remained unimpaired. After this period, he communicated some essays to
the Philosophical Society. The most important were: "An Examination of
Priestley's Opinions concerning Matter and Mind;" "Observations on tho
Utopia of Sir Thomas More;" and "Physiological Reflections on Muscular
Motion." By this time Reid had suffered considerable domestic affliction; four
of his children had died after reaching the age of maturity, leaving one daughter married to Patrick Carmichael, M. D. After his retirement, his wife died. In a letter to professor Stewart, he thus affectingly describes his situation after
that event: "By the loss of my bosom friend, with whom I lived fifty-two
years, I am brought into a kind of new world, at a time of life when old habits
are not easily forgot, or new ones acquired. But every world is God's world,
and I am thankful for the comforts he has left me. Mrs Carmichael has now
the care of two old deaf men, and does everything in her power to please
them ; and both are very sensible of her goodness. I have more health than
at my time of life I had any reason to expect I walk about; entertain myself
with reading what I soon forget; can converse with one person, if he articulates distinctly, and is within ten inches of my left ear; and go to church, without hearing one word of what is said. You know I never had any pretensions to vivacity, but I am still free from languor and ennui." In the summer of 1796, he spent a few weeks in Edinburgh, and his biographer, who was then his almost constant companion, mentions, that, with the exception of his memory, his mental faculties appeared almost unimpaired, while his physical powers were progressively sinking. On his return to Glasgow, apparently in his usual
health and spirits, a violent disorder attacked him about the end of September; and, after repeated strokes of palsy, he died on the 7th October following. The affectionate biographer, in drawing a character of this eminent and excellent man, may be said to sum up the particulars of it in the words with which he commences. "Its most prominent features were—intrepid and inflexible rectitude;—pure and devoted attachment to truth;—and an entire command (acquired by the unwearied exertions of a long life) over all his passions."
RENNIE, John, a celebrated civil engineer, was the youngest son of a respectable farmer at Phantassie, in East Lothian, where he was born, June 7, 1761. Before he had attained his sixth year, he had the misfortune to lose his father; his education, nevertheless, was carried on at the parish school (Prestonkirk) by his surviving relatives. The peculiar talents of young Rennie seem to have been called forth and fostered by his proximity to the workshop of the celebrated mechanic, Andrew Meikle, the inventor or improver of the thrashing-machine. He frequently visited that scene of mechanism, to admire the complicated processes which he saw going forward, and amuse himself with the tools of the workmen. In time, he began to imitate at home the models of machinery which he saw there; and at the early age of ten he had made the model of a wind-mill, a steam-engine, and a pile-engine, the last of which is said to have exhibited much practical dexterity.
At twelve, Rennie left school, and entered into the employment of Andrew Meikle, with whom he continued two years. He then spent two years at Dunbar, for the purpose of improving his general education. So early as 1777, when only sixteen years of age, his Dunbar master considered him fit to superintend the school in his absence, and, on being removed to the academy at Perth, recommended Rennie as his successor. This, however, was not the occupation which the young mechanician desired, and he renewed his former labours in the workshop of Andrew Meikle, employing his leisure hours in modelling and drawing machinery. Before reaching the age of eighteen, he had erected two or three corn-mills in his native parish; but the first work which
