154: COUNT RUMFORD. 



more precious than any one to-day imagines, just as one 

 who has breathed under an air-pump can best appreciate 

 the delight of free respiration." One cannot, however, 

 forget the pouring of boiling water over the " beautiful 

 flowers." 



The " Gentleman's Magazine " for 1814 describes the 

 seclusion in which Rumford's later days were spent. 

 After the death of the illustrious Lagrange, he saw but 

 two or three friends, nor did he attend the meetings 

 of the National Institute, of which he was a member. 

 Cuvier was then its perpetual secretary, and for him 

 Rumford entertained the highest esteem. He differed 

 from Laplace on the question of " surface-tension," and 

 dissent from a man then standing so high in the mathe- 

 matical world was probably not without its penal con- 

 sequences. Rumford always congratulated himself on 

 having brought forward two such celebrated men as the 

 Bavarian general Wieden, who was originally a lawyer 

 or land steward, and Sir Humphry Davy. The German, 

 French, Spanish, and Italian languages were as familiar 

 to the Count as English. He played billiards against 

 himself ; he was fond of chess, which however made his 

 feet like ice and his head like fire. The designs of his 

 inventions were drawn by himself with great skill ; but 

 he had no knowledge of painting and sculpture, and but 

 little feeling for them. He had no taste for poetry, but 

 great taste for landscape-gardening. In later life his 

 habits were most abstemious, and it is said that his 

 strength was in this way so reduced as to render him 

 unable to resist his last illness. After three days' suf- 

 fering from nervous fever he succumbed on August 21, 

 1814, when he was on the eve of returning to England. 

 He was buried in the small cemetery of Auteuil, which 

 has since been disused as a place of burial. The grave, 

 says Dr. Ellis, is marked by a horizontal stone une 



