But Mr. Dalton was of no party; had he ever moved in
that vortex which has brought discredit, and almost ruin, on the Royal
Society of England;--had he taken part with those who vote to each other
medals, and, affecting to be tired of the fatigues of office, make to
each other requisitions to retain places they would be most reluctant
to quit; his great and splendid discovery would long since have been
represented to government. Expectant mediocrity would have urged on his
claims to remuneration, and those who covered their selfish purposes
with the cloak of science, would have hastened to shelter themselves in
the mantle of his glory.--But the philosopher may find consolation for
the tardy approbation of that Society, in the applause of Europe. If
he was insulted by their medal, he escaped the pain of seeing his name
connected with their proceedings.] Where would have been the military
renown of England, if, with an equally improvident waste of mental
power, its institutions had forced the Duke of Wellington to employ his
life in drilling recruits, instead of planning campaigns?

If we look at the fact, we shall find that the great inventions of the
age are not, with us at least, always produced in universities. The
doctrines of "definite proportions," and of the "chemical agency of
electricity,"--principles of a high order, which have immortalized the
names of their discoverers,--were not produced by the meditations of
the cloister: nor is it in the least a reproach to those valuable
institutions to mention truths like these. Fortunate circumstances must
concur, even to the greatest, to render them eminently successful. It is
not permitted to all to be born, like Archimedes, when a science was to
be created; nor, like Newton, to find the system of the world "without
form and void;" and, by disclosing gravitation, to shed throughout that
system the same irresistible radiance as that with which the Almighty
Creator had illumined its material substance. It can happen to but few
philosophers, and but at distant intervals, to snatch a science, like
Dalton, from the chaos of indefinite combination, and binding it in the
chains of number, to exalt it to rank amongst the exact. Triumphs like
these are necessarily "few and far between;" nor can it be expected that
that portion of encouragement, which a country may think fit to bestow
on science, should be adapted to meet such instances. Too extraordinary
to be frequent, they mu