asked by the Duke of Argyll to visit the West Highland coast
for a professional purpose. He refused, appalled, it seems, by the rough
travelling. "You can recommend some other fit person?" asked the Duke.
"No," said Smeaton, "I'm sorry I can't." "What!" cried the Duke, "a
profession with only one man in it! Pray, who taught you?" "Why," said
Smeaton, "I believe I may say I was self-taught, an't please your
grace." Smeaton, at the date of Thomas Smith's third marriage, was yet
living; and as the one had grown to the new profession from his place at
the instrument-maker's, the other was beginning to enter it by the way
of his trade. The engineer of to-day is confronted with a library of
acquired results; tables and formulae to the value of folios full have
been calculated and recorded; and the student finds everywhere in front
of him the footprints of the pioneers. In the eighteenth century the
field was largely unexplored; the engineer must read with his own eyes
the face of nature; he arose a volunteer, from the workshop or the mill,
to undertake works which were at once inventions and adventures. It was
not a science then--it was a living art; and it visibly grew under the
eyes and between the hands of its practitioners.

The charm of such an occupation was strongly felt by stepfather and
stepson. It chanced that Thomas Smith was a reformer; the superiority of
his proposed lamp and reflectors over open fires of coal secured his
appointment; and no sooner had he set his hand to the task than the
interest of that employment mastered him. The vacant stage on which he
was to act, and where all had yet to be created--the greatness of the
difficulties, the smallness of the means intrusted him--would rouse a
man of his disposition like a call to battle. The lad introduced by
marriage under his roof was of a character to sympathise; the public
usefulness of the service would appeal to his judgment, the perpetual
need for fresh expedients stimulate his ingenuity. And there was another
attraction which, in the younger man at least, appealed to, and perhaps
first aroused a profound and enduring sentiment of romance: I mean the
attraction of the life. The seas into which his labours carried the new
engineer were still scarce charted, the coasts still dark; his way on
shore was often far beyond the convenience of any road; the isles in
which he must sojourn were still partly savage. He must toss much in
boats; he must often adventur