118 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF 
proved of even greater value to him, at this pe- 
riod of his life, as respects the guidance of his 
tastes and the developement of his mind, by bring- 
ing him into close and friendly relations with Mr. 
Boulton and Mr. Watt. Communion with minds 
so surpassingly fraught with varied knowledge, 
and gifted with such transcendent powers of cre- 
ative combination, could not fail to enlarge and 
strengthen his mental vision, and may perhaps 
have first kindled those lively perceptions of 
pleasure in the pursuits of abstract science, and 
those aspirations for a wider and loftier intel- 
lectual culture, which Mr. Ewart manifested 
throughout his entire after-life. Of Mr. Watt 
he has remarked, “he had a peculiar aversion to 
pretension of any kind. I never saw him put out 
with anything else, but he could not bear to see 
anybody pretending to know more than he really 
did.” For a mind thus constituted, it may rea- 
dily be imagined, that the fresh and guileless 
simplicity of heart, the singularly modest or ra- 
ther humble estimate of his own powers and ac- 
quirements, the purity and integrity of feeling 
and character, which Mr. Ewart preserved un- 
spotted, throughout a long life and a large expe- 
rience of mankind, must have had an irresistible 
