It is a strong evidence not only of our Philosopher’s industry, but of his attachment to that institution of which he was so great an ornament, that, in the course of the twenty-six years during which he was a member of it, he could find sufficient leisure,—almost constantly employed, as he was, in important public business, and frequently bereft of health,—to contribute so many valuable papers as he did, to the too scanty stock of its published Transactions. Dr. Franklin, who was a member of the Philosophical Society, and their president, for twenty-one years, furnished them with only eight communications during that time: and Mr. Jefferson, who has nominally occupied the president’s chair[333] in the same Society above sixteen years, has favoured them with only two or three, within this period. ----- Footnote 333: The appropriate location of “The American Philosophical Society” is the city of “Philadelphia,” where their meetings must be held in conformity to their charter. Monticello, Mr. Jefferson’s residence in Virginia, is situated at the distance of about two hundred and seventy miles from the capital of Pennsylvania. ----- Had Dr. Rittenhouse enjoyed leisure to write, there are sufficient reasons to induce a belief, that his compositions would have been highly estimable; not solely for the subject matter of them, but for their manner also. It is true, he laboured under the privations of a liberal education: his style might therefore, perhaps, have been deficient in some of the ornamental appendages of classical learning. Nevertheless, the native energy of his mind, the clearness of his perceptions, the accuracy with which he employed his reasoning faculties,—in fine, the very extraordinary intellectual powers he displayed, when they were directed to the attainment of any species of human knowledge;—these would, doubtless, have supplied him with those beauties of language, which are usually, as well as most readily, derived from academic instruction. And in addition to all these, the sublimity of the objects which he so ardently and frequently contemplated, could scarcely fail to have communicated to his literary productions a due portion of an elevated style, when treating on subjects of a corresponding character. Dr. Rush, in noticing the address delivered by Rittenhouse before the Philosophical Society in the year 1775, observes, that “the language of this Oration is simple, but” that “the sentiments contained in it are ingenious, original, and in some instances sublime:” in another place, the learned Eulogist styles it an “eloquent performance.” It is presumed, that these characteristic features of that little work are not unaptly applied; and it will be found, on perusal, to be also strongly tinctured, throughout, with a vein of exalted piety[334] and universal benevolence. ----- Footnote 334: