us hold a just and even balance between genius that rises superior 

 to the pressure of circumstances, and that which reaches to at least 

 equal intellectual heights, unseduced by rank and riches. The Se- 

 cretary of the Academy has not confined himself to taking from Caven- 

 dish the honour of his discoveries, but has cast a cloud of suspicion 

 on his veracity and good faith : he has, in fact, imputed to him, the 

 claiming discoveries and conclusions which he borrowed from others, 

 of inducing the Secretary of the Royal Society to aid in the fraud, and 

 even causing the very printers of the Transactions to antedate the pre- 

 sentation-copies of his paper. 



Yet this. Gentlemen, is the man to whom, at his death in 1810, one 

 who knew and was competent to speak of him bore the following tes- 

 timony : — " Of all the philosophers of the present age," said Davy, 

 " Mr. Cavendish combined the greatest depth of mathematical know- 

 ledge with delicacy and precision in the methods of experimental re- 

 search. It might be said of him, what, perhaps, can hardly be said of 

 any other, that whatever he has done has been perfect at the moment 

 of its production : his processes were all of a finished nature ; executed 

 by the hand of a master, they required no correction; and, though many 

 of them were performed in the very infancy of chemical knowledge, yet 

 their accuracy and their beauty have remained unimpaired, amidst the 

 progress of discovery, and their merits have been illustrated by discus- 

 sion, and exalted by time. In general, the most common motives which 

 induce men to study, is the love of distinction and glory, or the desire 

 of power ; and we have no right to object to these motives ; but it 

 ought to be mentioned, in estimating the character of Mr. Cavendish, 

 that his grand stimulus to exertion was evidently the love of truth 

 and knowledge : unambitious, unassuming, it was often with difficulty 

 that he was persuaded to bring forward his important discoveries. Pie 

 disliked notoriety ; he was, as it were, fearful of the voice of Fame ; his 

 labours are recorded with the greatest simplicity, and in the fewest 

 possible words, without parade or apology ; and it seemed as if, in pub- 

 lication, he was performing, not what was a duty to himself, but a duty 

 to the public." — " Since the death of Newton," he concludes, " En- 

 gland has sustained no scientific loss so great as that of Cavendish : his 

 name will be an object of more veneration in future ages, than at the 

 present moment ; though it was unknown in the busy scenes of life, or 

 in the popular discussions of the day, it will remain illustrious in the 

 annals of science, which are as unperishablc as that nature to which 

 they belong ; it will be an immortal honour to his house, to his age, 

 and to his country." 



