That Davy, in his youth, possessed courage and decision, may be inferred from the circumstance of his having, upon receiving a bite from a dog supposed to be rabid, taken his pocket-knife, and without the least hesitation cut out the part on the spot, and then retired into the surgery and cauterized the wound; an operation which confined him to Mr. Tonkin's house for three weeks. The gentleman from whom I received an account of this adventure, the accuracy of which has been since confirmed by Davy's sister, also told me, that he had frequently heard him declare his disbelief in the existence of pain whenever the energies of the mind were directed to counteract it; but he added, "I very shortly afterwards had an opportunity of witnessing a practical refutation of this doctrine in his own person; for upon being bitten by a conger eel, my young friend Humphry roared out most lustily." The anecdote of Davy's excising the bitten part with so much promptitude and coolness, derives its interest from the age and inexperience of the operator. In the course of his practice, every physician must have met with similar cases of stern decision; but I will venture to say that they have never occurred except in instances of persons of acknowledged courage. Not many days since, a veteran officer, distinguished for the intrepidity with which he rescued the person of George the Third from the fury of a desperate mob, in St. James's Park, informed me that he had formerly been bitten at Vienna by a dog afterwards ascertained to have been rabid; he immediately entered a blacksmith's shop, and by threats compelled the person at the forge to heat an iron red-hot, and burn his leg to the bone. The blacksmith, after first stipulating that he should strap his eccentric customer to the anvil, reluctantly complied; and my friend showed me a scar which sufficiently testified the complete manner in which the son of Vulcan had performed his engagement:--But to return from this digression. At this time of day, no one can surely believe with Pope, that a "Ruling Passion" is an innate and irresistible affection antecedent to reason and observation: on the contrary, ample experience has led us to the conclusion, that ----"men's judgments are A parcel of their fortunes, and things outward Do draw the inward quality after them." The prevailing bias of great minds may thus be often traced to some accidental, and apparently trivial, impression in early life; and the acute biographer, in the course of his observations, will continually discover traits of character that are readily referable to such a source, even as in the magical colouring of Rembrandt's works, the practised eye will recognize the _chiaro-oscuro_ of his father's mill, in which the artist passed his hours of childhood.