less admirable, however, 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 worldly success; it was
still more pre-eminently one of noble ends and public usefulness. Many