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 published in his second Bakerian Lecture,
delivered in the following November. The novelty and brilliancy of the
view thus opened, raised public curiosity to the highest pitch: the
laboratory of the Institution was crowded with visitors, and the high
excitement thus produced, acting upon a frame exhausted by fatigue,
produced a violent fever, in which for many days, he lay between life
and death. Not until the following March was he able to resume his
duties as a lecturer.
During the next four years he was chiefly employed in endeavouring to
decompose other bodies, in prosecuting his inquiries into the nature of
the alkalies and in obtaining similar metallic bases from the earths, in
which he partially succeeded. The resolution of nitrogen was attempted
without success. In tracing the nature of muriatic and oxymuriatic acid,
he was more fortunate; and proved the latter to be an undecompounded
substance, in direct opposition to his own opinion, recorded at an
earlier period. This discovery is the more honourable, for nothing
renders the admission of truth so difficult, as having advocated error.
On the 8th April, 1812, he received the honour of knighthood from the
Prince Regent, in testimony of his scientific merits. This was the more
welcome, because he was on the eve of exchanging a life of professional
labour for one, not of idleness, for he pursued his course of discovery
with unabated zeal, but of affluence and independence. On the 11th of
the same month, he married Mrs. Apreece, a lady possessed of ample
fortune; previous to which he delivered his farewell lecture to the
Royal Institution. At the same time he appears to have resigned the
office of Secretary to the Royal Society, to which he had been appointed
in 1807. Two months afterwards he published ‘Elements of Chemical
Philosophy,’ which he dedicated to Lady Davy, “as a pledge that he
should continue to pursue science with unabated ardour.” In March, 1813,
appeared the ‘Elements of Agricultural Chemistry,’ containing the
substance of a course of lectures delivered for ten successive seasons
before the Board of Agriculture.
That part of the Continent which was under French influence, being
strictly closed against the English at this time, it is much to the
credit of Napoleon, that he immediately assented to a wish expressed by
Davy, and seconded by the Imperial Institute, that he might be allowed
to visit the extinct volcanoes in Auvergne, and thence proceed to make
observations on Vesuvius while in a state of action. He reached Paris,
Oct. 27th, 1813. The French philosophers received him with enthusiasm:
it is to be regretted that at the time of his departure their feelings
were much less cordial. There was a coldness, and pride, or what seemed
pride, in his manner, which disgusted a body of men too justly sensible
of their own merit to brook slights; especially when, in spite of
national jealousy, they had done most cordial and unhesitating justice
to the transcendent achievements of the British philosopher. Nor was
this the only ground for dissatisfaction. Iodine had been recently
discovered in Paris, but its nature was still unknown. Davy obtained a
portion, and proceeded to experiment upon it. This was thought by many
an unfair interference with the fame and rights of the original
investigators. Davy himself felt that some explanation at least was due,
in a paper which he transmitted to the Royal Society; and as the passage
in question contained what, though perhaps not meant to be such, might
easily be construed into an insinuation, that but for him, the results
communicated in that paper might not have been obtained, it was not
likely to conciliate. There is probably much truth in the excuse offered
by his biographer, for the superciliousness charged against him upon
this, and other occasions, that it was merely the cloak of a perpetual
and painful timidity.
It is remarkable that, with a highly poetical temperament, he seems to
have been senseless to the beauties of art. The wonders of the Louvre
extracted no sign of pleasure: he paced the rooms with hurried steps, in
apathy, roused only by the sight of an Antinous sculptured in alabaster,
“Gracious Heaven!” he then exclaimed, “what a beautiful stalactite.”
From Paris, Dec. 29th, he proceeded without visiting Auvergne, to
Montpellier, Genoa, Florence, Rome, and Naples, which he reached May
8th, 1814. At various places he prosecuted his researches upon iodine;
and at Florence, he availed himself of the great burning lens to
experiment upon the combustion of the diamond, and other forms of
carbon. At Naples and Rome he instituted a minute and laborious inquiry
into the colours used in painting by the ancients; the results of which
appeared in the Philosophical Transactions for 1815.
The autumn of 1815 is rendered memorable by the discovery of the
safety-lamp, one of the most beneficial applications of science to
economical purposes yet made, by which hundreds, perhaps thousands, of
lives have been preserved. Davy was led to the consideration of this
subject by an application from Dr. Gray, now Bishop of Bristol, the
Chairman of a Society established in 1813, at Bishop-Wearmouth, to
consider and promote the means of preventing accidents by fire in
coal-pits. Being then in Scotland, he visited the mines on his return
southward, and was supplied with specimens of fire-damp, which, on
reaching London, he proceeded to examine. He soon discovered that the
carburetted hydrogen gas, called fire-damp by the miners, would not
explode when mixed with less than six, or more than fourteen times its
volume of air; and further, that the explosive mixture could not be
fired in tubes of small diameters and proportionate lengths. Gradually
diminishing their dimensions, he arrived at the conclusion that a tissue
of wire, in which the meshes do not exceed a certain small diameter,
which may be considered as the ultimate limit of a series of such tubes,
is impervious to the inflamed air; and that a lamp covered with such
tissue, may be used with perfect safety even in an explosive mixture,
which takes fire, and burns within the cage, securely cut off from the
power of doing harm. Thus when the atmosphere is so impure that the
flame of the lamp itself cannot be maintained, the _Davy_ still supplies
light to the miner, and turns his worst enemy into an obedient servant.
This invention, the certain source of large profit, he presented with
characteristic liberality to the public. The words are preserved, in
which when pressed to secure to himself the benefit of it by a patent,
he declined to do so, in conformity with the high-minded resolution
which he formed upon acquiring independent wealth, of never making his
scientific eminence subservient to gain:—“I have enough for all my views
and purposes, more wealth might be troublesome, and distract my
attention from those pursuits in which I delight. More wealth could not
increase my fame or happiness. It might undoubtedly enable me to put
four horses to my carriage, but what would it avail me to have it said,
that Sir Humphry drives his carriage and four?” He who used wealth and
distinction to such good purpose, may be forgiven the weakness if he
estimated them at too high a value.
The coal-owners of the north presented to him a service of plate, in
testimony of their gratitude. He underwent, however, considerable
vexation from claims to priority of invention, set up by some persons
connected with the collieries, whose attention had been turned with very
imperfect success to the same end. The controversy has long been settled
in his favour, by the decision of the most eminent names in British
science, and the general voice of the owners of the Newcastle
coal-field: and while the pits are worked, the name of Davy, given by
the colliers to the safety-lamp, cannot be forgotten.
In 1818 he again visited Naples, with a view of applying the resources
of chemistry to facilitate the unrolling of the papyri found in
Herculaneum. These, it is well known, are generally in a state
resembling charcoal, often cemented into a solid mass, and the texture
so entirely destroyed, that it is hardly possible to separate the
layers. Examination of some specimens transmitted to England satisfied
him that they had not been subjected to heat, and that instead of being
a true charcoal, they were analogous to peat or to the lignite called
Bovey coal. He concluded, therefore, that the rolls were cemented into
one mass by a substance produced by fermentation in their vegetable
substance, and hoped to be able so far to destroy this, as to facilitate
the detaching one layer from another, without obliterating the writing.
With this view he submitted fragments to the operation of chlorine and
iodine, with such fair hope of success, that he was encouraged to
proceed to Naples; the Government furnishing him with every
recommendation, and defraying the expenses of such assistants as he
thought it necessary to take out. His success, however, fell short of
his hopes; and partly from disappointment, partly from a belief that
unfair obstacles were thrown in his way by interested persons, he
abandoned the undertaking at the end of two months, having partially
unrolled twenty-three MSS. and examined about one hundred and twenty,
which offered no prospect of success. His visit to Naples led, however,
to one conclusion of interest to geologists, that the strata which cover
Herculaneum are not lava, but a tufa consolidated by moisture, and
resembling that at Pompeii except in its hardness.
In October, 1818, Sir Humphry Davy was created a baronet, as a reward
for his scientific services. Soon after his return to England in 1820,
died Sir Joseph Banks, the venerable President of the Royal Society.
Davy succeeded to the chair, which he retained till forced to quit it by
ill health, zealous in fulfilling its duties, without relaxing in his
private labours. It would have been better had he not obtained this
honour. His scientific pride disgusted some; his aristocratic airs,
unpardonable in one so humbly born, excited the ridicule of others. Much
of this weakness may be traced to the pernicious effects of early
flattery. Had he been content with chemical fame, he would have spared
some mortifications and heart-burnings both to himself and others. His
demeanour changed, immediately after the delivery of his first lecture.
On the following day he dined with his early friend and patron, Sir
Henry Englefield, who, speaking of his behaviour on that day after
eighteen years had elapsed, said, “It was the last effort of expiring
nature.” Such frailties, though just grounds of censure and regret to
his contemporaries, will be lost in the splendour of his discoveries.
Yet is the observation of them not useless as a warning to others: for
the higher the station, the more closely will the actions of him who
fills it be scrutinised, especially if his elevation be the work of his
own hands.
In 1823 he undertook, in consequence of an application from Government
to the Royal Society, an inquiry into the possibility of preventing the
rapid decay of the copper sheathing of ships. His former Voltaic
discoveries at once explained the cause and suggested a remedy. When two
metals in contact with each other are exposed to moisture, the more
oxidable rapidly decays, while on the less oxidable no effect is
produced. Thus a very small piece of iron or zinc was found effectually
to stop the solution of a very large surface of copper. Several ships
were accordingly fitted with _protectors_, as they were called, which
succeeded perfectly in preserving the copper; but their use was found to
be attended by an evil greater than that which they remedied. The ships’
bottoms grew foul with unexampled rapidity; and the protectors were
finally abandoned by the Admiralty in 1828. This failure was a source of
much ill-natured remark to the many whom Davy had offended, or who were
jealous of his reputation, and of deep mortification to himself. Indeed
he displayed an impatience of censure, and irritability of temper, far
from dignified: the spoilt child of fortune, he could not bear the
feeling of defeat, still less the triumph of his enemies. This weakness
may perhaps be partly ascribed to declining health, which must always
more or less overcloud the mind, especially of one whose amusements as
well as his employments were of an active and stirring kind. To the
sports of fly-fishing and shooting he was devotedly attached; and
jealous, even to a ludicrous degree, of his reputation and success,
which it is said not always to have been so great as he would willingly
have had it believed. But his failing health gradually curtailed his
enjoyment of these pleasures, and towards the end of 1825, the
indisposition which his friends had long seen stealing on him reached
its crisis in the form of an apoplectic attack. All immediate cause of
alarm was soon removed; but the traces of his illness remained in a
slight degree of paralysis, which impaired, though without materially
affecting, his muscular powers. By the advice of his physicians he
hastened abroad, and passed the rest of the winter, and the spring, at
Ravenna. In the summer he visited the Tyrol and Illyria, and finding his
health still precarious, resigned the chair of the Royal Society. In the
autumn he returned to England, having gained little strength. The early
winter he spent in Somersetshire, at the house of an old and valued
friend, too weak for severe mental exertion, or to pursue successfully
his favourite sports. Yet the ruling passion was still shown in the
amusement of his sick hours, which were chiefly devoted to the
preparation of ‘Salmonia.’ Of the merits of this book as a manual for
the fly-fisher, we presume not to speak. To the general reader it may be
safely recommended, as containing many eloquent and poetical passages,
with much amusing information respecting the varieties and habits of the
trout and salmon species, and of the insect tribes on which they feed.
In the spring of 1828, Davy once more sought the Continent in search of
health. His steps were turned to that favourite district, of which he
speaks as the “most glorious country in Europe, Illyria and Styria;”
where he solaced the weary hours of sickness, by such field-sports as
his failing health enabled him to pursue, in the revision of an improved
edition of ‘Salmonia,’ and in the composition of the ‘Last Days of a
Philosopher.’ Of this he says, in a letter dated Rome, February 6, 1829,
“I write and philosophise a good deal, and have nearly finished a work
with a higher aim than ‘Salmonia.’ It contains the essence of my
philosophical opinions, and some of my poetical reveries.” Under this
sanction, the reader will peruse with pleasure the sketch contained in
the third dialogue of a geological history of the earth, and the other
questions of natural philosophy which are discussed. A large portion of
the work is occupied by metaphysical and religious disquisitions. As a
moral philosopher, his opinions do not seem entitled to peculiar weight.
Of his visionary excursion to the limits of the solar system, it is not
fair to speak but as the play of an exuberant imagination, mastering the
sober faculties of the mind. The work contains many passages, reflective
and descriptive, of unusual beauty; and is a remarkable production to
have been composed under the wasting influence of that disease, which,
of all others, usually exerts the most benumbing influence.
The winter of 1828–9 he spent at Rome; with returning spring he
expressed a wish to visit Geneva, but his hours were numbered. He
reached that city on May 28, unusually cheerful; dined heartily on fish,
and desired to be daily supplied with every variety which the lake
afforded: a trifling circumstance, yet interesting from its connection
with his love of sport. In the course of the night he was seized with a
fresh attack, and expired early in the morning without a struggle. His
remains were honoured by the magistrates with a public funeral, and
repose in the cemetery of Plain Palais. He died without issue, and the
baronetcy is in consequence extinct.
[Illustration]
[Illustration:
_Engraved by W. Holl._