410 Prof. A. de la Rive's Memoir of 



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 essentially 

 to give me a taste for chemical knowledge. You may therefore 

 easily imagine the pleasure I experienced when I subsequently 

 made the personal acquaintance of Mrs. Marcet, and how de- 

 lighted I was when my thoughts went backward to contemplate 

 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 testimony of my gratitude to my first in- 

 structress." 



"1 have the same sentiments towards the memory of your 

 own father," adds Faraday; "for he was, I may say, the first 

 who encouraged and sustained me, first at Geneva when I had 

 the pleasure of seeing him there, and afterwards by the corre- 

 spondence which I regularly maintained with him." 



Faraday 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 

 w T ith him which were interrupted only by death. At the time 

 when he travelled with Davy, Faraday was his assistant at the 

 Royal Institution in London ; and 1 must say that he has more 

 than once expressed to me, both by letter and viva voce, his 

 thankfulness to the eminent chemist, who had admitted him to 

 one of his courses, and consented, after running through the 

 notes of this course prepared by the young pupil, to take him 

 for his assistant. 



After the journey just referred to, Faraday, with the exception 

 of rare and short absences, never again quitted the Royal Insti- 

 tution, where he had his laboratory and his residence. Married 

 to a lady worthy of him, and who shared and understood all his 

 impressions and ail his sentiments, he passed a life equally 

 peaceful and modest. He refused all the honorary distinctions 

 which the government of his country wished to confer upon him ; 

 he contented himself with a moderate salary and with a pension 

 of £300 sterling, which fully sufficed for his wants ; and accepted 

 nothing supplementary to this except the enjoyment, during 

 the summer, in the latter years of his life, of a country house at 

 Hampton Court, which the Queen of England graciously placed 

 at his disposal. 



Without children, a complete stranger to politics or to any 

 kind of administration, except that of the Royal Institution, 

 which he directed as he would have directed his own house, 



