PHYSICS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 303 



than his countryman was in science : " It was only once my fortune 

 to meet him, whether in body or in spirit it matters not. There were 



assembled about half a score of our Northern Lights Amidst 



the company stood Mr. Watt, the man whose genius discovered the 

 means of multiplying our natural resources to a degree perhaps even 

 beyond his own stupendous power of calculation ; bringing the trea- 

 sures of the abyss to the summit of the earth ; giving the feeble arm 

 of man the momentum of an Afrite ; commanding manufactures to rise 

 as the rod of the prophet produced water in the desert ; affording the 

 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 machinery 

 has produced a change on the world the effects of which, extraordinary 

 as they are, are perhaps only now beginning to be felt, was not only 

 the 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 best and 

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

 band I have mentioned of northern literati, men not less tenacious, 

 generally speaking, of their own fame and their own opinions than the 

 national regiments are supposed to be jealous of the high character 

 which they have won upon service. Methinks I yet see and hear what 

 I shall never see or hear again. In his eighty-third 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 over- 

 flowed on every subject. One gentleman was a deep philologist he 

 talked with him on the origin of the alphabet as if he had been coeval 

 with Cadmus ; another, a celebrated critic you would have said 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/' 

 The vast revolution which the steam-engine has wrought in com- 

 merce, in industry, in arts, and in social relations, is not a theme that 

 need be dwelt upon here. Everybody knows how it propels our ships, 

 draws our carriages, and labours incessantly in countless mines and 

 workshops and mills, in carrying, lifting, pumping, sawing, hammering, 

 weaving, printing. As the greatest of mechanical inventions, it has 

 had an immense influence on the progress of science ; for in no other 

 way than by the perfection of mechanical appliances could the inves- 

 tigators of the present century have been provided with those refined 

 and accurate instruments upon which the accelerated progress of recent 

 times has largely depended. Perhaps the difference between the 

 mechanical workmanship of last century and that of our day cannot 

 be better illustrated than by a circumstance belonging to the history 

 of the steam-engine itself. It is recorded that one of Watt's great 

 difficulties in the construction of his earlier engines was to obtain 



