Among the productions of mechanick art, many are of a form so different from that of their first materials, and many consist of parts so numerous and so nicely adapted to each other, that it is not possible to view them without amazement.

Johnson refers, I suppose, to a passage in Dryden which he quotes in his Dictionary under mechanick:'Many a fair precept in poetry is like a seeming demonstration in mathematicks, very specious in the diagram, but failing in the mechanick operation.'

Among the artists that had been allured into the happy valley, to labour for the accommodation and pleasure of its inhabitants, was a man eminent for his knowledge of the mechanick powers, who had contrived many engines, both of use and recreation.

"Sir," said he, "you have seen but a small part of what the mechanick sciences can perform.

Like birth-day belle, by gross mechanick toil Trick'd out to charm with meretricious air, As though all France and Manchester were there!