PROCEEDINGS OF PROVINCIAL SOCIETIES. l33 



" Mr. Watt was not only minutely and extensively skilled in chemistry 

 5and the mechanical arts, but also curiously learned in many branches of anti- 

 quity, metaphysics, medicine, and etymology ; and perfectly at home in all 

 the details of architecture, music, and law. He was well acquainted, too, 

 with most of the modern languages, and familiar with their most recent lite- 

 arature ; and with all these vast acquisitions of knowledge, no man could be 

 more social in his spirit, less assuming or fastidious in his manners, or more 

 kind and indulgent towards all who approached him. He had in his charac- 

 ter the utmost abhorrence of all sorts of forwardness, parade, and preten- 

 ssion ; and there was a finer expression of reposing strength and mild self- 

 possession in his manner than his friends ever recollected to have met with 

 in any other person. Shall we then subscribe to place the statue of this 

 great benefactor of the commercial world within our town, and not endeavour 

 to imitate his virtues ? Shall we gaze with admiration on his image, and not 

 fix his noble example in our hearts ? ' Whatever,' says Dr. Johnson, ' with- 

 draws us from the power of our senses, whatever makes the past, the dis- 

 tant, or the future, predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity 

 of thinking beings.' With this end in view, history and biography are given 

 to young commercial men, that they may learn to dwell with pleasure on 

 those characters which are most distinguished for their intelligence, the ex- 

 cellence of their lives, and the permanent good they have actually effected 

 among their own neighbours, and in their own land. In this enlightened 

 age, the temple of fame has opened wide her gates to the rising generation of 

 commercial men. Already they possess the bold, active, vigorous spirit, 

 which is formed by the jostling competition of the world ; but the steep be- 

 fore them is still rough and toilsome ; they can only progress by slow de- 

 grees ; and the dazzling rewards of scientific discovery and literary distinc- 

 tion will probably fall to the lot of few among the numerous aspirants who 

 crowd the portals. Fortunately for the advancement of society, the pursuits 

 of science and literature have their own intrinsic pleasures, their own en- 

 nobling rewards. ' Is it nothing,' said Mr. Iloscoe, ' that science has opened 

 our eyes to the magnificent worlcs of creation ? That she has accompanied 

 us through the starry heavens ? Descended with us to the depths of the 

 ocean ? Pierced the solid rock ? Called in review before us the immense 

 tribes of animal and vegetable life ; and from every part of the immense 

 panorama of nature has derived an infinite source of the most exalted plea- 

 sure, and the truest knowledge ? Is it nothing that she has opened to our 

 contemplation the wonderful system of the moral world ? Has analyzed and 

 explained to us the nature and qualities of our own intellect ? Defined the 

 proper boundaries of human knowledge ? Investigated and ascertained the 

 rules of moral conduct, and the duties .and obligations of society ? Whatever 

 is wise, beneficent, or useful in government, in jurisprudence, and political 

 economy, is the result of her constant and indefatigable exertions — exertions 

 which always increase with the magnitude of the object to be attained. And 

 literature has also departments of her own, the variety and importance of 

 which need only to be stated to be universally acknowledged. It is to her 

 that we are indebted for the record of the institutions and transactions of 

 past ages. Those lights and land-marks which enable us to steer with greater 

 confidence through the difficulties that may yet surround us. It is she who 

 has embodied and preserved in immortal language those splendid productions 

 of fancy and imagination, which for so many centuries have been the deUght 

 and the glory of the human race ; and it is still her peculiar province ' to 

 catch the manners, living, as they rise,' and to hand down to future ages the 

 true form, and features, and characteristic traits, of the present day.' 



" Such are the objects, such are the advantages, of literature and science ; 

 and there are not wanting many individuals in this town to whom these ob- 

 jects and advantages are already familiar. Henceforward they will be inse- 

 parably united in the Manchester Athenaeum, with the enterprising vigo- 

 rous spirit of commercial life. Like the three graces of antiquity, these three 

 £air sisters, science, commerce, and literature, will mutually assist and sup- 



