628 Life of Count Rumford. 



errors common to most of the memoirs of the Count 

 appear in this sketch ; but Dr. Young, when writing 

 as from his personal observation, in reference to Rum- 

 ford's leaving England, says : 



" After so active and diversified a career, it was not to be 

 expected that he would be satisfied with the monotony of a per- 

 manent residence in London. He was so accustomed to labor 

 for the attainment of some object, that when the object itself 

 was completely within his reach, and the labor was ended, the 

 prospect, which ought to have been uniformly bright, became 

 spontaneously clouded, or even the serenity became unenjoyable 

 for want of some clouds to afford a contrast. 



"The enthusiasm excited by the novelty of some of his in- 

 ventions had subsided, and he was even mortified by becoming, 

 in common with the most elevated personages of the country, 

 the object of the impertinent attacks of a popular satirist 

 [Cobbett]." 



Dr. Young says that though the Count had devoted 

 such skill and pains to the arrangement of his house at 

 Brompton, he was never known to give a single enter- 

 tainment in it. He also mentions the Count's appear- 

 ance in his broad-wheeled carriage, with his white hat 

 and clothing, and adds: "These peculiarities and a 

 peremptory, unyielding disposition were the causes 

 that set him apart from social intercourse, and in all his 

 connections in life seem to have rendered him less the 

 object of personal attachment than of esteem for his 

 talents and activity. He was mild in his manners and 

 tone of voice, but authoritative and dictatorial in spirit." 



The same writer tells us that Rumford's abstemious- 

 ness and temperance were the regimen prescribed by his 

 medical advisers, and were not of his own preference. 



Thomas Thomson, M. D., F. R. S., etc., editor of 

 the " Annals of Philosophy," a monthly magazine, 



