448 JAMES WATT. 



every thing connected with his father's memory, pro- 

 curred for me, in 1834, the satisfaction of finding the 

 library and the furniture at Heathfield in the same state 

 in which the illustrious engineer left them. Another 

 property on the picturesque banks of the river Wye, in 

 Wales, offers to the tourist numerous proofs of the en- 

 lightened taste both of Watt and of his son, by the 

 improvement of the roads, by the plantations, and by 

 agricultural labours of all kinds. 



"Watt's health had become stronger with his years. 

 His intellectual faculties continued in full vigour to his 

 last moments. He thought at one time that they were 

 declining, and adhering to the thought expressed on the 

 seal that he had selected (an eye surrounded by the word 

 Observare), he determined to clear up his doubts by self- 

 observation ; accordingly, when above seventy, we see 

 him seeking the kind of study to which he should best 

 have recourse for a trial, and distressed that no subject 

 was new to him. He recollects at last that there is an 

 Anglo-Saxon language, that it is a difficult language, and 

 the Anglo-Saxon becomes the desired experimental means, 

 — the facility which he finds in rendering himself master 

 of it, proves to him how unfounded his apprehensions 

 were. 



Watt devoted his last days to the construction of a 

 machine for copying promptly either statues or sculpture 

 of any size with mathematical fidelity. This machine, 

 of which we hope the arts will not be deprived, must 

 have been well advanced. Many of its productions — 

 already very satisfactory — may be seen in various pri- 

 vate collections in Scotland and in England. The illus- 

 trious engineer had presented them in joke, as the first 

 essays of a young artist entering the eighty-third year of 

 his age. 



