Note 77 — The School of Life.

Mr. Watson, among other qualities, which certainly contributed to his advancement in life, possessed a happy confidence in himself, and an opinion of his own fitness for any situation to which he should think proper to aspire, though totally destitute at the time of every qualification requisite to the discharge of its functions. On the 19th of November 1764, he informs us, “I was unanimously elected by the Senate, assembled in full congregation, Professor of Chemistry. At the time this honour was conferred upon me I knew nothing at all of chemistry; had never read a syllable on the subject, nor seen a single experiment in it.”—Quarterly Review, vol. xviii. p. 233.