THE ROYAL INSTITUTION OF GREAT BRITAIN. 219 



Institution. He has himself recorded, in a letter to one of his friends, what 

 occurred on this occasion, and the relations which he had borne to Davy. "I 

 Avas presented," he says, "to Mr. Davy, whose rooms at the Royal Institution 

 adjoin mine. He is a most agreeable and intelligent young man, and of an evening 

 we have some interesting conversations. His chief defect, as a philosopher, is 

 that ho does not smoke. Mr. Davy advised me to spare no labor on my lirst 

 lecture. He told me that the world hereabouts Avould be disposed to form its 

 opinions from this inh'oduction: consequently I resolved to ivrite my first lecture 

 throughout; to do nothing but give a statement of what it was my intention to 

 lUidertake, and to expatiate on the importance and utility of the science. I studied 

 and wrote for nearly two days ; 1 then calculated, almost to a minute, the time 

 which my lecture would occupy, adapting my discourse to a duration of 50 min- 

 utes. The day before that on which I was to deliver my lecture, Davy and I 

 repaired, in the evening, to the amphitheatre, where I read my lecture to the end, 

 while he remained stationed in the farthest corner; next, he read while I repre- 

 sented the auditory. We then discussed our respective stjdes. The next day I 

 read my discourse before a company of 150 to 200 persons, which was more than 

 had been expected. When I had finished there was general applause, and a 

 great many of the audience came forward to compliment me. Since that occa- 

 sion I have rarely written at all, relying solely on experiment and verbal expla- 

 nation. In general, my experiments have been highly successful, and I have 

 not once become embarrassed in my statements ; so that now', when I enter the 

 lecture room, I feel scarcel}^ more concern than when I smoke a pipe with j'ou 

 on Sunday and Wednesday evenings." To believe, however, an eminent critic, 

 Dalton must unconsciously have put too high an estimate on a success, of which 

 the politeness of the audience seems to have defrayed the chief expense, and to 

 which the simplicity and singularity of the man contributed probably more than 

 any talent he possessed as a professor. " It would be difficult to conceive," says 

 the writer referred to, (Quarterly Review, No. XCVI,) ''anything more awk- 

 ward and inadequate than his manner of treating the great physical truths l)efore 

 him. His experiments in public frequently failed ; his delivery was dry, indis- 

 tinct, and without expression, and he was far li-om possessing the language and 

 power of illustration necessary to the prf)fessor who deals Avith the lofty themes 

 of philosophy, and by means of which Davy and Faraday have shed so brilliant 

 a light on their great discoveries." 



Dalton survived Davy and Young, and, in 1830, was chosen to replace the 

 former as one of the foreign associates of the French Academj' of Sciences. In 

 1832, having gone to Oxford to be present at the meeting of the British Asso- 

 ciation, he received from the University the diploma of Doctor of Civil Law; 

 and hence, modest and simple as he was, a man whose chief pleasures on earth 

 were the pipe and pla3'ing at bowls, he Avas to be seen, for scA'cral days, in\-ested, 

 Avhenever he Avent abroad, Avith the red robe of the doctorate. He allowed him- 

 self, at the instance of Mr. Eabbage, to be presented at court, and that gentle- 

 man has recounted for us all the incidents of this grand event in the life of the 

 philosopher of Manchester. Lord Brougham, at that time Lord (Jliancellor, 

 offered his serA'ices to make the presentation, and had alread}' spoken of it to the 

 King; but difficulties su])ervened. Dalton, in his quality of Quaker, could no-t 

 assume the uniform of the court, Avhicli Avould haA^e required him to Avear a 

 sword. It Avas suggested to dress him in the robe of a doctor of laws of 

 Oxford ; but red Avas not a color admissible by Quakers. Luckily, the sight of 

 Dalton Avas of such a nature as did not enable him to distinguish colors ; Ire 

 labored under a sort of blindness as regards tiiem. There remained the cap of 



lessons on chemistry and mathematics, at the rate of two shillings and a halt per hour when 

 he had but one scholar, and one and a half only tor each scholar' when he had two or more. 

 In ]633, the govi^rnment had spontaneously granted him a pension of lot) pounds, which 

 pension was doubled in 18oG. 



