DAVY
Table of Contents Where the length of the memoir necessarily bears a small proportion to the quantity of matter which presses on the biographer's attention, two courses lie open to his choice; either to select a few remarkable passages in his subject's life for full discussion, or to give a general and popular sketch of his personal history. The latter plan seems here the more advisable. To many readers a minute analysis of Davy's physical researches would be unintelligible, without full explanations of the very instruments and objects with, and upon which, he worked. We shall therefore make it our chief object to trace his private history, interspersing notices of his labours and discoveries, but leaving to publications of expressly scientific character the task of doing justice to his scientific fame. Both departments have been fully treated in the Life published by Dr. Paris.
Humphry Davy was born near Penzance in Cornwall, December 17, 1778, of a family in independent, though humble circumstances, which for a century and a half had possessed and resided upon a small estate situated in Mount's Bay. Though no prodigy of precocious intellect, his childhood gave reasonable promise of future talent; and especially manifested the dawning of a vivid imagination, united with a strong turn for experiments in natural philosophy. One of his favourite amusements was to exhibit to his playfellows the operation of melting in a candle scraps of tin; or to make and explode detonating balls. Another was the inventing and repeating to them fairy tales and romances. At times, however, he would exercise his eloquence upon graver subjects; and, when no better could be obtained, the future lecturer is said to have found a staid, if not attentive, audience in a circle of chairs. At an early age he was placed at school at Penzance, where, in the usual acceptation of the words, he profited little: his own opinion, however, was different. "I consider it fortunate," he wrote to a member of his family, "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 that I have, and their peculiar application: what I am, I have made myself. I say this without vanity, and in pure simplicity of heart." He was soon removed to the school at Truro, where he remained two years, undistinguished except by a love of poetry, which manifested itself in composition at an early age. This, indeed, continued to be a favourite amusement, until, in mature life, he became absorbed in scientific pursuits: and it has been said upon high authority, that if Davy had not been the first chemist, he would have been the first poet of his age. This opinion must look for support, not to his metrical productions, which in truth nowise justify it, but to the vivid imagination and high powers of eloquence, which, in the vigour and freshness of youth, delighted the fashionable, as much as his discoveries amazed the scientific world.
In 1794 his father died, and his mother in consequence removed from Varfell, the patrimonial estate, to Penzance, where Davy was apprenticed to Mr. Borlase, a surgeon in that town. For the medical part of his new profession he showed distaste; but his attention was at once turned to the study of chemistry, which he pursued thenceforward with undeviating zeal. Akin to this pursuit, and fostered by the natural features of his native country, was his early taste for geology. "How often," said Davy to his friend and biographer on being shown a drawing of Botallack mine-"how often when a boy have I wandered about these rocks in search of new minerals, and when fatigued, sat down upon the turf, and exercised my fancy in anticipations of scientific renown." The notoriety which, in a small town, he readily acquired as the boy who was "so fond of chemical experiments," introduced him to a valuable friend, Mr. Davies Gilbert, in early life his patron, in mature age his successor in the chair of the Royal Society. By him the young man was introduced to Dr. Beddoes, who was at that time seeking an assistant in conducting the Pneumatic Institution, then newly established at Bristol, for the purpose of investigating the properties of aeriform fluids, and the possibility of using them as medical agents. It was not intended that, in forming this engagement, Davy should give up the line of life marked out for him; on the contrary, his abode at Bristol was considered part of his professional education. But his genius led him another way, and this lucky engagement opened a career of usefulness and fame, which under other circumstances might have been long delayed. The arrangement was concluded upon liberal terms, and in October, 1798, before he was twenty years old, he left his home in high spirits to enter upon independent life. It is to his honour, that as soon as a competent, though temporary provision was thus secured, he resigned, in favour of his mother and sisters, all his claims upon the paternal estate.
Soon after removing to Bristol, he published, in a work entitled 'Contributions to Medical and Physical Knowledge,' edited by Dr. Beddoes, some essays on heat, light, and respiration. Of these it will be sufficient to say, that with much promise of future excellence, they show a most unbridled imagination, and contain many speculations so unfounded and absurd, that in after-life he bitterly regretted their publication. During his engagement, his zeal and intrepidity were signally displayed in attempts to breathe different gases, supposed, or known, to be highly destructive to life, with a view to ascertain the nature of their effects. Two of these experiments, the inhaling of nitrous gas and carburetted hydrogen are remarkable, because in each he narrowly escaped death. But his attention was especially turned to the gas called nitrous oxide, which, upon respiration, appeared to transport the breather into a new and highly pleasurable state of feeling, to rouse the imagination, and give new vigour to the most sublime emotions of the soul. The effects produced, exaggerated by the enthusiasm of the patients, were in fact closely analogous to intoxication; and many persons still remember the curiosity and amusement, excited by the freaks of poets and grave philosophers, while under the operation of this novel stimulus. In 1800 he published 'Researches Chemical and Philosophical, respecting Nitrous Oxide and its Respiration.' The novelty of the results announced, combined with the ability shown in their investigation, and the youth of the author, produced a great sensation in philosophical circles; and through the celebrity thus acquired, and the favourable opinion of him formed upon personal acquaintance by several eminent philosophers of the day, he was offered by the conductors of the Royal Institution, the office of Assistant Lecturer in Chemistry, with the understanding that ere long he should be made sole Professor. This negotiation took place in the spring of 1801, and on May 31, 1802, he was raised to the higher appointment.
To Davy, the quitting Bristol for London was the epoch of a transformation-an elevation from the chrysalis to the butterfly state. In youth his person, voice, and address were alike uncouth; and at first sight they produced so unfavourable an impression upon Count Rumford, that he expressed much regret at having sanctioned so unpromising an engagement. The veteran philosopher soon found reason to change his opinion. Davy's first course of lectures, which was not delivered till the spring of 1802, excited a sensation unequalled before or since. Not only the philosophical but the literary and fashionable world crowded to hear him; and his vivid imagination, fired by enthusiastic love for the science which he professed, gave, to one of the most abstruse of studies, a charm confessed by persons the least likely to feel its influence. The strongest possible testimony to his richness of illustration is supplied by Mr. Coleridge:-"I go," he said, "to Davy's lectures to increase my stock of metaphors." Had this been all, the young prodigy would soon have ceased to dazzle; but his fame was maintained and increased by the success which waited on his undertakings; and, in a word, Davy became the lion of the day. The effect of this sudden change was by no means good. Sought and caressed by the highest circles of the metropolis, he endeavoured to assume the deportment of a man of fashion; but the strange dress sat awkwardly, and ill replaced a natural candour and warmth of feeling, which had singularly won upon the acquaintance of his early life. It is but justice, however, to add that his regard for his family and early friends was not cooled by this alteration in his society and prospects.
Our limits are too narrow to admit even a sketch of the various trains of original investigation pursued by Davy, during his connection with the Institution. Of these, the most important is that series of electrical inquiries pursued from 1800 to 1806, the results of which were developed in his celebrated first Bakerian Lecture, delivered in the autumn of the latter year, before the Royal Society, which received from the French Institute the prize of 3000 francs, established by the First Consul, for the best experiment in electricity or galvanism. In it he investigated the nature of electric action, and disclosed a new class of phenomena illustrative of the power of the Voltaic battery in decomposing bodies; which, in the following year, led to the most striking of his discoveries, the resolution of the fixed alkalies, potash and soda, into metallic bases. This discovery took place in October, 1807, and was...
