CAVENDISH (Hmenx) a great and justly ce lebrated Chemist, Natural and Astro nomer ; son of Lord Charles Cavendish, and grand son of William, second Duke of Devonshire; born the loth of October 178i, at Nice, where his mother, Lady Anne Grey, daughter of Henry, Duke of Kent, had gone, though ineffectually, for the recovery her health. • Of a man,*whose rank, among the benefactors of science and of mankind, is so elevated as that of Mr Cavendish, we are anxious to learn all the details both of intellectual cultivation and of moral charac ter, that the labours of a biographer can discover and record. Little, however, is known respecting his earliest education : he was some time at New combe's school, an establishment of considerable re putation at Hackney ; and he afterwards Went to Cambridge but it is probable that he acquired his taste for experimental investigation in great mea sure from his father, who was in the habit of amus ing himself with meteorological observations and ap paratus, and to whom we are indebted for a very ac eurate determination of' the depression of mercury in barometrical tubes, which has been made the basis of some of the most refined investigations of modern times. 44 It has been observed," says M. Cuvier, that more persons of rank enter seriously into science and literature in Great Britain than in other countries and this circumstance may naturally be ex plained from the constitution of the British Govern ment, which renders it impossible for birth and for tune alone to attain to distinction in the state, without high cultivation of the mind; so that amidst the univer sal diffusion of solid learning, which is thus rendered indispensable, some indiiidals are always found, who are more disposed to occupy themselves in the pur suit of the eternal truths of nature, and in the con templation of the finished productions of talent and genius, than in the transitory interests of the politics of the day." Mr Cavendish was neither influenced by the ordinary ambition of becoming a distinguish ed statesman, nor by a taste for expensive luxuries or sensual gratifications ; so that, enjoying a mode rate competence during his father's life, and being elevated by his birth above all danger of being de spised for want of greater affluence, he felt himself exempted from the necessity of applying to any pro fessional studies, of courting the approbation of the public either by the parade of literature or by the habits of conviviality, or of ingratiating himself with mixed society by the display of superficial accom plishments. It is difficult to refrain from imagining
that his mind had received some slight impression from the habitual recurrence to the motto of his fa mily : the words cavendo tutus must have occurred perpetually to his eye ; and all the operations of his intellectual powers exhibit a degree of caution almost unparalleled in the annals of science ; for there is scarcely a single instance, in which he had occasion to retrace his steps, or to recal his opinions. In 1760, he became a Fellow of the Royal Society, and continued for almost fifty years to contribute to the Philosophical Transactions some of the most inte resting and important papers, that have ever appear ed in that Collection ; expressed in language which affords a model of concise simplicity and unaffected modesty; and exhibiting a precision of experimen tal demonstration, commensurate to the judicious se lection of the methods of research, and to the accu racy of the argumentative induction ; and which have been considered, by some of the most enlightened historians, as having been no less instrumental in pro moting the further progress of chemical discovery, by banishing the vague manner of observing and rea soning, that had too long prevailed, than by immedi ately extending the bounds of human knowledge with respect to the very important facts, which are first made public in these communications.