1818.] Lord Stanhope. 83 



But although Lord Stanhope was most known by his contem- 

 poraries as a politician, his reputation with posterity will depend 

 more upon his talents as a philosopher, and it is indeed solely 

 on this ground that he becomes an object of our attention. He 

 appears indeed to have been no less assiduous in his endeavours 

 to promote the progress of useful knowledge of all descriptions, 

 than he was in his schemes of patriotism ; and in both of them 

 we may observe the influence of the same cast of character, and 

 the same direction of his mental energies. He seldom entered 

 into any speculations or experiments respecting abstract science, 

 but generally confined his attention to the improvement of some 

 of the mechanical arts, or to some inventions of direct or imme- 

 diate practical utility. It may indeed be questioned whether any 

 single individual among his contemporaries expended more time 

 and money in the prosecution of his experiments on various 

 topics of the above description ; and in many of them there can 

 be no doubt that his object was entirely and purely disinterested. 

 Perhaps the only work which can be regarded of a strictly scien- 

 tific nature, which was published by Lord Stanhope, was his 

 treatise on electricity, in which he treats of the elements of the 

 science, and endeavours to establish some new principles in the 

 mode of action of the electric fluid. In this work he endeavours 

 to prove the existence, and to explain the effect, of what he 

 styles the returning stroke, by which he understands an electrical 

 action, induced at a considerable distance from the principal 

 discharge, depending upon the tendency of the fluid to equalize 

 itself in all bodies ; and on this account, after the thunder-cloud 

 has deposited upon some part of the earth's surface its super- 

 abundant quantity of electricity, a neighbouring part of the 

 surface becomes electrified with respect to another cloud that is 

 contiguous to it, and of course a shock takes place of the oppo- 

 site nature to the primary one, but sometimes scarcely less 

 injurious in its effects. Some accidents from lightning have 

 occurred since the publication of this hypothesis, which are the 

 best accounted for by it, and which indeed could not be very 

 easily explained upon any other principle. One of the most 

 remarkable of these was a fatal accident that occurred in Scot- 

 land, of which an account is given by Mr. Brydone in the Phil. 

 Trans, for 1779 ; and we have another very singular occurrence 

 that took place near Manchester, narrated in the Memoirs of 

 the Philosophical Society of that place, by Mr. Nicholson, of 

 Liverpool. In his treatise on . electricity, the great object of 

 practical utility is not neglected ; the best method of preserving 

 buildings from the effects of lightning is minutely considered, 

 and a set of exact directions are laid down for accomplishing 

 this object ; a point which was at that time the more important, 

 as a considerable difference of opinion then prevailed respecting 

 it, and a very warm controversy existed, in which, unfortunately, 

 a question of science was involved in personal or political con* 



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