“Distil oxalate of ammonia. Query, results?”
“Query, the nature of the body Phillips burns in his spirit lamp?”
The Phillips here mentioned was the chemist Richard Phillips (afterwards President of the Chemical Society), one of his City friends, whose name so frequently occurs in the correspondence of Faraday’s middle life. Phillips busied himself to promote the material interests of his friend who—to use his own language—was “constantly engaged in observing the works of Nature, and tracing the manner in which she directs the arrangement and order of the world,” on the splendid salary of £100 per annum. The following note in a letter to Abbott, dated February 27, 1818, reveals new professional labours:—
I have been more than enough employed. We have been obliged even to put aside lectures at the Institution; and now I am so tired with a long attendance at Guildhall yesterday and to-day, being subpœnaed, with Sir H. Davy, Mr. Brande, Phillips, Aikin, and others, to give chemical information on a trial (which, however, did not come off), that I scarcely know what I say.
Shortly afterwards Davy again went abroad, but Faraday remained in England. From Rome Davy wrote a note, the concluding sentence of which shows how Faraday was advancing in his esteem:—
Rome: October, 1818.
Mr. Hatchett’s letter contained praises of you which were very gratifying to me; for, believe me, there is no one more interested in your success and welfare than your sincere well-wisher and friend,
H. Davy.
In the next year Davy wrote again, suggesting to Faraday that he might possibly be asked to come to Naples as a skilled chemist to assist in the unrolling of the Herculaneum manuscripts. In May he wrote again, from Florence:—
It gives me great pleasure to hear that you are comfortable at the Royal Institution, and I trust that you will not only do something good and honourable for yourself, but likewise for science.