Whatever may be urged against Davy’s style of lecturing, his purely scientific memoirs are unquestionably models of their kind. His language is so simple, and his mode of expression so uniformly clear, and so free from technicality, that even an ordinary reader can follow them with delight. In this respect he was consistently faithful to the direction he gives in his “Last Days”:-- “In detailing the results of experiments, and in giving them to the world, the chemical philosopher should adopt the simplest style and manner; he will avoid all ornaments, as something injurious to his subject, and should bear in mind the saying of the first King of Great Britain, respecting a sermon which was excellent in doctrine, but overcharged with poetical allusions and figurative language,--‘that the tropes and metaphors of the speaker were like the brilliant wild flowers in a field of corn, very pretty, but which did very much hurt the corn.’” Dr. Paris’s remarks concerning Davy’s personal manner and his style of lecturing were warmly controverted at the time of their publication by several of Davy’s friends. Dr. John Davy’s account is so clear and explicit, and so obviously based upon personal observation, for which he had ample opportunities, that, even after making every allowance for brotherly bias, we prefer to regard it as giving a more just impression of Davy’s bearing in the lecture-theatre, and of the care and pains he took to ensure success. “He was,” says Dr. Davy, “always in earnest; and when he amused most, amusement appeared most foreign to his object. His great and first object was to instruct, and, in conjunction with this, maintain the importance and dignity of science; indeed the latter, and the kindling a taste for scientific pursuits, might rather be considered his main object, and the conveying instruction a secondary one.” His lecture was almost invariably written expressly for the occasion, and usually on the day before he delivered it.