CHAP. XXXV.] HIS DEATH.-STATUES. 437 extensive works connected with his collieries, he was engaged in horticulture and farming. He continued proud of his flowers, his fruits, and his crops; and the old spirit of competition still lived strong within him. Although he had for some time been in delicate health, and his hand shook from nervous affection, he appeared to possess a sound constitution. Emerson had observed of him that he had the lives of many men in him. But perhaps the American spoke figuratively, in reference to his vast stores of experience. It appeared that he had never completely recovered from the attack of pleurisy which seized him shortly after his return from Spain. As late, however, as the 26th of July, 1848, he felt himself sufficiently well to be able to attend a meeting of the Birmingham Institute, and to read to the members his paper "On the fallacies of the Rotatory Engine." It was his last appearance before them. Shortly after his return to Tapton, he had an attack of intermittent fever, from which he seemed to be recovering, when a sudden effusion of blood from the lungs carried him off, on the 12th of August, 1848, in the sixty-seventh year of his age. His remains were followed to the grave by a large body of his work people, by whom he was greatly admired and beloved. They remembered him as a kind master, who was ever ready actively to promote all measures for their moral, physical, and mental improvement. The inhabitants of Chesterfield evinced their respect for the deceased by suspending business, closing their shops, and joining in the funeral procession, which was headed by the corporation of the town. Many of the surrounding gentry also attended the funeral. The body was interred in Trinity Church, Chesterfield, where a simple tablet marks the great engineer's last resting-place. The statue of George Stephenson, which the Liverpool and Manchester and Grand Junction Companies had commissioned, was on its way to England when his death occurred; and the statue served for a monument, though his best monument will always be his works. The Liverpool Board placed a minute on their books, embodying also the graceful tribute of their secretary, Mr. Henry Booth, in which they recorded their admiration of the life, and their esteem for the character of the deceased. "The directors," they say, "on the present occasion look back with peculiar interest to their first connection with Mr. Stephenson, in the construction of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway; to a period now twenty years past, when he floated their new line over Chat Moss, and cut his way through the rock-cutting at Olive Mount. Tracing the progress of railways from the first beginning to the present time, they find Mr. Stephenson foremost in urging forward the great railway movement; earning and maintaining his title to be considered, before any other man, the author of that universal system of locomotion which has effected such mighty results-commercial, social, and political-throughout the civilized world. Two years ago, the directors entrusted to Mr. Gibson, of Rome, the duty and the privilege of producing a statue that might do honour to their friend, then living amongst them. They did not anticipate that on the completion of this work of art the great original would be no more, that they should be constrained to accept the marble effigy of the engineer in lieu of the living presence of the man." The statue here referred to was placed in St. George's Hall, Liverpool. A full-length statue of the deceased, by Bailey, was also erected a few years later, in the noble vestibule of the London and Northwestern Station, in Euston Square. A subscription for the purpose was set on foot by the Society of Mechanical Engineers, of which he had been the founder and president. A few advertisements were inserted in the newspapers, inviting subscriptions; and it is a notable fact that the voluntary offerings shortly received included an average of two shillings each from 3,150 working men, who embraced this opportunity of doing honour to their distinguished fellow workman. -- The portrait prefixed to this volume gives a good indication of George Stephenson's shrewd, kind, honest, manly face. His fair, clear countenance was ruddy, and seemingly glowed with health. The forehead was large and high, projecting over the eyes; and there was that massive breadth across the lower part, which is usually observed in men of eminent constructive skill. The mouth was firmly marked; and shrewdness and humour * Minutes of the Liverpool Board of the London and Northwestern Railway Company, 6th Sept., 1848. CHAP. XXXV.] HIS PORTRAIT. 439 lurked there as well as in the keen grey eye. His frame was compact, well-knit, and rather spare. His hair became grey at an early age, and towards the close of his life it was of a pure silky whiteness. He dressed neatly in black, wearing a white neckcloth; and his face, his person, and his deportment at once arrested attention, and marked the Gentleman. CHAPTER XXXVI. HIS CHARACTER. THE life of George Stephenson, though imperfectly portrayed in the preceding pages, will be found to contain many valuable lessons. His was the 'life of a true man, and presented a striking combination of those sterling qualities which we are proud to regard as essentially English. Doubtless he owed much to his birth, belonging as he did to the hardy and persevering race of the north,-a race less supple, soft, and polished than the people of the more southern districts of England, but, like their Danish progenitors, full of courage, vigour, ingenuity, and persevering industry. Their strong, guttural speech, which sounds so harsh and unmusical in southern ears, is indeed but a type of their nature. When Mr. Stephenson was struggling to give utterance to his views upon the locomotive before the Committee of the House of Commons, those who did not know him supposed he was "a foreigner." Before long the world saw in him an Englishman, stout-hearted and true, one of those master minds who, by energetic action in new fields of industry, impress their character from time to time upon the age and nation to which they belong. The poverty of his parents being such that they could not give him any, even the very simplest education, beyond the good example of integrity and industry, he was early left to shift for himself, and compelled to be self-reliant. Having the will to learn, he soon forced for himself a way. No beginning could have been more humble than his; but he persevered: he had determined to learn, and he did learn. To such a resolution as his, nothing really beneficial in life is denied. He might have said, like Sebastian Bach, "I was industrious; and whoever is equally sedulous will be equally successful." CHAP. XXXVI.] PERSEVERANCE-THOROUGHNESS. 441 pa The whole secret of Mr. Stephenson's success in life was his careful improvement of time, which is the rock out of which fortunes are carved and great characters formed. He believed in genius to the extent that Buffon did when he said that " tience is genius;" or as some other thinker put it, when he defined genius to be the power of making efforts. But he never would have it that he was a genius, or that he had done any thing which other men, equally laborious and persevering as himself, could not have accomplished. He repeatedly said to the young men about him: "Do as I have done-persevere ! " He perfected the locomotive, by always working at it and always thinking about it. Every step of advance which he made was conquered by patient labour. When an engineman, he systematically took his engine to pieces on Saturday afternoons, while the works were at a stand, for the purpose of cleaning it thoroughly, and "gaining insight." He thus gradually mastered the mechanism of the steam-engine, so that, when opportunity offered, he was enabled to improve it, and to make it work even when its own maker was baffled. He practically studied hydraulics in the same plodding way, when acting as plugman; and when all the local pump doctors at Killingworth were in despair, he stepped in, and successfully applied the knowledge which he had so laboriously gained. A man of such a temper and purpose could not but succeed in life. His long labour to invent the perpetual motion was not lost. The attempt did him good, stimulating his inventiveness and mechanical ingenuity. He afterwards used to lament this loss of time, and said that if he had enjoyed the opportunity which young men of this day have, of knowing from books what others had done before them, he would have been spared much labour and mortification. Sometimes he thought he had hit upon discoveries, which he afterwards found were but old fallacies long since exploded. Yet the very effort to overcome difficulty was of itself an education. By wrestling with it, he strengthened his judgment and sharpened his skill. Being in earnest in his struggle, he was compelled to consider the subject in all its relations; and this would not suffer him to be superficial. He thus |