238 Scientific Labors and Character of 



tures on Agricultural Chemistry" were published about the same 

 time ; and these works along with the volume of Researches before 

 mentioned, each of which has been a rich mine from which com- 

 pilers have drawn, have made Sir Humphry extensively known to 

 the world as an author.* The " Elements" are characterized by a 

 strictness of method, and a purity and elegance of diction, not often 

 to be found in the writings of those, who in early life have been pre- 

 cluded from the advantages of an academic education. Retirement 

 from the active and professional duties of science, is frequently at- 

 tended with the same inglorious sloth and barren inactivity, as retire- 

 ment from the active scenes of business ; but from the variety of 

 knowledge displayed in some of the subsequent writings of Sir Hum- 

 phry, particularly in his discourses before the Royal Society, we are 

 induced to believe, that he devoted much of the time now at his dis- 

 posal to the cultivation of general science and hterature. 



But among the privileges conferred by a learned leisure and an 

 easy fortune, few could have been so gratifying to Sir Humphry as 

 the opportunity {ov foreign travel. Nature and art, and the society 

 of the greatest men of the age, severally offered their allurements. 

 If he had become intimately acquainted with the laws and operations 

 of nature in his laboratory, it was, like the sight of Belzoni's mod- 

 els of the eternal pyramids, only in those miniature representations, 

 which inspire a restless curiosity to see the grand originals. Art also 

 conspires with nature to exemplify the principles which he had so 

 faithfully studied ; and the choicest productions of the one, and the 

 most stupendous as well as delightful exhibitions of the other, invited 

 him to the south of Europe. The continent also abounded with the 

 luminaries of science, with which a mind like his would love to blend 

 its light. A nation is interested in the travels of such a citizen. The 

 whole world is to him an El Dorado ; from every land and sea he 

 gathers gold and pearls ; and returns deeply freighted with the intel- 

 lectual riches of other climes, to pour them into the lap of his coun- 

 try. The Philosophical Transactions bear ample testimony how just- 

 ly this remark applies to Sir Humphry Davy.f 



The beautiful remains of ancient painting at Rome and Pompeii, 

 suggested the means of ascertaining, by actual analysis, the nature of 



* The whole of his works consist of forty six papers in the Philosophical Transac- 

 tions, and eight separate volumes. 



t Professor Playfair has given another fine example, of the benefits that may ac- 

 crue to a covnitry from the foreign excursions of her men of science, in his remarks 

 on the " Slide of Alpnach." — (Edinburgh Phil. Jour.) 



