But there are 'cabinet' portraits of the lady and her husband in 'The Life of George Ticknor' (p. 57, vol. i.) which may be introduced here.
'1815, June 13.—I breakfasted this morning with Sir H. Davy, of whom we have heard so much in America. He is now about thirty-three, but with all the freshness and bloom of twenty-five, and one of the handsomest men I have seen in England. He has a great deal of vivacity—talks rapidly, though with great precision—and is so much interested in conversation that his excitement amounts to nervous impatience, and keeps him in constant motion. He has just returned from Italy, and delights to talk of it; thinks it, next to England, the finest country in the world, and the society of Rome surpassed only by that of London, and says he should not die contented without going there again.
'It seemed singular that his taste in this should be so acute, when his professional eminence is in a province so different and remote; but I was much more surprised when I found that the first chemist of his time was a professed angler; and that he thinks, if he were obliged to renounce either fishing or philosophy, that he should find the struggle of his choice pretty severe.
'15 June.—As her husband had invited me to do, I called this morning on Lady Davy. I found her in her parlour, working on a dress, the contents of her basket strewed about the table, and looking more like home than anything since I left it. She is small, with black eyes and hair and a very pleasant face, an uncommonly sweet smile; and when she speaks, has much spirit and expression in her countenance. Her conversation is agreeable, particularly in the choice and variety of her phraseology, and has more the air of eloquence than I have ever heard before from a lady. But, then, it has something of the appearance of formality and display, which injures conversation. Her manner is gracious and elegant; and though I should not think of comparing her to Corinne, yet I think she has uncommon powers.'
The honeymoon, the greater part of which was spent in Scotland, was scarcely over, before, in the month of June, he dedicated to his wife his 'Elements of Chemical Philosophy,' as a pledge of his continued ardour for science, as well as of his love for her; and Davy returned to his scientific pursuits. In the following November he nearly lost his eyesight, whilst performing the dangerous experiment of effecting the combination of azote, as nitrogen was then called, and chlorine. He soon, however, completely recovered the use of his eyes, and took a trip into his native county; fishing and geologizing on the way. It was about this time also that Davy made the first experiments in electric lighting, by producing the voltaic arc by the use of carbon; the discovery was improved by Foucault, who substituted retort-carbon for wood-charcoal. (Comte du Moncel's 'L'Eclairage Electrique,' Paris, 1880.)
With reference to this, now highly important, subject, a writer in the Times for 22nd October, 1881, points out that 'Sir Humphry Davy showed that when a powerful current passes across the point of contact of two carbon rods, their points become heated; and on separating them to a short distance, an arc of light shoots between them, and the carbons are raised to a white heat.' The writer adds, that 'all lamps (until lately) had this point chiefly in view; namely, to introduce an arrangement which should keep the carbon-points at the fixed distance found to be the most advantageous.' Surely here was the germ of that discovery which is now becoming so rapidly developed.
In the autumn he went with Lady Davy for a long tour on the Continent, accompanied by the illustrious Faraday, who was a bookseller's apprentice when Davy first knew him, as his assistant and secretary; and equipped (as on previous similar occasions) with a portable chemical apparatus. He passed (with a special passport from Napoleon) through Paris—fêted by all the Parisian savants, including Laplace, Gay-Lussac, Thénard, etc., but treating them, it is said, somewhat haughtily—thence through France and Switzerland into Italy, by way of Nice to Genoa, where he rested a few days in order to make some ineffectual experiments on the torpedo; and so on to Florence, visiting en route all the most remarkable extinct volcanoes in the south of France. This year he was elected a Corresponding Member of the 1st class of the French Institute, who had previously awarded to him their prize of 3,000 livres for his treatise on 'Chemical Affinities.' In the spring of 1814 he reached Rome, where he spent a month; and thence visited Naples; all the while filling his note-books with interesting entries, personal, scientific, and poetic. On his return homeward he made the acquaintance of Volta, then seventy years old, at Milan, and he records his pleasure at conferring with the ingenious and amiable old man.
Midsummer found him at his beloved Geneva; and here he spent three delicious months in a villa whose garden sloped down to the cool blue waters of the lake. He wintered at Rome, busily occupied with his scientific pursuits, with shooting wild-fowl in the Campagna, and in the enjoyment of the intellectual society of the Eternal City;—not omitting to transmit the results of his studies for publication in the 'Philosophical Transactions.' It was about this time that the Geological Society of Penzance was started; and it need scarcely be said that it had from the first the best wishes of Davy, who contributed specimens to its cabinets, and subscribed a handsome sum towards its expenses.
This was not the only institution of a scientific nature of which Davy was an early patron, if not indeed an originator. Sir Roderick Murchison, in his 'Biography' by Geikie, mentions that Davy, Croker, and Reginald Heber were the real founders and earliest trustees of the Athenæum Club. And Sir John Rennie, in his 'Autobiography,' says as follows: