of the railway, takes foremost rank, and confers upon its introducer the high merit of being a signal public benefactor. This honor is due to George Stephenson, who, from being a poor "cow-boy," raised himself to wealth and eminence, and without one solitary advantage except what he derived from his own genius, stamped his name upon the most wonderful achievement of our times. His early history is a surprising example of the triumph of singular and unerring sagacity over difficulties. His school instruction was little and late; but his education may be said to have begun almost from the moment he saw coal-wagons drawn upon the tramway before his father's cottage-door, and from his moulding clay-engines with his play

mates.

George Stephenson was born in 1781, in the colliery village of Wylam, about eight miles west of Newcastle-on-Tyne, amid slag and cinders, in an ordinary laborer's cottage, with unplastered walls, bare rafters, and floor of clay. His father was the descendant of an ancient and honorable line of working men, and his mother, Mabel, was a rale canny body;" but the wages of the former as a fireman amounting to no more than twelve shillings a week, schooling for George was out of the question, and he was taken by his father birdnesting, or told stories about Sinbad and Robinson Crusoe as a substitute. His interest in birds' nests never left him to his dying day, nor were other sights of his childhood less identified with the serious business of his life. In the rails of the wooden tram-road before his cottage, on which he saw the coal-wagons dragged by horses from the pit to the loading-quay, half the destiny of an age was latent, to be evolved hereafter by the very boy, who, after his own probation was over, had to keep his younger brothers and sisters out of the way of the horses. Thus eight years passed away, when the family removed to Dewley-burn, and George, to his great joy, was raised to the post of cow-boy to a neighboring farmer, at the wages of twopence a-day. He had plenty of spare time on his hands, which he spent in birdnesting, also in making whistles out of reeds and scrannel straws, and erecting Lilliputian mills in the little water streams that ran into the Dewley Bog. There can be no doubt that he indicated thus early that bent which is termed a mechanical genius. His favorite amusement, and this deserves to be noted, was the erection of clay engines, in conjunction with a certain Tom Tholoway. The boys found the clay for their engines in the adjoining bog, and the hemlock which grew about supplied them with abundance of imaginary steam-pipes. The place is still pointed out "just aboon the cut end," as the people of the hamlet describe it, where the future

engineer made his first essays in modeling. As the boy grew older, and more able to work, he was set to lead the horses in plowing, and to hoe turnips, at the advanced wages of fourpence a-day. Then he was taken on at the colliery as a "picker," at sixpence a-day, whence he was advanced to be driver of the gin-horse at eightpence; and there are those who still remember him in that capacity as a "grit bare-legged laddie," whom they describe as 66 quick-witted and full of fun and tricks." He himself had some misgivings as to his physical dimensions, and was wont to hide himself when the owner of the colliery went round, lest he should be thought too little a boy to earn his small wages. His fixed ambition was to be an engineman; and great, therefore, was his exultation when, at about fourteen years of age, he was appointed fireman, at the wages of one shilling a-day.

Thenceforth his fortunes took him from one pit to another, and procured him rising wages with his rising stature. At Throckley-bridge, when advanced to twelve shillings a-week, “I am now," sad he, "a made man for life." At seventeen he shot ahead of his father, being made an engineman or plugman, while the latter remained a fireman. He soon studied and mastered the working of his engine, and it became a sort of pet with him. His greatest privilege was to find some one who could read to him by the engine-fire out of any book or stray newspaper which found its way into the colliery. Thus he heard that the Egyptians hatched birds' eggs by artificial heat, and endeavored to do the same in his engine-house. He learnt also, that the wonderful engines of Watt* and Boulton were to be found described

*James Watt, the great improver of the Steam-engine, born at Greenock, in 1736, received his early education mostly at home; although he attended for a time the public elementary schools in his native town. His ill-health, which often confined him to his chamber, appears to have led him to the cultivation, with unusual assiduity, of his intellectual powers. It is said that when only six years of age, he was discovered solving a geometrical problem upon the hearth with a piece of chalk; and other circumstances related of him justify the remark elicited from a friend on the above occasion, that he was "no common child." About 1 50, he amused himself by making an electrical machine; and it is related that his aunt upbraided him one evening at the tea-table for what seemed to her to be listless idleness: taking off the lid of the tea-kettle and putting it on again; holding sometimes a cup, and sometimes a silver spoon, over the steam; watching the exit of the steam from the spout; and counting the drops of water into which it became condensed. Hence, the boy pondering before the tea-kettle has been viewed as the embryo engineer prognosticating the discoveries which were to immortalize him During his youth he indulged his love for botany on the banks of Loch Lomond, and his rambles among the mountain scenery of his native land aroused an attention to mineralogy and geology. Chemistry was a favorite subject when he was confined by ill-health to his father's dwelling He read eagerly books on natural philosophy, surgery, and medicine. Leaving, however, all these studies, Watt applied himself to the profession of a mathematical instrument maker, and after a time settled in Glasgow, where, displaying much ingenuity and manual dexterity, his superior intelligence led to his sh p being a favorite resort for the most eminent scientific men in Glasgow. Watt needed only prompting to take up and conquer any subject; and Professor Robinson states that he learnt the German language in order to peruse Leupold's Theatrum Machinarum, because the solution of a problem on which he was engaged seemed to require it; and that similar reasons led him subse

in books, and with the object of mastering these books, though a grown man, he went to a night-school at threepence a-week to learn his letters. He also practiced "pot-hooks," and at the age of nineteen was proud to be able to write his

own name.

Stephenson may be said to have anticipated a Mechanics' Institute at the bottom of a coal-pit: for he, and others of the workmen less gifted, made their companions who could read give them some little instruction, and read any stray paper which might reach their remote village in the days of the Fist Napoleon's first efforts to conquer Europe.

In the winter of 1799, George removed to the night-school kept by a Scotch dominie, named Andrew Robertson, who was a skilled arithmetician. Here George learnt "figuring" much faster than his school-fellows-"he took to figures so wonderful.” He worked out his sums in his bye-hours, improving every minute of his spare time by the engine-fire, solving the arithmetical problems set him upon his slate by his master, so that he soon became well advanced in arithmetic. At length, Robertson could carry Stephenson no further, the pupil having outstripped the master. He went on, however, with his writing lessons, and by the next year, 1802-when he signed his name on his marriage-he was able to write a good, legible round hand.

By improving his spare hours in the evening, he was silently and surely paving the way for being something more than a mere workman, by studying principles of mechanics, and the laws by which his engine worked. By steady conduct and saving habits, he not only sustained the pressure of the times, but procured the coveted means of educating his son. Soon afterward he signalized himself by curing a wheezy engine, at which "all the engineers of the neighborhood were tried, as well as Crowther of the Ouseburn, but they were clean bet." He got 107. for this job, and from this day his services as an engineer came into request.

In 1814, he placed a locomotive on the Killingworth Railway; and this engine, improved in 1815, is the parent of the whole race of locomotives which has since sprung into existence. This was, indeed, a year of double triumph to Stephenson, for in it he produced his Safety Lamp for miners; though Sir Humphry Davy's lamp was reported to be something more per

quently to study Italian. Without neglecting his business in the daytime, Watt devoted his nights to various and often profound studies; and the mere difficulty of a subject, provided it was worthy of pursuit, seems to have recommended it to his indefatigable characThus was passed the early life of Watt, previous to his seriously directing his attention to the properties of steam.

ter.

fect than what was called "invention claimed by a person, an engine-wright, of the name of Stephenson."

In 1825, Stephenson's locomotive was worked on the Stockton and Darlington Railway; and in 1830, he drove his engine, "The Rocket," upon the Liverpool and Manchester line, across Chat Moss, at the rate of thirty miles an hour, and thereby gained the prize of 500l. Thirty years after he had been a worker in a pit at Newcastle, he traveled from that city to London, behind one of his own engines, in nine hours; and Liverpool and London have raised statues of George Stephenson, the Engineer, to whose intelligence and perseverance we owe the introduction of this mighty power.*

BOYHOOD AND EARLY DEATH OF HENRY KIRKE WHITE.

Few instances of early death from ardor in the pursuit of knowledge are so touching as that afforded in the brief span of the life of the amiable and gifted Henry Kirke White. He was born in 1785, at Nottingham, where his father followed the business of a butcher. He was sent to school at three years of age, and soon became so fond of reading that he could be scarcely got to lay down his book, that he might take his meals. At the age of seven, he attempted to express his ideas upon paper; his first composition being a tale, which, however, he only communicated to the servant, whom he had secretly taught to write. Before the age of eleven, in addition to reading and writing, he outstripped his school-fellows in arithmetic and French. Soon after this he began to write verse. He assisted at his father's business for some time, carrying the butcher's basket; but he so disliked this occupation, that at the age of fourteen, he was apprenticed to a stocking-weaver. But, to use his own words, he "wanted something to occupy his brain;" still, he scarcely dare complain, for he knew that his family could hardly afford to educate him for any higher employment. His mother, however, moved by his wretchedness, after he had been about a year at the loom, prevailed upon his father to place him in an attorney's office at Nottingham; where, notwithstanding he attended the office twelve hours a day, he applied his leisure to studying the Greek and Latin languages, and was able, in ten months, to read Horace. He also made considerable progress in Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese; in chemistry, electricity, and astronomy; while his less severe studies were drawing, music, and practical mechanics; and in extempore speaking, he

*The narration of these events has been principally condensed from Mr. Smiles's Life of George Stephenson (published in 1857); an admirable specimen of biographical writing, earnest and unaffected, and in every way worthy of its great subject.

distanced his competitors in a debating-society which was then held at Nottingham.

In his fifteenth year, he sent to a London periodical, the Monthly Preceptor, a translation from Horace, for which he received a silver medal. This success induced him to print, in 1803, a volume of verses, the longest of which, entitled Clifton Grove, is in the style of Goldsmith. This publication was harshly criticised in the Monthly Review, which distressed the young poet exceedingly; but it obtained for him the kindly notice and friendship of Mr. Southey, who considered the poems "to discover strong marks of genius." Meanwhile, Henry, by a course of religious reading, grew ardently devotional, so as to increase the desire which he had long felt for an University education. Despairing of this, he renewed his legal studies with such severe application, as rarely to allow himself more than two or three hours' sleep during the night, and often not going to bed at all. This excessive application brought on an alarming. illness, from which his friends thought that he never entirely recovered. At length, in 1804, he quitted his employer at Nottingham, and after a year's preparatory study, entered St. John's College, Cambridge, where a sizarship had been obtained for him: but, says Mr. Southey, "the seeds of death were in him, and the place which he had so long looked on with hope, served unhappily as a hot-house to ripen them." His exertions at the University were very severe: he studied for a scholarship, but, through ill health, could not come forward. He then passed the general college examination, and at its close was declared the first man of his year. As an instance of how he used "to coin time, it is related that he committed to memory a whole tragedy of Euripides, during his walks." At the end of this term, he was again pronounced first man: a tutor in mathematics for the long vacation was now provided for him by the college; but this distinction was purchased at the sacrifice of health and life: he went to London to recruit his shattered nerves and spirits, but he got no better. He returned to the University worn out in body and mind, and died after an attack of delirium, October 19, 1806. Mr. Southey wrote a sketch of his life, and edited his Remains, the publication of which proved highly profitable to White's family. A tablet to his memory, with a medallion by Chantrey, was placed in All Saints' Church, Cambridge, at the expense of Mr. Boott, a young American gentleman. It bears the following inscription by Professor Smythe: