In nine months after this speech, gunpowder is invented, and the art comes up by which round leaden arrows are shot out of cannon, darting fire as they come, and filling the air with smoke.
Anno Domini 1440—The great grandson, or other representative of the above gentleman, exclaims, on some fresh subject of innovation amidst the honours of the laugh.—“A change like that! Why, you might as well say that by-and-by there will be books without being copied out, and that we shall have a hundred of those impossible books in the course of a day.”
Next year the art of printing is invented, which was thought at first a thing magical and devilish, and by which we can now have a thousand copies of a book in a day.
Anno Domini 1534.—The great-great-great-great-grandson or now representative as aforesaid, is treating some other novelty with the usual happy contempt of his race:—“A change like that! Why, you might as well say, that the people will all be permitted to read the Bible, and that nunneries, and even Abbots will be put down!!”—(Shouts of laughter, in which the Reverend Abbots present were observed to join.)
The same year the Bible is printed and read openly, and upwards of six hundred religious houses suppressed.
Anno Domini 1666.—“A change like that!” quoth the representatives, “Why you might as well say that Englishmen will leave off taking a steak and a cold tankard for their breakfast—(A laugh)—or that they will go to the other end of the world to pluck it off a gooseberry bush.”—(Great laughter.)
The same year tea is brought into England, not indeed off a gooseberry bush, but off a bush of no greater importance, and (in common parlance) at the other end of the world.
But what ridicule would the man have excited who would have presumed to prophesy the use of the compass, the application of the giant steam, and the rising of gas light over the manufacturing and the civilized world! What more interesting task than to sit down with our fathers and hear them tell how things were done formerly; with what time, trouble, expense, and uncertainty operations were then performed, that now cost but little delay or uneasiness. There is not a single mechanic amongst us who, in the course of his study, will not see hints towards an improvement that future times will develope, doubtless far greater than what has already taken place.
And let me urge it on you, the pursuits that will lead to these ends belong peculiarly and immediately to you. The philosopher goes out of his way to pursue them. When we find Dr. Lardner furnishing the world with practical treatises on manufactures, we are surprised to think where he got the information. You, the mechanics, ought to be the discoverers of all improvements in your several trades, and ought to enjoy the reward of such discoveries. Talk not of want of time, anticipate not difficulties. When you feel disposed to make such apologies, call to mind Sir R. Arkwright, when a barber’s boy, kicked and cuffed by his master for chalking the wig blocks over with figures, that were to him fully as intelligible though not so pretty as the hieroglyphics of Egypt. Poor Arkwright had the most difficult obstacles to surmount; and yet he lived to be honoured, and died full of years and possessions.
And call to mind the profound Bonnycastle, who commenced his literary career in the situation of shoe-boy, an inferior kind of John Boots in the Military College of Woolwich; where he afterwards became deservedly the principal. And look to honest Jamie Ferguson, making a heaven and an earth for himself while he tended the flocks and herds of his agricultural employer. Many a cold night did this poor boy lie on his back to watch the motions of the stars, and to imitate them by his ingenious contrivances; and who that then saw him could have supposed that he was destined to become the light and pride of science, the friend and favourite of kings and philosophers. And is there nothing inciting in the story of Benjamin Franklin, the printer, entering Philadelphia unknowing and unknown in his 17th year, eating his plain morsel under the portico of that proud mansion that afterwards gave him a wife?—And is there no magic to rouse to exertion in the names Marmontel, Kelper, Johnson, Linnæus and Simpson, men whose genius no poverty could blight, and “being dead yet speak?” But where do I run?—Is not the delight of pursuing science an ample recompense? if not, is there not a golden reward in reversion. Truly has it been said of wisdom, that “she has in her right hand riches and honour.”