Sir fwmpfon? >a\n? 315 



the ground besides Davy plunged neck deep into a 

 treacherous well-head, which till they were floundn 

 in it, had borne all the appearance of a piece of delicate 

 green turf. When Sir Humphry emerged from his 

 involuntary bath, his habiliments garnished with mud, 

 slime, and mangled water-cresses, Sir Walter rccci 

 him with a triumphant encore \ But the philosopher 

 had his revenge, for joining soon afterwards in a brisk 

 gallop, Scott put Sibyl Grey to a leap beyond her 

 prowess, and lay humbled in the ditch, while Davy 

 who was better mounted, cleared it and him at a bound. 

 Happily there was but little damage done but no one 

 was sorry that the sociable had been detained at the foot 

 of the hill. 



I have seen Sir Humphry in many places, and in 

 company of many different descriptions ; but never 

 to such advantage as at Abbotsford. His host and he 

 delighted in each other, and the modesty of their 

 mutual admiration was a memorable spectacle. Davy 

 was by nature a poet and Scott, though anything but 

 a philosopher in the modern sense of that term, might, 

 I think it very likely, have pursued the study of 

 physical science with zeal and success if he had 

 happened to fall in with such an instructor as Sir 

 Humphry would have been to him, in his early life- 

 Each strove to make the other talk and they did so 

 in turn more charmingly than I ever heard cither on 

 any other occasion whatsoever. Scott in his romantic 

 narratives touched a deeper chord of feeling than usual, 

 when he had such a listener as Davy ; and Davy, when 

 induced to open his views upon any question of scientific 



