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MICHAEL FARADAY.

1791-1867.

IR HUMPHREY DAVY has the honour to inform the Managers, that he has found a person who is desirous to occupy the situation in the Institution lately filled by William Payne. His name is Michael Faraday. He is a youth of twenty-two years of age. As far as Sir H. Davy has been able to observe, or ascertain, he appears well fitted for the situation; his habits seem good, his disposition active and cheerful, and his manner intelligent. He is willing to engage himself on the same terms as those given to Mr. Payne at the time of quitting the Institution.-Resolved, that Michael Faraday be engaged to fill the situation lately occupied by Mr. Payne on the same terms."1 So runs the record of Faraday's first association with Davy, and of Faraday's first connexion with the Royal Institution;-incidents closely related, and destined to lead to wonderful results in the case of a poor and humble young man, and through him to enlarge the boundaries of science and to benefit the world to the end of time.

Faraday was a London lad, born in 1791; for some time he lived with his parents in the upper rooms of a coach-house in Wells Mews, Charles Street, Manchester

1 Dated March 1st, 1813.

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Square; then he removed to Blandford Street, where he was errand-boy to a bookseller and newsvendor. After he rose to high renown, he would point to the little urchins plying their trade round the door-steps of an omnibus, saying, "I always feel a tenderness for these boys, because I once carried newspapers myself." The passion for science soon appeared. Marcet's Conversations on Chemistry and the electrical treatises in the Encyclopedia Britannica wonderfully excited the curiosity and fired the aspirations of the young tyro, as he pondered the contents of the volumes; and with such pence as he could save he constructed an electrical machine, with a glass phial for want of a real cylinder. He learned to sketch, attended lectures, and availed himself of every book and every help he could lay hold of, to make his way through paths of knowledge at first beset with enormous difficulties. But he overcame them all.

The entry just quoted shows the turning-point in his history. First he became acquainted with Sir Humphrey Davy, and Sir Humphrey at that time was a sort of scientific prince, whose favour and patronage were of great value; whilst his knowledge and example could not but largely instruct and powerfully animate a youth of genius like Faraday. Faraday worked hard at the Royal Institution, engaged in such chemical preparations and experiments as he was able to undertake, and helped his master in every way he could. Sir Humphrey took the youth with him in a long tour on the Continent, which proved eminently beneficial in sharpening the youth's curiosity, enlarging his mind, bringing him within the circle of illustrious scientific foreigners, opening up to him methods of

inquiry pursued abroad, and enabling him to acquire a knowledge of other languages than his own-an acquisition of great worth to him in later days, when he attracted the attention of all Europe. The letters he wrote home during his travels are full of interest. He seems to have had an eye for almost everything worth looking at; but men and manners, perhaps more than Art, secured his notice; and nature in its scientific aspects stood high in the young traveller's regards. It is curious to find him one Sunday at Geneva, in 1814, examining a glow-worm. "This evening many glow-worms appeared; and of four which I had put in a tumbler with green leaves, two shone very brightly. I separated the luminous part of one in full vigour from the body. It soon faded, and in about ten minutes ceased to emit light; but on pressing it with a knife, so as to force the matter out of the skin, it again became luminous, and continued to shine for two hours brightly. One I found on the floor, crushed unawares by the foot. I separated the luminous part of this insect, and left it on paper. It shone with undiminished lustre the whole evening, and appeared not at all to have suffered in its power of emitting light by the mixture and confusion of its parts, so that it appears to depend more upon the chemical nature of the substance than upon the vital powers of the animal; but at the same time it appears from the variations in splendour accompanied by motions in the living animal, that it may be much influenced or modified by, or in some manner submitted to, the power of the worm." "The matter, which appears to fill the hinder part of the body in the shining season, is yellowish-white, soft, and glutinous. It is insoluble apparently in water or

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in alcohol. It does not immediately lose its power of shining in them, but it is sooner extinct in alcohol or in water." Hundreds of naturalists would examine glow-worms, and discover in them much that is wonderful; but here we see a naturalist and a chemist combined, and the chemist is more conspicuous than the naturalist, though young Faraday has more to say about the form and structure of the worm than we have space to quote.

Sir Humphrey, by taking his assistant abroad, and by the instructions he imparted to him at home,—by the employment he gave him at the Royal Institution, and by the general influence of his character and example, was to him a great benefactor; and Faraday was not slow to acknowledge the obligation. Ho spoke of his exalted friend in terms of strong admiration and deep gratitude; but it is very far from pleasant to find that Davy became jealous of the young man as he rose in knowledge and fame, and was unfriendly to his election as Fellow of the Royal Society time and circumstances, however, softened and, one would hope, at last extinguished this feeling. Moreover, it should be noticed that there were defects in Sir Humphrey which Faraday observed, and the observation of which, by a stroke of wisdom worth being imitated by those addicted to hero-worship, he turned to his own advantage. "With all his genius, Davy was hurt by his own great success. He had very little self-control and but little method and order. He gave Faraday every opportunity of studying the example which was set before him during the journey

1 Life and Letters of Faraday, vol. i. p. 144.

abroad, and during their constant intercourse in the laboratory of the Royal Institution; and Faraday has been known to say, that the greatest of all his advantages was, that he had a model to teach him what he should avoid."1

Faraday's connexion with the Royal Institution, which commenced in the manner we have seen, continued to the end of life; and when he became a lecturer, he rose to a height of popularity rarely equalled and never surpassed. Princes, nobles, and scientific men, rank and fashion, people of all classes, crowded the amphitheatre to listen to what he had to say, and to witness what he had to do. There was perfect harmony between his lessons and his experiments. Both the one and the other were clear, distinct, and pertinent. Neither confused in thought nor in expression, he conveyed a precise idea of his meaning; neither irrelevant nor blundering in his illustrations, he demonstrated what he said, and nailed down his arguments with resistless force. He had a happy method of teaching scientifically the humblest subjects, and could gracefully, without the touch of a pedant, communicate even profound information when discoursing on a tea-kettle. Children he could interest to an extraordinary degree, and his juvenile lectures were amongst his happiest efforts.

Dr. Tyndall has done justice to Faraday's qualities as a lecturer on science. The following extract will be appreciated by the scientific reader. It relates to terrestrial magneto-electric induction, and to the force and direction of magneto-electric induction.

1 Life and Letters of Faraday, vol. i.

p. 210.

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