Consolations in Travel; or, the Last Days of a Philosopher

by Sir Humphry Davy

Prefixed to the First Edition, by Sir Humphry Davy’s Brother.

As is stated in the Preface which follows, this work was composed during a period of bodily indisposition;—it was concluded at the very moment of the invasion of the Author’s last illness. Had his life been prolonged, it is probable that some additions and some changes would have been made. The editor does not consider himself warranted to do more than give to the world a faithful copy, making only a few omissions and a few verbal alterations. The characters of the persons of the dialogue were intended to be ideal, at least in great part such they should be considered by the reader; and, it is to be hoped, that the incidents introduced, as well as the persons, will be viewed only as subordinate and subservient to the sentiments and doctrines. The dedication, it may be specially noticed, is the author’s own, and in the very words dictated by him, at a time when he had lost the power of writing except with extreme difficulty, owing to the paralytic attack, although he retained in a very remarkable manner all his mental faculties unimpaired and unclouded.

JOHN DAVY.
London,
January 6th, 1830.

TO THOMAS POOLE, ESQ. OF NETHER STOWEY
IN REMEMBRANCE OF
THIRTY YEARS OF CONTINUED AND FAITHFUL
FRIENDSHIP.

AUTHOR’S PREFACE.

Salmonia was written during the time of a partial recovery from a long and dangerous illness. The present work was composed immediately after, under the same unfavourable and painful circumstances, and at a period when the constitution of the Author suffered from new attacks. He has derived some pleasure and some consolation, when most other sources of consolation and pleasure were closed to him, from this exercise of his mind; and he ventures to hope that these hours of sickness may be not altogether unprofitable to persons in perfect health.

Rome,
February 21, 1829.

DIALOGUE THE FIRST. THE VISION.

I passed the autumn and the early winter of the years 18-- and 18-- at Rome. The society was, as is usual in that metropolis of the old Christian world, numerous and diversified. In it there were found many intellectual foreigners and amongst them some distinguished Britons, who had a higher object in making this city their residence than mere idleness or vague curiosity. Amongst these my countrymen, there were two gentlemen with whom I formed a particular intimacy and who were my frequent companions in the visits which I made to the monuments of the grandeur of the old Romans and to the masterpieces of ancient and modern art. One of them I shall call Ambrosio: he was a man of highly cultivated taste, great classical erudition, and minute historical knowledge. In religion he was of the Roman Catholic persuasion; but a Catholic of the most liberal school, who in another age might have been secretary to Ganganelli. His views upon the subjects of politics and religion were enlarged; but his leaning was rather to the power of a single magistrate than to the authority of a democracy or even of an

oligarchy. The other friend, whom I shall call Onuphrio, was a man of a very different character. Belonging to the English aristocracy, he had some of the prejudices usually attached to birth and rank; but his manners were gentle, his temper good, and his disposition amiable. Having been partly educated at a northern university in Britain, he had adopted views in religion which went even beyond toleration and which might be regarded as entering the verge of scepticism. For a patrician he was very liberal in his political views. His imagination was poetical and discursive, his taste good and his tact extremely fine, so exquisite, indeed, that it sometimes approached to morbid sensibility, and disgusted him with slight defects and made him keenly sensible of small perfections to which common minds would have been indifferent.