Humphry Davy, Poet and Philosopher

by T. E. Thorpe

That Davy himself was not wholly unconscious of this fact may be gathered from a letter which he wrote to Mr. Davies Gilbert at about this time. He says:—

“My labours in the Theatre of the Royal Institution have been more successful than I could have hoped from the nature of them. In lectures, the effect produced upon the mind is generally transitory; for the most part, they amuse rather than instruct, and stimulate to enquiry rather than give information. My audience has often amounted to four and five hundred, and upwards; and amongst them some promise to become permanently attached to chemistry. This science is much the fashion of the day.”

Whatever may be urged against Davy’s style of lecturing, his purely scientific memoirs are unquestionably models of their kind. His language is so simple, and his mode of expression so uniformly clear, and so free from technicality, that even an ordinary reader can follow them with delight. In this respect he was consistently faithful to the direction he gives in his “Last Days”:—

“In detailing the results of experiments, and in giving them to the world, the chemical philosopher should adopt the simplest style and manner; he will avoid all ornaments, as something injurious to his subject, and should bear in mind the saying of the first King of Great Britain, respecting a sermon which was excellent in doctrine, but overcharged with poetical allusions and figurative language,—‘that the tropes and metaphors of the speaker were like the brilliant wild flowers in a field of corn, very pretty, but which did very much hurt the corn.’”

Dr. Paris’s remarks concerning Davy’s personal manner and his style of lecturing were warmly controverted at the time of their publication by several of Davy’s friends. Dr. John Davy’s account is so clear and explicit, and so obviously based upon personal observation, for which he had ample opportunities, that, even after making every allowance for brotherly bias, we prefer to regard it as giving a more just impression of Davy’s bearing in the lecture-theatre, and of the care and pains he took to ensure success.

“He was,” says Dr. Davy, “always in earnest; and when he amused most, amusement appeared most foreign to his object. His great and first object was to instruct, and, in conjunction with this, maintain the importance and dignity of science; indeed the latter, and the kindling a taste for scientific pursuits, might rather be considered his main object, and the conveying instruction a secondary one.”

His lecture was almost invariably written expressly for the occasion, and usually on the day before he delivered it.

“On this day he generally dined in his own room, and made a light meal on fish. He was always master of his subject; and composed with great rapidity, and with a security of his powers never failing him.... It was almost an invariable rule with him, the evening before, to rehearse his lecture in the presence of his assistants, the preparations having been made and everything in readiness for the experiments; and this he did, not only with a view to the success of the experiments, and the dexterity of his assistants, but also in regard to his own discourse, the effect of which, he knew, depended upon the manner in which it was delivered. He used, I remember, at this recital, to mark the words which required emphasis and study the effect of intonation; often repeating a passage two or three different times, to witness the difference of effect of variations in the voice. His manner was perfectly natural, animated and energetic, but not in the least theatrical. In speaking, he never seemed to consider himself as an object of attention; he spoke as if devoted to his subject, and as if his audience were equally devoted to it and their interest concentrated in it. The impressiveness of his oratory was one of its great charms ... and his eloquence,—the declamation, as it might be called by some, in which he indulged on the beauty and order of Nature ... was so well received because it was not affected; merely his own strong impressions and feelings embodied in words, and delivered with an earnestness which marked their sincerity.”

It must, however, be admitted that this extraordinary success was not without its evil influence on Davy’s moral qualities. Considering his age, and his temperament, his ambition and love of applause, he would have been something more than human if he could have remained wholly unaffected by the conditions in which he was placed. “The bloom of his simplicity was dulled by the breath of adulation.” He assumed the garb and the airs of a man of fashion, and courted the society of the rich and the aristocratic. Time which would have been more profitably spent in the study, or in the society of his intellectual fellows, was frittered away in the frivolities of London society, or in the salons, or at the soirées of leaders of the “smart” people of the period. The peculiar circumstances of the Royal Institution, and the necessity for the continued adhesion to it of persons of rank and wealth, may to some extent have led him away from the quieter and serener joys of the philosophic life.

“In the morning,” says Paris, “he was the sage interpreter of Nature’s laws; in the evening, he sparkled in the galaxy of fashion; and not the least extraordinary point in the character of this great man, was the facility with which he could cast aside the cares of study, and enter into the trifling amusements of society.—‘Ne otium quidem otiosum,’ was the exclamation of Cicero; and it will generally apply to the leisure of men actively engaged in the pursuits of science; but Davy, in closing the door of his laboratory, opened the temple of pleasure.... In ordinary cases, the genius of evening dissipation is an arrant Penelope; but Davy, on returning to his morning labours, never found that the thread had been unspun during the interruption.”