56 WATT. 



and would stop minutely and curiously to ascertain the 

 relative shares of different individuals, when any doubt 

 was raised upon the distribution. His conversation 

 was withal spirited and lively it was easy and concise, 

 and without the least of a lecturing formality. His 

 voice was deep and low, and if somewhat monotonous, 

 it yet seemed in harmony with the weight and the 

 beauty of his discourse, through which, however, there 

 also ran a current of a lighter kind ; for he was mirth- 

 ful, temperately jocular, nor could anything to more 

 advantage set off the living anecdotes of men and 

 things, with which the graver texture of his talk was 

 interwoven, than his sly and quiet humour, both of 

 mind and of look, in recounting them. No one who 

 had the happiness of knowing him, no member, more 

 especially, of the club in Edinburgh which he fre- 

 quented as often as he visited that capital, can ever 

 forget the zest which his society derived from the 

 mixture of such various matters as those to which 

 I have referred; and one of its most distinguished 

 founders* has justly said, that in no other person was 

 there ever observed so " fine an expression of reposing 

 strength and uninterrupted self-possession as marked 

 his whole manner." 



* Lord Jeffrey. The club was called from the day, Friday, on which 

 it met at supper, after the business of the week was over, and the half- 

 holiday of Saturday only lightly hanging over the heads of the lawyers, 

 who chiefly composed it. Mr. Watt was an honorary member. He had 

 for his colleagues no less distinguished men than Professor Playfair, Sir 

 Walter Scott, Lord Corehouse, Mr. Homer, Mr. Elmsley, Sir W. Drum- 

 mond, and several who still survive and fill exalted places in the state. 



