Portrait Lathe, by means of which medallion dies of any desired size can be engraved in steel from an enlarged model.

He was still residing in Paris at the time of the great French Revolution, and, as an active member of the Commissariat Department, he had to distribute a certain dole of bread and rice to the starving thousands, who formed a long queue for many hours every morning before the municipal bakery was opened. Everyone in Paris at that time felt the pinch for food. My father had a small estate some twenty miles out of town, and when he saw the probability of a famine, he had a few sacks of wheat taken to his house in Paris, and there secretly stowed away; for a knowledge of their presence would have brought the hungry mob upon him. It was my mother's task at night, when the household had retired to rest, to grind some of this wheat in a coffee mill, so that cakes might be made for the morrow's breakfast; and thus in secret my parents enjoyed the luxury of whole-meal bread of their own manufacture.

My father was most anxious to return to England, but it was very difficult to get away. He could obtain nothing from his bankers but the paper money then well known as Assignats, which were issued for amounts as low as fifty sous, or about two shillings in English value.

Fortunately a short lull occurred in those stormy times, and, taking advantage of the opportunity, my parents escaped to England, bringing with them about £6,000 in nominal value in Assignats, and only a very small sum in cash.

Arrived in London, my father had to begin the world over again; so availing himself of his intimate knowledge of the use of the stamping-press and dies, and the working of gold, he commenced the manufacture of gold chains of a novel and beautiful description. By using gold of a high standard of quality, and with the assistance of finely-executed steel dies for stamping each link, a splendid chain was produced, which appeared very massive while in reality it was very light. These chains were bought by the retail jewellers as rapidly as they could be made.

While this new branch of trade was going on satisfactorily, a great panic was created in London by a report that Napoleon was about to invade England in flat-bottomed boats, which were said to be then at Boulogne, prepared for the expedition. My father, who had lost all in Paris, was determined at this juncture to secure some solid property in his own country, and at once dispatched his traveller to collect all the money he could from his various customers. With this money he purchased a small landed estate in the village of Charlton, near Hitchen in Hertfordshire, to which he shortly afterwards retired, and where I was born on the 19th January, 1813.

My father's active business habits did not permit him to lead a life of idleness, and, after a year or two of quiet retirement, he commenced to cut letter-punches for Mr. Henry Caslon, the proprietor of the well- known Caslon type-foundry of London. The eminence my father had acquired in this art, while in the Paris Mint, enabled him to produce specimens of typography far more beautiful than any others that could be met with at that time. An immense accession of trade to the Caslon foundry resulted, and Mr. Henry Caslon became a frequent visitor at my father's house at Charlton; where, on one of these occasions, he acted as my godfather, and gave me the name of Henry.

Some years later, my father was joined in business by a former partner of Mr. Caslon's, and a type- foundry was built on our estate at Charlton. The knowledge of metal work which I acquired in this foundry, assisted, I doubt not, in fostering and developing that taste for casting and other metallurgical works in which, as an amateur, I took so deep and abiding an interest.

After leaving school, I begged my father to let me remain at home, and learn something of practical engineering. This he acceded to, and as a preliminary step he bought me one of those beautiful small slide-rest lathes, made by Messrs. Holtzapffel of London, and which are still produced in all their original excellence by that eminent firm.