able magnitude. The account of these opera-founded our system of water communication; tions in Strabo may be perused with deep in-and Watt, who, by improving the steam-enterest, particularly as showing how little real gine, increased the power of the engineer. advance the art of mining has made in so many This forms the old school of engineering, when centuries. The Romans, from their practice the engineer was something of a surveyor and in erecting gigantic monuments and raising something of a mechanic; and the superinheavy weights, were able to cultivate mechan- tendence of mines, canals, and harbours, met ical engineering with success, and they derived with considerable employment, but had scarcely great assistance from the skill of their work-acquired scientific standing or popular impormen, whose ability in iron and brass work may tance. be seen in many specimens in the British Great as these several enterprises may apMuseum. The Roman works were generally pear, they are, however, nothing to those of under the supreme direction of the civil and the present century, in which several remarkmilitary authorities, as they might be under a able circumstances have contributed to the board of works here, but the subordinates rapid progress of engineering science: these were professional men. In "Dionysius of are the introduction of docks, of gas, of railHalicarnasus" (b. 3, ch. 20,) we find an in- ways, and steam-navigation, the application of stance of the early period at which contractors machinery on a large scale for manufacturing were employed at Rome, and the extent of purposes, and as a substitute for manual labour. their business. It relates that the sewers The dock system of London is equalled by having been for some time so neglected that that of Liverpool, and has been followed at they were blocked up, the censors concluded a Bristol, Hull, and in all our leading seaports, bargain with a contractor to clean and repair while it called for the employment of more them for a thousand talents. In fine, such was powerful means than the engineer had prethe flourishing state of engineering among the viously been accustomed to; the establishment Romans, that Polybius makes special and of gas-works and watet-works was no less honourable mention of it as a great trait in the favourable for the exertion of his talents, and Roman character, in his comparison of the in the last dozen years he has been called upon Romans and the Greeks. to preside over works, to which even his preWe have already alluded to the example set vious experience was inadequate. The mere by the Romans in this country. They were superintendence of works so gigantic as those the first to embank the Thames and attempt in railways demanded the application of great the recovery of the Lincolnshire fens. Of powers of mind, and often baffled the experiSaxon engineering but very few specimens or enced engineer, while the requirements of a records remain. That the art was not neglec-new system have called for the constant exerted is proved by the example of St. Ethelwold, cise of mechanical ingenuity. The railway who made a cut from the river Isis to Abing- system, with its machinery, is of itself suffidon Abbey, to supply that establishment with cient to constitute an age of invention, and water, and to work a mill which he built. He does the greatest credit to the talent of this also executed a canal at Winchester, the bene- country, which has been mainly exercised upon fit of which is still enjoyed by the inhabitants. it. Steam navigation has contributed its quota By his exertions the whole city was supplied to this progress, and we must not omit the suswith water. Instances of such works are also pension bridge as one instrument in its adto be found in the middle ages; but the mo- vancement. The demand for machinery in dern school of engineering, like most other our great establishments and our factories, has arts, dates from the age of Elizabeth. The created a large branch of business, which is enterprising spirit of that day was in particular daily increasing. The use of iron, for a muldirected to the mineral wealth of the country, titude of purposes, equally contributes to the which was made more available, and placed employment of the engineer, whose material it greater resources at the command of the com-is. Cables, rigging, the hulls and michinery munity and the man of intelligence. The of shipping, the suspension bridge, and the completion of the New River by Sir Hugh viaduct, can now be made of this native maMyddleton, was valuable from its influence on terial, and its appliances daily become more hydraulic engineering. Then we come to the varied. fens again, where Colonel Vermuydens exer- Thus a new school of engineering has been tions were effectually exerted for the reclama- formed, the earlier period of which includes tion of those regions from the dominion of the Trevithick, the inventor of the high-pressure sea. The age of Charles the Second, whatever engine and the locomotive, one of the most were its other defects, was most favourable to remarkable men of the age; Woolf, Rennie, mechanical genius, and a bright constellation Telford, and Huddart, the inventor of the blockof men, distinguished by their useful inven- rope machinery. The altered position of tions, marks that period. The utilisation of engineering is now producing a great change the principle of the steam-engine by Savary among its professors, for as employments beand Newcomen comes next; but it is not come more numerous, a subdivision of labour until the middle of the last century that engi- is the natural result. The great classes may neering really became sufficiently important to now be distinguished into civil engineers, form a distinct profession. Three men mainly employed on railways and public works; meeffected this change-Smeaton, whose Eddy-chanical or practical engineers, employed in stone lighthouse is only one of a multitude of the construction of steam-engines and other hydraulic works executed by him; Brindley, machinery, and the superintendence of facwho executed the Bridgewater canal, and tories and mining engineers, employed in the

Biography.

SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

In December of the year 1749, he arrived in Rome. "By his well-directed studies at this time (says his pupil Northcote), he acquired that grace of thinking to which he was principally indebted for his subsequent excellence as a portrait-painter." In the autumn of 1752, he returned to England.

JOSHUA REYNOLDS was born at Plympton in Devonshire, on the 16th of July, 1723. He Reynolds now hired a respectable house in was the seventh of the eleven children of Newport-street, and launched himself on the the Rev. Samuel Reynolds, master of the metropolitan world as a portrait-painter. His grammar-school at Plympton. During his boy-first productions were severely criticised by hood, he was not distinguished by assiduity or success in his studies, being chiefly diverted from them by an incipient passion for the art in which he subsequently gained such celebrity. He himself stated in after life, that when a mere child he could not refrain from copying every print that came in his way; and various specimens of these juvenile essays still exist. One of them presents a perspective view of a book-case, executed on the back of a Latin exercise, and below the sketch are these words, in his father's handwriting, "Done by Joshua out of pure idleness;' a comment which satisfactorily proves that Mr. Reynolds conceived his son's painting propensities to be somewhat detrimental to his progress in his studies.

his brethren. He commenced by resolutely throwing off the trammels of custom, and guided himself solely by his own elegant taste and well-weighed principles. The artists of the day had a set of attitudes and draperies, which they bestowed indiscriminately on all sitters. If they merely effected a likeness, they attained their wish, and sought no more. Reynolds was the first British artist who gave to portraits a poetic and historic cast. Not content with executing a simple fac-simile of the features, he endeavoured to seize on the characteristic air, attitude, or actions of the sitter, to catch him at the most graceful moment, and to relieve and ennoble the portrait in every way compatible with the preservation of its verisimilitude. Notwithstanding the jealous condemnation of other artists, Reynolds persisted in the style of art which mature consideration had led him to adopt, and soon obtained his reward. Before he had been ten years in practice he had set up his carriage, and was in the enjoyment of an income of not less than £6,000 a year. In 1761, he removed to Leicester-square, where he spent the greater part of his after life, and where he received and entertained as familiar friends many of the most noted men of the day.

Observing every day more and more decided indications of the particular bent of the lad's genius, Mr. Reynolds at length thought proper to gratify his son's inclinations, and placed him, at the age of seventeen, under the care of Mr. Thomas Hudson, then one of the leading portrait-painters of the British metropolis. At this period (1741), art was at a low ebb in the country. The success of the Vandyckes, Lelys, and Knellers, who had brought to Britain all the skill and finish of continental art, appears to have exercised a depressing influ- Among the distinguished persons whose porence upon native genius, by rendering the traits Reynolds painted about this time, reciartists of the land hopeless of competition. procally giving and gaining fame by so doing, And now, though the day of the foreigners had were Garrick, Johnson, Burke, Goldsmith, passed away, native art had not as yet had Lord Camden, Mason, Foote, Gibbon, Sterne, time to raise itself above its former mean Lord Mansfield, Lord Thurlow, Windham, and estate, and the country possessed no great many others. By means of engravings, these painters. Under Hudson, Reynolds perhaps productions were made familiar, to a certain received as good instructions in portrait-paint-extent, to the country; but, in 1760, an Exhiing as any school of the day could have afbition of Paintings was opened in London, forded. But after studying only two years out of the four agreed upon between him and his master, Reynolds left the house of the latter in consequence of a quarrel. The old painter, it is said, became jealous of his pupil, who had displayed an unpleasing degree of promise in the execution of various portraits. Hudson accordingly seized a flimsy pretext for dismissing him. The young man wrote an account of the circumstances to his father, who directed him to come down to Devonshire. Partly in that county, and partly in London, Reynolds spent the next six years of his life, engaged in study and in practice. He had the good fortune to obtain the patronage of Lord Edgecumbe and Lord Keppel, and for these employers, as well as others to whom they recommended him, he executed many of his earliest essays in art.

which gave the public a view of the paintings themselves, and which was followed by consequences most important to the future career of the subject of our memoir. He sent his well-known likeness of Sterne, and his magnificent portrait of Lord Ligonier on horseback, to the exhibition of 1761, and continued afterwards to adorn it with numerous productions of the like merit. Finding the scheme to succeed, the associated artists sought and obtained a charter of incorporation in 1765; but divisions took place among them, to compose which the recently incorporated body was abolished, and a new institution established in 1768, under the title of the Royal Academy of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture. Professorships were attached to it, and, among others, Oliver Goldsmith received the chair of ancient history. But these appointments were On the appointment of Lord Keppel to a nominal and unproductive; and Goldsmith small squadron in the Mediterranean, Rey- humorously observed, that such an honour to nolds found an opportunity of visiting Italy. I one in his situation was "something like ruffles

painter charged 100 guineas for a half length, for a whole length 200 guineas.

to a man that wanted a shirt." Reynolds, now admittedly at the head of British art, was appointed president of the academy. From Sir Joshua Reynolds, though ever practising this nomination, so well merited, sprang those his art with activity, and retaining all his early admirable Discourses, fifteen in number, which enthusiasm for its advancement and welfare, Sir Thomas Lawrence has described as "golden spent much of his middle life in the society of precepts, now acknowledged as canons of uni- his many distinguished friends. He was not versal taste." It was not officially incumbent less admired as a man than as an artist. Mr. upon the president to deliver such prelections, Malone, describing his person and manners, but he voluntarily imposed the task upon him- says, "He was in stature rather under the self, in his enthusiasm for the art. Impelled middle size; of a florid complexion, and a by the same spirit, he sent not less than 244 lively and pleasing aspect; well made, and pictures to the academical exhibitions, from extremely active. His appearance at first their commencement in 1760, up till 1790 in-sight impressed the spectator with the idea of clusive. About the same time with his presi- a well-born and well-bred English gentleman. dency he received the honour of knighthood, He appeared to me the happiest man I have and soon afterwards the University of Ox-ever known. His mind was never torpid, but ford honoured him with the degree of always at work on some topic or other. He had a strong turn and relish for humour, in all its various forms, and very quickly saw the weak sides of things. He had an ardent love of truth, and was perfectly free from all artifice and affectation." He was "a firm and faithful friend; and in mixed life an honourable and benevolent man."

D.C.L.

66

The

THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH.-In working the

Hitherto we have only alluded to Sir Joshua as a portait-painter. Indeed, he did not step out of this comparatively inferior line of art until his powers were felt by him to be fully matured by practice. "Garrick between the Muses of Comedy and Tragedy" (painted in 1762), and "A Lady Sacrificing to the After holding the presidency with universal Graces" (1765), were among the first great honour and esteem for twenty years, Sir Joshua works of fancy which he produced. In 1773, felt, when painting, a sudden affection in the he exhibited one of his most famous historical left eye. He laid down the pencil, sat awhile pictures, The "Ugolino," representing the in mute consideration, and never lifted it Italian Count of that name starving with his more." His eyesight continued to fail, and in children in a dungeon, in accordance with the 1791 he resigned the presidency. On the 23rd description of Dante. Critics differ much in of February of the following year, he paid the their estimation of this picture, excepting as great debt of nature, at the age of sixty-nine. regards the execution, which all admit to be A public funeral testified the regret not only of splendid. It is unneccessary to point out the the followers of art in Britain, but of the noble particular dates of the other great productions and the great-of all, in short, who loved the of Sir Joshua's pencil, or even to name more arts, and honoured virtue. Sir Joshua Reythan a few. In the course of his presidency nolds left the bulk of his fortune, which was he graced the exhibitions with such pieces as very considerable, to his favourite niece, Miss "The Nativity" (valued at 1,200 guineas), Palmer, afterwards Marchioness of Thomond. "The Death of Cardinal Beaufort,' "The In-He was never married. 'fant Jupiter,' The Death of Dido," Gipsy Fortune-Teller,' "Robin Goodfellow,' "The Infant Academy,' ""Virgin and Child," "Venus and Cupid,' "" "6 Cupid and Psyche," instruments employed at the various stations "Witches in Macbeth," "Hope nursing Love," throughout the country, it has been found that "Holy Family," "Infant "Infant Samuel,' "The the occasional deflection of the index needles, Gleaners," Sleeping Child,” Scipio," has been very considerable, and although the "Sleeping Girl," "Infant Hercules," &c., al- variations of electric currents have been commost all of which are familiarised to the coun-mon to every part of the island where stations, try by the numerous engravings of them which are established, yet local circumstances appear have been published from time to time. Mr. to prevent entire uniformity, and hence some Malone' enumerates 110 pictures, of an historisk had been incurred of inaccuracy. To rical and miscellaneous order, as being merely obviate this, two circular discs, with a rackthe most considerable of the pieces which Sir Joshua executed, exclusive of his numberless portraits. In several instances he received upwards of £1,000 for single pictures. The Empress of Russia gave £1,500 for the picture of "Hercules Strangling the Serpents," and, moreover, sent to the artist a magnificent gold box, studded with diamonds, as a testimony of the satisfaction which she had received from the perusal of his Discourses. It may be interesting to some readers to know that his price for a head, as it is called, in 1755, was twelve guineas; in 1758, twenty; in 1760, twenty-five; in 1770, thirty-five; and, finally, in 1781, rose to the fixed amount of fifty guineas. When at the height of his fame, the

wheel and key, have been added to the inner side of the dial of the machines, in which a semicircular parallel opening has been made under the space traversed by the needles, and by means of two small projecting pins on each disc, the exact extent of the deflection is ascertained, and the needles are confined to the precise portion of the circle within which they ought to move. The laws which regulate these variations have hitherto baffled the engineers of the company; but neither the changes of temperature, nor the moisture or dryness of the atmosphere, appear to exercise any influence on the currents, and the subject remains open for the investigation of the philosophically curious.