COUNT RUMFORD. 123 



She had little knowledge of the world, and her purchases 

 in London he thought both extravagant and extraor- 

 dinary. After having, by due discipline, learnt how 

 to make an English courtesy, to the horror of her 

 father, almost the first use she made of her newly- 

 acquired accomplishment was to courtesy to a house- 

 keeper. 



His labours in the production of cheap and nutritious 

 food necessarily directed Eumford's attention to fire- 

 places and chimney-flues. When he published his essay 

 on this subject in London, he reported that he had not 

 less than five hundred smoky chimneys on his hands. 

 His aid and advice were always ready, and were given 

 indiscriminately to all sorts and conditions of men. 

 Devonshire House, Sir Joseph Banks's, the Earl of Bess- 

 borough's, Countess Spencer's, Melbourne House, Lady 

 Templeton's, Mrs. Montagu's, Lord Sudley's, the Mar- 

 quis of Salisbury's, and a hundred and fifty other houses 

 in London, were placed in his care. The saving of fuel, 

 with gain instead of loss of warmth, varied in these 

 cases from one-half to two-thirds. " Giving very simple 

 and intelligible information about the philosophical 

 principles of combustion, ventilation, and draughts, he 

 prepared careful diagrams to show the proper measure- 

 ments and arrangements of all the parts of a fireplace 

 and flue. He took out no patent for his inventions, 

 but left them free to the public. In a poem published 

 at this time by Thomas James Matthias we have the 

 following reference to the labours of Eumf ord : 



Nonsense, or sense, I'll bear in any shape 

 In gown, in lawn, in ermine, or in crape : 

 What's a fine type, where truth exerts her rule ? 

 Science is science, and a fool's a fool. 

 Yet all shall read, and all that page approve, 

 When public spirit meets with pubb'c love. 

 9 



