in the latter part of his life, experienced heavy commercial losses, which swept away a great portion of the respectable fortune which his assiduous industry had realised, we believe those to have arisen from enterprises with which no member of his brother-in-law's family was in any wise associated. Mr. John Muirheid died in 1769, leaving to his son Robert the beautiful estate of Croy Leckie, in the parish of Killearn, and county of Stirling. CHAPTER III. CHILDREN OF JAMES WATT OF GREENOCK, AND AGNES MUIRHEID—BIRTH JAMES WATT'S MRS. OF JAMES WATT- JOHN WATT, HIS YOUNGER BROTHER To Mr. Watt of Greenock and Agnes his wife, there were born five children; of whom the three eldest,-two sons and a daughter,—died in infancy or early childhood. The fourth was James, the subject of this biography, who was born on the 19th day of January, 1736; and the fifth was John, who was born in 1739, and perished at sea, as has already been mentioned, in 1762. Premature as was his fate, he was yet able, as we have seen, to assist his father and elder brother in completing the survey of the Clyde which had been left unfinished by his uncle of the same name; and, as the survey was engraved and published in 1759-60, his aid in that family undertaking must have been given before he was twenty-one. He had been destined to follow his father's business; and the fatal voyage to America, on which he was sent while still so young, was probably considered as likely to prove highly advantageous, by increasing his experience of nautical affairs, and enlarging the horizon of his observation, before he should again settle down, either in the family home, or in some other sphere. How far he might have been able to keep pace with his gifted brother in the career on which he was so soon to enter, is a problem that must remain for ever unsolved; but a turn for scientific pursuits seems, in some measure at least, to have been common to every male of that family, so as to have become almost the birthright of both of the grandsons of Thomas Watt, "the old mathematician." C And it may be added, that the same inclination continued to "run in their veins," till the line of direct male descent itself became extinct, by the death, without issue, of both of the sons of the illustrious improver of the steamengine. The childhood of James Watt presents us with the spectacle, only too frequent in the histories of men of genius, of great delicacy of constitution, and consequent inability to bear an equal part in either the toils or the sports common to other boys of his own age. But the same excellent authority on which we know that in his early years he was physically sickly and feeble, has also told us that:-"When he was "six years of age, a gentleman calling on Mr. Watt observed "the child bending over a marble hearth, with a piece of "coloured chalk in his hand. 'Mr. Watt,' said he, 'you 66 6 Fought to send that boy to a public school, and not "allow him to trifle away his time at home.' 'Look "how my child is occupied, before you condemn him,' replied the father. The gentleman then observed, that the "child had drawn mathematical lines and circles on the "marble hearth, and was then marking in letters and figures "the result of some calculation he was carrying on; he put "various questions to the boy, and was astonished and gra"tified with the mixture of intelligence, quickness, and simplicity, displayed in his answers. Forgive me, Mr. Watt; "this boy's education has not been neglected:-he is no 66 6 common child.' "His parents were indulgent, yet judicious in their kind"ness; and their child was docile, grateful, and affectionate. "From an early age, he was remarkable for manly spirit, a "retentive memory, and strict adherence to truth; he might "be wilful or wayward, but never was insincere. His faults "were ever acknowledged with candour, and, when any " quarrels occurred with his young friends, his father said, "Let James speak; from him I always hear truth.' ” "He received from his mother his first lessons in reading; "his father taught him writing and arithmetic. Owing to “variable health, his attendance on public classes at Greenock 66 "was irregular; his parents were proud of his talents, and encouraged him to prosecute his studies at home. His "father gave him a set of small carpenter's tools, and one of "James's favourite amusements was to take his little toys to "pieces, reconstruct them, and invent new playthings." Every one must admire the enlightened affection which could, amid all the happy little works and ways of home, allow to the intelligent boy a latitude such as, in those days of rigid paternal discipline, was perhaps unusual, but not misplaced; which could with watchful kindness supply every reasonable wish and want, suggest every cheerful and thoughtful occupation, and yet refrain from urging, in hours of illness or languor, the opening mind to more sustained exertions, thus avoiding all risk of overstraining its energies, and of weakening its powers. Of the boyish years of the future mighty engineer, various incidents have been recorded,-some of them slight and trivial enough, such as are those of the little respect in which his school companions are said to have held his abstracted and contemplative nature, his silent sufferings as an invalid, and his consequent disinclination,—and, indeed, inability,—to mix in boisterous play and unmeaning idleness; as well as of the slowness with which most of them awoke to the conviction that "Jamie Watt " was "no vulgar boy," and was likely to prove no illiterate one. The report, however, of "a certain mental dullness" said to have been "exhibited by him during the earlier period "of his school days," rests only on the opinion, conceived at that early age by one or two of those very comrades,"burly youngsters," as they have been appropriately termed;-and at first sight appears to be rather inconsistent with that other record which we have just been transcribing. In a conflict of such authorities, we could not for a moment hesitate as to which ought to command our belief; nor could we adopt the opinion alleged to have been held on this subject by some venerable survivors of the number of Watt's school companions, without confessing how great must have been the mental brilliancy, at the same age, of those early cynics who could feel such pity for the comparative intellectual weakness of James Watt. But another explanation presents itself, which enables us to reconcile any apparent discrepancy between the two statements. We trust that we do no injustice, nor show any undue disrespect to the memory of the worthy personages more immediately referred to, if we venture to suggest that between their views, their habits of thought, and subjects of reflection, and those of James Watt, even in his boyhood, there may have been, and there probably was, so wide a difference, as to make him no very congenial companion for them, nor them very competent judges of him. The day-star might all the while be dawning, and even shining more and more unto the perfect and glorious day; and yet its light might be slowly discerned by eyes habitually bent towards the earth. Fortunately it happens that other anecdotes, of quite a different sort, have also been preserved, relating to the same early period, which are of great value in every way, and far too curious to be here omitted. Their tendency is uniform, and in one direction; while the authenticity of the MS. notice from which they are taken is unimpeachable, and its exactness has been effectually guaranteed. The document in question is entitled 'Memoranda of the early years of Mr. Watt, by his cousin, Mrs. Marion Campbell, (born 'Muirheid, daughter of his mother's brother), who was his companion in early youth, and friend through life; dictated 'to and written down by her daughter Miss Jane Campbell ' in 1798.' In thanking Miss Campbell in 1834 for a transcript of that paper, the late Mr. Watt of Aston Hall, (son of the great engineer), assured her that he attributed the greatest value to a record which he justly described as containing information at once so full and so specific; and remarked that it was so accordant with all he had himself known of his revered father's character in later years, that he entertained not a doubt of its perfect accuracy. "That his powers of imagination and composition," says Mrs. Campbell, were early displayed, appears from the 66 |