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"Grub Street,"--a locality where the most hapless and improvident literary men herded together, eking out a scanty livelihood by compiling books and drudging for booksellers.

ac-com-pliç-es, partners.

em-blems, signs.

em-broil-ments, conflicts; quarrels.

boud-oirs (bood'wars), private sitting- e-nor-mous, very great.

as-sault-ing, attacking.

rooms.

bro-cade', figured silk.

con-vey-ance, carriage.
cus-tom-a-ry, usual.
den-i-zens, inhabitants.
dis-so-lute, wild.
dis-tiñ-guish, mark.

in-suf-fi-cient, not enough; scanty. met-ro-pol-i-tan, belonging to the

capital; London. queue (kew), tail.

si-ne-cure, an office without work. wher-ries, light ferry-boats, sharp at both ends.

54.-GEORGE IV.

1820 to 1830 A.D.-10 years.

1. Soon after the Prince Regent had become King, a plot was formed to murder the Prime Minister and the other members of the Government, to break open the prisons, and to set London on fire; but the plot was discovered, and the ringleaders were executed.

2. George the Fourth had for twenty-five years been married to Caroline of Brunswick; but he had used her very cruelly, and she had long been forced to live away from him. On his coming to the throne, however, she returned to England to claim her position as Queen.

3. On her arrival, 'grave charges of misconduct were brought against her; but these had to be given. up. Yet, when the King was crowned in Westminster Abbey, she was not admitted, though she actually went to the door. A few days afterwards she died of a broken heart. Her coffin bore, by her

own order, the words, "Here lies Caroline of Brunswick, the 'injured Queen of England."

4. Early in this reign, the Greeks, who had long been subject to the Turks, rose against them, and showed so much bravery, that Britain, France, and Russia agreed to help them to win back their freedom. A fleet was sent to Greece, which in a few hours destroyed the whole Turkish navy in the harbour of Navarino.1 Greece was then formed

into a kingdom.

1830

A. D.

5. George the Fourth died at the age of sixtyeight. He is chiefly famous for his 'polished manners and his fondness for dress. He used to be called "the first gentleman in Europe;" but he lived a wicked life, and he was a weak and useless King. Having no son, he was succeeded by

his brother William, Duke of Clarence.

6. Important Events.--During this reign Captains Ross and Parry sailed to the Arctic Seas in search of a 'passage to the east coast of Asia. The Test and Corporation Acts2 were repealed. The Catholic Emancipation Act, allowing Roman Catholics to sit in Parliament, was passed in 1829.

Arc-tic, northern; polar. grave, serious.

had to be given up, could not be proved.

in-jured, wronged; badly treated.

1 Navarino. A sea-port of Greece, near the south-western point of Morea. 2 Test and Corporation Acts. The Test Act, passed in 1673, required all civil and military officers to receive

pas-sage, water-way.
polished, refined.

re-pealed', no longer regarded as
laws; done away with.
subject to, ruled over by.

the communion according to the rites of the English Church. The Corporation Act, passed in 1661, required the same of all officers in boroughs. Both Acts were results of the Restoration.

55.-GEORGE STEPHENSON.

His father's wages, as

attached to the coalOne afternoon the boy

1. About 1790, a little boy used to earn a few pence a day by herding cows in the fields of Dewley Burn in Northumberland. the fireman of a steam-engine mines there, were very small. collected a quantity of mud, and cutting the stiff stalks of a hemlockplant, he built a 'model of his father's engine. His name was George Stephenson.

[graphic]

2. We see him next, at the age of eighteen, holding a position similar to his father's, and taking advantage of his situation to study every crank and bolt and rivet of the engine under his charge. On Saturday afternoons, when other men were

idling, or wasting their wages, young George would shut himself up in the engine-room, take the machinery to pieces, and polish with loving care the steel piston-rods till they gleamed like silver.

3. By-and-by he added the 'repairing of clocks and watches to his other means of gain; and his little son Robert used to stand by, watching him with eyes of eager interest. The boy was delighted

beyond measure when his father allowed him to stand on a chair and put on the hand of a clock that was under repair. Father and son thus began a partnership in mechanical pursuits which lasted until it was dissolved by death.

4. One day George Stephenson heard that the engine used for pumping water out of a new coalpit would not work. When his labour for the day was over, he went to see the machinery that had failed; and he examined it carefully, until he found the cause of the failure.

5. He then told the engineer that he could make it work; and as everything had been tried to no purpose, and as it seemed that George could do it no harm by trying once more, he was allowed to take it to pieces. So successful was he in this first attempt at engine-curing, that in four days it was in fine working order, and the men were then enabled to descend to the bottom of a shaft which had 'previously been full of water.

6. The next scene of Stephenson's life was the town of Killingworth, where he obtained the situation of engine-wright. Railways or tram-roads2 had long been laid between the mouths of the coal-pits and the wharfs where the ships received their grimy cargoes; but the trucks had always been drawn slowly and painfully by horses.

7. The notion of employing steam to do this work had already been suggested; but the grand difficulty in the way seemed to be that the smooth iron wheels of an engine, being turned by steam, would slip round instead of rolling the engine for

ward. Stephenson, thinking over this difficulty, saw that it was merely a fancy; and having made some 'experiments, he found that the weight of the mass of metal used in making an engine, would press the rails sufficiently to give the wheels a hold.

1815

8. Lord Ravensworth came to his aid with money, and some time afterwards, on the tramroad of Killingworth men witnessed the novel sight of a small locomotive drawing a weight of thirty tons up a rather steep inclined plane at

A. D.

[graphic]

FIRST LOCOMOTIVE CONSTRUCTED BY STEPHENSON.

the rate of four miles an hour. When the fact was ascertained that an engine worked by steam could be used for locomotion, the progress of improvement was very rapid.

9. A Railway from Liverpool to Manchester was soon planned, and George Stephenson was appointed the engineer. The chief obstacle consisted in a morass called Chat Moss, which lay in the way. But there was nothing in it to daunt the energy of

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