NUMBERS OF THE LIVING AGE WANTED. The publishers are in want of Nos. 1179 and 1180 (dated respectively Jan. 5th and Jan. 12th, 1867) of THE LIVING AGE. To subscribers, or others, who will do us the favor to send us either or both of those numbers, we will return an equivalent, either in our publications or in cash, until our wants are supplied. PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY LITTELL & GAY, BOSTON. FOR EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage. But we do not prepay postage on less than a year, nor where we have to pay commission for forwarding the money. Price of the First Series, in Cloth, 36 volumes, 90 dollars. Any Volume Bound, 3 dollars; Unbound, 2 dollars. The sets, or volumes, will be sent at the expense of the publishers. PREMIUMS FOR CLUBS. For 5 new subscribers ($40.), a sixth copy; or a set of HORNE'S INTRODUCTION TO THE BIBLE, unabridged, in 4 large volumes, cloth, price $10; or any 5 of the back volumes of the LIVING AGE, in numbers, price $10. LADY FAIR. UNDERNEATH the beech-tree sitting, Through your wavy hair; All my thoughts and plans confusing, All my resolution loosing, Say, what matter's in your musing, Oh, the charm that in your face is! Monarch's guerdon were: Lady fair! crystal stream, As the sleeper stirs in slumber at the bidding of a dream. Whistled loud the sturdy rustic, though no longer sped the plough, Chirped the cricket in the clover, chirped the brown wren on the bough; Oh, that sin should e'er beset us from the moment of our birth; Oh, that grief should ever sadden this glad garden-land of Earth! Lay the miller's boy a-dreaming in the flowersprinkled grass, Blithely carolled, in the morning air, the miller's comely lass; Hearts are tuned to Nature's music, when her face is smiling fair, And 'tis happiness in summer but to feel the sun and air. Oh, that flowers e'er should wither; oh, that storms should e'er arise To draw their sombre veiling o'er the calm blue of the skies! - From The Edinburgh Review. -- trance as a labourer in the field of science in 1812 until he peacefully lay down to rest, at Hampton Court, on August 25th, 1867. Here, too, we find records of his scientific work, often given in his own words; so that these, taken together with extracts from his lectures and selections from his letters, form a picture of his life which may be almost looked upon as an autobiography. That his biographer felt keenly the difficulty of writing a life of Faraday is seen from the following words in the Preface; and yet the task could not have wel! fallen into abler hands, nor could it easily have been more satisfactorily accomplished. FARADAY, it has been truly said, was Davy's greatest discovery. Faraday, the blacksmith's son, - the bookbinder's apprentice, the pure, humble-minded seeker after truth, the greatest experimentalist whom the world has yet seen. It is easy from the life of such a man to collect many topics of interest, and to obtain many useful subjects for reflection. But to give a true and complete picture of the man Faraday- to place his high and simple character, his tender heart, his quick imagination, his powerful intellect, in a clear light is a task of no ordinary difficulty. Whilst to form an unbiassed judgment upon his great "To write a life of Faraday," says Dr. Bence scientific labours and to fix the exact posi-Jones, "seemed to me at first a hopeless work. tion he will ultimately occupy in the ranks of science is now scarcely possible for even the most distinguished amongst his fellowworkers. Michael Faraday is still to these a living word; they have known him and loved him; they have watched the flashing of his eyes and the working of his face as he explained his discoveries; and the mellow tones of his kind voice still ring in their ears. It is not therefore to the present generation of men of science that we can look for the true estimate of Faraday's work, "Death, with destroying fingers," must still be active before the cold unimpassioned critic can weigh to the exact scruple the measure of this great man's life. Let it be enough for us to endeavour simply to give an impression, in the first place of the man himself, and then of his most important labours. For the material needed in the first portion of this task we are almost wholly indebted to Dr. Bence Jones's admirable work, "The Life and Letters of Faraday," written by one who knew him intimately and to whom every memory of Faraday is dear. In these two volumes we find a most perfect description of his character and of his daily life, from his first en Although I had listened to him as a lecturer for thirty years and had been with him frequently for upwards of twenty years, and although for more than fifteen years he had known me as one of his most intimate friends, yet my knowledge for me to estimate rightly, and that he was too of him made me feel that he was too good a man great a philosopher for me to understand thoroughly." In order to help us in tracing the scientific triumphs of his outwardly uneventful life, we could not have better guides than Professor Tyndall's lectures on Faraday as a Discoverer, and Monsieur Dumas's eloquent Eloge before the French Academy of Sciences on the event of Faraday's death. In both of these we find the work well done by able as well as by loving hands. No living man is more competent than Dr. Tyndall to give an account of Faraday's scientific labours; he knew Faraday (at any rate in his later years) more intimately than any other man of science; their investigations lay much in the same direction, whilst in both we see that intense love of nature which is the true mark of a scientific spirit. Michael Faraday was born at Newington, in Surrey, on September 22, 1791. His father afterwards worked as a blacksmith at Boyd's, in Welbeck Street, and when Michael was about five years old, the family removed to rooms over a coach-house in Jacob's Well Mews, Charles Street, Manchester Square. This was the home of Faraday for ten years, and he has himself 66 says, pointed out where he used to play at mar- obtained a knowledge of these lectures by bills bles in Spanish Place, and where, years in the streets and shop-windows near his house. later, he nursed his little sister in Man- The hour was eight o'clock in the evening. chester Square. My education," he The charge was one shilling per lecture, and my "was of the most ordinary description, brother Robert (who was three years older and consisting of little more than the rudiments followed his father's business) made me a presof reading, writing, and arithmetic, at a ent of the money for several." common day school; my hours out of school were passed at home and in the streets." In 1804, when thirteen years of age, he went on trial as shopboy to Mr. Riebau, a bookseller then carrying on business at 2 Blandford Street, close to the A year later he was apprenticed, and in consideration of his faithful service no premium is given." Dr. Bence Jones tells a story which at once gives us an insight into Faraday's heart. Long after he was famous, as he was walking with his niece they met a news-boy: "I always feel a tenderness for those boys," said he, "because I once carried newspapers myself." mews. Four years later (1809), his father writes of him: "Michael is bookbinder and stationer, and is very active in learning his business . . . he likes his place well; he had a hard time for some while at first going; but, as the old saying goes, he has rather got the head above water, as there is (sic) two other boys under him." That from these earliest years Faraday showed a thirst for knowledge and a taste for experiment is seen from the following remarks made by himself: A commonplace book, termed the "Philosophical Miscellany," was kept by Faraday at this time, "intended," he says, “to promote both amusement and instruction, and also to corroborate or invalidate those theories which are continually starting into the world of science. Collected by M. Faraday, 1809-10." In this book we find notices of all sorts, chiefly, however, relating to scientific matters, some showing a true perception of the importance of scientific discoveries. Thus one article is headed "Galvanism. Mr. Davy has announced to the Royal Society a great discovery in chemistry the fixed alkalies have been decomposed by the galvanic battery." It is interesting to hear from his own lips the story of his first visit to the Royal Institution, so long the scene of his labours and triumphs;— "During my apprenticeship I had the good fortune, through the kindness of Mr. Dance, who was a customer of my master's shop and also a member of the Royal Institution, to hear four of the last lectures of Sir H. Davy in that locality.* The dates of these lectures were February 29th, March 14th, April 8th and 10th, 1812. Of these I made notes, and then wrote out the lectures in a fuller form, interspersing them with such drawings as I could make. The desire to be engaged in scientific occupation, even though of the lowest kind, induced me, whilst an apprentice, to write, in "Whilst an apprentice I loved to read scientific books which were under my hands, and, amongst them, delighted in Marcet's Conversations in Chemistry,' and the electrical treatises in the Encyclopædia Britannica.' I made such simple experiments in chemistry as could be defrayed in their expense by a few my ignorance of the world and simplicity of my pence per week, and also constructed an elec-mind, to Sir Joseph Banks, then President of the Royal Society. Naturally enough, no trical machine, first with a glass phial, and " answer was the reply left with the porter." afterwards with a real cylinder, as well as other electrical apparatus of a corresponding kind." Next follows in Dr. Bence Jones's Life a He told a friend that Watts "On the long series of letters written at this time to Mind" first made him think, and that his young Abbott, a friend somewhat younger attention was turned to science by the arti- than Faraday, and his superior in school cle Electricity," in an encyclopædia he was employed to bind. 66 “My master,” he says, "allowed me to go occasionally of an evening to hear the lectures delivered by Mr. Tatum on Natural Philosophy, at his house, 53 Dorset Street, Fleet Street. I attainments. These letters are invaluable * He always sat in the gallery over the clock. the remarkable character of these early let- | me, and I was forced to believe him, and with ters when he says: "It is difficult to believe that they were written by one who had been a newspaper-boy and who was still a bookbinder's apprentice, not yet twenty-one years of age, and whose only education had been the rudiments of reading, writing, and arithmetic. Had they been written by a highly-educated gentleman, they would have been remarkable for the easy correctness and fluency of their style, and for the courtesy, kindness, candour, deference, and even humility of the thoughts which they contain." The following extract from his first letter to Abbott shows how he began to educate himself in experiment, and how all his thoughts were directed towards science: "I have lately made a few simple galvanic experiments, merely to illustrate to myself the first principles of the science. I was going to Knight's to obtain some nickel, and bethought me that they had malleable zinc. I inquired and bought some- have you seen any yet? The first portion I obtained was in the thinnest pieces possible-observe, in a flattened state. It was, they informed me, thin enough for the electric stick, or, as I before called it, De Luc's electric column. I obtained it for the purpose of forming discs, with which and copper to make a little battery. The first I completed contained the immense number of seven pairs of plates!!! and of the immense size of half-pence each!!!!!! "I, sir, I my own self, cut out seven discs of the size of halfpennies each! I, sir, covered them with seven halfpence, and I interposed between, seven, or rather six, pieces of paper soaked in a solution of muriate of soda!!! But laugh no longer, dear A., rather wonder at the effects this trivial power produced. It was sufficient to produce the decomposition of sulphate of magnesia an effect which extremely surprised me; for I did not, could not, have any idea that the agent was competent to the pur pose." that belief came admiration." This admiration for scientific research and for the philosopher who was then startling Europe with his discoveries so worked upon the mind of the journeyman bookbinder, that "under the encouragement of Mr. Dance" (who had taken him to Davy's lectures,) "I wrote to Sir Humphry, sending, as a proof of my earnestness, the notes I had taken of his last four lectures." My desire," he wrote some years afterwards to Dr. Paris, was 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." The answer (to Davy's honour) was immediate, kind, and favourable. 66 "At the same time that he 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 rewarding 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." (March 1, 1813.) Soon after the interview Faraday was installed, at Davy's recommendation, as assistant in the Laboratory at the Royal Institution at the salary of 25s. a week, with two rooms at the top of the house. time in his life in a congenial atmosphere, Now Faraday felt himself, for the first and only six days after his installation he writes to Abbott in spirits as high as in his latter letters they had been depressed; full of his chemical work, making a compound of sulphur and carbon, a combination which has lately occupied in a considerable degree the attention of chemists." Only a 66 "In another letter written shortly after few weeks later he was employed by Davy he says: to assist him in the investigation of the most explosive body even now known to chemists chloride of nitrogen, and this fact speaks volumes for Sir Humphry's opinion of his scientific knowledge as well as of his manipulative skill. Thus we find Faraday in these first few weeks of his scientific career plunged at once into the most difficult of experimental investigations. He was not daunted by severe and |