Febbuaby 1, 1897.] 



KNOWLEDGE. 



43 



and ardour into the work of organising and starting the 

 institution. He was requested by the managers to live 

 in the house, to superintend the servants, to preserve 

 order and decorum, and to control the expenses of house- 

 keeping. Not the least strange fact in the history of this 

 original man, however, is that during his life he received 

 no thanks for all that he did for the Eoyal Institution. 

 At the present time he is scarcely known as the founder 

 of the place where very many of the greatest scientific 

 discoveries of this century have been made ; and as to 

 technical education, who ever heard his name in associa- 

 tion with the movement ? 



In 1799 Dr. Thomas Gamett, known to chemists for 

 his researches into the composition of the Harrogate 

 mineral waters, was invited by Eumford to become 

 lecturer and scientific secretary, and, " in the Northern 

 accent . . . which rendered his voice somewhat in- 

 harmonious to a London audience," began his lectures 

 in March, 1800 ; but differences having arisen between 

 Viim and Eumford, he was called upon to retire in the 

 following year. The following',estract is from the minute- 

 book of the Eoyal Institution of a resolution adopted 

 at a meeting of the managers on February 16th, 1801 ; 

 "Eesolved — That Mr. Humphry Davy be engaged in the 

 service of the Eoyal Institution, in the capacities of 

 Assistant Lecturer in Chemistry, Directorof the Laboratory, 

 and Assistant Editor of the Journals of the Institution; and 

 that he be allowed to occupy a room in the house, and be 

 furnished with coals and candles ; and that he be paid a 

 salary of one hundred guineas per annum." Davy's dis- 

 covery of nitrous oxide — the pleasure-producing air, as he 

 himself calls it in one of his letters — had, in the previous 

 year, made him somewhat famous, his experiments having 

 been repeated, with the greatest success, by the professors 

 of the Edinburgh University ; and through some friend or 

 friends he was brought to the notice of Count Eumford. 

 In a letter to Dr. Hope, Davy says : '' I believe it is in a 

 great measure owing to your kind mention of me to Count 

 Eumford that I occupy my present situation in the Royal 

 Institution. I ought to be thankful to you . . . . as I am 

 enabled to pursue my favourite study, and at the same 

 time to be of some little utility to society." It is said that 

 the first impression produced by Davy on Count Eumford, 

 who appears to have been a sort of autocrat in the Insti- 

 tution, was highly unfavourable ; but his first lecture en- 

 tirely removed every prejudice. " Let him command any 

 arrangement which the Institution can afford," said the 

 Count. By June 1st the managers had passed the follow- 

 ing resolution : " Eesolved — That Humphry Davy be 

 appointed, and in future denominated, Lecturer in Chemistry 

 at the Eoyal Institution, instead of continuing to occupy 

 the place of Assistant Lectm-er, which he has hitherto 

 filled." 



A month later we find him ordered to give a course of 

 lectures on the chemical principles of the art of tanning, 

 although he had probably never had more than an outside 

 view of a tannery ; but any deficiencies in this respect were 

 in part compensated by leave of absence from the Insti- 

 tution during the months of July, August, and September, 

 for the purpose of making himself more particularly 

 acquainted with the practical part of the business of 

 tanning. Davy, however, could command a felicity of 

 expression and a dignity of treatment which invested' the 

 homeliest themes with interest. Men of the first rank 

 and talent — the literary and the scientific, the practical 

 and the theoretical, blue-stockings and women of fashion, 

 the old and the young, all crowded — eagerly crowded — 

 the lecture- room. The vicissitudes through which the 

 Institution, in its early days, struggled were more than 



counteracted by Davy's popularity, without which it could 

 not have sm-vived. The small, spare youth (he was only 

 twenty-two years of agei, with his earnestness, his elo- 

 quence, his speaking eyes — " eyes which," as one of his 

 fair auditors was heard to remark, " were made for some- 

 thing besides poring over crucibles " — held his hearers 

 spellbound as he declaimed in periods like the following : — 



"In reasoning concerning the future hopes of the 

 human species, we may look forward with confidence to 

 a state of society in which the different orders and classes 

 of men will contribute more effectually to the support of 

 each other than they have hitherto done. This state, 

 indeed, seems to be approaching fast ; for, in consequence 

 of the multiphcation of the means of instruction, the man 

 of science and the manufacturer are daily becoming more 

 assimilated to each other. . . . \Ye do not look to 

 distant ages, or amuse ourselves with brilliant though 

 delusive dreams concerning the infinite improvability of 

 man, the annihilation of labour, disease, and even death ; 

 but we reason by analogy from simple facts ; we consider 

 only a state of human progression arising out of its present 

 condition ; we look for a time that we may reasonably 

 expect, for a hriijht ilai/ of uhich we already behold the Jau7i." 



It was at the end of the year 1812, under such glowing 

 phrases as these, that Faraday was infected with an 

 irresistible desire to become a votary of science. Having 

 carefully written out notes of one of Davy's lectures, he 

 sent the fair copy, and at the same time took the bold and 

 simple step of writing to the great man expressing a hope 

 that, if an opportunity came in his way, he would do 

 something to aid him in his aspirations. In a letter to 

 Dr. Paris, Faraday says: "My desire to escape from 

 trade, which I thought vicious, and to enter into the 

 service of science, which I imagined made its pursuers 

 amiable and liberal, induced me to do this. Early in 

 1813 he requested to see me, and told me of the situation 

 of assistant in the laboratory of the Eoyal Institution, then 

 just vacant .... He smiled at my notion of the superior 

 moral feelings of philosophic men, and said he would leave 

 me to the experience of a few years to set me right on that 

 matter." In the minutes of the meeting of managers on 

 March Ist, 1813, we read : " Resolved — That Michael 

 Faraday be engaged to fill the situation lately occupied by 

 Mr. Payne on the same terms." 



Such is the story, in brief, of the capture of these two 

 notable men — Davy and Faj-aday — by the promoters of 

 the Royal Institution : a classic building, with its fluted 

 columns topped by Corinthian capitals, hid away from the 

 gaze of the rabble in Albemarle Street like some hidden 

 secret of science itself. 



'TWIXT LAND AND SEA. 



By Harry F. Withebby. 



" And now it"s a whaiip, and now it's a scaup, 

 When you shoot along the shore." 



THE moon is paling before the coming dawn as we 

 reach the river-bank on a cold winter morning. 

 We have risen early, as should all keen shore- 

 shooters, to be downat the river in time forthe ducks 

 as they take their morning flight. So we crouch 

 and wait behind the high " sea-bank." Before us, over the 

 flat land, and along the low hedges, shadowy forms are 

 flitting, and the aii- is quivering with that indescribable 

 twittering which heralds the break of day. Then we hear 

 " peewit, peewit," and we see dimly the lapwing whirling 

 hither and thither. But what is that '? We are nearly 

 dreaming, and start, and grip the gun. " Swit, swit, swit," 

 £rst like the twitter of a small bu-d, then nearer and 



