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

JAMES WATT. 179
qualities •which so ennobled the character of this great man, and to
which the eloquent Academician has so gracefully attracted attention,
— " that serenity of disposition, that moderation of desires, that genuine
modesty," unconscious of and indifferent to its own greatness, •which
have ever marked the presence of true genius and worth. We see, in
fact, pursues M. Arago, " the creator of an engine destined to form an
epoch in the annals of the world, undergoing without murmur the
undiscerning neglect of capitalists, — during eight years lowering the
lofty powers of his genius to the getting up of plans — to paltry level-
lings — to wearisome calculations of excavatings, and embankings, and
courses of masonry." a
The termination of such engagements introduces us to a new phase
in his life, and a new cycle in the history of world-inventions, con-
sequent upon the arrangements formed with Mr. Boulton of Soho.
Although these necessarily withdrew our countryman and townsman
from the immediate sphere of his most important education, and what
we must hold to have been the birthplace and cradle of his mechanical
ingenuity, we cannot but rejoice in their accomplishment. Happy in
finding that that rare and most precious talent, after a brief period of
suspense, and of anxiety as to its fate, has at length resumed its first-
created channel, — we must be content to know that it will now pursue
its course, aided by every circumstance that can give it alike scope,
efficiency, power, in its display. Into that new sphere of arduous yet
brilliantly successful labour, it does not belong to the plan of these
memorials minutely and chronologically to follow their subject, still
less, to chronicle, even though the means were available, the steady
progress in discovery and invention of that genius whose infant though
herculean efforts we have been enabled to record. Happily the
1 " Nous vorrions le createur d'une machine genie superieur a des leves de plans, a des niv-
destinee a faire epoque dans Ies annales du monde, ellements niinutieux, a des fastidieux calculs de
subir, sans murmurer, les stupides dedains des deblais, de remblais, a des toises du inaconnerie."
capitalisteBj et plier, pendant huit annees, son — Eloge Historiqua, p. 46.