and
enterprising, undaunted by difficulty, and possessing an almost
boundless capacity for work. He was a man of great tact, clear
perception, and sound judgment. Moreover, he possessed that
indispensable quality of perseverance, without which the best
talents are of comparatively little avail in the conduct of
important affairs. While Watt hated business, Boulton loved it.
He had, indeed, a genius for business--a gift almost as rare as
that for poetry, for art, or for war. He possessed a marvellous
power of organisation. With a keen eye for details, he combined
a comprehensive grasp of intellect. While his senses were so
acute, that when sitting in his office at Soho he could detect
the slightest stoppage or derangement in the machinery of that
vast establishment, and send his message direct to the spot
where it had occurred, his power of imagination was such as
enabled him to look clearly along extensive lines of possible
action in Europe, America, and the East. _For there is a poetic
as well as a commonplace side to business; and the man of
business genius lights up the humdrum routine of daily life by
exploring the boundless region of possibility wherever it may
lie open before him._

This tells the whole story, and once again reminds us that without
imagination and something of the romantic element, little great or
valuable is to be done in any field. He "runs his business as if it were
a romance," was said upon one occasion. The man who finds no element of
romance in his occupation is to be pitied. We know how radically
different Watt was in his nature to Boulton, whose judgment of men was
said to be almost unerring. He recognised in Watt at their first
interview, not only the original inventive genius, but the
indefatigable, earnest, plodding and thorough mechanic of tenacious
grip, and withal a fine, modest, true man, who hated bargaining and all
business affairs, who cared nothing for wealth beyond a very modest
provision for old age, and who was only happy if so situated that
without anxiety for money to supply frugal wants, he could devote his
life to the development of the steam engine. Thus auspiciously started
the new firm.

But Boulton was more than a man of business, continues Smiles;
he was a man of culture, and the friend of educated men. His
hospitable mansion at Soho was the resort of persons eminent in