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DAVY. 



SIR HUMPHRY DAVY being now removed beyond 

 the reach of such feelings, as he ought always to have 

 been above their influence, that may be said without 

 offence of which he so disliked the mention: he had 

 the honour of raising himself to the highest place 

 among the chemical philosophers of the age; emerging 

 by his merit alone from an obscure condition. His 

 father was a carver in wood at Penzance, in Cornwall; 

 a man of some ingenuity in his craft. He possessed 

 a small landed property in the village of Varfell, near 

 Penzance, and Davy was born there in 1778. He 

 received the rudiments of his education at a school 

 in Truro, but was very early apprenticed to an apo- 

 thecary at Penzance, where, disliking the profession to 

 which he had been destined, he occupied himself with 

 chemical experiments, ingeniously contriving to make 

 the utensils of the shop and the kitchen serve for ap- 

 paratus ; and it is remembered of him that he fre- 

 quently alarmed the household by his explosions. The 

 result of his dislike to the shop was a disagreement 

 with his master, and he went to another in the same 

 place ; but here he continued in the same course. 

 Pursuing a plan of study which he had laid down for 

 himself, he became thoroughly acquainted with che- 

 mistry, and well versed in other branches of natural 

 philosophy, beside making some proficiency in geo- 

 metry ; but he never cultivated the mathematical 

 sciences, except that I recollect his telling me once, 

 late in life, of his intention to resume the study of 

 them, as he had begun to make progress in crystallo- 



