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—especially in the captivating pages of Mr. Henry Morley?* Here, as we read, we say, was a man who farmed all his hours, and made his every moment bear him vintage and interest great child of noble self-denying labour, to whom the books of the learned sages brought no messages; from Nature herself the intelligence was derived; thou brave, all-enduring, and most beautiful, who didst watch and wait patiently by the furnace fires, knowing that the gnomes and the lords of the fire were fashioning the diamond palaces in the flame!

A noble book for a young man to read: "Palissy the Potter." By HENRY MORLEY. And a Translation of Illustrative Selections from his Works. 2 vols. Chapman & Hall.

CHAPTER X.

MICHAEL FARADAY.

T is known that he was the son of very humble parents; born at Newington Butts, September 22nd, 1791; his father was a smith. When, some

years since, he was resting and refreshing himself in Switzerland, at the village of Interlaken, enjoying the Jungfrau sunsets, he was especially interested in watching the Swiss nailers making their nails; and in his little journal, as Professor Tyndall says, "He incidentally throws a luminous beam upon himself, when he says, 'Clout nailmaking goes on here rather considerably, and is a very neat and pretty operation to observe. I love a smith's shop, and anything relating to smithy-my father was a smith." When Faraday was thirteen years old he was apprenticed to a bookseller and bookbinder, in Blandford Street, Manchester Square; here he spent eight years of his life, and worked a short time as a journeyman elsewhere.

Thus, Faraday was one of those poor children of knowledge, destined, without any adventitious aids, beyond those he was able to command by the force of his own genius and character, to take his place, in his own right, among the ornaments and benefactors of his race. Some members of the Royal Institution introduced Faraday to Davy's last lectures there; the youth took notes of them, wrote them fairly out, and sent them to Davy, entreating him at the same time to enable him to quit trade, which he detested, and to follow science, which he loved. It is to the amiable

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and eminent Sir Humphrey's honour that the application was not made in vain; while, judging from what Faraday was, it seems as though he must have given some hints, either in his reports of the lectures, or in his interview with the great chemist, of those latent powers, which were to be exhibited in such opulence before the scientific mind of Europe. Davy procured the engagement of the young man as his chemical assistant at the Royal Institution, and the reader may conceive with what joy he would bid farewell to the bookbinder's tools, and enter his more congenial relations with batteries and alembics. Among his early helps in the accumulation of knowledge, he speaks with a great deal of affection of the "Conversations" of Mrs. Marcet. In her books, he says, in the hours after work, he found the beginning of his philosophy; her "Conversations on Chemistry" gave him his first foundations in that science, the articles in the "Encyclopædia Britannica" his first information on electricity. Of those years he says himself, in a letter to the eminent savant De la Rive, of Geneva :—

Do not suppose that I was a very deep thinker, or was marked as a precocious person. I was a very lively imaginative person, and could believe in the "Arabian Nights" as easily as in the "Encyclopædia." But facts were important to me, and saved me. I could trust a fact, and always cross-examined an assertion. So when I questioned Mrs. Marcet's book by such little experiments as I could find means to perform, and found it true to the facts as I could understand them, I felt that I had got hold of an anchor in chemical knowledge, and clung fast to it. Thence my deep veneration for Mrs. Marcet-first, as one who had conferred great personal good and pleasure on me; and then as one able to convey the truth and principle of those boundless fields of knowledge which concern natural things, to the young, untaught, and inquiring mind.

You may imagine my delight when I came to know Mrs. Marcet personally; how often I cast my thoughts backwards, delighting to connect the past and the present; how often, when sending a paper to her as a thank-offering, I thought of my first instructress, and such-like thoughts will remain with me.

I have some such thoughts even as regards your own father; who was, I may say, the first who personally, at Geneva, and afterwards by correspondence, encouraged, and by that sustained, me.

He soon assured the friends who had taken an interest in him that their confidence was well founded. Davy entrusted to him some easy analysis. He went with his friend and master, Sir Humphrey, upon a scientific excursion to Rome. In 1816 he contributed his first paper to the Quarterly Journal of Science, an analysis of some caustic lime from Tuscany, which had been sent to Davy by the Duchess of Monte Rosa. In 1818 he corrected some experiments and explanations concerning sounding flames, which had been offered by De la Rive, the elder. In 1821 he married, and brought his young wife to the rooms he occupied in the Royal Institution; there for forty-six years he resided in the apartments previously occupied by Young, Davy, and Brande. Dr. Tyndall has been a little censured for the high place he assigns to Faraday, and the glowing terms of eulogy in which he speaks of him. From such a man, and in such an age as ours, the fault is not only amiable, it is admirable, while we have yet to learn that the language itself is unjust; in fact, it is properly an oration, or eulogy. He says, "Taking him for all and all, I think it will be conceded that Michael Faraday was the greatest experimental philosopher the world has ever seen; and I will add the opinion, that the progress of future research will tend not to dim or to diminish, but to enhance and to glorify the labours of this mighty investigator." While this is Dr. Tyndall's opinion of the philosopher, his estimate is equally lofty of the man. The life of Faraday was, in the truest sense, a consecrated life; few lives seem to us to shine out more illustriously; with a kind of priestly power, he seems always and only conscious that he is appointed to pace the high altars of knowledge, and watch and trim the ever-burning lamp. Dr. Tyndall well and reverently speaks of his thoughts as often more inspired

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than logical, till he came to experiment to prove his inspiration true. "Faraday was more than a philosopher," he says; "he was a prophet, and often wrought by an inspiration, to be understood by sympathy alone." The lofty and prophetic character of his mind is shown by his eulogist, in his entire and unselfish dedication to the highest intuitions and pursuits of his mind. Illustrating this, we must quote the following paragraph, in which Dr. Tyndall illustrates the noble abandonment of his hero to the purpose of science :—

While once conversing with Faraday on science in its relations to commerce and litigation, he said to me, that at a certain period of his career he was forced definitely to ask himself, and finally to decide, whether he should make wealth or science the pursuit of his life. He could not serve both masters, and he was therefore compelled to choose between them. After the discovery of magneto-electricity his fame was so noised abroad, that the commercial world would hardly have considered any remuneration too high for the aid of abilities like his. Even before he became so famous he had done a little "professional business." This was the phrase he applied to his purely commercial work. His friend, Richard Phillips, for example, had induced him to undertake a number of analyses, which produced, in the year 1830, an addition to his income of more than a thousand pounds; and in 1831 a still greater addition. He had only to will it to raise in 1832 his professional business income to £5,000 a year. Indeed, this is a wholly insufficient estimate of what he might, with ease, have realized annually during the last thirty years of his life.

While restudying the Experimental Researches with reference to the present memoir, the conversation with Faraday here alluded to came to my recollection, and I sought to ascertain the period when the question, "wealth or science," had presented itself with such emphasis to his mind. I fixed upon the year 1831 or 1832, for it seemed beyond the range of human power to pursue science as he had done during the subsequent years, and to pursue commercial work at the same time. To test this conclusion, I asked permission to see his accounts, and on my own responsibility I will state the result. In 1832 his professional business income,