generally seemed, indeed, to have no choice or predilection for one subject of discourse rather than another; but allowed his mind, like a great cyclopædia, to be opened at any letter his associates might choose to turn up. His talk, too, though overflowing with information, had no resemblance to lecturing or solemn discoursing; but, on the contrary, was full of colloquial spirit and pleasantry. He had a certain quiet and grave humour, which ran through most of his conversation; and a vein of temperate jocularity, which gave infinite zest and effect to the condensed and inexhaustible information which formed its main staple and characteristic. There was a little air of affected testiness, and a tone of pretended rebuke and contradiction, with which he used to address his younger friends, that was always felt by them as an endearing mark of his kindness and familiarity, and prized accordingly far beyond all the solemn compliments that ever proceeded from the lips of authority. His voice was deep and powerful, though he commonly spoke in a low and somewhat monotonous tone, which harmonised admirably with the weight and brevity of his observations, and set off to the greatest advantage the pleasant anecdotes which he delivered with the same grave brow and the same calm smile playing soberly on his lips. There was nothing of effort, indeed, or impatience, any more than of pride or levity, in his demeanour; and there was a finer expression of reposing strength, and mild self-possession in his manner, than we ever recollect to have met with in any other person. He had in his character the utmost abhorrence for all sorts of forwardness, parade, and pretension; and, indeed, never failed to put all such impostors out of countenance, by the manly plainness and honest intrepidity of his language and deportment."

To these passages from the pen of Lord Jeffrey, we may add the following from Sir Walter Scott, as they occur in the preface to "The Monastery:"-" It was only once my fortune to meet Watt, when there were assembled about half a score of our northern lights.* Amidst this company stood Mr Watt, the man whose genius discovered the means of multiplying our national resources to a degree, perhaps, even beyond his own stupendous powers of calculation and combination; bringing the treasures of the abyss to the summit of the earth-giving to the feeble arm of man the momentum of an Afrite-commanding manufactures to arise-affording means of dispensing with that time and tide which wait for no man-and of sailing without that wind which defied the commands and threats of Xerxes himself. This potent commander of the elements-this abridger of time and space-this_magician, whose cloudy machinery has produced a change in the world, the effects of which, extraordinary as they are, are perhaps only beginning to be felt-was

* At the table of one of the Commissioners of Northern Lighthouses.

not only the most profound man of science, the most successful combiner of powers, and calculator of numbers, as adapted to practical purposes-was not only one of the most generally wellinformed, but one of the best and kindest of human beings. There he stood, surrounded by the little band of northern literati. Methinks I yet see and hear what I shall never see or hear again. In his eighty-first year, the alert, kind, benevolent old man, had his attention at every one's question, his information at every one's command. His talents and fancy overflowed on every subject. One gentleman was a deep philologist-he talked with him on the origin of the alphabet, as if he had been coeval with Cadmus; another a celebrated critic-you would have said that the old man had studied political economy and belles-lettres all his life; of science it is unnecessary to speak-it was his own distinguished walk."

If to these eulogies it be thought necessary to add the honorary titles conferred upon Mr Watt, it may be mentioned that, in 1784, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh; in the following year he became a Fellow of the Royal Society of London; in 1787 he was chosen a Corresponding Member of the Batavian Society; in 1808 the university of Glasgow conferred on him the degree of LL.D.; and, shortly before his death, he was added to the small number of English members of the Royal Institute of France.

In one of the public squares of Glasgow-the city which witnessed Watt's early struggles a statue has been erected to his memory; and thus has been expiated the narrow policy which originally offered an obstacle to his useful career.

F there be any one thing in the affairs of mortal men which it is proper uniformly to explode-which it is incumbent on every man, by every lawful means, to deprecate and oppose-that one thing is, doubtless, War. There is nothing more unnaturally wicked, or more productive of misery and public and private loss.

The destruction of life, though enormous, is equalled by the destruction of property. Thousands of individuals, on sea and land, lose their all. Ships on the high seas, laden with valuable cargoes, are taken, burnt, or wrecked. Whole countries are laid waste only by the passing of an immense army; houses are defaced, furniture broken in pieces, the stores of families eaten up, and the finest cities laid in ashes. And all this, and much more, is done with the view of overcoming an enemy-forcing one party, by every species of violence, to submit to the terms of another. In such a state of things reason is dumb; there is no argument, no attempt at peaceful suasion: it is all sheer force; a struggle to the death who shall be uppermost; the conquest of the strong over the weak. War is happily known in Great Britain only from hearsay: all that is seen of it is the spectacle of military array; all that is felt from it is the burden of payment. For these reasons, however, people are only the more apt to mistake its real character, and to think and speak lightly of what ought not to be mentioned without emotions of detestation. With the view of inculcating as correct ideas as possible on this subject, and without unnecessarily shocking the feelings, we propose in the present sheet to offer such pictures of war as

will show this monstrous system of strife in its proper colours. Our notices will more particularly refer to some of those sieges which have acquired celebrity in history; for great as are the calamities which ensue from the direct contention of armies in the field, they are, for the greater part, much less appalling than the horrors which occur from the assault and protracted siege of fortified towns. In such cases the demon war is seen and felt under numerous aggravations; for to the spectacle of wounds and slaughter is added the terror of the unfortunate inhabitants, with the destruction of their property, and not unfrequently starvation in its most appalling forms. According to the practice of modern military engineering, the possibility of capturing any fortified place, however seemingly impregnable, is reduced to a question of time-the united process of battering with shot, and of approaching by trenches and mines, being sure to terminate in the utter destruction of every species of defence. Previous to the discovery of this mode of attacking and capturing towns, it was more customary than it is at present to weary out the besieged, by surrounding them with an army, and starving them into terms of surrender. On this account the narratives of sieges in the olden time present some of the most distressing pictures of war. To this terrible class of cases belonged the siege of Leyden, in 1574, described in our 42d number; and to this also pertains the siege of Londonderry, noticed in the present sheet. That assaults on fortified towns previous to the invention of gunpowder were as calamitous as those which have taken place since, we have ample and melancholy testimony in the wars of the ancient Greeks and Romans.

SCENE AT TYRE.

Alexander, usually styled the Great (who flourished about 50 years before Christ), as is well known, made war and conquest a favourite pastime, and carried his Macedonian legions to the farther limits of Asia in quest of countries to subjugate. In the course of one of his campaigns, he encountered a remarkable degree of opposition from the inhabitants of Tyre, whose city he invested. After much preliminary fighting, this unfortunate city was warmly attacked on all sides, and as vigorously defended, the besiegers battering the walls incessantly, whilst their archers and slingers harassed the besieged with stones and arrows, in order to drive them from their posts. Alexander's soldiers endeavoured, sword in hand, to gain the walls, but, with unparalleled bravery, were repulsed by the Tyrians, who had invented some kind of weapons unknown to the Macedonians. Among the rest, they made use of a three-forked hook, fastened to the end of a rope, the other end of which they held themselves, and threw the hook against the targets of the besiegers, where it stuck fast, and gave the Tyrians an opportunity of either plucking their targets out of their hands, and thereby leaving them exposed to darts

and arrows, or, if they did not readily part with their shields, of pulling them headlong from the towers.

Some, by throwing large nets over the Macedonians engaged on the bridges, so entangled their hands, that they could neither use them in their own defence, nor to offend their enemies; and others, with iron hooks fastened to long poles, dragged them from the bridges, and dashed their brains out against the wall or on the causeway. A great many engines, placed on the walls, likewise played incessantly on the aggressors with massy pieces of red-hot iron, which swept away vast numbers.

But what most of all discouraged the Macedonians in this attack, and obliged them at last to give it over, was the burning sand which, by a new contrivance, was showered upon them by the Tyrians. This sand was thrown among them in red-hot shields of brass, and, getting within their breastplates and coats of mail, burnt them to the very bone, and tormented them to such a degree, that many of them, finding no relief, cast themselves headlong into the sea; others threw down their arms, tore off their clothes, and so were exposed, naked and defenceless, to the power of the enemy; whilst others, dying in the anguish of inexpressible torments, struck a terror with their cries into all who heard them. This occasioned unspeakable confusion among the Macedonians, and gave new courage to the Tyrians, who now quitted the wall, and charged the enemy hand to hand upon the bridges with such intrepidity and fury, that Alexander, seeing his men give way, ordered a retreat to be sounded, and thereby saved their lives, and in some degree their reputation.

At

After a season of repose, and other events, Alexander advanced again, in order to attempt a general assault. Both the attack and the defence were, if possible, more vigorous than ever. length several breaches were made in the walls, and the Tyrians were forced to retire. Seeing themselves overpowered on every side, and the Macedonians masters of their city, some flew for refuge to the temples; others, shutting themselves in their houses, escaped the swords of the victors by a voluntary death; and others rushed upon the enemy, firmly resolved to sell their lives at the dearest rate.

Alexander gave orders to kill all the inhabitants (except those who had sheltered themselves in the temples), and to set fire to every part of the city; which command, indeed, was not executed to its utmost extent, but yet with severity enough, for the city was burnt to the ground; but the Sidonian soldiers who were in Alexander's camp, calling to mind their ancient affinity with the Tyrians, carried off great numbers of them privately on board their ships, and conveyed them to Sidon. Fifteen thousand were thus saved from the rage of the Macedonians, and yet the slaughter was very great; for Alexander, upon his first entering the city, put eight thousand men to the sword; and afterwards, with shocking barbarity, and to the last degree unbecoming a