In genius he was unquestionably superior to Faraday; in true nobility of character he was far below him. It is almost impossible to avoid comparing him with Faraday. Indeed it is one of the penalties of his position that he has to be tried by so severe a standard, and it may well be that his good name, which, as Bacon says, is the proper inheritance of the deceased, has suffered unduly in consequence. His true place in the history of science is defined by his discoveries; it is a sad reflection that the lustre of his fame has been dimmed rather than heightened by what has been styled the greatest of them all--Faraday. But there has undoubtedly been injustice in the comparisons which have been made. What Davy was to Faraday, Faraday would have been the first to admit. Davy made himself what he was by the sheer force of his unaided genius; what Faraday became was in large measure due to his connection with Davy, and the germs of his greatest works are to be traced to this association. This fact has been frankly acknowledged by Faraday. To the end of his days he regarded Davy as his true master, preserving to the last, in spite of his knowledge of the moral frailties of Davy’s nature, the respect and even reverence which is to be seen in his early lecture notes and in his letters to his friend Abbott. Faraday was not easily roused to anger, but nothing so effectually moved him as any aspersion of Davy’s character as a man of science, or any insinuation of ungenerous treatment of himself by Davy. At about this time--that is, in the autumn of 1823--Davy gave the first signs of the obscure malady which ultimately occasioned his death. In a letter to his brother, in which he describes his symptoms, we have a reference, also, to his domestic worries: “To add to my annoyances, I find my house, as usual, after the arrangements made by the mistress of it, without female servants; but in this world we have to suffer and bear, and from Socrates down to humble mortals, domestic discomfort seems a sort of philosophical fate.” He was able, however, to continue his scientific work, but instead of the fame and applause on which he so confidently counted, he found only disappointment and chagrin. In 1823 the Admiralty sought the advice of the Royal Society as to “the best means of securing to the service copper of the most durable quality, and such as will preserve the smoothest surface.” A committee of the Society was appointed, under Davy’s direction, to consider the question, which ultimately resolved itself into one of preventing the corrosion of the metal. In this matter Davy’s special experience proved most useful, and, as a fact, he took all the experimental part of the inquiry upon himself, and with what result may be seen from the following letter to his brother:-- “Firle, Jan'y 30, 1824.