ee ee Se a eS oe y 
- 7 > oe ” 
VARIOUS PURSUITS. 361 
One day, the desired solution seemed to require that 
Leupold’s work on Machines should be read: Watt im- 
mediately learned German. On another occasion, and 
for a similar reason, he rendered himself master of the 
Italian language. . ... The ingenuous simplicity of the 
young engineer immediately procured for him the good 
will of all who accosted him. Although I have lived 
much in the world, I must assert, that it would be impos- 
sible for me to cite a second example of so sincere and so 
general an attachment felt for a man of uncontested supe- 
riority. It is true that this superiority was veiled by the 
most amiable candour, and allied to a firm resolution to 
recognize every man’s merit liberally. Watt was even 
inclined to assign things to the inventive spirit of his 
friends that were often only his own ideas dressed up in 
another form. I have all the more reason to assert his 
possessing this rare disposition, because I have myself 
experienced the effects of it.” 
You will have to decide, Gentlemen, whether it was 
not equally honourable to pronounce these closing words, 
as to have inspired them. 
The deep and varied studies to which the circum- 
stances of his singular position gave rise, never inter- 
fered with the young artist’s professional work. He 
attended to this in the daytime; and devoted the night 
to theoretical researches. Relying on the resources of 
his imagination, Watt seemed to delight in difficult enter- 
prises, and those to which he seemed least adapted. Will 
it be believed that he undertook to construct an organ, he 
who was totally insensible to the charms of music; he 
who had never been able even to distinguish one note 
from another, as g from f? Yet this enterprise was suc- 
cessfully carried out. We need scarcely add, that the 
SEC. SER. 16 
