the last new novel. 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.

The following anecdote is well calculated to illustrate that versatility of talent of which I have frequently spoken, as well as the power he possessed of abstracting himself, without detriment, from the most elaborate investigations. A friend of the late Mr. Tobin called upon him at the Institution, and found him deeply engaged in the laboratory; their conversation turned upon the "Honey Moon," which was to be brought out on the following evening.* No sooner had Davy heard that, although pressing applications had been made to several of the poets of the day, a Prologue had not yet been written, than he instantly quitted the laboratory, and in two hours produced that which was recited on the occasion by Mr. Bartley, and printed in the first edition of the comedy. I insert it in this place.

No uniformity in life is found :-
In ev'ry scene varieties abound;
And inconsistency still marks the plan
Of that immortal noble being, Man.

As changeful as the April's morning skies,
His feeling and his sentiments arise;
And nature to his wond'rous frame has given
The mingled elements of earth and heaven.
In diff'rent climes and ages, still we find
The same events for diff'rent ends design'd:
And the same passion diff'rent minds can move
To thoughts of sadness or to acts of love.

Hence Genius draws his novel copious store;
And hence the new creations we adore:

And hence the scenic art's undying skill

Submits our feeling to its potent will;

From common accidents and common themes

Awakens rapture and poetic dreams;

And, in the trodden path of life, pursues

Some object cloth'd in Fancy's loveliest hues

*The Honey Moon was produced at Drury Lane, on Thursday, the 30th of January, 1805.

To strengthen nature, or to chasten art,

To mend the manners or exalt the heart.

So thought the man whom you must judge to-night;
And as he thought, he boldly dared to write.
Not new the subject of his first-born rhyme;
But one adorn'd by bards of elder time ;-
Bards with the grandest sentiments inspired-
Bards that in rapture he has still admired;
And tried to imitate, with ardour warm,
And catch the spirit of their pow'rful charm.
With loftiest zeal and anxious hope he sought

To bring to modern times their strength of thought;
And, in their glowing colours, to display

The follies and the virtues of the day.

Whether his talents have his wish belied,

Your judgment and your candour must decide.
He, though your loftiest plaudits you should raise—
He cannot thank you for the meed of praise.
Rapture he cannot feel, nor fear, nor shame;
Connected with his love of earthly fame,
He is no more.-Yet may his memory live
In all the bloom that early worth can give!
Should you applaud, 'twould check the flowing tear
Of those to whom his name and hopes are dear.
But should you an unfinish'd structure find,
As in its first and rudest forms design'd,
As yet not perfect from the glowing mind,
Then with a gentle voice your censure spread,
And spare the living-spare the sacred DEAD!

Davy would appear to have frequently amused himself with writing sonnets, and inclosing them in letters to his several friends; the following letter will also show that he was ambitious of being considered a poet.

MY DEAR PURKIS,

TO SAMUEL PURKIS, ESQ.

I INCLOSE the little poem,* on which your praise has stamped a higher value, I fear, than it deserves.

If I thought that people in general would think as favourably of my poetical productions, I would write more verses, and would write them with more care; but I fear you are partial: I am very glad, however, that you like the little song; at some future period I will send you another.

With kind remembrances,

Unalterably your sincere friend,

H. DAVY.

On examining the laboratory notes made at this period, many of which, however, are nearly illegible from blots of ink and stains of acid, it would appear that his researches into the composition of mineral bodies were most extensive, and that he obtained many new results, of which he does not seem to have availed himself in any of his subsequent papers. To borrow a metaphor from his favourite amusement, he treated such results as small fry, which he returned to their native element to grow bigger, or to be again caught by some less aspiring brother of the angle.

Had Davy, at this period of his life, been anxious to obtain wealth,† such was his chemical reputation, and such the value attached to his judgment, that, by lending his assistance to manufacturers and projectors, he might easily have realized it; but his aspirations were of a nobler kind - SCIENTIFIC GLORY was the grand object for which his heart panted; by stopping to collect the golden apples, he might have lost the race.

*The subject was "Julia's Eyes."

+ I am assured by one of his earliest friends that, at this period, he did not appear even to have an idea of the value of property. Any thing not immediately necessary to him he gave away, and never retained a book after he had read it.

R

CHAPTER V.

Sir Thomas Bernard allots Davy a piece of ground for Agricultural Experiments.-History of the Origin of the Royal Institution.-Its eariy labours. Davy's Letters to Mr. Gilbert and to Mr. Poole.-Death of Mr. Gregory Watt.-Davy's passion for Fishing, with Anecdotes.-He makes a Tour in Ireland: his Letters on the subject.-His Paper on the Analysis of the Wavellite. His Memoirs on a new method of analysing Minerals which contain a fixed Alkali.Reflections on the discovery of Galvanic Electricity.

VERY shortly after Davy had arrived in London, he formed an intimate friendship with Mr. (afterwards Sir Thomas) Bernard; and no sooner had he directed his attention to the subject of Philosophical Agriculture, than the worthy Baronet allotted him a considerable piece of ground near his villa at Roehampton, where, under his sole direction, numerous experiments were tried, many of which proved highly successful, and afterwards served for the illustration of various subjects in his work on AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY.

Although devoted as Davy was to the pursuits of science, he entered warmly into all political plans for improving the condition of the people, and advancing the progress of civilization. "No one," says his friend Mr. Poole, 66 was less a sectarian, if I may use the word, in religion, politics, or in science. He regarded with benevolence the sincere convictions of any class on the subject of belief, however they might differ from his own. In politics, he was the ardent friend of rational liberty. He gloried in the institutions of his country, and was anxious to see them maintained in their purity by timely and temperate reform." Indeed, in carefully analysing his mind, and tracing its developement, it appears that benevolence was one of its leading elements; the form in which it displayed its energies varying with the varying conditions of

intelligence. In boyish life, his imagination, acting upon his zeal for the welfare of his species, delighted, as we have seen, in the ideas of encountering dragons, and quelling the might of giants; but as fancy paled with the light of advancing years, and the judgment presented distincter appearances, the philanthropic antipathy which had been directed to those chimeras of the nursery, was transferred to the two great oppressions of society, and in Superstition he saw the dragons--in Despotism the giants that spread mischief and misery through the world.

Some of his early manuscripts are still in existence; and I shall here introduce a passage from one which has been lately transmitted to me by a gentleman resident in Penzance. The most trifling record becomes interesting when we can trace in it the germ of a particular opinion, or the first symptom of a quality which may afterwards have distinguished its possessor.

"Science is as yet in her infancy; but in her infancy she has done much for man. The discoveries hitherto so beneficial to mankind have been generally effected by the energies of individual minds: what hopes may we not entertain of the rapid progress of the happiness of man when illumination shall become general — when the united powers of a number of scientific men shall be employed in discovery! Every thing seems to announce the rapid advance of this period of improvement. The time is approaching when despotism and superstition, those enormous chains that have so long enfettered mankind, shall be annihilated,-when liberated man shall display the mental energies for which he was created. At that period nations shall know that it is their interest to cultivate science, and that the benevolent philosophy is never separated from the happiness of mankind.”

In his published writings we discover evidences of the same tendency; he suffers no opportunity to escape which can enable him to enforce his principle, and he extracts from the most common as well as from the least probable sources, comparisons and analogies for its illustration. The ingenuity with which this is accomplished often surprises and delights us; the effect upon the reader is frequently not unlike that occasioned by the flashes of wit, to which it surely must be closely allied, if wit be correctly defined by Johnson “ a combination of dissimilar images, or the discovery of occult resemblances in things apparently unlike." Is not this opinion strikingly illustrated by the happy turn given to his observations "upon the process of obtaining nitrous oxide from nitre," --when he says, "thus, if the hopes which these experiments induce us to indulge do not prove fallacious, a substance which has heretofore been

66