432 Life of Count Rumford. 



scientific and benevolent schemes, as well as of institu- 

 tions which are supposed to be more likely to engage the 

 jealousies or rivalries of men, had no private or public 

 variance arisen in connection with the early history of 

 the Royal Institution. There are traces of some per- 

 sonal alienations as having occurred in the first year of 

 its existence, and the compass or the cumbersomeness 

 of its plans, notwithstanding its seemingly large re- 

 sources, required some modification. 



I will offer as full and intelligible an account of these 

 matters of variance as I have been able to verify from 

 the means within my reach. Dean Peacock, in his 

 Life of Dr. Thomas Young,* contents himself with 

 the following curt narration : 



"In the year 1801, Young accepted the office of Professor 

 of Natural Philosophy at the Royal Institution, which had been 

 established in the year preceding, chiefly by the exertions of 

 the well-known Sir Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford. It 

 was designed as a great metropolitan school of science, where 

 lectures should be given, models of useful instruments exhibited, 

 and collections of books on science and of chemical and philo- 

 sophical apparatus formed on the most magnificent scale. Its 

 founder, if such he may be termed, had further views also, of 

 making it subsidiary to the promotion of many useful projects 

 and inquiries which he had recently proposed in his Essays, 

 which enjoyed an extraordinary popularity. After managing 

 the affairs of the Institution for a few months, and commencing 

 the editing of its journal, he quarrelled with some of the direc- 

 tors and abandoned the scheme altogether. The conducting of 

 the journal was thenceforward intrusted to the joint care of Dr. 

 Young and his colleague Mr. Davy, at that time Professor of 

 Chemistry, &c." 



Having found no reference made by Count Rumford 



* London, John Murray, 1855, p. 134. 



