Square box windows profusely ornamented, looked out upon terraces decorated with arms, statues, and balustrades; and the prevalent taste seems to have been a combination of the grand and the ornamental. "The tricks of water-works to wet the unwary, and parterres embroidered in patterns like a petticoat," were but the childish endeavours of false taste. Lord Orford truly says, "the compass and square were of more use in plantations than the nurseryman."

Lord Bacon has given us his idea of a noble garden; one feature is, "in the very middle a fair mount, with three ascents and alleys, enough for four to walk abreast, which I would have to be perfect circles, without any bulwarks or embossments; and the whole mount to be thirty feet high, and some fine banqueting house, with some chimnies neatly cast, and without too much glass." He also describes "fair columns upon frames of carpenters' work," to be cut in "juniper, or other garden stuff," but he does not like images cut in like manner; nor knots with "divers coloured earths-they be but toys." Lord Bacon was not the first English writer on gardening; Arnold's Chronicle, 1521, treats of the planting and grafting of fruits; and Tusser gives some "approved lessons on hops and gardening," 1537. The "Gardener's Labyrinth" was also published in the reign of Elizabeth; it contains plates of "Knotts and mazes, cunningly handled, for the beautifying of gardens." Charles the First brought over Tradescant, a Dutchman, to be his kitchen gardener, and appointed Parkinson, the author of "Paradisus Terrestris," a work on Horticulture and flower gardens, to be his Herbarist, or royal botanist, a place created for him. Cromwell promoted agriculture more than gardening; that is, he saw the state of desolation to which civil war with its attendant miseries had reduced the land, and, the ancient nobility being impoverished or exiled, he found that his best policy lay in encouraging the yeomanry and gentry to re-cultivate the devastated lands. Cromwell did much both for the external and internal resources of the country; he pensioned Hartlib, a Lithuanian, who had studied in Flanders, and who first recommended to notice" the two grand secrets of Flemish husbandry," that of letting farms on improving leases, and cultivating green crops. Hartlib was the friend of Milton, and the poet dedicated his Essay on Education to him. The pension which Cromwell had given was lost under Charies the Second, and Hartlib died in poverty. This writer says, "some old men recollect the first gardener who came into Surrey to plant vegetables."

Charles the Second planted the lime trees and dug the canal in St. James's Park, where he had birds kept in cages, whence the name Bird-cage Walk; he had also the Mall paved with cockle shells for the game of mall; and stocked the canal with water-fowl, which he fed himself. Rose, the gardener to Lord Essex, who had passed some time in Holland, then the best school of horticulture, and had also studied under Quintiney, at Paris, was appointed royal gardener by Charles, who likewise sent for Le Notre, purposely to plant St. James's and Greenwich parks. When Quintiney came to England to visit Evelyn, the king offered him a pension to reside here; but he declined it. Quintiney had been educated for the church; but having a decided preference for gardening, he turned his whole attention that way. The entire direction of the royal gardens of France was given to him; and when he died in 1701, at Paris, Louis XIV. assured his widow that "he was an equal sufferer with herself." Evelyn translated Quintiney's work "On Orange Trees," and his " Complete Gardener," and wrote his own "Kalendarium Hortense," in 1664. His last work on gardening, the "Acetaria," was not published till 1699. Evelyn also patronised many useful works on horticulture; among others, the translation of Arnaud d'Audilly's "Essay on Fruit Trees," an excellent practical work, and remarkable as being the first to censure the fashionable absurdity of clipping trees into the form of animals, &c. Lord Capel also

was an eminent encourager of gardening; having brought over with him from France many new fruits, he planted them at Kew. Lord W. Russell laid out the garden in Bloomsbury Square, and planted the acacias there, at this time. The following is a description of an Italian garden of this period, in Evelyn's words.

The gardens are delicious, and full of fountains. In the grove sits Pan feeding his flock, the water making a melodious sound through his pipe; the club of Hercules yields a shower of water falling into a great shell in which there is a woman riding on the backs of dolphins. In another grotto is Vulcan and his family, the walls richly composed of corals, shells, copper and marble figures, with the hunting of several beasts, moving by the force of water. Here, having been well washed for our curiosity, we went down a large walk, at the sides whereof several slender streams of water gush out of pipes concealed underneath, that interchangeably fall into each other's channels, making a lofty and perfect arch, so that a man on horseback may ride under it, and not receive one drop of wet. This canopy or arch of water I thought one of the most surprising magnificencies I had ever seen, and very refreshing in the heat of summer. At the end of this very long walk stands a woman in white marble, in position of a laundress wringing water out of a piece of linen, very naturally formed, into a vast laver, the work and invention of M. Angelo Buonarotti."

Thus our English style was not more absurd than that of the continent, of which, perhaps, it was a copy; for Charles the Second was not only of foreign education, but his personal habits were foreign, his tastes were foreign,-and, it may be feared, his vices were foreign. Grandeur of design was strangely combined with littleness of execution, in the style of gardening prevalent during his reign and that of his successor. Charles had not the pecuniary resources of Louis the Fourteenth, or, perhaps, he would have imitated that monarch's creation at Versailles, which cost 200,000,000 f. Mr. Barrington conjectures that hot-houses and ice-houses were first introduced in the reign of Charles the Second; but the account of the installation dinner, at Windsor, April, 1667, at which there were cherries, strawberries, and ice-creams, does not prove any of these to be newly-found luxuries; indeed, Switzer, a contemporary writer, mentions the above fruits as having been forced by dung-heat from time immemorial, by the London gardeners; and Lord Bacon plainly speaks of "housing our natives to forward them, as we house our exotics to protect them.".

Luke and Field, gardeners to the Duke of Bedford; Cooke, gardener to Lord Essex; London, and Wise, were the practical gardeners of this time; the two latter had the first considerable nursery garden at Brompton, and laid out many gardens in the country-Blenheim, Cannons, Exton, and Longleat, in England, and Hatton House, near Edinburgh.

The short reign of James II. probably produced no alteration in the royal gardens; and we have no account of private improvements. The nation was otherwise occupied; shaken to its centre, and preparing for a second fearful struggle, we need but to open Burnet's history to see that there was ample groundwork laid for a tremendous national convulsion. But England was spared this; and we owe much of our domestic improvement, as well as our political stability to William and Mary. In their reign gates and rails of elaborate iron-work were introduced, as at Hampton Court; where the four urns in the front of the palace were perhaps the first ornaments of the kind in England, though common in Italy much earlier. Mary resided much at Hampton Court, and appointed Plukenet her herbarist, with a salary of 2001. per annum. In this reign botanists were sent to explore the Indies for plants. London, whom we have already mentioned, was superintendent of the royal gardens. Queen Anne was otherwise engaged than in gardening; but she completed the grounds at Kensington, which

presently be in the mode-get fine clothes-go to plays and treats, and by these means get such a habit of idleness and love of pleasure, that they are uneasy ever after."

Notwithstanding these prudent observations of Mr. John Cresset, of the Charter House, stage-coaches increased in popularity, and came into general use in the beginning of George the Third's reign, (1762.) Their rate of travelling then also improved, as the journey from London to Oxford was usually performed in three days, though it still took four to bring the "long Salisbury to the capital. Passengers usually made their wills before undertaking a journey, and pistols and eatables were considered as indispensable as any other description of luggage. Even so late as eighty years ago the privileges of persons who confided the custody of their lives and properties to the proprietors of stage coaches, seemed to have been but little understood; for a cause was then tried (1770) in the Court of Common Pleas on the complaint of certain passengers travelling by one of these stages who refused to dine at a "hedge alehouse," as the coachman wished to compel them to do; and, on the contrary, went to an inn at Epsom, where they desired him to call for them, as he must pass the house. Instead of doing so he drove by at full speed, and left them to find their way to London as they could; for which conduct the jury fined the proprietor of the coach in twenty pounds damages.

Nor does it appear that there were then any restrietions as to the number of passengers or weight of baggage, for the Annual Register for 1770 mentions there having been thirty-four people in and on the Hertford stage, when, on the 6th September, in that year, it broke down from being overloaded. One man was killed on the spot, two women broke their legs, and very few of the whole number escaped severe injuries.

Whilst the personal inconveniences of travelling were thus slowly ameliorating, talent and science were beginning to be directed towards improvement in the transportation of merchandize. So early as the first year of Charles II., a Mr. Beaumont gave, at Newcastle-uponTyne, a series of experiments on the exploration of coalmines and the conveyance of their contents by carriages of a new construction. These experiments failed, and as is usually the case, the projector was ruined. But it is, nevertheless, acknowledged that this Mr. Beaumont was the originator of railroads. He was of the same family as Francis Beaumont, the poet who wrote in conjunction with Mr. Fletcher, in that reign. The experimentalist above alluded to appears to have been Joseph Beaumont, who was born at Hadleigh, in Suffolk, in 1615, and educated at Peter's House, Cambridge, where he obtained a fellowship, of which he was deprived for his loyalty, during the civil war. Soon after the Restoration he recovered his preferments, was made chaplain in ordinary to the King, master of Jesus College, Cambridge, and subsequently removed to Peter's House, where he died (1696) at the advanced age of 84. Previous to his death, something similar to the railroad now used (1676) were applied to the conveyance of coals, as, within thirty years after the lectures at Newcastle, there were laid wooden rails in parallel lines from the mouth of several coalpits in the vicinity of the river Tyne, which were projected to it, and on them were placed carriages, with rollers adapted to the rails, by which means one horse could draw five chaldrons of coals without difficulty.

It does not appear that any improvements were made in these railroads for many years, although they were in general use through all the mining districts. But about a century after their invention, (1760,) iron plates were first used to cover them, at Colebrookdale in Shropshire, (where also the first iron bridge was tried,) and in a short time the wooden rails were superseded first by wrought and then by cast-iron ones. Finally, these rail, or tram-roads were laid on inclined planes, and windlasses and pullies were placed

at the upper end of them to draw the coal carriages backwards and forwards without the aid of horses.

Here invention paused. These contrivances were universally applauded and generally adopted. Derbyshire and Leicestershire set the example, and so rapid was their extension that, in the year 1811, there were no less than one hundred and fifty miles of iron railroads in full operation, in the comparatively small district of South Wales alone.

The obvious advantage of this method of conveyance suggested the idea of substituting iron railroads for the roads in general use, and in 1800, Doctor Anderson published his "Recreations in Agriculture," which contained a plan for their adoption throughout the whole country. He proposed that iron railways should be carried along the sides of the existing turnpike roads, and even gave minute directions for their formation, with bridges, viaducts, short-tunnels, and most of the other arrangements now in use, with the exception of the motive power, which was then unthought of, the design of these railroads being only to ease the draught of horses, not as a substitute for their employment.

Meantime a power, then in embryo, was awakening into life, to which no limit can even yet be assigned. The application of steam to the aid of mechanism forms an era in the history of mankind. Its giant force, chained by the omnipotence of man, gives man a sovereignty over nature, that wants but immortality to raise him above this sphere. Nor is the flexibility of steam less wonderful than its force, for it has been well compared to the trunk of an elephant, that can pick up a pin or rend an oak with equal facility.

The power of steam has by many been supposed to be one of the wonderful discoveries made by Archimedes, who flourished about two hundred and fifty years before Christ, and so effectually benefited the Greeks in their memorable contest with the Romans at the siege of Syracuse. Amongst the moderns, Mushenbroeck, a German, was amongst the first who wrote on the theory of steam; and Otto Guericke, of Hamburgh, invented the air pump about the time that Lord Worcester gave to the world the first notice of a steam-engine, contained in his " Century of Inventions" published in the beginning of the reign of Charles II. Though even he is supposed to have taken the idea of it from the ravings of a madman, then confined in a lunatic asylum at Paris for having asserted that he could make what are now denominated steam-boats.

This Lord Worcester, (who has sometimes been confounded with his ancestor, John Earl of Worcester, the translator of "Cicero," in the reign of Edward IV.,) the author of the "Century," was one of the most extraordinary characters mentioned in history. Hume depreciates his political talents, which, nevertheless, procured for him from Charles I. a patent appointing him generalissimo of three armies, and admiral; giving him power to raise money by selling his Majesty's woods, ward-shires, customs and prerogatives; and as if these extraordinary powers were insufficient, further delegating to him authority to create by blank patents titles of nobility from the rank of marquis to a baronet. Of his mechanical genius Lord Orford speaks in terms of the utmost contempt, and calls his " Century amazing piece of folly," and yet this scantling of inventions, contained in embryo many of those which now form the boast and wonder of modern philosophy, among which that of the steam-engine stands pre-eminent.

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This leviathan of mechanism, the importance of which was so little understood, even by the inventor, soon attracted the attention of the learned of all countries. England, however, still kept the lead, and in the sixth year after Charles the Second's restoration, a Captain Savory obtained a patent for his improvement on Lord Worcester's steam-engine.

Thus, whilst civil strife disturbed the Commonwealth, and immorality and licentiousness disgraced the court, literature and the arts were supported both by the prac

tice and patronage of the nobility; and it is a curious fact, that some of the most valuable discoveries in science have been made, not when peace gave leisure for meditation and research, but at those periods when the greatest convulsions agitated the political world. Perhaps it may be accounted for in a similarity of cause, which, producing general mental excitement, gave equal impetus to each different branch of talent by which individuals are distinguished.

Whilst Alexander the Great was extending his conquests over the principal part of the then habitable world, he was attended in his march to victory by a train of philosophers and artists that formed a galaxy of intellectual light. His copyist, Bonaparte, rendered his dynasty as remarkable for the successful impulse given by him to science and literature, as for his own abortive attempts to gain universal sovereignty. And in like manner, many useful discoveries were made during the turbulent times preceding the restoration of Charles the Second, at which period the Royal Society of England took its rise.

During the height of the civil wars, (1645,) and about four years previous to, the date of Mr. Beaumont's lectures, already mentioned, a certain number of learned men agreed to hold private meetings, first in London and afterwards at Oxford, for the purpose of investigating subjects of natural knowledge during the suspension of academical pursuits, occasioned by the distracted state of the country. Lord Worcester does not appear to have been of the number, as at that time he was actively engaged in the royal cause. But many other men of celebrity were members, amongst whom are the names of Boyle, Loden, Ward, and Wilkins, the latter of whom, though brother-in-law to Oliver Cromwell, was afterwards made Bishop of Chester.

At first they styled themselves the philosophic college, but at the Restoration they were incorporated as "The Royal Society." William Lord Brouncker was their first president, and some of his writings on mathe matical subjects are still preserved in the Philosophical Transactions. He was succeeded in the chair by Sir Isaac Newton, and to this day the society has maintained its celebrity.

One of the many foreigners who sought admittance into the Royal Society of England, was a Frenchman, by name Papin, who, about the time Captain Savory obtained his patent for a steam-engine, (1665,) invented a digester, and made many experiments on the elastic power of steam. After he left England, and settled as professor of mathematics at Marspurgh, he even went so far as to apply it to mechanics, under the patronage of Charles, Landgrave of Hesse, in consequence of which, the French, to this day, give Papin credit for the invention of the steam-engine. Another competitor for that honour is Newcomen-a contemporary both of Papin and of Savory. But, however the invention of the steam-engine may be a subject of dispute, no doubt exists that the perfection of this extraordinary machine is entirely owing to the perseverance and ability of James Watt.

This highly talented man was the son of a tradesman at Greenock, where he was born in the beginning of the reign of George II. (1736.) He soon became a mathematical instrument maker; and at the age of twenty-one (1757) he was appointed in that capacity to the University of Glasgow, with apartments in the College, where he resided six years, when he married and established himself in a shop in that city (1764), and there he first made his wonderful improvements of the steam-engine. From that time he devoted himself to the profession of civil engineer. He laid out many of the canals in the north of England, and invented a necrometer, and also a machine for drawing in perspective. In 1774 he removed from Glasgow to Soho, near Birmingham, where he entered into partnership with Mr. Boulton for the construction of steam-engines, which they conjointly carried to the highest perfection. Many European

potentates sent them complimentary testimonies to their abilities, amongst which those of Catherine II., Empress of Russia, were pre-eminent. Mr. Watt also invented the polygraphic machine, for copying paintings and manuscripts. He was elected a member of the Royal Societies both of London and Edinburgh, and created doctor of laws by the University of Glasgow; and thus, having enjoyed the singular good fortune of seeing his talents and discoveries justly appreciated during his lifetime, he died, August 28th, 1819, universally respected, at the patriarchal age of eightythree.

The improvements of the steam-engine, thus perfected by Watt, suddenly produced almost incredible effects in the commercial world Not only were manufactures essentially benefited, but the transportation of merchandise was proportionably accelerated. About thirteen years after the establishment of the Soho manufactory, (1787,) Mr. Miller, of Dalswinton, published a project for a steam-boat; and about the same time, Symington, a workman in his employment, exhibited a model of a steam-engine applied to propel a carriage. But this idea seemed to lie dormant till, in 1802, Mr. Edgeworth wrote an essay, suggesting that several stationary steam-engines should be placed at given distances on railways, for the purpose of drawing carriages along them by means of circulating chains.

A variety of attempts were made simultaneously to construct steam carriages to travel on turnpike roads, and different patents granted to individuals for their successive improvements; and at last (1815) Mr. George Stephenson obtained one for a locomotive, evidently above all its competitors, and from that time the progress towards perfection was rapid. Six years afterwards (1821) an act passed for making the first of the modern railways from Darlington to Stockton, which was opened in four years (1825), under Mr. Stephenson's direction, though his locomotives were not employed on it till the following year-the railway carriages, each containing twenty-six passengers, being at first drawn by one horse at the rate of ten miles an hour (1826). That year another act was passed for incorporating the Manchester and Liverpool Railway Company; but, though Mr. Stephenson was their engineer, the locomotives were still considered a visionary speculation, till, at the end of three years (1829), four different engines were tried together, the united advantages of railroads and locomotives were fairly established, and the railroad, as now used, was opened to the public, 15th September, 1830.

But whilst these competitions were going on, and locomotives on rails, and locomotives on turnpikes, were in full rivalry, the subject was brought before Parliament, and the concentrated wisdom of the nation was for some time occupied in ascertaining how many footfalls of a horse are made in an hour-as a data from whence to calculate the injury which locomotives would do to his Majesty's highways, if propelled on them, instead of on railroads. Nor is this the only instance of learned bodies directing their attention to the subject of horse-shoes; for, in the third volume of the Archæologia, is a learned dissertation on the antiquity of their use.

Without entering into the question as to whether the Emperor Nero's mules were really shod with gold, and those of his wife Poppea were shod with silver, or whether both were contented to use shoes made of a kind of bronze, tinted and gilt, it is sufficient for the present purpose to know that here, in England, they began to shoe horses soon after the Norman Conquest. William I. gave to Simon St. Lizl, a noble Norman, the town of Northampton, then valued at £40 a-year, to provide shoes for his horses; and Henry de Ferres, or Ferrers, who came in with the Conqueror, took his name from his employment of shoeing-not that he was himself a shoer of horses, a farrier, but as appointed to direct or superintend that business; and

when, after the Crusades, it became the custom for families to take coat-armour hereditarily, a charge of six horse-shoes sable, on a field argent, was adopted as the cognizance of that noble house-as at this day, the highest military dignity in all European armies, is designated by the French word for farrier, marechale. How long these useful articles, ycleped horse-shoes, may be retained in common use, already seems problematical as, if the use and popularity of railways increase in any degree proportionate to their recent progress in public favour, the day may come when antiquaries may grasp at old horse-shoes with more avidity than they are now seized upon by the credulous in Ireland, who nail them up in their cabins as preservatives from witchcraft. Already railway travelling seems to have superseded all other modes; and is this matter of surprise, when we consider the extraordinary advantages which they offer to the transport of merchandize?

The railway from Liverpool to Manchester is only thirty-three miles long; yet the amount of saving to the Manchester manufacturers, in the carriage by it of cotton alone, is estimated at £20,000 annually. Nor is this by any means incredible. Not long ago an individual went by this railroad from Liverpool to Manchester, where he purchased 150 tons of cotton, which he, in the same way, took back with him. Having immediately disposed of them, and more being required, he repeated his journey, and actually delivered the same evening his second cargo, of equal quantity, having travelled 132 miles in four different journeys, and bought, sold, and carried 300 tons of goods in twelve hours.

The facilities thus afforded to a comparatively humble individual strangely contrast with the impediments of travelling from which even our sovereigns suffered only two centuries ago (1661); for in the reign of Charles II. that monarch intended to have made a progress through the country, beginning at Worcester, but that the want of ancient purveyance prevented him." This "purveyance" consisted of certain rights of the crown, which, to modern calculation, seemed to deprive the subject of any disposal of his personal property. At the restoration, Charles II. commuted these rights for certain compositions. But a clause, in a subsequent act of parliament, expressed that, as the want of carrriages would be very inconvenient to the king in his progresses and removals, the chief officer of His Majesty's carriages was empowered to provide carts for his Majesty's use, and all persons refusing to serve were made liable to a penalty. No horses or carriages were to travel more than a day's journey, nor without pay of ready money, the rate being "to be set down by two justices of peace.' And yet, as we have already seen-the discovery of the steam-engine had then been actually made, though the world was not then ready for its adoption for any practical benefit. At this time the Parliamentary Commissioners' report states, that the extent of railroads in England on which locomotives are now impelled by steam-engines, is 2264 miles, and plans for projected railroads are now lodged with the Board of Trade to the amount of eight thousand additional miles. Such is the computation of to-day; but to-morrow may set all enumeration at defiance, for the changes in every thing that take place almost hourly in this age of velocity, seem to baffle all attempt to describe them. Hydra railroads rise in all directions; the projects of last month are superseded in this; and in this inundation of speculation and changes, the mind is thrown back into antiquity as on the only subject that is not evanescent. must not pause even on the wonders that have already been effected. Doctor Lardner calculates that "the circumference of the earth being 25,000 miles, if it were begirt by an iron railway, one ton weight would be drawn round it in six weeks by the mechanical power that resides in the third part of a ton of coals;" and yet he adds, "the state of physical science at the

present moment justifies the expectation that we are on the eve of mechanical discovery more important than any which has yet appeared. Philosophy already directs her finger at sources of inexhaustible power in the phenomena of electricity and magnetism. The steamengine itself, with the gigantic powers conferred on it by the immortal Watt, will dwindle into insignificance in comparison with the hidden powers of nature still to be revealed." Is not this proposition startling?— And yet is it as incredible as the locomotives and express-trains would have appeared to our great-grandfathers?

Nevertheless, I repeat, there is nothing that we can compare to railway travelling. The unearthly rapidity which annihilates time and space, and which thought itself alone exceeds; the awful speed, over which we, individually, have no control, whilst we voluntarily suspend all personal mobility or free agency; all these are so foreign to the habits of every-day life, that in being appended to a locomotive, we seem to change our state of existence; or rather, we submit to a figurative death, in which we at once plunge into futurity, whilst yet the past is clinging round us. Neighbours of one hour may the next be separated by uncounted distance; -new companions, new regions, are suddenly presented to our view-and we can scarcely breathe in our new position ere expectation merges in reality-and hope or fear-reflection or calculation, are, with the journey itself, at an end.

Rousseau somewhere observes on travelling, "that a man should begin by observing his fellow-creatures, and then if he has time he may take notice of inanimate objects."-If he has time!-Why, before the most practised physiognomist has taken an inventory of the features of his fellow-passengers in a railway first-class carriage, there are no longer other inanimate objects left for him to notice. The various landscapes on his route have already flitted past him like the scenes of a magic-lanthorn. Places interesting to the historian or the antiquary are already beyond his ken; he has been borne past them-he knows not how-and at the end of his flight he may congratulate himself, if he ascertain that instead of being carried under, he has at least been whirled over the ground which tourists of the last century have made pilgrimages to visit.

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