When I was a bookseller's apprentice, I was very fond of
experiment and very adverse to trade. It happened that a
gentleman, a member of the Royal Institution, took me to
hear some of Sir H. Davy's last lectures in Albemarle Street.
I took notes, and afterwards wrote them out more fairly in a
quarto volume.
My desire to escape from trade, which I thought vicious
and selfish, and to enter into the service of Science, which I
imagined made its pursuers amiable and liberal, induced me at
last to take the bold and simple step of writing to Sir H. Davy,
expressing my wishes, and a hope that, if an opportunity came
in his way, he would favour my views ; at the same time, I
sent the notes I had taken of his lectures.
The answer, which makes all the point of my communica-
tion, I send you in the original, requesting you to take great
care of it, and to let me have it back, for you may imagine
how much I value it.
You will observe that this took place at the end of the year
1812, and early in 1813 he requested to see me, and told me
of the situation of assistant in the laboratory of the Royal
Institution, then just vacant.
At the same time that he thus gratified my desires as to
scientific employment, he still advised me not to give up the
prospects I had before me, telling me that Science was a harsh
mistress ; and in a pecuniary point of view but poorly reward-
ing those who devoted themselves to her service. He smiled
at my notion of the superior moral feelings of philosophic men,
and said he would leave me to the experience of a few years
to set me right on that matter.
Finally, through his good efforts I went to the Royal
Institution early in March of 1813, as assistant in the laboratory;
and in October of the same year went with him abroad as his
assistant in experiments and in writing. I returned with him
in April, 1815, resumed my station in the Royal Institution,
and have, as you know, ever since remained there.
experiment and very adverse to trade. It happened that a
gentleman, a member of the Royal Institution, took me to
hear some of Sir H. Davy's last lectures in Albemarle Street.
I took notes, and afterwards wrote them out more fairly in a
quarto volume.
My desire to escape from trade, which I thought vicious
and selfish, and to enter into the service of Science, which I
imagined made its pursuers amiable and liberal, induced me at
last to take the bold and simple step of writing to Sir H. Davy,
expressing my wishes, and a hope that, if an opportunity came
in his way, he would favour my views ; at the same time, I
sent the notes I had taken of his lectures.
The answer, which makes all the point of my communica-
tion, I send you in the original, requesting you to take great
care of it, and to let me have it back, for you may imagine
how much I value it.
You will observe that this took place at the end of the year
1812, and early in 1813 he requested to see me, and told me
of the situation of assistant in the laboratory of the Royal
Institution, then just vacant.
At the same time that he thus gratified my desires as to
scientific employment, he still advised me not to give up the
prospects I had before me, telling me that Science was a harsh
mistress ; and in a pecuniary point of view but poorly reward-
ing those who devoted themselves to her service. He smiled
at my notion of the superior moral feelings of philosophic men,
and said he would leave me to the experience of a few years
to set me right on that matter.
Finally, through his good efforts I went to the Royal
Institution early in March of 1813, as assistant in the laboratory;
and in October of the same year went with him abroad as his
assistant in experiments and in writing. I returned with him
in April, 1815, resumed my station in the Royal Institution,
and have, as you know, ever since remained there.
