EXERCISED IN PHILOSOPHIC RESEARCH
TO THE IMPROVEMENT OF
THE STEAM-ENGINE
ENLARGED THE RESOURCES OF HIS COUNTRY
INCREASED THE POWER OF MAN
AND ROSE TO AN EMINENT PLACE
AMONG THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS FOLLOWERS OF SCIENCE
AND THE REAL BENEFACTORS OF THE WORLD
BORN AT GREENOCK MDCCXXXVI
DIED AT HEATHFIELD IN STAFFORDSHIRE MDCCCXIX

CHAPTER X

WATT, THE INVENTOR AND DISCOVERER

In the foregoing pages an effort has been made to follow and describe
Watt's work in detail as it was performed, but we believe our readers
will thank us for presenting the opinions of a few of the highest
scientific and legal authorities upon what Watt really did. Lord
Brougham has this to say of Watt:

One of the most astonishing circumstances in this truly great
man was the versatility of his talents. His accomplishments were
so various, the powers of his mind were so vast, and yet of such
universal application, that it was hard to say whether we should
most admire the extraordinary grasp of his understanding, or the
accuracy of nice research with which he could bring it to bear
upon the most minute objects of investigation. I forget of whom
it was said, that his mind resembled the trunk of an elephant,
which can pick up straws and tear up trees by the roots. Mr.
Watt in some sort resembled the greatest and most celebrated of
his own inventions; of which we are at a loss whether most to
wonder at the power of grappling with the mightiest objects, or
of handling the most minute; so that while nothing seems too
large for its grasp, nothing seems too small for the delicacy of
its touch; which can cleave rocks and pour forth rivers from the
bowels of the earth, and with perfect exactness, though not with
greater ease, fashion the head of a pin, or strike the impress
of some curious die. Now those who knew Mr. Watt, had to
contemplate a man whose genius could create such an engine, and
indulge in the most abstruse speculations of philosophy, and
could at once pass from the most sublime researches of geology
and physical astronomy, the formation of our globe, and the
structure of the universe, to the manufacture of a needle or a
nail; who could discuss in the same conversation, and with equal
accuracy, if not with the same consummate skill, the most
forbidding details of art, and the elegances