CHAP. V. SMEATON AS A CIVIL ENGINEER, 49 



CHAPTER V. 



MB. SMEATON'S EXTENSIVE EMPLOYMENT AS A CIVIL ENGINEER. 



THE completion of the Eddystone Lighthouse was re- 

 garded as a matter of much interest, and it excited so 

 eager a curiosity on the part of the public, that for 

 some time Mr. Smeatoii's rooms at Gray's Inn were the 

 resort of numerous visitors, who called there for the 

 purpose of inspecting the model of his extraordinary 

 building. This at length so broke in upon his time, that 

 he found it necessary to depute his wife to attend to these 

 curious persons and explain to them the details of the 

 model. But it does not appear that his success led to his 

 extensive employment on engineering works for several 

 years, otherwise it is not probable that we should have 

 found him, in 1764, offering himself a candidate for the 

 vacant office of receiver for the Derwentwater Estates, 

 to which he was appointed about the end of that year. 

 There was as yet, indeed, but small demand for construct- 

 ive skill. The roads were still in a very bad state, bridges 

 were much wanted in most districts, and little had been 

 done to provide harbour accommodation beyond what 

 nature had effected ; but the country was too poor or too 

 spiritless to undertake their improvement on any com- 

 prehensive scale. The industrial enterprise of England 

 had not yet begun ; and the country was content to jog 

 along in its old paths, displaying its energies principally 

 in warfare by land and sea. The victory of Wolfe on 

 the heights of Abraham occurred in the same year that 

 Smeaton completed his lighthouse on the Eddystone, and 

 doubtless excited a far more general interest. It is true 

 the trade and commerce of the country were making 



VOL. II. E 



