208 Colonel Sir Ronald Ross [June 4, 



And conversely, as poets have been interested in science, so have 

 men of science often written verse, and sometimes very good verse. 

 The case of Francis Darwin is known to all ; and many papers have 

 been published on the medical poets. Edward Jenner, the great 

 discoverer of the means of preventing one of the most horrible 

 scourges of humanity, small-pox, was one of them. Sir Humphry 

 Davy, the brilliant 'chemist, the discoverer of a whole group of 

 elements, the inventor of the safety-lamp, and one of the brightest 

 stars of the Royal Institution, was such a fine poet that Coleridge 

 said of him, "If Davy had not been the first Chemist, he would have 

 been the first Poet of his age." Let me quote the following lines by 

 him, headed Ravenna, March 1, 1827, as an example of his musical 

 verse : — 



Life we term a spark, a fire, a flame ; 



And then we call that fire, that flame, immortal, 



Although the nature of all fiery things 



Belonging to the earth is perishable. 



The lightning, in its fierceness and its power, 



Is of an instant only ! 



The meteor's blaze lightening the visible scene 



As transient is ! 



And vainly should we search where these had been. 



The solar light, when the bright orb has sunk, 



Dwells not within known space ; 



And that which kindleth the whole frame of nature 



Has no abiding place, although its source 



Is everlasting. 



We read of Davy that when he was at school he developed a taste 

 for telling stories, poetry, angling, and experimental science ; that 

 he was apprenticed to a surgeon, and entered upon an encyclopaedic 

 course of study. But I fancy that many scientific men, and indeed 

 many others, have had a similar history ; and, though I dare not 

 mention names, I suspect that even some of our most distinguished 

 professors to-day have been guilty at least of a five-act blank-verse 

 drama in youth ; while many poets have certainly secretly dabbled 

 in chemistry and electricity. I admit for myself (though I dare not 

 call myself either) that at the age of twelve I set forth to write a zoology 

 which should contain all known species of animals (some millions in 

 number, as it happens), with illustrations, and with a poem attached 

 to many of the descriptions — as of the roaring of the lion at midnight, 

 and of the snapping up of children on the banks of the Hugh by 

 appalling crocodiles ! — and indeed some of these poems have been 

 actually printed, much changed, in my Fables in 1907. This kind 

 of thing, the fury of youth, is common to all of us ; but why did 

 Davy enter upon an encyclopaedic course of study ? What is really 

 the "psychology of such an ' ambition, which appears so dull to so 

 many people ? It is the basis of the psychology both of poetry and 



