It is not my intention to lay before you a life of Faraday in the
ordinary acceptation of the term. The duty I have to perform is
to give you some notion of what he has done in the world; dwelling
incidentally on the spirit in which his work was executed,
and introducing such personal traits as may be necessary to the
completion of your picture of the philosopher, though by no means
adequate to give you a complete idea of the man.

The newspapers have already informed you that Michael Faraday was
born at Newington Butts, on September 22, 1791, and that he died at
Hampton Court, on August 25, 1867. Believing, as I do, in the
general truth of the doctrine of hereditary transmission--sharing
the opinion of Mr. Carlyle, that 'a really able man never proceeded
from entirely stupid parents'--I once used the privilege of my
intimacy with Mr. Faraday to ask him whether his parents showed any
signs of unusual ability. He could remember none. His father,
I believe, was a great sufferer during the latter years of his life,
and this might have masked whatever intellectual power he possessed.
When thirteen years old, that is to say in 1804, Faraday was
apprenticed to a bookseller and bookbinder in Blandford Street,
Manchester Square: here he spent eight years of his life, after
which he worked as a journeyman elsewhere.

You have also heard the account of Faraday's first contact with the
Royal Institution; that he was introduced by one of the members to
Sir Humphry Davy's last lectures, that he took notes of those
lectures; wrote them fairly out, and sent them to Davy, entreating
him at the same time to enable him to quit trade, which he detested,
and to pursue science, which he loved. Davy was helpful to the young
man, and this should never be forgotten: he at once wrote to