ABSTRACT
Davy was a man of sensibility in the meaning of the word in his own period which the Oxford Dictionary defines as ‘capacity for refined emotion; delicate sensitiveness of taste; also, readiness to feel compassion for suffering, and to be moved by the pathetic in literature or art’. Trembling sensibility became an affectation, and so was laughed out of fashion; but when Davy was young he thought innate sensibility a better indication of what a boy might become than quickness of mind or a retentive memory. Davy was first appointed as Assistant Lecturer in Chemistry, Director of the Laboratory, and Assistant Editor of the Journals of the Institution. He was to occupy a room in the house in Albemarle Street, be furnished with coals and candles, and be paid a salary of a hundred guineas a year. Davy, it seems, had volunteered his assistance in making the sauce and stuffing for the aforesaid bass; and had he not speedily retreated.
