The eldest sister, Jane, was married to Henry Sampson, a respectable watchmaker at Penzance; the youngest, Elizabeth, to her cousin, Leonard Millett of Marazion; neither of whom had any family. The second sister, Grace, was married to Robert Davy, from which union sprang five children, two boys and three girls, the eldest being Humphry, the subject of our memoir, and the second son, John, now Dr. Davy, a Surgeon to the Forces, and a gentleman distinguished by several papers in the Philosophical Transactions. Humphry Davy was nursed by his mother, and passed his infancy with his parents;[3] but his childhood, after they had removed from Penzance to reside on their estate at Varfell, was spent partly with them and partly with Mr. John Tonkin, who extended his disinterested kindness from the mother to all her children, but more especially to Humphry, who is said, when a child, to have exhibited powers of mind superior to his years. I have spared no pains in collecting materials for the illustration of the earlier periods of his history; as, to estimate the magnitude of an object, we must measure the base with accuracy, in order to comprehend the elevation of its summit. [3] For these materials I acknowledge myself indebted to Dr. Penneck of Penzance, and to Mrs. Millett, Sir H. Davy's sister. The facts were communicated in letters to Lady Davy, by whom they were kindly placed at my disposal. He was first placed at a preparatory seminary kept by a Mr. Bushell, who was so struck with the progress he made, that he urged his father to remove him to a superior school. It is a fact worthy, perhaps, of being recorded, that he would at the age of about five years turn over the pages of a book as rapidly as if he were merely engaged in counting the number of leaves, or in hunting after pictures; and yet, on being questioned, he could generally give a very satisfactory account of the contents. I have been informed by Lady Davy that the same faculty was retained by him through life, and that she has often been astonished, beyond the power of expression, at the rapidity with which he read a work, and the accuracy with which he remembered it. Mr. Children has also communicated to me an anecdote, which may be related in illustration of the same quality. Shortly after Dr. Murray had published his system of chemistry, Davy accompanied Mr. Children in an excursion to Tonbridge, and the new work was placed in the carriage. During the occasional intervals in which their conversation was suspended, Davy was seen turning over the leaves of the book, but his companion did not believe it possible that he could have made himself acquainted with any part of its contents, until at the close of the journey he surprised him with a critical opinion of its merits.