In the discharge of his parliamentary duties, Mr. Wilberforce was punctual and active beyond his apparent strength; and those who further recollect his diligent attendance on a vast variety of public meetings and committees connected with religious and charitable purposes, will wonder how a frame naturally weak should so long have endured the wear of such exertion. In 1788, when his illness was a matter of deep concern to the Abolitionists, Dr. Warren said that he had not stamina to last a fortnight. No doubt his bodily powers were greatly aided by the placid and happy frame of mind which he habitually enjoyed; but it is important to relate his own opinion, as delivered by an ear-witness, on the physical benefits which he derived from a strict abstinence from temporal affairs on Sundays: "I have often heard him assert that he never could have sustained the labor and stretch of mind required in his early political life, if it had not been for the rest of his Sabbath; and that he could name several of his contemporaries in the vortex of political cares, whose minds had actually given way under the stress of intellectual labor so as to bring on a premature death or the still more dreadful catastrophe of insanity and suicide, who, humanly speaking, might have been preserved in health, if they would but conscientiously have observed the Sabbath."

In 1797 Mr. Wilberforce married Miss Spooner, daughter of an eminent banker at Birmingham. Four sons survived him. He died, after a gradual decline, July 29, 1833, in Cadogan Place. He directed that his funeral should be conducted without the smallest pomp; but his orders were disregarded, in compliance with a memorial addressed to his relatives by many of the most distinguished men of all parties, and couched in the following terms: "We, the undersigned Members of both Houses of Parliament, being anxious, upon public grounds, to show our respect for the memory of the late William Wilberforce, and being also satisfied that public honors can never be more fitly bestowed than upon such benefactors of mankind, earnestly request that he may be buried in Westminster Abbey, and that we and others who may agree with us in these sentiments may have permission to attend his funeral." The attendance of both Houses was numerous. Mr. Wilberforce was interred within a few yards of his great contemporaries, Pitt, Fox, and Canning.[Back to Contents]

SIR HUMPHRY DAVY
By John Timbs, F.S.A.
(1778-1829)

The boyhood of Davy has been sketched in some of the most fascinating pieces of biography ever written: the annals of science do not furnish us with any record that equals the school-days and self-education of the boy, Humphry, in popular interest; and, unlike many bright mornings, this commencement in a few years led to a brilliant meridian, and, by a succession of discoveries, accomplished more in relation to change of theory and extension of science, than in the most ardent and ambitious moments of youth he could either hope to effect or imagine possible.

Humphry Davy was born at Penzance, in 1778; was a healthy, strong, and active child, and could speak fluently before he was two years old; copied engravings before he learned to write, and could recite part of the "Pilgrim's Progress" before he could well read it. At the age of five years, he could gain a good account of the contents of a book while turning over the leaves; and he retained this remarkable faculty through life. He excelled in telling stories to his playmates; loved fishing, and collecting, and painting birds and fishes; he had his own little garden; and recorded his impressions of romantic scenery in verse of no ordinary merit. To his self-education, however, he owed almost everything. He studied with intensity mathematics, metaphysics, and physiology; before he was nineteen he began to study chemistry, and in four months proposed a new hypothesis on heat and light, to which he won over the experienced Dr. Beddoes. With his associate, Gregory Watt (son of the celebrated James Watt) he collected specimens of rocks and minerals. He made considerable progress in medicine; he experimented zealously, especially on the effects of the gases in respiration; at the age of twenty-one he had breathed nitrous oxide, and nearly lost his life from breathing carburetted hydrogen. Next year he commenced the galvanic experiments which led to some of his greatest discoveries. In 1802 he began his brilliant scientific career at the Royal Institution, where he remained till 1812; here he constructed his great voltaic battery of 2,000 double plates of copper and zinc, and commenced the mineralogical collection now in the Museum. His lectures were often attended by one thousand persons: his youth, his simplicity, his natural eloquence, his chemical knowledge, his happy illustrations and well-conducted experiments, and the auspicious state of science, insured Davy great and instant success.

The enthusiastic admiration with which he was hailed can hardly be imagined now. Not only men of the highest rank—men of science, men of letters, and men of trade—but women of fashion and blue-stockings, old and young, pressed into the theatre of the Institution to cover him with applause. His greatest labors were his discovery of the decomposition of the fixed alkalies, and the re-establishment of the simple nature of chlorine; his other researches were the investigation of astringent vegetables in connection with the art of tanning; the analysis of rocks and minerals in connection with geology; the comprehensive subject of agricultural chemistry; and galvanism and electro-chemical science. He was also an early, but unsuccessful, experimenter in the photographic art.

Of the lazy conservative spirit and ludicrous indolence in science, which at this time attempted to hoodwink the public, a quaint instance is recorded of a worthy professor of chemistry at Aberdeen. He had allowed some years to pass since Davy's brilliant discovery of potassium and its congeneric metals, without a word about them in his lectures. At length the learned doctor was concussed by his colleagues on the subject, and he condescended to notice it. "Both potash and soda are now said to be metallic oxides," said he; "the oxides, in fact, of two metals, called potassium and sodium by the discoverer of them, one Davy, in London, a verra troublesome person in chemistry."

Turn we, however, to the brightest event in our chemical philosopher's career. By his unrivalled series of practical discoveries, Davy acquired such a reputation for success among his countrymen, that his aid was invoked on every great occasion. The properties of fire-damp, or carburetted hydrogen, in coal-mines had already been ascertained by Dr. Henry. When this gas is mingled in certain proportions with atmospheric air, it forms a mixture which kindles upon the contact of a lighted candle, and often explodes with tremendous violence, killing the men and horses, and projecting much of the contents of the mine through the shafts or apertures like an enormous piece of artillery. At this time, a detonation of fire-damp occurred within a coal-mine in the north of England, so dreadful that it destroyed more than a hundred miners. A committee of the proprietors besought our chemist to provide a method of preparing for such tremendous visitations; and he did it. He tells us that he first turned his attention particularly to the subject in 1815; but he must have been prepared for it by the researches of his early years. Still, there appeared little hope of finding an efficacious remedy. The resources of modern mechanical science had been fully applied in ventilation. The comparative lightness of fire-damp was well understood; every precaution was taken to preserve the communications open; and the currents of air were promoted or occasioned, not only by furnaces, but likewise by air-pumps and steam apparatus. We may here mention that, for giving light to the coal-miner or pitman, where the fire-damp was apprehended, the primitive contrivance was a steel-mill, the light of which was produced by contact of a flint with the edge of a wheel kept in rapid motion. A "safety-lamp" had already, in 1813, been constructed by Dr. Clanny, the principle of which was forcing in air through water by bellows; but the machine was ponderous and complicated, and required a boy to work it. M. Humboldt had previously, in 1796, constructed a lamp for mines upon the same principle as that of Dr. Clanny.