but nothing came of it; and the honour of having first proved the practicability of applying steam to the purposes of locomotion is due to a Cornishman named Trevithick, who devised a high-pressure engine of very ingenious construction, and actually set it to work on one of the roads in South Wales. At first, therefore, there was no alliance between the engine and the rail; and though afterwards Trevithick adapted it to run on a tram-way, something went wrong with it, and the idea was for the time abandoned. There was a long-headed engine-man in one of the Newcastle collieries about this time, in whose mind the true solution of the problem was rapidly developing, but Trevithick had nearly forestalled him. The stories of these two men afford a most instructive lesson. A man of undoubted talent and ingenuity, with influential friends both in Cornwall and London, Trevithick had a fair start in life, and every opportunity of distinguishing himself. But he lacked steadiness and perseverance, and nothing prospered with him. He had no sooner applied himself to one scheme than he threw it up, and became engrossed in another, to be abandoned in turn for some new favourite. He was always beginning some novelty, and never ending what he had begun, and the consequence was an almost constant succession of failures. He was always unhappy and unsuccessful. If now and then a gleam of success did brighten on his path, it was but temporary, and was speedily ab

sorbed in the gloom of failure.

He found a man of

capital to take up his high-pressure engine, got his locomotive built and set to work, brought his ballast engine into use, and stood in no want of praise and encouragement; and yet, one after another his schemes went wrong. Not one of them did well, because he never stuck to any of them long enough. "The world always went wrong with him," he said himself. "He always went wrong with the world," said more truly those who knew him. His haste, impatience, and want of perseverance ruined him. After actually witnessing his steam engine at work in Wales, dragging a train of heavy waggons at the rate of five miles an hour, he lost conceit of his invention, went away to the West Indies, and did not return to England till Stephenson had solved the difficulty of steam locomotion, and was laying out the Stockton and Darlington Railway. The humble 'engine-man, without education, without friends, without money, with countless obstacles in his way, and not a single advantage, save his native genius and resolution, had won the day, and distanced his more favoured and accomplished rival. It was reserved for GEORGE STEPHENSON to bring about the alliance of the locomotive and the railroad- man and wife," as he used to call them-whose union, like that of heaven and earth in the old mythology, was to bear an offspring of Titanic might the modern rail

way.

II. THE STEPHENSONS: FATHER AND SON.

Towards the close of the last century, a bare-legged herd-laddie, about eight years old, might have been seen, in a field at Dewley Burn, a little village not far from Newcastle, amusing himself by making clay-engines, with bits of hemlock-stalk for imaginary pipes. The child is father of the man; and in after years that little fellow became the inventor of the passenger locomotive, and as the founder of the gigantic railway system which now spreads its fibres over the length and breadth, not only of our own country, but of the civilized world, the true hero of the half-century.

The second son of a fireman to one of the colliery engines, who had six children and a wife to support on an income of twelve shillings a-week, George Stephenson had to begin work while quite a child. At first he was set to look after a neighbour's cows, and keep them from straying; and afterwards he was promoted to the work of leading horses at the plough, hoeing turnips, and such like, at a salary of fourpence a-day. The lad had always been fond of poking about in his father's engine house; and his great ambition at this time was to become a fireman like his father. And at length, after being employed in various ways about the colliery, he was, at the age of fourteen, appointed his father's assistant at a shilling a-day. The next year he got a situation as

fireman on his own account; and "now," said he, when his wages were advanced to twelve shillings aweek-" now I'm a made man for life."

The next step he took was to get the place of "plugman" to the same engine that his father attended as fireman, the former post being rather the higher of the two. The business of the plugman, the uninitiated may be informed, is to watch the engine, and see that it works properly-the name being derived from the duty of plugging the tube at the bottom of the shaft, so that the action of the pump should not be interfered with by the exposure of the suction-holes. George now devoted himself enthusiastically to the study of the engine under his care. It became a sort of pet with him; and he was never weary of taking it to pieces, cleaning it, putting it together again, and inspecting its various parts with admiration and delight, so that he soon made himself thoroughly master of its method of working and construction.

Eighteen years old by this time, George Stephen*son was wholly uneducated. His father's small earnings, and the large family he had to feed, at a time when provisions were scarce and at war prices, prevented his having any schooling in his early years; and he now set himself to repair his deficiencies in that respect. His duties occupied him twelve hours a-day, so that he had but little leisure to himself; but he was bent on improving himself,

and after the duties of the day were over, went to a night-school kept by a poor teacher in the village of Water-row, where he was now situated, on three nights during the week, to take lessons in reading and spelling, and afterwards in the science of pot-hooks and hangers as well; so that by the time he was nineteen he was able to read clearly, and to write his own name. Then he took to arithmetic, for which he showed a strong predilection. He had always a sum or two by him to work out while at the engine side, and soon made great progress.

The next year he was appointed brakesman at Black Collerton Colliery, with six shillings added to his wages, which were now nearly a pound a-week, and he was always making a few shillings extra by mending his fellow-workmen's shoes, a job at which he was rather expert. Busy as he was with his various tasks, he found time to fall in love. Pretty Fanny Henderson, a servant at a neighbouring farm, caught his fancy; and getting her shoes to mend, it cost him a great effort to return them to the comely owner after they were patched up. He carried them about with him in his pocket for some time, and would pull them out, and then gaze fondly at them with as much emotion as the old story tells us the sight of the dainty glass slipper, which Cinderella dropped at the ball, excited in the breast of the young prince. Bent upon taking up house for himself, with Fanny as presiding genius, Stephenson now began to save