proved here. As Roebuck retired, there appeared a star of hope of the first magnitude, in no less a person than the celebrated Matthew Boulton of Birmingham, of whom we must say a few words by way of introduction to our readers, for in all the world there was not his equal as a partner for Watt, who was ever fortunate in his friends. Of course Watt was sure to have friends, for he was through and through the devoted friend himself, and won the hearts of those worth winning. "If you wish to make a friend, be one," is the sure recipe.

Boulton was not only obviously the right man but he came from the right place, for Birmingham was the headquarters of mechanical industry. At this time, 1776, there was at last a good road to London. As late as 1747 the coach was advertised to run there in two days only "if the roads permit."

If skilled mechanics, Watt's greatest need, were to be found anywhere, it was here in the centre of mechanical skill, and especially was it in the celebrated works of Boulton, which had been bequeathed from worthy sire to worthy son, to be largely extended and more than ever preeminent.

Boulton left school early to engage in his father's business. When only seventeen years old, he had made several improvements in the manufacture of buttons, watch chains, and various trinkets, and had invented the inlaid steel buckles, which became so

fashionable. It is stated that in that early day it was found necessary to export them in large quantities to France to be returned and sold in Britain as the latest productions of French skill and taste. It is well to get a glimpse of human nature as seen here. Fashion decides for a time with supreme indifference to quality. It is a question of the name.

At his father's death, the son inherited the business. Great credit belongs to him for unceasingly laboring to improve the quality of his products and especially to raise the artistic standard, then so low as to have already caused "Brummagem" to become a term of reproach. He not only selected the cleverest artisans, but he employed the best artists, Flaxman being one, to design the artistic articles produced. The natural result followed. Boulton's work soon gained high reputation. New and larger factories became necessary, and the celebrated Soho works arose in 1762. The spirit in which Boulton pursued business is revealed in a letter to his partner at Soho from London. "The prejudice that Birmingham hath so justly estab"lished against itself makes every fault conspicuous in "all articles that have the least pretensions to taste." It may interest American readers familiar with One Dollar watches, rendered possible by production upon a large scale, that it was one of Boulton's leading ideas in that early day that articles in common use could be produced much better and cheaper "if manufactured

"by the help of the best machinery upon a large "scale, and this could be successfully done in the

'making of clocks and timepieces." He promptly erected the machinery and started this new branch of business. Both King and Queen received him cordially and became his patrons. Soho works soon became famous and one of the show places of the country; princes, philosophers, poets, authors and merchants from foreign lands visited them and were hospitably received by Boulton.

He was besieged with requests to take gentlemen apprentices into the works, hundreds of pounds sometimes being offered as premium, but he resolutely declined, preferring to employ boys whom he could train up as workmen. He replies to a gentleman applicant, "I have built and furnished a house for the "reception of one class of apprentices-fatherless chil“dren, parish apprentices, and hospital boys; and gen"tlemen's sons would probably find themselves out of "place in such companionship."

It is not to be inferred that Boulton grew up an uncultured man because he left school very early. On the contrary, he steadily educated himself, devoting much time to study, so that with his good looks, handsome presence, the manners of the gentleman born, and knowledge much beyond the average of that class, he had little difficulty in winning for his wife a lady of such position in the county as led to some opposi

tion on the part of members of her family to the suitor, but only "on account of his being in trade." There exists no survival of this objection in these days of American alliances with heirs of the highest British titles. We seem now to have as its substitute the condition that the father of the bride must be in trade and that heavily and to some purpose.

Boulton, like most busy men, had time, and an open mind, for new ideas. None at this time interested him so deeply as that of the steam engine. Want of water-power proved a serious difficulty at Soho. He wrote to a friend, "The enormous expense of the "horsepower" (it was also irregular and sometimes failed) "put me upon thinking of turning the mill "by fire. I made many fruitless experiments on the "subject." Boulton wrote Franklin, February 22, 1766, in London, about this, and sent a model he had made. Franklin replies a month later, apologising for the delay on account of "the hurry and anxiety I have been engaged in with our American affairs."*

Tamer of lightning and tamer of steam, Franklin and Watt-one of the new, the other of the old

*If those in London had only listened to Franklin and taken his advice when he pleaded for British liberties for British subjects in America! It is refreshing to read in our day how completely the view regarding colonies has changed in Britain. These are now pronounced "Independent nations, free to go or stay in the empire, as they choose," the very surest way to prolong the connection. This is true statesmanship. Being free, the chains become decorations and cease to chafe the wearer, unless great growth comes, when the colony must at its maturity perforce either merge with the motherland under one joint government or become a free and independent nation, giving her sons a country of their own for which to live, and, if necessary, to die.

branch of our English-speaking race-co-operating in enlarging the powers of man and pushing forward the chariot of progress-fit subject, this, for the sculptor and painter!

How much further the steam engine is to be the handmaid of electricity cannot be told, for it seems impossible to set limits to the future conquests of the latter, which is probably destined to perform miracles undreamt of to-day, perhaps coupled in some unthoughtof way, with radium, the youngest sprite of the weird, uncanny tribe of mysterious agents. Uranium, the supposed basis of the latest discovery, Radium, has only one-millionth part of the heat of the latter. The slow-moving earth takes twenty-four hours to turn upon its axis. Radium covers an equal distance while we pronounce its name. One and one-quarter seconds, and twenty-five thousand miles are traversed. Puck promises to put his "girdle round the earth in forty minutes." Radium would pass the fairy girdlist in the spin round sixteen hundred times. Thus truth, as it is being evolved in our day, becomes stranger than the wildest imaginings of fiction. Our century seems on the threshold of discoveries and advances, not less revolutionary, perhaps more so, than those that have sprung from steam and electricity. "Canst thou send lightnings to say 'Lo, here I am'?" silenced man. It was so obviously beyond his power until last century. Now he smiles as he reads the question. Is Tyndal's