Note 17 — Chapter III · HUMPHRY AND HIS MOTHER.

“The Rev. Mr. Coryton (the master of the Grammar-school) was a man of irregular habits, and ill-fitted for the office of teaching youth. He was occasionally severe, and punished heavily slight offences. Pulling the boys’ ears was practised by him in the most capricious manner, and my brother was too frequently a sufferer from this infliction. It is recorded of Humphry Davy, that he appeared before Mr. Coryton with a large plaster on each ear, and that when asked by his master ‘what was the matter with his ears,’ he replied with a very grave face, ‘that he had put the plasters on to prevent a mortification.’”—Dr. John Davy, p. 14. In a letter to his mother, Sir Humphry Davy says, speaking of this school, “I consider it fortunate that I was left much to myself as a child, and put upon no particular plan of study, and that I enjoyed much idleness at Mr. Coryton’s school. I perhaps owe to these circumstances the little talents that I have, and their peculiar application. What I am, I have made myself. I say this without vanity, and in pure simplicity of heart.” Davy seems, indeed, to have been more distinguished out of school, and by his comrades, than by any great advance in learning. “From his facility in composing Latin and English verse,” says his brother, “his assistance in these exercises was often requested, even by boys much older than himself; and in writing valentines and love-letters, he shone so pre-eminently, and gave his aid so willingly, that he is said to have been generally resorted to on all emergencies of boyish loves. Another cause of popularity among his comrades was his power of diverting them by telling them stories; and so attractive were the tales, commonly of wonder and terror, which he related, that they were in the habit in an evening of collecting at a particular place to wait for him, as under the balcony of the Star Inn, which afforded shelter, and where, if there happened to be a cart, he would get into it, and hold forth to his young audience.” (Idem, p. 15.) “The earliest indication that I am aware of,” says Davy’s brother, “which he showed of his fondness for experimenting, was in making fire-works. My eldest sister well remembers that she was his assistant in this undertaking, and that their workshop was an unfurnished room, in which, in bad weather, the Rev. Dr. Tonkin (the elder brother of Mr. John Tonkin, the friend of our family), then advanced in age and a valetudinarian, took exercise on his chamber-horse—a large arm-chair attached to spring-boards, which boards served for a table for compounding the ingredients of the squibs and crackers.” “Davy,” says Dr. Paris, speaking of his youthful amusements, “was in the habit of preparing a detonating composition, to which he gave the name of ‘thunder powder,’ and which he would explode on a stone, to the great delight of his young playfellows” (p. 5).