2 Biographical Memoir of Sir Humphry/ Davy. 



had made some progress in science, and their first works were 

 made known to the public, they became the objects of general 

 favour ; were received in the world, and in proportion as their 

 discoveries increased, they advanced to fortune, and were loaded 

 with honours ; no jealous voice interrupted this unanimity of 

 sentiment regarding them, or, if such was ever raised, it was not 

 till they had obtained a position in society wliich sheltered 

 them from its effects, and reduced those who were jealous to the 

 necessity of being only envious *. 



Sir Humphry Davy, Baronet, formerly President of the 

 Royal Society of London, Foreign Associate of the Academy 

 of Sciences in the Institute, w^as the son of Robert Davy and 

 Grace Millet, and was born at Penzance, a small town in the 

 county of Cornwall, the most remote portion of England towards 

 the west, on the 17th day of December 1778. 



His family is said to have possessed at one period consider- 

 able landed property in the parish of Ludgvan, near Penzance ; 

 but Robert Davy, his father, was reduced to a very small farm 

 on the banks of the Boye, called St Michael, from a rock bear- 

 ing some resemblance by its situation, and by having a convent 

 upon it, to that distinguished by the same name on the coast of 

 Normandy. With a view to increase his limited income, he 

 exercised in Penzance, for a long period, the profession of gilder 

 and carver in wood ; but not succeeding in his profession, he 

 abandoned it, and soon after died, in 1794, leaving his widow 

 in a destitute situation with five children, the youngest of whom 

 was little more than four years of age. This respectable woman 

 did not, however, lose courage ; occupied incessantly with the 

 education of her children, in order to procure the means of sup- 

 porting them, she opened a shop, and subsequently kept a 

 vlodging-house, for those whose health led them to visit this 

 county, which is celebrated above the rest of England for the 

 mildness of its climate. 



Her eldest son, the young Humphry, turned to the best account 

 the limited means of instruction which this remote county pre- 

 sented, and some of his teachers have since pretended to boast 



• The other individual alluded to, is the celebrated Luis-Nicolas Vauque- 

 lin, who died on the 15th October 1829 Trans. 



