4 Biographical Memoir of Sir Humphry Davy. 



Davy was often obliged to visit his patients, and convey to them 

 medicines, an occupation quite in accordance with his early ha- 

 bits, and which had the effect of rendering him still more ac- 

 tive. While traversing this rich country, he recited aloud 

 either Homer's verses or his own ; for he had already composed 

 many. It was at this time that he wrote his ode on Mount St 

 Michael, and a poem on Mount's Bay, two of his best verse 

 compositions. The play given to his active faculties by these 

 solitary walks, led him to explore some of the mysteries of me- 

 taphysics, and as far as may be judged from some letters and 

 stanzas written at this period, which were afterwards published, 

 but in a very modified form, under the title of Life, he was 

 absorbed in all the abstractions of pantheism, and spoke of God 

 and of the world, like a Bramin, or a professor of German phi- 

 losophy. 



i But the county of Cornwall is not merely a picturesque coun- 

 try ; its primitive rocks, their various relations, the metallic veins 

 which they contain, and deep mines, sunk at a period antece- 

 dent to any authentic record, render it a country pre-eminently 

 geological and chemical, and such an individual as we have de- 

 scribed Davy to be, could not listen to conversations on the 

 working and uses of metals, the diff*erent processes to which 

 they are subjected, and the relations which subsist between 

 them and the rocks in which they are enclosed, without having 

 his attention drawn to those branches of natural science which 

 treat of the structure of the globe, and the nature of the mate- 

 rials of which it is composed. A fortuitous circumstance was 

 the means of engaging his youthful mind in active study. Mr 

 Gregory Watt, son of our late Associate, who brought to per- 

 fection the steam-engine, and made it an agent which will 

 change the entire aspect of society, was sent to Penzance on ac- 

 count of an affection of his breast, and lodged in the house of 

 Mrs Davy. The young apothecary, attracted by his handsome 

 figure and elegant manners, became desirous of gaining his 

 friendship ; but the English are backward to form friendships, 

 especially when there is a difference of fortune or rank. To re- 

 commend himself to notice, Davy entertained Mr Watt with 

 chemistry, of which he had already acquired a slight and prac- 

 tical knowledge in the house of his master, although it did not 



