Note 13 — Chapter III · HUMPHRY AND HIS MOTHER.

The greater number of these resolves were fulfilled in after-life. Dr. John Davy says: “The interest he took in me more resembled that of a father than a brother, and it is with peculiar pleasure I reflect on his various kindnesses—my numerous obligations, many of which were delicately concealed at the time—his valuable hints and generous regard to my studies, leaving me free to follow the bias of my own mind—and his excellent advice in respect to my conduct, in which was always infused a native nobleness of sentiment well adapted to stir up virtue in a young mind.” In one of his letters to his brother, Sir Humphry says, “You must study your own plans with respect to study. Pray do not care about the expense, if it adds anything to the comfort or respectability of your situation. I will, if you like, send £40 a year, in addition to what my mother sends you. My dear John, let no difficulties alarm you; you may be what you please. Let no example induce you to violate decorum—no ridicule prevent you from guarding against sensuality or vice. Live in such a way that you can always say the whole world may know what I am doing.”

Dr. Paris says: “No sooner had Davy found himself in a situation which secured for him the necessaries of life, than he renounced all claims upon his paternal property in favour of his mother and sisters.” In a letter to one of his sisters, Davy says: “I enclose a one-pound note, which you will lay out in books or in anything else you like. I enclose another one-pound note, which I wish to have disposed of in the following manner: To Mary Launder, 5s.; to Betty White, 5s.; and with the rest you will buy some ribbons or little articles of dress for the Doctor’s Jenny, my aunt Sampson’s Phillis, my aunt Millett’s maid, and my mother’s servant, as New-years’s gifts.” In another letter he writes thus: “I enclose a ten-pound note, which I beg you will lay out in the way you think best for my sister’s children and any old pensioners that knew me in my youth.” “No Swiss peasant,” says Dr. Paris, “ever sighed more deeply for his native mountains than did Davy for the scenes of his early years. He entreated his nurse (when ill at the Royal Institution) to convey to his friends his ardent wish to obtain some apples from a particular tree which he had planted when a boy, and he remained in a state of restlessness and impatience until their arrival.” Moreover, it should be stated, that, in addition to his will, he left at his death a paper of directions, which have been religiously observed by his widow. In these he desires that the interest arising from £100 stock may be annually paid to the master of the Penzance Grammar-school, on condition that the boys may have a holiday on his birthday. “There is something,” adds Dr. Paris, “singularly interesting in this favourable recollection of his native town and of the associations of his early youth. It adds one more example to show, that, whatever may have been our destinies, and however fortune may have changed our condition, where the heart remains uncorrupted we shall, as the world closes upon us, fix our imaginations upon the simplicities of our youth, and be cheered and warmed by the remembrance of early pleasures.”