‘The sensation created by his lectures at the Institution and the enthusiastic admiration which they obtained is at this period scarcely to be imagined. Men of the first rank and talent, the literary and the scientific, the practical and the theoretical, blue-stockings and women of fashion, the old and the young, all crowded, eagerly crowded, the lecture room. His youth, his simplicity, his natural eloquence, his chemical knowledge, his happy illustrations and well-conducted experiments excited universal attention and unbounded applause. ‘Compliments, invitations, and presents were showered upon him in abundance from all quarters. His society was courted by all, and all appeared proud of his acquaintance.’ On February 5 he again dined with Sir H. Englefield at his house at Blackheath. Eighteen long years afterwards, looking back through Davy’s career, Sir H. Englefield said of this evening, ‘It was the last flash of expiring nature.’ On May 31, 1802, at the managers’ meeting, it was resolved that Mr. Humphry Davy be for the future styled Professor of Chemistry to the Royal Institution. In July ‘he respectfully requested leave of the managers that he may be permitted to spend a few weeks during the summer in the country. It is not amusement alone that he hopes to gain during his short absence, but he believes that he may be able to collect some information that may be useful in the lectures to be given on Agriculture in the spring, and which may be in other ways connected with the views of the Institution. He will take care that his absence shall not interfere with the regular publication of the Journals, and he will never be so far from town but that he can speedily return whenever his presence may be necessary.’ He wrote to Davies Gilbert, October 26: DEAR FRIEND,--The anxieties and hopes connected with a new occupation have prevented me from paying sufficient attention even to the common duties and affections of life.... Your correspondence is to me a real source of pleasure, and, believe me, I would suffer no opportunity to escape of making it more frequent and regular. My labours in the theatre of the Royal Institution have been more successful than I could have hoped from the nature of them. In lectures the effect produced upon the mind is generally transitory; for the most part they amuse rather than instruct, and stimulate to inquiry rather than give information. My audience has often amounted to four or five hundred and upwards, and amongst them some promise to become permanently attached to chemistry. This science is much the fashion of the day. I mentioned to you in a former letter the great powers of galvanism in effecting the combustion of metals. I have lately had constructed for the laboratory of the Institution a battery of immense size; it consists of four hundred plates of five inches in diameter and forty of a foot in diameter.