iiAi-. III. THK NKNV KIVKK \VolM\S BBOUN, 109 



no wav to U.' daunted, well-minded gentleman." When 

 all others held back lord mayor, corporation, and 

 eiti/ens Myddelton took courage, and showed what one 

 strong practical man, borne forward by resolute will arid 

 purpose, can do. 



"The dauntless Welshman," says Pennant, in his ex- 

 cusable admiration for his distinguished kinsman of the 

 Principality, " stept forth and smote the rock, and the 

 waters flowed into the thirsting metropolis." Fuller is 

 no less eulogistic in describing the achievement of this 

 genuine English, or Welsh worthy. " If those," says he, 

 " be recounted amongst David's Worthies, who, breaking 

 through the army of the Philistines, fetcht water from 

 the well of Bethlehem to satisfie the longing of David 

 (founded more in fancy than necessity), how meritorious 

 a work did this worthy man perform, who, to quench 

 the thirst of thousands in the populous city of London, 

 fetcht water on his own cost more than 24 miles, en- 

 countering all the way an army of oppositions, grappling 

 with Hills, struggling with Rocks, fighting with Forests, 

 till, in defiance of difficulties, he had brought his project 

 to perfection ! " 1 



Myddelton' a success in life seems to have been attri- 

 butable not less to his quick intelligence than to his 

 laborious application and indomitable perseverance. He 

 had, it is true, failed in his project of finding coal at 

 Denbigh ; but the practical knowledge which he acquired, 

 during his attempt, of the arts of mining and excava- 

 tion, had disciplined his skill and given him fertility of 

 resources, as well as cultivated in him that power of 

 grappling with difficulties, which emboldened him to 

 undertake this great work, more like that of a Roman 

 emperor than of a private London citizen. 



The corporation were only too glad to transfer to him 

 the powers with which they had been invested by tin- 

 legislature, together with the labour, the anxiety, the 



1 Wnrthirs ..I Kn-liinii,' vol. ii., 590. 



