Life of Count Rumford. 505 



his name, tney mention another eminent philanthropist, 

 Arthur Young.* 



On a subsequent page I shall have occasion to quote 

 the words of a most eminent scientific man, an associate 

 of Rumford, to whom he was at first indebted for 

 favors, but against whom he afterwards seems to have 

 conceived a dislike, to the effect that at this time the 

 Count was much mortified at being "the object of the 

 impertinent attacks of a popular satirist." The refer- 

 ence, undoubtedly, is to that most sharp-spoken and 

 virulent of political, literary, and social Ishmaelites, 

 William Cobbett, whose voluminous Register was in 

 alternate volumes the vehicle of laudation and of objur- 

 gation directed towards the same persons, according to 

 the mood and temporary objects of the satirist. Cob- 

 bett spent all the force of his ridicule and invective 

 against Rumford's project of soup-houses for the poor. 

 Doubtless the Count was, on this subject, somewhat 

 oblivious or disregardful of a characteristic distinction 

 between the habits and tastes of the Germans and the 

 French on the one side, and the English on the other, 

 touching the composition, quality, and preparation of 

 their food. The distinction continues to this day, and 

 is observable, if not sometimes more than observable, 

 by every traveller between England and the Continent. 

 In France and Germany it would seem as if the more 

 of a mess, and of a compound in which the several in- 

 gredients of the mixture do not appear, was set before 

 the natives as food, in the shape of a soup or stew, the 

 more acceptable the contents of the dish would be. In 

 England, on the other hand, the hungry man, even 

 v/hen not dainty, loves to know what he is eating, is 



* Annual Register, Vol. XLII. pp. 130, 133. 



