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" target="_blank" title="ad.=upward">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