To control a "power that in its tremendous effects seems to emulate the lightning and the earthquake," and to enclose it in a net of the most slender texture, was indeed a grand achievement; and when we consider the many thousand lives which it has been the means of saving from a sudden and cruel death, it must be acknowledged to be one of the noblest triumphs, not only of science, but of humanity, which the world has ever seen. Honours were showered upon Davy, from the miners and coal-owners, from scientific associations, from crowned heads; but all must agree with Playfair in thinking that "it is little that the highest praise, and that even the voice of national gratitude when most strongly expressed, can add to the happiness of one who is conscious of having done such a service to his fellow-men." Davy himself said he "valued it more than anything he ever did." When urged by his friends to take out a patent for the invention, he replied,--"No, I never thought of such a thing. My sole object was to serve the cause of humanity, and if I have succeeded, I am amply rewarded by the gratifying reflection of having done so." The honours of knighthood and baronetage were successively conferred on Davy as a reward for his scientific labours; and the esteem of his professional brethren was shown in his election to the President-ship of the Royal Institution, in which, oddly enough, he was succeeded by his old friend Mr. Gilbert, who had first taken him by the hand, and whom he had got ahead of in the race of life. Davy died at Geneva before he had completed his fifty-first year, no doubt from over-exertion and the unhealthy character of the researches he prosecuted so recklessly. Assiduous as he was in his devotion to his favourite science, he found time also to master several continental languages; to keep himself well acquainted with, and also to contribute to the literature of the day; and to indulge his passion for fly-fishing, at which he was a keen and practised adept. Eminent as were the talents of Sir Humphrey Davy, and valuable as his discovery of the safety-lamp has proved, it is but fair to own that his credit to the latter has been very openly denied. Two persons of scientific celebrity have been put forward as the real inventors of the safety-lamp--namely, Dr. Reid Clanny of Newcastle, and the great railway-engineer, George Stephenson. Of Clanny's safety-lamp a description appeared in the _Philosophical Transactions_ in 1813--that is, ten years before Sir Humphrey made his communication to the Royal Society. However, it was a complicated affair, which required the whole attention of a boy to work it, and was based on the principle of forcing in air through water by the agency of bellows.