Page:A Letter on the Subject of the Cause (1797).djvu/71

 of my explanation, in ten minutes more of the true knowledge and nature of it, than all I can write if it amounted, as I ſaid before, to fifty times what I have done.

Does it not then appear, my Lord, how much it was the duty of Mr. Watt to adopt a figurative mode of explanation in this caſe; and which is the mode of every perſon under ſimilar circumſtances, who diſcharges the duty he owes to the public, and which the law requires of him? For my own part, I think it is to be lamented that any Specification ſhould be admitted as ſufficient, without figures or drawings, where they can be given, and are ſo eſſentially neceſſary as in the preſent and like inſtances. Had the immortal architect who directed the building of that ſtupendous Cathedral, St. Paul’s, confined all his inſtructions to a literal detail, I am confident the whole edifice itſelf would not have contained the paper he muſt have covered on that occaſion; and after all, I have much doubt whether he would have finally ſucceeded in the fulfilment of his deſign: while it would be but the taſk of a ſchool-boy to direct another edifice equal in magnitude and grandeur, was the figurative method adhered to, which he adopedadopted [sic] and I.