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S. Yendys exhibits those qualities in this very remarkable first effort, "The Roman." "It is a mechanical age," say some. To use Shakspeare's words, "he is a mechanical salt-butter rogue who says so." Men use more machines than formerly, but are not one whit more machines themselves. Was James Watt an automaton? Has the press become less an object of wonder or terror since it was worked by steam?
The principle, "an old one of my own," as Watt says, is in great part acted upon to-day. So numerous were the improvements made by Watt at various periods, which greatly increased the utility of his engine, it would be in vain to attempt a detailed recital of his endless contrivances, but we may mention as highly important, the throttle-valve, the governor, the steam-gauge and the indicator.
The pieces requisite for the performance of these various changes connect the valves with the axes which the engine sets to work, by the introduction of an apparatus, the principle of which Watt discovered in the regulator of the sails of some flour-mills: this he named the "governor," which is now called the "centrifugal regulator."
Watt had entered in properly by the door of knowledge and experience of the craft, the only door through which entrance was possible, but he had travelled too quickly; besides he was "neither the son of a burgess, nor had he served an apprenticeship in the borough," and this was conclusive.
Rude were the machines made by Savory, Newcombe, and others, to achieve the desired end, but Watt, in his small room in the cottage at Glasgow, at last brought about a triumph that the world at large now feels and acknowledges.
Here Watt brought the steam-engine to perfection, here gas was first used, plating was perfected, and myriads of inventions were developed. "The labors of Boulton and Watt at Soho," says the historian Langford, "changed the commercial aspects of the world."
One would say that Watt had adopted as his guide that celebrated maxim of Bacon's: "To write, speak, meditate, or act when we are not sufficiently provided with facts to stake out our thoughts is like navigating without a pilot along a coast strewed with dangers or rushing out on the immense ocean without compass or rudder."
Then we went to a lecture on Shorthand, or Passigraphy, and there we met Mr. Chenevix, who came home to dine with us, and stayed till nine, talking of Montgolfier's belier for throwing water to a great height. We have seen it and its inventor: something like Mr. Watt in manner, not equal to him in genius.
His countrymen were the first to press steam into the active service of mankind. By the genius of Watt and his successors, a power, before destructive and uncontrollable, has been rendered the mighty agent of man's will, the supplier of his wants, and the minister of his convenience.
Further on again, the "General" Cemetery looked much the same as now, except that the trees were smaller, and there were not so many monuments. Soho Park, from Hockley Bridge, for about a mile on the road to West Bromwich, was entirely walled in. The old factory built by Boulton and Watt was still in operation. I saw there at work the original engine which was put up by James Watt.
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