We have thus, guided chiefly by the Memoir of which mention has been made above, pursued the principal triumphs of Sir Humphrey's splendid career, and described what he achieved, although cursorily and briefly, in such a manner, we trust, as to put even the unscientific reader in possession of a tolerably just view of the great discoveries on which his fame rests. In 1827, as we have already mentioned, his health had become so bad that he found it necessary to resign the presidency of the Royal Society. Immediately after this he proceeded to the Continent. During his absence from England, he still continued to prosecute his chemical researches, the results of which he communicated in several papers to the Royal Society. He also, notwithstanding his increasing weakness and sufferings, employed his leisure in literary composition on other subjects, an evidence of which appeared in his Salmonia, a treatise on fly-fishing, which he published in 1828. This little book is full of just and pleasing descriptions of some of the phenomena of nature, and is imbued with an amiable and contented spirit. His active mind, indeed, continued, it would seem, to exert itself to the last almost with as unwearied ardour as ever. Besides the volume we have just mentioned, another work, entitled The Last Days of a Philosopher, which he also wrote during this period, was given to the world after his death. He died at Geneva on the 30th of May 1829. He had only arrived in that city the day before; and having been attacked by apoplexy after he had gone to bed, expired at an early hour in the morning. No better evidence can be desired than that we have in the history of Davy that a long life is not necessary to enable an individual to make extraordinary advances in any intellectual pursuit to which he will devote himself with all his heart and strength. This eminent person was, indeed, early in the arena where he won his distinction; and the fact, as we have already remarked, is a proof how diligently he must have exercised his mental faculties during the few years that elapsed between his boyhood and his first appearance before the public, although during this time he had scarcely any one to guide his studies, or even to cheer him onward. Yet, notwithstanding that, he had taken his place, as we have seen, among the known chemists of the age almost before he was twenty-one; the whole of his brilliant career in that character, embracing so many experiments, so many literary productions, and so many splendid and valuable discoveries, extended only over a space of not quite thirty years. He had not completed his fifty eminence, both disregard and despise all other sorts of knowledge and acquirement. This first year when he died. Nor was Davy merely a man of science. His general acquirements were diversified and ex-is pedantry in its most vulgar tensive. He was familiar with and offensive form; for it is the principal Continental lan- not merely ignorant, but inguages, and wrote his own with tolerant. It speaks highly in an eloquence not usually found favour of the right constitution in scientific works. All his and the native power of Davy's writings, indeed, show the understanding, that, educated scholar, and the lover of elegant as he was, he escaped every literature, as well as the in- taint of this species of illibergenious and accomplished philo- ality; and that while, like sopher. It not unfrequently almost all those who have happens that able men, who greatly distinguished themselves have been their own instructors, in the world of intellect, he and have chosen for themselves selected and persevered in his some one field of exertion, in one favourite path, he neverthewhich the world acknowledges, less revered wisdom and genius and they themselves feel, their in all their manifestations. ferent circumstances, regulate, doubtless with more wisdom and success than could be attained by any artifice of human polity, the distribution of taste and talent and enterprise over the varied field of philosophy and art, no part of which is thus left altogether uncultivated. One man, from his original endowments, or his particular advantages of training or situation, is more fit for one line of exertion, another for another; and although the pursuits to which they are in this manner severally THE ambition of intellectual | placing them afterwards in difexcellence is, in truth, the same passion, by whichsoever of the many roads that lie open to it it may choose to pursue its object. The thing that is interesting and valuable is the purity and enduring strength of the passion. These are the qualities that make it both so inestimable in the possession, and so instructive in the exhibition. The mere department of study in which it displays itself is of inferior importance; for even if it should be contended that, of the various pursuits which demand the highest de-attracted may not, in the largest gree of intellectual application and devotion, one is yet better calculated than another to promote by its results the general improvement or happiness of mankind, it will scarcely be argued that even those of inferior value in this respect should not also have their followers. The arrangements of Providence, by forming men at first in different moulds, and view, be of equal importance, that is no reason why we should regret that there are labourers to engage in each. Indeed, the more truly enlightened any mind is, the less ready will it be to look with a feeling either of contempt or of slight respect upon any pursuit which has had power to call forth in an eminent degree the resources of the human intellect. The ground have already noticed the early difficulties and subsequent eminence of Salvator Rosa, Claude Lorraine, the Caravaggios, Opie, and many others. We will now proceed to sketch somewhat more in detail the unpromising circumstances of birth and original situation through which some of the other distinguished names in the history of English art have had to struggle into is holy wherever genius has won We are now about to notice the exertions made in pursuit of knowledge by some individuals, whose paths have been very different from those of the distinguished discoverers and inventors with whom we have just been engaged. But we shall find that, in every variety of intellectual enterprise, the same devotion and diligence have been exhibited by ardent and generous spirits; and that everywhere these qualities are the indispensable requisites for the attainment of excellence. By no class of students, perhaps, has a greater love of their chosen pursuit been displayed than by painters. We have already had occasion, indeed, to mention many names from this department of biography, in illustration of the force with which a passion for knowledge has often contended against the most depressing discouragements, and eventually subdued everything that would have prevented its gratification. We The first individual we shall mention was not, indeed, strictly speaking, a native of this country, though he was born a subject of the British crown; but as an artist, he belongs nevertheless to England. We speak of BENJAMIN WEST. He was born at Springfield, near Philadelphia, in North America, in the year 1738. His parents were Quakers, and he was the youngest of a family of ten children. It is related that his mother brought him into the world immediately after being frightened almost into convulsions by a sermon, in which the preacher scarcely relieved the horrors of a description which he gave of the coming destruction of the world on this side of the Atlantic by the assurance which he added of the happy destiny in reserve for America, where a new and better order of things was forthwith to arise and be perpetuated, after all vice and evil should have been swept. from the earth by that visitation of vengeance. This incident, seemingly of little importance, afterwards exercised considerable influence on the boy's history. The preacher, flattered by what he probably deemed a | proof of the powers of his oratory, continued to regard the child with feelings both of pride and kindness; and took pains to persuade his father that, born in such extraordinary circumstances, he would undoubtedly turn out no common man. We shall find immediately that these predictions were not thrown away either upon the father or the son. Meanwhile, however, Benjamin, as might be supposed, grew up without anything marvellous appearing about him, till he had completed his sixth year. Soon after this, one of his sisters, who was married, came to pay a visit to her parents, and brought her child with her. One day, Benjamin's mother having taken her daughter out with her to the garden, they left the child asleep in its cradle, and he was appointed to watch it. As he sat looking at his little niece, she happened to smile in her sleep; and he was so struck with the beauty of the infant, that, there being some paper and pens on the table, with red and black ink, he immediately attempted to make a drawing of her face. His effort, it would seem, was not altogether unsuccessful; for when his mother and sister returned, the former exclaimed at once, on obtaining a sight of the paper, which he tried to conceal, 'I declare he has made a likeness of little Sally.' Reassured by this, he was in an ecstasy of delight with his newfound art, and immediately offered to make drawings with his black and red ink of the flowers his sister had brought from the garden. So true and delicate a sensibility, thus early awakened, to the beauty of mere expression, showed the genius of the future painter even more than any skill in delineation he can well be supposed to have displayed in this first attempt. Perhaps the circumstance of the boy having been nurtured among the quiet and gentle. affections of a Quaker family was not unfavourable to the growth of so much of the poetical feeling, at least, as he showed on this occasion. When his father saw this drawing he began to ponder more deeply than ever on the prophecies of his friend the preacher, the fulfilment of which he, doubtless, thought was already begun. As for his son, he went on making ink sketches of birds and flowers, to his own great delight and the admiration of the simple neighbours. For a year he had no other colour than ink, and only a pen for a pencil; nor, in all likelihood, was he aware that any better resources existed for the practice of his art; for so simple and primitive were the manners and domestic accommodations of the little Society of Friends in which he had been brought up, |