Memorials of the lineage, early life, education and development of the genius of James Watt

1(J MEMORIALS OF
limited and comparatively obscure ; as eminent for their industry in
private, as for the ready devotion of their talents and time to the
promotion of any object that might minister to the public good.
There seems no reason, therefore, why a veil should be drawn over
such a descent. For though Watt, undoubtedly, owed something to
an external and favouring train of events, — to some of which occasion
will present itself hereafter to advert, — that he owed incomparably
more to the intelligence and worth of his sires, rests on evidence
that is altogether indisputable. The details of this evidence will, it is
hoped, illustrate some points not wholly without instruction in the
personal history of so distinguished an' individual. If in no other
respect interesting, they will go to establish at least this far from
unimportant fact, — that the invention, the wonderful practical genius of
this great man — increasingly great as his life and philosojmic character
are subjected to examination — was not, in any sense, " the accident
of an accident :" — that, however propitious to his great discovery
events might have been, the happy germ had in vain unbosomed itself
to him, had not the mental soil been previously stimulated by long
and generous culture ; — and that his brilliantly successful career was
the result, in an eminent degree, not of any merely fortuitous concur-
rence of circumstances, but far rather, of antecedents such as wise
and thoughtful men may, in perhaps any age or condition, contribute
to bring about, and that by means more or less within the reach of
all ; — most happy confirmation of the apophthegm of the poet : —
" Fortes creantur fortibus et bonis :
Est in juvencis, est in equis patrum
Virtus : nee iml>el]em feroces
Progenerant aquila: cohimbani.
Doctrina sed vim promovit insitam,
Eeetique cult us pectora roborant."
Of the great-grandfather of James Watt, whose Christian name we
are unable to give, little unfortunately is now to be known. He occu-