FRAGMENTAEY EEMAINS, 
 
 LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC, 
 
 OP 
 
 SIR HUMPHRY DAVY, BART. 
 
FRAGMENTARY REMAINS, 
 
 LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC, 
 
 OF' 
 
 SIR HUMPHRY DAVY, BART., 
 
 LATE PRESIDENT OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY, ETC. 
 
 WITH 
 
 A SKETCH OF HIS LIFE 
 
 AN0 
 
 SELECTIONS FROM HIS CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 EDITED BY HIS BROTHER, 
 JOHN DAVY, M.D., F.R.Sl } \* 
 
 LONDON : 
 JOHN CHURCHILL, NEW BURLINGTON STREET. 
 
 MDCCCLVITI. 
 
- 
 
 "History may be formed from permanent monuments and records, 
 but lives can only be written from personal knowledge, which is growing 
 every day less, and in a short time is lost for ever." DR. JOHNSON. 
 
P R K F A C B. 
 
 THE title of this work sufficiently indicates its 
 character. 
 
 As Editor, the motives which have induced me to 
 undertake it, have been manifold; first, a loving- 
 regard for the memory of one to whom I owe so 
 much, coupled with the belief that these Remains 
 tend further to develop his genuine character; and 
 the fear, moreover, that if not preserved now by pub- 
 lication, they may be neglected, dispersed, and lost 
 for ever ; secondly, the hope that everything relating 
 to a man acknowledged to have made important 
 additions to science, and to belong to the list of those 
 whom Bacon places highest in the scale of the bene- 
 factors of mankind, cannot be indifferent to his 
 countrymen ; lastly, and not least, the belief that the 
 views of science, and the methods of advancing it, 
 which these Remains help to display, and to which, as 
 a discoverer, he chiefly owed his success, may be 
 useful to others and may they be many aspiring 
 
 703205 
 
VI PREFACE . 
 
 in turn to become discoverers in the boundless fields 
 of scientific research. 
 
 It may be asked, why the materials now brought 
 together, have been kept back so long? Why they 
 were not given in the Memoirs published so many 
 years ago? The reason is, that the majority of them 
 were not then in my possession, most of them having 
 been transferred to me since the death of his widow, 
 in May, 1855. 
 
 To her Executors, and especially to Dr. Kerr, 
 Lady Davy's nearest blood relation, I have to ex- 
 press my thanks for having committed them to my 
 keeping, with leave to use them. I have the like 
 acknowledgment to make to Mrs. Stackhouse Acton, 
 of Acton Scott, for the letters to her distinguished 
 father, Thomas Andrew Knight, Esq., a selection 
 from which will be found inserted in their proper 
 place. In their proper place also I shall have to 
 return thanks for some other and similar favours 
 from individuals who have honoured me with their 
 communications. 
 
 J. D. 
 
 Lasketh How, Ambleside, September, 1858. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 P. AGE 
 
 EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION . . . . 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 CLIFTON HIS EARLY RESEARCHES AND CORRES- 
 PONDENCE . . . , . .20 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 FROM HIS LEAVING CLIFTON FOR LONDON, IN 1801, 
 TO 1807, THE YEAR OF HIS DISCOVERY OF THE 
 BASES OF THE FIXED ALKALIES . . .56 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 FROM HIS DANGEROUS ILLNESS IN 1807, AFTER THE 
 DISCOVERY OF THE BASES OF THE FIXED 
 ALKALIES, TO HIS LEAVING THE ROYAL INSTI- 
 TUTION ON HIS MARRIAGE IN 1812 . . .119 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 FROM HIS MARRIAGE IN 1812 TO HIS RETURN TO 
 ENGLAND AFTER HIS FIRST CONTINENTAL JOURNEY 
 IN 1815 1G7 
 
Vlll CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 PAOF 
 
 FROM HIS RETURN FROM HIS FIRST CONTINENTAL 
 TOUR IN 1815 TO THE COMPLETION OF HIS SECOND 
 IN 1820 207 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 FROM HIS FIRST ELECTION TO THE PRESIDENTSHIP 
 OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY IN NOVEMBER, 1820, TO 
 HIS LAST, IN 1826 228 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 HIS LAST ILLNESS AND HIS LAST DAYS . 263 
 
FKAGMENTAEY KEMAINS, 
 
 LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC, 
 
 OP 
 
 SIR HUMPHRY D^VY. : , . 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION. 
 
 KEEPING in view that these Remains may come into 
 the hands of some readers not acquainted with the 
 memoirs akeady published of the life of my brother, 1 
 I shall endeavour, in introducing what is new, to give 
 a sketch of his career, beginning from his birth ; and 
 I trust I shall be pardoned if, in a few, a very 
 few instances, I may for completeness' sake reproduce 
 some particulars, or be a little more diffuse than the 
 subject may strictly warrant, indulging, if I may be 
 so permitted to say, in the hope that the words of 
 
 1 The first by Dr. Paris, in 1831 ; the second by myself, in 1836, and 
 a briefer one prefixed to his collected works (these in nine volumes), 
 in 1839-40. 
 
 B 
 
2 EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION. 
 
 a scientific friend, to whom I made known my inten- 
 tion, were not mere words of flattery, " That of all 
 things relating to Sir Humphry Davy the world 
 cannot have too much." 
 
 He was born at Penzance, on the 17th of December, 
 1778. Of his parentage, it may be sufficient here to 
 say, that it belonged to the middle class, and to a 
 family both on the father's and mother's side that 
 for many generations so far back, indeed, as it could 
 .be tr t ace!d had received a lettered education, and 
 was .above the wants which the peasant labourer has 
 to struggfe with. 
 
 The first-born of five children, of whom three were 
 girls, he was nursed by his mother, and in infancy had 
 an unusual portion of love bestowed on him, and this 
 chiefly, as I have been assured, on account of his 
 precocious mind and endearing qualities. He " lisped 
 in numbers." Till he was six years old he lived 
 with his parents. About that time, he took up his 
 abode with an old gentleman, a bachelor, Mr. John 
 Tonkin, who, in a manner, adopted him ; and this was 
 on the occasion of his parents leaving Penzance, to 
 reside at Varfel, about three miles distant, a small 
 copyhold, of about seventy-nine acres, on which his 
 father had built a house. 
 
 My earliest recollections carry me back to this 
 respected friend, 1 and he was a friend to us indeed. 
 The memory of him is fixed in my mind not only by 
 his kindness to me as a child he was fond of chil- 
 
 1 He died in 1801, aged eighty-two. 
 
EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION. 3 
 
 dren, and liked to have them about him but also 
 by his benignant and venerable aspect, and his pecu- 
 liar dress, that of the professional gentleman (by 
 profession he was a surgeon), then passing away 
 the full wig, the sleeve and breast ruffled shirt, the 
 three-cornered hat, buckled shoe, &c. Well, too, do 
 I recollect the social meetings at his house, exclu- 
 sively of the gentler sex, a certain number of whom 
 regularly visited him, always drinking tea with him 
 on a Sunday, all of whom he had known as chil- 
 dren, and to whom and their children he was attached. 
 Of these, two were sisters, both remarkable for their 
 ladylike and pleasing manners, and one of them, 
 unmarried, not less so for her perennial beauty. 1 
 Such a little society could hardly have failed to have 
 had an influence on a young mind, and therefore I 
 have mentioned it. 
 
 Recollections bring up recollections, reflecting on 
 the past and the bygone generation for all who 
 then met are swept away and I cannot but picture to 
 myself what Penzance then was, and its neighbour- 
 hood, compared with what they both are at the 
 
 1 The names of these ladies were Mrs. Cornish and Miss Allen. The 
 latter, my godmother, sad to say, at the advanced age of ninety-four, 
 came to an untimely and distressing end, from her dress taking fire. 
 About two years previously, the last time I had an opportunity of paying 
 my respects to her, I found her a very example of happy old age. 
 Never, she assured me, had she been happier. She was standing when 
 I entered the room, and alone, winding worsted, worsted to knit with in 
 the evening, when, she said, her eyes not being so good as they had been, 
 she could not read with comfort, or do any fine needle-work. Would 
 that such instances, without the fatal accident, were common, and then 
 old age would no more require consolation than joyous youth ! 
 
 B2 
 
4 EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION. 
 
 present day. Then the population of the town 
 little exceeded 3,000 j 1 its wealth was inconsiderable ; 
 the habits of the people were simple and frugal ; they 
 ate off pewter ; a sanded floor was not uncommon in 
 the sitting-rooms of the best houses ; its intercourse 
 with the world was very limited, and its trade 
 restricted. So completely is the town changed, that 
 an old inhabitant returning to it now, after the lapse 
 of sixty years, would not be able to recognise a 
 feature of it such as it was in his youth; now so 
 enlarged, as to have a population exceeding 10,000; 
 a railway terminus at its entrance; a Koyal Geolo- 
 gical Society, with its Museum and other public 
 institutions. In vain would he look for the trees, 
 one of them a fine plane (platanns orientalis, indi- 
 cative of the mildness of the climate), which were 
 the ornament of the street, the very name of which 
 even is changed the street in which the house of my 
 brother's nativity stood. In vain he would seek 
 that old ruin in Chapel Street, so generally believed 
 to have been haunted, and which young people for- 
 merly passed with a hasty step and a feeling of dread 
 after night-fall. In vain he would look for the well 
 arranged piles of massive blocks of tin which glittered 
 and encumbered the market-place ; 2 in vain for that 
 house which belonged to Mr. Tonkin, then a con- 
 
 1 In 1801 its population was 3,382. 
 
 2 Penzance being one of the towns of the Duchy of Cornwall, to 
 which tin was brought alter its reduction, to be stamped before exporta- 
 tion. By a new arrangement, the smelter is now at liberty to ship his 
 tin at any port he finds most convenient. 
 
EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION. 5 
 
 spicuous one, 1 where now stands the new market- 
 house, even more conspicuous. And even in the 
 immediate neighbourhood, he would find the changes 
 nearly as great: so many villas with their orna- 
 mental grounds have sprung up ; so much have the 
 adjoining marshes been drained and improved; in- 
 deed, were it not for the great landmarks remaining 
 much the same the impressive and picturesque St. 
 Michael's Mount, the chief ornament of the Mount's 
 Bay, the Lizard Point stretching far out in the east, 
 Mousehold Point and Islet abutting in the contrary 
 direction he would be utterly at a loss to know 
 again the locality. 
 
 These changes no doubt are improvements, and 
 should be matter of satisfaction to those reflecting 
 on them; and yet, I am disposed to think that the 
 former state of things, as less commonplace, as more 
 striking and peculiar, was better fitted to the imagi- 
 native mind, and a better nursery of those qualities 
 of mind which constitute genius ; I would not except 
 
 1 It was in a room in this house, on the ground floor, having an 
 entrance from the street, that my brother made his first experiments in 
 chemistry, and not in an attic, as stated by Dr. Paris ; and it was in this 
 room that he and Mr. Davis Gilbert, his successor in the chair of the 
 Royal Society, often met. On the occasion of laying the foundation 
 stone of the new building, the Market House, one of the aldermen, 
 Richard Pearce, Esq., a schoolfellow of my own, and a fellow-student of 
 chemistry at the Royal Institution, in addressing the meeting, alluding 
 to this room, said, u The spot from which I now address you must ever 
 be memorable. Here it was that the greatest philosopher of the age 
 first devoted himself to that science which has rendered his name 
 immortal ;" adding, " I knew him from my early childhood, I studied 
 under him, and I cannot but feel proud of the honour to which you and 
 the council have called me to assist in laying the foundation stone of 
 such a building on this site." 
 
b EAKLY LIFE AND EDUCATION. 
 
 even the then prevailing 'superstitions, that strong 
 belief in supernatural local agencies which marks 
 an unenlightened people, 1 and which, in the sensitive 
 in infancy and boyhood, is associated with so much 
 that is mysterious and fearful. As in the instance 
 of many other men of genius, this superstitious 
 feeling was strong in my brother, and was fostered 
 probably by his paternal grandmother, to whom 
 ghostly visitations, as she believed, were familiar, and 
 concerning which, in her old age, she could converse 
 with almost as much sangfroid as on the ordinary 
 daily occurrences of life, though with vastly greater 
 interest. Anecdotes are remembered exemplifying 
 his terrors, when a boy, of the kind mentioned, and 
 of a habit then formed, and it may be presumed 
 in connexion with these terrors, of sleep-walking. 
 
 The time, too, was one of a strong religious stirring 
 movement in the country : then John Wesley first 
 visited the far west, and preached with such won- 
 derful effect, making converts innumerable amongst 
 the fishermen and miners, especially the latter, so as 
 in a manner to change the character of the people. 
 
 1 "Within my remembrance," says Polwhele, in 1826, in his 'History 
 of Cornwall,' " there were conjuring parsons and cunning clerks ; every 
 blacksmith was a doctor, every old woman was a witch. In short, all 
 nature seemed to be united its wells, its plants, its birds, its beasts, its 
 reptiles, and even inanimate things, in sympathising with credulity; in 
 predicting or in averting, in relieving or in aggravating misfortune." 
 As late as 1821, I remember conversing with a Cornish astrologer, who 
 cast nativities, and had full faith in stellar action on the destinies of 
 men. His place of abode was indeed far from the busy haunts of men, 
 being near the Lizard Point. 
 
EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION. / 
 
 It may, perhaps, be worth mentioning, that my 
 brother came under the notice of this godly man, 
 and had his blessing. It was after attending a meet- 
 ing held between the regular church services, that, 
 coming out with his mother, the little boy attracted 
 the attention of the venerable old man, and it is 
 handed down in the family, that in his kindly way, 
 he put his hand on the child's head and blessed him, 
 using the words, " God bless you, my dear boy !" 
 
 To revert to the scenery of the Mount's Bay, and the 
 influence it exercised over him, writing a few years 
 after, he says (I transcribe from an early note- 
 book) : 
 
 " There did I first rejoice that I was born 
 Amidst the majesty of azure seas, 
 Surrounded by the everlasting forms 
 Of mighty rocks, on which alike the waves 
 And the harsh fury of the storms of heaven 
 Beat innocent. Eternally allied 
 Pleasure and hope connected with the scene, 
 Infixed its features deeply ; and my mind 
 Growing in strength with livelier zeal 
 Still looked on nature." 
 
 Bearing on his boyhood I have found two docu- 
 ments, which may be deserving of notice: one a 
 memorandum book kept by Mr. Tonkin, the other a 
 portion of a copybook; both bear the date of 1784. 
 The former is not a little characteristic of the indivi- 
 dual and of the times. It is an account of the 
 expenses incurred for my brother, and of what Mr. 
 Tonkin received in the way of presents from Varfel, 
 
O EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION. 
 
 as is intimated in the heading of the memorandum ; 
 the words are " This is not meant or intended as 
 a charge against Mr. Davy, only for my own 
 satisfaction to know what Humphry has from me 
 from time to time, and what I have from them." It 
 extends over a period of rather more than ten years, 
 commencing the 29th of August, 1784, and ending 
 February 10th, 1795. The kind of entries shows the 
 very friendly feeling which existed between the two 
 parties : the majority of them specify moneys paid for 
 articles of dress for my brother by Mr. Tonkin, item 
 by item, in minute detail, and the articles of fruit, 
 vegetables, and provisions for the table sent from one to 
 the other as presents. There is mention in them of my 
 brother's going to a dancing school, which was on 
 the 20th April, 1790; of his going to Truro school, 
 viz., on the 17th January, 1793; and of his leaving 
 it, when his school education ended, on the 12th 
 December of the same year; of the purchase of a 
 box of paints, brushes, &c., for drawing, in April, 
 1792, and of another box of paints with drawing- 
 paper, in March, 1794; and lastly, of sixty guineas 
 given u as consideration money " for apprenticing 
 him to Mr. Borlase (afterwards Dr. Borlase), and 
 this in addition to what Mr. Tonkin had previously 
 paid for the year's schooling at Truro, under the 
 Eev. Dr. Cardew, viz., 27 12*. 9rf. 
 
 The copybook referred to contains texts written 
 in a beautiful hand by Mr. Tonkin himself, as is 
 shown by the initials, " J. T. fecit," at the end. They 
 were intended no doubt as first lessons in writing, 
 
EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION. 9 
 
 and they might well be first, he then being under 
 six years of age, and also as moral and religious 
 lessons. The following are examples : 
 
 " He hath showed thee, O man, what is good and 
 what the Lord requires of thee, but to do justly, to 
 love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God." 
 
 " Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the 
 man that getteth understanding. The gain thereof 
 is better than silver, yea even than fine gold. 
 
 " She is more precious than rubies; and all 
 things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto 
 her: 
 
 " Length of days is in her right hand and in her 
 left riches and honour. 
 
 " Her ways are ways of pleasantness and all her 
 paths are peace." 
 
 Before going to Dr. Cardew's school, which was 
 esteemed as one of the best in the West of England, 
 he had been for at least eight years at the grammar 
 school of his native town, that one of the worst, 
 being under a careless master, the Rev. Mr. 
 Cory ton. The negative manner in which he esti- 
 mated what he owed to these schools is shown in a 
 letter to his mother, written in 1802, and which has 
 already been given in the Memoirs of his Life. 
 
 The following fragment from an early note-book 
 may be considered applicable to himself at this 
 period : " I had scarcely attained my fifth year 
 before letters and words were perfectly at my 
 command. The capricious love of indulgent rela- 
 tions and friends had fortunately for the constitution 
 
10 EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION. 
 
 of my mind, associated pleasure with the early part 
 of my education." 
 
 As a schoolboy, it would appear that he was a 
 favourite with his schoolfellows on account of his 
 good temper and willing readiness to aid them in their 
 tasks; and also for the entertainment he afforded 
 them as a reciter of. stories, in which his inventive 
 and imaginative faculties, it is remembered, were 
 early exercised ; and of which proofs remain in some 
 sketches of romance which he had planned and 
 begun. His last master, the Rev. Dr. Cardew, records 
 his recollection of him, as being chiefly distinguished 
 for amiability, the good terms he was on with his 
 schoolfellows, and for the superiority of his exercises 
 in translating Latin into English verse : one of his 
 schoolfellows remembered the assistance he and 
 others had from him in the composition of Latin verse. 
 
 His self-education, the most important part of the 
 education of every original mind, may be considered 
 as commencing, not so much on his leaving school, 
 as in the year following, the year of his apprentice- 
 ship. The death of his father about this time, as 
 well as the entering on a profession, may have had 
 an effect in turning his mind from the idle amuse- 
 ments of youth and in calling out firmness of resolve 
 to apply himself diligently to a course of study. 
 An anecdote, well authenticated, testifies to his 
 firmness of purpose and strength of will and of that 
 mastery, of which he gave other proofs afterwards, 
 of mind over bodily suffering. Bitten by a dog 
 supposed to have been mad, he did not hesitate at 
 
EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION. 11 
 
 the instant to cut out the bitten part and rub it 
 with caustic. 1 The late Mr. Southey, in relating 
 the incident, said he "was assured by Davy that 
 he had premonitory symptoms of hydrophobia six 
 months after the occurrence." 2 
 
 In my Memoir of his Life I have described with 
 some minuteness the course of his early studies. 
 The following, from a note-book bearing the date of 
 the same year as his apprenticeship, will give some 
 idea of what he proposed to himself and of what he 
 in part attempted. The copy, I may remark, is 
 literal. 
 
 1 Dr. Paris, amongst his facetiae, states, though not consistently with 
 the above, that "he roared out most lustily upon being bitten by a 
 conger eel." A writer in the " Quarterly Review," for January, 1858, 
 tells a like story with a variation, that bitten by a crab when bathing, 
 he roared "loud enough to be heard a mile off," a story this, pro- 
 bably founded on an anecdote in Cottle's amusing "Reminiscences 
 of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey," published in 1 847 ; it 
 occurs in page 274. The incident, I may remark, is introduced by one 
 author in refutation of my brother's asserted " disbelief of the existence 
 of pain, whenever the energies of the mind were directed to counteract 
 it;" by the other against "the opinion that pain was anevil;" both 
 propositions in the history of philosophy of old date ; and in a certain 
 sense unquestionably true, the mind having to some extent a controlling 
 power, and pain in its intent (as is well shown in the Essay criticised in the 
 Quarterly " on the beneficent distribution of the sense of pain") being 
 designed for a useful and preservative purpose. 
 
 2 Mr. Southey added, that the only case of hydrophobia cured he had 
 ever heard of, occurred whilst he was at Lisbon : A woman, mad from 
 the bite of a mad dog, was shut up in a room in which there was a 
 quantity of garlic deposited for the use of the family ; she ate largely of 
 it and recovered. He said, " unfortunately he had no medical authority 
 for the fact, but he believed, as in the case of hooping cough, that garlic 
 is an excellent antispasmodic." 
 
12 EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION. 
 
 1. Theology or Religion i Taught by Nature 
 
 Ot.' O O / 
 
 Ethics or Moral Virtues J by Revelation. 
 
 2. Geography. 
 
 3. My Profession 
 
 1. Botany. 2. Pharmacy. 3. Nosology. 4. Anatomy. 
 5. Surgery. 6. Chemistry. 
 
 4. Logic. 
 
 5. Language, &c. 
 
 I have said he "lisped in numbers;" the poetical 
 temperament eminently belonged to him ; the 
 " nascitur poeta" justly applied to him. Some of 
 his earliest efforts in composition were poetical, and 
 written about this time ; and then, as during an after 
 period, seemed no wise to interfere with his severe 
 studies. In a manuscript book, which I have 
 recently become possessed of, a scheme is given of a 
 volume of poems which he then aspiringly contem- 
 plated and even began. Of those he had then 
 composed, a few were published in the first volume 
 of the Annual Anthology, edited by Southey. The 
 scheme he proposed is the following, and it is of the 
 same date as that of the plan of his graver studies. 
 Again, I transcribe verbatim. 
 
 Prospectus of a Volume of Poems. 
 
 1st. Eight Odes 1. To the Memory. 2. Sons of Genius. 
 3. To St. Michael's Mount. 4. Song of Pleasure. 
 5. Song of Virtue. 6. To Genius. 7 and 8. Anoma- 
 lous yet. 
 
 2nd. Cornish Scenes 1. St. Michael's Mount. 2. Land's 
 End. 3. Calm. 4. Storm. 
 
 3rd. A Tale " The Irish Lady." 
 
EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION. 13 
 
 Underneath this programme is written, and in a 
 hand somewhat more flowing 
 
 " These were the visions of my youth 
 Which fled before the voice of truth." 
 
 Those readers who may be anxious to see speci- 
 mens of such early efforts, will find the following in 
 the volume referred to : " The Sons of Genius," 
 "The Song of Pleasure," "Ode to St. Michael's 
 Mount," "The Tempest," "Extract from an Un- 
 finished Poem on Mount's Bay." All of them bear- 
 ing any date have that of 1795 and of 1796; the 
 volume of the Anthology in which they appeared 
 was published in 1799. In the MS. book, besides 
 the foregoing there are many more copies of verses, 
 the majority of them incomplete, such as " The 
 Death of Merlin," " To the Moon," &c. 
 
 At this time, too, he exercised himself also in 
 prose composition, in those speculations, metaphysi- 
 cal and theological, so attractive to the youthful 
 mind of vigour, and to which in later years he re- 
 verted, when, being excluded from the laboratory 
 by infirm health, he turned to literature, and com- 
 posed his "Salmonia," and "Consolations in Travel." 
 Specimens of these his early mental exercises are 
 given in the Memoirs. 
 
 To resume the personal narrative. He showed 
 an early taste for field and river sports, for angling 
 and shooting, which at this time, as afterwards, he 
 made a recreation, and enjoyed the more from the 
 pleasure he had in the scenery which these sports 
 
14 EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION. 
 
 made him familiar with, cherishing that intense love 
 of Nature which is so vividly displayed in his latest 
 writings, those just named. The following rhapsody, 
 which I find amongst his "commonplaces" of un- 
 certain date, is a strong expression of this feeling : 
 
 u Oh, most magnificent and noble Nature ! 
 Have I not worshipped thee with such a love 
 As never mortal man before displayed 2 
 Adored thee in thy majesty of visible creation, 
 And searched into thy hidden and mysterious ways 
 As Poet, as Philosopher, as Sage ?" 
 
 Mention has been made of materials for drawing 
 which were procured for him when a boy. These 
 he used with diligence, and was thought by indulgent 
 judges to have acquired some skill in the art. This 
 favourable opinion is indicated by many of his water- 
 coloured sketches having been framed and preserved. 1 
 His power of sketching, such as it was, which he 
 now acquired, was of service to him afterwards in 
 his geological excursions. His journals of these 
 excursions contain numerous proofs of it in the re- 
 presentations given of any remarkable feature in the 
 rock-formation which he was examining. There is 
 now belonging to the Royal Institution, and to the 
 Royal Dublin Society (the latter copies of the former), 
 a series of paintings from sketches of his by a very 
 competent artist, the late Mr. Webster, designed to 
 
 1 Some of them are in possession of Eichard Pearce, Esq., of Pen- 
 zance, purchased by him at the auction of the effects of a deceased 
 relation. 
 
EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION. 15 
 
 show the peculiar forms of rocks of different classes, 
 and which were employed to illustrate these forms in 
 his geological lectures. And his after and latest jour- 
 nals of travel afford proof of the same kind, in the 
 figures drawn with pen or pencil of any forms, 
 especially of fish, which were new and interesting 
 to him. 
 
 Chemistry, which he marked as a branch of his 
 professional studies, had not, it would seem, amongst 
 these studies his earliest attention. It has been con- 
 jectured, but not on good grounds, that the art just 
 alluded to, painting, was his first incitement to the 
 study. According to a statement of his own which 
 I find in one of his early note-books, he " began the 
 pursuit of chemistry by speculations and theories ;" 
 adding, " more mature reflection convinced me of my 
 errors, of the limitations of our powers, and the 
 dangers of false generalisations." There are circum- 
 stances which lead to the conclusion that he did not 
 give his attention to it, or at least enter on the pur- 
 suit experimentally, till 1798, and then so ardently 
 did he engage in it, that in the marvellously short 
 space of four months he had formed peculiar views 
 of his own respecting heat and light, in opposition to 
 those then commonly received, and was in correspon- 
 dence with Dr. Beddoes on the subject, who shortly 
 confessed himself a convert to them. 
 
 One circumstance was specially favourable, and it 
 probably, more than anything else extraneous, con- 
 duced to this rapid advance, viz. an intimacy at this 
 time formed with Mr. Gregory Watt, the talented 
 
16 EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION. 
 
 eldest son of the illustrious James Watt. An invalid, 
 he came to Penzance for the benefit of its mild cli- 
 mate in the winter of 1797, and remained there 
 during the following spring. Having just then com- 
 pleted his college education, well instructed in the 
 sciences, and especially fond of chemistry and geology, 
 his conversation, and the discussions resulting, must 
 have been peculiarly informing and exciting. Now, 
 a friendship was formed between them which was 
 interrupted only by death. In a note-book bearing 
 the date of 1805, the year following that in which he 
 was so prematurely lost to science, my brother thus 
 alludes to him : " He devoted even his last days to 
 promote the interests of science, 1 and he gave birth 
 to that knowledge which he had collected, and which 
 he thought would be useful. His mind seemed to 
 become more active and more energetic in proportion 
 as his bodily strength decayed I shall be par- 
 doned for having said so much concerning a man 
 whose name perhaps has never before reached the 
 greater number of my audience. I trust I shall be 
 pardoned, for he was one of the earliest of my 
 friends. " This was evidently written in preparation 
 of a lecture. Further on, portions of their corre- 
 
 1 The only paper that I am aware of published by him, and by which 
 he will be known in after times as a cultivator of science and an original 
 inquirer, is his " Observations on Basalt, and on the transition from the 
 vitreous to the stony texture which occurs in the gradual refrigeration 
 of melted Basalt, with some geological remarks." This paper is to be 
 found in the Transactions of the Royal Society for 1804, and is worth 
 consulting, as forming part of the basis of the most approved geological 
 theory of the present time. 
 
EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION. 1 7 
 
 spondence will be given. Another circumstance 
 which favoured such a rapid progress was the then 
 infant state of chemical science, rendering the ele- 
 ments of it of easy attainment, especially as made 
 plain in the masterly logical theory of Lavoisier. 
 
 Amongst his early researches conducted at Pen- 
 zance were those on the respiration of fishes, and of 
 zoophytes, establishing the fact the first to estab- 
 lish it that oxygen is essential to the existence of 
 these classes of animals, that they breathe the air 
 contained in the water, and, like the higher classes 
 of land animals, convert the oxygen, by the addition 
 of carbon, into carbonic acid gas. 
 
 The correspondence alluded to commenced with 
 Dr. Beddoes was an eventful one; it terminated in 
 an offer from him, the acceptance of which opened a 
 new course of life to my brother, and brought him 
 from his native place to Clifton, to become superin- 
 tendent of a pneumatic institution then about to be 
 established, the main intent of which was to make 
 trial of different gases for the purpose of ascertain- 
 ing their medicinal effects in various diseases. San- 
 guine indeed were the expectations which were at 
 the time entertained of the results; and may we not 
 say that they were in part justified? and certainly 
 they were not chimerical, considering the recent dis- 
 covery of vapours, anaesthetic agents, under the in- 
 fluence of which the body is rendered insensible of 
 pain, and the severest surgical operations are de- 
 prived of their terrors. His researches on nitrous 
 oxide conducted in this institution may be viewed as 
 
 c 
 
18 EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION. 
 
 foreshadowing those later ones. In proof it may be 
 mentioned, as if he were on the very threshold of 
 this blessed discovery, that in his concluding remarks 
 contained in the volume of his Researches on Nitrous 
 Oxide, the laughter inspiring gas, he asks: "Does 
 not sensibility more immediately depend on respira- 
 tion?" A pregnant and profound query; and it is 
 shortly followed by this suggestion: "As nitrous 
 oxide in its extensive operation appears capable of 
 destroying physical pain, it may probably be used 
 with advantage during surgical operations in which 
 no great effusion of blood takes place." 1 
 
 To enable him to accept the offered appointment 
 to this new institution, 2 he required to be freed from 
 the engagements to which he was bound by his 
 indentures, the period of his apprenticeship not hav- 
 ing expired. Mr. Borlase acted on the occasion very 
 generously, liberating him entirely " on account of 
 
 1 Researches on Nitrous Oxide, p. 329. 
 
 2 The Pneumatic Institution, it is worthy of remark, next to Dr. 
 Beddoes, its originator, owed its establishment mainly to two philanthro- 
 pists, Mr. Lambton, the father of the late Earl of Durham, and Mr. 
 Thomas Wedgwood, they in their love of science and of inquiry, and the 
 hope of benefiting mankind, supplying the principal funds, the former 
 1,500, the latter 1,000. Well might the son, the earl whose educa- 
 tion commenced about the same time under Dr. Beddoes, and who then 
 formed the acquaintance of my brother, feel gratification when in his 
 ripe manhood he addressed in glowing terms the discoverer of the safety 
 lamp, on the occasion of presenting him the testimonial from the coal 
 owners of the north of England, of which he was one of the principal. 
 It might have then occurred to him, reflecting on the past, here, in this 
 gift of science to the miner, is a return with interest for my father's 
 contribution. 
 
EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION. 19 
 
 his excellent conduct; and because," he writes, "be- 
 ing a youth of great promise, I would not obstruct 
 his pursuits, which are likely to promote his fortune 
 and fame." This is from the back of the indenture, 
 signed by Mr. Borlase on the 1st October, 1798; and 
 on the following day, before he was twenty years of 
 age, he left his home to enter upon his public career. 
 
 c 2 
 
CHAPTEK II. 
 
 CLIFTON HIS EARLY RESEARCHES AND 
 CORRESPONDENCE . 
 
 AT Clifton, at the Pneumatic Institution, he re- 
 mained scarcely two years and a half, having left it 
 for London, to become Professor of Chemistry, at 
 the invitation of Count Rumford, in the Royal Insti- 
 tution of Great Britain the high name in full by 
 which the Institution in its modest abode in Albe- 
 marle Street was designated. 
 
 During this short period he was intensely engaged 
 in varied and interesting research. Here he com- 
 pleted, and gave to the world his first essays, those 
 on Heat and Light; not the least characteristic of 
 his writings and most characteristic of youthful 
 genius : l here, he prepared a more important work, 
 giving a detailed account of his researches on nitrous 
 oxide, which at once established his character as an 
 
 1 Amongst the anticipations in these Essays, one deserves to be 
 specially mentioned; and I cannot do better than use the words of the 
 distinguished physiologist, when reverting to it : " Le fait de la co- 
 existence de 1'oxygene et de 1'acide carbonique en dissolution dans le 
 sang, constate en 1799 par Humphry Davy, mais oublie ou revoque en 
 doute par le plupart des physiologistes du commencement du siecle, se 
 trouva done pleinement verifie." Lecons sur la Physiologic, #c., par 
 H. Milne Edwards, vol i., p* 444. 
 
CLIFTON. 21 
 
 original inquirer : and here, he commenced those 
 experiments on voltaic electricity, which, afterwards 
 diligently prosecuted, resulted in some of his most 
 important discoveries. 
 
 His appearance at this time and his manner are 
 described by one l to whom he was introduced shortly 
 after his arrival at Bristol, and who cherished ever 
 after a warm regard for him ; I quote his words. " I 
 was much struck," says Mr. Cottle, "with the in- 
 tellectual character of his face. His eye was piercing, 
 and when not engaged in converse, was remarkably 
 introverted, amounting to absence, as though his 
 mind had been pursuing some severe train of thought 
 scarcely to be interrupted by external objects ; and, 
 from the first interview also, his ingenuousness im- 
 pressed me as much as his mental superiority." 5 
 
 Never perhaps was a life more happy than that 
 which he here led, under Dr. Beddoes' roof, kindly 
 received into his domestic circle, with a well-appointed 
 laboratory at command, and in the enjoyment of a 
 society of no ordinary kind. It was here he formed 
 the acquaintance, soon ripening into friendship, of 
 Southey and Coleridge; and in familiar intercourse 
 with them and other congenial minds, whilst his 
 energies were chiefly directed to chemistry, he did 
 not neglect general literature nor even poetry entirely. 
 
 1 Mr. Joseph Cottle, the well-known publisher in the early part of 
 the century at Bristol, author of " Alfred," and other poems, the friend 
 of Southey and Coleridge, of both of whom he has left a record in his 
 amusing and instructive " Reminiscences " of these distinguished men. 
 He died at Firfield, near Bristol, in 1852. 
 
 2 Cottle's " Reminiscences of S. T. Coleridge ad R. Southey," p. 263. 
 
22 CLIFTON. 
 
 His letters from hence and those to him from his 
 early friends, Mr. Gregory Watt, and the two 
 eminent men just mentioned, with extracts from his 
 commonplace book, best display what I have thus 
 briefly adverted to. Little comment is needed in 
 introducing them. Of his letters to his home I shall 
 give only one; others displaying his affection for 
 home will be found in the Memoirs of his Life. Of 
 the letters from Mr. Gregory Watt, a few may 
 suffice ; those kept back are of a more commonplace 
 kind. The letter from the illustrious improver of 
 the steam engine, which shall introduce those of his 
 son, cannot but prove interesting from the subject 
 of which it treats (an air-breathing apparatus on a 
 large scale), with queries and suggestions on the use 
 of what, in the language of the day, he calls fac- 
 titious airs, and especially interesting now that 
 attention is again directed to the action of gases 
 and vapours on the animal frame. I regret to have 
 to say that all the efforts I have made to recover my 
 brother's letters to Southey have been fruitless ; and 
 the same remark applies to his letters to Coleridge, 
 with the exception of two, for which I stand indebted 
 to the late Mr. Wordsworth. 
 
 To his Mother. 
 
 Pneumatic Institution, September 1, 1799. 
 
 My dear Mother I take an opportunity of writing by 
 Captain Borlase, who is with me to-day and whom I like 
 much : he appears a sensible, unaffected man. 
 
EARLY RESEARCHES AND CORRESPONDENCE. 23 
 
 I wrote to my aunt Millett a week ago. You accuse me 
 of not writing often enough : I can say the same of you. You 
 have leisure ; I have much to do. Most of you have only 
 one correspondent ; I have forty. You have but one person 
 here to interest you ; there are twenty in the Mount's Bay 
 that I wish to hear of. 
 
 We are going on gloriously. Our palsied patients are 
 getting better ; and, to be a little conceited, I am making 
 discoveries every day. 
 
 Tell Kitty l to write to me ; and if her letter is a good one, 
 well written and well spelt, I will write her a long letter in 
 return. Locks of hair are silly things, but I have sent one. 
 I hope John's hand and head will improve together. Endea- 
 vour to make him fond of reading and drawing, or of any 
 amusement that will give habits of attention. He must be 
 praised for his imperfect performances, and he will improve. 
 The germ of future abilities must be produced by giving him 
 a desire to distinguish himself for something, no matter 
 what. 
 
 Kitty should read and write more than work. Give her 
 history, give her tales, give her anything but commonplace 
 novels, so you can but make her fond of reading. Tf I am not 
 mistaken, all the children have good abilities. 
 
 Elegant education is of little importance. The cleverest 
 women that I know can neither dance, sing or play on the 
 harpsicord. After Betsy 2 has learnt French and English 
 perfectly, I should not trouble myself by keeping her with 
 Miss E. C. Imitation has a great influence, and I would not 
 wish any sister of mine to be like that lady in everything. 
 
 I have sent you with this some copies of a poem on the 
 place of .my nativity ; but do not suppose that 1 am turned 
 poet : philosophy, chemistry, and medicine are my profession. 
 I had often praised Mount's Bay to my friends here : they 
 
 1 His eldest sister. ' His youngest sister. 
 
24 EARLY RESEARCHES AND CORRESPONDENCE.. 
 
 desired me to describe it poetically hence this poem, which, 
 as they admired, I published. 
 
 You will communicate as much of this letter to the Doctor l 
 and my aunts as may interest them ; and believe me to be, 
 with love, esteem, and affection for those who demand it of 
 me, my dear mother, 
 
 Your most affectionate son, 
 
 HUMPHRY DAVY. 
 
 From James Watt, Esq. 
 
 Heathfield, Birmingham, Nov. 13, 1799. 
 
 Dear Sir When I was at Clifton, we had some talk about 
 a breathing chamber, but I was then too idle to collect my 
 thoughts on the subject. My proposition for oxygen and other 
 more precious airs, is to make a chamber like a sedan chair, 
 about two and a half by three feet square, and five feet high, 
 the sides and top to be of framework with canvass stretched 
 upon it, and covered with paper, pasted on by an upholsterer, 
 both outside and inside. When that is done, the outside may be 
 painted, if judged necessary ; but I believe it will not be found so. 
 The seat should be boxed up down to its floor to prevent 
 lodgments of air under it. On each side and in front should 
 be a pane of glass about twelve by eighteen inches, that you 
 may see the patient during his confinement. The door 
 should be in front, and made to shut close, with a double 
 rabbit, edged with woollen cloth to make it shut tight. 
 
 In the top or near it, should be a hole about two inches 
 diameter to shut with a plug, for letting out the common air 
 as you put in the factitious. The latter should be put in at a 
 hole in the side about the height of the knee ; and the patient 
 should be furnished with a feather fan to mix the airs well 
 together from time to time, with which he should sweep all 
 the corners within his reach. 
 
 1 Mr. John Tonkin. 
 
EARLY RESEARCHES AND CORRESPONDENCE. 25 
 
 When H.C. 1 is to be administered, I think you need not 
 be so nice as if you employ an air holder; in any closet 
 tolerably tight, and not more than eight or nine feet cube, 
 and mix the air well, he will get enough of it, if he stays 
 there half an hour ; the attendant may go into the room and 
 assist in mixing the air, and then make his escape. A few 
 ounces of the pyro-succate will infect a whole laboratory. 
 
 To breathe the gaseous oxide easily, make a tin mouth- 
 piece, like that of a speaking trumpet, with a short tube about 
 an inch in diameter to which the bag is tied ; let this tube be 
 narrowest at the inner end, and fit it to the big end of one 
 of the wooden faucets which fit the air holder, thus 
 
 When you have introduced the air, press with your hand a 
 part of the bag over the internal opening of the trumpet 
 mouth-piece and withdraw the faucet apply the mouth-piece 
 instantly to the fellow^s chops, and free the passage into the 
 bag. The man will then breathe out and in quite naturally, 
 and without strain to his lungs ; so that the bag will in fact 
 become a breathing chamber. As this air does not hurt the 
 lungs, might not a mixture of it and H.C. or fixed air be 
 given to pulmonic patients ? 
 
 As gaseous oxide hurts hysterical and nervous patients, 
 might not that old established air for such complaints be of 
 use ? I mean the air of burnt feathers : put feathers into a fire- 
 tube with a small external opening, and by putting the tube 
 into the fire, poison the air of a room with the fumes. I 
 object to burning the feathers with access of air, which 
 destroys much of its potency. Query, this air or that of 
 
 1 Hydro-carbon. 
 
26 EARLY RESEARCHES AND CORRESPONDENCE, 
 
 wool in pulmonics? The latter discharges an uncommon 
 quantity of volatile alkali. 
 
 I wrote lately a circumstantial account to Dr. Beddoes of 
 the effects of a pint of H.C. breathed out and in of a bag, to 
 which I refer. I think it speaks much in favour of breathing 
 chambers, but take care your mixtures be not too strong. 
 
 I send also a process for making the nitrate, which I hope 
 you will try. You may get easily large quantities of am- 
 monia from woollen -rags in the old manganese pots, and 
 receive the air in water mixed with vitriolic acid. I remain, 
 
 with esteem, Dear Sir, 
 
 Your faithful servant, 
 
 JAMES WATT. 
 
 The next letters, those from his friend, Mr. 
 Gregory Watt, are chiefly interesting, as the familiar 
 outpourings of one congenial mind to another, and 
 as affording proof of the esteem, of the affection of 
 one to the other. 
 
 From Gregory Watt, Esq. 
 
 London, January 28, 1799. 
 
 Dear H. The newspapers have perhaps before this time 
 informed you of the auspicious issue of our legal conflict. 1 
 The brilliancy of our success is undiminished by any unfavour- 
 able circumstance, and we are again triumphant over our 
 opponent. To use the language of the day, I hope our suc- 
 cess may be followed by a speedy and durable peace. 
 
 I have been for some time most eagerly expecting the essay 
 you promised to gratify me with, which would have been 
 immediately forwarded from Soho to me here. Do not delay 
 
 1 Relative to a patent right connected with the steam- engine, which 
 had been invaded. 
 
EARLY RESEARCHES AND CORRESPONDENCE. 27 
 
 sending it a moment after you receive it from the printer. I 
 have done what I could to diffuse anticipated fame, not by 
 communicating prematurely, but by deserved encomiums, and 
 have excited no small anxiety among several of the cognoscenti 
 of my acquaintance. I shall have it in my power to add 
 several specimens to the few things you have looked out when 
 at Heathfield, which I will despatch immediately on my return 
 to Soho, which I expect will be very soon. I hope to find the 
 cargo of Strontites you promised me, as I mean to set vigor- 
 ously arranging the new materials I have procured for my 
 little cabinet. 
 
 I have no scientific news to communicate : you have as 
 early access as myself to foreign journals, and very little is 
 doing at home. Oblige me so much as to send me a few lines, 
 telling me what new speculation you are engaged in, and when 
 I may expect your works. 
 
 Present my best respects, and those of my father and 
 brother, to Dr. and Mrs. Beddoes, and believe me, dear H., 
 
 Very sincerely yours, 
 
 G. WATT. 
 
 From the Same. 
 
 Soho, March 24. 
 
 My dear Alchemist Almost every day since my return 
 home, have I indulged the hope of hearing from you, and I 
 believe it is superfluous to add, that I have been always dis- 
 appointed. What in the name of the muses has so completely 
 absorbed you, that not one half hour could be spared for your 
 eagerly expectant correspondent ? Independently of the many 
 interesting results of experiments still under consideration, 
 with which I expected to have been gratified, I made no doubt 
 that I should have derived no small information from the new 
 
28 EARLY RESEARCHES AND CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 facts with which no doubt your inventive genius has enriched 
 the world. 
 
 In perusing the Anthology, I with pleasure renewed my 
 acquaintance with some of the poems you so obligingly grati- 
 fied me with when at Penzance, and was much pleased with 
 the ode to St. Michael's Mount, which you recollect endea- 
 vouring to recite on that memorable day when I had the 
 honour of being your mystagogue in your initiation into the 
 orgies of the mirth-inspiring Bacchus. I presume the new 
 volume of the " Annual Anthology" is published, and hope it 
 is adorned by some of your contributions. In common with 
 all friends of gaiety and good humour, I rejoice in the recovery 
 of Mrs. Beddoes, an event which was, when I was last at 
 Clifton, rather to be hoped than expected. Present my con- 
 gratulations to her and the Doctor. I hope the fine weather, 
 which has auspiciously commenced here, will induce you to 
 visit this neighbourhood soon. Poor Thomas Wedgwood, I 
 understand from his brother, has sailed for Nevis. God send 
 him a prosperous voyage and a speedy return, with such 
 health as may enable him to display those abilities and virtues 
 with which he is so largely endowed. 1 After dissipating a few 
 days in the idleness of Bath, myself and companions returned 
 home, and here have I continued ever since. For more than 
 a week I have been confined to the house by an enormous 
 tumour on my face. I hope soon to be emancipated, as it is 
 now diminishing rapidly. Have mercy, therefore on the sick 
 
 1 Further on, some particulars will be given of this remarkable and 
 excellent man. As a man of science and an original inquirer, his name 
 will be handed down to posterity by his ingenious experiments on the 
 production of heat and light, published in the Philosophical Transactions 
 for 1792, and as being the first who attempted photography, that won- 
 derful art, hardly second to any in its useful multifarious applications. An 
 account of his early trials will be found in the Journal of the Royal 
 Institution, published in 1802, with an extension and modification of his 
 process by my brother. 
 
EARLY RESEARCHES AND CORRESPONDENCE. 29 
 
 and low in spirit, and favour me with a letter which, coming 
 from your hand, will contain all the soul-awakening effects of 
 the gas nitrous oxide. The conversion of Robinson, Boulton, 
 and myself, has operated to the conviction of some unbe- 
 lievers here, and damped the audacity of others. We have 
 been most zealous apostles, and have met with more credit, as 
 we were materially affected ourselves. Flattering myself that 
 I shall soon receive an ample, and sans doute an interesting 
 communication from you, 
 
 I remain your very faithful friend, 
 
 GREGORY WATT. 
 
 From the Same. 
 
 Soho, February 7, 1801. 
 
 My dear Philosopher Perhaps* I ought to reproach my 
 own negligence for having suffered so long a period to elapse 
 without soliciting a letter from you. If I alone am to blame, 
 I have been sufficiently punished by being deprived of your 
 correspondence for so considerable a time. I now bend in 
 contrition, and humbly request you will accept as a peace- 
 offering a copy of Burns'* life and performances, which I for- 
 warded to your address by yesterday 's Bristol mail, and which 
 I hope has before this found its way to the seat of science, and 
 smoothed your brow by the pleasing magic of its contents. 
 Truly, I know of no incantation more beguiling than that of 
 genuine poetry. Its attacks are exquisitely insidious. The 
 unwary victim opens the potent volume ; he reads, and per- 
 haps with listless inanity, but as he reads the spell commences 
 its imperceptible operation ; as he advances, the charmed num- 
 bers acquire more force ; the magical fetters embrace him 
 more closely, and he unconsciously exists in a circle of en- 
 chantment his senses are gradually bewildered in a delightful 
 maze ; unable to retreat, he eagerly advances deeper and deeper, 
 
30 EARLY RESEARCHES AND CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 till he is only delivered from his fascinating entanglement by 
 the end of the performance, and he is left with indistinct 
 recollections of pleasure, and the uncomfortable conviction of 
 the termination of his delight. Don't you agree with me in 
 thinking that all such sporters with the feelings of the world 
 should be capitally punished, their works burnt by the hang- 
 man, and their aiders and abettors whipped ? You, my dear 
 philosopher, have wisely relinquished the stormy Parnassus, 
 where transient sunshine only contrasts the cloudy sky, for the 
 mild and unvarying temperature of the central grotto of 
 science. In those calm and undisturbed retreats, guided by 
 light of your own creation, a light always abundant, and often 
 of transcendent splendour, you pass your happy hours. Con- 
 descend to impart to me a single ray, that my eyes may trace 
 you from a distance through your wanderings in those untrod 
 and obscure regions, of which but a single portion is illumined 
 by the blaze Newton kindled on the altar of science. Adieu, 
 my dear philosopher, and soon irradiate thy sincere admirer, 
 
 IL TENEBROSO. 
 
 Oh, that I could hear of the reformation of that profligate 
 Clayfield ! 
 
 A break occurs in their correspondence, partly 
 owing to Mr. Gregory Watt having been on the 
 continent, chiefly in Italy, on account of his health ; 
 the last letter received from him which is preserved, 
 was written at least three years after the preceding, and 
 shortly before his death. It is inserted here for the 
 sake of arrangement. In the Memoirs of my brother's 
 life, an extract is given from a letter addressed by 
 him to their common friend, Mr. Clayfield, on the 
 
EARLY RESEARCHES AND CORRESPONDENCE. 31 
 
 occasion of that mournful and unexpected event. It 
 is chiefly remarkable, not for the expressions respect- 
 ing the uncertainty of life, but for reflections of a 
 less common-place kind, tending to show how, from 
 a philosophical point of view, and on the ground of 
 natural religion, the proposition of the " non omnis 
 moriar" may be sustained. 
 
 From the Same. 
 
 Soho, March 21, 1804. 
 
 Dear Davy It is long since I have written to you, or re- 
 ceived a letter from you, but the voice of public admiration 
 acquaints me with your increasing celebrity, and the visits of 
 my friends to town procure many opportunities of hearing of 
 your welfare. I cannot assume much merit in addressing you 
 now, as I have a purpose to answer. I am informed that the 
 Linnwan Smith 1 reads lectures on Botany at the Institution. 
 When I was at Naples, Dr. Thomson there gave me a speci- 
 men which he desired me to transmit to Dr. Smith. The case 
 which contained it and other minerals was long in coming 
 home, and since it arrived I understood that Dr. Smith 
 resided at Norwich, and only came to town in spring. I there- 
 fore kept it by me till I could have a safe opportunity of send- 
 ing it to him. After all this preamble I scarcely need tell 
 you, that I beg you will take the trouble of sending or giving 
 it to Dr. Smith. It is in the parcel accompanying this letter. 
 
 1 have lately had a large experiment made on the regulated 
 cooling of seven hundred weight of Rawley ragg (a basalt you 
 know). The results have been very curious. I shall send an 
 ample series of specimens to Mr. Greville, where you may see 
 them, accompanied by some observations. 2 In. another experi- 
 
 , l The late Sir James Edward Smith, the first president of the Lin- 
 naean Society. He died in 1823. 
 
 2 See note, p. 16. 
 
32 EARLY RESEARCHES AND CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 ment I made on Carrara marble confined in an iron tube, per- 
 fectly closed at one end by a screw, the tube, which was im- 
 mensely strong, was burst by the expansion of gas. The gas 
 emitted was hydrogen, and burnt furiously, but the marble 
 was partly quick, and all the outsides of the lumps coated with 
 charcoal, as if they had been painted with lamp black. Surely 
 this must have proceeded from a decomposition of the fixed 
 air ; the oxygen took hold of the iron of the tube, but whence 
 came the hydrogen ? Precautions were taken to expel moisture 
 previously to closing the tube. Let me have your opinion on 
 this subject. I have little news, except that I have found the 
 red tourmaline of Siberia, tourmaline apyre of Haliy in a 
 micaceous shistus from Aberdeenshire, and the staurotide of 
 Haiiy, granatite or granatine of Saussure, in a syenite from 
 near Strontian. This adds two rare articles to the list of 
 British minerals. 
 
 Tell me what you are about, and what are your schemes. 
 Write to me as soon as you can, and believe me very truly 
 yours, 
 
 GREGORY WATT. 
 
 Pray are you the ingenuous young man to whom Lord 
 Camelford l has left a legacy ? I hope you are. 
 
 The letters of the late Mr. Southey which follow, 
 show how intimate and confiding was their friendship 
 at this period, and also the high estimation in which 
 he held my brother's powers, even as a poet. That 
 this early friendship was not afterwards cultivated is 
 proved, not only by a cessation of correspondence, 
 but also from a statement which appears in one of 
 those " selected letters" of the poet laureat recently 
 
 1 The last of the title, the eccentric lord who was shot in a duel. No 
 legacy was left by him to my brother. 
 
EARLY RESEARCHES AND CORRESPONDENCE. 33 
 
 published by his son-in-law. It is written in a tone- 
 to speak of it mildly not of kindness, which I would 
 fain think arose from some morbid feeling connected 
 with failing health and declining mental powers ; for 
 sure I am, that though they were separated by dis- 
 tance, and even more so by difference of pursuits, 
 my brother never lost his regard for Southey: if 
 there were neglect, I am disposed to believe it was 
 on the poet's part. Even late in life, there is evidence 
 that Southey in his better mood of feeling retained 
 some of his old regard. In a foot-note, to be found 
 in the first volume of the Memoirs of my brother's 
 Life, I have given a part of a conversation between 
 Southey and a lady, a valued friend of mine, respecting 
 my brother, held shortly after his decease, and commu- 
 nicated to me by letter almost immediately after the 
 interview at Keswick. I shall repeat her words : 
 " His eyes filled with tears, when he said, ' Davy was 
 a most extraordinary man; he would have excelled 
 in any department of art or science to which he might 
 have directed the powers of his mind.' ' My friend 
 said, "Might he have been a poet?" "Yes," was 
 his reply, "he had all the elements of a poet; he 
 only wanted the art. I have read beautiful verses 
 of his ;" adding, " when I went to Portugal I left it 
 to Davy to revise and publish my poem of Thalaba." 
 I dwell on this conversation the more, hoping that as 
 in one case, that of rny brother, the chord of friend- 
 ship was relaxed, so it might have been in the other 
 (in Southey 's), and not broken. There is pain accom- 
 panying the thought of old acquaintance being forgot, 
 
 D 
 
34 EARLY RESEARCHES AND CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 and much more in the idea of an old friendship 
 breaking, and such a friendship as the letters which 
 follow denote. That this is a just explanation, I 
 think is confirmed by the following letter, addressed 
 to a dear and honoured friend, related to me by 
 marriage, the late Mrs. Fletcher : 
 
 Keswick March, 30th, 1831. 
 
 Dear Madam No one lived in habits of greater intimacy 
 with Davy during the greater part of his residence at Bristol 
 than I did, but very few letters ever passed between us. If I 
 can find any among an accumulation of old correspondence, 
 which it requires some courage to examine (time having ren- 
 dered it a mournful task), they shall be of course, as they 
 ought to be, at his brother's disposal. My recollections of 
 these times are very vivid, and well may they be, for they 
 were some of the best years of his life and of mine also. 
 They do not afford much for relation, but with the help of 
 some comments upon Dr. Paris's book, which I shall look 
 over for that purpose, they may afford matter for a letter 1 to 
 Dr. Davy, and I can point out his brother's poems in the two 
 volumes of the " Annual Anthology," 1799 and 1800. 
 
 Had I known you were at Tadcaster, I should have had 
 much pleasure in calling on you when 1 passed through that 
 place at the end of October last. You would have seen a 
 grey-headed man, but one with whom time has dealt gently. 
 Believe me, dear Madam, with sincere respect, 
 
 EGBERT SOUTHEY. 
 
 From Robert Southey, Esq. 
 
 Thursday, May 4th, 1799. 
 
 Your " Mount's Bay," my dear Davy, disappointed me in 
 1 A letter I fear never written ; certainly never received. 
 
EARLY RESEARCHES AJND CORRESPONDENCE. 35 
 
 its length. I expected more, and wished more, because what 
 there is is good ; there is a certain swell, an elevation in the 
 flow of the blank verse, which, I do not know how, produces an 
 effect like the fulness of an organ-swell upon the feelings. I 
 have felt it from the rhythm of Milton, and sometimes of 
 Akenside, a pleasure wholly independent of that derived from 
 the soul of the poetry, arising from the beauty of the body only. 
 I believe a, man who did not understand a word of it would feel 
 pleasure and emotion at hearing such lines read with the tone 
 of a poet. The character of Theora is, I think, out of place ; 
 it is not a common character, and the story is noways influ- 
 enced by it : the passion to be excited is pity, not admiration. 
 
 I must not press the subject of poetry upon you, only do 
 not lose the feeling and the habit of seeing all things with a 
 poet's eye : at Bristol you have a good society, but not a man 
 who knows anything of poetry. Dr. Beddoes's taste is very 
 pessimism. Cottle only likes what his friends and himself 
 write. Every person fancies himself competent to pronounce 
 upon the merits of a poem, and yet no trade requires so long 
 an apprenticeship, or involves the necessity of such multi- 
 farious knowledge. I want an equal reader to judge my poems, 
 one whose knowledge and taste is commensurate with mine, 
 who has thought as much upon the subject ; or else one who 
 pretends not to criticise, but will surrender his feelings to me, 
 and follow the impulse they receive. 
 
 I have been long idle, or rather lying fallow. After writing 
 to you I walked to the Valley of Stones and to Ilfracombe. On 
 my return, we remained a fortnight at Stowey, with Coleridge, 
 where Edith gradually recovered, and where with walking and 
 talking I was completely occupied ; we travelled together to 
 Ottery St. Mary, and after vainly seeking lodgings on the 
 coast, or in the villages near, I found lodgings on Monday 
 last at Mr. Tucker's, Fore Street Hill, Exeter, whither direct. 
 Coleridge is eleven miles distant, at his brother's ; he will pass 
 some time here. We have formed the plan of a long poem to 
 
36 EARLY RESEARCHES AND CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 execute in hexameters, but this you had better not mention, 
 as it will need a strong preliminary attack to bully people out 
 of their prejudices against innovations in metre : our story is 
 Mohammed. 
 
 At Lymouth I saw Tobin's friend, Williams, who opened 
 upon me with an account of the gaseous oxide. I had the 
 advantage of him, having felt what he it seems had only seen. 
 Lymouth, where he is fixed, is certainly the most beautiful 
 place I have seen in England, so beautiful that all the after 
 scenes come flat "and uninteresting. The Valley of Stones is 
 about half a mile distant, a strange and magnificent place, 
 which ought to have filled the whole neighbourhood with 
 traditions of giants, and devils, and magicians, but I could 
 find none, not even a lie preserved. I know too little of 
 natural history to hypothesize upon the cause of this valley ; 
 it appeared to me that nothing but water could have so de- 
 fleshed and laid bare the bones of the earth that any inunda- 
 tion which could have overtopped these heights must have 
 deluged the kingdom ; but the opposite hills are clothed with 
 vegetable soil and verdure, therefore the cause must have been 
 partial a waterspout might have occasioned it perhaps and 
 there my conjectures rested, or rather took a new direction to 
 the pre- Adamite kings, the fiends who married Diocletian's 
 fifty daughters their giant progeny, old Merlin and the 
 builders of the Giant's Causeway. 
 
 For the next Anthology I project a poem on our Clifton 
 rocks ; the scenery is fresh in my sight, and these kind of 
 poems derive a more interesting cast as recollections than as 
 immediate pictures. Farewell. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 ROBERT SOUTHEY. 
 
EARLY RESEARCHES AND CORRESPONDENCE. 37 
 
 From the Same. 
 
 Saturday, August 3, 1799. 
 
 My dear Davy We have been at Minehead this last week, 
 and I am still apprehensive that it will be the boundary of our 
 journey. * * * * 
 
 This is a fine country ; it wants only an open sea, but the 
 sight of the opposite shore flattens the prospects, and deprives 
 them of that impressiveness which only immensity can occa- 
 sion. As we advance, we are promised a very Paradise 
 woods, rocks, and a boundless sea a country little known, 
 and where no post-chaise can pass. What with carts and 
 double horses, we shall get on if Edith be but better. Let me 
 talk with you about Mango Capac. I wish I could interest 
 you enough in the subject to induce you to undertake it, to 
 look upon it as the business of your leisure hours a relaxa- 
 tion from more important studies. Hitherto heroic poetry 
 has been confined almost wholly to the triumph of animal 
 courage this would be the victory of intellect, the ascendency 
 of a strong mind over ignorance; a difficult subject, but which 
 may be made very striking. I have no maps to see the situa- 
 tion of the lake where Mango first appeared, with regard to 
 its vicinity or distance from the sea ; of the lake itself I have 
 found a description since my arrival here. It is very large, 
 surrounding many islands ; more than ten rivers of some mag- 
 nitude flow into it ; its waters discharge themselves through 
 one channel, narrow and fathomless, unbridgeable from its 
 depth, unpassable from its whirlpools : the Indians therefore 
 floated a bridge over it, a net-work of twigs and reeds, fastened 
 at either shore and buoyant upon the water. The people who 
 inhabit the islands are a singular race they say themselves 
 they are not men, but something different from men, and I 
 suppose superior, but this Acosta does not assert. Some of 
 their tribes live wholly in their canoes, and shift about the 
 lake at pleasure. On the shores of the Jake, Maiio-o and 
 
38 EARLY RESEARCHES AND CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 his sister first appeared. I have given you a description, 
 at length, of the place ; it is very favourable for landscape 
 poetry : if you admit the agency of higher beings than man into 
 the poem, the legislators of Peru may as well be born there 
 as anywhere else ; if you do not, they must come from some 
 country advanced in the intellectual progress. China is the 
 nearest. I should, however, prefer Persia, and make them the 
 children of one who adhered to the religion of Zoroaster when 
 
 O 
 
 Mahometan intolerance had nearly extirpated it. There is a 
 fine ground-work of poetry in the circumstance of a brother 
 and sister marrying in the intimate union of feelings, opinions, 
 and plans, which rendered them the only possible partners of 
 each other. If you should think of this seriously, and undertake 
 it, I will send you such circumstances respecting the country 
 and its inhabitants as have fallen in my way in the course of 
 my necessary reading; some things there are which would 
 graft into the story. 
 
 If we were near enough to admit of daily intercourse, I 
 should like to undertake the poem with you, because two 
 people, if my opinion be not ill-founded, would necessarily 
 write a better poem than one, their powers of poetry being 
 granted and their similarity of opinion ; the story should be 
 the work of both, each take separate parts, each correct the 
 other's and add to it whatever ideas occurred to him. When 
 their styles had amalgamated, the work would have double 
 the merit of the single production of either. It is singular 
 that this should only have been done by Beaumont and 
 Fletcher. Envy and vanity have probably prevented others 
 from following it. 
 
 We shall remain here till Friday next. If you feel inclined 
 to gratify me with a letter, there is time for its arrival ; my 
 direction is at Mrs. Alloway's, Minehead. I have seen 
 nothing of Dr. Roget, and can hear nothing of him : you still, 
 I suppose, go on working with your gaseous oxide, which, 
 according to my notions of celestial enjoyment, must certainly 
 
EARLY RESEARCHES AND CORRESPONDENCE. 39 
 
 constitute the atmosphere of the highest of all possible hea- 
 vens. I wish I was at the Pneumatic Institution, something 
 to gratify my appetite for that delectable air, and something 
 for the sake of seeing you. The Anthology must be nearly 
 finished ; the book will interest me much as the memento 
 of many friends. You will receive a copy from Cottle, and it 
 may serve to remind you sometimes of me, who would not 
 willingly be forgotten by you. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 EGBERT SOUTHEY. 
 
 From the Same. 
 
 Burton, near Kingswood, Friday, October 18th, 1799. 
 
 Massena, Buonaparte, Switzerland, Italy, Holland, Egypt, 
 all at once ! the very spring-tide of fortune ! It was a dose 
 of gaseous oxide to me, whose powerful delight still endures. 
 I was about writing to you when your letter reached me. 
 Your researches into the science of nature and of man I shall 
 look for with periodical eagerness, fully estimating the import- 
 ance of researches which unfortunately I shall only be able 
 imperfectly to understand. Science I have none, except in 
 anatomy, knowing little but terms. 
 
 Thalaba the Destroyer, for so you must call the ci-devant 
 destruction of the Dom Daniel, has been some time suspended. 
 At Exeter, the advantage of a good library induced me to 
 employ my time in laying in materials, a magazine of informa- 
 tion, winter stores for the country where there is a dearth of 
 books; so I travelled into Egypt, and the Levant, and Persia, 
 and the East Indies, with every traveller whom I could find 
 going that way Fryer, Olearius, Mendelslo, De la Roque, 
 the lying Lucas, Chardin the jeweller, who is worth them all, 
 and who, plague on the Revolution of 1688, never published 
 his last three volumes, so that I could only get at the first. 
 
40 EARLY RESEARCHES AND CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 My employment was getting these for notes; information 
 served as a leaven for invention, incidents were grafted upon 
 local or national traits, and, like the bee, 1 have laid up my 
 winter store of food. Since my arrival here, I have resumed 
 the story, and am now rapidly advancing to the end of the 
 fourth book. 
 
 In the Anthology also I have done something. Some songs 
 characteristic of the different tribes of American Indians will 
 form a division of some length ; in the after volumes I shall 
 continue the plan, and go through the different nations whoso 
 customs and superstitions seem fit for poetry. I purpose a 
 poem of some length on our rocks at the Hot Wells, in that 
 calm and elevated blank verse which, when I have written, 
 has excited in me stronger emotions than any other species of 
 composition: here I shall affix my name. Thank Tobin 1 for 
 his intended communications in my name : I shall be glad to 
 receive them. His Soldier Ghost is a fine poem ; if he does 
 not intend to print it, I should be much gratified by having 
 a copy. 
 
 I am revolutionizing here, organizing two beggarly cottages 
 into one dwelling-house ; in the course of a fortnight we shall 
 have a comfortable habitation to enter, small, but big enough 
 to hold us and any friend who may think it worth while to 
 visit us. There is a garden quite large enough, and quite 
 empty, so that I may follow my own taste in filling it ; the 
 ground is very good, and has long been fattening in fallowness. 
 Here I mean to take much of my necessary quantum of 
 exercise. 
 
 The Brutus of your plan I suppose to be the fabulous settler 
 of Britain. You will find Pope^s sketch on this subject in 
 RufFhead's life of Pope. There is little merit or originality in 
 it from its utter obscurity : the story is good, and it suits a 
 
 1 John Tobin, author of the "Honeymoon," a play acted in 1805, the 
 year after his death. The Prologue to it was written by my brother. 
 
EARLY RESEARCHES AND CORRESPONDENCE. 41 
 
 Cornish man from the rank Corinaeus must necessarily hold. 
 Perhaps I mistake you here, however, and you may have cho- 
 sen the more elevated and republican theme of Rome delivered, 
 and the expulsion of the Tarquins, a difficult and mighty sub- 
 ject. 1 Mango Capac lies among my after plans, a solitary 
 germ fermenting in some recess of my brain, one day by de- 
 velopment and accretion to assume a mature shape and size. 
 The history is so unaccountable, that I can form no hypothe- 
 sis probable enough for poetry. 
 
 Will you be good enough to send me some fox-glove for my 
 mother, and likewise some of the asthma drops that she may 
 take when her cough is removed ? Danvers will convey them 
 to me. I shall not visit Bristol till I come to superintend the 
 printing of Thalaba, which must first be written. In the 
 spring, however, this will bring me there, and I shall work, 
 perhaps, with more eager industry, that I may the sooner see 
 the old city where I have ever had some person to remember 
 with affection. 
 
 Edith is tolerable, and desires to be remembered to you ; 
 my brother, whom you once saw, is a prisoner at Ferrol, and 
 we are anxiously waiting to hear from him. 
 God bless you ! Yours truly, 
 
 ROBERT SOUTHEY. 
 
 From the Same. 
 
 Burton, near Kingswood, Tuesday, November 12, 1799. 
 My dear Friend The immediate occasion of my writing is 
 to request that, if a Mr. Elliott visits you at the Pneumatic 
 
 1 The first conjecture was the right one. In a note-book kept at 
 Clifton is a sketch of the poem, its scenes, incidents, and characters, 
 mainly after Geoffroy of Monmouth, or Milton his follower, who in re- 
 peating the reputed tales of our early history, says " I have determined 
 to bestow the telling of them, be it for nothing else but in favour of our 
 English poets and rhetoricians, who by their art will know how to use 
 them judiciously." History of Britain, p. 1. 
 
42 EARLY RESEARCHES AND CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 Institution, you will have the goodness (unless from his state 
 of health you should deem it hurtful) to beatify him with a 
 dose of the gaseous oxide. I do not myself know Mr. Elliott, 
 but write at the desire of my particular friend here, Eickman, 1 to 
 whom, if you should ever find leisure to visit me here, I should 
 be gratified by introducing you as to a man of the most 
 various knowledge I have ever known. 
 
 I write in much weakness of mind as well as body : some- 
 thing ails me at heart. I have, except the first few morning 
 hours, a settled, dull, obtuse aching there, as if a rib against 
 which it prest were bruised. For a fortnight this has been 
 the case, and within the last five days a diarrhoea, with conse- 
 quent fever and sleeplessness, has reduced me to an almost 
 palsied debility. Of course all enjoyment and all employment 
 have of necessity been suspended. 
 
 From William Taylor, the all-knowing, I learn that the 
 few Peruvian words preserved by Garcilasso the historian 
 (himself son of a Peruvian mother), are Malay, and that in 
 that tongue Mango Capac signifies a man with an axe ; suffi- 
 cient proof of an Eastern origin, which I always believed the 
 most probable. With the view to collect more materials for 
 this subject, I have lately from the Zend-Avesta and other 
 labours of Auquetil du Perron, made myself acquainted with 
 the religious system of Zoroaster, a system the more fit for 
 poetry, because the obscurity lies only in the parts, while the 
 great outline is distinct : in this completely differing from the 
 unconnected and unsystematizable fables of Hindoo absurdity. 
 In time, the heap of matter may ferment into form and life, 
 but now my head is only susceptible of aching and fever, and 
 all nervous feelings of pain and agitation. To-night I try if 
 
 1 For many years one of the clerks in the House of Commons, distin- 
 guished for his exact and varied knowledge, especially in statistics. He 
 officially conducted the first census, that of 1800. He died in 1840, 
 August llth. He was a man of a vigorous mind in a robust body. 
 I remember well his appearance in 1808-9. 
 
EARLY RESEARCHES AND CORRESPONDENCE. 43 
 
 opiates will send me to sleep, and when I sleep, preserve me 
 from broken yet connected dreams, more fatiguing than wake- 
 fulness. I often wish myself at Bristol, and if, as I have more 
 and more reason to apprehend, a constitution debilitated by 
 the worst possible management in childhood, the most ruinous 
 system of coercion from all things proper, should for ever inca- 
 pacitate me from the labour and confinement of professional 
 studies, why, I shall probably look to Bristol as my haven : 
 'tis the place where I have ever felt myself at home, where I 
 have, when absent myself, remembered my dearest friends, 
 where I could walk confidently in darkness through every 
 winding. I have experienced more pain and pleasure there 
 than elsewhere, and these things twist into a strong cord of 
 attachment. 
 
 God bless you ! Excuse a half letter from a sick man. At 
 all times I should be glad to give you my hand, but now I 
 should be glad to offer you my pulse, that I might have faith 
 and be cured. Here the people would poison me if I sent for 
 the commonest drug. 
 
 Yours affectionately, 
 
 ROBERT SOUTHEY. 
 
 From the Same. 
 
 Cintra, July 26, 1800. 
 
 I had the good luck as a poet, and the misfortune as a man, 
 to feel the nightmare last night. The night was very hot ; I 
 had been extremely restless for many hours ; the intelligence 
 that my cousin Margaret was in a decline, had reached me in 
 the morning, and prevented me from sleeping. A sort of deli- 
 rious activity at last seemed to possess my imagination, and I 
 remember combining in words that the mind heard the most 
 incongruous associations of monstrous thought, involuntarily. 
 I was in a separate bed, lying on my back, my legs and arms 
 
44 EARLY RESEARCHES AND CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 stretched out asunder, the right hand fearing to touch the 
 left on account of the heat. I recollect my last definite feel- 
 ing was as though I had been stretched on a wheel that raised 
 up my breast, and strained my extremities. After that, I had 
 forgotten myself, and the seizure came on : it was a weight on 
 the breast. I thought some evil being was trying to destroy 
 me. I attempted to move, but I saw some other legs than 
 my own coming from the bed, as if mocking me. I thought I 
 was awake ; this was the most singular circumstance. I knew 
 where I was ; I knew it was the nightmare. I knew one 
 word, one motion would relieve me, yet it appeared that my 
 eyes were open, that I saw a red fire suspended in the middle 
 of the room, that some evil being had caught me; there was a 
 lamp burning on the table ; the oppression brought on the 
 same head seizure to which I was subject in England, and 
 then with great difficulty I at last made a feeble noise, but 
 enough to awaken Edith ; she called to me, and the charm 
 was broken. I do not wonder at the old superstition, for 
 nothing can so strongly impress the belief of an evil agency. 
 You have an accurate account of what my feelings were, and 
 given while the recollection is still vivid. 
 
 You request a particular account of the effect, the change 
 of climate, &c., has produced upon me. I slept so well on 
 my arrival, that I made no use of the laudanum which Pit- 
 cairn prescribed. As to diet, I have drank more wine, and it 
 is likewise probable that eating much fruit, by assisting diges- 
 tion, may have had some beneficial effects ; but assuredly the 
 total change of external objects and the climate must have 
 been the great causes. My spirits have been uniformly high, 
 and the bodily anxiety which threatened very badly in 
 England gone. 
 
 Voltage experiment is important. It should appear as the 
 galvanic fluid stimulates to motion, that it is the same as the 
 nervous fluid ; and your system will prove true at last. Has 
 
EARLY RESEARCHES AND CORRESPONDENCE. 45 
 
 it yet been tried whether the electrical shock will produce the 
 same motion in frogs as the galvanic fluid ? 
 
 * # * # 
 
 I tremble for Alfred 1 those long speeches ! and, if reviewed 
 by a hostile, or even an indifferent hand. Had he listened to 
 me, cut out his dialogues, and introduced machinery, he would 
 have done well. Angel and devil nature he could have known 
 as much about as his neighbour, but of human feelings he 
 knows nothing, and might as well write an account of the 
 moon, and a history of the man in it. I shall expect it with 
 vour book the next voyage that Yescombe makes, that is, 
 about a month from this time. 
 
 Thalaba is finished, and my employment is now correcting 
 and copying it for the press, my resolution being to send it 
 over for publication. I have new plans of poetry, but it is 
 impossible to build without materials, and the books needful 
 are in England. 1 design a romance founded upon the creed 
 of Zoroaster, the scene of course in Persia ; the leading cha- 
 racter one of the sons of a great king, persecuted by the evil 
 powers, but every evil that they inflict develops in him some 
 virtue which his situation had smothered. A Greek slave is 
 a prominent character, and the conclusion is, that the Persian 
 prince is exalted into a citizen of Athens. Here is an oppor- 
 tunity of seasoning the dish to my taste no further has the 
 story got. For another and more serious poem, I design the 
 establishment of the Inquisition to serve as subject ; St. 
 Dominic (more properly Domingo) the hero, a man indulging 
 the blackest feelings of malignity and cruelty, and believing 
 them religious virtues. You may smile, but by writing two 
 poems at once I expect to save time, because I may write a 
 book of one, while the story for a book of the other matures, 
 and thus not pause so long between the books of each as would 
 be necessary to let the seeds ripen ; these, however, are to be 
 1 " An Epic poem," so called, by Cottle. 
 
46 EARLY RESEARCHES AND CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 written in England. What I bring home will be labours of 
 another cast. 
 
 In the history of Portugal, I shall be likely to have a com- 
 plete and finished subject. The country is in a decline, and 
 cannot recover. Beyond this it is not easy to speculate. 
 Spain is weak and tottering, and nearer the edge of the pre- 
 cipice, but both must inevitably fall, I trust, to rise again in a 
 better shape. I have collected much miscellaneous matter 
 relative to this place ; so much, indeed, that my chief reason 
 for sending over Thalaba for publication, will be to make room 
 and leisure for other publications on my return. 
 
 Coleridge's translation is admirable ; but Coleridge, who can 
 write as well as Schiller, ought not to have translated. He 
 has done wrong, I think, in removing so far from his other 
 friends, and wholly giving himself to Wordsworth ; it is wrong 
 on his own account, and more so on his wife's, who is now at an 
 unreachable distance from all her sisters. What of the life of 
 Leasing? the essay on the " Genius of Schiller" amused me, 
 it is not the first nor the second time that he had adver- 
 tised what has not been written. Remember me to Tobin j 1 
 he will ask what is the use of Thalaba, and condemn me with 
 all a metaphysician's apathy. I know he must detest the hexa- 
 meters, and suspect my metre will not come off much better, 
 but his ears are not much better than his eyes, God bless him ! 
 I know no one more zealous in a good cause. 
 
 I am induced to think with the Portuguese, that consump- 
 tion is an infectious disorder, by what has been told me here ; 
 if it really be so, its frequency in England may be ascribed to 
 the prevalence of the contrary opinion. You will know where 
 there is any possible means of ascertaining it, by examining 
 the breath given out by patients whose lungs are decidedly 
 affected. I see the author of Gebir has been translating from 
 the Arabic and Persian. Can there possibly be Arabic and 
 1 James Tobin, the brother of the dramatist. 
 
EARLY RESEARCHES AND CORRESPONDENCE. 47 
 
 Persian poetry which the author of Gebir may be excused for 
 translating ? God bless you ! 
 
 Yours affectionately, 
 
 R. S. 
 
 From the Same. 
 
 If you have not seen Danvers on your way to town, you 
 will be surprised to receive a letter from me, dated at Dublin : 
 the wind of fortune has shifted and driven me here. I came 
 by Rickman's invitation to a berth somewhat similar to his 
 own, in which capacity in a very few weeks I shall remove to 
 London, and be your neighbour once again. In June, I shall 
 return here, and Rickman wants me to bring you over in your 
 leisure. The Government here have purchased the first col- 
 lection of minerals in the world, the Leskean collection ; this 
 is one bait. Of the chemistry here, he sends a specimen here- 
 with. Here is a noble city, an odd people, and the map pro- 
 mises glorious lakes and mountains, things which, in spite of 
 Tobin, I never will believe you can cease to love as devoutly 
 as I love them. 
 
 It is since we parted at Bristol that I read the Gowrie ; 
 and, indeed, after what you had said, I read it with astonish- 
 ment. You had praised it, and your praise passed current 
 with me, perhaps because I had received so much of it myself, 
 but still more because, on other subjects, I had never heard it 
 ill bestowed. The Gowrie I thought very, very bad ; there were 
 imitations from all writers, a leading dash from the Gebir 
 running through the whole. No character, no feeling, no 
 truth of nature, mataphor heaped upon metaphor, an eternal 
 reasoning, soliloquising, conversations about nothing. Rough 
 promised much when a schoolboy, but I am satisfied that he 
 never will perform anything great. His book was feeble, and 
 this is turgid, the palsy, and the dropsy ; he has not a healthy 
 genius. 
 
48 EARLY RESEARCHES AND CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 I now remember who the author of Gebir is : he was a 
 contemporary of mine at Oxford, of Trinity, and notorious as 
 a mad Jacobin ; his Jacobinism would have made me seek his 
 acquaintance, but for his madness ; he was obliged to leave 
 the University for shooting at one of the Fellows through the 
 window ; all this I immediately recollected on getting at his 
 name. How could you compare this man^s book with Bough's ? 
 The lucid passages of Gebir are all palpable to the eye ; they 
 are the master touches of a painter there is power in them, 
 and passion, and thought, and knowledge. 
 
 I was travelling in Wales, the country of Madoc, when 
 Rickman summoned me hither. Upon that poem I meant to 
 have employed myself, and to have laboured at it, completely 
 recasting the metal. Now, I know little what leisure will be 
 left me, but there is no reason to fear unremitting task-work. 
 In common prudence, the offer could not be refused, and there 
 were also feelings of a higher order which left me no choice. 
 .What I have heard of the rulers here is very favourable ; they 
 are encouragers of science and literature, laborious in removing 
 old grievances, charming away the old corruption, and anxious 
 to improve the country and the people. 
 
 Direct to me, if in the course of a week you can find leisure 
 to write, under cover to " Bight Hon. Isaac Corry, &c., &c., 
 Dublin." 
 
 I give you the address in its due form. Your handwriting, 
 Davy, I shall be glad to see, still more so to see you when 
 I reach London. Times have changed since we first became 
 intimate, and we also must be changed, you probably more 
 than me, for mine are older and riper habits. I do not love 
 to think of this j the world cannot mend the young man whom 
 I knew before the world knew him, in the very spring and 
 blossom of his genius and goodness. 
 
 God bless you, Davy ! 
 
 ROBERT SOUTHEY. 
 
EARLY RESEARCHES AND CORRESPONDENCE. 49 
 
 In this last letter a singular mention is made of a 
 distinguished author, Mr. Walter Savage Landor, 
 and in so precise a manner, as almost to preclude 
 doubt as to the accuracy of the statement, and yet I 
 rejoice to be able to say that it is founded in error. 
 It will amuse the reader, and I am sure gratify him, 
 to have the account in Mr. Landor's own words, 
 which he has granted me permission to give, on my 
 bringing that part of Southey's letter under his 
 notice. The account is contained in the following 
 letter, in reply to mine : 
 
 Sir My usual fire of laughter burst forth on reading your 
 letter. The fire across the quadrangle was hardly louder or 
 hardly more inoffensive. The fact is this : In the morning I 
 had been rabbit shooting : in the evening I had an after-din- 
 ner party. My gun was lying in the bed-room ; one of my 
 guests proposed to fire it at a closed window-shutter opposite 
 the room was a man^s with whom I never had a quarrel or 
 spoken a word. Fleetwood Parkhurst was the only one in my 
 college with whom I had any intimacy. The rest of the com- 
 pany was mostly of Christchurch. I should not have been 
 rusticated for two terms unless the action had been during 
 prayers. Kett, who afterwards hanged himself, and thereby 
 proved for the first time his honesty and justice, told the 
 President, Chapman, that he was too lenient. The President 
 had said : " Mr. Landor, it is the opinion of the Fellows that 
 you be rusticated for two terms, at the expiration of which I 
 invite you to return.' 1 '' Kett had the impudence to tell him 
 " such a formulary was unexampled." I requested that my 
 punishment might be of any other kind, however much severer, 
 as it would pain my family, not me. Dear, good Benwell, my 
 tutor, shed tears. That I was republican is certain so I am 
 still but never Jacobinical after the death of the queen. In 
 
 E 
 
50 EARLY RESEARCHES AND CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 fact, I then began to hate the French, which also I do still. 
 My time at Oxford was occupied in intense study, and my 
 rabbit-shooting was only once I oftener stuck in the middle 
 of a Greek verse than of a brake and, though I wrote better 
 Latin ones than any undergraduate, or graduate, in the Uni- 
 versity, I could never be persuaded, by any tutor or friends, 
 to contend for any prize whatever. I showed my compositions 
 to Birch of Magdalen, my old friend at Rugby, and to Carey, 
 translator of Dante ; to none else. 
 
 Southey did not find me quite so mad as he expected, when 
 he visited me at Clifton, the first or second year (I think) of 
 this century. Virtue, wisdom, and genius, he united in a 
 higher degree, and more interfused, than any other creature 
 I have known. His friendship is the main glory of my life. 
 You may write all this about him and 
 
 WALTER LANDOR. 
 
 The difficulty of arriving at truth is notorious! 
 What Southey states respecting Mr. Landor's con- 
 duct at college is a striking example of the truism. 
 I wish I could include in the remark Mr. Landor's 
 account of Mr. Kett's death; yet it is an example, 
 I believe, in a less degree ; for I have learnt on good 
 authority on inquiry made after receiving Mr. Lan- 
 dor's letter, that he did not hang himself; to use the 
 words of my informant, " he was found drowned, and 
 there was no evidence to show how he was drowned ; 
 but his friends believed that he destroyed himself 
 from some expression he had been heard to use, and 
 from his being known to have been in a state of 
 extreme depression of spirits." And, it may be 
 added, not without reason, as some of his publica- 
 
EARLY RESEARCHES AND CORRESPONDENCE. 51 
 
 tions were considered a discredit to his University, 
 and had been severely criticised on that account. 
 
 The letters of Coleridge, those addressed to my 
 brother at Clifton, I shall reserve for the next chap- 
 ter, so as not to break the continuity of the series 
 and separate them from those written to him after 
 taking up his residence in London. 
 
 The following letter from the venerable and veteran 
 Priestley, 1 written from America, where he had sought 
 and found a quiet asylum from the persecutions 
 which he had so unjustly experienced at home, was 
 much valued by my brother, and can never be read 
 without exciting an interest, both on account of the 
 individual character of the man, the then state of the 
 science of chemistry, and even the state of the country 
 in which he had taken up his abode the science and 
 the country so changed in little more than half a 
 century. 
 
 From Dr. Priestley. 
 
 Northumberland [TJ. S.j, October 31, 1801. 
 
 Sir I have read with admiration your excellent publica- 
 tions, and have received much instruction from them. It 
 gives me peculiar satisfaction, that as I am now far advanced 
 in life, and cannot expect to do much more, I shall leave so 
 able a fellow-labourer of my own country in the great field of 
 experimental philosophy. As old an experimenter as I am, 
 
 j Born in 1733, he died in 1804. His great discovery was that of 
 oxygen gas ; and next to that, the antagonistic part performed by vege- 
 tables in their growth under the influence of the sun's rays, in decom- 
 posing carbonic acid, and whilst assimilating the carbon liberating the 
 oxygen, thereby securing the salubrious composition of the atmosphere 
 in danger of being vitiated by the respiration of animals. 
 
 E 2 
 
52 EARLY RESEARCHES AND CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 I was near forty before I made any experiments on the subject 
 of air, and then without, in a manner, any previous knowledge 
 of chemistry. This I picked up as I could, and as I found 
 occasion for it, from books. I was also without apparatus, and 
 laboured under many other disadvantages. But my unex- 
 pected success induced the friends of science to assist me, and 
 then I wanted for nothing. I rejoice that you are so young a 
 man, and perceiving the ardour with which you begin your 
 career, I have no doubt of your success. My son, for whom 
 you express a friendship, and which he warmly returns, en- 
 courages me to think that it may not be disagreeable to you 
 to give me information occasionally of what is passing in the 
 philosophical world now that I am at so great a distance from 
 it, and yet interested, as you may suppose, in what is passing 
 in it. Indeed, I shall take it as a great favour. But you 
 must not expect anything in return. I am here perfectly 
 insulated, and this country furnishes but few fellow-labourers, 
 and these are so scattered that we can have but little commu- 
 nication with each other; and they are equally in want of 
 information with myself. Unfortunately our correspondence 
 with England is very slow and uncertain, and with France we 
 have not, as yet, any intercourse at all, though we hope to have 
 it soon. 
 
 As Dr. Nicholson was so obliging as to give a place in his 
 Journal to the account that I sent him of my experiments on 
 the freezing of water, I have sent him two other articles, one 
 containing experiments with the pile of Volta, to which I sent 
 a PS. by my friend, Mr. Lindsey, in Essex Street, and 
 another in reply to Mr. Cririkshank's observations on finery 
 cinder. I also sent him a copy of several articles that are 
 printed for the fifth volume of the Philosophical Transactions 
 of Philadelphia, which are not yet published. The more im- 
 portant of these I hope he will insert in his Journal. In some 
 of them you will find an account of facts of an extraordinary 
 nature, such as I am far from being able to account for. I 
 
EARLY RESEARCHES AND CORRESPONDENCE. 53 
 
 wish you would give some attention to them, especially to the 
 transmission of air through some air-tight vessels and bladders, 
 and the total absorption of air after long standing in water. 
 I see in the " Annales de Crn'mie," that Dr. Guyton has con- 
 sidered the former of these in the Encyclopedic, but I have 
 not that work. You can see it and tell me what he says 
 of it. 
 
 I thank you for the favourable mention you so frequently 
 make of my experiments, and have only to remark, that in Dr. 
 Nicholson's Journal you say that the conducting power of 
 charcoal was first observed by those who made experiments on 
 the pile of Volta, whereas it was one of the earliest I made 
 and gave an account of in my history of electricity and in the 
 Philosophical Transactions. And in your excellent Treatise 
 on the Nitrous Oxide, p. 90, you say, and justly, that I con- 
 cluded the air to be lighter than * that of the atmosphere. 
 This, however, was an error in the printing that I cannot 
 account for. It should have been alkaline air, as you will see 
 the experiment necessarily requires. With the greatest esteem, 
 I am, Sir, 
 
 Yours sincerely, 
 
 J. PRIESTLEY. 
 
 The following few extracts are from note-books 
 kept about this time, certainly not later. They 
 relate chiefly to physiology, which then, more than 
 ever after, had my brother's special attention in con- 
 nexion with his professional pursuits and his medical 
 duties in the Pneumatic Institution under his care : 
 
 " Consistency in regard to opinions is the slow poison of 
 intellectual life, the destroyer of its vividness and energy." 
 
 " The use of physical science is. that it gives definite 
 ideas." 
 
54 EARLY RESEARCHES AND CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 " Great discoveries may sometimes be made by chance, but 
 they are much oftener produced by laborious and accurate 
 investigations." 
 
 " Another evil has originated from favourite hypotheses, 
 viz., experiments mutilated and not to be relied upon. He 
 who is governed by preconceived opinions, may be considered 
 as a person viewing objects through coloured glasses, each 
 object assuming a tinge similar to that of the glass employed." 
 
 " The only way in which we can hope to make any progress 
 in chemical philosophy is by accurate experiments." 
 
 " All our attempts to reason upon the phenomena of life 
 will be impotent till we are acquainted with the composition 
 of the substances by the assimilation of which, and new 
 arrangements in living beings, these are produced. 
 
 " Hence the knowledge of sublime chemistry, or the classifi- 
 cation of the attractions in corpuscular motions producing the 
 phenomena of the external world, will not be most interesting 
 to man as enlarging his ideas and giving grandeur to his con- 
 ceptions, and providing for many of his wants, but as opening 
 the field for discoveries still more important and sublime the 
 knowledge of the laws of his own existence." 
 
 " The dependence of life upon the perpetual assimilation of 
 new principles with the blood the necessity of supposing that 
 some change must take place in the nervous and muscular 
 fibre during sensitive and irritative action, compared with the 
 changes effected in nutritive matter during its animation, 
 assimilation, render it probable that the phenomena of life are 
 capable of chemical solution. But this supposition, instead of 
 inducing us to form crude and hasty theories concerning the 
 specific nature of those changes and the principles producing 
 them, ought to induce us to carry on laborious and accurate 
 investigations with a view of ascertaining them." 
 
 " The discovery of the absorption of oxygen gas in respira- 
 tion, and the dependence of life on this absorption, formed a 
 new era in physiological science. From this time, chemistry, 
 
EARLY RESEARCHES AND CORRESPONDENCE. 55 
 
 which had been almost exclusively employed for the purposes 
 of the arts, or for the solution of certain physical phenomena, 
 became connected with life. But before accurate chemical 
 investigations had determined the changes effected in the 
 blood by this principle of life, theories were formed referring 
 all living action to its combination and decomposition. The 
 number of theories formed have been very great in proportion 
 to the number of facts discovered." 
 
 In a note-book kept at this time, there is a passage, 
 a rhapsody, which I am tempted to transcribe, as 
 a foreshadowing, as it seems to me, of the feelings 
 which he had, and which he in part expressed to- 
 wards the close of life indeed, when he considered 
 himself dying. The passage is from a fragment of a 
 romance, a portion of the conversation of two friends. 
 
 The dying one speaks : 
 
 " Behold me on the couch of death my senses failing, my 
 organs falling towards that state in which they will resolve 
 into their primitive atoms. Still is my mind unconquered ; 
 still all my energies are alive, all my trains of thinking complete. 
 Philosophy has warmed me through life ; on the bed of death 
 she does not desert her disciple. The frost of the grave can 
 never chill those burning energies connected with the thoughts 
 of a future existence. I feel and believe that the genial 
 warmth of the sun of immortality which has shone through 
 this shattered frame with feeble light, shall be more perma- 
 nent in the regions of bliss. I feel within me new energies. 
 These hopes do hot announce pain or annihilation. O, happy 
 man ! O, benevolent Deity ! Thou art everywhere existing, 
 and where thy pure essence is interfused, pain cannot be per- 
 manent." 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 FROM HIS LEAVING CLIFTON FOE LONDON IN 1801 TO 
 1807, THE YEAR OF HIS DISCOVERY OF THE BASIS OF 
 THE FIXED ALKALIES. 
 
 ON his leaving Clifton and the Pneumatic Institu- 
 tion for London, and becoming Professor of Che- 
 mistry at the Royal Institution, he may truly be 
 said to have entered on a new and enlarged sphere 
 of existence. All the circumstances were again 
 most favourable to the exertion of his powers and to 
 his full mental development; a laboratory at his 
 command most amply provided with the means for 
 experimental research, a model of its kind ; a theatre 
 capable of holding an audience sufficiently large to 
 call forth his abilities as a lecturer, and what 
 perhaps was even more important, that audience one 
 of more than common intelligence and refinement, 
 being composed chiefly of persons of rank of both 
 sexes and of literary men and men of science, 
 altogether in its composite nature singularly fitted 
 on one hand to excite eloquence, on the other hand 
 to keep it within just bounds and prevent its passing 
 into empty declamation; and thus preserving the 
 poetry of the subject in subordination to its science. 
 
 Another advantage he had, and that not an incon- 
 
RESEARCHES AFTER LEAVING CLIFTON. 57 
 
 siderable one, of being associated, or brought in 
 contact at the Royal Institution, and soon after at 
 the Royal Society when he became one of its 
 secretaries, with men of the first eminence in science 
 and literature, such as Young, Wollaston, Cavendish, 
 Herschell, Dalton, Smith, and others ; many of whom 
 became his intimate friends, for instance, Mr. 
 Thomas Andrew Knight, Messrs. Children, War- 
 burton, Greenough, Allen and Pepys, &c. 
 
 On his success as a lecturer, which was eminent, 
 I need not dwell. The theatre, with its gallery 
 capable of holding a thousand persons, was generally 
 crowded when he appeared there, and with a varied 
 assemblage such as has been just described, exhibit- 
 ing in its crowded state a remarkable contrast to the 
 thin ranks on its benches when attending the 
 discourses of men less popular, however eminent, 
 such as Young and Dalton, men better qualified by 
 their accurate and profound knowledge to instruct 
 than to please. Some examples of his style of 
 lecturing will be found in the eighth volume of his 
 collected works. The specimen which follows, so far 
 as a single passage allows, may aid in giving some 
 idea of his popular manner to those who have not 
 those works to consult ; it is the concluding portion of 
 a lecture on electro-chemical science delivered on the 
 12th March, 1808, in which, after Bacon, he vindi- 
 cates the benefits to mankind of experimental science 
 and natural knowledge in general, against the cut 
 bono carpers. 
 
58 RESEARCHES AND CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 " In this advanced age of the world there ought to be no 
 question concerning the importance of natural knowledge, of 
 discoveries of the powers of nature, and of the wise laws by 
 which they are governed. 
 
 " It does, however, sometimes occur that the inquiry is made, 
 Of what use is this knowledge? Of what use is that dis- 
 covery? and the word use employed in this way, always 
 means some vulgar or immediate application, something con- 
 nected with our common wants. 
 
 " I do not mean to insinuate that even this kind of use 
 should be neglected in research ; and indeed it has generally 
 happened that great philosophical discoveries have been accom- 
 panied by noble practical and popular applications, I mean 
 merely to argue against too great an extension of the feeling, 
 against an extension of it which makes truth, and wisdom, and 
 knowledge of no importance for their own sakes. 
 
 " If there be anything dignified, or noble, or worthy of esti- 
 mation belonging to humanity, anything superior to the 
 common sentiment of self-love, it appears in those faculties by 
 which we endeavour to exalt and sublime our intellectual 
 nature and to gain a dominion over the senses; and, after 
 sacred and moral duties, there is no pursuit more worthy of 
 attention than that which unfolds to us the infinitely wise and 
 wonderful mechanism of nature, and which produces benefits 
 from the hidden properties of things, ordained in their diver- 
 sified relations for the pleasure and advantage of man. 
 
 " If an objection be made to any of the truths of experi- 
 mental science from their want of popular application, how 
 much more will such reasoning apply to letters in general, to 
 poetry and the fine arts and those things which ornament and 
 dignify social life. Yet, in this case it would be more 
 generally found ridiculous, because the taste for them is more 
 diffused and more fashionable ; and were any one to ask what 
 has been the use of a sublime poem, or of a beautiful picture 
 or statue, he would not be thought deserving of an answer. 
 
AFTER LEAVING CLIFTON FOR LONDON. 59 
 
 " Human beings have been created for happiness, and a 
 principal means of obtaining it is by the exercise of the intellec- 
 tual faculties, by an exertion of reason and imagination, by 
 imitating nature and modifying her operations. And know- 
 ledge is no less necessary to supply the wants of the mind 
 than food is to support the functions of the body. 
 
 " If we argue against any species of true improvement, we 
 argue for the uncultivated against the civilized condition, for 
 who shall assign the limits where utility begins and ends ? 
 The savage would consider as useful only what procured food 
 and shelter. The civilized man extends the term to the 
 comforts, refinements, and luxuries of life. By the enlightened 
 rnind all these are considered as of importance, but he will 
 place the sources of intellectual pleasure above them all. 
 
 " The defence of the sciences has been so admirably executed 
 by the same great mind which in modern times fixed their 
 foundations, that I cannot avoid giving a few sentences from 
 his works, on the subject. 
 
 " ' The introduction of noble discoveries, 1 says our author, 
 4 seems to hold by far the most excellent place among all 
 human actions ; and this was the judgment of antiquity which 
 attributed divine honours to inventors, but conferred only 
 heroical honours on those who deserved well of their country 
 in civil affairs. And whoever rightly considers, will find this 
 a judicious custom, for the merits of civil benefits are confined 
 within the circle of an age or nation ; and are like a fruitful 
 shower, which though profitable and good serves only for a 
 season and fertilizes a single spot. But discoveries are like 
 blessings of heaven, permanent and universal, applying to all 
 ages and all conditions of society. And to leave the vulgar 
 arguments that by knowledge man excelleth man in that in 
 which man excelleth beasts, that by learning man ascendeth 
 to the heavens and their motions, where in body he cannot 
 come, and the like, let us consider the dignity and excellence 
 of knowledge in that to which human nature most aspires, 
 
60 RESEARCHES AND CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 which is immortality or continuance. For to this tends the 
 raising of houses and families ; to this buildings, foundations 
 and monuments, and the desire of memory, fame and celebra- 
 tion. But the monuments of invention and learning are far 
 more durable than the monuments of power or the work of 
 the most skilful hands ; for the first decay, and are injured or 
 destroyed ; but the last remain and are perpetuated by letters, 
 exempted from the wrongs of time, or capable of perfect 
 renovation. ' 
 
 " In this eulogium the illustrious author has alluded to 
 knowledge and invention in general ; but it may be particu- 
 larly said of discoveries in experimental philosophy that they 
 cannot but produce benefits, and can by no means be turned to 
 evil or unworthy purposes. Literature and the fine arts, 
 though most noble in their general efforts, may be misapplied ; 
 natural science, on the contrary, being an exhibition of the 
 powers existing in the universe of things, cannot be sub- 
 servient to the passions, prejudices, or vices of men. As far 
 as it influences, it must correct evil tendencies, and having 
 a sublime origin in philosophical minds it descends even to 
 the most familiar offices and is subservient to common 
 purposes. Like a stream rising amongst mountains, it flows 
 from the heavens to the earth, and though in its beginnings it 
 is known only to a few, its benefits gradually spread and at 
 length it adorns and fertilizes an extensive and populous 
 district." 
 
 Of his labours in the laboratory in the way of 
 original research, and it was to these he most 
 devoted himself, I must here advert very briefly. 
 The subjects to which he first directed his attention 
 were branches of chemistry connected with the 
 useful arts, and besides these, the infant science of 
 galvanism or voltaic electricity. Of the former, as 
 
AFTER LEAVING CLIFTON FOR LONDON. 61 
 
 chief, may be mentioned tanning and agriculture, 
 both at that time, so far as principles were concerned, 
 but little understood. The results of his inquiries 
 on tanning were given in a paper communicated to 
 the Royal Society, and those respecting agriculture 
 in lectures (afterwards published) delivered before 
 the Board of Agriculture. Voltaic electricity, how- 
 ever, in connexion with chemistry and as a new 
 power of chemical analysis, was his great subject, 
 and as discussed in his Bakerian Lectures, earned 
 him a European reputation. It was for his discoveries 
 in this new science that the Napoleon prize was 
 awarded him, and it was by the application of this 
 power, which he was chiefly instrumental in bringing 
 into action, that he succeeded in decomposing the 
 fixed alkalies; a discovery by which a new era in 
 the history of chemistry was opened, and a revolution 
 in chemical science effected hardly less remarkable 
 than that which had been accomplished by the genius 
 of Lavoisier, availing himself of the labours of 
 Black, Cavendish, and Priestley. 
 
 This was to him again a happy period; intensely 
 occupied, enjoying society as only a young man can 
 enjoy it, and when his duties did not confine him to 
 London, at liberty to indulge his taste for travel in 
 home tours, the war then hindering any other. 
 These he extended to the wilder parts of Scotland, 
 Ireland, and Wales excursions in which science and 
 sport were mingled, especially geology and angling. 
 Of his attention to the former, the Museum of the 
 Royal Institution bears witness in the numerous 
 
62 RESEARCHES AND CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 specimens of rocks and minerals contributed by him, 
 and chiefly collected during these his vacations. 
 
 That he was, however, exposed to dangers of no 
 common kind at this time, and so long as he lectured 
 at the Royal Institution, is unquestionable, particu- 
 larly in a way that even the strongest minds cannot 
 always resist I refer to praise and admiration. I 
 have read copies of verses addressed to him then, 
 strongly bearing out the remark anonymous effu- 
 sions, some of them displaying much poetical taste 
 as well as fervour of writing, and all showing the 
 influence which his appearance and manner had on 
 the more susceptible of his audience. 
 
 An apprehension, too, was entertained by some, 
 and it may be inferred was made known to him by 
 one of his friends one whose friendship endured to 
 the last that the society he mixed in in London, 
 the gay and fashionable, might exercise on him an 
 injurious influence. Thinking the fear groundless, 
 he did not resent the expression of it, but repelled it 
 with the assurance that his real, his waking exist- 
 ence was among the objects of scientific research, 
 and that common amusements and enjoyments were 
 only his diversions. The letter in which he thus 
 expresses himself will be found in the Memoirs of 
 his Life, and sure I am that he believed what he 
 wrote, and that the friend to whom he addressed it, 
 the same who had acquainted him with the appre- 
 hension, the late Mr. Poole, believed it, and that with 
 an enduring faith, or he could not have expressed 
 himself as he did in a letter I had from him after my 
 
AFTER LEAVING CLIFTON FOR LONDON. 63 
 
 brother's death, to this effect, that " The more his 
 whole being is known, the more the man will be 
 esteemed and loved, the more the philosopher 
 thanked and venerated." I shall have occasion to 
 revert to this subject hereafter. 
 
 Of the letters which I have obtained relating to 
 this period of my brother's life, the first I shall give 
 are those addressed by him to an early friend and 
 fellow-labourer, a physiologist, the late Mr. King of 
 Bristol, a Swiss by birth, 1 for which I am indebted 
 to the kindness of his daughter, Miss Zoe King. 
 These were written shortly after his leaving Clifton, 
 either the same year, or the following, as may be 
 
 1 Southey, in one of his early letters, thus speaks of this gentleman 
 and of my brother, when writing of his Bristol friends: "The little 
 that I saw of King much pleased me, but Humphry Davy (he had then 
 left for London) is an unreplaceable companion." 1 The following 
 epitaph on the plain stone over Mr. King's grave in the Arno's Vale 
 Cemetery, is from the pen of a no flatterer, that of Mr. Walter Savage 
 Landor : 
 
 Having acquired an extensive knowledge, 
 Especially in the diseases to which the human frame is liable, 
 
 Negligent of fortune, 
 
 Assiduous in solacing the poor, 
 
 Beloved by family and kindred, 
 
 Honoured by friends and neighbours, 
 
 Sought and consulted by strangers, 
 And now called to receive his reward by Him whose minister he was, 
 
 Here rests from his labours, 
 Amidst the benedictions of them all, 
 
 JOHN KING. 
 
 He was born at Berne, in Switzerland, 
 
 Of which city he was a Patrician. 
 
 He practised as a Surgeon, at Clifton, almost 50 years, 
 
 And died there on the 18th day of August, 1846, 
 
 Aged 80. 
 
 1 Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, vol. i,, p. 153. 
 
64 RESEARCHES AND CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 inferred from their contents, and their enthusiastic, 
 wild, and youthful tone of expression and sentiment; 
 a prevailing and pervading tone at that time, as 
 shown in the writings of those with whom my 
 brother was most associated, especially Coleridge. 
 
 To J. King, Esq., Pneumatic Institution, Hot Wells. 
 
 Dear King Nature is beautiful, and you are in her bosom. 
 That the voice of comfort which speaks in the breezes of morn- 
 ing, may visit your mind, that the delightful influences which 
 the green leaves, the blue sky, the moonbeams and the clouds 
 of the evening diffuse over the universe, may in their powers 
 of soul-healing, visit your day visions, is my desire and hope. 
 
 You were long silent, and I have been long, long silent. The 
 voice of fame is still murmuring in my ears ; my mind has 
 been excited by the unexpected plaudits of the multitude. I 
 dream of greatness and utility. I dream of science restoring 
 to nature what luxury, what civilization have stolen from her. 
 
 My labours are finished for the season as to public experi- 
 menting and enunciation. My last lecture was on Saturday 
 evening. Nearly 500 persons attended, and amongst other phi- 
 losophers, your countryman, Professor Pictet. 1 There was 
 respiration, nitrous oxide, and unbounded applause Amen. 
 To-morrow a party of philosophers meet at the Institution, to 
 inhale the joy-inspiring gas. It has produced a great sensa- 
 tion $a ira. 
 
 Dr. Garnet has resigned, and at this moment I am the only 
 lecturer. Before he resigned, I was made sole lecturer on 
 chemistry. I have been nobly treated by the managers. 
 God bless us ! I am about 1,000,000 times as much a being 
 of my own volition as at Bristol. My time is even too much 
 at my own disposal. So much for egotism, for weak, glorious, 
 pitiful, sublime, conceited egotism. 
 
 # * * * 
 
 1 Close to Professor Pictet's grave is my brother's at Geneva. 
 
AFTER LEAVING CLIFTON FOR LONDON. 65 
 
 The next week^s post will bring my concentrated thoughts 
 
 to Clifton. Apologise to that most excellent being, Danvers, 
 
 that I have not written to him. He is one of the men who 
 
 have engrafted the love of human nature in my soul. * * * 
 
 I am, your sincere friend, 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 My dear King It was with unfeigned pleasure that I 
 heard from Tobin of the quiet and pleasant state of your 
 feelings. The mind is a very powerful being ; nurtured by 
 hope, it is capable of conceiving great things, and of effecting 
 good things. I expect much from your application to the ever 
 varying physical phenomena of life. You have been accus- 
 tomed to observe minute dependencies of things on each other. 
 In organised nature everything is minute : nothing can be 
 done by rapid generalizations of aspiring genius, which makes 
 use of no instruments but words. But all things are effected 
 by laborious, by patient investigation, by the mechanical but 
 important material apparatus of hands and eyes. 
 
 I very often look back with pleasure to the time when we 
 laboured together; when we had analogous hopes and fears. 
 Time has passed away : the present is very unlike the past ; 
 and, in judging of futurity, we seize the nearest analogies. 
 Hence you think of me but seldom, for you are surrounded by 
 the same objects, and acted on by the same beings, as when I 
 first knew you, and my identity, as part of the whole existing 
 in your mind, has gradually been lost by mingling with 
 myriads of ideas of objects with which I was formerly indi- 
 vidually connected. But I think of you often, and my heart 
 often yearns towards the old ideas of Clifton, the Hot Wells, 
 and the moral and natural beings that beautify them, for I 
 am in London, connected with new scenes and new beings, by 
 which the old scenes and beings can never be modified. 
 Our existence is a round of varied feelings, in which nothing 
 
 F 
 
66 RESEARCHES AND CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 is permanent, and in which peculiar habits of acting and 
 thinking succeed in trains, awakened into life by novel inci- 
 dents. The season that I passed in the country was one of 
 mental reaction ; new ambitions had produced new hopes and 
 fears. It was necessary that these hopes and fears in my 
 mind should merge into confidence. I am now (pardon my 
 egotism) a new being. I have feelings, deep, moral feelings, 
 saying, " remember your friends." They are connected with 
 vivid dreams of hope, with thoughts of joy in their happiness. 
 
 I shall expect to hear from you. How I should rejoice to 
 hear that Mrs. Beddoes might be called by the sacred name of 
 mother ! how delightful a thing it would be to see that woman 
 of genius, of feeling, of candour, of idleness, of caprice, 
 nursing and instructing an infant, and losing in one deep 
 sympathy many trifling hopes and fears. 
 
 I send by Tobin a paper for you or for the Doctor, for 
 whichever will take the trouble to read it. I have made some 
 new discoveries in galvanism. Remember me with affection 
 to Danvers. I sat down to write you a note, and I have 
 
 written a long letter. 
 
 Farewell ! 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 Bala, North Wales, September 1. 
 
 My dear King I shall feel much obliged if you will give 
 house-room to two boxes directed to you at Bristol, and sent by 
 the Derbyshire Canal, They contain my clothes and those of 
 my friend Purkis ; and we hope to find them safe on our 
 return through the Wells. 
 
 O 
 
 I have been for the last five weeks enjoying myself in the 
 country ; and you can easily understand that my old acquaint- 
 ances, the woods, and rocks, and rivers, have appeared more 
 interesting to me after a residence of eight months in London. 
 The valleys of Derbyshire are in the highest degree beautiful, 
 
AFTER LEAVING CLIFTON FOR LONDON. 67 
 
 and something in the character of the vales of the Avon and 
 Wye, though as I think superior to them in fine and grand 
 features ; and though they confine the imagination, even after 
 a month I was delighted with them. 
 
 North Wales has given me conceptions that I never had 
 before of the great and sublime in nature. A mountainous 
 country is a fairy land in which new beauties rise with every 
 change of scene, and in which fancy is never satisfied. 
 
 Cannot I tempt you to come and spend two or three days 
 with us amongst the hills ! We purpose to be at Harford, the 
 DeviPs Bridge, in about a week, and if you would meet us, it 
 would give me a very high gratification. Did you not talk 
 of forming a party with Southey and Danvers ? If I thought 
 I should meet those " Worthies of the elder times" in the 
 country of the ancient Britons, it would be a source of hope to 
 me and of cheering throughout my journey. 
 
 Tobin is gone to Liverpool full of the love of the beautiful ; 
 and, if I mistake not, two damsels, daughters of a much 
 lamented philosopher, have ere this softened the hard heart of 
 the moralist of the human race. 
 
 I do not remember you in my prayers, but I remember you 
 when I am enraptured with the great and the fair, for you are 
 in my dreams of Tintern Abbey and St. Vincent, and though 
 you are a murderer of cats and dogs, I shall always be your 
 
 affectionate friend, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 The letters which follow next, are a few of those 
 remaining which he wrote to his family, to his mother 
 and sisters, and they are given mainly for the purpose 
 of showing the excursions which he made, and the 
 endurance of his kindly home feelings, and especially 
 his brotherly kindness to me, and my obligations to 
 
 him. 
 
 F 2 
 
68 RESEARCHES AND CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 To his Mother. 
 
 Glasgow, July 24, 1804. 
 
 My dear Mother I have been absent from London about 
 three weeks, which I have spent with much pleasure and 
 interest. 
 
 I have had delightful weather for my journey, which has 
 been through Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire, along the 
 Lakes of Cumberland and Westmoreland, and by Edinburgh. 
 
 At Edinburgh I spent some days. As far as I have pene- 
 trated into Scotland, I have had every reason to be satisfied 
 with the hospitality and manners of the people. 
 
 I shall set out to-morrow for the Western Highlands, 
 whence I shall proceed to the Hebrides and the Islands. I 
 expect to be in Edinburgh again in the course of a month, 
 where I shall be glad to receive a letter from you, though 
 perhaps (as my route is not very certain), you had better not 
 write till you hear from me again. 
 
 I hope my sisters and John are very well, and that Kitty 
 does not like Penzance less after seeing London. 
 
 With kind love to all friends, I am, my dear mother, 
 Your very affectionate son, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 January, 1807. 
 
 My dear Mother A happy new year to you and all our 
 family. I am much obliged to you for the marinaded pil- 
 chards, which were very good. 
 
 I shall write to you again in a day or two or three, and, as 
 soon as I can get franks, send something to my sisters. I beg 
 you to give ten shillings to Betty White, and ten shillings to 
 Mary Launder, 1 from me, which I shall send in the franks. 
 
 I am very well, and have made some very important disco- 
 
 1 Old servants. 
 
AFTER LEAVING CLIFTON FOR LONDON. 69 
 
 veries, which must gain me new reputation. 1 I shall soon 
 have a new and very honourable office, that of Secretary to 
 the Royal Society, which will cost me very little trouble, and 
 will make an addition to my income of one hundred guineas a 
 year. 
 
 I have been obliged to dismiss George Farrant from the 
 Royal Institution, in consequence of idleness and general 
 neglect of his duty I may say, very general ill conduct. 
 Edmund Davy 2 is coming in his place. I hope he will make 
 use of the great advantages such a place will afford. 
 
 Urge John to study. Next winter he shall pass with me, 
 and if he does not take to science, I have no doubt I shall be 
 able, amongst my great friends, to get a good situation for him. 
 I am, my dear mother, 
 
 Your very affectionate son, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 To his youngest Sister. 3 
 
 My dear Sister I thank you for your letter. 1 have been 
 constantly occupied for the last six weeks in some experiments 
 which have led to very important results, and my labours are 
 fully rewarded by happy discoveries. 
 
 I had a letter from John a few days ago. He. seems anxious 
 to know whether he is to quit Barnstaple 4 at Christmas. I 
 think he should, at all events. 
 
 I looked last week at the pattern of the gown that my 
 sister put into my hands, and found it so worn and tattered 
 that nothing can be made of it ; I cannot, therefore, get your 
 
 1 Those in electro-chemistry, for which the prize of three thousand 
 francs was awarded him by the Institute of France. 
 
 2 Late Professor of Chemistry to the Royal Dublin Society. 
 
 3 This letter is without date. From what is mentioned in it, doubt- 
 less it was written just after the discovery of the bases of the fixed alka- 
 lies, in October, 1807; it is given to show how, even then, he was not 
 forgetful of home. 
 
 4 Barnstaple Grammar School. 
 
70 RESEARCHES AND CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 gowns made till you send me another. The best way will be 
 to give me measure of the waist, shoulders, length, &c., in this 
 way, and there can then be no difficulties : thus, waist, EX 
 1 5 inches, or whatever it may be ; between shoulders ; length 
 from waist to skirt or train. 
 
 I do not wish to send gowns you cannot wear, and in this 
 way they can be well made. By a piece of tape you can easily 
 measure, and then try the length by a carpenter's rule, and 
 give me the results for yourself, and for Kitty, and Grace, 
 and I shall then be able to send your gowns a few days after 
 I receive your letter. 
 
 If you should think a pattern better, you can send it under 
 a cover, not weighing more than an ounce, addressed to me 
 and inclosed in another cover addressed to G. B. Greenough, 
 Esq., M.P., Charles Street, Westminster. 
 
 I shall write to my mother soon, about John. And now, 
 my dear sister, having written you as stupid a letter as ever 
 was written about gowns, I shall end with love to my mother, 
 Kitty, Grace, and my aunts. 
 
 Your affectionate brother, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 To his Mother. 
 
 October 5, 1808. 
 
 My dear Mother As the time is now approaching when 
 our plans with respect to John must be settled, I shall enter 
 upon some statements which will be necessary to prevent dis- 
 appointment on his part, and on your part, and to clear the 
 way for the arrangements which must be made. 
 
 It would be very illiberal in me (though I may have the 
 power of doing it) to bring John into the Koyal Institution on 
 a salary for which he could do little or nothing to promote the 
 interests of the establishment ; all that I can do with pro- 
 priety is to get apartments assigned to him : coals, candles, 
 attendance, and so on, he will have in my rooms. He will 
 have an opportunity of pursuing science, or of pursuing medi- 
 
AFTER LEAVING CLIFTON FOR LONDON. 71 
 
 cine, better in London than in any other place ; and the ques- 
 tions with regard to his pursuits will be, I think, these : 
 
 Would he choose to devote himself to scientific pursuits, 
 and stand the chance of finding a place in those public estab- 
 lishments and institutions which are now forming in London I 
 
 Or, would he rather choose to be a surgeon or a physician ? 
 
 In either of these cases I can materially assist him, and 
 after he has been in the Eoyal Institution for a few months, 
 his bent will probably be decided. 
 
 His first year must, at all events, be considered as a year 
 of expense, and it will be well if he is able to maintain himself 
 after the first year. This must not be expected, though it 
 may be hoped for. 
 
 Now I live very little in the Eoyal Institution ; I never 
 dine there, and when I do not dine with some of my friends 
 I dine at a coffee-house. It would be fatal to John's improve- 
 ment (even if I had the power) to take him with me where- 
 ever I go ; and for him to live exactly as I do before he has 
 the means of getting what I get, would spoil him for an econo- 
 mist ; and it will not be possible for me to alter my mode of 
 living and to make myself a hermit on his account. 
 
 What I should propose is this, that he and my cousin 
 Edmund should mess together when I am not at the Institu- 
 tion. Edmund will teach him economy, which is a very great 
 virtue, and I will endeavour to teach him chemistry and phi- 
 losophy. Edmund lives very respectably upon sixty pounds 
 a year, looking forward to a better salary ; but he has his 
 lodgings, coals, candles, meat dressed, attendance, and all 
 those things. John, I should think, ought not to expend 
 more than this till he is able to advance something. Now, if 
 you will advance for him from time to time the sums which 
 you paid for him the last year he was at school, reckoning 
 clothes, &c., journeys, and so on, I will take care of the rest. 1 
 
 1 The concluding part of this letter has been lost. 
 
72 RESEARCHES AND CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 August 20, 1809. 
 
 My dear Mother I have not written lately, because John 
 has been able to say all that I can say, and I should not write 
 now, except that I can say something which John cannot say, 
 and which I am sure will give you and all our family pleasure. 
 
 John has been constantly occupied, and very successfully. 
 His talents are gradually and healthfully showing themselves, 
 and I do not think it possible for any one to make a surer 
 progress. He is everything we could desire, in temper, in 
 disposition, and in abilities, and I feel full confidence that, 
 with the blessing of God, he will become an eminent person, 
 and will distinguish himself in good and useful pursuits. 
 
 Pray give my best love to my sisters. As soon as 1 have 
 anything to say I will write to Grace and to Betsy, that is, 
 my two next letters shall be to them. And beg them and my 
 aunts, particularly my aunt Millett, for I have seen my aunt 
 Sampson within a short space, not to suppose that I do not 
 often think of them with the kindest affection, because I do 
 not write. At present, except when I resolve to be idle for 
 health's sake, I devote every moment to labours which I hope 
 will not be wholly ineffectual in benefiting society, and which 
 will not be wholly inglorious for my country hereafter ; and 
 the feeling of this is the reward which will constantly keep me 
 employed. 
 
 Believe me to be, my dear mother, 
 
 Your affectionate son, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 The correspondence between my brother and Cole- 
 ridge commenced, as already stated, before he left 
 Clifton. It was carried on in the same affectionate 
 and confidential manner afterwards, and was con- 
 tinued with little interruption till the latter quitted 
 
AFTER LEAVING CLIFTON FOR LONDON. 73 
 
 England for Malta in the early spring of 1804. Most 
 of Coleridge's letters I shall insert consecutively, 
 these being chiefly of interest psychologically, and 
 independent in a great measure of time and passing 
 events. The particulars in the first of these letters, 
 respecting Blumenbach's Manual of Natural History, 
 are only note-worthy as showing in their limits and 
 poverty the vast advance of the science during the 
 fifty years which have passed. I may remark that 
 the translation of it was one of the many works 
 which this gifted man thought of, but never executed. 
 And here, may I express the hope, that these letters 
 will help to make him better known in his strength 
 and affections, the latter especially, as well as in his 
 own pathetic sense of a certain weakness of character 
 which alike belonged to him. His high estimation of 
 my brother this correspondence displays throughout, 
 as well as my brother's exalted opinion of his powers 
 of mind, enhancing regret for his infirmity of purpose. 
 The following extract from Cottle's Reminiscences, 
 confirmatory of this estimation, may deserve a place 
 here : 
 
 " Having," says Mr. Cottle, " introduced Mr. Davy to Mr. 
 C. some years before, I inquired for him with some anxiety, 
 and expressed a hope that he was not tinctured with the pre- 
 vailing scepticism since his removal from Bristol to London. 
 Mr. C. assured me that he was not ; that his heart and under- 
 standing were not the soil for infidelity. I then remarked : 
 ' During your stay in London you doubtless saw a great many 
 of what are called the cleverest men how do you estimate 
 Davy, in comparison with these f Mr. Coleridge's reply was 
 strong, but expressive : 4 Why, Davy can eat them all ! There 
 
74 RESEARCHES AND CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 is an energy, an elasticity in his mind, which enables him to 
 seize on and analyze all questions, pushing them to their 
 legitimate consequences. Every subject in Davy's mind has 
 the principle of vitality. Living thoughts spring up like turf 
 under his feet.* 1 ' 
 
 A few other extracts, these relating to Coleridge, 
 from letters of my brother to Mr. Poole, may here 
 be inserted as descriptive of his mental excellencies 
 strangely mingled with weaknesses. Writing in 
 1803, he says: 
 
 " Coleridge has left London for Keswick. During his stay 
 in town I saw him seldomer than usual ; when I did see him, 
 it was generally in the midst of large companies, where he is 
 the image of power and activity. His eloquence is unimpaired ; 
 perhaps it is softer and stronger. His will is less than ever 
 commensurate with his ability. Brilliant images of greatness 
 float upon his mind, like images of the morning clouds on the 
 waters. Their forms are changed by the motions of the waves, 
 they are agitated by every breeze, and modified by every sun- 
 beam. He talked in the course of an hour of beginning three 
 works ; he recited the poem of Christabel unfinished, and as 
 I had before heard it. What talent does he not waste in 
 forming visions, sublime, but unconnected with the real world ! 
 I have looked to his efforts, as to the efforts of a creating 
 being ; but as yet he has not laid the foundation for the new 
 world of intellectual forms." 
 
 A year later, he writes : 
 
 " I have received a letter from Coleridge within the last 
 three weeks. He writes from Malta in good spirits, and, as 
 usual, from the depth of his being. God bless him ! He was 
 intended for a great man. I hope and trust he will, at some 
 period, appear such." 
 
AFTER LEAVING CLIFTON FOR LONDON. 75 
 
 After his return, my brother, addressing the same 
 friend it was in 1808 thus speaks of him: 
 
 " Coleridge, after disappointing his audience twice from ill- 
 ness, is announced to lecture again this week. 1 He has suf- 
 fered greatly from excessive sensibility, the disease of genius. 
 His mind is a wilderness, in which the cedar and the oak, 
 which might aspire to the skies, are stunted in their growth 
 by underwood, thorns, briars, and parasitical plants. With 
 the most exalted genius, enlarged views, sensitive heart, and 
 enlightened mind, he will be the victim of want of order, 
 precision, and regularity. I cannot think of him without 
 experiencing the mingled feelings of admiration, regard, and 
 pity." 
 
 Considering his strangely blended character, so 
 anomalous, so incongruous, it is not difficult to 
 imagine the feelings which influenced him, when he 
 wrote his own epitaph 
 
 " Stop, Christian passer-by : stop, child of God, 
 
 And read, with gentle breast. Beneath this sod 
 
 A poet lies, or that which once seemed he 
 
 O lift a thought in prayer for S. T. C. 
 
 That he who many a year with toil of breath 
 
 Found death in life, may here find life in death ; 
 
 Mercy for praise to be forgiven for feme 
 
 He asked, and hoped through Christ. Do thou the same." 
 
 From Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Esq. 
 
 Saturday Morning, Mr. T. Poole's, Nether Stowey, Somerset. 
 My dear Davy I received a very kind letter from Godwin, 
 in which he says that he never thinks of you but with a 
 
 1 On Shakespeare. 
 
76 RESEARCHES AND CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 brother's feeling of love and expectation. Indeed, I am sure 
 he does not. 
 
 I think of translating BlumenbachV Manual of Natural 
 History: it is very well written, and would, I think, be 
 useful both to students, as an admirable direction to their 
 studies, and to others it would supply a general knowledge of 
 the subject. I will state the contents of the book : 1. Of the 
 naturalia in general, and their divisions into three kingdoms. 
 2. Of organised bodies in general. 3. Of animals in general. 
 4.. Of the mammalia. 5. Birds. 6. Amphibious. 7. Fishes. 
 8. Insects. 9. Worms. 10. Plants. 11. Of minerals in 
 general. 12. Of stones and earthy fossils. 13. Of mineral 
 salts. 14. Combustible minerals. 15. Of metals. 16. Petri- 
 factions. At the end there is an alphabetical index, so that it 
 is at once a natural history and a dictionary of natural his- 
 tory. To each animal, &c., all the European names are given, 
 with of course the scientific characteristics. I have the last 
 edition, i.e., that of April, 1799. Now, I wish to know from 
 you, whether there is in English already any work of one 
 volume (this would make 800 pages), that renders this useless. 
 In short, should I be right in advising Longman to undertake 
 it I Answer me as soon as you conveniently can. Blum en- 
 bach has been no very great discoverer, though he has done 
 some respectable things in that way, but he is a man of 
 enormous knowledge, and has an arranging head. Ask 
 Beddoes, if you do not know. 
 
 When you have leisure, you would do me a great service, if 
 you would briefly state your metaphysical system of impres- 
 sions, ideas, pleasures, and pains, the laws that govern them, 
 and the reasons which induce you to consider them as essen- 
 
 1 When he first went into Germany, viz., in the autumn of 1798, he 
 attended the lectures of this distinguished professor, at Gottingen, on 
 Physiology and Natural History. See his Life by Gillman, in which 
 is an interesting "Fragment of a Journey (made by him) over the 
 Brocken, &c., in 1799." 
 
AFTER LEAVING CLIFTON FOR LONDON. 77 
 
 tially distinct from each other. My motive for this request is 
 the following : As soon as I settle, I shall read Spinoza and 
 Leibnitz, and I particularly wish to know wherein they agree 
 with, and wherein differ from you. If you will do this, I 
 promise you to send you the result, and with it my own 
 creed. 
 
 God bless you ! 
 
 S. T. COLERIDGE. 
 
 Blumenbach's book contains references to all the best 
 writers on each subject. My friend, T. Poole, begs me to ask 
 what, in your opinion, are the parts or properties in the oak 
 which tan skins ? and is cold water a complete menstruum for 
 these parts or properties? I understand from Poole that 
 nothing is so little understood as the chemical theory of tan, 
 though nothing is of more importance in the circle of manu- 
 factures ; in other words, does oak bark give out to cold water 
 all those of its parts which tan ? 
 
 From the Same. 
 Keswick, Friday Evening, July 25, 1800. 
 
 My dear Davy Work hard, and if success do not dance 
 up like the bubbles in the salt (with the spirit lamp under it), 
 may the Devil and his dam take success ! My dear fellow ! 
 from the window before me there is a great camp of mountains. 
 Giants seem to have pitched their tents there. Each moun- 
 tain is a giant's tent, and how the light streams from them. 
 Davy ! I ache for you to be with us. 
 
 W. Wordsworth is such a lazy fellow, that I bemire myself 
 by making promises for him : the moment I received your 
 letter, I wrote to him. He will, I hope, write immediately to 
 Biggs and Cottle. At all events, those poems must not as 
 yet be delivered up to them, because that beautiful poem, 
 
78 RESEARCHES AND CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 " The Brothers," which I read to you in Paul Street, I 
 neglected to deliver to you, and that must begin the volume. 
 I trust, however, that I have invoked the sleeping bard with a 
 spell so potent, that he will awake and deliver up that sword 
 of Argantyr, which is to rive the enchanter Gaudycerse from 
 his crown to his foot. 
 
 What did you think of that case I translated for you from 
 the German ? That I was a well-meaning sutor who had 
 ultra-crepidated l with more zeal than wisdom ! ! I give myself 
 credit for that word " ultra-crepidated," it started up in my 
 brain like a creation. I write to Tobin by this post. Godwin 
 is gone Trelandward, on a visit to Curran, says the " Morning 
 Post ;" to Grattan, writes C. Lamb. 
 
 We drank tea the night before I left Grasmere, on the 
 island in that lovely lake*; our kettle swung over the fire, 
 hanging from the branch of a fir-tree, and I lay and saw the 
 woods, and mountains, and lake all trembling, and as it were 
 idealized through the subtle smoke, which rose up from the 
 clear, red embers of the fir-apples which we had collected : 
 afterwards we made a glorious bonfire on the margin, by some 
 elder bushes, whose twigs heaved and sobbed in the uprushing 
 column of smoke, and the image of the bonfire, and of us that 
 danced round it, ruddy, laughing faces in the twilight ; the 
 image of this in a lake, smooth as that sea, to whose waves 
 the Son of God had said, Peace ! May God, and all his sons, 
 love you as I do. 
 
 S. T. COLERIDGE. 
 
 Sara desires her kind remembrances. Hartley is a spirit 
 that dances on an aspen leaf; the air that yonder sallow-faced 
 and yawning tourist is breathing, is to my babe a perpetual 
 nitrous oxide. Never was more joyous creature born. Pain 
 with him is so wholly transubstantiated by the joys that had 
 
 1 " Ne sutor ultra crepidam." 
 
AFTER LEAVING CLIFTON FOB LONDON. 79 
 
 rolled on before, and rushed on after, that oftentimes five 
 minutes after his mother has whipt him, he has gone up and 
 asked her to whip him again. 
 
 From the Same. 
 
 October 18, 1800. 
 
 My dear Davy Our mountains northward end in the 
 mountain Carrock one huge, steep, enormous bulk of stones, 
 desolately variegated with the heath plant ; at its foot runs the 
 river Calder, and a narrow vale between it and the mountain 
 Bowscale, so narrow, that in its greatest width it is not more 
 than a furlong. But that narrow vale is so green, so beautiful, 
 there are moods in which a man might weep to look at it. 
 On this mountain Carrock, at the summit of which are the 
 remains of a vast Druid circle of stones, I was wandering, 
 when a thick cloud came on, and wrapped me in such dark- 
 ness, that I could not see ten yards before me, and with the 
 cloud a storm of wind and hail, the like of which I had never 
 before seen and felt. At the very summit is a cone of stones, 
 built by the shepherds, and called the Carrock Man. Such 
 cones are on the tops of almost all our mountains, and they 
 are all called men. At the bottom of the Carrock Man I 
 seated myself for shelter, but the wind became so fearful and 
 tyrannous, that I was apprehensive some of the stones might 
 topple down upon me, so I groped my way farther down and 
 came to three rocks, placed on this wise ! / 3 \J each one sup- 
 ported by the other like a child's house of cards, and in the 
 hollow and screen which they made, I sate for a long while 
 sheltered, as if I had been in my own study in which I am 
 now writing : there I sate with a total feeling worshipping the 
 power and " eternal link" of energy. The darkness vanished 
 as by enchantment ; far off', far, far off to the south, the 
 mountains of Glaramara and Great Gable and their family 
 
80 RESEARCHES AND CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 appeared distinct, in deepest, sablest blue. I rose, and 
 behind me was a rainbow bright as the brightest. I descended 
 by the side of a torrent, and passed, or rather crawled (for I 
 was forced to descend on all fours), by many a naked waterfall, 
 till fatigued and hungry (and with a finger almost broken, and 
 which remains swelled to the size of two fingers), I reached 
 the narrow vale, and the single house nestled in ash and 
 sycamores. I entered to claim the universal hospitality of 
 this country ; but instead of the life arid comfort usual in 
 these lonely houses, I saw dirt, and every appearance of 
 misery a pale woman sitting by a peat fire. I asked her for 
 bread and milk, and she sent a small child to fetch it, but did 
 not rise herself. I eat very heartily of the black, sour bread, 
 and drank a bowl of milk, and asked her to permit me to pay 
 her. " Nay," says she, " we are not so scant as that you 
 are right welcome ; but do you know any help for the rheu- 
 matics, for I have been so long ailing that I am almost fain to 
 die f So I advised her to eat a great deal of mustard, having 
 seen in an advertisement something about essence of mustard 
 curing the most obstinate cases of rheumatism. But do write 
 me, and tell me some cure for the rheumatism ; it is in her 
 shoulders, and the small of her back chiefly. I wish much to 
 go off with some bottles of stuff to the poor creature. I should 
 walk the ten miles as ten yards. With love and honour, 
 My dear Davy, yours, 
 
 S. T. COLERIDGE. 
 
 From the Same. 
 
 Thursday night, October 9, 1800. 
 
 My dear Davy I was right glad, glad with a stagger of 
 the heart, to see your writing again. Many a moment have 
 I had all my France and England curiosity suspended and 
 lost, looking in the advertisement front column of the Moraine- 
 
AFTER LEAVING CLIFTON FOR LONDON. 81 
 
 Post Gazeteer, for Mr. Davy's Galvanic habitudes of char- 
 coal. Upon my soul, I believe there is not a letter in those 
 words round which a world of imagery does not circumvolve ; 
 your room, the garden, the cold bath, the moonlight rocks, 
 Barristed, Moore, and simple-looking Frere, and dreams of 
 wonderful things attached to your name and Skiddaw, and 
 Glaramara, and Eagle Crag, and you, and Wordsworth, and 
 me, on the top of them ! I pray you do write to me imme- 
 diately, and tell me what you mean by the possibility of your 
 assuming a new occupation ; J have you been successful to the 
 extent of your expectations in your late chemical inquiries ? 
 
 In your poem, 2 "impressive" is used for impressible or pas- 
 sive, is it not ? If so, it is not English ; life diffusive likewise 
 is not English. The last stanza introduces confusion into my 
 mind, and despondency and has besides been so often said 
 by the materialists, &c., that it is not worth repeating. If the 
 poem had ended more originally, in short, but for the last 
 stanza, I will venture to affirm that there were never so many 
 lines which so uninterruptedly combined natural and beautiful 
 words with strict philosophic truths, i. e., scientifically philo- 
 sophic. Of the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh 
 stanzas, I am doubtful which is the most beautiful. Do not 
 imagine that I cling to a fond love of future identity, but the 
 thought which you have expressed in the last stanzas might 
 be more grandly, and therefore more consolingly exemplified. 
 I had forgot to say that sameness and identity are words too 
 etymologically the same to be placed so close to each other. 
 
 As to myself, I am doing little worthy the relation. I 
 write for Stuart in the Morning Post, and I am compelled by 
 the god Pecunia, which was one name of the supreme Jupiter, 
 
 1 No doubt the leaving of the Pneumatic for the Royal Institution. 
 
 2 That entitled, "Written after ' Recovery from a Dangerous Ill- 
 ness." It is to be found in the Memoirs of his Life, vol. i, p. 390. Cole- 
 ridge's critical remarks apply to it as it was first written; the words 
 objected to are not to be found in it in its corrected printed state. 
 
 G 
 
82 RESEARCHES AND CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 to give a volume of letters from Germany, which will be a 
 decent lounge book, and not an atom more. The Christabel 
 was running up to 1,300 lines, and was so much admired by 
 Wordsworth, that he thought it indelicate to print two 
 volumes with his name, in which so much of another man's 
 was included ; and which was of more consequence, the poem 
 was in direct opposition to the very purpose for which the lyrical 
 ballads were published, viz., an experiment to see how far 
 those passions which alone give any value to extraordinary 
 incidents were capable of interesting in and for themselves in 
 the incidents of common life. We mean to publish the Chris- 
 tabel, therefore, with a long blank-verse poem of Wordsworth's, 
 entitled The Pedlar. 1 I assure you I think very differently of 
 Christabel. I would rather have written Ruth, and Nature's 
 Lady, than a million such poems. But why do I calumniate 
 my own spirit by saying I would rather ? God knows it is as 
 delightful to me that they are written. I know that at present, 
 and I hope that it will be so ; my mind has disciplined itself 
 into a willing exertion of its powers, without any reference to 
 their comparative value. 
 
 I cannot speak favourably of W.'s health, but indeed he has 
 not done common justice to Dr. Beddoes's kind prescriptions. 
 I saw his countenance darken, and all his hopes vanish, when 
 he saw the prescriptions his scepticism concerning medicines ! 
 nay, it is not enough scepticism! Yet, now that peas and 
 beans are over, I have hopes that he will in good earnest make 
 a fair and full trial. I rejoice with sincere joy at Beddoes's 
 recovery. 
 
 Wordsworth is fearful you have been much teazed by the 
 printers on his account, but you can sympathise with him. 
 The works which I gird myself up to attack as soon as money 
 concerns will permit me, are the Life of Lessing, and the 
 Essay on Poetry. The latter is still more at my heart than 
 
 1 A name changed to " The Excursion." 
 
AFTER LEAVING CLIFTON FOR LONDON. 83 
 
 the former : its title would be an essay on the elements of 
 poetry it would in reality be a disguised system of morals 
 and politics. 
 
 When you write, and do write soon, tell me how I can get 
 your essay on the nitrous oxide. If you desired Johnson to 
 have one sent to LackingtonX to be placed in Mr. Crosthwaite's 
 monthly parcel for Keswick, I should receive it. Are your 
 galvanic discoveries important ? What do they lead to ? All 
 this is ultra crepidation, but would to heaven I had as much 
 knowledge as I have sympathy ! My wife and children are 
 well ; the baby was dying some weeks ago, so the good people 
 would have it baptized ; his name is Derwent Coleridge, so 
 called from the river, for fronting our house the Greta runs 
 into the Derwent. Had it been a girl, the name should have 
 been Greta. By the by, Greta, or rather Grieta, is exactly 
 the Cocytus of the Greeks ; the word, literally rendered in 
 modern English, is, " The loud Lamenter ;" to griet, in the 
 Cambrian dialect, signifying to roar aloud for grief or pain, 
 and it does roar with a vengeance ! 
 
 I will say nothing about Spring a thirsty man tries to 
 think of anything but the stream when he knows it to be ten 
 miles off! 
 
 God bless you ! Your most affectionate 
 
 S. T. COLERIDGE. 
 
 From the Same. 
 
 Greta Hall, Tuesday night, December 2, 1800. 
 My dear Davy By an accident I did not receive your 
 letter till this evening. I would that you had added to the 
 account of your indisposition the probable causes of it. It has 
 left me anxious whether or no you have not exposed yourself 
 to unwholesome influences in your chemical pursuits. There 
 are few beings both of hope and performance, but few who 
 
 G 2 
 
84 RESEARCHES AND CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 combine the " are" and the " will be." For God's sake, there- 
 fore, my dear fellow, do not rip open the bird that lays the 
 golden eggs. I have not received your book. I read yester- 
 day a sort of medical review about it. I suppose Longman 
 will send it to me when he sends down the Lyrical Ballads to 
 Wordsworth. I am solicitous to read the latter part. Did 
 there appear to you any remote analogy between the case 
 I translated from the German Magazine and the effects pro- 
 duced by your gas ? Did Carlisle l ever communicate to you, 
 or has he in any way published his facts concerning pain, 
 which he mentioned when we were with him ? It is a subject 
 which exceedingly interests me. I want to read something by 
 somebody expressly on pain, if only to give an arrangement to 
 my own thoughts, though if it were well treated, I have little 
 doubt it would revolutionize them. For the last month I 
 have been trembling on through sands and swamps of evil and 
 bodily grievance. My eyes have been inflamed to a degree 
 that rendered reading and writing scarcely possible; and 
 strange as it seems, the act of metre composition, as I lay in 
 bed, perceptibly affected them, and my voluntary ideas were 
 every minute passing, more or less transformed into vivid 
 spectra. I had leeches repeatedly applied to my temples, and 
 a blister behind my ear and my eyes are now my own, but 
 in the place where the blister was, six small but excruciating 
 boils have appeared, and harass me almost beyond endurance. 
 In the meantime my darling Hartley has been taken with a 
 stomach illness, which has ended in the yellow jaundice ; and 
 this greatly alarms me. So much for the doleful ! Amid all 
 these changes, and humiliations, and fears, the sense of the 
 Eternal abides in me, and preserves unsubdued my cheerful 
 faith, that all I endure is full of blessings ! 
 
 At times, indeed, I would fain be somewhat of a more tan- 
 gible utility than I am ; but so I suppose it is with all of us 
 
 1 Afterwards Sir Antony, a distinguished surgeon. 
 
AFTER LEAVING CLIFTON FOR LONDON. 85 
 
 one while cheerful, stirring, feeling in resistance nothing but 
 a joy and a stimulus ; another, while drowsy, self-distrusting, 
 prone to rest, loathing our own self-promises, withering our 
 own hopes our hopes, the vitality and cohesion of our being ! 
 
 I purpose to have Christabel published by itself this I 
 publish with confidence but my travels in Germany come 
 from me now with mortal pangs. Nothing but the most 
 pressing necessity could have induced me and even now I 
 hesitate and tremble. Be so good as to have all that is 
 printed of Christabel sent to me per post. 
 
 Wordsworth has nearly finished the concluding poem. It is 
 of a mild, unimposing character, but full of beauties to those 
 short-necked men who have their hearts sufficiently near their 
 heads the relative distance of which (according to citizen 
 Tourder, the French translator of Spallanzani) determines the 
 sagacity or stupidity of all bipeds and quadrupeds. 
 
 There is a deep blue cloud over the heavens ; the lake, and 
 the vale, and the mountains, are all in darkness ; only the 
 summits of all the mountains in long ridges, covered with 
 snow, are bright to a dazzling excess. A glorious scene ! 
 Hartley was in my arms the other evening, looking at the sky ; 
 he saw the moon glide into a large cloud. Shortly after, at 
 another part of the cloud, several stars sailed in. Says he, 
 " Pretty creatures ! they are going in to see after their mother 
 moon." 
 
 Remember me kindly to King. Write as often as you can ; 
 but above all things, iny loved and honoured dear fellow, do 
 not give up the idea of letting me and Skiddaw see you. 
 God love you ! 
 
 S. T. COLERIDGE. 
 
 Tobin writes me that Thompson 1 has made some lucrative 
 discovery. Do you know aught about it ? Have you seen 
 T. Wedgwood since his return? 
 
 1 The late Mr. James Thompson, of Clithcroc. 
 
86 RESEARCHES AND CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 From the Same. 
 
 February 3, 1801. 
 
 My dear Davy I can scarcely reconcile it to my conscience 
 to make you pay postage for another letter. 0, what a fine 
 unveiling of modern politics it would be if there were published 
 a minute detail of all the sums received by Government from 
 the Post establishment, and of all the outlets in which the 
 sums so received flowed out again ; and, on the other hand, 
 all the domestic affections that had been stifled, all the 
 intellectual progress that would have been, but is not, on 
 account of the heavy tax, &c., &c. The letters of a nation 
 ought to be paid for as an article of national expense. Well ! 
 but I did not take up this paper to flourish away in splenetic 
 politics. A gentleman resident here, his name Calvert, an 
 idle, good-hearted, and ingenious man, has a great desire to 
 commence fellow-student with me and Wordsworth in che- 
 mistry. He is an intimate friend of Wordsworth's, and he has 
 proposed to W. to take a house which he (Calvert) has nearly 
 built, called Windy Brow, in a delicious situation, scarce half 
 a mile from Greta Hall, the residence of S. T. Coleridge, Esq., 
 and so for him (Calvert) to live with them, i. 0., Wordsworth 
 and his sister. In this case he means to build a little laboratory, 
 &c. Wordsworth has not quite decided, but is strongly 
 inclined to adopt the scheme, because he and his sister 
 have before lived with Calvert on the same footing, and are 
 much attached to him : because my health is so precarious 
 and so much injured by wet, and his health, too, is like little 
 potatoes, no great things, and therefore Grasmere (thirteen 
 miles from Keswick) is too great a distance for us to enjoy each 
 other's society, without inconvenience, as much as it would be 
 profitable for us both : and likewise because he feels it more 
 necessary for him to have some intellectual pursuit less closely 
 connected with deep passion than poetry, and is of course 
 desirous, too, not to be so wholly ignorant of knowledge so 
 
AFTER LEAVING CLIFTON FOR LONDON. 87 
 
 exceedingly important. However, whether Wordsworth come 
 or no, Calvert and I have determined to begin and go on. 
 Calvert is a man of sense and some originality, and is besides 
 what is well called a handy man. He is a good practical 
 mechanic, &c., and is desirous to lay out any sum of money 
 that is necessary. You know how long, how ardently I have 
 wished to initiate myself in Chemical science, both for its own 
 sake, and in no small degree likewise, my beloved friend, that 
 I may be able to sympathize with all that you do and think. 
 Sympathize blindly with it all I do even now, God knows ! 
 from the very middle of my hearths heart, but I would fain 
 sympathize with you in the light of knowledge. This oppor- 
 tunity is exceedingly precious to me, as on my own account 
 I could not afford the least additional expense, having been 
 already, by long and successive illnesses, thrown behindhand, 
 so much, that for the next four or five months, I fear, let me 
 work as hard as I can, I shall not be able to do what my 
 heart within me burns to do, that is, to concenter my free mind 
 to the affinities of the feelings with words and ideas under the 
 title of " Concerning Poetry, and the nature of the Pleasures 
 derived from it." I have faith that I do understand the sub- 
 ject, and I am sure that if I write what I ought to do on it, 
 the work would supersede all the books of metaphysics, and 
 all the books of morals too. To whom shall a young man 
 utter his pride, if not to a young man whom he loves ! 
 
 I beg you, therefore, my dear Davy, to write to me a long 
 letter when you are at leisure, informing me : Firstly, What 
 books it will be well for me and Calvert to purchase. Secondly, 
 Directions for a convenient little laboratory. Thirdly, To 
 what amount apparatus would run in expense, and whether 
 or no you would be so good as to superintend its making at 
 Bristol. Fourthly, Give me your advice how to begin. And, 
 fifthly, and lastly, and mostly, do send a drop of hope to my 
 parched tongue, that you will, if you can, come and visit me 
 in the spring. Indeed, indeed, you ought to see this country, 
 
88 RESEARCHES AND CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 this beautiful country, and then the joy you would send into 
 me! 
 
 The shape of this paper will convince you with what eager- 
 ness I began this letter ; I really did not see that it was not 
 a sheet. 
 
 I have been thinking vigorously during my illness, so that 
 I cannot say that my long, long wakeful nights have been all 
 lost to me. The subject of my meditations has been the rela- 
 tions of thoughts to things in the language of Hume, of ideas 
 to impressions. I may be truly described in the words of 
 Descartes : I have been " res cogitans, id est, dubitans, affir- 
 mans, negans, pauca intelligens, multa ignorans, volens, no- 
 lens, imaginans etiam, et sentiens." I please myself with 
 believing that you will receive no small pleasure from the 
 result of these broodings, although I expect in you (in some 
 points) a determined opponent, but I say of my mind in this 
 respect : " Manet imperterritus ille hostem magnanimum oppe- 
 riens, et mole sua stat." Every poor fellow has his proud hour 
 sometimes, and this I suppose is mine. 
 
 I am better in every respect than I was, but am still very 
 feeble. The weather has been woefully against me for the last 
 fortnight, having rained here almost incessantly. I take 
 quantities of bark, but the effect is (to express myself with 
 the dignity of science) 57=0000000, and I shall not gather 
 strength, or that little suffusion of bloom which belongs to my 
 healthy state, till I can walk out. 
 God bless you, my dear Davy ! and 
 
 Your ever affectionate friend, 
 
 S. T. COLERIDGE. 
 
 P.S. An electrical machine, and a number of little nick- 
 nacks connected with it, Mr. Calvert has. Write. 
 
AFTER LEAVING CLIFTON FOB LONDON. 89 
 
 From the Same. 
 
 Monday, May 4, 1801. 
 
 My dear Davy I heard from Tobin the day before yester- 
 day nay, it was Friday. From him I learn that you are 
 giving lectures on galvanism. Would to God I were one of 
 your auditors ! My motive muscles tingled and contracted at 
 the news, as if you had bared them, and were zincifying their 
 life-mocking fibres. 
 
 O 
 
 When you have leisure and impulse perfect leisure and a 
 complete impulse write to me, but only then. For though 
 there does not exist a man on earth who yields me greater 
 pleasure by writing to me, yet I have neither pain nor dis- 
 quietude from your silence. I have a deep faith in the guardian- 
 ship of Nature over you of the Great Being whom you are 
 manifesting. Heaven bless you, my dear Davy ! 
 
 I have been rendered uneasy by an account of the Lisbon 
 packet's non-arrival, lest Southey should have been on board 
 it. Have you heard from him lately ? 
 
 It would seem affectation to write to you and say nothing 
 of my health ; but in truth I am weary of giving useless pain. 
 Yesterday I should, have been incapable of writing you this 
 scrawl, and to-morrow I may be as bad. " Sinking, sinking, 
 sinking ! I feel that I am sinking" My medical attendant says 
 that it is irregular gout, with nephritic symptoms. Gout> in a 
 young man of twenty-nine ! ! Swollen knees, and knotty 
 fingers, a loathing stomach, and a dizzy head. Trust me, 
 friend, I am at times an object of moral disgust to my own 
 mind ! But that this long illness has impoverished me, I 
 should immediately go to St. Miguels, one of the Azores 
 the baths and the delicious climate might restore me and if 
 it were possible, I would afterwards send over for my wife and 
 children, and settle there for a few years ; it is exceedingly 
 cheap. On this supposition Wordsworth and his sister have 
 with generous friendship offered to settle there with me and 
 
90 RESEARCHES AND CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 happily our dear Southey would come too. But of this I pray 
 you, my dear fellow, do not say a syllable to any human 
 being, for the scheme, from the present state of my circum- 
 stances, is rather the thing of a wish than of a hope. 
 
 If you write to me, pray in a couple of sentences tell me 
 whether HerschelFs thermometric spectrum (in the Philos. 
 Trans.) will lead to any revolution in the chemical philosophy. 
 As far as words go, I have become a formidable chemist 
 having got by heart a prodigious quantity of terms, &c., to 
 which I attach some ideas, very scanty in number, I assure 
 you, and right meagre in their individual persons. That which 
 must discourage me in it is, that I find all power of vital 
 attributes to depend on modes of arrangement, and that 
 chemistry throws not even a distant rushlight glimmer upon 
 this subject. The reasoning, likewise," is always unsatisfactory 
 to me. I am perpetually saying, probably there are many 
 agents hitherto undiscovered. This cannot be reasoning : we 
 must have a deep conviction that all the terms have been 
 exhausted. This is saying no more than that (with Dr. Bed- 
 does's leave) chemistry can never possess the same kind of 
 certainty with the mathematics in truth, it is saying nothing. 
 I grow, however, exceedingly interested in the subject. 
 
 God love you, my dear friend ! From Tobin's account, 
 I fear that I must give up a very sweet vision that of seeing 
 you this summer. The summer after, my ghost perhaps may 
 be a gas. 
 
 Yours affectionately, 
 
 S. T. COLERIDGE. 
 
 From the Same. 
 
 Greta Hall, Keswick, May 20, 1801. 
 
 My dear Davy Though we of the north must forego you, 
 yet I shall rejoice when I receive a letter from you from Corn- 
 
AFTER LEAVING CLIFTON FOR LONDON. 91 
 
 wall. I must believe that you have made some important 
 discoveries in galvanism, and connected the facts with other 
 more interesting ones, or I should be puzzled to conceive how 
 that subject could furnish matter for more than one lecture. 
 If I recollect aright, you have identified it with electricity, 
 and that indeed is a wide field. I shall dismiss my British 
 Critic, and take in Nicholson's Journal, and then I shall 
 know something about you. I am sometimes apprehensive 
 that my passion for science is scarcely true and genuine it is 
 but Davy ism! that is, I fear that I am more delighted at 
 your having discovered facts than at the facts having been 
 discovered. 
 
 My health is better. I am indeed eager to believe that 
 I am really beginning to recover, though I have had so many 
 short recoveries followed by severe relapses, that I am at 
 times almost afraid to hope. But cheerful thoughts come 
 with genial sensations ; and hope is itself no mean medicine. 
 
 I am anxious respecting Robert Southey. Why is he not 
 in England? Remember me kindly to Tobin. As soon as 
 I have anything to communicate I will write to him. But, 
 alas ! sickness turns large districts of time into dreary uni- 
 formity of sandy desolation. Alas, for Egypt and Menou ! 
 However, I trust the English will keep it, if they take it, and 
 something will be gained to the cause of human nature. 
 Heaven bless you ! 
 
 S. T. COLERIDGE. 
 
 From the Same. 
 
 Greta Hall, Keswick, Cumberland, October 31, 1801. 
 
 My dear Davy I do not know by what fatality it has 
 
 happened, but so it is ; that I have thought more often of you, 
 
 and I may say, yearned after your society more for the last 
 
 three months than I ever before did, and yet I have not 
 
92 RESEARCHES AND CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 written to you. But you know that I honour you, and that I 
 love whom I honour. Love and esteem with % me have no 
 dividual being ; and wherever this is not the case, I suspect 
 there must be some lurking moral superstition which nature 
 gets the better of; and that the real meaning of the phrase 
 " I love him though I cannot esteem him," is I esteem him, 
 but not according to my system of esteem. But you, my 
 dear fellow, all men love and esteem which is the only sus- 
 picious part of your character at least according to the 5th 
 chapter of St. Matthew. God bless you. 
 
 And now for the business of this letter. If I can, I leave 
 this place so as to be in London on Wednesday, the llth of 
 next month ; in London I shall stay a fortnight ; but as I am 
 in feeble health, and have a perfect phobia of inns and coffee- 
 houses, I should rejoice if you or Southey should be able to 
 offer me a bed-room for the fortnight aforesaid. From London 
 I move southward. Now for the italicized words if I can. 
 The cryptical and implicit import of which is I have a 
 damned thorn in my leg, which the surgeon has not been yet 
 able to extract and but that I have metaphysicized most 
 successfully on Pain, in consequence of the accident, by the 
 Great Scatterer of Thoughts, I should have been half mad. 
 But as it is I have borne it like a woman, which, I believe, to 
 be two or three degrees at least beyond a stoic. A suppura- 
 tion is going on, and I endure in hope. 
 
 I have redirected some of Southey's letters to you, taking 
 it for granted that you will see him immediately on his arrival 
 in town ; he left us yesterday afternoon. Let me hear from 
 you, if it be only to say what I know already, that you will 
 be glad to see me. O, dear friend, thou one of the two human 
 beings of whom I dare hope with a hope, that elevates my own 
 heart. bless you ! 
 
 S. T. COLERIDGE. 
 
AFTER LEAVING CLIFTON FOR LONDON. 93 
 
 From the Same. 
 
 Tuesday morning, 7, Barnard's Inn, Holborn. 1 
 My dear Davy I trusted my cause last Sunday, I fear, to 
 an unsympathizing agent. To Mr. Tuffin I can scarcely think 
 myself bound to make a direct apology, as my promise was 
 wholly conditional. This I did, not only from general fore- 
 sight, but from the possibility of hearing from you, that you 
 had not been able to untie your former engagement. To you, 
 therefore, I owe the apology : and on you I expressly and 
 earnestly desired Tobin to call and to explain for me, that I 
 had been in an utterly incompatible state of bodily feeling the 
 whole evening at Mr. Benny ""s 5 that I was much hurt by the 
 walk home through the wet ; instantly on my return here an 
 attack in my bowels ; that this had not wholly left me, and 
 therefore that I could not come, unless the weather altered. 
 By which I did not mean merely its holding up (though even 
 this it did not do at four o'clock at Barnard^s Inn, the sleety 
 rain was still falling, though slightly), but the drying up of 
 the rawness and dampness, which would infallibly have dis- 
 eased me, before I had reached the Institution not to men- 
 tion the effect of sitting a long evening in damp clothes and 
 shoes on an invalid, scarcely recovered from a diarrhoBa. 
 I have thought it fit to explain at large, both as a mark of 
 respect to you, and because I have very unjustly acquired a 
 character for breaking engagements, entirely from the non- 
 sympathy of the well with the sick, the robust with the weakly. 
 It must be difficult for most men to conceive the extreme 
 reluctance with which I go at all into company, and the un- 
 ceasing depression which I am struggling up against during 
 the whole time I am in it, which too often makes me drink 
 more during dinner than I ought to do, and as often forces me 
 into efforts of almost obtrusive conversation, acting the oppo- 
 
 1 The twopenny post mark is that of 6th March, 1804. 
 
94 RESEARCHES AND CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 site of my real state of mind in order to arrive at a medium, 
 as we roll paper the opposite way in order to smoothe it. 
 
 Be so good as to tell me what hour you expect Mr. Sotheby 
 on Thursday. 
 
 I am, my dear Davy, with sincere and affectionate 
 esteem, yours ever, 
 
 S. T. COLERIDGE. 
 
 The next letter, one from my brother to Coleridge, 
 and that which follows it from Coleridge to him 
 in reply, were written, as is evident from their tenor, 
 just before his embarking for the Mediterranean in 
 quest of health, the shattered state of which he so 
 feelingly describes. 
 
 Royal Institution, Twelve o'Clock, Monday. 
 
 My dear Coleridge My mind is disturbed, and my body 
 harassed by many labours ; yet I cannot suffer you to depart, 
 without endeavouring to express to you some of the unbroken 
 and higher feelings of my spirit, which have you at once for 
 their cause and object. 
 
 Years have passed since we first met ; and your presence, 
 and recollections in regard to you, have afforded me continued 
 sources of enjoyment. Some of the better feelings of my 
 nature have been elevated by your converse; and thoughts 
 which you have nursed, have been to me an eternal source of 
 consolation. 
 
 In whatever part of the world you are, you will often live 
 with me, not as a fleeting idea, but as a recollection possessed 
 of creative energy, as an imagination winged with fire, in- 
 spiring and rejoicing. 
 
 You must not live much longer without giving to all men 
 the proof of power, which those who know you feel in admi- 
 ration. Perhaps at a distance from the applauding and cen- 
 
AFTER LEAVING CLIFTON FOR LONDON. 95 
 
 suring murmurs of the world, you will be best able to execute 
 those great works which are justly expected from you : you 
 are to be the historian of the philosophy of feeling. Do not in 
 any way dissipate your noble nature ! Do not give up your 
 birthright ! 
 
 May you soon recover perfect health the health of strength 
 and happiness ! May you soon return to us, confirmed in all 
 the powers essential to the exertion of genius. You were born 
 for your country, and your native land must be the scene of 
 your activity. I shall expect the time when your spirit, 
 bursting through the clouds of ill health, will appear to all 
 men, not as an uncertain and brilliant flame, but as a fair and 
 permanent light, fixed, though constantly in motion, as a 
 sun which gives its fire, not only to its attendant planets, but 
 which sends beams from all its parts into all worlds. 
 
 May blessings attend you, my dear friend ! Do not forget 
 me : we live for different ends, and with, different habits and 
 pursuits ; but our feelings with regard to each other have, I 
 believe, never altered. They must continue ; they can have 
 no natural death ; and, I trust, they can never be destroyed 
 by fortune, chance, or accident. 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 Sunday, March 25, 1804. 
 
 My dear Davy I returned from Mr. NorthcoteX having 
 been diseased by the change of weather too grievously to per- 
 mit me to continue sitting, for in those moods of body brisk 
 motion alone can prevent me from falling into distempered 
 sleep. I came in meditating a letter to you, or rather the 
 writing of the letter, which. I had meditated yesterday, even 
 while you were yet sitting with us. But it would be the 
 merest confusion of my mind to force it into activity at present. 
 Yours of this morning must have sunken down first, and must 
 have found its abiding resting-place. O, dear friend ! blessed 
 
96 RESEARCHES AND CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 are the moments, and if not moments of humility, yet as dis- 
 tant from whatever is opposite to humility, as humility itself, 
 when I am able to hope of myself as you have dared hope of 
 and forme. Alas ! they are neither many nor of quick recur- 
 rence. There is a something, an essential something, wanting 
 in me. I feel it, I know it though what it is, I can but 
 guess. I have read somewhere, that in the tropical climates 
 there are annuals as lofty and of as an ample girth as forest 
 trees : So by a very dim likeness I seem to myself to distin- 
 guish Power from Strength and to have only the former. 
 But of this I will speak again : for if it be no reality, if it be 
 no more than a disease of my mind, it is yet deeply rooted and 
 of long standing, and requires help from one who loves me in 
 the light of knowledge. I have written these lines with a 
 compelled understanding, my feelings otherwhere at work 
 and I fear, unwell as I am, to indulge my deep emotion, how- 
 ever ennobled or endeared. Dear Davy ! I have always 
 loved, always honoured, always had faith in you, in every part 
 of my being that lies below the surface ; and whatever changes 
 may have now and then rippled even upon the surface, have 
 been only jealousies concerning you in behalf of all men, and 
 fears from exceeding great hope. I cannot be prevented from 
 uttering and manifesting the strongest convictions and best 
 feelings of iny nature by the incident, that they of whom I 
 think so highly, esteem me in return, and entertain reciprocal 
 hopes. No ! I would to God, I thought it myself even as you 
 
 think of me, but 
 
 So far had I written, my dear Davy, yesterday afternoon, 
 with all my faculties beclouded, writing mostly about myself, 
 but, Heaven knows ! thinking wholly about you. I am too 
 sad, too much dejected to write what I could wish. Of course 
 I shall see you this evening here at a quarter after nine. 
 When I mentioned it to Sir George, " Too late," said he ; 
 " no, if it were twelve o"* clock, it would be better than his not 
 coming." They are really kind and good [Sir George and 
 
AFTER LEAVING CLIFTON FOR LONDON. 97 
 
 Lady Beaumont]. Sir George is a remarkably sensible man, 
 which I mention, because it is somewhat REMARKABLE in a 
 painter of genius, who is at the same time a man of rank and 
 an exceedingly amusing companion. 
 
 I am still but very indifferent but that is so old a story, 
 that it affects me but little. To see you look so very unwell 
 on Saturday, was a new thing to me, and I want a word some- 
 thing short of affright, and a little beyond anxiety, to express 
 the feeling that haunted me in consequence. 
 
 I trust that I shall have time, and the greater spirit, to 
 write to you from Portsmouth, a part at least of what is in and 
 upon me in my more genial moments. 
 
 But always I am and shall be, my dear Davy, with hope, 
 and esteem, and affection, the aggregate of many Davys, 
 Your sincere friend, 
 
 S. T. COLERIDGE. 
 
 On Coleridge's return from Malta and Sicily, after 
 a suspension for awhile of their correspondence, it 
 was renewed, and, it may be inferred, was renewed by 
 my brother, on the occasion of inviting him to give a 
 course of Lectures at the Royal Institution. Ex- 
 tracts from these letters niay suffice; the parts 
 omitted are painful as regards Coleridge's confes- 
 sions of weakness and infirmity of purpose, or with- 
 out interest, as relating to a fruitless and trouble- 
 some negotiation about the printing and publishing 
 of " The Friend." To these latter letters, the letter 
 of my brother to Mr. Poole, their common friend, 
 may serve as an introduction. This gentleman sur- 
 vived my brother a few years ; he died in September, 
 1837. The friend of Southey, Coleridge, and Words- 
 
 n 
 
98 RESEARCHES AND CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 worth, his name will go down to posterity, and with 
 the rare felicity of being associated only with what 
 is worthy. The last winter my brother spent in 
 England was, for most part, under his roof at Nether 
 Stowey, in Somersetshire; and it was there he com- 
 posed the greater part of Salmonia. 
 
 To Thomas Poole, Esq. 
 
 London, August 28, 1807. 
 
 My dear Poole I am obliged to be in the neighbourhood of 
 town during the greater part of the summer, for the purpose 
 of correcting the press for the Philosophical Transactions. 
 
 I made a rapid journey into Cornwall for the sake of seeing 
 my family, and it was not in my power, had I received your 
 letter at Lyme, to have accepted your kind invitation. 
 
 If Coleridge is still with you, will you be kind enough to 
 say to him, that I wrote nearly a week ago two letters about 
 lectures, and not knowing where he was, I addressed them to 
 him at different places. I wish very much he would seriously 
 determine on this point. The managers of the Eoyal Insti- 
 tution are very anxious to engage him ; and I think he might 
 be of material service to the public, and of benefit to his own 
 mind, to say nothing of the benefit his purse might receive. 
 In the present condition of society, his opinions in matters of 
 taste, literature, and metaphysics, must have a healthy influ- 
 ence; and, unless he soon become an actual member of the 
 living world, he must expect to be brought to judgment " for 
 hiding his light." 
 
 The times seem to me to be less dangerous as to the imme- 
 diate state of the country, than they were four years ago. 
 The extension of the French empire has weakened the dispose- 
 able force of France. Bonaparte seems to have abandoned the 
 idea of invasion, and if our government is active, we have little 
 
AFTER LEAVING CLIFTON FOE LONDON. 99 
 
 to dread from a maritime war, at least for some time. Sooner 
 or later our colonial empire must fall, in due time, when it has 
 answered its ends. 
 
 The wealth of our island may be diminished, but the 
 strength of mind of the people cannot easily pass away ; and 
 our literature, our science, and our arts, and the dignity of our 
 nature, depend little upon our external relations. When we 
 had fewer colonies than Genoa, we had Bacons and Shake- 
 speares. The wealth and prosperity of the country are only 
 the comeliness of the body the fulness of the flesh and fat ; 
 but the spirit is independent of them it requires only 
 muscle, bone, and nerve, for the true exercise of its functions. 
 We cannot lose our liberty, because we cannot cease to think ; 
 and ten millions of people are not easily annihilated. 
 
 I am, my dear Poole, 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 From Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Esq. 
 
 September 11, 1807. 
 
 Yet how very few are there whom I esteem, 
 
 and (pardon me from this seeming deviation from the language 
 of friendship) admire equally with yourself. It is indeed, 
 and has long been, my settled persuasion, that of all men 
 known to me, I could not justly equal any one to you, com- 
 bining in one view powers of intellect, and the steady moral 
 exertion of them to the production of direct and indirect good ; 
 and if I give you pain, my heart bears witness that I inflicted 
 a greater on myself, nor should have written such words 
 [alluding to expression of feeling respecting himself in the 
 opening portion of the letter], if the chief feeling that mixed 
 with and followed them, had not been that of shame and self- 
 reproach, for having profited neither by your general example, 
 
 PI 2 
 
100 RESEARCHES AND CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 nor your frequent and immediate incentives. Neither would 
 I have oppressed you at all with this melancholy statement, 
 but that for some days past, I have found myself so much 
 better in body and mind, as to cheer me at times with the 
 thought that this most morbid and oppressive weight is gra- 
 dually lifting up, and my will acquiring some degree of strength 
 and power of reaction. 
 
 * % * * 
 
 I have, however, received such manifest benefit from horse 
 
 exercise, and gradual abandonment of fermented and total 
 
 7 & 
 
 abstinence from spirituous liquors, and by being alone with 
 Poole, and the renewal of old times, by wandering about 
 among my dear old walks of Quantock and Alfoxden, that I 
 have seriously set about composition, with a view to ascertain 
 whether I can conscientiously undertake what I so very much 
 wish, a series of Lectures at the Koyal Institution. I trust, 
 I need not assure you, how much I feel your kindness, and let 
 me add, that I consider the application as an act of great and 
 unmerited condescension on the part of the managers as may 
 have consented to it. After having discussed the subject with 
 Poole, he entirely agrees with me, that the former plan sug- 
 gested by me is invidious in itself, unless I disguised my real 
 opinions ; as far as I should deliver my sentiments respecting 
 the arts, would require references and illustrations not suitable 
 to a public lecture room ; and, finally, that I ought not to 
 reckon upon spirits enough to seek about for books of Italian 
 prints, &c. And that after all the general and most philo- 
 sophical principles, I might naturally introduce into lectures 
 on a more confined plan namely, the principles of poetry, con- 
 veyed and illustrated in a series of lectures. 1 . On the genius 
 and writings of Shakespeare, relatively to his predecessors and 
 contemporaries, so as to determine not only his merits and 
 defects, and the proportion that each must bear to the whole, 
 but what of his merits and defects belong to his age, as being 
 found in contemporaries of genius, and what belonged to him- 
 
AFTER LEAVING CLIFTON FOR LONDON. 101 
 
 self. 2. On Spenser, including the metrical romances, and 
 Chaucer, though the character of the latter as a manner- 
 painter, I shall have so far anticipated in distinguishing it 
 from, and comparing it with, Shakespeare. 3. Milton. 
 4. Dry den and Pope, including the origin and after history of 
 poetry of witty logic. 5. On Modern Poetry, and its cha- 
 racteristics, with no introduction of any particular names. In 
 the course of these I shall have said all T know, the whole 
 result of many years' continued reflection on the subjects of 
 taste, imagination, fancy, passion, the source r>f our " pleasure? 
 in the fine arts, in the antithetical balance-loving- nature of 
 man, and the connexion of such pleasures H"- f h -'floral, 'cx-ccl- 
 lence. The advantage of this plan to myself is that I have 
 all my materials ready, and can rapidly reduce them into 
 form (for this is my solemn determination, not to give a single 
 lecture till I have in fair writing at least one half of the whole 
 course), for as to trusting anything to immediate effect, I 
 shrink from it as from guilt, and guilt in me it would be. 
 
 In short, I should have no objection at once to pledge 
 myself to the immediate preparation of these lectures, but that 
 I am so surrounded by embarrassments. 
 
 * ' * * # 
 
 For God^s sake enter into my true motive for this wearing 
 detail : it would torture me if it had any other effect than to 
 impress on you my desire and hope to accord with your plan, 
 and my incapability of making any final promise till the end 
 of this month. 
 
 S. T. COLERIDGE. 
 
 From the Same. 
 Grasmere, Eendal, Wednesday, December, 1808. 
 
 My dear Davy My health and spirits 
 
 are improved beyond my boldest hopes. A very painful effort 
 of moral courage has been remunerated by tranquillity by 
 
102 RESEARCHES AND CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 ease from the sting of self-disapprobation. I have done more 
 for the last ten weeks than I had done for three years before. 
 Among other things, I wrote what the few persons who saw 
 it thought a spirited and close reasoned letter to Mr. Jeffery, 
 respecting the introductory paragraph of the Edinburgh Review 
 of your paper ; but I was earnestly dissuaded from sending it, 
 as from an act of undeserved respect as from too great a con- 
 descension even on my part ; and secondly (and which was. of 
 more weight with me), as an act involving you more or less, 
 , vrh&tever< I'miglit say, and likely to be attributed to your insti- 
 gation, direct or indirect, as it is not unknown that I have 
 biert'pVi.'te'riEnaloi'-'xntUnacy with you. Yet I own I should 
 be sorry to have it lost, as I think it is the most eloquent and 
 manly composition I ever produced. If you think it worth 
 the postage, it shall be transcribed, and I will send you the 
 original. The passage in question was the grossest and most 
 disgusting kick-up of envy that has deformed even the E. R. 
 Had the author had the truth before his eyes, and purposely 
 written in diametrical opposition, he could not have succeeded 
 better. It is high time that the spear of Ithurial should touch 
 the toad at the ear of the public. 
 
 I would willingly inform you of my chance of success in 
 obtaining a sufficient number of subscribers, so as to justify 
 me prudentially in commencing the work [The Friend], but 
 I do not at present possess grounds even for a sane conjecture. 
 It will depend in a great measure on the zeal of my friends, 
 on which I confess, not without remorse, I have more often 
 cast water than oil. Here a conceit about the Greek fire 
 might come in, but the simile is somewhat tritical. 
 
 Wordsworth has nearly finished a series of masterly essays 
 on our late and present relations to Portugal and Spain. 1 
 Southey is sending to the press his History of Brazil, and at 
 
 1 Which it is to be hoped will be published : one of them is already 
 well known, that on the Convention of Cintra. 
 
AFTER LEAVING CLIFTON FOB LONDON. 103 
 
 the same time (the indefatigable !) composing a defence of 
 religious missions to the East, &c. Excepting the introduc- 
 tion (which, however, I have heard highly praised, but myself 
 think it shallow, flippant, and ipse dixitish), I have read few 
 books with such deep interest as the Chronicle of the Cid. 
 The whole scene in the Cortes is superior to any equal part 
 of any epic poem, save the Paradise Lost me saltern judice. 
 The deep glowing, yet ever self-controlled passion of the Cid 
 his austere dignity, so finely harmonizing with his pride of 
 loyal humility the address to his swords, and the burst of 
 contemptuous rage in his final charge and address to the 
 Infantes of Carrion, and his immediate recall of his mind are 
 beyond all ordinary praises. It delights me to be able to 
 speak thus of a work of Southey's ! I am so often forced to 
 quarrel with his want of judgment and his unthinkingness 
 which, Heaven knows, I never do without pain, and the vexa- 
 tion of a disappointed wish. But I am encroaching on time 
 more valuable than my own, and I, too, have enough to do. May 
 God grant you health and the continuance of your intellectual 
 
 vigour ! 
 
 S. T. COLERIDGE. 
 
 From the Same. 
 
 Grasmere, Kendal, December 14 [1808]. 
 
 Dear Davy The above written copies 1 will explain this 
 second application to you. I understood from Mr. Bernard 
 [afterwards Sir Thomas], as well as from yourself, that Mr. 
 Savage had agreed to print and publish the work on the sole 
 condition that he was to have five per cent, for the publisher, 
 and to charge the printing, &c., at the price charged to the 
 
 1 Copies of Letters from Mr. Savage to Mr. Coleridge, and from the 
 latter to the former, respecting the printing and publishing of " The 
 Friend." 
 
104 RESEARCHES AND CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 booksellers, or the trade (as they very ingenuously and truly 
 style their art arid mystery). To spare me the necessity of 
 troubling Mr. Bernard with a fresh letter, I entreat you to 
 transmit this to him as soon as possible. There is but one 
 part of Mr. Savage's letter that I can permit myself to com- 
 ment upon, that of the propriety of pricing the essay at six- 
 pence, and consequently of not having it stamped, nor finely 
 printed, nor on fine paper. For him, and for a work conducted 
 as he would have it conducted, /. 0., one, the object of which 
 is to attract as many purchasers as possible, this might answer. 
 My purposes are widely different. I do not write in this work 
 for the multitude, but for those who, by rank or fortune, or 
 official situation, or talents and habits of reflection, are to 
 influence the multitude. I write to found true principles, to 
 oppose false principles in criticism, legislation, philosophy, 
 morals, and international law. As giving me an opportunity 
 of explaining myself, I say Cobbett sells his weekly sheet for 
 tenpence. Now this differs from mine in two points, mainly : 
 First, he applies himself to the passions that are gratified by 
 curiosity, and sharp, often calumnious, personality ; by the 
 events and political topics of the day, and the names of 
 .notorious contemporaries. Now, from all these I abstain 
 altogether nay, to strangle this vicious temper of mind, by 
 directing the interest to the nobler germs in human nature, is 
 my express and paramount object. But of English readers 
 three-fourths are led to purchase periodical works in the expec- 
 tation of gratifying these passions even periodical works 
 professedly literary, of which the keen interest excited by the 
 Edinburgh Review, and its wide circulation, yield a proof as 
 striking as it is dishonourable to the moral taste of the present 
 public all these readers I give up all claim to. Secondly, 
 Cobbett himself rarely writes more than a third of the weekly 
 journal ; the remainder of the sheet is either mere reprinting 
 or stupid make- weights from correspondents (with few excep- 
 tions) of the very lowest order. And what are his own com- 
 
AFTER LEAVING CLIFTON FOR LONDON. 105 
 
 positions? The undigested passionate monologues of a man 
 of robust natural understanding, but one unenriched by various 
 knowledge, undisciplined by a comprehensive philosophy ; 
 under the warping influence of rooted habits of opposing and 
 attacking, and from this state of mind fruitful in thoughts 
 which a purer taste would have rejected so long, that they 
 would cease to occur, and promiscuous in the adoption of 
 whatever such a state of mind suggests to him of these 
 thoughts furnished by the occurrences of the day. Indeed, 
 more often than otherwise his letters, &c., are mere comments 
 on large extracts from the morning papers, such as a passionate 
 man would talk at breakfast over a newspaper supporting the 
 political party which he hated. No one thesis is proposed 
 there is no orderly origination, development, and conclusion ; 
 in short, none of those qualities which constitute the nicety 
 and effort of composition. But / (and if I do not, my work 
 will be dropped and abandoned) I bring the results of a life 
 of intense study and unremitted meditation, of toil and 
 personal travels, and great unrepaid expense. Those to whom 
 these reasons would not justify me in selling the work (stamped 
 as Cobbett's) for that part of twopence more which remains 
 when the additional cost of finer paper and printing is deducted, 
 I neither expect or wish to have among my subscribers! It 
 is scarcely necessary to remark, that in pointing out these 
 differences I had no intention of depreciating the political 
 journal (the style and contents of the work are perfectly well 
 suited to the purpose of the writer); The labourer's pocket 
 knife was one excellently adapted to the cutting of bread and 
 cheese, but it would be unfair to demand that the medical 
 cutler A. should sell his case of lancets at the same price that 
 the common cutler B. sells an equal weight of the bread-and- 
 cheese knives, supposing them both equally good of their kind. 
 This letter from Mr. Savage, added to his long delay in 
 answering me at all, has, a good deal perplexed my proceedings, 
 but it shall not make me abandon my intention. 
 
106 RESEARCHES AND CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 If anything new have occurred in chemistry from your own 
 labours, or those of others, it would be deeply gratifying to me 
 to be informed of it by you ; for hitherto I have not been able 
 to afford to take in any philosophical journal, or, indeed, any 
 other. I was told by a friend that William Allen had proved 
 that oxygen was absorbed in the lungs, but that its action 
 consisted in carrying off the carbon from the blood conse- 
 quently that the old hypothesis of refrigeration was not alto- 
 gether false. But my communicant was no chemist, and his 
 account was so confused, that I am not sure that I have given 
 an accurate statement of it. 
 
 My health and spirits are far better than I had dared hope, 
 only from neglect of exercise I remain more corpulent than 
 I ought, though I drink nothing but table-beer, and eat very 
 moderately. When I was in London I was shocked at the 
 alteration in our friend Tobin's looks and appearance. Those 
 who always interpret two coincidents into cause and effect 
 would surmise that marriage has been less conducive to his 
 health than to his moral comfort. It would give me serious 
 pleasure to have a more cheerful account of him. 
 
 As soon as I have a little leisure I shall send my Greek 
 accidence and vocabulary of terminations to the press with my 
 Greek-English Lexicon, which will be followed by a Greek 
 philosophical grammar. Heaven preserve and keep you ! 
 
 S. T. COLERIDGE. 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 December 27, 1808. 
 
 Alas ! poor Beddoes is dead ! He died on Christmas eve. 
 He wrote to me two letters, on two successive days, 22nd and 
 23rd. From the first, which was full of affection and new feel- 
 ing, I anticipated his state. He is gone at the moment when his 
 
AFTEll LEAVING CLIFTON FOR LONDON. 107 
 
 mind was purified and exalted for noble affections and great 
 works. 
 
 My heart is heavy. I would talk to you of your own plans, 
 which I shall endeavour in every way to promote ; I would 
 talk to you of my own labours, which have been incessant 
 since I saw you, and not without result ; but I am interrupted 
 by very melancholy feelings, which, when you see this, I know 
 you will partake of. 
 
 Ever, my dear Coleridge, 
 
 Very affectionately yours, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 From the Same. 
 
 Grasmere, Kendal, Monday morning, January 30, 1809. 
 My dear Davy I was deeply affected by the passage in 
 your letter respecting Dr. Beddoes. It was indeed the echo 
 of my own experience. The intelligence of his departure from 
 among us, came upon me abruptly and unexpectedly. I was 
 sitting down to dinner, having quitted an unfinished sheet, 
 which I had been writing, in answer to a long and affectionate 
 letter from the Doctor. There was indeed a depth and a flow 
 of feeling in it, which filled me with bodings, but I had no 
 thought that the event was so near at hand. The note, 
 therefore, sent from one of his patients, who had placed himself 
 at Clifton by mine and Wordsworth's advice, (written) the 
 day after his decease, struck me like a bodily blow, and was 
 followed by a long and convulsive weeping, with scarce any 
 inward suffering : but when some half hour after I recovered 
 myself, and my tears flowed slowly, and with grief more worthy 
 of the cause, I felt that more hope had been taken out of my 
 life by this than by any former event. For Beddoes was good 
 and beneficent to all men ; but to me he had always been kind 
 and affectionate, and latterly I had become attached to him by 
 
108 HESE ARCHES AND CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 a personal tenderness. The death of Mr. Thomas Wedg- 
 wood pulled hard at my heart ; I am sure no week of my life 
 almost I might have said scarce a day, in which I have not 
 been made either sad or thoughtful by the recollection. 1 But 
 
 1 Independent of ordinary motives of regard, Coleridge was very much 
 indebted to this noble-minded and generous man and his worthy brother, 
 Josiah , for his literary leisure. An annuity of 1 5 a y ear offered by them 
 in 1798, and accepted, turned him aside from becoming " a beguiled" 
 Unitarian minister at Shrewsbury. It was his wish, he states in a letter, 
 to have dedicated to the Wedgwoods, one of the great works that he 
 contemplated in "unanxious seclusion;" assigning, as a reason, that "the 
 public will have owed the work to them who gave me the power of that 
 unanxious seclusion,"- unfortunately so little enjoyed, so little used. 
 Of the annuity referred to, one portion, that from Mr. Thomas Wedg- 
 wood, was settled on him for life by his will. (See Cottle's Reminis- 
 cences of Coleridge and Southey, pp. 179, 376.) 
 
 In the first volume of The Friend, p. 248, Coleridge gives a sketch of 
 the character of Mr. Thomas Wedgwood, in words bearing the impress 
 of truth, of love, and of admiration for qualities of heart and head of the 
 highest order, and so written as to insure the sympathy of the reader. 
 I am tempted to transcribe it, it being in perfect accordance with all I 
 have heard of this remarkable man. Coleridge playfully introduces it 
 thus : " A lady once asked me if I believed in ghosts and apparitions. 
 I answered with truth and simplicity, * No, madam ! I have seen far too 
 many myself.' I have indeed a whole memorandum book filled with 
 records of these phenomena ; many of them interesting as facts and data 
 for psychology, and affording some valuable materials for a theory of 
 perception and its dependence on the memory and imagination. ' In 
 omnem actum perceptionis imaginatio influit efficienter.' (Wolfe.) 
 But he* is no more, who would have realized this idea; who had already 
 established the foundations and the law of the theory ; and for whom I 
 had so often found a pleasure and a comfort, even during the wretched 
 and restless nights of sickness in watching and instantly recording those 
 experiences of the world within, as of the l Semina natune, quse fit et 
 facit, et creat et creatur !' He is gone, my friend ! my munificent co- 
 patron, and not less the benefactor of my intellect ! He, who beyond 
 all other men known to me, added a fine and ever wakeful sense of 
 
 * Thomas Wedgwood. 
 
AFTER LEAVING CLIFTON FOR LONDON. 109 
 
 Dr. Beddoes's death has pulled yet harder, probably because it 
 came second likewise, too, perhaps that I had been in the 
 
 beauty to the most patient accuracy in experimental philosophy, and the 
 profounder researches of metaphysical science ; he who united all the 
 play and spring of fancy with the subtlest discrimination and an in- 
 conceivable judgment, and who controlled an almost painful exquisitive- 
 ness of taste by a warmth of heart, which in the practical relations of 
 life made allowance for faults as quick as the moral taste detected them ; 
 a warmth of heart, which was indeed noble and prominent, for, alas ! 
 the genial feelings of health contributed no spark towards it! of these 
 qualities I may speak, for they belong to all mankind. The higher 
 virtues, that were blessings to his friends, and the still higher, that 
 resided in and for his own soul, are themes for the energies of solitude, 
 for the awfulness of prayer! Virtues exercised in the barrenness and 
 desolation of his animal being; while he thirsted with the full stream at 
 his lips, and yet with unwearied goodness poured out to all around him, 
 like the master of a feast among his kindred in the day of his own glad- 
 ness ! Were it but for the remembrance of him alone, and of his lot 
 here below, the disbelief of a future state would sadden the earth around 
 me, and blight the very grass in the field." 
 
 The disease which this admirable man laboured under, ending in 
 death (he died in 1805, July 10; he was born in 1771, May 14) 
 was of a very obscure and chronic kind, and attended with much bodily 
 suffering, even from its commencement. In a memoir of Mr. Coleridge, 
 by the Author of " The English Opium Eater," there is mention made 
 of it a mention, in some things, not quite correct, as I have learnt from 
 the family, such as an extreme u everlasting restlessness," and his " open- 
 ing for a time a butcher's shop," as a remedial means ; this last an 
 error arising perhaps from the circumstance that he had been recom- 
 mended by Dr. Beddoes to take lodgings over a butcher's shop, his phy- 
 sician thinking that a healthy situation. 
 
 In " The Excursion," book vii., " The Churchyard amongst the Moun- 
 tains continued," is an animated account of the life and death of a young 
 volunteer, one of a company of eighty men, which, when England was 
 threatened with a French invasion, was formed in the Lake District, and 
 was named " Wedgwood's Mountaineers," having by him in a generous 
 spirit of patriotism been clothed and armed, and this in the completest 
 manner, as riflemen. The sum expended amounted to about 800 in- 
 
110 RESEARCHES AND CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 habit of connecting such oppression of despondency with my 
 love of him. There are two things which I exceedingly wished, 
 and in both have been disappointed : to have written the Life 
 and prepared the Psychological Remains of my revered friend 
 and benefactor, T. W, : and to have been intrusted with the 
 Biography, &c., of Dr. B. This latter work (Southey informs 
 me) was first offered to you, and then to Mr. Giddy, and is 
 finally devolved on Dr. Stock. As my heart bears me full 
 witness with what unalloyed satisfaction I should have seen 
 this last duty in your hands or in D. Giddy X so I feel myself 
 permitted to avow the pain, yea, the sense of shame, with 
 which I contemplate Dr. Stock as the performant. I could 
 not help assenting to Southey's remark, that the proper vignette 
 for the work would be a funeral lamp beside an urn, and Dr. 
 
 Stock in the act of placing an extinguisher on it 
 
 I have just read a brief account of your first lecture of this 
 season, and, though I did not see as clearly as I could wish, 
 the pertinence of the religious declaration quoted from you, 
 and am not quite at ease (especially when I think of Darwin), 
 when I find theosophy mingled with science, and though I 
 wished to have been with you to have expressed my doubts 
 
 eluding pay for twenty days 1 exercise to each man, which he gave them 
 so long as they were supernumeraries. This company, composed of stal- 
 wart dalesmen, under the command of his friend Captain Luff, was 
 the very elite of the volunteer corps. In describing the high qualities, 
 intellectual and moral, of the young soldier, the poet, I cannot but think, 
 had in his mind the memory of the man whose name was so properly 
 associated with the company, idealizing according to his wont, select- 
 ing such qualities as suited his purpose. That he had a vivid impres- 
 sion of him is certain, as well as a high regard. In a letter written in 
 1806, Mr. Wordsworth says, " His calm and dignified manner, united 
 with his tall person and beautiful face, produced in me an impression of 
 sublimity beyond what I ever experienced from the appearance of any 
 other human being." 
 
AFTER LEAVING CLIFTON FOR LONDON. Ill 
 
 concerning the accuracy of your comparison between the great 
 discoverers of science and the Miltons, Spinozas, and Rafaels ; 
 yet the intervening history (it is only that I am writing to 
 you that 1 stopped and hesitate in using the word) over- 
 whelmed me, and I dare avow, furnished to my understanding 
 and conscience proofs more convincing than the dim analogies 
 of natural organization to human mechanism, both of the 
 Supreme Reason, as super-essential to the world of the senses ; 
 of an analogous mind in man not resulting from its perishable 
 machine, nor even from the general spirit of life, its inclosed 
 steam or perfluent water-force ; and of the moral connexion 
 between the finite and the infinite Reason, and the awful ma- 
 jesty of the former, as both the revelation and the exponent 
 voice of the latter, immortal timepiece, an eternal sun. Shame 
 be with me in my death-hour if ever I withhold or fear to pay 
 my first debt of due honour to the truly great man, because it 
 has been my good lot to be his contemporary, or my happi- 
 ness to have known, esteemed, and loved, as well as admired 
 him. 
 
 It is impossible to pass otherwise than abruptly to my own 
 affairs. I had from the very first informed Mr. Savage 1 that 
 I would not undertake the work at all, except I could secure 
 him from all possible risk. His proposals were such, that had 
 I acceded to them, after years of toil, I should have been his 
 debtor and slave, without having received a farthing or, to 
 use the strong, coarse illustration of a friend, a man of con- 
 summate good sense and knowledge of the world, and of 
 twenty years'* experience in periodical works " Savage's pro- 
 posals would have led you into a gulph of debt or obligation : 
 you would have been like a girl who gets into a house of ill- 
 fame, and whom the old bawd always keeps in debt, stripping 
 her of every shilling she gets for prostitution." What my 
 
 1 The printer with whom he had been negotiating respecting the 
 bringing out of " The Friend." 
 
112 RESEARCHES AND CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 error was, after my first conversation with Mr. S. I know, but 
 shall not say: but his mistake has been in construing my 
 indifference as to pecuniary matters, and apparent ignorance of 
 business, into absolute silliness and passive idiocy. But this 
 is passed. As soon as I received his letter I made up my 
 mind to another mode of publication. " The Friend" will be 
 printed as a newspaper, i.e., not in form or matter, but under 
 the act of parliament, and with its privilege, printed at Kendal, 
 and sent to each subscriber by the post. 
 
 My health is more regular ; yet, spite of severe attention to 
 my diet, &c., my sufferings are at times heavy. Please to 
 make my best respects to Mr. Bernard. 
 
 May Grod bless you ! 
 
 S. T. COLERIDGE. 
 
 The following letter, from its interesting contents 
 relating to Coleridge and my brother, I am tempted 
 to insert as a pendant to their correspondence. It 
 is addressed to the same revered lady as the letter 
 of Southey, before given, and was written about the 
 same time The words with which it opens, remind 
 me of an expression of its distinguished author, 
 uttered when speaking of Dr. Paris's work his 
 Life of Sir H. Davy that its tone was not " gentle- 
 manly" and " that justice had not been done in it to 
 the character of his friend." This was said in the 
 winter of 1831, when an invalid in Malta. In the 
 same conversation, speaking of the distinction my 
 brother had attained, in his amiable way he added, 
 " I hope, Dr. Davy, your mother lived to see it ; it 
 must have been a great pleasure to her." 
 
AFTER LEAVING CLIFTON FOR LONDON. 113 
 
 To Mrs. Fletcher. 
 
 Edinburgh, December 18. 
 
 Madam I am extremely glad to learn that Dr. Davy pur- 
 poses to set about the important duty of giving the world some 
 account of his talented brother. I regret extremely, that as 
 our pursuits were different, we never corresponded, though we 
 were long friends, and the marriage with Mrs. Apreece (whom 
 I -have the honour to call cousin after the fashion of my 
 country) increased considerable intimacy, so that I was very 
 often, when chance made us residents in the same place, in 
 Sir Humphry 's society, and had often the pleasure of seeing 
 him here. 
 
 It might be interesting to Dr. Davy to know, that in a 
 singular scene described by Mr. Coleridge in his Sibyline 
 Leaves, p. 89, * Sir Humphry was described as " the individual 
 who would have established himself in the first rank of- 
 England's living poets, if the genius of our country had not 
 decreed that he should rather be the first in the first rank of 
 its philosophers and scientific benefactors. 1 " 1 The compliment 
 I can witness to be as just as it is handsomely recorded. I 
 was in company at the same time, the house being that of our 
 mutual friend, Mr. William Sotheby; indeed, I was the person 
 who first mentioned the verses which introduced the discussion. 
 As Sir Humphry's distinguished talents for literature were 
 less known than his philosophical powers, perhaps Dr. Davy 
 might wish to preserve this attestation by so eminent a judge 
 as Mr. Coleridge. I have myself heard my deceased friend 
 repeat poetry of the highest order of composition. 
 
 WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 1 In later editions it occurs, ad finem, under the title of " Apologetic 
 Preface to * Fire, Famine, and Slaughter.' " 
 
114 RESEARCHES AND CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 The following letter from my brother to his old 
 friend Mr. Cottle, written in June, 1823, will show 
 that though Coleridge and he had ceased to cor- 
 respond, yet, when they met, they met as friends. 
 
 My dear Sir ... I have often thought on the sub- 
 ject of the early history of our planet, and have some peculiar 
 views, but I have some reserve in talking here about it, as all 
 our knowledge on such matter is little more than ignorance. 
 
 What I stated to the Eoyal Society, in awarding the medal 
 to Professor Buckland, has not been correctly given in the 
 journals. I merely said that the facts lately brought forward, 
 proved the occurrence of that great catastrophe which had been 
 recorded in sacred and profane history, and of which traditions 
 were current even amongst the most barbarous nations. I do 
 not say they proved the truth of the Mosaic account of the 
 deluge, that is to say of the history of the Ark of Noah, and the 
 preservation of animal life. This is a revelation ; and no facts, 
 that I know of, have been discovered in science that bear upon 
 this question and the sacred history of the race of Shem. My 
 idea was to give to Caesar, &c, &c., and not to blend divine 
 truths with the fancies of men. 
 
 I met Coleridge this morning, looking very well. I had not 
 seen him for years. He has promised to dine with me on 
 Monday. 1 
 
 Very sincerely yours, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 The extracts which follow are very miscellaneous, 
 and have been selected chiefly from note-books of 
 recent acquisition. 
 
 1 This letter is from Cottle's Reminiscences. 
 
AFTER LEAVING CLIFTON FOR LONDON. 115 
 
 The first I shall give is from a note-book com- 
 menced probably at Bristol, and continued in use for 
 some time after his being in London : 
 
 " On looking into this book [it opens with metaphysical 
 observations relating to existence] after at least three years" 
 and a quarter, now 1805, February, what an alteration do 
 I find in my general sentiments, and in my power of com- 
 position. The metaphysics were amongst my earlier compo- 
 sitions !" 
 
 " The man who labours to produce effect, can never have 
 the highest degree of genius. That polish of style, that 
 smoothness of versification, and that harmony of periods, 
 which demand labour, and labour only, are incompatible with 
 the strong and rapid combinations of genius. Restlessness of 
 thought, power superior even to will, ardent, but indefinite 
 hope these constitute the great elements of that feeling which 
 always has something above the common habits of thought; 
 has been, as it were, supernatu rally infused into the mind, or 
 self-born in it, which though derived from the senses and the 
 feelings, bears very little relation to them which is, as it were, 
 matter converted into mind, spirit animating thoughts and 
 feelings, embodied in reasoning." 
 
 " It may be matter of surprise that the influence of philo- 
 sophical opinion has been so little felt, and has been so transient 
 in its operation 5 but all astonishment will cease, when it is 
 considered that the truths of science have always been limited 
 to a certain number of individuals, and that they appeal to 
 the reason of men and not to their feelings. However eloquent 
 the language in which they have been delivered, its character 
 must of necessity have been different from that of popular 
 declamation, which relates to objects familiar to all, and to 
 passions which every mind is capable of feeling. 
 
 " The progress of philosophical discussion is like that of the 
 
 i 2 
 
116 RESEARCHES AND CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 stream of a cultivated country it descends pure and clear ; it 
 either flows by obstacles, or slowly saps their foundations it 
 fertilizes and adorns. The course of popular opinion is similar 
 to that of a new made torrent, swollen by rains : it moves rapidly 
 along, overflowing its banks ; it carries with it mud and stones, 
 fruits and flowers ; its force is irresistible, but of short dura- 
 tion ; its effects powerful, but destructive." 
 
 u The men who begin with speculation and end with facts, 
 begin at the wrong end ; the firmest materials should be in 
 the foundations ; the embellishments should be made after the 
 structure is completed." 
 
 " It is needless for us again to say that in science and the 
 arts there is a dependence which is the source of their progression 
 and importance. In a well organized country, power is always 
 compound : Archimedes could not have made machines which 
 terrified the Roman soldiers without the assistance of good 
 carpenters and good workers in metal." 
 
 "The opinions which result from passion are as the impres- 
 sions made by the waves upon the sand ; what one tide pro- 
 duces, the next modifies or destroys." 
 
 " The early efforts of early genius the smoke and bright 
 flame of wood when first kindled its steady and bright light 
 afterwards." 
 
 " Gibbon may be compared to the manufacturer who collects 
 the wool that the sheep the historians whom he quotes had 
 borne, and converts it into a garment, and dyes it purple, red, 
 and yellow." 
 
 At no period of his life did he entirely forsake the 
 Muses; but at this time, judging from what remains, 
 he but rarely courted them in verse. In the Memoir 
 of his Life a few examples will be found. The 
 following one descriptive of an angling incident, 
 
AFTER LEAVING CLIFTON FOR LONDON. 117 
 
 the other of a grateful feeling for attention may 
 perhaps be allowed a place here : 
 
 To Mrs. Trevor. 
 
 At Bromham, the seat of the Rt. Hon. John Trevor, 1 1804. 
 He lives in gladness, lie who might have died 
 
 Plunged in the Ousels fair and tranquil stream : 
 And, had he fallen a victim to the tide, 
 
 What had he lost, save life's short feverish dream ? 
 
 But those whose kindness oft had cheered his soul, 
 The memory of whose virtues filled his breast, 
 
 Had for a moment mourned his hapless fall, 
 And in his island grave had bid him rest. 
 
 There the wild willow on his tomb had spread 
 Its slender leaves and flowers of silver green, 
 
 The meadow grass had clothed his dewy bed, 
 And there the scented wild rose had been seen. 
 
 There had the skylark at the break of day 
 
 Thrown his wild wood-notes on the fragrant breeze ; 
 
 The nightingale had tuned his love-lorn lay, 
 
 While the bright moonbeam trembled through the trees. 
 
 And oft his peaceful spirit would have dwelt 
 Amidst those halls to social converse dear, 
 The charm of Ions: remembrance would have felt 
 
 o 
 
 Glad in your joy, and gloomy in your care. 
 
 1 In a note, he is called the last of the Hamdens. From a sentence 
 begun, not finished, it may be inferred that these lines were written on 
 the occasion of a congratulation after a fall into the river when angling, 
 Mrs. Trevor adding, " Had you been drowned, you should have been 
 buried in the islet." 
 
118 RESEARCHES AND CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 Whoever, glowing with the holy love 
 Of wild magnificence, of ample form, 
 Has visited these islands, where, upraised 
 Above the vast Atlantic, boldly stand 
 The giant monuments of olden time, 
 The pillar'd caves of Staffa, and the rocks 
 Of fair lona, let him kindly bless 
 That peaceful and that hospitable shore, 
 Where stands the house of Ulva : 1 for its halls 
 Are graced by virtue, elegance, and taste, 
 By social joy and welcome from the heart. 
 With them the weary traveller finds repose, 
 And quits them with regret and gratitude. 
 
 i An island close to the west coast of Mull, at the time of my brother's 
 visit the residence of the proprietor, Clanronald (Macdonald of Clan- 
 ronald). 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 FROM HIS DANGEROUS ILLNESS IN 1807, AFTER THE DIS- 
 COVERY OF THE BASES OF THE FIXED ALKALIES, TO 
 HIS LEAVING THE ROYAL INSTITUTION ON HIS MAR- 
 RIAGE IN 1812. 
 
 THE period we are now entering upon was, perhaps, 
 the most interesting of my brother's life, and in rela- 
 tion to discovery and the extension of chemical 
 science, the most important. The metals of the 
 alkalies, isolated by means of the energetic decom- 
 posing power of the Voltaic pile, became in their 
 turn powerful agents of analysis. He employed 
 them with unwearied industry, and shortly by their 
 action afforded evidence demonstrative that the 
 earths, like the alkalies, are compound bodies, formed 
 of metals in union with oxygen, and that boracic 
 acid is compounded, and contains an inflammable 
 basis. Extending his inquiries in the bold spirit of 
 original research, he soon obtained proof that muri- 
 atic acid is also compounded, and oxymuriatic acid 
 gas a simple substance, reversing thus the then 
 received opinion, and in so doing overthrowing what 
 had been considered an established doctrine, viz., 
 that oxygen is the sole acidifying principle, and 
 
120 FROM HIS DANGEROUS ILLNESS 
 
 introducing larger, less restricted views of chemical 
 combination, of chemical products and properties 
 alkalescence being, as it would appear, as well as 
 acidity, a result of union with oxygen. 
 
 In a former chapter I have said that the discovery 
 of the metallic bases of the fixed alkalies was an era 
 in the history of chemistry, and that it effected a 
 revolution in the science. So it surely did, as those 
 who witnessed it must have felt, but as those who 
 did not, who have entered on the study since the 
 event, can hardly appreciate. How anomalous were 
 these metals, lighter than water ! Before their dis- 
 covery, ponderosity in a high degree had been asso- 
 ciated with metallic bodies, and so strong was the 
 association, that a chemist, and he a veteran chemist, 
 handling a piece of potassium for the first time, 
 exclaimed : " It is ponderous !" Moreover, not only 
 was it lighter than water, but it instantly decomposed 
 water on coming in contact with it, producing com- 
 bustion with flame, the hydrogen of the water 
 becoming ignited by the heat evolved in the act of 
 union of its oxygen with the metal, and, simul- 
 taneously, the conversion of an insoluble metal into 
 a very soluble and caustic alkali. The extraordinary 
 is the parent of doubt, and doubt of opposition. 
 These extraordinary properties led to the question- 
 ing of the character of the metals of the alkalies. 
 By some they were called metalloids ; by some their 
 simple nature was objected to. They were considered 
 compounds by one party as compounds of the 
 alkalies and carbon, by another as compounds of the 
 
TO HIS LEAVING THE ROYAL INSTITUTION. 121 
 
 fixed alkalies and hydrogen. And these questioners 
 and objectors were chemists of mark, principally 
 Gay Lussac and Thenard in France, and Mr. 
 Dalton and Mr. Murray at home. Much controversy 
 arose, and was extended to muriatic and oxymuriatic 
 acid as soon as the new views respecting these bodies 
 were enunciated. This controversy, now almost 
 forgotten, was in itself useful, imparting as it did a 
 keen interest to the subject, and producing further 
 research and new discoveries these all of a con- 
 firmatory kind. The details are to be found in the 
 scientific journals of the day, such as Nicholson's 
 Journal and Tilloch's Magazine, and in that great 
 record of British science, the Philosophical Trans- 
 actions and as regards the French chemists, in the 
 Memoirs D'Arcueil, the Annales de Chemie, and in 
 a distinct volume embodying the researches of MM. 
 Gay Lussac and Thenard. The great facts in 
 chemistry which the science owed to this conflict of 
 opinions and extended researches, with the doctrines 
 they established, are described and systematically 
 arranged in the Elements of Chemical Philosophy, 
 the first volume, published by my brother in 
 1812; respecting which a very competent judge, 
 the late Dr. Young, stated in reviewing it, that " the 
 researches on which it was based were more splen- 
 didly successful than any which have ever before 
 illustrated the physical . sciences in any of their 
 departments," not even excepting the optics of 
 Newton. 1 In this work will be found his views on 
 
 1 Quarterly Review, No. XV. 
 
122 FROM HIS DANGEROUS ILLNESS 
 
 the combinations of bodies in definite proportions, 
 in accordance with Dalton's atomic doctrine. It has 
 been said that he was averse to that doctrine and 
 opposed it, and never, except reluctantly, adopted it. 
 This is not just to him. The doctrine of definite 
 proportions he advocated early; this he considered 
 the important part of Dalton's views that of atoms 
 he held to be hypothetical, and as such open to 
 question. He and Dalton were always on the most 
 friendly terms; no jealousy or unkindly feeling ever 
 arose between them. Dalton dedicated to him and 
 to Dr. Henry the second part of his System of 
 Chemical Philosophy; his words are: "As a testi- 
 mony of their distinguished merit in the promotion 
 of Chemical Science, and as an acknowledgment of 
 their friendly communications and assistance;" and 
 it was under the presidentship of my brother that 
 the first royal medal was awarded to him. 
 
 In the heading of this chapter, a dangerous illness 
 which he experienced is intimated ; I must not pass 
 it by altogether unnoticed. It occurred in the early 
 winter of 1807, following hard on the discovery of the 
 bases of the fixed alkalies. So dangerous was the 
 fever under which he laboured, that his life was 
 almost despaired of. It was said at the time, 
 
 u Death his dart 
 Shook, but delayed to strike.' 1 '' 
 
 An account of it, and of the extraordinary solici- 
 tude it excited, marking his popularity, will be found 
 
TO HIS LEAVING THE ROYAL INSTITUTION. 123 
 
 in his Memoirs. His belief was that he contracted 
 the disease in visiting Newgate, for the purpose of 
 endeavouring to improve the ventilation and sanitary 
 state of that great and then foul prison. 
 
 What I have to offer of his correspondence during 
 this period is " a mingled yarn," but its threads are 
 all of a bright colour. The subjects of the letters 
 are nearly as various in their character as the 
 persons concerned, ranging from matters of science 
 to matters of the affections, and sometimes blending 
 the two. 
 
 The first I shall give are some of those which have 
 been preserved with a kindly care, to his old attached 
 and respected friend, Mr. Knight, so distinguished 
 for his researches in vegetable physiology. I am 
 tempted to preface them w r ith the following from his 
 pen laudari ab laudato viro, is something more 
 than a compliment : 
 
 " My late lamented friend, Sir Humphry Davy, usually 
 paid me a visit in the autumn, when he chiefly amused himself 
 in angling for grayling, a fish which he appeared to take great 
 pleasure in catching. He seemed to enjoy the repose and 
 comparative solitude of this place, 1 where he met but few 
 persons, except those of our own family, for we usually saw 
 but little company. He always assured me that he passed his 
 visits agreeably, and I have reason to believe he expressed his 
 real feelings. In the familiar conversations of those friendly 
 visits, he always appeared to me a much more extraordinary 
 being than even his writings and vast discoveries would have 
 
 1 Downton Castle, on the Temu. 
 
124 FROM HIS DANGEROUS ILLNESS 
 
 led me to suppose him ; and in the extent of intellectual 
 powers I shall ever think he lived and died without an 
 equal." 
 
 Their acquaintance, I may add, began in the 
 spring of 1803, when he was preparing his lectures 
 on agricultural chemistry the first course, which was 
 entitled, " On the connection of Chemistry with 
 Vegetable Physiology." They were introduced to 
 each other by Sir Joseph Banks. At this time Mr. 
 Knight was residing at Elton, near Ludlow; and it 
 was there my brother first visited him, in company 
 with Mr. Greenough, on their way to Ireland, in 
 1805. Mrs. Stackhouse Acton, who has given me 
 this information, speaks in the letter affording it, " of 
 the surprise everybody expressed at the youthful 
 appearance of one whose scientific fame had been so 
 widely spread; though," as she observes, " I was too 
 young at that time to remember much, except his 
 appearance and his good-nature to us as children." 
 She further remarks, in accordance with the state- 
 ment of her father just given, alluding to this and 
 his after visits, both at Elton and Downton (at 
 Downton Castle, after February, 1808, when Mr. 
 Knight removed there), that her u father, to the end 
 of his life, spoke of them as affording him many of 
 the pleasantest days he had ever passed; and," she 
 says, " I am sure there were none to which he so 
 frequently referred with a melancholy satisfaction 
 when they had ceased." 
 
TO HIS LEAVING THE ROYAL INSTITUTION. 125 
 
 To T. A. Knight, Esq. 
 
 Royal Institution, August 25, 1 808. 
 
 My dear Sir I have just sent your excellent paper on the 
 function of the alburnum to the press. 1 Do you wish for any 
 extra copies ? 
 
 Our society will expect with anxiety a continuation of your 
 important researches, and I trust we shall have a paper from 
 you at the beginning of the next session. 
 
 I shall ask permission to witness the results of some of your 
 experiments in the course of the next month. I think of 
 leaving London for a fortnight, and there is no place that 
 I have so great a desire to visit as your delightful scenery. 
 The hope of the pleasure of your society, the banks of the 
 Teme, and the. grayling fishery, are an assemblage of tempta- 
 tions which will induce me to bend my course towards Here- 
 fordshire. 
 
 Two philosophical friends, Mr. Children and Mr. Pepys, 
 have proposed to be my companions in this little journey, and 
 we propose to establish our quarters for a few days at Leo- 
 minster and Leintwardine, from which last place I shall have 
 the opportunity of paying you a visit, and I hope you will 
 permit us all to join in a fly-fishing party. We think of 
 being at Leintwardine about the 10th or 12th of September. 
 Would you have the kindness to suffer one of your servants 
 to engage the beds and large sitting-room for us at that time ; 
 or if they are already claimed for that time, to inquire when 
 they will be disengaged. I take this precaution lest we should 
 meet General and Mrs. Tarleton and family there, in which 
 case there would be no accommodation for us. 
 
 I have been much engaged in experiments since I had the 
 
 1 As junior secretary of the Royal Society (Dr. Wollaston was then 
 the senior), it was one of his duties to superintend the printing of the 
 Philosophical Transactions. 
 
126 FKOM HIS DANGEROUS ILLNESS 
 
 pleasure of seeing you, and I have succeeded in decomposing 
 all the earths, which turn out to be highly combustible metals 
 united to oxygen. 
 
 I am, my dear sir, with respectful compliments to Mrs. 
 Knight, 
 
 Very sincerely your obliged, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 April 30. 
 
 My dear Sir Having had the pleasure of meeting your 
 brother 1 yesterday, he was so good as to say he would take 
 charge of a small parcel. 
 
 I shall inclose some seeds from the northern climates, which 
 I conceive you may like to examine the produce of. They 
 may be useful in your kitchen garden. They are a present 
 from General Bentham, who is himself a horticulturist, and a 
 great admirer (in common with all men who understand the 
 subject) of your investigations in vegetable physiology. He 
 is anxious to try a few of your peas, and could you spare him 
 a dozen or two, would esteem it as a great favour. 
 
 I have lately seen a Mr. Campbell, from Edinburgh, who 
 has entered into some speculations on your experiments on the 
 effects of gravitation on trees. He has an idea that the rela- 
 tive gravity of different materials of the sap may influence the 
 growth in a perpendicular direction. This, however, I con- 
 ceive would be comprehended in your general proposition. 
 
 Soon after you left me on the Saturday morning at the 
 Teme, I saw a pike of three or four pounds in the deep pool 
 above the Black Bridge. I attempted to hook him, but in 
 
 1 Richard Payne Knight, Esq., " distinguished for his taste, for his 
 knowledge of classical literature and antiquities." Rose's Biographical 
 Dictionary. 
 
TO HIS LEAVING THE ROYAL INSTITUTION. 127 
 vain. I think it rio-ht to give this notice of the destroyer, to 
 
 O O t/ / 
 
 whom I wish as well as to all other tyrants a short life. 
 
 The memory of the Teme, of Downton, and of all its 
 delightful accompaniments, I feel at this moment highly 
 refreshing in the noise, bustle, and business of London. 
 
 With best compliments to Mrs. and Miss Knight, I am, 
 my dear sir, 
 
 Your sincerely obliged, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 December 31. 
 
 My dear Sir When I had the pleasure of being with you, 
 you talked of breeding and feeding trout. The manuscript on 
 the other pages is from the Hanover Magazine of nearly a 
 century ago. 1 I doubt not the method is a good one, and 
 would apply likewise to graylings. With the idea that it 
 might interest you, I have had it copied. I shall send you 
 the flies and hooks before the season commences. The game- 
 keeper was so good as to say he would put into your hands for 
 me some wrens' tails and fieldfare's wings ; all other feathers 
 we can get in London. 
 
 I have been busily at work for the last three months, and 
 have succeeded in solving some difficult problems on the nature 
 of sulphur, phosphorus, charcoal, the diamond, the boracic 
 and fluoric acids. All these bodies prove to be compounds. 2 
 
 1 By Lieutenant Jacobi. The account is even worthy of being referred 
 to now, especially as regards the quality of the water, the occasional 
 moving of the ova in the process of being hatched, and the protecting 
 them by a fine grating of brass wire iron rusting from the attacks of 
 their numerous enemies. An abstract of Jacobi's paper is to be found 
 in Bloch's Ichthyologie, vol. i., p. 214. 
 
 2 As to sulphur, phosphorus, the diamond, his later views, founded 
 on further researches, were somewhat modified, as will appear from after 
 letters. 
 
128 FROM HIS DANGEROUS ILLNESS 
 
 I hope I 'shall have the satisfaction of seeing you early in 
 the spring, and of learning some new facts on vegetable 
 physiology. 
 
 The journey of September was to me, as well as to my com- 
 panions; a source of great delight. And we have often spoken 
 with enthusiasm of your valley and its accompaniments, and 
 the moral and intellectual, as well as picturesque treat, that 
 we owed to your and your brothers kindness and hospitality. 
 
 With best compliments and thanks to Mrs. and Miss 
 Knight, and your brother, I am, my dear sir, 
 Your sincerely obliged, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 I need not say how many, very many, happy New Years 
 I wish you and your family. 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 March 12, 1809. 
 
 My dear Sir A thousand thanks for your kindness. Your 
 hare was excellent, and the feathers such as I should have 
 found it impossible to procure in any other way. 
 
 I shall inclose a few grayling flies and some Irish hooks. 
 You possibly may try them before you leave the country. 
 I think the colours and size will suit the Teme. 
 
 I cannot agree with you as to your opinion of the paper 
 you have favoured the Royal Society with. The reasoning is 
 admirable, and I see with great delight that it will be the 
 parent of new facts. In fact, your field, like mine, is inex- 
 haustible, and I trust you will live many years to enlighten 
 the world with more important discoveries in it. 
 
 I think of making a little expedition with three or four 
 friends, to the Usk, in the passion week. We shall probably 
 cross the country by Leintwardine, and ask leave to fish for 
 
TO HIS LEAVING THE ROYAL INSTITUTION. 129 
 
 one day in the Teme. This is uncertain, but if we come it 
 will be in the end of Easter week ; but we must go on to 
 Ludlow immediately. 
 
 I trust I shall find you in London when I return ; I cannot 
 expect to meet you at that time on the river side, though 
 I need not say how happy it would make me if this hap- 
 pened. 
 
 I have lately been working at water and the gases, and 
 I have come to a conclusion with which, I think, you will be 
 pleased, namely, that water is the basis of all the gases, and 
 that oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, ammonia, nitrous acid, &c., 
 are merely electrical forms of water, which probably, according 
 to the apivTov pcv &/>, is the only matter without power, and 
 capable, according as it receives power or change in its electri- 
 city, of assuming the various forms hitherto considered as 
 elementary. 
 
 With best compliments to Mrs. and Miss Knight, I am, 
 my dear sir, 
 
 Your most sincerely obliged, 
 
 H. 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 London, April 9, 1810. 
 
 My dear Sir I read a few weeks ago, at the Koyal Society, 
 your interesting paper on the probability of the old age of the 
 tree depending upon the imperfection of the functions of the 
 leaf. And the paper strengthened the desire which I expressed 
 to you last year, of seeing some experiments on the action of 
 leaves on air, carried on under your direction. 
 
 I think of leaving town on Friday, 1 3th, on a little party 
 to the head of the Thames v and afterwards to the Wye, and 
 probably shall reach the vale of the Teme in the beginning of 
 Easter week, when I will bring you a little apparatus for 
 
 K 
 
130 FROM HIS DANGEROUS ILLNESS 
 
 examining gases. As my friends, Warburton and Blake, 
 and I have formed a resolution to lead a wild, uncontrolled, 
 piscatorial life for a fortnight, I hope you will be so good as 
 to give us leave to fish for two or three days in the Teme, and 
 to take up our head-quarters at Leintwardine ; and that you 
 will let me run up and down from Leintwardine to Downton 
 without interfering with any of your arrangements or any of 
 your occupations, and that you will let me be your operator 
 in the experiments on leaves. 
 
 There is nothing that I look forward to with so much 
 pleasure as a visit to the delightful spot which you inhabit. 
 After having been pent up for a winter in London, and jaded 
 by business and a city life, such a prospect is a prospect of 
 health to the body as well as to the mind. I hope I shall find 
 you, and Mrs. Knight, and Mrs. Bayley, and Miss Knight, 
 and all your family, well. 
 
 I hope you will not be angry with me for going to Leint- 
 wardine, but my engagement to an Easter fishing party has 
 been constant for the last four years and by doing this I can 
 keep two engagements, and no one can feel with more 
 warmth and gratitude your kindness and hospitality than 
 I do. 
 
 I am, my dear sir, with best respects to Mrs. Knight, 
 Your truly obliged, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 August 29, 1809. 
 
 My dear Sir I am this moment going out of town for a 
 few days, to frighten the partridges, with my friends, Children, 
 Warburton, and Pepys, at Tunbrjdge. I shall be back before 
 the eighth, and trust that I shall have the pleasure of seeing 
 you and Mrs. Knight, and your son, in London. I was much 
 
TO HIS LEAVING THE ROYAL INSTITUTION. 131 
 
 disappointed that I missed your son at Downton. I shall be 
 very glad to make his acquaintance, and to show him what 
 I can in chemistry that may influence his partiality to the 
 pursuit. 
 
 I shall look forward with much delight to the being with 
 you for a few days at Downton, towards the end of the 
 autumn. 
 
 You perhaps know before this, that your friend, Sir Joseph 
 Banks, is to dispose of the King\s flock of Merino sheep in 
 presents. I hope a part of them will fall to your lot. I 
 mentioned to Sir Joseph (I believe I was right) your partiality 
 for the breed, which he did not seem aware of. If you have 
 not yet written to him on the subject, I hope you will, for of 
 all the improvers in the Kingdom you ought to be first looked 
 to on an occasion of this kind. 
 
 With best compliments to Mrs. Knight, I am, my dear Sir, 
 Very sincerely yours, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 Cobham, Kent, November 3 [1811]. 
 
 My dear Sir I cannot yet profit by the kind permission 
 you have given me to submit my ideas upon vegetable che- 
 mistry to your observations and corrections, for I have only 
 just commenced that part of my labour, and I do not hope to 
 be able to get through it till the beginning of the spring. In 
 considering the physiology of the subject, I shall have little to 
 do but to record your labours, for you have created almost all 
 the science we possess on that interesting subject. My aim 
 will be to throw out some chemical hints upon the nature of 
 vegetable nutrition, the conversion of dead into living matter, 
 &c., which may at least produce new investigations. 
 
 I have often, since I quitted Downton, had occasion to 
 
 K 2 
 
132 FROM HIS DANGEROUS ILLNESS 
 
 check feelings which certainly were too selfish to be indulged in 
 for more than a moment. When I have seen a fine day, and 
 the flies sporting in the sunshine, I have sighed and said, 
 What such a day would be worth at Downton ! For the 
 first week after I returned I rejoiced when the wind blew from 
 the east. We were unfortunate then in our weather ; but to 
 have had a week of fine days, good fishing added to our 
 general stock of pleasures whilst we were with you, would 
 have been above the common balance, of human enjoyment, 
 and we might have considered ourselves in the superstitious 
 feeling of the ancients nimisfortunati. 
 
 I have been much employed since my return, in pursuing 
 investigations upon the nature of air and water, and their 
 conversion into each other. The inquiry becomes more diffi- 
 cult as it becomes more refined ; but I hope to be able to give 
 some decided views upon the subject. Many thanks for the 
 interest you express in my experiments. I am little anxious 
 about speculative opinions, yet I shall omit no explanation 
 that may assist research ; facts are what we ought to value, 
 and they must be permanent even amongst the revolutions of 
 opinion. When the weight of the atmosphere was first proved 
 by the Torricellian experiments, the Italian philosopher was 
 abused, and a thousand false explanations of the barometer 
 given by monk& and Jesuits : one never hears now of 
 Father Linus's invisible threads of suspension for the mer- 
 cury: the fact belongs to the immutable in natural phi- 
 losophy. 
 
 I beg to be remembered very respectfully and kindly to 
 Mrs. Knight, and to all the family at Downton. Believe me, 
 your goodness and hospitality have not been thrown away 
 upon an ungrateful man. 
 
 I am, my dear Sir, very truly, 
 
 Always your obliged, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
TO HIS LEAVING THE ROYAL INSTITUTION. 133 
 
 This is almost the first half hour of leisure that I have had 
 since I received your letter. I am here at grass for two or 
 three days, in the midst of fine woods, but without a Teme or 
 a Downton. 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 Berkeley Square, April 10, 1813, 
 
 My dear Sir Constable, the bookseller at Edinburgh, wishes 
 very much to have a preliminary dissertation to attach to the 
 Edinburgh Encyclopaedia. He has induced Dugald Stewart, 
 Mr. Playfair, and myself, to give our assistance in this disser- 
 tation, and he is very desirous of having your aid in that part 
 of it which shall give a general view of the progress of vege- 
 table physiology. I told him I would write to you. Sup- 
 posing you are disposed to give him a few sheets on this subject, 
 he begs you will fix your own terms. He offers thirty guineas 
 a sheet to the other gentlemen concerned. 1 
 
 Of course a mere abstract of the philosophy of the subject 
 only would be required, and this no one living can do well but 
 yourself. 
 
 I shall give him a short philosophical view of the progress 
 of chemistry. 2 
 
 1 This proposal was, as I am informed by Mrs. Stackhouse Acton, 
 declined ; he, as she has mentioned in a note I have been favoured with 
 from her, " Never being fond of binding himself to work that must be 
 done by a given time;" adding, " also I think he disliked the trouble of 
 hunting up matter for an undertaking of the kind, preferring rather to 
 set down his own observations. And, from this cause, I know he has 
 been found fault with for having sometimes given that which had been 
 previously described by others, as original matter which it was to 
 him." 
 
 2 This, his intention, was not carried into effect ; the chemical part 
 alluded to was written, I believe, by Mr. Brande. 
 
134 FROM HIS DANGEROUS ILLNESS 
 
 I am just publishing my Lectures of Agricultural Chemistry. 
 You will find I have profited throughout by your labours. 
 
 Sir Joseph [Banks] is better, but has had a very severe 
 attack of gout, to which he was, as the saying is, a martyr. 
 With best compliments to Mrs. Knight, 
 
 My dear Sir, your very sincerely obliged, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 I am going to Cornwall in a day or two, and shall return in 
 about a fortnight. 
 
 The next letter is to another old friend of his, the 
 late Thomas Allan, Esq., of whose kindness, when I 
 was a student in Edinburgh, I have a grateful recol- 
 lection. For a copy of it I am indebted to his son, 
 Mr. Robert Allan. The abstract of Lectures alluded 
 to in its beginning, was published in the Caledonian 
 Mercury, -of which Mr. Allan was proprietor; but 
 who was better known as a mineralogist, and for 
 the admirable, though small collection of minerals, 
 which he formed : it was purchased after his death 
 by Mr. Greg, of Manchester, in whose possession it 
 now is. 
 
 Llanroost, North Wales, October 6, 1811. 
 
 My dear Sir I am much obliged to you for the printed 
 abstract of my Lectures. There are some few matters which 
 I think are not exactly my statements ; but I shall be very 
 thankful to you for any remarks upon the subject. 
 
 In my next course of geology I shall modify many of the 
 doctrines, and certainly mould the whole somewhat more into 
 a plutonic form. I think you make me more unjust than I 
 conceive I was (certainly more unjust than I intended to be) 
 
TO HIS LEAVING THE ROYAL INSTITUTION. 135 
 
 to Dr. Hutton, and his enlightened and powerful philosophical 
 defenders. My leaning has always been to fire, even before I 
 discovered the metals of the earths ; but I think the agency of 
 water must be likewise introduced to explain the silicious for- 
 mations (water highly heated under pressure). 
 
 In my course through Herefordshire and Shropshire a few 
 days ago, I witnessed some good plutonic facts, hummocks, 
 and hills of trap and win, rising in the midst of limestone 
 strata, almost vertical near them, and gradually recovering 
 their parallelism towards the remote parts. The Huttonian 
 doctrine, considered as an hypothesis, has many advantages 
 over all the other views ; it offers probable explanations of 
 many more phenomena, and presents fewer difficulties ; diffi- 
 culties, however, it still has, and they must be removed before 
 it can be considered as a genuine theory. 
 
 With best compliments to Mrs. Allan, I am, my dear Sir, 
 Your sincerely obliged friend and servant, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 The letters which follow next are of a kind also 
 requiring some preliminary notice ; they are to myself 
 and to my mother. Those to myself, I venture to 
 hope, will be received with indulgence I mean, as 
 regards myself, for inserting them. I was at the 
 time following my medical studies in the University 
 of Edinburgh, after having spent three years three 
 delightful years in the study of Chemistry under 
 him, assisting him in his researches in the laboratory 
 of the Royal Institution. Very flattering are many 
 of the expressions which he uses towards me, incited 
 
136 FROM HIS DANGEKOUS ILLNESS 
 
 by brotherly affection, and knowing well that the 
 voice of praise is one of the strongest incentives to 
 virtue, and that a certain degree of self-respect is one 
 of the best securities against moral degradation. A 
 long interval has occurred between that time and the 
 present a lapse of nearly half a century, yet, in re- 
 curring to these letters, I have almost as strong a 
 feeling of pleasure, tinged, indeed, somewhat with 
 sadness, as when I received them; and I must ever 
 have a grateful sense of the love that prompted them. 
 Tn giving them, without now omitting the laudatory 
 passages, may I hope that I shall not be charged with 
 vanity, being induced so to give them, riot merely for 
 the gratification to myself that not a small one but 
 to make him in his kindly and generous nature better 
 known. The correspondence commenced between 
 us at this time (the autumn of 1811) was continued 
 uninterruptedly so long as he lived. Most of his 
 letters to me have been preserved, with the exception 
 of such as I had from him during my early service in 
 the medical staff of the army in Flanders, France, 
 and Ceylon, between 1815 and 1820. The first of 
 these letters to me, as is indicated by the date, was 
 from Dublin, immediately after his arrival there, 
 where he had been invited, and it was the second 
 time, to give a course of Lectures at the Royal Dub- 
 lin Society. These Lectures were on the Elements 
 of Chemical Philosophy and on Geology. The course 
 given in the preceding November was on Electro- 
 chemical science. It is stated by Dr. Paris that the 
 
TO HIS LEAVING THE ROYAL INSTITUTION. 137 
 
 honorarium he received on both occasions was .1,280 ; 
 the admission receipts of the society amounting to 
 Jl,773 Is. 3d. ; the difference between the two 
 sums, it may be inferred, having been applied to de- 
 fray the expenses incurred. The sums I mention in 
 proof of the great attractiveness of his Lectures ; and 
 the manner in which they were valued was further 
 shown by the thanks of the Society formally ren- 
 dered to him. It was at this time that the honorary 
 degree of LL.D. was conferred on him by the Provost 
 and Fellows of Trinity College. 
 
 To his Brother. 
 
 Dublin, October 15, 1811. 
 
 My dear Brother I am just arrived after a short passage, 
 and have just perused your letter. I shall inclose with this as 
 many letters of introduction as a frank will hold. Mrs. 
 Apreece has written to Mr. Henry Mackenzie's family, which 
 she thinks the one in Edinburgh that will be most agreeable to 
 you. Call and leave your name; you will easily find him. 
 He is the author of " The Man of Feeling." 
 
 I should not lay much stress upon the advice of a bad 
 logician. Follow your own bent, or rather take Sir James 
 HalPs or Mr. Play fair's advice. 
 
 I have written to Mr. Allan. My letter was sent nearly a 
 fortnight ago. I desired him to introduce you to Sir James 
 Hall. 
 
 You must follow your own plans with respect to study. 
 With your talents and powers of application, it would be diffi- 
 cult even for Dr. * * * to make you one of the TroXAoi. 
 
 Pray do not care about the expense, if it add anything to 
 comfort or the respectability of your situation. If you could 
 board in a respectable family, it would, I think, be best. 
 
138 FROM HIS DANGEROUS ILLNESS 
 
 I will, if you like, send you 4*0 a year/in addition to what 
 my mother sends you ; and you may, if you please, consider 
 it a loan, which you shall repay when you are a rich phy- 
 sician, and I am a poor gunpowder merchant. 1 
 
 My dear John, let no difficulties alarm you. You may be 
 what you please, trust me I know what your powers are. 
 Preserve the dignity of your mind, and the purity of your 
 moral conduct. You set sail with a fair wind on the ocean of 
 life. You have great talents and good feelings, and an un- 
 broken and uncorrupted spirit. Move straight forward on to 
 moral and intellectual excellence. Let no example induce you 
 to violate decorum, no ridicule prevent you from guarding 
 against sensuality and vice. Live in such a way that you can 
 always say, the whole world may know what I am doing. I 
 am, my dear John, 
 
 Your ever affectionate brother, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 Dublin, December 1, 1811. 
 
 My dear John I wrote to you about a fortnight ago ; I am 
 told the letters are delivered very irregularly in Edinburgh ; 
 perhaps my letter is still at the post-office. 
 
 I have nearly finished my business here. My lectures have 
 been received with the highest interest, and the tone of hospi- 
 tality and respect towards me is even higher, if possible, than 
 last year. 
 
 Pray address your paper as I directed in the last letter. It 
 shall be read immediately after Christmas. 
 
 1 He had been invited by his friend, Mr. Children, to join him in a co- 
 partnership with Mr. Burton in a gunpowder manufactory, which he 
 eventually declined, from, I believe, considerations of the risk, and how 
 trade would interfere with his scientific pursuits. 
 
TO HIS LEAVING THE ROYAL INSTITUTION. 139 
 
 Brande has made some interesting discoveries respecting the 
 blood. He finds the colouring matter, like other colouring 
 matters, fixable by mordants, &c. 
 
 The oxymuriate of magnesia has been applied to bleaching, 
 in consequence of my hints, with perfect success. 
 
 Pray address your next letter to me in London. I hope to 
 be there about the 12th. I am, my dear John, 
 
 Your very affectionate brother, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 I have ascertained the presence of vapour in muriatic, flu- 
 oric, and fluoboric gases. Pray do you intend to review Gay 
 Lussac and Thenard ? You should get introduced to Jeffrey. 
 The chemical part of the Edinburgh Review is vilely con- 
 ducted. 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 London, January 7, 1812. 
 
 My dear John I have received your papers 1 safe, and shall 
 read them [at the Royal Society] as soon as there is an oppor- 
 tunity, which will be in a fortnight. 
 
 I have my hands full of business. I write this in the House 
 of Lords, where I am watching the progress of a plan for ven- 
 tilating and warming the House, of which I believe you made 
 a sketch in the spring. 
 
 I have not been able to satisfy myself on the grand question 
 respecting water. When hot air is made to discharge electri- 
 city at the -|- side, no oxygen is given off, but hydrogen alone, 
 and vice versa ; but it remains to determine whether the pla- 
 tina forms an oxide or a hydruret. 
 
 1 On a gaseous compound of carbonic oxide and chlorine ; on the com- 
 bination of different metals and chlorine ; on different combinations of 
 fluoric acid. 
 
140 FROM HIS DANGEROUS ILLNESS 
 
 I shall begin my lectures on the 25th. 
 
 By a letter from Gilbert of Leipzig, I find that my ideas on 
 chlorine and muriatic acid, have been adopted in Germany. 
 Gilbert has defended them in a thesis on the occasion of his 
 translation from Halle to Leipzig. 
 
 Murray's last paper I do not think worth notice. 
 
 It will always give me great pleasure to hear from you. I 
 am, my dear brother, 
 
 Very sincerely and affectionately yours, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 February 21, 1812. 
 
 My dear John I have just received and read your paper. 1 
 The first part I like very much ; the second requires, I think, 
 some alteration, and may be made much more conclusive. I 
 quote " I shall now proceed." All the part after this, which 
 relates to Murray's last paper, should, I think, be re-written. 
 I will tell you why. We have made a great many experi- 
 ments on combining large quantities of ammonia and muriatic 
 acid gas in exhausted retorts, and have distilled the mixture 
 out of the contact of air, and not the slightest dew or vapour 
 has ever appeared. 
 
 Murray's blunder is not knowing that the fine cottony salt 
 formed upon a jar is hygrometrical. We find that it deli- 
 quesces ; and by successive operations, such as Murray carried 
 on, more than its own weight of water may be procured 
 from it. 
 
 Your reasoning is too refined for the subject, and he may 
 cavil at it : whoever tries the experiment out of the contact of 
 the air will deny his fact. 
 
 1 On the Nature of Oxymuriatic and Muriatic Acid Gas, in reply to 
 Mr. Murray. Nicholson's Journal, vol. xxxi. 
 
TO HIS LEAVING THE ROYAL INSTITUTION. 141 
 
 Combine the gases and distil without exposing the results 
 to air, and you will make a conclusive experiment. Do this if 
 possible, and send me the answer, i.e., to his last paper ; and 
 leave me to connect it with the first part. 
 
 I have a good many new results ; some which will surprise 
 you. I shall give them in my next. 
 
 I am, your affectionate brother, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 March, 1812. 
 
 Many thanks for your last letter. I have been very misera- 
 ble ; the lady whom I love best of any human being, has been 
 very ill. She is now well, and I am happy. 
 
 Mrs. Apreece has consented to marry me, and when this 
 event takes place, I shall not envy kings, princes, or poten- 
 tates. 
 
 Do not fall in love. It is very dangerous ! 
 My case is a fortunate one. I do not believe there exists 
 another being possessed of such high intellectual powers, just 
 views, and refined taste, as the object of my admiration. I 
 am, my dear brother, 
 
 Ever most affectionately yours, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 This last letter may serve as an introduction to the 
 following letters to Mrs. Apreece. They are only a 
 portion of the many addressed to her before their 
 marriage, which had been preserved by her, and 
 since her death have come into my possession, as 
 mentioned in the Preface. These, the selected ones, 
 I shall give in the order as to time in which they 
 
142 FROM HIS DANGEROUS ILLNESS 
 
 were written, not omitting one or two trivial notes, 
 for the purpose of showing how a casual acquaint- 
 ance passed into friendship, and friendship into love, 
 arising on each side from sincere admiration : on one 
 hand, that of the lady, of the mental qualities of the 
 man of genius ; on the other hand, that of the philo- 
 sopher, of the charms of an accomplished woman, 
 shining in society, and heightening her attractions by 
 sympathy in his pursuits. Never, I believe, was 
 admiration more genuine of its kind, or more lasting ; 
 indeed it continued, it may be inferred, judging from 
 their closing correspondence, to the very last; the 
 letters which will be given will afford proof. Yet, it 
 may with equal certainty be inferred that there was 
 an oversight, if not a delusion, as to the fitness of their 
 union ; and that it might have been better for both if 
 they had never met ; and, mainly for this reason, that 
 the lady, in spite of all her attractions in mixed 
 society, was not qualified for domestic life, for be- 
 coming the placens uxor, being without those ines- 
 timable endowments which are requisite for it the 
 agreeable temper, the gentle loving affections which 
 are rarely possessed, which are hardly compatible 
 with an irritable frame and ailing body, such as her's 
 were (for her misfortune) in a remarkable degree. 
 One who, in most things, has so generously sketched 
 the character of my brother I refer to Professor 
 Forbes, in his admirable dissertation on the Mathe- 
 matical and Physical Sciences, contributed to the En- 
 cyclopaedia Britannica remarks, " Had he been blest 
 with a family, his course would probably have been 
 
TO HIS LEAVING THE ROYAL INSTITUTION. 143 
 
 evener and happier." I am sure it would have been 
 happier, for he was of a loving disposition, and fond 
 of children, and required the return of love required 
 (who does riot?) to be beloved, to be happy. And 
 here I may remark, that in all the letters I had from 
 him, with the one exception which will be given, there is 
 not the slightest allusion made to his cheerless home ; 
 and also that in conversation, whenever he made men- 
 tion of the subject, it was with the amplest allowance 
 on the score of infirm health, and the irritable state 
 of body and mind resulting. 
 
 It is painful to me to make this statement as re- 
 gards the one ; nor would I make it, did I not con- 
 sider it due to both, and explanatory of much in the 
 marriage life of both, that without it would be unac- 
 countable. To advert to other points. Many quali- 
 ties she had of a high order, not only fitting her to 
 shine in society, but also to attach friends but these 
 out of the home circle, such as could come and go, 
 be with her in her healthier, happier hours, and 
 whom she could absent herself from at times when in 
 an opposite state of health and feeling. Her ample 
 fortune, moreover, made her perhaps too independent 
 and self-willed. Amongst her best qualities, was a 
 sense of justice, and a charitable regard for the dis- 
 tressed especially as shown in her latter years. 
 The money -relief she afforded to the poor, adminis- 
 tered by the clergyman of the parish, in which Park 
 Street is situated, was, I am informed, extensive, and, 
 during her life, from whence it came was known only 
 to him. Her powers of mind and attainments, if I 
 
144 FROM HIS DANGEROUS ILLNESS 
 
 may speak of them, were of no common kind. She 
 had a taste for study, and a facility in acquiring lan- 
 guages ; and was not without much poetical feeling. 
 In a volume of poems, edited by Miss Joanna Baillie 
 in 1823, there are some lines of hers with the signa- 
 ture of J. (her Christian name was Jane), " To Count 
 
 , on the death of his wife," a Polish lady, of 
 
 great beauty and amiability, whose acquaintance she 
 had formed at Nice lines displaying the affectionate 
 as well as the poetical sentiment, and how capable 
 she was of appreciating those attentions of kindness, 
 shown by a loving husband, during the last illness 
 of his wife acts of kindness which she herself, pro- 
 bably, had she been blessed with a sounder orga- 
 nization, would have had pleasure in performing. 
 Fastidiousness of taste was one of her mental cha- 
 racteristics : she courted the aristocracy of rank and 
 talent, and was courted by them. Amongst her 
 friends, she could reckon some of the most distin- 
 guished, both at home and abroad such as Cuvier 
 and Playfair, Sismondi and Hallam, Madame de Stael 
 and Mrs. Spmerville, Sidney Smith and Lord Jeffrey, 
 Sir Walter Scott and The Man of Feeling, Mr. Henry 
 Mackenzie, not to mention the names of many of 
 the higher nobility. Her parties were of the elite ; 
 and it was considered a privilege to be invited to 
 them. Were her biography to be written, she would 
 appear as a remarkable woman, with many faults and 
 many redeeming qualities, but, taken as a whole, fitted 
 to excite admiration rather than love; and neither 
 by nature happy (equably) in herself or qualified to 
 
TO HIS LEAVING THE ROYAL INSTITUTION. 145 
 
 impart, in the best sense of the term, happiness to 
 others. 
 
 The letters, beginning with the earliest, in the form 
 of brief notes, are the following : 
 
 Mr. Davy regrets that he cannot send Walton to Mrs. 
 Apreece this morning. 
 
 He did not recollect that he had lent the book to a friend 
 who lives a little way out of town. He will send honest Isaac 
 to Mrs. Apreece to-morrow or Thursday. 
 
 Mrs. Apreece is already of the true faith of the genuine 
 angler, the object of whose art and contemplation is to exalt 
 spirit above matter, to enable the mind to create its own 
 enjoyments, and to find society even in the bosom of Nature. 
 
 Mr. Hatchett will accompany me to your door at ten minutes 
 before six. We shall both be proud to be in your train. 
 
 I wish you had been on the lake where I fished on Mon- 
 day. All was still : the sun illumined the whole surface of the 
 water ; the water birds were all in motion ; a thousand brilliant 
 insects sported in the sunbeams ; the fields were beautifully 
 green ; the notes of the dove, and the thrush, and the linnet, 
 resounded from the purple beech woods. You would have 
 been enamoured of angling for ever. 
 
 I return the ticket. I begin to like the opera from asso- 
 ciation. The same association would, I think, make me love 
 a desert, and, perhaps, in a long time, might make me an 
 admirer of routs. 
 
 To Mrs. Apreece. 
 
 Albemarle Street, August 26 [1811]. 
 . You write with great eloquence and truth on the 
 effects of mountain scenery on the mind. Whatever exalts 
 
 L 
 
146 FROM HIS DANGEROUS ILLNESS 
 
 the imagination purifies the affections ; but even our noblest 
 and best thoughts have their archetypes in sensation. The 
 eye is the most perfect of all the senses, and the one that most 
 feeds the intellect. When surrounded by the grand forms of 
 nature, we give to earth something of the indefinite character 
 of heaven. Great objects excite great thoughts ; the standard 
 of our being rises ; all our low and grovelling associations 
 disappear ; and our sympathies are more strongly awakened 
 with regard to the moral, sublime, the excellent, the decorous, 
 and the great in philosophy. We are more fitted to enjoy the 
 blaze of light of Milton, to pass into the proteus-forms of 
 humanity with Shakespeare, and to move through the heavens 
 with Newton. 
 
 From the high tone of your mind, I should argue that your 
 health is improving. Were I in possession of the two great 
 secrets of the alchemists, so zealously sought for, you can 
 guess which I would first make use of; it should not be 
 unemployed for a moment. Could the elixir of life be wafted 
 by a breeze, or created by a thought, it should be yours on 
 the banks of the Wye. 
 
 I spent three very pleasant days at Bulstrode. Lord 
 Webb 1 was delightfully philosophical, and the duke and 
 duchess very pleasant and good-natured ; the grounds as beau- 
 tiful as grounds can be, without a stream or mountain. 
 
 I have had a letter from Mrs. Beddoes, and one from 
 George Knox. Both speak of you, both write in a most 
 cheerful tone of themselves. Mrs. B. says : " I do admire 
 Mrs. Apreece ; I think her very pleasing, feel her abilities, 
 and almost believe, if I knew her, I should love her ; I suppose 
 then she would love me." 
 
 I am leading a truly philosophical life of 
 
 1 Lord Webb Seymour, the friend of Playfair and Horner ; a genuine 
 philosopher, in the best sense of the word; loved by all who knew him, 
 and respected by all. 
 
TO HIS LEAVING THE ROYAL INSTITUTION. 147 
 
 activity, and the constant pursuit of an object, the elements 
 of such a life. Such moments as I am now passing in the 
 crowded city, prove to me how fitted our being is for indepen- 
 dent and solitary thoughts ; how much its strength depends 
 upon its own efforts, and, how little it owes to general society. 
 
 Pray do not forget me, and believe me to be, very truly and 
 affectionately yours, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 Holyhead, October 14, 1811. 
 
 I had hoped to have written to you yesterday from Dublin, 
 but the winds have been unfavourable, and I have been obliged 
 to wait here for three days, with no other objects of interest 
 around me than a stormy sea and barren rocks. Under such 
 circumstances I might have been melancholy and listless, but 
 thoughts and feelings, of which you are the source, and the 
 consolations of science, have kept my mind cheerful and active. 
 I do not admit the truth of the lines of Anacreon, which may 
 be translated, " It is hard to love, it is hard not to love, but 
 the hardest of all is to be absent from the beloved object.'" 
 I should rather say affection is necessary to the moral and 
 intellectual being; when present, the beloved object is a 
 constant source of happiness ; when absent, an eternal spring 
 of hope. It would be easy to show metaphysically that this 
 must be the case. Hope, as Hartley has shown (and the 
 analysis of the passions is, perhaps, the only truly logical part 
 of his book), is reflected pleasure, i. e., it bears the same rela- 
 tion to pleasure that an idea bears to an impression, and con- 
 sequently the object that has produced most pleasure must be 
 remembered with most delight. I cannot describe to you the 
 gratitude that I feel for the very happy days and hours I have 
 passed in your society. I am convinced with you, that plea- 
 
 L 2 
 
148 FROM HIS DANGEROUS ILLNESS 
 
 sure is always useful to a well organised mind. You have 
 refined many of my sentiments, given me more correct prin- 
 ciples of taste, and raised very much my opinion of the 
 standard of human excellence, by displaying a character which 
 appeared more exalted the more it was studied. I hope 
 you will not think this acknowledgment of benefits obtrusive ; 
 it is one that I ought to make, for I have sometimes said to 
 you that the pleasure I derived from your conversation inter- 
 fered with my scientific pursuits. I have gained much and 
 lost but little. I have gained sentiments which I trust will 
 continue to exalt and improve my mind, which I am con- 
 vinced will exist under all circumstances, which in prosperity 
 will be a delight, and which, should adversity be my lot, will 
 be a consolation. All this you will say is romantic, but who 
 would not follow a romance of pleasure ! If this is romantic, 
 it is romantic to pursue one object in science, to attach the 
 feelings strongly to any ideas ; it is romantic to love the good, 
 to admire the wise, to quit low and mean things and seek for 
 excellence. 
 
 The first two days of our journeying through Wales were 
 wet and stormy ; but we enjoyed the magnificent scenery 
 between Llanroost and Bangor in sunshine. The rivers were 
 full of water, brooks were become torrents, and the falls of the 
 Conway and Lugwy the most magnificent instances I have 
 seen of mountain cataracts. The Lugwy was as full of water 
 as the Wye in the delightful days when we sailed to Mon- 
 mouth. The fall is nearly two hundred feet, of which at least 
 sixty feet is perpendicular. The rocks over which the river 
 pours are in grand masses, the glen clothed with oaks, yews, 
 and firs, and an underwood purple from heath, or brown from 
 the dead fern. Snowdon rose above, curtained in clouds, from 
 which it might be imagined the torrent had its source : and it 
 was lost in clouds of foam below the fall. In the evening-, 
 
 O' 
 
 passing by Capel Carrig, we saw Snowdon rising above 
 clouds of the purest white, and a part of it was hidden 
 
TO HIS LEAVING THE ROYAL INSTITUTION. 149 
 
 in bright orange clouds. Nothing could exceed the sub- 
 limity of this scene. Clouds add very much to the gran- 
 deur of mountain scenery, partly, I suppose, because they 
 create obscurity and give indefiniteness to the scene, and 
 partly because they naturally belong to the heavens, and are 
 associated with our poetical superstitions and religious institu- 
 tions. The gods of Homer descend on clouds. The glory of 
 Jehovah on Sinai is seen through clouds. They have the 
 elements of beauty in their colours, forms, and changes, and 
 of sublimity in their obscurity, situation, and extent. 
 
 I shall write to you as soon as I arrive in Dublin. I hope 
 you will have the kindness to let me hear from you as soon as 
 you can. After seeing you, I can have no greater pleasure 
 than that of seeing your writing. I beg you will remember 
 me to Mrs. and Mr. Clifford with feelings of gratitude for the 
 kindness I experienced from them at Peraystone. I am this 
 moment told to hurry, as the packet will sail. Adieu, my 
 charming friend, my dear grandmama, or by whatever tender 
 or kind name you will permit me to call you, and believe me 
 to be, in calms or storms, unalterably your devoted admirer, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 Dublin, November 1, 1811. 
 
 . . . I wrote to you, hoping and expecting that Children 
 would come ; but accident made him appear faithless. On 
 Friday I proceeded to Edgeworth's Town, where I experienced 
 a most kind reception, and rested till Sunday morning. Miss 
 Edgeworth was in better health than usual, and in high spirits, 
 appearing to me as always the perfect model of a woman of 
 great powers and literary habits, unassuming, dwelling in her 
 conversation on topics of general interest, and elucidating her 
 opinions by pleasing rather than brilliant imagery displaying 
 
150 FROM HIS DANGEROUS ILLNESS 
 
 constantly perfection of good sense and inexhaustible good 
 humour. 
 
 Mrs. Beddoes I found greatly improved in bodily and 
 intellectual health. You can have no idea at all of what she 
 was from what you saw her, nor, I hope, of what she will be. 
 She possessed a fancy almost poetical in the highest sense 
 of the word, great warmth of affection, and disinterestedness 
 of feeling, and, under favourable circumstances, she would 
 have been, even in talents, a rival of Maria. 
 
 At Edgeworth^s Town I enjoyed the fragrance of incense 
 offered to my chief idol. There are few higher delights than 
 that of hearing those we love praised by persons whose judg- 
 ment even the world considers as approaching to infallible. 
 It may be said that our own vanity is concerned in this ; but 
 I am rather disposed to consider it as a proof of the dis- 
 interestedness of affection. The Edge worths think of you as 
 they ought to think. I was pleased to hear the manner in 
 which they spoke of Mrs. Clifford. Miss Edgeworth said she 
 was a delightful old lady, full of varied information, who lived 
 more than anybody she ever knew in others. 
 
 On Sunday I went, accompanied by Sneyd Edgeworth, to a 
 place near Boyle, called Rockingham, a seat of Lord Lorton^s. 
 I was told it was the finest place in Ireland. There is a lake 
 containing many islands covered with wood, all of late growth, 
 some fine hills, of which the highest might in civility be called 
 mountains, but no rocks, no ruggedness, nothing approaching 
 to the grand. The showman of the place said (hearing me say 
 that I had seen Killarney), " Do you not think Loch Eaye 
 the finest of the twof I replied, No. He said, " Sure now, 
 it is much more uniform." My Irish acquaintance is not the 
 only picturesque critic I have known who confounded uni- 
 formity and beauty. 
 
 At Boyle, Children and S. Solly joined me, and we passed 
 on to the west of Ireland. For the first twenty miles of our 
 
TO HIS LEAVING THE ROYAL INSTITUTION. 151 
 
 journey towards Ballina, nothing was presented to the eye on 
 which it could repose ; dark bogs, and low hills, and brown 
 streams, constituted the features of the country. We gradu- 
 ally reached, however, a chain of low mountains, and the pass 
 through them offered some wild scenes, small lakes in perfect 
 solitude, surrounded by cliffs, and large detached masses of 
 rocks forming their islands. At the extremity of the pass 
 there opened upon us a very grand and unexpected view. A 
 magnificent lake, Loch Conn, appeared as if immediately below 
 us, studded with islands, some green, some wooded, some 
 rocky, and joined by the river Moy (a noble and turbulent 
 stream) to the Western Ocean. Above the lake rose the 
 mountains of Nephin and Nephin Beg, amongst the highest in 
 Ireland. Some of their summits were bright in the rays of 
 the setting sun, others were obscured by clouds, dense gray in 
 the central parts, and tinged with golden light at their edges. 
 The sea appeared through some of the passes of the mountains 
 as if above the lake, and through that near the west glowing 
 with yellow light. I never saw before so grand an assemblage 
 of river, and lake, and ocean, and mountain scenery. From 
 Ballina we proceeded by the side of the lake and under 
 Nephin to Castlebar. Nephin has all the characters of an 
 Alpine mountain, for its top was covered with snow, and 
 clouds were constantly rolling about its sides, or hiding its 
 summits. The country round Castlebar is interesting only 
 from the forms of the distant mountains; the home view 
 presents nothing worthy of notice. After Castlebar, our next 
 resting-place was Ballinrobe, from which we visited Connemara, 
 Loch Mask, and Loch Corrib, and Boss Cong. 
 
 Connemara is a very extraordinary mountain district. It 
 is composed of wild rocky glens, close to each other. The 
 mountains constituting their sides abut into Loch Mask, and 
 they send into the lake their waters in a succession of cataracts. 
 At the openings of the glens into the lake there are a number 
 
152 FROM HIS DANGEROUS ILLNESS 
 
 of rocky islands which appear as if formed by rocks washed 
 down from the valleys. The district is without any cultiva- 
 tion visible at a distance ; savage, wild, and sublime, it appears 
 unhaunted by the forms, and unsubdued by the energies of 
 life. Loch Corrib is a larger lake than Loch Mask, but with- 
 out its peculiar grandeur. It is distinguished for the multi- 
 plicity of its islands, some of which are wooded, some cultivated. 
 At its upper part there are some wooded peninsulas, which put 
 me a little in mind of the scene at Mucross (Killarney). 
 
 Ross Cong is a very singular place. It is at the top of 
 Loch Corrib, and the waters collected in Loch Mask here 
 make their exit by subterranean passages. There is here a 
 village seated upon limestone rocks, arranged in the most 
 fantastical forms. Trees arise from little glens in the rocks 
 like those of Farley Hall. A beautifully clear river, larger 
 than the Wye, rises of a sudden from the earth, then disap- 
 pears under a limestone grotto, rises again through a fissure 
 in the earth, falls over a group of grotesque rocks, and hastens 
 into Loch Corrib. The mountains of Connemara are seen in 
 the distance from this wild and extraordinary scene. I shall 
 have tired you, so I shall at present say nothing of the people 
 of the west of Ireland. 
 
 I returned on Wednesday to EdgewortlTs Town, that 
 oasis in the intellectual desert of this fine country ; pray 
 keep the expression a secret. I experience every kind of 
 civility and attention from my acquaintance here, yet I 
 sigh deeply for your society. You have given me a 
 distaste for the common intercourse of the world; this is 
 some harm amongst all the good I acknowledged in my last 
 letter. There is a law of sensation, which may be called the 
 law of continuity and contrast, of which you may read in 
 Darwin^s Zoonomia. An example is look long on a spot of 
 pink and close your eyes, the impression will continue for 
 some time, and will then be succeeded by green light For 
 some days after I quitted you I had the pink light in 
 
TO HIS LEAVING THE ROYAL INSTITUTION. 153 
 
 my eyes, and the rosy feelings in my heart, but now the green 
 hue and feelings not of jealousy, but of regret are come. 
 I am glad you are pleased with Farley. * * 
 
 Ever yours, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 Dublin, November 11, 1811. 
 ***** 
 
 The people of Connemara are not so interesting as the 
 country. In the wildest scenes of a mountain country, the 
 cultivated man, perhaps, most feels his power, and the rocks, 
 and stony valleys, and cataracts, and clouds, at the same time 
 that they delight the eye display a contrast by which his 
 dominion over the elements is made evident, and show how 
 much his efforts have tended to increase life and happiness ; 
 but in a moral wilderness there is no beauty, and little gran- 
 deur. Man, as a savage, chilled by poverty, robbed by 
 oppression of his rude virtues, can awaken pity only, or pity 
 mixed with anger pity for the oppressed, anger for the 
 oppressor and in such a state of society one would only 
 dwell in the hope of being able to improve, or of awakening 
 the disposition to ameliorate in those who have the power. 
 
 As a physically gifted race, the people of Mayo and Galway 
 are handsomer and more robust than those of any other part 
 of Ireland. The women some of them have characters of 
 softness and beauty. There are no manufactures in the 
 country; little or no agriculture ; little or no law amongst the 
 tenants, but much litigation amongst the landlords, who for 
 the most part are resident out of the country. Connemara is 
 the haunt of deserters and smugglers. The few persons of 
 the middling class who reside there are delighted to see 
 strangers, who are hailed with the same feeling of novelty and 
 
154 FROM HIS DANGEROUS ILLNESS 
 
 wonder as a comet in our planetary system. The lower 
 classes are uncertain and dangerous, not unlike the natives of 
 Owyhee ; a stranger is scarcely safe amongst them. There 
 was only one place in Connaught, where I saw an improving 
 peasantry, possessing industry, regular habits, and civility 
 without fawning ; this was at Ballina. You will, I dare say, 
 guess the reason there are four or five great and liberal 
 proprietors residing amongst them, and setting an example of 
 cultivation and good manners. 
 
 ***** 
 
 Lady M., amongst other belles, is constant in her attendance 
 at my lectures. She was asked why she went. She answered : 
 " I have, I haw a reason" How she can have subdued so 
 many hearts is to me incredible. She flatters, but not now in 
 a refined manner ; it is gross adulation. She does not bear 
 the decline of her empire with dignity, but daubs in attempting 
 to exalt both her personal and sentimental attractions. 
 
 There was an admirable scene at Lady Caber's last night. 
 Miss Owenson's sister came in masquerade, and personated an 
 antique princess of Kerry with excellent effect. The wits 
 were almost all taken in, even Mrs. Parkhurst was deceived, 
 though acquainted with the lady. 
 
 There are dinners and evening parties constantly, and what 
 is extraordinary, I am more feted and flattered than last year. 
 If you were here I should be very happy. 
 
 ***** 
 I have made some new experiments, which are, I think ^ 
 important, and I hope to have done some permanent good for 
 Ireland. I proposed a new method of bleaching last year, 
 which has been successfully pursued, and which, I trust, will 
 be a national benefit. 
 
TO HIS LEAVING THE ROYAL INSTITUTION. 155 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 Dublin, December 4, 1811. 
 
 You are now at Lowton. I have the power of dreaming 
 and of picture-making as strong as when 1 was fifteen. I call 
 up the green woods and the gleams of sunshine darting through 
 them, and the upland meadows, where we took our long walk. 
 I seem to hear, as then, the delightful song of the nightingale 
 interrupted by the more delightful sounds of your voice. You 
 perhaps will laugh at this visionary mood, and call it romance ; 
 but without such feelings life would be of little worth, and 
 neither our affections nor objects of pursuit would be perma- 
 nent. Tt is the continuity and unbroken recollection of plea- 
 surable feelings which constitute the strength and vitality of 
 our being. They are to thought what melody is in music. 
 The mind in a healthy state must always blend its new 
 impulses with old affections. Without this, its tones are like 
 those of the -ZEolian harp, broken, wild, and uncertain, fickle as 
 the wind that produced them, beginning without order, ending 
 without effect. 
 
 # * # # * 
 
 There has been no packet for three days ; there is a report 
 of one being lost. We shall depart as soon as the seas are 
 quiet. To see you is the strongest wish of my heart. My 
 last lecture was received with a feeling and an effect that over- 
 powered me. It made me feel a deeper responsibility than I 
 ever felt before ; and the enthusiastic attentions paid to me, 
 make me humble rather than vain. 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 March 2, 1812. 
 
 I have passed a night sleepless from excess of happiness. 
 It seems to me as if I began to live only a few hours ago. 
 
156 FROM HIS DANGEROUS ILLNESS 
 
 Their marriage took place on the llth of April, 
 1812. The last note preludes, it may be inferred, 
 the event. The honour of knighthood had been 
 conferred on him on the 8th of the same month. 
 The letters which follow are very characteristic of 
 his then joyous and excited feelings, as well as of 
 the happy prospects which were opening out before 
 him. 
 
 March, 1812. 
 
 My dear Mother You may possibly have heard reports of 
 my intended marriage. Till within the last few days it was 
 mere report. It is, I trust, now a settled arrangement. 
 
 I am the happiest of men in the hope of a union with a 
 woman equally distinguished for talents, virtues, and accom- 
 plishments, and who is the object of admiration in the first 
 society in this country. 
 
 You, I am sure, will sympathise in my happiness. I believe 
 I should never have married but for this charming woman, 
 whose views and whose tastes coincide with my own, and who 
 is eminently qualified to promote my best efforts and objects 
 in life. 
 
 Eemember me to my aunts with affection, and to my sisters 
 with kind love. 
 
 I am, your affectionate son, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 To his Brother. 
 
 Beech wood, April 22, 1812. 
 
 My dear John My wife desires her kind love to you. She 
 will now for my sake have the kindest regard for you, and 
 
 she knows you, for your own sake. 
 I have heard of some experiments you have made on the 
 
TO HIS LEAVING THE ROYAL INSTITUTION. 157 
 
 action of digitalis and other poisons on yourself. I hope you 
 will not indulge in trials of this kind. I cannot see any useful 
 results that can arise from them : it is in states of disease, and 
 not of health, that they are to be used, and you may injure 
 your constitution without gaining any important result ; 
 besides, were I in your place, I should avoid being talked of 
 for anything extraordinary of this kind, as you have already 
 fame of a better kind, and the power of gaining fame of the 
 noblest kind. 
 
 I am going on with my book. 1 I want you to send me, by 
 return of post, the result of your most accurate experiments on 
 fluoboric and silicated fluoric gas, as to the quantity of silex 
 and boracic acid they contain, specific gravity, &c. It will be 
 easy to gain the elementary numbers of these bodies from their 
 gaseous combinations. 
 
 I have every prospect of happiness in my new relations. A 
 most exalted and charming intellectual woman, full of good 
 feelings, refined taste, and having a mind stored with various 
 knowledge. My usefulness will be her happiness, and her 
 happiness my glory. 
 
 I am, my dear John, 
 
 Ever your most affectionate brother, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 My dear John I told you I should come to the Highlands 
 this summer, and I shall carry the plan into execution. I 
 wrote to you to say this a few days ago. I addressed my 
 letter Edinburgh, so that possibly it may be lying at the post- 
 office. 
 
 I trust I shall have the happiness of seeing you before the end 
 of July, and that I shall find you well, improved, active, and 
 happy. 
 
 1 His Elements of Chemical Philosophy. 
 
158 FROM HIS DANGEROUS ILLNESS 
 
 I communicated to you in a former letter my plans as far as 
 they were matured. I have neither given up the Institution, 
 nor am I going to France ; and wherever I am, I shall con- 
 tinue to labour in the cause of science with a zeal not dimi- 
 nished by increase of happiness, and (with respect to the 
 world) increased independence. 
 
 I have finished the first part of my Chemistry [Elements of 
 Chemical Philosophy], to my own satisfaction, and I am going 
 to publish my Agricultural Lectures, for which I get one 
 thousand guineas for the copyright, and fifty guineas for each 
 edition, which seems a fair price. As I shall see you so soon, 
 I will not write about any matters of science. I shall bring 
 you what I think you will consider an agreeable present, 
 copies of all your papers, 1 twenty-five of each as presents for 
 your friends. 
 
 I am appointed professor [honorary] to the Institution, at 
 the last meeting. I do not pledge myself to give lectures ; 
 Brande gives twelve ; and as I have said before, if, after you 
 have got your degree, you will try your eloquence in the 
 theatre, the road will be paved for you. If I lecture, it will 
 be on some new series of discoveries, should it be my fortune 
 to make them ; and I give up the routine of lecturing, merely 
 that I may have more time to pursue original inquiries, and 
 forward more the great objects of science. This has been for 
 some time my intention, and it has been hastened by my 
 marriage. 
 
 I shall have great pleasure in making you acquainted with 
 Lady D. She is a noble creature (if I may be so permitted 
 to speak of a wife), and every day adds to my contentment by 
 the powers of her understanding, and her amiable and delightful 
 tones of feeling. God bless you, and believe me to be, 
 Your ever affectionate brother, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 1 Papers published in the Philosophical Transactions. 
 
TO HIS LEAVING THE ROYAL INSTITUTION. 159 
 
 The two following letters will be read with interest 
 on account of the writer; moreover, they are not 
 without value, as showing Miss Edgeworth's pains- 
 taking and business habits of authorship : 
 
 From Miss Edgeworth. 
 
 Edgeworth's Town, December 1, 1806. 
 
 I have waited till our election for this county was over, that 
 I might have a frank to convey to you my thanks for your 
 obliging letter, and for your kind attention in sending me the 
 extract I wished for from Dr. Priestley's. 
 
 We have reason to be gratified by your opinion, that we 
 should be of use by writing upon professional education ; but 
 the more I think of it, the less I feel equal to such a difficult 
 subject ; and yet I am very anxious if I could, to do what T 
 know is my father's most anxious wish. Indeed, this is one of 
 the few subjects which has power to interest or occupy his 
 mind at present. 
 
 My sister Charlotte"^ illness has turned all our thoughts 
 away from our usual occupations : soon after you saw her here, 
 seemingly in such perfect health, she caught a cold, and has 
 never been well since. You know enough of her family, and 
 of medicine, to be aware of the whole extent of the danger and 
 of our anxiety. By Dr. Gregory"^ advice she now lives in two 
 rooms, kept as nearly as possible at the temperature of 62, 
 and she is following his prescriptions exactly. But, alas ! he 
 has but little hope of their being of any material advantage. 
 
 My brother Henry has taken his degree, and is now with 
 us, to our great comfort. He will be in London in the spring, 
 and will of course attend your lectures. My father is in 
 Dublin, gone to attend the meeting of a commission of ten of 
 the principal people in this county, appointed to inquire into 
 the present state of its education. I fear that he will not be 
 able to do much good, as there are so many prejudices and 
 
160 FKOM HIS DANGEROUS ILLNESS 
 
 parties to contend with. If he finds he can do no good, he will 
 withdraw. 
 
 Mrs. Edge worth, and my aunt Sneyd, and all this family, 
 desire to be kindly remembered to you, and are much gratified 
 by the manner in which you speak of your visit to Edgeworth's 
 Town. We hope that whenever you come again to this country, 
 you will not forget to prove to us that you were pleased by 
 your last visit, by repeating it. 
 
 Your obliged, humble servant, 
 
 MARIA EDGEWORTH. 
 
 If any thoughts should occur to you upon the subject of 
 professional education, or if any should be suggested by the 
 literary friends whom you have every day an opportunity of 
 seeing in London, you will do me an essential service by com- 
 municating them to me, and by telling me of any books that 
 could give me information. I shall certainly do my best to 
 turn my mind to this subject, as my father wishes it so much, 
 but fear it will be without success. 
 
 From the Same. 
 
 Edgeworth's Town, January 21, 1810. 
 
 With all due sense of awe, I address myself to him who has 
 not only had the honour of receiving the prize medal from 
 Napoleon, but who has had the far greater honour of exciting 
 the Western Emperor's national jealousy, and an ti- Anglican 
 spleen to such a pitch, as to make him send for his chemists of 
 the Institute, and rate them all round, after his manner, in 
 imperial Billingsgate. 
 
 N. B. If you do not yet know the extent of your own glory 
 in the facts to which I allude, inquire of our friend, Mr. Che- 
 nevix, whom you will probably soon see in London : he can 
 entertain you with an infinite variety of curious Parisian 
 
TO HIS LEAVING THE ROYAL INSTITUTION. 161 
 
 anecdotes. No doubt you have read his book on Hatty's and 
 Werner's systems, " Reflexions sur quelques Methodes Mine- 
 ralogiques" Though I know nothing on the subject, and though 
 I felt little interest or curiosity about the question in dispute, 
 I found myself carried 6n by the book as soon as I had read a 
 few pages, and I think the general philosophic view it contains 
 so just and enlarged, and the tone of raillery so sprightly, that 
 it cannot fail to please you. Pray ask Mr. C. to show you a 
 little tract he has published in Paris on the German trans- 
 cendentalists. It contains much philosophic satire, well de- 
 served, well applied. 1 
 
 Though it may appear from all I have yet said, that it was 
 the purport of this letter to praise Mr. Chenevix's book, yet, I 
 assure you, I had in beginning it no such intention. My 
 object was, and is, to ask you for corrections for a second edi- 
 tion of my father's essays on Professional Education. In spite 
 of one of the Edinburgh Reviewer's (our old friend Sidney 
 Smith's) contemptuous mention of that book, our bookseller 
 tells us the sale has proved that some people have thought it 
 worth buying, and he is in haste to bring it out in October. 
 My father is very anxious to improve it, and to induce his 
 private friends to supply the deficiencies of his public critic, by 
 pointing out where his opinions are erroneous, and where he 
 has not gone to the bottom of his subject, &c. In general, 
 when authors ask to be told of their faults, they mean to beg 
 for compliments, but I believe you know enough of my father 
 
 1 The late Mr. Chenevix was distinguished in his day as an analytical 
 chemist. Owing to a disgust he acquired in connexion with a mistake 
 he fell into respecting a new metal, palladium, discovered by Dr. Wol- 
 laston and for awhile not claiming the discovery, he forsook chemistry 
 for literature, in the prosecution of which he displayed much intellectual 
 activity and varied powers. His critical made a greater impression than 
 his dramatic writings. His principal labours are mentioned in the 
 account given of him in the New General Biographical Dictionary 
 (Rose's). 
 
 M 
 
162 FROM HIS DANGEROUS ILLNESS 
 
 to be convinced that he is sincere in his candour, and that you 
 will really increase his esteem and regard by speaking the 
 plain truth to him. Give us then an hour or two of that time 
 of which we know the value, and trust that we shall not be 
 ungrateful. I am not so unconscionable as to ask you to read 
 the book twice over, but if you have read it, turn to the index, 
 hunt it, refer to doubtful passages, and give us your own and 
 the opinion of your sensible friends upon the chief points in 
 which you may differ from us. Note your remarks as shortly 
 as you will, and they will answer our purpose thus : 
 Page repetition. 
 
 compress. 
 
 explain. 
 
 differ from you in opinion here, because, &c. 
 
 more information can be obtained on such and such 
 
 points by referring to such and such books. 
 
 You will observe that my father has made use of that letter 
 of Priestley's, which you were so good as to give me. 
 
 I do not know how I can bribe you to take this tiresome 
 trouble for us, except by a promise of an account in return of a 
 bog-quake which has happened in our neighbourhood. My 
 father is now employed in preparing a report on this subject for 
 the commissioners for improving the bogs of Ireland. But I 
 rather think that if your glories have not totally altered you, 
 since we had the pleasure of seeing you, you will need no bribe, 
 or further solicitation, but that you will feel gratified by having 
 an opportunity of serving and obliging your old friends. With 
 this belief, and with the best wishes of this whole family for 
 your fame, health, and happiness or for your happiness, 
 health, and fame, if that should be the climax you prefer I 
 bid you adieu. 
 
 MARIA EDGEWORTH. 
 
TO HIS LEAVING THE ROYAL INSTITUTION. 163 
 
 The fragmentary passages which follow, are taken 
 from note-books used during this period. 
 
 " It is only by making truths popular that their existence 
 can be secured. Books may be destroyed, a new Omer may 
 arise in a new Emperor, and all things may fall ', but preju- 
 dices conquered cannot be re-established. And, if errors gain 
 power from habit, and from the length of time they exist, 
 truths will not easily be forgotten, especially when they are 
 connected with absolute utility/' 
 
 " It is principally in consequence of improvements made in 
 our instruments of experiment, that the sciences have been so 
 much extended, and that they have been made the common 
 property of all those having inclination for studying them, and 
 patience in pursuing them. 
 
 u Doctrinal speculations at present cease to be formidable 
 in their influence; and variety of opinion, and freedom of 
 thought, can only produce benefits in a department of know- 
 ledge where the appeal is to nature, and where there can be no 
 fair decision without the evidence of present facts." 
 
 " Experimental researches have led to the greatest dis- 
 coveries made in modern times ; for by the mere contemplation 
 of events, extensive truths are seldom gained: the senses are 
 imperfect ; they need assistance to enable them to discover 
 truth ; and active inquiry by the trial of results, seems to be 
 that which is best fitted to our nature, and to the development 
 of truth." 
 
 " Time, and duration, and infinity, &c., are all peculiar pro- 
 perties of sensation, as much as form and colours, but more 
 variable, less determinable, and less distinct." 
 
 " Men whose powers are very great, and who exhaust them- 
 selves upon great occasions, often appear poor in conception, 
 and affected in expression, when other men are lively and 
 active. The torrent leaves behind it a sandy and barren 
 
 M2 
 
164 FROM HIS DANGEROUS ILLNESS 
 
 strand ; in summer the stream is wholly unlike what it was in 
 winter." 
 
 " The high state of civilization in Greece in the age of 
 Homer, is almost demonstrated by the perfection of their lan- 
 guage." 
 
 " No man yet ever made great discoveries in science, who 
 was not impelled by an abstracted love." 
 
 " To expect knowledge from an uncultivated nation, would 
 be to expect herbage, corn, and trees, upon a barren rock, ex- 
 posed to the agency of the elements. 
 
 " The first object of man is to supply his pressing wants : 
 to pro vide food; to protect himself amidst the war of the ele- 
 ments. 
 
 " In his savage state no knowledge is valuable to him but 
 the knowledge connected with his common appetites. The 
 savage of Avignon regarded not the noise of the multitude in 
 the streets of Paris, but he was roused in a moment by the 
 cracking of a nut, or by the murmuring of water." 
 
 " We know nothing of the first state of society in the 
 nations that appeared the most enlightened amongst the people 
 of antiquity. 
 
 " It happened that whilst one part of the world were en- 
 lightened by Religion, another part were left to Nature ; and 
 from this part proceeded the sciences ; and from the union of 
 the sciences with true Religion in these latter times, every- 
 thing grand, everything dignified has arisen. A GREAT 
 
 TRUTH. 
 
 " Much ornament attached to opinions proves that they are 
 sickly : the leaves look most brilliant and beautiful before they 
 die." 
 
 " If the mathematical sciences are efficacious in their power 
 of strengthening the reason and refining the judgment, the 
 chemical ones are still more efficacious, because they approach 
 nearer to the facts of common life." 
 
 " Some of those speculations, formed upon insulated facts, 
 
TO HIS LEAVING THE ROYAL INSTITUTION. 165 
 
 bring to my mind an ingenious person who made a system of 
 geology, in which he attempted to show that all rocks and soils 
 were the produce of alluviums ; and he founded his reasoning 
 upon the facts of the gravel pits of Kensington, where only he 
 had studied geology." 
 
 As an example of his poetry belonging to this 
 period, one small fragment may suffice ; and that is 
 given for the sake of the noble subject, and the 
 ennobling thoughts connected with the spot. The 
 lines bear the date of Pencester, March 3, 1811. 
 
 Penshurst. 
 
 Through thy deserted chambers I have walked 
 
 Musing on elder times, cheering my mind 
 
 By memories of the great and noble dead. 
 
 Within thy walls, the first high spirits breathed, 
 
 Who, through the darkness of the feudal times, , 
 
 Threw the bright light of letters and of arts, 
 
 And to the warlike temper of the age 
 
 Gave softness and the charms of social life. 
 
 Sidney, the hero, poet, and the sage, 
 
 Here nursed his noble thoughts, here lisped 
 
 In pastoral numbers ; to the dreams of love 
 
 Gave the charm of sentiment and thought, 
 
 And with the noble tone of chivalry, 
 
 Blended the sternness of the patriot-mind. 
 
 A noble race is gone the scathed oak, 
 
 Whose hollow ruins stand on yonder hill, 
 
 Affords an emblem of their poor remains. 
 
 Two thousand crescent moons have scarce appeared, 
 
 Since those dark walls resounded to the noise 
 
 Of song and music, and the laughing voice 
 
166 FROM HIS DANGEROUS ILLNESS, ETC. 
 
 Of revelry ; and royal was the feast ; 
 
 The lance and target then were bright, 
 
 And brilliant was the cuirass ; chairs of state 
 
 Were fixed in every chamber ; lovely dames 
 
 And gallant knights tripped gaily in the dance, 
 
 And she was Queen, first mistress of the ocean, 
 
 She who broke the Roman yoke, and scattered on the waves 
 
 The invincible Armada ! 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 FROM HIS MARRIAGE IN 1812, TO HIS RETURN TO 
 ENGLAND AFTER HIS FIRST CONTINENTAL JOURNEY 
 IN 1815. 
 
 WE are now entering upon a period when his 
 course of life was more varied than at any former 
 time. By his marriage with a lady possessing ample 
 means, he was relieved from the necessity of lectur- 
 ing, and left free, perhaps too free, to follow his 
 favourite pursuits, comprised in scientific research, 
 travels, and field and river sports. When I say, 
 perhaps too free, it is from the conviction that previ- 
 ously he had freedom enough, and that it was an 
 advantage to him to have certain duties to perform, 
 such as those which in his capacity of professor of 
 chemistry were most congenial to him. Another 
 perhaps may be ventured, arising out of his mar- 
 riage, that it tended to separate him more and more 
 from his scientific friends, and connect him more and 
 more with persons of rank and fashion, thus exposing 
 him to a danger before alluded to. Such an ex- 
 change certainly was neither advantageous nor desir- 
 able; and if it took place, it was, I believe, in a 
 manner nowise anticipated by him, and from minute 
 
168 FROM HIS MARRIAGE IN 1812 
 
 circumstances of intercourse, gradually acting, which 
 it may be difficult to describe. I am induced to make 
 these remarks with the persuasion that, whilst there 
 might be some truth in this asserted change, there 
 was even more exaggeration in the charge of its evil 
 influence, and I cannot but think that even Professor 
 Forbes affords an instance of the latter, misled by 
 what may have been told him, and by what he may 
 have read in Dr. Paris's book ; for sure I am that he 
 at least would wish to be just in the statements 
 respecting my brother, which he makes in the dis- 
 sertation already referred to on the mathematical 
 and physical sciences statements hardly compatible 
 with the character which, in glowing colours, and 
 with a generous pen, he has drawn of the entire 
 man, sketching his career from its beginning to its 
 end. A laboured refutation I shall not attempt it 
 would hardly be becoming in me. I shall be well 
 satisfied if what I shall have to bring forward, 
 derived from my brother's own private notes, and 
 from his letters, may help to refute what is errone- 
 ous as regards his moral worth, and his claims to con- 
 sistency and respect. 
 
 His devotion to science, after his marriage, con- 
 continued unabated, whatever may be said to the 
 contrary. Proof is afforded in the results of his 
 labours, which were communicated from time to time 
 to the Royal Society, and were published in the 
 Philosophical Transactions. The most important of 
 these now requiring to be noticed, were his extended 
 researches on chlorine and its combinations, on 
 
TO HIS RETURN TO ENGLAND IN 1815. 169 
 
 fluorine and iodine, on the diamond, and the colours 
 used by the ancients. Some of these inquiries were 
 carried on at home, chiefly in the laboratory of the 
 Royal Institution, with which he still continued con- 
 nected as honorary professor of chemistry ; some on 
 the continent, for even when he travelled he went 
 provided with a portable chemical apparatus. 
 
 His continental travels were commenced under 
 peculiar circumstances, even before the long pro- 
 tracted and dreadful war with Napoleon was brought 
 to a close. He commenced them in the autumn of 
 1813, owing permission to visit France to his scientific 
 reputation. In this, his first journey, he was accom- 
 panied by Mr. Faraday (who has since so highly dis- 
 tinguished himself in original research), " as his 
 assistant in experiments and in writing." He crossed 
 the channel in a cartel to Morlaix. He spent two 
 months in Paris, variously occupied between the calls 
 of society and science. It was here that he com- 
 menced his experiments on the nature of iodine, a 
 substance shortly before discovered by M. Courtois, 
 and proved it to be a simple or undecompounded 
 body analogous in its relations to chlorine. From 
 the French capital he went into Auvergne, for the 
 purpose of examining the extinct volcanoes of that 
 mountainous region. From thence he proceeded to 
 Montpellier, where he resumed his inquiries on 
 iodine. After a short stay there, he crossed into 
 Italy by way of Nice, and the Col de Tende, and 
 passing through Turin, proceeded to Genoa, where 
 he made his first experiments on the electricity of 
 
170 FROM HIS MARRIAGE IN 1812 
 
 the torpedo. In the month of March, in the year 
 following (1814), he visited Florence, and during the 
 fortnight he was there, he instituted experiments on 
 the diamond, taking advantage of the great lens 
 belonging to the Cabinet of Natural History of that 
 city. The results he obtained, showed it to be pure 
 carbon. After quitting Florence, till he went north- 
 ward in June, driven by the heats of an Italian 
 summer, he passed his time between Rome and 
 Naples, attracted to the latter by an eruption of 
 Vesuvius, the phenomena of which he was anxious 
 to examine, in quest of the mysterious cause of vol- 
 canic action, and the source of its igneous eruption, 
 and whether bearing out or not the theory, which he 
 was the first to propose, of both depending on the 
 metals of the earths and alkalies an hypothesis he 
 felt obliged to relinquish, from the negative results 
 of his researches. At the same period he visited 
 Paestum. The summer months he passed in Switzer- 
 land, taking up his residence in a country-house, 
 charmingly situated on the shore of the lake of 
 Geneva, at a short distance from the town. In 
 returning to winter in Italy, he first made acquaint- 
 ance with the Tyrol, and became enamoured an 
 enduring love of its scenery, in which the beautiful 
 and the grand are so happily blended, and where to 
 the sportsman there is the additional attraction of 
 good angling in its mountain streams and lakes, and 
 of interesting shooting in its marshes, forests, and 
 Alpine heights. This winter, like the preceding 
 spring, he spent partly in Rome, where he examined 
 
TO HIS RETURN TO ENGLAND IN 1815. 171 
 
 the pigments used by the ancients, some of which 
 had just then been found in the Baths of Titus, and 
 partly in Naples, occupied as before in his geological 
 and volcanic inquiries. He returned to England in 
 the spring, again passing through the Tyrol, and was 
 in London in the beginning of May, 1815. On com- 
 mencing his continental journey, it had been his 
 intention to visit Sicily, and perhaps Greece, but the 
 plague breaking out in the Levant, this latter part of 
 his scheme of travels was prevented. 
 
 The following letters belong to, and illustrate, this 
 period. The first are from the Highlands of Scot- 
 land, which he visited in the summer after his mar- 
 riage. I met him at Rokeby, in Yorkshire, and 
 accompanied him as far as the river Awe, in Argyle- 
 shire, and I well remember the proof he there gave 
 of his angling keenness, and the fright he occasioned 
 us in its indulgence. It happened thus : When we 
 came in sight of that fine river, longing to get to it, 
 he exchanged places with me, his seat in the carriage 
 for my saddle I was riding and hurried to the 
 stream, rod in hand. Shortly after, the horse re- 
 appeared, galloping wildly back without its rider, of 
 course suggesting the fear of his having been thrown 
 a fear aggravated by the precipitous and then 
 rocky nature of the road- but fortunately soon 
 calmed by seeing him, on turning an angle, intently 
 pursuing his sport. The horse had got loose from 
 having been negligently tied ; and no doubt the pro- 
 vender at the last inn was more attractive than the 
 poor pasture by the river side. On the same occa- 
 
172 FROM HIS MARRIAGE IN 1812 
 
 sion I had proof of his patience in following his 
 favourite sport. The river at the time was low, the 
 sky clear and calm the circumstances altogether 
 most unfavourable for salmon-fishing yet, to have a 
 chance, the next day, from dewy morning till dewy 
 evening, he kept by the river side, exercising all his 
 skill, but without success, not raising even a single 
 fish. His after sport, in Sutherlandshire, as described 
 in the two first letters which follow, was the perfect 
 contrast of this. The river he fished was the Brora, 
 flowing out of the loch of the same name, still an 
 admirable salmon river, especially early and late, as 
 in March and September, weather favouring. 
 
 To John George Children, Esq. 
 
 Dunrobin Castle, August 21. 
 
 My dear Friend I hope you are making progress in our 
 manufactory. 1 I shall expect, on my return, to find your 
 powder the best and the strongest, and to make trial of it. I 
 wish I had some of it here ; the black-cock and grouse would 
 feel its efficacy. 1 have been expecting a letter from you every 
 day. 
 
 This house is so delightful, the scenery so grand, and the 
 field sports so perfect, that I think we shall not quit it for a 
 fortnight. 
 
 I went to Inverness and fished for salmon. I also went to 
 two or three other places, but not one did I catch till I 
 arrived here. The first day I landed seven noble ones, and 
 played three more in four or five hours. The next day I 
 played eight and landed three, besides white trout in abund- 
 ance. 
 
 I have shot only one day, for a few hours ; but we found 
 1 See note, p. 138. 
 
TO HIS RETURN TO ENGLAND IN 1815. 173 
 
 grouse at every fifty yards, and I shot seven. We are just 
 going to try sea fishing. 1 
 
 Pray write to me a little news of what is doing for science 
 and the world. 
 
 I beg you will remember me most kindly to your father, 
 and to Dr. Babington, and Brande, when you see them. I 
 am, my dear friend, 
 
 Most affectionately yours, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 To W. Clayfield, Esq. 
 
 Dunrobin, August 28, 1812. 
 
 Dear Clayfield I am much obliged to you for two very 
 kind letters, and for a box containing specimens from St. 
 Vincent. I beg you will thank the gentleman who was so 
 good as to cause them to be collected for me. 
 
 The ashes, 2 I think, are likely to fertilize Barbadoes. There 
 
 1 Having had no taste for ordinary sea fishing with mere line and 
 bait, the "sea fishing" alluded to by him, I infer, was for salmon and 
 sea trout, with rod and fly, there being, it is remarkable, about five miles 
 from the castle, a locality in the sea, where these fish can be so taken. 
 The exact spot is " the big stone," a rock projecting into the tideway ; 
 the time, the ebb of the tide ; the period of the year, from about the 
 15th of July to the end of August. The "big rock" is near the " Little 
 Ferry," below the embouchure of the river Fleet, and the embankment 
 by which so great an extent of land has been reclaimed from the sea. 
 With one exception, occurring at Isla, it is said, there is no other instance 
 known of salmon taking the fly in salt water. 
 
 2 They were of the eruption of the Soufreire Mountain, Morne Garou, 
 in St. Vincent, on the 30th of April, 1812, when, by their fall, the sun's 
 light was entirely hid at Barbadoes, occasioning the darkness of night at 
 mid-day. The fall of ashes was so considerable there, that after an interval 
 of more than thirty years, I saw well marked traces of them, and heard 
 of their fertilizing effect, as conjectured by my brother, confirmed by the 
 planters. 
 
174 FROM HIS MARRIAGE IN 1812 
 
 is a parallel case of materials having been carried so far in the 
 eruption in Iceland, in 1783. 
 
 I have, with my wife, been making a tour through the 
 north, since the beginning of July. We have arrived at our 
 extreme point, and shall slowly proceed south in about a fort- 
 night. 
 
 I wish you could be of our party here ; we are in a delightful 
 house, that of Lord Stafford, in a country abounding with 
 fish and game. I have caught about thirty salmon since I 
 have been here, and killed grouse, wild ducks, and teal, &c. I 
 have not yet shot a stag, but I hope to do so this next week. 
 
 I have just published a volume of the Elements of Chemis- 
 try, and I hope to publish another in the course of the spring. 
 
 Having given up lecturing, I shall be able to devote my 
 whole time to the pursuit of discovery. 
 
 I have not sent you a copy of my book, for I thought the 
 best mode of avoiding giving offence to some, was by not 
 making presents at all. Had I not so determined, one of the 
 first copies would have been sent to you, as a mark of the 
 warm esteem and regard of 
 
 Your affectionate friend, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 To his Mother. 
 
 Dunrobin Castle, August 22, 1812. 
 
 My dear Mother John, who left us about a fortnight ago, 
 will have written to you fully. He was quite well, and going 
 on in the right way. Everything that I heard of his habits 
 and pursuits at Edinburgh was what I expected. I doubt 
 not he will be all we can wish. 
 
 He told me he had written to you about some advance in 
 his annual allowance. If it is not entirely convenient to you, 
 I will do it, and lest it should injure John's feelings of inde- 
 pendence, it may appear to come from you. It is a good 
 
TO HIS RETURN TO ENGLAND IN 1815. 175 
 
 tiling for him to be economical, but he ought to want for 
 nothing, and sixty pounds more or less may be of great 
 importance now, but of none when he is able to provide for 
 himself, which he will be able to do as soon as he has 
 graduated. 
 
 My wife is very well. She desires her kind remembrances 
 to all my family. We are as happy and as well suited as I 
 believe it is possible for people to be; we have nothing to 
 regret in our past lives, and everything to hope for. 
 
 We shall stay here (at the Marquis of Stafford's) for a 
 fortnight longer. It is a most delightful family, and a most 
 delightful place. We shall then go to the Duke of Gordon's, 
 from that to the Duke of AthoFs, then to Lord Mansfield's 
 (Scone House), and then to Edinburgh. For security sake 
 address to me, Post Office, Edinburgh. My letters are for- 
 warded from thence under franks. We shall return to London 
 in the beginning of December. 
 
 With kind love to my sisters and my aunts, I am, my dear 
 mother, 
 
 Your affectionate son, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 The next letters were written after his return. 
 All but the first relate chiefly to an accident which 
 he experienced in his chemical inquiries, which 
 nearly cost him the loss of vision of the injured eye. 
 It was occasioned by the explosion of a new com- 
 pound of azote and chlorine, on which he was expe- 
 rimenting in the laboratory of his friend, Mr. Chil- 
 dren, at Tunbridge, a compound that had deprived 
 the author of the discovery, M. Dulong, of an eye 
 
176 FROM HIS MARRIAGE IN 1812 
 
 and a finger. The mode of preparing it was not 
 then known in England. 
 
 To his Brother. 
 
 London, October 25, 1812. 
 
 My dear John Mr. Playfair will have told you of our 
 safe arrival. I did not write till I had something more to 
 say. I have delayed my letter for two days, but still I have 
 not much to say. 
 
 There is nothing doing here. I have commenced some 
 experiments. I am attempting to decompose hydrofluoric by 
 chlorine, and to combine azote from prussic acid with chlorine. 
 I heated this day diamond powder in chlorine, but there was 
 no action. My wife is much better, quite well except the 
 swollen foot, and in excellent spirits. 
 
 Your review will appear in the next number. 
 
 I think you should answer Murray's assertion * by a short 
 note with testimonials. The controversy is closed. 
 
 Go on and prosper in all good things, in usefulness, happi- 
 ness, and knowledge. 
 
 I am, my dear John, 
 
 Your very affectionate brother, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 London, November 16, 1812. 
 
 My dear John I have discovered the mode of making the 
 combination of azote and chlorine. It is by exposing chlorine 
 to a very weak solution of ammonia, or to a solution of nitrate 
 of ammonia, or of oxalate of ammonia. 
 
 '" 
 
 1 That muriatic acid gas contains water. The answer was given in the 
 thirty-fourth volume of Nicholson's Journal. 
 
TO HIS RETURN TO ENGLAND IN 1815. 177 
 
 It must be used with great caution. It is not safe to 
 experiment upon a globule larger than a pin's head. I have 
 been severely wounded by a piece scarcely bigger. My sight, 
 however, I am informed, will not be injured. It is now very 
 weak. I cannot see to say more than I am, 
 
 Your very affectionate brother, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 Wimpole, January 17, 1813. 
 
 My dear John I have had another severe attack of inflam- 
 mation in the eye, and was obliged to have the conjunctiva 
 and cornea punctured. I suspect the cause was some little 
 imperceptible fragment. I am fast recovering, and hope I 
 shall see as well soon as with the other eye. 
 
 My operations and employments have been in great mea- 
 sure suspended, yet I have found opportunities of working 
 a little upon fluorine. I believe I have nearly got to the 
 bottom of this difficult question, and have expelled fluorine by 
 chlorine, though I have not yet seen it ; but I have ascer- 
 tained that it expels oxygen from most compounds, and forms, 
 with chlorine and oxygen, the triad of supporters of combus- 
 tion. I will give you my processes in my next letter. 
 
 I congratulate you on being elected a president of the Royal 
 Medical Society. Such an election does as much credit to the 
 members as to yourself. 
 
 I am here (at Lord Hardwicke's) for a few days, at grass. 
 I will write to Dr. Hope as soon as the pressure of my occu- 
 pations is over. He has the details of azotane [the explo- 
 sive compound] correctly given, as to its preparation, in 
 Thompson's Journal, putting " strong" for "weak." 
 
 N 
 
178 FROM HIS MARRIAGE IN 1812 
 
 Lady Davy desires her love. Pray remember me to Mr. 
 Playfair, to Mr. Allan, and to Mr. Moore. 
 I am, my dear John, 
 
 Your very affectionate brother, 
 
 H. D. 
 
 The complete recovery of his eye was protracted 
 nearly till April, as appears from the following 
 letter descriptive of his plans and pursuits, and 
 especially of a proposed visit to Cornwall, some of 
 the particulars of which, when accomplished, are 
 detailed in letters to Lady Davy : 
 
 To his Brother. 
 
 April 4, 1813. 
 
 My dear John It is long since I have heard from you. 
 I am going into Cornwall. Pray address a letter to me at 
 Penzance. We are going, a pretty large party, into the west, 
 and shall fish in our way. I shall be absent from town about 
 three weeks. I wish you were amongst us. We have come 
 to the resolution of going to Scotland in the summer. Lady 
 Davy and I shall have the pleasure of seeing you there. The 
 Cornish journey will be too rapid a one, and too interrupted, 
 for Lady Davy to be of the party. Blake, Warburton, Pepys, 
 and the Sollys, form a party who will combine mineralogy and 
 fishing. 
 
 I am now quite recovered, and Jane is very well ; we have 
 both enjoyed the last month in London. I have been hard at 
 work. I have expelled fluorine from fluate of lead, fluate of 
 silver, and fluate of soda, by chlorine. It is a new acidifier, 
 forming three powerful acids, hydro-fluoric, silicatecl fluoric, 
 and fluoboric. It has the most extensive energies of combi- 
 nation of any known body, instantly combining with all the 
 
TO HIS RETURN TO ENGLAND IN 1815. 179 
 
 metals, and decomposing glass. Like the fabled waters of the 
 Styx, it cannot be preserved, not even in the ape^s hoof. We 
 have now a triad of supporters of combustion. 
 
 I have just finished printing my agricultural lectures. I 
 shall send you a copy as soon as I can. 
 
 Thenard has proved Lanpadius 1 liquor to be what Clement 
 and Desormes thought, carbon and sulphur, fifteen to eighty- 
 five ; nearly two proportions of sulphur to one of carbon. 
 
 Remember me to Mr. Playfair when you see him, and to 
 the Mackenzie family, 1 and the Fergusons. 2 We hope to 
 see Mr. Playfair in May. We shall see you, if all things do 
 well, in July. I am, 
 
 Your most affectionate brother, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 To Lady Davy. 
 
 Whitchurch, April 14, 1813. 
 
 We had a very rapid and prosperous journey hither. The 
 spring is everywhere in full progress. The white thorn in 
 leaf, the plum and cherry trees in blossom, the birch covered 
 with purple buds, and the horse chestnut throwing forth its leaf 
 as if there was no frost in the future year. 
 
 About half a mile from this town a clear stream burst 
 upon us, flies were floating in the air above, fishes sporting on 
 the surface of the water the sight was irresistible. We got 
 out of the carriage, paid our devotions to the naiad, and stayed 
 on the banks till the sun was fairly down, and a glorious sun- 
 set it was the moon high in the blue sky at first pale as a 
 
 1 Mr. Henry Mackenzie's the Man of Feeling then in his green 
 old age, hale and active ; how well I remember him about this time, as 
 we once met him briskly riding on his shooting pony ; his family then so 
 large and happy and now all but one of those I knew in the grave ! 
 
 2 Of Raith. 
 
 N2 
 
180 FROM HIS MARRIAGE IN 1812 
 
 cloud, whilst the west was yet purple, then gradually growing 
 into majesty of.light and fulness of beauty. 
 
 We go on to Deptford Inn this day, where I hope to have 
 the pleasure of receiving a letter from you. 
 
 I flirt with the water nymphs, and I make you the personi- 
 fication of the spirit of the woods, and the waters, and the 
 hills, and the clouds, and of the sunbeams, and of the zephyrs. 
 This is the earliest form of religion. Men made the visible 
 form of the Deity that which they loved most, or that which 
 was most useful. Hence, Idolatry was founded on affection, 
 on gratitude ; and the word idolize, in feeling, is not meta- 
 phorical. 
 
 Tell Blake I caught five trout, H. S. one, and S. S., 0. 
 
 Ever yours, 
 
 H. D. 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 Launceston, Sunday, April 20, 1813. 
 
 I inquired at the post-office, Exeter, with the hope of a 
 chance letter from you, but I was disappointed ; to-day, at 
 Lostwithiel, I depend upon tidings, and my heart, which is 
 generally a happy prophet, tells me they will be good. 
 
 Our weather has been delightful. We have traced one of 
 the Devonshire streams (the Dart) to its rocky source. It is 
 a river clear, blue, and bright. It pours the water of Dart- 
 more over rude rocks of granite, by a succession of cataracts, 
 through chasms and glens, into the valley of Ashburton, 
 where it is subdued, so as to prepare it to meet and be lost for 
 ever in the ocean. We stopped a few hours yesterday at 
 Tavistock : the Duchess sent me a very kind note, asking me 
 to spend the day there (i. e., Sunday) ; but the inn at Tavi- 
 stock was so vile, that we had no disposition to rest there a 
 night, and I could not, in honour, leave my companions for so 
 long a time. I sent her a note full of acknowledgments and 
 
TO HIS RETURN TO ENGLAND IN 1815. 181 
 
 regrets. The Duke and Lady Jane are both very well. We 
 walked a few miles down the Tavy, the banks of which are 
 broken, and finely wooded. About three miles below Tavi- 
 stock it is joined by a beautiful and clear torrent, and the two 
 rivers fall through a chasm of rock, and are then lost in the 
 hollow of a wild glen, something like the upper part of Dove- 
 dale. 
 
 The Devonshire rivers have afforded us very little sport. 
 I hope you received the fish I sent from Andover. 
 
 Ever yours, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 Axminster, April 27, 1813. 
 
 I received all the letters in passing through Exeter at noon 
 this day. I have dwelt upon the last only, as it contains the 
 most agreeable intelligence. George K.'s two communica- 
 tions fidgetted me. I have always quoted him as free from 
 any taint of the American plant, yet it certainly displays 
 itself in both his letters. It was unworthy of him to suppose 
 of you and of me any want of confidence, and to attribute to 
 me the paltry feeling of fear of anticipation. Even in cases 
 where emulation might have existed, I should despise myself 
 for feeling it : for science ought to have no other objects than 
 truth and usefulness. 
 
 I shall write to him to-morrow, not in anger, but in sobriety 
 of explanation. 
 
 I rejoice in Tennant's success. 1 I am glad that Warburtou 
 has taken such interest in his cause. It has exalted my opi- 
 nion of his feelings, for it shows that he is not merely a being 
 of ratiocination. 
 
 1 On his receiving the appointment of Professor of Chemistry in the 
 University of Cambridge. 
 
182 FROM HIS MAKKIAGE IN 1812 
 
 I am glad at all things that give you pleasure, whether in 
 the shape of lost good recovered, or social parties, or pleasant 
 mornings. 
 
 We have had frost and snow. This evening was promising, 
 bright purple clouds, and a glorious sunset. God bless you, 
 my dear Jane ! 
 
 I am, ever your most affectionate, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 To the Same. 
 Fordingbridge, near Salisbury, April 29, 1813. 
 
 We have arrived so far safe and well. The cloudy skies 
 and cold rains, though they have made the face of nature less 
 agreeable, have not been unfavourable to us as anglers. I 
 hope you will have some proof of this to-morrow in the gray- 
 ling which I have sent you. 
 
 I had a letter whilst at Penzance, not merely in the common 
 tone of civility, from the Duke of Bedford, but really kind and 
 friendly, saying that he had never so felt his inattention to the 
 state of the inn at Tavistock, as in my case, and promising an 
 immediate amendment, and offering a bed and a most hearty 
 welcome at.Longbrook a magnificent spot! It is an eagle's 
 nest upon the summit of the rocks above the Tamar, here 
 broad and shallow, and rippling over a pebbly bed, soon lost 
 in a noble estuary, bounded by the high lands above Plymouth, 
 and the woods of Mount Edgecomb, and bearing our castles 
 of defence and of dominion. 
 
 We are here on the banks of the Avon, a large and clear 
 river, low hills, but well wooded, and green pastoral meadows. 
 The moving water and the changing sky in our art, keep the 
 mind in a series of impressions. One seems as it were to 
 become a part of nature. The world and its cares and busi- 
 ness are forgotten : all passions are laid asleep. Success 
 awakens no envy, for accident is always supposod to interfere. 
 
TO HIS RETURN TO ENGLAND IN 1815. 183 
 
 Statesmen are envied, philosophers persecuted, the benefactors 
 of mankind banished or neglected. We live a life of simplicity 
 and innocence, according to the primary laws of nature losing 
 all trifling and uneasy thoughts keeping only what constitute 
 the vitality of our being, the noble affections. Of mine, you 
 know the highest and constant object. 
 
 Ever yours most truly, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 His proposed visit to Scotland, promised in a 
 former letter, was prevented by his continental jour- 
 ney, having in the interim, beyond his expectations, 
 obtained the requisite permission from the French 
 government. The following letters were written on 
 this occasion : 
 
 To his Mother. 
 
 Andover, October 14, 1813. 
 
 My dear Mother You will receive about the same time as 
 this letter a parcel containing gowns for you and my sisters 
 from Lady Davy. 
 
 We are just going to the continent, upon a journey of scien- 
 tific inquiry, which I hope will be pleasant to us and useful to 
 the world. We go rapidly through France to Italy, and from 
 that to Sicily, and we shall return through Germany. We 
 have every assurance from the government of the countries 
 through which we shall pass, that we shall not be molested, 
 but assisted. We shall stay probably a year or two. 
 
 I have made every arrangement for John. I have left 32 
 to pay for his admission into the Royal Society, which will 
 be useful to him professionally, and by the time I return I 
 hope to hear of him dubbed a Doctor, and a great as well ,is a 
 
184 FROM HIS MARRIAGE IN 1812 
 
 good Doctor. I hope you will find no difficulty in providing 
 means for him during the next eight months. 
 
 As soon as I have settled a plan of correspondence abroad 
 1 will write to you, and shall hear of you from John as often 
 as possible. As I am permitted to pass through an enemy^s 
 country, there must be no politics in any letters to me, and 
 pray do not write except through the channel which I shall 
 hereafter point out. 
 
 I am going to travel, and when I return shall peacefully fix 
 my abode for life in my own country. John goes on as well 
 as possible, and is a very excellent and worthy man. Pray 
 take care of Betsy ; when the wind is cold, she must not think 
 of going out. Tell Grace not to be afraid, though I am going 
 through France. My love to Kitty, to Grace, and Betsy. 
 Wishing you all health and happiness, I am, my dear Mother, 
 
 Your very affectionate son, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 To his Brother. 
 
 Plymouth, October 15, 1813. 
 
 My dear John I am just about to embark for Morlaix, on 
 rny continental expedition. I had hoped to have heard from 
 you before I left London, respecting your paper. 1 I have 
 sent it by Lord Webb Seymour. Pray do not defend Black's 
 hypothesis. I know so well the tone of the feeling of the 
 Royal Society, and I am myself so convinced on the subject, 
 that I should be sorry you diminished your popularity by 
 assuming it as the groundwork of an argument. Give your 
 results, reason against Crawford, and, if you please, leave your 
 opinion in the egg, but do not produce an egg which may turn 
 out addle. 
 
 1 An account of some Experiments on Animal Heat, published in the 
 Transactions of the Royal Society for 1814. 
 
TO HIS RETURN TO ENGLAND IN 1815. 185 
 
 I have just given your certificate as F.R.S. to be put up, 
 and have left an order for the payment of thirty-two pounds 
 eleven shillings, which will free you for ever from any claims, 
 and I beg you to accept this. 
 
 Send your paper to Sir Joseph Banks, and he will commu- 
 nicate it. Take care that you put your own name to the head 
 of your paper, and let it be carefully revised. If you have 
 any doubts, send no paper. You have done enough to be 
 secure of your admission into the society. 
 
 I have written to Dr. Weir about your employment in the 
 medical department of the army, as soon as you shall have 
 graduated. Sir Joseph Banks says he will do anything he 
 can for you, and I am sure there will be no difficulties in the 
 way of your rising rapidly in that profession. 
 
 I shall write to you from France as soon as I have ascer- 
 tained how you can answer my letters. I trust you will do all 
 things that become a man to whom fortune and fame are 
 obvious, and wait only on his industry and perseverance. My 
 wife desires her best regards. 
 
 I am, my dear John, 
 
 Your very affectionate brother, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 The following letter contains an epitome of his 
 doings from his leaving England to his arrival at 
 Florence : 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 Florence, March 18, 1814. 
 
 My dear John I have written to you several letters, but 
 I have not yet received one in return. This I attribute to 
 the difficulty of communication, not to any want of kindness 
 on your part. 
 
186 FROM HIS MARRIAGE IN 1812 
 
 Write to me, Alia Posta, Eoma there is now full commu- 
 nication between Italy and England and tell me all the 
 news : what you have done, what you have published, and 
 what you are doing. 
 
 I find the French chemists inclined to your views of animal 
 heat as a chemical process, and Le Gallois strongly opposed 
 to Brodie; yet, after much discussion, I have retained my 
 opinion. 
 
 We have made a most interesting voyage in eventful times. 
 I have passed from the Pyrenees to the Alps, and have twice 
 crossed the Appenines, and have visited all the most remark- 
 able extinct volcanoes in the south of France. All the basalt 
 that I have seen between the Alps and Pyrenees is decidedly 
 of igneous origin. I have observed some facts on this subject 
 that are, I believe, new a regular transition of lava into 
 basalt, depending upon the different periods of refrigeration ; 
 and true prismatic basalt in the interior of an ancient lava. 
 
 I have worked a good deal on iodine, and a little on the 
 torpedo. Iodine had been in embryo for two years. I came 
 to Paris ; Clement requested me to examine it, and he believed 
 that it was a compound, affording muriatic acid. I worked 
 upon it for some time, and determined that it was a new body, 
 and that it afforded a peculiar acid by combining with hydro- 
 gen, and this I mentioned to Gay Lussac, Ampere, and other 
 chemists. The first immediately " took the word of the Lord 
 out of the mouth of his servant," and treated the subject as he 
 had treated potassium and borax. The paper which I sent to the 
 Royal Society, on iodine, I wrote with Clements approbation, 
 and a note published in the Journal de Physique will vindi- 
 cate my priority. I have just got ready for the Royal Society 
 a second paper on this fourth supporter of combustion. 
 
 The old theory is nearly abandoned in France. Berthollet, 
 with much candour, has decided in favour of chlorine. I know 
 no chemist but Thenard who upholds it in Paris, and he 
 upholds it feebly, and by this time, probably, has renounced 
 
TO HIS RETURN TO ENGLAND IN 1815. 187 
 
 it. I doubt if the organ of the torpedo is analogous to the 
 pile of Volta. I have not heen able to gain any chemical 
 effects by the shock sent through water ; but I tried on small 
 and not very active animals. I shall resume the inquiry at 
 Naples, where I hope to be about the middle of May. 
 
 In my journey I met with no difficulties of any kind, and 
 received every attention from the scientific men of Paris, and 
 the most liberal permission to go where 1 pleased from the 
 government. 
 
 I lived very much with Berthollet, Cuvier, Chaptal, Vauque- 
 lin, Humboldt, Morveau, Clement, Chevreul, and Gay Lussac. 
 They were all kind and attentive to me ; and, except for Gray 
 Lussac^s last turn of publishing without acknowledgment what 
 he had learnt from me, I should have had nothing to complain 
 of; but who can control self-love ? It ought not to interfere 
 with truth and justice ; but I will not moralise nor complain. 
 Iodine is as useful an ally to me as I could have found at 
 home. Tell me what you are doing, and what you wish, and 
 command me as your affectionate friend, and love me as 
 Your affectionate brother, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 Of the few remaining letters which I have to give, 
 written about this time, the only one that requires 
 mention is that relative to France. The draft of it 
 is without address by name, and without date as to 
 time and place, but from its tenor it may be inferred 
 to have been intended for the first minister of the 
 crown, then Lord Liverpool, and that it was com- 
 posed soon after his return from abroad, and shortly 
 after the capitulation of Paris to the allied armies. 
 Whether the letter was forwarded or not I am 
 
188 FROM HIS MARRIAGE IN 1812 
 
 ignorant; the draft is in my brother's handwriting, 
 and from the kind of writing, was evidently struck 
 off at a heat, under the influence of strong feeling. 
 Readers of it will, according to their preconceived 
 views, form different opinions respecting the senti- 
 ments expressed in it. For the sake of France, and 
 for the sake of Europe, I would hope that the very 
 sad view he takes of the French as a people is an 
 exaggerated one ; though I fear his view is not 
 exaggerated of what we have to dread from the 
 military power of France. 
 
 To his Mother. 
 
 Rome, January 11, 1815. 
 
 My dear Mother -Tell Betsy that I am much obliged to 
 her for her kind letter, and delighted to hear that you are 
 all well. 
 
 I am very glad to hear of a disposition to scientific activity 
 in my native town, 1 and shall be happy if I can do anything 
 to be useful to the museum. I will send to it some specimens 
 from the continent ; and, if there are subscriptions, pray get 
 my name put down for twenty pounds. 
 
 We have almost as much society here as in London, and a 
 great part of it our old friends. 
 
 * * We all hope for a long peace. We all hope 
 that the glory England has gained in a war for the defence 
 of the liberty of Europe will not be thrown away, and 
 that the petty squabble with America, which, if successful, 
 
 1 The establishment in Penzance of a geological society (The Royal 
 Geological Society of Cornwall), a society that has earned a high repu- 
 tation by the labours of its members, chiefly directed to investigate what 
 is most interesting in the rock formations of the county, and their rich 
 mineral contents. 
 
TO HIS RETURN TO ENGLAND IN 1815. 189 
 
 can do nothing but increase our debt, will be speedily termi- 
 nated. 
 
 A happy new year, and many, is the sincere wish of 
 Your very affectionate son, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 Nevot's Hotel, Clifford Street, London, May 5, 1815. 
 My dear Mother You will have heard from John of our 
 safe return. I wrote to you from Naples and Brussels. I 
 hope you received my letters. 
 
 We have had a very agreeable and instructive journey, and 
 Lady Davy agrees with me in thinking that England is the 
 only country to live in, however interesting it may be to see 
 other countries. 
 
 I yesterday bought a good house in Grosvenor Street, 1 and 
 we shall sit down in this happy land. 
 
 I beg you to give my best and kindest love to my sisters, 
 and to remember me with all affection to my aunts. 
 I am, my dear Mother, 
 
 Your very affectionate son, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 My Lord In addressing your lordship, I am actuated by 
 no other motive than that of patriotism, by no other interest 
 than the well-being of civilized society, and by no other per- 
 sonal feeling towards yourself, except the wish that by pro- 
 moting the glory of your country, you may gain undying 
 honour. 
 
 1 Number 23. 
 
190 FROM HIS MARRIAGE IN 1812 
 
 I have witnessed, my lord, the impression of sentiment of a 
 great number of the most enlightened and respectable part of 
 the community, including persons of very different ranks, not 
 only in London, but in various cities and country towns of 
 England, on the great political events that are now passing ; 
 and I am convinced that there will be a most severe disap- 
 pointment, a great fermentation in the public mind, and a state 
 of feeling dangerous to the government and fate of the country, 
 if the glorious future of the present moment is not applied in 
 giving permanent peace to Europe, by destroying the military 
 power of France, diminishing her territory and resources, and 
 removing those idols of her vanity, by means of which contri- 
 butions are levied in Europe even in time of peace, and which 
 constantly remind the people of their claims to empire. 
 
 No one can reflect on the events of the last five-and-twenty 
 years, without feeling sure that the military spirit of 
 Jacobinism that is to say, a desire of power and wealth, 
 without the curb of principle or of reason has not been limited 
 to any one description of people in France. The same men 
 who under the Directory made war upon social order, destroyed 
 the sacredness of property, and in republican forms introduced 
 anarchy, in order to sanction plunder, as the most desperate 
 robbers become incendiaries ; the same persons under the 
 empire sought for laws to secure what they had acquired by 
 spoliation, and to apply to foreign conquest the system by 
 which they had destroyed the happiness of their own country 
 to the ruin of that of other countries. Buonaparte and the 
 army are no more than the expiatory sacrifices of France. 
 The sins of the people are laid upon the head of the scape- 
 goat and of the peace-offering, but the nation itself is guilty. 
 The French people never opposed the system of the Corsican 
 robber till he was deserted by fortune. There were no remon- 
 strances either from the Senate or from the Legislative Body, 
 against the seizure of Piedmont and Geneva, against the 
 destruction of the Italian and Dutch republics, against the 
 
TO HIS RETUKN TO ENGLAND IN 1815. 191 
 
 nefarious usurpation of Spain, against the partition of Prussia, 
 and the ruin of Germany. As long as the plunder of towns 
 and palaces flowed into Paris, as long as Departments were 
 annexed to France, prefets and douaniers appointed, and majo- 
 rats distributed, so long was joy and satisfaction. Napoleon 
 was called Le Grand, statues were erected to him, temples 
 inscribed with his name, and towns were founded amidst songs 
 of triumph, in honour of the conqueror of Jena, and Austerlitz, 
 and Wagram. 
 
 The French look back, my lord, with exultation to the 
 reign of Louis XIV. ; and why ? because during that reign 
 their frontier was extended. It gratified their desire of con- 
 quest, and though France was drained of men and of treasure 
 during his reign, yet the acquisitions in Flanders granted by 
 the folly and weakness (I may almost say wickedness) of the 
 English Court at the treaty of Utrecht, have always flattered 
 the pride and spirit of usurpation in France. 
 
 The state of Europe would have been very different during 
 the last century, if the wars of 1689-1700 had ended in the 
 result which Marlborough would have given to them a sepa- 
 ration of territory from France. Nothing is so dangerous as 
 to reward unprincipled ambition : the plans of a Bourbon were 
 pursued with greater resources and talents by a Buonaparte, 
 and unfortunately the treaty of Paris honoured them with 
 similar success. France, that had plundered Rome, Florence, 
 Turin, Venice, and Berlin ; that occasioned the burning of 
 Moscow ; that by unjust wars had extended her dominions 
 from the Straits of Gibraltar and Messina to the North Sea, 
 from the borders of Turkey to the confines of Kussia ; was 
 rewarded for her aggressions by an increase of frontier ; her 
 conquerors, too generous, left the capital full of the remnants 
 of their former defeats. 
 
 What has been the consequence of this mercy? another 
 struggle for empire more unprincipled than the last. The 
 Bourbon who had conciliated Europe with France, was driven 
 
192 FROM HIS MARRIAGE IN 1812 
 
 out, and peace was demanded by a man brought back to 
 France, because the people saw in him a security for war. It 
 is pleaded that he was recalled by the army alone, but the 
 Champ de Mai proves that his system was in the hearts of the 
 people ; and the majority for an act which must be considered 
 as giving legitimacy to his government, was, to the minority, 
 as three thousand to one without the army. 
 
 France, insane from the spirit of the conquest, hoped either 
 that Europe might be lulled into peace, till she was prepared 
 for war, or that by one victory over the people who were the 
 life of the coalition, it might be dissolved, and that Belgium, 
 Holland, Germany, Europe, would be again open to French 
 arms. The invincible spirit of the Britons, the genius of 
 Wellington, and the ardour of the Prussians, have disap- 
 pointed them. The French are again conquered, and are 
 again ready to escape from punishment, by making new 
 treaties, by expelling the man for whom they had sworn to 
 die, and by receiving the man they had sworn never to accept. 
 You cannot, my lord, believe them, you cannot trust their 
 oaths. Unless the Allies wish for a new war, they must have 
 some other pledges from France than treaties and oaths, some- 
 thing more solid than paper, something more fixed than the 
 breath of words. 
 
 The treaty of Paris sanctioned to a great extent the Revo- 
 lution, and the measures taken during the reign that followed 
 it, rewarded the men who for twenty-five years had been 
 employed in disturbing France and Europe. It confirmed the 
 honours and wealth of those persons who had been the instru- 
 ments of a tyranny degrading to France, and dangerous to 
 Europe. Whom did Louis XVIII. choose for his ministers ? 
 Were they pure and highly principled men ? No ! he adopted 
 talents without principle, or favourites who had neither prin- 
 ciple nor talent. Amongst his councillors will be found persons 
 who had exiled him and his family. In the first speech he 
 made, he complimented those marshals whose only merit with 
 
TO HIS RETURN TO ENGLAND IN 1815. 193 
 
 him ought to have been, that they had betrayed their late 
 master, in what they had done for the glory of France. He 
 flattered that army which had so long prevented him from 
 occupying his throne, and which was soon to make him de- 
 scend from it ; he exulted that he had preserved for France 
 the works of art plundered from other nations ; and described 
 as proofs of legitimate glory, what he ought to have stigmatized 
 as marks of revolutionary shame. 
 
 We know what has followed : by endeavouring to conciliate 
 the Jacobins, he exposed himself to their reproaches ; his 
 vaunts of the strength of his army did not prevent them from 
 choosing another chief ; and his selection of a hypocritical and 
 unprincipled Machiavelian, supposed to be full of cunning, for 
 his prime minister, did not lead to the unravelling of the 
 simplest plot by which a state was ever overturned. 
 
 It would seem that the Bourbons do not profit by experi- 
 ence, and that what was applied to them by their great enemy, 
 that " they learn nothing, and forget nothing, 1 "' is strictly 
 true. Talleyrand and Fouche are at the head of the French 
 ministry ; propositions are making to the army; the marshals 
 are crowding round the sovereign they have often neglected 
 and once betrayed. The whining and canting about the monu- 
 ments are again repeated, and the magnanimity of Alexander 
 is employed in preventing a brave, a loyal, an injured people 
 from destroying trophies wrested from them by gigantic force, 
 and necessary only to keep awake an insulting vanity. 
 
 I cannot, my lord, describe the conduct of the House of 
 Bourbon, without being carried away by my feelings. I can 
 compare it only to that of the panther, which armed with force 
 and swiftness, suffers himself to be fascinated by the snake he 
 might avoid or destroy, submits himself to its influence, is 
 stupified by its poisonous breath, and crushed by its embraces. 
 
 Whoever knows the French people, knows that it is impos- 
 sible to depend on their gratitude, and that they are not influ- 
 enced by kindness : irregular in their affections, capricious in 
 
 O 
 
194 FROM HIS MARRIAGE IN 1812 
 
 their feelings, without public spirit, their ruling passions are 
 selfishness and vanity ; and by these they are kept in continual 
 agitation. Their selfishness may be compared to gravitation, 
 which tends to preserve them attached to the common centre, 
 France; their vanity to the projectile force leading them on to 
 distant conquests ; but even these two powers are never in 
 equilibrium they produce no harmonious movements, no 
 results that can be submitted to calculation. 
 
 There is only one circumstance to be depended on in France, 
 that is weakness, or a total inability to check her neighbours ; 
 this is the only security for peace. Give her her own frontier, 
 and her Jacobin army, and whether under a Bourbon or a 
 Buonaparte, she will soon make war. Belgium is too worthy 
 a prey to be neglected. Suffer her to keep the riches acquired 
 by conquest, and they will constantly be stimuli to new 
 aggression. Let the monuments robbed from Italy remain in 
 the Louvre, and they will constantly remind the people of the 
 approach they made to universal empire ; they will remind 
 them of the weakness of Italy, and even of Europe when 
 divided, and of the strength of France. 
 
 The Bourbons can offer no guarantee for peace except in 
 their own will, and Europe has experienced how feeble this is. 
 They can offer no security by appointing revolutionary minis- 
 ters. The confession of her weakness is a reason why the Allies 
 ought to depend upon their own strength. The French, after 
 their multiplied perjuries and atrocities, ought to consider it 
 a mercy that their cities are not burnt, and their country 
 divided ; they ought to consider it a mercy that they do not 
 suffer the fate of that people whom they resemble in so many 
 particulars the Jews, when Jerusalem was destroyed by 
 Titus, and the name made a reproach amongst nations. 
 
 My lord, I need not say to your lordship, that the Capitu- 
 lation of Paris is not a treaty ; but everything belonging to 
 the future state of that capital, and of France, is open to dis- 
 cussion, and that France is a conquered country. It is the 
 
TO HIS TCETUKN TO ENGLAND IN 1815. 195 
 
 duty of the Allies to give her more restricted boundaries, which 
 shall not encroach upon the natural limits of other nations ; 
 to weaken her on the side of Italy, Germany, and Flanders ; 
 to take back from her by contributions the wealth she has 
 acquired by them ; to suffer her to retain nothing that the 
 republican or imperial armies have stolen. This last duty is 
 demanded no less by policy than justice. Paris has no claim 
 to the dignity of being a capital sacred to the arts, and the 
 climate is unfavourable to the conservation of those monu- 
 ments. They belong to those countries in which they were 
 produced, and which were so long sacred to them ; where they 
 filled temples worthy of them, and were associated with noble 
 recollections ; where they served not merely to guide the taste 
 of the artist, but to kindle in all liberal minds the love of 
 immortal glory, showing that the dead are more imperishable 
 than the living. 
 
 The immorality of Paris, the unprincipled nature of its 
 population, the uncertainty of its government, all render this 
 city highly improper to be the museum of Europe. Besides, 
 why should France exclusively have the advantage of levying 
 contributions on the tasteful and curious, the student and the 
 connoisseur, who may wish to examine the works of Italy and 
 Greece ? The right of conquest is transferred, the right of 
 justice should now be suffered to prevail, and those possessions, 
 which are more important than territorial ones, should be 
 restored to enrich their native country, which has scarcely any 
 species of wealth. As connected with a revolutionary system, 
 as tending to recall circumstances which ought to be hateful 
 to legitimate authority, the King of France ought to urge 
 their removal. The first wish of a man, who, after being driven 
 from his house by robbers, finds it crowded on his return by 
 goods plundered from his neighbours, ought to be to make full 
 restitution. 
 
 If, my lord, different principles are not adopted from those 
 which were acted upon in the treaty of Paris; if the immut- 
 
 O 2 
 
196 FROM HIS MARRIAGE IN 1812 
 
 able laws of justice are not revered ; if rewards are offered to 
 usurpation and rebellion ; and if those who having failed in 
 becoming sovereigns are permitted to retain wealth and 
 honours ; if the virtuous and vicious are blended, and those 
 who ought to perish on scaffolds are placed as ornaments to a 
 throne, then will there be an end to order, and peace, and 
 liberty in Europe, and the crimes which will arise from the 
 mistaken lenity and false policy of the Allies, must like a con- 
 tagious disease spread into their own countries. Those who 
 have nothing to lose, and everything to gain, must profit by 
 the example ; and Jacobinism, the opinion that strength and 
 talents may form their own peculiar laws, and acquire property 
 after their own fashion, sanctioned by legitimate sovereigns, 
 will become the popular doctrine of Europe. 
 
 I shall conclude this chapter with some passages 
 from his note-books, written at this period, partly 
 descriptive, partly reflective, and with a copy of 
 verses of the same date, a portion only of which 
 that relating to PsBstum and Eboli has ever before 
 been published, 
 
 Liguria Sestri March 8. In our journey here yester- 
 day from Genoa, observed the magnificence of the site of 
 Genoa, with its rocks of serpentine marble, and its secondary 
 strata of limestone, and its palaces extending along its shores, 
 and the Apennines round it, and the Alps in the distance. 
 The Apennines not so craggy ; almost everywhere covered ; 
 but their outline very fine and bold. 
 
 May 24, 1814. Returned to Rome this day, after a very 
 interesting journey to Naples and Pspstum. We left Rome 
 
TO HIS RETURN TO ENGLAND IN 1815. 197 
 
 Saturday, the 12th of May. The first part of the road was 
 over volcanic matters till we reached the Pontine Marshes, 
 where the Apennines burst upon us in mountain greatness and 
 beauty of form. La Cava, the Alban Mount, the Lake of 
 Nemi, and all the territory in the neighbourhood of Rome is 
 volcanic. The tufa is a species of travertine decomposed 
 basaltic rocks or pozolana, cemented by calcareous cement 
 from water, water impregnated with carbonic acid. The 
 Apennines are all calcareous, stratified, their bases covered 
 with travertine. Not far from Caserta we met again the 
 volcanic district, which reaches to the foot of Vesuvius ; but 
 the mountains on the other side of the Bay of Naples are 
 calcareous, and all the mountains along the coast to Psestum 
 are of the same kind. At the foot of these mountains, forma- 
 tions of travertine appear in many places, from the waters 
 descending from the Apennines. One river, which we crossed 
 by a boat, four miles from Psestum [the Silaro], was celebrated 
 by the ancients for its petrifying qualities, 1 The plain on 
 which Psestum stands is formed of travertine. From a 
 little lake or tank near the ancient gate, containing recent 
 deposits, I took some water, of which four cubical inches 
 evaporated left 4'9 grains. 
 
 Psestum is a very interesting spot the ruins of the three 
 temples very magnificent. Here Grecian art of the elder time 
 is seen very little injured, whilst the Roman art has passed 
 away. I suppose the columns are about twenty-five feet high 
 in the temple of Neptune the most ancient Doric, and all of 
 travertine a stone probably formed only a very short time 
 before it was used for the building. 
 
 The base of the limestone hills of the Apennines, between 
 Vesuvius and Psestum, are all clothed with the most beautiful 
 vegetation vines that ascend to the very top of elms, corn 
 and flax beneath, and, in some sheltered glens, orange and 
 
 1 Pliny, Lib. 11., cap. ciii. 
 
198 FROM HIS MARRIAGE IN 1812 
 
 lemon trees. It seems as if the soil is favourable to culture. 
 The Indian corn grows here, but as yet was not half a foot 
 high, and as yet no corn has changed colour. 
 
 I saw Vesuvius from a spot about two miles from Pompeii. 
 I never beheld a more magnificent prospect than this presents : 
 Naples rising in majesty above the sea ; the hill of Posilipo 
 above it, Capri stretched below my feet ; Ischia blue in the 
 distance, and the promontory of Misenum purple in the even- 
 ing light. The base of Vesuvius is rich in vegetation beyond 
 description, and the summit black, frowning, and sending into 
 heaven its columns of clouds, red near the mountain, white 
 and purple above. In the east appeared the hills round 
 Salerno, and the mountain of Castellamare stretching into the 
 sea, and apparently loftier than Vesuvius, of the most beautiful 
 form. 
 
 This country is Nature decorated as for a festal day. The 
 remembrances of Pompeii and Herculaneum most interesting 
 towns preserved by fire but the last as yet reserved for future 
 ages, for the living protect the dead it is impossible to dig 
 without injuring the city above. 
 
 There is very little crystallized lava in the neighbourhood 
 of Vesuvius ; but the ancient lava, that which is below the 
 modern, contains a great variety of crystallized substances : 
 in one specimen in possession of Monticelli, I saw basaltic horn- 
 blende, sommite, and mica, or at least thin plates exactly resem- 
 bling mica. These lavas likewise present distinct crystals of 
 hornblende and felspar ; and in Somma there is an immense 
 mass of lava which has been fused under great pressure, and 
 probably cooled out of the contact of the air. 
 
 The fumes which constantly rise from the crater of Vesu- 
 vius are water, probably a deposition from the air, and muriatic 
 acid. Near the crater there is a strong smell of sulphurous 
 acid. The yellow matter, which might be mistaken for 
 sulphur, is iron dissolved from the lava by the muriatic acid 
 gas and water. I saw no sulphur in any part of the crater 
 
TO HIS RETURN TO ENGLAND IN 1815. 199 
 
 that I examined. In the night we saw the flame spring out 
 of an aperture in the upper part of the crater, with immense 
 violence and noise, and enormous volumes of smoke. The 
 light was red like that of a common bonfire, the products 
 apparently elastic matters, water, and sulphurous acid, and 
 carbonic acid. No dust, alkaline or earthy. 
 
 Do not the ashes which cover Pompeii indicate a combus- 
 tion of the metals of the earths ? 
 
 In examining the theatre of Herculaneum, an interesting 
 fact marble under thirty feet of lava unaltered. 
 
 The Solfatara, an ancient crater ; towards the north-east side 
 elastic matter escapes in great abundance, principally the 
 vapour of water, with some sulphuretted hydrogen ; great 
 quantities of cinnabar and sulphur, fumes of vitriolic acid, and 
 plenty of sulphate (crystals) of alumine. The soil here every- 
 where whitened by acid fumes. 
 
 Lake of Agnano ; examined the elastic fluid disengaged in 
 this lake near the Grotta del Cane ;' found carbonic acid 
 nearly pure. 
 
 Montenuovo : no crystallized lava ; principally ashes, cin- 
 ders, and decomposed lavas. 
 
 None of the recent lavas that I have seen are very interest- 
 ing. They appear to have been considerably cooled before 
 they were poured forth, and to contain an immense quantity 
 of mechanical mixtures. I have observed no regular crystals 
 in any of them, except the olegistic iron ore, which seems to 
 be a sort of secretion from the lava, at the time it was still 
 soft. 
 
 It will not be difficult to make the contrast between Eboli 
 and Psestum. The terra lavorata, the music, the motion, the 
 life of Nature ; the solitude, the desolation of the ruined city, 
 
 1 That celebrated spot, so well known to the crowd of travellers, but 
 with a higher claim to interest, as it was there that proof was first 
 obtained by Van Helmont of the existence of an air, sui generis, distinct 
 from common air, which he called " Gaz Sylvestre." 
 
200 FROM HIS MARRIAGE IN 1812 
 
 the sea, its swelling waves, marking its sure changes ; the 
 evening star and the moon ; the lake, where there is now no 
 life. 1 
 
 On my return to Rome this day, 24th, witnessed a novel 
 and impressive scene. The enthusiasm for the return of the 
 Pope has awakened even the Romans, and tumultuous joy and 
 triumph are expressed by all classes. 2 
 
 " February 4, 1814 Tivoli. All the rocks immediately 
 about it are stalactitical. Probably the exit of the Anio formed 
 by volcanic forces. Four cubic inches of the water at Terni 
 gave two-tenths of a grain of residuum, chiefly carbonate of 
 lime. 
 
 " The Solfatara lake highly interesting : water of the mean 
 temperature probably ; now not a furlong over j floating 
 islands formed by weeds. The power of vegetation so active 
 in this lake in consequence of the carbonic acid, so that car- 
 bonaceous matter is constantly deposited. Query : does not 
 the hydrogen of the sulphuretted hydrogen assist the decom- 
 position of the carbonic acid ? How remarkable are concre- 
 tions which are ever in progress in this and the next lake ! 
 Almost all the plain between Rome and Tivoli of like forma- 
 tion of the nature of stalactite." 
 
 " The territory of Rome highly interesting. Lava and 
 travertine, the known productions of fire and water, are its 
 elements ; and the monuments which have lasted the longest 
 of human works are formed of materials of comparatively 
 recent origin." 
 
 " Our artificial science has relations to the forms of Nature, 
 but yet that which is most important in Nature, life, is above 
 
 1 See further on, where these impressions are described in verse. 
 
 2 Pius VII., on his return from France. See "Consolations in Travel,' 
 dialogue iii., in which the event is described. 
 
TO HIS RETURN TO ENGLAND IN 1815. 201 
 
 u Men generally find it most easy to explain everything 
 who are ignorant of everything. The progress of physical 
 science is slow but not sure. Probably the atomic phi- 
 losophers had an idea exactly like that of the moderns ; 
 Democritus, the pure atomic doctrine ; Pythagoras, the doc- 
 trine of definite proportions and of regular forms." 
 
 " False hypotheses may be compared to monster-flowers, 
 which produce no fruit ; rational ones to the small and modest 
 flowers of the palms, which produce large and delicious fruit 
 their flowers scarcely perceptible." 
 
 " The changes taking place in Nature are calculated to 
 excite our admiration where we perceive the various transmu- 
 tations of matter : transparent water becomes opaque snow ; 
 mountains and rocks decompose ; vegetable substances are 
 formed from the atmosphere and soil ; water is precipitated 
 from the air, where there was no proof of its existence." 
 
 " Astronomy teaches us to reason on and weigh those 
 masses of matter which, though placed at an immense distance 
 from us, are still visible. Chemistry in its ultimate improve- 
 ment will probably offer us a more sublime exhibition of the 
 powers of the human mind in demonstrating to us the forms 
 and magnitudes of those molecules of matter which are 
 invisible, and of which the existence is proved by reason aided 
 by experiment." 
 
 " The astronomer vainly asserts the perfection of his 
 science, because he is capable of determining the motions of 
 seven planets and twenty-two satellites, but comets and me- 
 teoric bodies, which even move in our system, are above his 
 reach ; and even this solar system is a speck in the im- 
 mensity of space ! and what suns and worlds are there not 
 beyond it !" 
 
 " Our science (chemistry) refers to the globe only, and in 
 this there is an endless field for investigation. The interior is 
 unknown the caves of volcanoes. We have just learnt some 
 truths with respect to the surface ; but there is an immensity 
 
202 FROM HIS MARRIAGE IN 1812 
 
 beneath us : Geology is, in every sense of the word, a superficial 
 science." 
 
 " Chemistry has had a philosophical form only since the 
 labours of Lavoisier. The principle which this great man 
 made the foundation of the science, was to admit no body to 
 be composed of which the elements had not been procured. 
 Since his time some attempts have been made by the French 
 school to adopt a different plan of reasoning. Scheele, in dis- 
 tilling muriatic acid a solution of an acid gas in water from 
 oxide of manganese, which was known to consist of oxygen 
 and a peculiar metal, obtained chlorine ; but there was no 
 statical evidence that the result depended upon a combination 
 of the acid gas with oxygen. To have made the experiment 
 conclusive, it should have been shown that the gas increased 
 in weight. M. Berthollet, in exposing a solution of the new 
 gas in water, found that it gave off oxygen gas, and that the 
 water contained the muriatic acid gas : hence it was concluded, 
 that, both by analysis and synthesis, the gas of Scheele was 
 compound ; but, as no statical result was gained in the first 
 experiment, so no statical result was gained in the last, and, 
 therefore, the whole evidence was invalid : yet, in all the 
 books of chemistry, a number of imaginary results were sup- 
 posed ; it was said that whenever bodies were burnt in chlo- 
 rine, oxygen was separated, and oxidated compounds, muriates 
 formed, &c." 
 
 " Necessity of more rigid reasoning in chemical philo- 
 sophy." 
 
 " Those effects, which in common language are attributed 
 to time, those changes, the cause of which is represented by 
 a word which signifies the measure of duration, are in fact 
 chemical. For water, which is deposited from the atmosphere, 
 dissolves certain parts even of rocks and stones. Even the 
 whitest marble contains iron in a form capable of being acted 
 on by the air. Metals are rusted and dissolved. Colours are 
 changed by light. Wood decays from an effect, which is the 
 
TO HIS RETURN TO ENGLAND IN 1815. 203 
 
 same as that of slow combustion ; and lime is most perishable. 
 All the monuments of art all that is immortal in design, and 
 ought to be immortal from the expression of thought, decays 
 and melts away; and barbarian warriors are less dangerous 
 than those laws which are established for the conservation of 
 our system. It is only by means which are accidental, and 
 most unexpected, that the course of change is arrested. The 
 manuscripts of Herculaneum were saved by that cause which 
 might be supposed the most destructive fire. Even the 
 pyramids of Egypt will yield, as well as the buildings of Rome, 
 and have no more right to endless duration, than those called 
 by their proud founders eternal." 
 
 From depth of feeling, and from depth of thought, 
 Rises the purest strain of poesy. 
 
 Though youth is fled, and all the twilight hues, 
 And rosy tints, and freshening morning dews, 
 Imagination gives yet lingering stay 
 Some transient light of fancy's noontide day. 
 Still may past scenes delight, and memory cheer, 
 And while away the long revolving year. 
 Take, then, this lay, my loved, my dearest friend, 
 The best a weak, a laggard muse can send, 
 Whose heart is warm as in the days of old, 
 Though many visionary hopes are cold ; 
 Were but his powers as his affections strong, 
 Lofty should be the verse, an everlasting song. 
 Let us, whilst chilly clouds invest the sky, 
 Infancy to another climate fly ; 
 Let us on memory's downiest pinions rove 
 Through the fair valleys of the land we love. 
 I close my eyes and lo ! in placid dream, 
 Before me winds Volterno <> s limpid stream, 
 
204 FROM HIS MARRIAGE IN 1812 
 
 Now blue and cold, and as the sapphire bright, 
 
 Now glowing with the evening's ruby light. 
 
 I view the windings of its varied shore, 
 
 With myrtle and with cistus covered o'er ; 
 
 Within its glens see brighter trees unfold 
 
 Their silver blossoms, or their fruit of gold, 
 
 Trees that in winter as in summer bloom, 
 
 Whose flowers and fruits together shed perfume, 
 
 Emblems of promised immortality, 
 
 When hope and joy in one fruition lie. 
 
 Lo, the aerial mist, which zephyrs warm, 
 
 Exalts the rugged mountain's awful form, 
 
 Sends into distance its embattled towers, 
 
 And gives a mystic softness to its bowers ; 
 
 E'en the dark pine, and darker ilex, glow 
 
 As if a wreath of myrtle crowned its brow ; 
 
 The marble cliffs assume a purple hue, 
 
 Their snowy summits melt in heavenly blue. 
 
 Where yon low ruins glimmer through the wood, 
 
 Thy mighty walls, luxurious Capua, stood ; 
 
 Gone are thy palaces, thy temples low, 
 
 Upon thy streets the rude acacias grow, 
 
 Wild roses there midst stinted roses bloom, 
 
 Fit emblems of that place where pleasure's reign, 
 
 Saved Rome made Cannae's bloody triumph vain ; 
 
 Where, on seduction's couch of roses tost, 
 
 The empire of the world the hero lost. 
 
 Ah ! who can wonder that in such a spot 
 
 Ambition's bloody visions were forgot, 
 
 And that soft passion's genial influence stole 
 
 The sterner love of glory from the soul ! 
 
 Here all combine the active powers to calm ; 
 
 Scents as of Paradise the air embalm ; 
 
 Eternal is fair Nature's festal dress ; 
 
 To breathe is life, and life is happiness. 
 
TO HIS RETURN TO ENGLAND IN 1815. 205 
 
 I pause, but quickly pass to Umbria's shades, 
 
 Her groves of cypress, and her sylvan glades, 
 
 Where, as the broken mountain crags impend, 
 
 We saw Velino' ) s mighty waves descend 
 
 In thunder and in foam, whilst clouds of spray 
 
 Bedimmed the sunshine of a summer's day, 
 
 And made a dewy and refreshing shade, 
 
 On which the brilliant iris ever played 
 
 Below ; we saw the rainbow crown our head 
 
 Above, beneath our feet its radiance spread. 
 
 Fixed to the spot we loitered, lingered on, 
 
 Till the last westering purple ray was gone ; 
 
 Then the pale moon which beamed serenely bright, 
 
 Dimming the fire-fly's scintillating light, 
 
 Guided us here in moralizing mood, 
 
 Seeking comparisons from that wild flood, 
 
 A nd human life, which proud of youthful force, 
 
 Impetuous and resistless makes its course, 
 
 With all the mighty cataracts, foam, and noise, 
 
 Untuned its passions, unsubdued its joys ; 
 
 But fears to hopes succeed, to transports pains, 
 
 And soon the deep and silent pool it gains, 
 
 From sunshine quickly passes into shade, 
 
 Its fancies like the rainbow's glories fade, 
 
 And mists that trembled with the radiance bright, 
 
 Fall as the cold unhealthy dews of night. 
 
 Never shall I forget the happy hours 
 
 We passed in Eboli's enchanting bowers, 
 
 Midst palms, and orange groves, and new born flowers. 
 
 Far in the west Salerno's villas spread, 
 
 Lucana's mountains rose above our head ; 
 
 No single cloud obscured the summer sky, 
 
 And yet the wind was turbulent and high, 
 
 And full it blew upon the Tyrrhene sea, 
 
206 FROM HIS MARRIAGE IN 1812. 
 
 That rose sublime in billowy majesty, 
 
 Its waves arose, but not in stormy hue, 
 
 For pure as heaven was their ethereal blue, 
 
 Save where they beat the shore in crested pride, 
 
 White as the snow upon the glacier's side. 
 
 Though loud their murmuring 'midst the mountain trees, 
 
 Yet tuneful Philomel, as if to prove 
 
 More loud as well as sweet the voice of love, 
 
 Poured from the caruba her thrilling song, 
 
 The music of a minstrel wild and strong, 
 
 And gentle turtle doves, in thicket nigh, 
 
 Heaved, scarcely audible, the broken sigh ; 
 
 The gale was from a Zephyr's softest wing, 
 
 The air was that which summer steals from spring ; 
 
 Life seemed in every moving thing to be 
 
 The blades of maize, the blossom on the tree, 
 
 The cones that rattled on the giant pine, 
 
 Seemed stirred by impulse of a power divine. 
 
 Now pass we on to that deserted strand, 
 Where Paestum's long forgotten ruins stand ; 
 Where, glittering in the sunbeams, rise on high 
 The monuments of ancient majesty, 
 Temples, whose massive forms and finished grace 
 Speak of the labours of a Grecian race. 
 Was this the dwelling of the Sybarites, 
 The people formed for love and soft delights ; 
 Who built their cities for eternity, 
 And lived as if to-morrow they should die ; 
 Who counted festive joy in every thing ; 
 Whose roses bloomed in autumn as in spring ; 
 Who round the fruitful olive raised the vine ; 
 Whose fountains poured profuse Ausonian wine ? 
 All, all is gone, save monumental stones, 
 That press the vanished people's mouldering bones. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 FROM HIS RETURN FROM HIS FIRST CONTINENTAL TOUR 
 IN 1815 TO THE COMPLETION OF HIS SECOND IN 1820. 
 
 THIS short period, like the preceding one, was 
 similarly and not less variously occupied; and as 
 regards science, even with more devotion and bril- 
 liancy of success, for his labours were rewarded by 
 the discovery of the safety lamp a discovery in 
 itself of inestimable value, and which led to his 
 further researches on flame, yielding results of pecu- 
 liar interest, as illustrating many singular qualities 
 of flame, and its nature. 
 
 It was very soon after his return from the conti- 
 nent, viz., in the August following, that his attention, 
 was first called to the dangerous and too often de- 
 structive " fire-damp" of the collieries, with a hope, 
 fortunately not entertained in vain, that he might be 
 able to offer a remedy. When his aid was asked, he 
 was in the Highlands of Scotland on a shooting 
 excursion: on his way back, he stopped at New- 
 castle, the capital of the coal district; made minute 
 inquiries into the circumstances of the mines, in con- 
 nexion with the terrible and invisible agent, and had 
 specimens of the gas, the light carburetted hydrogen 
 
208 LATER RESEARCHES 
 
 of which the "fire-damp" consists, bottled and sent 
 after him to London. In the middle of October he 
 began the experimental investigation, and before the 
 end of the month, after about a fortnight's careful 
 inquiry, he had the inexpressible satisfaction of 
 accomplishing his object, and was able to announce 
 the protecting principle. 
 
 The following letter from Sir Joseph Banks was 
 in reply to one from him, which I have not succeeded 
 in obtaining, communicating the discovery : 
 
 October 30, 1815. 
 
 My dear Sir Humphry Many thanks for your kind letter, 
 which has given me unspeakable pleasure. Much as, by the 
 more brilliant discoveries you have made, the reputation of the 
 Royal Society has been exalted in the opinion of the scientific 
 world, I am of opinion that the solid and effective reputation 
 of that body will be more advanced among our cotemporaries 
 of all ranks by your present discovery, than it has been by all 
 the rest. 
 
 To have come forward when called upon, because no one else 
 could discover means of defending society from a tremendous 
 scourge of humanity, and to have, by the application of en- 
 lightened philosophy, found the means of providing a certain 
 precautionary measure effectual to guard mankind for the 
 future against this alarming and increasing evil, cannot fail to 
 recommend the discoverer to much public gratitude, and to 
 place the Royal Society in a more popular point of view than 
 all the abstruse discoveries beyond the understanding of 
 unlearned people. I shall most certainly direct your paper to 
 be read at the very first day of our meeting. 
 
 We should have been happy to have seen you here ; but I 
 am still happier in the recollection of the excellent fruit which 
 was ripened and perfected by the very means of my disap- 
 
AND SECOND CONTINENTAL TOUR. 209 
 
 pointment, your early return to London. T trust I shall 
 
 arrive there on the morning of our first meeting, and that it 
 
 will not be long after before I have the pleasure of seeing-you. 
 
 I am, my dear Sir H., always faithfully yours, 
 
 JOSEPH BANKS. 
 
 Of the manner in which the safety lamp was 
 received by those most competent to judge of its 
 value, I need not at the present time enter into parti- 
 culars : these will be found in the Memoirs of his 
 Life, and with great minuteness and accuracy of 
 detail in Dr. Paris's work would that the whole of 
 that work had been written ' in the same candid and 
 liberal spirit ! then it might have deserved the praise 
 of " a most felicitous instance of perfect biography," 
 bestowed on it from the chair of the Royal Society. 
 The following hurried letter to Lady Davy, in which 
 a copy of an address to him is given, may have a 
 place here, as an example both of the grateful feeling 
 entertained, and of the gratification the expression of 
 that feeling afforded him. It was from the same 
 respectable proprietors of collieries, from whom 
 shortly after he received a present of plate, a dinner 
 service exceeding in money value i'1,000, and which 
 he valued most for the manner in which it was 
 offered. 
 
 Here it may not be unworthy of mention, that the 
 first gun with a percussion lock seen in the North of 
 England, was one he brought with him on this his 
 visit to Newcastle; and that -he gave proof of its 
 
210 LATER RESEARCHES 
 
 superiority by killing a black-cock in heavy rain, the 
 first he ever shot. My informant is a gentleman, 
 distinguished in his profession, 1 then a boy, and who 
 still remembers with interest his excited feeling in 
 seeing a " philosopher." 
 
 To Lady Davy. 
 
 Newcastle, Monday, March 23, 1816. 
 
 I have just received the deputation from the coal owners. 
 Nothing could be more gratifying than the expression of their 
 feeling. I shall copy for you the letter they have addressed 
 to me : 
 
 " Sir As Chairman of the General Meeting of Proprietors 
 of Coal Mines upon the rivers Tyne and Wear, held on the 
 18th instant, I was requested to express to you their united 
 thanks and approbation for the great and important discovery 
 of your safety lamp, for exploring mines charged with inflam- 
 mable gas, which they think admirably calculated to obviate 
 the dreadful calamities, and the lamentable destruction of 
 human lives, which of late have so frequently occurred in the 
 mines of this country. 
 
 " They are most powerfully impressed with admiration and 
 gratitude towards the splendid talents and brilliant acquire- 
 ments that have achieved so important a discovery, unparalleled 
 in the history of mining, and not surpassed by any discovery of 
 the present day ; and they hope, that whilst the tribute of 
 applause and glory is showered down upon those who invent 
 the weapons of destruction, that this great and unrivalled dis- 
 covery for preserving the lives of our fellow-creatures, will be 
 rewarded by some mark of national distinction and honour. 
 "I am, Sir, your most obedient servant, 
 
 " GEORGE WALDIE, Chairman." 
 
 1 Dr. Charlton, of Newcastle. 
 
AND SECOND CONTINENTAL TOUR. 211 
 
 He continues: 
 
 We dine here to-day, and proceed on our journey to-morrow. 
 
 Every part of your letter was gratifying to me except the 
 melancholy news. This, I think, is the great evil of life. We 
 lose our friends as soon (often) as they become linked to us. 
 They drop off like the leaves of the evergreen at different 
 seasons, and every new loss creates insecurity. 
 
 My dearest friend, God bless you ! Continue well and 
 happy. 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 Address a line to me at Stilton, for except at this point our 
 route is uncertain. 
 
 Rather more than two years later a Baronetcy was 
 conferred on him, which, he being without children, 
 became extinct at his decease : the plate, however, I 
 venture to hope, may remain an heir-loom in his 
 family ; it was bequeathed to me after the death of his 
 widow, on the condition of my having the means to use 
 it. The patent of the Baronetcy bears the date of the 
 18th of January, 1819. Though, no doubt, he was 
 gratified by the honour it conferred on him, he did not, 
 I am sure, attach any undue importance to the rank. In 
 none of the letters remaining addressed to his nearest 
 relations, do I find it mentioned, or the slightest 
 allusion made to it. It is curious to see how, in the 
 composition of the document, occupying two sheets 
 of parchment, his special services are altogether 
 neglected, and qualifications are introduced to which 
 he had no claim, such as " eminent family inherit- 
 
212 LATER RESEARCHES 
 
 ance and estate." But in the wording, probably the 
 omission was unavoidable, one formula, it is pre- 
 sumed, always being followed, thereby rendering the 
 patent commonplace, destitute of interest, and of 
 power even as a stimulus to meritorious deeds. 
 
 This patent of honour was one for which he had 
 to pay a certain sum in fees : he was urged by many 
 of his friends to take out another, which would amply 
 enrich him, a patent for his lamp ; but this he de- 
 clined ; he preferred making it, to use his own words, 
 " a gift to his country." 
 
 Now, after the lapse of more than forty years, it 
 is satisfactory to find, especially after all the cavils 
 made, that the lamp maintains its reputation for safety 
 unimpaired. Such competent and impartial judges 
 as the late Mr. Buddie and Mr. Dunn, Government 
 Inspectors of Collieries, are my authorities for this 
 statement. In a note, with which I have been fa- 
 voured by the latter gentleman, as recently as the 
 14th of August, 1857, I am assured that the original 
 lamp, almost without a single alteration, other than 
 that which its inventor suggested, has continued to 
 be employed, and with undiminished confidence. 
 Indeed, it is the admirable simplicity of the ]amp, 
 with its security, that is its great recommendation, 
 and always must be a wire gauze structure, such as 
 it is, and no more, imprisoning flame, owing to the 
 wire in its fine mesh preserving a temperature below 
 that required for the inflaming of the " fire damp," 
 and so preventing the passing of the inner illuminat- 
 
AND SECOND CONTINENTAL TOUR. 213 
 
 ing flame of the lamp to the outer inflammable atmo- 
 sphere. Mr. Playfair, in an eloquent article on the 
 subject, which appeared in the Edinburgh Review, 
 speaks of it, in relation to its construction and pro- 
 perties, as " exciting a degree of wonder and astonish- 
 ment, from which neither ignorance nor wisdom can 
 defend the beholder;" and " when to this w r e add," he 
 continues, " the beneficial consequences of the saving 
 of the lives of men, and consider that the effects are 
 to remain as long as coal continues to be dug from 
 the bowels of the earth, it may fairly be said, that 
 there is hardly in the whole compass of art or science 
 a single invention of which we would rather wish to 
 be the author." 
 
 Here, I do not think it necessary to revive the 
 discussions respecting the safety lamp as to priority 
 of discovery : I more particularly allude to the claims 
 made by the friends of the late Mr. Stephenson ; in- 
 asmuch as the lamp which this remarkable man 
 invented, was, as admitted by himself, formed en- 
 tirely on mechanical principles, and had no preten- 
 sions to safety, till constructed after the manner of 
 the " Davy lamp." His biographer, in writing his 
 eulogy, I regret to see, has lost sight of justice; and 
 in exalting one character has endeavoured to lower 
 the character of another. 
 
 Among the following letters, written about this 
 time, many are to members of his family, which may 
 appear trivial. If an apology is needed for giving 
 them, I would offer it on the ground that the estima- 
 
214 LATER RESEARCHES 
 
 tion of character must be founded on little things as 
 much as on important events perhaps even more 
 so; and, as his character has been exposed to cer- 
 tain charges, there seems to be, and I hope it will be 
 admitted, a special reason for inserting them, in 
 proof of his endearing attachments to his relations 
 and old friends. He himself had the firm belief that 
 high intellectual excellence is naturally associated 
 with strong family affection and love of friends, and 
 he has expressed it in delineating the character of a 
 man whom he dearly esteemed as a friend the late 
 Mr. Playfair a biographical sketch of whom I have 
 found in one of his note-books ; it will be presently 
 given. 
 
 To his youngest Sister. 
 
 June 1, 1815. 
 
 My dear Betsy I have received your kind letter. It is 
 not improbable that had your letter arrived before John's plans 
 were fixed, 1 that he would have hesitated ; but he was at 
 Ostend before I received it ; and now it is too late to change 
 his views. Should he not like the service, however, the situ- 
 ation at Penzance is a resource ; and it will always be in his 
 favour, as a medical man, to have seen practice in the army. 
 It is, indeed, very possible that the campaign may be finished, 
 and he on his return long before Dr. Paris 2 gives up Pen- 
 zance, and if so, it will be a subject of consideration. For my 
 own part, I do not think that Bonaparte and his diabolical 
 
 1 I had just before entered the medical department of the army. 
 
 2 The late President of the College of Physicians, the same who wrote 
 the life of my brother, without any sanction from, or communication 
 with, me. 
 
AND SECOND CONTINENTAL TOUR. 215 
 
 adherents can long oppose the allies ; and the French are too 
 selfish to adhere to him for any other reason than the hope 
 of plundering their neighbours. John had a tedious passage, 
 but landed quite well, and writes to me in excellent spirits. 
 
 I write this letter to inform you of his safe arrival on the 
 continent. 
 
 I am, with kindest love to my mother and sisters, 
 Your ever affectionate brother, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 To his Brother. 
 
 January 8, 1816. 
 
 My dear John I called on Sir James M 'G rigor a few days 
 ago, and told him that you had not been gazetted. He pro- 
 mised me that it should be done immediately, and dated No- 
 vember 9th, and this morning I saw you in the Gazette. 1 I 
 congratulate you. 
 
 There is no notice of any ship about to sail. 2 I shall go to 
 the Admiralty again to-morrow, to endeavour to get you from 
 the Secretary a passage in a King^s ship, which will be free of 
 expense. As soon as I hear anything decisive, I will write 
 to you. 
 
 I hope in a few days to have the house in order. I do not 
 regret that you have not been in London during the Christmas ; 
 Lady Davy has been so unwell, that all our arrangements 
 have been at a stand. She has had almost constant attacks of 
 spasms in the stomach, but they have lately been less violent ; 
 and she is almost convalescent, but very feeble, and much re- 
 duced by the pain. I have, however, strong hopes that the 
 disease is radically cured. 
 
 I have been able to make a lamp which burns explosive 
 
 1 As assistant surgeon to the forces. 
 
 2 I was then under orders for Ceylon, to which T shortly proceeded. 
 
216 LATER RESEARCHES 
 
 mixtures of gases, and gives light in them, and which will 
 effectually preserve the miners. 
 
 I beg you will give a one pound note from me to Mary 
 Launder. 
 
 With kind love to my mother and sisters, 
 
 I am, your very affectionate brother, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 To his Mother. 
 
 Christmas Day. 
 
 My dear Mother A merry Christmas and a happy new 
 year to all our family at Penzance. Pray thank Grace very 
 kindly for her letter. Lady D. joins me in the congratulations 
 of the season. She is, I am happy to say, better. 
 
 We go to the Earl of Darnley's for new year's day, and 
 shall be settled in town in the middle of January. 
 
 I am still working for the public good, and I hope with 
 success. 
 
 I enclose 5. I wish Mary Launder to have 20s., Jenny 
 Victor 10s., Jacob and Antony Gandy 5s. each. The rest my 
 sisters will dispose of as they like I hope in charity. 
 Have you sent the minerals ? I am, my dear mother, 
 
 Most affectionately yours, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 In another letter to his mother he says : 
 
 " It is true that the colliers are getting made for me a piece 
 of plate. I know not the value of it, nor do I care much; it 
 is not to be less than 1,000 guineas ; but it is the nature of 
 the present, for saving the lives of my fellow-creatures, that I 
 value." 
 
AND SECOND CONTINENTAL TOUR. 217 
 
 To Professor Edmund Davy. 
 
 Cobham Hall, January 13, 1817. 
 
 My dear Sir I have received your paper. 1 I think it will 
 be read on Thursday. * * * 
 
 I saw with much surprise, in some of the late English 
 papers, the process of improving bread by magnesia referred 
 to me. Your letter showed me the reason of this misnomer. 
 I have endeavoured by all the means in my power to give it to 
 its true author. I have made some experiments on corn, but 
 none on the effects of the alkaline substances upon the damaged 
 corn. Carbonate of soda has been much recommended in 
 England. 
 
 I am surprised you did not explode mixtures of hydrogen 
 by the safety lamp. It requires a much finer tissue to prevent 
 this explosion than that of fire damp. By certain tissues all 
 explosions may be prevented. 
 
 In a paper read last night at the Royal Society, I have 
 shown the causes and the limits of security, which may in all 
 cases be made absolute. 
 
 It will always give me much pleasure to hear of your success 
 and well being. I am, my dear Sir, 
 
 Yours very sincerely, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 To his Mother. 
 
 Kirkwall, Orkney Islands, August 12, 1817. 
 
 My dear Mother My sister Kitty's letter followed me into 
 Scotland. I beg you will thank her for it in my behalf. I 
 am now in the most northern island belonging to Great Britain, 
 and cannot send you, what I should be happy to send you, 
 John's prescription. I shall be at Edinburgh, where I meet 
 
 1 On a new fulminating compound of platinum. 
 
218 LATER KESEAKCHES 
 
 Lady Davy, in a fortnight, and I will immediately send you 
 the medicine. 
 
 Yesterday's mail brought me a letter from a Mr. Tolfrey, 
 who saw my brother at Colombo, March 1st. He was quite 
 well, and nothing can exceed the terms in which Mr. Tolfrey 
 speaks of his character, and of the estimation in which he is 
 held in the colony, not only by the Governor, &c., but by all 
 who know him. 
 
 You must not expect me to say anything more respecting 
 
 's marriage. I have done what I believe to be my duty : 
 
 it would have been delightful to me to have had a pleasant 
 duty to perform ; but though my advice is vain, it cannot be 
 from this less reasonable nor less sincere * * *. 
 
 I hope you are quite well. I trust, my dear mother, you 
 will not have any anxiety in consequence of my opinions on this 
 subject. It is our duty to make the most we can of this world ; 
 and there is a Power far above our comprehension, who may 
 produce good out of what appears for the moment an evil, and 
 who never forsakes those who deserve well. 
 
 I am in these islands with my friend, Lord Gage : any letter 
 addressed under cover to Viscount Gage, Edinburgh, will 
 reach me, though, as I am 1,000 miles from you, perhaps it 
 will be as well to direct to me in London, and my servants will 
 send it on. 
 
 I am, with kind love to my sisters, my dear mother, 
 Always your affectionate son, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 His second journey to the continent was under- 
 taken with two objects in view: first, to visit the 
 coal-mines of Belgium (the most productive and 
 extensrve in Europe, with the exception of our own), 
 from the owners of which he had received a pressing 
 
AND SECOND CONTINENTAL TOUK. 219 
 
 invitation, with grateful acknowledgment for the 
 safety lamp, which had there rapidly come into use ; 
 and, next, to attempt by chemical means to aid in 
 unrolling the darkened and agglutinated manuscripts 
 preserved amidst the ruins of Herculaneum, which 
 were in a state, as he had ascertained, approaching 
 to that of peat, and not charred by fire, as had been 
 previously supposed. 
 
 After visiting Flanders, he went to Vienna, 
 descending the Danube; and from Vienna he pro- 
 ceeded through southern Austria to Venice. 
 
 On this journey, his attention was specially 
 directed to the temperature of rivers and of collec- 
 tions of water, as concerned in the production of 
 mist, a phenomenon which, on our rivers and seas, 
 towards the end of summer, through the autumn, 
 and the beginning of winter, is so remarkable, and 
 the cause of so much delay and risk to the navigator. 
 Universally, whenever mist appeared, he found the 
 air above some degrees colder than the water below, 
 and the atmosphere, antecedently, clear and calm, 
 favourable to radiation. The results of his observa- 
 tions and deductions he gave in a paper which was 
 communicated to the Royal Society, and published 
 in its Transactions. 
 
 This, his absence abroad, was longer than he at 
 first proposed; it was protracted till the beginning 
 of the summer of 1820. The interval was spent 
 chiefly in Italy at Rome, Naples, and the Baths of 
 Lucca; and, as on his preceding sojourn, his time 
 was divided between science and the muses, society 
 
220 LATER RESEARCHES 
 
 and field and river sports. The former he found in 
 the Roman Campagna during the winter months; 
 the latter in his favourite haunts in the Tyrol, to 
 which he paid a visit in the early summer of 
 1819. 
 
 His scientific pursuits were chiefly limited to his 
 experiments on the Herculaneum manuscripts, made 
 at Naples, which might have been more successful 
 had he been better supported in his labours, for the 
 process he proposed and tried, founded chiefly on the 
 principle of softening the matter by which the leaves 
 are agglutinated, appeared to be well adapted to the 
 purpose : an account of it will be found in the Philo- 
 sophical Transactions for 1821. 
 
 At the Baths of Lucca he examined the water to 
 which that delightful, elevated spot in part owes its 
 attraction. He found it to contain both iron and 
 silica, and came to the conclusion, guided by the 
 analogy of boracic acid and its inflammable basis, 
 boron, that silica also performs the part of an acid, 
 and is a means of dissolving iron in its protoxide 
 state, and of forming ochres, the protoxide by expo- 
 sure to the air passing into the insoluble peroxide. 
 
 The letters which follow are of the same miscel- 
 laneous kind as those which immediately preceded 
 them, and may stand in need of the same apology. 
 
 To his Mother. 
 
 London, May 25, 1818. 
 
 My dear Mother We are just going upon a very interest- 
 ing journey. I am first to visit the coal miners of Flanders, 
 
AND SECOND CONTINENTAL TOUR. 221 
 
 who have sent me a very kind letter of invitation, and of 
 thanks for saving their lives. 1 We are then going to Austria, 
 where I shall show Vienna to Lady Davy, and then visit the 
 mines, and, lastly, before I return, we are going to Naples. 
 
 I have the commands of his royal highness, the Prince Regent, 
 to make experiments upon some very interesting ancient manu- 
 scripts, which I hope to unfold. I had yesterday the honour 
 of an audience from his royal highness, and he commissioned 
 me to pursue this object in the most gracious and kind 
 manner. 
 
 We shall be absent some months. With kindest love to 
 rny sisters and aunts, in which Lady Davy joins me, I am, 
 my dear mother, 
 
 Your most affectionate son, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 Rome, March 13, 1820. 
 
 My dear Mother I have written three times to you since 
 I heard of your accident at Marazion, but I am doubtful, from 
 Grace's last letter, whether you have received either of my 
 letters. 
 
 Her letter, like most human things, contained a mixture of 
 good and bad ; and the pleasure I received from hearing of 
 your recovery was mixed with pain from the continuance of 
 my aunt's illness. I hope fervently that she will be restored 
 to health, and pass many happy days in the evening of life. 
 
 John is, I trust, now on his passage homewards. We are 
 so far on our return, and I hope in the autumn we shall meet 
 
 from different quarters of the world at Penzance. I have 
 
 
 
 1 Of the 15th May, 1818, from "La Chambre de Commerce et des 
 Fabriques de Mona." The expressions in this letter are in the highest 
 terms of gratitude and admiration for the discovery of the safety lamp. 
 
222 LATER RESEARCHES 
 
 finished with success, and much sooner than I expected, the 
 objects for which I came abroad. Lady Davy is not very 
 well, and we are obliged to travel slowly, but I hope we shall 
 be in London in the end of May or the beginning of June. 
 
 We shall return by the south of France, and if Grace 
 should be so good as to write to me, she can address me, Poste 
 Kestante, Bordeaux. 
 
 With kind love to my sisters, in which Lady D. joins me, 
 I am, my dear mother, 
 
 Your affectionate son, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 London, June 16, 1820. 
 
 My dear Mother I have been a few days in town, and I 
 am very much disappointed in not finding my brother, who 
 will, I hope, soon arrive. I have a letter from him, from the 
 Cape of Good Hope, when he was quite well. Probably they 
 have stopped at St. Helena ; but I look for him every 
 moment. 
 
 I came over in consequence of the illness of Sir Joseph 
 Banks, 1 about the affairs of the Royal Society, rather before 
 the time I intended. Lady Davy is on her road, and will 
 join me in a few days. 
 
 I have been very graciously received by the King. 
 
 I shall have the pleasure of seeing you before the winter. 
 Pray give my best love to my sisters and my aunts. I shall 
 send by the first opportunity some coral necklaces for my 
 sisters, and a shawl for you. 
 
 Believe me to be, my dear mother, 
 
 Your very affectionate son, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 1 He died on the 19th of June, 1820. 
 
AND SECOND CONTINENTAL TOUK. 223 
 
 The following excerpta from note-books, which 
 have lately come into my possession, belong to this 
 period. 
 
 Playfair and Watt both died in the same year, 
 1819. His respect for them both was of the highest 
 kind. The following loving sketch of the character of 
 the former, judging from the book in which it occurs, 
 must have been written shortly after his decease, from 
 the impulse of warm, but not exaggerated feeling ; as 
 were also some fragmentary lines relating to both 
 these excellent men, the first stanza of which is the 
 following : 
 
 Mourn, Scotland, mourn ! for from thy glorious land, 
 Famed for heroic virtue, and the strength of manly intellect, 
 
 and heroic song, 
 Never sprung forth two loftier plants 
 
 Than these, thy latest dead, 
 Nipt by Time's winter in their mortal mould, 
 But in their fall around them scattering flowers 
 And seeds of immortality. 
 
 Character of Mr. Playfair. 
 
 There probably never was a man who combined in a higher 
 degree the moral excellences that awaken affection with the 
 intellectual qualities which command respect. His heart was 
 pure and simple as that of an infant. Free from every kind 
 of affectation, without the slightest taint of vanity, self-love in 
 him was entirely lost in sympathy with the true, the beautiful, 
 and the good, which in every form haunted and adorned his 
 mind. Malignity, envy, uneasiness at the success or talents 
 of others, never tainted his character. His expression, his 
 language was open and candid as his soul, which was a clear 
 
224 LATER RESEARCHES 
 
 sky without a cloud, and when not filled with the direct beam 
 of discovery, was bright with reflected light. He was con- 
 tented to employ his intellectual powers, which might have 
 commanded objects of the highest worldly ambition, in the 
 pursuit of scientific truths and moral excellence. No man was 
 ever freer from prejudice. Greatness and glory, in every 
 country and in every age, seemed, as it were, to nourish his 
 spirit, and he never displayed his talents with so much plea- 
 sure as when he was doing justice to a rival. In his geo- 
 metrical researches he was at once exact and profound, and 
 had the art, so rare in modern times, of making himself com- 
 prehensible to the meanest capacities. As a critical philoso- 
 pher, his judgment was clear and unbiassed ; reasons flowed 
 from his understanding as a river from a great lake, which, 
 however slender or impure the sources from which it is fed, 
 sends forth a full, clear, and unpolluted stream. In his most 
 original work, " The Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory of 
 the Earth," he developed the ideas of a profound geologist 
 with the eloquence of a poet ; and his style unites dignity, 
 and even majesty, with simplicity. He has thrown upon 
 objects, obscure and difficult to most persons, a light of genius, 
 which has even given to them brilliancy as well as interest. 
 He has developed in the system of the globe a sublime, intelli- 
 gent order, depending upon the eternity and security of the 
 laws of nature. 
 
 The laborious researches of the geometrician, and of the 
 physical inquirer, did not prevent Playfair from occupying a 
 portion of his time in subjects of literature and of taste ; and 
 some disquisitions in the Edinburgh Review show that he was 
 equally sensible to the beauties as to the defects of works 
 of imagination ; and prove that his mind was as elegant and as 
 refined in its passive sensibilities, as acute and strong in its 
 active powers. 
 
 In his conversation he was clear and simple, displaying a 
 wonderful talent for illustration, never aiming at brilliancy or 
 
AND SECOND CONTINENTAL TOUR. 225 
 
 effect, but always searching for or communicating truth ; and 
 the kind feelings, and perfect and uniform good nature with 
 which he abandoned himself to others, for the sake of giving 
 information, threw a light upon his conversation, which, like 
 that varnish of Apelles, described by Pliny, exalted all that 
 was beautiful, gave brightness to the colour, and effect to the 
 shade. 
 
 He was no less amiable as a friend and kind as a relation, 
 than distinguished as a philosopher. Whoever indeed inquires 
 into a character highly marked by excellence and benevolence, 
 will find that these qualities are most experienced and exerted in 
 the circles of nearest connexions ; the tide of social feeling, 
 when it extends far, must be powerful at its source, and 
 deepest at its origin ; but, what his nearest affections were, 
 can only be described by those who live to regret the loss of 
 them, and to feel and know that whatever the public feeling 
 of grief may be for departed genius and excellence, it can be 
 as nothing compared to the deep and profound sentiment 
 which will always remain in the hearts of those who have 
 enjoyed his intimacy, and who will carry to their graves the 
 indefinite recollection of a thousand amiable traits of character, 
 and almost indescribable moral excellences. 
 
 It was about this time, judging from the following 
 extracts, that he formed the idea of giving to the 
 world, in a popular form, his thoughts and opinions 
 on the subjects which had interested him most: 
 
 Plan of a work to be composed during my travels. Views 
 of the Chemical Philosophy of Nature and the Arts, in the 
 manner of discussion or conversation, by H. D. 
 
 Characters. A Poetical Philosopher, a Metaphysical Phi- 
 losopher, a Chemical Philosopher. 
 
 Namee, Greek. Feeling, observing, thinking. 
 
 Q 
 
226 LATER RESEARCHES 
 
 Portions eVen of this work were written at this 
 time. He resumed it afterwards, especially during 
 illness, when it became his amusement. His " Con- 
 solations in Travel ; or, The Last Days of a Philo- 
 sopher," which he did not live to complete, and his 
 "Salmonia; or, Days of Fly -fishing," of which he 
 had the satisfaction of preparing a second edition, 
 were written in accordance with this plan ; and the 
 manner in which both have been received, shows 
 that the conception, as well as the execution, was a 
 happy one. 
 
 The following are a few miscellaneous extracts 
 belonging also to this period : 
 
 " There is a beautiful circumstance in the economy of the 
 globe, which I believe has not been attended to that water at 
 a low temperature preserves heat, its power of losing it, either 
 by radiation or communication, being very small. And, hence, 
 all polar lands near deep seas are comparatively warm. But, 
 when its temperature is raised, its power of giving vapour, 
 which carries off the heat, is greatly increased : the warm 
 water above 50, which is the equalising temperature, is lighter 
 than the cold water ; it rises to the surface, where it becomes 
 more warmed by the solar rays, and assumes the form of 
 vapour, i.e., the excess of heat is lost in causing the water 
 to assume the gaseous state. Hence, under the line, the action 
 of the solar rays upon the deep water never raises the tempera- 
 ture above 81. This power of water to become steam, and of 
 course its power to carry off heat, is wonderfully increased with 
 increase of temperature, probably in a ratio not much lower than 
 the square of the temperature. Hence, above 100, it would be 
 very difficult, by radiant heat penetrating the surface, to raise 
 the temperature at all. The heat employed to produce vapour 
 
AND SECOND CONTINENTAL TOUR. 227 
 
 is not lost, but it acts again in producing heat when the vapour 
 is carried into colder regions, and at the same time waters the 
 earth in rain or dew.'" 
 
 Objects of Experiments at Rome and Naples, 1819. 
 
 1 . To ascertain if the water found in rock crystal be pure 
 icater. 
 
 2. To ascertain if anything can be done to preserve the 
 frescoes of Raphael in the Vatican. 
 
 3. To determine if the spots in Carrara marble are iron 
 oxide, and if they can be obliterated. 
 
 4. To determine if the opinion or the facts of Lanley be 
 correct, that the cold in the cellars under Monte Testaccio is 
 greater than elsewhere in Rome, and if the cause be radiation 
 from the potsherds. 
 
 A people amongst whom abuses have gradually accumu- 
 lated, may be compared to a lake where the rnud carried down 
 by the torrents gradually covers the bottom, and conceals all 
 that it may contain of beautiful or precious, gems or ores. A 
 revolution, like an earthquake, mixes all the materials together, 
 and shows what is valuable and useful. The mud is washed 
 away, and with it some of the weightier substances ; but most 
 of those are preserved, they sink to the bottom, and when the 
 commotion has ceased, appear, and are valued, and used. 
 
 Rome, April 11, 1819. Nothing suits this city less than 
 the pomp, noise, and diseased action of a court. The feeling 
 produced by the remains of that people which conquered the 
 world, and which ultimately diffused the arts and the letters 
 of Greece, from the mountains of Imaus and Caucasus, to the 
 wilds of Caledonia, is one of melancholy and sublimity. There 
 is no analogy between the nothingness of modern state, and 
 the greatness of ancient glory. 
 
 A courtier in the ruins of Rome, is like a butterfly on the 
 bone of a giant. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 FROM HIS FIRST ELECTION TO THE PRESIDENTSHIP OF 
 THE ROYAL SOCIETY, IN NOVEMBER, 1820, TO HIS LAST, 
 IN 1826. 
 
 ON the chair of the Royal Society becoming vacant 
 by the death of Sir Joseph Banks, he was called to 
 fill it by the unanimous voice of the Fellows, and 
 for six consecutive years he was as unanimously re- 
 elected. 
 
 He commenced his presidential duties with a high 
 sense of their importance, and a sanguine expectation 
 and desire of promoting the interests of the Royal 
 Society, and of science. Whilst he was in office, the 
 reputation of the society was certainly not diminished, 
 but rather exalted; the desire to belong to it was 
 increased; its Transactions were scarcely at any 
 former time more original or interesting ; and at no 
 former period was there more harmony in the general 
 body of the Fellows. And yet, I believe, his expec- 
 tations were not answered, and he effected very much 
 less than he wished. Government was lukewarm or 
 indifferent in matters of science, and gave him no 
 effectual support ; when requiring the aids of science 
 and of the Fellows of the Royal Society, applying to 
 
FKOM HIS ELECTION TO THE ROYAL SOCIETY. 229 
 
 him without hesitation; when their objects were 
 attained, forgetting the services. It was his wish 
 to have seen the Koyal Society an efficient establish- 
 ment for all the great practical purposes of science, 
 similar to the college contemplated by Lord Bacon, 
 and sketched in his New Atlantis ; having subordi- 
 nate to it the Royal Observatory at Greenwich for 
 Astronomy ; the British Museum for Natural History 
 in its most extensive acceptation ; and a laboratory 
 founded for chemical investigation, amply provided 
 with all the means requisite for original inquiry, and 
 for extending the boundaries and the resources of 
 this most important national science. I remember 
 well his speaking to me more than once on the sub- 
 ject : he had even the idea of raising the funds neces- 
 sary for forming a laboratory by a subscription 
 amongst the Fellows themselves, without the aid of 
 Government ; and he probably would have attempted 
 this, and some other plans for the advancement of 
 science, had his health remained firm. Amongst 
 objects which were accomplished at this period in 
 which he took an interest, and to which he gave his 
 support, three especially may be mentioned. The 
 continuation of the Polar Exploring Expeditions, the 
 establishment of the Zoological Gardens, and the 
 Athenaeum Club. As regarded satisfaction and plea- 
 sure to himself, these, I fear, were not without alloy, 
 and particularly latterly, when from failing health, 
 and an unusually sensitive state, the consequence of 
 failing health, he was least able to bear annoyances. 
 He was not an exception to the rule, that those who 
 
230 FROM HIS ELECTION TO HIS RESIGNATION 
 
 in their career are eminently and rapidly successful, 
 are subject to envy and detraction, and that in Lon- 
 don, as of old in Rome, they must expect to suffer 
 " Medicorum et philosophorum in urbi malignitate." 
 To show the feeling with which he entered on his 
 office, I shall give the speech which he made at the 
 anniversary dinner on the day of his election, St. 
 Andrew's Day, the 30th of November, taken from a 
 rough draft which I have found in pencil ; and a por- 
 tion of his address to the Society at its first meeting, 
 on the Thursday following the election of its officers ; 
 and, further, in proof of the manner in which his 
 exertions were appreciated, I shall add the " resolu- 
 tion" presented to him, after the tendering of his 
 resignation. The document, which is in my posses- 
 sion, is on parchment. Mr. Davis Gilbert, on the 
 occasion of proposing the resolution, was the acting 
 interim president appointed by the council. 
 
 Gentlemen I return you my sincere thanks for the manner 
 in which you have drunk my health. I can hardly find lan- 
 guage sufficiently strong to express my sense of the honour 
 you have this day done me, in electing me your President. 
 
 When I recollect the illustrious names which have been 
 associated with this dignified situation, I cannot hut feel the 
 humility of my own pretensions. In one respect, however, I 
 will not yield to any of my predecessors, in zeal, and an ardent 
 wish to promote the objects of your Institution, and in devo- 
 tion to the cause of science, which is identified with your 
 existence as a body. 
 
 Gentlemen, when I look round the table, when I reflect 
 upon the manner in which a number of the Fellows now pre- 
 sent have distinguished themselves, and given pledges of future 
 
OF THE CHAIR OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY. 231 
 
 labours, I cannot but feel sure that the society will preserve 
 that prominent rank which it has so long held amongst the 
 learned bodies of Europe, and that its glory will be transmitted 
 by you, not impaired, but exalted, to posterity. 
 
 The last toast, one which is always given from this chair, 
 one connected with literature and the arts, the culture of which 
 is so intimately related to the progress of civilization, is the 
 advancement of science, and success to all institutions and 
 societies intended for promoting it. 
 
 I feel that this illustrious body stands sufficiently high to 
 be above all jealousy. The field of nature is so extensive and 
 unsubdued, as to call for all the labour and exertions that can 
 be made for its cultivation; and, in the twilight of our 
 scientific knowledge, there is no danger that there can be too 
 many constellations to give us light. 
 
 The concluding part of his address at the first 
 meeting of the society was as follows. The whole 
 of it will be found in his published Discourses, and 
 in the seventh volume of his Collected Works. 
 
 I trust in all our researches we shall be guided by that 
 spirit of philosophy, awakened by our great masters, Bacon 
 and Newton, that sober and cautious method of inductive 
 reasoning, which is the germ of truth and of permanency in 
 all the sciences. I trust that those amongst us who are so 
 fortunate as to kindle the light of new discoveries will use 
 them, not for the purpose of dazzling the organs of our intel- 
 lectual vision, but rather to enlighten us, by showing objects 
 to us in their true forms and colours ; that our philosophers 
 will attach no importance to hypotheses, except as leading to 
 the research after facts, so as to be able to discard or adopt 
 them at pleasure, treating them rather as parts of the scaffold- 
 ing of the building of science than as belonging either to its 
 
232 FllOM HIS ELECTION TO HIS RESIGNATION 
 
 foundations, materials, or ornaments 5 that they will look, 
 where it is possible, to practical applications in science, not, 
 however, forgetting the dignity of their pursuit, the noblest 
 end of which is to exalt the powers of the human mind, and 
 to increase the sphere of intellectual enjoyment, by enlarging 
 our views of nature, and of the power, wisdom, and goodness 
 of the Author of nature. 
 
 Gentlemen, the Society has a right to expect from those 
 amongst its Fellows gifted with adequate talents, who have 
 not yet laboured for science, some proofs of their zeal in 
 promoting its progress ; and it will always consider the success 
 of those who have already been contributors to our volumes as 
 a pledge of future labours. 
 
 For myself, I can only say, that I shall be most happy to 
 give, in any way, my assistance, either by advice or experi- 
 ments, in promoting the progress of discovery ; and though 
 your good opinion has, as it were, honoured me with a rank 
 similar to that of general, I shall always be happy to act as a 
 private soldier in the ranks of science. 
 
 Let us labour together, and steadily endeavour to gain 
 what are, perhaps, the noblest objects of ambition acqui- 
 sitions which may be useful to our fellow-creatures. Let it 
 not be said, at a period when our empire was at its highest 
 pitch of greatness, the sciences began to decline let us rather 
 hope that posterity will find, in the Philosophical Transactions 
 of our days, proofs that we were not unworthy of the times in 
 which we lived. 
 
 The expression of regret at his retirement, with 
 acknowledgment of his services, was worded as 
 follows, thus introduced : 
 
 At a meeting of the Royal Society, held on Thursday, the 
 loth November, 1827, the President stated from the chair 
 
OF THE CHAIR OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY. 233 
 
 that he was directed by the Council to submit the following 
 resolution to the Society, -which was unanimously agreed to : 
 
 " That the regret of the Fellows of the Royal Society be 
 expressed, in the strongest terms, to their late excellent Presi- 
 dent, Sir Humphry Davy, Baronet, for the state of health 
 which has unhappily compelled him to relinquish the chair, 
 together with their thanks for the unremitting diligence with 
 which he has at all times endeavoured to promote the interests 
 of science and the welfare of the Royal Society, and for the 
 learned and eloquent discourses with which, at each anniver- 
 sary during his presidency, he concluded the business of the 
 year." 
 
 His scientific labours, after he became president, 
 were chiefly directed to electro-magnetism and 
 electro-chemistry. In the first a new era was just 
 then opened by (Ersted's discovery of the magnetising 
 power of the pile of Volta, the foundation of that the 
 most wonderful of the sciences in its practical effects, 
 as witnessed in the electro-telegraph acting almost 
 independently of space and time. By the second, 
 electro-chemistry, he had a sanguine hope of effect- 
 ing, by means as simple as the safety lamp, a result, 
 in an economical point of view, hardly inferior to 
 that which the safety lamp afforded I allude to the 
 preservation of the copper sheathing of vessels, the 
 wear of which from the corroding action of sea-water 
 is so costly in the navy and the mercantile marine, 
 and which failed only in its efficacy (paradoxical as 
 this may appear) from being too efficacious that is, 
 from so completely protecting the metallic surface 
 
234 FROM HIS ELECTION TO HIS RESIGNATION 
 
 from waste, that the sheathing became foul, owing 
 to the adhesion of parasitical growths; and on the 
 part of the crews of the vessels, from a want of will 
 and energy to get rid of these growths by mechanical 
 means. Though a failure as to its results, this 
 discovery was considered by La Place as his greatest, 
 viewed, of course, in relation to the mental process 
 by which it was worked out. It is curious, too, to 
 observe that the principle on which it is founded; 
 the influence, the diverting influence, of a small 
 portion of one metal on a large surface of another 
 metal in an opposite electrical state, has come into 
 use as a metaphor in popular writing. Thus, in a 
 number of The Times, the writer, illustrating the 
 effect of the perception of the ridiculous, remarks 
 " This small faculty, which grave senators despise, 
 and delight to identify with levity and mockery, is 
 like one small nail, which, by means of Sir Humphry 
 Davy's discovery, acts with marvellous power in 
 diverting the galvanic current, and in saving the 
 whole of a ship's bottom from the most rapid 
 destruction." 
 
 His travels during this period, with one exception, 
 were chiefly limited to short excursions to different 
 parts of Great Britain and Ireland; the exception 
 was a voyage to Norway, which he undertook chiefly 
 for the purpose of testing the "protectors." The 
 journal which he kept of this voyage, and of his 
 travels in Norway and Sweden, is given in the 
 Memoirs of his Life. 
 
 Of the letters preserved pertaining to this time, 
 
OF THE CHAIR OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY. 235 
 
 the following is a selection. They are inserted as 
 helps to show his course of life, his travels, especially 
 his Scandinavian, and the insidious beginning of that 
 illness which obliged him to resign the chair of the 
 Royal Society, and seek rest in retirement. 
 
 To his Brother. 
 
 Raith, September 10, 1820. 
 
 My dear Brother I am very sorry you are indisposed, but 
 I hope your cold will be transient, without unpleasant conse- 
 quences. Your account of our friends at Penzance is what 
 I had anticipated. Your return would be a cordial both to 
 my mother and my aunts ; pray remember me in the kindest 
 manner both to them and my sisters. 
 
 Mr. Allan is here, and he, and Mr. Ferguson, and Professor 
 Leslie, all desired to be kindly remembered to you, and con- 
 gratulate you on your return in good health from so dangerous 
 a climate as that of Ceylon. Murray, the oxymuriatic, is 
 dead ; Dr. Hope is absent ; Mr. Henry Mackenzie is still in 
 blooming old age, and asked very kindly for you ; Sir James 
 Hall is as usual I am going to him next week ; Sir Walter 
 Scott, with whom I spent a few days at Melrose, is flourishing 
 in all the glories of a poet and a laird, and has bought 
 and improved a fine landed property on the banks of the 
 Tweed. 
 
 As all opposition to my election is at an end, I am in no 
 anxiety to return to London, and I shall take holidays while 
 I may. Pray write to me, under cover to Mr. Rose, at 
 Rokeby, near Greta Bridge, where I shall be about the 20th. 
 
 I am, my dear brother, 
 
 Very affectionately yours, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
236 FROM HIS ELECTION TO HIS RESIGNATION 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 Grosvenor Street, October 19, 1826. 
 
 My dear John I had intended to leave town for Cornwall 
 to-morrow, but I have been caught by an inquiry of the 
 greatest importance ; and till I can conclude I cannot stir. 
 
 T have ascertained (repeating some vague experiments of 
 (Ersted's ') that the voltaic pile is a powerful magnet, L e., that 
 by the union of the + and electricities, magnetism is produced 
 in the same combinations as heat. I am deeply occupied with 
 this, which promises to explain so much for the theory of the 
 earth. Do not say anything on the subject. I hope in two 
 or three days to be able to give you the whole details, of which 
 you will immediately perceive the importance. 
 
 Faraday has discovered a combination of chlorine and char- 
 coal. 
 
 Sir Everard Home has made out the use of the pigmentum 
 nigrum. 
 
 I write from the table where I am magnetising. I rejoice 
 your book 2 is so far advanced. If I can conclude my labours 
 by the 24th, I will come down before the session of the Royal 
 Society. If not, we shall meet about the 25th. You must 
 come to town to assist in putting me in the chair. 
 
 I am, my dear John, very sincerely, 
 
 Your affectionate friend and brother, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 The visit alluded to in this letter he was not able 
 to make at the time proposed. He accomplished it, 
 
 1 The account he received in a letter from Geneva was vague ; the 
 Danish philosopher's experiments were precise. A royal medal was 
 afterwards awarded him for them. 
 
 3 " An account of the Interior of Ceylon, and of its Inhabitants, with 
 Travels in that Island." 
 
OF THE CHAIR OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY. 237 
 
 however, in the following year; and it was his last 
 to his native place. In a letter to his mother, of the 
 8th December, 1821, he says, "I hope to be at 
 Penzance on Sunday the 15th, or Monday the 16th 
 December, when I trust I shall find you and my 
 sisters quite well and happy." 
 
 The next day, the 17th December, was his birth- 
 day, his forty-fourth. In twenty -three years, reck- 
 oning from his leaving home for Clifton, he had 
 risen to what he then was. On this occasion he 
 received the honour of a public dinner, given by the 
 magistrates and gentlemen of the town and its neigh- 
 bourhood. The entertainment was held on the 27th 
 December; an account of it was published in the 
 provincial papers. 
 
 The autumn preceding he had been in the High- 
 lands, from whence was the following letter : 
 
 To his Brother. 
 
 Garve, Inverness, August 11, 1821. 
 
 My dear John I have heard from Lady Davy that you 
 had been in town, and that your voyage was put off sine die.. 
 I hope now that it will not take place till the winter is over, 
 and that we shall meet again in the autumn. I shall certainly 
 be in town about the middle or before the end of October. 
 
 I have had a rough but agreeable journey and voyage 
 amongst the wildest parts of the highlands, the west of Ross- 
 shire. I have seen some beautiful lake scenery on Loch 
 Maree, and caught some salmon, in spite of bad weather, in 
 the river which runs from it into the sea, and which formerly 
 was the best river for angling in Scotland ; but they have now 
 placed the cruives close to the sea, and left only a single pool 
 for the honest angler. 
 
238 FROM HIS ELECTION TO HIS RESIGNATION 
 
 I shall take the campaign against the grouse here to-morrow, 
 in Sir George Mackenzie's moors. 
 
 The Highland lairds are all marching bag and hagpipe (not 
 baggage) to Edinburgh, with as strong expressions of loyalty 
 as if they had never been Jacobites, and Scotland is all in 
 commotion. I dined with Sir Walter Scott the day before 
 I left Edinburgh, who is in fact master of the royal revels. 
 I was much amused to see the deep interest he took in tailors, 
 plumassiers, and show dressmakers, who are preparing this 
 grand display of Scotch costume. 1 
 
 Pray address me, Post Office, Blair Athol, and believe me 
 to be, 
 
 Your very affectionate brother and friend, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 The mention of Loch Maree in this letter, brings 
 to my recollection what I heard many years after 
 when I visited the neighbourhood of that wild and 
 magnificent lake. First, how he had been nearly 
 purchasing the fishery of Pol Ewe, then in the 
 market, but failed, owing to some doubt about the 
 title ; next, the account I had of his reception in this 
 remote part of the Highlands, how he was welcomed 
 with acclamation by the people of the country on his 
 repeating his visit; showing, as my informant (the 
 old post- master at Gairloch) said, that he had won 
 their hearts by his kindly and sportsman-like manner. 
 There, too, I was reminded, learning that the grand 
 mountains skirting the lake are still the haunt of the 
 eagle, of the incident he had witnessed there the 
 
 1 On the occasion of the visit of George IV. to Edinburgh. 
 
OF THE CHAIR OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY. 239 
 
 teaching the young birds to fly an incident which 
 he narrates in his Salmonia, and which inspired those 
 verses (they will be found at the end of this chapter), 
 which, on my reading them from the MS. at Malta, 
 to a gentleman of high literary authority, the late 
 Mr. Hookam Frere, produced the exclamation, " This 
 indeed is poetry !" 
 
 The following letter, so gracious and graceful, I am 
 tempted to insert, and with a translation, that those 
 of my readers not familiar with the French language 
 may have an example of the courtesy of a prince 
 the Crown Prince of Denmark and of his expressed 
 regard for men of science : 
 
 Copenhagen, ce 4 Mars, 1823. 
 
 Monsieur En me rappelant les precedes aiinables et les 
 attentions dont vous avez use vis a vis de moi durant mon 
 sejour en Angleterre le desir de conserver une place dans 
 votre souvenir en est une consequence, et croyant ne pouvoir 
 mieux le meriter qu^en vous donnant des marques de mon 
 souvenir je nVempresse, Monsieur, de vous faire passer ces 
 lignes. Elles vous parviendront par Fentremise de notre 
 savant CErsted, qui se rend de Paris a Londres afin de 
 recueillir les progrks qu'ont fait les sciences physiques 
 dans la patrie de Davy et de Wollaston. Je me rejouis 
 dVvance des avantages pour les sciences qui r^sulteront des 
 communications directes qui vont exister entre vous, monsieur, 
 et mon savant compatriote. II aura a se louer de vos bonte's 
 et de Faccueil que lui feront les savants et les amis de la science 
 en Angleterre; par votre intercession Flnstitut de Londres 
 voudra permettre qu'il participe aux experiences qu'on pourra 
 faire avec son grand appareil voltai'que. Guide* par vous, il ne 
 manquera pas dans le but de son voyage. 
 
 Veuillez, je vous prie, me rappeler au souvenir du Dr. Wol- 
 
240 FROM HIS ELECTION TO HIS RESIGNATION 
 
 laston. Tai appris avec beaucoup de peine que le Docteur 
 Marcet est mort ; sa saute* lui promettait, ce me semble, une 
 vie plus longue. 
 
 L'ami Monticelli m'a ecrit au mois de Novembre passe de 
 vous avoir envoye une caisse de mineraux choisispar Compton 1 
 au nombre de 600, mais qu'il ne voulait point toucher la somme 
 con venue que le Chevalier Hamilton lui avait offerte sans 
 que vous la lui assigniez et sans savoir de vous Tarrivee de la 
 collection. 
 
 Si je ne me trompe, vous avez encore garde le manuscrit Latin 
 de Monticelli qu'il desirait vous faire lire ; veuillez le remetter 
 sous mon adresse au Charge d' Affaires Danois, M. Ciangewitz. 
 
 Je vous envois avec la presente une petite boite contenant 
 des echantillons tailles des opales colorees de Fieroe, lesquels 
 trouveront leur place dans la collection du Musee Britannique, 
 en cas qu'ils ne a*y trouveraient pas. 
 
 Malgre Thiver assez rude que nous avons eu ici, la sante de 
 mon epouse n'a pas ete alteree et je me porte tres-bien. 
 
 Je vous prie, monsieur, de faire mes compliments a Lady 
 Davy, et de me croire a jamais votre, 
 
 Toute affectionne, 
 
 CHRISTIAN FREDERIC. 
 
 Lorsque vous me repondrez, je vous prie de vous servir de la 
 langue Anglaise, que je puis assez bien comprendre sans pou- 
 voir Tecrire. 
 
 [TRANSLATION.] 
 
 Copenhagen, March 4, 1823. 
 
 Sir In recalling to my mind the kind and pleasing attentions which 
 I received from you during my stay in England, the desire to preserve a 
 place in your memory (and which I know not any better way to deserve 
 than by showing how much you remain in mine), makes me hasten to 
 address to you these lines. They will be placed in your hands by our 
 savant, (Ersted, who proceeds from Paris to London to acquaint himself 
 
 1 Lord Compton, afterwards Marquess of Northampton, for many years 
 President of the Royal Society. 
 
OF THE CHAIR OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY. 241 
 
 with the progress made in physical science in the country of Wollaston 
 and Davy. I rejoice in anticipating the advantages to science from these 
 direct communications about to arise between you, sir, and my learned 
 fellow-countryman. He will have you to thank for the civilities of 
 reception that may await him from the savartts and the friends of science 
 in England, through your introduction. The London Institution will 
 permit him to share in the experiments which are made by means of its 
 great voltaic battery. Under your guidance, he cannot fail perfectly to 
 attain the object of his journey. 
 
 May I beg you to recall me to the remembrance of Dr. Wollaston. I 
 have learned with much regret, that Dr. Marcet is dead. His health 
 (when we last met) seemed to promise a longer life. 
 
 My friend Monticelli writes to me in the month of November last, 
 that he has sent you a case of minerals chosen by Compton, to the 
 number of 600, but that he did not wish to receive the sum agreed on as 
 their price and offered to him by Sir W. Hamilton, until he knew 
 whether you had commissioned the payment, and until he had learned 
 from yourself of the safe arrival of the collection. 
 
 If you should still have in your possession the Latin MS. which 
 Monticelli wished you to read, will you return it under cover to me, 
 addressed to the Danish Charge d' Affaires, M. Ciangewitz. 
 
 I send you along with this a little box containing specimens cut from 
 the coloured opals of Fierce, which may find a place in the collection of 
 the British Museum, if not there already. 
 
 In spite of the severe winter we have experienced, the health of my 
 wife is nowise affected, and I am very well. 
 
 May I request you, sir, to present my compliments to Lady Davy, and 
 to believe that I am always your affectionate 
 
 CHRISTIAN FREDERIC. 
 
 When you reply to my letter, pray use the English language, which 
 I understand perfectly how to read, though not to write. 
 
242 FKOM HIS ELECTION TO HIS KESIGNATION 
 
 To his Brother. 
 
 October 30, 1823. 
 
 My dear John I received your letter from Edinburgh, and 
 I am very glad you arrived safe, and had a pleasant passage. 
 I envy you the power of bearing a sea voyage. I suffer not 
 only at the time, but some days after, which I believe is owing 
 to the irritable and diseased state of my liver, or some of the 
 organs connected with it. 
 
 I have not been well since my return to town. I have my 
 usual autumnal affection of the stomach and bowels. I have 
 had pains, apparently not inflammatory, in my hands and feet: 
 can this be gout, or is it merely symptomatic of the state of 
 the stomach ? 
 
 To add to my annoyances, I find my house, as usual, after 
 the arrangements made by the mistress of it, without female 
 servants ; but in this world we have to suffer and bear, and 
 from Socrates down to humble mortals, domestic discomfort 
 seems a sort of philosophical fate. 
 
 Dr. Wollaston is nearly well of his wound, which has given 
 him a good deal of pain. The explosion was from a common 
 powder-horn, but he cannot explain at all how. 
 
 I have just received your papers, and shall dispose of them 
 as you desire. Sir Everard [Home] has published his Lec- 
 tures a magnificent book as to engravings, chiefly in conse- 
 quence of the liberality of the Royal Society : and it contains 
 certainly a great mass of valuable matter, with much loose 
 speculation and microscopic physiology ; but this between our- 
 
 I have written to Mr. Ferguson lately; I have no doubt he 
 will be glad to see you at Raith, and it is a delightful house. 
 I am, my dear John, 
 
 Very affectionately yours, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
OF THE CHAIR OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY. 243 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 Firle Place, January 30, 1824. 
 
 My dear John I am very glad you have taken the resolu- 
 tions you communicated to me in your last letter. I am sure 
 they are the wisest you could take, and ultimately the most 
 likely to promote your happiness. Upon points of affection it 
 is only for the parties themselves to form just opinions of 
 what is really necessary to ensure the felicity of the marriage 
 state. Riches appear to me not at all necessary, but compe- 
 tence I think is ; and after this, more depends upon the temper 
 of the individual, than upon personal, or even intellectual cir- 
 cumstances. The finest spirits, the most exquisite wines, the 
 nectars and ambrosias of modern tables, will be all spoilt by a 
 few drops of bitter extract, and a bad temper has the same 
 effect on life, which is made up not of great sacrifices or duties, 
 but of little things, in which smiles and kindness, and small 
 obligations given habitually, are what win and preserve the 
 heart, and secure comfort. 
 
 I shall be in London the whole of March, and the first week 
 in April, and most happy to see you. 
 
 I have lately made a discovery, of which you will for many 
 reasons be glad. I have found a simple method of preserving 
 the copper sheeting of ships, which now rapidly corrodes. It 
 is by rendering it negatively electrical. The results are of the 
 most beautiful and unequivocal kind a mass of tin renders a 
 surface of copper two or three hundred times its own size 
 sufficiently electrical to have no action on sea-water. 
 
 I was led to the discovery by principle, as you will easily 
 imagine ; and the saving to government and the country by it 
 will be immense. 1 am going to apply it immediately to the 
 navy. I might have made an immense fortune by a patent 
 for this discovery ; but I have given it to my country, for in 
 everything connected with interest, I am resolved to live and 
 die at least " sans tache." 
 
 II "2 
 
244 FROM HIS ELECTION TO HIS RESIGNATION 
 
 Dr. Russell dined with me on Saturday. He seems a very 
 modest and intelligent man. He brought me a letter from Sir 
 W. Scott, and is the son of the professor. Lady Davy is in 
 good health. I had a letter from my mother a few days ago. 
 They were all well. 
 
 I am, my dear John, very sincerely, 
 
 Your affectionate friend and brother, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 Pray when you see Mr. Allan, say that he will find his 
 letter to me answered in the advertisement of the London 
 Committee. Our experiments proved the Aberdeenshire 
 granite to be excellent ; but I could not take notice of any 
 private applications. 
 
 The three following letters to Lady Davy give, 
 more briefly than the journal already referred to, an 
 account of his travels and impressions in his northern 
 continental tour. Lord Clifton, afterwards Lord 
 Darnley, the father of the present Earl, was of the 
 party, as was also Dr. Tiaks, an astronomical ob- 
 server, commissioned to determine the exact longi- 
 tude of Heligoland, to connect the Danish and British 
 survey. The voyage going and returning was made 
 in H. M. steam-ship Comet, which was placed at my 
 brother's disposal by the Board of Admiralty, to 
 enable him to test by trial the efficacy of the galvanic 
 protectors. He left England, embarking at Green- 
 wich, on the 30th June, and returned, arriving in 
 London on the 20th August. 
 
OF THE CHAIR OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY. 245 
 
 To Lady Davy. 
 
 Gottenburgh, July 20, 1824. 
 
 My dear Jane I wrote to you from Mandals immediately 
 after our arrival, but as the steam -boat was detained, and pro- 
 bably may be detained by stormy weather, there is a chance 
 that this letter will reach you as soon as the other. I have 
 hitherto had no chance of getting a letter forwarded by the 
 Norwegian post in any reasonable time, but I now think this 
 cannot fail, as Sir Benjamin Bloomfield has promised to send 
 it with his despatches. 
 
 I will not go over the miseries of stormy weather in a steam- 
 boat, which produced an indisposition from which I now hope 
 I shall soon recover, as it has ended in a violent bilious attack, 
 which has confined me to my bed for one day, and which still 
 keeps me on the sofa. 
 
 Had I been quite well I should have much enjoyed the 
 scenery and the forms of life I have seen ; and, as it is, they 
 have fed my mind with materials for thought, and shown me 
 that there is still much that is new both in nature and society. 
 
 The scenery about Mandals, which I have described in my 
 former letter, is the most beautiful and varied I have seen ; 
 but all the southern coast of Norway abounds in peculiar and 
 extraordinarily fine and even sublime features. Thousands of 
 islands, some of bare granite, some covered with birch, and 
 alder, and roses, and woodbine, and some with the more gloomy 
 and grand covering of pine wood, rise in ocean, the fiords or 
 lochs of which resembled those of our Scotch fresh water lakes, 
 and they would not be known to be salt, except from the im- 
 mense quantities of beautiful medusas, or blubber fish, of a 
 hundred brilliant colours, which move about in the green 
 depths like animated flowers, some a foot in diameter, and of 
 all sizes, down to an inch. 
 
 The scenery in Sweden is of a wilder, and I think inferior, 
 kind : there is too much pine wood and granite, and the tnoun- 
 
246 FROM HIS ELECTION TO HIS RESIGNATION 
 
 tains are less elevated ; yet there are, in the road from the fron- 
 tiers to Gottenburgh, some scenes of exquisite beauty. 
 
 I have seen two of the great falls of Norway that of the 
 Torridale, which is almost equal to that of Shafhausen, except 
 that it is disfigured by sawmills and that of the Glommen, 
 the largest body of water in Scandinavia. It is a grand 
 cataract, but wants wood. Trolhotta, in Sweden, is superior 
 to them both, and is equal to any I have seen. The Gotha, 
 I think, sends down more water than the Rhine ; and the 
 number of falls, and the diversity of their character, make up 
 for the want of perpendicularity. It is all green water and 
 foam, with all possible variety of wood-clothed water for nearly 
 half a mile. 
 
 I have so filled my paper, that I have little room for de- 
 scribing adventures and people. The Norwegians entertained 
 us most hospitably, but in a way peculiarly their own : Din- 
 ners of the most singular kind, where the ladies of the house 
 waited at table ; toasts and songs given whilst the plates were 
 going round, and a cuisine remarkable for abundance, not for 
 elegance. Nothing could exceed the misery of travelling in 
 Sweden, or the wretchedness and dirt of the inns. As far as 
 I have seen the people, I dislike them exceedingly. Lord 
 Clifton has been an invalid as well as myself, and is gone home 
 in the steam-boat. I shall stay here till I am well, and then 
 go home by Copenhagen, and perhaps take the steam-boat at 
 Altona, if the weather be fine. I hope to be at Altona about 
 the 2nd of August, and in London by the 7th or 8th. Write 
 to me at either of these places, as you find the time suit. God 
 bless you ! I hope you are well and happy. 
 
 I am, your most affectionate friend, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
OF THE CHAIE OF THE EOYAL SOCIETY. 247 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 Copenhagen, July 28, 1824. 
 
 I wrote to you, my dear Jane, from Gottenburgh, under 
 Sir Benjamin Bloomfield's cover, and requested Mr. Farquhar 
 to send it to your address. Not having heard from England 
 since my departure, I shall address this to you at Spa, con- 
 cluding that if you have left it, you will have established some 
 safe mode of communication of your letters. 
 
 My illness continued for three days at Gottenburgh, and 
 prevented me so long from enjoying or seeing the Swedish 
 society, though I was every day invited. I have, since my 
 recovery, taken my water gruel at two English merchants 1 
 houses, who live in the Swedish fashion ; and as the envoy 
 was of the party, these dinners ought to give an idea of their 
 fetes. There was hospitality and plenty of good wine, but I 
 cannot say much for the cuisine. Sir B. Bloomfield has been 
 very attentive to me, and came and sat with me every day by 
 my sofa. He is an agreeable, good humoured, active, intelli- 
 gent, and business-like courtier, and will bear this stamp to 
 his grave. He seems fitted for a court, and talks of the King 
 of Sweden as an ambassador ought to do. I found Lord 
 
 o 
 
 Castlereagh with him, who has spent a good deal of his time 
 with me. He is exceedingly improved, and I think very 
 highly both of his talents and his kindness of heart and 
 manner. 
 
 I was anxious to leave Gottenburgh, for, to tell the honest 
 truth, I dislike Sweden exceedingly ; but the governor urged 
 me to stay a day to see the Crown Prince. He arrived at 
 night ; I was presented to him in the morning, and spent some 
 hours of the day with him, and dined with him and the 
 Princess. Prince Joseph Oscar is really a very fine young 
 man, well informed, enlightened with some knowledge of 
 science, a pupil of Berzelius, and, for twenty-four, with more 
 liberal views and just ideas of human nature than I had anti- 
 
248 FROM HIS ELECTION TO HIS RESIGNATION 
 
 cipated, a friend to general education, and likely to be a 
 King of a new school. The Princess, the grandaughter of 
 the Empress Josephine, has the most beautiful complexion I 
 ever saw, and is a very striking person, only seventeen, finely, 
 but, I think, rather feebly formed, graceful, agreeable, and 
 playful, and unaffected in manner. She talked to me of her 
 grandmother, and I could find hardly any other topic, except 
 Trolhotta, which she was going to see. 
 
 I was three days on my land journey from Gottenburgh 
 here : the first forty miles the scenery was agreeable, after it was 
 barrenness. The Swedish inns are the worst in Europe, the 
 roads amongst the best. The scenery hilly, with cairns of 
 granite, a good deal of small wood, birch, beach, oak, and 
 alder, and now and then dark pine forests. Sweden is more 
 like the edge of the highlands than any country I have seen. 
 
 I came here from Helsingburgh by water in four hours. 
 Copenhagen is a fine city, much finer than Vienna, but capi- 
 tals are so much like each other, that descriptions of them are 
 like those of eggs they differ in size and spots only. The 
 people are good looking. Prince Christian is expected here 
 to-night. God bless, you ! 
 
 I am, your most affectionate friend, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 I am, for the first time since I left England, in a tolerable 
 inn. Women could hardly travel in the north, at least women 
 with any refinement. 
 
 Copenhagen, July 31. 
 
 An accident has happened to the Lubeck stearn-boat, so that 
 I am detained till Tuesday. I have seen the collections and 
 library here, which are very good. I spent a very pleasant 
 day yesterday with the Prince and Princess, and dined with 
 them. He was very kind, walked me round his own grounds, 
 and took me to the King's park. She is grown very hand- 
 
OF THE CHAIR OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY. 249 
 
 some, and her complexion is become clear, with a fine changing 
 colour. They appear to live very happily, and are much be- 
 loved. I dine with them again to-morrow. 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 London, August 20, 1824. 
 
 My dear Jane T have had only one letter from you since 
 my voyage, which was addressed Edinburgh, and which I 
 found here on my return two days ago. I am very glad you 
 enjoyed your journey, and that you are well and amused. I 
 have written to you four times ; the last letter was from 
 Copenhagen : I hope you have received all my communica- 
 tions. After I wrote to you I dined with a court party at 
 Prince Christian's, and took my leave of their Royal High- 
 nesses, who continued their courtesies and kindness till my 
 departure. 
 
 The day before I left Copenhagen I saw Mr. Foster, who 
 had been absent, and he took me to dine with the Dutch mi- 
 nister, where I met the corps diplomatique, containing, amongst 
 other persons, Baron de Cazes. The details of dinners are 
 much the same, therefore I will not occupy paper with. them. 
 
 I went from Copenhagen to Kiel, in Hoist ein, in a steam 
 packet. We were twenty-six hours on the sea ; but our voy- 
 age was along the coast, and between fertile and green islands, 
 so that we had almost always smooth water. The coasts of 
 the Danish islands are low, but green, and well wooded, and 
 put me in mind of the banks of the Thames, on the Essex 
 side, but of course without any of the commercial or artificial 
 accompaniments of our wonderful metropolis. 
 
 From Kiel, a pretty town, with more hill and wood round 
 it than I had seen before in Denmark, I went over wretched 
 roads in a heavy cart or waggon to Hamburgh. Heath and 
 meadow, and sandy steppes and dark pine woods, accompanied 
 
250 FKOM HIS ELECTION TO HIS EESIGNATION 
 
 my view all the way ; and two days were wearied out in this 
 unprofitable and unpicturesque journey. Hamburgh burst 
 upon me from these dreary solitudes, as a fine, busy, and active 
 commercial town, of the scale of Bristol, but dull, from being 
 only the abode of northern people, " qui fumant et non sal- 
 tant," to use the Hungarian post-master's bad Latin. At 
 Altona I was received by Professor Schumacher, the King of 
 Denmark's astronomer, who was profuse of kindness and hos- 
 pitality, and who gave me fine compliments and better din- 
 ners. Here the Comet steam-boat arrived the day after me. 
 And finding that the celebrated Geometer Gauss, the rival of 
 Laplace in pure mathematics, was taking the last triangle of 
 the kingdom of Hanover at Bremen, I sent the steam-boat 
 round to Bremen, and in Schumacher's carriage crossed the 
 kingdom of Hanover. I spent two very pleasant days at 
 Bremen, and dined with Olbers, the celebrated discoverer of 
 two of the new planets, and had most excellent cheer. I was 
 delighted with Olbers and Gauss, as with Schumacher : their 
 amiable characters and high moral qualities made me proud 
 of the effects of intellectual pursuits in a country where they 
 confer less distinction than in France or England. These 
 three men were gentlemen in all their feelings, and full of 
 liberality. 
 
 From Bremen here, three days, two of storm ; and such a 
 gale as never blew in the north sea : the steam-boat, though 
 covered with surge, gallantly made head against wind and 
 wave. And, after sickness, which leaves me weak, here I am 
 safe. Had a paddle given way, nothing could have saved us. 
 
 You were probably on the Elbe at the same time that I was, 
 and you might }\&VQ floated down a letter to me. I am at the 
 end of my paper, or I would give you two or three incidents : 
 one which shows " the greatness and nothing of a name," I 
 will give. It was a bright and beautiful moonlight, I went to 
 see " Klopstock's grave" under a linden tree, in a beautiful 
 village near Altona. Close to it was " a Vauxhall ;" I asked 
 
OF THE CHAIR OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY. 251 
 
 two or three of junketting parties, " where Klopstock lay." 
 It was only from the fourth person 1 learnt where the greatest 
 of the poets of Germany sleeps ! 
 
 Address me still here. God bless you ! 
 
 Your most affectionate, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 To his Mother. 
 Norman Court, near Stockbridge, January 2, 1824. 
 
 My dear Mother A merry Christmas and a happy new 
 year to you and my sisters, and all our friends at Penzance. 
 
 I am here on a shooting party, and I am going to make two 
 or three other visits in Hampshire, but I shall be in town again 
 by the llth. 
 
 I have changed my house in London. I am now at 26, 
 Park Street, Grosvenor Square. I have got a new house, 
 more in sunshine, and in a better situation. 
 
 I never lose sight of the promise given me at the Admiralty 
 about Mr. Millett, 1 and I can only repeat what I said in my 
 last letter. 
 
 Do not mind any lies you may see in the newspapers, copied 
 from a Portsmouth paper, about the failure of one of my ex- 
 periments. All the experiments are successful) more even than 
 I could have hoped for. 
 
 I have had so much to do, that I have not been able to be 
 absent from London more than a week or ten days at a time, 
 or I would have paid you a visit. I intend, however, cer- 
 tainly to do this next year, when I hope John and I may come 
 down together. 
 
 With kindest love to my sisters, I am, my dear mother, 
 Your very affectionate son, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 1 A lieutenant in the navy, married to his youngest sister. 
 
252 FKOM HIS ELECTION TO HIS EESIGNATION 
 
 To T. A . Knight, Esq. 
 Trentham, Newcastle-under-Lyne, September 13 [1825?]. 
 
 My dear Sir I have been in Ireland, but 
 
 I was not so fortunate as to meet Mr. Andrew Knight.. 1 I 
 believe I was in the north, when he was in the south. I hope 
 he was pleased with the excursion. Notwithstanding the state 
 of civilization, and the outrages of party in that country, I 
 always visit it with pleasure. 
 
 You remember how often we have discussed the subject of 
 the parr. I caught some in Ireland nearly ten inches long, 
 but with the blue marks decided, and one a female. I think 
 it merely a variety of the common trout, of which the colour 
 and the form are so much affected by the nature of the water 
 in which it feeds, and which transmits its peculiarities to its 
 offspring. I wish Mr. Andrew would be so good as to try the 
 experiment of feeding two or three parrs in a stew : I think 
 they would increase in size, and determine the question of 
 
 their nature. 2 
 
 #*'# ' : i 
 
 I am, my dear sir, 
 
 Always your sincerely obliged friend, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 1 The son of his distinguished friend, who, sad to say, when in his 
 prime of manhood, full of promise, amiable and talented, beloved and 
 respected, lost his life by the accidental discharge of a fowling-piece. A 
 subsequent letter, whicfrVill be given in the next chapter, expresses my 
 brother's feelings on the occasion : attached to the father, he was hardly 
 less so to the son, whom he had known almost from a boy. 
 
 2 The question has now been determined, viz., that the parr is the 
 young salmon or sea trout, and not a variety of the common trout. Its 
 size seems to vary in different rivers, according to the amount of food; 
 where there is abundance, growing rapidly ; where food is scanty, attain- 
 ing but a small size, before acquiring its silvery scales, which hide its 
 transverse markings preparatory to migrating seaward. 
 
OF THE CHAIR OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY. 253 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 Lowther Castle, Penrith, September 8. 
 
 My dear Sir 1 wanted not the early fall of the leaf, and 
 the rain, and the flooded rivers, to remind me of the time 
 when I offered to pay you a visit. In this northern part of 
 England the autumn is rather premature this year, and 
 though the long summer drought is a bad omen, yet I hope 
 before the middle of September the first rains may have spent 
 themselves, as is the case in the south of Europe, to the 
 climate of which our own this year nearly assimilates. 
 
 I have made a tour in Ireland and Scotland, and not being 
 able to fish, I have studied a little the state of Ireland and of 
 the distressed part of Scotland. I am convinced that a new 
 system must be adopted with respect to religion in one coun- 
 try, and trade in the other, if it is not the intention of govern- 
 ment to incur the evils of civil war. 
 
 The potatoes failed in part of Ireland. Was I right in 
 recommending to some farmers, when the plant was puny, to 
 cut off the blossoms to prevent the formation of seed ? l 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 Norman Court, January 2 [1826 ?]. 
 
 My dear Sir I wrote about a week ago to Mr. A. Knight, 
 offering a few hints upon the preservation of eggs in relation 
 to incubation. I was very busy at the moment, or I should 
 have entered more fully into the plan of some experiments on 
 the subject, which I hope he may be induced to make. It 
 will be a great point if the principle of life can be made to 
 sleep in the ova of birds and fishes as it is in the seeds of 
 plants. 
 
 1 The concluding part wanting torn off. 
 
254 FROM HIS ELECTION TO HIS RESIGNATION 
 
 I wish Mr. A. would try if eggs that have been kept three' 
 or four months in lime-water will have retained the vital 
 principle. I have more hope in electrical than in chemical 
 interferences such as covering eggs with resin or varnish, or 
 exclusion of air by machinery. Lime-water seems to prevent 
 the action of air on the egg by its electrical effects. 
 
 I have had some conversation with Mr. Peel on the subject 
 of a society for the introduction of new races of animals. 1 
 He has taken it up earnestly, and I am sure if we can set it 
 a-going it will be very popular. 
 
 At the meeting of Parliament I hope something may be 
 done. 
 
 With affectionate respects to Mrs. and Miss Knight, and 
 sincere wishes for many happy years to all your family, I am, 
 my dear sir, 
 
 Always your obliged friend and servant, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 To his eldest Sister. 
 
 London, July 2, 1826. 
 
 My dear Sister I have been much grieved and somewhat 
 alarmed to hear of my mother's illness. Pray write me by 
 return of post, and say how she is, and give me a line every 
 second day till she is convalescent. I hope, however, most 
 ardently, that she is no longer suffering. 
 
 Lady Davy is quite well, and was never better ; but I have 
 been much indisposed, and can now write with difficulty from 
 rheumatism in my right hand and arm. I think I shall not 
 be well till the weather changes. 
 
 Sir Frederick Adam 2 is in England. He and Lady Adam 
 
 1 Resulting in the formation of the Zoological Society. 
 
 2 Then Lord High Commissioner in the Ionian Islands, where I was 
 at the time, on the medical staff of the army. 
 
OF THE CHAIE OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY. 255 
 
 dine with us next week. I have heard from John since he 
 left him ; he was quite well. 
 
 I hope John will be promoted, and return in October for 
 two or three months, and I trust we shall see you all well 
 together in November. If it please God, I will certainly 
 be at Penzance the last week in October or the first in 
 November. 
 
 With affectionate love and kind duty to my mother, I am, 
 my dear sister, 
 
 Your affectionate brother, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 The hope expressed in this letter as to our mother's 
 recovery, and a family meeting at Penzance, was 
 never realised. Her illness proved fatal; and his 
 illness followed, ushering in that paralytic attack 
 from which he never completely recovered. 
 
 It was about this time that he and Mr. Words- 
 worth last met; and then the poet was impressed by 
 his altered appearance and declining bodily strength. 
 
 Mr. Wordsworth, writing to a friend in Malta, the 
 late Sir John Stoddart, specially notices this; his 
 letter is of the 23rd July, 1831. I am tempted to 
 give an extract with which I have been favoured by 
 the gentleman to whom it was addressed, believing 
 it to be interesting even in a reflex sense, as regards 
 the tone of mind of the writer. The letter is from 
 the poet's home, Eydal Mount, Ambleside : 
 
 I became acquainted with Sir Humphry Davy when he was 
 a lecturer at the Royal Institution ; and have since seen him 
 
256 FROM HIS ELECTION TO HIS RESIGNATION 
 
 frequently at his own house in London, occasionally at mine in 
 the country and at Lord Lonsdale's, at Lowther, where I have 
 been under the same roof with him several days at a time. 
 Of his scientific attainments I am altogether an incompetent 
 judge ; nor did he talk upon those subjects except with those 
 who had made them their study. His conversation was very 
 entertaining, for he had seen much, and he was naturally a 
 very eloquent person. The most interesting day I ever passed 
 with him was in this country. We left Patterdale in the 
 morning, he, Sir Walter Scott, and myself, and ascended to 
 the top of Helvellyn together. Here Sir H. left us, and we 
 all dined together at my little cottage in Grasmere, 1 which 
 you must remember so well. When I last saw him, which 
 was for several days at Lowther (I forget the year), though he 
 was apparently as lively as ever in conversation, his constitu- 
 tion was clearly giving way ; he shrank from his ordinary 
 exercises of fishing and on the moors. I was much concerned 
 to notice this, and feared some unlucky result. There were 
 points of sympathy between us, but fewer than you might 
 perhaps expect. His scientific pursuits had hurried his mind 
 into a course where I could not follow him ; and had diverted 
 it in proportion from objects with which I was best acquainted. 
 
 The following extracts belong to this period : 
 
 It is now eleven years since I have written anything in this 
 book [a common note-book]. I take it up again, February 17, 
 
 1 The little cottage in Grasmere was that at Townend, which the 
 poet first occupied after his marriage, and in which he continued to reside 
 till 1808. The time of this visit, of which he had such pleasant recol- 
 lections, and which are still the recollections of his venerable and revered 
 widow, was about 1806. The dinner, she has told me, was in the 
 kitchen, in accordance, I may remark, with "the plain living" of the "high 
 thinking" and gifted family. "Never," she said, "were we happier." 
 
OF THE CHAIR OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY. 257 
 
 1821. I have gained much since that period, and I have lost 
 something ; yet I am thankful to Infinite Wisdom for bless- 
 ings and benefits, and bow with reverence beneath His chas- 
 tisements, which have been always in mercy. May every 
 year make me better, more useful, less selfish, and more 
 devoted to the cause of humanity and science. 
 
 When I reflect upon the world, I cannot help sometimes 
 entertaining the idea as if man were but the sport of some 
 loftier intelligence, as if he were produced rather to show 
 the power and benevolence than the perfect wisdom of the 
 Divine mind, a sort of creative sport of Divine energy. 
 For in all the other productions belonging to the globe 
 there are fixed and simple laws which always produce their 
 results uniformly, and according to an invariable order; but 
 reason, which is considered the highest gift of man, and 
 his passions, lead to results the most extraordinary and un- 
 expected. 
 
 Man is made without clothing, and no sooner than he has 
 discovered the means of defending himself from the external 
 elements, than he instantly creates useless forms of finery, 
 and tortures organs into the most uncouth shapes, to gratify 
 certain capricious ideas of fashion or beauty. 
 
 The first display of reason in New South Wales is that the 
 savage extracts one of his fore teeth. In another country 
 the whole skin is cut and pickled. In China the women 
 squeeze their feet into shoes, and torture themselves more 
 than if they went bare footed ; and in England men compress 
 themselves in stays : painting the skin with noxious substances 
 is another effect of reason. 
 
 Beasts fight animated by the passion of love, and the 
 strongest perpetuate the species. Men fight and destroy each 
 other without being animated by any passions at all, but 
 because persons whom they support by their labour quarrel 
 
 S 
 
258 FROM HIS ELECTION TO HIS RESIGNATION 
 
 about some slip of land, or some river, or some desert, which 
 is of no importance whatever to the combatants. 
 
 Eeason induces men to build houses for shelter ; but their 
 great expenses and labour are in erecting monuments which 
 are of no use at all, in order that they may display vain glory, 
 and be able (as by triumphal arches, columns, &c.) to insult 
 other nations. 
 
 How much might be written on this subject. 
 
 The lines which follow are those referred to a few 
 pages back, when mentioning Loch Maree : 
 
 THE EAGLES. 
 
 The mighty birds still upward rose 
 
 In slow but constant and most steady flight, 
 
 The. young ones following ; and they would pause, 
 
 As if to teach them how to bear the light, 
 
 And keep the solar glory full in sight. 
 
 So went they on till, from excess of pain, 
 
 I could no longer bear the scorching rays ; 
 
 And when I looked again they were not seen, 
 
 Lost in the brightness of the solar blaze. 
 
 Their memory left a type and a desire : 
 
 So should I wish towards the light to rise, 
 
 Instructing younger spirits to aspire 
 
 Where I could never reach amidst the skies, 
 
 And joy below to see them lifted higher, 
 
 Seeking the light of purest glory's prize : 
 
 So would I look on splendour's brightest day 
 
 With an undazzled eye, and steadily 
 
 Soar upward full in the immortal ray, 
 
OF THE CHATR OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY. 259 
 
 Through the blue depths of the unbounded sky, 
 Portraying wisdom's matchless purity ; 
 Before me still a lingering ray appears, 
 But broken and prismatic, seen through tears, 
 The light of joy and immortality. 
 
 For the next lines, descriptive of a charming spot, 
 interesting from associations as well as for its 
 natural beauties, I am indebted to the respected 
 proprietor of Ham Hall, Jesse Watts Russell, Esq. 
 This gentleman, in a note with which he has 
 favoured me, accompanying the copy of verses, 
 designates their author as his " late valued friend," 
 and mentions that they were written in the first 
 leaves of an Album that Sir Humphry had sug- 
 gested : he speaks too of his " vivid recollection of 
 the many happy days Sir H. had passed under his 
 roof." 
 
 I must add that, for the insertion of them, I am 
 fully sensible I expose myself to the charge of 
 indiscretion, as being open to objection owing to the 
 want of that polish and finish which verses require 
 to fit them for publication. My only excuse is that 
 their omission would be, as it were, the leaving out 
 a trait of his social habits and character. 
 
 ILAM. 
 
 Ham Hall, September 11, 1825. 
 If Inspiration ever dwells 
 In Nature's scenes, amidst the cells 
 
 s 2 
 
260 FROM HIS ELECTION TO HIS RESIGNATION 
 
 Of mossy rocks, by crystal fountains, 
 
 Beneath the shade of wooded mountains, 
 
 Thy varied scenes may well supply, 
 
 Ham, some touch of minstrelsy. 
 
 For there is sure poetic ground ; 
 
 Hills rise in majesty around, 
 
 The meadows are of emerald green, 
 
 The groves that close the solemn scene 
 
 In wildest form and sylvan guise 
 
 Steep as the rocky cliffs arise, 
 
 So deep their shade, they well might seem 
 
 Some wild, unhaunted solitude, 
 
 Fit for the poetfs midday dream, 
 
 Where Nature, still untamed and rude, 
 
 And by no human fancy dfest, 
 
 Retains her pure and virgin vest. 
 
 Beneath the wood, a crystal wave 
 
 Gushes from forth a moss-grown cave, 
 
 Pure, fresh, and living, from the rock, 
 
 Rent by some earthquake"^ awful shock, 
 
 In the elder time, asunder, 
 
 And falling thence in foam and thunder 
 
 To meet a kindred stream, whose name 
 
 Is blended with the classic fame 
 
 Of him, the Fisherman, who caught 
 
 The happy art of wakening thought, 
 
 Pious, vigorous, and chaste, 
 
 From simplest subjects, and with taste, 
 
 Quaint and antique, but yet refined, 
 
 Drew portraits of the Christian mind ; 
 
 Such as adorned the elder time 
 
 In worthies of our church sublime. 
 
 Haunting the lovely scenes of Dove, 
 
 Pure recollections may we prove, 
 
 And where the awful cliffs arise, 
 
OF THE CHAIR OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY. 261 
 
 In sober mood philosophize. 
 Five thousand years have passed away, 
 And her bright waters on have rolled, 
 Since the exterminating day, 
 When rose the ocean, dark and cold, 
 And generations swept aside, 
 And all the power and all the pride 
 Of human things and mortal birth, 
 The might and beauty of the earth, 
 And the loose stones and ruin stand 
 Records untouched by mortal hand 
 Of what no mortal tongue had told 
 Revealed to the saints of old. 
 
 Amidst these scenes where Nature wild 
 May suit the Muses' purest child, 
 Art has not failed. In gothic dress, 
 And peering o'er the wilderness, 
 A stately modern pile appears, 
 And its embattled turrets rears ; 
 Not dark, and frowning, and severe, 
 Clothed in a rugged front austere, 
 But light in free and easy grace, 
 Fit for the genius of the place, 
 Hospitality refined, 
 Pure in hand, and heart, and mind ; 
 Walls scarcely tenanted, 1 yet decked 
 By the winged architect, 
 Whose home is of our flowery spring, 
 Who rests her light and vagrant wing 
 Only where the air is free and pure, 
 And on a work that may endure, 
 
 1 *' Sir H. Davy was one of my first guests in the new house." A 
 note by Mr. Watts Russell. 
 
262 FROM HIS ELECTION TO HIS RESIGNATION, ETC. 
 
 The prophet of the sunny morn 
 Of generations yet unborn. 
 
 Where yon tower is hid in bowers, 
 And virgin hands shall strew fresh flowers, 
 A wondrous work of art will stand, 
 Framed by a powerful master's hand ; 
 One worthy of that noble age 
 When Greece awoke and was the stage 
 Of highest acts, and heroes shone 
 Allied to gods, breathing in stone 
 A wondrous work, a simple story 
 Of goodness better e'en than glory, 
 And reared by what can never die 
 The purest filial piety. 1 
 
 Some future poet here may sing 
 Of those who now this roof beneath 
 . Have stayed of time the fleeting wing, 
 Still to prolong the vernal breath 
 Which summer steals from spring, 
 To carry through the whole of life, 
 Free from the storms of care and strife, 
 The rose's odour and its balm, 
 And in the dewy evening's calm 
 In hope and heartfelt joy to prove 
 How blessed a family of love. 
 
 H. D. 
 
 1 A monument of white marble by Chantry one of his most admired 
 works in the little church at Ham, erected by Mrs. Watts Russell in 
 memory of her father, Mr. Watts. Adjoining, in the village, is another 
 monument of affection, one from Mr. Watts Russell in memory of this lady, 
 his wife, in form after the old English model of Queen Elinor's Cross, 
 with this peculiarity, a fountain of pure water at its base, not running to 
 waste (happily typical of her revered character), first suppling a cistern 
 for the use of the villagers and next in its overflowing troughs for the use 
 of cattle. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 HIS LAST ILLNESS AND HIS LAST DAYS. 
 
 THIS last portion of his life was short, barely 
 extending over two years, reckoning from the time, 
 not of incipient ailment and a somewhat precarious 
 state of health of longer duration, but from indispo- 
 sition so severe as to render him unequal to the 
 duties of President of the Royal Society, and to 
 engaging in original scientific research, in which he 
 so much delighted. It is sadly contrasted with any 
 preceding period, having been one of uninterrupted 
 bodily suffering, of struggle and endurance, of fluctu- 
 ating feeling, of hope and despair hope of recovery 
 gradually waning with increase of bodily debility. 
 It was ushered in by a severe attack of a paralytic 
 kind, shortly after his last election, viz., in the begin- 
 ning of January, 1827. Previously, his health for 
 three or four years had begun to fail him ; his con- 
 stitution, hitherto so resisting and vigorous, seemed 
 to be giving way ; he was specially subject to 
 attacks, bilious and rheumatic as he considered them, 
 towards the fall of the year, of which mention is 
 made in some of the preceding letters. His dis- 
 abling, severe illness, began suddenly, when on a 
 
264 HIS LAST ILLNESS 
 
 visit in Sussex, at Fiiie Place, the seat of Viscount 
 Gage. I was in England at the time, and as soon 
 as possible joined him in town, and I had the satis- 
 faction of accompanying him into Italy, through 
 France and Piedmont, as far as Ravenna, the journey 
 to which we accomplished between the 22nd January 
 and the 20th February. An account of this journey 
 is to be found in the Memoirs of his Life. It was 
 undertaken by the advice of his medical advisers, 
 his old and attached friend, the late Dr. Babington, 
 and Dr. (now Sir Henry) Holland. At Ravenna, 
 where I had to leave him, having to return to the 
 Ionian Islands, my then station on the medical staff 
 of the army, he was so fortunate as to find in the 
 vice-legate, Monsignor Spada Medici, a friend " a 
 friend in need, a friend indeed " at whose invitation, 
 when there was a difficulty in procuring lodgings, 
 he accepted the use of apartments in the apostolical 
 palace. He remained on the continent till the 
 October following, when he returned to England ; on 
 the 6th of that month he re-landed at Dover. Part 
 of the winter he passed in London, part of it with 
 his old friend, Mr. Poole, at Nether Stowey, in 
 Somersetshire. Again, by the advice of his phy- 
 sicians, he left home for the continent, setting out in 
 the last week of March March 29, 1828. His 
 companion this time was his godson, Mr. Tobin, the 
 eldest son of his early friend, Mr. James Tobin, who 
 had just then completed his medical education at 
 Heidelberg. Going by way of France and Belgium, 
 he crossed from the Rhine to the Danube ; and from 
 
AND HIS LAST DAYS. 265 
 
 that river, high up at Donauworth, proceeded slowly 
 southward towards Italy, where he intended to 
 winter. The advanced spring, and the whole of the 
 summer and the early autumn, he passed amongst 
 his favourite haunts in Illyria and Styria, changing 
 from place to place, guided chiefly by temperature; 
 as the heat of the season increased, ascending to 
 cool Alpine regions ; as it declined, descending to the 
 lower and warmer levels, amusing himself as well as 
 he could at the same time that is, as far as his 
 strength permitted with shooting and fishing, and 
 the pursuit of natural history. Nor was he without 
 intellectual occupation: infirm of limbs, his mind 
 was ever active; and at times, as he expresses, it in 
 one of his letters, he " was not without heroic 
 thoughts." It was in these his wanderings in quest 
 of health, that he continued and finished most of the 
 dialogues which were published after his decease. 
 
 Laybach, which had peculiar attractions for him, 
 and might be considered as his headquarters in this 
 region, he left on the 31st October. These attrac- 
 tions were, its situation near a fine river, its pic- 
 turesque surrounding country, its pleasant climate, 
 and, not the least, the having found at the inn where 
 he stopped, a kind little nurse, the daughter of the 
 innkeeper, of whom mention will be found made in 
 some of the following letters, showing, I may remark, 
 how sensible he was of attention, and how grateful 
 for it when cheerily offered. After entering Italy, 
 he halted on his way to Rome only at Bologna, and 
 there but a day. He arrived at Rome on the 18th 
 
266 HIS LAST ILLNESS 
 
 November. There he occupied himself in his usual 
 manner, chiefly, however, in literary labour. Writing 
 from thence on the 17th January, he says: "I have 
 finished three of my Dialogues, and I hope I shall 
 live to finish the other two." Adding, " I believe 
 the works on which I am now engaged may be 
 useful, and may give useful pleasure, and it is only 
 upon this ground that I am anxious about their 
 preservation and appearance ; and I cannot help 
 having a little of a feeling expressed by Wordsworth, 
 that the fame they produce the author [alluding, no 
 doubt, to Salmonia, which had then been published 
 and praised] is an omen that they are not useless 
 even to the present generation." On the 18th 
 February he went into the Campagna on horseback, 
 and writing on the following day, expressed hope, 
 not indeed of recovery of his entire strength of limbs, 
 but at least their best "invalid tone." The very 
 next day, just as he had finished an addition to the 
 last Dialogue of his " Consolations in Travel," he 
 experienced a fresh paralytic attack, affecting his 
 right side. Dr. Jenks, an English physician, then 
 practising in Rome, who was called in, thus describes 
 it in a letter of the 23rd, addressed to Lady Davy: 
 
 I may premise my statement [he says] by telling you that 
 Sir Humphry has passed his time in this city in almost entire 
 seclusion, sometimes pursuing his favourite amusement of 
 shooting, sometimes engaged in experiments upon the Torpedo, 
 and other objects of natural history, filling up his hours of 
 leisure at home in dictating to Mr. Tobin, or in hearing him 
 read. I am afraid he has occupied himself rather too assidu- 
 
AND HIS LAST DAYS. 267 
 
 ously in intellectual employment of late ; but of this he will 
 not bear to be told ; certain it is, however, that during the 
 exercise of mind requisite in dictating to Mr. Tobin, it was 
 that he first discovered that his right leg and arm were 
 affected ; and in spite of all remonstrance, he has continued to 
 pursue the same occupation every day since. 
 
 At the time of this attack I was in Malta. As 
 soon as it was practicable I joined him, but owing to 
 the slowness of communication then before the 
 telegraph with its lightning speed gave intelligence, 
 and before steam packets plied the Mediterranean 
 it was the 16th March before I reached him. In the 
 Memoirs of his Life, details are given .of this our 
 meeting, describing the state in which I found him, 
 seemingly dying, and believing himself to be dying ; 
 how he rallied, and to such an extent as to inspire hope, 
 feeble though it was, of recovery. A note, the last 
 he ever wrote, brief as it is, denotes strongly this 
 state. How well I remember the occasion. Hearing 
 that I was writing to my sister it was on the 20th 
 April he said, " Let me add a word," or to that 
 effect. The note is now before me; I am tempted 
 to transcribe it. 
 
 My dear Sister I am very ill ; but, thanks to my dearest 
 John, still alive. God bless you all ! 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 Lady Davy had joined us about a fortnight before, 
 early in April. By the 30th of that month he had 
 so far improved as to be able to leave Home. We 
 
268 HIS LAST ILLNESS 
 
 travelled by easy stages northwards, towards Geneva, 
 which we reached on the 28th of May. That day 
 was his last. After retiring to rest early the fol- 
 lowing morning he had another seizure, which was 
 almost instantaneously fatal. 
 
 In the Memoirs of his Life, pretty ample details 
 will be found of the whole of this period, of his 
 wanderings, of his occupations, and of his literary 
 labours these latter in part embodied in his Sal- 
 monia, and that other little work, so truly entitled 
 " Consolations in Travel ; or, the Last Days of a 
 Philosopher. " The following letters, written at this 
 period, in themselves will afford a record of what he 
 did, experienced, and suffered. They are only a 
 selection ; the reading the whole of them (there are 
 no less than forty-eight remaining, written to Lady 
 Davy during his first and second sojourn as an 
 invalid abroad) are affecting beyond the power of 
 utterance, at least to me, and the more especially 
 when I think of his loving nature, his social qualities, 
 and, at the same time, of his solitary wanderings, 
 his unrepining, stoical endurance, fighting against 
 sickness and fate, as he expresses it in one of his 
 letters, believing that he had still duties to perform. 
 He affords, I may remark, a striking example that 
 scientific glory is no compensation for the want 
 of domestic happiness ; and if I may advert again to 
 his mated companion and it is with renewed sor- 
 row that those intellectual qualities which excite 
 admiration and fascinate in society, ill supply the 
 place of the gentle virtues which contribute to that 
 
AND HIS LAST DAYS. 269 
 
 happiness. Further I may say, and it is with satis- 
 faction, that tried as he was, he also is an example 
 of the consolations of philosophy, and how relief in 
 pain and suffering, bodily pain and suffering, can be 
 afforded by the abstracting power of mind, the 
 exercise of its faculties, and the contemplation of 
 nature that contemplation of it in love and admira- 
 tion, ascending from effect to cause, from the created 
 to the Creator, At Ravenna he thus expresses him- 
 self: 
 
 Oh, couldst thou be with me, daughter of heaven, 
 
 Urania ! I have now no other love : 
 
 For time hath withered all the beauteous flowers 
 
 That once adorafd my youthful coronet : 
 
 With thee I still may live a little space, 
 
 And hope for better intellectual light ; 
 
 With thee I may e'en still in vernal times 
 
 Look upon nature with a poet's eye, 
 
 Nursing those lofty thoughts that in the mind 
 
 Spontaneous rise, blending their sacred powers 
 
 With images from mountain and from flood. 
 
 Of the letters which follow, few need any com- 
 ment. None of them, with the exception of two, 
 have before appeared in print. Where asterisks 
 occur in them, it is chiefly to mark passages omitted, 
 descriptive of symptoms in his valetudinary state, 
 the insertion of which is now needless. For many 
 more letters, especially to myself, I may refer to the 
 Memoirs of his Life. In the arrangement of those 
 selected, the order of their insertion has been guided 
 mainly by their respective dates, keeping together, 
 
270 HIS LAST ILLNESS 
 
 when their dates are not far apart, those addressed 
 to the same person. The two first, however, which 
 are given, are an exception, one from an arch-duke 
 of Austria, the other from the hereditary prince of 
 Denmark. The temptation to introduce them is the 
 same as that already mentioned, and also for the 
 giving of a translation of them. In a letter to Lady 
 Davy, of the llth February, 1829, alluding to that 
 from the Prince of Denmark, just after receiving it, 
 he remarks, "It is delightful to know one is not 
 forgotten by friends, and it is in human nature to 
 be pleased with the recollection of the heir to a 
 throne" 
 
 Vordernberg, in Stiria, li 13 Aprile, 1827. 
 
 Caro Sir Humphry Davy Ho recevuta il pregiato di lei 
 foglio dei 18 di Marzo da Ravenna durante il mio soggiorno 
 nella Stiria, e mi affretto di renderle noto, che la memoria e 
 le altre sue opere speditemi per mezzo del Principe Esterhazy 
 mi furono rimesse. Non sara necessario ch^io le dica, di 
 quanto interesse per me ne fosse il contenuto, ma spero, che le 
 riuscira grato il sapere che ne feci un dono alia libreria del 
 Gioanneo a Gratz. 
 
 Ho scritto al Governatore della Carniola e Carinzia, Barone 
 di Schmidtburg raccomandandogli caldamente la di lei persona 
 non meno che gPoggetti scientific!, di quali ella si vuole 
 occupare in quelle provincie. II governatore non manchera 
 d'assisterle per quanto da lui dipende ogniqual volta ella si 
 compiacera d'indirizzarse a lui. Riguardo alia Stiria io mi 
 rivolgero al Governatore Conte di Hartig, e se verra a Gratz 
 trovera il Dr. Anker, custode e professore di mineralogia al 
 Gioanneo sempre pronto a soddisfarle in tut to. Spero, che 
 Taria salubre di queste provincie contribuera certamente air 
 intero suo ristabilimento, almeno glielo auguro sinceramente. 
 
AND HIS LAST DAYS. 271 
 
 Godo nel lusingarmi ch'ella capitando per avventura nelle 
 mie vicinanze mi favorira d^una visita. II luogo del mio 
 soggiorno ordinario nori manchera d'interesse per un letterato 
 di tal peso, ed a me farebbe sommo piacere di rivedere il mio 
 Presidente come socio d^un Istituto meritamente tanto celebre. 
 Spero ch"ella mi favorira di quando in quando di sue notizie, 
 ed augurandole di nuovo bona salute onde si possa occupare 
 di buon grado degli experimenti progettati, passo a dichiararmi 
 colla maggiore stima possibile. 
 
 Suo affezionato, 
 GIOVANNI, Arciduca d 1 Austria. 
 
 [TRANSLATION.] 
 
 Vordernberg, in Stiria, April 13, 1827. 
 
 Dear Sir Humphry Davy I received your esteemed letter of the 
 18th of March from Ravenna, during my residence in Stiria; and I 
 hasten to tell you that the memoir and your other works, forwarded to 
 me through Prince Esterhazy, have also been received. I need not tell 
 you how interesting to me the contents of these have been, but I think 
 it will give you pleasure to know that I have made a gift of them to the 
 Library of Gioannea, at Gratz. 
 
 I have written to the governor of Carniola, at Carinzie, Baron 
 Schmidtburg, warmly recommending yourself to his attention, not less 
 than the objects which may occupy you in those provinces. He will not 
 fail to aid you so far as in him lies, at any time that you may have need 
 of his services. In regard to Stiria, you will meet like aid from the 
 Governor, Count Hartig ; and should you visit Gratz, you will find in 
 Dr. Anker, the curator and professor of the mineralogical department 
 at the Gioannea, one always ready to meet your wishes in all things. The 
 good air of this province will, I trust, without fail, contribute to the com- 
 plete recovery of your health ; at least, I indulge in the happy augury. 
 
 I please myself with the thought, that should you find yourself within 
 my neighbourhood during your travels, you will favour me with a visit. 
 The place of my usual residence is not wanting in interest for one so 
 widely informed as you are, and to me it would afford the highest grati- 
 fication, as the associate of an institute so justly celebrated, to see my 
 
272 HIS LAST ILLNESS 
 
 president again. I trust that you will, from time to time, favour me 
 with tidings of your welfare ; and in good hope for you of the restored 
 health which may enable you cheerfully to return to your projected 
 experiments, I remain, with the highest esteem, 
 Your affectionate, 
 
 JOHN, Archduke of Austria. 
 
 From the Hereditary Prince of Denmark. 
 
 Copenhagen, ce 5 Mars, 1828. 
 
 Monsieur LTincertitude seule ou adresser ma lettre a pu 
 la retarder a ce point, mais Favis que m'a donne notre ami 
 Monticelli que vous etiez alle aux Isles loniennes d^ou enfin, 
 je suppose que vous retournerez par Naples, m'engage a 
 envoyer ces lignes sous son adresse et je me fie a lui qu 1 il 
 saura en tout cas vous les faire parvenir. 
 
 Elles doivent vous dire que j'ai re^u dans le temps la masse 
 meteorique qui, venue de Buenos Ayres, offre un interet par- 
 ticulier par sa ressemblance avec Facier. Ella orne actuelle- 
 ment ma collection en souvenir de Fami auquel je la dois. 
 J'eus en meme temps le plaisir de recevoir votre memoire sur 
 F elect ro-chymie, que je pretai d^abord a GErsted, et qui vous 
 ecrira peut-etre un jour a ce sujet. 
 
 Je n*ai rien de particulier a vous annoncer en fait de science. 
 Le Docteur Pringel, [?] qui vous avez peut-etre vu en Danne- 
 marc, va en Greenland, et fera des recherches geologiques, 
 comme aussi sur Feffet de Faimant dans ces regions polaires. 
 Nous avons vu Fautomne passe quelques aurores boreales d'une 
 grande beaute, ce que depuis nombre d'annees on n'avait pas 
 vu chez nous. 
 
 II me ferait beaucoup de peine si des raisons de sante vous 
 ont engage a faire ce voyage aux Isles loniennes, rnais en ce 
 cas je desire aussi qu^il aye un succes complet. 
 
AND HIS LAST DAYS. 273 
 
 Je serai bien charm e de recevoir de vos nouvelles, etant li 
 jarnais, Monsieur, 
 
 Votre tout affectionne, 
 
 CHRISTIAN FREDERIC. 
 
 [TRANSLATION.] 
 
 Copenhagen, March 5, 1828. 
 
 Sir Nothing but the uncertainty as to what place a letter might 
 find you, has thus long kept me silent, but the information now given 
 me by our friend Monticelli, that you are gone to visit the Ionian 
 Islands, 1 from whence I suppose you will return by Naples, makes me 
 venture to send you these lines under his cover, trusting, that through 
 him, they will not fail to reach your hands. 
 
 I have wished much to tell you that I received in due time the 
 meteoric stone from Buenos Ayres, which is peculiarly interesting, from 
 its resemblance to steel. It now adorns my collection, in remembrance 
 of the friend to whom I owe it. I had at the same time the pleasure of 
 receiving your memoir on electro-chemistry. I have lent it to (Ersted, 
 who will probably soon write to you on the subject. 
 
 I have nothing particular to mention relating to science. Dr. 
 Pringel, [?] 2 whom I think you saw in Denmark, is about to proceed to 
 Greenland, where he will make geological researches, as also researches 
 on the effect of the magnet in those polar regions. We observed here, 
 during last autumn, some aurora- boreales of great beauty, such as have 
 not for many years been seen in our heavens. 
 
 I shall regret if it is from reasons of ill health that you have been 
 induced to visit the Ionian Islands, but if so, I trust that recovery may 
 be the result. I shall be delighted to receive good tidings of you, being 
 always, Sir, 
 
 Your entirely affectionate, 
 
 CHRISTIAN FREDERIC. 
 
 1 This was a mistake. ~ The name in the MS. is obscurely written. 
 
 T 
 
274 HIS LAST ILLNESS 
 
 To T. A. Knight, Esq. 
 
 26, Park Street, December 10 [1826?]. 
 
 My dear Sir I have done everything you wished for Mr. 
 Allan at the British Museum . 
 
 I continue very much indisposed, and I am advised by my 
 physicians to try a journey to the south of Europe, which I 
 trust I shall attempt. I suffer from almost constant pain in 
 the region of the heart and chest. 
 
 I am sorry I did not see Mr. Andrew on his return, which 
 I should have been most happy to have done. 
 
 Lord Lansdowne has taken the chair of the Zoological So- 
 ciety. This gives it a chance of existence, for both his in- 
 fluence and talents are likely to be useful to a nascent society. 
 
 I have been twice at the British Museum, 1 but I despair of 
 anything being done there for natural history. The Trustees 
 think of nothing but the arts, and money is only obtained for 
 these objects. 
 
 A thousand thanks for your kind invitation. There is, I 
 assure you, no place that I remember with more real satis- 
 faction than Downton ; and the genuine kindness and hos- 
 pitality that I have always experienced at your delightful 
 mansion, will always make me turn to the recollections with 
 gratitude : but my plans are now nearly fixed for a continental 
 excursion. 
 
 I am, with best respects to Mrs. and Miss Knight, always, 
 my dear Sir, 
 
 Your sincerely obliged, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 1 As President of the Royal Society, he was one of the trustees. 
 
AND HIS LAST DAYS. 275 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 Ravenna, April 1, 1827. 
 
 My dear Sir I felt very much the kindness of your last 
 letter, and I am grateful both for the invitation and the advice 
 it contained. I could not answer it in England, for soon after 
 I received it I was seized with the violent attack of illness, 
 which I consider as the crisis of my complaint, and which has 
 clearly shown the cause of the long continued and severe in- 
 disposition which has afflicted me a determination of blood 
 to the head. I have not suffered so much as Lord Liverpool ; 
 and I am gradually recovering by the entire absence of all 
 business or exciting causes, by extremely low living, and the 
 occasional use of leeches. 
 
 By the kindness of the governor of the province, the amiable 
 prelate Spada, 1 I am lodged in the apostolic palace here, and 
 I have the most perfect quiet, and I take horse exercise every 
 day, and have all the comforts an invalid can require. My 
 brother, Dr. Davy, who has till lately been constantly with 
 me, thinks I shall completely recover, and having gained con- 
 siderably the use of my limbs, I hope I shall regain my 
 strength altogether. Pardon this long account of myself; but 
 I know your good will towards me, and I am sure you will 
 receiye this account of my illness, in which hope is predomi- 
 nant, with pleasure. 
 
 I cannot as yet write or read much, and consequently I can 
 give you nothing either in the way of news or of science. I 
 had last week got a torpedo alive, on which I intended to 
 make some magnetic experiments., but he died before I could 
 gain any result. I hope, however, soon to make these re- 
 searches, which are very interesting. Sunshine being one of 
 
 1 This was a mistake ; he never entered the church ; and is now a 
 married man, and living in happy retirement, as I have been informed, 
 following science and literature. 
 
 T 2 
 
276 HIS LAST ILLNESS 
 
 the blessings of this climate in spring, I am likewise trying 
 some experiments on its magnetising powers ; and in this path 
 it is scarcely possible to walk without new results. 
 
 You are anxious to have fruit in January and February, 
 and I dare say you will compel nature to obey your will. 1 
 think it right to mention to you that I have had constantly 
 fresh grapes, I think as good as those of autumn : they are 
 preserved by being kept in bottles well closed, before they were 
 ripe. They are thick skinned and a little shrivelled, but their 
 flavour good, and now perfectly saccharine. Probably the 
 experiment would not succeed in our damp climate ; here con- 
 tinued damp injures them. 
 
 Now I will give you a Waltonian anecdote. In my ride 
 last week I saw a man with a fishing rod and a large 
 basket full. I asked him what he was taking. He said 
 frogs. How ? I asked. He showed me his apparatus : a 
 small dry frog was fastened to a string, so that the fore feet 
 made hooks ; and in throwing this like a fly, keeping it in a 
 continual motion, the frogs jump at it on the surface of the 
 water, and it is not uncommon to take two or three hundred 
 in a day. The frog, like the eagle, eats nothing dead, and 
 snaps up every small thing that moves. 
 
 I hope you have received a copy of my discourses. With 
 kindest and most respectful remembrances to Mrs. and Miss 
 Knight, and best wishes to my brother sportsman, Mr. A., 
 I am, my dear sir, 
 
 Very sincerely yours, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 I shall go to the Julian Alps in a short time : my address 
 till the beginning of June will be Posta Restante, Laybach, 
 Carniola. 
 
AND HIS LAST DAYS. 277 
 
 To the Same. 
 Sillian source of the Drave, E. Tyrol, July 30, 1827. 
 
 My dear Sir Many thanks for the letter you were so kind 
 as to address to me at Lay bach. I comply with your request 
 in giving you some account of myself. I wish it were a better 
 one. My progress towards recovery, though slow, was still 
 distinct, till the end of May, when the rise of temperature 
 seemed to put a stop to it, and since that time I have been 
 going from place to place to avoid heat, which, by increasing 
 the circulation, fills the vessels in the brain, and obliges me to 
 starve, bleed, and blister. Since I have been amongst these 
 high mountains, where the thermometer does not rise to 70, 
 even in the brightest day, and sinks below 50 in the night, I 
 have been sensibly better, and I shall stay in the region of 
 snows till the dog-days are past, and then slowly travel on 
 towards the Italian frontier, seeking a temperature between 
 55 and 45, which is most suited to my complaint. I have 
 recovered to a certain extent the use of my limbs, but my 
 complete re-establishment, if I am ever so fortunate as to 
 obtain it, must be a work of time. 
 
 In your letter you mention the Royal Society. 1 shall 
 always be strongly attached to that body, and do everything 
 in my power to promote its glory and prosperity ; but in the 
 present state of my health it would be impossible for me to 
 fulfil the duties of the chair, and to attempt it even would be 
 dangerous. Had I recovered as rapidly as my physicians 
 promised, I should have returned this autumn, and have done 
 what was thought best; but I feel that to attempt business in 
 my present state, when even writing a letter sends blood to 
 distend the vessels in the brain, would be trifling with my life, 
 which I still hope may be turned to some account for tin* 
 interests of science. I resign the chair at the first meeting of 
 
 o o 
 
 the society. 
 
 I have been amusing myself a little with natural history,, 
 
278 HIS LAST ILLNESS 
 
 and have collected some information which I think is curious, 
 with respect to the migrations of birds and fishes, which are 
 governed principally by three causes, sense of temperature, 
 appetite for food, and the sexual appetite. The salmo hucho 
 flies from heat in the early spring, and from cold in the 
 autumn, and fishes in general seem to be much influenced by 
 this cause. The char will live in rivers when their tempera- 
 ture in summer is not above 48, and I have seen some kept 
 in a stream for twelve months, in which the sexual organs 
 were developing. 
 
 You, of course, know the kohl rabin. 1 I wonder it is not 
 more cultivated in England and Scotland ; it is a most excel- 
 lent vegetable, and has been for some time a good part of my 
 food. 
 
 In the Friul, there is a mode of cultivating vines which 
 appears to me good. The vine is carried from standard cherry 
 tree to tree, a few feet distance only, and a few perpendicular 
 branches only are left On the cherry, and only one branch of 
 the vine is carried thus 
 
 and a single vine to each cherry-tree. The cherry ripens 
 before the grapes, and the leaves do not shade the grapes. At 
 Goritzia they make excellent wine from these vineyards, where 
 the vines are more exposed to the sun than in even the French 
 vineyards ; they are never more than five or six feet high, 
 that is, the cherry-trees and the vines about ten or twelve feet 
 long. 
 
 With kindest remembrances to all your family, hoping to 
 hear from you at Laybach, lilyria, to which place I return in 
 three weeks, 
 
 I am, my dear sir, very sincerely yours, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 1 In England written kohl rabi. 
 
AND HIS LAST DAYS. 279 
 
 To Lady Davy. 
 
 Ravenna, March 15, 1827. 
 
 My dear Jane I have just received your letter No. 3; thai 
 addressed Turin has not yet reached me. By this post I have 
 likewise a letter from my brother from Ancona, on his road to 
 Corfu, who did not find your promised letter. Before you 
 receive this letter, you will have heard from him. I was better 
 when he left me than I have been since. 
 
 ***** 
 
 Madame Guiccioli is gone to Borne, and my only companion 
 now is the vice legate, who continues to show me all the 
 amiable attentions I could claim from a brother. As I am so 
 perfectly quiet here, I shall remain perhaps a fortnight or 
 three weeks longer ; but this must depend upon circumstances. 
 I must endeavour for some months to live in a cool, rather than 
 a warm climate ; and it is my design, if I continue to amend, 
 to go in the middle of April to the Friul, and so on slowly to 
 the Alps of Styria and Carniola, and perhaps to the Tyrol and 
 Switzerland, and to return as the sun declines in autumn 
 towards Italy. 
 
 This day is a cold rainy day, the temperature nearly ten 
 degrees less than yesterday, namely, 52, but for nearly a week 
 we have had bright sunshine and clear blue skies, and the 
 pineta has many beauties peculiar to it in winter, or which is 
 the same, early spring. These grand spreading pines, the little 
 clumps of juniper below them, and the thickets where the 
 violet peeps forth into the green herbage, with views of the 
 blue Adriatic on one side, and of the snow-covered Apennines 
 on the other, have an effect independent of their association 
 with the spot where the Roman Empire made her last stand, 
 and, born amidst the mountains, expired in the marshes. 
 
 I cannot divine who will succeed Lord Liverpool ; I hope 
 not Mr. Canning, for with all his talents and eloquence, I fear 
 he is too fond of popular applause. * Lord Lans- 
 
280 HIS LAST ILLNESS 
 
 downe should have my voice were I in the cabinet, but whoever 
 is minister, he must prepare to emancipate the Catholics, with- 
 out which there is neither peace nor security for England ; but 
 I will not write politics, though I am becoming far more 
 apostolic in my creed as I grow older, and see how much good 
 the old institutions have done, and how little has arisen from 
 revolutionary opinions in Europe, at least. God bless you, my 
 dear Jane ! 
 
 Your truly affectionate, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 Ravenna, March 30, 1827. 
 
 My dear Jane I have just received your last letter. I am 
 concerned at the death of Sir George Beaumont, an excellent 
 man with good taste, polished manners, and the most liberal 
 views in everything belonging to art and literature. I regret 
 his death on account of his friends ; for himself, ah old age, 
 with various infirmities and sufferings, is spared. Life without 
 the power of enjoyment is not worth bearing unless for some 
 great and good object, and then it is a glorious martyrdom, for 
 when mind is superior to body, the intellectual, or moral, or 
 religious enthusiasm destroys physical pain, and the imagina- 
 tion is the only creative faculty of our nature. 
 
 I think I gain ground in conquering the effects of the deter- 
 mination of blood to the brain. 
 
 ***** 
 I ride every day some miles, and lead a life of regular habits, 
 and measured food and drink. My weekly bill would surprise 
 a London epicure both as to fare and price : a large brocoli or 
 cauliflower, 2d. ; . spinach, 2d. ; teal, 3%d. 5 woodcock, 8d. ; 
 capon, Is. 6d. ; snipe, 2d. ; great snipe, 4<d., and so on. 
 
 I have no society, and I seek for none. The excellent vice 
 legate comes to play at ecartevritli me every other evening; 
 
AND HIS LAST DAYS. 281 
 
 as he lives in the same house, I can always see him when I 
 like. His duties as governor of the province confine him much, 
 so that he is never from home. His kindness and attention 
 to me I cannot speak of without tears of gratitude in my eyes. 
 He has sent everywhere for whatever he thought could be 
 agreeable to me, and I am this morning going to experiment 
 on a live torpedo, which he has had the goodness to procure 
 for me with much difficulty, and at some expense. He has 
 got me preserved peaches from Ferrara, and grapes from 
 Macerata, and having couriers at his command, he has done 
 for me what I could not have done for myself, and what no 
 other person could have done for me. 
 
 Madame Guiccioli has been gone nearly three weeks, and 
 does not return here, and the vice legate informs me that she 
 is obliged to live in Florence permanently, in consequence of 
 a contract with the marito, who allows her on certain condi- 
 tions 150 crowns per month, or between ^400 and 500 
 a-year. 
 
 We have had another fall of snow, or rather of sleet, here, 
 which has covered the mountains, but since this fall the 
 weather is become delightful, and the pineta is beginning to 
 display its vernal beauties. It is a very imposing scene, where 
 Dante wooed the divine muse in the mortal lineaments im- 
 pressed upon the memory by the image of Beatrice : the grand 
 and gigantic fan-formed pines above ; the thorns, and acacias, 
 and juniper in blossom, or berry below ; the grass, with its gems 
 of violets in such profusion as to give it a purple hue ; the 
 Apennines covered with snow on one side, and the sapphire 
 Adriatic on the other, and this a scene of perfect solitude, 
 except now and then an eagle or a crane soaring above the 
 pines, but even with this rarely a sound of life. I think 
 of remaining here a week or ten days longer, and then I shall 
 slowly progress towards the Alps, and I shall stop at Gorizia 
 for a day or two, if the Count de Thuu is still alive ; if not, I 
 tsluill go 011 to Wippach, and tnke lodgings there, if I can find 
 
282 HIS LAST ILLNESS 
 
 them, till May. I shall, I hope, find some amusement in fish- 
 ing. Pray write to me at Wippach, near Trieste. 
 
 Your most affectionate, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 The temperature to-day is delightful, 63 or 64. 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 Apostolic Palace, Ravenna, April 7, 1827. 
 
 My dear Jane As more than a solar month has elapsed 
 since I wrote to you from Ravenna, and as all the mountain 
 passes are now open, I had hoped to have received a letter 
 from you by one of the last posts, but I am disappointed. I 
 trust, however, I shall find one at Bologna, whither I return 
 the day after to-morrow. My few weeks' sojourn here, though 
 a little melancholy, has been salutary to me from the entire 
 absence of all exciting causes, and I shall quit with regret my 
 most amiable prelate, and the shade of the pineta. You will 
 perhaps be surprised that I should regret shade so early in 
 April, but for the last four days the sun has been scorching, 
 and a cold wind has made the weather very unpleasant for an 
 invalid, for whom shade from sun and a shelter from wind are 
 desirable. I was considerably better, but a severe cold in the 
 head has rather thrown me back, arid obliged me to debilitate 
 myself by leeches and fasting. 
 
 ***** 
 
 When you see Madame de T., thank her in my name, and 
 beg her to thank the proper authorities for me for the civilities 
 I received in passing the French douanes ; indeed, I have as 
 yet had nothing but perfect ease on this head, and I have 
 never been stopped a minute. 
 
 I heard yesterday only of the death of Laplace and of 
 
AND HIS LAST DAYS. 283 
 
 Volta. Two of the great lights of the age are extinct one 
 the first in mathematical, the other in physical science. 
 
 * # * * * 
 
 God bless you, my dear Jane ! 
 
 Yours most affectionately, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 Lubiana, April 25, 1827. 
 
 My dear Jane * * * I have been here now since the 
 1 8th, and I have always liked the place ; the neighbourhood 
 abounds in beautiful scenery, and the inn in which I am is 
 tolerable, and I can procure my vegetable diet in sufficient 
 quantity. I see from my window the magnificent chain of 
 mountains of the central Austrian provinces, and the blue 
 Save is within a half an hour's ride. Having no society, and 
 being fit for none, my amusements are of the most simple 
 kind ; the objects of Nature in their two most remote bearings, 
 poetical feeling and scientific association ; and I watch for 
 hours the formation and the progress of the clouds on the 
 chain of the Loibel, their change of colour and forms, and 
 make experiments on their effect in preventing the cooling 
 influence of the snowy Alps. I have as yet had no fishing, but 
 I hope for it every day, as soon as the rivers sink, and the fall 
 of the Lubiana river offers a beautiful spot for this amusement. 
 But in staying here, health is my principal research; the 
 temperature fits my head, being below 60, and I have not 
 
 once had occasion to apply leeches. 
 
 * # # * # 
 
 The Governor here has been very civil, and the Archduke 
 John has written to me a very amiable letter, inviting me to 
 make His Imperial Highness a visit in Styria. 
 
 You speak in your last letter of a work of Brougham ; I 
 think I can anticipate his mode of treating the subject. I 
 
284 HIS LAST ILLNESS 
 
 become, however, every day more sceptical as to the use of 
 making or endeavouring to make the people philosophers. 
 Happiness is the great object of existence, and knowledge is 
 good only so far as it promotes happiness ; few persons ever 
 attain the Socratic degree of knowledge to know their own 
 entire ignorance, and scepticism and discontent are the usual 
 unripe fruits of this tree the only fruits which the people can 
 gather ; but I will say no more, knowing how unpopular my 
 arguments will be; yet I could say much. Pray mention 
 Miss White in your next letter, and remember rne wherever I 
 create an interest. God bless you ! 
 
 Your most affectionate, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 My next address, Salzburg. 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 Laybach, May 19, 1827. 
 
 My dear Jane I received your letter, addressed Wippach, 
 here, and likewise your letter with the direction to Laybach. 
 I am glad to hear of your perfect re- establishment, and with 
 health and the society of London, which you are so well fitted 
 to ornament and enjoy, your " viva la felicita " is much more 
 secure than any hope belonging to me. 
 
 I have lingered on here, day after day, fearing that it would 
 be too cold on the higher Alps, and because the temperature 
 and the scenery have suited me. We have had some glorious 
 days of spring, which, if in health, T should have enjoyed ; but 
 even this, the most genial of the months, has not restored me 
 to the perfect use of my limbs ; and though it is wrong, I 
 cannot help feeling sometimes the privation of hope, I will not 
 
 say, despair. 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 I see by the Frankfort papers, which the governor here has 
 sent me, that the administration is to a certain extent settled. 
 
AND HIS LAST DAYS. 285 
 
 I know not what to think on this occasion. The Catholic 
 question must be carried ; but this appears to me the only true 
 point of union between Mr. Canning and the Whigs, and I 
 adhere to my opinion that Lord Lansdowne ought not to 
 accept office under a man who, however splendid his oratorical 
 talents, has not uniformly followed the higher kind of glory, 
 and who, I think (I wish I may be mistaken), has a dan- 
 gerous lust after popularity. If Lord Dudley applies to business, 
 he will make an excellent Foreign Minister, and he is a better 
 philosopher than Mr. Canning ; yet still I should fear his 
 prejudices in a treaty with Austria. Mr. Canning might 
 leave behind him a great and undying name, if, making the 
 * * * i O f the Catholics his great aim, he endeavoured to 
 improve the condition of the country by promoting all liberal 
 institutions, and all plans of real improvement, and put down 
 jobbing altogether; but though I differ from Mr. Peel, toto 
 ccelo, in one great question, I still think him the ablest man 
 of the two, and the honestest, and I admire his conduct the 
 more, as the death of the Duke of York has set aside the 
 possibility of a selfish nature. I am truly glad Lord Bathurst 
 and Lord Melville are out of office, and were I to express my 
 joy on the occasion, it would, I fear, be intemperate, and might 
 be illiberal; but Crocker at the Admiralty! this is too bad; 
 and even John Bull cannot be worth this. 
 
 ***** 
 Whilst I am writing I look every now and then at the 
 sterner Alps, which every moment change in character ; there 
 are beautiful white clouds resting upon the lower region, the 
 top capped with snow is bright in sunshine, and the plain 
 between the mountains and Laybach is rich in all the hues of 
 spring. God bless you, my dear Jane ! 
 
 Your affectionate, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 i The word omitted is too indistinctly written to be deciphered. 
 
286 HIS LAST ILLNESS 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 Admont, Styria, June 2, 1827. 
 
 My dear Jane I am once more amongst the kind and 
 hospitable Brothers of Admont. Their kindness I can enjoy ;. 
 but, unfortunately, the state of my health still prevents me 
 from enjoying their hospitality in society. The scenery about 
 this place is now, I think, more beautiful than when we saw it 
 together, because mature spring is more beautiful than com- 
 pleted summer. I fled here from the heat of lower Styria ; 
 but even here the thermometer is above 60, and they say the 
 month of May was never so warm before. It was my inten- 
 tion to have visited the Archduke John, and likewise Countess 
 Purgstall, but I did not find myself equal to these visits, and 
 I was afraid of the temperature of Hainfeld. Between 54 
 and 64 I am comfortable, but when the heat rises to 70 I 
 become feverish and have headaches. 
 
 The worthy Brothers here make much of the book which I 
 was able to procure for them, and it is worthy of a place in 
 their magnificent library. 
 
 My plans must be regulated by the state of my health, and 
 by the heat of the summer. If this is high I shall keep always 
 amongst the snows of the Alps. If I do not get well, my 
 brother will come to me in Carniola, and I have now full 
 confidence in his medical advice and treatment. From Trieste 
 it is only a voyage of a few days to Corfu. I hope you and all 
 my friends are well. I beg you will congratulate the Blighs 1 
 in my name I could say kind things ; but I fear to trust 
 myself with tenderness. God bless you ! 
 
 Your affectionate, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 1 On the occasion of a marriage in that noble family. 
 
AND HIS LAST DAYS. 287 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 Salzburg, June 30, 1827. 
 
 My dear Jane On my arrival here yesterday, I found five 
 letters from you, two from Mr. Gilbert, one from Lord Gage, 
 one from my brother, and one from Mme. Martinetti, for all of 
 which I am very grateful. 
 
 I continue much as I was when I wrote to you from 
 Admont, and have gained little since I left Lay bach. 
 ***** 
 
 I am a good deal affected by the death of poor Miss White, 
 yet I know not why I should be ; it was a delivery from a 
 dark, and gloomy, and protracted death-bed ; yet there was 
 something in her philosophy and social habits which threw a 
 peculiar charm over the last days of her life, and 1 regret her 
 not merely as a friend, but as a practical example of unaffected 
 moral strength and stoical patience in bearing pain, and suffer- 
 ing the evils of life with appearance of cheerfulness. 
 
 I am obliged to you for your attentions to the Knights and 
 the Vivians. Young Mr. Knight is a great favourite of mine, 
 and I want to bring about a match between him and another 
 great favourite of mine, Miss H. B. I wish you could let 
 them see each other, though now, perhaps, it is too late in the 
 season. I have talked of this in joke, but I am serious in 
 thinking it would be an exceedingly good marriage for both 
 parties. 
 
 If I had perfectly recovered, I know not what I should 
 have done with respect to the P., under the auspices of a new 
 and more enlightened government ; but my state of health 
 renders the resignation absolutely necessary. To attempt 
 business this year would be to prepare for another attack. 
 The vessels of the brain very slowly recover their tone ; the 
 slightest causes, even the writing of this letter, sends blood 
 into them, and it is only by the strictest discipline, physical 
 and mental, that I can hope to recover. I shall give no 
 
288 HIS LAST ILLNESS 
 
 opinion to the Fellows of the Society respecting my successor ; 
 but I am exceedingly pleased with the idea of Mr. Peel 
 becoming P.R.S. He has wealth and influence, and has no 
 scientific glory to aw r aken jealousy, and may be useful by his 
 parliamentary talents to men of science. 
 
 The prosperity of the Royal Society will always be very 
 dear to me, and there is no period of my life to which I look 
 back with more real satisfaction than the six years of labour 
 for the interests of that body. I never was, and never could 
 be, unpopular with the active and leading members, as six 
 unanimous elections proved ; but because I did not choose the 
 
 Society to be a tool of Mr. 's journal jobs, and resisted 
 
 the admission of improper members, I had some enemies, who 
 
 were listened to and encouraged from Lady 's chair. I 
 
 shall not name them, but, as Lord Byron has said, " my curse 
 shall be forgiveness." 
 
 * * * # # 
 
 I shall go to-morrow on the road to Munich, and from 
 Munich by a new road to Inspruck. I am now more melan- 
 choly than usual, for the state of my eyes obliges me almost 
 to renounce my favourite amusement, fishing, which was a 
 great resource to me, and which I think greatly strengthened 
 my arm and hand. I hope, however, to resume it, et in hac 
 spe, et in ilia utilitatis vivo. 
 
 Remember me to all friends who take an interest in me. 
 God bless you ! 
 
 Your affectionate, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 Constance, July 13, 1827. 
 
 My dear Jane Since I wrote to you at Munich, the hot 
 weather has induced me to make a little change in my plans, 
 
AND HIS LAST DAYS. 289 
 
 and I shall go to Insprnck by the elevated road, which crosses 
 the valley of the Rhine ; and I think I have done wisely, for 
 it is cooler than in Bavaria or the Upper Tyrol. 
 
 Dr. Babington^s letter expressed a wish that I should return 
 now to settle the business of the Royal Society. Were I to 
 follow his advice, I am sure it would settle me ; and whether 
 medically, morally, or metaphysically considered, I am sure 
 I have done right in not following it. My only chance of 
 recovery is in entire repose, and I have even given up angling, 
 and amuse myself by dreaming and writing a very little, and 
 studying the natural history of fishes. Though alone, I am 
 not melancholy ; the weakness of my eyes is the only distress- 
 ing symptom, and I think the principal cause of this is the 
 bright and incessant sunshine we have had for a fortnight, and 
 I now use green spectacles, and have given up my glass of 
 wine per day, I think with advantage. 
 
 There is nothing worth seeing here ; but the head of the 
 lake of Bregentz is fine, and the mountains of Appenzel sub- 
 lime. The road from Bavaria is likewise picturesque. I shall 
 go to Schafhausen in my route, and cross to Wallenstadt and 
 the valley of the Rhine, to Inspruck. Having seen the mag- 
 nificent fall of the Traun full of water, I am anxious to see the 
 Rhine under the same circumstances, that my memory may 
 remain fresh as to what I used to consider as one of the 
 grandest objects in Europe. I hope you are quite well, and 
 somewhere in green shade. My thermometer here (thank 
 God!) marks only 68, and there is a cool breeze from the lake, 
 though a cloudless sky. God bless you ! 
 
 Your most affectionate, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 u 
 
290 HIS LAST ILLNESS 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 Inspruck, July 24, 1827. 
 
 Mj dear Jane 
 
 ***** 
 
 I wrote to you from Constance. I have since passed by 
 Zurich and Glarus, and the Lake of Wallenstadt, to the 
 western frontier of the Tyrol. From the Lake of Wallenstadt 
 to Nassereit the scenery is very magnificent, I think superior 
 to anything I have seen before ; the valleys are extremely 
 narrow, like those of Styria, but upon a grander scale, and the 
 glacier and the bare rock immediately above you, rising almost 
 to mid-heaven, have a grand effect. Schafhausen strikes me 
 less than when we saw it together : but I have since seen the 
 falls of the Gotha and the Glommen ; the first is equal, if not 
 superior, to it in beauty, and the last exceeds it much in 
 magnitude, height, and the effect of power of water. I like 
 the Austrian states to travel in much better than the Swiss 
 the people in Switzerland are dreadfully imposing, and the 
 bustle and noise of a Swiss inn are very wearisome to an 
 invalid. 
 
 For roads, give me the Austrian ; the two new ones from 
 the Tyrol to Italy and to Switzerland are the rivals, if not 
 superior, to the Simplon, and the grandeur and beauty of the 
 scenery of those parts of them which I have passed, are 
 unequalled. 
 
 I wrote to you that I had sent my determination to the 
 Royal Society, not to be a candidate for the chair at the next 
 election. This is not a matter of choice, but of necessity, in 
 the present state of my health. I shall give myself all the 
 chances possible of recovery, and repose is absolutely necessary 
 for my nerves, even if I conquer the tendency of the vessels 
 of the brain to accumulate blood, which I think is possible. 
 Whether I recover or die, I shall be contented, and meet 
 
AND HIS LAST DAYS. 291 
 
 either fate with a calmness, not, I hope, unworthy of the phi- 
 losophy which it is my ambition to profess. God bless you ! 
 
 Your affectionate, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 Laybach, August 10, 1827. 
 
 My dear Jane * * * The temperature here is 
 as low as anywhere on the continent, for vines do not grow 
 here, and it is now, in one of the brightest days of August, only 
 69. I have found no place agree with me so well, and I 
 have resources of exercise, which I could find nowhere else. 
 
 You once talked of passing this winter in Italy ; but I hope 
 your plans will be entirely guided by the state of your health 
 and feelings. Your society would undoubtedly be a very 
 great resource to me, but I am so well aware of my own 
 present unfitness for society, that I would not have you risk 
 the chance of an uncomfortable moment on my account. I 
 often read Lord Byron's Euthanasia; it is the only case, 
 probably, where my feelings perfectly coincide with what his 
 were. Though solitary, I am not sad, and now my eyes are 
 better, I can amuse myself with writing, and there are some 
 thoughts and opinions which I wish to connect in composition, 
 that I believe are original. I have here, likewise, delightful 
 walks, and my boat always ready, and I command all the comforts 
 that a tolerable inn can give, at a very small expense. * * * 
 
 God bless you, my dear Jane ! 
 
 Your affectionate, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 u 2 
 
292 HIS LAST ILLNESS 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 Wurzen, August 20, 1827. 
 
 My dear Jane I wrote to you last week that I found 
 myself better here, and the temperature agreed with me so 
 well, and the scenery was so beautiful, and the master of the 
 inn and the post lent me a quiet little Croat horse, which 
 suited me perfectly all these circumstances, as well as the 
 hope of getting my packet and my letters from Laybach, and 
 of hearing from or seeing my brother, have induced me to 
 stay. The post has arrived this morning, and has brought 
 nothing ; and a new leaf is open in the chapter of accidents, 
 which makes me quite undecided as to my route. Till last 
 night, the air was cool, but not cold ; some rain fell the 23rd, 
 which assumed the form of snow on the very summits of the 
 mountains ; but the temperature yesterday evening was that 
 which suits me, but 56 or 58. What was my surprise at 
 getting out of bed this morning, to see the roofs of the houses 
 covered with snow, and the air darkened by large heavy flakes 
 of snow. It has been snowing all the morning, and the ther- 
 mometer in the window is only 38 and my hands are stiff 
 with cold. 
 
 ***** 
 
 From what I hear in this secluded corner of the Alps, I 
 fear there is no hope that the report of Mr. Canning's death 
 is unfounded. What a sensation will this event occasion in 
 Europe ! what new political struggles in England ! A flame 
 of genius and a light of glory is extinguished in this last of 
 our great orators : and what a fate ! He reaches the pinnacle 
 which has been for years the object of his ambition, and 
 reaches it but to fall : so entirely are the lives, the plans, and 
 destinies of men independent of their own will, so completely 
 are they instruments in combinations of a higher and more 
 exalted intelligence which they can never understand ! 
 
 I repeat what I said in my last letter, my warmest wisli 
 
AND HIS LAST DAYS. 293 
 
 that Mr. Clarke's 1 prescriptions may have restored your 
 stomach to its tone, and your spirits to their usual animated 
 pitch. 
 
 God bless you, my dear Jane ! and believe me, 
 Most affectionately and truly yours, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 Wurzen, Source of the Save, August 22, 1827. 
 
 My dear Jane As I think my last two letters may have 
 alarmed you, I write a few lines to say that I am better ; and 
 pray let Dr. Babington know this. The cool air of the moun- 
 tains, and the glorious scenery of this crest of the Noric Alps, 
 have completely removed all my bilious symptoms. The clouds 
 of the mountains likewise have been useful to my eyes, which 
 I feel stronger. I wish you were here. The inn in which I 
 am is tolerable, and the people very civil ; and there are ex- 
 cellent trout, and quails, and landrails. 
 
 The mountains here are like the needles of Chamouni, of 
 limestone, but of the noblest forms that limestone ever assumes. 
 They surround the village on all sides, and rise with their 
 breast of snow and crests of pointed rock into the middle 
 sky. The source of the Save is a clear blue lake surrounded 
 by woods, and the meadows are as green as those of Italy in 
 April, or of England in May. Two or three miles nearer the 
 Italian frontier, a fine clear torrent, one of the sources of 
 the Gailen, rises from the lake of the Weeper-see, fed by the 
 snows of Mount Manhart, a noble mountain ; and two posts 
 below, the Isonzo boils up almost like a sea from a limestone 
 cavern, clear, blue, and cold. 
 
 I shall stay a few days longer here to give my brother a 
 chance of seeing me, but I have been alarmed by not seeing 
 or hearing from him. I hardly know what to do. 
 1 The late Sir Charles Clarke. 
 
294 HIS LAST ILLNESS 
 
 It is said here Mr. Canning is dead. I hope not. If so, of 
 course Lord Lansdowne will be Premier, at least he ought 
 to be. 
 
 I hope the prescriptions of your Pope in medicine, have had 
 all the beneficial effects you anticipated, and that you are 
 relieved, and quite well. 
 
 God bless you, my dear Jane ! 
 
 I am, your most affectionate, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 To the tiame. 
 
 Wurzen, August 30, 1827. 
 
 My dear Jane My health has improved so rapidly here, 
 that I have continued in my little inn, and I now feel so much 
 better, and my spirits so much improved, that I shall pursue 
 my original plan of wintering in Italy. * * * 
 
 Should your feelings or inclination lead you to the land of 
 the sun, I need not say what real pleasure it would give me to 
 enjoy your society ; but do not make any sacrifice on my 
 account. It is my wish to return very early in the spring. I 
 can command amusements in Italy that I can find nowhere 
 else in the winter, and cold or heat in excess are equally pre- 
 judicial to my vascular system. * * * Horse exercise 
 and shooting are the best medicines for me ; and it seems to 
 me, that since I have been able to take them within the last 
 fortnight, I have gained both strength and flexibility of limb. 
 
 I can now also write, and am not without heroic thoughts, 
 and I do not think either the tone or temper of my mind 
 impaired. 
 
 It is my intention to remain under these snowy mountains 
 a few days longer, when I shall probably be driven down into 
 the plains by cold : the thermometer is now at my temperature 
 of enjoyment, from 50 to 60. I shall go to Laybach, where 
 I hope to find letters from you, and by Wippach and Goritzia. 
 
AND HIS LAST DAYS. 295 
 
 to Treviso, and it is my intention to be at Bologna about the 
 25th or 30th of October. 
 
 I have a letter from ray brother, who has had a fever, but 
 thanks to God is nearly recovered, and I still hope he may 
 visit me in this country. 
 
 I am, my dear Jane, hoping you are now quite well, 
 Your very affectionate and faithful, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 To the Same. 
 Greifenburg, Carinthia, September 1, 1827. 
 
 My dear Jane I fear I have tired you by my indecisive 
 correspondence; but I have at last resolved to pursue the plan 
 which I projected when I left Laybach, to go on to Baden on 
 the Rhine, and I am so far on my way. This is Saturday, 
 and I hope to be at Inspruck by Thursday or Friday next. 
 The weather and the scenery are both delightful. I was 
 driven from Wurzen by rain and cold, but I had contentedly 
 borne the solitude of that place for ten days. The snow 
 has not visited the valley of the Drave, and the tempera- 
 ture here is to me delightful and salutary, from 54 to 58. 
 This day and yesterday have been like quiet, calm, cloudy 
 October days in England. And this valley of the Upper 
 Drave is a rival to that of the Save, and has the same cha- 
 racteristic peculiar features. I hope I shall have the delight 
 of seeing you at Baden Baden. If not, I shall come to 
 England. My course will be slow, and I can hardly hope to 
 be at Baden in less than fifteen or sixteen days. Pray let my 
 physicians know what an obedient patient I am. My decision 
 was principally fixed by a letter from my brother, which took 
 away all hopes of his immediate visit to Carniola. 
 
 God bless you, my dear Jane ! 
 
 Your affectionate and faithful, 
 
 H.DAVY. 
 
296 HIS LAST ILLNESS 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 Mayence, September 26, 1827. 
 
 My dear Jane I write these few lines to say I am much 
 better, and, though very weak, free from the alarming symptoms 
 which obliged me to have recourse to all the severe discipline 
 to which I referred in my letter of yesterday, and I hope soon 
 to see you in Park Street. I shall travel slowly, and perhaps, 
 if I feel well enough, make a journey to Anvers. If you wish 
 to cross the water, let me know by a letter addressed to me 
 Calais. But after I have seen my medical advisers, I am 
 entirely at your disposal. I still hope that I shall return 
 freer than I once expected from paralytic affection, and I 
 do not despair of perfect re-establishment. I think you will 
 find me altered in many things with a heart still alive to 
 value and reply to kindness, and a disposition to recur to the 
 brighter moments of my existence of fifteen years ago, and 
 with a feeling that though a burnt-out flame can never be 
 rekindled, a smothered one may be. 
 
 God bless you ! 
 
 From your affectionate., 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 1 hope it is a good omen that my paper by accident is coleur 
 de rose. 
 
 The following letter to Mr. Knight opens with the 
 expression of feeling on account of the death of his 
 son, already alluded to : 
 
 To T. A. Knight, Esq. 
 
 Park Street, January 17, 1828. 
 
 My dear Sir I have three or four times within the last six 
 weeks taken up the pen and began to write to you ; but I have 
 
AND HIS LAST DAYS. 297 
 
 always laid it down again, fearing to trust myself with a sub- 
 ject on which I could not write without feeling deeply and 
 great mental agitation. 
 
 I have grieved with you : in such, the most awful visita- 
 tions of evil belonging to human nature, it is almost vain to 
 attempt to offer consolation ; yet, considering life as a great 
 system in which all is for good, and believing that the intel- 
 lectual and moral part of our nature is as indestructible as the 
 atoms that compose our frames, I feel the conviction that when 
 a mind so highly gifted, and so little selfish, is removed from 
 the scene of being apparently so prematurely, it is to act in a 
 better and nobler state of existence. The noblest spirits often 
 return soonest to the source of intellectual life from which they 
 sprung ; and they are surely the happiest, whilst we are to 
 await the trials of sorrow, sickness, and age. 
 
 I was very grateful to your most amiable and angelic 
 daughter, Mrs. Stackhouse, 1 for a note that she wrote to me. 
 Pray offer her my most sincere thanks. 
 
 I offer my most ardent wishes for your recovery, and that 
 of Mrs. Knight. I know well the agony of " spes fracta ;" 
 but in this case, time, the only comforter, creates a new source 
 of hope. 
 
 I wish I could give you a more satisfactory answer to your 
 kind inquiries respecting my health. Dr. Philip has been 
 very kind to me, " but my body does me sorely wrong." I 
 sometimes hope, and sometimes despair, of ultimate recovery. 
 My paralytic symptoms are much diminished; but still I can- 
 not get rid of the stiffness of my left arm and leg. I am now 
 amusing myself with natural history, and I hope in the spring 
 to make some inquiries respecting the transmigrations of some 
 of the anglers^ water flies. 
 
 The garden of the Zoological Society is flourishing, and 
 there are a good many animals collected there. 
 
 The political bark, left by Mr. Canning without a pilot, 
 1 Mrs. Stackhouse Acton. 
 
298 HIS LAST ILLNESS 
 
 seems quite wrecked, and I believe there will be some difficulty 
 in building another. The country is in a very critical state, 
 and there certainly never was a moment in which less political 
 talent appeared ; but I am writing on a subject which every- 
 body seems alike ignorant of, and the business is, I fear, in 
 hands weak in talent, though strong in influence. 
 I am, my dear sir, very sincerely, 
 
 Your obliged friend, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 26, Park Street, February 15, 1828. 
 
 My dear Sir I gave orders when I was abroad that a copy 
 of my Discourses to the Royal Society, and one of the fourth 
 edition of my Lectures on Agricultural Chemistry, which I 
 did myself the honour to dedicate to you, should be trans- 
 mitted to you. As you have never mentioned these works in 
 any of your letters to me I am anxious to know if you have 
 received them. Should this not be the case, be so good as to 
 let me know, and I will immediately send you copies. I 
 likewise wish very much to hear of the state of your health, 
 and that of Mrs. and Miss Knight. I continue much as I 
 was, I think with some little improvement. 
 
 ***** 
 
 Not being able to attend to the more profound researches of 
 science, I have been amusing myself with studying the natural 
 history of fishes, and the insects on which they feed, and I 
 find it a very engaging pursuit. As soon as the weather 
 becomes mild, I shall leave London and attend to these 
 objects with more ardour, for I do not think either the air or 
 the society of London adapted either to the constitutional or 
 social habits of an invalid. I think of making another tour to 
 
 O 
 
 the Alpine regions of the continent ; but I shall be very glad 
 if possible to pay you a visit before my departure. 
 
AND HIS LAST DAYS. 299 
 
 I have been in vain endeavouring to gain information 
 respecting the generation of the eel. It certainly breeds in 
 the ocean and the neighbourhood of deep water; and I 
 suspect, notwithstanding great authorities are against me, is 
 
 oviparous. 
 
 ***** 
 
 With kindest remembrances to Mrs. Knight and Miss 
 Knight, and Mrs. Stackhouse, I am, my dear sir, 
 
 Very sincerely yours, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 Park Street, March 19, 1828. 
 
 My dear Sir I am very much obliged to you for your kind 
 letter. I am very glad Mrs. Knight is going to change the 
 scene. I wish you would do so too : the healing and consol- 
 ing influence of time is very much assisted by new impressions. 
 I wish I could persuade you to do as I am about to do, and 
 make an excursion to the continent. 
 
 It was my ardent wish to pay you a visit before I left 
 England ; but I do not feel myself now sufficiently strong. 
 I must defer it to another and a better season. The extremely 
 severe course of diet and regimen keeps my spirits very low, 
 and my physicians tell me this is absolutely necessary ; and, 
 whether I recover or die, I am resolved to live according to 
 rule, and to give my constitution a fair chance. 
 
 ***** 
 
 I have sent a copy of my Agricultural Lectures to the 
 Horticultural Society addressed to you. If anything it 
 contains relating to vegetable physiology is of value it is 
 owing to you, and in my dedication I perform at once an act 
 of public duty and of private friendship. 
 
 Should I recover my health, I have various plans of scien- 
 
300 HIS LAST ILLNESS 
 
 tific labour, principally on natural history ; and in this wintry 
 state of my mind, I live principally on hope. 
 
 I beg rny kindest remembrances to Mrs. and Miss Knight. 
 Lady Davy joins me. I am, my dear sir, 
 
 Most sincerely yours, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 To Thomas Poole, Esq. 
 
 Park Street, March 26, 1828. 
 
 My dear Poole Your letter has given me great pleasure ; 
 first, because you, who are an enlightened judge in such 
 matters, approve of my humble contribution to agriculture ; 
 and, secondly, because it makes me acquainted with your kind 
 feelings, health, and Mr. Baker's interesting pursuits. Mr. 
 Baker appears to me to have distinctly established the point 
 that the eel and the conger are of different species ; and from 
 his zeal and activity, I hope the curious problem of the gene-, 
 ration of these animals will be solved. I shall expect with 
 impatience the results of his inquiries. Now for my health, 
 my dear friend, I wish I could speak more favourably ; I cer- 
 tainly do not lose ground, but I am doubtful if I gain any ; 
 but I do not despair. I am going, by the advice of my physi- 
 cians, to try another continental journey. If I get conside- 
 rably better, I shall winter in Italy, where in this case I shall 
 hope to see you, and where I shall have an apartment ready 
 for you in Rome. I have not been idle since I left your com- 
 fortable and hospitable house. I have finished my Salmonia 
 and sent it to the press " Flumina amo sylvasque inglorius." 
 I think you will not be displeased with this little jeu of my 
 sick hours. Mr. A. was very amiable in calling on me. 
 There is nothing that annoys me so much in my illness as 
 my helplessness, in not being able to indulge in society. 
 
 Your grateful and affectionate friend, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
AND HIS LAST DAYS. 301 
 
 The few letters which follow are selected from those 
 written during his last continental journey, and are 
 his very last. They are all to Lady Davy. 
 
 To Lady Davy. 
 
 Ischl, July 12, 1828. 
 
 I had hoped, my dear Jane, to have heard from you again 
 soon after you received my last letter from Aussee, but I have 
 been disappointed. I have now been here five weeks and I 
 have made use of the baths and douche regularly during a 
 month. * * * In this beautiful spot, and with the re- 
 sources afforded me as an angler by the Traun, I pass my 
 time with less tedium than probably I could do anywhere else; 
 and it is some satisfaction to me to know that I am not a 
 burden to anybody. George 1 is satisfied with very simple 
 amusements, and Mr. Tobin is of an age when mere animal 
 existence is a pleasure. We have had several thunder storms ; 
 but the weather is now of the brightest summer character, and 
 in the middle of the day rather too warm. 
 
 Tell me what you are going to do in the autumn. I shall 
 probably wend my way again through the valleys of Illyria to 
 Trieste, about the end of September ; and if I feel better, go 
 on to Rome, where I hope my brother will join me. I amuse 
 myself as much as I can by literary composition, and I have 
 just finished a " Vision on the History of Human Existence," 
 of which the scene is laid in the Colosseum, and in which I 
 endeavour to establish the progressive nature of intellect and 
 the infinite possibility of spiritual natures. My dream is as 
 good as another, and happy are those that dream most in life, 
 and most agreeably. I shall be glad to see a copy of my 
 little angler's book; luckily I have a little vanity in this 
 matter. Mrs. Darner's death I had expected. Her pilgrimage, 
 I suspect, was .much like that of dowagers in general, with the 
 
 1 His servant. 
 
302 HIS LAST ILLNESS 
 
 advantage of a pursuit of which she was proud. God bless 
 you, my dear Jane, and give you health and the enjoyment of 
 much happiness ! 
 
 Your affectionate, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 The conquest in politics is where I had expected. I am 
 very sorry Lord Dudley is unemployed. Lord F. Grower I 
 know is following a plan of ambition belonging naturally to 
 his mother. He has a right to success. 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 Gmunden, July 29, 1828. 
 
 My dear Jane- I have been fortunate in respect to the 
 copy of Salmonia sent to Vienna : it is already in my posses- 
 sion. Pray receive my best thanks, and offer them to Lord 
 Aberdeen. The book is not ill printed ; but there are some 
 strange mistakes ; but they can hardly be considered as 
 affecting the author : Eosshin for Rosshire, the county 
 in which Loch Maree is seated ; Salax and Salac for Salar. 
 Had the book been a graphic performance of my own, these 
 might have been expected. The plates I think tolerable, but 
 the selection not good ; the duplicates might have been 
 omitted, and the fishes not introduced the charr, umbla, 
 &c., would have been more interesting ; but I am contented 
 and pleased with my little bantling, more, perhaps, than I 
 ought to be. 
 
 Now "paulo majora canamus;" my vision of the Colosseum 
 is finished, and I think you will like it. I intend it shall 
 contain all my philosophical thoughts and poetical feelings. 
 The plan is quite new I think you will be pleased with the 
 imagery of it. It is not in verse I hope in good prose. 
 
 I was at Ischl nearly seven weeks, and took forty-two baths 
 
AND HIS LAST DAYS. 303 
 
 and douches. I think I am better. I closed my seton a 
 fortnight ago and without any ill consequences. I have 
 occasional headaches and my leg is still weak ; my arm is 
 decidedly stronger, and I throw the fly almost as well as ever, 
 as the fishes in this beautiful river, had they the Pythagorean 
 language, could tell you. 
 
 Write to me at Lay bach. I received no letter at Ischl 
 after the letter of June 26th ; they will now, I hope, meet me 
 at Salzburg. From the Traun I shall go to the banks of the 
 Save, its rival in my affections, and slowly wend my way to 
 Trieste. 
 
 God bless you, my dear Jane ! Be well and happy. 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 In a letter from Wurzen, of the 21st August, 1828, 
 he says : 
 
 I am anxious to finish my Vision, or rather the Dialogues 
 in illustration of it. I may be mistaken ; authors sometimes 
 esteem most, like mothers, their weakest offspring ; but I am 
 satisfied with what I have done, and wish I may be able to 
 complete it. 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 Laybach, September 1, 1828. 
 My dear Jane I have received both your letters addressed 
 
 to me here. 
 
 ***** 
 
 I am grateful to you for the account you have given me of 
 the reception of Salmonia. It has almost rekindled my love 
 of praise. I have made a number of additions ; and if Murray 
 is near being ready for another edition, I will send the 
 corrected copy through Lord Aberdeen : I think I may 
 venture to take this liberty with his lordship, whom I have 
 always found kind, liberal, and good natured. 
 
304 HIS LAST ILLNESS 
 
 I am a little surprised at the reception of such a trifle as 
 Salmonia; yet, this is in human nature, a trifle excit/s no 
 envy or malevolence, and the flies that cover with their dirt 
 a striking object such as a brilliant column or a statue of 
 marble do not alight upon a pebble or common stone. 
 
 I hope Bath will do all you hope for, and quite re-establish 
 you. 
 
 God bless you, my dear Jane ! 
 
 Always your affectionate friend, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 Lay bach, October 5, 1828. 
 
 My dear Jane I have received all your letters, and last 
 the two from Trieste. I have remained here for many reasons, 
 but I shall go to Trieste as soon as I hear from Mr. During 
 that he has procured a live torpedo for my experiments. The 
 first time since my illness, I have found a month pass too 
 quickly here. The weather has been delightful, and I have 
 had shooting enough to make the day short ; and my pursuits 
 in natural history respecting the migration of birds, have 
 given me some new and curious results. I must not forget 
 the constant attention and kindness of my " Illyrian maid," 
 I mean poetically and really. The art of living happy is, I 
 believe, the art of being agreeably deluded ; and faith in all 
 things is superior to reason, which, after all, is but a dead 
 weight in advanced life, though as the pendulum to the clock 
 in youth. 
 
 I am delighted with your account of the improvement in 
 your health, which I trust will be permanent. I have cer- 
 tainly improved more since I have been here than at any 
 former period of my illness, and I sometimes forqet my mi- 
 series. 
 
AND HIS LAST DAYS. 305 
 
 Do as you please about the house. I have now resolved to 
 winter in Italy, though the ubi is still uncertain : for want of 
 a sure address, after I leave this, write to me at Bologna. 
 
 Mr. W. TVs, I dare say, is an agreeable house. Vanity is 
 always an agreeable quality, and is, I think, the most exqui- 
 site and odorous essence of selfishness, and almost always 
 connected with good nature, and, when the stomach is right, 
 with good temper. 
 
 God bless you, my dear Jane ! I am just going to look for 
 quails. 
 
 Your affectionate, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 Rome, November 18, 1828. 
 
 My dear Jane I arrived here this morning. I found snow 
 in the road at Ferrara, but after I passed Pesaro, the weather 
 became Italian. We are here in sunshine. I have walked to 
 the Pincio, and found it too warm. I shall not write much, 
 being a little feverish after my journey. 
 
 I am anxious to hear if Murray has received my corrected 
 copy of Salmonia ; and likewise for many reasons anxious to 
 hear from you. 
 
 I saw La Martinetti at Bologna. I think her much altered, 
 and very desponding about the absence of her Russian friend. 
 She was as usual kind and amiable, and I passed an hour in 
 her box at the opera. 
 
 I hope I shall find some shooting here, and I trust some 
 literary amusement, in adding to my vision of the Colosseum, 
 otherwise I shall vegetate for my spirits are too feeble to 
 bear general society, and I fear I shall find no Illyrian nurse 
 here, such as the spirit that dispelled my melancholy at Lav- 
 bach ; but I live always in hope, that I may still be useful to 
 
 X 
 
306 HIS LAST ILLNESS 
 
 others, and that my existence is continued for some useful 
 purpose. 
 
 God bless you, my dear Jane ! 
 
 Your most affectionate, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 Rome, December 8, 1828. 
 
 My dear Jane I begin to be alarmed: it is now nearly 
 two months that I have had no letters. I have little to say. 
 I find here my dear Monsignore the Vice Legate of Ravenna, 
 the most amiable of men, and one of the most enlightened. 
 His society is sunshine to me, and with Morichini, he sup- 
 plies almost all I want from mankind. We have again bright 
 and beautiful days, and I can pass five or six hours in the 
 Campagna with interest and amusement ; but for game there 
 is scarcely any. I bring back two or three quails or snipes 
 from places where, ten years ago, I usually found scores. There 
 is no water in the Campagna. 
 
 I am making some experiments on electricity with appa- 
 ratus they have provided me with from the Sapienza, and I 
 am likewise steadily employed in my literary labours. Pray 
 write to me. 
 
 God bless you, my dear Jane ! 
 
 Your affectionate, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 Rome, December 18, 1828. 
 
 My dear Jane I have at last received your letters to 
 Bologna, and the one of November 18 from Great Malvern, 
 which is the last, in which you speak of Mrs. Somerville's and 
 Sir Walter's review of Salmonia. I have had no packets either 
 
AND HIS LAST DAYS. 307 
 
 from you or from Murray, and I long exceedingly to read the 
 Poet^s praise of the fisherman. I have a letter from my bro- 
 ther, who has received Salmonia, and who sends me Mr. Frere^s 
 admiration of the little book. 
 
 I continue much as when I wrote last. Your last letter 
 raised my spirits, by giving me the praise of the praiseworthy ; 
 but depressed them by the bad accounts of poor Wollaston. 
 He at least has not suffered from indulgence. I cannot help 
 thinking that a certain quantity of nervous or vital power is 
 given to man, which, when consumed, cannot be replaced, and 
 which limits the period of activity and of existence. 
 
 I lead the life of a solitary. I go into the Campagna to 
 look for game, and work at home at my dialogues the alternate 
 days. I hope I shall finish something worth publishing before 
 the winter is over. 
 
 This day, my birth-day, I finish my half century. 1 Whe- 
 ther the work I am now employed on will be my last, I know 
 not ; but I am sure, in one respect, it will be my best ; for its 
 object is to display and vindicate the instinct or feeling of 
 religion. No philosopher, I am sure, will quarrel with it, and 
 no Christian ought to quarrel with it. 
 
 I am, my dear Jane, 
 
 Your most affectionate, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 Rome, January 20, 1829. 
 
 My dear Jane A cabinet courier brought me this morning 
 the parcel containing the papers from Penzance. I have re- 
 ceived all my letters. No person can correct the scienzia part 
 of Salmonia as well as Mr. Blake. Of course I shall be in- 
 
 1 As recorded in the family bible, the 17th of December was his birth- 
 day, as stated in page 1. 
 
 x2 
 
308 HIS LAST ILLNESS 
 
 finitely obliged to him for his assistance. I wish I could 
 claim his pencil assistance for Denham and Leintwardine. 
 I have already requested you to let the house if you like. I 
 hope I shall live to finish my Philosophical Dialogues, but I 
 doubt exceedingly whether I shall ever again inhabit the house 
 in Park Street. I have no despondence ; but I feel my vital 
 powers (quoad the body) are not restoring ; and my stomach 
 is feebler than ever in this climate. I cannot go into society, 
 for even a conversation of half an hour exhausts me, and my 
 voice is almost inaudible. My mind, however, I hope, has all 
 its vigour, and too much discriminating sensibility. 
 
 Should I survive the winter, I shall like to return to Illyria, 
 and the Save and the Traun in spring ; and shall be most 
 happy to meet you there. You talk of some nymph Bettina. 
 Alas ! my Bettinas are with the years of the old Komans, and 
 amongst the ruins of the eternal city, images which cannot 
 return. But if you mean my dear little nurse and friend of 
 Laybach, I shall be very glad to make you acquainted with 
 her. She has made some days of my life more agreeable than 
 I had any reason to expect, and more agreeable than I had 
 any right to hope. Her name is Josephine or Papina. 
 
 I am at this moment much interested in an inquiry of 
 science, which has opened itself unexpectedly in the functions 
 of the torpedo ; and I regret more than ever the stiffness and 
 weakness of my left hand, which limit my powers of dissection 
 and manipulation. 
 
 God bless you, my dear Jane ! 
 
 Your most affectionate, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 Rome, February 11, 1829. 
 
 My dear Jane I have just received the packet from Lord 
 Aberdeen. I am grateful to you for the trouble you have 
 
AND HIS LAST DAYS. 309 
 
 taken, and I beg you will express my warm acknowledgments 
 to his Lordship for the kindness with which he is so good as 
 to promote the objects of a sick, perhaps a dying man. Thank 
 Mr. Murray for his letter to me, and for the book, and tell 
 him I will think upon the matters which he proposes, and say 
 to him that I am much obliged to him for the Journal of the 
 Naturalist, which will be particularly interesting to me. 1 T 
 am glad to have received the letter from the Prince of Den- 
 mark, and I shall reply to it in a few days. It is delightful 
 to know one is not forgotten by friends, and it is in human 
 nature to be pleased with the recollection of the heir to a throne. 
 
 This climate does not at all agree with me, though, perhaps, 
 I should suffer in winter everywhere. There is no mode of 
 avoiding cold, and my limbs suffer and become numb when- 
 ever the north wind blows, and I have had in addition a severe 
 inflammatory cold, affecting the eyes, head, and chest. I 
 have been obliged to lose blood, and apply blisters, which, in 
 my state of weakness, have been very depressing. I have, 
 however, crawled out in the sun this day, and I hope the crisis 
 of this severe attack is past. 
 
 If you have an opportunity of sending again by a messenger 
 through Lord Aberdeen's kindness, address the packet to me 
 to the care of Messrs. Freeborn and Smith, Bankers, Rue 
 Condolli, Rome, to be delivered immediately : if you address 
 to Bologna, to the care of Madame- Martinetti. I shall go 
 north about the second week in March. I shall be glad to 
 know that Count Harract, of Vienna, has granted my request 
 to shoot birds of passage in April or May at Laybach, as a 
 naturalist. 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 You will have heard, before you receive this letter, of the 
 death of the Pope : I do not think he is much regretted. 
 
 i The proposal of Mr. Murray was to review this work for the Quar- 
 terly : 100 was the very liberal offer for the article. 
 
310 HIS LAST ILLNESS 
 
 I am glad Warburton is going to write a life of Wollaston ;* 
 yet I am not sure that Blake could not write a more instructive 
 one ; yet Warburton will make it scientific, and I doubt not 
 accurate. It was not worth his while (Wollaston's) to have 
 died so rich ; but I suppose there is a pleasure in accumu- 
 lating. So will W. die ! with perhaps two or three hundred 
 thousand ; yet these men might have applied money to the 
 noblest purposes. You speak of his malady being a family 
 one. This likewise is my case : my grandfather and six or 
 seven of my great uncles died of apoplexy. 
 
 I have finished my six dialogues. The first is the Vision 
 in the Colosseum. I am pleased with them. I think you will 
 find them entertaining. There are some interesting incidents ; 
 but I hope to show them to you before spring is over. Pray 
 remember me to all friends who inquire for me, and be sure I 
 am very grateful for any attention and kindness, and I shall 
 be delighted to know you are well and happy. I shall write 
 to Murray as soon as I know my little repaired bark is 
 launched. 
 
 God bless you, my dear Jane ! 
 
 Your most affectionate, 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
 I have just seen Prince Esterhazy n s note: a thousand 
 thanks for it. Pray let him read my opinion of the people of 
 Upper Austria, in Salmonia ; and pray have the great kind- 
 ness to send copies of Salmonia to the Prince and to the Arch- 
 duke John. 
 
 The two next letters will finish this correspon- 
 dence one written to Lady Davy, from his dictation, 
 making known his last requests and wishes, and one 
 
 1 The Life of Wollaston, still a desideratum. 
 
AND HIS LAST DAYS. 311 
 
 from her in reply, the copy of which she preserved, 
 and for which also I am indebted to her relation, Dr. 
 Kerr. I am induced to give it, as confirmatory of a 
 former remark, of her abiding admiration, and I 
 would hope of affectionate regard and tender feeling, 
 which, to use his own expression in relation to her, 
 " had been smothered, not extinguished." 
 
 To Lady Davy. 
 
 Rome, March 1, 1829. 
 
 I am still alive, though expecting every hour to be released. 
 The insidious and unexpected attack has destroyed almost all 
 the powers of my body, but seems to have left every energy, 
 and every refined taste of the mind perfect. As ill health may 
 have prevented you from setting out, I write to you still in 
 London, but I hope you will come to Home as quickly as you 
 can. I wish my dust to sleep in the city of the Caesars ; but 
 there are some relics which I should wish immediately deli- 
 vered into your hands, or those of my brother ; they are my 
 six Dialogues, my legacy to the philosophical world ; they are 
 in five small volumes ; and I hope before you arrive, Mr. 
 Tobin will have made a second copy of them. Of these two 
 copies, I wish one to go to England, through a separate and 
 distinct channel, to prevent accidents. I should not take so 
 much interest in these works, did I not believe that they con- 
 tain truths which cannot be recovered if they are lost, and 
 which I am convinced will be extremely useful both to the 
 moral and intellectual world. I may be mistaken in this point, 
 yet it is the conviction of a man perfectly sane in all the intel- 
 lectual faculties, and looking into futurity with the prophetic 
 aspirations belonging to the last moments of existence. 
 
 I rejoice that the Catholic question is carried. Without 
 having a strong political bias, I have always considered this 
 point as essential to the welfare of England as a great country, 
 
312 HIS LAST ILLNESS 
 
 and connected with her glory as a liberal, philosophical, and 
 Christian country. 
 
 You will find my horses I should hope fat, and in good 
 keeping here, and I hope you will use them ; at all events, I 
 can recommend the ponies to you as riding horses, and George 
 is now well acquainted with the manner in which they ought 
 to be treated, and is I believe very careful of them. Should 
 you prefer travelling post, the pair of large horses would, I 
 think, be useful to my brother ; and should he return to settle 
 in England, or settle anywhere else as a physician, they may, 
 I think, form a part of his establishment. He will, I hope, be 
 at Rome before you can be there ; and I think it is almost 
 time for him to quit his life of medical adventure in the army. 
 In my arrangements with respect to property, with regard to 
 which I have left you sole executrix (my will is in a brass box 
 at Drummond's), I wish my brothers interests to be specially 
 considered, and whatever I have said with respect to him in 
 my will and codicil, I wish to have interpreted in the most 
 favourable manner. I believe I mentioned it to you in another 
 place, but I am not sure, I wish the interest of ^lOO, that is 
 to say, 4! a year, to be given annually on my birth-day to the 
 scholars at the grammar school at Penzance, provided that the 
 Mayor and Corporation will consent to their having a holiday 
 on that day. I strongly advise you to pay a visit to my 
 friend, Monsignore Spada, at Spoleto. He had prepared an 
 apartment there for me, which I hope my "relicti" will oc- 
 cupy. Pray give him a copy of my second edition of Sal- 
 monia, and likewise the little gold box in my writing case, 
 sent to me by the Emperor Alexander, and which I think he 
 will use as a snuff-box. He is one of the most amiable and 
 enlightened men I ever knew, and I have no doubt will, at 110 
 distant period, be an honour to the conclave. 
 
 God bless you, my dearest ! 
 
 H. DAVY. 
 
AND HIS LAST DAYS. 313 
 
 From Lady Davy. 
 
 I have received, my beloved Sir Humphry, the letter signed 
 by your hand, with its precious wish of tenderness, bearing- 
 date the 1st of March. I start to-morrow, having been detained 
 here by Drs. Babington and Clarke, till to-day. I shall travel 
 with all the expedition I can, to arrive not quite useless. I 
 trust still to embrace you, for so clear and beautiful expres- 
 sions and sentiments cannot be the inhabitants of decay, how- 
 ever of feeble limbs and frame. I shall to the extremest point 
 hold your wishes sacred, and obey in ready willingness the 
 spirit even more than the letter of your order. God still pre- 
 serve you, and know that the lofty and noble tone of your 
 letter deepens all love and faith I have ever borne to you, and 
 believe the words of kind effort will be a shield to me through 
 life. I cannot add more than that your fame is a deposit, and 
 your memory a glory, your life still a hope. 
 
 Your ever faithful and affectionate, 
 
 JANE DAVY. 
 
 I shall conclude with the insertion of an extract 
 from the address of the President, his successor, Mr. 
 Davies Gilbert, from the chair of the Royal Society, 
 and the addition of two letters, both from the same 
 gentleman, the late Mr. Poole of Nether Stowey, as 
 already remarked, one of my brother's oldest and 
 most attached friends. This extract and these letters 
 relate to different periods of his life ; the first to his 
 earliest years, Mr. Gilbert having known him almost 
 from infancy. The latter from the beginning of his 
 public career at Bristol to his last days. Mr. Gil- 
 bert's address was on the occasion of the anniversary 
 
314 HIS LAST ILLNESS 
 
 meeting of the Society in 1829, held on the 30th of 
 November, when, according to usage, he, the Presi- 
 dent, had to notice the more distinguished of the 
 Fellows lost to science during the year; and Wol- 
 laston and Young also, it is remarkable, were of the 
 number, three who had been associated in their best 
 days as secretaries. The portion extracted is the 
 concluding part, that which followed an abstract of 
 his labours and discoveries. As an estimate of cha- 
 racter, I need hardly remark, it is open to question. 
 
 Such is the imperfect sketch that I have presumed to give 
 of Sir Humphry Davy, omitting much of importance in his 
 high character of an inventive philosopher, by which he has 
 added to the credit, to the honour, and to the fame of this most 
 distinguished Society, by which he has diffused a lustre on the 
 province which gave him birth, and on the entire nation to 
 which he belonged. 
 
 Some short account of so extraordinary a man in his early 
 years, may be expected from the only member of the Society 
 who has witnessed them. 
 
 In infancy his mind ran upon romance. He had probably 
 read or heard some tales of chivalry. His ardent wish was to 
 issue forth armed cap-a-pie, and to clear the world of giants 
 and monsters. At school, at Penzance, he advanced to eastern 
 tales and legends, so that many contemporaries remember 
 standing round him with delight, whilst he repeated, varied, 
 or invented fiction for their amusement. The gradation from 
 this habit to measured poetry was natural and easy. The 
 grand objects of nature laid hold on his imagination, and we 
 have from his pen, at an age not much further advanced, a 
 poem on St. Michael's " guarded Mount," equal, if not superior 
 to any of the numerous tributes paid to that magnificent pro- 
 
AND HIS LAST DAYS. 315 
 
 montory, equally interesting to the antiquary, to the geologist, 
 and to the admirer of scenery, at once rugged and sublime. 
 
 Painting about the same time became also a favourite amuse- 
 ment, and specimens indicative of no common genius may now 
 be seen at the Royal Institution, where they illustrated his 
 admirable and admired Lectures. 
 
 These attempts at painting become doubly and trebly in- 
 teresting on another account. Some of his contemporaries 
 have expressed to me their belief, that experiments instituted 
 for the purpose of preparing colours, first directed Davy to the 
 pursuit of chemistry. Notwithstanding these various avoca- 
 tions, his advancement in school learning at Truro, under 
 Dr. Cardew, in whose praise as a master too much cannot be 
 expressed, was equal to that of his most able companions ; and 
 Davy returned to the house of his benefactor at Penzance, 
 with sufficient acquirements, and with sufficient means derived 
 from his father, for executing his favourite plan of studying at 
 Edinburgh, and there procuring a medical degree. The exe- 
 cution was, however, delayed, by the advice and authority of 
 Mr. Tonkin, who recommended a preparatory medical educa- 
 tion at Penzance. It was finally abandoned, I believe, at the 
 Royal Institution. 
 
 In a work composed on the bed of sickness, and when all 
 rational hope of a permanent recovery had ceased, the original 
 genius of his youth again burst forth, a spirit which had be- 
 stowed on his Lectures an eloquence and an interest to be 
 derived from no other sources. No one can read Salmonia 
 without having feelings excited similar to those of the writer ; 
 no one reading it, could form any other opinion than that of 
 its author having devoted the whole of his time to the exclu- 
 sive cultivation of natural history and elegant literature. 
 
 The poetic bent of Davy's mind seems never to have left 
 him. To that circumstance I would ascribe the distinguish- 
 ing feature in his character, and in his discoveries, a vivid 
 imagination sketching out new tracts in regions unexplored, for 
 
316 HIS LAST ILLNESS 
 
 the judgment to select those leading to the recesses of abstract 
 truth. 1 
 
 The following two letters from his old and attached 
 friend, Mr. Poole, the first addressed to me, the 
 second to Dr. Paris, are both so expressed, as if 
 specially for the purpose of counteracting the alle- 
 gations brought against his character by his un- 
 friendly biographer ; and on that account chiefly they 
 are here inserted. A great poet and moralist has 
 said "The affections are their own justification. 
 The light of love in our hearts, is a satisfactory evi- 
 dence that there is a body of warmth in the minds of 
 our friends whence that light has proceeded." 2 This 
 is an ennobling and comforting passage, and gives 
 confidence that a friend's and a brother's impressions 
 of a friend and a brother, so far as the affections are 
 concerned, and the moral worth of character, cannot 
 be far wrong, and may be deserving of some credit. 
 And another passage from another great writer may 
 aptly be coupled with the preceding, and should 
 influence relations when so fortunate as to have 
 been connected with men who have deserved well of 
 their country, not to be silent or remiss when a 
 record is required of the illustrious dead: "Vita 
 enim mortuorum in memoria vivorum est posita." 3 
 And a third passage, and from a living writer, that 
 "The greatest men have often many faults, and 
 
 1 From the Journal Book of the Royal Society, vol. xlv., page 536. 
 3 Wordsworth's Essay on Epitaphs. 
 3 Cicero, Philip. IX. 
 
AND HIS LAST DAYS. 317 
 
 sometimes their faults are a part of their greatness," 
 may be deserving of consideration, especially of those 
 who, discarding the antiquated doctrine of de mortuis 
 nil nisi bonum, adopt the modern one of the contrary 
 kind, that of giving pre-eminence to little faults and 
 failings, and, too often, regardless of truth, even 
 invent them, as if their aim were to lower the cha- 
 racter of the distinguished dead, reduce them to the 
 common level, and thereby as much as possible dimi- 
 nish their influence, as exemplars, on their fellow 
 men. 
 
 To Dr. Davy, 
 
 Nether Stowey, January 27, 1830. 
 
 My dear Sir For I cannot in other terms address you, as 
 the brother of my late dear and illustrious friend, Sir 
 Humphry Davy I beg you to accept my sincere thanks 
 for the invaluable testimony 1 of his regard which you have 
 transmitted to me, and for your interesting and obliging note 
 accompanying it. I need not say how much I feel honoured 
 by his kind recollection of me, and by his making that feeling 
 known to the world; nor how sensible I am of your attention, 
 by mentioning in the preface the affecting circumstances under 
 which the dedication was written. I received the book last 
 night. I have read it through with great interest ; and it 
 will interest, and instruct, and excite to nobler purposes all 
 who read it. It is delightful to see his mind partaking so 
 much of heaven when just on its threshold. 
 
 There is another gratification which I have experienced, to 
 which I cannot help alluding ; I mean my friend's recollection 
 
 1 A copy of the " Consolations in Travel," dedicated to Mr. Poole " in 
 remembrance of thirty years of continued and faithful friendship." 
 
318 HIS LAST ILLNESS 
 
 of me by his will. I have received the legacy from Lady 
 Davy, and have appropriated it to the purchase of his portrait 
 by Howard. It is, I remember, a striking likeness of what he 
 was seventeen years ago, and a good painting. I think myself 
 very fortunate in being able to procure it. The picture is 
 now on its way from London, and will be my companion 
 while I live. Its presence will tend to make me wiser and 
 better. 
 
 I cannot conclude without expressing a hope, that when 
 any circumstance takes you to the West, you will favour me 
 with a visit. I am but eighteen miles of excellent road from 
 Bridgewater; and it will give me great satisfaction to become 
 acquainted with the brother of the friend whom I honoured 
 and loved, and whose death, for my own sake and for the sake 
 of mankind, I lament. 
 
 I am, &c., 
 
 THOMAS POOLE. 
 
 This visit I had the pleasure of paying shortly after ; 
 it was my first and last, for his valued life was then 
 drawing nigh to its close. The portrait referred to 
 passed after his death into the possession of his 
 nephew, William Poole King, Esq., of Clifton, having 
 been specially left him as a legacy by his uncle. A 
 copy of it I have, and by the original artist, made 
 after an interval of about thirty years. Mr. Poole 
 was so kind as to send me the picture for the 
 purpose. 
 
 To Dr. Paris. 
 
 Nether Stowey, February 1, 1830. 
 
 Dear Sir You request me to give you any information ifi 
 my power which may contribute to the important and interest- 
 
AND HIS LAST DAYS. 319 
 
 ing work which you have undertaken the history of the life of 
 my distinguished and lamented friend, the late Sir Humphry 
 Davy. 
 
 Although the most friendly intercourse existed between us 
 for thirty years, and occasionally correspondence by letters, 
 I fear I have little else to communicate than to bear testimony 
 to his general intellectual elevation, and to the warmth, sin- 
 cerity, and simplicity of his heart. I was first introduced to 
 him at the Medical Pneumatic Institution, at Clifton, in, 
 I think, 1799, where I inhaled his nitrous oxide with the 
 usual extraordinary and transitory sensations ; but the inter- 
 esting conversation, manners, and appearance of the youthful 
 operator were not transitory nay, riveted my attention, and 
 we soon became friends. 
 
 From that time to his death, no interruption of the most 
 cordial goodwill and affection occurred between us. Neither 
 the importance of his discoveries, nor the attentions of the 
 exalted in rank or science, whether as individuals or public 
 bodies, nor the honour conferred on him by his sovereign, 
 made the least alteration in his personal demeanour, or in the 
 tone of his correspondence. No man was ever less spoiled by 
 the world. The truth is, though he conformed to the world, and 
 paid due deference to those men and things which are deferred 
 to by the world, his delight was in his intellectual being. He 
 felt that he had the power of investigating the laws of nature 
 beyond that entrusted to the generality of men ; and the 
 success with which he acted on this impulse increased his con- 
 fidence. During his last visit to me in November, 1827, when 
 in a very weak state of health, he more than once said, " I do 
 not wish to live, as far as I am personally concerned, but I 
 have views which I could develop, if it pleased God to save 
 my life, which would be useful to science and mankind." 
 Indeed, to be useful to science and mankind was that in which 
 he gloried, to use a favourite word of his. He was enthusi- 
 astically attached to science, and to men of science ; and his 
 
320 HIS LAST ILLNESS 
 
 heart yearned to be useful to mankind, and particularly to 
 the humblest of mankind. How often have I heard him 
 express the satisfaction which the discovery of the safety lamp 
 gave him ! fi I value it," he said, " more than anything I 
 ever did i it was the result of a vast deal of investigation and 
 labour ; but if my directions be attended to, it will save the 
 lives of thousands of poor men. I was never more affected," 
 he added, " than by a written address which I received from 
 the working colliers when I was in the north, thanking me on 
 behalf of themselves and their families for the preservation of 
 their lives." 1 I remember how delighted he was when he 
 showed rne a service of plate presented to him by those very 
 men and their employers, 2 as a testimony of their gratitude. 
 
 Such were the motives which excited him to that investiga- 
 tion which led to those various important and brilliant results, 
 
 1 The address referred to above was the following, copied verbatim 
 from the original, now before me : 
 
 " September 18, 1816. 
 
 " We, the undersigned, miners at the Whitehaven Collieries, belong- 
 ing to the Earl of Lonsdale, return our sincere thanks to Sir Humphry 
 Davy, for his invaluable discovery of the safe lamps, which are to us life 
 preservers ;' and being the only return in our power to make, we most 
 humbly offer this, our tribute of gratitude." 
 
 The names of eighty-two miners are appended; the majority of 
 them, viz., forty-seven, with their mark (>4 ) affixed. 
 
 2 This was a mistake. The service of plate was presented to him by 
 the owners of collieries exclusively on the Tyne and Wear, as is shown 
 by the inscription on the centre piece, of which the following is a 
 copy : 
 
 " Newcastle-on-Tyne. 
 
 " This service of plate was presented to Sir Humphry Davy by the 
 subscribers, as a token of gratitude for his invaluable discovery of the 
 safety lamp." 
 
 The list of subscribers is underneath: it comprised the owners of 
 thirty-six collieries, and was headed by the Duke of Northumberland. 
 The individual names are to be found in the Memoirs of his Life. 
 
AND HIS LAST DAYS. 321 
 
 which you are qualified to appreciate, and will, I doubt not, 
 ably detail. 
 
 However his circumstances or situation in society altered, 
 his labours and zeal in the pursuit of science were throughout 
 his life undiminished. Not many days before he had that 
 attack of paralysis at Rome, from which he never recovered, 
 he tells me in a letter that he was employed in the investiga- 
 tion of the generation of eels. Natural history in general had 
 been a favourite subject with him throughout his protracted 
 illness, for when he was with me in November, 1827, he paid 
 attention to that subject only ; " for," said he, "I am pro- 
 hibited from applying, and I am incapable of applying, to 
 anything that requires severe attention. 1 ' During the same 
 visit, I remember his inherent love of the laboratory (if I may 
 so speak) was manifested in a manner which much interested 
 me at the moment. On his visiting with me a gentleman in 
 
 o O 
 
 this neighbourhood who had offered to let him his house, and 
 who has an extensive philosophical apparatus, particularly 
 complete in electricity and chemistry, 1 he was fatigued by the 
 journey ; and as we were walking round the house very lan- 
 guidly, a door opened, and we were in the laboratory. He 
 threw his eyes round the room, which brightened in the 
 action a glow came over his countenance, and he appeared 
 himself twenty years ago. He was surprised and delighted, 
 and seemed to say, " This is the beloved theatre of my glory !" 
 I said, " You are pleased." He shook his head, and smiled. 
 What, from my earliest knowledge of my admirable friend, 
 I considered his most striking characteristic, was the quick- 
 ness and truth of his apprehension. It was a power of rea- 
 soning so rapid, when applied to any subject, that he could 
 hardly himself be conscious of the process ; and it must, 
 I think, have been felt by him, as it appeared to me, pure 
 
 1 The late Mr. Crosse's, of which an interesting account will be found 
 in a Memoir of his Life by his widow. 
 
 Y 
 
322 HIS LAST ILLNESS 
 
 intuition. I used to say to him, " You understand me before 
 I half understand myself!" I recollect on our first acquaint- 
 ance he knew little of the practice^ of agriculture. I was at 
 that time a considerable farmer, and very fond of the occupa- 
 tion. During his visits in those days, I was at first some- 
 thing like his teacher in this matter ; but my pupil soon 
 became my master, both in theory and practice. No man 
 was less a sectarian (if I may use the word) in religion, in 
 politics, or in science. He regarded with benevolence the 
 sincere convictions of any class on the subject of religion, 
 however they might vary from his own. In politics he was 
 an ardent friend of rational liberty ; he gloried in the institu- 
 tions of his country, and was anxious to see them maintained 
 in their purity, by timely and temperate reform. Men of 
 science, wherever situated, he considered as fellow-subjects of 
 one great republic, spread over the world. I was in London 
 soon after he received the letter from France, announcing that 
 the National Institute had awarded him the prize given by Napo- 
 leon to the greatest discovery by means of galvanism. (These 
 discoveries are detailed in the Transactions of the lloyal 
 Society, 1807.) He showed me the letter, and said, " Some 
 people say I ought not to have accepted this, and there have 
 been foolish paragraphs in the papers to that effect ; but if 
 the two countries or governments are at war, the men of 
 science are not that would be indeed a civil war of the worst 
 sort. Bather," he added, u we should, through the instru- 
 mentality of men of science, soften the asperity of national 
 war." 
 
 Among my friend's intellectual efforts, his poetical produc- 
 tions are worthy of attention. Some have been published ; 
 and I believe there is a large collection in manuscript. If his 
 mind had been given another direction, he probably would 
 have ranked high among our poets. I recollect hearing 
 perhaps the greatest living poetic genius 1 say, "Had not 
 1 The late Mr. Coleridge. 
 
AND HIS LAST DAYS. 323 
 
 Davy been the first chemist, he, probably, would have -been 
 the first poet of his age." 
 
 As to his amusements, he was latterly a good shot, and an 
 expert angler a great admirer of old Isaac Walton. He 
 highly prided himself on these accomplishments. I used to 
 laugh at him, which he did not like not that I underrated 
 them but it amused me to see such a man give so much 
 importance to these qualifications. He would say, " It is not 
 the sport only (though there is great pleasure in successful 
 dexterity), but it is the ardour of the pursuit ; the pure air ; 
 the contemplation of a fine country ; the exercise ; all which 
 invigorate the body, and excite the mind to its best efforts." 
 
 He endeavoured at different times to purchase an estate in 
 this neighbourhood, on which he proposed to reside occasion- 
 ally, " for the sake," he said, " of field sports in a fine 
 country !" These amusements seem to have become more 
 and more important in his estimation as his health declined, 
 and it was affecting; to observe the efforts he made to share 
 
 O 
 
 them as his strength diminished. From being able to walk 
 without fatigue for many hours, he was, when he came to me 
 in November, 1826, obliged to have a pony to take him to 
 the field, from which he dismounted only in the certainty of 
 immediate sport. In the following year he could only take 
 short occasional rides to the covers, with his dogs around him, 
 and his servant walking by his side carrying his gun, but 
 which, I believe, he never fired. During this last visit 
 (November and December, 1827), his bodily infirmity was 
 very great, and his sensibility was painfully alive on every 
 occasion. Unhappily he had to sustain the affliction of the 
 sudden death of Mr. K., 1 the son of a friend whom he 
 highly valued ; and though this afflicting event was, by the 
 considerate attention of Lady Davy, first comriymicated to 
 me, to be imparted to him with every precaution to avoid his 
 being suddenly shocked, yet it was many days before he could 
 
 1 See p. 296. 
 
 Y 2 
 
324 HIS LAST ILLNESS 
 
 resume his usual spirits, feeble as they were, and wonted 
 occupations. 
 
 On his arrival, he said, " Here I am, the ruin of what I 
 was! 1 ' But, nevertheless, the same activity and ardour of 
 mind continued, though directed to different objects. He 
 employed himself three hours in the morning on his Salmonia, 
 which he was then writing. He would then take a short 
 walk (which he accomplished with difficulty) or ride ; and 
 after dinner 1 used to read to him some amusing book. We 
 were much interested, particularly by Southey's " Life of 
 Nelson." " It would give South ey," he said, " great pleasure 
 if he knew how much his narrative affected us." In the 
 evenings, Mr. and Mrs. W. (he had long known W.) fre- 
 quently came to make a rubber at whist. He was averse to 
 seeing strangers ; but on being shown the drawings in natural 
 history of a friend of mine of great talent, Mr. Baker, of 
 Bridgewater, he was anxious to see him, and was much 
 pleased with his company, and suggested to him various 
 matters for investigation concerning fish, particularly the eel. 
 What pleasure it would give him, if he were now alive, to 
 learn the interesting result of these suggestions, which "will, 
 I hope, soon be known to the public. 
 
 I know not that I can add more to fulfil the object I pro- 
 posed to myself, which was not to speak of Sir Humphry 
 Davy's discoveries in science, his various literary productions, 
 or his able and upright conduct as a member of public bodies 
 these are before the public, and evince his greatness but it 
 was to show that he was not only one of the greatest, but one 
 of the most amiable of men. * * * 
 
 I am, dear sir, yours, 
 
 THOMAS POOLE. 
 
 Other testimonials there are, which I could tran- 
 scribe, as to his qualities as a man, and a man of 
 
AND HIS LAST DAYS. 325 
 
 science. It may suffice to refer to the late Dr. 
 Henry's eloquent account of him in the latter capa- 
 city, to be found in the preface to the last edition 
 of his Elements of Chemistry, contrasting his powers 
 with those of Dr. Wollaston, and to the sketch of 
 his character, not less eloquent, written by one not 
 personally acquainted with him, which appeared in 
 Professor Silliman's " American Journal of Science 
 and Arts," shortly after his death. 
 
 A few words more. Where he died, there, accord- 
 ing to his own wish, expressed in his will, he was 
 buried; a wish preceded by the sentiment Natura 
 suas reliquias curat. He was honoured by a public 
 funeral, and his remains were deposited in the bury- 
 ing-ground without the walls of the city, close to the 
 grave of Professor Pictet. The following inscription 
 is on his tomb : 
 
 Hie jacet 
 HUMPHRY DAVY, 
 
 Eques magnae Britanniae Baronetus, 
 
 Olim Regiae Societ : Londin : Praeses, 
 
 Sumrnus Arcanorum Naturae indagator, 
 
 Natus Penzantiae, Cornubiensium xvn Decemb: MDCCLXXVIII. 
 
 Obiit Geuevae Helvetiorum xxix Mai MDCCCXXIX. 
 
 Nor was the " melodious tear" a- wanting. 
 
 Thou ! from whose lip the word that freely flowed, 
 With all a poet^s inspiration glowed, 
 Lamented friend, farewell ! Thou liest at rest, 
 A world of wonders buried in thv breast ! 
 
326 HIS LAST ILLNESS AND HIS LAST DAYS. 
 
 High aims were thine all nature to explore, 
 Make each new truth developed gender more, 
 And upward traced through universal laws, 
 Ascend in spirit to the eternal cause : 
 Such was thy ardent hope, thy view sublime : 
 But, ah ! cut off in manhood"^ daring prime, 
 Thou liest where Genius leans upon thy tomb, 
 And, half eclipsed, mourns thy untimely doom. 1 
 
 1 From lines suggested by the third meeting of the British Association 
 for the Advancement of Science, held at Cambridge, in June, 1833. By 
 the late W. Sotheby, Esq., F.R.S. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Acton, Mrs. Stackhouse, her early 
 recollection of SirH. Davy, 124. 
 
 Alkalies, decomposition of, 119. 
 
 Alfred, an epic poem, notice of, 45. 
 
 Archduke John, of Austria, letter 
 from, 270. 
 
 Archimedes, mention of, 116. 
 
 Ashes, volcanic, fertilizing, 173. 
 
 Azotane, injury from explosion of, 
 177. 
 
 Bacon, Lord, quotation from, in 
 defence of science, 59. 
 
 Banks, Sir Joseph, letter from, 208. 
 
 Beddoes, Dr., his death, 106. 
 
 , Mrs., mention of, 150. 
 
 Beaumont, Sir George, mention of, 
 96 ; his death, 280. 
 
 Bleaching by oxymuriate of mag- 
 nesia, 139. 
 
 Brutus, proposed poem on, 41. 
 
 Blumenhach, his Manual of Natural 
 History, 76. 
 
 Calvert, Mr., mention of, 86. 
 
 Canning, Right Hon. George, his 
 death, 292. 
 
 Cardew, Ilev. Dr., mention of, 9. 
 
 Carrock mountain described, 79. 
 
 Chenevix, Mr., mention of, 161. 
 
 Chemistry, science of, how endan- 
 gered, 202. 
 
 Cid, poem, praise of, 103 
 
 Christabel, mention of, 82. 
 
 Coleridge, S. T., Esq., notices of, 
 74 ; Letters from, 75 et seq., 99 
 ct seq. ; Hartley, mention of, 78 ; 
 Derwent, why so named, 83. 
 
 Connemara, description of, 151. 
 Conn, Loch, description of, 151. 
 Cottle, Mr. Joseph, mention of, 21. 
 Colliers' expression of gratitude for 
 
 safety lamp, 320. 
 " Consolations in Travel," object 
 
 for which written, 307. 
 Cottage, Mr. Wordsworth's, 256. 
 
 Dalton, Dr., dedication of his system 
 of chemical philosophy, 122. 
 
 Darner, Hon. Mrs., her death, 301. 
 
 Davy, Sir H., his birth, 2; mar- 
 riage, 156 ; death, 268. 
 
 Denmark, Prince Christian Fre- 
 deric of, letter from, 273. 
 
 Dialogue, philosophical, notice of, 
 307. 
 
 Dog, mad, incident of, 10. 
 
 Dunn, Mr., note from, on the safety 
 lamp, 212. 
 
 Dulong, his discovery of and acci- 
 dent from the explosion of a 
 compound of azote and chlorine, 
 175. 
 
 Edge worth, Miss Maria, mention 
 
 of, 149 ; letters from, 159. 
 Eel, oviparous, its breeding places, 
 
 299. 
 Epitaph, S. T. Coleridge's, 75; 
 
 H. Davy's, 325 ; J. King's, 63. 
 Electricity, voltaic, early researches 
 
 on, 61. 
 England, her real wealth what, 99. 
 
 " Friend, The," a periodical, parti- 
 culars of, 104. 
 Frog, Waltonian anecdote of, 276. 
 
328 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Fluorine, notice of, 178. 
 
 Gauss, the geometer, mention of, 
 
 250. 
 " Gebir," commendation of, 47 ; 
 
 anecdote of its author, 48. 
 Gilbert, D. G., Esq., his sketch of 
 
 Sir H. Davy, 314. 
 Genius, its qualities, 115, 
 Genoa, its geological site, 196. 
 Grapes, method of keeping, 276. 
 Grotta del Cane, gas of, 1 99. 
 Gowrie, a poem, mention of, 47. 
 
 Helvellyn, ascent of, 256. 
 
 Home, Sir E., Lectures of, noticed, 
 
 242. 
 Hydrophobia, treatment of, by 
 
 garlic, 11. 
 Hutton, Dr., his geological theory 
 
 adverted to, 135. 
 
 Inquisition, proposed subject for 
 poem, 45. 
 
 Institution, Pneumatic, how esta- 
 blished, 18. 
 
 Iodine, discovery of, 186. 
 
 Jacobi, Lieutenant, his mode of 
 
 breeding fish, 127. 
 Jenks, Dr., letter from, 266. 
 
 King, John, Esq., notice of, 63. 
 
 Knight, Thomas Andrew, Esq., 
 his estimation of Sir H. Davy, 
 123. 
 
 Klopstock's grave, mention of, 251. 
 
 Kohl rajbi, a vegetable recom- 
 mended, 278. 
 
 Lamp, safety, its discovery, 208 ; 
 its efficacy confirmed, 210; ac- 
 knowledgment of, 210. 
 
 Landor, Walter Savage, Esq., letter 
 from, explanatory of a college 
 incident, 49. 
 
 Laplace, Peter Simon, his death, 
 282. 
 
 Lavoisier, founder of philosophical 
 chemistry, 202. 
 
 Laybach, its scenery, 283. 
 
 Lectures, example of Sir H. Davy's, 
 58. 
 
 Letters from Sir H. Davy to his 
 mother, 22; to J. King, Esq., 
 64; to his youngest sister, 69; 
 to his mother, 72 ; to Mr. Poole, 
 74; to Mr. Coleridge, 94; to 
 Mr. Poole, 98 ; to Mr. Coleridge, 
 106; to Mr. Cottle, 114; to 
 T. A. Knight, Esq., 125-134; to 
 Thomas Allan, Esq., 134; to 
 his Brother, 137-141 ; to Mrs. 
 Apreece, 145-155; to his Mother, 
 on his marriage, 156 ; to his 
 Brother, 157; to John G. Chil- 
 dren, Esq., 1 72 ; to W. Clayfield, 
 Esq., 173; to his Brother, de- 
 scribing an accident, 177; to 
 Lady Davy, 179-183; to his 
 Mother, on going abroad, 1 83 ; 
 to his Brother, on iodine, &c., 
 185 ; to the Earl of Liverpool, [?] 
 respecting France, and dangers 
 from, if not kept in. check, 189; 
 to Lady Davy, with letter from 
 Chairman of the general meeting 
 of proprietors of coal mines, 
 210; to Professor E.Davy, 217; 
 to his Mother, on going on his 
 second Continental tour, 221 ; to 
 T. A. Knight, Esq., 274-278 ; to 
 Lady Davy, 279 ; toT.A.Knight, 
 Esq., 296-300; to Mr. Poole, 
 300; to Lady Davy, 301-313. 
 
 Lines (poetical) to Mrs. Trevor, 
 117 ; on " The House of Ulva," 
 118; Penshurst, 165; Descrip- 
 tion of scenes in Italy, 203 ; on 
 Playfair and Watt, 223; the 
 eagles, 258 ; Ham, 259 : to Ura- 
 nia, 269. 
 
 Ly mouth, description of, 36. 
 
 Mackenzie, II., Esq., (Man of Feel- 
 ing) mention of, 179. 
 
 Maudals, scenery of, 245. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 329 
 
 Mango Capac, suggested poem on, 
 
 37. 
 Mist, rationale of production of, 
 
 219. 
 
 Mount's Bay, scenery of, 7. 
 MSS., Herculaneum, experiments 
 
 on, 220 
 
 Nightmare, description of, 44. 
 Nitrous oxide, suggested use of, in 
 
 surgical operations, 18. 
 Norway, coast of, 245. 
 
 (Ersted, his discovery of electro - 
 
 magnetism, 236. 
 Olbers, H. W. M., the astronomer, 
 
 mention of, 250. 
 Oscar, Prince Joseph, spoken of, 
 
 247. 
 Oxymuriatic acid, why a simple 
 
 substance, 118. 
 
 Psestum, mention of, 197. 
 
 Parr, question respecting, 252. 
 
 Penzance, notice of, 4. 
 
 Peele, Sir Robert, mention of, 285. 
 
 Pineta of Ravenna, description of, 
 279. 
 
 Playfair, Professor, character of, 
 223. 
 
 Poole, Thomas, Esq., mention of, 
 98 ; letters from, 317-18. 
 
 Pope Leo XII., death of, 309. 
 
 Postage, thoughts on, 86. 
 
 Potassium, its remarkable proper- 
 ties, 120. 
 
 Priestly, Dr. Joseph, notice of, and 
 letter from, 86. 
 
 Rickman, , Esq., character of, 42. 
 Reason, supreme, idea of, 111. 
 Russell, Mrs. Watts, monument to, 
 262. 
 
 Salmon, sea fishing for, 173 
 Savage state, anecdote of, 164. 
 Save river, source of, described, 
 293. 
 
 Schumacher, Professor, mention of, 
 
 250. 
 Seymour, Lord Webb, mention of, 
 
 146. 
 Scott, Sir W., letter from, to Mrs. 
 
 Fletcher, 113; his review of Sal- 
 
 monia, 307. 
 Sheep, Merino, distribution of royal 
 
 flock of, 131. 
 Southey, Robert, Esq., notice of, 33 ; 
 
 letters from, 35-48. 
 Solfatara, lake of, described, 200. 
 Sotheby, W., Esq., lines in memo- 
 
 riam by, 326. 
 
 Society, Penzance Royal Geologi- 
 cal, when founded, 188. 
 Spada Medici, Monsignore, mention 
 
 of, 275. 
 
 Studies, scheme of early, 12. 
 Superstitions, Cornish, 6. 
 Sweden, scenery in, 245 ; inns, 
 
 248. 
 
 Tennant, Smithson, Esq., his elec- 
 tion at Cambridge, 181. 
 Time, attributed effects of, 202. 
 Thalaba, poem of, in embryo, 39. 
 Trolhotta, fall of, described, 246. 
 
 Vesuvius, notice of, 198. 
 
 Vine, culture of, in the Friul, 
 
 278. 
 Volta, his death, 283. 
 
 Water, a peculiarity of, 226. 
 
 Watt, Gregory, Esq , notice of, 16 ; 
 letters from, 26-31 ; his litholo- 
 gical experiments, 16-32.* 
 
 , James, Esq., letter from, on 
 
 an air-breathing apparatus, 24 ; 
 his death, 223. 
 
 Wedgewood, Thomas, Esq., men- 
 tion of, 28, 108 ; his first attempt 
 in photography, 28 ; his rifle com- 
 pany, 109. 
 
 Wesley, Rev. John, mention of, in 
 Cornwall, 6. 
 
 Z 
 
330 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Wollaston, Dr. Hyde, his last ill- 
 ness, 307 ; life of, a desideratum, 
 310. 
 
 Young, Dr. Thomas, his estimate 
 of the elements of chemical phi- 
 losophy, 121 ; his death, 314. 
 
 Zoological Society, mention of, 
 
 254, 274. 
 
 Zoophytes, their respiration, 17. 
 Zoroaster, plan of a poem so called, 
 
 45. 
 
 THE END. 
 
LONDON ! 
 
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 HAYMARKET, W. 
 
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 January, 1859. 
 
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A CLASSIFIED INDEX 
 
 TO 
 
 Ml. 
 
 'S ATA1(5II. 
 
 ANATOMY. 
 
 
 PA 
 
 GE 
 
 Anatomical Remembrancer . . 
 
 3 
 
 Beale on Liver 
 
 5 
 
 HassalPs Micros. Anatomy 
 
 15 
 
 Holden's Human Osteology . . 
 Jones' and Sieveking's Patho- 
 
 15 
 
 logical Anatomy 
 
 17 
 
 Maclise's Surgical Anatomy . . 
 
 19 
 
 Paget's Catalogue 
 
 21 
 
 Sibson's Medical Anatomy 
 
 25 
 
 Toynbee's Catalogue 
 
 28 
 
 Wheeler's Handbook 
 
 30 
 
 Wilson's Anatomy . . 
 
 31 
 
 CHEMISTRY. 
 
 
 * Abel & Bloxam's Handbook . . 
 
 4 
 
 i Bowman's Practical Chemistry 
 
 7 
 
 Do. Medical do. .. 
 
 7 
 
 & Chalmers' Electro-Chemistry . . 
 
 8 
 
 ^ Fownes' Manual of Chemistry . . 
 
 12 
 
 |: Do. Actonian Prize . . 
 
 12 
 
 ,<# Do. Qualitative Analysis . . 
 
 12 
 
 L Do. Chemical Tables .. .. 
 
 12 
 
 A Fresenius' Chemical Analysis . . 
 
 12 
 
 p Galloway's First Step .,>^ : 
 
 12 
 
 Do. Analysis .. ,-f .. 
 
 12 
 
 Do. Diagrams 
 
 12 
 
 Griffiths' Four Seasons . . 
 
 13 
 
 Horsley's Chem. Philosophy . . 
 Jones. Mulder on Wine 
 
 16 
 17 
 
 Odling's Practical Chemistry . . 
 
 21 
 
 Plattner on Blowpipe 
 
 22 
 
 Speer's PathoL Chemistry 
 
 26 
 
 CHOLERA. 
 
 
 Acland on Cholera at Oxford . . 
 
 3 
 
 Baly and Gull Reports . . 
 
 4 
 
 Snow on Cholera 
 
 25 
 
 CLIMATE. 
 
 
 Francis on Change of Climate . . 
 
 12 
 
 Hall on Torquay 
 
 14 
 
 Haviland on Climate 
 
 14 
 
 Lee on Climate 
 
 18 
 
 Martin on the Undercliff . . 
 
 19 
 
 Martin (J. R.) on Tropical 
 
 20 
 
 DEFORMITIES, &c. 
 
 
 Bigg on Deformities 
 
 6 
 
 Bishop on Deformities 
 
 6 
 
 Y Do. Articulate Sounds .. 
 
 6 
 
 Brodhurst on Spine 
 
 7 
 
 Do. on Clubfoot . . . 
 
 7 
 
 \ Hare on Spine .. .. ;,... 
 
 14 
 
 Jr Hugman on Hip Joint . . . 
 
 16 
 
 3t Inman on Spine .. .. v 
 
 16 
 
 ty Tamplin on Spine . . '.. v .-. 
 
 27 
 
 DENTISTRY. 
 
 Blundell's Painless Extraction . 7 
 Clark's Odontalgist . . 
 
 Gray on the Teeth 13 
 
 Odontological Soc. Transactions 21 
 
 DISEASES of the URINARY 
 
 and GENERATIVE ORGANS, 
 
 and SYPHILIS. 
 
 Acton on Reproductive Organs 
 Do. Urinary and Genera- 
 tive Organs 
 
 Coote on Syphilis 
 
 Coulson on Bladder . . 
 Do. on Lithotomy 
 
 Egan on Syphilis 
 
 Judd on Syphilis 
 
 Milton on Gonorrhoea 
 
 Parker on Syphilis . . 
 
 Todd on Urinary Organs 
 
 Wilson on Syphilis . . 
 
 DISEASES OF WOMEN 
 AND CHILDREN. 
 
 Bennet on Uterus 
 Do. on Uterine Pathology . . 
 
 Bird on Children 
 
 Brown on Women 
 Do. on Scarlatina . . 
 
 Eyre's Practical Remarks 
 
 Hood on Crowing 
 
 Lee's Ovarian and Uterine Dis- 
 eases 
 
 Lee on Diseases of Uterus 
 
 Do. on Speculum 
 
 Roberton on Women 
 
 Rowe on Females . . 
 
 Smith on Leucorrhcea 
 
 Tilt on Diseases of Women 
 
 Do. on Change of Life 
 
 Underwood on Children . . 
 
 West on Women 
 
 Whitehead on Abortion . , 
 
 HYGIENE. 
 
 Beale's Laws of Health . . 
 
 Do. Health and Diseases 
 Blundell's Medicina Mechanics 6 
 Carter on Training 
 Cornaro on Long Life 
 Hartwig on Sea Bathing . . 
 
 Do. Physical Education 14 
 
 Hufeland's Art . . 
 Lee'sWatering Places of England 18 
 
 Do. do. Germany, 
 
 France, and Switzerland 
 Lee's Rhenish Watering Places 18 
 Pickford on Hygiene 
 Robertson on Diet 
 Roth on Movements . . 
 Rumsey's State Medicine . . 
 Van Oven's Decline of Life 
 Wilson on Healthy Skin . . 
 
 Do. on Mineral Waters 
 
 
 MATERIA MEDICA and 
 
 PAGE 
 
 PHARMACY. 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 . 9 
 
 Bateman's Magnacopia . . . . 4 
 
 . 13 
 
 Beasley's Formulary 5 
 
 is 21 
 
 Do. Receipt Book . . . . 5 
 
 
 Do. Book of Prescriptions 5 
 
 LRY 
 
 Lane's Materia Medica .. ..17 
 
 NS 
 
 Pereira's Selecta e Praescriptis 22 
 
 UN 9, 
 
 Pharmacopoeia Londinensis . . 22 
 
 
 Prescriber's Pharmacopoeia . . 23 
 
 s 3 
 
 i- 
 
 Royle's Materia Medica .. ..24 
 Spurgin's Materia Medica . . . . 26 
 
 . 3 
 
 Squire's Pharmacopoeia . . . . 26 
 
 . 9 
 
 SteggaU's Materia Medica .. 26 
 
 10 
 
 Do. First Lines for Chemists 26 
 
 10 
 
 Stowe's Toxicological Chart . . 27 
 
 . 11 
 17 
 
 Taylor on Poisons 27 
 Wittstein's Pharmacy .. ..31 ; 
 
 20 
 
 1 
 
 .. 22 
 
 *VWWWV 
 
 .. 28 
 .. 31 
 
 MEDICINE. ^ 
 
 
 Adams on Rheumatic Gout . . 4 a 
 
 1 Tff 
 
 Addison on Cells 3 <J 
 
 jJN 
 
 Alexander on Rheumatism . . 3 j 
 
 
 Arnott on a Local Ansesthenic 3 a? 
 
 . 5 
 
 Barclay on Diagnosis . . . . 5 
 
 . 5 
 
 Barlow's Practice of Medicine 4 \ 
 
 . 6 
 
 Billing's First Principles . . . . 5 
 
 .. 7 
 
 Bird on Charcoal 6 
 
 .. 7 
 
 Brinton on Ulcer 7 \ 
 
 .. 11 
 
 Budd on the Liver 7 
 
 .. 16 
 
 Do. on Stomach 7 
 
 
 Chambers on Digestion . . .8 
 
 .. 18 
 
 Davey's Ganglionic 10 
 
 .. 18 
 
 Eyre on Stomach 11 
 
 .. 18 
 
 Fuller on Rheumatism . . . . 12 
 
 .. 24 
 
 Gairdner on Gout 12 
 
 .. 24 
 
 Garrett on E. and N. E. Winds 13 
 
 .. 25 
 
 Granville on Sudden Death . . 13 
 
 .. 27 
 
 Gully's Simple Treatment . . 13 
 
 .. 27 
 
 Habershon on Stomach .. ..14 
 
 .. 28 
 
 Hall on Apnoea 14 
 
 .. 29 
 
 Hall's Observations 14 
 
 .. 30 
 
 Harrison on Lead in Water . . 14 
 
 
 Headland on Medicines .. ..15 
 
 
 Hooper's Medical Dictionary . . 16 
 
 
 Hooper's Physician's Vade- 
 
 .. 4 
 
 Mecum 13 
 
 .. 4 
 
 Lugol on Scrofula 19 
 
 a 6 
 
 Peacock on Influenza . . . . 22 
 
 .. 8 
 
 Do. on Heart 22 
 
 .. 9 
 
 Pym on Yellow Fever . . . . 23 
 
 .. 14 
 
 Robertson on Gout 24 
 
 n 14 
 
 Savory's Compendium . . . . 24 
 
 .. 16 
 
 Semple on Cough 24 
 
 nd 18 
 
 Shaw's Remembrancer . . . . 25 
 
 
 Steggall's Medical Manual . . 26 
 Do. Gregory's Conspectus 26 
 
 es 18 
 
 Do. Celsus 26 
 
 .. 22 
 
 Thomas' Practice of Physic . . 27 *1 
 
 .. 24 
 
 Wegg's Observations 29 
 
 .. 24 
 
 Wells on Gout 30 
 
 .. 24 
 
 What to Observe 19 < 
 
 .. 29 
 
 Whitehead on Transmission . . 30 3 
 
 .. 31 
 
 Williams' Principles 30 S 
 
 .. 31 
 
 Wright on Headaches . . . . 30 S^ 
 
f 
 
 CLASSIFIED INDEX. 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS. 
 
 i 
 
 Acton on Prostitution 
 Atkinson's Bibliography . . 
 Bascome on Epidemics 
 
 Bryce on Sebastopol 
 
 Cooley's Cyclopaedia 
 
 Forbes' Nature and Art in Disease 12 
 
 Gully on Water Cure 13 
 
 Guy's Hospital Reports .. ..13 
 
 Lane's Hydropathy 18 
 
 MarcetonFood 19 
 
 Massy on Recruits 20 
 
 Oxford Editions 21 
 
 Part's Case Book 22 
 
 Pettigrew on Superstitions . . 22 
 
 NERVOUS DISEASES AND 
 INDIGESTION. 
 
 Anderson on Nervous Affections 3 
 Arnott on Indigestion .. ; 3 
 
 Carter on Hysteria 8 
 
 Child on Indigestion . . . . 8 
 Downing on Neuralgia . . ..11 
 
 Hunt on Heartburn 16 
 
 Lobb on Nervous Affections .. 19 
 Radcliffe on Epilepsy . . . . 23 
 Reynolds on the Brain . . .23 
 Rowe on Nervous Diseases . 24 
 Sieveking on Epilepsy . . .25 
 Todd on Nervous System . . 
 Turnbull on Stomach 
 
 OBSTETRICS. 
 
 Barnes on Placenta Praevia 
 Lee's Clinical Midwifery . . 
 Pretty's Aids during Labour 
 Ramsbotham's Obstetrics . . 
 Do. Midwifery.. 
 
 Smellie's Obstetric Plates. . 
 Smith's Manual of Obstetrics 
 
 Do. Periodoscope 
 Swayne's Aphorisms 
 Waller's Midwifery .. .. 
 
 OPHTHALMOLOGY. 
 
 Cooper on Near Sight 
 
 Dalrymple on Eye 
 
 Dixon on the Eye 
 
 Holthouse on Strabismus . . 
 
 Do. on Impaired Vision 
 Jacob on Eye-ball 
 Jones' Ophthalmic Medicine 
 
 Do. Defects of Sight . . 
 
 Do. Eye and Ear . . 
 Walton on Ophthalmic . . 
 
 28 
 
 PHYSIOLOGY. 
 
 g 
 
 Carpenter's Human 
 
 Do. Comparative . . . . 8 
 
 Do. Manual 8 
 
 Cottle's Human 10 
 
 Hilton on the Cranium .. .. 15 
 Richardson on Coagulation . . 23 
 
 PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 Bucknill and Tuke's Psycholo- 
 gical Medicine 7 
 
 Burgess on Madness 7 
 
 Burnett on Insanity 9 
 
 Conolly on Asylums 9 
 
 Davey on Nature of Insanity . . 10 
 Dunn's Physiological Psycho- 
 logy 11 
 
 Hood on Criminal Lunatics . . 16 
 Jacobi on Hospitals, by Tuke . . 28 
 Knaggs on Criminal Lunatics. . 17 
 Millingen on Treatment of In- 
 sane 20 
 
 Monro on Insanity 20 
 
 Do. Private Asylums . . . . 20 
 Noble on Psychology . . . . 20 
 
 Do. on Mind 20 
 
 Williams (J.) on Insanity . . 30 
 Williams ( J. H) Unsoundness of 
 
 Mind 30 
 
 Winslow's Lettsomian . . . . 31 
 Do. Law of Lunacy ..31 
 
 PULMONARY and CHEST 
 DISEASES, &c. 
 
 Addison on Healthy and Dis- 
 eased Structure 3 
 
 Billing on Lungs and Heart . . 5 
 Blakiston on the Chest . . . . 6 
 
 Bright on the Chest 7 
 
 Cotton on Consumption .. .. 10 
 Do. on Stethoscope . . . . 10 
 Davies on Lungs and Heart . . 11 
 Fenwick on Consumption . . ..11 
 Laennec on Auscultation . . . . 17 
 Madden on Consumption .. .. 19 
 
 Markham on Heart 20 
 
 Richardson on Consumption . . 23 
 Skoda on Auscultation .. ..19 
 Thompson on Consumption . . 27 
 Wardrop on the Heart . . . . 29 
 Weber on Auscultation . . . . 29 
 
 RENAL DISEASES. 
 
 Addison on Supra-Renal Capsules 4 
 Beale on Urine ........ 5 
 
 Bird's Urinary Deposits . . 
 Jones' Animal Chemistry 
 
 SCIENCE. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Beale on Microscope 5 
 
 Beale's How to Work . . . . 5 
 Bird's Natural Philosophy . . 6 
 Burnett's Philosophy of Spirits 8 
 Carpenter on Microscope . . . . 8 
 Garner's Eutherapeia . ..13 
 Hardwich's Photography . .. 14 
 
 Hinds' Harmonies 15 
 
 Holland on Appendages . ..15 
 Jago on Ocular Spectres . ..16 
 
 Jones on Vision 17 
 
 Do. on Body, Sense, and Mind 17 
 
 Mayne's Lexicon 19 
 
 Nourse's Students' Tables ..21 
 Reymond's Animal Electricity 23 
 Schacht on Microscope . . . . 25 
 Taylor's Medical Jurisprudence 27 
 
 Vestiges of Creation 28 
 
 Sequel to ditto 28 
 
 Unger's Botanical Letters . . 28 
 
 SURGERY. 
 
 Arnott on Urethra , 
 
 Ashton on Rectum , 
 
 Bellinghamon Aneurism.. 
 Bigg on Artificial Limbs . . 
 
 Bishop on Bones 
 
 Chapman on Ulcers 
 
 Do. Varicose Veins 
 Cooper (Sir A.) on Testis . . 
 Cooper's (B.) Surgery 
 
 Do. (S.) Surg. Dictionary- 
 Curling on Rectum , 
 
 Do. on Testis , 
 
 Druitt's Surgery 
 
 Fell on Cancer . . , 
 
 Gay on Femoral Rupture.. 
 
 Do. on Ulcers 
 
 Harrison on Stricture 
 
 Higginbottom on Nitrate of Silver 15 
 
 Hodgson on Prostate 15 
 
 Hunt on Skin 16 
 
 Laurence on Cancer 18 
 
 Lawrence on Ruptures .. .18 
 Lee on Haemorrhoids .. .18 
 
 Liston's Surgery 18 
 
 Maclise on Fractures 19 
 
 Nottingham on the Ear . . .20 
 Nunneley on Erysipelas .. .21 
 
 Pirrie on Surgery 22 
 
 Skey's Operative Surgery . 25 
 
 Smith on Stricture 25 
 
 Steggall's Surgical Manual . 26 
 Thompson on Stricture . . .27 
 
 Wade on Stricture 29 
 
 Watson on the Larynx . . .29 
 Wilson on the Skin 31 
 
 Do. Portraits of Skin Diseases 31 
 ifearsley on Deafness .. ..31 
 
 Do. on Throat 31 
 
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