The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Life of Thomas Telford, Civil Engineer

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Title: The Life of Thomas Telford, Civil Engineer

Author: Samuel Smiles

Release date: June 1, 1997 [eBook #939]

Most recently updated: April 2, 2015

Language: English

Credits: This etext produced by Eric Hutton; additional proof reading by David G Haren and Simon Allen

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIFE OF THOMAS TELFORD, CIVIL ENGINEER ***

This etext produced by Eric Hutton, email: [email protected]

additional proof reading by David G Haren and Simon Allen

The Life of Thomas Telford civil engineer with an introductory history of roads and travelling in Great Britian

by Samuel Smiles

"Let us travel, and wherever we find no facility for

travelling from a city to a town, from a village to a
hamlet, we may pronounce the people to be barbarous"
—Abbe Raynal

"The opening up of the internal communications of a

country is undoubtedly the first and most important
element of its growth in commerce and civilization"
—Richard Cobden

CONTENTS

Preface

EARLY ROADS AND MODES OF TRAVELLING

CHAPTER I. Old Roads

Roads as agents of civilization

Their important uses
Ancient British trackways or ridgeways
The Romans and their roads in Britain
Decay of the Roman roads
Early legislation relating to highways
Roads near London
The Weald of Kent
Great Western roads
Hollow ways or lanes
Roads on Dartmoor
in Sussex
at Kensington

CHAPTER II. Early Modes of Conveyance

Riding on horseback the ancient mode of traveling

Shakespear's description of travelling in 'Henry IV.'
Queen Elizabeth and her coach
Introduction of coaches or waggons
Painful journeys by coach
Carriers in reign of James I
Great north Road in reign of Charles I
Mace's description of roads and travellers stage-coaches introduced
Sobriere's account of the Dover stage-coach
Thoresby's account of stage-coaches and travelling
Roads and travelling in North Wales
Proposal to suppres stage-coaches
Tediousness and discomforts of travelling by coach
Pennant's account of the Chester and London stage
Travelling on horseback preferred
The night coach
Highway robbers and foot-pads
Methods of transport of the merchandize pack-horse convoys
Traffic between lancashire and Yorkshire
Signs of the pack-horse

CHAPTER III. Influence of Roads on Society

Restricted intercourse between districts

Local dialects and customs thereby preserved
Camden's fear of travelling into the barbarous regions of the North
Rev. Mr Brome's travels in England
Old Leisure
Imperfect postal communication
Hawkers and pedlars
Laying in stores for winter
Household occupations
Great fairs of ancient times
Local fairs
Fair on Dartmoor
Primitive manners of Dartmoor District

CHAPTER IV. Roads in Scotland last centuary

Poverty of Scotland
Backwardness of agriculture
Idleness of the people
Andrew Flecher's description of Scotland
Slavery of colliers and salters
Improvements in agriculture opposed
Low wages of the labouring population
State of the Lothians and Ayrshire
Wretched states of the roads
Difficulty of communication between districts
Coach started between Edinburgh and Glasgow
Carrier's perils between Edinburgh and Selkirk
Dangers of travelling in Galloway
Lawlessness of the Highlands
Picking and lifting of cattle
Ferocity of population on the Highland Border
Ancient civilization of Scotland

CHAPTER V. Travelling in England last century

Progress made in travelling by coach

Fast coaches established
Bad state of the roads
Foreigners' accounts of travelling in England
Herr Moritz's journey by the basket coach
Arthur Young's description of English roads
Palmer's mail coaches introduced
The first 'Turnpike' roads
Turnpike riots
The rebellion of 1745
Passing of numerous highway Acts
Road-making thought beneath the dignity of the engineer

CHAPTER VI. John Metcalf, road-maker.

Metcalf's boyhood
His blindness
His boldness
Becomes a Musician
His travels
Journey on foot from London to Harrogate
Joins the army as musician in the rebellion of 1745
Adventures in Scotland
Becomes travelling merchant and horse dealer
Begins road-making
Builds a bridge
His extensive road contracts in Yorkshire and Lancashire
Manner of aking his surveys
His skill in road-making
His last road—his death
Roads in the south of England
Want of roads on Lincoln Heath
Land lighthouses
Dunstan pillar
Rapid improvement in the roads
Application of steam
Sydney Smith on improved facilities of communication

THE LIFE OF THOMAS TELFORD

CHAPTER I. Eskdale.

Eskdale
Langholm
Former lawlessness of the Border population
Jonnie armstrong
Border energy
Westerkirk
Telford's birthplace
Glendinning
Valley of the Meggat
The 'unblameable shepherd'
Telford's mother
Early years
Laughing Tam
Put to school
His school-fellows

CHAPTER II. Langholm—Telford a Stonemason

Telford apprenticed to a stonemason

Runs away
Re-apprenticed to a mason at Langholm
Building operations in the district
Miss Pasley lends books to young Telford
Attempt to write poetry
Becomes village letter-writer
Works as a journeyman mason
Employed on Langholm Bridge
Manse of Westerkirk
Poem of 'Eskdale'
Hews headstones and doorheads
Works as a mason at Edinburgh
Study of architecture
Revisits Eskdale
His ride to London

CHAPTER III. Arrives in London

Telford a working man in London

Obtains employment as a mason at
Somerset House
Correspondence with Eskdale friends
Observations on his fellow-workman
Propses to begin business, but wants money
Mr. Pulteney
Becomes foreman of builders at Portsmouth Dockyard
Continues to write poetry
Employment of his time
Prints letters to his mother

CHAPTER IV. Becomes Surveyor for the County of Salop

Superintends repairs of Shrewsbury Castle

Appointed Surveyor for County of Salop
Superintends erection of new gaol
Interview with John Howard
His studies in science and literature
Poetical exercises
Fall of St. Chad's Church, Shrewsburg
Discovery of the Roman city of Uriconium
Overseer of felons
Mrs. Jordan at Shrewsbury
Telford's indifference to music
Politics, Paine's 'Rights of Man'
Reprints his poem of 'Eskdale'

CHAPTER V. Telford's First Employment as an Engineer

Advantages of mechanical training to an engineer

Erects Montford Bridge
Erects St. Mary Magdalen Church, Bridgenorth
Telford's design
Architectural tour
Bath
Studies in British Museum
Oxford
Birmingham
Study of architecture
Appointed Engineer to the Ellesmere Canal

CHAPTER VI. The Ellesmere Canal

Course of the Ellesmire Canal

Success of the early canals
The Act obtained and working survey made
Chirk Aqueduct
Pont-Cysylltau Aqueduct,
Telford's hollow walls
His cast iron trough at Pont-Cysylltau
The canal works completed
Revists Eskdale
Early impressions corrected
Tours in Wales
Conduct of Ellesmere Canal navigation
His literary studies and compositions

CHAPTER VII. Iron and other Bridges

Use of iron in bridge-building

Design of a Lyons architect
First iron bridge erected at Coalbrookdale
Tom paine's iron bridge
Wear iron bridge, Sunderland
Telford's iron bridge at Buildwas
His iron lock-gates and turn-bridges
Projects a one-arched bridge of iron over the Thames
Bewdley stone bridge
Tougueland Bridge
Extension of Telford's engineering buisness
Literary friendships
Thomas Campbell
Miscellaneous reading

CHAPTER VIII. Higland Roads and Bridges

Progress of Scotch agriculture

Romilly's account
State of the Highlands
Want of roads
Use of the Cas-chrom
Emigration
Telford's survey of Scotland
Lord Cockburn's account of the difficulties of travelling
the North Circuit
Parliamentary Commission of Highland Roads and Bridges appointed
Dunkeld Bridge built
920 miles of new roads constucted
Craigellachie Bridge
Travelling facilitated
Agriculture improved
Moral results of Telford's Highland contracts
Rapid progress of the Lowlands
Results of parish schools

CHAPTER IX. Telford's Scotch Harbours

Highland harbours
Wick and Pulteney Town
Columnar pier work
Peterhead Harbour
Frazerburgh Harbour
Bannf Harbour
Old history of Aberdeen, its witch-burning and slave-trading
Improvements of its harbour
Telford's design carried out
Dundee Harbour

CHAPTER X. Caledonian and other Canals

Canal projected through the Great Glen of the Highlands

Survey by James Watt
Survey by Telford
Tide-basin at Corpach
Neptune's Staircase
Dock at Clachnaharry
The chain of lochs
Construction of the works
Commercial failure of the canal
Telford's disappointment
Glasgow and Ardrossan Canal
Weaver Navigation
Gotha Canal, Sweden
Gloucester and Berkeley, and other canals
Harecastle Tunnel
Birmingham Canal
Macclesfield Canal
Birmingham and Liverpool Junction Canal
Telford's pride in his canals

CHAPTER XI. Telford as a road-maker

Increase of road-traffic
Improvement of the main routes between the principal towns
Carlisle and Glasgow road
Telford's principles of road-construction
Macadam
Cartland Crags Bridge
Improvement of the London and Edinburgh post road
Communications with Ireland
Wretched state of the Welsh roads
Telford's survey of the Shrewsbury and Holyhead road
Its construction
Roads and railways
London and Shrewsbury post road
Roads near London
Coast road, North Wales

CHAPTER XII. The Menai and Conway Bridges

Bridges projected over the Menai Straits

Telford's designs
Ingenious plan of suspended centering
Design of a suspension bridge over the Mersey at Runcorn
Design of suspension bridge at Menai
The works begun
The main piers
The suspension chains
Hoisting of the first main chain
Progress of the works to completion
The bridge formally opened
Conway Suspension Bridge

CHAPTER XIII. Docks, Drainage, and Bridges

Resume of English engineering

General increase in trade and poulation
The Thames
St. Katherine's Docks
Tewkesburg Bridge
Gloucester Bridge
Dean Bridge, Edinburgh
Glasgow Bridge
Telford's works of drainage in the Fens
The North Level
The Nene Outfall
Effects of Fen drainage

CHAPTER XIV. Southey's tour in the highlands

Southey sets out to visit the Highlands in Telford's company

Works at Dundee Harbour
Bervie Harbour
Mitchell and Gibbs
Aberdeen Harbour
Approach to Banff
Cullen Harbour
The Forres road
Beauly Bridge
Bonar Bridge
Fleet Mound
Southey's description of the Caledonian Canal and works
John Mitchell
Takes leave of Telford
Results of Highland road-making

CHAPTER XV. Mr Telford's later years—His death and character

Telford's residence in London

Leaves the Salopian
First President of Institute of Civil Engineers
Consulted by foreign Governments as to roads and bridges
His views on railways
Failure of health
Consulted as to Dover Harbour
Illness and death
His character
His friends
Integrity
Views on money-making
Benevolence
Patriotism
His Will
Libraries in Eskdale supported by his bequests

PREFACE

The present is a revised and in some respects enlarged edition of the 'Life of Telford,' originally published in the 'Lives of the Engineers,' to which is prefixed an account of the early roads and modes of travelling in Britain.

From this volume, read in connection with the Lives of George and Robert Stephenson, in which the origin and extension of Railways is described, an idea may be formed of the extraordinary progress which has been made in opening up the internal
communications of this country during the last century.

Among the principal works executed by Telford in the course of his life, were the great highways constructed by him in North Wales and the Scotch Highlands, through districts formerly almost inaccessible, but which are now as easily traversed as any
English county.

By means of these roads, and the facilities afforded by railways, the many are now enabled to visit with ease and comfort magnificent mountain scenery, which before was only the costly privilege of the few; at the same time that their construction has
exercised a most beneficial influence on the population of the districts themselves.

The Highland roads, which were constructed with the active assistance of the Government, and were maintained partly at the public expense until within the last few years, had the effect of stimulating industry, improving agriculture, and converting a
turbulent because unemployed population into one of the most loyal and well-conditioned in the empire;— the policy thus adopted with reference to the Highlands, and the beneficial results which have flowed from it, affording the strongest
encouragement to Government in dealing in like manner with the internal communications of Ireland.

While the construction of the Highland roads was in progress, the late Robert Southey, poet laureate, visited the Highlands in company with his friend the engineer, and left on record an interesting account of his visit, in a, manuscript now in the
possession of Robert Rawlinson, C.E., to whom we are indebted for the extracts which are made from it in the present volume.

London, October, 1867.

EARLY ROADS AND MODES OF TRAVELLING.

CHAPTER I. OLD ROADS.

Roads have in all times been among the most influential agencies of society; and the makers of them, by enabling men readily to communicate with each other, have properly been regarded as among the most effective pioneers of civilization.

Roads are literally the pathways not only of industry, but of social and national intercourse. Wherever a line of communication between men is formed, it renders commerce practicable; and, wherever commerce penetrates, it creates a civilization and
leaves a history.

Roads place the city and the town in connection with the village and the farm, open up markets for field produce, and provide outlets for manufactures. They enable the natural resources of a country to be developed, facilitate travelling and intercourse,
break down local jealousies, and in all ways tend to bind together society and bring out fully that healthy spirit of industry which is the life and soul of every nation.

The road is so necessary an instrument of social wellbeing, that in every new colony it is one of the first things thought of. First roads, then commerce, institutions, schools, churches, and newspapers. The new country, as well as the old, can only be
effectually "opened up," as the common phrase is, by roads and until these are made, it is virtually closed.

Freedom itself cannot exist without free communication,—every limitation of movement on the part of the members of society amounting to a positive abridgment of their personal liberty. Hence roads, canals, and railways, by providing the greatest
possible facilities for locomotion and information, are essential for the freedom of all classes, of the poorest as well as the richest.

By bringing the ends of a kingdom together, they reduce the inequalities of fortune and station, and, by equalizing the price of commodities, to that extent they render them accessible to all. Without their assistance, the concentrated populations of our
large towns could neither be clothed nor fed; but by their instrumentality an immense range of country is brought as it were to their very doors, and the sustenance and employment of large masses of people become comparatively easy.

In the raw materials required for food, for manufactures, and for domestic purposes, the cost of transport necessarily forms a considerable item; and it is clear that the more this cost can be reduced by facilities of communication, the cheaper these
articles become, and the more they are multiplied and enter into the consumption of the community at large.

Let any one imagine what would be the effect of closing the roads, railways, and canals of England. The country would be brought to a dead lock, employment would be restricted in all directions, and a large proportion of the inhabitants concentrated
in the large towns must at certain seasons inevitably perish of cold and hunger.

In the earlier periods of English history, roads were of comparatively less consequence. While the population was thin and scattered, and men lived by hunting and pastoral pursuits, the track across the down, the heath, and the moor, sufficiently
answered their purpose. Yet even in those districts unencumbered with wood, where the first settlements were made—as on the downs of Wiltshire, the moors of Devonshire, and the wolds of Yorkshire—stone tracks were laid down by the tribes between
one village and another. We have given here, a representation of one of those ancient trackways still existing in the neighbourhood of Whitby, in Yorkshire;

[Image] Ancient Causeway, near Whitby.

and there are many of the same description to be met with in other parts of England. In some districts they are called trackways or ridgeways, being narrow causeways usually following the natural ridge of the country, and probably serving in early
times as local boundaries. On Dartmoor they are constructed of stone blocks, irregularly laid down on the surface of the ground, forming a rude causeway of about five or six feet wide.

The Romans, with many other arts, first brought into England the art of road-making. They thoroughly understood the value of good roads, regarding them as the essential means for the maintenance of their empire in the first instance, and of social
prosperity in the next. It was their roads, as well as their legions, that made them masters of the world; and the pickaxe, not less than the sword, was the ensign of their dominion. Wherever they went, they opened up the communications of the countries
they subdued, and the roads which they made were among the best of their kind. They were skilfully laid out and solidly constructed. For centuries after the Romans left England, their roads continued to be the main highways of internal communication,
and their remains are to this day to be traced in many parts of the country. Settlements were made and towns sprang up along the old "streets;" and the numerous Stretfords, Stratfords, and towns ending' in "le-street" —as Ardwick-le-street, in Yorkshire,
and Chester-le-street, in Durham—mostly mark the direction of these ancient lines of road. There are also numerous Stanfords, which were so called because they bordered the raised military roadways of the Romans, which ran direct between their
stations.

The last-mentioned peculiarity of the roads constructed by the Romans, must have struck many observers. Level does not seem to have been of consequence, compared with directness. This peculiarity is supposed to have originated in an imperfect
knowledge of mechanics; for the Romans do not appear to have been acquainted with the moveable joint in wheeled carriages. The carriage-body rested solid upon the axles, which in four-wheeled vehicles were rigidly parallel with each other. Being
unable readily to turn a bend in the road, it has been concluded that for this reason all the great Roman highways were constructed in as straight lines as possible.

On the departure of the Romans from Britain, most of the roads constructed by them were allowed to fall into decay, on which the forest and the waste gradually resumed their dominion over them, and the highways of England became about the worst
in Europe. We find, however, that numerous attempts were made in early times to preserve the ancient ways and enable a communication to be maintained between the metropolis and the rest of the country, as well as between one market town and
another.

The state of the highways may be inferred from the character of the legislation applying to them. One of the first laws on the subject was passed in 1285, directing that all bushes and trees along the roads leading from one market to another should be
cut down for two hundred feet on either side, to prevent robbers lurking therein;*[1] but nothing was proposed for amending the condition of the ways themselves. In 1346, Edward III. authorised the first toll to be levied for the repair of the roads leading
from St. Giles's-in-the-Fields to the village of Charing (now Charing Cross), and from the same quarter to near Temple Bar (down Drury Lane), as well as the highway then called Perpoole (now Gray's Inn Lane). The footway at the entrance of Temple
Bar was interrupted by thickets and bushes, and in wet weather was almost impassable. The roads further west were so bad that when the sovereign went to Parliament faggots were thrown into the ruts in King-street, Westminster, to enable the royal
cavalcade to pass along.

In Henry VIII.'s reign, several remarkable statutes were passed relating to certain worn-out and impracticable roads in Sussex and the Weald of Kent. From the earliest of these, it would appear that when the old roads were found too deep and miry to be
passed, they were merely abandoned and new tracks struck out. After describing "many of the wayes in the wealds as so depe and noyous by wearyng and course of water and other occasions that people cannot have their carriages or passages by horses
uppon or by the same but to their great paynes, perill and jeopardie," the Act provided that owners of land might, with the consent of two justices and twelve discreet men of the hundred, lay out new roads and close up the old ones. Another Act passed in
the same reign, related to the repairs of bridges and of the highways at the ends of bridges.

But as these measures were for the most part merely permissive, they could have had but little practical effect in improving the communications of the kingdom. In the reign of Philip and Mary (in 1555), an Act was passed providing that each parish
should elect two surveyors of highways to see to the maintenance of their repairs by compulsory labour, the preamble reciting that "highwaies are now both verie noisome and tedious to travell in, and dangerous to all passengers and cariages;" and to this
day parish and cross roads are maintained on the principle of Mary's Act, though the compulsory labour has since been commuted into a compulsory tax.

In the reigns of Elizabeth and James, other road Acts were passed; but, from the statements of contemporary writers, it would appear that they were followed by very little substantial progress, and travelling continued to be attended with many
difficulties. Even in the neighbourhood of the metropolis, the highways were in certain seasons scarcely passable. The great Western road into London was especially bad, and about Knightsbridge, in winter, the traveller had to wade through deep mud.
Wyatt's men entered the city by this approach in the rebellion of 1554, and were called the "draggle-tails" because of their wretched plight. The ways were equally bad as far as Windsor, which, in the reign of Elizabeth, is described by Pote, in his history
of that town, as being "not much past half a day's journeye removed from the flourishing citie of London."

At a greater distance from the metropolis, the roads were still worse. They were in many cases but rude tracks across heaths and commons, as furrowed with deep ruts as ploughed fields; and in winter to pass along one of them was like travelling in a
ditch. The attempts made by the adjoining occupiers to mend them, were for the most part confined to throwing large stones into the bigger holes to fill them up. It was easier to allow new tracks to be made than to mend the old ones. The land of the
country was still mostly unenclosed, and it was possible, in fine weather, to get from place to place, in one way or another, with the help of a guide. In the absence of bridges, guides were necessary to point out the safest fords as well as to pick out the
least miry tracks. The most frequented lines of road were struck out from time to time by the drivers of pack-horses, who, to avoid the bogs and sloughs, were usually careful to keep along the higher grounds; but, to prevent those horsemen who departed
from the beaten track being swallowed up in quagmires, beacons were erected to warn them against the more dangerous places.*[2]

In some of the older-settled districts of England, the old roads are still to be traced in the hollow Ways or Lanes, which are to be met with, in some places, eight and ten feet deep. They were horse-tracks in summer, and rivulets in winter. By dint of
weather and travel, the earth was gradually worn into these deep furrows, many of which, in Wilts, Somerset, and Devon, represent the tracks of roads as old as, if not older than, the Conquest. When the ridgeways of the earliest settlers on Dartmoor,
above alluded to, were abandoned, the tracks were formed through the valleys, but the new roads were no better than the old ones. They were narrow and deep, fitted only for a horse passing along laden with its crooks, as so graphically described in the
ballad of "The Devonshire Lane."*[3]

Similar roads existed until recently in the immediate neighbourhood of Birmingham, now the centre of an immense traffic. The sandy soil was sawn through, as it were, by generation after generation of human feet, and by packhorses, helped by the
rains, until in some places the tracks were as much as from twelve to fourteen yards deep; one of these, partly filled up, retaining to this day the name of Holloway Head. In the neighbourhood of London there was also a Hollow way, which now gives its
name to a populous metropolitan parish. Hagbush Lane was another of such roads. Before the formation of the Great North Road, it was one of the principal bridle-paths leading from London to the northern parts of England; but it was so narrow as barely
to afford passage for more than a single horseman, and so deep that the rider's head was beneath the level of the ground on either side.

The roads of Sussex long preserved an infamous notoriety. Chancellor Cowper, when a barrister on circuit, wrote to his wife in 1690, that "the Sussex ways are bad and ruinous beyond imagination. I vow 'tis melancholy consideration that mankind will
in habit such a heap of dirt for a poor livelihood. The country is a sink of about fourteen miles broad, which receives all the water that falls from two long ranges of hills on both sides of it, and not being furnished with convenient draining, is kept moist
and soft by the water till the middle of a dry summer, which is only able to make it tolerable to ride for a short time."

It was almost as difficult for old persons to get to church in Sussex during winter as it was in the Lincoln Fens, where they were rowed thither in boats. Fuller saw an old lady being drawn to church in her own coach by the aid of six oxen. The Sussex
roads were indeed so bad as to pass into a by-word. A contemporary writer says, that in travelling a slough of extraordinary miryness, it used to be called "the Sussex bit of the road;" and he satirically alleged that the reason why the Sussex girls were so
long-limbed was because of the tenacity of the mud in that county; the practice of pulling the foot out of it "by the strength of the ancle" tending to stretch the muscle and lengthen the bone!*[4] But the roads in the immediate neighbourhood of London
long continued almost as bad as those in Sussex. Thus, when the poet Cowley retired to Chertsey, in 1665, he wrote to his friend Sprat to visit him, and, by way of encouragement, told him that he might sleep the first night at Hampton town; thus
occupying; two days in the performance of a journey of twenty-two miles in the immediate neighbourhood of the metropolis. As late as 1736 we find Lord Hervey, writing from Kensington, complaining that "the road between this place and London is
grown so infamously bad that we live here in the same solitude as we would do if cast on a rock in the middle of the ocean; and all the Londoners tell us that there is between them and us an impassable gulf of mud."

Nor was the mud any respecter of persons; for we are informed that the carriage of Queen Caroline could not, in bad weather, be dragged from St. James's Palace to Kensington in less than two hours, and occasionally the royal coach stuck fast in a rut,
or was even capsized in the mud. About the same time, the streets of London themselves were little better, the kennel being still permitted to flow in the middle of the road, which was paved with round stones,—flag-stones for the convenience of
pedestrians being as yet unknown. In short, the streets in the towns and the roads in the country were alike rude and wretched,—indicating a degree of social stagnation and discomfort which it is now difficult to estimate, and almost impossible to
describe.

Footnotes for chapter I

*[1] Brunetto Latini, the tutor of Dante, describes a journey made by him from London to Oxford about the end of the thirteenth century, resting by the way at Shirburn Castle. He says, "Our journey from London to Oxford was, with some difficulty
and danger, made in two days; for the roads are bad, and we had to climb hills of hazardous ascent, and which to descend are equally perilous. We passed through many woods, considered here as dangerous places, as they are infested with robbers, which
indeed is the case with most of the roads in England. This is a circumstance connived at by the neighbouring barons, on consideration of sharing in the booty, and of these robbers serving as their protectors on all occasions, personally, and with the whole
strength of their band. However, as our company was numerous, we had less to fear. Accordingly, we arrived the first night at Shirburn Castle, in the neighbourhood of Watlington, under the chain of hills over which we passed at Stokenchurch." This
passage is given in Mr. Edward's work on 'Libraries' (p. 328), as supplied to him by Lady Macclesfield.

*[2] See Ogilby's 'Britannia Depicta,' the traveller's ordinary guidebook between 1675 and 1717, as Bradshaw's Railway Time-book is now. The Grand Duke Cosmo, in his 'Travels in England in 1669,' speaks of the country between Northampton and
Oxford as for the most part unenclosed and uncultivated, abounding in weeds. From Ogilby's fourth edition, published in 1749, it appears that the roads in the midland and northern districts of England were still, for the most part, entirely unenclosed.

*[3] This ballad is so descriptive of the old roads of the south-west of England that we are tempted to quote it at length. It was written by the Rev. John Marriott, sometime vicar of Broadclist, Devon; and Mr. Rowe, vicar of Crediton, says, in his
'Perambulation of Dartmoor,' that he can readily imagine the identical lane near Broadclist, leading towards Poltemore, which might have sat for the portrait.

In a Devonshire lane, as I trotted along

T'other day, much in want of a subject for song,
Thinks I to myself, half-inspired by the rain,
Sure marriage is much like a Devonshire lane.

In the first place 'tis long, and when once you are in it,
It holds you as fast as a cage does a linnet;
For howe'er rough and dirty the road may be found,
Drive forward you must, there is no turning round.

But tho' 'tis so long, it is not very wide,

For two are the most that together can ride;
And e'en then, 'tis a chance but they get in a pother,
And jostle and cross and run foul of each other.

Oft poverty meets them with mendicant looks,

And care pushes by them with dirt-laden crooks;
And strife's grazing wheels try between them to pass,
And stubbornness blocks up the way on her ass,

Then the banks are so high, to the left hand and right,
That they shut up the beauties around them from sight;
And hence, you'll allow, 'tis an inference plain,
That marriage is just like a Devonshire lane.

But thinks I, too, these banks, within which we are pent,

With bud, blossom, and berry, are richly besprent;
And the conjugal fence, which forbids us to roam,
Looks lovely, when deck'd with the comforts of home.

In the rock's gloomy crevice the bright holly grows;

The ivy waves fresh o'er the withering rose,
And the ever-green love of a virtuous wife
Soothes the roughness of care, cheers the winter of life.

Then long be the journey, and narrow the way,

I'll rejoice that I've seldom a turnpike to pay;
And whate'er others say, be the last to complain,
Though marriage is just like a Devonshire lane.

*[4] Iter Sussexiense.' By Dr. John Burton.

CHAPTER II.

EARLY MODES OF CONVEYANCE.

Such being the ancient state of the roads, the only practicable modes of travelling were on foot and on horseback. The poor walked and the rich rode. Kings rode and Queens rode. Judges rode circuit in jack-boots. Gentlemen rode and robbers rode. The
Bar sometimes walked and sometimes rode. Chaucer's ride to Canterbury will be remembered as long as the English language lasts. Hooker rode to London on a hard-paced nag, that he might be in time to preach his first sermon at St. Paul's. Ladies rode
on pillions, holding on by the gentleman or the serving-man mounted before.

Shakespeare incidentally describes the ancient style of travelling among the humbler classes in his 'Henry IV.'*[1]

The Party, afterwards set upon by Falstaff and his companions, bound from Rochester to London, were up by two in the morning, expecting to perform the journey of thirty miles by close of day, and to get to town "in time to go to bed with a candle."
Two are carriers, one of whom has "a gammon of bacon and two razes of ginger, to be delivered as far as Charing Cross;" the other has his panniers full of turkeys. There is also a franklin of Kent, and another, "a kind of auditor," probably a tax-collector,
with several more, forming in all a company of eight or ten, who travel together for mutual protection. Their robbery on Gad's Hill, as painted by Shakespeare, is but a picture, by no means exaggerated, of the adventures and dangers of the road at the time
of which he wrote.

Distinguished personages sometimes rode in horse-litters; but riding on horseback was generally preferred. Queen Elizabeth made most of her journeys in this way,*[2] and when she went into the City she rode on a pillion behind her Lord Chancellor.
The Queen, however, was at length provided with a coach, which must have been a very remarkable machine. This royal vehicle is said to have been one of the first coaches used in England, and it was introduced by the Queen's own coachman, one
Boomen, a Dutchman. It was little better than a cart without springs, the body resting solid upon the axles. Taking the bad roads and ill-paved streets into account, it must have been an excessively painful means of conveyance. At one of the first audiences
which the Queen gave to the French ambassador in 1568, she feelingly described to him "the aching pains she was suffering in consequence of having been knocked about in a coach which had been driven a little too fast, only a few days before."*[3]

Such coaches were at first only used on state occasions. The roads, even in the immediate neighbourhood of London, were so bad and so narrow that the vehicles could not be taken into the country. But, as the roads became improved, the fashion of
using them spread. When the aristocracy removed from the City to the western parts of the metropolis, they could be better accommodated, and in course of time they became gradually adopted. They were still, however, neither more nor less than
waggons, and, indeed, were called by that name; but wherever they went they excited great wonder. It is related of "that valyant knyght Sir Harry Sidney," that on a certain day in the year 1583 he entered Shrewsbury in his waggon, "with his Trompeter
blowynge, verey joyfull to behold and see."*[4]

From this time the use of coaches gradually spread, more particularly amongst the nobility, superseding the horse-litters which had till then been used for the conveyance of ladies and others unable to bear the fatigue of riding on horseback. The first
carriages were heavy and lumbering: and upon the execrable roads of the time they went pitching over the stones and into the ruts, with the pole dipping and rising like a ship in a rolling sea. That they had no springs, is clear enough from the statement of
Taylor, the water-poet—who deplored the introduction of carriages as a national calamity—that in the paved streets of London men and women were "tossed, tumbled, rumbled, and jumbled about in them." Although the road from London to Dover, along
the old Roman Watling-street, was then one of the best in England, the French household of Queen Henrietta, when they were sent forth from the palace of Charles I., occupied four tedious days before they reached Dover.

But it was only a few of the main roads leading from the metropolis that were practicable for coaches; and on the occasion of a royal progress, or the visit of a lord-lieutenant, there was a general turn out of labourers and masons to mend the ways and
render the bridges at least temporarily secure. Of one of Queen Elizabeth's journeys it is said:— "It was marvellous for ease and expedition, for such is the perfect evenness of the new highway that Her Majesty left the coach only once, while the hinds
and the folk of a base sort lifted it on with their poles."

Sussex long continued impracticable for coach travelling at certain seasons. As late as 1708, Prince George of Denmark had the greatest difficulty in making his way to Petworth to meet Charles VI. of Spain. "The last nine miles of the way," says the
reporter, "cost us six hours to conquer them." One of the couriers in attendance complained that during fourteen hours he never once alighted, except when the coach overturned, or stuck in the mud.

When the judges, usually old men and bad riders, took to going the circuit in their coaches, juries were often kept waiting until their lordships could be dug out of a bog or hauled out of a slough by the aid of plough-horses. In the seventeenth century,
scarcely a Quarter Session passed without presentments from the grand jury against certain districts on account of the bad state of the roads, and many were the fines which the judges imposed upon them as a set-off against their bruises and other damages
while on circuit.

For a long time the roads continued barely practicable for wheeled vehicles of the rudest sort, though Fynes Morison (writing in the time of James I.) gives an account of "carryers, who have long covered waggons, in which they carry passengers from
place to place; but this kind of journeying," he says, "is so tedious, by reason they must take waggon very early and come very late to their innes, that none but women and people of inferior condition travel in this sort."

[Image] The Old Stage Waggon.

The waggons of which Morison wrote, made only from ten to fifteen miles in a long summer's day; that is, supposing them not to have broken down by pitching over the boulders laid along the road, or stuck fast in a quagmire, when they had to wait
for the arrival of the next team of horses to help to drag them out. The waggon, however, continued to be adopted as a popular mode of travelling until late in the eighteenth century; and Hogarth's picture illustrating the practice will be remembered, of the
cassocked parson on his lean horse, attending his daughter newly alighted from the York waggon.

A curious description of the state of the Great North Road, in the time of Charles II., is to be found in a tract published in 1675 by Thomas Mace, one of the clerks of Trinity College, Cambridge. The writer there addressed himself to the King, partly in
prose and partly in verse; complaining greatly of the "wayes, which are so grossly foul and bad;" and suggesting various remedies. He pointed out that much ground "is now spoiled and trampled down in all wide roads, where coaches and carts take
liberty to pick and chuse for their best advantages; besides, such sprawling and straggling of coaches and carts utterly confound the road in all wide places, so that it is not only unpleasurable, but extreme perplexin and cumbersome both to themselves and
all horse travellers." It would thus appear that the country on either side of the road was as yet entirely unenclosed.

But Mace's principal complaint was of the "innumerable controversies, quarrellings, and disturbances" caused by the packhorse-men, in their struggles as to which convoy should pass along the cleaner parts of the road. From what he states, it would
seem that these "disturbances, daily committed by uncivil, refractory, and rude Russian-like rake-shames, in contesting for the way, too often proved mortal, and certainly were of very bad consequences to many." He recommended a quick and prompt
punishment in all such cases. "No man," said he, "should be pestered by giving the way (sometimes) to hundreds of pack-horses, panniers, whifflers (i.e. paltry fellows), coaches, waggons, wains, carts, or whatsoever others, which continually are very
grievous to weary and loaden travellers; but more especially near the city and upon a market day, when, a man having travelled a long and tedious journey, his horse well nigh spent, shall sometimes be compelled to cross out of his way twenty times in
one mile's riding, by the irregularity and peevish crossness of such-like whifflers and market women; yea, although their panniers be clearly empty, they will stoutly contend for the way with weary travellers, be they never so many, or almost of what
quality soever." "Nay," said he further, "I have often known many travellers, and myself very often, to have been necessitated to stand stock still behind a standing cart or waggon, on most beastly and unsufferable deep wet wayes, to the great endangering
of our horses, and neglect of important business: nor durst we adventure to stirr (for most imminent danger of those deep rutts, and unreasonable ridges) till it has pleased Mister Garter to jog on, which we have taken very kindly."

Mr. Mace's plan of road reform was not extravagant. He mainly urged that only two good tracks should be maintained, and the road be not allowed to spread out into as many as half-a-dozen very bad ones, presenting high ridges and deep ruts, full of
big stones, and many quagmires. Breaking out into verse, he said —

"First let the wayes be regularly brought

To artificial form, and truly wrought;
So that we can suppose them firmly mended,
And in all parts the work well ended,
That not a stone's amiss; but all compleat,
All lying smooth, round, firm, and wondrous neat."

After a good deal more in the same strain, he concluded—

"There's only one thing yet worth thinking on which is, to put this work in execution."*[5]

But we shall find that more than a hundred years passed before the roads throughout England were placed in a more satisfactory state than they were in the time of Mr. Mace.

The introduction of stage-coaches about the middle of the seventeenth century formed a new era in the history of travelling by road. At first they were only a better sort of waggon, and confined to the more practicable highways near London. Their pace
did not exceed four miles an hour, and the jolting of the unfortunate passengers conveyed in them must have been very hard to bear. It used to be said of their drivers that they were "seldom sober, never Civil, and always late."

The first mention of coaches for public accommodation is made by Sir William Dugdale in his Diary, from which it appears that a Coventry coach was on the road in 1659. But probably the first coaches, or rather waggons, were run between London
and Dover, as one of the most practicable routes for the purpose. M. Sobriere, a French man of letters, who landed at Dover on his way to London in the time of Charles II., alludes to the existence of a stagecoach, but it seems to have had no charms for
him, as the following passage will show: "That I might not," he says, "take post or be obliged to use the stage-coach, I went from Dover to London in a waggon. I was drawn by six horses, one before another, and driven by a waggoner, who walked by the
side of it. He was clothed in black, and appointed in all things like another St. George. He had a brave montrero on his head and was a merry fellow, fancied he made a figure, and seemed mightily pleased with himself."

Shortly after, coaches seem to have been running as far north as Preston in Lancashire, as appears by a letter from one Edward Parker to his father, dated November, 1663, in which he says, "I got to London on Saturday last; but my journey was noe
ways pleasant, being forced to ride in the boote all the waye. Ye company yt came up with mee were persons of greate quality, as knights and ladyes. My journey's expense was 30s. This traval hath soe indisposed mee, yt I am resolved never to ride up
againe in ye coatch."*[6] These vehicles must, however, have considerably increased, as we find a popular agitation was got up against them. The Londoners nicknamed them "hell-carts;" pamphlets were written recommending their abolition; and
attempts were even made to have them suppressed by Act of Parliament.

Thoresby occasionally alludes to stage-coaches in his Diary, speaking of one that ran between Hull and York in 1679, from which latter place he had to proceed by Leeds in the usual way on horseback. This Hull vehicle did not run in winter, because of
the state of the roads; stagecoaches being usually laid up in that season like ships during Arctic frosts.*[7]

Afterwards, when a coach was put on between York and Leeds, it performed the journey of twenty-four miles in eight hours;*[8] but the road was so bad and dangerous that the travellers were accustomed to get out and walk the greater part of the way.

Thoresby often waxes eloquent upon the subject of his manifold deliverances from the dangers of travelling by coach. He was especially thankful when he had passed the ferry over the Trent in journeying between Leeds and London, having on several
occasions narrowly escaped drowning there. Once, on his journey to London, some showers fell, which "raised the washes upon the road near Ware to that height that passengers from London that were upon that road swam, and a poor higgler was
drowned, which prevented me travelling for many hours; yet towards evening we adventured with some country people, who conducted us over the meadows, whereby we missed the deepest of the Wash at Cheshunt, though we rode to the saddle-skirts
for a considerable way, but got safe to Waltham Cross, where we lodged."*[9] On another occasion Thoresby was detained four days at Stamford by the state of the roads, and was only extricated from his position by a company of fourteen members of the
House of Commons travelling towards London, who took him into their convoy, and set out on their way southward attended by competent guides. When the "waters were out," as the saying went, the country became closed, the roads being simply
impassable. During the Civil Wars eight hundred horse were taken prisoners while sticking in the mud.*[10] When rain fell, pedestrians, horsemen, and coaches alike came to a standstill until the roads dried again and enabled the wayfarers to proceed.
Thus we read of two travellers stopped by the rains within a few miles of Oxford, who found it impossible to accomplish their journey in consequence of the waters that covered the country thereabout.

A curious account has been preserved of the journey of an Irish Viceroy across North Wales towards Dublin in 1685. The roads were so horrible that instead of the Viceroy being borne along in his coach, the coach itself had to be borne after him the
greater part of the way. He was five hours in travelling between St. Asaph and Conway, a distance of only fourteen miles. Between Conway and Beaumaris he was forced to walk, while his wife was borne along in a litter. The carriages were usually taken
to pieces at Conway and carried on the shoulders of stout Welsh peasants to be embarked at the Straits of Menai.

The introduction of stage-coaches, like every other public improvement, was at first regarded with prejudice, and had considerable obloquy to encounter. In a curious book published in 1673, entitled 'The Grand Concern of England Explained in several
Proposals to Parliament,'*[11] stagecoaches and caravans were denounced as among the greatest evils that had happened to the kingdom, Being alike mischievous to the public, destructive to trade, and prejudicial to the landed interest. It was alleged that
travelling by coach was calculated to destroy the breed of horses, and make men careless of good horsemanship,—that it hindered the training of watermen and seamen, and interfered with the public resources. The reasons given are curious. It was said
that those who were accustomed to travel in coaches became weary and listless when they rode a few miles, and were unwilling to get on horseback —"not being able to endure frost, snow, or rain, or to lodge in the fields;" that to save their clothes and
keep themselves clean and dry, people rode in coaches, and thus contracted an idle habit of body; that this was ruinous to trade, for that "most gentlemen, before they travelled in coaches, used to ride with swords, belts, pistols, holsters, portmanteaus, and
hat-cases, which, in these coaches, they have little or no occasion for: for, when they rode on horseback, they rode in one suit and carried another to wear when they camp to their journey's end, or lay by the way; but in coaches a silk suit and an Indian
gown, with a sash, silk stockings, and beaver-hats, men ride in, and carry no other with them, because they escape the wet and dirt, which on horseback they cannot avoid; whereas, in two or three journeys on horseback, these clothes and hats were wont
to be spoiled; which done, they were forced to have new very often, and that increased the consumption of the manufactures and the employment of the manufacturers; which travelling in coaches doth in no way do."*[12] The writer of the same protest
against coaches gives some idea of the extent of travelling by them in those days; for to show the gigantic nature of the evil he was contending against, he averred that between London and the three principal towns of York, Chester, and Exeter, not fewer
than eighteen persons, making the journey in five days, travelled by them weekly the coaches running thrice in the week), and a like number back; "which come, in the whole, to eighteen hundred and seventy-two in the year." Another great nuisance, the
writer alleged, which flowed from the establishment of the stage-coaches, was, that not only did the gentlemen from the country come to London in them oftener than they need, but their ladies either came with them or quickly followed them. "And when
they are there they must be in the mode, have all the new fashions, buy all their clothes there, and go to plays, balls, and treats, where they get such a habit of jollity and a love to gaiety and pleasure, that nothing afterwards in the country will serve them ,
if ever they should fix their minds to live there again; but they must have all from London, whatever it costs."

Then there were the grievous discomforts of stage-coach travelling, to be set against the more noble method of travelling by horseback, as of yore. "What advantage is it to men's health," says the writer, waxing wroth, "to be called out of their beds into
these coaches, an hour before day in the morning; to be hurried in them from place to place, till one hour, two, or three within night; insomuch that, after sitting all day in the summer-time stifled with heat and choked with dust, or in the winter-time
starving and freezing with cold or choked with filthy fogs, they are often brought into their inns by torchlight, when it is too late to sit up to get a supper; and next morning they are forced into the coach so early that they can get no breakfast? What
addition is this to men's health or business to ride all day with strangers, oftentimes sick, antient, diseased persons, or young children crying; to whose humours they are obliged to be subject, forced to bear with, and many times are poisoned with their
nasty scents and crippled by the crowd of boxes and bundles? Is it for a man's health to travel with tired jades, to be laid fast in the foul ways and forced to wade up to the knees in mire; afterwards sit in the cold till teams of horses can be sent to pull the
coach out? Is it for their health to travel in rotten coaches and to have their tackle, perch, or axle-tree broken, and then to wait three or four hours (sometimes half a day) to have them mended, and then to travel all night to make good their stage? Is it for a
man's pleasure, or advantageous to his health and business, to travel with a mixed company that he knows not how to converse with; to be affronted by the rudeness of a surly, dogged, cursing, ill-natured coachman; necessitated to lodge or bait at the
worst inn on the road, where there is no accommodation fit for gentlemen; and this merely because the owners of the inns and the coachmen are agreed together to cheat the guests?" Hence the writer loudly called for the immediate suppression of
stagecoaches as a great nuisance and crying evil.

Travelling by coach was in early times a very deliberate affair. Time was of less consequence than safety, and coaches were advertised to start "God willing," and "about" such and such an hour "as shall seem good" to the majority of the passengers. The
difference of a day in the journey from London to York was a small matter, and Thoresby was even accustomed to leave the coach and go in search of fossil shells in the fields on either side the road while making the journey between the two places. The
long coach "put up" at sun-down, and "slept on the road." Whether the coach was to proceed or to stop at some favourite inn, was determined by the vote of the passengers, who usually appointed a chairman at the beginning of the journey.

In 1700, York was a week distant from London, and Tunbridge Wells, now reached in an hour, was two days. Salisbury and Oxford were also each a two days journey, Dover was three days, and Exeter five. The Fly coach from London to Exeter slept at
the latter place the fifth night from town; the coach proceeding next morning to Axminster, where it breakfasted, and there a woman Barber "shaved the coach."*[13]

Between London and Edinburgh, as late as 1763, a fortnight was consumed, the coach only starting once a month.*[14] The risk of breaks-down in driving over the execrable roads may be inferred from the circumstance that every coach carried with it
a box of carpenter's tools, and the hatchets were occasionally used in lopping off the branches of trees overhanging the road and obstructing the travellers' progress.

Some fastidious persons, disliking the slow travelling, as well as the promiscuous company which they ran the risk of encountering in the stage, were accustomed to advertise for partners in a postchaise, to share the charges and lessen the dangers of the
road; and, indeed, to a sensitive person anything must have been preferable to the misery of travelling by the Canterbury stage, as thus described by a contemporary writer:—

"On both sides squeez'd, how highly was I blest,

Between two plump old women to be presst!
A corp'ral fierce, a nurse, a child that cry'd,
And a fat landlord, filled the other side.
Scarce dawns the morning ere the cumbrous load
Boils roughly rumbling o'er the rugged road:
One old wife coughs and wheezes in my ears,
Loud scolds the other, and the soldier swears;
Sour unconcocted breath escapes 'mine host,'
The sick'ning child returns his milk and toast!"

When Samuel Johnson was taken by his mother to London in 1712, to have him touched by Queen Anne for "the evil," he relates,— "We went in the stage-coach and returned in the waggon, as my mother said, because my cough was violent; but the
hope of saving a few shillings was no slight motive…. She sewed two guineas in her petticoat lest she should be robbed…. We were troublesome to the passengers; but to suffer such inconveniences in the stage-coach was common in those days to
parsons in much higher rank."

Mr. Pennant has left us the following account of his journey in the Chester stage to London in 1789-40: "The first day," says he, "with much labour, we got from Chester to Whitchurch, twenty miles; the second day to the 'Welsh Harp;' the third, to
Coventry; the fourth, to Northampton; the fifth, to Dunstable; and, as a wondrous effort, on the last, to London, before the commencement of night. The strain and labour of six good horses, sometimes eight, drew us through the sloughs of Mireden and
many other places. We were constantly out two hours before day, and as late at night, and in the depth of winter proportionally later. The single gentlemen, then a hardy race, equipped in jackboots and trowsers, up to their middle, rode post through thick
and thin, and, guarded against the mire, defied the frequent stumble and fall, arose and pursued their journey with alacrity; while, in these days, their enervated posterity sleep away their rapid journeys in easy chaises, fitted for the conveyance of the soft
inhabitants of Sybaris."

No wonder, therefore, that a great deal of the travelling of the country continued to be performed on horseback, this being by far the pleasantest as well as most expeditious mode of journeying. On his marriage-day, Dr. Johnson rode from Birmingham
to Derby with his Tetty, taking the opportunity of the journey to give his bride her first lesson in marital discipline. At a later period James Watt rode from Glasgow to London, when proceeding thither to learn the art of mathematical instrument making.

And it was a cheap and pleasant method of travelling when the weather was fine. The usual practice was, to buy a horse at the beginning of such a journey, and to sell the animal at the end of it. Dr. Skene, of Aberdeen, travelled from London to
Edinburgh in 1753, being nineteen days on the road, the whole expenses of the journey amounting to only four guineas. The mare on which he rode, cost him eight guineas in London, and he sold her for the same price on his arrival in Edinburgh.

Nearly all the commercial gentlemen rode their own horses, carrying their samples and luggage in two bags at the saddle-bow; and hence their appellation of Riders or Bagmen. For safety's sake, they usually journeyed in company; for the dangers of
travelling were not confined merely to the ruggedness of the roads. The highways were infested by troops of robbers and vagabonds who lived by plunder. Turpin and Bradshaw beset the Great North Road; Duval, Macheath, Maclean, and hundreds of
notorious highwaymen infested Hounslow Heath, Finchley Common, Shooter's Hill, and all the approaches to the metropolis. A very common sight then, was a gibbet erected by the roadside, with the skeleton of some malefactor hanging from it in
chains; and " Hangman's-lanes" were especially numerous in the neighbourhood of London.*[15] It was considered most unsafe to travel after dark, and when the first "night coach" was started, the risk was thought too great, and it was not patronised.

[Image] The Night Coach

Travellers armed themselves on setting out upon a journey as if they were going to battle, and a blunderbuss was considered as indispensable for a coachman as a whip. Dorsetshire and Hampshire, like most other counties, were beset with gangs of
highwaymen; and when the Grand Duke Cosmo set out from Dorchester to travel to London in 1669, he was "convoyed by a great many horse-soldiers belonging to the militia of the county, to secure him from robbers."*[16]

Thoresby, in his Diary, alludes with awe to his having passed safely "the great common where Sir Ralph Wharton slew the highwayman," and he also makes special mention of Stonegate Hole, "a notorious robbing place" near Grantham. Like every
other traveller, that good man carried loaded pistols in his bags, and on one occasion he was thrown into great consternation near Topcliffe, in Yorkshire, on missing them, believing that they had been abstracted by some designing rogues at the inn where
he had last slept.*[17] No wonder that, before setting out on a journey in those days, men were accustomed to make their wills.

When Mrs. Calderwood, of Coltness, travelled from Edinburgh to London in 1756, she relates in her Diary that she travelled in her own postchaise, attended by John Rattray, her stout serving man, on horseback, with pistols at his holsters, and a good
broad sword by his side. The lady had also with her in the carriage a case of pistols, for use upon an emergency. Robberies were then of frequent occurrence in the neighbourhood of Bawtry, in Yorkshire; and one day a suspicious-looking character, whom
they took to be a highwayman, made his appearance; but "John Rattray talking about powder and ball to the postboy, and showing his whanger, the fellow made off" Mrs. Calderwood started from Edinburgh on the 3rd of June, when the roads were dry
and the weather was fine, and she reached London on the evening of the 10th, which was considered a rapid journey in those days.

The danger, however, from footpads and highwaymen was not greatest in remote country places, but in and about the metropolis itself. The proprietors of Bellsize House and gardens, in the Hampstead-road, then one of the principal places of
amusement, had the way to London patrolled during the season by twelve "lusty fellows;" and Sadler's Wells, Vauxhall, and Ranelagh advertised similar advantages. Foot passengers proceeding towards Kensington and Paddington in the evening, would
wait until a sufficiently numerous band had collected to set footpads at defiance, and then they started in company at known intervals, of which a bell gave due warning. Carriages were stopped in broad daylight in Hyde Park, and even in Piccadilly itself,
and pistols presented at the breasts of fashionable people, who were called upon to deliver up their purses. Horace Walpole relates a number of curious instances of this sort, he himself having been robbed in broad day, with Lord Eglinton, Sir Thomas
Robinson, Lady Albemarle, and many more. A curious robbery of the Portsmouth mail, in 1757, illustrates the imperfect postal communication of the period. The boy who carried the post had dismounted at Hammersmith, about three miles from Hyde
Park Corner, and called for beer, when some thieves took the opportunity of cutting the mail-bag from off the horse's crupper and got away undiscovered!

The means adopted for the transport of merchandise were as tedious and difficult as those ordinarily employed for the conveyance of passengers. Corn and wool were sent to market on horses' backs,*[18] manure was carried to the fields in panniers,
and fuel was conveyed from the moss or the forest in the same way. During the winter months, the markets were inaccessible; and while in some localities the supplies of food were distressingly deficient, in others the superabundance actually rotted from
the impossibility of consuming it or of transporting it to places where it was needed. The little coal used in the southern counties was principally sea-borne, though pack-horses occasionally carried coal inland for the supply of the blacksmiths' forges.
When Wollaton Hall was built by John of Padua for Sir Francis Willoughby in 1580, the stone was all brought on horses' backs from Ancaster, in Lincolnshire, thirty-five miles distant, and they loaded back with coal, which was taken in exchange for the
stone.

[Image] The Pack-horse Convoy

The little trade which existed between one part of the kingdom and another was carried on by means of packhorses, along roads little better than bridle-paths. These horses travelled in lines, with the bales or panniers strapped across their backs. The
foremost horse bore a bell or a collar of bells, and was hence called the "bell-horse." He was selected because of his sagacity; and by the tinkling of the bells he carried, the movements of his followers were regulated. The bells also gave notice of the
approach of the convoy to those who might be advancing from the opposite direction. This was a matter of some importance, as in many parts of the path there was not room for two loaded horses to pass each other, and quarrels and fights between the
drivers of the pack-horse trains were frequent as to which of the meeting convoys was to pass down into the dirt and allow the other to pass along the bridleway. The pack-horses not only carried merchandise but passengers, and at certain times scholars
proceeding to and from Oxford and Cambridge. When Smollett went from Glasgow to London, he travelled partly on pack-horse, partly by waggon, and partly on foot; and the adventures which he described as having befallen Roderick Random are
supposed to have been drawn in a great measure from his own experiences during; the journey.

A cross-country merchandise traffic gradually sprang up between the northern counties, since become pre-eminently the manufacturing districts of England; and long lines of pack-horses laden with bales of wool and cotton traversed the hill ranges
which divide Yorkshire from Lancashire. Whitaker says that as late as 1753 the roads near Leeds consisted of a narrow hollow way little wider than a ditch, barely allowing of the passage of a vehicle drawn in a single line; this deep narrow road being
flanked by an elevated causeway covered with flags or boulder stones. When travellers encountered each other on this narrow track, they often tried to wear out each other's patience rather than descend into the dirt alongside. The raw wool and bale goods
of the district were nearly all carried along these flagged ways on the backs of single horses; and it is difficult to imagine the delay, the toil, and the perils by which the conduct of the traffic was attended. On horseback before daybreak and long after
nightfall, these hardy sons of trade pursued their object with the spirit and intrepidity of foxhunters; and the boldest of their country neighbours had no reason to despise either their horsemanship or their courage.*[19] The Manchester trade was carried on
in the same way. The chapmen used to keep gangs of pack-horses, which accompanied them to all the principal towns, bearing their goods in packs, which they sold to their customers, bringing back sheep's wool and other raw materials of manufacture.

The only records of this long-superseded mode of communication are now to be traced on the signboards of wayside public-houses. Many of the old roads still exist in Yorkshire and Lancashire; but all that remains of the former traffic is the pack-horse
still painted on village sign-boards — things as retentive of odd bygone facts as the picture-writing of the ancient Mexicans.*[20]

Footnotes for Chapter II.

*[1] King Henry the Fourth (Part I.), Act II. Scene 1.

*[2] Part of the riding road along which the Queen was accustomed to pass on horseback between her palaces at Greenwich and Eltham is still in existence, a little to the south of Morden College, Blackheath. It winds irregularly through the fields,
broad in some places, and narrow in others. Probably it is very little different from what it was when used as a royal road. It is now very appropriately termed "Muddy Lane."

*[3] 'Depeches de La Mothe Fenelon,' 8vo., 1858. Vol. i. p. 27.

*[4] Nichols's ' Progresses,' vol. ii., 309.

*[5] The title of Mace's tract (British Museum) is "The Profit, Conveniency, and Pleasure for the whole nation: being a short rational Discourse lately presented to his Majesty concerning the Highways of England: their badness, the causes thereof, the
reasons of these causes, the impossibility of ever having them well mended according to the old way of mending: but may most certainly be done, and for ever so maintained (according to this NEW WAY) substantially and with very much ease, &c., &c.
Printed for the public good in the year 1675."

*[6] See Archaelogia, xx., pp. 443-76.

*[7] "4th May, 1714. Morning: we dined at Grantham, had the annual solemnity (this being the first time the coach passed the road in May), and the coachman and horses being decked with ribbons and flowers, the town music and young people in
couples before us; we lodged at Stamford, a scurvy, dear town. 5th May: had other passengers, which, though females, were more chargeable with wine and brandy than the former part of the journey, wherein we had neither; but the next day we gave
them leave to treat themselves." —Thoresby's 'Diary,' vol. ii., 207.

*[8] "May 22, 1708. At York. Rose between three and four, the coach being hasted by Captain Crome (whose company we had) upon the Queen's business, that we got to Leeds by noon; blessed be God for mercies to me and my poor family."—
Thoresby's 'Diary,' vol. ii., 7.

*[9] Thoresby's 'Diary,' vol. i.,295.

*[10] Waylen's 'Marlborough.'

*[11] Reprinted in the 'Harleian Miscellany,' vol. viii., p. 547. supposed to have been written by one John Gressot, of the Charterhouse.

*[12] There were other publications of the time as absurd (viewed by the light of the present day) as Gressot's. Thus, "A Country Tradesman," addressing the public in 1678, in a pamphlet entitled 'The Ancient Trades decayed, repaired again,—wherein
are declared the several abuses that have utterly impaired all the ancient trades in the Kingdom,' urges that the chief cause of the evil had been the setting up of Stage-coaches some twenty years before. Besides the reasons for suppressing; them set forth in
the treatise referred to in the text, he says, "Were it not' for them (the Stage-coaches), there would be more Wine, Beer, and Ale, drunk in the Inns than is now, which would be a means to augment the King's Custom and Excise. Furthermore they hinder
the breed of horses in this kingdom [the same argument was used against Railways], because many would be necessitated to keep a good horse that keeps none now. Seeing, then, that there are few that are gainers by them, and that they are against the
common and general good of the Nation, and are only a conveniency to some that have occasion to go to London, who might still have the same wages as before these coaches were in use, therefore there is good reason they should be suppressed. Not but
that it may be lawful to hire a coach upon occasion, but that it should be unlawful only to keep a coach that should go long journeys constantly, from one stage or place to another, upon certain days of the week as they do now"— p. 27.

*[13] Roberts's 'Social History of the Southern Counties,' p. 494. Little more than a century ago, we find the following advertisement of a Newcastle flying coach:— "May 9, 1734.—A coach will set out towards the end of next week for London, or any
place on the road. To be performed in nine days,—being three days sooner than any other coach that travels the road; for which purpose eight stout horses are stationed at proper distances."

*[14] In 1710 a Manchester manufacturer taking his family up to London, hired a coach for the whole way, which, in the then state of the roads, must have made it a journey of probably eight or ten days. And, in 1742, the system of travelling had so
little improved, that a lady, wanting to come with her niece from Worcester to Manchester, wrote to a friend in the latter place to send her a hired coach, because the man knew the road, having brought from thence a family some time before."—Aikin's
'Manchester.'

*[15] Lord Campbell mentions the remarkable circumstance that Popham, afterwards Lord Chief Justice in the reign of Elizabeth, took to the road in early life, and robbed travellers on Gad's Hill. Highway robbery could not, however, have been
considered a very ignominious pursuit at that time, as during Popham's youth a statute was made by which, on a first conviction for robbery, a peer of the realm or lord of parliament was entitled to have benefit of clergy, "though he cannot read!" What is
still more extraordinary is, that Popham is supposed to have continued in his course as 'a highwayman even after he was called to the Bar. This seems to have been quite notorious, for when he was made Serjeant the wags reported that he served up some
wine destined for an Alderman of London, which he had intercepted on its way from Southampton.—Aubrey, iii., 492.—Campbell's 'Chief Justices,' i., 210.

*[16] Travels of Cosmo the Third, Grand Duke of Tuscany,' p. 147.

*[17] "It is as common a custom, as a cunning policie in thieves, to place chamberlains in such great inns where cloathiers and graziers do lye; and by their large bribes to infect others, who were not of their own preferring; who noting your purses
when you draw them, they'l gripe your cloak-bags, and feel the weight, and so inform the master thieves of what they think, and not those alone, but the Host himself is oft as base as they, if it be left in charge with them all night; he to his roaring guests
either gives item, or shews the purse itself, who spend liberally, in hope of a speedie recruit." See 'A Brief yet Notable Discovery of Housebreakers,' &c., 1659. See also 'Street Robberies Considered; a Warning for Housekeepers,' 1676; 'Hanging not
Punishment Enough,' 1701; &c.

*[18] The food of London was then principally brought to town in panniers. The population being comparatively small, the feeding of London was still practicable in this way; besides, the city always possessed the great advantage of the Thames, which
secured a supply of food by sea. In 'The Grand Concern of England Explained,' it is stated that the hay, straw, beans, peas, and oats, used in London, were principally raised within a circuit of twenty miles of the metropolis; but large quantities were also
brought from Henley-on-thames and other western parts, as well as from below Gravesend, by water; and many ships laden with beans came from Hull, and with oats from Lynn and Boston.

*[19] 'Loides and Elmete, by T.D. Whitaker, LL.D., 1816, p. 81. Notwithstanding its dangers, Dr. Whitaker seems to have been of opinion that the old mode of travelling was even safer than that which immediately followed it; "Under the old state of
roads and manners," he says, "it was impossible that more than one death could happen at once; what, by any possibility, could take place analogous to a race betwixt two stage-coaches, in which the lives of thirty or forty distressed and helpless
individuals are at the mercy of two intoxicated brutes?"

*[20] In the curious collection of old coins at the Guildhall there are several halfpenny tokens issued by the proprietors of inns bearing the sign of the pack-horse, Some of these would indicate that packhorses were kept for hire. We append a couple of
illustrations of these curious old coins.

[Image]

CHAPTER III.

MANNERS AND CUSTOMS INFLUENCED BY THE STATE OF THE ROADS.

While the road communications of the country remained thus imperfect, the people of one part of England knew next to nothing of the other. When a shower of rain had the effect of rendering the highways impassable, even horsemen were cautious in
venturing far from home. But only a very limited number of persons could then afford to travel on horseback. The labouring people journeyed on foot, while the middle class used the waggon or the coach. But the amount of intercourse between the people
of different districts —then exceedingly limited at all times—was, in a country so wet as England, necessarily suspended for all classes during the greater part of the year.

The imperfect communication existing between districts had the effect of perpetuating numerous local dialects, local prejudices, and local customs, which survive to a certain extent to this day; though they are rapidly disappearing, to the regret of many,
under the influence of improved facilities for travelling. Every village had its witches, sometimes of different sorts, and there was scarcely an old house but had its white lady or moaning old man with a long beard. There were ghosts in the fens which
walked on stilts, while the sprites of the hill country rode on flashes of fire. But the village witches and local ghosts have long since disappeared, excepting perhaps in a few of the less penetrable districts, where they may still survive. It is curious to find
that down even to the beginning of the seventeenth century, the inhabitants of the southern districts of the island regarded those of the north as a kind of ogres. Lancashire was supposed to be almost impenetrable— as indeed it was to a considerable
extent,—and inhabited by a half-savage race. Camden vaguely described it, previous to his visit in 1607, as that part of the country " lying beyond the mountains towards the Western Ocean." He acknowledged that he approached the Lancashire people
"with a kind of dread," but determined at length "to run the hazard of the attempt," trusting in the Divine assistance. Camden was exposed to still greater risks in his survey of Cumberland. When he went into that county for the purpose of exploring the
remains of antiquity it contained for the purposes of his great work, he travelled along the line of the Roman Wall as far as Thirlwall castle, near Haltwhistle; but there the limits of civilization and security ended; for such was the wildness of the country
and of its lawless inhabitants beyond, that he was obliged to desist from his pilgrimage, and leave the most important and interesting objects of his journey unexplored.

About a century later, in 1700, the Rev. Mr. Brome, rector of Cheriton in Kent, entered upon a series of travels in England as if it had been a newly-discovered country. He set out in spring so soon as the roads had become passable. His friends
convoyed him on the first stage of his journey, and left him, commending him to the Divine protection. He was, however, careful to employ guides to conduct him from one place to another, and in the course of his three years' travels he saw many new
and wonderful things. He was under the necessity of suspending his travels when the winter or wet weather set in, and to lay up, like an arctic voyager, for several months, until the spring came round again. Mr. Brome passed through Northumberland into
Scotland, then down the western side of the island towards Devonshire, where he found the farmers gathering in their corn on horse-back, the roads being so narrow that it was impossible for them to use waggons. He desired to travel into Cornwall, the
boundaries of which he reached, but was prevented proceeding farther by the rains, and accordingly he made the best of his way home.*[1] The vicar of Cheriton was considered a wonderful man in his day,— almost as as venturous as we should now
regard a traveller in Arabia. Twenty miles of slough, or an unbridged river between two parishes, were greater impediments to intercourse than the Atlantic Ocean now is between England and America. Considerable towns situated in the same county,
were then more widely separated, for practical purposes, than London and Glasgow are at the present day. There were many districts which travellers never visited, and where the appearance of a stranger produced as great an excitement as the arrival of a
white man in an African village.*[2]

The author of 'Adam Bede' has given us a poet's picture of the leisure of last century, which has "gone where the spinning-wheels are gone, and the pack-horses, and the slow waggons, and the pedlars who brought bargains to the door on sunny
afternoons. "Old Leisure" lived chiefly in the country, among pleasant seats and homesteads, and was fond of sauntering by the fruit-tree walls, and scenting the apricots when they were warmed by the morning sunshine, or sheltering himself under the
orchard boughs at noon, when the summer pears were falling." But this picture has also its obverse side. Whole generations then lived a monotonous, ignorant, prejudiced, and humdrum life. They had no enterprize, no energy, little industry, and were
content to die where they were born. The seclusion in which they were compelled to live, produced a picturesqueness of manners which is pleasant to look back upon, now that it is a thing of the past; but it was also accompanied with a degree of
grossness and brutality much less pleasant to regard, and of which the occasional popular amusements of bull-running, cock-fighting, cock-throwing, the saturnalia of Plough-Monday, and such like, were the fitting exponents.

People then knew little except of their own narrow district. The world beyond was as good as closed against them. Almost the only intelligence of general affairs which reached them was communicated by pedlars and packmen, who were accustomed
to retail to their customers the news of the day with their wares; or, at most, a newsletter from London, after it had been read nearly to pieces at the great house of the district, would find its way to the village, and its driblets of information would thus
become diffused among the little community. Matters of public interest were long in becoming known in the remoter districts of the country. Macaulay relates that the death of Queen Elizabeth was not heard of in some parts of Devon until the courtiers of
her successor had ceased to wear mourning for her. The news of Cromwell's being made Protector only reached Bridgewater nineteen days after the event, when the bells were set a-ringing; and the churches in the Orkneys continued to put up the usual
prayers for James II. three months after he had taken up his abode at St. Germains. There were then no shops in the smaller towns or villages, and comparatively few in the larger; and these were badly furnished with articles for general use. The country
people were irregularly supplied by hawkers, who sometimes bore their whole stook upon their back, or occasionally on that of their pack-horses. Pots, pans, and household utensils were sold from door to door. Until a comparatively recent period, the
whole of the pottery-ware manufactured in Staffordshire was hawked about and disposed of in this way. The pedlars carried frames resembling camp-stools, on which they were accustomed to display their wares when the opportunity occurred for
showing them to advantage. The articles which they sold were chiefly of a fanciful kind—ribbons, laces, and female finery; the housewives' great reliance for the supply of general clothing in those days being on domestic industry.

Every autumn, the mistress of the household was accustomed to lay in a store of articles sufficient to serve for the entire winter. It was like laying in a stock of provisions and clothing for a siege during the time that the roads were closed. The greater
part of the meat required for winter's use was killed and salted down at Martinmas, while stockfish and baconed herrings were provided for Lent. Scatcherd says that in his district the clothiers united in groups of three or four, and at the Leeds winter fair
they would purchase an ox, which, having divided, they salted and hung the pieces for their winter's food.*[3] There was also the winter's stock of firewood to be provided, and the rushes with which to strew the floors—carpets being a comparatively
modern invention; besides, there was the store of wheat and barley for bread, the malt for ale, the honey for sweetening (then used for sugar), the salt, the spiceries, and the savoury herbs so much employed in the ancient cookery. When the stores were
laid in, the housewife was in a position to bid defiance to bad roads for six months to come. This was the case of the well-to-do; but the poorer classes, who could not lay in a store for winter, were often very badly off both for food and firing, and in many
hard seasons they literally starved. But charity was active in those days, and many a poor man's store was eked out by his wealthier neighbour.

When the household supply was thus laid in, the mistress, with her daughters and servants, sat down to their distaffs and spinning-wheels; for the manufacture of the family clothing was usually the work of the winter months. The fabrics then worn
were almost entirely of wool, silk and cotton being scarcely known. The wool, when not grown on the farm, was purchased in a raw state, and was carded, spun, dyed, and in many cases woven at home: so also with the linen clothing, which, until quite a
recent date, was entirely the produce of female fingers and household spinning-wheels. This kind of work occupied the winter months, occasionally alternated with knitting, embroidery, and tapestry work. Many of our country houses continue to bear
witness to the steady industry of the ladies of even the highest ranks in those times, in the fine tapestry hangings with which the walls of many of the older rooms in such mansions are covered.

Among the humbler classes, the same winter's work went on. The women sat round log fires knitting, plaiting, and spinning by fire-light, even in the daytime. Glass had not yet come into general use, and the openings in the wall which in summer-time
served for windows, had necessarily to be shut close with boards to keep out the cold, though at the same time they shut out the light. The chimney, usually of lath and plaster, ending overhead in a cone and funnel for the smoke, was so roomy in old
cottages as to accommodate almost the whole family sitting around the fire of logs piled in the reredosse in the middle, and there they carried on their winter's work.

Such was the domestic occupation of women in the rural districts in olden times; and it may perhaps be questioned whether the revolution in our social system, which has taken out of their hands so many branches of household manufacture and useful
domestic employment, be an altogether unmixed blessing.

Winter at an end, and the roads once more available for travelling, the Fair of the locality was looked forward to with interest. Fairs were among the most important institutions of past times, and were rendered necessary by the imperfect road
communications. The right of holding them was regarded as a valuable privilege, conceded by the sovereign to the lords of the manors, who adopted all manner of devices to draw crowds to their markets. They were usually held at the entrances to valleys
closed against locomotion during winter, or in the middle of rich grazing districts, or, more frequently, in the neighbourhood of famous cathedrals or churches frequented by flocks of pilgrims. The devotion of the people being turned to account, many of
the fairs were held on Sundays in the churchyards; and almost in every parish a market was instituted on the day on which the parishioners were called together to do honour to their patron saint.

The local fair, which was usually held at the beginning or end of winter, often at both times, became the great festival as well as market of the district; and the business as well as the gaiety of the neighbourhood usually centred on such occasions. High
courts were held by the Bishop or Lord of the Manor, to accommodate which special buildings were erected, used only at fair time. Among the fairs of the first class in England were Winchester, St. Botolph's Town (Boston), and St. Ives. We find the great
London merchants travelling thither in caravans, bearing with them all manner of goods, and bringing back the wool purchased by them in exchange.

Winchester Great Fair attracted merchants from all parts of Europe. It was held on the hill of St. Giles, and was divided into streets of booths, named after the merchants of the different countries who exposed their wares in them. "The passes through
the great woody districts, which English merchants coming from London and the West would be compelled to traverse, were on this occasion carefully guarded by mounted 'serjeants-at-arms,' since the wealth which was being conveyed to St. Giles's-hill
attracted bands of outlaws from all parts of the country."*[4] Weyhill Fair, near Andover, was another of the great fairs in the same district, which was to the West country agriculturists and clothiers what Winchester St. Giles's Fair was to the general
merchants.

The principal fair in the northern districts was that of St. Botolph's Town (Boston), which was resorted to by people from great distances to buy and sell commodities of various kinds. Thus we find, from the 'Compotus' of Bolton Priory,*[5] that the
monks of that house sent their wool to St. Botolph's Fair to be sold, though it was a good hundred miles distant; buying in return their winter supply of groceries, spiceries, and other necessary articles. That fair, too, was often beset by robbers, and on one
occasion a strong party of them, under the disguise of monks, attacked and robbed certain booths, setting fire to the rest; and such was the amount of destroyed wealth, that it is said the veins of molten gold and silver ran along the streets.

The concourse of persons attending these fairs was immense. The nobility and gentry, the heads of the religions houses, the yeomanry and the commons, resorted to them to buy and sell all manner of agricultural produce. The farmers there sold their
wool and cattle, and hired their servants; while their wives disposed of the surplus produce of their winter's industry, and bought their cutlery, bijouterie, and more tasteful articles of apparel. There were caterers there for all customers; and stuffs and wares
were offered for sale from all countries. And in the wake of this business part of the fair there invariably followed a crowd of ministers to the popular tastes— quack doctors and merry andrews, jugglers and minstrels, singlestick players, grinners through
horse-collars, and sportmakers of every kind.

Smaller fairs were held in most districts for similar purposes of exchange. At these the staples of the locality were sold and servants usually hired. Many were for special purposes—cattle fairs, leather fairs, cloth fairs, bonnet fairs, fruit fairs. Scatcherd
says that less than a century ago a large fair was held between Huddersfield and Leeds, in a field still called Fairstead, near Birstal, which used to be a great mart for fruit, onions, and such like; and that the clothiers resorted thither from all the country
round to purchase the articles, which were stowed away in barns, and sold at booths by lamplight in the morning.*[6] Even Dartmoor had its fair, on the site of an ancient British village or temple near Merivale Bridge, testifying to its great antiquity; for it
is surprising how an ancient fair lingers about the place on which it has been accustomed to be held, long after the necessity for it has ceased. The site of this old fair at Merivale Bridge is the more curious, as in its immediate neighbourhood, on the road
between Two Bridges and Tavistock, is found the singular-looking granite rock, bearing so remarkable a resemblance to the Egyptian sphynx, in a mutilated state. It is of similarly colossal proportions, and stands in a district almost as lonely as that in
which the Egyptian sphynx looks forth over the sands of the Memphean Desert.*[7]

[Image] Site of an ancient British village and fair on Dartmoor.

The last occasion on which the fair was held in this secluded spot was in the year 1625, when the plague raged at Tavistock; and there is a part of the ground, situated amidst a line of pillars marking a stone avenue—a characteristic feature of the ancient
aboriginal worship—which is to this day pointed out and called by the name of the "Potatoe market."

But the glory of the great fairs has long since departed. They declined with the extension of turnpikes, and railroads gave them their death-blow. Shops now exist in every little town and village, drawing their supplies regularly by road and canal from
the most distant parts. St. Bartholomew, the great fair of London,*[8] and Donnybrook, the great fair of Dublin, have been suppressed as nuisances; and nearly all that remains of the dead but long potent institution of the Fair, is the occasional exhibition
at periodic times in country places, of pig-faced ladies, dwarfs, giants, double-bodied calves, and such-like wonders, amidst a blatant clangour of drums, gongs, and cymbals. Like the sign of the Pack-Horse over the village inn door, the modern village
fair, of which the principal article of merchandise is gingerbread-nuts, is but the vestige of a state of things that has long since passed away.

There were, however, remote and almost impenetrable districts which long resisted modern inroads. Of such was Dartmoor, which we have already more than once referred to. The difficulties of road-engineering in that quarter, as well as the sterility of
a large proportion of the moor, had the effect of preventing its becoming opened up to modern traffic; and it is accordingly curious to find how much of its old manners, customs, traditions, and language has been preserved. It looks like a piece of England
of the Middle Ages, left behind on the march. Witches still hold their sway on Dartmoor, where there exist no less than three distinct kinds— white, black, and grey,*[9]—and there are still professors of witchcraft, male as well as female, in most of the
villages.

As might be expected, the pack-horses held their ground in Dartmoor the longest, and in some parts of North Devon they are not yet extinct. When our artist was in the neighbourhood, sketching the ancient bridge on the moor and the site of the old fair,
a farmer said to him, "I well remember the train of pack-horses and the effect of their jingling bells on the silence of Dartmoor. My grandfather, a respectable farmer in the north of Devon, was the first to use a 'butt' (a square box without wheels, dragged
by a horse) to carry manure to field; he was also the first man in the district to use an umbrella, which on Sundays he hung in the church-porch, an object of curiosity to the villagers." We are also informed by a gentleman who resided for some time at
South Brent', on the borders of the Moor, that the introduction of the first cart in that district is remembered by many now living, the bridges having been shortly afterwards widened to accommodate the wheeled vehicles.

The primitive features of this secluded district are perhaps best represented by the interesting little town of Chagford, situated in the valley of the North Teign, an ancient stannary and market town backed by a wide stretch of moor. The houses of the
place are built of moor stone—grey, venerable-looking, and substantial—some with projecting porch and parvise room over, and granite-mullioned windows; the ancient church, built of granite, with a stout old steeple of the same material, its embattled
porch and granite-groined vault springing from low columns with Norman-looking capitals, forming the sturdy centre of this ancient town clump.

A post-chaise is still a phenomenon in Chagford, the roads and lanes leading to it being so steep and rugged as to be ill adapted for springed vehicles of any sort. The upland road or track to Tavistock scales an almost precipitous hill, and though well
enough adapted for the pack-horse of the last century, it is quite unfitted for the cart and waggon traffic of this. Hence the horse with panniers maintains its ground in the Chagford district; and the double-horse, furnished with a pillion for the lady riding
behind, is still to be met with in the country roads.

Among the patriarchs of the hills, the straight-breasted blue coat may yet be seen, with the shoe fastened with buckle and strap as in the days when George III. was king; and old women are still found retaining the cloak and hood of their youth. Old
agricultural implements continue in use. The slide or sledge is seen in the fields; the flail, with its monotonous strokes, resounds from the barn-floors; the corn is sifted by the windstow—the wind merely blowing away the chaff from the grain when
shaken out of sieves by the motion of the hand on some elevated spot; the old wooden plough is still at work, and the goad is still used to urge the yoke of oxen in dragging it along.

[Image] The Devonshire Crooks

"In such a place as Chagford," says Mr. Rowe, "the cooper or rough carpenter will still find a demand for the pack-saddle, with its accompanying furniture of crooks, crubs, or dung-pots. Before the general introduction of carts, these rough and ready
contrivances were found of great utility in the various operations of husbandry, and still prove exceedingly convenient in situations almost, or altogether, inaccessible to wheel-carriages. The long crooks are used for the carriage of corn in sheaf from the
harvest-field to the mowstead or barn, for the removal of furze, browse, faggot-wood, and other light materials. The writer of one of the happiest effusions of the local muse,*[10] with fidelity to nature equal to Cowper or Crabbe, has introduced the figure
of a Devonshire pack-horse bending under the 'swagging load' of the high-piled crooks as an emblem of care toiling along the narrow and rugged path of life. The force and point of the imagery must be lost to those who have never seen (and, as in an
instance which came under my own knowledge, never heard of) this unique specimen of provincial agricultural machinery. The crooks are formed of two poles,*[11] about ten feet long, bent, when green, into the required curve, and when dried in that
shape are connected by horizontal bars. A pair of crooks, thus completed, is slung over the pack-saddle—one 'swinging on each side to make the balance true.' The short crooks, or crubs, are slung in a similar manner. These are of stouter fabric, and
angular shape, and are used for carrying logs of wood and other heavy materials. The dung-pots, as the name implies, were also much in use in past times, for the removal of dung and other manure from the farmyard to the fallow or plough lands. The
slide, or sledge, may also still occasionally be seen in the hay or corn fields, sometimes without, and in other cases mounted on low wheels, rudely but substantially formed of thick plank, such as might have brought the ancient Roman's harvest load to the
barn some twenty centuries ago."

Mrs. Bray says the crooks are called by the country people "Devil's tooth-picks." A correspondent informs us that the queer old crook-packs represented in our illustration are still in use in North Devon. He adds: "The pack-horses were so accustomed
to their position when travelling in line (going in double file) and so jealous of their respective places, that if one got wrong and took another's place, the animal interfered with would strike at the offender with his crooks."

Footnotes for Chapter III.

*[1] 'Three Years' Travels in England, Scotland, and Wales.' By James Brome, M.A., Rector of Cheriton, Kent. London, 1726.

*[2] The treatment the stranger received was often very rude. When William Hutton, of Birmingham, accompanied by another gentleman, went to view the field of Bosworth, in 1770, "the inhabitants," he says, "set their dogs at us in the street, merely
because we were strangers. Human figures not their own are seldom seen in these inhospitable regions. Surrounded with impassable roads, no intercourse with man to humanise the mind. nor commerce to smooth their rugged manners, they continue the
boors of Nature." In certain villages in Lancashire and Yorkshire, not very remote from large towns, the appearance of a stranger, down to a comparatively recent period, excited a similar commotion amongst the villagers, and the word would pass from
door to door, "Dost knaw'im?" "Naya." "Is 'e straunger?" "Ey, for sewer." "Then paus' 'im— 'Eave a duck [stone] at 'im— Fettle 'im!" And the "straunger" would straightway find the "ducks" flying about his head, and be glad to make his escape from the
village with his life.

*[3] Scatcherd, 'History of Morley.'

*[4] Murray's ' Handbook of Surrey, Hants, and Isle of Wight,' 168.

*[5] Whitaker's 'History of Craven.'

*[6] Scatcherd's 'History of Morley,' 226.

*[7] Vixen Tor is the name of this singular-looking rock. But it is proper to add, that its appearance is probably accidental, the head of the Sphynx being produced by the three angular blocks of rock seen in profile. Mr. Borlase, however, in his '
Antiquities of Cornwall,' expresses the opinion that the rock-basins on the summit of the rock were used by the Druids for purposes connected with their religious ceremonies.

*[8] The provisioning of London, now grown so populous, would be almost impossible but for the perfect system of roads now converging on it from all parts. In early times, London, like country places, had to lay in its stock of salt-provisions against
winter, drawing its supplies of vegetables from the country within easy reach of the capital. Hence the London market-gardeners petitioned against the extension of tumpike-roads about a century ago, as they afterwards petitioned against the extension of
railways, fearing lest their trade should be destroyed by the competition of country-grown cabbages. But the extension of the roads had become a matter of absolute necessity, in order to feed the huge and ever-increasing mouth of the Great Metropolis,
the population of which has grown in about two centuries from four hundred thousand to three millions. This enormous population has, perhaps, never at any time more than a fortnight's supply of food in stock, and most families not more than a few days;
yet no one ever entertains the slightest apprehension of a failure in the supply, or even of a variation in the price from day to day in consequence of any possible shortcoming. That this should be so, would be one of the most surprising things in the history
of modern London, but that it is sufficiently accounted for by the magnificent system of roads, canals, and railways, which connect it with the remotest corners of the kingdom. Modern London is mainly fed by steam. The Express Meat-Train, which runs
nightly from Aberdeen to London, drawn by two engines and makes the journey in twenty-four hours, is but a single illustration of the rapid and certain method by which modem London is fed. The north Highlands of Scotland have thus, by means of
railways, become grazing-grounds for the metropolis. Express fish trains from Dunbar and Eyemouth (Smeaton's harbours), augmented by fish-trucks from Cullercoats and Tynemouth on the Northumberland coast, and from Redcar, Whitby, and
Scarborough on the Yorkshire coast, also arrive in London every morning. And what with steam-vessels bearing cattle, and meat and fish arriving by sea, and canal-boats laden with potatoes from inland, and railway-vans laden with butter and milk drawn
from a wide circuit of country, and road-vans piled high with vegetables within easy drive of Covent Garden, the Great Mouth is thus from day to day regularly, satisfactorily, and expeditiously filled.

*[9] The white witches are kindly disposed, the black cast the "evil eye," and the grey are consulted for the discovery of theft, &c.

*[10] See 'The Devonshire Lane', above quoted

*[11] Willow saplings, crooked and dried in the required form.

CHAPTER IV.

ROADS AND TRAVELLING IN SCOTLAND IN THE LAST CENTURY.

The internal communications of Scotland, which Telford did so much in the course of his life to improve, were, if possible, even worse than those of England about the middle of last century. The land was more sterile, and the people were much poorer.
Indeed, nothing could be more dreary than the aspect which Scotland then presented. Her fields lay untilled, her mines unexplored, and her fisheries uncultivated. The Scotch towns were for the most part collections of thatched mud cottages, giving scant
shelter to a miserable population. The whole country was desponding, gaunt, and haggard, like Ireland in its worst times. The common people were badly fed and wretchedly clothed, those in the country for the most part living in huts with their cattle.
Lord Kaimes said of the Scotch tenantry of the early part of last century, that they were so benumbed by oppression and poverty that the most able instructors in husbandry could have made nothing of them. A writer in the 'Farmer's Magazine' sums up his
account of Scotland at that time in these words:—"Except in a few instances, it was little better than a barren waste."*[1]

The modern traveller through the Lothians—which now exhibit perhaps the finest agriculture in the world—will scarcely believe that less than a century ago these counties were mostly in the state in which Nature had left them. In the interior there was
little to be seen but bleak moors and quaking bogs. The chief part of each farm consisted of "out-field," or unenclosed land, no better than moorland, from which the hardy black cattle could scarcely gather herbage enough in winter to keep them from
starving. The "in-field" was an enclosed patch of illcultivated ground, on which oats and "bear," or barley, were grown; but the principal crop was weeds.

Of the small quantity of corn raised in the country, nine-tenths were grown within five miles of the coast; and of wheat very little was raised—not a blade north of the Lothians. When the first crop of that grain was tried on a field near Edinburgh, about
the middle of last century, people flocked to it as a wonder. Clover, turnips, and potatoes had not yet been introduced, and no cattle were fattened: it was with difficulty they could be kept alive.

All loads were as yet carried on horseback; but when the farm was too small, or the crofter too poor to keep a horse, his own or his wife's back bore the load. The horse brought peats from the bog, carried the oats or barley to market, and bore the
manure a-field. But the uses of manure were as yet so little understood that, if a stream were near, it was usually thrown in and floated away, and in summer it was burnt.

What will scarcely be credited, now that the industry of Scotland has become educated by a century's discipline of work, was the inconceivable listlessness and idleness of the people. They left the bog unreclaimed, and the swamp undrained. They
would not be at the trouble to enclose lands easily capable of cultivation. There was, perhaps, but little inducement on the part of the agricultural class to be industrious; for they were too liable to be robbed by those who preferred to be idle. Andrew
Fletcher, of Saltoun—commonly known as "The Patriot," because he was so strongly opposed to the union of Scotland with England*[2]— published a pamphlet, in 1698, strikingly illustrative of the lawless and uncivilized state of the country at that
time. After giving a dreadful picture of the then state of Scotland: two hundred thousand vagabonds begging from door to door and robbing and plundering the poor people,— "in years of plenty many thousands of them meeting together in the mountains,
where they feast and riot for many days; and at country weddings, markets, burials, and other like public occasions, they are to be seen, both men and women, perpetually drunk, cursing, blaspheming, and fighting together,"—he proceeded to urge that
every man of a certain estate should be obliged to take a proportionate number of these vagabonds and compel them to work for him; and further, that such serfs, with their wives and children, should be incapable of alienating their service from their
master or owner until he had been reimbursed for the money he had expended on them: in other words, their owner was to have the power of selling them. "The Patriot" was, however, aware that "great address, diligence, and severity" were required to
carry out his scheme; "for," said he, "that sort of people are so desperately wicked, such enemies of all work and labour, and, which is yet more amazing, so proud in esteeming their own condition above that which they will be sure to call Slavery, that
unless prevented by the utmost industry and diligence, upon the first publication of any orders necessary for putting in execution such a design, they will rather die with hunger in caves and dens, and murder their young children, than appear abroad to
have them and themselves taken into such service."*[3]

Although the recommendations of Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun were embodied in no Act of Parliament, the magistrates of some of the larger towns did not hesitate to kidnap and sell into slavery lads and men found lurking in the streets, which they
continued to do down to a comparatively recent period. This, however, was not so surprising as that at the time of which we are speaking, and, indeed, until the end of last century, there was a veritable slave class in Scotland—the class of colliers and
salters—who were bought and sold with the estates to which they belonged, as forming part of the stook. When they ran away, they were advertised for as negroes were in the American States until within the last few years. It is curious, in turning over an
old volume of the 'Scots Magazine,' to find a General Assembly's petition to Parliament for the abolition of slavery in America almost alongside the report of a trial of some colliers who had absconded from a mine near Stirling to which they belonged.
But the degraded condition of the home slaves then excited comparatively little interest. Indeed, it was not until the very last year of the last century that praedial slavery was abolished in Scotland—only three short reigns ago, almost within the memory
of men still living.*[4] The greatest resistance was offered to the introduction of improvements in agriculture, though it was only at rare intervals that these were attempted. There was no class possessed of enterprise or wealth. An idea of the general
poverty of the country may be inferred from the fact that about the middle of last century the whole circulating medium of the two Edinburgh banks—the only institutions of the kind then in Scotland—amounted to only 200,000L., which was sufficient
for the purposes of trade, commerce, and industry. Money was then so scarce that Adam Smith says it was not uncommon for workmen, in certain parts of Scotland, to carry nails instead of pence to the baker's or the alehouse. A middle class could
scarcely as yet be said to exist, or any condition between the starving cottiers and the impoverished proprietors, whose available means were principally expended in hard drinking.*[5]

The latter were, for the most part, too proud and too ignorant to interest themselves in the improvement of their estates; and the few who did so had very little encouragement to persevere. Miss Craig, in describing the efforts made by her father,
William Craig, laird of Arbigland, in Kirkcudbright, says, "The indolent obstinacy of the lower class of the people was found to be almost unconquerable. Amongst other instances of their laziness, I have heard him say that, upon the introduction of the
mode of dressing the grain at night which had been thrashed during the day, all the servants in the neighbourhood refused to adopt the measure, and even threatened to destroy the houses of their employers by fire if they continued to insist upon the
business. My father speedily perceived that a forcible remedy was required for the evil. He gave his servants the choice of removing the thrashed grain in the evening, or becoming inhabitants of Kirkcudbright gaol: they preferred the former alternative,
and open murmurings were no longer heard."*[6]

The wages paid to the labouring classes were then very low. Even in East Lothian, which was probably in advance of the other Scotch counties, the ordinary day's wage of a labouring man was only five pence in winter and six pence in summer. Their
food was wholly vegetable, and was insufficient in quantity as well as bad in quality. The little butcher's meat consumed by the better class was salted beef and mutton, stored up in Ladner time (between Michaelmas and Martinmas) for the year's
consumption. Mr. Buchan Hepburn says the Sheriff of East Lothian informed him that he remembered when not a bullock was slaughtered in Haddington market for a whole year, except at that time; and, when Sir David Kinloch, of Gilmerton sold ten
wedders to an Edinburgh butcher, he stipulated for three several terms to take them away, to prevent the Edinburgh market from being overstocked with fresh butcher's meat!*[7]

The rest of Scotland was in no better state: in some parts it was even worse. The rich and fertile county of Ayr, which now glories in the name of "the garden of Scotland," was for the most part a wild and dreary waste, with here and there a poor,
miserable, comfortless hut, where the farmer and his family lodged. There were no enclosures of land, except one or two about a proprietor's residence; and black cattle roamed at large over the face of the country. When an attempt was made to enclose
the lands for the purposes of agriculture, the fences were levelled by the dispossessed squatters. Famines were frequent among the poorer classes; the western counties not producing food enough for the sustenance of the inhabitants, few though they were
in number. This was also the case in Dumfries, where the chief part of the grain required for the population was brought in "tumbling-cars" from the sandbeds of Esk; "and when the waters were high by reason of spates [or floods], and there being no
bridges, so that the cars could not come with the meal, the tradesmen's wives might be seen in the streets of Dumfries, crying; because there was no food to be had."*[8]

The misery of the country was enormously aggravated by the wretched state of the roads. There were, indeed, scarcely any made roads throughout the country. Hence the communication between one town and another was always difficult, especially in
winter. There were only rough tracks across moors, and when one track became too deep, another alongside of it was chosen, and was in its turn abandoned, until the whole became equally impassable. In wet weather these tracks became "mere sloughs, in
which the carts or carriages had to slumper through in a half-swimming state, whilst, in times of drought it was a continual jolting out of one hole into another."*[9]

Such being the state of the highways, it will be obvious that very little communication could exist between one part of the country and another. Single-horse traffickers, called cadgers, plied between the country towns and the villages, supplying the
inhabitants with salt, fish, earthenware, and articles of clothing, which they carried in sacks or creels hung across their horses' backs. Even the trade between Edinburgh and Glasgow was carried on in the same primitive way, the principal route being
along the high grounds west of Boroughstoness, near which the remains of the old pack-horse road are still to be seen.

It was long before vehicles of any sort could be used on the Scotch roads. Rude sledges and tumbling-cars were employed near towns, and afterwards carts, the wheels of which were first made of boards. It was long before travelling by coach could be
introduced in Scotland. When Smollett travelled from Glasgow to Edinburgh on his way to London, in 1739, there was neither coach, cart, nor waggon on the road. He accordingly accompanied the pack-horse carriers as far as Newcastle, "sitting upon a
pack-saddle between two baskets, one of which," he says, "contained my goods in a knapsack."

In 1743 an attempt was made by the Town Council of Glasgow to set up a stage-coach or "lando." It was to be drawn by six horses, carry six passengers, and run between Glasgow and Edinburgh, a distance of forty-four miles, once a week in winter,
and twice a week in summer. The project, however, seems to have been thought too bold for the time, for the "lando" was never started. It was not until the year 1749 that the first public conveyance, called "The Glasgow and Edinburgh Caravan," was
started between the two cities, and it made the journey between the one place and the other in two days. Ten years later another vehicle was started, named "The Fly" because of its unusual speed, and it contrived to make the journey in rather less than a
day and a half.

About the same time, a coach with four horses was started between Haddington and Edinburgh, and it took a full winter's day to perform the journey of sixteen miles: the effort being to reach Musselburgh in time for dinner, and go into town in the
evening. As late as 1763 there was as only one stage-coach in all Scotland in communication with London, and that set out from Edinburgh only once a month. The journey to London occupied from ten to fifteen days, according to the state of the weather;
and those who undertook so dangerous a journey usually took the precaution of making their wills before starting.

When carriers' carts were established, the time occupied by them on the road will now appear almost incredible. Thus the common carrier between Selkirk and Edinburgh, a distance of only thirty-eight miles, took about a fortnight to perform the double
journey. Part of the road lay along Gala Water, and in summer time, when the river-bed was dry, the carrier used it as a road. The townsmen of this adventurous individual, on the morning of his way-going, were accustomed to turn out and take leave of
him, wishing him a safe return from his perilous journey. In winter the route was simply impracticable, and the communication was suspended until the return of dry weather.

While such was the state of the communications in the immediate neighbourhood of the metropolis of Scotland, matters were, if possible, still worse in the remoter parts of the country. Down to the middle of last century, there were no made roads of
any kind in the south-western counties. The only inland trade was in black cattle; the tracks were impracticable for vehicles, of which there were only a few—carts and tumbling-cars—employed in the immediate neighbourhood of the towns. When the
Marquis of Downshire attempted to make a journey through Galloway in his coach, about the year 1760, a party of labourers with tools attended him, to lift the vehicle out of the ruts and put on the wheels when it got dismounted. Even with this
assistance, however, his Lordship occasionally stuck fast, and when within about three miles of the village of Creetown, near Wigton, he was obliged to send away the attendants, and pass the night in his coach on the Corse of Slakes with his family.

Matters were, of course, still worse in the Highlands, where the rugged character of the country offered formidable difficulties to the formation of practicable roads, and where none existed save those made through the rebel districts by General Wade
shortly after the rebellion of 1715. The people were also more lawless and, if possible, more idle, than those of the Lowland districts about the same period. The latter regarded their northern neighbours as the settlers in America did the Red Indians round
their borders—like so many savages always ready to burst in upon them, fire their buildings, and carry off their cattle.*[10]

Very little corn was grown in the neighbourhood of the Highlands, on account of its being liable to be reaped and carried off by the caterans, and that before it was ripe. The only method by which security of a certain sort could be obtained was by the
payment of blackmail to some of the principal chiefs, though this was not sufficient to protect them against the lesser marauders. Regular contracts were drawn up between proprietors in the counties of Perth, Stirling, and Dumbarton, and the Macgregors,
in which it was stipulated that if less than seven cattle were stolen—which peccadillo was known as picking—no redress should be required; but if the number stolen exceeded seven—such amount of theft being raised to the dignity of lifting—then the
Macgregors were bound to recover. This blackmail was regularly levied as far south as Campsie—then within six miles of Glasgow, but now almost forming part of it—down to within a few months of the outbreak of the Rebellion of 1745.*[11]

Under such circumstances, agricultural improvement was altogether impossible. The most fertile tracts were allowed to lie waste, for men would not plough or sow where they had not the certain prospect of gathering in the crop. Another serious evil
was, that the lawless habits of their neighbours tended to make the Lowland borderers almost as ferocious as the Higlanders themselves. Feuds were of constant occurrence between neighbouring baronies, and even contiguous parishes; and the country
fairs, which were tacitly recognised as the occasions for settling quarrels, were the scenes of as bloody faction fights as were ever known in Ireland even in its worst days. When such was the state of Scotland only a century ago, what may we not hope for
from Ireland when the civilizing influences of roads, schools, and industry have made more general progress amongst her people?

Yet Scotland had not always been in this miserable condition. There is good reason to believe that as early as the thirteenth century, agriculture was in a much more advanced state than we find it to have been the eighteenth. It would appear from the
extant chartularies of monastic establishments, which then existed all over the Lowlands, that a considerable portion of their revenue was derived from wheat, which also formed no inconsiderable part of their living. The remarkable fact is mentioned by
Walter de Hemingford, the English historian, that when the castle of Dirleton, in East Lothian, was besieged by the army of Edward I., in the beginning of July, 1298, the men, being reduced to great extremities for provisions, were fain to subsist on the
pease and beans which they gathered in the fields.*[12] This statement is all the more remarkable on two accounts: first, that pease and beans should then have been so plentiful as to afford anything like sustenance for an army; and second, that they
should have been fit for use so early in the season, even allowing for the difference between the old and new styles in the reckoning of time. The magnificent old abbeys and churches of Scotland in early times also indicate that at some remote period a
degree of civilization and prosperity prevailed, from which the country had gradually fallen. The ruins of the ancient edifices of Melrose, Kilwinning, Aberborthwick, Elgin, and other religious establishments, show that architecture must then have made
great progress in the North, and lead us to the conclusion that the other arts had reached a like stage of advancement. This is borne out by the fact of the number of well-designed and well-built bridges of olden times which still exist in different parts of
Scotland. "And when we consider," says Professor Innes, "the long and united efforts required in the early state of the arts for throwing a bridge over any considerable river, the early occurrence of bridges may well be admitted as one of the best tests of
civilization and national prosperity."*[13] As in England, so in Scotland, the reclamation of lands, the improvement of agriculture, and the building of bridges were mainly due to the skill and industry of the old churchmen. When their ecclesiastical
organization was destroyed, the country speedily relapsed into the state from which they had raised it; and Scotland continued to lie in ruins almost till our own day, when it has again been rescued from barrenness, more effectually even than before, by
the combined influences of roads, education, and industry.

Footnotes for Chapter IV.

*[1] 'Farmer's Magazine,' 1803. No. xiii. p. 101.

*[2] Bad although the condition of Scotland was at the beginning of last century, there were many who believed that it would be made worse by the carrying of the Act of Union. The Earl of Wigton was one of these. Possessing large estates in the
county of Stirling, and desirous of taking every precaution against what he supposed to be impending ruin, he made over to his tenants, on condition that they continued to pay him their then low rents, his extensive estates in the parishes of Denny,
Kirkintulloch, and Cumbernauld, retaining only a few fields round the family mansion ['Farmer's Magazine,' 1808, No. xxxiv. p. 193]. Fletcher of Saltoun also feared the ruinous results of the Union, though he was less precipitate in his conduct than the
Earl of Wigton. We need scarcely say how entirely such apprehensions were falsified by the actual results.

*[3] 'Fletcher's Political Works,' London, 1737, p. 149. As the population of Scotland was then only about 1,200,000, the beggars of the country, according to the above account, must have constituted about one-sixth of the whole community.

*[4] Act 39th George III. c. 56. See 'Lord Cockburn's Memorials,' pp. 76-9. As not many persons may be aware how recent has been the abolition of slavery in Britain, the author of this book may mention the fact that he personally knew a man who had
been "born a slave in Scotland," to use his own words, and lived to tell it. He had resisted being transferred to another owner on the sale of the estate to which he was "bound," and refused to "go below," on which he was imprisoned in Edinburgh gaol,
where he lay for a considerable time. The case excited much interest, and probably had some effect in leading to the alteration in the law relating to colliers and salters which shortly after followed.

*[5] See 'Autobiography of Dr. Alexander Carlyle,' passim.

*[6] 'Farmer's Magazine.' June. 1811. No. xlvi. p. 155.

*[7] See Buchan Hepburn's 'General View of the Agriculture and Economy of East Lothian,' 1794, p. 55.

*[8]Letter of John Maxwell, in Appendix to Macdiarmid's 'Picture of Dumfries,' 1823

*[9] Robertson's 'Rural Recollections,' p. 38.

*[10] Very little was known of the geography of the Highlands down to the beginning of the seventeenth century The principal information on the subject being derived from Danish materials. It appears, however, that in 1608, one Timothy Pont, a
young man without fortune or patronage, formed the singular resolution of travelling over the whole of Scotland, with the sole view of informing himself as to the geography of the country, and he persevered to the end of his task through every kind of
difficulty; exploring 'all the islands with the zeal of a missionary, though often pillaged and stript of everything; by the then barbarous inhabitant's. The enterprising youth received no recognition nor reward for his exertions, and he died in obscurity,
leaving his maps and papers to his heirs. Fortunately, James I. heard of the existence of Pont's papers, and purchased them for public use. They lay, however, unused for a long time in the offices of the Scotch Court of Chancery, until they were at length
brought to light by Mr. Robert Gordon, of Straloch, who made them the basis of the first map of Scotland having any pretensions to accuracy that was ever published.

*[11] Mr. Grant, of Corrymorry, used to relate that his father, when speaking of the Rebellion of 1745, always insisted that a rising in the Highlands was absolutely necessary to give employment to the numerous bands of lawless and idle young men
who infested every property.—Anderson's 'Highlands and Islands of Scotland,' p. 432.

*[12] 'Lord Hailes Annals,' i., 379.

*[13] Professor Innes's 'Sketches of Early Scottish History.' The principal ancient bridges in Scotland were those over the Tay at Perth (erected in the thirteenth century) over the Esk at Brechin and Marykirk; over the Bee at Kincardine, O'Neil, and
Aberdeen; over the Don, near the same city; over the Spey at Orkhill; over the Clyde at Glasgow; over the Forth at Stirling; and over the Tyne at Haddington.

CHAPTER V.

ROADS AND TRAVELLING IN ENGLAND TOWARDS THE END OF LAST CENTURY.

The progress made in the improvement of the roads throughout England was exceedingly slow. Though some of the main throughfares were mended so as to admit of stage-coach travelling at the rate of from four to six miles an hour, the less
frequented roads continued to be all but impassable. Travelling was still difficult, tedious, and dangerous. Only those who could not well avoid it ever thought of undertaking a journey, and travelling for pleasure was out of the question. A writer in the
'Gentleman's Magazine' in 1752 says that a Londoner at that time would no more think of travelling into the west of England for pleasure than of going to Nubia.

But signs of progress were not awanting. In 1749 Birmingham started a stage-coach, which made the journey to London in three days.*[1] In 1754 some enterprising Manchester men advertised a "flying coach" for the conveyance of passengers
between that town and the metropolis; and, lest they should be classed with projectors of the Munchausen kind, they heralded their enterprise with this statement: "However incredible it may appear, this coach will actually (barring accidents) arrive in
London in four days and a half after leaving Manchester!"

Fast coaches were also established on several of the northern roads, though not with very extraordinary results as to speed. When John Scott, afterwards Lord Chancellor Eldon, travelled from Newcastle to Oxford in 1766, he mentions that he journeyed
in what was denominated "a fly," because of its rapid travelling; yet he was three or four days and nights on the road. There was no such velocity, however, as to endanger overturning or other mischief. On the panels of the coach were painted the
appropriate motto of Sat cito si sat bene—quick enough if well enough—a motto which the future Lord Chancellor made his own.*[2]

The journey by coach between London and Edinburgh still occupied six days or more, according to the state of the weather. Between Bath or Birmingham and London occupied between two and three days as late as 1763. The road across Hounslow
Heath was so bad, that it was stated before a Parliamentary Committee that it was frequently known to be two feet deep in mud. The rate of travelling was about six and a half miles an hour; but the work was so heavy that it "tore the horses' hearts out," as
the common saying went, so that they only lasted two or three years.

When the Bath road became improved, Burke was enabled, in the summer of 1774, to travel from London to Bristol, to meet the electors there, in little more than four and twenty hours; but his biographer takes care to relate that he "travelled with
incredible speed." Glasgow was still ten days' distance from the metropolis, and the arrival of the mail there was so important an event that a gun was fired to announce its coming in. Sheffield set up a "flying machine on steel springs" to London in 1760:
it "slept" the first night at the Black Man's Head Inn, Nottingham; the second at the Angel, Northampton; and arrived at the Swan with Two Necks, Lad-lane, on the evening of the third day. The fare was 1L. l7s., and 14 lbs. of luggage was allowed. But
the principal part of the expense of travelling was for living and lodging on the road, not to mention the fees to guards and drivers.

Though the Dover road was still one of the best in the kingdom, the Dover flying-machine, carrying only four passengers, took a long summer's day to perform the journey. It set out from Dover at four o'clock in the morning, breakfasted at the Red
Lion, Canterbury, and the passengers ate their way up to town at various inns on the road, arriving in London in time for supper. Smollett complained of the innkeepers along that route as the greatest set of extortioners in England. The deliberate style in
which journeys were performed may be inferred from the circumstance that on one occasion, when a quarrel took place between the guard and a passenger, the coach stopped to see them fight it out on the road.

Foreigners who visited England were peculiarly observant of the defective modes of conveyance then in use. Thus, one Don Manoel Gonzales, a Portuguese merchant, who travelled through Great Britain, in 1740, speaking of Yarmouth, says, "They
have a comical way of carrying people all over the town and from the seaside, for six pence. They call it their coach, but it is only a wheel-barrow, drawn by one horse, without any covering." Another foreigner, Herr Alberti, a Hanoverian professor of
theology, when on a visit to Oxford in 1750, desiring to proceed to Cambridge, found there was no means of doing so without returning to London and there taking coach for Cambridge. There was not even the convenience of a carrier's waggon between
the two universities. But the most amusing account of an actual journey by stage-coach that we know of, is that given by a Prussian clergyman, Charles H. Moritz, who thus describes his adventures on the road between Leicester and London in 1782:—

"Being obliged," he says, "to bestir myself to get back to London, as the time drew near when the Hamburgh captain with whom I intended to return had fixed his departure, I determined to take a place as far as Northampton
on the outside. But this ride from Leicester to Northampton I shall remember as long as I live.

"The coach drove from the yard through a part of the house. The inside passengers got in from the yard, but we on the outside were obliged to clamber up in the street, because we should have had no room for our heads to pass
under the gateway. My companions on the top of the coach were a farmer, a young man very decently dressed, and a black-a-moor. The getting up alone was at the risk of one's life, and when I was up I was obliged to sit just at
the corner of the coach, with nothing to hold by but a sort of little handle fastened on the side. I sat nearest the wheel, and the moment that we set off I fancied that I saw certain death before me. All I could do was to take still
tighter hold of the handle, and to be strictly careful to preserve my balance. The machine rolled along with prodigious rapidity over the stones through the town, and every moment we seemed to fly into the air, so much so that it
appeared to me a complete miracle that we stuck to the coach at all. But we were completely on the wing as often as we passed through a village or went down a hill.

"This continual fear of death at last became insupportable to me, and, therefore, no sooner were we crawling up a rather steep hill, and consequently proceeding slower than usual, then I carefully crept from the top of the coach,
and was lucky enough to get myself snugly ensconced in the basket behind. "'O,Sir, you will be shaken to death!' said the black-a-moor; but I heeded him not, trusting that he was exaggerating the unpleasantness of my new
situation. And truly, as long as we went on slowly up the hill it was easy and pleasant enough; and I was just on the point of falling asleep among the surrounding trunks and packages, having had no rest the night before, when on
a sudden the coach proceeded at a rapid rate down the hill. Then all the boxes, iron-nailed and copper-fastened, began, as it were, to dance around me; everything in the basket appeared to be alive, and every moment I received
such violent blows that I thought my last hour had come. The black-a-moor had been right, I now saw clearly; but repentance was useless, and I was obliged to suffer horrible torture for nearly an hour, which seemed to me an
eternity. At last we came to another hill, when, quite shaken to pieces, bleeding, and sore, I ruefully crept back to the top of the coach to my former seat. 'Ah, did I not tell you that you would be shaken to death?' inquired the black
man, when I was creeping along on my stomach. But I gave him no reply. Indeed, I was ashamed; and I now write this as a warning to all strangers who are inclined to ride in English stage-coaches, and take an outside at, or,
worse still, horror of horrors, a seat in the basket.

"From Harborough to Northampton I had a most dreadful journey. It rained incessantly, and as before we had been covered with dust, so now we were soaked with rain. My neighbour, the young man who sat next me in the
middle, every now and then fell asleep; and when in this state he perpetually bolted and rolled against me, with the whole weight of his body, more than once nearly pushing me from my seat, to which I clung with the last
strength of despair. My forces were nearly giving way, when at last, happily, we reached Northampton, on the evening of the 14th July, 1782, an ever-memorable day to me.

"On the next morning, I took an inside place for London. We started early in the morning. The journey from Northampton to the metropolis, however, I can scarcely call a ride, for it was a perpetual motion, or endless jolt from
one place to another, in a close wooden box, over what appeared to be a heap of unhewn stones and trunks of trees scattered by a hurricane. To make my happiness complete, I had three travelling companions, all farmers, who
slept so soundly that even the hearty knocks with which they hammered their heads against each other and against mine did not awake them. Their faces, bloated and discoloured by ale and brandy and the knocks aforesaid,
looked, as they lay before me, like so many lumps of dead flesh.

"I looked, and certainly felt, like a crazy fool when we arrived at London in the afternoon."*[3]

[Image] The Basket Coach, 1780.

Arthur Young, in his books, inveighs strongly against the execrable state of the roads in all parts of England towards the end of last century. In Essex he found the ruts "of an incredible depth," and he almost swore at one near Tilbury. "Of all the cursed
roads, "he says, "that ever disgraced this kingdom in the very ages of barbarism, none ever equalled that from Billericay to the King's Head at Tilbury. It is for near twelve miles so narrow that a mouse cannot pass by any carriage. I saw a fellow creep
under his waggon to assist me to lift, if possible, my chaise over a hedge. To add to all the infamous circumstances which concur to plague a traveller, I must not forget the eternally meeting with chalk waggons, themselves frequently stuck fast, till a
collection of them are in the same situation, and twenty or thirty horses may be tacked to each to draw them out one by one!"*[4] Yet will it be believed, the proposal to form a turnpike-road from Chelmsford to Tilbury was resisted "by the Bruins of the
country, whose horses were worried to death with bringing chalk through those vile roads!"

Arthur Young did not find the turnpike any better between Bury and Sudbury, in Suffolk: "I was forced to move as slow in it," he says, "as in any unmended lane in Wales. For, ponds of liquid dirt, and a scattering of loose flints just sufficient to lame
every horse that moves near them, with the addition of cutting vile grips across the road under the pretence of letting the water off, but without effect, altogether render at least twelve out of these sixteen miles as infamous a turnpike as ever was beheld."
Between Tetsworth and Oxford he found the so-called turnpike abounding in loose stones as large as one's head, full of holes, deep ruts, and withal so narrow that with great difficulty he got his chaise out of the way of the Witney waggons. "Barbarous"
and "execrable" are the words which he constantly employs in speaking of the roads; parish and turnpike, all seemed to be alike bad. From Gloucester to Newnham, a distance of twelve miles, he found a "cursed road," "infamously stony," with "ruts all
the way." From Newnham to Chepstow he noted another bad feature in the roads, and that was the perpetual hills; "for," he says, "you will form a clear idea of them if you suppose the country to represent the roofs of houses joined, and the road to run
across them." It was at one time even matter of grave dispute whether it would not cost as little money to make that between Leominster and Kington navigable as to make it hard. Passing still further west, the unfortunate traveller, who seems scarcely
able to find words to express his sufferings, continues:—

"But, my dear Sir, what am I to say of the roads in this country! the turnpikes! as they have the assurance to call them and the hardiness to make one pay for? From Chepstow to the half-way house between Newport and Cardiff
they continue mere rocky lanes, full of hugeous stones as big as one's horse, and abominable holes. The first six miles from Newport they were so detestable, and without either direction-posts or milestones, that I could not well
persuade myself I was on the turnpike, but had mistook the road, and therefore asked every one I met, who answered me, to my astonishment, 'Ya-as!' Whatever business carries you into this country, avoid it, at least till they have
good roads: if they were good, travelling would be very pleasant."*[5]

At a subsequent period Arthur Young visited the northern counties; but his account of the roads in that quarter is not more satisfactory. Between Richmond and Darlington he found them like to "dislocate his bones," being broken in many places into
deep holes, and almost impassable; "yet," says he, "the people will drink tea!" —a decoction against the use of which the traveller is found constantly declaiming. The roads in Lancashire made him almost frantic, and he gasped for words to express his
rage. Of the road between Proud Preston and Wigan he says: "I know not in the whole range of language terms sufficiently expressive to describe this infernal road. Let me most seriously caution all travellers who may accidentally propose to travel this
terrible country, to avoid it as they would the devil; for a thousand to one they break their necks or their limbs by overthrows or breakings-down.

They will here meet with ruts, which I actually measured, four feet deep, and floating with mud only from a wet summer. What, therefore, must it be after a winter? The only mending it receives is tumbling in some loose stones, which serve no other
purpose than jolting a carriage in the most intolerable manner. These are not merely opinions, but facts; for I actually passed three carts broken down in those eighteen miles of execrable memory."*[6]

It would even appear that the bad state of the roads in the Midland counties, about the same time, had nearly caused the death of the heir to the throne. On the 2nd of September, 1789, the Prince of Wales left Wentworth Hall, where he had been on a
visit to Earl Fitzwilliam, and took the road for London in his carriage. When about two miles from Newark the Prince's coach was overturned by a cart in a narrow part of the road; it rolled down a slope, turning over three times, and landed at the bottom,
shivered to pieces. Fortunately the Prince escaped with only a few bruises and a sprain; but the incident had no effect in stirring up the local authorities to make any improvement in the road, which remained in the same wretched state until a
comparatively recent period.

When Palmer's new mail-coaches were introduced, an attempt was made to diminish the jolting of the passengers by having the carriages hung upon new patent springs, but with very indifferent results. Mathew Boulton, the engineer, thus described
their effect upon himself in a journey he made in one of them from London into Devonshire, in 1787:—

"I had the most disagreeable journey I ever experienced the night after I left you, owing to the new improved patent coach, a vehicle loaded with iron trappings and the greatest complication of unmechanical contrivances
jumbled together, that I have ever witnessed. The coach swings sideways, with a sickly sway without any vertical spring; the point of suspense bearing upon an arch called a spring, though it is nothing of the sort, The severity of
the jolting occasioned me such disorder, that I was obliged to stop at Axminster and go to bed very ill. However, I was able next day to proceed in a post-chaise. The landlady in the London Inn, at Exeter, assured me that the
passengers who arrived every night were in general so ill that they were obliged to go supperless to bed; and, unless they go back to the old-fashioned coach, hung a little lower, the mail-coaches will lose all their custom."*[7]

We may briefly refer to the several stages of improvement —if improvement it could be called—in the most frequented highways of the kingdom, and to the action of the legislature with reference to the extension of turnpikes. The trade and industry of
the country had been steadily improving; but the greatest obstacle to their further progress was always felt to be the disgraceful state of the roads. As long ago as the year 1663 an Act was passed*[8] authorising the first toll-gates or turnpikes to be erected,
at which collectors were stationed to levy small sums from those using the road, for the purpose of defraying the needful expenses of their maintenance. This Act, however, only applied to a portion of the Great North Road between London and York, and
it authorised the new toll-bars to be erected at Wade's Mill in Hertfordshire, at Caxton in Cambridgeshire, and at Stilton in Huntingdonshire.*[9] The Act was not followed by any others for a quarter of a century, and even after that lapse of time such Acts
as were passed of a similar character were very few and far between.

For nearly a century more, travellers from Edinburgh to London met with no turnpikes until within about 110 miles of the metropolis. North of that point there was only a narrow causeway fit for pack-horses, flanked with clay sloughs on either side. It
is, however, stated that the Duke of Cumberland and the Earl of Albemarle, when on their way to Scotland in pursuit of the rebels in 1746, did contrive to reach Durham in a coach and six; but there the roads were found so wretched, that they were under
the necessity of taking to horse, and Mr. George Bowes, the county member, made His Royal Highness a present of his nag to enable him to proceed on his journey. The roads west of Newcastle were so bad, that in the previous year the royal forces under
General Wade, which left Newcastle for Carlisle to intercept the Pretender and his army, halted the first night at Ovingham, and the second at Hexham, being able to travel only twenty miles in two days.*[10]

The rebellion of 1745 gave a great impulse to the construction of roads for military as well as civil purposes. The nimble Highlanders, without baggage or waggons, had been able to cross the border and penetrate almost to the centre of England before
any definite knowledge of their proceedings had reached the rest of the kingdom. In the metropolis itself little information could be obtained of the movements of the rebel army for several days after they had left Edinburgh. Light of foot, they outstripped
the cavalry and artillery of the royal army, which were delayed at all points by impassable roads. No sooner, however, was the rebellion put down, than Government directed its attention to the best means of securing the permanent subordination of the
Highlands, and with this object the construction of good highways was declared to be indispensable. The expediency of opening up the communication between the capital and the principal towns of Scotland was also generally admitted; and from that
time, though slowly, the construction of the main high routes between north and south made steady progress.

The extension of the turnpike system, however, encountered violent opposition from the people, being regarded as a grievous tax upon their freedom of movement from place to place. Armed bodies of men assembled to destroy the turnpikes; and they
burnt down the toll-houses and blew up the posts with gunpowder. The resistance was the greatest in Yorkshire, along the line of the Great North Road towards Scotland, though riots also took place in Somersetshire and Gloucestershire, and even in the
immediate neighbourhood of London. One fine May morning, at Selby, in Yorkshire, the public bellman summoned the inhabitants to assemble with their hatchets and axes that night at midnight, and cut down the turnpikes erected by Act of Parliament;
nor were they slow to act upon his summons. Soldiers were then sent into the district to protect the toll-bars and the toll-takers; but this was a difficult matter, for the toll-gates were numerous, and wherever a "pike" was left unprotected at night, it was
found destroyed in the morning. The Yeadon and Otley mobs, near Leeds, were especially violent. On the 18th of June, 1753, they made quite a raid upon the turnpikes, burning or destroying about a dozen in one week. A score of the rioters were
apprehended, and while on their way to York Castle a rescue was attempted, when the soldiers were under the necessity of firing, and many persons were killed and wounded. The prejudices entertained against the turnpikes were so strong, that in some
places the country people would not even use the improved roads after they were made.*[11] For instance, the driver of the Marlborough coach obstinately refused to use the New Bath road, but stuck to the old waggon-track, called "Ramsbury." He was
an old man, he said: his grandfather and father had driven the aforesaid way before him, and he would continue in the old track till death.*[12] Petitions were also presented to Parliament against the extension of turnpikes; but the opposition represented
by the petitioners was of a much less honest character than that of the misguided and prejudiced country folks, who burnt down the toll-houses. It was principally got up by the agriculturists in the neighbourhood of the metropolis, who, having secured the
advantages which the turnpike-roads first constructed had conferred upon them, desired to retain a monopoly of the improved means of communication. They alleged that if turnpike-roads were extended into the remoter counties, the greater cheapness of
labour there would enable the distant farmers to sell their grass and corn cheaper in the London market than themselves, and that thus they would be ruined.*[13]

This opposition, however, did not prevent the progress of turnpike and highway legislation; and we find that, from l760 to l774, no fewer than four hundred and fifty-two Acts were passed for making and repairing highways. Nevertheless the roads of
the kingdom long continued in a very unsatisfactory state, chiefly arising from the extremely imperfect manner in which they were made.

Road-making as a profession was as yet unknown. Deviations were made in the old roads to make them more easy and straight; but the deep ruts were merely filled up with any materials that lay nearest at hand, and stones taken from the quarry, instead
of being broken and laid on carefully to a proper depth, were tumbled down and roughly spread, the country road-maker trusting to the operation of cart-wheels and waggons to crush them into a proper shape. Men of eminence as engineers—and there
were very few such at the time— considered road-making beneath their consideration; and it was even thought singular that, in 1768, the distinguished Smeaton should have condescended to make a road across the valley of the Trent, between Markham
and Newark.

The making of the new roads was thus left to such persons as might choose to take up the trade, special skill not being thought at all necessary on the part of a road-maker. It is only in this way that we can account for the remarkable fact, that the first
extensive maker of roads who pursued it as a business, was not an engineer, nor even a mechanic, but a Blind Man, bred to no trade, and possessing no experience whatever in the arts of surveying or bridge-building, yet a man possessed of extraordinary
natural gifts, and unquestionably most successful as a road-maker. We allude to John Metcalf, commonly known as "Blind Jack of Knaresborough," to whose biography, as the constructor of nearly two hundred miles of capital roads—as, indeed, the first
great English road-maker—we propose to devote the next chapter.

Footnotes for Chapter V.

*[1] Lady Luxborough, in a letter to Shenstone the poet, in 1749, says,—"A Birmingham coach is newly established to our great emolument. Would it not be a good scheme (this dirty weather, when riding is no more a pleasure) for you to come some
Monday in the said stage-coach from Birmingham to breakfast at Barrells, (for they always breakfast at Henley); and on the Saturday following it would convey you back to Birmingham, unless you would stay longer, which would be better still, and
equally easy; for the stage goes every week the same road. It breakfasts at Henley, and lies at Chipping Horton; goes early next day to Oxford, stays there all day and night, and gets on the third day to London; which from Birmingham at this season is
pretty well, considering how long they are at Oxford; and it is much more agreeable as to the country than the Warwick way was."

*[2] We may incidentally mention three other journeys south by future Lords Chancellors. Mansfield rode up from Scotland to London when a boy, taking two months to make the journey on his pony. Wedderburn's journey by coach from Edinburgh to
London, in 1757, occupied him six days. "When I first reached London," said the late Lord Campbell, "I performed the same journey in three nights and two days, Mr. Palmer's mail-coaches being then established; but this swift travelling was considered
dangerous as well as wonderful, and I was gravely advised to stay a day at York, as several passengers who had gone through without stopping had died of apoplexy from the rapidity of the motion!"

*[3] C. H. Moritz: 'Reise eines Deutschen in England im Jahre 1782.' Berlin, 1783.

*[4] Arthur Young's 'Six Weeks' Tour in the Southern Counties of England and Wales,' 2nd ed., 1769, pp. 88-9.

*[5] 'Six Weeks Tour' in the Southern Counties of England and Wales,' pp. 153-5. The roads all over South Wales were equally bad down to the beginning of the present century. At Halfway, near Trecastle, in Breconshire, South Wales, a small obelisk is
still to be seen, which was erected to commemorate the turn over and destruction of the mail coach over a steep of l30 feet; the driver and passengers escaping unhurt.

*[6] 'A Six Months' Tour through the North of England,' vol. iv., p. 431.

*[7] Letter to Wyatt, October 5th, 1787, MS.

*[8] Act 15 Car. II., c. 1.

*[9] The preamble of the Act recites that "The ancient highway and post-road leading from London to York, and so into Scotland, and likewise from London into Lincolnshire, lieth for many miles in the counties of Hertford, Cambridge, and
Huntingdon, in many of which places the road, by reason of the great and many loads which are weekly drawn in waggons through the said places, as well as by reason of the great trade of barley and malt that cometh to Ware, and so is conveyed by water
to the city of London, as well as other carriages, both from the north parts as also from the city of Norwich, St. Edmondsbury, and the town of Cambridge, to London, is very ruinous, and become almost impassable, insomuch that it is become very
dangerous to all his Majesty's liege people that pass that way," &c.

*[10] Down to the year 1756, Newcastle and Carlisle were only connected by a bridle way. In that year, Marshal Wade employed his army to construct a road by way of Harlaw and Cholterford, following for thirty miles the line of the old Roman Wall,
the materials of which he used to construct his "agger" and culverts. This was long after known as "the military road."

*[11] The Blandford waggoner said, "Roads had but one object—for waggon-driving. He required but four-foot width in a lane, and all the rest might go to the devil." He added, "The gentry ought to stay at home, and be d——d, and not run gossiping
up and down the country."—Roberts's 'Social History of the Southern Counties.'

*[12] 'Gentleman's Magazine' for December, 1752.

*[13] Adam Smith's 'Wealth of Nations,' book i., chap. xi., part i.

CHAPTER VI.

JOHN METCALF, ROAD-MAKER.

[Image] Metcalf's birthplace Knaresborough

John Metcalf was born at Knaresborough in 1717, the son of poor working people. When only six years old he was seized with virulent small-pox, which totally destroyed his sight. The blind boy, when sufficiently recovered to go abroad, first learnt to
grope from door to door along the walls on either side of his parents' dwelling. In about six months he was able to feel his way to the end of the street and back without a guide, and in three years he could go on a message to any part of the town. He grew
strong and healthy, and longed to join in the sports of boys of his age. He went bird-nesting with them, and climbed the trees while the boys below directed him to the nests, receiving his share of eggs and young birds. Thus he shortly became an expert
climber, and could mount with ease any tree that he was able to grasp. He rambled into the lanes and fields alone, and soon knew every foot of the ground for miles round Knaresborough. He next learnt to ride, delighting above all things in a gallop. He
contrived to keep a dog and coursed hares: indeed, the boy was the marvel of the neighbourhood. His unrestrainable activity, his acuteness of sense, his shrewdness, and his cleverness, astonished everybody.

The boy's confidence in himself was such, that though blind, he was ready to undertake almost any adventure. Among his other arts he learned to swim in the Nidd, and became so expert that on one occasion he saved the lives of three of his
companions. Once, when two men were drowned in a deep part of the river, Metcalf was sent for to dive for them, which he did, and brought up one of the bodies at the fourth diving: the other had been carried down the stream. He thus also saved a
manufacturer's yarn, a large quantity of which had been carried by a sudden flood into a deep hole under the High Bridge. At home, in the evenings, he learnt to play the fiddle, and became so skilled on the instrument, that he was shortly able to earn
money by playing dance music at country parties. At Christmas time he played waits, and during the Harrogate season he played to the assemblies at the Queen's Head and the Green Dragon.

On one occasion, towards dusk, he acted as guide to a belated gentleman along the difficult road from York to Harrogate. The road was then full of windings and turnings, and in many places it was no better than a track across unenclosed moors.
Metcalf brought the gentleman safe to his inn, "The Granby," late at night, and was invited to join in a tankard of negus. On Metcalf leaving the room, the gentleman observed to the landlord—"I think, landlord, my guide must have drunk a great deal of
spirits since we came here." "Why so, Sir?" "Well, I judge so, from the appearance of his eyes." "Eyes! bless you, Sir," rejoined the landlord, "don't yon know that he is blind?" "Blind! What do you mean by that?" "I mean, Sir, that he cannot see—he is as
blind as a stone. "Well, landlord," said the gentleman, "this is really too much: call him in." Enter Metcalf. "My friend, are you really blind?" "Yes, Sir," said he, "I lost my sight when six years old." "Had I known that, I would not have ventured with you
on that road from York for a hundred pounds." "And I, Sir," said Metcalf, "would not have lost my way for a thousand."

Metcalf having thriven and saved money, bought and rode a horse of his own. He had a great affection for the animal, and when he called, it would immediately answer him by neighing. The most surprising thing is that he was a good huntsman; and to
follow the hounds was one of his greatest pleasures. He was as bold as a rider as ever took the field. He trusted much, no doubt, to the sagacity of his horse; but he himself was apparently regardless of danger. The hunting adventures which are related of
him, considering his blindness, seem altogether marvellous. He would also run his horse for the petty prizes or plates given at the "feasts" in the neighbourhood, and he attended the races at York and other places, where he made bets with considerable
skill, keeping well in his memory the winning and losing horses. After the races, he would return to Knaresborough late at night, guiding others who but for him could never have made out the way.

On one occasion he rode his horse in a match in Knaresborough Forest. The ground was marked out by posts, including a circle of a mile, and the race was three times round. Great odds were laid against the blind man, because of his supposed inability
to keep the course. But his ingenuity was never at fault. He procured a number of dinner-bells from the Harrogate inns and set men to ring them at the several posts. Their sound was enough to direct him during the race, and the blind man came in the
winner! After the race was over, a gentleman who owned a notorious runaway horse came up and offered to lay a bet with Metcalf that he could not gallop the horse fifty yards and stop it within two hundred. Metcalf accepted the bet, with the condition
that he might choose his ground. This was agreed to, but there was to be neither hedge nor wall in the distance. Metcalf forthwith proceeded to the neighbourhood of the large bog near the Harrogate Old Spa, and having placed a person on the line in
which he proposed to ride, who was to sing a song to guide him by its sound, he mounted and rode straight into the bog, where he had the horse effectually stopped within the stipulated two hundred yards, stuck up to his saddle-girths in the mire. Metcalf
scrambled out and claimed his wager; but it was with the greatest difficulty that the horse could be extricated.

The blind man also played at bowls very successfully, receiving the odds of a bowl extra for the deficiency of each eye. He had thus three bowls for the other's one; and he took care to place one friend at the jack and another midway, who, keeping up a
constant discourse with him, enabled him readily to judge of the distance. In athletic sports, such as wrestling and boxing, he was also a great adept; and being now a full-grown man, of great strength and robustness, about six feet two in height, few durst
try upon him the practical jokes which cowardly persons are sometimes disposed to play upon the blind.

Notwithstanding his mischievous tricks and youthful wildness, there must have been something exceedingly winning about the man, possessed, as he was, of a strong, manly, and affectionate nature; and we are not, therefore, surprised to learn that the
land lord's daughter of "The Granby" fairly fell in love with Blind Jack and married him, much to the disgust of her relatives. When asked how it was that she could marry such a man, her woman-like reply was, "Because I could not be happy without
him: his actions are so singular, and his spirit so manly and enterprising, that I could not help loving him." But, after all, Dolly was not so far wrong in the choice as her parents thought her. As the result proved, Metcalf had in him elements of success in
life, which, even according to the world's estimate, made him eventually a very "good match," and the woman's clear sight in this case stood her in good stead.

But before this marriage was consummated, Metcalf had wandered far and "seen" a good deal of the world, as he termed it. He travelled on horseback to Whitby, and from thence he sailed for London, taking with him his fiddle, by the aid of which he
continued to earn enough to maintain himself for several weeks in the metropolis. Returning to Whitby, He sailed from thence to Newcastle to "see" some friends there, whom he had known at Harrogate while visiting that watering-place. He was
welcomed by many families and spent an agreeable month, afterwards visiting Sunderland, still supporting himself by his violin playing. Then he returned to Whitby for his horse, and rode homeward alone to Knaresborough by Pickering, Malton, and
York, over very bad roads, the greater part of which he had never travelled before, yet without once missing his way. When he arrived at York, it was the dead of night, and he found the city gates at Middlethorp shut. They were of strong planks, with iron
spikes fixed on the top; but throwing his horse's bridle-rein over one of the spikes, he climbed up, and by the help of a corner of the wall that joined the gates, he got safely over: then opening; them from the inside, he led his horse through.

After another season at Harrogate, he made a second visit to London, in the company of a North countryman who played the small pipes. He was kindly entertained by Colonel Liddell, of Ravensworth Castle, who gave him a general invitation to his
house. During this visit which was in 1730-1, Metcalf ranged freely over the metropolis, visiting Maidenhead and Reading, and returning by Windsor and Hampton Court. The Harrogate season being at hand, he prepared to proceed thither,—Colonel
Liddell, who was also about setting out for Harrogate, offering him a seat behind his coach. Metcalf thanked him, but declined the offer, observing that he could, with great ease, walk as, far in a day as he, the Colonel, was likely to travel in his carriage;
besides, he preferred the walking. That a blind man should undertake to walk a distance of two hundred miles over an unknown road, in the same time that it took a gentleman to perform the same distance in his coach, dragged by post-horses, seems
almost incredible; yet Metcalf actually arrived at Harrogate before the Colonel, and that without hurrying by the way. The circumstance is easily accounted for by the deplorable state of the roads, which made travelling by foot on the whole considerably
more expeditious than travelling by coach. The story is even extant of a man with a wooden leg being once offered a lift upon a stage-coach; but he declined, with "Thank'ee, I can't wait; I'm in a hurry." And he stumped on, ahead of the coach.

The account of Metcalf's journey on foot from London to Harrogate is not without a special bearing on our subject, as illustrative of the state of the roads at the time. He started on a Monday morning, about an hour before the Colonel in his carriage,
with his suite, which consisted of sixteen servants on horseback. It was arranged that they should sleep that night at Welwyn, in Hertfordshire. Metcalf made his way to Barnet; but a little north of that town, where the road branches off to St. Albans, he
took the wrong way, and thus made a considerable detour. Nevertheless he arrived at Welwyn first, to the surprise of the Colonel. Next morning he set off as before, and reached Biggleswade; but there he found the river swollen and no bridge provided to
enable travellers to cross to the further side. He made a considerable circuit, in the hope of finding some method of crossing the stream, and was so fortunate as to fall in with a fellow wayfarer, who led the way across some planks, Metcalf following the
sound of his feet. Arrived at the other side, Metcalf, taking some pence from his pocket, said, "Here, my good fellow, take that and get a pint of beer." The stranger declined, saying he was welcome to his services. Metcalf, however, pressed upon his guide
the small reward, when the other asked, "Pray, can you see very well?" "Not remarkably well," said Metcalf. "My friend," said the stranger, "I do not mean to tithe you: I am the rector of this parish; so God bless you, and I wish you a good journey. "
Metcalf set forward again with the blessing, and reached his journey's end safely, again before the Colonel. On the Saturday after their setting out from London, the travellers reached Wetherby, where Colonel Liddell desired to rest until the Monday; but
Metcalf proceeded on to Harrogate, thus completing the journey in six days,—the Colonel arriving two days later.

He now renewed his musical performances at Harrogate, and was also in considerable request at the Ripon assemblies, which were attended by most of the families of distinction in that neighbourhood. When the season at Harrogate was over, he retired
to Knaresborough with his young wife, and having purchased an old house, he had it pulled down and another built on its site,—he himself getting the requisite stones for the masonry out of the bed of the adjoining river. The uncertainty of the income
derived from musical performances led him to think of following some more settled pursuit, now that he had a wife to maintain as well as himself. He accordingly set up a four-wheeled and a one-horse chaise for the public accommodation,—Harrogate
up to that time being without any vehicle for hire. The innkeepers of the town having followed his example, and abstracted most of his business, Metcalf next took to fish-dealing. He bought fish at the coast, which he conveyed on horseback to Leeds and
other towns for sale. He continued indefatigable at this trade for some time, being on the road often for nights together; but he was at length forced to abandon it in consequence of the inadequacy of the returns. He was therefore under the necessity of
again taking up his violin; and he was employed as a musician in the Long Room at Harrogate, at the time of the outbreak of the Rebellion of 1745.

The news of the rout of the Royal army at Prestonpans, and the intended march of the Highlanders southwards, put a stop to business as well as pleasure, and caused a general consternation throughout the northern counties. The great bulk of the people
were, however, comparatively indifferent to the measures of defence which were adopted; and but for the energy displayed by the country gentlemen in raising forces in support of the established government, the Stuarts might again have been seated on
the throne of Britain. Among the county gentlemen of York who distinguished themselves on the occasion was William Thornton, Esq., of Thornville Royal. The county having voted ninety thousand pounds for raising, clothing, and maintaining a body of
four thousand men, Mr. Thornton proposed, at a public meeting held at York, that they should be embodied with the regulars and march with the King's forces to meet the Pretender in the field. This proposal was, however, overruled, the majority of the
meeting resolving that the men should be retained at home for purposes merely of local defence. On this decision being come to, Mr. Thornton determined to raise a company of volunteers at his own expense, and to join the Royal army with such force as
he could muster. He then went abroad among his tenantry and servants, and endeavoured to induce them to follow him, but without success.

Still determined on raising his company, Mr. Thornton next cast about him for other means; and who should he think of in his emergency but Blind Jack! Metcalf had often played to his family at Christmas time, and the Squire knew him to be one of
the most popular men in the neighbourhood. He accordingly proceeded to Knaresborough to confer with Metcalf on the subject. It was then about the beginning of October, only a fortnight after the battle of Prestonpans. Sending for Jack to his inn, Mr.
Thornton told him of the state of affairs—that the French were coming to join the rebels—and that if the country were allowed to fall into their hands, no man's wife, daughter, nor sister would be safe. Jack's loyalty was at once kindled. If no one else
would join the Squire, he would! Thus enlisted—perhaps carried away by his love of adventure not less than by his feeling of patriotism Metcalf proceeded to enlist others, and in two days a hundred and forty men were obtained, from whom Mr.
Thornton drafted sixty-four, the intended number of his company. The men were immediately drilled and brought into a state of as much efficiency as was practicable in the time; and when they marched off to join General Wade's army at Boroughbridge,
the Captain said to them on setting out, "My lads! you are going to form part of a ring-fence to the finest estate in the world!" Blind Jack played a march at the head of the company, dressed in blue and buff, and in a gold-laced hat. The Captain said he
would willingly give a hundred guineas for only one eye to put in Jack's head: he was such a useful, spirited, handy fellow.

On arriving at Newcastle, Captain Thornton's company was united to Pulteney's regiment, one of the weakest. The army lay for a week in tents on the Moor. Winter had set in, and the snow lay thick on the ground; but intelligence arriving that Prince
Charles, with his Highlanders, was proceeding southwards by way of Carlisle, General Wade gave orders for the immediate advance of the army on Hexham, in the hope of intercepting them by that route. They set out on their march amidst hail and snow;
and in addition to the obstruction caused by the weather, they had to overcome the difficulties occasioned by the badness of the roads. The men were often three or four-hours in marching a mile, the pioneers having to fill up ditches and clear away many
obstructions in making a practicable passage for the artillery and baggage. The army was only able to reach Ovingham, a distance of little more than ten miles, after fifteen hours' marching. The night was bitter cold; the ground was frozen so hard that but
few of the tent-pins could be driven; and the men lay down upon the earth amongst their straw. Metcalf, to keep up the spirits of his company for sleep was next to impossible —took out his fiddle and played lively tunes whilst the men danced round the
straw, which they set on fire.

Next day the army marched for Hexham; But the rebels having already passed southward, General Wade retraced. his steps to Newcastle to gain the high road leading to Yorkshire, whither he marched in all haste; and for a time his army lay before
Leeds on fields now covered with streets, some of which still bear the names of Wade-lane, Camp-road, and Camp-field, in consequence of the event.

On the retreat of Prince Charles from Derby, General Wade again proceeded to Newcastle, while the Duke of Cumberland hung upon the rear of the rebels along their line of retreat by Penrith and Carlisle. Wade's army proceeded by forced marches into
Scotland, and at length came up with the Highlanders at Falkirk. Metcalf continued with Captain Thornton and his company throughout all these marchings and countermarchings, determined to be of service to his master if he could, and at all events to
see the end of the campaign. At the battle of Falkirk he played his company to the field; but it was a grossly-mismanaged battle on the part of the Royalist General, and the result was a total defeat. Twenty of Thornton's men were made prisoners, with the
lieutenant and ensign. The Captain himself only escaped by taking refuge in a poor woman's house in the town of Falkirk, where he lay hidden for many days; Metcalf returning to Edinburgh with the rest of the defeated army.

Some of the Dragoon officers, hearing of Jack's escape, sent for him to head-quarters at Holyrood, to question him about his Captain. One of them took occasion to speak ironically of Thornton's men, and asked Metcalf how he had contrived to escape.
"Oh!" said Jack, "I found it easy to follow the sound of the Dragoons' horses— they made such a clatter over the stones when flying from the Highlandmen. Another asked him how he, a blind man, durst venture upon such a service; to which Metcalf
replied, that had he possessed a pair of good eyes, perhaps he would not have come there to risk the loss of them by gunpowder. No more questions were asked, and Jack withdrew; but he was not satisfied about the disappearance of Captain Thornton, and
determined on going back to Falkirk, within the enemy's lines, to get news of him, and perhaps to rescue him, if that were still possible.

The rest of the company were very much disheartened at the loss of their officers and so many of their comrades, and wished Metcalf to furnish them with the means of returning home. But he would not hear of such a thing, and strongly encouraged
them to remain until, at all events, he had got news of the Captain. He then set out for Prince Charles's camp. On reaching the outposts of the English army, he was urged by the officer in command to lay aside his project, which would certainly cost him
his life. But Metcalf was not to be dissuaded, and he was permitted to proceed, which he did in the company of one of the rebel spies, pretending that he wished to be engaged as a musician in the Prince's army. A woman whom they met returning to
Edinburgh from the field of Falkirk, laden with plunder, gave Metcalf a token to her husband, who was Lord George Murray's cook, and this secured him an access to the Prince's quarters; but, notwithstanding a most diligent search, he could hear nothing
of his master. Unfortunately for him, a person who had seen him at Harrogate, pointed him out as a suspicions character, and he was seized and put in confinement for three days, after which he was tried by court martial; but as nothing could be alleged
against him, he was acquitted, and shortly after made his escape from the rebel camp. On reaching Edinburgh, very much to his delight he found Captain Thornton had arrived there before him.

On the 30th of January, 1746, the Duke of Cumberland reached Edinburgh, and put himself at the head of the Royal army, which proceeded northward in pursuit of the Highlanders. At Aberdeen, where the Duke gave a ball, Metcalf was found to be the
only musician in camp who could play country dances, and he played to the company, standing on a chair, for eight hours,—the Duke several times, as he passed him, shouting out "Thornton, play up!" Next morning the Duke sent him a present of two
guineas; but as the Captain would not allow him to receive such gifts while in his pay, Metcalf spent the money, with his permission, in giving a treat to the Duke's two body servants. The battle of Culloden, so disastrous to the poor Highlanders; shortly
followed; after which Captain Thornton, Metcalf, and the Yorkshire Volunteer Company, proceeded homewards. Metcalf's young wife had been in great fears for the safety of her blind, fearless, and almost reckless partner; but she received him with open
arms, and his spirit of adventure being now considerably allayed, he determined to settle quietly down to the steady pursuit of business.

During his stay in Aberdeen, Metcalf had made himself familiar with the articles of clothing manufactured at that place, and he came to the conclusion that a profitable trade might be carried on by buying them on the spot, and selling them by retail to
customers in Yorkshire. He accordingly proceeded to Aberdeen in the following spring; and bought a considerable stock of cotton and worsted stockings, which he found he could readily dispose of on his return home. His knowledge of horseflesh—in
which he was, of course, mainly guided by his acute sense of feeling—also proved highly serviceable to him, and he bought considerable numbers of horses in Yorkshire for sale in Scotland, bringing back galloways in return. It is supposed that at the
same time he carried on a profitable contraband trade in tea and such like articles.

After this, Metcalf began a new line of business, that of common carrier between York and Knaresborough, plying the first stage-waggon on that road. He made the journey twice a week in summer and once a week in winter. He also undertook the
conveyance of army baggage, most other owners of carts at that time being afraid of soldiers, regarding them as a wild rough set, with whom it was dangerous to have any dealings. But the blind man knew them better, and while he drove a profitable trade
in carrying their baggage from town to town, they never did him any harm. By these means, he very shortly succeeded in realising a considerable store of savings, besides being able to maintain his family in respectability and comfort.

Metcalf, however, had not yet entered upon the main business of his life. The reader will already have observed how strong of heart and resolute of purpose he was. During his adventurous career he had acquired a more than ordinary share of
experience of the world. Stone blind as he was from his childhood, he had not been able to study books, but he had carefully studied men. He could read characters with wonderful quickness, rapidly taking stock, as he called it, of those with whom he
came in contact. In his youth, as we have seen, he could follow the hounds on horse or on foot, and managed to be in at the death with the most expert riders. His travels about the country as a guide to those who could see, as a musician, soldier, chapman,
fish-dealer, horse-dealer, and waggoner, had given him a perfectly familiar acquaintance with the northern roads. He could measure timber or hay in the stack, and rapidly reduce their contents to feet and inches after a mental process of his own. Withal he
was endowed with an extraordinary activity and spirit of enterprise, which, had his sight been spared him, would probably have rendered him one of the most extraordinary men of his age. As it was, Metcalf now became one of the greatest of its road-
makers and bridge-builders.

[Image] John Metcalf, the blind road-maker.

About the year 1765 an Act was passed empowering a turnpike-road to be constructed between Harrogate and Boroughbridge. The business of contractor had not yet come into existence, nor was the art of road-making much understood; and in a
remote country place such as Knaresborough the surveyor had some difficulty in finding persons capable of executing the necessary work. The shrewd Metcalf discerned in the proposed enterprise the first of a series of public roads of a similar kind
throughout the northern counties, for none knew better than he did how great was the need of them. He determined, therefore, to enter upon this new line of business, and offered to Mr. Ostler, the master surveyor, to construct three miles of the proposed
road between Minskip and Fearnsby. Ostler knew the man well, and having the greatest confidence in his abilities, he let him the contract. Metcalf sold his stage-waggons and his interest in the carrying business between York and Knaresborough, and at
once proceeded with his new undertaking. The materials for metaling the road were to be obtained from one gravel-pit for the whole length, and he made his arrangements on a large scale accordingly, hauling out the ballast with unusual expedition and
economy, at the same time proceeding with the formation of the road at all points; by which means he was enabled the first to complete his contract, to the entire satisfaction of the surveyor and trustees.

This was only the first of a vast number of similar projects on which Metcalf was afterwards engaged, extending over a period of more than thirty years. By the time that he had finished the road, the building of a bridge at Boroughbridge was
advertised, and Metcalf sent in his tender with many others. At the same time he frankly stated that, though he wished to undertake the work, he had not before executed anything of the kind. His tender being on the whole the most favourable, the trustees
sent for Metcalf, and on his appearing before them, they asked him what he knew of a bridge. He replied that he could readily describe his plan of the one they proposed to build, if they would be good enough to write down his figures. The span of the
arch, 18 feet," said he, "being a semicircle, makes 27: the arch-stones must be a foot deep, which, if multiplied by 27, will be 486; and the basis will be 72 feet more. This for the arch; but it will require good backing, for which purpose there are proper
stones in the old Roman wall at Aldborough, which may be used for the purpose, if you please to give directions to that effect." It is doubtful whether the trustees were able to follow his rapid calculations; but they were so much struck by his readiness and
apparently complete knowledge of the work he proposed to execute, that they gave him the contract to build the bridge; and he completed it within the stipulated time in a satisfactory and workmanlike manner.

He next agreed to make the mile and a half of turnpike-road between his native town of Knaresborough and Harrogate—ground with which he was more than ordinarily familiar. Walking one day over a portion of the ground on which the road was to
be made, while still covered with grass, he told the workmen that he thought it differed from the ground adjoining it, and he directed them to try for stone or gravel underneath; and, strange to say, not many feet down, the men came upon the stones of an
old Roman causeway, from which he obtained much valuable material for the making of his new road. At another part of the contract there was a bog to be crossed, and the surveyor thought it impossible to make a road over it. Metcalf assured him that he
could readily accomplish it; on which the other offered, if he succeeded, to pay him for the straight road the price which he would have to pay if the road were constructed round the bog. Metcalf set to work accordingly, and had a large quantity of furze
and ling laid upon the bog, over which he spread layers of gravel. The plan answered effectually, and when the materials had become consolidated, it proved one of the best parts of the road.

It would be tedious to describe in detail the construction of the various roads and bridges which Metcalf subsequently executed, but a brief summary of the more important will suffice. In Yorkshire, he made the roads between Harrogate and Harewood
Bridge; between Chapeltown and Leeds; between Broughton and Addingham; between Mill Bridge and Halifax; between Wakefield and Dewsbury; between Wakefield and Doncaster; between Wakefield, Huddersfield, and Saddleworth (the Manchester
road); between Standish and Thurston Clough; between Huddersfield and Highmoor; between Huddersfield and Halifax, and between Knaresborough and Wetherby.

In Lancashire also, Metcalf made a large extent of roads, which were of the greatest importance in opening up the resources of that county. Previous to their construction, almost the only means of communication between districts was by horse-tracks
and mill-roads, of sufficient width to enable a laden horse to pass along them with a pack of goods or a sack of corn slung across its back. Metcalf's principal roads in Lancashire were those constructed by him between Bury and Blackburn, with a branch
to Accrington; between Bury and Haslingden; and between Haslingden and Accrington, with a branch to Blackburn. He also made some highly important main roads connecting Yorkshire and Lancashire with each other at many parts: as, for instance,
those between Skipton, Colne, and Burnley; and between Docklane Head and Ashton-under-Lyne. The roads from Ashton to Stockport and from Stockport to Mottram Langdale were also his work.

Our road-maker was also extensively employed in the same way in the counties of Cheshire and Derby; constructing the roads between Macclesfield and Chapel-le-Frith, between Whaley and Buxton, between Congleton and the Red Bull (entering
Staffordshire), and in various other directions. The total mileage of the turnpike-roads thus constructed was about one hundred and eighty miles, for which Metcalf received in all about sixty-five thousand pounds. The making of these roads also involved
the building of many bridges, retaining-walls, and culverts. We believe it was generally admitted of the works constructed by Metcalf that they well stood the test of time and use; and, with a degree of justifiable pride, he was afterwards accustomed to
point to his bridges, when others were tumbling during floods, and boast that none of his had fallen.

This extraordinary man not only made the highways which were designed for him by other surveyors, but himself personally surveyed and laid out many of the most important roads which he constructed, in difficult and mountainous parts of Yorkshire
and Lancashire. One who personally knew Metcalf thus wrote of him during his life-time:. "With the assistance only of a long staff, I have several times met this man traversing the roads, ascending steep and rugged heights, exploring valleys and
investigating their several extents, forms, and situations, so as to answer his designs in the best manner. The plans which he makes, and the estimates he prepares, are done in a method peculiar to himself, and of which he cannot well convey the meaning
to others. His abilities in this respect are, nevertheless, so great that he finds constant employment. Most of the roads over the Peak in Derbyshire have been altered by his directions, particularly those in the vicinity of Buxton; and he is at this time
constructing a new one betwixt Wilmslow and Congleton, to open a communication with the great London road, without being obliged to pass over the mountains. I have met this blind projector while engaged in making his survey. He was alone as usual,
and, amongst other conversation, I made some inquiries respecting this new road. It was really astonishing to hear with what accuracy he described its course and the nature of the different soils through which it was conducted. Having mentioned to him a
boggy piece of ground it passed through, he observed that 'that was the only place he had doubts concerning, and that he was apprehensive they had, contrary to his directions, been too sparing of their materials.'"*[1]

Metcalf's skill in constructing his roads over boggy ground was very great; and the following may be cited as an instance. When the high-road from Huddersfield to Manchester was determined on, he agreed to make it at so much a rood, though at that
time the line had not been marked out. When this was done, Metcalf, to his dismay, found that the surveyor had laid it out across some deep marshy ground on Pule and Standish Commons. On this he expostulated with the trustees, alleging the much
greater expense that he must necessarily incur in carrying out the work after their surveyor's plan. They told him, however, that if he succeeded in making a complete road to their satisfaction, he should not be a loser; but they pointed out that, according to
their surveyor's views, it would be requisite for him to dig out the bog until he came to a solid bottom. Metcalf, on making his calculations, found that in that case he would have to dig a trench some nine feet deep and fourteen yards broad on the average,
making about two hundred and ninety-four solid yards of bog in every rood, to be excavated and carried away. This, he naturally conceived, would have proved both tedious as well as costly, and, after all, the road would in wet weather have been no
better than a broad ditch, and in winter liable to be blocked up with snow. He strongly represented this view to the trustees as well as the surveyor, but they were immovable. It was, therefore, necessary for him to surmount the difficulty in some other way,
though he remained firm in his resolution not to adopt the plan proposed by the surveyor. After much cogitation he appeared again before the trustees, and made this proposal to them: that he should make the road across the marshes after his own plan,
and then, if it should be found not to answer, he would be at the expense of making it over again after the surveyor's proposed method. This was agreed to; and as he had undertaken to make nine miles of the road within ten months, he immediately set to
work with all despatch.

Nearly four hundred men were employed upon the work at six different points, and their first operation was to cut a deep ditch along either side of the intended road, and throw the excavated stuff inwards so as to raise it to a circular form. His greatest
difficulty was in getting the stones laid to make the drains, there being no firm footing for a horse in the more boggy places. The Yorkshire clothiers, who passed that way to Huddersfield market —by no means a soft-spoken race—ridiculed Metcalf's
proceedings, and declared that he and his men would some day have to be dragged out of the bog by the hair of their heads! Undeterred, however, by sarcasm, he persistently pursued his plan of making the road practicable for laden vehicles; but he
strictly enjoined his men for the present to keep his manner of proceeding; a secret.

His plan was this. He ordered heather and ling to be pulled from the adjacent ground, and after binding it together in little round bundles, which could be grasped with the hand, these bundles were placed close together in rows in the direction of the line
of road, after which other similar bundles were placed transversely over them; and when all had been pressed well down, stone and gravel were led on in broad-wheeled waggons, and spread over the bundles, so as to make a firm and level way. When the
first load was brought and laid on, and the horses reached the firm ground again in safety, loud cheers were set up by the persons who had assembled in the expectation of seeing both horses and waggons disappear in the bog. The whole length was
finished in like manner, and it proved one of the best, and even the driest, parts of the road, standing in very little need of repair for nearly twelve years after its construction. The plan adopted by Metcalf, we need scarcely point out, was precisely similar
to that afterwards adopted by George Stephenson, under like circumstances, when constructing the railway across Chat Moss. It consisted simply in a large extension of the bearing surface, by which, in fact, the road was made to float upon the surface of
the bog; and the ingenuity of the expedient proved the practical shrewdness and mother-wit of the blind Metcalf, as it afterwards illustrated the promptitude as well as skill of the clear-sighted George Stephenson.

Metcalf was upwards of seventy years old before he left off road-making. He was still hale and hearty, wonderfully active for so old a man, and always full of enterprise. Occupation was absolutely necessary for his comfort, and even to the last day of
his life he could not bear to be idle. While engaged on road-making in Cheshire, he brought his wife to Stockport for a time, and there she died, after thirty-nine years of happy married life. One of Metcalf's daughters became married to a person engaged
in the cotton business at Stockport, and, as that trade was then very brisk, Metcalf himself commenced it in a small way. He began with six spinning-jennies and a carding-engine, to which he afterwards added looms for weaving calicoes, jeans, and
velveteens. But trade was fickle, and finding that he could not sell his yarns except at a loss, he made over his jennies to his son-in-law, and again went on with his road-making. The last line which he constructed was one of the most difficult he had
everundertaken,— that between Haslingden and Accrington, with a branch road to Bury. Numerous canals being under construction at the same time, employment was abundant and wages rose, so that though he honourably fulfilled his contract, and was
paid for it the sum of 3500L., he found himself a loser of exactly 40L. after two years' labour and anxiety. He completed the road in 1792, when he was seventy-five years of age, after which he retired to his farm at Spofforth, near Wetherby, where for
some years longer he continued to do a little business in his old line, buying and selling hay and standing wood, and superintending the operations of his little farm, During the later years of his career he occupied himself in dictating to an amanuensis an
account of the incidents in his remarkable life, and finally, in the year 1810, this strong-hearted and resolute man —his life's work over—laid down his staff and peacefully departed in the ninety-third year of his age; leaving behind him four children,
twenty grand-children, and ninety great grand-children.

[Image] Metcalf's house at Spofforth.

The roads constructed by Metcalf and others had the effect of greatly improving the communications of Yorkshire and Lancashire, and opening up those counties to the trade then flowing into them from all directions. But the administration of the
highways and turnpikes being entirely local, their good or bad management depending upon the public spirit and enterprise of the gentlemen of the locality, it frequently happened that while the roads of one county were exceedingly good, those of the
adjoining county were altogether execrable.

Even in the immediate vicinity of the metropolis the Surrey roads remained comparatively unimproved. Those through the interior of Kent were wretched. When Mr. Rennie, the engineer, was engaged in surveying the Weald with a view to the cutting
of a canal through it in 1802, he found the country almost destitute of practicable roads, though so near to the metropolis on the one hand and to the sea-coast on the other. The interior of the county was then comparatively untraversed, except by bands of
smugglers, who kept the inhabitants in a state of constant terror. In an agricultural report on the county of Northampton as late as the year 1813, it was stated that the only way of getting along some of the main lines of road in rainy weather, was by
swimming!

In the neighbourhood of the city of Lincoln the communications were little better, and there still stands upon what is called Lincoln Heath—though a heath no longer—a curious memorial of the past in the shape of Dunstan Pillar, a column seventy feet
high, erected about the middle of last century in the midst of the then dreary, barren waste, for the purpose of serving as a mark to wayfarers by day and a beacon to them by night.*[2]

[Image] Land Lighthouse on Lincoln Heath.

At that time the Heath was not only uncultivated, but it was also unprovided with a road across it. When the late Lady Robert Manners visited Lincoln from her residence at Bloxholm, she was accustomed to send forward a groom to examine some
track, that on his return he might be able to report one that was practicable. Travellers frequently lost themselves upon this heath. Thus a family, returning from a ball at Lincoln, strayed from the track twice in one night, and they were obliged to remain
there until morning. All this is now changed, and Lincoln Heath has become covered with excellent roads and thriving farmsteads. "This Dunstan Pillar," says Mr. Pusey, in his review of the agriculture of Lincolnshire, in 1843, "lighted up no longer time
ago for so singular a purpose, did appear to me a striking witness of the spirit of industry which, in our own days, has reared the thriving homesteads around it, and spread a mantle of teeming vegetation to its very base. And it was certainly surprising to
discover at once the finest farming I had ever seen and the only land lighthouse ever raised.*[3] Now that the pillar has ceased to cheer the wayfarer, it may serve as a beacon to encourage other landowners in converting their dreary moors into similar
scenes of thriving industry."*[4] When the improvement of the high roads of the country fairly set in, the progress made was very rapid. This was greatly stimulated by the important inventions of tools, machines, and engines, made towards the close of
last century, the products of which—more especially of the steam-engine and spinning-machine—so largely increased the wealth of the nation. Manufactures, commerce, and shipping, made unprecedented strides; life became more active; persons and
commodities circulated more rapidly; every improvement in the internal communications being followed by an increase of ease, rapidity, and economy in locomotion. Turnpike and post roads were speedily extended all over the country, and even the
rugged mountain districts of North Wales and the Scotch Highlands became as accessible as any English county. The riding postman was superseded by the smartly appointed mail-coach, performing its journeys with remarkable regularity at the average
speed of ten miles an hour. Slow stagecoaches gave place to fast ones, splendidly horsed and "tooled," until travelling by road in England was pronounced almost perfect.

But all this was not enough. The roads and canals, numerous and perfect though they might be, were found altogether inadequate to the accommodation of the traffic of the country, which had increased, at a constantly accelerating ratio, with the
increased application of steam power to the purposes of productive industry. At length steam itself was applied to remedy the inconveniences which it had caused; the locomotive engine was invented, and travelling by railway became generally adopted.
The effect of these several improvements in the means of locomotion, has been to greatly increase the public activity, and to promote the general comfort and well-being. They have tended to bring the country and the town much closer together; and, by
annihilating distance as measured by time, to make the whole kingdom as one great city. What the personal blessings of improved communication have been, no one has described so well as the witty and sensible Sydney Smith:—

"It is of some importance," he wrote, "at what period a man is born. A young man alive at this period hardly knows to what improvement of human life he has been introduced; and I would bring before his notice the changes which
have taken place in England since I began to breathe the breath of life, a period amounting to over eighty years. Gas was unknown; I groped about the streets of London in the all but utter darkness of a twinkling oil lamp, under the
protection of watchmen in their grand climacteric, and exposed to every species of degradation and insult. I have been nine hours in sailing from Dover to Calais, before the invention of steam. It took me nine hours to go from Taunton
to Bath, before the invention of railroads; and I now go in six hours from Taunton to London! In going from Taunton to Bath, I suffered between l0,000 and 12,000 severe contusions, before stone-breaking Macadam was born…. As
the basket of stage-coaches in which luggage was then carried had no springs, your clothes were rubbed all to pieces; and, even in the best society, one-third of the gentlemen at least were always drunk….. I paid 15L. in a single year
for repairs of carriage-springs on the pavement of London; and I now glide without noise or fracture on wooden pavement. I can walk, by the assistance of the police, from one end of London to the other without molestation; or, if
tired, get into a cheap and active cab, instead of those cottages on wheels which the hackney coaches were at the beginning of my life….. Whatever miseries I suffered, there was no post to whisk my complaints for a single penny to
the remotest comer of the empire; and yet, in spite of all these privations, I lived on quietly, and am now ashamed that I was not more discontented, and utterly surprised that all these changes and inventions did not occur two centuries
ago.

With the history of these great improvements is also mixed up the story of human labour and genius, and of the patience and perseverance displayed in carrying them out. Probably one of the best illustrations of character in connection with the
development of the inventions of the last century, is to be found in the life of Thomas Telford, the greatest and most scientific road-maker of his day, to which we proceed to direct the attention of the reader.

Footnotes for Chapter VI.

*[1] 'Observations on Blindness and on the Employment of the other Senses to supply the Loss of Sight.' By Mr. Bew.—'Memoirs of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester,' vol.i., pp. 172-174. Paper read 17th April, 1782.

*[2] The pillar was erected by Squire Dashwood in 1751; the lantern on its summit was regularly lighted till 1788, and occasionally till 1808,, when it was thrown down and never replaced. The Earl of Buckingham afterwards mounted a statue of
George III. on the top.

*[3] Since the appearance of the first edition of this book, a correspondent has informed us that there is another lighthouse within 24 miles of London, not unlike that on Lincoln Heath. It is situated a little to the south-east of the Woking station of the
South-western Railway, and is popularly known as "Woking Monument." It stands on the verge of Woking Heath, which is a continuation of the vast tract of heath land which extends in one direction as far as Bagshot. The tradition among the inhabitants
is, that one of the kings of England was wont to hunt in the neighbourhood, when a fire was lighted up in the beacon to guide him in case he should be belated; but the probability is, that it was erected like that on Lincoln Heath, for the guidance of
ordinary wayfarers at night.

*[4] 'Journal of the Agricultural Society of England, 1843.'

LIFE OF THOMAS TELFORD.

CHAPTER I. ESKDALE.

[Image] Valley of "the Unblameable Shepherd", Eskdale

Thomas Telford was born in one of the most Solitary nooks of the narrow valley of the Esk, in the eastern part of the county of Dumfries, in Scotland. Eskdale runs north and south, its lower end having been in former times the western march of the
Scottish border. Near the entrance to the dale is a tall column erected on Langholm Hill, some twelve miles to the north of the Gretna Green station of the Caledonian Railway,—which many travellers to and from Scotland may have observed,—a
monument to the late Sir John Malcolm, Governor of Bombay, one of the distinguished natives of the district. It looks far over the English border-lands, which stretch away towards the south, and marks the entrance to the mountainous parts of the dale,
which lie to the north. From that point upwards the valley gradually contracts, the road winding along the river's banks, in some places high above the stream, which rushes swiftly over the rocky bed below.

A few miles upward from the lower end of Eskdale lies the little capital of the district, the town of Langholm; and there, in the market-place, stands another monument to the virtues of the Malcolm family in the statue erected to the memory of Admiral
Sir Pulteney Malcolm, a distinguished naval officer. Above Langholm, the country becomes more hilly and moorland. In many places only a narrow strip of land by the river's side is left available for cultivation; until at length the dale contracts so much
that the hills descend to the very road, and there are only to be seen their steep heathery sides sloping up towards the sky on either hand, and a narrow stream plashing and winding along the bottom of the valley among the rocks at their feet.

[Image] Telford's Native District

From this brief description of the character of Eskdale scenery, it may readily be supposed that the district is very thinly peopled, and that it never could have been capable of supporting a large number of inhabitants. Indeed, previous to the union of the
crowns of England and Scotland, the principal branch of industry that existed in the Dale was of a lawless kind. The people living on the two sides of the border looked upon each other's cattle as their own, provided only they had the strength to "lift"
them. They were, in truth, even during the time of peace, a kind of outcasts, against whom the united powers of England and Scotland were often employed. On the Scotch side of the Esk were the Johnstones and Armstrongs, and on the English the
Graemes of Netherby; both clans being alike wild and lawless. It was a popular border saying that "Elliots and Armstrongs ride thieves a';" and an old historian says of the Graemes that "they were all stark moss-troopers and arrant thieves; to England as
well as Scotland outlawed." The neighbouring chiefs were no better: Scott of Buccleugh, from whom the modern Duke is descended, and Scott of Harden, the ancestor of the novelist, being both renowned freebooters.

There stands at this day on the banks of the Esk, only a few miles from the English border, the ruin of an old fortalice, called Gilnockie Tower, in a situation which in point of natural beauty is scarcely equalled even in Scotland. It was the stronghold of
a chief popularly known in his day as Johnnie Armstrong.*[1] He was a mighty freebooter in the time of James V., and the terror of his name is said to have extended as far as Newcastle-upon-Tyne, between which town and his castle on the Esk he was
accustomed to levy black-mail, or "protection and forbearance money," as it was called. The King, however, determining to put down by the strong hand the depredations of the march men, made a sudden expedition along the borders; and Johnnie
Armstrong having been so ill-advised as to make his appearance with his followers at a place called Carlenrig, in Etterick Forest, between Hawick and Langholm, James ordered him to instant execution. Had Johnnie Armstrong, like the Scotts and Kers
and Johnstones of like calling, been imprisoned beforehand, he might possibly have lived to found a British peerage; but as it was, the genius of the Armstrong dynasty was for a time extinguished, only, however, to reappear, after the lapse of a few
centuries, in the person of the eminent engineer of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, the inventor of the Armstrong gun.

The two centuries and a half which have elapsed since then have indeed seen extraordinary changes.*[2] The energy which the old borderers threw into their feuds has not become extinct, but survives under more benignant aspects, exhibiting itself in
efforts to enlighten, fertilize, and enrich the country which their wasteful ardour before did so much to disturb and impoverish. The heads of the Buccleugh and Elliot family now sit in the British House of Lords. The descendant of Scott of Harden has
achieved a world-wide reputation as a poet and novelist; and the late Sir James Graham, the representative of the Graemes of Netherby, on the English side of the border, was one of the most venerable and respected of British statesmen. The border men,
who used to make such furious raids and forays, have now come to regard each other, across the imaginary line which divides them, as friends and neighbours; and they meet as competitors for victory only at agricultural meetings, where they strive to
win prizes for the biggest turnips or the most effective reaping-machines; while the men who followed their Johnstone or Armstrong chiefs as prickers or hobilers to the fray have, like Telford, crossed the border with powers of road-making and bridge-
building which have proved a source of increased civilization and well-being to the population of the entire United Kingdom.

The hamlet of Westerkirk, with its parish church and school, lies in a narrow part of the valley, a few miles above Langholm. Westerkirk parish is long and narrow, its boundaries being the hill-tops on either side of the dale. It is about seven miles long
and two broad, with a population of about 600 persons of all ages. Yet this number is quite as much as the district is able to support, as is proved by its remaining as nearly as possible stationary from one generation to another.*[3] But what becomes of the
natural increase of families? "They swarm off!" was the explanation given to us by a native of the valley. "If they remained at home," said he, "we should all be sunk in poverty, scrambling with each other amongst these hills for a bare living. But our
peasantry have a spirit above that: they will not consent to sink; they look up; and our parish schools give them a power of making their way in the world, each man for himself. So they swarm off—some to America, some to Australia, some to India, and
some, like Telford, work their way across the border and up to London."

One would scarcely have expected to find the birthplace of the builder of the Menai Bridge and other great national works in so obscure a corner of the kingdom. Possibly it may already have struck the reader with surprise, that not only were all the
early engineers self-taught in their profession, but they were brought up mostly in remote country places, far from the active life of great towns and cities. But genius is of no locality, and springs alike from the farmhouse, the peasant's hut, or the herd's
shieling. Strange, indeed, it is that the men who have built our bridges, docks, lighthouses, canals, and railways, should nearly all have been country-bred boys: Edwards and Brindley, the sons of small farmers; Smeaton, brought up in his father's country
house at Austhorpe; Rennie, the son of a farmer and freeholder; and Stephenson, reared in a colliery village, an engine-tenter's son. But Telford, even more than any of these, was a purely country-bred boy, and was born and brought up in a valley so
secluded that it could not even boast of a cluster of houses of the dimensions of a village.

Telford's father was a herd on the sheep-farm of Glendinning. The farm consists of green hills, lying along the valley of the Meggat, a little burn, which descends from the moorlands on the east, and falls into the Esk near the hamlet of Westerkirk. John
Telford's cottage was little better than a shieling, consisting of four mud walls, spanned by a thatched roof. It stood upon a knoll near the lower end of a gully worn in the hillside by the torrents of many winters.

The ground stretches away from it in a long sweeping slope up to the sky, and is green to the top, except where the bare grey rocks in some places crop out to the day. From the knoll may be seen miles on miles of hills up and down the valley, winding
in and out, sometimes branching off into smaller glens, each with its gurgling rivulet of peaty-brown water flowing down from the mosses above. Only a narrow strip of arable land is here and there visible along the bottom of the dale, all above being
sheep-pasture, moors, and rocks. At Glendinning you seem to have got almost to the world's end. There the road ceases, and above it stretch trackless moors, the solitude of which is broken only by the whimpling sound of the burns on their way to the
valley below, the hum of bees gathering honey among the heather, the whirr of a blackcock on the wing, the plaintive cry of the ewes at lambing-time, or the sharp bark of the shepherd's dog gathering the flock together for the fauld.

[Image] Telford's Birthplace

In this cottage on the knoll Thomas Telford was born on the 9th of August, 1757, and before the year was out he was already an orphan. The shepherd, his father, died in the month of November, and was buried in Westerkirk churchyard, leaving behind
him his widow and her only child altogether unprovided for. We may here mention that one of the first things which that child did, when he had grown up to manhood and could "cut a headstone," was to erect one with the following inscription, hewn and
lettered by himself, over his father's grave: "IN MEMORY OF JOHN TELFORD, WHO AFTER LIVING 33 YEARS AN UNBLAMEABLE SHEPHERD, DIED AT GLENDINNING, NOVEMBER, 1757,"

a simple but poetical epitaph, which Wordsworth himself might have written.

The widow had a long and hard struggle with the world before her; but she encountered it bravely. She had her boy to work for, and, destitute though she was, she had him to educate. She was helped, as the poor so often are, by those of her own
condition, and there is no sense of degradation in receiving such help. One of the risks of benevolence is its tendency to lower the recipient to the condition of an alms-taker. Doles from poor's-boxes have this enfeebling effect; but a poor neighbour giving
a destitute widow a help in her time of need is felt to be a friendly act, and is alike elevating to the character of both. Though misery such as is witnessed in large towns was quite unknown in the valley, there was poverty; but it was honest as well as
hopeful, and none felt ashamed of it. The farmers of the dale were very primitive*[4] in their manners and habits, and being a warm-hearted, though by no means a demonstrative race, they were kind to the widow and her fatherless boy. They took him by
turns to live with them at their houses, and gave his mother occasional employment. In summer she milked the ewes and made hay, and in harvest she went a-shearing; contriving not only to live, but to be cheerful.

The house to which the widow and her son removed at the Whitsuntide following the death of her husband was at a place called The Crooks, about midway between Glendinning and Westerkirk. It was a thatched cot-house, with two ends; in one of
which lived Janet Telford (more commonly known by her own name of Janet Jackson) and her son Tom, and in the other her neighbour Elliot; one door being common to both.

[Image] Cottage at the Crooks.

Young Telford grew up a healthy boy, and he was so full of fun and humour that he became known in the valley by the name of "Laughing Tam." When he was old enough to herd sheep he went to live with a relative, a shepherd like his father, and he
spent most of his time with him in summer on the hill-side amidst the silence of nature. In winter he lived with one or other of the neighbouring farmers. He herded their cows or ran errands, receiving for recompense his meat, a pair of stockings, and five
shillings a year for clogs. These were his first wages, and as he grew older they were gradually increased.

But Tom must now be put to school, and, happily, small though the parish of Westerkirk was, it possessed the advantage of that admirable institution, the parish school. The legal provision made at an early period for the education of the people in
Scotland, proved one of their greatest boons. By imparting the rudiments of knowledge to all, the parish schools of the country placed the children of the peasantry on a more equal footing with the children of the rich; and to that extent redressed the
inequalities of fortune. To start a poor boy on the road of life without instruction, is like starting one on a race with his eyes bandaged or his leg tied up. Compared with the educated son of the rich man, the former has but little chance of sighting the
winning post.

To our orphan boy the merely elementary teaching provided at the parish school of Westerkirk was an immense boon. To master this was the first step of the ladder he was afterwards to mount: his own industry, energy, and ability must do the rest. To
school accordingly he went, still working a-field or herding cattle during the summer months. Perhaps his own "penny fee" helped to pay the teacher's hire; but it is supposed that his cousin Jackson defrayed the principal part of the expense of his
instruction. It was not much that he learnt; but in acquiring the arts of reading, writing, and figures, he learnt the beginnings of a great deal. Apart from the question of learning, there was another manifest advantage to the poor boy in mixing freely at the
parish school with the sons of the neighbouring farmers and proprietors. Such intercourse has an influence upon a youth's temper, manners, and tastes, which is quite as important in the education of character as the lessons of the master himself; and
Telford often, in after life, referred with pleasure to the benefits which he had derived from his early school friendships. Among those to whom he was accustomed to look back with most pride, were the two elder brothers of the Malcolm family, both of
whom rose to high rank in the service of their country; William Telford, a youth of great promise, a naval surgeon, who died young; and the brothers William and Andrew Little, the former of whom settled down as a farmer in Eskdale, and the latter, a
surgeon, lost his eyesight when on service off the coast of Africa. Andrew Little afterwards established himself as a teacher at Langholm, where he educated, amongst others, General Sir Charles Pasley, Dr. Irving, the Custodier of the Advocate's Library
at Edinburgh; and others known to fame beyond the bounds of their native valley. Well might Telford say, when an old man, full of years and honours, on sitting down to write his autobiography, "I still recollect with pride and pleasure my native parish of
Westerkirk, on the banks of the Esk, where I was born."

[Image] Westerkirk Church and School.

Footnotes for Chapter I.

*[1] Sir Waiter Scott, in his notes to the 'Minstrelsy of the

Scottish Border,' says that the common people of the high parts of
Liddlesdale and the country adjacent to this day hold the memory of
Johnnie Armstrong in very high respect.

*[2] It was long before the Reformation flowed into the secluded valley of the Esk; but when it did, the energy of the Borderers displayed itself in the extreme form of their opposition to the old religion. The Eskdale people became as resolute in their
covenanting as they had before been in their free-booting; the moorland fastnesses of the moss-troopers becoming the haunts of the persecuted ministers in the reign of the second James. A little above Langholm is a hill known as "Peden's View," and the
well in the green hollow at its foot is still called "Peden's Well"—that place having been the haunt of Alexander Peden, the "prophet." His hiding-place was among the alder-bushes in the hollow, while from the hill-top he could look up the valley, and see
whether the Johnstones of Wester Hall were coming. Quite at the head of the same valley, at a place called Craighaugh, on Eskdale Muir, one Hislop, a young covenanter, was shot by Johnstone's men, and buried where he fell; a gray slabstone still
marking the place of his rest. Since that time, however, quiet has reigned in Eskdale, and its small population have gone about their daily industry from one generation to another in peace. Yet though secluded and apparently shut out by the surrounding
hills from the outer world, there is not a throb of the nation's heart but pulsates along the valley; and when the author visited it some years since, he found that a wave of the great Volunteer movement had flowed into Eskdale; and the "lads of Langholm"
were drilling and marching under their chief, young Mr. Malcolm of the Burnfoot, with even more zeal than in the populous towns and cities of the south.

*[3] The names of the families in the valley remain very nearly the same as they were three hundred years ago—the Johnstones, Littles, Scotts, and Beatties prevailing above Langholm; and the Armstrongs, Bells, Irwins, and Graemes lower down
towards Canobie and Netherby. It is interesting to find that Sir David Lindesay, in his curious drama published in 'Pinkerton's Scottish Poems' vol. ii., p. 156, gives these as among the names of the borderers some three hundred years since. One Common
Thift, when sentenced to condign punishment, thus remembers his Border friends in his dying speech:

"Adew! my bruther Annan thieves,

That holpit me in my mischeivis;
Adew! Grosaws, Niksonis, and Bells,
Oft have we fairne owrthreuch the fells:

Adew! Robsons, Howis, and Pylis,

That in our craft hes mony wilis:
Littlis, Trumbells, and Armestranges;
Baileowes, Erewynis, and Elwandis,
Speedy of flicht, and slicht of handis;
The Scotts of Eisdale, and the Gramis,
I haf na time to tell your nameis."

Telford, or Telfer, is an old name in the same neighbourhood, commemorated in the well known border ballad of 'Jamie Telfer of the fair Dodhead.' Sir W. Scott says, in the 'Minstrelsy,' that "there is still a family of Telfers. residing near Langholm ,
who pretend to derive their descent from the Telfers of the Dodhead." A member of the family of "Pylis" above mentioned, is said to have migrated from Ecclefechan southward to Blackburn, and there founded the celebrated Peel family.

*[4] We were informed in the valley that about the time of Telford's birth there were only two tea-kettles in the whole parish of Westerkirk, one of which was in the house of Sir James Johnstone of Wester Hall, and the other at "The Burn," the residence
of Mr. Pasley, grandfather of General Sir Charles Pasley.

CHAPTER II.

LANGHOLM—TELFORD LEARNS THE TRADE OF A STONEMASON.

The time arrived when young Telford must be put to some regular calling. Was he to be a shepherd like his father and his uncle, or was he to be a farm-labourer, or put apprentice to a trade? There was not much choice; but at length it was determined to
bind him to a stonemason. In Eskdale that trade was for the most part confined to the building of drystone walls, and there was very little more art employed in it than an ordinarily neat-handed labourer could manage. It was eventually decided to send the
youth—and he was now a strong lad of about fifteen—to a mason at Lochmaben, a small town across the hills to the westward, where a little more building and of a better sort—such as of farm-houses, barns, and road-bridges—was carried on than in his
own immediate neighbourhood. There he remained only a few months; for his master using him badly, the high-spirited youth would not brook it, and ran away, taking refuge with his mother at The Crooks, very much to her dismay.

What was now to be done with Tom? He was willing to do anything or go anywhere rather than back to his Lochmaben master. In this emergency his cousin Thomas Jackson, the factor or land-steward at Wester Hall, offered to do what he could to
induce Andrew Thomson, a small mason at Langholm, to take Telford for the remainder of his apprenticeship; and to him he went accordingly. The business carried on by his new master was of a very humble sort. Telford, in his autobiography, states that
most of the farmers' houses in the district then consisted of "one storey of mud walls, or rubble stones bedded in clay, and thatched with straw, rushes, or heather; the floors being of earth, and the fire in the middle, having a plastered creel chimney for the
escape of the smoke; while, instead of windows, small openings in the thick mud walls admitted a scanty light." The farm-buildings were of a similarly wretched description.

The principal owner of the landed property in the neighbourhood was the Duke of Buccleugh. Shortly after the young Duke Henry succeeded to the title and estates, in 1767, he introduced considerable improvements in the farmers' houses and farm-
steadings, and the peasants' dwellings, as well as in the roads throughout Eskdale. Thus a demand sprang up for masons' labour, and Telford's master had no want of regular employment for his hands. Telford profited by the experience which this increase
in the building operations of the neighbourhood gave him; being employed in raising rough walls and farm enclosures, as well as in erecting bridges across rivers wherever regular roads for wheel carriages were substituted for the horse-tracks formerly in
use.

During the greater part of his apprenticeship Telford lived in the little town of Langholm, taking frequent opportunities of visiting his mother at The Crooks on Saturday evenings, and accompanying her to the parish church of Westerkirk on Sundays.
Langholm was then a very poor place, being no better in that respect than the district that surrounded it. It consisted chiefly of mud hovels, covered with thatch—the principal building in it being the Tolbooth, a stone and lime structure, the upper part of
which was used as a justice-hall and the lower part as a gaol. There were, however, a few good houses in the little town, occupied by people of the better class, and in one of these lived an elderly lady, Miss Pasley, one of the family of the Pasleys of Craig.
As the town was so small that everybody in it knew everybody else, the ruddyy-cheeked, laughing mason's apprentice soon became generally known to all the townspeople, and amongst others to Miss Pasley. When she heard that he was the poor orphan
boy from up the valley, the son of the hard-working widow woman, Janet Jackson, so "eident" and so industrious, her heart warmed to the mason's apprentice, and she sent for him to her house. That was a proud day for Tom; and when he called upon her,
he was not more pleased with Miss Pasley's kindness than delighted at the sight of her little library of books, which contained more volumes than he had ever seen before.

Having by this time acquired a strong taste for reading, and exhausted all the little book stores of his friends, the joy of the young mason may be imagined when Miss Pasley volunteered to lend him some books from her own library. Of course, he
eagerly and thankfully availed himself of the privilege; and thus, while working as an apprentice and afterwards as a journeyman, Telford gathered his first knowledge of British literature, in which he was accustomed to the close of his life to take such
pleasure. He almost always had some book with him, which he would snatch a few minutes to read in the intervals of his work; and on winter evenings he occupied his spare time in poring over such volumes as came in his way, usually with no better
light than the cottage fire. On one occasion Miss Pasley lent him 'Paradise Lost,' and he took the book with him to the hill-side to read. His delight was such that it fairly taxed his powers of expression to describe it. He could only say; "I read, and read,
and glowred; then read, and read again." He was also a great admirer of Burns, whose writings so inflamed his mind that at the age of twenty-two, when barely out of his apprenticeship, we find the young mason actually breaking out in verse.*[1] By
diligently reading all the books that he could borrow from friends and neighbours, Telford made considerable progress in his learning; and, what with his scribbling of "poetry" and various attempts at composition, he had become so good and legible a
writer that he was often called upon by his less-educated acquaintances to pen letters for them to their distant friends. He was always willing to help them in this way; and, the other working people of the town making use of his services in the same
manner, all the little domestic and family histories of the place soon became familiar to him. One evening a Langholm man asked Tom to write a letter for him to his son in England; and when the young scribe read over what had been written to the old
man's dictation, the latter, at the end of almost every sentence, exclaimed, "Capital! capital!" and at the close he said, "Well! I declare, Tom! Werricht himsel' couldna ha' written a better!"—Wright being a well-known lawyer or "writer" in Langholm.

His apprenticeship over, Telford went on working as a journeyman at Langholm, his wages at the time being only eighteen pence a day. What was called the New Town was then in course of erection, and there are houses still pointed out in it, the walls
of which Telford helped to put together. In the town are three arched door-heads of a more ornamental character than the rest, of Telford's hewing; for he was already beginning to set up his pretensions as a craftsman, and took pride in pointing to the
superior handiwork which proceeded from his chisel.

About the same time, the bridge connecting the Old with the New Town was built across the Esk at Langholm, and upon that structure he was also employed. Many of the stones in it were hewn by his hand, and on several of the blocks forming the
land-breast his tool-mark is still to be seen.

Not long after the bridge was finished, an unusually high flood or spate swept down the valley. The Esk was "roaring red frae bank to brae," and it was generally feared that the new brig would be carried away. Robin Hotson, the master mason, was
from home at the time, and his wife, Tibby, knowing that he was bound by his contract to maintain the fabric for a period of seven years, was in a state of great alarm. She ran from one person to another, wringing her hands and sobbing, "Oh! we'll be
ruined—we'll a' be ruined!" In her distress she thought of Telford, in whom she had great confidence, and called out, "Oh! where's Tammy Telfer— where's Tammy?" He was immediately sent for. It was evening, and he was soon found at the house of
Miss Pasley. When he came running up, Tibby exclaimed, "Oh, Tammy! they've been on the brig, and they say its shakin'! It 'll be doon!" "Never you heed them, Tibby," said Telford, clapping her on the shoulder, "there's nae fear o' the brig. I like it a' the
better that it shakes— it proves its weel put thegither." Tibby's fears, however, were not so easily allayed; and insisting that she heard the brig "rumlin," she ran up—so the neighbours afterwards used to say of her—and set her back against the parapet to
hold it together. At this, it is said, "Tam bodged and leuch;" and Tibby, observing how easily he took it, at length grew more calm. It soon became clear enough that the bridge was sufficiently strong; for the flood subsided without doing it any harm, and it
has stood the furious spates of nearly a century uninjured.

Telford acquired considerable general experience about the same time as a house-builder, though the structures on which he was engaged were of a humble order, being chiefly small farm-houses on the Duke of Buccleugh's estate, with the usual out-
buildings. Perhaps the most important of the jobs on which he was employed was the manse of Westerkirk, where he was comparatively at home. The hamlet stands on a green hill-side, a little below the entrance to the valley of the Meggat. It consists of
the kirk, the minister's manse, the parish-school, and a few cottages, every occupant of which was known to Telford. It is backed by the purple moors, up which he loved to wander in his leisure hours and read the poems of Fergusson and Burns. The river
Esk gurgles along its rocky bed in the bottom of the dale, separated from the kirkyard by a steep bank, covered with natural wood; while near at hand, behind the manse, stretch the fine woods of Wester Hall, where Telford was often wont to roam.

[Image] Valley of Eskdale, Westerkirk in the distance.

We can scarcely therefore wonder that, amidst such pastoral scenery, and reading such books as he did, the poetic faculty of the country mason should have become so decidedly developed. It was while working at Westerkirk manse that he sketched the
first draft of his descriptive poem entitled 'Eskdale,' which was published in the 'Poetical Museum' in 1784.*[2] These early poetical efforts were at least useful in stimulating his self-education. For the practice of poetical composition, while it cultivates
the sentiment of beauty in thought and feeling, is probably the best of all exercises in the art of writing correctly, grammatically, and expressively. By drawing a man out of his ordinary calling, too, it often furnishes him with a power of happy thinking
which may in after life become a source of the purest pleasure; and this, we believe, proved to be the case with Telford, even though he ceased in later years to pursue the special cultivation of the art.

Shortly after, when work became slack in the district, Telford undertook to do small jobs on his own account such as the hewing of grave-stones and ornamental doorheads. He prided himself especially upon his hewing, and from the specimens of his
workmanship which are still to be seen in the churchyards of Langholm and Westerkirk, he had evidently attained considerable skill. On some of these pieces of masonry the year is carved—1779, or 1780. One of the most ornamental is that set into the
wall of Westerkirk church, being a monumental slab, with an inscription and moulding, surmounted by a coat of arms, to the memory of James Pasley of Craig. He had now learnt all that his native valley could teach him of the art of masonry; and, bent
upon self-improvement and gaining a larger experience of life, as well as knowledge of his trade, he determined to seek employment elsewhere. He accordingly left Eskdale for the first time, in 1780, and sought work in Edinburgh, where the New Town
was then in course of erection on the elevated land, formerly green fields, extending along the north bank of the "Nor' Loch." A bridge had been thrown across the Loch in 1769, the stagnant pond or marsh in the hollow had been filled up, and Princes
Street was rising as if by magic. Skilled masons were in great demand for the purpose of carrying out these and the numerous other architectural improvements which were in progress, and Telford had no difficulty in obtaining employment.

Our stone-mason remained at Edinburgh for about two years, during which he had the advantage of taking part in first-rate work and maintaining himself comfortably, while he devoted much of his spare time to drawing, in its application to
architecture. He took the opportunity of visiting and carefully studying the fine specimens of ancient work at Holyrood House and Chapel, the Castle, Heriot's Hospital, and the numerous curious illustrations of middle age domestic architecture with
which the Old Town abounds. He also made several journeys to the beautiful old chapel of Rosslyn, situated some miles to the south of Edinburgh, making careful drawings of the more important parts of that building.

When he had thus improved himself, "and studied all that was to be seen in Edinburgh, in returning to the western border," he says, "I visited the justly celebrated Abbey of Melrose." There he was charmed by the delicate and perfect workmanship still
visible even in the ruins of that fine old Abbey; and with his folio filled with sketches and drawings, he made his way back to Eskdale and the humble cottage at The Crooks. But not to remain there long. He merely wished to pay a parting visit to his
mother and other relatives before starting upon a longer journey. "Having acquired," he says in his Autobiography, "the rudiments of my profession, I considered that my native country afforded few opportunities of exercising it to any extent, and
therefore judged it advisable (like many of my countrymen) to proceed southward, where industry might find more employment and be better remunerated."

Before setting out, he called upon all his old friends and acquaintances in the dale—the neighbouring farmers, who had befriended him and his mother when struggling with poverty—his schoolfellows, many of whom were preparing to migrate, like
himself, from their native valley—and the many friends and acquaintances he had made while working as a mason in Langholm. Everybody knew that Tom was going south, and all wished him God speed. At length the leave-taking was over, and he set
out for London in the year 1782, when twenty-five years old. He had, like the little river Meggat, on the banks of which he was born, floated gradually on towards the outer world: first from the nook in the valley, to Westerkirk school; then to Langholm
and its little circle; and now, like the Meggat, which flows with the Esk into the ocean, he was about to be borne away into the wide world. Telford, however, had confidence in himself, and no one had fears for him. As the neighbours said, wisely wagging
their heads, "Ah, he's an auld-farran chap is Tam; he'll either mak a spoon or spoil a horn; any how, he's gatten a good trade at his fingers' ends."

Telford had made all his previous journeys on foot; but this one he made on horseback. It happened that Sir James Johnstone, the laird of Wester Hall, had occasion to send a horse from Eskdale to a member of his family in London, and he had some
difficulty in finding a person to take charge of it. It occurred to Mr. Jackson, the laird's factor, that this was a capital opportunity for his cousin Tom, the mason; and it was accordingly arranged that he should ride the horse to town. When a boy, he had
learnt rough riding sufficiently well for the purpose; and the better to fit him for the hardships of the road, Mr. Jackson lent him his buckskin breeches. Thus Tom set out from his native valley well mounted, with his little bundle of "traps" buckled behind
him, and, after a prosperous journey, duly reached London, and delivered up the horse as he had been directed. Long after, Mr. Jackson used to tell the story of his cousin's first ride to London with great glee, and he always took care to wind up with
—"but Tam forgot to send me back my breeks!"

[Image] Lower Valley of the Meggat, the Crooks in the distance.

Footnotes for Chapter II.

*[1] In his 'Epistle to Mr. Walter Ruddiman,' first published in 'Ruddiman's Weekly Magazine,' in 1779, occur the following lines addressed to Burns, in which Telford incidentally sketches himself at the time, and hints at his own subsequent
meritorious career;

"Nor pass the tentie curious lad,

Who o'er the ingle hangs his head,
And begs of neighbours books to read;
For hence arise
Thy country's sons, who far are spread,
Baith bold and wise."

*[2] The 'Poetical Museum,' Hawick, p.267. ' Eskdale' was afterwards reprinted by Telford when living at Shrewsbury, when he added a few lines by way of conclusion. The poem describes very pleasantly the fine pastoral scenery of the district:—

"Deep 'mid the green sequester'd glens below,

Where murmuring streams among the alders flow,
Where flowery meadows down their margins spread,
And the brown hamlet lifts its humble head—
There, round his little fields, the peasant strays,
And sees his flock along the mountain graze;
And, while the gale breathes o'er his ripening grain,
And soft repeats his upland shepherd's strain,
And western suns with mellow radiance play.
And gild his straw-roof'd cottage with their ray,
Feels Nature's love his throbbing heart employ,
Nor envies towns their artificial joy."

The features of the valley are very fairly described. Its early history is then rapidly sketched; next its period of border strife, at length happily allayed by the union of the kingdoms, under which the Johnstones, Pasleys, and others, men of Eskdale,
achieve honour and fame. Nor did he forget to mention Armstrong, the author of the 'Art of Preserving Health,' son of the minister of Castleton, a few miles east of Westerkirk; and Mickle, the translator of the 'Lusiad,' whose father was minister of the
parish of Langholm; both of whom Telford took a natural pride in as native poets of Eskdale.

CHAPTER III.

TELFORD A WORKING MASON IN LONDON, AND FOREMAN OF MASONS AT PORTSMOUTH.

A common working man, whose sole property consisted in his mallet and chisels, his leathern apron and his industry, might not seem to amount to much in "the great world of London." But, as Telford afterwards used to say, very much depends on
whether the man has got a head with brains in it of the right sort upon his shoulders. In London, the weak man is simply a unit added to the vast floating crowd, and may be driven hither and thither, if he do not sink altogether; while the strong man will
strike out, keep his head above water, and make a course for himself, as Telford did. There is indeed a wonderful impartiality about London. There the capable person usually finds his place. When work of importance is required, nobody cares to ask
where the man who can do it best comes from, or what he has been, but what he is, and what he can do. Nor did it ever stand in Telford's way that his father had been a poor shepherd in Eskdale, and that he himself had begun his London career by
working for weekly wages with a mallet and chisel.

After duly delivering up the horse, Telford proceeded to present a letter with which he had been charged by his friend Miss Pasley on leaving Langholm. It was addressed to her brother, Mr. John Pasley, an eminent London merchant, brother also of Sir
Thomas Pasley, and uncle of the Malcolms. Miss Pasley requested his influence on behalf of the young mason from Eskdale, the bearer of the letter. Mr. Pasley received his countryman kindly, and furnished him with letters of introduction to Sir William
Chambers, the architect of Somerset House, then in course of erection. It was the finest architectural work in progress in the metropolis, and Telford, desirous of improving himself by experience of the best kind, wished to be employed upon it. He did not,
indeed, need any influence to obtain work there, for good hewers were in demand; but our mason thought it well to make sure, and accordingly provided himself beforehand with the letter of introduction to the architect. He was employed immediately,
and set to work among the hewers, receiving the usual wages for his labour.

Mr. Pasley also furnished him with a letter to Mr. Robert Adam,*[1] another distinguished architect of the time; and Telford seems to have been much gratified by the civility which he receives from him. Sir William Chambers he found haughty and
reserved, probably being too much occupied to bestow attention on the Somerset House hewer, while he found Adam to be affable and communicative. "Although I derived no direct advantage from either," Telford says, "yet so powerful is manner, that
the latter left the most favourable impression; while the interviews with both convinced me that my safest plan was to endeavour to advance, if by slower steps, yet by independent conduct."

There was a good deal of fine hewer's work about Somerset House, and from the first Telford aimed at taking the highest place as an artist and tradesman in that line.*[2] Diligence, carefulness, and observation will always carry a man onward and
upward; and before long we find that Telford had succeeded in advancing himself to the rank of a first-class mason. Judging from his letters written about this time to his friends in Eskdale, he seems to have been very cheerful and happy; and his greatest
pleasure was in calling up recollections of his native valley. He was full of kind remembrances for everybody. "How is Andrew, and Sandy, and Aleck, and Davie?" he would say; and "remember me to all the folk of the nook." He seems to have made a
round of the persons from Eskdale in or about London before he wrote, as his letters were full of messages from them to their friends at home; for in those days postage was dear, and as much as possible was necessarily packed within the compass of a
working man's letter. In one, written after more than a year's absence, he said he envied the visit which a young surgeon of his acquaintance was about to pay to the valley; "for the meeting of long absent friends," he added, "is a pleasure to be equalled by
few other enjoyments here below."

He had now been more than a year in London, during which he had acquired much practical information both in the useful and ornamental branches of architecture. Was he to go on as a working mason? or what was to be his next move? He had been
quietly making his observations upon his companions, and had come to the conclusion that they very much wanted spirit, and, more than all, forethought. He found very clever workmen about him with no idea whatever beyond their week's wages. For
these they would make every effort: they would work hard, exert themselves to keep their earnings up to the highest point, and very readily "strike" to secure an advance; but as for making a provision for the next week, or the next year, he thought them
exceedingly thoughtless. On the Monday mornings they began "clean;" and on Saturdays their week's earnings were spent. Thus they lived from one week to another— their limited notion of "the week" seeming to bound their existence.

Telford, on the other hand, looked upon the week as only one of the storeys of a building; and upon the succession of weeks, running on through years, he thought that the complete life structure should be built up. He thus describes one of the best of
his fellow-workmen at that time—the only individual he had formed an intimacy with: "He has been six years at Somerset House, and is esteemed the finest workman in London, and consequently in England. He works equally in stone and marble. He
has excelled the professed carvers in cutting Corinthian capitals and other ornaments about this edifice, many of which will stand as a monument to his honour. He understands drawing thoroughly, and the master he works under looks on him as the
principal support of his business. This man, whose name is Mr. Hatton, may be half a dozen years older than myself at most. He is honesty and good nature itself, and is adored by both his master and fellow-workmen. Notwithstanding his extraordinary
skill and abilities, he has been working all this time as a common journeyman, contented with a few shillings a week more than the rest; but I believe your uneasy friend has kindled a spark in his breast that he never felt before." *[3]

In fact, Telford had formed the intention of inducing this admirable fellow to join him in commencing business as builders on their own account. "There is nothing done in stone or marble," he says, "that we cannot do in the completest manner." Mr.
Robert Adam, to whom the scheme was mentioned, promised his support, and said he would do all in his power to recommend them. But the great difficulty was money, which neither of them possessed; and Telford, with grief, admitting that this was an
"insuperable bar," went no further with the scheme.

About this time Telford was consulted by Mr. Pulteney*[4] respecting the alterations making in the mansion at Wester Hall, and was often with him on this business. We find him also writing down to Langholm for the prices of roofing, masonry, and
timber-work, with a view to preparing estimates for a friend who was building a house in that neighbourhood. Although determined to reach the highest excellence as a manual worker, it is clear that he was already aspiring to be something more. Indeed,
his steadiness, perseverance, and general ability, pointed him out as one well worthy of promotion.

How he achieved his next step we are not informed; but we find him, in July, 1784, engaged in superintending the erection of a house, after a design by Mr. Samuel Wyatt, intended for the residence of the Commissioner (now occupied by the Port
Admiral) at Portsmouth Dockyard, together with a new chapel, and several buildings connected with the Yard. Telford took care to keep his eyes open to all the other works going forward in the neighbourhood, and he states that he had frequent
opportunities of observing the various operations necessary in the foundation and construction of graving-docks, wharf-walls, and such like, which were among the principal occupations of his after-life.

The letters written by him from Portsmouth to his Eskdale correspondents about this time were cheerful and hopeful, like those he had sent from London. His principal grievance was that he received so few from home, but he supposed that
opportunities for forwarding them by hand had not occurred, postage being so dear as scarcely then to be thought of. To tempt them to correspondence he sent copies of the poems which he still continued to compose in the leisure of his evenings: one of
these was a 'Poem on Portsdown Hill.' As for himself, he was doing very well. The buildings were advancing satisfactorily; but, "above all," said he, "my proceedings are entirely approved by the Commissioners and officers here— so much so that they
would sooner go by my advice than my master's, which is a dangerous point, being difficult to keep their good graces as well as his. However, I will contrive to manage it"*[5]

The following is his own account of the manner in which he was usually occupied during the winter months while at Portsmouth Dock:— "I rise in the morning at 7 (February 1st), and will get up earlier as the days lengthen until it come to 5 o'clock. I
immediately set to work to make out accounts, write on matters of business, or draw, until breakfast, which is at 9. Then I go into the Yard about 10, see that all are at their posts, and am ready to advise about any matters that may require attention. This,
and going round the several works, occupies until about dinner-time, which is at 2; and after that I again go round and attend to what may be wanted. I draw till 5; then tea; and after that I write, draw, or read until half after 9; then comes supper and bed.
This my ordinary round, unless when I dine or spend an evening with a friend; but I do not make many friends, being very particular, nay, nice to a degree. My business requires a great deal of writing and drawing, and this work I always take care to keep
under by reserving my time for it, and being in advance of my work rather than behind it. Then, as knowledge is my most ardent pursuit, a thousand things occur which call for investigation which would pass unnoticed by those who are content to trudge
only in the beaten path. I am not contented unless I can give a reason for every particular method or practice which is pursued. Hence I am now very deep in chemistry. The mode of making mortar in the best way led me to inquire into the nature of lime.
Having, in pursuit of this inquiry, looked into some books on chemistry, I perceived the field was boundless; but that to assign satisfactory reasons for many mechanical processes required a general knowledge of that science. I have therefore borrowed a
MS. copy of Dr. Black's Lectures. I have bought his 'Experiments on Magnesia and Quicklime,' and also Fourcroy's Lectures, translated from the French by one Mr. Elliot, of Edinburgh. And I am determined to study the subject with unwearied attention
until I attain some accurate knowledge of chemistry, which is of no less use in the practice of the arts than it is in that of medicine." He adds, that he continues to receive the cordial approval of the Commissioners for the manner in which he performs his
duties, and says, "I take care to be so far master of the business committed to me as that none shall be able to eclipse me in that respect."*[6] At the same time he states he is taking great delight in Freemasonry, and is about to have a lodge-room at the
George Inn fitted up after his plans and under his direction. Nor does he forget to add that he has his hair powdered every day, and puts on a clean shirt three times a week.

The Eskdale mason was evidently getting on, as he deserved to do. But he was not puffed up. To his Langholm friend he averred that "he would rather have it said of him that he possessed one grain of good nature or good sense than shine the finest
puppet in Christendom." "Let my mother know that I am well," he wrote to Andrew Little, "and that I will print her a letter soon."*[7] For it was a practice of this good son, down to the period of his mother's death, no matter how much burdened he was
with business, to set apart occasional times for the careful penning of a letter in printed characters, that she might the more easily be able to decipher it with her old and dimmed eyes by her cottage fireside at The Crooks. As a man's real disposition
usually displays itself most strikingly in small matters—like light, which gleams the most brightly when seen through narrow chinks—it will probably be admitted that this trait, trifling though it may appear, was truly characteristic of the simple and
affectionate nature of the hero of our story.

The buildings at Portsmouth were finished by the end of 1786, when Telford's duties there being at an end, and having no engagement beyond the termination of the contract, he prepared to leave, and began to look about him for other employment.

Footnotes for Chapter III.

*[1] Robert and John Adam were architects of considerable repute in their day. Among their London erections were the Adelphi Buildings, in the Strand; Lansdowne House, in Berkeley Square; Caen Wood House, near Hampstead (Lord Mansfield's);
Portland Place, Regent's Park; and numerous West End streets and mansions. The screen of the Admiralty and the ornaments of Draper's Hall were also designed by them.

*[2] Long after Telford had become famous, he was passing over Waterloo Bridge one day with a friend, when, pointing to some finely-cut stones in the corner nearest the bridge, he said: "You see those stones there; forty years since I hewed and laid
them, when working on that building as a common mason."

*[3]Letter to Mr. Andrew Little, Langholm, dated London, July, 1783.

*[4] Mr., afterwards Sir William, Pulteney, was the second son of Sir James Johnstone, of Wester Hall, and assumed the name of Pulteney, on his marriage to Miss Pulteney, niece of the Earl of Bath and of General Pulteney, by whom he succeeded to a
large fortune. He afterwards succeeded to the baronetcy of his elder brother James, who died without issue in 1797. Sir William Pulteney represented Cromarty, and afterwards Shrewsbury, where he usually resided, in seven successive Parliaments. He
was a great patron of Telford's, as we shall afterwards find.

*[5] Letter to Andrew Little, Langholm, dated Portsmouth, July 23rd, 1784.

*[6] Letter to Mr. Andrew Little, Langholm, dated Portsmouth Dockyard, Feb. 1, 1786.

*[7] Ibid

CHAPTER IV.

BECOMES SURVEYOR FOR THE COUNTY OF SALOP.

Mr. Pulteney, member for Shrewsbury, was the owner of extensive estates in that neighbourhood by virtue of his marriage with the niece of the last Earl of Bath. Having resolved to fit up the Castle there as a residence, he bethought him of the young
Eskdale mason, who had, some years before, advised him as to the repairs of the Johnstone mansion at Wester Hall. Telford was soon found, and engaged to go down to Shrewsbury to superintend the necessary alterations. Their execution occupied his
attention for some time, and during their progress he was so fortunate as to obtain the appointment of Surveyor of Public Works for the county of Salop, most probably through the influence of his patron. Indeed, Telford was known to be so great a
favourite with Mr. Pulteney that at Shrewsbury he usually went by the name of "Young Pulteney."

Much of his attention was from this time occupied with the surveys and repairs of roads, bridges, and gaols, and the supervision of all public buildings under the control of the magistrates of the county. He was also frequently called upon by the
corporation of the borough of Shrewsbury to furnish plans for the improvement of the streets and buildings of that fine old town; and many alterations were carried out under his direction during the period of his residence there.

While the Castle repairs were in course of execution, Telford was called upon by the justices to superintend the erection of a new gaol, the plans for which had already been prepared and settled. The benevolent Howard, who devoted himself with such
zeal to gaol improvement, on hearing of the intentions of the magistrates, made a visit to Shrewsbury for the purpose of examining the plans; and the circumstance is thus adverted to by Telford in one of his letters to his Eskdale correspondent:—"About
ten days ago I had a visit from the celebrated John Howard, Esq. I say I, for he was on his tour of gaols and infirmaries; and those of Shrewsbury being both under my direction, this was, of course, the cause of my being thus distinguished. I accompanied
him through the infirmary and the gaol. I showed him the plans of the proposed new buildings, and had much conversation with him on both subjects. In consequence of his suggestions as to the former, I have revised and amended the plans, so as to carry
out a thorough reformation; and my alterations having been approved by a general board, they have been referred to a committee to carry out. Mr. Howard also took objection to the plan of the proposed gaol, and requested me to inform the magistrates
that, in his opinion, the interior courts were too small, and not sufficiently ventilated; and the magistrates, having approved his suggestions, ordered the plans to be amended accordingly. You may easily conceive how I enjoyed the conversation of this
truly good man, and how much I would strive to possess his good opinion. I regard him as the guardian angel of the miserable. He travels into all parts of Europe with the sole object of doing good, merely for its own sake, and not for the sake of men's
praise. To give an instance of his delicacy, and his desire to avoid public notice, I may mention that, being a Presbyterian, he attended the meeting-house of that denomination in Shrewsbury on Sunday morning, on which occasion I accompanied him; but
in the afternoon he expressed a wish to attend another place of worship, his presence in the town having excited considerable curiosity, though his wish was to avoid public recognition. Nay, more, he assures me that he hates travelling, and was born to be
a domestic man. He never sees his country-house but he says within himself, 'Oh! might I but rest here, and never more travel three miles from home; then should I be happy indeed!' But he has become so committed, and so pledged himself to his own
conscience to carry out his great work, that he says he is doubtful whether he will ever be able to attain the desire of his heart—life at home. He never dines out, and scarcely takes time to dine at all: he says he is growing old, and has no time to lose. His
manner is simplicity itself. Indeed, I have never yet met so noble a being. He is going abroad again shortly on one of his long tours of mercy."*[1] The journey to which Telford here refers was Howard's last. In the following year he left England to return
no more; and the great and good man died at Cherson, on the shores of the Black Sea, less than two years after his interview with the young engineer at Shrewsbury.

Telford writes to his Langholm friend at the same time that he is working very hard, and studying to improve himself in branches of knowledge in which he feels himself deficient. He is practising very temperate habits: for half a year past he has taken
to drinking water only, avoiding all sweets, and eating no "nick-nacks." He has "sowens and milk,' (oatmeal flummery) every night for his supper. His friend having asked his opinion of politics, he says he really knows nothing about them; he had been so
completely engrossed by his own business that he has not had time to read even a newspaper. But, though an ignoramus in politics, he has been studying lime, which is more to his purpose. If his friend can give him any information about that, he will
promise to read a newspaper now and then in the ensuing session of Parliament, for the purpose of forming some opinion of politics: he adds, however, "not if it interfere with my business—mind that!', His friend told him that he proposed translating a
system of chemistry. "Now you know," wrote Telford, "that I am chemistry mad; and if I were near you, I would make you promise to communicate any information on the subject that you thought would be of service to your friend, especially about
calcareous matters and the mode of forming the best composition for building with, as well above as below water. But not to be confined to that alone, for you must know I have a book for the pocket,*[2] which I always carry with me, into which I have
extracted the essence of Fourcroy's Lectures, Black on Quicklime, Scheele's Essays, Watson's Essays, and various points from the letters of my respected friend Dr. Irving.*[3] So much for chemistry. But I have also crammed into it facts relating to
mechanics, hydrostatics, pneumatics, and all manner of stuff, to which I keep continually adding, and it will be a charity to me if you will kindly contribute your mite."*[4] He says it has been, and will continue to be, his aim to endeavour to unite those
"two frequently jarring pursuits, literature and business;" and he does not see why a man should be less efficient in the latter capacity because he has well informed, stored, and humanized his mind by the cultivation of letters. There was both good sense
and sound practical wisdom in this view of Telford.

While the gaol was in course of erection, after the improved plans suggested by Howard, a variety of important matters occupied the county surveyor's attention. During the summer of 1788 he says he is very much occupied, having about ten different
jobs on hand: roads, bridges, streets, drainage-works, gaol, and infirmary. Yet he had time to write verses, copies of which he forwarded to his Eskdale correspondent, inviting his criticism. Several of these were elegiac lines, somewhat exaggerated in
their praises of the deceased, though doubtless sincere. One poem was in memory of George Johnstone, Esq., a member of the Wester Hall family, and another on the death of William Telford, an Eskdale farmer's son, an intimate friend and schoolfellow
of our engineer.*[5] These, however, were but the votive offerings of private friendship, persons more immediately about him knowing nothing of his stolen pleasures in versemaking. He continued to be shy of strangers, and was very "nice," as he calls it,
as to those whom he admitted to his bosom.

Two circumstances of considerable interest occurred in the course of the same year (1788), which are worthy of passing notice. The one was the fall of the church of St. Chad's, at Shrewsbury; the other was the discovery of the ruins of the Roman city
of Uriconium, in the immediate neighbourhood. The church of St. Chad's was about four centuries old, and stood greatly in need of repairs. The roof let in the rain upon the congregation, and the parish vestry met to settle the plans for mending it; but they
could not agree about the mode of procedure. In this emergency Telford was sent for, and requested to advise what was best to he done. After a rapid glance at the interior, which was in an exceedingly dangerous state, he said to the churchwardens,
"Gentlemen, we'll consult together on the outside, if you please." He found that not only the roof but the walls of the church were in a most decayed state. It appeared that, in consequence of graves having been dug in the loose soil close to the shallow
foundation of the north-west pillar of the tower, it had sunk so as to endanger the whole structure. "I discovered," says he, "that there were large fractures in the walls, on tracing which I found that the old building was in a most shattered and decrepit
condition, though until then it had been scarcely noticed. Upon this I declined giving any recommendation as to the repairs of the roof unless they would come to the resolution to secure the more essential parts, as the fabric appeared to me to be in a very
alarming condition. I sent in a written report to the same effect." *[6]

The parish vestry again met, and the report was read; but the meeting exclaimed against so extensive a proposal, imputing mere motives of self-interest to the surveyor. "Popular clamour," says Telford, "overcame my report. 'These fractures,' exclaimed
the vestrymen, 'have been there from time immemorial;' and there were some otherwise sensible persons, who remarked that professional men always wanted to carve out employment for themselves, and that the whole of the necessary repairs could be
done at a comparatively small expense."*[7] The vestry then called in another person, a mason of the town, and directed him to cut away the injured part of a particular pillar, in order to underbuild it. On the second evening after the commencement of the
operations, the sexton was alarmed by a fail of lime-dust and mortar when he attempted to toll the great bell, on which he immediately desisted and left the church. Early next morning (on the 9th of July), while the workmen were waiting at the church
door for the key, the bell struck four, and the vibration at once brought down the tower, which overwhelmed the nave, demolishing all the pillars along the north side, and shattering the rest. "The very parts I had pointed out," says Telford, "were those
which gave way, and down tumbled the tower, forming a very remarkable ruin, which astonished and surprised the vestry, and roused them from their infatuation, though they have not yet recovered from the shock."*[8]

The other circumstance to which we have above referred was the discovery of the Roman city of Uriconium, near Wroxeter, about five miles from Shrewsbury, in the year 1788. The situation of the place is extremely beautiful, the river Severn flowing
along its western margin, and forming a barrier against what were once the hostile districts of West Britain. For many centuries the dead city had slept under the irregular mounds of earth which covered it, like those of Mossul and Nineveh. Farmers raised
heavy crops of turnips and grain from the surface and they scarcely ever ploughed or harrowed the ground without turning up Roman coins or pieces of pottery. They also observed that in certain places the corn was more apt to be scorched in dry weather
than in others—a sure sign to them that there were ruins underneath; and their practice, when they wished to find stones for building, was to set a mark upon the scorched places when the corn was on the ground, and after harvest to dig down, sure of
finding the store of stones which they wanted for walls, cottages, or farm-houses. In fact, the place came to be regarded in the light of a quarry, rich in ready-worked materials for building purposes. A quantity of stone being wanted for the purpose of
erecting a blacksmith's shop, on digging down upon one of the marked places, the labourers came upon some ancient works of a more perfect appearance than usual. Curiosity was excited —antiquarians made their way to the spot—and lo! they
pronounced the ruins to be neither more nor less than a Roman bath, in a remarkably perfect state of preservation. Mr. Telford was requested to apply to Mr. Pulteney, the lord of the manor, to prevent the destruction of these interesting remains, and also to
permit the excavations to proceed, with a view to the buildings being completely explored. This was readily granted, and Mr. Pulteney authorised Telford himself to conduct the necessary excavations at his expense. This he promptly proceeded to do, and
the result was, that an extensive hypocaust apartment was brought to light, with baths, sudatorium, dressing-room, and a number of tile pillars —all forming parts of a Roman floor—sufficiently perfect to show the manner in which the building had been
constructed and used.*[9] Among Telford's less agreeable duties about the same time was that of keeping the felons at work. He had to devise the ways and means of employing them without risk of their escaping, which gave him much trouble and
anxiety. "Really," he said, "my felons are a very troublesome family. I have had a great deal of plague from them, and I have not yet got things quite in the train that I could wish. I have had a dress made for them of white and brown cloth, in such a way
that they are pye-bald. They have each a light chain about one leg. Their allowance in food is a penny loaf and a halfpenny worth of cheese for breakfast; a penny loaf, a quart of soup, and half a pound of meat for dinner; and a penny loaf and a halfpenny
worth of cheese for supper; so that they have meat and clothes at all events. I employ them in removing earth, serving masons or bricklayers, or in any common labouring work on which they can be employed; during which time, of course, I have them
strictly watched."

Much more pleasant was his first sight of Mrs. Jordan at the Shrewsbury theatre, where he seems to have been worked up to a pitch of rapturous enjoyment. She played for six nights there at the race time, during which there were various other'
entertainments. On the second day there was what was called an Infirmary Meeting, or an assemblage of the principal county gentlemen in the infirmary, at which, as county surveyor, Telford was present. They proceeded thence to church to hear a sermon
preached for the occasion; after which there was a dinner, followed by a concert. He attended all. The sermon was preached in the new pulpit, which had just been finished after his design, in the Gothic style; and he confidentially informed his Langholm
correspondent that he believed the pulpit secured greater admiration than the sermon, With the concert he was completely disappointed, and he then became convinced that he had no ear for music. Other people seemed very much pleased; but for the life
of him he could make nothing of it. The only difference that he recognised between one tune and another was that there was a difference in the noise. "It was all very fine," he said, "I have no doubt; but I would not give a song of Jock Stewart *[10] for
the whole of them. The melody of sound is thrown away upon me. One look, one word of Mrs. Jordan, has more effect upon me than all the fiddlers in England. Yet I sat down and tried to be as attentive as any mortal could be. I endeavoured, if possible,
to get up an interest in what was going on; but it was all of no use. I felt no emotion whatever, excepting only a strong inclination to go to sleep. It must be a defect; but it is a fact, and I cannot help it. I suppose my ignorance of the subject, and the want of
musical experience in my youth, may be the cause of it."*[11] Telford's mother was still living in her old cottage at The Crooks. Since he had parted from her, he had written many printed letters to keep her informed of his progress; and he never wrote to
any of his friends in the dale without including some message or other to his mother. Like a good and dutiful son, he had taken care out of his means to provide for her comfort in her declining years. "She has been a good mother to me," he said, "and I
will try and be a good son to her." In a letter written from Shrewsbury about this time, enclosing a ten pound note, seven pounds of which were to be given to his mother, he said, "I have from time to time written William Jackson [his cousin] and told him
to furnish her with whatever she wants to make her comfortable; but there may be many little things she may wish to have, and yet not like to ask him for. You will therefore agree with me that it is right she should have a little cash to dispose of in her
own way…. I am not rich yet; but it will ease my mind to set my mother above the fear of want. That has always been my first object; and next to that, to be the somebody which you have always encouraged me to believe I might aspire to become.
Perhaps after all there may be something in it!" *[12] He now seems to have occupied much of his leisure hours in miscellaneous reading. Among the numerous books which he read, he expressed the highest admiration for Sheridan's 'Life of Swift.' But
his Langholm friend, who was a great politician, having invited his attention to politics, Telford's reading gradually extended in that direction. Indeed the exciting events of the French Revolution then tended to make all men more or less politicians. The
capture of the Bastille by the people of Paris in 1789 passed like an electric thrill through Europe. Then followed the Declaration of Rights; after which, in the course of six months, all the institutions which had before existed in France were swept away,
and the reign of justice was fairly inaugurated upon earth!

In the spring of 1791 the first part of Paine's 'Rights of Man' appeared, and Telford, like many others, read it, and was at once carried away by it. Only a short time before, he had admitted with truth that he knew nothing of politics; but no sooner had he
read Paine than he felt completely enlightened. He now suddenly discovered how much reason he and everybody else in England had for being miserable. While residing at Portsmouth, he had quoted to his Langholm friend the lines from Cowper's 'Task,'
then just published, beginning "Slaves cannot breathe in England;" but lo! Mr. Paine had filled his imagination with the idea that England was nothing but a nation of bondmen and aristocrats. To his natural mind, the kingdom had appeared to be one in
which a man had pretty fair play, could think and speak, and do the thing he would,— tolerably happy, tolerably prosperous, and enjoying many blessings. He himself had felt free to labour, to prosper, and to rise from manual to head work. No one had
hindered him; his personal liberty had never been interfered with; and he had freely employed his earnings as he thought proper. But now the whole thing appeared a delusion. Those rosy-cheeked old country gentlemen who came riding into Shrewsbury
to quarter sessions, and were so fond of their young Scotch surveyor occupying themselves in building bridges, maintaining infirmaries, making roads, and regulating gaols— those county magistrates and members of parliament, aristocrats all, were the
very men who, according to Paine, were carrying the country headlong to ruin!

If Telford could not offer an opinion on politics before, because he "knew nothing about them," he had now no such difficulty. Had his advice been asked about the foundations of a bridge, or the security of an arch, he would have read and studied much
before giving it; he would have carefully inquired into the chemical qualities of different kinds of lime—into the mechanical principles of weight and resistance, and such like; but he had no such hesitation in giving an opinion about the foundations of a
constitution of more than a thousand years' growth. Here, like other young politicians, with Paine's book before him, he felt competent to pronounce a decisive judgment at once. "I am convinced," said he, writing to his Langholm friend, "that the situation
of Great Britain is such, that nothing short of some signal revolution can prevent her from sinking into bankruptcy, slavery, and insignificancy." He held that the national expenditure was so enormous,*[13] arising from the corrupt administration of the
country, that it was impossible the "bloated mass" could hold together any longer; and as he could not expect that "a hundred Pulteneys," such as his employer, could be found to restore it to health, the conclusion he arrived at was that ruin was
"inevitable."*[14] Notwithstanding the theoretical ruin of England which pressed so heavy on his mind at this time, we find Telford strongly recommending his correspondent to send any good wrights he could find in his neighbourhood to Bath, where
they would be enabled to earn twenty shillings or a guinea a week at piece-work— the wages paid at Langholm for similar work being only about half those amounts.

In the same letter in which these observations occur, Telford alluded to the disgraceful riots at Birmingham, in the course of which Dr. Priestley's house and library were destroyed. As the outrages were the work of the mob, Telford could not charge the
aristocracy with them; but with equal injustice he laid the blame at the door of "the clergy," who had still less to do with them, winding up with the prayer, "May the Lord mend their hearts and lessen their incomes!"

Fortunately for Telford, his intercourse with the townspeople of Shrewsbury was so small that his views on these subjects were never known; and we very shortly find him employed by the clergy themselves in building for them a new church in the
town of Bridgenorth. His patron and employer, Mr. Pulteney, however, knew of his extreme views, and the knowledge came to him quite accidentally. He found that Telford had made use of his frank to send through the post a copy of Paine's 'Rights of
Man' to his Langholm correspondent,*[15] where the pamphlet excited as much fury in the minds of some of the people of that town as it had done in that of Telford himself. The "Langholm patriots "broke out into drinking revolutionary toasts at the
Cross, and so disturbed the peace of the little town that some of them were confined for six weeks in the county gaol.

Mr. Pulteney was very indignant at the liberty Telford had taken with his frank, and a rupture between them seemed likely to ensue; but the former was forgiving, and the matter went no further. It is only right to add, that as Telford grew older and
wiser, he became more careful in jumping at conclusions on political topics. The events which shortly occurred in France tended in a great measure to heal his mental distresses as to the future of England. When the "liberty" won by the Parisians ran into
riot, and the "Friends of Man" occupied themselves in taking off the heads of those who differed from them, he became wonderfully reconciled to the enjoyment of the substantial freedom which, after all, was secured to him by the English Constitution.
At the same time, he was so much occupied in carrying out his important works, that he found but little time to devote either to political speculation or to versemaking.

While living at Shrewsbury, he had his poem of 'Eskdale' reprinted for private circulation. We have also seen several MS. verses by him, written about the same period, which do not appear ever to have been printed. One of these—the best—is entitled
'Verses to the Memory of James Thomson, author of "Liberty, a poem;"' another is a translation from Buchanan, 'On the Spheres;' and a third, written in April, 1792, is entitled 'To Robin Burns, being a postscript to some verses addressed to him on the
establishment of an Agricultural Chair in Edinburgh.' It would unnecessarily occupy our space to print these effusions; and, to tell the truth, they exhibit few if any indications of poetic power. No amount of perseverance will make a poet of a man in
whom the divine gift is not born. The true line of Telford's genius lay in building and engineering, in which direction we now propose to follow him.

[Image] Shrewsbury Castle

Footnotes for Chapter IV.

*[1] Letter to Mr. Andrew Little, Langholm, dated Shrewsbury Castle, 21st Feb., 1788.

*[2] This practice of noting down information, the result of reading and observation, was continued by Mr. Telford until the close of his life; his last pocket memorandum book, containing a large amount of valuable information on mechanical subjects
—a sort of engineer's vade mecum—being printed in the appendix to the 4to. 'Life of Telford' published by his executors in 1838, pp. 663-90.

*[3] A medical man, a native of Eskdale, of great promise, who died comparatively young.

*[4] Letter to Mr. Andrew Little, Langholm.

*[5] It would occupy unnecessary space to cite these poems. The following, from the verses in memory of William Telford, relates to schoolboy days, After alluding to the lofty Fell Hills, which formed part of the sheep farm of his deceased friend's
father, the poet goes on to say:

"There 'mongst those rocks I'll form a rural seat,

And plant some ivy with its moss compleat;
I'll benches form of fragments from the stone,
Which, nicely pois'd, was by our hands o'erthrown,—
A simple frolic, but now dear to me,
Because, my Telford, 'twas performed with thee.
There, in the centre, sacred to his name,
I'll place an altar, where the lambent flame
Shall yearly rise, and every youth shall join
The willing voice, and sing the enraptured line.
But we, my friend, will often steal away
To this lone seat, and quiet pass the day;
Here oft recall the pleasing scenes we knew
In early youth, when every scene was new,
When rural happiness our moments blest,
And joys untainted rose in every breast."

*[6] Letter to Mr. Andrew Little, Langholm, dated 16th July, 1788.

*[7] Ibid.

*[8] Letter to Mr. Andrew Little, Langholm, dated 16th July, 1788.

*[9] The discovery formed the subject of a paper read before the Society of Antiquaries in London on the 7th of May, 1789, published in the 'Archaeologia,' together with a drawing of the remains supplied by Mr. Telford.

*[10] An Eskdale crony. His son, Colonel Josias Stewart, rose to eminence in the East India Company's service, having been for many years Resident at Gwalior and Indore.

*[11] Letter to Mr. Andrew Little, Langholm, dated 3rd Sept. 1788.

*[12] Letter to Mr. Andrew Little, Langholm, dated Shrewsbury, 8th October, 1789.

*[13] It was then under seventeen millions sterling, or about a fourth of what it is now.

*[14] Letter to Mr. Andrew Little, Langholm, dated 28th July, 1791.

*[15] The writer of a memoir of Telford, in the 'Encyclopedia Britannica,' says:—"Andrew Little kept a private and very small school at Langholm. Telford did not neglect to send him a copy of Paine's 'Rights of Man;' and as he was totally blind, he
employed one of his scholars to read it in the evenings. Mr. Little had received an academical education before he lost his sight; and, aided by a memory of uncommon powers, he taught the classics, and particularly Greek, with much higher reputation
than any other schoolmaster within a pretty extensive circuit. Two of his pupils read all the Iliad, and all or the greater part of Sophocles. After hearing a long sentence of Greek or Latin distinctly recited, he could generally construe and translate it with
little or no hesitation. He was always much gratified by Telford's visits, which were not infrequent, to his native district."

CHAPTER V.

TELFORD'S FIRST EMPLOYMENT AS AN ENGINEER.

As surveyor for the county, Telford was frequently called upon by the magistrates to advise them as to the improvement of roads and the building or repair of bridges. His early experience of bridge-building in his native district now proved of much
service to him, and he used often to congratulate himself, even when he had reached the highest rank in his profession, upon the circumstances which had compelled him to begin his career by working with his own hands. To be a thorough judge of work,
he held that a man must himself have been practically engaged in it.

"Not only," he said, "are the natural senses of seeing and feeling requisite in the examination of materials, but also the practised eye, and the hand which has had experience of the kind and qualities of stone, of lime, of iron, of timber, and even of earth,
and of the effects of human ingenuity in applying and combining all these substances, are necessary for arriving at mastery in the profession; for, how can a man give judicious directions unless he possesses personal knowledge of the details requisite to
effect his ultimate purpose in the best and cheapest manner? It has happened to me more than once, when taking opportunities of being useful to a young man of merit, that I have experienced opposition in taking him from his books and drawings, and
placing a mallet, chisel, or trowel in his hand, till, rendered confident by the solid knowledge which experience only can bestow, he was qualified to insist on the due performance of workmanship, and to judge of merit in the lower as well as the higher
departments of a profession in which no kind or degree of practical knowledge is superfluous."

The first bridge designed and built under Telford's superintendence was one of no great magnitude, across the river Severn at Montford, about four miles west of Shrewsbury. It was a stone bridge of three elliptical arches, one of 58 feet and two of 55
feet span each. The Severn at that point is deep and narrow, and its bed and banks are of alluvial earth. It was necessary to make the foundations very secure, as the river is subject to high floods; and this was effectuality accomplished by means of coffer-
dams. The building was substantially executed in red sandstone, and proved a very serviceable bridge, forming part of the great high road from Shrewsbury into Wales. It was finished in the year 1792.

In the same year, we find Telford engaged as an architect in preparing the designs and superintending the construction of the new parish church of St. Mary Magdalen at Bridgenorth. It stands at the end of Castle Street, near to the old ruined fortress
perched upon the bold red sandstone bluff on which the upper part of the town is built. The situation of the church is very fine, and an extensive view of the beautiful vale of the Severn is obtained from it. Telford's design is by no means striking; "being,"
as he said, "a regular Tuscan elevation; the inside is as regularly Ionic: its only merit is simplicity and uniformity; it is surmounted by a Doric tower, which contains the bells and a clock." A graceful Gothic church would have been more appropriate to the
situation, and a much finer object in the landscape; but Gothic was not then in fashion—only a mongrel mixture of many styles, without regard to either purity or gracefulness. The church, however, proved comfortable and commodious, and these were
doubtless the points to which the architect paid most attention.

[Image] St. Mary Magdalen, Bridgenorth.

His completion of the church at Bridgenorth to the satisfaction of the inhabitants, brought Telford a commission, in the following year, to erect a similar edifice at Coalbrookdale. But in the mean time, to enlarge his knowledge and increase his
acquaintance with the best forms of architecture, he determined to make a journey to London and through some of the principal towns of the south of England. He accordingly visited Gloucester, Worcester, and Bath, remaining several days in the last-
mentioned city. He was charmed beyond expression by his journey through the manufacturing districts of Gloucestershire, more particularly by the fine scenery of the Vale of Stroud. The whole seemed to him a smiling scene of prosperous industry and
middle-class comfort.

But passing out of this "Paradise," as he styled it, another stage brought him into a region the very opposite. "We stopped," says he, "at a little alehouse on the side of a rough hill to water the horses, and lo! the place was full of drunken blackguards,
bellowing out 'Church and King!' A poor ragged German Jew happened to come up, whom those furious loyalists had set upon and accused of being a Frenchman in disguise. He protested that he was only a poor German who 'cut de corns,' and that all he
wanted was to buy a little bread and cheese. Nothing would serve them but they must carry him before the Justice. The great brawny fellow of a landlord swore he should have nothing in his house, and, being a, constable, told him that he would carry him
to gaol. I interfered, and endeavoured to pacify the assailants of the poor man; when suddenly the landlord, snatching up a long knife, sliced off about a pound of raw bacon from a ham which hung overhead, and, presenting it to the Jew, swore that if he
did not swallow it down at once he should not be allowed to go. The man was in a worse plight than ever. He said he was a 'poor Shoe,' and durst not eat that. In the midst of the uproar, Church and King were forgotten, and eventually I prevailed upon the
landlord to accept from me as much as enabled poor little Moses to get his meal of bread and cheese; and by the time the coach started they all seemed perfectly reconciled." *[1] Telford was much gratified by his visit to Bath, and inspected its fine
buildings with admiration. But he thought that Mr. Wood, who, he says, "created modern Bath," had left no worthy successor. In the buildings then in progress he saw clumsy designers at work, "blundering round about a meaning"—if, indeed, there was
any meaning at all in their designs, which he confessed he failed to see. From Bath he went to London by coach, making the journey in safety, "although," he says, the collectors had been doing duty on Hounslow Heath." During his stay in London he
carefully examined the principal public buildings by the light of the experience which he had gained since he last saw them. He also spent a good deal of his time in studying rare and expensive works on architecture—the use of which he could not
elsewhere procure— at the libraries of the Antiquarian Society and the British Museum. There he perused the various editions of Vitruvius and Palladio, as well as Wren's 'Parentalia.' He found a rich store of ancient architectural remains in the British
Museum, which he studied with great care: antiquities from Athens, Baalbec, Palmyra, and Herculaneum; "so that," he says, "what with the information I was before possessed of, and that which I have now accumulated, I think I have obtained a tolerably
good general notion of architecture."

From London he proceeded to Oxford, where he carefully inspected its colleges and churches, afterwards expressing the great delight and profit which he had derived from his visit. He was entertained while there by Mr. Robertson, an eminent
mathematician, then superintending the publication of an edition of the works of Archimedes. The architectural designs of buildings that most pleased him were those of Dr. Aldrich, Dean of Christchurch about the time of Sir Christopher Wren. He tore
himself from Oxford with great regret, proceeding by Birmingham on his way home to Shrewsbury: "Birmingham," he says, "famous for its buttons and locks, its ignorance and barbarism—its prosperity increases with the corruption of taste and morals.
Its nicknacks, hardware, and gilt gimcracks are proofs of the former; and its locks and bars, and the recent barbarous conduct of its populace,*[2] are evidences of the latter." His principal object in visiting the place was to call upon a stained glass-maker
respecting a window for the new church at Bridgenorth.

On his return to Shrewsbury, Telford proposed to proceed with his favourite study of architecture; but this, said he, "will probably be very slowly, as I must attend to my every day employment," namely, the superintendence of the county road and
bridge repairs, and the direction of the convicts' labour. "If I keep my health, however," he added, "and have no unforeseen hindrance, it shall not be forgotten, but will be creeping on by degrees." An unforeseen circumstance, though not a hindrance, did
very shortly occur, which launched Telford upon a new career, for which his unremitting study, as well as his carefully improved experience, eminently fitted him: we refer to his appointment as engineer to the Ellesmere Canal Company.

The conscientious carefulness with which Telford performed the duties entrusted to him, and the skill with which he directed the works placed under his charge, had secured the general approbation of the gentlemen of the county. His straightforward
and outspoken manner had further obtained for him the friendship of many of them. At the meetings of quarter-sessions his plans had often to encounter considerable opposition, and, when called upon to defend them, he did so with such firmness,
persuasiveness, and good temper, that he usually carried his point. "Some of the magistrates are ignorant," he wrote in 1789, "and some are obstinate: though I must say that on the whole there is a very respectable bench, and with the sensible part I
believe I am on good terms." This was amply proved some four years later, when it became necessary to appoint an engineer to the Ellesmere Canal, on which occasion the magistrates, who were mainly the promoters of the undertaking, almost
unanimously solicited their Surveyor to accept the office.

Indeed, Telford had become a general favourite in the county. He was cheerful and cordial in his manner, though somewhat brusque. Though now thirty-five years old, he had not lost the humorousness which had procured for him the sobriquet of
"Laughing Tam." He laughed at his own jokes as well as at others. He was spoken of as jolly—a word then much more rarely as well as more choicely used than it is now. Yet he had a manly spirit, and was very jealous of his independence. All this made
him none the less liked by free-minded men. Speaking of the friendly support which he had throughout received from Mr. Pulteney, he said, "His good opinion has always been a great satisfaction to me; and the more so, as it has neither been obtained nor
preserved by deceit, cringing, nor flattery. On the contrary, I believe I am almost the only man that speaks out fairly to him, and who contradicts him the most. In fact, between us, we sometimes quarrel like tinkers; but I hold my ground, and when he sees
I am right he quietly gives in."

Although Mr. Pulteney's influence had no doubt assisted Telford in obtaining the appointment of surveyor, it had nothing to do with the unsolicited invitation which now emanated from the county gentlemen. Telford was not even a candidate for the
engineership, and had not dreamt of offering himself, so that the proposal came upon him entirely by surprise. Though he admitted he had self-confidence, he frankly confessed that he had not a sufficient amount of it to justify him in aspiring to the office
of engineer to one of the most important undertakings of the day. The following is his own account of the circumstance:—

"My literary project*[3] is at present at a stand, and may be retarded for some time to come, as I was last Monday appointed sole agent, architect, and engineer to the canal which is projected to join the Mersey, the Dee, and the Severn. It is the greatest
work, I believe, now in hand in this kingdom, and will not be completed for many years to come. You will be surprised that I have not mentioned this to you before; but the fact is that I had no idea of any such appointment until an application was made to
me by some of the leading gentlemen, and I was appointed, though many others had made much interest for the place. This will be a great and laborious undertaking, but the line which it opens is vast and noble; and coming as the appointment does in this
honourable way, I thought it too great a opportunity to be neglected, especially as I have stipulated for, and been allowed, the privilege of carrying on my architectural profession. The work will require great labour and exertions, but it is worthy of them
all."*[4] Telford's appointment was duly confirmed by the next general meeting of the shareholders of the Ellesmere Canal. An attempt was made to get up a party against him, but it failed. "I am fortunate," he said, "in being on good terms with most of
the leading men, both of property and abilities; and on this occasion I had the decided support of the great John Wilkinson, king of the ironmasters, himself a host. I travelled in his carriage to the meeting, and found him much disposed to be friendly."*[5]
The salary at which Telford was engaged was 500L. a year, out of which he had to pay one clerk and one confidential foreman, besides defraying his own travelling expenses. It would not appear that after making these disbursements much would remain
for Telford's own labour; but in those days engineers were satisfied with comparatively small pay, and did not dream of making large fortunes.

Though Telford intended to continue his architectural business, he decided to give up his county surveyorship and other minor matters, which, he said, "give a great deal of very unpleasant labour for very little profit; in short they are like the calls of a
country surgeon." One part of his former business which he did not give up was what related to the affairs of Mr. Pulteney and Lady Bath, with whom he continued on intimate and friendly terms. He incidentally mentions in one of his letters a graceful
and charming act of her Ladyship. On going into his room one day he found that, before setting out for Buxton, she had left upon his table a copy of Ferguson's 'Roman Republic,' in three quarto volumes, superbly bound and gilt.

He now looked forward with anxiety to the commencement of the canal, the execution of which would necessarily call for great exertion on his part, as well as unremitting attention and industry; "for," said he, "besides the actual labour which
necessarily attends so extensive a public work, there are contentions, jealousies, and prejudices, stationed like gloomy sentinels from one extremity of the line to the other. But, as I have heard my mother say that an honest man might look the Devil in the
face without being afraid, so we must just trudge along in the old way."*[6]

Footnotes for Chapter V.

*[1] Letter to Mr. Andrew Little, Langholm, dated Shrewsbury, 10th March, 1793

*[2] Referring to the burning of Dr. Priestley's library.

*[3] The preparation of some translations from Buchanan which he had contemplated.

*[4] Letter to Mr. Andrew Little, Langholm, dated Shrewsbury, 29th September, 1793.

*[5] John Wilkinson and his brother William were the first of the great class of ironmasters. They possessed iron forges at Bersham near Chester, at Bradley, Brimbo, Merthyr Tydvil, and other places; and became by far the largest iron manufacturers of
their day. For notice of them see 'Lives of Boulton and Watt,' p. 212.

*[6] Letter to Mr. Andrew Little, Langholm, dated Shrewsbury, 3rd November, 1793.

CHAPTER VI.

THE ELLESMERE CANAL.

The ellesmere canal consists of a series of navigations proceeding from the river Dee in the vale of Llangollen. One branch passes northward, near the towns of Ellesmere, Whitchurch, Nantwich, and the city of Chester, to Ellesmere Port on the Mersey;
another, in a south-easterly direction, through the middle of Shropshire towards Shrewsbury on the Severn; and a third, in a south-westerly direction, by the town of Oswestry, to the Montgomeryshire Canal near Llanymynech; its whole extent, including
the Chester Canal, incorporated with it, being about 112 miles.

[Image] Map of Ellesmere Canal

The success of the Duke of Bridgewater's Canal had awakened the attention of the landowners throughout England, but more especially in the districts immediately adjacent to the scene of the Duke's operations, as they saw with their own eyes the
extraordinary benefits which had followed the opening up of the navigations. The resistance of the landed gentry, which many of these schemes had originally to encounter, had now completely given way, and, instead of opposing canals, they were
everywhere found anxious for their construction. The navigations brought lime, coal, manure, and merchandise, almost to the farmers' doors, and provided them at the same time with ready means of conveyance for their produce to good markets. Farms
in remote situations were thus placed more on an equality with those in the neighbourhood of large towns; rents rose in consequence, and the owners of land everywhere became the advocates and projectors of canals.

The dividends paid by the first companies were very high, and it was well known that the Duke's property was bringing him in immense wealth. There was, therefore, no difficulty in getting the shares in new projects readily subscribed for: indeed Mr.
Telford relates that at the first meeting of the Ellesmere projectors, so eager were the public, that four times the estimated expense was subscribed without hesitation. Yet this navigation passed through a difficult country, necessarily involving very costly
works; and as the district was but thinly inhabited, it did not present a very inviting prospect of dividends.*[1] But the mania had fairly set in, and it was determined that the canal should be made. And whether the investment repaid the immediate
proprietors or not, it unquestionably proved of immense advantage to the population of the districts through which it passed, and contributed to enhance the value of most of the adjoining property.

The Act authorising the construction of the canal was obtained in 1793, and Telford commenced operations very shortly after his appointment in October of the same year. His first business was to go carefully over the whole of the proposed line, and
make a careful working survey, settling the levels of the different lengths, and the position of the locks, embankments, cuttings, and aqueducts. In all matters of masonry work he felt himself master of the necessary details; but having had comparatively
small experience of earthwork, and none of canal-making, he determined to take the advice of Mr. William Jessop on that part of the subject; and he cordially acknowledges the obligations he was under to that eminent engineer for the kind assistance
which he received from him on many occasions.

The heaviest and most important part of the undertaking was in carrying the canal through the rugged country between the rivers Dee and Ceriog, in the vale of Llangollen. From Nantwich to Whitchurch the distance is 16 miles, and the rise 132 feet,
involving nineteen locks; and from thence to Ellesmere, Chirk, Pont-Cysylltau, and the river Dee, 1 3/4 mile above Llangollen, the distance is 38 1/4 miles, and the rise 13 feet, involving only two locks. The latter part of the undertaking presented the
greatest difficulties; as, in order to avoid the expense of constructing numerous locks, which would also involve serious delay and heavy expense in working the navigation, it became necessary to contrive means for carrying the canal on the same level
from one side of the respective valleys of the Dee and the Ceriog to the other; and hence the magnificent aqueducts of Chirk and Pont-Cysylltau, characterised by Phillips as "among the boldest efforts of human invention in modem times."*[2] The Chirk
Aqueduct carries the canal across the valley of the Ceriog, between Chirk Castle and the village of that name. At this point the valley is above 700 feet wide; the banks are steep, with a flat alluvial meadow between them, through which the river flows.
The country is finely wooded. Chirk Castle stands on an eminence on its western side, with the Welsh mountains and Glen Ceriog as a background; the whole composing a landscape of great beauty, in the centre of which Telford's aqueduct forms a highly
picturesque object.

[Image] Chirk Aqueduct

The aqueduct consists of ten arches of 40 feet span each. The level of the water in the canal is 65 feet above the meadow, and 70 feet above the level of the river Ceriog. The proportions of this work far exceeded everything of the kind that had up to
that time been attempted in England. It was a very costly structure; but Telford, like Brindley, thought it better to incur a considerable capital outlay in maintaining the uniform level of the canal, than to raise and lower it up and down the sides of the
valley by locks at a heavy expense in works, and a still greater cost in time and water. The aqueduct is a splendid specimen of the finest class of masonry, and Telford showed himself a master of his profession by the manner in which he carried out the
whole details of the undertaking. The piers were carried up solid to a certain height, above which they were built hollow, with cross walls. The spandrels also, above the springing of the arches, were constructed with longitudinal walls, and left hollow.*[3]
The first stone was laid on the 17th of June, 1796, and the work was completed in the year 1801; the whole remaining in a perfect state to this day.

The other great aqueduct on the Ellesmere Canal, named Pont-Cysylltau, is of even greater dimensions, and a far more striking object in the landscape. Sir Walter Scott spoke of it to Southey as "the most impressive work of art he had ever seen." It is
situated about four miles to the north of Chirk, at the crossing of the Dee, in the romantic vale of Llangollen. The north bank of the river is very abrupt; but on the south side the acclivity is more gradual. The lowest part of the valley in which the river
runs is 127 feet beneath the water-level of the canal; and it became a question with the engineer whether the valley was to be crossed, as originally intended, by locking down one side and up the other—which would have involved seven or eight locks on
each side—or by carrying it directly across by means of an aqueduct.

The execution of the proposed locks would have been very costly, and the working of them in carrying on the navigation would necessarily have involved a great waste of water, which was a serious objection, inasmuch as the supply was estimated to
be no more than sufficient to provide for the unavoidable lockage and leakage of the summit level. Hence Telford was strongly in favour of an aqueduct; but, as we have already seen in the case of that at Chirk, the height of the work was such as to render
it impracticable to construct it in the usual manner, upon masonry piers and arches of sufficient breadth and strength to afford room for a puddled water-way, which would have been extremely hazardous as well as expensive. He was therefore under the
necessity of contriving some more safe and economical method of procedure; and he again resorted to the practice which he had adopted in the construction of the Chirk Aqueduct, but on a much larger scale.

[Image] Pont-Cyslltau—Side view of Cast Iron Trough

It will be understood that many years elapsed between the period at which Telford was appointed engineer to the Ellesmere Canal and the designing of these gigantic works. He had in the meantime been carefully gathering experience from a variety of
similar undertakings on which he was employed, and bringing his observations of the strength of materials and the different forms of construction to bear upon the plans under his consideration for the great aqueducts of Chirk and Pont-Cysylltau. In 1795
he was appointed engineer to the Shrewsbury Canal, which extends from that town to the collieries and ironworks in the neighbourhood of Wrekin, crossing the rivers Roden and Tern, and Ketley Brook, after which it joins the Dorrington and Shropshire
Canals. Writing to his Eskdale friend, Telford said : "Although this canal is only eighteen miles long, yet there are many important works in its course—several locks, a tunnel about half a mile long, and two aqueducts. For the most considerable of these
last, I have just recommended an aqueduct of iron. It has been approved, and will be executed under my direction, upon a principle entirely new, and which I am endeavouring to establish with regard to the application of iron."*[4]

It was the same principle which he applied to the great aqueducts of the Ellesmere Canal now under consideration. He had a model made of part of the proposed aqueduct for Pont-Cysylltau, showing the piers, ribs, towing-path, and side railing, with a
cast iron trough for the canal. The model being approved, the design was completed; the ironwork was ordered for the summit, and the masonry of the piers then proceeded. The foundation-stone was laid on the 25th July, 1795, by Richard Myddelton,
Esq., of Chirk Castle, M.P., and the work was not finished until the year 1803,—thus occupying a period of nearly eight years in construction.

The aqueduct is approached on the south side by an embankment 1500 feet in length, extending from the level of the water-way in the canal until its perpendicular height at the "tip" is 97 feet; thence it is carried to the opposite side of the valley, over
the river Dee, upon piers supporting nineteen arches, extending to the length of 1007 feet. The height of the piers above low water in the river is 121 feet. The lower part of each was built solid for 70 feet, all above being hollow, for the purpose of saving
masonry as well as ensuring good workmanship. The outer walls of the hollow portion are only two feet thick, with cross inner walls. As each stone was exposed to inspection, and as both Telford and his confidential foreman, Matthew Davidson,*[5] kept
a vigilant eye upon the work, scamping was rendered impossible, and a first-rate piece of masonry was the result.

[Image] Pont-Cyslltau Aqueduct

Upon the top of the masonry was set the cast iron trough for the canal, with its towing-path and side-rails, all accurately fitted and bolted together, forming a completely water-tight canal, with a water-way of 11 feet 10 inches, of which the towing-path,
standing upon iron pillars rising from the bed of the canal, occupied 4 feet 8 inches, leaving a space of 7 feet 2 inches for the boat.*[6] The whole cost of this part of the canal was 47,018L., which was considered by Telford a moderate sum compared with
what it must have cost if executed after the ordinary manner. The aqueduct was formally opened for traffic in 1805. "And thus," said Telford, "has been added a striking feature to the beautiful vale of Llangollen, where formerly was the fastness of Owen
Glendower, but which, now cleared of its entangled woods, contains a useful line of intercourse between England and Ireland; and the water drawn from the once sacred Devon furnishes the means of distributing prosperity over the adjacent land of the
Saxons."

[Image] Section of Top of Pont-Cyslltau Aqueduct.

It is scarcely necessary to refer to the other works upon this canal, some of which were of considerable magnitude, though they may now seem dwarfed by comparison with the works of recent engineers, Thus, there were two difficult tunnels cut
through hard rock, under the rugged ground which separates the valleys of the Dee and the Ceriog. One of these is 500 and the other 200 yards in length. To ensure a supply of water for the summit of the canal, the lake called Bala Pool was dammed up
by a regulating weir, and by its means the water was drawn off at Llandisilio when required for the purposes of the navigation; the navigable feeder being six miles long, carried along the bank of the Llangollen valley. All these works were skilfully
executed; and when the undertaking was finished, Mr. Telford may be said to have fairly established his reputation as an engineer of first rate ability.

We now return to Telford's personal history during this important period of his career. He had long promised himself a visit to his dear Eskdale, and the many friends he had left there; but more especially to see his infirm mother, who had descended far
into the vale of years, and longed to see her son once more before she died. He had taken constant care that she should want for nothing. She formed the burden of many of his letters to Andrew Little. "Your kindness in visiting and paying so much
attention to her," said he, "is doing me the greatest favour which you could possibly confer upon me." He sent his friend frequent sums of money, which he requested him to lay out in providing sundry little comforts for his mother, who seems to have
carried her spirit of independence so far as to have expressed reluctance to accept money even from her own son. "I must request," said he, "that you will purchase and send up what things may be likely to be wanted, either for her or the person who may
be with her, as her habits of economy will prevent her from getting plenty of everything, especially as she thinks that I have to pay for it, which really hurts me more than anything else."*[7] Though anxious to pay his intended visit, he was so occupied
with one urgent matter of business and another that he feared it would be November before he could set out. He had to prepare a general statement as to the navigation affairs for a meeting of the committee; he must attend the approaching Salop quarter
sessions, and after that a general meeting of the Canal Company; so that his visit must be postponed for yet another month. "Indeed," said he, "I am rather distressed at the thoughts of running down to see a kind parent in the last stage of decay, on whom I
can only bestow an affectionate look, and then leave her: her mind will not be much consoled by this parting, and the impression left upon mine will be more lasting; than pleasant."*[8]

He did, however, contrive to run down to Eskdale in the following November. His mother was alive, but that was all. After doing what he could for her comfort, and providing that all her little wants were properly attended to, he hastened back to his
responsible duties in connection with the Ellesmere Canal. When at Langholm, he called upon his former friends to recount with them the incidents of their youth. He was declared to be the same "canty" fellow as ever, and, though he had risen greatly in
the world, he was "not a bit set up." He found one of his old fellow workmen, Frank Beattie, become the principal innkeeper of the place. "What have you made of your mell and chisels?" asked Telford. "Oh!" replied Beattie, "they are all dispersed—
perhaps lost." "I have taken better care of mine," said Telford; "I have them all locked up in a room at Shrewsbury, as well as my old working clothes and leather apron: you know one can never tell what may happen."

He was surprised, as most people are who visit the scenes of their youth after a long absence, to see into what small dimensions Langholm had shrunk. That High Street, which before had seemed so big, and that frowning gaol and court-house in the
Market Place, were now comparatively paltry to eyes that had been familiar with Shrewsbury, Portsmouth, and London. But he was charmed, as ever, with the sight of the heather hills and the narrow winding valley—

"Where deep and low the hamlets lie

Beneath their little patch of sky,
And little lot of stars."

On his return southward, he was again delighted by the sight of old Gilnockie Castle and the surrounding scenery. As he afterwards wrote to his friend Little, "Broomholm was in all his glory." Probably one of the results of this visit was the revision of
the poem of 'Eskdale,' which he undertook in the course of the following spring, putting in some fresh touches and adding many new lines, whereby the effect of the whole was considerably improved. He had the poem printed privately, merely for
distribution amongst friends; being careful," as he said, that "no copies should be smuggled and sold."

Later in the year we find him, on his way to London on business, sparing a day or two for the purpose of visiting the Duke of Buckingham's palace and treasures of art at Stowe; afterwards writing out an eight-page description of it for the perusal of his
friends at Langholm. At another time, when engaged upon the viaduct at Pont-Cysylltau, he snatched a few day's leisure to run through North Wales, of which he afterwards gave a glowing account to his correspondent. He passed by Cader Idris,
Snowdon, and Penmaen Mawr. "Parts of the country we passed through," he says, "very much resemble the lofty green hills and woody vales of Eskdale. In other parts the magnificent boldness of the mountains, the torrents, lakes, and waterfalls, give a
special character to the scenery, unlike everything of the kind I had before seen. The vale of Llanrwst is peculiarly beautiful and fertile. In this vale is the celebrated bridge of Inigo Jones; but what is a much more delightful circumstance, the inhabitants of
the vale are the most beautiful race of people I have ever beheld; and I am much astonished that this never seems to have struck the Welsh tourists. The vale of Llangollen is very fine, and not the least interesting object in it, I can assure you, is Davidson's
famous aqueduct [Pont-Cysylltau], which is already reckoned among the wonders of Wales. Your old acquaintance thinks nothing of having three or four carriages at his door at a time."*[9] It seems that, besides attending to the construction of the works,
Telford had to organise the conduct of the navigation at those points at which the canal was open for traffic. By the middle of 1797 he states that twenty miles were in working condition, along which coal and lime were conveyed in considerable
quantifies, to the profit of the Company and the benefit of the public; the price of these articles having already in some places been reduced twenty-five, and in others as much as fifty, per cent. "The canal affairs," he says in one of his letters, "have
required a good deal of exertion, though we are on the whole doing well. But, besides carrying on the works, it is now necessary to bestow considerable attention on the creating and guiding of a trade upon those portions which are executed. This involves
various considerations, and many contending and sometimes clashing interests. In short, it is the working of a great machine: in the first place, to draw money out of the pockets of a numerous proprietary to make an expensive canal, and then to make the
money return into their pockets by the creation of a business upon that canal." But, as if all this business were not enough, he was occupied at the same time in writing a book upon the subject of Mills. In the year 1796 he had undertaken to draw up a
paper on this topic for the Board of Agriculture, and by degrees it had grown into a large quarto volume, illustrated by upwards of thirty plates. He was also reading extensively in his few leisure moments; and among the solid works which he perused we
find him mentioning Robertson's 'Disquisitions on Ancient India,' Stewart's 'Philosophy of the Human Mind,' and Alison's 'Principles of Taste.' As a relief from these graver studies, he seems, above all things, to have taken peculiar pleasure" In
occasionally throwing off a bit of poetry. Thus, when laid up at an hotel in Chester by a blow on his leg, which disabled him for some weeks, he employed part of his time in writing his 'Verses on hearing of the Death of Robert Burns.' On another
occasion, when on his way to London, and detained for a night at Stratford-on-Avon, he occupied the evening at his inn in composing some stanzas, entitled 'An Address to the River Avon.' And when on his way back to Shrewsbury, while resting for the
night at Bridgenorth, he amused himself with revising and copying out the verses for the perusal of Andrew Little. "There are worse employments," he said,"when one has an hour to spare from business;" and he asked his friend's opinion of the
composition. It seems to have been no more favourable than the verses deserved; for, in his next letter, Telford says, "I think your observation respecting the verses to the Avon are correct. It is but seldom I have time to versify; but it is to me something
like what a fiddle is to others, I apply to it in order to relieve my mind, after being much fatigued with close attention to business."

It is very pleasant to see the engineer relaxing himself in this way, and submitting cheerfully to unfavourable criticism, which is so trying to even the best of tempers. The time, however, thus taken from his regular work was not loss, but gain. Taking
the character of his occupation into account, it was probably the best kind of relaxation he could have indulged in. With his head full of bridges and viaducts, he thus kept his heart open to the influences of beauty in life and nature; and, at all events, the
writing of verses, indifferent though they might have been, proved of this value to him—that it cultivated in him the art of writing better prose.

Footnotes for Chapter VI.

*[1] The Ellesmere Canal now pays about 4 per cent. dividend.

*[2] 'A General History of Inland Navigation, Foreign and Domestic,' &c. By J. Phillips. Fourth edition. London, 1803.

*[3] [Image] Section of Pier

Telford himself thus modestly describes the merit of this original contrivance: "Previously to this time such canal aqueducts had been uniformly made to retain the water necessary for navigation by means of puddled earth retained by masonry; and in
order to obtain sufficient breadth for this superstructure, the masonry of the piers, abutments, and arches was of massive strength; and after all this expense, and every imaginable precaution, the frosts, by swelling the moist puddle, frequently created
fissures, which burst the masonry, and suffered the water to escape—nay, sometimes actually threw down the aqueducts; instances of this kind having occurred even in the works of the justly celebrated Brindley. It was evident that the increased pressure
of the puddled earth was the chief cause of such failures: I therefore had recourse to the following scheme in order to a void using it. The spandrels of the stone arches were constructed with longitudinal walls, instead of being filled in with earth (as at
Kirkcudbright Bridge), and across these the canal bottom was formed by cast iron plates at each side, infixed in square stone masonry. These bottom plates had flanches on their edges, and were secured by nuts and screws at every juncture. The sides of
the canal were made water-proof by ashlar masonry, backed with hard burnt bricks laid in Parker's cement, on the outside of which was rubble stone work, like the rest of the aqueduct. The towing path had a thin bed of clay under the gravel, and its outer
edge was protected by an iron railing. The width of the water-way is 11 feet; of the masonry on each side, 5 feet 6 inches; and the depth of the water in the canal, 5 feet. By this mode of construction the quantity of masonry is much diminished, and the
iron bottom plate forms a continuous tie, preventing the side-walls from separation by lateral pressure of the contained water."—'Life of Telford,' p. 40.

*[4] Letter to Mr. Andrew Little, Langholm, dated Shrewsbury, 13th March, 1795.

*[5] Matthew Davidson had been Telford's fellow workman at Langholm, and was reckoned an excellent mason. He died at Inverness, where he had a situation on the Caledonian Canal.

*[6] Mr. Hughes, C.E., in his 'Memoir of William Jessop,' published in 'Weale's Quarterly Papers on Engineering,' points out the bold and original idea here adopted, of constructing a water-tight trough of cast iron, in which the water of the canal was to
be carried over the valleys, instead of an immense puddled trough, in accordance with the practice until that time in use; and he adds, "the immense importance of this improvement on the old practice is apt to be lost sight of at the present day by those
who overlook the enormous size and strength of masonry which would have been required to support a puddled channel at the height of 120 feet." Mr. Hughes, however, claims for Mr. Jessop the merit of having suggested the employment of iron, though,
in our opinion, without sufficient reason.

Mr. Jessop was, no doubt, consulted by Mr. Telford on the subject; but the whole details of the design, as well as the suggestion of the use of iron (as admitted by Mr. Hughes himself), and the execution of the entire works, rested with the acting
engineer. This is borne out by the report published by the Company immediately after the formal opening of the Canal in 1805, in which they state: "Having now detailed the particulars relative to the Canal, and the circumstances of the concern, the
committee, in concluding their report, think it but justice due to Mr. Telford to state that the works have been planned with great skill and science, and executed with much economy and stability, doing him, as well as those employed by him, infinite
credit. (Signed) Bridgewater."

*[7] Letter to Mr. Andrew Little, Langholm, dated Shrewsbury, 16th Sept., 1794.

*[8] lbid.

*[9] Letter to Mr. Andrew Little, Langholm, dated Salop, 20th Aug., 1797.

CHAPTER VII.

IRON AND AND OTHER BRIDGES.

Shrewsbury being situated in the immediate neighbourhood of the Black Country, of which coal and iron are the principal products, Telford's attention was naturally directed, at a very early period, to the employment of cast iron in bridge-building. The
strength as well as lightness of a bridge of this material, compared with one of stone and lime, is of great moment where headway is ofimportance, or the difficulties of defective foundations have to be encountered. The metal can be moulded in such
precise forms and so accurately fitted together as to give to the arching the greatest possible rigidity; while it defies the destructive influences of time and atmospheric corrosion with nearly as much certainty as stone itself.

The Italians and French, who took the lead in engineering down almost to the end of last century, early detected the value of this material, and made several attempts to introduce it in bridge-building; but their efforts proved unsuccessful, chiefly
because of the inability of the early founders to cast large masses of iron, and also because the metal was then more expensive than either stone or timber. The first actual attempt to build a cast iron bridge was made at Lyons in 1755, and it proceeded so
far that one of the arches was put together in the builder's yard; but the project was abandoned as too costly, and timber was eventually used.

It was reserved for English manufacturers to triumph over the difficulties which had baffled the foreign iron-founders. Shortly after the above ineffectual attempt had been made, the construction of a bridge over the Severn near Broseley formed the
subject of discussion among the adjoining owners. There had been a great increase in the coal, iron, brick, and pottery trades of the neighbourhood; and the old ferry between the opposite banks of the river was found altogether inadequate for the
accommodation of the traffic. The necessity for a bridge had long been felt, and the project of constructing one was actively taken up in 1776 by Mr. Abraham Darby, the principal owner of the extensive iron works at Coalbrookdale. Mr. Pritchard, a
Shrewsbury architect, prepared the design of a stone bridge of one arch, in which he proposed to introduce a key-stone of cast iron, occupying only a few feet at the crown of the arch. This plan was, however, given up as unsuitable; and another, with the
entire arch of cast iron, was designed under the superintendence of Mr. Darby. The castings were made in the works at Coalbrookdale, and the bridge was erected at a point where the banks were of considerable height on both sides of the river. It was
opened for traffic in 1779, and continues a most serviceable structure to this day, giving the name to the town of Ironbridge, which has sprung up in its immediate vicinity. The bridge consists of one semicircular arch, of 100 feet span, each of the great
ribs consisting of two pieces only. Mr. Robert Stephenson has said of the structure—"If we consider that the manipulation of cast iron was then completely in its infancy, a bridge of such dimensions was doubtless a bold as well as an original undertaking,
and the efficiency of the details is worthy of the boldness of the conception."*[1]

[Image] The first Iron Bridge, Coalbrookdale.

It is a curious circumstance that the next projector of an iron bridge—and that of a very bold design—was the celebrated, or rather the notorious, Tom Paine, whose political writings Telford had so much admired. The son of a decent Quaker of
Thetford, who trained him to his own trade of a staymaker, Paine seems early to have contracted a dislike for the sect to which his father belonged. Arrived at manhood, he gave up staymaking to embrace the wild life of a privateersman, and served in two
successive adventures. Leaving the sea, he became an exciseman, but retained his commission for only a year. Then he became an usher in a school, during which he studied mechanics and mathematics. Again appointed an exciseman, he was stationed at
Lewes in Sussex, where he wrote poetry and acquired some local celebrity as a writer. He was accordingly selected by his brother excisemen to prepare their petition to Government for an increase of pay, *[2] — the document which he drew up procuring
him introductions to Goldsmith and Franklin, and dismissal from his post. Franklin persuaded him to go to America; and there the quondam staymaker, privateersman, usher, poet, an a exciseman, took an active part in the revolutionary discussions of the
time, besides holding the important office of Secretary to the Committee for Foreign Affairs. Paine afterwards settled for a time at Philadelphia, where he occupied himself with the study of mechanical philosophy, electricity, mineralogy, and the use of
iron in bridge-building. In 1787, when a bridge over the Schnylkill was proposed, without any river piers, as the stream was apt to be choked with ice in the spring freshets, Paine boldly offered to build an iron bridge with a single arch of 400 feet span. In
the course of the same year, he submitted his design of the proposed bridge to the Academy of Sciences at Paris; he also sent a copy of his plan to Sir Joseph Banks for submission to the Royal Society; and, encouraged by the favourable opinions of
scientific men, he proceeded to Rotherham, in Yorkshire, to have his bridge cast.*[3] An American gentleman, named Whiteside, having advanced money to Paine on security of his property in the States, to enable the bridge to be completed, the castings
were duly made, and shipped off to London, where they were put together and exhibited to the public on a bowling-green at Paddington. The bridge was there visited by a large number of persons, and was considered to be a highly creditable work.
Suddenly Paine's attention was withdrawn from its further prosecution by the publication of Mr. Burke's celebrated 'Thoughts on the French Revolution,' which he undertook to answer. Whiteside having in the meantime become bankrupt, Paine was
arrested by his assignees, but was liberated by the assistance of two other Americans, who became bound for him. Paine, however, was by this time carried away by the fervour of the French Revolution, having become a member of the National
Convention, as representative for Calais. The "Friends of Man," whose cause he had espoused, treated him scurvily, imprisoning him in the Luxembourg, where he lay for eleven months. Escaped to America, we find him in 1803 presenting to the
American Congress a memoir on the construction of Iron Bridges, accompanied by several models. It does not appear, however, that Paine ever succeeded in erecting an iron bridge. He was a restless, speculative, unhappy being; and it would have been
well for his memory if, instead of penning shallow infidelity, he had devoted himself to his original idea of improving the communications of his adopted country. In the meantime, however, the bridge exhibited at Paddington had produced important
results. The manufacturers agreed to take it back as part of their debt, and the materials were afterwards used in the construction of the noble bridge over the Wear at Sunderland, which was erected in 1796.

The project of constructing a bridge at this place, where the rocky banks of the Wear rise to a great height oh both sides of the river, is due to Rowland Burdon, Esq., of Castle Eden, under whom Mr. T. Wilson served as engineer in carrying out his
design. The details differed in several important respects from the proposed bridge of Paine, Mr. Burdon introducing several new and original features, more particularly as regarded the framed iron panels radiating towards the centre in the form of
voussoirs, for the purpose of resisting compression. Mr. Phipps, C.E., in a report prepared by him at the instance of the late Robert Stephenson, under whose superintendence the bridge was recently repaired, observes, with respect to the original design,
—"We should probably make a fair division of the honour connected with this unique bridge, by conceding to Burdon all that belongs to a careful elaboration and improvement upon the designs of another, to the boldness of taking upon himself the great
responsibility of applying. this idea at once on so magnificent a scale, and to his liberality and public spirit in furnishing the requisite funds [to the amount of 22,000L.]; but we must not deny to Paine the credit of conceiving the construction of iron
bridges of far larger span than had been made before his time, or of the important examples both as models and large constructions which he caused to be made and publicly exhibited. In whatever shares the merit of this great work may be apportioned, it
must be admitted to be one of the earliest and greatest triumphs of the art of bridge construction." Its span exceeded that of any arch then known, being 236 feet, with a rise of 34 feet, the springing commencing at 95 feet above the bed of the river; and its
height was such as to allow vessels of 300 tons burden to sail underneath without striking their masts. Mr. Stephenson characterised the bridge as "a structure which, as regards its proportions and the small quantity of material employed in its construction,
will probably remain unrivalled."

[Image] Wear Bridge, at Sunderland.

The same year in which Burdon's Bridge was erected at Sunderland, Telford was building his first iron bridge over the Severn at Buildwas, at a point about midway between Shrewsbury and Bridgenorth. An unusually high flood having swept away the
old bridge in the Year 1795, he was called upon, as surveyor for the county, to supply the plan of a new one. Having carefully examined the bridge at Coalbrookdale, and appreciated its remarkable merits, he determined to build the proposed bridge at
Buildwas of iron; and as the waters came down with great suddenness from the Welsh mountains, he further resolved to construct it of only one arch, so as to afford the largest possible water-way.

He had some difficulty in inducing the Coalbrookdale iron-masters, who undertook the casting of the girders, to depart from the plan of the earlier structure; but he persisted in his design, which was eventually carried out. It consisted of a single arch of
130 feet span, the segment of a very large circle, calculated to resist the tendency of the abutments to slide inwards, which had been a defect of the Coalbrookdale bridge; the flat arch being itself sustained and strengthened by an outer ribbed one on each
side, springing lower than the former and also rising higher, somewhat after the manner of timber-trussing. Although the span of the new bridge was 30 feet wider than the Coalbrookdale bridge, it contained less than half the quantity of iron; Buildwas
bridge containing 173, whereas the other contained 378 tons. The new structure was, besides, extremely elegant in form; and when the centres were struck, the arch and abutments stood perfectly firm, and have remained so to this day. But the ingenious
design of this bridge will be better explained by the following representation than by any description in words.*[4] The bridge at Buildwas, however, was not Telford's first employment of iron in bridge-building; for, the year before its erection, we find
him writing to his friend at Langholm that he had recommended an iron aqueduct for the Shrewsbury Canal, "on a principle entirely new," and which he was "endeavouring to establish with regard to the application of iron."*[5] This iron aqueduct had
been cast and fixed; and it was found to effect so great a saving in masonry and earthwork, that he was afterwards induced to apply the same principle, as we have already seen, in different forms, in the magnificent aqueducts of Chirk and Pont-Cysylltau.

The uses of cast iron in canal construction became more obvious with every year's successive experience; and Telford was accustomed to introduce it in many cases where formerly only timber or stone had been used. On the Ellesmere, and afterwards
on the Caledonial Canal, he adopted cast iron lock-gates, which were found to answer well, being more durable than timber, and not liable like it to shrink and expand with alternate dryness and wet. The turnbridges which he applied to his canals, in place
of the old drawbridges, were also of cast iron; and in some cases even the locks were of the same material. Thus, on a part of the Ellesmere Canal opposite Beeston Castle, in Cheshire, where a couple of locks, together rising 17 feet, having been built on a
stratum of quicksand, were repeatedly undermined, the idea of constructing the entire locks of cast iron was suggested; and this unusual application of the new material was accomplished with entirely satisfactory results.

But Telford's principal employment of cast iron was in the construction of road bridges, in which he proved himself a master. His experience in these structures had become very extensive. During the time that he held the office of surveyor to the
county of Salop, he erected no fewer than forty-two, five of which were of iron. Indeed, his success in iron bridge-building so much emboldened him, that in 1801, when Old London Bridge had become so rickety and inconvenient that it was found
necessary to take steps to rebuild or remove it, he proposed the daring plan of a cast iron bridge of a single arch of not less than 600 feet span, the segment of a circle l450 feet in diameter. In preparing this design we find that he was associated with a Mr.
Douglas, to whom many allusions are made in his private letters.*[6] The design of this bridge seems to have arisen out of a larger project for the improvement of the port of London. In a private letter of Telford's, dated the 13th May, 1800, he says:

"I have twice attended the Select Committee on the Fort of London, Lord Hawkesbury, Chairman. The subject has now been agitated for four years, and might have been so for many more, if Mr. Pitt had not taken the business out of the hands of the
General Committee, and got it referred to a Select Committee. Last year they recommended that a system of docks should be formed in a large bend of the river opposite Greenwich, called the Isle of Dogs, with a canal across the neck of the bend. This
part of the contemplated improvements is already commenced, and is proceeding as rapidly as the nature of the work will admit. It will contain ship docks for large vessels, such as East and West Indiamen, whose draught of water is considerable.

"There are now two other propositions under consideration. One is to form another system of docks at Wapping, and the other to take down London Bridge, rebuild it of such dimensions as to admit of ships of 200 tons passing under it, and form a new
pool for ships of such burden between London and Blackfriars Bridges, with a set of regular wharves on each side of the river. This is with the view of saving lighterage and plunderage, and bringing the great mass of commerce so much nearer to the
heart of the City. This last part of the plan has been taken up in a great measure from some statements I made while in London last year, and I have been called before the Committee to explain. I had previously prepared a set of plans and estimates for the
purpose of showing how the idea might be carried out; and thus a considerable degree of interest has been excited on the subject. It is as yet, however, very uncertain how far the plans will be carried out. It is certainly a matter of great national importance
to render the Port of London as perfect as possible."*[7]

Later in the same year he writes that his plans and propositions have been approved and recommended to be carried out, and he expects to have the execution of them. "If they will provide the ways and means," says he, "and give me elbow-room, I see
my way as plainly as mending the brig at the auld burn." In November, 1801, he states that his view of London Bridge, as proposed by him, has been published, and much admired. On the l4th of April, 1802, he writes, "I have got into mighty favour with
the Royal folks. I have received notes written by order of the King, the Prince of Wales, Duke of York, and Duke of Kent, about the bridge print, and in future it is to be dedicated to the King."

The bridge in question was one of the boldest of Telford's designs. He proposed by his one arch to provide a clear headway of 65 feet above high water. The arch was to consist of seven cast iron ribs, in segments as large as possible, and they were to be
connected by diagonal cross-bracing, disposed in such a manner that any part of the ribs and braces could be taken out and replaced without injury to the stability of the bridge or interruption to the traffic over it. The roadway was to be 90 feet wide at the
abutments and 45 feet in the centre; the width of the arch being gradually contracted towards the crown in order to lighten the weight of the structure. The bridge was to contain 6500 tons of iron, and the cost of the whole was to be 262,289L.

[Image] Telford's proposed One-arched Bridge over the Thames.

The originality of the design was greatly admired, though there were many who received with incredulity the proposal to bridge the Thames by a single arch, and it was sarcastically said of Telford that he might as well think of "setting the Thames on
fire." Before any outlay was incurred in building the bridge, the design was submitted to the consideration of the most eminent scientific and practical men of the day; after which evidence was taken at great length before a Select Committee which sat on
the subject. Among those examined on the occasion were the venerable James Watt of Birmingham, Mr. John Rennie, Professor Button of Woolwich, Professors Playfair and Robison of Edinburgh, Mr. Jessop, Mr.Southern, and Dr. Maskelyne. Their
evidence will still be found interesting as indicating the state at which constructive science had at that time arrived in England.*[8] There was a considerable diversity of opinion among the witnesses, as might have been expected; for experience was as
yet very limited as to the resistance of cast iron to extension and compression. Some of them anticipated immense difficulty in casting pieces of metal of the necessary size and exactness, so as to secure that the radiated joints should be all straight and
bearing. Others laid down certain ingenious theories of the arch, which did not quite square with the plan proposed by the engineer. But, as was candidly observed by Professor Playfair in concluding his report—"It is not from theoretical men that the
most valuable information in such a case as the present is to be expected. When a mechanical arrangement becomes in a certain degree complicated, it baffles the efforts of the geometer, and refuses to submit to even the most approved methods of
investigation. This holds good particularly of bridges, where the principles of mechanics, aided by all the resources of the higher geometry, have not yet gone further than to determine the equilibrium of a set of smooth wedges acting on one another by
pressure only, and in such circumstances as, except in a philosophical experiment, can hardly ever be realised. It is, therefore, from men educated in the school of daily practice and experience, and who to a knowledge of general principles have added,
from the habits of their profession, a certain feeling of the justness or insufficiency of any mechanical contrivance, that the soundest opinions on a matter of this kind can be obtained."

It would appear that the Committee came to the general conclusion that the construction of the proposed bridge was practicable and safe; for the river was contracted to the requisite width, and the preliminary works were actually begun. Mr. Stephenson
says the design was eventually abandoned, owing more immediately to the difficulty of constructing the approaches with such a head way, which would have involved the formation of extensive inclined planes from the adjoining streets, and thereby led
to serious inconvenience, and the depreciation of much valuable property on both sides of the river.*[9] Telford's noble design of his great iron bridge over the Thames, together with his proposed embankment of the river, being thus definitely abandoned,
he fell back upon his ordinary business as an architect and engineer, in the course of which he designed and erected several stone bridges of considerable magnitude and importance.

In the spring of 1795, after a long continued fall of snow, a sudden thaw raised a heavy flood in the Severn, which carried away many bridges—amongst others one at Bewdley, in Worcestershire,— when Telford was called upon to supply a design for a
new structure. At the same time, he was required to furnish a plan for a new bridge near the town of Bridgenorth; "in short," he wrote to his friend, "I have been at it night and day." So uniform a success had heretofore attended the execution of his
designs, that his reputation as a bridge-builder was universally acknowledged. "Last week," he says, "Davidson and I struck the centre of an arch of 76 feet span, and this is the third which has been thrown this summer, none of which have shrunk a
quarter of an inch."

Bewdley Bridge is a handsome and substantial piece of masonry. The streets on either side of it being on low ground, land arches were provided at both ends for the passage of the flood waters; and as the Severn was navigable at the point crossed, it
was considered necessary to allow considerably greater width in the river arches than had been the case in the former structure. The arches were three in number—one of 60 feet span and two of 52 feet, the land arches being of 9 feet span. The works
were proceeded with and the bridge was completed during the summer of 1798, Telford writing to his friend in December of that year— "We have had a remarkably dry summer and autumn; after that an early fall of snow and some frost, followed by rain.
The drought of the summer was unfavourable to our canal working; but it has enabled us to raise Bewdley Bridge as if by enchantment. We have thus built a magnificent bridge over the Severn in one season, which is no contemptible work for John
Simpson*[10] and your humble servant, amidst so many other great undertakings. John Simpson is a treasure—a man of great talents and integrity. I met with him here by chance, employed and recommended him, and he has now under his charge all the
works of any magnitude in this great and rich district."

[Image] Bewdley Bridge.

Another of our engineer's early stone bridges, which may be mentioned in this place, was erected by him in 1805, over the river Dee at Tongueland in the county of Kirkcudbright. It is a bold and picturesque bridge, situated in a lovely locality. The river
is very deep at high water there, the tide rising 20 feet. As the banks were steep and rocky, the engineer determined to bridge the stream by a single arch of 112 feet span. The rise being considerable, high wingwalls and deep spandrels were requisite; but
the weight of the structure was much lightened by the expedient which he adopted of perforating the wings, and building a number of longitudinal walls in the spandrels, instead of filling them with earth or inferior masonry, as had until then been the
ordinary practice. The ends of these walls, connected and steadied by the insertion of tee-stones, were built so as to abut against the back of the arch-stones and the cross walls of each abutment. Thus great strength as well as lightness was secured, and a
very graceful and at the same time substantial bridge was provided for the accommodation of the district.*[11]

[Image] Tongueland Bridge.

In his letters written about this time, Telford seems to have been very full of employment, which required him to travel about a great deal. "I have become," said he, "a very wandering being, and am scarcely ever two days in one place, unless detained
by business, which, however, occupies my time very completely." At another time he says, "I am tossed about like a tennis ball: the other day I was in London, since that I have been in Liverpool, and in a few days I expect to be at Bristol. Such is my life;
and to tell you the truth, I think it suits my disposition."

Another work on which Telford was engaged at this time was a project for supplying the town of Liverpool with water conveyed through pipes in the same manner as had long before been adopted in London. He was much struck by the activity and
enterprise apparent in Liverpool compared with Bristol. "Liverpool," he said, "has taken firm root in the country by means of the canals" it is young, vigorous, and well situated. Bristol is sinking in commercial importance: its merchants are rich and
indolent, and in their projects they are always too late. Besides, the place is badly situated. There will probably arise another port there somewhat nearer the Severn; but Liverpool will nevertheless continue of the first commercial importance, and their
water will be turned into wine. We are making rapid progress in this country— I mean from Liverpool to Bristol, and from Wales to Birmingham. This is an extensive and rich district, abounding in coal, lime, iron, and lead. Agriculture too is improving,
and manufactures are advancing at rapid strides towards perfection. Think of such a mass of population, industrious, intelligent, and energetic, in continual exertion! In short, I do not believe that any part of the world, of like dimensions, ever exceeded
Great Britain, as it now is, in regard to the production of wealth and the practice of the useful arts."*[12] Amidst all this progress, which so strikingly characterized the western districts of England, Telford also thought that there was a prospect of coming
improvement for Ireland. "There is a board of five members appointed by Parliament, to act as a board of control over all the inland navigations, &c., of Ireland. One of the members is a particular friend of mine, and at this moment a pupil, as it were,
anxious for information. This is a noble object: the field is wide, the ground new and capable of vast improvement. To take up and manage the water of a fine island is like a fairy tale, and, if properly conducted, it would render Ireland truly a jewel among
the nations."*[13] It does not, however, appear that Telford was ever employed by the board to carry out the grand scheme which thus fired his engineering imagination.

Mixing freely with men of all classes, our engineer seems to have made many new friends and acquaintances about this time. While on his journeys north and south, he frequently took the opportunity of looking in upon the venerable James Watt—"a
great and good man," he terms him—at his house at Heathfield, near Birmingham. At London he says he is "often with old Brodie and Black, each the first in his profession, though they walked up together to the great city on foot,*[14] more than half a
century ago—Gloria!" About the same time we find him taking interest in the projects of a deserving person, named Holwell, a coal-master in Staffordshire, and assisting him to take out a patent for boring wooden pipes; "he being a person," says Telford,
"little known, and not having capital, interest, or connections, to bring the matter forward."

Telford also kept up his literary friendships and preserved his love for poetical reading. At Shrewsbury, one of his most intimate friends was Dr. Darwin, son of the author of the 'Botanic Garden.' At Liverpool, he made the acquaintance of Dr. Currie,
and was favoured with a sight of his manuscript of the ' Life of Burns,' then in course of publication. Curiously enough, Dr. Currie had found among Burns's papers a copy of some verses, addressed to the poet, which Telford recognised as his own,
written many years before while working as a mason at Langholm. Their purport was to urge Burns to devote himself to the composition of poems of a serious character, such as the 'Cotter's Saturday Night.' With Telford's permission, several extracts
from his Address to Burns were published in 1800 in Currie's Life of the poet. Another of his literary friendships, formed about the same time, was that with Thomas Campbell, then a very young man, whose 'Pleasures of Hope' had just made its
appearance. Telford, in one of his letters, says, "I will not leave a stone unturned to try to serve the author of that charming poem. In a subsequent communication*[15] he says, "The author of the 'Pleasures of Hope' has been here for some time. I am quite
delighted with him. He is the very spirit of poetry. On Monday I introduced him to the King's librarian, and I imagine some good may result to him from the introduction."

In the midst of his plans of docks, canals, and bridges, he wrote letters to his friends about the peculiarities of Goethe's poems and Kotzebue's plays, Roman antiquities, Buonaparte's campaign in Egypt, and the merits of the last new book. He
confessed, however, that his leisure for reading was rapidly diminishing in consequence of the increasing professional demands upon his time; but he bought the 'Encyclopedia Britannica,' which he described as "a perfect treasure, containing everything,
and always at hand." He thus rapidly described the manner in which his time was engrossed. "A few days since, I attended a general assembly of the canal proprietors in Shropshire. I have to be at Chester again in a week, upon an arbitration business
respecting the rebuilding of the county hall and gaol; but previous to that I must visit Liverpool, and afterwards proceed into Worcestershire. So you see what sort of a life I have of it. It is something like Buonaparte, when in Italy, fighting battles at fifty
or a hundred miles distance every other day. However, plenty of employment is what every professional man is seeking after, and my various occupations now require of me great exertions, which they certainly shall have so long as life and health are
spared to me."*[16] Amidst all his engagements, Telford found time to make particular inquiry about many poor families formerly known to him in Eskdale, for some of whom he paid house-rent, while he transmitted the means of supplying others with
coals, meal, and necessaries, during the severe winter months,—a practice which he continued to the close of his life.

Footnotes for Chapter VII.

*[1] 'Encyclopedia Britannica,' 8th ed. Art. "Iron Bridges."

*[2] According to the statement made in the petition drawn by Paine, excise officers were then (1772) paid only 1s. 9 1/4d. a day.

*[3] In England, Paine took out a patent for his Iron Bridge in 1788. Specification of Patents (old law) No. 1667.

*[4] [Image] Buildwas Bridge.

The following are further details: "Each of the main ribs of the flat arch consists of three pieces, and at each junction they are secured by a grated plate, which connects all the parallel ribs together into one frame. The back of each abutment is in a
wedge-shape, so as to throw off laterally much of the pressure of the earth. Under the bridge is a towing path on each side of the river. The bridge was cast in an admirable manner by the Coalbrookdale iron-masters in the year 1796, under contract with
the county magistrates. The total cost was 6034L. l3s. 3d."

*[5] Letter to Mr. Andrew Little, Langholm, dated Shrewsbury, l8th March, 1795.

*[6] Douglas was first mentioned to Telford, in a letter from Mr. Pasley, as a young man, a native of Bigholmes, Eskdale, who had, after serving his time there as a mechanic, emigrated to America, where he showed such proofs of mechanical genius
that he attracted the notice of Mr. Liston, the British Minister, who paid his expenses home to England, that his services might not be lost to his country, and at the same time gave him a letter of introduction to the Society of Arts in London. Telford, in a
letter to Andrew Little, dated 4th December, 1797, expressed a desire "to know more of this Eskdale Archimedes." Shortly after, we find Douglas mentioned as having invented a brick machine, a shearing-machine, and a ball for destroying the rigging of
ships; for the two former of which he secured patents. He afterwards settled in France, where he introduced machinery for the improved manufacture of woollen cloth; and being patronised by the Government, he succeeded in realising considerable
wealth, which, how ever, he did not live to enjoy.

*[7] Letter to Mr. Andrew Little, Langholm, dated London, l3th May, 1800.

*[8] The evidence is fairly set forth in 'Cresy's Encyclopedia of Civil Engineering,' p. 475.

*[9] Article on Iron Bridges, in the 'Encyclopedia Britannica,' Edinburgh, 1857.

*[10] His foreman of masons at Bewdley Bridge, and afterwards his assistant in numerous important works.

*[11] The work is thus described in Robert Chambers's ' Picture of Scotland':—"Opposite Compston there is a magnificent new bridge over the Dee. It consists of a single web, the span of which is 112 feet; and it is built of vast blocks of freestone
brought from the isle of Arran. The cost of this work was somewhere about 7000L. sterling; and it may be mentioned, to the honour of the Stewartry, that this sum was raised by the private contributions of the gentlemen of the district. From Tongueland
Hill, in the immediate vicinity of the bridge, there is a view well worthy of a painter's eye, and which is not inferior in beauty and magnificence to any in Scotland."

*[12] Letter to Mr. Andrew Little, Langholm, dated Salop, 13th July, 1799.

*[13] Letter to Mr. Andrew Little, Langholm, dated Liverpool, 9th September, 1800.

*[14] Brodie was originally a blacksmith. He was a man of much ingenuity and industry, and introduced many improvements in iron work; he invented stoves for chimneys, ships' hearths, &c. He had above a hundred men working in his London shop,
besides carrying on an iron work at Coalbrookdale. He afterwards established a woollen manufactory near Peebles.

*[15] Dated London, l4th April, 1802.

*[16] Letter to Mr. Andrew Little, Langholm, dated Salop, 30th November, 1799.

CHAPTER VIII.

HIGHLAND ROADS AND BRIDGES.

In an early chapter of this volume we have given a rapid survey of the state of Scotland about the middle of last century. We found a country without roads, fields lying uncultivated, mines unexplored, and all branches of industry languishing, in the
midst of an idle, miserable, and haggard population. Fifty years passed, and the state of the Lowlands had become completely changed. Roads had been made, canals dug, coal-mines opened up, ironworks established; manufactures were extending in all
directions; and Scotch agriculture, instead of being the worst, was admitted to be the best in the island.

"I have been perfectly astonished," wrote Romilly from Stirling, in 1793, "at the richness and high cultivation of all the tract of this calumniated country through which I have passed, and which extends quite from Edinburgh to the mountains where I
now am. It is true, however; that almost everything which one sees to admire in the way of cultivation is due to modem improvements; and now and then one observes a few acres of brown moss, contrasting admirably with the corn-fieids to which they
are contiguous, and affording a specimen of the dreariness and desolation which, only half a century ago, overspread a country now highly cultivated, and become a most copious source of human happiness."*[1] It must, however, be admitted that the
industrial progress thus described was confined almost entirely to the Lowlands, and had scarcely penetrated the mountainous regions lying towards the north-west. The rugged nature of that part of the country interposed a formidable barrier to
improvement, and the district still remained very imperfectly opened up. The only practicable roads were those which had been made by the soldiery after the rebellions of 1715 and '45, through counties which before had been inaccessible except by
dangerous footpaths across high and rugged mountains. An old epigram in vogue at the end of last century ran thus:

"Had you seen these roads before they were made,

You'd lift up your hands and bless General Wade!"

Being constructed by soldiers for military purposes, they were first known as "military roads." One was formed along the Great Glen of Scotland, in the line of the present Caledonian Canal, connected with the Lowlands by the road through Glencoe by
Tyndrum down the western banks of Loch Lomond; another, more northerly, connected Fort Augustus with Dunkeld by Blair Athol; while a third, still further to the north and east, connected Fort George with Cupar-in-Angus by Badenoch and Braemar.

The military roads were about eight hundred miles in extent, and maintained at the public expense. But they were laid out for purposes of military occupation rather than for the convenience of the districts which they traversed. Hence they were
comparatively little used, and the Highlanders, in passing from one place to another, for the most part continued to travel by the old cattle tracks along the mountains. But the population were as yet so poor and so spiritless, and industry was in so
backward a state all over the Highlands, that the want of more convenient communications was scarcely felt.

Though there was plenty of good timber in certain districts, the bark was the only part that could be sent to market, on the backs of ponies, while the timber itself was left to rot upon the ground. Agriculture was in a surprisingly backward state. In the
remoter districts only a little oats or barley was grown, the chief part of which was required for the sustenance of the cattle during winter. The Rev. Mr. Macdougall, minister of the parishes of Lochgoilhead and Kilmorich, in Argyleshire, described the
people of that part of the country, about the year 1760, as miserable beyond description. He says, "Indolence was almost the only comfort they enjoyed. There was scarcely any variety of wretchedness with which they were not obliged to struggle, or
rather to which they were not obliged to submit. They often felt what it was to want food…. To such an extremity were they frequently reduced, that they were obliged to bleed their cattle, in order to subsist some time on the blood (boiled); and even the
inhabitants of the glens and valleys repaired in crowds to the shore, at the distance of three or four miles, to pick up the scanty provision which the shell-fish afforded them."*[2]

The plough had not yet penetrated into the Highlands; an instrument called the cas-chrom*[3]

[Image] The Cas-Chrom.

—literally the "crooked foot"—the use of which had been forgotten for hundreds of years in every other country in Europe, was almost the only tool employed in tillage in those parts of the Highlands which were separated by almost impassable
mountains from the rest of the United Kingdom.

The native population were by necessity peaceful. Old feuds were restrained by the strong arm of the law, if indeed the spirit of the clans had not been completely broken by the severe repressive measures which followed the rebellion of Forty-five. But
the people had hot yet learnt to bend their backs, like the Sassenach, to the stubborn soil, and they sat gloomily by their turf-fires at home, or wandered away to settle in other lands beyond the seas. It even began to be feared that the country would so on
be entirely depopulated; and it became a matter of national concern to devise methods of opening up the district so as to develope its industry and afford improved means of sustenance for its population. The poverty of the inhabitants rendered the attempt
to construct roads—even had they desired them—beyond their scanty means; but the ministry of the day entertained the opinion that, by contributing a certain proportion of the necessary expense, the proprietors of Highland estates might be induced to
advance the remainder; and on this principle the construction of the new roads in those districts was undertaken.

The country lying to the west of the Great Glen was absolutely without a road of any kind. The only district through which travellers passed was that penetrated by the great Highland road by Badenoch, between Perth and Inverness; and for a
considerable time after the suppression of the rebellion of 1745, it was infested by gangs of desperate robbers. So unsafe was the route across the Grampians, that persons who had occasion to travel it usually made their wills before setting out. Garrons, or
little Highland ponies, were then used by the gentry as well as the peasantry. Inns were few and bad; and even when postchaises were introduced at Inverness, the expense of hiring one was thought of for weeks, perhaps months, and arrangements were
usually made for sharing it among as many individuals as it would contain. If the harness and springs of the vehicle held together, travellers thought themselves fortunate in reaching Edinburgh, jaded and weary, but safe in purse and limb, on the eighth
day after leaving Inverness.*[4] Very few persons then travelled into the Highlands on foot, though Bewick, the father of wood-engraving, made such a journey round Loch Lomond in 1775. He relates that his appearance excited the greatest interest at the
Highland huts in which he lodged, the women curiously examining him from head to foot, having never seen an Englishman before. The strange part of his story is, that he set out upon his journey from Cherryburn, near Newcastle, with only three
guineas sewed in his waistband, and when he reached home he had still a few shillings left in his pocket!

In 1802, Mr. Telford was called upon by the Government to make a survey of Scotland, and report as to the measures which were necessary for the improvement of the roads and bridges of that part of the kingdom, and also on the means of promoting
the fisheries on the east and west coasts, with the object of better opening up the country and preventing further extensive emigration. Previous to this time he had been employed by the British Fisheries Society— of which his friend Sir William Pulteney
was Governor—to inspect the harbours at their several stations, and to devise a plan for the establishment of a fishery on the coast of Caithness. He accordingly made an extensive tour of Scotland, examining, among other harbours, that of Annan; from
which he proceeded northward by Aberdeen to Wick and Thurso, returning to Shrewsbury by Edinburgh and Dumfries.*[5] He accumulated a large mass of data for his report, which was sent in to the Fishery Society, with charts and plans, in the course
of the following year.

In July, 1802, he was requested by the Lords of the Treasury, most probably in consequence of the preceding report, to make a further survey of the interior of the Highlands, the result of which he communicated in his report presented to Parliament in
the following year. Although full of important local business, "kept running," as he says, "from town to country, and from country to town, never when awake, and perhaps not always when asleep, have my Scotch surveys been absent from my mind." He
had worked very hard at his report, and hoped that it might be productive of some good.

The report was duly presented, printed,*[6] and approved; and it formed the starting-point of a system of legislation with reference to the Highlands which extended over many years, and had the effect of completely opening up that romantic but rugged
district of country, and extending to its inhabitants the advantages of improved intercourse with the other parts of the kingdom. Mr. Telford pointed out that the military roads were altogether inadequate to the requirements of the population, and that the
use of them was in many places very much circumscribed by the want of bridges over some of the principal rivers. For instance, the route from Edinburgh to Inverness, through the Central Highlands, was seriously interrupted at Dunkeld, where the Tay is
broad and deep, and not always easy to be crossed by means of a boat. The route to the same place by the east coast was in like manner broken at Fochabers, where the rapid Spey could only be crossed by a dangerous ferry.

The difficulties encountered by gentlemen of the Bar, in travelling the north circuit about this time, are well described by Lord Cockburn in his 'Memorials.' "Those who are born to modem travelling," he says, "can scarcely be made to understand how
the previous age got on. The state of the roads may be judged of from two or three facts. There was no bridge over the Tay at Dunkeld, or over the Spey at Fochabers, or over the Findhorn at Forres. Nothing but wretched pierless ferries, let to poor cottars,
who rowed, or hauled, or pushed a crazy boat across, or more commonly got their wives to do it. There was no mail-coach north of Aberdeen till, I think, after the battle of Waterloo. What it must have been a few years before my time may be judged of
from Bozzy's 'Letter to Lord Braxfield,' published in 1780. He thinks that, besides a carriage and his own carriage-horses, every judge ought to have his sumpter-horse, and ought not to travel faster than the waggon which carried the baggage of the
circuit. I understood from Hope that, after 1784, when he came to the Bar, he and Braxfield rode a whole north circuit; and that, from the Findhorn being in a flood, they were obliged to go up its banks for about twenty-eight miles to the bridge of Dulsie
before they could cross. I myself rode circuits when I was Advocate-Depute between 1807 and 1810. The fashion of every Depute carrying his own shell on his back, in the form of his own carriage, is a piece of very modern antiquity."*[7] North of
Inverness, matters were, if possible, still worse. There was no bridge over the Beauly or the Conan. The drovers coming south swam the rivers with their cattle. There being no roads, there was little use for carts. In the whole county of Caithness, there
was scarcely a farmer who owned a wheel-cart. Burdens were conveyed usually on the backs of ponies, but quite as often on the backs of women.*[8] The interior of the county of Sutherland being almost inaccessible, the only track lay along the shore,
among rocks and sand, and was covered by the sea at every tide. "The people lay scattered in inaccessible straths and spots among the mountains, where they lived in family with their pigs and kyloes (cattle), in turf cabins of the most miserable
description; they spoke only Gaelic, and spent the whole of their time in indolence and sloth. Thus they had gone on from father to son, with little change, except what the introduction of illicit distillation had wrought, and making little or no export from
the country beyond the few lean kyloes, which paid the rent and produced wherewithal to pay for the oatmeal imported."*[9] Telford's first recommendation was, that a bridge should be thrown across the Tay at Dunkeld, to connect the improved lines of
road proposed to be made on each side of the river. He regarded this measure as of the first importance to the Central Highlands; and as the Duke of Athol was willing to pay one-half of the cost of the erection, if the Government would defray the other—
the bridge to be free of toll after a certain period—it appeared to the engineer that this was a reasonable and just mode of providing for the contingency. In the next place, he recommended a bridge over the Spey, which drained a great extent of
mountainous country, and, being liable to sudden inundations, was very dangerous to cross. Yet this ferry formed the only link of communication between the whole of the northern counties. The site pointed out for the proposed bridge was adjacent to the
town of Fochabers, and here also the Duke of Gordon and other county gentlemen were willing to provide one-half of the means for its erection.

Mr. Telford further described in detail the roads necessary to be constructed in the north and west Highlands, with the object of opening up the western parts of the counties of Inverness and Ross, and affording a ready communication from the Clyde to
the fishing lochs in the neighbourhood of the Isle of Skye. As to the means of executing these improvements, he suggested that Government would be justified in dealing with the Highland roads and bridges as exceptional and extraordinary works, and
extending the public aid towards carrying them into effect, as, but for such assistance, the country must remain, perhaps for ages to come, imperfectly opened up. His report further embraced certain improvements in the harbours of Aberdeen and Wick,
and a description of the country through which the proposed line of the Caledonian Canal would necessarily pass— a canal which had long been the subject of inquiry, but had not as yet emerged from a state of mere speculation.

The new roads, bridges, and other improvements suggested by the engineer, excited much interest in the north. The Highland Society voted him their thanks by acclamation; the counties of Inverness and Ross followed; and he had letters of thanks and
congratulation from many of the Highland chiefs. "If they will persevere," says he, "with anything like their present zeal, they will have the satisfaction of greatly improving a country that has been too long neglected. Things are greatly changed now in
the Highlands. Even were the chiefs to quarrel, de'il a Highlandman would stir for them. The lairds have transferred their affections from their people to flocks of sheep, and the people have lost their veneration for the lairds. It seems to be the natural
progress of society; but it is not an altogether satisfactory change. There were some fine features in the former patriarchal state of society; but now clanship is gone, and chiefs and people are hastening into the opposite extreme. This seems to me to be
quite wrong."*[10] In the same year, Telford was elected a member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, on which occasion he was proposed and supported by three professors; so that the former Edinburgh mason was rising in the world and receiving due
honour in his own country. The effect of his report was such, that in the session of 1803 a Parliamentary Commission was appointed, under whose direction a series of practical improvements was commenced, which issued in the construction of not less
than 920 additional miles of roads and bridges throughout the Highlands, one-half of the cost of which was defrayed by the Government and the other half by local assessment. But in addition to these main lines of communication, numberless county
roads were formed by statute labour, under local road Acts and by other means; the land-owners of Sutherland alone constructing nearly 300 miles of district roads at their own cost.

[Image] Map of Telford's Roads.

By the end of the session of 1803, Telford received his instructions from Mr. Vansittart as to the working survey he was forthwith required to enter upon, with a view to commencing practical operations; and he again proceeded to the Highlands to lay
out the roads and plan the bridges which were most urgently needed. The district of the Solway was, at his representation, included, with the object of improving the road from Carlisle to Portpatrick—the nearest point at which Great Britain meets the
Irish coast, and where the sea passage forms only a sort of wide ferry.

It would occupy too much space, and indeed it is altogether unnecessary, to describe in detail the operations of the Commission and of their engineer in opening up the communications of the Highlands. Suffice it to say, that one of the first things taken
in hand was the connection of the existing lines of road by means of bridges at the more important points; such as at Dunkeld over the Tay, and near Dingwall over the Conan and Orrin. That of Dunkeld was the most important, as being situated at the
entrance to the Central Highlands; and at the second meeting of the Commissioners Mr. Telford submitted his plan and estimates of the proposed bridge. In consequence of some difference with the Duke of Athol as to his share of the expense—which
proved to be greater than he had estimated—some delay occurred in beginning the work; but at length it was fairly started, and, after being about three years in hand, the structure was finished and opened for traffic in 1809.

[Image] Dunkeld Bridge.

The bridge is a handsome one of five river and two land arches. The span of the centre arch is 90 feet, of the two adjoining it 84 feet, and of the two side arches 74 feet; affording a clear waterway of 446 feet. The total breadth of the roadway and foot
paths is 28 feet 6 inches. The cost of the structure was about 14,000L., one-half of which was defrayed by the Duke of Athol. Dunkeld bridge now forms a fine feature in a landscape not often surpassed, and which presents within a comparatively small
compass a great variety of character and beauty.

The communication by road north of Inverness was also perfected by the construction of a bridge of five arches over the Beauly, and another of the same number over the Conan, the central arch being 65 feet span; and the formerly wretched bit of road
between these points having been put in good repair, the town of Dingwall was thenceforward rendered easily approachable from the south. At the same time, a beginning was made with the construction of new roads through the districts most in need of
them. The first contracted for, was the Loch-na-Gaul road, from Fort William to Arasaig, on the western coast, nearly opposite the island of Egg.

Another was begun from Loch Oich, on the line of the Caledonian Canal, across the middle of the Highlands, through Glengarry, to Loch Hourn on the western sea. Other roads were opened north and south; through Morvern to Loch Moidart; through
Glen Morrison and Glen Sheil, and through the entire Isle of Skye; from Dingwall, eastward, to Lochcarron and Loch Torridon, quite through the county of Ross; and from Dingwall, northward, through the county of Sutherland as far as Tongue on the
Pentland Frith; while another line, striking off at the head of the Dornoch Frith, proceeded along the coast in a north-easterly direction to Wick and Thurso, in the immediate neighbourhood of John o' Groats.

There were numerous other subordinate lines of road which it is unnecessary to specify in detail; but some idea may be formed of their extent, as well as of the rugged character of the country through which they were carried, when we state that they
involved the construction of no fewer than twelve hundred bridges. Several important bridges were also erected at other points to connect existing roads, such as those at Ballater and Potarch over the Dee; at Alford over the Don: and at Craig-Ellachie
over the Spey.

The last-named bridge is a remarkably elegant structure, thrown over the Spey at a point where the river, rushing obliquely against the lofty rock of Craig-Ellachie,*[11] has formed for itself a deep channel not exceeding fifty yards in breadth. Only a
few years before, there had not been any provision for crossing this river at its lower parts except the very dangerous ferry at Fochabers. The Duke of Gordon had, however, erected a suspension bridge at that town, and the inconvenience was in a great
measure removed. Its utility was so generally felt, that the demand arose for a second bridge across the river; for there was not another by which it could be crossed for a distance of nearly fifty miles up Strath Spey.

It was a difficult stream to span by a bridge at any place, in consequence of the violence with which the floods descended at particular seasons. Sometimes, even in summer, when not a drop of rain had fallen, the flood would come down the Strath in
great fury, sweeping everything before it; this remarkable phenomenon being accounted for by the prevalence of a strong south-westerly wind, which blew the loch waters from their beds into the Strath, and thus suddenly filled the valley of the Spey.*
[12] The same phenomenon, similarly caused, is also frequently observed in the neighbouring river, the Findhorn, cooped up in its deep rocky bed, where the water sometimes comes down in a wave six feet high, like a liquid wall, sweeping everything
before it.

To meet such a contingency, it was deemed necessary to provide abundant waterway, and to build a bridge offering as little resistance as possible to the passage of the Highland floods. Telford accordingly designed for the passage of the river at Craig-
Ellachie a light cast-iron arch of 150 feet span, with a rise of 20 feet, the arch being composed of four ribs, each consisting of two concentric arcs forming panels, which are filled in with diagonal bars.

The roadway is 15 feet wide, and is formed of another arc of greater radius, attached to which is the iron railing; the spandrels being filled by diagonal ties, forming trelliswork. Mr. Robert Stephenson took objection to the two dissimilar arches, as
liable to subject the structure, from variations of temperature, to very unequal strains. Nevertheless this bridge, as well as many others constructed by Mr. Telford after a similar plan, has stood perfectly well, and to this day remains a very serviceable
structure.

[Image] Craig-Ellachie Bridge.

Its appearance is highly picturesque. The scattered pines and beech trees on the side of the impending mountain, the meadows along the valley of the Spey, and the western approach road to the bridge cut deeply into the face of the rock, combine, with
the slender appearance of the iron arch, in rendering this spot one of the most remarkable in Scotland.*[13] An iron bridge of a similar span to that at Craig-Ellachie had previously been constructed across the head of the Dornoch Frith at Bonar, near the
point where the waters of the Shin join the sea. The very severe trial which this structure sustained from the tremendous blow of an irregular mass of fir-tree logs, consolidated by ice, as well as, shortly after, from the blow of a schooner which drifted
against it on the opposite side, and had her two masts knocked off by the collision, gave him every confidence in the strength of this form of construction, and he accordingly repeated it in several of his subsequent bridges, though none of them are
comparable in beauty with that of Craig-Ellachie.

Thus, in the course of eighteen years, 920 miles of capital roads, connected together by no fewer than 1200 bridges, were added to the road communications of the Highlands, at an expense defrayed partly by the localities immediately benefited, and
partly by the nation. The effects of these twenty years' operations were such as follow the making of roads everywhere—development of industry and increase of civilization. In no districts were the benefits derived from them more marked than in the
remote northern counties of Sutherland and Caithness. The first stage-coaches that ran northward from Perth to Inverness were tried in 1806, and became regularly established in 1811; and by the year 1820 no fewer than forty arrived at the latter town in
the course of every week, and the same number departed from it. Others were established in various directions through the highlands, which were rendered as accessible as any English county.

Agriculture made rapid progress. The use of carts became practicable, and manure was no longer carried to the field on women's backs. Sloth and idleness gradually disappeared before the energy, activity, and industry which were called into life by the
improved communications. Better built cottages took the place of the old mud biggins with holes in their roofs to let out the smoke. The pigs and cattle were treated to a separate table. The dunghill was turned to the outside of the house. Tartan tatters gave
place to the produce of Manchester and Glasgow looms; and very soon few young persons were to be found who could not both read and write English.

But not less remarkable were the effects of the road-making upon the industrial habits of the people. Before Telford went into the Highlands, they did not know how to work, having never been accustomed to labour continuously and systematically. Let
our engineer himself describe the moral influences of his Highland contracts:—"In these works," says he, "and in the Caledonian Canal, about three thousand two hundred men have been annually employed. At first, they could scarcely work at all: they
were totally unacquainted with labour; they could not use the tools. They have since become excellent labourers, and of the above number we consider about one-fourth left us annually, taught to work. These undertakings may, indeed, be regarded in the
light of a working academy; from which eight hundred men have annually gone forth improved workmen. They have either returned to their native districts with the advantage of having used the most perfect sort of tools and utensils (which alone cannot
be estimated at less than ten per cent. on any sort of labour), or they have been usefully distributed through the other parts of the country. Since these roads were made accessible, wheelwrights and cartwrights have been established, the plough has been
introduced, and improved tools and utensils are generally used. The plough was