In 1844 Faraday became one of the special commissioners appointed to investigate the Haswell colliery explosion. In 1846 his brother Robert met with a fatal accident, and Faraday writes to his wife, who was staying at Tunbridge Wells:--"Dear Heart,--.... Come home, dear. Come and join in the sympathy and comfort needed by many.... My sister and her children have not forgotten the hope in which they were joined together with my dear Robert, and I see its beautiful and consoling influence in the midst of all these troubles. I and you, though joined in the same trouble, have part in the same hope. Come home, dearest. "Your affectionate husband, "M. FARADAY." In 1849 he delivered his famous lectures on "The Chemical History of a Candle;" and in the following year he gave a series of six lectures on "Some Points of Domestic Chemical Philosophy--a Fire, a Candle, a Lamp, a Chimney, a Kettle, Ashes." His work during these years is shown in his many published letters, in his correspondence which for years he maintained with many of the leading scientists, not only in England but abroad--with De la Rive, Liebig, Humboldt, etc. His work, however, cannot be particularised, neither can the many honours that year after year were awarded to him. We find that he was a man nearly sixty years of age, in the front rank of the great chemists of his country, and acknowledged as such on every hand, and yet we find that he was still the same energetic and enthusiastic scientist, the same kindly and unselfish friend, the same honest and disinterested man that we have seen him all through. Such, indeed, he continued until the very last, his character but "deepening"--as he said of his love for his wife--as the years passed by. His chivalrous deference to women of all ages and ranks was also a remarkable feature of his character, no less at this later part of his life, than when he was a younger man; his chivalry has, indeed, been often referred to, but it was, I learn from Miss Barnard, one of his most readily observed good qualities. [Illustration] FOOTNOTE: [8] Founded in 1831, for the purpose of stimulating scientific inquiry. [Illustration] CHAPTER VII. OVERWORK--THE END. "Have you found your life distasteful? My life did, and does, smack sweet. Was your youth of pleasure wasteful? Mine I saved, and hold complete. Do your joys with age diminish? When mine fail me I'll complain. Must in death your daylight finish? My sun sets to rise again." ROBERT BROWNING.