s translated and published; and
immediately afterwards two distinguished Italian philosophers took up
the subject, made numerous experiments, and published their results
before the complete memoirs of Faraday had met the public eye. This
evidently irritated him. He reprinted the paper of the learned Italians
in the 'Philosophical Magazine,' accompanied by sharp critical notes
from himself. He also wrote a letter dated Dec. 1, 1832, to Gay Lussac,
who was then one of the editors of the 'Annales de Chimie,' in which
he analysed the results of the Italian philosophers, pointing out their
errors, and defending himself from what he regarded as imputations on
his character. The style of this letter is unexceptionable, for Faraday
could not write otherwise than as a gentleman; but the letter shows that
had he willed it he could have hit hard. We have heard much of Faraday's
gentleness and sweetness and tenderness. It is all true, but it is very
incomplete. You cannot resolve a powerful nature into these elements,
and Faraday's character would have been less admirable than it was had
it not embraced forces and tendencies to which the silky adjectives
'gentle' and 'tender' would by no means apply. Underneath his sweetness
and gentleness was the heat of a volcano. He was a man of excitable and
fiery nature; but through high self-discipline he had converted the fire
into a central glow and motive power of life, instead of permitting it
to waste itself in useless passion. 'He that is slow to anger,' saith
the sage, 'is greater than the mighty, and he that ruleth his own spirit
than he that taketh a city.' Faraday was not slow to anger, but he
completely ruled his own spirit, and thus, though he took no cities, he
captivated all hearts.

As already intimated, Faraday had contributed many of his minor
papers--including his first analysis of caustic lime--to the 'Quarterly
Journal of Science.' In 1832, he collected those papers and others
together in a small octavo volume, labelled them, and prefaced them
thus:--

'PAPERS, NOTES, NOTICES, &c., &c.,published in octavo, up to 1832. M.
Faraday.'

'Papers of mine, published in octavo, in the "Quarterly Journal of
Science," and elsewhere, since the time that Sir H. Davy encouraged me
to write the analysis of caustic lime.

'Some, I think (at this date), are good; others moderate; and some bad.
But I have put all into the volume, because of the utility they have
been of to me--and none