longs 'for the fresh air of the mountains.' Natural history was the principal subject of his contemphitions at this time, and m this period he completed and published his 'Salmonia, or Days of Fly-fishing,' a work of great scientific interest and happily popular in its treatment. He was a skilful angler, and found time for the sport in the intervals of his scientific labours. On 20 March 1828 a paper by Davy, 'On the Phenomena of Volcanoes, was communicated to the Royal Society. Shortly after this he left England. On 6 Feb. 1829 he writes to his constant
friend, Thomas Poole, a letter from Rome, in which he exclaims : 'Would I were better ... but I am here wearing away the winter,
a ruin amongst ruins.' He still continued to work slowly ; he investigated the electricity of the torpedo, and recognised a new species of eel — a sort of link between the conger and the muræna of the ancients. A paper on these inquiries was read before the Royal Society on 20 Nov. 1829. During this period of melancholy repose Davy wrote 'Consolations in Travel, or the Last Days of a Philosopher.' His brother, Dr. Davy, who edited the work after the death of Sir Humphry, informs us that it was finished at the very moment of the author's last illness.
On 26 Feb. he dictated a letter to his brother, chiefly on the torpedo. He endeavoured to write a postscript, and he did write 'My dear John.' He then dictated 'I am dying ; come as quickly as you can.' Dr. Davy reached his brother on 16 March, and Sir Humphry was greatly interested the next day with the dissection of a torpedo. He rallied after this attack, and on 20 April left Rome, reaching Geneva on 28 May. He died at half-past two on the following morning. He was buried in the cemetery of Plain-Palais. A tablet placed in Westminster Abbey by his widow,
and the statue placed on the spot in the centre of Penzance on which his earliest days were passed, are the only outward signs of our appreciation of a philosopher of whom it has been justly said : 'He was not only one of the greatest, but one of the most benevolent and amiable of men.'
[Paris's Life of Sir Humphry Davy, bart. ; John Davy's Memoirs of the Life of Sir Humphry Davy, bart., LL.D., F.R.S. ; Collected Works of Sir Humphry Davy ; Bence Jones's The Royal Institution; Royal Society's Cat. of Scientific Papers ; Weld's History of the Royal Society ; Fragmentary Remains, Literary and Scientific, of Sir Humphry Davy, edited by John Davy; Philosophical Magazine, 1866 ; information from Davy's family.]
DAVY, Lady JANE (1780–1855), best known as the wife of Sir Humphry Davy [q. v.], was the only daughter and heiress of Charles Kerr, a younger son of William Kerr of Kelso, and a merchant in Antigua, who married Jane Tweedie and died in 1796. She was born on 5 Feb. 1780, and married at Marylebone Church, on 3 Oct. 1799, Shuckburgh Ashby Apreece, eldest son of Sir Thomas Hussey Apreece, first baronet of Washingley, Huntingdonshire, but he died without issue at Malvern, on 6 Oct. 1807, during his father's lifetime. When left a widow she retired to Edinburgh and opened the doors of her house to the cleverest and brightest of its residents. Two pictures of her life at this period have been left to us. Mrs. Fletcher says: ‘Mrs. Apreece and Mrs. Waddington divided the admiration of the Edinburgh circles between them—the one [Mrs. Apreece] attractive by the vivacity of her conversation, the other by her remarkable beauty and the grace of her manners.’ Sir Henry Holland says, with more emphasis, that the parties ‘of Mrs. Apreece gained for a time a mastery over all others. Coming suddenly to the Scotch capital as a young and wealthy widow, with the reputation and fashions of a continental traveller at a time when few had travelled at all, acquainted with Madame de Staël, and vaguely reported to be the original of Corinne, then fresh in fame, this lady made herself a circle of her own, and vivified it with certain usages new to the habits of Edinburgh life. … The story was current of a venerable professor seen stooping in the street to adjust the lacing of her boot.’ A wider circle of acquaintance was opened to her when she was married, at her mother's house in Portland Place, London, by the Bishop of Carlisle, on 11 April 1812, to Sir Humphry Davy, then at the height of his fame. Two months later he dedicated to his wife his ‘Elements of Chemical Philosophy’ as a pledge that he should continue ‘to pursue science with unabated ardour,’ and although his subsequent career scarcely fulfilled this public promise, he never ceased to take an active interest in his favourite pursuits. In October 1813 Davy and his wife went on a lengthened foreign tour, and Faraday accompanied them. During this period the worst traits of her character showed themselves. She had been fed on adulation for many years, and did not understand the character of this poor and simple student of science. She liked to show her authority and to mortify her husband's companion, and her temper, says Faraday, made ‘it oftentimes go wrong with me, with herself, and with Sir Humphry.’ She did not join her husband on his last visit to the continent, but when he was seized with ‘a renewed stroke
