valuable mode of communication, they have realized what ought to be the
highest aim of science,--the improvement of the condition and comforts of
every class of his fellow-creatures. Thus, beautiful theories were
illustrated by inventions of immediate utility, as in the safety-lamp for
mitigating the dangers to which miners are exposed in their labours, and
the application of a newly-discovered principle in preserving the life of
the adventurous mariner. Yet splendid as were Sir Humphry's talents, and
important as have been their application, he received the honours and
homage of the scientific world with that becoming modesty which
universally characterizes great genius.

Apart from the scientific value of Sir Humphry's labours and researches,
they are pervaded by a tone and temper, and an enthusiastic love of
nature which are as admirably expressed as their influence is excellent.
In proof of this feeling we could almost from memory, quote many
passages from his works. Thus, speaking of the divine _Study of Nature_,
he has the following reflective truths:--"If we look with wonder upon
the great remains of human works, such as the columns of Palmyra, broken
in the midst of the desert, the temples of Paestum, beautiful in the
decay of twenty centuries, or the mutilated fragments of Greek sculpture
in the Acropolis of Athens, or in our own Museum, as proofs of the
genius of artists, and power and riches of nations now past away; with
how much deeper feeling of admiration must we consider those grand
monuments of Nature, which mark the revolutions of the globe; continents
broken into islands; one land produced, another destroyed; the bottom of
the ocean become a fertile soil; whole races of animals extinct; and the
bones and exuviae of one class, covered with the remains of another, and
upon the graves of past generations--the marble or rocky tomb, as it
were, of a former animated world--new generations rising, and order and
harmony established, and a system of life and beauty produced, as it