hours, into what comparative neighbourhood will the remotest extremes even of a large country be brought! and how little shall we think of what we now call distance! A nation will then be indeed a community; and all the benefits of the highest civilisation, instead of being confined to one central spot, will be diffused equally over the land, like the light of heaven. This improvement, in short, when fully consummated, will confer upon man nearly as much new power and new enjoyment as if he were actually endowed with wings.

It is gratifying to reflect that, even while he was yet alive, Watt received from the voice of the most illustrious of his contemporaries the honours due to his genius. In 1785 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society; the degree of Doctor of Laws was conferred upon him by the University of Glasgow in 1806; and in 1808 he was elected a member of the French Institute. He died on the 25th of August 1819, in the 84th year of his age.

We cannot better conclude our sketch of the life of this great inventor than by the following extract from the character that has been drawn of him by Lord Jeffrey :- Independently of his great attainments in mechanics, 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 had read so accurately and well. He had infinite quickness of apprehension, a prodigious memory, and a certain rectifying and methodizing power of understanding, which extracted something precious out of all that was presented to it. His stores of miscellaneous knowledge were immense, and yet less astonishing than the command he had at all times over them. It seemed as if every subject that was casually started in conversation had been that which he had been last occupied in studying and exhausting, such was the copiousness, the precision, and the admirable clearness of the information which he poured out upon it without effort or hesitation. Nor was this promptitude and compass of knowledge confined in any degree to the studies connected with his ordinary pursuits. 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. Nor was it at all extraordinary to hear the great mechanician and engineer detailing and expounding, for hours together, the metaphysical theories of the German logicians, or criticising the measures or the matter of the German poetry.

'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. Every conception that was suggested to his mind seemed instantly to take its place among its other rich furniture, and to be condensed into the smallest and most con

He never ap

venient form. peared, 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 alchemy, all that was worthy of attention, and to have reduced it for his own use to its true value and to its simplest form. And thus it often happened, that a great deal more was learned from his brief and vigorous account of the theories and arguments of tedious writers, than an ordinary student could ever have derived from the most faithful study of the originals; and that errors and absurdities became manifest from the mere clearness and plainness of his statement of them, which might have deluded and perplexed most of his hearers without that invaluable assistance.'

ingenious men, was an attempt to discover the perpetual motion. It was in inquiring after a person to make him some wheels for a project of this kind, that in the latter part of the year 1767 he got acquainted with a clockmaker of the name of Kay, then residing at Warrington, with whom it is certain that he remained for a considerable time after closely connected. From this moment we may date his entrance upon

a new career.

The manufacture of cotton cloths was introduced into this country only towards the end of the seventeenth century; although stuffs, improperly called Manchester cottons, had been fabricated nearly three centuries before, which, however, were made entirely of wool. It is generally thought that the first attempt at the manufacture of cotton goods in Europe did not take place till the end of the fifteenth century, when the art was introduced into Italy. Before this, the only cottons known had been imported from the East Indies.

The English cottons, for many years after the introduction of the manufacture, had only the weft of cotton; the warp, or longitudinal threads of the cloth, being of linen. It was conceived to be impracticable to spin the cotton with a sufficiently hard twist to make it serviceable for this latter purpose. Although occasionally exported too in small quantities,

the manufactured goods were chiefly consumed at home. It was not till about the year 1760 that any considerable demand for them arose abroad.

But

But about this time the exportation of cottons, both_to the Continent and to America, began to be carried on on a larger scale, and the manufacture of course received a corresponding impulse. The thread had hitherto been spun entirely, as it still continues to be in India, by the tedious process of the distaff and spindle, the spinner drawing out only a single thread at a time. as the demand for the manufactured article continued to increase, a greater and greater scarcity of weft was experienced, till at last, although there were 50,000 spindles constantly at work in Lancashire alone, each occupying an individual spinner, they were found quite insufficient to supply the quantity of thread required. The weavers generally, in those days, had the weft they used spun for them by the females of their family; and now 'those weavers,' says Mr. Guest, in his History of the Cotton Manufacture, whose families could not furnish the necessary supply of weft, had their spinning done by their neighbours, and were obliged to pay more for the spinning than the price allowed by their masters; and even with this disadvantage, very few could procure weft enough to keep themselves constantly employed.

It was no uncommon thing for a weaver to walk three or four miles in a morning, and call on five or six spinners, before he could collect weft to serve him for the remainder of the day; and when he wished to weave a piece in a shorter time than usual, a new ribbon or gown was necessary to quicken the exertions of the spinner.'

It was natural, in this state of things, that attempts should be made to contrive some method of spinning more effective than that which had hitherto been in use; and, in fact, several ingenious individuals seem to have turned their attention to the subject. Long before this time, indeed, spinning by machinery had been thought of by more than one speculator. A Mr. Wyatt, of Lichfield, is stated to have actually invented an apparatus for that purpose so early as the year 1733, and to have had factories built and filled with his machines, both at Birmingham and Northampton. These undertakings, however, not being successful, the machines were allowed to perish, and no model or description of them was preserved. There was also a Mr. Laurence Earnshaw, of Mottram, in Cheshire, of whom 'it is recorded,' says Mr. Baines, in his History of Lancashire, 'that, in the year 1753, he invented a machine to spin and reel cotton at one operation, which he showed to his neighbours, and then destroyed it,

through the generous apprehension that he might deprive the poor of bread '—a mistake, but a benevolent one.

It was in the year 1767, as we have mentioned, that Arkwright became acquainted with Kay. In 1768 the two friends appeared together at Preston, and immediately began to occupy themselves busily in the erection of a machine for the spinning of cotton-thread, of which they had brought a model with them. They had prevailed upon a Mr. Smalley, who is described to have been a liquor merchant and painter of that place, to join them in their speculation; and the room in which the machine was fixed was the parlour of the dwellinghouse attached to the free grammar school, the use of which Smalley had obtained from his friend the schoolmaster. At this time Arkwright was so poor that, an election contest having taken place in the town of which he was a burgess, it is asserted that his friends, or party, were obliged to subscribe to get him a decent suit of clothes before they could bring him into the poll-room. As soon as the election was over, he and Kay left Preston, and, carrying with them their model, betook themselves to Nottingham, the apprehension. of the hostility of the people of Lancashire to the attempt he was making to introduce spinning by machinery having, as Arkwright himself afterwards