I rejoice in Davy’s progress. There are three suns recorded in Scripture--Joshua’s, that stood still; Hezekiah’s, that went backward; and David’s, that went forth and hastened on his course like a bridegroom from his chamber. May our friend prove the latter! It is a melancholy thing to see a man, like the sun in the close of the Lapland summer, meridional in his horizon, or like wheat in a rainy season, that shoots up well in the stalk, but does not kern. As I have hoped and do hope more proudly of Davy than of any other man, and as he has been endeared to me more than any other man by the being a thing of hope to me (more, far more, than myself to my own self in my most genial moments), so of course my disappointment would be proportionably severe. It were a falsehood if I said that I think his present situation most calculated of all others to foster either his genius or the clearness and uncorruptness of his opinions and moral feelings. I see two serpents at the cradle of his genius--dissipation with a perpetual increase of acquaintances and the constant presence of inferiors and devotees, with that too great facility of attaining admiration which degrades ambition into vanity; but the Hercules will strangle both the reptile monsters. I have thought it possible to exert talents with perseverance, and to attain true greatness wholly pure even from the impulses of ambition, but on this subject Davy and I always differed.... My book is not, strictly speaking, metaphysical, but historical. It, perhaps, will merit the title of a history of metaphysics in England, from Lord Bacon to Mr. Hume inclusive. I confine myself to facts in every part of the work, excepting that which treats of Mr. Hume; _him_ I have assuredly besprinkled copiously from the fountains of bitterness and contempt. As to this and the other works which you have mentioned, ‘have patience, lord, and I will pay thee all.’ Mr. T. Wedgwood goes to Italy in the first days of May. Whether I accompany him is uncertain; he is apprehensive that my health may incapacitate me. If I do not go with him, I shall go off myself in the first week of April if possible. Davy himself wrote, on May 5, to his friend Mr. Thomas Poole: Be not alarmed, my dear friend, as to the effect of worldly society on my mind. The age of danger has passed away; there are in the intellectual being of all men permanent elements, certain habits and passions that cannot change. I am a lover of nature with an ungratified imagination; I shall continue to search for untasted charms, for hidden beauties.