38 Britain's Heritage of Science 



London, part of his duties being to carry round the news- 

 papers in the morning. After a year of probation he was 

 formally apprenticed to learn the art of bookbinding. It 

 was by reading some of the books that passed through his 

 hands that his mind was first attracted to science. Noticing 

 an advertisement in the streets announcing evening lectures 

 in Natural Philosophy with an admission fee of one shilling, 

 he obtained his master's permission to attend the lectures. 

 The account of his first connexion with the Royal Institution 

 may be given in his own words : 



" When I was a bookseller's apprentice I was very 

 fond of experiment and very averse to trade. It 

 happened that a gentleman, a member of the Royal 

 Institution, took me to hear some of Sir H. Davy's 

 lectures in Albemarle Street. I took notes, and afterwards 

 wrote them out more fairly in a quarto volume. 



" My desire to escape from Trade, which I thought 

 vicious and selfish, and to enter into the service of Science, 

 which I imagined made its pursuers amiable and liberal, 

 induced me at last to take the bold and simple step of writing 

 to Sir H. Davy, expressing my wishes, and a hope that, 

 if an opportunity came in his way, he would favour 

 my views ; at the same time, I sent the notes I had taken 

 of his lectures. . . . This took place at the end of 

 the year 1812, and early in 1813 he requested to see me, 

 and told me of the situation of assistant in the laboratory 

 of the Royal Institution, just then vacant. 



" At the same time that he thus gratified my desires 

 as to scientific employment, he still advised me not to 

 give up the prospects I had before me, telling me that 

 Science was a harsh mistress ; and in a pecuniary point 

 of view but poorly rewarding those who devoted them- 

 selves to her service. He smiled at my notion of the 

 superior moral feelings of philosophic men, and said he 

 would leave me to the experience of a few years to set 

 me right on that matter. 



" Finally, through his good efforts, I went to the 

 Royal Institution early in March of 1813 as assistant 

 in the laboratory ; and in October of the same year went 

 with him abroad as his assistant in experiments and 



