'I have seen Sir Humphry in many places, and in company of many descriptions; but never to such advantage as at Abbotsford. His host and he delighted in each other, and the modesty of their mutual admiration was a memorable spectacle. Davy was, by nature, a poet; and Scott, though anything but a philosopher in the modern sense of that term, might, I think it very likely, have pursued the study of physical science with zeal and success, had he chanced to fall in with such an instructor as Sir Humphry would have been to him, in his early life. Each strove to make the other talk, and they did so in turn more charmingly than I ever heard either on any other occasion whatsoever. Scott, in his romantic narratives, touched upon a deeper chord of feeling than usual, when he had such a listener as Davy; and Davy, when induced to open his views upon any subject of scientific interest in Scott's presence, did so with a degree of clear energetic eloquence, and with a flow of imagery and illustration, of which neither his habitual tone of table-talk (least of all in London) nor any of his prose writings (except, indeed, the posthumous "Consolations of Travel") could suggest an adequate notion. I say his prose writings, for who that has read his sublime quatrains on the "Doctrine of Spinoza" can doubt that he might have united, if he had pleased, in some great didactic form, the vigorous ratiocination of Dryden and the moral majesty of Wordsworth? I remember William Laidlaw whispering to me one night, when their "rapt talk" had kept the circle round the fire until long after the usual bed-time of Abbotsford: "Gude preserve us! this is a very superior occasion! Eh, sirs!" he added, cocking his eye like a bird. "I wonder if Shakespeare and Bacon ever met to screw ilk other up!"' I am also indebted to Lockhart for the following story: 'When Sir Walter Scott was debating in his mind the Prince Regent's offer of a baronetcy, he wrote to his friend Morritt: "After all, if one must speak for themselves, I have my quarters and emblazonments free of all stain but Border theft and high treason, which I hope are gentlemanlike crimes; and I hope 'Sir Walter Scott' will not sound worse than 'Sir Humphry Davy,' though my merits are as much under his, in point of utility, as can well be imagined. But a name is something, and mine is the better of the two."' When Mrs. Davy, Dr. Davy's wife, told Sir Walter Scott, at Malta, that her husband was writing his brother's life, Sir Walter said, 'I am glad of it; I hope his mother lived to see his greatness.' And it is pleasant to be able to record such was the case.