NASMYTH, JAMES. 



NASSAU, HOUSE OF. 



at first welcomed by him, but it served to afford the usual branches of 

 elementary education though by his skilful use of pen aud ink in 

 pictorial and artistic illustrations on the margins of the ' classics!' he 

 often purchased from his monitor?, exemption from the exercise of the 

 day whilst ' steels ' for striking lights, which he had forged over night 

 out of old files, judiciously d-alt out, " commanded the services " in 

 his tasks of any of his schoolfellows. One of his favourite companions 

 was the son of an iron-founder, whose yard, Uttered over with the 

 debrii of obsolete machinery, formed perhaps the best school for a 

 boy of a scientific aud practical turn. Here the young engineer also 

 could observe the chief operations in casting aud forging metals, and 

 bringing them into the forms of their mechanical application ; aud 

 here also his observation gave him the mechanism of many a device oi 

 pipes, wheels, aud pinions, which, if applied sometimes in the way of 

 mischief, was not less the useful medium of instruction for his future 

 pursuits. Another of his associates was the son of a colour-manu- 

 facturer, and this led to the study of practical chemistry iu the labo- 

 ratory of the works. The companions made it a rule to employ no 

 substance (such as acid or alkali) in their experiments, which they had 

 not themselves formed from its elements; aud if this was in one respect 

 a round-about method of proceeding, it perhaps gave the best ground- 

 work, and the habit of facility, in experimental research. The in^titu- 

 tion of the School of Arts afforded Mr. Naauiyth the opportunity for 

 studying the principles as well as the practice of various branches of 

 science ; and after four years spent there, he joiued the University 

 classes, whereat his diligence procured him the friendship of tho emi- 

 nent men who were then profes.-ors. Leslie indeed availed himself of 

 Mr. Nasmyth's practical skill in the construction of the apparatus 

 required in some of his investigations in natural philosophy. Mean- 

 while, the fine arts were not forgotten ; and Mr. Nasmytu acquired a 

 power of readily delineating objects, such as would be another of the 

 mo-t valuable qualifications for the mechanical engineer. 



The construction of steam-carriages to run ou common roads was 

 about this time the great engineering problem, aud Mr. Nasmyth made 

 a small locomotive of simple construction, in which the draught was 

 obtained by the waste steam tent up the chimney this arrangement 

 forming peibaps the earliest application of a now vital principle in 

 locomotive engines. This subject occupied Mr. Nasmyth the greater 

 part of the years 1827 and 1828. The cost out of pocket was under 701. 

 .Mr. Nasmyth then proceeded to London with the object of gaming 

 admittance into the establishment of Messrs. Maudsley and Co. A 

 difficulty with him was the premium, but armed with a cargo of 

 steam-engine models and mechanical drawings which he had brought, 

 be at once was able to show that he was worth what he asked for the 

 moderate pay of 15s. a week. With Maudsley and Co. he continued 

 from 1829 as private workman or assistant to Mr. Maudsley, till the 

 death of the latter in 1832, when he returned to Edinburgh. His 

 object now was to construct a stock of tools and machinery, iu which 

 preparatory work he was occupied till the end of 1831, when he 

 visited Liverpool and Manchester to inquire into the probable open- 

 ing for a small engineering establishment, aud deciding iu favour 

 of the latter town, be took one floor of an old cotton-mill, with the 

 use of two horse power supplied from the engine of his landlords 

 at a distance. Here he brought the results of his two years' labours 

 in Edinburgh, got employed, and by 1835 had such an accumulation 

 of machinery in progress of construction that the door of his room 

 failed, and ho had " notice to quit." On the evening of that same 

 day he visited a site (which he had fixed bis eye upon in 1830) at 

 Patricroft, a few miles from Manchester, and which now had the 

 advantage of immediately adjoining both the Bridgewater Canal and 

 the Manchester and Liverpool Railway ; and two days afterwards he 

 obtained a lease of it for 999 years. Timber was bought and sawn at 

 Liverpool, and a temporary workshop, sufficient to complete the work 

 in hand, was run up. The Bridgewater Foundry, on the site, soon 

 appeared as a group of buildings somewhat superior in their architec- 

 tural effect, at that day, to what was the common character of such 

 manufactories ; a successfully resisted turn-out helped to the advantage 

 of the new undertaking ; and speedily, by excellence of workmanship 

 and a number of successful inventions, the concern (which was for a 

 ahrt time known as that of " Nasmytb, Gaskell, and Co.") made the 

 name of its author widely known, and yielded him other and sub- 

 stantial reaultn. With these latter he was enabled to retire from 

 commercial affairs at the end of the year 1856, hoping to devote the 

 rest of his days to the pursuit of art and science, aud to those inves- 

 tigations for which his training has made him so wrll fitted. 



Amongst the inventions of Mr. Nasmytb, the two which have been 

 named at the head of this notice are perhaps tho most important. 

 Though very different as to the form, the machines are applications of 

 the tame principle. By the steam-hammer a vast increase of concussive 

 force can be applied to the forging of iron, whilst the hammer is under 

 such control, that with the greatest ' momentum ' it can bo arrested 

 at any point as easily as the lightest instrument used by band. One 

 especial advantage iu the case of the pile-driver, is the immense saving 

 which it effects in time, it being now possible to drive a pile in a 

 mere fraction of the time formerly needed in tho process of working 

 machine by hand. But thin is not all. There is not that destruc- 

 tion of the heads of the piles which formerly was the cause of much 

 trouble and frequent renewals. Thus the invention has contributed 



greatly to the speedy and successful completion of the chief harbour 

 works of late years. 



Some years ago, Mr. Naemyth put forth a very simple but ingenious 

 suggestion, as to a method which was perhaps used in forming the letters 

 of the old arrow-headed inscriptions, which he showed might all ba 

 made witU the greatest facility by one three-sided tool or ' stylus,' held 

 and pressed on the soft clay at various angles of inclination. Practical 

 astronomy has also much engaged his attention; and he has constructed 

 for his own use telescopes of considerable power, by which he has 

 pursued investigations into the physical structure of the moon ; and 

 those investigations have received the approbation of eminent astrono- 

 mers, and the deductions in elucidation of some of the chief cosmic, J 

 laws of the universe, have been published in most of the scientific 

 journals in Europe and America. 



NASSAU, HOUSE OF, an ancient and illustrious German family, 

 which having distinguished itself throughout Europe, during the 16th 

 and 1 7th centuries, in the cause of civil and religious liberty, has in 

 our own times attained the regal title with the sovereignty of the 

 Netherlands. The counts of Nassau on the Rhine had, iu the middle 

 ages, acquired sufficient power at one period to dispute the pre-emi- 

 nence with the House of Austria, and to give a sovereign (Adolphus of 

 Nassau, elected emperor in 1292) and five ecclesiastical electors to 

 the German empire. Early in the 16th century the family of Nassau 

 obtained, through marriage and bequest, the French principality of 

 Orange in Provence, from whence their most celebrated title has been 

 derived : but the possession of several large domains and hereditary 

 dignities in the Netherlands had meanwhile numbered the counts of 

 Nassau among the vassals whom the House of Austria gained by the 

 marriage of Maximilian with Mary of Burgundy ; and William I. of 

 Nassau, prince of Orange, the true founder of the glories of his race, 

 was the subject of the emperor Charles V. Besides William I., the 

 most remarkable personages of his house were his son Maurice, the 

 ablest general of his age, aud his great-grandson William III., stadt- 

 hoider of the United Provinces aud king of England ; the lives of each 

 of these three individuals will claim a separate notice. 



I. WILLIAM I. OF ORANGE was born in the year 1533, at Dillenburg 

 in Nassau. His father having embraced the reformed doctrines, he 

 was at first educated in those principles ; but the emperor Charles V., 

 who early interested himself in his fate, removed him to his court, 

 and had him brought up in the Roman Catholic faith. The emperor, 

 who ii said to have foreseen and predicted the great statesman iu the 

 boy, placed him about his person, allowed him alone to be present 

 when he gave audience to foreign ambassadors, and soon honoured 

 him with a confidence far above his years. William merited his 

 favour by a discretion which had already obtained for him his famoua 

 surname of ' The Silent ; ' and the-emperor did not blush publicly to 

 avow, that to so young a man he had often be. u indebted for sugges- 

 tions which had escaped his own sagacity. In the last solemn act of 

 his public life, wheu ho abdicated his throne to his sou Philip II., 

 Charles leant on the shoulder of William of Orange ; aud to him also, 

 still only iu his twenty-third year, the retiring monarch committed 

 the honourable mission of delivering over his imperial crown to his 

 brother Ferdinand. 



The esteem of Charles seems to have been sufficient of itself to 

 excite the jealousy and distrust of his son ; and, from the commence- 

 ment of Philip's reign, William became to that gloomy and suspicious 

 despot an object of hatred and fear, which he repaid with deep though 

 dissembled indignation. The state of religion iu the Netherlands 

 enabled him to convert those provinces into a theatre of action for 

 projects which have been variously attributed to his patriotism or 

 revenge, but which perhaps may with more probability be ascribed to 

 the mixed motives that usually influence human conduct. While his 

 benefactor Charles was on the throne, William had adhered to tho 

 Imperial creed ; but after the abdication of that monarch we find him 

 embracing Calvinism with the same facility with which he had in 

 earlier years deserted the Lutheran for the Roman Catholic faith. 

 This last transition was yet undecided or unknown wheu he was 

 re*ident at the court of France as a hostage for the peace of Gateau- 

 Cambresis ; and the French kin?, Henri II., believing him to be as 

 deep iu the confidence of Philip II. as he had been in that of Charles 

 V., incautiously spoke to him of the secret treaty which the crowns 

 of France aud Spain had recently concluded for the extirpation of the 

 Protestants in the dominion of both. 



This disclosure had a double consequence ; for William hastened to 

 communicate it to the leaders of the Protestant party in Brussels, and 

 Philip II. discovered that he had given the information. The existence 

 of this treaty aud its detection served to increase the antipathy 

 between William and his sovereign ; but the dissimulation which 

 belonged to their characters in common long prevented any. open rup- 

 ture, and for several years, while the Netherlands remained under the 

 feeble administration of Margaret of Parma, the Prince of Orange, 

 as a member of the Flemish council of state, and as stallholder of 

 Holland, Zealand, and Utrecht, covertly but iudefatigably employed 

 lituaelf in undermining the tyrannical designs of Philip. At length 

 ihe approach of the energetic and sanguinary Duke of Alva, to whom 

 Philip had transferred tho government of the Netherlands from tho 

 hands of Margaret of Parma, warned William that it was time to 

 throw off the mask ; and ho avoided tho tragical f.ito of his friends, 



