Lives of Boulton and Watt by Samuel Smiles: Chapter 23

Watt's Garret at Heathfield

Pipe under the Clyde

Watt's Statue at Handsworth Church

Handsworth Church. The Burial-Place of Watt and Murdock.

CHAPTER XXIII. CLOSING YEARS OF JAMES WATT - HIS DEATH - CONCLUSION.

The fragile and sickly Watt outlived the most robust of his contemporaries. He was residing at Glenarbach, near Dumbarton, with relatives, when the intelligence reached him of the death of his partner. To his son James he wrote at once, expressing his deep sorrow at the loss of his "very worthy and beloved friend." To Mr. Boulton's son and successor he wrote,— "However we may lament our own loss, we must consider, on the other side, the torturing pain he has so long endured, and console ourselves with the remembrance of his virtues and eminent qualifications. Few men have possessed his abilities, and still fewer have exerted them as he has done and if to these we add his urbanity, his generosity, and his affection to his friends, we shall make up a character rarely to be equalled. Such was the friend we have lost, and of whose affection we have reason to be proud, as you have to be the son of such a father."

The deaths of his friends, one by one, reminded Watt of his own mortality, and frequent references to the subject occur in his letters about this time. He felt as if he were in danger of being left in the world alone. But he did not give himself up to melancholy, as he had been prone to do at the earlier periods of his life. Shortly after his son Gregory died, he wrote to a relative, - "I know that all men must die and I submit to the decrees of Nature, I hope with due reverence to the Disposer of events. Yet one stimulus to exertion is taken away, and, somehow or other, I have lost my relish for my usual occupations. Perhaps time may remedy that in some measure; meanwhile I do not neglect the means of amusement which are in my power."

Watt was at no loss for occupation to relieve the tedium of old age. He possessed ample resources in himself, and found pleasure alike in quiet meditation and in active work. His thirst for knowledge was still I unslaked, and he sought to allay it by reading. His love of investigation was as keen as ever, and gratified it by proceeding with experiments on air, on light, and on electricity. His inventive faculty was still potent, and he occasionally varied his occupation by labouring to produce a new machine or to improve an old one. At other times, when the weather allowed, he would take a turn at planting in his grounds and gardens and occasionally vary his pleasure by a visit to Scotland, to London, or to his estate in Wales. Strange to say, his health improved with advancing age, and though occasionally dyspeptic, he was now comparatively free from the racking headaches which had been the torment of his earlier years. Unlike Boulton, who found pleasure in the active pursuit of business, Watt had always regarded it as a worry, and he was now glad to have cast it altogether behind him. His mind was free from harassing cares; his ambition in life was satisfied; he was no more distressed by fears of Cornish pirates; and he was content to enjoy at last the fruits of his labour in peace. And thus it was that Watt's later years may be pronounced to have been the happiest of his life.

He had, indeed, lost nearly all his old friends, and often thought of them with a melancholy regret, not, however, unmingled with pleasure. But other young friends gathered about him, sat at his feet, and looked up to him with an almost reverential admiration. Among these we find Rennie and Telford the engineers, Campbell the poet, Humphry Davy, Henry Brougham, Francis Horner, and other rising men of the new generation. Lord Brougham bears testimony to Watt's habitual cheerfulness, and his enjoyment of the pleasures of society during the later years of his life. "I can speak on the point," he says, "with absolute certainty, for my own acquaintance with him commenced after my friend Gregory's decease. A few months after that event, he calmly and with his wonted acuteness discussed with me the composition of an epitaph to be inscribed on his son's tomb. In the autumn and winter of 1805 he was a constant attendant at our Friday Club, and in all our private circles, and was the life of them all."

To the close of his life Watt continued to take great pleasure in inventing. It had been the pursuit of his life, and in old age it became his hobby. "Without a hobby-horse," said he, "what is life?" He proceeded to verify his old experiments, and to live over again the history of his inventions. When Mr. Kennedy of Manchester asked him, at one of his last visits to Heathfield, if he had been able, since his retirement from business, to discover anything new in the steam-engine, he replied, "No; I am devoting the remainder of my life to perfect its details, and to ascertain whether in any respect I have been wrong."

But he did not merely confine himself to verifying old inventions. He also contrived new ones. One of the machines that occupied his leisure hours for many years, was his machine for copying statuary. We find him busy with it in 1810, and he was still working upon it in the year of his death, nearly ten years later. The principle of the machine was to make a cutting tool or drill travel over the work to be executed, in like ratio with the motion of a guide-point placed upon the bust to be copied. It worked, as it were, with two hands; the one feeling the pattern, the other cutting the material into the required form. The object could he copied either of the full size, or reduced with the most perfect accuracy to any less size that might be required. In preparing the necessary tools, Watt had the able assistance of his friend Murdock, who was always ready with his kindly suggestions and criticisms. In January, 1813, Watt wrote him,— "I have done a little figure of a boy lying down and holding out one arm, very successfully and another boy, about six inches high, naked, and holding out both his hands, his legs also being separate. But I have been principally employed in making drawings for a complete machine, all in iron, which has been a very serious job, as invention goes on very slowly with me now. When you come home, I shall thank you for your criticisms and assistance."

The material in which Watt executed his copies of statuary were various, — marble, jet, alabaster, ivory, plaster of Paris, and mahogany. Some of the specimens we have seen at Heathfield are of exquisite accuracy and finish, and show that he must have brought his copying-machine to a remarkable degree of perfection before he died. There are numerous copies of medallions of his friends, — of Dr. Black, De Luc, and Dr. Priestley; but the finest of all is a reduced bust of himself, being an exact copy of Chantrey's original plaster-cast. The head and neck are beautifully finished, but there the work has stopped, for the upper part of the chest is still in the rough. Another exquisite work, then which Watt never executed a finer, is a medallion of Locke in ivory, marked "January, 1812." There are numerous other busts, statuettes, medallions, — some finished, others half executed, and apparently thrown aside, as if the workman had been dissatisfied with his work, and waited, perhaps, until he had introduced some new improvement in his machine.

Watt took out no patent for the invention, which he pursued, as he said, merely as "a mental and bodily exercise." Neither did he publish it, but went on working at it for several years before his intentions to construct such a machine had become known. When he had made considerable progress with it, he learned, to his surprise, that a Mr. Hawkins, an ingenious person in his neighbourhood, had been long occupied in the same pursuit. The proposal was then made to him that the two inventors should combine their talents and secure the invention by taking out a joint patent. But Watt had already been too much worried by patents to venture on taking out another at his advanced age He preferred prosecuting the invention at his leisure merely as an amusement and the project of taking out a patent for it was accordingly abandoned. It may not be generally known that this ingenious invention of Watt has since been revived and applied with sundry modifications by our cousins across the Atlantic, in fashioning wood and iron in various forms; and powerful copying-machines are now in regular use in the Government works at Enfield, where they are employed in rapidly, accurately, and cheaply manufacturing gunstocks!

Watt carried on the operations connected with this invention for the most part in his Garret, a room immediately under the roof at the kitchen end of the house at Heathfield, and approached by a narrow staircase. It is a small room, low in the ceiling, and lighted by a low broad window, looking into the shrubbery. The ceiling, though low, inclines with the slope of the roof on three sides of the room, and, being close to the slates, the place must necessarily have been very hot in summer, and very cold in winter. A stove was placed close to the door, for the purpose of warming the apartment, as well as enabling the occupant to pursue his experiments, being fitted with a sand-bath and other conveniences. But the stove must have been insufficient for heating the garret in very cold weather, and hence we find him occasionally informing his correspondents that he could not proceed further with his machine until the weather had become milder.

His foot-lathe was fixed close to the window, fitted with all the appliances for turning in wood and metal fifty years since while a case of drawers fitted into the recess on the left-hand side of the room, contained a large assortment of screws, punches, cutters, taps, and dies. Here were neatly arranged and stowed away many of the tools with which he worked in the early part of his life, one of the drawers being devoted to his old "flute tools." In other divisions were placed his compasses, dividers, scales, decimal weights, quadrant glasses, and a large assortment of instrument-making tools. A ladle for melting lead, and a soldering-iron were hung ready for use near the stove.

Crucibles of metal and stone were ranged on the shelves along the opposite side of the room, which also contained a large assortment of bottles filled with chemicals, boxes of fossils and minerals, jars, gallipots, blowpipes, retorts, and the various articles used in chemical analysis. In one corner of the room was a potter's lathe. A writing-desk was placed as close to the window, for the sake of the light, as the turning-lathe would allow; and in the corner was the letter-copying machine, conveniently at hand.

In this garret Watt spent much of his time during the later period of his life, only retiring from it when it was too hot in summer, or too cold in winter to enable him to prosecute his work. For days together he would confine himself here, without even descending to his meals. He had accordingly provided himself, in addition to his various other tools, with sundry kitchen utensils, — amongst others, with a frying-pan and Dutch oven — with which he cooked his meals. For it must be explained that Mrs. Watt was a thorough martinet in household affairs, and, above all things, detested "dirt." Mrs. Schimmelpenninck says she taught her two pug-dogs never to cross the hall without first wiping their feet on the mat. She hated the sight of her husband's leather apron and soiled hands while he was engaged in his garret-work, so he kept himself out of her sight at such times as much as possible. Some notion of the rigidity of her rule may be inferred from the fact of her having had a window made in the kitchen wall, through which she could watch the servants, and observe how they were getting on with their work. Her passion for cleanliness was carried to a pitch which often fretted those about her by the restraints it imposed but her husband, like a wise man, gently submitted to her rule. He was fond of a pinch of snuff, which Mrs. Watt detested, regarding it only as so much "dirt" and Mr. Muirhead says she would seize and lock up the offending snuff-box whenever she could lay hands upon it. He adds that at night, when she retired from the dining-room, if Mr. Watt did not follow at the time fixed by her, a servant would enter and put out the lights, even when a friend was present, on which he would slowly rise and meekly say, "We must go." One can easily understand how, under such circumstances, Watt would enjoy the perfect liberty of his garret, where he was king, and could enjoy his pinch of snuff in peace, and make as much "dirt" with his turning-lathe, his crucibles, and his chemicals, as he chose, without dread of interruption.

One of the fears which haunted Watt as old age advanced upon him was, that his mental faculties, in the exercise of which he took so much pleasure, were deserting him. To Dr. Darwin he said, many years before,— "Of all the evils of age, the loss of the few mental faculties one possessed in youth is most grievous." To test his memory, he again began the study of German, which he had allowed himself to forget and he speedily acquired such proficiency as enabled him to read the language with comparative ease. But he gave still stronger evidence of the integrity of his powers. When in his seventy-fifth year, he was consulted by the Glasgow Waterworks Company as to the best mode of conveying water from a peninsula across the Clyde to the Company's engines at Dalmarnock, — a difficulty which appeared to them almost insurmountable; for it was necessary to fit the pipes, through which the water passed, to the uneven and shifting bed of the river. Watt, on turning over the subject in his mind, shortly hit upon a plan, which showed that his inventive powers were unimpaired by age. Taking the tail of the lobster for his model, he devised a tube of iron similarly articulated, of which he forwarded a drawing to the waterworks Company; and, acting upon his recommendation, they had the tube forthwith executed and laid down with complete success. Watt declined to be paid for the essential service he had thus rendered to the Waterworks Company but the directors made handsome acknowledgment of it by presenting him with a piece of plate of the value of a hundred guineas, accompanied by the cordial expression of their thanks and esteem.

Watt did not, however, confine himself to mechanical recreations at home. In summer-time he would proceed to Cheltenham, the air of which agreed with him, and make a short stay there; or he would visit his friends in London, Glasgow, or Edinburgh. While in London, his great delight was in looking in at the shop-windows, - the best of all industrial exhibitions - for there he saw the progress of manufacture in all articles in common use amongst the people. To a country person, the sight of the streets and shop-windows of London alone, with their display of objects of art and articles of utility, is always worth a visit. To Watt it was more interesting than passing along the finest gallery of pictures.

At Glasgow, where he staved with relatives the Macgregors, he took pleasure in revisiting his old haunts, dined with the College Professors, and noted with lively interest the industrial progress of the place. The growth of Glasgow in the course of his lifetime had, indeed, been extraordinary, and it was in no small degree the result of his own industrial labours. The steam-engine was everywhere at work; factories had sprung up in all directions the Broomielaw was silent no longer; the Clyde was navigable from thence to the sea, and its waters were plashed by the paddles of a thousand steamers. The old city of the tobacco lords had become a great centre of manufacturing industry; it was rich, busy, and prosperous; and the main source of its prosperity was the steam-engine. A long time had passed since Watt had first taken in hand the repair of the little Newcomen engine in Glasgow College, and afterwards laboured in the throes of his invention in his shop in the back court in King Street. There were no skilled mechanics in Glasgow then, and the death of the "old white-iron man" who helped him had been one of his sorest vexations. Things were entirely changed now. Glasgow had already become famous for its engine-work, and its factories contained among the most skilled mechanics in the kingdom. Watt's early notion that Scotchmen were incapable of becoming first-rate mechanics, like Englishmen, was confuted by the experience of hundreds of workshops; and to none did the practical contradiction of his theory give greater pleasure than to himself. He delighted to visit the artisans at their work, and to see with his own eyes the improvements that were going forward; and when he heard of any new and ingenious arrangement of engine-power, he would hasten to call upon the mechanic who had contrived it, and make his acquaintance.

One of such calls, which Watt made during a visit to Glasgow, in 1814, has been pleasantly related by Mr. Robert Hart, who, with his brother, then carried on a small steam-engine factory in the town. "One forenoon," he says, "while we were at work, Miss Macgregor and a tall elderly gentleman came into the shop. She, without saying who he was, asked if we would show the gentleman our small engine. It was not going at the time, and was covered up. My brother uncovered it. The gentleman examined it very minutely, and put a few pointed questions, asking the reason for making her in that form. My brother, seeing he understood the subject, said that she had been so made to try what we thought was an improvement and for this experiment we required another cistern and air-pump. He was beginning to show what was properly Mr. Watt's engine, and what was not; when, at this observation, Miss Macgregor stopped him, saying,— ‘Oh, he understands it this is Mr. Watt.’ I never at any time saw my brother so much excited as he was at that moment. He called on me to join them, saying,— ‘This is Mr. Watt!’ Up to this time I had continued to work at what I was doing when they came and, although I had heard all that was said, I had not joined the party till I learned who he was. Our supposed improvement was to save condensing water, and was on the principle introduced by Sir John Leslie, to produce cold by evaporation in a vacuum. Mr. Watt took much interest in this experiment, and said he had tried the same thing on a larger scale, but without the vacuum, as that invention of Professor Leslie's was not known at the time. He tried it exposed to the air, and also kept wet; and at one of the large porter-breweries in London he had fitted up an apparatus of the same nature. The pipes forming his condenser were laid in the water of the Thames, but he could not keep them tight, from the expansion and contraction of the metal, as they were exposed to various temperatures." The conversation then diverged to the subject of his early experiments with the Newcomen engine, the difficulties he had encountered in finding a proper material for steam-pipes, the best method of making steam- joints, and the various means of overcoming obstacles which occur in the prosecution of mechanical experiments, in the course of which he reverted to the many temporary expedients which he had himself adopted in his early days.

Watt was so much pleased with the intelligence of the brothers Hart, that he invited them to call upon him that evening at Miss Macgregor's, where they found him alone with the ladies. "In the course of conversation," continues Mr. Hart, "which embraced all that was new at the time, the expansion and the slow contraction of metals were touched on. This led to a discussion on iron in engine-making," in which Watt explained the practice which experience had led him to adopt as the best. The conversation then turned upon the early scene of his inventions, the room in the College, the shop in King Street, the place on Glasgow Green near the Herd's house where the first idea of a separate condenser flashed upon his mind, and the various steps by which he had worked out his invention. He went on to speak of his experience at Kinneil and Boroughstoness, of the Newcomen engine he had erected and worked there for the purpose of gaining experience, and incidentally referred to many of the other interesting events in his past career. At a late hour the brothers took their leave, delighted, as they well might be, with the affability and conversableness of "the great Mr. Watt."

But it was not mechanics alone that Watt fascinated by his powers of conversation and his stores of knowledge relating to the special business of his life: he was equally at home amongst philosophers, women, and children. When close upon his eighty-second year, he formed one of a distinguished party assembled in Edinburgh, at which Sir Walter Scott, Francis Jeffrey, and others were present. He delighted the northern literati with his kindly cheerfulness, not less than he astonished them by the extent and profundity of his information. "This potent commander of the elements," says Scott,— "this abridger of time and space, this magician, whose cloudy machinery has produced a change in the world, the effects of which, extraordinary as they are, are perhaps only now beginning to be felt, was not only the most profound man of science, the most successful combiner of powers, and combiner of numbers, as adapted to practical purposes, was not only one of the most generally well-informed, but one of the best and kindest of human beings. There he stood, surrounded by the little band of Northern literati, men not less tenacious, generally speaking, of their own opinions, than the national regiments are supposed to be jealous of the high character they have won upon service. Methinks I yet see and hear what I shall never see or hear again. The alert, kind, benevolent old man had his attention alive to every one's question, his information at every one's command. His talents and fancy overflowed on every subject. One gentleman was a deep philologist, he talked with him on the origin of the alphabet as if he had been coeval with Cadmus; another, a celebrated critic, you would have said the old man had studied political economy and belles-lettres all his life; of science it is unnecessary to speak, it was his own distinguished walk."

Indeed, the extent of his knowledge was the wonder of all who came in contact with him. "It seemed," said Jeffrey, "as if every subject that was casually started had been that which he had been occupied in studying." Yet, though no man was more ready to communicate knowledge, none could be less ambitious of displaying it. In company, when not spoken to, he sat as if tranquilly pursuing his own meditations, with his head bent forward or leaning on his hand. But as he could not fail to be a prominent feature in any society that he entered, it was seldom that he was left outside the circle of social talk. Men of letters, men of science, artists, ladies and children, thronged about him. Once when on a visit to his friend Rennie in London, he accompanied him to an evening party at Sir George Warrender's. At first he sat by himself, quiet and abstracted, until some young ladies engaged him in conversation, which gradually turned upon the mystery of the fabrics they wore, the insignificant materials out of which they were formed, and the beauty and value given to them by the industry and ingenuity of man and, other auditors being attracted by his descriptions, he shortly found himself the centre of a group of fair and admiring listeners. He seemed to be alike at home on all subjects, the most recondite and the most common, the most special and the most general. Mrs. Schimmelpenninck relates how he took her upon his knee when a little girl, and explained to her the principles of the hurdy-gurdy, the piano, the Pan's-pipe, and the organ; teaching her how to make a dulcimer and improve a Jew's-harp. To a Swedish artist he communicated the information that the most pliant and elastic painting-brush was to be made out of rats' whiskers. He advised ladies how to cure smoky chimneys, how to warm and ventilate dwellings, and how to obtain fast colours, while he would willingly instruct a maid-servant as to the best way of cleaning a grate. A lady still living, who remembers Watt, informs us that he used to carry a carpenter's foot-rule in the side pocket of his breeches, and would occasionally bring it out in after-dinner conversation or elsewhere, to illustrate the subject under discussion.

He was full of anecdotes relating to all manner of subjects, which he was accustomed to tell in a very effective way. He spoke in a low grave tone, with a broad Scottish accent. The late Mr. Murdock mentioned to us one of his favourite stories relating to two smugglers pursued by excisemen. The two smugglers had reached the mouth of a coal-pit and got into the corve-cage with their apparatus, the excisemen only coming up in time to see them descending the shaft, where they were soon out of sight. On the ascending corves coming up to the settle-board, the excisemen asked to be sent down after the smugglers, and they were sent down accordingly. Halfway down the shaft they met the smugglers in the other cage coming up! And so the relator kept them ascending and descending, passing and repassing each other, - his auditors being in convulsions of laughter, while he himself seemed wholly unmoved. Campbell, the poet, who paid Watt a visit in February, 1819, only six months before his death, describes him as so full of anecdote that he spent one of the most amusing days he had ever enjoyed with a man of science and a stranger to his own pursuits. To the last be was a great reader of novels and Mrs. Watt and he had many a hearty cry over the imaginary woes of love-lore heroes and heroines. Scott says no novel of the least celebrity escaped his perusal, and that this gifted man of science was as much addicted to productions of this sort as if he had been a very milliner's apprentice of eighteen. A lady, still living, informs us that she remembers the admiration which Watt expressed for the Waverley novels, then making their appearance in rapid succession, and used to quote his opinion as a great authority for her own devotion to such works, forgetting that, as the old frame requires the arm-chair after the heat and burden of the day, so the taxed mind needs rest and recreation after long years of study, anxiety, and labour.

Mr. Stockdale, of Carke, gives the following account of a visit which his sister, a cousin of Mr. Boulton's, paid to Heathfield in 1818, shortly before Mr. Watt's death:— "When tea was announced to Mr. Watt, he came from his ‘garret,’ and on being told who my sister was, he asked after her relations in the kindest way, and then sat down in his arm-chair. A cup of tea was handed to him, and alongside of it was placed a small cup containing a yellow powder, of which be took a spoonful and put it into his tea observing that he had long been plagued with a stomach complaint, for which he had found this powder of mastich a sovereign remedy. He talked more than my sister expected. Sometimes he fell into a reverie, appearing absorbed in thought, his eyes fixed on space, and his head leaning over his chest. After a while, he retired to his study, and my sister returned to Soho." Mr. Hollins, of Birmingham, sculptor, supplies the following further reminiscence. When a youth in a local architect's office, he was sent out to Heathfield one afternoon, to submit to Mr. Watt the plans of certain proposed alterations in the parish church of Handsworth. The church stood a few fields off, and its spire rose above the trees within sight of the drawing-room windows. It was his parish church, in which his friend Boulton had been buried, and where he himself was to be. When the young man mentioned his errand, Mr. Watt said he was just about to take his afternoon's nap. "But you can sit down there and read that newspaper, and when I have got my nap I will look at the plans." So saying he composed himself to rest in his arm-chair the youth scarce daring to turn the page for fear of disturbing him. At length, after a short sleep, he woke full up and said, "Now let me see them." He looked over the plans, examined them in detail, and criticised them keenly. He thought the proposed alterations of a paltry character, unworthy of the wealth and importance of the parish; "Why," said he, "if these plans be carried out, preaching at Hands-worth will be like pitching the word of God out of a keyhole!" When Mr. Watt’s decided views as to the insufficiency of the design was reported to the committee, steps were taken greatly to enlarge it, and Handsworth Church was thus indebted to his suggestions for much of its present beauty.

He proceeded with the completion of his sculpture-copying machine until nearly the close of his life. When the weather was suitable, he would go up stairs to his garret, don his woollen surtout and leather apron, and proceed with his work. He was as fastidious as ever, and was constantly introducing new improvements. It was a hobby and a pursuit, and served him as well as any. other. To M. Berthollet he wrote,— "Whatever may be its success, it has at least had the good effect of making me avoid many hours of ennui, by employing my hands when I could not employ my head, and given me some exercise when I could not go out." It also pleased him to see the invention growing under his hands as of old, though it is possible that during his later years he added but little to the machine. Indeed, it seems to have been as nearly as possible complete by the year 1817, if we may judge by the numerous exquisitely-finished specimens of reduced sculpture — busts, medallions, and statuary - laid away in the drawers of the garret at Heathfield. He took pleasure in presenting copies to his more intimate friends, jocularly describing them as "the productions of a young artist just entering his eighty-third year." Shortly after, the hand of the cunning workman was stopped by death. The machine remained unfinished, according to its author's intentions and it is a singular testimony to the skill and perseverance of a man who had accomplished so much, that it is almost his only unfinished work.

In the autumn of 1819 he was seized by his last illness. It could scarcely be called a seizure, for he suffered little, and continued calm and tranquil, in the full possession of his faculties, almost to the last. He was conscious of his approaching end, and expressed from time to time his sincere gratitude to Divine Providence for the worldly blessings he had been permitted to enjoy, for his length of days, and his exemption from the infirmities of age. "I am very sensible," said he to the mourning friends who assembled around his deathbed, "of the attachment you show me, and I hasten to thank you for it, as I feel that I am now come to my last illness." He parted with life quietly and peacefully, on the 19th of August, 1819, in the eighty-third year of his age. He was buried near his deceased friend and partner Mr. Boulton, in Handsworth Church. Over his remains, which he in a side aisle, was placed a monument by Chantrey, perhaps his finest work, justifying the compliment paid to the sculptor that he "cut breath;" for when first uncovered before the old servants assembled round it at Soho, it so powerfully reminded them of their old master, that they "lifted up their voices and wept."

Watt has been fortunate in his monumental honours. The colossal statue of him in Westminster Abbey, also from the chisel of Chantrey, bears upon it an epitaph from the pen of Lord Brougham, which is beyond comparison the finest lapidary inscription in the English language and among its other signal merits, it has one which appertains rather to its subject than its author, that, lofty as is the eulogy, every word of it is true.

The monument was raised by public subscriptions, initiated at a meeting in London presided over by the Prime Minister, and attended by the most illustrious statesmen, men of science, men of letters, and men of art, of the time, who met for the purpose of commemorating in some suitable manner the genius of Watt. "It has ever been reckoned one of the chief honours of my life" says Lord Brougham, "that I was called upon to pen the inscription upon the noble monument thus nobly reared."

Watt was also honoured during his lifetime. Learned Societies were proud to enrol him amongst their members. He was a Fellow of the Royal Societies of London and Edinburgh, a Foreign Associate of the Institute of France, and a Member of the Batavian Society. The University of Glasgow conferred on him the degree of Doctor of Law. Lord Liverpool offered him a baronetcy; but consistent with the simplicity of his character. He declined the honour. He was invited to serve as Sheriff on two occasions, for Staffordshire and for Radnorshire; but he strongly pleaded to be excused undertaking the office. He was "a timid old man," and hoped that he "should not have a duty imposed upon him that he was totally unfit for, nor have his grey hairs weighed down with a load of vexatious cares. My inventions," he said, "are giving employment to the hest part of a million of people, and having added many millions to the national riches, I have a natural right to it in my extreme age." His pleas were in both cases regarded as sufficient, and he was excused the office.

It is altogether unnecessary to pronounce a panegyric on the character and achievements of James Watt. This has already been done by Lord Jeffrey in language that cannot be surpassed. Sir James Macintosh placed him "at the head of all inventors in all ages and nations;" and Wordsworth the poet, twenty years after his death, said, "I look upon him, considering both the magnitude and the universality of his genius, as perhaps the most extraordinary man that this country ever produced: he never sought display, but was content to work in that quietness and humility, both of spirit and of outward circumstances, in which alone all that is truly great and good was ever done."

Watt was himself accustomed to speak of his inventions with the modesty of true genius. To a nobleman who expressed to him his wonder at the greatness of his achievements, he said, "the public only look at my success, and not on the intermediate failures and uncouth constructions which have served as steps to enable me to climb to the top of the ladder." Watt looked back upon his twenty long years of anxiety and labour before the engine succeeded, and heaved a sigh. "Without affecting any maidenly coyness," he wrote to Dr. Darwin, who proposed to eulogise him in his ‘Botanic Garden,’ you really make me appear contemptible in my own eyes by considering how far short my pretensions, or those of the invention, were of the climax of human intellect, — I that know myself to be inferior to the greatest part of enlightened men in most things. If I have excelled, I think now it has been by chance, and by the neglects of others. Preserve the dignity of a philosopher and historian; relate the facts, and leave posterity to judge. If I merit it, some of my countrymen, inspired by the ‘amor patriae’, may say, ‘Hoc a Scoto factum fuit.’"

Although the true inventor, like the true poet, is born, not made, - and although Watt pursued his inventions because he found his highest pleasure in inventing, — yet his greatest achievements were accomplished by unremitting application and industry. He was a keen observer and an incessant experimenter. "Observare" was the motto he deliberately adopted; and it expresses the principle and success of his life. He was always on the watch for facts, noting and comparing them. He took nothing for granted; and accepted no conclusions save on experimental evidence. "Nature can be conquered," he said, "if we can but find out her weak side." His patience was inexhaustible. He was never baffled by failure, from which he declared that he learnt more than from success. "It is a great thing," he once observed to Murdock, "to find out what will not do: it leads to one finding out what will do."

"Give me facts," he once said to Boulton, "I am sick of theory: give me actual facts." Yet, indispensable though facts are, theory is scarcely less so in invention and it was probably because Watt was a great theorist, that he was a great inventor. His invention of the separate condenser was itself the result of a theory, the soundness of which he proved by experiment. So with the composition of water, the theory of which he at once divined from the experiments of Priestley. He continued theorising during the whole progress of his invention of the steam-engine. New facts suggested new arrangements and the application of entirely new principles, until in course of time the engine of Newcomen became completely transformed.

Watt's engine was not an invention merely — it might almost be called a creation. "The part which he played," says M. Bataille, "in the mechanical application of the force of steam, can only be compared to that of Newton in astronomy, and of Shakspeare in poetry. And is not invention the poetry of science? It is only when we compare Watt with other mechanicians that we are struck by his immense superiority, — when we compare him, for example, with Smeaton, who was, perhaps, after him, the man who had advanced the farthest in industrial mechanism. Smeaton began, about the same time as Watt, his inquiries as to the best means of improving the steam-engine. He worked long and patiently, but in an entirely technical spirit. While he was working out his improvements, Watt had drawn forth from his fertile imagination all those brilliant inventions to which we owe the effective working steam-engine. In a word. Smeaton knew how to improve, but Watt knew how to create."

As for the uses of the steam-engine, they are too widely known to stand in need of illustration. Had Watt, at the outset of his career, announced to mankind that he would invent a power that should drain their mines, blow their furnaces, roll and hammer their metals, thrash and grind their corn, saw their timber, drive their looms and spindles, print their books, impel ships across the ocean, and perform the thousand offices in which steam is now regularly employed, he would have been regarded as an enthusiast, if not as a madman.

Yet all this the steam-engine has done and is now doing. It has widely extended the dominion of man over inanimate nature, and given him an almost unbounded supremacy over the materials which enter into his daily use. It has increased his power, his resources, and his enjoyments. It is the most universal and untiring of labourers, - the steam-power of Great Britain alone being estimated as equal to the manual labour of upwards of four hundred millions of men, or more than double the number of males supposed to inhabit the globe. It is, indeed, no exaggeration to say that the steam-engine of Watt is, without exception, the greatest invention of modern times and that it has been instrumental in effecting the most remarkable revolution in all departments of industry that the world has ever seen.

Some months since, we visited the little garret at Heathfield in which Watt pursued the investigations of his later years. The room had been carefully locked up since his death, and had only once been swept out. Everything lay very much as he left it. The piece of iron he was last employed in turning lay on the lathe. The ashes of the last fire were in the grate, the last bit of coal was in the scuttle. The Dutch oven was in its place over the stove, and the frying-pan in which he cooked his meal was hanging by its accustomed nail. Many objects lay about or in the drawers, indicating the pursuits which had been interrupted by death - busts, medallions, and figures, waiting to be copied by the sculpture-machine, — many medallion moulds, a store of plaster of Paris, and a box of plaster casts from London, the contents of which do not seem to have been disturbed. Here are Watt's ladles for melting lead, his foot-rule, his glue-pot, his hammer. Reflecting mirrors, an extemporised camera with the lenses mounted on pasteboard, and many camera-glasses laid about, indicate interrupted experiments in optics. There are quadrant-glasses, compasses, scales, weights, and sundry boxes of mathematical instruments, once doubtless highly prized. In one place a model of the governor, in another of the parallel motion, and in a little box, fitted with wooden cylinders mounted with paper and covered with figures, is what we suppose to be a model of his proposed calculating machine. On the shelves are minerals and chemicals in pots and jars, on which the dust of nearly half a century has settled. The moist substances have long since dried up, the putty has been turned to stone, and the paste to dust. On one shelf we come upon a dish in which lies a withered bunch of grapes. On the floor, in a corner, near to where Watt sat and worked, is a hair-trunk — a touching memorial of a long past love and a long dead sorrow. It contains all poor Gregory's school-books, — his first attempts at writing, his boy's drawings of battles, his first school exercises down to his College themes, his delectuses, his grammars, his dictionaries, and his class books, brought into this retired room, where the father's eve could rest upon them. Near at hand is the sculpture-machine, on which he continued working to the last. Its wooden framing is worm-eaten and dropping into dust, like the hands which made it. But though the great workman has gone to rest, with all his griefs and cares, and his handiwork is fast crumbling to decay, the spirit of his work, the thought which he put into his inventions, still survives, and will probably continue to influence the destinies of his race for all time to come.

See Also

• Lives of Boulton and Watt by Samuel Smiles
• Lives of Boulton and Watt by Samuel Smiles: Chapter 22