The Royal Institution

The Royal Institution is a book on its founder and first professors, by Dr. Bence Jones, Honorary Secretary. The preface says the writer begins the history of the Royal Institution, and its professors to the time of Faraday, with the life of its founder, Count Rumford, because his career and character determined its original form. The preface says short accounts of the earliest professors have been written because the spirit that has shown itself in them has up to this time been the life of the Institution.

The text says that among the exiles in London was Judge Curwen, of Salem, Massachusetts, who kept a journal that gives a picture of Thompson, May 23, 1781. A journal passage about Mr. Benjamin Thompson says that he always breakfasts, dines and sups at Lord George Germain’s, so great a favourite is he. An advertisement in the text says two parts will be delivered in succession on Mondays and Wednesdays, at two o’clock, and the third on Friday evenings at eight.