On the Nature of the Earths. 65 



inadequate to the task they have allotted themselves, and 

 whose illiberal spirit would draw a veil over that merit, the 

 lustre of which is painful to the blinking eyes of envy and 

 detraction. I say, Mr. Davy's discoveries are glorious — for 

 they were not the result of a parcel of guesses ; but (as most 

 justly observed by Tribunus, in the Times of the 5th of this 

 month *,) of a fine train of reasoning, from data of his 

 oi07i. And I am at a loss which to admire most, the pene- 

 tration 



* Tribunus, in the article alluded to by Pkilalethes Jun., expresses 

 himself thus : — " The (Edinburgh) reviewers begin with pouring forth their 

 admiration of the late discoveries which have been made by the agency of 

 Galvanism; and it might have been expected that joy should have produced 

 some feelings of complacency towards the author. But no; — having men- 

 tioned the name of Newton, they were seized with a superstitious horror, 

 lest they should have been supposed to compare the living with the dead. In 

 their zeal to expiate this imaginary offence, they treat the author of the 

 Bakerian Lecture with a levity bordering on insolent contempt : they attri- 

 bute his successes to chance, forgetting that the data on which the late brilliant 

 experiments were founded were supplied by his own previous discoveries. The name 

 of Newton (and be it ever venerated with piety, but without superstition,) 

 still inspires some secret, mysterious feeling of fear : fear leads to injustice, 

 injustice to inconsistency : thus, though they smile at the Royal Institution in 

 one sentence, they exalt it in another ; and without allowing the author any 

 other merit than his dexterous manipulations, they attribute to its magnificent 

 apparatus all the honour of his discovery. Finally, with an awkward con- 

 sciousness, they declare, that ' they throw out these things from no invidious 

 motive, but merely from a desire to reduce things to their proper level, and 

 just proportions ; and to qualify a little of that excessive admiration-which has 

 lately been excited by Air. Davy's discoveries, not unnaturally, but very ex- 

 travagantly, and, as usually happens in such cases, to the great detriment of 

 sober inquiry.' That they were actuated by no invidious motive, I am will- 

 ing to believe ; candour scorns to attribute an intention to commit injury, 

 where no such power is found to exist. The authority of criticism extends 

 only to those subjects of which opinion is the arhitress : a mere hypothesis is 

 open to its inquisition, but facts are not alterable by human reasoning : the 

 experimental philosopher is equally independent of popular suffrage or lite- 

 rary censure : in his works he shall be essayed by time — he shall become the 

 fellow-labourer of posterity : his fame is formed of other elements than the 

 smiles or frowns of cotemporaries : he may receive titles of distinction from 

 men, but his real dignity can alone be derived from truth. Having exone- 

 rated the Edinburgh reviewers from all invidious motives, 1 confess I am at 

 a loss to find any rational explanation of their conduct : it has probably been 

 dictated by solicitude to prevent the excessive admiration inspired by JVTr. 

 Pavy from exciting visronary speculations in science ; it is even possible that 

 it originated in an apprehension that his transcendent success might damp 



Vol. 32. No. 125. Oct. 1808. £ the 



