JAMES BRINDLEY. 71 



canals together have cost for three-quarters of a century. If 

 Brindley had never Uved, we should undoubtedly ere now 

 have been in possession of much of this accommodation ; for 

 the time was ripe for its introduction, and an increasing 

 commerce, everywhere seeking vent, could not have failed, 

 ere long, to have struck out for itself, to a certain extent, 

 these new facilities. But had it not been for the example 

 set by his adventurous genius, the progress of artificial naviga- 

 tion among us would probably have been timid and slow 

 compared to what it has been. For a long time, in all likeli- 

 hood, our only canals would have been a few small ones, 

 cut in the more level parts of the country, like that substituted 

 in 1755 for the Sankey Brook, the bene% of each of which 

 would have been extremely insignificant and confined to a 

 very narrow neighbourhood. He did, in the very infancy 

 of the art, what has not yet been undone, struggling, indeed, 

 with such difficulties, and triumphing over them, as could be 

 scarcely exceeded by any his successors might have to 

 sncounter. By the boldness and success with which, in 

 particular, he carried the Grand Trunk Navigation across 

 the elevated ground of the Midland Counties, he demonstrated 

 that there was hardly any part of the island where a canal 

 might not be formed ; and, accordingly, this very central 

 ridge, which used to be deemed so insurmountable an obstacle 

 to the junction of our opposite coasts, is now intersected by 

 more than twenty canals beside the one which he first drove 

 through the barrier. It is in the conception and accomplish- 

 ment of such grand and fortunate deviations from ordinary 

 practice that we discern the power, and confess the value, 

 of original genius. The case of Brindley affords us a wonder- 

 ful example of what the force of natural talent will sometimes 



