PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 35T 



With all his broad humanity, he possessed but little of what is 

 known as " humor." He could more heartily enjoy the ludicrous 

 as droUy narrated by its appreciative victims, than when sarcasti- 

 cally recited at the expense of another. The sparkle of wit he 

 fully appreciated provided it were free from coarseness and from 

 personal satire. From the subordination of his sense of humor to 

 his native instinct of sincerity, he had no approbation — or indeed 

 tolerance of " practical jokes," holding that the shock to the feel- 

 ings ov to the confidence of the dupe, is far too high a price for the 

 momentary hilarity enjoyed by the thoughtless at a farcical situa- 

 tion. Newspaper hoaxes — literary or scientific, in like manner 

 received his stern reprobation, as uncompensated injuries to 

 popular trust, and to the cause of popular enlightenment. 



Strong in his unerring sense of justice and of right, he allowed 

 no prospects of personal advantage to influence his judgment in 

 action, in decision, or in opinion. He never availed himself of 

 the opportunities offered by his position, of reaping gain from 

 profitable suggestions or favorable awards : and he never willing! j 

 inflicted an injury even on the feelings of the humblest. This 

 was characteristically shown in the pains taken to convince the 

 judgment of those against whose visionary projects he was so often 

 called upon to report in the public interests of the Smithsonian 

 Institution, of the Light-house service, and of the General Gov- 

 ernment : — often expending an amount of valuable time and of 

 patience which few so situated would have accorded, or could 

 have well afforded. And yet on the other hand when himself 

 the subject of injustice, misconstruction, or abuse, he never suffered 

 himself to be provoked into a controversy ; — as if holding life too 

 serious, time too precious, to be wasted in mere disputation 

 Least of all did he ever think of resorting to retaliatory conduct 

 or to the expression of opprobrious sentiments. He calmly put 

 aside disturbing elements, and seemed endowed with the power of 

 excluding from his mental vision all irritating incidents. In that 

 benignant breast there harbored no resentments. 



To those who knew the man, — to those who have enjoyed the 

 charm of his more intimate society, and felt the magnetism of his 

 cheery presence, how poor and insufficient must appear these dis- 

 jointed outlines of that mental, moral, and spiritual nature, which 

 always and at every point was so much larger than it seemed. 



Less than a year ago, (on the evening of November 24th, 1 817,) he 

 delivered in this place before this Society his annual address, shortly 

 after his re-election as its President; — an address which as we be- 

 held the remarkable fulness and freshness of the speaker's mental 

 and bodily powers, — we little thought was in reality his vale- 

 dictory. In it he concisely yet lucidly portrayed for the stimula- 

 tion of more youthful physicists, the processes and the qualities 

 necessary for success in original research ; — the awakened attentioa 



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