Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6: A series of pen and pencil sketches of the lives of more than 200 of the most prominent personages in History
History
Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6: A series of pen and pencil sketches of the lives of more than 200 of the most prominent personages in History
Biography
Honors were showered upon Davy. He received from the Royal Society
the Copley, Royal, and Rumford Medals, and several times delivered
the Bakerian Lecture. He also received Napoleon's prize for the
advancement of galvanic researches from the French Institute. The
invention of the safety-lamp brought him the public gratitude of the
united colliers of Whitehaven, of the coal proprietors of the north
of England, of the grand jury of Durham, of the Chamber of Commerce
at Mons, of the coal-miners of Flanders, and, above all, of the
coal-owners of the Wear and the Tyne, who presented him (it was his
own choice) with a dinner-service of silver worth £2,500. On the
same occasion, Alexander, the Emperor of all the Russias, sent him a
vase, with a letter of commendation. In 1817, he was elected to the
dignity of an associate of the Institute of France; next year, at
the age of forty, he was created a baronet.
Davy's discoveries form a remarkable epoch in the history of the
Royal Society during the early part of this century; and from 1821
to 1829 almost every volume of the _Transactions_ contains a
communication by him. He was president of the Royal Society from
1820 to 1827.
Fond of travel, geology, and sport, Davy visited, for the purpose of
mineralogy and angling, almost every county of England and Wales. He
was provided with a portable laboratory, that he might experiment
when he chose, as well as fish and shoot. In 1827, upon resigning
the presidency of the Royal Society, he retired to the continent; in
1829, at Geneva, his palsy-stricken body returned to the dust. They
buried him at Geneva, where a simple monument stands at the head of
the hospitable grave. There is a tablet to his memory in Westminster
Abbey; there is a monument at Penzance; and his widow founded a
memorial chemical prize in the University of Geneva. His public
services of plate, his imperial vases, his foreign prizes, his royal
medals, shall be handed down with triumph to his collateral
posterity as trophies won from the depths of nescience; but his
work, designed by his own genius, executed by his own hand, tracery
and all, and every single stone signalized by his own private mark,
indelible, characteristic, and inimitable--his work is the only
record of his name. How deeply are its foundations rooted in space,
and how lasting its materials for time!
GENERAL SAN MARTIN[9]
[Footnote 9: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
By HEZEKIAH BUTTERWORTH
(1778-1850)
"Seras lo que debes ser,
Y sino, no seras nada."
SAN MARTIN.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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