WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 443 



By the same Author, Crown 8vo, 7s. 6cl. 



LIFE OF GEORGE STEPHENSON, 



INCLUDING A MEMOIR OF HIS SON ROBERT STEPHENSON. 



Illustrated with Two Steel Portraits, and numerous Engravings 

 on Wood. 



" It is a singular fate that some of the world's greatest benefactors should pass from 

 the world with their history comparatively unnoticed .... and we rightly rejoice 

 when the claims of any of them are vindicated when, from the hidden company of the 

 Brindleys and Watts, men risen from the ranks to do world-wide service, and iuci- 

 dently to be the architects of their country's later greatness, we can obtain the 

 authentic history of such a creator as George Stephenson. It is not too much to say, 

 that by Mr. Smiles, who has performed this office with eminent success, a considerable 

 void is filled up in the page of modern history. We see the vast proportions of our 

 modern achievements, and the epic story of this age of iron, more than half comprised 

 in the feats of its strongest and most successful worker. The worker himself, with his 

 noble simplicity and energy, his zeal for his kind, his native-bom gentleness, and 

 indomitable tenacity, would probably have been eminent in any age or condition of 

 society ; but, in virtue of his actual achievements and the obstacles he surmounted, of 

 his struggles and triumphs, we may designate him a hero, and ask, in defence of this 

 arbitrary title, what real conditions of heroism were wanting?" The Times. 



" We have read this book with umningled satisfaction. We hardly ever remember to 

 have read a biography so thoroughly unaffected. There is no pushing forward of the 

 author himself he never comes between us and his subject. The book is an artless 

 attempt to set out the character and career of one of the most ingenuous, honest, 

 resolute, homely, and kind-hearted of human beings. We thank Mr. Smiles for having 

 made the man walk before us in a most life-like picture. The entire style of the work is 

 unambitious, lucid, thoroughly manly, and good." Saturday Review. 



" We should like to see this biography in the hands of all our young men. One 

 breathes a healthy, bracing atmosphere in reading this book. It sets before us a fine 

 instance of success in life attained purely in the exercise of genuine qualities. There was 



no sham about George Stephenson He was a great and good man, and we can 



give the ' Life ' no higher praise than to say that it is worthy of its subject. Mr. Smiles 

 is so anxious to place the character and career of Stephenson justly before his readers, 

 that he quite forgets himself. .... We do not know that there ever lived an individual 

 to whom each separate inhabitant of Great Britain owes so much of real tangible 

 advantage. " Eraser's Magazine. 



" It is the fate of few men, even of those who are the most signal public benefactors, 

 to be known and appreciated by the generation in which they live. The fame of George 

 Stephenson spread slowly, and, great as it has at last become, we cannot question that 

 it will continue to increase with time. Not only is he a surprising example of a labouroi 

 raising himself to wealth and eminence without one solitary advantage except what he 

 derived from his own genius ; but the direction which that genius took has stamped his 



name upon the most wonderful achievement of our age He died, leaving behind 



him the highest character for simplicity, kindness of heart, and absolute freedom from 

 all sordidness of disposition. His virtues are very beautifully illustrated, and by no 



means exaggerated, in his Life by Mr. Smiles There is scarcely a single page of 



the work which is not suggestive, and cm which it would not be profitable to institute 

 inquiry into the results of past experience as compared with present practice. The 

 whole ground is novel, and of the highest interest." Quarterly Review. 



" The author of the Railway System already adopted in every civilised country, and 

 everywhere bringing forward vast social changes is the real hero of the half-century. 

 This instructive and deeply interesting story of his youth will contribute to keep alive 

 the hopes, incite the perseverance, encourage the industry, and form the mind of after 

 generations. It is one of the tales which ' the world will not willingly let die.' The 

 realities of Stephenson's life, which till now have found no biographer, are more 



astounding than the fancies of even Eastern poets His life is an admirable model 



for youth, supplied by one of the working multitude, while his exertions will help to 

 relieve them from the extraordinary difficulties which he had to surmount." Economist. 



