164 SIR HUMPHREY DAVY. 



and writing his "Consolation in Travel," which 

 Cuvier called the work of a dying Plato. "I was 

 desirous," he says, " of again passing some time in 

 these scenes, in the hope of reestablishing a 

 broken constitution ; and though this hope was a 

 feeble one, yet, at least, I expected to spend a few 

 of the last days of life more tranquilly and more 

 agreeably than in the metropolis of my own coun- 

 try. Nature never deceives us. The rocks, the 

 mountains, the streams, always speak the same 

 language. A shower of snow may hide the ver- 

 dant woods in spring ; a thunder storm may render 

 the blue limpid streams foul and turbulent : but 

 these effects are rare and transient ; in a few hours, 

 or at least days, all the sources of beauty are 

 renovated ; and Nature affords no continued trains 

 of misfortunes and miseries, such as depend upon 

 the constitution of humanity, no hopes forever 

 blighted in the bud, no beings full of life, 

 beauty, and promise, taken from us in the prime 

 of youth. Her fruits are all balmy, bright, and 

 sweet ; she affords none of those blighted ones so 

 common in the life of man, and so like the fabled 

 apples of the Dead Sea, fresh and beautiful to 

 the sight, but, when tasted, full of bitterness and 

 ashes." 



From Rome he writes to a friend, a year later, 

 in the spring of 1829 : " I am here wearing away 

 the winter, a ruin amongst ruins ! . . . I fight 

 against sickness and fate, believing I have still 

 duties to perform, and that even my illness is con- 



