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have been very few men, even among those possessed of extraordinary talents, who have been so entirely unskilled in the arts that attract popular attention, and have nevertheless attained to such eminence during their own lives, as did David Rittenhouse. The people of provincial Pennsylvania fully believed they had found among themselves in the farmer's lad of the Wissahickon one upon whom the divine light of genius had fallen, and they came to him with offerings of homage, as well as of pounds, shillings and pence, perhaps all the more willingly because he shrank from the honor with an appearance of shyness, if not of timidity. His career more nearly resembled that of Franklin than that of any other of his contemporaries. Both began life in an obscure way and under adverse circumstances; the fame of both as philosophers and men of science extended over the world; both were drawn into the politics of their day, and living in the same city, and being of the same way of thought, bore