'Bold, ardent, enthusiastic, Davy soared to greatest heights; he commanded a wide horizon, and his keen vision penetrated to its utmost boundaries. His imagination, in the highest degree fertile and inventive, took a rapid and extensive range in pursuit of conjectural analogies, which he submitted to close and patient comparison with known facts, and tried by an appeal to ingenious and conclusive experiments. He was imbued with the spirit and was master in the practice of inductive logic; and he has left us some of the noblest examples of the efficacy of that great instrument of human reason in the discovery of truth. He applied it, not only to connect classes of facts of more limited extent and importance, but to develop great and comprehensive laws, which embrace phenomena that are almost universal to the natural world. In explaining those laws he cast upon them the illumination of his own clear and vivid conceptions; he felt an intense admiration of the beauty, order, and harmony which are conspicuous in the perfect Chemistry of Nature; and he expressed those feelings with a force and eloquence which could issue only from a mind of the highest powers and of the finest sensibilities.'
Davy's first school was at Penzance, his first schoolmaster a Mr. Bushell; his next, the Rev. Mr. Coryton, seems to have been one of the old rough sort, determined that his pupils should not lack correction, even if they did not profit by his instruction. He used to address the little boy in the following doggrel, whenever he thought he saw an opportunity of administering castigation:
'Now, Master Davy,
Now, sir! I have 'ee!
No one shall save 'ee—
Good Master Davy!'
But neither Mr. Coryton, nor Dr. Cardew, the excellent master of the Truro Grammar School, to which place Davy was for a short period removed, when fourteen years old, seems to have perceived any remarkable genius in the scholar—except that the latter discerned at least his taste and skill in poetry, and in his translations from the classics into English verse. One of the efforts of his muse was an epic poem, 'The Tydidiad,' written when he was twelve years old. In truth Davy, when a schoolboy, was generally composing either ballads or valentines (in Latin or English) for his school-fellows, in making fireworks, or in fishing or shooting, thus proving—what has been so often proved before—that 'the boy is father to the man.' His oratorical displays—sometimes addressed to a crowd of juveniles assembled in front of the Star Inn at Penzance, sometimes to a row of empty chairs in his own bedroom—and his turnip-lantern exhibitions (which afterwards developed into the wonderful mimic volcanoes with which he astonished and delighted his audience at the Royal Institution) were highly popular; the price of admission to the turnip-lantern shows is said to have been paid in an extremely low currency—pins. It would moreover appear from an entry of his in the blank page of his Schrevelius that Harlequin was his favourite part in a pantomime. Of his youth, which all accounts agree in representing as genial and amiable, little more remains to be said, but that he was very awkward with his hands (often blotting out an error in his MS. by dipping his fingers into the ink-bottle)—could never get out of the 'awkward squad' in the Volunteer Corps which he joined—that he was round-shouldered and clumsy—had no taste or ear for music, and possessed a singularly inharmonious voice. Clearly, the outward gifts of our hero were not such as were likely to help him forward on his way through life. To judge what a change the fire of genius, years of study, and the advantages of moving amongst cultured and refined society can accomplish, his portrait, when he was about thirty-three years old, by Lawrence,[103] prefixed to Dr. Paris's 'Life'—or perhaps rather that by Phillips, R.A., which will be found in Polwhele's now rare little volumes the 'Biographical Sketches,' and in the 'Gentleman's Magazine' for 1829, should be examined.
As he grew up he is described as being of about the middle height, of remarkably active frame, and with a mobile countenance, which, though the features were not regular, was full of expression and vivacity. He had bright, wavy, brown hair, and eyes 'tremulous with light;' and his voice so improved by cultivation and experience that it became remarkably melodious. When to this are added his wonderful talents, his grand discoveries, and his eloquence, his sanguine temperament, his purpose firm, his spirits singularly cheerful and elastic, and his disposition ever philanthropic, it will easily be believed that his society was sought by all classes; and it is not to be wondered at if the attractions which such opportunities presented laid him open to the charge (from some quarters) of cultivating too much the wealthy and the powerful.[104] Davy, however, was too wise not to perceive the advantage of interesting such persons in the pursuits to which he was himself through life devoted. But he was really fond of intelligence in all classes, whenever and wherever he met with it; and there is an amusing story told of one of his street acquaintances, who showed the moon through a telescope, and who always refused to take Davy's penny, because, as the man said, of their being 'brother philosophers.'
But, to return to his youthful days. Davy's schooling probably did not cost his parents much, for in Dr. Cardew's time the charges were only £18 a year for board, and £4 for teaching, and perhaps some of these were paid by a very kind friend of the family, Mr. John Tonkin of Penzance. He 'put on harness' in 1793, when little more than fourteen years old (the year before his father died), by being articled on 16th February, to Dr. J. B. Borlase of Penzance, a gentleman who seems to have taken a kind and appreciative interest in the welfare of the lad.
Davy seems to have bestowed a fair amount of attention upon the studies pertaining to his profession, and is said to have been particularly kind and attentive to his master's patients, especially those of the poorer classes; but 'nourishing a youth sublime' on the preparation of pills and potions was out of the question; and we gladly find that, ere long, a more intellectual banquet was to be laid before him. He was at this time passionately fond of fishing and shooting, the former of which pursuits he dearly loved to the last: casting longing looks, even within a few days of his death, on the waters of Lake Leman on which he had often in earlier days thrown a fly. His charming book 'Salmonia' (pace the shade of Christopher North) shows what a deep interest he always took in fishing, and, indeed, in Natural History generally. It is amusing to note here, that in later years his costume, hat included, when he went fishing, was, for purposes of concealment, green; when, however, he went shooting he adopted scarlet garments for distinction, having a great dread of being shot. Declamations by the shores of Mount's Bay were also a source of great pleasure to him, when a boy, and many a time did he harangue the waves, when he could not secure a human auditory.
We may be sure that chemistry was not omitted; and, in the attic of a house belonging to that worthy friend of the family—Mr. Tonkin—such apparatus as Davy could muster might have been found: phials, wine-glasses, teacups, and tobacco-pipes, and a few acids and alkalies were amongst the principal items, and—most treasured of all—an old clyster-pipe, washed ashore from a wreck, out of which he had contrived to manufacture an air-pump!
The crisis of Davy's life at length arrived. Mr. Davies Gilbert (then named Giddy) a Cornish gentleman eminent for his attainments, had his attention called to the youngster's scientific knowledge, and became his friend and patron—little thinking at the time that he was hereafter to become Treasurer of the Royal Society under Davy, and at length to succeed his protégé as a President. It is noteworthy here—that Trelissick House, on the Fal, built by Davy's grandfather, for Mr. Daniell, became afterwards the property of Mr. Gilbert, and is now one of the seats of his grandson, Carew Davies Gilbert, Esq. Davies Gilbert also brought into public notice the Rev. Malachi Hitchins, once a miner, afterwards the principal calculator of the Nautical Almanac, and (conjointly with Samuel Drew) an historian of Cornwall; also the Rev. John Hellins, many years assistant to Dr. Maskelyne. He was moreover an early friend and adviser of Richard Trevithick (q.v.).
It is said that when the boy Davy first saw Mr. Davies Gilbert's laboratory his tumultuous delight knew no bounds. Other appreciative friends now came forward; amongst them Dr. Edwards of Hayle Copper House, and Professor Hailstone, and Dr. Beddoes, representatives of the rival geological schools of Neptunists and Plutonists, as they were then called, to both of whom Davy was able to render valuable information; though he himself, with his usual sagacity, sided with the Plutonists. Gregory Watt, the youngest son of the renowned James Watt, was another of Davy's early acquaintances at Penzance; and from Watt the youth derived much valuable information and advice.