1883.] on Count Biimford, Originator of the Royal Institution. 409 



rays of light under certain conditions ; he desires to know the cause of 

 the change of colour which fire produces in clay. " Please," he adds, 

 " to give the nature, essence, beginning of existence, and rise of the 

 wind in general, with the whole theory thereof, so as to be able to 

 answer all questions relative thereto." One might suppose him to be 

 preparing for a competitive examination. He grew expert in drawing 

 caricatures, a spirited group of which has been reiDroduced by Dr. 

 Ellis. It is called a Council of State, and embraces a jackass with 

 twelve human heads. These sketches were found in a mutilated 

 scrap-book, which also contains a kind of journal of his proceedings 

 in 1769, when he changed his place in Salem for a situation in a 

 dry-goods store in Boston. He mentions a French class which he 

 attended in the evenings, records the purchase of a certain measure of 

 black cloth, states his debt to his uncle Hiram Thompson for part of 

 the rent of a pew. The liabilities thus incurred he met by cutting 

 and carting firewood. Mixed with entries such as these are " direc- 

 tions for the backsword," in which the postures of the combatants 

 are defined, and illustrated by sketches. The scrap-book also con- 

 tains an account of the expense he had been at " towards getting an 

 electrical machine." Soon afterwards he began the study of medicine 

 under Dr. John Hay, of "Woburn. 



Thompson keeps a strict account of his debts to Dr. Hay ; credits 

 him with a pair of leather gloves ; credits Mrs. Hay with knitting 

 him a pair of stockings. These items he tacks on to the more serious 

 cost of his board from December 1770 to June 1772 at forty shillings, 

 old currency, per week, amounting to 156Z. The specie payments of 

 Thompson were infinitesimal, eight of them amounting in the aggre- 

 gate to 21. His further forms of payment illustrate the habits of 

 the community in which he dwelt. Want of money caused them to 

 fall back upon barter. He debits Dr. Hay with the following items, 

 the value of which no doubt had been previously agreed upon between 

 them. "To ivory for smoke machine; parcels of butter, coffee, 

 sugar, and tea, parcels of various drugs, camphor, gum benzoine, 

 arsenic, calomel, and rhubarb : one-half of white sheep-skin leather ; 

 brass wire ; white oak timber ; to sundry lots of wood ; to other lots 

 delivered while I was at Wilmington, and left by me when I was at 

 Wilmington the last time ; to a blue Huzza cloak, bought of Zebediah 

 Wyman, and paid for by fifteen and a half cords of wood ; a pair of 

 knee buckles ; a chirurgical knife ; to a cittern, and to the time I 

 have been absent from your house, nineteen weeks at forty shillings ; 

 and for the time my mother washed for me." To help him, more- 

 over, to eke out the funds necessary for the prosecution of his studies, 

 Thompson tried his hand from time to time at school teaching. 



At this early age, for he was not more than seventeen, he had 

 learnt not only the importance of order in the distribution of his 

 working time, but also the importance of exercise and relaxation. 

 The four and twenty hours of a single day are thus spaced out. 

 " From eleven to six, sleep. Get up at six o'clock and wash my 



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