(240.) The power of inventing mechanical contrivances, and of combining machinery, does not appear, if we may judge from the frequency of its occurrence, to be a difficult or a rare gift; and, amongst the vast multitude of inventions which have been produced almost daily for a series of years, a large part has failed from the imperfect nature of the first trials; whilst a still larger portion, which had escaped the mechanical difficulties, failed only because the economy of their operations was not sufficiently attended to.

The commissioners appointed to examine into the methods proposed for preventing the forgery of bank notes, state in their report, that, out of one hundred and seventy-eight projects communicated to the Bank and to the commissioners, there were only twelve of superior skill, and nine which it was necessary more particularly to examine.

(241.) It is however a curious circumstance, that although the power of combining machinery is so common, yet the more beautiful combinations are exceedingly rare. Those which command our admiration equally by the perfection of their effects and the simplicity of their means, are found only amongst the happiest productions of genius.

To produce movements even of a complicated kind is not difficult. There exist a great multitude of known contrivances for all the more usual purposes, and if the exertion of moderate power is the end of the mechanism to be contrived, it is possible to construct the whole machine upon paper, and to judge of the proper strength to be given to each part as well as to the frame-work which supports it, and also of its ultimate effect, long before a single part of it has been executed.