HUMPHRY DAVY, 1778-1829. SIR HUMPHRY DAVY, who ranks as a man of science second to none in the nineteenth century, was born at Penzance, in Cornwall, on the 17th of December, 1778. He was early bound as an apprentice to a surgeon and apothecary of his native town, who had a great fondness for chemical experiments. Here young Davy found what was entirely congenial to his tastes; and with such extraordinary enthusiasm did he devote himself to these pursuits, that he abandoned all the usual enjoyments and relaxations of youth and showed an aversion to all festive society. His success in scientific inquiries in a few years became known and appreciated, and he was engaged as an assistant to Dr. Beddoes in the Pneumatic Institution at Bristol. In 1803 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, of which he subsequently became secretary, and finally President. Besides six Discourses delivered before this Society, at their anniversary meetings, there are recorded fifty-one Treatises and Lectures on various scientific subjects, contributed to its "Transactions" in the course of twenty-five years. But that for which he is most widely known is the invention of the "Safety Lamp," which enabled miners to work in perfect safety, where before dreadful accidents were constantly occurring. This was so appreciated by the coal-owners of the north of England, that they invited him to a public dinner at Newcastle, and presented him a service of plate valued at £2000. The Emperor of Russia also sent him a splendid silver vase, as a testimony of regard; and he was created a baronet. But his constant labors had such an effect upon his constitution that in 1828 he resigned the presidency of the Royal Society and went to Italy for the benefit of his health, where he amused himself in writing Salmonia, or Days of Fly-Fishing, and his Consolations in Travel, or the Last Days of a Philosopher. These last days were fast approaching: he quitted Italy in a very weak state, but had only reached Geneva on his way home, when he died there, on the morning of the 30th of May, 1829. Sir Humphry Davy combined qualities rarely found united,-great quickness of perception, a peculiarly retentive memory, a love for laborious investigation, with a highly poetical imagination. As to his poetic talent, let Coleridge pronounce judgment: "Had not Davy been the first chemist, he probably would have been the first poet, of his age." THE PLEASURES AND ADVANTAGES OF FISHING. The search after food is an instinct belonging to our nature; and from the savage in his rudest and most primitive state, who destroys a piece of game or a fish with a club or spear, to man in the most cultivated state of society, who employs artifice, machinery, and the resources of various other animals, to secure his object, the origin of the pleasure is similar, and its object the 1 "I value it," he used to say, with the kindliest exultation, "more than any thing I ever did: it was the result of a great deal of investigation and labor; but, if my directions be attended to, it will save the lives of thousands of poor men." Posterity will be grateful for these generous words; for "He who works me good with unmoved face Does it but half: he chills me while he aids,My benefactor, not my brother man." same but that kind of it requiring most art may be said to characterize man in his highest or intellectual state; and the fisher for salmon and trout with the fly, employs not only machinery to assist his physical powers, but applies sagacity to conquer difficulties; and the pleasure derived from ingenious resources and devices, as well as from active pursuit, belongs to this amusement. Then as to its philosophical tendency, it is a pursuit of moral discipline, requiring patience, forbearance, and command of temper. As connected with natural science, it may be vaunted as demanding a knowledge of the habits of a considerable tribe of created beings,-fishes, and the animals that they prey upon, and an acquaintance with the signs and tokens of the weather and its changes, the nature of waters, and of the atmosphere. As to its poetical relations, it carries us into the most wild and beautiful scenery of nature; among the mountain lakes, and the clear and lovely streams that gush from the higher ranges of elevated hills, or that make their way through the cavities of calcareous strata. How delightful in the early spring, after the dull and tedious time of winter, when the frosts disappear and the sunshine warms the earth and waters, to wander forth by some clear stream, to see the leaf bursting from the purple bud, to scent the odors of the bank perfumed by the violet, and enamelled, as it were, with the primrose and the daisy; to wander upon the fresh turf below the shade of trees, whose bright blossoms are filled with the music of the bee; and on the surface of the waters to view the gaudy flies sparkling like animated gems in the sunbeams, while the bright and beautiful trout is watching them from below; to hear the twittering of the waterbirds, who, alarmed at your approach, rapidly hide themselves beneath the flowers and leaves of the water-lily; and, as the season advances, to find all these objects changed for others of the same kind, but better and brighter, till the swallow and the trout contend, as it were, for the gaudy May-fly, and till, in pursuing your amusement in the calm and balmy evening, you are serenaded by the songs of the cheerful thrush and melodious nightingale, performing the offices of paternal love, in thickets ornamented with the rose and woodbine! THE BLESSINGS OF RELIGIOUS FAITH. I envy no quality of the mind or intellect in others; not genius, power, wit, or fancy: but if I could choose what would be most delightful, and I believe most useful, to me, I should prefer a firm religious belief to every other blessing; for it makes life a discipline of goodness,-creates new hopes, when all earthly hopes vanish, and throws over the decay, the destruction of existence, the most gorgeous of all lights; awakens life even in death, and from corruption and decay calls up beauty and divinity; makes an instrument of torture and of shame the ladder of ascent to paradise; and, far above all combinations of earthly hopes, calls up the most delightful visions of palms and amaranths, the gardens of the blest, the security of everlasting joys, where the sensualist and the skeptic view only gloom, decay, annihilation, and despair! THE TEMPEST. The tempest has darken'd the face of the skies, And mingle the clouds with the white foaming main. All dark is the night and all gloomy the shore, But though now all is murky and shaded with gloom, And enamor'd embrace the fair, sweet-smiling peace. For the bright blushing morning, all rosy with light, Then the warblers of Spring shall attune the soft lay, If the tempests of nature so soon sink to rest, By the tempests of passion, of sorrow, and pain? Ah, no! for his passions and sorrows shall cease And shall not this night, and its long dismal gloom, SUPPLEMENTARY LIST OF AUTHORS Who Died in the Third Decade of the Nineteenth Century; OR FROM 1820 TO 1829 INCLUSIVE. Aikin, John, M.D. (1747–1822), a London physician, published Evenings at Home, six volumes, 1795; written in conjunction with his sister, Mrs. Barbauld, though she wrote not more than a sixth of the whole. It was about the first attempt to bring science to the knowledge of general readers, and it is still a deservedly popular book. Dr. Aikin also edited the British Poets, in 10 volumes. Chalmers, George (1742-1825), a Scotch historian, published Caledonia (or, Antiquities and Early History of Scotland); A Life of Mary Queen of Scots; A History of the United Colonies; A Life of Sir David Lyndsay, &c. Clapperton, Hugh (1788-1827), a distinguished African traveller, published Travels and Discoveries in Northern and Central Africa in the Years 1822-24; and Journal of a Second Expedition, &c. To this a Memoir and Life is prefixed, Records of Captain Clapperton's Last Expedition into Africa, by Richard Lander." Clark, Edward Daniel (1769-1822), traveller, published very interesting and instructive volumes of Travels in Russia, Tartary, Greece, Egypt, Palestine, and in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, &c., the whole in eleven volumes 8vo. Combe, William (1741-1823), miscellaneous writer, published Letters of the late Lord Lyttleton: these were pseudo-letters, pretending to have been written by that "Wicked Lord Lyttleton": also, The Tour of Dr. Syntax in Search of the Picturesque; The Devil upon Two Sticks in England, &c. Coxe, William (1747-1828), Archdeacon of Wilts, published History of Austria; Memoirs of Walpole and Marlborough; Historical Tour in Monmouthshire, &c. His Travels and Historical Works have been published in thirty-five volumes 8vo.1 Gifford, William (1756–1826), poet, translator, and critic. At the age of fifteen apprenticed to a shoemaker; exhibiting much talent, was sent, by the kindness of some friends, to Exeter College, Oxford, where he distinguished himself as a scholar. In 1794 published The Baviad, a satirical poem, directed against the "Della Cruscans." This was followed by 1 "Coxe's writings throw more light on the history of England from the accession of the bouse of Brunswick than any other publication whatever."-LOWNDES. "Della Crusca," literally, of the Sieve.This was the name of an Academy in Florence, founded for the purpose of sifting or purifying the Italian language and style. In the latter part of the last century some English people at Florence put forth a volume of very poor and affected rhymes, under the title of The Florence Miscellany. The infection spread The Mariad in 1796. In 1802 he translated Juvenal. But he is most known as the editor of the Quarterly Review, which he edited from the year it was started (1808) by Sir Walter Scott until 1824. His political prejudices were too strong, and his feelings too bitter, to enable him to do justice to any writer who was on the liberal side in politics. Hayley, William (1745-1820), best known as the first biographer of Cowper, published Triumphs of Temper; a poem in six cantos on History; Essays on Painting; on Epic Poetry; Life of Milton, &c. Hunter, Anne (1742-1821), wife of the celebrated anatomist John Hunter, published a very creditable volume of fugitive poetry. Inchbald, Mrs. Elizabeth (1753-1821), actress and novelist, produced a number of popular plays, the best of which are A Simple Story, and Nature and Art. Knox, William (1789-1825), a religious poet, author of The Lonely Hearth; Songs of Israel; The Harp of Zion, &c. Lee, Sophia (1750-1824), author of various novels and tales. Her chief claim to notice, like that of her sister Harriet (1756-1851), rests on the Canterbury Tales, of which she furnished two,-The Young Lady's Tale, and The Clergyman's Tale. Maturin, Charles Robert, dramatist and novelist, was curate of St. Peter's, Dublin. His tragedies were Bertram and Manuel, the former of which is highly commended by Sir Walter Scott: his novels were The Milesian Chief; Women; The Wild Irish Boy; and Melmoth the Wanderer. He died in 1824. Mitford, William (1744–1827), historian, published (1784-1818) A History of Grecce, five volumes quarto, since published in ten volumes 8vo. For half a century this was considered the standard history of Greece, but it has been superseded by the more correct and able works of Thirlwall and Grote. Mitford looks at his subject from an aristocratic, Grote from a democratic, stand-point. Nichols, John (1745-1826), for nearly half a century the editor of the Gentleman's Magazine, and a most learned antiquarian, is known chiefly for his Biographical and Literary Anecdotes of William Bowyer, Printer, and his Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century,-fifteen volumes,a perfect storehouse of information concerning prominent men of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries, being for this period what old Anthony Wood's Athena Oroniensis is for the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Parr, Dr. Samuel (1745-1825), curate at Hatton, Warwickshire, was distinguished for his great learning and pre-eminent conversational powers. His works, chiefly philological, were published by John Johnstone, M.D., in 1828, in eight volumes 8vo. Pinkerton, John (1758-1825), is chiefly known for his General Collection to England, and a writer of the same school- For a 1 See some specimens in the Compendium of Classical Literature, 2" Hayley's Epistles on Painting, History, and Epic Poetry, written in smooth, correct, and flowing versification, but not unfrequently deficient in energy and compression, inculcate much elegant and judicious criticism, and diffuse much light over their respective subjects." -DR. DRAKE. |