fect
workmanship and machinery: to him we are certainly indebted for the
slide rest, and, consequently, to say the least, we are indirectly so
for the vast benefits which have resulted from the introduction of so
powerful an agent in perfecting our machinery and mechanism generally.
The indefatigable care which he took in inculcating and diffusing among
his workmen, and mechanical men generally, sound ideas of practical
knowledge and refined views of construction, have rendered and ever
will continue to render his name identified with all that is noble in
the ambition of a lover of mechanical perfection."

One of the first uses to which Mr. Maudslay applied the improved slide
rest, which he perfected shortly after beginning business in Margaret
Street, Cavendish Square, was in executing the requisite tools and
machinery required by Mr. (afterwards Sir Marc Isambard) Brunel for
manufacturing ships' blocks. The career of Brunel was of a more
romantic character than falls to the ordinary lot of mechanical
engineers. His father was a small farmer and postmaster, at the
village of Hacqueville, in Normandy, where Marc Isambard was born in
1769. He was early intended for a priest, and educated accordingly.
But he was much fonder of the carpenter's shop than of the school; and
coaxing, entreaty, and punishment alike failed in making a hopeful
scholar of him. He drew faces and plans until his father was almost in
despair. Sent to school at Rouen, his chief pleasure was in watching
the ships along the quays; and one day his curiosity was excited by the
sight of some large iron castings just landed. What were they? How had
they been made? Where did they come from? His eager inquiries were soon
answered. They were parts of an engine intended for the great Paris
water-works; the engine was to pump water by the power of steam; and
the castings had been made in England, and had just been landed from an
English ship. "England!" exclaimed the boy, "ah! when I am a man I
will go see the country where such grand machines are made!" On one
occasion, seeing a new tool in a cutler's window, he coveted it so much
that he pawned his hat to possess it. This was not the right road to
the priesthood; and his father soon saw that it was of no use urging
him further: but the boy's instinct proved truer than the father's
judgment.

It was eventually determined that he should qualify himself to enter
the royal navy, and at seventeen he w