184 MEMOIR OF OERSTED. 



Lo hacT never failed to avail himself of the credit wliicli his high position in 

 science had given him with an enlightened government, and even of the friend- 

 ship of a well-informed King*, to render innumerable services to studious youth, 

 to savants less fortunate than himself, to a multitude of persons whom he recog- 

 nized as worthy of his countenance. Had his characteristic modesty not equaled 

 his other merits, he also might have adopted the boast ascribed by a poet to his 

 hero : 



Some little good I've done — it is my noblest work. 



* Prince Christian of Denmark, who reigned afterward under the title of Christian VIII, 

 was an eminent mineralogist and deeply versed in many parts of the sciences. 



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