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ART. V.-MATTHEW BOULTON.

N his 'Lives of Boulton and Watt,'* Mr. Smiles has supplied materials heretofore inaccessible to the public, for an appreciation not only of the large credit due to Matthew Boulton for his share in conferring on the world, in a practical shape, the priceless invention of the steam engine, but also of the sterling excellence of character by which he was distinguished in his day. To James Watt's wonderful inventive genius, and to his many good qualities as a man, justice has been done by previous writers, and his fame was not susceptible of aggrandisement by Mr. Smiles. But of Matthew Boulton we now know much that has heretofore been nonapparent, and the story of his life, as told by Mr. Smiles, proves to contain so much to interest lovers of noble character and of practical capacity, that it will be well worth while to place a condensation of it before the readers of 'Meliora.'

Matthew Boulton was a Birmingham man, born in that town in 1728, educated in Deritend, and early introduced into his father's business as a silver stamper and piecer, and manufacturer of light metal goods. As a boy he was bright and clever, a general favourite with his companions. As a youth, he of his own will carried on the studies begun at school-Latin and French, drawing and mathematics, and was not daunted by chemistry and mechanics. His taste for science and languages did not desert him in after life, nor did it prevent him from engaging in business with much spirit. At seventeen years of age he had introduced several important improvements in the manufacture of buttons, watch chains, and other trinkets, and had invented the inlaid steel buckles which soon afterwards became the fashion. As soon as he came of age, his father, having all confidence in his discretion and value, took him into partnership, and allowed him thenceforward to be almost sole manager of the business.

In business, sterling excellence was Matthew Boulton's resolutely chosen ideal. At that time 'Brummagem' was a word for all that was unsound, base, and counterfeit in manufacture, and gaudy, vulgar, and meretricious in design. Matthew Boulton's soul revolted at this degradation, and he set himself to wipe away this reproach, as far as one manufacturer could do it. With this view he engaged the best artists to design, and the most skilful artisans to manufacture. He aimed at producing at once honest and reliable goods, and goods well thought out and beautiful.

Lives of Boulton and Watt.' Principally from the original Soho_MSS., comprising also a History of the Invention and Introduction of the Steam Engine. By Samuel Smiles, Author of Industrial Biography,' &c. London: John Murray, Albemarle-street.

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A large property fell to Matthew Boulton on the death of his father, in 1759. In the following year, at thirty-two years of age, his good looks, his handsome presence, and his noble disposition won him to wife Anne, daughter of Luke Robinson, Esq., of Lichfield, notwithstanding opposition from the lady's friends. At this time he might have retired from business, but for him to be busy was to be happy, and he had a talent for organising and conducting a large concern, which would not let him quit the career of a captain of industry. Instead of retiring from trade, he resolved to engage in it more extensively. He would found a manufactory first in rank of its kind, fit to be a model for the rest. About two miles north of Birmingham he selected a property suitable for the erection of a water mill on a large scale, and having built this, and removed thither the whole of his plant, he thus originated the famous Soho Manufactory.

His business had been large at Snow Hill, Birmingham; at Soho it became gigantic. In filagree and inlaid work, in livery and other buttons, in buckles, clasps, watch chains, and various kinds of ornamental metal wares, in silver plate and plated goods, candlesticks, urns, brackets, and various ormolu articles, he established a large business with many of the principal towns and cities of Europe. Boulton organised and managed, invented, and pushed the home trade, while his partner, Fothergill, conducted the foreign agencies. "The prejudice that Birmingham hath so justly established against itself makes every fault conspicuous in all articles that have the least pretensions to taste. How can I expect the public to countenance rubbish from Soho, while they can procure sound and perfect work from any other quarter?' Thus wrote Boulton to his partner. He frequently went to London for the express purpose of reading and of making drawings of rare works in metal in the British Museum; he bought rare objects of art at sales; he borrowed antique vases, candlesticks, and articles in metal from members of the nobility, and even from the Queen, and had casts and copies taken from them for use in his manufactory. Lord Shelburne wrote to Mr. Adams, the architect: Mr. Boulton is the most enterprising man in different ways in Birmingham, and is very desirous of cultivating Mr. Adams's taste in his productions, and has bought his Dioclesian, by Lord Shelburne's advice.' Not limiting his field of discovery to this island, Boulton searched Venice, Rome, and other cities on the continent for the best specimens and models, and these, when got, he strove to equal, if not to excel. The Hon. Mrs. Montagu wrote to him, I take greater pleasure in our victories over the French

in the contention of arts than of arms. The achievements of Soho, instead of making widows and orphans, make marriages and christenings. Your noble industry, while elevating the public taste, provides new occupations for the poor, and enables them to bring up their families in comfort. Go on, sir, to triumph over the French in taste, and to embellish your country with useful inventions and elegant productions.' The royal family were amongst his warm patrons, and more than once had him at the palace. Before many years had passed, Soho was spoken of with pride as one of the best schools of skilled industry in England; and princes, philosophers, artists, poets, merchants, from France, from Russia, from Norway, from Spain, as well as from all parts of Britain, were amongst the eager visitors to the Soho Manufactory.

All along, however keen his eye for business, Boulton regarded character as better than gain, and excellence than profit. He would have no connection with any discreditable transaction. To make base money for foreign orders was an every-day thing amongst the Birmingham manufacturers; he spurned such orders with indignation. He wrote to his Paris agent, I will do anything short of being common informer against particular persons, to stop the malpractices of the Birmingham coiners.' He was as ready to do business, on reasonable terms, he said, as any other person, but he would not undersell, for to run down prices would be to run down. quality, which could only have the effect of undermining confidence, and eventually ruining the trade.' He would not deprive rival employers of their workmen ; 'I have had many offers and opportunities of taking your people, whom I could, with convenience to myself, have employed, but it is a practice I abhor.' He was often asked to take gentlemen apprentices into his works, but declined to receive them, though hundreds of pounds premium would have been given. He preferred to employ the humbler class of boys, whom he could train up as skilled workmen; and besides, 'I have,' said he, built and furnished a house for the reception of one kind of apprenticesfatherless children, parish apprentices, and hospital boys; and gentlemen's sons would probably find themselves out of place in such companionship.'

In 1770, his business, the largest hardware manufactory in the world,' was still growing, and his works and plant were absorbing more capital-much more, indeed, than he had at command, except by borrowing. In a letter to Mr. Adams, requesting him to prepare the design of a new saleroom in London, he described the manufactory at Soho as in full progress, from 700 to 800 persons being employed as metallic

artists,

artists, and workers in tortoiseshell, stones, glass, and enamel. 'I have almost every machine,' he said, that is applicable to those arts; I have two water mills employed in rolling, polishing, grinding, and turning various sorts of lathes. I have trained up many, and am training up more plain country lads into good workmen, and wherever I find indications of skill and ability I encourage them. I have likewise established correspondence with almost every mercantile town in Europe, and am thus regularly supplied with orders for the grosser articles in common demand, by which I am enabled to employ such a number of hands as to provide me with an ample choice of artists for the finer branches of work, and I am thereby encouraged to erect and employ a more extensive apparatus than it would be prudent to provide for the production of the finer articles only.'

Yet, whilst thus eagerly at work, he found time for prosecuting the study of several branches of practical science. He studied geology, collecting fossils and minerals in a museum; he read and experimented on 'fixed air;' and he studied Newton's works, with the object of increasing the force of projectiles. In 1765 he was trying to work out improvements in gunnery; he proposed the truer boring of guns; the use of a telescopic sight; and of a cylindrical shot with its end of a parabolic form, as presenting, in his opinion, the least resistance to the air. But the subject which, perhaps, more than all interested him, was the improvement of the steam engine. At that time. Newcomen's engine was the most advanced effort of science and art. Worked by atmospheric pressure, and only using steam to produce a vacuum, it was slow, clumsy, and frightfully wasteful of coal, and therefore expensive in action; it was, nevertheless, found serviceable to some extent in the pumping of mines. Boulton was vexed by want of water-power in dry seasons; he had at one time to employ six to ten horses as auxiliaries to his water-wheels, at an expense of from five to eight guineas a week, and this expedient was wretchedly inefficient. This put him upon thinking of turning his mill by fire, and he made many fruitless experiments to that end.

In 1766 he corresponded with the celebrated Benjamin Franklin, a friend of his, as to steam-power. He sent a model to London, where Franklin then was. Dr. Erasmus Darwin wrote him from Lichfield: 'Your model of a steam engine, I am told, has gained so much approbation in London, that I cannot but congratulate you on the mechanical fame you have acquired by it, which, assure yourself, is as great a pleasure to me as it could possibly be to yourself.'

But the scheme of a steam engine that was to extinguish Newcomen's

Newcomen's was to come from the north, in the head of James Watt, its great inventor. Watt's story is well-known. Born in Greenock, in 1736, of a respectable middle-class family; from his earliest years of delicate constitution and weak health; with a talent for inventing and telling narratives, with which he could keep the family circle entranced, hour after hour; with a still more decided bent for mathematics; taught in his father's shop to work in metals, and to repair ships' compasses, quadrants, and musical instruments; and earning his living first as a mathematical instrument maker, afterwards as a surveyor and engineer. It was in 1759 that Watt's attention was first called to the steam engine. His friend Robison declared that steam might be used for the driving of wheel carriages, and suggested the use of the cylinder upside down, so as to dispense with the working beam. Watt began to make a model, but failed. In 1763 a model of the Newcomen engine was placed in his hands; he thought it 'a fine plaything. Its manifest defects set him a-thinking. He pondered, schemed, tried, and failed; he pondered, schemed, tried again and again, and again and again he was baffled, but not beaten. The grand invention-the separation of the steam cylinder and the condenser-came upon him at length in 1765, whilst walking on Glasgow Green. But many long and laborious years were yet required before he could work out the details of the new engine.

Of Watt's partnership with Dr. Roebuck, who vainly endeavoured to help him to bring his invention to bear, and of Roebuck's failure in business, we must not stay to treat. It was Roebuck's mention of Watt and his invention that first induced Boulton to desire to be introduced to him. Watt being in London, in 1767, on the Forth and Clyde Canal Bill business, determined to take Soho on his homeward way. He was shown over the works in Boulton's absence, was much struck with the superior arrangements of the manufactory, and recognised at a glance the admirable power of organisation which they displayed. Soon afterwards Watt was urged to enter into partnership with Boulton, but Watt was now partner with Roebuck, and nothing came of the proposal for some time. In the following year Watt got a patent for his engine, and on his return from London called at Birmingham, and saw his future partner, Boulton, for the first time. At once the two men conceived a hearty liking for each other. They talked much about the engine, and Watt was greatly cheered by the favourable auguries of the sagacious Birmingham manufacturer. Soon afterwards Boulton told a friend of Watt's that, although he had begun to make his own proposed pumping