416 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



[NOVKMBER, 



mention is made of it, a niiscraWc concession to tlic ruling o|iinion, to tlie 

 thin sldnucd suscoiitibility of tlie general statt'l The master of llie worlil, to 

 use tlie cxi)ression ofl'liny, giring^i'ay for one moment to the emotions of his 

 heart, did not the less bend liis staves before the literaiy title granted to him 

 by an academy. 



These reflections on the comparative merit of men of stvidy and men of the 

 sword, although they have mainly been s\iggestcd to me by what is said, by 

 what is jiassing luulcr our very eyes, is not without its ajiplication to the 

 country of Watt. I was travelling lately in England and Scotland. Tlie 

 kindness with which 1 was treated, authorised on my side those dry, cutting 

 and tUi-ect questions which under any other circumstances a judge only on 

 the bench could demand. Already seriously engaged with the duty which I 

 liad undertaken, of delivering on my return judgment on the illustrious me- 

 chanic ; already feeling uneasy as to the solemn assembly before which 1 was 

 to speak, I had prepared tliis question, " Wiat do you think of the influence 

 exercised liy Watt, on the j-iches, jiower and prosperity of England ?" I do 

 not exaggerate when I say that I have addressed this question to more than a 

 hundred persons belonging to all classes of society, and to every shade of 

 pohtics, from the highest radical to the most prejudiced conservative. The 

 reply has constantly been the same ; every one placed the services of our 

 colleague above all comparison ; every one, moreover, quoted to me the 

 speeches made at the meeting when the statue at Westminster was voted as 

 tlie fiiitlifid and unanimous expression of the feeUngs of the English nation. 

 AVhat do these speeches say ? 



Lord Liverpool, Prime Minister, calls Watt " one of the most extraordinary 

 men to whom England has given birth, one of the greatest benefactors of the 

 human race." He declares that " his inventions have increased in aii incal- 

 culable manner the resoiu'ces of his country and even those of the w hole 

 world." Taking the political side of the question, " I have lived," added be, 

 "in an age when the success of a campaign, or of a war, depended on the 

 possibility of getting mtliout delay our fleets out of port. Contrary winds 

 prevail for whole months, and upset from top to bottom aU the views of go- 

 vernment. Thaidis to the steam-engine such dilliculties are for ever at an 

 end." " Look," said Sir Humphrey Davy, " at the metropolis of tliis power- 

 ful empire, at our cities, om: villages, our arsenals and our manufactures ; 

 examine the subterranean raverns and the works executed on the surface of 

 the globe ; look at oiu- rivers, our canals, the seas which bathe our shores ; 

 and everywhere you will find marks of the eternal benefits of this great man." 

 "The genius which Watt lias displayed in his admirable inventions," says 

 still farther the illustrious President of the Royal Society, " has contrilnited 

 more to show the practical utility of science, to increase the power of man 

 on the material world, and to multiply and dilfuse the necessaries of life, than 

 the labours of any ])erson in modern times." Davy does not hesitate at all at 

 placing Watt above Archimedes. Uuskisson, President of the Board of Trade, 

 resigning for a moment bis claims as an Englishman, asserts that considered 

 in relation with the happiness of the human race, Watt's inventions ajqiear 

 to liim to merit the highest admiraticm. He explains in what manner the 

 saving in labour, the indefinite multiphcation and the cheapness of manufac- 

 tured goods, contribute to excite and extend civilization. " The steam-engine," 

 said he, " is therefore not only the most powerful instrument in the hands of 

 men for changing the face of the iihysical world, but it acts as an iiresistaljle 

 moral lever in urging fonvard the great cause of ci\ilization." 



In this point of view, Watt appeared to him to hold a dislinguished rank 

 among the iirst benefactors of the human race. As an Eiiglisliman, he did 

 not hesitate to say that without the works of Watt, the English nation 

 could never have supported the expenses of their last wars with Trance. 

 The same idea is to be found in the speech of another member of Parlia- 

 ment, in that of Sir .James Mackintosh ; see whether it be expressed in terms 

 Jess positive. " The discoveries of Watt have been the means of enabling 

 England to sustain the most arduous and most dangerous conflict in which 

 she has ever been engaged." Everything taken into consideration. Mackintosh 

 declares, " that no person has more evident claims than Watt to the homage 

 of his country and the veneration and respect of luture ages." 



Here are some numerical calculations, figures more eloquent still than the 

 several passages which I have just done reading. The younger Mr. 

 Boulton announces that in the year 1819, the manufactory ol .Soho alone 

 had already manufactured engines of Watt, of which the regular labour 

 would require one hundred thousand horses, and that the saving resulting 

 from the substitution of machinery for aniinal power, amounted to tliree 

 millions yearly. In England and Scotland at the same date, the number of 

 engines was more than lO.OCiO ; they did tlie work of 500,(100 horses, or of 

 three or four millions of men, with an annual saving of 10 or Li mdlions 

 sterling. These results must in the present day be more than doubled. 



This is, in short, what was thought and said of Watt by ministers, 

 statesmen, savants, and manufacturers, best qualified to appreciate him. 

 Gentlemen, this creator of six or eight millions of labourers, of indefatigable 

 and assiduous labourers, among whom no combination is to be repressed, 

 no mutiny leared — labourers at a half-penny per day ; this man, who by 

 l)iilliant inventions gave to I'higUind the means of sustaining a terri6e 

 struggle, in which even her nationality was never put in danger*— this new 

 Archimedes — this benefactor of all inankiiid, of whom future generations 

 will bless the memory — what was done to honour him in his lifetime ? 



"* M. Arago secnrs to have sUmii ely j..Ulakfn the woids of lliespcalvcrs.if lie ilnagnics 

 that they aUritmlc-tl to Walt, the power ot" contending whh Fiance, \\hiii Ihey only 

 asstrtcl that it w.is owing to liiiii tnat wr are enabled to sustain the expense, atitl have 

 llic means of iivoiUing many tliflicuUies in tuliire.— A'yfe cf the tramlutor. 



The peerage is in JOngland the highest dignity and the highest reward. 

 You w ill nattiraliy imagine that Watt was made a peer — it was never even 

 thtnight of. 



If we must speak plainly, so much the worse for the peerage that it was 

 never honoured with the name ot Watt. Such an omission in a nation so 

 justly proud of their great men, iiatuially astonished me. When I enquired 

 the cause, what do you think they i eplicd to me ? Those dignities of which 

 you speak, are reserved for naval and military officers, for influential orators 

 in the House of Commons, for members of the nobility. /* is not tin; 

 fcislikiii (\ do not invent, I quote exactly) — it is not the fashion to grant 

 them to savants, authors, artists, and engineers. I knew well enough that 

 it was not the ftishion in Queen Anne's time, since Newton was not a peer 

 of England, but after a progress in science and philosophy of a century and 

 a half, when every one of us in the short course of liis life has seen so 

 many kings wandering, abandoned, and proscribed, their ]ila<-cs on the 

 throne supplied by soldiers without a pedigree, sons of their swortls, had 1 

 nut a right to believe that the practice of giving peojile a destiny was aban- 

 doned—that no one would longer dare, at any rate to tell them to their 

 faces like the inflexible law of the Pharoahs, whatever may have been your 

 services, yoiu virtues, or your knowledge, none of you shall pass the bounds 

 of his caste— that an insane fashion (since fashion it is) should no longer 

 disgrace the institutions of a noble people*. 



Let us depend upon the future. A. time will come when the science of 

 destruction will bend before the arts of peace — when the genius which 

 multiplies our strength, creates new products, and brings comfort to the 

 mass, will occupy in the esteem of men that place which reason and good 

 sense claim for it in the picsent day; then Watt will appear before the 

 gland jury of the population of the two worlds; every one will see him, 

 aided by iiis steam engine, penetrate in a few weeks into the bowels of the 

 earth, wliere before him none arrived but after the most painful labour ; he 

 will e.xeavate there sp.aeious galleries, and will clear them almost instantly 

 of imtnense volumes of water which daily inundate them ; he will snatch 

 from a virgin soil the ine.xhausfibie riches which nature has deposited in it. 

 Joining delicacy with strength. Watt will twist with equal success the im- 

 mense links of the colossal cable, around which the shi]> of the line floats 

 in safety, and the microscoiiic threads of those nets and aerial laces which 

 always occupy such a cniiMtlerable place in the varied habiliments of fashion. 

 A few oscillations of the same engine will give up to cultivation vast 

 marshes; fertile countries will thus be relieved from the periodical and 

 mortal action of the miasma developed by the burning summer sun. The 

 great mechanical power which used to be sought in mountain regions at the 

 foot of swift cascades, will then, thanks to Watt's inventions, spring up at 

 will without trouble and without embanastnent, in the midst of cities — in 

 every floor of a house. The intensity of the power will vary at the will of 

 the mechanic ; it will not depend as before on the inconstancy of natural 

 causes, the meteors of the atmosphere, the dilTerent branches of each manu- 

 facture may be brought into one common establishment, under one roof. 

 Manufactured productions by their perfectioti will diminish in jirice ; the 

 people well fed, well clothed, and well warmed, will increase rapidly; they 

 will cover with elegant habitations every p.art of the territory, even those 

 which may be justly called the steppes of Europe, which centimes 

 of barrenness seem to have condemned to remain the exclusive realm of 

 savage brutes. In a few years hamlets will become important cities. In a 

 few years, towns Uke Buuiinghain, in which hardly thirty streets were to be 

 counted, will take their place among the greatest, richest and handsomest 

 cities of a powerful kingdom. Placed upon sliips, the steam-engine will re- 

 jilace a hundred fold, triple, qnadiuple banks of rowers, from whom oiu' fore- 

 fathers deinamlcd eflbrls which were justly ranked as the heaviest punishment 

 of the gieatest criminals. By means of a few pounils of coal, man will cou- 



* M. Arago might liave reserved )iis declamation to have made a better hit. Ignorant 



of tlie Elate of society in Eni^land, he coiii|)lains tliat political distinctions are reserved 

 f'lr political services; and passing over t!ic hononis tliat aredevotcii to men of mind, tie 

 lorgels to teli Ills readers, tiiat a man is not obliged to be a peer to liold tirst-rate ranlc in 

 society, and that many men, even merchants, or the sons of merchants, enjoy more 

 consideration witliout any title at all, tlian most of liis envied peers. He can tell us wliat 

 li.iilly did in the Convention, and what heliimscif hasdone in the chamber; howB'il\v«i, 

 Ward, D'Israeli, and Davies Gilbert have distinguished themselves in the lower honsc, 

 or Byron among the peers; lie can tell ns how to avail ourselves of the gaiichery of 

 Oliver Goldsmith, or Ihe abstractedness of Newton, and then we may be prepared to 

 follow the course which he, in his wisdom, points out. We do not finil tliat onr bi'ethien, 

 the .\nicvicans, have made ministers of either Bowditcli or Hare, of Washington Irving, 

 or Fenimore Cooper, and we should like to have otiier experience before we set an 

 evaniple. That we have been angraleiul to eminent men in every career we must con- 

 less, but the tributes we have granted have been counted as the noblest reward for which 

 liliiglishmen could contend. Few reap fame in their life-time; a public funeral, and a 

 sepulchre in the temples of glory, are all that heroes receive in tlie llesh ; yet, who can 

 <Icuy the honours paid to Sh.ikspeare, to Bacon, to Milton, or to New ton ; who can deny 

 that Watt has received tributes such as no Englishmen ever before obtained. His con- 

 Iiiiiporaries may complain, the shade of Trevithick may mourn its neglect, but AVatI, 

 of all names, is the last to be singled out as one to which we have been deticient 

 ill our tribute. We have many great names living now ; Moore, Dickens, Herschel, 

 Southcy, Kno-wles, Bnlwer, Chantrey, Wilkie, Faraday, Babbage, Charles Bell, Marshall 

 Hall, and scores of others, yet which of these will clanioiir for a peerage, when he enjoys 

 honors which a peer would envy. The tribute of popular esteem paid to Charles Dickens, 

 the greatest novelist since Fielding, are worth all the tiiiiiipcry tides of kings, or the ex- 

 torted statues of Governments. The Greeks contended not for a title or a pension, but 

 lor a perishable crown of leaves, and kings could i^uil ibeii lliioiies to earn this greater 

 honour fur their brows. Let M. Arago learn, that Englantl nserves for her great men a 

 higlicr reward th.in Ihe gewgaws of her mighty empire — to live for ever in the hearts of 

 her people, and to look for that inheritance in future ages from lialf of the world. 

 France mav erect statues, and may make peers, but it is for us to give a name, which 

 shall be claimed by the new world and by tlic old, by the Negro, Ihe Indian and the 

 Cadre, the native of the Southern Ocean, and Australia's latest Colonist,— AoJe of tht 



