Wilson, and Bell.' This highly cultivated gentleman, the fellow-student and friend of Humboldt, survived in a venerable old age in the autumn of 1860, to tell the story of his intercourse with George Stephenson. With a large capital embarked in the Walker iron-works, as well as in his chemical factories, he saw in the enginewright a man well fitted to carry out his enterprises and to suggest new ones. He made overtures to him; and, in the beginning of the year 1815, an arrangement was made that George Stephenson should come to the Walker iron-works for two days in each week, receiving for his services a salary of £100 per annum, besides participation in all profits arising from his inventions. To secure his good fortune in this compact from all drawback, the 'grand allies,' with proper liberality to an engineer who had served them well, gave him permission to accept Mr. Losh's offer, and at the same time retain his post at Killingworth with an undiminished salary.

George Stephenson, with these two concurrent appointments yielding him a clear £200 per annum, besides perquisites and the participation in profits reserved to him by Losh, Wilson, and Bell, began to feel himself a rising man. Industrious as ever, he retained his clockcleaning business; and he had made some not unimportant savings. A prosperous mechanic, with a good income, unmarried, and with brighter prospects opening before him, could not think of giving his only child no better education than that which a village schoolmaster imparted to the children of ordinary workmen.

It was no part of his plan to bring up his son with an expense and refinement unusual in his station, but he wished to educate him in accordance with the rules of

his rank. He placed him, therefore, when he was nearly twelve years old, as a day-pupil in an academy at Newcastle, kept by Mr. Bruce.

The friend and biographer of Dr. Hutton, and the author of several educational works of great merit, Mr. John Bruce had raised his school to such excellence that it then ranked higher than the Newcastle grammarschool, where Lord Stowell, Lord Eldon, and Lord Collingwood received their early instruction. The 'Percy Street Academy '-as Mr. Bruce's seminary was and still is called-was then attended by more than a hundred pupils, who might be described as a good style of 'middle-class boys.' Some few were the sons of the minor gentry of the vicinity, but the majority were the sons of professional men and traders of Newcastle and Gateshead. Not one half of the boys learned either Greek or Latin. Amongst those who did not receive classical instruction was Robert Stephenson, who entered the school on August 14, 1815, and remained there four years. During that time, the whole sum paid for his education fell short of £40. The expenditure, therefore, for a father in George Stephenson's circumstances, was sufficient and appropriate, but nothing more.

On Robert Stephenson's appearance at the Percy Street academy he had to encounter the criticisms of lads who regarded him as beneath them in social condition. 'A thin-framed, thin-faced, delicate boy, with his face covered with freckles,'* dressed in corduroy trowsers and a blue coat-jacket, the handiwork of the tailor

Such is the description of him given by a Newcastle gentleman who distinctly remembers his first coming to Bruce's school.

employed by the Killingworth pitmen, the new-comer presented many marks for play-ground satire. On his shoulder he carried a bag containing his books and a dinner of rye-bread and cheese. The clattering made by the heavy iron-cased soles of his boots on the school floor did not escape the notice of the lads. Mr. Bruce was on the look-out to see that he was not improperly annoyed; but there was no occasion for the master's interference. In Robert's dark eyes there was a soft light of courtesy that conciliated the elder boys. When they entered into conversation with him, however, they could not refrain from laughing outright. Gruff as their own voices were with Northumbrian burr,' they were unused to the deep, guttural pit-intonations with which Robert expressed himself. It was no slight trial to a sensitive child just twelve years old to find himself the object of ridicule. Puzzled as to what he had said that was ludicrous, and deeply mortified, he turned away, and kept silence till the business of school-hours commenced.

At first Robert Stephenson walked to and from school -a distance in all of about ten miles; and this labour disinclined him for joining in the sports of the play-ground. At dinner he held no intercourse with his schoolfellows; for while they consumed the more luxurious fare provided for them by Mrs. Bruce, he ate the inexpensive provision put into his satchel by Aunt Eleanor, or partook of the frugal fare of an uncle's family. Gradually, however, he became a favourite with the lads. But it soon became clear that Robert Stephenson was not strong enough to bear the long walk each night and morning. He was liable to catch cold, and the tendency it had to strike at his lungs made his father apprehensive

that tubercular consumption might attack him. At this time, too, the boy was afflicted with profuse nightly perspirations, to obviate which the doctors made him sleep on a hay mattress. A step more likely to do good was taken by George Stephenson, who purchased for the boy a donkey, which was for years the pride of Long Benton. Robert had for a long time been in possession of a dog and a blackbird, which he used to aver were the cleverest inhabitants of the village. His new acquisition gave him lively satisfaction, and he was prouder of it than he was in after life of any horse in his stable. To spare his cuddy,' he used, in fine weather, to walk and ride to school on alternate days.

John Tate (in 1860 the foreman blacksmith at the colliery,) the son of George Stephenson's old friend, Robert Tate, formerly the landlord of the Killingworth Three Tuns,' was in early boyhood the familiar companion of Robert Stephenson. The two lads had many a prank together. Shortly before Robert left Rutter's school, they were out birds'-nesting, when Robert fell from a high branch of a tree to the ground, and lay for a minute stunned. On recovering his consciousness, he experienced so much pain on moving one of his arms that he nearly fainted. My arm is broken, John Tate,' the little fellow said quietly; 'you must carry me home.' Luckily John Tate had not far to carry him. In due course the broken arm was set; but throughout the operation, and indeed from the time when he told John Tate to carry him home until he was asleep, he did not utter a cry of pain. A child of eleven years who could evince such fortitude was clearly made of the right stuff.

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The first half year of Robert Stephenson's career at the Percy Street academy was an eventful one with his father. It saw the invention of the Geordie safetylamp, and the outbreak of that contest between Sir Humphry Davy and the Northumbrian engine-wright, in which the latter unquestionably displayed the greater dignity and moderation. George Stephenson's first lamp was tried on October 21, 1815. In the Northumbrian coal fields three lamps are used more than any of the others which inventors have contrived for the protection of the miner,― Dr. Clanny's lamp of the year 1813, and the lamps invented two years later by the scientific reasoner Sir Humphry Davy, and the practical mechanician George Stephenson. The principle in each of these last-named lamps is identical, but the two originators arrived at it by very different processes. To decide on the respective merits of these lamps is no part of this work. Each has its supporters; and the partizans of a particular kind of safety-lamp' are scarcely less vehement and uncharitable in their zeal, than are the defenders of a particular school of religious opinion. In the mines where the Clanny' is used, nothing but the Clanny' has a chance of trial, or a good word. The same is the case with the Davy' and 'the Geordie.' One thing, however, is certain. An efficient and luminous safety-lamp is still to be invented. It is amusing to hear the virtuous indignation of those who, never having visited the narrow passages of a coal mine, vehemently condemn the fool-hardiness and perversity of miners who prefer the candle to the lamp. So dim a ray is emitted by the Davy' or 'the Geordie,' it is far from wonderful that underground toilers should regard them as

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