In the works of Peter Pindar (Dr. Walcot) (vol. v. p. 458) there is an epistle to Count Rumford containing these lines and this note:
‘But what an insolence in me to prate,
Pretend to him to open Wisdom’s gate,
Who spurns advice, like weeds, where’er it springs,
Disdaining counsel,[A] though it comes from kings.’
[A] ‘Here I must beg leave to differ from the Count. Although a man may, like the Count, possess extraordinary intellect, and though a man may be the best judge of himself, nevertheless it is indecorous to treat the opinions of others with contempt. The Count’s constant assertion is, ‘I never was yet in the wrong; I know everything.’ Granting this to be true, the declaration nevertheless is arrogant and supercilious.’
In the ‘Monthly Magazine, or British Register’ for May 1815, in a memoir of Count Rumford, speaking of his connexion with the Royal Institution, and of the quarrels which arose among the managers, this passage occurs:
We feel it proper to state that the Count assumed the character of absolute controller, as well as the projector, of this establishment, and conducted himself with a degree of hauteur which disgusted its patrons, and almost broke the heart of our amiable friend and its first professor, Dr. Garnett.
And in Dr. Thomas Thompson’s ‘Annals of Philosophy’ for April 1815 a biographical account of Count Rumford is given, and the following inaccurate statement is made: