Chapter VII: Part 7

At the age of twenty-one he was taken into the establishment at Stowe. He then measured seven feet two inches in height without his shoes, and he afterwards grew two inches higher. He was not tall and lanky, but stout and well proportioned in every way. The original mansion of the Grenvilles at Stowe still in part remains as a farmhouse. The splendid house of Stowe, built by the first Earl of Bath, was pulled down shortly after 1711, and it was said that men lived who had seen the stately palace raised and also levelled with the dust. This was at a little distance further inland than the old Stowe that remains. The Grenvilles had also a picturesque house at Broom Hill, near Bude, with fine Elizabethan plaster-work ceilings, now converted into labourers' cottages.

At Stowe Anthony Payne delighted in exhibiting his strength. In the hurling-ground a rough block of stone is still pointed out as "Payne's cast," lying full ten paces beyond the reach whereat the ordinary player could "put the stone."

It is said that one Christmas Eve the fire languished in the hall. A boy with an ass had been sent into the wood for faggots. Payne went to hurry him back, and caught up the ass and his burden, flung them over his shoulder, and brought both into the hall and cast them down by the side of the fire.

On another occasion, being defied to perform the feat, he carried a bacon-hog from Kilkhampton to Stowe. Then came the Civil War, when Charles I and his Parliament sought to settle their differences on the battlefield. Cornwall went for the King, and Anthony Payne had the drilling and manœuvring of the recruits from Kilkhampton and Stratton. At one time Sir Beville Grenville had his head-quarters at Truro, but the great battle of Stamford Hill, May 16th, 1643, was fought but eight miles from Stowe, and on the night preceding it Sir Beville Grenville slept in his house at Broom Hill. The battle was desperate, the Royalist soldiers being outnumbered, and attacked; amidst them was Anthony Payne, mounted on his sturdy cob Samson, rallying his troopers and terrorizing the enemy, who fled. At the next pitched battle at Lansdown, near Bath, the forces of the King were defeated and Sir Beville was killed. Anthony Payne, having mounted John Grenville, then a youth of sixteen, on his father's horse, had led on the Grenville troops to the fight. The Rev. R. S. Hawker gives a letter from the giant to Lady Grace Grenville, conveying to her the news of the death of her husband; but it is more than doubtful whether this be genuine. He says of it: "It still survives. It breathes, in the quaint language of the day, a noble strain of sympathy and homage." It does not exist except in Mr. Hawker's book, and is almost certainly a fabrication by him.

_From the picture by Sir Godfrey Kneller_]

At the Restoration, Sir John Grenville was created Earl of Bath, and was made governor of the garrison of Plymouth, and he then appointed Payne halberdier of the guns. The King, who held Payne in great favour, made him a yeoman of his guards, and Sir Godfrey Kneller, the Court artist, was employed to paint his portrait.

Whilst in Plymouth garrison an incident occurred that has been recorded by Hawker. At the mess-table of the regiment, during the reign of William and Mary, on the anniversary of the day when Charles I had been beheaded, a sub-officer of Payne's own rank had ordered a calf's head to be served up. This was a coarse and common annual mockery of the beheaded king indulged in by the remnants of the old fanatical Puritan party. When Payne entered the room his comrades pointed out the dish to him. Anthony flared up, and flung the plate and its contents out of the window. A quarrel and a challenge ensued, and at break of day Payne and his antagonist fought with swords on the ramparts, and Anthony ran the offender through the swordarm and disabled him, as he shouted, "There's sauce for thy calf's head."

Hawker, who tells the story, supposed that the incident occurred during the reign of George I. But Anthony died at an age little short of eighty, and was buried at Stratton July 13th, 1691, and William of Orange did not die till 1702.

After his death at Stratton, which took place in the house where he was born, neither door nor stairs would afford egress for the large coffined corpse. The joists had to be sawn through, and the floor lowered with rope and pulley, to enable the giant to pass out to his last resting-place, under the south wall of Stratton Church.[12]

The history of the vicissitudes through which went the painting by Kneller is peculiarly interesting.

When Stowe was dismantled, on the death of the Earl of Bath, the picture was removed to Penheale, another Cornish residence of the Grenville family.

But here the portrait of him who had done so much for the house was not valued, and was soon forgotten. Gilbert, the Cornish historian, in one of his rambles, whilst staying at an old inn in Launceston, was informed that this painting was still extant, and he went to Penheale, where the farmer's wife occupying the house said that she did indeed possess "a carpet with the effigy of a large man on it," that had been given to her husband by the steward on the estate. It was rolled up, and in a bad and dirty condition. She gladly sold it to C. S. Gilbert for £8. On Gilbert's death his effects were sold at Devonport, and a stranger bought it for £42. In London it was recognized as the work of Kneller, and was resold for the sum of £800. It next appeared amongst the effects of the late Admiral Tucker, at Trematon Castle; and when the sale took place this picture was bought by a gentleman in Devon. Finally Mr. (now Sir) Robert Harvey purchased it, and most generously presented it to the Royal Institution of Cornwall.

The authorities for Anthony Payne are Hawker's _Footprints of Former Men in Cornwall_; the _Journal of the R. Inst. of Cornwall_, Vol. X, 1890-1; Wood (E. J.), _Giants and Dwarfs_, 1868.

Next in size to Anthony Payne among big Cornishmen was Charles Chilcott, of Tintagel, who measured 6 feet 4 inches high, and round the breast 6 feet 9 inches, and who weighed 460 pounds. He was almost constantly occupied in smoking, three pounds of tobacco being his weekly allowance. His pipe was two inches long. One of his stockings would contain six gallons of wheat. He was much gratified when strangers came to visit him, and to them his usual address was, "Come under my arm, little fellow." He died in his sixtieth year, 5th April, 1815.

FOOTNOTE:

[12] The hole is still shown in the Tree Inn, Stratton.

NEVIL NORTHEY BURNARD

Was the son of George Burnard, a stonemason, who lived at Penpont, Altarnon, in a house with mullioned windows and a newel staircase, said to have been the old manor house of Penpont. He was born in 1818, and was baptized on November 1st in that year.

The only education Nevil received was from his mother, who kept a dame's school and made straw bonnets in her spare time.

He was mortar-boy to his father, and would often slip away and cut figures of men and animals on an old oak door, getting many a "lacing" for not minding his proper work. His earliest tools were nails, which he sharpened on a grinding-stone, before he had any chisels.

There was at that time no machinery for facing slate slabs; so he used an old French "burr"--i.e. part of a French millstone. Such millstones were constructed in four parts, cemented together. This "burr" he put into a rough frame of wood, and used it like a plane over the face of the slate, which was laid on a bench, or "horse." The existing examples of slabs worked in this way are most excellent, in flatness and in smoothness.

The Delabole slate had been employed for many centuries for tombstones and monuments, and lent itself surprisingly to being sculptured. In the North Cornish churches are numerous examples of monuments richly sculptured with heraldic figures of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, all on slate, and sharp to this day as when they left the workshop.

_From a bas-relief by the sculptor himself, in the possession of S. Pearn, Esq., Altarnon_]

At the age of fourteen Nevil cut a tombstone to his grandfather; that is now in Altarnon churchyard, and affords evidence of skill, artistic sense, and fineness of detail. There are other stones of his in the same churchyard; also one or two by his brother George. An old man is still alive in Altarnon who used to sharpen the nails on a grindstone for Burnard, with which he did his carving on slate.

At fifteen he left Altarnon. Wesley's head, over the porch of the old Meeting-house, Penpont, was cut by him when he was sixteen.

From Altarnon he went to Fowey, and the late Sir Charles Lemon, of Carclew, took him by the hand. At the age of sixteen he carved in slate the group of Laocoon, sent in 1834 to the Exhibition of the Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society at Falmouth. This carving in bass-relief, executed by a boy from a wild moorland village, without instruction, copied from a wood-cut in the _Penny Magazine_, and with tools of his own making, was considered so very remarkable a production that the Society awarded him a silver medal. Nevil was sent to London, and through Sir Charles Lemon's influence was presented to the Queen and Prince Consort, and he was allowed to cut a profile of the Prince of Wales, then a boy, and this portrait was sent to Osborne, and was approved by the Royal parents. Sir Charles Lemon further introduced the lad to Chantrey, who secured for him employment as a carver in one of the most celebrated ateliers in London.

Burnard reproduced his profile of the Prince of Wales in marble for the Public Hall at Falmouth, and the general opinion expressed upon it was that it amply sustained the early expectation which had been formed of his talents.

Thus fairly launched in his profession as a carver in London, he found employment in the studios of the best sculptors of the day, as Bailey, Marshall, and Foley; and there was no lack of work, and no falling short of pay.

Caroline Fox, in her _Memories of Old Friends_, says:--

"1847, October 4th.--Burnard, our Cornish sculptor, dined with us. He is a great, powerful, pugilistic-looking fellow at twenty-nine; a great deal of face, with all the features massed in the centre; mouth open, and all sorts of simplicities flowing out of it. He liked talking of himself and his early experiences. His father, a stonemason, once allowed him to carve the letters on a little cousin's tombstone which would be hidden in the grass; this was his first attempt, and instead of digging in the letters he dug around them, and made each stand out in relief. His stories of Chantrey very odd: on his death Lady Chantrey came into the studio with a hammer and knocked off the noses of many completed busts, so that they might not be too common--a singular attention to her departed lord. Described his own distress when waiting for Sir Charles Lemon to take him to Court: he felt very warm, and went into a shop for some ginger-beer; the woman pointed the bottle at him, and he was drenched. After wiping himself as well as he could he went out to dry in the sun. He went first to London without his parents knowing anything about it, because he wished to spare them anxiety, and let them know nothing until he could announce that he was regularly employed by Mr. Weekes. He showed us his bust of the Prince of Wales--a beautiful thing, very intellectual, with a strong likeness to the Queen--which he was exhibiting at the Polytechnic, where it will remain."

_Cut by Burnard when_ 16 _years of age_]

_That on the right is upon the grave of his grandfather in Altarnon Churchyard, and was cut when the sculptor was only_ 14 _years old; the one on the left is in Bodmin Churchyard_]

"1849, March 1st.--Found a kindly note from Thomas Carlyle. He has seen 'my gigantic countryman,' Burnard, and conceives that there is real faculty in him; he gave him advice, and says he is the sort of person whom he will gladly help if he can. Burnard forwarded to me, in great triumph, the following note he had received from Carlyle with reference to a projected bust of Charles Buller: '_February_ 25th, 1849.... Nay, if the conditions _never_ mend, and you cannot get that Bust to do at all, you may find yet (as often turns out in life) that it was _better_ for you you did not. Courage! Persist in your career with wise strength, with silent resolution, with manful, patient, unconquerable endeavour; and if there lie a talent in you (as I think there does), the gods will permit you to develop it yet.--Believe me, yours very sincerely, T. Carlyle.'"

On the return of Richard Lander from Africa, after having traced the Niger through a great part of its course, Burnard was commissioned to execute a statue of the explorer for the column erected in Lander's honour at Truro. His only other public work of any consequence was the statue of Ebenezer Elliott, the Corn-law Rhymer, for the market-place of Sheffield; but he was employed in executing portrait busts of many men of importance, as General Gough, Professor John Couch Adams, his fellow-Cornishman, Professor Ed. Forbes, and one of Makepeace Thackeray, which Burnard gave as a present to the Cottonian Library at Plymouth, where it now stands above the door.

He exhibited in the Royal Academy in 1855, 1858, 1866, and 1867. He married in London, but lost his wife, and then took to drink. The boys, as he said, jeered at him, and called him "Old Burnard."

As a man, he was tall and big, with an enormous head which no ordinary hat would fit; so that his hats had to be made for him.

Eventually he went "on tramp," paying periodical visits to old friends at Altarnon. He would make sketches, draw portraits, at farms and in public-houses; was ready to write an article for a newspaper, or to make an election squib, for either side; and was, in fact, as clever with his pen and pencil as he was with chisel.

He was a most entertaining companion, and able to converse on any subject.

Thus he lived by his wits, mixing with the highest, but by preference with the lowest. The last time he visited Altarnon was in 1877, three years before his death; he remained there on that occasion for a week, with hardly any clothes to his back, and was boarded by his old playmate, Mr. S. Pearn, and slept in the common lodging-house, Five-lanes. After having been fitted out with fresh clothes by some friends he proceeded to the west of the county.

During this last visit at Altarnon he drew some large pencil heads, which show a firm and delicate hand, but he delighted in minute execution. There is also evidence that his mind at this time was as steady as his hand, for he composed a poem on the death of Mr. F. Herring, one or two verses of which may be given.

I stood beside the spot where late you laid him,
The spot to each of us most hallowed ground;
After the angels had in white array'd him,
And his smooth brows with flowers immortal crown'd.

* * * * *

Who in the wilderness would wish to wander,
Whose feet have trodden once the promised land?
Believe that all is well, nor pause to ponder
On things that mortals cannot understand.
He is most bless'd that is the firmest trusting,
Believing One that's wiser far than he,--
Is, for his good, the balance still adjusting;
So--tell my parents not to mourn for me.
I now can see what might have been my story,
Had I remained through man's allotted day:
(Sorrow for joy, dark age for youth and glory:)
And bless the love that hastened me away.
And wafted me across the mystic river,
Where all discords and elements agree,
Calmed by His word, that can from death deliver,
So tell my loved ones not to mourn for me.

He was equally ready to lampoon any one, whether friend or foe; probably accommodating his muse to the humour of those with whom he happened to be.

One day he had been making a sketch of a farmer called Nicoll, and resorted to the public-house in Liskeard with his patron. Whilst there he scribbled on a piece of paper and handed to his friend Nicoll:--

Cash is scarce, and fortune's fickle;
I should like to draw some silver now,
As I've all day been drawing nickel.

There is at Penpont House, Altarnon, a small profile head of Burnard executed by himself. It is a cameo in plaster of Paris. He is said to have sketched his face by looking in a mirror, and then cut an intaglio in slate from his drawing.

Nevil N. Burnard died in the Union, Redruth, of heart and kidney complaint, 27th November, 1878.

SIR GOLDSWORTHY GURNEY, KNT.,
INVENTOR

This man of remarkable versatility and genius was the fourth son of John Gurney, of Trevargus; he was born at Treator, near Padstow, on February 14th, 1793, and was baptized at Padstow on the ensuing 26th June.

He was named after his godmother, a daughter of General Goldsworthy and a maid of honour to Queen Charlotte. He was educated at the Truro Grammar School, and during part of his holidays was wont to stay with a relative, the rector of S. Erth, in which parish lived Mr. Davies Giddy (who afterwards changed his name, and was better known as Mr. Davies Gilbert, President of the Royal Society), in whose house he very frequently met Richard Trevithick, a plain, unpretending man, of great genius, connected with the neighbouring copper mines, who lived near, and who often consulted Mr. Giddy on mathematical calculations connected with the steam-engine and his mechanical inventions. Although so young, Mr. Gurney, whose natural bent was for these subjects, soon formed an acquaintance with this singularly original and talented man, and he continued during the period of his medical studies in correspondence with him.

Mr. Gurney saw Trevithick's first steam-carriage in 1804, and followed closely his improvements and experiments on locomotion, and he remembered, moreover, the contemptuous treatment this gifted man received at the hands of the engineers of the day.

SIR GOLDSWORTHY GURNEY]

His views were described as "wild theories," and his plans were scoffed at. But Mr. Giddy or Gilbert encouraged Trevithick to go on and not be discouraged, and Richard Trevithick became the inventor of the locomotive as well as of the high-pressure engine. His first locomotive was constructed to travel on common roads; he afterwards modified it and set it to run on rails at Merthyr Tydvil. The trial was made there on February 4th, 1804. In the year 1813 he exhibited his locomotive on a temporary railway, laid for the purpose near Euston Square, and showed the great speed it was capable of attaining. This speed, however, was only maintained while the accumulated steam in the boiler was worked off, but his experiment showed that, if a sufficient quantity of steam could be "kept up," as he termed it, the speed might be maintained for any distance and any length of time. But how was this to be effected? That was the difficulty, and that difficulty arose out of another--how was a sufficient draught to be created to keep the fire in the furnace at full activity? As the locomotive moved it created a draught the reverse of that required for the fire, and unless a strong and steady draught into the furnace could be created, sufficient heat could not be generated to produce a sufficient and continuous amount of steam.

Trevithick in his first locomotive had discharged the steam up the funnel to get rid of it, but without any idea of creating a vacuum by means of which a draught could be caused. Stephenson did the same. Mr. Smiles has claimed that the "steam-jet" was invented by Stephenson, but this was not the case. The steam used in Trevithick's and Stephenson's engines was waste or exhaust steam, discharging itself through the funnel indeed, but not filling it, so that it created no perceptible draught.

Mr. Smiles says: "The steam after performing its duty in the cylinders was at first allowed to escape into the open atmosphere with a hissing blast, to the terror of horses and cattle. It was complained of as a nuisance, and a neighbouring squire threatened to commence an action against the colliery lessees unless it was put a stop to."

Accordingly the steam was introduced into the funnel about half-way up at the side so as to get rid of it and obviate the objection of the noise. But the evidence that Stephenson had discovered that it could be employed to create a draught is inconclusive.

Goldsworthy Gurney had been placed at Wadebridge with Dr. Avery as a medical pupil, and there he married Elizabeth Symons in 1814. He settled down at Wadebridge as a surgeon, but his active mind would not let him rest as a small country practitioner; he felt that he had powers and visions that would bring him before the public as an inventor and a benefactor. Accordingly he moved to London in 1820, where he made the acquaintance of several able physicians, and was called to deliver a course of lectures on the elements of chemical science at the Surrey Institute. It was in 1823 that he began his experiments with steam and on locomotion, and he abandoned the medical profession in order to devote himself to these researches. His desire was to construct an engine that would travel on common roads, and travel at a more rapid pace than horses.

Now Stephenson, in his evidence before a Parliamentary Committee, stated that the rate at which his locomotive travelled was "from 3 to 5 or 6 miles an hour."

"_Q._ So that these hypothetical cases of 12 miles an hour do not fall within your general experience?

"_A._ They do not.

"_Q._ Laying aside the 12 miles an hour, I think the rate at which these experiments were made was about 6-3/4 miles to 7?

"_A._ I think the average was 6-1/2 miles."

In the first edition of Nicholas Wood's _Treatise on Railways_, 1829, occurs this passage: "It is far from my wish to promulgate to the world that the ridiculous expectations, or rather professions, of the enthusiastic specialist, will be realized, and that we shall see them travelling at the rate of 12, 16, 18, or 20 miles an hour. Nothing could do more harm towards their adoption or general improvement than the promulgation of such nonsense."

Before a second edition appeared, Mr. Gurney's steam-jet had revolutionized the engine, and it blew this absurd passage out of the book and the disbelief out of Wood's head.

Nicholas Wood was a viewer at Killingworth Colliery, and assisted George Stephenson in his experiments, and he first saw the steam-blast in Mr. Hackworth's _Sans Pareil_ in 1829, so that gentleman had adopted it on Mr. Gurney's recommendation and according to his plan.

Wood thus describes what he then saw: "Mr. Hackworth had, it appears, in his engine, resorted to the use of the waste steam in a more forcible manner than before used, throwing it up in a jet, and which, when the engine moved at a rapid rate, and the steam thereby almost constantly issued from the pipe, had a most powerful effect. The consequence was, that when the engine began to travel at the rate of twelve or fifteen miles an hour, the draught was so great that it actually threw the coke out of the chimney."

Here then is the first sight of the steam-blast to Nicholas Wood, fellow-worker with George Stephenson. He knew nothing of it before.

But Goldsworthy Gurney's steam-blast had been adopted before this on steamboats. It was first applied to the _Alligator_ in 1824; then to the _Duchess of Clarence_, and other steamboats. It had made its way into France.

In the Lords' Committee Report of 1849 on "Accidents in Mines," a Mr. Keene, engineer of Bayonne, was examined.

"_Q._ Have you ever seen Mr. Gurney's plan used on the Continent?

"_A._ It has been used on the Continent for producing draughts in furnace-chimneys.

"_Q._ Furnace-chimneys--for what purpose?

"_A._ Where the draught has been sluggish; I used it to get a stronger draught on board a steamboat in 1830, to enable me to stem the strong currents of the Garonne.

"_Q._ Have you any knowledge of some experiments made by Mr. Gurney in the year 1826 with respect to the power of the steam-jet?

"_A._ I saw frequent experiments made by Mr. Gurney in 1826 to produce draught by the action of high-pressure steam, exactly in the same way as it is now employed for producing ventilation in the collieries; that is, there were a number of jets of about a quarter to three-eighths of an inch diameter, communicating directly with a high-pressure boiler; the cock being open, the full steam from the boiler was brought upon those jets, and a draught was produced by their action in the chimney-shaft.

"_Q._ In the chimney-shaft of a locomotive engine?

"_A._ In the chimney-shaft of a locomotive and in the shaft of a factory; the experiments were tried in various ways. I saw these experiments frequently; many other persons saw them at the same time; and I employed the same myself shortly afterwards for a like purpose abroad."

Mr. Keene in his evidence further stated, in answer to the question whether Mr. Gurney's experiments were open to the public:--

"Many persons visited the place daily, and the carriage went out into the road, and into the barracks, and was often surrounded by a group of persons. It was understood and known how this draught was procured, because the passage of the steam was heard up the chimney when the carriage was still, and the great draught of the furnace was the occasion of remark by everybody who was around it; they were quite surprised how such a great current could be produced with so small a height of chimney: it was a very remarkable thing, and drew attention from everybody around at that time."

The principle of the action of the steam-blast was simple enough. It was to fill the funnel with high-pressure steam, which would act much as the sucker in a pump, exhaust the air and draw up air through the furnace, as the cone of steam escaped out of the funnel. To act thus, the steam must completely fill the chimney, allowing of no down draught.

This was what had entirely escaped Trevithick and Stephenson. Up to the discovery of the steam-jet by Gurney, the waste steam, as has been stated, was uselessly dispersed through the chimney.

In 1827, Gurney took a steam-carriage he had constructed to Cyfarthfa, at the request of Mr. Crawshay, and while there applied his steam-jet to the blast-furnaces. This gave a great impetus to the manufacture of iron.

Stephenson now adopted it, and employed it for his locomotive the _Rocket_, that ran on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway in October, 1829. Previously on one occasion Stephenson had run his engine continuously for fifty-three minutes doing twelve miles. But now, with the adoption of the steam-blast, it attained a velocity of twenty-nine miles an hour.

"It is not too much to say that the success of the locomotive depended upon the adoption of the steam-blast. Without that, by which the intensity of combustion, and the consequent evolution of steam, were maintained at the highest point, high rates of speed could not have been kept up, the advantages of the multitubular boiler afterwards invented could never have been fairly tested, and locomotives might still have been dragging themselves unwieldily along at little more than five or six miles an hour."[13]

It had been in July of the same year that Gurney had made a journey in his steam-coach from London to Bath and back again, on the main road, at the rate of fifteen miles an hour. This journey, undertaken at the request of the quartermaster-general of the army, was the first long journey at a maintained speed ever made by any locomotive on road or rail.

Mr. Gurney's steam-coach was, of course, provided with the steam-jet.

The _Mirror_ of December 15th, 1827, says: "Mr. Goldsworthy Gurney, whose name is familiar to most of our readers, after a variety of experiments during the last two years, has completed a steam-carriage on a new principle. We have accordingly introduced the annexed engraving, which will enable our readers to enter into the details of the machinery. First as to its safety, upon which point the public are most sceptical. In the present invention it is stated that even from the bursting of the boiler there is not the most distant chance of mischief to the passengers. The boiler is tubular, and upon a plan totally distinct from anything previously in use.... The weight of the carriage and its apparatus is estimated at 1-1/2 tons, and its wear and tear of the road, as compared with a carriage drawn by four horses, is as one to six. When the carriage is in progress the machinery is not heard. The engine has a 12-horse power, but may be increased to 16; while the actual horse-power in use, except in ascending a hill, is but eight horses.... Mr. Gurney has already secured a patent for his invention; but he has our best wishes for permanent success."

Sir Charles Dance in 1831 ran a steam-coach of Gurney's make between Gloucester and Cheltenham five times a day for four months, and during this time carried three thousand passengers some four thousand miles, without a single accident occurring.

There seemed to be every prospect of the steam-carriage superseding the mail-coach, and indeed of private gentlemen setting up their Gurney steam-carriages, as now they run their motors. But trustees of roads, coach-proprietors, coachmen, and other interested persons formed a strong body of opposition. How violent this was may be judged from the fact that on one occasion a pile of stones eighteen inches high was thrown across the road, and in struggling through it the axle of the coach was broken.

But prejudice and dullness are mighty powers.

How little, mark! that portion of the ball,
Where, faint at best, the beams of Science fall;
Soon as they dawn, from Hyperborean skies
Embody'd dark, what clouds of Vandals rise!

Parliament interfered. Tolls on highways were raised to a prohibitive rate, so that the running of steam-conveyances was brought to a standstill. A committee of the House of Commons, appointed in 1831 to inquire into the matter, reported "that the steam-carriage was one of the most important improvements in the means of internal communication ever introduced; that its practicability had been fully established; and that the prohibitory clauses against its use ought to be immediately repealed." The committee recommended that the Turnpike Act should be repealed. It ascertained that upon the Liverpool and Prescot road Mr. Gurney would be charged £2 8s., while a loaded stage-coach would have to pay 4s. On the Bath road the same carriage would be charged £1 7s. 1d., while a coach drawn by four horses would pay 5s. On the Ashburton and Totnes road Mr. Gurney would have to pay £2, while a coach drawn by four horses would be charged only 3s. On the Teignmouth and Dawlish road the proportion was 12s. to 2s.

The Report of the Committee on Steam-Carriages, ordered to be printed by the House of Commons, 12th October, 1831, was reasonable and just. It reported:--

"Besides the carriages already mentioned, 'twenty or forty others are being built by different persons, all of which have been occasioned by his (Mr. Gurney's) decided journey in 1829.'

"The committee have great pleasure in drawing the attention of the House to the evidence of Mr. Farey. He states that he has no doubt whatever but that a steady perseverance in such trials will lead to the general adoption of steam-carriages; and again, that what has been done proves the practicability of impelling stage-coaches by steam on good common roads, without horses, at a speed of eight or ten miles an hour.

"Much, of course, must remain to be done in improving their efficacy; yet Mr. Gurney states that he has kept up steadily the rate of twelve miles per hour; that the extreme rate at which he has run is between twenty and thirty miles per hour.

"The several witnesses have estimated the probable saving of expense to the public, from the substitution of steam power for that of horses, at from one-half to two-thirds. Mr. Farey gives, as his opinion, that steam-coaches will very soon after their establishment be run for one-third of the cost of the present stage-coaches.

"Sufficient evidence has been adduced to convince your committee--

"That carriages can be propelled by steam on common roads at an average rate of ten miles per hour.

"That they can ascend and descend hills of considerable inclination with facility and safety.

"That they are perfectly safe for passengers.

"That they are not nuisances to the public.

"That they will become a speedier and cheaper mode of conveyance than carriages drawn by horses.

"That such carriages will cause less wear of roads than coaches drawn by horses.

"That rates of toll have been imposed on steam-carriages, which would prohibit their being used on several lines of road, were such charges permitted to remain unaltered."

But the House of Commons would not listen to the recommendations of its committee, and the employment of motors as means of locomotion on roads was postponed till the present age, when again dullness did its best to impede the adoption and to drive the manufacture out of England to France.

Mr. Goldsworthy Gurney was in advance of his time, and had to suffer accordingly. The committee had suggested that as the prohibition of steam-coaches on roads was a ruinous blow to Gurney, he should be indemnified with a grant of £16,000. But the Chancellor of the Exchequer refused the grant, and the Bill, after passing the Commons, was thrown out by the Lords.

So the unfortunate Goldsworthy Gurney, after having abandoned his profession, in which he was rapidly gaining a large practice, and after spending £30,000 and five years of toil to perfect his invention, was ruined.

Another of his inventions was the Bude light, at first intended for lighthouses. For this he obtained a patent in 1838. In its first form it consisted of a common Argand oil lamp of rather narrow circular bore and the introduction into the centre of the flame of a jet of oxygen. This was not, however, an original discovery, for it had been employed by Dr. Ure in Glasgow in 1806 or 1807. But it was found to be too expensive for use in lighthouses, nor was the brilliancy of the flame sufficiently heightened to lead the Masters of Trinity House to adopt it.

Mr. Gurney was not discouraged. It had long been known that by dissecting a flame of the compound jet of hydrogen and oxygen upon a bit of clay a most vivid illumination was set forth. But Mr. Gurney substituted lime for clay as less liable to disintegration by heat; and he adopted the Argand lamp with an improvement such as had been suggested and adopted from Fresnel. This consisted in a lamp composed of a series of four, five, or six concentric wicks on the same plane, supplied with oil from a fountain below by means of a pump; and he obtained a second patent in 1839. He next applied his principle to gas, purified in a peculiar manner, and burned in compound Argand lamps, consisting of two or more concentric rings perforated with rows of holes in their upper surfaces, having intervals between the rings for the admission of an upward rush of air to maintain a high incandescence. The intensity and whiteness of the light thus produced by the combustion of coal-gas surpassed anything hitherto discovered till the production of the mantle-burner.

It was he, moreover, who proposed the flash-light for lighthouses, as a means by which seamen might identify lighthouses. He proposed that a powerful light should be made by periodic flashes to correspond with the number of the lighthouse, and that every lighthouse along the coast should have a registered number, so that the number of flashes per minute should represent the lighthouse.

Gurney was present at Sir W. Snow Harris's experiment on Somerset House terrace with wire for ships' lightning-conductors. Turning to Sir Anthony Carlisle, in reference to the magnetic needle which, as he observed, made starts on meeting the poles of a galvanic battery, he said with the inspiration of genius, "Here is an element which may, and I foresee will, be made the means of intelligible communication."

Whilst engaged at the Surrey Institution he invented the oxyhydrogen blow-pipe. Before this was introduced the risk of accident was so great that recourse was seldom had to oxyhydrogen.

Gurney applied his steam-jet to other purposes than propelling locomotives and exciting the ardour of furnaces in ironworks. By its means he extinguished the fire of a burning coal-mine at Astley, in Lancashire, and in 1849 another at Clackmannan, where the bed of coal had been burning for over thirty years. He also employed it for expelling noxious gases from sewers, and planned and superintended in 1849 the ventilation by this means of the pestilential sewer in Friar Street, London, which resisted all other efforts to cleanse it; and he suggested to the metropolitan commissioner of sewers that a steam-jet apparatus should be placed at the mouth of every sewer emptying into the great main sewer by the Thames river-side.

He was employed on the lighting, heating, and ventilation of the old House of Commons, and he held the appointment of superintendent of these functions from 1854 to 1863.

He had remarked that the flame of hydrogen gas caused vibrations that produced musical tones, and in 1823 wrote on "the analogy between chemical and musical combinations." He suggested "an improved finger-keyed musical instrument, in the use of which a performer is enabled to hold or prolong the notes, and to increase or modify the tone at pleasure." In 1825 and 1833 he proposed "certain improvements in musical instruments." He invented a stove, and saw and advocated the advantage of the employment of circulation of hot water for the heating of a building. He advocated the employment of concrete for foundations where there was no rock, and to show that it was possible to build a house upon the sand, he reared the castle at Bude upon concrete floated into the shifting sand above high-water mark. He again was the first to point out and insist on the necessity for there being two shafts to every colliery, so as to maintain a circulation of air.

For several years Mr. Gurney resided at Hanacott Manor, near Launceston, but he had also a house at Reeds, in Poughill by Bude, and the castle at the latter place, which is usually let. He was knighted in 1863--a tardy acknowledgment of his great services and extraordinary ability. The honour came too late to really advantage him. That same year he was stricken with paralysis, and therefore could do nothing in the way of scientific research and invention. He was attended till his death by his only child, a daughter, Miss Anna D. Gurney. He expired at Reeds on the 28th February, 1875, and was buried at Launcells in the graveyard just under the south wall of the nave.

Like Henry Trengrouse, so with Sir Goldsworthy Gurney--a man of genius and perseverance, and one who benefited mankind, received no adequate recognition in his lifetime. May posterity do for him, as for Trengrouse, what his contemporaries denied him. Mr. Smiles vainly endeavoured to refuse to credit him with the invention of the steam-blast; but the writer of his life in the _Dictionary of National Biography_ afforded him tardy justice. "One soweth and another reapeth" is true of all inventors with few exceptions. How much do we owe to Sir Goldsworthy! He was the pioneer of locomotion by motors on our roads, the salvation of many lives by the ventilation of coal-mines; he invented the system of heating mansions by hot water, the flash-light for lighthouses, the steam-blast revolutionizing locomotion by steam; he showed that houses could be built on concrete foundations; he discovered the limelight, the oxyhydrogen blow-pipe: and he was repaid with a barren knighthood when about to be struck down by paralysis.

For his bounty,
There was no winter in't; an autumn 'twas,
That grew the more by reaping.
_Antony and Cleopatra_, v. 2.

FOOTNOTE:

[13] Smiles (S.), _Lives of the Engineers_, Vol. III, p. 100. London, 1862.

THE JANES

The family of Jane, descended from the ancient family of Janes of Worcestershire, was settled in Cornwall at an early date. It bore as its arms, arg. a lion rampant az. between 3 escallops gules. It was settled in S. Winnow early in the sixteenth century, and at the beginning of the following century was at Lanhydrock and at Liskeard, at which latter place Thomas Jane was mayor in 1621. His son Joseph Jane was M.P. for Liskeard in 1625 and 1640, and was mayor in 1631, 1635, and 1636. He married Loveday, daughter of William Kekewich, in 1633. He was a whole-hearted Royalist, and when the King was at Oxford, in 1643, he attended him there. In the following year he was one of the Royal Commissioners in Cornwall, and when Charles I came to Cornwall, in 1644, he entertained him in August in his house at Liskeard.

During 1645 and 1646 he carried on a correspondence with Edward Hyde, afterwards Earl of Clarendon, on the condition of the Royalist cause in Cornwall. Liskeard had fallen into the hands of the Parliamentarians, but Sir Ralph Hopton defeated Ruthven on Braddock Down on January 19th, 1643, and recovered Liskeard for the King. Ruthven fled to Saltash, which he fortified with much expedition.

When the Royal cause was lost the vengeance of the Parliament fell on Joseph Jane, and he was nearly ruined by the heavy composition he was forced to pay. In 1650, and again in 1654, he was named Clerk of the Royal Council, but it was an empty honour; Charles II could pay nothing, and the Council could only grumble and plot.

Jane attempted to answer Milton's Εικονοκλαστης in a work, Εικων ακλαστος the Unbroken Image, but it was a poor performance. It was published in 1651; Hyde says, however, in a letter to Secretary Nicholas, "the King hath a singular good esteem both of Joseph Jane and of his book."

He had a son, William Jane, baptized at Liskeard, 22nd October, 1645, who was educated at Westminster School, elected student of Christ Church, Oxford, 1660, and graduated B.A. in 1664, and M.A. in 1667, and D.D. in 1674. After his ordination he was appointed lecturer at Carfax. He attracted the attention of Henry Compton, who became Canon of Christ Church in 1669, by his sturdy loyalty and orthodoxy; and when Compton became Bishop of Oxford, he chose Jane to preach the sermon at his consecration, and he appointed him one of his chaplains.

In 1670 he became Canon of Christ Church, and was given the living of Winnington in Essex. In 1679 he received a prebendal stall in S. Paul's Cathedral and the archdeaconry of Middlesex. In May, 1680, he was appointed Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford. This rapid promotion was due in part to the staunch loyalty of his father and the losses of his family on that account, but also to his cool, businesslike abilities, and to his learning, which though not profound was good.

In July, 1683, he framed the Oxford declaration in favour of Passive Obedience, and committed the University to an opinion which subsequent events were calculated to stultify.

As Green says: "The Cavaliers who had shouted for the King's return, had shouted also for the return of a free Parliament. The very Chief Justice who asserted at the trial of the Regicides, the general freedom of the King from any responsibility to the Nation, asserted just as strongly that doctrine of ministerial responsibility, against which Charles the First had struggled. It was the desire of every royalist to blot out the very memory of the troubles in which monarchy and freedom had alike disappeared, to take up again, as if it had never been broken, the thread of our political history. But the point at which even royalists took it up was not at the moment of the Tyranny, but at the moment of the Long Parliament's first triumph, when that Tyranny had been utterly undone. In his wish to revive this older claim of the Crown, which the Long Parliament had for ever set aside, the young King found himself alone. His closest adherents, his warmest friends, were constitutional royalists of the temper of Falkland and Culpepper. Partisans of an absolute monarchy, of such a monarchy as his grandfather had dreamed of and his father had for a few years carried into practice, there now were none."

The clergy in advocating passive obedience were actuated by the sense of the miseries through which England had passed during the Great Rebellion--better to submit under protest than to fly to arms again, better certainly to submit even to what was deemed an injustice or inexpedient, when the Crown was hedged about with restrictions, and when the ministers of the Crown were responsible to the nation. There was, however, a noisy and vehement party that went much beyond this, and one Filmer had worked the theory of Divine Right of the Sovereign into a system, that was accepted by the more crazy and immoderate of the old Tory party, mainly among the clergy; and the Oxford declaration went a long way in this direction. Men were beating about for a theory on which to base Government by a King, they had not grasped the truth that the King represents the people, just as does a President in a Republic, but with the superaddition of Divine ratification and imparted grace for the task of ruling, by unction and coronation. That the Kings of England had ever been elected, and that coronation was the confirmation by God, through the Church, of the choice of the people, had been forgotten through the prevalence of feudal ideas in the Middle Ages. Filmer propounded his doctrine that the Divine Right rested in primogeniture, and the rabid Tories, looking out for a theory, snatched at this for want of a better.

On the very day on which Russell was put to death, the University of Oxford adopted by a solemn public act, drawn up by Jane, this strange doctrine, and ordered the political works of Buchanan, Milton, and Baxter to be publicly burned in the court of the schools.

James II, in hopes of winning the Earl of Rochester to join the Papal Church, desired a disputation between some Roman divines and some of the Church of England, making no doubt that the former would be able to confound the latter. The King bade Rochester to choose English divines, excluding two only, Tillotson and Stillingfleet, dreading the latter as a consummate master of all controversial weapons. Rochester selected Simon Patrick and Jane. The conference took place at Whitehall on November 13th, 1686, but no auditor was suffered to be present save the King.

"The subject discussed," says Macaulay, "was the Real Presence. The Roman Catholic divines took on themselves the burden of the proof. Patrick and Jane said little, nor was it necessary that they should say much; for the Earl himself undertook to defend the doctrine of his Church, and, as was his habit, soon warmed with the conflict, lost his temper, and asked with great vehemence whether it was expected that he should change his religion on such frivolous grounds."

In 1685 Jane had been appointed to the deanery of Gloucester. He resigned the archdeaconry of Middlesex in 1686, but retained the canonries of Christ Church and S. Paul's till his death.

In 1688 James II had fled the kingdom, and the English nation and Parliament had accepted William and Mary as King and Queen of England.

The whole fabric of Divine Right had crumbled to the ground. James had reduced the theory to a _reductio ad impossibile_. This even the lay cavaliers had recognized. "A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still," and it was so with the more fanatical Tories among the clergy. They refused to take the oath of allegiance to William and Mary, and were thrust out of their cathedral thrones and stalls and livings, and joined the sect of the Nonjurors.

But Jane was not one of them. He had the good sense to acknowledge that the theory he had taken up with some ardour was as impracticable as it was absurd. It was cast in his teeth that he changed his opinion because he desired to retain his benefices. One need not take this view of his conduct. He sought William of Orange at Hungerford, and assured him of the adhesion of the University of Oxford. His enemies said that he hinted at the same time his readiness to accept the vacant bishopric in return for his services in securing this sign of devotion. But nothing is more easy than to make such an accusation, and there is no proof that he did this. However, the fact that the framer of the Oxford declaration should have thrown over the principles advocated therein, laid him open to attack, and a shower of epigrams fell on him. His name Jane gave good opportunity to the wits to liken him to Janus, who looked two ways at once. But he showed no further desire to court the favour of William, and he opposed the projects for Comprehension favoured by the latitudinarians, Tillotson and Burnet. In 1689 two Bills had been introduced into Parliament, a Toleration and a Comprehension Bill. The former was to grant facilities of worship to the Puritans and other Dissenters; the other was a Bill for altering the creed and the formulas and ceremonies of the Church, removing from them whatever might be distasteful to the Dissenters, so that all excuse might be taken from them for separating themselves from the Church. Both the King and Tillotson, who all knew was destined by the King to be Archbishop of Canterbury, and Burnet, Bishop of Salisbury, were eager to get both passed. Tillotson was so latitudinarian that his churchmanship was nebulous. Burnet was the son of a Covenanter who had been hanged, had been brought up in Presbyterianism, had found satisfaction in the ministry of Calvanist pastors in Holland, and had not the faintest conception of the principles of the Church or of its true organization.

The Earl of Nottingham advocated the Comprehension Bill and drafted both. The Toleration Bill passed both Houses with little debate. But it was otherwise with the Comprehension Bill. The first clause in this dispensed all the ministers in the Church from the necessity of subscribing the Thirty-nine Articles. Then it was provided that any minister who had been ordained after the Presbyterian fashion might be eligible to any benefice in the Church without ordination by the bishop.

Then followed clauses providing that a clergyman might wear the surplice or not as he thought fit; it left the sign of the cross optional in baptism; and provided that the Eucharist need not be received kneeling. The concluding clause was drawn in the form of a petition; it was proposed that the two Houses should request the King and the Queen to issue a commission empowering thirty divines of the Church of England to revise the liturgy, the canons, and the constitution of the ecclesiastical courts, and to recommend such alterations as might seem to them desirable.