D

URING the very extensive progress of our literary labours, nothing has afforded us more pleasure than to hand down to posterity biographical notices of those celebrated individuals who have exerted their energies for the glory of their country, or for the advantage of the public. Such an one was the gentleman whose portrait embellishes our present number. splendid talents having been successfully employed in a manner, at once honorable to himself, as well as lasting ly useful to the community at large.

His

JAMES WATT, Esquire, one of the most eminent mechanical philosophers of the present age, was born at Greenock, in the year 1736, where his father was a merchant for many years, and tended considerably to improve his native town, though severe losses and declining health obliged him to relinquish his pursuits some years before his death.

His son, the subject of this present sketch, was from infancy of very delicate health, and it was with extreme difficulty that he was enabled to go through the common routine of educa tion of the public school at Greenock, though the very circumstance of his ill health, perhaps, led him into that train of thinking, to which his future important discoveries may in a great measure be ascribed.

At the age of 18, Mr. Watt came to London, and placed himself under an eminent mathematical instrument maker, with whom, however, his weak state of health would not permit him to remain above a year. In 1757, when only twenty-one years of age, he received the appointment of mathematical instrument maker to the university

College, at which he resided till the year 1763, when he married his maternal cousin, Miss Miller, and then removed into the town, and carried on bis business for himself. In 1764 or 1765, he invented his well-known improvement upon the principle of the steam engine, which achievement alone, will convey his name to posterity. About this time also, he commenced the business of a civil engineer, and planned and surveyed many public works, and canals, which were among the first, if not the very first in North Britain. When, to aid him in these surveys, he invented a new micrometer, and a machine for drawing in perspective.

In 1769, he reduced his improvements on the apparatus of the steam engine into practice at Kennel, near Burrowstoness, where he then resided ; and took out letters patent for his "method of lessening the consumption of steam and fuel in steam engines;" but the partner, (Dr. Roebuck), to whom he had given an interest in the concern, having inet with repeated losses, induced him to transfer the same to Mr. Boulton,* of Soho, near Birmingham; to which place Mr. Wait removed, in 1774. In the subsequent year, be abtained an Act of Parliament, prolonging his patent for twenty-five years, and the business of

the manufacture was carried on under the firm of Boulton and Watt.

In 1780, he invented a method of copying letters and other writings, by a machine and process which bear his name; and which, simple as it is, would alone have given celebrity to any other person.

The direct application of the steam

* A Portrait and Memoir of whom was

engine to mills and machinery requiring a rotatory motion, having from the first engaged his attention, in the course of the years from 1781 to 1785, he carried into execution a series of improvements, the most essential of which he secured by successive patents, including amongst them the rotatory motion of the sun and planet wheel, the expansive principle, the double engine, the parallel motion, and the smokeless furnace.

The mines in Cornwall, and many of the deepest in the Kingdom, had, before this adopted his reciprocating engines, which were attended with a saving of two thirds of the fuel consumed; as well as having the advantage of a much more perfect mechanism; and also being less liable to accidents and repairs: but we must ascribe much of the rapid extention of our manufac tures, population, and wealth, to Mr. Watt's rotative engines, the first of which was erected by him about the year 1784, for Mr. Whithread's brewery, and the Albion Mills, in which latter concern he and Mr. Boulton were partners.

From 1792 to 1799, his time was nearly engrossed in the defence of his patent right, the peculiar excellence of which had caused them to be invaded by many pretenders, but which after numerous verdicts in his favor, tended to establish the novelty and utility of his inventions, and at length his rights were finally confirmed in the latter year, by the unanimous decision of all the Judges of the Court of King's Bench.

During this period, on the illness of a daughter, he was led to consider the subject of medical application of the factitious airs, and contrived many different apparatuses for that purpose, the descriptions of which were published in Dr. Beddoes' pamphlet on Pneu. matic Medicine, in these years.

His first wife died in 1773, leaving a daughter and a son, the latter of whom survives him, and has been long at the bead of the business he established. He was afterwards married to Miss M'Gregor, of Glasgow, by whom he had also a daughter and a son; both of whom he had the misfortune to lose while young. In 1784, Mr. Watt was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, of the Society of London in 1785, and a corresponding Member of the Batavian Society in 1787. In 1806, the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws, was

conferred upon him by the spontaneous and unanimous vote of the Senate of the University of Glasgow; and in 1808 he was elected first, a corresponding Member, and afterwards a foreign Member of the National Institute of France.

His naturally infirm health had been much exhausted by the exertions of his mind during the period of planning the steam engine, and his numerous other inventions; still it improved as he advanced in years, owing to a continual temperance and good management, added to which, a thorough knowledge of his own constitution which he treat

ed with much medical skill, so that with faculties little impaired, he reached his 84th year; when after a short illness of debility rather than pain, he expired at his own house the 25th of August 1819.

Thus closed the honorable career of Mr. Watt, and as the most appropriate termination of this memoir, we give the following sketch of his character, as drawn by one who well knew it's amiable original.

Speaking of Mr. Watt, he says, "His name fortunately needs no commemoration of ours: for he that bore it survived to see it crowned with undisputed and unenvied honors, and many generations will probably pass away before it shall have gathered all its fame.' We have said that Mr. Watt was a great improver of the steam engine; but in truth, as to all that is admirable in it's structure, or vast in it's utility he should be described as it's Inventor. It was by his inventions that it's erection was so regulated as to make it capable of being applied to the finest and most delicate manufacture, and it's power so increased as to set weight and solidity at defiance; by his admirable contrivances, it has become a thing stupen dous alike for it's force, and it's flexibility; for the prodigious powers which it can exert, and the care, and precision, and ductility with which they can be varied, distributed, and applied. trunk of an Elephant that can pick up a pin, or rend an oak is nothing to it.' It can engrave a seal, and crush masses of obdurate metal like wax before it; draw out without breaking a thread as light as Gossamer, and lift up a ship of war into the air like a buable. It can embroider muslin, and forge anchors, cut steel into ribands, and impel loaded vessels against the fury of the winds and

waves.

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The

"In his temper and disposition, he

MEMOIR

OF

year.

"This happy and useful life came at last to a gentle close; he had suffered some inconveniences through the summer, but was not seriously indisposed till within a week of his death; he then became perfectly aware of the event which was approaching, and with his usual tranquillity and benevolence of nature seemed only anxious to point out to the many friends around him the numerous sources of consolation that were afforded by the circumstances under which it was about to take place. He expressed his sincere gratitude to Providence for the length of days with which he had been blessed, and his being exempted from most of the infirmities of age, as well as the calm and cheerful evening of life that he had been permitted to enjoy, after the honorable labours of the day had been concluded. And thus, full of years and honors, in all calmness and tranquillity he yielded up his soul without pain or struggle, and passed from the bosom of his family to that of his God !”

We have to express our obligations to the pages of the " Annual Biography and Obituary" for much of the information contained in the preceding particulars, and take our final leave of the subject, with a grateful sense of the veneration due to the talents and the memory of the late James Watt.

X.

ABRAHAM REES, D.D. F.R.S. F.L.S. &c. &c. &c.

THOMSON, FROM AN ORIGINAL PAINTING BY J. OPIE, ESQ. R.A.)

"He hath been at a great feast of learning, and hath brought away all the scraps."

SHAKSPEARE.

state, that the unavoidable disT is with very sincere regret we

appointment of last month is, in part, also extended to the present, and that the friend on whom we relied for the promised Memoir of Dr. Recs, is, by severe indisposition, precluded from communicating the intended details. In this dilemma, and at this late period of the month, we have preferred availing ourselves of our own scanty resources, to again delaying the Portrait's requisite accompaniment; and we have therefore to solicit our readers' kind indulgence for a hurried and imperfect sketch, in lieu of the more finished and elaborate Memoir, which we had hoped to present.

The name of Rees has been too long connected with the literature of our country not to be familiar to the recollection of all our subscribers, and eulogy and introduction are therefore alike unnecessary in prefacing this brief detail of his family connections, and his literary fame.

Dr. ABRAHAM REES, the subject of this hasty sketch, is the son of Mr. Lewis Rees, a Dissenting Minister of great celebrity in the county of Montgomery, in North Wales, as well as in Glamorganshire, in South Wales, where he retained his popularity and usefulness to a very advanced age. Between sixty and seventy years the principality was witness to his unwearied labours, and wherever he preached, very large assemblies were collected. In the faborious discharge of all the duties pertaining to a Christian minister, he was singularly assiduous and indefatigable, and the insults which he frequently experienced from the ignorance of his countrymen, excited his pity, while they had no effect in abating his zeal. To avoid the assaults and indignities which were aimed at him by the fanatics, who even threatened his life, he travelled from place to place in the darkness of night Sundays, and during the hours of leisure on other days, preaching to crowded audiences; and neglecting no fit opportunity which presented itself of

On