316 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



" Et vous, monsieur," he writes to Faraday, " qui ap- 

 partenez a une societe a laqnelle je n'avaisrien offert, vous 

 qui me conuaissiez a peine de nom; vous n'avez pas de- 

 mandesi j'avaisdesennemis faibles ou puissants, ni calcule 

 quel en etait le nombre; mais vous avez parle pour Fopprime 

 etranger, pour celui qui n'avait pas le moindre droit a tant 

 de bienveillance, et vos paroles ont ete accueillies favorable- 

 ment par des collegues consciencieux! Je reconnais bien 

 la des hommes dignes de leur noble mission, les veritable 

 representants de la science d'un pays libre et genereux." 



Within the prescribed limits of this article it would be 

 impossible to give even the slenderest summary of Faraday's 

 correspondence, or to carve from it more than the merest 

 fragments of his character. His letters, written to Lord 

 Melbourne and others in 1836, regarding his pension, illus- 

 trate his uncompromising independence. The prime min- 

 ister had offended him, but assuredly the apology demanded 

 and given was complete. I think it certain that, notwith- 

 standing the very full account of this transaction given by 

 Dr. Bence Jones, motives and influences were at work 

 which even now are not entirely revealed. The minister was 

 bitterly attacked, but he bore the censure of the press with 



freat dignity. Faraday, while he disavowed having either 

 irectly or indirectly furnished the matter of those attacks, 

 did not publicly exonerate the prirnier. The Hon. Caro- 

 line Fox had proved herself Faraday's ardent friend, and 

 it was she who had healed the breach between the phi- 

 losopher and the minister. She manifestly thought that 

 Faraday ought to have come forward in Lord Melbourne's 

 defense, and there is a flavor of resentment in one of her 

 letters to him on the subject. No doubt Faraday had good 

 grounds for his reticence, but they are to me unknown. 



In 1841 his health broke down utterly, and he went to 

 Switzerland with his wife and brother-in-law. His bodily 

 vigor soon revived, and he accomplished feats of walking 

 respectable even for a trained mountaineer. The published 

 extracts from his Swiss journal contain many beautiful 

 and touching allusions. Amid references to the tints of 

 the Jungfrau, the blue rifts of the glaciers, and the noble 

 Niesen towering over the lake of Thuii, we come upon 

 the charming little scrap which I have elsewhere quoted: 

 " Clout-nail making goes on here rather considerably, and 

 is a very neat and pretty operation to observe. I love a 



