"After sitting and ruminating on this sublime spectacle for two or three hours, we left the summit of the mountain with reluctance, and, slowly descending, rested at intervals, and often cast a longing, lingering look behind.
"On reaching our comfortable inn at Bala, while waiting for dinner, Davy walked about the room, and, as if by inspiration, broke out in a beautiful impassioned apostrophe on the striking scene we had so recently witnessed. It was in a kind of unmeasured blank verse, highly animated and descriptive, at once poetical and philosophical. At the conclusion of this eloquent effusion, I endeavoured to recollect and commit it to writing, but I could not succeed, and Davy was too modest to assist my memory.
"In a tour through North Wales, where the few small inns have seldom any spare rooms, different parties are often obliged to sit in the same apartment, and to eat at the same table. Hence we were occasionally introduced to characters of various descriptions, some of whom gratified us by their agreeable qualities, while others disgusted us by their ignorance and impertinence. On one occasion, after a heavy shower of rain in the middle of August, we were drying our clothes by the fire in the little Inn at Tan y Bwlch, when the landlord requested us to admit a gentleman, who was very wet. A young man, of pleasing appearance and manner, was then introduced, and after some common-place observations, we sat down to dinner. The stranger was evidently a man of education and acquirements, and after the cloth had been removed, he began to discourse very fluently on scientific subjects. He talked of oxygen and hydrogen, of hornblende, and the Grawacké of Werner, and geologists, in the most familiar tone of self-complacency.
"Davy's youth, simplicity of manner, and cautious concealment of superior knowledge, not exciting constraint, our companion was naturally induced to deliver his opinions with the utmost freedom and confidence on all subjects. We commenced on poetry and painting; the sublime and beautiful; then proceeded to mineralogy, astronomy, &c. and occasionally digressed on topics of mirth and humour, so that the evening was passed with general satisfaction.
"When Davy had retired to rest, and I was left alone with our companion, I enquired how he liked my friend, and whether he considered him a proficient in science, and versed in chemistry and geology? He answered coolly, that 'he appeared to be rather a clever young man, with some general scientific knowledge.' He then asked his name, and when I announced 'Davy, of the Royal Institution,' the stranger seemed thunderstruck, and exclaimed, 'Good God! was that really Davy? How have I exposed my ignorance and presumption!' It is scarcely necessary to add, that at the breakfast table the next morning, he talked on subjects of science with less volubility than on the preceding evening."
After Davy's return from this expedition, he wrote the following letter.
TO DAVIES GIDDY, ESQ.
Royal Institution, Oct. 26, 1802.
MY DEAR SIR,
It is long since I have had the pleasure of hearing from you. You probably received a hasty letter that I wrote to you in the beginning of the summer. Since that period, I have been idling away much of my time in Derbyshire and North Wales.