I was introduced to Mr. Davy, who has rooms adjoining mine; he is a very agreeable and intelligent young man, and we have interesting conversations in the evening; the principal failing in his character as a philosopher is that he does not smoke. Mr. Davy advised me to labour at my first lecture; he told me the people here would be inclined to form their opinion from it. Accordingly I resolved to _write_ my first lecture wholly; to _do_ nothing, but to tell them what I would do and enlarge upon the importance and utility of science. I studied and wrote for near two days, then calculated to a minute how long it would take me reading, endeavouring to make my discourse about fifty minutes. The evening before the lecture Davy and I went into the theatre; he made me read the whole of it, and he went into the farthest corner. Then he read it, and I was the audience. We criticised each other’s method. Next day I read it to an audience of about 150 or 200 people, which was more than were expected. They gave a very general plaudit at the conclusion, and several came up to compliment me upon the excellence of the introduction. Since that I have scarcely written anything; all has been experiment and verbal explanation. In general my experiments have uniformly succeeded, and I have never once faltered in the elucidation of them; in fact, I can now enter the lecture room with as little emotion nearly as I can smoke a pipe with you on Sunday or Wednesday evening. Before Coleridge left for Malta Davy wrote to him: Twelve o’clock, Monday (probably March 1804). MY DEAR COLERIDGE,--My mind is disturbed and my body harassed by many labours, yet I cannot suffer you to depart without endeavouring to express to you some of the unbroken higher feelings of my spirit, which have you at once as their cause and object. Years have passed away since we first met, and your presence, and recollections with regard to you have afforded me continued sources of enjoyment. Some of the better feelings of my nature have been elevated by your converse, and thoughts which you have nursed have been to me an eternal source of consolation. In whatever part of the world you are you will often live with me, not as a fleeting idea, but as a recollection possessed of creative energy, as an imagination winged with fire, inspiring and rejoicing.