applied to him; and that, owing to an unfortunate aptness in the name to a doggrel verse, poor Davy had frequently to smart under his tyranny.

when the master, suiting the action to the rythm, inflicted upon the hand of the unlucky scholar the verberations of that type and instrument of pedagoguish authority—the flat ruler. Here we have another example of the seduction of sound, argued by our great jurist Mr. Bentham,* to have determined the maxims of that law, which has been pronounced by its sages the perfection of reason.

From a letter however, written by Davy a few years afterwards, respecting the education of a member of his family, he would appear to have entertained an opinion not very unlike that of John Locke; for, although he testifies the highest respect for Dr. Cardew, he seems to consider the comparative idleness of his earlier school career, by allowing him to follow the bent of his own mind, to have favoured the developement of his peculiar genius. “After all,” he says, "the way in which we are taught Latin and Greek, does not much influence the important structure of our minds. I consider it fortunate that I was left much to myself as a child, and put upon no particular plan of study, and that I enjoyed much idleness at Mr. Coryton's school. I perhaps owe to these circumstances the little talents I have, and their peculiar application; - what I am I have made myself I say this without vanity, and in pure simplicity of heart."

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His temper during youth is represented as mild and amiable. He never suppressed his feelings, but every action was marked by ingenuousness and candour, qualities which endeared him to his youthful associates, and gained him the love of all who knew him. "Nor can I find," says his sister, "beloved as he must have been by my mother, that she showed him

*" Were the enquiry diligently made," he says, "it would be found that the Goddess of Harmony has exercised more influence, however latent, over the dispensations of Themis, than her most diligent historiographers, or even her most passionate panegyrists, seem to be aware of. Every one knows how, by the ministry of Orpheus, it was she who first collected the sons of men beneath the shadow of the sceptre: yet in the midst of continual experience, men seem yet to learn with what successful diligence she laboured to guide it in its course."

any particular preference;

all her children appeared to be alike her care,

and all alike shared her affection."

In 1794, Mr. Davy died. We cannot but regret that he did not live long enough to witness his son's eminence; for life, as Johnson says, has few better things to give than a talented son; but from his widow, who has but lately descended to the tomb, full of years and respectability, this boon was not withheld, she witnessed his whole career of usefulness and honour, and happily closed her eyes before her maternal fears could have been awakened by those signs of premature decay, which for some time had excited in his friends, and in the friends of science, an alarm which the recent deplorable event has too fatally justified.

In the year following the decease of her husband, Mrs. Davy, who had again taken up her residence in Penzance, and entered upon the occupation of a milliner, apprenticed her son,* by the advice of her long-valued friend, Mr. Tonkin, to Mr. John Bingham Borlase, at that time a surgeon and apothecary, but who afterwards obtained a diploma, and became an eminent physician at Penzance. Davy however, for the most part, continued to pursue his own plans of study; for although his friend Mr. Tonkin, without doubt, intended him for a general practitioner in his native town, yet he himself always looked forward to graduation at Edinburgh, as a preliminary measure to his practising in the higher walk of his profession.

His mind had, for some time, been engrossed with philosophical pursuits; but until after he had been placed with Mr. Borlase, it does not appear that he indicated any decided turn for chemistry, the study of which he then commenced with all the ardour of his temperament; and his eldest sister, who acted as his assistant, well remembers the ravages committed on her dress by corrosive substances.

It has been said that his mind was first directed to chemistry, by a desire to discover various mixtures as pigments; a suggestion to which, I confess, I am not disposed to pay much attention; for although he might have sought by new combinations to impart a novel and vivid richness of colouring to his drawings, it was the character of his mind to pursue with ardour every subject of novelty, and to get at results by his own native powers, rather than by the recorded experience of others.

* The original indenture, now in the possession of Mr. R. Edwards, solicitor, of Penzance, is dated February 10th, 1795.

C

I must here relate an anecdote, in illustration of this statement, which has been lately communicated to me by the Reverend Dr. Batten, the principal of the East India College at Hayleybury. This gentleman was one of the earliest of Davy's schoolfellows, but as he advanced in age, different views, and a different plan of education, carried him to a distant part of the kingdom; the discipline and duties of a cloistered school necessarily estranged him from his native town; and it was not until after his admission at Cambridge, and the arrival of the long vacation, which afforded a temporary oblivion of academic cares, that Mr. Batten returned to Cornwall, to revisit the scenes, and to renew the friendships of his boyish days. Davy, who was at that period an apprentice to Mr. Borlase, received him with transport and affection; but he was no longer the boy that his friend had left him; he had become more serious and contemplative, fond of solitary rambles, and averse to enter into society, or to join the festive parties of the inhabitants. In fact, his mind was now in the act of being moulded by the spirit of Nature; and, without the constraint of study, he was insensibly inhaling knowledge with the wild breezes of his native hills.

In the course of conversation, Mr. Batten spoke of his academic studies; and in alluding to the principles of Mechanics, to which he had lately paid much attention, he expressed himself more particularly pleased with that part which treats of "the Collision of Bodies." What was his surprise, on finding Davy as well, if not better acquainted with its several propositions! It was true that he had never systematically studied the subject—had never perhaps seen any standard work upon it, but he had instituted experiments with elastic and inelastic balls, and had worked out the results by the unassisted energies of his own mind. It is clear that, had this branch of science not existed, Davy would have created it.

During this period of his apprenticeship, he twice a week attended a French school in Penzance, kept by a M. Dugast, a priest from La Vendée; and it was remarked that, although he acquired a knowledge of the granmatical construction of the language with greater facility than any of the other scholars, he could not succeed in obtaining the correct pronunciation; and, in fact, notwithstanding his extensive intercourse with foreigners, and his residence in France, he never, in after life, could speak French either with correctness or fluency.

While with Mr. Borlase, it was his constant custom to walk in the evening to Marazion, to drink tea with an aunt to whom he was greatly attached.

Upon such occasions, his usual companion was a hammer, with which he procured specimens from the rocks on the beach. In short, it would appear that, at this period, he paid much more attention to Philosophy than to Physic; that he thought more of the bowels of the earth, than of the stomachs of his patients; and that, when he should have been bleeding the sick, he was opening veins in the granite. Instead of preparing medicines in the surgery, he was experimenting in Mr. Tonkin's garret, which had now become the scene of his chemical operations; and, upon more than one occasion, it is said that he produced an explosion which put the Doctor, and all his glass bottles, in jeopardy. "This boy Humphry is incorrigible!"-" Was there ever so idle a dog!"—" He will blow us all into the air!" Such were the constant exclamations of Mr. Tonkin; and then, in a jocose strain, he would speak of him as the "Philosopher," and sometimes call him "Sir Humphry," as if prophetic of his future renown.*

For the surgical department of the profession, he always entertained a decided distaste, although the following extract from a letter of my correspondent, Mr. Le Grice, will show that, for once at least, he had the merit of mending a broken head. "The first time I ever saw Davy was on the Battery rocks; we were alone bathing, and he pointed out to me a good place for diving; at the same time he talked about the tides, and Sir Isaac Newton, in a manner that greatly amazed me. I perhaps should not have so distinctly remembered him, but on the following day, by not exactly marking the spot he had pointed out, I was nearly killed by diving on a rock, and he came as Mr. Borlase's assistant to dress the wound.”

It was Davy's great delight to ramble along the sea-shore, and often, like the orator of Athens, would he on such occasions declaim against the howling of the wind and waves, with a view to overcome a defect in his voice, which, although only slightly perceptible in his maturer age, was in the days of his boyhood exceedingly discordant. I may perhaps be allowed to observe, that the peculiar intonation he employed in his public addresses, and which rendered him obnoxious to the charge of affectation, was to be referred to a laborious effort to conceal this natural infirmity. It was also clear that he was deficient in that quality which is commonly called "a good ear,” and with

* Davy appears to have been more fortunate than his prototype Scheele; for on one occasion, as the latter was employed in making pyrophorus, a fellow apprentice, without his knowledge, put some fulminating powder into the mixture; the consequence was a violent explosion; the whole family was thrown into confusion, and the young chemist was severely chastised.

which the modulation of the voice is generally acknowledged to have an obvious connexion. Those who knew him intimately will readily bear testimony to this fact. Whenever he was deeply absorbed in a chemical research, it was his habit to hum some tune, if such it could be called, for it was impossible for any one to discover the air he intended to sing: indeed, Davy's music became a subject of raillery amongst his friends; and Mr. Children informs me, that, during an excursion, they attempted to teach him the air of God save the King, but their efforts were unavailing.

It may be a question how far the following fact, with which I have just been made acquainted, admits of explanation upon this principle. On entering a volunteer infantry corps, commanded by a Captain Oxnam, Davy could never emerge from the awkward squad; no pains could make him keep the step; and those who were so unfortunate as to stand before him in the ranks, ought to have been heroes invulnerable in the heel. This incapacity, as may be readily supposed, occasioned him considerable annoyance, and he engaged a serjeant to give him private lessons, but it was all to no purpose. In the platoon exercise he was not more expert; and he whose electric battery was destined to triumph over the animosity of nations, could never be taught to shoulder a musket in his native town.

That Davy, in his youth, possessed courage and decision, may be inferred from the circumstance of his having, upon receiving a bite from a dog supposed to be rabid, taken his pocket-knife, and without the least hesitation cut out the part on the spot, and then retired into the surgery and cauterized the wound; an operation which confined him to Mr. Tonkin's house for three weeks. The gentleman from whom I received an account of this adventure, the accuracy of which has been since confirmed by Davy's sister, also told me, that he had frequently heard him declare his disbelief in the existence of pain whenever the energies of the mind were directed to counteract it; but he added, "I very shortly afterwards had an opportunity of witnessing practical refutation of this doctrine in his own person; for upon being bitten by a congor eel, my young friend Humphry roared out most lustily."

The anecdote of Davy's excising the bitten part with so much promptitude and coolness, derives its interest from the age and inexperience of the operator. In the course of his practice, every physician must have met with similar cases of stern decision; but I will venture to say that they have never occurred except in instances of persons of acknowledged courage. Not many days since, a veteran officer, distinguished for the intrepidity with which he