CHAP. XIV. NEW ENGINEERS. 291 



eager for a participation in the good which they had so 

 recently derided. Eailway projects were set on foot in 

 great numbers, and Manchester became a centre from 

 which main lines and branches were started in all 

 directions. The interest, however, which attaches to 

 these later schemes is of a much less absorbing kind 

 than that which belongs to the early history of the rail- 

 way and the steps by which it was mainly established. 

 TVe naturally sympathise more keenly with the early 

 struggles of a great principle, its trials and its diffi- 

 culties, than with its after stages of success ; and, 

 however gratified and astonished we may be at its 

 consequences, the interest is in a great measure gone 

 when its triumph has become a matter of certainty. 



The commercial results of the Liverpool and Man- 

 chester line were so satisfactory, and indeed so greatly 

 exceeded the expectations of its projectors, that many 

 of the abandoned projects of the speculative year 1825 

 were forthwith revived. An abundant crop of engineers 

 sprang up, ready to execute railways of any extent. 

 Now that the Liverpool and Manchester line had been 

 made, and the practicability of working it by locomotive 

 power had been proved, it was as easy for engineers to 

 make railways and to work them, as it was for navi- 

 gators to find America after Columbus had made the 

 first voyage. George Stephenson had shown the way, 

 and engineers forthwith crowded after him full of great 

 projects. Mr. Francis Giles himself took the field as a 

 locomotive railway engineer, attaching himself to the 

 Newcastle and Carlisle and London and Southampton 

 projects. Mr. Brunei appeared, in like manner, as the en- 

 gineer of the line projected between London and Bristol ; 

 and Mr. Braithwaite, the builder of the " Novelty " 

 engine, as the engineer of a line from London to 

 Colchester. 



The first lines, however, which were actually con- 

 structed subsequent to the opening of the Liverpool and 



u 2 



