In August, 1815, Davy's attention was drawn to the loss of life by
explosions of fire-damp, and by the end of the year he had devised his
safety-lamp. The coal owners subscribed 1,500 pounds for a testimonial,
gave him also a dinner and a service of plate. In October, 1818, he was
made a baronet. In November, 1820, he was elected President of the Royal
Society.

His next researches were chiefly on electro-magnetism and the protection
of the copper sheathing on ships' bottoms. At the end of 1826 his health
failed seriously. He went to Italy; resigned, in July, 1827, the
Presidency of the Royal Society; came back to England, longing for "the
fresh air of the mountains;" wrote and published his "Salmonia, or Days
of Fly-fishing." In the spring of 1828 he left England again. He was at
Rome in the winter of 1829, still engaged in quiet research, and it was
then that he wrote his "Consolations in Travel; or, the Last Days of a
Philosopher." His wife, who shone in London society, did not go with him
upon this last journey, but travelled day and night to reach him when
word came to her and to his brother John, who was a physician, that he
had again been struck with palsy and was dying. That stroke of palsy
followed immediately upon the finishing of the book now in the reader's
hand. Davy lived to see again his wife and brother, rallied enough to
leave Rome with them, and had got as far as Geneva on the 28th of May,
1829. He died in the next night.

H. M.