282 M. Arago's Biographical Memoir of James Watt. 



talents and fancy overflowed on every subject. One gentle- 

 man was a deep philologist, — he talked with him on the origin 

 of the alphabet, as if he had been coeval with Cadmus ; an- 

 other 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 dis- 

 tinguished walk. And yet when he spoke with your country- 

 man, you would have supposed he had been coeval with Olavers 

 and Burley, — with the persecutors and persecuted ; and could 

 number every shot that the dragoons had fired at the fugitive 

 Covenanters.*" 



Had our associate been at all solicitous, he might easily 

 have acquired a name among the writers of Romance. In 

 the circle of his more intimate acquaintances, he seldom failed 

 to improve upon the anecdotes, whether frightful, affecting, or 

 amusing, which he heard narrated. The minute details of 

 his recitals, the proper names with which he interspersed them, 

 the technical descriptions of castles and country houses, of fo- 

 rests and caves, to which the scene was successively trans- 

 ported, gave to these improvisations so complete an air of truth, 

 that one could scarcely retain the slightest sentiment of dis- 

 belief. On one occasion, however. Watt experienced consider- 

 able embarrassment in extricating his characters from the 

 labyrinth in which he had somewhat imprudently involved them. 

 One of his friends, perceiving his difficulty, from the unwonted 

 frequency with which he applied to his snuff-box, as if to ex- 

 plain his pauses, and gain time for reflection, said to him, 

 " Are you, at random, recounting a tale of your own invention ?" 

 " Your inquiry," replied the old man, " astonishes me ; dur- 

 ing the twenty years I have been so happily spending my 

 evenings with you, I have done nothing else. Surely you did 

 not wish to make me the rival of Robertson and Hume, when 

 the utmost of my pretensions was to follow, at a humble dis- 

 tance, in the footsteps of the Princess Scheherazade, of ' The 

 Thousand and One Nights' " 



Every year, during a very short visit to London, and some- 

 times to towns not so remote from Birmingham, Mr Watt 

 made a miimite exaihihation of every thing new which had ap- 

 peared since his previous journey. From this remark, I do 



