The Age of Wonder (88 page)

44
See William Feaver,
The Art of John Martin,
Oxford, 1975; and discussion in Tim Fulford (editor),
Literature, Science and Exploration in the Romantic Era,
2004, pp97-107

45
‘[Ritchie] is going to Fezan in Africa there to proceed if possible like Mungo Park’, John Keats to George Keats, 5 January 1818; ‘Haydon showed me a letter he had received from Tripoli…Ritchie was well and in good spirits, among Camels, Turbans, Palm trees and sands…’, Keats to George Keats, 16-31 December 1818

Chapter 6: Davy on the Gas

1
Described in Davy’s letters to his mother Grace Davy, in June Z. Fullmer,
Young Humphry Davy,
American Philosophical Society, 2000, pp328-32

2
JD Fragments, pp2-5

3
Thomas Thorpe,
Humphry Davy, Poet and Philosopher,
1896, p10

4
Anne Treneer,
The Mercurial Chemist: A Life of Sir Humphry Davy,
1963, p6

5
Local sources, author’s visit to Penzance, May 2006

6
Ibid.

7
JD Memoirs, p68

8
There are various versions of this early poem in the HD Archive: see Paris, vol 1, p29; Treneer, pp4-5; or Fullmer, p13

9
Treneer, p16

10
John Davy quoted in ibid., p21

11
Ibid.

12
Introduction to
Humphry Davy on Geology: The 1805 Lectures,
pxxix, British Library catalogue X421/22592

13
HD Archive Box 13 (f) pp41-50, Mss notebook dated 1795-97

14
HD Archive Box 13 (f) p61

15
The whole poem, no fewer than thirty-two stanzas, is given in JD Memoirs, pp23-7

16
HD Works 2, p6

17
Jan Golinski,
Science as Public Culture: Chemistry and Enlightenment in Britain 1760-1820,
CUP, 1992, pp133-42

18
Ibid., p109

19
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, ‘Maxims and Reflections’, from Goethe,
Scientific Studies,
edited by Douglas Miller, Suhrkamp edition of Goethe’s
Works,
vol 12, New York, 1988, p308

20
Reprinted in HD Works 9

21
See Madison Smartt Bell,
Lavoisier in the Year One: The Birth of a New Science in the Age of Revolution,
Atlas Books, Norton, 2005. See also J.-L. David’s famous romantic portrait,
Antoine Laurent de Lavoisier et sa Femme
(1788)

22
Preface to
Traité Élémentaire,
translated by Robert Kerr, 1790

23
Consolations,
Dialogue V, in HD Works 9, pp361-2

24
JD Memoirs, p34

25
For the Watt family, see Jenny Uglow,
The Lunar Men: The Friends who Made the Future, 1730-1810,
Faber, 2002

26
Treneer, p24

27
From Beddoes notes made 1793, quoted in Golinski, p171

28
HD Mss Truro, Beddoes letter in Davies Giddy Mss DG 42/1

29
Ibid.

30
Dorothy A. Stansfield,
Thomas Beddoes MD: Chemist, Physician, Democrat,
Reidel Publishing, Boston, 1984, pp162-4

31
HD Mss Truro, Davies Giddy Mss DG 42/8

32
HD Mss Truro, Davies Giddy Mss DG 42/4

33
See Holmes,
Coleridge: Early Visions

34
John Ayrton Paris,
The Life of Sir Humphry Davy, 2
vols, 1831, vol 1, p38

35
See David Knight,
Humphry Davy: Vision and Power,
Blackwell Science Biographies, 1992

36
Richard Lovell Edgeworth 1793, quoted in Fullmer, p106

37
Treneer, pp30-1

38
HD Archive Notebook 20a; and Fullmer, p169

39
HD Works 2, p85

40
HD Works 2, p84

41
HD Works 2, pp85-6; see HD Archive Ms Notebook B (1799)

42
HD Archive Mss Box 13(h) pp15-17 and Box 13(f) pp33-47

43
See Fullmer, pp163-6

44
From author’s visit and photographs, May 2006. See also John Allen, ‘The Early History of Varfell’, in
Ludgvan,
Ludgvan Horticultural Society, no date

45
Golinski, pp157-83

46
Reply from James Watt, Birmingham, 13 November 1799, in JD Fragments, pp24-6

47
HD Works 3, pp278-9

48
HD Works 3, pp278-80; on Davy’s impetuosity and courage see Oliver Sacks,
Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood,
Picador, 2001

49
Joseph Cottle,
Reminiscences,
vol 1, 1847, p264

50
HD Works 3, pp246-7; James Watt, Birmingham, 13 November 1799, in JD Fragments, pp24-6; equipment partly illustrated in Fullmer, p216

51
Treneer, p72

52
Fullmer, p213

53
Ibid., p214

54
HD Works 3, p272

55
HD,
Researches Chemical and Philosophical chiefly concerning Nitrous Oxide,
London, 1800, p461. See HD Works 3

56
JD Life 1, pp79-82

57
HD Archive Mss Box 13 (c) pp5-6; and Fullmer, p215

58
Treneer, p47

59
HD Archive Mss Box 20 (b) p118

60
HD Archive Mss Box 20 (b) p120

61
HD,
Researches,
1800, p491

62
Ibid., p492; discussed in Cartwright, pp237-8

63
HD Works 9, pp74-5; comments by Physicus, Day 4, in
Salmonia,
1828

64
Fullmer, p218

65
Cartwright on Anaesthetics, 1952, pp100-23; Treneer, pp40-8

66
HD Archive Mss Box 20(b) p208

67
HD Archive Mss Box 20 (b) p209

68
HD
Researches,
1800, pp100-2

69
A premonition of Frankenstein! HD
Researches,
1800, p102

70
Southey to Tom Southey, 1799, from Treneer, p44

71
A Memoir of Maria Edgeworth,
edited by her children, 1867, vol 1, p97

72
Treneer, p45

73
Ibid., p43

74
Ibid., p54

75
Southey to William Wynn, 30 March 1799

76
‘Unfinished Poem on Mount’s Bay’, in Paris, vol 1, pp36-9

77
JD Fragments, pp34-5

78
Ibid., pp37-9

79
JD Life 1, p119

80
Treneer, p44

81
Holmes, ‘Kubla Coleridge’, in
Coleridge: Early Visions,
1989

82
‘Detail of Mr Coleridge’,
Researches,
1800, and HD Works 3, pp306-7

83
Coleridge to Davy, 1 January 1800,
Coleridge Collected Letters,
edited by E.L. Griggs, vol 1; and see Treneer, p58

84
JD Memoirs, pp58-9

85
JD Fragments, p24; Fullmer, pp269-70

86
HD Works 3, pp289-90; and compare Fullmer, pp269-70

87
HD Archive Mss Box 20 (b) pp129-34, dated 26 December 1799

88
HD Archive Mss Box 20 (b) p95

89
JD Memoirs, pp59-66

90
Ibid., pp66-7

91
HD Works 3; Fullmer, p211

92
HD Works 3, pp1-3

93
JD Memoirs, pp54-5

94
Preface to
Researches,
1800, HD Works 3, p2

95
Joseph Cottle,
Reminiscences of S. T. Coleridge and Robert Southey,
1847

96
Treneer, p48

97
The Sceptic,
anon, 1800, British Library catalogue Cup.407.gg.37

98
Golinski, p173

99
Ibid., p153

100
Treneer, p63

101
Paris, vol 1, p58

102
Trevor H. Levere,
Poetry Realized in Nature: Coleridge and Early Nineteenth Century Science,
CUP, 1981, p32

103
See Coleridge to Davy, six letters, 9 October 1800-20 May 1801,
Coleridge Collected Letters,
edited by E.L. Griggs, vols 1-2; see Treneer, pp67-8

104
Coleridge to Davy, 9 October 1800

105
Holmes, p247

106
Coleridge, letter to Davy, 15 July 1800,
Collected Letters,
vol 1, p339. He also added in a chemical vein: ‘I would that I could wrap up the view from my House [Greta Hall] in a pill of opium, & send it to you!’

107
Southey to William Taylor, 20 February 1800; from Fullmer, p148

108
Southey to Coleridge, 3 August 1801; from ibid., pp148-9

109
JD Fragments, pp29-30

110
‘On the Death of Lord Byron’, 1824, Davy,
Memoirs,
pp285-6

111
HD Works 8, p308

112
Fullmer, pp328-32

113
The most revealing evidence is the unpublished letter Anna Beddoes wrote to Davy on 26 December 1806, HD Archive Mss Box 26 File H 9

114
Fullmer, p82

115
Ibid., p281

116
Verse fragments from HD Archive, Ms Notebook 13 J; Box 26 File H; and Fullmer, pp 106-8

117
HD Archive Mss Box 26 File H 7

118
HD Archive Mss Box 26 File H 6, 13 and 14

119
HD Mss Bristol, Davy to John King, 14 November 1801, Ms 32688/33

120
HD Archive Mss Box 13 (g) p116

121
HD Archive Mss Box 13 (g) p158

122
See Stansfield, pp 234-5. Some more light is thrown on Anna’s enigmatic and volatile character by A.C. Todd, ‘Anna Maria, Mother of Thomas Lovell Beddoes’, in
Studia Neophilologica,
29, 1957

123
‘Glenarm, by moonlight, August 1806’, HD Archive Mss Box 13 (g) p166; printed in JD Memoirs, pp50-1

124
HD Archive Mss Box 26 File H 9 and 10

125
JD Fragments, p150

126
Coleridge to Southey, 1803; see Treneer, p114

127
Treneer, p78

128
JB Correspondence 4, letters 1290-6, cover an exchange between Banks, James Watt and the Duchess of Devonshire about the viability of Dr Beddoes’s scheme in December 1794

129
HD Works 3, p276

130
F.F. Cartwright,
The English Pioneers of Anaesthesia,
1952, p311

131
HD,
Researches,
1800, p556; and HD Works 3, p329

132
Holmes, pp222-7

133
Coleridge to Davy, 2 December 1800,
Collected Letters,
vol 1, p648