Lives of Boulton and Watt

Principally from the original Soho MSS. Comprising also a History of the Invention and Introduction of the Steam-Engine. By SAMUEL SMILES. London : John Murray.

THE author of this book is an enthusiast in biography. He has given the best years of his life to the task of recording the struggles and successes of men who have labored for the good of their kind ; and his own name will always be honorably mentioned in connection with Stephenson, Watt, Flaxman, and others, of whom he has written so well. Of all his published books, next to “ Self-Help,” this volume, lately issued, is his most interesting one. James Watt, with his nervous sensibility, his headaches, his pecuniary embarrassments, and his gloomy temperament, has never till now been revealed precisely as he lived and struggled. The extensive collection of Soho documents to which Mr. Smiles had access has enabled him to add so much that is new and valuable to the story of his hero’s career, that hereafter this biography must take the first place as a record of the great inventor.

As a tribute to Boulton, so many years the friend, partner, and consoler of Watt, the book is deeply interesting. Fighting many a hard battle for his timid, shrinking associate, Boulton stands forth a noble representative of strength, courage, and perseverance. Never was partnership more admirably conducted ; never was success more richly earned. Mr. Smiles is neither a Macaulay nor a Motley, but he is so honest and earnest in every work he undertakes, he rarely fails to make a book deeply instructive and entertaining.