[Sidenote ◆1 Dud Dudley,] [Sidenote ◆2 The two Darbys,] [Sidenote ◆3 Reynolds and the two Craneges, and others;] ◆¹ The first of these was a certain Dud Dudley, who procured a patent in the year 1620 for smelting iron ore “with coal, in furnaces with bellows”; and his process was so far successful, that at length from a single furnace he produced for a time seven tons of iron weekly. For reasons, however, which will be mentioned presently Dudley’s invention died with himself; and for fifty years after his death the application of coal to smelting was as much a lost art as it would have been had he never lived. ◆² Between the years 1718 and 1735 it was again discovered by a father and son—the Darbys of Coalbrookdale. A further step, and one of almost equal importance, ◆³ was achieved by two of their foremen—brothers of the name of Cranege—assisted by Reynolds, who had married the younger Darby’s daughter, and this was the application of coal to the process which succeeds smelting, namely, the conversion of crude iron into bar-iron, or iron that is malleable. Other inventors might be mentioned by whom these men were assisted, but it will be quite enough to consider the case of these. As related to the age, as related to the society round him, the one thing most striking in the life of each of them is not that he represented that society, but that he was in opposition to it, and had to fight a way for his inventions through neglect, ridicule, and persecution. The nation at large was absolutely ignorant of the very nature of the objects which these men had in view; whilst the ironmasters of the day, as a body, though not equally ignorant, disbelieved that the objects were practicable until they were actually accomplished. It is true that these great inventors were not alone in their efforts; for where they succeeded, others attempted and failed: but these failures do but show in a stronger light how rare and how great were the faculties which success demanded. [Sidenote ◆1 The details of whose several lives are signal illustrations of what has just been said.]