Neat was the youth in dress, in person plain; His eye read thus, _Philosopher in grain_; Of understanding clear, reflection deep; Expert to apprehend, and strong to keep. His watchful mind no subject can elude, Nor specious arts of sophists ere delude; His powers, unshackled, range from pole to pole; His mind from error free, from guilt his soul. Warmth in his heart, good humour in his face, A friend to mirth, but foe to vile grimace; A temper candid, manners unassuming, Always correct, yet always unpresuming. Such was the youth, the chief of all the band; His name well known, Sir Humphry’s right hand. At this date there were no evening duties at the Royal Institution, but Faraday found his evenings well occupied, as he explains to Abbott when rallied about his having deserted his old friend. Monday and Thursday evenings he spent in self-improvement according to a regular plan. Wednesdays he gave to “the Society” (_i.e._ the City Philosophical). Saturdays he spent with his mother at Weymouth Street; leaving only Tuesdays and Fridays for his own business and friends. [Sidenote: CITY PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY.] And so the busy months pass, and he gives more lectures in the privacy of the City Society, one of them, “On some Observations on the Means of obtaining Knowledge,” attaining the dignity of print at the hands of Effingham Wilson, the enterprising City publisher, who a few years later printed Browning’s “Paracelsus” and Alfred Tennyson’s first volume, “Poems: Chiefly Lyrical.” By the time he has given nine lectures he has gained confidence. The discourses had all been written out beforehand, though never literally “read.” For the tenth lecture--on Carbon--he wrote notes only. This is in July, 1817, and in these notes he touches on a matter in which he had been very busily aiding Sir Humphry Davy, the invention of the safety lamp. Many of the early forms of experimental apparatus constructed, and some of the early lamps, are still preserved in the museum of the Royal Institution. Dr. Clanny had, in 1813, proposed an entirely closed lamp, supplied with air from the mine, through water, by bellows. After many experiments on explosive mixtures of gas and air, and on the properties of flame, Davy adopted an iron-wire gauze protector for his lamp, which was introduced into coal mining early in 1816. In Davy’s preface to his work describing it, he says: “I am myself indebted to Mr. Michael Faraday for much able assistance in the prosecution of my experiments.” [Sidenote: A RIFT WITHIN THE LUTE.]