His sister has remarked that, as he advanced in life, he always preferred the society of persons older than himself; and one of his contemporaries informs me that he never heard him allude to any subject of science, although he remembers that while one of his pockets was filled with fishing-tackle, the other was as commonly loaded with specimens of rocks. With those, however, who were superior to him in years, he delighted to enter into discussion. At Penzance, there still resides a member of the Society of Friends, whose ingenuity entitles him to greater rewards than a provincial town can afford, with whom Davy, as a boy, was in the constant habit of discussing questions of practical mechanics. "I tell thee what, Humphry," exclaimed the Quaker upon one of these occasions—"thou art the most quibbling hand at a dispute I ever met with in my life."
For the surgical department of the profession, he always entertained a decided distaste, although the following extract from a letter of my correspondent Mr. Le Grice will show that, for once at least, he had the merit of mending a broken head. "The first time I ever saw Davy was on the Battery rocks; we were alone bathing, and he pointed out to me a good place for diving; at the same time he talked about the tides, and Sir Isaac Newton, in a manner that greatly amazed me. I perhaps should not have so distinctly remembered him, but on the following day, by not exactly marking the spot he had pointed out, I was nearly killed by diving on a rock, and he came as Mr. Borlase's assistant to dress the wound."
It was his great delight to ramble along the sea-shore, and often, like the orator of Athens, would he on such occasions declaim against the howling of the wind and waves, with a view to overcome a defect in his voice, which, although only slightly perceptible in his maturer age, was in the days of his boyhood exceedingly discordant. I may be allowed to observe, that the peculiar intonation he employed in his public addresses, and which rendered him obnoxious to the charge of affectation, was to be referred to a laborious effort to conceal this natural infirmity. It was also clear that he was deficient in that quality which is commonly called "a good ear," and with which the modulation of the voice is generally acknowledged to have an obvious connexion. Those who knew him intimately will readily bear testimony to this fact. Whenever he was deeply absorbed in a chemical research, it was his habit to hum some tune, if such it could be called, for it was impossible for any one to discover the air he intended to sing: indeed, Davy's music became a subject of raillery amongst his friends; and Mr. Children informs me, that, during an excursion, they attempted to teach him the air of 'God save the King,' but their efforts were unavailing.
It may be a question how far the following fact, with which I have just been made acquainted, admits of explanation upon this principle. On entering a volunteer infantry corps, commanded by a Captain Oxnam, Davy could never emerge from the awkward squad; no pains could make him keep the step; and those who were so unfortunate as to stand before him in the ranks, ought to have been heroes invulnerable in the heel. This incapacity, as may be readily supposed, occasioned him considerable annoyance, and he engaged a serjeant to give him private lessons, but it was all to no purpose. In the platoon exercise he was not more expert; and he whose electric battery was destined to triumph over the animosity of nations, could never be taught to shoulder a musket in his native town.
That Davy, in his youth, possessed courage and decision, may be inferred from the circumstance of his having, upon receiving a bite from a dog supposed to be rabid, taken his pocket-knife, and without the least hesitation cut out the part on the spot, and then retired into the surgery and cauterized the wound; an operation which confined him to Mr. Tonkin's house for three weeks. The gentleman from whom I received an account of this adventure, the accuracy of which has been since confirmed by Davy's sister, also told me, that he had frequently heard him declare his disbelief in the existence of pain whenever the energies of the mind were directed to counteract it; but he added, "I very shortly afterwards had an opportunity of witnessing a practical refutation of this doctrine in his own person; for upon being bitten by a conger eel, my young friend Humphry roared out most lustily."
The anecdote of Davy's excising the bitten part with so much promptitude and coolness, derives its interest from the age and inexperience of the operator. In the course of his practice, every physician must have met with similar cases of stern decision; but I will venture to say that they have never occurred except in instances of persons of acknowledged courage. Not many days since, a veteran officer, distinguished for the intrepidity with which he rescued the person of George the Third from the fury of a desperate mob, in St. James's Park, informed me that he had formerly been bitten at Vienna by a dog afterwards ascertained to have been rabid; he immediately entered a blacksmith's shop, and by threats compelled the person at the forge to heat an iron red-hot, and burn his leg to the bone. The blacksmith, after first stipulating that he should strap his eccentric customer to the anvil, reluctantly complied; and my friend showed me a scar which sufficiently testified the complete manner in which the son of Vulcan had performed his engagement:—But to return from this digression.
At this time of day, no one can surely believe with Pope, that a "Ruling Passion" is an innate and irresistible affection antecedent to reason and observation: on the contrary, ample experience has led us to the conclusion, that
—— ——"men's judgments are
A parcel of their fortunes, and things outward
Do draw the inward quality after them."
The prevailing bias of great minds may thus be often traced to some accidental, and apparently trivial, impression in early life; and the acute biographer, in the course of his observations, will continually discover traits of character that are readily referable to such a source, even as in the magical colouring of Rembrandt's works, the practised eye will recognize the chiaro-oscuro of his father's mill, in which the artist passed his hours of childhood.
In like manner, that marked aversion to arbitrary power, which ever distinguished the actions and writings of Dr. Franklin, has by himself been referred to the sense of injustice early imprinted upon his mind by the severe and tyrannical conduct of his elder brother; while, at the same time, he tells us that he was indebted for his habit through life, of forming just estimates of the value of things, to his having, at the age of seven years, "paid too much for his whistle."