io WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR 



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OPINIONS OF THE PRESS 



"Mr. Smiles has hit upon a rich vein of ore, and works it with great success. 

 He has the art of biography, which is by no means so easy of attainment as, judg- 

 ing from the number of persons who attempt this species of composition, one 

 would imagine it to be. Memoirs are countless, but the number of biographies 

 that can be accepted as successful works of art are very few indeed. Mr. Smiles is 

 not only a skilful workman, he has chosen a new field of work. Hitherto the 

 great biographies have been written of soldiers and sailors, and statesmen, poets 

 and artists, and philosophers. It would seem as if these only were the great men 

 of the world, as if these only were the benefactors of mankind, whose deeds are 

 worthy of memory. The suspicion has arisen that, after all there may be other 

 herpes than those of the pen, the sceptre, and the sword. There are indeed, men in 

 various walks of life whose footsteps are worthy of being traced ; but surely, con- 

 sidering what England is, and to what we owe most of our material greatness, the 

 lives of our Engineers are peculiarly worthy of being written. ' The true Epic of 

 pur time,' says Mr. Carlyle, ' is not Arms and the man, but Tools and the man an 

 infinitely wider kind of Epic.' Our machinery has been the making of us ; our iron- 

 works have, in spite of the progress of other nations, still kept the balance in our 

 hands. Smith-work in all its branches of engine-making, machine-making, tool- 

 making, cutlery, iron ship-building, iron-working, generally, is our chief glory. 

 England is the mistress of manufactures, and so the queen of the world, because 

 it is the land of Smith ; and Mr. Smiles's biographies are a history of the great 

 family of Smith. Many of the facts which he places before us are wholly new, and 

 are derived from the most likely sources. Thus, Maudslay's partner, Mr. Joshua 

 Field, and his pupil, Mr. Nasmyth, supplied the materials for his biography. Mr. 

 John Penn supplied the chief material for the memoir of Clement." Times. 



" This is not a very large book, but it is astonishing how much individual, con- 

 scientious, and thoroughly original research has been required for its composition, 

 and how much interesting matter it contains which we possess in no other form. 

 Mr. Smiles rescues no name, but many histories, from oblivion. His heroes are 

 known and gratefully remembered for the benefits they have conferred on mankind, 

 but our knowledge of our benefactors has hitherto been mostly confined to our 

 knowledge of the benefit. It was reserved for Mr. Smiles to discover in the work- 

 shop, heroes as true as ever hurled their battalions across a battle-field, and to 

 present us with much - enduring, much -endeavouring, arid brave men, where 

 hitherto we had been content with disembodied, almost meaningless names. The 

 present work is further distinguished, not indeed from its predecessors, but from 

 much of the current literature, by the exquisitely pellucid English, the vigorous 

 but unobtrusive style, in which the narratives are conveyed." Edinburgh Daily 

 Review. 



11 Who has not read Mr. Smiles's ' Lives of the Engineers'? Pleasant volumes, 

 abounding in quaint strange stories of life-struggles, of battles fought and won by 

 mind over stern matter, ay, and more difficult task, over the opposing intellects of 

 men, often envious, and always sceptical. Mr. Smiles has established a world- 

 wide reputation as the champion of the engineer and the inventor. What matter 

 that he sometimes acts the part of knight-errant, and couches his lance in defence 

 of those who have no claim on his services, simply because they appear to enjoy 

 scant justice at the hands of others ? "Mechanics' Magazine. 



