4U 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



[ VoVEMBER, 



would have all the flexibility of tlie tail of this Crustacea. It was therefore a 

 complete jointed pipe that he suggested, capable of bending in all preseut, and 

 future windings of the bed of the river ; in fact an iron lobster's tail two 

 feet in diameter and a thousand feet long was what acconUng to M'att's plans 

 and drawings, the Glasgow company carried into execution with complete 

 success.* 



Those who were fortunate enough to he personallv acquainted with our 

 colleague, do not hesitate to assert that his social quahfications suqjassed 

 even those of his mind. Candour almost cliildish, the greatest simpUcity of 

 manners, a love of justice carried even to a scrupulous extreme, and an iiiex- 

 liaustihle kinchiess of disposition, are virtues which have left in England and 

 in Scotland incflaceable remembrances. \\'att habitually moderate and mild, 

 hecame strongly excited when an invention was attributed to any other Iiut 

 its right author, when particularly some low flatterer endeavoured to enrich 

 himself at another's expense. In his opinion scientific discoveries were the 

 first of treasures, and whole hours of discussion never seemed to him too 

 much in the attempt to render justice to modest inventors, dispossessed by 

 plagiaries, or merely forgotten by public ingratitude. 



The memory of Matt may he cited as prodigious, even in comparison with 

 what has been related of this facidty of privileged persons. The extent of 

 it was however his least merit, it assimilated to itself whatevei was of the 

 least value, and rejected the superfluity almost instinctivelv and at once. The 

 variety of oiu- colleague's acquirements would be truly incredible, w ere they 

 not attested by most eminent men. Lord Jefi"rev, "iu an eloquent notice 

 happily characterised the bold and subtile intelligence of his friend, when he 

 compared it to the wonderfully organized trunk, by which with equal ease the 

 elephant picks up a straw or uproots an oak. Tliese are the terms in which 

 Sir Walter Scott speaks of his fellow-countrs'man in the preface to The 

 Monasiertj. 



" It was only once my fortune to meet Watt, when 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 degi'ee, perhaps, even beyond liis own stupendous powers of 

 calculation and combination ; bringing the treasures of the ahvss to the sum- 

 mit of the earth,— giving to the feeble arm of man the momentum of an 

 Afnte,— commanding manufactures to arise,— aftbrding 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 machineo' has produced a change in the world, the effects of 

 which, extraordinary as they are, are perhaps only 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 bsst and 

 kindest of human beings. There he stood, surrounded by the little band of 

 northern hterati. Mcthinks I yet see and hear what I shall never see or hear 

 again. In Ms eighty-first year, the alert, kind, benevolent old man, had his 

 attention at every one's question, his information at every one's command. 

 His talents and fancy overflowed on every subject. One gentleman was a 

 deep philologist,— he talked with liim on the origin of the alphabet, as if he 

 had been coeval with Cadmus ; another a celebrated critic. — you would have 

 said that the old man had studied political economy and belles-lettres all his 

 life ;— of science it is unnecessary to speak, it was his own distinguished 

 walk. And yet when he spoke with your countn-man, von would have sup- 

 posed he Bad been coeval with Clavers and Buriey,— with the persecutors 

 and persecuted ; and could number every shot that the dragoons had fired at 

 the fugitive Covenanters." 



If our colleague had had any wish, he might easUy have raised a name 

 among novehsts. In the privacy of his usual society, he seldom faUed to 

 enrich the terrible, pathetic, or comic anecdotes wliich he was in the habit 

 of relating. The minute details of his narrations, the names which he intro- 

 duced, the technical descriptions of castles, country houses, forests, and caves, 

 to winch the scene was successively transferred, gave to his improvisations 

 such an air of truth, as not to allow of the shghtest mistrust. One day, 

 however, Watt exliibited some embarrassment in drawing his characters out 

 of the labjninth in which he had imprudently involved them. One of his 

 friends, perceiving the unusual number of pinches of snuflT with which the 

 narrator was trjiug to create legitimate pauses, and thus eke out the time for 

 reflection, addressed to hun the following indiscreet question ; " Are you for 

 once telling us something of your own invention ? " " This question surprises 

 me;" replied the old man ; " for the last twentv years that we have spent 

 our evenings together, I have always done so. Co'uld you reaUy beheve that 

 I wished to be considered as a Hume or a Robertson, when mv attempts were 

 confined to imitating, at an humble distance, the labours of the Princess 

 Scheherazade in " The Arabian nights." 



Every year, in a short journey to London, or to some town not so far from 

 Birmingham, Watt made a nunute examination of whatever was new since 

 his last nsit. I do not even make an exception of the wonderful fleas or 

 Punch and Judy, for our illustrious colleague looked on such things with the 

 delight and disposition of a school-boy. \\\u\e following, at present, the 

 Itinerary of his annual courses, we find, in more than one instance, luminous 

 traces of his progress. At Manchester, for example, we might see the 



ir^ ^)-' iJ"l' S.'"^, ""■ ''.'■^"■'"S' and description of lliia apparatus in onr next Journal.- 

 (Ld. t. i.. Hi. A. Juurnat.) 



hydraulic ram on the suggestion of our colleague, useil to raise the water for 

 condensing in a ste m-engine, to the feed-cistern of the boiler. 



Watt generally resided at an estate near Soho, called Heathfield, which he 

 bought in 1790. The religious veneration of my friend Mr. James Watt, for 

 cvei-ything belonging to his father, enabled me, in 1834, to find the Ubrary 

 and furniture of Heathfield in the state in which the illustrious engineer left 

 them. Another property, on the picturesque banks of the river Wye, in 

 V\'ales, affords the traveller numerous proofs of the enlightened taste of Watt 

 and his son, in the improvements on the roads, in the plantations, and in 

 their agricultural labours of all kinds. 



Watt's health hecaipe stronger with his age, and his intellectual faculties 

 were preserved to the last moment. Our colleague once thought that they 

 were declining, and, faitliful to the motto on the seal he had chosen, (an eye 

 under the word obsernare,) he determined on clearing up his doubts by mak- 

 ing observations on himself ; and there he was, at seventy years of age, 

 searching for some kind of study on which to make the experiment, and 

 lamenting that he could not find any, on which he had not already exercised 

 lus mind. lie recollected, at last, that the Anglo-Saxon language was re- 

 puted to be very difficult, and it therefore became the experimental medinm 

 desired, when the facility with which he acquired it, soon showed him the 

 slight foundation of his apprehensions. 



Watt consecrated the last moments of liis life to the construction of a ma- 

 chine for copying rapidly, and with mathematical fidelity, works of statuary 

 and sculpture of aU kinds. This machine, of which, it is to be hoped, that 

 the arts will not be deprived, was already much advanced, and several of its 

 productions, of a very satisfactory nature, are to be seen in the collections of 

 amateurs, both in England and Scotland. The illustrious engineer made 

 presents of them gaUy, as the first attempts of a young artist entering his 

 eighty-third year. 



Of this eighty-third year, our colleague was not destined to see the end. 

 In the beginning of the summer of 1819, alarming symptoms already defied 

 all the efforts of meiUcine. Watt did not delude himself as to his position. 

 " I feel," said he to the numerous friends who visited him, " I feel the attach. 

 ment which you have shown ; I thank you for it now, for I am in my last 

 Uliiess." His son did not appear to him to show sufficient resignation, and 

 every day he sought a new pretext to point out to him, with mildness, good- 

 ness, and tenderness, *' all the reasons of consolation which the circumstances 

 under which an inevitable event must occur, should infuse into him." This 

 mournful event occurred on the 2oth of August, 1819. 



Matt was interred in the parish church of Heathfield, near Birmingham, 

 In the county of StafTord. Mr. James M'att, whose distinguished talents and 

 noble sentiments endeared, during twenty-five years, the life of his father, 

 erected to him a splendid Gothic monument, for which the church of Hands- 

 worth is now remarkable. In the centre stands an admirable statue in marble 

 by Chantrey, a faithful hkeness of the old man. 



A second marble statue from the chisel of the same scidptor, has also been 

 placed, by filial piety, in one of the halls of that brilliant university in which, 

 during youth, the then unknown artisan, persecuted by the corporation, 

 received flattering and weU deserved encouragement. Greenock has not for- 

 gotten that Watt was born there ; its inhabitants have raised, at their own 

 expense, a marble statue to the illustrious mechanic. It is placed in a hand- 

 some library, buUt on ground presented gratuitously hy Sir Michael Shaw 

 Stewart, and in which are collected the books belonging to the town, and 

 the collection of scientific works which M"att gave to it in his life-time. This 

 building has cost 3500/., to the expense of which Mr. M'att, jun., liberally 

 contributed. A large colossal statue in bronze, on a fine granite base, which 

 reigns over George Square in Glasgow, shows to every one how proud this 

 capital of Scotch commerce feels of having been the cradle of M'att's discoveries. 

 The gates of M'estminster Abbey have at last been opened, on the demand 

 of an important meeting of subscribers. A colossal statue of Carrara marble, 

 a master-piece of Chantrey, and on the pedestal of w liich is an inscription by 

 Lord Brougham,* has become, during the last four years, one of the principal 

 ornaments of the EngUsh Pantheon. No doubt there is some coquetry in 

 uniting, on the same monument, the illustrious names of Watt, Chantrey, and 



" IN.SCRIPTION ON MONUMENT. 



NOT TO PERPETr.\TE A .NAME 



WHICH MUST ENDCRE WHILE THE PEACEFUL ARTS FLOt;RISH, 



BUT TO SHEW 



THAT MANKIND HAVE LEARNT TO HONOUR THOSB 



WHO BEST DESERVE THEIR GRATITUDE, 



THE KING, 



HIS MINISTERS, ANT) MANV OF THE NOBLES 



AND COMMONERS OF THE REALM, 



RAISED THIS MONUMENT TO 



JAMES WAIT. 



WHO, DIRECTING THE FORCE OF AiN ORIGINAL GENHUS, 



EARLV EXERCISED IN PHILOSOPHICAL RESEARCH, 



TO THE IMPROVEMENT OF 



THE STEAM -E.NGINE, 



ENLARGED THE RESOURCES OF HIS CODNTRT, 



INCREASED THE POWER OF MAN, 



AND ROSE TO AN EMINENT PLACE 



AMONG THE ILLUSTRIOUS FOLLOWERS OF SCIENCE, 



AND THE REAL EENEFAfTORS OF THE WORLD. 



BORN AT GREENOCK. MDCCXXXVl, 



DIED AT HE.VTllFiELD IN STAFFORDSHIRE, JIDCCCXIX. 



