96 LIFE AND EXPERIENCES CHAP. 



which he had almost entirely given up to his chemical 

 work. He was a bachelor, and lived entirely for 

 science. There is an interesting tloge of Stas in the 

 Mdmoires of the French Academy, and also in the 

 Series of Memorial Lectures of the Chemical Society 

 by Professor J. W. Mallet, of Virginia, in 1892. He 

 was a grand example of unselfish devotion to purely 

 scientific work, and all who knew him must have 

 recognised his charming simplicity of character, his 

 affectionate disposition, and his unostentatious life. 1 



Among the most distinguished and gifted of 

 Bunsen's friends was Hermann Kopp. His was a 

 singular personality and in some respects the ideal 

 type of the old German professor. His fame will 

 rest upon his work as an historian rather than as 

 an experimentalist, and his books on the history of 

 chemistry will always hold a high place in the 

 literature of the science. 



It was amusing to see Kopp, who was a very small 

 man, walking down the Anlage with his friend I 

 almost would have said protector Bunsen, for the 

 small person trotting by the side of his tall and 

 dignified companion reminded one of Landseer's 

 picture of " Dignity and Impudence," though this 

 latter term is scarcely fitting, for Kopp was one of 

 the most modest of men though bubbling over with 

 humour, often with more than a touch of pathos, and 

 crammed full of knowledge. 



Apropos of this friendship I am reminded of a grim 

 joke played upon^ a younger colleague by Bunsen, 

 who in answer to a question remarked : " Yes, a 



1 An interesting experimental criticism of Stas's atomic weight deter- 

 minations has recently been made by Theodore Richards, of Harvard. 

 He has shown, by methods which rival those of Stas in care and accuracy, 

 that the Belgian chemist was not infallible, and he has pointed out sources 

 of error in Stas's work. Humanum est errare. 



