When Gregory was sufficiently recovered from the debilitating effects of his fever, he was moved to Sidmouth, where he appeared to improve; but he himself believed the sea air to be injurious to him, and insisted on being again removed inland. During all this time his father’s anxiety may be imagined, though he bore up with as much equanimity as was practicable under circumstances so distressing. “Ever since we left Bath,” he wrote to Mr. Boulton at Soho, “ours has been a state of anxiety very distressing to us, and the communication of which would not have been pleasing to our friends. To add to this, I have myself been exceedingly unwell, though I am now much better. Gregory suffered very much from the journey, which was augmented by his own impatience; and though he seemed to recover a little from his fatigue during the first week, his breath became daily worse, until we were obliged to remove him, on Thursday last, to the neighbourhood of Exeter, where he now is with his aunt.”[399] The invalid became rapidly worse, and survived his removal only a few days. “This day,” wrote the sorrowing father to Boulton, “the remains of poor Gregory were deposited in a decent, though private manner, in the north aisle of the cathedral here, near the transept.... I mean to erect a tablet to his memory on the adjoining wall; but his virtues and merits will be best recorded in the breasts of his friends.... As soon as we can settle our accounts, we shall all return homewards, with heavy hearts.”[400]
Davy was deeply affected by Gregory Watt’s death; and in the freshness of his grief he thus unbosomed himself to his friend Clayfield:—
“Poor Watt! He ought not to have died. I could not persuade myself that he would die; and until the very moment when I was assured of his fate, I would not believe he was in any danger. His letters to me, only three or four months ago, were full of spirit, and spoke not of any infirmity of body, but of an increased strength of mind. Why is this in the order of Nature,—that there is such a difference in the duration and destruction of his works? If the mere stone decays it is to produce a soil which is capable of nourishing the moss and the lichen; when the moss and the lichen die and decompose, they produce a mould which becomes the bed of life to grass, and to a more exalted species of vegetables. Vegetables are the food of animals,—the less perfect animals of the more perfect; but in man, the faculties and intellect are perfected,—he rises, exists for a little while in disease and misery, and then would seem to disappear, without an end, and without producing any effect.
“We are deceived, my dear Clayfield, if we suppose that the human being who has formed himself for action, but who has been unable to act, is lost in the mass of being; there is some arrangement of things which we can never comprehend, but in which his faculties will be applied.... We know very little; but, in my opinion, we know enough to hope for the immortality, the individual immortality of the better part of man. I have been led into all this speculation, which you may well think wild, in reflecting upon the fate of Gregory! My feeling has given wings to my mind. He was a noble fellow, and would have been a great man. Oh! there was no reason for his dying—he ought not to have died.”[401]
More deaths! A few years later, and Watt lost his oldest friend, Professor Robison of Edinburgh, his companion and fellow-worker at Glasgow College nearly fifty years before. Since then, their friendship had remained unchanged, though their respective pursuits kept them apart. Robison continued busily and usefully occupied to the last. He had finished the editing of his friend Black’s lectures, and was occupied in writing his own ‘Elements of Mechanical Philosophy,’ when death came and kindly released him from a lingering disorder which had long oppressed his body, though it did not enervate his mind. A few years before his death he wrote Watt, informing him that he had got an addition to his family in a fine little boy, a grandchild, healthy and cheerful, who promised to be a source of much amusement to him. “I find this a great acquisition,” said he, “notwithstanding a serious thought sometimes stealing into my mind. I am infinitely delighted with observing the growth of its little soul, and particularly with the numberless instincts, which formerly passed unheeded. I thank the French theorists for more forcibly directing my attention to the finger of God, which I discover in every awkward movement and every wayward whim. They are all guardians of his life, and growth, and powers. I regret that I have not time to make infancy, and the development of its powers, my sole study.”[402] In 1805 he was taken from his little playfellow, and from the pursuit of his many ingenious speculations.[403] Watt said of him, “he was a man of the clearest head and the most science of anybody I have ever known, and his friendship to me ended only with his life, after having continued for nearly half a century.... His religion and piety, which made him patiently submit without even a fretful or repining word in nineteen years of unremitting pain,—his humility, in his modest opinion of himself,—his kindness, in labouring with such industry for his family during all this affliction,—his moderation for himself, while indulging an unbounded generosity to all about him,—joined to his talents, form a character so uncommon and so noble, as can with difficulty be conceived by those who have not, like me, had the contemplation of it.”
Little more remains to be recorded of the business life of Boulton and Watt. The former, notwithstanding his declining health and the frequent return of his malady, continued to take an active interest in the Soho coinage. Watt often expostulated with him, but in vain, urging that it was time for him to retire wholly from the anxieties of business. On Boulton bringing out his Bank of England silver dollar, with which he was himself greatly pleased, he sent some specimens to Watt, then staying at Clifton, for his inspection. Watt replied,—“Your dollar is universally admired by all to whom we have shown it, though your friends fear much that your necessary attention to the operation of the coinage may injure your health.”[404] And again he wrote from Sidmouth,—“We are all glad to hear of your amendment, which we hope will be progressive, and possibly it might be better if you could summon up resolution enough to rid yourself of some of those plagues you complain of; but while you suffer yourself to be intruded upon in the manner you do, you can never enjoy that quiet which is now so necessary to your health and comfort.”[405] Mrs. Watt joined her entreaties to those of her husband, expressing the wish that, for Mr. Boulton’s sake, it might rain every day, to prevent his fatiguing himself by walking to and from the works, and there occupying himself with the turmoils of business. Why should he not do as Mr. Watt had done, and give up Soho altogether, leaving business and its anxieties to younger and stronger men? But business, as we have already explained, was Boulton’s habit, and pleasure, and necessity. Moreover, occupation of some sort served to divert his attention from the ever-present pain within him; and, so long as his limbs were able to support him, he tottered down the hill to see what was going forward at Soho.
As for Watt, we find that he had at last learnt the art of taking things easy, and that he was trying to make life as agreeable as possible in his old age. Thus at Cheltenham, from which place Mrs. Watt addressed Boulton in the letter of advice above referred to, we find the aged pair making pleasant excursions in the neighbourhood during the day, and reading novels and going to the theatre occasionally in the evening. “As it is the fashion,” wrote Mrs. Watt,—“and wishing to be very fashionable people, we subscribe to the library. Our first book was Mrs. Opie’s ‘Mother and Daughter,’ a tale so mournful as to make both Mr. Watt and myself cry like schoolboys that had been whipped; ... and to dispel the gloom that poor Adeline hung over us, we went to the theatre last night to see the ‘Honeymoon,’ and were highly pleased.”
Towards the end of 1807 Boulton had a serious attack of his old disease, which fairly confined him to his bed; and his friends feared lest it should prove his last illness. He was verging upon his eightieth year, and his constitution, though originally strong, was gradually succumbing to confinement and pain. He nevertheless rallied once more, and was again able to make occasional visits to the works as before. He had promised to send a box of medals to the Queen, and went down to the Mint to see them packed. The box duly reached Windsor Castle, and De Luc acknowledged its reception:—
“As no words of mine,” he said, “could have conveyed your sentiments to Her Majesty so well as those addressed to me in your name, I contented myself with putting the letter into her hands. Her Majesty expressed her sensibility for the sufferings you had undergone during the period of your silence, and at your plentiful gift, for which she has charged me to thank you; and as, at the same time that you have placed the whole at her own disposal, you have mentioned the Princesses, Her Majesty will make them partakers in the present.”
De Luc concluded by urging Mr. Boulton to abstain from further work and anxiety, and reminded him that after a life of such activity as his had been, both body and mind required complete rest.