At Fontainebleau, on the banks of the Rhone, at Mont Blanc, at Vaucluse,
Sir Humphrey's artistic nature voiced itself in song. He had the poet's
temperament, intense, quick, earnest, ardent, aspiring. He loved
science, and paid her homage; he loved poetry, and made her his rest and
solace and soul-companion.
At Florence he studied the diamond, and found it merely crystallized
carbon. At Rome he met Canova, who showed him great attention, and to
whom he wrote this sonnet:--
"Thou wast a light of brightness in an age
When Italy was in the night of art:
She was thy country; but the world thy stage,
On which thou actedst thy creative part.
Blameless thy life--thy manners, playful, mild,
Master in art, but Nature's simplest child.
Phidias of Rome! like him thou stand'st sublime:
And after artists shall essay to climb
To that high temple where thou dwell'st alone,
Amidst the trophies thou from time hast won.
Generous to all, but most to rising merit;
By nobler praise awakening the spirit;
Yet all unconscious of the eternal fame,
The light of glory circling round thy name!"
At Milan he met Volta, nearly seventy years old. "His conversation was
not brilliant," he said; "his views rather limited, but marking great
ingenuity. His manners were perfectly simple."
Around Naples he investigated the phenomena of volcanic eruptions. On
his return to London they bought a house in Grosvenor Square. He now
published several papers: "Experiments and Observations on the Colors
used in Painting by the Ancients"; "Experiments on a Solid Compound of
Iodine and Oxygen, and on its Chemical Agencies"; "Action of Acids on
the Salts usually called the Hyper-oxymuriates, and on the Gases
produced from them."
All his life, besides his ambition to be great, he desired to aid his
fellow-men, and in the year 1815 he made a discovery which placed him
among the benefactors of the race. In 1812 a terrible explosion of gas
had taken place in a mine, causing the death of nearly a hundred men.
The mine was on fire, and the mouth had to be closed, thus bringing sure
death to the poor creatures within. Such accidents were so frequent,
that a committee of mine proprietors visited the great chemist, to see
if science could suggest a remedy.
He at once visited several mines, investigated fire-damp, and found it
to be light carburetted hydrogen. After a long and careful series of
experiments through several months, he invented the safety-lamp, "a cage
of wire gauze, which actually made prisoner the flame of the fire-damp,
and in its prison consumed it; and whilst it confined the dangerous
explosive flame, it permitted air to pass and light to escape; and
though, from the combustion of the fire-damp, the cage might become red
hot, yet still it acted the part of a safety-lamp."
Sir Humphrey at thirty-seven had immortalized himself. At a public
dinner given in his honor at Newcastle, a service of plate worth over
twelve thousand dollars was presented to him. After his death this
service was given to the Royal Society by his widow, to be sold, and
the proceeds applied to the encouragement of science. Emperor Alexander
of Russia sent him a splendid silver-gilt vase, with a personal letter;
his own sovereign conferred a baronetcy upon him.
When Davy was urged by some friends to take out a patent upon the
safety-lamp, and thus make five or ten thousand a year for himself, he
said, "I never thought of such a thing: my sole object was to serve the
cause of humanity; and if I have succeeded, I am amply rewarded in the
gratifying reflection of having done so. I have enough for all my views
and purposes; more wealth could not increase either my fame or my
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 Humphrey
drives his carriage and four?"
He said later of his discovery of the safety-lamp: "I value it more than
anything I ever did: it was the result of a great deal of investigation
and labor; but if my directions be attended to, it will save the lives
of thousands of poor men. I was never more affected than by a written
address which I received from the working colliers when I was in the
North, thanking me on behalf of themselves and their families for the
preservation of their lives."
Sir Humphrey used to say: "Whoever wishes to enjoy _peace_, and is
gifted with great talents, must labor for posterity. In doing this he
enjoys all the pleasures of intellectual labor, and all the desire
arising from protracted hope. He feels no envy nor jealousy; his mark is
too far distant to be seen by short-sighted malevolence, and therefore
it is never aimed at.... To raise a chestnut on the mountain, or a palm
in the plain, which may afford shade, shelter, and fruit for generations
yet unborn, and which, if they have once fixed their roots, require no
culture, is better than to raise annual flowers in a garden, which must
be watered daily, and in which a cold wind may chill or too ardent a
sunshine may dry.... The best faculties of man are employed for
futurity: speaking is better than acting, writing is better than
speaking."
In the spring of 1818 he took his second continental journey with his
wife, going through Austria, Germany, and Italy. Commissioned by his
king, he made some researches on Herculaneum manuscripts.
On his return to England he was made President of the Royal Society, the
position so ably filled by Sir Isaac Newton. Every Saturday evening,
poets, artists, and men of science gathered at his receptions. This
office he held for seven years, till his declining health compelled his
resignation.
In December, 1821, Davy paid a visit to his old home in Penzance, and
saw his mother for the last time before her death. A public dinner was
given him by his townsmen, which honor he greatly appreciated. He was no
longer the poor lad among them. "Every heart, tongue, and eye were as
one to do honor to him who had not only rendered the name of their
_town_ famous and imperishable as science itself, but who had added
lustre to the intellectual character of their _country_."
From year to year he continued his experiments. Urged by the
commissioners of the navy to remedy the corrosion of copper sheathing on
vessels by sea water, he succeeded in rendering the copper negatively
electrical by small pieces of tin, zinc, or iron nails. Shells and
seaweeds adhered to the non-corroded surface, but the principle of
galvanic protection has been applied to various important uses.
In 1824, Sir Humphrey took a journey to Norway, Sweden, and Denmark,
visiting Berzelius of Sweden, "one of the great ornaments of the age,"
he said, and Oersted of Denmark, distinguished for his discovery of
electro-magnetism.
Towards the close of 1826, when he was only forty-eight, Davy was
attacked by paralysis in the right side, having suffered for a year with
numbness and pain in his right arm. During his confinement in his room,
he corrected the proof sheets of his "Discourses to the Royal Society,"
published in January, 1827.
In this year, having improved, he went through France, Italy, and
Switzerland, hunting and fishing as in his boyhood, and writing
"Salmonia, or Days of Fly Fishing," giving descriptions of his journey
and his observations on natural history.
In the spring of 1828, he made another journey, to Southern Austria,
spending the winter in Italy, and writing his "Consolation in Travel,"
which Cuvier called the work of a dying Plato. "I was desirous," he
says, "of again passing some time in these scenes, in the hope of
reestablishing a broken constitution; and though this hope was a feeble
one, yet, at least, I expected to spend a few of the last days of life
more tranquilly and more agreeably than in the metropolis of my own
country. Nature never deceives us. The rocks, the mountains, the
streams, always speak the same language. A shower of snow may hide the
verdant woods in spring; a thunder storm may render the blue limpid
streams foul and turbulent: but these effects are rare and transient; in
a few hours, or at least days, all the sources of beauty are renovated;
and Nature affords no continued trains of misfortunes and miseries, such
as depend upon the constitution of humanity,--no hopes forever blighted
in the bud,--no beings full of life, beauty, and promise, taken from us
in the prime of youth. Her fruits are all balmy, bright, and sweet; she
affords none of those blighted ones so common in the life of man, and so
like the fabled apples of the Dead Sea,--fresh and beautiful to the
sight, but, when tasted, full of bitterness and ashes."
From Rome he writes to a friend, a year later, in the spring of 1829: "I
am here _wearing away_ the winter,--a ruin amongst ruins!... I fight
against sickness and fate, believing I have still duties to perform, and
that even my illness is connected in some way with my being made useful
to my fellow-creatures. I have this conviction full on my mind, that
intellectual beings spring from the same breath of infinite
intelligence, and return to it again, but by different courses. Like
rivers born amidst the clouds of heaven, and lost in the deep and
eternal ocean,--some in youth, rapid and short-lived torrents; some in
manhood, powerful and copious rivers; and some in age, by a winding and
slow course, half lost in their career, and making their exit by many
sandy and shallow mouths."
Davy was destined to go back to the Infinite Intelligence in manhood, "a
powerful and copious river," however much he "fought against sickness
and fate."
On February 23, 1829, he dictated a letter to his brother John: "I am
dying from a severe attack of palsy, which has seized the whole body,
with the exception of the intellectual organ." He added in his own hand,
just legible, "Come as quickly as possible."
When the brother arrived, and was overcome with grief, Sir Humphrey
received him with a cheerful smile, and bade him not to grieve, but
consider the event like a philosopher. He talked more earnestly than
ever, and his mind seemed all aglow as with the brilliancy of a setting
sun.
At one time he was so near death, that he said "he had gone through the
whole process of dying, and that when he awoke he had difficulty in
convincing himself that he was in his earthly existence." Reviving
somewhat, they journeyed from Italy to Geneva, by slow and easy travel,
arriving May 28, 1829. In the night, at half-past two, Sir Humphrey was
taken very ill, and died almost immediately.
He was buried June 1, in the cemetery outside the walls of the city,
having requested to be interred where he died, without any display. The
grave is marked by a simple monument erected by his wife. She also
founded a prize in his honor, to be given every two years, for the most
original and important discovery in chemical science. Only fifty, and
his work finished,--no not finished,--for his books and his discoveries,
his character, with its earnest perseverance, its tenderness, its
sympathy, its noble aspirations, and its helpfulness to mankind, will
live forever!