CAVENDISH. 33 



by imperious laws. Once Cavendish appeared to have for- 

 gotten this idea of a limit ; he invited more guests than a leg 

 of mutton could possibly suffice for. The result was an epis- 

 tolary communication to that effect from his cook (direct 

 verbal communication, we have seen, was never permitted) : 

 6 The leg of mutton will not be enough.' 6 In that case pro- 

 vide twO) replied Cavendish. 



But I must draw this memoir of a celebrated man to a 

 close, and shall do so by quoting the words of his biographer, 

 Dr. Angus Smith : 



6 Such, then, was Cavendish in life and death, as he ap- 

 peared to those who knew him best. Morally, his character 

 was a blank, and can be described only by a series of nega- 

 tions. He did not love, he did not hate, he did not hope, he 

 did not fear, he did not worship as others do. He separated 

 himself from his fellow-men, and apparently from God. There 

 was nothing earnest, enthusiastic, heroic, or chivalrous in his 

 nature, and as little was there anything mean, grovelling, or 

 ignoble. He was almost passionless. All that needed for its 

 apprehension more than the pure intellect, or required the ex- 

 ercise of fancy, imagination, affection, or faith, was distasteful 

 to Cavendish. An intellectual head thinking, a pair of won- 

 derfully acute eyes observing, and a pair of very skilful hands 

 experimenting or recording, are all that I realise in reading his 

 memorials. His brain seems to have been but a calculating 

 engine; his eyes inlets of vision, not fountains of tears; his 

 hands instruments of manipulation, which never trembled 

 with emotion, or were clasped together in adoration, thanks- 

 giving, or despair ; his heart only an anatomical organ, neces- 

 sary for the circulation of the blood. Yet if such a being, who 

 reversed the maxim, Nihil humani me alienum puto, cannot 

 be loved, as little can he be abhorred or despised. He was, in 

 spite of the atrophy or non-development of many of the faculties 

 which are found in those in whom the " elements are kindly 

 mixed," as truly a genius as the mere poets, painters, and 



D 



