In his published writings, we discover evidences of the same tendency; he suffers no opportunity to escape which can enable him to enforce his principle, and he extracts from the most common as well as from the least probable sources, comparisons and analogies for its illustration. The ingenuity with which this is accomplished often surprises and delights us; the effect upon the reader is frequently not unlike that occasioned by the flashes of wit, to which it surely must be closely allied, if wit be correctly defined by Johnson "a combination of dissimilar images, or the discovery of occult resemblances in things apparently unlike." Is not this opinion strikingly illustrated by the happy turn given to his observations "upon the process of obtaining nitrous oxide from nitre,"--when he says, "Thus, if the hopes which these experiments induce us to indulge do not prove fallacious, a substance which has heretofore been almost exclusively appropriated to the destruction of mankind, may become, in the hands of philosophy, the means of producing health and pleasure!" Mr. Poole, who watched the whole of his progress from obscurity to distinction, and enjoyed his friendship for nearly thirty years, says, "To be useful to science and mankind was, to use his favourite expression, the pursuit in which he gloried. He was enthusiastically attached to science, and to men of science; and his heart yearned to promote their interests." That Davy, with a mind so constituted, should have formed a strong and ardent attachment to Sir Thomas Bernard, and that this friendship should have been reciprocally cultivated, cannot be a matter of surprise. I am happy in this opportunity of paying a tribute of respect to the memory of this most excellent person, with whom I had the pleasure of being well acquainted. His life was one continued scheme of active benevolence; and he merits a particular notice in these memoirs, as being one of the principal founders and patrons of the Royal Institution. Actuated by that noble and rational ambition which makes private pursuits subservient to public good, he directed all the energies of his mind, the influence of his station, and the resources of his wealth, towards promoting societies and schemes for encouraging the virtues and industry, and for ameliorating the condition, of the lower classes.