stones, and, of course, at once deprived the arch of what sustained its equipoise. Heavy as was this second disappointment to the hopes of the young architect, it did not shake his courage any more than the former had done. The reconstruction of his bridge for the third time was immediately begun with unabated spirit and confidence. Still determined to adhere to his last plan of a single arch, he had now thought of an ingenious contrivance for diminishing the enormous weight which had formerly forced the keystone out of its place. In each of the large masses of masonry called the haunches of the bridge, being the parts immediately above the two extremities of the arch, he opened three cylindrical holes, which not only relieved the central part of the structure from all over-pressure, but greatly improved its general appearance in point of lightness and elegance. The bridge, with this improvement, was finished in 1755, having occupied the architect about nine years in all; and it has stood ever since.

This bridge over the Taff-commonly called the New Bridge, and by the Welsh Pont y Pridd,-was, at the time of its erection, the largest stone arch known to exist in the world. Before its erection, the Rialto at Venice, the span of which was only ninetyeight feet, was entitled, as Mr. Malkin remarks, to this distinction among bridges; unless, indeed, we are to include the famous aqueduct-bridge at Alcantara, near Lisbon, consisting in all of thirty-five arches, the eighth of which is rather more than a hundred and eight feet in width, and two hundred and twenty-seven in height. The bridge at Alcantara was finished in 1732. Since the erection of the bridge over the Taff, several other stone arches of extraordinary dimensions have been built both in Great Britain and in France; such, for instance, as the five composing the splendid Pont de Neuilly over the Seine, near Paris, the span of each of which is a hundred and twenty-eight feet-the central arch of the bridge over the same river at Mantes, which is of the same dimensions-the Island Bridge, as it is called, over the Liffey, near Dublin, which is a single arch of a hundred and six feet in widththe bridge over the Tees, at Winston, in Yorkshire, which is also a single arch of a hundred and eight feet nine inches wide, and which was built in 1762 by John Johnson, a common mason, at a cost of only five hundred pounds-and the nine elliptical arches, each of a hundred and twenty feet span, forming the magnificent Waterloo bridge, over the Thames at London. But no one of these great works rivals in respect of dimensions the arch constructed by Edwards. The bridge over the Taff, we may add, rises to the height of thirty-five feet above the water, and is the segment of a circle of a hundred and seventy feet in diameter.

Buttressed as it is at each extremity by lofty mountains, while the water flows in full tide beneath it, its aspect, as it is seen rising into the air, may well be conceived to be particularly striking and grand.

This bridge, which is looked upon as a wonder to this day, spread the fame of Edwards over all the country. He afterwards built many other bridges in South Wales, several of which consisted also of single arches of considerable width, although in no case approaching to that of the arch over the Taff. One which he erected over the Tawy, near Swansea, had a span of eighty feet-another at Llandovery, in Carmarthenshire, was eighty-four feet wide-and a third, Wychbree bridge, over the Tawy, was of the width of ninety-five feet. All the bridges which Edwards built after his first attempt have their arches formed of segments of much larger circles than he ventured to try in that case; and the roads over them are consequently much flatter, a convenience which amply compensates for their inferiority in point of imposing appearance. He found his way to this improvement entirely by his own experience and sagacity; as indeed he may be said to have done to all the knowledge he possessed in his art. Even his principles of common masonry, he used himself to declare, he had learned chiefly from his studies among the ruins of an old Gothic castle in his native parish. In bridge building, the three objects which he always strove to attain in the highest possible degree were, first, durability; secondly, freedom for the passage of the water under the bridge; and lastly, ease of traffic over it.

In commencing architect, Edwards did not abandon the business of his forefathers. He was likewise a farmer to the end of his life. Nay, such was his unwearied activity, that, not satisfied with his week-day labors in these two capacities, he also officiated on Sundays as pastor to an Independent congregation, having been regularly ordained to that office when he was about thirty years of age, and holding it till his death. He accepted the usual salary from his congregation, considering it right that they should support their minister; but, instead of putting the money into his own pocket, he returned it all, and often much more, in charity to the poor. He always preached in Welsh, although early in life he had also made himself acquainted with the English language, having embraced the opportunity of acquiring it under the tuition of a blind old schoolmaster in whose house he once lodged for a short time while doing some work at the county town of Cardiff. He is said to have shown all his characteristic assiduity of application in this effort, and to have made a correspondingly rapid progress. This ingenious and worthy man died in 1789, in the seventieth

year of his age, leaving a family of six children, of whom his eldest son David became also an eminent architect and bridgebuilder, although he had had no other instruction in his profession than what his father had given him.

RICHARD ARKWRIGHT.

WE now propose to give, in the memoir of the celebrated Richard Arkwright, some account of an individual, whose rise from a very humble origin to affluence and distinction was the result of his persevering attention to the improvement of the machinery employed in one of the most important branches of manufactures, and whose name is intimately connected with the recent history of the commercial greatness of his native country. This illustrious individual, persecuted and calumniated as nearly all the signal benefactors of corrupt humanity have ever been, was raised up by providence from an obscure rank in life to vindicate the natural equality of man.

Arkwright was born on the 23d of December, 1732, at Preston, in Lancashire. His parents were very poor, and he was the youngest of a family of thirteen children; so that we may suppose the school education he received, if he ever was at school at all, was extremely limited. Indeed, but little learning would probably be deemed necessary for the profession to which he was bred,—— that of a barber. This business he continued to follow till he was nearly thirty years of age; and this first period of his history is of course obscure enough. About the year 1760, however, or soon after, he gave up shaving, and commenced business as an itinerant dealer in hair, collecting the commodity by travelling up and down the country, and then, after he had dressed it, selling it again to the wig-makers, with whom he very soon acquired the character of keeping a better article than any of his rivals in the same trade. He had obtained possession, too, we are told, of a secret method of dyeing the hair, by which he doubtless contrived to augment his profits; and perhaps, in his accidental acquaintance with this little piece of chemistry, we may find the germ of that sensibility he soon began to manifest to the value of new and unpublished inventions in the arts, and of his passion for patent rights and the pleasures of monopoly.

It would appear that his first effort in mechanics, as has hap