280 RENNIE'S LAST W011KS TAUT VII. 



He took the highest ground in his dealings with con- 

 tractors. He held that the engineer was precluded by 

 his position from mixing himself up with their business, 

 and that if he dabbled in shares or contracts, either 

 openly or underhand, half his moral influence was gone, 

 and his character liable to be seriously compromised. 

 Writing to Play fair at Edinburgh, in 1816, he said 

 " Engineers should be entirely independent of these 

 connexions not dabblers in shares and free alike of 

 contractors and contracts." By holding scrupulously 

 to this course, Mr. Eennie established a reputation for 

 truthfulness, honesty, and uprightness, not less honour- 

 able and exalted than his genius as an architect and 

 engineer was illustrious. 



He was a man of powerful and equally balanced mind- 

 not so clever, as profound ; not brilliant, but calm, serene, 

 and solid, like one of his own structures. While he lay 

 on his deathbed, his last letters to his assistants urged 

 upon them attention, punctuality, and despatch qualities 

 which he himself had illustrated so well in his own life. 

 In his self-education he had overlooked no branch of 

 science cultivated in his day ; and in those which bore 

 more especially upon his own calling, his knowledge was 

 well-arranged, complete, and accurate. 



Withal he was an exceedingly modest, unpretending, 

 and retiring man. His great aim was to do the thing he 

 was appointed to do in the best possible manner. He 

 thought little of fame, but a great deal of character 

 and duty. If his time was so entirely pre-occupied that 

 he could not personally devote the requisite attention to 

 any new undertaking brought before him, he would de- 

 cline to enter upon it, and recommended the employment 

 of some other leading engineer. He considered it his duty 

 himself to go into the minutest details of every business 

 on which he was consulted. He left as little as possible 

 to subordinates, making his calculations and estimates 

 himself ; and he wrote and even copied his own reports ; 



