362 WAIT. 



peremptorily refused. The University therefore came 

 to his assistance, granted him a room in their 

 own building, and gave him the appointment of their 

 mathematical instrument maker. There remain small 

 instruments then made by him in this workshop, and 

 executed entirely with his own hands ; they are of 

 exquisite workmanship. The earliest of his steam- 

 engine drawings are likewise preserved, and those 

 competent judges who have examined them, particularly 

 M. Arago, describe them as " truly remarkable for the 

 neatness, the strength, and the accuracy of their 

 outline." His manual dexterity and skill, therefore, 

 is clear, and he had good cause to plume himself as 

 he always did upon it, estimating the same quality in 

 others at its just value. 



In the course of a very few years, beside renewing his 

 intimacy with Mr. Robison, afterwards Professor there 

 and at Edinburgh, he became intimately acquainted with 

 the most eminent of the Glasgow Professors, Adam 

 Smith, Robert Simson, Robert Dick, and above all, Dr. 

 Black. Of these all but Mr. Dick have left the deep im- 

 press of their great names upon the scientific history of 

 their age ; and he was always described by both Mr. 

 Watt and Professor Robison as a person of most admira- 

 ble capacity and great attainments, treating natural 

 philosophy, too, with singular ability and success, 

 nor prevented from acquiring a more extensive and 

 lasting reputation by anything save his premature 

 death. 



While thus occupied and thus befriended by men of 

 great names, his own reputation increased daily as a 

 successful cultivator of natural science. His work- 



