LIFE OF SIR HUMPHRY DAVY,
Birth and family of Sir H. Davy.-Davy placed at a preparatory school. His peculiarities when a boy.-Anecdotes.-He is admitted into the grammar-school at Penzance.-Finishes his education under Dr. Cardew at Truro.-Death of his father.-He is apprenticed by his mother to Mr. John Bingham Borlase, a surgeon and apothecary.-He enters upon the study of Chemistry, and devotes more time to Philosophy than to Physic.-The influence of early impressions illustrated. His poetical talent.-Specimens of his versification.-An Epic Poem composed by him at the age of twelve years. His first original experiment in chemistry.— He conceives a new theory of heat and light.-His ingenious experiment to demonstrate its truth. He becomes known to Mr. Davies Gilbert, the founder of his future fortunes. -Mr. Gregory Watt arrives at Penzance, and lodges in the house of Mrs. Davy.-The visit of Dr. Beddoes and Professor Hailstone to Cornwall. The correspondence between Dr. Beddoes and Mr. Davies Gilbert, relative to the Pneumatic Institution at Bristol, and the proposed appointment of Davy. His final departure from his native town.
HUMPHRY DAVY was born at Penzance, in Cornwall, on the 17th of December, 1778.* His ancestors had long possessed a small estate at Varfell, in the parish of Ludgvan, in the Mount's Bay, on which they resided: this appears from tablets in the church, one of which bears a date as far back as 1635. We are, however, unable to ascend higher in the pedigree than to his paternal grandfather, who seems to have been a builder of considerable
* I have been favoured by the Rev. C. Val. Le Grice, of Trereiffe, with the following extract from the Parish Register, kept at Madron:-"Humphry Davy, son of Robert Davy, baptized at Penzance, January 22, 1779.”