DAVY. 465 



will at once acquit him of any such charge ; but he 

 was painfully timid by nature when mixing with so- 

 ciety ; and hence the mistake of our neighbours, who, 

 though great critics in manner, are far from being 

 infallible, and are exceedingly susceptible fully as sus- 

 ceptible as he was shy. Possibly they looked down 

 upon him in consequence of a peculiarity which he no 

 doubt had. He was fond of poetry, and an ardent ad- 

 mirer of beauty in natural scenery. But of beauty in 

 the arts he was nearly insensible. They used to say 

 in Paris that on seeing the Louvre, he exclaimed that 

 one of its statues was " a beautiful stalactite ;" and it 

 is possible that this callousness, or this jest, which- 

 ever it might be, excited the scorn or the humour of 

 men not more sincere lovers of sculpture than himself, 

 or more able judges of its merits, but better disposed to 

 conceal their want of taste or want of skill. 



When Sir Joseph Banks terminated his long and 

 respectable course in 1820, Davy was unanimously 

 chosen to succeed him as President of the Royal So- 

 ciety, and continued to fill that distinguished office un- 

 til, his health having failed, he resigned it in 1827, and 

 was succeeded by his early patron Davies Giddy. To- 

 wards the end of 1825 he had an apoplectic seizure, 

 which, though slight (if any such attack can be so 

 called), left a paralytic weakness behind, and he was 

 ordered to go abroad in search of a milder and dryer 

 climate. He returned home in the following autumn, 

 not very ill, but not much restored in strength, and 

 unable to continue his scientific labours. The work 

 on fly-fishing called ' Salmoriia ' was the amusement 

 of those hours in which, comparatively feeble, his mind 



2 H 



