Dear blog,<\/p>\n
I had a bit of a break from Davy (for two whole days!) because I finished annotating the 1828 letters \u2013 the first draft at least though I\u2019m sure there will be plenty of revision needed \u2013 and, it was the 4th July so the library was shut for Monday and Tuesday.
\nI really have enjoyed doing 1828 even if it has taken me some time. I must have started it early this year but it wasn\u2019t until I was here working in the library 9-5 that I\u2019ve been able to really get to it and finish it. It seems to me like another exciting year, even though it\u2019s so close to Davy\u2019s death in 1829. He\u2019s travelling with a young companion, John James Tobin, who he clearly hates: he calls him \u2018the Savage\u2019 or the \u2018the Wild Man\u2019 throughout these letters. Amusingly though, Tobin wrote his own account of their travels \u2013 through Austria, Slovenia, and Italy \u2013 and it\u2019s very funny to compare the two accounts. Davy\u2019s is of course private and Tobin\u2019s is public, but even in the latter you can see the cracks beginning to form in their relationship.
\nOne episode that really tested the relationship occurred when the otherwise unknown servant \u2018George\u2019 became horribly unwell (even \u2018deranged\u2019!), much to Davy\u2019s annoyance since he wants to be the patient in this situation. Eventually Davy learns that George had been treating a venereal disease with the poisonous and caustic \u2018corrosive sublimate\u2019, Mercuric chloride (HgCl2). There are lots of letters about this and it\u2019s fun to see the story unfold; Davy doesn\u2019t know what\u2019s happening at first. I think that George\u2019s wife works in Jane Davy\u2019s entourage because Humph asks Jane not to tell George\u2019s wife at one point. I thought it was interesting though that he did tell Jane about the source of George\u2019s illness. John Davy prints some of these letters but entirely cuts out all of this juicy stuff.
\nAnother thing I\u2019ve learned is that Tobin did the drawings for the second edition of Davy\u2019s Salmonia that were made into engravings in London. This is interesting because Davy\u2019s first biographer, John Ayrton Paris, told us: \u2018I am informed by Lady Davy, that the engravings of the fish, by which the work is illustrated, are from drawings of his own execution\u2019 (ii, 315). I\u2019m not sure how this rumour got about but it certainly is Tobin\u2019s work that we see in Salmonia. I hadn\u2019t realised either that Davy was planning to publish his own poetry in Salmonia. Even though this doesn\u2019t happen, the idea is really quite illuminating. He clearly was pleased and proud of his poems and contemplated publishing them at this late stage in his life.
\nDavy begins Consolations in Travel in 1828; he increasingly feels as though he has some preternatural insight into the human condition now that he is close to death. I really enjoyed reading Consolations, it\u2019s a bonkers, cosmic journey through time and space, written, as Davy puts it, in \u2018philosophical poetry though not in metre\u2019. As Davy gets more ill, he is desperate to finish it. After his second stroke in February 1829, his doctor writes to Jane: \u2018I am afraid he has occupied himself rather too assiduously in intellectual employment of late, but of this he will not bear to be told. Certain it is however that during the exercise of mind requisite in dictating to Mr Tobin it was that he first discovered his right leg and arm were affected and spite of all remonstrance he has continued to pursue the same occupation every day since.\u2019 Davy definitely knows he has little time left \u2013 he turned 50 in 1828 \u2013 but as he also puts it, if he doesn\u2019t write, he will \u2018vegetate\u2019.
\nRight, I\u2019m now looking at post 1829 now. We are including letters from after Davy\u2019s death that have direct relevance to him. And, today the Humphry Davy, free, online course went live! You can enrol now even though the course won\u2019t start until 30 September: https:\/\/www.futurelearn.com\/courses\/humphry-davy\/1 .<\/p>\n
Best,<\/p>\n
Sharon<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dear blog, I had a bit of a break from Davy (for two whole days!) because I finished annotating the 1828 letters \u2013 the first draft at least though I\u2019m sure there will be plenty of revision needed \u2013 and, … Continue reading