opening of the course in November, 1828. It might be thought by some statesmen, and perhaps by some scientific men, that Mr. Webster's course of education had not prepared him for such a task; but it must be remembered, that he is a lawyer of more than twenty years standing at the bar, and all this time has been in extensive practice in the highest courts of the country, in which not only constitutional questions are discussed, but mercantile transactions, and questions requiring broad views of almost every subject; and none requiring more information than some of those important -trials upon patent rights. The lawyer, to do his duty to his client, must be acquainted with the principles of the mechanic arts, and sometimes also with the most minute details of them. Mr. Webster has been engaged in many of these patent causes, and to do his duty has made himself master of the laws of motion and the properties of matter far more accurately than any general reading would have done, for he has had often to consult with the inventor, perhaps enter the workshop and see every operation performed, in order to be able to explain these things to courts and juries who pass upon them. Mr. Webster was pleased to find such an institution springing up in his own city, and was willing to lend his aid for its success. These institutions, he was well aware, refine the taste and strengthen the intellectual powers of each member of the fraternity. They are stimulants to exertion, for each one is unwilling to be thought inferior to his neighbor, and he stu

dies to be his equals, at least, and wisely thinks the ambition harmless, if he strive for the mastery in intellectual pursuits. Mind brought in amicable collision with mind produces scintillations of thought that do not expire as they are struck out, but increase to a permanent light. In most intellects there are seeds of true taste, and frequently of creative or imitative genius. Warmed by honest emulation and spurred on by generous rivalry, the younger portions of such associations make great exertions to obtain knowledge, and when encouraged by their seniors are ready to communicate it. Already in some other parts of our country, mechanic associations have grown into mechanic institutes, in which lectures are given on various branches of the arts and sciences. When a practical artist becomes scientific, he will soon find language to convey his thoughts, if he finds it difficult at first to get words to suit him. When these institutes are once established they seldom retrograde; there is an honest pride in such bodies, that will not suffer them to fall off in their exertions. He who feels the pride of being an instructer, will always be an indefatigable student himself. Youthful aspirants for the lecturer's chair occasionally will come forward in order to distinguish themselves. By this, the arts will be benefited, and information diffused among those who are not artists. If eloquence of a high order is not to be obtained in a lecture room, good plain speaking may be, and this is more valuable. Readiness and fluency follow clearness of perception, and

that order and method necessary in conveying our thoughts on the laws of motion and power. The time, we trust, is not far distant when we shall see the young citizen pass from the workshop to the lecture-room as a matter of course in his education; and when the art and mystery of a trade will be taught him with the principles on which it is founded. It will not be questioned, that, if such institutes were generally formed, their influence would be generally felt in a moral point of view. Many hours that are now spent by the young mechanic in light amusements, by way of preparing himself for arduous labors, would be devoted to science, or to letters, so necessarily connected with it. Thus time would be saved; money would be saved; and sometimes, perhaps, reputation would be saved; and most certainly, moral and intellectual weight would be gained; and weight of character is not gained in a day; it is made up by the honest occupation of many years in youth and manhood, and can be preserved only by the sound exercise of the understanding. This lecture should be preserved as a model for compositions of this kind; not that many would reach the same standard, but the imitation would be well. The model should be far above what we expect to reach. The language is just such as it should be on such a subject, and the style of the composition precisely what Bacon would have used had he lived to have been, with his great genius, imbued with modern taste. There is no insinuating introduction, no appeal to the candor of his

hearers, and all that unmeaning parade of courtesy; but after a sentence or two, he enters directly into his subject, and brings forward his topics without ceremony. He discusses motion as applied to change of place, to animal life, the earth, the ocean, the air, to all the physical objects which surround us, and is the exhaustless fountain from whence philosophy is drawn. He proceeds to the grand distinction of man, his intellectual powers, and shows that his formation was fitted to his mind, for if he had not that wonderful instrument the hand, he could not avail himself of his gifts; and that the brute creation, if raised to the equality of reasoning man, could do but little without such an instrument to assist them. He adverted to the ancients, and compared their knowledge with that of modern times. The descriptive history and effects of the mechanical powers and arts were his next topic, and in this he was most happy. The useful subject, architecture, came also under his consideration, and he pursued it in all its forms; but leaving all other parts of this fine lecture, we extract that which relates to the mechanical arts.

'In the useful and practical arts, many inventions and contrivances, to the production of which the degree of ancient knowledge would appear to us to have been adequate, and which seem quite obvious, are yet of late origin. The application of water, for example, to turn a mill, is a thing not known to have been accomplished at all in Greece, and is not supposed to have been attempted at Rome, till in or near the age of Augustus. The production of the same effect by wind, is a still later invention. It dates only in the seventh century of our

era.

The propulsion of the saw, by any other power than that of the arm, is treated as a novelty in England, so late as in the middle of the sixteenth century. The Bishop of Ely, Ambassador from the Queen of England to the Pope, says," he saw, at Lyons, a saw-mill driven with an upright wheel, and the water that makes it go is gathered into a narrow trough, which delivereth the same water to the wheels. This wheel hath a piece of timber put to the axletree end, like the handle of a brock, (a hand organ,) and fastened to the end of the saw, which being turned with the force of water, hoisteth up and down the saw, that it continually eateth in, and the handle of the same is kept in a rigall of wood, from severing. Also the timber lieth, as it were upon a ladder, which is brought by little and little to the saw by another vice." From this description of the primitive power-saw, it would seem that it was probably fast only at one end, and that the brock and rigall performed the part of the arm, in the common use of the hand-saw.

'It must always have been a very considerable object for men to possess, or obtain, the power of raising water, otherwise than by mere manual labor. Yet nothing like the common suction-pump has been found among rude nations. It has arrived at its present state only by slow and doubtful steps of improvement; and, indeed, in that present state, however obvious and unattractive, it is It was something of an abstruse and refined invention. unknown in China, until Europeans visited the "Celestial Empire ;" and is still unknown in other parts of Asia, beyond the pale of European settlements, or the reach of European communication. The Greeks and Romans are supposed to have been ignorant of it, in the early times of their history; and it is usually said to have come from Alexandria, where physical science was much cultivated by the Greek school, under the patronage of the Ptolemies.

'These few and scattered historical notices, gentlemen, of important inventions, have been introduced only for the purpose of suggesting that there is much which