The publication of this paper exercised a profound sensation, both at home and abroad. Berzelius, years afterwards, spoke of it as one of the most remarkable memoirs that had ever enriched the theory of chemistry--and the praise is the more significant when it is remembered that Davy had thereby seemed to have taken possession of a field of inquiry which the Swedish chemist, who was only a year younger than Davy, had been among the first to enter. Still more significant was the action of the French Institute. Bonaparte, when First Consul, had announced to the Institute his intention of founding a medal “for the best experiment which should be made in the course of each year on the galvanic fluid,” and had further expressed his desire to give the sum of sixty thousand francs “à celui qui, par ses expériences et ses découvertes fera à faire à l’electricité et au galvanisme un pas comparable à celui qu’ont fait faire à ces sciences Franklin et Volta.” A committee of the Institute, consisting of La Place, Halle, Coulomb, Hauy and Biot, was appointed to consider the best means of accomplishing the wishes of the First Consul, and twelve months after the publication of the Bakerian lecture they awarded its author the medal. Whether the Institute had the means of awarding the sixty thousand francs as well is more than doubtful, for it does not appear that the sum named by Bonaparte ever went beyond the promise of it. All that the Institute got for themselves was, as Maria Edgeworth said, “a rating all round in imperial Billingsgate.” The two countries at this period were at war, and the feeling of animosity was most bitter. Of course, there were persons who said that patriotism should forbid the acceptance of the award. Davy’s own view was more sensible and politic. “Some people,” he said to his friend Poole, “say I ought not to accept this prize; and there have been foolish paragraphs in the papers to that effect; but if the two countries or governments are at war, the men of science are not. That would, indeed, be a civil war of the worst description: we should rather, through the instrumentality of men of science, soften the asperities of national hostility.” CHAPTER VI. THE ISOLATION OF THE METALS OF THE ALKALIS. However devoted Davy might be to scientific investigation, he was no less mindful of the sacred claims of the long vacation. In the summer of 1805 he went to the Lake Country, where he met Scott in company with Wordsworth; and the occasion on which the party “climbed the dark brow of the mighty Helvellyn,” and which gave rise to Scott’s well-known poem, is thus referred to by Lockhart:--