308—to the Hon. Augusta Leigh
[Sunday], June 27th, 1813.
My Dearest Augusta
,—If
you
like to go with me to ye Lady Davy's
to-night, I
have
an invitation for you.
There you will see the
Stael
, some people whom you know, and
me
whom you do
not
know,—and you can talk to which you please, and I will watch over you as if you were unmarried and in danger of always being so. Now do as you like; but if you chuse to array yourself before or after half past ten, I will call for you. I think our being together before 3d people will be a new
sensation
to
both
.
Ever yours,
B.
Footnote 1:
Sir Humphry Davy (1778-1829), the son of a wood-carver of Penzance, was apprenticed to John Borlase, a surgeon at Penzance, in whose dispensary he became a chemist. He wrote poetry as a young man, but soon abandoned the pursuit for science. Two poems on Byron by Davy, one written in 1823, the other in 1824, will be found in Dr. Davy's
Memoirs of the Life of Sir H. Davy
, vol. ii. pp. 168, 169. In October, 1798, he joined Dr. Beddoes at Bristol, where he superintended the laboratory at his Pneumatic Institution. His
Researches, Chemical and Philosophical
(1799), made him famous. At the Royal Institution in London, founded in 1799, Davy became assistant-lecturer in chemistry, and director of the chemical laboratory. There his lecture-room was crowded by some of the most distinguished men and women of the day. Within the next few years his discoveries in electricity and galvanism, (1806-7) brought him European celebrity; his lectures on agricultural chemistry (1810) marked a fresh era in farming, and inaugurated the new movement of "science with practice." His famous discovery of the Safety Lamp was made in 1816. He was created a baronet in 1818. A skilful fisherman, he wrote, when in declining health,
Salmonia, or Days of Fly-fishing
, published in 1827. Ticknor (
Life
, vol. i. p. 57), speaking of Davy in 1815, says,
"He is now about thirty-three, but with all the freshness and bloom of five-and-twenty, and one of the handsomest men I have seen in England. He has a great deal of vivacity, talks rapidly, though with great precision, and is so much interested in conversation, that his excitement amounts to nervous impatience, and keeps him in constant motion."
Davy married, in 1812, a rich widow, Jane Aprecce,
née
Kerr (1780-1855). The marriage brought him wealth; but it also, it is said, impaired the simplicity of his character, and made him ambitious of social distinction. Miss Berry (
Journal
, vol. ii. p. 535) supped with Lady Davy in May, 1813, to meet the Princess of Wales, and notes that among the other guests was Byron. Lady Davy, who was so dark a brunette that Sydney Smith said she was as brown as a dry toast, was for many years a prominent figure in the society of London and Rome. It was of her that Madame de Staël said that she had "all Corinne's talents without her faults or extravagances." Ticknor, who called on her in June, 1815,
"found her in her parlour, working on a dress, the contents of her basket strewed about the table, and looking more like home than anything since I left it. She is small, with black eyes and hair, a very pleasant face, an uncommonly sweet smile, and, when she speaks, has much spirit and expression in her countenance. Her conversation is agreeable, particularly in the choice and variety of her phraseology, and has more the air of eloquence than I have ever heard before from a lady."
(
Life of George Ticknor
, vol. i. P. 57).
