are, Roger Bacon, Herschel, Watt, and
Arkwright--names nearly and dearly allied with the triumphs of science in
this country. In Arkwright's Memoir are some important as well as
interesting particulars of the Cotton Manufacture in England. Our
quotation is, however, from another portion of the volume, illustrating,
as we conceive it does, a species of character which can scarcely be
estimated in too amiable a light.

The wonderful Robert Walker, as he is still called in the district of the
country where he resided, was curate of Seathwaite in Cumberland during
the greater part of last century. The fullest account that has appeared of
Mr. Walker is that given, in the notes to his series of sonnets entitled
"The River Duddon," by Mr. Wordsworth, in whose poem of the Excursion the
worthy clergyman is also noticed with the commendations due to his
singular virtues. From this memoir it appears that Walker was born in the
parish of Seathwaite in 1709; that being of delicate constitution, it was
determined by his parents, whose youngest child he was, to breed him a
scholar; and that accordingly he was taught the elements of reading,
writing, and arithmetic by the clergyman of the parish, who also
officiated as schoolmaster. He afterwards contrived to acquire a knowledge
of the classics; and, becoming in this manner qualified for taking holy
orders, was ordained, and appointed to the curacy of his native parish,
which was at this time (about the year 1735) of the value of five pounds
per annum. On obtaining possession of this living Walker married, his wife
bringing him what he calls himself, in one of his letters, "a fortune" of
forty pounds. We must refer to Mr. Wordsworth's pages, and the documents
which will be found printed there, for a detail of all that the industry
and economy of the curate and his wife contrived to accomplish upon these
scanty resources. Suffice it to say, that about twenty years after
Walker's entrance upon his living we find its value, according to his own
statement, increased only to the amount in all of seventeen pounds ten
shillings. At a subsequent period it received a further augmentation, to
what amount is not stated; but it was not considerable. Before this Mr.
Walker had declined to accept the adjoining curacy of Ulpha, to be held,
as proposed by the bishop, in conjunction with that of Seathwaite,
considering, as he says himself, that the annexation "would be apt to
cause a general discontent