Life of Count Rumford. 9 



There are several matters in this relation which will call 

 for remark further on. At present we are concerned 

 with those sentences in it which reflect upon Thomp- 

 son's relatives, especially his step-father, charges of 

 neglecting, wronging, or ill-treating him in his early 

 years. Baron Cuvier, who was a very intimate friend 

 of Count Rumford in the latter part of his life, and 

 who delivered an eloge upon him before the French In- 

 stitute, said in it something very similar to the above, 

 the authority for which must be supposed to be either 

 a communication from the Count himself, or the asser- 

 tions made by Pictet. 



Cuvier said : " Rumford has informed us himself 

 that he should probably have remained in the modest 

 condition of his ancestors if the little fortune which they 

 had to leave him had not been lost during his infancy. 

 Thus, like many other men of genius, a misfortune in 

 early life was the cause of his subsequent reputation. 

 His father died young. A second husband removed 

 him from the care of his mother, and his grandfather, 

 from whom he had everything to expect, had given all 

 he possessed to a younger son, leaving his grandson 

 almost penniless. Nothing could be more likely than 

 such a destitute condition to induce a premature display 

 of talent,"* &c. 



Now, if these statements and imputations really rest 

 upon positive assertions made by him whom they con- 



F. G. Maurice, he planned and edited the voluminous periodical work, the BikliotAlfue 

 Britannique, which, in 1816, became the Bibliothfyue Universelle. 



His ten letters, embracing his tour in England, Ireland, and Scotland, were re- 

 published in a volume at Geneva. The above extract in the text is translated from 

 his ninth letter, dated London, I5th August, 1801. (Vol. XIX. Science et Arts.} 



* Cuvier's Eloge. A translation of this Eloge appeared in the Boston Daily Adver- 

 tiser of the 1 8th and 1 9th October, 1815. 



