as nothing to it. It can engrave a seal, and crush masses of obdurate metal before it-draw out, without breaking, a thread as fine as 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 this country. There is no branch of industry that has not been indebted to them; and, in all the most material, they have not only widened most magnificently the field of its exertions, but multiplied a thousandfold the amount of its productions. It was our improved steam-engine, in short, that fought the battles of Europe, and exalted and sustained, through the late tremendous contest, the political greatness of our land. It is the same great power which now enables us to pay the interest of our debt, and to maintain the arduous struggle with the skill and capital of countries less oppressed with taxation. But these are poor and narrow views of its importance. It has increased indefinitely the mass of human comforts and enjoyments, and rendered cheap and accessible, all over the world, the materials of wealth and prosperity. It has armed the feeble hand of man, in short, with a power to which no limits can be assigned; completed the dominion of mind over the most refractory qualities of matter; and laid a sure foundation for all those future miracles of mechanic power which are to aid and reward the labours

of after generations. It is to the genius of one man, too, that all this is mainly owing. And certainly no man ever bestowed such a gift on his kind. The blessing is not only universal, but unbounded; and the fabled inventors of the plough and the loom, who were deified by the erring gratitude of their rude contemporaries, conferred less important benefits on mankind than the inventor of our present steam-engine.

This will be the fame of Watt with future generations: and it is sufficient for his race and his country. But independently of his great attainments in mechanics, Mr. Watt was an extraordinary, and in many respects a wonderful man. Perhaps no individual in his age possessed so much and such varied and exact information --had read so much, or remembered what he had read so accurately and well. He had infinite quickness of apprehension, a prodigious memory, and a certain rectifying and methodizing power of understanding, which extracted something precious out of all that was presented to it. His stores of miscellaneous knowledge were immense-and yet less astonishing than the command he had at all times over them. It seemed as if every subject that was casually started in conversation with him, had been that which he had been last occupied in studying and exhausting-such was the copiousness, the precision, and the admirable clearness of the information which he poured out upon it, without effort or hesitation.

He had a certain quiet and grave humour, which ran through most of his conversation, and a vein of temperate

jocularity, which gave infinite zest and effect to the condensed and inexhaustible information which formed its main staple and characteristic. There was a little air of affected testiness too, and a tone of pretended rebuke and contradiction, with which he used to address his younger friends, that was always felt by them as an endearing mark of his kindness and familiarity,—and prized accordingly.

His voice was deep and powerful-though he commonly spoke in a low and somewhat monotonous tone, which harmonized admirably with the weight and brevity of his observations; and set off to the greatest advantage the pleasant anecdotes which he delivered with the same grave brow and the same calm smile playing soberly on his lips. There was nothing of effort, indeed, or impatience, any more than of pride or levity, in his demeanour: and there was a finer expression of reposing strength and mild self-possession in his manner, than we ever recollect to have met with in any other person. He had in his character the utmost abhorrence for all sorts of forwardness, parade, and pretensions; and, indeed, never failed to put all such impostures out of countenance, by the manly plainness and honest intrepidity of his language and deportment.

In his temper and dispositions, he was not only kind and affectionate, but generous, and considerate of the feelings of all around him; and gave the most liberal assistance and encouragement to all young persons who showed any indications of talent, or applied to him for patronage or advice. His health, which was delicate

from his youth upwards, seemed to become firmer as he advanced in years; and he preserved, up almost to the last moment of his existence, not only the full command of his extraordinary intellect, but all the alacrity of spirit and the social gaiety which had illumined his happiest days.

HARNESS me down with your iron bands;
Be sure of your curb and rein :

For I scorn the power of your puny hands,
As the tempest scorns a chain!

How I laughed as I lay concealed from sight,
For many a countless hour,

At the childish boast of human might,

And the pride of human power!

When I saw an army upon the land
A navy upon the seas,

Creeping along, a snail-like band,

Or waiting the wayward breeze;
When I marked the peasant fairly reel,
With the toil which he faintly bore,
As he feebly turned the tardy wheel,
Or tugged at the weary oar;

When I measured the panting courser's speed
The flight of the courier-dove,

As they bore the law a king decreed,

Or the lines of impatient love

I could not but think how the world would feel
As these were outstripped afar,

When I should be bound to the rushing keel,
Or chained to the flying car!

Ha, ha, ha! they found me at last,

They invited me forth at length,

And I rushed to my throne with a thunder-blast,
And laughed in my iron strength !
Oh! then ye saw a wondrous change
On the earth and ocean wide,
Where now my fiery armies range,
Nor wait for wind and tide.

Hurrah! hurrah! the water's o'er

The mountain's steep decline;

Time-space-have yielded to my power,
The world-the world is mine!