ACADEMICAL HONOURS. 467 



them with other labours that have been too much vaunted ; 

 and whose real influence at the tribunal of reason, will 

 always remain circumscribed to a circle of a few individ- 

 uals, and a short compass of years. 



They used formerly to appeal to the age of Augustus, 

 then to the age of Louis XIV. Some eminent minds 

 have already maintained that it would be justice to speak 

 of the age of Voltaire, of Rousseau, of Montesquieu. 

 As to myself, I do not hesitate to announce, that when to 

 the immense services already rendered by the steam- 

 engine, all the wonders are added that it still promises, 

 grateful nations will also speak of the ages of Papin and 

 of Watt ! 



ACADEMICAL TITLES WITH WHICH WATT WAS IN- 

 VESTED. 



A biography of Watt, intended to make part of our 

 collection of memoirs, would certainly be incomplete if 

 it did not contain a list of the academical titles with which 

 the illustrious engineer was invested. This list, more- 

 over, will occupy only a few lines : 



contemporary philosophers had made conjectures on the subject that 

 did not differ widely from truth, Newton, by an inductive ascent 

 through a train of abstruse investigations to its principle, and thereby 

 detecting and expounding its laws, is justly recognized as the author 

 of the sublime hypothesis of GRAVITATION. Who will deny to 

 Herschel the merit of discovering the planet Uranus, since Flamsteed 

 had previously observed it as a star ? Or still later, because some 

 philosophers thought that there might exist a planet exterior to 

 Uranus, who would deny the palm to those whose energies were 

 awakened by the orbital tremblings of that outer body to the splendid 

 discovery of Neptune? In reality, De Caus, Worcester, and Papin 

 may be placed with respect to Watt, as Gilbert, Kepler, and Hooke 

 are to Newton; or as Lambert, De Zach, and Bode will be to Le 

 Verrier and Adams. Translator. 



