Now do as you like; but if you chuse to array yourself before or
after half past ten, I will call for you. I think our being together
before 3d people will be a new _sensation_ to _both_.
Ever yours,
B.
[Footnote 1: Sir Humphry Davy (1778-1829), the son of a wood-carver of
Penzance, was apprenticed to John Borlase, a surgeon at Penzance, in
whose dispensary he became a chemist. He wrote poetry as a young man,
but soon abandoned the pursuit for science. Two poems on Byron by Davy,
one written in 1823, the other in 1824, will be found in Dr. Davy's
'Memoirs of the Life of Sir H. Davy', vol. ii. pp. 168, 169. In October,
1798, he joined Dr. Beddoes at Bristol, where he superintended the
laboratory at his Pneumatic Institution. His 'Researches, Chemical and
Philosophical' (1799), made him famous. At the Royal Institution in
London, founded in 1799, Davy became assistant-lecturer in chemistry,
and director of the chemical laboratory. There his lecture-room was
crowded by some of the most distinguished men and women of the day.
Within the next few years his discoveries in electricity and galvanism,
(1806-7) brought him European celebrity; his lectures on agricultural
chemistry (1810) marked a fresh era in farming, and inaugurated the new
movement of "science with practice." His famous discovery of the Safety
Lamp was made in 1816. He was created a baronet in 1818. A skilful
fisherman, he wrote, when in declining health, 'Salmonia, or Days of
Fly-fishing', published in 1827.
Pages:
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322