THE MAN OF SCIENCE.
DAVY,
THE MAN OF SCIENCE.
'Igne constricto, vita secura.'
Davy's Motto.
The pretty little homestead—or as it is called in Cornwall, the 'town-place'—of Varfel, (or Barfell as it was sometimes spelt) in Ludgvan, lies on a southern slope, about two and a half miles N.E. of Penzance, and is a somewhat less distance from St. Michael's Mount, a view of which, as well as of the famous Mount's Bay and of the Lizard district, it commands. Varfel seems to have belonged from an early period to the Davy family, some of whose monuments in Ludgvan Church are nearly 300 years old. Either here, on the 'paternal acres,' or in the town of Penzance, on 17th December, 1778, at 5 a.m., was born to 'Carver' Robert Davy (so called from his proficiency in his trade as a wood-carver and gilder) and his wife Grace Millett, their eldest son,[101] who was destined to emerge from this remote and obscure corner of England, and become President of the Royal Society—a man of science so distinguished that Brande, in his celebrated 'History of Chemistry,' spoke of Davy's death as nothing less than 'a serious national calamity.'
The district of Penwith, with its wild furze-clad granite moors, its rugged cliffs, and emerald bays, proved
'Fit nurse for a poetic child;'
and the imaginative faculties of the future illustrious chemist were not nursed in vain. Like Pope, he 'lisped in numbers,' reciting, when only five years old, his own rhymes at some Christmas gambols; and his poetic vein never left him, even in the laboratory or in the lecture-room, compelling the aristocratic idlers of London to love Science, because, as they were constrained to confess, under his magic guidance, Science was made beautiful, and was attired by the Graces. It was said by Coleridge that had Davy not devoted himself to Science, he would have shone with the highest lustre as a poet; and the following youthful lines, full of true local colour, certainly show, as indeed did his whole life, that he had drunk of 'the fount of Helicon:'
'TO THE LAND'S END.
'On the Sea
The sunbeams tremble; and the purple light
Illumes the dark Bolerium, seat of Storms!
Drear are his granite wilds, his schistine rocks
Encircled by the wave, where to the gale
The haggard cormorant shrieks; and, far beyond,
Where the great ocean mingles with the sky,
Behold the cloud-like islands[102] grey in mist.'
It was this poetic temperament, derived (as his brother, Dr. Davy, thinks) from their grandmother, which induced the gifted Dr. Henry, F.R.S., thus to refer to the subject of this memoir:
'Bold, ardent, enthusiastic, Davy soared to greatest heights; he commanded a wide horizon, and his keen vision penetrated to its utmost boundaries. His imagination, in the highest degree fertile and inventive, took a rapid and extensive range in pursuit of conjectural analogies, which he submitted to close and patient comparison with known facts, and tried by an appeal to ingenious and conclusive experiments. He was imbued with the spirit and was master in the practice of inductive logic; and he has left us some of the noblest examples of the efficacy of that great instrument of human reason in the discovery of truth. He applied it, not only to connect classes of facts of more limited extent and importance, but to develop great and comprehensive laws, which embrace phenomena that are almost universal to the natural world. In explaining those laws he cast upon them the illumination of his own clear and vivid conceptions; he felt an intense admiration of the beauty, order, and harmony which are conspicuous in the perfect Chemistry of Nature; and he expressed those feelings with a force and eloquence which could issue only from a mind of the highest powers and of the finest sensibilities.'
Davy's first school was at Penzance, his first schoolmaster a Mr. Bushell; his next, the Rev. Mr. Coryton, seems to have been one of the old rough sort, determined that his pupils should not lack correction, even if they did not profit by his instruction. He used to address the little boy in the following doggrel, whenever he thought he saw an opportunity of administering castigation:
'Now, Master Davy,
Now, sir! I have 'ee!
No one shall save 'ee—
Good Master Davy!'
But neither Mr. Coryton, nor Dr. Cardew, the excellent master of the Truro Grammar School, to which place Davy was for a short period removed, when fourteen years old, seems to have perceived any remarkable genius in the scholar—except that the latter discerned at least his taste and skill in poetry, and in his translations from the classics into English verse. One of the efforts of his muse was an epic poem, 'The Tydidiad,' written when he was twelve years old. In truth Davy, when a schoolboy, was generally composing either ballads or valentines (in Latin or English) for his school-fellows, in making fireworks, or in fishing or shooting, thus proving—what has been so often proved before—that 'the boy is father to the man.' His oratorical displays—sometimes addressed to a crowd of juveniles assembled in front of the Star Inn at Penzance, sometimes to a row of empty chairs in his own bedroom—and his turnip-lantern exhibitions (which afterwards developed into the wonderful mimic volcanoes with which he astonished and delighted his audience at the Royal Institution) were highly popular; the price of admission to the turnip-lantern shows is said to have been paid in an extremely low currency—pins. It would moreover appear from an entry of his in the blank page of his Schrevelius that Harlequin was his favourite part in a pantomime. Of his youth, which all accounts agree in representing as genial and amiable, little more remains to be said, but that he was very awkward with his hands (often blotting out an error in his MS. by dipping his fingers into the ink-bottle)—could never get out of the 'awkward squad' in the Volunteer Corps which he joined—that he was round-shouldered and clumsy—had no taste or ear for music, and possessed a singularly inharmonious voice. Clearly, the outward gifts of our hero were not such as were likely to help him forward on his way through life. To judge what a change the fire of genius, years of study, and the advantages of moving amongst cultured and refined society can accomplish, his portrait, when he was about thirty-three years old, by Lawrence,[103] prefixed to Dr. Paris's 'Life'—or perhaps rather that by Phillips, R.A., which will be found in Polwhele's now rare little volumes the 'Biographical Sketches,' and in the 'Gentleman's Magazine' for 1829, should be examined.
As he grew up he is described as being of about the middle height, of remarkably active frame, and with a mobile countenance, which, though the features were not regular, was full of expression and vivacity. He had bright, wavy, brown hair, and eyes 'tremulous with light;' and his voice so improved by cultivation and experience that it became remarkably melodious. When to this are added his wonderful talents, his grand discoveries, and his eloquence, his sanguine temperament, his purpose firm, his spirits singularly cheerful and elastic, and his disposition ever philanthropic, it will easily be believed that his society was sought by all classes; and it is not to be wondered at if the attractions which such opportunities presented laid him open to the charge (from some quarters) of cultivating too much the wealthy and the powerful.[104] Davy, however, was too wise not to perceive the advantage of interesting such persons in the pursuits to which he was himself through life devoted. But he was really fond of intelligence in all classes, whenever and wherever he met with it; and there is an amusing story told of one of his street acquaintances, who showed the moon through a telescope, and who always refused to take Davy's penny, because, as the man said, of their being 'brother philosophers.'
But, to return to his youthful days. Davy's schooling probably did not cost his parents much, for in Dr. Cardew's time the charges were only £18 a year for board, and £4 for teaching, and perhaps some of these were paid by a very kind friend of the family, Mr. John Tonkin of Penzance. He 'put on harness' in 1793, when little more than fourteen years old (the year before his father died), by being articled on 16th February, to Dr. J. B. Borlase of Penzance, a gentleman who seems to have taken a kind and appreciative interest in the welfare of the lad.
Davy seems to have bestowed a fair amount of attention upon the studies pertaining to his profession, and is said to have been particularly kind and attentive to his master's patients, especially those of the poorer classes; but 'nourishing a youth sublime' on the preparation of pills and potions was out of the question; and we gladly find that, ere long, a more intellectual banquet was to be laid before him. He was at this time passionately fond of fishing and shooting, the former of which pursuits he dearly loved to the last: casting longing looks, even within a few days of his death, on the waters of Lake Leman on which he had often in earlier days thrown a fly. His charming book 'Salmonia' (pace the shade of Christopher North) shows what a deep interest he always took in fishing, and, indeed, in Natural History generally. It is amusing to note here, that in later years his costume, hat included, when he went fishing, was, for purposes of concealment, green; when, however, he went shooting he adopted scarlet garments for distinction, having a great dread of being shot. Declamations by the shores of Mount's Bay were also a source of great pleasure to him, when a boy, and many a time did he harangue the waves, when he could not secure a human auditory.
We may be sure that chemistry was not omitted; and, in the attic of a house belonging to that worthy friend of the family—Mr. Tonkin—such apparatus as Davy could muster might have been found: phials, wine-glasses, teacups, and tobacco-pipes, and a few acids and alkalies were amongst the principal items, and—most treasured of all—an old clyster-pipe, washed ashore from a wreck, out of which he had contrived to manufacture an air-pump!
The crisis of Davy's life at length arrived. Mr. Davies Gilbert (then named Giddy) a Cornish gentleman eminent for his attainments, had his attention called to the youngster's scientific knowledge, and became his friend and patron—little thinking at the time that he was hereafter to become Treasurer of the Royal Society under Davy, and at length to succeed his protégé as a President. It is noteworthy here—that Trelissick House, on the Fal, built by Davy's grandfather, for Mr. Daniell, became afterwards the property of Mr. Gilbert, and is now one of the seats of his grandson, Carew Davies Gilbert, Esq. Davies Gilbert also brought into public notice the Rev. Malachi Hitchins, once a miner, afterwards the principal calculator of the Nautical Almanac, and (conjointly with Samuel Drew) an historian of Cornwall; also the Rev. John Hellins, many years assistant to Dr. Maskelyne. He was moreover an early friend and adviser of Richard Trevithick (q.v.).
It is said that when the boy Davy first saw Mr. Davies Gilbert's laboratory his tumultuous delight knew no bounds. Other appreciative friends now came forward; amongst them Dr. Edwards of Hayle Copper House, and Professor Hailstone, and Dr. Beddoes, representatives of the rival geological schools of Neptunists and Plutonists, as they were then called, to both of whom Davy was able to render valuable information; though he himself, with his usual sagacity, sided with the Plutonists. Gregory Watt, the youngest son of the renowned James Watt, was another of Davy's early acquaintances at Penzance; and from Watt the youth derived much valuable information and advice.
One result was the offer of an appointment, when he was about nineteen years old, as assistant in Dr. Beddoes's Pneumatic Hospital, at Dowry Square, Clifton,[105]—an establishment founded for the purpose of investigating the nature of the gases, with especial reference to their remedial influences.
This was an appointment after the young chemist's own heart. The salary was sufficient for his modest wants, and he forthwith renounced all claims to his share of the small family property, in favour of his mother and sisters. He threw himself at once with ardour into his work, and originated those celebrated but highly dangerous experiments on the effects of nitrous oxide, which indeed nearly cost him his own life, but which in their result have alleviated the sufferings of tens of thousands of his fellow-creatures. The description of one of the 'séances,' when experiments were tried on many different persons—including Southey, then Poet Laureate—were described by Davy in an amusing little poem.
The friendship with Southey was not only on a scientific basis;—the Poet recognised his brother-poet's faculty: and accordingly Southey submitted to Davy the proofs of his mystic poem 'Thalaba,' for criticism; whilst the younger bard contributed to the 'Anthology' of the elder. And while on this subject it may be added that Coleridge (another of his Clifton acquaintances), who often referred to Davy's enchanting manners, used to say, so Barrow tells us, that he was in the habit of attending Davy's lectures at the Royal Institution, 'in order to increase his stock of metaphors.' On another occasion Coleridge remarked: 'There is an energy and elasticity in Davy's 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 the turf under his feet.' And Davy, of course, could not fail to admire the genius of Coleridge—it was he who persuaded the dreamy poet to give his well-known series of eighteen lectures on Shakespeare at the Royal Institution in 1808. Horne Tooke was another of Davy's admirers, and was so enchanted with him early in his career that he engaged Chantry to make a bust of the Cornish philosopher.
It is further evident that Southey had the highest possible opinion of Davy's talents, for he wrote thus to Taylor:
'Davy is proceeding in his chemical career with the same giant strides as at his outset. His book upon the nitrous oxyd will form an epoch in the science. I never witnessed such indefatigable activity in any other man, nor ardour so regulated by cool judgment.'
In fact our poet-chemist must have been altogether a most fascinating man. An old personal acquaintance of his writes in the 'Gentleman's Magazine,' 1845, that 'when Davy is at ease, and excited in conversation, his splendid eyes irradiate his whole countenance, and he looks almost inspired.' But perhaps the best analysis of Davy's powers is that given in Good Words for 1879, by Professor Ferguson, who has also written by far the most generally interesting account of the great chemist's discoveries:
'Davy's mind,' he says, 'presents so many characteristics, that one cannot help thinking of it when perusing the narrative of his life and discoveries. It is that of the highest type of experimentalists. There is never any straining after either facts or laws. If there was a practical problem to solve, there was an instinctive perception required of the means to be employed. He asked his questions; Nature replied gently, kindly. How could she keep silent when the being she had made to learn from her inquired? There was never anything superfluous, for he always saw the aim of the replies no less than of the questions, and knew what to do next.
'Was it a question in science? the same instinct guided him to the means. The intensest perception of real analogies led either to the discovery of new bodies, and to the unravelling of obscure and perplexed phenomena, or to the enunciation of views of general action, which are only now adopted in all their extent and recognised as true. It was thus that he declared against the oxygen theory of acids—that he was never a devoted convert to Dalton's atomic views—and that he was so thoroughly a dynamician in a science which is still almost entirely statical. The laboratory, rather than the study, was the scene of his triumphs; it was there where his strength lay. No phenomenon was too minute to escape him; no consequence too improbable not to be brought into connection with the premises; no law too wide to be grasped in its known entirety. In all his work, in all his thinking, there is a magnificence, an ever-burning light which makes us lift up the head and gaze with purified vision upon the world, and a wild freshness, a provocative thought which, while we recur to it again and again, and are never sent away empty, are no less proofs of this man's vivid and enduring individuality.'
Davy's note-books now became rapidly filled with the Results of his studies, with Reflexions, with Resolutions, and with the most ambitious prospectuses of his future labours. Dr. Davy gives, in his 'Life' of his brother, an interesting specimen, written in 1799, when Davy had taken a house in Dowry Square, Clifton. Two hours before breakfast were to be devoted to his 'Lover of Nature,' or the 'Feelings of Eldon'—the five hours from nine to two to experiments—the time from four to six was to be spent in reading, and from seven to ten p.m. in the study of metaphysics. So passed the time away at Clifton, amidst the most congenial pursuits, thoroughly sympathetic friends, and in the enjoyment of an income which, modest as it was, enabled him to assist his mother in the education of his younger brother. But for one thing he bargained—John was not to be placed under Mr. Coryton.
Clifton, however, ere long became too small a sphere for Davy; and in 1801 an appointment as Assistant Editor of the Journals, Director of the Laboratory, and Assistant Lecturer (with a view to his ultimately becoming the Professor of Chemistry) to the then newly-founded Royal Institution, in London, was joyfully accepted; his salary being fixed at 100 guineas a year, with a room, and coals, and candles. The Duchess of Gordon, amongst other leaders of fashion, attracted by his youth and simplicity, as well as by his enthusiasm and eloquence, took him by the hand; and his success became assured. Compliments, invitations, and presents, Dr. Paris tells us, were showered upon him from all quarters; his society was courted by everybody, and all were proud of his acquaintance. In 1802 he commenced a long series of lectures before the Board of Agriculture, on the connexion of Chemistry with Vegetable Physiology, which have been translated into almost every European language: in fact, Sir Humphry has been well named the father of Agricultural Chemistry.[106] In 1803 he obtained the enviable distinction of being elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, and two years afterwards, having become a Member of the Royal Irish Academy, he found himself a correspondent of all the chief scientific men of the day.
Davy's début as a lecturer at the Royal Institution appears to have been highly successful; 'the sparkling intelligence of his eye,[107] his animated manner,' according to one critic, and 'his youth, his natural eloquence, his chemical knowledge, his happy illustrations, and well-conducted experiments, excited universal attention and unbounded applause.' It has been well said that 'under his touch the coldest realities blossomed into poetry.' But the real secret of his success was this—that he was master of his subject; and that his whole heart was in his work. His mode of life, his brother tells us, was at this time extremely simple, his fare frugal, his rooms slightly furnished, and the only 'thing of beauty' which they contained was an exquisite little porcelain Venus, the gift of his early friend Wedgwood, with whom he was associated in some of the very first attempts made in this country in the art of photography.
In 1806 and 1807 he was selected to deliver the Bakerian Lecture (the subject chosen being the 'Chemical Agencies of Electricity')—an honourable distinction—leading, as it probably did, to his promotion in the latter year to the posts of Secretary to the Royal Society, and Member of the Council. Of this paper Dr. Whewell said, 'It was a great event—perhaps the most important event of the epoch under review,' and as such 'it was recognised at once all over Europe.' Probably no man's life was happier than Davy's at this period; his income was ample, his work was his pleasure, and his disposition was happy and sanguine. Whilst holding constant and friendly intercourse with his brother philosophers at home and abroad,[108] he had also plenty of time for relaxation; and made several pleasant excursions to Scotland[109] and Ireland; everywhere sketching, making notes, fishing, or pursuing his inquiries amongst the natives with a vivid pertinacity and good-nature which at once astonished and delighted them. His brother (who used occasionally to occupy an adjoining bedroom at the Royal Institution) tells how Humphry might frequently have been heard during the night addressing in fervid tones some imaginary audience, or humming aloud an angler's song. Indeed, it might almost be said that during this period one cloud only darkened his horizon. He was seized with typhus fever, caught during an inspection of Newgate Prison, which he visited with a view to arranging for its disinfection; but, as Dr. Dibdin remarked in his introductory lecture to the Institution:
'—— Death his dart
Shook, but delayed to strike.'
During Davy's visits to Ireland in 1810 and 1811 he lectured before the Dublin Society, and whilst in the Irish metropolis had conferred upon him by Trinity College the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws. During the first week 550 tickets for his lectures were sold at 2 guineas each, and the price ultimately rose to from 10 to 20 guineas. His own pecuniary remuneration was also handsome; in the former year he received 500 guineas, and in the latter £750.
The result of his researches during the eleven years whilst he was officially connected with the Royal Institution may, Dr. Davy thinks, be conveniently divided into two portions, viz., the earlier one, terminating with his great discovery of the decomposition and recomposition of the fixed alkalies, by the aid of an enormously powerful voltaic pile which he had specially constructed for him, and the cost of which was defrayed by subscription—the reward of his triumphant and all-important electro-chemical researches; and the later period, which re-established the simple nature of chlorine. His views on these subjects were adopted by all the leading chemists of the age; and, with few exceptions, were after a short time promulgated in the schools. To the theory of tanning he also gave much attention, experimentally wearing for some time one shoe tanned with oak bark, and the other with catechu. He published the results of his inquiries in the 'Philosophical Transactions' for 1803.
It is not uninteresting here to note that Davy, on becoming connected with the Royal Society, did not entirely relinquish his intentions of prosecuting—what might probably have been a more lucrative career—his original profession of medicine. But not even such a prospect—nor even that of an illustrious career in the Church—(to which it is said the Bishop of Durham and others, charmed by his eloquence as a lecturer, urged him)—could draw away his affection from science. And he was not without his reward; for he had the satisfaction of reading in Cuvier's address to the French Institute, whose members were of course rival scientists, that—'Davy, not yet thirty-two, in the opinion of all who could judge of his labours, held the first rank among the chemists of this or of any other age.'
The month of April, 1812, was an eventful one in Davy's life. It saw his retirement from the post of Secretary to the Royal Society; it saw him receive the honour of Knighthood, then rarely bestowed upon men of science;[110] and last, but not least, it saw him married to Mrs. Apreece, whose maiden name was Jane Kerr (of Kelso), a wealthy, amiable, and intellectual widow, to whom he appears to have been devotedly attached: he described her, in a letter to his mother, announcing the intended marriage, as 'a woman equally distinguished for virtues, talents, and accomplishments;' and to his brother as 'the most amiable and intellectual woman I have ever known.' To this tribute to her worth it may be added that, when Scott went on his tour to the Hebrides, his 'dear friend and distant relation,' Mrs. Apreece (afterwards Lady Davy), went with the family party: she had been, Scott says in one of his letters, 'a lioness of the first magnitude in Edinburgh' during the preceding winter. And when writing to Byron, inviting him to Abbotsford, Sir Walter mentions as one of the visitors who made his home attractive: 'The fair, or shall I say the sage, Apreece that was, Lady Davy that is, who is soon to show us how much science she leads captive in Sir Humphry.'
But there are 'cabinet' portraits of the lady and her husband in 'The Life of George Ticknor' (p. 57, vol. i.) which may be introduced here.
'1815, June 13.—I breakfasted this morning with Sir H. Davy, of whom we have heard so much in America. He is now about thirty-three, but with all the freshness and bloom of twenty-five, and one of the handsomest men I have seen in England. He has a great deal of vivacity—talks rapidly, though with great precision—and is so much interested in conversation that his excitement amounts to nervous impatience, and keeps him in constant motion. He has just returned from Italy, and delights to talk of it; thinks it, next to England, the finest country in the world, and the society of Rome surpassed only by that of London, and says he should not die contented without going there again.
'It seemed singular that his taste in this should be so acute, when his professional eminence is in a province so different and remote; but I was much more surprised when I found that the first chemist of his time was a professed angler; and that he thinks, if he were obliged to renounce either fishing or philosophy, that he should find the struggle of his choice pretty severe.
'15 June.—As her husband had invited me to do, I called this morning on Lady Davy. I found her in her parlour, working on a dress, the contents of her basket strewed about the table, and looking more like home than anything since I left it. She is small, with black eyes and hair and a very pleasant face, an uncommonly sweet smile; and when she speaks, has much spirit and expression in her countenance. Her conversation is agreeable, particularly in the choice and variety of her phraseology, and has more the air of eloquence than I have ever heard before from a lady. But, then, it has something of the appearance of formality and display, which injures conversation. Her manner is gracious and elegant; and though I should not think of comparing her to Corinne, yet I think she has uncommon powers.'
The honeymoon, the greater part of which was spent in Scotland, was scarcely over, before, in the month of June, he dedicated to his wife his 'Elements of Chemical Philosophy,' as a pledge of his continued ardour for science, as well as of his love for her; and Davy returned to his scientific pursuits. In the following November he nearly lost his eyesight, whilst performing the dangerous experiment of effecting the combination of azote, as nitrogen was then called, and chlorine. He soon, however, completely recovered the use of his eyes, and took a trip into his native county; fishing and geologizing on the way. It was about this time also that Davy made the first experiments in electric lighting, by producing the voltaic arc by the use of carbon; the discovery was improved by Foucault, who substituted retort-carbon for wood-charcoal. (Comte du Moncel's 'L'Eclairage Electrique,' Paris, 1880.)
With reference to this, now highly important, subject, a writer in the Times for 22nd October, 1881, points out that 'Sir Humphry Davy showed that when a powerful current passes across the point of contact of two carbon rods, their points become heated; and on separating them to a short distance, an arc of light shoots between them, and the carbons are raised to a white heat.' The writer adds, that 'all lamps (until lately) had this point chiefly in view; namely, to introduce an arrangement which should keep the carbon-points at the fixed distance found to be the most advantageous.' Surely here was the germ of that discovery which is now becoming so rapidly developed.
In the autumn he went with Lady Davy for a long tour on the Continent, accompanied by the illustrious Faraday, who was a bookseller's apprentice when Davy first knew him, as his assistant and secretary; and equipped (as on previous similar occasions) with a portable chemical apparatus. He passed (with a special passport from Napoleon) through Paris—fêted by all the Parisian savants, including Laplace, Gay-Lussac, Thénard, etc., but treating them, it is said, somewhat haughtily—thence through France and Switzerland into Italy, by way of Nice to Genoa, where he rested a few days in order to make some ineffectual experiments on the torpedo; and so on to Florence, visiting en route all the most remarkable extinct volcanoes in the south of France. This year he was elected a Corresponding Member of the 1st class of the French Institute, who had previously awarded to him their prize of 3,000 livres for his treatise on 'Chemical Affinities.' In the spring of 1814 he reached Rome, where he spent a month; and thence visited Naples; all the while filling his note-books with interesting entries, personal, scientific, and poetic. On his return homeward he made the acquaintance of Volta, then seventy years old, at Milan, and he records his pleasure at conferring with the ingenious and amiable old man.
Midsummer found him at his beloved Geneva; and here he spent three delicious months in a villa whose garden sloped down to the cool blue waters of the lake. He wintered at Rome, busily occupied with his scientific pursuits, with shooting wild-fowl in the Campagna, and in the enjoyment of the intellectual society of the Eternal City;—not omitting to transmit the results of his studies for publication in the 'Philosophical Transactions.' It was about this time that the Geological Society of Penzance was started; and it need scarcely be said that it had from the first the best wishes of Davy, who contributed specimens to its cabinets, and subscribed a handsome sum towards its expenses.
This was not the only institution of a scientific nature of which Davy was an early patron, if not indeed an originator. Sir Roderick Murchison, in his 'Biography' by Geikie, mentions that Davy, Croker, and Reginald Heber were the real founders and earliest trustees of the Athenæum Club. And Sir John Rennie, in his 'Autobiography,' says as follows:
'Sir Humphry Davy, in the year 1825, originated the Zoological Society, and asked me to join, which I did most willingly; and perhaps it has been the most popular and successful of any modern society of that kind. It commenced operations by purchasing the well-known Cross collection of Exeter 'Change, in which, in my early days, I took an especial delight; for, considering all things, it was a very wonderful collection, and it is difficult to understand how, in such a confined and unhealthy spot, it could have been maintained in such good condition. The only other exhibition of the kind in London was at the Tower; the collection of animals there consisted of presents from the sovereigns of different countries. These were afterwards lent to the Zoological Society, who established their museum in the Regent's Park; and taking it altogether, it is probably the finest and best maintained in the world.'
In the spring of 1815 he returned to England, viâ Mayence and Brussels, and bought for his residence a house in Lower Grosvenor Street, No. 28.
There is perhaps no subject connected with the career of Davy with which his name is more inseparably and more honourably associated than that now to be mentioned,—and it was a subject which even the genius of a Humboldt had failed to master—namely, the brilliant and philanthropical discovery of the Safety Lamp (the original lamp in its first and simplest form is preserved in the Royal Institution), which has often been described in detail. His brother goes fully into the train of reasoning and of experiments which led to its construction. It is, as he says, a cage of wire-gauze which actually makes prisoner the flame of the deadly fire-damp, and in its prison consumes it. This grand invention—and it is not the less grand because it is so simple—by which in all probability more lives have been saved than by any other invention of similar character,—Davy nobly refused to patent, lest the sphere of its usefulness should be restricted: indeed, throughout his life he was indifferent to mere money; he was constantly giving away things for which he had no immediate use, and never kept a book after he had once read it. He received for the invention of the Safety Lamp unbounded praise and heartiest thanks from the great body of coal-owners and coal-workers of the Tyne and Wear especially; and was presented by them, on 11th October, 1817, with a magnificent service of plate worth £2,500,[111] at a public dinner at the Queen's Head Hotel, Newcastle, when the Earl of Durham (then Mr. Lambton) said in the course of his speech: 'If your fame had needed anything to make it immortal, this discovery alone would have carried it down to future ages, and connected it with benefits and blessings.'
Of this lamp (which the miners call 'a Davy,') the inventor, with his usual philanthropic spirit, often said, 'I value it more than anything I ever did.' The Emperor of Russia sent him a magnificent silver-gilt vase, the cover of which was surmounted by a figure of the God of Fire weeping over his extinguished torch, and the present was accompanied by an autograph letter. Early in the following year, his services to Science and to Humanity were recognised, somewhat tardily, by his having a baronetcy conferred upon him by the English Sovereign.[112]
In the summer of 1818 he contemplated a second visit, with Lady Davy, to the Continent. The programme included Flanders, Austria, Rome, and Naples,[113] to the two last of which places he went commissioned by the Prince Regent to investigate at Pompeii the bases of the colours employed by the ancients in their frescoes; and to discover, if possible, some chemical process of unrolling the papyric MSS. affected by the fire at Herculaneum: in this, however, he was unsuccessful; and his want of success—a thing so unusual with him—afforded him infinite chagrin. Most of the summer and part of the autumn of 1819 were spent in luxurious repose at the baths of Lucca; but the winter found him again at Rome, all the while making notes and storing up thoughts for his delightful book, 'The Consolations of Travel.'
In the summer of 1820 he returned, by way of the south of France, to his house in Grosvenor Street, and deeply interested himself in an inquiry into the 'Connexion between Magnetism and Electricity,' the result of which he communicated to the Royal Society on the 12th November.
Again he visited Scotland; and Lockhart gives a graphic account of the party at Abbotsford, in the autumn of this year, as they started on a sporting expedition, in which, after sketching the portraits of some members of it, Scott's biographer goes on to say:
'But the most picturesque figure was the illustrious inventor of the safety-lamp. He had come for his favourite sport of angling, and had been practising it successfully with Rose, his travelling companion, for two or three days preceding this; but he had not prepared for coursing fields, or had left Charlie Purdie's troop for Sir Walter's on a sudden thought; and his fisherman's costume—a brown hat with flexible brim, surrounded with line upon line, and innumerable fly-hooks; jack-boots worthy of a Dutch smuggler, and a fustian surtout dabbled with the blood of salmon—made a fine contrast with the smart jackets, white cord breeches, and well-polished jockey-boots of the less distinguished cavaliers about him.'
After a merry lunch at Newark Castle they all moved on towards Blackandro, and, Lockhart continues:
'Davy, next to whom I chanced to be riding, laid his whip about the fern like an experienced hand, but cracked many a joke, too, upon his own jack-boots; and, surveying the long eager battalion of bush-rangers, exclaimed: "Good Heavens, is it thus that I visit the scenery of the 'Lay of the Last Minstrel'!" He then kept muttering to himself as his glowing eye (the finest and brightest that I ever saw) ran over the landscape, some of those beautiful lines from the conclusion of the 'Lay':
"But still
When summer smiled on sweet Bowhill,
And July's eve with balmy breath
Waved the blue bells on Newark heath,
When throstles sang on Hareheadshaw,
And corn was green in Catterhaugh,
And flourished, broad, Blackandro's oak,
The aged harper's soul awoke," etc., etc.
'Mackenzie ("The Man of Feeling"), spectacled though he was, saw the first sitting hare, gave the word to slip the dogs, and spurred after them like a boy. All the seniors, indeed, did well as long as the course was upwards; but when puss took down the declivity, they halted, and breathed themselves upon the knoll, cheering gaily, however, the young people who dashed past and below them. Coursing on such a mountain is not like the same sport over a set of fine English pastures. There were gulfs to be avoided, and bogs enough to be threaded; many a stiff nag stuck fast, many a bold rider measured his length among the peat-hags; and another stranger to the ground besides Davy plunged neck-deep into a treacherous well-head, which, till they were floundering in it, had borne all the appearance of a piece of delicate green turf. When Sir Humphry emerged from his involuntary bath, his habiliments garnished with mud, slime, and mangled water-cresses, Sir Walter received him with a triumphant "Encore!" But the philosopher had his revenge; for, joining soon after in a brisk gallop, Scott put Sibyl Grey to a leap beyond her prowess, and lay humbled in the ditch, while Davy, who was better mounted, cleared it and him at a bound. Happily there was little damage done, but no one was sorry that the "sociable" had been detained at the foot of the hill.
'I have seen Sir Humphry in many places, and in company of many descriptions; but never to such advantage as at Abbotsford. His host and he delighted in each other, and the modesty of their mutual admiration was a memorable spectacle. Davy was, by nature, a poet; and Scott, though anything but a philosopher in the modern sense of that term, might, I think it very likely, have pursued the study of physical science with zeal and success, had he chanced to fall in with such an instructor as Sir Humphry would have been to him, in his early life. Each strove to make the other talk, and they did so in turn more charmingly than I ever heard either on any other occasion whatsoever. Scott, in his romantic narratives, touched upon a deeper chord of feeling than usual, when he had such a listener as Davy; and Davy, when induced to open his views upon any subject of scientific interest in Scott's presence, did so with a degree of clear energetic eloquence, and with a flow of imagery and illustration, of which neither his habitual tone of table-talk (least of all in London) nor any of his prose writings (except, indeed, the posthumous "Consolations of Travel") could suggest an adequate notion. I say his prose writings, for who that has read his sublime quatrains on the "Doctrine of Spinoza" can doubt that he might have united, if he had pleased, in some great didactic form, the vigorous ratiocination of Dryden and the moral majesty of Wordsworth? I remember William Laidlaw whispering to me one night, when their "rapt talk" had kept the circle round the fire until long after the usual bed-time of Abbotsford: "Gude preserve us! this is a very superior occasion! Eh, sirs!" he added, cocking his eye like a bird. "I wonder if Shakespeare and Bacon ever met to screw ilk other up!"'
I am also indebted to Lockhart for the following story:
'When Sir Walter Scott was debating in his mind the Prince Regent's offer of a baronetcy, he wrote to his friend Morritt: "After all, if one must speak for themselves, I have my quarters and emblazonments free of all stain but Border theft and high treason, which I hope are gentlemanlike crimes; and I hope 'Sir Walter Scott' will not sound worse than 'Sir Humphry Davy,' though my merits are as much under his, in point of utility, as can well be imagined. But a name is something, and mine is the better of the two."' When Mrs. Davy, Dr. Davy's wife, told Sir Walter Scott, at Malta, that her husband was writing his brother's life, Sir Walter said, 'I am glad of it; I hope his mother lived to see his greatness.' And it is pleasant to be able to record such was the case.
Not only Sir Walter Scott, but even the cold and reserved Poet of the Lakes, was deeply impressed with Davy's genius. Lockhart tells us that when Sir Walter and Wordsworth ascended Helvellyn, 'they were accompanied by an illustrious philosopher, who was also a true poet, and might have been one of the greatest of poets had he chosen; and I have heard Mr. Wordsworth say that it would be difficult to express the feelings with which he, who so often had climbed Helvellyn alone, found himself standing on its summit with two such men as Scott and Davy.'
The crowning honour of Davy's life now awaited him. His friend Sir Joseph Banks—himself the successor of such men as Sir Christopher Wren, Sir Hans Sloane, and Sir Isaac Newton—who had held the post of President of the Royal Society for forty-two years, died on 19th June, 1820, and Sir Humphry was, almost unanimously, elected on the 30th of the following November. He continued to fill the post for seven successive years, and his annual addresses are very characteristic specimens of his eloquence and suavity. He retained the old practice of delivering his speeches in full court dress,[114] and with the Society's mace (Oliver Cromwell's celebrated 'bauble') laid before him. He also continued his predecessor's practice of having weekly evening gatherings of the most distinguished men of science of the day, so long as he remained in Lower Grosvenor Street; but they were discontinued on his moving, in 1825, to 26, Park Street, Grosvenor Square.
Davy now began to find that
'Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.'
He was worried by the numerous small duties which pertained to his prominent position, and was sadly disappointed at not being able to prevail upon the Government of the day to take up his somewhat magnificent views as to the development of the Royal Society, and the subordination of certain other great public establishments to it. He used to complain that the Government were only too glad to get anything they could out of the Society, but were loth to give back anything in return. I gather too, from what Dr. Davy says, that symptoms of failing health began, even thus early, to show themselves. He somewhat relaxed the severity of his labours—made trips to Ireland, Wales, and Scotland (dining at Edinburgh with Sir Walter Scott), chiefly with a view to enjoying the fine scenery, and the fishing and shooting; but, as regards Wales, also with the object of devising means for remedying the results produced by the noxious copper effluvia from the Smelting Works at Swansea.
In the autumn of 1821 he paid a visit to Penzance; always fond—as indeed most Cornishmen seem to be—of embracing an opportunity of revisiting his native place. On this occasion he was entertained at a public dinner; and he left his old home, doubtless expecting to see it again and again: but this was destined to be his last visit.
From 1823 to 1826 may be described as the last period of his scientific labours; and it was in a great measure devoted to investigations, undertaken at the request of the Government, into the best mode of preventing the destruction of the copper-sheathing of vessels by the action of the sea. This Davy to some extent accomplished by coating the copper with tin; but, unfortunately, the tin did not prevent (as the copper did) the fouling of the metal by accretions of seaweeds and shells; and the practical result was nil.
He was much disappointed at this, having taken great pains in the matter, and having even made a voyage to the North Sea for the purpose of conducting his experiments. Of this excursion, which included visits to Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, he has left copious records—though, as a general rule, he had now discontinued his diary—and these include his reflexions not only on the scenery, etc., through which he passed, but, according to his custom, his impressions of the distinguished men of science and others with whom he came in contact. Those circumstances which impressed Davy most deeply he often recorded, as was his practice throughout his life, in verse. A specimen may be given here in the following fragment written at Ullswater, which he visited in August, 1825:
'Ye lovely hills that rise in majesty
Amidst the ruddy light of setting suns,
Your tops are bright with radiance, while below
The wave is dark and gloomy, and the vale
Hid in obscurest mist. Such is the life
Of Man: this vale of earth and waters dark
And gloomy—but the mountains range above!
The sky—the heavens are bright!——'
But he could not succeed in shaking off the illness of which he had had more than one warning; and even his elastic spirits began to flag under its depressing influence. The spring of 1826 found him worse; he complained much of rheumatism, and of slight numbness in his limbs; and the death of his mother in the autumn still further affected his health. With great pain and effort he delivered what proved to be his last address to the Royal Society—a body whose mission was so like his own, 'ad inquisitionem et inventionem naturæ veræ et interioris rerum omnium'—on St. Andrew's Day, 1826; and shortly after he suffered a slight attack of paralysis, which, however, did not prevent his revising his discourses, nor even deter him from projecting new scientific treatises. During his recovery he liked nothing better than having novels and romances read to him,—partly I should think to divert his mind from the small worries which were inevitable to one occupying the post which he filled, but which at this juncture pressed upon him with increasing force, and indeed probably conduced to his determining upon another visit to the Continent in January, 1827, accompanied on this occasion only by his brother, Dr. John Davy, an army surgeon.
The winter journey was rough and dreary. Paris was avoided, on account of the too great excitement which it was feared its society might induce; and the roads along which the travellers drove, bad at the best, were now in their very worst condition from the snow. The scenes through which they passed were uninteresting, the occasional roadside churches being the only noteworthy objects; and these they rarely failed to enter, the sick philosopher generally dropping on his knees for a silent prayer.
So they passed on, notwithstanding the severe cold and the snow, over the Mont Cenis, into Italy, reaching Ravenna on the 27th February—Davy, strange to say, rather the better than the worse for his cold and cheerless expedition. Here he rested for some time, occupying himself chiefly in shooting, fishing, and reading Byron, whose acquaintance (with that of the accomplished Countess Guiccioli) he had previously made at this place. His note-book was kept up, and was filled with numerous acute observations on subjects connected with natural history and chemistry, interspersed with expressions of pious humility and of gratitude to 'the Great Cause of all being.' His health improved; and in March, 1827, Dr. Davy returned to Corfu, whilst Sir Humphry shortly afterwards started on a solitary expedition through the Eastern Alps and down the Rhine. But his health now declined; he frequently had to apply leeches and blisters, and he lived so abstemiously as to considerably reduce his strength and spirits. 'Valde miserabilis!' he often exclaimed in his note-book; and once he wrote, 'Dubito fortissime restaurationem meam.' It was no doubt whilst in this mood that he wrote to Mr. Davies Gilbert from Salzburg, on 30th June, 1827, announcing his retirement from the office of President of the Royal Society.[115] Whilst on one of his numerous fishing expeditions, a pursuit[116] which, as we have seen, he passionately followed all his life long, he wrote about this time, the following pensive lines, more suo, on contemplating a rapid river:
'E'en as I look upon thy mighty flood,
Absorb'd in thought, it seems that I become
A part of thee, and in thy thundering waves
My thoughts are lost, and pass to future time,
Seeking the infinite, and rolling on
Towards the eternal and unbounded sea
Of the All-Powerful, Omnipresent Mind.'
This was a favourite thought of his. He amplified it in a letter which he addressed from Rome in the following year to his friend Poole:
'I have this conviction full on my mind,' he wrote, 'that intellectual beings spring from the same breath of Infinite Intelligence, and return to it again, but by different courses. Like rivers born amid the clouds of heaven, and lost in the deep and eternal ocean—some in youth, rapid and short-lived torrents; some in manhood, powerful and copious rivers; and some in age, by a slow and winding course, half lost in their career, and making their exit by many sandy and shallow mouths.'
The current of his own life now carried him back in one of its eddies to London, which he reached on 6th October.
The winter was passed in town, but the state of his health prevented any great exertion, and did not permit his seeing much society; yet the world can scarcely be said to have been the loser; for in his retirement he composed (being now nearly fifty years of age), that delightful book, dear to every angler, 'Salmonia.'[117] Returning spring revived his desire to revisit what he considered the finest scenery in the world, namely, the Alpine valleys of Illyria and Styria; and at the end of March he left England, accompanied by a young medical gentleman (his godson), Mr. Tobin, the son of a much-valued old friend. His pursuits were much as usual, and, living somewhat more generously, he more than once entertained some faint hopes of his ultimate recovery; 'attaching,' as he himself put it, 'a loose fringe, of hope to his tattered garments.' His mind was fully active during this summer, as may be judged from his having now planned his well-known work, 'Consolations of Travel,' which he used to say 'contained the essence of his philosophical opinions;' and from his having sketched out a slight plan for his own memoirs. Stress of weather detained him a short time at Wurzen, and here he occupied the time of his detention by writing his little Irish romance, 'The Last of the O'Donoghues.' He also now sent to press the second edition of his 'Salmonia,' which he thought 'twice as good, as well as twice as big' as the first. At Trieste he resumed his experiments on the electric eel, and at length satisfied himself that under no conditions did the shock affect the magnet. This formed the subject of a paper—the last of a series which continued almost uninterruptedly for a period of twenty-eight years—published by the Royal Society. It was about this time that he made the noble and touching entry in his diary:
'Si moro, spero che ho fatto il mio dovere; e che mia vita non e stato vano ed inutile.'[118]
The curtain rises on the last act, at Rome, where he passed the winter. Here—where he describes himself, in a letter dated 6th February, 1829, to his friend Poole, as 'a ruin among ruins'—he received, a fortnight after that date, his last and fatal shock of paralysis. It was quite unexpected by him, and he was barely able to write one or two hurried letters to his brother, begging him to come quickly. He now quite made up his mind that he was about to die; but his mind continued calm and clear, and he urged Dr. Davy, when he at length arrived, not to give way to any vain regrets, but to regard the matter philosophically. Even in this extremity, the consideration of the strange powers of the torpedo exercised a fascinating influence over him; and he directed experiments and dissections of the fish from the bed upon which he not only believed himself to be dying, but upon which he thought, more than once, that he had actually died. Only with great difficulty was he persuaded by his wife and surrounding friends that he had not as yet passed the dark portals of the grave.
It will hardly be believed that from such a state as this he rallied. Yet such was the case! Lady Davy had brought with her from England an early copy of the second edition of his 'Salmonia;' and he read it with avidity. Indeed reading—or rather being read to—was now almost his only pursuit. Moore's 'Epicurean,' Shakespeare, 'The Arabian Nights,' and 'Humphrey Clinker,' by turns engaged his attention; and at length he not only thought recovery possible, but by April was actually able to take drives about Rome and its neighbourhood, entering fully, with his companions, into all the enjoyment of the charms of a brilliant Italian spring.
At length, leaving Rome, 'by slow and easy stages,' they came to Geneva, which place they reached on the 28th May, by the Mont Cenis route. Here the little party took up their residence at La Couronne hotel, which overlooks the lake; and Davy expressed an earnest desire once more to throw a fly on it. He was very deeply affected on hearing of the death of his old friend Dr. Thomas Young; but dined heartily with the others at five o'clock. After dinner he was heard joking with the waiter as to the cooking of the fish, and desiring that he might be furnished with a specimen of every variety which the lake contained; and, after being read to as usual, he went to bed at nine. In rising, however, from his chair at the dinner table, for this purpose, he gave his elbow a rather violent blow, the sensations resulting from which frightened him very much, and probably accelerated his decease. At half-past two in the morning the servant aroused Dr. Davy with the information that his illustrious brother was much worse. The doctor flew to the chamber, but only in time to see Sir Humphry expire, just as the morning of the 29th of May, 1829, began to dawn.
His will was proved under £30,000, and Lady Davy was appointed sole executrix. Paris says that he left £100 to the Penzance Grammar School, the interest to be devoted to a prize for the best scholar, provided the school kept holiday on the anniversary of his birthday; but I do not find this in the will. I believe that the interest on the money is still paid, but that the holiday is omitted.
A public funeral was decreed him by the authorities and literati of Geneva, including his friends Decandolle and Sismondi, who highly appreciated him; and his mortal remains were deposited in the cemetery at Plain-Palais, close to those of Professor Pictet.[119] It was Davy's wish, as expressed in his will, to be buried wherever he might die: 'Natura curat suas reliquias,' he wrote; and on his monument will be found the reason of this lofty reliance—namely, because he was
'Summus arcanorum Naturæ indigator.' [120]
Thus died, without issue, and within a few months of his great friends Wollaston and Young, Sir Humphry Davy, poet and philosopher, before he had completed his fifty-first year—a man (to use the words of Dr. Paris) 'whose splendid discoveries illumined the age in which he lived, adorned the country which gave him birth, and obtained from foreign and hostile nations the homage of admiration and the meed of gratitude.'
His genius it would be presumptuous in me to endeavour to analyze or describe. I have attempted a biographical sketch rather than an essay on Davy's proper place in the ranks of science;[121] but he was undoubtedly one of the master-spirits of his age; and I gladly select, from among many other similar accounts, the peroration of the éloge pronounced upon him by Baron Cuvier before the Institute of France:
'Ainsi a fini à cinquante ans, sur une terre étrangère, un génie dont le nom brillera avec éclat parmi cette foule s'éclatante de noms dont s'enarguillit la Grande Bretagne. Mais, que dis je, pour un tel homme aucune terre n'est étrangère; Genève surtout ne pouvait pas l'être, où, depuis vingt ans, il comptait des amis intimes, des admirateurs sans cesse occupés de répandre ses decouvertes sur le Continent; aussi, le deuil n'eût pas été plus grand ni les obsèques plus honorables pour un de leur concitoyens les plus respectés.'
The talented and indefatigable editors of the 'Bibliotheca Cornubiensis' have observed that, since the formation of the Royal Society, fifty-eight persons, either born in Cornwall or long resident within its borders, have become, through their eminence in mineralogical and other pursuits, Fellows of that body. A full list of their names is printed in the index to Messrs. Boase and Courtney's work; and in it they rightly say that Cornishmen may be pardoned for believing that no such record of distinction in scientific knowledge could be drawn up from any English county of corresponding size and population. I will only add my opinion that, amongst the foremost in that bright roll of honour, stands forth the name of HUMPHRY DAVY.
