SECTION I.

Transcriber's Notes:

Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_), and text

enclosed by equal signs is in bold (=bold=).

This book contains Macmillan & Co.'s September 1874 book

catalogue, which follows the index for the main book.

Additional Transcriber's Notes are at the end.

MICHAEL FARADAY.

[Illustration]

[Illustration: _Michael Faraday_

_From a Photograph by John Watkins. 34 Parliament Street._]

MICHAEL FARADAY.

BY

J. H. GLADSTONE, PH.D., F.R.S.

_THIRD EDITION, WITH PORTRAIT._

London:

MACMILLAN AND CO.

1874.

[_The Right of Translation and Reproduction is reserved._]

LONDON:

R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS,

BREAD STREET HILL.

PREFACE.

Shortly after the death of Michael Faraday, Professor Auguste de la

Rive, and others of his friends, gave to the world their impressions

of his life, his character, and his work; Professor Tyndall drew

his portrait as a man of science; and after a while Dr. Bence Jones

published his biography in two octavo volumes, with copious extracts

from his journals and correspondence. In a review of this "Life and

Letters" I happened to mention my thought of giving to the public

some day my own reminiscences of the great philosopher; several

friends urged me to do so, not in the pages of a magazine, but in the

form of a little book designed for those of his fellow-countrymen

who venerate his noble character without being able to follow his

scientific researches. I accepted the task. Professor Tyndall and Dr.

Bence Jones, with Messrs. Longman, the publishers, kindly permitted

me to make free use of their materials; but I am indebted to the

Corporation of the Trinity House, and to many friends, for a good deal

of additional information; and in compiling my book I have preferred,

where practicable, to illustrate the character of Faraday by documents

or incidents hitherto unpublished, or contained in those sketches of

the philosopher which are less generally known.

It is due to myself to say that I had pretty well sketched out the

second part of this book before I read M. Dumas' "Eloge Historique."

The close similarity of my analysis of Professor Faraday's character

with that of the illustrious French chemist may perhaps be accepted as

an additional warrant for the correctness of our independent estimates.

PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION.

The very favourable reception which my book has met with, both from the

press and the public, seems to call for my grateful acknowledgment on

the issue of a second edition.

In revising the former, I have added some further particulars about

Faraday, especially in regard to "his method of working;" and an

engraving from a photograph by Watkins, which best recalls to my

recollection the features and the usual expression of the genial

philosopher.

CONTENTS.

SECT. PAGE

I.--THE STORY OF HIS LIFE 1

II.--STUDY OF HIS CHARACTER 60

III.--FRUITS OF HIS EXPERIENCE 94

IV.--HIS METHOD OF WORKING 123

V.--THE VALUE OF HIS DISCOVERIES 146

SUPPLEMENTARY PORTRAITS 167

APPENDIX:--LIST OF HONORARY FELLOWSHIPS, ETC. 173

INDEX 176

MICHAEL FARADAY.

SECTION I.

THE STORY OF HIS LIFE.

At the beginning of this century, in the neighbourhood of Manchester

Square, London, there was an inquisitive boy running about, playing

at marbles, and minding his baby-sister. He lived in Jacob's Well

Mews, close by, and was learning the three R's at a common day-school.

Few passers-by would have noticed him, and none certainly would have

imagined that this boy, as he grew up, was to achieve the truest

success in life, and to die honoured by the great, the wise, and the

good. Yet so it was; and to tell the story of his life, to trace the

sources of this success, and to depict some of the noble results of his

work, are the objects of this biographical sketch.

It was not at Jacob's Well Mews, but in Newington Butts, that the

boy had been born, on September 22, 1791, and his parents, James and

Margaret Faraday, had given this, their third child, the unusual name

of Michael. The father was a journeyman blacksmith, a skilful workman

who, in spite of poverty and feeble health, strove to bring up his

children in habits of industry and the love of God.

Of course young Michael must soon do something for his living. There

happened to be a bookseller's shop in Blandford Street, a few doors

from the entrance to the Mews, kept by a Mr. Riebau, an intelligent

man, who is said to have had a leaning to astrology; and there he

went as errand boy when thirteen years old. Many a weary walk he

had, carrying round newspapers to his master's customers; but he did

his work faithfully; and so, after a twelvemonth, the bookseller was

willing to take him as an apprentice, and that without a premium.

Now, a boy in a bookseller's shop can look at the inside as well as the

outside of the books he handles, and young Faraday took advantage of

his position, and fed on such intellectual food as Watts's "Improvement

of the Mind," Mrs. Marcet's "Conversations on Chemistry," and the

article on "Electricity" in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_, besides such

lighter dishes as Miss Burney's "Evelina;" nor can we doubt that when

he was binding Lyons' "Experiments on Electricity," and Boyle's "Notes

about the Producibleness of Chymicall Principles," he looked beyond the

covers.[1] And his thirst for knowledge did not stop with reading:

he must see whether Mrs. Marcet's statements were correct, and so,

to quote his own words, "I made such simple experiments in chemistry

as could be defrayed in their expense by a few pence per week, and

also constructed an electrical machine, first with a glass phial, and

afterwards with a real cylinder, as well as other electrical apparatus

of a corresponding kind."

He kept too a note-book called "The Philosophical Miscellany,"

intended, he tells us, "to promote both amusement and instruction, and

also to corroborate or invalidate those theories which are continually

starting into the world of science;" and miscellaneous indeed were the

scraps he gathered from the magazines of the time.

One day, early in 1810, walking somewhere in the neighbourhood of Fleet

Street, he saw in a shop-window a bill announcing that lectures on

natural philosophy were delivered by Mr. Tatum, at 53, Dorset Street,

at eight in the evening, price of admission one shilling. He wanted to

hear these lectures. His master's permission was obtained, but where

was the money to come from? The needful shillings were given him by his

elder brother, Robert, who earned them as a blacksmith; and so Michael

Faraday made his first acquaintance with scientific lectures. And not

with lectures only, for Tatum's house was frequented by other earnest

students, and lifelong friendships were formed. Among these students

was Benjamin Abbott, a young Quaker, who had received a good education,

and had then a situation in a City house as confidential clerk. With

him Faraday chatted on philosophy or anything else, and happily for us

he chatted on paper, in letters of that fulness and length which the

penny post and the telegraph have well-nigh driven out of existence;

and happily for us, too, Abbott kept those letters, and Dr. Bence Jones

has published them. They are wonderful letters for a poor bookseller's

apprentice; they bear the stamp of an innate gentleman and philosopher.

Long afterwards, when Benjamin Abbott was an old man, he used to tell

how Faraday made his first experiments in the kitchen of his house,

and delivered his first lecture from the end of that kitchen table.

The electrical machine made by him in those early days came into the

possession of Sir James South, and now forms one of the treasures of

the Royal Institution.

As the eager student drank in the lectures of Tatum, he took notes, and

he afterwards wrote them out carefully in a clear hand, numbering and

describing the different experiments that he saw performed, and making

wonderfully neat drawings of the apparatus, in good perspective. These

notes he bound in four volumes, adding to each a copious index, and

prefixing to the first this dedication to his master:--

"TO MR. G. RIEBAU.

"SIR,

"When first I evinced a predilection for the sciences, but more

particularly for that one denominated electricity, you kindly

interested yourself in the progress I made in the knowledge of facts

relating to the different theories in existence, readily permitting me

to examine those books in your possession that were in any way related

to the subjects then occupying my attention. To you, therefore, is

to be attributed the rise and existence of that small portion of

knowledge relating to the science which I possess, and accordingly to

you are due my acknowledgments.

"Unused to the arts of flattery, I can only express my obligations in

a plain but sincere way. Permit me, therefore, Sir, to return thanks

in this manner for the many favours I have received at your hands and

by your means and believe me,

"Your grateful and obedient Servant,

"M. FARADAY."

Now there happened to be lodging at Mr. Riebau's a notable foreigner of

the name of Masquerier. He was a distinguished artist, who had painted

Napoleon's portrait, and had passed through the stirring events of

the first French Revolution, not without serious personal danger, and

was now finding a refuge and a home in London. He was struck with the

intelligence of the apprentice, whose duty it was to do various offices

for him; and he lent the young man his books, and taught him how to

make the drawings in perspective which have already been alluded to.

But the lectures in Dorset Street were not the only ones that Michael

Faraday attended; and as the Royal Institution is the central scene

of all his subsequent history, we must pay a mental visit to that

building. Turning from the busy stream of Piccadilly into the quiet

of Albemarle Street, we see, in a line with the other houses, a large

Grecian façade with fourteen lofty pilasters. Between these are folding

doors, which are pushed open from time to time by grave-looking

gentlemen, many of them white-headed; but often of an afternoon,

and always on Friday evening during the season, the quiet street

is thronged with carriages and pedestrians, ladies and gentlemen,

who flock through these folding doors. Entering with them, we find

ourselves in a vestibule, with a large stone staircase in front, and

rooms opening on the right and left. The walls of these rooms are lined

with myriads of books, and the tables are covered with scientific and

other periodicals of the day, and there are cabinets of philosophical

apparatus and a small museum. Going up the broad staircase and turning

to the right, we pass through an ante-room to the lecture theatre.

There stands the large table, horseshoe-shaped, with the necessary

appliances for experiments, and behind it a furnace and arrangements

for black-board and diagrams; while round the table as a centre

range semicircular seats, rising tier above tier, and surmounted by

a semicircular gallery, the whole capable of seating 700 persons.

On the basement is a new chemical laboratory, fitted up with modern

appliances, and beyond it the old laboratory, with its furnaces and

sand-bath, its working tables and well-stored shelves, flanked by

cellars that look like dark lumber-rooms. A narrow private staircase

leads up to the suite of apartments in which resides the Director of

the house. Such is the Royal Institution of Great Britain, incorporated

by Royal Charter in the year 1800, "for the diffusing knowledge and

facilitating the general introduction of useful mechanical inventions

and improvements, and for teaching, by courses of philosophical

lectures and experiments, the application of science to the common

purposes of life;"--with the motto, "Illustrans commoda vitæ." Fifty

or sixty years ago the building was essentially what it is now, except

the façade and entrance, and that the laboratory, which was considered

a model of perfection, was even darker than at present, and in the

place of the modern chemical room there was a small theatre. The side

room, too, was fitted up for actual work, though even at mid-day it

had to be artificially lighted; and beyond this there was, and still

is, a place called the Froggery, from a certain old tradition of frogs

having been kept there. The first intention of the founders to exhibit

useful inventions had not been found very practicable, but the place

was already famous with the memories of Rumford and Young; and at that

time the genius of Sir Humphry Davy was entrancing the intellectual

world with brilliant discoveries, and drawing fashionable audiences to

Albemarle Street to listen to his eloquent expositions.

Among the customers of the bookseller in Blandford Street was a Mr.

Dance, who, being a member of the Royal Institution, took young Faraday

to hear the last four public lectures of Davy. The eager student

sat in the gallery, just over the clock, and took copious notes of

the Professor's explanations of radiant matter, chlorine, simple

inflammables, and metals, while he watched the experiments that were

performed. Afterwards he wrote the lectures fairly out in a quarto

volume, that is still preserved--first the theoretical portions, then

the experiments with drawings, and finally an index. "The desire to

be engaged in scientific occupation, even though of the lowest kind,

induced me," he says, "whilst an apprentice, to write, in my ignorance

of the world and simplicity of my mind, to Sir Joseph Banks, then

President of the Royal Society. Naturally enough, 'No answer' was the

reply left with the porter."

On the 7th of October his apprenticeship expired, and on the next day

he became a journeyman bookbinder under a disagreeable master--who,

like his friend the artist, was a French _émigré_. No wonder he sighed

still more for congenial occupation.

Towards the end of that same October Sir Humphry Davy was working on

a new liquid which was violently explosive, now known as chloride of

nitrogen,--and he met with an accident that seriously injured his eye,

and produced an attack of inflammation. Of course, for a while he could

not write, and, possibly through the introduction of M. Masquerier,[2]

the young bookseller was employed as his amanuensis. This, however,

Faraday himself tells us lasted only "some days;" and in writing years

afterwards to Dr. Paris, he says, "My desire to escape from trade,

which I thought vicious and selfish, and to enter into the service

of Science, which I imagined made its pursuers amiable and liberal,

induced me at last to take the bold and simple step of writing to Sir

H. Davy, expressing my wishes, and a hope that, if an opportunity came

in his way, he would favour my views; at the same time I sent the notes

I had taken of his lectures." Davy, it seems, called with the letter

on one of his friends--at that time honorary inspector of the models

and apparatus--and said, "Pepys, what am I to do? Here is a letter

from a young man named Faraday; he has been attending my lectures,

and wants me to give him employment at the Royal Institution--_what

can I do?_" "Do?" replied Pepys; "put him to wash bottles: if he is

good for anything, he will do it directly; if he refuses, he is good

for nothing." "No, no," replied Davy, "we must try him with something

better than that."

So Davy wrote a kind reply, and had an interview with the young

man upon the subject; in which, however, he advised him to stick

to his business, telling him that "Science was a harsh mistress,

and, in a pecuniary point of view, but poorly rewarding those who

devoted themselves to her service." He promised him the work of the

Institution, and his own besides.

But shortly afterwards the laboratory assistant was discharged for

misconduct, and so it happened that one night the inhabitants of quiet

Weymouth Street were startled by the unusual apparition of a grand

carriage with a footman, which drew up before the house where Faraday

lived, when the servant left a note from Sir Humphry Davy. The next

morning there was an interview, which resulted in the young aspirant

for scientific work being engaged to help the famous philosopher. His

engagement dates from March 1, 1813, and he was to get 25_s._ per week,

and a room in the house. The duties had been previously laid down by

the managers:--"To attend and assist the lecturers and professors in

preparing for, and during lectures. Where any instruments or apparatus

may be required, to attend to their careful removal from the model room

and laboratory to the lecture-room, and to clean and replace them after

being used; reporting to the managers such accidents as shall require

repair, a constant diary being kept by him for that purpose. That in

one day in each week he be employed in keeping clean the models in the

repository, and that all the instruments in the glass cases be cleaned

and dusted at least once within a month."

The young assistant did not confine himself to the mere discharge

of these somewhat menial duties. He put in order the mineralogical

collection; and from the first we find him occupying a higher position

than the minute quoted above would indicate.

In the course of a few days he was extracting sugar from beet-root;

but all his laboratory proceedings were not so pleasant or so innocent

as that, for he had to make one of the worst smelling of all chemical

compounds, bisulphide of carbon; and as Davy continued to work on

the explosive chloride of nitrogen, his assistant's career stood

some chance of being suddenly cut short at its commencement. Indeed

it seems that before the middle of April he had run the gauntlet of

four separate explosions. Knowing that the liquid would go off on the

slightest provocation, the experimenters wore masks of glass, but this

did not save them from injury. In one case Faraday was holding a small

tube containing a few grains of it between his finger and thumb, and

brought a piece of warm cement near it, when he was suddenly stunned,

and on returning to consciousness found himself standing with his hand

in the same position, but torn by the shattered tube, and the glass of

his mask even cut by the projected fragments. Nor was it easy to say

when the compound could be relied on, for it seemed very capricious;

for instance, one day it rose quietly in vapour in a tube exhausted by

the air-pump, but the next day, when subjected to the same treatment,

it exploded with a fearful noise, and Sir Humphry was cut about the

chin, and was struck with violence on the forehead. This seems to have

put an end to the experiments.

Nevertheless, in spite of disagreeables and dangers, the embryo

philosopher worked on with a joyful heart, beguiling himself

occasionally with a song, and in the evening playing tunes on his flute.

The change in Michael Faraday's employment naturally made him more

earnest still in the pursuit of knowledge. He was admitted as a member

of the "City Philosophical Society," a fraternity of thirty or forty

men in the middle or lower ranks of life, who met every Wednesday

evening for mutual instruction; and here is a contemporary picture of

him at one of its debates:--

"But hark! A voice arises near the chair!

Its liquid sounds glide smoothly through the air;

The listening muse with rapture bends to view

The place of speaking, and the speaker too.

Neat was the youth in dress, in person plain;

His eye read thus, _Philosopher in grain_;

Of understanding clear, reflection deep;

Expert to apprehend, and strong to keep.

His watchful mind no subject can elude,

Nor specious arts of sophists e'er delude;

His powers, unshackled, range from pole to pole;

His mind from error free, from guilt his soul.

Warmth in his heart, good humour in his face,

A friend to mirth, but foe to vile grimace;

A temper candid, manners unassuming,

Always correct, yet always unpresuming.

Such was the youth, the chief of all the band;

His name well known, Sir Humphry's right hand.

With manly ease towards the chair he bends,

With Watts's Logic at his finger-ends."

Another way in which he strove to educate himself is thus described

in his own words:--"During this spring Magrath and I established the

mutual improvement plan, and met at my rooms up in the attics of the

Royal Institution, or at Wood Street at his warehouse. It consisted,

perhaps, of half-a-dozen persons, chiefly from the City Philosophical

Society, who met of an evening to read together, and to criticise,

correct, and improve each other's pronunciation and construction of

language. The discipline was very sturdy, the remarks very plain and

open, and the results most valuable. This continued for several years."

Seven months after his appointment there began a new passage in

Faraday's life, which gave a fresh impulse to his mental activity, and

largely extended his knowledge of men and things. Sir Humphry Davy,

wishing to travel on the Continent, and having received a special pass

from the Emperor Napoleon, offered to take him as his amanuensis: he

accepted the proposal, and for a year and a half they wandered about

France, Italy, and Switzerland, and then they returned rapidly by the

Tyrol, Germany, and Holland.

From letters written when abroad we can catch some of the impressions

made on his mind by these novel scenes. "I have not forgot," he writes

to Abbott, "and never shall forget, the ideas that were forced on my

mind in the first days. To me, who had lived all my days of remembrance

in London, a city surrounded by a flat green country, a hill was a

mountain, and a stone a rock; for though I had abstract ideas of the

things, and could say rock and mountain, and would talk of them, yet I

had no perfect ideas. Conceive then the astonishment, the pleasure,

and the information which entered my mind in the varied county of

Devonshire, where the foundations of the earth were first exposed to my

view, and where I first saw granite, limestone, &c., in those places

and in those forms where the ever-working and all-wonderful hand of

nature had placed them. Mr. Ben., it is impossible you can conceive

my feelings, and it is as impossible for me to describe them. The

sea then presented a new source of information and interest; and on

approaching the shores of France, with what eagerness, and how often,

were my eyes directed to the South! When arrived there, I thought

myself in an uncivilized country; for never before nor since have I

seen such wretched beings as at Morlaix." His impression of the people

was not improved by the fact of their having arrested the travellers on

landing, and having detained them for five days until they had sent to

Paris for verification of their papers.

Again, to her towards whom his heart was wont to turn from distant

lands with no small longing: "I have said nothing as yet to you,

dear mother, about our past journey, which has been as pleasant and

agreeable (a few things excepted, in reality nothing) as it was

possible to be. Sir H. Davy's high name at Paris gave us free admission

into all parts of the French dominions, and our passports were granted

with the utmost readiness. We first went to Paris, and stopped there

two months; afterwards we passed, in a southerly direction, through

France to Montpellier, on the borders of the Mediterranean. From

thence we went to Nice, stopping a day or two at Aix on our way; and

from Nice we crossed the Alps to Turin, in Piedmont. From Turin we

proceeded to Genoa, which place we left afterwards in an open boat, and

proceeded by sea towards Lerici. This place we reached after a very

disagreeable passage, and not without apprehensions of being overset

by the way. As there was nothing there very enticing, we continued our

route to Florence; and, after a stay of three weeks or a month, left

that fine city, and in four days arrived here at Rome. Being now in

the midst of things curious and interesting, something arises every

day which calls for attention and observations. The relics of ancient

Roman magnificence, the grandeur of the churches, and their richness

also--the difference of habits and customs, each in turn engages

the mind, and keeps it continually employed. Florence, too, was not

destitute of its attractions for me, and in the Academy del Cimento

and the museum attached to it is contained an inexhaustible fund of

entertainment and improvement; indeed, during the whole journey, new

and instructive things have been continually presented to me. Tell B.

I have crossed the Alps and the Apennines; I have been at the Jardin

des Plantes; at the museum arranged by Buffon; at the Louvre, among

the _chefs d'oeuvre_ of sculpture and the masterpieces of painting;

at the Luxembourg Palace, amongst Rubens' works; that I have seen

a GLOWWORM!!! waterspouts, torpedo, the museum at the Academy del

Cimento, as well as St. Peter's, and some of the antiquities here, and

a vast variety of things far too numerous to enumerate."

But he kept a lengthy journal, and as we turn over the pages--for the

best part of it is printed by Bence Jones--we meet vivid sketches

of the provokingly slow custom-house officers, the postilion in

jack-boots, and the thin pigs of Morlaix--pictures of Paris, too,

when every Frenchman was to him an unintelligible enemy; when the

Apollo Belvidere, the Venus de Medici, and the Dying Gladiator were

at the Louvre, and when the First Napoleon visited the Senate in full

state. "He was sitting in one corner of his carriage, covered and

almost hidden from sight by an enormous robe of ermine, and his face

overshadowed by a tremendous plume of feathers that descended from

a velvet hat." We watch Sir Humphry as Ampère and others bring to

him the first specimens of iodine, and he makes experiments with his

travelling apparatus on the dark lustrous crystals and their violet

vapour; we seem, too, to be present with the great English chemist and

his scholar as they burn diamonds at Florence by means of the Grand

Duke's gigantic lens, and prove that the invisible result is carbonic

acid; or as they study the springs of inflammable gas at Pietra Mala,

and the molten minerals of Vesuvius. The whole, too, is interspersed

with bits of fun, and this culminates at the Roman Carnival, where he

evidently thoroughly enjoyed the follies of the Corso, the pelting with

sugar-plums, and the masked balls, to the last of which he went in a

nightgown and nightcap, with a lady who knew all his acquaintances; and

between the two they puzzled their friends mightily.

This year and a half may be considered as the time of Faraday's

education; it was the period of his life that best corresponds with the

collegiate course of other men who have attained high distinction in

the world of thought. But his University was Europe; his professors the

master whom he served, and those illustrious men to whom the renown of

Davy introduced the travellers. It made him personally known, also, to

foreign _savants_, at a time when there was little intercourse between

Great Britain and the Continent; and thus he was associated with the

French Academy of Sciences while still young, his works found a welcome

all over Europe, and some of the best representatives of foreign

science became his most intimate friends.

In May 1815, his engagement at the Royal Institution was renewed, with

a somewhat higher position and increased salary, which was again raised

in the following year to 100_l._ per annum. The handwriting in the

Laboratory Note-book changes in September 1815, from the large running

letters of Brande to the small neat characters of Faraday, his first

entry having reference to an analysis of "Dutch turf ash," and then

soon occur investigations into the nature of substances bearing what

must have been to him the mysterious names of Paligenetic tincture, and

_Baphe eugenes chruson_. It is to be hoped that the constituents of

this golden dye agreed together better than the Greek words of its name.

We can imagine the young philosopher taking a deeper interest in the

researches on flame which his master was then carrying out, and in the

gradual perfection of the safety-lamp that was to bid defiance to the

explosive gases of the mine; this at least is certain, that Davy, in

the preface to his celebrated paper on the subject, expresses himself

"indebted to Mr. Michael Faraday for much able assistance," and that

the youthful investigator carefully preserved the manuscript given him

to copy.

Part of his duty, in fact, was to copy such papers; and as Sir Humphry

had a habit of destroying them, he begged leave to keep the originals,

and in that way collected two large volumes of precious manuscripts.

But there came a change. Hitherto he had been absorbing; now he was

to emit. The knowledge which had been a source of delight to himself

must now overflow as a blessing to others: and this in two ways. His

first lecture was given at the City Philosophical Society on January

17, 1816, and in the same year his first paper was published in

the _Quarterly Journal of Science_. The lecture was on the general

properties of matter; the paper was an analysis of some native caustic

lime from Tuscany. Neither was important in itself, but each resembled

those little streams which travellers are taken to look at because

they are the sources of mighty rivers, for Faraday became the prince

of experimental lecturers, and his long series of published researches

have won for him the highest niche in the temple of science.

When he began to investigate for himself, it could not have been easy

to separate his own work from that which he was expected to do for his

master. Hence no small danger of misunderstandings and jealousies; and

some of these ugly attendants on rising fame did actually throw their

black shadows over the intercourse between the older and the younger

man of genius. In these earlier years, however, all appears to have

been bright; and the following letter, written from Rome in October

1818, will give a good idea of the assistant's miscellaneous duties,

and of the pleasant feelings of Davy towards him. It may be added that

in another letter he is requested to send some dozens of "flies with

pale bodies" to Florence, for Sir Humphry loved fly-fishing as well as

philosophy.

"TO MR. FARADAY.

"I received the note you were so good as to address to me at Venice;

and by a letter from Mr. Hatchett I find that you have found the

parallax of Mr. West's Sirius, and that, as I expected, he is mistaken.

"If when you write to me you will give the 3 per cents. and _long

annuities_, it will be enough.

"I will thank you to put the enclosed letters into the post, except

those for Messrs. Morland and Messrs. Drummond, which perhaps you will

be good enough to deliver.

"Mr. Hatchett's letter contained praises of you which were very

gratifying to me; and pray believe me there is no one more interested

in your success and welfare than your sincere well-wisher and friend,

"H. DAVY.

"ROME."

It must not be supposed, however, that he had any astronomical duties,

for the parallax he had found was not that of the Dog-star, but of a

reputed new metal, Sirium, which was resolved in Faraday's hands into

iron, nickel, and sulphur. But the impostor was not to be put down so

easily, for he turned up again under the _alias_ of Vestium; but again

he was unable to escape the vigilant eye of the young detective, for

one known substance after another was removed from it; and then, says

Faraday, "my Vestium entirely disappeared."

His occupations during this period were multifarious enough. We must

picture him to ourselves as a young-looking man of about thirty

years of age, well made, and neat in his dress, his cheerfulness of

disposition often breaking out in a short crispy laugh, but thoughtful

enough when something important is to be done. He has to prepare the

apparatus for Brande's lectures, and when the hour has arrived he

stands on the right of the Professor, and helps him to produce the

strange transformations of the chemical art. And conjurers, indeed, the

two appear in the eyes of the youth on the left, who waits upon them,

then the "laboratory assistant," now the well-known author, Mr. William

Bollaert, from whom I have learnt many details of this period. When not

engaged with the lectures, Faraday is manufacturing rare chemicals,

or performing commercial analyses, or giving scientific evidence on

trials. One of these was a famous one, arising from the Imperial

Insurance Company resisting the claim of Severn and King, sugar-bakers;

and in it appeared all the chemists of the day, like knights in the

lists, on opposite sides, ready to break a lance with each other.

All his spare time Faraday was occupied with original work. Chlorine

had a fascination for him, though the yellow choking gas would

get out into the room, and he investigated its combinations with

carbon, squeezed it into a liquid, and applied it successfully as a

disinfectant when fatal fever broke out in the Millbank Penitentiary.

Iodine too, another of Davy's elements, was made to join itself to

carbon and hydrogen; and naphthaline was tormented with strong mineral

acids. Long, too, he tried to harden steel and prevent its rusting, by

alloying it with small quantities of platinum and the rarer metals;

the boy blew the bellows till the crucibles melted, but a few ordinary

razors seem to have been the best results. Far more successful was he

in repeating and extending some experiments of Ampère on the mutual

action of magnets and electric currents; and when, after months of

work and many ingenious contrivances, the wire began to move round the

magnet, and the magnet round the wire, he himself danced about the

revolving metals, his face beaming with joy--a joy not unmixed with

thankful pride--as he exclaimed, "There they go! there they go! we have

succeeded at last." After this discovery he thought himself entitled

to a treat, and proposed to his attendant a visit to the theatre.

"Which shall it be?" "Oh, let it be Astley's, to see the horses." So to

Astley's they went; but at the pit entrance there was a crush; a big

fellow pressed roughly upon the lad, and Faraday, who could stand no

injustice, ordered him to behave himself, and showed fight in defence

of his young companion.

The rising philosopher indulged, too, in other recreations. He had a

wonderful velocipede, a progenitor of the modern bicycle, which often

took him of an early morning to Hampstead Hill. There was also his

flute; and a small party for the practice of vocal music once a week at

a friend's house. He sang bass correctly, both as to time and tune.

And though the City Philosophical Society was no more, the ardent group

of students of nature who used to meet there were not wholly dispersed.

They seem to have carried on their system of mutual improvement, and

to have read the current scientific journals at Mr. Nicol's house till

he married, and then alternately at those of Mr. R. H. Solly, Mr.

Ainger, and Mr. Hennel, of Apothecaries' Hall, who came to a tragical

end through an explosion of fulminating silver. Several of them,

including Mr. Cornelius Varley, joined the Society of Arts, which at

that time had committees of various sciences, and was very democratic

in its management; and, finding that by pulling together they had

great influence, they constituted themselves a "caucus," adopting the

American word, and meeting in private. Magrath was looked upon as a

"chair-maker," and Faraday in subsequent years held the office of

Chairman of the Committee of Chemistry, and occasionally he presided at

the large meetings of the Society.

During this time (1823) the Athenæum Club was started, not in the

present Grecian palace in Pall Mall, but in a private house in Waterloo

Place. Its members were the aristocracy of science, literature, and

art, and they made Faraday their honorary secretary; but after a year

he transferred the office to his friend Magrath, who held it for a long

period.

Among the various sects into which Christendom is divided, few are

less known than the Sandemanians. About a century and a half ago, when

there was little light in the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, a pious

minister of the name of John Glas began to preach that the Church

should be governed only by the teaching of Christ and His apostles,

that its connection with the State was an error, and that we ought to

believe and to practise no more and no less than what we find from

the New Testament that the primitive Church believed and practised.

These principles, which sound very familiar in these days, procured

for their asserter much obloquy and a deposition by the Church Courts,

in consequence of which several separate congregations were formed

in different parts of Great Britain, especially by Robert Sandeman,

the son-in-law of Mr. Glas, and from him they received their common

appellation. In early days they taught a simpler view of faith than

was generally held at that time; it was with them a simple assent of

the understanding, but produced by the Spirit of God, and its virtue

depended not on anything mystical in the operation itself, but on the

grandeur and beauty of the things believed. Now, however, there is

little to distinguish them in doctrine from other adherents of the

Puritan theology, though they certainly concede a greater deference to

their elders, and attach more importance to the Lord's Supper than is

usual among the Puritan Churches. Their form of worship, too, resembles

that of the Presbyterians; but they hold that each congregation should

have a plurality of elders, pastors, or bishops, who are unpaid men;

that on every "first day of the week" they are bound to assemble, not

only for prayers and preaching, but also for "breaking of bread,"

and putting together their weekly offerings; that the love-feast and

kiss of charity should continue to be practised; that "blood and

things strangled" are still forbidden as food; and that a disciple

of Christ should not charge interest on loans except in the case of

purely business transactions, or lay up wealth for the unknown future,

but rather consider all he possesses as at the service of his poorer

brethren, and be ready to perform to them such offices of kindness as

in the early Church were expressed by washing one another's feet.

But what gives the remarkable character to the adherents of this sect

is their perfect isolation from all Christian fellowship outside

their own community, and from all external religious influence. They

have never made missionary efforts to win men from the world, and have

long ceased to draw to themselves members from other Churches; so

they have rarely the advantage of fresh blood, or fresh views of the

meaning of Scripture. They commonly intermarry, and are expected to

"bear one another's burthens;" so the Church has acquired somewhat of

the additional character of a large intertwined family and of a mutual

benefit society. This rigid separation from the world, extending now

through three or four generations, has produced a remarkable elevation

of moral tone and refinement of manner; and it is said that no one

unacquainted with the inner circle can conceive of the brotherly

affection that reigns there, or the extent to which hospitality and

material help is given without any ostentation, and received without

any loss of self-respect. The body is rendered still more seclusive by

demanding, not merely unity of spirit among its members, but unanimity

of opinion in every Church transaction. In order to secure this,

any dissentient who persists in his opinion after repeated argument

is rejected; the same is also the consequence of neglect of Church

duties, as well as of any grave moral offence: and in such a community

excommunication is a serious social ban, and though a penitent may be

received back once, he can never return a second time.

It was in the midst of this little community that Faraday received

his earliest religious impressions, and among them he found his

ecclesiastical home till the day of his entrance into the Church above.

Among the elders of the Sandemanian Church in London was Mr. Barnard, a

silversmith, of Paternoster Row. The young philosopher became a visitor

at his house, and though he had previously written,--

"What is't that comes in false deceitful guise,

Making dull fools of those that 'fore were wise?

'Tis Love."

--he altered his opinion in the presence of the citizen's third

daughter, Sarah, and wrote to her what was certainly not the letter of

a fool:--

"You know me as well or better than I do myself. You know my former

prejudices and my present thoughts--you know my weaknesses, my vanity,

my whole mind; you have converted me from one erroneous way, let me

hope you will attempt to correct what others are wrong.... Again and

again I attempt to say what I feel, but I cannot. Let me, however,

claim not to be the selfish being that wishes to bend your affections

for his own sake only. In whatever way I can best minister to your

happiness, either by assiduity or by absence, it shall be done. Do not

injure me by withdrawing your friendship, or punish me for aiming to be

more than a friend by making me less; and if you cannot grant me more,

leave me what I possess,--but hear me."

The lady hesitated, and went to Margate. There he followed her, and

they proceeded together to Dover and Shakspeare's Cliff, and he

returned to London full of happiness and hope. He loved her with all

the ardour of his nature, and in due course, on June 12, 1821, they

were married. The bridegroom desired that there should be no bustle

or noise at the wedding, and that the day should not be specially

distinguished; but he calls it himself "an event which more than any

other contributed to his happiness and healthful state of mind." As

years rolled on the affection between husband and wife became only

deeper and deeper; his bearing towards her proved it, and his letters

frequently testify to it. Doubtless at any time between their marriage

and his final illness he might have written to her as he did from

Birmingham, at the time of the British Association:--"After all, there

is no pleasure like the tranquil pleasures of home, and here--even

here--the moment I leave the table, I wish I were with you IN QUIET.

Oh! what happiness is ours! My runs into the world in this way only

serve to make me esteem that happiness the more."

He took his bride home to Albemarle Street, and there they spent

their wedded life; but until Mr. Barnard's death it was their custom

to go every Saturday to the house of the worthy silversmith, and

spend Sunday with him, returning home usually in the evening of that

day. His own father died while he was at Riebau's, but his mother,

a grand-looking woman, lived long afterwards, supported by her son,

whom she occasionally visited at the Institution, and of whose growing

reputation she was not a little proud.

With a mind calmed and strengthened by this beautiful domestic life,

he continued with greater and greater enthusiasm to ask questions of

Nature, and to interpret her replies to his fellow-men. Just before his

marriage he had been appointed at the Royal Institution superintendent

of the house and laboratory, and in February 1825, after a change

in the management of the Institution, he was placed as director in a

position of greater responsibility and influence. One of his first

acts in this capacity was to invite the members to a scientific

evening in the laboratory; this took place three or four times in

1825, and in the following years these gatherings were held every week

from Feb. 3 to June 9; and though the labour devolved very much upon

Faraday, other philosophers sometimes brought forward discoveries or

useful inventions. Thus commenced those Friday evening meetings which

have done so much to popularize the high achievements of science.

Faraday's note-books are still preserved, containing the minutes of

the committee-meetings every Thursday afternoon, the Duke of Somerset

chairman, and he secretary; also the record of the Friday evenings

themselves, who lectured, and on what subject, and what was exhibited

in the library, till June 1840, when other arrangements were probably

made.

The year 1827 was otherwise fruitful in lectures: in the spring, a

course of twelve on chemical manipulation at the London Institution;

after Easter, his first course at Albemarle Street, six lectures on

chemical philosophy (he had helped Professor Brande in 1824);[3] and at

Christmas, his desire to convey knowledge, and his love to children,

found expression in a course of six lectures to the boys and girls home

for their holidays. These were a great success; indeed, he himself

says they "were just what they ought to have been, both in matter and

manner,--but it would not answer to give an extended course in the same

spirit." He continued these juvenile lectures during nineteen years.

The notes for courses of lectures were written in school copy-books,

and sometimes he appends a general remark about the course, not always

so favourable as the one given above. Thus he writes, "The eight

lectures on the operations of the laboratory, April 1828, were not to

my mind." Of the course of twelve in the spring of 1827, he says he

"found matter enough in the notes for at least seventeen."

Up to 1833 Faraday was bringing the forces of nature in subjection

to man on a salary of only 100_l._ per annum, with house, coals,

and candles, as the funds of the Institution would not at that time

afford more; but among the sedate _habitúes_ of the place was a tall,

jovial gentleman, who lounged to the lectures in his old-fashioned

blue coat and brass buttons, grey smalls, and white stockings, who

was a munificent friend in need. This was John Fuller, a member of

Parliament. He founded a Professorship of Chemistry with an endowment

that brings in nearly 100_l._ a year, and gave the first appointment to

Faraday for life. When the Institution became richer, his income was

increased; and when, on account of the infirmities of age, he could no

longer investigate, lecture, or keep accounts, the managers insisted

on his still retaining in name his official connection with the place,

with his salary and his residence there. Nor indeed could they well

have acted otherwise; for though the Royal Institution afforded in the

first instance a congenial soil for the budding powers of Faraday,

his growth soon became its strength; and eventually the blooming of

his genius, and the fruit it bore, were the ornament and glory of the

Institution.

It will be asked, Was this 100_l._ or 200_l._ per annum the sole

income of Faraday? No; in early days he did commercial analyses, and

other professional work, which paid far better than pure science. In

1830 his gains from this source amounted to 1,000_l._, and in 1831 to

considerably more; they might easily have been increased, but at that

time he made one of his most remarkable discoveries--the evolution of

electricity from magnetism,[4]--and there seemed to lie open before him

the solution of the problem how to make one force exhibit at will the

phenomena of magnetism or of common or voltaic electricity. And then

he had to face another problem--his own mental force might be turned

either to the acquisition of a fortune, or to the following up of those

great discoveries; it would not do both: which should he relinquish?

The choice was deliberately made: Nature revealed to him more and more

of her secrets, but his professional gains sank in 1832 to 155_l._

9_s._, and during no subsequent year did they amount even to that.

Still his work was not entirely confined to his favourite studies. In

a letter to Lord Auckland, long afterwards, he says:--"I have given

up, for the last ten years or more, all professional occupation, and

voluntarily resigned a large income that I might pursue in some degree

my own objects of research. But in doing this I have always, as a good

subject, held myself ready to assist the Government if still in my

power, _not for pay_; for, except in one instance (and then only for

the sake of the person joined with me), I refused to take it. I have

the honour and pleasure of applications, and that very recently, from

the Admiralty, the Ordnance, the Home Office, the Woods and Forests,

and other departments, all of which I have replied to, and will reply

to as long as strength is left me." He had declined the Professorship

of Chemistry at the London University--now University College,--but

in 1829 he accepted a lectureship at the Royal Academy, Woolwich, and

held it for about twenty years. In 1836 he became scientific adviser to

the Trinity House, and his letter to the Deputy Master also shows his

feelings in reference to such employment:--"You have left the title and

the sum in pencil. These I look at mainly as regards the character of

the appointment; you will believe me to be sincere in this, when you

remember my indifference to your proposition as a matter of interest,

though _not as a matter of kindness_. In consequence of the goodwill

and confidence of all around me, I can at any moment convert my time

into money, but I do not require more of the latter than is sufficient

for necessary purposes. The sum, therefore, of 200_l._ is quite enough

in itself, but not if it is to be the indicator of the character of

the appointment; but I think you do not view it so, and that you and

I understand each other in that respect; and your letter confirms me

in that opinion. The position which I presume you would wish me to

hold is analogous to that of a standing counsel." For nearly thirty

years Faraday continued to report on all scientific suggestions and

inventions connected with lighthouses or buoys, not for personal gain

or renown, but for the public good. His position was never above that

of a "standing counsel." In his own words: "I do not know the exact

relation of the Board of Trade and the Trinity House to each other;

I am simply an adviser upon philosophical questions, and am put into

action only when called upon."

In regard to the lectureship at Woolwich, Mr. Abel, his successor,

writes thus:--"Faraday appears to have enjoyed his weekly trips

to Woolwich, which he continued for so many years, as a source of

relaxation. He was in the habit of going to Woolwich in the afternoon

or evening preceding his lecture at the Military Academy, then

preparing at once for his experiments, and afterwards generally taking

a country ramble. The lecture was delivered early the following

morning. No man was so respected, admired, and beloved as a teacher at

the Military Academy in former days as Faraday. Many are the little

incidents which have been communicated to me by his pupils illustrative

of his charms as a lecturer, and of his kindly feelings for the youths

to whom he endeavoured to impart a taste for, if not a knowledge

of, science. But for some not ill-meant, though scarcely judicious,

proposal to dictate modifications in his course of instruction, Faraday

would probably have continued for some years longer to lecture at

Woolwich. In May 1852, soon after I had been appointed his successor,

Faraday wrote to me requesting the return of some tubes of condensed

gases which he left at the Academy. This letter ends thus:--'I hope

you feel yourself happy and comfortable in your arrangements at the

Academy, and have cause to be pleased with the change. I was ever very

kindly received there, and that portion of regret which one must ever

feel in concluding a long engagement would be in some degree lessened

with me by hearing that you had reason to be satisfied with your duties

and their acceptance.--Ever very truly yours, M. FARADAY.'"

For year after year the life of Faraday afforded no adventure and

little variety, only an ever-growing skill in his favourite pursuit,

higher and higher success, and ever-widening fame. But simple as were

his mind and his habits, no one picture can present him as the complete

man; we must try to make sketches from various points of view, and

leave it to the reader's imagination to combine them.

Let us watch him on an ordinary day. After eight hours' sleep, he rises

in time to breakfast at eight o'clock, goes round the Institution to

see that all is in order, and descends into the laboratory, puts on

a large white apron, the stains and holes in which tell of previous

service, and is busy among his pieces of apparatus. The faithful

Anderson, an old soldier, who always did exactly what he was told, and

nothing more,[5] is waiting upon him; and as thought flashes after

thought through his eager--perhaps impatient--brain, he twists his

wires into new shapes, and re-arranges his magnets and batteries. Then

some conclusion is arrived at which lights up his face with a gleam of

satisfaction, but the next minute a doubt comes across that expressive

brow--may the results not be due to something else yet imperfectly

conceived?--and a new experiment must be devised to answer that. In

the meantime perhaps one of his little nieces has been left in his

charge. She sits as quiet as a mouse with her needlework; but now and

then he gives her a nod, or a kind word, and throwing a little piece

of potassium on to a basin of water for her amusement, he shows her

the metal bursting into purple flame, floating about in fiery eddies,

and the crack of the fused globule of potash at the end. Presently

there is handed to him the card of some foreign _savant_, who makes his

pilgrimage to the famous Institution and its presiding genius; he puts

down his last result on a slate, comes upstairs, and, disregarding the

interruption, chats with his visitor with all cordiality and openness.

Then to work again till dinner-time, at half-past two. In the afternoon

he retires to his study with its plain furniture and the india-rubber

tree in the window, and writes a letter full of affection to some

friend, after which he goes off to the council meeting of one of the

learned bodies. Then back again to the laboratory, but as evening

approaches he goes upstairs to his wife and niece, and then there is a

game at bagatelle or acting charades; and afterwards he will read aloud

from Shakspeare or Macaulay till it is time for supper and the simple

family worship which now is not liable to the interruptions that

generally prevent it in the morning. And so the day closes.

Or if it be a fine summer evening, he takes a stroll with his wife and

the little girl to the Zoological Gardens, and looks at all the new

arrivals, but especially the monkeys, laughing at their tricks till the

tears run down his cheeks.

But should it be a Friday evening, Faraday's place is in the library

and theatre of the Institution, to see that all is right and ready, to

say an encouraging word to the lecturer, and to welcome his friends as

they arrive; then taking his seat on the front bench near the right

hand of the speaker, he listens with an animated countenance to his

story,[6] sometimes bending forwards, and scarcely capable of keeping

his fingers off the apparatus--not at all able if anything seems to

be going wrong; when the discourse is over, a warm shake of the hand,

with "Thank you for a pleasant hour," and "Good night" to those around

him, and upstairs with his wife and some particularly congenial friends

to supper. On the dining-table is abundance of good fare and good

wine, and around it flows a pleasant stream of lively and intellectual

conversation.

But suppose it is his own night to lecture. The subject has been

carefully considered, an outline of his discourse has been written on

a sheet of foolscap, with all the experiments marked and numbered, and

during the morning everything has been arranged on the table in such

order that his memory is assisted by it; the audience now pours in, and

soon occupies all the seats, so that late comers must be content with

sitting on the stairs or standing in the gangways, or at the back of

the gallery. Faraday enters, and placing himself in the centre of the

horse-shoe table, perfect master of himself, his apparatus, and his

audience, commences a discourse which few that are present will ever

forget. Here is a picture by Lady Pollock:--"It was an irresistible

eloquence, which compelled attention and insisted upon sympathy. It

waked the young from their visions, and the old from their dreams.

There was a gleaming in his eyes which no painter could copy, and which

no poet could describe. Their radiance seemed to send a strange light

into the very heart of his congregation; and when he spoke, it was felt

that the stir of his voice and the fervour of his words could belong

only to the owner of those kindling eyes. His thought was rapid, and

made itself a way in new phrases--if it found none ready made--as the

mountaineer cuts steps in the most hazardous ascent with his own axe.

His enthusiasm sometimes carried him to the point of ecstasy when he

expatiated on the beauties of Nature, and when he lifted the veil from

her deep mysteries. His body then took motion from his mind; his hair

streamed out from his head; his hands were full of nervous action; his

light, lithe body seemed to quiver with its eager life. His audience

took fire with him, and every face was flushed. Whatever might be the

after-thought or the after-pursuit, each hearer for the time shared his

zeal and his delight."[7]

Is it possible that he can be happier when lecturing to the juveniles?

The front rows are filled with the young people; behind them are ranged

older friends and many of his brother philosophers, and there is old

Sir James South, who is quite deaf, poor man, but has come, as he says,

because he likes to see the happy faces of the children. How perfect

is the attention! Faraday, with a beaming countenance, begins with

something about a candle or a kettle that most boys and girls know,

then rises to what they had never thought of before, but which now is

as clear as possible to their understandings. And with what delight

does he watch the performances of Nature in his experiments! One could

fancy that he had never seen the experiments before, and that he was

about to clap his hands with boyish glee at the unexpected result! Then

with serious face the lecturer makes some incidental remark that goes

far beyond natural philosophy, and is a lesson for life.

Some will remember one of these occasions which forms the subject of

a painting by Mr. Blaikley. Within the circle of the table stands the

lecturer, and waiting behind is the trusty Anderson, while the chair is

occupied by the Prince Consort, and beside him are the young Prince of

Wales and his brother, the present Duke of Edinburgh; while the Rev.

John Barlow and Dr. Bence Jones sit on the left of the Princes; Sir

James South stands against the door, and Murchison, De La Rue, Mrs.

Faraday, and others may be recognized among the eager audience.

Let us now suppose that it is a Sunday on which we are watching this

prince among the aristocracy of intellect, and we will assume it to

be during one of the periods of his eldership, namely between 1840

and 1844, or after 1860. The first period came to a close through

his separation both from his office and from the Church itself. The

reason of this is unknown except to the parties immediately concerned,

but it will be readily understood how easily differences may arise

in such a community as that of the Sandemanians between an original

and conscientious mind and his brethren in the faith. He, however,

continued to worship among his friends, and was after a while restored

to the rights of membership, and eventually to the office of elder. In

the morning he and his family group find their way down to the plain

little meeting-house in Paul's Alley, Red-cross Street, since pulled

down to make room for the Metropolitan Railway. The day's proceedings

commence with a prayer meeting, during which the worshippers gradually

drop in and go to their accustomed seats, Faraday taking his place

on the platform devoted to the elders: then the more public service

begins; one of a metrical but not rhyming version of the Psalms is

sung to a quaint old tune; the Lord's Prayer and another psalm follow;

he rises and reads in a slow, reverent manner the words of one of the

Evangelists, with a most profound and intelligent appreciation of

their meaning; or he offers an extempore prayer, expressing perfect

trust and submission to God's will, with deep humility and confession

of sin. It may be his turn to preach. On two sides of a card he has

previously sketched out his sermon with the illustrative texts, but the

congregation does not see the card, only a little Bible in his hand,

the pages of which he turns quickly over, as, fresh from an earnest

heart, there flows a discourse full of devout thought, clothed largely

in the language of Scripture. After a loud simultaneous "Amen" has

closed the service, the Church members withdraw to their common meal,

the feast of charity; and in the afternoon there is another service,

ending by invariable custom with the Lord's Supper. The family group do

not reach home till half-past 5; then there is a quiet evening, part of

which is spent by Faraday at his desk, and they retire to rest at an

early hour.

Again on Wednesday evening he is among the little flock. The service

is somewhat freer, for not the officers of the Church only, but the

ordinary members are encouraged to express whatever thoughts occur to

them, so as to edify one another. At these times, Faraday, especially

when he was not an elder, very often had some word of exhortation,

and the warmth of his temperament would make itself felt, for he was

known in the small community as an experimental rather than a doctrinal

preacher.

The notes of his more formal discourses which I have had the

opportunity of seeing, indicate, as might be expected from the tenets

of his Church, a large acquaintance with the words of Scripture, but no

knowledge of modern exegesis. They appear to have impressed different

hearers in different ways. One who heard him frequently and was

strongly attached to him, says that his sermons were too parenthetical

and rapid in their delivery, with little variety or attractiveness;

but another scientific friend, who heard him occasionally, writes:

"They struck me as resembling a mosaic work of texts. At first you

could hardly understand their juxtaposition and relationship, but as

the well-chosen pieces were filled in, by degrees their congruity and

fitness became developed, and at last an amazing sense of the power

and beauty of the whole filled one's thoughts at the close of the

discourse."

His first sermon as an elder was on Christ's character and example

as shown in Matthew xi. 28-30: "Learn of me; for I am meek and lowly

in heart." Among the latest of his sermons was one that he preached

at Dundee about four years before his death. He began by telling his

audience that his memory was failing, and he feared he could not quote

Scripture with perfect accuracy; and then, as said one of the elders

who had been present, "his face shone like the face of an angel," as he

poured forth the words of loving exhortation.

When a mind is stretched in the same direction week-day and Sunday,

the tension is apt to become too great. With Faraday the first symptom

was loss of memory. Then his devoted wife had to hurry him off to the

country for rest of brain. Once he had to give up work almost entirely

for a twelvemonth. During this time he travelled in Switzerland, and

extracts from his diary are given by Bence Jones. His niece, Mrs.

Deacon, gives us her recollections of a month spent at Walmer:--"How

I rejoiced to be allowed to go there with him! We went on the outside

of the coach, in his favourite seat behind the driver. When we reached

Shooter's Hill, he was full of fun about Falstaff and the men in

buckram, and not a sight nor a sound of interest escaped his quick

eye and ear. At Walmer we had a cottage in a field, and my uncle was

delighted because a window looked directly into a blackbird's nest

built in a cherry-tree. He would go many times in a day to watch

the parent birds feeding their young. I remember, too, how much he

was interested in the young lambs, after they were sheared at our

door, vainly trying to find their own mothers. The ewes, not knowing

their shorn lambs, did not make the customary signal. In those days

I was eager to see the sun rise, and my uncle desired me always to

call him when I was awake. So, as soon as the glow brightened over

Pegwell Bay, I stole downstairs and tapped at his door, and he would

rise, and a great treat it was to watch the glorious sight with him.

How delightful, too, to be his companion at sunset! Once I remember

well how we watched the fading light from a hill clothed with wild

flowers, and how, as twilight stole on, the sounds of bells from Upper

Deal broke upon our ears, and how he watched till all was grey. At

such times he would be well pleased if we could repeat a few lines

descriptive of his feelings." And then she tells us about their

examining the flowers in the fields by the aid of "Galpin's Botany,"

and how with a candle he showed her a spectre on the white mist

outside the window; of reading lessons that ended in laughter, and of

sea-anemones and hermit crabs, with the merriment caused by their odd

movements as they dragged about the unwieldy shells they tenanted. "But

of all things I used to like to hear him read 'Childe Harold;' and

never shall I forget the way in which he read the description of the

storm on Lake Leman. He took great pleasure in Byron, and Coleridge's

'Hymn to Mont Blanc' delighted him. When anything touched his feelings

as he read--and it happened not unfrequently--he would show it not only

in his voice, but by tears in his eyes also."

A few days at Brighton refreshed him for his work. He was in the habit

of running down there before his juvenile lectures at Christmas, and at

Easter he frequently sought the same sea-breezes.

But it was not always that Faraday could run away from London when the

mental tension became excessive. A shorter relaxation was procured by

his taking up a novel such as "Ivanhoe," or "Jane Eyre," or "Monte

Christo." He liked the stirring ones best, "a story with a thread to

it." Or he would go with his wife to see Kean act, or hear Jenny Lind

sing, or perhaps to witness the performance of some "Wizard of the

North."

Now and then he would pay a visit to some scene of early days. One of

his near relatives tells me: "It is said that Mr. Faraday once went to

the shop where his father had formerly been employed as a blacksmith,

and asked to be allowed to look over the place. When he got to a part

of the premises at which there was an opening into the lower workshop,

he stopped and said: 'I very nearly lost my life there once. I was

playing in the upper room at pitching halfpence into a pint pot close

by this hole, and having succeeded at a certain distance, I stepped

back to try my fortune further off, forgetting the aperture, and down I

fell; and if it had not been that my father was working over an anvil

fixed just below, I should have fallen on it, broken my back, and

probably killed myself. As it was, my father's back just saved mine.'"

Business, as well as pleasure, sometimes took him away from home. He

often joined the British Association, returning usually on Saturday,

that he might be among his own people on the Lord's Day. During the

meeting he would generally accept the hospitality of some friend; and

it was one of these occasions that gave rise to the following _jeu

d'esprit_:--

"'That P will change to F in the British tongue is true

(Quoth Professor Phillips), though the instances are few;'

An entry in my journal then I ventured thus to parody,

'I this day dined with Fillips, where I hobbed and nobbed with

Pharaday.'

"T. T.

"OXFORD, _June 27, 1860_."

At the Liverpool meeting, in 1837, he was president of the Chemical

Section, and on two other occasions he was selected to deliver the

evening lecture, but though repeatedly pressed to undertake the

presidency of the whole body, he could not be prevailed upon to accept

the office.

My first personal intercourse with him, of any extent, was at the

Ipswich meeting in 1851. I watched him with all the interest of an

admiring disciple, and there is deeply engraven on my memory the

vivacity of his conversation, the eagerness with which he entered into

some mathematico-chemical speculations of Dumas, and the playfulness

with which, when we were dining together, he cut boomerangs out of

card, and shot them across the table at his friends.

Professional engagements also took him not unfrequently into the

country. Some of these will be described in the later sections, that

treat of his mode of working and its valuable results.

To comprehend a man's life it is necessary to know not merely what he

does, but also what he purposely leaves undone. There is a limit to

the work that can be got out of a human body or a human brain, and he

is a wise man who wastes no energy on pursuits for which he is not

fitted; and he is still wiser who, from among the things that he can do

well, chooses and resolutely follows the best.

Faraday took no part in any of the political or social movements of

his time. To politics indeed he seems to have been really indifferent.

It was during the intensely interesting period of 1814-15 that he was

on the Continent with Davy, but he alludes to the taking of Paris by

the allied troops simply because of its bearing on the movements of

the travellers, and on March 7, 1815, he made his remarkable entry in

his journal: "I heard for news that Bonaparte was again at liberty.

Being no politician, I did not trouble myself much about it, though

I suppose it will have a strong influence on the affairs of Europe."

In later days he seems to have awaked to sufficient interest to

read the debates, and to show a Conservative tendency; he became a

special constable in 1848, and was disposed generally to support "the

powers that be,"--though that involved some perplexity at a change of

Government.

It is more singular that a man of his benevolent spirit should never

have taken a prominent part in any philanthropic movement. In some

cases his religious views may have presented an obstacle, but this

reason can hardly apply to many of those social movements in which the

influence of his name, and his occasional presence and advice, would

have been highly valuable. During the latter half of his life, he, as

a rule, avoided serving on committees even for scientific objects,

and was reluctant to hold office in the learned societies with which

he was connected. I believe, however, that this arose not so much

from want of interest, as from a conviction that he was ill-suited by

natural temperament for joining in discussions on subjects that roused

the passions of men, or for calmly weighing the different courses of

action, and deciding which was the most judicious. It is remarkable

how little even of his scientific work was done in conjunction with

others. Neither did he spend time in rural occupations, or in literary

or artistic pursuits. Beasts and birds and flowers he looked at,

but it was for recreation, not for study. Music he was fond of, and

occasionally he visited the Opera, but he did not allow sweet sounds

to charm him away from his work. He stuck closely to his fireside,

his laboratory, his lecture table, and his church. He lived where he

worked, so that he had only to go downstairs to put to the test of

experiment any fresh thought that flitted across his brain. He almost

invariably declined dinner-parties, except at Lady Davy's, and at

Mr. and Mrs. Masquerier's at Brighton, towards whom he felt under an

obligation on account of former kindnesses. If he went to a _soirée_,

he usually stayed but a short time; and even when away from home he

generally refused private hospitality. Thus he was able to give almost

undivided attention to the chief pursuit of his life.

His residence in so accessible a part of London did, however, expose

him to the constant invasion of callers, and his own good nature often

rendered fruitless the efforts that were considerately made to restrict

these within reasonable limits. Of course he suffered from the curious

and the inconsiderate of the human species; and then there were those

pertinacious bores, the dabblers in science. "One morning a young man

called on him, and with an air of great importance confided to him the

result of some original researches (so he deemed them) in electrical

philosophy. 'And pray,' asked the Professor, taking down a volume of

Rees' Cyclopædia, 'did you consult this or any elementary work to learn

whether your discovery had been anticipated?' The young man replied in

the negative. 'Then why do you come to waste my time about well-known

facts, that were published forty years ago?' 'Sir,' said the visitor,

'I thought I had better bring the matter to head-quarters immediately.'

'All very well for you, but not so well for head-quarters,' replied the

Professor, sharply, and set him down to read the article."

"A grave, elderly gentleman once waited upon him to submit to his

notice 'a new law of physics.' The visitor requested that a jug of

water and a tumbler might be brought, and then producing a cork, 'You

will be pleased to observe,' said he, 'how persistently this cork

clings to the side of the glass when the vessel is half filled.' 'Just

so,' replied the Professor. 'But now,' resumed this great discoverer,

'mark what happens when I fill the tumbler to the brim. There! you

see the cork flies to the centre--positively repelled by the sides!'

'Precisely so,' replied the amused electrician, with the air of a man

who felt perfectly at home with the phenomenon, and indeed regarded

it quite as an old friend. The visitor was evidently disconcerted.

'Pray how long have you known this?' he ventured to ask Faraday.

'Oh, ever since I was a boy,' was the rejoinder. Crestfallen--his

discovery demolished in a moment--the poor gentleman was retiring

with many apologies, when the Professor, sincerely concerned at his

disappointment, comforted him by suggesting that possibly he might some

day alight upon something really new."[8]

But there were other visitors who were right welcome to a portion of

his time. One day it might be a young man, whom a few kind words and

a little attention on the part of the great philosopher would send

forward on the journey of life with new energy and hopes. Another day

it might be some intellectual chieftain, who could meet the prince of

experimenters on equal terms. But these are hardly to be regarded as

interruptions;--rather as a part of his chosen work.

Here is one instance in the words of Mr. Robert Mallet. "... I was,

in the years that followed, never in London without paying him a

visit, and on one of those times I ventured to ask him (if not too

much engaged) to let me see where he and Davy had worked together.

With the most simple graciousness he brought me through the whole of

the Royal Institution, Albemarle Street. Brande's furnaces, Davy's

battery, the place in the laboratory where he told me he had first

observed the liquefaction of chlorine, are all vividly before me--but

nothing so clear or vivid as our conversation over a specimen of green

(crown) glass, partially devitrified in floating opaque white spheres

of radiating crystals: he touched luminously on the obscure relation

of the vitreous and crystalloid states, and on the probable nature

of the nuclei of the white spheres. My next visit to Faraday that I

recollect was not long after my paper 'On the Dynamics of Earthquakes'

had appeared in the Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy. He almost

at once referred to it in terms of praise that seemed to me so far

beyond my due, that even now I recall the very humble way I felt, as

the thought of Faraday's own transcendent merits rushed across my mind.

I ventured to ask him, had the paper engaged his attention sufficiently

that I might ask him--did he consider my explanation of the before

supposed _vorticose_ shock sufficient? To my amazement he at once

recited _nearly word for word_ the paragraph in which I took some pains

to put my views into a demonstrative shape, and ended with, 'It is as

plain and certain as a proposition of Euclid!' And yet the subject was

one pretty wide away from his own objects of study."

Often, too, if some interesting fact was exhibited to him, he would

send to his brother _savants_ some such note as this:--

"ROYAL INSTITUTION, _4th May, 1852_.

"MY DEAR WHEATSTONE,

"Dr. Dubois-Raymond will be making his experiments _here_ next

Thursday, the 6th, from and after 11 o'clock. I wish to let you know,

that you may if you like join the select few.

"Ever truly yours,

"M. FARADAY."

It was indeed his wont to share with others the delight of a new

discovery. Thus Sir Henry Holland tells me that he used frequently to

run to his house in Brook Street with some piece of scientific news.

One of these visits was after reading Bunsen and Kirchhoff's paper on

Spectrum Analysis; and he did not stop short with merely telling the

tale of the special rays of light shot forth by each metallic vapour,

as the following letter will show. It is addressed to the present

Baroness Burdett Coutts.

"ROYAL INSTITUTION, _Friday, 17th May_.

"DEAR MISS COUTTS,

"To-morrow, at 4 o'clock, immediately after Max Müller's lecture,

I shall show Sir Henry Holland an apparatus which has arrived from

Munich to manifest the phenomena of light which have recently been

made known to us by Bunsen and Kirchhoff. Mr. Barlow will be here, and

he suggests that you would like to know of the occasion. If you are

inclined to see how philosophers work and live, and so are inclined

to climb our narrow stairs (for I must show the experiments in my

room), we shall be most happy to see you. The experiments will not be

beautiful except to the intelligent.

"Ever your faithful Servant,

"M. FARADAY."

Sometimes, too, the exhibition of a scientific fact would take him away

from home. Thus, when her Majesty and the Prince Consort once paid

a private visit to the Polytechnic, Mr. Pepper arranged a surprise

for the Royal party, by getting Faraday in a quiet room to explain

the Ruhmkorff's coil--the latest development of his own inductive

currents. This he did with his usual vivacity and enthusiasm, and the

interview is said to have gratified the philosopher as well as the

Queen.

He could not, however, escape the inroads made upon his time by

correspondence. People would write and ask him questions. Once a

solitary prisoner wrote to tell him, "It is indeed in studying the

great discoveries which science is indebted to you for, that I render

my captivity less sad, and make time flow with rapidity,"--and then he

proceeds to ask, "_What is the most simple_ combination to give to a

voltaic battery, in order to produce a spark capable of setting fire to

powder under water, or under ground? Up to the present I have only seen

employed to that purpose piles of thirty to forty pairs constructed

on Dr. Wollaston's principles. They are very large and inconvenient

for field service. Could not the same effect be produced by two spiral

pairs only? and if so, what can be their smallest dimension?" And who

was the prisoner who thus speculated on the applications of science to

war? It was no other than Prince Louis Napoleon, then immured in the

fortress of Ham, and now the ex-Emperor of the French. At another time

he wrote asking for his advice in the manufacture of an alloy which

should be about as soft as lead, but not so fusible,--a question which

also had evident bearing upon the art of war; and offering at the same

time to pay the cost of any experiments that might be necessary.

Often, too, the correspondents of Faraday thought that they were

doing him a kindness. He says somewhere: "The number of suggestions,

hints for discovery, and propositions of various kinds, offered to

me very freely and with perfect goodwill and simplicity on the part

of the proposers, for my exclusive investigation and final honour,

is remarkably great, and it is no less remarkable that but for one

exception--that of Mr. Jenkin--they have all been worthless.... I have,

I think, universally found that the man whose mind was by nature or

self-education fitted to make good and worthy suggestions, was also the

man both able and willing to work them out."

Both the askers of questions and the givers of advice expected

answers--and the answers came. Most of Faraday's letters, indeed,

are of a purely business character: sometimes they are very laconic,

as the note in which he announced to Dr. Paris one of his principal

discoveries:--

"DEAR SIR,

"The _oil_ you noticed yesterday turns out to be liquid chlorine.

"Yours faithfully,

"M. FARADAY."

But in other letters, as may be expected, there is found the enthusiasm

of his ardent nature, or the glow of his genial spirit. An instance or

two may suffice.

"ROYAL INSTITUTION, _24th March, 1843_.

"DEAR SIR,

"I have received and at once looked at your paper. Many thanks for

so good a contribution to the beloved science. What glorious steps

electricity has taken in the days within our remembrance, and what

hopes are held out for the future! The great difficulty is to remove

the mists which dim the dawn of a subject, and I cannot but consider

your paper as doing very much that way for a most important part of

natural knowledge.

"I am, my dear Sir,

"Most truly yours,

"M. FARADAY.

"J. P. JOULE, ESQ."

"ROYAL INSTITUTION, _15th Oct., 1853_.

"MY DEAR MISS MOORE,

"The summer is going away, and I never (but for one day) had any

hopes of profiting by your kind offer of the roof of your house in

Clarges Street. What a feeble summer it has been as regards sunlight!

I have made a good many preliminary experiments at home, but they do

not encourage me in the direction towards which I was looking. All

is misty and dull, both the physical and the mental prospect. But I

have ever found that the experimental philosopher has great need of

patience, that he may not be downcast by interposing obstacles, and

perseverance, that he may either overcome them, or open out a new path

to the bourn he desires to reach. So perhaps next summer I may think

of your housetop again. Many thanks for your kind letter and all your

kindnesses uswards. My wife had your note yesterday, and I enjoyed the

violets, which for a time I appropriated.

"With kindest remembrances and thoughts to all with you and her at

Hastings,

"I am, my dear Friend,

"Very faithfully yours,

"M. FARADAY."

The following is written to Mr. Frank Barnard, then an Art student in

Paris:--

"ROYAL INSTITUTION, _9th Nov., 1852_.

"MY DEAR NEPHEW,

"Though I am not a letter-writer and shall not profess to send you

any news, yet I intend to waste your time with one sheet of paper:

first to thank you for your letter to me, and then to thank you for

what I hear of your letters to others. You were very kind to take the

trouble of executing my commissions, when I know your heart was bent

upon the entrance to your studies. Your account of M. Arago was most

interesting to me, though I should have been glad if in the matter

of health you could have made it better. He has a wonderful mind and

spirit. And so you are hard at work, and somewhat embarrassed by your

position: but no man can do just as he likes, and in many things he

has to give way, and may do so honourably, provided he preserve his

self-respect. Never, my dear Frank, lose that, whatever may be the

alternative. Let no one tempt you to it; for nothing can be expedient

that is not right; and though some of your companions may tease you

at first, they will respect you for your consistency in the end; and

if they pretend not to do so, it is of no consequence. However, I

trust the hardest part of your probation is over, for the earliest is

usually the hardest; and that you know how to take all things quietly.

Happily for you, there is nothing in your pursuit which need embarrass

you in Paris. I think you never cared for home politics, so that

those of another country are not likely to occupy your attention,

and a stranger can be but a very poor judge of a new people and their

requisites.

"I think all your family are pretty well, but I know you will hear all

the news from your appointed correspondent Jane, and, as I said, I am

unable to chronicle anything. Still, I am always very glad to hear

how you are going on, and have a sight of all that I may see of the

correspondence.

"Ever, my dear Frank,

"Your affectionate Uncle,

"M. FARADAY."

His scientific researches were very numerous. The Royal Society

Catalogue gives under the name of Faraday a list of 158 papers,

published in various scientific magazines or learned Transactions. Many

of these communications are doubtless short, but a short philosophical

paper often represents a large amount of brain work; a score of them

are the substance of his Friday evening discourses; while others are

lengthy treatises, the records of long and careful investigations; and

the list includes the thirty series of his "Experimental Researches

in Electricity." These extended over a period of twenty-seven years,

and were afterwards reprinted from the "Philosophical Transactions,"

and form three goodly volumes, with 3,430 numbered paragraphs--one of

the most marvellous monuments of intellectual work, one of the rarest

treasure-houses of newly-discovered knowledge, with which the world

has ever been enriched. Faraday never published but one book in the

common acceptation of the term--it was on "Chemical Manipulation,"--but

there appeared another large volume of reprinted papers: and three of

his courses of lectures were also published as separate small books,

though not by himself. It is very tempting to linger among these 158

papers; but this is not intended as a scientific biography, and those

readers who wish to make themselves better acquainted with his work

will find an admirable summary of it in Professor Tyndall's "Faraday as

a Discoverer." In Sections IV. and V., however, I have endeavoured to

give an idea of his manner of working, and of the practical benefits

that have flowed to mankind from some of his discoveries.

As these papers appeared his fame grew wider and wider. When a

comparatively young man he was naturally desirous of appending the

mystic letters "F.R.S." to his name, and he was balloted into the Royal

Society in January 1824, not without strong opposition from his master,

Sir Humphry Davy, then president. He paid the fees, and never sought

another distinction of the kind. But they were showered down upon him.

The Philosophical Society of Cambridge had already acknowledged his

merits, and the learned Academies of Paris and Florence had enrolled

him amongst their corresponding members. Heidelberg and St. Petersburg,

Philadelphia and Boston, Copenhagen, Berlin, and Palermo, quickly

followed: and as the fame of his researches spread, very many other

learned societies in Europe and America, as well as at home, brought

to him the tribute of their honorary membership.[9] He thrice received

the degree of Doctor, Oxford making him a D.C.L., Prague a Ph.D., and

Cambridge an LL.D., besides which he was instituted a Chevalier of the

Prussian Order of Merit, a Commander of the Legion of Honour, and a

Knight Commander of the Order of St. Maurice and St. Lazarus. Among

the medals which he received were each of those at the disposal of

the Royal Society--indeed the Copley medal was given him twice--and

the Grande Médaille d'Honneur at the time of the French Exhibition.

Altogether it appears he was decorated with ninety-five titles and

marks of merit,[10] including the blue ribbon of science, for in 1844

he was chosen one of the eight foreign associates of the French Academy.

Though he had never passed through a university career, he was made a

member of the Senate of the University of London, which he regarded

as one of his chief honours; and he showed his appreciation of the

importance of the office by a diligent attendance to its duties.

As the recognized prince of investigators, it is no wonder that on the

resignation of Lord Wrottesley, an attempt was made to induce him to

become President of the Royal Society. A deputation waited upon him and

urged the unanimous wish of the Council and of scientific men. Faraday

begged for time to consider. Tyndall gives us an insight into the

reasons that led him to decline. He tells us: "On the following morning

I went up to his room, and said, on entering, that I had come to him

with some anxiety of mind. He demanded its cause, and I responded,

'Lest you should have decided against the wishes of the deputation that

waited on you yesterday.' 'You would not urge me to undertake this

responsibility,' he said. 'I not only urge you,' was my reply, 'but I

consider it your bounden duty to accept it.' He spoke of the labour

that it would involve; urged that it was not in his nature to take

things easy; and that if he became president, he would surely have to

stir many new questions, and agitate for some changes. I said that in

such cases he would find himself supported by the youth and strength

of the Royal Society. This, however, did not seem to satisfy him. Mrs.

Faraday came into the room, and he appealed to her. Her decision was

adverse, and I deprecated her decision. 'Tyndall,' he said at length,

'I must remain plain Michael Faraday to the last; and let me now tell

you, that if I accepted the honour which the Royal Society desires you

to confer upon me, I would not answer for the integrity of my intellect

for a single year.'"

In 1835 Sir Robert Peel desired to confer pensions as honourable

distinctions on Faraday and some other eminent men. Lord Melbourne,

who succeeded him as Prime Minister, in making the offer at a private

interview, gave utterance to some hasty expressions that appeared to

the man of science to reflect on the honour of his profession, and led

to his declining the money. The King, William IV., was struck with

the unusual nature of the proceeding, and kept repeating the story of

Faraday's refusal; and about a month afterwards the Premier, dining

with Dr. (now Sir Henry) Holland, begged him to convey a letter to

the Professor and to press on him the acceptance of the pension. The

letter was couched in such honourable and conciliatory terms, that

Faraday's personal objection could no longer apply, and he expressed

his willingness to receive this mark of national approval. A version

of the matter that found its way into the public prints caused fresh

annoyance, and nearly produced a final refusal, but through the kind

offices of friends who had interested themselves throughout in the

matter, a friendly feeling was again arrived at, and the pension of

£300 a year was granted and accepted.

In 1858 the Queen offered him a house at Hampton Court. It was a

pretty little place, situated in the well-known Green in front of the

Palace; and in that quiet retreat Faraday spent a large portion of his

remaining years.

In October 1861 he wrote a letter to the managers of the Royal

Institution, resigning part of his duties, in which he reviewed his

connection with them. "I entered the Royal Institution in March 1813,

nearly forty-nine years ago, and, with the exception of a comparatively

short period during which I was abroad on the Continent with Sir H.

Davy, have been with you ever since. During that time I have been most

happy in your kindness, and in the fostering care which the Royal

Institution has bestowed upon me. Thank God, first, for all His gifts.

I have next to thank you and your predecessors for the unswerving

encouragement and support which you have given me during that period.

My life has been a happy one, and all I desired. During its progress I

have tried to make a fitting return for it to the Royal Institution,

and through it to science. But the progress of years (now amounting in

number to three-score and ten) having brought forth first the period

of development, and then that of maturity, have ultimately produced

for me that of gentle decay. This has taken place in such a manner as

to make the evening of life a blessing; for whilst increasing physical

weakness occurs, a full share of health free from pain is granted with

it; and whilst memory and certain other faculties of the mind diminish,

my good spirits and cheerfulness do not diminish with them."

When he could no longer discharge effectually his duties at the Trinity

House, the Corporation quietly made their arrangements for transferring

them, and, with the concurrence of the Board of Trade, determined that

his salary of 200_l._ per annum should continue as long as he lived.

Sir Frederick Arrow called upon him at Albemarle Street, and explained

how the matter stood, but he found it hard to persuade the Professor

that there was no injustice in his continuing to receive the money;

then, taking hold of Sir Frederick by one hand and Dr. Tyndall by the

other, Faraday, with swimming eyes, passed over his office to his

successor.

Gradually but surely the end approached. The loss of memory was

followed by other symptoms of declining power. The fastenings of his

earthly tabernacle were removed one by one, and he looked forward to

"the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." This was no

new anticipation. Calling on the friend who had long directed with him

the affairs of the Institution, but who was then half paralysed, he

had said, "Barlow, you and I are waiting; that is what we have to do

now; and we must try to do it patiently." He had written to his niece,

Mrs. Deacon: "I cannot think that death has to the Christian anything

in it that should make it rare, or other than a constant, thought;

out of the view of death comes the view of the life beyond the grave,

as out of the view of sin (the true and the real view which the Holy

Spirit alone can give to a man) comes the glorious hope.... My worldly

faculties are slipping away day by day. Happy is it for all of us that

the true good lies not in them. As they ebb, may they leave us as

little children trusting in the Father of Mercies, and accepting His

unspeakable gift." And when the dark shadow was creeping over him, he

wrote to the Comte de Paris: "I bow before Him who is Lord of all, and

hope to be kept waiting patiently for His time and mode of releasing

me according to His Divine Word, and the great and precious promises

whereby His people are made partakers of the Divine nature." His niece,

Miss Jane Barnard, who tended him with most devoted care, thus wrote

from Hampton Court on the 27th June:--"The kind feelings shown on every

side towards my dear uncle, and the ready offers of help, are most

soothing. I am thankful to say that we are going on very quietly; he

keeps his bed and sleeps much, and we think that the paralysis gains

on him, but between whiles he speaks most pleasant words, showing his

comfort and trust in the finished work of our Lord. The other day he

repeated some verses of the 46th Psalm, and yesterday a great part of

the 23rd. We can only trust that it may be given us to say truly, 'Thy

will be done;' indeed, the belief that all things work together for

good to them that believe, is an anchor of hope, sure and steadfast,

to the soul. We are surrounded by most kind and affectionate friends,

and it is indeed touching to see what warm feelings my dear uncle has

raised on all sides."

When his faculties were fading fast, he would sit long at the western

window, watching the glories of the sunset; and one day when his wife

drew his attention to a beautiful rainbow that then spanned the sky,

he looked beyond the falling shower and the many-coloured arch, and

observed, "He hath set his testimony in the heavens." On August 25,

1867, quietly, almost imperceptibly, came the release. There was a

philosopher less on earth, and a saint more in heaven.

The funeral, at his own request, was of the simplest character. His

remains were conveyed to Highgate Cemetery by his relations, and

deposited in the grave, according to the practice of his Church, in

perfect silence. Few of his scientific friends were in London that

bright summer-time, but Professor Graham and one or two others came

out from the shrubbery, and joining the group of family mourners, took

their last look at the coffin.

But when this sun had set below our earthly horizon, there seemed to

spring up in the minds of men a great desire to catch some of the rays

of the fading brightness and reflect them to posterity. A "Faraday

Memorial" was soon talked of, and the work is now in the sculptor's

hands; the Chemical Society has founded a "Faraday Lectureship;" one of

the new streets in Paris has been called "Rue Faraday;" biographical

sketches have appeared in many of the British and Continental journals;

successive books have told the story of his life and work; and in

a thousand hearts there is embalmed the memory of this Christian

gentleman and philosopher.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] These books, with others bound by Faraday, are preserved in a

special cabinet at the Royal Institution, together with more valuable

documents,--the laboratory notes of Davy and those of Faraday, his

notes of Tatum's and Davy's lectures, copies of his published papers

with annotations and indices, notes for lectures and Friday evening

discourses, account books, and various memoranda, together with letters

from Wollaston, Young, Herschel, Whewell, Mitscherlich, and many others

of his fellow-workers in science. These were the gift of his widow, in

accordance with his own desire.

[2] This idea was suggested by some remarks of Faraday to the Baroness

Burdett Coutts.

[3] Sir Roderick Murchison used to tell how he was attending Brande's

lectures, when one day, the Professor being absent, his assistant took

his place, and lectured with so much ease that he won the complete

approval of the audience. This, he said, was Faraday's first lecture at

the Royal Institution.

[4] The laboratory note-book shows that at this very time he was making

a long series of commercial analyses of saltpetre for Mr. Brande.

[5] The following anecdote has been sent me on the authority of Mr.

Benjamin Abbott:--"Sergeant Anderson was engaged to attend to the

furnaces in Mr. Faraday's researches on optical glass in 1828, and was

chosen simply because of the habits of strict obedience his military

training had given him. His duty was to keep the furnaces always at

the same heat, and the water in the ashpit always at the same level.

In the evening he was released, but one night Faraday forgot to tell

Anderson he could go home, and early next morning he found his faithful

servant still stoking the glowing furnace, as he had been doing all

night long." A more probable and better authenticated version of this

story is that after nightfall Anderson went upstairs to Faraday, who

was already in bed, to inquire if he was to remain still on duty.

[6] One evening, when the Rev. A. J. D'Orsey was lecturing "On the

Study of the English Language," he mentioned as a common vulgarism that

of using "don't" in the third person singular, as "He don't pay his

debts." Faraday exclaimed aloud, "That's very wrong."

[7] The _St. Paul's Magazine_, June 1870.

[8] _British Quarterly Review_, April 1868.

[9] See Appendix.

[10] No wonder the celebrated electrician P. Riess, of Berlin, once

addressed a long letter to him as "Professor Michael Faraday, Member of

all Academies of Science, London."