660 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Secondly, the robe of a doctor of civil law was known to be objection- 

 able on account of its color scarlet one forbidden to Quakers. 

 Luckily, it was recollected that Dalton was afflicted with the peculiar 

 color-blindness which bears his name, and that, as the cherries and 

 the leaves of a cherry-tree were to him of the same color, the scarlet 

 gown would present to him no extraordinary appearance. So perfect, 

 indeed, was the color-blindness, that this most modest and simple of 

 men, whose only pleasures were a pipe and a game of bowls, after 

 having received the doctor's gown at Oxford, actually wore it for 

 several days in happy unconsciousness of the effect he produced in the 

 streets. The inventor of the calculating-machine, having offered to 

 present his Quaker friend, was evidently in a state of fussy excitement 

 about the result of the experiment. Poor Dalton was compelled to 

 rehearse thoroughly the ceremony of presentation by the inexorable 

 calculator, who having found the chances in favor of a faux-pas to 

 preponderate was in a dreadful " taking " on the eventful day. The 

 calculator was completely wrong. The king- addressed a few remarks 

 to Dalton, who replied in fitting terms, and the tribulation of Babbage 

 was over. 



While the claims of science were amply supplied by the genius of 

 Dalton, Young, and Davy, literature and moral philosophy were in- 

 trusted to no ordinary hands. During the years 1804-6, the town- 

 talk of London was divided between young Roscius, the youthful 

 tragedian, and the lectures on moral philosophy delivered by the Rev. 

 Sydney Smith, who, forty years after, said, " I did not know a word 

 about moral philosophy, but wanted two hundred pounds to furnish 

 my house. My success was prodigious." The " loudest wit I e'er 

 was deafened with " probably exaggerated his ignorance of his sub- 

 ject, as he had passed five years at Edinburgh, and had opportunities 

 of hearing Dugald Stewart and Thomas Brown ; but in any case the 

 lectures were a certain success in the hands of the eloquent preacher, 

 who, if himself knowing little about moral philosophy, addressed an 

 audience which knew nothing at all. Of very different calibre were 

 the lectures on poetry delivered by Coleridge. It will be recollected 

 that it was in these famous discourses that the author of " Christabel " 

 promulgated those views which have since spi'ead far and wide, and 

 will probably hold their ground when the ephemeral opponents of 

 Shakespeare, and worshipers of a second-rate poet like Schiller, have 

 for long ages been consigned to oblivion. 



On the retirement of Davy, in 1813, William Thomas Brand, a 

 distinguished chemist and Copley medalist, was nominated to the 

 chair, which he so admirably filled for forty years. Meanwhile, a 

 young man w r hose achievements were destined to invest the Royal 

 Institution w r ith peculiar glory had, in a manner of speaking, received 

 the mantle of Davy. Michael Faraday was born at Newington Butts, 

 of- poor parents. His father was a farrier, of whom to the great 



