382 THE KOYAL INSTITUTION. [CHAP. VI. 



e In attempting a review of this work we cannot 

 avoid professing that we are far from entertaining the 

 impression of sitting down as competent judges to 

 decide upon the merits or demerits of the author ; on 

 this point the public voice, not only within our own 

 islands, but wherever science is cultivated, has already 

 pronounced too definite a sentence to be weakened or 

 confirmed by anything that we can suggest of ex- 

 ception or approbation. Our humble labours on such 

 an occasion must be much more analytical and 

 historical than critical ; at the same time we are too 

 well acquainted with the author's candour to suppress 

 any remark which may occur to us as tending to 

 correction or improvement. It has most assuredly 

 fallen to the lot of no one individual to contribute to 

 the progress of chemical knowledge by discoveries so 

 numerous and important as those which have been 

 made by Sir Humphry Davy ; and, with regard to 

 mere experimental investigation, we do not hesitate to 

 rank his researches as more splendidly successful than 

 any which have ever before illustrated the physical 

 sciences in any of their departments. We are aware 

 that the " Optics " of Newton will immediately occur to 

 our readers as an exception ; but, without attempting 

 to convince those who may differ from us on this 

 point, we are disposed to abide by the opinion that for 

 a series of well-devised experiments and brilliant 

 discoveries the contents of Davy's " Bakerian Lectures " 

 are as much superior to those of Newton's " Optics " as 

 the " Principia " are to those or to any other human work 

 for the accurate and refined application of a sublime 



