“The tumultuous delight which Davy expressed on seeing, for the first time, a quantity of chemical apparatus, hitherto only known to him through the medium of engravings, is described by Mr. Gilbert as surpassing all description. The air-pump more especially fixed his attention, and he worked its piston, exhausted the receiver, and opened its valves, with the simplicity and joy of a child engaged in the examination of a new and favourite toy.” It has already been stated that in the outset Davy attacked science as he did metaphysics, approaching it from the purely theoretical side. As might be surmised, his love of speculation quickly found exercise for itself, and within four months of his introduction to the study of science he had conceived and elaborated a new hypothesis on the nature of heat and light, which he communicated to Dr. Beddoes. Dr. Thomas Beddoes was by training a medical man, who in various ways had striven to make a name for himself in science. He is known to the chemical bibliographer as the translator of the Chemical Essays of Scheele, and at one time occupied the Chair of Chemistry at Oxford. The geological world at the end of the eighteenth century regarded him as a zealous and uncompromising Plutonist. His character was thus described by Davy, who in the last year of his life jotted down, in the form of brief notes, his reminiscences of some of the more remarkable men of his acquaintance:-- “Beddoes was reserved in manner and almost dry; but his countenance was very agreeable. _He was cold_ in conversation, and apparently much occupied with his own peculiar views and theories. Nothing could be a stronger contrast to his apparent coldness in discussion than his wild and active imagination, which was as poetical as Darwin’s.... On his deathbed he wrote me a most affecting letter, regretting his scientific aberrations.” One of Dr. Beddoes’s “scientific aberrations” was the inception and establishment of the Pneumatic Institution, which he founded with a view of studying the medicinal effects of the different gases, in the sanguine hope that powerful remedies might be found amongst them. The Institution, which was supported wholly by subscription, was to be provided with all the means likely to promote its objects--a hospital for patients, a laboratory for experimental research, and a theatre for lecturing. In seeking for a person to take charge of the laboratory, Dr. Beddoes bethought him of Davy, who had been recommended to him by Mr. Gilbert. In a letter dated July 4th, 1798, Dr. Beddoes thus writes to Mr. Gilbert:--