It has been said that there is no photograph or painting of Faraday which is a satisfactory likeness; not because good portraits have never been published, but because they cannot give the varied and ever-shifting expression of his features. Similarly, I fear that the mental portraiture which I have attempted will fail to satisfy his intimate acquaintance. Yet, as one who never saw him in the flesh may gain a good idea of his personal appearance by comparing several pictures, so the reader may learn more of his intellectual and moral features by combining the several estimates which have been made by different minds. Earlier biographies have been already referred to, but my sketch may well be supplemented by an anonymous poem that appeared immediately after his death, and by the words of two of the most distinguished foreign philosophers—Messrs. De la Rive and Dumas.
"Statesmen and soldiers, authors, artists,—still
The topmost leaves fall off our English oak:
Some in green summer's prime, some in the chill
Of autumn-tide, some by late winter's stroke.
"Another leaf has dropped on that sere heap—
One that hung highest; earliest to invite
The golden kiss of morn, and last to keep
The fire of eve—but still turned to the light.