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nuity. Being sensibly impressed with the persuasion of the incalculable evils, especially in a commercial country like this, which must perpetually arise from so lamentable and fatal a circumstance as the demonstrable absolute insecurity of all the locks hitherto in use, he devoted the whole energy of his mind to the accomplishment of so important an object, as the construction of a lock, in point of security, demonstrably infallible in its principles. The result of the most intense and long-continued application of his mental powers to this his grand and favourite object, was, the most complete success. Indeed, it may be reasonably questioned, whether human in genuity ever produced a design in all respects so perfectly calculated to answer the purpose for which it is invented. Any more verbal description of this truly ingenious and valuable contrivance, the production of most painful study, and attended with prodigious expense, could convey no adequate idea of its merits. The curious reader, who is so disposed, cannot do better than consult Mr. Bramab's own "Dissertation on the Construction of Locks;" in which the author, in a bold and manly, at the same time, unassuming manner, after some prefatory observations indicative of strong original genius, gives a faithful detail of its principles, accompanying his description, with such correct plates as render the comprehension of the subject easy to any capacity. He likewise procured a patent for this singularly ingenious and extensively useful invention.

At a later period of life, when the term of this patent had expired, having ascertained that the immense expense of the machinery employed in the manufacture of this article, notwithstanding the very general demand for it, had greatly exceeded the profits derived from its sale, he petitioned parliament for a renewal of the grant; but the manufacturers of Birmingham, Wolverhampton, and elsewhere, actuated by the sordid principles of gain, which will probably ever be inseparable from mere manufacturers, and foreseeing, in the successful application of Mr. Bramah, consequences ruinous to their interest in this branch of their trade,opposed it with their utmost efforts, and unfortunately for him and his family, too successfully. On this occasion a liberal report was circulated, at the instigation of this junto, that one of the locks had been actually opened before a committee of the House of Commons, merely by means of a quill

[April 1,

and a piece of wood! This certainly was the fact, but not the whole fact, which happened to be, that the quill and piece of wood had been previously made into a literal key, exactly after the model of the metal one which belonged to the lock thus cunningly opened! This trivial part of the truth these worthy manufacturers conceived themselves to be justified in withholding, probably in consequence of a supposed right, founded on the authority of the Justinian Code, of which other people of principle are allowed by law occasionally to avail themselves, namely that Nemo tenetur jurare in suam turpitudinem. The truth is, that whoever could affirm, that any thing but its own key, or some one made precisely after the model of it, of materials possessing sufficient strength, is capable of opening one of Mr. Bramah's patent locks, would unwittingly proclaim either his own malice or absolute ignorance of all mathematical principle. The circumstance as it is, which was contrived to bring discredit on the inventor, will, on the contrary, among the judicious operate greatly in favour of the invention, as demonstrating the very slight force which is required to open one of these locks, which would otherwise defy any human ingenuity to open them forcibly, or by contrivance, without employing a model of the key. It could never have been a palpable imposture of this kind which swayed the committee of the House on this occasion. In the machinery of administration, it is well known, as in common machinery, that there is a wheel within a wheel.

From this last invention he was led by some accident to turn his attention to the improvement of hydraulic machines, and, by varying the form of the piston and cylinder, he produced what he appropriately denominated a " rotative motion;" which is now well known to be more uniform in its action, and unattended with noise. This improvement, for which he obtained a patent, has now found its way into very common use for extinguishing engines, and was advantageously employed by the inventor for general purposes.

Among a variety of other useful objects, which incessantly engrossed his attention, his application of the HYDROSTATIC PARADOX, or uniform pressure of fluids in every direction, as a new mechanical agent, should alone immortalize his name. For this discovery he took out a patent in the year 1796, and shortly

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Biographical Memoir of Joseph Bramah.

recognized its almost unlimited utility Notwithstanding that the expiration of the patent saw the invention comparatively in an infant state, it appears almost incredible, that it could have been found capable of accomplishing such a wonderful variety of work in so short a period. After numerous modes of improved adaptation, the result of astonishing perseverance, the established name it obtained, owing to the certainty of its use, gave it a decided preference over all other mechanical powers, for every kind of press; for machines for craning and weighing goods, drawing piles, straining cables, chains and anchors, to prove their strength; for communicating motion to other machines from a primum mobile at any given distance, throwing down stone in quarries, or pulling up trees, and so forth. A very striking instance of its power, when applied to the last mentioned purpose, in the hands of two men only, was lately exhibited at Holt Forest, in Hampshire, where upwards of three hundred trees, of the largest description, were in a very short time torn up by the roots, many of them leaving behind them prodigious cavities, and entirely performed without complication, and with perfect singleness of design. Indeed, it would be invaluable, did it possess no other property than that of regulating motion in intervals too minute for practical division. The capacious mind of the discoverer grasped in his view a multitude of purposes, to which it might be usefully applied; some of which he detailed in a subsequent patent, and, availing himself of the simplicity of the improvement, and the facility with which it could be made to govern motion, he used it to complete a machine for planing boards or timber, for which, in the year 1804, he obtained a patent. One of these machines for planing he erected in his Majesty's arsenal at Woolwich, which is wrought with incredible saving and advantage to government. It affords a complete specimen of originality, the operation being conducted by means at once novel and ingenious, and, though wrought by a comparatively small power, and perform ing its work with mathematical accuracy, it leaves at an immense distance the exertions of manual labour.

His genius appears to have been equally acute and energetic when involuntarily directed to exercise its powers on matters which had been suggested to him by others; and his opinion, which used frequently to be requested, relative

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to complicated pieces of mechanism, was generally as cheerfully and promptly given, as it eventually proved to be correct. In the year 1807, he was required to construct a machine for the purpose of more expeditiously printing the number and date lines on Bank of England notes; the figures and letters to be changed by the action of the machine itself. Although the idea of a piece of mechanism of the description required, had never once occurred to his mind, such was the wonderful fertility and readiness of his invention, that immediately on the suggestion of its practicability he commenced the model of a machine, which he finished in the course of a month, and by subsequent improvements brought it to such perfection as, in its execution, to exceed the most sanguine expectations of his employers. A number of these machines are now daily employed at the Bank of England, every one of which, by the management of a single clerk, effects as much labour as six clerks formerly used to perform in the same time; thereby saving to the Bank the salaries of not less than an hundred clerks annually.

The few inventions which I have detailed above, though they may be considered as the most important efforts of genius which Mr. Bramah brought forward, bear no proportion to the numerous minor improvements which he introduced, equally useful and ingenious, on a smaller scale, if not equally valuable as to their general application. Among these I ought not to omit the mention of the various contrivances which he devised in order to facilitate the several processes in his own manufactory, without the assistance of which he probably would never have been able to bring his great inventions to bear. It may just be observed, that such was his industry, and such the inexhaustible fertility of his inventive mind, that at different periods he obtained, on account of the chief of his improvements, not fewer than twenty distinct patents, notwithstanding that the time, reflection and genius requisite for the production of even a few of his discoveries, might well seem to imply a long life spent in the prosecution of them. Although most of these were calculated for works of public utility, it was impossible for one man, by his own exertions, or by the most judicious disposition of his time, to bring them all in a short period into public use. Some of them, however, were soon very generally approved of and adopted, and now, in a great mea

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sure, supersede the modes formerly employed to produce their effects. Such are his plug, or slide cock; the cock with horizontal cone; the cock, as applied to steam engines instead of valves; the beer machine, a perfectly new and extremely useful invention, with which every publican in the metropolis and country is now supplied; a farther improvement of his patent lock, by which the key has received a power of variation like the lock; an improvement on the mode of constructing carriage wheels; a machine for making paper in endless length; and, lastly, an engine for extinguishing fires, mounted on its own wheels, and carrying water with it ready for being discharged at the moment of its arrival at the fire. The conveyance of engines on their own wheels, in a state for being immediately worked, followed this invention universally.

For some time prior to his death, he had been employed in the erection of several large machines on his own premises at Thames Bank, for sawing stones and deals; in which he found his hydromechanical discovery eminently useful. They have been examined by skilful judges, who considered them as obviating all the objections which existed against sawing apparatus, and gave the inventor every encouragement to hope that they would become generally adopted.

con

New methods of building bridges and canal-locks, with a variety of other matters, were in an embryo state in his mind; for though he chiefly confined himself to the improvement of machinery, he was well qualified to undertake the scientific Occupations, which more properly co stitute the province of civil engineer: and it was only in consequence of the pressure of a multiplicity of other weighty concerns that he was compelled to refuse several offers of extensive business in that line. In a dispute of the corporation of Norwich with the lessees of the waterworks of that city, who had employed him to execute some projected improvements, he shewed himself perfectly competent to the undertaking, having given in fresh plans, and executed the work accordingly with complete success. He, moreover, in a spirited and well composed publication, elicited by the occa

This, which promised fair to come fully up to his expectations, notwithstanding that he had spent a large sum of money in the prosecution of the experiments, owing to his time being completely occupied by other affairs of greater moment, he unfortunately was never able to put in practice.

[April 1,

sion, satisfactorily demonstrated the insufficiency and incongruity of plans previously submitted by another engineer, which were to have formed the basis of the intended improvements.

Such were the principal improvements introduced into mechanics by this sur prising genius during a comparatively short life; forty years of which he may be truly affirmed to have devoted entirely to the promoting of the happiness of his fellow creatures, for the whole of his ingenuity and efforts were uniformly influenced by a most benevolent heart and directed to the most useful purposes. The period of his labours, unhappily, too soon for the interest of his surviving family, and for the good of his country at large, began now to draw to a close. That the intensity and duration of his exertions, mental and corporeal together, had in fact greatly abridged the natural span of his existence, and induced premature old age and death, the whole tenor of his life compels us to conclude. The immediate cause of his death, how ever, appeared to be a severe cold, occasioned by over-exerting himself both in body and mind for some days, at Holt Forest, on the occasion, to which I have already alluded, of trying the powers of his hydrostatic machine in tearing up so many large trees, the successful event of which must have more than commonly interested, and, in some measure, agitated his mind. This melancholy event, which happened rather suddenly, took place in the 66th year of his age.

With regard to Mr. Bramah's moral character, it will be found to have been as intrinsically valuable and simple as the mass of his inventions. He possessed a heart which teemed with benevolence, and made him keenly participate in the sufferings of his fellow creatures. Such a disposition, highly creditable to him as a man, on too many occasions of late years, has retarded the advancement of his fortune; for at various periods of the late stagnation of trade, by which the labouring classes were reduced to the utmost distress, he has been known to retain in his service numbers of his workmen, for whom, though he literally had no employment, he always contrived to find something to do, however trivial, as bound to justify himself, in his own opiif he conceived that he were in duty nion, for opposing the practice of the rest of the world in such cases. The wretched situation of the lower orders of society, whom he considered "as the supporters of the life, happiness, and

1815.] Legality of Obligations constructed under a false Name.

luxuries of the whole collective body of the Creator to remove from this subhumanity" besides, used to be frequently lunary scene. the subject of his reflection, commiseration, and, if we may be allowed to hazard a conjecture, of his humane indignation. For which reason, and because he ascribed all their calamities, in common with those of the other classes of the community, to the fatal effects of war, he was such an enemy to all wars that, had he been contemporary with them, he would no doubt have as strenuously reprobated the Crusades themselves, as he has all along vehemently opposed the expensive conflicts in which this country has been so many years involved.

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Purgatory-Ann Moore-Cock Fighting, &c.

of the heavenly mansions. Now this blood, we are told, “cleanseth from all sin," consequently, if, through the unspeakable mercy of God, unenlightened Heathen have an interest in it, they be come, by its transforming influence, equally as meet for the habitations of the saints in light, as the most eminent Christian. If the objection of your correspondent holds true with respect to the salvation of Heathen, it may be applied with equal force to that of Christians; for perfection in holiness is not attainable in this sublunary state; the Inost eminent saints upon earth have always the remains of corruption within them. How, then, the question recurs, are they to be purged froin this indwelling corruption, so as to be rendered fit for those lands of pure delight where saints immortal reign," and where nothing that is unclean shall ever enter?not surely by passing through this state of purgation, as maintained by the church of Rome, an idea equally repugnant to scripture and to common sense. No; a plan is adopted, differing indeed in every respect from the former, but infinitely more worthy of Almighty power and grace: "they have their robes washed in the blood of that Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the world,-who suffered, the just for the unjust, that he night bring us to God."

Having thus, I trust, in some degree, solved the doubts of your correspondent concerning this (I had almost said blasphemous) doctrine, I cannot conclude without cautioning your readers not to pry too curiously into the mysteries of Divine Providence, particularly with respect to the future state of "the Heathen world." While we are couvinced that the name of Jesus Christ alone saves from sin, we must add, "that great is the mystery of godliness." Such knowledge is too great for us; it is high; we cannot attain it. This, however, we know, and we have it from an authority which is indisputable, that it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and for Sidon, and for all the Pagan and Mahomedan world in the day of judgment, than for those who despise the proffered terms of the gospel, and who, living in a Christian country and enjoying the Bible and the means of grace, still live, without God, and conpequently without hope in the world.

MR. EDITOR,

THEOPHILUS,

I SHOULD be obliged to any of your correspondents who can inform me what

[April 1,

has been the situation, residence, and behaviour of that well known impostor, of fasting memory, Ann Moore, late of Tutbury in Staffordshire, since she left that place in August, 1813. The very interesting and able account which was contained in the Rev. Legh Richmond's pamphlet, (to whose laudable and persevering zeal the public were indebted for the detection of her artifices) has led me to feel some desire to ascertain whether she yet lives; if deceased, whether any dissection took place: or whether any improvement of conduct and character followed the exposure and disgrace to which she was so justly subjected. I have in particular wished to ascertain whether she has been known to swallow solid as well as liquid food since that period. A sufficient degree of singularity appeared to exist in regard to her bodily form and constitution after the discovery was made, to render the present enquiry an object of some attention. In a physiological point of view, the comparison between Ann Moore's case and those of several others which Mr. Richmond has collected together in the appendix of his work, becomes worthy of investigation, and I wish to know whether any recent observations at all tend to throw light on the subject.-I am, &c.

Feb. 1815.

MR. EDITOR,

C. D. K.

IN answer to the enquiries of your correspondent X. Y. Z. in your magazine for this month, respecting the inhuman custom of throwing at cocks on Shrove Tuesday, I beg leave to refer him to the late Mr. Brady's excellent work, “Clavis Calendaria, or a compendious Analysis of the Calendar," vol. ist, p. 213, where he will find a great deal of information and resea ch upon that and many other old English customs.

The fighting of cocks has been attri buted to the Athenians, but its origin seems involved in obscurity. It was brought hither by the Romans. With respect to the baiting of bulls, it is said to have been introduced into England as an amusement about the time of King John. The plea of utility was used in justification of buil-baiting, as a bull was rarely killed without being first baited, and perhaps the flesh of so large and apparently so coarse an animal might not have been considered catable without being first subjected to this barbarous operation.

Hackney, Feb. 15, 1815.

A. B. C.