kly wages.

'Davy held the joint office of Professor of Chemistry and Director of
the Laboratory; he ultimately gave up the former to the late Professor
Brande, but he insisted that Faraday should be appointed Director of
the Laboratory, and, as Faraday told me, this enabled him on subsequent
occasions to hold a definite position in the Institution, in which he
was always supported by Davy. I believe he held that office to the last.

'Believe me, my dear Tyndall, yours truly,

'J. P. Gassiot.

'Dr. Tyndall.'

From a letter written by Faraday himself soon after his appointment as
Davy's assistant, I extract the following account of his introduction to
the Royal Institution:--

'London, Sept. 13, 1813.

'As for myself, I am absent (from home) nearly day and night, except
occasional calls, and it is likely shall shortly be absent entirely,
but this (having nothing more to say, and at the request of my mother) I
will explain to you. I was formerly a bookseller and binder, but am now
turned philosopher,[2] which happened thus:--Whilst an apprentice, I,
for amusement, learnt a little chemistry and other parts of philosophy,
and felt an eager desire to proceed in that way further. After being
a journeyman for six months, under a disagreeable master, I gave up
my business, and through the interest of a Sir H. Davy, filled the
situation of chemical assistant to the Royal Institution of Great
Britain, in which office I now remain; and where I am constantly
employed in observing the works of nature, and tracing the manner in
which she directs the order and arrangement of the world. I have lately
had proposals made to me by Sir Humphry Davy to accompany him in his
travels through Europe and Asia, as philosophical assistant. If I go at
all I expect it will be in October next--about the end; and my absence
from home will perhaps be as long as three years. But as yet all is
uncertain.'

This account is supplemented by the following letter, written by Faraday
to his friend De la Rive,[3] on the occasion of the death of Mrs.
Marcet. The letter is dated September 2, 1858:--

'My Dear Friend,--Your subject interested me deeply every way; for Mrs.
Marcet was a good friend to me, as she must have been to many of the
human race. I entered the shop of a bookseller and bookbinder at the age
of thirteen, in the year 1804, remained there eight years, and during
the chief part of my time bound books. Now it was in those books, in t