300 ftincis of tbe 1Ro&, IRifle, an& (Bun 



Paris, " that not even a fragment of this poem should 

 have been preserved." I do not share in Dr. Paris's 

 regret, nor can I agree with that worthy person when 

 he says of other verses of Davy's which have been 

 preserved, that " although marked by the common 

 faults of youthful poets, they still bear the stamp of 

 lofty genius " ! Fluent, graceful, eloquent, Davy's verse 

 often is, but it wholly lacks distinction and originality, 

 or any striking quality which at all merits Sir Walter 

 Scott's encomium : " If Davy had not been the first 

 Chemist, he would have been the first Poet of his 

 age " ; or Lockhart's : " He was a true poet, and might 

 have been one of the greatest of poets, had he chosen." 

 And yet these were men who were poets themselves, 

 and knew what good poetry was. But then they were 

 friends of Humphry Davy they were under the spell of 

 his attractive personality ; and contemporary criticism 

 thus biassed seldom stands the test of time. 



After leaving school, at the age of seventeen, Humphry 

 was apprenticed to a surgeon, Mr. John Borlase, of 

 Penzance. Then he began to dabble in chemistry, in 

 which pursuit his eldest sister was his enthusiastic 

 assistant, regardless of the ruin wrought in her dresses 

 by contact with corrosive acids. A garret in the house 

 of a neighbour and friend, Mr. Tonkin, was his laboratory, 

 and the awful smells and explosions which came from 

 thence were a source of terror to his friends. " This 

 boy Humphry is incorrigible," said Mr. Tonkin. "Was 

 there ever so idle a dog ? He will blow us all into the 

 air some of these days." 



It was at this moment, whilst he was making his 



