After Davy had been elected Secretary to the Royal Society, he appears to have been confined to town during the autumn of 1807, when he wrote the following letter. TO THOMAS POOLE, ESQ. August 28th, 1807. MY DEAR POOLE, I am obliged to be in the neighbourhood of town during the greater part of the summer, for the purpose of correcting the press for the Philosophical Transactions. I made a rapid journey into Cornwall for the sake of seeing my family; and it was not in my power, had I received your letter at Lyme, to have accepted your kind invitation. If C---- is still with you, will you be kind enough to say to him, that I wrote nearly a week ago two letters about lectures, and not knowing where he was, I addressed them to him at different places? I wish very much he would seriously determine on this point. The Managers of the Royal Institution are very anxious to engage him; and I think he might be of material service to the public, and of benefit to his own mind, to say nothing of the benefit his purse might also receive. In the present condition of society, his opinions in matters of taste, literature, and metaphysics, must have a healthy influence; and unless he soon become an actual member of the living world, he must expect to be hereafter brought to judgment 'for hiding his light.' The times seem to me to be less dangerous, as to the immediate state of this country, than they were four years ago. The extension of the French Empire has weakened the disposable force of France. Bonaparte seems to have abandoned the idea of invasion; and if our Government is active, we have little to dread from a maritime war, at least for some time. Sooner or later, our Colonial Empire must fall in due time, when it has answered its ends. The wealth of our island must be diminished, but the strength of mind of the people cannot easily pass away; and our literature, our science, our arts, and the dignity of our nature, depend little upon our external relations. When we had fewer colonies than Genoa, we had Bacons and Shakspeares. The wealth and prosperity of the country are only the _comeliness_ of the body--the fulness of the flesh and fat;--but the spirit is independent of them; it requires only muscle, bone, and nerve, for the true exercise of its functions. We cannot lose our liberty, because we cannot cease to _think_; and ten millions of people are not easily annihilated. I am, my dear Poole, very truly yours, H. DAVY.