failed to manifest the most open scorn and detestation. Independent, in short, of his high attainments, Mr. Playfair was one of the most amiable and estimable of men, delightful in his manners, inflexible in his principles, and generous in his affections; and while his friends enjoyed the free and unstudied conversation of an easy and intelligent associate, they had at all times the proud and inward assurance that he was a being upon whose perfect honour and generosity they might rely with the most implicit confidence, in life and in death; and of whom it was equally impossible, that, under any circumstances, he should ever perform a mean, a selfish, or a questionable action, as that his body should cease to gravitate or his soul to live.

If we do not greatly deceive ourselves, there is nothing here of exaggeration or partial feeling, and nothing with which an indifferent and honest chronicler would not concur. Nor is it altogether idle to have dwelt so long on the personal character of this distinguished individual: for we are ourselves persuaded that this personal character has almost done as much for the cause of science and philosophy among us as the great talents and attainments with which it was combined, and has contributed in a very eminent degree, to give to the better society of this our city that tone of intelligence and liberality by which it is so honourably distinguished. It is not a little advantageous to philosophy that it is in fashion; and it is still more advantageous, perhaps, to the society which is led to confer on it this apparently trivial distinction. It is a great thing for the country at large-for its happiness, its prosperity, and its renown, that the upper and influencing part of its population should be made. familiar, even in its untasked and social hours, with sound and liberal information, and be taught to know and respect those who have distinguished themselves for great intellectual attainments. Nor is it, after all, a slight or despicable reward for a man of genius to be received with honour in the highest and most elegant society around him, and to receive in his living person that homage and applause which is too often reserved for his memory. Now, those desirable ends can never

be effectually accomplished, unless the manners of our leading philosophers are agreeable, and their personal habits and dispositions engaging and amiable. From the time of Hume. and Robertson, we have been fortunate in Edinburgh in possessing a succession of distinguished men, who have kept up this salutary connexion between the learned and the fashionable world; but there never, perhaps, was any one who contributed so powerfully to confirm and extend it, and that in times. when it was peculiarly difficult, as the lamented individual of whom we are now speaking; and they who have had the most opportunity to observe how superior the society of Edinburgh is to that of most other places of the same size, and how much of that superiority is owing to the cordial combination of the two aristocracies, of rank and of lettersof both of which it happens to be the chief provincial seatwill be best able to judge of the importance of the service he has thus rendered to its inhabitants, and, through them, and by their example, to all the rest of the country.

In thus mournfully estimating the magnitude of the loss we have sustained, it is impossible that our thoughts should not be turned to the likelihood of its being partly supplied by the appointment of a suitable successor. That it should be wholly supplied, even with a view to the public, we confess we are not sanguine enough to expect. That our professor of mathematics and natural philosophy should have been for more than 30 years, not only one of the most celebrated mathematicians, but one of the finest writers, and one of the highest-bred gentlemen of his age, is a felicity which it is out of all calculation that we should so soon experience again: but, in an age when-very much by his efforts and example-several men of great and distinguished eminence in science can be found, and, as we understand, have already proposed themselves for the vacancy, we do trust that the chair of Mr. Playfair, or any other chair which his death may ultimately leave vacant, will not be bestowed upon a person of questionable or even ordinary attainments.

The object of such an appointment is, no doubt, to instruct youth in the elements of knowledge; but it is, notwithstanding,

a most gross mistake to suppose that a capacity to teach these elements is a sufficient qualification for the office of an Edinburgh professor. If it were so, every second lad who had passed creditably through such a class in one year, might be properly appointed to teach it the year after. Nobody, however, will maintain any thing so absurd as this; and though we fear that the duties of those who are vested with the right of nomination have not always been correctly understood, no such monstrous misconception can require to be obviated. We have unfortunately in this country but too few desirable situations wherewith to reward the successful cultivators of the abstract sciences. The prizes in their lottery are lamentably few; and it would be the height of injustice not to let them have them all. If it be of importance to a country (and it is in every respect of the very first importance) that it should possess men eminent for genius and science, it is of importance that it should encourage them; and it is obvious that no encouragement can be so effectual, so cheap, and so honourable, as sacredly to reserve, and impartially to assign, to them, in proportion to their eminence, those situations of high honour and moderate emolument to which it is their utmost ambition to aspire, and which gives them not only the rank and dignity they have so worthily earned, but the means of cultivating and diffusing, with great additional effect, that very knowledge to which their years have been devoted. On this ground alone the duty of giving to men distinguished for science, and devoted to it, the few scientific professorships that are established among us, appears to be absolutely imperative, on the score of mere justice, as well as of national advantage; on that of national honour, it is not of less cogency. We have once more made ourselves a name as a scientific nation in every quarter of the world; and, by means of Playfair and Leslie, the Scottish philosophy of physics is nearly as well known all over the civilized world as the Scottish philosophy of mind. The Edinburgh school of science now maintains a rivalry with the most celebrated of those in England; and among foreign philosophers, the name of Playfair is more honoured and better known than that of any of the alumni of Cambridge. But is this

honour, do we think, to be maintained by placing in his chair an obscure or an ordinary teacher? a man capable of instructing boys in Euclid and algebra, and fit enough to teach mathematics or natural philosophy in a provincial academy, but without knowledge of the higher parts of the science, and without genius to enlarge its boundaries, or to grapple, at least, with their resistance? While there are men of eminence and genius to be found and Scotch bred men, too, of this description, willing and anxious as they are able, to maintain the honour of their country and their school, we trust that no such disgrace will be put on Scotland and Edinburgh on this critical and important occasion.

If lower and more selfish considerations were wanting, they, too, all lead to the same conclusion. An ordinary schoolmaster cannot, in fact, teach ordinary schooling so well as a superior person; but, even if he could, he would never attract the same resort of pupils; and the celebrity of the teachers, therefore, is a necessary condition of the greatness of the classes, the increase of the emoluments, and the general resort of families for education to spend money and pay taxes within the extended royalty.

Perhaps the patronage of such chairs might have been better placed than in the magistracy of Edinburgh. But we are inclined to augur well of their conduct on this occasion. For a good while back they have discharged this important part of their duty uprightly and well; and seem to have a proper sense of the importance of resisting all sinister influence in those interesting nominations. At this moment, too, they probably feel that they have not much popularity to spare; and, upon the whole, we have much more fear of their being misled than of their going voluntary astray. The few considerations we have now thrown out may help, perhaps, to keep them right; and, indeed, they can scarcely go wrong, if they remember, first, that a person qualified to teach the elements of science, but without a name, or a chance of acquiring a name amongst its votaries, is not fit to be placed at the head of the whole science of Scotland, by being appointed to the first, or the second, scientific professorship in this metropolitan university; and secondly, that

the chair now to be filled is a chair of science, and ought not to be made the reward of any other than scientific eminence.

ART. XII. Biographical Memoir of the late
Mr. James Watt.

DEATH is still busy in our high places; and it is with great pain that we find ourselves called upon, so soon after the loss of Mr. Playfair, to record the decease of another of our illustrious countrymen, and one to whom mankind has been still more largely indebted. Mr. James Watt, the great improver of the steamengine, died on the 25th of August, at his seat of Heathfield, near Birmingham, in the 84th year of his age.

This name, fortunately, needs no commemoration of ours; for he that bore it survived to see it crowned with undisputed and unenvied honours; and many generations will probably pass away before it shall have "gathered all its fame." We have said that Mr. Watt was the great improver of the steam-engine; but, in truth, as to all that is admirable in its structure, or vast in its utility, he should rather be described as its inventor. It was by his inventions that its action was so regulated as to make it capable of being applied to the finest and most delicate manufactures, and its power so increased as to set weight and solidity at defiance. By his admirable contrivances, it has become a thing stupendous alike for its force and its flexibility; for the prodigious power which it can exert, and the ease, and precision, and ductility, with which they can be varied, distributed, and applied. The trunk of an elephant that can pick up a pin or rend an oak is nothing to it. It can engrave a seal, and crush masses of obdurate metal like wax before it; draw out, without breaking, a thread as fine as a gossamer, and lift a ship of war like a bauble in the air. It can embroider muslin and forge anchors, cut steel into ribands, and impel loaded vessels against the fury of the winds and waves.

It would be difficult to estimate the value of the benefits which these inventions have conferred upon the country. There is no