54- Life of Cotint Rumford. 



and attachment of the common people, to have obtained 

 any office in their gift. The time was near at hand 

 when he found that patronage from any other quarter 

 than that of the people was at least a disadvantage, not 

 only as a bar to popular favor, but also as a. reasonable 

 ground of suspicion. 



It is pleasant, however, to close this chapter of the 

 biography of Benjamin Thompson, leaving him at the 

 first stage of success in a course which was to be splen- 

 didly illustrated by distinctions and titular honors. As 

 to the shadows which we are now to trace as gath- 

 ering around his opening manhood, we may study them 

 either in their own disagreeable aspects, or as subse- 

 quent incidents and acts tend to drive them, if not into 

 oblivion, at least into a considerate and softened esti- 

 mate of their relatively unimportant character. 



