72 



MATHEMATICAL AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 



[Drss. VI. 



siderable, without serious injury. Vexatious law- 

 suits connected with his valuable patent rights af- 

 forded him but too much occupation and anxiety. 

 He wrote little, and he did not covet fame. He was 

 fond of chemistry as well as mechanics, and was well 

 acquainted with the theory and practice of that science 

 as it then existed. He put forth opinions on the 

 chemical constitution of water which, in the judg- 

 ment of some, entitle him to contest priority in the 

 discovery with Cavendish. He must have been 

 versed in mathematics in his early years, as we learn 

 from his friend Dr Robison, but there is no evidence 

 that he ever attempted a strict theory of his own engine. 

 Nor were his successors in this respect more fortu- 

 nate. The best practical writers on the steam-engine, 

 up even to a late period, gave most rude and inac- 

 curate rules for computing its effects ; and it is to a 

 Frenchman, M. de Pambour, that we owe the first 

 philosophical, and, at the same time, elementary 

 analysis of this noble machine. 



Much light has been thrown upon the character of 

 Watt by the recent publication of his correspondence 

 by Mr Muirhead. 1 We there see the pressure of phy- 

 con tin ued. sical infirmity, and mental despondency and indif- 

 ference, under which he laboured from boyhood. We 

 learn the accumulated difficulties, arising from the 

 backward state of the mechanical arts in his time, 

 which delayed for years the successful prosecution of 

 his happiest, and what would appear in our day 

 most easily realized, conceptions. We see him at 

 times ready to abandon fame and profit for the en- 

 joyment of the humblest competence with tranquil - 



(327.) 

 Personal 

 character 

 of Watt, 



lity. We find him, mechanic though he was, shrink- 

 ing from possible collision with the opinions or in- 

 terests of others, and in his early as in his latest 

 days, solicitous to avoid responsibility. He had, in 

 a word, throughout, the finely strung susceptibility of 

 a man of genius, singularly at variance with the 

 necessity he was under of pushing his way in the 

 world, and of turning his inventions to the best com- 

 mercial account. Providentially he was thrown in 

 the way of friends to whom, by his private character, 

 he was greatly endeared, and who supplied the ele- 

 ments necessary to the successful prosecution of his 

 schemes. The sanguine zeal of Roebuck, the com- 

 mercial sagacity of the capitalist Boulton, and not 

 least, the sympathizing friendship of Dr Small, who 

 was well fitted by his character and attainments to 

 mediate between Watt and the other two, were all 

 essential to the realization of the improved steam- 

 engine. 



When Mr Watt was finally relieved of the oppres- (3%% -\ 

 sion and chicaneries of his opponents in the courts Close of h 

 of law, he was settling down into a peaceful old age. llfe - 

 He probably hoped to live over again some of the 

 scientific passages of his youth in gyrnpathy with his 

 second son, Gregory, who possessed a decided taste 

 for science, but was unfortunately early cut off. Re- 

 spected and beloved by a large group of friends, many 

 of whom survived him, and admired by a far wider 

 circle, he died at Heathfield, near Birmingham, 25th 

 August 1819. Statesmen, philosophers, and men 

 of the world, united in extolling the worth of his 

 character and the greatness of his genius. 



(329.) 



Kubison a 

 practical 

 philoso- 

 pher. 



2. ROBISON. Application of Statical Principles to Engineering especially to Practical 

 Masonry. COULOMB. Friction Force of Torsion. 



The name of ROBISON may perhaps not appear to 

 be sufficiently identified with any great discovery to 

 merit a place in this condensed sketch of the pro- 

 gress of science biographically illustrated. Were 

 there no other claim, I should consider it a sufficient 

 one to entitle him to at least a brief notice, that he 

 was bv far the most important, and, as M. Arago 

 has justly called him, " most illustrious contributor" 

 to the earlier editions of the Encyclop&dia Britan- 

 mca. But he was also a philosopher in a high 

 sense of the word. His knowledge was multifarious 

 in no ordinary degree. He had little of pretension 

 to originality, yet he brought to bear upon matters 

 of science an unfailing amount of excellent common 

 sense, and his personal acquaintance with the Arts 

 which may be called Philosophical far exceeded, I 

 imagine, that of any man of his time. Though not 

 without his prepossessions, he was generous in the 

 highest degree in his estimation of others, who in 



some sense might have been considered his rivals ; 

 he was eminently patient in his study of the works 

 of his contemporaries, and in his published writings 

 he laboured to render the results generally accessi- 

 ble to ordinary readers, by means of laborious ab- 

 stracts, intermingled often with highly original views ; 

 and he explained them with conscientious energy 

 in his lectures to the students of Natural Philo- 

 sophy, whom for thirty years of his life it was his 

 pride and pleasure to instruct. Amidst these con- 

 genial labours he found little time for making pro- 

 longed original trains of experiment, though the spe- 

 cimens which he has almost incidentally left us give 

 the fullest proof of his ability in this respect ; and 

 the explanation is, I have no doubt, to be found in 

 the peculiar circumstances of his early life. Until 

 his settlement in Edinburgh, he passed his time in a 

 series of active pursuits, having much more of the 

 character of stirring practical life than of literary re- 



1 TVie Origin and Progress of the Mechanical Inventions of James Watt. 3 vols. 1855. 



