'Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.'
He was worried by the numerous small duties which pertained to his
prominent position, and was sadly disappointed at not being able
to prevail upon the Government of the day to take up his somewhat
magnificent views as to the development of the Royal Society, and the
subordination of certain other great public establishments to it. He
used to complain that the Government were only too glad to get anything
they could out of the Society, but were loth to give back anything
in return. I gather too, from what Dr. Davy says, that symptoms of
failing health began, even thus early, to show themselves. He somewhat
relaxed the severity of his labours--made trips to Ireland, Wales, and
Scotland (dining at Edinburgh with Sir Walter Scott), chiefly with a
view to enjoying the fine scenery, and the fishing and shooting; but,
as regards Wales, also with the object of devising means for remedying
the results produced by the noxious copper effluvia from the Smelting
Works at Swansea.
In the autumn of 1821 he paid a visit to Penzance; always fond--as
indeed most Cornishmen seem to be--of embracing an opportunity of
revisiting his native place. On this occasion he was entertained at a
public dinner; and he left his old home, doubtless expecting to see it
again and again: but this was destined to be his last visit.
From 1823 to 1826 may be described as the last period of his scientific
labours; and it was in a great measure devoted to investigations,
undertaken at the request of the Government, into the best mode of
preventing the destruction of the copper-sheathing of vessels by the
action of the sea. This Davy to some extent accomplished by coating
the copper with tin; but, unfortunately, the tin did not prevent (as
the copper did) the fouling of the metal by accretions of seaweeds and
shells; and the practical result was nil.
He was much disappointed at this, having taken great pains in the
matter, and having even made a voyage to the North Sea for the purpose
of conducting his experiments. Of this excursion, which included visits
to Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, he has left copious records--though, as
a general rule, he had now discontinued his diary--and these include
his reflexions not only on the scenery, etc., through which he passed,
but, according to his custom, his impressions of the distinguished men
of science and others with whom he came in contact. Those circumstances
which impressed Davy most deeply he often recorded, as was his practice
throughout his life, in verse. A specimen may be given here in the
following fragment written at Ullswater, which he visited in August,
1825:
'Ye lovely hills that rise in majesty
Amidst the ruddy light of setting suns,
Your tops are bright with radiance, while below
The wave is dark and gloomy, and the vale
Hid in obscurest mist. Such is the life
Of Man: this vale of earth and waters dark
And gloomy--but the mountains range above!
The sky--the heavens are bright!----'
But he could not succeed in shaking off the illness of which he had
had more than one warning; and even his elastic spirits began to flag
under its depressing influence. The spring of 1826 found him worse;
he complained much of rheumatism, and of slight numbness in his limbs;
and the death of his mother in the autumn still further affected his
health. With great pain and effort he delivered what proved to be his
last address to the Royal Society--a body whose mission was so like
his own, 'ad inquisitionem et inventionem naturæ veræ et interioris
rerum omnium'--on St. Andrew's Day, 1826; and shortly after he
suffered a slight attack of paralysis, which, however, did not prevent
his revising his discourses, nor even deter him from projecting new
scientific treatises. During his recovery he liked nothing better than
having novels and romances read to him,--partly I should think to
divert his mind from the small worries which were inevitable to one
occupying the post which he filled, but which at this juncture pressed
upon him with increasing force, and indeed probably conduced to his
determining upon another visit to the Continent in January, 1827,
accompanied on this occasion only by his brother, Dr. John Davy, an
army surgeon.
The winter journey was rough and dreary. Paris was avoided, on account
of the too great excitement which it was feared its society might
induce; and the roads along which the travellers drove, bad at the
best, were now in their very worst condition from the snow. The scenes
through which they passed were uninteresting, the occasional roadside
churches being the only noteworthy objects; and these they rarely
failed to enter, the sick philosopher generally dropping on his knees
for a silent prayer.
So they passed on, notwithstanding the severe cold and the snow,
over the Mont Cenis, into Italy, reaching Ravenna on the 27th
February--Davy, strange to say, rather the better than the worse for
his cold and cheerless expedition. Here he rested for some time,
occupying himself chiefly in shooting, fishing, and reading Byron,
whose acquaintance (with that of the accomplished Countess Guiccioli)
he had previously made at this place. His note-book was kept up, and
was filled with numerous acute observations on subjects connected with
natural history and chemistry, interspersed with expressions of pious
humility and of gratitude to 'the Great Cause of all being.' His health
improved; and in March, 1827, Dr. Davy returned to Corfu, whilst Sir
Humphry shortly afterwards started on a solitary expedition through
the Eastern Alps and down the Rhine. But his health now declined;
he frequently had to apply leeches and blisters, and he lived so
abstemiously as to considerably reduce his strength and spirits. 'Valde
miserabilis!' he often exclaimed in his note-book; and once he wrote,
'Dubito fortissime restaurationem meam.' It was no doubt whilst in this
mood that he wrote to Mr. Davies Gilbert from Salzburg, on 30th June,
1827, announcing his retirement from the office of President of the
Royal Society.[115] Whilst on one of his numerous fishing expeditions,
a pursuit[116] which, as we have seen, he passionately followed all
his life long, he wrote about this time, the following pensive lines,
_more suo_, on contemplating a rapid river:
'E'en as I look upon thy mighty flood,
Absorb'd in thought, it seems that I become
A part of thee, and in thy thundering waves
My thoughts are lost, and pass to future time,
Seeking the infinite, and rolling on
Towards the eternal and unbounded sea
Of the All-Powerful, Omnipresent Mind.'
This was a favourite thought of his. He amplified it in a letter which
he addressed from Rome in the following year to his friend Poole:
'I have this conviction full on my mind,' he wrote, 'that intellectual
beings spring from the same breath of Infinite Intelligence, and
return to it again, but by different courses. Like rivers born amid
the clouds of heaven, and lost in the deep and eternal ocean--some in
youth, rapid and short-lived torrents; some in manhood, powerful and
copious rivers; and some in age, by a slow and winding course, half
lost in their career, and making their exit by many sandy and shallow
mouths.'
The current of his own life now carried him back in one of its eddies
to London, which he reached on 6th October.
The winter was passed in town, but the state of his health prevented
any great exertion, and did not permit his seeing much society; yet
the world can scarcely be said to have been the loser; for in his
retirement he composed (being now nearly fifty years of age), that
delightful book, dear to every angler, 'Salmonia.'[117] Returning
spring revived his desire to revisit what he considered the finest
scenery in the world, namely, the Alpine valleys of Illyria and Styria;
and at the end of March he left England, accompanied by a young medical
gentleman (his godson), Mr. Tobin, the son of a much-valued old friend.
His pursuits were much as usual, and, living somewhat more generously,
he more than once entertained some faint hopes of his ultimate
recovery; 'attaching,' as he himself put it, 'a loose fringe, of hope
to his tattered garments.' His mind was fully active during this
summer, as may be judged from his having now planned his well-known
work, 'Consolations of Travel,' which he used to say 'contained the
essence of his philosophical opinions;' and from his having sketched
out a slight plan for his own memoirs. Stress of weather detained him
a short time at Wurzen, and here he occupied the time of his detention
by writing his little Irish romance, 'The Last of the O'Donoghues.'
He also now sent to press the second edition of his 'Salmonia,' which
he thought 'twice as good, as well as twice as big' as the first.
At Trieste he resumed his experiments on the electric eel, and at
length satisfied himself that under no conditions did the shock affect
the magnet. This formed the subject of a paper--the last of a series
which continued almost uninterruptedly for a period of twenty-eight
years--published by the Royal Society. It was about this time that he
made the noble and touching entry in his diary:
'Si moro, spero che ho fatto il mio dovere; e che mia vita non e stato
vano ed inutile.'[118]
The curtain rises on the last act, at Rome, where he passed the winter.
Here--where he describes himself, in a letter dated 6th February, 1829,
to his friend Poole, as 'a ruin among ruins'--he received, a fortnight
after that date, his last and fatal shock of paralysis. It was quite
unexpected by him, and he was barely able to write one or two hurried
letters to his brother, begging him to come quickly. He now quite made
up his mind that he was about to die; but his mind continued calm and
clear, and he urged Dr. Davy, when he at length arrived, not to give
way to any vain regrets, but to regard the matter philosophically.
Even in this extremity, the consideration of the strange powers of the
torpedo exercised a fascinating influence over him; and he directed
experiments and dissections of the fish from the bed upon which he not
only believed himself to be dying, but upon which he thought, more than
once, that he had actually died. Only with great difficulty was he
persuaded by his wife and surrounding friends that he had not as yet
passed the dark portals of the grave.
It will hardly be believed that from such a state as this he rallied.
Yet such was the case! Lady Davy had brought with her from England an
early copy of the second edition of his 'Salmonia;' and he read it with
avidity. Indeed reading--or rather being read to--was now almost his
only pursuit. Moore's 'Epicurean,' Shakespeare, 'The Arabian Nights,'
and 'Humphrey Clinker,' by turns engaged his attention; and at length
he not only thought recovery possible, but by April was actually able
to take drives about Rome and its neighbourhood, entering fully, with
his companions, into all the enjoyment of the charms of a brilliant
Italian spring.
At length, leaving Rome, 'by slow and easy stages,' they came to
Geneva, which place they reached on the 28th May, by the Mont Cenis
route. Here the little party took up their residence at La Couronne
hotel, which overlooks the lake; and Davy expressed an earnest desire
once more to throw a fly on it. He was very deeply affected on hearing
of the death of his old friend Dr. Thomas Young; but dined heartily
with the others at five o'clock. After dinner he was heard joking with
the waiter as to the cooking of the fish, and desiring that he might be
furnished with a specimen of every variety which the lake contained;
and, after being read to as usual, he went to bed at nine. In rising,
however, from his chair at the dinner table, for this purpose, he
gave his elbow a rather violent blow, the sensations resulting from
which frightened him very much, and probably accelerated his decease.
At half-past two in the morning the servant aroused Dr. Davy with the
information that his illustrious brother was much worse. The doctor
flew to the chamber, but only in time to see Sir Humphry expire, just
as the morning of the 29th of May, 1829, began to dawn.
His will was proved under £30,000, and Lady Davy was appointed sole
executrix. Paris says that he left £100 to the Penzance Grammar School,
the interest to be devoted to a prize for the best scholar, provided
the school kept holiday on the anniversary of his birthday; but I do
not find this in the will. I believe that the interest on the money is
still paid, but that the holiday is omitted.
A public funeral was decreed him by the authorities and literati of
Geneva, including his friends Decandolle and Sismondi, who highly
appreciated him; and his mortal remains were deposited in the cemetery
at Plain-Palais, close to those of Professor Pictet.[119] It was Davy's
wish, as expressed in his will, to be buried wherever he might die:
'Natura curat suas reliquias,' he wrote; and on his monument will be
found the reason of this lofty reliance--namely, because he was
'Summus arcanorum Naturæ indigator.'[120]
Thus died, without issue, and within a few months of his great friends
Wollaston and Young, Sir Humphry Davy, poet and philosopher, before
he had completed his fifty-first year--a man (to use the words of Dr.
Paris) 'whose splendid discoveries illumined the age in which he lived,
adorned the country which gave him birth, and obtained from foreign and
hostile nations the homage of admiration and the meed of gratitude.'
His genius it would be presumptuous in me to endeavour to analyze
or describe. I have attempted a biographical sketch rather than an
essay on Davy's proper place in the ranks of science;[121] but he was
undoubtedly one of the master-spirits of his age; and I gladly select,
from among many other similar accounts, the peroration of the _éloge_
pronounced upon him by Baron Cuvier before the Institute of France:
'Ainsi a fini à cinquante ans, sur une terre étrangère, un génie dont
le nom brillera avec éclat parmi cette foule s'éclatante de noms dont
s'enarguillit la Grande Bretagne. Mais, que dis je, pour un tel homme
aucune terre n'est étrangère; Genève surtout ne pouvait pas l'être,
où, depuis vingt ans, il comptait des amis intimes, des admirateurs
sans cesse occupés de répandre ses decouvertes sur le Continent;
aussi, le deuil n'eût pas été plus grand ni les obsèques plus
honorables pour un de leur concitoyens les plus respectés.'
The talented and indefatigable editors of the 'Bibliotheca
Cornubiensis' have observed that, since the formation of the Royal
Society, fifty-eight persons, either born in Cornwall or long
resident within its borders, have become, through their eminence in
mineralogical and other pursuits, Fellows of that body. A full list of
their names is printed in the index to Messrs. Boase and Courtney's
work; and in it they rightly say that Cornishmen may be pardoned for
believing that no such record of distinction in scientific knowledge
could be drawn up from any English county of corresponding size and
population. I will only add my opinion that, amongst the foremost in
that bright roll of honour, stands forth the name of HUMPHRY DAVY.
[Illustration: (end of chapter vignette.)]