Chapter III

THE PNEUMATIC INSTITUTION, BRISTOL, 1798-1801 (_continued_).

Perhaps at no time of his life was Davy more keenly sensible of the joy of living than at this period--“in the flower and freshness of his youth,” as Southey says. That he was eager, active, buoyant, happy, is obvious from his letters. He had the sweet consciousness of success, and all the sweeter that it had so quickly followed the bitterness of disappointment. He had been able to measure himself against some of the ablest minds of the time--of men who were making the intellectual history of the early part of this century--and the comparison, we may be sure, was not altogether unpleasing to him.

The love of fame--“the honourable meed of the applause of enlightened men,” as he called it--was his ruling passion and the motive principle of his life. As his experience and the range of his knowledge widened, he felt a growing conviction that with health and strength he need set no bounds to the limits of his ambition.

Of the impression he made on others, and of the influence and power he exerted on minds far more matured than his own, we have abundant evidence in the letters of his contemporaries. Miss Edgeworth’s good-humoured patronage quickly passed into amazement and ended in awe. Writing to William Taylor of Norwich, Southey calls Davy “a miraculous young man, whose talents I can only wonder at.” Amos Cottle, poet and publisher, to whom he was introduced shortly after his arrival at Bristol, says of him in the “Reminiscences of Coleridge and Southey”:--

“I was much struck with the intellectual character of his face.
His eye was piercing, and when not engaged in converse, was
remarkably introverted, amounting to absence, as though his mind
had been pursuing some severe train of thought scarcely to be
interrupted by external objects; and, from the first interview
also, his ingenuousness impressed me as much as his mental
superiority.”

Cottle on one occasion said to Coleridge, “During your stay in London you doubtless saw a great many of what are called the cleverest men--how do you estimate Davy in comparison with these?” Mr. Coleridge’s reply was strong but expressive: “Why, Davy can eat them all! There is an energy, an elasticity, in his mind which enables him to seize on and analyse all questions, pushing them to their legitimate consequences. Every subject in Davy’s mind has the principle of vitality. Living thoughts spring up like turf under his feet.” It can hardly be doubted that Davy’s connection with that remarkable literary coterie which made its headquarters in the neighbourhood of Bristol in the last year of the eighteenth century, strongly stimulated his intellectual activity. In one of his poems written at this period he speaks of having

“felt the warmth,
The gentle influence of congenial souls,
Whose kindred hopes have cheer’d me”

That these “congenial souls” in turn felt his influence no less strongly will be apparent from the following letters--the first from Southey, who then resided at Westbury, the others from Coleridge, who had just removed to the Lake country:--

“Thursday, _May 4th, 1799_.

“Your ‘Mount’s Bay,’ my dear Davy, disappointed me in its length.
I expected more, and wished more, because what there is is good;
there is a certain swell, an elevation in the flow of the blank
verse, which, I do not know how, produces an effect like the
fulness of an organ-swell upon the feeling. I have felt it from
the rhythm of Milton, and sometimes of Akenside, a pleasure
wholly independent from that derived from the soul of the poetry,
arising from the beauty of the body only. I believe a man who did
not understand a word of it would feel pleasure and emotion at
hearing such lines read with the tone of a poet....

“I must not press the subject of poetry upon you, only do not
lose the feeling and the habit of seeing all things with a poet’s
eye; at Bristol you have a good society, but not a man who knows
anything of poetry. Dr. Beddoes’ taste is very pessimism. Cottle
only likes what his friends and himself write. Every person
fancies himself competent to pronounce upon the merits of a poem,
and yet no trade requires so long an apprenticeship, or involves
the necessity of such multifarious knowledge....

“At Lymouth I saw Tobin’s friend Williams who opened upon me
with an account of the gaseous oxide. I had the advantage of
him, having felt what he it seems had only seen. Lymouth where
he is fixed is certainly the most beautiful place I have seen in
England, so beautiful that all the after-scenes come flat and
uninteresting. The Valley of Stones is about half a mile distant,
a strange and magnificent place, which ought to have filled
the whole neighbourhood with traditions of giants, devils, and
magicians, but I could find none, not even a lie preserved. I
know too little of natural history to hypothesize upon the cause
of this valley; it appeared to me that nothing but water could
have so defleshed and laid bare the bones of the earth--that
any inundation which could have overtopped these heights must
have deluged the kingdom; but the opposite hills are clothed
with vegetable soil and verdure, therefore the cause must have
been partial--a waterspout might have occasioned it perhaps--and
there my conjectures rested, or rather took a new direction to
the pre-Adamite kings, the fiends who married Diocletian’s fifty
daughters--their giant progeny, old Merlin and the builders of
the Giant’s Causeway.

“For the next Anthology I project a poem on our Clifton rocks;
the scenery is fresh in my sight, and these kind of poems derive
a more interesting cast as _recollections_ than as immediate
pictures. Farewell. Yours truly,

“ROBERT SOUTHEY.”

* * * * *

“Keswick, Friday Evening, _July 25, 1800_.

“MY DEAR DAVY,--Work hard, and if success do not dance up like
the bubbles in the salt (with the spirit lamp under it[C]) may
the Devil and his dam take success! My dear fellow! from the
window before me there is a great _camp_ of mountains. Giants
seem to have pitched their tents there. Each mountain is a
giant’s tent, and how the light streams from them! Davy! I _ache_
for you to be with us.

“W. Wordsworth is such a lazy fellow, that I bemire myself by
making promises for him: the moment I received your letter, I
wrote to him. He will, I hope, write immediately to Biggs and
Cottle. At all events, these poems must not as yet be delivered
up to them, because that beautiful poem, ‘The Brothers,’ which I
read to you in Paul Street, I neglected to deliver to you, and
that must begin the volume. I trust, however, that I have invoked
the sleeping bard with a spell so potent, that he will awake and
deliver up that Sword of Argantyr, which is to rive the enchanter
_Gaudyverse_ from his crown to his feet.

“What did you think of that case I translated for you from the
German? That I was a well-meaning sutor who had ultra-crepidated
with more zeal than wisdom!! I give myself credit for that word
‘ultra-crepidated,’ it started up in my brain like a creation....

“We drank tea the night before I left Grasmere, on the island
in that lovely lake; our kettle swung over the fire, hanging
from the branch of a fir-tree, and I lay and saw the woods, and
mountains, and lake all trembling, and as it were idealized
through the subtle smoke, which rose up from the clear red embers
of the fir-apples which we had collected; afterwards we made a
glorious bonfire on the margin, by some elder bushes, whose twigs
heaved and sobbed in the uprushing column of smoke, and the image
of the bonfire, and of us that danced round it, ruddy, laughing
faces in the twilight; the image of this in a lake, smooth as
that sea, to whose waves the Son of God had said, _Peace!_ May
God, and all his sons, love you as I do.

“S. T. COLERIDGE.

“Sara desires her kind remembrances. Hartley is a spirit that
dances on an aspen leaf: the air that yonder sallow-faced and
yawning tourist is breathing, is to my babe a perpetual nitrous
oxide....”

[C] Doubtless an allusion to the decomposition of ammonium
nitrate, which Coleridge had frequently seen Davy effect.

* * * * *

“Thursday night, _Oct. 9, 1800_.

“MY DEAR DAVY,--I was right glad, glad with a _stagger_ of the
heart, to see your writing again. Many a moment have I had all
my France and England curiosity suspended and lost, looking in
the advertisement front column of the Morning Post Gazetteer,
for _Mr. Davy’s Galvanic habitudes of charcoal_. Upon my soul,
I believe there is not a letter in those words round which a
world of imagery does not circumvolve; your room, the garden, the
cold bath, the moonlit rocks ... and dreams of wonderful things
attached to your name.... I pray you do write to me immediately,
and tell me what you mean by the possibility of your assuming a
new occupation; have you been successful to the extent of your
expectations in your late chemical inquiries?...

“As to myself, I am doing little worthy the relation. I write
for Stuart in the Morning Post, and I am compelled by the god
Pecunia, which was one name of the supreme Jupiter, to give a
volume of letters from Germany, which will be a decent _lounge_
book, and not an atom more. The Christabel was running up to
1,300 lines, and was so much admired by Wordsworth, that he
thought it indelicate to print two volumes with his name, in
which so much of another man’s was included.... We mean to
publish the Christabel, therefore, with a long blank-verse
of Wordsworth’s, entitled The Pedlar [afterwards changed to
‘The Excursion’]. I assure you I think very differently of
_Christabel_. I would rather have written Ruth and Nature’s Lady,
than a million such poems. But why do I calumniate my own spirit
by saying I would rather? God knows it is as delightful to me
that they _are_ written....

“Wordsworth is fearful you have been much teazed by the printers
on his account, but you can sympathise with him....

“When you write, and do write soon, tell me how I can get your
Essay on the Nitrous Oxide.... Are your galvanic discoveries
important? What do they lead to? All this is _ultra-crepidation_,
but would to heaven I had as much knowledge as I have sympathy!...

“God bless you! Your most affectionate
“S. T. COLERIDGE.”

* * * * *

“Greta Hall, Tuesday night, _Dec. 2, 1800_.

“MY DEAR DAVY,--By an accident I did not receive your letter till
this evening. I would that you had added to the account of your
indisposition the probable causes of it. It has left me anxious
whether or no you have not exposed yourself to unwholesome
influences in your chemical pursuits. There are _few_ beings both
of hope and performance, but few who combine the ‘are’ and the
‘will be.’ For God’s sake, therefore, my dear fellow, do not rip
open the bird that lays the golden eggs....

“At times, indeed, I would fain be somewhat of a more tangible
utility than I am; but so I suppose it is with all of us--one
while cheerful, stirring, feeling in resistance nothing but a
joy and a stimulus; another while drowsy, self-distrusting,
prone to rest, loathing our own self-promises, withering our own
hopes--our hopes, the vitality and cohesion of our being?

“I purpose to have Christabel published by itself--this I publish
with confidence--but my travels in Germany come from me now with
mortal pangs.

“Wordsworth has nearly finished the concluding poem. It is of
a mild, unimposing character, but full of beauties to those
short-necked men who have their hearts sufficiently near their
heads--the relative distance of which (according to citizen
Tourder, the French translator of Spallanzani) determines the
sagacity or stupidity of all bipeds and quadrupeds....

“God love you!
“S. T. COLERIDGE.”

“No man ever had genius who did not aim to execute more than he was able.” So wrote Davy in one of his early note-books; and of no man was this more true than of Davy himself. Busy as he was with experimental research at this time, his mind was by no means wholly occupied with it. Change of mental occupation was, indeed, a necessity to him. At no period of his life could he exercise that power of sustained and concentrated thought which so strikingly characterised Newton or Dalton or Faraday. The following scheme of intellectual work which he marked out for himself shortly after his arrival in Bristol, is characteristic of the restless, changeful activity of his mind:--

“_Resolution_: To work two hours with pen before breakfast on the ‘Lover of Nature’; and ‘The Feelings of Eldon’ from six till eight; from nine till two in experiments; from four to six, reading; seven till ten, metaphysical reading (_i.e._ ‘System of the Universe’).” The “Lover of Nature” and “The Feelings of Eldon” were two among the half-dozen romances he projected at one time or other, and of which fragments were found amongst his papers, and by means of which he intended to inculcate his own metaphysical and philosophical ideas and his views on education and the development of character. Dr. John Davy tells us that his note-books at this period were not less characteristic; “they contain, mixed together, without the least regard to order, schemes and minutes of experiments, passing thoughts of various kinds, lines of poetry (but these are in small proportion), fragments of stories and romances, metaphysical fragments, and sketches of philosophical essays.”

Many of these jottings and reflections are evidently based on his own experience, and hence serve to illustrate his temperament and the workings of his mind. In an essay on “Genius,” written at this time, he says:--

“Great powers have never been exerted independent of strong
feelings. The rapid arrangements of ideas, from their various
analogies to the equally rapid comparisons of these analogies,
with facts uniformly occurring during the progress of discovery,
have existed only in those minds where the agency of strong and
various motives is perceived--of motives modifying each other,
mingling with each other, and producing that fever of emotion,
which is the joy of existence and the consciousness of life.”

The following extracts relate to science and philosophy:--

“Philosophy is simple and intelligible. We owe confused systems
to men of vague and obscure ideas.”

“We ought to reason from effects alone. False philosophy has
uniformly depended upon making use of words which signify no
definite ideas.”

“Experimental science hardly ever affords us more than
approximations to truth; and whenever many agents are concerned
we are in great danger of being mistaken.”

“Scepticism in regard to theory is what we ought most rigorously
to adhere to.”

“The feeling generally connected with new facts enables us to
reason more rapidly upon them, and is peculiarly active in
calling up analogies.”

“Probabilities are the most we can hope for in our
generalisation, and whenever we can trace the connection
of a series of facts, without being obliged to imagine
certain relations, we may esteem ourselves fortunate in our
approximations.”

“One use of physical science is, that it gives definite ideas.”

To the same period belongs the sketch or plan of a poem, in blank verse, in six books, on the deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt, which either Southey or Coleridge had proposed to him as a joint-work, fragments of which are to be found amongst the note-books.

Towards the end of 1800 Davy’s visions of future greatness began to take more definite shape. This is hinted at in the letter from Coleridge of October 9th, 1800, already given, and also in one to his mother, dated September 27th, 1800, in which he says, “My future prospects are of a very brilliant nature, and they have become more brilliant since I last wrote to you; but wherever there is uncertainty I shall refrain from anticipating.”

In a few months the uncertainty was practically at an end.

He had been drawn into the great vortex called London, “full,” as he says in a letter to Hope, “of the expectation of scientific discovery from the action of mind upon mind in this great hot-bed, of human power.” He thus informs his mother:--

“_31st January, 1801._

“MY DEAR MOTHER,--During the last three weeks I have been very
much occupied by business of a very serious nature. This has
prevented me from writing to you, to my aunt, and to Kitty. I
now catch a few moments only of leisure to inform you that I
am exceedingly well, and that I have had proposals of a very
flattering nature to induce me to leave the Pneumatic Institution
for a permanent establishment in London.

“You have perhaps heard of the Royal Philosophical Institution,
established by Count Rumford, and others of the aristocracy. It
is a very splendid establishment, and wants only a combination of
talents to render it eminently useful.

“Count Rumford has made proposals to me to settle myself there,
with the present appointment of assistant lecturer on chemistry,
and experimenter to the Institute; but this only to prepare the
way for my being in a short time sole professor of chemistry,
&c.; an appointment as honourable as any scientific appointment
in the kingdom, with an income of at least 500_l_ a year.

“I write to-day to get the specific terms of the present
appointment, when I shall determine whether I shall accept of
it or not. Dr. Beddoes has honourably absolved me from all
engagements at the Pneumatic Institution, provided I choose to
quit it. However, I have views here which I am loath to leave,
unless for very great advantages.

“You will all, I dare say, be glad to see me getting amongst the
_Royalists_, but I will accept of no appointment except upon the
sacred terms of _independence_....

“I am your most affectionate son
“H. DAVY.”

In the middle of February he was in London negotiating with Rumford. He wrote to his mother, “His proposals have not been unfair, and I have nearly settled the business.” How the business was actually settled appears from the following extract from the Minute Book of the Royal Institution of a resolution adopted at a Meeting of the Managers on February 16th, 1801:--

“Resolved--That Mr. Humphry Davy be engaged in the service of the
Royal Institution, in the capacities of Assistant Lecturer in
Chemistry, Director of the Laboratory, and Assistant Editor of
the Journals of the Institution, and that he be allowed to occupy
a room in the house, and be furnished with coals and candles; and
that he be paid a salary of one hundred guineas per annum.”

He returned to Bristol to hand over his charge of the Pneumatic Institution, and to take leave of his many friends in that city. The following letter to Mr. Davies Gilbert is interesting and characteristic:--

“Hotwells, _March 8th, 1801_.

“I cannot think of quitting the Pneumatic Institution, without
giving you intimation of it in a letter; indeed, I believe
I should have done this some time ago, had not the hurry of
business, and the fever of emotion produced by the prospect of
novel changes in futurity, destroyed to a certain extent my
powers of consistent action.

“You, my dear Sir, have behaved to me with great kindness, and
the little ability I possess you have very much contributed to
develope; I should therefore accuse myself of ingratitude were I
to neglect to ask your approbation of the measures I have adopted
with regard to the change of my situation, and the enlargement of
my views in life.

“In consequence of an invitation from Count Rumford, given to
me with some proposals relative to the Royal Institution, I
visited London in the middle of February, where, after several
conferences with that gentleman, I was invited by the Managers of
the Royal Institution to become the Director of their laboratory,
and their Assistant Professor of Chemistry; at the same time I
was assured that, within the space of two or three seasons, I
should be made sole Professor of Chemistry, still continuing
Director of the laboratory.

“The immediate emolument offered was sufficient for my wants;
and the sole and uncontrolled use of the apparatus of the
Institution, for private experiments, was to be granted me. The
behaviour of Count Rumford, Sir Joseph Banks, Mr. Cavendish, and
the other principal managers, was liberal and polite; and they
promised me any apparatus that I might need for new experiments.

“The time required to be devoted to the services of the
Institution was but short, being limited chiefly to the winter
and spring. The emoluments to be attached to the office of sole
Professor of Chemistry are great; and, above all, the situation
is permanent, and held very honourable.

“These motives, joined to the approbation of Dr. Beddoes, who
with great liberality has absolved me from my engagements at
the Pneumatic Institution, and the strong wishes of most of my
friends in London and Bristol, determined my conduct.

“Thus I am quickly to be transferred to London, whilst my sphere
of action is considerably enlarged, and as much power as I could
reasonably expect, or even wish for at my time of life, secured
to me without the obligation of labouring at a profession.

“The Royal Institution will, I hope, be of some utility to
Society. It has undoubtedly the capability of becoming a great
instrument of moral and intellectual improvement. Its funds
are very great. It has attached to it the feelings of a great
number of people of fashion and property, and consequently may
be the means of employing, to useful purposes, money which
would otherwise be squandered in luxury, and in the production
of unnecessary labour. Count Rumford professes that it will be
kept distinct from party politics; I sincerely wish that such
may be the case, though I fear it. As for myself, I shall become
attached to it full of hope, with the resolution of employing all
my feeble powers towards promoting its true interests.

“So much of my paper has been given to pure egotism, that I have
but little room left to say anything concerning the state of
science....

“Here, at the Pneumatic Institution, the nitrous oxide has
evidently been of use. Dr. Beddoes is proceeding in the execution
of his great popular physiological work, which, if it equals the
plan he holds out, ought to supersede every work of the kind.

“I have been pursuing Galvanism with labour, and some success. I
have been able to produce galvanic power from simple plates, by
effecting on them different oxidating and de-oxidating processes;
but on this point I cannot enlarge in the small remaining space
of paper....

“It will give me sincere pleasure to hear from you, when you are
at leisure. After the 11th I shall be in town--my direction,
Royal Institution, Albemarle Street. I am, my dear friend, with
respect and affection,

“Yours,
“HUMPHRY DAVY.”

With Davy’s departure we, too, may take our leave of the Pneumatic Institution. Like most of Dr. Beddoes’s performances, it--to use Davy’s words--failed to equal the plan its projector held out. It struggled on for awhile, living on such success as Davy had brought it, and ultimately died of inanition. Its founder ended his days a disappointed man, and on his deathbed wrote to his former assistant, in connection with whom his memory mainly lives, “like one who has scattered abroad the _Avena fatua_ of knowledge, from which neither branch, nor blossom, nor fruit, has resulted, I require the consolations of a friend.”