66 RISEN B V PERSE VERANCE, 



The success with which the Duke of Bridgewater's enterprising 

 plans for the improvement of his property were rewarded, 

 speedily prompted numerous other speculations of a similar 

 description ; and many canals were formed in different parts of 

 the kingdom, in the execution or planning of almost all of 

 which Brindley's services were employed. He himself had 

 become quite an enthusiast in his new profession, as a little 

 anecdote that has been often told of him may serve to show. 

 Having been called on one occasion to give his evidence 

 touching some professional point before a Committee of the 

 House of Commons, he expressed himself, in the course of his 

 examination, with so much contempt of rivers as means of 

 internal navigation, that an honourable member was tempted to 

 ask him for what purpose he conceived rivers to have been 

 created, when Brindley, after hesitating a moment, replied, 

 ' To feed canals.' His success as a builder of aqueducts would 

 appear to have inspired him with almost as fervid a zeal in 

 favour of bridges as of canals, if it be true, as has been asserted, 

 that one of his favourite schemes contemplated the joining of 

 Great Britain to Ireland by a bridge of boats extending from 

 Portpatrick to Donaghadee. This report, however, is alleged 

 to be without foundation by the late Earl of Bridgewater, in a 

 curious work which he published some years ago at Paris, 

 relative to his predecessor's celebrated canal. 



Brindley's multiplied labours and intense application rapidly 

 wasted his strength and shortened his life. He died at 

 Turnhurst, in Staffordshire, on the 27th of September 1772, 

 in the fifty-sixth year of his age, having suffered for some 

 years under a hectic fever which he had never been able 

 to get rid of. In his case, as in that of other active spirits, 

 the soul seems to have 



