SIR HUMPHRY DAVY.
THIS celebrated philosopher closed his mortal career at Geneva, on the 29th of May, the day after that on which he had arrived from Rome. His death must be considered as one of the greatest calamities that could have befallen the world of science, which had recently sustained so heavy a loss in the deaths of Dr. WOLLASTON and Dr. Youxc. It is certainly singular, that these three brilliant stars, composing the most splendid constellation that ever illumined our scientific meridian, should have all been swept away in the course of a few months. As it is our intention to offer, in our next number, a biographical sketch of this eminent philosopher, and a brief analysis of his scientific labours (from sources to which, we believe, no other journal has access), we shall merely state, upon the present occasion, that Sir HUMPHRY DAVY was born at Penzance, in Cornwall, in the year 1779, and was consequently fifty years of age; that he died of apoplexy ; and was interred on the 1st of June, his funeral having been attended by the authorities of the city of Geneva, the members of the Academy, and all the English resident in the neighbourhood. His mortal frame is now undergoing that decay to which all inanimate matter is subjected; but the very agents in this work of decomposition can never be investi- gated by the philosophic inquirer, without being associated with the remembrance of DAVY. They may destroy his body, but they must render his name as imperishable as the elements of which he first showed that they consisted.
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