DAVY. 451 



Oxide/ on the respiration of which he had made some 

 very curious experiments. The singular circumstances 

 which he thus ascertained, gave him considerable re- 

 putation as an experimentalist, and he was soon after 

 (180*2) chosen first Assistant Lecturer in Chemistry, by 

 the Royal Institution of London, and the year follow- 

 ing, sole Chemical Professor. Nor must the boldness 

 which he had shown in conducting his experiments be 

 passed over. He had exposed himself to serious hazard 

 in breathing some most deleterious gases, and both in 

 his trials of gaseous mixtures, and in his galvanic pro- 

 cesses, he had made many narrow escapes from the 

 danger of violent explosions. 



It is a singular fact that, although his attention had 

 never been confined to his favourite science, for he had 

 studied literature, and especially poetry to the extent 

 of writing tolerable verses, yet he was of so uncouth an 

 exterior and manners, notwithstanding an exceedingly 

 handsome and expressive countenance, that Count 

 Rumford, a leading director of the Institution, on see- 

 ing him for the first time, expressed no little disap- 

 pointment, even regretting the part he had taken in 

 promoting the engagement. But these feelings were 

 of short duration. Davy was soon sufficiently human- 

 ized, and even refined, to appear before a London and a 

 fashionable audience of both sexes with great advan- 

 tage, and his first course of lectures had unbounded 

 and unparalleled success. This he owed, certainly, 

 to the more superficial accomplishments of good and 

 lively language, an agreeable delivery, and, above all, 

 an ingenuous enthusiasm for his subject which in- 

 formed and quickened his whole discourse. But the 



