CURRENT LITERATURE.
The Worthies of Cumberland. By Henry Lonsdale, M.D. (Rout- ledge.)—This volume is occupied with a number of smaller celebrities, of whom the first, George Graham, the clookmaker, and the last, Mus- grave Lewthwaite Watson, the sculptor, are the best known to fame. Watson, perhaps, ought scarcely to be classed in a second rank, as he occupies an honourable place in the history of English art. Graham, too, in his own line was eminent. He did permanent service to the art of elockmaking, and some of his improvements, the mercurial com- pensating pendulum and the dead-beat escapement, for instance, still hold their place amongst all the inventions of more recent ingenuity. One fact which Dr. Lonsdale mentions speaks volumes for the practical worth of Graham's work. Three of his clocks are still in efficient use at the Greenwich Observatory, and one of them was selected for service in the observations of the transit of Venus. Graham was buried in Westminster Abbey, the funeral taking place, strangely enough, at night. Abraham Fletcher, "tobacco-pipe maker," another of the " worthies " of this volume, was a remarkable instance of what a man can achieve in spite of all unfavourable circumstances. Fletcher had three weeks' schooling in his life, and he made himself a really note- worthy mathematician. The account of his struggles, and of the results which he achieved, as Dr. Lonsdale gives it, is remarkably interesting.
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