140 EULOGY ON ALEXANDER VOLTA. 



Messina, educated people always spoke of tbo physicist of Pavia as 

 nostra Yolta. 



I have mentioned the honors conferred upon him by Napoleon. All 

 the great universities of Europe had invited him to join them. Of the 

 eight foreign members of the institute, he belonged to the first rank. 

 So many honors never once excited in Volta's soul a sensation of pride. 

 The small village of Como was always his favorite place of residence. 

 The tempting and often repeated offers from Kussia could not induce him 

 to exchange the beautiful skies of Lombardy for the fogs of the IS^eva. 



The predominant traits of the illustrious professor were strength and 

 quickness of mind, comprehensiveness and justness of views, and truth 

 and warmth of nature. ISTo act of his life was ever prompted bj' ambi- 

 tion, love of money, or a spirit of rivalry. The love of study, his ruling 

 and only passion, remained through life pure and unspotted by the 

 world. 



Volta was tall, with features as noble and regular as those of 

 an antique statue ; his broad brow was deeply furrowed by profound 

 meditation and his countenance expressed both tranquillity of soul and 

 penetration of mind. His manners always retained traces of the rus- 

 ticity contracted in his youth. Many persons remember having seen 

 him in Paris every day enter the baker's, and afterward, while walking 

 the streets, eat the large rolls which he had just bought, without seem- 

 ing to suspect that any one would remark it. I will be i)ardoned, I 

 hope, so many minute particulars. Has not Foutenelle related that 

 Newton had a thick suit of hair, never wore spectacles, and never lost 

 but one tooth ? Names so great justify and ennoble the most minute 

 details. When, in 1819, Volta finally resigned the trust with which 

 he had been invested at the University of the Tessin, he retired to Como. 

 From this time all his relations with the scientific world ceased. He 

 rarely received any of the numerous travelers who, attracted by his 

 great reputation, came to pay him homage. 



In 1823 a slight attack of apoplexy developed very serious symptoms; 

 but prompt remedies soon succeeded in relieving him. Four years after, 

 in 1827, in the beginning of March, the venerable old man was attacked 

 by a fever, which, in the course of a few days, deprived him of his remain- 

 ing strength. On the 5th of the same month he exjiired without suffer- 

 ing, at the age of eighty-two years and fifteen days. 



Oomo celebrated Volta's obsequies with great pomp. The professors 

 and students of the college, and all the friends of science, and the 

 educated inhabitants of the village and its environs, hastened to accom- 

 pany to their last resting-place the mortal remains of the illustrious 

 scientist, the charitable citizen, and the man exemplary in all his 

 domestic relations. The beautiful nionumcnt erected to his memory, 

 near the picturesque village of Camnago, the native place of Volta's 

 family, is a striking testimony of the sincerity of their regrets, and 

 finally all Italy participated in the mourning of the Milanese. 



