(327.) 
Personal 
character 
of Watt, 
continued. 
(329.) 
Robison a 
practical 
philoso- 
pher. 
870 
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 theoryand 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 ownengine. 
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 toa 
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,* We there see the pressure of phy- 
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- 
MATHEMATICAL AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 
[Diss. VI. 
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- 
328. 
sion and chicaneries of his opponents in the courts crsee ot bis 
of law, he was settling down into a peaceful old age. life. 
He probably hoped to live over again some of the 
scientific passages of his youth in sympathy 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. 
§ 2. Ropison.—Application of Statical Principles to Engineering—especially to Practical 
Masonry. CouLomMB.—Friction—Force of Torsion. 
The name of Ropison 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 by far the most important, and, as M. Arago 
has justly called him, ‘“ most illustrious contributor” 
to the earlier editions of the Encyclopedia Britan- 
nica, 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 The Origin and Progress of the Mechanical Inventions of James Watt. 3 vols. 1855. 
