The following pages were originally intended for the perusal only of my own family and immediate friends. Some of these now persuade me to lay them before the public, believing that, to it, a detail of circumstances connected, as my Journal necessarily is, with the last recreations and pursuits of the late Sir Humphry Davy, must be interesting. To have been in any degree a partaker of the hours of this great man, whose name must shed a lustre over his native land, so long as genius and science s

On my arrival in London (26th March, 1827) I found Sir Humphry better than I had expected, but evidently very weak. He appeared to have altered much during the four years which had elapsed since I last saw him, and it was evident that although his mind was still vigorous and full of energy, his bodily infirmities pressed heavily upon him, and I could not but perceive that he was keenly alive to his altered state. I had hoped to have remained some little time in London, but finding that everythin