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should consider that the world has but one Rittenhouse, and never had one before. . . . Are those powers, then, which, being intended for the erudition of the world, are, like air and light, the world's common property, to be taken from their proper pursuit to do the commonplace drudgery of governing a single State — a work which may be executed by men of ordinary stature, such as are always and everywhere to be found?” The royalist party were fully as reluctant to see him participating in political affairs, and their sense of the loss to science would seem to have been equally as keen. A Tory poet published in the Pennsylvania Evening Post, December 2d, 1777, these lines:

“To David Rittenhouse.
“	Meddle not with state affairs;
	Keep acquaintance with the stars;
	Science, David, is thy line;
	Warp not Nature's great design,
	If thou to fame wouldst rise.
“	Then follow learned Newton still;
	Trust me, mischievous Machiavel
	Thou'lt find a dreary coast,
	Where, damped the philosophic fire,
	Neglected genius will retire,
	And all thy fame be lost.
“	Politics will spoil the man
	Formed for a more exalted plan.
	Great Nature bids thee rise,
	To pour fair science on our age,
	To shine amidst the historic page.
	And half unfold the skies.
“	But if thou crush this vast design,
	And in the politician's line
	With wild ambition soar,
	Oblivion shall entomb thy name.
	And from the rolls of future fame
	Thou'lt fall to rise no more.”