'I have been most shockingly idle, actually reading two novels at once. a good scolding would do me a vast deal of good, & I hope you will send one of your most severe one's.? What an entertaining book Granby is; do you remember Lady Harriet talking about inhaling [Ni]tric Oxide? Johnson has actually done it, & describes the effects as the most intense pleasure he ever felt. We both mean to get tipsey in the Vacation.?. The old Mr. Wedgwood, I see in Ure's Chem. Dic., did nothing else but hold his nose & kick.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Darwin Print: Book
'Mr Layard has lent me Sir Humphry Davy's "Consolations in Travel, or the Last Days of a Philosopher". It is a posthumous publication, & the editor says that "Had his life been prolonged, it is probable that some additions and some changes would have been made". - There are many fanciful and unwarranted ideas on the subject of the creation of this world, & the state of existence in the next: but, on the whole, it is a most interesting work, and shews a mind anxious to discern the right, and well prepared to love and glorify its Creator.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Harriet Burney Print: Book
'Sir H. Davy is going to publish a volume of poetry. I saw one of the poems; it is very abstruse, and metaphysical, on the nature and essence of man, beginning with him as a suckling at the living rill, and going on until death infuses the natural parts into the dew and the firmament. Yet it does not cover a sheet of paper all this process!'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: anon Manuscript: Unknown
[Charlotte Bury went to see Humphry Davy, hoping to enlist his support in a subscription for James Hogg] 'and the visit was productive to me of a great treasure; for seeing some verses lying on a table, I asked permission to read them, upon which I obtained a copy of the following lines, which are, apart from their own merit, invaluable as coming from so great a man.
Lines by Sir Humphrey Davy
To the Glow-worm
THOU little gem of purest hue,
That, from thy throne o'erspread with dew,
Shedd'st lustre o'er the brightest green
That ever clothed a woodland scene,
I hail thy pure and tranquil light
Thou lovely living lamp of night
Thy haunt is in the deepest shade
By purple heath and bracken made :
By thee the sweetest minstrel sings,
That courts the shady grove;
O'er thee the woodlark spreads his wings,
And sounds his notes of love
Companion of the lights of heaven
Thine is the softest breeze of even;
For thee the balmy woodbine lives,
The meadow-grass its fragrance gives.
And thou canst make thy tranquil bower
In Summer's sweetest, fairest flower.
The hour of peace is all thy own ;
Thy lamp is lit for one alone ;
Shedding no transitory gleams.
No rays to kindle or destroy ;
Constant, innocuous, still it beams
The light of life, of love, of joy.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Charlotte Bury Manuscript: Sheet
