Besides the writings already noticed, Phillips compiled or edited a large number of school books. He tells us that all the elementary books, published under the names of Goldsmith, Blair and others, were his own productions--between the years 1798 and 1815. Nor was his mental activity confined to literary work; mechanical and scientific inventions largely occupied his attention. To prevent the enormous expenses of railway viaducts, embankments, and removals of streets, he proposed suspension roads, ten feet above the housetops, with inclined planes of 20° or 30°, and stationary engines to assist the rise and fall at each end. Cities, he maintained, might be traversed in this way on right lines, with intermediate points for ascent and descent. This bold and ingenious idea seems to be very like an anticipation of the elevated railways of New York, although even these have not yet reached the height Phillips thought to be desirable. He interested himself, also, in steam navigation. When Fulton was in England he was in frequent communication with his English friend, to whom he despatched a triumphant letter on the evening of his first voyage on the Hudson. This letter, having been shown to Earl Stanhope and some eminent engineers, was treated by them with derision as describing an impossibility. Sir R. Phillips then advertised for a company, to repeat on the Thames what had become an accomplished fact on the American rivers. After expenditure of a large sum of money in advertising he obtained only two ten-pound conditional subscribers. He then printed, with commendation, Fulton’s letters in the _Monthly Magazine_, and his credulity was almost universally reprobated. It is worth recording that, in the first steam voyage from the Clyde to the Thames, Phillips, three of his family, and five or six others, were the only passengers who had the courage to test the experiment. To allay the public alarms he published a letter in the newspapers, and before the end of that summer he saw the same packet set out on its voyage with 350 passengers.[252] In 1840, the year following the final edition of his most popular book, he died at Brighton in the seventy-third year of his age. During his busy life if, by his reforming energy, he had raised up some bitter enemies and detractors, he had made, on the other hand, some valuable friendships. Amongst these--not the least noteworthy--is his intimate friendship with that most humane-minded lawyer, Lord Erskine, one of those who have best adorned the legal profession in this country. XLIII. LAMARTINE. 1790-1869.