pressmen only wanted the opportunity to break his contrivance. The machine was nearly completed; little remained apparently to render it efficient, when Mr. Walter's money became exhausted. His father had also become disheartened by delay, and refused to lend him any further assistance. The experiment was therefore abandoned, and this, too, apparently almost on the eve of success.

But Mr. Walter did not despair. He continually thought on the subject, he employed others to think on it, and was, in truth, determined to try again whenever he might have the money. Ten years afterwards, in the year 1814, he recommenced the attempt. In the interim, Koenig had constructed the printing machine already described for Mr. Bensley, and Mr. Walter employed him, with his friend Bauer, to construct a machine of the same kind sufficiently large and powerful to print The Times. Bensley % machine was cumbrous, complicated, and uncertain in its operations, and, therefore, unfit for the work of a newspaper, in the printing of which certainty is of as much importance as speed. Mr. Walter munificently supplied the two artizans with the means of effecting some improvements which had occurred to them, and of making sure that the machine could do its work with regularity. But they dared not venture into the printingoffice of The Times, for the pressmen still threatened" destruction to all such inventors and their

traps." The adjoining premises were therefore engaged, and here for a long time they toiled secretly and safely. But it was weary work. The mechanical contrivance which would overcome one difficulty, only raised up another. The combinations methodically arranged in the mind of the inventor, could not be put into working trim. Still the machine. advanced towards success; the mechanists were almost "in sight of land," when a difficulty. arose which, after repeated trials, they concluded was insurmountable. They slunk from the premises in despair and disgust. Brindley, the great engineer, would have gone to bed, and remained there until he had hit upon some plan of curing the defect. Koenig and Bauer, however, considered themselves completely beaten, and entirely disappeared, no one knew whither. Great was the disappointment of Mr. Walter with their failure, and great also was his consternation at their disappearance. But at the end of three days a clergyman, whom Mr. Walter had consulted continually during the work, discovered where the fugitives had hidden themselves to conceal their mortification. He induced them to return to their work, and he luckily saw how they might conquer the difficulty which had dismayed them. Like geniuses as they were, they were carried by this success from the lowest depth of despondency to the highest pitch of hope; the machine was completed, and during the

night of November 19, 1814, The Times was printed by it.

"Our journal of this day," said The Times on the following morning, "presents to the public the practical result of the greatest improvement connected with printing since the discovery of the art itself. The reader of this paragraph now holds in his hand one of the many thousand impressions of The Times newspaper which were taken off last night by mechanical apparatus. A system of machinery, almost organic, has been devised and arranged, which, while it relieves the human frame of its most laborious efforts in printing, far exceeds all human powers in rapidity and despatch. That the magnitude of the invention may be justly appreciated by its effects, we shall inform the public that, after the letters are placed by the compositors, and enclosed in what is called the form, little more remains for man to do than to attend upon and watch this unconscious agent in its operations. The machine is then merely supplied with paper— itself places the form, inks it, adjusts the paper to the form newly inked, stamps the sheet, and gives it forth to the hands of the attendant, at the same time withdrawing the form for a fresh coat of ink, which itself again distributes to meet the ensuing sheet, now advancing for impression; and the whole of these complicated acts are performed with such a velocity and simultaneousness of move

ment that no less than 1100 sheets are impressed in an hour."

Success as usual followed on success. The machine just described printed only one side of the paper at a time; another was soon constructed which printed both sides before the sheet left the machine. This is what is called the perfecting machine. But these machines were complicated and liable to get out of order. The principle having been put in practice, the engineers set about simplifying the invention. In this they triumphed over all difficulties. The original machine contained no less than 100 wheels; the number was reduced to 10. Mr. Edward Cowper, for instance, on seeing The Times machine at work, suggested a slight alteration, and wheels which had cost 1,500l. during the experiments, were at once swept away. Gradually printing machines have been brought to a high state of perfection. They exhibit many different forms, but the same principle, that of the printing cylinder, pervades almost the whole of them. Their cost has been greatly reduced, their working rendered sure and safe, by simplifying the details, and their speed has been greatly increased. They are almost universally used for printing newspapers and very generally for printing books. Newspapers are printed better by machine than they could be by the ordinary press; but the machine is not so well calculated for fine printing, owing to circum

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