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WHO INVENTED THE WATER-FRAME?

cases, been difficult to find some hitherto unheard-of genius to set up his claim to the prior discovery of what, nevertheless, it would appear he scarcely knew the value of, after he had discovered it. In this particular case, the other party had a strong interest in setting aside Arkwright's pretensions if they could, and the circumstance of Kay having been connected with Highe before he was employed by him, afforded them a tempting foundation on which to erect what they, no doubt, considered a very convenient theory. Then, again, as for so much of their allegation as rested upon the evidence of this Kay, it was not entitled to command much attention, since it appeared both that he had some time before quarrelled with Arkwright, and that he must, even by his own account, have acted so perfidious a part in regard to his first friend, Highe, as to deprive him of all claim to be believed in anything he might now choose to assert. Highe's own evidence is undoubtedly what seems to bear strongest against Arkwright; but he, from very natural causes, might have been mistaken as to various points. He appears to have told his story in a very confused and ineffective way; much as if either he did not feel his ground to be very sure, or was not at all aware of the importance of the facts to which he was brought to speak. It is not impossible that, if he did actually invent the machine in question, Arkwright may have also hit upon the same idea about the same time; or may, at least, have been led to it merely by some vague rumour that had got abroad as to what Highe was aboutnot an unnatural supposition, when we reflect that his operations seem to have been a good deal talked of in the neighbourhood, and that the slightest hint of the principle of the water-frame would have sufficed to put an ingenious man like Arkwright in possession of the whole machine. And this, after all, gives us, perhaps, the most natural explanation of his conversation with Highe at Manchester. If he knew that he had really stolen his invention from that person in the manner stated in Kay's evidence, it is not likely that he would have been much disposed to meet him at all; whereas the interview appears to have been arranged

SYNCHRONISM OF IDEA.

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by the intervention of a mutual acquaintance, who no doubt had obtained the consent of both parties to his bringing them together.'

12. At all events, it is incontestable, that whether Arkwright did, or did not, borrow from Highe the rude outline of the water-frame, to him belongs the merit, 'both of having combined its different parts with admirable ingenuity and judgment, and of having, by his unwearied and invincible perseverance, first brought it into actual use on anything like an extensive scale, and demonstrated its power and value.' What Stephenson said of the locomotive, that it was due, 'not to one man, but to the efforts of a nation of mechanical engineers,' is true also of Arkwright's machine. And such is the case with most mechanical inventions they are suggested by the demands of Labour. The same idea arises spontaneously in many different minds; but the 'capacity to conceive' and the capacity to execute' are not always coexistent in the same mind, and the palm of victory is therefore due to him who elaborates the idea, adapts it to practical purposes, and presents it to the world in a working and workable shape. Many ingenious minds,' say Mr. Smiles, justly, 'labour in the throes of invention, until at length the master mind, the strong practical man, steps forward and straightway delivers them of their idea, applies the principle successfully, and the thing is done.' Hargreaves, Highe, and Kay were of service to the world as far as their métier went, but without Arkwright the Lancashire cotton manufacturers must have waited long for the perfected spinning-machine. He may not have had genius, but he had perseverance, which is the next best thing to it, and is often far more successful, as far as relates to the actual concerns of life and humanity.

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13. Arkwright's loss of his monopoly had little effect upon him. He possessed an abundance of the true English quality, of never knowing when he was beaten. He built, with successive improvements, mills in Lancashire, Derbyshire, and New Lanark. When his partnership with Reed and Strutt expired, the Cromford mills also fell into his hands, and such was the extent of his resources-such the

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superior quality of his wares-that he soon obtained a control over the whole trade, fixed its prices, and gave law to the lesser cotton-spinners. He was an indomitable worker. Nothing daunted, nothing wearied him. The superintendence of his numerous factories entailed such heavy labour, that his hours were closely engaged from four in the morning until nine at night; but both bodily and mentally he was so constituted as to bear it without the slightest injury. Such was the value he set upon time, that, whenever he travelled, his chariot was drawn by four horses. And, as an instance of his energy and resolution, we may mention that he was fifty years old when he began to study English grammar and practise penmanship and orthography.

14. Arkwright died, a very wealthy man, in 1792. He had been knighted in 1786; not, let us hasten to explain, because he had opened up, in the cotton manufacture, a source of national wealth of inconceivable importance, but because, as High Sheriff of Derby, he presented George III. with an address from the county, congratulating him on having escaped the murderous hands of Margaret Nicholson.

THE ENGINEER S.

1. England is emphatically the land of inventions and inventors the very royalty and kingdom of the engineers. Her limited extent has necessarily compelled her sons to multiply their resources by the adoption of many-handed machinery; and the strength and energy of the Saxon character have inspired them to grapple with Nature herself -to bridge the swelling river, to check the inroads of the usurping sea, to throw firm highways across the marshes, and open a path for the swift spirit of Steam through the heart of the everlasting hills. Englishmen,' as Emerson says, 'love the lever, the screw, and the pulley; the Flanders draught-horse, the waterfall, windmills, tidemills; the sea and the wind to bear their freight-ships. More than the diamond koh-i noor, which glitters among their crown jewels, they prize the dull pebble, which is wiser than a man, and whose poles turn themselves to the

LESSONS OF THEIR CAREERS.

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poles of the world, and whose axis is parallel to the axis of the world. Now, their toys are steam and galvanism. They are heavy at the fine arts, but adroit at the coarse; not good in jewellery or mosaics, but the best iron-masters, colliers, wool-combers, and tanners in Europe.'

Yes; England is the kingdom of the engineers. The steam-engine, the locomotive, the power-loom, the divingbell, the safety-lamp, the forcing-pump, the suspension bridge, the Thames tunnel-these have all been the achievements of Englishmen, and are significant of the species of work in which they most delight. And, for our part, we believe that a nation has more reason to be proud of the steam-engine than of the Venus di Medicis; has more reason to be proud of a Watt, a Stephenson, a Rennie, and a Brindley, than of Apelles, the painter, or Phidias, the sculptor.

2. The career of a successful engineer can hardly fail to be pregnant with lessons which the youthful student will do well to ponder. To attain eminence in so arduous a profession, he who adopts it must combine energy with patience, fertility of invention with calmness of judgement, quickness of conception with sobriety of discrimination. He must be unflinching in perseverance, ceaseless in action, resolute in difficulties, and zealous in his devotion of his thoughts and faculties to one absorbing purpose. The student who flutters from science to science, who quails before the earliest obstacles, sickens at the first discouragement, who dallies in the flower-gardens of romance or poetry, who grasps at no fixed object, and is animated by no strong, unresting and unquenchable desire, will never take rank with the masters of earth and sea- -the lords of humankind-whose genius has literally tamed the elements, and annihilated time and space!

3. In our notice of GEORGE STEPHENSON we have already pointed out the success which crowned his earnest pursuit of his one great idea-the railway locomotive. We have shown how Watt, in like manner, worked out the steamengine. We have shown how Arkwright mastered the spinning machine. In our sketches of the careers of

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'FOOLEY SMEATON.'

Smeaton, Telford, and Rennie, the same truth will be illustrated with equal vividness, and our young readers will see that success in life is only to be won by the vigorous prosecution of a Steady Aim.

JOHN SMEATON.

1. Among our examples of men whose success in life has been attained by the entire devotion of their faculties to the profession they have adopted, we cannot refuse to include the architect of the Eddystone Lighthouse.

John Smeaton was born at Austhorpe Lodge, near Leeds, on June 8, 1724, his father being a respectable solicitor of that town. He received the rudiments of education from his mother, displaying at an unusually early age an affection for mechanical pursuits. A chisel or a good clasp knife was to him a possession of priceless value. He regarded toys with supreme contempt, caring only for the utilities something that would 'work'. a windmill, a pump, or some similar miniature fabric. Having one day observed some millwrights at work, he was shortly afterwards discovered affixing what he intended for a windmill to the top of his father's barn. At another time he procured from the plumbers a piece of bored pipe, out of which he constructed a pump that positively raised water. But prophets are seldom honoured in their own country, and the lad thus dimly groping at an imperfect application of the principles of mechanical science, was called by his comrades, Fooley Smeaton.' Like most boys of real talent, he was constitutionally shy, only breaking through the outward crust of his reserve where information could be gained in answer to his pertinent questions.

2. At a proper age he was sent as a pupil to the grammar-school, at Leeds, where he advanced rapidly in geometry and arithmetic; but, as much of his time was spent at home, he still continued to amuse his leisure hours among his beloved models. His ingenuity, however, occasionally led him into difficulties. Having closely

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