CHAP. VII., 3.] 



ELECTRICITY. DAVY. 



173 



" the true and amiable philosopher," as Davy long 

 before described him, thus proclaimed his victory in 

 the Edinburgh Review : After describing the course 

 of a discovery " which is in no degree the effect of ac- 

 cident," he adds, " this is exactly such a case as we 

 should choose to place before Bacon were he to re- 

 visit the earth, in order to give him, in a small com- 

 pass, an idea of the advancement which philosophy 

 has made since the time when he had pointed out to 

 her the route which she ought to pursue. The re- 

 sult is as wonderful as it is important. An invisible 

 and impalpable barrier made effectual against a force 

 the most violent and irresistible in its operations ; 

 and a power that in its tremendous effects seemed 

 to emulate the lightning and the earthquake, con- 

 fined within a narrow space, and shut up in a net of 

 the most slender texture are facts which must excite 

 a degree of wonder and astonishment, from which 

 neither ignorance nor wisdom can defend the be- 

 holder." 



For this truly patriotic labour, the only national 

 testimony which Davy received was the inadequate 

 one of a baronetcy, which was conferred on him by 

 the Prince Regent in 1818; but his real triumph 

 and great reward were in the enthusiastic apprecia- 

 tion of his entire success by those on whom he had 

 disinterestedly conferred so great a benefit. A tes- 

 timonial, in the form of a service of plate, of great 

 value, was presented to him by the coal-owners of 

 the north of England. 



Davy's researches on flame were intimately 

 connected with his electrical and chemical discove- 

 ries. He remodelled Lavoisier's theory of combus- 

 tion, and put an end to the distinction between com- 

 bustibles and supporters of combustion. Chemical 

 combination, effected with great energy, and accom- 

 panied by a high temperature, is essential to com- 

 bustion, and either element of the combination is 

 equally entitled to the denomination of combustible. 

 Guided by the electro-chemical theory, Davy appears 

 to have thought that the heat of flame has an elec- 

 trical origin. 



But I must hasten to close this section. Among 

 the labours of his latter years, there was none which 

 interested Davy more, or which reasonably promised 

 more useful results, than his plan for protecting the 

 copper sheathing of ships from the corrosive action 

 of sea water, by affixing plates of zinc or iron, which 

 should render the copper slightly electro-negative, and 

 thus indispose it for combining with acid principles. 

 It is a somewhat singular fact that Fabbroni, about 30 

 years before, had instanced the corrosion of copper 

 sheathing near the contact of heterogeneous metals, 

 as an instance of the chemical origin of galvanism. 1 

 Davy's experiments were conducted with his usual 

 skill and success, and the remedy only failed of 

 general adoption on account, it may be said, of 



c 



being too effectual, other and opposite injurious 

 effects having been found to arise. 



Davy was elected President of the Royal Society (777.) 

 in 1820, in the room of Sir Joseph Banks, who 

 held the office for 42 years. It was a distinguished O f t ne 

 compliment, for the election was all but unanimous. Royal So- 

 He continued to communicate papers for several ciety his 

 years subsequently ; but his energy, his temper, and, 

 finally, his health began to give way showing that 

 the ardent labours of his youth and prime had in- 

 jured his constitution. Attacked with paralysis in 

 1827, he spent his last years chiefly abroad, and 

 died at Geneva (where he was buried), on the 29th 

 May 1829. 



The character of Davy was a rare and admir- (778.) 

 able combination. The ardour of his researches, and Pllil o8ophi- 

 the deep devotion of his whole being to scientific in- 

 vestigation, have been already proved. They had the 

 effect of completely annihilating every baser passion. 

 He valued property only in so far as he could apply 

 it usefully ; and his disinterestedness with respect to 

 the fortunes which several of his practical discoveries 

 might have honourably earned, was one of the most 

 striking parts of his character. His fancy was dis- 

 cursive to a degree rarely met with in men of science. 

 He continued to write poetry nearly all his life, and 

 the tone of it was that of grave speculation, always 

 reverting to the destiny of man and the beneficence 

 of the Creator. His lectures were composed with 

 care ; and their effect, even as pieces of oratory, was 

 striking. Coleridge frequented them " to increase 

 his stock of metaphors ;" yet they were always to 

 the point, and never degenerated into rhetorical dis- 

 play. For a man of such extraordinary liveliness of 

 fancy and impetuosity of action, his mistakes were 

 astonishingly few. After his very first experience, 

 his publications were made with great care and judg- 

 ment. His estimates of his contemporaries appear 

 generally to have been fair and liberal, though it 

 would be incorrect to affirm that he was universally 

 popular among them. The combination of isolated 

 and intense occupation in his laboratory, with ex- 

 citement in the mixed society of an admiring London 

 public, was a trial which few, if any, could have 

 escaped better than he did ; and so far as we can 

 judge of a man from his expressed opinion of his 

 own successes, whether recorded in his works or in 

 his intimate correspondence, Davy must be accounted 

 to have acquitted himself gracefully and well. He 

 always spoke of the Pile of Volta as the first source 

 of his own success. " Nothing tends so much to the 

 advancement of knowledge as the application of a new 

 instrument," he says ; and then adds, " The native 

 intellectual powers of men in different times are not 

 so much the causes of the different success of their 

 labours, as the peculiar nature of the means and 

 artificial resources in their possession ;" a proposition 



1 There appears, however, to have been something erroneous in the details of Fabhroni's observations, or at least in the account 

 of them given in Nicholson's Journal. : 



