INTRODUCTION. XXV But, on reflection it will be found, that mechanical invention differs nothing from that which gives value to those pursuits, considered to be more mental and refined. Homer and his Iliad, whole street, where on the one side there are twenty furnaces at work. They say here, that although one should transplant a glass-furnace from Murano to Venice herself, or to any of the little assembly of islands about her, or to any other part of the earth besides, and use the same materials, the same workmen, the same fuel, the self-same ingredients every way, yet they cannot make crystal glass in that perfection for beauty and lustre as in Murano. Some impute it to the quality of the circumambient air that hangs over the place, which is purified and attenuated by the concurrence of so many fires that are in those furnaces night and day perpetually, for they are like the vestal fire which never goes out. The art of glass-making is here very highly valued; for whosoever be of that profession are gentlemen ipse facto, and it is not without reason, it being a rare kind of knowledge and chemistry to transmute dust and sand, to such a diaphanous dainty body, as you see a crystal glass is. They have a saying here, that the first handsome woman, that ever was made, was made of Venice glass, which implies beauty, but brittleness withal, and Venice is not unfurnished with some of that mould, for no place abounds more with lasses and glasses." A mechanic, cotemporary with the Dean exclaims, "But alas! with shame be it spoken, what treatment have men of the best genius met with in England but contempt and scorn; every ignorant blockhead, without ever considering the profit or value of an invention, throws up his nose, and cries he is for no projects. Solomon sent the sluggard to the ant to learn wisdom, it is a great scandal as well as a pity that Christians should be sent to the Turks to learn goodnature and generosity, as well as morality and common honesty. At Grand Cairo in Egypt, they have such a profound respect to new inventions, that whoever is the discoverer of any new art or invention is immediately clad in cloth of gold, and carried in triumph throughout the whole city, with trumpets and other musical instruments playing before him, and presented to every shop to receive the joyful acclamations and generous presents of his fellow citizens. Leo, the geographer, witnessed one of these displays or solemnities as he calls them-the performance lauded was only a flea chained to a sheet of white paper." xxvi INTRODUCTION. Virgil and his Eneid, Milton and his Paradise Lost, were minds and productions of the same exquisite fibre and tension with Savery and Watt with their engines, Huyghens with his watch, Arkwright with his spinning frame, Meikle with his threshing machine, and Bramah with his hydraulic press. In fact all observation shows, that the power of combining machines and constructing poems, in the "heroic or any other line," are usually united in the same individual! that all poets are mechanical inventors, and all mechanical inventors are poets. Hooke made verses as well as machines; and when he presented thirtyseven different projects for flying, had his attention been directed to express his thoughts in metre, he had previously shown a facility for describing the glories of his mistress's eye-brows in as many sonnets. Lord Worcester also made verses; and his "Century of Inventions" has been commented upon by more than one person, as if it were a poem, although not written in rhyme. Sir Samuel Morland indited love-songs, and sang them to his theorbo. When total blindness had fallen on the jovial old man, he buried the manuscript of the effusions of his younger muse, considering them to be "gay deceits," and betook himself, in his ninetieth year, to the composition of psalms. Arkwright was famed among his customers for a light hand and an exquisite edge, and for verses which cut as keen as his razors. Watt, in his youth, was a rhymester, and few men of his generation read more fairy tales and poetry-even in the meridian of his life, and in the busiest period of his employment, the greater portion of his time was devoted to indulgence in this mental luxury. Few who knew the excellent Rennie near the close INTRODUCTION. xxvii of his life, would have dreamt of finding under his inflexible man of business exterior, an enthusiastic admirer of poetry and music; or, that in his youth he chaunted his own lyrics, which were distinguished for their spirit and taste. His contemporary, the venerable Telford, when building rough stone fence walls as a journeyman mason, was an esteemed contributor to the poetical corner of the Scots' Magazine and his productions were embued with much of the pastoral sweetness and pathos of those of the Bard of Ayr. Sir William Congreve let off many poetical squibs before he exploded his rockets. Sir Christopher Wren is complimented by a bishop on his poetical acquirements: "You have," says the Right Reverend Father in God, "admirably well hit his genius: your verse is harmonious, your philosophy very instructing for life, your liberty in translating enough to make it seem to be an English original, and yet not so much but that the mind of the author is still religiously preserved." Could more be said of the paraphrases of Dryden or Pope? One of the ablest disciples of Sir Humphry Davy hazarded the opinion, that some of the ex-president's speculations "graduated into the poetry of science." The devotee was ignorant of his idol's early propensities, and he knew not that Sir Hum. phry wooed the Muses before he experimented on the gases, and produced," in the heroic measure," his address to St. Michael's Mount, long before he invented his safety-lamp. Dr. Cartwright early distinguished himself for his poetical compositions; but the fine taste, and exalted feeling, which pervade them, must yield to the exquisite invention and extensive usefulness of his powerloom. xxviii INTRODUCTION. If it were easy to show that all celebrated mechanical inventors were gifted with the faculty of poets, it were as easy to prove that all poets of name have been gifted with mechanical propensities; many of their most admired passages are accounts of machines. "Milton's hell-gates move on more than mortal hinges, and his war-chariots may yet form a subject for illustration in a mechanical college. The horse of Epeus has lately been adduced as an early locomotive! and Homer's description of cars shows that he had an eye for beauty in carts which could have carried them to perfection*." In Persia itself, where the very frame and structure of society is anti-mechanical, "The whole tribe of dramatic geniuses are in possession of telescopes for distinguishing spirits, and trumpets by which a person may disclose to another at a distance, his intention to put his companion to death, in Stentorian sounds, and yet be unknown to the object of his vengeance, in whose ear it may be thundered. A harper is said to have wheedled stones to forget their gravity, and playing them into the proper' figure,' he ceased his music, and the dancers long remained in the good set order of ashlar work, forming the walls of Thebes. The Greek was a clever fellow, but not more so than a Father Tournemine, who lived in Paris at the beginning of the eighteenth century. This worthy ecclesiastic attempted the construction of a machine, by which persons should enjoy the pleasure of good eating and drinking without being at the expense or trouble of procuring or preparing food. By turning a winch, a man or woman could allay the cravings of hunger as well as by a meal of the most substantial viands. The Father anticipated being able to adapt his invention to please all customers, from they who dined on rump steaks, plumpudding, and ale, to made-dish gourmands of every degree. Like those physicians who administer bread pills to fanciful patients, the worthy Father made his machine, in similar cases, produce some tunes; but this music had no effect whatever in persuading the gastric juice to spare the coats of those stomachs whose master or mistress did not ply the crank, handle."-Young's Essay on Imagination, p. 36, INTRODUCTION. xxix we have a remarkable instance of the union of poetic and mechanic power: Futteh Alee Khan, the Shah ul Shaer, or Malec ul Shaer, poet laureate of the kingdom, is descended from an ancient family for many successive generations governors of Cashan. He possesses great wit, a brilliant imagination, a fine taste and a correct judgment; his poems are ranked, by his countrymen, as next in merit to the admired strains of their charming Ferdousi. Nor is the fertility of his genius less: for already, exclusive of minor pieces, he has spun one hundred and fifty thousand couplets. This wholesale stanza manufacturer has found time to construct several complicated pieces of machinery of his own invention; among these are spinning-jennies, paper-mills, and steam-engines, and when the gifted Persian was recently visited by an English traveller, he was found busily engaged in the construction of a printing-press. The ingenuity of Scarron received its direction from the gallantry of the age in which he lived. Then the fair sex was the dominant half of the body politic as well as of the body domestic, and Scarron was pre-eminently a ladies'-man, in a community which bowed the knee to beauty. Nature, however, in one of her caprices, had denied him the power of using his limbs; most distressing of all was the physical inability of his hands to approach "his dome of thought, the palace of his soul." But the amiable little monster invented a machine for taking off his hat. And like De Renzy in our own time, who with only one arm, aided by a fine mechanical invention, performs with such ease all the courtesies of a gentleman, that it is doubtful if the man-of-fashion air could be heightened were some angel to restore the |