146 Prof. A. dela Rive’s Memoir of 
of life'and imagination, and the tales of the Thousand and One 
Nights pleased me as much as the Encyclopedia Britannica. 
“But what saved me was the importance I early attached to 
facts. In reading Mrs. Marcet’s book on chemistry, I took care 
to prove every assertion by the little experiments which I made 
as far as my means permitted ; and the enjoyment which I found 
in thus verifying the exactitude of the facts contributed essen- 
tially to give me a taste for chemical knowledge. You may 
therefore easily imagine the pleasure I experienced when I sub- 
sequently made the personal acquaintance of Mrs. Marcet, and . 
how delighted I was when my thoughts went backward to con- 
template in her at once the past and the present. Whenever I 
presented her with a copy of my memoirs, I took care to add 
that I sent them to her as a vaany of my gratitude to my 
first instructress.” 
pleasure of sors him there, "and afterward by the correspond- 
ence which I regularly maintained with him 
araday here alludes to a journey in which he accompanied 
Davy to Geneva in 1814, and in which, during a stay which he 
made with his illustrious master at my father’s, the latter 
quickly discerned the merits of the young assistant, and formed 
relations with him which were interrupted only by death, At 
the time when he travelled with Davy, Faraday was his assist- 
ant at the Royal Institution in London; and I must say that 
he has more than once e fae to me, both by letter and viva 
voce, his thankfulness to the eminent chemist, who had Hos 
him to one of his courses, and consented, after ru running thro page 
the notes of this course prepared by the young pupil, to t 
him for his assistant. 
After the journey just referred to, Faraday, with the excep- 
tion of rare and short absences, never again quitted the Royal 
Institution, where he had his laboratory and his residence. 
Married toa lady worthy of him, ae who shared and under- 
: sions and all his s ntiments, he passed a lite 
ually peaceful and modest. He eee all the honorary dis- 
tinctions which the government of his country wished to confer 
upon him ; he contented himself with a moderate salary and 
with a 1 pension of £300 sterling, which fully sufficed for his 
a oe 
