The present may be regarded as a chemical age; for so extensive, rapid,
and important have been the late acquisitions in the science of chemistry,
that we may almost claim it as the exclusive discovery of our own times.
The popularity and high estimation in which it is held may be ascribed to
three causes: 1. The satisfaction which is afforded by its results.
2. Its utility in all the arts of life. 3. The little previous
preparation which an entrance on its study requires. To these may be
added, the new interest conferred upon the science by the discoveries of
Black, Priestly, and Lavoisier, which had already introduced into
chemical science the long-neglected requisites of close investigation and
logical deduction; but it was reserved for Sir HUMPHRY DAVY to
demonstrate the vast superiority of modern principles, by the most
brilliant career of discovery, which, since the days of Newton, have
graced the annals of science.

Sir Humphry Davy was born December 17, 1779, at Penzance, in Cornwall.
His family was ancient, and above the middle class; his paternal great
grandfather had considerable landed property in the parish of Budgwin,
and his father possessed a small paternal estate opposite St. Michael's
Mount, called Farfal, on which he died in 1795, after having injured his
fortune by expending considerable sums in attempting agricultural
improvements. Sir Humphry received the first rudiments of his education
at the grammar-schools of Penzance and Truro: at the former place, he
resided with Mr. John Tomkin, surgeon, a benevolent and intelligent man,
who had been intimately connected with his maternal grandfather, and
treated him with a degree of kindness little less than paternal. His
genius was originally inclined to poetry; and there are many natives of
Penzance who remember his poems and verses, written at the early age of
nine years. He cultivated this bias till his fifteenth year, when he
became the pupil of Mr. (since Dr.) Borlase, of Penzance, an ingenious