art, in literature, and in science; and the love and admiration
with which he inspired such men affords one of the best proofs
of his own elevation of character. Among the most intimate of
his friends and associates were Richard Lovell Edgeworth, a
gentleman of fortune, enthusiastically devoted to his
long-conceived design of moving land-carriages by steam; Captain
Keir, an excellent practical chemist, a wit and a man of
learning; Dr. Small, the accomplished physician, chemist and
mechanist; Josiah Wedgwood, the practical philosopher and
manufacturer, founder of a new and important branch of skilled
industry; Thomas Day, the ingenious author of "Sandford and
Merton"; Dr. Darwin, the poet-physician; Dr. Withering, the
botanist; besides others who afterward joined the Soho circle,
not the least distinguished of whom were Joseph Priestley and
James Watt.

The first business in hand was the reconstruction of the engine brought
from Kinneil, which upon trial performed much better than before, wholly
on account of the better workmanship attainable at Soho; but there still
recurs the unceasing complaint that runs throughout the long eight years
of trial--lack of accurate tools and skilled workmen, the difference in
accuracy between the blacksmith standard and that of the
mathematical-instrument maker. Watt and Boulton alike agreed that the
inventions were scientifically correct and needed only proper
construction. In our day it is not easy to see the apparently
insuperable difficulty of making anything to scale and perfectly
accurate, but we forget what the world of Watt was and how far we have
advanced since.

Watt wrote to his father at Greenock, November, 1774: "The business I am
here about has turned out rather successful; that is to say, the
fire-engine I have invented is now going, and answers much better than
any other that has yet been made." This is as is usual with the Scotch
in speech, in a low key and extremely modest, on a par with the verdict
rendered by the Dunfermline critic who had ventured to attend "the
playhouse" in Edinburgh to see Garrick in Hamlet--"no bad." The truth
was that, so pronounced were the results of proper workmanship, coupled
with some of those improvements which Watt was constantly devising, the
engine was so satisfactory as to set both Boulton and Watt to thinking
about the patent which protected the invention. Six of the fourtee