a house ordered to be built in Portsmouth dockyard, for the resident commissioner; it was of considerable magnitude (as in contemplation of future visits of the King), and involved some degree of responsibility. This house was designed by Samuel Wyat, one of a numerous family of architects; he also built it by contract, and my superintendence afforded me experience in house-building of a higher class and on a greater scale than previously had been intrusted to me.

During the three years that I attended the building of the Commissioner's house, and of a new chapel for the dockyard, I had an opportunity of observing the various operations necessary in the foundations and construction of graving docks, wharf-walls, and similar works, which afterwards became my chief occupation.'—P. 19.

In 1787, when these works were completed, the late Sir William Pulteney, then member for Shrewsbury, and a Mr Johnstone of the family of Westerhall, in Mr Telford's native parish, invited him into Shropshire, to superintend some alterations in the Castle of Shrewsbury, which he wished to fit up as a temporary residence. Our author gladly embraced this proposal, and took up his quarters in the castle under the patronage of its wealthy but penurious owner. Whilst the repairs were in progress, a new gaol was ordered to be built by the county magistrates, on a plan furnished by a Shrewsbury builder, and the superintendence of the work was intrusted to Mr Telford. Previous to its commencement, however, the benevolent Mr Howard, who had furnished plans for the county gaols of Gloucester and Oxford, came to Shrewsbury, and pointed out to Mr Telford various improvements upon the plans which had been adopted; and when these were mentioned to the magistrates, he was empowered to make the requisite alterations, and the building thus improved was completed in 1793.

During the first years of our author's residence in Shrewsbury, an architectural accident occurred which deserves to be generally known. In 1788, one of the four pillars which support the tower of the church of St Chad, was observed to crack in various places. This event occasioned general uneasiness, and Mr Telford was sent by his patron to inspect the state of the fabric. In his report to the vestry when assembled in the church, he stated, that the pillar of the tower had actually sunk so as to endanger the whole fabric, in consequence of graves having been dug in the loose soil close to its shallow foundations; that the church would speedily fall unless thoroughly repaired; and that with this view the bells should be instantly removed, the tower taken down, and the shattered pillar restored and secured when relieved from the vast superincumbent weight. The vestry, however, having not yet discovered the skill and the honesty of the reporter, suspected

that the Scottish architect had some interested views of his own, and raised their voices against so extensive a plan. Mr Telford immediately quitted the meeting with the warning, that if they 'wished to discuss any thing besides the alarming state of the 'church, they had better adjourn to some other place where there 'was no danger of its falling on their heads.'

The vestry then proceeded to direct a mason to cut away the injured part of the pillar, in order to underbuild it; and on the second evening after commencing this infatuated attempt, the sexton was alarmed at the fall of lime-dust and mortar, when he attempted to raise the great bell for a knell on the decease of a parishioner. He left the church immediately; and the next morning (9th July 1788,) while the workmen were waiting at his door for the church key, the clock struck four, and the vibrations produced by the motion of the chime barrel brought down the tower, which overwhelmed the nave of the church, demolishing all the pillars on the north side of it, and shattering the rest. It was now perceived that the walls and pillars of the church, as is seen in many such ancient structures, consisted of a mere outside coating of freestone, the interior being filled with a mass of rubbish which crumbled into dust. Among this, and in the very heart of the pillars, were found stones rudely carved, which were evidently of Saxon sculpture, and had been ruins of the ancient church, thus applied in building the second church in the reign of Richard 11.'-P. 26.

This event did not fail to add to Mr Telford's reputation, and he was afterwards regularly employed as the surveyor of public works for the extensive county of Shropshire. In this situation he acquired great experience in bridge-building; having superintended the erection of no fewer than forty small bridges, four of which were of iron; besides the two large bridges of Montford and Buildwas erected over the Severn. The bridge at Montford, built of red sandstone, consists of three elliptical arches, one of fifty-eight and two of fifty-five feet span; and, though thrown over a river subject to high floods, and having both its bed and its eastern bank of alluvial earth, it has proved a substantial edifice after more than forty years' exposure to the elements.

Previous to Mr Telford's arrival in Shropshire, the new and grand experiment of an iron bridge over the Severn had been made. John Wilkinson, the great iron-master, seems to have had the merit either of suggesting the use of this new material, or of having exerted himself in the erection of the new structure. The original design of this bridge, which was erected at the village of Brosely, in Coalbrookdale, was made by Mr Pritchard, a Shrewsbury architect, in 1775, and was completed in 1777. This remarkable structure consists of a semicircular arch of a hundred feet span, the great ribs of which are composed of two pieces only. In consequence of the inability of an arch of this form to resist the pressure of the earth against the abutments, the

iron arch had been heaved up in the middle; owing to the contraction of the roadway, by the advance of the western abutment; and it became necessary to strengthen that abutment by piers of masonry behind it.

As this experiment was not altogether a successful one-though the fault lay in the masonry more than in the iron-work—it was nevertheless a bold measure in Mr Telford to recommend an iron bridge at Buildwas. He had studied, however, the causes of the partial failure of that at Coalbrookdale; he recognised the defects in its abutments and wing-walls; he saw that the semicircular form of the arch was not only ungraceful to the eye, and consumed an unnecessary quantity of metal, but that it offered no adequate resistance to any lateral forces which tended to approximate the abutments.

Thus fortified in his own judgment, Mr Telford did not scruple to propose an iron bridge of one arch of a hundred and thirty feet span. The roadway rested upon a very flat arch, which was the segment of a very large circle; while this arch itself was sustained and strengthened by an outer arched rib on each side of the bridge, springing from a lower point than the flat arch, and rising as high as the top of the parapet railing; thus introducing the principle of timber trussing. Mr Telford experienced some difficulty in making the Coalbrookdale Iron Company depart from their former construction; but, having obtained the consent of the county, the bridge was cast in an admirable manner, and completed in 1796, at the expense of L.6034. The weight of the iron-work was only a hundred and seventy-three tons, while that of the first bridge was three hundred and seventy-eight tons, although the span of the former was thirty feet wider than the latter. We had an opportunity of seeing both these bridges on the same day, in 1808, in company with Mr Telford himself; and we were much struck with the beauty and elegance, as well as with the scientific principles which he had introduced into the construction of iron bridges.

Passing over Mr Telford's stone bridges which he built over the Conan and Beauley, and over the Dee at Tongueland in Scotland, and also the handsome church which he erected at Bridgenorth, we come to that important period in his life when he became a civil engineer.

Before entering, however, upon this branch, we must notice a feature in Mr Telford's intellectual character, which is a rare accompaniment of the more substantial acquirements of the civil engineer. Amid the picturesque scenery on the banks of the Esk, and the green pastures of his native hills, he was inspired with that love of song, which, in our border counties, is native

in the shepherd's breast. The thrill of Armstrong's harp had scarcely ceased in the vale of the Liddel, and the echo of Mickle's sweeter strains was dying away among the rocks and woodlands of the Esk, when the inspiration was caught by our young enthusiast, who had just exchanged the crook for the plumb-line. Nor was it merely to chide the dull hours of winter, or gain the affections of his mistress, that our youthful minstrel strung his rustic harp. He seems to have been, if not a regular, at least a liberal contributor to the pages of Ruddiman's Edinburgh Magazine; in which he published numerous poems under the signature of Eskdale Tam. One of the earliest of these productions was a descriptive poem entitled 'Eskdale,' which he republished when at Shrewsbury; and which Mr Rickman has very properly reprinted in the present work. It is pregnant with pleasing descriptions of natural scenery, and with just and elevated sentiments; and such is the poetical language in which they are clothed, that the treacherous memories of some of our later poets have unwittingly appropriated some of its happier lines.

When Burns was delighting his country with his lofty and pathetic strains, Telford was one of his most passionate worshippers; and expressed his admiration in a long poem in the Scottish dialect, addressed to Burns himself. This poem was found by Dr Currie among Burns's papers, and, with the permission of its author, several extracts from it were published in 1800, in Dr Currie's life of the poet.* It is characterised by its high tone of moral and religious feeling; and shows how deeply its author appreciated those institutions for religious and secular instruction, which so pre-eminently distinguish his native land.

The imaginative character of Mr Telford's mind, and his enthusiastic admiration of intellectual superiority, induced him to hail the French Revolution as the commencement of a new era of civilisation and of knowledge. He had imbibed from the pages of Plutarch and of Rollin a love of the institutions of ancient Greece; and under such influences he was led to take an active interest in the dissemination of those political wares which our speculators had imported free of duty from a more productive climate. In his proceedings on this occasion, his boldness exceeded his discretion; and he had nearly forfeited the friendship of Sir William Pulteney, by circulating under his frank some of the inflammatory diatribes of the day.

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Its object,' says Dr Currie, is to recommend to him (Burns) other subjects of a serious nature, similar to that of the Cottar's Saturday Night."

The metamorphosis, however, of French liberty into anarchy and bloodshed at home, and into conquest and desolation abroad, opened the eyes of Mr Telford, as it did those of others, to the danger of violent and equivocal changes in political institutions; and, though his principles were always liberal, as we can personally testify, yet he ever afterwards declined to take any share in the party contentions of the day.

The rapid increase of Mr Telford's business at Shrewsbury put an end to his dalliance with the Muses; and compelled him to seek for other fountains than those of Helicon, and to climb steeper acclivities than that of Parnassus. The exuberant wealth of England had been long directing its overflowing springs into the channel of inland navigation. Her rivers afforded, in many cases, an easy communication between the maritime and inland districts; and for a long time the enterprise of landed proprietors and capitalists was limited to the improvement of river navigation. Various acts had been passed for this purpose, and large sums expended in deepening and straitening their beds-in building pound locks at the mill weirs and other ascents, and sometimes in changing even the natural direction of the streams, Thus diverted from their native course, or flowing in altered channels, sometimes pent up and sometimes expanded, our rivers became subject to perpetual degradation and change; while, even in the most successful adaptations of them, the navigation was found to be both toilsome and dilatory.

The person who first recognised the imperfect character of our river communications, and perceived the immense benefit of a still-water navigation, was the Duke of Bridgewater. Having acquired the most perfect knowledge of similar works in Holland, Italy, and France, this nobleman conceived the plan of connecting Manchester with his valuable coal-mines at Worsley, by means of a canal without locks; and crossing, in one unbroken level, the rivers and valleys of the district through which it passed. His acute mind foresaw the difficulties and risks of so novel an undertaking; but he foresaw also the possibility of surmounting them; and heedless of the prejudices of the day, and finding his own views confirmed by the practical sagacity of James Brindley, then rising into notice as an engineer, he applied all the vigour of his mind, and all the resources of his wealth, to realize the magnificent project which he had conceived. An act of the legislature was accordingly obtained in 1759, and in the following year the work was begun. When the canal, however, reached Banton Bridge, it became necessary to carry it over the Irwell, by an aqueduct rising forty feet above the surface of the stream. Although difficulties equally formidable