Sir Humphry became president of the Royal Society iu 1820, and ho continued to contribute papers on subjects of great iuterest for some years. Among the most curious of these, and full of promise as to utility, were those which related to the modes of protecting the copper sheathing of ships ; from causes however which even his sagacity could not foresee, the plan proved abortive.
We have thus given a very imperfect and slight sketch of the discoveries of this very extraordinary man and eminent chemist; a list of his works, or at any rate the principal of them, will bo found at the end of Dr. Paris's Life of him. With respect to his philo sophical character, the parallel which has been drawn between him and Dr. Wollaston by time late Dr. Henry, while it does justice to both, presents the powers of Davy in a strong and clear point of view, and in the language of one who was deeply versed in the sciences of which he is speaking, and intimately acquainted with the philosopher whose portrait ho draws.
"To those high gifts of nature which are the characteristics of genius, and which constitute its very essence, both these eminent ulna united an unwearied industry and zeal in research, and habits of accurate reasoning, without which even the energies of genius are Inadequate to the achievement of great scientific designs. With these excellences, common to both, they were nevertheless distinguished by marked iutellectual peculiarities. Bold, ardent, and enthusiastic, Davy soared to greater heights; he commanded a wider horizon, and his keen vision penetrated to its utmost boundaries. His imagination,
in the highest degree fertile and inventive, took a rapid and extensive range in the pursuit of conjectural analogies, which he submitted to close and patient comparison with known facto, and tried by an appeal to ingenious and conclusive experiments. He was endued with the spirit and was a master of the practice of the inductive logic ; and he has left us some of the noblest examples of the efficacy of that great Instrument of human reason in the discovery of truth. He applied It not only to connect classes of facts of more limited extent and I importance, but to develop great and comprehensive laws, which embrace phenomena that are almost universal to the natural world.
In explaining these laws he cast upon them the illumination of his own clear and vivid conception ; he felt au iuteuse admiration of the beauty, order, and harmony which aro conspicuous in the perfect chemistry of nature ; and he expressed those feelings with a force of eloquence which could issue only from a mind of the highest powers and the finest sensibilities." (' Elements of Chemistry,' 11th edition.) Davy was knighted on the 8th of April 1812, and on the 11th of the same month he married Mrs. Apreece, the widow of Shuckburgh Ashby Apreece, Esq., eldest son of Sir Thomas Apreece ; this lady was the daughter and heiress of Charles Kerr, Esq., of Kelso, and possessed a very considerable fortune. He was afterwards created a baronet. He died on the 28th of May 1829, at Geneva. His widow survived him till 1855.