Rumford

“ Rumford had found that the work of a horse can produce heat, and heat, in a steam-engine, can do the work of a horse. Thus surely, though slowly, men were learning of the forces that move the world and do man's bidding.
Count Rumford, true to his adopted land, returned to London and became the founder of the Royal Institution in which Faraday and his successors have achieved such marvellous results. He believed that the poor can be helped in no better way than by giving them knowledge, so that they can better their own condition. ”

“ Rumford's death took place at Auteuil, on the 21st of August, 1814, in the sixty-second year of his age. His only daughter by his first wife inherited the title of Countess of Rumford, with the continuation of her father's Bavarian pension. She married Cuvier the naturalist, and survived until a few years ago, forming a link between the age of Lavoisier and those of the middle of the nineteenth century.—Chambers' Miscellany, No. 161.—Encyclopædia Britannica, eighth edition.—Voyage de trois mois en Angleterre, en Ecosse, &c., par Marc-Auguste Pictet, F.R.S., &c. ”

“ Under-Secretary of State at twenty-eight, he was knighted by George III. at thirty; and eight years later, by the pleasure of the King of Bavaria, Benjamin Thompson, of Woburn, Massachusetts, was transformed into Count Rumford, having already taken rank as a European celebrity. But he did not forget his early home and friends, and it is pleasant to find him deriving his title from the name given to Concord by the early settlers—a name, by the way, that these patriots misspelled from Romford, the village near London whence some of them came. ”

“ Rumford would have been the last woman in the world to fly in the face of such unmistakable signs of death. It is even rumored that when she heard the crash of glass in the kitchen she murmured piously, “Now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace,” and expired within the hour.
Nineteen summers and winters had passed since Pitt Packard drove “her that was Jennie Perkins” to Portland on her wedding-trip. He had been a good and loyal husband; she had been a good and faithful wife; and never once in the nineteen years had they so much as touched the hem of the garment of happiness. ”

“ The principle on which their treatment proceeded is stated by Thompson in the following memorable words:—"To make vicious and abandoned people happy," he says, "it has generally been supposed necessary first to make them virtuous. But why not reverse this order? Why not make them first happy, and then virtuous?" In 1791 he was created a count of the Holy Roman Empire, and chose his title of Rumford from the name as it then was of the American township to which his wife's family belonged. ”

“ Benjamin Thompson, who was created a count by Prince Maximilian of Bavaria and who chose to be called Count Rumford after a New Hampshire town from which the family of his wife had come, was born in Massachusetts in 1753 and died in France in 1814. He founded the Royal Institution of Great Britain in 1799, and by a bequest established the Rumford professorship for the application of science to the useful arts at Harvard University. ”

“ Cuvier read his ‘éloge’ before the French Institute on 9 Jan. 1815, concluding with the words that Rumford ‘by the happy choice of his subjects as well as by his works had earned for himself both the esteem of the wise and the gratitude of the unfortunate.’ According to Tyndall: ‘The German, French, Spanish, and Italian languages were as familiar to Rumford as English. He played billiards against himself; he was fond of chess, which, however, made his feet like ice and his head like fire. The designs of his inventions were drawn by himself with great skill ”

“ Rumford, tempted to open his heart, for he could be a bellicose gentleman by deputy of the flag. He recollected that the speaker was a cousin of Captain Con's, and withdrew into his wound for safety. 'Here and there, perhaps; not when we are roused; we want rousing, we greatly prefer to live at peace with the world, if the world will let us.'
'Not at any price?' Philip fancied his tone too quakerly. ”

“ I thought when I married Daniel Rumford, if I could stand his temper it was nobody’s business but my own. I didn’t foresee that he had so much he could keep plenty for his own use, and then have a lot left to hand down to his children, so ’t I should have to live in the house with it to the day of my death! Seems to me if I was a girl and lived in a village where men-folks is as scarce as they be here, I’d be turrible careful to keep holt of a beau after I’d got him. What in the name o’ goodness did you quarrel about? ”

“ Early in the year 1799 a party of noblemen and gentlemen met at the house of Sir Joseph Banks for the purpose of forming themselves, at the suggestion of Count Rumford, into a "Society for bettering the condition of the poor." Count Rumford and his friends were most anxious for the success of their undertaking ”

“ These volumes are inscribed by a kinsman of a later generation to the illustrious memory of Sir Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford, a philosopher, statesman, and benefactor of mankind, a great prophet, who, while living, was not without honor save in his own country, and upon whom dead that praise justly due to a merit almost unrivaled among American men of science has been but tardily and incompletely bestowed, both by his own family and his countrymen at large. ”

“ George III not only gave Thompson the requisite permission, but knighted him on 23 Feb. 1784, shortly before his departure for Bavaria. He returned to England in October 1795 with the title of Count von Rumford. During the eleven years he passed in Munich he had made important reforms in the public service and in social economy. As minister of war he increased the pay and comfort of the private soldier ”

“ He took as one of his ministers the celebrated American, Benjamin Thompson, whom he created Count Rumford, and that man of science and learning endeavoured to suppress mendacity, and made efforts to bring material comforts within reach of the very poorest. ”

“ I waighe not true love by the waight of my pursse,
And bewtye is bewtye in every degree;
Then welcome unto me, my prettye Bessee.
With thee to thy father forthwith I will goe.
Nay soft, quoth his kinsmen, it must not be soe;
A poor beggars daughter noe ladye shal bee,
Then take thy adew of pretty Bessee.
But soone after this, by breake of the day,
The knight had from Rumford stole Bessy away.
The younge men of Rumford, as thicke might bee,
Rode after to feitch againe pretty Bessee.
As swifte as the winde to ryde they were scene,
Untill they came neare unto Bednall-greene ”

“ Becoming dissatisfied with the results of his ministry in Ireland, Rumold resolved to go abroad, where his countrymen were then much valued. Crossing over to Britain in a coracle or skin-boat, ‘after the manner of his nation,’ he passed to Gaul, and ‘wherever he went he was always speaking of Jesus, and instructing the people about God and life everlasting.’ Crossing the Alps, he visited Rome, and saw with wonder the city ‘whither all the demons of the world used to congregate.’ Returning through France, he settled at Mechlin, near the Scheldt. ”

“ Let the bad cruel-hearted men make their plots, for 'tis all their wits can reach to, I doubt. But for one like you, who can make such malt as is not to be found besides in all Hertfordshire, oh, I'd stick to it."
Rumbold's changes of mood.
"And stick you to your churn and your wheel, Mistress Oracle," said the maltster, fondly stroking her soft brown hair, "and discourse not so glibly of what you do not understand a whit more than your own frisky Tab there, who is tearing up your fine chap-books with her claws. What should kings, and such kittle cattle's doings be to you?" ”

“ Rambure, equally surprised that the squadron which bore the King of England had not appeared, and by the publicity of his forthcoming arrival, went up towards Edinburgh more and more surrounded by barques, which addressed to him the same language. A gentleman of the country passed from one of these barques upon the frigate. He told Rambure that the principal noblemen of Scotland had resolved to act together, that these noblemen could count upon more than twenty thousand men ready to take up arms, and that all the towns awaited only the arrival of the King to proclaim him. ”

“ As Rump saw them in the act of dismounting, the manly fortitude which he had endeavored to summon up instantly forsook him, and he seized his hat and fled with precipitation from the house through a back door. The wretched man ran with speed until he reached a wood on the outskirts of his farm, where he wandered for hours, like one who had been driven an outcast from association with his kind. ”

“ On the 21st April, Lenthall, the old Speaker, with as many members of the Long Parliament as could be brought together, met in the House, and opened their session. The Parliament thus formed, as being the fag-end of the old Long Parliament, obtained the name of the Rump Parliament. Lambert’s hopes and aims were raised by his success against Sir George Booth in the August following, and jealousies soon arose between his party in the army and the Rump. ”

“ The long parliament, not proving itself sufficiently complacent, Colonel Pride entered the House with two regiments of soldiers, imprisoned 60 members, drove 160 into the streets, and left only 60. These were called the Rump. The name was revived in the Protectorate of Richard Cromwell, and to distinguish the two, the former was called the Bloody Rump, and the latter the Rump of a Rump.
⁠"The few,
Because they're wasted to the stumps,
Are represented best by rumps." ”

“ Bronze implements have been found here, but no notice of Romford occurs till the 12th century. It was included in the liberty of Havering, and the chief business of the liberty was conducted there. But the corporation which is mentioned in medieval records is not that of the town of Romford, but of the liberty of Havering. Romford has only had a separate constitution since a local board of health was formed in 1894, under the act of 1875, after the abolition of the liberty in 1892. In the middle ages Romford was rather a meeting place for merchants than an industrial centre. ”

“ Still keeping our faces turned to the rising sun, three or four miles brings us to the village of Ilford, a word commemorating difficulties once experienced in crossing the little river Roden, which here opposed the traveller’s passage. An equal distance onward, another small affluent of the Thames imparts its name to the town of Romford. ”

“ Then the ramrodders have got the law to hoorah about and read over in the parlor, and they'll go right past such a place as we saw down the street there and not know it's a rumshop. After they get all the law they ask for, it's a part of their game to say that the rumshops aren't doing business. They're the kind that believe that just having the law makes every one good—they don't want to go back on their own scheme. Come along!" He went out into the sunshine. "I don't like to get talking prohibition. ”

“ And with her Etzel the mighty, why hold we back therefrom?
Who is loth with us to journey, e’en let him linger at home!”
(C) “In troth,” made answer Rumold, “I will be one at the least
Who never will cross Rhine-river unto Etzel’s high-tide feast.
The better part I have chosen shall I on the hazard fling?
So long as my strength availeth to my one life will I cling.”
(C) “So likewise am I minded,” spake to him Ortwein the thane;
“I will help thee to ward the kingdom, and the peace of the home to maintain.” ”

“ He's but a stripling; and old heads are the only ones for our sort of work, depend upon't. There's what one may call a kind of touch-and-go slipperiness"— The rest of what the speaker might be having to say was lost in a deafening clash of steel, while he himself disappeared totally from Ruth's range of sight, in what seemed a flash of blue lightning.
"Lookye, Colonel!" said Rumbold, when, after a brief interval, he had succeeded, with Master Sheppard's aid, in hauling Rumsey to his feet again and landing him safe on the top of the steps. ”

“ But 'twill serve—'twill serve. Set the paper close—closer;" and then with infinite labour he made the cross mark. "Ruth Rumbold!" he cried, as he moved his hand, and the full light of the lamp fell upon the clear, boldly-marked characters of her signature beneath. "This man—Richard Rumbold's—daughter!" and his eyes fixed upon her in a stare of mingled horror and pity. ”

“ The two men are fighting. As a rule they stand motionless in the picture, but to-night they seem to have come alive—they struggle, they struggle hard; one stands with his back to me. The face of the other I can recognize distinctly. It is the face of that young fellow who stayed a few years ago at the inn in our village. Ah! yes, of course, I know his name, Frere—Horace Frere. He has met some one on Salisbury Plain. It is night; the moon is hidden behind clouds. Ha! now it comes out. Now I can see them distinctly. Dr. Rumsey, don't you hear the blows? I do. They seem to beat on my brain. ”

“ But oh, for God's sake see—he fights harder than ever. Ha! He has thrown Horace Frere to the ground. Now Frere is up—what a strong chap he is! Now the other man is down. No, he has risen again. Now they both stand and fight, and—Dr. Rumsey, did you see that? The man with his back to us uses his stick, straight in front of him like a bayonet, and—oh, my God!"
Awdrey covered his face with his shaking hands. ”