"One instance of attention is particularly recalled to my memory. A talented lady, since well known in the literary world, addressed him anonymously in a poem of considerable length, replete with delicate panegyric and genuine feeling. It displayed much originality, learning, and taste: the language was elegant, the versification harmonious, the sentiments just, and the imagery highly poetical. It was accompanied with a handsome ornamental appendage for the watch, which he was requested to wear when he delivered his next lecture, as a token of having received the poem, and pardoned the freedom of the writer. It was long before the fair authoress was known to him, but they afterwards became well acquainted with each other."
I should not redeem the pledge given to my readers, nor fulfill the duties of an impartial biographer, were I to omit acknowledging that the manners and habits of Davy very shortly underwent a considerable change. Let those who have vainly sought to disparage his excellence, enjoy the triumph of knowing that he was not perfect; but it may be asked in candour, where is the man of twenty-two years of age, unless the temperature of his blood were below zero, and his temperament as dull and passionless as the fabled god of the Brahmins, who could remain uninfluenced by such an elevation? Look at Davy in the laboratory at Bristol, pursuing with eager industry various abstract points of research; mixing only with a few philosophers, sanguine like himself in the investigation of chemical phenomena, but whose sphere of observation must have been confined to themselves, and whose worldly knowledge could scarcely have extended beyond the precincts of the Institution in which they were engaged. Shift the scene—behold him in the Theatre of the Royal Institution, surrounded by an aristocracy of intellect as well as of rank; by the flowers of genius, the élite of fashion, and the beauty of England, whose very respirations were suspended in eager expectation to catch his novel and satisfactory elucidations of the mysteries of Nature. Could the author of the Rambler have revisited us, he would certainly have rescinded the passage in which he says—"All appearance of science is hateful to women; and he who desires to be well received by them, must qualify himself by a total rejection of all that is rational and important; must consider learning as perpetually interdicted, and devote all his attention to trifle, and all his eloquence to compliment."
It is admitted that his vanity was excited, and his ambition raised, by such extraordinary demonstrations of devotion; that the bloom of his simplicity was dulled by the breath of adulation; and that, losing much of the native frankness which constituted the great charm of his character, he unfortunately assumed the garb and airs of a man of fashion; let us not wonder if, under such circumstances, the inappropriate robe should not always have fallen in graceful draperies.
At length, so popular did he become, under the auspices of the Duchess of Gordon and other leaders of high fashion, that even their soirées were considered incomplete without his presence; and yet these fascinations, strong as they must have been, never tempted him from his allegiance to Science: never did the charms of the saloon allure him from the pursuits of the laboratory, or distract him from the duties of the lecture-room. The crowds that repaired to the Institution in the morning were, day after day, gratified by newly devised and highly illustrative experiments, conducted with the utmost address, and explained in language at once perspicuous and eloquent.
He brought down Science from those heights which were before accessible only to a few, and placed her within the reach of all; he divested the goddess of all severity of aspect, and represented her as attired by the Graces.
It is perhaps not possible to convey a better idea of the fascination of his style, than by the relation of the following anecdote. A person having observed the constancy with which Mr. Coleridge attended these lectures, was induced to ask the poet what attractions he could find in a study so unconnected with his known pursuits. "I attend Davy's lectures," he replied, "to increase my stock of metaphors."
But, as Johnson says, in the most general applause some discordant voices will always be heard; and so was it upon the present occasion. It was urged by several modern Zoili, that the style was far too florid and imaginative for communicating the plain lessons of truth; that he described objects of Natural History by inappropriate imagery, and that violent conceits frequently usurped the place of philosophical definitions. This was Bœotian criticism; the Attic spirits selected other points of attack: they rallied him on the ground of affectation, and whimsically represented him as swayed by a mawkish sensibility, which constantly betrayed him into absurdity. There might be some show of justice in this accusation: The world was not large enough to satisfy the vulgar ambition of the conqueror, but the minutest production of nature afforded ample range for the scrutinizing intelligence of the philosopher; and he would consider a particle of crystal with so delicate a regard for its minute beauties, and expatiate with so tender a tone of interest on its fair proportions, as almost to convey an idea that he bewailed the condition of necessity which for ever allotted it so slender a place in the vast scheme of creation.
After the observations which have been offered with regard to the injurious tendency of metaphors in all matters relating to science, I may probably be charged with inconsistency in defending Davy from the attacks thus levelled against his style. We need not the critic to remind us that the statue of a Lysippus may be spoiled by gilding; but I would observe that the style which cannot be tolerated in a philosophical essay, may under peculiar circumstances be not only admissible, but even expedient, in a popular lecture. "Neque ideo minus efficaces sunt orationes nostræ quia ad aures judicantium cum voluptate perveniunt. Quid enim si infirmiora horum temporum templa credas, quia non rudi cæmento, et informibus tegulis exstruuntur; sed marmore nitent et auro radiantur?"
Let us consider, for a moment, the class of persons to whom Davy addressed himself. Were they students prepared to toil with systematic precision, in order to obtain knowledge as a matter of necessity?—No—they were composed of the gay and the idle, who could only be tempted to admit instruction by the prospect of receiving pleasure,—they were children, who could only be induced to swallow the salutary draught by the honey around the rim of the cup.
It has been well observed, that necessity alone can urge the traveller over barren heaths and snow-topped mountains, while he treads with rapture along the fertile vales of those happier climes where every breeze is perfume, and every scene a picture.