stationary steam-engine. Sometimes there was an | One of Mr. Blenkinsop's engines of four horses' inclined plane, terminating in a spout at the ship- power impelled a carriage lightly loaded at the ping place, along which the coals were shot straight into the hold of the vessel lying under the river bank. In 1767, the experiment was tried at the Colebrook iron-works of covering the wooden rails of a tramroad with a plating of iron. The experiment was so successful, that some years afterwards rails wholly of cast-iron began to be constructed. About the year 1793, also, wooden sleepers began to be superseded by stone ones-blocks of stone laid down underneath the joinings of the rails. Till 1801, the rails were all of the kind called the flatrail, or tram-plate, consisting of plates of cast-iron about three feet long, from three to five inches broad, and from half an inch to an inch thick, with a flange or turn-up on the inside. About that year, however, edge-rails began to be used-these edgerails being bars of cast-iron about three feet long each, laid on their edges, the flange in this case being on the wheel. The value of the improvements which had thus been gradually introduced during the course of a century and a half may be judged of from the fact, that on a good edge railway, such as was to be found in the beginning of the present century, ten horses could do an amount of work, which, on a common road, would require the strength of four hundred. “Iron railways were, in consequence, quickly introduced into all the coal and mining districts of the kingdom. They were employed on canals in place of locks, to raise the barges on an inclined plane from a lower to a higher level; in some cases they were adopted in preference to the canal itself; and, on the whole, they began to form an important auxiliary to inland navigation, pushing the channels of trade and intercourse into districts otherwise inaccessible, and even into the interior of the mines." Scarcely any two of these railways were alike in all particulars. All this while horse-power continued to be the only motive force employed, except at those inclined planes already mentioned. Thus horses and steam-engines shared the work between them. The idea of uniting the two into one, so as to produce a locomotive steam-engine, or a steam-horse, was a more recent one. Watt had, indeed, in one of his patents, dated 1784, suggested a plan for imparting to the steam-engine the animal's faculty of locomotion; but it was not till 1802 that experiments with a view to the construction of an efficient locomotive engine were commenced. The first locomotives put upon trial were those of the engineers Messrs. Trevithick and Vivian. The objection to them was, that there was not sufficient adhesion between the wheels and the rails, so that, if the velocity were at all great, the former would revolve without advancing the vehicle. To remedy this inconvenience, various plans were devised, among which that of Mr. Blenkinsop obtained the greatest celebrity. His plan consisted in making the rails notched, and the wheels with teeth, so that they continued to work in a rack all along the road. rate of ten miles an hour; attached to thirty coal wagons, it went at one third of that pace. Fortunately, however, it was soon discovered that the conclusion on which Mr. Blenkinsop and others had been proceeding—namely, that the amount of adhesion was insufficient between a smooth wheel and a smooth rail-was a hasty one; and that, provided the road were tolerably level, the amount of adhesion between such a wheel and such a rail was quite sufficient to insure propulsion. Satisfied on this point, engineers devoted their attention more especially to the improvement of the locomotive itself. The difficulties of various kinds, however, which presented themselves were great; and the horses of England continued to flatter themselves that they would be able to retain the monopoly of locomotion; and that, although steam-engines might work well enough in chains at inclined plains, they should still have the run of the country. Such was the state of matters about the year 1819-20, when Mr. Gray appeared in the field; a great number of tramroads had been laid down in particular districts of the island, along which horses and stationary steam-engines were pulling wagons, while here and there a solitary locomotive snorted along, trying its powers. Locomotives versus horses, and railways versus turnpikes and canals— such was the question at issue. Mr. Gray's merit consisted not in effecting actual improvements of construction in either locomotives or railwaysthat was the work of Stephenson, and other eminent engineers—but in stating the question to the country, in foreseeing the issue, and in boldly imagining the time when the whole island should be covered with a net-work of these tramroads, when locomotives should scamper through the country as plentiful as horses, and when canals, stagecoaches, and turnpike trusts, should be all swamped in a general iron railway. Glimmerings of this idea may have appeared before in other minds. "You must be making handsomely out with your canals," said some one to the celebrated canalmaking Duke of Bridgewater. "Oh, yes.” grumbled he, in reply, they will last my time; but I don't like the look of these tramroads; there's mischief in them." What the shrewd duke foresaw, others also may have casually anticipated; but Mr. Gray was the first man to realize the whole extent of the change, and to advocate it; and although this change would doubtless have effected itself in any case, yet the first man who conceived it, and called the attention of the nation to the subject, deserves distinction. To say that the change would have effected itself, is merely to say that if Mr. Gray's mind had not conceived it so fast, five or six other minds would have conceived it more slowly. A circumstance which favored Mr. Gray's proposal was, that about the time it was first made, or a little later, rails began to be formed of malleable instead of cast-iron; the malleable possess ing two decided advantages for the purpose over other engines might proceed on with them to their the cast-first, in being less apt to break; and, destination. By a due regulation of the departure second, in being capable of being made in greater and arrival of coaches, caravans, and wagons, along lengths of bar. these branches, the whole communication throughMr. Gray, in his volume, dashes at once into out the country would be so simple and so comthe midst of his subject; and his readers twenty-plete, as to enable every individual to partake of six years ago must have been much surprised by the various productions of particular situations, and such passages as the following:-"The plan," he to enjoy, at a moderate expense, every improvesays, "might be commenced between the towns of ment introduced into society. Steam-engines would Manchester and Liverpool, where a trial could soon answer all the purposes required by the general inbe made, as the distance is not very great; and the tercourse and commerce of this country, and clearly commercial part of England would thereby be bet-prove that the expenses caused by the continual ter able to appreciate its many excellent proper- relays of horses are totally unnecessary. The ties, and prove its efficacy. All the great trading great economy of such a measure must be obvious towns of Lancashire and Yorkshire would then to every one, seeing that, instead of each coach eagerly embrace the opportunity to secure so com-changing horses between London and Edinburgh, modious and easy a conveyance, and cause branch say twenty-five times, requiring a hundred horses, railways to be laid down in every possible direc- besides the supernumerary ones kept at every stage tion. The convenience and economy in the car- in case of accidents, the whole journey of several riage of the raw material to the numerous manufac- coaches would be performed with the simple extories established in these counties, the expeditious pense of one steam-engine. No animal strength and cheap delivery of piece goods bought by the will be able to give that uniform and regular acmerchants every week at the various markets, and celeration to our commercial intercourse which may the despatch in forwarding bales and packages to be accomplished by railways; however great the the outposts, cannot fail to strike the merchant and animal speed, there cannot be a doubt that it would manufacturer as points of the first importance. be considerably surpassed by mail steam-carriages, Nothing, for example, would be so likely to raise and that the expense would be infinitely less. The the ports of Hull, Liverpool, and Bristol to an un- exorbitant charge now made for small parcels preprecedented pitch of prosperity, as the establish- vents that natural intercourse of friendship between ment of railways to these ports, thereby rendering families residing in different parts of the kingdom, the communication from the east to the west seas, in the same manner as the heavy postage of letters and all intermediate places, rapid, cheap, and effec-prevents free communication, and consequently tual. Any one at all conversant with commerce diminishes very considerably the consumption of must feel the vast importance of such an under- paper which would take place under a less burdentaking in forwarding the produce of America, Bra- some taxation." zils, the East and West Indies, &c., from Liverpool Such passages as the foregoing must have surand Bristol via Hull, to the opposite shores of prised the public very much twenty-six years ago; Germany and Holland; and, vice versa, the produce the following, if we are not mistaken, will have of the Baltic via Hull to Liverpool and Bristol." sufficient novelty even for readers of the present Again" By the establishment of morning and time :-"The present system of conveyance,” says evening mail steam-carriages, the commercial in- Mr. Gray, "affords but tolerable accommodation terest would derive considerable advantage; the to farmers, and the common way in which they inland mails might be forwarded with greater de-attend markets must always confine them within spatch, and the letters delivered much earlier than very limited distances. It is, however, expected by the extra post; the opportunities of correspondence between London and all mercantile places would be much improved, and the rate of postage might be generally diminished without injuring the receipts of the post-office, because any deficiency occasioned by a reduction in the postage would be made good by the increased number of journeys which mail steam-carriages might make. The It was not until after four of five years of agiLondon and Edinburgh mail steam-carriages might tation, and several editions of Mr. Gray's work had take all the mails and parcels on the line of road been published and successively commented upon between these two cities, which would exceedingly by many newspapers, that commercial men were reduce the expense occasioned by mail-coaches on roused to give the proposed scheme its first great the present footing. The ordinary stage-coaches, trial on the road between Liverpool and Manchescaravans, or wagons, running any considerable dis-ter. The success of that experiment, insured by tance along the main railway, might also be con- the engineering skill of Stephenson, was the signal ducted on peculiarly favorable terms to the public; for all that has since been done both in this island for instance, one steam-engine of superior power and in other parts of the world. Unfortunately, would enable its proprietors to convey several the public has been too busy these many years in coaches, caravans, or wagons linked together, un-making railways to inquire to whom it owes its til they arrive at their respective branches, where gratitude for having first expounded and advocated that the railway will present a suitable conveyance for attending market-towns thirty or forty miles off, as also for forwarding considerable supplies of grain, hay, straw, vegetables, and every description of live-stock to the metropolis at a very easy expense, and with the greatest celerity, from all parts of the kingdom.” their claims; and probably there are few men now is in vogue amongst the faculty as the seat of living who have served the public as effectually, disease. In Swift's days it was the stomach. with so little return in the way of thanks or ap- He was therefore treated for the stomach for some plause, as Mr. Thomas Gray, the proposer in 1820 half century, while all the time disease was going of a general system of transit by railways. on in his brain. One of their medicines will excite a smile now-a-days-brandy. He was enjoined to drink this liquor in considerable quantities, till SWIFT'S ILLNESS AND HIS REMAINS. experience showed that it only made his case DUBLIN possesses a most respectable medical peri- worse, and he resumed his usual habits of temodical of the first class, conducted by a clever young perance. He wrote thus of physicians in 1737 :native surgeon, Mr. Wilde. The numbers for "I have esteemed many of them as learned and May and August contain an elaborate paper by ingenious men, but I never received the least benefit the editor, in which the ailments of Swift are from their advice or prescriptions. Poor Dr. for the first time (as appears) distinctly ascertained. Arbuthnot was the only man of the faculty who There has been much mystery on this subject seemed to understand my case, but could not among the biographers of the famous Dean of St. remedy it." Patrick's; his character even has suffered a little In latter life, the sufferings from his disease from the obscurity. Having with great pains were dreadful. He speaks of having felt as in traced the symptoms and treatment through fifty- Phalaris' brazen bull, and roared as loud for eight five years of correspondence, and drawn important or nine hours. Mr. Wilde says—“That Swift illustrations from the appearances presented by the was not, however, at any time, even during the cranium when exhumed in 1835, Mr. Wilde finally most violent attacks, at all insensible, or in any brings his professional knowledge to bear on the way deprived of his reasoning faculties, may be subject, which he seems to have thoroughly ex- learned from the fact, that when Sergeant Betteshausted. Swift had no hereditary tendency to worth threatened his life, and thirty of the nobility nervous disease, as has been surmised, and almost and gentry of the liberty of St. Patrick's waited alleged. He contracted a giddiness in his twenty- upon him, and presented him with an address, seventh year, in consequence of eating a hundred engaging to defend his person and fortune, &c., it golden pippins at a time at Richmond. Not long is related by the most veritable of his biographers, after, he contracted a deafness, from sitting on a that when this paper was delivered, Swift was in damp seat. These were ailments, says Mr. bed, giddy and deaf, having been some time before Wilde, not likely, when once established, to be seized with one of his fits; but he dictated an easily removed from a system so nervous and irri- answer in which there is all the dignity of habitual table as Swift's. "From this period a disease preeminence, and all the resignation of humble which in all its symptoms, and by its fatal termi- | piety.'" nation, plainly appears to have been (in its commencement at least) cerebral congestion, set in, and exhibited itself in well-marked periodical attacks, which, year after year, increased in intensity and duration." The brain which produced Lilliput, and bothered the whigs, under congestion all the time! "So desponding was the dean at times, and so great was his fear of the loss either of his memory or his reason, that he used to say, on parting with an intimate friend in the evening-Well, God bless you! Good night to you; but I hope I shall never see you again.' 'In this manner,' says Mr. Dean Swift, he would frequently express the "In early life," says our author, "he was desire he had to get rid of the world, after a day of remarkably active habits, and always exceed- spent in cheerfulness, without any provocation from ingly sober and temperate, if we except the anger, melancholy, or disappointment.' Upon the instance of gluttony already related. From the occasion of a large pier-glass falling accidentally date of his first attack, he seems to have had a on the very part of the room in which he had been presentiment of its fatal termination; and the dread standing a moment before, and being congratulated of some head affection (as may be gleaned from by a bystander on his providential escape—' I am innumerable passages in his writings) seems to sorry for it,' answered the dean: 'I wish the have haunted him ever afterwards, producing those glass had fallen upon me! Lord Orrery mentions fits of melancholy and despondency to which it is that he had often heard him lament the state of well known he was subject; while the many dis- childhood and idiotism to which some of the greatappointments and vexations, both of a domestic and est men of this nation were reduced before their public nature, which he subsequently suffered, no death. He mentioned, as examples within his doubt tended to hasten the very end he feared." own time, the Duke of Marlborough and Lord Swift, however, according to Mr. Wilde, never Somers; and when he cited these melancholy was at any time of his life, not even at its close, "what is usually termed and understood as mad;" a point in our literary biography which will be acknowledged to be of no small importance. The unfortunate wit was of course never out of the hands of the doctors. At all times, some particular portion or peculiarity of the human frame instances, it was always with a heavy sigh, and with gestures that showed great uneasiness, as if he felt an impulse of what was to happen to him before he died.'" Mr. Wilde adduces many passages from the writings of the friends immediately around Swift, to show that he only manifested loss of memory, and other symptoms of decay of mind, but nothing like fatuity or furiosity. One friend says of him the year before his death, that he had never yet talked nonsense, or said a foolish thing. Guardians seem to have been appointed for him, merely because of the infirmities above mentioned. He at length died in his own house, October 19, 1745, in the seventy-eighth year of his age. His head was dissected; but all we know of the results is confined to the fact, that water was found on the brain. MARTIN F. TUPPER TO AMERICA. 1. COLUMBIA, child of Britain-noblest child! To love the mother of so blest a birth; Yes, we are one; the glorious days of yore, And thou hast rights in Milton, e'en as weThou too canst claim "sweet Shakspeare's woodnotes wild," And chiefest, brother, we are both made free, Of one religion, pure and undefiled! I II. Ninety years after the death of this bright I blame thee not as other some have blamed- The interior of the skull threw some light upon the mental condition of the great dean in his latter days. According to Dr. Houston, "the cerebral (inner) surface of the whole of the frontal region is evidently of a character indicating the presence, during lifetime, of diseased action in the subjacent membranes of the brain. The skull in this region is thickened, flattened, and unusually smooth and hard in some places, whilst it is thinned and roughened in others. The marks of the vessels on the bone exhibit, moreover, a very unusual appearance; they look more like the imprints of vessels which had been generated de novo, in connection with some diseased action, than as the original arborescent trunks." Mr. Wilde expresses his opinion that the appearances showed "a long continued excess of vascular action, such as would attend cerebral congestion." Much detail of an interesting kind is given in the paper of Mr. Wilde; but for this we must refer to the journal in which it appears. The whole is eminently curious, as tracing material conditions which must have entered largely into the character of one of the most remarkable men of his century. Who can say how much of the politics of Swift-how much of his satiric and indignant writings-took their first rise in a surfeit of pippins?-Chambers' Journal. Thou new Themistocles of enterprise; And-precious child, dear Ephraim-turn those eyes For thee thy mother's yearning heart doth wait. THE BACHELOR'S COMPLAINT. AN unfortunate individual laments his solitary state in the following stanzas, the concluding one of which ini cates that we may still have hopes of him : Returning home at close of day, Nobody. Who sets for me the easy chair, Nobody. Who regulates the cheerful fire, When plunged in dire and deep distress, Nobody. When anxious thoughts within me rise, Nobody. When sickness racks my feeble frame, Nobody. Then I'll resolve, so help me Fate, Somebody. THIRTY-FIVE UNPUBLISHED LETTERS OF OLI VER CROMWELL. COMMUNICATED BY THOMAS CARLYLE TO FRA- [Upon us, Mexican-war-mind-entangled, these letters force continual comparisons between degenerate modern times, and the hearty, unsqueamish, save-of-popery days of the Great Protector and Puritan. We of the present Boston are not so entirely fallen away, but that we too could "wreck a nunnery," should it be our manifest duty. But we groan more heavily over the carnal doings of some of our folk in Mexico, than "the Colonel" would, should he be sent to supersede Gen. Scott. We think he would yield no armistice before Mexico, and would think it a "crowning mercy" should he succeed in catching the deserters. As there is nothing new under the sun, we see that he has pronounced the law not on them only, but on those who "tried them sorely by money, whom," saith he, "I will hang, if I catch playing their tricks in my quarters; by law of arms [second section ?] I will serve them." How about enemies who violate their parole? (Would they have been spared to give it?) It seems that Gen. Cushing hath a spark of the old fire in him-for he decides the case of the men who murmured at the new clothing, as did his great forefather. And yet, proud of our ancestry as we are, we cannot but fear that more of the mantle of Oliver hath fallen upon Texas than upon the Plymouth-descended. These Texians make not such thorough work to be sure, but they go at it in the old spirit-and "stand no nonsense" from any man.-Living Age.] 66 the possession of Mr. So-and-so, as is usual in like Let me hasten to say, then, explicitly once more, that these letters are of indubitable authenticity: further, that the originals, all or nearly all in autograph, which existed in June last, in the possession of a private gentleman whose name I am on no account to mention, have now irrecoverably perished;—and, in brief, that the history of them, so far as it can be related under these conditions, is as follows: On the first publication of Oliver Cromwell's Some eight or ten months ago, there reached Letters and Speeches, new contributions of Crom- me, as many had already done on the like subject, well matter, of some value, of no value, and even a letter from an unknown correspondent in the disof less than none, were, as the general reader tance; setting forth, in simple, rugged and trustknows, diligently forwarded to me from all quar-worthy, though rather peculiar dialect, that he, my ters; and turned to account, in the second edition unknown correspondent—who seemed to have been of that work, as the laws of the case seemed to a little astonished to find that Oliver Cromwell was allow. The process, which seemed then to all actually not a miscreant, hypocrite, &c., as heretopractical intents completed, and is in fact very lan- fore represented—had in his hands a stock of guid and intermittent ever since, has nevertheless strange old papers relating to Oliver: much connot yet entirely ceased; and indeed one knows sumed by damp, and other injury of time; in parnot when, if ever, it will entirely cease; for at longer ticular, much "eaten into by a vermin" (as my and longer intervals new documents and notices correspondent phrased it,) -some moth, or body still arrive; though, except in the single instance of moths, who had boarded there in past years. now before us, I may describe these latter as of The papers, he said, describing them rather the last degree of insignificance; hardly even vaguely, contained some things of Cromwell's worth "inserting in an Appendix," which was my own, but appeared to have been mostly written by bargain in respect of them. Whence it does, at one Samuel Squire, a subaltern in the famed Reglast, seem reasonable to infer that our English iment of Ironsides, who belonged to "The Stilton archives are now pretty well exhausted, in this Troop," and had served with Oliver "from the particular; and that nothing more, of importance, first mount" of that indomitable corps, as cornet, concerning Oliver Cromwell's utterances of himself and then as "auditor,”—of which latter office my in this world, will be gathered henceforth. Here, correspondent could not, nor could I when queshowever, is a kind of exception; in regard to tioned, quite specificate the meaning, but guessed which, on more accounts than one, it has become that it might be something like that of adjutant in necessary for me to adopt an exceptional course; modern regiments. This Auditor Squire had kept and if not to edit, in the sense of elucidating, the some "journal," or diary of proceedings, from contribution sent me, at least to print it straight-"the first mount" or earlier, from about 1642 till way, before accident befall it or me. the latter end of 1645, as I could dimly gather; but again it was spoken of as "journals," as "old papers," manuscripts," in the plural number, and one knew not definitely what to expect : motheaten, dusty, dreary old brown papers; bewildered and bewildering; dreadfully difficult to decipher, |