Bring me a new and blooming wreath! Thou art deceiv'd, ah wretched swain! The aid thou ask'st is all in vain. Nor wine, nor flow'rs, nor freshest gale Addition to the Note in p. xix. of the Memoir. MR. WALKER was always much devoted to the practice of the mechanic arts; and the manual occupations of the lathe and the chisel continued during the greatest part of his life to furnish an agreeable occupation to his leisure hours. In this, as in every thing to which he applied himself, he exhibited proofs of uncommon excellence: his work was much admired for it's truth and accuracy; his filing was so remarkable, that in point of flatness it was equal to grinding, in the technical language of the trade it was what is expressed by filing hollow. He betrayed also considerable powers of invention: he constructed a chuck upon an entire new principle. His ingenuity was also apparent in a very curious machine for drilling holes perfectly perpendicular to the plate, which was but a secondary invention for the pur pose pose of accomplishing his plan of wheels and pinions with loose rollers to avoid friction, a principle which he afterward applied to a clock, that he constructed with his own hands. In the latter part of his life he had also invented a very curious machine for drawing all the conic sections, which, though he did not live to finish it, yet showed the highest degree of inventive mechanical genius, in combination with his mathematical powers. It may not be improper to notice also the excellence of his drawing, as an additional proof of the great versatility of his talents. He had early in life been at very considerable expense and trouble in collecting the engravings of the Italian and other artists: some of the most admired specimens of these he afterward employed himself in copying for his friends; the extreme accuracy with which they were traced was surprising: there was also a freedom and boldness in his hatches, which preserved all the spirit of the original. It is difficult to speak in adequate adequate terms of the excellence to which he attained in the various objects to which he directed his attention, without appearing to use the language of exaggeration. AN ADDRESS TO THE BRITISH HOUSE OF COMMONS. [Referred to in page xcii of the Memoir.] Ar the height of national calamity we ap- try. |