My dear John,—Notwithstanding all my care and discipline and ascetic living I am dying from a severe attack of palsy, which has seized the whole of the body with the exception of the intellectual organ. I am under the usual severe discipline of bleeding and blistering, but the weakness increases, and a few hours or days will finish my mortal existence. I shall leave my bones in the Eternal City. I bless God that I have been able to finish all my philosophical labours....
God bless you, my dear brother! may you be happy and prosperous!
Your affectionate Friend and Brother,
H. Davy.
The 25th he dictated another letter, chiefly on the torpedo; it ends:
Pray do not neglect this subject, which I leave to you as another legacy. God bless you, my dear brother!
Your affectionate Friend,
H. Davy.
He tried to write a postscript, and he did write ‘My dear John;’ then he dictated, ‘I am dying; come as quickly as you can. You will not see me alive, I am afraid. God bless you!’
On March 16 Dr. Davy reached him. ‘Never shall I forget,’ he says, ‘the manner in which he received me, the joy which lighted up his pale and emaciated countenance, his cheerful words and extreme kindness, and his endeavours to soothe a grief which I had not the power of controlling on finding him so ill, or rather at hearing him speak as if he were a dying man, who had only a few hours to live, and who wished to use every moment of such precious time. With a most cheerful voice, a smile on his countenance, and most warm pressure of the hand, he bade me not be grieved, but consider the event as a philosopher. He expressed his pleasure at seeing me so soon and in having me with him in his last hours, and firmly rejected all expectation and hope of recovery. He had lost all the irritable feeling to which he was very liable, and which generally accompanies paralytic complaints. His own conviction that he was a dying man almost persuaded me that the brilliancy of his mind was a lightening before death.’
The next day he was not only amused but interested deeply with the dissection of a torpedo made by Dr. Davy in an adjoining room.
On the night of March 31, having gradually got worse, he told Dr. Davy he was sure he should die. ‘He took leave of me most tenderly, kissed my cheek, and bade God bless me. I believed that now indeed I was about to lose him and that I should never again hear his voice of kindness. During the night when I went to him he still breathed. The following morning, when I drew back his curtains, he expressed great astonishment at being alive. He said that he had gone through the whole process of dying, and that when he awoke he had difficulty in convincing himself by experiments that he was in his earthly existence. He added that his being alive was quite miraculous, and that he now began to think his recovery not impossible, and that it might be intended by Divine Providence that his life should be prolonged for purposes of usefulness.
‘From this day he pretty rapidly improved; as he mended the sentiment of gratitude to Divine Providence was overflowing.’ On April 20 he wrote his last note at the end of a letter of Dr. Davy’s.
‘My dear Sister,—I am very ill, but, thanks to my dearest John, still alive. God bless you all!—H. Davy.’ ‘He would have said more, but his feeble hand failed him.’