It is not unworthy of remark, that many of the greatest efforts of intellect are within the scope of the writer; as most of those works which have from time to time benefited the world, both socially and physically, have been assisted by the money power of England. Nor will the inquirer be backward in comparing the singular difficulties with which all inventions requiring great capital contended in the last century, with the remarkable facility which marks their progress in the present, if they fairly promise, as most grand inventions do, to interest the entire community, and pay ten per cent. The annals of invention have ever been those of opposition; and the history of locomotion has been singularly illustrative of this. The journey from city to city, and from county to county, was once painfully slow. It is a subject of ridicule in the present day. A great feature with novelists, a few years ago, was to represent the incidents of a long inland journey. The memory of the reader will at once recur to “Tom Jones,” to “Humphrey Clinker,” and to the humorous scene drawn by the modern master of fiction in the opening chapter of “The Antiquary,” as some illustration of the liabilities of the traveller. It is easier to ridicule than to reason, and safer to prophesy defeat than to predict success. The minds of the mass generally depreciate that which is beyond them; some fancy that they elevate themselves by lowering others; while the many, who bigotedly view all change as evil, doggedly refuse to acknowledge the good till they reap the fruit; and it is probable that the loudest grumbler in the railway-carriage of the present day was the loudest declaimer against locomotives a quarter of a century ago. When the turnpikes were extended from the metropolis to the country, many of the counties petitioned Parliament against so heinous an attempt upon vested rights. The rustic gentleman grew eloquent upon the subject of rendering London accessible, and drew pictures of desolation, in which the grass was to grow in the streets, in which rents were to be reduced, cultivation was to be lowered, and the producer ruined. The toll-bars of the newly-made roads in the eighteenth century were torn to the ground, and the blood of a prejudiced people was shed in their defence. The first “flying coaches,” though six days were employed to do that which is now done in six hours, were met with invectives. It was said that they would be fatal to the breed of horses and the art of horsemanship; that saddlers and spurriers would be ruined; that the inns would be abandoned; and, above all, the Thames, as the great nursery of our seamen, would be destroyed. The post, that grand social benefit, was denounced, in Charles II.’s reign, as a Popish contrivance; and the first attempt to light the streets—an attempt which only made darkness visible—was vehemently attacked.