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.
The previous works of this prolific author have proved by their popularity that they meet a genuine demand. Such a fact can no more be reached by literary criticism, than can the popularity of Tupper's poetry. It is no reproach to a book which actually finds readers to say that it is not high art. Winifred Bertram has this advantage over her predecessors, that she takes part in no theological controversies except those of the present day, and therefore seems more real and truthful than the others. In regard to present issues, however, the book deals in the usual proportion of rather one-sided dialogues, and of arguments studiously debilitated in order to be knocked down by other arguments. Yet there is much that is lovely and touching in the characters delineated; there is a good deal of practical sense and sweet human charity; and the different heroes and heroines show some human variety in their action, although in conversation they all preach very much alike. Indeed, the book is overhung with rather an oppressive weight of clergyman; and when the loveliest of the saints is at last wedded to the youngest of the divines, she throws an awful shade over clerical connubiality by invariably addressing him as "Mr. Bertram." In this respect, at least, the fashionable novels hold out brighter hopes to the heart of woman.
