of this, communicated by a series of levers, is, partially or entirely to close the steam-passage. When the balls are close together, the velocity is small, and the steam-passage is quite open, because the valve presents its edge in the direction of the passage of the steam. As the velocity increases, the valve is turned more and more, ` until at last it completely covers the opening, and shuts off the further admission of steam into the cylinder. The governor has thus a complete control of the throttle-valve, and every irregularity of speed is immediately corrected by the admission of a greater or less quantity of steam.

In the year 1800, the patent-right granted to Bolton and Watt expired, and the great mechanist then retired from business, leaving the works at Soho to Mr. Bolton, the son of his partner, and his own two sons, James and Gregory. Gregory Watt died four years after of a pulmonary complaint, in the twenty-seventh year of his age-an event deeply afflicting to his father. James Watt continued for some time to carry on the works at Soho, but he also is now dead; and not long since the auctioneer stood among a crowd of curious purchasers in this once busy and prosperous workshop.

CHAPTER VI.

THE DOMESTIC LIFE AND PERSONAL CHARACTER OF JAMES WATT.

A LEARNED and devout man, well known for his Christian charity—that charity which thinketh no evil-was once insidiously tempted by an acquaintance to acquiesce in some injurious reflections upon the private life of a neighbor. "Do you not think he is a bad man?" the defamer inquired. "I do not know-I never lived with him," was the judicious and Christian reply. It would be well if the spirit of this reproof to an uncharitable man did more perfectly control the conversation of mankind. But the invidious and unholy spirit which delights in fault-finding, excusing or exalting itself by an implied comparison with another, is as commonly employed upon the characters of the dead as of the living. Some men are so acrid that they blister all they touch: nothing, after passing through their hands, is left with a tolerably fair and smooth skin: every surface is blotched by their handling. Some fault or failing, some habit of business, some trait of domestic life, offends them, and the man's character is at once condemned to all the tortures of

their excoriating pens. There are salient points in the lives of all men open to the attack of these inquisitors; but they are few and not prominent in the life of James Watt.

The possession of great intellectual qualities, and the attainment of weath and honor, do not guarantee the possession of a serene and peaceful life. Home is frequently the arena of discord or tyrannous oppression, even when the world looks on the man with its most complacent smile. It was not so in the dwelling of James Watt. His disposition was the same in manhood as in youthquiet, thoughtful, persevering, were the terms which best described his character. The strong decision of his mind gave sometimes a stiff, unbending attitude to his will; but it was never offensively exhibited, and he seldom lost the affability which marked his ordinary conversation.

During his residence within the walls of Glasgow College, Watt can scarcely be said to have commenced his domestic life. In 1764, about the time when he was changing his pursuits from that of a mathematical instrument maker to that of a civil engineer, he married Miss Miller, his cousin. Two sons and two daughters were the offspring of this union. One child of each sex died in infancy. In 1773, while he was engaged with the plans of the Caledonian Canal, his wife also was taken from him. These afflictions were deeply felt, and his mind was brought under the softening influence of domestic grief. It is not for us to intermeddle with the sorrows of a great mind at such an hour, and we would not if we

could attempt to describe what in nature it suffered, what in obedient submission it endured. For some years after the death of his first wife Mr. Watt remained a widower. His second marriage was to Miss Macgregor. This lady survived her husband, and died at an advanced age in the year 1822.

The reputation Mr. Watt had earned in the world by his successful career, and among his friends and acquaintances, by his genius, urbanity, and kind-heartedness, impressed the one with respect, and the other with affectionate admiration. When Watt was no more, rivals forgot their jealousy, and joined with those who had been largely benefited in acknowledging his genius and skill; but while the men of commerce-the representatives of pounds, shillings, and pencecame slowly and deliberately to acknowledge their obligations to James Watt, the men of genius, his personal friends and companions, were in haste to offer their testimonies to his character and talent. To them we may well leave the description of what James Watt was in his domestic life and personal character. The memory of no man was ever so wisely embalmed for perpetuity in the history of his country. Three of the most gifted of his countrymen-Brougham, Scott, and Jef frey-all possessing traits of character differing from and in some respects greater than his, and yet in some points all his inferiors, joined to do him honor, and to them we may leave the completion of this chapter.

Sir Walter Scott thus describes an interview he

had with the great mechanist, and vividly portrays his character and genius :

"There were assembled about half a score of our northern lights. Amidst this company stood Mr. Watt, the man whose genius discovered the means of multiplying our national resources to a degree perhaps beyond his own stupendous powers of calculation and combination: bringing the treasures of the abyss to the summit of the earth: giving the feeble arm of man the momentum of an Afrite: commanding manufactures to arise as the rod of the prophet produced water in the desert affording the means of dispensing with that time and tide which wait for no man, and of sailing without that wind which defied the commands and threats of Xerxes himself. This potent commander of the elements-this abridger of time and space-this magician, whose cloudy machinery has produced a change on the world, the effects of which, extraordinary as they are, perhaps are only now beginning to be felt was not only the most profound man of science-the most successful combiner of powers and calculator of numbers as adapted to practical purposes-was not only one of the most generally well-informed, but one of the kindest of human beings.

"There he stood, surrounded by the little band I have mentioned of northern literati: men not less tenacious, generally speaking, of their own fame and their own opinions, than the national regiments are supposed to be jealous of the high character which they have won upon service. Methinks I yet see and hear what I shall never