DAVY. 449 



himself, he became thoroughly acquainted with che- 

 mistry, and well versed in other branches of natural 

 philosophy, beside making some proficiency in geo- 

 metry ; but he never cultivated the mathematical 

 sciences, except that I recollect his telling me once, 

 late in life, of his intention to resume the study of 

 them, as he had begun to make progress in crystallo- 

 graphy. He does not appear to have given any early 

 indications of superior genius, or even of unusual 

 quickness ; but he showed all along, in following the 

 bent of his intellectual taste, the perseverance, the 

 firm purpose, which is inseparable from a capacity of 

 the higher order, and is an indispensable condition, as 

 it is a sure pledge, of success in every pursuit. 



It must be observed of the biographers both of Davy 

 and Scheele, that they seem to have made too much 

 of the difficulties interposed in the path of their early 

 studies by the want of apparatus, to which want, and 

 to their ingenious contrivances for finding substitutes, 

 a good deal of their experimental skill has been ascribed. 

 It should be recollected that an apothecary 's shop is 

 not by any means so destitute of helps, especially for 

 the study of chemistry, as a workshop of almost any 

 other description, Crucibles, phials, mortars, galli- 

 pots, scales and weights, liquid measures, acids, al- 

 kalis, and neutral salts, are all to be found there, even 

 if a furnace and still be not a necessary appendage. 

 It may be allowed that nothing like an air-pump 

 might be there expected, unless cupping chanced to be 

 performed by the druggist. Accordingly Davy was 

 glad to obtain, in a case of surgical instruments from 

 a practitioner on board a French vessel wrecked on 



