seven days before he was 
 struck down. By a codicil to the will, his interest in All the 
 Year Round was left to his acting editor and eldest son, with 
 other private instructions for their guidance in the conduct of 
 the journal. 
 
 The funeral sermon was preached by Dean Stanley, on 
 Sunday, the 19th June. Amongst the unnoted thousands 
 present were Thomas Carlyle and Alfred Tennyson. The 
 text of the day was the verses m the 15th and i6th chapters of 
 Luke — the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. In the 
 course of his sermon the Dean remarked : — 
 
 ' It is said to have been the distinguishing glory of a famous 
 Spanish saint that she was the advocate of the absent. That 
 is precisely the advocacy of this divine parable, and of those 
 modern parables which most represent its spirit — the advo- 
 cacy, namely, of the poor, the absent, the . neglected, of the 
 weaker side, whom, not seeing, we are tempted to forget. It 
 was the part of him whom we have lost to make the ric?i man, 
 faring sumptuously every day, not fail to see the presence of 
 the poor man at his gate. The suftering inmates of our 
 workhouses ; the neglected children in the dens and caves of 
 this great city ; the starved ill-used boys in remote schools, far 
 from the observation of men, — these all felt a new ray of 
 sunshine poured into their dark prisons, and a new interest 
 awakened in their forlorn and desolate lot, because an unknown 
 friend had pleaded their cause with a voice that rang through 
 the palaces of the great as well as through the cottages of the 
 poor. In his pages, with gaunt figures and hollow voices, they 
 were made to stand and speak before those who had before 
 hardly dreamed of their existence. But was it mere com- 
 passion which this created ? The same master hand which
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 drew the sorrows of the EngHsh poor drew also the picture of 
 the unselfishness, the kindness, the courageous patience, and 
 the tender thoughtfulness that lie concealed under many a 
 coarse exterior, and are to be found in many a degraded 
 home. When the little workhouse boy wins his way, pure and 
 undefiled, through the mass of wickedness around him ; when 
 the little orphan girl, who brings thoughts of heaven into the 
 hearts of all around her, is as the very gift of God to the old 
 man who sheltered her life, — these are scenes which no human 
 being can read without being the better of it. He laboured 
 to teach us that there is even in the worst of mankind a soul 
 of goodness — a soul worth revealing, worth reclaiming, worth 
 regenerating. He laboured to teach the rich and educated 
 how this better side was to be found, even in the most 
 neglected Lazarus, and to tell the poor no less to respect this 
 better part of themselves — to remember that they also have a 
 calling to be good and great, if they will but hear it 
 
 • There is one more thought that arises on this occasion 
 As, in the parable, we are forcibly impressed with the awful 
 solemnity of the other world, so on this day a feeling rises in 
 us before which the most brilliant powers of genius and the 
 most lively sallies of wit wax faint. When, on Tuesday last, 
 we stood beside that open grave, in the still, deep silence of the 
 summer morning, in the midst of this vast solitary space, 
 broken only by that small band of fourteen mourners, it was 
 impossible not to feel that there is something more sacred than 
 any worldly glory, however bright, or than any mausoleum, 
 however mighty ; and that is the return of the human soul into 
 the hands of its Maker. Many, many are the feet that have 
 trodden, and will tread, the consecrated ground around his 
 grave. Many, many are the hearts which, both in the Old
 
 RISEN BY PERSEVERANCE. 
 
 World and the New, are drawn towards it as towards the resting- 
 place of a dear personal friend. Many are the flowers that 
 have been strewn — many the tears that have been shed — by 
 the grateful affection of the poor that have cried, of the 
 fatherless, and of those that have none to help them. May 
 I speak to them a few sacred words, that will come perhaps 
 with a new meaning and a deeper force, because they come 
 from the lips of their lost friend, because they are the most 
 solemn utterances of lips now closed foi- ever in the grave ? 
 They are extracted from the will of Charles Dickens, dated 
 1 2th May 1869, and will now be heard by many for the first 
 time. After the most emphatic injunctions respecting the 
 inexpensive, unostentatious, and strictly private manner of his 
 funeral, — injunctions which have been carried out to the very 
 letter, — he thus continues : 
 
 ' " / direct that my name be inscribed in plain English letters 
 on my tomb. I conjure my friends on no account to make me the 
 subject of any monument^ memorial, or testimonial whatever. I 
 rest my claim to the remembrance of my country on my published 
 works, and to the remembrance of my friends in their experience 
 of me in additio7i thereto. I commit my soul to the mercy of 
 God, through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ; and I exhort 
 my dear children humbly to try to guide themselves by the teaching 
 of the New Testament, in its broad spirit, and to put no faith 
 in any man^s narrow construction of its letter here or the7-e." 
 
 ' In that simple but sufficient faith he lived and died. In 
 that simple and sufficient faith he bids you live and die. If 
 any of you have learnt from his works the value — the eternal 
 value — of generosity, of purity, of kindness, of unselfishness, 
 and have learnt to show these in your own hearts and lives, 
 then remember that these are the best monuments, memorials.
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 223 
 
 and testimonials of the friend whom you have loved, and who 
 loved with a marvellous and exceeding love his children, his 
 country, and his fellow-men. These are monuments which 
 he would not refuse, and which the humblest and poorest 
 and youngest here have it in their power to raise to his 
 memory.' 
 
 The beautiful anthem, 'When the ear heard him,' was then 
 sung, and the remainder of the service was gone through. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 MORRISON AND GIBB, I'RINTEKS. EDINBURGH,
 
 HEROES 
 
 OF 
 
 INVENTION AND DISCOVERY.
 
 AIOREISON AXD GIBE, PKnCTERS, EDINBURGH.
 
 GEOR&E STEPHENSON.
 
 HEROES 
 
 OP 
 
 INVENTION AND DISCOVERY; 
 
 UVES OF EMINENT INVENTORS AND 
 PIONEERS IN SCIENCE. 
 
 SELECTED BV THE EDITOR OF 
 
 •risen by PERSEVERANCE; OR, LIVES OF SELF-MADE MEN," "tHR 
 ENGLISH ESSAYISTS," " TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY,'' ETC 
 
 EDINBURGH: 
 W. P. NIMMO, HAY, & MITCHELL
 
 f 
 
 PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 'W^HIS book, like its companions in the same series, has been 
 (3^ produced by the Publishers with a view of providing 
 biographical reading of a wholesome and instructive character, 
 free from sectarian bias of any kind. The importance of 
 invention and discovery in all moral, commercial, and 
 intellectual progress will be readily conceded by every one, and 
 little apology is needed now in presenting examples of some of 
 those eminent in these departments. The articles on James 
 Watt, Robert Boyle, and Sir Humphrey Davy are drawn from 
 a well-known book, " The Pursuit of Knowledge under Diffi- 
 culties," by the late Professor Craik; London, 1830; with 
 some slight exceptions, the other articles composing the bulk of 
 the book are selected from copyright material placed at the 
 disposal of the Editor for use in the present volume.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 ROBERT BOYI.E, . 
 
 JAMES WATT, 
 
 SIR HUMPHREY DAVY, 
 
 GEORGE STEPHENSON, 
 
 SIR JAMES Y. SIMPSON, 
 
 GALLERY OF GREAT INVENTORS 
 
 ROGER BACON, . 
 
 WILLIAM LEE, . 
 
 MARQUIS OF WORCESTER, 
 
 PRINCE RUPERT, 
 
 SIR SAMUEL MORLAND, 
 
 JOHN FLAMSTEAD, 
 
 JOHN HARRISON, 
 
 GEORGE GRAHAM, 
 
 JAMES FERGUSON, 
 
 MATTHEW BOULTGW, 
 
 JOSEPH BLACK, 
 
 JOSEPH PRIESTLEY, 
 
 JAMES HARGREAVES, 
 
 JOSIAH WEDGWOOD, 
 
 HENRY CORT, . 
 
 SAMUEL CROMPTON, 
 
 HENRY BELL, . 
 
 SIR DAVID BREWSTFV, 
 
 CHARLES BABBAGE, 
 
 HENRY BESSEMEF, 
 JOHN ERICSSON, 
 THOMAS ALVA EDISON, 
 
 AND DISCOVERERS —
 
 HEEOES OP INVENTION AND DISCOVEEY. 
 
 ROBERT BOYLE. 
 
 )ERHAPS the best example we can adduce of the manner 
 ^- in which wealth may be made subservient by its pos- 
 sessor, not only to the acquisition of knowledge, but also to its 
 diffusion and improvement, is that of our celebrated countryman 
 The Honourable Robert Boyle. Boyle was borne at Lismore, 
 in Ireland, in 1627, and was the seventh and youngest son of 
 Richard, the first Earl of Cork, commonly called the Great 
 Earl. The first advantage which he derived from the wealth and 
 station of his father was an excellent education. After having 
 enjoyed the instructions of a domestic tutor, he was sent, at an 
 early age, to Eton. But his inclination, from the first, seems to 
 have led him to the study of things, rather than of words. He 
 remained at Eton only four years, "in the last of which," 
 according to his own statement, in an account which he has 
 given us of his early life, " he forgot much of that Latin he had 
 got, for he was so addicted to more solid parts of knowledge, that 
 he hated the study of bare words naturally, as something that 
 relished too much of pedantry, to consort with his disposition and 
 designs." In reference to what is here insinuated, in disparage-
 
 2 HEROES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER V. 
 
 ment of the study of languages merely as such, we may just 
 remark that the observation is, perhaps, not quite so profound 
 as it is plausible. So long as one mind differs from another, 
 there will always be much difference of sentiment as to the 
 comparative claims upon our regard of that, on the one hand, 
 which addresses itself principally to the taste or the imagination, 
 and that, on the other, which makes its appeal to the under- 
 standing only. But it is, at any rate, to be remembered that, 
 in confining the epithet useful, as is commonly done, to the 
 latter, it is intended to describe it as the useful only pre- 
 eminently, and not exclusively. The agreeable or the graceful 
 is plainly also useful. The study of language and style, there- 
 fore, cannot with any propriety be denounced as a mere waste 
 of time ; but, on the contrary, is well fitted to beconie to the 
 mind a source both of enjoyment and of power. So great, 
 indeed, is the influence of diction upon the common feelings of 
 mankind, that no literary work, it may be safely asserted, has 
 ever acquired a permanent reputation and popularity, or, in 
 other words, produced any wide and enduring effect, which was 
 not distinguished by the graces of its style. Their deficiency, 
 in this respect, has been at least one of the causes of the com- 
 parative oblivion into which Mr. Boyle's own writings have 
 fallen, and, doubtless, weakened the efficacy of such of them as 
 aimed at anything beyond a bare statement of facts, even in his 
 own day. It was this especially which exposed some of his 
 moral lucubrations to Swift's annihilating ridicule. 
 
 On being brought home from Eton, Boyle, who was his 
 father's favourite son, was placed under the care of a neighbour- 
 ing clergyman, who, instructing him, he says, " both with care and 
 civility, soon brought him to renew his first acquaintance with 
 the Roman tongue, and to improve it so far that in that Ian-
 
 ROBERT BOYLE. 
 
 guage he could readily enough express himself in prose, and 
 began to be no dull proficient in the poetic strain." " Although, 
 however," he adds, "naturally addicted to poetry, he forbore, 
 in after-life, to cultivate his talent for that species of composition, 
 because, in his travels, having by discontinuance forgot much 
 of the Latin tongue, he afterwards never could find time to 
 redeem his losses by a serious study of the ancient poets." 
 From all this it is evident that the natural bent of his mind did 
 not incline him very strongly to classical studies \ and as, for 
 the most obviously wise purposes, there has been established 
 among men a diversity of intellectual endowments and tenden- 
 cies, and every mind is most efficient when it is employed most 
 in accordance with its natural dispositions and predilections, it 
 was just as well that the course of his education was now 
 changed. In his eleventh year he and one of his brothers were 
 put under the charge of a Mr. Marcombes, a French gentleman, 
 and sent to travel on the Continent. In the narrative of his 
 early hfe, in which he designates himself by the name of Philo- 
 retus, Mr. Boyle has left us an account of his travelling tutor. 
 " He was a man," says he, " whose gait, his mien, and outside, 
 had very much of his nation, having been divers years a traveller 
 and a soldier; he was well fashioned, and very well knew what 
 belonged to a gentleman. His natural were much better than 
 his acquired parts, though divers of the latter he possessed, 
 though not in an eminent, yet in a competent degree. Scholar- 
 ship he wanted not, having in his greener years been a professed 
 student in divinity ; but he was much less read in books than 
 men, and hated pedantry as much as any of the seven deadly 
 sins. . . . Before company he was always very civil to his 
 pupils, apt to eclipse their failings, and set off their good quali- 
 ties to the best advantage. But in his private conversation he
 
 4 HER OES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER Y. 
 
 was cynically disposed, and a very nice critic both of words and 
 men ; which humour he used to exercise so freely with Philo- 
 retus, that at last he forced him to a very cautious and 
 considerate way of expressing himself, which after turned to his 
 no small advantage. The worst quality he had was his choler, 
 to excesses of which he was excessively prone ; and that being 
 the only passion to which Philoretus was much observed to be 
 inclined, his desire to shun clashing with his governor, and his 
 accustomedness to bear the sudden sallies of his impetuous 
 humour, taught our youth so to subdue that passion in himself, 
 that he was soon able to govern it habitually and with ease." 
 
 Under the guidance of this gentleman, who, although not 
 much fitted, apparently, to make his pupils profound scholars, 
 or even to imbue them with a taste for elegant literature, was, 
 probably, very well qualified both to direct their powers of 
 observation, and to superintend and assist the general growth 
 of their minds at this early age, the two brothers passed through 
 France to Geneva, where they continued some time studying 
 rhetoric, logic, mathematics, and political geography, to which 
 were added the accomplishments of fencing and dancing. 
 " His recreations during his stay at Geneva," says Mr. Boyle ot 
 himself, " were sometimes mall, tennis (a sport he ever passion- 
 ately loved), and, above all, the reading of romances, whose 
 perasal did not only extremely divert him, but (assisted by a 
 total discontinuance of the English tongue) in a short time 
 taught him a skill in French somewhat unusual to strangers." 
 The party afterwards set off for Italy; and, after visiting 
 Venice and other places, proceeded to Florence, where they 
 spent the winter. 
 
 While residing here Mr. Boyle made himself master of the 
 Italian language. But another acquisition, for which he was
 
 ROBERT BOYLE. 
 
 indebted to his visit to Florence, probably influenced to a 
 greater extent the future course of his pursuits ; we mean the 
 knowledge he obtained of the then recent astronomical dis- 
 coveries of Galileo. This great philosopher died in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Florence, in the beginning of the year 1642, while 
 Boyle and his brother were pursuing their studies in that city. 
 The young Englishman, who was himself destined to acquire so 
 high a reputation by his experiments in various departments of 
 physical science, some of them the same which Galileo had 
 cultivated, probably never even beheld his illustrious pre- 
 cursor ; but we cannot tell how much of Boyle's love of experi- 
 mental inquiry, and his ambition to distinguish himself in that 
 field, may have been caught from this, his accidental residence 
 in early life in a place where the renown of Galileo and his 
 discoveries must have been on the lips of all. 
 
 Boyle returned to England in 1644. Although he was yet 
 only in his eighteenth year, he seems to have thought that his 
 education had been long enough under the direction of others, 
 and he resolved, therefore, for the future to be his own 
 instructor. Accordingly, his father being dead, he retired to 
 an estate which had been left him in Dorsetshire, and gave 
 himself up, we are told, for five years to the study principally 
 of natural philosophy and chemistry. His literary and moral 
 studies, however, it would appear, were not altogether sus- 
 pended during this time. In a letter written by him from his 
 retirement to his old tutor, Mr. Marcombes, we find him 
 mentioning, as also among his occupations, the composing 01 
 essays in prose and verse, and the study of ethics, " wherein," 
 says he, " of late I have been very conversant, and desirous to 
 call them from the brain down into the breast, and from the 
 school to the house."
 
 6 HER OES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER Y. 
 
 These details do not, like many of those we have given in 
 other parts of our work, exhibit to us the ardent lover of 
 knowledge, beset with impediments at every step, in his pur- 
 suit of the object on which he has placed his affections, and 
 having little or nothing to sustain him under the struggle, 
 except the unconquerable strength of the passion with which 
 his heart is filled. On the contrary, we have here a young 
 man who has enjoyed from his birth upwards every facility for 
 the improvement of his mind, and is now surrounded with all 
 the conveniences he could desire, for a life of the most various 
 and excursive study. A happy and enviable lot ! Yet by how 
 few of those to whom it has been granted, as well as to him of 
 whom we are now speaking, have its advantages been used as 
 they were by him ! The truth is, that if the mind be not in 
 love with knowledge, no mere outward advantages will enable 
 any one to make much progress in the pursuit of it ; while with 
 this love for it, all the difficulties which the unkindness of 
 fortune can throw in the way of its acquisition may be over- 
 come. The examples frequently recorded of many a successful 
 struggle with such difficulties in their most collected and 
 formidable strength, sufficiently warrant us to hold out this 
 encouragement to all. 
 
 In the same letter to Mr. Marcombes, which we have just 
 quoted, we find Boyle making mention, for the first time, of 
 what he calls "our new Philosophical or Invisible College," 
 some of the leading members of which, he informs his corre- 
 spondent, occasionally honoured him with their company at 
 his house. By this Invisible College^ he undoubtedly means 
 that association of learned individuals who began about this 
 period to assemble together in London for the purposes of 
 scientific discussion, and whose meetings formed the germ oi
 
 ROBERT BOYLE. 
 
 tlie Royal Society. According to the account given in a letter 
 written many years after by Dr. Wallis, another member of the 
 club, to his friend Dr. Thomas Smith, it appears that these 
 meetings first began to be held in London, on a certain day 
 in every week, about the year 1645. ^^- Boyle's name does 
 not occur in the list of original members given by Dr. Wallis ; 
 but he professes to mention only several of the number. 
 There can be no doubt that Boyle joined them soon after the 
 formation of the association. According to Dr. Wallis, the 
 meetings were first suggested by a Mr. Theodore Haak, whom 
 he describes as a German of the Palatinate, then resident in 
 London. They used to be held sometimes in Wood Street, 
 at the house of Dr. Goddard, the eminent physician, who kept 
 an operator for grinding glasses for telescopes and microscopes; 
 sometimes at another house in Cheapside ; and sometimes in 
 Gresham College, to which several of the members were 
 attached. The subjects of inquiry and discussion are stated 
 to have embraced everything relating to "physic, anatomy, 
 geometry, astronomy, navigation, magnetics, chemics, mecha- 
 nics, and natural experiments," whatever, in short, belonged to 
 what was then called "the new or experimental philosophy." 
 In course of time several of the members of the association 
 were removed to Oxford ; and they began at last to meet by 
 themselves in that city, while the others continued their 
 meetings in London. The Oxford meetings began to be 
 regularly held about the year 1649, ^^ 1654 Mr. Boyle took 
 up his residence at Oxford, probably induced, in great part, 
 by the circumstance of so many of his philosophical friends 
 being now there, and engaged together in the same inquiries 
 with himself. The Oxford associates, according to Dr. Wallis, 
 met first in the apartments of Dr. Petty (afterwards the cele-
 
 8 HER OES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER Y. 
 
 brated Sir William Petty, the ancestor of the Marquis ol 
 Lansdowne), who lodged, it seems, in the house of an apothe- 
 cary, whose store of drugs was found convenient for their 
 experiments. On Dr. Petty going to Ireland, they next met, 
 the narrative proceeds, "(though not so constantly) at the 
 lodgings of Dr. Wilkins, then warden of Wadham College; 
 and, after his removal to Trinity College, in Cambridge, at the 
 lodgings of the honourable Mr. Robert Boyle, then resident for 
 divers years in Oxford." Boyle, indeed, continued to reside 
 in this city till the year 1668. Meanwhile, in 1663, three 
 years after the Restoration, the members of the London club 
 were incorporated under the title of the Royal Society. 
 
 It was during his residence at Oxford that Boyle made some 
 of the principal discoveries with which his name is connected 
 In particular, it was here that he prosecuted those experiments 
 upon the mechanical properties of the air, by which he first 
 made himself generally known to the public, and the results of 
 which rank among the most important of his contributions to 
 natural science. The first account which he published of these 
 experiments appeared at Oxford in 1660, under the title of 
 ** New Experiments Physico-Mechanical, touching the spring of 
 the air and its effects." The work is in the form of letters to 
 his nephew, Viscount Dungarvon, the son of the Earl of Cork, 
 which are dated in December, 1659. It may be not unnaturally 
 supposed that Boyle's attention was first directed to the subject 
 of Pneumatics, when he was engaged at Florence in making 
 himself acquainted with the discoveries of Galileo, whose 
 experiments first introduced anything hke science into that 
 department of inquiry. He states, himself, in his first letter to 
 his nephew, that he had some years before heard of a book, by 
 the Jesuit Schottus, giving an account of a contrivance, by which
 
 ROBERT BGYLE. 
 
 Otto Guericke, Consul of Magdeburg, had succeeded in empty- 
 ing glass vessels of their contained air, by sucking it out at the 
 mouth of the vessel, plunged under water. He alludes here to 
 Guericke's famous invention of the instrument now commonly 
 called the air-pump. This ingenious and ardent cultivator of 
 science, who was borne in Magdeburg, in Saxony, in the begin- 
 ning of the seventeenth century, in his original attempts to 
 produce a vacuum, used first to fill his vessel with water, which 
 he then sucked out by a common pump, taking care, of course, 
 that no air entered to replace the liquid. This method was 
 probably suggested to Guericke by Torricelli's beautiful 
 experiment with the barometrical tube, the vacuum produced 
 in the upper part of which, by the descent of the mercury, 
 has been called from him the Torricellian vacuum. It was 
 by first filling it with water that Guericke expelled the air 
 from the copper globe, the two closely-fitting hemispheres 
 comprising which six horses were then unable to pull asunder, 
 although held together by nothing more than the pressure of 
 the external atmosphere. 
 
 This curious proof of the force, or weight of the air, which 
 was exhibited before the Emperor Ferdinand III., in 1654, 
 is commonly referred to by the name of the experiment of 
 the Magdeburg hemispheres. Guericke, however, afterwards 
 adopted another method of exhausting a vessel of its contained 
 air, which could be applied more generally than the one he had 
 first employed. This consisted in at once pumping out the air 
 itself. The principle of the contrivance which he used for that 
 purpose will be understood from the following explanation. If 
 we suppose a barrel of perfectly equal bore throughout, and 
 having in it a closely-fitting plug or piston, to have been 
 inserted in the mouth of the vessel, it is evident that, when
 
 I o HER OES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER Y. 
 
 this piston was drawn up from the bottom to the top of the 
 barrel, it would carry along with it all the air that had 
 previously filled the space through which it had passed. Now 
 were air, like water, possessed of little or no expansive force, 
 this space, after being thus deprived of its contents, would have 
 remained empty, and there would have been an end of the 
 experim'^nt. But in consequence of the extraordinary elasticity 
 of the element in question, no sooner would its original air be 
 lifted by the piston out of the barrel, than a portion of that in 
 the vessel beyond the piston would flow out to occupy its 
 place. -The vessel and the barrel together would now, there- 
 fore, be filled by the same quantity of air which had originally 
 been contained in the first alone, and which would consequently 
 be diminished in density just in proportion to the enlargement 
 of the space which it occupied. But although so much of the 
 air to be extracted had thus got again into the barrel, there 
 would still at this point have been an end of the experiment, ii 
 no way could have been found of pushing back the piston for 
 another draught, without forcing also the air beyond it into the 
 vessel again, and thus merely restoring matters to the state in 
 which they were at the commencement of the operation. But 
 here Guericke was provided with an ingenious contrivance — 
 that of the valve ; the idea of applying which he borrowed, no 
 doubt, from the common water-pump, in which it had been long 
 used. A valve, which, simple as it is, is one of the most useful 
 and indeed indispensable of mechanical contrivances, is, as most 
 persons know, merely a flap, or lid, moving on a hinge, which, 
 covering an orifice, closes it, of course, against whatever attempts 
 to pass through from behind itself (a force bearing upon it from 
 thence evidently only shutting it closer), while it gives way to 
 and permits the passage of whatever comes in the opposite
 
 ROBERT BOYLE. ii 
 
 direction. Now Guericke, in his machine, had two of these 
 valves, one covering a hole in the piston, another covering the 
 mouth of the vessel where the barrel was inserted ; and both 
 opening outwards. In consequence of this arrangement, when 
 the piston, after having been drawn out, as we have already 
 described, was again pushed back, the air in the barrel was 
 prevented from getting back into the vessel by the farther 
 valve, now shut against it, while it was at the same time provided 
 with an easy means of escape by the other, through which, 
 accordingly, it passed away. Here, then, was one barrelful of 
 the air in the vessel dislodged ; and the same process had only 
 to be repeated a sufficient number of times in order to extract 
 as much more as was desired. The quantity, however, removed 
 every time was, of course, always becoming less ; for, although 
 it filled the same space, it was more attenuated. 
 
 The principle, therefore, upon which the first air-pump was 
 constructed was the expansibiUty of the air, which the inventor 
 was enabled to take advantage of through means of the valve. 
 These (wo things, in fact, constitute the air-pump ; and what- 
 ever improvements have been since introduced in the con- 
 struction of the machine have gone only to make the working 
 of it more convenient and effective. In this latter respect the 
 defects of Guericke's apparatus, as might be expected, were 
 considerable. Among others, with which it was chargeable, it 
 required the continual labour of tAvo men for several hours at 
 the pump to exhaust the air from a vessel of only moderate 
 size; the precautions which Guericke used to prevent the 
 intrusion of air from without, between the piston and the sidefj 
 of the barrel, during the working of the machine, were both 
 imperfect for that purpose, and greatly added to the difiiculties 
 and incommodiousness ol the operation ; and, above all, from
 
 1 2 HEROES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VERY. 
 
 the vessel employed being a round globe, without any other 
 mouth or opening than the narrow one in which the pump was 
 inserted, things could not be conveyed into it, nor, consequently, 
 any experiments made in that vacuum which had been obtained. 
 Boyle, who says that he had himself thought of something like 
 an air-pump before he heard of Guericke's invention, applied 
 himself, in the first place, to the remedying of these defects in 
 the original instrument, and succeeded in rendering it con- 
 siderably more convenient ana useful. At the time when he 
 began to give his attention to this subject, he had Robert 
 Hooke, who afterwards attained a distinguished name in 
 science, residing with him as an assistant in his experiments ; 
 and it was Hooke, he says, who suggested to him the first 
 improvements in Guericke's machine. These, which could not 
 easily be made intelligible by any mere description, and which, 
 besides, have long since given way to still more commodious 
 modifications of the apparatus, so that they possess now but 
 little interest, enabled Boyle and his friends to carry their 
 experiments with the new instrument much farther than had 
 been done by the Consul of Magdeburg. But, indeed, Boyle 
 himself did not long continue to use the air-pump which he 
 describes in this first publication. In the second part of his 
 Physico-Mechanical Experiments he describes one of a new 
 construction ; and, in the third part of the same work, one still 
 farther improved. This last, which is supposed to have been 
 also of Hooke's contrivance, had two barrels moved by the same 
 pinion-wheel, which depressed the one while it elevated the 
 other, and thus did twice as much work as before in the same 
 time. The air-pump has been greatly improved since the time 
 of Boyle by the Abbe Nollet, Gravesande, Smeaton, Prince, 
 Cuthbertson^ and others.
 
 ROBERT BOYLE. 13 
 
 By his experiments with this machine Boyle made several 
 important discoveries with regard to the air, the principal ot 
 which he details in the three successive parts of the work we 
 have mentioned. Having given so commodious a form and 
 position to the vessel out of which the air was to be extracted 
 (which, after him, has been generally called the receiver, a 
 name, he says, first bestowed upon it by the glassmen), that he 
 could easily introduce into it anything which he wished to make 
 the subject of an experiment, he found that neither flame would 
 burn nor animals live in a vacuum, and hence he inferred the 
 necessity of the presence of air both to combustion and animal 
 life. Even a fish, immersed in water, he proved, would not 
 live in an exhausted receiver. Flame and animal life, he 
 showed, were also both soon extinguished in any confined 
 portion of air, however dense, although not so soon in a given 
 bulk of dense as of rarefied air; nor was this, as had been 
 supposed, owing to any exhalation of heat from the animal 
 body or the flame, for the same thing took place when they 
 were kept in the most intense cold, by being surrounded with 
 a frigorific mixture. What he chiefly sought to demonstrate, 
 however, by the air-pump was, the extraordinary elasticity, or 
 spring, as he called it^ of the air. It is evident, from the 
 account that has been given of the principle of this machine, 
 that, if the pump be worked ever so long, it never can produce 
 in the receiver a strictly perfect vacuum ; for the air expelled 
 from the barrel by the last descent of the piston must always 
 be merely a portion of a certain quantity, the rest of which will 
 be in the receiver. The receiver, in truth, after the last stroke 
 of the piston, is as full of air as it was at first ; only that by 
 which it is now filled is so much rarefied and reduced in 
 quantity, although it occupies the same space as before, that
 
 r 4 HER OES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER Y 
 
 it may be considered as, for most practical purposes, annihilated. 
 Still a certain quantity, as we have said, remains, be it ever so 
 small ; and this quantity continues, just as at first, to be 
 diffused over the whole space within the receiver. From this 
 circumstance Boyle deduced some striking evidences of what 
 seems to be the almost indefinite expansibility of the air. He 
 at last actually dilated a portion of air to such a degree that it 
 filled, he calculated, 13,679 times its natural space, or that 
 which it occupied as part of *^he common atmosphere. But 
 the usual density of the atmosphere is very far from being the 
 greatest to which the air may be raised. It is evident that, if 
 the two valves of the air-pump we have already described be 
 made to open inwards instead of outwards, the effect of every 
 stroke of the piston will be, not to extract air from the receiver, 
 but to force an additional quantity into it. In that form, 
 accordingly, the machine is called a forcing-pump, and is used 
 for the purpose of condensing air, or compressing a quantity of 
 it into the smallest possible space. Boyle succeeded, by this 
 method, in forcing into his receiver forty times its natural 
 quantity. But the condensation of the air has been carried 
 much further since his time. Dr. Hales compressed into a 
 certain space 1522 times the natural quantity, which in this 
 state had nearly twice the density, or, in other words, was 
 nearly twice as heavy as the same bulk of water. Of the air 
 thus condensed by Dr. Hales, therefore, the same space 
 actually contained above twenty millions of times the quantity 
 which it would have done of that dilated to the highest degree 
 by Mr. Boyle. How far do these experiments carry us beyond 
 the knowledge of Aristotle, who held that the air, if rarefied so 
 r.s to fill ten times its usual space, would become fire ! 
 
 On leaving Oxford, in 1668, Boyle came to London, and
 
 ROBERT BOYLE. 
 
 ^5 
 
 here he continued to reside during the remainder of his life. 
 (Jp to this time his attendance at the meetings of the Royal 
 Society had been only occasional, but he was now seldom 
 absent. Science, indeed, was as much the occupation of his 
 life as if it had been literally his business or profession. No 
 temptations could seduce him away from his philosophical 
 pursuits. Belonging, as he did, to one of the most powerful 
 families in the kingdom — having no fewer than four brothers 
 in the Irish peerage, and one in the English, — the highest 
 honours of the State were open to his ambition if he would 
 have accepted of them. But so pure was his love of science 
 and learning, and, with all his acquirements, so great his 
 modesty, that he steadily decHned even those worldly distinc- 
 tions which might be said to lie strictly within the sphere of his 
 pursuits. He was zealously attached to the cause of religion, 
 in support of which he ^vrote and published several treatises ; 
 but he would not enter the Church, although pressed to do so 
 by the king, or even accept of any office in the universities, 
 under the conviction that he should more effectually serve the 
 interests both of religion and learning by avoiding everything 
 which might give him the appearance of being their hired or 
 interested advocate. He preferred other modes of showing his 
 attachment, in which his wealth and station enabled him to do 
 what was not in the power of others. He allowed himself to 
 be placed at the head of associations for the prosecution of 
 those objects which he had so much at heart; he contributed 
 to them his time, his exertions, and his money ; he printed, at 
 his own expense, several editions of the Scriptures in foreign 
 languages for gratuitous distribution; if learned men were in 
 pecuniary difficulties, his purse was open to their relief. And, 
 as lor his OAvn labours, no pay could have made there more
 
 1 6 HER OES OF IN VENTION AND DISCO VER Y. 
 
 zealous or more incessant. From his boyhood till his deatli 
 he may be said to have been almost constantly occupied in 
 making philosophical experiments ; collecting and ascertaining 
 facts in natural science; inventing or improving instruments 
 for the examination of nature ; maintaining a regular corre- 
 spondence with scientific men in all parts of Europe ; receiving 
 the daily visits of great numbers of the learned both of his own 
 and ether countries; perusing and studying not only all the 
 new works that appeared in the large and rapidly widening 
 department of natural history and mathematical and experi- 
 mental physics, including medicine, anatomy, chemistry, geo- 
 graphy, «S:c., but many others relating especially to theology 
 and Oriental literature ; and lastly, writing so profusely upon 
 all these subjects, that those of his works alone which have 
 been preserved and collected, independently of many others 
 that are lost, fill, in one edition, six large quarto volumes. So 
 vast an amount of literary performance, from a man who was 
 at the same time so much of a public character, and gave so 
 considerable a portion of his time to the service of others, shows 
 strikingly what may be done by industry, perseverance, and 
 such a method of life as never suffers an hour of the day to 
 run to waste. 
 
 In this last particular, indeed, the example of Mr. Boyle well 
 deserves to be added to those of the other distinguished men 
 in this department. Of his time he was, from his earliest years, 
 the most rigid economist, and he preserved that good habit to 
 the last. Dr. Dent, in a letter to Dr. Wotton, tells us that " his 
 brother, afterwards I^ord Shannon (who accompanied him on 
 his continental tour with Mr. Marcombes), used to say that 
 even then he would never lose any vacant time ; for, if they 
 were upon the road, and walking down a hill, or in a rough
 
 ROBERT BOYLE. f) 
 
 way, he would read all the way ; and when they came at night 
 to their inn he would still be studying till supper, and frequently 
 propose such difficulties as he met with in his reading to his 
 governor." The following naive statement, too, which we find 
 in an unfinished essay on a theological subject, which he left 
 behind him in manuscript, and of which Dr. Birch, the editor 
 of his collected works, has printed a part, may serve to show 
 the dihgence with which he prosecuted his severer studies, even 
 amidst all sorts of interruptions. " It is true," he writes, " that 
 a solid knowledge of that mysterious language" (it is his ac- 
 quisition of the Hebrew tongue to which he refers) "is some- 
 what difficult, but not so difficult but that so slow a proficient 
 as I could, in less than a year, of which not the least part was 
 usurped by frequent sicknesses and journeys, by furnaces, and 
 by (which is none of the modestest thieves of time) the con- 
 versation of young ladies, make a not inconsiderable progress 
 towards the understanding of both Testaments in both their 
 originals." But the life of active and incesssant occupation 
 which he led, even in his declining years, is best depicted in 
 another curious document which Dr. Birch has preserved. A 
 few years before his death he was urged to accept the office of 
 President of the Royal Society, of which he had so long been 
 one of the most active and valuable members, and the Trans- 
 actions of which he had enriched by many papers of great 
 interest ; but he declined the honour on the score of his grow- 
 ing infirmities. About this time he also published an advertise- 
 ment, addressed to his friends and acquaintances, in which he 
 begins by remarking " that he has, by some unlucky accidents, 
 had many of his writings corroded here and there, or otherwise 
 so maimed" (this is a specimen of the pedantic mode of 
 expression of which Boyle was too fond), "that without he
 
 1 8 HER OES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER Y. 
 
 himself fill up the lacunoe. out of his memory or invention, they 
 will not be intelligible." He then goes on to allege his age 
 and his ill health as reasons for immediately setting about the 
 arrangement of his papers, and to state that his physician and 
 his best friends have " pressingly advised him against speaking 
 daily with so many persons as are wont to visit him ; " represent- 
 ing it as that which must " disable him for holding out long." 
 He therefore intimates that he means in future to reserve two 
 days of the week to himself, during which, " unless upon occa- 
 sions very extraorditiary," he must decline seeing either his 
 friends or strangers, "tliat he may have some time both to 
 recruit his spirits, to range his papers, and fill up the lacuncs of 
 them, and to take some care of his affairs in Ireland, which are 
 very much disordered, and have their face often changed by 
 the public disorders there." He at the same time ordered a 
 board to be placed over his door, giving notice when he did 
 and when he did not receive visits. 
 
 Nothing can set in a stronger light than this the celebrity 
 and public importance to which he had attained. His reputa- 
 tion, indeed, had spread over Europe \ and he was the principal 
 object of attraction to all scientific strangers who visited the 
 English metropolis. Living, as it was his fortune to do, at what 
 may be called only the dawn of modern science, Boyle perhaps 
 made no discovery which the researches of succeeding investi- 
 gators in the same department have not long ere now gone far 
 beyond. But his experiments, and the immense number of 
 facts which he collected and recorded, undoubtedly led the 
 way to many of the most brilliant results by which, since his 
 day, the study of nature has been crowned. Above all, he 
 deserves to be regarded as one of the principal founders of our 
 modem chemistry. That science, before his time, was little
 
 ROBERT BOYLE. ij 
 
 better than a collection of dogmas, addressing themselves rather 
 to the implicit faith of men than either to their experience or 
 their reason. These venerable articles of belief he showed the 
 necessity of examining, in reference to their agreement with the 
 ascertained facts of nature ; and, by bringing them to this test, 
 exposed the falsehood of many of them. His successors have 
 only had to contribute each his share in building up the new 
 system ; he had also to overthrow the old one. 
 
 Mr. Boyle died, at the age of sixty-four, in 1691. The ex- 
 perimental science of modern times never had a more devoted 
 follower ; and he claims to be recorded as having not only given 
 us an illustrious example of the ardent pursuit of philosophy in 
 a man of rank, but as having dedicated to its promotion the 
 whole advantages of which his station and fortune put him in 
 possession, with a zealous liberality that has scarcely been 
 surpassed or equalled. Other wealthy patrons of literature and 
 science have satisfied themselves with giving merely their money, 
 and the eclat of their favourable regard to the cause which they 
 professed to take under their protection ; but he spent his life 
 in the active service of philosophy, and was not more the en- 
 courager and supporter of all good works done in that name 
 than a fellow-labourer with those who performed them. For 
 the long period during which he was, in this country, the cliief 
 patron of science, he was also and equally its chief cultivator 
 and extender. He gave to it not only his name, his influence, 
 and his fortune, but his whole time, faculties, and exertions. 
 
 — «*B^€<S*v<&^'^^—
 
 20 HEROES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VERY. 
 
 JAMES WATT 
 
 LL the inventions and improvements of recent times, il 
 measured 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 illustrious James 
 Watt, the merit and honour of having first rendered it exten- 
 sively available for that purpose are pre-eminently due. Thd 
 force of steam, now so important an agent in mechanics, was 
 nearly altogether overlooked until within the two last centuries. 
 The only application of it which appears to have been made by 
 the ancients, was in the construction of the instrument which 
 they called the ^olipile, that is, the Ball of ^olus The 
 ^olipile consisted of a hollow globe of metal, with a long 
 neck, terminating in a very small orifice, which, being filled 
 with water and placed on a fire, exhibited the steam, as it was 
 generated by the heat, rushing with apparently great force 
 through the narrow opening. A common tea-kettle, in fact, is 
 a sort of ^olipile. The only use which the ancients proposed 
 to make of this contrivance was, to apply the current of steam, 
 as it issued from the spout, by way of a moving force — to 
 propel for instance, the vans of a mill, or, by acting immediately 
 upon the air, to generate a movement opposite to its own
 
 JAMES WATT. 
 
 direction. But it was impossible that they should have effected 
 any useful purpose by such methods of employing steam. 
 Steam depends so entirely for its existence in the state of 
 vapour upon the presence of a large quantity of heat, that it is 
 reduced to a mist or a fluid almost immediately on coming into 
 contact either with the atmosphere, or anything else which is 
 colder than itself; and in this condition its expansive force is 
 gone. The only way of employing steam with much effect, 
 therefore, is to make it act in a close vessel. The first known 
 writer who alludes to the prodigious energy which it exerts 
 when thus confined, is the French engineer Solomon de Caus, 
 who flourished in the beginning of the seventeenth century. 
 This ingenious person, who came to England in 1612, in the 
 train of the Elector Palatine, afterwards the son-in-law of James 
 I., and resided here for some years, published a folio volume 
 at Paris, in 1623, on moving forces; in which he states, that if 
 water be sufficiently heated in a close ball of copper, the air or 
 steam arising from it will at last burst the ball, with the noise 
 like the going off of a petard. In another place, he actually 
 describes a method of raising water, as he expresses it, by the 
 aid of fire, which consists in the insertion, in the containing 
 vessel, of a perpendicular tube, reaching nearly to its bottom, 
 through which, he says, all the water will rise, when sufficiently 
 heated. The agent here is the steam produced from part of 
 the water by the heat, which, acting by its expansive force upon 
 the rest of the water, forces it to make its escape in a jet 
 through the tube. The supply of the water is kept up through 
 a cock in the side of the vessel. Forty years after the publi- 
 cation of the work of De Caus appeared the Marquis of Wor- 
 cester's famous " Century of Inventions." Of the hundred new 
 discoveries here enumerated, the sixty-eighth is entitled " An
 
 2 2 HER OES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER Y. 
 
 admirable and most forcible way to drive up water by fire." 
 As far as may be judged from the vague description which the 
 Marquis gives us of his apparatus, it appears to have been 
 constructed upon the same principle with that formerly pro- 
 posed by De Cans ; but his account of the effect produced is 
 considerably more precise than what we find in the work of his 
 predecessor. "I have seen the water run," says he, "like a 
 constant fountain-stream forty feet high ; one vessel of water 
 rarefied by fire, driveth up forty of cold water." This language 
 would imply that the Marquis had actually reduced his idea to 
 practice ; and if, as he seems to intimate, he made use of a 
 cannon for his boiler, the experiment was probably upon a 
 considerable scale. It is with some justice, therefore, that not- 
 withstanding the earlier announcements in the work of the 
 French engineer, he is generally regarded as the first person 
 who really constructed a steam-engine. 
 
 About twenty years after this, namely in the year 1683, 
 another of our countrymen, Sir Samuel Morland, appears to 
 have presented a work to the French King, containing, among 
 other projects, a method of employing steam as a mechanic 
 power, which he expressly says he had himself invented the 
 preceding year. The manuscript of this work is now in the 
 British Museum; but it is remarkable that when the work, 
 which is in French, was afterwards published by its author at 
 Paris, in 1C85, the passage about the steam-engine was omitted. 
 Sir Samuel Morland's invention, as we find it described in his 
 manuscript treatise, appears to have been merely a repetition 
 of those of his predecessors, De Caus and the Marquis of 
 Worcester ; but his statement is curious as being the first in 
 which the immense difference between the space occupied by 
 water in its natural state and that which it occupies in the
 
 JAMES WATT. 
 
 state of steam is numerically designated. The latter, he says, 
 is about two thousand times as great as the former ; which is 
 not far from a correct account of the expansive force that steam 
 exerts under the ordinary pressure of the atmosphere. One 
 measure of water, it is found, in such circumstances, will pro- 
 duce about seventeen hundred measures of steam. 
 
 The next person whose name occurs in the history of the 
 steam-engine, is Denis Papin, a native of France, but who 
 spent the part of his life during which he made his principal 
 pneumatic experiments in England. Up to this time, the 
 reader will observe, the steam had been aj^plied directly to the 
 surface of the water, to raise which, in the form of a jet, by 
 such pressure, appears to have been almost the only object 
 contemplated by the employment of the newly-discovered 
 power. It was Papin who first introduced a piston into the 
 tube or cylinder which rose from the boiler. This contrivance, 
 which forms an essential part of the common sucking-pump, is 
 merely, as the reader probably knows, a block fitted to any 
 tube or longitudinal cavity, so as to move freely up and down 
 in it, yet without permitting the passage of any other substance 
 between itself and the sides of the tube. To this block a rod 
 is generally fixed ; and it may also have a hole driven through 
 it, to be gTiarded by a valve, opening upwards or downwards, 
 according to the object in view. Long before the time or 
 Papin it had been proposed to raise weights, or heavy bodies 
 of any kind, by suspending them to one extremity of a handle 
 or cross-beam attached at its other end to the rod of a piston 
 moving in this manner in a hollow cylinder, and the descent of 
 which, in order to produce the elevation of the weights, was to 
 be effected by the pressure of the superincumbent atmosphere 
 after the counterbalancing air had been by some means or other
 
 2 4 HER OES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER Y 
 
 withdrawn from below it. Otto Guericke used to exhaust the 
 lower part of the cylinder, in such an apparatus, by means of 
 an air-pump. It appeared to Papin that some other method 
 might be found of effecting this end more expeditiously and 
 with less labour. First he tried to produce the requisite 
 vacuum by the explosion of a small quantity of gunpowder in 
 the bottom of the cylinder, the momentary flame occasioned 
 by which he thought would expel the air through a valve open- 
 ing upwards in the piston, while the immediate fall of the valve, 
 on the action of the flame being spent, would prevent its re- 
 intrusion. But he never was able to effect a very complete 
 vacuum by this method. He then, about the year 1690, be- 
 thought him of making use of steam for that purpose. This 
 vapour, De Cans had long ago remarked, was recondensed and 
 restored to the state of water by cold ; but up to this time the 
 attention of no person seems to have been awakened to the 
 important advantage that might be taken of this one of its 
 properties. Papin for the first time availed himself of it in his 
 lifting machine, to produce the vacuum he wanted. Introduc- 
 ing a small quantity of water into the bottom of his cylinder, 
 he heated it by a fire underneath, till it boiled and gave forth 
 steam, which, by its powerful expansion, raised the piston from 
 its original position in contact with the water, to a considerable 
 height above it, even in opposition to the pressure of the atmo- 
 sphere on its other side. This done, he then removed the fire, on 
 which the steam again became condensed into water, and, occupy- 
 ing now about the seventeen hundredth part of its former dimen- 
 sions, left a vacant space through which the piston was carried 
 down by its own gravitation and the pressure of the atmosphere. 
 The machine thus proposed by Papin was abundantly 
 defective in the subordinate parts of 'ts mechanism, and, unim-
 
 JAMES WATT. 25 
 
 proved, could not have operated with much effect. But, 
 imperfect as it was, it exemplified two new principles of the 
 highest importance, neither of which appears to have been 
 thought of, in the application of the power of steam, before his 
 time. The first is the communication of the moving force of 
 that agent to bodies upon which it cannot conveniently act 
 directly, by means of the piston and its rod. The second is 
 the deriving of the moving force desired, not from the expansion 
 of steam, but from its other equally valuable property of con- 
 densibility by mere exposure to cold. Papin, however, it is 
 curious enough, afterwards abandoned his piston and method 
 of condensation, and reverted to the old plan of making the 
 steam act directly by its expansive force upon the water to be 
 raised. It is doubtful, however, whether he ever actually erected 
 any working engine upon either of these constructions. Indeed, 
 the improvement of the steam-engine could scarcely be said to 
 have been the principal object of those experiments of his 
 which, nevertheless, contributed so greatly to that result It 
 was, in fact, as we have seen, with the view of perfecting a 
 machine contrived originally without any reference to the 
 application of steam, that he was first induced to have recourse 
 to the powers of that agent. The moving force with which he 
 set out was the pressure of the atmosphere ; and he employed 
 steam merely as a means of enabling that other power to act. 
 Even by such a seemingly subordinate application, however, of 
 the new element, he happily discovered and bequeathed to his 
 successors the secret of some of its most valuable capabilities. 
 
 We may here conveniently notice another ingenious con- 
 trivance, of essential service in the steam-engine, for which we 
 are also indebted to Papin — we mean the safety-valve. This is 
 merely a lid or stopper, closing an aperture in the boiler, and
 
 2 6 HER OES O F INVENTION AND DISCO VER V. 
 
 so loaded as to resist the expansive force of the steam up to a 
 certain point, while at the same time, it must give way and 
 allow free vent to the pent-up element, long before it can have 
 acquired sufficient strength to burst the boiler. The safety- 
 valve, however, was not introduced into the steam-engine either by 
 Papin, or for some years after his time. It was employed by him 
 only in the apparatus still known by the name of his digester, a 
 contrivance for producing a very powerful heat in cookery and 
 chemical preparations, by means of highly-concentrated steam. 
 We now come to the engine invented by Captain Savery in 
 1698. This gentleman, we are told, having one day drank a 
 flask of Florence wine at a tavern, afterwards threw the empty 
 flask upon the fire, when he was struck by perceiving that the 
 small quantity of liquid still left in it very soon filled it with 
 steam, under the influence of the heat. Taking it up again 
 while thus full of vapour, he now plunged it, with the mouth 
 downwards, into a basin of cold water, which happened to be 
 on the table ; by which means the steam being instantly con- 
 centrated, a vacuum was produced within the flask, into which 
 the water immediately rushed up from the basin. According to 
 another version of the story, it was the accidental circumstance 
 of his immersing a heated tobacco-pipe into water, and perceiving 
 the water immediately rush up through the tube, on the concen- 
 tration by the cold of the warm and thin air, that first suggested 
 to Savery the important use that might be made of steam, or any 
 other gas expanded by heat, as a means of creating a vacuum. 
 He did not, however, employ steam for this purpose in the same 
 manner that Papin had done. Instead of a piston moving 
 under the pressure of the atmosphere through the vacuum 
 produced by the concentration of the steam, he availed himself 
 of such a vacuum merely to permit the rise of the water into it
 
 JAMES WATT. 27 
 
 from the well or mine below, exactly as in the common sucking- 
 pump. Having thus raised the water to the level of the boiler, 
 he afterwards allowed it to flow into another vessel, from whence 
 he sent it to a greater height by the same method which had 
 been many years before employed by the Marquis of 
 Worcester, — namely, by making the expansive force of the 
 steam act upon it directly, and so force it up in opposition to 
 its own gravity and the resistance of the atmosphere. 
 
 Savery showed much ingenuity and practical skill in contriv- 
 ing means of facilitating and improving the working of the 
 apparatus which he had devised upon these principles; and 
 many of his engines were erected for supplying gentlemen's 
 houses with water and other purposes, in different parts of the 
 country. The machine also received many improvements after 
 the death of the original inventor. It was considerably simpli- 
 fied, in particular, by Dr. Desaguliers, about the year 17 18; 
 and this gentleman also contrived a method of concentrating 
 the steam by the injection of a small current of cold water into 
 the receiver, instead of the old method employed by Savery, of 
 dashing the water over the outside of the vessel, which cooled 
 it to an unnecessary degree, and occasioned, therefore, a 
 wasteful expenditure of fuel. It was Desaguliers who first 
 introduced the safety-valve into the steam-engine, although 
 Papin had previously suggested such an application of the 
 contrivance. Engines upon Savery's principle have continued 
 to be constructed, down to oui own times ; and, as they can be 
 made at a comparatively small expense, they are found to answer 
 very well in situations where water has to be raised only a short 
 way. This engine is, in fact, merely a combination of the com- 
 mon sucking-pump (except that the requisite vacuum is produced 
 by the condensation of steam, and without the aid of a piston)
 
 2 8 HER OES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER Y. 
 
 with the contrivance proposed by De Caus and the Marquis of 
 
 Worcester for the appUcation of the expansive force of steam ; 
 
 and, wherever the machine can be economically employed, the 
 
 former part of it is that which operates with by far the most effect 
 
 Not long after Savery had invented his engine, Thomas 
 
 Newcomen, an ironmonger, and John Galley, a glazier, both of 
 
 Dartmouth, in Devonshire, began also to direct their attention 
 
 to the employment of steam as a mechanic power. Theii 
 
 first engine was constructed about the year 1711. This 
 
 contrivance, which is commonly known by the name of New- 
 
 comen's engine, proceeded mainly upon the principle formerly 
 
 adopted by Papin, but subsequently abandoned both by him 
 
 and those who immediately followed him in the cultivation of 
 
 this department of mechanics, of making the moving power of 
 
 the machinery the weight of the atmosphere acting upon a 
 
 piston, so as to carry it down through a vacuum created by the 
 
 condensation of the steam. Newcomen's apparatus is, on this 
 
 account, often distinguished by the name of the Atmospheric 
 
 engine. Its inventors, however, instead of adopting Papin's 
 
 clumsy method of cooling his steam by the removal of the fire, 
 
 employed, in the first instance, the expedient of pouring cold 
 
 water on the containing vessel, as Savery had done before them, 
 
 though without being aware, it is said, of his prior claim to the 
 
 improvement. They afterwards exchanged this for the still 
 
 better method, already described as introduced by Desaguliers 
 
 into Savery's engine, of injecting a stream of water into the 
 
 cylinder, which is said to have been suggested to them by the 
 
 accident of some water having found admission to the steam 
 
 through a hole which happened to have worn itself in the 
 
 piston. This engine of Newcomen, which in the course of a 
 
 very few years after its invention was brought to as high a state
 
 JAMES WATT. 29 
 
 of perfection as the principle seems to admit of, afforded the 
 first important exemphfication of the vakie of steam in 
 mechanics. Savery's, the only other practical contrivance which 
 had been proposed, had been found quite inadequate to the 
 raising of water from any considerable depth, its principal 
 power, as we have already remarked, lying, in fact, in the part 
 of it which acted as a sucking-pump, and by which, as such, 
 water could only be raised till its column was of equal weight 
 with a column of the atmosphere of the same base. It was 
 nearly useless, therefore, as an apparatus for pumping up water 
 from mines; the grand object for which a moving force of 
 extraordinary power was at this time in demand. But here 
 Newcomen's engine proved of essential service. Many mines 
 that had long remained unwrought were, immediately after its 
 invention, again rendered accessible, and gradually excavated 
 to great depths ; while others were opened, and their treasures 
 sought after with equal success, which but for its assistance 
 could never have been attempted. It was applied also to 
 various other important purposes. 
 
 Newcomen's engine, however, notwithstanding its usefulness, 
 especially in cases where no other known power could be 
 applied, was still in some respects a very defective contrivance, 
 and by no means adapted to secure the complete command of 
 the energies of steam. The great waste of fuel, in particular, 
 which was still occasioned by the degree to which the cylinder 
 was cooled after every stroke of the piston, from the cold water 
 injected into it, rendered it scarcely any saving of expense to 
 employ this engine in circmnstances where animal power was 
 available. Its whole force, too, the reader will observe, as a 
 moving power, was limited to what could be obtained by 
 atmospheric pressure alone, which, even could the vacuum
 
 30 HEROES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VERY. 
 
 under the piston have been rendered quite perfect, and all ob- 
 structions from friction annihilated, could only have amounted 
 to about fifteen pounds for every square inch of the surface 
 of the piston. The expansive force of steam was not, in fact, 
 at all employed in this contrivance as a moving power ; could 
 the vacuum necessary to permit the descent of the piston have 
 been as expeditiously and conveniently produced by any other 
 agency, that of steam might have been dispensed with alto- 
 gether. An air-pump, for instance, attached to the lower part 
 of the cylinder, as originally proposed by Otto Guericke, might 
 have rendered all the service which steam was here called upon 
 to perform ; and in that case, this element, with the fuel by 
 which it was generated, might have been dispensed with, and 
 the machine would not have been a steam-engine at all. This 
 view of the matter may, in some degree, account for the com- 
 plete neglect of steam as a moving power which so long pre- 
 vailed after Newcomcn's engine was brought into use, notwith 
 standing the proofs of its capabilities in that character which 
 had been afforded by the attempts of the earlier speculators. 
 It was now regarded simply as affording the easiest means of 
 obtaining a ready vacuum, in consequence of its property of 
 rapid condensation on the application of cold ; its other pro- 
 perty of extraordinary expansion, which had first attracted to it 
 the attention of mechanicians, and presented in reality a much 
 more obvious aj)plication of it as a mechanical agent, had been 
 entirely neglected. The only improvements of the engine 
 which were attempted or thought of were such as referred to 
 what may be called its subordinate mechanism, — that is to say, 
 the contrivances for facilitating the alternate supplies of the 
 steam and the water on which its action depended ; and after 
 Mr. Beighton had, about tlie year 1718, made the machine
 
 JAMES WATT. 31 
 
 itself shut and open the cocks by which these supph'es were 
 regulated, instead of having that service performed as at first 
 by an attendant, there remained little more to be done even 
 in this department. The steam might be applied with more 
 ease and readiness, but not with any augmentation of effect; 
 the power of the engine could be increased only by a more 
 plentiful application of atmospheric pressure. It was with 
 propriety, therefore, that Newcomen's invention was called, not 
 a steam, but an atmospheric engine. 
 
 For half-a-century, accordingly, after the improvements 
 introduced by Beighton, who may be considered as the per- 
 fector of this engine, no further progress worth mentioning was 
 made in the application of steam as an agent in mechanics. 
 The engine itself was more and more extensively employed, 
 notwithstanding its defects ; but no better method was proposed 
 of calling into exercise the stupendous powers of the clement, 
 which, by means of only one of its remarkable properties, was 
 here shown to be capable of rendering such valuable service. Our 
 knowledge of what might be done by steam was in this state when 
 the subject at last happily attracted the attention of Watt. 
 
 James Watt was born at Greenock, on the 19th of January, 
 1736. His father was a merchant, and also one of the magis- 
 trates 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 attend- 
 ance 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 any 
 assistance he succeeded at a very early age in making consider- 
 able proficiency in various branches ot knowledge. Even 
 at this time his favourite study is said to have been mechanical
 
 3 2 HEROES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER Y. 
 
 science, to a love of which he was probably in some degree 
 led by the example of his grandfather and his uncle, both of 
 whom had been teachers of the mathematics, and had left a 
 considerable reputation for learning and ability in that depart- 
 ment. Young Watt, however, was not indebted to any instruc- 
 tions 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 Scotland ; and he never received any further instruc- 
 tion in his profession. A year or two after this, however, a 
 visit which he paid to some relations in Glasgow suggested to 
 him the plan of attempting to establish himself in that city in 
 the line for which he had been educated. In 1757, accordingly, 
 he removed thither, and was immediately appointed mathe- 
 matical instrument maker to the College. In this situation he 
 remained for some years, during which, notwithstanding almost 
 constant ill health, he continued both to prosecute his pro- 
 fession, and to labour in the general cultivation of his mind, 
 with extraordinary ardour and perseverance. Here also he 
 enjoyed the friendship and intimacy of several distinguished 
 persons who were then members of the University, especially 
 of the celebrated Dr. Black, the discoverer of the principle of 
 latent heat, and Mr. (afterwards Dr.) John Robison, so well 
 known by his treatises on mechanical science, who was then a 
 student and about the same age with himself. Honourable, 
 however, as his present appointment was, and important as 
 were many of the advantages to which it introduced him, he 
 probably did not find it a very lucrative one ; and therefore, in 
 1763, when about to marry, he removed from his apartments
 
 JAMES WATT. 33 
 
 in the University to a house in the city, and entered upon the 
 profession of a general engineer. 
 
 For this his genius and scientific attainments admirably 
 qualified him. Accordingly, he soon acquired a high reputa- 
 tion, and was extensively employed in making surveys and 
 estimates for canals, harbours, bridges, and other public works. 
 His advice and assistance indeed were sought for in almost all 
 the important improvements of this description which were 
 now undertaken or proposed in his native country. But 
 another pursuit, in which he had been for some time privately 
 engaged, was destined ere long to withdraw him from this line 
 of exertion, and to occupy his whole mind with an object still 
 more worthy of its extraordinary powers. 
 
 While yet residing in the College his attention had been 
 directed to the employment of steam as a mechanical agent 
 by some speculations of his friend Mr. Robison, with regard 
 to the practicability of applying it to the movement of wheel- 
 carriages ; and he had also himself made some experiments 
 with Papin's digester, with the view of ascertaining its expansive 
 force. He had not prosecuted the inquiry, however, so far as 
 to have arrived at any determinate result, when, in the winter 
 of 1763-64, 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 upon thinking anew, and with more interest 
 than ever, on the powers of steam. 
 
 The first thing that attracted his attention about the machine 
 before him, the cylinder of which was only of two inches 
 diameter, while the piston descended through six inches, was 
 the insufficiency of the boiler, although proportionally a good 
 deal larger than in the worlcing engines, to supply the requisite
 
 34 HER OES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER Y. 
 
 quantity of steam for the creation of the vacuum. In order to 
 remedy this defect he was obliged, in repairing the model, to 
 diminish the column of water to be raised ; in other words, to 
 give the piston less to do, in compensation for its having to 
 descend, not through a perfect vacuum, but in opposition to a 
 considerable residue of undisplaced air. He also soon dis- 
 covered the reason why in this instance the steam sent up from 
 the boiler was not sufficient to fill the cylinder. In the first 
 place, this containing vessel, being made, not of cast-iron, as in 
 the larger engines, but of brass, abstracted more of the heat 
 from the steam, and so weakened its* expansion ; and secondly, 
 it exposed a much larger surface to the steam, in proportion to 
 its capacity, than the cylinders of the larger engines did, and 
 this operated still more strongly to produce the same effect. 
 Led by the former of these considerations, he made some ex- 
 periments in the first instance with the view of discovering some 
 other material whereof to form the cylinder of the engine which 
 should be less objectionable than either brass or cast-iron ; and 
 he proposed to substitute wood, soaked in oil, and baked dry. 
 But his speculations soon took a much wider scope; and, 
 struck with the radical imperfections of the atmospheric engine, 
 he began to turn in his mind the possibiHty of employing steam 
 in mechanics, in some new manner which should enable it to 
 operate with much more powerful effect. This idea having got 
 possession of him, he engaged in an extensive course of experi- 
 ments, for the purpose of ascertaining as many facts as possible 
 with regard to the properties of steam ; and the pains he took 
 in this investigation were rewarded with several valuable dis- 
 coveries. 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
 
 JAMES WATT. 35 
 
 exposed to the fire. He also ascertained the quantity of coals 
 necessary for the evaporation 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 complete knowledge of the properties ot 
 the agent with which he had to work, he next proceeded to 
 take into consideration, with a view to their amendment, 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, of cooling the cylinder, before every 
 stroke of the piston, by the water injected into it. On this 
 account, a much more powerful application of heat than would 
 otherwise have been requisite was demanded for the purpose of 
 again heating that vessel when it was to be refilled with steam. 
 In fact. Watt ascertained that there was thus occasioned, in the 
 feeding of the machine, a waste of not less than three-fourths 
 of the whole fuel employed. If the cylinder, instead of being 
 thus cooled for every stroke of the piston, could be kept per- 
 manently hot, a fourth part of the heat which had been hitherto 
 applied would be found to be sufficient to produce steam enough 
 to fill it. How, then, was this desideratum to be attained? 
 De Caus had proposed to effect the condensation of the steam 
 by actually removing the furnace from under the boiler before 
 every stroke of the piston; but this, in a working engine, 
 evidently would have been found quite impracticable. Savery, 
 the first v/ho really constructed a working engine, and whose 
 arrangements, as we have already remarked, all showed a very 
 superior ingenuity, employed the method of throwing cold 
 water over the outside of the vessel containing his steam — a 
 perfectly manageable process, but at the same time a very
 
 3 6 HER OES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER V. 
 
 tvasteful one ; inasmuch as, every time it was repeated, it cooled 
 not only the steam, but the vessel also, which, therefore, had 
 again to be heated by a large expenditure of fuel before the 
 steam could be reproduced. Newcomen's method of injecting 
 the water into the cylinder was a considerable improvement on 
 this ; but it was still objectionable on the same ground, though 
 not to the same degree ; it still cooled not only the steam, on 
 which it was desired to produce that effect, but also the cylinder 
 itself, which, as the vessel in which more steam was to be im- 
 mediately manufactured, it was so important to keep hot. It 
 was also a very serious objection to this last-mentioned 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 was used, the more considerable 
 did this creation of new steam become. In fact, in the best of 
 Newcomen's engines, the perfection of the vacuum was so 
 greatly impaired from this cause, that the resistance experienced 
 by the piston in its descent was found to amount 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 for some time upon all this, it at last occurred 
 to Watt to consider whether it might not be possible, instead 
 of continuing to condense the steam in the cylinder, to contrive 
 a method of drawing it off, to undergo that operation in some 
 other vessel. This fortunate idea having presented itself to his 
 thoughts, it was not very long before his ingenuity also suggested 
 to him the means of realising it. In the course of one or two 
 days, according to his own account, he had all the necessary 
 apparatus arranged in his mind. The plan which he devised, 
 indeed, was an extremely simple one, and on that account the
 
 JAMES WATT. 37 
 
 more beautiful. He proposed to establish a communication by 
 an open pipe between the cylinder and another vessel, the con- 
 sequence of which evidently would be, that when the steam was 
 admitted into the former, it would flow into the latter so as to 
 fill it also. If, then, the portion in this latter vessel only should 
 be subjected to a condensing process, by being brought into 
 contact with cold water, or any other convenient means, what 
 would follow ? Why, a vacuum would be produced here — into 
 that, as a vent, more steam would immediately rush from the 
 cylinder — that likewise would be condensed — and so the process 
 would go on till all the steam had left the cylinder, 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, would be 
 cooled by the water used to condense the steam — and that, 
 instead of being an evil, manifestly tended to promote and 
 quicken the condensation. When Watt reduced these views to 
 the test of 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 con- 
 stantly kept at the same temperature with the steam (or 212° 
 Fahrenheit) ; and the consequence was, that one-fourth of the 
 fuel formerly required sufficed to feed the engine. But besides 
 this most important saving in the expense of maintaining the 
 engine, its power was greatly increased by the more perfect 
 vacuum produced by the new construction, in which the con- 
 densing water, being no longer admitted within the cylinder, 
 could not, as before, create new steam there while displacing 
 the old. The first method which Watt adopted of cooling the 
 steam in the condenser was to keep that vessel surrounded by 
 cold water — considering it as an objection to the admission ol
 
 3 8 HER OES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER Y. 
 
 the water into its interior, that it might be difficult in that case 
 to convey it away as fast as it would accumulate. But he found 
 that the condensation was not effected in this manner with so 
 much rapidity as was desirable. It was necessary for him, too, 
 at any rate to employ a pump attached to the condenser, in 
 order to draw off both the small quantity of water deposited 
 by the cooled steam, and the air unavoidably introduced by 
 the same element — either of which, if allowed to accumulate, 
 would have impaired the perfect vacuum necessary to attract 
 the steam from the cylinder. He therefore deiermined event- 
 ually to admit also the additional quantity of water required for 
 the business of condensation, and merely to employ a larger 
 and more powerful pump to carry off the whole. 
 
 Such, then, was the remedy by which the geniu:J of this great 
 inventor effectually cured the first and most serious defect of 
 the old apparatus. In carrying his ideas into execution, he 
 encountered, as was to be expected, many difficulties arising 
 principally from the impossibility of realising theoretical perfec- 
 tion of structure with such materials as human art is obliged to 
 work with ; but his ingenuity and perseverance overcame every 
 obstacle. One of the things which cost him the greatest trouble 
 was, how to fit the piston so exactly to the cylinder is without 
 affecting the freedom of its motion, to prevent llie passage of 
 the air between the two. In the old engine this end had been 
 attained by covering the piston with a small quantity of water, 
 the dripping down of which into the space below, where it 
 merely mixed with the stream introduced to effect the conden- 
 sation, was of little or no consequejice. But in the new 
 construction, the superiority of which consisted in keeping this 
 receptacle for the steam always both hot and dry, such an 
 effusion of moisture, although only in very small quantities,
 
 JAMES WATT. 39 
 
 would have occasioned material inconvenience. The air alone 
 besides, 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 object, conducted Watt also to 
 another improvement, which effected the complete removal of 
 what we have called the second radical imperfection of New- 
 comen's engine — namely, its non-employment, for a moving 
 power, of the expansive force of the steam. The effectual way, 
 it occurred to him, of preventing any air from escaping into the 
 part of the cylinder below the piston, would be to dispense v/ith 
 the use of that element above the piston, and to substitute there 
 likewise the same contrivance as below, of 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 contrived accordingly, by a proper 
 arrangement of the cocks and the machinery 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 
 expansive force, to impel the piston. Steam, in fact, was now 
 restored to be, what it had been in the early attempts to use it 
 as a mechanical agent, the moving power of the engine ; but its 
 efficiency in this capacity was for the first time both taken full 
 advantage ::)i, by means of contrivances properly arranged for
 
 40 HEROES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VERY. 
 
 that end, and combined with, and aided by, its other equally 
 valuable property which had alone been called into action in the 
 more recent machines. 
 
 These were the great improvements which Watt introduced 
 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 conquest that has at last 
 been 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 
 ingenuity which the engine, as finally perfected by him, displays 
 in every part of its subordinate mechanism, is calculated to 
 strike us, perhaps, with scarcely less admiration. It forms, 
 undoubtedly, the best exemplification that has ever been 
 afforded of the number and diversity of services which a piece 
 of machinery may be made to render to itself by means solely 
 of the various application of its first moving power, when that 
 has once been called into action. Of these contrivances, how- 
 ever, we can only notice one or two, by way of specimen. 
 Perhaps the most singular is that called the governor. This 
 consists of an upright spindle, which is kept constantly turning, 
 by being connected with a certain part of the machinery, and 
 from which two balls are suspended in opposite directions by 
 rods, attached by joints, 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 likewise, 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 actuates them — or
 
 JAMES WATT. 41 
 
 approach nearer to each other in the opposite circumstances. 
 This alone would have served to indicate the state of matters to 
 the eye ; but Watt was not to be so satisfied. He connected 
 the rods with a 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 aUment. 
 Again, the constant supply of a sufficiency of water to the boiler 
 is secured by an equally simple provision — namely, by z. float 
 resting on the surface of the water, which, as soon as it is car- 
 ried 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 
 cannot 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 a clock records the beats 
 of its pendulum; — it regulates the quantity of steam admitted to 
 work ; — the briskness of the fire; — the supply of water to the 
 boiler; — the supply of coals to the lire ; — it opens and shuts its 
 t'^/z;^j with absolute precision as to time and manner; — xt oils 
 its joints ; — it takes out any air which may accidentally enter 
 into parts which should be vacuous ; and when anything goes 
 wrong which it cannot of 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
 
 42 HEROES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER Y. 
 
 to the hand of a child ; — its aliment is coal, wood, charcoal, or 
 other combustible, — it consumes none while idle, — it never 
 tires, and wants 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-pump, a miner, a sailor, a cotton- 
 spinner, a weaver, a blacksmith, a miller, &c, &c. ; and a small 
 engine, in the character of a steam pony, may be seen dragging 
 after it on a railroad a hundred tons of merchandise, or a regi- 
 ment of soldiers, with greater speed than that of our fleetest 
 coaches. It is the king of machines, and a permanent 
 realisation of the Genii of Eastern fable, whose supernatural 
 powers were occasionally at the command of man." 
 
 In addition to those difficulties which his unrivalled mechan- 
 ical ingenuity enabled him to surmount. Watt, notwithstanding 
 the merit of his inventions, had to contend for some time with 
 others of a different nature, in his attempts to reduce them to 
 practice. He had no pecuniary 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 spirited 
 speculator, who had just established the Carron iron-works, not 
 far from Glasgow, and held also at this time a lease of the 
 extensive 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 
 diameter was soon after erected at Kinneal ; and although, as 
 a first experiment, it was necessarily in some respects of defect- 
 ive construction, its working completely demonstrated the great
 
 JAMES WATT. 43 
 
 value of Watt's improvements. But Dr. Roebuck, whose under- 
 takings were very numerous and various, in no long time after 
 forming this connection, found himself involved in such pecu- 
 niary difficulties, as to put it out of his power to make any 
 further advances in prosecution of its object. Qn this Watt 
 employed 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. Roebuck were at an end, he resolved to close with a pro- 
 ' posal 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 the eminent hardware manufacturer, 
 Mr. Boulton, whose extensive establishments at Soho had 
 already become famous over Europe, and procured for England 
 an unrivalled reputation for the arts there carried on. Accord- 
 ingly, 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-engines in the year 1775. 
 
 Mr. Watt now obtained from Parliament an extension of his 
 patent for twenty-five years from this date, in consideration of 
 the acknowledged 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 liberal principle of receiv- 
 ing as payment for each, only one-third of the saving in fuel 
 which it should effect, as compared with one of the old con- 
 struction. As this saving, however, had been found to amount 
 in the whole to fully three-fourths of all the fuel that had been 
 wont to be employed, the revenue thus accruing to the patentees
 
 44 HER OES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER Y 
 
 became very great after their engines were extensively adopted 
 This they very soon were, especially in Cornwall, where the 
 numerous mines afforded a vast field for the employment of 
 the new power, partly in continuing or commencing works 
 which only an economised expenditure could make profitable, 
 and often also in labours which the old engine was altogether 
 inadequate to attempt. 
 
 But the draining of mines was only one of many applications 
 of the steam powLt now at his command which Watt contem- 
 plated, and in course of time accomplished. During the whole 
 twenty-five years, indeed, over which his renewed patent 
 extended, the perfecting of his invention was his chief occupa- 
 tion ; and, notwithstanding a delicate state of health, and the 
 depressing affliction of severe headaches to which he was 
 extremely subject, he continued throughout this period to per- 
 severe 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 in various circumstances, and between the 
 years 1781 and 1785 he took out four different patents for 
 inventions having this object in view. In the midst of these 
 scientific labours, too, his attention was much distracted by 
 attempts which were made in several quarters to pirate his 
 improvements, and the consequent necessity of defending 
 his rights in a series of actions, which, notwithstanding suc- 
 cessive verdicts in his favour, did not terminate till the year 
 1799, when the validity of his claims was finally confirmed 
 by the unanimous decision of the Judges of the Court of 
 King's Bench.
 
 JAMES WATT. 45 
 
 Watt's inexhaustible ingenuity displayed itself in various other 
 contrivances beside those which make part of his steam-engine. 
 An apparatus for copying letters and other writings, now in 
 extensive use ; a method of heating houses by steam ; a new 
 composition, for the purposes of sculpture, having the trans- 
 parency and nearly the hardness of marble ; a machine for 
 multiplying copies of busts and other performances in carving 
 or statuary, — are enumerated among his minor inventions. 
 But it is his steam-engine that forms the great monument of his 
 genius, and that has conferred upon his name its imperishable 
 renown. This invention has already gone far to revolutionise 
 the whole domain of human industry ; and almost every year 
 is adding to its power and its conquests. In our manufactures, 
 our arts, our commerce, our social accommodations, it is con- 
 stantly achieving what, little more than half-a-century ago, 
 would have been counted miracles and impossibilities. " The 
 trunk of an elephant, it has been finely and truly said, that can 
 pick up a pin, or rend an oak, is as nothing to it. It can 
 engrave a seal, and crash masses of obdurate metal like wax 
 before it, — 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." And another application of it, which was 
 made but a short time afterwards, was destined to be pro- 
 ductive of still greater changes on the condition of society 
 than have resulted from any of its previous achievements. 
 It had been employed, several years previously, at some of 
 our collieries, in the propelling of heavily-loaded carriages over 
 railways ; but the great experiment of the Liverpool and Man- 
 chester Railway (opened in 1830) had, tor the lirst time, practi-
 
 46 HER OES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER Y. 
 
 cally demonstrated with what hitherto almost undreamt-of 
 rapidity travelling by land may hereafter be carried on through 
 the aid of steam. Coaches, under the impetus communicated 
 by this, the most potent, and at the same time the most per- 
 fectly controllable of all our mechanical agencies, were destined 
 to be drawn forward at the flying speed of thirty and thirty-five 
 miles an-hour. When so much has been done already, it would 
 be rash to conclude that even this is to be our ultimate limit of 
 attainment In navigation, the resistance of the water, which 
 increases rapidly as the force opposed to it increases, very soon 
 sets bounds to the rate at which even the power of steam can 
 impel a vessel forward. But, on land, the thin medium of the air 
 presents no such insurmountable obstacle to a force making its 
 way through it ; and a rapidity of movement may perhaps be 
 eventually attained here, which is to us even as yet inconceivable. 
 But even when the rate of land travelling already shown to be 
 quite practicable shall have become universal in what a new 
 state of society shall we find ourselves ! When we are able to 
 travel a hundred miles in any direction in six or eight hours, into 
 what comparative neighbourhood will the remotest extremes 
 even of a large country be brought, and how little shall we 
 think of what we now call distance ! A nation will then be, 
 indeed, a community ; and all the benefits of the highest civili- 
 sation, instead of being confined to one central spot, will be 
 diffused equally over the land, like the light of heaven. This 
 improvement, in short, when fully consummated, confers upon 
 man nearly as much new power and new enjoyment as it he 
 were actually endowed with wings. 
 
 It is gratifying to reflect that even while he was yet alive. 
 Watt received from the voice of the most illustrious of his 
 contemporaries the honours due to his genius. In 1785 he was
 
 JAMES WATT. 47 
 
 elected a Fellow of the Royal Society ; the degree of 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 84th 
 year of his age. 
 
 We cannot better conclude our sketch of the life of this great 
 inventor than by the following extract from the character that 
 has been drawn of him by the eloquent writer (Lord Jeffrey) 
 whom we have already quoted : — 
 
 " Independently of his great attainments in mechanics, Mr 
 Watt was an extraordinary, and in many respects a wonderful 
 man. Perhaps no individual in his age possessed so much and 
 such varied and exact information, — had read so much, or 
 remembered what he had read so accurately and well. He had 
 infinite quickness of apprehension, a prodigious memory, and a 
 certain rectifying and methodising power of understanding, which 
 extracted something precious out of all that was presented to it. 
 His stores of miscellaneous knowledge were immense, and yet 
 less astonishing than the command he had at all times over them. 
 It seemed as if every subject that was casually started in conver- 
 sation had been that which he had been last occupied in study- 
 ing and exhausting; such was the copiousness, the precision, 
 and the admirable clearness of the information which he poured 
 out upon it without effort or hesitation. Nor was this prompti- 
 tude and compass of knowledge confined in any degree to the 
 studies connected with his ordinary pursuits. That he should 
 have been minutely and extensively skilled in chemistry and the 
 arts, and in most of the branches of physical science, might per- 
 haps have been conjectured ; but it could not have been inferred 
 from his usual occupations, and probably is not generally known, 
 that he was curiously learned in many branches of antiquity, meta-
 
 43 HER OES OE INVENTION AND DISCO VER Y. 
 
 physics, medicine, and etymology, and perfectly at home in all the 
 details of architecture, music, and law. He was well acquainted, 
 too, with most of the modern languages, and familiar with their 
 most recent literature. Nor was it at all extraordinary to hear 
 the great mechanician and engineer detailing and expounding, 
 for hours together, the metaphysical theories of the German 
 logicians, or criticising the measures or the matter of the German 
 poetry. 
 
 " His astonishing memory was aided, no doubt, in a great 
 measure, by a still higher and rarer faculty— by his power of 
 digesting and arranging in its proper place all the information 
 he received, and of casting aside and rejecting, as it were 
 instinctively, whatever was worthless or immaterial. Every 
 conception that was suggested to his mind seemed instantly to 
 take its place among its other rich furniture, and to be 
 condensed into the smallest and most convenient form. He 
 never appeared, therefore, to be at all encumbered or perplexed 
 with the verbiage of the dull books he perused, or the idle talk 
 to which he listened; but to have at once extracted, by a kind 
 of intellectual alchemy, all that was worthy of attention, and to 
 have reduced it for his own use to its true value and to its 
 simplest form. 
 
 And thus it often happened, that a great deal more was 
 learned from his brief and vigorous account of the theories and 
 arguments of tedious writers, than an ordinary student could 
 ever have derived from the most faithful study of the originals, 
 and that errors and absurdities became manifest from the mere 
 clearness and plainness of his statement of them, which might 
 have deluded and perplexed most of his hearers without that 
 invaluable assistance."
 
 JAMES WATT. ^g 
 
 The monumental inscription written by Lord Brougham for 
 the statue of Watt in Westminster Abbey, is as follows :-~ 
 
 Not to perpetuate a Name 
 
 Which must endure while the peaceful Arts flourish 
 
 But to show 
 
 That mankind have learned to honour those 
 
 Who best deserve their gratitude 
 
 The King 
 
 ilis Ministers and many of the Nobles 
 
 And Commons of the Reahn 
 
 Raised this monument to 
 
 JAMES WATT 
 
 Who directing the force of an original genius 
 
 Early exercised in philosophic researcli 
 
 To the improvement of the 
 
 Steam-engine 
 
 Enlarged the resources of his country 
 
 Increased the power of man 
 
 And rose to an eminent place 
 
 Among the most illustrious followers of Science 
 
 And ihe real benefactors of the world. 
 
 — -fc;<f$?<SK-4^»-s" 
 
 l£
 
 so HER OES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER Y. 
 
 SIR HUMPHREY DAW 
 
 IR HUMPHREY DAVY was born in 1778, at Pen 
 zance, in Cornwall. His father followed the profession 
 of a carver in wood in that town, where many of his perfor- 
 mances are still to be seen in the houses of the inhabitants. 
 All that we are told of Davy's school education is, that he was 
 taught the rudiments of classical learning at a seminary in 
 Truro. He was then placed by his father with an apothecary 
 and surgeon in his native place. But, instead of attending to 
 his profession, he spent his time either in rambUng about the 
 country or experimenting in his master's garret, sometimes to 
 the no small danger of the whole establishment ; and the doctor 
 and he at last agreed to part. About his fifteenth year he was 
 placed as pupil with another surgeon residing in Penzance; 
 but it does not appear that his second master had much more 
 success than his first in attempting to give him a liking for the 
 medical profession. The future philosopher, however, had 
 already begun to devote himself, of his own accord, to those 
 sciences in which he afterwards so greatly distinguished himself j 
 and proceeding upon a plan of study which he had laid down 
 for himself, he had, by the time he was eighteen, obtained a 
 thorough knowledge of the rudiments of natural philosophy and 
 chemistry, as well as made some proficiency in botany, anatomy.
 
 SIR HUMPHREY DAVY. 51 
 
 and geometry. The subject of metaphysics, it is stated, was 
 also embraced in his reading at this period. 
 
 But chemistry was the science to which, of all others, he 
 gave himself with the greatest ardour ; and, even in this early 
 stage of his researches, he seems to have looked forward to 
 fame from his labours in this department. The writer of the 
 memoir of Sir Humphrey to which we are indebted for these 
 particulars, quotes an exclamation which broke from him one 
 day in after-life, when contemplating, along with a friend, a 
 picture of one of the mines of his native district, which shows 
 what were the visions of his solitary rambles. " How often, 
 when a boy," said he, " have I wandered about those rocks in 
 search after new minerals, and, when tired, sat down upon those 
 crags, and exercised my fancy in anticipations of future renown !" 
 The peculiar features of this part of the country doubtless 
 contributed not a little to give hrs genius the direction it took. 
 The mineral riches concealed under the soil formed alone a 
 world of curious investigation. The rocky coast presented a 
 geological study of inexhaustible interest. Even the various 
 productions cast ashore by the sea were continually affording 
 new materials of examination to his inquisitive and reflecting 
 mind. The first original experiment, it is related, in which he 
 engaged, had for its object to ascertain the nature of the air 
 contained in the bladders of sea-weed. At this time he had no 
 other laboratory than what he contrived to furnish for himself, 
 by the assistance of his master's phials and gallipots, the pots 
 and pans used in the kitchen, and such other utensils as 
 accident threw in his way. These he converted, with great 
 ingenuity, to his own purposes. On one occasion, however, he 
 accounted himself particularly fortunate in a prize which he 
 made. This was a case of surgical instruments with which he
 
 5 2 HER OES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER Y. 
 
 was presented by the surgeon of a French vessel that had been 
 wrecked on the coast, to whom he had done some kind offices. 
 Examining his treasure with eagerness, Davy soon perceived 
 the valuable aid he might derive in his philosophical experi- 
 ments from some of the articles ; and one of the principal of 
 them was, in no long time, converted into a tolerable air-pump. 
 The proper use of the instruments was, of course, as little 
 thought of by their new possessor as that of his master's 
 gallipots was wont to be when he had got them up to his garret. 
 Davy's subsequent success as an experimentalist, it is well 
 remarked by the writer to whom we have referred above, was 
 probably owing, in no small degree, to the necessity he was 
 placed under in his earliest researches of exercising his skill 
 and ingenuity in this fashion. "Had he," proceeds his 
 biographer, "in the commencement of his career, been fur- 
 nished with all those appliances which he enjoyed at a later 
 period, it is more than probable that he might never have 
 acquired that wonderful tact of manipulation, that ability of 
 suggesting expedients, and of contriving apparatus so as to meet 
 and surmount the difificulties which must constantly arise 
 during the progress of the philosopher through the unbeaten 
 tracks and unexplored regions of science. In this art Davy 
 certainly stands unrivalled j and, like his prototype, Scheele, he 
 was unquestionably indebted for his address to the circum- 
 stances which have been alluded to : there never, perhaps, was 
 a more striking exemplification of the adage, that necessity is 
 the parent of invention." 
 
 A curious catalogue might be made of the shifts to which 
 ingenious students in different departments of art have resorted, 
 when, like Davy, they have wanted the proper instruments for 
 carrying on their inquiries or experiments. His is not the first
 
 SIR HUMPHREY DA VY. 53 
 
 case in which the stores of an apothecary's shop are recorded 
 to have fed the enthusiasm and materially assisted the labours 
 of the young cultivator of natural science. The Gemian 
 chemist, Scheele, who has just been mentioned, and whose 
 name ranks in his own department with the greatest of his time, 
 was, as well as Davy, apprenticed in early life to an apothecary. 
 While living in his master's house he used secretly to prosecute 
 the study of his favourite science by employing often half the 
 night in reading the works that treated of it, or making 
 experiments with instruments fabricated, as Davy's were, by 
 himself, and out of equally simple materials. Like the young 
 British philosopher, too, Scheele is recorded to have sometimes 
 alarmed the whole household by his detonations ; — an incident 
 which always brought down upon him the severe anger of his 
 master, and heavy menaces intended to deter him from ever 
 again applying himself to such dangerous studies, which, how- 
 ever, he did not long regard. It was at an apothecary's house, 
 as has been noticed in a former page, that Boyle and his Oxford 
 friends first held their scientific meetings, induced, as v.'e are 
 expressly told, by the opportunity they would thus have of 
 obtaining drugs wherewith to make their experiments. Newton 
 lodged with an apothecary, while at school, in the town ol 
 Grantham ; and as, even at that early age, he is known to have 
 been ardently devoted to scientific contrivances and experi- 
 ments, and to have been in the habit of converting all sorts of 
 articles into auxiliaries in his favourite pursuits, it is not probable 
 that the various strange preparations which filled the shelves 
 and boxes of his landlord's shop would escape his curious 
 examination. Although Newton's glory chiefly depends upon 
 his discoveries in abstract and mechanical science, some of his 
 speculations, and especially some of his writings on the subjects
 
 54 HEROES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER V. 
 
 of light and colour, show that the internal constitution of matter 
 and its chemical properties had also much occupied his thoughts. 
 Thus, too, in other departments, genius has found its sufficient 
 materials and instruments in the humblest and most common 
 articles, and the simplest contrivances. Fergusson observed 
 the places of the stars by means of a thread with a few beads 
 strung on it, and Tycho Brahe did the same thing with a pair 
 of compasses. The self-taught American philosopher, Ritten- 
 house, being, when a young man, employed as an agricultural 
 labourer, used to draw geometrical diagrams on his plough, 
 and study them as he turned up the furrow. Pascal, when a 
 mere boy, made himself master of many of the elementary 
 propositions of geometiy, without the assistance of any master, 
 by tracing the figures on the floor of his room with a bit of coal. 
 This, or a stick burned at the end, has often been the young 
 painter's first pencil, while the smoothest and whitest wall he 
 could find supplied the place of a canvas. Such, for example, 
 were the commencing essays of the early Tuscan artist, Andrea 
 del Castagno, who employed his leisure in this manner when 
 he was a little boy tending cattle, till his performances at last 
 attracted the notice of one of the Medici family, who placed 
 him under a proper master. The famous Salvator Rosa first 
 displayed his genius for design in the same manner. To these 
 instances may be added that of the English musical com- 
 poser Mr. John Davy, who is said, when only six years old, 
 to have begun the study and practice of his art by imitating 
 the chimes of a neighbouring church with eight horse-shoes, 
 which he suspended by strings from the ceiling of a room in 
 such a manner as to form an octave. 
 
 But to return to the subject of our notice. Davy first pursued 
 his chemical studies without teacher or guide, in the manner
 
 . SIR HUMPH RE Y DA I'Y. 5 5 
 
 that has been described, and aided only by the scantiest and 
 rudest apparatus. When still a lad, however, he was fortunate 
 in making the acquaintance of Mr. Gregory Watt, the son of 
 the celebrated James Watt. This gentleman, having come to 
 reside at Penzance for the recovery of his health, lodged with 
 Mrs. Davy, and soon discovered the talent of her son. The 
 scientific knowledge of Mr. Watt gave an accurate direction 
 to the studies of the young chemist, and excited him to 
 a systematic perseverance in his favourite pursuit Chance 
 attracted to him the notice of Mr. Davies Giddy (afterwards 
 Mr. Gilbert, and President of the Royal Society), which 
 the discovery of his merits soon improved into patronage 
 and friendship. The boy, we are told, was leaning on 
 the gate of his father's house when Mr. Gilbert passed 
 accompanied by some friends, one of whom remarked 
 that there was young Davy, who was so much attached to 
 chemistry. The mention of chemistry immediately fixed Mr. 
 Gilbert's attention ; he entered into conversation with the young 
 man, and, speedily becoming convinced of his extraordinary 
 talents and acquirements, offered him the use of his library, and 
 whatever other assistance he might require for the pursuit of his 
 studies. Mr. Gilbert and Mr. Watt soon after this introduced 
 Davy to the celebrated Dr. Beddoes, who had just established 
 at Bristol what he called his Pneumatic Institution, for investi- 
 gating the medical properties of the different gases. Davy, 
 who was now in his nineteenth year, had for some time been 
 thinking of proceeding to Edinburgh in order to pursue a regular 
 course of medical education ; but Dr. Beddoes, who had been 
 greatly struck by different proofs he had given of his talents, 
 and especially by an essay in which he expounded an original 
 theory of light and heat, having offered him the super-
 
 56 HEROES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER V. 
 
 intendence of his new institution, he at once closed with that 
 proposal. 
 
 The young philosopher was now fairly entered on his proper 
 path, and, from this period, we may consider him as having 
 escaped from the disadvantages of his early lot. But it was 
 while yet poor and unknown that he had made those acquire- 
 ments which both obtained for him the notice of his present 
 patrons, and fitted him for the situation in wliich they placed 
 him. His having attracted the attention of Mr. Gilbert, as he 
 stood at his father's gate, may be called a fortunate incident ; 
 but it was one that never would have happened had it not been 
 for the proficiency he had already made in science by his own 
 endeavours. Chance may be said to have offered this oppor- 
 tunity of emerging from obscurity ; but, had he not previously 
 laboured in the cultivation of his mind as he had done, it would 
 to him have been no opportunity at all. 
 
 The experiments conducted by Davy, and under his direction, 
 at the Bristol Institution, were soon rewarded by important 
 results ; and of these, Davy, when he had just completed his 
 twenty-first year, published an account, under the title of 
 " Researches, Chemical and Philosophical, chiefly concerning 
 Nitrous Oxide, and its respiration." In this publication the 
 singularly intoxicating effects produced by the breathing of 
 nitrous oxide were first announced, and it excited a considerable 
 sensation in the scientific world, and at once made Davy generally 
 known as a most ingenious and philosophic experimentalist. 
 He was, in consequence, soon after its appearance, invited to 
 fill the chemical chair of the Royal Institution, then newly 
 established. When he commenced his lectures here, he was 
 scarcely twenty-two years of age ; but never was success in such 
 •ucx attempt more decided and brilliant. He soon saw his
 
 Sl/i HUMPHREY DAVY 57 
 
 lecture-rooms crowded day after day by all that was most dis- 
 tinguished in the rank and intellect of the metropolis ; and his 
 striking and beautiful elucidations of every subject that came 
 under his review, riveted, often even to breathlessness, the 
 attention of his splendid auditory. The year after his appoint- 
 ment to this situation he was elected also Professor of Chemistry 
 to the Board of Agriculture ; and he greatly distinguished him- 
 self by the lectures which, for ten successive sessions, he 
 delivered in this character. They were published in 181 3 at 
 the request of the Board. In 1803, when only in his twenty- 
 fifth year, Davy was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, and 
 his contributions to the transactions from this time till his death 
 were frequent, and of the highest value. In 1806 he was chosen 
 to deliver the Bakerian Lecture before the Society ; and he per- 
 formed the same task for several successive years. Many of 
 his most brilliant discoveries were announced in these discourses. 
 In 1 81 2 he received the honour of knighthood from the Prince 
 Regent, being the first person on whom his Royal Highness 
 conferred that dignity ; and two days after he married a lady 
 who brought him a considerable fortune. Next year he was 
 elected a corresponding member of the French Institute. He 
 was created a baronet in 1818. In 1820 he was chosen a 
 foreign associate of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris on 
 the death of the illustrious Watt. He had been for some time 
 secretary to the Royal Society; and in 1820, on the death of 
 Sir Joseph Banks, he was, by a unanimous vote, raised to the 
 presidency of that learned body — an office which he held till 
 he was obliged to retire, from ill health, in 1827, when 
 his friend and first patron, Mr. Gilbert, was chosen to 
 succeed him. Little, we may suppose, did either of the two 
 anticipate, when they first met, thirty years before, at the gate
 
 58 HEROES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER Y. 
 
 of Davy's father's house, that they would thus stand successively, 
 and in this order, at the head of the most distinguished scientific 
 association in England. 
 
 It is impossible for us in this place to attempt anything more 
 than the most general sketch of Sir Humphrey Davy's numerous 
 and most important discoveries in chemical science. Even his 
 earliest publication, the title of which we have already tran- 
 scribed, was regarded as, for the first time, introducing light 
 and order into an interesting department of the science, — the 
 theory of the various combinations of oxygen and nitrogen, the 
 two gases which, mixed together in certain proportions, form 
 our common atmospheric air, but in other proportions produce 
 compounds of an altogether dissimilar character. The first 
 memoir by Davy which was read before the Royal Society was 
 presented by him in 1801, before he was a member. It an- 
 nounced a new theory, which is now generally received, of the 
 galvanic influence, or the extraordinary effect produced by two 
 metals in contact with each other, when applied to the muscle 
 even of a dead animal, which the Italian professor, Galvani, had 
 some years before accidentally discovered. It was supposed, both 
 by Galvani and his countryman Volta, who also distinguished 
 himself in the investigation of this curious subject, that the 
 effect in question was an electrical phenomenon — whence 
 galvanism used to be called animal electricity ; but Davy 
 showed, by many ingenious experiments, that, in order to pro- 
 duce it, the metals in fact underwent certain chemical changes. 
 Indeed, he proved that the effect followed when only one metal 
 was employed, provided the requisite chemical change was by 
 any means brought about on it — as, for example, by the inter- 
 position between two plates of it, of a fluid calculated to act 
 upon its surface in a certain manner. In his Bakerian LectJire
 
 S/7i HUMPHREY DA FY. 59 
 
 for 1806, he carried the examination of this subject to a much 
 greater length, and astonished the scientific world by the 
 announcement of a multitude of the most extraordinary results, 
 from the application of the galvanic energy to the composition 
 and decomposition of various chemical substances. From these 
 experiments he arrived at the conclusion, that the power called 
 chemical afifinity was in truth, identical with that of electricity. 
 Hence the creation of a new science, now commonly known by 
 the name of Electro-Chemistry, being that which regards the 
 supposed action of electricity in the production of chemical 
 changes. The discourse in which these discoveries were un- 
 folded was crowned by the French Institute with their first 
 prize, by a decision which reflects immortal honour upon that 
 illustrious body ; who thus forgot not only all feelings of national 
 jealousy, but even the peculiar and extraordinary hostility pro- 
 duced by the war which then raged between the two countries, 
 in their admiration ot genius and their zeal for the interests of 
 philosophy. 
 
 But the results which this great chemist had already obtained 
 only formed, in his hands, the source of new discoveries. In 
 the interesting and extraordinary nature of its announcements, 
 the Bakerian Lecture of 1807 was as splendid a production as 
 that of the former year. There are certain substances, as the 
 reader is aware, known in chemistry by the name of alkalis, ot 
 which potash and soda are the principal. These substances, 
 chemists had hitherto in vain exhausted their ingenuity, and the 
 resources of their art, in endeavouring to decompose. The 
 only substance possessing alkaline properties, the composition 
 of which had been ascertained, was ammonia, which is a gas, 
 and is therefore called volatile alkali ; and this having been 
 found to be a compound of certain proportions of hydrogen and
 
 6o HER OES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER V. 
 
 nitrogen, an opinion generally prevailed that hydrogen would 
 be found to be also a chief ingredient of the Jixed alkalis. 
 Davy determined, if possible, to ascertain this point, and 
 engaged in the investigation with great hopes of success, from 
 the surpassing powers of decomposition which he had found to 
 belong to his new agent, the galvanic influence. The manner 
 in which he pursued this object is one of the most beautiful 
 specimens of scientific investigation on record. One of the 
 most important of the laws of galvanic decomposition, which 
 he had previously discovered, was that, when any substance 
 was subjected to this species of action, its oxygen (an ingredient 
 which nearly all substances contain) was developed at what is 
 called the positive end or pole of the current of electricity, 
 while, whenever any hydrogen or inflammable matter was 
 present, it uniformly appeared at the opposite or negative pole. 
 Proceeding upon this principle, therefore, Davy set to work with 
 a fixed alkali ; and at first submitted it dissolved in water to 
 the galvanic action. The result, however, was, that the water 
 alone was decomposed, nothing being disengaged by the experi- 
 ment but oxygen and hydrogen, the ingredients of that fluid, 
 which passed off as usual, the former at the positive, the latter 
 at the negative pole. In his subsequent experiments, therefore, 
 Davy proceeded without water, employing potash in a state of 
 fusion; and, having guarded the process from every other 
 disturbing cause that presented itself, by a variety oi ingenious 
 arrangements, he had at last the satisfaction of seeing the 
 oxygen gas developed, as before, at the positively electrified 
 surface of the alkali, while at the same time, on the other side, 
 small globules of matter were disengaged, having all the 
 appearances of a metal. The long-agitated question was now 
 determined ; the base ol the fixed alkalis was clearly metallic.
 
 SIR HUAIPHREY DAVY. 6i 
 
 To ascertain the qualities of the metallic residue which he had 
 thus obtained from the potash, was Davy's next object. From 
 its great attraction for oxygen, it almost immediately, when 
 exposed to the atmosphere, became an alkali again, by uniting 
 with that ingredient ; and at first it seemed on this account 
 hardly possible to obtain a sufficient quantity of it for ex- 
 amination. But at last Davy thought of pouring over it a 
 thin coating of the mineral fluid called naphtha, which both 
 preserved it from communication with the air, and, being 
 transparent, allowed it to be examined. 
 
 We have thus rapidly sketched the course of these brilliant 
 and successful experiments, because they form a most interesting 
 and instructive exemplification of the manner in which know- 
 ledge is pursued, and the secrets of nature extorted from her 
 by well-directed interrogation. The business of philosophic 
 experiment, it may be well to observe, is not a mere random 
 expenditure of tests and applications. The true disciple of the 
 inductive philosophy, on the contrary, has always in his 
 contemplation, while conducting his experiments, an idea or 
 end which he aims at realising, and which, in fact, directs him 
 to every experiment to which he resorts. Thus, in the present 
 instance, the idea in Davy's mind was, that the alkali was 
 compounded of two ingredients which had severally an attraction 
 for the two opposite poles of the electric current. This idea he 
 never lost sight of throughout the whole course of his experi- 
 ments, though he repeatedly shifted his ground in regard to the 
 contrivances by which he sought its proof and manifestation. 
 To proceed in any other way would not be to philosophise, but 
 merely, as it were, to dip the hand into the bag of chance in 
 quest of a discovery, as men draw prizes at a lottery. It is 
 true that, until the experiment has cc.nfirmed or refuted liis
 
 6 2 HEROES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER Y. 
 
 expectations, this guiding idea upon which the experimenter 
 proceeds must be regarded merely as a conjecture. But such 
 a conjecture or hypothesis he must have in his mind, or he is 
 in no condition to set about the inquisition of nature. What 
 progress would the conductor of a trial in a court of justice be 
 likely to make, in questioning a witness, without some previous 
 notion of the truth which the evidence was likely to establish ? 
 He might waste the whole day in putting questions and 
 receiving answers, and at last have ascertained nothing. Just 
 as unprofitably would the interrogator of nature spend his time 
 if he had no directing anticipation in every case, according to 
 which to order his experiments. Accident might, it is possible, 
 throw a discovery in his way ; but his own occupation would be 
 evidently as idle and as little that of a philosopher as the 
 rattling of a dice-box. W7ienever, ifideed, a discovery is tfiade 
 witJwut being anticipated, ive say that it has been made by chance. 
 On the other hand, the history of all discoveries that have been 
 arrived at by what can with any propriety be called philosophical 
 investigation and induction, attests that necessity which has 
 been asserted of the experimenter proceeding in the institution 
 and management of his experiments upon a previous idea of 
 the truth to be evolved. This previous idea is what is properly 
 called a hypothesis, which means something placed under as a 
 foundation or platform on which to institute and carry on the 
 process of investigation. A theory is a completed view of a 
 harmonious system of truths, evolved and proved by calculation 
 or induction. As the latter is the necessary completion of every 
 philosophical inquiry, so the former is its equally indispensable 
 beginning. It is the aim in the mind of the philosopher, 
 without which he cannot philosophise. It makes, in short, the 
 main difference between the experiments of the philosopher in
 
 S/J^ HUMPHREY DA VY. 63 
 
 his laboratory, and those of the child among his play-things. 
 Of course, however, every hypothesis must give way before an 
 experiment the result of which cannot be reconciled with it. 
 Newton, in proceeding to investigate the system of the heavens, 
 set out on the hypothesis that the same power of gravitation 
 which made a stone fall to the ground would be found to retain 
 the moon and the planets in their orbits around the earth and 
 the sun. The result of his first calculation was unfavourable to 
 this supposition, and he at once abandoned it. We have here 
 an example both of the use of an hypothesis, and of the proper 
 limits of reliance on it. The grand discovery which eventually 
 resulted from Newton's investigations affords us, again, an 
 illustration of the manner in which an hypothesis serves to lead 
 to, and originate a theory. 
 
 The metal which Sir Humphrey Davy obtained from potash 
 he called Potassiufti ; and from soda he also, by a similar pro- 
 cess, obtained another, which he called Sodium. Both these 
 new metals he found to possess several curious properties, 
 which, however, we cannot here stop to enumerate. He after- 
 wards decomposed also the different earths, and showed them 
 to be all, as well as the alkalis, compounds of oxygen with a 
 metallic base. But these important discoveries, which may be 
 said to have revolutionised the science of chemistry, were not 
 the only results which he obtained from his galvanic and 
 electrical experiments. The interesting subject of the connec- 
 tion between electricity and magnetism received considerable 
 elucidation from his researches. For an account of his con- 
 tributions to this branch of science, we must refer to the able 
 memoir we have already mentioned, or to his papers on the 
 magnetic phenomena produced by electricity, in the Philoso- 
 phical Transactions.
 
 64 HEROES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER Y. 
 
 Meamvhile his attention had been attracted to another 
 subject of the greatest practical importance — the possibility of 
 preventing the destructive explosions in coal-mines occasioned 
 by the fire-damp, or inflammable gas, which is found in many 
 parts of them. By a series of experiments, Davy found that 
 this dangerous gas, which was known to be nothing more than 
 the hydrogen of the chemists, had its explosive tendencies very 
 much restrained by being mixed with a small quantity of 
 carbonic acid and nitrogen (the ingredient which, along with 
 oxygen, forms atmospheric air) ; and that, moreover, if it did 
 explode when so mixed, the explosion would not pass through 
 apertures less than one-seventh of an inch in diameter. Pro- 
 ceeding, therefore, upon these ascertained facts, he contrived 
 his celebrated Safety Lamp. It consists of a small light, fixed 
 in a cylindrical vessel, which is everywhere air-tight, except in 
 the bottom, which is formed of fine wire gauze; and in the 
 upper part, where there is a chimney for carrying off the foul 
 air. The air admitted through the gauze suffices to keep up 
 the flame ; which, in its combustion, produces enough of car- 
 bonic acid and nitrogen to prevent the fire-damp, when inflamed 
 within the cylinder, from communicating the explosion to what 
 is without. The heretofore destructive element, thus caught 
 and detained, is therefore not only rendered harmless, but 
 actually itself helps to furnish the miner with light, the whole 
 of the interior of the cylinder being filled with a steady green 
 flame, arising from the combustion of the hydrogen, which has 
 been admitted to contact v/ith the heat, but cannot carry back 
 the inflammation it has received to the general volume without. 
 Armed with this admirable protection, therefore, the miner 
 advances without risk, and with sufficient light to enable him 
 to V/'ork, into recesses Vi^liich formeily he could not have dared
 
 S/J^ HUMPHRE Y DA FY. 65 
 
 to enter. The safety lamp has been the means of saving 
 many lives, and has enabled extensive mines, or portions of 
 mines, to be wrought, which but for its assistance must have 
 remained unproductive. The coal-owners of the northern dis- 
 tricts invited Sir Humphrey, in 1817, to a public dinner, and 
 presented him with a service of plate of the value of ;^2ooo, in 
 testimony of what they felt to be the merit of this invention. 
 
 We will mention only another of this eminent individual's 
 ingenious practical applications of those scientific truths with 
 which he enriched the philosophy of his age. About the year 
 1823, the attention of the Commissioners of the Navy was so 
 strongly excited to the fact of the rapid decay of the copper 
 sheathings of ships when exposed to the action of the salt-v/ater, 
 that they applied to the Royal Society to take the subject into 
 consideration, and endeavour to devise a remedy for the evil. 
 On this occasion, Davy again had recourse to those principles 
 of electro-chemistry, of which he had himself been the dis- 
 coverer, and by the application of which he had already 
 obtained so many brilliant results. One of the laws of elec- 
 trical agency which he considered himself to have ascertained, 
 was that two substances can only combine by what is called 
 chemical afifinity or attraction when they are in opposite elec- 
 trical states, — that is to say, when the one is positively, and the 
 other negatively, electrified. The copper and the water, there- 
 fore, he concluded, were naturally in these circumstances ; and 
 all that would be required, consequently, to prevent the action 
 of the one upon the other, would be to change the electrical 
 condition of that one of them — namely, the copper — which 
 it was possible to submit to the necessary treatment He 
 thought of various ways of effecting this object; but, at last, 
 he determined to try the effect of merely placing a quantity ot
 
 66 HEROES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VEK \ \ 
 
 zinc or iron in contact with the copper; the former metals 
 being more positive than the letter, and therefore fitted by 
 induction to repel a portion of its electricity, and so to render 
 it negative like the water. The result surpassed his expecta- 
 tions. So powerfully did the one metal act in reversing the 
 electrical state of the other, that a bit of zinc or iron, no larger 
 than a pea, was found sufficient to protect from corrosion forty 
 or fifty square inches of copper. Nothing, therefore, could be 
 more perfect than the success of this contrivance for the partic- 
 ular purpose it was intended to serve. But, unfortunately, it 
 has been found by experience, that, although Davy's method 
 completely answers for preventing the wasting of the copper, 
 the sea-weeds and marine insects accumulate in such quantities 
 upon the bottoms of ships so protected, that they become, after 
 a short time, scarcely navigable. At the time, therefore, the use 
 of the zinc and iron was of necessity abandoned. It is by no 
 means improbable, however, that some expedient may be con- 
 trived for counteracting this consequence of the application of 
 Davy's invention — in which case it will be entitled to rank as 
 one of the most valuable discoveries ever made. 
 
 We have thus, guided chiefly by the Memoir of which men- 
 tion has been made above, pursued the principal triumphs of 
 Sir Humphrey's splendid career, and described what he 
 achieved, although cursorily and briefly, in such a manner, we 
 trust, as to put even the unscientific reader in possession of a 
 tolerably just view of the great discoveries on which his fame 
 rests. In 1827, as we have already mentioned, his health had 
 become so bad, that he found it necessary to resign the presi- 
 dency of the Royal Society. Immediately after this he pro- 
 ceeded to the Continent. During his absence from England, 
 he still continued to prosecute his chemical researches, the
 
 SIJ? HUMPHREY DA IT. 67 
 
 results of which he communicated in several papers to the 
 Royal Society. He also, notwithstanding his increasing weak- 
 ness and sufferings, employed his leisure in literary composition 
 on other subjects, an evidence of which appeared in his 
 "Salmonia," a treatise on fly-fishing, which he published in 
 1828. This little book is full of just and pleasing descriptions 
 of some of the phenomena of nature, and is imbued with an 
 amiable and contented spirit. His active mind, indeed, con- 
 tinued, it would seem, to exert itself to the last almost with as 
 unwearied ardour as ever. Beside the volume we have just 
 mentioned, another work, entitled "The Last Days of a 
 Philosopher," which he also wrote during this period, was 
 given to the world after his death. He died at Geneva on the 
 30th of May, 1829. He had only arrived in that city the day 
 before ; and having been attacked by apoplexy after he had 
 gone to bed, expired at an early hour in the morning. 
 
 No better evidence can be desired than that we have in the 
 history of Davy, that a long life is not necessary to enable an 
 individual to make extraordinary advances in any intellectual 
 pursuit to which he will devote himself with all his heart and 
 strength. This eminent person was, indeed, early in the arena 
 where he won his distinction ; and the fact, as we have already 
 remarked, is a proof how diligently he must have exercised his 
 mental faculties during the few years that elapsed between his 
 boyhood and his first appearance before the public, although, 
 during this time, he had scarcely any one to guide his studies, 
 or even to cheer him onward. Yet notwithstanding that, he 
 had taken his place, as we have seen, among the known 
 chemists of the age almost before he was twenty-one, the whole 
 of his brilliant career in that character, embracing so many 
 experiments, so many literary productions, and so many splen-
 
 68 HEROES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER \. 
 
 did and valuable discoveries, extended only over a space of 
 not quite thirty years. He had not completed his fifty-first 
 year when he died. Nor was Davy merely a man of science 
 His general acquirements were diversified and extensive. He 
 was familiar with the principal continental languages, and wrote 
 his own with an eloquence not usually found in scientific works. 
 All his writings, indeed, show the scholar, and the lover ot 
 elegant literature, as well as the ingenious and accomplished 
 philosopher. It not unfrequently happens that able men, who 
 have been their own instructors, and have chosen for themselves 
 some one field of exertion in which the world acknowledges, 
 and they themselves feel, their eminence, both disregard and 
 despise all other sorts of knowledge and acquirement. This 
 is pedantry in its most vulgar and offensive form ; for it is not 
 merely ignorant, but intolerant. It speaks highly in favour of 
 the right constitution and the native power of Davy's under- 
 standing, that educated as he was, he escaped every taint of 
 this species of illiberality ; and that while, like almost all those 
 who have greatly distinguished themselves in the world of 
 intellect, he selected and persevered in his one favourite path, 
 he nevertheless revered wisdom and genius in all their mani- 
 festations.
 
 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 69 
 
 GEORGE STEPHENSON* 
 
 RAILWAY train, a steamer, or our complicated system 
 of telegraphy, are all often triumphantly pointed to as 
 the high-water mark of modern civilisation. While there is 
 nothing wrong in this, it is at the same time self-evident that 
 it is well to bear the thought in mind, that our boasted progress 
 has been a slow growth, that a thousand lives and influences 
 have been used to help it forward, and that the men of the 
 present age are laying down or recreating the foundations 
 of the life and wellbeing of the generations to come. When 
 we think of railways and the locomotive, the names of James 
 Watt and George Stephenson rise to mind. We intend briefly 
 and simply to trace the principal incidents in the career of the 
 latter. To all true workers it is full of stimulus and encourage- 
 ment, for work done \visely, worthily, and well, anywhere, 
 unites the worker to that great fellowship, known or unknown 
 to the world, who labour as in the sight and hope of heaven, 
 and do well the little common duties of every day. 
 
 George Stephenson was born on the 9th of June, 1781, at 
 the village of Wylam, about eight miles west of Newcastle-on- 
 Tyne. His parents were poor but respectable, and his father, 
 Robert Stephenson, was fireman of the pumping-engine at 
 Wylam. and Ke ie tlescxiberl hy Dr. Smiles as of an amiable
 
 7 o HER OES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER Y. 
 
 disposition. While tending his engine fire he would draw 
 around him the young folks of the village and tell them the 
 story of Sinbad the Sailor, or Robinson Crusoe. He was 
 partial to birds, and would sometimes go bird-nesting, and once 
 took young George to see a nestful of young blackbirds, a 
 sight which he never forgot. None of Stephenson's children 
 went to school, as his limited income would not admit of it. 
 The common two-storied, red-tiled building, where they dwelt, 
 stood just beside the wooden tramway on which the coal- 
 waggons were drawn by horses from the coal-pit to the loading- 
 quay, and one of the duties of the elder children was to watch 
 and keep the younger ones out of the way of the waggons, 
 which were daily dragged up and down by horses. Eight years 
 of his life had passed when the Stephenson family removed to 
 Dewley Burn. Young Stephenson's first actual employment 
 was to herd a neighbour's cows at the wage of twopence a-day. 
 Like other boys of his age, he spent much of his time in bird- 
 nesting, in making whistles, and in erecting little water-mills 
 in the streams near by. " But his favourite amusement at this 
 early age was in erecting clay engines in conjunction with his 
 chosen playmate, Tom Thirlaway. They found the clay for 
 their engines in the adjoining bog; and the hemlock which 
 grew about, supplied them with abundance of imaginary steam- 
 pipes." His next work was to lead the horses when plough- 
 ing, or to hoe turnips and other farm work.* When taken on 
 at the colliery and employed to clear the coal of stones, bats, 
 and dross, his wages were advanced to sixpence a-day, and 
 afterwards to eightpence, when he was set to drive the gin-horse. 
 While driving the gin at Black Callerton Colliery, two miles 
 from Dewley Burn, he indulged his fondness for bird-nesting in 
 the hedgerows as he passed along to and from his work. He
 
 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 71 
 
 also indulged himself in a stock of tame rabbits, and used to 
 pride him on the superiority of his breed. When fourteen he 
 R'as appointed assistant fireman to his father at Dewley Burn, 
 at the wage of one shilling a-day. His great ambition at the time 
 was to become an engineman. When his wages were afterwards 
 raised to twelve shillings a-week at another place, on announc- 
 ing the fact to his fellow-workmen, he added, " I am now a made 
 man for life." At seventeen, he had charge of a pumping engine 
 at which his father acted as fireman. His duty was to watch the 
 engine and see that it worked well, also that the pumps were 
 drawing efficiently. But Stephenson was no mere mechanical 
 engineman, he applied himself to the study of its different 
 parts, taking it down and putting it together again, so that he 
 was soon able to dispense with the assistance of the eugineer 
 of the colliery. When eighteen years of age, and when in 
 charge of the engine at a wage of twelve shillings a-week, he 
 began to remedy his defective education, and commenced to 
 learn to read. His first teacher was Robin Cowens, a poor 
 teacher in Walbottle, who kept a night school, which was 
 attended by a few of the colliers' and labourers' sons in the 
 district. This school was exchanged for one kept by a Scotch 
 dominie, where Stephenson made rapid progress in arithmetic, 
 and also learned to write. When twenty years of age he had 
 become brakesman at Black Callerton pits. The duty of the 
 brakesman was to superintend the working of the engine and 
 machinery by means of which the coals were drawn out of the 
 pit. He also took his turn on the night-shift, and his vacant 
 night hours were either utilised in doing sums, in practising 
 writing, or in shoemaking or mending. An attachment formed 
 at this time for a young woman named Fanny Henderson, a 
 servant at a neighbouring farm-house, stimulated him in t!:u;
 
 7 2 HER OES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER Y. 
 
 extra efforts he was making. He married Fanny Henderson 
 when he was twenty-one ; by thrift, sobriety, and industry he 
 was enabled to take up house, although in very humble style, 
 at Willington Ballast Quay. The marriage took place on the 
 28th November, 1802. At his daily work Stephenson con- 
 tinued to study the principles of mechanics, and to master the 
 laws by which his engine worked. His evenings spent at home 
 beside his young wife were always turned to some account. 
 An attempt to discover perpetual motion, although it did not 
 succeed, certainly helped to awake his inventive faculties. 
 Having taking his own clock to pieces and cleaned it, and this 
 becoming known in the neighbourhood, he soon had plenty to 
 do in the same line. 
 
 His only son Robert was born at Willington Quay on the 
 1 6th October, 1803. After working for about three years as a 
 brakesman at Willington, he removed, in 1804, to West Moor 
 Colliery, Killingworth, to a similar situation. Killingworth 
 lies about seven miles north of Newcastle, and it was here that 
 his practical ability as a workman and engineer began to be 
 recognised by his employers. Shortly after his settlement in 
 his new home, to his great sorrow, his wife died. An engage- 
 ment to superintend the working of one of Boulton & Watt's 
 engines at Montrose, in Scotland, took him away from Killing- 
 worth for about a year. On his return he had greatly increased 
 his practical knowledge, and had also saved about ^^28. The 
 journey both going and returning was accomplished on foot. 
 He found his father had met with an accident, and was in great 
 poverty. George Stephenson paid off his debts and made pro- 
 vision for him. His prospects during the years 1807-8 were 
 very discouraging. Great Britain was engaged in a war ; the 
 necessaries of life were heavily taxed ; and finally, he was drawn
 
 GEORGE STEPHENSON. u 
 
 at that time for the miHtia. He found a substitute, however, 
 by paying a certain sum. So down-hearted was he at this lime 
 that he meditated emigrating to the United States. An oppor- 
 tunity was not long in occurring, which, being taken advantage 
 of, materially helped him forward. The engineers of that time, 
 as Mr. Smiles tells us, worked very much in the dark, and, for 
 the most part, without any knowledge of the principles of 
 mechanics. An atmospheric or Newcomen engine, made by 
 Smeaton, had proved a failure, and no engineer or workman 
 could put it right. A speech which Stephenson had made 
 being reported to the head viewer of the pit as to his ability to 
 " alter her and make her draw," and he being dead beat at the 
 time, he at once entrusted him with the work. " Well, George," 
 said the viewer, " they tell me 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 cannot get a step further. The engineers are all beat, 
 and if you really succeed in accomplishing what they cannot 
 do, you may depend upon it I will make you a man for life." 
 The repairs occupied Stephenson about four days, and were 
 done, if roughly, yet on scientific principles ; and before the 
 end of the same week the pit was so far clear of water that the 
 miners could be sent to the bottom. For the successful 
 accomplishment of this work, Stephenson received the sum of 
 ;^io, with which he was highly gratified. In addition, he was 
 appointed engineman at the High Pit on good wages. His 
 success in doctoring the engine led to his being very extensively 
 consulted by the owners of wheezy and ineffectual pumping- 
 machines in the neighbourhood ; and in his treatment of them 
 he is said to have left the regular engineers far behind.
 
 74 HEROES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER Y. 
 
 Robert Stephenson was meanwhile receiving as good an 
 education as his father could afford. After the village school 
 of Long Benton had done something for him, he was sent to 
 Bruce's Academy, Newcastle, to which place he rode backwards 
 and forwards on a donkey. To his home, near West Moor Pit, 
 Killingworth, which originally consisted of but one apartment 
 on the ground floor, Stephenson gradually added until he 
 made it a comfortable four-roomed dweUing. In the garden 
 attached, it v/as his pride to cultivate gigantic leeks and large 
 cabbages. In his leisure time he was still fond of displays ot 
 feats of strength and agility, at which he often distanced his 
 competitors. In 1812, the engine- wright at Killingworth was 
 killed by an accident, when George Stephenson was promoted 
 to his post at a salary of ^-/^loo a-year. This relieved him from 
 the routine of manual laljour, but his brain and his hands were 
 kept as busy as ever. The first winding-engine for drawing the 
 coals out of the pit, and the first pumping-engine erected by 
 him for Long Benton Colliery, were both successful. In some 
 evidence which he gave before a select committee of the House 
 of Commons in 1835, he thus spoke of his life at this time: 
 "After making some improvements in the steam-engines above 
 ground, I was then requested by the manager of the colliery to 
 go underground along with him to see if any improvement 
 could be made in the mines by employing machinery as a 
 substitute for manual labour and horse-power in bringing the 
 coals out of the deeper workings of the mine. On my first 
 going down to 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 
 vvas opened, at a very short distance from the shaft, one of
 
 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 75 
 
 these dislocations 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 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 these collieries 
 was put under my charge." The fact of his son Robert being 
 a member of the Newcastle Literary and Philosophical Insti- 
 tution was of some assistance to his father. He brought home 
 books, or failing that, drawings from scientific articles, which 
 were talked over between the father and son at home, and 
 made to conduce to the improvement of both. 
 
 Before we come to the details of George Stephenson's im- 
 provements on the locomotive, it might be well to glance at 
 
 THE KARLY HISTORY OF THE RAILWAY. 
 
 Two centuries ago, in the life of Lord Keeper Guildford, we 
 read the following : " When men have pieces of ground 
 between the colliery and the river, they sell leave to lead coals
 
 7 6 HER OES OF INVENTION AND DISCO 7ER K 
 
 over their ground, and so dear, that the owner of a rood of ground 
 will expect ;^2o per annum for this leave. The manner of the 
 carriage is by laying rails of timber from the colliery down to 
 the river, exactly straight and parallel; and bulky carts are 
 made with four rowlets fitting these rails, whereby the carriage is 
 so easy that one horse will draw down four or five caldrons ot 
 coals, and is an immense benefit to the coal merchants." 
 
 There is mention made of tramways as early as 1602; but 
 there is some convenience in accepting the period of two 
 centuries as the starting-point in noticing the history of rail- 
 ways. The tramways described in the above extract were of 
 wood, and it was not till the opening of the eighteenth century 
 that the wood came to be protected with iron. In the early 
 part of that century many tramways appear to have been laid 
 down to connect collieries with the ports whence the coal was 
 shipped. One of these has obtained some historical interest; 
 namely, the railway between Tranent colHery and its port of 
 Cockenzie, in East Lothian — a railway still in existence — part of 
 the embankment of which was used as a position for his cannon 
 by "Johnny Cope" in the battle of Prestonpans in 1745. In 
 the travels of St. Fond it is mentioned that coals could be 
 imported from England at Marseilles cheaper than French 
 coals of inferior quality, and the facilities for conveying coals 
 to the ports in this country, by the use of the tramways, and 
 the method of shipping direct from the waggons, is believed to 
 have had some share in bringing about this result. 
 
 One of the earliest records of the use of iron to protect the 
 wooden trams is in connection with the ironworks at Cole- 
 brookdale, in Shropshire, subsequently celebrated for the 
 erection of the first considerable iron bridge, and where, about 
 ^760, iron plates were nailed to the wooden rails, as well to
 
 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 77 
 
 diminish friction as to prevent abrasion. This soon led to the 
 substitution of rails of solid iron, which was attended with rapid 
 success, and adopted in various parts of the country. There 
 was, for instance, a railway five miles long, from the collieries 
 in the vicinity of Derby into that town; there was another 
 called the Park Forest Railway, about six miles long ; and 
 another, near Ashby-de-la-Zouch, in Leicestershire, which had 
 four miles of double and eight miles of single rails. Towards 
 the beginning of the present century, railways had made their 
 way into all coal and mining districts, and their progress was so 
 rapid that in 181 1 there were in South Wales not less than 150 
 miles of railways, of which the Merthyr-Tydvil Company 
 possessed thirty miles. 
 
 Amongst personal reminiscences of these primitive railways 
 by persons living at the time, it may be interesting to quote 
 those of Mr. Robert Reid, who was born in 1772. In his 
 interesting memoirs of " Old Glasgow," he says : " I remember 
 the coal quay, which stood at the present ferry, west end ol 
 Windmill Croft. It was built by the Dumbarton Glass Work 
 Company to convey coals from the lands of Little Govan to 
 their works at Dumbarton. The river was then deeper at the 
 coal quay than at the Broomielaw There was a timber tram- 
 way from the Little Govan works to the said quay, which ran 
 through the lands of Kingston, and by the road on the east side 
 of Springfield. I have walked iipon this tramroad^ ivhich I believe 
 was the first oj our Glasgow railways. The Dumbarton Glas? 
 Work Company also possessed a tramroad on the north side of 
 the Clyde, from the coal works in the neighbourhood of Gart- 
 navel." 
 
 But while in regard to the transit and shipment of coals this 
 considerable advance was made, the other branches of trafiSc,
 
 7 8 HEROES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER V. 
 
 depending on the wrctclied country roads of last century, 
 remained for half-a-century longer in the depths of barbarity. 
 
 "I observed to-day," says Boswell, in his "Tour to the 
 Hebrides," "that the common way of carrying home their 
 grain here is in loads, on horseback. They have also a few 
 sleds or cars, as we call them in Ayrshire, clumsily made and 
 rarely used." An aged East Lothian farmer, recently dead, 
 informed the writer that in his youth the mode of bringing 
 grain to the market at Haddington was on pack-horses. This 
 was within recent memory before there were either made roads 
 or railways ! 
 
 The solid iron rails mentioned as having been introduced at 
 Colebrookdale were called " scantlings," and consisted of five 
 feet long pieces, four inches in breadth, which were laid down 
 under the wheel, simply to decrease friction, as the wooden 
 trams had previously been. The next stage, that of casting 
 rails with an upright flange to keep the wheels on the track, was 
 reached about 1776, in connection with a colliery belonging to 
 the Duke of Norfolk, near Sheffield. Though the flange was 
 subsequently taken from the rail and put on the wheel, the first 
 century of railway history closes with the adoption of the two 
 chief features of the railway as a travelling track — the use of 
 cross sleepers on which to fasten the rails, and the introduction 
 of the flange to keep the cars upon the track. 
 
 A quarter of a century brought the invention of the oval rail, 
 with a grooved tire upon the wheels, another step towards the 
 realisation of subsequent success. This " edge railway," as it 
 was called, was first used at Lord Penrhyn's slate quarries in 
 Wales. It being found that the oval rail wore into the wheel 
 and caused it to stick, the next step was to make the surface of 
 the rail and the edge of the wheel flat, and, voiVa fouf, the rail
 
 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 79 
 
 vray, as we know it, was made. There liave been many improve- 
 ments in the mode of manufacture, in the kinds of sleepers used 
 (stone or wood), in the method of fastening them, in the intro- 
 duction of steel rails ; in the discovery, very recently, that iron 
 rails can be made, even more durable and less expensive than 
 steel. But the fundamental condition of the rail remains un- 
 changed, and on the plan thus introduced early in the century 
 all our great progress of to-day has been made. 
 
 Mr, R. L. Edgeworth, writing in Nicholson^ s Journal of the 
 Arts, in i So 2, describes a project formed by him many years 
 before for laying iron railways for baggage waggons on the great 
 roads of England. Objections as to first cost and maintenance 
 had deten-ed him from promoting it, and to obviate the latter 
 he proposed to use a series of smaller cars — the modern " train " 
 --in order to save tlie wear of the rails. In 1768 he obtained 
 the Society of Arts' gold medal, for models of his carriages, and 
 twenty years later he made four carriages which were used for 
 some time on a wooden line of rails to convey lime for farming 
 purposes. Besides using his proposed railways for heavy 
 waggons at a slow pace, Mr. Edgeworth thought means niighi 
 be found of enabling stage-coaches to go six miles an-hour, and 
 post-chaises and gentlemen's travclHng can-iages at eight miles 
 an-hour, both with one horse. Another proposal he made was 
 that small (stationary) engines placed from distance to distance 
 might by means of circulating chains be made to draw the 
 carriages along roads with a great diminution of horse labour 
 and expense. 
 
 An attempt to take a systematical commercial view of the 
 utility of railways was made in 1800, by Dr. James Anderson, 
 in the fourth volume of his " Recreations in Agriculture." He 
 proposed to construct railways by the side of the turnpike roads,
 
 So HER OES OF IN i^ENTION AND DISCO VER Y. 
 
 so as to follow the ordinary levels and lines of traffic : to com- 
 mence with the highway from London to Bath. Where the 
 road ascended a hill, the level was to be sought by going round 
 its base, constructing a viaduct, or piercing a tunnel ; and so 
 carefully were these contingencies discussed, that, with the 
 exception of horses being the moving power, his plans and 
 arguments might be accepted as the description of a railway of 
 the present day. One poir.t particularly insisted on was, that 
 the railways should be managed by Government, not by private 
 companies, who would unite monopoly with speculation ; but 
 should " be kept open and patent to all alike who shall choose 
 to employ them, as the king's highway, under such regulations 
 as it shall be found necessary to subject them by law." No 
 immediate result followed the publication of Dr. Anderson's 
 views; no one had then thought of railways independent of 
 other thoroughfares, and to border the latter by iron routes was 
 not to be entertained. 
 
 There is another name connected with the rise of railways 
 which cannot be left unnoticed — Thomas Gray, of Leeds. 
 Hearing, while on the Continent in 1816, that a canal had 
 been projected to connect the coal-fields of Belgium with the 
 frontier of Holland, he recommended the making of a railway 
 instead. His mind had been for some time directed to the 
 subject; and in 1818 he showed to his friends a manuscript 
 containing observations on a railroad for the whole of Europe. 
 Soon after he returned to England for the purpose of making 
 his scheme public, and in 182.0 he published a volume entitled 
 " Observations on a General Iron Railway, or Land Steam Con 
 veyance, to supersede the Necessity of Horses in all Public 
 Vehicles : Showing its vast Superiority in every respect over 
 »he Present Pitiful Metliods of Conveyance by Turnpike Roads
 
 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 8i 
 
 and Canals." In this work, among advantages to result from 
 the new system, Gray showed that fish, vegetables, agricultural 
 and other perishable produce might be rapidly carried from 
 place to place ; that two post deliveries in the day would be 
 feasible ; and that insurance companies would be able to pro- 
 mote their own interests by keeping railway fire-engines, ready 
 to be transported to the scene of a conflagration at a moment's 
 warning. The cost of construction was calculated at ;^i 2,000 
 a-mile; and his plan included a trunk line from London to 
 Plymouth and Falmouth ; lines to Portsmouth, Bristol, Dover, 
 and Harwich ; an offset from the latter to Norwich, a trunk 
 line from London to Birmingham and Holyhead, another to 
 Edinburgh by Nottingham and Leeds, with secondary lines 
 from Liverpool to Scarborough, and from Birmingham to 
 Norwich. His system was not only remarkable for its simplicity, 
 but comprehended all the important towns of the kingdom, and 
 was in many respects preferable to the lines subsequently made. 
 His plan for Ireland had a grand trunk line from Dublin to 
 Deny, another to Kinsale, and by lesser lines ramifying from 
 these he sought to connect all the chief towns with the Irish 
 capital. Regarding his projects, Sir John Hawkshaw, in his 
 British Association speech (1875), remarked : "No sooner had 
 our ancestors settled down with what comfort was possible in 
 their coaches, well satisfied that twelve miles an-hour was the 
 maximum speed to be obtained or that was desirable, than they 
 were told that steam conveyance on iron railways would super- 
 :5ede their ' present pitiful ' methods of conveyance. Such was 
 the opinion of Thomas Gray, the first promoter of railways, who 
 published his work on a general iron railway in 1819. Gray 
 was looked on as little better than a madman. ' When Gray 
 first i)roposed his great scheme to the public,' said Clievaiier
 
 8 2 HER OES O F INVENTION AND DISCO VER Y. 
 
 Wilson, in a letter to Sir Robert Peel in 1845, 'people were 
 disposed to treat it as an effusion of insanity.' The struggles 
 which preceded the opening of the first railway were brought 
 10 a successful issue by the determination of a few able and fai- 
 seeing men ; and the names of Thomas Gray and Joseph 
 Sandars, of William James and Edward Pease, should always 
 be remembered in connection with the early history of railways, 
 for it was they who first made the nation familiar with the idea." 
 
 Whatever effect Gray's persevering labours may have had in 
 directing attention to the subject of railways, he himself gained 
 neither reward nor honour. His late years were passed in 
 obscurity as a dealer in glass on commission at Exeter, in which 
 city he died in October, 1848, at the age of sixty-one. He died, 
 it is said, " steeped to tlic lips in poverty." 
 
 In an early number of Blackwood" s Magazine we have a 
 notice of a railway in Munich nearly contemporary with the 
 [proposals of Gray : " We have received a report from Munich, 
 which, if it be not exaggerated, well deserves the attention of 
 our countrymen. A model, on a large scale, of an iron railroad, 
 invented and completed by the chief counsellor of the mines, 
 Joseph von Baader, has been received at the Royal Repository 
 for Mechanical Inventions, which is said to surpass in utility 
 whatever has been seen in England ; some say by a proportion 
 of two-thirds, altliough it costs less by half. On a space 
 perfectly level, laid with this invention, a woman or a child 
 may draw with ease a cart laden with fifteen or sixteen hundred- 
 weight. And if no greater inclination than six inches and a-half 
 on a hundred feet in length be allowed, the carts will move 
 of themselves, without any external impulse. A single horse 
 may be the means of conveying a greater weight than twenty- 
 two horses of the same strength on the best of common roads."
 
 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 83 
 
 While there was thus a gathering together of testimony as 
 regards the improvement of the roads over which wheeled 
 vehicles were to be drawn, there was gi-adually bemg developed 
 the idea of employing another and more powerful agent for the 
 propulsion of the vehicles. There cannot be the least doubt 
 that the numerous attempts to apply steam to navigation acted 
 on the minds of men of skill and invention in order to have the 
 same powerful agent applied to the ordinary requirements of 
 the road. Indeed, the first invention of William Symington 
 was applied to a carriage as well as to a barge, and his diagram 
 and detail of a steam-carriage were contemporary with his 
 invention of a steamship. It was probably in the knowledge 
 that such ideas were being wrought out into practical shape 
 that the lines were written by Dr. Darwin, to which the reputa- 
 tion of prophecy has almost attached : 
 
 " Soon shall thy arm, unconquered steam ! afar 
 Drag the slow barge, or drive the rapid car ; 
 Or on wide-waving wings expanded bear 
 The flying chariot through the fields of air ! " 
 
 So wrote Dr. Darwin in his Botanic Garden in 1793, and the 
 vision of the " flying chariot " does not appear to-day much more 
 extravagant than did, when these lines were published, the 
 prediction of " rapid " travelling by means of a steam-engine. 
 Yet, nearly a century before, a very fair attempt at the con- 
 struction of a locomotive steam-engine had been made. The 
 scene of the experiment was Japan, and the actors in it were 
 the Jesuit missionaries, who sought to find favour with the 
 Emperor Kanghi. They caused a waggon of light wood to be 
 made, in the middle of which they placed a brazen vessel full 
 of live coals, and on them an " eolipile," the wind from which 
 issued through a little pipe upon a sort of wheel made like the
 
 84 HER OES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER Y. 
 
 sail of a windmill. This little wheel turned another with an 
 axle-tree, and by that means the waggon was set a-running for 
 two hours together. This description is rather that of a hot-air 
 engine than a steam-engine, but it was a locomotive, and is the 
 earliest of its race. 
 
 In the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers in Paris is preserved 
 the steam-carriage constructed by M. Cugnot in 1763, which 
 was a remarkable machine, like a long brewer's cart, with a 
 boiler and engine at one end. It went with such force that it 
 knocked down a wall, and its power was in consequence con- 
 sidered too great for ordinary use, and it was put aside as a 
 dangerous invention. 
 
 A model of a steam-carriage was made in 1784 by William 
 Murdoch, the friend and assistant of Watt, but it was of very 
 diminutive proportions. 
 
 The suggestion for such an application of steam had been 
 made by Dr. Robison, of Edinburgh, in 1759, to James Watt, 
 who included the idea in his fourth patent, but seems to have 
 doubted the safety of the carriage. He mentioned the idea to 
 Murdoch, who proved practically, on a small scale, the correct- 
 ness of the calculations that had been made. Of Murdoch's 
 machine, it is narrated that on a dark night in the year named, 
 the venerable clergyman of Redruth, in Cornwall, when 
 walking' in a lonely lane leading to his church, heard a most 
 unearthly noise, and beheld approaching him, at great speed, 
 an indescribable creature, glowing with internal fires, and whose 
 gasps for breath seemed to denote some internal struggle of a 
 deadly kind. His cries brought the inventor, William Murdoch, 
 to his side, who explained to him that this terrible monster was 
 nothing more or less than a locomotive he had invented, and 
 which had broken away from his control.
 
 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 85 
 
 An equal amount of terror was created in some minds by the 
 steam-carriage of Richard Trevithick, an eccentric engineer 
 connected with the Cornish tin-mines, who had seen Murdoch's 
 small carriage. In 1802 he took out a patent for this novel 
 machine, which was exhibited to large crowds of spectators 
 on what is now the site of Euston station. Coleridge 
 relates that, when it was being conveyed from the place in 
 Cornwall where it was constructed to the port at which it was 
 shipped to London, after carrying away a portion of the 
 rails of a gentleman's garden, it came in sight of a closed 
 toll-gate. Trevithick immediately shut off the steam, but the 
 momentum was so great that the carriage proceeded some 
 distance, coming dead up, however, just on the right side of 
 the gate, which was opened like lightning by the gatekeeper. 
 "Wliat have us got to pay here?" asked Trevithick's cousin, 
 Andrew Vivian, who accompanied him. The poor toll-man, 
 trembling in every limb, his teeth chattering in his head, 
 essayed a reply: "Na, na, na, na."' "What have us got to 
 pay, I say?" "No — noth — nothing to pay! My dear Mr. 
 Devil, do drive on as fast as you can ! Nothing to pay ! " 
 
 Trevithick constructed another steam-carriage for railway 
 purposes, which, in 1804, ran on the Merthyr-Tydvil tramway 
 in South Wales. It drew a load of ten tons at the rate of five 
 miles an-hour. 
 
 The earliect locomotives were designed to run upon a 
 perfectly smooth line and a straight road, and for many years 
 it was supposed that they could not climb hills or be made to 
 go round corners unless the wheels were provided with a cogged 
 rim to work on a corresponding rack along the rails. The 
 cogged or toothed wheels and rails were introduced in 181 1 
 by Mr. Blenkinsop, of Leeds. It was not till 1813 that Mr.
 
 86 HEROES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VERY. 
 
 Blackett, of Wylam, a coal proprietor, established the fact that 
 locomotives, running with smooth wheels on smooth rails, could 
 draw heavy loads up a moderate incline. His engine, called 
 the " Puffing Billy," was otherwise clumsily constructed. It had 
 only a single cylinder, and was full of pumps, plugs, and other 
 gear, which were always getting out of order. 
 
 Lord Ravensworth, the principal partner in the Killingworth 
 Collieries, when the sul^ject of constructing a travelling engine 
 was brought before him and his partners by Stephenson in 1813, 
 empowered him to proceed. "The first locomotive that I 
 made," said Stephenson in a speech made many years after- 
 wards, " was at Killingworth Colliery, and \vith Lord Ravens- 
 worth's money. Yes, Lord Ravensworth and partners were 
 the first to entrust me with money to make a locomotive 
 engine. That engine was made thirty-two years ago, and we 
 called it ' My Lord.' I said to my friends, there was no limit 
 to the speed of such an engine if the works could be made to 
 stand it." It was tried on the Killingworth railway on the 25th 
 of July, 1814. " Blucher," as this locomotive was popularly 
 called, was not eminently successful until the introduction of 
 the steam-blast. At first it drew a load of thirty tons at the 
 rate of four miles an-hour. His second engine, patented in 
 1815, doubled this speed. "Thus," as Dr. Smiles remarks, 
 " Mr. Stephenson, by dint of patient and persevering labour- 
 by careful observation of the works of others, and never 
 neglecting to avail himself of their suggestions — had succeeded 
 in manufacturing an engine which included the following 
 important improvements on all previous attempts in the same 
 direction, viz. : simple and direct communication between the 
 cylinder and the wheels rolling upon the rails ; joint adhesion
 
 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 87 
 
 of all the wheels, attained by the use of horizontal connecting 
 rods ; and finally, a beautiful method of exciting the combustion 
 of the fuel by employing the waste steam, which had formerly 
 been allowed uselessly to escape into the air. Although many 
 improvements in detail were afterwards introduced in the 
 locomotive by Mr. Stephenson himself, as well as by his 
 equally-distinguished son, 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 in fact be 
 regarded as the type of the present locomotive engine." 
 
 Explosions of fire-damp frequently took place in Stephenson's 
 lime, which were as disastrous in their results as those of more 
 modern times. In the year 18 14 an alarm was raised at one of 
 the Killingworth mines, that one of the deepest mains was on 
 fire. Stephenson coming to the pit-mouth ordered the engine- 
 man to lower him down the shaft. Getting six men to 
 volunteer to follow him, he speedily ran up a wall at the 
 aitrance to the main, which extinguished the fire and saved 
 many in the mine from a violent death. One of the men, by 
 name Kit Heppel, asked him at this time, " Can nothing 
 be done to prevent such awful occurrences?" Stephenson 
 replied that he thought something might be done. " Then," 
 said Heppel, "the sooner you start the better; for the 
 price of coal-mining now is pibncjis lives." This set him 
 a-thinking and v/orking, and in the course of 18 15 he endea- 
 voured to give his idea of a miner's safety-lamp a practical shape. 
 He described this lamp to the Committee of the House of 
 Commons, when sitting on the subject of Accidents in Mines. 
 He began by saying that he knew nothing of chemistry at the 
 time. " Seeing the gas lighted up, and observing the velocity 
 with which the flame passed along the roof, my attention was
 
 S8 IIER OES OF JN VENTION AND DISCO VER V. 
 
 drawn to the contriving of a lamp, seeing it required a given 
 time to pass over a given distance. My idea of making a lamp 
 was entirely on mechanical principles ; and I think I shall be 
 found quite correct in my views from mechanical reasoning. 
 I knew well that the heated air from the fire drove round a 
 smoke-jack, and that caused me to know that I could have a 
 power from it. I also knew very well that a steam-engine 
 chimney was built for the purpose of causing a strong current 
 of air through the fire. Having these facts before me, and 
 knowing the properties of heated air, I amused myself with 
 lighting one of the blowers in the neighbourhood of where I 
 had to erect machinery. I had it on fire ; the volume of flame 
 was coming out the size of my two hands, but was not so large 
 but that I could approach close to it. Holding my candle to 
 the windward of the flame, I observed that it changed its 
 colour. I then got two candles, and again placed them to the 
 windward of the flame; it changed colour still more, and 
 became duller. I got a number of candles, and placing them 
 all to the windward, the blower ceased to burn. This then 
 gave me the idea, that if I could construct my lamp so as, with 
 a chimney at the top, to cause a current, it would never fire at 
 the top of the chimney ; and by seeing the velocity with which 
 the ignited fire-damp passed along the roof, I considered that, 
 if I could produce a current through tubes in a lamp equal to 
 the current that I saw passing along the roof, I should make a 
 lamp that could be taken into an explosive mixture without 
 exploding externally." After many experiments his third and 
 most successful safety-lamp was constructed, and tested on the 
 30th November, 18 15, before he had ever heard of Sir Humphry 
 Da\y's experiments. After being exhibited before the Literary 
 and Philosophical Society of Newcastle, it came into use in the
 
 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 
 
 Killingworth Collieries. Since its introduction no accident is 
 known to have taken place from its use. To distinguish it from 
 the *' Davy " lamp it is known as the " Geordy " lamp. 
 Stephenson's claim for the independent invention of a safety- 
 lamp was acknowledged at a public dinner given in the 
 Assembly Rooms at Newcastle, in January, 1818, when he was 
 presented with ;^iooo and a silver tankard. Dr. Smiles is of 
 opinion that the " Geordy " lamp, when severely tested in the 
 mines by an escape of gas, is decidedly the safer of the two. 
 Cases have occurred where the "Davy" lamp has grown red- 
 hot in an explosive atmosphere, while the "Geordy" was 
 entirely extinguished. 
 
 The locomotives constructed by George Stephenson in 18 16 
 were, until lately, working regularly on the Killing\vorth 
 railway, dragging coal trains at the rate of between five and six 
 miles an-hour. This says much for the thoroughness with 
 which they were manufactured. "There were many highly- 
 educated engineers," writes Dr. Smiles, " living in his day, who 
 knew vastly more than he did — trained as they had been in all 
 the science and learning of the schools ; but there was none so 
 apt in applying what they knew to practical purposes as the 
 Killingworth ' brakesman ' and * engine-wright.' The great 
 secret of his success, however, was his cheerful perseverance. 
 He was never cast down by obstacles, but seemed to take a 
 pleasure in grappling with them, and he always rose from each 
 encounter a stronger as well as a wiser man. He knew nothing 
 of those sickly phantasies which men, who suppose themselves 
 to be 'geniuses,' are so apt to indulge in ; nor did his poverty or 
 necessities ever impair the elasticity of his character. When he 
 failed in one attempt, he tried again and again, until eventually 
 he succeeded." Sneaking at a soire'e of the Leeds Mechanics'
 
 90 HER OES OF IN VENTION AND DISCO VER V. 
 
 Institute, he said : " He had commenced his career on a lowei 
 level than any man present there. He made that remark for 
 the purpose of encouraging young mechanics to do as he had 
 done — to persevere. And he would tell them that the hum.blest 
 amongst them occupied a much more advantageous position than 
 he had done on commencing his life of labour. They had 
 teachers who, going before them, had left their great discoveries 
 as a legacy and a guide ; and their works were now accessible 
 to all, in such institutions as that which he addressed. But he 
 remembered the time when there were none thus to guide and 
 instruct the young mechanic. With a free access to scientific 
 books, he knew, from his own experience, that they could be 
 saved much unnecessary toil and expenditure of mental capital." 
 We now give a resume of railway progress in the United 
 Kingdom, with which Stephenson was afterwards so vitally 
 connected, and which will bring the story of his life up to 1830. 
 
 PROGRESS OF THE RAILWAY IN THE UNITED KINGDOM, 
 1801-1830. 
 
 .The first Act of Parliament for the construction of a railway 
 was passed in 1801, and was promoted by the Surrey Iron 
 Company, for a railway nine miles long, from Wandsworth to 
 Croydon, with a branch to Carshalton. The capital was 
 _;^6o,ooo, being about what is now considered the normal cost 
 for a "light" railway or local single line locally promoted -- 
 namely, ;;^55oo per mile. This, the first line opened undei 
 parliamentary sanction, was completed in 1805; and, in con- 
 nection with its opening, some \^iy interesting experiments in 
 traction were made. Taking the estimate of the draught of a 
 horse, upon a good road, at fifteen hundred pounds, the party 
 of gentlemen who assembled to witness the testing of the line
 
 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 91 
 
 were enabled to judge practically the advantages offered. 
 Twelve waggons were filled with stones till each waggon 
 weighed three tons, and a horse attached to them drew the 
 load, with apparent ease, a distance of six miles in an hour and 
 three-quarters. In the course of the journey the horse was re- 
 peatedly stopped to show that he had the power of starting the 
 load with apparent ease. At each stoppage other waggons were 
 attached, and the men employed on the line, to the number ot 
 about fifty, were also directed to mount the waggons. At the 
 end of the journey the entire load was found to have reached 
 rather more than fifty-five tons ! 
 
 In all, about twenty Acts were passed prior to that of the 
 Stockton and Darlington line, mostly for short lengths, the 
 longest being a line of thirty miles, from Sutton Pool, near Ply- 
 mouth, to the neighbourhood of Dartmouth prison, the capital 
 of which is stated at the extremely low total of ^35,000. 
 
 The first line authorised in Scotland was from Kilmarnock to 
 Troon, in Ayrshire, for which an Act was obtained in 1808, and 
 which, for a length of about ten miles, was estimated to cost 
 ;j^65,ooo. This line was opened in 1810, and forming as i<. 
 does an integral part of the large system now embraced unde) 
 the name of the Glasgow and South-Western Railway, it entitles 
 that company to be considered the premier railway in Scotland. 
 
 It was about this time that Thomas Telford projected a very 
 extensive scheme to connect the east and west of Scotland by a 
 grand line, starting from Berwick, and proceeding by the valley 
 of the Tweed to Kelso, Peebles, and Lanark, to the town of 
 Ayr ! " We admire," says the compiler of the " Scottish Rail- 
 way Shareholders' Manual," in 1849, "the genius and sagacity 
 evinced by so magnificent a design ; but we do not wonder 
 that, in face of prejudice and ignorance on the part of the public.
 
 9 2 HEROES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER V. 
 
 in the infancy of railway undertakings, it should have been laid 
 aside and forgotten. " In 1 8 1 1 the Berwick and Kelso Company 
 projected a line occupying part of Telford's ground, but this 
 particular railway was never carried out. The scheme lay 
 dormant for many years — for, unlike more modern Acts, no 
 limitation of time was put in the Act, so that the powers did 
 not lapse — and no step was ever made to carry it out. It is 
 true that later works have occupied nearly all the ground pro- 
 jected by Telford, so that a railway journey by Kelso, Peebles, 
 and Lanark to Ayr, can at this day be made per rail, over sub- 
 stantially the same ground as was taken up by the great engineer. 
 But the main lines of connection for traffic purposes, between 
 the east and west of Scotland, have been found elsewhere. 
 
 The greater number of the companies incorporated by the 
 Acts up to this time embraced but few persons, and consisted 
 mostly of merchants or owners of collieries seeking an outlet 
 for their goods. Thus, the capital of the Penrhynmaur line, 
 for which an Act was obtained in 1 8 1 2, was held by two men, 
 the Earl of Uxbridge and Mr. Holland Griffith. On none of 
 the lines for which Acts were obtained ud to 1820 was any 
 other motive-power used or designed than that of horses, and 
 not one of the companies even proposed the adoption of the 
 steam-engine, though the invention was by this time beginning 
 to attract attention, nor did tlie idea of conveying passengers 
 seem to be entertained. 
 
 This was, however, to be completely changed by the Act 
 obtained in 1 821, in which the clause defining the method of 
 haulage spoke of " the making and maintaining of the tramroada 
 and the passage upon them of waggons a/id other carriages, with 
 rnen, arid horses, or otherwise'' — words sufficiently elastic to 
 admit of any power being used. However, taking the Act
 
 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 93 
 
 altogether, it can hardly be considered that Mr. Edward Pease, 
 who was the chief promoter of the line, had it in view to use 
 anything else than horse-power, or that he was much moved by 
 Sir Richard Phillips's recommendation that they should use 
 ' Blenkinsop's steam-engine." 
 
 The Stockton and Darlington scheme had to run the gauntlet 
 of a fierce opposition in three successive sessions of Parliament. 
 The application of 1818 was defeated by the Duke of Cleveland, 
 who afterwards profited so largely by the construction of the 
 railway. The ground of his opposition was that the line would 
 interfere with one of his fox covers, and through his influence 
 the Bill was thrown out. 
 
 Several energetic men, however, were now at the head of the 
 scheme, and they determined to persevere with it. Amongst 
 these, Edward Pease might be regarded as the backbone of the 
 concern. Opposition did not daunt him, nor failure defeat him. 
 When apparently overthrown, he rose again, like Antaeus, 
 stronger than before, and made another and stronger effort. 
 He had in him the energy and patient perseverance of many men. 
 
 The next year, 1S19, an amended survey of the line was 
 made ; and, the Duke of Cleveland's fox cover being avoided, 
 his opposition was thus averted. But as Parliament was 
 dissolved on the death of George III., the Bill was necessarily 
 suspended until another session. 
 
 The principal opposition now came from the road trustees, 
 who spread it abroad that the mortgages of the tolls arising 
 from the turnpike road leading from Darlington to West Auckland 
 would be seriously injured by the formation of the proposed 
 railway. On this, Mr. Edward Pease issued a printed notice 
 requesting any alarmed mortgages to apply to the company's 
 solicitors at Darlington, who were authorised to purchase tlieir
 
 94 HER OES OF IN VENTION AND DISCO VER Y. 
 
 securities at the price originally given for them. Tnis notice 
 had the effect of allaying the alarm, and the Bill, though still 
 strongly opposed, was allowed to pass both Houses of Parlia- 
 ment in 1 82 1. 
 
 The preamble of the Act sets forth the public utility of the 
 proposed line for the conveyance of coal and other commodities 
 from the interior of the county of Durham to Stockton and the 
 northern parts of Yorkshire. Nothing was said about passen- 
 gers, for passenger traffic was even then not contemplated ; and 
 nothing was said about locomotives, as it was at first intended 
 to work the line entirely by horse-power. The road was to be 
 free to all who chose to place their waggons and horses upon it 
 for the haulage of coal and other merchandise, provided they 
 paid the tolls fixed by the Act 
 
 The company were empowered to charge fourpence a-ton per 
 mile for all coal intended for land sale ; but only a halfpenny 
 a-ton per mile for coal intended for shipment at Stockton. The 
 latter low rate was introduced in the Act through the influence 
 of Mr. Lambton, afterwards Earl of Durham, for the express 
 purpose of preventing the line being used in competition against 
 him ; for it was not believed possible that coal could be carried 
 at that rate except at a heavy loss. As it was, the low rate 
 thus fixed proved the vital element in the future success of the 
 Stockton and Darlington Railway. 
 
 The capital specified by the Act was of small amount, and, 
 as events proved, it Avas altogether inadequate. The share 
 capital was fixed at ^82,000, in shares of ;^ioo each, and, in 
 the event of this not being found sufficient, power was given 
 to raise ;^2o,ooo more by shares. If the shares were not taken 
 by the public, then the necessary capital, within the above 
 limits, might be raised by the issue of mortgages or promissory
 
 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 95 
 
 notes. These powers were necessarily greatly enlarged by sub- 
 sequent Acts to enable the line to be completed and placed in 
 sound working order. 
 
 While the Stockton and Darlington Railway scheme was still 
 before Parliament, Mr. Edward Pease was ^v^iting articles for a 
 York newspaper, urging the propriety of extending it southward 
 into Yorkshire by a branch from Croft. It is curious now to 
 look back upon the arguments by which Mr. Pease sought to 
 influence public opinion in favour of railways, and to observe 
 the very modest anticipations which even its most zealous 
 advocate entertained as to their supposed utility and capa- 
 bilities. 
 
 "The late improvements in the construction of railways," 
 Mr. Pease wrote, "have rendered them much more perfect 
 than when constructed after the old plan. To such a degree 
 of utility have they now been brought, that they may be re- 
 garded as very little inferior to canals T 
 
 " Though the railways at Carron [in Scotland] are not exempt 
 from slight risings and depressions, the reduction which they 
 have occasioned in a distance of six miles merits much attention. 
 Before their establishment the Carron Company paid ^^1200 
 monthly on an average for carriage, but since then the number 
 of horses employed has been diminished by three-fourths, and 
 the expenditure on carriage reduced to about ;^3oo a-month, 
 effecting a saving to the company of equal to ;;/^ 10,000 a-year. 
 Coal, lime, stone, and grain can also be conveniently weighed 
 by machines placed under the railway depots and at different 
 points of loading and discharging. The weighing on departing 
 and arriving would also be a great check to fraud. 
 
 " One horse can draw, by means of a railway, on a level or 
 slightly-inclined plane, from eight to sixteen waggons of one ton
 
 9 6 HER OES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER V. 
 
 each, and each waggon may be loaded with different kinds of 
 goods to suit the traffic on the line. 
 
 " If we compare the railway with the best lines of common 
 road, it may be fairly stated that in the case of a level railway 
 the work will be increased in at least an eightfold degree. The 
 best horse is sufficiently loaded with three-quarters of a ton on 
 a common road, from the undulating line of its draught, while 
 on a railway it is calculated that a horse will easily draw a load 
 of ten tons. At Lord Elgin's works, Mr. Stephenson, the cele- 
 brated engineer, states that he has actually seen a horse draw 
 twenty-three tons thirteen cwt. upon a railway, which was in 
 some parts level, and at others presented a gentle declivity ! 
 
 " The formation of a railway, if it creates no improvement in 
 a country, certainly bars none, as all the former modes of com- 
 munication remain unimpaired ; and the public obtain, at the 
 risk of the subscribers, another and better mode of carriage, 
 which it will always be to the interest of the proprietors to make 
 cheap and serviceable to the community. 
 
 " On undertakings of this kind, when compared with canals, 
 the advantages of which (where an extensive traffic on the 
 ascending or descending line can be obtained) are nearly equal, 
 it may be remarked that public opinion is not easily changed 
 on any subject It requires the experience of many years, 
 sometimes ages, to accomplish this, even in cases which by 
 some may be deemed obvious. Such is the effect of habit, and 
 such the aversion of mankind to anything like innovation or 
 change. Although this is often regretted, yet, if the principle 
 be investigated in all its ramifications, it will jjerhaps be found 
 to be one of the most fortunate dispositions of the human mind. 
 
 " The discovery of the cast-iron railway is comparatively of 
 recent date. It is not only intimately connected with inland
 
 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 97 
 
 navigation, and originated with it, but will be found, as it be- 
 comes more perfect, to add to the efficiency and utility of that 
 system of communication, whilst every step in advance must 
 materially promote the interests of the agriculturist, the miner, the 
 merchant, the mariner, and, in short, of the community at large. 
 
 " The system of cast-iron railways is as yet to be considered 
 but in its infancy. It will be found to be an immense improve- 
 ment on the common road and also on the wooden railway. 
 It neither presents the friction of the tramway nor partakes ot 
 the perishable nature of the wooden railway, and, as regards 
 utility, it may be considered as the medium between the 
 navigable canal and the common road. We may, therefore, 
 hope that as this system develops itself our roads will be laid 
 out as much as possible on one level, and in connection with 
 the great lines of communication throughout the country." 
 
 Such were the modest anticipations of Edward Pease respect- 
 ing railways, about the year 181 8. Ten years after, and an age 
 of progress, by comparison, had been made. Mr. Pease did 
 not at first so much as dream of the locomotive, his anti- 
 cipations being solely based on the employment of horse- 
 power. 
 
 If no other, the Act of 19th April, 1821, had one important 
 and immediate consequence in bringing " the engine-wright ol 
 Killingworth " (as George Stephenson modestly styled himself) 
 into contact with Edward Pease. He called at his house, as 
 he told the worthy Quaker, because he had heard of the Act, 
 bringing with him a letter of introduction from the director ot 
 the KillingAvorth pits. The conversation that followed, after 
 George Stephenson had presented his letter to Edward Pease, 
 was highly characteristic of both men. As recorded by Dr. 
 Smiles, the originator of the Stockton-Darlington line "very
 
 98 HEROES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VEk Y. 
 
 soon saw that his visitor was the mnn for his purpose. The 
 whole plans of the railway being still in an undetermined state, 
 Mr. Pease was glad to have the opportunity of gathering from 
 Mr. Stephenson the results of his experience. The latter 
 strongly recommended a railway in preference to a tram-road, 
 in which Mr. Pease was disposed to concur with him. The 
 conversation next turned to the tractive power which the 
 company intended to employ, and Mr. Pease said that they 
 had based their whole calculations on the employment of 
 horse-power. ' I was so satisfied,' said he afterwards, ' 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.' 
 
 "Mr. Pease was scarcely prepared for the bold assertion made 
 by his visitor, that the locomotive engine with which he had 
 been working tlie Killingworth railway for many years past was 
 worth fifty horses, and that engines made after a similar plan 
 would yet entirely supersede all horse-power upon railroads. 
 Mr. Stephenson was daily becoming more positive as to tlie 
 superiority of his locomotive ; and on this, as on all subsequent 
 occasions, he strongly urged Mr. Pease fc adopt it. ' Come 
 over to Killingworth,' said he, 'and see what my"Blucher" 
 can do. Seeing is believing, sir.' And Mr. Pease promised 
 that on some early day he would go over to Killingworth with 
 his friend John Richardson, and take a look at this wonderful 
 machine that was to supersede horses. On Mr. Pease referring 
 to the difhculties and the opposition which the projectors of the 
 railway had had to encounter, and the obstacles which still lay 
 in their way, Stephenson said to him, 'I think, sir, I have some 
 knowledge of craniology, and from what I see of your head I 
 feel sure that if you will fairly buckle to this railway you arc
 
 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 99 
 
 the man successfully to carry it through.' * I think so too, 
 rejoined Mr. Pease, * and I may observe to thee, that if thou 
 succeed in making this a good railway, thou may consider thy 
 fortune as good as made.'" The remark and reply were alike 
 characteristic of the promoters of the first railway. 
 
 The graphic description, by an early friend, of Mr. Edward 
 Pease, that "he was a man who could see a hundred years 
 ahead," was strikingly proved in the weeks that followed his 
 first interview with George Stephenson. Having accepted the 
 invitation to " come over to Killingworth," and having seen 
 with his own eyes what " my * Blucher ' can do," his mind 
 became at once clear as to the immense future awaiting the 
 introduction of the *' iron horse " upon the iron railway, and he 
 not only strongly advocated the use of locomotives, but made 
 himself Stephenson's partner in their manufacture. Through 
 his influence the still unknown engine-wright at Killingworth 
 was appointed engineer of the Stockton-Darlington line, and at 
 his urgent request Mr. Pease applied for a new Act of Parliament 
 giving the Stockton-Darlington Company power to work the 
 railway by means of locomotive engines, and to employ them 
 for the haulage of passengers as well as goods. The Act was 
 obtained with some difficulty, against the bitter opposition of a 
 number of powerful peers, such as the Duke of Cleveland, in 
 llie session of 1823, when the construction of the railway, under 
 George Stephenson's supervision, was already going on actively. 
 The first rail of the Stockton and Darlington line had been laid, 
 v.-ith considerable ceremony, near the town of Stockton, on the 
 23rd of May, 1S22, and notwithstanding the uninterrupted opposi- 
 tion, frequently growing into acts of personal violence, of hundreds 
 of enemies, backed by the whole mob of the district, the Avorks 
 were pushed on so vigorously, that it was possible to open the
 
 I oo HER OES OF IN UJLNTION AND DISCO VER V. 
 
 line on the day fixed, the 27th of December, 1825 — eventful 
 day in railway history, well worthy the great " Jubilee " held at 
 Darlington in 1875. 
 
 Of the first interview between Stevenson and Pease, ver}' 
 graphic accounts have been given by Dr. Smiles who had an 
 interview with Mr. Pease in 1854, four years before his death, 
 and when he had reached the patriarchial age of eighty-eight. 
 Hale and hearty, and full of reminiscences of the past, sound in 
 liealth, with his eye not dimmed or his natural force abated, 
 Mr. Pease narrated many circumstances which the biographer 
 of the engineer has made full use of. He described the 
 appearance of Stephenson as having " an honest, sensible look 
 about him, and so modest and unpretending withal." Stephen- 
 son spoke in the strong Northumbrian dialect of his district, 
 and described himself as "only the engine-\vright of Killingworth 
 — that's what I am." In the course of the interview, Edward 
 Pease said to Dr. Smiles, with much truth — referring to the 
 growth of the trees in front of his house which he had planted 
 as a boy — "Ay, but railways are a far more extraordinary 
 growth even than these. They have grown up not only since 
 I was a boy, but since I was a man. When I started the 
 Stockton and Darlinglon, some fivc-and-thirty years since, I 
 was already fifty years old. Nobody would then have dreamt 
 what railways would have grown to in one man's lifetime." 
 
 The 27th day of September, 1825, deserves to be marked as a 
 red-letter day in the calendar of the world's history. On that 
 morning the greatest revolution of modern times was to be 
 inaugurated — the painfully slow development of men's ideas up 
 to that point being followed, though not quite immediately, by 
 results which were none the less consequent upon that day's 
 proceedings, that the persons chiefly engaged in the work failed
 
 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 
 
 entirely to see what the future had in store for the world in 
 supplement to the success of the opening. 
 
 Tuesday, the 27th of September, 1825, was a great day for 
 Darlington. The railway, after having being under construction 
 for more than three years, was at length about to be opened. 
 The project had been the talk of the neighbourhood 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 on to the line, 
 and ready to draw the first train of waggons 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 eclat to the opening, the 
 directors of the company issued a programme of the proceedings, 
 intimating the times at which the procession of waggons would 
 pass certain points along the line. The proprietors assembled 
 as early as six in the morning at the Brusselton fixed engine, 
 where the working of the inclined planes was successfully 
 rehearsed. In this trial, as in the subsequent ceremony, a train 
 of waggons laden with coals and merchandise was drawn up 
 the western incline by the fixed engine in seven and a half 
 minutes, and then lowered down the incline on the eastern side 
 of the hill in five minutes. 
 
 In spite of the evil prognostications heard on all sides, the 
 inauguration of the Stockton-Darlington Railway passed over 
 most satisfactorily. The programme issued by the company
 
 r 02 HER OES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VERY. 
 
 dated "Railway Office, September 19th, 1825," was as 
 follows : — 
 
 " The Stockton and Darlington Railway Company do here- 
 by give notice that the formal opening of this railway will take 
 place on the 27th inst., as announced in the public papers. The 
 proprietors will assemble at the Permanent Steam-engine, 
 situated near the Brusselton Tower, about nine miles west 
 of Darlington, at eight o'clock, and, after examining their 
 extensive inclined plains there, will start from the foot of the 
 Brusselton descending plane at nine o'clock in the following 
 order : — 
 
 " I. The company's locomotive engine. 
 
 " 2. The engine's tender, with water and coals. 
 
 " 3. Six waggons laden with coals, merchandise, etc. 
 
 " 4. The committee, and other proprietors, in the coach 
 belonging to the company. 
 
 " 5. Six waggons with seats reserved for strangers. 
 
 " 6. Fourteen waggons, for the conveyance of workmen and 
 others. 
 
 " The whole of the above to proceed to Stockton. 
 
 " 7. Six waggons laden with coals, to leave the procession at 
 the Darlington branch. 
 
 " 8. Six waggons, drawn by horses, for workmen and others. 
 
 "9. Ditto. 
 
 " 10. Ditto. 
 
 "11. Ditto. 
 
 " The company's workmen to leave the procession at 
 Darlington and dine at that place at one o'clock, excepting 
 those to whom tickets are specially given for Yarm, and for 
 whom conveyances will be provided on their arrival at Stock- 
 ton.
 
 GEORGE STEPHENSOJSr. 103 
 
 " Tickets will be given to the workmen who are to dine at 
 Darlington, specifying the houses of entertainment. 
 
 " The proprietors, and such of the nobility and gentry as may 
 honour them with their company, will dine precisely at three 
 o'clock at the Town Hall, Stockton. Such of the party as may 
 incline to return to Darlington that evening will find conveyances 
 in waiting for their accommodation, to start from the company's 
 wharf there precisely at seven o'clock. 
 
 " The company take this opportunity of enjoining on all 
 their workpeople that attention to sobriety and decorum which 
 they have hitherto had the pleasure of observing. 
 
 " The committee give this public notice, that all persons who 
 shall ride upon, or by the sides of the railway, on horseback, 
 will incur the penalties imposed by the Acts of Parliament 
 passed relative to this railway." 
 
 Appended to the programme was the following footnote : — 
 
 "Any individual desirous of seeing the train of waggons 
 descending the inclined plane from Etherley, and in progress to 
 Brusselton, may have an opportunity of so doing, by being on 
 the railway at St. Helen's, Auckland, not later than half-past 
 seven o'clock." 
 
 At the foot of the Brusselton inchne the procession ol 
 vehicles was formed, consisting of the locomotive engine, *' No. 
 I," driven by George Stephenson himself; after it six waggons 
 loaded with coals and flour, then a covered coach containing 
 directors and proprietors, next twenty-one coal waggons fitted 
 cp for passengers (with which they were crammed), and lastlj- 
 six more waggons loaded with coals. 
 
 Strange to say, a man on a horse, carrying a flag, with the 
 motto of the company inscribed on it, Periaduvi privatuir. 
 utilitas publica^ headed the procession ! A lithographic view gi
 
 1 04 HER OES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER Y 
 
 the great event, published shortly after, duly exhibits the horse- 
 man 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, Avith 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 engine. 
 The railway descending with a gentle incline towards Dar- 
 lington, the rate of speed was consequently variable. At a 
 favourable part of the road, Stephenson determined to try the 
 speed of the engine, and he called upon the horseman with 
 the flag to get out of the way ! Most probably deeming it 
 unnecessary to carry his Periculum privatimi further, 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 
 favourable 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. 
 
 Although only George Stephenson's name is mentioned as 
 the driver of the locomotive "No. i," his principal helper, Mr. 
 William Huntley, who still (1877) lives, deserves some notice. 
 Mr. Huntley, who was born at Acklington in 1798, was ten years 
 in the employment of Stephenson & Co., and superintended 
 the erection of the "first locomotive." On the opening day, 
 he drove it in turn with George Stephenson. Huntley after- 
 wards erected the first locomotive that drew a passenger train 
 in Scotland, in 1831, and since that period he has been 
 connected with the railway system at Dundee. Mr. Huntley has 
 attracted attention by his " continuous grip-brake," for stopping
 
 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 105 
 
 trains at high speed, for which he has decided not to take out 
 a patent, presenting it freely to the consideration of the railway 
 world. 
 
 In 1824 an Act was obtained for the construction of the 
 Monkland and Kirkintilloch Railway, from Palace Craig, in 
 Lanarkshire, to the banks of the canal at Kirkintilloch, in 
 Dumbartonshire. The line was completed and opened a year 
 after the Stockton and Darlington, namely, in September, 1826, 
 and was at first used only for the conveyance of coal for shipment 
 at the canal. The waggons were drawn by steam locomotives. 
 As it was found that passenger traffic could be cultivated, the 
 directors, early in 1827, added to most of the coal-trains a 
 coach for the conveyance of passengers, with considerable profit 
 to the company. The Ballochney Railway, opened in 1828, 
 also had some of its trains drawn by locomotives ; and here, 
 too, the addition of a passenger carriage proved a source of 
 convenience to the public and of profit to the company. 
 
 The Canterbury and Whitstaple was the fourth completed 
 line in the kingdom which used locomotives and carried 
 passengers, and perhaps from the fact that it did not, any more 
 than the two Scotch lines above named, attract much public 
 attention, its story is deserving of record now. The Act for 
 the formation of the line was got in 1825, and with a capital of 
 ;^3 5,000, it was proposed to make a line six and a quarter 
 miles long, with heavy gradients, and a tunnel half-a-mile long. 
 This proved inadequate, and subsequent Acts were obtained in 
 1827 and 1828 to raise new capital. As even these additions 
 proved too little, loans and mortgages were resorted to, and it 
 was only in May, 1830, that the public opening took place. 
 Worked on a series of inclined planes, partly by locomotives 
 and partly with fixed engines, the Canterbury and Whitstaple
 
 [ o6 HEROES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VERY. 
 
 Railway was a sufficiently remarkable undertaking to attract 
 public curiosity ; still the event of its opening was disposed of 
 briefly in the newspapers, as a thing of no more importance than 
 the making of a few miles of ordinary road. It was, in fact, 
 left to the Liverpool and Manchester line, which was opened 
 four months later (15th September) to arouse the press and the 
 public to the fact that there was in existence a process for con- 
 veying passengers and goods along the surface of the earth 
 immensely superior to anything known in the world's history. 
 The use of locomotive engines both for passengers and goods 
 was a process fully established. Two lines of railway in 
 England and two in Scotland were daily proving its enormous 
 value, yet the reports of the inauguration of the railway 
 connecting the great port of Liverpool with the manufacturing" 
 centres of Lancashire — perhaps not less by the success of the 
 proceedings than by the tragic death of a popular statesman by 
 which they were saddened — were the first to open the eyes of 
 the nation and the world to the fact that the ....^^ent of the iron 
 horse was about to revolutionise not only travelling but trade, 
 and to bring to light a new power which, whether for peace 
 or war, was to distance and displace all existing methods of 
 conveyance, and bring about a new social era. 
 
 Application was made to Parliament for leave to lay down a 
 railway from Liverpool to Manchester— a work then become 
 indispensable to those two increasing and important towns. At 
 that period, and for some time afterwards, canal boats, and slow, 
 heavy road waggons were the only available means for the 
 transport of heavy goods or bulky merchandise. The charge 
 for conveyance from London to Yorkshire amounted frequently 
 to ^13 per ton, and even at this high cost the service was very 
 imijerfcct. Beneficial as canals had proved, they were becoming
 
 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 107 
 
 inadequate to the growing requirements of trade. Besides the 
 road there were two canals for the traffic between Liverpool and 
 Manchester, the distance by the latter fifty-five miles, and the 
 carriage of goods in some instances ^2 per ton. Manchester 
 was so entirely dependent on Liverpool that better accommoda- 
 tion became a necessity. Another canal could not be made, 
 so a railway was projected; and the prospectus being issued in 
 1824, an Act was obtained, after failure in the session of 1825, 
 in the year 1826. 
 
 It was tlie intention of its projectors to run the carriages 
 upon it at a high rate of speed. To do this with horses was 
 expensive ; and to work it by steam-power, it was supposed that 
 stationary engines would be required at short intei-vals along 
 the road, to draw the trains by ropes from one station to 
 another. While the necessity for the projected railway was 
 admitted on all hands, the idea of its being worked by locomo- 
 tives at a speed exceeding eight or nine miles an-hour was 
 ridiculed. And when George Stephenson stated that he could 
 make the locomotive travel at the rate of twenty miles an-hour, 
 it was received with incredulity, and doubts were whispered as 
 to his sanity. A reviewer in the Quarter/y stated that nothing 
 could be more palpably absurd than the prospect held out ot 
 locomotives travelling twice as fast as stage-coaches, and that 
 people would as soon suffer themselves to be fired off upon one 
 of Congreve's ricochet rockets as trust themselves to the mercy of 
 a machine going at such a rate. When examined before a parlia- 
 mentary committee, Stephenson's estimate of speed caused one 
 member of the committee to remark that the engineer could only 
 be fit for a lunatic asylum. The following case was put before 
 Stephenson : "Suppose, now, one of tliose engines to be going 
 along a railroad at the rate of nine or ten miles an-hour, and
 
 X o8 HER OES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER Y. 
 
 that a cow were to stray upon the Hne and get in the way 
 of the engine, would not that, think you, be a very awkward 
 circumstance ? " " Yes," repUed the witness, with a twinkle in 
 his eye, " very awkward indeed— ;/^r the coo /" The honourable 
 member did not proceed further ^vith his cross-examination; 
 and, says Dr. Smiles, " to use a railway phrase, he was shunted." 
 
 A premium of ^500 was at length offered for the best 
 engine, one that should not produce smoke, should draw three 
 times its own weight for thirty miles, at the rate of ten miles an- 
 hour, should be supported on springs, should not weigh more 
 than six tons, and should not cost more than ;^55o. At the 
 time appointed, four locomotives were presented for trial, and 
 the competition took place on the 6th of October, 1829, before 
 many thousand spectators. One of the competing engines, the 
 " Perseverance," made by Mr. Burstall, being found unable to 
 move at more than five or six miles an-hour, was withdrawn. 
 Another, called the "Novelty," made by Messrs. Braithwaite 
 & Ericsson, was unable to complete the trial owing to the 
 bellows for creating the blast having given way. A third, called 
 the " Sanspareil," submitted by Mr. Hackworth, succeeded in 
 drawing a load at the rate of fourteen miles an-hour ; but at its 
 eighth trip along the two-mile level which formed the course, 
 the cold-water pump got wrong, and it could proceed no further. 
 The " Rocket," made by George Stephenson, however, made 
 an experimental trip of twelve miles, which was performed 
 without accident in about fifty-three minutes. 
 
 Another day was fixed for the final trial of the competing 
 engines; and on the morning of the 8th of October, the 
 " Rocket" was again ready for the contest. "On that occasion," 
 says Dr. Smiles, " the engine was taken to the extremity of the 
 stage, the fire-box was filled with coke, the fire lighted, and the
 
 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 109 
 
 steam raised until it lifted the safety-valve, loaded to a pressure 
 of 50 lbs. 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 waggons, and 
 made the first ten trips, backwards and forwards along the two 
 miles of road, runnmg the thirty-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 trip was twenty- 
 nine miles an-hour, or about three times the speed that one of 
 the judges of the competition declared to be the limit of 
 possibility ! The average speed at which the whole of the 
 journeys were performed was fifteen miles an-hour, and five 
 beyond the rate specified in the conditions published by the 
 company. The entire performance excited the greatest astonish- 
 ment amongst 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 
 fiilse prophets and fickle counsellors, his locomotive system was 
 safe. When the * Rocket,' having performed all the conditions 
 cf the contest, arrived at the ' grand stand ' at the close of its 
 day's successful run, Mr. Cropper, one of the directors favour- 
 able to the fixed-engine system, lifted up his hands and exclaimed, 
 'Now has George Stephenson at last delivered himself This 
 interesting engine, the parent of the locomotives at present in 
 use, is still to be seen in the Patent Museum at South Kensington." 
 The prize of ;!^5oo was at once awarded to the maker of the 
 " Rocket." The engine was not only remarkable for its speed, 
 but also for the contrivances by which that speed was attained. 
 Most important among them was the introduction of tubes 
 pissing from end to end of the boiler — said to have been sug-
 
 1 1 o HER OES OF IN VENTION AND DISCO VER Y. 
 
 gested by Mr. Booth, secretary to the company — by means of 
 which so great an additional surface was exposed to the heat ot" 
 the fire, that steam was generated much more rapidly, and a 
 higher temperature maintained at a smaller expenditure of fuel 
 than usual. The tubular boiler was indeed the gi-and fact of 
 the experiment. Witliout tubes steam could never have been 
 produced with the rapidity and heat essential to quick loco- 
 motion ; and by burning coke instead of coal, the stipulated 
 suppression of smoke was effected. The quantity of fuel 
 consumed by the "Rocket" during the experiment was half-a- 
 ton, the coke and water being carried in a tender attached to 
 the engine. 
 
 One of George Stephenson's crowning achievements was the 
 formation of the Manchester and Liverpool line; a project 
 which, despite the sarcasms and incredulity with which it was 
 assailed, succeeded beyond the engineer's most sanguine hopes. 
 " Mr. George Stephenson," says Dr. Smiles in his most 
 interesting biography, "was no sooner appointed engineer than 
 he removed his residence to Liverpool, and made arrangemenlb 
 to commence the works. He began with tlie impossible — 
 to do that which the most distinguished engineers of the day 
 had declared tliat 'no man in his senses would undertake to 
 do ' — namely, to make the road over Chat Moss ! The drainage 
 of the moss was commenced in June, 1826. It was indeed a 
 most formidable undertaking ; and it has been well observed 
 that to carry a railway along, under, or over such material as the 
 moss presented, could never have been contemplated by an 
 'ordinary mind. Michael Drayton supposed Chat Moss to have 
 had its origin at the Deluge. Nothing more impassable could 
 have been imagined than that dreary waste; and Mr. Giles only 
 spoke the popular feeling of the day when lie declared that no
 
 GEORGE STEPHENSON. n» 
 
 ■:arriage could stand on it 'short of the bottom.' In this bog, 
 singular to say, Mr. Roscoe, the accomplished historian of the 
 Medtcis, buried liis fortune in the hopeless attempt to cultivate 
 it. Nevertheless, farming operations had for some time been 
 going on, and were extending along the verge of the moss; 
 but the tilled ground, underneath which the bog extended, was 
 so soft that the horses when })loughing were provided with flat- 
 soled shoes to prevent their hoofs sinking deep into the soil. 
 
 " For weeks the stuff was poured in, and little or no progress 
 seemed to have been made. The directors of the railway 
 became alarmed, and they feared that the evil prognostications 
 of the eminent civil engineers were now about to be realised, 
 
 " Mr. Stephenson was asked for his opinion ; and his invari- 
 able answer was, 'We must persevere." And so he went on ; 
 but still the insatiable bog gaped for more material, which was 
 emptied in truck-load after truck-load without any apparent 
 effect. Then a special meeting of the board was summoned, 
 and it was held upon the spot, to detemiine whether the work 
 should be proceeded with or abandoned. Mr. Stephenson him- 
 self afterwards described the transaction at a i)ublic dinner 
 given at Birmingham on the 23rd of December, 1837, on the 
 occasion of a piece of plate being presented to his son, the 
 engineer of the London and Birmingham Railway. He related 
 the anecdote, he said, for the purpose of impressing upon the 
 minds of all who heard him the necessity of perseverance. 
 
 " ' After working for weeks and weeks,' said he, ' in filling in 
 materials to form the road, there did not yet appear to be the 
 least sign of our being able to raise the solid embankment one 
 single inch ; in short, we went on filling in without the slightest 
 apparent effect. Even my assistants began to feel uneasy, and 
 to doubt of the success of the scheme. The directors, too, spoke
 
 1 1 2 HER OES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER Y. 
 
 of it as a hopeless task, and at length they became seriously 
 alarmed ; so much so, indeed, that a board meeting was held 
 on Chat Moss to decide whether I should proceed any further. 
 They had previously taken the opinion of other engineers, who 
 reported unfavourably. There was no help for it, however, but 
 to go on. An immense outlay had been incurred ; and great 
 loss would have been occasioned had the scheme been then 
 abandoned and the line taken by another route. So the 
 directors were compelled to allow me to go on with my plans, of 
 the ultimate success of which I myself never for one moment 
 doubted. Determined, therefore, to persevere as before, I 
 ordered the work to be carried on vigorously ; and to the 
 surprise of every one connected with the undertaking, in six 
 months from the day on which the board had held its special 
 meeting on the moss, a locomotive engine and carriage passed 
 over the very spot with a party of the directors' friends on their 
 way to dine at Manchester.' " 
 
 The works were so far advanced that the line was expected 
 to be ready for opening on ist January, 1830. A desire to 
 secure greater prominence to the event postponed the opening 
 to a later date, and it was not till the 15th of September that 
 the inauguration took place.- 
 
 After the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester line, 
 Stephenson took up his residence near Ashby-de-la-Zouch, in 
 Leicestershire, where he resided for some years. In company 
 with two Liverpool friends, he purchased an estate in the neigh- 
 bourhood ot Ashby, called Snibston, where he sank several 
 shafts ; and after overcoming no common difficulties, by means 
 of the Leicester and Swannington Railway, the people of 
 Leicester were enabled to purchase coals at 8s. a-ton. This
 
 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 
 
 Dr. Smiles remarks, must have had the effect of saving about 
 ;!^4o,ooo per annum to the inhabitants. His correspondence 
 had now increased so much that he was obliged to engage a 
 private secretary. In the year 1835, during his busy season, 
 he dictated no fewer than thirty-seven letters daily. At 
 another time, he dictated letters and reports for twelve hours at 
 a time, until his secretary was like to drop from his chair with 
 fatigue, and was obliged to ask for a suspension from labour. 
 These years ending 1837 are said by his biographer to have been 
 the busiest of his life ; amongst other duties, he was engaged 
 in the survey as principal engineer of the North Midland Rail- 
 way from Derby to Leeds, the York and North Midland from 
 Normanton to York, the Manchester and Leeds, the Birming- 
 ham and Derby, and the Sheffield and Rotherham Railways. In 
 1 84 1 he said that there was hardly a railway in England whicli 
 he had not had to do with. In the survey of a proposed line 
 in Scotland between Edinburgh and Newcastle, by the vale of 
 the Gala (now occupied by the Waverley route), and by Carter 
 Fell on the Cheviots, as against a coast route by way of Berwick- 
 on-Tweed, his report was strongly in favour of the latter. The 
 reasons were apparent — the railway would follow that low coast- 
 line, possessing levels of a favourable nature, and being near 
 the coast the snow would not lie so long on the line. The 
 rush for railway Acts, as Dr. Smiles tells us, was now extra- 
 ordinary. In the year 1836, thirty-four Bills passed the Legis- 
 lature, authorising the making of 994 miles of new railway, the 
 cost being estimated at ;2^i 7,595,000. During 1837 no less 
 than 118 notices of new railway Bills were given in. Of these 
 i;eventy-nine were introduced to Parliament, forty-two Acts 
 were obtained, fourteen companies were incorporated and 
 luthorised to construct 464 miles of railway at a cost of
 
 1 1 4 HEROES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER Y. 
 
 ;^8,oS 7,000. From 1838 till 1844 the desire for new railway 
 works was moderated, and in 1845 a.nother tide of railway 
 speculation set in. Powers were granted by Parliament 
 during that year to construct 2883 miles of new railways in 
 Britain, and next year the power was conceded for still larger 
 undertakings. 
 
 Speaking at Blackburn in 1840, Stephenson intimated his 
 intention of retiring from the more arduous portion of his 
 duties, which he did by resigning his charge as chief engineer 
 on several of the railways with which he was connected. He 
 had removed in 1838 to Tapton House, near Chesterfield, and 
 he was able to enjoy the grounds, which he greatly improved. 
 His name and presence were common at this time with the 
 Mechanics' Institutes of the Midland Counties. In 1844 he 
 was appointed engineer to the Wliitehaven and Maryport Rail- 
 way, and at about the same time was elected chairman of the 
 Yarmouth and Norwich Railway. The Newcastle and Darling- 
 ton line was completed and publicly opened in 1844. By this 
 line direct communication was gained with London. Mr. 
 Stephenson, Mr, Hudson, and a distinguished party, travelled 
 from London to Newcastle in nine hours. At the banquet in 
 the evening, the honourable Mr. Liddell, M.P., occupied the 
 chair, and paid a high compliment to George Stephenson and 
 his son Robert. " Mr. Stephenson," he said, " might truly be 
 looked upon as the great pacificator of the age. And yet a 
 few years ago he was but a working engineman at a colliery. 
 But he was a man not only of talent but of genius. Happily, 
 also, he was a man of industry and of character. He con- 
 structed the first successful engine that travelled by its own 
 spontaneous power over an iron railroad, and on such a road, 
 and by such an engine, a communication iiad now been estab-
 
 GE OR GE STEPHENSON. 1 1 5 
 
 lished between London and Newcastle. The author of this 
 system of traveUing had Hved long enough for his fame but not 
 long enough for his country. He had reared to himself a monu- 
 ment more durable than brass or marble, and based it on a 
 foundation whereon it would rest unshaken by the storms of time." 
 Stephenson replied as follows : "As the honourable member," 
 said he, " has referred to the engineering efforts of my early 
 days, it may not be amiss if I say a few words to you on that 
 subject, more especially for the encouragement of my younger 
 friends. Mr. Liddell has told you that in my early days I 
 worked at an engine at a coal-pit. I had then to work early 
 and late, and my employment was a most laborious one. For 
 about twenty years I had often to rise to my labour at one and 
 two o'clock in the morning, and worked till late at night. Time 
 rolled on, and I had the happiness to make some improvements 
 in engine-work. The company will be gratified when I tell 
 them that the first locomotive that I made was at Killingworth 
 Colliery. The owners were pleased with what I had done in 
 the collieries, and I then proposed to make an engine to work 
 upon the smooth rails. It was with Lord Ravensworth's money 
 that my first locomotive was built. Yes, Lord Ravensworth 
 and his partners were the first gentlemen to entrust me with 
 money to make a locomotive. This was more than thirty years 
 ago, and we first called it 'My Lord.' I then stated to 
 some of my friends now living that those high velocities with 
 which we are now so familiar would sooner or later be attained, 
 and that there was no limit to the speed of such an engine, pro- 
 vided the works could be made to stand ; but nobody would 
 believe me at that time. The engines could not perform the 
 high velocities now reached when they were first invented, but, 
 by their superior construction, an immense speed is now capable
 
 1 1 6 HER OES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER Y. 
 
 of being obtained. In what has been done under my manage- 
 ment, the merit is only in part my own. Throughout I have 
 been most ably seconded and assisted by my son. In the early 
 period of my career, and when he wg.s a little boy, I felt how 
 deficient I was in education, and made up my mind that I 
 would put him to a good school I determined that he should 
 have as liberal a training as J could afford to give him. I was, 
 however, a poor man ; and how do you think I managed ? I 
 betook myself to mending my neighbours' clocks and watches 
 at night after my daily labour was done. By this means I 
 saved money, which I put by ; and in course of time I was thus 
 enabled to give my son a good education. While quite a boy 
 he assisted me and became a companion to me. He got an 
 appointment as under-viewer at Killingworth, and at nights 
 when we came home we worked together at our engineering. 
 I got leave from my employers to go from Killingworth to lay 
 down a railway at Hetton, and, next to Darlington for a like 
 purpose ; and I finished both railways. After that I went to 
 Liverpool to plan a line to Manchester. The directors of that 
 undertaking thought ten miles an-hour would be a maximum 
 speed for the locomotive engine, and I pledged myself to attain 
 that speed. I said I had no doubt the locomotive might be 
 made to go much faster, but we had better be moderate at the 
 beginning. The directors said that I was quite right ; for if, 
 when they went to Parliament, I talked of going at a greater rate 
 than ten miles an-hour, I should put a cross on 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. I had 
 to place myself in the most unpleasant of all positions — the wit- 
 ness-box of a parliamentary committee. I was not long in it, I 
 assure you, before I began to wish loi a hole to creep out at
 
 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 117 
 
 I could not find words to satisfy the committee or myself, or 
 even to make them understand my meaning. Some said, 
 * He's a foreigner.' * No,' others replied, * he's mad.' But I 
 put up with every rebuff, and went on with my plans, deter- 
 mined not to be put down. Assistance gradually increased ; 
 great improvements were made in the locomotive, until to-day 
 a train which started from London in the morning has brought 
 me in the afternoon to my native soil, and enabled me to meet 
 again many faces with which I am familiar, and which I am 
 exceedingly pleased to see once more." 
 
 When the question of the use of atmospheric railways versus 
 the locomotive came before Parliament in 1845, the locomotive 
 triumphed. '=The king of railway structures," the high-level 
 bridge over the Tyne, was first promulgated by Mr. R. W. 
 Brandling in 1841. The designs for the bridge were Mr. Robert 
 Stephenson's, and the name of George Stephenson appeared in 
 the committee of management In 1835 George Stephenson 
 and his son had been consulted as to the establishment of an 
 efficient railway system throughout Belgium. During a visit to 
 Belgium the king appointed him a Knight of the Order of 
 Leopold. From the opening of the first lines in 1835 until 
 1844, about six and a-half millions sterling had been laid out 
 in railways there. The Belgian lines being executed as an 
 entire system by the State, their railway system is said by Dr. 
 Smiles to have averaged in cost less than one-half that of Eng- 
 land. Stephenson was present at the public opening of the line 
 from Brussels to Ghent, and on the day following had the 
 honour of dining with the king and queen at their own table at 
 Laaken. The engineers of Brussels entertained him to a mag- 
 nificent banquet. A model of the " Rocket " was placed upon 
 the centre table at dinner, under a triumphal arch. The Icing
 
 f 1 8 HEROES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER Y. 
 
 had a private interview with him, when he is said to have been 
 easy and self-possessed while explaining to him the structure 
 of the Belgian coalfields, with the rise and progress of trade 
 and manufactures, which were so closely dependent for their 
 existence on these coalfields. In 1845 he visited Spain, in 
 order to report on " The Royal North of Spain Railway," but 
 his report was so unfavourable that the scheme was aban- 
 doned. 
 
 Towards the close of his days, George Stephenson lived the 
 life of a country gentleman, and began to take a greater interest 
 than he had ever previously time or opportunity to do in horti- 
 cultural pursuits. He built melon-houses, pineries, and vineries, 
 and workmen were continually busied in his garden. He also 
 carried on farming operations to some extent. His old love 
 for birds and other animals returned, and he soon knew every 
 bird's nest in the neighbourhood. He read few books, loving 
 to gather most of his information from intelligent conversation, 
 and the most of his letters were dictated. His simple tastes in 
 eating and drinking continued to the last, and he could still 
 enjoy a bowl of " crowdie," a dish made with oatmeal and boil- 
 ing water — a reminiscence of his pitman days. He despised 
 foppery of all kinds, and one day when a young man, desirous 
 to be an engineer, came to him for advice, flourishing a gold- 
 headed cane, he said, " Put by that stick, my man, and then I 
 will speak to you." To another affectedly-dressed young man 
 
 he one day said, " You will, I hope Mr. , excuse me ; I 
 
 am a plain-spoken person, and am sorry to see a nice-looking 
 and rather clever young man like you disfigured with that fine- 
 patterned waistcoat, and all these chains and fang-dangs. If I, 
 sir, had bothered my head with such things when at your age, 
 I would not have been where I am now." Occasionally he
 
 GEORGE SiEPHENSON. 119 
 
 would visit old scenes at Newcastle, but generally avoided, if 
 possible, what was called fine company; he also refused Sir 
 Robert Peel's offers of knighthood. Projectors of various 
 kinds would seek his advice on subjects connected with 
 mechanical 'engineering. During the last year cf his life Mr. 
 Stephenson met Ralph Waldo Emerson, the great American 
 thinker and writer. Emerson afterwards remarked " that it was 
 worth crossing the Atlantic to have seen Stephenson alone ; he 
 had such native force of character and vigour of intellect." 
 Universally respected, and simple-minded and upright to the 
 iast, George Stephenson passed away on the 12th August, 1848, 
 in his sixty-seventh year. 
 
 Dr. Smiles has drawn the following word-portrait of the great 
 engineer : — " His fair, clear countenance was ruddy, and seem- 
 ingly 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 observed in men of 
 eminent constructive skill. The mouth was firmly marked; 
 and shrewdness and humour lurked there as well as in the keen 
 grey eye. His frame was compact, well-knit, and rather spare. 
 His hair became grey at an early age, and towards the close of 
 his life it was of a pure silky whiteness. He dressed neatly in 
 black, wearing a white neck-cloth ; and his face, his person, and 
 his deportment at once arrested attention, and marked the 
 gentleman." A hall devoted to scientific, literary, and educa- 
 tional purposes, and costing;^ 13,000, has been erected to his 
 memory at Chesterfield, where he once resided for a time. 
 
 His distinguished son Robert only survived him eleven years. 
 His death took place in 1859, when in his fifty-sixth year, and 
 he received the honour of a public funeral, and was interred in 
 Westminster Abbey. He designed the high-level bridge across
 
 1 20 HEROES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER K 
 
 the Tyne at Newcastle, and with Sir WiUiam Fairbairn of Man- 
 chester he divides the honour of the Conway and Britannia 
 tubular bridges in North Wales. The honour of the invention 
 of the tubular system of bridge-building rests with Fairbairn. 
 The tubular bridge across the St. Lawrence at Montreal was 
 also Stephenson's design.
 
 SIJ^ JAMES Y. SIAIFSON. 
 
 SIR JAMES Y. SIMPSOxN'. 
 
 VIIld) ATHGATE, a town of over 5000 inhabitants, lies in 
 ^^ a district rich in coal, shale, ironstone, and limestone, 
 about eighteen miles west from Edinburgh. Looking south- 
 wards from the slope of the hill overlooking the town, the eye 
 meets the line of the Pentlands, intersected with deep valleys 
 and ravines; the country between is dotted with oil-works, 
 which at night look like a village on fire. Eastward Arthur's 
 Seat and Edinburgh Castle loom largely through the haze of 
 distance ; westward is an undulating agricultural tract ; north- 
 wards the eye meets the blue line of the Firth of Forth, 
 extending upwards towards Stirling. The town probably did 
 not number over 3000 inhabitants when James Young Simpson 
 was born there, 7th June, 181 1. His immediate ancestry on 
 both father and mother's side came of a good farmer's stock. 
 Further back, on his mother's side, he was allied with the 
 gentle blood of Scotland ; on the father's side with a race of 
 vigorous limb, strong will, and great shrewdness and industry. 
 His father's name was David Simpson, and his mother's Mary 
 Jarvey. At the time of the birth of the seventh son and eighth 
 child, the fortunes of David Simpson were at a very low ebb. 
 The drawings in the baker's shop, on the day on which James 
 Y. Simpson was born, amounted to 8s. 3d. Mrs. Simpson, a
 
 r 2 2 HER OES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER Y. 
 
 woman of energy and tact, discovering this state of affairs, 
 turned her attention to the details of the business, which 
 afterwards continued fairly prosperous. 
 
 Mary Simpson was one of the best of mothers, always dis- 
 playing much force of character, along with a quiet, loving 
 disposition. She died when James was nine years of age, but 
 the memory of her prayers remained with him through life. 
 The cares of the household then fell upon his only sister Mary. 
 He was sent to school when four years of age. His school 
 tasks were easy work for him, and his love of knowledge and 
 of a good bone of fact were insatiable ; so much so, that on 
 overhearing some one say that "the Bible and Shakespeare 
 are the best books in the world," he remarked, "The Bible 
 and Shakespeare, and Oliver & Boyd's Almanac ! At least I 
 know the Almanac would have been the greatest prize for me 
 when a boy." At home he was gentle and obliging, and made 
 himself useful in the shop, and in delivering bread around the 
 neighbourhood. He never felt the straits of pinching poverty 
 which so nearly threatened his elder brothers, the business 
 having prospered from the date of his birth. During one of 
 his earliest visits to Edinburgh he made his way direct to Grey- 
 friars Churchyard, where he copied an inscription on one of 
 the tombstones. 
 
 With an early longing for student life he entered Edinburgh 
 University at the age of fourteen, attending the junior Greek and 
 Humanity classes in session 1825-26, under Professors Dunbar 
 and Pillans. In 1827-28 he enrolled as a student of medicine, 
 and during the same session attended the classes of Natural 
 Philosophy, Moral Philosophy, and the third Greek class. 
 When entering on his second session he was fortunate enough 
 to secure a bursary of the value of ^10, tenable for three
 
 SIR JAMES Y. SIMPSON. 
 
 years. He had joined an old friend, John Reid, who then 
 lodged with Dr. Macarthur, in No. i Adam Street. One of 
 the first books he bought on coming to Edinburgh was " The 
 Economy of Human Life," for which he paid ninepence. He 
 vas strictly economical, and kept an exact note of his expenses, 
 which at the end of the session he submitted to the family. 
 The rent of his room was not more than three shillings a-week. 
 His little cash-book contained such entries as the following : — 
 " Vegetables and ' Byron's Beauties ' ; " " Finnen Hadies, 2d. ; 
 and Bones of the Leg, ;£i, is. ;" "Subject, £,2 ; Spoon, 6d. ; 
 and Bread and Tart, one shilling and eightpence ; Fur Cap, 
 i4sh. ; Mary's Tippet, 2sh. and 6d. ; Duncan's 'Therapeutics,' 
 9d. ;" "Snuff, ijdj and a book on 'Early Rising,' 9|d." 
 One of his father's letters to him, written in 1826, ran as 
 follows : — 
 
 " My Dear Son, — I am glad to hear by John Pearson that 
 you are well. I intended to be in Edinburgh this month, but 
 I find it is out of my power. Be so good as write me Avhat 
 money you will take to bring you out James, I am now 
 turning old, and wearing awa' like the snaw among the thaw. 
 I have had a weary winter, but will be glad to see you at 
 Bathgate." David Simpson died in 1839. 
 
 He attended closely, and benefited largely from Professor 
 Liston's surgery classes. It was while attending Liston's 
 surgery classes, and witnessing the operations, "that he first 
 oegan to grope after means for the alleviation of pain when the 
 patient was in the hands of the operator. After seeing the 
 terrible agony of a Highland woman under amputation of the 
 breast, he left the class-room, and went straight to the Parlia- 
 ment House to seek work as a writer's clerk." So the question, 
 " Can anything be done to make operations less painful ? "
 
 1 24 HEROES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER Y. 
 
 became a pressing one with him. He passed with ease and 
 credit in the examination for his degree, and became a member 
 of the Royal College of Surgeons before he was nineteen years 
 of age. As he could not take his degree as a physician until 
 he was twenty-one, he returned for a time to Bathgate. He 
 entered college again in 1831, and became first assistant to 
 Dr. Gairdner in dispensary work, to whom he gave the 
 utmost satisfaction. In 1832 he received the degree of Doctor 
 of Medicine. Referring to this period of his life, long after- 
 wards, he said : " 'Tis fully forty years since I came first to 
 Edinburgh, and entered its university as a very, very young 
 and very solitary, very poor, and almost friendless student. . . . 
 ^or was my original ambition in any way very great After 
 obtaining my surgical diploma, I became a candidate for a 
 situation in the West of Scotland, for the attainment of which 
 I fancied I possessed some casual local interest. The situation 
 was surgeon to the small village of Inverkip, on the Clyde. 
 When not selected I felt perhaps a deeper amount of chagrin 
 and disappointment than I have ever experienced since that 
 date. If chosen, I would probably have been working there 
 as a village doctor still. But like many other men I have, in 
 relation to my whole fate in life, found strong reason to recog- 
 nise the mighty fact, that assuredly — 
 
 ' There's a Divinity that shapes our ends, 
 Rough hew them how we will.' 
 
 Yes, in the language of the French proverb, * Man proposes, 
 but God disposes.' " 
 
 When his literary studies at the. university were finished, he 
 threw himself, heart and soul, into his medical studies. Dr. 
 John Thomson, an eminent physician, saw in young Simpson 
 a possible assistant, and engaged him at the modest salary cf
 
 SIR JAMES V. SIMPSON. 125 
 
 ;;^5o a-year. This sum he made to suffice for all his wants. 
 " Professor Thomson," he wrote, " engaged me as his assistant, 
 and hence, in brief, I came to settle down a citizen of Edin- 
 burgh, and fight amongst you a hard and uphill battle of life 
 for bread, and name, and fame." Between the years 1831-36, 
 at Dr. Thomson's request, he turned his attention to the study 
 of obstetric medicine. Already he had shown marked powers 
 of concentration of mind, and in commendation of work and 
 diligence he once said : " Sir Isaac Newton, whose gigantic 
 genius and intellectual strength have fixed upon him the admira- 
 tion of his race, modestly averred that his mental superiority, 
 if any, consisted, in his own opinion, only of unusual powers of 
 patient thought and industry. The unparalleled greatness in 
 the results of his thoughts was owing, according to his own 
 interpretation, merely to his habit of unparalleled endurance 
 and assiduity in the exercise of thinking." When he was 
 cautioned by his sister Mary in 1834 for working too hard, he 
 said: "Well, I'm sure, it's just to please you all." In 1833 
 he became a member of the Royal Medical Society of Edin- 
 burgh, and in 1835, in company with Dr. Douglas Maclagan, 
 and by the ever-ready Hberality of his brothers, Alexander and 
 John, he was enabled to visit the chief schools of medicine, 
 and the hospitals of England and France. In session 1835-36 
 he was elected senior president of the Royal Medical Society. 
 His appearance, when presiding at one of the meetings of the 
 society, has been thus described : — " As we entered the room 
 his head was bent down, to enable him, in his elevated position 
 to converse with some one on the floor of the apartment, and 
 little was seen but a mass of long, tangled hair, partially con- 
 cealing what appeared to be a head of very large size. He 
 raised his head, and his countenance at once impressed us.
 
 1 26 HEROES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER Y. 
 
 A poet has since described him as one of 'leonic aspect. 
 Not such do we remember him. A pale, large, rather flattish 
 face, massive, brent brows, from under which shone eyes, now 
 piercing as it were to your inmost soul, now melting into 
 almost feminine tenderness, a coarsish nose, with dilated nostrils, 
 a finely-chiselled mouth, which seemed the most expressive 
 feature of the face, and capable of being made at will the 
 exponent of every passion and emotion. Who could describe 
 that smile? When even the sun has tried it he has failed; 
 and yet who can recall those features and not realise it as it 
 played round the delicate lines of the upper lip, where firmness 
 was strangely blended with other and apparently opposing 
 quahties?" His general deportment has thus been summed 
 up : " He could be considerate in a sick room, genial at a 
 feast, joyous at a festival, capable of discourse with many 
 minds, large-souled, not to be shrivelled up into any one form, 
 fashion, or temperament." When rapidly climbing the ladder 
 of life, and when he was daily gaining an increased practice, 
 he still kept himself interested in all his old schoolmates and 
 Bathgate friends. 
 
 We now come to a turning-point in his career. Professor 
 Hamilton resigned the Midwifery chair in the university in 
 1839, and Dr. Simpson announced himself as a candidate. By 
 hard work and a stiff canvass amongst the members of the town 
 council, who were the patrons, he was elected by a majority of 
 one. Partly because his celibacy had been an objection to his 
 election, and now that his position fairly warranted such a 
 change, he was married, on the 26th December, 1839, to Miss 
 Jessie Grindlay, daughter of Mr Grindlay, shipowner, Liver- 
 pool. The honeymoon was protracted until after the election, 
 and his Liverpool letter, telling of his success, ran thus : —
 
 SIR JAMES V. SIMPSON. 
 
 " My Dear Mother, — Jessie's honeymoon and mine is lo 
 begin to-morrow. I was elected professor to-day by a majority 
 OF ONE. Hurrah ! ! ! — Your ever affectionate Son, 
 
 "J.Y.Simpson." 
 
 The congratulations of his sister Mary, who was just leaving 
 for Van Dieman's Land with her husband, were very true, and 
 tender, and sisterly. " My dear, dear, and fortunate Brother," 
 she wrote, " I have taken up my pen to wish you joy, joy ; but 
 I feel I am scarcely able to write. I never believed till now 
 that excess of joy was worse to bear than excess of grief. I can- 
 not describe how, but I certainly feel as I never did all my life. 
 I hope we will still be here to-morrow to learn all the particulars 
 of this happy event. My dear, dear James, may God Himself 
 bless you, and prosper you in all your ways. — Your sincerely 
 affectionate Sister, Mary Pearson." And long afterwards she 
 again wrote to his wife : " I am delighted with your description 
 of your dear little Maggie. All that you write of James, niy 
 James (for I have both a mother's and a sister's love for him), 
 is just what I expected. I knew he would be as kind a husband 
 as a brother. It is with feelings of proud joy I hear of his un- 
 bounded success. Long, long may he be spared to be useful 
 to others, and a joy to us all." Professor Duns, his biographer, 
 truly remarks that " Mary had guided him from childhood with 
 deep and watchful love. In her care and keeping he had often 
 felt *as one whom his mother comforteth.' Her praise had 
 frequently been to him an excitement and spur to exertion. 
 The care with which he preserved her note from 'Ramsgate 
 Harbour,' shows how much calm content it had given him — 
 linking, as it forcibly did, this triumph in a great contest with 
 the memory of all the love and encouragement that he had
 
 1 28 HEROES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER Y. 
 
 received from her and his brothers, but chiefly from her and his 
 beloved « Sandy.' " 
 
 The members of the medical profession, it has been remarked, 
 are often peculiarly conservative regarding new discoveries or 
 new methods of work. Simpson was entirely free from this, 
 indeed, *' in the advocacy or defence of new methods of treat- 
 ment, or of new remedies, he seldom took into account the 
 prejudices, or even the honest convictions, of others." In his 
 first session as professor, he met with some sharp antagonism, 
 which he repelled as sharply. Regarding the way in which he 
 did his professorial work, Professor Duns writes : " His genial 
 bearing among the students, the earnest way in which he did 
 the work of the class, the forcible and lucid style of his prelec- 
 tions, his breadth of view as a public teacher, the pleasant talk 
 and sallies of quiet humour with which he often relieved the 
 dry exposition of methods of research or the didactic statement 
 of principles, the abundance and freshness of his illustrative 
 facts, and his happy art of laying fields of thought outside of his 
 profession under contribution, to give force and clearness to the 
 special topics under review, all conduced to make him a favourite 
 of the students generally, and to win the admiration, respect, 
 and love of those who were foremost among them in mental 
 power and accomplishments." 
 
 An address which Professor Simpson delivered to medical 
 students contains the following high ideal of his profession : — 
 
 " The profession is," he said, " in many respects, the most 
 important secular profession which a man can follow. Its im- 
 portance depends on the priceless value of the objects of the 
 physician's care and study, viz., the guardianship of the health 
 and lives of our brother men, and the defence of the human 
 body and human mind against the attacks and effects ot disease.
 
 S/J7. JAMES Y. SIMPSON. 129 
 
 Other pursuits become insignificant in their objects when 
 placed in comparison with this. The agriculturist bestows all 
 his professional care and study in the rearing of crops and 
 cattle ; the merchant spends his energies and attention on his 
 goods and his commissions ; the engineer, upon his iron wheels 
 and rails ; the sailor, upon his ships and freights ; the banker, 
 upon his bills and his bonds ; and the manufacturer, upon his 
 spindles and their products. But what, after all, are machinery 
 and merchandise, shares and stocks, consols and prices current, 
 or the rates of cargoes and cattle, of corns and cottons, in com- 
 parison with the inestimable value and importance of the health 
 and the very lives of those fellowmen who everywhere move, 
 and breathe, and speak, and act around us ? What are any, or 
 what are all, of these objects when contrasted with the most 
 precious and valued gift of God to earth — human life ? And 
 what would not the greatest and most successful followers of 
 such varied callings give out of their professional stores for the 
 restoration of health and for the prolongation of life, if the first 
 were once lost to them, or if the other were merely menaced 
 by the dreaded and blighted finger of disease? . . . Nature 
 has happily ordained it as one of the great la.ws on which she 
 has founded our moral happiness, that the performance of love 
 and kindness to others should be a genuine and never-failing 
 source of pleasure to our own hearts. It is thus strictly as well 
 as poetically true : 
 
 ' That seeking others' good, we find our own.' 
 " The exercise of the profession is, when followed out in its 
 pioper spirit, a continued realisation of active beneficence, and, 
 in this view, a continued source ot moral satisfaction and 
 happhiess to the generous heart. The objects and powers of 
 your art are alike great and elevated. Your aim is, as far as
 
 1 3u HEROES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER K 
 
 possible, to alleviate human suffering and lengthen out human 
 existence. Your ambition is to gladden as well as to prolong 
 the course of human life, by warding off disease as the greatest 
 of mortal evils, and restoring health, and even, at times, reason 
 itself, as the greatest of mortal blessings. If I may borrow the 
 beautiful language of the author of " The Village " : 
 
 " ' Glorious your aim — to ease the labouring heart, 
 To war with death, and stop his flying dart ; 
 To trace the source whence the fierce contest grew. 
 And life's short lease on easier terms renew ; 
 To calm the phrensy of the burning brain. 
 And heal the tortures of imploring pain ; 
 Or, when more powerful ills all efforts brave. 
 To ease the victim no device can save, 
 And smooth the stormy passage to the grave. ' 
 
 I repeat it — if you follow these, the noble objects of your pro- 
 fession, in a proper spirit of love and kindness to your race, the 
 j)ure light of benevolence will shed around the path of your 
 toils and labours the brightness and beauty that will cheer you 
 onwards, and keep your steps from being weary in well-doing ; 
 while, if you practise the art that you profess with a cold-hearted 
 view to its results merely as a matter of lucre and trade, your 
 course will be as dark and miserable as that low and grovelling 
 love that dictates it." 
 
 He was now a prosperous man, and in the first three months 
 of 1844 he received ;^iooo as fees. At the close of 1845, his 
 practice was still increasing amongst the nobility and aristocracy. 
 He bought a house at No. 52 Queen Street, where, even at 
 this early date, patients sought him in such numbers, that his 
 limited time and other engagements would not permit him to 
 overtake half of them. Country cases received his special 
 attention. His correspondence increased, and he received
 
 SIR JAMES Y. SIMPSON. 131 
 
 frequent visits from strangers — English, Continental, and 
 American — who all made demands upon his time. Those 
 who were still disaffected towards him spread the report that 
 his patients were neglected. One man of wealth enclosed him 
 ;^io where ;^ioo might have been expected. He received an 
 urgent and insulting note from the friends of a lady in the 
 country for inattention. It turned out that the "very urgent 
 matter " was whether three leeches should be applied to the 
 hip-joint, as recommended by him, or if two only should be 
 applied, as recommended by the country practitioner. In 
 January, 1847, he received the honour of appointment as one of 
 her Majesty's physicians for Scotland, regarding which the 
 Queen, in a private letter to the Duchess of Sutherland, had 
 said, *' his high character and abilities make him very fit for." 
 
 When a young man, as we have already noticed, he had been 
 much affected by the terrible agony endured by a Highland 
 woman who had been undergoing a surgical operation. Aware 
 of the fact that, by inhaling sulphuric ether, the patient was 
 rendered insensible to pain, during the summer of 1847 he could 
 think of naught else. He contributed a paper to the Monthly 
 Journal oj Medical Science, entitled, " Notes on the Inhalation 
 of Sulphuric Ether in the Practice of Midwifery." These notes 
 were separately printed and widely distributed amongst pro- 
 fessional men at home and abroad. Turning his attention to 
 other drugs, he became convinced that chloroform was much 
 superior to ether for the purpose he had in view, and in March, 
 1847, he communicated a paper on its use to the Medico-Chir- 
 urgical Society of Edinburgii. From these notes we learn that 
 "chloroform was first discovered and described at nearly the 
 same time by Soubeiran (1831) and Liebig (1832); its com- 
 position was first accurately ascertained by the distinguished
 
 1 3 2 HER OES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER Y. 
 
 French chemist, Dumas, in 1835. • • • It is a dense, limpid, 
 colourless liquid, readily evaporating, and possessing an agree- 
 able, fragrant, fruit-like odour, and a saccharine pleasant taste." 
 Cases were cited wherein its use had been successful. These 
 investigations were afterwards published in a pamphlet form, 
 of which four thousand copies were sold in a few days. Believing 
 that he could only at first truly test the value of his discovery 
 by personal experience, he, as a matter of course, tried its 
 effects on himself "On the first occasion," he writes, "on 
 which I detected the anesthetic effects of chloroform, the 
 scene was an odd one. I had had the chloroform beside me 
 for several days, but it seemed so unlikely a liquid to produce 
 results of any kind, that it was laid aside, and on searching for 
 another object among some loose paper, after coming home 
 very late one night, my hand chanced to fall upon it, and I 
 poured some of the fluid into tumblers before my assistants, 
 Dr. Keith and Dr. Duncan, and myself Before sitting down 
 to supper, we all inhaled the fluid, and were all 'under the 
 mahogany ' in a trice, to my wife's consternation and alarm. In 
 pursuing the inquiry thus rashly, perhaps, begun, I became 
 every day more and more convinced of the superior anaesthetic 
 effects of chloroform, as compared with ether." Several 
 attempts were made both in England and America to rob him 
 of the honour of his discovery, which led to a prolonged con- 
 troversy. His butler, Clarke, who had a high opinion of the 
 properties of " chlory," as he called chloroform, found him lying 
 in his room, apparently unconscious, and suffering from the 
 effects of a recent experiment. To some friends who were 
 watching him, with a good deal of alarm, the butler remarked, 
 *' He'll kill himsel' yet wi' thae experiments ; an' he's a big fule, 
 for they'll never find ony thing better nor chlory." On another
 
 SIR JAMES Y. SIMPSON. 133 
 
 occasion, he rushed into the dining-room, saying, " For God's 
 sake, sir, come doun; I've pushioned the cook." When Dr. 
 Simpson, with some others, got downstairs, they found the 
 patient lying on the floor snoring heavily. This incident created 
 a hearty laugh. The butler had handed the cook the remains 
 of an effervescing drink, prepared with chloric ether, calling it 
 champagne. She drank it with the above result. Dr. Simpson 
 had also to appear in print regarding what was termed the 
 religious side of the use of chloroform. Many quoted the 
 primary curse in Genesis as a reason why chloroform should 
 not be used in midwifery. These would-be religious objections 
 Dr. Simpson successfully disposed of, and, after more than 
 twenty years had elapsed since its discovery, he found the 
 best answer to all arguments of this kind was to point to the 
 steady increase in its production, and to its ever-extending use. 
 About this time a medical officer of the Indian Army wrote 
 thus to the Bombay Telegraph and Courier: "Decidedly the 
 most wonderful man of his age — I mean of the age in which he 
 lives — is Simpson of Edinburgh. In him are realised John 
 Bell's four ideals of the perfect Esculapius — the brain of an 
 Apollo, the eye of an Eagle, the heart of a Lion, and the hand 
 of a Lady. Nothing baffles his intellect ; nothing escapes his 
 penetrating glance ; he sticks at nothing and he bungles nothing. 
 If his practice be worth a rupee per annum, it is worth ;^ 10,000 
 — twice as much as Dr. Hamilton ever realised, and nearly 
 twice the amount of the late Abercrombie's practice. From all 
 parts, not of Britain only, but of Europe, do ladies rush to see, 
 consult, and fee the man. He has spread joy through many a 
 rich man's house by enabling his wife to present him with a 
 living child, a feat which none but Simpson ever dared to 
 enable her to do. To watch of a mommg with his poor
 
 134 HEROES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VERY. 
 
 patients (them only of course was I permitted to see) is a treat. 
 In comes a woman with a fibrous tumour, which fifty other prac- 
 titioners have called by fifty other names. One minute suffices 
 for his diagnosis ; another sees her in a state of insensibility, 
 and in less than a third, two long needles are thrust inches 
 deep into the tumour, and a galvanic battery is at work discuss- 
 ing it. * Leave her alone quietly,' says Simpson, ' she'll take 
 care of herself — no fear.' One up, another down, is the order 
 of the day. What other men would speculate as to the propriety 
 of for hours, Simpson does in a minute or two. He is bold, 
 but not reckless ; ever ready, but never harsh. He is prepared 
 for every contingency, and meets it on the instant. Everything 
 seems to prosper in his hands. As to ether and chloroform, 
 they seem like invisible intelligences, doomed to obey his 
 bidding — familiars who do his work because they must never 
 venture to produce effects one iota greater or less than he 
 desires. While other men measure out the liquids, fumble 
 about and make a fuss, Simpson, in what an Irishman would 
 call the most promiscuous manner possible, does the job in a 
 minute or two. He is indeed a wonderful man." 
 
 The account given by Dr. Channing, of Boston, U.S., of a 
 visit to Queen Street is equally interesting : " At half-past one 
 his consultations at home begin, and last till nearly or quite six. 
 When he began this system of home clinics, for such they 
 strictly are, his house was filled at all hours, so that it was im- 
 possible to keep any order. People would come at seven a.m. 
 in order to be first. They would get breakfast at six, or earlier, 
 and disturb their own families much. To prevent this, he 
 fixed the hour at half-past one to half-past five. The patients 
 of the two divisions are in different but equally large rooms. 
 They draw lots for priority, have tickets, and come in as called.
 
 SIR JAiMES y. SIMPSON. 135 
 
 and so the most perfect order prevails. Everybody knows 
 what are Professor S.'s hours, and everybody observes them. 
 He has an assistant who writes prescriptions to his dictation, 
 directions, letters, &c., and also attends to cases. He examines 
 cases daily when there is occasion to do so. From long experi- 
 ence and constant observation, the habit of recording cases, 
 and of distinguishing them with all the accuracy in his power, 
 he is able to arrive at conclusions in the cases before him in a 
 very short time, or to make his diagnosis. I see most, or many 
 of his cases, examine them after him, and I have again and 
 again been struck, in new ones, how true is his diagnosis. He 
 proceeds at once to the treatment. If an operation is to be, 
 he does it at once. Applications of remedies are made and 
 prescriptions given, with directions, and the patient is desired 
 to call in a week, fortnight, in two days, &c., as circumstances 
 may indicate. At times the case is written down from the 
 answers of patients to questions. This is always the case if it 
 be a new case, or it is probable that changes may be required 
 in treatment, or the effects of treatment noted. Some notion 
 may be got of this portion of Professor S.'s indoor or home 
 professional Hfe. He goes through this great labour quietly 
 and methodi'cally, and with as gentle, kind, cheerful spirit as 
 man ever manifested. The moral character of the daily service 
 in disease is quite as striking as the professional. The moral 
 presides over the whole, and renders it one of the most interesting 
 matters for observation that can occur. I have been utterly 
 surprised at its executive patience, its efficient activity. Here are 
 the poor and the rich together, with no other distinctions than such 
 as will best accommodate both. And I can say, from a long and 
 wide observation, that there is no difference in their treatment. 
 The great fact of each in Professor S.'s regard is the fact that
 
 136 HEROES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER Y. 
 
 disease exists, which it is the physician's business to investigate 
 and try to remove. He knows what is the prospect of success or 
 of failure, and makes his prognosis accordingly. But, even when 
 the worst is announced, it is not spoken of as utterly hopeless, 
 and something is done, all is done, for present comfort, when 
 nothing may be done for cure. I am surprised again at the 
 varieties of disease which congregate at No. 52, and of the 
 number of which is presented in each kind. It is this which 
 gives character to the whole, and makes these clinics the very 
 best schools. I have been every day a pupil here. I have 
 every day learned much ; yes, a great deal, which will aid me 
 in all my professional, yes, my moral life. I had designed to 
 visit Ireland, but so few days remained to me that I was sure 
 the visit could amount to nothing important, and I concluded 
 to remain at Professor Simpson's house, in the midst of his 
 home practice, and to visit with him abroad such patients as he 
 could show me. Wherever we went the professor was received 
 with the same bright welcome, the same cheerful face, and I 
 thought this made the beauty of his professional life. One was 
 glad to see him so soon again. Another had been waiting with 
 such patience as could be commanded for a visit. But with all 
 was the appearance and the consciousness that something good 
 was to come from the call. He had time for everything. He 
 took his seat, and with his ' Come along now, how are you ? 
 how have you been?' &c, was always answered to satisfy 
 perfectly the various objects in view. There were directions in 
 his questions, or directions to his patients ; but it was so quiet, 
 so easy, that, though time was pressing on new engagements, it 
 seemed that the present one only occupied his mind. There 
 was persuasion with command, or demand in such proportions 
 JJiat the patient was only anxious to do the very best for hijn-
 
 SIR JAMES Y, SIMPSON. 137 
 
 self, or for herself, and for the doctor. In this way or by this 
 manner, which seems no manner at all, Professor S. is able to 
 do a great deal in a short time. His coachman understands 
 by a hint where he is to go, and goes rapidly through his 
 various service. As we pass along some object of interest is at 
 hand — the Botanic Garden, a ruin, a hill, a beautiful prospect 
 He pulls the string, opens the door which lets down the step, 
 and * Come away,' tells you there is something for you to see, 
 something to please you, and there is time enough to see it. 
 ' I visit here, and for ten minutes I will leave you ; go down 
 there and you will find something.' Off he goes to his patient, 
 and off I go to see what he has indicated. The Professor is 
 well made for despatch. He is short, stout, with small feet, 
 and his step is short and very quick. He is of excellent age 
 for vigoiur — about thirty-nine — and * goes ahead ' of all walkers. 
 I have almost to run somewhat, not to lose him. Let me finish 
 his picture. You have his length, but not his full length. 
 His head is large, covered with a profusion of black hair which 
 obeys its instincts, and more strikingly so when he thrusts his 
 very small hands into and all over it His forehead is of good 
 height, but the hairs grow low upon it ; and to me this is the 
 most becoming manner of its growth, and the antique, the 
 Apollo, the Clyte, &c., support my taste. His face is broad, of 
 fair length, and its expression just such as such mind and heart 
 always produce. His eyes are singularly loquacious, and 
 always begin to talk before he utters a word. His knowledge 
 is more various than I have before met with. Nothing escapes 
 him. Science and literature are his pleasures. Archaeology is 
 a favourite pursuit ; and his friends frequently send him books 
 and specimens, which help his studies. I never saw so many 
 presents. J w«"nt up last night late. 'I must make some
 
 X 38 HEROES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER Y. 
 
 visits,' said he, ' say at eleven.' Oif drove his coach. This 
 morning, before anybody else was up, I went below for my 
 spectacles. On the sideboard was a basket of fine peaches, 
 ' which was not so before.' In the morning bouquets came in. 
 I could fill pages with a list of such offerings as are daily 
 poured in. He has game at every meal. * Our friends,' said 
 one, 'keep us supplied with game.' His family pass the 
 summer in a very pleasant place a few miles from the city, but 
 his house affairs go on by themselves, very much as of them- 
 selves, and knew how, and are all in perfect order. Said he to 
 me when he caiTied me bodily from my hotel, 'I am a bachelor 
 — no woman ; but come away, you shall have the best I have.' 
 Night before last he was called into the country. I found him 
 at table in the morning, and with a heavy but hearty yawn said 
 he, ' I had a drive last night, over a stony road, in a carnage 
 without springs. I changed it, but was no better off, and I feel 
 well pounded.' This was not a complaint, but an experience, 
 and as soon as breakfast was over, eaten as it was with all sorts 
 of interruptions, he was ready for his visit to the Duchess of 
 
 , and everybody else. He eats little, and as if almost 
 
 unconscious of the function. In this he constantly reminds me 
 
 of . 
 
 " He receives a great deal of money, I have heard. But he 
 seems wholly regardless of money, and, as I have further heard, 
 it is only lately that he had begun to accumulate property. 
 He is paid at the visit or consultation, which saves him from 
 one of the most inconvenient offices, charging and collecting 
 fees. We feel both the inconvenience and loss in America. I 
 have seen fees paid him. It is when the patient is leaving him 
 and by offering the hand for farewell the fee is deposited in his. 
 I really think if he were subjected to our system he would get
 
 S/J? JAMES Y. SIMFSON. 139 
 
 no money at all. * At night,' said a patient of his, whom he 
 sent to me when she came to America, 'his pockets are emptied. 
 He knows nothing of their contents before, and so his money 
 is cared for.' I said his meals are often interrupted. His 
 butler brings in cards, notes, letters. * There,' says he, and lays 
 by note after note. Then two or three ladies come in. If he 
 be not in, down they sit on the sofa, and take up books or 
 newspapers. Then gentlemen, with or without ladies, appear. 
 
 They are always asked to table by Miss , his sister-in-law, 
 
 or somebody else. When the Professor is at table he places 
 them. But he is reading and eating, or giving bread to a 
 spotted Danish coach-dog named Billy, of fine size, and a 
 universal pet. I feed him always. Professor S. talks to the 
 comers. Then learns of strangers what they want, gets their 
 residence if visits are wanted, or goes into a room hard by and 
 sees them alone. His house is very large and full of rooms, 
 and always seems inhabited. At length he gets ready to go 
 out. 'Come away,' says he to me. I run up to put on a 
 different coat, to get hat, &c., and always find him hat on at 
 the door, ready to run down the steps for the morning's work 
 This is the way every day. He wears a narrow-brimmed hat, 
 and puts it on well back, and shows his whole face and part ot 
 his head. His dress is always black, with a remarkably nicely- 
 arranged white neck-cloth, with a vory carefully-made bow in front. 
 So you see he is always dressed. I think, M., you would want 
 to give the hat a different set. You could not improve the rest 
 of the toilet. Now, is it not a great privilege to be the inmate 
 of such an establishment as this ? Is it not a thing to prize, to 
 be the companion of a man so wholly devoted to others, and 
 yet who is so cheerful, so constantly happy himself? You are 
 admitted by such a man into the society of his thou::;ht and of
 
 r 40 HER OES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER Y. 
 
 his act. He always talks to the purpose, and yet he is the 
 least of a formalist of any man with whom I have been acquainted. 
 He has large information, for he is habitually an observer and 
 a student ; and yet he has no pedantry, no obtrusion of learn- 
 ing for its (or rather his) own sake, but that his companions 
 may be helped by what he knows. He is almost daily making 
 new observations, discovering something new, or using the 
 known in a new way. And yet he is not in the remotest degree 
 a dogmatist. It is not to support a doctrine that he talks, but 
 to afford you an opportunity to speak more fully of it, to get 
 knowledge from it, or to aid you by the knowledge he com- 
 municates. I have been chiefly a questioner in the society of 
 Professor S., and I always have got good answers. If he has 
 no answer, if he cannot explain the unexplained in my own 
 mind, he turns himself round in his coach, for it is in driving I 
 have the best of his society, and says, ' I don't know, I cannot 
 explain that.' He will add, 'I have had the same difficulty 
 you have, and cannot clear it up.' One advantage has arisen 
 out of this intercourse with Professor S., which declares itself 
 to me every day. I am conscious of a daily review of my own 
 professional life, of thought, of reading, and of study. I speak 
 constantly of books, of cases, of results of treatment. Professor 
 S, has read all, and infinitely more than I have, and yet how 
 small is his study. 'Here is my study,' said he the other 
 night, as I was passing his sleeping-room, on my way to bed ; 
 ' come along.' In I went. The room was small. There was 
 his bed, and in place ot a night-stand, there was at the head 
 of the bed a book stand or case, with two or three shelves about 
 a foot and a-half wide, filled with books. The filling took but 
 few. Taking hold of a movable gas-burner he brought it 
 forward, so that he could easily read on his pillow. ' Here,'
 
 S/Ji JAMES y. SIAfFSON. /41 
 
 said he, *is my study. Here I read at night' I only said, 
 * What a privilege it is to be able to read in this way. I never 
 could;' and then 'Good-night.' I heard his night-bell almost 
 every night." 
 
 In the spring of 1850 he had a serious attack of illness 
 resulting from an abscess in the arm-pit. At the close of the 
 college session of that year he made a short Continental tour, 
 which he enjoyed very much, seeing the principal universities 
 in France, Germany, Holland, and Belgium, and everywhere 
 receiving great kindness and attention. On his return, in spite 
 of the overwhelming number of his engagements and professional 
 duties, he found time to make some inquiries regarding leprosy 
 and leper-houses, and continue the study of astronomy, in which 
 latter study he was greatly assisted by the late Sir William 
 Keith Murray, of Ochtertyre. His professional income had 
 now increased so largely, that he frequently returned the fees 
 to many of his poorer patients. Sums of £'^o, ^^25, ;^io, 
 and ;£c^ were, in 1850 and 185 1, returned to those who had 
 sent them. To a clergyman he once wrote : " Many kindest 
 thanks for the fee which you have sent me. But you must be 
 so good as allow me to return it, as {with many others of my 
 professional brethren) I do not think it right to take any pro- 
 fessional remuneration from clergymen or their families. Give 
 me your prayers, and I will value them far more." With the 
 accumulated increase in his income, he embarked in various 
 speculations. In April, 1853, Mr. Robert Chambers inserted 
 a paper in C/iambers's /ournaHxom. his own pen, on the subject 
 of " Oil- Anointing." This subject had been suggested to him 
 by Simpson's researches. When on a professional visit to 
 Galashiels, Roxburghshire, Dr. Macdougall remarked to him 
 the healthy state and robust appearance of many of the opera-
 
 142 HEROES OF INVENTION AND DISCOVERY. 
 
 tives in the large woollen factories in the town. They seemed 
 all specially and strikingly exempt from consumption and 
 scrofulous diseases. This led him to recommend " oil-anoint- 
 ing" in all cases of weakness and threatened consumption. 
 On ist March, 1853, he received the high honour of being elected 
 a Foreign Associate of the Academy of Medicine, Paris. 
 
 Amusement was not altogether forgotten. At a series of 
 tableaux vivants held in his house at Queen Street, the fifth in 
 order represented the " Babes in the Wood," and was greeted 
 with roars of laughter and applause. Dr. Simpson and his 
 colleague. Dr. L. P., were 'the Babes.' They entered sucking 
 oranges, and dressed as children — short dresses, pinafores, 
 frilled drawers, white socks, and children's house-shoes. After 
 wandering about a while, they began to weep, then lay down 
 and died, to the great delight of the juveniles." 
 
 Acupressure, a new blood-stopping process, discovered by 
 him, and founded on the temporary metallic compression 01 
 arteries, was first described to the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 
 19th December, 1859. Its use speedily spread, and its applica- 
 tion became very general and successful. The instruments he 
 proposed to use were very sharp-pointed, slender needles or 
 pins of passive or non-oxidisable iron, headed with wax or 
 glass, and passed freely through the walls and flaps of wounds. 
 These needles would cause little disturbance or irritation in the 
 wounded part. Towards the end of 1861, he had begun, like 
 ]3r. Chalmers when writing his article on " Christianity," to 
 question himself as to the faith that was in him. The result 
 was a change of thought and feeling, and it became apparent 
 that religion was a greater power in his life. At the end of 
 this year, he entered a sick-room saying, *' My first happy 
 Christmas; my only happy one." The death of one of his
 
 SlJi JAMES V. SIArPSON. 143 
 
 children, " wee Jamie," deepened these impressions, and for a 
 Ume he continued to address religious meetings. But he still 
 continued to work with the old earnestness, and his archaeologi- 
 cal studies were as dear to him as ever. In 1866 the Queen 
 conferred a baronetcy upon him. This was the signal for con- 
 gratulations from all quarters, and the Lancet, in commenting 
 upon it, said : " The conferring of this distinction must give, 
 we think, universal satisfaction. Sir James has long been fore- 
 most in his department of practice, and his name is associated 
 with the discovery of that invaluable boon to suffering humanity 
 — chloroform. This alone would entitle him to the honour he 
 has received. Sir James Y. Simpson is distinguished as an 
 obstetric practitioner, as a physiologist, as an operator, and as 
 a pathologist of great research and originality. His reputation 
 is European, and the honour is fully deserved." The death of 
 his eldest son. Dr. David James Simpson, shortly after receiving 
 this honour, cast a gloom over No. 52 Queen Street. The death 
 of a daughter, Jessie, at the early age of seventeen, was a new 
 stroke to him. " Standing by her cofiin," says his biographer, 
 *' he was able, as when he knelt by those of Jamie and of Davie, 
 to say, 'Even so, Father; not my will, hut Thine be done;' 
 and to hear Christ's very voice, ' What I do thou knowest not 
 now, but thou shalt know hereafter.' " But his work, the true 
 antidote for sorrow, was entered into as heartily as before. In 
 1866 he received the degree of Doctor of Civil Law from the 
 University of Oxford. 
 
 During the years 1866-67 he was busier than ever with his 
 archseological studies. When any discovery of consequence 
 was made in any part of the country, the result was pretty sure 
 to be communicated to him. He published his own most 
 important contribution to the science of this subject under the
 
 1 44 HER OES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER V. 
 
 title of "Archaic Sculpturings of Cups, Circles, &c., upon Stones 
 
 and Rocks in Scotland, England, and other countries." On 
 
 the 25th August, 1868, he received a note from Provost William 
 
 Chambers telling him that it was the intention of the Lord 
 
 Provost, Magistrates, and Council to present him with the 
 
 freedom of the city. The presentation took place about a year 
 
 after this date. In the autumn of 1868 he gained the close 
 
 acquaintance of Mr. Spurgeon. That this acquaintance was 
 
 useful and valuable on both sides is seen from one of Mr. 
 
 Spurgeon's notes, written after Sir James had made a professional 
 
 call upon his wife. " I am writing far into the night to tell 
 
 friends how my dear wife has sped. That dear angel of mercy, 
 
 Sir James Simpson, has been very successful, as usual, and the 
 
 operation is well over ; patient, very patient, and in good spirits. 
 
 If you know ten thousand eloquent men in Scotland, I would 
 
 give them work for the next hundred years, viz., to praise the Lord 
 
 for sending to us such a man, so skilful and so noble a doctor." 
 
 Early in 1870 it became clear to his familiar friends that he 
 
 was more easily "knocked up than usual." In February 
 
 Simpson had some severe attacks of illness, and by the end of 
 
 the month he was quite prostrate. Those who were privileged 
 
 to be present, said it was a wonderful sick-room. He would 
 
 say : " I have not lived so near to Christ as I desired to do. 
 
 I have had a busy life, but have not given so much time to 
 
 eternal things as I should have sought. Yet I know it is not 
 
 my merit I am to trust to for eternal life. Christ is all." Then 
 
 he added with a sigh, " I have not got far on in the divine life." 
 
 A friend said we are complete in Him. " Yes, that's it," he 
 
 replied with a smile. " The hymn expresses my thought : 
 
 'Just as I am, without one plea, 
 But that Thy blood was shed for me. '
 
 5/i? JAMES Y. SIMPSON. 145 
 
 I j<7 like that hymn," The days passed on. "The brother," 
 says his biographer, " who had watched over him so tenderly in 
 childhood, helped him in youth, and rejoiced in all the successes 
 of his bright career, spent with him his last night but one on 
 earth. He sat on the pillow with Sir James's head on his knee, 
 on which he had been dandled in childhood, hearing ever and 
 anon throughout that night's silent watching, the touching 
 words, soft, and low, and slow, as if a weary sick child spoke, 
 'O Sandy, Sandy ! '" On 6th May, 1870, he died without a 
 struggle. A grave for the great departed in Westminster 
 Abbey was ofiFered to the family, but knowing Sir James's wish, 
 this was declined, and the funeral took place to Warriston 
 Cemetery on the 13th May. The funeral was one of the largest 
 ever witnessed in Edinburgh. It was computed that over 
 thirty thousand persons were present, either as spectators or as 
 taking part in the procession.
 
 1 46 HER OES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER Y. 
 
 GALLERY OF GREAT INVENTORS AND 
 
 DISCOVERERS. 
 
 "All the inventions that the world contains, 
 Were not by reason first found out nor brains ; 
 But pass for theirs who had the luck to light 
 Upon them by mistake or oversight." — Butler. 
 
 LMOST all useful discoveries, it has been remarked, 
 ^(^ have been made not by the brilliancy of genius, but by 
 the right direction of the mind to one object In all trades, in 
 all professions, success can be expected only from undivided 
 attention. This common-sense view of things, a Httle different 
 from that in the motto given above, is what we should adopt 
 as we travel through the world of invention and discovery. 
 
 ROGER BACON. 
 
 Roger Bacon, a learned English monk of the Franciscan 
 order, who flourished in the thirteenth century, was born near 
 Ilchester, in Somersetshire, in 12 14, and was descended ol a 
 very ancient and honourable family. He received the first 
 tincture of letters at Oxford, where, having gone through 
 grammar and logic, the dawnings of his genius gained him the 
 favour and patronage of the greatest lovers of learning, and 
 such as were equally distinguished by their high rank and the 
 excellence of their knowledge. It is not very clear, says the 
 "Biographia Britannica," whether he was of Merton College or of
 
 ROGER BACON. 147 
 
 Brazenose College, and perhaps he studied at neither, but 
 spent his time at the public schools. 
 
 He went early over to Paris, where he made still greater 
 progi'ess in all parts of learning, and was looked upon as the 
 glory of that university and an honour to his country. At Paris 
 he did not confine his studies to any particular branch of 
 literature, but endeavoured to comprehend the sciences in 
 general fully and perfectly by a right method and constant 
 application. 
 
 When he had attained the degree of Doctor, he returned 
 again to his o^vn country, and, as some say, took the habit of 
 the Franciscans in 1240, when he was about twenty-six years of 
 age ; but others assert that he became a monk before he left 
 France. After his return to Oxford, he was considered by the 
 greatest men of that university as one of the ablest and most 
 indefatigable inquirers after knowledge that the world had ever 
 produced; and therefore they not only showed him all due 
 respect, but likewise, conceiving the greatest hopes from his 
 improvements in the method of study, they generously contri- 
 buted to his expenses, so that he was enabled to lay out, within 
 the compass of twenty years, no less than;^2ooo in collecting 
 curious authors, making trials of various kinds, and in the con- 
 struction of different instruments for the improvement of useful 
 knowledge. 
 
 But if this assiduous application to his studies, and the 
 stupendous progress he made in them, raised his credit with 
 the better part of mankind, it excited the envy of some, and 
 afforded plausible pretences for the malicious designs of others. 
 It is very easy to conceive that the experiments he made in all 
 parts of natural philosophy and the mathematics must have 
 made a great loise in an ignorant age, when scarcely two or
 
 1 48 HEROES OE INVENTION AND DISCO VER Y. 
 
 three men in a whole nation were tolerably acquainted with 
 those studies, and when all the pretenders to knowledge affected 
 to cover their own ignorance by throwing the most scandalous 
 aspersions on those branches of science which they either 
 wanted genius to understand, or which demanded greater 
 application to acquire than they were willing to bestow. They 
 gave out, therefore, that mathematical studies were in some 
 measure allied to those magical arts which the Church had 
 condemned, and thereby brought suspicion upon men of 
 superior learning. It was owing to this suspicion that Bacon 
 was restrained from reading lectures to the young students in 
 the university, and at length closely confined and almost starved, 
 the monks being afraid lest his writings should extend beyond 
 the limits of his convent, and be seen by any besides them- 
 selves and the Pope. But there is great reason to believe that 
 though his application to the occult sciences was their pretence, 
 the true cause of his ill-usage was, the freedom with which he 
 had treated the clergy in his writings, in which he spared 
 neither their ignorance nor their want of morals. 
 
 Notwithstanding this harsh treatment, his reputation con- 
 tinued to spread over the whole Christian world, and even 
 Pope Clement IV. wrote him a letter desiring that he would 
 send him all his works. This was in 1266, when our author 
 was in the flower of his age ; and to gratify his Holiness, he 
 collected together, greatly enlarged, and arranged in some 
 order, the several pieces he had written before that time, and 
 sent them the next year by his favourite disciple John ol 
 London, or rather of Paris, to the Pope. This collection, 
 which is the same as he entitled " Opus Magnus," or his great 
 work, is yet extant, and was published by Dr. Jebb in 1773. 
 
 It is said that this learned book procured Roger Bacon the
 
 ROGER BACON. 149 
 
 favour of Pope Clement IV., and also some encouragement in 
 the prosecution of his studies ; but this could not have lasted 
 long, as that tope died soon after, and then we find our author 
 under fresh embarrassments from the same cause as before; 
 but he became in more danger as the general of his order, 
 having heard his cause, ordered him to be imprisoned. This 
 is said to have happened in 1278; and to prevent his 
 appealing to Pope Nicholas III., the general procured a 
 confirmation of his sentence from Rome immediately, but it is 
 not very easy to say on what pretences. It is certain that his 
 sufferings for many years must have brought him low, since he 
 was sixty-four years of age when he was first put in prison, and 
 deprived of the opportunity of prosecuting his studies, at least 
 in the way of experiment. That he was still indulged in the 
 use of his books appears very clearly from the great use he 
 made of them in the learned works he composed. 
 
 He was not released from prison till the latter end of the 
 reign of Pope Nicholas IV., when he owed his freedom to the 
 interposition of some noblemen. He returned to Oxford, 
 where, at the request of his friends, he composed "A Com- 
 pendium of Theology," which seems to have been his last work, 
 and of which there is a copy in the royal librar}'. 
 
 He spent the remainder of his days in peace, and died in the 
 college of his order on the nth of June, 1292, as some say, or 
 in 1294, as others assert, and was interred in the Church ot 
 the Franciscans. The monks gave him the title of "Doctor 
 Mirabilis," or the " Wonderful Doctor," which he deserved in 
 whatever sense the phrase is taken. 
 
 He was certainly the most extraordinary man of his time. 
 He was a perfect master of the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and has 
 left posterity such indubitable marks of his critical skill in them,
 
 1 50 HEROES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER V. 
 
 as might have secured him a very high character, if he had 
 never distinguished himself m any other branch of Uterature. 
 In all branches of the mathematics he was well versed. In 
 mechanics particularly, the learned Dr. Friend says, that a 
 greater genius had not arisen since the days of Archimedes. 
 He comprehended likewise the whole science of optics with 
 accuracy, and is very justly allowed to have understood both 
 the theory and practice of those discoveries which have 
 bestowed such high reputation on those of our own and other 
 nations who have brought them into common use. In 
 geography, also, he was admirably well skilled, as appears from 
 a variety of passages in his works, which was the reason that 
 induced the judicious Hakluyt to transcribe a large discourse 
 out of his writings into his collection of travels. 
 
 But his skill in astronomy was even more remarkable, since 
 it appears that he not only pointed out the error which 
 occasioned the reformation in the calendar, and the distinction 
 between the old style and the new, but also offered a mucli 
 more effectual and perfect reformation than that which was 
 made in the time of Pope Gregory XIII. 
 
 He was so thoroughly acquainted with chemistry, at a time 
 when it was scarcely known in Europe, and principally 
 cultivated among the Arabians, that Dr. Friend ascribes the 
 honour of introducing it to him, who speaks in some part or 
 other of his works of almost every operation now used in 
 chemistry. 
 
 Three capital discoveries, or attempted discoveries, of his 
 deserve to be particularly considered. The first is the 
 invention of gunpowder, which, however confidently ascribed 
 to others, was unquestionably known to him, both as to its 
 ingredients and effects. The second is that which goes under
 
 WILLI A AI LEE. 151 
 
 ttie name alchemy, or the art of transmuting metals, of which 
 he has left many treatises, some published and some still 
 remainmg in MS., which, whatever they may be thought ol 
 now, contain a multitude of curious and useful passages inde- 
 pendently of their principal subject. The third discovery in 
 chemistry, not so deserving of the reader's 3,ttention, was the 
 tincture of gold for the prolongation of life, of which, Dr. 
 Friend says, he has given hints in his writings, and has said 
 enough to show that he was no pretender to this art, but 
 understood as much of it as " any of his successors." 
 
 As to the vulgar imputation on his character of his leaning 
 to magic, it was utterly unfounded, and the .ridiculous story of 
 his making a brazen head, which spoke and answered questions, 
 is a calumny indirectly fathered upon him, having been origin- 
 ally imputed to Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln. That 
 he had too high an opinion of judicial astrology, and some other 
 arts of that nature, was not so properly an error of his as of the 
 age in which he lived ; and considering how few errors, among 
 the many which infected that age, appear in his writings, it may 
 be easily forgiven. 
 
 WILLIAM LEE. 
 
 There is a singular confusion pervading the early history of 
 the stocking-frame : persons, places, and dates are all jumbled 
 up together in the accounts given of the inventor and the 
 invention, and these accounts it is difficult to reconcile, unless 
 we implicitly believe the evidence of a painting which long 
 adorned the Stocking-weavers' Hall in Redcross Street, London. 
 This portrait represented a man in collegiate costume, in the 
 act of pointing to an iron stocking-frame, and addressing a 
 woman wlio is knitting with needles by hand. The picture
 
 1 5 2 HEROES OF IN VENTION AND DISCO VER Y. 
 
 bore the following inscription : " In the year 1589, the ingenious 
 William Lee, A.M. of St. John's College, Cambridge, devised 
 this profitable art for stockings (but, being despised, went to 
 France), yet of iron to himself, but to us and to others of gold ; 
 in memory of whom this is here painted." 
 
 In Deering's "Account of Nottingham" we learn that William 
 Lee (whose name is sometimes written Lea) was a native ot 
 Woodborough, a village about seven miles from Nottingham, 
 He was heir to a considerable freehold estate, and a graduate 
 of St. John's College, Cambridge. It is said that he fell in 
 love with a young country girl, who during his visits paid more 
 diligent attention to her work, which was knitting, than to the 
 fond speeches of her lover. He endeavoured, therefore, to 
 invent a machine which might facilitate and for\vard the opera- 
 tion of knitting, and by this means furnish the object of his 
 affections with more leisure to converse with him. Beckmann 
 says : " Love indeed is fertile in inventions, and gave rise, it is 
 said, to the art of painting; but a machine so complex in its 
 parts, and so wonderful in its effects, would seem to require 
 longer and greater reflection, more judgment, and more time 
 and patience than could be expected in a lover. But even if 
 the case should appear problematical, there can be no doubt 
 in regard to the inventor, whom most of the English writers 
 positively assert to have been William Lee." Deering expressly 
 states that Lee made the first loom in the year 1589, the date 
 inscribed on the picture. 
 
 But this is not the only version of the story. Another one 
 states that Lee was expelled from the university for marrying 
 contrary to the statutes. He had no fortune, and his wife was 
 forced to contribute to their joint support by knitting. Lee, 
 while watching the movement of her fingers, conceived the
 
 WILLIAM LEE. 153 
 
 happy idea of imitating those movements by a machine. 
 According to a third version, Lee, while yet unmarried, excited 
 the contempt of his mistress by contriving a machine to imitate 
 the primitive process of knitting, and was rejected by her. 
 And a fourth account, sHghtly resembling the first tradition, 
 exhibits Lee in a very unamiable light It is said that he had 
 taken a pique against a townswoman with whom he was in 
 love, and who, it seems, disregarded his passion. She got her 
 livelihood by knitting stockings, and with the unamiable view 
 of depreciating her calling, he constructed the stocking-frame. 
 He first worked at it himself, and afterwards taught his brothers 
 and others of his relations. 
 
 All these accounts agree that the stocking-frame was invented 
 by Lee. A writer in the Quarterly Review, 18 16, however, 
 cautiously observes: "This painting might give rise to the 
 story of Lee's having invented the machine to facilitate the 
 labour of knitting, in consequence of falling in love with a 
 young country girl, who, during his visits, was more attentive 
 to her knitting than to his proposals ; or the story may, perhaps, 
 have suggested the picture." 
 
 The story of Lee's after-lite corroborates his being the 
 inventor. He is mentioned as such in the petition of the 
 stocking-weavers of London, to allow them to establish a guild. 
 It is related that he practised his new invention some time at 
 Calverton, near Nottingham. After remaining there for five 
 years, he applied to Queen Elizabeth for countenance and 
 support She neglected him, and so did her successor, James 
 I. ; so Lee in disgust transferred himself and his machines to 
 France, where Henri IV. and his gracious minister. Sully, gave 
 the inventor a welcome reception. After the assassination of 
 Henri, Lee shared in the persecution of the Protestants, and is
 
 1 54 HEROES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VERY 
 
 said to have died in great distress. Some of his workmen 
 made their escape to England, and under one Aston, who had 
 been apprenticed to Lee, established ihe stocking manufacture 
 permanently in England. 
 
 Lee's invention was important It not only enabled our 
 ancestors to discard their former inelegant hose, but it likewise 
 caused the English manufactures to excel all of foreign 
 production, and to be therefore eagerly sought after. Our 
 makers soon exported vast quantities of silk stockings to Italy, 
 and these so long maintained their superiority, that Keyslar, in 
 his " Travels through Europe," as late as the year 1 730, remarks : 
 " At Naples, when a tradesmg,n would highly recommend his 
 silk stockings, he protests they are right English." 
 
 MARQUIS OF WORCESTER. 
 
 Wlien this distinguished nobleman first published his " Cen 
 tury of Inventions," he was regarded by the public as at best 
 a visionary projector, if not an absolute relator of falsehoods. 
 
 The Marquis, who had sacrificed his fortune in scientific pur- 
 suits, wished to obtain the encouragement of the King or of the 
 Parliament, and offered to carry his grand projects into effect 
 gratis. In a dedication to the King, speaking of the list of his 
 inventions, he says : " If it might serve to give aim to your 
 Majesty how to make use of my poor endeavours, it would 
 cro\vn my thoughts, who am neither covetous ,nor ambitious, 
 but of deserving your Majesty's favour, upon my own cost and 
 charges ; yet according to the old English proverb, ' It is a 
 poor dog not worth whistling after.' Let but your Majesty 
 approve, and I will effectually perform to the height of my 
 undertaking ; vouchsafe but to command, and with my life and 
 iortune I shall cheerfully obey, and viaugre envy, ignorance,
 
 MARQUIS OF WORCESTER. 155 
 
 and malice, ever appear your Majesty's passionately devoted, 
 or otherwise disinterested, subject and servant, 
 
 " Worcester." 
 
 In a second dedication to the members of the two Houses 
 of Parliament, he states that he had already spent more than 
 ^10,000 in maturing his discoveries for the public good. He 
 speaks of them with that modest confidence so inseparable from 
 transcendent talents : 
 
 " The ti-easures buried under these heads," he says, " both 
 for war, peace, and pleasure, being inexhaustible, I beseech you 
 pardon me if I say so ; it seems a vanity, but comprehends a 
 truth ; since no good spring but becomes the more plentiful, 
 by how much more it is drawn ; and the spinner to weave his 
 web is never stinted, but enforced. 
 
 " The more, then, that you shall be pleased to make use of 
 my inventions, the more inventive shall you ever find me, one 
 invention begetting still another, I more and more improving 
 my ability to serve my King and you ; and as to my heartiness 
 therein, there needs no addition, nor to my readiness a spur. 
 And therefore, my lords and gentlemen, be pleased to begin, 
 and desist not from commanding me, till I flag in my obedience 
 and endeavours to serve my King and country. 
 
 'For certainly you'll find me breathless first t' expire, 
 Before my hands grow weary, or my legs do tire. ' " 
 
 It may be observed, that however much his work was slighted 
 in his own day, it is pretty clear that the Marquis suggested the 
 first idea of the steam-engine , and that in like manner he 
 evidently hints at the telegraph, the torpedo, and at the vdocipede. 
 And it is not improbable that in his 15th "Scantling," "A boat 
 driving against wind and tide," he had an eye Lo steam navigation.
 
 1 5 6 jii:j? oes of invention and disc o ver y. 
 
 In his " Century of Inventions," the manuscript of which, by 
 the way, dates from 1655, he describes a steam apparatus by 
 which he raised a column of water to the height of 40 feet 
 This, under the name of " Fire-waterwork," appears actually to 
 have been at work at Vauxhall in 1656. 
 
 PRINCE RUPERT. 
 
 Prince Rupert, third son of the King of Bohemia, by the 
 Princess Elizabeth, eldest daughter of James i. of England, was 
 born in 16 19, and educated, like most German princes, for the 
 army ; and those who have been least inclined to favour him 
 admit that he was well adapted, both by natural abilities and 
 acquired endowments, to form a great commander. On the 
 commencement of the rebellion, which happened when he was 
 scarcely of age, he offered his services to King Charles, and 
 throughout the whole war behaved with great intrepidity. 
 
 On the Restoration he was invited to return to England, and 
 had several offices conferred upon him. After the display of 
 considerable ability in the Dutch wars of the reign of Charles 
 II., he withdrew into retirement, mostly at Windsor Castle, of 
 which he was governor, and spent a great part of his time in 
 the prosecution of chemical and philosophical experiments, as 
 well as the practice of mechanical arts. He delighted in mak- 
 ing locks for fire-arms, and was the inventor of a composition 
 called from him Prince's metal. 
 
 He communicated to the Royal Society his improvements 
 upon gunpowder, by refining the several ingredients, and mak- 
 ing it more carefully, which augmented its force, in comparison 
 of ordinary powder, in the proportion of ten to one. He also 
 acquainted them with an engine he had contrived for raising 
 water, and sent them an instrument for casting any platform
 
 PRINCE RUPERT. 157 
 
 into perspective, and for which they deputed a select committee 
 ot their members to return him their thanks. 
 
 He was the inventor of a gun for discharging several bullets 
 with the utmost speed, facility, and safety; and the Royal 
 Society received from His Highness the intimation of a certain 
 method of blowing up rocks in mines and other subterraneous 
 places. Dr. Hooke has preserved another invention of his for 
 making hail shot of all sizes. He devised a particular kind of 
 screw, by means of which observations taken by a quadrant at 
 sea were secured from receiving any alteration by the unsteadi 
 ness of the observer's hand or through the motion of the ship. 
 It is said that he had also, among other secrets, that of melting 
 or running black lead like a metal into a mould, and reducing 
 it again into its original form. 
 
 But there is one invention of which he has the credit, which 
 requires more particular notice. Besides being mentioned by 
 foreign authors, with applause for his skill in painting, he was 
 considered as the inventor of mezzotinto, owing, as it is said, 
 to the following casual occurrence. Going out early one morn- 
 ing during his retirement at Brussels, he observed the sentinal 
 at some distance from his post very busy doing something to 
 his piece. 
 
 The Prince asked the soldier what he was about ? 
 He replied that the dew had fallen in the night and made 
 his fusil rusty, and that he was scraping and cleaning it. 
 
 The Prince, looking at it, was struck with something like a 
 figure eaten into the barrel, with innumerable little holes 
 closed together like friezed work on gold or silver, part of 
 which the fellow had scraped away. The Prince immediately 
 conceived that some contrivance might be found to cover a 
 brass plate with sudi a grained ground of fine Dressed holes,
 
 1 58 HEROES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER K 
 
 which would undoubtedly give an impression all black; and 
 that by scraping away proper parts, the smooth superficies 
 would leave the rest of the paper white. Communicating 
 his idea to Walleraut Vaillant, a reputable painter then in the 
 neighbourhood of Brussels, they made several experiments, 
 and at last invented a steel roller with projecting points or 
 teeth like a file, which effectually produced the black ground, 
 and which being scraped away or diminished at pleasure left 
 the gradations of light. 
 
 Such was the invention of mezzotinto, according to Lord 
 Orford, Mr. Evelyn, and Mr. Vertue, though in all fairness we 
 must state that it has been disputed by some, and the credit 
 assigned to a German, Von Tregen, whose early works bear 
 the date of 1642. 
 
 The earliest of Rupert's engravings in mezzotinto that is 
 now extant is dated 1658. It is a half-length figure from 
 Spagnoletto : the subject, an executioner holding a sword in 
 one hand, and in the other a head, which is probably intended 
 for that of John the Baptist. 
 
 Prince Rupert died at his house in Sprmg Gardens, 29th 
 November, 1682, and was interred in Henry VIII. 's chapel, 
 regretted as one whose aim in all his actions and all his 
 accomplishments was the public good. 
 
 STTv SAMUF;L IsrORLAND. 
 
 As a machinist. Sir Samuel Morland, who was born aboiu 
 1625, deserves more respect than has hitherto been paid to 
 him. He invented the speaking-trumpet, the fire-engine, a 
 capstan to heave up anchors, and two arithmetical machines, 
 of which he published a description under the title of " The 
 Description and Use of Two Arithmetical Instruments; toiiether
 
 JOHN FLAMSTEAD. 159 
 
 with a Sliort Treatise, explaining the Ordinary Operations of Arith- 
 metic, &c., presented to His Most Excellent Majesty Charles 11. 
 by S. Morlandjn 1692." This work, which is exceedingly rare, 
 but of which there is a copy in the Bodleian, which bears date 
 1673, 8vo, is illustrated with twelve plates, in which the 
 different parts of the machine are exhibited ; and whence it 
 appears that the four fundamental rules in arithmetic are very 
 readily worked, and to use the author's OAvn words, " without 
 charging the memory, disturbing the mind, or exposing the 
 operations to any uncertainty." That these machines were at 
 the time brought into practice there seems no reason to doubt, 
 as by an advertisement prefixed to the work it appears that 
 ihey were manufactured for sale by Humphrey Adamson, who 
 lived with Jonas Moore, Esq., in the Tower of London. 
 
 The speaking-trumpet is said to have been invented by Sir 
 Samuel Morland in 1670. His trumpet was of the same form 
 as that now in use — that is to say, it was a truncated cone, 
 v/ith an outward curve or hp at the opening. 
 
 " The theory of the action of this instrument," says one 
 writer, "has never been thoroughly explained; but it is 
 supposed that the sides of the tube throw the sound back and 
 back in various reflections, until ultimately the waves quit the 
 instrument in parallel lines. It does not seem to depend on 
 the vibration of the instrument." 
 
 JOHN FLAMSTEAD. 
 
 John Flamstead, the great astronomer, who wns a contem- 
 porary of Sir Isaac Newton, was led to the study ot astronomy 
 by perusing Sacrobosco's work, " De Sphiera." He prosecuted 
 his studies with so much assiduity as to be appointed first 
 Astronomer-Royal. His grea" work is entitled " Historia
 
 1 60 HEROES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER Y. 
 
 Coelestis Britannicge." This publication contains his famous 
 catalogue of the fixed stars, the first trustworthy one ever made ; 
 the immense mass of celestial observations of which the catal- 
 ogue was the fruit, or rather the first fruit ; and a full account 
 of his methods of observation and his instruments. 
 
 Like most men of superior learning in his day, Flamstead 
 had the reputation among the lower orders of being able to 
 foretell events. In this persuasion, a poor washerwoman of 
 Greenwich, who had been robbed at night of a parcel of 
 linen, came to him, and with great anxiety requested him to 
 use his art, to let her know where the linen was, and who 
 had robbed her. The doctor, who was a humourist, thought 
 he would indulge himself in the joke ; he bade the poor woman 
 stay, and he would see what he could ; perhaps he might let 
 her know where she might find it ; but who the persons were 
 he would not undertake to inform her, for as she could have 
 no positive proof to convict them, it would be useless. He 
 then set about drawing circles, squares, &c., to amuse her; 
 and after some time, told lier if she would go into a particular 
 field, she would find the whole bundled up in a part of the ditch. 
 The woman repaired there immediately, and found it. She 
 came back with great haste and joy to thank the doctor, and 
 offered him half a-crown as a token of her gratitude, that being 
 as much as she could afford. The doctor, more surprised 
 than the woman, told her, " Good woman, I am heartily glad 
 you have found your linen ; but I assure you I knew nothing 
 of it, and intended only to joke with you, and then to have 
 read you a lecture on the folly of applying to any person to 
 know events not in the human power to tell. But I see Satan 
 has a mind I should deal with him : I am determined, how- 
 ever, I will not ; so never come nor send any one to me any
 
 / OHN HARRISON. 1 6 1 
 
 more, on sucn occasions, for I nevei will attempt such an 
 affair again whilst I Hve." 
 
 John Harrison. 
 
 Jolin Harrison, the inventor of the time-keeper which pro- 
 cured him the reward of the Board of Longitude, was the son 
 of a carpenter in Yorkshire, and assisted his father in the 
 business imtil he was twenty years of age. Occasionally, 
 however, he was employed in measuring land, and mending 
 clocks and watches. He was from his childhood attached to 
 any wheel machinery ; and when he lay ill in his sixth year, he 
 had a watch placed open upon his pillow, that he might amuse 
 himself by contemplating the movement. Though his oppor- 
 tunities of acquiring knowledge were very few, he eagerly 
 improved every incident for information. He frequently passed 
 whole nights in drawing or wnriting; and he always acknowledged 
 his obligations to a neighbouring clergyman for lending him a 
 manuscript copy of Professor Sanderson's Lectures which he 
 carefully and neatly transcribed, with all the diagrams. 
 
 On the reward being offered, in the 14th of Queen Anne, 
 for discovering the longitude, Harrison's attention was drawn 
 to the subject, and he began to consider how he could alter a 
 clock, which he had previously made, so that it might not be 
 subject to any irregularities, occasioned by the difference of 
 climates and the motions of a ship. These difficulties he 
 surmounted ; and his clock having answered his expectations 
 in a trial, attended with very bad weather upon the river 
 Humber, he was advised to carry it to London, in order to 
 apply for the parliamentary reward. He first showed it to 
 several members of the Royal Society, who gave him a certifi- 
 cate that his machine for measuring time promised a very
 
 ib2 HEROES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VERY. 
 
 great and sufficient degree of exactness. In consequence ot 
 this certificate, the machine, at the recommendation of Sir 
 Charles Wager, was put on board a man-of-war in 1736, and 
 carried, with Mr. Harrison, to Lisbon and back again, when its 
 accuracy was such, that the Commissioners of the Board ot 
 Longitude gave him ;^5oo, and recommended him to proceed. 
 He made two others afterwards, each of which was an improve- 
 ment on the preceding, and he now thought he had reached 
 the ne plus ultra of his attempts; but in an endeavour to improve 
 pocket watches, he found the principles he applied to surpass 
 his expectations so much as to encourage him to make his 
 fourth time-keeper, which was in the form of a pocket-watch, 
 about sixteen inches in diameter, and was finished in 1759. With 
 this time-keeper his son made two voyages, the one to Jamaica, 
 and the other to Barbadoes, in both which experiments it cor- 
 rected the longitude within the nearest limits required by the Act 
 of Parliament ; and the inventor, at different times, though not 
 without considerable trouble, received the promised reward of 
 ^20,000. 
 
 GEORGE GRAHAM. 
 
 George Graham, clock and watch maker, the most ingenious 
 artist of his time, was born at Horsgills, in the parish of Kirk- 
 linton in Cumberland, in the year 1675. 
 
 In 1688 he came up to London, and was put apprentice to 
 a person in that profession ; but after being some time with his 
 master, he was received, purely on account of his merit, into 
 the family of the celebrated Mr. Tompion, who treated him 
 with a kind of paternal affection as long as he lived. 
 
 That Mr. Graham was, without competition, the most emi- 
 nent of his profession, is but a small part of his character. \\ e
 
 GEORGE GRAHAM. 163 
 
 was the best general mechanic of his time, and had a complete 
 knowledge of practical astronomy ; so that he not only gave to 
 various movements for measuring time a degree of perfection 
 which had never before been attained, but invented several 
 astronomical instruments, by which considerable advances 
 have been made in that science ; he also effected great 
 improvements in those which had before been in use; and, 
 by a wonderful manual dexterity, constructed them with 
 greater precision and accuracy than any other person in the 
 world. 
 
 A great mural arch in the Observatory at Greenwich was 
 made by Dr. Halley, under Mr. Graham's immediate inspection, 
 and divided by his own hand; and from this incomparable 
 original, the best foreign instruments of the kind are copies 
 made by English artists. The sector by which Dr. Bradley 
 first discovered two new motions in the fixed stars was of his 
 invention and fabrication. He comprised the whole planetary 
 system within the compass of a small cabinet, from which, as a 
 model, all the modern orreries have been constructed. And 
 when the French Academicians were sent to the north to make 
 observations for ascertaining the figure of the earth, Mr. Graham 
 was thought the fittest person in Europe to supply them with 
 instruments ; by which means they finished their operations in 
 one year, while those who went to the south, not being so well 
 furnished, were very much embarrassed and retarded in their 
 operations. 
 
 Mr. Graham was many years a member of the Royal Society, 
 to which he contributed several ingenious and important dis- 
 coveries, chiefly on astronomical and philosophical subjects, 
 particularly a kind of horary alteration of the magnetic needle, 
 a quicksilver pendulum, and many curious particulars relating
 
 1 64 HER OES OF IN VENTION AND DISCO VER Y. 
 
 to the true length of the simple pendulum, upon which he 
 continued to make experiments till almost the year of his death, 
 which happened on the 20th of November, 1751, in his house 
 in Fleet Street 
 
 His temper was not less communicative than his genius was 
 penetrating ; and his principal view was the advancement of 
 science and the benefit of mankind. As he was perfectly 
 sincere, he was above suspicion ; as he was above envy, he was 
 candid ; and as he had a relish for true pleasure, he was 
 generous. He frequently lent money, but could never be 
 prevailed upon to take any interest; and for that reason he 
 never placed out any money upon Government securities. He 
 had bank-notes which were thirty years old in his possession 
 when he died ; and his whole property, except his stock-in-trade, 
 was found in a strong-box, which, though less than would have 
 been heaped together by avarice, was yet more than would have 
 remained to prodigality. 
 
 J.-VMES FERGUSON. 
 
 James Ferguson, the eminent practical philosopher and 
 astronomer, was born in a humble station at Keith, a small 
 village in Scotland, in the year 17 10. He learned to read by 
 merely listening to the instructions which his father communi- 
 cated to an elder brother. He was afterwards sent for about 
 three months to the grammar school at Keith ; and this was all 
 the scholastic education he ever received. His taste for 
 mechanics appeared when he was only about seven or eight 
 years of age. By means ot a turning-lathe and a knife, he 
 constructed machines that served to illustrate the properties 
 of the lever, the wheel and axle. Of these machines, and the 
 mode of their application, he made rough drawngs with a pen,
 
 JAMES PER G US ON. 1 65 
 
 and wrote a brief description of them. Unable to subsist 
 without some employment, he was placed with a neighbouring 
 farmer, and was occupied for some years in the care of his sheep. 
 In this situation he commenced the study of astronomy, 
 devoting a great part of the night to the contenjplation of the 
 heavens ; while he amused himself in the day-time with making 
 models of spinning-wheels, and other machines which he had 
 an opportunity of observing. By another farmer, in whose 
 service he was afterwards engaged, he was much encouraged in 
 his astronomical studies, and enabled, by the assistance that 
 was afforded him in his necessary labour, to reserve part of the 
 day for making fair copies of the observations which he roughly 
 sketched out at night. In making these observations, he lay 
 down on his back, with a blanket about him, and by means of 
 a thread strung with small beads, and stretched at arm's length 
 between his eye and the stars, he marked their positions and 
 distances. The master who thus kindly favoured his search 
 after knowledge, recommended him to some neighbouring 
 gentlemen, one of whom took him into his house, where he was 
 instructed by the butler in decimal arithmetic, algebra, and the 
 elements of geometry ! Being afterwards deprived of the 
 assistance of this preceptor, he returned to his father's house, 
 and, availing himself of the information derived from Gordon's 
 Geographical Grammar, constructed a globe of wood, covered 
 it with paper, and delineated upon it a map of the world ; he 
 dlso added the meridian ring and horizon, which he graduated ; 
 and by means of this instrument, which was the first he had 
 •jver seen, he came to solve all the problems in Gordon. His 
 lather's contracted circumstances obliged him again to seek 
 employment ; but the service into which he entered was so 
 laborious as to affect his health. For his amusement in this
 
 1 66 HER OES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER Y. 
 
 enfeebled state, he made a wooden clock, and also a watch, 
 after having once seen the inside of such a piece of mechanism. 
 His ingenuity obtained for him new friends, and employment 
 suited to his taste, which was that of cleaning clocks, and 
 drawing patterns for ladies needlework; and he was thus enabled 
 not only to supply his own wants, but to assist his father. 
 Having improved in the art of drawing, he was induced to 
 draw portraits from the life with Indian ink on vellum. This 
 art, which he practised with facility, afforded him a considerable 
 subsistence for several years, and allowed him leisure for 
 pursuing those favourite studies which ultimately raised him to 
 eminence. 
 
 " My taste for mechanics," says Mr. Ferguson, in a sketch of 
 his own life, " arose from an odd accident. When about seven 
 or eight years of age, a part of the roof of the house being 
 decayed, my father applied a prop and lever to an upright spar 
 to raise it to its former situation ; and, to my great astonish- 
 ment, I saw him, without considering the reason, lift up the 
 ponderous roof as if it had been a small weight. I attributed 
 this, at first, to a degree of strength that excited my terror as 
 well as wonder ; but thinking further of the matter, I recollected 
 that he had applied his strength to that end of the lever which 
 was farthest from the prop, and finding, on inquiry, that this 
 was the means by which the seeming wonder was effected, 1 
 began making levers (which I then called bars), and by apply- 
 ing weights to them different ways, I found the power given by 
 my bar was just in proportion to the lengths of the different 
 parts of the bar on either side of the prop. I then thought it 
 ivas a great pity that by means of this bar a weight could be 
 raised but a very little way. On this I soon imagined that, by 
 pulling round a wheel, the weight might be raised to any height
 
 MA TTHE W BOUL TON. 1 6 7 
 
 bv tying a rope to the weight, and winding the rope round the 
 axle of the wheel, and that the power gained must oe just as 
 great as the wheel was broader than the axle was thick, and 
 found it to be exactly so, by hanging one weight to a rope 
 put round the wheel, and anv ther to the rope that coiled 
 round the axle, so that in these ;wo machines it appeared very 
 plain that their advantage was as great as the space gone 
 through by the working power exceeded the space gone through 
 by weight ; and this property, I thought, must take place in a 
 wedge for cleaving wood, but then I happened not to think of 
 the screw. I then wrote a short account of the machines, and 
 sketched out figures of them \vith a pen, imagining it to be the 
 first treatise of the kind that ever was written." So early did 
 this philosopher's genius for mechanics first appear ; and from 
 such small beginnings did that knowledge spring for which he 
 was afterwards so justly distinguished. 
 
 MATTHEW BOULTON. 
 
 Matthew Boulton, the partner of James Watt, also desenes 
 mention here. He was born on the 3rd of September, 1728, at 
 Birmmgham, where his father carried on business as a hard- 
 wareman. 
 
 He received an ordinary education at a school in Deritend, 
 and also acquired a knowledge of drawing and mathematics. 
 At the age of seventeen, he effected some improvements in 
 shoe-buckles, buttons, and several other articles of Birmingham 
 manufacture. 
 
 The death of his father left him in possession of considerable 
 property ; and in order to extend his commercial operations, 
 he purchased, about 1762, a lease of Soho, near Handsworth, 
 about two miles from Birmingham, but in the county of Stafford,
 
 1 68 HER OES OF IN VENTION AND DISCO VER V 
 
 It would scarcely be possible, says one writer, to select a more 
 striking instance of the beneficial changes effected by the 
 combined operations of industry, ingenuity, and commerce, 
 than that which was presented by Soho after it had been some 
 time in Mr. Boulton's possession. Previously it had been a 
 bleak and barren heath, but it was soon diversified by pleasure 
 grounds, in the midst of which stood Mr. Boulton's spacious 
 mansion, and a range of extensive and commodious workshops 
 capable of receiving over a thousand artisans. 
 
 To Mr. Boulton's active mind this country is eminently 
 indebted for the manner in which he extended its resources, 
 and brought into repute its manufacturing ingenuity. Water 
 was an inadequate moving power in seconding his designs, and 
 he had recourse to steam. The old engine on Savary's plan 
 was not adapted for some purposes in which it was necessary 
 that great power should be combined with delicacy and pre- 
 cision of action. 
 
 In 1769, Mr. Boulton having entered into communication 
 with James Watt, who had obtained a patent for improvements 
 in the steam-engine, Watt was induced to settle at Soho. In 
 1775, Parliament granted him a further extension of his patent 
 for improvements in the steam-engine ; and on his entering 
 into partnership with Mr. Boulton, the Soho works soon 
 became famous for their excellent engines. Not only was the 
 steam-engine itself brought to greater perfection, but its powers 
 were applied to a variety of new purposes. In none of these, 
 perhaps, was the success so remarkable as in the machiner}' 
 for coining, which was put in motion by steam. The coining 
 apparatus was first set agoing in 1783, but it soon underwent 
 important improvements, until it was at length brought to an 
 astonishing degree ot perfection. One engine put in motion
 
 MA TTHE W BO ULTON. 1 09 
 
 eight machines, eacli of which stamped on both sides and 
 milled at the edges from seventy to eighty-four pieces in a 
 minute ; and the eight machines together completed, in a style far 
 superior to anything which had previously been accomplished, 
 from 30,000 to 40,000 coins in an hour. 
 
 The manufacture of plated wares, of works in bronze and 
 ormolu, such as vases, candelabra, and other ornamental 
 articles, was successively introduced at Soho, and the taste 
 and excellence which these productions displayed soon obtained 
 for them an unrivalled reputation in every part of the world. 
 Artists and men of taste were wannly encouraged, and their 
 talents called forth, by Mr. Boulton's liberal spirit. The 
 united labours of the two partners contributed to give that 
 impulse to British industry which has never since ceased. 
 
 Mr. Boulton has been described by Playfair as possessing a 
 most generous and ardent mind, to which was added an enter- 
 prising spirit that led him to grapple with great and difficult 
 undertakings. " He was a man of address," continues the 
 same writer, "delighting in society, active, and mixing with 
 people of all ranks with great freedom and without ceremony." 
 Watt, who survived Mr. Boulton, spoke of his deceased partner 
 in the highest terms. He said, " To his friendly encouragement, 
 to his partiality for scientific improvement, and to his ready 
 application of them to the purposes of art, to his intimate 
 knowledge of business and manufactures, and to his extended 
 views and liberal spirit, may in a great measure be ascribed 
 whatever success may have attended my exertions." 
 
 Mr. Boulton expended about ;^47,ooo in the course of ex- 
 periments on the steam-engine, before Watt perfected the con- 
 struction and occasioned any return of profit
 
 1 7 o HER OES OF IN VENTION AND DISCO VER Y. 
 
 JOSEPH BLACK. 
 
 Joseph Black, the famous chemist, was bom in France iii 
 1728. He was educated at the Universities of Glasgow and 
 Edinburgh, In 1756 he was appointed Professor of Anatomy 
 and Lecturer on Chemistry at Glasgow. It was during his 
 residence at Glasgow that he made and established his dis- 
 covery of latent heat 
 
 The following most interesting account of one of the prin- 
 cipal discoveries in modern science is from a biographical 
 memoir prefixed by Professor Robinson to Dr. Black's Lec- 
 tures : — 
 
 "It seems to have been between the years 1759 and 1763 
 that his speculations concerning heat, which had long occupied 
 his thoughts, were brought to maturity. And when it is con- 
 sidered by what simple experiments, by what familiar observa- 
 tions, Dr. Black illustrated the laws of fluidity and evaporation, 
 it appears wonderful that they had not long before been ob- 
 served and demonstrated. They are, however, less obvious 
 than might at first sight be imagined ; and to have a clear and 
 distinct conception of those seemingly simple processes oi 
 nature required consideration and reflection. 
 
 " If a piece of wood, a piece of lead, and a piece of ice are 
 placed in a temperature much inferior to that of the body, and 
 if we touch the piece of wood with the hand, it feels cold ; if 
 we touch the piece of lead, it feels colder still ; but the piece of 
 ice feels colder than either. Now, the first suggestion of sense 
 is that we receive cold from tlie wood, that we receive more 
 from the lead, and most of all from the ice ; and that the ice 
 continues to be a source of cold till the whole be melted. But 
 an inference precisely the contrary to all this is made by him
 
 JOSEPH BL A CK. i 7 1 
 
 whose attention and reflection has been occupied with this sub- 
 ject. He infers that the wood, takes a Httle heat from the hand, 
 but is soon heated so much as to take no more. The lead 
 takes more heat before it be as much satiated ; and the ice con- 
 tinues to feel equally cold, and to carry off heat as fast as in the 
 first moment till the whole be melted. This, then, was the 
 inference made by Dr. Black. 
 
 " Boerhaave has recorded an interesting observation by Fah- 
 renheit, namely, that water would sometimes grow considerably 
 colder than melting snow without freezing, and would freeze 
 in a moment when shaken or disturbed, and in the act ol 
 treezing give out many degi'ees of heat. Founded on this ob- 
 servation, it appears that Dr. Black entertained some vague 
 notion or conjecture that the heat which was received by the 
 ice during its conversion into water was not lost, but was still 
 contained in the water. And he hoped to verify this conjec- 
 ture, by making a comparison of the time required to raise a 
 pound of water one degree in its temperature, with the time 
 required to melt a pound of ice, both being supposed to 
 receive the heat equally fast. And that he might ascertain 
 how much heat was extricated during congelation, he thought 
 of comparing the time required to depress the temperature of a 
 pound of water one degree, with the time required for freezing 
 it entirely. The plan of this series of experiments occurred to 
 him during the summer season ; but for want of ice, which he 
 could not then procure, he had no opportunity of putting it to 
 the test. He therefore waited impatiently for the winter. 
 
 " The winter arrived, and the decisive experiment was per- 
 formed in the month of December, 1761. From this experi- 
 ment, it appeared that as much heat was taken up by the ice 
 during its liquefaction as would have raised the water 140 degrees
 
 1 7 2 HER OES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER Y. 
 
 in its temperature ; and, on the other hand, that exactly the 
 same quantity of heat was given out during the congelation of 
 the water. But this experiment, the result of which Dr. Black 
 eagerly longed for, only informed him how much heat was 
 absorbed by the ice during liquefaction, was retained by the 
 water while it remained fluid, and was again emitted by it in 
 the process of freezing. But his mind was deeply impressed 
 with the truth of the doctrine, by reflecting on the observations 
 that presented themselves when a frost or thaw happened to 
 prevail. The hills are not at once cleare'd of snow during the 
 sunshine of the brightest winter day, nor are the pools suddenly 
 covered with ice during a single frosty night. Much heat is 
 absorbed and fixed in the water during the melting of the snow, 
 and, on the other hand, while the water is changed into ice, 
 much heat is extricated. During a thaw, the thermometer sinks 
 when it is removed from the air and placed in the melting snow ; 
 during severe frost, it rises when plunged into freezing water. 
 In the first case the snow receives heat, and in the last the 
 water allows the heat to escape again. These were fair and 
 unquestionable inferences, and now they appear obvious and 
 easy. But although many ingenious and acute philosophers 
 had been engaged in the same investigations, and had employed 
 the same facts in their disquisitions, those obvious inferences 
 were entirely overlooked. It was reserved for Dr. Black to 
 remove the veil which hid this mystery of nature, and by this 
 important discovery to establish an era in the progress ot 
 chemical science — one of the brightest, perhaps, which has yet 
 occurred in its history." 
 
 The theory of latent heat — as Dr. Black called it was ex- 
 plained by him to the members of a literary society on the 23rd 
 of April, 1762, and soon afterwards he laid before his students
 
 [OSEPH PRIESTLE Y. i ;: 
 
 a detailed view of the extensive and beneficial effects of this 
 habitude in the grand economy of nature. '-From observing 
 the analogy between the cessation of expansion by the ther- 
 mometer during the liquefaction of the ice, and during the 
 conversion of water into steam, Dr. Black having explained the 
 one, thought that the phenomena of boiling and evaporation 
 would admit of a similar explanation. He was so convinced of 
 the truth of this theory, that he taught it in his lectures in 1761, 
 before he had made a single experiment on the subject. At 
 this period, his prelections on the subject of evaporation were 
 of great advantage to James Watt, afterwards 30 distinguished, 
 who made use of them in his application of steam power. 
 I'lack's discovery, indeed, may be said to have laid the founda- 
 tion of that great practical use of steam which has conferred so 
 great a blessing upon the ]3resent age." 
 
 JOSEPH PRIESTLEY. 
 
 Josejih Priestley, a Dissenting divine, but more justly eminent 
 as a philoso*pher, was born on the i8th of March, 1733, near 
 Leeds. 
 
 At Warrington, where he occupied the post of tutor in an 
 academy, he first began to acquire reputation as a writer in 
 various branches of literature. In 1767, he gave to the world 
 his History of Electricity. It is rather carelessly and hastil}' 
 executed, but must have been of advantage to the science. 
 Almost the whole of his historical facts are taken from the 
 Philosophical Transactions ; but at the end he gives a number 
 of original experiments of his own. The most important of all 
 his electrical discoveries was that charcoal is a conductor of 
 electricity, and so good a conductor that it vies even ■^^'^th 
 the metals themselves. This publication went through several
 
 r 7 4 HEE OES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER Y. 
 
 editions, was translated into foreign languages, and procured 
 him the honour of being elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, 
 as one of his biographers says ; but his election took place the 
 year before, and about the same time the University of Edin- 
 burgh conferred on him the degree of Doctor of Laws, 
 
 His attention was now turned to the properties of fixed air 
 He commenced his experiments on this subject in 1768, and the 
 first of his publications appeared in 1772, in which he announced 
 a method of impregnating water with fixed air. In the paper 
 read to the Royal Society in 1772, which obtained the Copley 
 medal, he gave an account of his discoveries ; and at the same 
 time announced the discovery of nitrous gas, and its appli- 
 cation as a test of the purity and fitness for respiration of gases 
 generally. 
 
 About this time also he showed the use of the burning lens 
 in pneumatic experiments ; he related the discovery and 
 properties of muriatic acid gas; added much to what was 
 known of the gas generated by putrefactive processes, and 
 by vegetable fermentation ; and he determined many facts 
 relative to the diminution and deterioration of air, by the 
 combustion of charcoal and the calcination of metal. 
 
 In 1774 he made a full discovery of dephlogisticated gas, 
 which he produced from the oxides of silver and lead. This 
 hitherto secret source of animal life and animal heat, of which 
 Mayon had a faint glimpse, was unquestionably first exhibited 
 l)y Dr, Priestley, though it was discovered about the same time 
 by Scheele of Sweden. 
 
 In 1776 his observations on respiration were read before the 
 Royal Society, in which he discovered that the common air 
 inspired was diminished in quantity and deteriorated in quality 
 by the action of the blood upon it, through the blood-vessels
 
 JOSEPH FRIES TLB Y. 175 
 
 of the lungs; and that the florid red colour of arterial blood 
 •.vas communicated by the contact oif air through the containing 
 vessels. 
 
 But it is impossible to enumerate here all Dr. Priestley's 
 discoveries; they are too numerous. "How many invisible 
 fluids," says one writer, "whose existence evaded the sagacity 
 of foregoing ages, has he made known to us ! The very air we 
 breathe he has taught us to analyse and examine, and to im- 
 prove a substance so little known that even the precise effect of 
 respiration was an enigma until he explained it. He first made 
 known to us the proper food of vegetables, and in what the 
 difference between these and animal substances consists. To 
 him pharmacy is indebted for the method of making artificial 
 mineral waters, as well as for a shorter method of preparing 
 other medicines ; metallurgy, for more powerful and cheap sol- 
 vents ; and chemistry for such a variety of discoveries as it 
 would be tedious to recite — discoveries which new-modelled 
 that science, and drew to it and to this country the attention of 
 Europe." 
 
 Upon the life of Dr. Priestley, apart from science, we shall 
 not touch. He died in America, on the 6th of February, 1S04. 
 
 When the Council of the Royal Society honoured Dr. Priest- 
 ley by the presentation to him of Sir Godfrey Copley's medal, 
 on the 30th of November, 1733, Sir John Pringle, who was 
 tlien president, delivered on the occasion an elaborate discourse 
 on the different kinds of air, in which, after expatiating upon 
 the discoveries of his predecessors, he pointed out the particular 
 merits of Priestley's investigations. In allusion to the purifica- 
 tion of a tainted atmosphere by the growth of plants, the 
 president thus eloquently and piously expressed himself: — 
 
 " From these discoveries we are assured that no vegetable
 
 1 7 6 HER OES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER Y. 
 
 grows in vain ; but that, from the oak of the forest to the grass 
 of the field, every individual plant is serviceable to mankind ; 
 if not always distinguished by some private virtue, yet making 
 a part of the v/hole which cleans and purifies our atmosphere. 
 In this the fragrant rose and deadly nightshade co-operate ; nor 
 is the herbage nor the woods that flourish in the most remote 
 and unpeopled regions unprofitable to us, nor we to them, con- 
 sidering how constantly the winds convey to them our vitiated 
 air, for our relief and for their nourishment. And if ever these 
 salutary gales rise to storms and hurricanes, let us still trace 
 and revere the ways of a beneficent Being, who, not fortuitously 
 but with design, not in wrath but in mercy, shakes the water 
 and the air together, to bury in the deep those putrid and 
 pestilential efiluvia which the vegetables on the face of the 
 earth had been insufficient to consume." 
 
 In perusing the works of Priestley, it is impossible to fail 
 being struck with his intense love of truth. In his scientific 
 note-books, he registered every fact as it appeared to his 
 senses ; in his political and theological \\Titings, he fearlessly 
 states his opinions as they are brought out by his cross-examina- 
 tion of his own thoughts and meditations ; and that liberty ot 
 independent thought which he claims for himself he determinedly 
 demands for others. In his scientific career, his object was 
 uniformly to question Nature by every possible experimental 
 investigation, and to state its results as he obtained them. 
 
 "Whether we view him," says Professor Thomson, "as a 
 pneumatic chemist, a theologian, an electrician, a historian, a 
 politician, his writings bear the impress oi an original mind, 
 uncontrolled by any tendency to follow in beaten tracts, but 
 constantly panting for new fields of investigation. It will ever 
 remain a stain upon the name of Enpland, that this noble-
 
 JAMES HAR GREA VES. 1 7 7 
 
 minded man, this honour to humanity, should have been com- 
 pelled, by persecution on account of his religion and politics, 
 to flee his native country." 
 
 JAMES HARGREAVES. 
 
 About a century has elapsed, says a popular writer, since a 
 native of Lancashire, of very humble origin, began to devote 
 his attention to the application of machinery to the preparation 
 and spinning of raw cotton for weft. In the year 1760, or soon 
 after, a ca7-diiig-engine, not very different from that now in 
 use, was contrived by James Hargreaves, an untaught weaver, 
 living near Church, in Lancashire; and in 1767, the spinning- 
 icnny was invented by the same person. This machine, as at 
 first formed, contained eight spindles, which were made to 
 revolve by means of bands from a horizontal wheel. Subse- 
 quent improvements increased the power of the spinning-jenny 
 to eighty spindles, when the saving of labour which it thus 
 occasioned, produced considerable alarm among those persons 
 who had employed the old mode of spinning, and a party of 
 them broke into Hargreaves' house and destroyed his machine. 
 The great advantage of the invention was so apparent, however, 
 that it was soon again brought into use, and nearly superseded 
 the employment of tlie old spinning-machine. A second rising 
 then took place of the persons whose labour was thus super- 
 seded by it. They went through the country destroying, whcrc- 
 ever they could find them, both carding and spinning machines, 
 by which means the manufacture was for a time driven away 
 from Lancashire to Nottingham. 
 
 According to Hargreaves' own account, he derived the idea 
 of the jenny from the following incident : — Seeing a hand-wheel 
 with a single spindle overturned, he remarked that the spindle^
 
 1 7 8 HER OES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER Y. 
 
 which was before horizontal, was then vertical ; and as it con- 
 tinued to revolve, he drew the roving of wool towards him into 
 a thread. It then seemed to Hargreaves plausible that, if 
 something could be applied to hold the rovings as the finger 
 and thumb did, and that contrivance to travel backwards on 
 wheels, six, or eight, or even twelve threads, from so many 
 spindles, might be spun at once. This was done, and suc- 
 ceeded ; but Hargreaves, driven by mobs, as we have described, 
 to Nottingham, unable to bear up against such ill-treatment? 
 there died in obscurity and distress. Before his death, he 
 gave the property of his jenny to the Strutts, who thereupon 
 laid the foundation of their industrial success and opulence. 
 
 JOSIAH WEDGWOOD. 
 
 Few men have laboured with such success to elevate and 
 refine their art as Josiah Wedgwood, " the Father of the 
 Potteries," as he has been called, and the first of a long line of 
 Staffordshire potters who have applied the highest science and 
 the purest art to the improvement of their commercial 
 enterprise. 
 
 Wedgwood was born on the 12th of July, 1730, at Burslern 
 in Staffordshire, and was the younger son of a potter. He 
 received a very limited education, for scarcely any person in 
 Burslem learned more than mere reading and writing, until 
 about 1750, when some benevolent persons endowed the free 
 school for instructing youth to read the Bible, write a fair hand, 
 and know the primary rules of arithmetic. On his father's 
 death, his property, consisting chiefly of a small entailed estate, 
 descended to the eldest son, and Josiah was left at an early 
 period of life to lay the foundation of his own fortune. This 
 he did most substantially by applying his attention to the
 
 JO SI AH WEDGWOOD. 179 
 
 pottery business, which it is not too much to say he brought to 
 the highest perfection, and estabHshed a manufacture that has 
 opened a new source of extensive commerce before unknown 
 to this or any other country. 
 
 His many discoveries of new species of earthenwares and 
 porcelains, his studied forms and chaste style of decoration, 
 and the correctness and judgment with which all his works 
 were executed under his own eye, and by artists for the most 
 part of his own forming, turned the current in this branch of 
 commerce. Before his time, England imported the finer 
 earthenwares ; but since Wedgwood's day, she has exported 
 them to an enormous extent. 
 
 The first ware by which Wedgwood attained to great 
 celebrity was the improved cream-coloured ware. Of this new 
 article he presented some specimens to Queen Charlotte, who 
 immediately ordered a complete table service ; and was so 
 pleased with its execution that she appointed Wedgwood her 
 potter, and commanded that the ware should be called 
 "Queen's Ware." It has a dense and durable substance, 
 covered with a brilliant glaze, and is capable of bearing 
 uninjured sudden alterations of heat and cold. " It was from 
 the first," says the late Mr. Timbs, " sold at a cheap rate, and 
 the addition of embellishments very little enhanced the cost ; 
 first, a coloured edge or painted border was added to the 
 queen's ware; and lastly, printed patterns, which covered the 
 whole surface. Nor was this beautiful ware confined to 
 England ; for M. Faujas de Saint Ford shows how widely the 
 fame of Wedgwood's pottery had spread before 1792, when " in 
 travelling from Paris to Petersburg, from Amsterdam to the 
 farthest part of Sweden, and from Dunkirk to the extremity of 
 the south of France, one is served at every inn upon English
 
 i8o HEROES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VERY. 
 
 ware. Spain, Portugal, and Italy are supplied with it; and 
 vessels are loaded with it for the East Indies, the West Indies, 
 and the continent of America." England is mainly indebted 
 to Wedgwood for the extraordinary improvement and rapid 
 extension ot this branch of industry. Before his time, our 
 potteries produced only inferior fabrics, easily broken or. 
 injured, and totally devoid of taste as to form or ornament. 
 
 Wlien the Portland or Barberini vase was offered for sale, 
 Wedgwood, with the view of copying it, endeavoured to 
 purchase it, and for some time continued to offer an advance 
 upon each bidding of the Duchess of Portland ; until at length, 
 his motives being ascertained, he was offered the loan of the 
 vase on condition of withdrawing his opposition. The 
 consequence was that the Duchess became the purchaser at the 
 price of 1800 guineas. Wedgwood then made fifty copies of 
 the vase, which he sold at fifty guineas each ; he is said to 
 have paid ^^400 for the model and the entire cost of producing 
 the copies is stated to have exceeded the sum received by him. 
 Sir Joseph Banks and Sir Joshua Reynolds bore testimony to 
 the excellent execution of these cojDies. 
 
 The fame of Wedgwood's operations was such, that his works 
 at Burslem, and subsequently at Etruria, a village built by him 
 near Newcastle under-Lyne, and to which he removed in 17 71, 
 became a point of attraction to visitors from all parts of Europe. 
 
 The principal of the species of earthenware and porcelain 
 invented by Wedgwood, according to Chalmers, are : i, A terra 
 cotta resembling porphyry, granite, Egyptian pebble, and other 
 beautiful stones of the siliceous or crystalline order ; 2, Basalts 
 or black ware, a black porcelain biscuit of nearly the same 
 properties with the natural stone, receiving a high polish, 
 resisting all the acids, and bearing without injury a very strong
 
 HENRY CORT. 
 
 fire; 3, White porcelain biscuit, of a smooth, wax-like 
 appearance, of similar properties with the preceding ; 4, Jasper, 
 a white porcelain of exquisite beauty, possessing the general 
 properties of basalts, together with the singular one of receiving 
 through its whole substance, from the admixture of metallic 
 calces, the same colours which those calces give to glass or 
 enamels in fusion — a property possessed by no porcelain of 
 ancient or modern composition ; 5, Bamboo, or cane-coloured 
 biscuit porcelain, of the same nature as the white porcelain 
 biscuit ; and 6, A porcelain biscuit remarkable for great hard- 
 ness, little inferior to that of agate — a property which, together 
 with its resistance to the strongest acids, and its impenetrability 
 to every known liquid, renders it well adapted for the formation 
 of mortars, and many different kinds of chemical vessels. The 
 above six distinct species of ware, together with the " queen's 
 ware" first noticed, have increased by the industry and in- 
 genuity of different manufacturers, and particularly by Wedg- 
 wood himself and his son, into an almost endless variety of 
 forms for ornaments and use. 
 
 Josiah Wedgwood closed a life of useful labour on 3rd 
 January, 1795, in the sixty-fourth year of his age. Having 
 acquired a large fortune, his purse was always open to the calls 
 of charity, and to the support of every institution for the public 
 good. To the poor he was a benefactor in the most enlarged 
 sense of the word, and by the learned he was highly respected 
 for his original genius and persevering industry in plans of the 
 greatest national importance. 
 
 HENRY CORT. 
 
 In the manufacture of iron the first product of the blast- 
 furnace is pig or cast iron — that is, iron in combination with
 
 1 8 2 HER OES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER Y. 
 
 carbon and silicon. To reduce this to a state of malleable iron, 
 two methods are employed. One, the older, consists in the 
 exposure of the melted pig-iron in a finery or hearth to the 
 highly oxiding action of a blast of atmospheric air. The other, 
 the modern practice, consists in stirring the melted pig-iron on 
 the bed of a reverberatory furnace, so as to bring each portion 
 of the whole mass successively up to the surface, and allow the 
 oxygen of the air to seize upon and combine with the carbon 
 and silicon, which become separated from the iron in the form 
 of " cinder," leaving the product of the operation malleable or 
 "wrought iron." This last process is termed "puddling," and the 
 invention of it is usually ascribed to Henry Cort, as well as the 
 method of producing bar-iron, by means of grooved rolls instead 
 of by the old process of beating it out by forge hammers. 
 
 As in the case of most inventions, Cort's claim has been 
 disputed; and Dr. Percy, in his work on Metallurgy^ shows 
 that other inventors are at least entitled to share in the merit, 
 more particularly the Craneges of Coalbrookdale, and Peter 
 Onions of Merthyr-Tydvil, both of whose patents preceded 
 Cort's. But it does not appear that the inventions of either 
 the Craneges or Onions were adopted by iron-makers to any 
 large extent, and the merit certainly belongs to Henry Cort of 
 practically introducing the method of puddling and manu- 
 facturing iron now generally followed, and which may be said 
 to have established quite a new era in the history of the iron 
 manufacture. When Cort took out his patent, the quantity of 
 pig-iron produced in England was about 90,000 tons a-year ; 
 in 1866 it was above 4,000,000 tons. It was said in that year 
 that there were no fewer than 8200 of Cort's furnaces in oper- 
 ation in Great Britain alone. 
 
 The story of Henry Cort is well and impartially told by Dr.
 
 HENRY CORT. 183 
 
 Percy. Cort was so unfortunate or so unwise as to become 
 connected as partner with one Samuel Jellicoe, son of the 
 Deputy-Paymaster of Seamen's Wages, To enable the firm to 
 carry on their business, the elder Jellicoe advanced to them 
 large sums out of the public moneys lodged in his hands ; and 
 when his accounts were investigated, it was found that the Cort 
 partnership owed him, or rather the Treasury, upwards of 
 ;^27,ooo. As Cort had assigned his patents to Jellicoe as 
 security for the advances, they were at once taken possession 
 of by the Crown ; but although the processes which formed the 
 subject of the patents were very shortly adopted to a large 
 extent by the Welsh and other iron-masters, the Government 
 never levied any royalty for their use, and the whole benefit of 
 the inventions was thus made over to the public. Had Cort's 
 estate been properly handled, there is every reason to believe 
 that not only would the debts due by him to the Treasury have 
 been paid, but that Cort himself would have realised a handsome 
 fortune. As it was, the Government lost the money owing to 
 the public treasury, while Cort was consigned to total ruin. 
 
 " This story," says Dr. Percy, " is one of the saddest in the 
 annals of invention. Cort died in poverty, though he laid the 
 foundation of the riches of many an iron-master, and largely 
 contributed to the development of the resources and wealth of 
 Great Britain. It is true that the value of the process of 
 puddling has been greatly enhanced by subsequent improve- 
 ments, especially two, viz., the application of iron bottoms to 
 the puddling-fiurnaces, and the boiling process. But this has 
 been the course with many inventions — perfection only being 
 arrived at by slow degrees ; and merit is not the less because 
 others subsequently appear who improve the methods of their 
 predecessors."
 
 1 84 HER OES OF IN VENTION AND DISCO VER Y. 
 
 SAMUEL CROMPTON. 
 
 The history of Samuel Crompton and his famous invention 
 of the mule spinning-machine is an extremely interesting one. 
 Crompton was born on the 3rd of December, 1753, at Firwood, 
 near Bolton. His father was a farmer, and the household, after 
 the custom of Lancashire in those days, employed their leisure 
 in carding, spinning, and weaving. Whilst Samuel was but a 
 child, the family removed to a picturesque, old, rambling house, 
 known as the Hole-in-the-Wood, about a mile from Bolton. 
 Shortly afterwards, the father died. 
 
 Widow Crompton was a strong-minded woman, and carried 
 on her husband's business with energy and thrift. She was 
 noted for her excellent butter, honey, and elder-berry wine. 
 When her son was about sixteen years old, she set him to earn 
 his living by spinning at home, and exacted from him a certain 
 amount of work daily. His youth at Hall-in-the-Wood was 
 passed in comparative seclusion. All day he was alone at 
 work, his mother doing the bargaining and fighting with the 
 outer world. 
 
 It was with one of Hargreaves' jennies that' Crompton span. 
 The yarn was soft, and was constantly breaking ; and if the full 
 quantity of allotted work was not done, Mrs. Crompton scolded, 
 and the time spent in mending broken threads kept him from 
 his books and music, for he was a great reader, and a 
 skilful player on the violin. Much annoyance of this kind 
 drove his ingenuity into the contrivance of some improve- 
 ments. 
 
 Five years — from his twenty-first year in 1774 to his twenty 
 sixth in 1779 — were spent in the construction of the mule 
 " My mind," he relates, " was in a continual endeavour to
 
 SAMUEL CROMPTON. 18:; 
 
 realise a more perfect principle of spinning ; and tho'agli often 
 baffled, I as often renewed the attempt, and at length suc- 
 ceeded to my utmost desire, at the expense of every shilling I 
 had in the world." He was, of course, only able to work at the 
 mule in the leisure left after each day's task of spinning, and 
 often in hours stolen from sleep. The purchase of tools and 
 materials absorbed all his spare cash, and when the Bolton 
 Theatre was open, he was glad to earn eighteenpcnce a-night 
 by playing the violin in the orchestra. The first mule was 
 made, for the most part, of wood ; and to a small roadside 
 smithy he used to resort, " to file his bits o' things." 
 
 Crompton proceeded very silently with his invention. Even 
 the family at Hall-in-the-Wood knew httle of what he was about, 
 until his lights and noise, while at work in the night time, 
 excited their curiosity. Besides, inventors of machinery stood 
 in great danger from popular indignation. The Blackburn 
 spinners ■ and weavers had driven Hargreaves from his home, 
 and destroyed every jenny of more than twenty spindles for 
 miles round. 
 
 When this storm was raging, Crompton took his mule to 
 pieces, and hid the various parts in a loft or garret near the 
 clock in the old Hall. Meanwhile, he excited much surprise 
 in the market by the production of yarn, which, alike in fine- 
 ness and firmness, surpassed any that had ever been seen. It 
 immediately became the imiversal question in the trade. How 
 does Crompton make that yarn? It was at once perceived 
 that the greatly-desired muslins, brought all the way from the 
 East Indies, might be woven at home, if only such yarn could 
 be had in abundance. 
 
 At this time Crompton married, and commenced house- 
 keeping in a cottage near the Hall, but still retained his work-
 
 1 86 HER OES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VEJi Y. 
 
 room in the old place. His wife was a first-rate spinner, and 
 her expertness, it is said, first drew his attention to her. Orders 
 for his fine yarn, at his own prices, poured in upon him ; and 
 though he and his young wife spun their hardest, they were 
 quite unable to meet a hundredth part of the demand. Hall- 
 in-the-Wood became besieged with manufacturers, praying for 
 supplies of the precious yarn, and burning with desire to pene- 
 trate the secret of its production. All kinds of stratagems were 
 practised to obtain admission to the house. Some climbed up 
 the windows of the workroom and peeped in ; Crompton set up 
 a screen to hide himself, and even that was not sufficient. 
 One inquisitive adventurer is said to have hid himself for some 
 days in a loft, and to have watched Crompton at work through 
 a gimlet hole in the ceiling. 
 
 If Crompton had only possessed a mere trifle of worldly 
 experience, there is no reason why, at this juncture, he might 
 not have made his fortune. Unhappily, his seclusion and soft 
 disposition placed him as a babe at the mercy of sharp and 
 crafty traders. He discovered he could not keep his secret. 
 " A man," he wrote, " has a very insecure tenure of a property 
 which another can carry away with his eyes. A few months 
 reduced me to the cruel necessity either of destroying my 
 machine, or of giving it to the public. To destroy it, I could 
 not think of; to give up that for which I had laboured so long, 
 was cruel. I had no patent, nor the means of purchasing one. 
 In preference to destroying, I gave it to the public." 
 
 Many, perhaps the majority of inventors, have lacked the 
 means to purchase a patent, but have, after due inquiry, usually 
 found some capitalist willing to provide the requisite funds. 
 There seems no doubt that, had Crompton had the sense to 
 bestir himself, he could easily have found a I'riend to assist him
 
 SAMUEL CROMPTON. 187 
 
 in securing a patent for the mule, or the Hole-i'-tli'-VVood-wheel, 
 as the people at first called it. 
 
 He says he " gave the mule to the public ; " and virtually he 
 did, but in such a v^^ay that he gained no credit for his gene- 
 rosity, and was put to inexpressible pain by the greed and 
 meanness of those with whom he dealt. Persuaded to give up 
 his secret, the following document was drawn up : — 
 
 " We, whose names are hereunto subscribed, have agreed to 
 give, and do hereby promise to pay unto, Samuel Crompton, at 
 the Hole-in-the-Wood, near Bolton, the several sums opposite 
 our names, as a reward for his improvement in spinning. 
 Several of the principal tradesmen in Manchester, Bolton, etc., 
 having seen his new machine, approve of it, and are of opinion 
 that it would be of the greatest public utility to make it generally 
 known, to which end a contribution is desired from every well- 
 wisher of trade." 
 
 To this were appended fifty-five subscribers of a guinea 
 each, twenty-seven of half-a-guinea, one of seven shillings and 
 sixpence, and one of five shillings and sixpence; making, 
 together, the munificent sum of ;^72, iis. 6d., or less than the 
 cost of the model mule which Crompton gave up to the sub- 
 scribers. Never, certainly, was so much got for so little. The 
 merciless transaction receives its last touch of infamy from the 
 fact recorded by Crompton in these words : — " Many sub- 
 scribers would not pay the sums they had set opposite their 
 names. When I applied for them, I got nothing but abusive 
 language to drive me from them, which was easily done ; for I 
 never till then could think it possible that any man could 
 pretend one thing and act the direct opposite. I then found 
 it was possible, having had proof positive." 
 
 Deprived of his reward, Crompton devoted himself steadily
 
 r 88 HER OES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER Y. 
 
 to business. He removed to Oldhams, a retired place two 
 miles to the north of Bolton, where he farmed several acres, 
 kept three or four cows, and span in the upper storey of his 
 house. His yarn was still the best and finest in the market, 
 and, as a consequence, he was plagued with visitors, who came 
 prying about, under the idea that he had effected some improve- 
 ment in his invention. His servants were continually bribed 
 away from him, in the hope that they might be able to reveal 
 something that was worth knowing. Sir Robert Peel (the first 
 baronet) visited him at Oldhams, and offered him a situation 
 with a large salary, and the prospect of a partnership ; but 
 Crompton had a morbid dislike to Peel, and he declined the 
 overtures which might have led to his lasting comfort and 
 prosperity. 
 
 Aided by the mule, the cotton manufacture prodigiously 
 developed itself; but thirty years elapsed ere any serious 
 attempt was made to recompense the ingenuity and perseverance 
 to which the increase was owing. At last, in 1812, it was 
 resolved to bring Crompton's claim before Parliament. It was 
 proved that 4,600,000 spindles were at work on his mules, 
 using up 40,000,000 lbs. of cotton annually; that 70,000 
 persons were engaged in spinning; and 150,000 more in 
 weaving the yarn so spun ; and that a population of full half-a- 
 million derived their daily bread from the machinery his skill 
 had devised. The case was clear, and Mr. Percival, the 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer, was ready to propose a handsome 
 vote of money, when Crompton's usual ill-luck intervened in a 
 most shocking manner. 
 
 Tt was the afternoon of the nth of May, 1812, and Crompton 
 was standing in the lobby of the House of Commons, con- 
 versing with Sir Robert Peel and Mr. Blackburne. when one of
 
 HENRY BELL. 189 
 
 them observed, " Here comes Mr. Percival." The group was 
 instantly joined by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who 
 addressed them with the remark, " You will be glad to know 
 that I mean to propose ;^20,ooo for Crompton ; do you think 
 it will be satisfactory?" Hearing this, Crompton moved of^ 
 from motives of delicacy, and did not hear the reply. He was 
 scarcely out of sight, when the madman Bellingham came up 
 and shot Percival dead. This frightful catastrophe lost Cromp- 
 ton ;^ 1 5,000. Six weeks intervened before his case could be 
 brought before Parliament, and then, on the 24th June, Lord 
 Stanley moved that he should be awarded ;^5ooo, which the 
 House voted without opposition ; ^^20,000 might have been 
 had as easily, and no reason appears to have been given for 
 the reduction of Mr. Percival's proposal. All conversant with 
 Crompton's merits felt the grant to be inadequate, whether 
 measured by the intrinsic value of his service, or by the rate of 
 rewards accorded by Parliament to other inventors. 
 
 HENRY BELL. 
 
 Steam navigation was introduced on American waters in 
 I So 7, Fulton launching his steamboat on the Hudson on the 
 3rd of October of that year. It was not, however, till 181 2 
 that the first regular passenger steamer made its appearance in 
 this country on the Clyde. This was the Comet, built for Mr. 
 Henry Bell, the proprietor of the Helensburgh baths on the 
 Clyde, and who had long been a most zealous advocate of 
 steam propulsion. 
 
 Henry Bell was bom in Linlithgowshire, in 1767. Dr. 
 Cleland, in his work on Glasgow, speaks of him as an 
 " ingenious, untutored engineer and citizen of Glasgow," and 
 states that it may be said, without the Iiazard of impropriety,
 
 1 90 HEROES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VERY. 
 
 that Mr. Bell "invented" the steam-propelling system, "for he 
 knew nothing of the principles which had been so successfully 
 followed out by Mr. Fulton." 
 
 The construction of the Comet wzis begun in 181 1, and the 
 boat was so named in consequence of the appearance of a 
 large comet that year. Mr. Bell was his own engineer, and in 
 January, 181 2, the first trial took place on the Clyde. 
 
 The little vessel was forty feet long on the keel, and ten 
 feet six inches beam, propelled by a steam-engine of three or 
 four horse-power, with a vertical cylinder, and working on the 
 bell-crank principle — the engine being placed on one side of 
 the vessel, and the boiler, of wrought-ircn, on the other. She 
 had two small paddle-wheels on each side, each wheel having 
 four boards only. 
 
 For some time the Comet plied regularly between Glasgow 
 and Greenock, at a speed of about five miles an hour. She 
 was afterwards transferred to the Forth, where she ran for many 
 years between the extremity of the Forth and Clyde Canal and 
 Newhaven, near Edinburgh. The distance is 27 miles, and is 
 stated by Mr. Bell to have been performed, on the average, in 
 3I hours, being at the rate of above 7^ miles an hour. 
 
 Mr. Bell's experiments did not realise to himself those 
 pecuniary advantages which were due to his enterprise. From 
 the city of Glasgow he received in his latter years a small 
 annuity, in acknowledgment of his services to commerce and 
 civilisation. He died at Helensburgh, on the Clyde, in 1830. 
 A. monument was erected to his memory near Bowling. 
 
 SIR DAVID BREWSTER. 
 
 In the whole history of science there is not, perhaps, any dis' 
 covery of ancient or of modern date that promised so rich a
 
 SIR DA VID BRE WSTER. 1 9 1 
 
 reward to the inventor, and was so completely anticipated, as 
 in the case of the kaleidoscope. The very announcement of the 
 patent, by which the discovery was intended to be secured, 
 was immediately followed by an infringement so extensive as to 
 leave all legal redress unattainable. But the piracy did not 
 terminate here ; for various attempts were made to deprive its 
 author, Sir David Brewster, of the merits of the discovery, and 
 to refer it to Baptista Porta, Harris, Wood, Bradley, &c. All 
 these were very satisfactorily answered by Sir David Brewster, 
 confirmed by Professor Playfair, Mr. Watt, and Professor Pictet, 
 who attested the originality of the invention. 
 
 It was in the year 1814, when Sir David Brewster was engaged 
 in experiments on the polarization of light by successive reflec- 
 tions between plates of glass, the reflectors being in some cases 
 inclined to each other, that he had occasion to remark the 
 circular arrangement of the images of a candle round a centre, 
 or the multiplication of the sectors formed by the extremities of 
 the glass plates. In repeating at a subsequent period the 
 experiments of M. Biot on the action of fluids upon light, 
 Brewster placed the fluids in a trough formed by two plates 
 of glass cemented together at an angle. The eye being neces- 
 sarily placed at one end, some of the cement which had been 
 pressed through between the plates appeared to be arranged 
 into a regular figure. The symmetry of this figure being very 
 remarkable. Sir David Brewster set himself to investigate the 
 cause of the phenomenon, and in doing this he discovered the 
 leading principles of the kaleidoscope. 
 
 Upon these principles Sir David Brewster constructed an 
 instrument, in which he fixed permajiently, across the ends of 
 the reflectors, pieces of coloured glass and other irregular ob- 
 jects ; but the great step towards the completion of the instru-
 
 192 HEROES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER Y. 
 
 mcnt remained yet to be made, and it was not till some time 
 aftenvards that the idea occurred to the inventor oi giving motion 
 to objects, such as pieces of coloured glass, &c., which were placed 
 loosely in a cell at the end of the instrument. When this idea 
 was carried into execution, the kaleidoscope in its simple form 
 was completed. 
 
 The next, and by far the most important step of the inven- 
 tion, was to employ a draw-tube and lens, by means of which 
 beautiful forms could be created from objects of all sizes, and 
 at all distances from the observer. In this way the power of 
 the kaleidoscope was indefinitely extended, and every object 
 in nature could be introduced into the picture, in the same 
 manner as if these objects had been reduced in size, and 
 actually placed at the end of the reflectors. 
 
 The kalcidoscoi)e being now completed, Brewster was urged 
 by his friends to secure the exclusive property of it. After 
 the patent was signed, and the instruments in a state of for- 
 wardness, the gentleman who was employed to manufacture 
 them under the patent, carried one to show to the principal 
 London opticians, for the purpose of taking orders for them. 
 These gentlemen naturally made one for their own use and 
 the amusement of their own friends ; and the character of the 
 instruments being thus made public, the manufacture extended 
 to tinmen and glaziers ; and kaleidoscopes were soon hawked 
 about the streets of London at all prices, some even as low as 
 a shilling. No proof of the originality of the kaleidoscope could 
 be stronger than the sensation which it created in London and 
 Paris. In the memory of man, no invention and no work, 
 whether addressed to the imagination or the understanding, ever 
 produced such an effect. A universal mania for the instrument 
 seized all classes, from the lowest to the highest, from the most
 
 STR DAVID BREWSTER. 193 
 
 ignorant to the most learned ; and every person not only felt, 
 but expressed the feeling, that a new pleasure had been added 
 to their existence. 
 
 The pirated instruments, of course, were only of the simple 
 form, and necessarily of rude and unscientific construction. 
 They, however, had the effect of deeply injuring the property 
 of the inventor; but the rage was soon over, and they were 
 thrown aside as a pleasing but useless toy. 
 
 This, however, is not the case with the patent kaleidoscope, 
 which is of great service in exhibiting an infinite variety of 
 beautiful patterns, which are transferred to several of our 
 manufactures. The system of endless changes is named as 
 one of the most astonishing properties of the kaleidoscope. 
 With a number of loose objects, — pieces of glass, for example — 
 It is impossible to reproduce any figure we have admired, when 
 it is once lost; centuries may elapse before the same com- 
 bination returns. If the objects, however, are placed in the 
 cell so as to have very little motion, the same figure may be re- 
 called ; and, if absolutely fixed, the same pattern will return in 
 every evolution of the object plate. A calculation of the 
 number of forms is given upon the ordinary principles of com- 
 bination — namely, that 24 pieces of glass may be combined 
 
 13917242888872552999425128493402200 
 times, an operation the performance of which would take 
 hundreds of thousands of millions of years, even upon the 
 supposition that twenty of them were performed every minute. 
 This calculation, surprising as it appears, is false, not from 
 being exaggerated, but from being far inferior to the reality. 
 It proceeds upon the supposition that one piece of glass can 
 exhibit only one figure, and that two pieces can exhibit only 
 two figures; whereas it is obvious that two pieces, though they
 
 1 9 4 HER OES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER Y. 
 
 can only be combined in two ways on the same straight line, 
 yet the one can be put above and below the other, as well as 
 on its right side or its left side, and may be joined so that the 
 line connecting those centres may have an infinite number of 
 positions with respect to an horizontal line. 
 
 CHARLES BABBAGE. 
 
 The calculating machines of the late Mr. Babbage have at 
 different times excited much interest on the part of the public 
 and of scientific men. 
 
 " Mr. Babbage," says a \vriter in the Encydopcedia Britannica, 
 "was a fellow student at Cambridge with Sir John Herschel 
 and Dean Peacock, and along with them contributed by his 
 writings and personal efforts to introduce into that university the 
 improved Continental mathematics. 
 
 "A few years after leaving college, he originated the plan of 
 a machine for calculating tables by means of successive orders 
 of differences; and having received for it in 1822 and the fol- 
 lowing year the support of the Astronomical and Royal Societies, 
 and a grant of money from Government, he proceeded to its 
 execution. It is believed that Mr. Babbage was the first who 
 thought of employing mechanism for computing tables by 
 means of differences : the machine was subsequently called the 
 differ e7ice machined 
 
 " In the course of his proceedings, Mr. Babbage invented a 
 mechanical notation (described in the Philosophical Transactions 
 for 1826), intended to show the exact mutual relations of all 
 the parts of any connected machine, however complex, at any 
 given instant of time. He also made himself acquainted 
 with the various machines used in the arts, with the tools 
 used in constructing them, and with the details of the Piosi
 
 CHARLES BABBA GE. 195 
 
 improved workshops. Employing Mr. Clements, a skilful 
 mechanist, a portion of the calculating machine, very beautifully 
 constructed, was brought into working order, and its success so 
 far answered the expectations of its projector. But, notwith- 
 standing several additional grants from Government, the outlay 
 on this most expensive kind of work soon exceeded them. 
 The part actually constructed is now placed in the museum 01 
 King's College, London. It employs numbers of nineteen 
 digits, and effects summations by means of three orders of 
 differences. Though only constituting a small part of the 
 intended engine, it involves the principles of the whole. The 
 inventor proposed to connect it with a printing apparatus, so 
 that the engine should not only tabulate the numbers, but also 
 print them beyond almost the possibility of error. 
 
 "At this stage (1834), Mr. Babbage contrived a machine 
 of a far more comprehensive character, which he called the 
 Analytical Machine, extending the plan so as to develop 
 algebraic quantities, and to tabulate the numerical value of 
 complicated functions when one or more of the variables which 
 they contain are made to alter their values. Had this machine 
 been constructed, it would necessarily have superseded what 
 had already been done. Government were not unnaturally 
 startled by this new proposal ; and as about the same time Mr. 
 Babbage's relations to Mr. Clements were broken off, the diffi- 
 culties of the affair became insurmountable. 
 
 " The opinions of men of science are not unanimous as to the 
 great practical importance of calculating tables by machinery ; 
 but the improvements of mechanical contrivance, which the 
 joint skill of Mr. Babbage and Mr. Clements introduced into 
 engineering workshops, are unquestionably of great importance 
 to the arts."
 
 196 HEROES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER Y. 
 
 Mr. Babbage was bom in 1790, and died on the i8th of 
 October, 187 1. He was the author of several valuable works. 
 One, "On the Economy of Manufactures and Machinery," 
 published in 1832, has gone through several editions, and been 
 translated into several languages. In it all mechanical processes 
 are classified from the most scientific point of view, and the 
 most interesting examples of the more important kinds of 
 manufactures are described. In addition to this work, we may 
 mention his " Comparative View of the different Life Assurance 
 Societies," his "Differential and Integral Calculus," his "Decline 
 of Science, A Ninth Bridgewater Treatise," and "The Exposition 
 of 1 85 1." 
 
 HENRY BESSEMER 
 
 The invention of the Bessemer process of decarburising pig- 
 iron while in a molten state, by blowing atmospheric air through 
 it, and thereby producing steel, is an interesting stor)^ Mr. 
 Bessemer's discovery was in some measure accidental, like so 
 many other discoveries in the arts. The remarkable thing is, 
 that, taking into consideration the attention paid to the chemis- 
 try of metallurgy of late years, the discovery was not made long 
 ago ; and that it should have been reserved for Mr. Bessemer 
 to make it, who was neither a chemist nor an iron manufacturer. 
 
 About 1856, says a writer in the Quarterly Review, the minds 
 of inventors were running in the direction of improved guns. 
 It was believed that these might be made much stronger if 
 some better material than cast-iron were used; and Mr. 
 Bessemer, like many others, began a series of experiments to 
 solve the problem if he could. He first tried a mixture of cast- 
 iron and cast-steel, the result being a half-decarbonised cast- 
 iron. Guns made oi this metal were found to possess great
 
 HENR Y BESSEMER. 1 9 7 
 
 strength; but as they were of comparatively small bore, 24- 
 pounders, Mr, Bessemer resolved to make them on a larger 
 scale, for the purpose of more exclusively testing the strength 
 of the material. 
 
 In the course of his experiments, the idea occurred to him 
 that if he could contrive to blow air through melted pig-iron, 
 he would be enabled to purify it to an unusual extent. He 
 thought that, by thus bringing oxygen into contact with the 
 fluid metal, the carbon with which it was surcharged would be 
 removed, as well as the silicon, phosphorous, and sulphur 
 which it contained. This is exactly what is done, after 
 another and very laborious method, in the process of puddling. 
 He proposed to reverse this process, and so get rid of puddling 
 altogether. Instead of bringing the particles of the iron in turn 
 into contact with the oxygen of the air, his scheme was to 
 force the air through the fluid mass into contact with the 
 separated particles of the iron. Now that the thing is done, 
 we see how simple, how natural the first idea was. But it 
 needs the quick intuition of genius to detect even simple things 
 in practical science. 
 
 The only way of determining the matter was by putting the 
 idea to the test of experiment Accordingly, early in 1856, Mr. 
 Bessemer ordered a stock of Blaenavon iron, and set up a 
 blast-engine and cupola at Baxter House, St. Pancras, where he 
 then resided. 
 
 The first apparatus which he used for conversion was a fixed 
 cylindrical vessel three feet in diameter and four feet high, 
 somewhat like an ordinary cupola furnace, lined with fire- 
 bricks; and at some two inches from the bottom he inserted 
 five twyer pipes, with orifices about three-eighths of an inch in 
 diameter. About half-way up was a hole for running in the
 
 1 98 HEROES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER Y. 
 
 molten metal, and on the opposite side at the bottom was the 
 tap-hole, by which the metal was to be run off at the end of the 
 process. 
 
 The first experiment was not made without occasioning con- 
 siderable alarm. It was a most unusual process, and it looked 
 dangerous, as indeed it proved to be. When the charge of 
 pig-iron was melted, the blast was turned on to prevent its 
 running into twyer holes, and then the fluid metal was poured 
 in through the charging-hole by the attending stoker. A tre- 
 mendous commotion immediately took place within the vessel, 
 the molten iron bounded from side to side ; a violent ebullition 
 was heard going on within ; while a vehement violet-coloured 
 flame, accompanied with dazzling sparks, burst from the throat 
 of the cupola, from which the slag was also ejected in large 
 foam-like masses. A cast-iron plate, of the kind used to cover 
 holes in the pavement, that had been suspended over the mouth 
 of the vessel, dissolved in a gleaming mist, together with half-a- 
 dozen yards of the chain by which it hung. The air-cock was 
 so close to the vessel that no one durst go near to turn it and 
 stop the process. The flames shot higher and higher, threat- 
 ening the destruction of the building, and the fire-engines were 
 sent for in hot haste. Before they arrived, however, the fury of 
 decarbonisation had expended itself, and the product was run off. 
 
 The result was not quite satisfactory : the product was for 
 the most part " burnt " iron ; but the experiment was sufficiently 
 encouraging to induce Mr. Bessemer to make a second trial, 
 and the product was found to be malleable iron. 
 
 In the course of further experiments, it was found that, bj 
 interrupting the process before the decarburisation of the iron 
 was complete, the product was unmistakable steel, which was 
 tried and found of good quality.
 
 HENR V BESSEMER. x 9 9 
 
 Here was a discovery of immense importance. If malleable 
 iron and steel could be thus made direct from pig-iron by a 
 process so rapid and simple, it could not fail before long to 
 effect an entire revolution in the iron trade. 
 
 The news of Mr. Bessemer's discovery soon flew abroad, and 
 many distinguished metallurgists went to see the process. Among 
 others, Dr. Percy went, and thus describes what he saw : — 
 
 "Towards the end of 1856, I had the pleasure of seeing the 
 process in operation at Baxter House, and I confess I never 
 witnessed any metallurgic process more startling and impres- 
 sive. After the blast was turned on, all proceeded quietly for a 
 time, when a volcano-like eruption of flame and sparks suddenly 
 occurred, and bright red-hot scoriae or cinders were forcibly 
 ejected, which would have inflicted serious injury on any 
 unhappy bystanders whom they might perchance have struck. 
 After a few minutes, all was again tranquil, and the molten, 
 malleable iron was tapped off." 
 
 Though the doctor came away wondering, he was not con- 
 vinced. He analysed a portion of the iron which he had seen 
 produced; and when he found it to contain i per cent, of 
 phosphorus, he says his scepticism was rather confirmed than 
 otherwise. 
 
 Among other visitors at Baxter House was George Rennie, 
 the engineer, who. after witnessing the process, urged Mr. 
 Bessemer to draw up an account of it for the meeting of the 
 British Association at Cheltenham in the autumn of 1856. To 
 this the inventor assented, and the result was his paper " On 
 the Manufacture of Iron and Steel without Fuel." 
 
 On the morning of the day on which the paper was to be 
 read, Mr. Bessemer was sitting at breakfast in his hotel, when 
 an ironmaster (to whom he was unknown) said, laughing, to a
 
 2 oo HER OES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER Y. 
 
 friend within his hearing, "Do you know there is some one 
 come down from London to read a paper on making steel from 
 cast-iron without fuel ! Did you ever hear such rubbish ? " 
 The ironmaster, however, was of a different opinion as to the 
 new invention after he had heard the paper lead. Its title was 
 certainly a misnomer, but the correctness of the principles on 
 which the pig-iron was converted into malleable iron, as explained 
 by the inventor, was generally recognised, and there seemed to 
 be good grounds for anticipating that the process would before 
 long come into general use. 
 
 The rationale of the method of conversion was intelligible 
 and simple. Mr. Bessemer held that, by forcing atmospheric 
 air through the fluid metal, the oxygen was brought into contact 
 with the several particles of the iron and carbon, combining 
 with the latter to form carbonic-acid gas, which passed off by 
 the throat of the vessel, through which the slag was also ejected, 
 leaving as the product, when the combustion was complete, a 
 mass of malleable iron, which was run off by the tap, into the 
 ingot moulds placed to receive it. "Thus," said he, "by a 
 single process, requiring no manipulation or particular skill, and 
 with only one workman from three to five tons of crude iron 
 pass into the condition of several piles of malleable iron in from 
 thirty to thirty-five minutes, with the expenditure of about one- 
 third part of the blast now used in a fiery furnace with an equal 
 charge of iron, and with the consumption of no other fuel than 
 is contained in the crude iron." 
 
 In the same paper the inventor called attention to an import- 
 ant feature of the new process in the following words : — " At the 
 stage of the process immediately following the boil, the whole 
 of the crude iron has passed into the condition of cast-steel of 
 ordinary quality. By the continuation of the process, the steel so
 
 HENRY BESSEMER. 201 
 
 produced gradually loses its small remaining portion of carbon, 
 and passes successively from hard to soft steel, from softened 
 steel to steely iron, and eventually to very soft iron ; hence, at 
 any certain point of the process, any quality may be obtained." 
 It was, however, found in practice that this remarkable 
 peculiarity of the Bessemer process constituted its principal 
 defect. Thus it was extremely difiScult, if not impracticable, to 
 determine with certainty when the decarburisation had pro- 
 ceeded to the desired extent, and to the exact point at which 
 the blast was to be stopped. If arrested too soon, no 
 dependence could be placed on the result, as the metal might 
 be only one-half or three-fourths converted, according to chance; 
 while, if continued till the iron was quite decarburised, it would 
 be burnt and comparatively worthless. The workmen could 
 only judge by the appearance of the flame — first violet, then 
 orange, then white — issuing from the mouth of the vessel, wher 
 it was proper to interrupt the process. But the eyesight of the 
 workmen was not to be depended on ; and as the stoppage of 
 the blast ten seconds before or ten seconds after the proper 
 point had been attained would produce an altogether different 
 result, it began to be feared that, on this account, the Bessemer 
 process, however ingenious, could never come into general use. 
 Indeed, the early samples of Bessemer steel were found to 
 exhibit considerable irregularity : the first steel tyres made of 
 the metal, tried on some railways, were found unsafe, and their 
 use was abandoned ; and the ironmasters generally, who were 
 of course wedded to the established processes, declared the 
 much-vaunted Bessemer process to be a total failure. It was 
 regarded as a sort of meteor that had suddenly flitted across 
 the scientific horizon, and gone out leaving the subject in more 
 palpable darkness than before.
 
 202 HEROES O F INVENTION AND DISCO VER Y 
 
 Mr. Bessemer himself was by no means satisfied with the 
 result of his first experiments. He was satisfied that he had 
 hit upon the right principle ; the question was, could he correct 
 those serious defects in the process which to practical men 
 seemed to present an insuperable obstacle in the way of the 
 adoption of his invention ? 
 
 It was a case for persevering experiment, and experiment 
 only. The inventor's patience and perseverance were found 
 equal to the task. Assisted by Mr. Longsdon, he devoted him- 
 self for several years to the perfection of his process of 
 conversion, in which he at last succeeded. 
 
 We can only briefly refer to the alterations and improve- 
 ments in the mode of conducting it which he introduced. 
 In the first place, he substituted for the fixed converting 
 vessel, a movable vessel, mounted on trunnions, sup- 
 ported on stout pedestals, so that a semi-rotatory motion 
 might be communicated to it at pleasure. It was found 
 both dangerous and difficult, while the converting vessel 
 was fixed, to tap the cupola furnace ; for the blast had 
 to be continued during the whole time the charge was run- 
 ning out of the vessel, in order to prevent the remaining 
 portion from entering the twyers. By the adoption of the 
 movable converting vessel, this source of difficulty was 
 completely got rid of, while the charging of the vessel with the 
 fluid metal, the interruption of the process at the precise 
 moment, and the discharge of the metal when converted, were 
 rendered comparatively easy. The position and action ot the 
 twyers were also improved, and the converting vessel was lined 
 with " ganister," a silicious stone, capable of resisting the action 
 of heat and slags, so as to last for nearly a hundred consecutive 
 rharges before becoming worn out, whereas the lining of fire-
 
 HENR V BESSEMER. 203 
 
 brick, originally used, was ordinarily burnt out in two charges 
 of twenty minutes each. 
 
 Another important modification in the process related to the 
 kind of metal subjected to conversion, and its after treatment. 
 In his earliest experiments, Mr. Bessemer had, by accident, 
 made use of a pure Blaenavon iron ; but in his subsequent 
 trials, iron of an inferior quality had been subjected to con- 
 i'ersion, and the results were much less satisfactorj'. It was 
 found that the high temperature and copious supply of air blown 
 through the metal had failed to remove the sulphur and 
 phosphorus present in the original pig, and that the product was 
 an inferior metal. After a long series of experiments, Mr. 
 Bessemer at length found that the best results were obtained 
 from Swedish, Whitehaven, Haematite, Nova Scotian, or any 
 other comparatively pure iron, which was first melted in a 
 reverberatory furnace, before subjecting it to conversion, in 
 order to avoid contamination by the sulphur of the coal. 
 
 Finally, to avoid the risk of spoiling the metal while under 
 conversion by the workmen stopping the blast at the wrong 
 time, Mr. Bessemer adopted the method of refining the whole 
 contents of the vessel by burning off the carbon, and then 
 introducing a quantity of fluid carburet of iron, containing the 
 exact measure of carbon required for the iron or steel to be 
 produced. 
 
 When Mr. Bessemei', after great laDi.>nr and expense, had 
 brought his experiments to a satisfactory issue, and ascertained 
 that he could produce steel of a quantity and texture that could 
 be relied on with as much certainty as any other kind of metal, 
 he again brought the subject of his invention under the notice 
 of the trade ; but, strange to say, not the slightest interest was 
 now manifested in it The Bessemer process had been set
 
 204 HEROES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VERY. 
 
 down as a failure, and the iron and steel makers declined to 
 have anything to do with it. The inventor accordingly found 
 that either the invention must be abandoned, or he himself 
 must become steel manufacturer. He adopted the latter alter- 
 native, and started his works in the very stronghold of steelmak- 
 ing, at Sheffield, with a success which is matter of history. 
 
 The great value of this invention is unmistakably shown by 
 the fact that 500,000 tons of steel were, in 1874, being made 
 annually by the Bessemer process in Great Britain, the total 
 number of converting vessels in use being ninety-one, and their 
 aggregate capacity 467 tons. Large quantities are also manu- 
 factured by it in Sweden, Russia, Austria, Prussia, and other 
 European countries. In America it is likewise extensively 
 employed. 
 
 A recent experimental trial is reported, which is said to have 
 been quite fairly conducted : as the result, it was found that a 
 Bessemer steel rail lasted fully longer than twenty iron ones.
 
 JOHN ERICSSON. 205 
 
 JOHN ERICSSON. 
 
 <ii , . ... 
 
 fN a mountain hamlet in a beautiful district of Central 
 Sweden, near the iron mines of Langbanshyttan, stands in 
 front of a miner's cottage a granite-shaft eighteen feet high, with 
 this inscription in golden letters — 
 
 JOHN ERICSSON 
 
 WAS BORN HERE IN 1803. 
 
 September 3, 1867, when this monument was unveiled, was 
 a gala day in the mining districts ; all work was suspended, and 
 crowds gathered from far and near to do honour to their dis- 
 tinguished countrj'man, whose fame is world-wide, and of whom 
 they may well be proud. 
 
 John Ericsson is the son of Olof, a Swedish miner ; his mother 
 was a woman of inteUigence and refinement ; John's brother, 
 Mils, distinguished himself highly in his native country as an 
 engineer of canals and railroads, and was raised to the rank of 
 Baron by the King of Sweden. 
 
 John Ericsson's genius developed early. Hischildish toyswere 
 machinery and tools of his own construction. At nine years of 
 age he saw through one of the draught offices on the grand ship 
 canal of Sweden, and there caught some idea of how to use the 
 drawing instruments. This knowledge was put to use in most 
 ingenious ways. Accompanying his father to a pine forest, where
 
 2o6 HEROES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER Y. 
 
 he went to select timber for lock gates on the canal, the minia- 
 ture draughtsman set himself to construct a pair of compasses of 
 birch wood, with needles stuck in the ends of the legs; his 
 good-natured mother allowing him to convert a pair of steel 
 tweezers, taken from her dressing-case, into a drawing pen, also 
 to take hair from her sable-cloak for paint brushes. 
 
 It may be mentioned that Ericsson's grandfather by the 
 mother's side was a man of property ; which, however, was lost 
 in some mining speculations, so that young Ericsson began 
 life in poverty, which was perhaps fortunate for the development 
 of his genius. 
 
 Before he was eleven Ericsson had constructed a sawmill and 
 planned a pumping-engine for the purpose of clearing the mines 
 of water. He had much difficulty in perfecting this plan, as it 
 was intended to be operated by a windmill, which he had never 
 seen; at last his father visited one, and after hearing his 
 description he was able to finish it. 
 
 This may be said to be the turning-point in his career. The 
 plan was shown to Admiral Count Platen, President of the 
 Gotha Ship Canal, on which Ericsson's father was then em- 
 ployed. The Count, amazed at the genius displayed by such a 
 mere child, uttered the encouraging and prophetic words, " Go 
 on as you have begun, and you will one day produce something 
 extraordinary." He was appointed a cadet in the Swedish 
 corps of mechanical engineers at the age of twelve, and at 
 thirteen was appointed a nevelleur (leveller) on the part of the 
 canal over which Count Platen presided. Six hundred troops 
 working on this canal were directed by this boy, and it is amus- 
 ing to note that one of his attendants carried a stool to enable 
 the small engineer to reach his levelling instruments. 
 
 Many important works on the canal were constructed from
 
 JOHN ERICSSON. 207 
 
 Ericsson's plans at this early period. His contact with mihtary 
 men incited him, much against Count Platen's will, to become a 
 soldier, and he entered the army as an ensign. He was very 
 soon promoted to a lieutenancy. 
 
 The posts of government surveyors being open to competi- 
 tion by military officers, Ericsson entered his name as a com- 
 petitor, and of course he gained a prize. His industry in his 
 new employment was most untiring; maps which he executed 
 at this period are still preserved at Stockholm. Not satisfied 
 with doing more work than others in this employ, he directed 
 his energies to the drawing and engraving plates for the illustra- 
 tion of a w^ork on the Gotha Canal. He invented a machine 
 engraver for this work. He next turned his attention to the 
 construction of a flam'e-engine. One was made with ten-horse 
 power, and was successful. Ericsson now obtained leave to go 
 to England; he arrived there in 1826 with his invention, and 
 did not return to his native country. He sent in his resigna 
 tion from the army, which was not accepted until he had been 
 promoted to the post of captain, and then only with much 
 regret. Alas ! for the flame-engine ; it proved a failure with the 
 English sea-coal. He had to begin and experiment anew, and 
 was at last successful in getting a machine constructed and 
 patented and sold to John Braithwaite, who was a friend in need to 
 the inventor. His inventions at this time are said to have been, 
 "A pumping-engine on a new principle, engines with surface con- 
 densers and no smoke-stack, and blowers supplying the draught, 
 applied to the steamship Victory in 1S28. Apparatus for mak- 
 ing salt from brine ; mechanism for propelling boats on canals; 
 a hydrostatic weighing machine, to which the Society of Arts 
 av/arded a prize ; an instrument now in extensive use for taking 
 soundings independently of the length of the lead-line ; a file
 
 2o8 HEROES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER Y. 
 
 cutting machine, and various others, to the number of fourteen 
 patented inventions and forty machines, all novel in design." 
 
 Ericsson entered, in 1829, into a competition for a prize of 
 ;^5oo offered by the Liverpool and Manchester Railway Com- 
 pany for the best locomotive. George Stephenson's engine, the 
 Rocket, gained the prize. Ericsson's, the Novelty, was the swiftest, 
 running at the speed of thirty miles an-hour, the speed of 
 Stephenson's being only thirteen and a-half miles. Great 
 enthusiasm was manifested over Ericsson's Novelty, but the 
 judges decided in favour of the superior traction power of 
 Stephenson's. The Novelty was planned and executed in the 
 short space of seven weeks. 
 
 He next introduced the use of steam in fire-engines; one 
 which was built for the King of Prussia, was the means of 
 saving some valuable buildings in Berlin. In January, 1840, 
 he won the gold medal of the New York Mechanics Institute 
 for the best steam fire-engine. 
 
 One of his inventions, begun in England and carried on and 
 completed in America, was the construction of the Caloric 
 engine. This engine was fitted into a ship built for the purpose, 
 and named the Ericsson, and of which the engineer himself says, 
 " The ship after completion made a successful trip from New 
 York to Washington and back during the winter season ; but 
 the average speed at sea proving insufficient for commercial 
 purposes, the owners, with regret, acceded to my proposition to 
 remove the costly machinery, although it had proved perfect 
 as a mechanical combination. 
 
 " The resources of modern engineering having been exhausted 
 in producing the motors of the Caloric ship, the important 
 question has for ever been set at rest, Can heated air, as a 
 mechanical motor, compete with steam.
 
 JOHN ERICSSON. 209 
 
 " The commercial world is indebted to American enterprise 
 for having settled a question of such vital importance. The 
 marine engineer has thus been encouraged to renew his efforts 
 to perfect the steam-engine without fear of rivalry from a 
 motor depending on the dilation of atmospheric air by heat." 
 
 Ericsson did not, however, give up the idea of the usefulness 
 of this engine, as in places where water is scarce or not obtain- 
 able, it is necessary. It is gratifying to know that his exertions 
 in this direction did not go unrewarded; the American 
 Academy of Arts and Sciences voted in 1862: "That the 
 Rumford premium be awarded to John Ericsson for his 
 improvements in the management of heat, particularly as shown 
 in his Caloric Engine." 
 
 Ericsson's tireless brain was now turned towards another 
 possible motive-power, in the sun's rays. His solar engine was 
 intended for use in sunny countries ; as, for instance. Upper 
 Egypt, North African deserts. Eastern Arabia, the western part 
 of China, in the Western Hemisphere, Lower California, 
 Mexico, and North America, &c. He can even now supply 
 an engine of one hundred horse-power, to any one who can 
 pay the price, but it is too expensive, under existing circum- 
 stances, to make the venture a profitable one. The time may 
 come when it may be used with advantage. It is, indeed, a noble 
 idea to convert a power which, in many countries, is a means 
 of blight into a blessing. The screw propeller was suggested 
 to Ericsson by the study of the movements of birds and fishes. 
 This propeller was first offered to the English Admiralty, who 
 rejected it, and thus England lost Ericsson; he met an 
 American naval officer, who took up the idea with enthusiasm, 
 and ordered two vessels to be made at his own expense. He 
 removed to America in 1839. Captain Stocktin's government
 
 2 1 o HEROES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VERY. 
 
 did not catch his enthusiasm so readily; and it was not till 
 after many experiments and many delays, that must have been 
 very irksome to the active Ericsson, that they finally adopted it 
 
 Ericsson completely revolutionised naval warfare ; and, as in 
 all revolutions of a like kind, many prejudices had to be over- 
 come, in this case matters were hastened by the practical issue 
 of a fight between Ericsson's boat the Monitor and the 
 Merrimack in Hampton Roads, 9th March, 1862, resulting in 
 the defeat of the latter. After this time the Monitors were 
 adopted by Sweden, Norway, and Russia. luigland was the 
 last to be convinced of their superiority. The introduction of 
 vessels for conducting submarine warfare is now engaging the 
 attention of the great engineer, and he has completed, at his 
 own expense, the Destroyer^ a vessel for discharging torpedoes. 
 Ericsson deserved much at the hands of his adopted country ; 
 he himself asked little, and, we regret to say, got what he asked. 
 
 Honour has, however, been done to him by many distinguished 
 scientific societies, both in Europe and America. In addition 
 to the monument at his birthplace in Sweden, already men- 
 tioned, another was erected on the roadside near the ironworks 
 of Langbanshyttan bearing his own and his brother's name and 
 the words : " ]5oth of whom have served and honoured their 
 native land. Their way through work to knowledge and 
 lasting fame is open to every Swedish youth." On the reverse 
 side is the suggestive inscription : "The way to the schoolhouse 
 of Langbanshyttan." 
 
 Although absent from his native hind, it has not been 
 forgotten by him. lie I)uilt at his own cost, and presented to 
 the Swedish Government, the machinery of a gun-boat as a 
 model for a fleet of gun-boats, to be manoeuvred by hand 
 independently of steam. Of his personal history there is little
 
 JOHN- ERICSSON. 
 
 to tell ; his wortr represents his life ; he does not go much into 
 society, nor does he invite society to visit him at his home and 
 workshop in Beach Street, New York. His amusements are 
 found in his work. His habits are simple in the extreme, and 
 unvaried ; he takes gymnastic exercise in the morning after a 
 cold bath, and walking exercise in the evening from ten till 
 twelve. He is strictly temperate in his eating and drinking, 
 and does not use tobacco ; it says much for this mode of life 
 when it is remembered that he is seventy-six, and is still 
 vigorous in body and mind. Captain Ericsson is a widower 
 and childless, but he has nephews living who have distinguished 
 themselves in various ways. 
 
 It seems hard to believe that Ericsson was one of the 
 pioneers in the early days of locomotives, that he competed 
 against Stephenson, and was unsuccessful, and that in these 
 later days he still leads the van of progress in the line ot 
 inventions wliich he has taken up.
 
 2 1 2 HER OES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER Y. 
 
 THOMAS ALVA EDISON. 
 
 fHOMAS ALVA EDISON was born at Milan in Erie 
 county, Ohio, nth February, 1847. It was, however, in 
 Port Huron, Michigan, a village perhaps equally obscure, that 
 the early youth of this wonderful genius was passed. His 
 father is of Dutch descent ; his mother was of Scotch parentage 
 and born in Massachusetts, was well educated, having been a 
 teacher in Canada, and from her Edison received instruction. 
 Two months was all the time passed at a regular school. His 
 father's occupation, or rather occupations, seem to have been 
 both many and varied ; by turns tailor, nurseryman, dealer in 
 grain, in timber, and in farm lands. Possibly the versatility 
 displayed by his distinguished son may be an inheritance from 
 this parent. No precocious sayings or doings of young Edison 
 are reported, but he was a great reader, devouring indiscrimi- 
 nately everything in the shape of a book that came in his way. 
 His first entrance into the world of work was made at the 
 early age of twelve. He started as train boy on the Grand 
 Trunk Railroad of Canada and Central Michigan. Here the 
 peculiar bent of his mind began to show itself; in a disused 
 corner of an old baggage car, where he kept his papers and 
 other wares, he gradually accumulated a quantity of bottles and 
 retort-stands, and, with the aid of "Fresenius's Qualitative
 
 THOMAS ALVA EDISON. 213 
 
 Analysis," tried some experiments in chemistry. An ingenious 
 youth, he seems to have been peculiarly wide-awake in every 
 direction. 
 
 His next original venture was the starting of a newspaper, 
 printed in the train, and subscribed for by baggage-men and 
 brakesmen. His mode of printing was certainly simple 
 enough ; he pressed the sheets on the type with his hands ; this 
 type he had purchased from the Detroit Free Press office, 
 and there also, in some fashion or other, he had at spare 
 moments picked up what he knew of type-setting. The 
 Grand Trunk Herald^ as his newspaper was named, would no 
 doubt be in demand on his train. During the war he telegraphed 
 his headlines to the country stations in advance. In addition 
 to his acquisitions in practical matters, his reading tastes were 
 diligently cultivated; indeed, he seriously set himself to the 
 task of reading through the public library of Detroit. Happily 
 for his future usefulness, this feat was an impossibility, although 
 he made considerable progress in a shelf of dry and probably 
 dusty volumes. It was not all progi^ess with our lively youth, 
 however. Through some accident, in his absence, among his 
 bottles, the baggage waggon took fire, and the chemist's 
 laboratory was ignominiously turned out by an enraged 
 conductor, who finished up by thrashing the chemist At 
 another time he was made award of the responsibilities of 
 editorship, by being thrown into the river by an aggrieved 
 individual, who had been too personally attacked in another 
 paper with which he was connected, named Paul Pry. We 
 imagine he must have cost his parents some perturbation about 
 this time, as he developed a mania for telegraphy, encircling 
 his father's house 'vvith wires. His mode of obtaining material 
 for his work was somewhat questionable — small boys, for a slight
 
 2 1 4 HER OES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER Y. 
 
 consideration would bring him quantities of zinc, taken from 
 their respective homes. The station-master at Port Clements 
 taught him telegraphing, in gratitude for the rescue of his child, 
 Edison having snatched the infant from the front of an 
 advancing train. 
 
 From this time he began to concentrate his energies and 
 turned his attention more closely to electricity. He became 
 thoroughly conversant with telegraphing, but as an ordinary 
 operator did not succeed ; his duties were forgotten or neglected 
 while he was deep in some experiment. 
 
 The strong inventive bent of his mind carried him away, and 
 the close attention to the ordinary routine of work that was 
 necessary seemed impossible to him, hence his wanderings 
 from place to place. 
 
 Some of his small inventions succeeded about this time ; but 
 his attempt to introduce a duplex system of telegraphy failed, 
 and he went to New York with his ardour damped. The tide 
 was about to turn in his favour, however. The Gold and Stock 
 Company were fortunate enough to secure his services, and a 
 useful invention of his which they adopted secured their favour. 
 
 The Western Union Telegraph Company also gave him a 
 salary that they might get the benefit of his inventions in tele- 
 graphy. His success was now secured, and his inventive faculties 
 had full play. At Newark he took regular lessons in chemistry. 
 He married a Newark lady. Miss Mary Stillwell. In 1876 he 
 removed to Menlo Park, an hour's ride from New York on the 
 Pennsylvania Road. At a little distance from the village stands 
 a long white wooden building of two stories. This contains 
 the laboratory of this pioneer of a new age. Although it is 
 twenty-eight by one hundred feet in extent, it is already too 
 small for the needs of its owner. Many workmen o»d much
 
 THOMAS ALVA EDISON. 215 
 
 machinery are employed in carrying out and perfecting the 
 ideas of the inventor. Edison's personal appearance is thus 
 described by a visitor who saw him at work : " A figure of 
 perhaps five feet nine in height, bending intently above some 
 detail of work. There is a general appearance of youth about 
 it, but the face, knit into anxious \vrinkles, seems old. The 
 dark hair, beginning to be touched with gray, falls over the 
 forehead in a mop. The hands are stained with acid, and the 
 clothing is of an ordinary 'ready-made' order. He has the 
 air of a mechanic, or more definitely, with his peculiar pallor, of 
 a night-student. His features are large ; the brow well shaped, 
 without unusual development; the eyes light-gray; the nose 
 irregular, and the mouth displaying teeth which are also not 
 altogether regular. When he looks up his attention comes 
 back slowly, as if it had been a long way off. But it comes 
 back fully and cordially, and the expression of the face, now 
 that it can be seen, is frank and prepossessing. A cheerful 
 smile chases away the grave and somewhat weary look that 
 belongs to it in its moments of rest. He seems no longer old. 
 He has almost the air of a big careless schoolboy released from 
 his tasks." 
 
 Such is Edison in work-hours, and it seems to be always 
 work-hours with him ; he carries on his researches far into the 
 morning when he can have quiet, and it is then his most happy 
 hits are made. With a sharp eye to everything which may be 
 of service to him, no smallest discovery in chemistry is despised, 
 but laid aside for probable use at some future time. Besides 
 the phonograph and the practical adaptation of the electric 
 light for purposes of illumination, the number and variety 
 of his inventions are bewildering. Among his still uncom- 
 pleted ideas may be mentioned the Megaphone, composed
 
 2 1 6 HEROES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER Y. 
 
 of a speaking-trumpet and two ear-trumpets, with which 
 two people can converse in an ordinary tone some miles 
 apart. Another is the seorophone, two hundred and fifty times 
 the capacity of the human lungs, meant for shouting distances 
 at sea. The sound is carried on in this instrument by a steam 
 jet, which takes the tones of the voice and sends them on. 
 Electric pens, electric shears, electric engines are a few among 
 the many inventions of this wonderful genius. Edison seems to 
 believe that the truest inspiration comes through work ; he still 
 goes on inventing, and he may yet astonish the world with an 
 invention beyond our wildest dreams. 
 
 Edison's name is honourably connected with the desire to 
 use the telephone as a means of sound communication, and the 
 electric light a means of practical illumination. The telephone 
 is being put to the test as a " far speaker," having been intro- 
 duced as a means of communication in several business houses 
 in London and elsewhere, while the electric light only requires 
 some modification in the production and manipulation to be 
 practically useful, at least, lor the purposes of public illnniina 
 tiuu.
 
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