copied with pen and ink; this made him think I might become a painter. Lady Dipple had been but a few weeks there, when William Baird, Esq. of Auchmeddan, came on a visit; he was the husband of one of that lady's daughters, and I found him to be very ingenious and communicative; he invited me to go to his house, and stay some time with him, telling me that I should have free access to his library, which was a very large one; and that he would furnish me with all sorts of implements for drawing. I went thither, and staid about eight months; but was much disappointed at finding hardly any books of astronomy in his library, although there were many books on geography, and other sciences. Several of these, indeed, were in Latin, and more in French; which being languages that I did not understand, I had recourse to him for what I wanted to know of these subjects, which he cheerfully read to me; and it was as easy for him, at sight, to read English from a Greek, Latin, or French book, as from an English one. He furnished me with pencils and Indian ink; and, although he had but an indifferent hand at that work, yet he was a very acute judge; and consequently a very fit person for showing me how to correct my own work. He was the first who ever sat to me for a picture; and I found it was much easier to draw from the life than from any picture whatever, as nature was more striking than any imitation of it. Ferguson.

Mr Ferguson continues this very interesting account of himself by stating, that the first attempts, which were made to forward his success as a painter, entirely failed; but that afterwards, through the kindness of the Reverend Dr Robert Keith at Edinburgh, to whose notice he was recommended by his good friend Mr Baird, "he soon had as much business as he could possibly manage, so as not only to put a good deal of money in his own pocket, but also to spare what was sufficient to help to supply his father and mother in their old age; and thus a business was providentially put into his hands, which he followed for six and twenty years." But, with the exception of a year or two, during which

he took a fancy for studying medicine, he never abandoned his astronomical pursuits. At length, by ardent zeal, and persevering diligence, this shepherd-boy came to be ranked among the philosophers of his day,-was admitted, in a manner peculiarly honourable, to a place in the Royal Society of London, and in the American Philosophical Society,-delivered lectures on experimental philosophy, which were frequently honoured with the presence of his sovereign, who distinguished him by numerous marks of his favour,-and his works continue to instruct succeeding generations, as well as to gild his own once humble name. "Mr Ferguson," observes Dr Brewster, "possessed a clear judgment, and was capable of thinking and writing on philosophical subjects, with great accuracy and precision. He had a peculiar talent for simplifying what was complex, for rendering intelligible what was abstracted, and for bringing down, to the lowest capacities, what was naturally above them. His unwearied assiduity in the acquisition of knowledge may be inferred from the great variety of his publications. In his manners, he was affable and mild; in his dispositions, communicative and benevolent. His religious character corresponded with his general conduct. The anxieties and changes of his eventful life never effaced the religious impressions of his youth, but rather strengthened those principles of duty, which the piety of his parents had early implanted; and confirmed him in the belief of those peculiar doctrines of our faith, which are the surest foundation of moral practice, and best fitted to inspire us with confidence, when the concerns of the present life must cease to interest us."

CHARACTER OF MR JAMES WATT.

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

nerations 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 invention 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 contrivances, 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 it 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 up a ship of war, like a bauble, in the air. It can embroider muslin, and forge anchors,-cut steel into ribands, and impel loaded vessels against the fury of the winds and waves.It would be difficult to estimate the value of the benefits, which these inventions have conferred upon the country. There is no branch of industry, that has not been indebted to them; and, in all the most material, they have not only widened most magnificently the field of its exertions, but multiplied a thousand-fold the amount of its productions. Our improved steamengine 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 before 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 contemporaries, conferred less important benefits on mankind, than the inventor of our present steam-engine.-Independently of his great attainments in mechanics, Mr Watt was an extraordinary, and, in many respects, a wonderful man. Perhaps no individual in his age possessed so much, and such varied and exact information,-had read so much, or remembered what he read so accurately and well. That he should have been minutely and extensively skilled in chemistry and the arts, and in most of the branches of physical science, might perhaps have been conjectured: but it could not have been inferred from his usual occupations, and probably is not generally known, that he was curiously learned in many branches of antiquity, metaphysics, medicine, and etymology; and perfectly at home in all the details of architecture, music, and law. He was well acquainted, too, with most of the modern languages, and familiar with their most recent literature. 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. 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 alchymy, all that was worthy of attention, and to have reduced it, for his own use, to its true value, and to its simplest form. It is needless to say, that, with those vast resources, his conversation was, at all times, rich and instructive, in no ordinary degree; but it was, if possible, still more pleasing than wise, and had all the charms of familiarity, with all the substantial treasures of knowledge. No man could be more social in his spirit, less assuming or fastidious in his manners, or more kind and indulgent towards all who approached him. He rather liked to talk,-at least in his latter years; but, though he took a considerable share of the conversation, he rarely suggested the topics, on which it was to turn, but readily and quietly took up whatever

was presented by those around him, and astonished the idle and barren propounders of an ordinary theme, by the treasures which he drew from the mine they had unconsciously opened. He generally seemed, indeed, to have no choice or predilection for one subject of discourse rather than another; but allowed his mind, like a great cyclopædia, to be opened at any letter his associate might choose to turn up, and only endeavoured to select, from his inexhaustible stores, what might be best adapted to the taste of his present hearers. As to their capacity, he gave himself no trouble; and, indeed, such was his singular talent for making all things plain, clear, and intelligible, that scarcely any one could be aware of such a deficiency in his presence. His talk, too, though overflowing with information, had no resemblance to lecturing or solemn discoursing, but on the contrary was full of colloquial spirit and pleasantry. He had a certain quiet and grave humour, which ran through most of his conversation, and a vein of temperate jocularity, 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, 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.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, and gave the most liberal assistance and encouragement to all young persons, who showed any indications of talent, or applied to him for patronage or advice. He preserved, up almost to the last moment of his existence, not only the full command of his extraordinary intellect, but all the alacrity of spirit, and the social gayety, which had illuminated his happiest