34 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



the art of making the steel of Damascus, nor the wootzof India, nor 

 the sword-blades of old Seville. 



Truth to say, inventors have so often ruined themselves in pur- 

 suit of noble plans, under the pity or contempt, the ingratitude, 

 or, worst of all, utter neglect of mankind, it is not to be won- 

 dered at that one who had discovered the elixir vitse by which 

 man might live a hundred years, and at the end of that term 

 take another glass and live another century, should dash his 

 alembic to the ground. Many a man of great genius has lost his 

 reputation by discoveries ahead of his time, and where there was 

 no place to bring him out properly. The inventor of the art of 

 printing still companions with Satan, for " The Devil and Dr. 

 Faustus" are still not quite out of fashion. Five hundred years 

 ago, a very clever fellow obtained universal infamy by publishing 

 true accounts of China, as he found it, for all the world. For 

 several ages, when they wanted to stamp an enemy with a bad 

 name which would stick to him, they had only to call him " as 

 gi-eat a liar as Marco Polo." 



All that I desire to say is, that we should be as careful of the 

 interests of our ingenious men as we are of our lives and prop- 

 erty — for they are of our property, and deserve the longest, best, 

 and happiest lives. Benefactors as we know them to be, we do 

 not always reflect upon the great value of a single individual 

 genius. One of the best politico-economical writers of any age, 

 (John Baptiste Say,) of Paris, said, in 1804 : " How proud is our 

 beloved France of her vast superiority in Arts and Sciences over 

 all the rest of the world. And yet," said he, " all the men that 

 give creation to all this grandeur of France, can meet comforta- 

 bly at any time in any one of the smaller rooms of Paris. 



These lights of the world are few at any time, and become 

 fixed stars of the first magnitude. A Newton, a Pope, a Garrick, 

 a Watt, a Washington, a Franklin, a Whitney, a Fulton, a Morse, 

 a Halleck — how small a catalogue can truly be made in a hun- 

 dred years ! We always find about one genius to one million of 

 men, and so quote Horace as to the rest of them : " Imitator es 

 servum pecusP 



Before I close, I beg to say a few words in reference to the staff 

 of life — bread. 



