26 A CHEMICAL TKIAD, 



sidered, a double interest is thrown around his career. A 

 sketch of his biography I shall therefore proceed to give. 



Henry Cavendish was elder son of Lord Charles Cavendish, 

 third son of the second duke. His mother was born Lady Ann 

 Grey, fourth daughter of Henry, duke of Kent. Nice was the 

 place of his birth, in the year 1731, his mother having retired 

 thither for the benefit of her health. Of his infancy and early 

 childhood very little is known. We hear of him, almost for 

 the first time after his birth, in the year 1742, when he was 

 therefore eleven years old, at which period of his life he was 

 sent to the school of the Kev. Dr. Newcome at Hackney a 

 seminary then celebrated for the education of aristocratic 

 youths. He remained at this academy seven years, making 

 himself no way remarkable, so far as we can learn, either 

 by talents or peculiarities. One circumstance in relation to 

 his scholastic career deserves comment, as proving that the 

 extraordinary reserve which characterised him in after years, 

 making him shun the society of his fellows, was only an 

 extreme development of a youthful feeling. The records of 

 Dr. Newcome's school state that Henry Cavendish never 

 took part in certain entertainments got up by the boys for 

 their amusement. And here, before accompanying Cavendish 

 in his university career, a circumstance should be mentioned, 

 which is not as should seem without significance as con- 

 nected with the morbid peculiarities of the subject of this 

 memoir. He lost his mother when only two years old. This, 

 though a circumstance usual enough, and which has occurred 

 frequently without generating misanthropic feelings in the 

 child subjected to the privation,* was not, some have thought, 

 without an influence on the subsequent character of Henry 

 Cavendish. 



In 1749, he matriculated at St. Peter's College, Cam- 

 bridge. There he remained until 1753, and left without 

 taking a degree. The latter remark also applies to his bro- 

 ther, who was studying at Cambridge at the same time. In 



