34:2 LIFE, TIMES, AND SCIENTIFIC LABOURS. 



character, was in every sense a learned, deep-thinking, 

 studious, amiable, and good man. He was a Roman 

 Catholic wholly free from religious prejudices, and 

 a most loyal subject without displaying under an ad 

 verse change of circumstances any appearance of undue 

 party zeal. In all his public conduct he was invari 

 ably consistent, scrupulously conscientious, and strictly 

 honourable and humane. In scientific acquirements 

 he stood grandly alone, not from pride, but rather as 

 the result of a naturally modest retiring habit, probably 

 constitutional, but certainly confirmed by long continued 

 close study, favoured by his early domestic course of 

 life. When at length he was forced to come before 

 the public, he proved himself one of the most ex 

 traordinary mechanical geniuses of the seventeenth, or 

 any preceding century ; yet he was neither understood 

 nor appreciated in his own day ; his surpassing mental 

 endowments were probably lost for want of earlier 

 and fuller exhibition ; while the influence of com 

 bined prejudice and ignorance served further to obstruct 

 his rising in public estimation. It is, however, the glori 

 ous privilege of genius to leave on all its works the sure 

 impress of mighty intellect. The &quot; Century of Inven 

 tions,&quot; gradually increasing in public estimation through 

 two hundred years, owes its vitality to its remarkable 

 ingenuity and its concentration of thought ; and it cannot 

 fail to happen that each succeeding age will inquire, 

 with increasing interest, into every particular of the 

 singular and touching history of its noble author. 



END OF THE LIFE. 



