Note 16 — Chapter III · HUMPHRY AND HIS MOTHER.

“It is remembered,” says Dr. John Davy, speaking of Sir Humphry’s infancy, “that he walked off (to use a nursery phrase) when he was just nine months old; and I have been told, that before he was two years of age he could speak fluently. About this time my eldest sister was born, and he was told by a servant, that on her appearance ‘his nose would be put out of joint.’ On seeing the baby, it is related of him, that he put his hand to his nose, and said, ‘Mamma, my nose not out of joint.’ Before he had learned to write, he amused himself with copying the figures in ‘Æsop’s Fables,’ and under his drawings, in great letters, he contrived to give them their names. His memory was very retentive, in proof of which it is handed down in the family, that when very young he could recite a great part of ‘Pilgrim’s Progress,’ even before he could well read it. I believe that, like Pope, he lisped in numbers. I remember hearing my mother say, that when scarcely five years old he made rhymes, and recited them in the Christmas gambols. His disposition as a child was remarkably sweet and affectionate.... The first school he was sent to was that of a Mr. Bushell, at which reading and writing only were taught. This master, then an old man, remarking the rapid progress of his young pupil (he was then six years old), in a very disinterested manner recommended my father to remove him to the Grammar-school.”

“It is a fact,” says Dr. Paris, “worthy, perhaps, of being recorded, that Humphry Davy would, at the age of five years, turn over the pages of a book as rapidly as if he were merely engaged in counting the leaves or in hunting after pictures, and yet, on being questioned, he could generally give a very satisfactory account of the contents. The same faculty was retained by him through life.”