He went to London in 1801, and there he had the great satisfaction of meeting many scientific men whose names and work were well known to him. Six weeks after he arrived he began his first course of lectures, taking for his subject the history of galvanism, and the various methods of accumulating galvanic influence. The _Philosophical Magazine_ said of the new lion, “The sensation created by his first course of lectures at the Institution, and the enthusiastic admiration which they obtained, is at this period hardly to be imagined. Men of the first rank and talent,--the literary and the scientific, the practical and the theoretical,--blue-stockings and women of fashion, the old and the young, all crowded, eagerly crowded, the lecture-room. His youth, his simplicity, his natural eloquence, his chemical knowledge, his happy illustrations and well-conducted experiments, excited universal attention and unbounded applause. Compliments, invitations, and presents were showered upon him in abundance from all quarters; his society was courted by all, and all appeared proud of his acquaintance.” Davy was an eloquent, enthusiastic, forceful speaker. He prepared his lectures with the greatest care, and he delivered them with that attention to dramatic effect which is instinctive in all really great speakers. Coleridge said, “I attend Davy’s lectures to increase my stock of metaphors,” and there were many others who went to hear the young chemist for other reasons than a liking for science. He had his own theories of the arts of public address. “Great powers,” said he, “have never been exerted independent of strong feelings. The rapid arrangement of ideas from their various analogies to the equally rapid comparisons of these analogies, with facts uniformly occurring during the progress of discovery, have existed only in those minds where the agency of strong and various motives is perceived--of motives modifying each other, mingling with each other, and producing that fever of emotion which is the joy of existence and the consciousness of life.” In addition to his lectures Davy worked hard in the well-stocked laboratory of the Institution, where he was supplied with a corps of capable assistants. His researches covered a very large part of the field of chemistry, and he was indefatigable in running down any new idea which his active brain chanced to hit upon. In his vacations from London he went to the farthest regions of the British Isles, spending considerable time in the north of Ireland and the Hebrides. Here he studied the geological structures, and collected all the information he could in regard to agriculture. Anything to do with natural science interested him. He sketched a great deal, and he was forever asking questions of all the countrymen he met. His questions made him famous in many a hamlet, where such inquisitiveness had never been known before.