Famous Men of Science

by Sarah Knowles Bolton

"My dear Coleridge,—My mind is disturbed, and my body harassed by many labors; yet I cannot suffer you to depart, without endeavoring to express to you some of the unbroken and higher feelings of my spirit, which have you at once for their cause and object.

"Years have passed away since we first met; and your presence, and recollections with regard to you, have afforded me continued sources of enjoyment. Some of the better feelings of my nature have been elevated by your converse, and thoughts which you have nursed have been to me an eternal source of consolation.

"In whatever part of the world you are, you will often live with me, not as a fleeting idea, but as a recollection possessed of creative energy,—as an imagination winged with fire, inspiring and rejoicing....

"May blessings attend you, my dear friend! Do not forget me: we live for different ends, and with different habits and pursuits; but our feelings with regard to each other have, I believe, never altered. They must continue; they can have no natural death; and I trust they can never be destroyed by fortune, chance, or accident."

Thus his sweet, kindly nature was an inspiration to others. He believed in amiability. He said, later, of temper in the marriage state: "Upon points of affection it is only for the parties themselves to form just opinions of what is really necessary to ensure the felicity of the marriage state. Riches appear to me not at all necessary; but competence, I think, is; and after this more depends upon the temper of the individual than upon personal or even intellectual circumstances. The finest spirits, the most exquisite wines, the nectars and ambrosias of modern tables, will be all spoilt by a few drops of bitter extract; and a bad temper has the same effect in life, which is made up, not of great sacrifices or duties, but of little things, in which smiles and kindness, and small obligations given habitually, are what win and preserve the heart and secure comfort."

When Davy was twenty-three, a brilliant opening came to him; came as it did to Cuvier, Newton, and others, through the influence of a friend. Count Rumford had been instrumental in founding the Royal Philosophical Institution for the diffusion of a knowledge of science. Through his works on heat, nitrous oxide, and galvanic electricity, Davy had made the acquaintance of Dr. Hope, the distinguished professor of chemistry in the University of Edinburgh. He recommended Davy to Count Rumford, as fitted for the professorship of chemistry in the Royal Institution, an appointment, Davy wrote to his mother, "as honorable as any scientific appointment in the kingdom, with an income of at least five hundred pounds a year." He had evidently kept the "look towards future greatness" in his heart.

Six weeks after his arrival in London, in the spring of 1801, Davy gave his first lecture, upon the history of galvanism, and the different modes of accumulating galvanic influence. "The sensation created by his first course of lectures at the Institution," says the Philosophical Magazine, "and the enthusiastic admiration which they obtained, is at this period hardly to be imagined. Men of the first rank and talent,—the literary and the scientific, the practical and the theoretical,—blue-stockings and women of fashion, the old and the young, all crowded, eagerly crowded, the lecture-room. His youth, his simplicity, his natural eloquence, his chemical knowledge, his happy illustrations and well conducted experiments, excited universal attention and unbounded applause. Compliments, invitations, and presents were showered upon him in abundance from all quarters; his society was courted by all, and all appeared proud of his acquaintance." He usually wrote his lecture the day before he delivered it, on this day dining in his own room, generally on fish. His manner in speaking was very animated, but natural. He believed in enthusiasm. He said, "Great powers have never been exerted independent of strong feelings. The rapid arrangement of ideas from their various analogies to the equally rapid comparisons of these analogies, with facts uniformly occurring during the progress of discovery, have existed only in those minds where the agency of strong and various motives is perceived—of motives modifying each other, mingling with each other, and producing that fever of emotion which is the joy of existence and the consciousness of life."

Coleridge used to say, "I attend Davy's lectures to increase my stock of metaphors."

In the spacious and well supplied laboratory of the Institution, in making his experiments, says his brother, "his zeal amounted to enthusiasm, which he more or less imparted to those around him. With cheerful voice and countenance, and a hand as ready to manipulate as his mind was quick to contrive, he was indefatigable in his exertions. He was delighted with success, but not discouraged by failure; and he bore failures and accidents in experiments with a patience and forbearance, even when owing to the awkwardness of assistants, which could hardly have been expected from a person of his ardent temperament."

He was very happy in these years of work. Says his brother: "In going to bed, and rising, and sometimes in the dead of night, I used to hear him, in a loud voice, reciting favorite passages in prose or verse, or declaiming some composition of his own, or humming some angler's song."