The Steam Engine. "It is said that ideas produce revolutions: and truly they do not spiritual ideas only, but even mechanical."—Carlyle. I. THE MARQUIS OF WORCESTER. As the last century was drawing to its close, two great revolutions were in progress, both of which were destined to exercise a mighty influence upon the years to come, the one calm, silent, peaceful, the other full of sound and fury, bathed in blood, and crowned with thorns,-the one the fruit of long years of patient thought and work, the other the outcome of long years of oppression, suffering, and sin, the one was Watt's invention of the steam engine, the other the great popular revolt in France. These are the two great events which set their mark upon our century, gave form and colour to its character, and direction to its aims and aspirations. the pages of conventional history, of course, the French revolution, with its wild phantasmagoria of retribution, its massacres and martyrdoms, will no doubt have assigned to it the foremost rank as the great feature of the era, ; "For ever since historians writ, And ever since a bard could sing, In But those who can look below the mere surface of events, and whose fancy is not captivated by the melo-drama of rebellion, and the pageantry of war, will find that Watt's steam machine worked the greatest revolution of modern times, and exercised the deepest, as well as widest and most permanent influence over the whole civilized world. Like all other great discoveries, that of steam power was the work, not of any one man, but of generations. Known vaguely to the ancients, and employed by their priests for the performance of pretended miracles, it was not till within the last two hundred years that any systematic attempts were made to turn it to practical account. The Marquis of Worcester, in the reign of Charles I., was the constructor of the first steam engine. The story goes, that when the marquis was a prisoner in the Tower of London, the tight cover of a kettle full of boiling water was blown off before his eyes; for mere amusement's sake he stuck it on again, saw it again blown off, and then began to reflect on the capabilities of power thus accidentally revealed to him, and to speculate on its application to mechanical ends. Being of a quick, ingenious turn of mind, he was not long in discovering how it could be directed. and controlled. When he published his project"An Admirable and Most Forcible Way to Drive up Water by Fire"-he was abused and laughed at as being either a madman or an impostor. He perse |