Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 7.djvu/296

432 amongst them, heaven knows how, a well known character of your country, Jedediah Cleishbotham. This worthy person having come to Edinburgh during the Christmas vacation, had become a sort of lion in the place, and was led in leash from house to house along with the guizzards, the stone eater, and other amusements of the season, which 'exhibit their unparalleled feats to private family parties, if required.' Amidst this company stood Mr Watt, the man whose genius discovered the means of multiplying our national resources to a degree perhaps even beyond his own stupendous powers of calculation and combination, bringing the treasures of the abyss to the summit of the earth giving the feeble arm of man the momentum of an Afrite; commanding manufactures to arise, as the rod of the prophet produced water in the desert; affording the means of dispensing with that time and tide which wait for no man, and of sailing without that wind which defied the commands and threats of Xerxes himself. This potent commander of the elements this abridger of time and space this magician, whose cloudy machinery has produced a change on 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 calculator of numbers, as adapted to practical purposes was not only one of the most generally well informed, but cue of the best and kindest of human beings.

"There he stood, surrounded by the little band I have mentioned of northern literati, men not less tenacious, generally speaking, of their own fame and their own opinions than the national regiments are supposed to be jealous of the high character which they have gained upon service. Methinks I yet see and hear what I shall never see and hear again. In his eighty-fifth year, the alert, kind, benevolent old man had his attention at 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 was 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. And yet, captain Clutterbuck, when he spoke with your countryman, Jedediah Cleishbotham, you would have sworn he had been coeval with Claverse and Burley, with the persecutors and persecuted, and could number every shot the dragoons had fired at the fugitive Covenanters. In fact, we discovered that no novel of the least celebrity escaped his perusal, and that the gifted man of science was as much addicted to the productions of your native country, (the land of Utopia aforesaid;) in other words, as shameless and Obstinate a perueer of novels as if he had been a very milliner's apprentice of eighteen,"

A highly characteristic statue of Watt, by Chantrey, adorns a Gothic monument reared to his memory, by his son, Mr James Watt, who died June 2, 1848, in his 80th year. Three other statues of him by Chantrey have been erected one of them, of colossal size, stands in Westminster Abbey, and bears an elegant inscription by lord Brougham. The countenance of this statue has been characterised as the personification of abstract thought. Glasgow possesses the other two one of marble, in the museum of the university, and the other of bronze, in George's Square. His native town of Greenock has also rendered appropriate homage to his genius, by erecting not only his statue but a public library, which bears his name. An admirable Eloge on Watt and his inventions was pronounced before the National Institute of France by the late M. Arago. Lord Brougham has also celebrated his merits in his Historical Account of the Composition of Water, which is published as an appendix to the Eloge.