In addition, however, to the evidence which has been tendered by others to the exalted merits of our Philosopher, the memorialist is happy in having an opportunity to introduce, on this occasion, the testimony of a gentleman who was very long and intimately acquainted with Dr. Rittenhouse—and, consequently, well knew his worth as a man. This representation being likewise made by a person whose conspicuous attainments in similar departments of science, and arduous employments in practical pursuits of the same description, render him eminently qualified to judge of his deceased friend’s talents, he is by these means enabled to form a just estimate of his character. The person here referred to, is Andrew Ellicott, Esq. a gentleman with whom the writer of these Memoirs has been in habits of intimacy and friendship, many years. The information on this subject, communicated by Mr. Ellicott, being in the form of a letter addressed to the memorialist, he has given that communication a place in the Appendix. That Dr. Rittenhouse had failings, cannot be questioned; since, to possess them, is the lot of every individual of our species. But his foibles—of whatever description they may have been—may be compared to some opaque spots, minute in size, which the prying eye of the astronomer has discovered to exist even on the glorious orb of the Sun; although these little _maculæ_ are scarcely discernible by the generality of observers, by reason of the surrounding splendour of his beams: so, the diminutive failings which may be supposed to have existed in the character of our philosophical luminary, were rendered almost imperceptible, by the resplendency in which his great and numerous virtues were enveloped. It was said of that sublime artist, Sir Joshua Reynolds, by the late celebrated Edmund Burke, that he did “not know a fault or weakness of his, that he did not convert into something that bordered on a virtue, instead of pushing it to the confines of a vice.”[309] Dr. Rittenhouse, in like manner, was perfectly uncontaminated by any vice; while “his virtues furnish the most shining models for imitation:” and, in regard even to his foibles, the declaration of his Eulogist, just quoted, that his virtues “were never obscured, in any situation or stage of his life, by a single cloud of weakness or vice,”[310] may be fairly received in the same liberal sense, as Mr. Burke’s expression concerning his worthy friend, Reynolds. ----- Footnote 309: See Mr. Malone’s Account of the Life and Writings of Sir Joshua Reynolds, prefixed to the works of Sir Joshua. Footnote 310: See Rush’s Eulog. on Ritt. -----