From a letter, however, written by Davy a few years afterwards, respecting the education of a member of his family, he would appear to have entertained an opinion not very unlike that of John Locke; for, although he testifies the highest respect for Dr. Cardew, he seems to consider the comparative idleness of his earlier school career, by allowing him to follow the bent of his own mind, to have favoured the developement of his peculiar genius. "After all," he says, "the way in which we are taught Latin and Greek, does not much influence the important structure of our minds. I consider it fortunate that I was left much to myself as a child, and put upon no particular plan of study, and that I enjoyed much idleness at Mr. Coryton's school. I perhaps owe to these circumstances the little talents I have, and their peculiar application:—what I am I have made myself—I say this without vanity, and in pure simplicity of heart."
His temper during youth is represented as mild and amiable. He never suppressed his feelings, but every action was marked by ingenuousness and candour, qualities which endeared him to his youthful associates, and gained him the love of all who knew him. "Nor can I find," says his sister, "beloved as he must have been by my mother, that she showed him any particular preference;—all her children appeared to be alike her care, and all alike shared her affection."
In 1794, Mr. Davy died. We cannot but regret that he did not live long enough to witness his son's eminence; for life, as Johnson says, has few better things to give than a talented son; but from his widow, who has but lately descended to the tomb, full of years and respectability, this boon was not withheld, she witnessed his whole career of usefulness and honour, and happily closed her eyes before her maternal fears could have been awakened by those signs of premature decay, which for some time had excited in his friends, and in the friends of science, an alarm which the recent deplorable event has too fatally justified.
In the year following the decease of her husband, Mrs. Davy, who had again taken up her residence in Penzance, apprenticed her son,[7] by the advice of her long-valued friend, Mr. Tonkin, to Mr. John Bingham Borlase, at that time a surgeon and apothecary, but who afterwards obtained a diploma, and became an eminent physician at Penzance. Davy, however, for the most part, continued to pursue his own plans of study; for although his friend Mr. Tonkin, without doubt, intended him for a general practitioner in his native town, yet he himself always looked forward to graduation at Edinburgh, as a preliminary measure to his practising in the higher walk of his profession.
His mind had, for some time, been engrossed with philosophical pursuits; but until after he had been placed with Mr. Borlase, it does not appear that he indicated any decided turn for chemistry, the study of which he then commenced with all the ardour of his temperament; and his eldest sister, who acted as his assistant, well remembers the ravages committed on her dress by corrosive substances.
It has been said that his mind was first directed to chemistry by a desire to discover various mixtures as pigments: a suggestion to which, I confess, I am not disposed to pay much attention; for although he might have sought by new combinations to impart a novel and vivid richness of colouring to his drawings, it was the character of his mind to pursue with ardour every subject of novelty, and to get at results by his own native powers, rather than by the recorded experience of others.
I must here relate an anecdote, in illustration of this statement, which has been lately communicated to me by the Reverend Dr. Batten, the principal of the East India College at Hayleybury. This gentleman was one of the earliest of Davy's schoolfellows, but as he advanced in age, different views, and a different plan of education, carried him to a distant part of the kingdom; the discipline and duties of a cloistered school necessarily estranged him from his native town; and it was not until after his admission at Cambridge, and the arrival of the long vacation, which afforded a temporary oblivion of academic cares, that Mr. Batten returned to Cornwall, to revisit the scenes, and to renew the friendships of his boyish days. Davy, who was at that period an apprentice to Mr. Borlase, received him with transport and affection; but he was no longer the boy that his friend had left him; he had become more serious and contemplative, fond of solitary rambles, and averse to enter into society, or to join the festive parties of the inhabitants. In fact, his mind was now in the act of being moulded by the spirit of Nature; and, without the constraint of study, he was insensibly inhaling knowledge with the wild breezes of his native hills.
In the course of conversation, Mr. Batten spoke of his academic studies; and in alluding to the principles of Mechanics, to which he had lately paid much attention, he expressed himself more particularly pleased with that part which treats of "the Collision of Bodies." What was his surprise, on finding Davy as well, if not better acquainted with its several propositions! It was true that he had never systematically studied the subject—had never perhaps seen any standard work upon it, but he had instituted experiments with elastic and inelastic balls, and had worked out the results by the unassisted energies of his own mind. It is clear that, had this branch of science not existed, Davy would have created it.
During this period of his apprenticeship, he twice a week attended a French school in Penzance, kept by a M. Dugast, a priest from La Vendée; and it was remarked that, although he acquired a knowledge of the grammatical construction of the language with greater facility than any of the other scholars, he could not succeed in obtaining the pronunciation; and, in fact, notwithstanding his extensive intercourse with foreigners, and his residence in France, he never, even in after life, could pronounce French with correctness or speak it with fluency.
While with Mr. Borlase, it was his constant custom to walk in the evening to Marazion, to drink tea with an aunt to whom he was greatly attached. Upon such occasions, his usual companion was a hammer, with which he procured specimens from the rocks on the beach. In short, it would appear that, at this period, he paid much more attention to Philosophy than to Physic; that he thought more of the bowels of the earth, than of the stomachs of his patients; and that, when he should have been bleeding the sick, he was opening veins in the granite. Instead of preparing medicines in the surgery, he was experimenting in Mr. Tonkin's garret, which had now become the scene of his chemical operations; and, upon more than one occasion, it is said that he produced an explosion, which put the Doctor, and all his glass bottles, in jeopardy. "This boy Humphry is incorrigible!"—"Was there ever so idle a dog!"—"He will blow us all into the air!" Such were the constant exclamations of Mr. Tonkin; and then, in a jocose strain, he would speak of him as the "Philosopher," and sometimes call him "Sir Humphry," as if prophetic of his future renown.[8]