without receiving from that genius adaptation in form and construction to useful purposes. As an example of this restless activity of mind the following anecdote may be mentioned:

A company at Glasgow had erected on the right bank of the Clyde extensive buildings and powerful engines for supplying water to the town. After this expense it was found that a source of water, of very superior quality, existed on the left bank of the river. To change the site of the establishment, after the expense which had been incurred in its erection could not be contemplated, and they therefore proposed to carry across the bottom of the river a flexible suction pipe, the mouth of which should terminate in the source from which the pure water was to be derived. This pipe was to be supported by a flooring constructed upon the bed of the river; but it was soon apparent that the construction of such a flooring on a shifting and muddy bottom, full of inequalities, and under several feet depth of water would require a greater expenditure of capital than could with propriety be afforded. In this difficulty the aged mechanician, for whom Glasgow itself had been the earliest stage of professional labour, was applied to, and instantly solved the problem. His attention is said to have been attracted by a lobster which had been served at table: he set himself about to contrive how, by mechanism, he could make an apparatus of iron with joints which should have all the flexibility of the tail of the lobster. He therefore proposed that an articulated suction-pipe, capable of accommodating itself to all the inequalities and to the possible changes of the bed of the river, should be carried across it; that this flexible pipe should be two feet in diameter, and one thousand feet in length. This project the company accordingly caused to be executed after the plans and drawings of Watt with the most complete suc

cess.

An account of this remarkable apparatus, accompanied by an engraving made from a drawing supplied by Watt, was communicated by Sir John Robison to the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal in 1820. See vol. iii. p. 60.

Among the less prominent, though not less useful services rendered by Watt to his country, may be mentioned the introduction of the use of chlorine in bleaching. That invention of Berthollet was introduced into England by Watt after his visit to Paris at the close of the year 1786. He constructed all the necessary apparatus for it, directed its erection, and superintended its first performances. He then left it to his wife's father, Mr. Macgregor, to carry on the processes.

When the propertics of the gases began to occupy the attention of chemists, attempts were made to apply them as a means of curing diseases of the lungs. Dr. Beddoes pursued this inquiry with great activity, and established, through the means of private subscription, at Clifton, an institution in which this method of cure was carefully investigated. The Pneumatic Institution (for so it was called) has been rendered celebrated for having at its head Humphry Davy, just then commencing his scientific career. Among its founders was also numbered James Watt. Not content, however, with affording the institution the sanction of his name, he designed and caused to be constructed, at Soho, the apparatus used for making the gases and administering them to the patients.

As the exalted powers of the mind of Watt, unfolded in his numerous mechanical and philosophical inventions and discoveries, have commanded the admiration and respect of his species, the affection and love of his fellow men would not have been less conciliated, had the qualities of his heart, as developed in his private and personal relations, been as well known as the products of his genius.

In the year 1764, Watt being then in the twenty-ninth year of his age, married his cousin, Miss Miller. At this time he had fallen into a state of despondency from his disappointments, which produced a serious attack of nervous illness. The accomplishments and superior understanding, the mildness of temper and goodness of disposition of his wife, soon restored him to health. Of this marriage four children, two sons and two daughters, were the issue. Two of these children died in infancy; another, a daughter, was married to Mr. Miller of Glasgow; and the fourth is the

present Mr. James Watt. In September, 1773, while her husband was engaged in the design of the Caledonian canal in the North of Scotland, Mrs. Watt died in child-bed of a fifth child, who was still-born: "Would that I might here. transcribe," says M. Arago, "in all their simple beauty, some lines of the journal in which he daily recorded his inmost thoughts, his fears, his hopes! Would that you could see him, after this heavy affliction, pausing on the threshold of that home, where HIS KIND WELCOMER' awaited him no more; unable to summon courage to enter those rooms where he was never more to meet 'THE COMFORT OF HIS LIFE!' Possibly, so faithful a picture of a very deep sorrow might at last put to silence those obstinate theorists, who, without being struck by the thousands of instances to the contrary, do yet refuse qualities of the heart to every man whose intellect has been fostered by the fertile, sublime, and imperishable truths of the exact sciences!"

After the lapse of some years Watt married Miss Macgregor, a person who is represented to have possessed qualities of mind which rendered her a companion every way suitable to her husband. This lady survived Watt, and died in 1832 at an advanced age. Two children were the issue of this second marriage.

In the year 1800 the extended patent right, which had been granted to Boulton and Watt for their improved engine, expired, and at this time Mr. Watt retired altogether from business. He was succeeded by his two sons, the present Mr. James Watt, and Gregory, one of the children of his second marriage. The works at Soho continued to be conducted by the present Mr. Boulton, the son of the partner of Mr. Watt, and the two Messrs. Watt. In 1804 Gregory Watt died at the age of twenty-seven, of a disease of the chest. This afflicting event was deeply felt by Mr. Watt; but he did not sink under it into that state of despondency in which he has been represented to have fallen by M. Arago. On the contrary, he continued to show the same activity of mind which had characterised his whole

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life; nor did he lose that interest which he always took in the pursuit of literature and in society. The state of his feelings under this affliction is shown by the following extracts from letters written by him at that time, which have been published by Mr. Muirhead.

I, perhaps, have said too much to you and Mrs. Campbell on "the state of my mind. I, therefore, think it necessary to say that I am "not low spirited; and were you here, you would find me as cheerful in "the company of my friends as usual; my feelings for the loss of poor Gregory are not passion, but a deep regret that such was his and my lot.

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"I know that all men must die, and I submit to the decrees of nature, "I hope with due reverence to the Disposer of Events. Yet one stimulus "to exertion is taken away, and, somehow or other, I have lost my relish "for my usual avocations. Perhaps time may remedy that in some measure; meanwhile, I do not neglect the means of amusement which are " in my power."

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"be so.

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Heathfield, April 8th, 1805. * "It is rather mortifying to see how easily the want of even the "best of us is dispensed with in the world; but it is very well it should We here, however, cannot help feeling a terrible blank in our family. When I look at my son's books, his writings and drawings, I always say to myself, where are the mind that conceived these things, and the "hands that executed them? In the course of nature, he should have said so of mine; but it was otherwise ordered, and our sorrow is unavailing. As Catullus says:—

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"But Catullus was a heathen; let us hope that he (G.) is now rejoicing "in another and a better world, free from our cares, griefs, and infirmities. "Some one has said, I shall not wholly die; and Gregory's name, his "merits and virtues, will live at least as long as those do who knew him. "You are not, from this, to conceive that we give way to grief; on the contrary, you will find us as cheerful as we ought to be, and as much disposed to enjoy the friends we have left as ever; but we should ap"proach to brutes if we had no regrets."

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Mr. Watt, at the date of these letters, had entered on his seventieth year, a period after which great mental exertions are rarely made.

In the summer of 1819, symptoms of indisposition manifested themselves which soon rendered Watt aware of his approaching dissolution. "I am very sensible," said he to his afflicted friends, "of the attachment you show me, and I hasten to thank you for it, as I am now come to my last illness.' He died on the 25th of August, 1819. His remains were deposited in the church of Handsworth, near his estate of Heathfield. His son has raised over his grave a Gothic chapel, in the centre of which is placed a statue by Chantrey.

The personal character of Watt could not fail to excite the admiration and the love of those distinguished persons, whose pride and happiness it was to be admitted to a share in the friendship of the great engineer. Among these were reckoned some of the men who will leave upon the present age the deepest and most lasting impressions of their genius, and such persons have bequeathed to posterity the sentiments with which he inspired them. We cannot here do more justice to the personal character of the subject of this notice than by repeating the portraiture of it which has been given by three of the most distinguished of his friends, and of the most illustrious men of the present age.

At a meeting convened in 1824, for erecting a monument to Watt, Lord Brougham pronounced a speech, from which we extract the following observations:

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"I had the happiness of knowing Mr. Watt, for many years, in the "intercourse of private life; and I will take upon me to bear a testimony in which all who had that gratification I am sure will join, that they who "only knew his public merit, prodigious as that was, knew but half his "worth. Those who were admitted to his society will readily allow that anything more pure, more candid, more simple, more scrupulously loving of justice, than the whole habits of his life and conversation, proved him to be, was never known in society. One of the most astonishing circumstances in this truly great man, was the versatility of his talents. His accomplishments were so various, the powers of his mind were so vast, and yet of such universal application, that it was hard to say whe"ther we should most admire the extraordinary grasp of his understanding, or the accuracy of nice research with which he could bring it to bear upon the most minute objects of investigation. I forget of whom it was said, that his mind resembled the trunk of an elephant, which can pick up

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