in its own way is the other suspension bridge which he erected at
Conway, to carry his road across the mouth of the estuary, beside
the grey old castle, with which its charming design harmonizes so
well. Even now it is impossible to drive or walk along this famous
and picturesque highway without being struck at every turn by the
splendid engineering triumphs which it displays throughout its
entire length. The contrast, indeed, between the noble grandeur of
Telford's bridges, and the works on the neighbouring railways, is
by no means flattering in every respect to our too exclusively
practical modern civilization.

Telford was now growing an old man. The Menai bridge was begun in
1819 and finished in 1826, when he was sixty-eight years of age;
and though he still continued to practise his profession, and to
design many valuable bridges, drainage cuts, and other small jobs,
that great undertaking was the last masterpiece of his long and
useful life. His later days were passed in deserved honour and
comparative opulence; for though never an avaricious man, and
always anxious to rate his services at their lowest worth, he had
gathered together a considerable fortune by the way, almost without
seeking it. To the last, his happy cheerful disposition enabled
him to go on labouring at the numerous schemes by which he hoped to
benefit the world of workers; and so much cheerfulness was surely
well earned by a man who could himself look back upon so good a
record of work done for the welfare of humanity. At last, on the
2nd of September, 1834, his quiet and valuable life came gently to
a close, in the seventy-eighth year of his age. He was buried in
Westminster Abbey, and few of the men who sleep within that great
national temple more richly deserve the honour than the Westerkirk
shepherd-boy. For Thomas Telford's life was not merely one of