WATT, THE INVENTOR OF THE STEAM ENGINE.

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361 and the cylinder, according as the piston either ascended or de scended;" and how the boy, wanting to play, found out that “ tying a string from the handle of the valve which opened this communication to another part of the machine, the valve would open and shut without his assistance." * Improvements such as this had been accomplished by accidental observation. What improvements might not be effected by careful examination, grounded upon scientific knowledge. The experimental philosopher was still working in the dark, when he discovered that water converted into steam would heat about six times its own weight of water at 47° or 48° to 212°. He mentioned this fact to Dr. Black, who then explained to him his doctrine of latent heat, with which Watt had been pre viously unacquainted. He says of himself that "he stumbled upon one of the material facts by which that beautiful theory is supported." Amongst the principal features of scientific progress at this period, sir John Herschel includes "the development of the doctrine of latent heat by Black, with its train of important consequences, including the scientific theory of the steam-engine." The ceaseless preparatory labour of thought was now to produce its results. In a solitary walk, Watt solved the great problem upon which he had been so long intent. The necessity of working for his bread, whilst he eagerly desired to bring his ideas into a practical shape, was still forced upon him. But he saw his way. The invention was complete in his mind. To have a model constructed was a work of great diffculty. He had no capital to employ in engaging better workmen than the blacksmiths and tinmen of Glasgow. He struggled against these difficulties till he found a zealous and powerful ally in Dr. Roebuck. At length, in May, 1768, Watt had the happiness of congratulating his friend on the achieve ments of their. mutual hopes: "I sincerely wish you joy of this successful result, and hope it will make you some return for the obligations I ever will remain under to you."

It was agreed that a patent should be taken out; and Watt repaired to London to accomplish this business. On his way thither he had an interview, at Birmingham, with Matthew Boulton, who desired to join in the speculation. This eminent manufacturer, in every quality of sterling integrity, of generous feelings, of skill in organization, of prudent enterprise, was worthy of being the asso ciate of a man of genius like Watt, who was timid, and sometimes desponding. Their partnership was unfortunately deferred till 1773, for Roebuck would not admit Boulton to a share of the patent, except upon terms to which the prosperous and ingenious "Wealth of Nations," book i. chap. i.

↑ "Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy."

proprietor of the works at Soho could not agree. Watt, meanwhile, had to maintain himself by the superintendence of several canals then in course of construction. The employment was disagreeable to him. He had no advantage from working his patent, for his partner, Roebuck, was engaged in too many losing undertakings to advance more capital. At length that partner, in whose misfortune Watt deeply sympathized, agreed to sell his property in the patent to Boulton. In 1774 Watt went to Birmingham to superintend the construction of his machines; and he wrote to his father, "the fire-engine I have invented is now going, and answers much better than any other that has yet been made." There was very soon a change in the character of Boulton's manufactory. Dr. Johnson kept a Diary of a tour in Wales in 1774. On the 20th of September is this entry: "We went to Boulton's, who, with great civility, led us through his shops. I could not distinctly see his enginery-Twelve dozen of buttons for three shillings-Spoons struck at once." In 1776, Johnson and Boswell made an excursion to Oxford, and also saw Birmingham, of which Boswell has this record: "Mr. Hector was so good as to accompany me to see the great works of Mr. Boulton, at a place which he has called Soho, about two miles from Birmingham, which the very ingenious proprietor showed me himself to the best advantage. I wished Johnson had been with us; for it was a scene which I should have been glad to contemplate by his light. The vastness and the contrivance of some of the machinery would have matched his mighty mind. f shall never forget Mr. Boulton's expression to me, I sell here, tir, what all the world desires to have-Power !'"*

It is unnecessary, for our purpose, that we should pursue the history of the final establishment of the steam-engine of Watt to be the great operative power of the larger industries of Britain. It quickly superseded Newcomen's machines in draining the Cornish tin and copper mines. It multiplied cotton-mills in the towns of Lancashire and of Scotland, without reference to the previous necessity of choosing localities on the banks of the Irwell or the Derwent, the Tweed or the Clyde. It was blowing the iron furnaces of Dudley, and hammering steel at Sheffield. It was forging anchors and impelling block-machinery at Portsmouth. Yet it was ten years before Boulton and Watt derived any profit from the discovery. They had to struggle, in the first instance, against the common prejudice which attaches to every new invention. All the business sagacity of Boulton was necessary to encourage its use by the most mod

asked by George III. what he dealt in, Boswell's story is more probable.

It has been said that Boulton, upon being replied, "What kings delight in,-Power ! "

THE SWORD AND THE STEAM-ENGINE.

363 erate price; or by stipulating only for a royalty upon the amount of fuel which it saved, charging nothing for the engine. The partners had to contend, in actions at law, against unscrupulous pirates. But Parliament, in 1775, had granted an extension of the patent, and the reward to the inventor and his admirable associate would come in time. They would be repaid, however tardily, by the pecuniary fruits of their skill and perseverance, before the invention was thrown open to the world. But even before that period what mighty effects had been produced upon British industry by this crowning triumph of an enterprising age! Without its aid the energy of the people had more than counterbalanced the waste of the national resources by an obstinate government in a foolish and unjust war. The steamengine of the " Mathematical-Instrument Maker to the University of Glasgow gave a new impulse to the same energy in another war against a gigantic military despotism, wielded by a man origi nally as humble as himself-a student of the Military School of Brienne. Captain Sword and Captain Steam were to engage in a struggle not less arduous than that of "Captain Sword and Captain Pen." The one was to lay prosperous cities in ashes; the other was to build up new cities in desolate places. The one was to close the havens of ancient commerce; the other was to freight ships with products of such surpassing excellence and cheapness, that no tyrannous edicts could exclude them from oppressed nations. The one was to derange every effort of continental industry; the other was to harmonize every form of British labour and invention, by lending to each an intensity and a concentration previously un known. The one was to attempt the subjugation of the intellect of brute force; the other was to complete "the dominion of mind over the most refractory qualities of matter :"

CHAPTER XX.

State of Art in the reign of George II.-Inferiority of native artists.-Formation of an English School of Painting.-Academies.-First Exhibition of Works of English Artists.-Exhibition of Sign-paintings.-Foundation of the Royal Academy.-Early Exhibitions.-Reynolds, Gainsborough, Wilson, and West.-Engraving.-Strange and Woollett.-Mezzotint.-MacArdell, &c.-Boydell and commerce in English engravings. Sculpture.-Banks, Bacon, and Flaxman.—Architecture.-Sir William

Chambers.-Bridge-building.

A TRANSITION to the Fine Arts from Agriculture and Manufactures, from Spinning Machines and Cotton Mills, from Ironworks and Potteries, from Canals and Steam Engines, is not so abrupt as it may at first appear. In our immediate times, the intimate connexion between the Arts of Design and those exercises of industry which have too exclusively been designated as the Useful Arts, has been distinctly recognised. It has been found after a long experience, that Taste is an essential element in the excellence of manufactures, and of their consequent commercial value. But this connexion was perceived a century ago, when a society, now more flourishing than ever, founded by a drawing-master, proposed" to promote the arts, manufactures, and commerce of this kingdom, by giving honorary or pecuniary rewards as may be best adapted to the case, for the communication to the Society, and through the Society to the public, of all such useful inventions, discoveries and improvements, as tend to that purpose." The Society of Arts gave medals to Mr. Curwen for agricultural improvments, and he stated that but for this stimulus he should never have been a farmer. The Society of Arts awarded premiums for improvements in dyeing and tanning, in spinning and weaving, in paper-making and lace-making, and may thus have somewhat excited the inventive powers which superseded many of the old modes of hand-labour. The Society of Arts gave its modest grants of ten guineas to Banks and Flaxman, for their earliest efforts in sculpture; and probably without this encouragement these eminent artists might never have been sculptors. The mutual dependence existing between the Polite Arts, as the Arts of Painting and Sculpture were then termed, and the humbler industrial arts which form the foundations of the industrial fabric, was never more distinctly asserted than in

LOW STATE OF ART IN THE REIGN OF GEORGE II. 365

the proceedings of this comprehensive Association, for the encouragement of seemingly diverging pursuits, but all of which tended to the same development of public prosperity.

In a former chapter we traced the history of Art in England from the Restoration to the reign of George II. At that time English Art was in a very low state. Architecture had greatly declined from the position to which Wren had raised it. Painters and sculptors were numerous and well paid, but the high places of the professions were chiefly filled by Italians, Germans, Flemings and Frenchmen. Even in portrait painting, the branch in which employment was most abundant, the English practitioners were content if they could produce a satisfactory likeness; whilst for everything but the head they trusted to the skill of “drapery painters," whose highest ambition it was so to complete the work, that it might be recognised as in the style of Sir Godfrey Kneller. As a lively French writer said, "Englishmen make their portraits as they make their pins, each passes through several hands, one shapes the head, another the point; it takes as many painters to finish a full-length portrait as it does tradesmen to equip a petit maître." Whenever foreigners referred to the state of art in England it was with a sort of contemptuous pity. There is ample reward, it was said, for the foreign artist who shows even moderate skill, but nothing seems to evoke native talent; surely there must be something . in the soil and climate inimical to artistic genius. Even Englishmen shared the prejudice, or were too diffident of their own judgment to oppose in a matter of taste the acknowledged leaders of European opinion. Yet if there were no living English sculptor or historical painter of unquestioned eminence, the name of Hogarth might seem sufficient to have turned the edge of so dull a sarcasm. But Hogarth, however great he was admitted to be as a humourist, was scarcely recognised even by his countrymen as a painter. His

Abbé du Bos.-"Reflexions Critiques sur la Poësie et sur la Peinture," Par. 1755, vol. ii. 145-7. Le Blanc.-" Letters d'un Français," Par. 1745; and see the "Discours Preliminaire to a 5th ed. of these Letters Lyon, 1758; Roquet.-"L'Etat des Arts en Angleterre," Par. 1755. To the same effect were some remarks of Montesquieu, in his "Esprit des Lois," and of the Abbé Winckelmann. From the frequent references made to them by English writers on art for more than half a century, it is clear that these sarcasms were keenly felt by artists, and not without influence on patrons. Barry thought it necessary to write a formal answer to them in his " Inquiry into the Real and Imaginary Obstructions to the Acquisition of the Arts in England," 8vo. 1775; and it was in order to refute them practically that he painted his series of pictures in the Great Room of the Society of Arts. (See the Introduction to his "Account of a Series of Pictures," &c.) As late as 1791, the intelligent German, Wendeborn, notes that "it is rather singular that most of those who have excelled in the polite arts in Eng and have been foreigners," and he adds, that though it is no longer exclusively so, among the artists are still many foreigners. Wendeborn.-"View of England towards the close of the 18th century," vol. ii. p. 185.