DAVY. Ill 



never for a moment appeared to be ashamed of his 

 great vocation, nor to shun the fullest discussion of the 

 subject on which he was at home, in order to deal 

 with topics to which he was of necessity a stranger. 

 I am speaking, too, of his habits long before his great 

 discoveries ; there would have been little ground for 

 praise, any more than for wonder, that the discoverer 

 of the alkaline metals should be willing to have the 

 conversation roll upon chemistry and galvanism ; but 

 the time to which I have been referring was when his 

 fame rested chiefly upon the success of his lectures to 

 mixed companies in Albemaiie- Street, and to lovers of 

 agriculture in Sackville-Street, where the Board had 

 chosen him their Chemical Professor. 



If his situation at the Royal Institution had exposed 

 him to the risk which we have seen he escaped, it had 

 put him in possession of invaluable helps to his pursuits. 

 He had now an ample command of books ; he had 

 assistants under him ; above all, he had an unlimited 

 power of collecting and of making apparatus ; his in- 

 come was secure ; and his time was at his own dispo- 

 sal. He failed not to avail himself diligently of these 

 great advantages ; and although he lived a good deal 

 in society, where he was always a welcome guest, 

 his principal relaxations during the rest of his life con- 

 sisted in shooting, and especially in fishing, of which 

 he was from his earliest years passionately fond. The 

 intercourse he had held with Southey and with Cole- 

 ridge had given him not only his taste for poetry, but 

 an extraordinary love of rural walks, in the peaceful 

 solitude of which I have heard him say, answering the 

 ordinary and obvious objections of those who are not 

 smitten with the love of the " Angle," the gratifications 

 of that propensity very mainly consist. 



In 1801 he made his first important discovery, that 

 by which he ascertained the true nature of galvanic 

 action. That this was connected with electric or che- 

 mical affinity had been generally suspected, though 



