451 



XVIII. 



LIFE AND LETTERS OF FARADAY. 

 1870. 



TTNDERTAKEN and executed in a reverent and lov- 

 \J ing spirit, the work of Dr. Bence Jones makes 

 Faraday the virtual writer of his own life. Everybody 

 now knows the story of the philosopher's birth ; that his 

 father was a smith ; that he was born at Newington Butts 

 in 1791; that he ran along the London pavements, a 

 bright-eyed errand boy, with a load of brown curls upon 

 his head and a packet of newspapers under his arm ; that 

 the lad's master was a bookseller and bookbinder a 

 kindly man, who became attached to the little fellow, 

 and in due time made him his apprentice without fee ; 

 that during his apprenticeship he found his appetite for 

 knowledge provoked and strengthened by the books he 

 stitched and covered. Thus he grew in wisdom and 

 stature to his year of legal manhood, when he appears 

 in the volumes before us as a writer of letters, which 

 reveal his occupation, acquirements, and tone of mind. 

 His correspondent was Mr. Abbott, a member of the 

 Society of Friends, who, with a forecast of his corre- 

 spondent's greatness, preserved his letters and produced 

 them at the proper time. 



In later years Faraday always carried in his pocket 

 a blank card, on which he jotted down in pencil his 



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