Life of Count Rumford. 435 



Some light though, it must be confessed, not to the 

 extent of imparting full information, may be thrown 

 upon this incidental but interesting point in the history 

 of the Royal Institution by a contemporaneous pub- 

 lication, reference to which has thus far been deferred 

 in these pages as it contains matter that may most fitly 

 be quoted here. 



Just at the close of the last century and the beginning 

 of this there was published in London a series of five 

 volumes of contemporary biography, entitled " Pub- 

 lic Characters." In the volume published in October, 

 1802, appears a short biographical 'sketch of Count 

 Rumford, which bears date 18012, and which must 

 undoubtedly have passed under his own eye, at least in 

 print. I have not ascertained by whom it was written, 

 but the writer of it affirms that he received information 

 from some of Rumford's American countrymen. After 

 a statement, in the main correct, of the more important 

 incidents in his career, the writer proceeds as follows: 



" It was also owing to his exertions that the Royal Institute 

 \jic\ was first established, and should any beneficial advantages 

 arise from it hereafter, he, and he alone, ought undoubtedly to 

 have the whole and sole merit. But candor will not allow us 

 to conceal that the effects likely to be derived from a new 

 society of this kind are not such as could have been either 

 wished or expected. In the establishment of her National 

 Institute, France exhibited a gigantic superiority in respect to 

 human intellect, and by concentrating in one common focus 

 everything respectable, either in the sciences or belles lettres, 

 exhibited such a blaze of genius as had never been beheld before 

 in Europe." 



The writer of the biography says here in a note : 

 " As a proof of this, the old members of the Academy of 



