I should not redeem the pledge given to my readers, nor fulfill the duties of an impartial biographer, were I to omit acknowledging that the manners and habits of Davy very shortly underwent a considerable change. Let those who have vainly sought to disparage his excellence, enjoy the triumph of knowing that he was not perfect; but it may be asked in candour, where is the man of twenty-two years of age, unless the temperature of his blood were below zero, and his temperament as dull and passionless as the fabled god of the Brahmins, who could remain uninfluenced by such an elevation? Look at Davy in the laboratory at Bristol, pursuing with eager industry various abstract points of research; mixing only with a few philosophers, sanguine like himself in the investigation of chemical phenomena, but whose sphere of observation must have been confined to themselves, and whose worldly knowledge could scarcely have extended beyond the precincts of the Institution in which they were engaged. Shift the scene--behold him in the Theatre of the Royal Institution, surrounded by an aristocracy of intellect as well as of rank; by the flowers of genius, the _élite_ of fashion, and the beauty of England, whose very respirations were suspended in eager expectation to catch his novel and satisfactory elucidations of the mysteries of Nature. Could the author of the Rambler have revisited us, he would certainly have rescinded the passage in which he says--"All appearance of science is hateful to women; and he who desires to be well received by them, must qualify himself by a total rejection of all that is rational and important; must consider learning as perpetually interdicted, and devote all his attention to trifle, and all his eloquence to compliment." It is admitted that his vanity was excited, and his ambition raised, by such extraordinary demonstrations of devotion; that the bloom of his simplicity was dulled by the breath of adulation; and that, losing much of the native frankness which constituted the great charm of his character, he unfortunately assumed the garb and airs of a man of fashion; let us not wonder if, under such circumstances, the inappropriate robe should not always have fallen in graceful draperies. At length, so popular did he become, under the auspices of the Duchess of Gordon and other leaders of high fashion, that even their _soirées_ were considered incomplete without his presence; and yet these fascinations, strong as they must have been, never tempted him from his allegiance to Science: never did the charms of the saloon allure him from the pursuits of the laboratory, or distract him from the duties of the lecture-room. The crowds that repaired to the Institution in the morning were, day after day, gratified by newly devised and highly illustrative experiments, conducted with the utmost address, and explained in language at once perspicuous and eloquent.