142 LOKD STANHOPE. PART VII. 



principal pursuit ; though down to the year 1788 he was 

 chiefly occupied in designing and constructing machinery 

 for dye-works, water-works (at London Bridge amongst 

 others), flour-mills, and rolling-mills, in all of which 

 Boulton and Watt's engine was the motive power em- 

 ployed. 



Among the friends whom Mr. Rennie's practical 

 abilities attracted about this time, was the eccentric 

 but ingenious Earl Stanhope, who frequently visited his 

 works to see what was going on that was new. His 

 Lordship was one of the busiest mechanical projectors of 

 his time, and England owes him a debt of gratitude for 

 his many valuable inventions, one of the most useful of 

 which was the printing-press which bears his name. 

 He also made important improvements in the process of 

 stereotype printing ; in the construction of locks and 

 canals ; and among his lighter efforts may be mentioned 

 the contrivance of an ingenious machine for performing 

 arithmetical operations. He especially delighted in the 

 society of clever mechanics, in whose art he took great 

 pleasure ; indeed, he was himself a first-rate workman, 

 and it was truly said of him by his father-in-law, the 

 Earl of Chatham, that " Charles Stanhope, as a carpenter, 

 a blacksmith, or millwright, could in any country or in 

 any times preserve his independence and bring up his 

 family in honest and industrious courses, without soliciting 

 the bounty of friends or the charity of strangers." Lord 

 Stanhope even insisted that his children should devote 

 themselves to acquire an industrious calling, as he him- 

 self had done, believing that a time of public calamity 

 was approaching (arising from the extension of French 

 revolutionary principles to England), which would render 

 it necessary for them to depend for their livelihood upon 

 their own personal labour and skill. Indeed a serious 

 difficulty occurred between him and his wife on this very 

 point, which ended in a separation ; and the story went 

 abroad that the Earl was crazed. 



