Although Davy, by his earnestness, his knowledge, his felicity of expression, and by a certain dignity of treatment which seemed to invest even the homeliest subjects with unlooked-for importance, could interest an audience on almost any subject he brought before them, we may be sure that his soul soon sighed for a loftier theme than leather. He found it on the occasion of his lecture of January 21st, 1802, when he delivered the introductory discourse of that session. The date, indeed, is a red-letter day not only in Davy’s history but also in that of the Royal Institution. From that time the position of the Institution in the scientific and social world of London would seem to be assured. Its affairs up to this time had been gradually going from bad to worse. The enthusiasm with which it was started a couple of years back had apparently spent itself, and Rumford, by his _hauteur_ and high-handed management, had alienated many powerful friends. The subscriptions, which in 1800 had reached £11,047, had fallen in 1802 to £2,999, whilst the expenses were annually increasing. The outlook was gloomy in the extreme, and everything seemed to portend that the latest scheme for the amelioration of humanity was about to share the too common fate of such projects. The young man of twenty-three, however, changed all this as if by the stroke of a magician’s wand. No Prince Fortunatus could have done more. His theme was not too ambitious; it would be considered even trite and commonplace to-day, and the man would be very bold or very simple who would now attempt to deal with it in the theatre of the Royal Institution; for this introductory lecture was nothing more than an exordium on the worth of science as an agent in the improvement of society. It was, and was felt to be, however, an _apologia_ for the very existence of the Institution. Rumford and his fellow managers would seem to have staked everything on a single throw. Davy’s power as a lecturer had been noised abroad, and we may be sure that Coleridge and his other friends did not keep their tongues still. Coleridge, indeed, told the literary world that he assiduously attended Davy’s lectures, to increase his stock of metaphors. The youth who had discovered “the pleasure-producing air” was talked about in fashionable circles; and Mr. Bernard and the Count used their persuasiveness, and Sir Joseph Banks his social power, to secure for him the most cultured audience in London. If we may credit Dr. Paris, other influences, too, were at work. Davy’s association with Beddoes had probably gained for him the goodwill of the Tepidarians, even if it did not actually give him the _entrée_ to the Society; and these Red Republicans, whose “pious orgies” at Old Slaughter’s Coffee-House in St. Martin’s Lane consisted mainly in libations of tea, vied with the Royalists in their efforts to pave his triumphal way. His success was instant and complete. In a series of lofty and impassioned periods he traced the