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DAVY, JOHN, M.D., F.R.S. 



DE CANDOLLE, AUGUSTIN PYRAMUS. 



523 



eloquence which could issue only from a mind of the highest powers 

 and the finest sensibilities." ('Elements of Chemistry,' llth edition.) 



Davy was knighted on the 8th of April 1812, and on the llth of the 

 same month he married Mrs. Apreece, the widow of Shuckburgh 

 Ashby Apreece, Esq., eldest sou of Sir Thomas Apreece; this lady 

 was the daughter and heiress of Charles Kerr, Esq., of Kelso, and 

 possessed a very considerable fortune. He was afterwards created a 

 baronet. He died OQ the 28th of May 1829, at Geneva. His widow 

 survived him till 1855. 



DAVY, JOHN, M.D., P.RS., the brother and biographer of Sir 

 Humphry Davy, and eminent as a chemist, geologist, and physiologist. 

 Dr. Davy studied medicine in Edinburgh, and took his degree of 

 Doctor of Medicine in that University in 1814. He entered the army 

 as a surgeon, and is now inspector-general of army hospitals on half- 

 pay. He has been a most copious writer, having written several 

 volumes on general subjects, besides a large number of papers ranging 

 over nearly the whole field of natural science. His general works 

 are : -1, ' An Account of the Interior of Ceylon and of its Inhabitants, 

 with Travels in that Island,' London, 4to, 1821. 2, 'Life of Sir 

 Humphry Davy,' London, 2 vols. 8vo. 3, ' Notes on the Ionian 

 Islands and Malta,' London, 2 vola. 8vo, 1842. 4, ' The West Indies 

 before and since Slave Emancipation,' London, 1 vol. 8vo. 5, 'The 

 Angler and his Friend," 1 vol. 8vo. 



Dr. Davy's physiological researches have been principally published 

 in the ' Philosophical Transactions,' the 'Transactions' of the Koyal 

 Society of Edinburgh, and the Royal Medico-Chirurgical Society. 

 He has also published two volumes entitled ' Researches Physiological 

 and Anatomical,' London, Svo, 1839. It is almost impossible to give 

 in a few words an idea of the extent and variety of these researches. 

 They embrace a wide field of observation, and afford abundant 

 evidence of a highly cultivated mind and habits of accurate obser- 

 vation. The subject of animal heat has perhaps been more illustrated 

 by Dr. Davy's researches than any other on which he has written. 

 The title of some of his papers will show the range of his physical 

 enquiries. ' Oa the Specific Gravity of different parts of the Human 

 Body,' 'An Account of some Experiments and Observations on the 

 Torpedo,' ' On the early Generative Power of the Goat,' ' On the Com- 

 position of the Colostrum,' ' Miscellaneous Observations on Blood and 

 Milk.' The sciences of meteorology and geology have both received 

 valuable contributions from the pen of Dr. Davy. In all his researches 

 he has displayed an intimate acquaintance with the science of chemistry, 

 and one of his most recent works consists of a series of ' Lectures on 

 the Study of Chemistry,' in which this science is regarded in its 

 relations to the atmosphere, the earth, the ocean, and the art of 

 agriculture. 



DA WES, RICHARD, was born at Market-Bosworth in the year 

 1708. His first teacher was Anthony Blackwall, the well-known 

 author of ' The Sacred Classics,' after which he spent some time at the 

 Charter House, and went to Emanuel College, Cambridge, hi the year 

 1725 ; he was elected Fellow in 1731. In 1736 he published a speci- 

 men of a translation of ' Paradise Lost ' into Greek hexameters, which 

 proved, as he afterwards admitted (Pref. to his ' Miscellanea Critica '), 

 that he was then very insufficiently acquainted with the Greek 

 language. He became master of the grammar-school at Newcastle- 

 upon-Tyne in 1738 ; but his disagreeable manners diminished the 

 number of his scholars, and he resigned the situation in 1749. In his 

 latter days his principal employment was rowing in a boat on the 

 Tyne. He died at Haworth on the 21st of March 1766. The work 

 on which his fame rests is his ' Miscellanea Critica,' published at 

 Cambridge in 1745, which places him in the same class with Bentley 

 and Porson as a verbal Greek critic. The work is divided into five 

 sections, of which the first contains some emendations of Terentianus 

 Maurus ; the second is a specimen of the want of accuracy in the 

 Oxford edition of Pindar; in the third are some general observations 

 on the Greek language, to which are added some emendations of 

 Callimachus; the fourth is a short discussion on the Digamma; and 

 the fifth is devoted to the illustration of Aristophanes. The leading 

 characteristic of the scholarship of Dawes is a proneness to rash 

 generalisation ; and though it has been termed the scholarship of 

 observation, it must be admitted that Dawes is too apt to form 

 general rules from an insufficient number of passages, and conse- 

 quently that his system scarcely deserves that title. Hardly one of 

 ttie syntactical rules which Dawes has laid down has been admitted 

 as unexceptionable ; and some of them have been completely over- 

 thrown by the number of passages in which they are violated. The 

 authority of the ' Miscellanea Critica ' was however so great for some 

 twenty or thirty years after its publication, that many readings sup- 

 ported by manuscript authority were altered to meet the canons in 

 that book. The violent animosity which Dawes everywhere shows 

 towards Bentley may perhaps be accounted for by the universal 

 dislike which that great scholar had incurred during his quarrels 

 with Trinity College, about the time when Dawes was a young 

 member of the university. The best editions of the 'Miscellanea 

 Critica ' (which may now be considered as superseded by the advances 

 which Greek scholarship has made during the last thirty years) are 

 those by Burgess, Oxon., 1781, and by Kidd, Cantabr., 1817, in which 

 prcimens of his other writings may be seen. 



DAY, THOMAS, was born at London in 1748. His father held a 



place in the Customhouse, and died when Thomas was a year old, 

 leaving him a fortune of 120(K. a year. He received his school educa- 

 tion at the Charterhouse, and at the age of sixteen was entered a 

 gentleman commoner of Corpus Christ! College, Oxford, where he 

 remained for three years, but left without taking a degree. He theu 

 spent some summers in travelling through and residing in France arid 

 other parts of the continent. He had already adopted certain strong 

 and peculiar opinions on the subject of education, holding apparently 

 on the one hand that the common mode of education was wholly 

 vicious, and on the other, that by a proper education there was scarcely 

 anything that might not be accomplished. About the year 1769 he 

 proceeded to put his theories to the test of a bold experiment, by 

 selecting from the foundling hospital at Shrewsbury two girls of 

 twelve years of age, with the design of rearing them according to his 

 own notions, and then making one of them his wife ; and although 

 this speculation failed in the main point, its eccentric author never 

 having married either of his protegees, both the girls, with the portions 

 he gave them, obtained husbands, and by the propriety of their con- 

 duct through life did honour to his training. In 1778 Mr. Day married 

 Miss Milnes, of Yorkshire, a lady similar to himself in her tastes and 

 opinions, and having a fortune as large as his own. The following 

 year he was called to the bar ; but he never practised. Meanwhile iu 

 1773 he had made his first appearance as au author, in conjunction 

 with his friend Mr. Bicknell, in a poem entitled ' The Dying Negro,' 

 a production which is said to have had a considerable share iu 

 exciting the public feeling against the atrocities of the slave-trade. 

 In 1776 he published another poem, called 'The Devoted Legions,' 

 being an attack upon the American War. It was followed the next 

 year by another on the same subject, entitled ' The Desolation of 

 America.' After this he published several political pamphlets in 

 prose; namely, in 1784, 'The Letters of Marina; or Reflections upon 

 the Peace, the East India Bill, and the Present Crisis,' and 'A Frag- 

 ment of a Letter on the Slavery of the Negroes ' (in the United 

 States) ; in 1785, ' A Dialogue between a Justice of Peace and a 

 Farmer;' and in 1788, 'A Letter to Arthur Young, Esq., on the Bill 

 to prevent the Exportation of Wool." In 1783 appeared the first 

 volume of the work by which he is now principally remembered, his 

 ' History of Sandford and Merton;' the second volume was published 

 in 1786, and the third in 1789. The object of this fiction is to 

 illustrate and recommend the views of the author on education and 

 on human nature generally; and it is a good picture of both his 

 intellectual and his moral character. Its freshness and vigour, and 

 the strain of disinterestedness and philanthropy that pervades it, have 

 a charm, especially for the young ; but the narrowness of the writer's 

 views makes it useless for any practical purpose, and nearly equally 

 valueless as a piece of philosophy. Day is also the author of a shorter 

 work of fiction, called ' The History of Little Jack.' He was killed 

 28th of September 1789, by a kick from a young horse, which he was 

 training upon some new principle. 



DE CANDOLLE, AUGUSTIN PY'RAMUS, was born at Geneva, 

 where his father was premier syndic, in 1778, the year in which Haller, 

 Linnjeus, and Bernard de Jussieu died. His family originally came 

 from Marseille, but had for more than two centuries been settled at 

 Geneva. His earliest tastes were altogether of a literary kind, and 

 from infancy he was distinguished for the ardour with which he 

 pursued his studies. He was remarkable for the facility with which 

 he wrote verses, a habit in which he indulged throughout life. In 

 1792, with his mother and brother, he sought refuge, whilst the French 

 were besieging Geneva, in a village situated at the foot of the Jura. 

 Here he amused himself in collecting wild plants, and acquired a taste 

 for bothny, which, on subsequently attending the lectures of Professor 

 Vaucher in his native city, became the occupation of his life. In 1796 

 he went to Paris, and attended the lectures of Vauquelin, Cuvier, and 

 Fourcroy. He also became intimately acquainted with Desfontaiues 

 and Lamarck. 



The first efforts of De Candolle in botanical science were rather 

 directed to the observation of facts and the accurate distinction of 

 species, than to the theories connected with the physiology or develop- 

 ment of plants. His first publication was a description of succulent 

 plants, delineations of which were supplied by Redoutd. He also 

 drew up the descriptions for the magnificent work of the same artist 

 on the 'LiliaceEe.' which was published in 1802. After a short with- 

 drawal from Paris on account of the political state of France, he 

 returned there in 1804, and took his degree of Doctor of Medicine. 

 His thesis on this occasion was on the medical properties of plants. 

 In this masterly, essay, which he subsequently republished much 

 enlarged, he demonstrated satisfactorily the close connection that 

 exists between the sciences of botany and medicine, and it led tp 

 an increasing attention to the structure and secretions of plants, as 

 affording at ones the aliment of man in health and his medicine iu 

 disease. In the same year he delivered in the College of France a 

 course of lectures on the principles of botanical arrangement, of which 

 he gave a sketch in the introduction to the third edition of Lamarck's 

 ' Flora of France,' which was published iu the following year. This 

 sketch gave an outline of those principles of classification which in 

 after life became the basis of those great works on which his fame as 

 a botanist must principally rest. Although nearly every botanist had 

 yielded to the influence of tho artificial system of Liunwus, De Candolle 



