1 66 Life of Count Rumford. 



the memory of it with his own personal advancement. 

 There were many to say of him, during the remainder 

 of his life, that he was even vainly fond of his titles, 

 and claimed the social position which his services se- 

 cured to him as at least an equivalent for the noble 

 birth and the inheritance of land which ordinarily carry 

 with them titular honors independently of character or 

 achievement. This is true. He prized the mark of 

 dignity which was attached to his name, and was grati- 

 fied that he could transmit it to his daughter. The 

 inheritors of such shadowy titles should be the first to 

 manifest their approbation that a substance is occasion- 

 ally secured to them as being won by merit. 



With the united offices of Minister of War, and 

 Minister or Superintendent of Police, and Chamber- 

 lain of the Elector, Sir Benjamin combined adminis- 

 trative and executive functions which substantially cov- 

 ered every department of public service. Some tra- 

 ditionary or conventional prejudices or proprieties 

 withheld the Elector from seeking or accepting such 

 advice from his own Council as he felt more free to 

 ask and receive from a foreigner who had won his title 

 to consideration. It might, of course, be foreseen that 

 such privileges as were granted to Thompson, how- 

 ever judiciously and unselfishly improved to public 

 ends of beneficence, would excite against him jealousies, 

 if not opposition, from some on whose supposed pre- 

 rogatives he might infringe. Though later in his career 

 in Germany, and under a change in the headship of the 

 government, he did not, as we shall see, escape his 

 share in a common experience of this kind, he seems to 

 have encountered the very least of it at the time when it 

 would have been most disagreeable and embarrassing to 



