only that he left this most material part of his work to be performed after the whole outline had been finished, but that he could proceed with it to an indefinite extent, and enrich and improve as long as he thought fit, without any risk either of destroying the proportions of that outline, or injuring the harmony and unity of the original design. He was perfectly aware, too, of the possession of this extraor

and even that we do not now recollect any | and the singular thing in his case was, not one of his contemporaries who was so great a master of composition. There is a certain mellowness and richness about his style, which adorns, without disguising the weight and nervousness which is its other great characteristic,- -a sedate gracefulness and manly simplicity in the more level passages, and a mild majesty and considerate enthusiasm where he rises above them, of which we scarcely know where to find any other exam-dinary power; and it was partly, we presume, ple. There is great equability, too, and sustained force in every part of his writings. He never exhausts himself in flashes and epigrams, nor languishes into tameness or insipidity: At first sight you would say that plainness and good sense were the predominating qualities; but by and bye, this simplicity is enriched with the delicate and vivid colours of a fine imagination,-the free and forcible touches of a most powerful intellect, -and the lights and shades of an unerring and harmonising taste. In comparing it with the styles of his most celebrated contemporaries, we would say that it was more purely and peculiarly a written style,—and, therefore, rejected those ornaments that more properly belong to oratory. It had no impetuosity, hurry, or vehemence,- -no bursts or sudden turns or abruptions, like that of Burke; and though eminently smooth and melodious, it was not modulated to an uniform system of solemn declamation, like that of Johnson, nor spread out in the richer and more voluminous elocution of Stewart; nor, still less, broken into that patchwork of scholastic pedantry and conversational smartness which has found its admirers in Gibbon. It is a style, in short, of great freedom, force, and beauty; but the deliberate style of a man of thought and of learning; and neither that of a wit throwing out his extempores with an affectation of careless grace,-nor of a rhetorician thinking more of his manner than his matter, and determined to be admired for his expression, whatever may be fate of his sentiments.

in consequence of it that he was not only at all times ready to go on with any work in which he was engaged, without waiting for favourable moments or hours of greater alacrity, but that he never felt any of those doubts and misgivings as to his being able to get creditably through with his undertaking, to which we believe most anthors are occasionally liable. As he never wrote upon any subject of which he was not perfectly master, he was secure against all blunders in the substance of what he had to say; and felt quite assured, that if he was only allowed time enough, he should finally come to say it in the very best way of which he was capable. He had no anxiety, therefore, either in undertaking or proceeding with his tasks; and intermitted and resumed them at his convenience, with the comfortable certainty, that all the time he bestowed on them was turned to account, and that what was left imperfect at one sitting might be finished with equal ease and advantage at another. Being thus perfectly sure both of his end and his means, he experienced, in the course of his compositions, none of that little fever of the spirits with which that operation is so apt to be accompanied. He had no capricious visitings of fancy, which it was necessary to fix on the spot or to lose for ever, -no casual inspirations to invoke and to wait for,-no transitory and evanescent lights to catch before they faded. All that was in his mind was subject to his control, and amenable to his call, though it might not obey at the moment; and while his taste was so sure, His habits of composition were not perhaps that he was in no danger of over-working any exactly what might have been expected from thing that he had designed, all his thoughts their results. He wrote rather slowly-and and sentiments had that unity and congruity, his first sketches were often very slight and that they fell almost spontaneously into harimperfect,-like the rude chalking for a mas-mony and order; and the last added, incorterly picture. His chief effort and greatest pleasure was in their revisal and correction; and there were no limits to the improvement which resulted from this application. It was not the style merely, nor indeed chiefly, that gained by it: The whole reasoning, and sentiment, and illustration, were enlarged and new modelled in the course of it; and a naked outline became gradually informed with life, colour, and expression. It was not at all like the common finishing and polishing to which careful authors generally subject the first draughts of their compositions, nor even like the fastidious and tentative alterations with which some more anxious writers assay their choicer passages. It was, in fact, the great filling in of the picture,-the working up of the figured weft, on the naked and meagre woof that had been stretched to receive it;

porated, and assimilated with the first, as if they had sprung simultaneously from the same happy conception.

But we need dwell no longer on qualities that may be gathered hereafter from the works he has left behind him. They who lived with him mourn the most for those which will be traced in no such memorial! And prize far above those talents which gained him his high name in philosophy, that Personal Character which endeared him to his friends, and shed a grace and a dignity over all the society in which he moved. The same admirable taste which is conspicuous in his writings, or rather the higher principles from which that taste was but an emanation, spread a similar charm over his whole life and conversation; and gave to the most learned Philosopher of his day the manners and deportment of the most per

fect Gentleman.

never failed to manifest the most open scorn and detestation. Independent, in short, of his high attainments, Mr. Playfair was one of the most amiable and estimable of men: Delightful in his manners, inflexible in his principles,

Nor was this in him the result merely of good sense and good temper, assisted by an early familiarity with good company, and a consequent knowledge of his own place and that of all around him. His good breeding was of a higher descent; and [and generous in his affections, he had all that his powers of pleasing rested on something better than mere companionable qualities.With the greatest kindness and generosity of nature, he united the most manly firmness, and the highest principles of honour, -and the most cheerful and social dispositions, with the gentlest and steadiest affections.

could charm in society or attach in private; and while his friends enjoyed the free and unstudied conversation of an easy and intelligent associate, they had at all times the proud and inward assurance that he was a Being upon whose perfect honour and generosity they might rely with the most implicit confidence, in life and in death,-and of whom it was equally impossible, that, under any circumstances, he should ever perform a mean, a selfish, or a questionable action, as that his body should cease to gravitate or his soul to live!

If we do not greatly deceive ourselves, there is nothing here of exaggeration or partial feeling, and nothing with which an indifferent and honest chronicler would not heartily concur. Nor is it altogether idle to have dwelt so long on the personal character of this distinguished individual: For we are ourselves persuaded, that this personal character has done almost as much for the cause of science and philosophy among us, as the great talents and attainments with which it was combined,

Towards Women he had always the most chivalrous feelings of regard and attention, and was, beyond almost all men, acceptable and agreeable in their society, though without the least levity or pretension unbecoming his age or condition: And such, indeed, was the fascination of the perfect simplicity and mildness of his manners, that the same tone and deportment seemed equally appropriate in all societies, and enabled him to delight the young and the gay with the same sort of conversation which instructed the learned and the grave. There never, indeed, was a man of learning and talent who appeared in society so perfectly free from all sorts of pretension or notion of his own importance, or so little solicitous to distinguish himself, or so sincerely willing to give place to every one else. Even and has contributed in a very eminent deupon subjects which he had thoroughly studied, gree to give to the better society of this our he was never in the least impatient to speak, city that tone of intelligence and liberality by and spoke at all times without any tone of which it is so honourably distinguished. It is authority; while, so far from wishing to set not a little advantageous to philosophy that it off what he had to say by any brilliancy or is in fashion,-and it is still more advantaemphasis of expression, it seemed generally geous, perhaps, to the society which is led to as if he had studied to disguise the weight confer on it this apparently trivial distinction. and originality of his thoughts under the It is a great thing for the country at large,plainest forms of speech and the most quiet for its happiness, its prosperity, and its reand indifferent manner: so that the profound-nown,-that the upper and influencing classes est remarks and subtlest observations were of its population should be made familiar, often dropped, not only without any solicitude even in their untasked and social hours, with that their value should be observed, but with- sound and liberal information, and be taught out any apparent consciousness that they to know and respect those who have distinpossessed any. guished themselves for great intellectual attainments. Nor is it, after all, a slight or despicable reward for a man of genius, to be received with honour in the highest and most elegant society around him, and to receive in his living person that homage and applause which is too often reserved for his memory. Now, those desirable ends can never be effectually accomplished, unless the manners of our leading philosophers are agreeable, and their personal habits and dispositions en

Though the most social of human beings, and the most disposed to encourage and sympathise with the gaiety and even joviality of others, his own spirits were in general rather cheerful than gay, or at least never rose to any turbulence or tumult of merriment; and while he would listen with the kindest indulgence to the more extravagant sallies of his younger friends, and prompt them by the heartiest approbation, his own satisfaction might generally be traced in a slow and tem-gaging and amiable. From the time of Hume perate smile, gradually mantling over his and Robertson, we have been fortunate, in benevolent and intelligent features, and light- Edinburgh, in possessing a succession of dising up the countenance of the Sage with the tinguished men, who have kept up this saluexpression of the mildest and most genuine tary connection between the learned and the philanthropy. It was wonderful, indeed, con- fashionable world; but there never, perhaps, sidering the measure of his own intellect, and was any one who contributed so powerfully to the rigid and undeviating propriety of his own confirm and extend it, and that in times when conduct, how tolerant he was of the defects it was peculiarly difficult, as the lamented in and errors of other men. He was too indul-dividual of whom we are now speaking: And gent, in truth, and favourable to his friends! -and made a kind and liberal allowance for the faults of all mankind-except only faults of Baseness or of Cruelty,-against which he

they who have had most opportunity to observe how superior the society of Edinburgh is to that of most other places of the same size, and how much of that superiority is

owing to the cordial combination of the two aristocracies, of rank and of letters,*—of both of which it happens to be the chief provincial seat,-will be best able to judge of

*In addition to the two distinguished persons mentioned in the text, (the first of whom was, no doubt, before my time,) I can, from my own recollection, and without referring to any who are still living-give the names of the following residents in Edinburgh, who were equally acceptable in polite society and eminent for literary or scientific attainments, and alike at home in good company and in learned convocations:-Lord Hailes and Lord Monboddo, Dr. Joseph Black, Dr. Hugh Blair,

the importance of the service he has thus rendered to its inhabitants, and through them, and by their example, to all the rest of the country.

Dr. Adam Fergusson, Mr. John Home, Mr. John Robison, Mr. Dugald Stewart, Sir James Hall, Lord Meadowbank, Mr. Henry Mackenzie, Dr. James Gregory, Rev. A. Alison, Dr. Thomas Brown, Lord Webb Seymour, Lord Woodhouselee, and Sir Walter Scott;-without reckoning Mr. Horner, the Rev. Sydney Smith, and Mr. George Wilson, who were settled in Edinburgh for several years, in the earlier part of the period referred to.

NOTICE AND CHARACTER

OF

JAMES WATT.*

MR. JAMES WATT, the great improver of the steam-engine, died on the 25th of August, 1819, at his seat of Heathfield, near Birmingham, in the 84th year of his age.

It was our improved Steam-engine, in short, that fought the battles of Europe, and exalted and sustained, through the late tremendous contest, the political greatness of our land. It is the same great power which now enables us to pay the interest of our debt, and to maintain the arduous struggle in which we are still engaged, [1819], with the skill and capital of countries less oppressed with taxation. But these are poor and narrow views of its importance. It has increased indefinitely the mass of human comforts and enjoyments; and rendered cheap and accessible, all over the world, the materials of wealth and prosperity. It has armed the feeble hand of man, in short, with a power to which no limits can be assigned; completed the dominion of mind over the most refractory qualities of matter; and laid a sure foundation for all those future miracles of mechanic power which are to aid and reward the labours of after generations. It is to the genius of one man, too, that all this is mainly owing! And certainly no man ever bestowed such a gift on his kind. The blessing is not only universal, but unbounded; and the fabled inventors of the plough and the loom, who were Deified by the erring gratitude of their rude cotemporaries, conferred less important benefits on mankind than the inventor of our present steam-engine.

This name fortunately needs no commemoration of ours; for he that bore it survived to see it crowned with undisputed and unenvied honours; and many generations will probably pass away, before it shall have gathered "all its fame." We have said that Mr. Watt was the great Improver of the steam-engine; but, in truth, as to all that is admirable in its structure, or vast in its utility, he should rather be described as its Inventor. It was by his inventions that its action was so regulated, as to make it capable of being applied to the finest and most delicate manufactures, and its power so increased, as to set weight and solidity at defiance. By his admirable contrivance, it has become a thing stupendous alike for its force and its flexibility,-for the prodigious power which it can exert, and the ease, and precision, and ductility, with which that power can be varied, distributed, and applied. The trunk of an elephant, that can pick up a pin or rend an oak, is as nothing to it. It can engrave a seal, and crush masses of obdurate metal before it-draw out, without breaking, a thread as fine as gossamer, and lift a ship of war like a bauble in the air. It can embroider muslin and forge anchors,cut steel into ribands, and impel loaded ves- This will be the fame of Watt with future sels against the fury of the winds and waves. generations: And it is sufficient for his race It would be difficult to estimate the value and his country. But to those to whom he of the benefits which these inventions have more immediately belonged, who lived in his conferred upon this country. There is no society and enjoyed his conversation, it is branch of industry that has not been indebted not, perhaps, the character in which he will to them; and, in all the most material, they be most frequently recalled-most deeply ave not only widened most magnificently lamented-or even most highly admired. Inthe field of its exertions, but multiplied a dependently of his great attainments in methousand-fold the amount of its productions.chanics, Mr. Watt was an extraordinary, and

in many respects a wonderful man. Perhaps

First published in an Edinburgh newspaper no individual in his age possessed so much ("The Scotsman"), of the 4th September, 1819. and such varied and exact information,--had

read so much, or remembered what he had rich and instructive in no ordinary degree: read so accurately and well. He had infinite But it was, if possible, still more pleasing quickness of apprehension, a prodigious me- than wise, and had all the charms of famili mory, and a certain rectifying and methodis- arity, with all the substantial treasures of ing power of understanding, which extracted knowledge. No man could be more social something precious out of all that was pre-in his spirit, less assuming or fastidious in his sented to it. His stores of miscellaneous manners, or more kind and indulgent towards knowledge were immense,—and yet less as- all who approached him. He rather liked to tonishing than the command he had at all talk—at least in his latter years: But though times over them. It seemed as if every sub- he took a considerable share of the conversaject that was casually started in conversation tion, he rarely suggested the topics on which with him, had been that which he had been it was to turn, but readily and quietly took last occupied in studying and exhausting;-up whatever was presented by those around such was the copiousness, the precision, and him; and astonished the idle and barren prothe admirable clearness of the information pounders of an ordinary theme, by the treaswhich he poured out upon it, without effort or ures which he drew from the mine they had hesitation. Nor was this promptitude and unconsciously opened. He generally seemed, compass of knowledge confined in any degree indeed, to have no choice or predilection for to the studies connected with his ordinary one subject of discourse rather than another; pursuits. That he should have been minutely but allowed his mind, like a great cyclopædia, and extensively skilled in chemistry and the to be opened at any letter his associates might arts, and in most of the branches of physical choose to turn up, and only endeavoured to science, might perhaps have been conjectur- select, from his inexhaustible stores, what ed; But it could not have been inferred from might be best adapted to the taste of his his usual occupations, and probably is not present hearers. As to their capacity he gave generally known, that he was curiously learn- himself no trouble; and, indeed, such was his ed in many branches of antiquity, metaphys- singular talent for making all things plain, ics, medicine, and etymology, and perfectly clear, and intelligible, that scarcely any one at home in all the details of architecture, could be aware of such a deficiency in his music, and law. He was well acquainted, presence. His talk, too, though overflowing too, with most of the modern languages-and with information, had no resemblance to lecfamiliar with their most recent literature. Nor turing or solemn discoursing, but, on the conwas it at all extraordinary to hear the great trary, was full of colloquial spirit and pleasmechanician and engineer detailing and antry. He had a certain quiet and grave pounding, for hours together, the metaphys- humour, which ran through most of his conical theories of the German logicians, or criti-versation, and a vein of temperate jocularity, cising the measures or the matter of the German poetry.

His astonishing memory was aided, no doubt, in a great measure, by a still higher and rarer faculty-by his power of digesting and arranging in its proper place all the information he received, and of casting aside and rejecting, as it were instinctively, whatever was worthless or immaterial. Every conception that was suggested to his mind seemed instantly to take its proper place among its other rich furniture; and to be condensed into the smallest and most convenient form. He never appeared, therefore, to be at all encumbered or perplexed with the verbiage of the dull books he perused, or the idle talk to which he listened; but to have at once extracted, by a kind of intellectual alchemy, all that was worthy of attention, and to have reduced it, for his own use, to its true value and to its simplest form. And thus it often happened, that a great deal more was learned from his brief and vigorous account of the theories and arguments of tedious writers, than an ordinary student could ever have derived from the most painful study of the originals, and that errors and absurdities became manifest from the mere clearness and plainness of his statement of them, which might have deluded and perplexed most of his hearers without that invaluable assist

ance.

It is needless to say, that, with those vast orces, his conversation was at all times

which gave infinite zest and effect to the condensed and inexhaustible information, which formed its main staple and 'characteristic. There was a little air of affected testiness, too, and a tone of pretended rebuke and contradiction, with which he used to address his younger friends, that was always felt by them as an endearing mark of his kindness and familiarity, and prized accordingly, far beyond all the solemn compliments that ever proceeded from the lips of authority. His voice was deep and powerful,-though he commonly spoke in a low and somewhat monotonous tone, which harmonised admirably with the weight and brevity of his observations; and set off to the greatest advantage the pleasant anecdotes, which he delivered with the same grave brow, and the same calm smile playing soberly on his lips. There was nothing of effort indeed, or impatience, any more than of pride or levity, in his demeanour; and there was a finer expression of reposing strength, and mild self-possession in his manner, than we ever recollect to have met with in any other person. He had in his character the utmost abhorrence for all sorts of forwardness, parade, and pretensions; and, indeed, never failed to put all such impostures out of countenance, by the manly plainness and honest intrepidity of his language and deportment.

In his temper and dispositions he was not only kind and affectionate, but generous, and considerate of the feelings of all around him,